WOW what a super long hiatus. This chapter is so freaking short, and yet, I had such a hard time with it...because this is a time of transition for all of our characters. There is so much change happening in these few short years that it's hard to pin down, hard to describe how they came to the decisions they did. Also because my friend is getting married tomorrow, and as part of the wedding party, between wedding and work and other stuff to take care of, life has really been kicking my butt.

Thank you, as always to Meyneth24 :) thank you for your patience and all the reviews. You are so wonderful, and yes, the series definitely downplayed how much Hope suffered in between XIII-2 and Lightning Returns, so I really wanted to capitalize on it.

All that to say- sorry for the wait! I will definitely try to update faster the next chapter. We're nearing the end of this arc, and then we'll be heading into the few years before Lightning Returns! :)

Summary: What else, he would think decades later, could he have done?

Disclaimer: I don't own the Final Fantasy XIII series


Yusnaan – 832AF

With an almighty cry, Noel plunged his double sword into the enormous, overgrown Zaltys.

The monster didn't stand a chance.

The Zaltys let out a dying scream; its body dissipated into nothingness, the hunter looking at the ground as he sheathed his swords behind his back. Not far from him, Snow Villiers stared at his friend with hard eyes.

The two of them saw each other less and less with each passing day after Hope's disappearance. Sazh became more and more withdrawn, staying in the Wildlands with Dajh, who was still unconscious…had been unconscious for seven years now. The man was losing hope, had lost hope. He wasn't the only one; Snow could see it in Noel's eyes too, the light in them dimming as the brown hardened, from warm to unforgiving, a wall he was building against the world. Sometimes, he thought back to the past and his heart would ache, whether for Serah, for Lightning, for Hope, for Vanille and Fang, for Dajh and Sazh. He missed them, the little ragtag family that he had found in their very first journey those hundreds of years ago. He felt the ache of missing Nix and Stiria, of his eidolith, of being unable to fight alongside them in battle.

He missed the days where he was in the Sunleth Waterscape, where he saw his beautiful fiancé and his brunette friend, his eyes twinkling as he did what he could to take down the threat to Vanille and Fang trapped in the crystal pillar, to save Cocoon once again. He missed the days where he and Serah and Lebreau and Maqui and Yuj and Gadot lounged about in Bodhum, the peaceful sunlight warming the sand underneath their feet as they ran to the waves. Those were lifetimes ago- Lebreau, Maqui, Yuj, and Gadot were long dead. He knew this; the price of being able to traverse back and forth in time in the Historia Crux meant that sacrifices were to be had, and loved ones lost to the winds and whims of change.

And right now, Snow missed the way Noel's brown eyes would widen in wonder, would squint in laughter as he and Hope found something else to laugh over in this dying world, as Serah drew laugh after laugh after laugh out of him during their journey. Noel, he could see, was becoming more withdrawn by the day. Hope was gone, Dajh was comatose, Sazh was griefstricken, Serah was dead, and Vanille, Fang, and Lightning were crystals. Noel, he feared, was losing direction. He wanted to help as much as he could, going on hunts with the young hunter, but it seemed that business in Yusnaan was always drawing him back one way or another, always cutting short the time he could be spending with Noel, trying to preserve the one tiny bit of the family he had left.

Not that the other things that preoccupied his attention weren't important. Far from it, in fact.

Snow was worried. And when Snow worried, things were definitely going in the wrong direction. The Order of Salvation, thought based in Luxerion with their enormous Cathedral, had been spreading their preachings and doctrines into Yusnaan, attempting to take over the city in a whirlwind of propaganda and belltollers, hollering at people to save themselves through entrusting their souls to Bhunivelze. They began to get into skirmishes with the Children of Etro right in the heart of Yusnaan, the guards too late to stop them. Snow himself bore witness to one before he forcefully decreed no more, resorting his l'Cie powers to keep both groups at bay. After that, the Order began to take more subtle approaches, getting closer and closer to Pandaemonium each day.

The Academy had all but fallen, and with the wind of politics, after three centuries, Snow could tell that things were beginning to fall into the Order's favor.

He couldn't let that happen. To let the Order take over Yusnaan, over Pandaemonium, would be to monopolize Nova Chrysalia's food supply. As the unofficial leader of the district, Snow knew he still had some sort of autonomy in bargaining with the Order. He knew he had some tough choices to make- his options were limited, neither fighting nor fleeing would work Yusnaan and its people's best interest. What else, he would think decades later, could he have done? How else could he have preserved Dajh's vision for what the city should be, with what innocence was left in this dying world?

And Noel, having not seen Snow in three days, was shocked and betrayed to see his friend on TV the fourth day declaring himself Patron of Yusnaan under the rule of the Order of Salvation.