"—here we go."
Kiritsugu blinked. There had been nothingness, not even an awareness of nothingness. And then he was back here, in this room, the coarse aura of divinity brushing against him once more.
Though not alone this time. She had brought a friend.
"You really expect me to sit here with a human?" asked the pink-haired woman, whose golden eyes sharpened every time they met his.
"He's fine," said Aphrodite. "Quiet. And he understands something that many don't."
"What's that?" he couldn't help but ask.
"That the end isn't always the end, even when you wish it was."
Kiritsugu nodded. He didn't understand, but he understood. For whatever value that had. It hadn't been that long since the last of their chats. It seemed like it hadn't been that long, at least, as if the break between meetings was shorter than usual.
The goddess poured a glass from a wine bottle that hadn't existed three moments ago, then handed it to the pink-haired woman. Another one to him, then one for herself. She did not make a toast. Instead she threw her head back and downed the whole glass in one go.
"Bad day?" the pink-haired woman asked. He only just noticed she had fox ears.
"You could say that."
She didn't elaborate. That was alright.
Aphrodite poured another for herself and drank half of it in one long sip. "Don't mind me. Introduce yourselves."
Kiritsugu and the pink-haired woman locked eyes, then each took a drink. The silence was more comfortable than any pleasantries they could exchange.
Aphrodite looked between them, sighed, and finished her second glass in as many minutes. She wasn't smoking today, Kiritsugu noticed. A shame. He could use a cigarette. But he had learned not to just ask for things from her.
Seeing as this wasn't going anywhere, and he had nothing to lose, he let one word slip out.
"Kiritsugu."
The pink-haired woman tilted her head. "Kiritsugu… now where have I heard that name before…" She snapped her fingers, eyes alight. "Oh, Kiritsugu Emiya, the Mage Killer! You were famous, weren't you?"
He shrugged.
"Oh, that tore you up really badly, huh?" Her pity was so acidic it could have dissolved steel. "I bet it hurt every time. No, wait, you wished it did, didn't you? Yes, I can tell your type. The self-righteous, hypocritical—"
"Koyanskaya," Aphrodite interrupted. "He's dead."
"Exactly, so what's the harm in it?" Koyanskaya tilted her head, smirk sharpening.
"He's sitting here with us," the goddess replied, pouring another glass. "Nothing else matters."
"Sheesh. Ruin my fun, why don't you." Koyanskaya sipped her own wine.
"You aren't wrong," replied Kiritsugu with a shrug.
Being dead had given him a lot of time to ruminate over his life. He had lost time in Hades, lost himself in past regrets and paths not taken. Years could very literally pass by in the blink of an eye.
Koyanskaya raised an eyebrow. "Interesting. Very interesting, in a boring way. No rise whatsoever… I don't like you, per say, but I guess you can stay if Aphrodite vouches for you."
"I would've let him stay anyways." Aphrodite muttered, third glass emptied.
"Whatever you say, unloving love goddess." She turned her gaze back to Kiritsugu. "Don't get a big head thinking I can't get under your skin. I was starting you off light. I'm not going to open with your dead wife, abandoned daughter, or adopted son traumatized by your ideals. Obviously."
Kiritsugu gave a tired sigh, then looked to Aphrodite with a questioning expression.
The goddess shrugged off his attention. "No, I don't know how she knows."
Koyanskaya winked. "I have to keep some secrets, after all. You have good taste in guns, so I'll cut you a little slack."
Kiritsugu nodded. "Thank you."
The silence returned. He let it settle, watching Aphrodite simmer. She wasn't in the mood for talking today. Sometimes she would just do that—summon him to drink with an unspoken understanding that she would not be engaging as much. They'd sit in silence, and she'd pour a glass and stare into a burnt-out fireplace. And that was fine too.
"So, how do you two know each other?" Kiritsugu asked, directing the question more to Koyanskaya than the goddess.
But Aphrodite surprised him by responding first. "This is my... friend?"
The tone was unsure, almost like an off-hand comment. The contrast between the natural weight of her divinity and the non-committal nature of her reply unsettled Kiritsugu.
