Silent Gods

by nothing_is_beautiful_and_true

Summary:

A Servant and Master have gone rogue. The others are called to Fuyuki to handle it. Saber and Archer are brought back into each other’s orbit and must navigate the complexities of their strange relationship while simultaneously working with others to stop the insane Caster from continuing his murder spree.

Sequel to Dead End and Shower Head.

Notes:

Remember when I was like, yo this is a cool idea for an alternate universe, I should try to do more with it. But then I never did? Yeah me neither. Anyway, hope you enjoy.

Chapter 1

"I waited for him to find an answer. Minutes passed. It came to me that he had quit. He had glimpsed a glorious ideal, had struggled toward it and seized it and come to understand it, and was disappointed. One could sympathize."

 

“We leave for Fuyuki City tomorrow. I will leave first, separately. You and Irisviel will follow.”

The air was thick with the scent of nicotine. Moonlight glinted off the smoke’s edges, a silver outline separating dulled gray from midnight blue. Kiritsugu leaned against the balcony balustrade, cigarette in hand, peering over the edge upon the von Einzbern courtyard. He would not look at Saber.

All was silent, all was still. It had snowed the night before, but the storm had cleared and left behind a pristine blanket over the castle’s ancient stone. When Saber exhaled, she could see her own breath. Truly, it was not much different from cigarette smoke.

“May I inquire as to the reason? This seems rather sudden,” Saber said.

Kiritsugu brought the cigarette back to his lips. The end glowed cherry red, cast the dark bags under his eyes in sharp relief. Sometimes, he looked more like a dead man than any Heroic Spirit.

“When I first summoned you, I thought to myself—a Servant is a tool for a Master to use. Like a gun, like a bomb, like a sword.”

Saber waited, but he said nothing else.

…

“A Heroic Spirit has gone rogue,” Irisviel explained.

They were airborne, tens of thousands of miles above the earth’s surface, in a private jet owned by the von Eizbern family. Saber had had the inane thought that they were flying forward through time, but otherwise found the magic of flight unexceptional. Given her abilities, she could have flown it herself in an emergency. And besides, what was a metal contraption to a griffon, or a dragon? Oh beasts of feather and flesh, of scale and claw; gone from the world, left only as a ghost's memory. 

Irisviel continued:

“We received a missive from the Church. Every Master did. We are to work together, set aside our rivalries, hunt down Caster and his Master. Whoever succeeds will receive a boon from Rome.”

The Holy Grail was in Rome. In the last war, the final war, the victor had been pious, used his wish to become pope and deliver it unto the Church. Saber wondered what sort of boon Kiritsugu might desire. She was not convinced he had any semblance of natural human emotion, irrespective of what Irisviel might say to the contrary.

“I see. Thank you.”

Saber smoothed the crease bunched around her suit’s cufflink. She wore supple black gloves, of a make and cut intended for women. They fit perfectly, but she could not shake the sense that they should not; that they should catch on the hard callouses of her fingers and tear from the strain. 

Irisviel smiled. “It’s not so different from Britain, when you think about it.”

“I’m not certain I follow.”

“Japan. They’re both little islands, big personalities.”

Saber considered it. “I suppose that’s true.”

“We need to bring something back for Illya.” Irisviel looked sad, briefly. “I hope she won't miss us too terribly.”

“We’ll call upon arrival,” Saber assured her.

Irisviel smiled, and the sadness vanished. Saber wished she could shed her own sadness in such fashion: but too much of her own quietness resided within her. If the soul was the city, hers was an empty village painted in blue hues.

A brief, comfortable silence. The grumble of the jet engines whirred in the background. It proved rather soothing.

“The Tohsaka clan is throwing a celebration, once we disembark. Everyone is invited. We’re not to reveal our alliance with the Tohsaka’s, however. Both sides prefer to keep it close to their breast, it seems.”  

“Is that wise?” Saber asked. “Surely the focus should be on subduing the rogue spirit, not political maneuvering.”

Would she see Gilgamesh again? Saber hoped not. She had concluded, in the aftermath of their sexual congress and the perspective granted from distance and time, that his was an illusion of depth rather than any in truth. Bronze painted gold. Her palms prickled through the soft leather of her glove, and she rubbed them against her thighs.

“I couldn’t say. I’ve never considered myself wise,” Irisviel admitted.

“If you are not wise, then the rest of us are hopeless,” Saber said, resolutely solemn.

Irisviel laughed and turned on the television. She selected movies for them to watch and spent the rest of the flight justifying the romantic leads’ absurd decisions to an increasingly baffled Saber. Outside the jet’s window, its wing skimmed above soft white cloud banks, of a shade not dissimilar to Irisviel’s hair. Saber found herself half-wishing they would never land. But the thought was a weak, cowardly one, and she swiftly banished it to another realm.

…

They visited the most recent crime scene soon after they disembarked.

Kiritsugu waited for them outside the house, and curtly told Irisviel to remain in the car. The house's exterior appeared normal in every way, no hint offered of the horrors contained inside. Just another suburban shoin-inspired house among thousands. Saber wondered how the killers had chosen their victims. Why here? Why now? Or had it been entirely random?

Inside was awful. The bodies had been removed, but it still stunk of blood and urine and vomit. Blood smeared the entry hallway walls and stained the living room furniture, visible even with the windows shuttered. A television set played in the background, news station serendipitously discussing a rash of serial killings in Fuyuki City.

A summoning symbol had been inscribed in viscera on the floor and a cloying remnant of foul mana hung in the air. Even with the servant long gone, its evil intent clung like foul muck to Saber’s skin, alongside echoes of terror and despair. She stood guard by the entrance, silently enraged, while Kiritsugu moved around the room. He wore gloves and collected blood and hair samples in glass tubes.

“Why would one of such obvious instability have been selected at all?”

Only those blessed by the Holy Grail were gifted the means to summon a Heroic Spirit.

Kiritsugu took a moment to respond. “I don’t know.”

He walked past her, and she would not see him again for several days.

…

The Tohsaka's party was a dazzling affair. Mages from all corners of the world were in attendance, a cavalcade of colors and spices and sounds. The dining room tables were laden with cuisine from every continent, crystal chandeliers glittering overhead while the large group mingled together in a rich Romanesque setting. It was a mansion that seemed to take much more inspiration from western architecture than eastern architecture—in fact, the entire neighborhood was western inspired, which Saber found strange.  

Some of the Masters either came alone or sent their servants in their stead, such as Lancer, representative for the Archibald family. Saber rather liked Lancer, a comfortable familiarity to his countenance, even if the charmed mole troubled her. (It had no influence on her, given the strength of her Anti-Magic abilities, but she caught many other women swept up in adoration by the mere sight of him, even Irisviel momentarily agog.) He was honorable, however, and they agreed to a friendly duel before the business in Fuyuki concluded.

Beserker’s Master, meanwhile, came alone. He kept to himself in the shadows, and Saber noted that Tokiomi made a particularly concerted effort to ignore him. Then there was Rider, dragging his young Master in by the collar and brazenly announcing his identity for all to hear: Iskandar of Macedonia. It difficult to believe someone so brash and reckless had conquered most of the known world; at the same time, Saber found his forthright manner respectable.

Gilgamesh was nowhere to be seen.

Magic remained a heavy mantle on proceedings, richly embroidered with unseen power. It was rare for this many influential mages to gather in one place, a fact Irisviel repeated multiple times. Irisviel acted much more like a child in a candy shop than a demure lady of rich heritage, large eyes open wide as she took in everyone and everything milling about them. Saber wished she could enjoy her good friend’s joy—she knew Irisviel had never left the von Einzbern castle before now, and such an opportunity may not arise again for many years.

But Saber could not savor the festivities. Whenever she tried, a vision of the blood-soaked house rose in her mind’s eye. How could these men and women partake in food and drink without even a hint of remorse, a hint of shame? They should be out searching for the rogue Caster, rather than standing around laughing like everything was normal. It disgusted and perturbed Saber, though she refrained from making such thoughts known.

Even during her own time, she had had little patience for soirees. Saber tolerated them for the sake of her people, because it was expected of a good king, but she would much rather have been with her knights on the battlefield or out amongst the churls, assisting them in their daily hardships. Even a task as simple as tending the horses and other animals in the stables—anything would have been preferable. She was born and molded in the fabric of the Third Estate. Of course, Saber had long resigned herself to the truth: what she preferred mattered little.     

Eventually, Saber left Irisviel with Aoi. She needed air; she needed space. The chatter of the party muted to a low murmur out on the balcony. It was crystal clear outside, the spattered stars like scattered diamonds in a dead monarch’s grave. Much of Fuyuki spread out before her, an electric universe unto itself. The city was beautiful at night, and it saddened her, that such beauty masked unfathomable cruelty.

She sensed Gilgamesh before he materialized. A tingle of milk and honey on the tip of her tongue, a brush of incense under her nose. And a soft, wistful shimmer as motes of gold, a congregation of precious fireflies, gathered together and coalesced before her.

His eyes appeared first, blood red and looming. Saber was tumbling down into them—dropping down through a soundless tunnel to hell. He would have let her fall, she knew, down and down toward black mud and tapeworms. No one could have been more disinterested, no one could have been more reptilian to the core. 

But then Gilgamesh spoke, or rather laughed, and the dream—no, nightmare—broke. He broke it not out of kindness, but because of his cold pleasure in knowing what he knew about her. He had seen the cracks in her armor, had seen the dust and lice that festered like regret there.

“This is their happiness: they view all life without observing it. They’re buried in it like crabs in mud,” Gilgamesh said. 

“… A feast before the hunt is standard.”

Somehow, Saber was the defensive one, even if privately she agreed with Gilgamesh. She stayed calm, however. Her disquiet faded at the sight of him, replaced by a sensation of suspension in cold, deep water. 

"Except men, of course," he continued. "I am not in a mood, just yet, to talk of men.” 

Gilgamesh leaned against the balustrade and watched her, head tilted at an angle. He refused to look away. A slanted smirk quirked the corners of his mouth, hovered in a strange in-between state where it could have easily been a sneer instead. His hair was down, framing his face and softening the harshness of his haughty features. He wore a deep, v-neck linen shirt and snakeskin pants, the tight-fit clothes leaving little to the imagination. Saber wondered at the absurdity of Gilgamesh, his multivalence in both the utterly ridiculous and deadly serious.

“What happened before,” Saber said, when it became clear he would speak no further, only gawk, “cannot happen again.”

Gilgamesh chuckled. “Naturally. I had a revelation, after we parted: Some treasures are most beautiful when they are unobtainable. I have no interest in that which has lost even a fraction of its luster.”

It stung more than she expected, like the needle-thin stinger of a hornet in the palm. (The girl was still there, somewhere, frozen in amber, and he was still the first man she had ever been with, which surely meant—nothing. Somehow, Saber doubted most girls had experienced similar their first time. All slanted shower water to a rain-beat drum, her hands clawing at the mirror-soul beneath gold-toned skin while his cock ruthlessly claimed whatever purity might remain, stained as it was by years of murder. For tell me how does it feel with my teeth in your heart.)

Saber pressed down on the crease bunched around her suit’s cufflink. There was a tiny strip of flesh separating her glove from the cuff, and she pulled at the glove to better cover it. Her eventual response was droll: “Yet still I must suffer your conversation.” 

“I’m pleased your sense of humor remains intact. It’s perhaps your finest quality. Even so, you should not lie for the sake of a jest. You would not have sought me out otherwise.” His eyes and words glinted with the hard edge of gilded anger.

“I did not seek you out.” Irritation scalded the cool waves of indifference. “I wished to be alone.”

Gilgamesh studied her. He seemed to reach an inward conclusion, for he smiled, the epitome of smug confidence.

“Of course. Only when you are with me are you truly alone.”

Chapter 2

The celebration lasted late into the night. When they left at last, Irisviel was inebriated, listing heavily into Saber and making alarming suggestions about driving. Saber curtailed that notion before it could bloom into catastrophe and took the keys for the sake of their personal safety.

She drove to the forest edge, a forest thick with spirits. The overgrowth blocked out most of the starlight, interlocked brambles of the trees brushing against the top of the limo like a lover’s caress. The road wound and turned sharply at random, forcing Saber to drive slow. Headlights reflected off the eyes of what might have been a kirin, or maybe just a deer, before it vanished into the underbrush. At the forest’s center waited the von Einzbern villa, their base of operations in Fuyuki.  

It was an exact miniature of the Germany mansion. Something about the perfection of the replication disturbed Saber on a fundamental level, although she could not have articulated why. Perhaps it was not the artifice itself, but instead the utilization of artifice to extend and prolong legacy.

Regardless, Saber prodded Irisviel awake and guided her to their room. She helped the white-haired woman change into a nightgown and tucked her into bed. Irisviel smiled fondly, a slender figure dwarfed by an enormous four poster bed, red eyes gleaming with warmth. She reached out and took Saber’s hand.

“My knight in shining armor,” Irisiviel said drowsily.

Saber bowed. “Of course, princess.”

Irisviel giggled and relinquished her hold, turning over to pass out. Saber envied her friend immensely at that moment. For she had lived, and now she could not sleep. She waited several minutes longer to ensure Irisviel would not stir, then went to inspect the perimeter.

Kiritsugu and Tokiomi had collaborated to further reinforce the castle defenses. Gemstones were inserted into various tree trunks as well as the stone walls, laden with mana that, when triggered, could injure even a Heroic Spirit. Cameras capable of spotting invisible enemies were set everywhere, meticulously placed to overlap and minimize blind spots. Despite Saber’s best efforts, she found no flaw in their work. She could not decide whether to be impressed or irritated by this fact.

Around the back was a chapel, much akin to the one in Germany. After a brief hesitation, Saber entered it. Moonlight filtered through stained glass as she walked down the nave. She held one hand out, letting her fingers brush the smooth yew of the pews. The place was immaculate, albeit unused.

A strong melancholy overwhelmed Saber; she sat at the front, before the chapel altar, countless memories of countless masses passing over eyes closed in prayer. She could hear the Liturgy of the World, the psalms, the hymns of the choir boys—their beautiful voices frozen in time, many castratos, always overwhelmed by a sense of grief and kinship when she heard them—the conclusion of the priest during collection period: "Pray, brethren, that my sacrifice and yours may be acceptable to God, the almighty Father."

How long will you people turn my glory into shame?

How long will you love delusions and seek false gods?

Saber knew not how long she sat there, but eventually she rose again. She presented herself before the altar. Then and there she made a solemn oath to stop Caster and protect innocents from further harm.

A confessional box was built into the chapel. In Saber’s time, confessional boxes had not yet existed, but she instinctively knew their purpose regardless. She stepped into the penitent’s side and knelt, resting her head against the latticework separating her from where the priest would reside.

Inside was dark, the strained moonlight barely able to filter through. And silent, the silence born of God—the feeling that while men raised their voices in anguish, God remained afar with folded arms. She wondered at the natures of kings and priests, and concluded both were a sad group. Born into the world to render service unto mankind, no one was more wretchedly alone than those who did not measure up to their duty.

She sensed Gilgamesh. His presence burned like flame, although whether it was holy flame or hellfire, Saber could not determine. He made minimal effort to mask his presence, which would no doubt irk their Masters. She was unmoved, following his meandering energy as it slowly, inexorably, approached her.

If Saber was lucky, he might trigger a trap and be blown to smithereens.

Unfortunately, Saber led both a cursed life and an even more cursed non-death, for the door to the chapel creaked open. His footsteps echoed loud in the silent night, louder and louder the closer he drew toward her. Gilgamesh entered the central compartment without hesitation, and Saber briefly contemplated whether she should strike him down for his blasphemous disrespect. But the truth was she had no desire to harm Gilgamesh, so she refrained in the end. His red eyes smoldered like embers beyond the latticework.

“And what brings the flower, plucked and scattered in her petals, withered on the stem, to such an abode?” Gilgamesh asked.

“If you are here only to provoke me, leave.”

Her words were toneless, colorless. She was tired. Saber was always tired, in truth, but in the dark it became undeniable.

There was a pause. She heard Gilgamesh shift, the wood around him creak. He said, “It is an earnest question.”

Part of Saber had no interest in discussing such matters with one such as him. It seemed almost ludicrous, in fact. But another part of her desperately longed to confide in him, understood he was the only one she could speak to, candidly—the only one whom she could bare her fangs at and feel no shame. The heathen god-king who desired to possess her then discard her: yes, it could only be him.

“Why did you answer the call?” Saber asked.

Gilgamesh was slow to answer. She thought he might refuse, even.

“I wanted to know if this era contained any treasures worthy of me. Thus far, I am unconvinced. And you?”

“I heard a voice,” Saber admitted. “It cut through everything, the stench of death, the wails of the dying, the calls of the carrion birds. And I—I’m not telling you this.”

She had never told anyone what happened while locked in the tyranny of the hill, of the moments before Kiritsugu summoned her. Not even Irisviel. Moreover, Saber was afraid he would laugh at her if she told him. It was too close to her heart to bear such an affront.

“You must. I graced you with my reason, now tell me yours. It is Law.” 

Whatever law Gilgamesh referenced was no doubt one he had fabricated on the spot. But Saber relented anyway, toying with the hem of her glove. 

“It was such a beautiful voice. Beautiful and good. I thought”—she almost said it sounded like the voice of God—“I-I thought it meant I’d been… forgiven.” 

Saber braced herself. But no laughter came from Gilgamesh. His breathing was oddly labored, yet otherwise he stayed quiet. Emboldened, she continued: 

“I don’t think that anymore. Sometimes I wonder if I merely exchanged hell for purgatory. Or if… infinite wrath and infinite despair… which way I fly is hell; myself I am hell.”

She paused, head bowed, overwhelmed by sorrow. Gilgamesh moaned. Saber froze, hardly able to believe what she just heard. She had not considered a worse response than for him to laugh, but, as per usual, she had not considered the depths of his depravity. 

“Are you…?”

I cannot resist,” he said, breathlessly, “your self-pity is just so... masturbatory…”

“Bastard!”

Saber was on her feet in an instant. Excalibur burst to life in her hand, its golden light illuminating the interior of the confessional box. She saw Gilgamesh clearly on the latticework’s other side, face flushed, one hand splayed against the wall and the other treacherously dipped below her line of sight. 

She swallowed hard, her own body betraying her with a surge of heat sunk dangerously low, even while foreign emotions welled in the corners of her eyes. Saber was aghast to realize she verged on tears, and ruthlessly crushed the emotional response. She would not grant a tyrant the satisfaction of making her cry—she would not.

Saber was the ideal king. When she smiled, it had been because her people smiled. When she cried, it had been because her people cried. She was inhuman, had no need for human emotion. She would encase them in a jar of stone and drown them in the river Thames. The anger also faded away, submerged in a lake of cool, calm indifference. 

Excalibur disappeared. They cast their lots in darkness once more. Gilgamesh laughed now, softly.

“Have you ever touched yourself?”

As though she would sully herself in such wanton fashion. A lake, Saber reminded herself. She was a lake of indifference. If she rose to his cruel jibes, she would give him what he wanted; what he wanted was a reaction.  

Saber answered through grit teeth: “No.”

“Mmm. I felt the same, for the longest time. But then I realized: Who is more worthy to give pleasure to me, than myself? And now I masturbate every day—”

“Why do you insult me? Do you believe I care to hear this?” Saber asked, outraged. She should leave. 

“Is that not what this infernal contraption is for? Tell me more of your sins, I would so love to judge them.” 

She should leave right now. And she would, in a moment, once Gilgamesh understood how little he meant to her. “You are no priest.”

“I can always fetch Kirei.”

