Chapter 9: Would You Like Some Mapo Tofu?

Chapter 9: Would You Like Some Mapo Tofu?

In the end, driven by her pride and overwhelming sense of shame, the proud Rin Tohsaka resolutely refused Shinji’s “miracle” product.

And to really hammer in her position—perhaps as a show of defiance—she made a very bold declaration.

“I’m only sixteen! I’m still growing! This isn’t my final form!”

To Shinji, this sounded like pure delusion.

After all, he wasn’t just some average director. He was a seasoned dimension-hopping veteran who had seen countless alternate versions of the Nasuverse. He'd met more Rins than most people had hot meals.

From magus clan heads to pirate captains to goddess-possessed variants—Shinji had seen them all.

And in every single one of them, Rin’s current figure was more or less the upper limit.

Well, there was Ereshkigal-Rin, but Shinji firmly believed that was just a “creative liberty” taken by the artist. The official stats for Ereshkigal’s three sizes were identical to the Rin currently fuming in front of him.

In short: Shinji had long made peace with the fact that Rin’s bust size was not going anywhere.

Besides, Rin’s charm had never been about that.

It’s the legs. The legs. And always the legs.

Still, he didn’t bother arguing. Instead, he nodded like a generous merchant.

“No problem. I’ll hold on to the item for you. Anytime you want it, just come and ask. Same price, no markup—I promise.”

“I, Rin Tohsaka, would rather stay flat for the rest of my life than use your sleazy garbage!”

Rin punctuated her declaration by pointing emphatically up and down, heaven and earth as her witnesses.

Shinji just shrugged, his expression infuriatingly calm.

“Alright then. I’ll just wait until you come crawling back.”

That earned him a few seconds of silence while Rin tried to decipher whether that was an insult, a joke, or both.

Taking advantage of the pause, Shinji turned back to Arturia.

“Alright, Saber. Let’s fit you up now.”

With a fluid motion, he activated the mystic code and guided it with his mana. The jelly-like substance writhed, then darted straight toward Arturia’s neckline with shocking speed.

“Mmgh...!”

A cold, slick sensation ran across her skin, and Arturia couldn’t help letting out a soft gasp. Her cheeks flushed red before she could stop herself.

Luckily, the strange texture only lasted a few seconds. Once it molded into shape, the fake bust’s color matched her skin perfectly, and its temperature quickly adjusted to match her own body heat.

From the outside, aside from the sudden and very noticeable enhancement to her figure, everything looked completely natural.

“…This is... remarkable,” Arturia commented while giving her new assets an experimental bounce.

“Besides a bit of extra weight, I feel no discomfort at all. Master, this mystic code is—Master?”

She finally looked up.

Shinji was standing nearby—directing the camera, lens pointed directly at her chest.

“Your expression just now was perfect!” Shinji grinned, giving her a thumbs up.

“So natural and bashful—it’s rare to get something that authentic. If I just tweak the background, we can totally use that in the final cut!”

“……”

The corner of the King of Knights’ mouth twitched violently.

"Master… sometimes I really do understand why Rin finds you so unbearable."

Arturia muttered the words quietly, her tone equal parts exasperated and resigned.

"Thanks, I'll take that as a compliment," Shinji replied cheerfully, smiling ear to ear.

With the help of his magical jelly prosthetic, Shinji finally captured the shot he had been striving for: Rin and Arturia, together, their beauty enhanced just enough, their expressions naturally intimate.

But rest assured—despite what some might think—Shinji had no intention of turning his film into something indecent.

After all, he was aiming to make a world-class blockbuster, not some cheap exploitative flick. The closest the “yuri flower” between Rin and Arturia would bloom was in their on-screen chemistry, their perfect looks, and perhaps a bit of “enhanced” figure work. That’s it. No crossing the line.

Shinji had no interest in turning Fate/Stay Night into something adults would have to hide under their pillows.

From the very beginning, Shinji had set his sights on the PG-13 rating. That golden middle ground—just like most commercial films back in his old world.

That meant: no explicit "mana transfer" scenes like the R-18 original game. Instead, he borrowed from the all-ages console version that Nasu and the team had produced later.

—Though, in this warped parallel world where Shinji now found himself, the movie industry's rating logic had gone completely off the rails.

Here, the highest-grossing box office hits were either R-rated films—catering to adult appetites—or G-rated family-friendly flicks.

PG-13?

That was considered the dead zone.

Too tame for adults. Too spicy for kids. 

Unless you were making a teen drama, no one in this world chose PG-13.

If it had been any other director from this bizarre world behind the camera, Shinji was sure those Rin and Arturia scenes would have ended up as full-on 18+ content—so-called “artistic nudes” drenched in excuses and filtered lighting.

‘Artistic value, my ass,’ Shinji thought. ‘They're just pervs using 'cinema' as a cover.’

Honestly, if you’re gonna be a pervert, be honest about it!

Shinji, for example, preferred the more dignified route—just use your good looks to charm women.

That’s way classier than hiding behind art-school pretensions.

