I'm Not A Master, I'm A Director
Chapter 463: Rider: "I'm Free! ...Ah, I'm Paid Again!"
"I'm sorry, Jeanne... that you had to be stained by blood..."
As Rider did her best to act and recite her lines according to the script, she couldn't help thinking how ridiculously easy this kind of half-dead dramatic scene was to perform.
She didn't need to pour in much emotion. All she needed was relief—relief, and nothing but relief.
That feeling was so familiar to Rider that even though this was only a brief cameo, she found herself genuinely comfortable.
More importantly, ever since filming FA, she had finally managed to escape her big sister's clutches—for the time being.
Her mood was much like that of parents whose child had been working away from home all year and finally came back for the holidays.
For the first couple of days, they'd shower the child with affection and care. But by the third day, they'd start nitpicking everything the kid did.
Rider was the opposite side of that equation.
It wasn't that she disliked her sister.
It was simply that Stheno was too much of a devil.
So whenever her eldest sister was away, Rider was as happy as if she'd just eaten a Snickers bar.
'I hope Big Sis really does become the movie's heroine like Shinji wants. If that happens, I'll finally get to relax for a while.'
Perhaps because the wish was so wonderful, Rider unconsciously let out a sigh.
The moment she did, her heart skipped.
"Cut!"
'I knew it.'
Now she really wanted to sigh.
She knew it was her own fault. An actor spacing out and showing an expression that wasn't in the script was exactly the sort of thing that would make a director stop filming.
"Let's do that again, Rider."
Shinji called out through his megaphone.
"I understand."
Rider nodded.
Before filming resumed, Shinji reminded her,
"Don't drag this scene out too long. Being injured and bleeding the whole time isn't exactly good for you, is it?"
"..."
'Come to think of it... how many times have I bled for a movie now?'
While Jeanne was getting ready, Rider counted on her fingers.
Then she realized that every single role she'd played had involved getting stabbed clean through.
The only difference was how she got impaled—and what weapon was used.
'Tch. I really can't let Shinji get away with this. Tonight, I'm visiting him in his dreams.'
Unlike what happened in the Heaven's Feel route, Rider certainly wasn't planning to give Shinji an erotic dream.
She fully intended to drain every last bit of his life force.
Of course, any great plan required secrecy before it was carried out.
So Rider suppressed every trace of emotion on her face and resumed acting.
"Jeanne... don't make that face... Crying doesn't suit you... As for me... this is enough... It's enough..."
In the final moments before Martha disappeared, Rider's portrayal of her expressed heartfelt gratitude toward Jeanne.
"Honestly... don't make a saint... commit this kind of... slaughter..."
"That almost sounds like a confession."
Standing beside Shinji behind the monitor, Rin whispered quietly.
Shinji merely curled the corner of his mouth into a slight smile.
She was right.
Martha's dialogue toward Jeanne really did carry a complicated emotion that was difficult to express directly—at the very least, profound gratitude.
For Martha, a saint who detested killing, Jeanne ending her life had truly been a form of salvation.
In truth, Martha genuinely was grateful to Jeanne. That was why she entrusted the hope of defeating Jeanne Alter to Jeanne and the others, effectively leaving them with the strategy needed to clear the Singularity.
Otherwise, Martha could simply have sighed, returned to the Throne of Heroes, and left humanity's problems behind.
The thing was...
Through clever dialogue, Shinji had intentionally made it easy for certain overly imaginative audience members to read something beyond simple gratitude into the exchange.
To some extent, the scene was deliberately melodramatic and emotionally manipulative.
Although, when the movie actually came out, most viewers would probably just wonder:
"Why is this woman crying so much?"
It couldn't be helped.
A character who appeared in only a single scene was never going to leave an especially deep impression on the audience.
But how could Shinji—the god of terrible ideas—possibly stop there?
After all, the two people delivering this emotional scene on screen were Jeanne d'Arc and Martha.
Both were saints officially recognized by Christianity.
Since they were both saints, it was perfectly reasonable for them to admire and understand one another, wasn't it?
And if mutual admiration was acceptable...
Then why not go one step further?
Defeat your opponent, add her to your harem—that was practically the standard magical-girl plotline.
Besides, Jeanne would receive a Saint Graph upgrade later in the story anyway.
Shinji simply decided to treat her as a magical girl.
He could already imagine what would happen after the film's release.
Following Martha's "heartfelt confession" before her death, there would inevitably be fans shipping the two saints together.
There probably wouldn't be many.
But there would definitely be enough to form a fanbase.
People often said that fujoshi could support half the market.
But yuri fans weren't lacking in purchasing power either.
While the yuri market wasn't especially large in 2008, that certainly didn't mean yuri fans didn't already exist.
Otherwise, why had so much of the Prisma☆Illya merchandise Shinji released before—especially the Illya × Miyu and Illya × Kuro goods—been sold as matching pairs?
