Nasuverse Adventure in the Cedar Forest

Amodelsino

Well-Known Member
Except it cant? It can't mess with the Akashic Record itself, its not on the level of the Akashic Record, it's not any of the things you stated. It's a wish granting machine that returns a result depending on the amount of power it has at its disposal (except it was corrupted so it basically just wrecks shit and births Angra Mainyu). At the height of it's power with seven Heroic Spirits it can theoretically allow someone to gain access to Akasha once (or it'd just wreck shit instead probably). Gil used that power to cull humanity. That was his wish.
 

Nasuren

Well-Known Member
*looks at the wiki to take a refresher*

Give me a break, it's been awhile since I last played the game.

On a serious note, has it been out flat stated that was that wish?
 

Amodelsino

Well-Known Member
He saw him do it didn't he? I'll reread later to check, I'm going to bed for now.
 
Amodelsino said:
Master of Squirrel-Fu said:
Remember according to Nasu, the power of humanity is inversely proportional to it's size.
That's according to a bunch of people assuming shit, not Nasu.
Pretty sure it was stated somewhere... But IIRC the fact that humanity actually has gotten weaker is true, even if I don't know where to prove that weight of the soul stuff. Gil's whole reason for wanting to kill off mankind is because he finds them pathetic compared to what mankind used to be like. Hell I think the wiki even states that Humanity was so awesome back then not even Gilgamesh could afford to go around being such a murderous dick all the time. It's also the reason why there are no modern servants other than EMIYA (and even then he's a CG).
 

daniel_gudman

KING (In Land of Blind)
Staff member
In UBW, during one of the interludes, Gil and Shinji have a scene that went like this:

Gil told an anecdote about how, once, as the king, he assembled a dozen palace servants, and decided to kill the ones he could, just becuase he could. Shinji asked if he then killed all of them, but Gil said no, he actually killed none of them, because in that era, every single person was necessary. The population was so low there were no "spare" people. Then Gil concludes, "a lot of something is ugly just from its size", and crushed one of the Matou worms under his boot.

...

In Fate/Zero his wish was something like "getting reunited with Enkidu" (once he admitted it wasn't just "everything is mine, therefor the Grail is mine, so I'm just reclaiming my property"); but during the ten years in between, his attempts to find Enkidu's reincarnation were frustrated by having to search through 7 billion humans. Well, getting dipped in Grail Juice might have influenced that a little bit, but Nasu said "probably not".

If it's the soul weight thing, that's according to Gilgamesh, who's seen exactly two data points:
1) The far-ancient Age of Legends, when you couldn't go for a walk without tripping over a phantom race, when the humans spoke the Unified Language, and the whole world, with every human, was unified under a single government, of which Gil was king.
2) The modern era.
So saying "soul weight" or whatever has gone down... if you're willing to believe Gilgamesh in the first place, even then he doesn't actually know why, he just assumed that the part of human civilization ("huge populations") he didn't like was to blame.

Medea was a witch from the Age of Gods, and in a one-on-one fight with Rin... Rin used a gem-spell as a shield and then started literally kicking her butt. With, like, the kung-fu she practiced as a hobby. So... of the three people in GW5 from the Age of Gods, we had Caster, who had the body of a modern normal person, and Rider, who was a god/monster, and Berserker, who was the demigod Hercules.

You could just as easily say, that in the past humans were stronger, because they were less human from all the hybrid blood, and you'd have at least as much evidence to support your position as Gilgamesh...? That's just a hypothesis.

The reason that no one in the modern era can become a Hero is that, compared to a tank or a missile, the personal fighting power of a Hero is unremarkable.

Anyway,

In this story,

The divergence is late in UBW, rather than going and capturing Ilya to use as the Grail, Gil went and used Sakura; his wish to "Get rid of all the unneccessary people" was fufilled by Angra Mainyu turning Sakura into a curse-factory that produced Shadow-Giant type familiars that poured out and started indiscriminately killing people.

If you don't mind a bit of spoiler that probably won't get explained anyway...
Since they retained their nature as "phantasmal beings" for a while, things like attack helicopters couldn't just shoot them to death, but once Sakura got used up, they changed modes into these Titan things and the quality really went down.
 
