3 Nexus
She walked into the throne room, hearing echoes of memory all around her, seeing the evidence of her enemy's anger in the missing top half of the temple, exposing her gaze to swirling chaos mingling with murky sunlight so gray and dark that it only barely resembled its true nature. Her steps sounded hollow, scuffing on the stone, and the flutter of her armor sounded incredibly loud in the unbearable silence
Dead ahead, no longer shining with its ethereal silver light, the crystal throne, once the stead of Etro, towered over her, still floating in its abyss.
And atop it, not even looking at her, was Caius.
Lightning stopped in her tracks and clenched her fist around her blade, which she had drawn just outside the throne room. It was the first time she had personally seen him sitting there, but for all she knew, he might have sat there in her absence many times since the world's end. He owned it, she could see, perfectly comfortable in that position of obvious power, not at all disturbed by her presence.
"You are wasting time," was his greeting after a few moments of complete silence. "Are you so stubborn and so desperately seek vindication that you must come here to face me once again?"
She shifted her weight. "Yeul asked me to try."
"She asked you to come here, to this place of bitter memories, to save the one who had caused the death of the world to begin with?" Now he did look at her, but it was so dark that she could only tell from a change in his silhouette. "And you did not reject her request? Your stubbornness has not waned."
She lifted her sword a little, watching it shine dully in the thick shadows shrouding them both. The crushing weight of the chaos he bore like a robe wrapped around him reached her despite the bloom in her chest. "If fulfilling her wish brings her chaos under control, even if only to give me a little more time, then I will do it." Though she spoke in a loud, strong voice, she tried not to shout, despite it being her first instinct upon seeing him.
"Yet she asked you to save me, did she not?"
"She–" Lightning swallowed, left hand briefly touching the bloom of chaos in her chest. While it made it a little difficult to breathe, it didn't otherwise impede her at the moment. "–did."
He rose to his feet. "I refuse."
And he dared mock her stubbornness? "I didn't come here seeking your permission," she retorted, raising the blade further to point it directly at him.
He was on the ground and in front of her so fast that only her instincts kept her alive – stumbling back, blade coming up to deflect his sudden strike, the familiar ring of metal on metal making her head ache for a moment. When she got her wits about her again and regained her balance, it was to stare straight down the length of a sword fashioned in the shape of a flare frozen in time, and at the far end was her rival.
"You could have refused her and saved yourself the time."
She swallowed again. "Too late now, isn't it?"
His eyes were hard and cold, practically void of emotion, as though he had drawn everything he was deep inside and closed it off tight where no one else could ever see or find it. "Though she desires my freedom, her contradictive nature may make it… difficult for you to fulfill that." He hesitated a moment after speaking, then withdrew, giving her room to breathe. "Yet, you have come this far. Do your best, hunter of souls, and save me from the evil that has claimed me." Again, he hesitated, and, briefly, a smirk passed across his lips. "If you can."
Was he taunting her, or warning her? Gathering her strength, she bent her knees slightly in her battle stance and looked him right in the eye. Memories of past wars came to her, reminding her of all the tricks he had used in the past. With that knowledge, she had a fair chance to survive.
"My soul is chained by chaos. You will have to take it by force, Liberator."
"That's not going to be a problem."
He reversed his grip on his sword, but didn't look otherwise concerned – not that he ever did, of course. "You may wish to be less hasty with your confidence."
Lightning gritted her teeth. "No more destiny, no more fate," she murmured, and gripped her sword two-handed, angling the blade across her body. "Let's end this here, once and for all."
She saw him twitch before he moved, and matched his stride, their blades coming together as one.
The collision blades felt like old times – and yet not, making her head ache more than the first time, and when they met, he overpowered her in an instant, pushing her back, making her stumble and barely manage to keep her feet beneath her. Barely did she have time to look up when she saw a flare of pinkish light coming right at her and ducked again, this time leaping to the side, and stone shattered behind her, sending pieces of it flying up into the air. They clattered around her, some of them landing right on her.
