Shirou's Grand Heroic Saga

After all, he had only been a Servant a few times.

And the one time he had been, he could still say quite a few words before dying, stubbornly hanging on for quite a while.

"Then take this, Bloodied Hound!"

An arrow promptly embedded itself straight into the tree trunk beside him.

It had utterly failed to display any tracking effect.

This definitely wasn't because Shirou's Projection technique had declined. Could it be—

The supplied mana was insufficient?

"Master, explain this to me. Why did the Projection I carefully prepared suddenly fail? What's going on with the mana supply on your end?" Shirou shouted through their contract.

But the voice that came through was Jeanne d'Arc's.

"Hey, hey, Assassin! Your Master has overused her Magic Circuits. Although her mana hasn't run out, you were drawing it too quickly before. She's about to pass out."

"This—" Shirou's words caught in his throat.

He had already been conserving mana as much as possible.

Among the projected Noble Phantasms, he had only released three True Names, and all of them had been Seven Rings of the Heavenly Wall. As for the shield from before, he had only projected it briefly at the start before tossing it aside. Other than that, there had only been Pseudo-Spiral Sword and this Projection. Every single one had been necessary.

"Assassin, I'm f-fine. Please continue—if we need to fight. I'm just a little unaccustomed to it, that's all. Don't worry, my recovery ability is v-very fast."

Even the words transmitted through their contract had become intermittent.

Shirou couldn't help tugging at the corner of his mouth.

"Traceon! Master, hold on a little longer. I'll do my best to consume less mana." Shirou projected the A-rank Noble Phantasm, Bloodied Hound.

The true Bloodied Hound!

"Assassin, your shooting accuracy isn't