A Friendly Fight (Battle)
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(On the run, somewhere between the Matou and Emiya houses, a little before dawn)
(Shirou)
"Why did your Servant have to provoke her," Shirou grumbled as the three Masters ran towards his house. While it seemed that neither Berserker or Lancer was coming after them, he wasn't going to bet on things staying that way. "And doesn't Lu Bu have that legend of the Gate Halberd Shot?
"I should hope he can't do precision shooting as a Berserker," Rin turned her head backwards to see her Archer covering their retreat. As for why a Servant calls anyone in the modern age 'me,' you'll have to ask her as I have no clue. They don't even look alike."
Sakura said nothing but kept running. She probably felt bad about not being able to have her Rider take to the field.
"Oh crap," he groaned after receiving an message from his Caster. "There's another Servant who's got Sasaku. Saber, get over there before he kills her and we're screwed."
Kojirou nodded and went down a side alley, probably to climb up the building while safely out of sight of any pursuer. Rin just looked at Shirou quizzically, "The last one, Assassin? Can she identify them?"
"She says it's Gilgamesh," he relayed, unaware of the significance in the King of Heroes' presence. Rin, however, was and looked thunderstruck.
"What good is running to your place if someone's got the Caster who controls all the defenses?" Sakura asked. Shirou frowned, before realizing something in the middle of coming up with an answer.
"Saber, change of plans, rejoin us at top speed."
"It's alright," he said after taking a breath. "I can summon her to me via Command Spell. Best if we're already within her Realm, and the enemy immediately charges in... She can-"
"Blow them away with spears?" Sakura muttered with a look of distaste, probably because her Rider had been the first to get hit by that. "But she was shooting them just now and it did nothing."
"It's more effective under the ideal conditions she can set up in my home," Shirou explained. "At least I'm hoping that it will be enough. Ideally our opponents either slow down or come at us piecemeal."
"Why do you think they're less able to run than we are?" Rin asked.
"Well, Berserker shows up first, Kuro ends up provoking his Master somehow, and only after a while does Lancer show up. If the other Servant was already there to stop Sasaku, why only after she shot off a volley of spears? Sure, it didn't do much, but the surprise attack is the most dangerous."
"But they immediately defended against it, weren't they warned?"
"Pretty sure that's just Cu Chulainn's (Protection From Arrows) skill," Kuro said suddenly. "A Skill like that makes any ranged attack look bad. And I guess Lu Bu's armor is just that good."
"They're just mundane iron spears with a Reinforced tip," Shirou explained. "Though I have no idea what that actually means."
"I might be able to up her firepower, then." Kuro glanced to the side as Kojirou reappeared and joined them. "But I will need some mana to pull it off."
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(A certain rooftop)
(Gilgamesh)
"Don't worry," he said in a reassuring tone after seeing Sasaku freeze like a spooked animal. "It's just a fight, not a deathmatch. You already fought Lancer, didn't you?"
It didn't work on her. "That's easy enough for you to say, seeing you can blow through me with one swing. And Lancer's lance went into my heart."
"Fine, sparring then. Pure technique, swords. Your pick." he amended before bringing out a number of swords to show her. "I'll use one that's just like yours."
"If you insist," she replied with a caution that was rather endearing. A long narrow-bladed sword shimmered into her hand. After a moment, she flourished a left hand as a much smaller dagger appeared in it. "Do they use rapier and dagger in Uruk?"
"Hmph." Searching through his treasury he took out a pair of weapons similar to hers. "Why wouldn't I have the original thrust-oriented one-handed sword and off-hand parrying device?"
She only took a stance in response. Left forward, a defensive stance huh?
As Gilgamesh tried to circle to her right, so that any defense would have further to travel, she abruptly thrust at his hand. Too slow. Raising his hand and angling a short cut, he used his own blade to push hers to the side, but Sasaku withdrew almost as soon as the weapons made contact.
Though her point was further back, the advantage of surprise might have allowed it to work. If I had tried to parry with my left, anyway.
