You'll Know If You Just Talk

Tia had grown up with cake perpetually on her lips. Hers wasn't a wealthy family by any means. It was simply that Tia's house was the only bakery in the village. Compared to the cakes nobles ate or what the grand patisseries in the big cities offered, theirs was hopelessly humble, but to the children of the village it was a treasure beyond measure. And so the children who always wanted cake flocked to Tia. Yet she never kept more than a close friend or two at her side. The children who failed to become her friends quietly resented her for it. The truth, though, was that Tia had already had a dear friend for a very long time.

"You came again today?" "H... hi."

A small child crouched pitifully at the edge of the village. Tia, as always, had brought the leftover bread from her baking and held it out to the child, who crammed it down her throat in a frantic rush.

"Hey—hey! You'll choke! Slow down!" "S... orry." "That hungry, huh?"

A nod. The child still stared back with hollow, empty eyes, bread stuffed in her mouth. An orphan, most likely. Tia had once told her parents about this child, but they'd insisted there were no orphans in their village—and even if there were, they'd surely have adoptive parents. But here the child was, plain as day, right before her eyes. What kind of parent would leave a kid this filthy, unwashed and unfed? Raised by her gentle, kind mother and father, never once knowing hunger, Tia simply couldn't understand it.

"Want to come to my house?" The child shook her head, no, no. "Why not~? Mom and Dad would love you! And there's lots of bread you'd like, too!" "...Not... you... hate." "They're really good people." The child shook her head even harder. In the end, Tia gave up. In all her experience of patiently tending to this child, the wariness was immense. Something like a feral stray cat, maybe. Honestly, if Tia hadn't kept working at it, she probably wouldn't have managed a single word with the girl, just like everyone else.

"Then... cake?" "...!!!" "Hee~ your eyes just lit up." A child who seemed utterly devoid of feeling would come alive the instant she heard the word cake. She really was adorable when she got like this.

Tia stood up. "Wait just a little. It's 'Bin's' birthday soon, and Mom said she'd bake a cake for it. There's always some left over after we make ours, so I can bring you a piece." "Cake." "Yep! You only have to wait about three days! See you later!" And off Tia skipped, bright and delighted. Left alone in the darkness, 'that thing' kept muttering a single word over and over. Cake... cake... cake...

"Cake."

Suddenly the child was gone, and in her place stood only a boy brimming with mischief. Bin forced the corners of his mouth upward. Just like a child would. "I want to eat cake."

"What are you thinking about?" I was leading the girl named Tia deeper into the cave. The further down we went, the more of the Copycats began to reveal themselves, though none of them were particularly strong—far weaker than the beastkin I'd fought before. Only natural, I supposed, when the only things left to 'copy' were the villagers.

"Just... thinking about how it all came to this." Tia told me her old story. A poor little girl who loved cake. We couldn't have been far apart in age, but something about her—a wounded stray cat—made it impossible to just walk on by. So she'd decided to stay by the girl's side. Looking after her, playing with her, talking with her. And before either of them knew it, they'd become friends like no other.

"...And then he disappeared. It was supposed to be Bin's birthday party—"

The moment she said it, Tia froze as if her throat had closed. Was it really Bin's birthday they'd been celebrating? Was that mischievous boy I knew really the same one? Hi, Tia~~~~. What birthday had I actually been celebrating? My thoughts tangled into knots. My hands trembled, and a wave of nausea rose in my throat. If all of it—everything—was a lie...

Pang!

"...Hh—hah." "You're in a very unstable state right now. Rest for a bit." "Hero... ni..." Tia's eyes fluttered shut. She'd sleep for a while now; nothing would go wrong in the meantime.

"Honestly, I've been thinking the same. She's no ordinary girl." A girl of thirteen or fourteen—not big, not small. Obviously she was far too large to hide in a basket, and frankly, the existence of a basket big enough to hide a fourteen-year-old girl would itself be suspicious. Every piece pointed toward a single conclusion, and yet...

'It doesn't feel like a doppelganger.' That peculiar sense of wrongness, of something alien, simply wasn't there. To be precise, it wasn't there yet. She carried the possibility of changing at any moment—but possibility was all it was.

"Not yet. So for now, let's wait and see." Because that was literally what it was—a possibility.

