Jump 361: Fate/Zero

Jump #361: Fate/Zero
>The Moon: Dangerous situations and perilous times.
>Age: 74
>Location: 1993: Free Choice
>Identity: Family Head
It appears that I managed to get the Barthomeloi family to accept me.
>Drawbacks: (+500) Keeping Continuity, You Judas, Return of the Kings
All my sins remembered.
>Magic Circuits (x1) (Free)
Bringing up my total to 290.
>Magical Legacy: Runecraft (Free)
Combined with jewelcraft... well, let's just say we were definitely able to turn that whole 'pseudo-crest' thing into something that enriched the family well.
>For The Sake Of My Family (Free, Family Head)
Being able to make the tough calls is important. He who hesitates is lost.
>The Gentleman Magician (Free, Family Head)
I may not be actual royalty here, but I certainly hold myself well enough that one couldn't be certain.
>Even a Magical Family Deserves Happiness (1400, Family Head)
So... essentially, plot armor for my family? I can support that, oh yes...
>Old Dog, Strange Tricks (1100, Family Head)
... but I wanted to chant up a microwave. Aww. Still, not enough points for that capstone boost.
>Like A King (1000)
One must, of course, be able to look the part when they have an appropriate station. Even rumpled clothes can look kingly.
>Infinite Wine (Free, Family Head)
This is an awful lot of wine. I am the cork of my wine? Unlimited wine works?
>Magical Patents (900, Family Head)
Again, pseudo-crests are great for enriching me. The fact that more patents were released after this jump started, to enrich the family, is no coincidence.
>Family Lands (700, Family Head)
>Ancestral Fortress (400, Family Head)
Look, in the last sixty years, I have gotten OBSCENELY wealthy. I've published highly useful guides to training new mages, I've sold pseudo-crests among a great many other things... I own a mansion that might as well BE a palace, and enough rural land that I could knock down the forest and comfortably house twenty million people if I wanted to build it up.
>Companion Import (0)
One of the pricier imports, but then, I have a rather... extensive family, at this point, it would seem. It is only suiting that my companions are the core of it, though not all of it.

So, let's go over this grail war's contestants! We have King Arthur as Saber; the King of Conquerers, Iskandar, as Rider; and I summoned the first and greatest king, Gilgamesh, as Archer (oh thank god he's not berserker, I couldn't take that again). In addition to that, we've the King of Romania, Vlad Tepes III as a Berserker; the King of Sparta, Leonidas, as Lancer; an Egyptian queen, Nitocris, as Caster; and the Queen of Assyria, Semiramis, as Assassin.

I found it more than a bit amusing when they all sat down to enjoy a drink and speak as equals, or relative equals, at what they jokingly called a Banquet of Kings. Some shared wine and mead, others shared food. I alone, out of all of the other masters present, was invited to join them. Prompted by my own servant, in fact. And so I added my own contributions, though it surely paled to what they all had to offer, being more modern wines... and later, pizza delivery. (All my life was Unlimited Wine Works?)

Much was spoken of. The state of the world. What everyone, servant and master alike, sought as a goal. What it meant to be the ruler of a people. (Artoria's answer was as amusing, but naive. I had thought she knew the reality of things better. Not nearly as bad as Leonidas, though. Ugh.)

And then there was a grand plan! A tournament. To see in combat whose ideals matched up with reality. Which was all well and good until I noticed the gleam in Gilgamesh's eye, which I should have noticed much, much earlier. Apparently, the other servants decided that I myself should be what they test against - after all, they should see whether their ideals match up with the modern era.

I'll not bore you with the details. Some battles were easy, most, hard-fought. Were I not a jumper, I would not have survived most of them, but frankly at this point I can and did match most of my opponents on equal grounds. And one by one... I killed the other six servants, for when they time came that we fought one on one, they were out for blood and their masters were nowhere to be found.

When the time came to face off with Gilgamesh, I commanded him to end this farce, claim the victory that I'd earned, and call it a day. And when he didn't listen... I threatened to use a command seal to enforce my orders; after all, it was over already. He agreed, and said that as long as he was my servant, he would obey my orders.

And then he reached into the Gate of Babylon, plucked out the Rule Breaker, and severed our contract.

He expressed to me that memories are, in a way, a treasure. Treasured experiences. And such experiences should not be forgotten. Victories. Defeats. Honors. Disgraces. And oh, had he been disgraced when he had been summoned as a Berserker. But now that would all be fixed, after all, because this was all his doing. He was following the letter of the rules, if not the spirit... but each time another servant had faced me, he'd severed their contract and taken it for himself, as another might have done in another timeline, and ordered them to go all out against me and not give any inkling as to what the truth of the matter was.

The arrogant ass opened the Gate of Babylon against me, and I met it by summoning holy swords that he'd never seen, plucking them out of thin air to strike down the noble phantasms launched at me as a prodigious rate. Enkidu was a much harder thing to subvert, but... well. Gilgamesh knew many things, he knew I could teleport, but he did not know about my ability to manifest clones of myself of various power. Still, even if a clone was erased with Ea, it caused my core self to feel immense pain and gave the game away.

Now, it is known that I have access to mantra energy. As I said, if I were not a jumper I wouldn't have survived, and this divine energy is what permitted me to survive most of the conflicts. But this divine energy is what made me vulnerable to enkidu... and so I let it drop. Perhaps I was no longer as strong, as fast, as durable, but I still had those in reasonable measures - my blade was suddenly able to deflect the chains of enkidu. And with two of his three trump cards neutralized, I was determined to keep him from using the third on my actual body.

And so I equipped my armor, and I clocked up. Gilgamesh saw what I was doing, but as fast as servants can move... a speedster with the ability to move so fast that the falling rain stands still? That's beyond the rankings of servants. I had tried to fight on equal grounds, and the result was near-defeat, so it was time to stop holding back. The vorpal black blade went snicker-snack, and Gilgamesh exploded into golden motes.

(Is a victory still a victory when the chess pieces themselves have aligned against you?)

Zelretch appeared when it all ended and was, once more, rather amused. He wished me luck the next time around, for it would be nothing like this at all; I would need to stop treating it all as a game, and take it seriously for a change. We walked off, and spent a good amount of time discussing various things afterward.

Huh. He seems like he's not such a bad guy if you don't patronize him or ask him for handouts, frankly.