The ambient sounds of the forest are all that fills the space between Gilgamesh and the Tonberry in need of his aid, who had just been issued a choice so monumental it undoubtedly qualified as both cruel and unusual, even by the swordsman's own boisterous standards; in order to be liberated from the Wanderwood's arboreal clutches, they would have to voluntarily surrender the very knife that served as their anchor and badge of purpose.

A strong warrior can disarm an opponent with a sufficient amount of brute force, but it takes a clever and resourceful warrior to understand that there are other ways to achieve the same result, especially if such a method reduces the odds of having to spill blood needlessly. Intelligent thoughts have always followed Gilgamesh, but most of the time he was also significantly much faster than them, and so it was, in this moment, that it took him a handful of seconds to allow the subtle genius of his bargain to fully sink in, to which a sly smirk formed on closed, painted lips.

The critter in burlap's thought process was as ponderous as their distinctive means of ambulation, yet the shivering of their arm served as a tell. From an emotional perspective, this was less of a choice and more of an ultimatum. Was the price of freedom truly worth giving away that which symbolized their entire existence? Not even Gilgamesh seemed aware of the deeper ramifications that such a trade would bring about for the Tonberry, but he didn't seem too perturbed by this, seeing as there was no use in worrying about a future that had yet to be realized.

The Tonberry's answer would swiftly speak for itself. Slowly, the yellow-eyed monster lifted their arm up in presentation, aiming the blade's point at the towering warrior in motley colors, and announces that the knife is his to take on the grounds that it would be reclaimed if he should fail to complete his appointed task. Bold words, even for an unarmed Tonberry.

At first, Gilgamesh blinked in moderate surprise. That actually worked? He didn't even have to mention the knife at all! Usually, he'd have to fight someone in order to stake a claim on their weapons afterward, but to have somebody just give him one? And, as payment for doing some light hiking through the woods? Talk about literally trailblazing his way into a potential career! With the small quantity of functioning brain cells still available to him, Gilgamesh made a cognitive note to explore this prospect at a later point in time, once they were finally clear of this accursed forest.

“That all depends on whether we get ambushed by monsters,” said Gilgamesh as he gingerly removed the knife from the Tonberry's featureless hand, “But, from the look of things, this place doesn't exactly insinuate 'end-game content', so I genuinely doubt we have anything worth fretting over right now.” Blank white eyes drink in its details. The lack thereof. With meaty fingertips, Gilgamesh carefully manipulates the knife to inspect its properties more closely.

For a piece of ordinary kitchenware, there was nothing amateur about its material composition; not a single loose part anywhere. The blade practically sparkled underneath the sun-dappled treetops as he examined the cutting edge, recognizing a prominent double bevel grind which made it suitable for ambidextrous use. The handle's grain felt smooth yet porous to the touch, meaning he wouldn't lose his grip on it, even if his palms turned sweaty, and appeared to be made of chestnut wood. Using the fingers on his free hand, Gilgamesh flicked the knife twice in rapid succession. Tink tink. His eyes widen with visible shock. He could even hear the quality of the steel!

Determined to obtain a proper feel for its weight and balance, Gilgamesh gently tossed the implement up, let it fall back into his hand, then proceeds to make use of every part of it to spin and twirl the knife around and around as though it were devoid of mass altogether, carving delicate circles and beautiful arcs through the air with more grace and dexterity than even the most well-trained knife jugglers and hibachi chefs. He would even make use of his other hand to perform the same series of nimble flourishes to identical effect. What had potentially appeared like a dynamic performance of whirling sharp steel was actually much closer to a lukewarm training exercise for the sake of becoming accustomed to the knife's idiosyncrasies.

Once he had attained a sense of comfort with it, Gilgamesh brandished the weapon one last time until it rested in a back-handed grip, allowing him to subsequently tuck it inside the girdle that covered his waist. “Color me pleased! You Tonberries really know your way around some excellent cutlery,” he said in a genuine effort to compliment the creature's apparent sensibilities regarding weapon management. Maybe that's why they had a reputation for being such vicious little murder machines?

