Up upon a hill overlooking Martira, sat in the shade of a tree that had not been there the day before, sat a white wolf, gazing down at the town with hunger in her heart. The beast however, and was, in-fact, in the middle of chomping her way through a small assortment of tubers she’d dug up, ones which had been cut into thin slices.

She, admittedly, did not seem to be enjoying this very much.

Still, given the thinness of her frame, it looked like she very much needed it.

That would have been what a resident of the town would have seen at any rate, had they approached rather than stay well away or made base assumptions about her nature. Had the angel fighting in the timefall soaked land that represented the wolf’s biggest failure laid eyes upon her, he, or more likely his goddess, would have seen that it was not truly a lack of food that left the being looking half starved, but instead a lack of faith. For with their divine vision, they would have seen that the wolf bore holy red markings on her fur, sported winglets and a tail that where all brush-like in appearance, and each one bearing a dreadfully thin coat of divine ink, and upon her back they would have seen a flaming sundisk.

Still, that was only visible to them and their like, and regardless, even if the villagers below had been able to see her true form, they might well have simply been more inclined to drive her out the three times she had tried to enter the town the previous day.

The celestial being Amaterasu had not been dissuaded from lending her aid when faced with such hostility in a past life, and in the same way, this rendition of her’s desire to lend these people her aid regardless of their mistrust of her had not been stopped by such impoliteness on said people’s part.

The problem, however, was that it was rather difficult to work out what the people down there needed help with when you couldn’t talk to them, or hang around listening in on their conversations. As such all she’d been able to do was a bit of light restoration of the surroundings, rejuvenating the odd withered tree, regrowing the odd flower patch, mending the odd pothole, that sort of thing. Helpful little things, for certain, but nothing greatly worthy of praise.

And it was that praise, that faith, for which caused the divine to look upon the town with hunger in her heart. Well. That and a desire for a cooked meal.

She had taken a pause from the meager praise gathering to gather, slice up and then dine on her substandard crunchy lunch, during which she had spotted two newcomers enter the town. She had thought about trying to follow them in, but that would just have soured the townspeople to them rather than gotten her inside, and so she had let them be. Instead she was watching from above to see what fate had in store for them, and if anything she might come of it that would help her help others.

That they had both found their way to the same place was a good sign, that was for certain, even if an inn was a fairly normal place for a traveler to end up after coming to town.

As such, the celestial being could only watch, wait, and see if there would be an opportune time to intervene.

And also take the time needed to finish her lunch, much as it sat heavy and unsatisfying in her stomach.

For the second time the nightmarish pocket dimension of flesh and sacrifice receded from Nadia’s view. The next moment, the Final Hollow faded back in around her and the other Seekers, leaving the team one more ally short. Unfortunately, it wasn’t any easier for the feral to compose herself this time; if anything, she felt number than before. The decision paralysis inflicted on her and the others by A’s meatspace was wearing off, and the cold fear with which her phagophobia gripped her spine had diminished, but the loss of Goldlewis Dickinson was a weight she’d be carrying for a while.

“Damn it, old man,” she muttered bitterly. Sure, at the end of the day she hadn’t know him that well either, but how many more times would she have to console herself in such a way? As someone made mostly immortal by the power of the Life Gem, it would be her lot in life to outlive most everyone she met. That meant losses were inevitable, but while Nadia knew she couldn’t let such things drive her to despondency, she also knew that she couldn’t harden her heart to said losses, either. Having lost so much already, Nadia had taken to heart an important lesson: that the inevitability of loss wasn’t a reason to give up on life, love, or laughter, but instead the reason to live, laugh, and love all the more. In the short time she’d known Goldlewis, he’d proven himself to be one of the strongest, most stout-hearted old warriors she’d ever seen. He had not thrown his life away for nothing, but had nobly faced his own death without fear for the sake of saving everybody. Nadia felt guilty, for lacking that courage herself and forcing the veteran’s hand, but also grateful for the extra chance he’d given her. She would not waste it.

