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"GIL~!" came a feminine cry.
If he didn't recognize the voice, he would have avoided the tackle. Kaede slammed into him with a vengeance.
Behind her was a snickering Shiro and an annoyed Rin.
Gil held onto Kaede with a grimace. Her tackles hurt.
"Who's that?"
"Since when does the vampire of Japan let anyone touch him?"
"Who are they?"
"Kaede...why did you come here early?" asked Gil.
"They asked us too...besides, it was either that or listen to more of Rin's plans to geld Kirei. Apparently he did something to anger her again," said Kaede.
Gil looked at the angry Rin.
"Why would you stop at gelding?" he asked.
Rin's foul mood vanished. She had forgotten Gilgamesh hated Kirei as much as she did. The only reason he stuck around was because of something Kirei did to him and because the jerk kept him alive...at least until Kaede somehow summoned him.
"They asked the people closest to 'Gil' to come here in order to act as hostage. Normally Kaede would have been sent alone, but since she was picked as champion and you're her replacement, they have to pick between the two of us in order to have a proper hostage. Kaede only came because she missed you," said Rin.
"And where's your escort? No way they sent two fifteen year olds and a fourteen year old alone to England without an escort."
"I'm right here," said Kiritsugu tiredly.
He had been picked since three of the four in question were under his guardianship. Namely Gil, Shiro and Kaede...plus he didn't need the spell to translate for him like the others chosen.
Gil smirked at him. Kiritsugu ignored him.
"So how long are you staying?" he asked.
"Two months. A few days for the second task, and since I have no intention of dragging them back a second time, we'll stay in your area until the ball is over," said Kiritsugu flatly.
Gil almost sagged in relief.
"Kaede, you're my fangirl repellent," he said to his Master flatly.
She giggled. Gil hated fangirls after reading that series Naruto.
"So Gil," said Fred.
"Who's your friend?" asked George.
Kaede 'eeped', before she hid behind Gil.
"You two should back away a bit. Kaede has trouble being around older males," he said.
"Kaede? This your girlfriend?" asked Fred. But they did back off a bit.
"She's my Master," he corrected.
"Wait, this is Rowena Potter? She's so timid!" said George in shock.
"Let's just say there's a very good reason for that. And it's part of the reason why I was sent in her place," said Gil.
Mostly because they were afraid that if she went to this tournament she wouldn't return...alive anyway.
Gil walked with the surprisingly missed addition of Kaede behind him. While she was more or less over her fear of older males, being in England had brought her bad habits back to the front. She hated this place, and she made no bones about how much she would love to leave and never return.
The twins seemed to pick up on that, which was why they were acting as a sort of honor-guard-slash-tour-guides. No one seemed to pick up that this was in fact the Potter girl, possibly because her hair was such a bright red color instead of the black everyone expected it to be.
During dinner, the people from Japan sat at the Gryffindor table...and were discreetly sharing Gil's food. The twins, since they were one of the few who could come near him without being skewered for the affront, were well aware of his rants about their food.
Hence why they had shown him the kitchens. The poor elves were upset to find that Gil had not been enjoying their labors.
Gil was surprised to find smaller creatures that resembled imps and homunculi. The Academy didn't use house elves...cooking was a duty delegated to the students who knew how. Kaede, Shiro and surprisingly enough Sakura Matou were all part of the cooking club.
Rin could cook, but she wasn't that enthusiastic about it like them.
Gil left the house elves with several recipe books. Every since then the food was tolerable, but he still preferred Shiro and Kaede's cooking.
Well that and he had noticed something the twins hadn't when he was in the kitchens. The elves kept adding something to the completed food and coating the eating utensils.
He had wondered why he felt so sick after the first few times eating the food at the great hall. Upon closer inspection he found several potions on the items. The house elves couldn't dose his chopsticks (despite knowing how to use forks and knives he felt safer with the disposable chopsticks which he kept inside his vault) but they could dose his food.
Unfortunately for whoever was responsible, Gil disliked their greasy and overdone meals, and tended to cook his own.
He did warn off Kaede and the others about the food though.
Fred and George looked at him oddly.