“It is decided, then!” Gilgamesh loudly annnounced, pumping a clenched fist eagerly. “On my solemn vow as a warrior, I will escort you from this wretched copse, and I will not cease in this effort until you savor the taste of freedom once more.” As he said this, a single glance down at the Tonberry gave him cause to propose a more efficient vehicle for realizing their shared objectives. “But, if I'm being truthful here, it'll probably go much faster if I just carried you the whole way.” Not only had he taken their only means of self-defense, but Tonberries were just as infamous for their sluggish locomotion, and though he would rather meet his end in glorious battle, Gilgamesh would much rather use his own Time Slip spell and turn himself geriatric than allow it to happen naturally while they searched for an exit. At the very least, dying of old age was a much better alternative than dying strictly out of boredom.

The Nameless Tonberry

Being the sort of person who never gets told he's correct about anything, much less when it comes to stating the obvious, Gilgamesh simply folded his arms and nodded his head with great relish as the Tonberry affirms the lack of extant dangers nearby. Of course he was correct! Just look at this place: the level median had to be close to around ten or twelve, fifteen at the most, and that's not to mention the visible absence of any lootable treasure chests. Or that one time he got scrambled by an errant Great Malboro...but let's not talk about that, right now.

But, while the subject of being attacked by monsters is still on the table here, the possibility of such inspired the Tonberry to ask that they be given their knife back—the same one they so foolishly surrendered in exchange for a way out of these woods—so that they could dispatch any hypothetical attackers in the process.

What a hilariously preposterous suggestion! Why, if he neglected to act as the voice of reason and speak out about this now, Gilgamesh could imagine the little green ripper just gleefully waddling their way over to a target like an overly enthusiastic penguin, clocking at an astonishingly eye-popping speed of one foot per minute, waiting to make julienne fries out of them – along with everybody else, including the people who have to sit here and write about this stuff. Some folks had lives to carry out, adventures to experience, strong warriors to harass and fight and steal weapons from – all important matters!

Restraining his urge to simply laugh at the Tonberry, Gilgamesh settled on little more than a healthy chortle. “I'm afraid I'm disinclined to acquiesce to such a request,” he refused, more fancifully than what was required of him if he were to just simply tell them 'no'. Except nothing can ever be simple with Gilgamesh, can it? “I have been charged with finding an exit for you, my pea-colored companion, which means that the responsibility of ensuring both our safeties must fall on my shoulders, as well,” he explained, taking a moment to assume a boisterous pose as he thrust his barrel-like chest forward and pushed two clenched fists into his sides, almost like he were trying to emulate a heroic figure of some nature. If only the Tonberry could see the person Gilgamesh had been thinking of when he struck it.

From the weight of the Tonberry to the burden of seeing them carried safely out of the forest, there was nothing Gilgamesh could not do here that was too difficult or too vexing, except maybe having to put up with the viridescent critter's inability to understand a good turn of phrase every now and then; with that, Gilgamesh had more work cut out for him than a one-legged donkey in an ass-kicking contest.

Smirking with wide painted lips, Gilgamesh stooped low, and placed both hands underneath the Tonberry's arms, being mindful of the lantern they still carried. “Observe.” With the gentleness of a parent holding their child, the towering warrior lifts the little green creature up until he could position them squarely atop his broad, muscular shoulders. “I suggest you get comfortable. This next part might get a little squirrely.” He refused to elaborate, even if he were to be prompted for an explanation.

Suddenly, without warning, Gilgamesh's gigantic form cuts another pose, striking a dynamic contrast between the Tonberry who sat close to Heaven and himself standing directly on the earth as he vocalized his emotions in a single lionesque growl. “Forest of evil! Your bark is worse than your bite! We shall take our leaves!” he calls out, forming a rather inventive and appropriate haiku in the process, before crouching low.

The wind beneath him begins to swirl and revolve, kicking up dust and grass all around. He breathes in.

Then, with an exhale, he jumps, one leg bent, the other stretched fully out.

