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Chapter 3: Assassin died! Gilgamesh, you Bastard!

-F/Z-

Kariya groaned as he sat down in a dark alleyway. It wasn't particularly comfortable, but it was better than the Matou family house. Anywhere that wasn't near his father was instantly hospitable in Kariya's mind.

Or at least he used to think that. Then he had summoned Berserker, and everywhere he went turned unpleasant.

"Tired from such a short walk? It wasn't even a mile and you're already panting!" Berserker said, a deep frown on his face. "I thought you were pathetic before, worm, but this display really…"

Kariya did his best to shut Berserker out. He couldn't even force Berserker to activate his mad enhancement. As Berserker had shown Kariya and Zouken after his summoning, despite his extremely high rank in the skill (an A-rank), Berserker's higher mental processes were not compromised in the least bit, meaning that no matter what, Berserker would still be able to mock-

"Listen when I speak, WORM!" Berserker shouted at Kariya as the armored man materialized to slap his Master.

Kariya grabbed his swollen cheek. And that was the second reason Berserker was quickly becoming unbearable. His Servants strikes had yet to reach the level at which he would use a command seal. From what he gathered, he was going to need all of them just to keep Berserker in line for the duration of the war.

"As I was saying, Worm, who is this Sakura you keep mumbling about?" Berserker asked. Kariya looked up at that. Could it be that Berserker was showing interest, however small, in his plight? Maybe Kariya could use this to remedy the relationship between Servant and Master.

"Sakura is the daughter of my…friend, Aoi." Kariya began. "Sakura was one of two daughters of the Tohsaka family. As is Magi tradition, their father, Tokiomi would only chose one of them to be his heir. Kariya's voice had begun to fill with anger at his mention of Tokiomi. Berserker continued to listen, a surprisingly neutral expression on his face.

"Tokiomi chose his other daughter, Rin, to be his successor." Kariya's anger grew with each word he spoke. "And some sick display of affection, he sold Sakura to Zouken. Zouken then began to, to 'train' her as the Matou heir." Kariya's voice had reached a fevered pitch as he recollected Zouken's actions.

"The training, if you could even try to call it that, involves Zouken throwing her into a room full of insects to INFEST her."

Kariya took a breath. He couldn't help it, but the mere thought of Zouken's actions was enough to send him into a rage. Kariya unclenched his fist, and continued to speak. "I entered the Grail War to save her. If I win it and grant Zouken his precious immortality, he will grant Sakura her freedom."

Berserker seemed to in thought. Kariya felt hopeful. Was his Servant not as bad as he had first thought? Maybe Kariya had impressed the Servant with his determination. Perhaps this partnership could be salvaged from the train wreck it was now?

Berserker seemed to decide something. The servant nodded, and grinned for the first time since his summoning.

"So that's way the old man reminds me of Izuka! I knew there was a reason I liked him. Stepping over and manipulating the weak to reach his goal…you could learn a lot from your father, worm."

Kariya's anger resurfaced a thousand fold at those words. Admiring what Zouken had done to him? To Sakura!? Trivializing her DEFILEMENT?

And with that thought, Kariya snapped, and activated his command seal.

"BERSERKER!" Kariya roared. "BY THE POWER OF THE COMMAND SEAL, I ORDER YOU TO NEVER AGAIN SPEAK OF ZOUKEN POSITIVELY AGAIN!"

As part of the mark on the back of Kariya's hand faded, his Servant looked at him with rage once more. Kariya didn't care. He didn't care how Berserker felt on the matter. He didn't care if he had just wasted a command seal on something so trivial to other eyes. It didn't mean anything that controlling Berserker would be even harder now.

All that mattered now was that he never heard his Servant speak such things again. Now more than ever, Kariya was determined to win the grail war, for Sakura's sake.

-F/Z-

Waver groaned as he walked through Fuyuki. Things had started of so well.

After he had succeeded in summoning Rider, the duo had gone to Waver's makeshift hideout, the house of an old couple called the Mackenzie's. Things had been going good in the first three or so hours after Rider's summoning, Waver might even go so far as to call it great.