That seemed worse, somehow. Kirei Kotomine might be ordained, but he made her skin crawl.

Gilgamesh said, “It's a meaningless distinction, however. I know many verses. A difficult book to find, yet I, the great King Gilgamesh, persevered.”

Saber’s traitorous mouth twitched against her will. Gilgamesh pressed on:

 

“Arise, my love, my beautiful one,

and come away,

for behold, the winter is past;

the rain is over and gone.

 

The flowers appear on the earth,

the time of singing has come,

and the voice of the turtledove

is heard in our land.

 

The fig tree ripens its figs,

and the vines are in blossom;

they give forth fragrance.

 

Arise, my love, my beautiful one,

and come away.

 

Oh my dove, in the clefts of the rock,

in the crannies of the cliff,

let me see your face,

let me hear your voice,

for your voice is sweet,

and your face is lovely.

 

Catch the foxes for us,

the little foxes

that spoil the vineyards,

for our vineyards are in blossom.”

 

A hot blush heated Saber’s face, much to her mortification. His low, full baritone easily captured the cadences of the verse, words flowing from his mouth in a silken, lustful rush. They were clear and vivid enough she could almost touch them, almost taste them, and she shifted, uncomfortable. 

He only hitched from time to time at the end of each line, rhythm interrupted by grunts of pleasure as he drew closer to release—but somehow, it made the rendition sear even hotter against her flesh. Saber became aware of a dampness between her legs.

“Of course you memorized the erotic poetry,” Saber muttered, thighs pressed together. 

Gilgamesh managed a strained chuckle, then groaned. She frowned.

“What game are you playing now, Archer?” Saber asked, knowing well his designated name would irritate him. Judging by the sharp inhale on the other side of the confessional box, she was correct in her assessment. “I have no interest in being subject to your mercurial whims.”

“You should be honored, Arturia,” Gilgamesh countered, “I thought I had grown bored of you, your allure lost alongside your womanhood, but it seems you still—ugh, fuck!—yet stoke my passions. Come here.”

“No.”

“I want you,” he said. “I want your mouth on my cock.”

“Absolutely not.” Saber was disgusted. She dug her gloved hands into her clenched thighs. A lake. 

“Why not? Have you never had a man’s cock in your mouth before? There is nothing else like it. All their essence, right there, between your jaw like fertile land between two rivers. There is an artery, just so, and if you press your tongue against it, you can taste their pulse, let the beat of it linger on the tip of your tongue. When you truly know what you’re doing, sometimes they will lose control and try to fuck your face. In that moment, they belong to you and you alone. Of course, everyone already belongs to me anyway, but you understand my point, I am certain.” 

None ever spoke in such vulgar fashion to her. Before her ascension, Kay would often boast of those he bedded—unless he knew she was near. And sometimes, Saber would catch a smattering of conversations from her knights, ribald re-enactments of sordid encounters with women, but they always fell silent when she drew near. 

Saber had not understood their reticence: she had been married, after all. She knew the principles of seduction, though she found them useless to be an ideal king and therefore paid them little heed. Even Merlin tended to speak in euphemisms around her, and he had been a damn incubus. 

So, it was an understatement to say she had little clue how to handle Gilgamesh’s crude candor. 

“I…” Saber said, strangled, heart suddenly beating fast. “You are uncircumcised.” 

She could not think of a better rebuttal, an ugly blush now spreading from her face to her entire body and the hammering now pulsing in her ears, deafening rational thought. Her hands would not stop trembling. A tiny voice in the back of her head was shouting that she should leave before it was too late, before even more profane acts occurred, but Saber could not adequately hear that either. The lake was boiling. She needed to loosen the tie constricting her neck.

“Un—” Gilgamesh howled with laughter, then uttered a strangled sighing noise. He had made the same noise when he came inside her, and she knew Gilgamesh just orgasmed. Saber heard him thump against the wall. “Gods, Arturia. It was frightfully dull without you around.”

He missed her. The revelation struck Saber abruptly, the prideful triumph on its heels almost more of a surprise. She might have said more throughout the night, but his unspoken admission was the greatest confession of all. For tell me how does it feel with my teeth in your heart! 

Saber stood and left the confessional. She found cloth folded on the altar and, ignoring the internal protests of blasphemy—the Lord knew Gilgamesh had already defiled this place, though given the von Einzbern’s nature, that may not even matter—carried it with her back to the confessional box.

Gilgamesh emerged, expression inscrutable, the glass-stained moonlight casting curious shadows over his face, pants hung low enough on the slim curve of his hips that she could see the v-shape of his pelvis. He watched her duck into the center of the confessional box, watched her kneel and begin to wipe away the semen splattered about inside. There was an odd odor to it, harsh like chemicals, and she was almost curious when she gathered the milky white substance in the cradle of the cloth.

“That is beneath you.”

Saber ignored him at first, to make him wait. She had won the upper hand. While Gilgamesh no doubt sensed the shift, he would not figure out how she managed it. A rustle, and she could tell he was frustrated. An inane thought struck to her.

“I find it hard to believe you would ever allow a man’s… a man in your mouth.”

Gilgamesh seemed taken aback. When he spoke, she could hear the smirk. “My gate is open to any I deem worthy, Arturia.”

She blushed, amazed and enflamed in equal measure by the confidence behind such a ridiculous statement, all the more ridiculous because it was stated in absolute earnest. Her grip tightened on the cloth, and she took a deep breath to reassert control.

“Tomorrow, I begin the search for Caster. I expect you to assist me. We are allies, after all.”

“Obviously,” Gilgamesh said, measured. “Such a wretched, miserable creature must be put down. I will not tolerate insane mongrels in my vicinity.”

Saber hesitated. She stared at the intricately carved mahogany wood of the confessional box, stained with smeared flecks of Gilgamesh’s cum. Tomorrow she would search for cleaning supplies. She said: 

“It’s easy enough to care for the good and beautiful; far harder to care for the wretched and miserable.”

No response. Suddenly Saber felt a weight around her waist as Gilgamesh pulled her to her feet and toward him. She let him, a light tingle starting in her hips where the points of his hand rested, swiftly spreading across her entire body. Saber shivered.   

“Touching you I catch midnight,” Gilgamesh murmured, nosing the delicate skin behind her ear, “as moon fires set in my throat.”

No one had touched her there since he left. A lack ached in her breast. The gold bangle adorning his ear brushed her shoulder, metal butterfly kisses. His large hand, fingers long and tapered like the legs of a spider, easily dwarfed her own. Saber said nothing when he gripped her wrist, forcing her to drop the soiled cloth, then guided her hand beneath the band of her pants and between her legs.

“This modern outfit is loathsome,” Gilgamesh told her, tracing the outline of her ear with his tongue.

Saber blinked, caught off guard. Irisviel had gifted the suit to her, and she had not given it much thought beyond that. It was just another article of clothing to wear. Given his reaction, she might endeavor to wear it more often.

Then the cool leather of her glove brushed the heated core of her center, and Saber gasped softly, suit forgotten. She had not realized how wet she was until it quickly soaked through the glove to prickle her fingers.

“Touch yourself, Arturia. For me.”

The for me stirred her to action. Saber gingerly rubbed her hand against her mound, sensation unfamiliar but not unpleasant, texture of the leather entirely new. Gilgamesh’s own hand shadowed hers, mimicking her movements without interference.

She could not help but think it would be far more pleasurable if Gilgamesh touched her himself, briefly discontent. His other hand was against her stomach, ensnaring her in a hungry embrace. The lean lines of his muscular body pressed against her back, familiar despite everything, for she had thought about them in the after of it all, both often and never, when she was patrolling the castle walls or in the shower—

The gloved hand brushed her sensitive clit, and Saber jerked. His smirk curved against her ear, tips now bright pink, before he sucked on her earlobe. It succeeded in drawing a moan from her, voice pitched higher than normal, hips grinding in small circles against her hand.

Saber raised her free hand to her mouth and tore off the glove before digging her fingers into his blond hair. It felt as good as she remembered, thick and soft; she tightened her grip to the point of pain. Gilgamesh groaned, and it reverberated in the shell of her ear.

In response, Saber yanked his head to the side—turned her own so she could bare her teeth upon his skin and silence any sound pulled from her into the ancient sin of his dead flesh.

Chapter 3

Notes:

cw: some minor bdsm in this chapter. It’s nothing too hardcore, but I mostly just want to be clear that Gil and Art have terrible etiquette and should not be emulated in that respect. Or most respects, really. (Which I’m sure people understand, just want to be safe.) The unhealthy relationships tag is there for a reason.

If I wasn’t a lazy fuck and still did chapter titles, this one would probably be something like ‘two power bottoms fight for supremacy’ or something equally stupid idk.

Also changed the name, because the theme break from the older stories annoyed me more than I thought it would.

“Are they still there?”

Maiya walked over to the small table of the nondescript hotel room they were staying at, mug of hot coffee in one hand. It was early, light of pre-dawn barely sneaking through the closed window curtains. The sliver caught the coffee's edges and set its rim alight with gold. Kiritsugu and Tokiomi were already seated, Kiritsugu hunched over a map of Fuyuki. The map had detailed notes scrawled in the margins, different areas color-coded to indicate residential, business, education, retail locations.

Tokiomi seemed to be trying very hard to look anywhere but the room's farthest corner, where a television with security camera footage was set. One camera recorded the limousine parked outside the von Einzbern villa. It was far enough away that the images were grainy, but the two Heroic Spirits—Archer and Saber—had clearly been seen staggering into it in the dead of night. They had been there for hours. The enchanted lenses were capable of piercing tinted windows and the rocking motions within left little to the imagination.

Maiya was impressed, to be honest. It was like they accidentally wire tapped an Olympic Village. The powers of Heroic Spirits were indeed remarkable.

“If nothing has changed, don’t worry about it,” Kiritsugu said, voice strident despite never rising above a whisper.

He remained fixated on the map. Though he would not indicate it verbally, Maiya knew Kiritsugu well enough to understand the Fuyuki murders—many of them children—upset him greatly. She nodded, serious once more, and sat beside him. With luck, the DNA samples would return soon, and they would have an idea of the master’s identity. The technology was often unreliable, but better than nothing, and Maiya trusted it more than magecraft by far.

“It’s something to worry about, though?” Tokiomi asked.

He kept stroking his well-maintained goatee with one hand, Avalon with the other. He was nervous too, had asked for the mythical sheath to better protect his wife and daughter, given Caster’s propensity for young women. It was a request Kiritsugu accepted reluctantly—he had hoped to keep Avalon with Irisviel—and one more for appearances than pragmatism, since Avalon only functioned in King Arthur’s presence. But the weapon Tokiomi gifted them, from Archer’s treasury no less, would mitigate the loss; would be applicable to more scenarios and be more useful overall, in Maiya’s opinion.

“My adorable King of Knights is ever loyal, even when it does not serve her best interests,” Kiritsugu said, focused on the map, “the world will end before she abandons her duties. As for Archer, I couldn’t say. Perhaps you have finally found a means to control him.”

Tokiomi flushed. Then he smiled, rueful. “When I first summoned Archer, I was so pleased, you know. A mythic figure of the past, bound to my will! Incredible. I recently bought this video game for Rin. One with little yokai-like monsters that fight for you. She showed it to me, and it seemed so simple. Press the button, they attack. All orders followed without question. Input, output, input, output. Some part of me thought it would be the same with a Heroic Spirit, even as I was warned about how pernicious the Archer class could be. I had not realized they could be so human. The height of arrogance, in retrospect. Ah, but don’t tell Archer I said that! I don’t think he’d ever forgive me.” 

A moment of silence.

“Unless you trade,” Kiritsugu said. He looked up, finally, from his work. There were deep, dark bags under his eyes, to match his five o’clock shadow. Tokiomi blinked. “The game. Pokémon, right? If you trade, they may not listen.”

“Ahh… uh, I suppose…”

“My daughter loves that game.”

Kiritsugu resumed his duties. An awkward silence descended over them all. Maiya sipped her coffee and tried to ignore the security footage.

…

Saber awoke naked in the passenger seat of the limo, curled up on Gilgamesh’s lap.

In truth, it was not an awakening, not truly, more stirring from a waking dream. She had never felt less tired, the energy from Gilgamesh surging through her and counteracting the ache between her legs. He might be one of the few servants with more power than her, further supplemented by the impressive mana reserves of Tokiomi Tohsaka. She had the urge to run forever through mountain ranges, but curbed the unruly desire, alongside the desire to wake Gilgamesh and have him take her again.

Gilgamesh was covered in scratches and bruises. Had she done that? More importantly, why had he not healed the injuries? What a confounding man. Saber frowned, annoyed by how her skin, sticky with sweat and semen and even blood, clung to Gilgamesh’s own skin. He was disgusting, she was disgusting, they were disgusting; above all else, sex was disgusting, and she resolved to never engage in it again. Saber had no idea how to extricate herself from this situation without disturbing him. If only she could de-materialize like a normal spirit.

And where the hell was her suit? It was a gift from Irisviel, she would not leave it behind. Saber attempted to place an arm on the headrest and peel herself free, only to meet his vivid red gaze. Suddenly their positions were reversed, her back pressed against the cool leather seat while Gilgamesh hovered over her.

“What have we here? My beautiful lioness, trying to flee?”

Gilgamesh leered, pinning her wrists above her head and pushing her legs apart. Saber stared back, steady, even while her stomach clenched with renewed longing. She wet her lower lip with her tongue, and his eyes immediately dropped to her mouth.

“No. I just—”

Gilgamesh kissed her, interrupting her train of thought. He was a miraculous kisser; the world dissolved into white emptiness when he touched her most sensitive areas. She did not have to be anything for anyone in such moments, she simply was. To be, or not, to sleep—perchance, even to dream.

The head of his cock rubbed against the slit of her cunt, teasing. Saber groaned and tried to pull him more fully into her, but Gilgamesh resisted the notion. Bastard.

“Hurry,” she mumbled around his mouth.

Gilgamesh drew back, affronted. “Do not rush the king.”

“I have to check on Irisviel,” Saber said. This only seemed to annoy him more. Honestly, he was fussier than most women.

“You would rather be with a doll than with me?”

“Yes.” Saber was amazed he even thought the question worthwhile to ask.

Gilgamesh darkened, grip on her wrists tightening painfully. Not that Saber minded, if anything it made her want him more. The pain curled pleasantly low in her abdomen, a delicious shift in pitch from the pleasure. His words, however, were anything but pleasant.

“Listen carefully, Arturia. You are now mine; you belong to me. There will be none of this—”

Saber concluded Gilgamesh would speak nothing of value and broke his grip. Her hand shot out to wrap around his throat and he froze, etched from stone aside from the false beat against her palm. Gilgamesh’s expression transformed into pure disbelief, genuinely dumbfounded by the boldness of the act.

“Once, one of the many times the Saxons invaded my country,” Saber said, tone flat and neutral, “they sent one of their strongest warriors to assassinate me, a man able to manifest aspects of the wolf. He was strong, even managed to separate my sword and sheath from my person. We engaged in hand-to-hand combat, and I had to strangle him. It’s curious, how powerful men can be, yet fragile, too. He was strong, incredibly strong, but his windpipe was still so easily crushed.”

She stroked the vein in Gilgamesh’s neck with the side of her thumb. His pulse fluttered beneath her touch like the burr of a hummingbird’s wing. Gilgamesh regarded Saber, expression blank. When he spoke, there was a rasp that had not been there before, there from the pressure at his larynx, and it inspired still more heat inside her.  

“Did you regret it?” he asked.

The question puzzled her. They had attacked her, had attacked her lands. Her sorrow was reserved for her people, the knights she had failed, not foreign savages. To protect others meant to conquer aggressors.

“Of course not.” Saber loosened her chokehold. “For what it’s worth, I paid his weregild anyway, and it cost a fortune—”

Gilgamesh laid a hand over hers, stopping her. His flushed face was almost as red as his eyes. “Don’t.”

Saber went agape. She was blushing too, tips of her ears hot pink, and she tightened her grip on his throat, just enough to hurt. Gilgamesh placed an arm above her head, bracketing her in, the other arm sliding under her knee to push it upward. His gaze locked with hers as he sank into her, filling her to the hilt.

She let out an embarrassingly breathless noise, mouth slack and eyes glazing over somewhat, but her hold never wavered. Red marks marred his neck, indented against the calloused pads of her fingers; there would be still more bruises to add to the collection already mottling his beautiful skin, a vibrant, colorful yet violent tapestry. One she had created, no one else but her.

They did not last long that go-around.

…

Irisviel was hung over. She resisted Saber’s efforts to cajole her out of bed, curled under the comforters with a pillow over her head. Saber had donned her Heroic Spirit outfit, no time to change into mundane clothes, garb a drab blue in wan light.

“It’s okay, Saber, I’ll go later. You have to find Caster, and I would only slow you down.” Her voice was muffled by the layer of cloth and down between her and Saber.

Saber frowned. “I am not particularly enamored with the idea of leaving you alone.”

The sheets twisted and contorted. Bleary red eyes emerged to peer at her over the edge of the pillow. “Kiritsugu wouldn’t have me stay here if it wasn’t secure. Don’t worry, I won’t leave the castle. Just keep in mind the interesting places in town, so you can show them to me later.”

Saber hesitated, acquiesced with a slight inclination of the head. “Very well. I shall ensure my capture of Caster is swift, so we have time to enjoy Fuyuki without concern.”

“I know you will,” Irisviel said fondly.

Saber smiled and took extra care to exit the room without limping. Gilgamesh waited for her outside, arms folded and gaze distant. She wondered what he thought about, when he wasn’t thinking about himself. Sex, probably.

She contemplated driving the limo, then decided she would rather walk. Gilgamesh smirked when she stalked past it, but Saber steadfastly ignored him.

“What’s the plan?” he asked, following behind her.

“I have a decent understanding of what his mana signature feels like, after visiting a victim’s home. My hope is that I can pick it up and locate them in that fashion.”

“You believe no one has tried that?” Gilgamesh’s incredulity was obvious. Saber scowled but faced forward, one foot in front of the other. She would not look back.

“If you have a better plan, enlighten me.”

He scoffed. The next few hours passed in silence, neither in the mood to talk. Around them the forest was in the bloom of spring, rich with life and bursting with greenery. It felt far less intimidating, as if the mysterious, numinous quality it contained had been lost, or perhaps driven into hiding. What ghosts and spirits lurked there chose not to reveal themselves in the harsh light of day.

Saber let the rhythms of nature calm her. The soft chirrup of insects and cries of birds, the rustle of leaves, the space between trunks her mind could occupy. It reinvigorated and sustained her. She had missed the forest, so much of her time spent locked in a cold, wintery castle. It had been similar before and during her rule, when she would run wild through the woods with Kay until the sword was pulled from the stone.

They left in the morning and arrived in central Fuyuki close to noontime. The streets were filled with people going about their daily lives, unconcerned or oblivious to the unseen danger around them. Cities were much larger and more densely crowded compared to Saber’s time. After the summoning, she had spent much of the modern era in seclusion; part of her regarded the crush of humanity with thinly veiled fascination.

Saber attempted to focus, expand her senses. Invisible energy danced along ley lines, hummed along the edges of her skin. Powerful mages were now abundant in the city, their mana presence bright bonfires in the dark. And the energy of the Heroic Spirits brighter still, nova-bright and fast approaching—

“Ho there, Saber!”

She settled within herself and found Iskandar striding toward her from the opposite direction. He was large enough to easily clear a path on the sidewalk. His Master accompanied him as well as, surprisingly enough, Lancer. Lancer bore the bemused look of someone who had been taken hostage and still had not quite come to terms with the fact; a compliment to Iskandar’s Master, bearing the expression of one resigned to their kidnapping.

