Chapter 42: A New Project: Fate/Zero

                       

Chapter 42: A New Project: Fate/Zero

Shinji’s decision to make Fate/Zero his second film wasn’t exactly a matter of choice—it was more of a necessity.

Now that Fate/Stay Night had finally broken through and opened the floodgates, the safest move for a follow-up was to stick with the Fate brand. Capitalize on the buzz. Consolidate the audience. Expand the influence.

In theory, a no-brainer.

But in practice, the Fate franchise was a tangled mess. Despite the mountain of stories carrying the Fate name, very few were actually movie-ready at this point in time.

Shinji immediately ruled out the other two Fate/Stay Night routes. As much as the new film needed Fate/Stay Night’s heat, it couldn’t just be a lazy rehash. They weren’t at the stage yet where they could afford to remake the original just to milk it.

And as for the rest of the Fate series? Fate/Grand Order was a bottomless gacha pit—not worth touching right now. Most of the other titles? Either riding Fate/Stay Night’s coattails… or piggybacking on the titles that already did.

Quality aside, almost all of them were high-entry, fan-targeted works. A nightmare for general audiences.

That messy state of affairs could be traced back to Type-Moon’s origins as a doujin circle. Without a unified commercial plan, the Fate IP had been stretched and twisted in every direction, until it became an unfiltered stew of conflicting timelines and narrative styles.

After careful evaluation, Shinji found only three stories he could reasonably work with:

Fate/Zero, Fate/Hollow Ataraxia, and Fate/Apocrypha.

First to go was Apocrypha, the “brilliant debut” of the ever-confounding Higashide. Too many characters. Questionable writing. And the whole parallel-world gimmick would confuse casual viewers. Definitely not fit for release at this stage.

Hollow Ataraxia was next on the chopping block. Honestly, adapting it into a movie was just a bad idea.

Its fragmented “event-based” structure worked great as a game. Not so much as a film. Sure, it had a main story—technically—but that plotline was so scattered it made Carnival Phantasm’s big dog subplot look tightly written by comparison.

You could adapt Fate/Hollow Ataraxia into a show. Maybe. But it’d have to be a TV drama or something episodic. Definitely not a film.

And that left Fate/Zero—the only real option left standing.

Of course, Shinji didn’t need to explain all this to the others. He simply had to present the final plan like it was always meant to be.

“The concept for the new film is written in this project proposal,” he said, sending the document to everyone in the room. “Take a look. If you’ve got questions, bring them up.”

Then, turning to a few Servants who didn’t have major roles this time around, he added, “Even if you’re not playing a lead, you’ll still be involved. You might be asked to do stunt double work or help out with crew tasks.”

Archer rolled his eyes and scoffed, “Just say we’re being used as tools, Shinji. No need to dress it up.”

“Calling you tools sounds a bit harsh,” Shinji replied, scratching his nose awkwardly.

Archer let out a cold laugh, unimpressed by Shinji’s usual mix of shamelessness and guilt.

Shinji pretended not to see the look on his face, casually glancing away.

“Huh... so Saber’s the main character again?” Sakura said, peeking at the proposal with one brow raised. “Onii-sama, you really are head-over-heels for her, huh?”

Shinji gave an exaggerated shrug. “What can I say? Arturia’s our biggest draw. This is a commercial film. I have to think about that.”

Arturia frowned, raising her hand hesitantly. “But... Master. Are you sure this script counts as a commercial movie?”

Ever since Sakura tricked her with that “May blues”, Arturia’s reading habits had expanded far beyond the girly shojo comics Rin usually handed her.

Arturia, having recently crammed a crash course in modern culture, now had at least a basic grasp of the current state of the film industry.

And from what she saw… Shinji’s dark and heavy script was a far cry from the “straightforward, commercially appealing blockbuster” he had been preaching about. If anything, it felt more like one of those grim noir films that shined a spotlight on humanity’s ugliest corners.

Even without comparing it to the rest of the film market, just setting it beside Fate/Stay Night made the contrast obvious.

If Fate/Stay Night was the tale of a young girl King Arthur's path to growth, then Fate/Zero was more like a no-holds-barred death game in Fuyuki—where the only ending was no survivors.

There was no “dark.” Only darker. Out of nearly twenty major characters, not a single one could be called a normal person. Except maybe Waver.

Which, in this lunatic-ridden script, made him the abnormal one.

“…Seriously though,” Cu Chulainn said after flipping through the proposal, “Master, you put Zero on the cover like it means the death count… doesn’t that just imply no one makes it out alive?”

Shinji glared. “Excuse me? Who says that? Three Masters and one Servant survive! Don’t exaggerate!”

Then Rider, who had been silent up until now, spoke up with a calm observation. “If I remember right… in your Fate/Stay Night script, wasn’t Kiritsugu already dead?”

“…”

“And both Kirei and Gilgamesh are also… well, casualties,” Sakura added helpfully, twisting the dagger deeper.

“In that case, I doubt that Waver guy who returned to England will have a happy ending either,” Rider continued.

“Come on, isn’t he still alive in the present timeline?” Shinji protested weakly.

