Amidst A War Of Heroes, Shall A Witch Crash The Party

In the same place were Gilgamesh had just been.

The man who was not that long ago summoned saw the trashcan that Gilgamesh sent flying earlier and said: "Hm it looks like some drunk was angry here..."

After the man had said that he walked in the same direction as the Golden King.

-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

Gilgamesh opened the front doors of the gloomy-looking mansion and stepped into what would, to ordinary humans, no doubt be considered hell. The front of the hallway was filled with corpses, a sloppy arrangement indicating the murderer's haste.

Gilgamesh: "Ha, a desperate dog attempting to feed itself perhaps?"

To the golden king, the thought of one of the so-called heroes who had so irritated him that night starving for prana and committing such an act was high comedy. Carefully avoiding dirtying his boots with commoner blood, the king moved forward, following the trail to yet another large set of doors, which he again opened without a hint of fear.

A massive ballroom spread out before him, a great banquet being held. It should go without saying that that banquet was a feast of souls for not human, harvested from a gathering of the rich and their servants. The stench was an overpowering one, with corpses practically carpeting the room. But what drew Gilgamesh's eye was not the center of the slaughter, but something on the room's back wall. An epitaph, written in blood. Though Gilgamesh was not to know it, the writing there was merely a piece of a poem whose true meaning was lost in this battleground of Fuyuki. To him, it was merely a signature.

My beloved hometown, the sweetfish river running through it.

You who seek the Golden Land, follow its path downstream and seek the key.

If you follow the river downstream, you will find a village.

In the village, look for the shore the two will tell you of.

There sleeps the key to the Golden Land.

It was as Gilgamesh examined this inscription of blood, that the first strike against the barrier of 'reality' was made. Behind the king, the doors blew shut, causing him to whirl around, drawing his weapons from the gate as he did so... only to find nobody there. "Coward!" he shouted,

Gilgamesh: "Do you scurry before my radiant presence, like a rat in the dark?"

As if in answer to his taunt, he saw a single golden butterfly but before he could do anything to it the floor beneath him glowed, causing him to jump back. Suddenly, all the corpses melted away, revealing a great etching on the floor of the room. Twas an almost alien thing, as if someone had lain an image of stained glass on the ground, subtitled "Now Begins the Golden Nocturne." And the image, to Gilgamesh's fury, was none other than that of the witch Caster! Before he could destroy it, however, it shattered by itself, fragments of the image flying through the air, blinding him. And what the king saw when the air cleared, left even the haughty Gilgamesh silent.

It was a garden, and it was clearly not the one outside the mansion he'd been in previously. Though quaint by his standards, his presence in it spoke immediately of high thaumaturgy, of his falling into a trap. He snarled and scoffed, "Not sacrifices for mere survival, but for ritual eh? Sloppy of me."

A lilting voice from behind the king answered the rhetorical question. "Indeed, King of Uruk."

Surprisingly, the one who Gilgamesh saw there was not, as he'd assumed it would be, Caster. Rather than the haughty witch of gold who taunted and danced around wildly, the one who sat in the garden's gazebo was a somber silver witch. Though she was clearly an older mage by the prana she emitted and the air of experience held by all practiced warriors, her beauty had not faded slightly with the years, long silver tresses running down her shoulders, topped with an elegant bonnet. Her wear was also rather frillier than the golden witch from the pier, not that Gilgamesh cared enough to notice such things. What caught his eye was more the fact that her own eyes remained completely shut. "And who are you, witch, if not the Caster Servant I saw earlier this night? And what exactly has your sacrifice accomplished in bringing me... wherever this place is?"

The witch smiled, "I am called 'Virgilia,' oh King of Gold. I was the previous Beatrice before passing on that title to my apprentice, the wild child you met earlier that called you Barbarian. As for where you are, this place is normally supposed to be imposed on the outside. But it is much easier to gather the magical energy needed to draw someone inside, particularly if one such as myself is to manifest."

Gilgamesh sneered, "So that witch crawls to her teacher after witnessing my power? Well, I suppose it's good that she knows her place, but do you think you will fare any better against my Gate of Babylon?"

Virgilia was silent for a moment, then unleashed a wave of killing intent, opening a single eye and revealing a truly twisted smile. "Oh, I believe I can handle one uppity golden brat just as well as another. Or would you like to also be called Barbarian by me."

The hail of Noble Phantasms unleashed by Gilgamesh in response to this was dodged easily, with the silver witch simply vanishing from the soon destroyed gazebo, reappearing floating over the forest behind it. High above the trees, Virgilia threw her arms into the air and cried, "Rise shoulder towers! Rain destruction upon my foolish foe!"

At the witch's command, two enormous towers shut up above the treeline and rained down blasts of energy upon the King of Heroes, who tossed out a collection of shields in response. The legendary defenses from the Gate kept Gilgamesh safe even as the garden around him was destroyed.

"I do hope that fireworks display isn't all of your power witch," taunted Gilgamesh. "Or else my hopes of entertainment have been well and truly dashed! Ahah- wait what?"

The golden Archer's arrogant laughter was cut short when his shield collection was utterly decimated, causing him to leap back to avoid being crushed. This caused him to take several wounds from the tower's fire before he could get clear of the danger zone and reassess the situation. What he saw at his previous location left him utterly baffled. "Impossible... that is a treasure that can only be wielded by one!"

Imbedded into the ground where Gilgamesh and his shields had once been was an enormous war hammer. No hero could mistake it as anything other than Mjölnir, the weapon forged and wielded by the Norse God of the Thunder, Thor, and held by nobody else. It was one of the few treasures with no basis in Gilgamesh's vault. Virgilia laughed from her position between her towers. "Pitiful barbarian king who only ever rebelled against the heavens. It is your arrogance which prevented you from connecting to your divine ancestors. I can call upon this sacred hammer due to my friendship with the hosts of heaven, while you have only your relics collected long ago. You carelessly toss them about, calling them your birthright, but all you hold is outdated junk long ago abandoned by human history."

