Galuf traveled the dead roads in the midst of an army. They splintered off in dozens of groups. He flew off the train when it arrived and burst into a world of imbalance before shooting off to find her target.

Most of them were still in Kohlingen, but the streets there were empty. He moved toward through closed doors and entered the main of the castle. People filled this room. Hushed voices filled the hall.

A girl sat against the wall and painted a canvas. She was probably a couple of years younger than Krile.

Galuf stifled the sting in his chest. He joined the rest of the army and moved into the minds of the people.


Relm shook her head of a sudden buzz. "Damn it," she muttered. Too much paint pooled where her brush belonged, and it dripped in fat drops of color.

"Beg your pardon," says an old man's voice.

Relm ignored them. It was just a mild curse…

"Let me introduce myself."

"Could you wait a minute?" Relm asked. "I'm working."

The din in the room grew louder. Relm grimaced and did what she could to fix the mess before the paint dried.

"Don't mind me—I'll just be protecting your from outside influences."

Relm fought bile. "This is what it's like to have a spirit in your head? I expected so much more! I thought you'd look cooler! I can kinda see through you, just like the other one, but…" Relm set her canvas on the stone to dry. "Why do we need protection?"

"You remember what happened with Kefa."

"Wait—Galuf?"

"Yes. There's something out there much bigger than Kefka and it'll try to take everyone. We want to keep what happened to Gau from happening to… a lot more people."

"That god people keep talking about?" Relm asked. "I guess we can throw another tyrant into the trash. You told everyone else, too?"

"The dead have filled as many bodies as we can find, and we've been telling everyone everything we know. But even if Bhunivelze doesn't come, the Void might."

"The void?"

"The Void wants to… eat everything, so to speak. It plans to return everything to nothingness and has been targeting worlds. This world would be attractive to it."

"What about other worlds?"

"This is where we think we're most needed. And… oh."

Relm looked around. "What is it?"

"Someone's here. Let's make haste."


Wind rustled in the dry grass, joining a chorus of chirping wildlife and a distant rumble of storm clouds. Dajh hugged himself against those winds. He could taste death on them—stronger than he ever had before. It wasn't that death was all that bad, it was that there was supposed to be a balance. This world didn't have that balance.

"Gaia VI," he said. "The elements rage here."

No one responded. He watched a dark, distant flash of lightning in that angry storm. If Odin was here, that meant Brynhildr was too.

Dajh put a hand to the ground and connected with the lifeforce of roots and rocks. Even the starved dirt still whispered at his touch. "Where is she?" he asked.

Hesitation, but they understood him and called to fire. Fire that burned with the fear of his family and the promise of hope. He remembered Euride and the sadness it caused. But this fire burned it away.

Brynhildr slammed into the ground beside him and scorched the dirt. Dajh reached for her hand and Brynhildr kneeled to his level. She hesitated a long while before transforming. She felt weird. But if Daddy could get used to driving a flaming Eidolon racecar, then so could Dajh.

"I'm sorry for the surprise," Dajh said, "but I have chores to do here."

She didn't believe his lie. But she understood. He wouldn't do any harm.

"… I'm not weak."

She knew that. But he wasn't stupid, either.

Dajh heated at her reassurance and climbed into the driver's seat. He was almost tall enough to reach the pedals, but Brynhildr gave a steadying rev to tell him he didn't have to.

He took the steering wheel and imagined driving by his house on Cocoon. Brynhildr gave a roar of non-mechanical parts before taking off toward the distant castle.

Wind tugged at his hair. The sinking sun made it too bright and he couldn't keep his eyes open against the wind.

They approached the castle and Dajh braced against impact. "Are you going to stop?" he asked.

Brynhildr wouldn't. But she'd give him a chance to jump.

Dajh prepared himself. When she spun near the castle, he climbed from the seat and threw himself out.

He bounced and rolled to a stop. It didn't hurt, but he was surprised. Dust filled his lungs, and he coughed a lot to get it out again.

Guards swarmed him. Dajh stood and dusted himself off. He asked, "Where's King Edgar?"

"Take him!" shouted a guard.

Dajh had Brynhildr put up a wall of fire, but then someone took him from behind and Dajh's chin hit dirt. Feet on his arms kept him down and it would hurt, but his shards kept him strong.

He wanted to push them back, but he didn't. He felt so close to completeness now that he didn't think they could easily kill him if they wanted.

"Keep him down," said a woman nearby. "Everyone at ready. We don't know what he might pull."

"I'm not here to hurt you!" Dajh said.

"Dajh?" asked a girl. "What are you doing here?"

He struggled to move. He could hurt everyone, but he was scared of what they might do if he did that. "I just want to see King Edgar. He's near here, isn't he? If I take his shards, then he won't hurt like he does!"

"He knows about the sickness," said the girl.

The woman hissed and the girl muttered an apology.

"I can't tell you how it works," Dajh said. "I have to be careful."

"Wait." The girl moved and color exploded about her. "Galuf says we can shroud ourselves from Bhunivelze's eyes."

Dajh turned cold. "Galuf? Does he know what's wrong with Krile?"