Shinji refused to believe everyone buying Prisma☆Illya merchandise was simply a completionist collector.
If that were the case, why weren't they buying all three girls together?
The truth was that yuri fans had existed for a long time.
Even though they were far fewer than heterosexual shippers—and even fewer than fujoshi—even the smallest slice of the market was still money.
And if there was money to be made, Shinji had absolutely no intention of letting it slip away.
He had already decided that once the movie was released, he would produce a line of Jeanne × Martha merchandise.
As for the fans?
Don't ask why it's being sold like that.
Just answer one question:
Are you buying it or not?
As for pairing Jeanne with another woman, Shinji felt absolutely no psychological burden.
Before he had transmigrated, there had already been plenty—one could even say an abundance—of doujinshi pairing Jeanne with Gudako.
Of course, there were even more pairing Jeanne with Gudao.
Although, in one of the official gag Gudao manga, Jeanne hated Gudao so much that she practically wanted to kill him. Calling them enemies would have been putting it mildly.
Then again, that was understandable.
After all, the Gudao in that manga was an utterly perverted freak who wanted to watch Jeanne, Astolfo, and Sieg have a threesome.
One could only say that when the official creators lost their minds, even the fans couldn't keep up.
╮( •́ω•̀ )╭
Shinji, however, was making a proper movie.
He certainly wasn't going to reach the level of the Gudao manga, where it felt like:
"The human fetish system can really be this unrestrained.JPG."
Especially considering the era they were in, Shinji's approach was simply to let the viewers who's already inclined toward yuri shipping notice the subtle hints they wanted to see.
Everyone else would simply interpret it as mutual admiration and respect between two saints.
Thus, after Rider delivered a few emotionally charged lines, her role wrapped up naturally.
'All right, I'm free! Until Big Sis comes back, I can spend my time however I want!'
Completely liberated, Rider pumped her fists into the air without even bothering to wipe the fake blood off herself.
At that moment, she wished she could ride Pegasus through the sky while performing forty consecutive Thomas flairs.
Unfortunately—
"Rider, go pack your things and head to North America."
"...What?!"
Shinji's words hit Rider like Perseus' mirrored shield.
She froze on the spot.
"I thought it over. If your sister Stheno doesn't get selected, having you make the cut wouldn't be a bad alternative."
Apparently oblivious to Rider's expression, Shinji calmly explained his plan.
"Anyway, your work here is already finished. Going to North America and giving it a try definitely won't hurt."
What Rider had thought was the beginning of a long vacation… ended before it had even begun.
In her mind, Medusa could already picture her elder sister standing in North America with a bright smile, welcoming her.
"...Shinji, I hate you."
Shinji Matou: (°ー°〃)??
◇◆◇◆◇◆◇◆◇◆◇◆
Leaving aside Medusa, who had fallen from heaven straight into hell and was now heading to North America with the mood of someone attending a funeral, filming for Hundred Years' War of Evil Dragons continued as usual.
With Saint Martha's departure, the tense action scenes naturally came to an end.
According to the story, the next sequence should have been Ritsuka and the Heroic Spirits camping out and enjoying a picnic together.
Unfortunately, filmmaking didn't follow the same order as the movie's plot.
To maximize production efficiency, scenes that were adjacent in the script weren't necessarily filmed back-to-back.
The nighttime camping sequence was one of the few heartwarming moments in Hundred Years' War of Evil Dragons.
To keep the cast from relaxing too much emotionally, Shinji simply scheduled those scenes for the very end of production.
As a result, instead of unwinding like the characters they portrayed, the actors had to become even more focused.
Because...
The big one was coming.
"...We're here again? Master, couldn't you have picked somewhere else?"
Looking at the all-too-familiar hillside, Arturia complained in a tone that practically said:
"Seriously?"
The King of Knights had every reason to complain.
She had been to this filming location more than once.
Not only did Arturia remember the terrain perfectly, she even knew that forty-two steps away at a forty-five-degree angle from her right foot was a protruding rock that made kneeling extremely uncomfortable.
It wasn't surprising she remembered it so clearly.
Because this place had once served as the battlefield for the Battle of Camlann.
No wonder she disliked this filming location.
Anyone who had repeatedly reenacted scenes of being stabbed by their own son while acting out several versions of "father and son bonding" here wouldn't exactly develop fond memories of the place.
"Master, aren't there any other places where we can film a war scene?"
Faced with Arturia's question, Shinji simply shrugged.
"Sorry, but there really aren't. This is the only place in all of Fuyuki City that's suitable for filming a large-scale battlefield."
"Tch, Fuyuki City is just too small."
Arturia complained instinctively, while Shinji nodded in agreement.
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Tn: I updated the story once every 2 days, but if you want to see more chapter of this story ahead of time, please go to my Patreon.
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