"Oh? You know of this king, yet you still dare to sit beside me?" Gilgamesh said, glaring at Tsutsumi with his crimson eyes.
Tsutsumi leaned back slightly on the bench, completely unfazed by the pressure in Gilgamesh's gaze. "And what kind of King has no Kingdom?" he replied casually.
The indifferent look on Gilgamesh's face twisted immediately, his expression sharpening into clear annoyance. The air around him changed at once, his patience dropping in the same instant his temper rose.
"You Mongrel," he said, his voice lower now, colder than before. "You dare insult me?"
"I'm just pointing out the obvious," Tsutsumi said, not even bothering to lower his voice. "If that alone is enough to damage your ego, then that says more about you than it does about me."
Gilgamesh's eyes narrowed.
Golden light flared around him as several gateways opened behind his back, each one glowing with the unmistakable brilliance of the Gate of Babylon. The tips of ancient swords and weapons emerged one after another, all of them turning toward Tsutsumi with killing intent.
"You have anything to say before I end you, Mongrel?" Gilgamesh asked.
Tsutsumi looked at him for a moment longer.
"Try me."
The weapons fired. In that tiny fraction of a second, Tsutsumi murmured,
"Cursed Technique Lapse: Frame-Skip."
Gilgamesh's body dropped backward as the bench beneath him vanished from under his weight, leaving him to fall straight onto the ground with no support. At the same time, the weapons released from his gates slammed down beside where Tsutsumi had just been sitting, exploding into the dirt and stone path beside him with enough force to kick up a cloud of debris.
The sudden disappearance of his seat had been enough to throw off his balance completely. He had no time to recover before his own barrage came crashing down around him.
When the dust began to settle, Tsutsumi and the bench had already reappeared behind Artoria.
Artoria, who had been watching the whole exchange, blinked once in confusion. She had noticed Gilgamesh earlier, but Tsutsumi had told her to ignore him unless he made a move toward her, so she had done exactly that.
Now Tsutsumi had appeared behind her like nothing had happened at all.
"What the? How did you-" she began.
But before she could finish, Tsutsumi reached out, pulled her down into the seat beside him, and wrapped one arm around her waist to keep her close.
"What do you think you are doing?" Artoria asked through their mental link, glaring at him with clear irritation.
"Relax. He's been watching you all day," Tsutsumi replied calmly through the same link. This'll annoy him."
Artoria paused for only a moment.
Then, instead of sitting still like a statue or moving away from disgust as being treated like a woman, she shifted closer and climbed onto his lap, leaning her body against his chest with one arm draped around his neck and her hand resting on his shoulder.
Tsutsumi: "..."
It was a little more than he had asked for, but he wasn't about to complain.
By then, the dust had fully settled.
Gilgamesh was standing again, though his expensive clothes were now dirtied and torn in places from the blast. His expression had already gone from anger to fury by the time his eyes landed on Artoria sitting on Tsutsumi's lap.
Then he noticed Tsutsumi's arm around her waist.
The red Command Seals on the back of Tsutsumi's left hand.
Gilgamesh's face twisted with disbelief and rage. "You dare use a Command Seal to force my Saber into that position!?"
Tsutsumi: "..."
"The hell do you mean by your Saber?" Tsutsumi asks in a deadpan tone, his free hand moving toward Artoria's face, placing it under her chin lightly as he said. "Can't you see? She belongs to me."
"You really are annoying." Artoria said through their mental link. But still, she kept the same expression and didn't move from her position.
The one her Master was toying with was this annoying goldie that she disliked. So she didn't mind joining in to toy with him.
After all, her Master might be annoying, but she didn't hate him as much as she hated this golden king.
Tsutsumi at least treated her like a girl that he tolerated. Gilgamesh sees her as nothing more than a treasure for him to place in his collection.
Instead of trying to calm the situation, Tsutsumi casually raised his camera to take a picture of Gilgamesh's expression before the moment could pass.
The click of the camera only seemed to make things worse.
"She is doing it willingly," Tsutsumi said, rubbing salt into the open wound.
Gilgamesh's fury exploded outward.
More golden gates opened behind him, brighter than before, filling the park with the glow of countless weapons being drawn into existence. The air grew heavy with killing intent as blade after blade emerged, all of them aimed directly at Tsutsumi and Artoria.
Artoria was about to move, ready to avoid the attack and bring her Master along with her, but Tsutsumi moved first. He let her sit down on the bench by herself. Spun around and appeared behind her in a blink, smiling faintly as he placed both hands over her ears to keep her still.
The position was close enough that it only made Gilgamesh angrier.
From where he stood, he couldn't see the dark markings that had started to appear on Tsutsumi's cheeks and tongue, but even if he had noticed them, he probably wouldn't have understood what they meant in time.
Tsutsumi glanced at Gilgamesh over Artoria's shoulder.
Then he said, "Shoot yourself."
Every blade and projectile brought out from the Gate of Babylon suddenly shifted before launch and fired straight toward their owner. The golden rain of weapons slammed into Gilgamesh in a massive burst of explosive force, sending shockwaves through the park as the King of Heroes was blasted backward again by his own arsenal.
Artoria blinked, then looked toward the impact site.
This was the second time in one night that she had seen a Servant get hit by their own attacks.
Honestly, the image she had in her head of Gilgamesh from the Fourth Grail War was starting to fade.
A little. Maybe more than a little.
Tsutsumi kept his hands lightly on her shoulders for a moment before stepping away and walking forward.
"You sit this one out," he said. "I want to see what he's got."
Gilgamesh rose from the crater he had been forced into, glaring at Tsutsumi with enough venom to split stone.
