You call this a projection?

The conclusion of this battle could actually have been even shorter.

Having just returned from the Jujutsu Kaisen world, Shirou had encountered beings with ”Six Eyes” or ”Heavenly Restriction”—individuals who, despite being unable to see Stands, could ”see” them by observing the subtle air currents created when a Stand interacted with reality. Because of this, Shirou no longer viewed the Stand’s invisibility to non-Stand users as an absolute tactical advantage.

He hadn’t projected [Pseudo-White Snake] from the start precisely because of this; he wanted to test whether Medusa’s Mystic Eyes could perceive it by using the more forgiving [Pseudo-The World]. But clearly...

”Rider... can she not see it?”

Shirou, who had spent a good while outsmarting the empty air only to realize this was the reality, touched his chin in thought. ”Or is it that Rider, having been summoned via a Class Card and lacking wisdom, even if she did see something with her Mystic Eyes, chose to ignore the discrepancy because her eyes couldn’t perceive a physical form right in front of her? Did she just assume it was an illusion?”

”Whatever, it doesn’t matter.”

Shirou pushed these thoughts aside. He walked back to Miyu and the others, summarizing his conclusion internally: ”The invisibility of Stands to non-Stand users was never an essential ability for me anyway. It’s nice to have, but it doesn’t matter if it’s missing.”

After all, even if Medusa could see [Pseudo-The World], could she negate its time-stop? Impossible. The most important thing about a Stand will always be its ability.

Even though Rin and the others had long known of Shirou’s power, seeing him subdue Medusa so cleanly and efficiently left them feeling that his capability was simply absurd.

”...That’s how it is. So, rather than worrying about whether Shirou will encounter danger, you’re the one who needs to be careful, Miyu.”

After a long silence, Rin—who had grown accustomed to Shirou’s overwhelming strength—turned her attention to Miyu, following Shirou’s lead. ”The artificial spirit inside that Kaleidoscope staff is incredibly cunning. Miyu, you must constantly guard against it suddenly regaining its consciousness.”

”It’s not that I don’t believe in Shirou’s ability, but parallel world traversal isn’t just simple magecraft—it’s Magic (the Second Magic). Even the slightest error in the process could trigger massive problems!”

As she spoke, Rin kept a wary gaze fixed on the Ruby, partly out of a desire to learn how the staff operated the Second Magic, and partly out of deep-seated vigilance. ”Given the terrible

personality of this thing, I suspect that even if it has been brainwashed, it might still try to pull some tricks regarding the destination.”

Wasn’t there a saying in that great Eastern country nearby? Mountains and rivers may change, but a person’s nature is hard to alter!

Having witnessed Miyu’s transformation, Rin now fully realized what she herself had gone through in the past. Seeing that the Ruby had been successfully tuned and brainwashed by Shirou—and thus Miyu didn’t have to suffer the same indignity of being toyed with—did little to quell the resentment Rin felt toward the staff. If parallel world traversal didn’t require the Ruby, she would have snapped the staff in half long ago.

”Mm, that’s true.” Shirou, having returned, nodded in agreement upon hearing Rin’s warning.

It wasn’t that he believed the [Pseudo-White Snake] DISC could be cracked by the Ruby, but rather...

”Just as we entered the Mirror World from the school playground and found that the scenery reflected there was the school playground, once we successfully traverse from the Mirror World into Miyu’s world, we will likely appear on the school playground corresponding to ours.”

Shirou didn’t forget to add a reminder: ”The ’me’ of that world must have told you, Miyu—the Ainsworths were his classmates, and they all attended Homurahara Academy. If we aren’t certain whether the time we emerge in that world will be at night, there is a very high probability we will appear directly in front of the Ainsworths during school hours.”

”We will be discovered by the enemy the moment we cross over.”

The reason parallel worlds are called parallel worlds is, naturally, because both Shirou’s world and Miyu’s world contain a Fuyuki City and a Homurahara Academy. Therefore, by using their current coordinates, the probability of being detected by Julian and his Ainsworth family was extremely high.

Of course, this was exactly the effect Shirou desired. Only by letting Julian and his cohorts discover them could Shirou move with maximum speed, forcing them to lift the displacement of Pandora’s Box. He needed it to reappear from whatever displaced space it was hidden in, so he could fulfill his plan to insert the Cursed Spirit DISC into the box.

However, a plan is just a plan. Proper precautions must still be taken.

”Since we didn’t recover the Gilgamesh Class Card this time, the Ainsworths will lose that card.”

”While it’s possible they might manufacture an even stronger ’Mannie’ Class Card—just like they did when my other self defeated and recovered the Heracles card—compared to someone like Angelica, who wouldn’t possess the arrogance of the original Gilgamesh and

would never hesitate to use powerful Noble Phantasms... a Class Card of an unknown Heroic Spirit might actually be less threatening than Gilgamesh.”

Shirou pondered this in his heart.

Don’t be fooled by how easily he had beaten Gilgamesh like a ”roadside casualty” before Miyu crossed over. That was only because Gilgamesh’s personality was far too arrogant; he would rather die than use the truly precious Noble Phantasms hidden in his [Gate of Babylon], allowing Shirou to seize the opening and finish him with a ”first-move-kill” using time-stop.

If it happened again—if Gilgamesh were fully armed and retained the memories of their previous fight—Shirou wasn’t certain he could replicate that glorious result. T

he [Gate of Babylon], by definition, collected the prototypes of all treasures in the world; it truly had everything. Shirou wouldn’t even be surprised if it contained a machine that could stop time.

’It can’t be helped.’

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