Her brand throbs, a sharp reminder: Kill. You are angry. Give in. Kill.
Fang leans back against the rock and wraps her arms around her knees. Who could have foreseen all of it relying on her self-control? Laughter splutters raw from her—what a joke. Her? Self-control? In what universe?
Destroy Cocoon.
Pain flares and she hisses a breath in through her teeth. But after a hundred years, she's learned to (mostly) ignore it. Tilting her head back, she looks up to the sky while her pulse beats a constant rhythm: Kill, kill, kill.
Cocoon hangs there, glittering, framed by stars, and Fang gives a crooked, broken smile.
Who would have thought she'd wind up a lone protector of the world she hated?
They'd be proud of her.
She closes her eyes and sees them behind her eyelids.
All of them smile at her, a reassurance, a reminder:
Her suffering isn't for nothing, she's doing good by protecting Cocoon, they didn't become Cie'th in vain, and immortality won't beat her.
Fang opens her eyes and looks up, to wait for the sunrise. She'll watch it rise and set every day until nothing at all remains, except crystal dust and broken dreams.