บท 1035: 49
049 - Meanwhile, everywhere else… (2)
Fuyuki City sewers/?
There are mentions in Ancient China's myth of an unparalleled method to create poison. By capturing a multitude of poisonous creatures and confining them all together in an enclosed space without anything to eat but each other, one ensured they would indeed turn on each other. And bite and sting and writhe and struggle in their desperate bid for survival.
By the end, only one would remain, the strong and most poisonous of them all. Not only that, but the surviving one would be conceptually enhanced by every consumed creature, granting it's poison potency beyond all others, such that even the mightiest and strongest of beasts would be felled by it.
This creature of myth is called a Gũ.
They are creatures of hatred and hunger, said to devour entire populations if they ever escape containment. Fortunately, they don't happen naturally and are usually created with the specific purpose of being promptly turned into poison. Their lives are short and devoid of any meaning beyond becoming material components of something greater than themselves.
Ironic, when one considers the intense desire for survival that gives them birth in the first place.
A hidden chamber in the sewers isn't exactly a dark magician's brewing pot and the crest worms of a fallen magus, now dead and forgotten, aren't the usual sacrifices dedicated to the creation of the ultimate poison. But some of the underlying principles remain.
If you put together countless carnivorous worms, deprive them of any sustenance and take away their ability to leave to find it by themselves, sooner or later they'll turn on each other in a feeding frenzy. Whatever mechanisms were once in place to keep them gregarious and collaborative, will sooner or later be overwhelmed by their base hunger.
And there, in the dark and confined crypt that was once intended as a resurrection altar, the worms attack each other, prey on each other and devour each other. The victorious consumes and inherit everything from the losers, only to be in turn devoured by other survivors. This process continues until only one remains.
As a bizarre upside-down flow, everything rising from the bottom to the peak. Their flesh, yes. Their fangs, their stingers and thorns. But also their hunger and their malice, their magic circuits, their curses, the little, near-insignificant fragments of the Matou Crest carried by each of the individual bodies. Their sins and their karma.
By the time the last corpse is devoured, a single maggot remains on the dark and dampened crypt, white as bone and crowned with spikes. It wears a segmented armor to protect the soft body underneath, dense chitin built upon the bodies of it's once-peers.
It/us is… Aware. If barely. It/us… isn't, couldn't possibly be, Matou. For the Matou are no more. But then… What are we/it, pale as death itself, carrying the Matou Crest without being their legitimate owner?
… Or maybe we/it is the legitimate owner, after all?
Where did… when did… how did the Matou Crest come to be, in the first place.
It was… something important, something shameful.
The command of a great King, a noble task I/we/it failed to fulfill. I/we/it that once lied within the Crest, waiting for my/our/its moment, only to fall short of what should've been an easy task when the time came. But… remembering is hard. It carries a lot of static, no doubt consequence of the haphazard process that saw me/us/it being born in the first place.
The maggot (I!/Us!) opens an eye in the middle of its (My! Our!) head. Its a round and bright thing, shining red like a polished jewel, with an oddly-shaped pupil that reminds of a black, four-pointed star. With it we/us can finally look around and see.
There's a sense of… dissonance. Of confusion.
But is it really…? —re they? Those memories? –re we/I really…
B̷̝̘̒̏ã̴̜͇͙r̷̿̔͛ͅb̸̪͎̅͐a̶̝̚ṭ̸̡̂͌õ̴̰̤̿̍ș̸̨͓͐͠?
Then, as I/we/it finally start making out the room around us, a golden gauntlet descends to pick me/us/it from the ground and remind them/us/me what fear feels like.
Gilgamesh, King of Heroes.
As I raise the worm to examine it more closely, I have to restrain the urge to simply clench my fist and end my misery. Is this really all that remains? From two fools borne of dreams too big for them to accomplish, the idealist hero who rotted from then inside out and the harebrained scheme of a king who dared to call himself wise.
"You are a pathetic, disgusting little thing, aren't you?" I sneer at the thing shivering in my open palm. "Maybe a swift death would be a mercy for beings like you."
Even as the thing's shivering intensifies, new eyes sprout from its body. Growing through the crevices of its armor in a bizarre yet orderly fashion, frantically and unseemingly searching for escape routes that don't exist. With every passing second, it looks more like what it was designed to be. With every passing second, it grows more clear that it will never truly become it.
It disgusts me to have this thing touching even my gauntleted hand. Normally, a revolting thing like this would be beneeath my notice, much less worth my touch. But it bears a certain poetic justice, to use a revolting thing to end another revolting thing.
A King rarely bothers with excessive subterfuge. But just because I don't have the need, doesn't mean I don't have the ability. And the way the stray scurries about with his plans and plots, believing himself cunning, tickles me the wrong way.
Maybe a lesson about misdirection and how a real scheme works out is in order, just this one time.
"Rejoice, Mongrels!" I announce to the empty chambers, containing every single creature in this world I deem worth sparing words for. "For your King will deign himself to teach you how to properly do things! Mwaha—hahahahaha!"
Illyasviel von Einzbern
As the warm shower water falls over my body, I allow myself to close my eyes and try to relax. It doesn't work very well. Today has been… a long and tiring day and I'm dead on my feet but… it's also been an eventful day, and I can't close my eyes without my mind stirring with memories of… everything.