I never like Nasuphysics with it's penchant for "Lols I'm magic you can't even scratch me muggles!" and how awesome everything was before science. Well if nothing else the fact that Alaya hasn't either retconned Gilgamesh gone nor dealt with humanity being near extinction till now might be a plot point.
 

Nasuren

Well-Known Member
...wait, he didn't get a chance to make his wish in Zero, right? Why would he be looking for Enkidu's reincarnation when his soul's still on the throne?
 
I just realized something, or rather got further proof of something.

Gilgamesh is a shameless hypocrite. Excess is ugly? What the fuck does he call Gates of Babylon?
 

Nasuren

Well-Known Member
Master of Squirrel-Fu said:
I just realized something, or rather got further proof of something.

Gilgamesh is a shameless hypocrite. Excess is ugly? What the fuck does he call Gates of Babylon?
It took you that long to realize it? The fact that he condemns 'fakers' when he himself is just a copy of the original Gilgamesh alone should had set it off.
 
Nasuren said:
Master of Squirrel-Fu said:
I just realized something, or rather got further proof of something.

Gilgamesh is a shameless hypocrite. Excess is ugly? What the fuck does he call Gates of Babylon?
It took you that long to realize it? The fact that he condemns 'fakers' when he himself is just a copy of the original Gilgamesh alone should had set it off.
Note the bolded line. Until now I hadn't known about his hatred of having too much of something.
 

Rising Dragon

Well-Known Member
I imagine Gilgamesh's justification for the Gates of Babylon is that they contain only the finest weapons (and wine), which would be relatively small compared to the billions of other weapons in the world.
 

Nasuren

Well-Known Member
Rising Dragon said:
I imagine Gilgamesh's justification for the Gates of Babylon is that they contain only the finest weapons (and wine), which would be relatively small compared to the billions of other weapons in the world.
Actually... it has more that that. Fate/Extra states GoB actually has the original 'human wisdom' or something like that. It doesn't sound like much, but it has been stated that GoB contains both submarines and airplanes because of it.
 

Rising Dragon

Well-Known Member
You still get what I mean though. The "only the finest" bit is the justification Gilgamesh would use about someone calling what he has excess.
 
Nasuren said:
Rising Dragon said:
I imagine Gilgamesh's justification for the Gates of Babylon is that they contain only the finest weapons (and wine), which would be relatively small compared to the billions of other weapons in the world.
Actually... it has more that that. Fate/Extra states GoB actually has the original 'human wisdom' or something like that. It doesn't sound like much, but it has been stated that GoB contains both submarines and airplanes because of it.
God I hate Nasu's Gilgawankery.:dodgy:
 

Deathwings

Well-Known Member
Nasuren said:
Rising Dragon said:
I imagine Gilgamesh's justification for the Gates of Babylon is that they contain only the finest weapons (and wine), which would be relatively small compared to the billions of other weapons in the world.
Actually... it has more that that. Fate/Extra states GoB actually has the original 'human wisdom' or something like that. It doesn't sound like much, but it has been stated that GoB contains both submarines and airplanes because of it.
So I was right, Gate of Babylon DOES in fact have an auto-updating system. I knew it !
 

Nasuren

Well-Known Member
Deathwings said:
Nasuren said:
Rising Dragon said:
I imagine Gilgamesh's justification for the Gates of Babylon is that they contain only the finest weapons (and wine), which would be relatively small compared to the billions of other weapons in the world.
Actually... it has more that that. Fate/Extra states GoB actually has the original 'human wisdom' or something like that. It doesn't sound like much, but it has been stated that GoB contains both submarines and airplanes because of it.
So I was right, Gate of Babylon DOES in fact have an auto-updating system. I knew it !
No, it doesn't. Hold on while I find the article from extra/CCC that describes it:

That which Gilgamesh stored, rather than being treasure, is "the origin of the intelligence of mankind" itself. If it does not exist in Gilgamesh's treasury, then it is "something produced by a new breed of humanity, according a completely new concept," "something made from the technology of the culture born from the intelligent life from another heavenly body," one of the two.
For that reason, of course he has airplanes and submarines. The desires of the people from before Christ are not different, and it would not do for the crafts of ancient times when magic was in good health to be inferior to the crafts of the modern age. People generally realize the "tools of hope" that they dream of, and each time that occurs, it ended with them being confiscated by the king's hand.
Yup, he's that greedy.
 