Stepping quickly in the opposite direction, he sent a probing jab towards her left shoulder. The point got very close before Sasaku trapped it with her dagger. Tried to anyway, as it simply left the same way it came in.
The two of them pulled apart in the same tempo. A brief flurry of attacks, each quickly withdrawn when a defense was clearly ready for it.
More like dancing than a battle.
Gilgamesh found the exchange rather amusing. At first I was thinking if she was foolishly trying to find a type I didn't have, but it seems she knows how to hold her own with this.
Of course, since he hadn't been lying when he mentioned being unable to read her mind, he didn't know her choice was because a clean thrust was very much less likely to kill her outright than any number of cuts. Though, since he had no intention of killing her, the possibility hadn't occurred to him.
The other reason might be that Sasaku was frequently cutting with her own sword, on the defense, due to it being easier to aim for the tip of Gilgamesh's advancing weapon. Despite that, it made for quite a tight guard, as her sword encountered his well away from her body, and timing a move backwards with the parry meant he wouldn't be able to get his point back in line and attack without having to over-commit, due to the distances involved.
"You know," Gilgamesh said after a while of this, "Your defense is much more efficient and... elegant compared to Altri- Alto-, uh Artoria."
"Who's that?" she replied. Neither side was really conversing in earnest. It was more like two people sleep-talking to one another, so focused were they on the next attack and defense and riposte attempt.
"Artoria Pendragon. You know... the King of Britain?"
"Oh. I thought all the legends went by Arthur."
"They do, apparently the Saber I met was from before all that."
"How does someone become a Heroic Spirit before they were a hero?"
"Ask yourself that," Gilgamesh replied cheekily. "But honestly, it seems she had some fame as the Princess Knight before becoming the King of Knights. Anyway, definitely not the later Arthur, since she openly wears a dress on the battlefield."
"Hmm, this is all well and good, but..." she flashed a half-mocking smile back at him. "In the end, all I hear is you talking about some other girl... how should I feel about that?"
He refused to take the bait. "Like you have have any problem with it."
She seems to constantly default to angling the blade upwards... used to fighting people taller than her? We're currently about the same height though.
"Just because I'm aware all you ancient kings have a harem doesn't mean I want to be in one."
"I don't have one, this is the 'me' before all that, just like - well you get the idea."
Cutting repeatedly must come from the earlier periods in rapier dueling. He realized that, that being the case, he actually had a slight range advantage as her weapon was still somewhat of a cutter rather than a later model of all-out thruster. But is she actually aware of that?
"Enough of that, how does this age compare to your own Age of Gods?" he asked, wanting to get around to the question before she ran off or got summoned away by Command Spell. He probably had until her Master and the others reached her Workshop area.
"I'm not from any Age of the Gods. I believe my home time would count as the future, but developments are in no way parallel so that means very little."
"But your entire civilization's population are immortal?" Finding that out had surprised him. However, despite that, her people had apparently not degenerated into decadence and weakness.
Perhaps there is a way forwards for humanity, rather than trying to reset back to an earlier age.
Even if he might have agreed with his older selves about modern humanity, it was easier for him to think of it more as an immature child, rather than a hopeless adult. Or maybe that's because I've been taking care of children too much lately.
"Yes, though I doubt Alaya would think of them as human, even if it acknowledges we're people. The World is similarly likely to be unappreciative of plans involving breaking it up for raw materials, or even 'merely' radically altering its structure. Though I'll add that is hardly necessary." At this point they were really just chatting while poking lazily at one another.
"I would probably be similarly unappreciative as I plan for myself to take over everything. Which does include you." This didn't provoke any real reaction from her, though perhaps it was just too direct and thus obvious.
"I hadn't heard. In what ways exactly?"
"Naturally, all the ways," he grinned and prepared to charge at almost at a crouch in order to go beneath her rather high defenses. "Emphasis on all."
Sasaku's eyes widened as Gilgamesh came in fast and low. Adjusting her angle of attack, she hurriedly thrust downwards in order to block his advance.
Both blades reached out to their opponent.
Gilgamesh caught Sasaku's blade with his dagger.