Then Rider had, to quote the man, "gotten board of sitting around", and left the hideout. Waver had run around the city trying to find his Servant since then. He hadn't even able to get any sleep.

"Oh, hey. You're the guy who summoned me, right?" Waver heard his servants voice behind him, and turned. Rider had shed his fur and iron armor, and was now wearing a plain grey t-shirt and jeans. "Waver, right?"

"Where have you been!?" Waver demanded. "I've spent the day looking for you!"

"Exploring the town." Rider explained. "You didn't expect me to not scout out the terrain before the fighting started, did you?"

Waver blinked. That explanation actually made some sense. Still he had to establish a proper line of command between him and his Servant.

"T-that's fine Rider, but I'm your Master! You not supposed to do anything without my command!" Waver told his Servant, with all the authority he could muster.

"Yeah, sure Waver." Rider said in a rather dismissive tone. It was rather clear that Rider didn't fall for Waver's threat. The pair began to walk along the street until Rider seemed to remember something. "Hey Waver, I've been meaning to ask. What is your stake in the war?"

The question caught Waver of guard. "What?" he asked Rider.

"You know. Your stake in the Grail War. What is your wish going to be?" Rider said.

"M-my wish?" Waver stuttered, and then calmed himself. It was a simple question, with an easy answer. "My wish is to be not looked down upon by those in the watchtower. They look down upon me because I wasn't born into an old magus family. I want to make them respect me."

Rider looked at him for a moment, and then chuckled.

"You Waver, are an idiot." The Servant responded.

"W-what!?" Waver sputtered in protest. "That isn't a stupid wish! I-" he was cut of by Rider.

"The wish is stupid because you have summoned me for the Grail War. You have already accomplished what most other mages dream of doing. Win or lose, as long as you keep from doing something to foolish, you will go down in history as their better."

Again, Waver blinked. That was…plausible. His Servant, despite his somewhat brutish looks, seemed rather intelligent.

"Oh, it also stupid for another reason." Rider said. Waver's eye twitched. Was his Servant going to make a habit of this?

"A wish that calls for you to be respected by your peers is rather vague. The Grail will no doubt work in all sorts of ways to make that wish turn your life into misery." Rider said.

"Now that's just ridiculous! The Holy Grail wouldn't do something like that!" Waver exclaimed.

"No, it defiantly will." Rider argued, stroking his beard. "It's a super-powerful wish-granting artifact. It's bound to try to screw with whoever tries to make a wish on it." Rider paused. "That reminds me, I still need to write my wish out. Defiantly going to be a long. Can't have the Grail screwing it up for its amusement."

Waver still didn't believe that the Grail was evil, but his annoyance subdued itself for a moment, as his curiosity had been stirred. "What's your wish, Rider?" Waver asked his Servant.

"Oh, it would probably be to be reborn with all my knowledge and skills in ether this time or a bit later from where I come from." Rider said. "I like my home, but this place is great. This city isn't even a capital, and there is still so much to do!" Rider exclaimed. "It will probably come with immortality. My wish I mean."

"But Rider," Waver said, smirking. This was his chance to make his Servant look stupid for a change. "What if you grow bored with life?"

"Oh, wont." Rider said. "There is already so much entertainment on this planet to last anyone a thousand lifetimes. It would be quite hard for me to grow bored here."

"And what if a madman seizes control and reduces the world to ash?" Waver remarked, his smirk falling.

"All the more fun for me when I stop them." Rider said. "But I suppose I should add a clause for an easy death that can only be done myself, under my will, just in case. You can never be too careful with this sort. Thanks for the help, Waver!"

Waver muttered a "Your welcome" before silence returned between the two. Then Waver noticed something.

"Hey, Rider." Waver said.

"Yes?" his Servant replied.

""How did you get your clothes?" Waver had forgotten to ask that in the light of the duo's earlier conversation.

"Oh, these? I stole them." Rider responded casually.

"You-you stole them!?" Waver sputtered at his Servant.

