Carnival Phantasm – Double Standard

Shiki Tohno sighed, eyelids drooping a little bit as he walked arm in arm with Arcueid Brunestud. The True Ancestor happily continued chattering away, unaware or maybe just plain ignorant of the exhausation the boy was feeling.

Having somehow managed to get through his other four dates with the other girls in his life was seriously driving the boy to have a good old fashioned anemia attack right here in the park. He was truly grateful to Arcueid for keeping him standing up, not that his vampire girlfriend noticed she was managing to keep him up.

"...and then I transformed into Phantasmoon and beat Akiha back long enough to free that strangely familiar looking black dog with red eyes." Arcueid finished chatting about her day to Shiki, noticing that the boy looked a little bit pale. "Shiki? Are you alright?" She asked in concern, nose wrinkling a little as she leaned forward into his personal space.

Shiki smiled at her concern. "It's fine." Her concern was actually restoring his energy. "Do you want to go ahead and buy some snocones?" His offer made the blonde's eyes light up with happiness. "I'll take that for a yes."

Straightening up from his slouch, Shiki let himself get dragged off by the overly energetic vampire princess.

- Scene Break -

Gilgamesh sighed as he beheld his fool of a temporary Master desperately throw more of the money he had gotten him in the hopeless pursuit of a large stuffed panda. The three girls, mongrels from his master's school track team, were spending more of their time hopefully eyeing him instead of watching Shinji cursing and yelling at the stand owner.

The blond, dressed in his usual casual attire, crossed his arms as he looked over at the prize that Shinji was trying to earn. While he could somewhat admire the embroidery on the panda's back, he still wasn't sure why the bear was called Nanaya.

Eh, who could tell with these humans.

A brief pang of loneliness crossed his heart as he realized how much more superior he was to the lot of them. He couldn't even understand this era anymore, much less understand these people. The last time he had tried to negotiate with someone like he had with Enkidu, they had wound up a smear across a street.

Oh ho. That Faker's scream was priceless. Too bad he hadn't died. Then Saber-

Saber!

Realizing that he hadn't seen her in a while, Gilgamesh made up his mind.

"I'm leaving, Master." Gilgamesh called out, feeling charitable towards the idiot this day. "I will forego the usual five seconds of sword volleys this night in favor of three seconds." With that, the Heroic Spirit was off, disappointing the trio of girls and causing them to leave Shinji as well.

"...wait. Where is everyone?" Shinji spoke up five minutes later, realizing everyone had left him.

- Scene Break -

Shiki and Arcueid were at the exit to the park, sharing an ice cream cone between the two of them.

"Open wide, Shiki!" Arcueid happily held the cone in front of her face, baiting Shiki to move in and try to lick the ice cream. Shiki laughed and moved in. As expected, Arcueid moved the cone just at the last second, letting Shiki press his lips against hers.

"Arcueid!" Shiki blushed, smiling like a fool as he tried to keep up a pretense of disapproval with his girlfriend. "You shouldn't do those kinds of things in public."

Arcueid laughed as she danced away from Shiki, but she found herself bumping against the back of a blond that was exiting the park. She let out a gasp as she stumbled and began to fall back, but before Shiki could do anything, the blond man caught her.

The ice cream splatted onto the ground wetly as two sets of red eyes met.

"...Gilgamesh?"

"...princess?"

"...the hell?" Shiki questioned, hackles raised as he stared at the intimate hold that this so called Gilgamesh had on Arcueid. The blonde quickly bound away from her counterpart, transforming her hands into wicked looking claws.

Shiki instantly went on alert when he saw Gilgamesh merely smirk at Arcueid, drawing forth his knife and taking his glasses off.

"Hoo...Princess of the True Ancestors...and servant boy?" Gilgamesh's question made Shiki snarl a little. "Well met, this should be a battle of the ages!" A wild, excited smile crossed Gilgamesh's face as he snapped his fingers, summoning forth a key shaped sword out of nowhere.

"GATE OF BABYLON!"

"MELTY BLOOD!"

"...FLIP OUT AND STAB THIS ARROGANT FUCK IN THE FACE!"

- Scene Break -

And no one had dinner that nig-wrong script.

