Heir to the Blacksmith

by Plasma Assassin

Shirou Emiya, born to a Clan following the name they had not officially been called in centuries, chasing after a dream created by their ancestor as relentlessly as any other Magi family reaches for the Root. This is the boy that Kiritsugu Emiya and Irisviel von Einzbern find in the rubble and mud of the Fuyuki Fire, and this is the boy that they adopted.

21. (Pseudo) End of an Era

This chapter is the first of two for a special Christmas double update

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"And I am the SUN!"

The golden glow lighting up the cold forest shone even brighter for just a moment before a spray of metal exploded out of each and every single one of the golden portals. Limbs, blood, bone and ash filled the air in an instant as each and every single weapon to leave the Gate of Babylon cut or pierced clean through at least one of Altrouges grunts at the least, or tens at the most.

Dirt and dust and rocks of all sizes shot into the air as weapons and spells dug into the earth, physical curses and arcs of flame curled over the thick clouds of earthen smog to rain down on the Golden King. Except it was not to be, not because the attacks lacked power, or speed, or because they were inaccurate or unstable.

No, the attacks were not to land simply because the King of Heroes said it to be.

The curses were split and detonated by swords of Holy light and fire sputtered out as their forms were destabilized by all manner of weapons leaving vacuum trails in their wake.

The ground behind the King cracked, a sword impacting it not a moment later as the man's red eyes trailed over the battlefield meanderingly. The sound of his weapons, the destruction in their wake and the screams of the army of Dead washing over him.

'Is this what a conquest is? Rather boring.' He snorted to himself, closing his eyes and shaking his head.

"SERVANT!" And then his eyes opened once more.

The Dead Apostle rushing him was greater than the rank and file he'd been destroying until now. Blood covering his arms in swirling vortex's that the man assumed were meant to be an attack of some kind.

Ah, he was a Nightmare. Good, he'd almost thought the Princess of Vermin had sent a Nightkin against him.

And then a hail of steel rained down on the foolish Nightmare, pushing his regeneration to the limit, and once Gilgamesh found it, he struck down once more. The ground shook and tiny giblets of the Nightmare flung into the air before disappearing into ash as the King overwhelmed him in seconds.

And of course, his attack on the army hadn't ceased in the time it took him to dispose of the arrogant Nightmare. No, the King of Heroes kept a comfortable perimeter around him that the Corpses, Ghouls and Undead were unable to break through, even as the Nightkin and Nightmares of Altrouges army began to close in.

"Raising this kind of army must have taken years. How many? Fifty? a hundred? Over three hundred?" Gilgamesh spoke out loud, taunting the Princess as he stared directly at her castle. "And yet a thousand have already fallen by my hand!"

The Servant's victorious crow was overshadowed by the joint attack launched on him by two Nightmares at once, two walls of blood twenty meters wide and ten meters tall slammed into him. Exploding outwards into a shockwave as the Nightmare's control over blood struggled to keep them both solid with the combined impact that they collided with.

"You're unable to injure me so you just aim to sully my appearance? Do you truly have no depths to your depravity?"

Both Nightmares looked at where Gilgamesh had been standing, screaming out in pain as blades shot out of the golden glow that emanated through the viscous liquid. Their walls of blood fell to the floor as both Nightmares lost concentration on their attacks, revealing a rather annoyed Gilgamesh, coated head-to-toe in blood.

"Repent with your lives."

The weapons that struck the Nightmares were of the highest caliber brought out in the battle yet. The weapons shredding straight through their superhuman bodies and slicing their Mystery with ease. Their regeneration, capable of withstanding spells from even Lords of the Magi Association, was crippled under the weight of Gilgamesh's counterattack. Their bodies disintegrating to ash before the golden glow of his Noble Phantasm had even faded.

Taking a moment to free himself of the disgusting ichor that covered his form, his constantly discharging assault continued to mow down the seemingly endlessly increasing horde of fighters trying, and failing, to rush towards him. The once luscious and pristine landscape, that the man had no doubt the Princess of Vermin was quite proud of, was now a ruined, near barren landscape within a couple hundred meters. Clouds of dust clung to the perimeter where even now it continued to be bombarded by the King's magical artillery. Craters marred its surface and any trees that had been in Gilgamesh's way were now splinters and mulch. Blood marred the ground and began to turn it a deep, crimson red.

He wondered when the Princess herself would leave her castle, fully aware that each droplet of blood he created by wounding her forces only gave her a greater advantage. Yet at the same time, the girl would be convinced of her victory over him, so leaving herself without any kind of ground force, any kind of army that she clearly had a reason to upkeep, would be something she wouldn't allow.

Already he'd torn through two thousand, three hundred and fifty-four of her soldiers, including the twenty-three Nightkin and Nightmares that had rushed ahead to try and bring the fight to him. No doubt to distract him and allow the horde to descend upon his head.

21.4%

That was the number of her forces she'd allowed to be slaughtered at his hand so far and near as he could tell, she wasn't ordering them to pull back as of yet. So, she evidently was willing to throw that many at him, yet what was her limit? What did she believe she could get away with allowing to be ground to ash?

Historically a 33% loss of armed forces was the limit of what could be considered 'acceptable' losses by a commander or leader of some kind. But not everyone was willing to throw away that much of their forces, so Gilgamesh would continue this farce of a battle until she came out herself.

Though the burst of Prana he could feel from within her castle was rather interesting, was she preparing some kind of grand attack? How quaint.

And only a minute or two later, as his kill count breached three thousand, he watched as the army, if he could even call them that, stuttered to a halt. The rank and file looking around in mindless confusion as Nightkin and Nightmares began to order a full retreat, causing a smile of pure sadism to stretch his lips.

"Going somewhere? Oh, I think not, vermin." Golden portals, the most he'd created in years, stretched into the sky taking only a moment to sort his vast treasury out between them before firing at the retreating army.

And meeting a wall of blood that stretched high into the sky, the ground now back to its regular colour as every. Last. Drop. Of blood that had soaked into the battlefield rose to defend the retreating army.

"Finally, I was getting bored of murdering your forces. I was nearly tempted to let them get closer just so I could change up my method of execution." Gilgamesh spoke, turning his head to gaze at the opening in the cylinder of blood he found himself in.

Where only a single woman, rather surprising given how Shirou had described her, and a small, fluffy, white creature on her shoulder approaching him.

She was rather attractive from a typical human's perspective. Two long bangs framing her face and reaching down to her clavicles, but with a little more spikiness and unkept nature than had been described to him. Additionally, that unkept spikiness stayed consistent in the loose ponytail her hair was held in as she walked towards him. Her dress, one that he imagined was long and flowing on her in the way that Shirou had described was now short, but not indecent, and fluttered oh so elegantly in the wind.

"Well, for invading my land it's only fair that I allow you to wait. Servant." She spoke, her voice silky smooth and yet oh-so-dangerous at the same time.

"My name is Gilgamesh, King of Heroes! And if anything, you've merely done me a favour. The less vermin on this planet, the better."

"Ah yes, I suppose someone as high and mighty as 'Gilgamesh of Uruk' would see us as such. But I wouldn't say you're entirely wrong. If you'd be willing to do me a favour and remove some particular Ancestors, I'd even forgive this invasion and massacre of my forces." She smiled and clapped her hands together, her expression seemingly innocent.

"Particular Ancestors you say? Like the annoying one with the silver hair?" He snorted, cocking a leg and rolling his eyes.

"Ah! Enhance. Yes, indeed. If you got rid of him that would be quite the favour indeed." She smiled and nodded her head. "He's so aggravating. Like a small child running around trying to gain attention by destroying the occasional-"

"Shirou Muramasa-Emiya was the one to murder Enhance." Gilgamesh cut in, timing his interruption just perfectly.

If he was right, and he knew he was, the Ancestor across from him had purposefully been keeping herself from certain thoughts. Not acknowledging particular facts to make sure that her contract with his smith was never completed. But he'd run her for a verbal loop, rather easily in his humble opinion and now his interruption forced his words into her mind, into her thoughts.

And with a grin like the cat that caught the canary, the King of Heroes watched one of hundreds of suddenly glowing red marks fizzle away into motes of blood.

"You…"

"For a Vermin centered around contracts that was almost laughably easy. Are you sure your domain is truly contracts?" He taunted her, a cruelly satisfied expression on his face as she glowered.

In all truthfulness she'd been so surprised, and so easily conned, because she hadn't realized that Gilgamesh knew Shirou Muramasa-Emiya. The Ancestor having not prepared herself mentally for the verbal sneak attack because she had no way of knowing to prepare. But now she did, and she knew that Gilgamesh was more than just a powerful idiot.

