AN- new year, new chapter. At least I can say that I've started the year of productively?
Either way, happy new year!
Chapter 31
This... was exactly what it looked like at first glance. There was a man and a woman sat around a cosy table together, alcohol was being served (this all occurring despite me still being in school uniform and underage based on the Japanese drinking laws – because Margaretha somehow 'knew a guy that knew a guy'), while delicious food was being served one dish at a time.
Somehow, through 9000 IQ chess plays I could only marvel at... when Margaretha said she was taking me out on a lunch date she was actually taking me out on a lunch date.
"Hmm hmm hmm!" She certainly looked very pleased with herself as she ate her small food portion extremely slowly. Then, she noticed my gaze and smiled even wider. "Looks tasty, right? Wanna share? I could feed you. Per-so-na-lly~"
"No." I shook my head, resolute in my desire to not fall to her flirtations. It was difficult – I found her just as alluring as the day I first summoned her after all. "I just... I guess I was wondering what we were doing here?"
"For a lunch date." She repeated her initial explanation, head tilted cutely. "Silly."
"But why?" I stressed. "I mean, you bribed my bodyguards, somehow wrangled Archer into being long-distance lookout, thoroughly charmed the staff in advance... and for what? I can't imagine the joke is worth this much setup."
"Depends on the joke." She shrugged. "But funnily enough, for once, I'm not joking. I took you out because you've been living, breathing and fighting this war for over a week now. Is it strange that I wanted to take you out from that stuffy warehouse so you could actually experience some normality? And that maybe I also wanted a bit of down time?"
I winced at that. "Well, no. And its not surprising because beyond all the teasing you do care, and you do show it." Even if sometimes under the worst ways possible. "Making me blush is probably just a plus. Two birds, one stone."
"Normally yes. Though this time – wrong. I could have taken you anywhere or arranged anything and I chose this. A lovely romantic bistro, candlelit dinner with wine and fancy cuisine. This... is a date."
Ah. As in an actual date date? Not the date in the sense of 'man and woman platonically doing something together' but full on 'man and woman romance' date?
This... was bad. Where the hell was the nearest exit?
Margaretha laughed. "I should maybe be a little bit offended by the thought of a date with me driving you to look like you want to dive out a window, but I honestly expected this."
"Can you blame me?" I hissed. "Even with Kiyohime gone and thirsty for someone else, I still half expect her to leap out from under the table – knife in hand and madness in her eyes – just to cockblock me. Or worse still, to castrate me for being 'unfaithful'! No offence, but I have definitely been going with the Saber patented 'No Shipping Here!' model of avoiding problems. If we never have any kind of talk on the matter, then everything remains the same."
Simply put, if I was to seriously talk about the desire to actually romance any of my Servants then it was a definite hell the fuck no. I was in the middle of a war and honestly my biggest problem was surviving day to day and maybe even winning – while I definitely had a certain fondness for all my Servants (yes, even Kiyohime) I was very content to lock the potential of those feelings up in a box, stash it in a bigger box and metaphorically throw it into my metaphorical attic to deal with later.
Any chance of inter-party strife had to be stomped out rigorously and consistently – and opening Pandora's shipping crate was just asking for trouble.
"Even so, its just us here." Margaretha gestured around the almost empty bistro. "So there won't be any negative consequences of us talking. Nobodies listening in and I promise to keep quiet on this one. And... I think that even just talking about this might help your stress levels, if only a little. So spill your guts~"
"You are the last person I want to speak to romance about." Blink, pause. "Second last. Scratch that, third last."
"Kiyohime?"
"Kiyohime." I nodded my head in agreement. Whatever context those words would be in, would always be the worst possible context with her. "And then Ishtar. Yes, the actual goddess. I think she'd just laugh at my problems then set me on fire for wasting her time."
"But you do admit to romantic inclinations for your party, yes?"
