You call this a projection?

Matou Zouken was very confident in this point.

After all, Zouken prided himself on being a very keen judge of character.

Just as before Kotomine Kirei’s true nature was exposed—to say nothing of Kotomine Risei and Tohsaka Tokiomi, the two people closest to him—even Kotomine Kirei himself didn’t know his nature was so wretched, a perfect image of a demon from the Bible.

Yet Matou Zouken, much like Gilgamesh possessing ”Sha Naqba Imuru,” had seen through Kotomine Kirei’s nature at a single glance.

He was both filled with vigilance toward Kotomine Kirei and watched the ”fun” Kotomine stirred up with great relish.

Therefore, when he saw Caster’s unusual attitude toward Kuzuki Souichirou, Matou Zouken was certain, almost to the point of laughing out loud.

A Servant who lived in the Age of Gods, only able to manifest in this world during the Holy Grail War, had actually fallen in love with a human living in the modern era? And that human was that Servant’s Master?! Did Caster respond to the Grail’s summons just to come here and perform a Fuyuki City love story!?

But this was for the best. Facing a cursed and nearly dying Kuzuki Souichirou, Caster was the one who could least afford to wait. As said before, Lancer’s group, having been betrayed once by Caster, would likely stop trusting her. By the same token, would Caster trust Lancer’s group? After Caster herself exposed that there was a problem with the Grail and that she could fix it, wouldn’t Lancer’s group think that once Caster’s Master was gone, they could sign a new contract with the Master-less Caster and use a Command Spell to force her to fix the Grail?

It didn’t matter what Lancer’s group actually thought. As long as Caster held that suspicion, the situation before them was destined to develop in the direction Matou Zouken desired.

However, he was unaware of the alliance between Lancer’s group and Emiya Shirou.

Or rather, Lancer and his Master, who had long since been beaten into submission by Emiya Shirou, possessed very little interest in the Holy Grail itself.

Lancer was here to fight heroes from other myths and legends, while Bazett initially intended to help Kotomine Kirei and happen to meet her childhood hero by summoning Cu Chulainn. Facing two such oddballs who were uninterested in the Grail, Matou Zouken’s scheme was destined to be...

”Am I late?” In this tense atmosphere, a voice very foreign to Caster’s group but very familiar to Lancer’s suddenly appeared. And accompanying this voice was the scream subsequently emitted by Matou Zouken.

”Hmph hmph hmph, AAAAAAAAAGH—!!

No, impossible! Why would you... AAAAAAAAAGH—!?”

Screams were once again summoned from Matou Zouken. Even though the moment he felt the attack, Matou Zouken began manipulating the familiars composing his body to scatter and flee—continuing to use this tactic of breaking into parts to nullify the incoming attack—he couldn’t understand it.

He had clearly hidden himself so well. Yet the newcomer could still accurately find his location.

Furthermore, the opponent’s attack struck directly at his soul, deep into his very marrow! Matou Zouken’s screams, which he no longer hid and could hardly hide anymore, caused Lancer’s gaze to shift over.

Recognizing the newcomer’s identity, Lancer couldn’t help but let out a whistle of relief: ”No, you’ve arrived just in time, kid.

Otherwise, we might really have had to fight Assassin.

To be honest, I’m really not good at dealing with Assassin. Even if you asked me to take on Caster and her Master alone, I wouldn’t want to fight him.”

Lancer spoke the truth. It was clear he really didn’t want to fight Assassin. After all, back when he signed the contract with Kotomine Kirei, he was ordered to conduct exploratory attacks on the other Servants in the Holy Grail War. He had naturally fought Assassin. And then, he didn’t win...

The reasons for this were complicated and not explained in detail in the original work, but one only needed to look at Assassin’s skill set.

Without a doubt, Lancer was disgusted by Assassin’s specialized counter-skills.

Now it was fine. Emiya Shirou was here. He could let Emiya Shirou—who in his eyes was equally ”disgusting” (though he couldn’t figure out how Shirou defeated Bazett back then)—go fight the disgusting Assassin.

’For the sake of victory, use [The World] on Assassin!’

Lancer, not knowing about [Pseudo-The World], was practically beating the drums and cheering for Emiya Shirou.

But before that...

”You, what on earth did you do to me!?”

Emiya Shirou still needed to deal with Matou Zouken, who was currently wailing in pain while rapidly flickering between a swarm of insects and a humanoid form.

”What did I do? Isn’t it obvious? Naturally, I’ve seized your soul.”

Along with Emiya Shirou’s matter-of-fact words, [Pseudo-Atum] manifested by his side, invisible to others. By using the healing ability of [Pseudo-Crazy Diamond] on the insect familiars that had been sliced off by Assassin earlier, he forced the familiars to return to Matou Zouken’s body, thereby locating him. Then, he used [Pseudo-Magician’s Red] to set a small fire, achieving the ”victory” of finding and harming Matou Zouken to trigger [Pseudo-Atum]’s Stand ability, successfully seizing Matou Zouken’s soul within the insect familiars.

Tsk...

”He’s truly stubborn.

Or rather, because Matou Zouken’s true body is still inside Sakura, the destruction of this clone has little impact on him, so his heart has yet to admit defeat?”

Contrary to his outward nonchalance, Emiya Shirou thought to himself with a bit of a headache: ”In this state, [Atum] cannot completely extract Matou Zouken’s soul.”

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