For Unity

Hey guys. Happy New Year and welcome to 2020. Hope your guys' years have been well. Mine's been all right. I'm back at college as you know… winter break. My gen ed has been good. Math has its challenges, not like the class more of the system we're using for class. ALEKS, if you have ever had to put up with it. Not to thrilled about it, but what can I do. Anyway, let's get back to the story at hand. I had a lot of time to try and work out how I wanted this to run so get moving shall we.

Chapter 26

The Dying Star

Hubert's POV

Soon after the Professors doppel left I made haste in retrieving both Lady Edelgard and the Professor and hurrying back to Garreg Mach, via teleportation. I was nearing the entrance of the monastery with them when I heard a whisper from the Professor. (Remember magic is not a cure all, it can close the wound but that doesn't mean the healing is able to reverse all of the damage done. Hence hypovolemic shock, the state that happens when you lose to many bodily fluids 20% or more.)

"h-hu… rt." He muttered. "Do not worry Professor, you will be in safe hands soon." I said brushing off his words. "h… Hu- be... t." He muttered again this time using some of his energy to create resistance. "Professor. I need to get you into the infirmary." I replied adjusting my grip.

During my change in grip the professor slipped out of my hands. "Hu… bert." He said weakly, "P-ple..se le… ve me." He said.

"Professor, you know I cannot do that." I replied. "Thi-s… i-s th-e… o-n-ly way." He said, his strength leaving him. "M… my dop… ple must… fall." He continued.

"You are implying that you stopped your doppel by doing this?" I asked, he gave a small nod. I sighed. "I will assume you planned a contingency for something like this?" I asked. Once again, he nodded. "Then I shall trust your word." I replied. "I'll be back professor. I hope you will return to us soon." I said quickly returning to my task in taking lady Edelgard to the infirmary.

In the infirmary

"H-Hubert!" Manuela said startled. "Please, help her!" I replied, moving to the medical bed. "I'll do my best." Manuela said. "Please." I said before teleporting back to the professors location. Finding him laying on the stairs. I examined him, he was still drawing breath, but it was very faint.

I decided I would carry him in to buy the time to allow him what he had told me. His and Lady Edelgard's blood had tarnished my clothing but with the professor on my back, his blood continued to stain down my back as his death continued to creep up on him.

Upon entering the gate, the professor drew his last breath becoming lifeless has I continued the trek to the monastery. His eyes looking transfixed on the slope above us. After giving him another couple of minutes I teleported us to the infirmary. "Hubert!" Manuela exclaimed once more startled by my sudden appearance. "What happened to the professor?" she asked looking at his lifeless looking face.

"He sacrificed himself in order to save her highness from his doppel, but in return for his sacrifice his doppel has been eliminated… I presume." I explained. "Hubert… I do not think there is much I can do. The Professor is gone." Manuela replied solemnly.

I shook my head. "He knew someone could revive him… I guess I must address this with Rhea." I muttered to myself. "I will leave him here for the time being… I will be back, hopefully with someone to bring him back." I said before leaving the room.

I made my way down the corridor towards the audience chamber, I barged into the room locking eyes with Rhea. "Hubert, what is the meaning of this?" Rhea asked. "I am sorry to barge in so abruptly, but I must have a word with you… in private." I requested. "It is urgent that talk now." I added, she nodded. "Very well." She replied gesturing for us to enter the room to the left.

She closed the doors. Turning to me, "What is so urgent Hubert?" Rhea asked. "It is the professor." I replied. "He is currently lying, lifeless in the infirmary. He assured me that he had some plan to come back, but I think he knew someone knew how." I explained. "I have reason to believe he knew that you could revive him." I speculated. Rhea walked away looking at the stain glass window in the room, she nodded and turned to me.

"Yes, long ago I preformed something to what the professor is thinking. She affirmed. "But I am unsure of if he is able to be saved by such a method." She doubted, turning to face the stained glass again.

"The Professor seemed to put a lot of faith into this method you are not sharing." I stressed. "Even if it is unsuccessful please try to save him. I may not be able to vouch my own feelings towards the professor, but Lady Edelgard could never be the same knowing nothing was done to save him." I implored.

"Although I cannot do anything at the moment." She paused, walking over to the desk reaching into a drawer extracting a dagger and a vial, not much bigger than a blade of grass, she pricked her finger and extracted some of her blood into the small vial. She reached back into the drawer removing another vile, similar to the one she had used. "Take this and a sample of the professors blood and ask Hanneman to test for their compatibility." She ordered, I nodded taking the vials and exiting the room.

Meanwhile and little bit earlier

As I lied on the steps up to the monastery I could feel my insides (that's what I call my internal organs, mainly my stomach when I feel motion sick) slowly begin to turn off, I had not only destroyed my heart, albeit the crest stone inside continued to pump the blood through, but I had spilled a lot of my own blood in the process of my stupid heroics.