Scrambling away from him when he came after her, she leapt to her feet, turned, and deflected his strike, falling into the rhythm he made, deflecting strikes aimed at her head, her torso, her legs, and her armor's lengths of cloth flew about her, flicking into her peripheral vision, fluttering in the brief moments of silence. For a minute, it was just blades and instinctual footwork, barely staying out of each other's way, the rhythm beginning to feel familiar, and she stepped into the flow easily enough after a few rusty instants, but then he feinted, reversed his grip again, and went right for her legs, and she had to hop back to avoid it and went stumbling over a pile of rubble, landing on her back on the stone, hard enough to knock the wind out of her.
She brought her sword up, and he brought his down, his left hand seizing her wrist and putting enough pressure on the bones to make her wince from the pain… so she returned the favor, applying pressure through the thick armor protecting his bones from her attacks, making his eyes narrow.
With his eyes on hers, she kicked him in the torso; he grunted sharply and landed on his back on the stone.
She summoned some strength and came after him.
And got a nice blast of white fire to the chest for her trouble, clenching her chest in a vise, sending her to ground.
He was on her faster than before; she rolled just enough to avoid the strike.
When she backpedaled away, he sent another blast into a column behind her, causing it to topple, again stopping her in her tracks. He vanished in a wisp of smoke and reappeared behind her, but instead of running her through, he hit her with one elbow, sending her flying, but she rolled with it onto her feet, feeling the fire of war burn through her veins in a familiar flash of heat. She gave him a taste of his fury by sending out several blasts of white fire that exploded on impact; through it, she heard him grunt and hit the stone.
With a warrior's shout, she sprang back into the fray, having blinded him enough to get the upper hand, pounding him with strike after strike, some of them with a blade lit with flame, sparks raining off his sword where she found bits of metal to chip away, superheated and then cooling before they hit the ground. When he sidestepped to dodge a strike, she knocked him back, where he landed against a pillar.
She sprang; he vanished, and she landed where he had been. Whirling in place, she held her shield at the ready, her sword held out, and it was good she did, for when he reappeared, it was for an instant before he vanished again to reappear at her side, and then again, and again, until she decided to pull out some of her own powers and face him with a burst of speed she used to catch him and force him back again.
When she swung her blade, she cracked open a pillar, sending a shower of stone dust through the air, bits of it flying into her face. Huge chunks of stone toppled over; she bolted away from it, and they struck him instead, making him fall back. Seeing an opening, she pressed the attack, but then a whirlwind of fire and shadow stopped her in her tracks, nearly making her fall to her knees as she slashed out.
"Enough!" was her snarling reaction to this, and so she struck out with everything she had, both hands gripping her sword as she swung it like a bat in a swift, slightly angled arc in front of her.
Something broke open; she heard him yelp.
For a few instants, everything was dead silent, save for the whispers in the chaos curling about the pillars. Lightning didn't dare do anything more than grit her teeth and point her sword in the general direction of the sound until the smoke cleared and she could see again.
Caius had ended up on the other side of the landing, lying partly facedown in what remained of a pillar he had snapped in half by landing on it. Covered in rubble and dust, he didn't move, twisted into a somewhat unnatural position with half his body trapped under a broken slab of the pillar. His eyes appeared to be closed, but in the gloom, it was difficult to tell even if he were breathing.
Lightning suddenly realized she was breathing, hard, chest heaving, the chaos bloom leaving an ache near her heart that made it a little difficult to focus. Her sword trembled. Some of their wars had paused like this, brief moments of heart-pounding terror, before one of them sprang back to life and continued on with twice the ferocity. If he stood up now, she wasn't entirely sure she would stand a chance against his fury.
Stone scraped and dust puffed into the air; Caius moved, slowly rising to his feet, staggering a little when he made it, blood smeared across one cheek and staining his hair, armor singed and scraped. "Your ferocity has not waned, I can see," he murmured, and had some obvious trouble remaining on his feet. Dark eyes bored into hers, creased a bit in the skin from what seemed to be discomfort. "Though you fight for my soul, it is one you cannot save."
Lightning frowned, still holding her sword up, taking no chances.
His cruel-looking sword hovered in the air; he pitched it straight up, only briefly taking his eyes from hers, and into the swirl of darkness and muddled sunlight it flew, vanishing for an instant. Something twisted his lips, darkened his gaze, and stiffened his stance, and then the sword came back and pinned him to the stone, ripping a pained grunt from him as his body abruptly struck the ground.
