CHAPTER ONE: IN CASE OF FIRE, BLAME GILGAMESH
Kotomine Kirei was an incredibly patient man. One had to be when dealing with a bunch of nutters like mages and demon hunters. However, he was now severely regretting booking the Fuyuki City Hall for an event like this. The money had come out of his own pocket and the results of his endeavor were already proving to be epically disastrous.
"If I could have your attention please?" He said, his voice magnified by the sound system. A chair flew by him, missing his head by a couple of inches.
"Aim better, Berserker! You almost had him!" Ilyasviel von Einzbern, the spawn of his arch-enemy Emiya Kiritsugu, yelled at her Servant Berserker. The eight foot tall giant roared and picked up another chair.
"Emiya Kiritsugu, you fathered a psychopathic idiot." Kirei sighed quietly, making sure to cover the microphone with his hand.
The Hall was currently occupied by twelve of the worst case of psychopaths, murderers, idiots and madmen. Sadly, six of them were actually celebrated heroes of human history.
"Shirou, I don't understand what is happening here." Saber, the Servant of the Sword, asked her Master, Emiya Shirou.
"Well, Father Kotomine said it was urgent so I guess we should wait and see what he has to say, right?" Emiya Shirou, Master of Stating the Obvious, said. His Servant Saber nodded as if Shirou had just said something incredibly wise and deep.
A few feet away from Emiya sat Tohsaka Rin, the daughter of Kirei's late teacher with her Servant Archer.
"Do you think you could quickly just shoot Kirei with that bow of yours?" Rin whispered, if it could be called whispering at all. Considering all the commotion in the Hall, she had to resort to shouting and Kirei could hear every single word. The priest made a mental note to devise some sort of torture for her.
"Well I could but doing something that rash might start a war. We might kill Kirei but I won't be able to protect you." Archer, who was totally a grown up version of Emiya Shirou with white hair and a tan, said. Kirei rolled his eyes. Archer was fooling no one except himself and fooling Emiya Shirou didn't even require half a brain cell.
"Grr, so close." Rin said.
Another chair whizzed by Kirei's hair. Kirei sighed. Berserker and Lancer were now fighting each other although it looked more like Berserker beating the ever-loving daylights out of the Irish man with a chair. And Lancer seemed to be enjoying it. Kirei sighed once again. It was just his luck to steal a Servant who actually enjoyed being hurt. Those kinds tended not to last long.
On top of that, Lancer was as big an idiot as Emiya Shirou and that was saying something. The only difference Kirei could see between Emiya and Lancer was that Emiya didn't seem to be compensating for something.
For now anyways.
Caster was cooing over her Master and the words she used could have made all of Kirei's teeth fall out. Her Master, Kuzuki Oh-I-am-so-goddamn-mysterious-and-stoic Souichirou, sat beside her without uttering a single word or even moving a muscle. Kirei hated the man's guts.
"Excuse me but can you at least explain why we are all here?" Souichirou said.
The entire hall fell silent as the one man no one expected to actually speak, spoke. All eyes were focused on him except for Berserker's and Lancer's. Berserker, being the gentleman he was, was busy beating the ever-loving crap out of Lancer, who had fainted with a smile on his face.
You had to hand it to that idiot. He might be stupid but he was quite durable.
"The thing is," Kirei said, before pausing. The statement he was about to make was quite controversial and might even cause everyone to turn on him. Kirei toyed with the words in his mind in an effort to make what he had to say less inflammatory. Then he realized there was no way out of it anyways so he might as well proudly make the most inflammable statement.
At the very least, Rin might be crushed under the ensuing stampede of angry Servants.
"The Holy Grail War has been cancelled due to a lack of funds." Kirei said. There was silence.
"If that was a joke, it wasn't a very good one." Rider, that blindfolded woman who insisted on bringing her horse inside the hall, said.
"No, I assure you. We have run out of money to properly fund the Holy Grail War of Fuyuki. The entire War had been put on hold for now. Please refrain from killing each other in the mean time." Kirei said.
"Easier said than done." Archer remarked as Berserker continued his merciless beating. Kirei was now wondering whether Lancer had a Noble Phantasm which turned all that damage to happiness. It would certainly explain quite a lot.
"You don't need money to fund this War, you idiot! It's magical War and we have already summoned our Servants!" Rin said.
