I was staring at a statue. I'm not sure precisely why it had caught my attention.
Maybe because of its age. It was a relic of the Edo period, when Rin's Catholic ancestors had been driven underground. The body was bronze, and slightly lumpy. With its cross-legged, meditative pose, Asian features, and flowing gown, one might have mistaken it for a pagan idol. As its creators had intended. Only a tiny cross on the statue's chest gave the game away.
"For shame, Kirei. Staring at idols like that…"
Gilgamesh still wore his modern ensemble, but he'd added golden bracelets. The beads were unevenly formed. His voice carried its usual lilt, though. Like the man himself, Gilgamesh's voice only had two levels: mocking and pissed-off.
"Hardly," I said.
I pointed to the cross.
Gilgamesh snorted.
His eyes wandered to a silk screen that hung behind the statue. It depicted a woman in a kimono, painted in Japanese style. Her black hair was loose and long, contrasting with her white skin. Pink flowers blossomed around her. She held a child.
"Ahh..." he said. "You know, Kirei, this brings back memories. The Nile god and his mother, is it? Or that Phrygian goddess…whatshername. Not a very original mystery cult, are you?"
"Doubtless unrelated to the widespread prevalence of mothers and children."
"Pah. And I have a ziggurat in Brooklyn to sell you."
"You're wasting your time, King of Heroes."
Gilgamesh shrugged. He poured wine into his glass, taking a moment to inhale the fumes before taking a sip. It was one of the Tohsakas' darker wines, red and rich, and swirled in the glass as he spun his hand in lazy circles.
"Well, at least I'll give you one thing," he said. "Men run your cult. Unlike everything else in this stupid century."
Gilgamesh's eyes drifted toward a photograph on the mantel of Rin with her father. She couldn't have been more than five years old in picture, but she'd already learned how to look down at the camera. I grinned.
"Do I detect a Servant's chafed ego behind that misogyny?" I said. "Or is it jealousy of a certain priestess?"
For a moment, I thought I saw the slightest tension in Gilgamesh's jaw.
"…Of Shamhat?" he said. "A certain slut, you mean. Though at least she understood that women belong in the bedroom."
"Men give spiritual life to the faithful," I said. "Women give physical life. As I'm sureHis Majesty has already noticed, other matters are…negotiable."
He snorted.
"Your priestly predecessors had the right idea when they burned the smart ones."
I raised an eyebrow.
"…And where exactly are you getting your information?"
Gilgamesh leaned against the stone arch. His black track suit blended into the gloom, leaving only golden hair and red eyes for the candles' glow to play across.
"Ho-oh? Impressed, boy? I owned the original library. Navigating Tohsaka's bookshelves was child's play for—"
Rin's scream from upstairs cut Gilgamesh off like a Black Key to the throat. (The messy kind that leaves the victim choking on his own blood until he asphyxiates. But I digress.)
I could even picture Rin's expression in my mind – glaring down from the banister like a vengeful goddess surveying her kingdom. Head tossed back, pigtails bobbing angrily.
"KIREI! WHERE ARE THEY? WHERE DID YOU HIDE MY DAN BROWN NOVELS THIS TIME?"
I glanced back at Gilgamesh, who was still swishing wine in his glass.
"…And I am enlightened," I said.
Gilgamesh merely looked at the door. Noble phantasms flew. A series of loud thunksechoed through the cellar as they penetrated the wood, pinning the door shut.
I expected Rin to bang on the door after that. She didn't. In fact, I didn't hear anything from upstairs at all.
A pall of silence seemed to descend on the cellar.
I'm not sure which Noble Phantasm Gilgamesh used. Something with a bounded field, probably. Or time manipulation. Whatever it was, the cellar seemed to exist in its own isolated world. Even the pipes had grown quiet.
Gilgamesh traced his finger along a candelabrum woven from silver vines. The wicks flared. Molten wax wormed its way down the handle. I swear that for a second I saw tiny limbs poke out of the wax, like drowning people swept up a flood.
"Speaking of Rin…" he said.
"Mh?"
"How do you feel about suffering, Kirei Kotomine?"
I let my gaze drift back to the candelabrum's flickering.
"…Odd segue aside, suffering exists to create a greater good. Or to let us appreciate the consequences-
Gilgamesh held up a hand. The golden beads on his bracelet clinked dully.
"I didn't ask you what you think about suffering, boy."
Gilgamesh passed a hand through the air. A golden pool materialized, microns thick and a foot wide. He pulled out two figures and set them on the table.
One was a woman made of silver. Her dress clung to her figure, reaching her ankles. The fabric was layered, like segmented armor or a telescope's separate tubes. The upper half of her dress consisted either of hair or thin strips of cloth; it was hard to tell, since it was wrought in silver like the rest of her. A headdress in the shape of a thick ring held her hair in place.
