Meanwhile...
At that exact moment, Gilgamesh had already come face-to-face with another version of himself.
The man who now stood as the wise King of Heroes faced the tyrant he had once been.
Two Gilgameshes.
Two Kings of Heroes.
Standing directly before one another beneath the clear night sky.
The moon hung high above the mountains, its pale light spilling over the surrounding forest while a cool breeze rustled through the trees.
Off to one side stood Iskandar and Professor El-Melloi II, silently watching the encounter unfold.
Rin and Illya were nearby as well, each accompanied by their Servant as they witnessed the confrontation between the two kings.
"How amusing. Another version of this king?"
The Gilgamesh clad from head to toe in gleaming golden armor curled his lips into a cruel, arrogant smile.
Even when facing another version of himself, he had absolutely no intention of lowering his pride.
"That revolting arrogance..." Iskandar rubbed his chin and sighed in amazement. "Yeah, that's definitely him."
Actually seeing the enemy he had once fought still alive in the modern world produced a feeling completely different from simply hearing about it.
"Oh? The King of Conquerors is here as well..." The golden-armored Gilgamesh gave a low snort while silently assessing everyone around him.
"It seems quite a few interesting things have happened."
From his perspective, everything before him was bizarre beyond belief.
Another version of himself stood directly ahead.
An enemy he had already defeated—someone who should never have appeared before him again—was standing nearby.
And both impossible things had happened simultaneously.
Even someone as absurdly self-confident as Gilgamesh could not help weighing the situation carefully.
Far too many unexpected things had happened recently, and even his normally limitless confidence had begun taking a few blows.
His gaze quietly shifted toward Berserker standing beside Illya.
His eyes narrowed.
He had already begun preparing himself in secret.
"Stop overthinking it."
The older Gilgamesh spoke clearly.
"Tonight, this king merely came to see you. None of them intend to do anything to you."
The golden-armored Gilgamesh sneered.
"Hmph. And why should this king believe you? This is a war. One should naturally prepare against every possible threat."
His eyes sharpened.
"And another thing—who permitted you to call yourself 'this king' in front of this king?!"
The older Gilgamesh sighed.
He was not particularly angry.
After all...
He knew himself better than anyone.
That was exactly the kind of thing he would have said back then.
"This king is you. Do you really believe you can hide your thoughts from me?"
"What a ridiculous arrogance!" the younger Gilgamesh snapped. "This king has already said it: before this king, only this king may refer to himself as 'this king!' Even if you are another version of me, you will follow that rule!"
The older Gilgamesh stared at him for a moment.
"Knowing this was my own personality in the past somehow makes it even more exhausting..."
"No matter where you came from, even if you truly are another version of this king, there can only be one king in this world! If you really are me, then you should understand that perfectly well!"
The golden Gilgamesh spread his arms wide, his expression overflowing with pride.
His meaning could not have been clearer.
This world had no room for two kings!
The older Gilgamesh released a helpless sigh.
"Looks like we'll have to fight after all."
"FUHAHAHAHAHA! Exactly!"
The younger Gilgamesh laughed wildly, the sound rolling through the quiet mountain forest.
"If we wish to decide which of us is the one true king, there is only one answer—battle!"
He raised one arm toward the man opposite him, excitement and arrogance burning together in his crimson eyes.
"Another me! Come! Let this king see what kind of caliber the future version of myself possesses!"
The golden-armored Gilgamesh standing there was the embodiment of his own past: a younger King of Heroes whose temperament remained violent, tyrannical, and unchecked.
Standing opposite him was the king who had survived that youthful madness, endured loss, understood himself, and eventually emerged from those experiences with wisdom.
One was the reckless tyrant of the past.
The other was the wise king that tyrant would eventually become.
If these two truly collided here, then it would be a battle between past and future selves in the most literal sense.
"You really haven't changed at all~"
At that moment, a gentle voice carrying a faint hint of teasing drifted through the night breeze.
The tyrant who belonged to the past froze the instant he heard it.
His body stiffened.
His expression went blank.
In the epic of the man called Gilgamesh, no matter how much the king changed throughout the course of his life, there had always been one person beside him.
Until death tore them apart.
The one and only friend of that lonely, arrogant, impossibly stubborn king.
