Artoria could no longer support herself and staggered back a step, leaning against the cold wall to keep from falling. Her lips trembled, but she couldn't make a sound. Her mind was blank, only the word "daughter" echoing repeatedly like a curse, grinding all her pride, all her persistence, and all her hatred into the most pathetic joke. She looked at Kanjuro with hollow eyes, as if her soul had been extracted.
Emiya Kiritsugu and Irisviel were also completely stunned; this truth was far more impactful to their understanding than Maiya's betrayal. Their gaze toward Artoria was filled with a complex mix of sympathy, shock, and helplessness.
Kanjuro surveyed the room with satisfaction at all the faces caught in collapse or extreme shock, finally letting his gaze fall on Illya, who was clutching his hem with fanatical and ignorant eyes.
"See, Illya," he whispered gently, his voice like a cold wind from the abyss, "this is the power of truth. It can easily destroy a person, and it can... pave the way for us."
Despair, like the thickest ink, completely saturated everyone in the room. Trust, family, belief... everything that supported them disintegrated under Kanjuro's casual words.
Emiya Kiritsugu forcibly broke free from the massive shock of information and betrayal. His eyes, like burnt-out ashes, stared fixedly at Kanjuro, his voice raspy with extreme anger and some incomprehensible emotion:
"Kanjuro! What exactly do you want?! Toying with people's hearts, subverting their understanding, creating one tragedy after another... Do you really want to completely destroy this world and everyone in it?!"
The playfulness on Kanjuro's face receded slightly, replaced by a nearly philosophical yet bone-chilling contemplation. He gently pushed Illya from his arms, letting her stand aside, his gaze sweeping over the pain and despair on everyone's faces before he finally spoke slowly:
"Destroy this world? No, Emiya Kiritsugu, you are wrong, utterly wrong." His voice was calm but carried a heart-stopping weight. "I do not seek destruction. On the contrary... I have been searching, in the endless abyss of despair, for that sliver of... perhaps non-existent 'dawn'."
His gaze finally fixed on Artoria, who was leaning against the wall with hollow eyes as if her soul had been extracted. A genuine hint of an artist's regret and disappointment actually surfaced on his face.
"I originally thought... she would have it," he said softly, as if talking to himself. "I bestowed upon her the most extreme pain, tampered with her memories, twisted her life, and let her be torn apart in a whirlpool of love and hate... I created the deepest environment of despair I could imagine. I thought that in such desperation, I could force out the most dazzling, unyielding light of 'hope' within human nature. But, look..." He pointed at Artoria's soul-crushed appearance and shook his head. "So far, I have seen nothing. Only collapse, only pain, only... void. It truly is... a pity."
"So, you proactively manufactured despair?! Just for... just to see that damned 'hope'?!" Emiya Kiritsugu roared. The absurdity and cruelty of the logic made him nearly lose his mind. "You lunatic!"
Kanjuro suddenly smiled, a smile that was pure and cold, as if he had found the ultimate truth.
"Of course. Only by placing the human heart in the cruelest crucible to be roasted, and toying with it in the palm of one's hand, can its most essential reaction be forced out. Hope only possesses the value of being observed when it is born from a state of total negation and despair. What a pity, what a pity..." He spread his hands, looking helpless. "I've tried for so long, changed so many subjects, and designed so many scripts, yet I have never seen on anyone's face that true 'light of hope' that can transcend the despair I create. Isn't that regrettable?"
At that moment, Artoria, who had been as silent as a doll, suddenly moved.
She slowly and with great difficulty raised her head. Her emerald eyes were no longer empty, but filled with endless sorrow and an... indescribable, complex tenderness. She gazed deeply at Kanjuro, as if trying to pierce through his cold disguise to see his innermost depths.
"Kanjuro..." she spoke, her voice hoarse and weak, yet clearly reaching everyone's ears. "In... in that segment of memory you created for me, I loved you so much, so... deeply. That feeling was so real, so intense, that even now, it still burns in my soul, intertwined with my hatred, nearly tearing me apart."
Step by step, she walked slowly but firmly toward Kanjuro, ignoring Emiya Kiritsugu's stunned gaze and Irisviel's worried exclamation.
"So..." She finally stood still before Kanjuro, looking up into his eyes that were as deep as an abyss. Then, under everyone's disbelieving gaze, she reached out her arms and gently, yet with an air of resolution, embraced Kanjuro's waist, pressing her cheek against his cold black robe.
"Merlin... no, I should call you Kanjuro now, the real you, right?" Her voice carried a sob, yet held a strange calmness. "It's time to let go... let yourself go, and let everyone else go. If you continue like this, you won't find what you want; there will only be... eternal void."
This embrace had nothing to do with lust; it was more like a lost child hugging a relative who had gone astray, carrying sorrowful consolation and ultimate understanding (even if it was a distorted understanding).
To the side, Jeanne d'Arc held her breath, her violet eyes filled with shock and an incomprehensible curiosity. She didn't know specifically what Artoria had experienced in that tampered memory, but for a king of knights known for her firm will to actually develop such a... deep feeling for an existence like Kanjuro that she couldn't fully let go of even after waking up? Just how beautiful and unforgettable was that fictional past? She couldn't help but wonder if Kanjuro, who could weave such memories, had also... ever invested a sliver of genuine tenderness? She stared intently at Kanjuro, more curious than ever—would this demon, who seemed to have no weaknesses, feel even the slightest... softening of heart at this moment?
