Chapter 371: Saint Jeanne—Active High School JK Cutie—d'Arc
While the screening in Fuyuki City had just reached Spartacus' explosive finale, far away in Tokyo, Aoko was stifling a yawn as she watched Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.
It wasn't that Aoko had betrayed Type-Moon or Shinji, it was simply that she had absolutely nothing better to do that night.
With everyone—including Alice—out of Tokyo, if Aoko didn't go kill time at a movie theater, she'd be stuck alone at the club reading books.
Choosing Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles was a decision born of necessity. Aside from the premiere, the earliest advance screening of Fate/Apocrypha wouldn't start until midnight.
Compared to the other movies available, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles at least looked more promising, so…
"Well, it's not like they're short one ticket sale. I'll just treat this as scouting the competition for that Matou kid."
With that mindset, Aoko walked into the theater.
And then…
Well. Nothing much happened.
Unlike last year's Super 8 and Godzilla, where the contrast had been painfully obvious, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles didn't give Aoko a particularly bad impression.
But that was all it managed.
As a big-budget Paramount film, its spectacle was passable—but compared to Fate, the gap was enormous.
Especially when it came to action scenes, the most important element of any commercial blockbuster. Aoko wouldn't go so far as to call them unbearable, but "bland as water" felt painfully accurate.
The reason was simple.
While Type-Moon had provided slime-suit technology to make the four turtles look decent, they hadn't contributed any action choreography—nor had they sent in any actual Servant performers.
As a result, the fight choreography fell right back into Hollywood's last-century "random flailing" style, completely devoid of visual appeal.
To be fair, the four turtles in the movie were clearly trying their best to show off martial prowess.
But between the actors inside the suits and those massive, unwieldy turtle bodies, the final result was like an ant trying to have its way with an elephant—
All the effort in the world, with nowhere for the strength to go.
The ant was giving it everything it had. But for the she-elephant who'd already experienced the real thing (the audience), there wasn't just no satisfaction—
There was no sensation at all.
Aoko wasn't alone in feeling this way. The rest of the audience felt it too.
During dialogue scenes and explosions, people could still muster some attention.
But the moment the turtles started throwing punches, everyone began doing their own thing.
Some ate popcorn, some sipped cola, some stretched lazily, others whispered to each other, and a few even started flailing their arms, clearly convinced they could fight better than the turtles on screen.
"Yeah… it's just okay."
Aoko took a sip of her cola and came to that conclusion.
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles definitely wasn't a bad movie—but it wasn't an interesting one either.
If she had to define it, Aoko would compare it to the iced cola she was drinking.
Refreshing enough to bring a moment of joy on a summer day, but by the next morning, she was certain she wouldn't remember that cola at all.
"I wonder how things are going on the other side… Ah, I really want to watch Apocrypha…"
Muttering her complaint, Aoko shifted her body—half sunk into the seat—into a more comfortable position.
◇◆◇◆◇◆◇◆◇◆◇◆
Fuyuki City—Type-Moon Cinema
The opening act of Fate/Apocrypha came to an end amid Spartacus' dazzling fireworks.
And alongside that brilliant explosion, the title FATE/APOCRYPHA finally appeared on screen.
What followed was a complete contrast to the brutal carnage that had preceded it—
The beginning of an ordinary, everyday life.
The scene shifted to three days before the plaza battle.
The location changed as well—from Romania to the French countryside.
Inside a school library, an ordinary French girl named Laeticia, portrayed by Jeanne, sat atop a tall rolling ladder wedged between bookshelves, searching for a math reference book.
Mathematics is the most magical—and honest—thing in the world.
Everything else might betray you—be it the all-powerful Holy Grail or even Cupid himself—but mathematics never will.
If you don't know, you don't know.
If you can't solve it, you can't solve it.
Even if a saint possesses you, that problem still won't magically work itself out.
So when the audience saw Laeticia scratching her head, cheeks flushed red as she stared helplessly at the math problem in her notebook, everyone laughed.
Even math geniuses encounter problems they can't solve now and then. Laeticia's predicament was far too relatable.