She may have just lost a contract she'd really rather have held onto, but in return she'd gotten an insight into the man that was about to be a rather tough enemy. So, despite taking an overall loss, she'd take it on the chin.

Despite her aggravation.

"Well, you aren't just a mindless brute like I'd believed. What a relief." She sighed, almost thankfully while flicking a hair out of her eyes.

"Oh? Unfortunately, I didn't come for pleasantries, even the thought makes my stomach churn." Gilgamesh spoke, insulting her as easily as he breathed.

"Pleasantries? Oh, nothing of the sort King of Uruk. No. You murdered my forces, invaded my land and demanded my attention like a petulant child." She snapped, taking satisfaction in the speed that Gilgamesh's expression dropped from cruelly amused to hateful. "Despite your supposed wisdom you don't even seem to recognize the danger you're currently in. In fact, I don't even have to move from this position to deal with you, I have my cute little pet here for menial jobs such as that."

Smiling at him, she reached up without looking to pet the creature on her shoulder, the creature that Gilgamesh was very well aware of, and the Authority that it held.

Though he had a plan to remove the creature from this battle. Arrogant he may have been, though he wouldn't admit it, he knew that he had no hope against a Beast of Humanity.

Let alone Beast IV of all of them.

So, to make sure that this went to plan he had to get rid of the creature, and he had one shot to do so.

"That creature? Well, I'd expect nothing less from Vermin. I almost don't want to approach either of you, who knows what manner of disgusting stain you'll put in my jacket." He scoffed, buffing his nails on the material.

"Oh? That sounds more like fear to me, but very well. If you won't approach, then I suppose I'll be the one to start this out. Cath." With the call of her trusted pet, her voice dropped into something low and sharp.

The creature hopped off of her shoulder, growing in size before it even hit the ground. Its mere presence, despite his best attempts, caused Gilgamesh to tense up from the tips of his toes to the hairs on his head. It took everything he had to not throw a blade at it on instinct as Cath Palug in its truest form appeared before him. Everything about it setting his self-preservation instincts into overdrive and making glowing red lines pulse under his clothing as his Od practically struggled against his own mind to keep it away from him.

Or him away from it.

"Oh? What's wrong, Servant? You seem rather frightened there." Altrouge taunted him, expression innocent but her voice drenched in sadistic glee.

"Yes, well you know exactly what sort of creature your pet is." He ground out in return. "And as the ultimate specimen of humanity it's only natural."

"Is that how you're thinking of it? Hurt your inflated ego too much to admit when you've bitten off more than you can chew?" She mocked him.

"More than I can chew? No. Of course not." He responded, only his iron-will and near-ascendant ego stopping his voice from wavering as Cath Palug waited dutifully for its chance to begin. "After all, too much power and you'll have seven annoyances to deal with, won't you?"

The twitch in Altrouge's fingers was all he needed to know that his, well educated, guess was true. It, along with her general demeanor, was why she didn't just throw Primate Murder at every problem that crossed her path. She couldn't.

After all. Ḁ̸̏̀̔̔͗̇͗̓͋̒̄̚͝͠ḻ̸̡̢̡̤̘͕̮̟̪̞͓̓͆̿a̵͍̻̗̺͓̳̰̾͒͒̅͊̉͝y̷̤̺͔̘̫̪͆̂̇̾͂͝ǎ̷̼́͑̈́́̄̀̊̆̀̑͐̏͊͝ was watching.

"Not at all. He'll hardly need that kind of-" Altrouge's next words were cut off by a wall of weaponry fired without a moment's notice and zero gaps to speak of.

There had been no warning, not in a build-up of Prana or some kind of physical tell. One second there had been nothing, and the next Cath was being carried off into the distance by a practical gatling gun of weapons.

Even as she psychokinetically controlled the towering walls of blood around her to crash down on the Golden King, she was already aware of what had happened, knowing the specifics of Cath Palug's Authority better than any other.

The Servant had been crafty in his method of attack. Both in the timing of it and in the technique of the attack itself. Having made the attack too widespread for Cath to bother out-speeding it and instead just increasing his durability by what was needed to outright negate the attack. And negate the attack he had done, except he hadn't negated the force behind it, and with the speed that they'd been fired at, and the angle they'd been fired at, they had picked him up off the ground.

'It was never his intention to fight Cath. He just wanted him gone so that he could attack me.' She realized with a rather peeved expression as she watched the King leap straight up in the gap of her crushing wave of blood, landing on a chain stretched between two of his portals.

"Now that mangy mutt is out of the way-" And without Cath here, Gilgamesh was back to his usual, immensely cocky and smug self. "It is time for us to continue this conquest. Come, Princess of Vermin! Show me what little you have to offer without your pet!"

"I was going to have fun with this." she muttered, her gaze sharpening and her eyes beginning to glow as the blood below him began to bubble and boil. "Now I'm just going to send you back to that precious Throne you Servants should just stay inside."

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Fuyuki, Emiya Estate

"Can you stop your incessant hovering? If you keep it up, I won't be able to help your sister at all." Caren spoke softly, most of her attention stuck on the ritual she was preparing.

"Then tell me what her chances are." Shirou responded back icily, his arms crossed and his hands clutching his arms with near, white-knuckled grips.

"If I do, you'll just fall to Wrath and ruin everything I'll try to do." She responded, making Shirou's eye twitch.

"If I'll be that much of a distraction I'll leave during the ritual." Evidently the thought left a bad taste in his mouth but if it meant that Illya got the best possible chances than he would.

"Abandoning your sister in such a dire-"

"Tell me." The teen cut her off, his Prana baring down on her in a way that she wasn't aware a human Magus as young as Shirou even knew how to do anymore.

"…Fine. If you're going to be such a tactless brute about it. 10% chance of total success. 23% chance of partial success. 67% chance of failure." She told him, letting a drop of Holy Water fall onto the corner of the sigil she'd drawn, causing it to briefly light up with golden-white light.

"What is a partial success?" he asked, his voice flat and monotone.

"Can you truly not-"

"Caren. Not now. Not about this. What is it?"

"..Ruin my fun." She mumbled, and Shirou swore he saw her pout for half a second before it was back to her usual blank expression. "It means that I can't purge it from her system, but I can keep it contained. What form that containment will take, I cannot say. Perhaps it'll overcome the unwillingness to grow that her Homunculi-half has exhibited, and she'll become a beacon of lust."

Shirou's eye twitched at her rather blatant attempt to get a rise out of him once more. Honestly, this woman was impossible. Why the hell did he have to rely on her again?

"Now. Out. I'll rely on those sinful servants of hers for everything else. You're just a nuisance that'll dampen the Holy effects of my ritual." She started drawing a new sigil.

"I can take a hint." He rolled his eye, beginning to walk out of the room before pausing at the doorway.

Slowly, he looked back and forth between the hallway ahead of him and his hand, his expression furrowing in thoughtfulness.

'If Caren won't let me be around during the ritual and I have time to kill….perhaps…'

In the back of his mind, Shirou could feel the presence that had been there ever since Enhance's death. The presence that he'd been meaning to look into but just hadn't been able to yet.

Well, if he was going to take something from the man that had so proudly claimed to be the 'Principle of Swords' he should have expected it to react to someone -him- that he'd called 'rival'.

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Altrouge's Castle

Altrouge narrowed her eyes and skated back on seemingly frozen blood, blades striking the ground where she'd just been while the bubbling blood beneath the King of Heroes exploded into a geyser of solid needles of blood.

The needles were countered by a barrage of blades, because of course they were, and another ten- fifteen- twenty-three flew straight towards her. Half of them missing her and the other half burying into, through and out the other side of the powerful woman. Though judging on the annoyed look that crossed Gilgamesh's face he clearly wasn't expecting to already see her back in pristine shape as one geyser of blood needles turned to three.

Altrouge's control over blood was absolute, even amongst the Ancestors that made up the 27 and all of their strange abilities. It was through blood that she had found her own ticket to immortality, and it was through blood that she showcased her power to the King of Heroes. The man being forced to leave his position upon his chain to avoid the sharpened, solid, spears of blood that shot out of the lake and deflected his fired projectiles through its sheer durability.

The moment his feet had hit the ground, new portals opened up, already fighting off the encroaching wave of blood even as two spears gouged out the Ancestor's abdomen, fading into motes of golden light as her eyes glowed with animosity. The blood she had taken with her creating a further frozen path she began to move along, climbing into the air as she waved her hands in a circle, encasing the King in a dome of blood that began to simultaneously shrink and thicken.

"Is this all you have!?" There was a crackle of golden electricity and suddenly a beam of pure True Ether tore through her dome, causing it to explode outwards in a shockwave of viscous ichor.

She could see the greatsword even as it disappeared back into that ridiculous treasury of his, could see that it had been wielded in his own hands and could tell, based on his stance, that he had swung the blade himself. And she could tell that despite the cocky demeanour he gave off, that he was pissed.

