Without warning, my vision went dark for a moment.
I seem to be out of sorts.
The fatigue from the labyrinth exploration must have built up.
“Hm. You look fine,
but your vitals are low.
............Such feebleness is to be deplored,
but on the other hand it would be troublesome if you were to collapse in the labyrinth.
Rest for a while. I do not mind.”
Though his tone was harsh,
it’s rare for Gilgamesh to show any consideration.
Going along with the king’s whimsical pronouncement,
I lay flat on the bed.
........The moment I lay down, sleepiness rapidly came over me.
........It seems that I’d been weary to the bone.
........I let the wave of exhaustion wash over me.
............I’ll take a short break from the reality of battle.
............And fall into a deep dream, for just a little while.......
―――I was born from a clod of earth.
Clay shaped by the hands of the gods.
I was created as a tool that could assume a myriad of forms.
I woke in the wilderness.
My very first sight upon awakening was one of expanses of land and sky,
and a towering city in the distance.
I heard a voice calling me from afar.
What had woken me was neither the maternal hand nor the paternal rebuke.
It was in response to that voice that I had opened my heavy eyelids.
Having just woken, I had no intellect.
My father was the king of gods, Anu.
My mother was the goddess of creation, Aruru.
Though they had given me superb power,
they were unable to give me a soul.
Thus, for years after I awoke,
my existence consisted only of racing across the wilderness with animals.
Despite that, I had a purpose.
I had been given a task when I was created by my mother.
“Chains. You must return the Keystone to our control.”
However, I did not have a soul.
I was able to live only ferally.
I lacked the will of a human.
I knew only the joy of running in the wild all day with the animals.
I was not perfect, but neither was I flawed.
…..However.
On occasion I stop and turn to look at the distant city.
From beyond the wilds, I heard a voice calling.
I wondered who that was.
It was neither my father, nor my mother.
Someone else, someone different was calling me.
My father, despairing in my lack of rational thought, brought me a woman.
To someone who’d never even looked at a mirror,
that humanoid form became a good instructor for me to learn about myself.
I acquired knowledge and rational thought.
I was taught all the truths of the heaven and the earth.
I was filled with the soul I needed to fulfill the task for which I was created.
“Enkidu.”
And thus I spoke my name for the first time.
At that instant, the world became something extremely simple.
My role.
My task.
I must impose the wrath of the gods upon the arrogant Gilgamesh.
My heart leapt for joy.
Like a meteor I raced across the wilds.
The meaning of my existence.
The purpose of my creation.
The task I must hinge my life upon.
Divine vengeance upon a fellow puppet of the gods.
However, he was still young when I found him.
Unlike me, it seems that he ages.
Unlike me, it is said that the blood of humans mixed in his veins.
He was still a child.
Until he reaches adulthood, I cannot clash with him.
It would serve as no reprimand unless I fought him as an equal.
―――And so I gaze at the walled city.
I hear the voice from within it.
Suppressing my impatience, I counted his growth by days.
In his childhood he had kingly aptitude superior to all.
Tolerant, sage, fair, and moral.
All praised and lauded him, infatuated.
He was the epitome of the ideal boy king.
Surely the gods had been mistaken in thinking him arrogant.
There was no flaw in the young Gilgamesh that needed to be corrected.
......If there was a problem, it was that while he respected the gods,
he did not submit to them.
The years pass, and the boy becomes a young man.
I was forced to admit that the misgivings of the gods had been right.
In mere years he had become a changed man.
Absolutism. Oppression. Duress. Levies. Utmost decadence from self-interest.
The people of Uruk lamented.
They wondered why things had become this way.
The gods racked their brains.
They had not thought that it would be to such an extent.
......However.
I was all too painfully aware of the reason behind his sudden transformation.
He had been born with his conclusion already drawn.
He existed independent of all as a being that was neither divine nor human.
As one who had acquired the characteristics of both, his field of vision reached so far and wide that not even the gods were able to comprehend what he fixed his gaze upon.
Overwhelming power bred overwhelming isolation.
Even then he did not abandon his kingship.
He did not flee from the mission imposed upon him.
…..What strength of self.
In earnest he had revered the gods and loved humanity.
He had simply followed that path to its conclusion, choosing to depose the gods and loathe humanity.
“You say that you would reprimand me?”
Before the house of heaven, we met for the first time.
“Yes. By my hand I shall rectify your arrogance.”
Rather than “arrogance,”
I should’ve said “solitude,” but I could not bring myself to say so.
I did not want to injure his pride.
Our battle spanned several days.
I am a spear, an axe, a shield, a beast.
Faced with an opponent who could transform,
he mustered all the strength he could.
“You―――some clod of mud, equal to me?!”
Was it with surprise or anger that he reacted against encountering an equal for the first time?
