The instant Steve's fingertip lightly touched the cold, golden arm-guard of the King of Heroes, Gilgamesh's entire sense of reality began to collapse. It wasn't a physical destruction, but a more fundamental overturning—a subversion of concepts themselves. The grand sight of the living room, the luxurious furniture, the sunlight pouring in from outside... all of it dissolved into a void of color, swallowed in an instant by an unavoidable torrent of information filled with the accumulated weight of civilization.
In that moment, the king who'd once witnessed the end of the age of gods and the rise of mankind, found his perspective forcibly tied to the soul of an ordinary person from another world.
…
Misaki City, 1989
The initial impression was bewilderment—and helplessness. The soul, coming from a parallel world of 2025 (with Steve's shocking, pre-time-travel memories left ambiguous), awoke on the corner of a strange city street. All the buildings were unfamiliar, the air tinged with the feeling of a bygone era.
Gilgamesh felt only contempt. Just a trivial trick with time travel. Do experiences of this sort even deserve the title "treasure"?
But what followed was not at all as he'd expected. The scene was not of grumbling while waiting for some miracle to occur.
He witnessed how this soul, now trapped in mortal flesh, had to start from the very bottom: Labor, barely surviving, scraping together enough just to legally exist. The grinding hardship and pragmatic endurance gradually eased the disdain on the King's face.
…
United States, 1990–1995
The flow of memories accelerated. Thanks to a gift called the "Astonishing Wisdom," the soul set forth on a path of astonishing ascent.
The king saw sleepless nights in libraries and laboratories; papers that shocked entire academic communities; Steve Weis lecturing NASA's best scientists, outlining blueprints for the future of space. There was no magic, only an intellect and foresight that catapulted technology decades ahead.
By 1995, as the space elevator finally bridged heaven and earth, Gilgamesh found himself compelled to rise from his languid posture—a faint glimmer of surprise flitting through his crimson serpent eyes. That such feats could be accomplished in a human body, in so little time... This upstart, it seemed, truly had talent.
…
1996–2030: Earth as the Sacred Land
Now the Golden King witnessed a grand deception and Machiavellian project that spanned over thirty years. Steve ingeniously used the fear of ORT's awakening to drive global technological development, upending aerospace balances on a massive scale.
Gilgamesh heard him describe his audacious plan to the world's elite: "If we send 90% of the inferior masses into space to serve as slaves for the elite, this eternal sacred land—the entire Earth—will belong to us."
He saw how those greedy fools eagerly accepted the proposal, and how countless orbital colonies were built to ferry away the bewildered masses from their ancestral home.
A cruel smile crept to Gilgamesh's lips. This betrayal among kin... was rather amusing. But he still wondered: did this mongrel really wish to become king of these insects?
…
2030: The Birth of the Human Federation
The answer revealed itself in 2030. Steve took to the central plaza of Side 3, arms raised, addressing untold generations who had lived and multiplied in space.
He betrayed the privileged class who had raised him up, declaring the establishment of the "Human Federation"—turning his gaze back to the battered blue planet so long monopolized by a select few.
"Earth is the cradle of all mankind, not the private garden of a few!"
"Today, we shall liberate every soul still chained by gravity!"
A deafening cheer from the space colonies contrasted starkly with the disbelief and dread on the faces of Earth's aristocrats. Gilgamesh's smile faded, replaced by a faint seriousness as he assessed the man before him.
…
War began. But what truly astounded the King was this: In the world Steve came from, where vampires and True Ancestors reigned as the foundation of prosperity, Gaia's influence was far stronger than Alaya's—contrary to human history.
Because Steve's approach satisfied both mankind and Gaia's will, the Twenty-Seven Dead Apostles did not intervene, their inaction laying the final foundation for humanity's survival.
But when the Mage's Association, the Holy Church, and even the enigmatic Dead Apostle Ancestors began to intervene in secret, the opposing side resorted to desperate gambles.
Gilgamesh saw Steve standing beneath starlight, acting as a medium, trying to touch the collective consciousness of mankind—Alaya—though it should have been weak in this world.