"Damn you, Mongrel. You dare use my own weapons against me?"
He didn't understand how it had happened. He didn't understand why his gate had turned on him. But he didn't care enough to look for a clean answer.
The only conclusion he had was that Tsutsumi had done it. And in Gilgamesh's mind, that was already enough.
Yes, this is Decade's fault.
Once again, more golden gates opened behind him, and another wave of weapons launched toward Tsutsumi with brutal speed.
Tsutsumi reached into his pocket, pulled out a card, and twisted it between his fingers before sliding it into his driver.
Attack Ride: Clock Up!
The world slowed. Not just the weapons, but everything.
The air, the dust, the movement of Gilgamesh's torn coat, the flicker of light on the metal blades, all of it seemed to drag into a long, stretched moment as Tsutsumi moved freely through the frozen rhythm of the battlefield.
He could see every blade coming toward him.
He could see the path they would take.
He could also see Artoria still sitting behind him, and after what he just said to her, he had no interest in leaving her in the middle of the attack.
So he reached over, picked her up, and moved her to a safer spot in a single motion before turning back toward Gilgamesh.
He stepped behind the King of Heroes and casually kicked him toward the exact place he had been standing before.
Then time resumed.
The weapons that had already been launched completed their path in a violent burst of force, slamming directly into Gilgamesh once more as he was thrown into the crossfire of his own attack.
Another explosion followed.
Artoria, now sitting in a completely different spot, looked around in confusion for a moment before spotting Gilgamesh getting hammered by his own weapons yet again.
At that point, she stopped trying to make sense of it.
Gilgamesh pushed himself up once more, glaring at Tsutsumi with a level of outrage that seemed to only keep rising.
Tsutsumi stood calmly in front of him, hands loose at his sides, as if all of this was just another round of light exercise.
"This is getting boring." he said.
That only made Gilgamesh's expression darken further.
The King of Heroes raised his hand again, and this time the response was immediate. Several gates opened around Tsutsumi without warning, the golden gateways appearing in the air beside him as if the space itself had been claimed. From them, the Chains of Heaven shot forward at high speed, aimed not just to restrain him, but to wrap around him completely before he could move.
Tsutsumi didn't even look bothered. He clapped his palms together once, and with a smooth motion, he used Boogie Woogie to switch places with Gilgamesh.
The golden chains that had been aimed at him wrapped around the King of Heroes instead. Gilgamesh's eyes widened for a split second as the binding suddenly took hold of his own body, tightening around his arms and torso and catching him off guard.
"Would you stop that already!?" Gilgamesh shouted, clearly annoyed now as he controlled the Chains of Heaven to release him. He immediately glared at Tsutsumi again, his patience visibly thinning by the second.
Tsutsumi only looked at him with the same calm expression. That seemed to be the last straw.
Gilgamesh's expression sharpened, his annoyance finally giving way to full irritation. A single gate opened behind him, carrying a larger and heavier pressure than the others. From it, he drew out Ea.
The moment he held it, the atmosphere changed.
Ea rose above his head, and the black section began to spin. The movement was slow at first, then stronger, then more violent, as red winds formed around it and began to twist and gather. The air in the park shifted under the pressure, the ground beneath them starting to strain under what was building.
Tsutsumi opened his Ride Booker and slid out a card, then casually placed it in his driver with the same casual motion he might have used to change clothes.
Attack Ride: Benevolent Shrine!
Black substance spilled out from beneath his feet. It spread quickly across the park, swallowing the ground, the trees, the benches, the path, and everything else in sight. The color drained out of the world in seconds, replaced by a dark, still expanse that stretched farther and farther until the entire park had been covered. The atmosphere changed completely, not just visually, but in the way the space itself behaved.
Gilgamesh's eyes widened. The park was gone.
He was no longer standing where he had been a moment ago, and the casual setting had been replaced entirely. Instead of an open park, he was now inside an empty train station, with a long waiting bench beside him. The place was silent, unfamiliar, and completely stripped down, as if the world had been rewritten into something simpler and more artificial.
Even his clothes had changed.
The King of Heroes looked down at himself and saw that he was now dressed in cheap black and magenta casual wear, something he would have never worn under any circumstances. He stared at it with visible disbelief, clearly offended before he had even considered what the domain itself was doing.
He tried to open a gate. Nothing happened.
He tried again. Still nothing.
His Gate of Babylon simply would not respond.
He looked down at his own hand, realizing he also now possessed a human body without his Divinity.
Gilgamesh lifted his head and looked directly at Tsutsumi, who was now standing in front of him wearing the exact same clothes, hands casually in his pockets as if the whole situation was entirely ordinary.
"What is the meaning of this?" Gilgamesh asked, his tone lower now, his irritation only increasing.
Tsutsumi didn't answer right away. He glanced around the station once, as if checking whether the space was set properly, then looked back at Gilgamesh.
"Relax," he said. "This is just how this domain works."
Gilgamesh's eyes narrowed. "Explain."
Tsutsumi's expression remained calm. "Inside this domain, we can't attack until a conclusion is reached."
That made Gilgamesh's brow crease even more.
"A conclusion?" he repeated. "What conclusion?"
Tsutsumi shrugged slightly. "We'll reach it at the end of the domain."
That didn't seem to satisfy the King of Heroes in the slightest.
He shifted his stance, clearly ready to force his way through the situation if he had to, but before he could try anything else, Tsutsumi turned away and started walking in a random direction, one hand still in his pocket.
"Come on, Gilgamesh," he said over his shoulder. "Let's go."
For a moment, Gilgamesh just stared at him.