I rolled my eyes. "No shit, Mararetha. Stupid Sexy Servants; you're all hot! Each and every one of you!" Even you, gender ambiguous Lily! "Of course I have some interest. I summoned everyone based solely on compatibility factor alone except maybe for Ereshkigal, and even then we match up remarkably well. So it's obvious that I'd look a little closer sometimes and maybe consider what ifs. But I'm also sensible enough to know not to pursue anything under these circumstances."
So farewell the springtime of my youth – maybe next time?
"You might be sensible enough, but I'm not." Admitted the beautiful woman as she downed the rest of her wine – her liquid courage. "Since we're being at least mostly honest at this point, you can consider this my confession. I like you very much, and very much hope that someday you'll be the one taking me out to fancy restaurants instead."
Mararetha... was seriously confessing. I didn't quite know how to react to that. Under normal circumstances, being asked out by a woman like this would be a dream come true. Beautiful, smart and keeps me on my toes – I could do a hella lot worse. But then there was everything else.
The war, and the general situation here. And my other Servants too – had to consider them too.
"There could only be one realistic answer I could give you in this situation." I told her with the sad tone of inevitability. Knowing the former spy, she could guess my answer before she'd even broached the topic.
"I know." She smiled sincerely, tilting her head a little. "It's something like 'I can't accept your feelings at this point in time. Too much nonsense. Maybe later? Wanna go pick a fight with Gilgamesh now?', right?"
"Pretty much." I couldn't help but snigger at her casual summation. "Despite all the times I call you troublesome as hell, I do like you to a certain degree and I would enjoy seeing where a romance would take us." Because regardless of how it turned out, it would be one hell of a ride. "But for all the obvious reasons, I really can't give you a proper answer."
"I knew that would be your answer, but I wanted to say it all the same." I wasn't quite sure how to describe it, but Margaretha's face was more serious than normal. No – solemn. Her smile was small, but there was just this feeling of contentedness about her. She was at peace with this, whatever this was. "But I've been doing a lot of thinking about the war and my place in it lately... this is just something I needed to get off my chest while I still can."
"I'm listening, despite the entire marching bands worth of death flags I'm starting to hear." it seemed only fair that I gave her my full attention. I respected her enough to give her that, even though I already knew I wasn't going to like where this was going.
"Sometimes... I wonder what it would be like if I'd been summoned by you into a normal Grail War. Just me and you, against something normal." As opposed to the clusterfuck Apocrypha scenario we've been dealt instead. "And I'm glad this didn't happen. Because while this has been surprisingly hard, at least in this War I've been able to help, to survive in order to experience this. In any normal Grail War I'd have been the first to die, with you alongside me."
"I... think you give yourself too little credit, sometimes." I countered. "It would have been difficult and we'd have needed to play it very differently, but we would have been a solid team." I could see myself playing the information game a lot more in this hypothetical scenario; I would rely more on my knowledge of the plot and characters to manoeuvrer everyone else about, probably using Shirou as my main 'piece' to get shit done. Honestly, I could ride his protagonist ass way into the endgame. We'd then need to win via treachery and by virtue of surviving to the last man standing, before forcing a suicide order through Command Seal or Noble Phantasm – with a good dash of luck to get there intact.
Her smile was heartfelt, but the look on her face was anything but. "My physical stats are E across the board save for Luck, and my only combat utility is snatching the will of another to do the fighting for me. I'll amend my statement. In any normal war with any normal Master, we'd die immediately. With you by my side, even without a single Circuit to your name, we'd still have a miraculous moment or two in the spotlight, but would probably still lose."
"Isn't that the dream?"
"Shame it wouldn't happen." And once more, the mood lowered. "James, I know my limits. From the moment I became a Heroic Spirit, Mata Hari knew she could never win a Grail War. Her dream would never be granted by the Heavens Feel Ritual... and that's okay. I was at peace with that before I was even summoned by you, after all."
"And now?"
