"Spare us the cliché 'but you should be dead,' cornelius. You are a mage. You know the body, the container, the creation of life, and the giving of perception like the back of your hand. Don't disappoint me." Aizaki Tezi said with a bitter and gentle tone. A Erba was silent, his eyes only fixed on her. A faint tremble could be seen on his hand.
Toko threw her bag on the marble floor and said,"It should be ready.”This bag was the only thing that proved to be different. Her face, her eyes, her hair, her smug smile; Even so. He could only promise to change it. Yesterday, it was just a small briefcase, but this one was much bigger. A place you would take on a trip, you could imagine hiding a child in there.
"I came as fast as I could," said Turco,"but from the looks of it, I don't think I made it in time. I believe I have made it clear that Kirkutt is not my apprentice, but you will not listen. She had never taught him anything about art. If you want to know, no, I haven't changed at all.”
"But you should die! I killed you with my bare hands!" A Erba shouted, seemingly not paying attention to what Te Ke was saying. He balled his hands into fists to keep them from trembling. In his mind he was the equal of disbelief, madness, and fear, though he tried to hide it. Toke was very calm. He continued to refuse to face A Erba's bloodshot gaze. Instead, he chose to take out a pack of cigarettes from her pocket.
A Erba watched her every move from where he was. The more the character in front of him continued to act like the Turk he knew, the more the chill on his back grew. He couldn't control himself and shouted at Turk. "You can't be here. This was a mistake. Yes, it was! Some kind of mistake! You are lost on the road to the next life. The dead should not linger in this world. Go away, spirit!"
He raised a bloody hand, the same one Mikiya had stabbed. His blood mixed with the blood from Turk's shattered head, showing a mixture of red and red. He waved the hand, drawing a wide arc in front of him, and wet blood splattered everywhere. When the dispersed liquid flew through the air, it burned and burst into a huge flame in flight like gasoline. All of his remaining malice was thrown at Turk in the art of despair.
The flames spun in an arc, trying to wrap around Toko. But in an instant, she moved her hand as if she wanted to pull the flames in. Sure enough, the fire was pulled to her hand and stopped in front of her. Opening his palm, the concentrated flames circled above. Toke used it to light the cigarette in his mouth, then waved it disdainfully, and the flames were dispersed.
"Hey, cornelius, if you don't want anyone dead in this building, I suggest you complain to the owner of this apartment. Don't put on airs. Can't you tell that I'm real? There was a huge difference between the dead and the living. Just like cigarettes." She took a puff of the cigarette in satisfaction and frowned. " For example, I can tell that this is something bad," Tocco said with a smile.
He had casually discarded her comment, and A Erba finally realized that the person in front of him was indeed a living person, no different from the original person. However, this would only make him repeat the same question. It was not because he did not believe it, but because he could not understand it. So he repeated himself.
"But you ought to be dead," he said, a note of dismay in his voice. These words made Terko frown, expressing her dissatisfaction with cliches, and letting her amber eyes express her point of view.
"Strictly speaking, cornelius, I am dead. His body was almost destroyed, his soul was separated from his body.”
"Then explain that you're here!"
She sighed. "I think it's obvious. I'm the replacement, and I just came out of the package,"she said, and there was nothing absurd in her voice. This statement left the mage with the red coating blank, his mouth half open.
"What do you mean by 'substitutes? When you can revive so easily, are you a puppet? Or…" A Erba began to consider other possibilities, other well-preserved legends and artistic mysteries.
The puppets created by mages could never compare to the appearance of humans. It could move like a human, but it would quickly reveal itself through words, actions, or appearance. Something that seemed incorrect or wrong in its creation, something that revealed its true nature. This, and the part that makes it tick, is not truly alive, but a clever mechanism created by art. If the limbs that exposed blood and muscles were lost, they would be exposed.
Art cannot create an automaton that contains the spark of humanity. An old saying from the Middle Ages had been passed down and became common knowledge. In the end, it became a rule. However, even so, the woman standing in front of A Erba was definitely a human. Of course, it was some kind of replica, but it completely lacked the unique style that exposed all the fake puppets. To Alba, this only meant that this woman was the real Aizaki Shunko.
"Now I understand! Then the one I killed must be fake!”
