Chapter 10: Kirei Kotomine: Mapo Tofu is the Best!

Chapter 10: Kirei Kotomine: Mapo Tofu is the Best!

Shinji's firm rejection didn’t deter Kirei Kotomine in the slightest.

Instead, the man leaned in, until his face was way too close for comfort, lips curled into that unnerving little smile of his.

“I’m pretty sure I heard someone say ‘mapo tofu’ just now,” he said smoothly.

“Nobody said anything like that!!” Shinji snapped back, already starting to sweat.

“Oh? But didn’t you just say you were going to eat?”

“And in your mind, ‘eat’ is automatically synonymous with ‘mapo tofu’?!”

“For me, yes,” Kirei replied, eyes calm and terrifyingly sincere.

“Then go drown yourself in a vat of chili oil and tofu!!” Shinji retorted.

The lighting in the prop room cast a shadow across half of Kirei’s face, making him look even more sinister than usual. From Shinji’s perspective, it was practically a horror movie close-up.

“…This is what you taught me, isn’t it, Director?” Kirei continued.

Shinji opened his mouth to ask what the hell he meant, but then—like some cursed stage magician—Kirei produced a piping hot plate of mapo tofu out of nowhere.

No joke. The tofu was still bubbling. Steam hissed off the plate like it had just been pulled from the fires of Mount Doom.

“Come now, Director. It’s time to eat.”

“Thanks, but—I’m not hungry!!”

Shinji was physically pushing against the plate, trying to shove the tofu away like it was a live grenade. His eyes frantically scanned the room, silently begging the others for help.

But—

The table was empty.

The synthetic gemstones they had been working on? Left half-finished.

The magi who had been helping? Nowhere to be seen.

“YOU’VE GOTTA BE KIDDING ME!!”

Shinji whipped around toward the doorway—just in time to see Shirou, Rin, and Illya standing there outside the room, waving at him like they were seeing him off on a cruise.

“You traitors!!!”

He barely got the words out before Kirei took the opportunity to launch a surprise attack—

—and shoved a heaping spoonful of mapo tofu directly into Shinji’s mouth.

“GGGGGHHHHAAAAH—SPICY!!”

His scream echoed off the walls, bouncing through the prop room like a siren.

It was a battle cry.

No—it was a death wail.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Ten minutes later.

Shinji collapsed into a chair, downing his fifth glass of ice water. He exhaled like a man who had seen the other side.

“Haaahhh... I seriously thought I was gonna die.”

He kept fanning his mouth with one hand, eyes still watering.

“Apologies, Master,” Saber said, handing him another cup. Her eyes flicked away in embarrassment, her expression full of guilt.

“I would’ve stopped him, but... when it comes to Sir Gawain’s mashed potatoes and Kotomine’s mapo tofu... I just... I can’t...”

“I thought you liked Chinese food, Onii-sama?” Sakura chimed in sweetly, gently patting his back.

“I do, but not when it’s weaponized!!” Shinji slammed a hand on the table.

“This thing has nothing in common with real Chinese cuisine! Real Chinese food is about balance—color, aroma, taste! Not just turning your entire face into lava!!”

It was true.

Shinji knew full well this wasn’t some food-themed isekai. This was the Nasuverse, where mapo tofu wasn’t a dish—it was an ideology. A punishment. A curse.

Kirei’s version of mapo tofu didn’t even qualify as food.

Honestly, Shinji had long suspected that Kirei’s taste buds were completely dead. It was the only explanation for why the man enjoyed something so violently spicy.

“…It’s like biting into molten rock,” Shinji muttered, still fanning his tongue.

Sakura chuckled with a cold little smile. “You brought this on yourself. If you hadn’t been so smug, Kirei oji-san never would’ve done that.”

“…”

Shinji couldn’t even argue.

Because she was absolutely right.

Kirei Kotomine—pre-Gilgamesh, pre-Holy Grail War Kirei—was supposed to be a blank slate. A silent, emotionless, expressionless wall of a man. The kind of guy you’d cast to play a stone statue, not the final boss of a visual novel.

When he first joined the film crew, he had been the very picture of stoicism.

