Three days later, noon.
Uruk's sunlight was, as ever, scorching and brilliant.
The entire city was wrapped in a strange atmosphere of tension and anticipation.
Everyone, common folk and noble priests alike, set down the work in their hands and, as if by silent agreement, lifted their heads and turned their gaze toward that towering, cloud-piercing Ziggurat that represented Uruk's supreme royal authority.
They knew.
Today, two "kings" who could decide their future fate would hold a historic "meeting" up there.
One was the great "King of Heroes," Gilgamesh, who had ruled them for centuries and led them to create boundless glory.
The other was the powerful "god of trade," Seiji Fujiwara, who had descended in mystery and swept across all of Uruk with the force of thunder, bringing a brand-new "hope" and "change."
This meeting would decide the future course of Uruk, that great city-state.
Whether to continue, under the King of Heroes' leadership, toward that unknown "final battle" filled with thorns.
Or to throw themselves into the embrace of the new god, and embrace a brand-new era full of "gain" and "trade."
...
Atop the Ziggurat.
On the broad platform, a magnificent long table, ground from a single massive slab of lapis lazuli, had long since been set out.
The table was laden with every kind of the finest fruit and wine the Mesopotamian plains could produce.
The King of Heroes, Gilgamesh, wore the golden ceremonial robes that symbolized royal authority, donned only on the most formal occasions, and sat at ease in the head seat of the long table.
A trace of a composed smile rested on his face, as if everything lay within his grasp.
Behind him stood the High Priestess Siduri, and that expressionless, green-haired priest, Kingu.
Time passed, minute by minute, second by second.
Soon, the appointed noon hour arrived.
"My King." Siduri glanced at the sun, which had already climbed to its highest point in the sky, a faint, scarcely perceptible impatience showing on her face. "That man... still hasn't come."
"No need to rush, Siduri." Gilgamesh's tone remained as level as ever. "A true guest always makes his entrance last."
The words had barely left his mouth.
A massive roar, as though the very sky had been torn open, came up from beneath their feet without the slightest warning.
The entire Ziggurat shuddered violently.
"Wh... what?!"
The faces of Siduri and Kingu changed in an instant.
They could clearly feel a divine power, so vast it set them trembling, brimming with the breath of the sun, surging upward in the most savage, most unreasonable manner, from the very bottom of the Ziggurat, smashing its way up with fury.
Boom after boom rang out from below, one crash after another.
The Ziggurat's walls began to show fine, dense cracks.
Countless fragments of stone came raining down from the vault above.
"An... an attack?!" Disbelief was written all over Siduri's face.
That man...
He had actually...
He hadn't come to "attend the banquet" at all?
He'd come to "tear down the tower"?
"Hahaha... Hahahahaha!"
Yet, faced with this sudden, provocation-laden "assault," Gilgamesh, far from showing any anger, threw back his head and roared with laughter.
"Interesting! Truly interesting!"
"It seems I underestimated you after all, false god from a foreign land!"
"You actually dare to answer my invitation in such a manner!"
"Good! Very good!"
In his eyes burned a long-absent fighting spirit, the searing battle-lust of the "King of Heroes."
"Siduri! Kingu!"
"Stand back!"
With that, he rose from his throne.
Golden ripples surfaced quietly behind him.
Countless Noble Phantasms, each gleaming with its own light, thrust their "fangs" out from within the ripples.
And in that very moment.
With a thunderous crash, three figures rose up out of the enormous crater.
At their head was the black-haired man with the kindly smile always resting on his face, Seiji Fujiwara.
Behind him, on his left, stood the King of Knights clad in pitch-black dragon armor and wielding a sinister demonic sword, Saber Alter.
On his right was the war goddess wreathed head to toe in divine solar flame, a hot-blooded grin on her face, the Feathered Serpent, Quetzalcoatl.
It was she who, just now, had used her love-filled Lucha Libre to punch straight through this Ziggurat, the symbol of Uruk's supreme royal authority, from its very foundation.
"Sorry, sorry, King Gilgamesh."
Seiji Fujiwara hovered in midair, wearing a false smile.