Rustle... rustle...
Soft footsteps moved across the fallen leaves.
Enkidu emerged into view.
The golden Gilgamesh's expression instantly became extraordinarily complicated.
"You too... Enkidu..."
He spoke slowly and quietly, his attention shifting completely away from the older Gilgamesh and locking onto the figure dressed entirely in white.
Under the bright moonlight, Enkidu's pale robes and serene features gave them an almost ethereal quality.
"Gil. It's been a long time."
Enkidu tilted their head and greeted the younger Gilgamesh with a gentle smile.
The golden Gilgamesh swallowed.
Even his eyebrows twitched unconsciously.
"Didn't I tell you not to come out?" the older Gilgamesh immediately complained, obvious displeasure appearing on his face.
"What are you doing here?"
As the person who understood his younger self better than anyone, he knew perfectly well what Enkidu's appearance was going to do.
It would only provoke the past version of himself even further.
"Hehe. Am I not allowed to come out?"
Enkidu smiled playfully.
As a being fashioned by the gods, Enkidu transcended ordinary distinctions of male and female.
Their beauty possessed a broad, almost universal quality, neither confined to masculinity nor femininity.
And watching Enkidu interact so casually with another version of himself...
The golden Gilgamesh slowly clenched one fist.
He was genuinely furious now!
If his desire to fight the older Gilgamesh had been a ten before...
His desire to kill this other version of himself had just risen straight to the maximum.
Iskandar watched the younger Gilgamesh's expression change and rubbed his chin with profound seriousness.
"Hmm... the atmosphere does seem more dangerous than it was a moment ago."
By the time Gilgamesh and the others returned, several more customers had already arrived at the restaurant. It was open for business, after all, so naturally people had continued coming and going while they were away.
Sitting in the seats the King of Heroes and his group had occupied earlier were Sengoku and Garp, with Whitebeard beside them.
The two sides had once stood firmly as enemies, yet seeing the three men sitting together now felt strangely harmonious. They had come to the restaurant in search of an answer, and during the time before Gilgamesh returned, it seemed they had already found what they were looking for.
So once Gilgamesh and the others came back, Whitebeard, Sengoku, and Garp rose to leave.
Yuto said goodbye to each of them before turning his attention toward the returning group.
Compared with when he left, Gilgamesh now had noticeably more dust clinging to his clothes, clear evidence that whatever happened in Illya's world had not been entirely peaceful. His expression, however, was the complete opposite. The King of Heroes looked relaxed and deeply satisfied.
"Did you settle it?"
Yuto asked curiously as everyone returned to their original seats.
Gilgamesh gave him a casual smile.
From that expression alone, Yuto could already tell that the matter had been resolved.
Still, he could not help feeling a little disappointed.
Gilgamesh immediately noticed.
"What is it, Kamisaka? You seem disappointed."
Yuto shrugged and smiled.
"I thought you might bring the other version of yourself back to the restaurant. Looks like I was expecting too much."
"That man is unbearably rude and arrogant. Bringing him here would only disgrace this king."
Gilgamesh showed absolutely no mercy even when insulting another version of himself.
Yuto stared at him for a moment before smiling helplessly.
"All right, then."
He decided not to point out the obvious.
Instead, he turned toward Rin and Illya.
"You two aren't going back?"
Yuto looked genuinely puzzled.
He had assumed the girls would return directly to their own world after everything was over. They were still participants in the Holy Grail War, after all, and the main reason they had remained in the restaurant earlier was to meet the other people who came from the same world.
Now that they had accomplished that, leaving would have seemed like the natural choice.
Yet both girls had followed Gilgamesh and the others back.
Rin gave him an awkward smile.
She had originally intended to return immediately.
Unfortunately, Illya had other plans.
The little girl had been completely determined to come back to the restaurant first, and after hesitating for quite a while, Rin had ultimately decided to follow her.
Considering their current circumstances...
Staying close to Illya seemed like the safest option.
After all...
Berserker was strong.
This was not cowardice!
This was simply the Tohsaka heiress demonstrating excellent tactical judgment. Knowing when to borrow someone else's strength was also an essential quality for any intelligent person.
"No! I'm staying here and waiting for Heracles!"
Illya puffed out her cheeks and answered Yuto with complete seriousness.