"And now... the impossible dream of victory isn't so impossible, even if its only possible by the actions of everyone other than myself." Ouch – very self deprecating today, weren't you? "At this point in the war, I'm spent. I can't spy or sneak now that my identity is revealed, and everyone knows my Noble Phantasm too. Yesterday I hindered us more than helped. Once my Phantasm failed I was a sitting duck unable to flee. Without Archer to protect me..."
"You aren't weak." I snapped. "I wouldn't trade you for any other Assassin. You've been indispensable to us!"
"Have been." She repeated, arms crossed and pouting. "All my strongest deeds are already done. I worry that my time in this war is nearing its end."
"I won't allow that. I promised that we'd all make it through this war, and I mean it."
She nodded. "I know you'll try. And I really hope you're correct. Because there is nothing I want more than to see the end of this war through with you. But... I should be realistic. And I know that the going is gonna get rough soon – the strong will cull the weak now. So I told myself that I didn't want to leave anything hanging... just in case. I don't want to die with regrets, so... ta dah! Here we are!"
"And here we are." I parroted back. "On the one hand, I see where you are coming from. On the other hand, your words are really depressing and out of character. Where is the flirty spy trying to get a reaction out of me for the sake of amusement alone?"
"I'm still here. I just... feel this is necessary. My wish for the Holy Grail was to find a partner I could make a happy household with, and maybe the eternal youth to enjoy it thoroughly. And funnily enough, this war has given me half of that. So I want to confess here and now how I feel, so even once some of the others start pulling their heads out of their asses and acknowledge the elephants in the room they're also ignoring for the sake of the war, that you'll keep me in mind." Here, the cavalier Margaretha emerged once more, sticking her tongue out teasingly. "And, well, if I'm banking on the trope of 'First Girl Wins'... well, that's just how this heroine rolls."
Margaretha was important to me – in ways I perhaps wasn't willing to acknowledge just yet. But I acknowledged her all the same, and committed her words to memory. I could sympathise with her situation, seeing as I spent way too much of my own head-space of self depreciation.
But... I also didn't like the picture she was trying to pain. However, I couldn't deny her words either. In many ways she was correct – she was in a very different position in this second round of the game than the first. And if I didn't want her to die, then I was gonna need to come up with a plan and pronto.
That was for later though. Instead, I laid one hand reassuringly on her own. "Fuck it. Just this once, let's play this date straight. If you don't want any regrets, then I can at least offer you a damn fine date."
"Oh really? No regrets?" Her eyes gleamed mirthfully. Then, she committed the cardinal sin. With reflexes faster than my own, she lashed out with her weapon of choice and snatched a portion of my meal away with her fork, then brought it quickly to her lips. "Yum, then."
"You didn't..."
"I did. I regretted not trying the delicious food on your plate, and since you didn't want the food from my plate, I naturally took offence to that. And I also regretted not ordering the spaghetti. I could so engineer that 'Lady and the Tramp' encounter." I didn't doubt her – I knew better.
Cough, cough. "Ah, is this a bad time?" a voice asked to the side, a little bit awkwardly.
"Yes! It is! We were having a moment here!" Margaretha snapped, then paled. "Ummm. James? Our waiter?"
"What about-" and then I saw him. He was not our waiter, even if he was wearing the uniform of one. "Makiri Zolgen, how the fuck did you get here? Actually, I don't give a care how. Why the fuck are you here?"
With that, my day has been thoroughly ruined. Because Makiri Zolgen had shown up out of fucking nowhere, and I was not happy with this. More specifically... ["Eresh! We've got a fucking Zolgen in the bistro! How the fuck did he get here?"]
["Eh? I'm watching the door. I didn't see him come in! Stall him! I'll be right there!"]