"Not at all, King of Heroes! In fact, I'm rather disappointed. Already having to wield a blade yourself? Do the blisters pain you so?" She taunted, cutting off his no doubt childish remark with thin, pressurized beams of blood that swung out of the bubbling and broiling lake of blood.

The pressurized beams cut straight through anything they met, tearing trenches in the ground and felling trees on their way to the Golden King, only to meet an ornate dome-shield that covered him in his entirety. The beams hitting the ancient metal and reflecting off into rains of blood that soaked back into the thoroughly ruined ground.

Which gave her an idea, causing a mass of blood to surge into the ground and travel through it, creating a wave of red earth as she had it surge up from underneath the king in the form of hundreds of solidified spikes.

Of course, the spikes themselves missed as he got rid of the shield to leapt in the air to avoid them, only to be forced to twist himself mid-air –His portals opening back up and firing a veritable artillery back at her and every projectile they possibly could– to dodge the beams of blood that had never stopped firing but instead merely shifted to follow after him.

And of course, despite his portals and everything they held in them, despite the versatility he had and the power of his mind, the man was not invincible. And the cuts she managed to achieve on his arm, leg and abdomen were something she was very proud of.

In a scream of rage, the sky above them both lit up with hundreds of portals, a rain of steel putting a stop to her offense for but a moment as the King hit the ground.

"You- HOW DARE YOU!"

"Quite easily!" She chirped, taking a very, very sick satisfaction in the sheer rage he was emanating.

"I WILL NOT TOLERATE A VERMIN INJURING ME!"

A singular portal, larger than any he had created before appeared in the sky high above them a singular blade, larger than certain wings of her castle, tore its way out of the king's treasury, bringing with it a heat that broke an immediate sweat out of the Princess. It was a curved blade, made of multiple, glowing, sections rather than one smooth blade and seemed better fit for a Giant of legend, rather than a man such as Gilgamesh.

With a roar of pure fury, the Servant launched the gigantic blade out of his treasury, immediately creating an almost wind-tunnel effect as it closed in on the ground and buried itself into the center of the blood lake. Instantly the blood that had been at her control evaporated, exploding outwards in a shockwave of steam that launched both her and Gilgamesh backwards from the epicenter.

Both of them recovered perfectly, the King flipping to land back on his feet and sliding to a stop while Altrouge used what little liquid blood she had left to create a telekinetic platform beneath her feet and slow to a halt herself.

However, despite her anger at how quickly he'd gotten rid of her main source of attack she knew that this wasn't the end. The blood was still here, just as red steam instead of easily manipulatable liquid. But she needed time to re-liquify all the blood that she'd created.

"You- You are aggravating beyond belief." She growled out, four blades ripping through her body before she brought her hands together, hundreds of red marks lighting up across her body.

And in a pulse of Prana, so potent that even Gilgamesh took a moment to blink at the energy that felt so similar to the Age of Gods, creatures descended on him. Creatures ranging from scared and panicked humans to Phantasmal Beasts of all shapes, sizes and Mysteries. And dodging around the swipe of a Chimera looking creature and straight into the rock-solid club-hand of a stone golem –Gilgamesh being flung away in a blur of pain and anger as weapons of a higher-caliber than intended ground the offending creature to dust– he couldn't shake his surprise.

'These creatures!? How could half of them- her Ideal Blood?' the King hit the ground for a moment before flipping to his feet and tearing a pack of goblins to bloody giblets. 'But she said nothing, she shouldn't have been able to.'

"Surprised, oh-wise King? Can't quite figure it out, can you?" Blades whipped out in the direction of her voice only to fell a pack of flying beasts that were packed around her as a literal meat-shield.

"You must have seen Enhance, right?" She spoke in a babying voice, making the man grind his teeth together and aim another barrage at her as he split his attention between the constantly moving woman and the reinforcements, she had somehow summoned to her aid.

"Who gave you permission to speak to me in this manner! Know your place!" He snapped a series of magic staffs sticking out of his treasury and firing an artillery barrage of magical beams at the approaching Phantasmal beasts, aiming purposefully for the softer, less-durable looking offenders.

"Honestly, he's such a showboat, and so uneducated as well. He managed to make his Idea Blood but had no idea how to use it! So stuck in his human ways, creating useless Aria's and binding his powers to them." She shook her head, uncaring of the swath of creatures that fell in her defense as she continued to regain her lost blood.

'I see. Idea Bloods aren't meant to have Aria's. That annoying vermin hindered himself by tying a power without need for self-hypnosis to exactly that.' Gilgamesh thought to himself, his anger only growing as she started to laugh.

"Learn your place beneath my foot, worm." The man hissed, his entire outfit beginning to glow in golden light as a second, massive portal opened.

"Millennium Castle-"

The head of Ig-Alima slid out of the golden portal before the gigantic mountain-cleaver fired down at the aggravating Ancestor like a personal smiting from Zababa himself.

"-Brunestud."

There was the briefest, deafening, sound of metal scraping on metal before a shockwave burst and ripped the landscape apart. Chunks of earth as large as buildings bursting out of the ground and high into the air as the forest around Altrouge's castle was flattened by the explosion. Gilgamesh himself, found himself flung high into the air where even now he was accosted by that accursed Ancestor's summoned minions.

His treasury was working overtime to shoot down his enemies and keep the harsh gale winds from launching chunks of dirt and rock at him. His golden armour, adorning his form as of milliseconds before the shockwave, clinking pleasantly even as a tendril of blood gripped his leg and constricted.

Of course, the tendril had been cut before it could even get halfway through its motion but now, he was in a free-fall that he would have to correct, which would take some of his attention. And considering the fact that seemingly all of her blood that he had gotten rid of had returned, that was easier said than done.

XXXxxxXXX

With a harsh cough, Altrouge waved some of the dust away from her face, her Marble Phantasm already fading away as she turned to look in the direction of her foe.

She had the upper-hand at the moment, but only because she had the capability to keep his attention divided and was able to block or negate his hard-hitters, like both of his gigantic swords. Of course, she had a limited number of contracts she could call upon to aid her in this battle, but the way things were going, she was going to run out of Prana long before she ran out of contracts. Already she could feel that she had used far more than she felt comfortable with, and with his growing anger he was likely to grow sloppy, but also likely to throw out more and more of his top-tier weapons.

Especially as she finally managed to figure out the combination attack and timing to fling him down into the ground in a blur of golden and red and an explosion of dust and rocks.

"Is that all, King of Heroes? I'd dare say even a child could give me a better fight."

Her only response was a hail of steel. Met and diverted by waves of blood that stretched out into a spiderweb of deadly liquid, the occasional strike on her wall of meat-shields not even mattering to her as she continued her attack on the now armoured King.

Blood circled around and rushed for the man as his teeth ground together, golden portals aimed at the ground framing his figure as he rose to his feet and fired. The force of the impact not only knocked the incoming blood away in the shockwave but also gave him a clear view of Altrouge as the dust spun away in the churning winds.

Though the blood wasn't stopped for long and was soon back on him, making him growl as he once again had to split his attention between attacking and defending. The three-dimensional nature of the battlefield working his mind in a way it hadn't been since his first life, and it wasn't something he found very pleasant. For despite his powers, his Mystery and his sheer 'perfection' he was still only a Demi-God. And if the Gods could find themselves felled then so could he, his Gate of Babylon failing him as his mind cycled through the required weapons while also trying to aim, move his physical body and anticipate what might come next.

Had he been some kind of battle-crazed maniac he may have been having the time of his life right now. But he wasn't and he wasn't. He was King, he was not meant to sully himself in this way, he was not meant to be injured in this way, he was not meant to be losing.

Yet as he got angrier, his control slipped, and with his lessened control came worse conditions in the battle, and with worsened conditions he got angrier. He was catching himself in a loop and without doing something drastic to shake things up he wasn't going to be able to pull this back and that was unacceptable.

'I made a vow that I would defeat you on this day. And when a King gives his word. He keeps it.'

And as suddenly as it appeared in his hand, the drill-looking weapon was buried into the earth at his feet, his features twisted into pure rage and his eyes glowing as brightly as the markings adorning his torso.

"CALADBOLG"

The rainbow that lit up the ground beneath Altrouge's feet gave her only a moment to jolt in shock before it exploded upwards in a pillar of prismatic colours, carving a hole in the clouds and eating at the ground beneath what had once been Altrouge.

At least that's what he had been hoping for, the rapidly moving Ancestor waring his concentration thin in the span of a single second as she closed in with that ridiculous frozen blood move of hers.

