By mid-November, as winter approached, Rin began to get busy again.
Aside from recording her album, the most important task was, of course, the promotion for "snow flower."
Back when she was a newcomer, promoting a single could only start from radio stations, then move to offline promotions, and finally TV exposure, accumulating step by step.
But now, as "Tsukirin," who held a million-selling single, it was naturally impossible to struggle step-by-step like a newcomer; instead, she was a hot commodity fought over by TV stations.
Thus, for the next month, Being arranged three variety shows for her in one go!
In addition to the two music variety shows she had already appeared on, there was a program called "SMAP x SMAP."
"SMAP x SMAP" was a variety show hosted by the idol group SMAP. Since it began airing in 1996, it was currently at the height of its popularity.
Although it wasn't a professional music variety show, in terms of popularity, it stood in a tripartite balance with the previously mentioned "HEY! HEY! HEY!" and "MUSIC STATION."
As for SMAP, the member most familiar to the domestic audience should be Takuya Kimura.
Come to think of it, according to the original timeline, Takuya Kimura should be deeply in love with Shizuka Kudo at this time, and would announce his marriage at a concert next year.
It must be said, as a top-tier idol currently in his prime, announcing his marriage publicly during his own concert tour was quite a bold move.
More importantly, after announcing his marriage, not only did his career not collapse, but he continued to be a top star for over a decade. You have to say, that's truly impressive.
Returning to the main topic, compared to Rin's busyness, his own pace remained unshakable.
Time came to November 16th, when the 50th issue of "Weekly Shonen Jump" went on sale, and the 19th chapter of Fsn was published along with it.
At the end of the previous chapter, after Shirou and Tohsaka Rin formed an alliance, Tohsaka Rin had Archer escort Shirou home.
On the way home, Shirou and Archer began their first conversation.
Archer's attitude toward Shirou was as hostile as ever, and Shirou could even clearly perceive the killing intent from him.
If not for the alliance, the other party would probably have attacked him without hesitation, right?
However, inexplicably, he also found Archer very disagreeable—not out of jealousy or hatred, but a more instinctive aversion.
During this conversation, Shirou discovered that Archer was very disdainful of the existence of Heroic Spirits and Servants.
More importantly, he claimed that he had no wishes he wanted the Holy Grail to grant because he had died after having his wishes fulfilled and was now without desire.
Until he returned home, Shirou still had their conversation in his mind and felt very bothered by it.
At this moment, Fujimura Taiga told him that Ayako Mitsuzuri had been found. She was found unconscious by the roadside; although she had no external injuries, her memory was somewhat confused.
Fortunately, after an examination, it was discovered that she was not in life-threatening danger.
Upon hearing this, while feeling relieved, Shirou felt that Ayako's situation was somewhat similar to that of the female student who was attacked at school that afternoon, giving him a further understanding of the dangers of the Holy Grail War.
Furthermore, considering the dangers of the Holy Grail War, he suddenly spoke to Matou Sakura, hoping that she would stay at his house for this period.
Matou Sakura happily agreed.
On the other side, Saber was dissatisfied with Shirou not returning home at the agreed time. Shirou apologized while explaining, telling her what had happened during that time.
After understanding the situation, Saber expressed that she hoped he would discuss things with her first in the future, but also acknowledged the issue of the alliance.
Finally, to deal with the increasingly dangerous situation ahead, Saber hoped to conduct combat training with Shirou to improve his combat ability as much as possible.
Although Saber did not want Shirou to participate directly in the fighting, he should at least have the power to protect himself and stall the enemy.
Shirou agreed to this and began to accept the training.
End of chapter.
The most important part of this chapter was, of course, the first conversation between Shirou and Archer, beginning to foreshadow the past of the character Archer.
Or rather, the future that Shirou was supposed to experience.
And in this dialogue animation, the UBW anime had a particularly nice little change, which he also inherited and drew into the manga.
This little change was the way Emiya Shirou's eyebrows were drawn.
Because Shirou and Archer were the same person, in the original work, their eyebrow shapes were also the same.
However, the original work rarely featured scenes where both appeared in the same frame, and coupled with the fact that this feature was not particularly obvious, few people noticed it.
In the UBW anime, ufotable made minor adjustments to the eyebrow shapes of the two, making them look more distinct.
Not only that, but during this conversation, ufotable also specially designed close-up shots of the two in profile, facing each other, for fear that others wouldn't notice the production team's clever little idea.
Akira absorbed ufotable's way of drawing eyebrows but made slight adjustments to these close-up shots.
The reason the production team designed it this way was that they hoped the audience would be able to tell.
And he both hoped that the readers would be able to tell and hoped that they wouldn't be able to tell too easily.
So he placed the close-ups of the two in profile in two different panels, ensuring there was a comparison, but not too obvious.
Although in his opinion, it was actually still quite obvious.
In addition, besides the serialization of Fsn this week, there was another thing worth mentioning—
The first tankobon of "Kara no Kyoukai" was basically finished and was scheduled to go on sale at the end of November, with a two-week pre-promotion.
Therefore, on the advertisement page of Shonen Jump this week, information about "Kara no Kyoukai" appeared.
"It's a pity there's no extra one-shot manga to read today."
Flipping through the magazine, Oshima Ryota sighed with some regret.
As a fan of Mochizuki-sensei, he had of course read the one-shot manga "Weathering with You" created by him dozens of times.
And Mochizuki-sensei did not let him down, creating a quite moving story.
Unfortunately, he had yet to meet his own Hina.
Returning to the magazine itself, the first few pages of "Weekly Shonen Jump" were all color advertisement pages, and he usually just glanced at this part and skipped it quickly.
But today, he discovered an extra surprise on the color advertisement page—
In the upper right quarter of one of the color advertisement pages, there was a picture of a beautiful girl who was both familiar and unfamiliar.
The girl had short, capable hair, wore a red coat over a blue kimono, held a dagger in her hand, and had a cold gaze.
Although the outfit was a bit strange, there was an indescribable coolness and sharpness about the girl.
More importantly, although the girl looked very unfamiliar, her art style made Oshima Ryota feel very familiar—
Isn't this Mochizuki-sensei's art style?!
And the advertisement information next to the girl made him stunned in shock—
"The girl who can'see death'—"
"As long as it's something living, even if it's a god, I'll show you I can kill it!"
"Shonen Jump serialized author, Akira-sensei crosses over to write!"
"A light novel spin-off in the same universe as 'Fate/stay night', 'Kara no Kyoukai'!"
"First volume coming soon!"
"—Huh?"
"Is this for real—?"
"A light novel?"
"Are you sure it's not some one-shot manga?"
"Mochizuki-sensei crossing over to write?"
Looking at the words in the advertisement information, Oshima Ryota's mind was in a mess, and finally, only one question remained: What on earth is Mochizuki-sensei up to again?!