It didn't take long for them to reach the Leville and book a room. Noctis would have liked to have gone straight on to the restaurant, but Ignis had insisted they stay behind so Noctis could get changed into 'something more appropriate' for the Altissian weather. As much as Noctis complained the whole time, he was relieved to get out of his stifling dark jacket. The royal colours were great in Insomnia, where it was chilly more often than not, but horrible somewhere warm like Altissia. Nevertheless, Noctis felt that by this point he had a duty to uphold his family colours, so he merely changed into his normal clothes, rather than something more casual. Ignis frowned, but made no comment.

When they finally left the hotel room, Prompto and Gladio were waiting downstairs, talking intently about something or other. They both looked up when he and Ignis appeared.

"Still wearing black, huh?" asked Gladio, raising an eyebrow.

"Gotta rep the family somehow," said Noctis, wheeling himself over. It was truly eerie how quickly the skill had come back to him. "Besides, sun's gone down. Can't get burnt if there's no sun, right?"

"I guess that has some logic to it," said Gladio.

"So where are we going now?" asked Prompto. "Somewhere to eat, right?"

"Yeah," said Noctis. "Cid's friend owns a restaurant here, I figured we should go and meet him."

"Ah, so that's what he was referring to earlier," said Ignis.

"Yep," said Noctis. "Weskham's an old friend of Dad's too, so he should be alright with us."

"It's useful to have friends in the city."

"It sure is."

He kept quiet on the way to the restaurant, not telling his friends that one of the reasons he wanted to go there was that there was a chance they might run into the First Secretary there, and arrange terms, or another meeting. As much as he thought his friends should probably have some time to relax and enjoy Altissia while it was still intact, he still had work to do, not least of which was negotiating the terms of engagement with Leviathan.

He didn't want his friends to get separated again, and he really didn't want Ignis to get blinded, but he'd have little choice unless he could plan out an alternative. Unfortunately, planning long-term had never really been a strong point of his.

The others were talking all the way to the restaurant about this and that, mostly the scenery of Altissia and how different it was to Lucis, as well as the occasional comment about Ravus or Aranea, which Noctis found a little strange, but he was content to keep his silence. He'd already most of these conversations, after all, and his mind was busy with other things. It was only when the gondola pulled up to the floating restaurant and Gladio began unfolding his wheelchair that he came back to himself.

The restaurant was beautiful, he had to give Weskham that. The dim glow of amber lights and dark wood gave the place a homely feel, and the water constantly lapping at the platform was soothing. Noctis couldn't help but wonder what Weskham did in times of flooding though. And he had no idea what had become of the establishment after Leviathan—and if that didn't count as a flooding event he didn't know what did.

He decided to put the thought aside for now. Weskham knew what they were trying to achieve here, him and Luna. He probably had precautions in place.

"My my, that isn't Prince Noctis, is it?" A deep, rumbling voice called out to them. So much for going incognito.

Noctis wheeled himself up to the bar, more than a little annoyed the chair meant he couldn't look Weskham in the eyes.

"You've grown since I last saw you," he chuckled, "though you've been in the walls, I can see."

"Yeah," he sighed, giving up on trying to make himself look taller by sitting up straight. "Hopefully not permanently, but for now, I'm stuck in this."

"So Cid was telling me," said Weskham, leaning over the bar. "You're lucky you came when you did. If Niflheim had still been here I've no doubt they would have tried to capture you, and in that state they might have succeeded."

"We wouldn't have let that happen," said Gladio, frowning and standing tall.

"Ah, you must be the retainers I've heard so much about," said Weskham. If he was surprised by them being there he didn't show it. "Be that as it may, it can be difficult to keep someone safe if even the government is against them. I'd advise you to be careful here boys—though the Niflheim troops have left, there are vestiges of their presence all over Altissia. There are plenty of people here who'd be willing to turn you in if they thought it would bring the troops back."

"Understood," said Noctis, looking Weskham over carefully. "Though if what you say is true, why on earth should we trust you?"

