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“Your summoning was the undoing of my entire family! My mother, my father — all dead because you cheered that shitty priest on!”
Gilgamesh looks at Rin, looks at the betrayal shining in her teary eyes, and thinks: ‘I shan’t apologize, but I should offer her my comfort, as king.’
“What makes you think Kirei wouldn’t have done the same if I hadn’t intervened, you fool? ” He says instead.
There is now a spark — no, much more incendiary than that, an explosion perhaps — of burning fury added to the cocktail of unbridled emotions that is Rin Tohsaka, her calm facade cracking underneath the pressure and raw anger, raw heat, exposing her true temper underneath. It glitters like a gem, red sharp and beautiful, akin to one of those rubies she’s so fond of.
“Seriously? Spare me the theatrics, O King of Heroes!” Gilgamesh’s lips pull back, baring his teeth, but Rin carries on, not one to back down, even in front of an irate legend. “Regardless of your thesis on Kotomine’s sadistic tendencies, at the end of the day, I’m still all alone!”
‘Oh, if only her father had half the spine his daughter had.’ he mused to himself.
(but fondness gripped his heart at the brash behavior nonetheless, unwillingly as he was.
unwilling as he had been when unease briefly crawled through his throat when he arrived at the tohsaka estate after the climax of the war, dressed in kotomine’s spare clothing, to find the barefooted child of his dead summoner at the foyer. bundled in a blanket and waiting on someone that would never cross through the door.
at the time he regarded it as a leftover spell imbued in the magic circle of his summoning. tokiomi for all his faults, cowardice the most damning, was a man who valued his family, so it wouldn’t be bizarre if the mage added family protection clauses to the whole golden bodyguard shtick he’d been summoned into.
although, in the back of his mind, he knew that with both the man and their contract non-existent, dead, broken, the likeliness was
zero) .
“Hah.” Gilgamesh spat, daily quota of tiny itty bitty patience spent. Fool or not, fond or not, disrespect was not something he tolerated.
“Once again, I did not ask your father to participate in the Holy Grail war. I did not ask your father to summon me, brat — so tell me, how is it all my fault that you ended up alone?”
Her mouth opened on reflex to respond, but before she could spit criticisms out, lightning-quick, the King trampled on.
“You would likely have lost him regardless. Do you think him the sole magus casualty in the war? Did you not consider that one of the other Masters would have dispatched him?”
Rin stared at Gilgamesh from across the elegant coffee table that separated them while he condescendingly explained how much of a fool she was for pinning the sole blame on him; their afternoon snack forgotten between them, as was the pleasant ambiance of their early evening get together.
The bitter knowledge that this golden asshole had imparted on her (although at her request) choked the air out of her lungs, burnt through her veins up to her fingertips, and fanned the fire in her abdomen, until Rin was sure that if she was to put her hands on the table, it would catch fire. Just like her home life. Just like Fuyuki did nine years ago.
(nine years, for nine years he had been her sole companion after her mother died. sure she had eventually made some friends at school, but their friendship, just like their knowledge of rin tosahka was shallow. her life and her status as a mage made it so.
he had been her only company because somewhere along the way, after their chance encounter in the foyer of her home, gilgamesh took to popping up at least three times a month to check if she was still alive, dropping assorted items he thought she required— but that truly no child had a need for.
ten year old her had been tempted to try the wine he’d gifted her but opted for the fancy cheese instead. after that, like an enthusiastic immigrant parent who had just learned their child liked x or y product, the heroic spirit had taken to dropping copious amounts of cheese of all shapes and sizes every month at the tohsaka mansion. at this point, the mage was sure she was developing some sort of lactose intolerance.
eventually, they had begun to get along.
she always knew when kotomine was out of town, well before her guardian informed her, because gilgamesh would plonk his expensive ass on her living room and simply not leave through the entire duration of the priest’s voyage. harassing her, accompanying her on errands, cooking with her - never for her because ‘a king doesn’t cook for his subjects’. she hated it.
she loved it.)
Instinctively, Rin knew that at least in the beginning, he had been checking up on her out of morbid curiosity (she’d always been a better judge of character than her father) — like a child entertained by watching an ant they’d injured trying to drag themselves back to their nest. And that had never bothered her, until now.
Now she looked him in the eye and found him lacking remorse, indignation shaping her face up reflexively into a sneer.
“Your job was to protect him! If he had died anyway, it'd still be your fault!”
He, like he always did when she'd have a tantrum, mirrored her behavior.
Hair seemingly standing on end, resembling a particularly bitchy blonde cat with a god complex (yet with an aversion to divinity itself). Without a doubt, the two of them would make quite the sight to any unassuming spectators that stumbled into this particular scene. What a duo, a sixteen-year-old mage nearing eruption and four thousand or something-year-old twink going at it in a fancy living room that had seen better days, dusty as it was.