“Badass to the end, huh?” Nadia found herself looking upward, past the twisted, throbbing horrors of the floodfested demon tree and into the clear blue sky. Against such a backdrop, even the Brother Moon looked small, somehow. “Well, you can rest easy. We won’t letcha down.”

The next moment, Nadia’s ears twitched, and on instinct the feral sprang backward. A blazing meteor slammed into the floor where she’d been standing a split second earlier, close enough that she could feel its searing heat on her skin and eyes as her hair fluttered from the displaced air. Blown further back by the shockwave, she used the momentum to twist herself around in a backflip and land in a crouched stance on her feet. Her claws raked across the flattened Qliphoth bark of the floor as she slid to a stop, her lips curled over bare teeth. Above the battlefield hovered Moebius D, a fresh batch of spells already on their way after Pit’s shimmery shield took the brunt of the last one. In the wake of the second Come Unto Your Maker, the vampiric Consul had taken advantage of the emotional fallout to try and rack up a few more kills of his own, but now Nadia’s blood was boiling a lot hotter than his meteors.

Another round of violently purple rays streaked toward the Seekers below. Nadia took off with a dash propelled by jets of high-pressure blood, then sprinted on all fours in a frenetic strafing run. As the magic curved toward her she zig-zagged back and forth, changing her direction at the last second to confound the arcane beams’ homing abilities. “Such wanton D-struction!” By the time the barrage ended, though, whirling sickles of flame were on their way. Only after weaving through the fiery pinwheels did Nadia realize that she’d been corralled against a thick curtain of blood rain as huge fireballs plummeted toward her. Thinking quickly, Nadia used Charge to bolt through the crimson deluge, only a little worse for wear while a cacophonous chain-explosion demolished the area where she’d been. “Hah! Sorry to rain on your parade, but it’ll take something a bit ‘meteor’ than that to get me!”

Despite her jokes, Nadia was definitely annoyed, and not just because she heard Juri gloating about killing Moebius O. There were no gaps in D’s offense in which her team could fight back, and even if there were, none of them had a chance in hell of reaching him. With Junior grounded and no Sectonia or Kamek to safeguard the skies, the Seekers were vulnerable against aerial opponents. She, Roxas, and a few others were agile, but not that agile, and if anyone stopped long enough to fire off a few bullets or spells, D would return fire with ten times the fury. Was there seriously no limit to how much magic that dirtbag could pump out!? There wasn’t anything she could do…from the floor, at least.

Nadia snapped her fingers, then abruptly turned tail and ran. To the others it might look like she was being selfish and cowardly, distancing herself for the sake of her own safety no matter what happened to the others, but as convenient as it was for her, she did have a plan in mind. Hopefully the others could last long enough for her to pull it off. Given how close the Brother Moon’s tentacles were getting, their odds were getting closer by the second, but she had to do something!

Some of her allies, at least, had their fights a little more under control. While A had managed to snuff out one of his strongest attackers, that smidgen of relief came at a great cost, and those who remained were determined to make him pay the price. The Monster surged forward first, little more than a massive heap of raw power, instinct, and emotion. What followed was more of a beatdown than a fight, with A struggling to defend himself as his heavily damaged husk began to fail him. Even hunkering down did not avail him, however, as Primrose’s Makami siphoned from him, and the Monster took advantage of his unanchored state to hurl him into a nearby environmental hazard. It wasn’t the end of him, but it put the villain in a terrible position he was forced to literally claw his way up from. He did manage to strike a solid blow against the Monster while its overextension left it isolated from the other Seekers, but when A crested the edge of the pit he found the children very much alive, and before he could try to finish the Koopas off, Roland arrived.

A handful of abilities hammered the Consul in quick succession, followed by Roland himself in ghoulish attire. His rake scored A’s body, gouging a huge chunk of demonic metal flesh from his torso. Once gutted, he found himself buffeted by a thick cinnamon cloud, as hard and heavy as a fist. Its impact momentarily stunned him, its psychological component affecting his eldritch mind in some inexplicable manner, which paved the way for Primrose to take center stage. As A regained his senses in front of the empowered dancer, now on his last legs, he made the pragmatic choice to try something new: teleporting away. Yet no matter how he tried, his Moebius teleportation ability would not obey him–what had Roland done!?