"Why, my dear boy," said Weskham, with a genial smile, "you can't."

Noctis noticed Ignis tense slightly behind him, and Gladio was already in a defensive stance. Prompto was just looking at Weskham like he couldn't believe his ears.

"Good to know," he said, not maliciously, but with quiet grimness. He'd always suspected, but it galled him they hadn't been more careful last time. "Can I at least order a meal without worrying the First Secretary will be breathing down my neck any second?"

"Of course," said Weskham, the hard light in his eyes dying slightly at the mention of food. "That's what my establishment is for, after all. And I always respect my clients' wishes."

"In that case, Ignis would you like to order?" asked Noctis, turning to his friend. "We'll go find a seat."

"Of course, Noct," said Ignis, though from the glint in his eye, Noctis suspected he was going to be asking Weskham about a lot more than just food.

Noctis wheeled himself away shaking his head. He'd let that situation resolve itself. Gladio and Prompto followed close beside him, apparently not wanting to let him get out of sight. He couldn't really blame them after all his antics in that department.

Eventually he found a table with a high stall, facing towards the sea but away from any other customers. He got out of the chair and shuffled himself over into one of the seats in the corner, away from the view of anyone looking for him. He wasn't sure why he was being so paranoid. He'd never been attacked in Altissia, not to his memory, but something in the back of his brain, something eerily familiar to the dark fog he loathed in his nightmares, was telling him he ought to keep out of sight.

"You, know, for a friend of the King's, that guy seemed awfully shady," said Prompto, flinging himself into the chair opposite Noctis.

"Yeah, he seems nice enough, but you get the feeling he's never telling you everything," said Gladio, sitting down next to Prompto.

"He's a Lucian living in a Niflheim controlled province," noted Noctis. He was keeping a close eye on everyone passing by their table. "He's got to be careful. It's probably the only way he's survived."

"Point taken," sighed Gladio.

"You don't realise what it's like all the way out here," mused Prompto, drumming his fingers on the table. "I mean, even Lucis outside of the Crown City was strange, but this place is on a whole other level."

"Dad did sacrifice a lot, in the end," said Noctis, looking moodily out into the sea.

He still wasn't sure whether he could forgive his dad for keeping all that from him. The war, his destiny, all of it. All of it hidden because he wanted Noctis to have a 'normal' life. Noctis found himself wondering if the dark, apathetic lethargy that had accompanied his every step in Insomnia would have been so bad if he'd been allowed to go and fight for his country's freedom. Or if he'd known he was destined to die eventually, that would motivate him to be the best he could be in the short time he had left. He didn't know. He'd never really know. But the sense of betrayal was still there.

"That Weskham's an interesting fellow," said Ignis, approaching them with the drinks he'd ordered.

Noctis grabbed at the orange juice before Ignis could finish speaking, downing half of it in one gulp. Ignis glared at him but Noctis ignored it. The blistering cold helped distract him from his thoughts.

"As I was saying," said Ignis, coldly, "he was telling me a bit about the situation in Altissia. It seems the position of the general populace is that its protectors have fled home due to some sort of civil war in Niflheim."

"What, like a rebellion or something?" asked Prompto, look up at Ignis with curiosity as he sipped his lemonade.

"Or a coup," said Gladio, scowling.

Of course, Noctis could guess at the true nature of the disruption.

"No," he said, and the others all immediately turned to him. "The daemon outbreak is in full swing. The MTs have turned on the populace and the plague is spreading quickly. Niflheim's probably called back its human soldiers to fight the MTs."

"Will that work?" asked Gladio, with a raised eyebrow.

"If what happened last time is any clue, no," said Noctis, remembering the grey ashes of Gralea. "They'll all be dead within weeks."

"Depressing stuff," murmured Prompto, his earlier enthusiasm dimmed slightly.

"Yeah," said Noctis. "Hopefully some people will be able to escape this time. Not counting on it though."

"It's possible the Commodore may start orchestrating some relief efforts," said Ignis, who had by this time sat down beside Noctis. "She suggested as much when I last spoke with her."