The Noble Phantasm disappeared in motes of light, only to quickly be replaced with a wide spear. The King barely managed to grab hold of it before slamming it forward as he set the rest of his treasury on holding back the wave of blood. The spear itself tore clean through the 'young' woman's abdomen and out the back as she swiped at him with claws far too sharp and a secondary wave of blood that was far too dangerous. Being flung away from the ancient Hero by a sudden onslaught of weapons as his entire treasury fired on her, the wave of blood that they'd been holding back crashing down on him.

And a moment later, for the second time that fight, Sul-sagana struck the ground and the battlefield knew heat.

XXXxxxXXX

Meanwhile, Clock Tower

"L-Lord Barthomeloi!" A frightened, hurried Magus cried out, flinging the door to her office open and immediately gasping for breath.

"First. Who gave you permission to enter my office so brazenly? Second. You will go back outside and enter with the proper decorum. Third. Why are you here?" Lorelei droned, her flat gaze drilling into the gasping man as he stuttered an apology and stepped out of the room, a knock being heard a moment later.

"Enter." She spoke, her fingers interlacing as her mind ran.

"I-I have news Lord Barthomeloi!"

"And you thought it would be prudent to fling my door open and shout at me as if I am not five meters from you?" She spoke harshly, making the man flinch and curl in on himself.

"I apologise ma'am. But we have readings of what we assume to be a battle in rural Northern Russia."

"And this is something I should know for what reason?"

"I-It's a Dead Apostle Ancestor, Ma'am." Instantly the killing intent in the room sky-rocketed, now making the man gasp for an entirely different reason.

"Explain."

XXXxxxXXX

Altrouge's Castle

'If I spend the time to re-liquify all that blood I'm going to waste too much Prana. This aggravating man has too much strength!' Altrouge growled to herself, both of her arms being torn off right before she clapped them together, her eyes glowing as bright as Gilgamesh's markings.

"I'M TIRED OF THIS FARCE!"

"I couldn't have said it better myself. Now Die!" Gilgamesh snarled, unleashing his entire treasury aimed at the singular Ancestor, now that she didn't have her lake of blood to distract him.

"Blood of mine dyed pitchest black."

"My veins are fed so that they may never lack."

Blades separated her legs from her body and carved out half of her head and a quarter of her torso.

"The life-blood of creation."

"The heart of all contracts."

"That which separates myself from the cattle that surround me."

Gilgamesh's fists curled as he realized what she was trying to do, his mind replaying the world of endless desert and countless soldiers he'd witnessed in the fourth Holy Grail War.

"So, you had more to play? No matter, there is nothing you have that can defeat me." He spat, his Gate's decreasing in number but spewing forth Noble Phantasm's of heavier mystery.

"Drown all who lack understanding."

"Crush all who dare to face, I."

"There is no greater force in this world!"

Her regeneration was slowing down now, the Mystery of the targeted and specifically chosen weapon's finally taking a toll on her own Mystery. The heavier and more dense power contained in each weapon making meaningful progress against her own absurdly dense Mystery.

"The medium that was chosen by Crimson Moon!"

"Blood Moon's Advent!"

The earth beneath both hers and Gilgamesh's feet cracked, blood spurting out of it for only a moment before it swallowed the area around them whole, leaving nothing left a moment later.

XXXxxxXXX

Blood Moon's Advent

Gilgamesh surfaced, treading liquid with a gasp of breath, the scent of iron and the taste of blood consuming his senses for only a brief moment before he violently spat the blood out and pulled himself out of the liquid using a link of Enkidu spanning between two golden portals.

"Awwww, that's a shame. I was hoping a King as old as you would have drowned. Swimming was a skill famously missing in history after all." Slitted eyes narrowed in on the smug voice of his opponent.

"I'm not quite sure what I was expecting. But a world like this really shows how simple that vermin soul of yours is." He snapped back, pulling himself further away from the sea of Blood beneath him and looking around.

There was no land to speak of, merely a roiling sea of thick, dark, blood. Craning his head up slightly, he could see that the only light in the night sky that made up the Reality Marble was a very, very large crimson Moon. Though the sky itself was also leaking blood, as if he was inside a cracked snow-globe sitting at the bottom of a pool.

"Now. Just for you, dear Servant, something I'm sure you'll enjoy." Altrouge grinned mockingly, standing atop the ocean of blood as if it was solid ground. "The stage is set. The actors are in place. And now it's finally time to show the climax of this battle of royalty! And the second death of Gilgamesh, the man who ventured for immortality." Her gaze and voice dropped flat at the end, a single wave of blood rising hundreds of meters in the air to swallow and crush Gilgamesh in a fraction of a second.

"When will you learn. That doesn't work!" Gilgamesh cockily taunted in response, Sul-sagana slamming into the wave and evaporating it in an instant.

The blade of heat struck the ocean true, sinking into it in a titanic blood bubble full of aggravated red steam. A bubble that burst a fraction of a moment later in a shockwave so powerful the very air itself went hazy as it slammed into the Golden King, sending him flying chaotically into the sky. The man's body hitting one of the blood waterfall's head on and exploding out the other side, clipping the side of a second one and going spinning uncontrollably to the left as titanic tentacles of blood rose from the oceans to strike the King down.

Except it wasn't to be, as the ragdolling body of Gilgamesh struck the glowing chain of Enkidu, wheezing as the chain constricted around his ribs in the process of slowing him down.

"The lowly King snagged himself from the jaws of defeat through a last moment application of his glowing chain." Altrouge waxed, as if it truly was a play, watching the tentacles she had created be torn to raindrops by the King's treasury.

"Worthless-.." Gilgamesh spat, tensing up a moment later.

The man's teeth grit and the armor he wore was emphasized by the brilliant crimson glow that emanated from beneath it, his body jerking this way and that within Enkidu's grasp as dark red, almost black, markings began to spread from his jaw and down his neck.

"Yet! Unfortunately for the King he had ingested some of the Princess' Reality Marble blood. Forming a bond, a contract, between them." Her lips spread into a cruel grin, relishing in having the objectively upper hand for the first time since Cath Palug had been removed from the equation.

"You…think…" Gilgamesh ground out, his own body beginning to fight him as the contract markings spread further down his neck and torso. "That…I…Will….Serve…You?"

"You don't have a choice!" She crowed victoriously, swiping her arm and slamming a floating blood mallet the size of a three-story house into the King.

The impact rocked the Servant's body, creating pain the likes he hadn't felt in over four thousand years. The sheer force of contact created a shockwave that actually unthreaded the mallet itself as it sent Gilgamesh hurtling across the horizon.

And as the man struck the roiling oceans, bouncing across them like one might skip a rock across a pond or lake, something inside Gilgamesh-

Simply.

Snapped.

XXXxxxXXX

Altrouge hummed pleasantly to herself as she slid to a stop atop the blood ocean of her Reality Marble, staring down at the form of her opponent as he lay floating in the blood, face up towards the sky.

"See, now such a blank face of despair fits you so much better. Have you learnt your place ye-" Her mocking was cut off as a singular golden portal opened mere centimeters above the man's own chest.

'A single portal? What is he planning with that?' She snorted to herself with a raised eyebrow.

Kra-KOOM!

The sheer speed of whatever came out of the man's portal parted the sea's beneath and around him like butter, blowing Altrouge back and into the air as she had done to Gilgamesh mere moments earlier. The man's body was sent hurtling into the abyss he had created beneath himself as Altrouge caught herself with a platform of blood.

"Did he…kill himself?" She muttered aloud, blinking rapidly as she tried to make sense of the fact that whatever had come out of that portal hadn't been a weapon meant for her, but a weapon meant for him.

And it wasn't a bluff either because her contract with him had been broken. And that didn't happen short of it being completed or death.

"Ha….HAHA! Well would you look at that! The proud king killed himself! I bested him to even a point that he'd take the coward's way out!" She crowed, laughing so hard her legs nearly gave out, tears springing to her eyes.

And then all at once the world shuddered. A crack stretched across the sky of her inner world and the oceans began to churn more violently. The winds began to pick up and the movement of the blood around her began to change due to something other than her own volition. Blood that separated from the man body of the ocean began to evaporate, and then fizzle away into nothingness.

"What- What's happening!?" Altrouge was scared and angry, none of this made sense.

This was her world! Her inner world created from her very own soul! How was this happening? Why was this happening!?

The churning blood began to swirl into a whirlpool. The liquid swirled faster and faster as the winds began to pick up to the force of natural disasters.

The swirling grew faster and faster, growing deeper as it quickened in pace until it stretched far into the abyss that Gilgamesh himself had fallen into. And then it began to widen, streaks of red wind and mana roaring to life from the abyss in her own soul.

And the moment a gust of that red wind touched her platform, it disappeared from under her, as if it had never been there in the first place. The Princess of the Dead Apostle Ancestor's sent hurtling towards the ocean of her inner world that was slowly disappearing to the growing tornado of destructive mana.

