Meaningless

By Vilya

Disclaimer: I do not own, despite my wishes, anything related to or part of Tales of Symphonia. However, several descriptions and small events in here are my own imagining. And they are mine. …Rather own ToS…

A/N: A bit of a one-shot…about a dark night in a forest. You'll have to read it to find out more.

They are not here.

I have searched everywhere for them, everywhere I can. But they are not here.

The only things at the bottom of this cliff are the Desian corpses. The monsters…have eaten them. There is nothing left alive.

No woman. No young child. …Anna and Lloyd are…

Of course she's gone. I took her life with my own hands. …She…she asked me to… But Lloyd. Where is he? He and Noishe went down together. But Noishe is missing, too.

I can't stand here anymore; I am physically incapable of it. No one, not even one of the Seraphim, can fight Kvar and his most loyal and expect to win without a scratch. Anna…Lloyd…could that filthy half-elf really have taken you from me?

But no…I took Anna myself…

I am on my knees, holding myself away from the ground with my hands, though that might not last long. How can I…how dare I go anywhere? Mithos will only strive to hurt me worse than I have been…Yuan has run away like a coward…and I have caused the deaths of the only people I could ever love.

My son…I will never see you grow up…never walk with you and look up at the stars again…

My love…will your eyes haunt me so for the rest of my unending life? I will never stop thinking about you…from here, I cannot continue. There is nothing left for me.

Everything…is meaningless.

I have lost the only chance I will ever have to redeem myself. I barely knew my son for the three short years he lived…but I will remember him. Though even now his child's face escapes me…but I see Anna's monstrous visage, pleading with me in the strained voice of a human mutated by an Exsphere, to take her life.

Was there another way? It is horrible to think, but I hope not. If there were a way…and I couldn't find it…I was too much of a fool. There is no cure for being mutated into…that creature. There cannot be. Freedom must lay only in death.

I am haunted by her face…her pleading voice…Lloyd's innocent confusion…his question, tentative, fearful…'Mommy? Daddy?'

"Kratos?"

That voice.

Mithos.

"Kratos, what happened?" I know his younger voice. This is how I first met him. How he was. So young, and kind…and determined. But centuries can change a man.

I look up at him, and he is several feet away from me, looking at me hesitantly, warily, as though I might attack him. I might. It would mean a swift end to this meaningless life. He looks around, at the bodies of the Desians I defeated, and then back at me.

"This…this is horrible…" His eyes are actually full of tears. Tears. For my family. Not his…they're mine, they were mine. And I…

I killed them. Anna and Lloyd are dead. Because of me. I was not strong enough, or powerful enough, to protect them when they needed me most. I…failed.

Mithos is looking at me again, with such sad eyes, and even kind ones, if one looks at him in just the right way. He looks so…childlike. Would Lloyd have grown to be like this? With such a gentle face, but a burning passion for his goals?

Anna was like this. Headstrong, determined…and kind. Gentle. Like two people made into one…and I took that from her. From this world. …And Mithos, who hates me for leaving and wanted Anna for her Exsphere…is offering me sympathy?

"Kratos…I'm so sorry." He takes a step closer, but then stops, hesitating again. "Kvar will pay for this, I promise."

"I don't care."

"You can't say that! He just…" Mithos draws even closer. I will not let him. I put my hand on my sword, though I have not the strength to draw it. But he doesn't know that, and he stops advancing, fear on his face.

Does he really believe I would kill him? That I could? Better he kill me instead. I have nothing left here. I have destroyed all that I had.

Is he really offering me another chance? After I betrayed him?

"Listen, Kratos."

"No. End this. Now."

"What? No! You can't talk like that." His voice is so soft, and even almost kind. But don't I know Mithos better than that? "Come on, Kratos. Anna wouldn't want you to give up!"

"Does that matter?"

"Does it? You tell me! Would you want her to just throw her life away, if she were in your position? Would you want her to die?"

"I have outlived human existence many times over. She and I should never even have met."

"But you did, and you loved each other!" He's persistent. But he's right. "Just think about it. You'd never have known her, your love, if you hadn't lived this long. And you wouldn't have lived this long if you hadn't met Martel and me."

He speaks the truth. Were it not for Yuan and myself coming to the aid of he and his sister…so many years ago…I would not be here right now. None of us would.

But why should I listen to him? I don't care anymore. Everything I ever loved is gone. Taken from me…by my own sword…my own mistakes. Not even Mithos can change that.

"Anna wanted a world in which all life was respected, didn't she? That's what we want too, remember? When I…when Martel is reborn…the world can be like that. There'll be no more hatred, and no killing. Wouldn't she want that for you?"

Anna did want that. She told me so herself. A world in which all life was respected…

Can I really join Mithos again? Can I fight for something I can't even care about? Can I choose a side when I stand divided within myself?

But this is what's right. Mithos, he has it right. He…wants to make the world a place for everyone. Fair to everyone. This…I must believe.

Everything else is meaningless.

He walks towards me again, puts a hand lightly, tentatively, on my shoulder. I am still on my knees, but my hands are on the ground, no longer on my sword.

"Kratos, you're hurt!" He sounds so delicately shocked. "Come back with me, Kratos…back to Derris-Kharlan. Soon there will be a suitable vessel for Martel. Soon we can realize our dream. You want that too…don't you?"

I…do I? Would Anna want it? Would she approve of this…of me returning to the leader of the organization that took her life?

All life…respected…

I suppose…it would seem…I do want this. But only this. Everything else…

Is meaningless.

"Fine."

Mithos smiles, and without sound or warning, the forest around me disappears, replaced by the stone walls of Mithos' palace on Derris-Kharlan.

"I knew you'd still see," he insists as we materialize on the cold stone floor. "I knew you understood, Kratos."

Well. That was…dark. Thanks to the people from the Tales forum's ToK thread for some supplemental inspiration to this fic—you guys rule! Now, I bet you have plenty of comments…so leave them, please!