Yuto could only smile helplessly before nodding.
At that moment, Gilgamesh suddenly glanced toward the entrance.
"Who were those people who just left?"
"Why?"
Yuto looked at him curiously.
"That enormous man just now..." Gilgamesh narrowed his eyes slightly. "This king sensed the presence of another ruler from him."
He was referring to Whitebeard.
Yuto could not help smiling.
The presence of a king...
If one insisted on describing Whitebeard that way, it was not exactly wrong.
"He's just a pirate."
Gilgamesh visibly looked surprised.
However, his expression quickly returned to normal.
"Even if he is a pirate, he must be an extraordinary ruler. Otherwise, he would never possess an aura capable of earning this king's acknowledgment."
Yuto nodded.
That much was certainly true.
He had personally seen how Whitebeard's crew looked at their captain. The absolute trust, loyalty, and devotion they held toward him were not things that could be obtained merely through strength.
Only someone with the bearing of a true leader could inspire that kind of faith.
And the reason Whitebeard had come to the restaurant alongside Sengoku and Garp today was closely tied to the future of their world.
Ever since Saitama's punch had completely overturned the situation surrounding the Celestial Dragons, the balance of that world had been shaken on an enormous scale. With the Celestial Dragons gone, the Marines could no longer simply continue along the same path as before. Sengoku, Garp, and the rest of the Marine leadership had been forced to seriously reconsider what kind of future they wanted to build.
After encountering Yuto and learning that there were worlds beyond their own, they had become even more cautious about choosing that path.
If the problem had merely been pirates, the Marines could still have declared without hesitation that they would suppress them.
But things were no longer that simple.
The existence of a passage connecting their world to others had forced them to rethink far more than the relationship between pirates and Marines. The fact that Whitebeard had willingly come to the restaurant together with Sengoku and Garp was itself already a meaningful signal.
Whatever happened next, their world was clearly beginning to change.
At that moment, Yuuka and Esdeath returned.
Yuuka looked exactly as composed as when she left, though the slight upward curve at the corner of her lips revealed that she was in an unusually good mood.
Esdeath, on the other hand...
Something was clearly wrong with her.
Her eyes were unfocused, and her entire expression looked strangely numb, almost as though she had just endured some overwhelming ordeal that had left her mentally shattered.
Yuto's sharp eyes quickly noticed that her hands and feet were trembling as well.
And around her neck...
There was a faint red ring.
Esdeath said nothing.
She merely turned around with stiff, almost mechanical movements and walked straight back out of the restaurant.
Yuto watched her leave before slowly turning toward Yuuka.
"She... is okay, right?"
"She's fine. We merely had a simple conversation."
Yuuka answered calmly, her expression perfectly composed, as though she were describing something utterly insignificant.
Yuto's eyebrow twitched.
To be honest...
He found it rather difficult to believe that what happened between those two could reasonably be described as a "simple conversation."
...
When Esdeath returned to her own world, she was still visibly dazed.
She staggered along the road toward her residence, her steps unsteady enough that several servants immediately noticed something was wrong and hurried toward her.
They never managed to get close.
Before any of them could reach her, ice spread across their bodies and froze them solid where they stood.
Esdeath continued past them without a word.
She entered her room alone, locked the door behind her, and leaned heavily against it.
Then she suddenly bent forward and began retching.
Again and again, her body convulsed.
But nothing came out.
...
Back at the restaurant, Sakura and Hestia finally arrived.
The moment Yuto saw the two of them walk through the door, some of the tension he had been carrying throughout the entire day finally eased.
Neither Sakura nor Hestia had appeared even once after the gods' meeting, and although he had tried not to assume the worst, he had inevitably spent the day worrying about what might have happened.
Simply seeing both of them standing there safely was already enough to reassure him.
Their expressions, however, were subdued.
Sakura and Hestia walked quietly to the counter and sat down.
Yuto poured each of them a glass of water before studying their faces.
"Are you two all right?"
Hestia answered with a long, exhausted sigh.
That alone told him plenty.
Clearly...
Things had not gone well.
Off to the side, Rin happened to glance toward the newcomers.
The instant her eyes landed on Sakura, her expression changed completely.
She stared at the little girl.
Her body trembled slightly.