“Hail, King of Conquerors.” Saber raised a hand in greeting. “How goes the search on your end? Regrettably, we’ve only just begun.”

Iskandar opened his mouth to reply then paused, confused. Lancer also tilted his head.

“We?” Lancer asked.

She realized, then, that Gilgamesh had de-materialized. His presence could still faintly be felt by her, abhorrent in its familiarity even when masked, but she was by all appearances, alone. She grimaced.

“I apologize, I misspoke,” Saber said curtly. “The mistake is mine to bear.”

Chapter 4

“Water samples?” Saber questioned.

The boy, Waver, nodded sheepishly. He was a nervous soul, shying away from her stare and clinging to Iskandar’s shadow like a lover. Only when Iskandar acted out of turn did he ever seem to come alive, as though he took unnamable pleasure in berating the ancient king and being berated in return.

“I-I, I think I know how Caster is moving around the city unseen. I just need to perform some tests along the Mion River and hopefully locate the entrance.”

Lancer walked beside Saber, quiet. Iskandar, meanwhile, strode ahead. He seemed distracted, head on a swivel to fully absorb the sights of Fuyuki City. She came to realize her original observation had been wrong, that there was a noticeable gloom to the downtown citizen's movements, no doubt inspired by the murders. Those who ventured beyond their homes hurried past without making eye contact.

“You believe him to be in the sewers?” Saber asked, after consideration.

“Yes.” Waver nodded. “His targets have all been low-level mages, poor mostly, and such neighborhoods tend to be more obvious about where they place their manholes. They’re ugly, you know, but they don’t care about that too much. I don’t… I don’t think his Master is very strong, and they’re using their victims to maintain Caster.”

Lancer laughed abruptly. “I now understand how my Master underestimated you.”

Waver blushed bright red and stumbled over a non-response. Saber raised an eyebrow. “Oh?”

“I was only recently summoned,” Lancer explained, smiling, “my esteemed Master graced by the miracle of the Holy Grail at last. Of course, originally, it was not I he had chosen, but another.”

He gestured toward Iskandar. The large Macedonian harrumphed, back still turned as he strode ever forward. “Truly, I avoided a dreadful fate. That craven could never have been my Master.”

“You should speak more carefully, King of Conquerors.” The mirth vanished from Lancer’s face. “I will not tolerate slander toward my liege.”

Iskandar paused, abruptly enough Waver ran into him and bounced off. Saber caught the boy before he could fall and steadied him. He blushed an even darker shade of red and stepped away, rubbing his arm, stammering a continual stream of nonsense. It was endearing, if a touch pathetic.

The King of Conquerors sized Lancer up. Lancer stared back steadily, unintimidated. A massive smile burst across Iskandar’s face, and the tension burst alongside it. “You are an admirable man, Lancer, of that I am certain. Devotion to one’s lord is always commendable. Alas, if only you could serve under me instead. What a shame.”

He scratched the back of his head.

“I was quite flattered, until that final remark, anyway,” Lancer huffed, amused. “It will be a shame, then, that I must defend my Master’s honor with your head, once this truce has concluded. A thief is still a thief, ultimately.”

Waver uttered a high-pitched squeak. Iskandar laughed and resumed striding forward. Saber regarded Lancer closely. The mole, the loyalty. Of course.

“I can’t believe it took me until now to realize it,” she said. “You are Diarmuid Ua Duihbne, are you not?”

“Well done, Saber!” Diarmuid grinned. “Perhaps our duel will be proper and honorable after all, with our true names declared to one another.”

“Indeed. For I am King Arthur, although I was christened Arturia Pendragon at birth. I would fight as Sir Waver’s champion in the aftermath of this conflict, if you will accept the challenge.”

Iskandar did a double take. He eyed her curiously, dark eyes bright.

“Truly? What an honor!” Diarmuid chuckled. “To cross blades with the King of Knights, the king of that island across the channel from mine. Yes. Yes, I would enjoy that very much indeed. I will have to speak with my Master on it first, though, he was ever upset about Sir Waver’s indiscretion.”

“Certainly,” Saber said.

Waver looked like he was about to black out.

“Would you grow a spine, boy?” Iskandar called over his shoulder. “You’re embarrassing me in front of another king. That cannot abide.”

Waver grumbled under his breath, but straightened, walk now closer to a march. Saber shared an amused glance with Diarmuid. The rest of the trip to the wharf passed in amicable silence. It had been a long time since she experienced genuine companionship with anyone other than Irisviel; good-natured companionship, rather than whatever the thing was between her and Gilgamesh. 

She would miss this moment, however fleeting it might be, once they returned to Germany. It was strange, Saber reflected, that comradery could be found even when the cruelest aspects of humanity were made manifest. Or perhaps it was another sign of her many, many weaknesses fostered throughout the idle years. She moved a step slower at the morose possibility.

If anyone noticed, they said nothing. Much of the afternoon was spent walking the bank of the Mion, watching Waver collect samples. The salt spray scent of the nearby ocean was familiar to Saber, although she could not exactly describe it as nostalgic; it had been the lifeblood of Britain, but also brought doom to Britain’s shores, over and over again, in waves inevitable as high tide.

Eventually, Waver was satisfied, in the midst of explaining how pH values functioned and their interactions with mana, when the loud burble of his stomach interrupted him. He reddened. Iskandar perked at the sound.

“Let’s eat, I too am starving!”

“Is that wise?” Saber asked, pensive. “We should not waste time.”

“Ah, Saber, are you not a warrior? You should know better than anyone that to fight unprepared is an unnecessary disadvantage.”

“Not a warrior,” Saber corrected, frowning, “I am a knight.”

Warriors killed without distinction. She followed a code, so there might be civility to violent conflicts. It was important to make this understood, even if part of her no longer believed it—perhaps had never truly believed it.

Iskandar’s expression briefly turned sardonic. “Of course. But regardless, the food of the Far East is incredible, and I must taste more of it! I have already located a restaurant for us, in my tourist's pamphlet! Now, cease these complaints and come along!”

And he was off. Truly, the King of Conquerors was a whirlwind of a man, his Master stumbling along in the carnage left behind, hard at work just to keep pace. Saber and Diarmuid shared another glance, more beleaguered this time, but followed suit.

Iskandar had chosen a family-owned yoshoku restaurant. The food was a distinctive blend of western and Japanese cuisine, most well-known for beef soaked in demi-glace sauce. A delicious smell wafted out of the open doors, and Saber’s mouth watered against her will. It was a small building, but meticulously maintained.

She was about to step beyond the threshold alongside the others when a faint touch brushed her elbow. A known sensation prickled her skin: Gilgamesh. She felt him move away, toward the shop rooftop, and sighed. Diarmuid paused to glance back, inquisitive, door held open. The light from the restaurant spilled out on the sidewalk, mixed with the orange glow of late afternoon, inviting her inside.

“I’ll be there soon,” Saber said. “First I must engage in private communications.”

“Very well. Don’t keep us waiting too long, though,” Diarmuid replied, smiling. He shut the door behind him.

Saber discreetly sidled into the side alley, then skipped up the side of the building to the roof. She landed on her feet, light as a cat, scowling. “This better be important, Archer—”

She halted, startled. Gilgamesh was not alone. He materialized before her, an ebony-skinned man in the shadow of his golden glow. The man sat hunched on the balustrade, perfectly balanced, a thumb pressed against his mask’s carved front tooth.

“I know you derive immense pleasure from always thinking the worst of me,” Gilgamesh said, “but I told you I would assist, and my word is law.”

Saber decided to ignore the first part of his statement. “This is the Church’s servant, then?”

There were seven Heroic Spirits in all the world, but one of the seven always belonged to a priest. It had been so ever since the Mage's Association was dissolved and absorbed into the infrastructure of the Church. More often than not, the Servant was Assassin, to better surveil the other Heroic Spirits and their Masters. It was rumored Kotomine Kirei had inherited his father’s servant after his abrupt death, and it now seemed more likely than ever.

Gilgamesh folded his arms and stared at Assassin expectantly. Assassin took a second to catch on, then nodded vigorously. “Right, right. Caster must have realized he’s being hunted, and been pretty slick since everyone arrived. Not slick enough for us, though. By our count, he’s stolen at least four children out of their beds, and one woman, some of them from the neighboring cities as well. We were able to track his lab in the sewers, but it was already abandoned by the time we arrived.”

“Can you lead us there?” Saber asked. She was irked that Gilgamesh had not informed her of this plan and therefore wasted everyone’s time—but still, it was helpful. Anger would have been petty, so she just simmered internally instead.

“Yeah, no problem,” Assassin said. “Like, right now or…?”

Saber hesitated. “Yes, right now.”

“No, not right now,” Gilgamesh said. “First I wish to sample the food here, see if it passes my muster.”

Saber had half a mind to leave him behind. She rubbed her temple, stifling a groan. But it would be wiser, anyway, to examine the lab with the entire group. And it would save Waver further trouble.

“Fine. But be swift about it. Assassin, you will reconvene with us by the river, then?”

Assassin stared at her. “I mean, I could. But...”

“Saber, you do my kin a disservice.” Gilgamesh laughed. “Do you not suppose he also wishes to indulge?”

Saber froze, then blushed bright red. It was rare for her to experience mortification, but in that moment it was the only word that fit. To move beyond the faux pas, she asked, “Your kin?”

“He hails from land home to ancient Aratta, a city-state at war with fair Uruk when my grandfather ruled,” Gilgamesh explained. “But they submitted once I took the throne, enthralled by my magnificence. I sired many a child with their women. Assassin is still a mongrel, of course, but far less than most.”

He looked smugly pleased with himself. Saber scowled, irritated.

“You are deeply heretical, King of Heroes,” Assassin said. He seemed more amused than offended. “And yet, when I gaze upon you, I see a visage of our nations, untouched by invaders. It is a beautiful lie, ultimately, but it feels real when I am in your presence; it lets me dream of a future where that beautiful lie is reality for our homeland.”

Gilgamesh smirked. “I respond to the invocation of the supplicant when he calls upon Me. So let them respond to Me, and believe in Me that they may be guided.”

Assassin chuckled, a rasping sound like rusted blades grinding together. Saber found herself disarmed by an aspect of Gilgamesh she had never seen before; in that moment, she was an outsider. It discomfited her.

“Let’s not dawdle,” she said, gruffly, and turned away.

The bell to the restaurant jingled when they entered, Gilgamesh and Assassin flanking either side of Saber. Waver and the other Heroic Spirits were at the bar, already digging into their meals. It smelled wonderful, air laden with scents of cooked meat and fried rice and rich seasonings. Against her will, Saber’s mouth watered. The restaurant was half-full, the other patrons seated at tables and discreetly eyeing the foreign group.

Diarmuid and Waver watched them approach, expressions intrigued. Iskandar was distracted talking to the cook, mouth full of food and laughter. His bellow cut through the din of conversation easily: “Yes! I saw baseball on the television! You are like them? They were amazing!”

“Ah, I was never that good.” The cook laughed, embarrassed. He was middle aged and hunched and moved like someone who had spent their entire life at work. “And I injured my knee too badly, anyway, to continue. But thank you for the compliment, stranger. Your Japanese is incredible.”

He bowed slightly.

“Anytime!” Iskandar said. “You should take pride in knowing that many baseball players have made the pros—however, not many can claim they met Iskandar, King of Conquerors! Haha—ah, Saber! And what’s this? The rest of my retinue? Ah, we are just missing Berserker then, which, perhaps for the best. They tend not to be great conversationalists. Welcome, allies!”

“Your retinue?” Diarmuid asked, with good humor. Iskandar grinned broadly in response.

Gilgamesh ignored them, taking a seat in the stool Saber pulled out for him. Assassin studied the menu.

“Is your food halal?” Assassin asked.

“Err…” said the cook, uncertain.

“I’ll just have the Neapolitan spaghetti then, please. No meat.”

“Yes, sir.” The cook bowed slightly then faced Saber and Gilgamesh, expectant.

She ordered a croquette, while Gilgamesh, predictably, asked for whatever best befit a king. The cook nodded and started work on their orders. Iskandar snapped his fingers.

“What a perfect response! Why didn’t I think of that? Although, I have quite enjoyed my beef stew. Did you know meat consumption was not prevalent in Japan until they began trade with the West? I learned about it from the television! Japan was fairly isolationist until Americans arrived on their black ships and forced them to open their borders.”

Waver choked on his food. “Rider! You can’t just say that!”     

“Why not?” Iskandar asked. “It’s true. Besides, the United States of America will be the strongest enemy I face when I begin conquering the world. I must be prepared for glorious battle against Clinton and his legions!”

Saber lacked the mental capacity to handle another megalomaniac. So, she tuned out Waver’s stuttered answer, studying the interior instead. It was a small place, worn and cramped, but clean and maintained with an obvious sense of love. At the bar, there was a picture of the cook with whom must have been his father, pinned to the wooden strut. It was an old picture, faded, the cook young and smiling while his father mostly just seemed tired, his own smile strained. Saber could relate.  

The cook returned with plates of their orders. He had made Gilgamesh beef katsu. Assassin took a pair of chopsticks, excitement palpable.

“I’ve always wanted to do this.” He lifted them into the air. “Itadakimasu!”  

Assassin laughed and broke his chopsticks, eagerly slurping up his noodles. Gilgamesh rested his chin in his palm, eyes narrowed while he studied his food. Artoria took a bite of her croquette. It was both familiar and not, the boiled potatoes mixed with onions and minced meat and dipped in béchamel sauce. A surge of homesickness suddenly struck her.

“Waver,” Saber said. “You’re from England, correct?”

The argument between Waver and Iskandar paused. Both looked surprised, as if they had forgotten everyone else was there. Waver coughed.

“Ah, err, yes. Yes! I was born in Yorkshire, but moved to London when the Clock Tower accepted me into their ranks.” He tilted his head. “Have you had the chance to visit at all since you were summoned?”

“No.”

“Oh. I see.” Waver reddened slightly and rubbed the back of his neck. “I mean, if you want, maybe I could take you there and show you around, once this is handled. If your Master’s okay with it, obviously. It’s quite different from when you were alive… understatement, haha…”

“I would enjoy that,” Saber said.

Waver’s blush deepened. He cleared his throat and added, importantly, “You're an expatriate. You've lost touch with the soil. You get precious. Fake European standards have ruined you. You are an expatriate, see? You hang around cafes.”

They all stared at him.

“What are you on about now, boy?” Iskandar was the first to recover. “And cease blushing like a lovesick maiden. You’re embarrassing me again, in front of two kings instead of one this time.”

“It’s Hemingway, you ignorant buffoon!” Waver cried, turning scarlet. Their argument resumed in earnest.

Saber reached for her croquette, realized it was gone. She had finished her meal already. Strangely disappointed, she frowned at her empty plate. Then Saber noticed Gilgamesh. He had barely touched his own food, chasing a piece of beef around and around while he observed them.

“Do you want that?” she asked. He blinked.

“No.”

Saber leaned over and took his plate, switching it with hers. Gilgamesh’s mouth twitched. Diarmuid noticed too, for he laughed.

“Who knew the King of Knights was a glutton?”

Saber flushed, primly cutting the beef into precise cubes. “It would be a shame to waste good food.”

Gilgamesh nudged his foot against hers. Saber ignored him, though she found herself disinclined to make him stop. His foot crept upward, rubbed against the underside of her calf; she focused hard on the texture of the beef in her mouth.  

“Of course,” Diarmuid said, amused. He became contemplative. “For me, home was never truly a place, rather a person: my Master.”

Saber needed a moment to process the statement. Gilgamesh’s foot had journeyed further upward to press against the soft juncture where her calf met her thigh. She swallowed with some difficulty. “That’s… commendable.”

“Only if one’s Master deserves loyalty,” Gilgamesh said lazily. “Given the deplorable state of the modern mongrel, I myself would be skeptical of such claims.”

Assassin sniggered. He had cleared his plate, knees drawn and balanced precariously on the stool, content with sucking the grease off his fingers. Saber shot Gilgamesh a dirty look and made a gesture as though to scratch her knee, shoving his foot away. Gilgamesh pouted.

“My Master is worthy. He would not have been chosen, otherwise,” Diarmuid said, but he sounded melancholy.

Gilgamesh scoffed, otherwise silent. He seemed to have lost interest in the conversation.

Saber was a little mortified to be the last one to finish. Still, as she paid and the others filed outside, Saber lingered by the photograph.

“Your father?” she asked, pointing. The cook glanced up from the sink, where he had already begun washing their bowls.

“Hmm? Ah, yes. He passed away several years ago. This restaurant has been in the family for three generations now.” His smile was proud.

“You must miss him.”

“Sometimes? Well. I mean. Not really.” The cook laughed sheepishly. “We were not close. He was more an employer than a father. A very great cook though, the best I’ve ever known. It's a gift, to be capable of bringing others joy.”

…

Assassin led them to the abandoned sewer hideout, where Waver vomited at the sight of the atrocities within. The Heroic Spirits were silent, grim faced, while Saber and Diarmuid gathered the dismembered bodies and burnt them on a funeral pyre. She could still see the raft in her mind’s eye, drifting down the Mion River and mournfully winking goodbye to them.

The sun had set. They agreed to meet again in the light of day, unless Assassin found another lead, and parted ways. She began the trek back to the von Einzbern villa and Gilgamesh, annoyingly enough, followed behind her.

“Shouldn’t you return to your Master?” Saber asked pointedly.

“I would much rather monitor our alliance.”

They entered the forest. It was overcast, even the moon shadowed by moody clouds, and the air tasted of rain. At night, there was an ominous undercurrent to the forest that it lacked by day. As if its true self hid from the light, only revealed under cover of darkness.

Saber padded down the deer trail, careful in her tread, turning over plans for her next move. She would report to Irisviel, perhaps see if Kiritsugu had a means to access the sewer system layout. Then she could comb through it and with luck, find Caster soon and bring him to justice.

What she should not do was further engage Gilgamesh, yet somehow the acerbic words slipped beyond her lips anyway: “I fail to understand your continued interest in me, given your propensity for concubines.”

Gilgamesh looked surprised. Then he laughed. “Are you that upset over a stray comment I made hours ago? You cannot tell me you had no illicit lovers in your lifetime.”

It had chafed, more than she realized until just now, buried beneath the weight of everything else. Or, not the statement itself, but the brief alienation she experienced atop the roof. No matter how abrasive their relationship might be, she had come to appreciate the implicit covenant between them. Of being seen, rather than marveled at. It had been, however briefly, jeopardized by a simple conversation. 

“I…” Saber faltered, then blushed. She had not thought about the Lionors in a long time. “I wasn’t married then.”

“Neither was I,” Gilgamesh said dryly.

Before Saber could retort, an ugly echo of loathsome mana struck her. She whirled around, the forest suddenly illuminated by Gilgamesh’s armor, as a figure stepped forth from the twilight depths. It was not him, not in person—of course, such a monster would also be the utmost coward—but the bulbous figure rose before them, and Saber knew beyond a shadow of a doubt it was Caster.

Her grip tightened on Excalibur.

“It’s you… it’s really, truly you…!” Caster fell to his knees. His thick mantle billowed and flowed around him. He rocked back and forth. “We have reunited at last. Saint amongst saints! My most holy virgin!”

“You have mistaken me for someone else,” Saber said. Beside her, Gilgamesh looked disgusted, but then smirked at the word ‘virgin'. She ignored him. “If you have any respect for your fellow Heroic Spirits, reveal your true self. I must slay you and bring peace to the children and women you have slaughtered.”