He lashed out first. How could he not? And for a moment, it looked like he’d seized victory. Primrose doubled over, blood seeping from her mouth as her flesh yielded to his strike. When he attempted to recoil, however, the rose’s thorns pierced through his tentacle, more than living up to their name. A brilliant aura of black and white flared around Primrose, then flooded into the A’s flesh, a lance of pitch-black incineration that turned the Consul’s own limb into a burning fuse. He had only a split second to realize what was happening before the Black Serpent reached him, implanting Primrose’s dark magic into the very core of his being. ”Mortality-!”

Moebius A exploded in a maelstrom of rippling, roaring shadow. His failing body, unable to stitch or hold itself together any longer, was ground away into fitful purple sparks that were swallowed by the dark just as quickly. After a moment the tenebrous singularity subsided, leaving behind only a handful of misshapen hunks, including part of A’s head. The scattered remnants did not regenerate this time, but crumbled into nothingness bit by sickening bit. Even the glow of the red lemniscate in A’s eye had been extinguished, but it stared at the Seekers nonetheless, gleaming like a black pearl.

”Victory…” A’s tone was critical, almost chiding, even as it faded away. ”A hollow…and ridiculous…notion…”

Then the last vestige of the aberrant Moebius A was gone, at last.

Unfortunately, the Qliphoth was not yet free of dead flesh, even if it had gone to pieces. The grotesque separation of the Gravemind into a number of large, extremely aggressive fragments was overwhelming to Grimm for a few moments, but from her bird’s-eye view Blazermate managed to get a bead on the situation that the Troupe Master did not. In a bid to stop the Gravemind’s spore-dropping core from ascending out of reach and into the Brother Moon’s eager embrace, Blazermate applied herself in a uncharacteristically physical sense: she tackled the vile thing out of the sky. Her metallic limbs battered the bomber’s newly-formed body well enough, but it was her Suffering shield that did the trick, its teeth puncturing the core’s gas sacs enough to let out the lighter-than-air fumes lifting it upward. In a matter of moments the core wasn’t gaining altitude, but losing it, and in another few seconds it would be well within Ganon’s reach.

Determined to give his much larger ally the space he needed to bring the Guardian down for good, Grimm and his Grimmchild turned their attention toward the fragments down below. Though not particularly well-built, the horrors formed from the remains of the core’s chrysalis moved powerfully and erratically enough to be dangerous, as Zenkichi and Edelgard found out. Grimm joined in with barrages of firebats from afar, keeping himself out of harm’s way. Though things looked dicey for a moment or two, Edelgard held firm until Zenkichi composed himself, and the pair turned the tide in a storm of spells and steel. These fragments didn’t seem able to regenerate or reform, so the team picked them apart one slice at a time, and the arrival of Captain Falcon plus Roxas sealed the deal. For the finale, Grimm took a bow, his cloak moving on his own to plunge its tips into the ground and spear the last monster from below. With their last course served up on a silver platter, the others could make sure that the Gravemind got its just desserts.

As the gargantuan tentacles of the celestial monstrosity above drew close, Ganon mustered the last of his strength. The next moment, a torrent of purple energy burst forth from his gullet bringing long-overdue annihilation to the execrable Gravemind core. Once back on his human form, Ganondorf found himself caught in a downpour of ashen remains, gentle as snow. Soon after the spirit of the Dead Zone Guardian fell at his feet, the visage of his vanquished foe resplendent in a wreath of sickly green light. The Seekers had won.

The response from the floodfested collective was immediate. A hundred thousand voices wailing, lamenting, singing in an abominable chorus. Untold tons of undead biomass writhed in despair and pain, much of it so interwoven with the demon tree that the Qliphoth itself seemed to shake. Overhead, the Brother Moon was gone–gone, just like that. Far, far above the World of Light hung a dark, scarred moon, innocent but sinister. Yet to hatch. Had it all been a vision conjured by Consul A, a cosmically horrific feint to boggle the heroes’ minds? Nadia didn’t know, but she was indescribably glad that it was gone, and almost as glad when the floodfested finally stopped screaming.