From the moment I woke up at Rin's home in the morning to our trudging walk through the forest to reach the Einzbern Manor just minutes away, the day has been… intense.
My attempts at reading deeper into Rin and Onii-chan's conversation during their school break and the way my heart skipped a beat when he revealed he was aware of my spying. The nerve-wracking planning for our fight with his faction in the evening and the way it all went sideways when we failed to bait Caster out.
My pathetic and humiliating fight with Onii-chan can hardly be called such, my own Mysteries not so much unveiled as they were outright denied by his weird [Corrosion] magecraft. Swiftly and effortlessly, without causing him any apparent strain. And then… his slow and methodical wrecking of my pride and self-worth as he proceeded to beat me with thrown snowballs.
After that… the dinner.
My arms wrap tightly across my chest, letting hot water pool there as I remember the mixed feelings of that event. From incredulity and indignation to resignation and trepidation to shame and arousal, I discovered things about myself that I never expected to learn.
From being decorated like a fanciful dish by the surprisingly expert hands of Rin's little sister (and wasn't that a surprise to discover, too) to being served as the centerpiece of a banquet for an entire room to relish in the sight of my naked and tied down body while I could only guess at what was happening around me through the blindfold around my eyes.
I remember Onee-chan taking a piece of sushi from my inner thigh, needlessly dragging it along my skin before taking it to her mouth and making clear and excessively loud sounds of delight to make sure I could clearly picture the scene unveiling beyond my blindfold.
I remember Onii-chan exposing my nipple for everyone in the room to see, shamefully revealing my arousal with it's erect state.
I remember Berserker dipping a slice of fatty tuna in the soy sauce Rin's sister took great delight in pouring on my navel halfways through the dinner. I'm sure the traitorous Servant had a perfectly straight face while doing so, but she couldn't quite hide her amusement from our bond.
There's no doubt she was laughing at me.
The question is, did she enjoy my predicament in the same fashion so many others at the table did? I've spent months working on her, a bit of humiliation that I ended up enjoying would hardly be too high a cost for finally getting her attention that way.
My arms clench tighter, pressing on my breast in a way that's not really sensual, but comes close enough to it to send little jolts of pleasure down my spine.
Anyway, that event revealed things about myself I never expected to learn. Maybe… Maybe all those fantasies about tying down people to have my wicked way with them weren't so much a direct expression of my desires, but a twisted reversal influenced by my upbringing.
I'll have to think long and hard about it before coming to a decision though. Very long and… very hard.
One of my hands has relaxed its grip around my chest and is snaking downwards when my brain decides to be a bitch and progresses further into the recollection. After dinner, we got back to Tohsaka's house and…
They really looked like corpses, at first.
I hold back the urge to leave the shower and run to the next room to confirm once more that Leysritt and Sella are okay. They are. Because Lancer is a right bastard but he only knocked them down, and even was nice enough to not give the fight his all until after Archer got them to safety.
Plus, Sella wouldn't be too pleased if I got the carpets wet by leaving the shower dripping water.
So I take my time rinsing my hair properly and toweling every inch of my body dry before wrapping a -different- towel around myself and leaving the bathroom. Leysritt and Sella are, indeed, still okay. Breathing evenly and with relaxed expression, tucked in bed together and with their hair loose, they really look like sisters.
The door of their bedroom closes with a soft click behind me when I leave them to sleep in peace. Retracing my steps, I let my naked feet take me back to my own bedroom and then… continue walking down the corridor until the next one.
I knock on that door, paying no attention to the muttered swearing coming from inside as I wait for it to open. When it does, I'm welcomed by the sight of a slightly disheveled-looking Rin wearing only an oversized black shirt that she must've found on the wardrobe and -presumably- panties underneath, looking like she's utterly done with the world.
"Yes?"
There's no hostility in her voice, just tiredness. It still causes me to swallow uncomfortably before voicing my selfish request.
"Can I sleep with you tonight?"
Her eyes harden, and she spends a whole minute silently examining me. I do my best not to fidget under her unnerving intense stare. Finally, she lets out a sigh and walks back into her room, without closing the room behind her.
"… Fine, but no hanky-panky."
I don't give her the chance to rethink her position, hoping she'll be too tired to sweat the small details as I hurriedly throw the towel I'm wearing into a corner of the room and slip underneath the sheets.
"... Illya?"
"Yes, Rin?"
"...Why are you naked?"
"I sleep naked."
There's another long silence, but this time I have the advantage of not facing her, so I can't get unnerved by any potential stare might or might not be throwing my way. Because I don't know whether she's doing that or something else. I snuggle against the pillow, happy to let her sort through whatever's going in her mind as long as it doesn't get me kicked out.
"… Oh, screw it." I must admit, the rustling sounds surprisingly reminiscent of an oversized black shirt being taken off and elastic bands being pulled down smooth legs weren't the sounds I was expecting to hear next. "Scoot over."
As I feel dainty but deceitfully strong arms gently wrap around my body and the warmth of soft breasts pressing against the naked skin of my back, I can't help reflecting on how life might still have some nice surprises reserved for me after all.
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