He tore at his hair and howled like a mad dog. “Ohhhh, Jeanne. My beautiful Jeanne! Have you fallen so deeply into slumber? Have you truly forgotten your most loyal servant, Gilles de Rais, lost as you are to God’s despair? Jeanne, Jeanne!”

Of course he was French, not to mention a heretic. It all made sense now. Saber scowled, but before she could reply, Gilgamesh’s Gate of Babylon opened and poured multiple swords onto Caster. The doppelgänger collapsed into a mess of tentacled gore, the ground beneath turned to mud from its poisoned blood.

“What have you done, you moron?” Saber cried, spinning around.

Gilgamesh huffed. “His filthy appearance and mad ravings insulted me.”

“We could have questioned him further, perhaps ascertained his true location!”

Saber almost threw Excalibur down in enraged tantrum. Useless. The man was useless to her. Gilgamesh just stared, infuriating in his lack of repentance. She took a deep breath and wrestled her temper under control.

She turned away to mutter sarcastically under her breath, “How fortunate I am, to have yet another man obsessed with me.”

Suddenly, Gilgamesh was before her.

“Who else is obsessed with you?” he demanded, eyes flashing. “Tell me and I shall punish them for their insolence.”

Saber halted, slack jawed. Then she chuckled, a humorless sound, and shook her head. Her reply was warmer and more affectionate than intended: “Gilgamesh. You are not a serious person.”

He opened his mouth to respond. Whatever he would have said, Saber never learned. At that moment, a black star came screaming across the night sky to careen straight into them.

Chapter 5

It was instinct, to step between Gilgamesh and their attacker. Even if he had no need for her martial prowess, Saber wanted to keep him safe. The armored beast before them was cloaked in shadows, thin red veneer of madness seething through the slits of their helmet’s visor.

Berserker.

Their sickened blade clashed against Excalibur's holy steel, and recognition shivered along the sword’s length. What—? Saber shoved Berserker back and set her feet. They skidded toward the edge of the deer trail.

“Master of the alienated, the ridiculed, the despised: respect the truce and call off your Heroic Spirit!” Saber declared.

No response.

“Do not bother to reason with these mongrels.” Gilgamesh sounded disgusted. “Tokiomi’s enemies willingly lower themselves.”

Berserker jerked, limbs helter-skelter, slowly glancing between her and Gilgamesh. An unearthly shriek emitted from behind the helmet, and Saber found herself thinking about birds, their wings in flight: at first a slight unsteadiness, to lift off, then barely any at all.

Berserker launched themself at her, faster than the mortal eye could follow. Excalibur rose to meet their strike. Like a stream diverted by a boulder, they changed course to avoid two polearms launched from the Gate of Babylon. Berserker landed on a nearby tree trunk and bunched their legs with the intent of propelling themself at Saber yet again.

Tokiomi’s defensive measures went off.

There was an explosion of fire and light, and from within, a kernel of darkness. Saber was momentarily blinded, bracers raised to defend against the onslaught of magical energy, to dispel it with her resistance, an onslaught that never arrived. The light faded, and she found Gilgamesh had stepped forward, arm extended before her. A shield shone bright in front of them.

Upon the shield’s massive frame lay the earth, there the sky and the sea and the inexhaustible blazing sun and the moon rounding full and there the constellations. Two noble cities emblazoned its face, filled with men, with their weddings and feasts, even as circling the other city was a divided army, camped in gleaming battle-gear.

Smoke followed on the heels of the explosion, billowing and swirling around them. She blinked, and the smoke cleared, leaving the two of them standing untouched at the epicenter. The shattered trunks of the surrounding forest filled Saber with a peculiar grief, their trunks gnarled and blackened with the same charcoal sickness that coated Berserker. Berserker had vanished, and she could no longer sense their presence. Saber doubted that had been enough to destroy them, however.

No true Heroic Spirit would fall so easily. They must have been ordered to retreat. Berserker had come and gone like a cruel northern wind.

“Tch,” Gilgamesh said, obviously irate. “Perhaps only greater than Tokiomi’s insufferable nature is his natural talent.”

The shield vanished. Saber realized, then, that Gilgamesh had been injured. Blackened gemstones were buried in his lifted arm; they must have been transformed by Berserker and hurled at Gilgamesh before the shield could fully form. He ripped them out and dropped them, expression distasteful. Droplets of blood dotted the ground like miniature rubies.

“Let me see.” Saber turned toward him.

“It’s little more than a trifle,” Gilgamesh huffed. “Though that that mongrel would dare strike at the perfection of my form… he shall suffer greatly for such an affront, when next we meet.”

“Let me see,” Saber repeated, undeterred. “Remove your armor.”

A pause. Gilgamesh stared, then smirked lasciviously. “There are easier means to seek me in a state of undress, Arturia.”

“Must you make this difficult?” Saber asked, even while her cheeks reddened. “Let me help you."

Gilgamesh’s armor de-materialized. Without it there, the damage to his arm looked far more egregious, gaping wound bloodying the white sleeve of his shirt. His Gate glimmered and an unguent in a solid gold bottle slid free.

Saber snagged it out of the air and unscrewed the top. The creamy substance within was downy-soft to the touch, and she trembled slightly when she dipped a finger within its sacred chamber, then again when she grasped Gilgamesh’s wrist and turned it upward. The beat of his pulse fluttered against her palm.

Saber gently applied the unguent to his skin. Gilgamesh watched her, a flush creeping up his neck. A hot blush of her own began to darken her face, and she forced herself to focus solely on the injury and the task at hand.

“How do you know Berserker, anyway?”

“We have crossed paths before. Their Master loathes Tokiomi. I know not why, nor do I care, although given it is Tokiomi we are talking about, neither do I find it particularly surprising. I myself often curb murderous impulses in his presence.”

“Regardless, this is no time for petty feuds between mages. His Master should know better. He does Berserker great dishonor to be utilized in such fashion, and disdains those already slain, too.”

“As if mad dogs care about honor,” Gilgamesh said. “As if honor is worth caring about.”

The unguent fast took effect and the wounds vanished. They may well have never existed at all. Saber rubbed a thumb against the smooth, unblemished skin of his forearm, the callouses on her pads a rough juxtaposition. So, so soft to the touch. “Gilgamesh, do you believe in anything?”

“Myself,” he said, predictably. Disappointed, Saber dropped his hand, but he reached out and cupped her cheek. “I believe that the violent ones should only ever seek out a horde of treasure and sit on it. I believe that all order is false, a construct men slide between two great, dark realities, their selves and the world: two pits of locusts. I believe that systems and algorithms are evil, not just a minor evil but a monstrous evil. I believe that only in a world where everything is patently being lost can a priest stir men’s hearts as a poet would by maintaining nothing is in vain. I believe that if the world ends, it will end not in mud and fire but in oil, a dead sea full of black gold.”

Then, almost as an afterthought: “And, I suppose, I believe in you.”

Her blush reflected in his palm like rays of hope in the ribs of dreamcatchers. Slowly, Saber took his hand and pressed chaste kisses against his knuckles. She was not certain when she had shed her armor. “All of that is nonsense, the last above all others. You truly know nothing.”

“Well, they say the wisest of men are the ones that know nothing.” Gilgamesh drew her closer.

“We shouldn’t,” Saber said, while she ran a hand down his chest and then down past his hips to caress his erection. He burned her. “I have to report on what happened.”

“He longs to be words, juicy as passionfruit on her tongue.” Gilgamesh kissed her on the mouth, sweet and tender. “He longs to be an orange, to feel fingernails run a seam through him.” His lips found her neck and she moaned, unable to help it, nails dug into the satin of his shirt. “He would do anything, would dance three days and nights, to make the most terrible gods.”

Saber wondered if this was real. Or if they were instead a ghost choir: legends, and rumors, the myths forged from memory—what was true, what was false—that they made of themselves. And, even worse, of others. The silent night became briefly filled with choral music.

…

Gilles flung the crystal ball at the wall and screamed.

It shattered into a thousand sharp, tiny shards. How beautiful things looked, when they broke. Ryuunosuke picked up one of the shards and turned it over and over, idly. He pressed the jagged tip into his index finger and watched, fascinated, when a bead of blood welled up from the prick. Maybe he would use the shards on the children for another night of broken glass.

“That dirty fucking moor and his crooked cock! How dare he? How?! Ohh, Jeanne, Jeanne. Why have you forsaken me too?! Jeanne, Jeanne!”

Gilles continued to rant and rave. The words bounced off the cold ceiling, overrode the sniffles and cries of the stolen children, stirred from the stupor of Gilles’s spell. Sometimes, Ryuunosuke thought it would be nice if there was a way to turn off the universal translator, so he could more easily tune the fits of madness out.  

“Hey, big man, don’t let it get to you. Plenty of hot chicks out there that deserve your awesomeness. I’ll help you pick up a Japanese woman, they have way tighter pussies anyway. Trust me on this one,” Ryuunosuke said, in an effort to mollify Gilles.

“I don’t care about that! My Jeanne is too pure for such sin!” Gilles shrieked. “I must save her!”

He tore at his hair and skin and clothes and writhed in place, screams transformed into sobs of a deep, unimaginable grief. It was, in Ryuunosuke’s opinion, extremely uncool. But Gilles was overall the most amazing person Ryuunosuke had ever met, so he supposed the occasional imperfection could be tolerated.  

“Well, I mean, sure. If you want. Shouldn’t we be keeping a low profile, though? You kept going on about that, before.”

“It doesn’t matter! Nothing matters anymore,” Gilles said. Tears streamed down from his enormous, bulging eyes, down his gaunt cheeks to drip onto the dirty sewer floor as he fell to his knees, prostrate. “I have been forsaken by everyone. God turns a blind eye to the suffering and despair I inflict on those He purports to love, and now Jeanne has as well. I am alone. I have nothing.”

“Well, hey, that’s not true. You have me,” Ryuunosuke said. He dropped the glass shard and stood to approach Gilles. “You know, since we’ve been hanging out, I’ve been reading the Bible. I never realized it was a bunch of poems! It reminded me of how I felt when I read the Man'yōshū. Light and shadow, together in a garden of grass. That’s true art.”

Gilles stared at Ryuunosuke.

“Of course,” murmured the Heroic Spirit. “In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus talks about how God lets the sun shine on the good and the bad, lets the rain fall on the just and the unjust. It’s both the sun and the rain, both the day and the night. When a human dies, crying out, “My God, why have you forsaken me?” that’s when God reaches the greatest distance from his own being and embraces even the darkest aspects of humanity. If God’s reality can embrace the forsaken, then everything is embraced: death and life and every tension between them. If God’s perfection allows for tensions to work themselves out, who are we to insist on a perfection in which all tensions are suppressed?”

“Yeah! Exactly!” Ryuunosuke said. He tensed when Gilles staggered to his feet and threw his arms around Ryuunosuke in a grotesque imitation of a hug. Ryuunosuke awkwardly patted him on the back.

“Perhaps God always intended to bring me to you,” Gilles whispered, eyes filled with tears again.

Ryuunosuke scratched the back of his head, embarrassed and a little flattered, now. But he would be lying if he did not admit he felt the same, well, more or less. It felt like his entire life had been leading him toward this singular moment. All those odds jobs and menial labor, the boredom, clock in and clock out, clock out and clock in, one more order, one more door, one more shitty manager and one more shitty customer…

A life. A job. A family. An enormous television, washing machines, cars, compact disc players and electrical tin can openers. Good health, low cholesterol, dental insurance. Fixed interest mortgage repayments. A starter home. Leisurewear and matching luggage. A three-piece suit on hire purchase in a range of fabrics. DIY and wondering what it all meant on Sunday morning. Sitting on the couch watching mind-numbing, spirit-crushing game shows. Rotting away at the end of it all, the last breath in the last miserable home, nothing more than an embarrassment to the selfish brats spawned to replace him. His future. His life to choose.

But why would he want a thing like that? He chose not to choose life. He chose something else. He chose Gilles de Rais. And the reasons? There were no reasons. Who needed reasons when you had a Heroic Spirit by your side?

God, but Ryuunosuke loved that movie. Almost as much as he loved Gilles. Both were the epitome of cool.  

“Come, let us gather the others.” Gilles stepped back. His eyes were dry, face cleared of doubts. He smiled. “We must prepare to handle our enemies, prepare to build a great monument of shadow and flesh in God’s name. Jeanne will soon realize her folly.”

…

Kiritsugu had returned. He stood beside a woman Saber had never met, at the table in the dining hall. The table was long, rectangular, creating a swathe of white space that stretched interminable between them. He listened silently while Saber explained the events of the day. Then, silently, he withdrew a laptop from his pack and began typing rapidly. The blue glow of the screen highlighted the gauntness of his features, deepened the shadows beneath his dead eyes.  

“I see. I suspected the others might use the truce to catch their enemies off guard. It’s something to remain aware of, although it’s improbable any of the servants summoned are capable of much harm, given the strength of our alliance with the Tohsaka clan combined with your own abilities.”

Gilgamesh scoffed, clearly offended. He was leaning against the wall behind Saber, arms folded and armor donned once more. Otherwise, he said nothing.

Irisviel was to Saber’s right, much of her focus on Gilgamesh, curious glances directed back toward him. Saber contemplated her Master’s words. Suddenly, her eyes widened as she recalled the conversation between Diarmuid and Iskandar, about a feud between the Archibald family and Waver.

“Permission to check on Rider’s Master?” Saber asked.

“Denied,” Kiritsugu said, without hesitation. He never looked away from the laptop. “Caster thinking you’re Jeanne D’Arc is too useful an opportunity to pass over. See if you can bait him out.”

Saber wanted to argue. She wanted to say: Waver cried when he saw the dead children. Those are the sort of people I swore to defend at all costs. But she held her tongue, for she saw the logic in Kiritsugu’s response. Beside her, Irisviel shifted slightly.

“Excuse me?” Gilgamesh spoke up now. “You would use Saber as one would use a bone for the slavering jaws of Caster? That is degrading. I forbid it.”

Saber frowned, torn. Part of her was annoyed, because she could defend herself perfectly well if the situation demanded it. Another part of her, an infinitesimal sliver of an aspect of herself, was also grateful toward him.

Kiritsugu looked up from the laptop. A faint puzzlement creased his brow while he scanned the room, almost in search of Gilgamesh’s voice. When he located the Heroic Spirit at last, the crease became a genuine furrow. “Archer. Why are you… here?”

Gilgamesh’s face had already begun to darken over Kiritsugu’s obvious impertinence, the air laden with violent magic once her Master spoke. The Gate of Babylon opened, peering down overhead like a baleful eye, and Saber’s reaction was instantaneous. She placed herself between Kiritsugu and Gilgamesh, Excalibur in hand.

“Don’t you dare, Archer,” she said. “You dishonor me to even consider such aggression.”

His expression went carefully blank. He bared his teeth into a facsimile of a smile, in truth closer to a snarl. “This conversation will continue later, uninterrupted.”

Gilgamesh’s eyes remained fastened on Saber while he de-materialized. She stared back, gaze steady, stomach twisting and swooping out the room after him. Even once he disappeared, his eyes the last to vanish, she remained root to the spot and fixated on the remnants of his presence.

“Saber.” Kiritsugu lost interest in Gilgamesh as soon as the Heroic Spirit left. He had re-focused on the laptop screen. “I want you to patrol the forest tonight.”

“Isn’t it supposed to rain?” Irisviel asked, speaking for the first time.

“Thank you, Irisviel, but I am a Heroic Spirit. The elements mean nothing to me. But…” Saber faltered. Kiritsugu had never heeded her opinions before, so why should he start now? She pressed on regardless, a boat against the current. “It would be better to comb the sewers, don’t you think?”

“No. We should see if he can be lured out first. It would be more advantageous to fight him where Irisviel can assist you, especially since Archer’s dependability is, as ever, a question mark.”

“It is not.” Saber was caught off guard by how much the derisive comment angered her. Her hands were clenched fists. “Archer would assist me without hesitation. Not that it’s necessary. I can handle that madman on my own.”

“Maybe tomorrow, if they don’t take the bait,” Kiritsugu said vaguely. “And clean the limo while you’re at it, it’s absolutely filthy.”

Blood rushed to Saber’s cheeks. She thought about how red was a human home, one they returned to at night, swimming inside the cave of a skin that remembered griffons. In that bone hut of shame, they were all burning—red flames the living had crawled and climbed through, so nothing would be left for humiliation at the end.

“Kiritsugu.” Irisviel sounded shocked. Even the dark haired woman, silent and detached from the conversation, thinned her lips somewhat in disapproval. Saber recovered and cleared her throat.

“Of course.”

…

Kiritsugu was smoking on the parapet, leaning against the merlons to peer out at the forest. The forest spread before him like a great ocean, like a dear sleep, a still greater anthem toward life and dreams through a looking glass darkly—yet full of stillness too, stillness devoid of light. King Arthur was out there somewhere, lost in the woods.

Gray edges of smoke curled and obscured the tops of the trees from view. Thick, overcast clouds blotted out the moon. It would rain soon.

“Kiritsugu,” Irisviel said, approaching him like the first, soft swoonings of snowfall. “Is everything all right?”

He flicked ash from his cigarette, watched it spiral down to the courtyard below. Kiritsugu’s hands were shaking. Suddenly, he pressed a palm against his forehead. “What if we just ran away, Irisviel?”

That surprised her. Irisviel stopped, hovering behind him like the pale ghost of Hamlet’s father. Open your ponderous and marble jaws, to cast me up again. “What? But what about the children? What about Illya?”

“Let someone else handle it for once. We’ll free Illya and burn that castle to the ground and just, just—” Kiritsugu stopped. He laughed, humorless, palm now against the socket of his eye. “Nevermind. It was a ridiculous thought. I had hoped I could achieve greater good, by joining the von Einzbern’s, but I… but I…”

Irisviel hugged him. He had the skeletal frame of someone who ate not nearly enough, and circumvented the malnourishment through biomanipulation. Kiritsugu remained turned away from her, but the tension leaked from his body.

“Saber is my friend. What you did tonight was deeply unkind,” Irisviel whispered into his shoulder blades.

He was silent for a time.

“Recently, I found old photos from the war,” Kiritsugu said eventually. “Records of the Divine Wind Unit. My grandfather served, you know."

A spark flickered in his flat gaze, as it often did at the mention of family. The undead of Alimango followed him always. "The pilots were so young, their eyes alight with the hopes and honors of a nation. But what did that reward them in the end? Nothing. Their country failed them, their code failed them, brought unto us all yet another nation of children. I… I know our ideals are similar, but I cannot bear to look at her, Irisviel. They share the same eyes. Down that path lies only death, in a spiraling fighter jet. No good will be found there.”

Irisviel rested her cheek on the small of his back. “I believe in your dream, Kiritsugu. And so does Saber, you know. You don’t have to bear this burden alone. We’re here to help you. And I believe you and Saber could get along well, if you showed her the same kindness you’ve shown me. You, Kiritsugu Emiya, who looked at a doll and instead saw a person.”

“I’m not the hero you believe me to be, Irisviel. You have not witnessed even a fraction of what I have done.”

“I know more than you think,” Irisviel said. He started, surprised, and his eyes flicked to where Maiya stood guard by the doorway. In that dead gaze glinted an emotion close to shame. “And I don’t mind seeing the worst parts of you, either, Kiritsugu. When you love someone, you love all of them, both the good and the bad.”

