Глава 8

In your life to come, you need only raise doubt of all you persist in, you need only raise the slightest hatred of the ones you proclaim your compatriots, and those who you think ought to be free...

And you will immediately settle this wager between us. It is whether, in that moment, you will walk the path I taught you.

Perhaps, in these coming years, you will be fortunate enough to avoid those conditions yet. You may, with sheer luck, be living within a fairytale land.

Perhaps the people before you will chance to have secret sorrows. They can be understood, explained—oh, they were forced into helplessness...

I can wait. This country can wait. Be it three years, five years, a decade, a century, you will only arrive at the same answer. Though you will not live an Infected's life for long, I know that day will come.

The Empire of Ursus finds itself in a period of repeated ailment. Crops will not grow on the soil of the barrens. Soil in shadow can only bear forth flowers of corruption.

You may be betrayed by those you adored. You may witness the moments in which your friends die for you. You may realize the expectations you held for the future have lost all meaning.

Because all that you do, in other people's eyes, still cannot make up for the pressure you bring about with your appearance, your status.

You will realize it all can be sacrificed. You will realize that they all love themselves more than their neighbors. You will come to know that your proud struggle symbolizes nothing at all.

You will come to see. These great lands you threw yourself to do not want you.

You will see your thoughts, your actions, become nonexistence. You will see them spurn all you revered, your life, your dignity and philosophy void of all significance.

Because these people, who you suppose to call noble, are but ambling corpses.

All I have encountered, you will encounter too.

You want... You want me to... surrender...!

No, no. I truly am using these Originium Arts. This is no deception, nor a threat.

Oh, that said, my Arts are utterly feeble. All I have taught you constitutes the foundations of these Arts.

These Arts, in the moment you reject me, will carry no impact whatsoever.

But should you recognize me, should you have understood me, should you realize just the sort of world you're standing in...

—Tick, tock. Tick, tock. Chime. Chime. Chime.

You will become me.

Ursus's future will from then on be in your hands.

...What are you talking about?

What do you... what do you mean by all this?

Conscious manipulation? Thought suggestion? Have you gone insane? It was you who taught me to withstand these Arts! It was you who taught me how to break free from the psyche's Originium Arts!

Stop.

Why would I use such contemptible, destructive Arts on my own heir?

My Arts only expedited a course of events. Expedited your recognition of this great world of ours, your questioning yourself, doubting yourself, loathing yourself and seeing clearly, anew, your own course.

Sans these Arts, all this still would have happened. They were just to get you there a little faster.

Everyone in the city, living a make-believe normal life, has learned to hypnotize themselves.

They are skilled in escaping from the facts, taming themselves with rules and morals. Using the lowly shell of the loser to hide just how easily harmed they are by cruel reality...

But I have supplied you a set of armor, a sort of arms, and an ego.

These can save you your self-doubt and self-harm, in the course of it all. Save you your distress, your struggle. Conserve your time. You will stand up ever faster than you were kicked down by reality, and you will be reborn.

You needn't spend too much of your life denying your own self.

All I have taught you will once again bear anew within your mind, and you will, as if spinning silk from the cocoon, weave anew the knowledge.

You will rid yourself of your superstitions, and in your well-rounded garden of wisdom, find a path winding yet with certain end.

Talulah, Ursus's destiny breathes as one with you.

The Black Snake shall walk with you. This immortal will shall never die.

—You—

Are you cursing me?

Are you trying... to use yourself... to mold me?

No, Talulah, this is not a curse. This is a blessing.

I bless you, my daughter.

The moment you wake from your unrealistic fancy of human nature, you will be conscious. Of why we struggle so for this land's most beautiful future.

(Yan language) Just shut it! You're... full of such utter shit!

I never taught you such inflammatory Yan vernacular. But it may serve you to learn some. That's the role you'll be playing soon, after all.

Hah. Obviously. You didn't let me talk like this in public, so I'd maintain my so-called image—

—It was to cover you.

I calculate so as to make you think of others, but you denounce my proposals, profane my language. You've remembered all I've taught you, and now want to flee, Talulah...

But I'm not worried. Because, in the end, you will come back to this path.

The space between people is filled with hatred, and by that hatred, they are ruled. Love births hate. Indecision births hate. Admiration births hate.

Hatred is the inevitable outcome of interaction. It takes as little as two people to facilitate a sort of rule. Unless they are like me, and love all people equally.

Will you hate me, Talulah? For what I have done, this world will do to you. That is all.

What you do has nothing to do with me... nothing at all.

I'll have no part of it! None!

Ah... good. Truly splendid.

To not inherit the name, to not harness the authority, to not exploit the position. Wonderful, my child. You have great resolve.

Go and establish your cause by your own hand. If you don't wish to inherit my domain and political resources, my wealth and my power, then by all means.

You may seize them yourself. That you could do so would still fulfill my greatest dreams.

No one told you you could define my aspirations!

No, no, of course I wouldn't dream of doing so. But know well, no Kashchey would be willing to accept such a 'present.' To our diligent, prideful selves, it would be an insult!

I have already taught you everything I can.

As for all your goals from here on, they will be your own.

My daughter... you truly are outstanding.

You break off from all you've known without a second thought, in exchange for a new, novel path...

The Infected will open up a very different sort of territory for you. Your actions upon this land we call Ursus will be unprecedented.

(She unsheathes her sword.)

I only came face-to-face with you today for one thing. I didn't think I'd be forced to sit through your wicked, venomous sermon.

Ah. Have I been waiting for this day?

I often wondered if Wei Yenwu missed the chance to kill me and instead would send one of his hands to do it? So it was you, it was—always going to be you.

To be an executioner for the one who murdered your father, and in place of him who you bear hatred, to kill who he hates. Oh, what a beautiful outcome.

Your slaughter testifies to my point of view. I shall gladly give up resistance, and die by your hand, my daughter. This action will form your bridge towards truth, and allow my death to forge your foundations.

I'm not your daughter... I'm not.

I'm killing you to put a stop to your evil, once and for all.

And then, Talulah, you. You will do evil.

I've heard enough.

And then you will do good. And you will recognize all the good I did.

Ah. This sword. I never had the housekeeper confiscate it... I'm not fond of this sword. You use Arts much more than you use swords... but you were still allowed to carry it.

It will remind you where you came from...

(A great roar.)

...and it will witness our path, yours and mine.

Do you hate me, Talulah?

I won't be taken in, you rotting, putrid snake! You're a villain beyond all else! Your life ends here!

*hiss*, *cough*, *hiss*, *hiss*...

Only the lobe... of my lung... *hiss*...

Your strike... was not... accurate.

I won't hate you, Kashchey.

I may hate your endless, long-winded, rancid sophistry, but you yourself haven't earned my hate.

I pity you. Your death only testifies to your loneliness, your vain attempt to turn yourself into a mirage.

I'll let you know the sheer absurdity of all you espoused. Not that you'd be able to know, now.

Hah, hah... wonder... ful...

With my death, Wei may feel... a weight off him, too...

I look forward... to when... you bare... your regret... your... hate...

...Remember this...

Talulah, remember this.

Your end is in me.

Talulah, very carefully, pulls out the sword from the Duke's chest.

Her mind is somewhere far, far away. She leaves the towering castle, leaves the city, outruns her pursuers...

The seeds, already planted, waiting only to sprout.

And so you came all the way to where we were.

All of that was years ago, now.