No joy. No anger. Just… vacant confusion, like a priest who’d taken a wrong turn and ended up in a cosplay convention.

He wasn’t even bad at acting. Just... deadpan. Completely deadpan.

Frankly, Shinji thought he’d be better cast in some tragic Fate/Zero flashback scene than playing the final antagonist of Fate/Stay Night.

And then, all of a sudden—mapo tofu happened.

Now here they were.

It was after a certain take—when the cameras had stopped rolling and the studio lights dimmed a bit—that Kirei Kotomine quietly approached Shinji with a rare, slightly troubled look on his face.

“…So, Director Matou,” Kirei said at last, his voice like velvet and vinegar.

“In the end… what exactly is this thing called pleasure?”

“…Pleasure?” Shinji blinked, caught off guard. “Isn’t it just… you know, something that makes you feel good? Happy?”

“Happy…?” Kirei repeated the word like it was written in some dead language.

That answer didn’t help him one bit.

“…Kirei, do you even like anything?” Shinji asked, half-joking.

The priest tilted his head slightly. “I enjoy eating mapo tofu. Are you suggesting I should act while imagining myself eating it?”

“Uhh… I mean, that’s something, but I don’t think that’s quite what the script means by ‘pleasure’...” Shinji scratched his cheek. “Okay, let’s try this: if you got other people to like mapo tofu because of you, would that make you happy?”

Kirei paused.

Then, “…I’m not sure.”

“…Then let’s test it.”

And so they tested it.

They all suffered.

The mapo tofu Kirei produced wasn’t just spicy. It was a declaration of war. Even Saber, the so-called “bottomless stomach,” took one bite and nearly fell over.

The experiment ended in gastrointestinal tragedy.

But it wasn’t entirely without results.

As Kirei stood silently watching the entire crew writhing on the floor, steam pouring from their mouths and eyes watering like busted faucets—something clicked.

A small, unnameable warmth bloomed deep in his heart.

For the first time, Kirei Kotomine felt it.

Pleasure.

Thus was born the Mapo Tofu Priest of Pleasure.

From that day on, the film crew found themselves haunted by a new kind of terror—an actor who found joy in forcing others to eat hell-level mapo tofu.

Congratulations?

More like condolences.

This wasn’t a harmless quirk.

This was worse than the final boss.

“Ah.”

Snapping out of the flashback, Shinji smacked his fist into his palm as if remembering something crucial.

“So that’s how all this started. …This one’s on me, huh.”

Smack!

A sharp whack landed on the back of his head.

“Damn right it’s your fault!!” Rin huffed, standing behind him with murder in her eyes.

“Thanks to you, people are now scared to even walk past Kirei! They think he’s gonna ambush them with tofu straight to the face!”

“Hey, count your blessings,” Shinji muttered, rubbing his head. “At least he’s stuffing tofu in their mouths and not dumping Holy Grail mud down their throats.”

“WHAT kind of comparison is THAT?!”

“Tch, should’ve just stuck with the original script…” Rin crossed her arms, visibly annoyed.

She had every reason to be.

In Shinji’s first draft of the screenplay, Kirei Kotomine didn’t even exist.

And even if he had existed, the real Kirei was never invited to play the role.

The reason? Simple.

If Shinji had dared to write a script that portrayed the original Kirei—murderer, nihilist, possible tax fraud—he’d basically be saying, right in front of the real Kirei’s father, “Hey, your son’s a lunatic!”

That was a fast track to getting disowned—or worse, getting buried by Rin and Shirou in some dark forest under “artistic integrity” charges.

People tended to forget, but all of them—Rin, Shirou, Sakura, Illya—had grown up together. And back then, the one who had quietly looked after all of them was none other than Risei Kotomine, the old priest of Fuyuki.

There was no way Shinji would slap the old man in the face like that.

So in that early version of the script, Shinji took the concept of “the big bad priest” and gave it a new twist: he turned him into an emotionless observer from the Mage’s Association.

No ties to the Church.

No personal grudge.

Same role, different face.

Even the name and skillset he gave the villain were borrowed from a Clock Tower magus Shinji really didn’t get along with.

To make that version of the story work, Shinji rewrote Fate/Stay Night again and again—fine-tuning it until everything flowed with a weird, but believable logic.

