You call this a projection?

”A good man does not fight with women.”

There is a reason why the sages of ancient times recorded such a philosophical saying.

Emiya Shirou, who could slaughter enemies across other worlds—and even in the Holy Grail Wars of the native Type-Moon world—was now being ”solo-killed” by Tohsaka Rin.

After all, physiological reactions are something that is truly very difficult to explain.

Moreover, regarding Emiya Shirou’s personality—both the personality of his current self and the one shaped by the memories of his past life—it made it impossible for him to provide such an explanation in front of a girl. Especially not in front of Miyu Edelfelt, a girl who could be considered his younger sister.

Fortunately, with the arrival of Tohsaka Rin, Matou Sakura and the others, who were temporarily residing in the Emiya household, had woken up one after another.

Furthermore, Saber, who had been awakened by the prospect of breakfast, was still unaware of the situation. She was still intent on finding where this ”breakfast” was and forcefully inserted herself into the topic between Tohsaka Rin and Emiya Shirou. Because of this, Emiya Shirou, who had been at a loss for how to respond to Tohsaka Rin’s words, finally had a chance to escape that awkward topic and begin his daily routine as a househusband for a new day...

Of course, that was impossible!

.

.

.

At Homurahara Academy Private School.

In response to the wish made by his counterpart in another world—to let Miyu Edelfelt live an ordinary life—Emiya Shirou had walked Miyu to school after breakfast, then traveled with Tohsaka Rin and Bazett to the playground of the elementary school department.

They could protect Miyu Edelfelt from here, and they could also investigate the ley line magical energy distortion nodes they had found by comparing the current and past ley lines of Fuyuki City.

”Speaking of which, has the Mage’s Association not discovered the anomalies in Fuyuki City yet?”

Having entered a professional working state, Emiya Shirou seemed to recall something and asked Bazett, who was beside him. ”Although Fuyuki City is just a small, rural place in the Far

East in the eyes of the Mage’s Association, the occurrence of problems with ley line magical energy—and the fact that this involves visitors from a parallel world—is such a major event...”

”Other members of the Mage’s Association aside, the old man Kischur Zelretch Schweinorg, who holds the Second Magic, should not be unaware of the problems arising here, right?”

Is the Mage’s Association—or rather, the Clock Tower—a strong faction of mages? This was a question difficult for even Emiya Shirou, who possessed memories of a past life, to answer.

If you say the Clock Tower is strong... in the plot of FGO, neither the Atlas Institute nor the Wandering Sea left any contingency plans for the grand event of the Human Order Incineration, nor did they give much help to the Chaldea team. The Mage’s Association, however, didn’t help at all; they only knew how to drag people down while scrambling for power. Even the Department of Sealing Designations—a department that terrified countless mages and caused Tohsaka Tokiomi to transfer Tohsaka Sakura to the Matou family—instantly became a cowardly, bullying circus act after Aozaki Aoko attacked the Clock Tower and blew their Sealing Designation classroom to smithereens, forcing the mages to withdraw the designation on Aozaki Touko.

But if you say the Clock Tower isn’t strong... Zelretch, who holds the Second Magic; Bartomeloi, who is rumored to be able to solo a True Ancestor; Ophelia (or similar legendary figures), who is set up to be able to solo Goetia or fight on par with the God Camazotz; and Marisbury, who orchestrated the entire FGO plot... all these hardcore, ruthless individuals came from the Clock Tower. Even Aozaki Aoko, who attacked the Clock Tower earlier, is technically a member of it.

In terms of high-end combat power, the Clock Tower shouldn’t be considered lacking; it should be considered ”too strong.”

Perhaps in trivial matters, these truly capable people wouldn’t pay any attention to the various absurd maneuvers of the insects inside the Clock Tower—those who were still following a feudal, bloodline-supremacist ideology in the 21st century. But when it came to major events, they were the ones who truly made the decisions. Whether it was Zelretch, the former Mage Marshal, or Bartomeloi, the current Mage Marshal, they were the true decision-makers of the Clock Tower.

Therefore, in Fate/kaleid liner Prisma Illya, the Clock Tower responded so quickly, having already resolved two Servants and obtained their Class Cards before the story even began. So, it made no sense that the Clock Tower would be this slow to react in their parallel world.

”Regrettably, no.” Bazett shook her head. ”Although I have reported the changes happening in Fuyuki City to the Mage’s Association during this period, the interior of the Association remains indifferent to the changes here. They only told me to resolve it myself...”

Bazett felt very helpless. If she could resolve it alone, she—who wanted to prove herself with her strength and gain recognition from other mages in the Association—wouldn’t have sought

help from the Clock Tower. Although as a ”Inheritor of the Seal” (Inheritor of Rune Magic), Bazett inherited the Rune magic passed down from the Age of Gods, her talents were mostly pointed toward combat. She was not skilled at this kind of meticulous searching.

That they were able to find this location in such a short time was entirely thanks to the assistance of Tohsaka Rin, the head of the Tohsaka family and the nominal owner of Fuyuki City’s ley lines.

”I can testify to that. When I used the channels left by my father to contact acquaintances in the Mage’s Association, they were not very interested in the changes in Fuyuki City.”

Not just Bazett, but Tohsaka Rin—who had shed her sharpness from that morning and had also entered a work state—spoke earnestly. ”Even if I didn’t tell them the specific intelligence regarding the Holy Grail or Miyu, it is truly strange that such a major event as the ley lines having problems failed to attract the attention of other mages.”

”Of course, there is another possibility: the mages in the Association simply don’t believe that ley lines could have problems. Just as every mage other than the Three Founding Families doesn’t believe that the Holy Grail can reach the Root.”

Speaking to this point, Tohsaka Rin let out a deep sigh.

Although this very perception was the reason why the Einzbern family of the Three Founding Families and Matou Zouken had chosen Fuyuki City and chosen to cooperate with the Tohsaka family—to prevent the Great Grail from being snatched by mages with longer historical legacies by exploiting the psychological fact that mages of the Clock Tower didn’t believe that mages of the Far East could accomplish what they could not—at this moment, Tohsaka Rin hoped more than anything that the mages of the Clock Tower would believe it just a little bit.

Then again, does this count as her being ”scammed” by the ancestors of the Tohsaka family?

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