Imprévu
Summary- Gilgamesh gets a second chance at everything. But when he does, the unexpected happens.
Warning- This Gilgamesh is the one from FSN.
Disclaimer- I do not own FSN!
After getting defeated by Saber in the fifth Holy Grail War, Gilgamesh expected that his soul would end up in stasis until he was called again to participate as a servant. If he was ever called again, that is. But he never expected this turn of events. Such a tricky and unpredictable business fate is, because unlike what he had thought, he did not just end up in some kind of frozen state but was reborn. But not only that, he was reborn into the world as a human being.
His new parents were named Marcel and Charlotte Renoir, a French couple. Marcel Renoir had been a world renowned archeologist, while Charlotte had been a pâtissière working at a local cafe. He was their firstborn child and had been named Edmond-Gilbert Renoir. He had been born with the exact same features as when he was still Gilgamesh, the fifth king of Uruk. He had blond hair and piercing ruby red eyes and didn't resemble his parents at all.
But if you asked his mother, she would only laugh and say that her son got his looks from his grandfather. While that is beside the point, just the fact that Gilgamesh, or Edmond existed in the living world was a complete surprise but life was just full of surprises wasn't it? To think that fate would give the king of Uruk a second chance to live as a human. If that wasn't surprising enough, he had been reborn into the world with his memories of his past self intact.
It was because of his memories that he was able to recognize exactly who his parents were. Their identities were another thing that was completely unexpected. Who would have thought that his parents were the reincarnation of Tohsaka Tokiomi and Tohsaka Aoi? His father was his ex-master in the fourth Holy Grail War and his mother was a woman whom he had only seen once through a family picture that had been in the Tohsaka household.
But despite everything, Edmond, or Gil as his parents would call him didn't grow up to be arrogant and brash like he had been in his past life. This was mostly because when he was still a baby the only thing he felt was his parent's love for him, especially his mother and that was something he didn't really experience much in his past life. After all, his father had been a king so he was always busy and his mother was a goddess, so it was a given that she would be busy with other things.
Not just that, as he grew up he got nothing but kindness and patience from his mother, despite all his mischievousness. She might scold him if he ever went over the top or did something dangerous, but she would never hit him and it would usually end with her crying and her hugging him close to her. His father, well, he was always away because of his job, but he had been a good father to Gil. He would always take time to bond with his son and would teach him all sorts of things when he was home.
Basically Gil had a good two years of life but on his third year of life, something unexpected happened. His mother had gotten pregnant again, which meant that he was going to have a younger sibling! That hadn't really been unexpected, but what was unexpected was the identity of the baby that was now being held in his mother's arms nine months later. It was Rin! He was absolutely sure that it was her, or to be more accurate, her reincarnation.
His sister had been named Arlette-Reine Renoir and had been born with raven colored hair and sapphire eyes, like she used to have in her past life. But then again given who his parents were reincarnated from, it wasn't really that surprising that his little sister would be Rin. But like his parents, Rin didn't seem to remember her past life. But that suited Gil just fine; he had already long decided that since he got a second chance at life, he wasn't going to waste it with things like past grudges and the like.
Gil rarely called his sister Arlette or Reine and just called her Rin, which their parents' had mistaken as nothing more than a cute mispronunciation of her name from their eldest child. But they thought the name as cute, and so the name had stuck. They also began to call her Rin and like with him, they only called her by her real name if she was in big trouble. Unexpectedly, he and Rin got along and she would always run to him if something had scared her and she even followed him around like a baby bird follows after her mother.
As Rin grew older, she no longer followed him around, but they remained close to each other. When he was five, his father had bought his mother a piano as a birthday gift and that had been the main catalyst for his mother teaching him how to play the piano. When Gil was seven, he had his first encounter with soccer. His parents' friend had some tickets to a game but because of a sudden conflict of schedule wouldn't be able to attend.
They had given the tickets to the Renoir family and Gil just fell in love with soccer. The very same afternoon after the game, he had asked for a soccer ball from his parents. Gil then began to ask his parents to take him to watch soccer games and he would practice soccer from dawn to dusk. He would record soccer games and would always play soccer during breaks at school. The whole family, even the young Rin seemed to have grown fonder of the game because of how passionate Gil was about it.
Gil had a happy childhood living in Paris, but it all changed one day when his father came home and just suddenly announced to them that they were moving to Japan. The family had been surprised and there had been a couple of protests, but somehow his father had managed to counter each and every one of them and convinced them to go. That was how he ended up returning to Japan, fortunately though it wasn't to Fuyuki city.