"Well, I didn't steal the cloth's," Rider began to explain. "Well, I was going to steal them, but just before I remembered about those pesky electronic sensors that would go of. So I stole the money to buy the cloths with from some other people's wallets, which is much harder than stealing coins from a purse, I'll tell you. Then I used the money to buy the cloths. And don't worry about the thefts being traced back to me. The people I stole it from were well of. They wont notice the missing money from their pockets."

Waver groaned.

-F/Z-

Gilgamesh seethed atop the Tohsaka manor. How dare that mongrel Assassin make him, the King, wait? It was well past the time Assassin was due to arrive, as it was almost daybreak. What was taking that dog so long? What could delay the mongrel from his appointment to be killed at the hand of the King of all-

Gilgamesh blinked. The jewel at the center of the courtyard was missing from where it had been not seconds ago. How had he missed that?

Gilgamesh decided to blame it on Assassin's tardiness. It must have been part of the mongrel's feeble attempt to impress his King, but Gilgamesh was not impressed. A late mongrel would be a dead mongrel.

In this case, Gilgamesh would slaughter the fool at first sight. If the dog wished to be humbled by his King, who was Gilgamesh to deny the mongrel?

Gilgamesh, that's who. But the dog had nothing to fear. Gilgamesh would still allow the misguided fool to die. Gilgamesh quickly scanned the area, looking for any trace of the dog.

"If you're trying to find me, you're clearly doing a poor job…" a voice drawled out from behind Gilgamesh. Was that Assassin? How dare he criticize the King! The ripples of the gate of Babylon were now visible, with the tips of Gilgamesh's treasures poking out. Gilgamesh spun around to face the dog and give him the death was so clearly wishing for, but found no one.

"Behind you." The voice sounded. Once again, Gilgamesh quickly turned again, this time seeing the dog not a meter away from him, with a knife raised, quickly approaching Gilgamesh's neck.

Gilgamesh jumped away, barely dodging the blade. It took him a second to process what had just happened. The dog had not only raised a weapon against Gilgamesh, he had also tried to KILL the King.

The dog was lucky of the alliance between Tokiomi and the dogs Master. If there hadn't been, the mongrel would not know the mercy of death.

"MONGREL! You dare raise a weapon at your King! You dare breathe the same air as your King allows to enter his lungs! You dare stand at the same level as the King! For these sins, you DIE!" Gilgamesh shouted at the dog.

The mongrel had already jumped away from Gilgamesh into the air, and began to throw Shuriken at the king.

"Mongrel! You now dare throw weapons at your King!?" Gilgamesh shouted at the dog as his treasures shot down the dog's pathetic arsenal.

"Do you plan on killing me twice?" the dog asked in an amused tone.

"Now you talk without my permission? For this you shall die a thousand times!" Gilgamesh fired a dozen of his treasures to where assassin was, and then a dozen more at where he would land. It seemed that the dog had bit of more than he could chew, as all mongrels did. While the weapons that had fired at the dog had missed, the dog had not expected the treasures to explode. The mongrel was caught in the full force of the blasts. There was no escape.

Gilgamesh waited for the smoke to clear, and found nothing but a crater. Satisfied that the mongrel had not escaped the King's wrath, Gilgamesh turned and left. No matter how skilled the dog was, the air he exhaled was still not worthy enough to be inhaled by the King.

-F/Z-

Authors Notes:

Again, thank you all for your follows, favorites, and reviews!

I apologize if this is seemingly late, but I had duel scheduled with Miraak at the summit of Apocrypha. Also, as the length of the chapters grows, so will the wait in between each chapter. Also, I'm searching for the fabled Werebears. To the hunt!

Anyway, you will never know how fun it is to be Gilgamesh until you try to write from his perspective. His ego is utterly hilarious to write.

It was really hard to kill of Assassin like this. He was probably the most compelling, complex, and engaging character in the story he's from. It was really hard for me to this. But, that is the price we all pay.

And now, you have a good guess at one of the paths Rider took in his life.

Told you Berserker was bad. For those of those who don't know him, feel free to find him on the Internet with that clue I gave you. For those who do know him, don't worry. Kariya's existential struggle against Zouken shall be even worse than it was in canon.

On another note, I'm getting into the habit of lying once every author's note. Can you find them all?

As always, please review.