"Really?" asked Noctis, simultaneously bemused and relieved. "You guys spoke some more when I was unconscious then?"

"Yeah, Ravus gave us the lecture of a lifetime in that air carrier," snorted Prompto.

That was interesting.

"So Ravus stuck around then?"

"Sure did," said Gladio, though he seemed less happy about it than Prompto. "Seems to think you being there will help his sister. Pretty poisonous otherwise though."

"Ravus threatened to sacrifice you if it saved Lady Lunafreya's life," said Ignis, almost as though he felt called on to explain.

Noctis just nodded. He'd expected as much.

"She's the only reason he's doing all this," he noted. "Makes sense he'd think that way. You said he might be here somewhere?"

"Oh, I've no doubt of it," said Ignis, pushing his glasses up his nose. "He was quite unambiguous about joining Lady Lunafreya again."

"Perhaps he'll help us," said Noctis, though he didn't dare hope for too much.

He didn't get to debate the point, because at that moment the food arrived, and they became busy with eating. Noctis didn't eat much, he found he really wasn't very hungry lately, and thinking about death all the time never did anything for your appetite. Noctis didn't turn to look at Ignis as he pushed his more than half full plate away, but he could feel him glaring a hole into the side of his head. Noctis firmly ignored it.

"You need to recover your strength, Noct," he said, in a quietly menacing tone, as Noctis kept ignoring him.

"Good thing I've actually eaten today then, huh?" he said, not necessarily trying to provoke Ignis, but refusing to back down from the threat almost on instinct.

Ignis just exhaled sharply and kept eating, perhaps sensing an argument was pointless. Gladio rolled his eyes at Noctis across the table. Noctis stuck his tongue out at him.

"You know, for someone who claims to be thirty mentally, you sure do act like a nine-year-old," he snorted, catching this act of rebellion.

"I'm allowed moments of childishness, surely?" protested Noctis, throwing his hands up.

"You know, now you mention it, you do sound older sometimes now, don't you?" said Prompto, looking at him intently over his burger.

"Do I?" he asked. He hadn't noticed it himself.

"You tend to adopt a more formal speech pattern when being serious, or angry," said Ignis, nodding beside him. "I noticed it during your confrontation with the Chancellor."

"What can I say, the guy brings out the worst in me."

"It isn't an act then?" asked Gladio, rather bluntly.

"No!" cried Noctis, rather offended by this insinuation. "I'm still the same person. I guess I just...feel older, in those moments."

"Must have been hard, trapped not being able to do anything for ten years," said Prompto, frowning as though the thing had just hit him.

"Yeah, well, didn't really feel like ten years to me, honestly," said Noctis.

It was the truth but...his time in the Crystal was hard to explain. In some ways he'd felt every second of those ten years—his body certainly felt it, for instance. In others, he was sure it had been mere seconds between sleeping and waking, like a dream you forget upon waking. He couldn't have said what it was like inside the Crystal all those years. It was empty, and when he'd come out, he certainly couldn't remember. That was why so much of the pain of those final few hours came with him to the future he found himself in. He was a double time traveller, in that sense.

"What was it like, in that future?" asked Ignis, and both Prompto and Gladio tensed up slightly before his eyes. Seemed they'd been wondering the same thing.

"I didn't mention that, huh?" he said, thinking back. The final push had been a bit dreamlike. "Empty, mostly. Dark. Cold. Everything was dead: the trees, the plants, the animals. Daemons were just about everywhere. It was like…stepping into the underworld, or something."

"But there's were people still alive, right?" Prompto asked. "We were still alive."

"Yes," said Noctis. "There were some survivors. A lot of people died, though. Too many."

"We understand, Noct," said Ignis, gently. He didn't though. None of them did.