She felt a startled gasp tear from her lips, taking a half-step forward. For a moment there was nothing, only his lifeless body slumped over, impaled by his own blade, eyes still open but staring blankly into the chaotic skies. Lightning felt her heart pounding, the bloom of chaos aching a little more, as the darkness swirled around them without ceasing.
Then, with hissing whispers, tendrils came, encircling his body in obvious tenderness. A pale wink of light followed, casting strange shadows.
And then he rose to his feet from a crouched position, the blood gone, everything neat and shiny as though he were a newborn. Even his armor shone in the blue-black gloom that surrounded them. Lightning, wary, stayed back, eyes on his, heart slowing somewhat, refusing to take her gaze from his too-steady one – a gaze that looked ancient now, where once it had raged with hate and fiery determination.
"It is true that Yeul desires my freedom." Caius spoke firmly, without hesitation, and Lightning sensed a bed of coals beneath his words. "All the same, she cannot be without me. She wants you to fulfill her deepest desires, but she is an unsolvable paradox, and her wishes, ultimately, are empty."
Tendrils of darkness still hung around him, though faint now. She stared at them, trying to comprehend. "What are you talking about?"
His eyes flicked to her blade before returning to hers. "Yeul is not a single person, in essence. She is many shards of a person, copies of a girl from the ancient world, and each time she left this world, her memory would merge with the Sea of Chaos, but never truly fade. The chaos became a separate entity over the centuries, and now, it is Yeul – her memories, her dreams, desires, and all the negativity that comes with being… human."
For a moment, he looked down at himself, extending a hand. A tendril of shadow curled around it and whispered words she didn't understand. Lightning glanced around at the grand throne room, feeling echoes of memories ranging from sorrow to pain. Her mild anger still burned inside, though she felt it flicker a little as he spoke.
Then she said, "If she's the essence of the chaos, she can't let you go."
"Did she tell you she could not be alone?"
She nodded stiffly, once.
"She is only a child. She never had the chance to grow up, and centuries of memories cannot replace a mortal lifetime of experiences. She wishes her Guardian to be with her in the darkness to come, so…" The pause was so brief that she nearly missed it. "…her Guardian will do as she wishes."
"Your soul is chained to the darkness now," she murmured. "That's your plan?" Finally, she lowered her sword, letting it hang at her side, getting the impression the man was not an immediate threat to her. "Go headfirst into the darkness and exist for eternity in the chaos after the end of the world?"
Both hands came up, and shadows emanated from his skin and armor. Lightning felt her breath catch slightly and her heart beat cold blood, just once. "I am a shell of what I used to be, a being of chaos, my soul restrained by chains I shaped with my own hands from the shadows," he said, still gazing steadily at her. Beneath that hard stare, she felt very small – a feeling she didn't like at all. "This body will be cast into the Sea of Chaos, and I will be its overseer, a being of darkness and death, who will never see the new world."
She reminded herself that he had brought this fate upon himself, and he deserved it. Everything that had happened – Serah's death, time twisted, the flood of chaos, Noel's nightmare, Snow's sadness, Sazh's solemnity, the impending end of all things – had been brought about by his hand. She knew that no amount of atonement could ever fix it, and nothing could ever make her forgive him. How could she? He had taken everything from everyone, and in return, he deserved to have his future stolen from him.
She felt a knot in her gut all the same.
"You can't atone by doing that," she muttered. "Even if you spend the rest of eternity behaving perfectly, do you know how many lives you ruined? Do you really think that throwing yourself at the end of the world will give any of us remaining behind any peace?"
The smirk he gave her was brief and bitter, and he glanced to his left, drawing her gaze. She followed it, and saw a girl-shaped bloom of chaos, and another, and another – dozens of them, surrounding the two warriors, the whispers growing louder, but she could still discern no words. Some of them seemed upset, their gazes either meeting hers or fixed on the stone.
One of them, though, stared straight at her, and another, head slightly bowed, she recognized as the second girl she had encountered here.
Lightning stared at the girl with the war paint. "You wanted me to grant your wish. But you still want to be here?"