I could see Gil being stung bad enough by Shirou's attitude that he decides to join the Military Forces, either as Defence Force or Scout because Military Police is too far from the frontline to properly show the Might of the King.

Whether his first encounter with Titans would go badly enough that Gilgamesh divinity and might as King of Heroes resurface (as the Nasu-verse soul mechanics would imply Gil does possess Gilgamesh's strength) would be interesting to see. As in, Prince Gil is about to be eaten and panicking, Gilgamesh comes to the fore going "HELL NO", wrestles down and kills the Titan barehanded because he's 2/3 divine. He can't actually have GoB until he recovers the Keysword for it... which is out there so he needs to get into the Scout forces... and traverse hundreds of miles to the site of Uruk/Babylon. It would be an interesting scene for Shirou, watching Prince Gil leave with the Scouts and seeing Gilgamesh return later on, bloodied but having regained the 'something' that denotes him as King of Heroes. Hatred for the King of Heroes duelling with the slight relief that he's no longer the only one with the power to easily kill Titans and the anticipation/fear that Gilgamesh will promptly install himself as supreme ruler and laugh at Humanity's suffering.

It would be an interesting character conflict, King of Heroes and Faker forced to work together because, like it or not, even with Eren the Friendly Titan they're the only ones capable to taking down Titans reliably without risk. That both want to protect Mankind from the Titans, Shirou because Shirou and Gilgamesh because otherwise he wouldn't have any subjects and very privately owning up to being wrong about the weakness of Mankind due to greater numbers (still as weak as the Modern Age despite much smaller numbers) and the entire mess being his damn fault, forces their co-operation even as they'd much rather duke it out again. Shirou, despite his contempt of both Titans and Gil, recognizes that Gilgamesh's armoury could even the odds for Humanity rather drastically since UBW can't provide the same advantage as GoB in terms of long term deployment. So Shirou is actually also encouraged to work with Gilgamesh to save the most lives and even aid the former King of Heroes regain his power. That two superhuman combatants are better than one go without saying, a tactical advantage both can recognize.

Even more, the situation with the Titans limits both Gilgamesh and Shirou' effective power level drastically. Both are encouraged to husband their strength and use precise amounts of force. Gil's own arrogance would actually push him to limit the power he uses, true.

As Titans are laughable non-issues for either Shirou or Gilgamesh (but still a mortal threat to Prince Gil), I'm interested in the future character development. Perhaps Prince Gil will find himself caught switching between the weak human Gil and the unstoppable 2/3 divine Gilgamesh without any control, thus requiring him to rely on fellow humans and coming to empathize with them? Perhaps Prince Gil will never regain the might of the King of Heroes, but still wishes to show the strength and will of the King by fighting Titans, so that he may become the official heir to the throne? Or will the supremely arrogant Prince Gil keep cowering behind the walls while the Faker Emiya continues to demonstrate his strength to all? Having Shirou taunt him about that would be hilarious.
 

Nasuren

Well-Known Member
If he seeks out the original key, it wouldn't do that much. If the original Keysword only opens the original GoB, then he'll be in for a surprise as the original is empty.

No, I think this would be a chance for Gil to re-establish his legend in a world that would have forgotten about the original heroes. Consider the state the world is in, it wouldn't be unlikely that formerly well known legends have long since been forgotten. It all depends on how stable his personality is.

As for Shirou vs. Gil? For some reason if the two fight before Gilgamesh emerges from Gil (IF that happens), woe betides the King if the two comes to an understanding. Last time something like that happened, Gilgamesh became the 'Greatest King' in the world.
 
Nasuren said:
If he seeks out the original key, it wouldn't do that much. If the original Keysword only opens the original GoB, then he'll be in for a surprise as the original is empty.

No, I think this would be a chance for Gil to re-establish his legend in a world that would have forgotten about the original heroes. Consider the state the world is in, it wouldn't be unlikely that formerly well known legends have long since been forgotten. It all depends on how stable his personality is.