Still, even in his so-called “all-ages” adaptation, Shinji knew better than to make his characters just sit on a bed and hold hands like robots.

There had to be some teasing. Some elegance. Some charisma.

In truth, Shinji wasn’t pushing toward an R-rating… but he was expertly dancing along the very edge of what PG-13 would allow.

Of course, he had a reason for all this.

In his past life, there was a saying among commercial filmmakers:

“The two pillars of a blockbuster: Pillow scenes and Punch scenes.”

Pillow scenes meant romantic or sensual tension.

Punch scenes were, well, the good ol’ action.

Arturia and Rin had already delivered a fantastic “pillow” scene. Now it was time for the fists.

And when it came to fight scenes, Shinji had no intention of holding back.

There was no “artsy restraint,” no “subtle choreography.”

He threw in everything—blinding light effects, explosions, brutal choreography, high-speed clashes.

The only thing he held back on was blood, purely because of rating restrictions.

Every other adrenaline-pumping, theater-shaking trick? He used them all.

Naturally, this made the action scenes far more difficult to shoot. Progress slowed. Resources stretched thin.

But Shinji didn’t care.

"This is my first film. If I don’t do it perfectly, then what’s the point?"

To him, perfection wasn’t optional—it was the baseline.

When it came to action scenes, that was where the real magic came into play—literally.

Up until now, all the dialogue-heavy shoots hadn’t required much thaumaturgy at all. Aside from that one... bust-enhancing moment with Rin, magecraft had been more of a background tool than a necessity.

But action? Now this was the real test of Shinji Matou’s grand magical-cinematic vision.

He poured more than a decade’s worth of theories, ideas, and experimentation into this phase of filming. The very idea of using magecraft to shoot movies—something he’d been quietly refining since childhood—was finally being put into practice, scene by scene, explosion by explosion.

Currently, every magus on set—including Rin and Shirou—was gathered around, diligently injecting mana into a mountain of “gems.”

Yes. “Gems,” in quotation marks.

Because these weren’t real jewels.

They were cheap, mass-produced synthetic crystals. The magical equivalent of dollar-store batteries.

“…These things don’t even deserve to be called gems,” Rin muttered under her breath, disdain practically dripping from her voice.

“They can barely hold a charge. If someone gave me one of these, I wouldn’t even accept it as a gift.”

“Well duh. If they were expensive, I wouldn’t be using them,” Shinji replied, rolling his eyes.

He placed a fresh pile of depleted mana gems in front of Shirou.

“Your turn. Process these too.”

“Got it.”

Shirou gave a casual shrug and picked up a crimson-colored gem, immediately getting to work.

Since the task was basically just stuffing magical energy into a crystal, it wasn’t complicated. So even a self-proclaimed magical amateur like Shirou could pull it off easily after a quick five-minute demo from Rin. His only drawback was speed—he just couldn’t keep up with the others.

Rin, meanwhile, narrowed her eyes as she examined one of the cheap little gems.

“What exactly do you need this many crap-tier stones for?” she asked, raising an eyebrow.

Shinji answered without missing a beat.

“Special effects explosives.”

The kind used on set for prop explosions, dust blasts, and smoke clouds.

“See, we layer loose soil or debris over the blast points. That way we don’t need much destructive force—just enough to look good. These are a little stronger than firecrackers, so they’re perfect.”

He grinned, holding up one of the glowing gems like it was a gold nugget.

“Cheap, safe, easy to detonate, no wiring needed—just a little mana from our crew and boom, practical effects on demand. It’s the perfect fusion of modern tech and ancient magecraft. A masterpiece of utilitarian design!”

Shinji threw his arms wide, basking in his own brilliance.

“I swear, I really am a genius.”

Rin scoffed.

“More like a professional recycler.”

She turned her nose up with a disdainful snort.

Rin’s magical upbringing, heavily influenced by her father, Tokiomi, had instilled in her a strong sense of tradition. To her, magecraft was sacred. Noble. Meant to be studied and respected, not used like duct tape on a movie set.

Shinji, of course, didn’t care.

To him, magecraft wasn’t some divine truth to be revered. It was a tool. A means to an end.

After all, mystery had already waned. No new magicians had been born in the last century. The Age of Gods was long gone. Chasing the Root now was about as productive as hunting unicorns.

“Rin,” Shinji began, adopting a mock-philosophical tone.

“Magecraft, at the end of the day, is just a tool. You can’t place it on a pedestal. It’s like—chopsticks. Their job is to help you eat. That’s all.”

Smack

Before Shinji could finish his sentence, a firm hand landed on his shoulder.

“I believe I just heard someone say the words ‘eat’ and ‘mapo tofu’ in the same sentence.”

The grip was firm. Unnervingly firm.

Shinji froze. Slowly, he turned his head—

—only to find a tall, ominous figure standing behind him: a black-robed, middle-aged priest with a gaze like burning coals.

The man’s voice was calm. His presence was not.

“Ki–Kirei!” Shinji yelped, sweat instantly pouring down his back.

“No one said anything about that! I swear!!”