When the noise began, the magical bombardment from Moebius D had ceased. At first he'd been incredulous, but the more he surveyed the situation on high, the less D could deny what had happened. Both O and A were dead, and the Gravemind had been destroyed. For all his power, he'd failed to stop the Seekers. Failed to stop a fourth of them, even. "No," he snarled through gritted teeth, dark magic flaring to life at his fingertips, but after a moment he let it go. D drifted down from the air, returning to his everyday form. "I must admit, I'm rather impressed," he conceded stiffly. "And it would seem that I've failed in my duty. Fighting for another's sake has never been my strong suit. I suppose congratulations are in order." He seized his cape and shrouded himself with it. "But make no mistake. We will meet again, and when that day comes, you will learn the the meaning of fear." Then, in a burst of purple energy, D vanished.

In the moment of silence that followed, though, there came one final surprise. Even as their bodies and collective intelligence disintegrated, however, the multitudes raised their wretched voices as one to make their last words heard.

”RESIGNATION IS MY VIRTUE. LIKE WATER, I EBB AND FLOW. DEFEAT IS SIMPLY THE ADDITION OF TIME TO A SENTENCE I NEVER DESERVED…BUT YOU IMPOSED.”

Nadia couldn’t help but shudder, but after the Gravemind delivered its own eulogy, its consciousness seemed to be gone for good. As the floodfestation died off, the branches and boughs they’d parasitized thrashed, withered, and began to fall apart. Cracks spread, the bark peeled away, and enormous slabs began to plummet toward the wastes below. With all the timefall dramatically hastening the Qliphoth’s degradation, it wasn’t hard to imagine the whole place coming down in half an hour or less. As much as Nadia wanted to slump down and not move for a good few hours, she knew she couldn’t relax just yet. “So…how’re we gettin’ outta here?” She craned her neck in the direction of the hollow’s entrance. “Race against the clock, all the way back to the bottom?”

“Nothing so dramatic.” Sandalphon’s voice reached her allies through their divine communication sigils, but after a pillar of blue light descended from the heavens, the archangel was here in the flesh. She’d arrived with a large, military-style duffle bag slung over her shoulder, just as she did in Mafia Town last night, and it didn’t take Nadia long to connect the dots. “Congratulations, Seekers. The World of Light is fifty-three point four percent saved. We cannot linger here, however. Everybody, please take a Fulton and prepare to ascend.”

The feral breathed a heavy sigh of relief. “Finally, we get to do things the easy way for once.” After the odyssey it had taken the Seekers to reach this damn place, through rain-soaked wastelands infested with nuclear ghosts and a tower stuffed to the brim with monsters, the chance to soar straight out through the hole A opened in the roof was a welcome break. Practically the second she realized that she was in the clear, her adrenaline faded and fatigue came rushing in. Nadia laughed to herself and jogged over, shaking her head. “Jeez. What a day.”

Though eager to leave as the next guy, Grimm did not immediately follow Nadia’s example. After approaching Ganondorf he plucked the spirit of the Gravemind up in his slender black claws, but he did not try to use it. Instead he merely stared into the orb’s loathsome luster, his scarlet gaze almost reverent. Then he presented the spirit to Ganondorf, unaware of what needed to be done with it. ”To the victor go the spoils, hm?”

After that, he turned his attention to something nearby. It had been easy to miss in the heat of battle, but now that the action was over, it was practically impossible to miss. The reinforced coffin wielded by Goldlewis sat, motionless and silent, on the floor not so far from the wreckage of Drop in the Ocean. Though scuffed and scratched by countless battles in which it had served as a blunt force instrument, its heavy metal frame and spikes still shone with a defiant glint. Inside lurked the extraterrestrial entity that Goldlewis insisted on calling a cryptid, bereft of its bearer. Grimm approached it, his eyes unblinking. That man hadn’t been his friend, if such a concept existed in his mind to begin with, but Grimm knew that without Goldlewis, he wouldn’t be here. Now Goldlewis was gone, laid to rest in the Guardian’s grave, and though it wasn’t his coffin, this was all that remained of him.