Koyanskaya groaned. "Ugh. Human terms."
The unsurety from the goddess continued. "We... get along, in a sense?"
"Have a shared understanding of the world," Koyanskaya corrected.
"It sucks."
"It sucks! I'll drink to that!"
And she did just that.
"So now what?" asked Koyanskaya after finishing her glass. "You didn't even tell me what we're doing here."
"Nothing," replied Aphrodite.
"…seriously?"
"Yeah."
Koyanskaya looked at him.
"Yeah," he affirmed.
"Taking a moment to just stop," Aphrodite continued. "Nothing more, nothing less."
The silence hung.
"Oh, what the hell," said Koyanskaya, pouring another glass.
"Hades," corrected Aphrodite.
"I know what I said." She sighed into her drink. "This may be Hades, but it's hell for me. How are you supposed to run a Ponzi scheme when there's no currency and everyone's dead?"
"I apologize that my governing of Hades has not been up to your standards, Koyanskaya." Aphrodite's voice was quiet, detached, but it carried a threat Kiritsugu had only been subject to a few times before he learned his lesson. "Would you prefer the Abyss? Travel can be arranged."
"Aha, good joke." There was no doubt that the goddess wasn't joking. "Anyway, uh... how about this weather?"
The silence was painful.
"Yeah, I didn't expect that to work either," Koyanskaya said, then finished her drink.
They drank, meandering. Kiritsugu recounted some of his time in Hades, encounters with heroes past. Koyanskaya rolled her eyes every sentence he spoke, but she listened. Mostly. She'd interrupt to comment on how sad these humans were, how pathetic, how 'they should have all just poisoned each other and dropped dead'.
"Have you met Patroclus yet?" Aphrodite asked. "You two would get along, I think,"
"Ughhhh, that sack of depression and broken hearts?" Koyanskaya complained. "He's almost more sad than the two of you put together."
Kiritsugu ignored her. "No, I haven't. I did learn that Odysseus had a mech, though. That was... a strange revelation."
Koyanskaya put down yet another empty glass—he could see her slightly flushed. "Psh. A low quality metal suit like that has nothing on NFF Services' MIKON-2003. I'm talking missiles, guns, lasers, self-repair nanobots, everything you could ask for in a murder robot. Ha. Odysseus has a mech... I have a mech."
She punctuated her pitch with a hiccup.
Aphrodite took a sip. Kiritsugu had lost track of how much she drank, but he couldn't see any difference in how she acted. Must be the divine liver. Even he was starting to feel it.
"I'm a mech," Aphrodite mentioned, quiet enough that it could have been an off-hand remark.
"That's true," Koyanskaya noted with all the grace and dignity of a swan with broken wings. "Right. I remember that."
"Not my best moment," Aphrodite admitted.
"You could've done worse."
"Yeah," Kiritsugu nodded with a sad smile. "You can always do much worse than you think you can."
"That's the spirit!" cried Koyanskaya, pouring all three of them another glass. Wait, that was brandy. When did that change? "To limit breaking your fuck-ups!"
"Sure," said Aphrodite with a wan smile. "Yeah. I can get behind that." She raised her glass in return.
They both looked at him.
"To fucking up so hard… you've lost all capacity to measure what a fuck-up even looks like."
A giggle emerged from the fox-eared woman. "Just like that, perfect. Alright, now down the hatch!"
It burnt very strongly. He choked, holy fuck, he suffocated on that. Aphrodite coughed.
"What in Father Zeus's name is this?" she gasped.
Koyanskaya still had her head tilted back. It lay there for a few more moments.
"Dunno…!" she replied, slowly coming back down. The flush had deeply intensified. "I… don't even remember. Hah. Hahah. I can't remember. HAH."
Kiritsugu tried to blink himself out of existence or something. What was he thinking about? Oh, right, trying not to vomit out whatever he had just put in his system. He was keeping it together.
Barely.
It was an indeterminable amount of time later when Kiritsugu finally woke up. Being hungover as a dead man was... strange. And by strange, that meant it was very, very bad.