"You can call off your Servant." Zolgen said, casually, as he pulled out a chair from a neighbouring table to sit at so there were three of us sitting around the table in a triangle formation. "This body is a vessel similar to the one Zouken used in the past to use to show himself in public." With that, one of his fingers fell off and I saw a quick glimpse of something writhing before Zolgen reached down and reattached it. "However, I am not truly here. My soul is no longer present in the worms that comprise this body, and I am simply controlling this vessel remotely. This is but a measly familiar constructed through the gruesome Matou Magecraft, which I brought together in the bathroom back there to avoid your Archer's scrutiny."
"So that's how you crept past. Now for why?" I muttered. "Give me one good reason not to say 'fuck it' and just have Archer blast your ass right here and right now?"
"Because I'm not here."
"It would sure be satisfying to me though." I grinned.
The blue-haired man rolled his eyes in what seemed to be good humour – it was such an utterly unlike Zouken action. If I didn't know about the cost his 'immortality' had had on him as a person, then something as simple as this would be enough to tip me off to just how different Zolgen was from Zouken. "You could shut me up, and I could hardly blame you. But I am here in good faith. I simply... want to exchange words."
I looked to Assassin, seeing what she thought. She nodded, and so I went with my gut instinct. ["Okay, hold back. For now. Let's let him talk. But you shoot him down the minute something is off, okay?"]
["Tch. I don't like it. I'd rather just shoot him down now, but I understand your logic."]
"Fine." I gestured to him. "You wanna talk? Fucking talk."
"Thank you." He inclined his head gratefully. "I just wanted to ask you a few questions."
"Nope." I countered him immediately. "I'm not letting you fish for a god-damn thing. There is nothing innocuous about this. If you're still in Fuyuki, then that means you aren't putting the War behind you to go become a charity volunteer in 'name an African country' or whatever. Don't even try and bullshit me when I just know that you're looking for the first chance to sneak back into this little war."
He sigh was as resigned as his posture. "You really do have a bad opinion of me don't you? I can hardly blame you."
"You orchestrated the rape of a child." I spat out his crime like an insult – which it was. "And experimented on her too! You've murdered countless souls to retain your immortality! You fucked over each and everyone in your family for the worst possible reasons, all the way from Byakuya to Kariya! You're the reason Shinji was such a little shit, you turned Sakura into a Grail and stuck literal Rape Worms into her. You tried to complete the Grail, even though you probably knew the negative and or apocalyptic consequences you'd bring about. Hell, even 'Orphan Battery' Kotomine fucking Kirei thinks you're maybe a bit too fucking much! And what else was it? Oh yeah. That. You MURDERED ME and later stole the Grail win from under me with a bullshit last minute backstab! So yes! I have a bad opinion of you!"
"Easy." I felt a warm hand reach for my own – Margaretha's. I realised I had gotten to my feet at some point during my rant and that my fists were clenched so tightly they hurt – I had been this close to leaping over that table and smacking his stupid face in. Close one indeed. Couldn't act like a dumbass. I took a few deep breaths and gave my Assassin class Servant's hand a little squeeze of my own – telling her I understood her message. Then, I carefully and deliberately sipped at my drink just to have a reason to not spit out everything else I wanted to say about him. To clear my head.
All the same though... fuck this man soooo much.
"You are correct." Zolgen admitted mournfully. "The crimes I committed as Matou Zouken are as plentiful as they are terrible. Most of them I can never truly redeem myself of. And you are right – its only natural that I'd want another chance at the wish I squandered so easily. I can't blame you for your hostility or wariness. But I want to ask, even so."
"Why?"
"Consider it..." he paused, considering his words carefully. "An exchange. Some pre-war discourse, beneficial to us both. Zolgen has never truly met you, and if I am to claim the wish, then I feel I must acknowledge those who I must trample over to accomplish this. Likewise, I know this is a hard sell, which is why I offer you answers as well. Questions for questions. Answers for answers. Based on your words so far, you know much of Matou Zouken. But can you predict Makiri Zolgen quite so well?"
And that was the question. Just how different was the man before me right now?
Zouken was a monster, albeit a remarkably predictable one. Imagine the worst possible thing he could be doing at this particular moment in time and you've probably got a pretty good idea of what he was doing. I understood his wish, his trump cards, just how he clicked.