Whoosh. There is no turbulence as his mountainous form ascends, no resistance as he effortlessly glides upward as though all the density in his body ceased to exist, even if for the briefest of moments. An observer that didn't know any better would have thought Gilgamesh had suddenly gained the power of flight, and that he had just demonstrated nothing short of a true miracle. Like any good magician, he was unlikely to reveal his secrets any time soon, but it was actually closer to an esoteric breathing technique, learned only by the greatest sages of martial arts, that permitted those who could fully master it the wondrous ability to move through the air at incredible distances, and across surfaces that would otherwise be impossible to navigate by conventional means, which Gilgamesh would quickly demonstrate as he reached the apex of his leap and allowed his toes to gently touch down against the highest point of the closest tree that he could use as a foothold, barely even so much as causing it to slightly sway as the rest of his form did the rest of the work by maintaining impeccable balance.

For this, the Tonberry, and Gilgamesh, would be rewarded with a striking panorama of the Wanderwood's topmost canopies, and a sweeping view of the landscape that surrounded the forest in all directions. Unfortunately, after realizing the exact scope of the woods they had been stuck roaming around aimlessly inside of, the multi-colored swordsman frowned, humming in self-reflection. “Well, this might require more legwork than I imagined it would...” he muttered to himself.

One thing was ostensibly true, however: there were much more dangerous things to worry about than monsters.

The Nameless Tonberry

As he scanned the geography on the surrounding horizons, Gilgamesh listened as the self-proclaimed “grudge of the world” offered their own insights, claiming that the Wanderwood had not been this expansive when they made the decision to breach its boundaries and explore the interior. Against all common sense, the viridescent creature had all but convinced themselves that the thickets were sapiently conspiring to keep them imprisoned here, yet the sincerity of their distress easily betrayed the abject nonsensicality of their predicament. Had it ever occurred to the Tonberry that they might just be a little too short to see the whole forest for the trees?

The relic hunter in scarlet could feel his own face morphing into an expression of humorless annoyance. From a Tonberry’s point of view, sure, the Wanderwood practically stretched out to forever, but Gilgamesh was as large as his list of exploits; no challenge, however gargantuan or minuscule, was insurmountable! Besides, a forest cannot be considered inescapable, or else the entire planet would be covered in trees. That’s just common sense.

Still, the baritone beastie in burlap was right about one thing: if there had been an entrance when they stepped foot into the Wanderwood, then it also stands to reason that there must be an exit, as well. And now, it had fallen upon the giant shoulders of Gilgamesh himself—peerless warrior supreme, with extra ham and pepperonis—to seek out their path to freedom! Which was probably going to require a lot of tree-hopping to get there.

Cutting another pose from atop the tree that moonlit as his balancing pole, Gilgamesh pushed his lumbering form northward, virtually gliding his way through the air as the verdant canopies whizzed beneath him like a sea of emerald, until his foot made contact with the point of another tree, prompting the immense warrior to sharply inhale; the moment he breathed out, he used the the tree’s highest point as a springboard to launch forward a second time, repeating this process about every dozen meters or so as though he had invoked the essence of a majestic springing gazelle.

It barely took less than a minute of this before the Tonberry, still perturbed by the Wanderwood’s supposedly anomalous nature, asked Gilgamesh about how the forest appeared to him when he had entered, as well as his own reasons for braving its depths.

“Narrative convenience, unfortunately…” Gilgamesh deadpanned, then mumbled inaudibly to himself, as if disappointed by his own lack of understanding. Kind of hard to invent a reason for being here when he couldn’t even remember why he was here to begin with… “But, now that I think about it, I do seem to recall having lost my cherished spear in these woods some time ago.” Oh, yeah, that was a thing, wasn’t it? “I suppose I must have felt it would be easy to find among all this greenery…” Of all the alibis and excuses he’d ever fabricated for the sake of covering his own ass, this one probably had the most amount of truth behind it. Probably. “Alas, it would appear that my endeavors to recover it have fallen by the wayside, for now.” He cast a few wayward glances at every gap between the trees as they rushed by, hoping to spot even the smallest hint of apple red among the sylvan floors, only to let off a despondent sigh when he could find nothing out of the ordinary.

