The wizard quickly became a non-issue, as he was stupid enough to call Gilgamesh a vampire to his face.
Gilgamesh hated being compared to an Apostle, so he skewered the wizard without a second thought, giving Shiro a good look at the Gate in the process.
He then turned his attention on Illya, intent on ripping her heart out to power the Greater Grail...and bring Kotomine back since Caster had killed him when she took the church.
Kaede took a defiant step forward, though she was still shaky. Gilgamesh sneered at her...right up until she set her own Gate on him.
After one too many trips to the library during exam time, Gil had taught Kaede how to make her own Gate so she wouldn't make him carry everything. Part of that had included adding weapons she could launch to skewer people with.
She had never tried it before, but she knew the basics.
Gilgamesh's eyes narrowed when he saw her Gate open, and thousands upon thousands of jewels sparkle behind her threateningly.
"Is that the best you can do? Throw jewels at me?" he sneered.
"No. But then again, there's jewels and then there's jewels," said Kaede simply. She raised her sword, and began her incantation.
"What is she doing?" asked Illya to Shiro.
"Jewel summoning. When she first met Zelretch, he gave her this series called Chrono Crusade...and inside was this witch who could use Jewels to summon familiars. Since Kaede has never specialized in animal familiars because she could never pick one she liked enough, she decided to see if she could recreate the one she had seen in the series. It took her several years and hundreds of exploded jewels, but eventually she managed it...to a point," said Shiro.
Illya blinked.
"How do you explode jewels?" she asked.
"By trying to make a bigger warrior and overloading them," said Kaede.
She had found something fascinating when she experimented with jewel summoning. If she wanted a bigger summon, she had to add more than one jewel to her spell. But if she mixed up the jewels, then the creatures she brought out had much, much more power.
Which was why Gil had given her a lot of jewels when she finally mastered her gate. She had more in her gate than Rin had ever handled in her entire life. There was a reason why they kept giving Rin more for her own collection...they were the ones Gil rejected for Kaede's use!
"I call you forth, Bright Sapphire! Pure Diamond! Clear Emerald! Fiery Ruby! Dazzling Topaz!"
Five warriors appeared, all roughly the size of Berserker. They seemed to each be made of one element with four other base elements combined.
Sapphire moved like water and held a trident. Diamond had an ethereal quality and held a sword in it's hand. Emerald looked like it was made of vines and held a whip made of thorns. Ruby held what appeared to a bow and a quiver of arrows and looked quite a bit like Shiro's future self. Last but not least was Topaz, who held a pair of battle fans.
Their forms shifted so much that it was difficult to describe what their appearance was, but the one thing that remained constant was their weapons. Illya and those not familiar with Kaede's special summoning trick stared.
However it was Gilgamesh who had the most interesting reaction. His sneer went from surprise, to interest, to possessiveness all in a span of seconds.
Kaede's skill was something not often seen, and the fact she looked like Saber would be good enough for someone as arrogant as Gilgamesh. Her strength was an obvious bonus as well, as he could clearly see that she was in no actual shape to fight him like Saber would.
If Saber had been the one captured by Caster, then it would have been a different story, but Caster had mistaken Kaede for her grandmother when she stormed the house. It was only because she was an acceptable replacement that Caster hadn't killed her and gone straight for Saber.
Kaede stood before Illya defiantly.
"If you want to go after my sister, then you'll have to go through me and Saber."
Gilgamesh sneered at her, and her heart ached. She wanted Gil back. Seeing his face on such an arrogant blowhard broke her heart.
The five jewel warriors stood defiantly around Kaede like the knights of old. Kaede had no illusions about what would happen if Gilgamesh attacked her warriors...they would be destroyed in a matter of seconds leaving her defenseless.
At this point she was just relieved she had 'programmed' those jewels to activate once she used the incantation. She didn't think she could handle powering them otherwise.
Gilgamesh looked at her in a way that had her skin crawl. Judging by the growl Saber was letting off, she was less than pleased with it as well.