… and now I had a stranger to worry about. I didn't know what things Makiri Zolgen, founder of the original Grail War, was capable of. I tentatively knew of his generic 'save the world' wish he made with Justeaze Von Einzbern, but little beyond that.
So while this could reveal too much of myself to a very real threat... was the risk worth it if I could fill in a few blank holes of my own on this question mark riddled man?
"Fuck it. Fine. A question for a question."
Zolgen smiled. It was a restrained one – all lips, no tooth. "Thank you. I appreciate having this opportunity to speak. May I go first?"
"Fine." Might as well get to the heart of the matter on what tone he wanted this conversation to go.
"Why did you merely burn my lab down all those days ago? I know that you possess knowledge about Sakura's more unusualstatus... so why didn't you take her? Or why didn't you kill her?"
I winced, trying to decide how truthfully to answer this. After all, there was both a logical and emotional part to my reasoning. "I didn't have the means to fix her. Couldn't confirm that any of my Servants could de-worm her. Taking her along without that guarantee was just giving you eyes into our base. I also didn't want to involve her in the war any further. Figured she's already been involved enough already. The Grail was clean, her Servant was dead. She was no threat – I was happy to live and let live. Besides, I didn't think she'd want to go with me, and I didn't want an unwilling hostage." I was also just too tired at the time to really strategise the fact properly. All my Servants were wounded badly, and almost died due to my poor choice of targets. I wasn't concerned with Sakura right there and then – I cared more about getting my team to safety and healed up.
"Fair enough." Zolgen nodded his head in understanding. "Just so you know, she is now de-wormed."
"Great. You've taken out the Rape Worms. Good on you. Basic common decency, not worming people. Definitely makes up for all the countless years of said worm raping."
"James..." Margaretha warned me with her tone alone.
"I know." It was just hard to not bring it up. I had always had my problems with Zouken – I'd just never had a chance to vent them properly. I couldn't have mouthed off to him like this during any of our previous meetings, since I was always 'on the clock' at the time. But like this, against the Zolgen who wouldn't defend himself of the accusations?
It was just a little too easy to take vindictive glee in pointing our all the terrible shit he'd done.
"I'll ask my question now." And with that, I pondered what I should ask for. What was the biggest priority to know? "Do you have the means to create new Command Seals?"
"I do." Zolgen answered without hesitation. "Its a slow and costly process, and hooking them up to the backend of the Grail so that the system accepts the Seal is just as slow and costly. The other founders were very careful to balance out my rather unequal ability to work with the Command Seal system... just as I made sure to limit their their own advantages." He pulled off the pair of gloves he was wearing, showing clear skin. "This proves nothing, but on my real body, I do have a single working Command Seal, despite Ruler stripping me of all my valid Seals. Only the one, however."
"I have no choice to take your word for it." If his word could be trusted (a big if), then this proved that Zolgen did in fact have the means to actually rejoin the war as a participant if a free Servant became available. He said his method could hook Seals back up to the Grail so it looked legitimate, so while it probably wouldn't fool Ruler, I could see his tricking the system into considering him a valid contestant in terms of wish granting.
"Thank you. In that case, I ask my second question. What is your Wish for this war?"
Know my motivation, eh? Well, its not like my answer could reveal much."I want the Second Magic." I told him. "If the Grail is capable of granting the Third, it should be able to give me the Second instead."
"Ah, I see." And it really did look like he'd come to some sort of understanding.
"Care to share your thoughts with the class?"
"It just... well, this entire War does make a lot more sense once you spot the Kaleidoscope's fingers in the pie." He mused. "A lot of things don't add up. How was the Greater Grail cleaned? Where did you come from? Just how have you navigated this War and its inhabitants so easily, and how do you know so many things you shouldn't? A lot of things seem too purposeful for this to be sheer coincidence, and a situation like this would attract that man. Or at least, something like this would be in character for him. You're not from this timeline, are you?"