Praise for the gods and insults for the treasury. Two things Gilgamesh would never stand for, no matter whatever else he let run off him like water off a duck's back. This witch would have to learn respect. The golden archer slumped over for a moment, and then his whole body began to shake. "Ha... hahaha!" He straightened up suddenly, looking at the silver witch with manic eyes as he filled the garden with the laughter of a lunatic. "Junk? Junk? Junk? You presume too much, foolish witch!"

The air behind him distorted once more, and this time delivered unto Gilgamesh one of two items in his treasury that were well and truly his. "I shall show you the power I held as the ruler of mankind before the race scattered from its origin!"

He grasped the hilt of his 'sword,' Ea, the Star of Creation, causing the 'blade' to rotate in several places, stirring up a vast hurricane of magical energy. Yes, this was the EX class, anti-world Noble Phantasm with power so great that even though Gilgamesh himself could wield only part of it, it could still surpass attacks from even the strongest of holy and demonic blades in history and wound even Ultimate Ones.

But even as he fired that show-stopping attack, Virgilia did not move. Even as Gilgamesh lost the witch from sight, vanishing behind the vast hurricane of magical power, she showed no signs of resisting. And soon, he knew why.

A vast tower, so impossibly large it blotted out the sky, tumbled down from the clouds. This was one of Virgilia's trump cards, the mighty Fallen Tower, a piece of Heaven's Fortress, whose walls could not be broken until the end of days. Nothing until that promised day, especially not an attack whose origin was the dawn of history, could pierce it. Ea's cataclysmic power, Enuma Elish, crashed against the tower uselessly, as if a mere wave breaking against a tall cliff. And when the tower hit the ground, it revealed behind it something which spelled the end for the King of Heroes who reigned at the beginning of time. The shoulder towers which had begun Virgilia's assault were now gone, and in their stead, the witch had called something far worse. With one armed raised to the sky, ready to send it forward, Virgilia had called for none other than the weapon which should only appear in the hands of Odin, king of the northern gods, at the final battle of the world. There in the sky floated the gigantic blue spear Gungnir, the ultimate weapon of Heaven, so massive it matched the Fallen Tower whose crashing revealed it. And with a single wave, Virgilia unleashed it.

It happened so fast, Gilgamesh did not truly perceive it until it was too late. In that hidden garden, the King of Heroes was impaled by Odin's spear to the ground without a chance of resistance. With the death of its master soon to come, Ea could no longer be sustained, and simply vanished.

With a wave of her hand, Virgilia dismissed the fallen Mjölnir and crashed Tower, floating down in front of the dying king who even now heaved up blood, struggling to survive despite the futility of it. Her eyes had closed once more, and the air of hostility was replaced with the somber, motherly air of a woman trying to calm a child. "Cease your struggle, Archer of Uruk. It is the duty of all men to face their end with dignity, that is one of the lessons of your own myth, is it not?"

But the king paid her no attention, still clawing at the air to the very end, "Cannot... not here... idu..." His last words mangled by gasps for air and coughs filled with blood, the King of Heroes faded away, with none to witness it save for his killer...

-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

Moments later, the Endless Witch, Beatrice the Golden stood in the ballroom, her butterflies gathering all the corpses into that one room, along with all the keys to said room. Her breath was shallow, but she continued to exert herself to create a closed room. "As I thought, Teacher and her toys are a bit too much even 'inside,' I don't know if I can create enough rumors or gather enough prana for her again this War... but I did gain two things at least..."

Ronove appeared beside her, carrying a few captured souls to feed to his mistress in order to restore her energy.

Ronove: "Two milady? Certainly one is the elimination of that barbarian Archer, but what is the other?"

A genuine question without a hint of mockery, rare from the demon butler.

Beatrice laughed, although she immediately regretted it, wheezing a bit and hurriedly gathering the souls offered by Ronove. "I have ascertained the nature of this war. Gilgamesh's soul, it did not pass on after his death but was taken somewhere else. This gathering of heroic spirits is not an invitation to a tournament, but as much of a trap for our souls as the banquet hall we stand in was for Gilgamesh (or whoever happened to come, though I'm happy it was him). If the prize was indeed Christ's Cup, a treasure granted by victory, I would continue to fight normally so that I might place it in Kuwadorian and create the Golden Land with it. But I do not believe that is the case. I think that the so-called Grail is, in fact, a vulgar construct of inferior magic users, formed by the defeat of others. I shall not trust such a thing."

With a final wave of her pipe, the last corpses and keys were piled up into the center of the ballroom, and the entrance to the room was sealed from the inside, forming a perfect closed room.

Though already aware of the answer, Ronove considered it a mark of professional pride to allow his mistress room for a more dramatic declaration. "Then milady, what shall you do?"

Beatrice opened the path to the tearoom intent on leaving to rest, "Why, the same thing we did once long ago my dear Ronove. Slaughter and sacrifice! I shall create countless closed room murders, corrupt the other heroic spirits, raise high the keys, and force all to praise my glorious name! I shall turn this land of Fuyuki into a city of demons, and bring down the Golden Land myself!"

Having thrown down the figurative gauntlet, the witch vanished into her sealed off room, her demon butler trailing just behind her, and left that hall of the dead behind.

-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

Before the last servant even set food in the garden of the mansion were Gilgamesh was killed, he stopped and simply turned around and walked away again.

The man thought while smoking, So one of the Heroic Spirits was stupid enough to go into this trap... And that hero was probably not even prepared. After he thought that he turned his Material Body to his Spiritual Body.