She trapped the point of his weapon just a short distance away from her left side.
He decided to swing his left arm out, forcing her right arm arm to follow her sword away. The turning would free his blade to move forward just a little bit for the victory.
(Sasaku)
She froze as Gilgamesh caught and flung her riposte to the side, snapping off the last hand's breath or so the tip. That was supposed to be a good defensive rapier she thought in surprise. Gilgamesh's own rapier practically vibrated as it shook free, sliding forward to bite into her side, drawing blood.
Both sides froze as they assessed the situation. Though Sasaku's blade was now free, it was also much shorter and could at most try to cut Gilgamesh's arm - however he could easily pull back before it connected.
"Ah, it's your victory," she commented almost idly while dropping her broken weapon to the ground to signal her defeat. "Though it hardly seems like 'pure technique' would break that on a parry."
After a moment Gilgamesh put away his sword. "Well that's that," he said, though frowning while doing so. "Before you go, a few things."
"Hm." Truth be told, regardless of what he had earlier, Sasaku had been expecting it to end in Gilgamesh kidnapping her or something similar. I guess he isn't that kind of ancient king? I really lucked out on superpowered tyrants to run into, apparently.
The first thing he did was hand her a pair of glasses? "Your friend's Servant will probably find this useful, I think she'd be blind without it." She simply nodded once it was clear he was referring to Rider. "And tell your friend that George says hi."
"Will do." She simply put the gift away in her Armory, eyeing the giver as he sidled up to her.
"And this is a reward. For a technical victory," he motioned for her to lean down a bit. At first she thought he wanted to whisper something to her, and so was taken quite by surprise when instead he lightly kissed her on the cheek.
"What, is that a reward for me or you?" she remarked in a teasing tone that only seemed to amuse him.
"It is what it is," Gilgamesh grinned with a mix of confident cuteness. "Especially since I happen to know that the next time we meet, you will be begging me to make you mine."
"Um... er, if I am, I'm sure I'll do so as many times and as many ways as you please." Sasaku wasn't really sure what to make of that. The King of Heroes did have an astoundingly high Clairvoyance after all. Though I'm not sure if that was supposed to be a warning or an invitation.
"Look forward to it. Later." With that he simply disappeared.
(Gilgamesh)
He laughed to himself while leaving behind a very quiet Caster. Though she hadn't reacted to the surprise kiss, the next part did leave her spluttering, no rather she did freeze if only for a moment. She must think very fast.
It did give some evidence that she wasn't some form of AI from elsewhere though. There's a lot of weird stuff out there, especially beyond the reach of Gaia and the Root.
Though, come to think of it, it wasn't like him to abuse any foreknowledge of the future, especially one that wasn't particularly clear or pressing. Hmph, well what's done is done.
Before returning, he would make a brief detour to see the System's progress towards realizing the Grail. It might have gotten blasted by Artoria in the last War, but all that energy and the evil in it didn't just disappear. Being re-collected would explain the extremely quick inter-War cycle this time around. If only he could access the System's self-analysis routines... but since he wasn't a Ruler it was left to his direct observation.
Speaking of analysis, she hadn't noticed, but when he had replaced his sword in the treasury, Gilgamesh had also taken with it a decent enough sample of her blood. A magus should know that items such as that, or even a little hair, might be used to great effect for any number of things. At least, it should yield more than just remotely scanning her with my Noble Phantasm.
Though the park he was approaching was a rather ghastly place thanks to the earlier destruction, largely repaired, and the lingering curse, still festering, he felt happy at the thought of solving a new mystery.
Definitely all the ways, huh?
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Notes:
I feel he is classier as a child. How ironic. Though as the person himself might say "In Uruk, this is already plenty to be a full-fledged King."
That said, I tend to treat Gil and Sasaku as looking about the same age of 15 or so, so younger than Sakura, but older than Kuro. Maybe Illya is also around their range, but she's a homunculus and they tend to look a bit 'different' to people apparently.
There is an alien that's a Dead Apostle Ancestor? And though it's in the future, of course there's all those AIs in the Mooncell Automaton.