But he was comfortable—extremely so, like he was lying on a cloud. Was that... fur? He tried to sit up, but his head was like a lead weight and would barely move. That, and a giant wing was holding him down.
"Oh gods..." he muttered, trying and failing to open his eyes. A brief glimpse of pink fur and red feathers, two empty bottles of brandy on the bed— that he could see, at least.
"Hades help me..."
That was Aphrodite, lying sprawled next to him. He turned to look at her, noticing what was (unfortunately) probably some vomit on his collar. The hangover was visible in the bags under her eyes.
"Wakey wakey, satisfied customers!"
Koyanskaya's voice was not where it should have been. Instead of being on the bed, she had walked in with three Bloody Mary's and a half-eaten stack of pancakes. She shot one of the drinks and threw the glass aside before starting on another, indicating that they weren't to share.
Aphrodite flinched at the sound of breaking glass. "Fucking Gaia's tits, shut the fuck up!"
"Aphrodite!" Koyanskaya gasped, faux-appalled. "You can't just invoke Gaia's perfect bosom like that! Such vulgar language from your perfect, puke-stained lips!"
The goddess pushed herself up, unintentionally choking Kiritsugu with her wing. "And who's gods-forsaken fault is that?" That also seemed to be her first time noticing him. "Wait, did you get a goddess and a dead guy drunk? I invite you over one time!"
"I think that speaks to the quality of my goods." She preened. "What you drank last night is the flagship product of NFF Services Brewery: A Drink To Bring Down The Gods!"
"That's too long," Kiritsugu grunted.
"Bet no one's ever said that to you, heyo!" Koyanskaya chugged her second Bloody Mary, cleared her throat, and composed herself. "Good morning to you as well, overly-critical human. And to think, I went as far as giving you the complimentary Hangover Helper Tail Pillow out of the kindness of my heart. Oh well, scratch the 'complimentary', then, I'll just add it to your tab. Ingrate."
Aphrodite stretched, swaying slightly as she stood up. "Wait… what tab?"
Koyanskaya grinned, taking an innocent sip from the third and final glass. "You know, the tab." She paused, taking a bite of her pancakes before putting them to the side, and handed Aphrodite a small sheet of paper. "That's your bill."
Aphrodite didn't even look at it. "You're really going to do this?"
Koyanskaya nodded. "Yep!"
"I should smite you where you stand."
"Oh, scary. Sorry babe, your Authority's gonna be pretty scrambled while you're still working off the hangover. Speaking of working things off…"
Kiritsugu let himself fall back on the bed. This might as well happen.
"Without currency, the only way to repay me for goods and services rendered is labor! Here are the magically-binding employment contracts you signed while you were buttfuck drunk, see you tomorrow, byeeeeee!"
And with that, she shoved a dizzy Aphrodite back on the bed and sprinted away, final drink still in hand. A door opening and slamming shut down the hall left his ears ringing.
The goddess groaned and seemed to contemplate getting back up for a moment, but instead just relaxed and started massaging her temples.
"You have… interesting taste in friends," Kiritsugu muttered.
Aphrodite seemed to ponder as she rubbed her head. After a moment of quiet, a light chuckle broke out of her lips, and that chuckle cascaded into full laughter. "She is quite interesting, isn't she? Ha! What an awful woman! She's wonderful at breaking up the monotony of it all, though."
Kiritsugu thought about it, then started chuckling himself. He hadn't felt this physically awful in… years, decades maybe. Nothing this interesting had happened since he died. The novelty of it was… "I can see what you mean."
"Mind if I keep bringing her along?"
That was the first time she ever asked him for permission. Whether it was a genuine request or not, the sentiment was appreciated.
"Go right ahead."
Endy: So this happened over the course of one discord chat, a couple screenshots of Aphrodite and Koyanskaya interacting in-game, and a very fun editing session. Hope y'all enjoy a drastic, wild change in tone, and that the whiplash didn't break any bones. Thanks for reading!
Minerva: Holy fucking shit Olympus rocked my dick off. I literally binged that shit in two days. Go play it right now. Also, yeah, what Endy said.