I said nothing to his guess – I used every ounce of my strength to stilling my features and preventing him from seeing just how much his guess rattled me.
Of all the enemies in the War, he was the only one to figure out that I wasn't native to this timeline. And it had to be the person that I least wanted to realise this fact that learned it...
Talking was a mistake. He'd gained a hell of a lot more from this, than I did. I just didn't know enough about what I didn't know about the man to make my questions worth the information I was giving up.
I got to my feet. "That's an interesting theory, but I don't like you trying to fish for extra answers by your pointless guessing. Come on Assassin - I'm out. Peace."
"Stay." Zolgen said insistently. "I apologise for my word choice. I could have expressed my thoughts in a less directed way. I was simply happy that I understood what kind of person you were, and just why you acted the way that you did."
"And what kind of person is that?"
"A normal soul." He shrugged. "But I can understand and appreciate your wish, all the same. As one who wished to regain his youth, I cannot fault you for seeking a wish to return to your own past. There is no doubt a life that was stolen from you when the Kaleidoscope acted, after all. He tended to be a man of actions and few explanations, back when I knew him. And I suppose that if you encountered Zouken in this hypothetical other timeline, it would explain a few things. So please stay – I still owe you a single answer, after all."
"... fine." I sat back down. In the end, he was right. I did have one more question, since he had asked two while I had only asked one. And leaving couldn't change the fact that he knew about my outside origins, even if he clearly still didn't understand the full truth.
So I needed to get pertinent information... and there was one thing he might have that I wanted. "What are the Magecraft capabilities of Makiri Zolgen... and does he have any trump cards he can deploy against Gilgamesh, King of Heroes, the Archer of the last war?"
After all, Matou Zouken had familiars all across Fuyuki. I doubted that he could fail to spot that Archer had survived the Fourth War... and I doubted he was the kind of Magus to not have a few contingencies. And considering Sakura was out of play for this war with the Shadow gone, I needed to know if he had anything worth bringing to the table.
Because while I hated Matou Zouken with a burning passion... I was less certain about Makiri Zolgen, if he truly was a different person. And at the end of the day, while Makiri Zolgen might fuck me over at some point in the future, he's still preferable to Gilgamesh who WAS going to fuck me over in the near future.
"You want an alliance." Zolgen laughed, genuinely astonished. "I am surprised you would be flexible enough to even consider this, after what Zouken did to you in the last round. Zouken was wrong about you. You aren't too weak willed to be a Magus. You do still have that ruthless necessary to survive in the world of Magi... you just don't want to. Heh. Yes. Considering your actions in the last round, I think you are a man that I can respect, if only for your sheer tenacity and ability to keep on getting back up. If I was able to retain my own morals while continuing on my path as a Magus, perhaps we wouldn't be in this mess."
"I'm not in this for your respect. Now answer."
"Fine. I will give my answer." He inclined his head in acknowledgement. "How best to explain the Makiri Magecraft? It has many similarities to the Matou craft it was twisted into due to Zouken's skewed direction as a practitioner. It became Absorption, through the concept of one sided binding. In essence, 'bind something to one's self, and grow strong from that connection'. But the origin of this twisted style... is Sympathy."
"Sympathy?" I felt like scoffing. The secret power of Makiri Zolgen... was feeling things?
"Mutual experience, more specifically... a two way connection. Give and take. Unification of intent and consequence. Greater wholes from separated components. So yes. The root of the Makiri Magecraft lies in 'binding oneself to another, then mutually benefiting'. It was that mutual binding which allowed the Command Seal to work in the first place. Let's just say that the Dream Cycle isn't an accident, and leave it at that." I... did not have the context to fully appreciate just what kind of Magecraft mic drop that probably was.
"So that's the core principle? Mutual binding?"