When Grimm looked to his right, he found Sandalphon standing there. Her pupils resembled the lowercase letter V, and her hands were in her pockets as she bowed her head. “He was a soldier to the end. A man who walked hand in hand with death, bore its weight upon his shoulders his whole life, and who did not flinch from the end. We must take time to remember him.”

Grimm nodded, then bent down to take hold of the chain. He did not lay claim to it, and he could not carry it, but he could pull it back toward the group one tug at a time, in the hopes that someone else could carry its weight henceforth.

With the Qliphoth still falling apart, the team needed to get going. Once the Gravemind spirit, the veteran’s coffin, and any other immediate concerns were addressed, the Seekers could Fulton themselves up and out of the demon tree for aerial pickup by the Avenger. Though Nadia was among the first to extract, Sandalphon could wait to make sure everyone else made it before teleporting back. Over the course of this mission, she’d been tabulating a number of miscellaneous statistics, but four in particular stuck in her mind.

Twenty-four had entered. Twenty-one had returned.

Seven down. Six to go.

---

Yet again, Nadia came to in the bowels of the Avenger, surrounded by heavy-duty machinery in the dimly-lit deployment zone. Unlike last night, though, there were tons of people here waiting for the team, including Lost Numbers, former Alcamoth Mercenaries, reserve Seekers, and the three saved by Ace’s Palicos, not to mention the man himself. After everything that had happened, Nadia was especially relieved to see the Cadet safe and sound. There were no cheers or claps, fireworks, or party poppers, but everyone was ready and willing to do whatever they could to help the weary Seekers out. Bracket Brace was here with sodas, bottled waters, and snacks, while Eleison came prepared with medkits and vials of laudanum that could mitigate the stress they’d suffered. One could be certain that, despite the hour, Cirrus could be found in Stolen Moments, where visitors would find the memorial wall in dire need of an update.

Before everyone could go their separate ways, Sandalphon gave them a quick update. “I’ve conferred with Hope and Vandham. Though we are aggrieved to have sustained losses, the fact remains that you all fought well, and claimed victory. It is currently eleven fifty-one. The day is yours for decompression and recovery. After leaving Dead Zone airspace, the Avenger is bound for Hammerhead, to the south. We will reconvene in the Bridge at eighteen hundred hours to debrief, vote on our next destination, and hold a memorial service for the fallen, before proceeding to the mess hall for dinner. I understand that, for the first time since our arrival, the Commander will be making an appearance.” She paused, her face an unreadable mask. “Dismissed.”

Grimm stalked off without a word, the Grimmchild in tow. Nadia just sighed. Like many of the others, she imagined, she didn’t know what she wanted to do next. Get a drink, maybe? She’d drowned her sorrows after helping defeat the Orphan of Kos, after all. Then again, lunch sounded pretty good right about now, and afterward she could relax until Hammerhead, then maybe find something to do. It had been one hell of a morning.

A single ray of light pierced the darkness of the great auditorium, cast by some nebulous mechanism above the double-door entryway that droned in an incessantly old-fashioned manner. That ghostly luster reflected off the enormous screen that hung above the grand hardwood stage, blank except for momentary smudges or scratches on the empty film reel. Overhead dangled heavy, dark curtains, their gilded tassels agleam in the spectral light that cast long shadows over the curved staircases, elevated gallery boxes, and many rows of empty seats. Classical columns supported a vaulted ceiling, so high that visitors would need to crane their necks to see it, if only the theater had any. Instead this room was still as a grave, and but for the muted rattle of the projector, silent.

The visitor hadn’t entered through those stately double doors, but nevertheless, she was here. She awoke slowly, heavily, and irritably, like someone roused from the very cusp of a deep, peaceful, and velvety-soft sleep into which she’d gently been sinking. Dreadful memories of horror and pain, almost suppressed and forgotten, returned quickly. She knew what had happened, but she did not know where she’d arrived. Was this strange, grim theater part of the vicious cycle to which she’d supposedly been returned? Though she knew she must have died before, she did not remember this place. Something didn’t feel right–maybe it was her. Cracks ran along her body -her original body, before all the changes- that shone with soft, prismatic light, and grains of similarly-colored sand leaked through them, as if through small cracks of an hourglass. Whatever this place was, she wouldn’t be here for long.