Not that he was scared of that place, it was just that this was a new life and he no longer wished to get involved with mages or the Holy Grail War. He was already fortunate enough that his family didn't possess even a single magical circuit, which meant they wouldn't have to worry about things like servants and wars. But if they move there, they might accidentally get involved in the war or get attacked by a servant for mana.
The city they moved to was called Ringo city, it was a small and peaceful city. Their new house was medium to large in size, it wasn't as big as their old house but it had a homey feel to it so the family liked it. The best part was probably that their new house wasn't only just a house, but it was a café as well! The second and third floor of the three story building was where the Renoir family lived, but the first floor could be turned into a café, just like what the previous owner of the building did.
His mother had the first floor turned into a café once more and after some redecorating, made it to a lovely western style café. She then hired some people to help her run it, reincarnations of people who were very familiar to Gil; the first was the castor from the fifth Holy Grail War, the witch, Medea. The second was without a shadow of doubt, Sola-Ui, the one who had been engaged to the Kayneth fellow who was the master of the Lancer in the fourth Holy Grail War.
While the third and the last one was the reincarnation of the mage Bazett. They had been hired for their different skills, Medea, or Miya now, was in charge of the beverages, Sola-Ui, or Shiya was in charge of helping his mother out with the pastries and Bazett, or Beniko was the waitress. At first, Gil had been wary around the three females, but it quickly became obvious that they didn't remember their past lives and he was eventually able to relax around them.
But while the women that were working at his mother's café were not the same women as the ones from his past life, there were a few things that haven't changed. For example, Miya, in this life was happily married to the reincarnation of her previous master, Kizuki Shouichiro, who was now known as Makigami Itsuki. Shiya was being courted by the reincarnation of Kayneth Archibald, Adachi Kazuma, who was one of her college classmates in this life.
But sadly for Kazuma, it still seemed that Shiya had no interest for him. She also still had her serious personality, but Gil saw her blush a couple of times around a regular customer of the cafe whom he recognized as the Lancer from the fourth Holy Grail War. Finally, there was Beniko whose little brother was none other than her real servant from the fifth Holy Grail War, Lancer. Interestingly, fate seemed hell bent on turning this life into a reunion of people he knew from his past life.
Even in his new school, his past refused to leave him. In his class, there were the reincarnations of the fake assassin and Rider from the fifth Holy Grail War and Waver Velvet from the fourth Holy Grail War. In the same grade as him were Beniko's younger brother, Lancer, who name was now Rikugo and the reincarnation of the Berserker from the fourth Holy Grail War, the knight Lancelot if he remembered correctly what Kirei had once told him in passing, but the later seemed pretty sane now.
Gil had joined the soccer team of his elementary school and became teammates with Rikugo and Lancelot, whose name was now Hakuren. The three of them had got along from the start and had even become best friends! It was funny how the world works, you try to kill them in one life and end up as the best of friends with them in another. Though it seemed that among everyone who had been involved with the Holy Grail War, he was and would probably be the only one who would remember everything.
When Gil was in the fifth grade, there had been an increasing number of kidnapping cases in another neighborhood that was close to the one where his school was. His mother, out of her worry for her children's safety and well being had decided to enroll them in self-defense classes being held nearby after consulting with her husband. Charlotte had enrolled both her children in Judo and Aikido classes. Gil and Rin seemed to welcome the thought of learning martial arts and for that their parents were relieved.
So, they began to attend classes and they continued to take classes even after the culprit to the kidnapping were caught. Their parents had allowed them to continue because they saw how much their children enjoyed them. But their mother also thought that with the kidnapper caught, this would be a good time to expose them to more things and had asked them if they had wanted to take any other classes. Rin had outright said that she wanted to take archery while Gil had chosen Kendo.
While their choices had surprised their mother, she had allowed them to take these lessons, not knowing of the impact that it would cause in their lives. You see, it was because of these classes that Gil ended up encountering two certain people from his past. One of them was from Rin's archery classes; the person was a girl that was younger than her by one year. Her name was Yamamoto Riko, the younger sister of Yamamoto Rena, the reincarnation of Rider.
But Riko herself was not just anyone; she was the reincarnation of Matou, no Tohsaka Sakura. Gil had always thought that if Sakura would exist in this world, it would be if and when his parents had another kid. But it seemed that he was mistaken about that theory, because Riko existed and not only that, but she existed as the daughter of Yamamoto Nobunaga, the successful businessman, whose identity was that he was really the reincarnation of Matou Kariya.
