I'm Not A Master, I'm A Director
Chapter 412: Western Dress and Kimono—I'll Take Them All
Although Shinji had altered Fujino's original circumstances, he made no attempt to soften the evil of the delinquents.
Sure, they hadn't committed any sexual assault against Fujino, but the rest of their crimes were just as heinous. Cutting off her hair. Slashing open her stomach with a small knife. Smashing her spine with a baseball bat, the list went on.
Originally, these acts were meant to show how the delinquents began tormenting Fujino purely for amusement after discovering she couldn't feel pain.
But in Shinji's revised script, the situation was slightly different. During the assault, the delinquents realized Fujino felt nothing—and that only emboldened them. They grew more reckless and brutal, trying every possible method to force her into submission.
No matter which version it was, however, it was more than enough to make the audience feel genuine disgust toward those punks.
In truth, both Shinji and Nasu had already toned down the portrayal of villains quite a bit. Compared to real-life scum who commit violence in society, these few delinquents were practically saint.
Unfortunately, every so often, reality produces people who kick straight through the bottom line most ordinary people believe exists—lowering the very definition of what it means to be human garbage.
If Shinji had been the kind of director who focused on exposing social issues, he might have continued digging deeper into the relationship between the perpetrators (the delinquents) and the victim (Fujino), eventually leading to a chilling open-ended conclusion.
But Shinji was, after all, a commercial film director.
That sort of heavy theme could only be touched on briefly.
Even for Keita Minato, Shinji didn't allow Ryougi Shiki to slice him into pieces with her knife. Instead, he had Mikiya step in and protect him out of simple humanitarian principles.
There was no helping it.
Since they were the protagonists of a movie, there were certain lines they absolutely couldn't cross.
Shiki might spend all day talking about how she wanted to kill people, but Shinji would never write a script where she actually became a murderer.
It was one of the unspoken rules of filmmaking.
The heroic protagonist had to have a moral bottom line.
Killing during combat out of necessity was one thing. But someone like Keita Minato, who no longer posed any real threat? The protagonists couldn't act as judge and executioner in place of the authorities.
After all, "The Garden of Sinners" was a PG-13 film aimed at teenage audiences.
If impressionable kids started thinking that vigilante executions by the main characters were cool… that could cause serious problems.
In comparison, R-rated movies were far more lenient in this regard. Audiences could watch protagonists like Deadpool or John Wick, who sent people to meet God at the drop of a hat.
"Of course, if it were me, I'd turn them into magical materials."
Staring at Keita Minato, who was now being protected by the main cast, Fujita spoke with clear resentment.
"Beautiful girls are a rare resource! Anyone who treats a beautiful girl that roughly deserves nothing less than that!"
"Don't dress it up so nobly," Aoko said with a sideways glance. "You were just hoping you could swoop in as the hero, save the girl, and have her repay you with her body, weren't you?"
She had seen straight through the otaku's thoughts.
"Is that so wrong?" Fujita replied without the slightest shame. "Any normal man would think that way, right? Opportunities to max out a girl's affection meter that easily don't come around often!"
"Not for you."
Aoko waved a hand in front of her face in mock disgust.
"If your looks fall below a certain threshold, even if you save a girl, the best you'll get is 'I'll repay you in the next life.'"
She paused before adding mercilessly,
"At the very least, you'd need looks on Shibamatsu's level before anyone would say something like 'This humble woman will devote herself to you in marriage.'"
"…Boss, I hate you."
Fujita slumped over with a miserable expression.
"You just shattered the dream of this pure-hearted boy!"
"A pure-hearted boy who cracks dirty jokes at the club every day? Please. You're more like a shut-in virgin from the inner chambers."
When it came to sparing people's feelings, Aoko had never done so in her life.
Unless the person in question happened to be her grandfather.
"..."
Fujita fell silent.
Apparently, he really had fantasized about becoming Fujino's destined hero.
Sadly, before the dream could finish playing out, Aoko had smashed it to pieces.
"Tch. You should've thought about your own weight class before dreaming."
After delivering the finishing blow, Aoko turned her head toward Alice.
"Alice, what do you think? Aren't they just suffering from delusions?"
"Boring."
Alice gave a cold evaluation.
"What I'm more interested in is how they'll handle the final clash between the Mystic Eyes of Distortion and the Mystic Eyes of Death Perception. The earlier confrontation felt far too shallow."
Tilting her head, Aoko guessed, "I think it'll probably turn into an offensive–defensive battle centered around protecting Keita?"
"Probably not," Alice denied immediately. "That character is too annoying. If the final battle revolves around protecting him, the audience won't buy it."
"Good point. Then judging from the trailer… the final battle can only be there, right?"