"Why is it you never eat with a fork?" asked Fred. That had been bugging them for a while.
"Partly out of habit, but mostly because I noticed the elves dosing the forks and knives while I was in there."
"It's compulsion, obedience and the odd love potion mostly. Snape was pissed when we brought it up to him. Ever since we take a daily counter agent," said George.
There was a reason why they now carried bezoars in their mouth whenever they ate.
Rin took one bite of the food...and looked disgusted at the taste.
"Bland, unappetizing, and clearly dosed. I suppose they try to mask the fact that the food is poisoned by the fact that everyone's taste buds are deadened by such overly fattened and sugared food," said Rin.
"Shiro and Kaede are cooking for us," deadpanned Gil.
"Agreed," said Rin.
"Is it really that big a difference?" asked Fred.
"Trust me, you'll likely abandon English food once they're through with you," chuckled Gil darkly.
Later that day, Kaede and Shiro cooked up an entire feast since they had avoided the food once they learned it was dosed. Fred, George and the mysterious Luna came to try their food...and were left with tears in their eyes.
It was that good!
"I think I've been spoiled away from mum's cooking," said George seriously, eating another bite.
"Agreed! These two are masters!" said Fred.
"They are part of the highest ranked members of the cooking club at the Academy after all," said Rin.
"Do you have any transfer papers?" asked Luna quietly.
"Question. Does the Japanese Academy include food like this all the time?" asked George.
"Of course. The cooking club supervises all food coming out of the kitchen and it holds the highest quality standard! We would never allow subpar food come out!" said Kaede.
"Holy cow!"
"She speaks!"
"Hello! Do you know your father over there has Nargles?" asked Luna cheerfully.
Kaede stared at her, before she decided she liked this odd English girl.
"Don't mind Luna," said Fred.
"She's always been an odd platypus,"said George.
Rin had to ask.
"Why platypus?"
"Because our dear next door neighbor here," started Fred.
"Is simply too odd to fit the role of a simple duck," finished George.
"Quark," said Luna happily.
"Quark?" said Rin, eyebrow twitching.
"Quark," said Kaede simply.
Gil snickered. Luna was highly entertaining, even if she was the only one who had bothered to look up the Magus definition of a Servant enough to start calling him Mr. Spirit in the hallways.
Not a single magical aside from her had made the connection, to his irritation.
Gil handed her the transfer papers, and after a thought handed the same ones to the twins.
By the end of Christmas, they would be sitting in with Shiro and Rin in their temporary classes. Luna would join Kaede and Gil.
Shiro had lost the draw on who would go underwater, and as such Rin was acting as bodyguard with Kiritsugu to keep Kaede safe.
No one had figured out she was Gil's mysterious Master, mostly because her hair was the wrong color and she didn't use magic to keep it that way. She had the scar removed years ago, so there wasn't that to identify her either.
In short the only ones who knew were McGonagall, Dumbledore, the twins and Luna.
Gil prepared to go into the murky depths. He had a spell he had learned just for this occasion from the Otaku club.
It was basically a giant air bubble.
Up above, Kaede was playing with something rather thin and red colored.
"What do you have there Kaede?" asked Kiritsugu. He had a vague idea of what it was, being the most practical of Magi before he was turned into a wizard by choice, but Rin clearly had no idea what it was.
"Something the Techo-Geek club came up with. They asked me to test it for them once I came to England once they heard I was heading in a magic-saturated environment."
"What is it?" asked Rin.
"Portable workshop for Magi. Since I live with the only Magus-born who's willing to acknowledge what a computer is for, I'm often their favorite beta tester. As such all my research notes is inside this tablet. The best part is that since I'm a witch, not a magus, the Magus Association has no actual hold on me. And since I live in Japan and have a Japanese citizenship, the English have no hold on me either. Which means that neither side can slap a Sealing Designation on me for having this just because they are so out of touch," said Kaede simply.
It was the primary reason that they had snagged her initially, to the amusement of Gil once informed of why they had all but kidnapped her. She was a relative free agent, able to slip through multiple cracks to do things normally impossible. She could even research Reality Marbles and not get bit, if she were inclined, and any apprentices she took would fall under the same loophole.