In the midst of the battle, he drew out the treasures that he had stored away.
To take out the treasures he had stored so carefully could have been
nothing but a humiliation to him.
At first he did so reluctantly, having no choice.
But in the end he came to enjoy it, and brought out all his treasures without regret.
The battle ――― with whose victory did it end?
He had at last emptied his last vault,
and I had lost nine-tenths of my clay.
No longer able to even form clothing, I must have looked quite shabby.
Staring, he burst into laughter and let himself fall backwards onto his back.
I did likewise, and took a deep breath.
In all honesty, I could only move one more time.
“Only one chance each between the two of us.
With no means of defense, it’ll result in naught but two foolish corpses.”
Even now I don’t understand the intention behind those words.
Did he want to suggest a tie,
or did he want to say that we should make it so that there’d be only one corpse?
Either way, I let myself fall in imitation of him.
Like a mirror, I even thought.
“Do you not regret the treasures you have spent?”
Without much thinking, I said these words.
“Why, if it’s someone I should use it on, then it’s not unthinkable to do him the favor.”
Gilgamesh replied, his voice bright.
From that day on I was by his side.
Those days flew by.
“My treasury has been in disarray ever since you've come.
To think of using my treasures as projectiles......you’ve certainly given me a harebrained habit.”
His hoarding tendencies were the same as ever,
but it seems that he has finally learned to make use of his treasures every so often.
One of my few achievements.
There was a beast named Humbaba.
Combining our strength we defeated it.
I asked him.
Why had he decided to defeat Humbaba?
It hadn’t been an order from the gods.
But neither could it have been for the sake of the people.
“But it was to protect Uruk, no?
If the evils of the earth are not purged, the people will perish from starvation.”
Why? I pressed.
The people of Uruk were suffering under his reign.
Why would he then worry about the people?
“It’s only natural.
I was born as a guardian of humanity.
It is the duty of the king to lay the foundations for the
of this planet.”
His eyes were distant as he said this.
Not even I, created in the same way as he,
was able to understand where he had set his gaze upon.
“There are types to guardianship.
Sheltering is not all; there are times when the north wind too is necessary.”
At that moment, I came to understand him completely.
“I see.
So you chose to honor the path of discernment.”
He smiled embarrassedly.
It was the kind of gentle smile that he had occasionally shown in his childhood.
….I now understood why he had favored isolation.
For the path he chose
is one that he must advance down alone.
He had said that guardianship meant to set one's sights on the future.
If he is to hate the gods and dislike the people for that aim,
the king must be isolated.
The more favorably he regards the future of humanity,
the farther he has to remove himself.
Adjudicator and reaper.
The only thing the king stands to gain is the result.
As one more than human,
he must not interfere with the brilliant course that will bring that about.
“Well, the result seems that it’ll turn into quite the dull tapestry.
But since I have decided, I shall abide by it to the end.”
Seeing him say this proudly, I couldn’t help myself and said:
“I am a tool. Something you have no need to judicate.
I can be by your side until the end of the world."
“Fool.”
I think that this was the only time he had ever allowed himself to look reassured.
“Listen here―――one calls that a―――――.”
He continued.
…..At that moment, I received a precious word, one like a bright star.
It was this moment that I had acquired a “self” in the true sense of the word.
This is the final story.
The story of the clash between Gilgamesh and Ishtar,
of the battle with the Bull of Heaven unleashed by the goddess;
the story of my end.
Gilgamesh and his weapon drove away the Bull,
the dark clouds covering the world faded, and the land was saved from the flood.
As punishment for defying the gods, I was being returned to clay.
He desperately clung onto
in his arms.
“I won’t allow this. Why is it you who dies?
If retribution is to be exacted, it should be upon me!
Was this not all caused by my obstinacy?”
The sky is still weeping.
I couldn’t bear to watch, so I counseled him:
“There is no need to grieve. I am a weapon.
I am but one of the numerous in your collection.
You will find countless treasures greater than I from hereon.
So there is no reason for you to shed those tears;
I have not the worth left in me to deserve them.”
Yes. I was a weapon. A tool.
Unlike him.
Gilgamesh. The hero who, despite being created as a child of the gods, continued to defy the gods.
He had a soul from the very beginning.
He had free will since he was born.
A being with true life, unlike me.
A star with true worth, unlike me. I was expendable.
......I had always yearned after that. I had always hated that.
Why were we such different beings, I’d wondered, despite being created by the same father?
“You do have worth. You alone have this worth.
I hereby declare.
In all this world, only one shall be my friend.
Thus―――not for all eternity shall his worth ever change.”
I was a weapon.
It is the fate of a weapon to be supplanted by the next.
My worth, my mystery, was something limited to this age alone.
He changed all that.
Accepting as penalty a fate of solitude hereafter.
