Section 17: The Dark Girl

It's about time you made it back.

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I've been waiting here with a formation that would use our bond to send you here as soon as the veil came undone.

But then, once you were finally on your way, something showed up to try and stop you.

So I rushed out a remote control spell and used that to send it packing.

Though I have to say, I couldn't believe how heavy it was! It might've looked like a young girl, but it weighed as much as a small country.

Hmm, I wonder what we've gotten ourselves caught up in this time...

Oh, right. I should let you know that it was Sì Bú Xiàng who caught you when you popped in. He was the one who ultimately got you here.

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(Expression that says "Well, what else was I supposed to do?")

Mo! (Proudly)

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I'm here.

Man, that was one helluva shock.

As if getting transferred all of a sudden wasn't enough of a surprise, the first guy I see when I get here ends up being Taigong Wang! The guy we fought in the northern castle!

Only...it's not THAT Taigong Wang? Man, I'd have shot you if you hadn't been so quick with an explanation of what's happening.

Not the same? ...Ah, I see. It must be one of those things. Interesting.

Hm?

Oh, don't mind me.

All right. So, as for Ptoley... Eh, better if you just go see for yourself.

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Hey there, Master!

I am glad to see you alive and well, Master.

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I know. I was pretty freaked out at first, too. It's like something straight out of a sci-fi mystery.

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I was just talking to Ptolemaîos about this.

Well, I guess I should say "the Ptolemaîoses" now.

Anyway, the biggest unanswered question right now is, "Where could the one who used the Holy Grail be?"

The castles take up the vast majority of this Singularity. If this being wasn't there, then there are almost no other places where they could hide.

So that we could not find them, even with my eagle, the enemy Taigong Wang, and Thēseus all searching for them is a problem.

It led us to thinking that whoever used the Holy Grail may not be in this Singularity at all.

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Hold on, older me. You're skipping ahead. What you mean to say is, we think they're on the reverse side of this Singularity.

We thought this Singularity worked by switching between day and night. But that's not actually the case.

In truth, day and night are each their own separate Singularities.

Or to put it another way, you can think of it as daytime and nighttime textures being overlaid on top of the real Singularity.

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The way it worked was, whenever it got to a certain time of day, you and the other castle's Servants were automatically moved to the other Singularity.

No, wait. "Moved" isn't really the right word.

The two Singularities are layered on top of each other, so it's more accurate to say that this "move" involves the other Singularity's existence becoming more pronounced.

Nnn... Sounds a lot like quantum physics.

Yeah, it's pretty close to that. This kind of thing is usually relegated to modern magecraft, like El-Melloi II's.

Anyway, there was one Servant here who was obviously an exception to that rule.

Ptolemaîos never switched between the daytime and nighttime Singularities. There were two of him here from the start.

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That's right. There were two Singularities here, and one Ptolemaîos for each of them.

However, neither knew this because their memories were being adjusted, just like what happens when a Servant is summoned.

I think they were set to fit in with the different timelines here. You see, time doesn't flow the same in both worlds.

This whole place turned out to be a parallel world... Well, a parallel Singularity. Talk about a scam!

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Hahaha, I don't blame you. I didn't get it at all, either!

But anyway, you get the idea. We figure it's probably some kind of spirited away deal.

That's a very rough way to put it, but it's mostly accurate.

It's the same principle that led to Spriggan from Faerie Britain getting spirited away from Proper Human History.

But, like I said earlier, this Singularity is basically a scam.

If you want proof, think back to when you first Rayshifted here, when you arrived in this twilight area.

Though it may be hard to use in Singularities, our world possesses a powerful ability to correct itself.

So once it realizes that there's a whole other identical Singularity on the other side, the scam no longer works.

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Yes, that's right. Luckily, older me here had been looking into how that sort of thing would work.

Summoning a Servant is itself an act that reaches between worlds.

So if a Servant is in another world, then giving them an order via a Command Spell also transcends physical limitations.

At least, in situations like this where the other world, a parallel Singularity, was already close by.

Ugh, I can't believe I grew up to become such an intolerable bore!

I hope you didn't constantly lecture your subjects like that after you became pharaoh.

What a coincidence. Here I was, pondering how much I wanted to throttle my younger, immature self.

Youth truly is wasted on the young. If I'd only been wiser at your age, I could have conquered the East in less than half the time.

Oh? You want a piece of me, old man!?

Bring it on, brat!

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Well, there are few things harder to face than your own mistakes, so...

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Right. You want to know about the mastermind behind all this, the mysterious girl who was possessing Lord Asterios.

I suspect she's been hiding out in this twilight area from the beginning, after placing a veil of night and day on the Singularity itself.