- Scene Break -

Gilgamesh and Arcueid clung onto each other, laughing like lunatics as strips of clothing dangled off them.

"That was priceless, Gil-chan! You should have seen their faces when you said you were the rules!"

"You were there for that? The mongrels needed to take out loans from me just to fix the city afterward!"

"Hahah! Those Necos will be fine True Ancestors someday!"

Trailing far behind them, Shiki was using a bent stop sign as a walking aid. His eyes glared death in a way that would have made Shiki Ryougi herself proud. If she could get herself to give a damn long enough, that is.

"So, you're certainly more ...emotive than you were last time we met." Gilgamesh replied, wiping his eyes as he looked at the blonde on his arm. Arcueid eagerly nodded, turning back to look at Shiki over her shoulder.

"Shiki there killed me! Apparently being cut into seventeen pieces means I become a real girl." Her cheerful statement brought looks of fear from those unfortunate enough to be within hearing range.

Shiki winced when a mother pulled her son, who looked eager at learning that there were real life ninjas that could flip out and murder people, away from him before hurrying away from Shiki in the opposite direction.

"Seventeen pieces, huh." Gilgamesh mused, wondering if that would work with Saber. "So he's your...?" He trailed off, hoping to find out more about the remarkably bendy boy. Gilgamesh wasn't sure that limbs were supposed to twist that way, but it was still surprising that the human had managed to avoid his sword volley.

"Oh, he's my boyfriend!" Arcueid helpfully pointed out.

"Ah, a consort, then." Gilgamesh translated to his worldview. Shiki began to straighten up a little bit as he proudly took in Arcueid's acknowledgement. "He seems like a mongrel to me, though." Only to deflate when Gilgamesh's barbed words struck his delicate maidenly heart. "Furthermore, a shady mongrel."

Arcueid taking the time to consider that devastated him, making him slump face first on the street.

"Shiki, why are you taking a nap?" Arcueid wondered, skipping away from Gilgamesh to kneel down by Shiki, poking the miserable little man in the side of his ribs. "Hey, it's not even bedtime yet, get up." Poke. "Get up." Poke.

"Perhaps there is a grain of truth to my words?" Gilgamesh wondered, moving closer to Shiki and the squatting Arcueid.

"Hm? Well, yeah. He's got lil' sis, those maids, India, and who knows how many more waiting in the wings." Arcueid chirped, making Shiki wince and Gilgamesh stare at the boy in shock.

"...the hell is your secr-er, I mean. MONGREL!"

Arcueid laughed it off. "It's fine, it's fine." She waved Gilgamesh's concern off. "It isn't like he's angry about when I slept with you, Gilgamesh."

"Oh, that's remarkably open minded of him. I would imagine he would have been intimidated following up after me." Gilgamesh mused, impressed despite himself. He stroked his chin in thought, nodding approvingly. "I will rate you at half a mongrel for that."

"...what." Shiki flatly intoned.

Arcueid blinked. "Wait, I didn't tell you?" She innocently wondered. "Yeah, after you carved me up that one time I had to rebuild my entire body from scratch." She awkwardly laughed, squirming a little bit. "That included...well, down there."

"...FFFFFFF!"

"Well, your Origin wasn't even on its third incarnation back then." Arcueid defended herself with a pout.

- Scene Break -

Meanwhile, in the opposite direction, one Shirou Emiya was desperately running for his life. Behind him, Rin Tohsaka, Sakura Matou, and Saber were collectively rushing him down while a pair of girls were trying to cut off his escape routes from the sides.

"You manwhore! You told me that I was the only armament you ever traced!" Nanako galloped after him on all four of her heels.

"Even the lord himself will not forgive this, Emiya." Traced Riesbyfe Stridberg, clad in only very abbreviated jean shorts and a black bra after a meeting with the Backalley Allegiance, coldly intoned as she held her Apocrypha at the ready.

"I just wanted to make everyone happy!" The redhead protested.

The group of six charged into the cross streets where Shiki was currently rising to his feet, ominous aura of death wafting off his body.

"...now I know how to kill." Shiki intoned as he drew his knife.

All that remained when the battle was over was a wasteland, Shiki Tohno, and Shirou Emiya.

All was ever a distant dystopia.

- Scene Break -

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