After a moment, the empty screen changed. A film began to play–her film. She could see herself in Smash City Alcamoth, the Sandswept Sky, Split Mountain, Midgar, and a number of other places that she had never been. Visions flashed of vast armies clashed in a war-torn battlefield…peaceful respite in places of incredible beauty…her fingers intertwined with another’s. Lives were flashing before her eyes.

The princess was briefly transfixed by the images on the screen, but had enough will to raise up a hand inorder to inspect it, running a finger across a glowing crack on her palm. Then she glanced down and with a sigh said ”Really? Still?” with regards to her still being stuck in her impish form rather than being restored to her true one.

If what was on display in front of her was anything to go by, then it was as if the system considered this cursed body more worthy of scribing over and over than her real one, which was rather insulting, she felt.

Still, her self examination was enough to confirm that she was on some sort of time limit, her body bleeding seconds away like a broken hourglass. What time running out would mean, she didn’t know, but if who or whatever had put her here for a bit expected her to just sit still and watch one of these oversized screen things till that happened it had another thing coming.

She pressed both hands to the armrests, and moved to push herself up into the air inorder to take a drifting explore of her environment.

After a moment, a spotlight snapped on from above. Its light cone shone down on a lone figure seated in the middle of the theater. The fashion of his armor was familiar, but instead of cherry-red, its plates were a dull gold, adorned by a white cape rather than black. A helmet with a tall crest lay in the chair at his opposite side, so while Midna could see nothing but a head of dark brown hair from her current vantage point, circling around would give her a closer look at the man’s face. When he turned to look at her, he appeared to be a normal -fairly unremarkable, in fact- Japanese man with dark eyes and rectangular glasses. The sight of Midna seemed to sadden him somewhat.

“Good morning. Hah, if only it was.” He held out a bowl full of various gummy and hard candies, including chocolate, and put it on the seat between them. “Please, help yourself to some snacks. It might seem like you’re…uh, crumbling away, but that merely reflects that your presence here is transitory. So really, there’s plenty of time to think, talk, and decide…um, about what comes next.” He sighed, shaking his head. “I’m sorry. I know you just made a hard choice. You are brave. Selfless. A heroic warrior. Everything antithetical to Moebius. You don’t deserve this cruel World of Light–nobody does. And yet, this is our lot. That’s why, though it pains me, I have one more choice to offer you. The fact that you’re here means…well, there’s an opening.” His tone lowered. “And a chance, to take back one more inch that Moebius has stolen away.”

”I think that might have been more Urbosa than it was me, in the moment” the princess admitted, pausing for only a moment before deciding ”but I don’t regret it”

She’d approached him with caution, but by this point, this close, it seemed that this man really was the enemy of her enemy, color coded for her convenience and everything. That said, if she was being cynical, that didn’t necessarily make him a friend.

As such, she did not copy him and set down her own helmet on a chair, keeping that artifact of her people donne just in case, regardless of how little it would help if he was as powerful as his opposites, but other than that, she was willing to sit and hear him speak. She did so by picking up the bowl, and then sitting herself on the armrest of the chair it had been sitting on, letting her face him with her feet set where the bowl had been, and said bowl sat in her lap.

Better that than crane her neck the whole time, or risk getting lost in the distracting visions of her past lives.

”So, I-” she began to say, before thinking again and adjusting the assumption she had about what he knew, and saying ”-guess that this not having sound might mean you don’t know my name? Princess Midna, if not.”

The man nodded, smiling. “Midna. It’s nice to meet you.”

”I have a pile of questions that you can probably guess, so let's start by you answering the obvious ones” she, wanting to skip past any back and forth. Plus, it would give her a little time to partake of his hospitality (she naturally knew better than to talk with her mouth full) which she did by picking up and tossing a piece of chocolate into her pointy toothed maw.