Inside the workshop, time seemed to freeze once more. All eyes were focused on the two embracing—one was a king of knights trying to use a remnant, distorted 'love' to influence a demon, and the other was an unreasonable observer dedicated to finding hope within despair.
The moment Artoria hugged him, Kanjuro's body stiffened almost imperceptibly. He looked down at the blonde girl's slightly trembling shoulders and closed eyes in his arms. Deep within those eyes that were always full of calculation and coldness, something seemed to fluctuate, ever so slightly.
Irisviel's voice suddenly rang out, breaking the dead silence. Her face bore a nearly illusory, broken smile, as if recalling a distant and contradictory dream:
"Kanjuro... actually, every time you... had relations with me," she forced the words out, her cheeks flushing slightly, not from shyness but from a mixture of humiliation and confusion, "you were always so... gentle. Your movements were light, you even considered my feelings... I would sometimes be in a daze during those moments. If you truly are a thorough demon, why would you show such... nearly pitying tenderness at those times?" Her question sounded like an interrogation, yet also like she was seeking an answer to help herself understand this twisted relationship.
Hearing this, Kanjuro looked down at Artoria, who was still tightly hugging him, then looked up at Irisviel, a helpless yet malicious smile appearing on his face.
"Gentle?" He gave a light chuckle, wrapping his arm around Artoria in a gesture that looked intimate but was actually full of control. "That's because I was 'enjoying' it, Iri. The elegance of tasting prey, the patience of dismantling a soul, the amusement of observing your struggle between the 'tenderness' I give and the pain that follows... all of it is an ultimate aesthetic experience. How could I use crudeness to ruin such exquisite beauty?" His words defined all 'tenderness' as part of the process of enjoying cruelty, completely shattering any fantasy that he might possess any kindness in his heart.
Artoria raised her head in his arms, her emerald eyes looking deep into his. The fire of love that had been ignited in her false memories had long since died out, leaving only cold ashes and a final sliver of unwilling inquiry:
"So? Even now, you still refuse to... repent?" Her voice was very light, yet carried the weight of a thousand catties.
"Repent?" Kanjuro laughed out loud as if he had heard the most absurd joke in the world. The laughter echoed in the empty workshop, piercing and cold. "What should I repent for? Where was I wrong?" He stopped laughing, his gaze sharp as a knife as he scanned everyone present. "I pursue my answers using my methods. What meaning do the rules of the world or the shackles of morality have for me? I have never believed I have done anything wrong."
Artoria's gaze dimmed completely, but she still persisted, asking with the last of her strength:
"You say you hope to see hope after despair... then, this feeling I have for you, even if it originated from a falsehood, is the current real pain and struggle in your eyes also completely fake? Can't this... 'existence' born from you, so complex that even I cannot untangle it, be considered... a 'thing' born out of despair?" She avoided the word 'hope,' for it was too extravagant.
Kanjuro listened quietly, his face showing no emotion. He reached out and lightly brushed his fingertips against Artoria's cheek. The movement was gentle, but his gaze was like that of someone observing a specimen in a laboratory.
"Even if it is real, so what?" His voice was flat and calm, carrying a transcendent indifference. "I see it, and I acknowledge it. This twisted emotion truly exists, and it is very interesting—it could even be called one of the masterpieces among my many works. But—"
He paused, his tone decisive and leaving no room for negotiation:
"That doesn't mean I will stop my actions because of it, my dear... good, daughter."
He enunciated the words "good daughter" very clearly, with absolute mockery and cruelty.
As soon as these words were spoken, it was like the final death knell had sounded.
Emiya Kiritsugu closed his eyes, his face a mask of total silence. Irisviel stumbled back a step, leaning against the wall, the last faint light in her eyes extinguished. Artoria's arms, which had been embracing Kanjuro, fell powerlessly. She slowly backed away, leaving that cold embrace. Her face no longer showed pain, only a resigned, bottomless exhaustion and void.
They all understood. They understood completely.
Evil is evil.
Kanjuro's essence was not that of someone who had gone astray, but someone who had chosen darkness from the very beginning and took pleasure in it. He was not twisted because of pain; he was born to find joy in observing and manufacturing pain. He wore human skin, possessed reason and even charm, but his core was a pure 'evil' that could not be influenced or understood. Any attempt to measure or shake him using common sense or emotion was futile, even laughable.
However, in stark contrast to the bottomless despair of the others—
Jeanne d'Arc, who had been standing silently by, did not have disgust or fear in her violet eyes. Instead, they flickered with a strange light, a look of... near admiration.
She watched Kanjuro's unwavering, pure stance of carrying out his own philosophy. Seeing his absolute nature in frankly admitting his 'evil' and taking joy and finding his path in it, what surged in her heart was not the indignation of justice, but a sense of awe for an 'ultimate existence.' In her view, whether it was ultimate good or ultimate evil, reaching such a pure realm, unshaken by any external force, was in itself like a dangerous yet incomparably brilliant art.
Kanjuro felt Jeanne d'Arc's gaze. He turned his head and met her eyes, the corner of his mouth curling into a knowing, cold arc.
He didn't need understanding, and he didn't need salvation. He only needed an audience to witness this never-ending, grand performance of his, with despair as the curtain and the human heart as the stage. And Jeanne d'Arc seemed to be one of his most qualified audience members.
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