"I got a little lost on the way here, so I had to resort to a small trick."
"I hope I haven't disturbed your luncheon."
His words were full of provocation.
"It's no matter."
Gilgamesh looked at him, the smile on his face growing all the more radiant.
"The banquet has only just begun."
"But before we dine, there's a question I'd like to put to you."
His gaze swept past Seiji and landed on the two figures behind him, the "god" and the "Heroic Spirit" whose auras were utterly different.
"You, a mere mortal."
"By what means, exactly, did you make a sun goddess fight for you?"
"And how did you make the King of Knights of Britain, who should long ago have faded away, reappear in this world in such a... defiled form?"
"This does not conform to the rules."
"Rules?"
Hearing this, Seiji smiled.
"King Gilgamesh."
He slowly spread his arms, as though to embrace the whole world.
"In this game board where I have descended..."
"...I am the only rule!"
Gilgamesh's eyes narrowed slightly.
From those seemingly arrogant words, he sensed a "self" and an "absoluteness" that shared his own origin, even purer than his own.
That was no mortal's bluster.
It was a declaration belonging to a "definer," one who truly set his own existence above the world.
"Hahaha! Well said!"
Gilgamesh, far from growing angry, burst out laughing again, his laughter full of appreciation.
"It seems you're no mere opportunist with a few cheap tricks. You truly possess the capacity to stand as my equal!"
"In that case!"
The golden ripples behind him swelled abruptly. Hundreds upon thousands of Noble Phantasms, like venomous snakes coiled and ready to strike, cast the entire sky in a grim, deadly gold.
"Then let me see whether your so-called rule can withstand the weight of the world itself!"
"Go!"
At his command, the magnificent downpour of Noble Phantasms, capable of leveling mountains to flat ground, transformed without the slightest hesitation into golden meteors that ripped through the firmament, raining down upon the three of them.
Yet, faced with this world-ending, sky-shattering attack, Seiji couldn't even be bothered to move.
He merely gave a concise command to the beautiful war goddess beside him, who'd long since been itching for action.
"Quetzal."
"Clear the field."
"Ohhh ohhh! Leave it to me, Master!"
The Feathered Serpent let out a roar full of fervor and excitement.
In her golden eyes burned a blazing will to fight.
Finally!
Finally she could once again, with no reservations, enjoy the finest Lucha Libre!
"Let you cold, soulless lumps of iron feel the love of the sun!"
She roared, her whole body turning into a golden "sun" brimming with life, charging headlong into that "meteor shower" of death and steel.
The next second.
Above the summit of the Ziggurat erupted the most ferocious, most spectacular "fireworks feast" of god and king that Uruk had seen since its founding.
The Feathered Serpent's small but power-packed figure twisted and wove through the sky-filling downpour of Noble Phantasms, like the nimblest of dancers.
Every punch she threw, every flying kick, carried the authority of the "sun," and with precision and violence she blasted apart and kicked to pieces those god-forged armaments that had left mighty names in history.
Fragments of Noble Phantasms drifted down from the sky like golden raindrops.
And those that slipped through the net would be cut down, one by one, by the pitch-black afterimage behind her, ghostly as a phantom.
Saber Alter, gripping that sinister demonic sword, served as the most loyal and most efficient "scavenger," utterly annihilating any attack that tried to approach Seiji in a colder, cleaner manner.
She needed no flashy techniques, nor any hot-blooded roar.
Every swing of her sword pursued only the ultimate "efficiency" and "destruction."
The black torrent of magic and the golden radiance of the Noble Phantasms collided, intertwined, and exploded in the air over and over, kicking up terrifying shockwaves powerful enough to tear through the clouds.
The people of all Uruk could only gaze up at the sky in terror, watching that war of god and king unfolding above the clouds.
They felt as if the heavens themselves were about to collapse.
...
And at the very center of that violent storm of energy and steel.
Seiji Fujiwara and Gilgamesh, these two "kings" standing at opposite ends of the battlefield, seemed to inhabit another dimension entirely.
Neither of them watched the battle in the sky any longer.
Because they both understood clearly that "probing" of that level could not possibly decide the final outcome of this war.