Panic had gripped her very being, her eyes wide and her pupils dilated to the size of pinpricks as she reached out for the receding blood and had her fingers torn off by a gust of red wind.

She was under her own ocean now, and still falling, reaching the base of whatever this tornado was.

"YOU THOUGHT YOU COULD KILL ME!? CONTROL ME!?"

"GILGAMESH!" Her shout shook the very world around them, the cause of all of this chaos suddenly becoming clear as she used her own body's air resistance to spin in the air and face the form of her thought to be dead opponent.

And there, standing on a surface she didn't believe to exist within her world, a singular, drill-like, weapon held over his head and a knife buried to the hilt within his cracked and falling apart breastplate- there stood Gilgamesh.

"THE GODS OF OLD COULD NOT KILL ME!"

The spinning of each section of his weapon began to grow faster, the gale-force winds alongside them.

"THE GODS OF OLD COULD NOT CONTROL ME!"

Altrouge hit the ground in an explosion of red dust and pebbles that were quickly torn away to nothing. Quickly hopping to her feet and watching the man's breastplate finally give up and shatter into sparkling golden shards of metal. The jagged, crystalline, dagger that had been stabbed through it proving to only be stabbed about two centimeters into the King's chest, falling away without the breastplate to hold it in place.

"I ALONE STAND ATOP THE HEAVENS AND THE EARTH! THE GREATEST OF HUMANITY! THE FIRST KING AND THE PROGENITOR OF HEROES!"

The pommel of the dagger struck the earth and bounced slightly, its crystalline composition refracting the light of the crimson moon above them both.

"YOU ARE NOTHING TO THE LIKES OF I! A FOOTNOTE IN MY STORY AND A PLAGUE UPON MY LANDS AND MY PEOPLE!"

"YOU HAVE NO PEOPLE!" She snarled, trying to bring her oceans of blood down upon his head but unable to get it past that ridiculous weapon's tornado of terror.

"I have one." Gilgamesh spoke, his voice suddenly calm and quiet, barely able to be heard over the whirring of his own weapon. "And he has grown to have his own peoples. His own subjects and allies. His own enemies and rivals. He has had his own struggles and will have more to come that will shape his legend. But you will not be one of them! AND IT IS TIME TO FULFILL MY DUTY AS THAT SWORDSMITHS KING AND RID MY LANDS OF YOU!"

"I SEE! YOU'RE NOTHING BUT A LAPDOG! TIED TO SHIROU MURAMASA THROUGH THAT BARBARIC CUP OF YOURS!" She retorted, eyes wide and almost manic, as she realized just how dangerous this final weapon of his seemed to be.

"FALL BEFORE MIGHT OUTRANKING EVEN THE GODS THAT ONCE WALKED THE EARTH!"

"ENUMA!"

"MILLENNIUM CASTLE BRUNESTUD!"

"ELISH!"

XXXxxxXXX

Outside Altrouge's Castle

The land, rocked by explosions and magical might unseen in the modern day, sat silent as a gust of wind swept through the newly created clearing, a couple thick trees creaking as they lay precariously on their sides. The walls of the Ancestor Princess' castle cracked and chipped and the natural defenses in the form of the surrounding forest flattened in a circle surrounding a single point in front of the castle gates.

KKKKKKOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOUUUUUUUU!

A singular point in space, barely the size of a marble, shone with a light that illuminated the area as if the sun itself had appeared on the surface of the planet. And then with all the force of such a miniature star, it exploded. The energy exploding out in a single arc before the more spherical, and widespread, detonation followed, cratering the ground beneath the singularity and atomizing the defenses of Altrouge's castle.

The forest that had been surrounding the castle, even the flattened portion, was torn away and thrown thousands of meters into the sky and into the distance. The occasional foot-soldier of the Princess that had been dumb enough to move back towards the scene of the battle found themselves instantly vaporized, and those closer but still a reasonable distance away found their blood giving the ground or surviving forest a fresh coat of paint.

And out of the light and deafening shockwave came the forms of Altrouge Brunestud and Gilgamesh. Both of them were injured and their clothing and armour torn up and dented as they were violently flung away from each other. The Princess of the Ancestor's striking her own castle and coating it in her own blood for a second before falling to the ground, once again reformed.

Gilgamesh, meanwhile, hit the ground and tore up a brief trench before friction flipped him over and he managed to grind a gauntleted hand into the cracked and condensed earth. The King slowed himself to a halt with a scathing glare and sweat covering his entire form as he panted.

'This Vermin has been too much of a fight.' He growled inwardly, rising to his feet with only the slightest of falters and swaying.

What was meant to be a rather easy, by his standards, stomping of the Dead Apostle Ancestor had turned into a battle that truly could have gone into his Legend and not seemed that out of place. Of course, the mana available to use was abysmal in both quality and quantity compared to when he'd been alive, but that shouldn't have mattered.

So, the fact that he found it mattering burned.

He had more raw power than she did, without a shadow of a doubt, he knew that they both recognized that fact. Yet the woman had been clever in her method of fighting and had prepared a frankly absurd amount of blood to use beforehand in the form of his destruction of her army. Additionally, those contracts she could call on to distract him and buy time, and her pesky regeneration, made it so that he couldn't just blitz her with a hail of weapons and be done with it.

Her defense was top tier, her tactics effective, her offense varied and powerful and her taunting more effective than he'd ever admit, even if Enkidu revived and asked him about it right this moment.

Yet he had her now. After using so much Prana she was feeling the effects, even her regeneration had slowed, and that meant that she was vulnerable enough that he could finish her easily. Given a minute or so more of comba-

Gilgamesh's hands tensed and trembled ever so slightly, his head instinctively turning towards a feeling of danger that he knew instinctively.

"HAH!" His gaze turned back towards the dirty, sweaty and blood-soaked form of his opponent as she stumbled towards him. "You've run out of time King of Heroes! My lovely Cath is returning to her Master!"

'This- No. NO!' His fists clenched hard enough to produce loud, irritating, screeching due to the gauntlets on each of his extremities.

He'd lost. He'd won the fight; he'd overwhelmed her no matter what tricks she pulled or what tactics she'd used, and he'd beaten her forces without having to move an inch.

Yet he'd come here to conquer. To end her undead life! To raze this land and her armies to ash!

And in the end, he'd done some minor terraforming and gotten rid of a fraction of her forces. She'd done it, she'd defeated him in the only way he truly cared about.

She had beaten Gilgamesh's pride.

"You- You-" He nearly snarled, his breathing growing even heavier in his pure fury.

"What's wrong!? Not going to end me? Too scared?" She taunted, and Gilgamesh was sad to say that if this had been off the end of the fourth Grail War, he would have fallen for it hook, line and sinker.

Yet he stopped, the growing dread that filled him pressing at something that he hadn't even realized had existed before this moment. And that something, that he dares not admit to even himself in the face of this woman, stayed his hand and cooled his temper. With an exhausted sigh and a snap of his fingers, his prized ship, his Vimana, appeared behind him, sitting on the floor of Altrouge's territory.

And at the sight of the ship, a vein in the Princess' forehead pulsed, her blood pressure almost rising just at the sight of the vehicle. Because she knew exactly what the appearance of that vehicle meant.

And Gilgamesh would not retreat if she had her way. He did not get to trounce into her territory, shred her forces to giblets, destroy her land and castle, and counter every move she threw at him and just walk away!

Yet she couldn't do anything to him herself, she was woman enough to acknowledge that, so she just had to keep him here another 50 or so seconds.

"Get back here coward!" She snapped, her composure loosening entirely as she relied on riling him up enough to keep him here. "This isn't over! This doesn't just end with you running with your tail between your legs!"

"It can, and it does." Gilgamesh replied, collapsing into the throne aboard his Vimana with a tired exhale that seemed to come from his very soul, twin beads of sweat running down either side of his face.

"You egotistical runt!" She growled, swiping her arm and transforming the blood covering her into twelve needles that flew at him with enough force to break stone.

Yet it wasn't to be, as all twelve were struck down and evaporated by a flaming katana held within the hand of the King, a flat gaze leveled on her as the flame extinguished and he rested the tip on the floor of his vehicle as it began to float upwards.

"That blade.." She muttered to herself, a memory of four years ago coming to mind and giving her an idea as it did so, a sadistic grin stretching her lips. "Every punishment that you avoid will fall on the head of that boy!"

Gilgamesh's grip on the katana tightened and his eye twitched, making Altrouge's grin grow.

"Everything that you run away from right here and now will fall upon Shirou Muramasa! My ire! My armies! Cath Palug himself! Every Ancestor within my faction! Leave these grounds and hell will descend upon that boy you care so much about!" Her voice broke and veins in her neck strained as she shouted at Gilgamesh, keeping track of how close her beloved pet was as she ranted and screamed.

