While I Was at It

When did it start?

Was it when her friend, who played with her like always, suddenly said, 'Tia! Let's play!' — and it felt strangely off?

Or was it when her ever-kind mother turned cold? 'Eat your food, Tia.' ...What? What are you saying? 'No back talk. Just eat.'

Or if not that...

'Tia, what's wrong?'

'You've been strange lately, Tia. "We" were always like this.'

'Tia. Tia...'

'TIAAAAAAAA!!!!!!'

"KyaAAAAAAH!!"

Haah... haah... haah...

She woke from the dream.

The same scenery she always saw. And yet a place agonizingly unfamiliar.

'Our' village.

"...I want to die."

Tia held back her tears and tidied the bed sheets soaked with sweat. Her hands still trembled, but she had to hurry and move.

'Before the fakes arrive.'

Everyone living here was no longer the people of the village.

Her doting father. Her gentle mother. Her one and only little sister, Tira.

And her friends, the uncle next door, the chatty shopkeeper, the kind village chief. And...

"...Haah. How did it come to this?"

All of them were gone.

And fakes had taken their place.

It was torture. Why was this happening to her? Was she going to become a fake like them too?

She hated it. She hated it enough to die.

But dying was even worse.

She wanted to live and take revenge.

"...The sun is high."

Despite the noon sun, the village stood utterly empty. The fakes had all crowded into the cave they had forbidden everyone from entering.

To enjoy their festival, day after day.

The villagers who had once worked hard for the prosperity of their home no longer farmed, no longer tended the village, no longer hunted — all for the sake of their festival.

Some of the fakes didn't even come back to the village at all, squatting permanently in the cave.

And so, with the village dying, the only one left inside it was Tia.

She stared toward the cave with anxious eyes.

"...I have to prepare. Steadily."

To take revenge on the fakes who stole everything from her.

And then...

Dozens of weapons punched through the body.

'I' had fallen, and even after that, some of the Copycat's parts were still seething with rage, hammering down again and again on my corpse.

How much time had passed like that?

"Th... this—"

The Copycat panicked. Because what it had been striking down was not some corpse at all...

"Got you."

BOOM!

It had been a blue phantom all along.

Dozens of fakes. One of them was the real body, but there was no easy way to tell which.

A doppelganger with the same ability split off portions of itself to create numerous copied existences, and the individual with the largest share of that split became the main body.

In other words, the main body was never fixed — it changed from moment to moment.

I had deliberately provoked the Copycat to find the current main body.

Every part had reacted to the word 'fake,' but among them, one and only one had reacted ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠the hardest.

"Got you."

That was how I found the main body.

"Grrrrgh...!"

"Stay still, please."

I twisted my grip around its throat and looked around. Some of the parts stood frozen, weapons still raised, utterly helpless.

Those were near-mindless clones that obeyed only the main body's commands — so with the main body caught, they had no way to resist.

The child dangling from my hand made a sound of utter shock.

"What... how...?"

"I fought a fake with a fake."

Illusion magic built on phantoms. It wasn't my specialty, and it wasn't a technique I used often, but for deceiving the eye like this, it worked quite well.

Squelch!

With its throat seized, the Copycat screamed as if vomiting up its fury.

"I! Am! NOT! A! FAAAKE!!!!!!!!"

"You are, though."

"Why... you!!!!"

The Copycat swelled and swelled. All the countless parts around it swelled along with it.

'Self-destruct, is it?'

Furious beyond reason, the Copycat attempted to detonate itself right then and there, and—

"...?!"

The fury guttered out and died.

CLANG!

The blue mana that had flown down my hand drew a cage across the Copycat's forehead. With the main body unable to use its power, it was only natural that its parts couldn't either.

The Copycat's eyes shook violently.

"I've sealed it... but where is the real one, I wonder?"

"...I AM the real one!"

"If you were the real one, you'd have no reason to self-destruct. You're... hmm, a separate, split-off individual. One with a self."

Right?

"......"

A doppelganger with ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠a self possesses a survival drive far stronger than any other species.

It has to — when you tally up who outlasts everyone else on the battlefield where the Heavenly Race and the Demon Race wage their endless war, the doppelganger out-survives even dragons.