"I want him free," she said, "but… I want to stay."
Lightning, feeling her chest tighten at the plight of these innocent girls, clenched and unclenched her free hand, eyes downcast. At the same time, she felt a sense of bitterness – their plight meant that Caius could never be saved from the fate he had brought upon himself. But, it didn't matter "He doesn't want to be saved," she said, "and because of that… I can't do anything. I…" A furrow tugged at her brow. "I failed every one of you."
A whisper passed through the assembly; they vanished in a twist of smoke.
"Now, leave us, Liberator." After the whispers and the gentle voice of the girl, Caius's strong voice slashed through the blanket-thick quiet like a blade. "Save those who can still be."
She turned in time to see him vanish as well.
Sitting atop the throne now was a pink-haired girl with a confident smile, chuckling softly in the silence. Lightning stared at her, feeling cheated. She'd wasted her time coming here, wasted her energy fighting him rather than – once again – doing as he had advised. Now, she had fewer precious minutes to spend saving the ones she loved, instead of squandering those minutes on a man she could almost say she hated. So what if he would be lost with the world's end? It didn't matter to her, not when too much else was at stake.
Then she heard something, and looked to her left. A girl, between fifteen and sixteen, stood near the destroyed pillar, her green eyes solemn. "I told him I would see him again," she murmured.
Lightning hesitated. "See who?"
"The…" Her lips moved, forming words, but all that came out was, "…one." And then she too vanished, lost on the ethereal breeze like a cobweb caught in a storm, and Lightning was alone with Lumina.
"Well, she's got somethin' to live for," Lumina said. "Guess she loved somebody other than Caius, huh?"
Lightning thought of Noel. "Maybe she did."
There was a lengthy pause; Lightning turned her back to the girl. "So, you can't save everybody after all. At least now you know why you got dragged to Valhalla, and how, and why we all told you not to bother with him. Well, now you've got to make up for lost time. How does it make you feel, not saving him or the Yeuls?"
"I can't save those who don't want to be," Lightning said.
As she walked forward, out of the throne room, Lumina hummed softly to herself, then stopped, letting the silence seep into the woman's bones. "Okay, so you can't save him. We all knew that coming in. Even you kind of knew it in the back of your mind, right? Well, do you think he's a threat anymore?"
She answered truthfully. "No, I don't."
"He is pretty powerful, though," the girl continued. She hummed a moment again. "What do you wanna bet he let you win so you'd stop wasting time on him? The world's full of chaos, and he can control it without any effort at all. Pretty amazing when you think about it, that–"
Lightning stopped at the entrance and half-turned. "Is there something you want to say to me, Lumina?"
Lumina cocked an eyebrow. "He'd make a powerful ally."
The woman's namesake flashed through her blood all the way to her fingertips. She couldn't be saying what she thought the girl was implying. "He won't leave here, and besides, I'm powerful enough. I don't need any help facing whatever gets thrown at me. I can han–"
Lumina laughed, long and loud, and said through it, "Handle it? Look at you, getting pounded by one of those five-ton dragons, and nearly shredded by that chaos beast!" She hopped to the ground and twirled her ponytail around one finger, tilting her head, blue eyes bright. Intelligent. Mischievous. "You think you can do everything alone, don't you? Let me put it this way, then: he's powerful, and… do you think he's happy?"
Lightning's brow furrowed. "What are you getting at?"
The girl came closer, blue eyes shining, pink lips smirking. "All you have to do is ask. If he says no, you barely spent a minute on it." The smirk vanished; she shrugged. "If he says yes, you've got somebody to watch your back when things get rough – which, they will," she added, and nodded as she finished. "You haven't seen all the things waiting out there yet. There's far worse things than a couple of chaos beasts and a big red dragon."
The woman thought this over, surprising herself. Bring Caius Ballad, the great Valhallian warrior, along with her on a journey to save the very people he had cursed?
"If I ask," she said, "do you promise to leave me alone to do my job?"
Lumina shrugged. "That's pushing it, but…" She tilted her head. "…for a little bit, sure." With a final nod, she winked out of sight, leaving Lightning completely alone.
