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A limitless white void. Where I retreat whenever the blinding light of the real world becomes too much.
The void is comforting. Or, rather—the void is safe. There is nothing to be gained in the void. But there is nothing to hurt me, either.
And the void is like me. I am negative space.
A mere reflection.
A ghost…
Not even that. The impotent dregs of a ghost.
…I was hardly less impotent in life than I am now, though. Every second of this non-existence is a searing reminder of that.
And yet, I can still venture out into the world. Most of the time, it brings nothing but pain. But sometimes I can see a pleasant dream, or hear a nostalgic name. I suppose that’s why I haven’t given up yet.
“Who are you?”
All of a sudden, I realized I had drifted back into reality.
No, not quite; this is a hazy space, one on the border of the void.
“I shall not ask you again, mongrel. Who are you?”
The shadow in front of me flickered, then sharpened into the outline of a person. In this border zone, it seemed I was unable to hide my presence from ordinary beings as I normally do.
Or, perhaps, this is not an ordinary being.
Perhaps he has a special kind of vision.
I opened my mouth. A word formed on my tongue, but before I voiced it, the man in front of me waved his hand dismissively.
“What, you claim to be ‘nobody,’ is that it? And yet you stand before me. You have summoned me away from my business. Surely you do not interrupt the king and then claim to be naught but a whisper in the wind. Such a thing would be the height of folly, mongrel. It will not be forgiven, even in death.”
Ah… I know this man.
Chaldea fought beside him… under him… in Babylonia, and he was then summoned as a Servant.
In the future I failed to reach.
Perhaps I should count myself lucky that I am able to observe it, at least. However painful it may be.
“I…”
The soft, empty echoes of my voice trailed off.
Truth be told, no one has ever asked me who I am. In this form, at least… though, come to think of it, I can’t remember such a thing ever happening in my past life, either.
Someone as important as I was would not need to be asked.
It would make me laugh, if I could. The idea that I deserved to stand above all those people, purely due to circumstances of birth.
Not that I’m one to speak about “circumstances of birth,” of course. Mine were more of a curse than a blessing.
“In Chaldea, I was…”
Gilgamesh—the man standing in front of me, looking both vexed and expectant—sighed deeply. As if he had surmised everything from those few words.
He did seem to possess a potent clairvoyance ability, as I recall.
“So the presence lurking in the corner of my vision since I first deigned to lend Chaldea my aid was you, then.”
I made no attempt at replying. What did he really know, after all?
“If you continue to keep mum, I shall truly take this as an insult, mongrel. You may not count yourself among the living, but you are not yet among the dead. It is a thousand years too early for you to wash your hands of your responsibility to this world. To the world of the Age of Man, which none other than I declared, and you failed to protect.”
He pointed at me, accusingly.
Once upon a time, I may have become angry.
Now, none of it reaches me.
Even when Father’s favorite—that man, Kirschtaria, whom he considered more of his successor than his own daughter—taunts me, I feel nothing.
I have no words to refute the truth.
No words to deny my failure.
“I am—”
“Yes, yes, a leader who perished alone and friendless. One whom nobody understood or accepted, and was hated by her people. What, ‘tis a tale I know very well. After all, there was a time when I was exactly the same.”
“You…” His words reverberated in the void. In the void of the space around us, and in the void of my soul.
Before me was King Gilgamesh of Uruk, one of the most famous and pivotal figures in human history. The man who rejected his own divinity, and declared mankind’s independence from the Age of Gods. The hero of one of humanity’s oldest tales, the Epic of Gilgamesh.
And he says he understands, because he was just like me?
Don’t make me laugh, Your Highness. If I could still laugh, that is.
“We are not the same. You had a… friend.”
“Ha! I did have a friend, yes. And, unlike you, I grew out of my tyrannical phase—well, perhaps I remained somewhat tyrannical, but I learned to be a ruler my people could rely upon, thanks to that friend of mine.”
Of course. We’re nothing alike. This man was just mocking me, like those Crypters so enjoy doing.
I looked down.