And yet this Copycat, with the traits of a doppelganger, cornered and desperate, decides to 'self-destruct'?

A story about demons doing charity work would be more convincing.

"...No. That's not it."

"Of course, there are exceptions. When a 'fake' has split away from the 'real one,' a single trigger can be implanted in it."

"I'm telling you NO!!!"

"That trigger would be... 'If the moment ever comes when the real one's identity is exposed, you die.' Something like that?"

"Ghkk."

"?"

Ghkk... ghkkghkkghkk...

Even with the Birdcage of Many Colors laid over it, the Copycat's body began to swell. But this time it wasn't trying to blow out the power inside it the way it had before.

It was even less like this Copycat's own ability.

Which left exactly one possibility.

'The real one.'

The real one was intervening.

PHWAAAAAH!!

Blue particles burst out in every direction.

"Ah... aaah... uurk!"

The child in my hand gagged and retched.

'Is she seeing this without a filter too?'

I covered the child's eyes and channeled mana into her body, soothing her churning stomach.

Once her ragged breathing had settled somewhat, she climbed down from my hand and carefully set her feet on the ground.

Pat.

"......"

My eyes couldn't see, but my memory was eternal.

"How... how could you do something like this..."

"The Copycat absolutely hates being caught from behind."

"...Who are you, miss?"

The child looked up at me with trembling eyes.

She was grateful that I'd saved her, of course — but this was a girl who had lost everything to the Copycat. Even after being rescued, trusting a stranger wouldn't come easily.

I knelt on one knee to meet her eyes. What was it I was supposed to say at a moment like this?

"I'm the Hero."

"The... Hero?"

"That's right. The Hero."

The champion who receives tremendous power from transcendent beings, drives back evil, and in the end brings good to the world.

'If only I had been something like that.'

If such a position had been given to me ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠from the very start,

if I'd been granted the strength to fight them from the very beginning,

then I wouldn't have had to lose so much.

"Hero..."

The child murmured the word a few more times, then carefully lifted her head again.

"...Did you come here to save me?"

"While I was at it."

"...I'm sorry?"

She looked thoroughly flustered. This is why I can't stop teasing people.

I smiled and gently stroked her hair.

"That was a joke."

"......"

"Why were you here? No — how long has this place been like this?"

She had been hiding in a basket, though honestly 'hiding' was a generous word for it. The basket stood out enormously, this space was practically the Copycat's ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠nest, and it surely had known all along that she was hiding there.

So why hadn't it touched her?

The child hesitated, then slowly opened her mouth.

"...It started when the chief forbade everyone from entering the cave."

A strange phenomenon: day after day, children and their parents vanished one by one.

To stop it, the village sealed off the cave where the phenomenon had begun. They blocked the entrance with stone, then bound it tight with wood and vines all the way down the passage, shutting it completely.

And once the cave was sealed, the vanishings stopped.

The villagers gave thanks that the strange phenomenon had ended, and the village went on living without the cave.

And then.

And then...

And then......

"And then?"

"...I don't know. It changed, little by little. The people, my friends, my family..."

The elders of the village, the chief, the parents she loved, the friends she was close to, her little sister...

Everything changed.

She couldn't say exactly when it began, but by the time she was certain something was wrong, most of the village had already turned into fakes.

Unable to bear the crushing wrongness and alienation any longer, she had finally run.

"So you ran to the cave?"

"Yes... monsters live in the forest, and I didn't know any roads beyond the village and the cave. And there was plenty of food people had stored inside the cave, too."

It was the place where this hell had begun — and yet, paradoxically, it was her refuge.

She had slipped into the cave and somehow managed to survive, wandering its vast reaches, until...

"...The festival wasn't supposed to be held here originally. But suddenly they all came pouring this way, so I hid in the basket in a panic. *Sob.*"

Tears fell as she relived that memory.

What came next was easy to imagine.

A child hiding alone among grotesquely transformed people, clamping a hand over her mouth, holding her breath, forced to do nothing but wait for the festival to end.

An agony that seemed like it would never end.

And then I arrived — and that agony was over.

'Or so it should be...'

"I see. I understand perfectly. Ah — what's your name, by the way?"

Her name. The name of this girl who carried such a tragic story...

"Tia."

My name is Tia.