“Oh, Master. How many characters in your script are dead despite being alive in reality?” Sakura pointed out sweetly. “Didn’t you kill off Kiritsugu too, even though he’s still around?”

“Maybe Waver dies in a plane crash on his way back to England?” Cu joked.

“Okay, that’s enough!” Shinji snapped, raising his voice to drown out the growing nonsense. “This isn’t Final Destination, alright?! Waver is not going to die from something that ridiculous! I still need him for spinoff—cough—to build popularity through future side stories!”

Realizing he’d just said the quiet part out loud, Shinji immediately tried to cover it up.

Sakura tapped her chin thoughtfully. “Waver’s that poor guy in England doing all your behind-the-scenes grunt work, right? You’re making him act and handle logistics? Be careful, Onii-sama—he might literally work himself to death someday.”

Shinji laughed and waved it off. “No way. With that iron liver of his? Even if I doubled his workload, he’d still be fine.”

◇◆◇◆

“Achoo!”

Far away in London, within the walls of the Clock Tower, Waver Velvet sneezed violently.

“Did you catch a cold?”

Kayneth El-Melloi Archibald, glancing up from his desk, asked while raising an eyebrow.

“Maybe,” Waver muttered, rubbing his temples. “The workload’s been brutal lately…”

Kayneth’s tone turned unusually gentle. “You need to be more careful. If Shinji overloads you with too much work, just turn him down.”

“Professor…” Waver felt a little touched by his mentor’s rare concern.

“You’re the backbone of the Modern Magecraft Department. If you collapse, the entire division’s in trouble,” Kayneth said… as he handed Waver a towering stack of documents. “Here, take care of these.”

“…Yes, Professor.” Waver sighed in quiet resignation.

◇◆◇◆

“Well, as the saying goes—with great talent comes great responsibility,” Shinji nodded solemnly, completely unaware of the irony in his own words.

“Someone like Waver? A rare gem like him has to carry more weight than the rest.”

He kept nodding to himself, looking incredibly moved… as if he’d just delivered the speech of a lifetime.

But Sakura had just noticed a rather critical flaw.

“Wait a second, Onii-sama. In your script, Waver Velvet’s still a teenager, right? So how exactly are you planning to have the real him act that out?”

Shinji smiled with full confidence and pointed at Gilgamesh.

“Simple. We just have Gilgamesh feed him a de-aging potion.”

“A de-aging potion, huh…”

Gilgamesh’s lips curled into a scornful smirk. He leaned back dramatically in his chair, arms crossed in a pose of tactical disdain.

“Oi, Shinji.”

Smack

He slapped the script down on the table, glaring daggers at the director.

“You told me we’d be summoning Enkidu to shoot a movie together. So what the hell is this?”

“C’mon, cut me some slack, King of Heroes!” Shinji scrambled to explain with an awkward chuckle. “It’s not like I don’t want to film something with you and Enkidu! But before I can make that happen, I need to boost your popularity a bit, or no one will even come to see the movie!”

Gilgamesh clearly wasn’t buying a word of that nonsense. His golden brows arched, his voice laced with contempt.

“You’re seriously telling me my popularity isn’t high enough? Do you think I don’t know you’ve been using my image to swindle people out of their money?”

Shinji fidgeted with his fingers, pretending to look busy. “Well, you are super popular… with Japanese housewives. But it’s not quite enough. I mean, if your toy weapon sold better than Excalibur, we wouldn’t be having this conversation, right?”

“Hmph!”

The King of Heroes let out a haughty snort so loud it echoed through the room. 

“If you’re really that desperate,” Shinji offered with a weak grin, “and can’t wait to act alongside Enkidu… I can work something out. I could add in some flashback scenes. Slide Enkidu into the story like that.”

“...Hah?”

Gilgamesh narrowed his eyes, his gaze sharp and full of suspicion. His annoyance was obvious—but more than that, there was wariness.

‘That guy’s up to something.’

Gilgamesh knew Shinji too well. The guy never offered “kindness” without an ulterior motive. Asking him to summon Enkidu just for a few cameo shots? Way too inefficient. That wasn’t the kind of plan Shinji Matou would ever go through with.

And sure enough, Shinji immediately grabbed the person standing next to him—Yan Qing.

“But, uh, due to budget limitations and all that… we’ll just have our boy Yan dress up as Enkidu for now. It’ll be fine! Just squint a little, pretend it’s real, you know? Method acting!”

“I (W)LL (D)ESTROY (Y)OU (A)LL!!”

Gilgamesh exploded.

“Shinji, do you want to die?! I swear I’ll hang you with the world’s oldest noose right here and now!!”

With a feral roar, Gil lunged straight at Shinji, rage blazing in his crimson eyes.

“Hey! I’m doing this for your own good! You were the one who said you wanted a film with Enkidu, remember—?”

BANG!

Before Shinji could finish that sentence, Gilgamesh’s fist came flying, and chaos erupted in the conference room.

---

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

Current Chapter In Patreon: Chapter 279: Kariya: I’ll Take Back My Dignity as an Uncle!

Link to the latest chapter: https://www.patreon.com/posts/132010309?collection=31097

https://www.patreon.com/collection/31097?view=expanded