As for Shirou vs. Gil? For some reason if the two fight before Gilgamesh emerges from Gil (IF that happens), woe betides the King if the two comes to an understanding. Last time something like that happened, Gilgamesh became the 'Greatest King' in the world.
That would actually be pretty cool to see, Shirou and Gil as the New Gilgamesh and Enkidu. To make it better it's been established that Gil won't wonton murder people if there aren't enough spares, and there definitely aren't in the titan universe.
 

daniel_gudman

KING (In Land of Blind)
Staff member
Somehow I felt like writing this, so I did.

I I I

4.2

It had been a long day.

First, there had been a great deal of work in the morning. The deskwork had been accomplished by dictating to a harassed aid who had followed him around with a board suspended by shoulder straps, and he only signed the papers. Meanwhile, he had inspected the damage to the walls. It wasn’t just a case of rebuilding the shattered gate, but the Engineering Squad had insisted on inspecting the whole surface of the wall for cracks.

It was very difficult for Dot Pixis to be frustrated by such courageous dedication. Even if it was inconvenient, the obvious necessity meant he allowed no complaints from the soldiers assigned to guard the inspectors.

And… it was absolutely critical that the corpses be evacuated from the town, as well. The threat of disease was in some ways even more terrible than the threat of titans.

Things had gotten worse at lunch. At that time, it had been necessary to switch roles. Even if the title of Commander was exactly the same, the responsibilities of the Commander who gave orders and led soldiers was much more to his liking than the Commander who curried favors with Nobles and answered to the politics surrounding the King. Starting from that stiff and formal meal, he had been forced to lollygag around while his soldiers worked honestly. Of course it was just his body that was lollygagging, when in reality his mind was fully engaged in carving out advantage in exhausting social dynamics.

That had wandered out onto the grand pavilion, where he was cheered to see that the new Sir Shirou had the appropriate amount of astuteness for an officer. Well, that was just a bonus compared to seeing how sincerely he appreciated such a bald attempt to buy his loyalty with cheers.

After the pavilion the dinner partying had begun. There had been wine at that.

Dot Pixis liked wine.

He had not reached his bed until the night hours had crossed least halfway toward daytime. Knowing that his next morning would be exactly the same as the previous morning, he had flung himself into bed and instantly fallen into the deep sleep of a soldier between shifts.

At least, before a guard burst into his room. Like a tiger, he had awoken instantly at the sound of his door slamming open, and Dot Pixis wearily sat up to examine the intruder.

“Sir!” The guard was frantic. The wild and uncertain look in his eye made the pace of his breathing seem twice as desperate. The man snapped into a salute.

“This had better be good.” Dot Pixis said. He was quite proud he’d kept the irritation in his voice to a minimum.

“Prince Gil has been kidnapped!” The guard announced. His voice was much louder than it needed to be. There was no one else but the two of them and Dot Pixis had a small and humble bedroom in the first place.

“That’s not good.” Dot Pixis responded. The guard announced at the unironic scolding tone.

The guard swallowed uncertainly, off balance, and then spoke again. “By Sir Shirou, sir!”

Dot Pixis considered that. “That’s not good at all.” He concluded. It completely lacked heat or any sort of strong emotion, but at the least, it was a very sincere statement.

I I I

It had been over 30 hours.

This man had burst into his room in the middle of the night. The guards had been defeated without permanent injury. He had crossed the smooth floor without any hesitation, jumped onto his wide bed still wearing those dirty boots, and he’d dragged Gil up by the front of his yellow pajamas.

Naturally, the Prince had not taken that lying down. Even if he had been laying down in his bed in a literal sense, he was someone that would stand up in that situation because that was necessary for him to embody a superior person.

So, on the uneven footing of the feather mattress, they had fought.

His furious and accurate punches were deflected. Even if the counter was strong enough to make his ribs creek, he didn’t allow it to show on his face, let alone his body language. Since an exchange of blows was resulting in his loss, he had switched strategies. If there was one thing in this world that Gil had seized with his own hands, it was fighting power.

The prince had lunged in, grabbed his midnight attacker by shoulder and hip, and lifted him above Gil’s head. Like that, even as his feet wobbled from the unsteady footing, his knees were steady. He would simply snap the intruder in half across his shoulders.

But, the blow at the base of his skull was as hard as iron, and then darkness.

