The summit of the Ziggurat was dead silent.
The wind blew through the broken walls and rubble, stirring up the King of Heroes' golden blood and the dust of his shattered throne, as if offering a silent dirge for the end of a glorious history.
Below, that vast human city, Uruk, had also sunk into an unprecedented, collectively voiceless stillness.
Every last one of them had witnessed the scene that had overturned everything they believed.
Their king, the Oldest King who was strong as a heavenly god, who had led them through countless crises, had lost.
Lost so completely.
Lost so humiliatingly.
His mightiest Noble Phantasm had been snapped by that man between two fingers, as easily as breaking a withered twig.
His dignity as a king had been shattered by that man with a loud, contemptuous slap to the face.
Fear, bewilderment, helplessness...
A host of dark emotions settled like storm clouds over the heart of every citizen of Uruk.
Their sky had collapsed.
And there, at the center of the ruins, atop that broken throne.
A new "sky" was slowly descending.
Seiji sat at ease on the wreckage of the loser's throne, looking down at the city below, now utterly bereft of its "anchor," with the gaze of a man surveying his new property.
There was no victor's elation on his face, no conqueror's cruelty.
Only the matter-of-fact, faintly weary satisfaction of a veteran player who has cleared the last red dot on the map and brought down the final boss.
Everything was within his grasp.
"Miss Siduri."
He spoke slowly, his voice low but clear, reaching the ears of the beautiful high priestess who still knelt not far off, utterly stupefied.
"And Lord Kingu."
His gaze turned to the green-haired priest, his face ghostly pale, his body trembling faintly with fear.
"And every person in this city who can still think."
His voice, amplified by magic, echoed across the whole sky of Uruk like a divine decree.
"Now, I will give you a choice."
He rose slowly from the throne, walked to the edge of the Ziggurat, and spread his arms wide, as if to embrace the entire world.
"Option one."
"You may continue to follow this old king of yours, who has been crushed utterly, who can't even protect himself."
He tilted his chin toward Gilgamesh, still prostrate in the rubble, struggling, trying to crawl to his feet, but pinned down hard by an invisible force.
"For the sake of his laughable glory, for the sake of your cheap loyalty, you may take up those fragile bronze weapons of yours and rise against me."
"And then..."
A cold curve, devoid of the slightest feeling, tugged at the corner of his mouth.
"...I will erase you, along with your city, your families, everything you have, from this land completely."
"Like this."
He gave a light snap of his fingers.
The next second.
A pitch-black pillar of magical light, brimming with the aura of destruction, surged skyward from the hand of Saber Alter beside him.
The pillar struck dead-on against an uninhabited, massive stone warehouse belonging to Uruk's military in the distance.
There was no earth-shaking explosion.
Only the teeth-grinding sound of "annihilation."
That sturdy stone structure, large enough to hold a thousand soldiers, the instant it touched the black pillar, was like a block of ice dropped into concentrated sulfuric acid, soundlessly broken down, devoured, vanished without a trace!
Not a single mote of dust was left behind!
Staring at that "empty lot" that had appeared out of nowhere.
The whole of Uruk fell into a deathly silence once more.
A cold chill named "death" soaked through every spine.
"Or..."
Seiji's voice rose again, like a devil's whisper of temptation breaking through the deepest despair.
"...Option two."
"You may cast aside your meaningless past, cast aside your laughable dignity."
"Submit to me."
"Acknowledge me as your sole, absolute, new king."
"And then you will receive everything you wouldn't dare imagine even in your dreams."
Slowly, he painted a blueprint full of temptation.
"The hungry will receive grain they can never finish eating."
"The sick will receive an elixir that cures everything."
"The fearful will receive impregnable walls strong enough to hold off any beast."
"The weak will receive my eternal protection, the protection of a god!"
"You will no longer need to fight for that empty, intangible glory."
"You will no longer need to die for those so-called trials."
"You need only, like a flock of penned, contented sheep, abandon thought, abandon resistance, and offer your bodies, your souls, your faith, everything, to me without reservation."
"And then live on, in comfort."
He spread his arms wide, like a merciful "savior" awaiting the embrace of his believers.
"My lambs, make your choice."
"To be reduced to ash in meaningless resistance."
"Or to gain eternal life in absolute obedience?"
...
The whole of Uruk fell silent.
Seiji's words were like the sharpest scalpel, dipped in deadly poison, slicing open the pride that belonged to "man" and the survival instinct that belonged to "animal," laying both bloodily bare before everyone.
The choice was agonizing.
But the answer was obvious.
When death was displayed before them all in a form so concrete, so irresistible.
Any "glory," any "dignity," seemed so pale, so... laughable.
At last.
At the summit of the Ziggurat.
The beautiful high priestess Siduri, who had spent her whole life believing in supporting the King of Heroes and guarding Uruk.
She slowly closed her eyes, full of pain and struggle.
Then, toward the new "ruler" seated on the wreckage of the throne.
She bowed her noble head, deeply.
And in a hoarse voice, as if it had taken all her strength, she spoke slowly:
"...Uruk's surviving subjects, Siduri..."
"...I will submit to you."
Her submission was like toppling the first domino.
Below, in that vast city.
One after another, the people who had still been standing, still hesitating.
Began to kneel, slowly.
First a scattered few, then in great swaths, and finally like a rising tide...
The whole city knelt.
In the most abject posture, they offered their "choice" to the new "god."
Looking at the dark, sprawling "flock" prostrate at his feet.
A profoundly satisfied smile appeared on Seiji's face.
He walked slowly to Gilgamesh, still pinned down in the rubble, glaring at him with a gaze full of blood and hatred.