Gilgamesh continued, undeterred.
“Do you know the difference between you and me, mongrel? Besides the laughably vast difference in status, that is. I lived in the Age of Gods. When I died, I could simply rely on my divinity, or on the gods to bring me back. You have only perished once; I was practically a regular customer at the Gates of Kur.”
I felt hollow—more hollow than a being of void normally feels.
One part of me I wished I could send this Servant away, and never see him again.
But, at the same time, I couldn’t help being drawn in by his words, like Tantalus to the sweet water he desperately craved.
“But did you truly not have a friend, mongrel? Not one?”
I—
My words caught in my throat.
Yes, that is a figure of speech—this form of mine has only the echo of such an organ.
I never had any friends. There were some people with whom I was on friendly terms, but I was the heir of an important mage family, after all; I only saw friendship in terms of an exchange of value, an alliance for mutual benefit. Once the relationship ceased to be beneficial, it would end. That is what it means to be a mage. Everyone knows that.
…But when I came to Chaldea, I met someone who may have been different.
I leaned on him for years, and he helped me execute my responsibilities, despite my utter incompetence.
Lev Lainur.
The creator of the Near-Future Observation Lens SHEBA, and self-described “traditional” mage. Without his assistance, Chaldea’s Rayshift technology would never have been realized.
“Perhaps… there was one I mistook for a friend. But he betrayed me.” I gazed directly at Gilgamesh with dark, starry eyes. “He… killed me. He made me like this.”
“Ha ha ha ha ha ha!”
His raucus laughter startled me. In another time, I may have become annoyed. What is so funny about my death and betrayal?
“Now that is a riot! Truly, a masterwork! Had Siduri been here, I would have commanded her to have the court scribes mark down this moment as ‘His Majesty experiences great abdominal pain.’”
“Are you mocking me, King Gilgamesh?”
I couldn’t help but speak out.
Even a distant reflection of a person has their limits.
“Mocking you? Of course I am, Olga Marie Animusphere!”
“Do not use… that name…”
“If I should not use your name, then why have I suffered you using mine, mongrel? For me to call even this shadow to which you have fallen by your name is a more of an honor than ever you experienced in life!”
“If that’s true… it’s not an honor I deserve.”
“Ha! You great fool. So, you truly think that because this man betrayed and murdered you, that means you were never friends? What a naïve little girl you are.”
I suppose I can’t dispute the latter point. But I still don’t understand the former.
Gilgamesh rubbed his forehead in exasperation.
“Must I explain everything to you? You really cannot keep up a joke, can you. Very well.”
He looked away, into the hazy distance of the void.
“My only friend—Enkidu—betrayed me at the very end, too.”
What?
That’s not part of the Epic of Gilgamesh.
Or is this something that happened in the Singularity?
“Well, to be precise, his body was taken over by a minion of a primordial deity, a Beast of Disaster, who wielded it against me. And my civilization.”
“…!”
“What, so you finally have caught on, have you, mongrel? Do you now see how you nearly gave me abdominal cramps?”
“Lev was…”
“You will not tell me you diverted your eyes from this truth, I trust.”
“The man in Fuyuki… he wasn’t…”
“Ha ha ha ha! Is it not truly hilarious how much your pathetic life story finds echoes in my own great tale? And you say you had nary a friend in the world, because your only confidant betrayed you! Were it not so amusing, I would not even consider letting such a statement pass.”
I stayed silent. It seemed as though Gilgamesh had said what he wanted to say, though, so he did not press me for any more responses.
“Goodbye, o shadow of a former director. I hardly think we will meet again, except on the field of the final battle.”
As suddenly has he had appeared, he vanished, and the endless white void returned.
Lev Lainur…
The name that produced such complex feelings in me, even in this empty form.
“Lev…”
I spoke out loud—or whatever passes as “out loud” in this void.
Then I closed my eyes, and fell into an empty slumber.
Perhaps I would see another pleasant dream—perhaps it would be yet another nightmare.
Perhaps I would wake with a nostalgic name on my lips.