So she's been hiding on the reverse side of this world? Hell of a way to play hide-and-seek.

Actually, she may not have been hiding at all.

Huh? Didn't you just say she was?

It could be that the mastermind didn't choose to hide, but was simply unable to move. I've seen cases like that before.

After all, it's one of the greatest feats I've performed in this world.

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Indeed. I sent many souls to the god sealing pedestal in my time. And I've been sensing something very similar here in this Singularity.

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...I'm sorry. I wish I could have stayed with you to the end, but it seems I've reached my limit.

I've been holding this formation to call you this whole time, after all.

...You're falling apart, all the way down to your Spirit Origin.

There's a time disparity between the two Singularities, right? How long has it been since you put up your formation?

Ahaha, oh, about six months or so. It was pretty lonely out here by myself, let me tell you.

Still, I could tell from my continued materialization that my Master was alive and well.

So even if I couldn't track him down from here myself, I knew he would find his way back to me eventually.

So of course I was going to stay and wait here until he did.

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Not at all. But I do apologize for heading back to Chaldea ahead of you.

So I hope all of you will watch out for him in my place.

Oh and don't worry, Sì Bú Xiàng. I'll put a virtual bypass in place so you can stay here connected to Master!

...We've confirmed that Taigong Wang has returned to Chaldea.

His Spirit Origin's suffered quite a bit of damage, so we're going to put him in a recovery pod right away.

...

...There was no telling where you guys would have ended up if the Singularity came undone.

For all we know, you could have found yourselves right in the middle of enemy territory.

That's why Taigong Wang kept his spell in place all this time.

It's also why you could escape from that girl.

...Thank you, Taigong Wang.

Mo, mo, mo! (Clearly proud)

What a guy. He was a fearsome foe, but as an ally, he couldn't have been more dependable.

If young Iskandar was here, I have no doubt he'd be falling all over himself to poach him.

Now then, once you've had an opportunity to rest a bit, Master, there is somewhere else we'd like you to go.

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Where else? The enemy's home base! Are you up for it, Master?

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Hahaha! Just what I was waiting to hear!

Report: Servants bearing strong resemblance to Ptolemaîos and Sugitani Zenjubou spotted nearby.

...So they really did make it to the twilight.

I suppose I should have expected this when I failed to hold them back.

Then it's probably just a matter of time until they make their way to this castle.

Take the beasts. Use them as you will.

Understood.

...I doubt that will stop them.

No... They can't stop, even if they wanted to. That's just how Heroic Spirits and their Masters are.

Then it's time they learned how sinful their actions are.

If they've come all the way here, they should meet with an appropriate tragedy.

I am sin. I am transgression. I am wickedness.

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I wouldn't call this the fourth castle. I'd say this is what the castle actually looks like.

The castles we've been seeing in the day and night Singularities were probably just different projections of this one.

I guess we could call it the Castle of Twilight. Though "twilight" doesn't usually bring such an ominous atmosphere to mind.

Seems less like a castle and more like some mysterious otherworldly domain to me.

I can see some places where we could maybe sneak in, but it really doesn't look like a place for humans to live.

I guess you could say that about the day and night castles too, but this one's on a whole other level.

Mo, mo, mo. (Nodding)

All right, this way. I found us a nice spot where we can see inside.

Here, we oughta be able to take a look from up here. Got a pair of binoculars, Ptoley?

My Noble Phantasm can gather light just fine. Using it will let us see what is several kilometers away as though it were right in front of us.

Okay, here goes. Try not to yell in surprise.

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Y-you mean there's more than one of those monsters!?

Hang on. Something's not matching up with our instruments.

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The magical energy waveforms the Dreadnoughts are emitting are almost identical to the ones from the castle itself.

They almost seem like twins... No, on second thought, it reminds me more of a snake and its shed skin.

...Now I see.

The Dreadnoughts and the shadow knights are all fragments of the Castle of Twilight!

Hmm. Does that mean they are like dragon teeth?

Oh, I know about those. They're from the legend of Cadmus the dragon slayer.

Right. After Cadmus defeated the dragon defending a spring, Athena gave him a divine revelation.

He planted the dragon's teeth in the ground, as the revelation instructed him, and armed men sprung up from them.

It's said that these men, or Dragon Tooth Warriors, went on to become the first Thebans, but that's another story.

My point is, you're right; these things do remind me of them.

But if something similar is happening here, then what about the castle? How is it able to produce Dreadnoughts as well as Dragon Tooth Warriors?

No, wait. Based on these readings, I'm wondering if that whole castle isn't actually another monster's creation.

But what kind of monster could possibly make something like that?

I know of one such creature.

Does that mean you know who or what's behind this? I had a feeling that might be the case.

I wasn't sure until just now.

