This chapter was, honest to GOD, one of the saddest parts of the game; the first time I saw it (along with all the other death cutscenes of either route) made me bawl like the sorry sad sack I am. So here's to emotional pain from the unhappiness of fictional characters!

The square was the very epitome of chaos: people ran, screaming and terrified, tripping over themselves and the rubble of what used to be grand statuary and parts of the flagstones before Ganglari played its foul magic and self-destructed. Kamui's Yato hummed angrily in response to the remnants of its evil energy. It was pointless to try and soothe it when he, himself, was so agitated, so he hefted the blade higher and gauged the devastated surroundings.

Hinoka and Sakura had done a good job of herding who they could to safety, but even they were struggling with the new weight bearing down on them. Sakura clutched her sun festal to her chest even as her sobbing made clean tracks on her face. Hinoka's arm was most likely broken, but she put on a brave face and gripped her naginata tighter while she tried to spy beyond the hazy cloud of grit that obscured the square's centre.

"Kamui! Don't get too close!" Raijintō's lightning crackled and snapped in Ryōma's hands as he circled the rubble cautiously, turning occasionally to verify Kamui's position. Takumi hadn't even drawn Fūjin Yumi, and stood rooted to his spot.

Kamui didn't begrudge him his lack of action. Had he not been a trained warrior, the best option was always to run when faced with an unknown threat.

Azura's grief and rage had triggered a monstrous transformation. Where the princess had once stood, a myth took her place.

Kamui was reminded of the illustrations of leafy sea dragons Yukimura had drawn on a trip to Cyrkensia. Only this was no drawing, and the dragon before him was anything but shy. Her long, slender blue-white body belied the corded muscles bunching up beneath her tough, armoured skin. The lobes of fleshy, translucent yellow skin floated elegantly along her head, limbs, and the long dorsal fin that ran from the nape of its neck to the tip of its tail, almost as though it were truly a creature of the water standing at the bottom of the seabed. Wings resembling clumped masses of kelp fluttered in distress; her clawed hand grasped her mother's corpse. Despite not having a discernible face, the dragon looked almost as broken as the dead queen's body.

Now that she had finished tearing through the masses of Faceless sent to kill her, Azura was at a complete loss. Heartbroken crooning was heard from what he assumed was her mouth. Her tail lashed through the detritus surrounding her, and she looked back and forth between her siblings and him, visibly distressed.

"Takumi, don't," Kamui whispered in warning as the prince fell to a slow, low crouch. The archer ignored him as he searched for something in the rubble – the glint of a wyrmslayer sword's blade flashed in his hand underneath its coat of dust and gravel. One of the weapons used by the Faceless mercenaries against them.

"You fool!" Kamui hissed. He had to act fast before the enraged Takumi went ahead with his dangerously rash plan.

So he bolted directly towards Azura, unsheathing Yato as he ran.

"Kamui! No! Stop!" Sakura and Ryōma chased after him, but the elder prince was faster and nearly succeeded in grabbing his cloak. The timely appearance of his water barrier pushed Ryōma back, separating the rest of the family from him and the dragon.

I'm sorry everyone. But only I can stop this, Kamui thought, determination giving his every move strength as he approached the transformed princess. She snarled and roared fearfully, holding her mother closer and snapping her jaws at the sight of Yato's steel. He swung it once, twice, three times in wide arcs above him before sheathing it again, activating its power under its true form as Tonkori Yato. Its vajra scabbard widened and curved into the shape of the instrument of its namesake. Strings formed from astral energy tied themselves to its neck, and Yato took on an unearthly blue glow, like the pendant around his neck, as Kamui began to pluck and strum.

"You are the ocean's gray waves/destined to seek/life beyond the shore/just out of reach," his singing echoed in the barrier enclosing them. A brief feeling of triumph zinged through him when he saw Azura close her mouth – she cocked her head warily, and began to back away from him, but it didn't matter. Not when she was safe within the barrier and did not react aggressively to his song.

"Yet the waters ever change –"

Kamui had been severely mistaken. Not only did she feel threatened, but her fear was enough to have her slashing at him with her enormous claws. Tonkori Yato was stricken out of his arms as he tumbled down hard to the floor.