"You may not need it but I most certainly do. The money is for the repairs of the damage you Servants cause." Kirei said. Everyone digested this new information.
"What happened to all the money?" Emiya Shirou asked. Kirei glared at him. Trust that particular idiot to ask the most essential thing at the correct moment.
"Let's just say that there were a number of complications involving a cat, a motorcycle model and an ancient Sumerian King." Kirei said bitterly.
"Huh?" Rin said in a confused voice.
(Convenient Flashback)
Kotomine Kirei looked at the curled up figure of Gilgamesh sitting in front of the ruins of the church. The east wall suddenly decided to fall in and managed to do so quite magnificently.
"My church…" Kirei said in a confused voice. He turned his attention to the Servant sitting on the ground. "Gilgamesh, what did you do to my church?" He asked.
"You've got some nerve, Kirei, for jumping to the conclusion that I am the culprit." Gilgamesh said, trying to muster up his familiar smug persona. He failed however and he sounded even more pathetic than that old worm's grandson. Kirei would have felt overjoyed at seeing Gilgamesh broken so thoroughly but right now he had other things to worry about.
"You are sitting here in a fetal position in obvious distress in front of the ruins of my church. And considering your temper and power, I am actually surprised that the entire place isn't razed to the ground. But just what on earth did you do to my church?" Kirei said.
"I am not the culprit, Kirei. You should be looking for the insidious beast that… hurgh?" Gilgamesh began speaking but was interrupted as Kotomine Kirei, Former Executor of the Church, lifted him by the neck with one hand.
"WHAT. DID. YOU. DO. TO. MY. CHURCH?" Kirei roared, punctuating each word by violently shaking Gilgamesh.
"It was all that damn cat's fault! It broke my precious Hayabusa model! I tried killing it but that fiend actually managed to evade all the treasures I threw at it! It is a creature most foul that deserves a cruel and fitting death… Kirei, why are you glaring at me like that?" Gilgamesh said, as he noticed the priest taking out three Black keys from his breast pocket and magically creating the blades.
(End of Flashback)
"The summary of this story is that while I managed to repair the church with the money for the war and also got to teach Gilgamesh a lesson as a bonus, we are now forced to officially postpone the war unless or until the Holy Grail War can be refunded." Kirei said.
"Excuse me, Father Kotomine, are you saying that Gilgamesh is still alive after the Fourth War?" Saber asked.
"Yes." Kirei answered.
"And you managed to further break his spirit with only a couple of pointy sticks?" Saber said.
"Well, yes." Kirei replied.
"I love you, Kotomine Kirei." Saber said with utmost sincerity.
"WHAT?" Emiya Shirou, Tohsaka Rin, Ilyasviel von Einzbern, Archer, Rider and Caster yelled in surprise.
"Hell yeah!" Matou Sakura yelled triumphantly. She found Lancer staring at her. "What? Now that she is out of the way, I can win back senpai!" She said defensively.
"No, I am actually surprised you are here at all." Lancer said.
"I am surprised you are still alive, conscious and still sane enough. Do you enjoy pain that much?" Sakura asked.
"I don't like pain. I do, however, like to fight. And since pain is part of fighting so in a way, yeah, I like pain." Lancer said proudly with a smile which revealed two missing teeth. Sakura simply rolled her eyes.
"You heard what he said, Berserker. He likes pain." Sakura said to the eight foot tall giant. Berserker resumed.
"Can all of you please pay attention once more? And Rider, Pegasi are not allowed inside the hall." Kirei implored to the general audience or whoever actually bothered to listen to him.
"He doesn't want to go so that's that." Rider said dismissively.
"You can't know he wants that. It's an animal!" Kirei said.
"I speak horse. His name is Shooter and he wants you to respect his life decisions." Rider said. Kirei rubbed his forehead.
"Anyways, anyone who actually bothers to listen, please donate to the Holy Grail War Charity Fund. Donations are accepted in front of the Fuyuki Church. I can't mediate a bankrupt war so it would be in your best interests to contribute as generously…" Kirei said but was interrupted by none other than Gilgamesh bursting in through the roof.
"KIREI! I PUT SOMETHING IN THE MICROWAVE AND IT EXPLODED!" He said hysterically. Kirei sighed. This war hadn't even started and it was already making him want to go on a murdering spree.