East Snowfield, marsh area
"If only I had one of those in my time... Nah, what a sad thing to say. That thing was built with the power of the gods, so if I overpowered the monster with that, it wouldn't have been my win... humanity's win."
Hearing the captain silhouette laugh with heartfelt joy with a tinge of frustration, Sigma thought "I don't know what's so funny but I'm jealous of his ability to laugh".
"Well, we Shadows are just some duplicates. Just Watcher recreating how she thinks the originals would react in this situation. The bastard doesn't care to put every detail into the simulation, so we're more like magecraft constructs than anything."
"As an outsider, I can't see the difference between that and talking to the original."
The silhouette responded by taking the shape of the boy with wings.
"Shouldn't you work on fixing that? Someone using illusions to make fakes of us could easily deceive you.", he warned.
"If there's any third party involved with the intention to deceive me, then I simply won't trust you."
"Yeah, makes sense that's how you think."
"The original is as likely to betray as a fake. There's a lot that can be said about philosophical zombies but my knowledge of magecraft is not enough for this debate. Instead of thinking about whether the other is the original or a copy, I think about how the other is affecting me at each given moment. That's all."
Two opposite figures popped into Sigma's mind as he spoke.
One was Lambda, a living human he spent his childhood with.
The other was the Assassin Servant, who just like the Shadows, was copied from the throne.
The former backstabbed Sigma when he least expected and fell to a retaliation he has no strong feelings for.
The latter was someone who barely knew him but fought against a horrid monster alongside him because that was what her faith or creeds determined.
Although she almost killed him when they first met, in their farewell the previous day, she said they would save people for as long as they could, and to top it off, showed him her smile.
There are no differences between copies and originals.
On the contrary. Sigma felt these replicated shadows feel a lot more human than the Instructors in his childhood.
Why bother distinguishing an original from a fake or simply a copied soul?
Since Sigma couldn't tell them apart, the only things he knew to be real are the products of his interactions with others, no matter which they are.
Sigma watched videos of comedians from all over the world until the discs wore out. Now a thought occurred to him.
(All those people in the videos were, strictly speaking, copied. And they follow a script, making the thing doubly false. But here I am, enjoying comedies. Does that make me also fake? If my ego was shaped by fakes, what would my ego and my emotions qualify as?)
After some thought, Sigma shook his head, deeming these questions a waste of time.
It was always in Sigma's disposition to trust nobody, not even himself.
He could be real or could be fake, but regardless, he could only play the cards at his disposal.
After all, he needed to save a girl
—Kuruoka Tsubaki
—from the clutches of both a god and the government.
It was his decision. Trusting himself or not, the dice were already cast.
Whether he was real or fake is up to others to decide when it's all said and done.
(Authenticity is determined only by the lasting impression you leave on those who saw you.), Sigma commented to himself.
(What was it like for mom? She fought alongside Emiya Kiritsugu, a
legend. What was she seeing when she died in obscurity?)
Sigma's thoughts stopped here, with a self-derisive chuckle.
Many people die with their heads blown off, unaware of what they were seeing in their last moments.
He realized he was romanticizing his mother too much in asking what final conclusion did she reach, hence the pained chuckle.
(Yeah, my head could be blown off at any moment. So... I'll choose to believe that I already found my conclusion somewhere.)
When Sigma asked himself where, the first image to come to his mind was Assassin's smile.
"The faith I obtained?"
In response to these words that Sigma mumbled while carefully traversing the marsh, the Shadow of the boy with the caduceus spoke with a serene smile.
"Why don't you start a new religion with that? If your teachings rebuke the Greek gods and set the logical practice of medicine as an absolute creed, you have my support. Gotta make sure Apollo is the one you'll demonize the most."
"You want to worship medicine itself as a deity? Maybe try someone else, all I'd be able to produce is weird gods in lab coats and nurse outfits... Also, who is Apollo?"
"He's... no one interesting. You don't need to know."
"Ok. I thought that sounded like a comedian's name, but if he's not funny, I'm not interested."
Amidst his words, Sigma thought about the Shadows.
(Is it just me or... have they started to joke around more lately?)