Gilgamesh closed his eyes and breathed in deeply, the back of his head resting against the throne of his Vimana.

'I lost. I lost IlostIlostIlostlostlostLOSTLOSTLOST TO HER.'

Slowly his eyes opened back up to stare impassively down at the Ancestor Princess.

"If you wish to create the ultimate blade, you'll need to be able to stand on my level, mongrel. A blade of such magnitude is not a blade of humans but of Heroic Spirits."

'…Right. Something like that won't stop Shirou. It will only be a stepping stone to his ascension. To his legend.'

"Send them all." His voice rumbled, the sheer determination in it dwarfing anything he'd said or done in their entire battle. "That boy is my Swordsmith. The first of my people. I will prepare him come Olympus or Kur. This is over…." His head turned to the side, staring off into the distance as Cath Palug entered Altrouge's sight. "I'll allow you to deal with your sister in the debris of your own kingdom."

And with a shockwave the King and his Vimana were gone, missing the crazed swipe of Cath Palug as he flew through where Gilgamesh had just been. The sheer speed and force of Cath's swipe tearing gouges in the land hundreds of meters long and almost equally as deep.

"CATH!" The creature paused as it hit the ground, turning to its Master with a growl equally confused and angry that she'd stopped him from chasing after his prey.

Altrouge could feel, and see, Cath's confusion, and his anger was one that she herself shared as she glared at the empty space that had, had Gilgamesh in it mere seconds earlier.

"Enough. The coward of a King was right. My ditz of a sister is on her way, father only knows why, and I can't afford you to leave my side."

Cath growled, looking back and forth between Gilgamesh and Altrouge before trudging back over to the Princess almost gloomily.

"I know, Cath. I know. We'll get him back, ok?" She tried to cheer her pet up with a pep that she herself lacked.

Now she had to compose herself in time to deal with her ditz of a sister.

Goody.

XXXxxxXXX

Fuyuki

"Shirou?" The teen turned and looked at the nervous expression of his longest friend, Rin Tohsaka, as she stepped into the loungeroom of his blood family's home.

"Hey Tohsaka." The red-haired teen responded easily, turning and giving her an inquisitive look as she walked closer.

"Hi." She responded almost shyly, coughing in her fist and blushing a little. "Look, I'll just come out and say it. I….went to your families house to check in on Illya."

"Of course, Caren lets you in." Shirou snarked, rolling his eye.

"She's finished the ritual, and Sella asked me to come tell you while Hortensia rests and they both watch over them." Rin spoke, managing to collect herself enough to slip into her well-practiced 'Magus Heiress' persona.

"She did!?" Shirou jumped to his feet, his excitement dying down at Rin's carefully curated expression and calming hand motions.

"She did." The girl confirmed a little awkwardly before continuing. "She's managed to remove the curse from a predominant amount of her body."

"You're choosing your words carefully." Shirou noticed, his gaze seeming to burn into her and making her fidget slightly.

"I am." She acquiesced. "She couldn't purge it from your sister entirely. So, she used the ritual and a Bounded Field to contain it within a certain part of her body."

"That's….good?" The teen edged, his voice wary and his eyebrow's scrunched in confusion.

"Better than her turning." Rin agreed with a firm nod. "But it's held within her heart. Sella believes that something the Einzbern's did made it capable of holding such a curse on its own, but aided Hortensia in making the Bounded Field as added precaution."

"Ok. Ok we can deal with that. That's workable." Shirou spoke, thinking over his own words for a moment before nodding resolutely.

"She says she'll need to repeat the ritual once a year to stop the curse from growing or breaking containment, but for now it's all fine and she's back to her normal self." Rin finished, letting some of her own relief and happiness seep into her expression and voice at the sight of Shirou cheering so loudly his voice cracked.

"Come on Rin!" He spoke excitedly, grabbing a jacket for himself, looking Rin up and down and then throwing her one of his own jackets, and putting it on quickly.

"H-Huh!?" The girl squeaked, all of her composure flying out the window as she clutched the jacket close to her chest and blushed slightly.

"I want to go check on Illya!" He spoke as if it should be obvious, and in retrospect it sort of was.

"Right!" Though it wasn't meant to be, the girl only managed to get one arm into Shirou's jacket before there was a loud, rough bang on the door.

"What the hell? Gil?" Shirou mumbled, making Rin blink in confusion.

"Gilgamesh? Here? Now?" She yelped, her face going as pale as the Einzbern women as she stumbled behind Shirou to use him almost as a physical shield.

And it was only once she was behind him that she realized she'd never once seen Gilgamesh and Shirou interacting in person.

Stepping forward and opening the door, the swordsmith blinked and lurched back as the slouched, sweaty and exhausted looking form of the King of Sumer stumbled into his house, jolting at the frightened shriek that came from Rin at the sight of the battered Servant.

"G-G-Gil-" She stammered out, paling even further at the fact that such an unstoppable, overpowering Servant was so beat up.

"What the hell happened?" Shirou cut to the chase immediately, as surprised as Rin to see the man so injured and tired but also aware of what Gilgamesh had left to do.

"She won." Gilgamesh spat, stumbling past both teenagers and collapsing across Shirou's couch as the teen closed his front door with one hand.

"Oh. Get blood over my furniture. Thanks." Shirou deadpanned, walking up to the Servant, unaware of the terrified look plastered over Rin's features at his casual remarks.

If she tried anything even a fraction as brazen, he'd kill her, and she very much enjoyed her life. Thank you very much.

"I'm your King. I'll bleed where I please." Gilgamesh grunted, slowly transitioning to a seated position despite his words though.

"Rin, can you grab some medical equipment from the kitchen?" Shirou asked kindly, pointing a thumb towards Gilgamesh. "I have a King to apologize to and then wrap up."

"S-Sure thing." She stuttered, her gaze switching between Shirou and Gilgamesh, afraid that the man was going to attack either herself or Shirou.

"...You don't need to apologize."

"Excuse me?" Shirou whirled around on Gilgamesh; both of his eyebrows raised high.

"Do not make me repeat myself or I'll take my words back." Gilgamesh growled, his hard gaze following Rin as she scampered into the kitchen before, they softened slightly.

"Didn't end well if you're this affected." Shirou guessed, getting a snort from the King.

"What gave you that impression? Perhaps my injuries or my somber tone? Truly your abilities of perception increase by the day." He snarked, pausing and blinking as the words of the boy's mother came to mind.

"She's not dead, is she?" Shirou broke him out of his trip down memory lane, getting the King to grit his teeth.

"No. And the battle was closer than I'd like." He admitted despite how much it hurt him to do so.

"You got rid of my contract at least." Shirou commented, wriggling the fingers of the hand that the contract had once sat upon.

"A single victory crushed beneath the monolith of failure." Gilgamesh spoke, his eyes immediately moving towards Rin as she ran in and handed the medical supplies to Shirou.

"Oh, so you lost, big deal." Shirou rolled his eyes, getting a loud gasp from Rin.

"Shirou!"

"Smith…" Gilgamesh's voice held a warning, yet he just couldn't manage the heat behind it that he once could have.

"I fail all the time. My entire life is a series of failures." Shirou continued, glaring at Gilgamesh as he began to dab some antiseptic on a cotton ball. "Yet you don't see that stopping me. Because I learn from my failures."

"Shirou. Please stop." Rin hissed quietly in his ear, clinging to the boy as Gilgamesh began to laugh.

"When did you become so brazen as to admonish your own King like this?" He tested; a lone eyebrow raised.

"When he started to act like an angsty teenager. He's far too refined and determined for something so ridiculous. And besides, that's meant to be my job."

"Hm. So the little boy with dreams above his station has gained a bit of maturity, has he?" Gilgamesh teased, though to Rin's immense shock it appeared to be in genuine jest and not maliciousness.

"Seems like I'm taking it all from you. Stop moving." Shirou dabbed the antiseptic ball around the edge of Gilgamesh's wound, not even making the man so much as twitch.

"Watch that mouth of yours before it gets you in further trouble." Gilgamesh warned, some genuine hardness slipping into his voice.

"Yeah, I apologize." Shirou droned with practiced ease, pulling out a needle and medical thread.

"Leave that. I have methods to heal further, just wrap it up."

"And stop you bleeding on my stuff? Don't need to tell me twice."

"I'm the one bleeding out, show some sympathy."

"Lose an eye, then we'll talk."

Rin looked between man and teen with a wide-eyed look of incredulity. The girl unable to believe what she was seeing in front of her despite witnessing it actively unfolding before her.

"Shirou." The teen paused in his wrapping of Gilgamesh's abdomen, since that was where the largest single injury on the man was located.