The other was a man made of either copper or some near-copper alloy. He had a thick, pointed beard, and wore a hair skirt. Like the woman's, it reached his ankles. His chest was bare. But what I remember most clearly are the wide – cartoonishly wide – eyes. They were tear-shaped and blue, carved of ivory inlaid with lapis lazuli.
The figure clasped his hands in front of his chest and bowed to us.
Gilgamesh clapped his hands. The sound cut through the silence.
The copper man touched the silver woman's shoulder. In a tentative movement, he brought her mouth to his lips. She reciprocated. Their arms twined around each other's bodies as they kissed more and more deeply.
Gilgamesh closed his eyes for a moment.
At first, I didn't notice any difference. That changed soon enough. At first, I felt it as warmth on my hand.
And then, the man screamed. It was a high, shrill sound, like the noise that kittens make when you drown them. I soon realized why. The heat from the woman's body was unmistakable now. She glowed first red-hot, then white. Yet she didn't melt.
She kept kissing him all the while, even as the man struggled and writhed. When she buried her tongue in his mouth, his beard and mouth melted open in reply. Copper dripped down his body like grotesque beads of sweat.
To give, and not to count the cost
To fight, and not to heed the wounds
To toil, and not to seek for rest
To labor, and not to ask for any rewa-
The copper man kept screaming.
I was vaguely aware that Gilgamesh was watching me with that wry smile on his face. But only vaguely. I couldn't take my eyes off the scene.
Breaths deepened. Pulse quickened.
Ye-e-e-e-e-e-sssssssssss….
The man's screams acquired a gargling trill as the rest of his head melted. Smoke rose from the table wherever the woman's feet touched. Her passion only seemed to increase as her lover dissolved in her arms. His inlaid ivory eyes oozed down his chest.
"Stop this," I said.
Gilgamesh took another sip of his wine.
"Enjoying yourself, Kirei?"
"Enough!"
I summoned a Black Key and cut. It sliced through harlot and victim cleanly. And again. And again. Copper pooled on the table. Even without a throat, though, the man just shrieked more loudly. The pieces of the molten woman continued stroking the man's fragments.
A shudder ran through my body as I kept hacking them into tinier and tinier pieces. The bleating finally stopped. I found myself disappointed.
And nauseous.
"Does your half-life please you, Kirei Kotomine?" Gilgamesh said.
I was panting, I think.
"It amuses me, at least," he said. "Watching you hide behind that twisted sense of humor. Like a dog stealing scraps."
Gilgamesh's eyes and grin both widened. His face assumed a manic expression that the shadows only accentuated.
"…Instead of biting off the master's hand."
"Maybe I should ask your master to silence you," I said.
He smirked.
"You could, boy," he said. "Though I'm not as helpless as Rin likes to believe. Of course, I wonder what you'd tell her, hm? Who knows what sorts of nasty little things she might learn about you…"
So there it was.
Unfortunately, I didn't have long to evaluate Gilgamesh's leverage. His head snapped up. The Noble Phantasms barring the door disappeared into glittering golden vapor.
The first sounds leaked through Gilgamesh's imposed silence. And they were loud. Even in the basement, I could hear rumbling and crackling from the yard above. The doorknob rattled. The lights, which had been stationary just a moment before, vibrated.
"The boundary field," I said.
We traded glances. A moment passed.
Gilgamesh and I raced upstairs. I'll give him points for saving face: he ran just fast enough that Rin's magical bindings couldn't pull him along.
Rin was already waiting by the living room window. A gem glowed red in her fist. Her face reflected in the glass, lips pursed and eyes wide, while her unoccupied hand fiddled with the chain around her neck.
Something flashed in the yard. It looked a little like a strobe light. I pushed aside one of the silk curtains.
Another flash. A giant figure silhouetted itself on the edge of the Tohsaka boundary field. As for the giant's physique, pick your favorite box metaphor: refrigerator, outhouse, tank. It stood at least eight feet tall.
If you squinted, you could see a child's silhouette perched atop the giant's shoulders.
The boundary field gave a final deafening crack, followed by a flash of light that left me temporarily blinded. Windowpanes rattled. The Tohsakas' bounded field had apparently given up the ghost. I could no longer feel its ambient energy.
When I'd finally blinked the glow out of my eyes, I noticed that a second pair of figures had joined the giant and child. The first was an anorexic man in gold and black armor. A jewel hung around his neck. His hair was inhumanly thick and white, and looked a bit like he'd stuck his finger in an electrical socket.
Rin froze when she saw the final person. Her fingers tightened around the window sill until her knuckles whitened.
"Luvia."
Apparently, we weren't the only ones forming alliances.