Illyasviel took the news about the Matou with a grain of salt. There was no way that the heir (and dubious Head) of the family had been able to kill off a leech like Zouken so easily, even if she could get the jump on him.

However... there had been a wave of some form of energy she didn't recognize coming from the general direction of the mansion right before it was destroyed.

Perhaps this...Sakura...had found a methods unknown to most that could kill Zouken.

If so, then she planned to extract it from the girl before she brutally murdered her for getting so close to her brother.

But first she had to get rid of the biggest obstacle to her brother. His boarder, the mysterious Shirou Elric and his Servant Lancer.

It was time for her to go hunting. Assassin was of little importance at the moment...she seemed to primarily focus on the Christians in the town and not on the other servants.

Shirou Elric, however, was a wild card.

He loaned his Servant without care, and didn't seem to really notice that they were even in a war for the Grail.

And when he did go out, it was to deal with the lesser evils of thugs and other people the world wouldn't miss. She didn't know how a Yakuza lackey like him ended up a master, but he was easily the most dangerous one.

He had been able to briefly fool that Tohsaka girl into believing he was Lancer. And he had some unknown magic that allowed instant alteration of his surroundings, only to revert them with a single clap!

It was baffling. And unless she knew what that power was, she couldn't underestimate him.

A single figure leaned against the doorway of the Church. His red coat was open enough to show off black clothes, and the moon was bright enough to illuminate golden hair and pale skin. He seemed perfectly at ease in his surroundings.

Kirei made no motion of surprise. Rin had told him of the Master who had killed Caster before the last Servant was summoned. And while unusual, it wasn't exactly against the actual rules to do so. Most Masters, however, would have tried to contract with Caster to have two Servants instead of one.

Even if killing Caster after she had brutally murdered her own Master had been a stroke of brilliance he could applaud...after cleaning up the mess.

"Shirou Elric, Master of Lancer. To what do I owe the pleasure of this visit? Surely not for help in prayer..." said Kirei smoothly.

"I'm an atheist. No, I'm here for another reason. See I know the one person you've always wanted to meet, even if it's just to answer the one question you've always had."

"And what question is that?" asked Kirei, playing along. He didn't know if it was the pain killers or his imagination, but Elric's eyes glinted.

"Why you feel a void in your soul that makes it impossible for you to comprehend emotions. You entered in the Fourth war not to help Tokiomi, but to find the answer to the question. You just assumed that it required despair for you to feel anything."

Kirei blinked. No one knew that outside of causing despair, he felt nothing. No sense of accomplishment, no remorse over his wife's suicide, not even a hint of pride at what he had done.

Nothing.

He had hoped Kiritsugu would be able to give him answers, but that had been a spectacular failure all around.

And yet this child waltzed into HIS domain and offered him the answer.

Either he was high off the pills, or he was hallucinating this purely because it was absurd.

"And what makes you think I'll listen to you?" he asked, going along for the sake of curiousity.

"I can remove Gilgamesh from the equation with a single move, and there would be nothing you could do to regain his interest without being turned into a pin cushion filled with many sharp pointy implements of death," deadpanned Elric with a flat tone. "And that's before I tell the others that you have a Servant hiding in the Church to begin with, which automatically takes you out of the equation as a 'neutral party'."

"And how do I know your method of answering my question will work?" asked Kirei, humoring him.

"Because the Matou girl used it to get rid of Zouken, and all of his 'familiars'. On an unrelated note, the evil voice in her head has finally learned to shut up and only comes out when she's feeling particularly homicidal to her sister for looking at her boyfriend for more than fifteen seconds."

Kirei opened his mouth, then shut it.

He honestly had no idea how to respond to that remark.

"So Kotomine... how would you like to make a deal that would get you the answer you've been seeking for your entire life?"

Kirei's smile was only slightly terrifying for those who knew him. It wasn't like he would actually USE what the boy had offered.

Though he did have to wonder how Elric planned to remove Gilgamesh in a way that it would be impossible to get him back...

Shirou Elric would later blame it on the "law of unintended consequences".

He had delivered the circle which would send Kirei straight to Truth to get his answers once and for all...and the man had promptly sent Gilgamesh after Illya so he could have a proper sacrifice, though why he thought using the lesser grail before most of the Servants had been killed was unknown.

Which had lead to this scene in the Einzbern castle just outside town with an impressive forest...

With Gilgamesh and Illya...

Gilgamesh didn't know why Kirei needed the Einzbern brat considering only a few Servants had been offed (thus the Grail wouldn't even make a token appearance at best) but considering it was the first time the mongrel had let him out of the church since he had busted the king for stalking that odd blond boy, he had taken the request.

The strangest thing though...when he had bound that mad dog Beserker with his chains, the girl had recognized them almost immediately!

He KNEW that only two people could use these particular chains, and he would have noticed if a second version of himself had been summoned.

He also knew that the odd blond who had caught his attention wasn't the child version either...he only had a passing resemblance to his younger self.