......I recall his words from that time.
His words when I had declared to him that I was naught but a tool.
“Fool.
Living together, conversing together, fighting together―――
That is neither a person nor a tool. That is called a friend, Enkidu.”
―――Ah.
How deeply I’ve sinned.
Despite knowing the weak, never had he glanced back at them.
Despite knowing the strong, never had he acknowledged them.
With none by his side.
To remain aloof was his greatest sincerity.
Yet I had left a lasting mar upon that pride.
The rain gradually let up.
I return to my original state, naught but a clod of earth in the wilderness.
Leaving behind only the thunderous cry of the king.
My records fade away here.
I am but a long-gone regret of the past.
From hereon out is your future, your story.
The story of someone who, unlike me, is human.
......That is why I want you to ask him now.
If he still loves humanity.
If he still remembers the name of his friend.
If he has finally cast aside the mistakes of a distant age and laid them to rest―――
......I squint at the light.
It seems that I dreamt an ancient dream.
“..........”
When I look up, I saw that Gilgamesh had his fingers pressed against his eyelids.
It appears that he had been dozing as well.
Maybe it was the effect of the dream I just had;
I quite naturally asked him, “Were you asleep?”
“........So it seems.
It would appear that I too had been somewhat weary.
I dreamt of some nostalgic trifle.”
Gilgamesh’s voice was lacking its usual forcefulness.
Come to think of it, I’ve heard of something before.
That a Master and Servant forms a mental link upon contract,
and rarely, when unconscious......when asleep, memories are shared between the two.
I can’t say for sure, but I think
that the dream earlier was something to do with Gilgamesh’s friend.
It could be that he too had been looking back on the same thing I was.
........When I think that, words began to come out of my mouth before I realized it.
I can’t just stay silent without asking.
As the one contracted to him,
Kishinami Hakuno asks ―――
Do you still remember the name of your friend?
Do I resemble that friend?
Could it be that you really like humans, Gil?
[branch]
>Do you still remember the name of your friend?
“Friend......?
Just as I was wondering what you were about to blurt out, friend you say......?
It appears that you are under a misconception.
I dreamt of the battle with the Bull of Heaven.
In no way was it the dream of a friend.
To begin with, I am hardly one to have friends.
Even if I had one, I would have forgotten the name.
After all, I can no longer speak it.”
Gilgamesh says disdainfully, apparently displeased.
However, there was no trace of anger in his voice.
―――I can no longer speak the name.
That was answer enough to the question of whether Gilgamesh remembered the name of his friend or not.
[end branch]
>Do I resemble that friend?
“…Though I’ll not pursue the subject of what you are referring to......
To make an assertion, not in the least.
The most you have in common is that you both have eyes and a nose and a mouth.
Fool.
I know of no one in my past who bore the slightest resemblance to the likes of such a buffoon.
You are you alone.
Stop making me repeat such tripe.”
The question was dismissed without thought.
But I feel like the words just now were amicable.
The one Kishinami Hakuno, resembling no one else.
........Such words made me terribly happy right now.
[end branch]
>Could it be that you really like humans, Gil?
“―――――――――.”
Huh, Gilgamesh froze.
His expression is fearsome, but that’s just for show.
I dare say that the King of Heroes was caught completely off-guard and struck speechless.
“.......Of all the things to say.
Do I love humans, you ask?
Where have you been all this time?
My view on humans should be clear from the way I treat you!
Do not ask me something you know all too well!"
He reprimanded me angrily, with the desperation of one clutching at straws.
Like some kid sulking after finding himself at a loss for words.
It should be clear from the way I treat you―――
If that was his answer,
then I did know all too well his stance on humans.
[end branch]
“Hmph. It seems that you have recovered enough to spout meaningless rubbish.
Then the break ends here. It is time to go, Hakuno.
And to make myself clear, my dream consisted of the path traced by my life,
from the moment it began to the moment it ended.
In the beginning I acknowledged the gods and protected the people.
Upon the end of my childhood and the start of my adulthood, I scorned the gods and favored the people.
The dream I saw was no more than that.
Even if you had caught a glimpse of my memories,
that was from your perspective.
It is far from my truth.
You would do well to bear that in mind.”
With that, Gilgamesh left the room.
I hastily get out of bed and
hurry after the golden figure.
.....It’s true that the dream I’d seen wasn’t from his perspective.
It was neither Gilgamesh’s,
nor Kishinami Hakuno’s, but that of someone else.
However.
The words he had spoken in the dream were undoubtedly the truth.
Not for all eternity shall that worth ever change―――
I’ll just remember that there had once been a lone king who declared such.
And to whomever the dream had belonged to:
Sorry, but your wish for him to cast aside those memories
doesn’t seem like it’ll ever be granted――――――
Originally Posted by Sherrinford
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