Aoko paused before saying the name.
"Broad Bridge?"
The Broad Bridge Aoko mentioned had already appeared earlier in the film when the story briefly showed daily life at Garan no Dou.
At the time, the building had been casually introduced.
The reason for building the bridge was actually quite simple.
The harbor district of Mifune City had a crescent-shaped coastline.
Traveling from one tip of the crescent to the other meant following a long curve along the outer coastline, which was extremely time-consuming.
The Broad Bridge solved that problem by connecting the two ends directly, turning a long curve into a straight line and greatly improving the flow of cargo through the artificial port.
On the surface, it seemed like a project built for the convenience of both citizens and businesses.
But the truth was rather… excessive.
Inside this ten-kilometer-long bridge were an aquarium, an art museum, a commercial street, and even a parking structure capable of holding thousands of vehicles.
At some point, people couldn't help but wonder—
Was this really a bridge?
Or was it a giant commercial complex built on the sea?
Anyone who watched Detective Conan movies every year would probably notice a certain pattern.
The special building or vehicle introduced at the beginning of the movie usually ended up being the thing that suffered the most destruction by the end.
Of course, this phenomenon wasn't limited to Conan.
Most commercial films followed the same pattern.
Stark Tower in The Avengers.
The Gotham city water pipeline system in Batman Begins.
Jurassic Park in Jurassic Park…
The logic was simple.
A movie only had so much runtime. If the story spent time introducing a fancy structure and then never used it later, that screen time would be completely wasted.
So when the audience first saw Broad Bridge mentioned in the TV news playing inside Garan no Dou, they already knew that this bridge was doomed.
The only question left was how it would be destroyed.
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On the screen—
After confirming that the culprit was Fujino Asagami, the kind-hearted Mikiya Kokutou obviously couldn't allow that girl to continue wandering through the city unchecked.
In order to stop Fujino from straying further down the wrong path, Mikiya personally took on the task of tracking her down.
Unfortunately, this time he didn't have his usual luck.
While he ran all over the city searching, he still ended up one step slower than Shiki Ryougi, who had remained behind at Garan no Dou.
The summer sky stretched endlessly overhead.
Not a single cloud could be seen in the vast blue expanse.
The blazing sun shone brilliantly, its dazzling light making it impossible to believe that a typhoon would make landfall that very night.
By then, the boundless sky—so simple it could almost be painted with nothing but blue pigment—would be swallowed by roaring storm clouds.
Sitting by the window, staring absent-mindedly outside, Shiki slowly turned her head.
Silently, she cast a glance toward Touko.
At that moment, Touko was wearing glasses and speaking on the phone.
The previous night, a seventeen-year-old youth driving without a license had been involved in a traffic accident. His car had veered off the road and slammed into the roadside, killing him instantly.
On the surface, it looked like yet another tragic tale of a reckless teenage driver.
But in reality, the young man had already been dead before the car left the road.
His cause of death was strangulation.
More precisely, his entire neck had been twisted and snapped apart by brute force.
There was no doubt about it.
In Mifune City, the only person capable of committing such a supernatural murder was Fujino Asagami.
"So the victim was alone in the car, correct? A moving locked room… No, that won't be necessary. Knowing this much is enough."
Touko spoke calmly into the phone.
"You've been a great help. I'll be sure to repay this favor, Detective Akimi."
Her tone was extremely polite.
Listening to her, one would think she was a gentle and refined office lady.
But this voice was completely different from the Touko the audience had seen earlier.
For viewers who actually knew her personality—like Aoko and Alice—It was downright terrifying.
"Is… is this what maturity in the working world looks like…?"
Aoko's face turned pale as she asked her friend.
Alice rubbed the goosebumps on the back of her hand before replying,
"I think it's more like the brutal beatings of reality."
Even though the Touko on the screen was just an actor's performance, the way she portrayed it felt far too vivid. It was hard not to imagine that the real Touko must switch into this kind of "business mode" quite often in her everyday life.
"…This is troublesome."
Touko lightly pushed up her glasses. Behind the lenses, every trace of warmth had vanished, leaving behind only cold indifference.
"Shiki, there's a seventh victim now. That already exceeds the number from the serial killer two years ago."
Those words made Shiki stand up.
The incident from two years ago held special meaning for her.
"This time… the killing was pointless, right?" Shiki asked calmly.
"Well, how should I put it…" Touko said as she unfolded a map across the table.
"Keita Minato didn't know the victim, Takagi Shouichi. But that man was definitely the same type as him. Most likely, when Asagami Fujino realized she had targeted the wrong person, she just killed him anyway."
"So she can easily kill someone unrelated to her revenge?"