Metaphorically speaking, the act of turning on a light bulb represents the sudden acquisition of what is colloquially referred to as “a bright idea”. In Gilgamesh’s case, it was much closer to being a wax candle that had long since burned itself free of available fuel, but all it took was a single spark for the proverbial light to start flickering inside. The last time one of these occurred was when a stroke of ingenuity had motivated him to seek out the fabled recipe for one-hundred percent milk.

“Hmm, maybe I could use the G.P.S.™ to triangulate its last known location?” Gilgamesh hypothesized aloud, using words he thought sounded relevant to the workings of the device yet lacking any functional awareness of their intended meaning, before he used a free hand to withdraw the circular gizmo from earlier, pushing buttons in the hopes that it would produce an effect he could remotely pretend was positive.

As soon as the suspicious device began emitting a series of warbling chirps, the briefest glint of light emanated just outside of Gilgamesh’s peripheral view. Before he could even do so much as turn his head in its direction, a thin silver shape speeds almost imperceptibly through the air, striking the gadget in his hand with such intensity that it had all but virtually exploded into a hundred little pieces, to the warrior’s immediately transparent shock. “What the devil—!?” Unable to change momentum as he moved through the air, a cluster of identical silvery shapes flash through the air until they collide with Gilgamesh’s left side, sending three sharp spikes of pain rolling through his body. “—MNGH!!”

Instinctive reflex is all he can rely on to keep himself from losing balance. He twists his body around as it prepares to descend through the treetops, making sure to keep the Tonberry protected from whatever had just struck him. Robbed of his ability to land gracefully, Gilgamesh does his best to use the incoming branches as steps to move lower and lower until he is close enough to the ground to skid against the forest floor on both knees, only so that he could reach for his side to attend to his injuries. No blood, thank goodness; it had truly been a gift of serendipity for him to wear all that armor. But did the G.P.S.™ have to get destroyed, as well? He paid top gil for that thing!

One by one, Gilgamesh pulled each of the objects from his lower left side, bringing them around to look at them in greater detail. In his hand were three small knives, boasting razor sharp edges, fanciful swirling patterns all over their respective blades, and fitted with furniture that appeared to indicate these weapons were meant to be part of something more complete. “Tch. These are kozuka…” Gilgamesh muttered to himself, slowly lifting back to his feet with a strained grunt while he let the painted knives fall uselessly to the forest floor.

A knowing sneer forms on his painted face; boundless confidence impels him to fold both arms into his barrel-shaped chest, as though he were inviting his attacker to step forward and reveal themselves. No animal ruled by baser instincts could throw knives with such precision and power, Gilgamesh reasoned, which could only mean that someone had marked one of them for death beforehand. The question was: who was being targeted?

“I know you’re hiding out there, craven cur!” Gilgamesh shouted aloud, “Introduce yourself, so that we may have a proper duel to the death—that you be cut down before the ruthless strength and skill of the undefeatable Gilgamesh!!”

Tension rising, he waits for his opponent to show themselves. All in due time. Gilgamesh could afford to wait.

The Nameless Tonberry

Hearing the Tonberry speak to no one in particular, Gilgamesh took a page from the handbook of thieves and stole a brief glimpse of the creature from above his mountainous shoulder, but seeing the worrisome rivulets of blood streaking down the green monster’s face caused his eyes to widen with shock. “Blast it all! You’ve been hurt…” he crowed, stooping to his knees so as to have a better look at the wound as he tried to keep his emotions reined in. He had promised to escort them out of the forest, and though he had not verbally guaranteed the creature’s protection, Gilgamesh was also under the impression that nothing dangerous lurked here, either, thus the promise of safety had been largely implied. To be wrong not once, but twice, left the swordsman feeling personally bitter about his ability to sense threats. Had it truly been this long since he’d gone without a fight? Had his instincts dulled this terribly?