When he had come to, alarms had been clanging and many shouted voices could be heard, but this interloper was calmly saddling one of the excellent horses of the scouting legion. He had bound Gil’s hands behind his back and his ankles and knees together. A cotton rag was shoved in his mouth and a rope was tied over it.

This pretender had thrown him over the flank of the horse like a sack of potatoes and done… something. He had taken the horse’s neck in his hands, and whispered in an ancient dialect, and it was like he poured water across the flanks of the horse. It was warm like fire, sweet like a breeze, and as solid as earth. It was something ethereal. Gil did not recognize it and that infuriated him.

Yes, all that had happened over thirty hours ago.

Since that time, impossibly, the horse had been cantering. Not sprinting or galloping at top speed, but simply eating up distance. Even a horse this excellent would have died of exhaustion by now. It was foaming, the horse was near its limits, that was true, but it would survive. It had not crossed a critical line into fatal overwork. For a horse to continue running for 30 hours while supporting the weight of two people—that was like something out of a legend.

And it had been 30 hours. Prince Gil had spent all that time glaring at this vagabond without any interruptions or failure. The horse had run. The Prince glared. And the man ignored him, leading the Horse on this impossible journey.

He had a crick in his neck.

Finally, at midmorning, the man pulled the horse to a halt. They slowed, and then stopped, and the man pushed the Prince off the horse like he was unloading a sack of potatoes. He landed on his rear with a bump.

The man led the horse away, and tied it to a tree in the shade of a ruined castle. It had half fallen over, the walls were half decayed, a tower lay in pieces and the central fort looked ready to collapse.

The man pulled off the saddle and rubbed down the horse.

With great dignity, Gil gathered his legs beneath him, and stood tall. He kept his back straight, and rolled his shoulders and neck, working out the stiffness and soreness. He would face whatever trial was before him without bowing or blinking. That sort of presence was the absolute minimum required by royalty, after all.

Finally, the man returned. “It’s been a long time… Gilgamesh.”

Gil snorted, and jerked his head, refusing to let his words be muffled by the indignity of a gag.

“Right.” The man said, half to himself. He raised his fingers and snapped them, and—

Sword appeared, inflating into existence out of nothingness, like… like magic.

They hung in space, and before he could even react, they launched like bullets from a gun, and severed the bonds at his ankles and knees, slamming into the ground around him. One curved impossibly and passed across his wrist, still curving before it hit the ground before him. It had a shape he didn’t recognize, like the undulation of a lazy river. One flicked by his face and cut the rope over his mouth.

Somehow, the prince was absolutely certain that the shallow cut on his check had been perfectly deliberate.

With slow majesty, he reached in front of him and pulled the gag down. “That,” he announced, “is not my name.”

The man smiled. It did not reach his eyes at all. “It isn’t, huh? But it is. It was. And it will be. That name is the name of your soul… your royal highness.”

Something had stirred inside him when he heard that name. But he would not allow or acknowledge it at all. Nothing could be forced on a King.

The man moved. His feet shifted and widened as his center of gravity stabilized.

Even though he was armored only with the cloth of his pajamas, Prince Gil did not back down from the challenge. He too entered a fighting stance.

Two sword traced into existence in that man’s hands. One black and one white, mirror images of each other, one soul given two bodies like an ideal marriage.

Without even a rock, Gil did not back down.

“I’ll make you remember.” The man swore. It was not a voice expressing any reasonable sentiment. It was definitely a grudge stained with darkness, madness and rage given utterance. It was a simple sentence and a terrifying threat.

The eyes of the prince widened as the lids pulled back to expose his pupils to the maximum amount of stimulus. His mouth tightened as his lips peeled back to expose his teeth as if he was a wolf. He clenched his fingers into fists and swore that he would crush that man’s neck and win.

The man attacked. Two sword swings, high and low, from opposite directions.

Gil lunged, twisting first one way and then the other, as the swords narrowly missed his thigh and his throat. He stepped in and down between them and lauched his fist to cripple his enemy’s shoulder.

But he had to abort and throw himself back as the swords whipped back like scissors closing in on his neck. His hand brushed a sword. Without looking, he grabbed it. Like this, now he was armed.

He swung. It had some skill, but it was nothing remarkable.

