A pure white shawl fluttered upward as a figure with Sherry's exact appearance slowly stepped out from the black mist behind her. Her tightly shut eyes trembled faintly, as if she had just awakened from a dream. Tears glimmered at the corners of "Sherry's" eyes as she opened them. When she saw the masked Cid before her, she smiled, her expression caught between crying and joy.
"I'm sorry, Cid. It seems I've done quite a few things wrong. But maybe it isn't too late yet. I understand everything now.
I can still make up for my mistakes in time, and you're not dead. That's really..."
"You are not Sherry!"
Cid stared coldly at the "Sherry" before him. The pitch-black blade in his left hand did not lower, while his right hand pressed against his chest. He frowned, as if he had sensed something.
"Can you tell me how you realized it?"
The relief of surviving a disaster vanished from her face. "Sherry's" gaze instantly turned cold as she stared straight at Cid. The timid, lost air around her changed completely.
"..."
Faced with "Sherry," whose expression had abruptly changed and whose entire body now radiated a cold aura, Cid did not answer.
"Ah... I get it, I get it..."
Seeing Cid fall silent, "Sherry" seemed to think of something. She held her forehead, lowered her head in visible distress, and spoke through gritted teeth.
"Anyway, it must be another classic Eminence in Shadow scene you need to recreate, so you're just throwing out a bunch of riddles no one understands to act mysterious..."
"I don't know how you know that, but you're overthinking it. Your movements, your voice, your emotions. There are far too many flaws. More importantly, Sherry's... mental state shouldn't be strong enough to recover this quickly after learning the truth."
Ignoring the frozen expression on the other side, Cid explained in a low voice.
He respected combat. If an opponent was worthy of him taking the fight seriously, then he would face them with absolute focus, provided they could speak with him during the battle.
"Can you tell me who you are? And why is Eta inside you? What happened to Sherry?"
With all the restrictions on his eyes released, Cid could see everything clearly. The woman before him was formed from a mass of emotional energy from some unknown source, mixed together and lodged within Sherry's soul, stealing its place and giving birth to a half-conscious entity.
Aside from Sherry, Eta was also inside the woman before him, constantly using the Magical Power interface she had obtained from Gamma's lucky find to absorb the Magical Power inside his body.
"Sherry? Just as you guessed, seeing the remnants of the past made her mind collapse. No matter how strong a Mind-Strengthening's control ability is, once the foundation that forms ultimate hatred is shaken, it becomes nothing more than a decoration, not even worthy of being called a vase.
As for Eta, she keeps digging into the absolute Wisdom and light of the deep, distant past..."
Before she could finish, Cid raised the pitch-black blade and swung it down. "Sherry" had no choice but to stop talking. Magical Power surged from her hand and formed a blade in an attempt to block the strike, but the tremendous force behind the blow sent her flying.
"Speak plainly. You're really annoying, standing there saying things no one understands and no one can make sense of."
Cid lowered his sword with a displeased expression. He felt it would be better to just attack directly. A woman this long-winded who could not even explain herself properly deserved to be knocked down hard. Only then would she speak like a normal person.
"What can I say? As expected of me. If you want a fight, then come at me!"
A bold voice rang out from the ruins. Surging Magical Power erupted from "Sherry," blowing away the rubble around her in one burst.
"But I can tell you my identity, Cid. I am your true self, and you are the trash I abandoned!"
The white figure emerged from the dust and rose into the sky. Pure white Magical Power poured out continuously, covering the battlefield, her face filled with excitement.
"You can call me by my other identity, Netheril Emperor Roland Augustus, or Roy. Either way, it's not that bullshit Eminence in Shadow, Shadow, of yours!
No, none of those are my true name. My name is Kageno... No, it's Sonki!"
(Note: Sonki : Discarded Descendant/Child)
With that roar, powerful Magical Power erupted from Sonki's body. Itogami Island seemed to rise beneath a second sun.
"That name... I see now. A mixture of all the emotional things I abandoned... No, that's not right. Just now, I also felt my Holy Sword trying to tear its way out of my body. So... my second younger brother became sentient!"