As I felt myself slip, I decided it would be wise to say an almost farewell to Sothis.

"My, what you did has left you in a state has it not?" she asked.

"Ya, I guess you could say that." I chuckled, "Look, I'm… you know… dying." I paused.

"Yes, I am well aware."

"Well, I felt it appropriate to say an almost goodbye for the time being." I explained.

"Almost goodbye?" she questioned.

"Basically, I will leave for a short time, but I'm going to be back, so it's a farewell for the short time being." I replied.

"You know I follow your fate the moment you perish?" She replied.

"Eh… not exactly, you are technically are bound to the crest stone, while you and I will not be linked like we are now, you will most likely enter a slumber once more as I pass on." I explained.

"Then I guess it is till next we see each other?" she asked.

I nodded. "Ya, so I guess I'll see you in the near distant future." I said feeling myself slip into the eternal call of rest.

…

It was weird I… I was dead, yet in some kind of strange existence I loomed over my cadaver watching as Hubert returned to retrieve me. Slowly marching up to the infirmary with my body. "They'll figure it out." I said to myself.

Shortly I found myself falling into a slumber in my altered state of being, through this slumber I was allowed a glance into what transpired after I was whisked away. Time had passed just like it had in Fódlan. Making it nearly 10 months since I was transported away.

In these visions, I guess, I saw my brothers graduation; the son of a gun had done it. As tough as he made it sound for him, he mustered through the hell of high school. He had mentioned before my disappearance that he might fail his graduating year, and yet he had managed to finish it all in the remaining month of school. I was proud of his new achievement, a skip had occurred as I now saw him working a part time job, although I knew he was one to never enjoy such things he was doing it in order to avoid taking out loans for is college learning he would start in the fall.

My vision was changed to see what had happened to my sister. I had been present in her marriage, but I learned that shortly after my disappearance she was to be expecting, with a fast forward I now saw she had brought forth a daughter, finally I was an uncle. Her life had had its ups and downs, now it seemed to have mellowed out as she was able to stay home and tend to her child.

My vision changed once more to see how life had moved on for my parents. They looked so content with the development of things. They had done a couple more renovations to the house and did some repaints, as the choice of color when we first moved into the house was atrocious. It made me curious as to what happened after I vanished, was erased from existence on earth or what. When my mother passed by the fridge, there a note was plastered to it. It explained I had been whisked away for the time being. I would eventually return. But it was undetermined when that would be.

Although a lot of my questioned had been answered as I was able to see all the things that had transpired after my departure, I was still unsure of if I would be leaving Fódlan forever or able to return to both Fódlan and earth at my own free will. It was a depressing thought, but I decided to push the thought away as I would cross that bridge when I got to it.

Sometime later a light appeared above me and in a split second I was hovering over my corpse once again. I saw Rhea and Manuela around me preforming medical task. All I did know was I was alive, evidenced by my lungs moving and my heart small palpitations. I had failed to notice that the crest stone of flames was not in my heart.

Instead Rhea held the crest stone in her hands. Taking a scalpel, she made a cut into my heart and reinserted the stone back into my heart. The one change I failed to make notice of was the instant change in my hair color, instead of the sandy blond (Blond and blonde are used depending on gender you can figure out the rest) color it was originally, now it began to change to a pale white color.

"I figured as much." I said to no one, but the rapidness in its spread was incredible. "I guess that makes us almost one in the same…" I said solemnly looking over to Edelgard, who was still unconscious. Soon after the surgery/transfusion was complete I returned my consciousness back to my body only finding myself unable to reawaken myself, I was now stuck.

A week and a half later

It had turned out that with dying my body was a little on the outdated side in movement, somehow? It had been a few days since I had gotten my eyes open, I slowly retaught my body how to function again, slowly regaining the ability to use my arms and my upper back, which made it possible for me to at least sit up right. As for my lower half I still had to try and learn the muscle memory I once had in order to restore my lower functions, such as walking.

Meanwhile

"So, he has perished?" Thales asked. Solon nodded, "It seems his Doppel killed himself in order to remove his clone, looks to me as he did this to remove our advantage." Solon speculated. "Well, I guess will have to take advantage of his perishing, get the troops ready, by the months end we move." Thales commanded with a sinister grin, "Soon war will plague this land."

TBC

Hey guys sorry I've been gone so long, after trying to right this after new year's I had my school work begin to pick up making difficult to get around to this, not to mention with Byleth's announcement into Smash and the wave 4 DLC coming out I made other commitments, so for smash I plan to have classic mode done with all characters, as I have slacked on doing such, for three houses I plan to have my church route done before its release, so I have 5 days for smash and 11 characters remaining, and I'm 6 out of how many are in the church's route, and I have till February 12 so I think I can do it. Anyway thanks for sticking around, happy new years and I'll try to have the next chapter out before next month.