Though I've had a hypothesis ever since we found out it was possessing Asterios.

Master, do you remember what I told you about the Sphinx?

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Do you also remember what I said about the Greek gods running away to Egypt for a time?

Why do you think they did that?

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That's right. Even with all their power, all of the Greek gods were afraid of a terrible monster.

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Asterios called himself a monster, but I have to disagree. The word "monster" was made for creatures like this.

For this monster was the ancestor of every other monster that appears in Greek mythology.

The Cerberuses and Hydras the shadow knights fused into earlier were all born from this monster.

Legend even has it that the Nemean lion, the dragon guarding the Golden Fleece, the hundred-headed dragon known as Ladon, and Gorgon were all members of its bloodline.

Even the giant we saw in the very first castle was surely one of this monster's brothers.

There are a number of legends about where this monster came from, most of which involve giants.

I would guess the giant we saw there was from a distorted timeline, and was being forced to eliminate any would-be castle lords who weren't up to the task.

You've gotta be kiddin' me...

This monster is sometimes referred to as the ancestral dragon.

Not to suggest it was the progenitor of dragonkin. Rather, it was one of the first dragons, and progenitor of monsters everywhere.

In all the Library of Alexandria's many books, it is the most feared creature to ever have been recorded.

Its name...is Typhon.

Whoa, whoa! Wait just a damn minute!

Typhon's the biggest monster in all Greek mythology! They say it even defeated Zeus himself!

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It was no close thing, either. Zeus wasn't merely defeated. His thunderbolts and immortal-slaying sickle were stolen, too.

Had another god not intervened to save Zeus, it would have been the end of their entire pantheon.

From the sound of it, I'm guessing you haven't just read about this creature in books.

Right you are. Back when I lived, I was once shown a fragment of Typhon's body.

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Do you recall what I said about how the model for my Noble Phantasm, the Library of Alexandria, contained two aspects?

Well, the other Library of Alexandria on the reverse side was completed with help from the Atlas Institute and other mages.

One of those mages was from the Wandering Sea.

...Um, as in, the same Wandering Sea from the original Mage's Association?

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The very same. Though I was unaware of Chaldea's relationship with them.

The Wandering Sea is usually completely isolated from the world at large. I only ever dealt with one eccentric mage.

And that was the very mage who had the fragment of Typhon.

Wow. The history of your Noble Phantasm is even more complicated than I thought.

It was simply necessary to incorporate magecraft in order to gather all the world's knowledge. That's all.

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So this is why I was summoned.

I have a connection to Typhon, and the skills needed to resolve this Singularity.

That's why I had one Spirit Origin each summoned to the day and night versions.

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Wouldn't have been my first guess from looking at her. Still, Taigong Wang said Typhon had been sealed away, right?

Yes, in Mt. Etna. According to legend, Typhon should still be slumbering there.

H-hey, that's right. If we're up against the sleeping Typhon, then we don't have anything to worry about!

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According to legend, the goddess of fate's trickery is what led to Typhon's defeat.

She fed it a fruit that she said would grant any wish. In truth, it was a fruit of ephemerality.

Rather than having a wish granted, whoever ate that fruit would in fact never have any wish come true.

Sure enough, after Typhon ate the fruit, it was never able to defeat Zeus again.

Zeus chased it to an island in the Mediterranean, where it was sealed away, buried by an eruption of Mt. Etna.

Good point. Since Typhon is sealed away, the version of it that's materialized here must be the one who ate that fruit.

That would help explain why it looks like a girl now.

You really do have an excellent magecraft education, Director Goredolf. I've always been so obsessed with stories of heroes that I forget about things like that.

Hehe, well, I was mainly part of the exalted Policies Department, but I did receive instruction in the Meluastea Department from Lord Meluastea himself.

(Though he also said he was shocked by my lack of talent! He seemed positively giddy about it, too!)

Anyway, yes, that form of Typhon's, along with the fact that it was hiding on this Singularity's reverse side, is proof that it has lost its power.

And that means, now that we're here...

...as long as we can find Typhon's body, our victory is assured!

...

O-or is that too optimistic?

...No, I was thinking largely the same thing.

For one thing, if Typhon had its full strength, it could have easily burned this entire Singularity to ash.

We would be mosquitoes picking a fight with a giant. That we're alive is proof Typhon is still weak.

And that means our only option is to make our way through this castle and find its real body before it's too late.

So we've gotta get past those Dreadnoughts? That's a scary thought.

It is, as I said, our only option.

You wait here, Sì Bú Xiàng. We may need you to come get us if things take a bad turn.

Mo!

All right. Now, as to the usual question...

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Hahaha, there's no need for you to choose between us this time.

You now have us both at your side!