You call this a projection?

Just as Gojo Satoru had initially guessed, Emiya Shirou’s impatient display of wanting to finish Jogo off immediately was, in fact, a preparation to ”lure the snake out of its hole.” He wanted to use Jogo to draw out the mastermind Kenjaku and the others.

Unlike Gojo, who was still in the guessing stage, Emiya Shirou—though the timeline didn’t perfectly align—recognized that this plot thread matched the memories of his previous life. There was a high probability that Kenjaku and his group were nearby, spectating.

However, just as Gojo Satoru’s [Six Eyes] had a range, Emiya Shirou’s [Pseudo-Magician’s Red], used for tracking enemies, also had its limits. As long as Kenjaku and their observation methods did not step within the fifteen-meter radius of its range, it was difficult for Shirou to ”see” their presence with his life-detecting flames.

He hadn’t expected that Jogo, who seemingly guessed their plan, would be so stubborn as to directly initiate a Domain Expansion, locking them all inside.

But...

’I see, so he’s reacted?’

With these various thoughts flashing through his mind, Emiya Shirou watched Jogo’s final blow. Jogo was no longer preparing to drown them in magma or burn them with its inherent heat.

Instead, knowing that fire attacks were essentially useless against Shirou, he erupted with all his cursed energy, gathering all the magma and rock within the domain to condense them into a super-mass attack—planning to crush them with the most direct method possible.

”Take this move of mine!” Jogo shouted with his arms raised high. ”Under the 120% buff of the Domain, my technique’s power will be pushed to the limit of limits! The strongest strike—”

”—[Maximum: Meteor]!!”

Maximum techniques are the ultimate secret arts for sorcerers and spirits, second only to Domain Expansion. This move, which inherently pushes a technique’s power to its peak, was now further enhanced by the Domain’s buff and sure-hit effect.

Jogo, who seemed to be charging and manipulating cursed energy, was within a domain composed of his own energy. He could manifest and slam this lava meteorite, formed from high-quality cursed energy, onto Emiya Shirou instantaneously out of thin air. Anyone who assumed Jogo needed to physically swing the meteorite to hit the target would undoubtedly suffer a crushing defeat.

However, the same phrase applied:

”The corpse... is speaking.” Emiya Shirou watched Jogo’s actions calmly, as if he didn’t care what the spirit was trying to do. Or perhaps, just as Shirou said, Jogo had already become a corpse?

”Putting on an act... but fine!” Jogo, who had long since put aside the matter of life and death, spoke with total indifference to Shirou’s attitude. ”Whether it’s your hidden technique or that Cursed Tool, you won’t be able to hide them any longer in the face of my maximum output! Expose all your secrets to me! ...Eh!?”

Jogo seemed to sense something was wrong.

If Jogo only sensed something was wrong, Gojo Satoru—who was spectating from the side and monitoring the flow of battle, ready to intervene the moment Shirou fell into a disadvantage—saw it far more clearly. His [Six Eyes] widened unconsciously.

Even so, Gojo Satoru still could not comprehend it.

’What... was that...!?’

He couldn’t understand what had just happened! Indeed, he couldn’t see it. Even with the [Six Eyes], he truly couldn’t see. He couldn’t see what Emiya Shirou had done, when he had moved, or when he had attacked.

If even Gojo Satoru, an outsider to the clash, was like this, Jogo—who was at the center of it—naturally only had a series of simple questions flooding his mind:

’So cold... why has the temperature dropped so low? Is it because I drained a large amount of cursed energy from the domain? Even I, a Cursed Spirit, feel cold. Why does that sorcerer look unaffected? Can neither high nor low temperatures affect him?

But even if the temperature and cursed energy in the domain have been drained by me like this, the power of my [Maximum] should be beyond my imagination, right? But why... why can’t my hands move? My hands are even starting to tremble, losing the strength to hold up the [Meteor]?’

Jogo couldn’t understand. Not until he saw it.

He saw Emiya Shirou, who originally hadn’t made a move, suddenly holding a DISC in his hand. A DISC that seemed to have his entire life engraved into it; through the refraction of light within the domain, one could even see glimpses of his life memories within it.

”This is...?”

Jogo still didn’t understand what had happened. But suddenly, his consciousness fell into eternal silence amidst this confusion.

[Pseudo-The World]!!

Emiya Shirou watched as Jogo—having lost his memories of humanity’s fear of the Vulcans and his cursed technique under the ability of [Pseudo-Whitesnake]—could no longer maintain his physical form. Jogo began to dissipate along with the shattering imagery of the [Coffin of the Iron Mountain] domain.

Shirou, having ended the time stop, silently tucked the two DISCs into his pocket.

He then turned toward Gojo Satoru, who stood dazed on the spot, and Fushiguro Megumi, who—knowing full well what Domain Expansion meant to a sorcerer and having been terrified by Jogo’s raw power—was still in a state of shock. He also glanced at Itadori Yuji, who was trying to look ”professional” by mimicking Gojo.

”I told you, didn’t I? It wouldn’t take much time,” Shirou said. ”And it seems I handled it too quickly; that spirit’s companions have only just arrived to try and do something.”

[Pseudo-Whitesnake]!!

As he spoke, Emiya Shirou swapped the [Pseudo-The World] and [Pseudo-Whitesnake] ”Stands” back for [Pseudo-Magician’s Red], draping the life-detecting flames over himself once more.

He looked toward a certain direction in their surroundings with a smile.

Read ahead (100 chapters) by supporting me on buymeacoffee com/varietl or ko-fi edwriting