"Keep lying to yourself, cornelius. This also means that the mage who defeated you yesterday was just my pale imitation, right?”
"Well, alright, that's true. But here we have a contradiction. You said both were true. How do you explain this discrepancy?!”A Erba shouted at Te Ke. However, from his expression after he finished speaking, it seemed that he had solved the problem himself. He shook his head quickly, still doubtful, still believing that it was impossible. But how could he explain it? Was that even possible? " Aosaki, don't tell me you-"
"Ding ding. The person you hit yesterday and the person standing in front of you today are all fake. I don't even know what the meaning of true or false is. I don't even know if it matters anymore.”The mage in the orange trench coat smiled bitterly.
"Then what are you? Not original? Was there even an original? But you call yourself Toko Aizaki, don't you? A soul engaged in artistic work and bestowed with perception! However, all the puppets that were given a short period of perception were still unable to grasp the survival dilemma of their artificial nature and eventually ended themselves. Did you break the rules? How are you going to continue operating?"
"I want to say that everything in front of me is second-rate. I really don't think you're that scared right now, cornelius. You said that I'm fake, but there's only one Aizaki. As a parting gift, I'll even tell you what's going on. Perhaps this would be a good learning experience.”Having lost a bit of her calm appearance, she finally met A Erba.
"Listen, Cornelius. What you see now is what I keep in my sanctuary. It was automatically activated after you killed Aizaki Teko. It had only been an hour. I was a mage who sold pawns and puppets, so I experimented on them too. In one of my experiments, I created my most important creation: A perfect puppet imitating me. No more, no less than myself. I looked at it and let my thoughts wander. I thought that since I created such a thing, perhaps I was no longer needed.”
When the puppeteer told her the story like a layman and a priest, Alba spoke loudly. He could not believe his ears. The heresy of Ordo Magi's laws was pure and simple. Why didn't she feel happy for her achievements instead of giving up on her existence?
" Ridiculous," A Erba spat out. "In the end, what you create is nothing more than a robot. Suppose you could even make the thing you described in the beginning. If you really did it, then why didn't you…why didn't you pursue improvement? Why don't you pursue a higher goal? Mages would never be satisfied with the status quo. We seek, manipulate, create, and only destroy for the last step on the ladder.”
"Hey, what you see is the state of art here, and even when I'm gone, it's still doing the same thing I did. How could this bring hope to the puppeteer?”
"But all of this should be theory! I will not allow myself to be abandoned to do something new but similar to me. Even if this is an achievement that will make my name resound throughout the history of art, it is not enough. I have to be there to observe it, or there's no point!”A Erba wrapped his arms around himself and screamed incoherently, as if this could protect him from something he was not too sure about. Now, anyone could tell the difference between the two mages. Between a person who was bent on revenge and a mage who had thrown himself into the trap for the Path of Gnosis. But A Erba refused to admit this.
"Call it a difference in perspective and philosophy, Alba. However, there's no need to blame yourself. To be honest, I'm actually a little jealous of you. I don't know when I became like this. I don't even know which of me is real. I just woke up when the previous me died. My soul remembers everything, everything is in my heart, Ade, everything I know. The determinists and the entropies said that I and my predecessors took the same action. After all this, perhaps I will be another puppet to convince myself that I am real. The real thing might be the one you killed. It might be dead. But it was all the same, wasn't it? There's no way to tell us apart. It was a quantum superposition problem, just like the cat in the box. No one would know. But I think that the important thing for you and me now is that I'm here, and for now, for whatever reason, I'm Aizaki Shunko. If it brings you any comfort, you can think that the person you killed was a fake. Do we understand? Now we can start the real business.”
She reached for her bag on the floor. Alba stared at her opponent, more afraid of her revelation than she had made up a dozen curses at him. " That's right," he whispered. "This is why Araya let you live. As long as you are alive, your next generation will not trigger and survive.”
Turk remained silent and stared at the red-robed mage with a stern gaze. A Erba had long stopped trying to suppress his trembling. For him, the cold grew stronger as he looked into Turk's senseless eyes. He couldn't see the amber warmth, only the killing intent buried inside. He never knew what Terke looked like now. Even when she was in university, she had never shown such a bloodthirsty look.