"Perhaps that Takagi noticed something strange about her, and she killed him to keep it secret. Or maybe he tried to do something unpleasant to her, and she acted in self-defense…"
"..."
Shiki didn't say anything more.
She took the red leather jacket hanging on the wall and draped it over her kimono, then picked up the short knife resting on the table.
"In any case, we can't let her continue like this. Touko, do you know where she is?"
Touko didn't answer immediately.
Instead, she took a red pen and marked several locations on the map where incidents had occurred. Then she connected the points with lines.
"…Found it."
As she spoke, Touko picked up several cards from the table and tossed them toward Shiki.
"Identification passes from Asagami Construction? But… who's this Araya Souren? Your ex-boyfriend?"
Shiki picked up one of the cards. It was an entry permit for construction facilities, with a name printed on it.
"That alias belongs to someone I know," Touko replied casually. "When I asked the client to prepare fake IDs, I couldn't think of a suitable name, so I used his."
"Sounds like someone you remember pretty clearly."
Ignoring Shiki's teasing, Touko continued, "Asagami Fujino is probably hiding around Broad Bridge. These are the permits to enter the area. To avoid complications, it'd be best if you handle it before Kokutou gets back."
Shiki shot Touko a glare.
Her usually vacant eyes suddenly sharpened like blades.
Unfortunately, such childish protest meant nothing to Touko.
With no other choice, Shiki grabbed the cards and headed for the door.
When the office was finally empty, Touko shifted her gaze toward the window.
"So Kokutou still didn't make it in time…"
She murmured to herself without any bias.
"Which will arrive first, I wonder? The typhoon… or this storm?"
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Touko's words marked the beginning of the final battle between Shiki and Fujino.
But Shinji Matou was a director who cared deeply about ceremony and atmosphere.
Naturally, he wouldn't just have Shiki walk up and start fighting Fujino like it was some random street brawl.
And so, before the battle even began, the silver screen revealed Shiki standing beneath the moonlight.
She wore a kimono, with a red leather jacket draped over it.
Yet rather than making her look modern, the jacket only enhanced her presence.
Shiki looked less like a contemporary girl and more like a classical beauty who had stepped straight out of the Edo period.
The modern jacket didn't clash with the kimono at all.
Instead, it added a mysterious charm that made her even more captivating.
"Hehe~ Shinji, you really seem to like kimonos, don't you~?"
Inside the theater, Shiki, who was holding Shinji's hand, said with a playful smile.
Throughout the entire film, aside from the hospital gown at the very beginning, every outfit Shiki wore in the story afterward was some form of kimono.
She practically looked like a living mannequin for traditional Japanese clothing.
The reason Shiki chose to wear a western dress tonight was simple. She knew that the guests attending the event would have already seen her in all kinds of kimono styles throughout the movie.
So in real life, she decided to appear in a western dress instead—to give everyone a different impression.
But to Shiki, what other people thought didn't really matter.
What she cared about most was the opinion of the man sitting beside her.
Which look did he prefer?
Which version of her did he like better?
Faced with that question, Shinji answered without hesitation.
"Only kids make choices like that. Of course I want both."
"Because each one has its own advantages?" Shiki asked.
"Exactly." Shinji nodded. "Western dresses emphasize the body. They highlight a girl's chest, waist, and hips. Kimono, on the other hand, conceal the figure but bring out a girl's aura and elegance."
In Shinji's view, western dresses allowed girls to show an outgoing kind of beauty.
Their designs were practically all meant to accentuate the natural charm of a woman's figure.
A girl wearing a dress looked dazzling and alluring, the kind of beauty that instinctively stirred a man's desire to conquer—to strip away that proud outer façade.
Kimono, on the other hand, represented a more reserved beauty.
Layer after layer wrapped around a girl's body, symbolizing restraint and protection.
Whether it was the heavy obi belt or the layered robes, everything seemed to send the message:
Please don't touch.
And yet, that very restraint only made people more curious.
It made one want to uncover those layers, to see just what kind of perfect form was being guarded so carefully beneath them.
"So really, no matter which one it is, they're both the best!"
Shinji declared confidently.
"Shinji… you just want to take girls' clothes off, don't you?!" Shiki shot back immediately.
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Tn: I updated the story once every 2 days, but if you want to see more chapter of this story ahead of time, please go to my Patreon.
Latest Chapter: Chapter 455: Shinji — My Awesomeness Has Exceeded Even My Own Expectations[1]
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[1] https://www.patreon.com/Thatsnakegirl/posts/im-not-master-im-160861502?collection=31097
[2] https://www.patreon.com/Thatsnakegirl/posts/im-not-master-im-160861502?collection=31097