The deep existential horror of that barren and empty world was impossible to convey in words, in images or visions. They would never understand what it was like, to know millions had died to his failure. To know the world might not recover after all that devastation. Everything had been killed by the darkness, plants, animals, people. The only thing that thrived was daemons, and Noctis wasn't even sure if they'd been banished by the light. To know that legacy of hopeless destruction...there was nothing like it. And he would save them from that terrible knowledge. Nobody was going to have to go through that hell again, he was going to make sure of it. It was the only reason he was still alive, after all.

"It still seems crazy things could have gone that bad," said Prompto, now having finished his meal. He'd always been a fast eater. "I mean, I know we weren't prepared for all this, but Niflheim winning? Some crazy guy who's the living embodiment of the plague? Eternal darkness? I mean stop me if I'm wrong but I feel like someone should have warned me when I left the city that the world was exploding outside."

"Did you think the Wall was for show?" chuckled Noctis.

"Well, no," said Prompto, now slightly flushed. "But I don't know...I never knew how bad it was, I guess. It was all happening 'out there'. It didn't feel real. Like, Insomnia always had problems but nothing like this."

"No, I get it," said Noctis. "It's...tough coming out here and being confronted by all this. None of us were prepared last time, but me least of all."

He really had been a fool back then. Perhaps this wasn't the time to voice such bitterness, but he found he couldn't stop talking.

"A whole lot of good a 'normal' life did me, huh?" he mused, aloud. "I never knew stuff like this was going on, and I had even less idea what to do about it. I didn't know that I even had to do anything about it. I wasn't a King, I wasn't even a Prince. No one prepared me for that shit—no offence, Gladio, Ignis, I know you were doing your best, but...I had no idea how to take control and actually lead, or how to help people. I was just a kid, really. I know it's nobody's fault but my own, but it still feels...I don't know. Unfair."

He felt Ignis's hand on his shoulder. He noticed he was shaking.

"It's not entirely your fault, Noct," said Ignis, quietly. "It's true that no one could have predicted what would happen out here, but we did fail you, by not preparing you to be king."

The further implication lay unspoken in the air. The implication his father hadn't exactly helped matters. Gladio was very quiet, and Noctis didn't know if he either hadn't picked up on the tension of the conversation, or he had and his silence was his way of expressing disapproval. He really didn't know whether or not he should air his grievances now, but perhaps it was now or never.

"Dad knew," he said, very quietly. It felt like treason even to whisper it, even though he knew it was true.

"Knew about what?" asked Prompto, raising an eyebrow.

Gladio was now watching him like a hawk. He really wasn't sure he should be doing this, but he didn't want any more secrets.

"The prophecy," he said, not looking at any of the others now, though he felt Ignis's hand clench on his shoulder. "He knew I had to die to fulfil it. That's why he never tried to train me as a king." Noctis gave a dry laugh in spite of himself. "Pointless investment."

"Noctis," said Ignis, quietly, but Noctis wasn't listening to him, he was more focused on Gladio, who appeared to be trying to run through the full five stages of grief in about a minute flat.

"Are you...sure?" murmured Gladio, when he could finally bring himself to speak.

"I can't see any other explanation," said Noctis, simply.

"Yeah," said Gladio, much more quiet and subdued than usual. Noctis sensed that mood didn't bode well for them. Ignis seemed to sense it too, because most of his attention was now focused on Gladio.

The table was quiet, even as a waiter came and took their dishes away, and Ignis settled the bill. It stayed quiet on the gondola back, and in the elevator back to their room in the Leville. It was only when they were back in the relative peace and quiet of their hotel room that the storm that had been brewing for the last hour or so finally broke.

"So he was just playing us, the whole time?" fumed Gladio, pacing back and forth frantically. "Letting us believe we were doing something worthwhile, when really we were just guiding you to the slaughterhouse?"

Ouch.

"Gladio," hissed Ignis, glancing back at Noctis as though to gauge his reaction to that little jab. "Calm yourself."

"No, this is—this is all insane!" snarled Gladio, coming to a stop and staring out of the window like it held the answers he was looking for. "He betrayed us! It doesn't make any sense—why not tell us, dammit?"