Looking back now…

“We really should’ve stuck with the original,” Rin grumbled, glaring at the far end of the studio.

There, in the distance, Kirei Kotomine could be seen trying to hand a small plate of tofu to a visibly horrified Illya.

She was backing away slowly, like a child cornered by a vampire.

Rin clicked her tongue.

“…Fake priest, real nightmare.”

Though they came from different upbringings, one truth remained constant: Rin Tohsaka was genetically programmed to hate Kirei Kotomine’s face.

“Well then, you’ll have to take it up with Risei-jii-chan,” Shinji said with a shrug. “Or maybe your dad.”

As it turned out, the reason Kirei joined the cast was because of those two legendary foxes—Tokiomi Tohsaka and Risei Kotomine.

It happened just a few days before the cameras began rolling. Shinji had gone to the Tohsaka estate to confirm some final production details with Tokiomi—only to “coincidentally” run into the elder Kotomine.

During their little “coincidental” tea time, Tokiomi just so happened to bring up Shinji’s plan to expand the Mage Association’s influence through film.

And wouldn’t you know it, old man Risei, very conveniently, expressed how his son—newly appointed head priest of the Fuyuki Church—had plenty of free time and would love a role in the production, especially as a favor between two long-standing families.

At the time, Shinji was still young—two lives combined barely scratched forty—but he wasn’t stupid. He could see the trap for what it was.

Two sly old foxes trying to wrap their tails around him, whispering sweet nothings while slipping a bomb into his script.

Still, Risei had judged the odds well. He’d spent years observing Shinji’s growth, and he seemed genuinely convinced the boy would succeed. If Shinji’s plan worked, it wouldn’t just benefit the magi—it’d shine some positive light on the Church too.

So Risei decided to get ahead of the game by slotting his own son into the cast.

He even had Tokiomi help orchestrate the meeting.

But credit where it’s due—the old man had guts. When Shinji hesitated, saying the main cast was already locked, Risei insisted his son could fill the supporting role of the Mage Association’s overseer.

“Don’t worry about my feelings, Shinji,” the priest had said, pounding his chest with a hearty laugh. “Just write Kirei into the story however you need!”

Shinji still felt a sharp, phantom heart attack every time he remembered that moment.

Three whole days. Three nights. Script revisions, rewrites, reorganizing the narrative structure… for what, exactly?

“…Whatever. It’s too late now.”

Dusting himself off, Shinji stood up. “Let’s finish charging the last of the artificial gems. We need them ready for the shoot this afternoon.”

Despite the PTSD-level trauma associated with the Mapo Tofu Priest, Shinji didn’t plan to recast the role.

Because ever since Kirei discovered the joy of shoving tofu into unwilling mouths, something inside him had awakened. His acting? Spot on. Eerily convincing.

He was the Priest of Pleasure now.

As for the tofu ambushes… well, as long as Shinji stayed vigilant, he figured he’d be fine.

…Probably.

. . . . . . . .

That afternoon’s shoot was the movie’s biggest and most crucial scene: the climactic showdown at Ryuudou Temple.

Shinji had said it before and he’d say it again—blockbuster movies live and die by their action scenes. And this one had to go perfectly.

He’d already invested a ton of time into choreography, coordination, and timing. The gems—his stand-in for explosive effects—had been pre-placed carefully across the set, and he’d instructed the actors to rehearse the key points well in advance.

True, artificial gems didn’t require the same kind of wiring as traditional pyrotechnics, and they were cheaper too. But even then, burying them into the set pieces took real effort.

One wrong move and the whole sequence could go to waste.

That’s why this dry run had to be perfect.

Too bad it wasn’t.

“Cut! CUT!! Hey you, goldie over there! Can you please take this seriously?! This is a key rehearsal, damn it!”

Shinji, megaphone in hand, was shouting at the top of his lungs.

The target of his wrath?

A certain arrogant king lounging at the edge of the set.

“Hah? What was that?”

Gilgamesh yawned, picking at his ear with a pinky. “I don’t speak loser.”

Shinji twitched.

He really should’ve hired a stunt double for this guy.