It was as he was about to rip out the heart of Berserker's young Master that he noticed another Master had entered the fray.

"Lancer, stop him!" shouted someone from the door.

What happened next had Gilgamesh stop everything to turn and look at who dared to interfere.

Familiar chains bound themselves around him, causing his arms to snap to his sides. The girl dropped to the ground unceremoniously, but just the mere sight of the chains caused him to turned and look behind him.

He had honestly expected to see another version of himself behind him.

Instead he found a heavily breathing blond with golden eyes...and the last person he expected.

"Enkidu," he whispered in shock.

"Geez. I didn't think he would be stupid enough to try and use Illya when most of the Servants are still in play," said the blond tiredly.

Gilgamesh was more focused on his friend.

"You were right. We did get the drop on him," said Enkidu cheerfully as he waved to Gilgamesh.

"Why didn't you say anything sooner?"

"Shirou asked me to keep quiet and not spoil the surprise. He also agreed not to ask me to kill you out of hand for being, and I'm quoting him on this, 'a monumental pain in the ass'. Though I have to ask...stalking, really?"

"I was not stalking anyone!" protested Gilgamesh.

Elric coughed deliberately. Gilgamesh gave him an annoyed Look.

"That wasn't stalking."

"You were following me and not even bothering to be discreet about it. Where I come from, that qualifies as 'stalking'," deadpanned Elric. "And I had to do a bit of fast talking to claim you were my older brother that was sent by the family to insure I wasn't up to trouble just to keep you from getting arrested. Come to think of it, that was probably the only reason Kirei caught on to what you were doing..."

Gilgamesh and Illya stared. Enkidu thought it was all in good fun and kept smiling as if he were privy to a joke only he had heard.

"I'm going to need something to get drunk, and then you're going to explain in detail what the hell is going on," said Illya flatly, in an irate tone.

"I do believe your adopted brother can help with that. It doesn't hurt that thanks to the fact Sakura's a lot more mellow when drunk, he's been bringing back some of the better stock from work at night," said Elric helpfully.

"Just for the record, I'm blaming you and everything you stand for," said Rin.

"Duly noted."

"Is anyone else noticing a weird resemblance?" asked Emiya.

"I can see why Elric used the line that they're brothers to keep the cops off his ass," said Rin, looking between Gilgamesh and Elric.

Gilgamesh had made it abundantly clear... so long as Lancer was staying at the Emiya manor, he wasn't leaving. Especially since Elric had no intention of forcing them to fight.

Rin, having recognized her father's Servant from the brief glance she had gotten of him, knew that trying to make him leave was pointless.

The Tsundere suddenly paused, and looked closer at Elric and Gilgamesh.

"You're not really brothers, are you?"

Before either could say anything, Enkidu beat them to it.

"It's possible, but extremely unlikely. I mean I've seen several little things that point to them being related, but I have no way to conclusively prove it," said Enkidu.

Both blonds turned to look at him oddly.

"What do you mean you think we're related?" asked Elric, baffled. He was nothing like Gilgamesh.

"THAT DOES IT! Both of you are getting a DNA test just to see whether or not you are actually related, because in the past five minutes you've done nothing to disprove it!" said Rin, more than a little drunk at this point.

"What exactly is a 'DNA' test?" said Gilgamesh with narrowed eyes.

"They'll take a sample of your blood and his, then compare it to see if enough matches that you would be considered related even remotely," explained Emiya helpfully. "It should only take a few days at most."

"And why should I hand over even a drop of my blood to mongrels who wouldn't understand the value of it?"

He suddenly had a finger pointed in his face loaded with a Gandr. It was taking most of his attention span not to go cross-eyed looking at it.

"Because Rin gets curse happy when she's drunk, and she's had at least two full bottles of some really high proof sake in the past two hours while I've been explaining things," said Elric far too cheerfully.

"There are ways for you to relax my sister," said Sakura pointedly.

"Yeah, but then I have to hear her bitch about being 'taken advantage of' and me not properly wooing her...or being able to enjoy it while she's sober," said Elric without missing a beat. Archer snorted.

It took a little convincing from Enkidu for Gilgamesh to hand over enough blood to be tested. They were mostly just trying to humor Rin, who had threatened to skewer everyone with her magically-grown gems if they didn't comply. They didn't expect anything to come of it, because really, Gilgamesh was a Servant and the real one had been dead for thousands of years.

It wasn't like it would come back positive...right?

In Kotomine Church...

"Why is he late? It's not like a demi-god like Hercules or some homunculus are going to be of any real challenge... At least he's not drinking all my wine...again."

Let it be known that Kotomine on painkillers and other drugs makes him loopy and slightly chatty. Or perhaps the best term for it was "obsessively whiny".

Either way, he really shouldn't be mixing painkillers, antibiotics and alcohol. Especially in the proportions he had them in.

It was going to take hours before he realized Gilgamesh wasn't coming back, and days before he connected it with Elric's comment about removing his 'extra' Servant from the war and not returning him.

Whether or not he figured out how was up for debate.