The other one had been taking kendo classes from the same dojo as Gil, he was a younger boy about Rin's age and was named Yukimitsu Haruka. But in Gil's eyes Gil, he didn't see Yukimitsu Haruka, instead he saw Emiya Shirou, because the boy was his reincarnation after all. He didn't know how he felt about the boy, on one hand he was no longer the same person as in his past life. But at the same time, a part of him burned in anger when he saw the boy.
Yukimitsu, like every other reincarnation Gil had met looked exactly like what he looked like in his past life. He had the same face, red hair and eyes, and that made it worse because every time he looked at the boy he would end up remembering Emiya Shirou, the person who managed to attain what he wanted most. Saber had loved Shirou, hadn't she? The thought of his beloved king of knights loving Shirou made his blood boil and his vision go red.
So, he made it a point to either avoid or just ignore the boy's existence in general. Not that he was afraid of him; it was just that he felt that the possibility of him actually attacking the boy out of the rage that the younger brought out in him was very far off from being impossible. It was actually very easy to give in to the urge to do so, but he didn't. He might just be a normal human now but he was still the heroic spirit Gilgamesh, and such an act would be beneath him.
Besides, if he did that what would happen to his reputation? But more importantly what would happen to his family's reputation and name? If he gave in to the urge, it would give him temporary satisfaction but it wouldn't give him what he really wanted. Besides, if he did that his mother would probably cry upon hearing about what he did and he'd rather ignore the boy than to let his mother cry for someone like Yukimitsu. Yes, he had decided Emiya Shirou, or Yukimitsu Haruka was not worth it.
But sadly, he was forced to enjoy the boy's company more during his last year in elementary school. Yukimitsu and his family had moved to another neighborhood that was no longer close to his school, so his parents had enrolled him at a new school, which also happens to be the same school Gil and Rin were attending. But not only that, he had also been placed in the same class as Rin, and that made things a hundred times worse for Gil.
He had already been worried for his sister when he found out that she was classmates with the reincarnations of Matou Shinji and Uryuu Ryuunosuke, but now there was the Yukimitsu-brat as well! He didn't want any of these three aforementioned people anywhere near his sister, more so to hang around her! These three males were also the reason he always made it a point to wait and fetch Rin after class, and in the rare occasions he couldn't, he'd ask one or both of his best friends to do it in his stead.
But it wasn't like life was bad for him. It was that year that their team had won the national soccer tournament. It was also in that same year that his mother had began to teach him how to cook, most boys of his age would be horrified, but he was different from most boys his age. For him it was like killing two birds with one stone, he was not only learning about the culinary arts, but he also got to spend time with his mother.
But on the topic of skills, it had been his last year before middle school that his skill set had expanded by a large margin. When his father had returned from a trip to Germany, he had brought him all sorts of books as souvenirs and taught him foresting. Miya had taught him all about brewing beverages; Shiya had taught him how to use a Swiss army knife, interestingly enough, and Beniko had taught him all about first aid.
Disregarding a few things, Gil's life was perfect. He was only his first year of middle school but he was already the captain of the soccer team. He was also a consistent honor student, and a master of Judo, Aikido and Kendo. He was courteous, but at the same time he could be charming and charismatic. He had the face that both Narcissus and Adonis would die for, had hair like the sun and had the body of a god. He was a protective older brother to his sister and a dutiful son to his parents.
He had been very satisfied with his new life; there wasn't anything else that he had really wanted. But that all changed one day, he was on his way home after picking Rin up from her elementary school. He could still remember the events of that day like it had just happened yesterday. Both Renoir siblings had walked through the glass doors of the café and saw their mother talking to a white haired woman by the counter.
The woman was unfamiliar to Rin, but Gil had recognized her. She was Irisvisviel von Einzbern, the wife of Emiya Kiritsugu, or her reincarnation to be more precise. Their mother had looked up from her conversation with Irisviel's reincarnation when she had heard the doors open and close, and saw that her children were home. She smiled at them before gesturing for them to come closer. The siblings came closer and their mother introduced them to their new neighbor, Irene von Ziegfreid.
Their mother explained that Irene and her family had come all the way from Germany because of her husband's job and now lives just across the street from them. But as soon as those words left his mother's lips, the doors to the café opened once more and in came who Gil was sure was the reincarnation of Emiya Kiritsugu and Illyasviel von Einzbern, though the latter was much younger and was asleep in the former's arms.