He crouched, reached out a hand, and in a tone close to "pity," said softly:
"Look, King of Heroes."
"This is the treasure you spent your whole life trying to protect, the treasure you took such pride in."
"How... realistic."
"How... lovely."
With that, he stood and slowly issued his first "royal command" to the city below, now wholly his.
"Pass down my order."
"Take this deposed old king away."
"Lock him inside his own treasury."
"From today, he is no longer a king, nor a hero."
"He is merely a living collectible that has witnessed history."
Uruk's enormous treasury, which had once held the King of Heroes Gilgamesh's collection of every original prototype of treasure gathered since the birth of mankind.
Now it had become empty.
Every Noble Phantasm had been spent in that gamble of a battle just now, exhausted by Gilgamesh.
All that remained were four cold walls carved with ancient runes, and at the center, that empty pedestal that had once held Enkidu, the Chains of Heaven.
This place was just like Gilgamesh's state of mind right now.
Hollow, and full of... the desolation of defeat.
He was imprisoned here.
No shackles, no guards.
Because Seiji had left upon him an absolute "yoke" working at the level of "concept."
This yoke stripped him of every power he had as a Heroic Spirit.
The man he was now was only a mortal, frailer than an ordinary person, with nothing left but the name of "king."
He sat quietly on that cold, empty pedestal, head lowered, looking at his own powerless hands, stained with his own blood.
In his mind, again and again, replayed those words Seiji had spoken to him, words like a curse.
"...This is nothing but the most extreme self-gratification, to satisfy that pitiful urge of yours to protect!"
"...You understand nothing of the human heart!"
"...And you aren't fit to be a king!"
These words stung him more sharply than that slap across the face.
Had he been wrong?
To protect mankind, to lead them in conquering the inevitable end, he had cast aside all his feelings and turned himself into a cold, absolutely rational machine of rule.
He had forced them to fight, to grow, to face despair.
He had thought this was the one, correct road to "victory."
But that man had told him, with the cruelest, bloodiest reality.
No, you were wrong.
What the people wanted was never the "trials" you gave them.
What they wanted was only the cheapest "comfort."
This utter denial of his own "kingly way," from its very foundations, made the Oldest King feel, for the first time... lost.
The treasury's heavy stone door creaked slowly open.
The high priestess Siduri walked in with measured steps, carrying a tray of clean water and bread.
On her face was a trace of weariness and... sorrow she could not hide.
"...My king."
She walked up to Gilgamesh and set the tray down gently on the floor.
"...Please, take some food."
Gilgamesh did not move.
He did not even lift his head.
"...You chose him too, Siduri?"
His voice was hoarse and dry, full of an indescribable weariness.
Siduri's body trembled faintly.
She was silent for a moment, then slowly knelt before Gilgamesh and bowed her head deeply.
"...Yes."
Her voice carried an irrepressible tremor.
"But, my king. It was not for myself, nor out of fear."
"It was for... Uruk."
"It was for those tens of thousands of your people who are still alive!"
"That man... he may be a demon, but he truly does possess power we could never reach."
"Rather than let everyone be reduced to ash in meaningless resistance."
"I would rather choose to bear every curse and name, and use my submission to buy them the right to live!"
Her words landed with weight.
Every word was full of the tragic resolve of a loyal subject who has made an agonizing choice between her nation and her king.
Yet, in Gilgamesh's ears, these words sounded like an enormous mockery.
"...Heh."
He let out a soft, self-mocking laugh.
"In the end, isn't it all the same?"
"In the end, you still chose the simplest road, the one that leads to comfort."
"You abandoned the thorny road to glory that I laid down for you."
"It seems I... overestimated you from the very start."
His words were full of the deep disappointment of one "betrayed" by the "treasure" he prized most.
"No, you didn't overestimate them."
A calm voice, carrying a trace of amusement, suddenly came from the treasury door.
Seiji walked in slowly, hands behind his back.
Behind him followed the pitch-black King of Knights, never leaving his side, like a shadow.
"You simply never truly understood them."
He walked to Siduri's side and looked down at the "old king" still sitting on the floor like a stray dog.
"Glory? Can a thing like that fill a belly?"
"Will? Can a thing like that stop a beast's claws?"
"Gilgamesh, your kingly way was built from the start on a mistaken fantasy, a castle in the air."
"You thought man was some noble creature."
"But in truth, they are nothing more than clever beasts that know how to use tools."
"And the most effective way to deal with beasts has never been preaching some worthless reasoning at them."
"It is..."
He reached out and gently patted Siduri's shoulder, trembling faintly with tension.
"...giving them the most ample food, and the sturdiest cage."
"And then giving them a powerful master they can never resist."
"That's all."
With that, he paid no further mind to Gilgamesh, who was shaking with rage yet powerless to refute.
Instead, he lowered his head and looked at the beautiful high priestess kneeling before him with a gaze full of "appreciation."
"Miss Siduri."
His voice turned gentle and magnetic.
"I am quite impressed."
"Impressed by your pragmatism, by your efficiency, and by your resolve, your willingness to sacrifice the small for the greater good."
"You are a far better... administrator than that impractical king of yours."
"So..."
"I have decided to appoint you, in my newborn Uruk, as..."
"Vizier."
"From today, all of this city's internal affairs, its military, its people's welfare, fall entirely under your charge."
"I will give you everything you need. Resources, or power."
"And I ask only one thing of you."
In his eyes glittered the possessive light of a merchant regarding a "commodity" of immense value.
"Make this city run in the most efficient, most perfect way possible."