In the oppressive silence, she began to feel silly, staring at the swirling darkness with empty eyes and a confused heart. After a few moments, though, she turned away, walking out of the throne room, heading back toward the spiral of light that would eventually return her to the earth outside, where she would rejoin her chocobo companion and go back to doing her job as she had been instructed not very long ago.
Halfway to the spiral, her steps stuttered, and faltered.
In some other future, some other universe, she hadn't cast a thought to it. In some other future, she had thought about it and decided not to go through with it. In some other future, everything went as planned, and the path to the new world went on as normal – no deviation, no blight, no evidence of a stray thought marring her way, and no soldier of chaos at her side. Instead, he was only a bitter memory plaguing her heart that faded with time until he was forgotten in the shadows of the past as though he had never been.
The hands of destiny pulled her onto a new path.
Lightning turned back in a rustle of fabric, brushing past the pillars, returning to the throne room. Her steps echoed, scraping on the stone; she halted in the center, gazing up at the ever-swirling chaos overhead. Some ethereal breeze stirred her hair; she lifted a hand to tuck it out of her face. The sword at her side returned to her back.
She took a breath, and said, "Caius, I need to speak to you."
Silence but for the whispers overhead.
Lightning frowned and spoke louder after wetting her lips with the tip of her tongue. "Caius Ballad, I know you can hear me. I have something I need to ask you."
The breeze scraped the stone; the whispers grew louder, like soft cries of dismay and fear, and a flash of anxiety surged through the air, making her skin prickle. The breeze came again, blowing her hair into her eyes; she tucked it back again, having to use both hands. The shadows thickened, the whispers grew even louder, and then–
"Why do you insist on such a senseless waste of precious time?"
She turned to see him, a vision of shadow and chaos, still gaining solid form from the darkness, tendrils drawing into him as he shaped his body from the gloom.
Facing him, she stopped her lips from trembling. "You're very powerful," she said. "A master of the chaos, still immortal, and with centuries of knowledge. I'm powerful on my own, but not like I should be. I face this ordeal alone." Her voice cracked slightly; she drew breath and continued, "I've already faced several powerful adversaries, but one of them was a beast of pure chaos." Her skin prickled at the memory of glowing eyes and jaws of shadow. "I couldn't kill it, and in the end, I had to turn and run. Without shame, I'll add."
Caius's gaze never wavered. It certainly looked different from before, when they'd had their last war, and his eyes smoldered with the muted burn of coals rather than the solar flares that had dominated them before. "Do you have a reason for drawing my attention from my charge, Liberator?"
Lightning blinked at his demand. "I remember Valhalla. You're a master of chaos and warfare. I can probably do this alone, but…" For a moment, her mind drifted to the boy in the Ark in the sky, wishing he were with her side, but also understanding that he could never be, and she shook her head. "I don't like it, Caius, but Lumina has a point when she says you'd make a powerful ally. Come with me."
His gaze, again, never wavered, but his lips twitched. "The destroyer of the world, accompany the woman chosen to be a guiding light?"
"Well…" She stared, shrugged, and said, "Yes."
"Why would I do such a thing?" His eyes grew stern. "Tell me, Liberator, and quickly. I have more pressing matters than your prattling."
Her teeth snagged the inside of her lip. "I can't save you," she murmured, "and I won't try, but if you want to atone, maybe you shouldn't hand off your mess to somebody else. Maybe you should get your hands dirty again. Maybe there's…" A pause; she swallowed. "…some things in life you just do."
Silence. They stared at each other, and neither of them moved, or really so much as breathed, as she sensed herself holding her breath, heart starting to pound. Any moment, and he would tell her to go on her way and fix his mess for him. Any moment, and she could just walk out of here. What reason would he have for going with her? His method of atonement was a bit extreme, but it had him written all over it. It was something he could throw his very existence into, a duty that would rule him for eternity – much as his duty as a Guardian had until this point.
Then he said, "Leave us, and do not return."
Lightning blinked, nodded, and turned away, leaving the throne room, possible futures, a new destiny, and her old enemy, far behind, forever.
As she walked, the bloom of chaos vanished with a breathy sigh.