A curtain of darkness rose in an instant, swallowing the attack that could have easily destroyed the entire continent. Amid that murmured realization, the black figure representing Cid rose into the air and flew to a position level with Sonki.
"Close enough, Shadow. But you got one thing wrong. You didn't abandon me. I abandoned you myself!"
Shouting those words, Sonki, who looked almost identical to Sherry, swung a sword at Cid from the same angle and with nearly the same power, as if recreating Cid's opening attack.
"Completely identical combat technique. You really are another me. But... you got impatient. So I think I was right just now, wasn't I?"
Cid moved horizontally backward by more than ten meters. Feeling that sword technique, which was exactly like his own yet just a tiny bit stronger, he looked at the Sherry before him with a smile at the corner of his mouth.
He could make his power greater, and he could make his technique stronger. Then "Sherry," who possessed Cid's memories and Magical Power, should naturally be able to do the same things he could. Yet the other side had deliberately chosen the move he had used at the start, even trying to imitate the angle and strength.
Mm. It was something he would do. But why had the technique and angle been copied successfully, while the amount of power was just a tiny bit higher?
Because he had hit a sore spot, and she had gotten flustered and made a mistake.
"...That one doesn't count. Again!"
Gripping the white sword in her hand, Sonki raised her head and said those words through clenched teeth.
Cid had hit the mark. Or rather, Cid had spent most of his life striving to become an "Eminence in Shadow," yet the real him now claimed he had never wanted to become the Eminence in Shadow at all. Was that not a contradiction?
"What an embarrassing line. To think someone like you is another me. Now this is really humiliating. Heh..."
Cid felt embarrassed that another version of himself had said something so childish. He wanted to hold his forehead, shake his head, and smile bitterly, but in the end, he could not help laughing out loud.
"Well then, let's give it a try. The chance to fight another version of myself really doesn't come along every day. I should thank you for this. Right now, I feel lighter than I ever have before."
Cid raised a hand and knocked away the attack "Sherry" had launched in secret, then looked at the woman before him with faint excitement.
"Bang!" "Boom!"...
From almost completely opposite angles, with completely identical force, more than a dozen collisions erupted in the sky in an instant. The powerful shockwaves forced the seawater around all of Itogami Island to rapidly surge backward, exposing the seabed beneath.
"Buzz!!!"
After another brief exchange, "Sherry" pulled away from Cid after their momentary clash. A cold glint flashed through her icy eyes as she released the white sword in her hand, raised one hand toward the sky, and gathered white Magical Power in her palm before firing it in several directions.
Because Eta and Sherry had each hidden things and made their own calculations, the goal and understanding behind their plan were different.
For Sherry, what she wanted was to split Shadow's soul and power in half, then corrupt and control the separated half to kill Shadow.
Eta, however, had studied Cid's body and understood all too well that Cid's soul could not be split. There was only so much one could scheme against a life-form made of mind, energy, matter, and soul, but she could use Master's bodily instincts to gain the treasure trove.
To borrow the "abandoning" idea Master often talked about, desires he needed to abandon would sometimes appear in Cid's heart. But even if he called it abandoning them, Cid could not actually materialize those things and throw them away, so he could only leave them there.
Those things were pressure, negative emotions, ugly desires, and so on. They might crush an ordinary person, but with Master's self-control, they could have been suppressed for a lifetime. But what if she gave Master a chance to expel them?
Master viewed those things as unnecessary. His body judged them as trash that would affect his mood. His instincts felt they were harmful. With all three in agreement, Master's body simply pushed those things out on its own.
But if they were only emotions, then Sherry's plan would never have worked from the very beginning. After all, a pile of memories and emotions would be useless.
The problem was that Eta's original goal had never been to kill Master, but to obtain Master's Wisdom. So Eta did not tell Sherry about this and kept it hidden. As long as her own goal was achieved, that was enough.