"You..used my name?" Shirou asked, blinking owlishly as he leaned back to look at the man's face properly as he stared blankly ahead at the wall of his house.

"She's coming after you. And likely your own people as well."

"WHAT!?" Rin screeched, looking between them and making the educated guess that he was referring to whoever Gilgamesh had been fighting.

"What?" Shirou hissed, his Fairy Eye opened and glowing faintly as he stared the Servant dead in the eyes.

"At the end of the battle, Primate Murder was on his way back-"

Rin looked ready to faint, clutching onto the jacket she was wrapped inside for some, any, form of comfort.

"-and she wanted me to stay behind and die to her pet." The King spat, rolling his head and cracking his neck. "She began to taunt me, trying to egg me into staying and attacking her in a fit of rage."

"And it didn't work?" Shirou guessed.

"Much like your perception, your powers of deduction grow stronger."

"I remember a man throwing me across my own forge for looking at his weapons wrong."

"You weren't just looking, and you know it!" Gilgamesh snapped, pausing as Shirou grinned, realizing he'd been duped by the smith. "….Well played."

"I try."

"Regardless, when her taunting's didn't work. She promised to go after you. With her forces, her allies, even that accursed pet of hers."

"Sore loser."

"You're missing the point, did all that smoke inhalation finally catch up to you?"

"No. I get what you're saying. She's the Principle of Contracts, when she makes a promise, she honors it." Shirou spoke, finishing up the bandages on the King. "But I'll deal with it like I always have."

Rin wished she could take this as calmly as Shirou was, because she was fairly certain if it wasn't for this jacket she had on, she'd be halfway to a panic-attack right now.

"No." Gilgamesh shook his head and stood up, getting a confused glance from the red-haired swordsmith. "I will aid and prepare you for the challenges to come."

"Oh." Shirou blinked owlishly once more, also standing up as Gilgamesh began to walk to the door.

"I am your King. My duty, as it should be, has been and will always be, is to prepare my people for hard times, and protect them once they have come."

"Gil..gamesh?" Where had this come from? Why was he saying this all now?

Why did Shirou know that he wasn't kidding or boasting in the slightest?

"Go aid your partner before she asphyxiates." Gilgamesh smirked over his shoulder, snapping his fingers and pointing towards Rin. "I have things to deal with, try not to miss me too much."

And with those parting words the King left the Muramasa house, closing the door behind him as Shirou went over to Rin, placing a comforting hand on her back as she shivered.

"S-Shirou. A-Altrouge- Primate Murder- they're-"

"I know. But you heard Gilgamesh, Rin. We'll be ready when they come around." Shirou smiled in what he hoped was a comforting gesture to the girl, happy to see that it seemed to be working. "I'll be ready, he'll be ready, and most of all you'll be ready along with all the others."

"M-Me?" She pointed towards herself, a small blush dusting her cheeks at the sheer trust that he seemed to be placing in her.

"You all helped me with Enhance right? And that was last minute. Given time to prepare they won't stand a chance." Shirou cracked a joke, feeling something warm thrum through him at the small giggle that bubbled out of the girls lips.

"I don't believe for even a moment it'll be as easy as you say it will be." She snorted with a small roll of her eyes before pulling the collar of the jacket up to cover everything below her nose and averting her eyes. "But thank you…"

"Anytime." He said, completely, one hundred percent sincere in that promise as he pulled back, unaware of the thinning of her lips as he did so. "Now I need to do something quickly, before we head to my house."

"This is your house." She rolled her eyes good-naturedly, giggling again at the flat look he gave her.

"You know what I mean. Can you please clean up Gilgamesh's blood? I need to write a quick letter."

"A letter? What for? Who even to?" She questioned, tilting her head to the side and blinking.

"If Gilgamesh is going to be actively helping, I need to get something more heavy duty. So…I'm writing a letter for Lorelei Barthomeloi."

"L-Lo-Lord Barthomeloi!? The Vice-Director of the Magus Association!?"

"That'd be the one."

"….I don't know why I'm surprised. I really don't." She sighed, slumping over.

"Neither do I, really."

"Don't agree with me!"

"Uh…sorry?"

XXXxxxXXX

Einzbern Castle, Germany

"That damned Emiya!" Jubstacheit roared, slamming his fist on the arm of his chair following the report of the failed excavation.

"Sir. What do we do now? Mount an assault on the abode?" A servant asked the furious old man, making him grunt and drum his fingers on the arm of his chair.

"No. He wouldn't be stupid enough to keep the artifact within his own home without defenses like we have here." Jubstacheit denied, his brows furrowing briefly.

"Are we to begin looking for a new Heroic Spirit in time for the war then, sir?"

"..Yes. If Emiya is going to steal Heracles from us, then we need to find something of equal or greater worth. Look into it. I want something strong enough to wipe the entire war in a day." The man glared at all of the servant's present, the unspoken threat heard by all of them as they hurriedly nodded.

"YES SIR!"

Jubstacheit waited for a few moments as all of the servants had rushed out of the room in a hurry, his gaze turning towards the floor, where the next attempt at a second Justeaze sat in incubation.

"Emiya…..What more do you wish to try and take from me?" His fists tightened and he pushed himself off his chair in a fit of anger, his thick clothes flowing around him as he made his way to one of the many hidden staircases to his personal lab.

The time for punishing that cockroach of a mercenary would come at a later time, progress came now.

XXXxxxXXX
Fuyuki, 9pm

Kirei looked up from the bible in his hand as the doors to the church were flung open, a pleasantly mocking expression adorning his face as he opened his mouth to admonish and then aid whoever had flung open the doors to the church at such a late time.

And then paused, his expression freezing in place as his brain shut down and took a moment to reboot in the proceeding mental panic.

"Oh? Speechless, are we?" Caren Hortensia mocked, making her way down the center of the Church pews. "Bet you never expected to see me over here in the East, Father."

"Caren. What a pleasant surprise it is to see you here." He finally spoke, his practiced 'Priest-speaking' façade put into place as he shut his bible with an echoing clap.

"Ah yes, pleasant. You are aware that lying is a sin, are you not, Father?" She now stood right in front of him, dwarfed by his much larger physical stature but looking for all the world as if she had every ounce of power between the two of them.

"Lying? Now whatever do you mean, dear daughter of mine. After your mother's passing, I've been more devoted to the Lord than any other."

"Lying yet again? At this rate you'll light on fire simply by being on these grounds father." She grinned, a grin that was oh-so familiar to the man. "We both know you never cared for Mother. Oh, I'm sure you tried to, but in the end, you just couldn't do it. Because despite your wishes you're nothing but a Demon, Father."

"….Why are you here, Dear Daughter?" Kirei questioned, his expression tightened with exertion in a way that only someone as equally fucked up as Caren could understand.

However, that didn't mean she was going to let him off the hook or go easy on him, not in a million years.

"My skin positively breaks out in hives just to be near you, Father." She spoke peacefully, a smile of pure innocence on her face despite her words. "And I'm here for one reason and one reason only."

"And that is?"

"I'm going to make you repent."

"Excuse me?" He responded, amusement clear in both his tone and his expression.

"You heard me correct Father. I am to be your repentance to the Lord. I am your greatest Sin, and the one that you cannot escape from. If I disappear the Church will swarm on this town like angry bees, and I have many documents proving both your connection to me and to Mother." It was sadistically amusing to the girl as the hand that had slowly been curling into a fist relaxed at her explanation of what would happen should he use his usual methods on her.

"Oh? Were you not aware Father? I'm a rather well known and respected member of the Church." She placed a hand on her chest. "My ability that I inherited from Mother makes me quite the commodity to especially the Exorcists of the Holy Church."

"Why are you here?" Kirei asked, his expression flat and his body showing his wish to lash out with one strike and be over with this conversation.

"Because I can. Because you deserve it to reach God in Heaven. Because I wanted you to know that from now until the foreseeable future, you'll never be rid of me for long because I have permanent business in this wonderful city of yours. Because I'm the one being in the world that knows the depths of the darkness in your soul and the one being in the world whose soul is darker."

"And where does your salvation come from then, hm, Dear Daughter?" He taunted, finally believing that he'd found a leg up in his verbal bare-knuckle boxing match with his own daughter.

"Mine? My salvation comes from those that I aid each day, Father. From the Daemons I help to remove from this world. From the genuine good that I do to combat the darkness inherent in me. Unlike this….ramshackle hut you call a Church."

Kirei breathed in deeply, holding the breath till the count of ten and simultaneously smothering the urge to end this conversation through a simple fist to the skull or chest.

It'd be so easy. She had the constitution of Claudia. He was fairly certain even a punch from Kiritsugu Emiya would end his foolish daughter if he put some effort in.