"I can't believe you agreed to marry him," said Saber.
"To be fair, Gil is less of an asshole," said Shiro just as quietly.
Kaede stood before Gilgamesh, staring him right in the eye.
"I'll make you a deal, King of Heroes. If you let them go, alive and unharmed, I'll be your hostage. Then you can deal with the resistance all in one fell swoop rather than have to hunt them down."
Gilgamesh considered the offer. Kaede wasn't much of a threat to him, not with how weak she was at the moment with her reserves depleted. And having them all in one spot did sound very appealing. He could gain the Grail in one fell swoop!
And not having to look for these mongrels sounded very appealing to him indeed.
"You have a deal, little imposter."
Saber tensed, ready to fight Gilgamesh to protect Kaede. Despite the fact Shiro was her Master, not her, Saber was still a bit overprotective of her family.
It was a by-product of the fact that Kaede was really the only family she had left, and shame about what happened with her son Mordred.
Saber was determined to protect her granddaughter.
"AGAIN?!" came Archer's annoyed shout.
"And it gets better... Gilgamesh was the one to grab her," said Shiro, just as irritated.
Archer looked ready to bang his head against the wall. He was Kaede's current Servant, and the fact she had been taken on his watch was inexcusable.
EMIYA had no idea why he trusted Kaede so much, or why he had given up his plan to force Shiro to abandon his ideals and avoid his fate to save her, but if pressed he would put it down to a gut feeling.
A feeling that had carried him through thirty years of betrayal, sorrow and eventually death. A feeling that told him if he truly wanted to be free of his hellish existence as little more than a clean up spirit, then he had to protect Kaede Emiya at all costs. It was for that reason he had taken her instead of Rin when they came to kill Caster and free her.
If he hadn't done something to improve the way she saw him, she might not have been inclined to help break his curse as a Counter Guardian.
So the fact she had been kidnapped a second time, and by the worst possible Servant in the War to retrieve her from, had him wanting to bang his head against something hard. Preferably the wall.
Saber was of the same mind.
"So what about her summoning spell? Did it finally work?" asked Rin.
"Spell?" asked Archer. Shiro slid a copy of Chrono Crusade.
"Zelretch's first contribution to Kaede's Magus training. Took her five years and hundreds of low-quality jewels before she finally found the winning recipe to pull something like the series off. Gil filled her personal Gate of Babylon up with really high quality stuff once he was sure that she could summon without it exploding in her face," said Shiro.
Archer twitched.
"Zelretch? How long has he been around her?"
"For at least a year since I adopted her. He mostly drops by and gives her ideas. You know that brooch she always wears that is purple in color? The one that looks like some magical girl toy?" said Kiritsugu.
"What of it?"
"That's her Kaleidostick. She found a way to keep it quiet when she wasn't using it for her magecraft, so it tends to act like a girly brooch that keeps her cloak on. Most people tend to overlook it until it's too late," said Kiritsugu.
Never before had he been more grateful for silencing spells. That thing could be highly annoying.
"Any other surprises?" asked Archer dryly.
"Only if you try to threaten her kitchen or insult her cooking," said Shiro seriously.
Archer blinked. Then he noticed Rin, Kiritsugu, and Saber all shudder violently.
"What am I missing?"
"She has this dragon illusion that can scare even Herakles from getting near her kitchen. And the last time some idiot insulted her cooking or tried to waste it..." said Shiro, and Archer watched with some amusement that Rin, Kiritsugu and Shiro all collectively shuddered from even the memory of that horror.
"Where did she pick that particular trick up?" asked Illya.
"Ever heard of the series 'Sekirei'? Gil found about it from an older student, and when Kaede saw one of the more powerful characters use a hannya mask illusion she spent countless hours trying to recreate it. When she finally succeeded she became the primary peacekeeper of the house," said Shiro.
Kiritsugu flinched.