(rin had tried to keep her house squeaky clean for the first year, using a myriad of spells and actual physical work. to her child self, if it remained spotless maybe she could pretend she wasn’t the sole occupant of the house. if she kept it spotless maybe her father and mother would walk in through the door one day — maybe with sakura on hand — as if nothing had ever happened.
maybe that had been why she welcomed the blonde king into her home, although distrustful of his intentions. having someone's, anyone's, company was something she craved as deeply as one craved oxygen. gilgamesh’s company was as efficient to her wellbeing as drinking water after countless days of wandering the desert was soothing on the throat.
and yet she could never forget that he was a spirit, someone entirely fleeting — even more so than a regular human.
after all, he was long dead and currently living on borrowed time.)
“My ‘job’ was to win back my treasure.” He sneered back at her, red eyes glinting dramatically in the poor lighting bathing the room.
“Tohsaka was under no impression that I'd be his golden bodyguard. I am a king. No—”, he paused, “I am the King. Not a servant.”
Gilgamesh’s agitation suddenly grew in intensity, bracelets clinking violently against each other as their master threw his hands out. “And, worst of all! That mongrel planned to use his seals to, imagine, make me, Gilgamesh, dispatch myself! The absolute nerve!”
“You’re already dead!” Rin countered, looking away from the irate blond, and yet her anger lost momentum. “What would it have mattered if….”
For a fraction of a second, she envisioned it. Pierced by one of his golden swords, dressed casually as he currently was, a pale leopard print button-up shirt — caught in the middle of celebrating the victory, hand outstretched for a toast with her father. A beautiful red flower blooming and blooming with gold as its centerpiece until the fabric of his shirt was unrecognizable. Her father thanked him profusely and brought their cups together with a sedate clink as his servant choked on his own blood. She winced.
The young Tohsaka Heir took in air, briefly held it in, and exhaled —her remaining fury banished along with it, giving away to nauseating discomfort settling on her stomach. She sank back into the couch she’d previously been sitting on, the plush and rich fabric comprising the red cushions embracing her tired frame.
“I’m very much alive thank you, brat.” Gilgamesh sighed, energy and posture matching hers.
He settled back down against his favorite loveseat (the loveseat he’d claimed so many years ago for himself) as well, legs crossed and eerie snake-like eyes closed. “And to sully my legend like that? Debasing. I was not unprovoked in my fury.”
“:......” Rin followed his example, eyelashes fluttering shut, dyeing the world black.
The sound of expensive fabric rustling met her ears, but nothing came to pass.
(gilgamesh was always awkward when she became genuinely distraught.
when she was little and still gave herself the freedom to cry in the comfort of her own home, if he had the misfortune of catching her in the act, he’d freeze like a deer caught in the headlights of a car, readying himself for the collision that’d take his life. she’d stare at him from beneath tear-soaked eyelashes as he reached out an arm in the direction of the crown of her head, only to withdraw it at the last second. opting instead to summon something, anything, from the gate of babylon that he thought would cheer her up.
a couple of years later she’d find out that gilgamesh — masterless as he was — was running on very limited mana, as his special skill only permitted him enough mana to keep existing. as such those moments were anything but cost-free to the blond. )
When his voice reverberated through the quiet room, it lacked its previous haughtiness. Diplomatic even.
“It is unfortunate that his death, and my involvement in it, has caused you pain, for I—”
Rin kept her eyes firmly closed.
“—for I am fond of your companionship. If you care not so see me again, I shall entertain myself somewhere else.”
“You’re not sorry about it, are you.” It wasn’t a question, she knew the answer to that the moment this argument started, but a soft-spoken statement that weighted on them both. Momentarily Rin considered not opening her eyes — that way she couldn’t see the confirmation in his eyes. Fool herself just for a little while longer.
Their gaze met.
She wished that she could see the gears turning in the king's head, considering if lying or omission was an option, for once. But as always Gilgamesh was nothing but brutally honest, he had, after all, offered up the information that had sparked this fight with no amount of reluctance.
“No,” he answered, matter-of-factly, “I am displeased, as I said, that it brings you pain. But, I made the choices that I made, and I would not alter them, given the chance."
Her heart clenches and she thinks: ‘Even so, you’re the only person that remotely knows me, that harbors no pity for me, that treats me like an adult and yet looks after my wellbeing — albeit in a strange, not entirely useful way.
I don’t want you to ever leave.’
“Alright. Leave me alone then.” She says, instead.
True to his word, the king of Uruk leaves.
Rin Tosahka sits alone, long after Gilgamesh made himself scarce. The moon, peeking in through the open blinds, illuminates the interior of the living room.
It should be comforting.
It isn’t.
Because just like she knows the moon rises every night, she knows in every single world imaginable, Rin Tosahka ends up fatherless at the end of the Fourth Grail War.
No matter the variants that made up the equation — Gilgamesh, no Gilgamesh, Kotomine, no Kotomine, mighty victor or not— Tokiomi Tohsaka would die. After all, she had gone through her father's study, she'd read through both the writings on Akasha and other's mage accounts on attempts to reach the Root.
Furthermore, just like she knows the moon rises every night, she knows the Tosahka's ruin came to be from the very thing that made them the prestigious family they were in the first place.