A sonorous rising glissando of strings flows through the breeze, echoing from all around the two travelers. Sucking in air through gritted teeth, Gilgamesh twisted his waist, hoping to spot the source of the sound, but found nothing except open space profiled in luscious hues of green. He would have called the scenery beautiful, were it not for more pressing matters that needed tending to first.

Then, a descending glissando emanates, again, from every direction. Gilgamesh slowly growled. “…Playing coy, are we?” He scanned the forest floors, intent on finding the source, only to curl his hands into impotent fists. Only a coward of the highest order, or an incredibly top-notch assassin, would resort to skulking around in the shadows playing nebulous string instrument arrangements instead of confronting their enemies in glorious single combat.

The Wanderwood stirs ominously as the distinctive plucked notes of a koto reverberate in a haunting melancholic tone, without any discernible origin. The breeze grows cold. The trees shudder. The grass shivers. Flowers begin to lean away from the sun, rather than towards it. The forest animals flee in clusters, burrowing into hiding spots or taking to the skies. Gilgamesh steadied himself, prepared to use his own body as a shield in case more of those knives came barreling at them, yet secretly hoping for this to never be the case. Even though his armor had mitigated the damage the other three had caused on him, the sheer force at which they dug into his side had almost paralyzed him for a split second. Certainly, this was no ordinary enemy they were dealing with.

A pink shape, small and light, appears from nowhere to drift gently past Gilgamesh’s field of view. He blinked rapidly, unsure if what he saw had been real or merely illusory. Before he could lift his gaze to see what had flown by, two more shapes in the same hue floated by. Then, three. More continue to hang and glide gently through the air, sailing and hovering in tandem to the sounds of the instrument until the swordsman in scarlet, able to see them in full now, recognized precisely what these mysterious objects were . “Are these…blossom petals?” That should have been impossible; the Wanderwood lacked such trees. Or did it?

A sharp, stinging note blares out. In that moment, Gilgamesh feels every muscle in his body stiffen with anticipation. “Fighter senses tingling…!” he mutters, looking in every direction he can to spot whoever, or whatever, was threatening them from beyond the visible realm.

Amidst the falling petals, nothing but trees and shadows could be seen. But as Gilgamesh turned his head, his expression turned into visible surprise the moment a magenta smudge barreled forward without any warning whatsoever, too fast for the naked eye to perceive. Lifting his body up, he raised his arms up in a last-minute defense, feeling a long metallic object collide into his gauntlets with nothing short of superhuman strength.

CLANG!! Gilgamesh could do nothing but grunt from the sheer force of the impact as both of his feet left the ground against his will, which caused the entirety of his monstrous form to go rocketing backwards and into the Wanderwood. Needless to say, the mass of his own body combined with the unprecedented velocity at which it was sent hurtling through space had caused Gilgamesh to crash violently, and painfully, through several trees in the process. As for whether anybody heard these trees falling, that’s largely a matter of observation and perception.

But that also meant the Tonberry was now exposed to this new threat; not entirely defenseless, but vulnerable all the same.

The same metallic object that had sent Gilgamesh packing then lowered itself close to the Tonberry’s neck, poised in such a way that a keen razor’s edge could be felt, even as it let off a silver shimmer beyond their peripheral view. This could only mean one thing: that the object in question was a blade, and that whoever was wielding it possessed considerable power. Enough to blow away a paper tiger like Gilgamesh, anyway.

“Make no sudden movements,” a layered male voice belonging to neither Gilgamesh nor the Tonberry growls, “and I can at least promise your death will be a painless one.” It was less of a threat and more of a vow. But even with their ability to move restricted, there was still enough space in the Tonberry's peripheral view to get a better look at the one who had now stood beside them, looming overhead like a menacing arbiter of judgment. Their entire form seemed a blend between man and monolith, dressed in clothes more foreign than any that could be found in a marketplace, while a thin circular hat cast a dark shadow over his masked visage as two red eyes glared down with killer intent.

And he was here to fulfill a purpose.

The Nameless Tonberry