He risked everything, moving 90% of mankind into space, reviving human civilization's strength among the stars. When a nameless Servant of the "Watcher" class appeared in a pillar of light, Gilgamesh's pupils contracted.
Impossible!
Summoning Heroic Spirits, in a world where Gaia's will dwarfed humanity's, was akin to overturning the very law of the stars! This fool isn't just starting a war—he's rewriting the world itself!
…
Epic of the Cosmic War
The sights that followed exceeded even the King of Heroes' wildest imagination. He saw the asteroid belt beyond the solar system transformed into an endlessly self-replicating, fully automated factory. Legions of robots, like currents of steel, rained from the heavens—purging Earth's armies, magi, and even the legendary Dead Apostles with merciless efficiency, day and night.
The Dead Apostles, revered as peerless even in the divine age, were ground down, worn out, and finally torn asunder by the relentless tide of steel.
This was no longer a clash of mysteries, but a dimensional reduction attack—of the future crushing the past, of industry crushing the supernatural!
…
Yet just as victory seemed within reach, true despair struck. From the depths of space came a planet eater—a cosmic predator, charged with consuming the fruits of intelligent civilization. None could halt its advance.
Shaken even the gods themselves, Steve launched his final emergency plan.
Gilgamesh saw ten ships carrying the seeds of civilization vanish into the abyss of space. He saw Steve muster all remaining forces for one last, desperate stand against the "White Giant Star". But what struck his soul most was what happened next.
Across the Side colonies, uncounted civilians—men, women, elders, children—lined up at devices called "Aetheric Conversion Engines". One by one, they offered up their very lifeforce, the purest energy of "humanity", pouring it into the last trump card orbiting Earth: the Colossus: Geo-Gravitational Star Cannon.
No one was superfluous; each played their crucial role in the survival of the race.
In that moment, Gilgamesh beheld humanity's brightest light. No complaints, no regrets—only unwavering resolve to ensure civilization endured.
Even the mightiest relics in his vault paled in comparison to this brilliant surge of human reason.
With this, the force of Alaya overwhelmed Gaia completely. The World Line was forcibly reversed!
He saw scores of Heroic Spirits summoned to the ley lines of asteroids—scientists, engineers, all those who had pushed civilization's progress, now supporting the Colonies in their hour of need.
When the countdown ended, a single beam of all humanity's hope pierced the galaxy, obliterating the Predator Star in a single instant. Gilgamesh gasped.
…
At last, memory faded into peace. The surviving humans were taken to the stars; the weakened Dead Apostles were finally destroyed. Steve, in his final days, quietly and flawlessly erased another monstrous disaster—ORT slumbering in South America—using improved weapons.
The final scene: Earth, at last, a holy and eternal place for humanity.
He returned home, hair now white, supported by his immortal vampire wife Sion.
In the ruins of the Millenium Castle, the white True Ancestor Princess—the Archetype: Earth herself—came out to greet him, offering the highest honor to the human who had saved both the planet's Counter Forces.
Smiling in his wife's arms, now over 100 years old yet purely human, he ended his epic life in satisfaction.
…
The flood of information receded. Gilgamesh's consciousness slowly returned to the Tohsaka living room.
His hand had already left Steve's.
Deathly silence filled the room. The King of Heroes seated himself, unmoving, rubied serpent eyes unfocused, clearly still immersed in the century-spanning epic he'd just witnessed.
It was much, much later that he began to blink.
Finally, he looked down at the hand that had touched Steve, then up at his counterpart—wearing a complicated expression never seen before.
In his eyes there were shock, disbelief, and—admiration.
There was a trace of respect he himself didn't notice; the kind one feels only when meeting an equal, or someone even greater.
"...Excellent."
At last he spoke, his voice hoarse but impossibly clear.
"Indeed worthy to be called 'King of Humans' in the days to come."
"Your life... I have truly witnessed it."
"Those sights, those feats... They are treasures more resplendent than any I've seen in my own Vault."
…