DanMachi: Heroic Epic of Emiya the Great Hero
Chapter 204: Wish of Ruin, Elven Doppelganger
Emiya and Filvis silently walked side by side through the dim corridor of the artificial dungeon. The place they had entered was the Adamantine Gate that the Loki Familia had broken through last time.
This area, due to the previous battle, had now been sealed off and abandoned by the Evilus themselves.
Now, there were no surveillance crystal eyes watching, no monsters lurking in the shadows, and no ambushing enemies.
The air all around was silent, as if time had come to a standstill.
In the narrow and oppressive passage, traces of battle could still occasionally be seen on the stone walls, marks from the fierce fight during Loki Familia's last assault.
Dim light shone on melted iron bars and broken stones, and tiny stone dust scattered on the ground made one feel a certain cruel breath of history lingering here.
Emiya suddenly stopped, and Filvis stopped as well.
Without a word, his hand moved slightly and grasped her slender wrist.
Filvis's body trembled lightly, but she did not struggle free, allowing his palm to slowly slide down and gently hold her hand.
Filvis's hand was slightly cold, while his palm was like a weak yet firm warm flame, enveloping her.
The elven girl lowered her eyes, slowed her steps, and seemed to be softly telling a distant dream, "I really wish time could stop here…"
Filvis's words sounded especially weak in the empty dungeon, like a breeze about to dissipate.
She turned her head to look at Emiya, her eyes flashing with crimson light. That gaze, like a blood moon trembling in the fog, carried a trace of sorrow and helplessness.
"When did you find out?", Her voice was even lighter than before, as if afraid her words would stir up some storm she did not want to face in this silence.
"I truly realized it, three days ago," Emiya replied softly, as if recalling details from the past, "But subconsciously, I may have sensed it from the very beginning."
"...From the beginning?"
"Yeah, from the moment we first met," Emiya's voice was calm. He took out a piece of metal from his bosom and held it before Filvis.
Filvis looked at the metal fragment, "This is...?"
She didn't recognize it at first glance.
"This is a fragment of a shield, the relic of your withdrawn Familia companion from the time we first met," Emiya's voice deepened.
Hearing his reminder, Filvis suddenly realized, and the gears of memory clicked back into place.
"And then?", Filvis took a deep breath, barely keeping calm, and continued to ask.
She was very confused, unable to understand what had gone wrong.
Emiya raised his head and looked into her eyes, "The direction of the cut is wrong."
"What?", Filvis couldn't understand what he meant for a moment.
"The direction of the cut, it's wrong," Emiya softly repeated.
He touched the fracture of the metal fragment, "This shield... wasn't broken by a frontal attack, but was slashed from behind."
Filvis felt like something had struck her chest heavily. Her face turned as pale as snow, and her breathing grew labored.
"At that time, the person holding this shield wasn't killed by the reinforced mantis in front, but was slashed from behind, both the person and the shield together."
"And in fact, the shape of this cut also doesn't match the bladed forelimbs of that mantis monster."
'This is just too absurd,' Filvis couldn't help thinking in her heart.
The direction and shape of a sword cut, just because of this detail, a detail not even worth mentioning, suspicion had arisen.
'But if it's him, [Saber] Emiya Shirou..."
Perhaps from his perspective, the "sword marks" that Filvis hadn't even noticed were the clearest clues.
The elven girl's gaze grew increasingly sorrowful.
Emiya continued, "Actually, at first, when I saw this shield fragment, I didn't immediately realize the issue, but subconsciously, I always had a sense that something was off. That feeling lingered in my heart since that time."
Until Emiya leveled up to Lv.4 and officially obtained the skill [Mind's Eye · True], and later, with Aura's help, saw the weapon forged from the mantis's dropped blade again... those sealed memories were finally completely awakened.
He lowered his head, looking at the shield fragment in his hand, "So, I asked Aura to find and confirm these relics in the warehouse of the Dionysus Familia. Among them, there was this shield fragment."
Dionysus had never buried these items but casually left them in the warehouse.
This god never even noticed that Aura walked past him holding these things.
Filvis' knees gave out, and she fell to the ground. Her slender wrist slipped from Emiya's hand.
The girl's hands weakly supported her in front, her hanging hair covering her face, her shoulders gently trembling.
Filvis's breathing became disordered, as if something was blocking her chest.
In her heart, one sentence echoed again and again, like some kind of curse: 'If only life was just as it was at first sight, If everything could have stayed as it was when we first met, how wonderful it would have been.'
But her first meeting with Emiya was not poetic, not a fateful encounter, nor even a coincidental brush. It was a meeting built on lies, a deliberately woven deception.
And based on that lie, every intersection afterward, every trust, every smile and warmth, all became extensions of the lie.
"I didn't want to lie to you...", Filvis's voice trembled out from her lips, and her tears fell drop by drop to the ground, "I really... didn't want it to be like this..."
Her throat felt blocked. Every word brought tearing pain. Her fingers dug deeply into the ground, her nails almost embedded into the dirt.
"Only you...", she murmured, her voice trembling and weak, "Only you, only you, I don't want to..."
Filvis's voice grew lower and lower.
"Can I still hope for salvation?"
["I don't need to beg for any salvation."]
Two completely identical voices rang out simultaneously, echoing in the silent corridor.
A figure walked out from the passage directly behind them.
The newcomer wore a mask and a black cloak.
In front of Emiya, the person removed the mask on the spot, revealing a face almost identical to Filvis.
The bizarre mixed voice from the mask now changed to the voice Emiya was already familiar with, the voice of [White Witch] Filvis.
The similarity between the two had long surpassed that of twins, like mirror images.
The only difference was those crimson eyes, as dark and dull as the abyss.
["I told you already,"] The "Filvis" walking from behind spoke, ["Don't believe in love."]
"Shut up...", The "Filvis" with her head down spoke hoarsely.
["But it's not really your fault. Spotting the flaw from a sword mark on a shield fragment is just too far beyond common sense...[Saber], that title really suits you. Though thinking about it, maybe it was my mistake? After all, I was the one who made the move then,"] The cloaked elven girl continued.
"I said, shut up..."
["Wait, could it be... when you fought me before, you already sensed my identity from my swordplay?"], The "Filvis" completely ignored "herself" and kept talking.
One side was the "Filvis" who kept her head lowered. The other side was the other "Filvis" who wouldn't shut up.
"That, not really. After all, you deliberately changed your sword habits," Emiya replied, "But afterward, when I realized there were doubts about 'Filvis', I made connections on purpose, and started to notice things."
Emiya paused, "You're that masked person... So, is this [Duplication Magic]?"
Up until now, Filvis had only used two types of [Magic] in front of him: one was ultra-short incantation [Dio Thyrsos], and the second was [Dio Grail].
But if, as an elf, she had a third type of magic, Duplication Magic, [Einsel]. The standing Filvis chuckled.
It means My Own Self.
That is, [Elven Duplication].
"So you're a monster too?", Emiya asked.
"That's right," Filvis admitted it.
She slowly lifted her head, her expression as barren as a dry wilderness, showing no emotional fluctuation, as if all senses had been lost.
Those eyes were hollow and deep, peering across time and space at that cruel past that could not be erased.
Before the dark doppelganger could speak, Filvis was the first to reveal her old scars.
"On the day of the 'Nightmare,' I became DEFILED."
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