"…I cannot wait to spend more time with you, my precious Daughter."

"Oh excellent! Well, no need to set out a plate or cutlery for me tonight dear Father, I'm staying over at a boy's house~"

The spine to Kirei's Bible snapped as each side of the hardcover went in opposite directions, the twitch in Kirei's eyes clear to see even with them closed.

XXXxxxXXX
Emiya Estate, roughly 2 hours later

"Shirou? Can I come in?" Shirou looked towards his door as he got ready to head to bed, surprised to hear Rin's voice, especially so late at night.

"Uhh, yeah. Sure?" He answered, watching Rin quickly shuffle into the room before closing the door and seeming to make sure that it was properly closed before turning to face him.

The girl was in some rather cute 'pajamas' all things considered. Consisting of shorts and a long shirt that seemed to squeeze out every last ounce of her cuteness.

Something he genuinely hadn't been expecting out of her.

And in addition to her clothes, she had a pillow hugged to her from, only adding to the cute factor as she blushed brightly.

"I-.. Well-… I was wondering-…" She mumbled, unable to continue her sentence as she stammered over her words and made him slowly walk towards her.

"Rin. Are you ok?" He asked, meaning about her stuttering and rather unusual behavior-

"N-No." She muttered, her face shaking as she hiccuped a little, her face burying into her pillow.

-And somehow getting something completely different that he wasn't prepared for in the goddamn slightest. But his friend was hurting, and he was going to do his best to help out. Even if he might not be able to understand why.

Taking one striding step forward he pulled her into a hug, knowing that Rin was someone who responded very well to acts of physical affection like this.

Actually, most of his female friends were. That was a little worrying.

And the moment she was in his arms, she threw her own around him, bawling into his chest as her mental fortitude sputtered and died with all the fanfare of a supernova.

"..Rin?"

"Why?"

"Why…what?" he asked hesitantly, not wanting to make her emotional state worse but also not actually knowing what the hell to do.

"Why does this keep happening to you!?" She shouted into his chest, tilting her head to stare up at him with tearful blue eyes that sent a pulse of something through him.

"Why does what keep happening to me…?"

"Everything! All these Ancestors! Gilgamesh! Primate Murder! The Clock Tower and the Holy Grail War!" With each thing she listed she got even more hysterical, only making Shirou hug her closer to his chest.

"I…don't know. Really." He muttered lamely, flinching a little at how little he was actually helping her.

"It's not fair! And it's terrifying!"

'Oh.' The sudden realization about what Rin was actually so upset by suddenly slammed into him with all the subtleness of a freight train.

"Rin…I'm going to be ok. You're going to be ok. Nothing's going to happen."

"But what if it does!? Dammit Shirou we shouldn't be dealing with any of this!" Tears began to stream down her cheeks in even greater volumes. "These are some of the most powerful people, organisations and artifacts in the entire world and I'm scared! We can't handle this! I can't handle this!"

"You can."

"Did you not-"

"Rin. Listen to me." And for some reason, despite her anger and her panic and her hysteria, Rin listened, the girl sniffling and letting out the occasional hiccup as she continued to cry.

"You can handle this. There's not a single person I know that's stronger than you. You're powerful. Smart. Pretty and so determined I feel like I fall behind at times."

"N-Now you're just lying.." She hiccuped, blushing a little.

"There's nothing you can't handle. And if you find something you stumble in facing. Those close to us will be there to help you."

"Even..you?"

"I'm your research assistant, remember?" He smiled and tilted his head to the side, his hair flopping with the help of gravity ever so slightly. "If I'm not there to help you then I'd be a pretty lousy assistant."

And then the next thing he knew he was on his back on his bed, Rin's lips pressed tightly against his as she pressed her body against his. The girl panting slightly as she pulled back and moved to be more properly straddling the teen.

"R-Rin? What are you..?"

"W-We're beyond assistant and leader now Shirou. I-I want to be your partner. In everything to come. F-Fights, business, Thaumaturgy and…..e-even love too." Her blush was atomic now, the girl barely able to keep her gaze on the teen even despite having initiated it.

"R-Rin…" Shirou didn't know what to say, or how to react.

And then the girl began to reach for her shirt, and suddenly he very much did know how to react.

"Ah!" Rin yelped, jolting on Shirou's lap as he sat up, both of her wrists in his hands.

'His grip is so strong…I can't move at all…' She thought, experimentally tugging at her wrists and finding that they didn't even budge the iron bars that were his fingers despite him seemingly putting no effort into it.

"No."

And then her heart shattered.

"W-What do you mean?...A-Are you- D-Do you not like me?.."

This couldn't be happening to her. This couldn't! Please. Please let this be a joke. Please let this be a hallucination. She couldn't do this. She couldn't-

"I do like you Rin."

And suddenly, just like a Dead Apostle her heart's shards reversed back into a fully breathing, working organ. Only one that was filled with confusion.

"T-Then..why?" She looked up at him, asking, begging him to give her an answer.

Slowly he let go of one of her wrists, moving his hand to her face and gently rubbing his thumb over her cheek. Raising his thumb to be level with her eyes, showing her the tears running down it.

"This is why. I don't know much about emotions, but I know how muddled they can get." He gave her a half joking, half tender look as he wiped his thumb off on his pants.

"T-That's-"

"I'm not saying no because I don't like you Rin. I'll be happy to take you as my 'partner' any time."

"D-Don't taunt me!" She snapped, getting a laugh out of him at how cute she looked pouting like she was.

"I-I'm not! I promise!" He laughed, his expression smoothing back out as he calmed down. "But when we take this step. I want it to be for a good reason. Not because you just finished having a mental breakdown and sobbing into my shirt and were still crying even while reaching for your shirt."

"I get it alright?" She pouted, hiding her face in his shirt. "I'm sorry…"

"Don't be sorry. I said, and did, all that because I care for you, after all." He responded, resting his head on top of hers.

"Smooth talker."

XXXxxxXXX

Side Story: The Parents Return

"Finally home! Hi kids!" Irisviel exclaimed happily, bouncing on the balls of her feet and waving enthusiastically.

"Hi kaa-chan!" Both Shirou and Illya called back, currently eating lunch.

"Hello Mr and Mrs. Emiya." Sakura smiled politely, sitting besides Shirou.

"Soooooo, how did things go?" Irisviel asked playfully, but amidst bringing in their bags and taking off his shoes, Kiritsugu paid extra attention to this part of the conversation.

And having spent a couple days, by this point in time anyway, planning on how to break the news to their parents. Everyone was well prepared for the absolutely biblical shitstorm about to rain down, either on their heads or on someone elses.

"A Dead Apostle Ancestor attacked." Shirou started, completely deadpan as he plopped some tofu into his mouth.

"Wha-"

"The house sorta got destroyed." Illya continued, giving a perfect PR smile as she did so.

"We went to the Einzbern Castle to continue the fight."

"You what?" Kiritsugu hissed, stalking into the room with a dark glare.

"I nearly became a Dead Apostle."

"Rin got hit by the Ancestors curse."

"Onii-chan killed the Ancestor."

"Kids you're dropping a lot-"

"Gilgamesh went and fought Altrouge Brunestud." Shirou took a sip of his drink, thanking Sakura when she refilled it right after.

"Shirou. Illya. Please-"

"Also grandfather killed my brother to try and manipulate me into being even more submissive." Sakura added in, the cherry on top of the hellish 10 days that had made up the adult's trip to Eurasia.

"What…even…" Irisviel muttered, swirls in her eyes as she wobbled on the spot.

"I'm…..I don't even know what to say." Kiritsugu muttered, at a total loss himself.

Shirou opened his mouth once more.

"Do not."

XXXxxxXXX

Hey guys!

Welcome to the Mega chap (13.7K!) and the end of the 15 year old arc!

This is the first of a two-part update as a special christmas present to you all!

This has been my longest chapter ever written across all my stories and I hope that you all enjoyed it. Chapter 22 is the start of the HGW and i'll leave the proper AN for that chap xP

discord: ctMzhq3

REVIEW REPLIES:

581: He did!...sorta?

fujin of shadows: How'd you enjoy how it ended up playing out?

Greyfox2: I don't drink alcohol but thank you for the warning

Ariadne Verengas: Sakura and Shirou aren't virgins actually.

AnimeFan13579: That'd be pretty funny actually. That's a good idea

LupinSolaris013: I'm very proud of having come up with it tbh

Zukafew119: I'd love to respond to everything you wrote down but i'm at my parents for christmas (so not at home with my computer) and it's rather difficult to go back and forth to write a satisfactory reply but know that once again i enjoyed your review.

END OF REVIEW REPLIES

Alright! Now off with you all! To chapter 22 with you!

Go!

Git!

SHoo!