With a sneer, that man knocked his unremarkable counterattack out of the way with one sword and followed with the other. “What’s the matter, Gilgamesh, not enough swords?”

“That’s not my name.” The Prince snarled. He threw the sword in his hands at his opponent. It was a slow and underhand toss, aiming to catch the man between his legs.

But, that guy nimbly and easily stepped out of the way. No matter. The Prince also stepped aside, and in so doing, closed his hands on the heavy and curved blade that had freed them earlier. He pulled the kukri from the ground and lunged forward to bury it in his neck.

“Hmph.” That disgusted sneer was an expression he’d never seen before. It was like looking in a mirror at someone imitating his own face. “Just a shallow duplicate of the real thing.”

Somehow that enraged him. “You!” The prince roared. He would not allow himself to say something as pathetic as ‘what do you know’ or ‘you don’t know anything’, so instead he contented himself with simply shouting that pronoun with hate.

But, his attack was stymied by those twin blades. Once again, he was forced to step back, but he used his retreat to his advantage by moving towards the last blade in the ground.

“Ha.” Seeing his struggle, that guy chose to laugh. “Ha ha ha. Somehow, this isn’t satisfying at all. Come on, are you really this worthless on your own?” He stood casually, resting those two swords on his shoulders. It was obvious he had stopped considering the Prince even possibly a challenge.

With a sword in each hand, the Prince growled like a beast. “Shut up. You mongrel, no one is allowed to address the King in such a manner!”

“But you’re not the King. You’re not any kind of King. Just the Prince. No, not even that much?” Seeing him stiffen, smelling his weakness and seeing the outrage as Gil’s spine stiffened, that guy went for the kill. “You’re just a copy, aren’t you? A fake prince.”

“I refuse!” Blood pounded in his head. His mind was on fire. His body was pumping rage through his veins. “I won’t allow it! I simply won’t allow such a world!”

“Hmph.” The man sneered again, casually deflecting the prince’s assault. Like this, he wasn’t even bothering to counter any more. “Silly fool, you have it backwards. The world won’t allow such arrogance.”

“No!” Gil denied that with his whole being. “To be King, Kingship means that you force your world onto the world!” He swung the swords in a frenzy, breathing heavily, but without compromising on his clear and strong words.

Even though he swung his swords like hammerblows that could crack rocks, that infuriating guy simply knocked them all aside. He was batting them aside like insects.

“Tch.” The man leapt, somehow clearing five meters in one step, throwing his swords sideways. But Gil was not fooled. Desperately, he swung his swords out to his sides, somehow knocking them aside as they converged for his ribs.

But even as the black and white swords were pushed out away from him, when he looked, that guy was holding something.

It was a sword. But was it a sword? It was golden. No, it was gold. It had a long, flat blade that was too thick and too dull to cut. It was notched in a regulated and deliberate manner. It was like a key.

Instinctively Gil knew what that was. It was a sword that could open a gate. It was not the original, it was a perfect reproduction made by that man. But it was useless.

Yes, even if that guy had perfectly recreated it, it was a gun without any bullets. Without the correct nature to serve as powder and the correct identity to serve as shot, he simply couldn’t fire it.

And then, he threw it.

It wasn’t like any toss either of them had made yet. It wasn’t an attempt to cut the other by whipping a sword at his feet or his legs.

Gil dropped his sword, and his right hand instinctively reached out to grab the sword that had been thrown to him. He didn’t question why, he just gratefully received what had been tossed his way.

And…

Flowing inside him was the power. It had never been sparked in this lifetime, but he was absolutely certain he could pour it into the chamber and it would light. Compared to this other guy who could recreate the gun but was without any bullets, he had no gun to load his bullets into.

Just knowing how without remembering when he learned, he pulled the trigger in his mind. With a soft and delighted smile, he proudly announced what had once more emerged into the world.

“Gate of Babylon.”

He tossed the fake away. It was worthless to him now. Once again he could access the original. Yes. Even after five millennia, some treasures still remained with him. It had been looted, and the knowledge of that burned him. He would recover them all. But in the chaos following his decision to break his country, not everything had been taken before the armory itself had been lost.

His wealth was no longer boundless, but it was still vast.

He was infuriated to rely only on the leftovers, but he could console himself that at the very least, they were leftovers appropriate for a King.