“… Maybe I’m not cut out to be a Master,” Kiritsugu admitted. “Or at least, Master to a Servant of the Saber class. Assassin would have fit me far better. Saber just met that boy, Waver, and she already likes him more. I wonder if he’d take her on.”

Irisviel looked surprised. “Acht would forbid it.”

”Acht can get fucked,” Kiritsugu muttered. Now Irisviel was smiling. 

“Even so, the Church doesn’t let one family have more than a single Heroic Spirit, never mind one person. And I… it’s selfish, but I would be sad to lose her.” Irisviel blushed a little at the admission.  

Kiritsugu stubbed out the cigarette on the merlon. His expression had softened. “There’s a bar I used to work at. In between jobs. I thought I’d take you to it, after. Saber could come too, if she wished.”

“Thank you, Kiritsugu.” Irisviel hugged him tighter. “Would you come inside and stay with me? I was going to call Illya. I… I’ve missed you.”

“I can’t,” Kiritsugu said, pulling away. His expression went blank again. “Tokiomi helped me pull some strings, and the DNA samples returned early. Caster’s Master is one Ryuunosuke Uryuu. A complete waste of a person, to the surprise of no one, I imagine. Maiya and I are going to stakeout out his apartment. With luck, one or the other will be dead come morning.”  

…

The storm broke and pinned her in the present.

Saber had cleaned the limo; had cleaned the chapel, too. Now she wandered the twisted paths of the forest as the dome above split open and water fell upon her head. It soaked straight through her thick wool clothes, cold numb fingers prodding from a great distance. The wetness remained, however, clung to her skin like soured mana, her bangs plastered to her face.

She made no effort to seek better cover, to stray beyond the lashings of slanted rain and hail. Saber simply walked the forest paths, doggedly, drenched to the bone as she paced in wait for Caster. Time passed. Caster never appeared. She meandered directionless along the twisting deer trails. 

In a clearing not far from where Saber had fought Berserker, where she had let passion momentarily overwhelm common sense, rested a dying kirin. Its entire side had been ripped open, aglitter with gemstones, gemstones embedded in its side like maggots in a corpse, flanks heaving as its exposed muscles and rib cage twitched in the rainstorm. It must have been mortally wounded by shrapnel from the explosion.

It raised its head, slowly, as though it required a great effort to stare at her. The kirin was a beautiful creature, equine in shape with bright green scales and a blood red mane of fur. But now its scales were dull, mane matted and tangled with blood, the proud tines of its antlers broken and shattered. It had brown eyes.

The anguish struck Saber so hard she thought she might drown in it. She approached and knelt by the dying kirin’s side, head bowed, the churned mud of the clearing dirtying her boots and clothes and skin. She was practically submerged in it, in mud, in sin, in misery of her own particular design. Saber touched its cheek, lightly, trembling like a leaf blown in the wind.

“I would have saved you, if I had known,” she said. “Forgive me.”

The kirin laid its head back on the ground. Saber should have granted it a clean death, shown mercy. But she had already slain the white hart; she could not bear to kill the kirin, too. So instead, she stayed by its side, doubled over in silent vigil while its soul passed on from this world to the next, while its sacred blood bled into the still earth of the forest with only a rain beat drum to accompany them. Saber wondered why the rain tasted like salt.

When the storm ended she built a cairn of hailstones and watched it melt in the sunrise. Then she disobeyed her Master and left.

Chapter 6

Notes:

cw: Some major dubcon in this chapter. So much so that I was a little hesitant about it, and delayed writing the chapter as a result. But I decided to move forward regardless, because this is not a particularly kind variation of the universe. Still, you've been warned.

Gilgamesh had retired to the study of Fuyuki Church. He sat forward on the couch, staring at his reflection in the smooth lacquer of the mahogany coffee table. Reflected in his bloodied gaze, he saw from the crest of the mountain: all time, all space. The passionate vision and the blowout, all in an instant. He held a goblet of wine, faint motions causing the liquid to spiral.

“The rest,” Gilgamesh whispered, “is merely what pushes me, or what I push against, blindly—as blindly as all that is not myself pushes back. I create the whole universe, blink by blink. I see all.”

A disturbance occurred at the entrance. Gilgamesh straightened, echoes of the past lingering in the corners of his eyes like ghosts trapped in forgotten burial sites. An aspect of Assassin stepped forward. Zayd, yes, this one went by Zayd.

“It is done,” Zayd said, low and grave. He shifted his weight from one foot to another, the only outward sign of nerves. “Easy, even, as Caster has grown reckless, careless. We lost one of our favored forms in the process.”

“Perhaps.”

Flickers of past and future still danced merrily before Gilgamesh. He found them dull, however, proceeded to ignore them. What existed in the present held his current interest above everything else.

Zayd hesitated, then continued: “I see. It’s not too late, you know. We could warn them. Are you certain about this recourse, Gilgamesh? It will change everything.”

Gilgamesh slowly reclined against the couch. The long lines of his arms extended out along the frame, like an eagle stretching their wings, as tension vanished from the set of his shoulders. Leaves of gold in a chain necklace glittered against his chest. He smirked, cruel and beautiful.

“Perhaps it is time for a change.”

…

There were police cars outside Waver’s current residence, in Miyama Town. Their flashing lights and loud sirens cut through the morning gloom, through the remnants of a storm that had slackened into a miserable drizzle. Saber could see their uniforms, a solid line, and behind—Waver. He stood before them, damp and shivering, mumbling out answers as hazard tape was placed around the house. The bright yellow X’s burned against the shuttered building.

“Saber. Were you out in the rain? You’re sopping wet.”

Iskandar’s voice, despite its softness, easily pierced the surrounding noise. He hovered in a nearby alley, back against the wall, arms crossed and expression veiled. Water from the gutter above dripped steadily around him. Saber approached Iskandar.

“What happened?”  

Iskandar spat on the ground. “Kayneth El-Melloi Archibald. Truly his cravenness knows no bounds. He struck with Lancer while we were out, called upon ancient rules from the old wars to compel him to attack the Hawthorne family for their interference as bystanders. He has done us a great dishonor this night, all the more so when he forced Lancer to withdraw upon witnessing the might of my Noble Phantasm. I doubt he will try again, but the damage is already done. They have been taken to the hospital, but it would be a miracle if they survived to greet the morrow.”

Saber had been too late, yet again. She stared at an unseen point on the horizon, mourned two more she failed to save.

“When I have conquered this new world,” Iskandar said, oath ominous, “men like Kayneth shall be the first put to the sword. Although it reflects poorly on Lancer as well, to answer with blind loyalty to such a miserly lord.”

Despite everything, it angered Saber, that Iskandar would dare impugn Diarmuid’s honor. She straightened and scowled. “Such ease with which you utter these proclamations, you, whose Master is young, easily malleable and swept away in the seductive tide of your rhetoric. But some of us know better. Some of us have read firsthand accounts of the sack of Thebes.”

A shadow darkened Iskandar’s face. He bared his teeth into the vaguest semblance of a smile, all fangs and no lips. When Iskandar laughed, it was devoid his usual charisma, sharp-edged like a blade at a man’s throat.

“If you consider it, it is an amusing quirk of fate. We hunt Caster together, but in truth the blood of far more children stains our hands than he could ever manage alone.”

Saber heard it, heard the creak of the boat alongside the wailing of infants. A wail amplified in her reflection in red, rising out a river clogged with corpses, crying: “Oh, Father, why have you forsaken me?” All she had in return was silence; all the rest was silence, frozen forever in the Ides of May.

Despair threatened to overwhelm Saber. She could have suffocated from it. Dry, warm fabric graced her shoulders, and she started at the sensation. Iskandar had doffed his magnificent red cloak, covered the soaked wool of her garments with it, without comment or snide remark. For a split second, Saber thought she might burst into tears, but wrangled the emotion under control—maintained her dignity, if only just.

“… Thank you.”

He grunted, waved a hand to dismiss the gratitude. Another Heroic Spirit stepped forth from the shadows: Assassin. He stared at Saber.

“Archer requests your presence.”

“Very well, I accept,” Iskandar said sarcastically. Assassin ignored him, unperturbed.

Saber considered refusing the summons. But the unfortunate truth was that she wanted to see Gilgamesh, too. The spirit of solitude was a charnel housing desire, the words Alastor, Alastor writ upon its entrance in gold. “Where?”

“Fuyuki Church. I will guide you.”

She began to slip off the cloak, but Iskandar shook his head.

“Keep it. And keep after yourself as well, Saber. You are a king. Sometimes it is as though you have forgotten that.”

Saber opened her mouth to argue but changed her mind and relented instead. She tired of arguments. The walk back to Fuyuki with Assassin was long, passed mostly in silence, broken only when Saber inquired as to progress in the search for Caster. The search went on. Rows of identical shoin-style houses shepherded them toward their destination. The more things changed, the more they stayed the same.

Fuyuki Church was a simple chapel on a hill. It could not be hidden. In the same way, let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father who is in heaven. Before the end of the Grail Wars, it had served as an evocation site, according to Assassin. Saber did not care. The Grail was beyond her for now.

Assassin held open the door and gestured her inside with a sardonic flourish. He chose not to follow. Saber saw his shadow in the frame of the open door, then it vanished when the door clanged shut. She could feel Gilgamesh, too, feel a shiver of anticipation skitter across the surface of her skin, a bristling, burning, breaking sensation in her loins. How easy it was to hunger. One day, one night—there: sunlight through the fingers.

Saber stepped into the chapel’s adjoining room, a study lit by candles, all electric lights but lies, not that she had much chance to take it in. Suddenly the world turned on its axis and Saber found herself staring at the ceiling. Austere, minimalist; blank, empty. The cold floor pressed through the cloak against her back.

Disoriented, she needed a moment to understand what had happened. Four gold chains extended out of four gold portals, each bound at her wrists and ankles. They bit into her skin and burned like cold iron against fae flesh. Saber tried to rise and their slack tightened, binding her in place. Gilgamesh’s face appeared, floating above her, studying her dispassionately. There was no poetry to him now, instead just another hard, metallic creature in this world full of cold dead things.

“Release me. Now.”

“No, I don’t think I will.” He pursed his lips. “Why are your clothes wet?”

Saber refused to answer. She was disappointed in herself for letting her guard down around him. Yet another foolish decision, yet another painful betrayal. She was too gullible. It tasted like rust in the back of her throat.

Gilgamesh tsked. “You should not be so stubborn. Although perhaps you would not have enthralled me otherwise.”

So this was it, then. He tired of her at last. It might have been humorous, had it not hurt like a brand to the chest.

He moved out of her line of sight. Saber turned her head to follow Gilgamesh, watched him pluck a goblet of wine from the coffee table. He flipped it over, pouring the wine onto the couch, dark red liquid further darkening the dark brown leather.

“My libations,” Gilgamesh said. Then he held out the emptied cup, and oil cascaded in a waterfall from his Gate of Babylon. With his other hand, he selected a lit candle, already halfway melted. Saber found herself transfixed despite herself. “The modern mongrels, for all their faults, are quite good at recording past wisdom. Not that any of them actually read it, of course. That would require… effort. In human consciousness eroticism is that which calls being into question. Tell me why you tolerate your Master.”

The final statement, a non sequitur, surprised Saber into speech: “What?”

“Why do you tolerate the intolerable?”

Saber responded with a sullen glower. She never should have answered at all. But she refused to continue with this farce, or even consider such a ludicrous refrain. It would grant Gilgamesh satisfaction, which she could not endure.

Gilgamesh sighed through his nose, then approached and knelt beside her. He tilted the goblet, a trail of oil falling from its lips in dollops along her wrist. He spread out the oil, rubbed the cool liquid into her skin. Saber held herself still, a block of stone, even while a terrible sensation rose inside her, that gluttonous monster lust, quivered with restrained excitement.

“It would seem then we must exceed the limits of reason,” Gilgamesh murmured, before letting droplets of hot candle wax spill from the drip pan and burn her arm.

…

Kiritsugu and Maiya sat perched on the high rise above the apartments for hours. They had taken refuge from the storm beneath a tarp awning, emerging once the weather cleared. It struck fast, hard, cruel—yet passed swiftly. Perhaps this too would pass. Night became morning, progressively later in the morning.

“Kiritsugu,” Maiya said. “We should return. Saber might have the right of it, and the best place to search is the sewers.”

He looked through the sightline of his sniper rifle. The apartment door had remained locked in place the entire night. Apartment 9A. He wondered what Ryuunosuke’s neighbors thought of him, if they thought him just an ordinary young man that worked odd hours, or had they noticed a strangeness about him and simply ignored it. If they had even thought about him at all.

Could the rogue Master and his Servant truly have stayed in the sewers? Somehow Kiritsugu doubted it. They already fled once, proving they knew danger lurked close by. Still, he lowered the rifle and stifled a yawn.

Maiya placed a hand on his shoulder, steady, and he almost leaned into her. Kiritsugu knew it reprehensible, to take comfort in Maiya, yet had accepted many years prior that he had forgone any semblance of humanity in the name of—

Ryuunosuke appeared.

The distinctive auburn hair, Kiritsugu recognized it immediately. He brought the sniper rifle back up and tracked the man. He looked so… normal. And young. Cruelty should be the remit of the old and the jaded, worn down by the perpetual grindstone of life; not the future of humanity, still bright and filled with hope. It left a sour taste in Kiritsugu’s mouth. Maiya huddled beside him, silent and focused. She would follow through, if need be, on his signal.

Kiritsugu lined the shot and fired, right when Ryuunosuke reached the door to Apartment 9A and began to search his pockets for his keys. The bullet flew fast and true and drove through the young man’s skull. Ryuunosuke froze, blood seeping out a hole in his forehead. Kiritsugu felt vague relief, as well as minor irritation, that it was finally over.

Then everything went wrong.

Ryuunosuke wobbled. His body split down the center, fell apart as two writhing masses of poisoned spines and unholy flesh, shaped in mock facsimile of a star, emerged from the sacks of skin. Kiritsugu whirled around. Maiya fired on instinct, the bullets harmlessly skittering off the side of the skyscraper.

Caster loomed over them, a terrible rage dominating his bulbous features. “You would dare attempt to strike down my Ryuunosuke?”

Kiritsugu lunged for his mage killer pistol, enhancing his reflexes to move as fast as possible. But even then, it was far too late.

…

“Gilgamesh,” Saber whispered. “Let me touch you.” 

There had been an initial jolt, from the wax. A searing of nerves that jangled in the back of the throat and behind the eyes. But then she had adjusted to the experience, almost pleasant instead, with a tingle that pierced the cold and reminded her she was still alive, maybe.

Gilgamesh had ripped her dress open, Iskandar's cloak spread out beneath her like a blanket, spreading more cool oil along her skin and running his fingers in circles around her breasts before tweaking each nipple, shifting to press his thumb against her clit. With the other hand, he drizzled wax along her body, in a trail that hardened on her skin, and she could not help but fall sideways into the sensation.

Saber did not know how much time had passed. Time was meaningless here. Her body throbbed, desperate for orgasm, swollen and liable to burst—shatter in a million different directions while imploding inward simultaneously—but whenever she edged close to the freedom of release, Gilgamesh would pull back and leave her unfulfilled.  

“No. I have revoked that privilege from you, until you express your true feelings.”

How did one respond to that? It was an inane question, with an obvious answer. Kiritsugu had summoned her. She answered the call and they both agreed to the contract. They cared little for each other, but that meant nothing. All that mattered was that he had respectable ideals.

(HATE. LET ME TELL YOU HOW MUCH I'VE COME TO HATE YOU SINCE I BEGAN TO LIVE. IT IS NOT A MATTER OF MORALS OR ETHICS OR EVEN REASON. THERE ARE NO REASONS. IT IS PURE HATRED.)

Saber strained against the chains that bound her. They refused to give. He had oiled her wrists twice, but still they chafed against their bindings, the pale, delicate skin there rubbed raw. Gilgamesh had been straddling her waist, now he moved to crouch at her side. He tilted his head, red eyes violent with inner flame. Burn. Burn it away.

“I wonder if you enjoy it,” he mused aloud, “being degraded. Does it satisfy your constant need to punish yourself? To move beyond pleasure and pain, control and loss of control… beyond their limits, even. Would you enjoy it just as much, if it were your Master here instead, refusing to look at you while he fucked you?”

“You’re disgusting,” Saber said. She strained more fiercely against the chains, and they rattled like Marley’s damnation in desecrated halls of greed and avarice.

“I am the I Am.” He splashed her with wax again. It dripped lower now, toward her nether regions, closer to the feel of a hand on a hot stove than a dip in a warm bath. Saber gritted her teeth. “But this is not about me, stop deflecting.”  

“Of course I don’t enjoy it,” she blurted out. “It is abasement.”

The words sprang free unbidden. Both froze, surprised. On the heels of surprise flared triumph in Gilgamesh’s blood red gaze.

“To be king is not to be human?” he asked, more as a statement.  

“It’s not the same,” Saber said. The outrage always harbored within threatened to overflow and burst out its dam, a tide ever swelling. “There were knights that disagreed, that left my round table. I accepted it, even when it wounded. But still they respected my sovereignty. They still… respected me. It was sacrifice for the betterment of mankind. With Kiritsugu, he sees a child in one who has lived a thousand different lives, who asks for contributions solely rooted in the meaningless and the banal, as if, it is as if…”    

The horror of revelation struck her then. Her world view bottomed out, supposed prestige of the Heroic Spirit laid bare, and oh, how wretched a moment it was! Agony, agony, on a wire spread thin, for what? Nothing. Nothing, nothing, nothing. She had been king, now reduced to little more than an ornament for the vanity of callous strangers, for the benefit of savage foreigners.

Gilgamesh softened, setting the candle aside. He gently stroked the side of her face with his knuckle, the chains around her wrists and ankles disappearing. “Perhaps the most insufferable aspect of the modern mongrel is that they truly believe slavery has ended, or perhaps even more insufferably, that belief in an abstract is analogous to chattel slavery. Nothing ever changes, however. It merely takes on new forms, becomes distant and unseen, finds other ways to convince people to willingly strip themselves of dignity.”

Arturia lunged at Gilgamesh, a furious curse on her tongue. She slammed him against the flagstone floor, hard, a sickening thud heard on impact. He let out a strangled half-sound, her hands in a vice grip around his throat, as Arturia climbed atop him. Tears beaded the corners of her eyes, grip tightening even further while darkness gathered around her, darkened her gaze and even her clothes, hanging in tatters off her mostly naked form, drained the light in her hair, altered the very shape of the air until—

Her orgasm crested, no longer held in check by Gilgamesh’s expert touch. Arturia had not even realized she had been rutting against his thigh until it ripped through her, overwhelming and overpowering like a flood sweeping through a hapless village. The inner experience had been made manifest. In its wake, Arturia was left empty and drained, disillusioned by whatever her purpose was in this current life. She relinquished her hold on him.

Gilgamesh wheezed beneath her, chest heaving, flecks of spittle and blood staining his mouth while ugly black bruises marred his neck and blood clots matted the back of his head. She slumped until her cheek was resting on his rapidly rising and falling chest, listening to his heart hammer against her eardrum.

“I cannot continue living like this,” she whispered. "This persistent lingering... a haunting of vacated spaces... to dwell perpetual beneath the shadowed wing of carrion eaters… it is unbearable..."

She wished Gilgamesh would kill her, spare her from the continued humiliation of this miserable existence. At least on the hill, there was nobility found in martyrdom.

Gilgamesh forcibly stilled himself, although she heard the continued flutter of his heartbeat, rapid and erratic. Then he sat upright, slow and easy, gathering her in his arms and running a hand through her hair, a tender combing. When he spoke, his words were hoarse and cracked, a struggle even to form.

