Chapter 199 - 200: Still Just a Roadside Casualty

Servant-Rider. True name—Medusa.

This was the Servant that had appeared before Emiya Shirou and his group, appearing here in this Mirror World. She was also the Servant who had been summoned by Matou Sakura in their world during the Fifth Holy Grail War.

However, in the world of Miyu Edelfelt, in this Holy Grail War held by the Ainsworths, while the individuals summoned and displaced were shockingly consistent with the Servants of the Fifth Holy Grail War, the Masters were not.

Consequently, unlike in Emiya Shirou's world—where Medusa served in the Fifth Holy Grail War primarily under Matou Shinji, ending up either as cannon fodder to be killed or on the path to becoming cannon fodder—the Medusa in Miyu Edelfelt's world... she had been instantly slain by the Emiya Shirou of that parallel world, treated as a "wild mob" that wasn't even worth a manga panel and was simply omitted.

Therefore, there was absolutely no need to worry.

This wasn't arrogance. It was the confidence Shirou held in his own strength, having ended the Holy Grail War in a single night just like he had before Miyu crossed over, and his familiarity with Medusa.

Or rather, there was a vast difference between a Medusa in a "broken" state and one in a serious state. The former was mere cannon fodder; the latter could go toe-to-toe with an Alter Saber, who possessed near-infinite magical energy support, for a short period.

Very unfortunately, the power Medusa now possessed had been purchased at the cost of her intelligence and reason. She had no technique, nor did she understand the synergy between her skills and Noble Phantasms. Initially, when Shirou projected [Pseudo-The World] before her, he could have already pierced through her Spirit Core.

But the problem was this: Shirou, possessing the memories of his past life and knowing exactly what this Medusa was, why the Rider Class Card—which caused her to appear here—existed, and what the Mirror World truly was, did not want to fight another Holy Grail War like in Fate/kaleid liner Prisma Illya. He didn't want to collect all these Class Cards before heading to Miyu's world.

He wanted to go directly to Miyu's original world by using the properties of the Mirror World, which was a "passage" linking their world to hers, and by using Ruby's Second Magic to anchor his position and forcefully traverse to her world.

Therefore, Shirou's primary task regarding Medusa was never to defeat her. It was to figure out how to stall her for as long as possible before Miyu finished anchoring her original world with Ruby, preventing Medusa from exiting the stage early, which would cause the Mirror World—which existed only because of the Class Card—to vanish along with her.

Since this was a pre-decided plan, Miyu, who had begun having Ruby recalculate the distance between worlds the very instant Shirou took action, replied nervously: "It's not ready yet, Brother!"

"The Kaleidoscope staff needs a little more time to anchor to the other world!"

Saying this, Miyu—who also saw that Medusa had recovered—hesitated for a moment before immediately pointing Ruby at Medusa. "Brother, why don't we just forget about it?"

"If it's a choice between defeating this Servant or just stalling her here to let the Kaleidoscope staff open the parallel passage to help me return and save my world... there should be a second way. Brother, you don't need to do something this dangerous!"

If Shirou just nodded and said "no need," Miyu, who already had Ruby aimed at Medusa, would absolutely stop the analysis of the Mirror World and her home parallel world. She would switch to attack mode and help Shirou defeat Medusa together.

After all, no matter how irrational Medusa was now, she knew she had to resist after being attacked. With the support of the ley line's magical energy, she could continuously use the intrinsic skill [Monstrous Strength] without having to care about damage to her own body. Facing this skill—which in the original story allowed her to avoid being kicked to death like a roadside casualty by an Alter Saber supported by infinite mana—was not something [Pseudo-The World], whose stats were all decreased by one rank due to the side effects of Projection Magecraft, could withstand. Not to mention that Medusa possessed other skills beyond [Monstrous Strength], and she hadn't even used her Noble Phantasm yet.

"Don't worry, Miyu," Shirou replied, shaking his head confidently. "Leave this to me."

"If you're really worried about me, just don't stop Ruby's Second Magic parallel world traversal. Just complete the anchoring as quickly as you can."

"Of course..."

That was what he said, but as Shirou—who had become the host for the Stand [Pseudo-The World] through Projection Magecraft—he could feel that [Pseudo-The World]'s raw strength was gradually being suppressed by Medusa's [Monstrous Strength].

However... that was enough!

Shirou's attraction to the power of Stands wasn't entirely due to their raw strength.

ZA WARUDO!!

"Time, stop!"

...It was their Stand abilities!

However, under the time stop of [Pseudo-The World], not just Medusa, but Miyu and the others—including Ruby, who was anchoring the parallel world—had their time stopped at that instant. Shirou couldn't stall for time using this Stand ability.

...

Projection, cancel.

The figure of [Pseudo-The World] began to slowly vanish beside Shirou. As it vanished, the time that had been stopped by the Stand ability began to flow again. Medusa, her consciousness still stuck in the previous second, continued the action she had been performing.

This allowed Shirou, who had successfully switched to [Pseudo-White Snake], to take advantage of Medusa's momentum and deposit a spirit command DISC directly into her brain.

"...Miyu, it's fine if you're a little slow."

Completing his sentence, Shirou, having finished all his actions in an instant under the time stop of [Pseudo-The World], said: "Because the battle is over."

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