She made an appreciative little ”Mmm” as she enjoyed one of the few upsides to this entire nightmare Galeem had made by mixing infinite worlds together: the infinite banquet of different kinds of food that the resulting reality stew had on offer.

Her new acquaintance breathed in deep. “Right. Well, I gave up my name when I took this job. Just part of the ritual. It’s led to some funny stories, but, uh, those are tales for another time. Nowadays they just call me T.” He sank into his seat, staring up at the screen. At the moment it happened to be portraying a part of the Sandswept Sky replaced by the Twilight Realm, in all its dusky glory.

It was a sight that Midna could not help but be drawn to, the facade of confidence she was putting on briefly breaking as homesickness struck her heart. Then she steeled it with iron clad duty, and turned her gaze away once more.

“Before all this, I was a humble guidance counsellor. Doing what little I could to make lives better, one kid at a time. My reality could be, uh, cruel, but it could be wonderful, too. The World of Light is the same, but where I come from, few had the power to change the world, and that’s not the case here. Sadly, those who seized power in this world chose to make it worse. A hellscape where they toy with countless lives on their way to the meat grinder.”

For a moment T paused, his head held in one hand. “This job, it…it simply attracts the worst kinds of people. The sociopaths, the hedonists, the sadists. People full of hate, greed, selfishness, and fear. Capricious gods…and people with god complexes.” He chuckled dryly. “Faced with death, immortality is a tempting prospect. But perpetual life tends to get old, so to ease the tedium of existence, they turn to ever more creative means of entertainment. It has to end.”

He looked at Midna, somewhat sharply. “But destroying the World of Light isn’t the answer. Galeem was wrong to do what it did, but what’s done is done. This world is home to nigh infinite souls, all of whom deserve to live peaceful, happy lives, and snuffing them out would be an evil greater evil than birthing them. It’s not a crime for us all to exist. The true evil is Moebius, or more specifically, the despots who make it up. If that can change, the world can change.” He clasped his hands. “And, believe it or not, we’re making progress. You’ve already heard about P. She accepted this position out of despair, but she’s not a bad person. She’s already trying to make a new kingdom, one without suffering. A handful of bad Consuls have already been dealt with, like F, Y, and M, that last one courtesy of S, another lost soul I plucked from the flow. Depending on your allies, three more spots may be open before noon. It won’t be long before more monsters succeed the fallen. Unless those spots are seized by good people first–people willing to bear this cursed existence for the sake of everyone, and slowly change Moebius from within, so that this broken world might be redeemed.”

”So that’s what this is” she replied, glancing up at the screen briefly as she tried to compose her thoughts. Upon it she saw the world of light from high high above, some past her having traveled to the heavens on some unknown quest. In that moment, something crystalised in her mind, and it was a somewhat simple though: ”It’s so small”

”However many hundreds of worlds, all stolen and used to make just one. Not even a world really, just a continent if everything important being on it is any indication” she observed, before asking what she thought was the key question ”So where’s the rest of it? Where is everyone else? Sure Galeem seems to have put all the ‘important’ people on it given that you can’t go ten paces without running into a legend in their world. But the common people? If they were here the world would overflow with them. So where are they?”

”and when do they get to live?”

“They’re out there,” T told her. “Somewhere. Some time. This world is vast, far more than just this continent. This just happens to be the locus where all the most prominent elements are funneled. But it’s true, it’s impossible for everyone to live at the same time. Instead, the citizens of the world cycle in and out. Sooner or later, everyone gets a turn. Nobody is ever truly gone.” He cleared his throat. “Ahem. I wish I could tell you more, but there isn’t a lot of…um, comprehensive science about the world’s geography or, uh, population dynamics, but if we ever manage to put an end to all the war, it’d make for a fascinating field of study.”

Midna didn’t look convinced by this lack of concrete details, but she set aside that unknown for now to poke at what his victory would look like ”So you replace all the bad consuls with good ones, flip everything from red to gold. What then? How much of this world can you really change? The clocks demanding the churning of lives, the forgotten pasts and endless parade of nightmares Galeem seems to love to spit out? How are you going to hold onto the crown, and stop anyone else from shattering it?”