Seeing the red light spread like a curtain behind his enemy he had smiled. Seeing the tips of weapons emerge from the ether made his smile grow savage.

“Good.” The man praised. The praise angered Gil. “Now I can defeat you meaningfully.”

“Silence, mongrel!” With that furious command, a dozen swords were launched.

However, that other man did not move. In response, he created a dozen swords of his own, and they intercepted them. The man began walking forward.

A great hammer shot out of the curtain and howled towards his enemy.

But it was struck out of the way as it was parried three times by three different swords.

“Is this how a King fights?” Shirou demanded. “Is this what it means to be a King?”

“Huh. Ha ha ha.” With an ugly laugh without any humor, the Prince continued to scrape weapons from every dusty corner together and return them to his service. “You do not understand the first thing about Kingship.”

“Oh?” With a simple question that mocked him in its innocence, the man spoke again. “What is Kingship, your royal highness? After all, a mongrel couldn’t possibly understand the complicated and convoluted logic of a King. You can explain with small words, right?”

“Hmph.” He closed his eyes, and then opened them. The pace of the weapons being called forth, fired, and gathered up again had stabilized. No longer was he desperately trying to save himself. Rather, he was simply putting forth enough effort to not die, while casually trying to kill the other guy. For the man across from him it was the same. It was a mutually agreed stalemate.

The ground was torn up into wreckage as the very earth was cleaved open around them.

“Very well.” The prince agreed. “It would be too much to expect propriety from a mongrel, but a King should be at least this benevolent.”

“The King possesses everything.” That was the core, the foundation of Gil’s belief. “What is yours is mine. What is mine is mine. Everything belongs to the king.” The ground exploded beside them as that golden hammer discharged. Neither of them paid any heed to such a piffling sideshow.

“Every appetite is sated. Every desire is met. That is what boundless wealth means. No matter what I do, I live without having even one unfulfilled want. Everything is my possession. Everyone is my subject. There are no exceptions.” Like that, Gil continued the grand lecture expounding the glorious philosophy of Kingship.

“That means, that whatever you possess, is also my possession.” Gil nodded solemnly. “But that means if you possess hunger, I possess hunger. If I possess everything, then I also possess the desires of every subject. If a subject has need, then the King has need.” He paused in his speech. There was a harmonic screech as two blades scraped alongside each other in the air between them, but that was an appropriate level of dramatic punctuation for such a grand topic.

“For the king to possess even one unsatiated appetite is a contradiction of his boundless wealth. Every desire must be met. Every hunger of every subject must be fulfilled, because the king possesses every hunger. That is the truth.” Gil met the eyes of his enemy with the pressure of his own gaze. “The King possesses everything, but has the absolute authority to throw away anything. If there was something as useless as suffering anywhere in his Kingdom, it is the divine right of the King to destroy it with treasure.” Gil threw his hands in a grand gesture around them. “This Gate is the incarnate proof of that reality.”


The shattered castle was a temple. The torn up and savaged ground was the hill that the temple was built on. It was just an illusion, but for those two, the words reached across space and time.

Under the black sun shining darkness all over the place, Emiya Shirou asked Gilgamesh the question that had burned him so. That had burned everyone so. He gave voice to the impulse of the Cup and required that Gilgamesh repeat himself after so long.

“What was your wish?”

“For unnecessary and useless things to be gone.” Gilgamesh answered simply. “For the King to rule with his counselor and confidant beside him over the master species that possessed unquestioned dominion over the whole world. For every human to be as magnificent as is required by the King of Kings.”

“I see.” Shirou nodded. His question was answered. It was obvious what had happened. He had been foolish. The King had been careless. Without even bothering to ask how, he simply delegated such a ridiculous course of action to the Grail. And, inside the Grail, any wish could be granted. However, there was a condition: the only method was destruction.

The Hero moved.

There was no time to react. There was no time to stop him or block him or parry him. Simply, that guy stepped forward to quickly for the prince to do anything. The edge of the black sword was pressed against his belly. The edge of the white sword was pressed against his throat. Just like that, without any warning, he could end his life that easily.

They were words of hatred. They were words between someone that just didn’t get along with himself. They were words he had thought were reserved for that anger and rage. But somehow, against this guy, for once in his life, Shirou wanted someone to suffer the same way he had suffered. Perhaps he too had been splashed by Angra Mainyu at that time to wish for this now.