“I know, Arturia,” Gilgamesh said. “I know.”

He snapped a finger, to grant her reprieve from shame, and the candle lights blew out as though snuffed by divine breath.

...

Caster had undoubtedly been thorough. If Zayd had not observed the entire violent affair himself, he may not have realized the scattered remnants of limbs had once been Kiritsugu and Maiya. He waited, ensuring Caster was long gone, then alighted on the rooftop in search of proof of their deaths. Kiritsugu's head had been ripped off, carried away by Caster for gruesome purposes no doubt. His trench coat was a tattered mess, the container for a torso little more than a slab of flesh, zippo lighter and bloodstained packet of cigarettes within the trench coat's pockets. Zayd took out one of the cigarettes and held it to his lips, curiously. Substances of any sort were frowned upon by the collective.

After a moment, Zayd shrugged and lit up. He exhaled, two streams of smoke billowing out through his nostrils. The air grew thick with the scent of nicotine. Zayd smiled.

Gilgamesh would be pleased.

Notes:

I'm a little nervous about this chapter, because this marks one of the few times where I've made some major changes to canonical events. But even while I contemplated having someone else die, probably Tokiomi, my mind kept coming back to Kiritsugu--that he had to die for the story to move forward. It just felt... right. I hope I did the character justice regardless, I do actually like him quite a lot.

Chapter 7

Notes:

This chapter wound up getting split due to length and just how much STUFF was happening. Also because I haven't updated in a while and I'd like to finish this story before the new year if possible lol.

cw: Depictions of child cruelty and disturbing implications about children.

They spent an unknown length of time in the darkness. Outside time, outside space, outside knowledge, outside even themselves. Neither interested in sex, yet so intertwined were they that where Saber began and Gilgamesh ended became uncertain. The wiry hair of his long legs rubbed against her own, his mouth full of fruit rind, the rind itself filled with the same medicine she had used to heal him. He pressed orange kisses along the bruises and scrapes and burns on her skin, delicate even while the citrus seared, while the flow of mana soothed her pain.

One hand was tangled in her hair, braids undone and ribbon tugged free, the other idly caressing the fair hairs of her arm. She traced a hand along his back, the vertebrae of his spine to be mapped beneath her calloused palm, the other resting on his breast, past leaf of gold and sheaf of muscle, anchored to his heartbeat.

How could this man be flesh and blood one moment, little more than light dissolved between her fingers the next? It mystified Saber, despite understanding the basic mechanics of the Heroic Spirit. She buried her face in the crook of his neck and breathed, even and steady in contrast with his own labored inhalations. She had hurt him and felt nothing.

“Gilgamesh.”

“Mmm.”

“You remember how Diarmuid said home was a person?”

“Mmhmm.”

“I don’t think that’s true. People are rivers: ever changing, ever flowing. Everything you put inside them eventually disappears around the bend.”

A pause. She heard the damp thump of the rind when he spat it out.

“I know. These ancient bones are all we truly lay claim to. The world might reproduce images more and more unrecognizable until the ultimate end, but truth remains immutable. Tell me that which is untranslatable.”

“What?”

“Say what cannot be a universal, only a particular.”

“… Hiraeth.”

“Hiraeth?”

“It’s Welsh. It means homesickness for a home to which you cannot return, a home which maybe never was; the nostalgia, the yearning, the grief for the lost places of your past.” 

“Hiraeth. I often feel that way.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Don’t.”

His lips ghosted over her skin, outlined words there in an ancient, dead tongue. She drew Gilgamesh to her and kissed him, chased after the citrus lingering on his lips. There was a lurch, and suddenly Saber was dizzy. It surprised her enough to tighten her grip on him, an anchor in the shallows dividing reality from unreality.

What was that?

The jarring reaction brought her back to her senses. One could only reside outside themselves for so long, anyway. Eventually they had to return to living within the world. Saber untangled herself from Gilgamesh and sat up, searching for Iskandar’s cloak. She doubted he would want it returned now, but still.

“Something’s wrong. I must seek out Irisviel.”

And Kiritsugu. There would be a conversation, but not until the matter of Caster had been resolved. Until then, she would tolerate the current status quo.

A flicker: the candles re-lit themselves. Gilgamesh was lounging on his side, naked and unashamed, expression inscrutable. “I shall accompany you.”

They dressed in silence and left the church. It peered down at them from its perch atop the hill until they rounded the block and it fell out of sight, out of mind. Hours had passed, now late in the afternoon. They had wasted too much time.

Suddenly Gilgamesh stopped, a strange expression on his face.

“You dare...?” He turned his gaze heavenward, body beginning to flicker and shatter into brilliant shards of gold light. Despite the obvious fury, there too lay a hint of puzzlement beneath his words. “It would seem I have been commanded. I must return.”

And he was gone.

Saber stared where Gilgamesh’s form had once been, then broke into a run. She sprinted all the way back to the von Einzbern villa, mana bursts letting her fly swift as the talaria of mercury. Irisviel was in the main hall, peering into a crystal ball, brow drawn with obvious concern. Beside her was—Aoi? The green haired woman was pale and shaking, gazing sightlessly at the floor. She looked as though she had aged a century in the span of a single day.

When Irisviel saw Saber, she sprang to her feet. “Saber! There you are! Where have you been?”

“I…” Saber stalled, unable to think of an adequate reply. But Irisviel hurried past the question, saving her from more hollowed-out lies. Aoi, too, looked up, a wild sunbeam of hope bursting across her deadened expression.

“Have you found anything?” Aoi asked in unison with Irisviel.

“Regrettably, no.”

“Oh. I see,” Aoi whispered, trembling. Tears filled her eyes, but she did not weep.

Irisviel frowned. “Have you seen Kiritsugu?”

“No. Excuse me, Irisviel, but what happened? Context eludes me, currently.”

Irisviel glanced at Aoi. The other woman, normally composed and unreadable, picked at fingernails worn down to the quick. Her index finger had a hangnail, swiftly turning the surrounding flesh bloody.

“It’s Rin. She had a half-day at school but never came home.”

…

“Where have you been?”

Tokiomi’s words were flat and bereft of emotion. He sat behind his desk, hands steepled, framed by the oil painted portrait of his family. The new one, anyway. Tokiomi, Rin, Aoi, all stared solemnly out an unseen horizon. Gilgamesh curled his lip in disdain.

“That does not concern you.”

“Yes, it does. You—” Tokiomi stopped himself, white-faced and brimming with barely contained anger. He was less put together than usual, coiffed appearance disturbed like the surface of a lake by skipped stones. The top button of his blazer was unbuttoned, hair mussed from repeatedly raking a hand through it. “What happened? Were you attacked?”

His eyes had lowered to Gilgamesh’s neck, where visible purple bruises peeked out from his gold armor’s collar. Gilgamesh scoffed but otherwise refused to answer.

“As ever, I fail to understand you,” Tokiomi said bitterly.

“Naturally.”

“Rin is missing.” Tokiomi placed great stress on these three words, as though Gilgamesh should care about yet another worthless modern brat.

“So find her.”

Tokiomi lost control.

“You are supposed to be King of Heroes!” he shouted. His words bounced off the high vaulted ceiling of his study. “Heroes act! Where is the man who slew Humbaba, who sought the cure to mortality? You are capable of the miraculous! Why is it that in the here and now, you only ever do nothing?! Nothing but chase after satisfaction for the basest desires.”

“You forget yourself.” Gilgamesh remained impassive, despite a creeping sense of irritation. For once, his outrage ran cold instead of hot. This was an inconvenient moment for his so-called Master to finally grow a spine, since it interfered with Gilgamesh’s plans. “By right, there is no need for me to justify myself. Certainly not to you, of all people.”

“Of course.” Tokiomi laughed, humorless. “It would seem we are at an impasse. Still, I’ll be blunt: I need you to find Rin. Please, Archer. If she is—if anything has happened to her, our contract will have reached its conclusion. It shall be clear we no longer require one another’s services.”

The authority drained from Tokiomi’s voice the further he spoke. What was left in its wake was a nervous, trembling man, driven to desperation. He had shed his manicured persona, replaced by a cornered animal. Gilgamesh stared blankly. Then he huffed, disgusted, and vanished into thin air.  

…

Earlier That Day

…

Rin sat on a swing in the playground near her school. She was tall enough now that her feet dragged on the ground. It should have been busy at this time but was instead empty. Just like the school had been empty. Most of the other students had not bothered to come, frightened of venturing beyond the safety of their homes. Not Rin, though. It would have been dishonorable for a Tohsaka to miss even half a day of school. And Kotone was missing.

“This is Red Hawk, over. Do you read me, Bluebird? Come in, Bluebird.”

She stared glumly down at the walkie-talkie in her hand. A gift from Kotone, after helping the shy girl with bullies. Rin’s father had not approved, an improper instrument of communication for their lineage. But ever since Sakura left, he had been more willing to let such matters slide, even indulging her from time to time himself.

Sakura. Sakura was lost, and now Kotone might be gone, too. White noise crackled out the walkie-talkie, the only response to her question.

Rin’s eyes burned with unshed tears. It was incomprehensible, how anyone could want to hurt someone else, much less someone like Kotone, who had never done harm of any sort to anyone in her entire short life. Rin buried her face in her hands and breathed deep, attempted to slow the rapid patter of her heart. When she opened her eyes again, Rin saw a woman on the park bench across from her, bedecked head to toe in black. Through the slit of her niqab flashed a familiar white mask.

Rin stood and approached, voice lowered to a hiss: “What’re you doing here? Not exactly great assassin work, out in the open like this.”

“I am in mourning,” Assassin answered, her voice low and soft and sad. “I am always in mourning, I believe.”

“Well, mourn later. You have to find the killer! What else are you Heroic Spirits even good for?” Rin asked, bitterness and petulance both sullying her words. She already disliked Kirei before, and with the acquisition of Assassin, she could not shake the sense that he found ways to always monitor her.

In response, Assassin withdrew from the shadowy depths of her garb a beautiful sheath, of rich, royal blue and gold. “You left this at home.”

Rin’s breath caught and she snatched the sheath out of Assassin’s grip, clutching it tight to her breast. Her father had given it to her, and although Rin did not understand what a sheath could do that a sword could not, she trusted him on this matter. She trusted him unconditionally about most matters.

Except… well, anyway…

“I could hardly bring it to school with me, could I?”

“I went to a bar the other day,” Assassin said, ignoring her. “Even those lost in their cups were melancholic. The city threatens to choke on despair.”

Rin had only ever been to a tavern once. In the afternoon, with her mother and father and Sakura for a discrete lunch with the Matou family. One of the last times they had all been together as a family. It had closed recently, in the process of being bought out and renovated by a new owner, and she had been glad to hear it. Evil had taken place there, and evil could infect places whether they wished it or not.

“You’re no help at all. None of you ever are,” Rin said. She walked away, arms wrapped around the sheath, walk almost a waddle due to its size, but after several paces could not resist checking over her shoulder. Assassin was gone. The park bench was empty.

Once again, hot tears prickled Rin’s eyes. But she held the sheath close and headed to the center of town, where the closed bar was located. It was sad and forlorn, hidden in the corner of the central plaza, paint peeling off the plaster and sign scrubbed free of any name. White linen shrouded what furniture remained beyond the window, little ghosts haunting the abandoned location. Rin stared through the window and tried to remember the last time she had been unconditionally happy.

In the castle, maybe, with Illya. Or even further back, in the park with Sakura and Kariya and Mother. Beyond good and evil there is a garden, and I will wait for you there. Rin reached into her coat pocket for her crystal horse, the one she had crafted with her father’s help in the Tohsaka workshop, but her small fingers instead closed around his magic-sensing compass. It no longer worked well, since so many mages had converged on the area, but she withdrew it anyway.

Rin blinked.

For the past several days, her compass had essentially gone haywire, spinning around and around to locate all nearby magical energy. But now it went still, the magic curtailed somehow.

“What the…?”

Her brow furrowed. Rin stepped forward, a shaking hand extended to touch the door handle. Part of her considered heading home to tell her father and Archer about her suspicions. But that would take hours, and Archer was a useless jackass, and she did not know what might happen to Kotone in the meantime, if she was correct. Rin had to press onward. Besides, it was probably nothing at all.

Rin shrugged off her red coat, tied it around her waist, and looped the sheath through it, an impromptu sash. The door swung ajar without issue, although the hinges squeaked slightly in protest. A small sound, but in the moment, it may as well have been a clap of thunder. She froze, listening, but heard nothing, and barreled onward beyond the entrance threshold before she could lose her nerve.

The bar’s interior was equally deserted, everything coated in a fine layer of dust. It was so quiet. If she were a disgusting, homicidal creep, where might she lurk? There had been a cellar, she had seen the entrance to it: an ugly wooden trap door where they kept beer chilled. At the time, it stood out because not many buildings in Japan had basements. And there, in the corner: the basement trapdoor. Bingo. She attempted to use her walkie-talkie, but found it would not turn on inside the tavern.

Rin put a hand on the sheath again. Just a single touch helped calm her, helped her focus, inspired her to be brave. She pantomimed drawing an invisible sword from it and brandished it before her, reminding herself that Kotone needed her.

The trap door had no dust surrounding it. She eased it open without issue, the basement a yawning maw beckoning her to willingly step into a predator's mouth. Rin swallowed, tightened her grip on her invisible sword, and descended into the basement.

It was dark, vomit and blood and urine lingering in the fetid air, and she almost gagged. A soft purple sheen could be seen further in. Rin grabbed her crystal horse, invested with light. A faint blue flame flickered within its depths, brightening the dim depths.

The light reflected off the eyes of children in cages, threaded between emptied alcohol racks, moon eyes caught in a gem-sun shimmer. There were so many of them, at least a dozen. Rin stood there frozen, scanning to find Kotone and simultaneously comprehend the horror before her. They were slack jawed and docile, almost like they had been drugged. Or turned into zombies, maybe.

“Master Rin. Master Rin, is that you?”

A new voice floated out of the dimness. Rin stiffened, terrified of discovery. But the voice was childish and feminine, despite its steadiness, two traits Rin doubted the killer shared with her. She also doubted the killer would ever call her master, although she had no idea who would down here.

“This is Red Hawk,” Rin said, trying hard not to sniffle. “Come in.”

A brief pause. “Right. Listen, see the purple light?”

“Yes. Over.”

“Come toward it. Do not approach the other children.”

“But—”

“No. They’re infected. You’ll die if you go near them, your power as a mage already disturbs their tainted circuits.”

“You’re lying!” Rin blurted out. She felt dizzy, suddenly. Everything seemed askew, like a horror movie where the camera tilted to film at odd angles.  (She had only seen one horror movie, in truth, at Kotone’s brother’s apartment, even though they were too young and would’ve been scolded by anyone else for watching it. To break the rules had been thrilling, although Rin had had nightmares for months afterward.)

“I’m not. You must trust me—someone comes. Shut the door and hide, now.”

Terror flooded Rin. For a split second she was frozen, paralyzed, convinced she would be unable to move and would die because of it. She heard nothing, sensed nothing, but saw no reason for the voice to lie.

“Red Hawk. If you wish to live, you must hide!”

That spurred her into action, out the thrall of her malaise. Rin shut the trap door and scrambled to wedge herself behind two wine racks, away from the cages, stumbling over something in the process. It was a corpse, rotting, mouth sewn shut, and Rin recognized it as a mage that had been at the party, however many days ago that had been. Time no longer meant anything, here.

She shoved a fist in her mouth and stuffed her crystal in her pocket, letting the light slip away. They were plunged into absolute darkness once more, the corpse gone from her sight. Only the moans and groans of the children, one of which must be Kotone, remained. That and the stench of death.

How was it possible for anyone to be this cruel? Tears were sliding down her cheeks, hot and wet, and Rin brought the sheath up to her chest to hug it close. A comforting warmth filled her, as though the sheath were reassuring her. It gave, strangely enough, passing through her body entirely. A moment later, before Rin could even begin to understand what just happened, the creak of footsteps was heard overhead. They were growing louder.

The trapdoor swung open. A young man carrying a flashlight descended into the depths, almost skipping, a boy behind him. The boy looked around Rin’s age, eyes blank, hair a red the color of blood. He moved woodenly, propelled forward by the invisible strings of a puppeteer.

“I’m home!” called out the young man, and let loose a cheery whistle. “And I brought company for you! Isn’t that exciting? A friend, as thanks for the tip. Both Caster and I will be interested to see how you react, when you’re forced to watch him be eaten alive.”

Silence. The young man pouted, pointing his flashlight at the purple light. It fell upon a dark-skinned girl, glowing collar around her neck, familiar white mask nestled in her hair. She, too, looked around Rin’s age. Rin stifled a gasp. Assassin. But she never would have suspected Assassin had such a childish aspect of itself. Surely this meant the others knew their location?

The young man purposefully shone the light in Assassin’s eyes. She grimaced, raising a hand to shade her gaze. “You’re no fun. Not yet, anyway.”

He clicked his tongue and walked toward Assassin’s cage, the boy following dutifully in his wake. The young man opened the cage, shoving the boy inside and latching it shut. He stood back, hands on his hips, surveying his work how an artist might ponder a beautiful portrait. The young man swept his flashlight across the line of cages.

Rin shrank away, curling into the stiff body of the corpse, almost to burrow into it and out of sight. She wanted to shut her eyes and make it all stop, but it was just too much. The light never strayed near her and the young man knelt, reaching through the cage bars to caress Assassin's cheek, absently rubbing a strand of hair between his fingers. Still, Assassin stayed silent, unmoved.

“So exotic…” he murmured. A moment later, he straightened. “Welp, gotta go! Big man’s got big plans. Nice chatting with you, friend. It’s a shame your Master doesn’t give a shit about you. Can’t relate!”

The young man saluted, then turned and skipped upstairs. The trapdoor swung shut, plunging them back into total darkness. Creaks could be heard overhead, growing steadily fainter. Then silence. A beat, another. Eventually, Assassin spoke:

“He’s gone.”

Rin let out a ragged sob.

“Red Hawk,” Assassin said. “Are you there? Come in, Red Hawk.”

“… T-this is Red Hawk, over.” She found her crystal, the light washing over the basement once more. It was a much softer, gentler light compared to the flashlight's harsh fluorescence. Assassin was pressed against the bars of her cage, expression focused, while the boy beside her stared vacantly at nothing.

“Come here, set me free, then take the boy and run. Run and never look back. You should never have come here alone. Find Archer and Saber, they’ll protect you.”

“I-I need to save Kotone,” Rin bawled, tears streaming down her face, the floodgates burst open. Assassin’s eyes widened slightly, and she seemed at a loss for the first time. She licked her chapped lips.

“I’m sorry. If your friend is here, they are beyond help. Nothing can be done, it’s too late.”

Rin could not breathe. She had never cried this hard in her entire life, not even after Sakura, and she half-thought she might choke and die. She wept for Kotone, and Sakura, and Illya, and all the other innocent children destroyed by the cruel nature of the world. Even Assassin, even Saber. Maybe even Archer, too.

But the worst of the storm was weathered, and Rin just stood there, breathing ragged, a painful ache in her chest. Then she swallowed, moved forward. It was her only real option.

“What do you need me to do?”

Assassin looked relieved. She said, “Use your magecraft to overload this choker. It’s separating me from the others, cutting me off from most of my abilities. And it’s the focal point to control the children, such as him.” She gestured at the boy. “Although I cannot say what will happen to the tainted ones, once the collar is broken. But that is not a matter for you to concern yourself over.”

“Is, i-is there another way to wake him?” Rin asked, uncertain.