“The Flame Clocks can and must be destroyed,” T told her. “Interlinks are the key to breaking them. To anything born of the system -of Moebius- they are inviolate, but when two people become one, something new is created, and that is the fatal weakness of Moebius. I believe there is a logic, a sort of director, that governs who appears and where.” He held up his hands. “Think of it like a water valve. Moebius has set it one way, but we can set it another, and stop the flow of nightmares. Once the clocks are gone, and the evils diminish, nobody will have to fight just to survive. People can come together, form communities, and help one another. As for how...” He sighed. “I don’t know for sure. It’s an enormous undertaking, and there’s no one right answer. No such thing as a perfect world–I know that better than most. And human nature, which drives us all to repeat our past mistakes, cannot be changed. But still…” He gritted his teeth, his grip tightened on the arm of his chair. “I have to do something. Anything, and everything, I can. Not just to make amends, but because it’s the right thing to do.”

”Believe, but don't know. Which is the problem with all of this” Midna said, before resting her exposed cheek on the palm of her hand and musing that ”but I guess the only way to find out would be to go through with it, wouldn’t it? Claim all the crowns, and then in victory then try and find out if you can right all these wrongs, or if the system is irreparable, and that being lords of Galeems kingdom is a trap. You’d fight just as hard to preserve it after all. Harder, maybe, even, given you believe in it.”

She sat up then, and brushed her hand towards him in a vague gesture as she asked ”How’d you end up getting one of the crowns anyway? Also does the gold getup mean anything, or are the rest of them really that committed to dressing in bloody red?”

“Uh…” T looked down, somewhat sheepishly. “Heh, well, this one’s…custom. These colors are, um, sentimental? Or maybe just a grim reminder of the weight I’ve chosen to carry.” His smile thinned. “My own position was offered by C. I don’t know what his true goals are, or if he truly has any, and I would not count him an ally, but it seems he’s willing to do whatever it takes to keep things ‘interesting’. No matter what that ends up jeopardizing. If I tried to psycho-analyze him, I feel like my head would explode…” He looked down, his expression dour. “As for the system…if it really is irreparable, maybe nothing is better than an irreparably cruel world. It’s a depressing thought. One I cannot indulge. I have to bear the torch, no matter how long it takes. Even if I bear it alone.” T breathed in through his nose, a determined look on his face. “I believe in people. That there are many more good people than there are bad, and that given a real chance, everyone can live good lives.”

The Consul stood, then turned toward Midna, his hands clasped behind his back. “I know I’m asking too much of you. Changing Moebius and the World of Light will be a long and hard road. But I believe its the only chance we’ve got. If you would rather return to the cycle, and hope to rejoin the campaign…that is your choice to make.” He paused, clearly not happy. “I plan to lend whatever help I can to the Seekers’ efforts to eliminate the other Consuls, but if a day comes when the world is about to end…I will have to stand up for what I believe in.”

He smiled wryly, then looked up at the screen. It displayed a path that led up from the stage toward a hill, at which point it forked toward the left and the right. The only difference between them was that the sunset shone above the right-hand path, itself a celestial, winged shape that Midna knew well.

”The end for us, maybe, but maybe not for the people we are copies of. Organization 13 certainly seems to think they can do something after Galeem is done for, though Roxas says they can’t be trusted one bit.” Midna suggested, before asking ”So is that a metaphor, or am I going to be walking a literal path into darkness or the light at the end of this?”

“There are two roads set before every individual.” From the gravity that T gave those words, it could be surmised that they weren’t his own. “The left. The right. If you’ve thought things through, then…it’s time to go.”

”I guess it is” Midna replied, picking up the bowl and passing it back to T, but not before taking one more treat ”for the road”

Then she hopped out of her seat, and without any sort of transition hovering above the path that had been displayed before her. She paused there, popping the candy into her mouth, chewing it as she indulged in a fantasy about climbing the hill between the paths purely for the sake of spite, before sighing and going through with the choice she’d already made

”Into the jaws of the trap it is then” she said, raising an arm up to shield her eyes, and drifting rightwards into the light.