“Then drown in those ideals,” he hissed, “And die!”

“Mongrel.” It was almost an affection between friends. “I already did.”

The blade was halted.

Prince Gil smiled. It was sincere and bitter. “At that time, I allowed myself to be swallowed. I was put back into the cycle, but did not allow myself to be remade as someone else, but was reborn as myself.” With that remembered bitterness, his expression turned uglier. “However, I was prevented from recalling myself, and was cursed to wander, without knowing what I was doing, without knowing myself, even as I searched for someone I didn’t know I was looking for.”

Shirou stepped back, pulling the sword to a rest position. Somehow, he wasn’t he one being addressed anymore.

“But that is not the worst.” The voice turned jet black with the righteous fury of the King of Everything. “The royal command was betrayed. The method was too excessive and crude, but worst of all, worst of all,” the King snarled, gathering his hands into fists, “Is that humans are not magnificent enough.”

The royal expression expressed great disgust at the world to Shirou. “Huddled inside these walls, fearing stupid-looking monsters that have only bigness and nothing else, is that what humans are?” Without allowing any objections, he answered his own question. “No! Humans should have absolute dominion. I won’t allow my subjects to be anything but the masters of Everything. If I am the King of Kings, then every single human without any exceptions should be at least at the level of a lesser King. That is the minimum I will accept.”

The eyes, that had been glancing about looking for the immaterial Grail so he could castigate it, instead lit upon his enemy. And, as the gaze came across them, a great and delighted warmth entered them.

“You.” Gil said. “You are a great magus and a magnificent hero.”

There wasn’t anything else to say to that, was there? “Thank you.” Well, it was sarcastic, though.

“I’ve decided. I’m going to conquer the world.” Gil announced. “And you’re going to help me.”

Shirou opened his mouth.

“I will allow no objections.” Like that, he was overruled by the royal confidence. “These titans are unsightly and unworthy of terrorizing humanity. We will destroy them all.” With a solemn nod, he began to pick up steam. “Naturally I will bring every isolated city state like ours under my dominion, and colonize every empty site with my subjects at the same time.”

With a gesture of great benevolence, the King deigned to clap the glorious hero on the shoulder as a friendly gesture. “Come! There’s no need to waste time. You’ve been acknowledged as a glorious Hero by the King of Everything, so be proud.”

Like that, the King turned with a sweeping motion and walked towards the castle. He had completely ignored that they had been fighting to the death. No, more than that, it was like that had been perfectly resolved. Rather than arrogantly exposing his back to Emiya Shirou, the (self-proclaimed) King of Everything was confidently expecting he would protect his back.

With an annoyed sigh, Shirou followed.

I I I

4.2 End

I I I

This scene was more concrete in my head than anything else from the very beginning, so it was interesting seeing how people thought it was coming. Well, I wasn't confident I could make it awesome enough, even if it was only awesome according to Gilgamesh's ridiculous paradigm.

Also I hope it's apparent that Gilgamesh has (recovered) his Charisma. Well, he just used a charisma check to adjust Shirou's opinion from Hateful to, like, Neutral. That was the part that felt the most tortured to me, but I tried to swing it. Let me know if you think I knocked it out of the park, but at the very least, I feel like no one could deny it looked cool approaching the plate.

Also don't forget that Gilgamesh has been in bright yellow pajamas the whole time. That is an extremely critical detail to establish that Gil can be cool despite any absurdities, especially himself.
 

Nasuren

Well-Known Member
Dude, I called it. I CALLED IT!

As for the snippet? While it would never reach the level to perfectly describe one of Gil's crowning moments of awesome, you did quite well.
 

biigoh

Well-Known Member
zeebee1 said:
But what are the qualities of a lesser king?
Every woman is an Arthuria, and every man is an Iskander? :3
 

Nasuren

Well-Known Member
biigoh said:
zeebee1 said:
But what are the qualities of a lesser king?
Every woman is an Arthuria, and every man is an Iskander? :3
*Imagines a hoard of Iskanders being held back by the ear by a hoard of Arthuria, with a ladle in hand*

...for some reason I'm scared...
 
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