The silhouette of a boy interrupted his musings.
"I found them. They're hidden in that rocky area."
"Got it. Thanks."
Saying that, Sigma activated magecraft that hid his presence and braved closer to the rocks.
"Hey."
Hearing a sudden voice from above, the mercenary reflexively pointed his assault rifle.
"I'm
FAMINE. Are you from
THORN?"
"Don't scare me like that... You couldn't blame me for shooting you when you show up like that."
The THORN man confirmed that FAMINE had Sigma's face and let go of the trigger.
He pointed the barrel slightly away, but remained in the position to shoot any time, presumably because he was ordered to keep watch on Sigma and Saber a few days back.
THORN was Faldeus's codename for his pet squad, an ambush team heavily armed to suppress mages.
"Sorry, my comms are broken... Can you contact CATTLE?"
"He told us to be on standby here and hasn't messaged since. We get responses for the regular reports but it's his subordinate woman talking. Not CATTLE."
The "CATTLE" Sigma asked about referred to Faldeus, much like Sigma himself was codenamed FAMINE. The question was a farce. Sigma already knew from the Shadows that Faldeus had cut off many low-importance teams and was operating in sigil with a team that was sort of like his personal guard.
In short, Sigma was with the discarded THORN members.
Sigma could imagine why they were abandoned.
They came in contact with Saber a few days prior.
Saber offered the THORN soldiers meals and after some difficulties, they came to accept it.
He didn't know if they honestly opened up to Saber. Knowing they are a special squad, there's a high chance they simply pretended to be on good terms with him.
But from Faldeus's perspective, regardless of the answer, that's an element of uncertainty.
Faldeus can't ignore the possibility that Saber or his Master placed brainwashing magecraft or something to that effect.
After all, he's working on the most confidential operation possible: carrying away the base of the Holy Grail before they destroy the whole land of Snowfield. Teams should be cut off at the slightest suspicion.
Through Watcher's information via the Shadows, Sigma knew their situation better than they did.
That was something he could exploit.
He knew that in the north of the city, there was a united front fighting against the deity in the west.
But they didn't trust Sigma, who is aligned with the masterminds.
He felt that he could easily have been invited if Saber and Ayaka were the leaders of the alliance, but Sigma would rather avoid being a source of discord within the united front.
Thus, he set his scheme in motion.
From the backroom, his trick would push the
lead actress away from the stage.
It had low chances of success and quite high chances of death.
But they did not need to shoot silver bullets against a monster.
Sigma had to fight in a way only an actor in the backroom can. His next words were the first step.
"Faldeus didn't tell even you?"
"? Tell what?"
"Everyone in the JACKAL, SPADE, and WINEGLASS units is dead. And their reaction to that was calling Operation [Aurora fall]."
"!? All of them!? And what's this operation codename? No one told me about that one."
Sigma noticed the special squad member tensing up under the mask.
One wrong answer and they'd be trading bullets.
Sigma couldn't understand others.
But what he could do was follow the
good faith growing within him and speak a mix of truths and lies.
"I know about it because I'm a Master but Faldeus froze his line to me. Looks like I was discarded."
"What is Operation [Aurora fall]?"
"This city will be wiped off the map tomorrow... with all of us in it."
The soldier could figure out the rest from just that.
His words would normally be hard to believe but they were Faldeus's subordinates. They knew his personality and they knew the power of the people above him.
Not to mention that if the hurricane approaching from the west was related to the world of magecraft, then they had a perfectly valid reason to resort to such measures.
After waiting for him to slowly digest the situation, Sigma opened his mouth.
"We were abandoned. If you want to escape, it won't be me who will stop you. If you don't trust me, try calling CATTLE. It might get you wiped earlier, though."
"What's your plan?"
"I'll do what I can. There's one minor problem that can change the upper echelon's decision if I solve it."
And so the spellcaster opened negotiations.
He was a taciturn and inarticulate man who didn't trust others or himself—
but to fight against the tyranny of both gods and men...
"Are you willing to help me out?"
Or perhaps to enact the final stage of his ruinous comedy...
"My Servant...
Charlie Chaplin is ready for action."
Originally Posted by Comun
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