Their gazes stayed locked on each other.
Waging a silent confrontation of ideals, one more perilous than any battle.
"A magnificent sight, isn't it?"
A trace of an appreciative smile rested on Seiji's face, as though he were commenting on a fireworks display that had nothing to do with him.
"Your treasures, numerous as they are, are in the end nothing but dead things."
"My collectibles, on the other hand, are each living beings with independent wills and formidable power."
"From the very start, the quality of this battle was never on the same level."
"Quality?" At that, a contemptuous sneer crossed Gilgamesh's face. "Mere brute force. In my eyes, it's nothing but a beastly mauling, devoid of all beauty."
"What a true king relies upon has never been simple power."
His gaze slowly drew away from Seiji and turned toward the city below, that tiny city trembling because of their battle.
"...It is the people."
His voice turned low and brimming with force.
"Do you see it, false god?"
"That city down below, those tiny humans cowering in fear and praying."
"They are the protagonists of this world."
"They are the one and only treasure that I have devoted my entire life to protecting!"
"And you? What have you done?"
For the first time, a flicker of cold "kingly" wrath crossed Gilgamesh's eyes.
"You buy them off with cheap gain."
"You corrupt them with false hope."
"You try to turn them from people who stand tall between heaven and earth into lowly livestock who can only wag their tails and beg before you!"
"You are insulting my treasure!"
"You are trampling on the glory of humankind!"
"For that alone..."
He slowly raised his right hand.
A peculiar "key-sword," archaic in design, three cylindrical segments carved into its blade, radiating the air of primordial antiquity, slowly surfaced from the golden ripples behind him.
"...you deserve ten thousand deaths!"
Ea, the Sword of Rupture!
This strongest anti-world Noble Phantasm, which by all rights should never have appeared in this era's Gilgamesh's hand, had been summoned forth by him without the slightest warning!
A pressure of utmost terror, enough to tear the world apart and replay the "splitting of heaven and earth," instantly enveloped the entire summit of the Ziggurat!
The battle in the sky even stalled for a brief moment at the appearance of this pressure!
Yet, faced with this final trump card, enough to make any god tremble, not a shred of fear showed on Seiji's face.
He merely looked, with an expression close to "pity," at this lonely king before him, who had devoted everything he had to "humanity."
Then he shook his head and laughed softly.
"Gilgamesh, oh, Gilgamesh."
"You're still so naive, so... laughable."
"The glory of humankind? The will of humankind?"
"Don't make me laugh."
He slowly spread his hands, as though to embrace that city below, trembling in fear.
"They don't need that heavy, tedious thing at all."
"What they want has only ever been one thing."
"And that is..."
"...to live."
"To live in comfort and ease."
"To have grain they can never finish eating, clothes they can never finish wearing, a potion that can cure every illness, sturdy walls that protect them from the ravages of monsters."
"What they want is exactly this, the simplest, purest, animal-like happiness!"
"And you? What did you give them?"
Seiji's gaze turned sharp, like the keenest of scalpels, mercilessly dissecting Gilgamesh's noble "kingly way."
"You gave them responsibility."
"You gave them suffering."
"To temper them, to let them survive that so-called final battle, you forced them to face a despair they were never meant to bear!"
"You're like a selfish, foolish father who, to teach his own child to swim, throws him straight into the raging waves!"
"You think this is love?"
"No, this isn't love."
A malice-filled curve tugged at the corner of his mouth.
"...This is nothing but your most extreme self-gratification, all to satisfy that pitiful protective urge of yours!"
"You don't understand the human heart at all!"
"And you aren't fit to be king at all!"
That final sentence, like the most venomous of curses, stabbed savagely into Gilgamesh's heart, that absolutely rational heart which had long since cast away all emotion!
"...Silence."
A crack appeared in Gilgamesh's face, which had always worn that confident smile.
The Ea in his hand began to rotate slowly.
A red storm began to gather frantically upon the blade!
"It seems words can no longer make a worm like you comprehend your own sin."
"In that case..."
"...let your death offer up the final hymn to my truth!"
"Enuma Elish!!!"