Chapter 64: You Call This Projection?
Something was wrong! This kid Emiya Shirou was very wrong!
As Emiya Shirou himself—the Emiya Shirou from the future—no one knew the current Shirou's situation better than Archer.
Healing magecraft? Did Emiya Shirou even know how to do that?
Never mind healing magecraft; at this stage, Shirou didn't even know how to correctly open his Magic Circuits! It was predictable that Shirou's boast was about to be exposed.
If the relationship between Shirou and Tohsaka Rin soured because of this, Archer would not only be happy to see it happen but would support it with both hands and feet. He was ready at any moment for Rin to give the order to take Shirou out.
But the problem was... How did Shirou know about this place?
Kotomine Kirei wasn't Lancer's Master.
The fact that Lancer's Master was actually someone else was something even Archer, a "New Game Plus" player, didn't know. After all, Archer, who in his life had only "cleared" the events of Fate/stay night, had not gone through Fate/hollow ataraxia. He hadn't even met the prerequisites for unlocking that subsequent branch—meaning he hadn't cleared the HF route in his life.
Faced with Bazett, a character requiring the HF route to unlock, Archer was naturally bewildered. But what bewildered Archer even more was yet to come.
"—Trace on!!"
A plain, ordinary incantation. Archer thought,
'See? How could the current Shirou know healing magecraft?'
Did Shirou think that projecting an arm and attaching it to the magus with the severed hand counted as healing magecraft? No matter how ridiculous their Projection magecraft was, such a thing was impossible to—Holy crap!?
As if witnessing something impossible, the expression on Archer's face was exceptionally difficult to maintain. No, it wasn't just Archer; Tohsaka Rin's expression was no different, looking at Shirou as if he were an alien.
Because they couldn't see Stands, Rin and the others couldn't see the [Pseudo-Crazy Diamond] projected beside Shirou. All they saw was that under Shirou's incantation—which looked nothing like healing magecraft—Bazett's severed arm actually materialized from some corner and flew over automatically to reattach to her shoulder!?
That wasn't all. Rin and Archer, watching with their own eyes how the severed arm was reconnected, also saw that as time passed—very quickly, in fact—three blood-red Command Spells automatically manifested on that arm!?
As for what followed, once the entire healing process was complete, the fact that the previously dying and unconscious Bazett began to gradually wake up became a matter of course.
But... Emiya Shirou, do you call this healing magecraft?
Or do you call this Projection magecraft?!
Just as Rin and Archer were stunned by Shirou's maneuver, and the newly awakened Bazett had yet to grasp the situation...
BANG————!!
The door of the Ghost Mansion was violently kicked open by someone.
"No wonder I felt the contract between me and that priest suddenly snap and link to a somewhat familiar magus instead...
So it was you lot who found this place."
A man wearing a blue bodysuit, with hair to match, stood arrogantly in a door-kicking pose, scanning Shirou and the others inside the mansion. His gaze settled especially on the groggily waking Bazett and the Command Spells that had reappeared on her hand.
Although he hadn't arrived in time to see Shirou's operation, such a thing was clearly not easily accomplished.
"So, what's your objective?"
Having severed the contract with Kotomine Kirei, the man in the blue bodysuit naturally no longer needed to follow Kirei's orders. He dropped his hostility toward Shirou's group, appearing more interested in what they had done.
"Don't tell me you did all this for no reason at all.
An alliance? Or are you looking for information from me? After all, my Master is in your hands; I have no way to refuse whatever it is you want to do."
"Lancer!"
"Lancer? ...Lancer!?"
Following the blue-suited man's words, Rin and the waking Bazett both cried out the man's class name in succession. If Rin's cry was one of surprise mixed with a hint of wariness, Bazett was even more confused.
She clearly remembered that, at Kotomine Kirei's invitation, she had come to Fuyuki City specifically to participate in the Holy Grail War.
Then, following the war's procedures, she had summoned Lancer—her childhood hero. Since the Holy Grail War hadn't officially begun and she didn't know who or where the enemies were, Bazett could only arrange for Lancer to perform routine patrols and gather intelligence around Fuyuki.
While Lancer was out patrolling, her friend and the supervisor of the war, Kotomine Kirei, visited the Ghost Mansion, claiming he had something important to tell her.
And then... And then there was no "and then."
Bazett's residual, blurred consciousness only remembered that her left hand, engraved with Command Spells, seemed to have been cut off by someone, and her consciousness was quickly knocked into a coma. She hadn't regained consciousness until now.
Which meant... "Are you the enemies who ambushed me!?"
Bazett, finally coming to her senses, quickly interpreted the situation this way. And because the healing effect of [Pseudo-Crazy Diamond] was unimaginably powerful, she showed no signs of serious injury, nor the effects of having lain on a cold winter floor for days suffering from massive blood loss.
Bazett's spirit and energy were at their absolute peak. Even though she wasn't wearing her Mystic Code gloves engraved with Runes in her resting state, she was confident that by coordinating with the returned Lancer—as long as Lancer could pin down the opposing Servant—she could take out the enemy Master and magus at this distance!
Bazett, automatically assuming the Holy Grail War had begun, thought this way—and acted on it.
Thus, Bazett completed a rising motion in an instant, but just as she was about to send the nearby Emiya Shirou flying...
An unfamiliar... no, a familiar ceiling was the next thing to enter her vision.
"Eh?"
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