Then—very suddenly—a voice rang out beside Laeticia's ear.
Not the Lord's call, but the Holy Grail ritual invoking a Heroic Spirit.
"Servant—Ruler. Jeanne d'Arc, answering the call— uwaaah! What is this?!"
And then came the gag.
The moment Jeanne opened her eyes after possessing Laeticia, she lost her balance and tumbled straight off the ladder. In the process, she accidentally knocked over a bookshelf.
What followed was pure chaos.
Like falling dominoes, the library's shelves collapsed one after another.
Jeanne herself disappeared into a mountain of books, completely buried—leaving only a single golden ahoge sticking out, wobbling back and forth, as if silently lamenting her mistress's fate.
"Hahaha—!"
Seeing this clumsy side of the saint, the audience burst into warm, good-natured laughter.
Everyone knew Jeanne had fallen by accident, but the camera had first shown the math problem in her notebook before she knocked over the shelf. It created the illusion that she'd been scared senseless by mathematics itself—somehow making the whole thing unbearably cute.
"Hmph… so this is the power of mathematics," Li Ri'ang sighed.
As a man who had survived the Chinese Gaokao and the purgatory of university-level advanced mathematics, his fear of math had long been etched into his DNA.
"Scaring people into being buried under books and losing all composure. The might of Calculus truly cannot be underestimated."
Sitting on Shibamatsu's other side, Fujita shrugged and added casually, "Math's a no for me. I'd much rather be buried by a cute girl's chest."
That blunt remark left Li Ri'ang at a complete loss for words. Fortunately, Fujita's childhood friend Shibamatsu jumped in.
"I knew it. You've been a creepy bastard since we were kids."
Comments bordering on sexual harassment like that—Shibamatsu had heard them not a hundred times, but at least ninety-nine.
"How is that creepy?" Fujita protested righteously. "This is contributing to the continuation of the human race!"
"You only think about it—you don't do anything. How's that contributing?!"
"Hey. You two."
Alice let out a cold snort and cut them off.
"Can you just watch the movie properly? People are looking at you."
She didn't really care about Fujita and Shibamatsu's dignity—but there was a Type-Moon staff member right there (Li Ri'ang). She didn't want Sir Matou's company to think that her fan group was full of sleazy guys. That would seriously hurt her image as the respectable big-sister figure in her idol's eyes.
After all, the reason they'd been able to attend the Fuyuki City premiere was because Shinji had personally given them tickets to thank them for their long-standing support.
Alice absolutely did not want this to turn into a one-time-only event because of Fujita's mouth.
In truth, Alice was worrying too much.
Li Ri'ang had no idea who they were, nor did he care about the mutual trash talk between Fujita and Shibamatsu.
Men talking among themselves—those who know, know.
As a certain "Know-It-All King" once said:
A man who goes his whole life without telling dirty jokes—yeah, that's just impossible.
Still, compared to listening to two Japanese otaku trade lewd jokes, Li Ri'ang found the blonde JK on the big screen far more captivating.
Especially when Jeanne crawled out of the pile of books, hair completely messed up—that look truly radiated the aura of youthful girlhood.
Or, to put it in more culturally appropriate Japanese terms—
Moe.
So when Jeanne was scolded by the library administrator, the vast majority of the audience—true to the principle of letting facial features override moral judgment—immediately took her side.
It couldn't be helped. After all, beauty is justice.
That said, not everyone saw it that way.
"Hey, Tohsaka—don't you think Jeanne's character setting kind of feels like you?"
From the front row, Shiki teased with a smile.
"You mean the clumsy, scatterbrained part? Yeah, I guess it does," Rin was about to reply—only for Akuta Hinako, who never bothered with verbal restraint, to land a direct critical hit.
"Oh my, Akuta-san, isn't that a bit too blunt?" Shiki followed up with what looked like concern but was actually a perfectly timed backstab, stabbing Rin right in the chest again.
"Hmph—"
'These two bastards!!'
The corner of Tohsaka Rin's eye twitched violently as she screamed internally about her terrible taste in friends.
But she couldn't really refute them.
