Chapter 93: Death was Too Easy
[Pseudo-The World], [Pseudo-Anubis], [Pseudo-Atum]...
This was the case even in the world of JoJo's Bizarre Adventure.
Facing Emiya Shirou, who had essentially opened a "spoiler hack" for Jotaro Kujo and the others, DIO seemed to have realized where the problem lay.
He no longer dispatched his Stand user subordinates one by one to deliver experience points to Emiya Shirou as he did in the original story. Instead, he gathered his forces directly, intending to use his remaining numerical advantage to counter Emiya Shirou's information advantage.
Therefore, among the Stand users DIO called upon for the ambush, aside from a few used to test whether Emiya Shirou truly knew their secrets, the rest possessed Stands that remained effective even if their intel leaked.
They weren't the type to rely solely on gimmicks or information disparity. As a result, the battle between Emiya Shirou's group and DIO ended much earlier in the plot. They didn't even need to travel to Egypt.
DIO and a pack of Stand users cornered them in India.
Similarly, regarding the acquisition of Stands, Emiya Shirou didn't have the chance to use Projection Magecraft to sweep up every single one of DIO's subordinates' Stands in one go. But that was before defeating DIO.
After defeating DIO... With DIO no longer interfering, and armed with Emiya Shirou's intel and Joseph's [Hermit Purple], they naturally continued to strike hard against DIO's remaining Stand users.
As for the process, Taking out the future bosses of JoJo's Bizarre Adventure along the way was merely a matter of convenience.
After all, they had fought all the way to Egypt. Wasn't it perfectly normal to cross the Mediterranean to take out Diavolo in Italy, just above Egypt? And then return to Morioh Town to deal with Yoshikage Kira—who hadn't returned to Morioh yet but was still in Japan? Thus, during this journey, the Stands that Emiya Shirou hadn't encountered before were met, seen, and collected into his Reality Marble.
That is why the Emiya Shirou who returned to the TYPE-MOON world—despite not yet having "consumed" the experience points from Gilgamesh or Archer (EMIYA)—could still project Stands specifically designed to counter the Servants and Masters of the Fifth Holy Grail War.
But if you were to ask which Stand Emiya Shirou trusted most, it certainly wasn't those later copied and projected Stands.
Even though they were indeed convenient—especially [Pseudo-The World]'s time stop—his true reliance was on [Pseudo-Magician's Red], which he had projected and fully developed shortly after transmigrating into the JoJo world! And its Life-Detecting Flames!
Just like now. Under the Reinforcement magecraft driven by Command Spell mana, Kotomine Kirei had essentially transformed into a Servant. In the TYPE-MOON world, where the bonuses for Chinese martial arts are notoriously exaggerated, his close-quarters combat ability might even be stronger than an average Servant's!
But was that useful? Emiya Shirou was already shrouded in Life-Detecting Flames.
He didn't need eyes to see. He didn't even need to see if his body could react in time.
The moment Kotomine Kirei entered a fifteen-meter radius, the flames surrounding Shirou automatically sensed Kotomine's direction. Driven by these auto-reacting flames, Shirou's body was pulled into various extreme dodges.
During this evasion process, [Pseudo-The World], which had been on cooldown, saw its time-stop ability become available once more as the seconds ticked by. "—[The World]!!"
Everything that Kotomine Kirei couldn't comprehend was this simple from a Stand user's perspective. This time, Emiya Shirou didn't aim for Kotomine's heart.
With the memories of his past life, Shirou knew that as far back as the Fourth Holy Grail War ten years ago, Kotomine Kirei's heart had long been gone. All that remained there was the black mud flowing from the Black Grail.
In that case...
Boom! !!
Like smashing a watermelon. [Pseudo-The World] appeared beside Emiya Shirou and delivered a straight punch to the motionless Kotomine Kirei's head, blowing his brain apart. It ended Kotomine Kirei's sinful life.
"Time, resume its flow."
With that, everything that had been frozen by time was allowed to move forward again under Emiya Shirou's will. This included the words Saber was about to shout as she finally realized she had been tricked.
"Shirou! ...Eh? Ah?!"
What happened? From Saber's perspective, Kotomine Kirei—who had crossed numerous obstacles to reach Emiya Shirou—suddenly collapsed before him as a headless corpse.
It looked as if Kotomine Kirei had worked so hard just to rush in front of Emiya Shirou and die.
"Alright, Saber. We should go in."
As if what just happened was as simple as tossing used tissue into a trash can, Emiya Shirou signaled to the stunned Saber: "Although Kotomine Kirei is the only priest in the Fuyuki Church...After dealing with him and his Servant, Gilgamesh, there are no other enemies in the church.
But because of that, Kotomine Kirei, who reigned supreme here, didn't have to worry about things like reputation or influence...
No, knowing Kotomine's twisted personality, if someone else were running the church with him, he might have even felt a sneaky sense of immorality."
Recalling the twisted nature that Gilgamesh had cultivated in Kotomine Kirei, Emiya Shirou couldn't help but feel that killing him this easily was letting him off too cheap.
Given the monstrous things Kotomine had done, did he really deserve a quick death?
"So we need to hurry inside and find the people." However, the dead cannot be brought back to life. Even if they could, Emiya Shirou wouldn't leave that chance to someone like Kotomine. After sensing something through the Life-Detecting Flames, he took the lead and charged into the depths of the building: "While those people captured by Kotomine Kirei still have a chance to be saved—"
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