As sisters who understood each other heart-to-heart, Dina and Veena reacted almost identically.
Today, they had run into an enemy they could never defeat—an encounter that practically meant their deaths were imminent.
Yet neither of them seemed to care about dying.
Instead, both of them clutched their faces at the same time.
It wasn't just swelling anymore—parts of their faces felt damaged, as if a chunk had been torn away. They didn't even need a mirror to know how ugly they looked.
"It's swollen?! That means I'm hideous—no, absolutely not!"
"We're elves! The most beautiful elves!"
The sisters wailed in unison.
Their current appearance was something they absolutely could not accept.
Cid was about to finish them—starting with the older sister, Dina—when he saw something that genuinely surprised him.
"M-My lord… great lord… could you kill us another day?"
"As elves, we can't die looking like this."
Dina dropped to her knees. Forget elven pride—she didn't even have the dignity any living creature was supposed to have.
"Please, my lord!"
Veena also fell to her knees, begging for Cid's mercy.
"..."
After thinking for a moment, Cid slowly lowered the sword he'd just raised.
"D-Don't—don't believe them!" Filvis staggered over, limping to Cid's side. "They've slaughtered countless innocents. People must have begged them too, but they never spared anyone!"
She wasn't saying it out of hatred.
The Dis Sisters truly couldn't be trusted.
And faced with the accusation, the sisters couldn't refute it.
Everything they'd done in the past made right and wrong painfully clear.
Within the Dark Faction, the number of innocents the Dis Sisters had killed put them in the same league as Valletta.
"Then sign a contract," Cid said, sheathing his blade. "Until the next time you meet me—and are killed by Shadow—you are forbidden from killing anyone."
An enemy with no will to fight was simply boring.
"Please don't trust them—cough!" Filvis insisted, and the urgency tugged at her wounds.
Normally, when an elf made a promise, that promise was trustworthy.
But the Dis Sisters were different.
They didn't deserve to call themselves elves.
If they lied now, countless more innocents would die.
Filvis couldn't just stand by and let that happen.
However, when confronted with Cid's proposed contract, the Dis Sisters fell silent.
They wouldn't make the promise.
Even if the price was dying here in an ugly state, they still wouldn't lie.
That—what little remained—was the last shred of "elven" dignity the self-proclaimed elves still possessed.
"What?" Cid asked, voice flat. "Even if I spare you, you're still going to go back to killing?"
Seeing that, Cid oddly began to feel like sparing them for real.
His original plan had been to wait for them to lie, then have the elf beside him—the one who'd watched her companions die—kill them with her own hands.
If there was a sea of blood between them, then settle it right here.
But now… the sisters' silence, their stubborn pride, made him realize something:
They had once been truly noble elves.
Cid thought of Lyra—born in the criminal city of Bergen.
By her own account, she'd come close to taking the wrong path.
Fortunately, she'd met enough good people who corrected her course—until she could finally become a member of a righteous Familia.
These two elves…
They'd never met any good people in their entire lives.
At the same time, the Dis Sisters finally spoke.
"…We can't sign that contract," they said quietly. "Persecution, discrimination, destruction—we've already tasted every suffering in hell. We can't turn back anymore."
"This body has been ruined by the world. Not a single place on it is clean. So we must wash it clean with blood—only then can we become noble elves again."
There was no madness in their eyes now.
Or rather—perhaps they had always been lucid.
They knew exactly what they'd done.
And they understood that after walking this road so far, there was no returning.
"Then… will you sign a contract with me—Shadow?" Cid asked again.
This time, he meant it.
"It's impossible."
"Even if we agreed, we couldn't do it."
The sisters refused without hesitation.
"But you're elves," Cid said, as if stating an obvious fact. "If you promise, you should be able to keep it."
His blunt, stereotyped certainty made the Dis Sisters go quiet again.
"…Yes," they murmured. "We are the noblest elves."
In the end, smiling, the Dis Sisters signed the contract anyway—and Cid kept his word and let them go.
He watched as the sisters supported each other and limped away, and he didn't know if what he'd done was right.
But it didn't matter.
Those two Level 5 elves would never get another chance to hurt anyone.
Cid would keep an eye on them.
"Anyway… thank you for saving me," Filvis said at last, her feelings complicated, but choosing gratitude first.
No matter what decision Cid had made, the fact remained: he had saved her.
And if she could live, she didn't want to die here.
At the same time, she was intensely curious about him.
Anyone who could casually defeat the Level 5 Dis Sisters had to be at least on Ottar's level.
When had Orario produced someone like this?
And he'd emerged from the Dark Faction's secret passage—what relationship did he have with them?
Filvis held her questions close.
As for how he'd handled the Dis Sisters, she reserved judgment.
If she hadn't just witnessed how seriously they treated promises… she would have opposed his choice outright.
"What about you?" Cid asked, turning toward Filvis. His gaze felt like it could see her end. "Are you part of the Dark Faction?"
"D-Don't talk nonsense!" Filvis snapped, flustered. "I'm an elf—how could I possibly join—! Anyway, I, Filvis, could never join the Dark Faction!"
Her indignation faltered slightly as the Dis Sisters' faces flashed in her mind.
"Is that so?" Cid said calmly. "Then why do you smell like a curse?"
"Your dead companions don't carry that stench."
Cid looked at her as though he were staring at yet another elf falling into darkness.
In a world infested with evil gods, sometimes there really was no such thing as free will.
Just like this ignorant elf before him—she didn't yet realize she was stepping onto the same road as those sisters.
"C-Curse…?" Filvis's breathing hitched.
She couldn't believe what she'd just heard.
As an elf, how could she possibly have anything to do with something like that?
"Darkness is clinging to you," Cid warned. "Be careful. Don't end up like those two sisters."
Seeing that Filvis truly knew nothing, he offered one last, almost kindly reminder.
"Clinging… to me?" Filvis whispered, and a single figure surfaced in her mind.
She was introverted; besides her Familia companions, she barely interacted with anyone.
If there really was darkness wrapped around her—
Then it could only be Dionysus, her Familia's patron god.
"No… impossible. Absolutely impossible!"
Her whole body trembled.
Cid had no interest in saying more.
"Go back and verify it yourself," he said. "Good luck—elf who still remains noble, for now."
"And if you need help… shout my name loudly."
"My name is Shadow!"
....
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