But Emiya Kiritsugu's reincarnation was not alone, a person entered after him and when Gil saw who that person was, it was like time stopped for him. An emerald gaze met his ruby one and he was completely blown away, because there standing less than a few feet of him was the only woman he had never been able to attain. Arturia Pendragon, who had been known as the king of knights and Britain's red dragon was right in front of him, and was actually walking towards him.
He couldn't take his eyes away from her, it was as if the entire world had faded away and the only thing he could see was her. Gil was completely mesmerized by her, by her blond hair that was tied in a high ponytail, her doll like face and her clothes that were in her favorite colors of white and blue. She looked just as beautiful as he remembered; she was younger in age, probably the same age as him. She had stopped right in between him and Irene and that had brought him out of his trance.
Soon Gil learned several things, the first was that Kiritsugu's name in this lifetime was Mattias von Ziegfreid and he was an established historian who had moved with his family to Ringo city to teach at Ringo city's best university, which was his old Alma Matter many years ago. The second thing Gil learned was that Mattias was married to Irene and they had two children, Aria Anneliese von Ziegfreid and Sophita Oprette von Ziegfreid.
Sophita was the reincarnation of Illyasviel, while her older sister, Aria was… Saber. He couldn't believe it, this was completely unexpected, for him to get another chance to see Saber. It was too good to be true and for a moment he feared that all this was just a dream. But if this was a dream then he wouldn't ever want to wake up, because right now Saber, no, Aria was introducing herself to him, in a slightly formal way that just seemed to be so like her, with her beautiful bell-like voice.
Gil then began to introduce himself to her after she finished. He almost slipped up and said that his name was Gilgamesh, but he quickly covered his mistake by saying his nickname instead before introducing himself just as formally. He was still thinking that this could have just been a dream, because there was no way that Saber would be smiling a smile, that could be describes as nothing but angelic, at him. Nor would she be reaching her hand out to him for a handshake.
Especially not after all he'd done to her during their past lives. But he decided that he was going to milk this dream for all it's worth, he would make sure that it would last as long as possible. Though his thoughts were proven wrong the moment his hand and her hand connected with each other. He felt like he was hit by thunder when their hands had made contact with each other and he instantly knew that he was awake, this was reality, and Aria was real.
After he met Aria, Gil thought that his life was complete. If he were to die the next day, then he would die a happy man. Not that he wanted to die, but it wouldn't be an exaggeration for him to say that meeting Aria was probably what he would call the highest point in his life. He couldn't imagine life to get any better, but fate continued to surprise him. Aria had transferred to the same school and was in his class, and not only that, Aria's father had also enrolled her in the same Kendo school as him.
At school, Aria sat next to Hakuren who she got along with and quickly became friends with. Rikugo sat in front of her and they seemed to hit it off. Soon Gil had also been able to be good friends with her with some help from his best friends. Though Gil was very happy with this development, the best part for him would still be the fact that Aria and Yukimitsu don't even mind each other during their Kendo classes. But that didn't mean he let his guard down around the boy. Call him paranoid or whatever, but he really didn't want to lose her twice, and right under his nose, no less.
As the years passed, life only got better for him. On his third year of middle school, he and his friends were all accepted into the same high school that they'd been aiming for, their soccer team became champions for the third year in a row and Aria had accepted his confession. Yes, confession, he hadn't wanted to, he had been alright with only staying as friends with Aria but his two best friends had forced him into it.
They had known he had liked her, ever since first year and had always teased him about it. They had been telling him to confess to Aria but he always said that he would rather just stay friends with her. But one day they got tired of seeing their best friend continue to run away from his feelings for Aria and after soccer practice, they had threatened to tell Aria that he liked her unless he confessed first before reassuring him that even if she didn't feel the same she would still be his friend.
That was how he got the nerve to ask Aria out right after they won the championships. He had been expecting her to turn him down, not for the most beautiful shade of red he has and will probably ever see in his(well, two) lives on her face, in the form of a blush before she shyly accepted his confession and they sealed the deal with a kiss. That day had probably been the happiest day of his life, he never thought it was possible for her to feel the same way about him the way he felt about her.
Fate is tricky, the world is uncontrollable and life is a complete mystery. But Gil doesn't mind how they are such a puzzle and he doesn't even mind even if he is never able to solve them. As things are, he is fine with the way things are. It's fine even if he never finds out the reason why and how he exists as Edmond Gilbert Renoir, because just being alive in this world as who he is now, is enough for him. Gil can welcome the unexpected things life brings because he has his loved ones, he is no longer all alone.
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