The darkness swirled around him as it had since his arrival here. There were no more whispers. For the first time in recent memory, there was silence when he stood in the throne room, alone but for the shadows of the girls' essence all about him, their tender gazes always on him. He stared at the entrance to the throne room, thinking of the woman who had just walked away. She had given him an offer, not to be saved from the darkness – because it could not be done, as he had discovered for himself over the past five centuries – but to help atone for what he had done. It had been a terrible temptation, one he barely resisted.
There could be no salvation for him, but perhaps he could have helped soften the transition to the new world for those whom he had so badly hurt.
Staring into the darkness, after a bit, he smirked, snorted softly, and told himself it was time to go.
But her words lingered, and he remained rooted to the spot in defiance of his will.
Maybe there's some things in life you just do.
To be able to leave this temple, feel the sun again, see the stars, face the consequences of his actions, help keep the woman forced to clean up his mess safe… these were all desires of his heart, restrained by the darkness. He could do nothing to change his fate, but he knew what awaited her in the world. He knew the monsters that came at night, the darkness in the hearts of the people, what waited at the end of it all. She could do it alone, but it would be far easier for her to save those whose lives he had ruined with him at her side.
But… he had a purpose here, an eternal duty he could not abandon even for a moment. He had tried to leave before, and they had kept him here against his will.
And so, eventually, he had succumbed to their desires. It was no use fighting, no matter what he tried.
More than that, he knew she would eventually reject his presence, much more so his aid.
"She can do this on her own. You know this."
Caius turned enough to see one of the girls, wreathed in shadow, standing a few feet away from him. From the way her hair fell down her back – slightly shorter than the others girls', and with a few small braids behind each ear – he recognized her, instantly, as the one Noel so dearly loved. "Yet I have had to watch the world die for five centuries."
The girl's eyes briefly narrowed, as though in concern. "Now, you have the chance to help."
"What purpose would it serve? Even so, I cannot leave."
"No, for we have kept you here," said another voice, a bit huskier than the first, and a girl formed out of the shadows with piercing green eyes that fixed on him immediately. She was one of the oldest girls clinging to him, the one with the most feeling, the one he remembered as being particularly fond of him in life. "I am not heartless, my Guardian. You will be with us forever after these days are done. Do you wish to help her now?"
He glanced at the other girl. She met his gaze, but her eyes seemed to plead with his. "If I help her, not only can I help those I have wronged, but I may yet ease the burden for you."
"For we, too, have seen the world die." The second girl tilted her head, lips slightly forming a smile. "You would do this for us? Am I still the brightest light in your heart?"
There was no hesitation before he said, "Always. No one could ever take your place in my heart, or even join you."
The first girl whimpered softly; he glanced at her again.
There was silence before a whisper passed through the swirling darkness. A congregation of girl-shaped shadows coalesced around him, almost as far as the eye could see, all whispering, all fluttering in the ethereal breeze. It was a fairly normal occurrence; he kept his gaze on the second girl.
"If you so choose, we will allow you the chance to ease our burden," she said. "There is but one stipulation."
He said, "Whatever you wish of me."
"Each night, when she returns to the Ark, you must return to us for a time. You must be here, with us. It will pain us to be apart from you." The emotion in her eyes sharpened. "We will be with you, as we always have been."
"A shadow moves." The first girl spoke. "If you are to accompany her, now is the time."
"A shadow," he echoed.
"A beast of chaos comes for her. Do you truly desire to keep her safe?"
Caius felt his lips part, then hesitated. Was it about keeping her safe, or trying to ease Yeul's burden? The girls had also witnessed the consequences of their chaos infecting the world, and most of them blamed themselves for driving him to the point of destroying time. If he went with Lightning, aiding her on her quest, perhaps they would know peace, and perhaps his own exhausted spirit would know a little of its own in turn.
So, he gathered all his thoughts, feelings, desires, and lost hopes under a single spoken word: "Yes."
The second girl's eyes narrowed slightly, but she said, "Then, go."
With great reluctance, he decided to follow the briefly branching path of the future laid out before him then.
Thank you for reading, and please let me know what you think! It gives me the motivation to continue this story... which is intended to be a monstrosity close to the length that "Hearts in Chaos" was, by the way.