So we pressed downward, cutting down Copycats along the way, until at last we reached the bottom. The structure and scale weren't so different from what I'd seen in the mine. I twisted the flow of mana the same way I had then—and got no response. "...Nothing here." The main body wasn't in this place. Which left exactly one place it could be. 'The village.' A cold prickle ran down my spine.

"...It's coming." Tia, who had been working desperately to hold back the fakes, felt the crawling chill and turned her head toward it. The direction of the cave. The fakes that had been hiding there were coming. 'Earlier than I thought.' They were things that only ever crept in one by one, stealthily, after the sun had fully set. But now—evening hadn't even fallen, the sky had only just begun to stain orange—they were pouring in. Tia gritted her teeth. Not every preparation was finished, but she was ready enough. The 'Rite of Truth'—a spell to discern the fakes and unmake them, leaving only the real behind. ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠ She'd found the book 'by chance' long ago in the village's little bookshop. It had originally been a tome used to drive away evil. Why such a book had been sitting there, or whether any of this could truly work, she couldn't say. 'All I can do is believe it will.' It was all she had left. She had to believe it would work, and perform the rite—and if it failed, she'd have to survive however she could, flee, and live to try again. She could not, would not, die. She would live. And she would have her revenge—she absolutely, absolutely ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠would.

"Hoo..." Tia checked the spell circle she'd been painstakingly drawing into the dirt, hidden from the fakes' eyes. It radiated a sinister aura, but that was an unavoidable feature—this was a working built to fight evil in the first place. 'What vanquishes evil isn't virtue. It's another kind of evil.' To take revenge on the evil that had stolen everything from her, Tia was more than willing to become evil herself.

"Nnngh." She let her own blood spill at the very center of the circle. As if answering the red, the great sigil began to bleed crimson across the ground. And then—

Slam!

At last they'd noticed her strange behavior. The fakes were emerging—

"...Who?" She'd assumed it would be the village chief's fake arriving first. The chief was the oldest elder in the village, but with his wisdom and strength, he was the strongest of them all. But the one who came striding out was a total stranger. No—not a person at all. Blue hair, a beautiful face, dressed in pure white. A figure like an angel descended, and for one instant Tia thought her savior had come—a savior sent for her, who had to overcome this ordeal alone in a child's body. God had sent a messenger to carry out His will.

"A misse—"

Her breath caught. "...nger..."

Tia's gaze wavered. What the angel held in her hand was neither a weapon of judgment to smite evil, nor a sacred staff, but... Thump. That couldn't be right. Thump. Thump. Her heart hammered harder than it ever had, and her skull rang. Her hands and feet shook; her breath went ragged. The worst possible scenario had been gnawing at her mind ever since she first spotted a fake. Thump. Thump. Thump.

'What if I'm a fake too?' What if she was just like the rest of ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠them? What if she had already been replaced, and was only living on believing herself real? Doubt devoured doubt.

"Ah. Aaaaah..."

Crunch—! Blood pooled at the corner of her mouth. Calm down, Tia. Open both eyes wide and look properly.Does what's in that angel's hand look like the REAL Tia to you?'It doesn't. It's not me. I'm real. I'm the real Tia.''That one is the fake. The damned fake that destroyed the village and killed my family. It's deceiving the angel so it can steal my place—so it can swallow the last thing I have left, too.'

The angel looked back and forth between the two of them. ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠"I expected as much, but I never imagined there really was one more..." "I'm the real one. That thing is a fake!" "Is that so?" The Rite of Truth would be complete soon. She only had to hold out until then. When the moment came, the angel would believe her too. "I don't know how you came to bring a fake with you, but please believe me. I'm the real one."

She had lost everything, but she had never given up. She had begged every method she could find, lived among the revolting fakes, and waited for nothing but her days of vengeance. But it couldn't end like this. 'Tia's revenge must not end this way.'

The angel nodded. "Then... you'll know if you just talk." "...What?" The angel's hand moved. Swish. Mysterious mana wrapped around the other Tia, and her body began to shudder. No. "...Ugh." Don't wake up. "Hero? Why am I... what's happening to me..." Don't look at me. Vanish. Close your eyes again, please—please. But despite Tia's desperate plea, the other Tia's head turned. The two Tias stood facing one another. "...Me?"