"No!" Sakura cried out, and was pulled back into Ryōma's chest to avoid running to the barrier.

Don't, Sakura! I can't stop singing! Kamui thought as he scrambled frantically backwards to his sword.

"Flowing like time/the path is yours to climb…"

As Kamui's fingers closed around Tonkori Yato's neck, Azura's hand closed around his neck, slamming him back against the concrete with a mighty roar. The recoil was ferocious, and the way his head cracked against the floor had him seeing stars floating around his dizzy vision – he noticed, vaguely, that his pendant's glow was still going strong.

Azura lowered her head to scream in his face; her breath reeked of blood and salt. He didn't even try to struggle against her punishing grip. Kamui raised his arm weakly and cupped her head gently in one hand. Almost immediately, memories began to flow between them like water from a stream: Azura receiving a piggyback ride from Ryōma while their siblings looked on, giggling; Kamui's mother Mikoto teaching him to play the flute; Camilla comforting her during her first night in Castle Krakenburg; Sakura gifting him a spray of cherry blossoms from the season's first tree to bloom, shyly helping him tie spring bells around the smooth wood of the branch.

Even through her harsh panting, tears began to cascade down her monstrous, grief-stricken face, splashing onto his own face and mingling with his own tears.

"You have suffered so much," he choked around her claws and stroked her head, "I don't think anyone could really fault you for acting the way you are."

"Kamui! Stop!" Hinoka screamed from outside the barrier.

"Even so," he continued, ignoring all sounds from the outside as the pain he shared with the dragon bound them and strangled them in their sorrowful agony. "I cannot bear to see you like this – not when you still have so much ahead of you. Not when you have the right to demand your happiness from the gods themselves. So please," Kamui's voice dropped into a whisper. More tears squeezed out of his eyes, leaving his skin feeling as pinched and raw as his throat, "please...kill me if you want, but...do it as yourself."

He had no idea what had triggered her transformation back to her human form, but Azura's hand was still around his neck and her mother still held closely to her chest. More memories flowed faster and faster, but they were all hers now, all hers and of happier times with her loved ones: a shadow he recognised as Sumeragi picking her up and throwing her in the air joyously; darling Elise laughing and smearing icing from a cake onto her face during their tea party; now it was Marx screaming for her, calling out to her as she was snatched from them, and taken from Nohr; now it was Takumi glaring at her and denouncing her as his sister, brandishing Fūjin Yumi during battle and pushing her away hatefully.

And as he and the princess wept together, the shades from their past haunted their minds and called to her, Azura, Azura, Azura.

~oOo~

He found her sitting on the bank of the lake. She had fled from their presence after Yukimura and Yuugiri came to collect their fallen queen. They had wrapped her in an improvised shroud and failed to look the princess in the eye as the knight's kinshi carried them back to the castle.

Azura's newly acquired weapon sat behind her on the grass. The Seinaru Yari was a tool forged to protect Hoshido's very heart, and even from where he stood, Kamui could feel a strong air of divinity about it, making its golden shaft and sun-shaped crown look all the more glorious.

It suited her, he decided.

"The pyre has already been built in the castle courtyard. Everyone is waiting for you," Kamui murmured.

Azura said nothing and only stared ahead at the small white caps of the waves on the lake's surface. Not even when he sat next to her did she turn to look his way or speak.

Given the circumstances...he was at a total loss to even begin to describe her siblings' grief. How Takumi had repeatedly vowed to hunt down every Faceless in his path or cast Azura away from Hoshido; whichever came first. How queen Shenmei would never be able to present her with the kimono she had stored for her daughter's return home. How to give her the dragonstone he had fashioned into a necklace for her after the day's...incident.

How to pass on the news of Ryōma leading Hoshido's army to the border, marching to war against Marx and all her loved ones from Nohr.

Kamui said nothing and held her close as they shared their tears once more.

Takumi was an absolute ass in this chapter and I still felt so bad for writing his bit here. At least he gets his redemptive arc. I'm also waiting for the day when we can get more protagonists who have a loving stable family that isn't dead from the beginning/killed off (ESPECIALLY THE MOTHERS, OH GOD! I think we can all thank Disney for this) or taken away from them due to Circumstances that the Plot Demands.