But now there was another problem. Eta's escape plan had failed. According to the program arranged in advance, the program would treat the "emotions" the same way it was supposed to treat the split soul in the plan. So, did replacing the soul in Sherry's original premise with emotions make any difference?
Yes. A soul had no active aggression, while emotions had an active tendency to invade. Combined with the "memory" special attack, Sherry's will was directly overwritten by those emotions, which took over her body.
And the emotions that had been abandoned were naturally not limited to the "sour" ones Eta had induced. Mixed into them were all the things Cid considered unimportant, irrelevant, and unnecessary, the things he had discarded.
That led to something rather interesting. The things Cid did not care about, Sonki did care about, because they were part of what made up Sonki.
The things Cid did care about, Sonki did not, because that part had not been abandoned by Cid. The two of them were almost complete opposites, just like now...
"That direction is..."
After estimating the trajectories of the white projectiles in the sky, Cid's eyes widened. His figure vanished from where he stood and appeared in front of the projectiles, blocking each attack one by one.
"Boom!" "Whoosh!"
As he deflected the final strike, dazzling light lit up the sky, accompanied by the sound of wind slicing through the blast wave.
"You really are ruthless. No matter how you look at it, Alpha and the others count as our childhood friends. How can you be so heartless..."
Brushing the dust from his body, Cid spoke with a hint of sadness. Those attacks had been aimed at the Seven Shadows. If he had not stopped them, he would be collecting Alpha and the others' bodies right now.
"They're nothing but despicable little thieves who stole my knowledge. I worked so hard to raise them, yet they don't even know the most basic gratitude. They even kicked me out of their social circle. If they die, they die..."
"Hmm... Aren't you slandering Alpha and the others a little too much...?"
As they resumed fighting, Cid paused at those words. He had not expected his other self to resent Alpha and the others that deeply.
"Hypocrite. I told you, I was the one who abandoned you. The things you possess truly make me laugh!"
"For the sake of becoming an Eminence in Shadow, you abandoned desire, abandoned pleasure, and abandoned power. It's stupidity beyond measure."
"With absolute power and absolute Wisdom, no one in this world can defeat me. In that case, I should obtain this world, and everyone should praise my name!"
Countering each attack with the same moves, "Sherry" sneered mockingly.
"All I did was say aloud the thoughts that once flashed through the depths of your heart. If you truly never thought that way, then why would I have those thoughts? Do you dare say you've never had a single complaint about Alpha and the others?"
"I won't deny that I've had those thoughts..."
Cid spoke softly. Back when Alpha and the others left, no matter how generous he pretended to be, he had indeed felt a little hurt. Later, after learning that they had built the Mitsugoshi Company, he had felt envy as well.
As for whether the later counterfeit money incident had included even a tiny bit of resentment toward Alpha and the others as revenge, that was honestly hard to say. At the very least, he had put real effort into bringing down the Mitsugoshi Company. But...
"As long as I can throw a party on Alpha and the others' graves tens of thousands of years from now, I don't care."
Cid smiled brightly. Even he might not have been able to explain his true motive for bringing down the Mitsugoshi Company. There were plenty of reasons, helping Alpha and the others, acting as an Eminence in Shadow, being Alpha and the others' superior, getting revenge on them, making money for himself, and more. But revenge definitely did not make up even one percent.
"You hypocrite. I, the original, will deal with you."
"Using such underhanded methods isn't very Eminence in Shadow-like at all!"
Pulling back, "Sherry" once again formed several orbs of light, but did not aim them at Cid.
"What meaning is there in something I abandoned long ago? I'm stronger than you because nothing can bind me. If you were the same as me, you would have won this battle long ago. Unfortunately, you can't."
"Yeah..."
Cid nodded. Sonki was right. As long as he wanted to, this battle could have ended from the start.
If he were willing to sever the link with Eta, how could Sonki, having lost his Magical Power, possibly defeat him?
Only, before he won, Sherry and Eta would likely have their life force drained dry.
"But an Eminence in Shadow never lets himself be threatened."
With a faint smile, Cid gathered Magical Power and aimed his attack at Sonki.
"Dare to bet your life against mine?"