"Hey, I think you're forgetting part of the prophecy is me saving the star," said Noctis, feeling he ought to add a spot of reason to this conversation. "It isn't for nothing—it's just I don't…survive it. There has to be a sacrifice to purge the darkness."

"But why would the Gods choose a member of the royal family?" snarled Gladio, clearly on the verge of breaking down. "Why not just some low-life who deserved to die?"

Noctis sighed and shook his head. "It doesn't work like that. It's fate. It doesn't make sense. It's not pragmatic. It just…is. Besides, there's got to be some poetic justice to the fact so many people died for me, don't you think?"

Apparently this explanation did not resonate with the others, because they all looked at him like he'd grown an extra head.

"Oh, come on," he said. "You know people have died for me. Everyone in Insomnia was sacrificed so I could live, and more have died since. Don't act like this is some big shock to you—you must have known."

Ignis sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose. "Noctis. You can't choose who sacrifices themselves for you. It's a personal decision—you can't hold yourself accountable for their deaths."

Without warning a ferocious anger began to rise within him, and the words came instinctively—"Nobody chooses to die to an eternal darkness I couldn't prevent! Don't you see it's my fault? My fault that all of them are…"

His breaths were coming faster now. All of them are what? Dead? But they couldn't be, could they? He'd said it without thinking. It was pure instinct, something he knew with his very soul. How could that work? Was it time travel? But no, it was more important than that, more certain—something he couldn't remember…

Noctis felt his vision blurring uncomfortably and tried to stay calm. He knew what this was, but he never dreamed he'd experience it while waking. The black fog was haunting him, making his mind screech with contradictions. He needed to find out what it was, but he didn't know how.

He breathed deeply. Focused on the breaths above all else, above any thoughts of his death, of anyone dying. There was just his lungs, and the air, and his heart beating.

He came back to himself to find Gladio with his hands around his shoulders and Ignis looking intently in his eyes. He tried to shrug them both off, but that was a bit difficult when you were in a wheelchair and they weren't.

"It's fine, I'm back," he grumbled, swatting at Ignis with his hand. "Must have overdone it a bit there."

"Sorry for snapping," said Gladio, patting him on the shoulder. "You didn't deserve that, it wasn't your fault. The King's who I ought to be shouting at."

"Well, I mean, you were shouting at the King," said Noctis, with a smug smile. "But I know what you meant. And you are forgiven, my Shield." Noctis made an elaborate knighting gesture as though such was customary for such occasions, and Gladio snorted.

"Glad you're still finding time to be pedantic," he said, ruffling Noctis's hair, which made Noctis actually smack his hand.

"Yeah, well, guess I've got to use every second," he said, wheeling himself over to his bed, and lifting himself onto it. "Tomorrow I want to go and see the First Secretary again, I need to talk to her about when I'm facing Leviathan, then we can plan what we're doing."

"Of course, Noct," said Ignis, smiling gently at him. "Are you going to bed, now?"

"I'm tired," he said, simply, and he was.

The exhaustion he'd felt hints of when leaving Luna's presence was now back in full force, and he only had to close his eyes for a second to feel an intense heaviness under his eyelids. He needed to sleep, but he couldn't help his thoughts wandering to his nightmares. Would being cured have stopped them? He didn't know. But he would find out soon enough.

Ah, what a fun chapter. Now we're semi-delving into Regis and his culpability here. Personally I understand his actions and his desire to protect Noct...but I think his decision to deliberately let his son live out his short life in ignorance of his true fate was...uh...Bad. Noct really needed to be properly prepared for the sacrifice he needed to make, and Regis did literally nothing to prepare him. Plus, by virtue of that, left him and the bros to be played like a fiddle by Ardyn because they didn't understand what was at stake. Don't get me wrong, I still find Regis a sympathetic character, but what he did here doesn't get as much focus as I think it probably should, given the ramifications it leads to in the long-term.

In any case, all that heavy stuff aside, I hope you enjoyed the chapter, and thank you to everyone reading!