Gilgamesh watched as the girl he had captured start cooking, mostly from habit and the fact that there wasn't anyone else to do it. Just because he technically required no sustenance didn't mean she was so lucky.
The girl was irritated at the state of the kitchens.
"Who exactly did you evict from this temple?" she asked, after finding yet another dirty bowl in the sink.
"The monks. A few explosions and they fled the place," said Gilgamesh imperiously.
"If they survived, I am never coming here again. This kitchen is absolutely filthy," she said in absolute disgust.
The dishes were piled high, the pantry was an absolute disorganized mess, and the spices were so old that she didn't dare even try to use them.
It seemed the monks made do with the garden out back, which was currently dying from the foul state of the air around the temple. It was a miracle Shiro's friend Issei hadn't died of food poisoning by now.
The Golden King was infinitely amused at the way his hostage was acting. It was as she took as much offense to the state of the kitchen that he did whenever someone he deemed unworthy tried to harm something he deemed his. Like Saber for instance.
Kaede paid no mind to the golden braggart as ingrained instincts kicked in full force and she became a golden tornado that left no spot untouched in the kitchen.
By the time the monks returned, they would be shocked to find that their kitchens were spotless and their pantries would be restocked with actual food and fresh spices.
Gilgamesh sat on a makeshift throne as Kaede went to work with what little she had to use.
He was infinitely amused by the girl...and when he tasted what she had made he made a point to keep her alive once this was over with. If only to make her his personal chef.
However Kaede had seen something that Gilgamesh hadn't noticed while he sampled her work.
His eyes, so full of cruelty and arrogance, had shown something that had passed so quickly she would have missed it if she hadn't been looking for it.
Somewhere inside Gilgamesh was her Gil. And it was her desperate hope that Gil was trying to break free of this arrogant creep.
He was sleeping. It had been far too long since he had been allowed out, and he feared for his beloved. It was almost time. Time for him to come forth once more, and time to see his chosen wife.
But there was a problem. She was weak, too weak to summon him a second time. The poisoned shackles had drained her magic, and her fights had drained what reserves she had.
If he was to return, she would need to find a new source of magic. Something that even the King of Heroes would pause at.
She needed to awaken her full potential as a Magician.
Rin shot up from the bed. That was the second time this week she had that dream. From the sounds of the other rooms, the other Masters had it as well.
"You got it as well?" asked Rin.
"Gil's getting restless," said Shiro. He had recognized the feel of that dream.
"The question now is how will Kaede awaken as a Magician in the state she's in?" asked Rin.
"I get the feeling it will happen once we go to get her from Gilgamesh."
"Well then what are we waiting for?" said Rin crossly.
"We need to prepare, and you should know that better than anyone. Besides... I don't know about you, but I need a day off from this war."
"Plus there's the fact that out of the Masters, only you still have no Servant," said Illya smugly.
Rin growled. After Archer had betrayed her (he had since explained why he had done so, but he had no desire to return to being her Servant to her annoyance) she had been left absolutely defenseless.
Caster was the only Servant dead, Lancer and Rider had been absorbed by whatever the hell the faeries had done to Kaede's annoying staff, and aside from Archer, who had joined Kaede the first chance he had, the rest were too strong for her to take. Not that she was interested in the one she could possibly take for herself.
Jack the Ripper was not the kind of Servant she wanted, and the twisted child was firmly attached to her former sister in the belief that Cassiopeia was her mother. A belief that Cassi was all too happy to allow, seeing as how it gave her something to think about outside of the recent events and the fact Zouken was still out there looking for her.
Shiro took Saber out on a proper date, ending it with a short trip to a toy store where he found a lion plushie that was easily as big as she was. One of the perks with being around Gil growing up was that some of his bizarre luck tended to rub off on those he liked. And he somewhat liked Shiro, so every time he bought a lottery ticket he always either broke even or won double.
So paying for that big a doll really wasn't a problem for him. Saber seemed happy with it at least.