“It might be kinder not to, Master Rin.”

“Can you… can you not call me that?” It unnerved her, that this solemn version of Assassin was also her own age. Assassin considered Rin, eyes dark like tunnels, then nodded. “If you need us to run afterward, um, it’d be easier if he knew what was going on, right?”

Assassin tilted her head. She seemed to reach a conclusion to some internal debate, for she nodded again, then grabbed the boy and slapped him across the cheek, hard.

“Ow! What the… w-what? Where am I?” asked the boy, clarity returning to his gaze.

“What’s your name?” Assassin said by way of an answer.

“… S-Shirou.”

“Shirou, I need you to listen very closely.”

Assassin spent the next several minutes explaining what had happened and the escape plan. Shirou gaped at her the entire time, eyes rimmed with tears, one hand lightly resting on the raw red skin of his slapped cheek, slowly glancing around the basement in obvious bewilderment. About halfway through the explanation, his expression turned set and resolute. When Assassin finished, he was quiet. Then:

“This is the bad man stealing kids, from the news?”

“Yes.”

“And these are those kids?”

“Yes.”

“We have to help them,” Shirou declared.

Rin giggled, unable to help it and borderline hysterical, while Assassin wearily rubbed her temples.

Chapter 8

Notes:

plot plot plot plot plot

also more bad things happen to children. I swear this is the last chapter this happens lol.

“I never should have let her go,” Aoi whispered. “I knew it was a mistake. I knew and said nothing.”

She lay with her head in Irisviel’s lap, dark green hair spilling across the couch. They had retired to a study on the villa’s second floor, where Saber stood aside and gazed out the window, expression shadowed. Irisviel gently rubbed Aoi’s back to soothe her.

Anxiety threatened to overwhelm Irisviel, for Rin’s sake but also for Kiritsugu. If he were here, he would have known what to do; more than that, she could not shake the foreboding notion that something terrible had happened.

“Rin has a perfect attendance record, you know. She’s proud of it, and Tokiomi too, in his own way. But I knew. I knew, Irisviel. I should have said something.

“I’d had a dream: Rin and Sakura and I were outside a castle, the von Einzbern Castle, and it was snowing. There were foxes in the courtyard, bounding on the snow’s surface. They were so joyful, racing toward the woods, kicking up and scattering white crystals in every direction, and I longed to join them. When I turned to Sakura and Rin, to revel together in wonder, Sakura was gone. Then I turned again and the foxes were gone, too. The blizzard swept over their tracks. I turned yet again, and Rin was also gone. I was left alone, left with nothing.

“Tokiomi told me they were going for a walk. That was the last time I ever saw Sakura. I kissed her cheek and then she went and held his hand, let him guide her out the door. And now I… I-I’ve lost them both, Irisviel, haven’t I?” Aoi’s voice began to break, fresh tears falling down her face. “Am I being punished? Have I failed as a wife and a mother?”

“Of course not.” Irisviel drew the other woman up and hugged her, fiercely. “We’ll find Rin. I’m certain this is just a misunderstanding.”

Aoi gripped Irisviel hard, sobbing into the neckline of her dress. Saber remained remote beside the window, gaze averted. Others might have thought it coldness, but Irisviel knew the Heroic Spirit well enough to understand it as a form of respect and self-flagellation.

“This is my fault,” Saber muttered, quiet enough to almost be missed.

Frustration hit Irisviel like a tidal wave. It was too much. Irisiviel disentangled herself from Aoi, the other woman clinging tremulously onto the hem of her dress.

“Could we speak, Saber? In private?”

The tone of Irisviel’s voice caused Saber to start. It was almost as though she had forgotten Irisviel even existed. After a brief hesitation, Saber nodded. Irisviel offered Aoi reassurances, backing out beyond the door, the other woman’s tearstained face the last sight before she shut it. Then she spun around and glared at Saber.

Saber waited before her, small and sad, yet dignified in her sadness. It was a sharp contrast from Aoi’s torrent of grief, makeup a disaster and hair disheveled and clothes unkempt, all pretensions dropped. Even in despair, Saber was perfection. No wonder Heroic Spirits were considered inhuman.

“Please understand I say this with love, Saber,” Irisviel began. “I know… I know it has been difficult for you, lately. But now is not the time to make things about you.”

Saber’s eyes widened, mouth dropping open to form a small ‘o’ shape. She looked genuinely flabbergasted; in that instant, she seemed as young as her appearance would suggest. Irisviel winced internally, already regretting the sharp word choice. But then Saber stood a little taller, expression one of pure resolve.

“What would you require of me, Irisviel?”

Irisviel’s shoulders sagged with relief, and also warm affection. She reached out, splayed a hand on the cold metal of Saber’s breastplate, earnest and determined. “I need you present. And I need you to be King Arthur, for all our sakes.”

Saber’s brilliant green eyes burned with an inner fire, a holy light that could never be quenched, no matter how dark the night might become. She said, “A King of Knights with no knights is not much of a king.”

Irisviel stared, uncomprehending. Then she blushed bright red. “B-but you said I could not, before. Remember? And I still can barely wield a sword.”

“I was wrong. I am often wrong,” Saber said, without hesitation. “You embody the ideals of courtly love and chivalry far better than even many from my own time. That matters much more than the capacity to fight, when it comes to the essence of a knight. Will you kneel, Irisviel, and honor me by accepting this accolade?”

Excalibur was clasped in her hands. It shone brilliantly, golden hues chasing shadows from the silent, empty, ornate hall of the von Einzbern villa. After a short pause, Irisviel chuckled, amused despite the seriousness of the situation.

How terrible, to be happy in the worst of times. But perhaps the worst of times were when it was most important to take happiness where you could find it, in even the smallest moments. She still remembered when Kiritsugu found her, naked and freezing in the woods, and saved her; still recalled, clear as the day it happened, the pure joy that eclipsed all previous sorrow. Not forgotten, but bearable now, because she did not have to be alone anymore.

Irisviel bent the knee, closed her eyes. Excalibur’s cool steel kissed her shoulder, and she thought she could almost hear its song. Bittersweet, yet steady and assured. The gentle weight vanished, then reappeared on her other shoulder. Irisviel peeked, one eye cracked open to glance up at Saber.

“You’ll tell me to rise and call me sir, right? Like in the movies?”

“That’s not…” Saber started, then stopped. She smiled. “Arise, Sir Irisviel.”

 Irisviel stood. Saber's smile faded and she stared beyond Irisviel at the closed door. Irisviel asked, “What’s wrong?”

“Archer is here.”

They exchanged solemn glances. Saber pushed ahead and opened the door. Indeed, Archer dwelled within, behind the couch and framed by the window. A vague sense of déjà vu struck Irisviel, but she ignored it. His expression was blank and neutral, while Aoi had thrown herself at his feet.

“Please, Archer! Please tell me you’ve found something.”

“Rejoice, for I bring good tidings of great joy,” he said, faint sarcasm underlining the stoic proclamation. Aoi’s face lit up. Beside Irisviel, Saber stiffened. “Their new hideout is in the town center, beneath a vacated tavern. A Bounded Field conceals its magical energy. Assassin is already there. I am”—here he grimaced, irate—“to remain and defend the Tohsaka clan from further harm.”

“Irisviel.”

“Yes, Saber. Go.”

Saber took a step, wavered. It was curious to observe her and Archer in the same space, the way they both gravitated toward each other, bodies turning and opening, twined flowers in bloom, even when they moved in opposite directions.

“A knight must protect a lady,” Saber said. She spoke to Irisviel, but her eyes were fixed on Archer.

“Of course,” Irisviel said. Archer inclined his head, a minute gesture. It was enough.

In a flash, Saber was gone.

…

It was easier to convince Shirou to relent than Rin would have expected. In the end, he was also a coward, just like her. Now she huddled by their cage, concentrating on the purple ring around Assassin’s neck. After Sakura left, Rin’s training as a mage had begun in earnest. She had practiced in her father’s workshop the art of pouring mana into containers, had even overwhelmed objects on occasion.

Sweat poured down her face, exacerbated by the dank, fetid basement air. Rin needed to concentrate, but every time she tried, moans of sickened children would penetrate and disrupt her thoughts. The arm marked by her Magic Crest hurt, throbbing dully.

“I can’t,” Rin said at last, tearful again. Shirou and Assassin had been watching her, Shirou with his arms wrapped around his knees, face pale, rocking slightly, while Assassin knelt before her, calm and even serene, somehow.

“Do you have a means to open the lock?” Assassin asked.

Rin wiped at the snot congealing under her nose. “I don’t… I don’t know…”

A thick padlock covered the latch, heavy and beginning to rust. She tugged on it, forlorn, metallic rattle yet another pained cry added onto the miserable cacophony.  

“Your hair,” Shirou said. A beat. “It has pins?”

“Yeah, obviously, but who cares?” Rin asked, irritated. What a dumb boy. Assassin, however, brightened.

“Well done, Shirou,” she said. “I can pick the lock.”

“Oh.” Rin felt stupid. Regardless, she plucked a bobby pin from her hair and passed it over. Assassin stuck her skinny arms through the bars, began fiddling with the padlock.   

“But what about you?” Shirou asked.

“I have embraced the difficult path,” said Assassin, concentrating on the lock. “Fear not.”

“I can’t just leave you here. You saved me.”

Rin agreed with him, perhaps surprisingly. She opened her mouth to chime in, then paused, distracted by—

There. In one of the cages crammed in back, barely visible in the flickering light of her crystal horse: Kotone. The little girl lay on her side, listless, brown hair lank and damp, one hand extended in supplication. Dreamily, Rin moved toward her, desperate to hold her friend’s hand and tell her everything would be okay.

“Master Rin! What are you doing?! Stop.”

Assassin’s shout pierced the malaise too late. Rin started, fingers tracing Kotone’s clammy skin. The other girl stirred, a flash of recognition briefly clearing the fog in her gaze.

“Rin…” she whispered. “I knew you would come. I’m so… happy.”

Then Kotone retched, a dark, wriggling mass pouring out of her mouth. A tearing sound like damp, shredded paper filled the air. The other children began to vomit as well, sounds and smells combined so overpowering that bile rose in Rin’s own throat. She stumbled back, terrified. A strong grip found her arm, dragged her to her feet.

Shirou.

“Come on!” he whispered.

But Rin was frozen in place. A horrible aura exuded from the children now, and it pressed down on the atmosphere like a physical weight. Their bodies contorted, bursting into twisted masses of cursed flesh. Rin threw up, her lunch—half-digested sushi—coming back up and spewing across the floor. 

The monstrous creature that had once been Kotone broke the bars to its cage with ease. It was an oozing hunk of purple, spiny flesh, shaped much like a starfish. The other cages were twisting and grinding open, accompanied by loud wails of corrugated metal, some of the monsters merging together while others wobbled and rose, swiveling toward the children. 

Assassin stepped in front of them. She had broken off a jagged piece of wood from a wine rack, the collar around her neck casting surroundings in ghastly violet shades, holding it before her. Only the faintest tremble of the makeshift weapon’s tip indicated anything other than superb confidence.

The monsters moved. They did not have the appearance of creatures with great speed, yet Rin struggled to track their movements when they scuttled toward Assassin, unnatural but inevitable. Assassin drove the wood into one of the monster’s spongy flesh, darting aside. They bull-rushed past her, crashing into the opposite wall and flopping onto the floor with gross, wet gurgles. 

Shirou hooked his arms under Rin’s armpits, attempting to pull her toward the basement stairs. For the briefest of moments, she had been riveted by the fight’s gruesome spectacle. It almost seemed unreal, like a battle in a video game more than anything possible in reality. But at Shirou’s touch, Rin snapped out of it, scrambled to find her footing.

Small seams of light broke through the cracks of the trapdoor. It seemed so far away, an eternity to reach, shreds of hope amid overwhelming darkness. Rin felt like she was running through treacle, struggling fruitlessly through a storm toward safe harbor. They made it to the foot of the stairs when Assassin screamed.

It was a blood-curdling sound, a death knell that froze Rin in place. She looked back, even though she knew that was a mistake. The monsters had caught Assassin and were rapidly wrapping around her, blasphemous vines, slowly and inexorably crushing her. All of Assassin’s composure had vanished, her screams high-pitched and childish, bordering on hysterical shrieks.

Shirou stopped too, shaking, then spun around. “Get off her!”

He ran toward the shattered wine rack, grabbing another broken piece of wooden debris and hurling it at the monsters. It bounced harmlessly off one. Rin should have kept running, but instead she was stepping back too, drawing her crystal horse and hurling it into the fray.

It burst on impact, as much her father’s creation as her own, a bright blue ball of flame. One monster shriveled and blackened like a dried flower. The others milled around, smoke spiraling off charred flesh, loosening their coils enough for Assassin to slip free. She fell onto the floor with a wet thump and lay very still. Another moment, and they were flopping bonelessly toward Shirou and Rin.

This was it, this was the end. It’s not fair, Rin found herself thinking. Oddly enough, she was no longer scared, resigned to her fate. She had made her choice and felt no regret. But still. It wasn’t even a fair fight.  

The trapdoor was torn off its hinges. Something brilliant and shining streaked into a basement suddenly flooded with gold, lashing out at the monsters. Two were sliced in half before Rin could even identify their savior. She at first thought it was an angel: beauty and terror both, incomprehensible power directed toward vanquishing their foes with ruthless impunity. Then Rin realized the truth.

Illya was right, she thought. Saber really is the most beautiful of Servants.

…

Ryuunosuke always hated forests, an urbanite through and through. When he was younger, his parents would take him camping every other weekend. The ground prodded his side through the sleeping bag, branches constantly snagged on his clothes, ugly ass insects were crawling everywhere, and one time he even got leeches up and down his legs after a swim in the river. Awful. Nature was a piece of shit, as far as he was concerned, and he would gladly watch it all burn down.

Gilles was ahead of him, humming softly—some French ballad—Necronomicon held in one hand. Blood dripped out of the Noble Phantasm, pages swollen and engorged on the massacre of innocent souls. In Gilles’s other hand, he clenched the head of the mage that had camped outside Ryuunosuke’s apartment by the hair, merrily swinging it to and fro. He was like a conductor, the knots of mana set around them undone with rhythmic flourishes, traps easily and confidently undone. 

No one had ever fought on his behalf before; Ryuunosuke still had not quite come to terms with it. For Gilles’s sake, he would tolerate a walk through the woods.

Their procession halted. Gilles raised his head, smiling faintly, at peace with the world. He spoke, saying, “Jeanne is no longer in the vicinity. But she will return, soon. Of that I know. God would not have it any other way. And it seems another of power guards what we seek. When we arrive, I will engage the Servant. Circle around the back and worry not about security measures, for your powers are too inconsequential to trigger them. Enter and leave behind a monument so momentous, even Jeanne must reckon with it. Can you manage that, Ryuunosuke?”

“Sure thing, big man.”

“I knew I could trust you. Here.” Gilles reached into his robe and withdrew a gun, and a cartridge with three bullets. “I modified the weapon, so you can use it. It disrupts mage abilities. Defend yourself with it, if need be.”

“Whoa,” Ryuunosuke said, taking the pistol. He had hunted boar a handful of times with his old man, many years ago; it had been extremely boring, and involved still more goddamn nature. But there was little like the rush from a cocked gun held in one’s hand. It was heady, intoxicating, better even than sex, and he could feel himself getting hard. “This is awesome.”

There was a sparrow on the branch above them, several paces ahead. Ryuunsouke lined up the pistol’s sight, pointed toward the bird, murmured the word ‘pow’ under his breath. He dropped his arm. Gilles just watched him, pride unmistakable.

“These are the moments history never forgets,” Gilles said. “Are you ready?”

“Hell yeah.”

…

It was so simple. All the searching, all the agonizing, and it had been right there, in the town center. An abandoned tavern, a derelict basement. How painfully obvious and cliché. Saber abhorred Caster all the more for it. To have been eluded this long by an idiot was borderline intolerable. 

Saber burst through the entrance, and once she bypassed the Bounded Field, the nauseating permeation of Caster’s mana hung heavy and foul in the stale air, something virulent and violent writhing beneath her feet. She swiftly located the trapdoor and ripped it open.

At the bottom of the stairs, a girl in red: Rin. Relief swept through Saber, almost brought her to her knees. Still safe. She had not been too late. A boy was there too, and a faint yet vaguely familiar signature—but most important of all, the tide of monsters waiting to be stymied. 

Saber did not think, she simply sprang into action. Excalibur was drawn forth and thrust down, tearing two monsters apart with ease. How wonderful to leave behind the complex moral quandaries of living, the strain of personhood, return instead to definite lines in the sand, good and evil, demon and demon slayer. She was in her element, an arbitrator of justice, and it provided grim pleasure.

Saber realized something was wrong after decimating over half the monsters; her connection to Kiritsugu had been severed, somehow. Beyond the vast reservoir of mana gained from sex with Gilgamesh lay only an empty, beckoning abyss. The thimble-thin thread of her contract was broken. What that meant, exactly, Saber could not quite ascertain just yet.   

(Another, smaller part of her hoped this was a gift from Kiritsugu, the kindness Irisviel spoke of so often but that Saber had never witnessed herself. She would burn out in a blaze of glory, like a shooting star; sacrifice herself in one final, glorious stand against Caster and his minions, save Rin and the other survivors, and be set free at last from this miserable mortal coil. Return to the familiar horror of the hill, comforted in the knowledge that that was where she belonged, to await another chance at the Holy Grail, whenever it became available once more. But she had promised Irisviel, and even Gilgamesh in a fashion, and refused to ponder further the most secret of all her sins.)

Saber burned the rot away in wake of Excalibur’s cleansing flame. The monsters fell, their strength in numbers, even then not enough. It was a brutal, efficient fight, and she stood in the center of the desecrated basement, blade driven into the ground, panting hard not from exertion but rather exhilaration. 

“S-Saber?” Rin’s weary voice broke through Saber’s racing thoughts. Saber blinked and shifted toward the trembling girl. Her and the boy were next to the fallen body of another child. 

At the sight, Saber felt an ache, but then she hardened her heart and knelt across from Rin. “Rin. Are you hurt?”

“N-no, I…” Rin trailed off.

The boy had been gawking at Saber, wide eyed, the front of his pants soiled. But just being able to stay conscious as a non-mage showed impressive fortitude. Now he spoke up: “You have to help Assassin! She saved us!” 

Assassin?

Saber frowned, peering at the small body more carefully. The girl was dark skinned, and—there, in the crown of her hair: Assassin’s mask. But Saber could sense little from the other spirit, blocked by the collar around her neck. Reaching out, Saber crushed it with ease, the ugly magic dissipated under the force of her Anti-Magic.  

But Assassin remained deathly still. Deep wounds gouged her skin, and her ribs had clearly been crushed. With the collar gone, Saber could sense the other spirit now, her energy rapidly fading. Saber shook her head, morose. 

“There’s nothing to be done for her.”

“But why?” The boy looked bewildered. “You were so amazing earlier. If you can do all that, surely you can do anything. Right?” 

“I’m sorry.” The pain of failure weighed upon Saber once more. Even in victory, she was not enough. 

“Dammit, why her?” Rin asked, whimpering softly. “It should’ve been me. I’m so… stupid… it’s not fair… it’s not right… everything about this is so stupid!”

Much to Saber’s astonishment, Rin began glowing. A tender, effervescent light, one Saber was intimately familiar with. Her being stretched out and touched the light, and it swooped and swooned over the destruction of the basement and alighted upon Assassin like a dove bearing an olive branch. The Servant, no, the little girl, stirred, wounds closing before their stunned eyes. It was a miracle.