A Erba believed that to him, the Toko he knew so far was the only real Toko. It was not this cold figure standing there. She had even hidden many secrets from him. No, it wasn't this side of her. It was a heartless mage, incomparable to any of them. When he accepted this idea, he found that the reason for revenge he held began to become less important and urgent. Because he didn't know what monster he was against, and he didn't know if he really hated it. Because, at the very least, the Aizaki Shunko he knew was very different.
"Are you serious?" he whispered for the last time, as if he were confessing. Tōkosnickers。
"What does this question mean to someone like me?”she hissed, her face full of sweet resentment.
Tiko put the cigarette between his fingers back into his mouth. " Now, let's get back to the more pressing problem," she said as she exhaled gray smoke from her mouth. "Your teasing hurt my friend. He probably didn't even notice the passage of time.”
As far as Alba was concerned, he did remember that Turk had said that it took her an hour to get here. He looked at the boy who had fallen at the foot of the stairs. The wound on his knee did not change. But strangely, the wounds on his head and the blood produced by those wounds had disappeared.
"Aosaki, what magic did you do?”A Erba asked weakly. His earlier performance had made him shout himself hoarse, and in the face of her more skilled performance, any will he had left to attack Tiko disappeared.
“TskTsk。We mages shouldn't use this term so rashly. Remember, this is my third time in this hall. The first time I came here, I cast the spell myself. If you are willing, I will delay the activation. I've put on a little trick in advance that I can play at tonight's party. Think back to your surprise when our child, Cockut, was here.”
"This is the trick?" A Erba recalled the exact time and groaned in regret. There was a blank space in his memory, something missing that connected the events before and after the boy attacked him. A moment of carelessness? Was it an illusion that the Puppet Master had set up beforehand to manipulate his perception? He laughed to no avail.
"That's why I've been playing in your hands since the beginning, you witch. You must have had a good time, Aosaki. I don't want to admit it, but I must look stupid.”
"Oh, don't blame yourself too much. After all, I never thought that I would die. However, please rest assured. I didn't come here again to take revenge for that scene, but for something else. You and Kirkut just happened to be here for convenience.”Tōko gently pushed the bag beside her feet, causing it to fall to the ground. It was more like turning over. Its shape was similar to a cube, and its size was frighteningly large.
"If you're not here for revenge, then what's your purpose?”A Erba asked. "There is no doubt that in order to stop Araya from crazily trying art.”"Not far. Why would I do that when that thing could fix itself? No, A Erba. You're the only one who has a problem with me."
A Erba nodded as if he had come to the same conclusion. However, he wanted to know why he would do that if Turk said that she had no ill intentions towards him, or that she had no intention of interfering with Araya's experiment. Why did she look so nervous and ready to bleed? "Why? I didn't do anything else to you,"he protested.
"It's just a small matter. I mean, I've basically overcome your irrational hatred for me. To tell you the truth, I've liked it better this way since we got along in college. It proves that I'm always better."
"Then why?"
"You still don't remember? The reason was simple: the name you called me was too old and not funny.”The sound of Toko's suitcase opening echoed in the hall. Inside, A Erba could only see a dark object. For some reason, it was not touched by all the light. There were two things-
"Come on, remember the words in the book," Tucker said. "Think back to the name 'Wild Red'. Think back to how I swore to destroy anyone who said that. And how I did it."
- Two lamps or two eyes.
Seeing it, A Erba finally understood. He reproached himself for not realizing it for a long time. This was a box used to seal the secret magic chamber. It was similar to the one Turk used before, but it was bigger. And now the creature inside it, whatever it was, emerged from the seemingly infinitely deep box with incomprehensible speed, catching Cornelius Alba with its thorny tendrils. When he was dragged into the box and eaten alive, he felt a thousand little mouths chewing and eating him in small pieces. When only his head and neck were still visible, A Erba and the Puppet Master's eyes met for the last time before he was completely consumed. Her eyes were filled with laughter. He finally realized that he had been foolish to think that he could fight against such a monster. He remembered the last thing Alaya said to him. Perhaps he should have seen all of this. The last thought in the mage's mind was to be eaten slowly.
This book is provided by FunNovel Novel Book | Fan Fiction Novel [Beautiful Free Novel Book]