Because Shinji had explicitly mentioned that Laeticia's setting as an ordinary (emphasis added) high school girl had been heavily inspired by her.
The problem was—
WHEN did I ever knock over an entire library's worth of bookshelves?!
Shinji Matou, are you fabricating my dark history on purpose?!
'So… do people really see me as that airheaded?'
Watching Jeanne crawl out of the sea of books with an awkward expression, Rin's face filled with doubt and existential confusion.
Fortunately, Laeticia's daily-life scenes didn't last very long, so Rin didn't have to dwell on this crisis of self-image.
Once Jeanne fully possessed her, Laeticia immediately set out from France toward Romania, the site of the Holy Grail War.
After all, the audience hadn't come to the theater to watch a high school girl's slice-of-life campus comedy.
Naturally, even though the journey itself didn't take up much screen time, Shinji made full use of it to firmly establish Jeanne's character and, incidentally, to slip in a Ferrero chocolate advertisement.
As the blonde girl blissfully savored a piece of chocolate, many audience members who had already fallen under her spell unconsciously broke into indulgent, auntie-like smiles.
Some even sighed emotionally:
"This poor girl… from the Hundred Years' War in life, she never had a single good day. Now she can finally enjoy the sweetness of chocolate."
Of course, whether they were genuinely sympathizing with Jeanne's tragic past—or simply thirsting after her body—
Well, that was open to interpretation.
From a character-design perspective, Laeticia's life actually mirrored Jeanne's quite closely.
An innocent country girl, living carefree days, suddenly hears the call of a higher power and sets off for the battlefield bearing a sacred mission.
In scriptwriting theory, this stage is called the "Call to Adventure"—the moment when the protagonist leaves their comfort zone and begins their journey.
While Jeanne was making her journey, the Holy Grail War itself was still very much underway.
This time, Shinji shifted the camera to the Red faction, replaying that night's chaotic melee from their perspective.
And through the Red faction's viewpoint, the audience finally gained answers to several lingering questions they'd had during the earlier battle.
Why hadn't any of the Red faction's Masters appeared?
Because every single one of them had been poisoned after gathering—courtesy of Red Assassin, Semiramis.
Why were Red Saber, Assassin, and Caster absent from the melee?
Because Saber's Master, Shishigou Kairi, had instinctively felt that the Assassin Master calling for the assembly was up to no good. He refused outright, never even showing his face, and instead went off on his own with his Servant, Mordred.
As for the Empress and Shakespeare—one was stationed in the rear, directing the battlefield as a commander, while the other stayed behind under the pretense of, "I'm merely a writer. I don't possess the strength of heroes."
Both provided support from the back lines.
At the same time, this segment also used the Empress's own words to answer another major question the audience had:
Why was the Red faction willing to fight Black head-on like that?
The answer was simple—
The Empress needed to eliminate a number of Servants before Jeanne arrived, deliberately placing herself at a disadvantage.
That way, once Jeanne entered the stage, all attention would shift to the Black faction, temporarily ignoring Red's position.
By the time her Noble Phantasm was fully prepared, the Empress could activate the Hanging Gardens of Babylon and steamroll everything in one decisive push.
"But how can you be sure that French country girl won't come looking for trouble with us?" Shakespeare clearly found the plan dubious at best.
"Relax," the Empress replied confidently.
"I've already arranged for someone to guide her straight to the Yggdmillennia clan."
As she spoke, the image reflected in the crystal ball before her was none other than Mordred and Shishigou Kairi.
<+>
If you want to see more chapter of this story and don't mind paying $5 each month to read till the latest posted chapter, please go to my Patreon[1]
Current Chapter In Patreon: Chapter 404: An Opening That Goes from Seductive to Straight-Up Uncanny[2]
Link to the latest chapter: https://www.patreon.com/posts/152412556?collection=31097[3]
https://www.patreon.com/collection/31097?view=expanded[4]
[1] https://www.patreon.com/collection/31097?view=expanded
[2] https://www.patreon.com/posts/152412556?collection=31097
[3] https://www.patreon.com/posts/152412556?collection=31097
[4] https://www.patreon.com/collection/31097?view=expanded