"Yes." He agreed. "While the Matou craft has an association with worms... once upon a time the Makiri line was associated with butterflies. Butterflies and gardens – grown from our own sacrifice, and reaped in time for our own benefit. The properties of one became the other."
Ah. Meanwhile, the Matou craft focused on taking without giving anything back – purely parasitical. Probably a little bit of a decent metaphor for how Zolgen changed, I suppose.
"Combat abilities? Trump cards?"
He raised an eyebrow. "I am a Magus, young man. Many would kill to even hear this much about the fundamentals of my family's Magecraft. Still, you aren't the sort to care about such tradition. I refuse to tell you everything... unless you want me to list every spell I've learnt over the last half a millennium?"
… a guy could dream.
"Suffice to say, the Makiri Magecraft cannot be deployed to its full potential in this war." Wait a sec... was he actually telling me his combat capabilities? "Consider this my atonement for previous treatment towards yourself. A Magus' power is based on preparation. The Makiri Magic Crest is spoiled at this point in time, having been cannibalised of its secrets for short sighted gains many years ago. The Crest Worms were not worth the sacrifice of so many centuries of progress. So while the knowledge remains within my own mind, the deployment of it is less viable. Likewise, many Mystic Codes and specialised Familiars would be needed to use the Makiri Magecraft to its fullest potential, and those are all similarly gone, destroyed or utilised."
"... in other words, Matou Zouken fucked you over?"
"In so many words, yes. Though your own destruction of my Workshop certainly finished the job. There simply isn't enough time for me to recreate all the tools needed to deploy my most potent mysteries. As a consequence... the Makiri line has no unique trump cards able to play a key role in the defeat of a Heroic Spirit on the level of Gilgamesh, King of Uruk."
"That... is unfortunate. I was kinda hoping that a founder might have a few tricks stashed up his sleeves."
The ancient Magus cackled in amusement. "I did! They didn't grant me the title of Archmagus for nothing! Fool that I am though, those were squandered long ago! And the Makiri line always did care less for combat capabilities. Sympathy, after all, was our speciality. Why learn to inflict on another what would only hinder us, when we could study mutual benefit instead and ensure all parties left the table satisfied and eager to work together in the future for further gains?"
"Well, that just takes the freakin' cake." On the one hand, I didn't need to deal with the worst case scenario of a Makiri Zolgen operating at full power. On the other side of the Catch 22: only a full powered Zolgen could have possibly helped me out against Gilgamesh. "In that case then, all I can do is give you a general offer."
"Hmm?"
"Gilgamesh WILL come for me in three days time. If you do manage to snatch a Servant before then, give me a call or something. I hate your guts, but I need every card I can play against that bullshit Servant. It's in your best interest to not fuck me over... because if me and my seven Servants can't beat him, then you alone sure as hell can't. And I doubt that Demigod will let you leave with two wins."
"You aren't wrong." Admitted Zolgen. "He has always been a wildcard, but most of Zouken's plans involved navigating around him. Some of the planned solutions were unfortunately lost when someone burned my original Workshop down."
"Still not sorry."
"I wouldn't expect you to be. It was a strong strategic choice and definitely paid off for you in the long time. I have no grudge against you for that now – I've come to accept that event as my own just desserts. Returning to the topic at hand... I am not opposed to such an arrangement. I am undeniably your enemy, and I won't even try to lie to you and claim that I'm not going to find a way to rejoin this War... but I think I can work with you. Expect to hear from me before the battle begins. We can arrange proper terms then."
I gave him an inscrutable look I didn't fully understand myself. "I... am looking forwards to hearing from you regarding this topic, I think?"
"Probably the best reaction I could hope to receive from this meeting." The ancient Archmagus rose to his feet and cracked his back. "Ahh, it is nice to not feel intense pain just from rising to my feet like this... sometimes it's the simple pleasures. On that note, I think I'll call this session to an end here. I'll leave you to your meal."
"Don't bother." I shook my head, looking at the cold, unappetising plate of food before me. "The mood is completely ruined."