It didn't help that the Magus Association viewed the Asian Magi as weak, so there was usually bad blood between them when they clashed.
Considering what they had found entirely by accident inside Shiro's mind, this was a good thing. It gave him some leeway should the Magus Association ever discover his ability.
Gil was originally pissed when he found out about it, mostly because of his favorite Noble Phantasm, but then cooler heads prevailed...well, almost.
Kaede had been fascinated for years about Taiga's odd tiger manifestation whenever someone brought up her least favorite nickname. The day Gil learned of Shiro's ability, she manifested her own...and pretty much scared the crap out of everyone unlucky enough to be in the house at the time.
Gil had wondered how her relation to Arturia Pendragon would show up. Who knew it would come in the form of an angry holy dragon glaring down ready to eat you when she was angry?
It turned out to be an effective disciplinary method to keeping Taiga and Rin in line.
Thirty minutes into the water, Gil returned with an extra passenger. He had seen the French girl fall to the creatures, so he had graciously rescued her sister for her.
It was more of a way of saying he didn't trust Dumbledore to retrieve the girl in the event her older sister couldn't. Seeing the look Kaede shot him when Fluer kissed him on both cheeks honestly scared him more than facing a hungry Taiga and sleepy Rin.
Gil had been waiting for this. Ever since the ball had been announced, the more brazen girls had been eying him like a piece of meat. It didn't help that he was clearly more magically powerful, handsome or rich compared to the other males in the school, or that his charisma ranking meant that they were automatically attracted to him.
Kaede planned to acquire a dress for the occasion, and would help Rin acquire a new one. Shiro had agreed to be her date if only so none of the inbred morons (as she called most of the boys in Hogwarts) tried to ask her first.
Shiro notice Gil fiddling with something in his hand.
"What's that?" he asked, while Kiritsugu read the Quibbler out of boredom.
Gil showed him and Shiro nearly dropped his book in shock.
"Is that a ring?" he asked.
Kiritsugu looked past his magazine to watch the proceedings curiously.
Gilgamesh during the Fourth Grail War had been a complete ass and extremely arrogant to boot. The way he treated women, particularly Saber, had made Kiritsugu's trigger finger itch in his presence.
Gil was nothing like Gilgamesh aside from looks and ability. He was polite, caring and extremely protective of those he cared about. He acted as Kaede's shield when she needed him the most, and her genuine affection was clearly able to do something about his attitude problem. While Kiritsugu couldn't stand Gilgamesh, he was somewhat fond of Gil, much like one would be fond of a precocious younger sibling.
It made him wonder just what the hell happened to such a sweet child that would make him go from friendly and outgoing to being a complete jerk who viewed anything that caught his interest as his personal property.
Even after reading the original tale of Gilgamesh, he simply couldn't believe that such a massive change in personality had occurred when he compared Gil to Gilgamesh. Clearly something had to have been lost in the translation of time.
Shiro looked at Gil in shock.
"You aren't giving that to Kaede as a promise ring are you?" he asked carefully.
It wasn't against the laws for a Master to marry their familiar, provided said familiar was humanoid enough to fool mundanes. But it was looked at oddly.
Gil nodded.
"Kaede has had a bigger impact on my original personality than anyone I have ever met. I never thought my child self would undergo such a thorough change from what it should be originally... the last time I was fourteen I was nothing like I am now," said Gil.
Kiritsugu spoke up.
"I have been wondering about that. Your adult self is rather hard to be around for most people. Just what exactly happened to change such a personable child into that arrogant adult with no regard for others?" he asked.
Gil sighed.
"In short, the gods screwed me over big time. At first it was bringing Enkidu out to put me back in line...then when they killed him I was driven mad. Since I had no equal except for the gods themselves, well it gave me a big head. From what I remember I was pretty damn spoiled back then, and no one would do anything about my ego problem. After a while I quit believing in the gods, so my divinity ranking dropped."
"Your child self has a divinity ranking, but I never saw your adult one have it."
"In simple terms, my original adult self is a Chaotic good, but my child self is strictly neutral at this point."