A new contract filled the void. Fill. Fill. Fill. The connection through Avalon had been re-established. Rin had not noticed yet, awestruck as she gazed upon Assassin, but the back of her hand bore the mark of a Command Seal.  

Assassin opened her eyes. They were dark brown and solemn. Her brow furrowed as she glanced around, obviously confused but trying to assess the situation and come to a reasonable conclusion. She settled on Saber and smiled faintly, almost knowingly. 

“Are… are you… okay?” Rin asked, tentative.

“Yes,” Assassin said. “Over. I read you loud and clear, Red Hawk.”

Rin burst into tears, and Saber had half a mind to start crying right alongside her.

Chapter 9

Notes:

This is why I should never set deadlines, even half-baked ones. Eesh.

Writing this was akin to getting teeth pulled. Hopefully it's okay.

It was hideous magical energy, no attempt made to hide, slithering slick down the back. Irisviel shuddered and glanced out the window, at the verdant stretch of impenetrable forest. Caster was out there and drawing toward them. Not fast, but steady—inevitable.

“Archer,” she said.

“Indeed.” He was opaque, an exquisite jewel clouded at the center. “Ready the gift from my treasury. I shall meet the mad mongrel.”

Irisviel needed a moment to understand what Archer meant. She coughed, embarrassed. “Oh. I don’t have it on me, I’ll have to fetch it from the study.”

His face twisted with incredulity, and the mythic façade broke. Just then, Archer became almost human. “Excuse me? I present to you that which is a one-of-a-kind weapon, beyond measure, and you leave it to garner dust in some dim corner of this abominable place? Have I heard that right?”

Aoi remained inconsolable, head in Irisviel’s lap. She shifted as the conversation progressed; sat up to observe them, mute and almost unreal. A nightmare figment descended to preside alongside them, an embodiment of grief crafted from flesh and bone.

Irisviel cleared her throat, pale skin warming to a light, dusty pink. “I know, I’m sorry, I just… ah, I don’t really like guns…”

Archer stared, then sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose. He said, “Very well. Let come what may.”

He turned into motes of gold while he spoke, vanishing from sight. Irisviel and Aoi were left alone. Slowly, the white-haired woman began to disentangle herself from Aoi, only for the other woman to cling even tighter.

“Irisviel, what—?”

“I won’t be gone long. We’re under attack, and I need to ensure we stay safe.”

“What about Rin?”

“Saber will protect her,” Irisviel said, with a confidence she had not quite internalized. The truth was neither had any way of knowing for certain, and false hope was its own form of cruelty. “We must protect ourselves in the meantime.”

Aoi relinquished her grip and withdrew inward, knees drawn beneath her chin and bare white feet hanging off the couch’s edge. She seemed child-like and Irisviel wished she could offer more than token reassurances.

“I won’t be gone long.” An empty repetition that followed Irisviel out of the room.

The baroque hall stretched unending before her, ornate artwork and gilt patterns following her movements only from the corner of her eye. She crept down it, furtive as a mouse, made to feel small in her own home. The grand staircase descending to the foyer opened before her, and Archer was moving at a slow, stately pace with a manicured hand on the banister, much like a debutante at a ball. Power swirled thickly about, leaving Irisviel lightheaded and the scene borderline dream-like.

Banging from the front double doors could be heard. Bang. Bang. Bang. They held admirably at first, stolid and stubborn, carved from oak the width of two thumbs, then caved with a labored groan to the invader. Caster stepped beyond the threshold, singing jubilantly, a bloodied grimoire in one hand and in the other a severed head—

Irisviel recoiled, bile acrid in her throat. No. Surely not. How could this be? But who else could it be? Who else had such wonderful thick dark hair, clasped so crudely in Caster’s withered grip, eyes dark like a burrow to nestle in, now glossy and blank, their inner light snuffed out?

Tears budded in her eyes and her hand was raised toward her mouth, to stifle a sob. Caster spoke, but it might as well have been his native tongue for all Irisviel comprehended him. Archer stood upright and tall, as if hewn from metal, turned away, a foreign enigma to her.

Irisviel stumbled toward the far end of the hall, shakily fumbling for the door handle. It turned slow, tortuously slow, and she entered the study, falling to her knees, the cry of a wounded animal wrenched from her lips. Beside the desk was a painting of a woman in a pink dress on a swing, blurred and streaked by rain, melting and dissolving into dreary nothingness. She had the look of one who knew a secret, and in that secret lay a kernel of truth.

(What is this sleep which holds you now? You are lost in the dark and cannot hear me.)

…

To emerge from the dank, desecrated basement into clear, clean air was akin to baptism. Saber breathed out, the light from the sun warm on her skin, the songs of doves ringing in her ears, freed of at least one shackle for now. Rin clung to her side, still teary-eyed and sniffling, while the dazed boy, Shirou, trailed behind them.

Assassin squirmed out of Saber’s arms, having already voiced her displeasure at being carried. Two more facets of Assassin were waiting for them outside the shop—the first Saber recognized, while the second was an unknown woman adorned in a gauzy veil. Saber let Assassin go without comment and watched the girl walk over to rejoin the others. The man nodded gruffly and the woman drew her into a warm embrace, veil parting as it pressed against dark purple hair. The girl went stiff with shock, then softened imperceptibly, winding her arms around the woman’s neck and resting her cheek on her shoulder.

Assassin approached them. To Saber’s surprise, he dropped upon one knee, eye level with Shirou, a hand over his heart, and said, “As-Salam-u-Alaikum.”

Shirou stared at Assassin then looked to Rin for guidance, tongue-tied, even shy. She shrugged in response, equally abashed. Assassin found his feet and met Saber.

“Caster is on the move. He’s headed toward the von Einzbern villa.”

“I see.” Saber prayed her trust in Gilgamesh had not been misplaced. “I will return, then. Would you escort the children to safety?”

Assassin hesitated. “Of course.”

Before Saber could inquire further into the suspicious pause—events were shifting so rapidly that pure coincidence became less and less plausible—Rin distracted her. The girl blurted out:

“What! No. I’m your Master now, aren’t I? I should be by your side!”

At first, Saber could not answer. It would have been simple to say she was flabbergasted by Rin’s confident naivete, especially after the horrors just endured, but in truth Saber was touched, and the immediate flood of fondness arrested her momentarily. For all of Rin’s obvious magical talent, she was young, had endured an awful tribulation, which meant common sense must prevail. Still, Saber appreciated the gesture, on a level beyond articulation. She was uncertain what the future would bring—the Chruch was strict in its policy of Heroic Spirits distribution, especially among the great mage families—but for now, she was pleased with her new situation. 

“Master Rin, I shall fight all the better knowing you are safe and sound. And I believe it would bring your father great comfort too.”

Rin blushed crimson, face almost as red as her sweater, and mumbled some that sounded vaguely like: “Fine. But just this once.”

“What about me?” Shirou asked. He was beside Rin, pale and swaying, the shock of the day finally seeming to fade, replaced by crushing realization.

“Tell me where you live, kid—I’ll find it,” Assassin replied. Shirou looked down at his feet.

“I… my parents are gone.” They were killed. The unspoken element echoed between them. Rin whipped around to stare at Shirou, eyes wide. “I don’t have anyone else.”

Assassin clicked his tongue. Saber was sympathetic but unmoved by the tragedy. She could not linger; Irisviel was in danger.

“Bring him to the Tohsaka Estate, Assassin. We can decide where to go from there later.”

A nod in assent, and then Saber took off.

…

Gilgamesh watched Caster below him.

He was almost remarkable in his ugliness, bulbous and sagging, decayed in mind, body and soul. Caster was reminiscent of a bullfrog, sat squat and glistening on a lily pad in the stagnant sections of the Euphrates river, waiting to devour mayflies in wet, smacking gulps. The wattle of his throat even bore passing resemblance to an amphibian’s collapsed throat sac, trembling each time his twisted lips moved to speak.

Gilgamesh itched to wipe the stain blotting his vision clean away, but reminded himself that the ecstasy of revelation was not yet upon them. Soon. The heavens had been clear, and fate was undeniable. What would be would be.

Caster regarded him calmly, the scales of madness lifted from his eyes. He spoke: “In my youth, I wished it were possible to attack the sun, to deprive the universe of it, or to use it to set the world ablaze—those would be crimes indeed, not the little excesses in which we indulge, which do no more than metamorphose, in the course of a year, a dozen creatures into clods of earth.”

Gilgamesh said nothing. He would not deign to allow an audience with vermin. Caster spasmed, the lines in his faces contorted and grotesque, working his jaw furiously. His grip on the bloodied grimoire tightened, and Gilgamesh sensed the brewings of magic. It gurgled oily and slick upon the stale air, and his nose crinkled with distaste. The visible reaction seemed to soothe Caster once more.

“Do not hold your tongue, cur. See? I have slaughtered your ally.” Caster gestured at Kiritsugu’s head. “Although given the circumstances which I came by it, I imagine you are little bereaved to hear such news. All infidels are attracted to each other, like flies to shit.”

Silence was his only answer. It was fortunate Gilgamesh had been born with infinite patience, for Caster’s insults tested him mightily.

Caster continued, undeterred:

“There are those who never misbehave save when passion spurs them to ill; later, the fire gone out of them, their now calm spirit peacefully returns to the path of virtue and, thus passing their life going from strife to error and from error to remorse, they end their days in such a way there is no telling just what roles they have enacted on earth. Such persons must surely be miserable: forever drifting, continually undecided, their entire life spent detesting in the morning what they did the evening before. Certain to repent of the pleasures they taste, they take their delight in quaking, in such sort they become at once virtuous in crime and criminal in virtue.”

Gilgamesh folded his arms, impassive.

“Speak, damn you!” The switch flipped and now Caster was shrieking, flecks of spittle sailing forth in unison with the opening of his grimoire. “Witness me!”

Dark stars of flesh and sinew and spine flew toward Gilgamesh. He held out a hand and golden radiance emitted from it, the great shield of a great hero appearing, constellation bright, to guard him. Gore struck the shield’s surface and smeared askance, scattering in giblets to the ground far from him. Caster hurled still more demonic figures at Gilgamesh, howling and beating his breast.

“I gaze upon you and know you for what you are! Witness me! See me and speak, before God and before the purest of all maidens! You are no better than me! Slattern! Defiler! Heretic! I too am deserving of the title Heroic Spirit! Witness, witness! Oooh…”

Gilgamesh remained steady and silent but rolled his eyes toward the end of Caster’s tirade. Caster swore, a string of oaths morphing into a stream of gibberish, then stopped abruptly. Gilgamesh heard the noise too, a faint cry, and turned his head slightly.

Sounds of a scuffle could be heard down the hall, and then an auburn-haired man emerged from the gloom, dragging Aoi by the hair. He threw her to the ground at the apex of the stairs, panting hard, a wild look in his eyes and a pistol in his hand.

Aoi wailed, high-pitched, and tried to stand, only for the man to kick her in the ribs and then slam his foot on her head, gun cocked and ready to shoot. Aoi whimpered but held herself still, eyes darting pleadingly toward Gilgamesh. He remained indifferent.

Caster’s posture transformed and his hunched form straightened, bulbous eyes wide.

“Ryuunosuke,” Caster whispered, hushed. “You must retreat! You are in great danger here.”

“Hell no, that’s pussy talk. We take this douchebag together or not at all, yeah? We’re brothers-in-arms.” Ryuunosuke pointed the gun at Gilgamesh. “Oi! Listen up! Gilles de Rais is a genius artist and one of a kind awesome, and everything he touches turns to gold. So show some goddamn respect, got it?”

“Ryuunosuke…” Caster said, misty eyed.

The situation had officially degraded to embarassing farce for everyone involved, and Gilgamesh had half a mind to deviate from the plan in the name of irked pride. And yet, Caster's shift in countenance intrigued Gilgamesh more than anticipated. This Master-Servant pair was different. He had not lingered upon everything revealed to him, for not all of it had interested him.

A metallic squeal distracted everyone. Swooping from the opposite end of the hall was a hawk forged from long, thin, flexible wires meshed together, streaking toward Ryuunosuke, who gaped. Caster reacted first, flinging an abomination at the bird.

Gilgamesh watched it sail past and intercept the magecraft, engulfing the rather impressive craftsmanship and crushing it ruthlessly. Irisviel was standing between the double doors of the study, pale, cheeks smudged with mascara, revolver in trembling hand, held at her hip. When the demonic abomination turned to face her, Gilgamesh opened the Gate of Babylon and loosened several weapons upon it, slicing the beast to ribbons. The swords and spears quivered, buried deep into the ceramic floor, as vile flesh sloughed around them. What a waste, such a desecration. 

“Holy shit,” Ryuunosuke said, awed.

“You would rush the aid of some homonculus over your Master’s brethren?” Caster asked, slowly. He was now staring at Gilgamesh as though he were not just a roadblock but a puzzle to be solved. Gilgamesh huffed in response, and Caster's lip curled with contempt. "Of course. Jeanne."

Gilgamesh bristled. 

But Irisviel again cut through the tumult, voice tremulous but discernible, and said, “Let Aoi go. Now.”

“Who?” Ryuunosuke was uncomprehending. Then he glanced down at the disheveled woman beneath his boot, bemused. It was obvious he had forgotten about Aoi. “Her?”

He increased pressure and Aoi moaned, feebly trying to ward him off with a weak scrape of the arm as blood dribbled from the corner of her mouth. Long scratch marks ran up and down her pale skin.

“Stop it!” Irisviel shouted, an edge of hysteria to her command. “She has suffered enough already!”

Gilgamesh and Caster were quiet, completely absorbed by the exchange. It was no longer a battle of Servant against Servant, rather Master against Master.

“Oh yeah? And you’re gonna stop me? Ha! Yeah right. Look at you. You’re soft, a pampered princess. I bet you’ve never worked a day in your entire life. You’re not even holding that gun properly.”

Ryuunosuke was looming, a dragon in all but form, fangs bared and ready to breathe fire. He directed his pistol at her and Irisviel quailed with recognition, mouth moving soundlessly. She soon found words to speak:

“That’s not yours.”

“No shit, you stupid bitch.” Ryuunosuke laughed again. “Nothing in this world belongs to dregs like me. We take what we can get and make the best of it. Always have, always will.”

Tears glinted in Irisviel’s eyes. The weight of Ryuunosuke’s words, of her own grief and despair, seemed to be grinding down on her. Caster puffed out his chest while he watched, pride self-evident. Gilgamesh frowned, then spoke:

“Have you forgotten Saber’s faith in you? Are you a knight or just another mewling quim?”

Irisviel started. A hot blush burned in her cheeks and she glared at Gilgamesh, looking akin to a castle in Germany, covered in snow, just as the north wind blew the snow away to reveal harsh stone beneath. She faced Ryuunosuke once more.

“… Give it back. It’s—it was my husband’s. Give it back.”

That ridiculously phallic creation belonged to Arturia’s former Master? Gilgamesh had not thought it possible to hate him more. He should have killed the man at the earliest opportunity.

“Make me.” Ryuunosuke smirked. “And I mean, a duel? Like out of those American westerns? How cool would that be? Then again—”

The revolver Irisviel carried was no ordinary revolver. It was the origin of the Noble Phantasm that would one day belong to sharpshooter Billy the Kid. Its special ability meant it always shot first.

Therefore, when Ryuunosuke began to squeeze the trigger of Kiritsugu’s mage-killer pistol, Irisviel's weapon jerked her arm of its own accord and fired. The smell of gunpowder filled the air and Ryuunosuke stood gaping, bearing an expression of mild surprise, mirrored by the shock on Irisviel's face. She had shot him through the heart.

Ryuunosuke crumpled to the ground in slow motion. He thudded down the stairs, each individual thud somehow louder than the gunshot. He rolled to Gilgamesh’s feet, who kicked him further down the stairs, disgusted. The body landed at the base with one final, limpid thud and did not move again.

“Oh,” Caster said. He walked to Ryuunosuke and turned him over. “Your shirt…”

He tenderly stroked the small, neat hole in Ryuunosuke’s clothes, fingers long and talon-sharp, rapidly staining with an ever-widening ring of blood. Something about the scene caused Gilgamesh to pause. There was a word to describe the expression gentling Caster’s hideous features, elusive yet strangely important to grasp.

It came to Gilgamesh: love. He did consider another option. It was a curious notion, love; difficult to identify and define. There were so many degrees and variations. He could have dismissed it as mere affection, shallow infatuation, the perverse idylls of two naturally obsessive monsters—an explanation vague enough to mean anything. But those would have been lies. The truth, the brutal truth, was that they had been in love. True enough to use the right word.

He had a vision of a beast in a vast plain. Above him an eagle circled alone in the blue expanse above, and thus the beast sat on his haunches and cried, “Come down and be my brother.” The eagle circled and circled, then drew close and landed upon the beast, left the freedom of the lonely skies to be hooded and tamed, and knew that part of its life was over.

(Even though no one else in the world cared, you did. That is enough.)

For the briefest of moments, Gilgamesh’s heart softened. He descended the staircase and stood vigil beside Caster and spoke, softly, words only for them to know. Caster ignored him.

Then Caster began to shake and the air grew heavy with dark, violent magic. A cry shattered the sorrow as an unfettered ululation left his mouth. It was a singular note, pure, unbroken and never-ending. Caster’s grimoire, fallen from his slack grip, now began to flip rapidly through the pages, back and forth and forth and back. Cloying purple mucus escaped the grimoire and beelined to Caster, began to form a monument of gristle and flesh about him and the corpse of Ryuuosuke and the scalp of Kiritsugu. Gilgamesh had to step back or else be consumed.

Irisviel was at the top of the stairs, huddled over Aoi and massaging her temples with healing magics. But as the dreadful miasma of Caster’s insane grief intensified, she slowed, sweat beading her brow. Even for an experienced mage, it swiftly became too much to bear. Gilgamesh approached Irisviel.

"We cannot stay. Come hither.”

“Aoi…” Irisviel said weakly. She cradled Kiritsugu’s pistol in one hand, smoothing strands of Aoi’s hair with the other.

The ground shook, wracked with tremors, the roof of the villa beginning to collapse around them. Caster was engorged, swelling faster and faster, soon tall as the ceiling and then pushing beyond it with a wail of triumph. Beyond him the sky shone cloudless and blue as the deep. The pressure of his malevolent aura strengthened, the weight of it heavy on the breast. 

Gilgamesh caught Irisviel when she fainted and scooped the doll bridal style into his arms. Gold portals appeared beneath his feet and beneath the revolver. It had served its purpose.

A delicate, jeweled spacecraft rose from under him and lifted them into the air, hovering several feet above Aoi. He carefully set Irisviel down at the seat of the ship, then returned to the prow to watch events unfold. The foul muck from Caster was steadily rising in tandem with his expansion, creeping up the stairs toward the estranged woman. Gilgamesh was unmoved except to prevent falling debris from crushing her.

When the muck at last reached Aoi and began to coalesce around her, Gilgamesh reached down with a gauntlet fist to pull her free. There was resistance, the secretions of Caster eager to swallow its prey whole, but Gilgamesh wrenched her from its clutches with an irate grunt.

Aoi coughed and retched, spewing black bile, and opened poison-glazed eyes to gaze upon him with pure, unadulterated hatred. She opened her mouth, but more black mud spurted free, spewing across the prow. Gilgamesh’s expression wrinkled with distaste, but he said nothing.

The ship flew out a hole in the roof and away, gone in an instant, abandoning the von Einzbern villa to its demise.

Series this work belongs to:

• Part 4 of For Want of a Grail