The girl didn't answer. She danced, and darkness overtook them. Dajh felt gross without the evening light, but that was probably a good thing.

"Let's break him free, then," said the woman. "Locke, if you'd keep him still for me."

"I'm not moving," Dajh said.

The shifting feet about him also didn't move. It hurt for them to keep pressing on his arm.

The girl went still. Dajh could barely see the glow of his veins through the blackness of her spell. "What did you do?" he asked.

"Your spirit," said the woman. "If he can inhabit you, we use him to cast out the thing within this boy."

"I'm not possessed," Dajh said. It made him ill to say it out loud. "Or… Bhunivelze doesn't control me. I feel him, but I learned to say no last time. You don't have to do anything else.

"I'll see if I can prove it." The girl approached him and kneeled. He almost saw her face. "Dajh, you Krile?"

"Krile? … Yes."

She took his hand, and he felt the transference of energy. Another spirit entered his mind, though it pained Relm to do it. He wished she didn't have to hurt.

The warmth of Galuf's visit lasted only a second before he left again and the mortal girl stood. "He's clean," she said. "He carries Bhunivelze's power, but he resists really good. Well. He resists… ugh, it just sounds so weird. He's doing a good job, I guess."

"How does that mean he won't give in?" asked the woman.

Something broke nearby and the ground rumbled before Brynhildr joined them. The guards shouted and readied to attack.

"Wait!" Dajh said. "She's nice! Not dangerous!"

"He might have converted the eidolon," said a man above him.

Dajh grumbled into the dirt and wished he could make them see. "I can't do that! Well, I could, but it would be really hard! And Bhunivelze doesn't care about them! Brynhildr, can you tell them, please?"

More scared mutters before Dajh felt the sharing of knowledge from Brynhildr. She assured them of her willingness to beat him up if he didn't do things right.

"Why do you have to add that?" he asked.

Brynhildr would take care of him as his father's old servant. And if that meant saving him from Bhunivelze's corruption, then she would do that.

"Fine."

"Then he can make the King better," said the girl. "Can we make him do that, yet?"

"Only under careful supervision," said the woman.

They finally released Dajh and he breathed the sweet scent of not-dirt before someone poked him and made him walk forward.


Cater walked among the unnoticing students of Akademeia and wondered at the motes of dust and morning sun that bathed chattering students in hues of gold and red. The Vermillion Bird decorated the walls, tapestries, and ornaments about the place and Cater remembered reverence at the sight. Her bones remembered strength and her blood remembered fury.

Machina and Rem spoke with King and Queen in the library, so Cater steered far away from there. They only caught up and repeated the obvious and remembered painful times.

Cater knew these halls like she knew her gun, yet it still brought such a stinging sense of regret and unfamiliarity that she preferred to hide away and pretend this was a new place with new people and faces she never met before.

"Cater?" asked a dude with red cloth wrapped around his fair hair. "Wait, is this real?"

"Oh, I'm—" Cater's words died in her throat at his carefree smile and the smell of dried paint. He killed her, befriended her, protected her, worked with and for her, against her, and always in the name of the Bird. "Naghi?"

"Yes!" He took her in a tight hug. "Oh, man! I don't know how you pulled that off but let me call if you if I ever want to fake my death because wow!"

Cater struggled to make the sounds, but she forced a smile and said it anyway: "Sure."

"You never told me if you needed a tour of the new place—would you allow me the honor?"

"I've been here before." The hallway awaiting them left a crawling pit in Cater's stomach, but she couldn't think of a reasonable excuse. "You don't have somewhere to be?"

"Not really." He finally released her and stared for the longest time at her face. "Wow, you look so… same. Like you're the same."

"Because I am the same."

"No way! It's been ages!"

"Exactly." Cater shoved at him. "Now stop gawking and show me where Arecia's office is now."

Cater let him show her to the room where she remembered waiting for Mother to check their vitals and replenish their magic. They spent a lot of time being examined post-death and Mother worried about aftereffects. She remembered questions about her memories and wondering why her siblings didn't always know what she meant when she referred to people.

"I used to consider her my mother," Cater said. "Did you know that?"

"I couldn't imagine the doctor being a mom. Not that I would know, I guess, but I always thought moms were supposed to be nice. You know… say good things. Or something."

"She said nice things. Sometimes."

Naghi said something else but Cater missed it in the blur of the moment. She remembered falling in love with him only to lose him to battle. She remembered pinning him to a wall and shooting out his brain. Then him cutting into her heart. Then flashes of torture, confiding confidence, betraying one to the other's party, splitting cake, sharing drinks, warning each other of changes in school legislature—

Cater felt a pressure on her chest. Her memories mixed into a sludge of contradictions, but Naghi always proved his competence. He was the best spy she knew when he wasn't the best fighter. He wasn't supposed to be… normal.

"Not meaning to intrude, Doctor," said Naghi in a demonstration of how he might react to Mother. "I didn't know they were your kids!"

Cater couldn't bring herself to respond. She felt too weird. Instead, she asked about the aftermath of the war.

"You all died," Naghi repeated. "The cease-fire didn't trigger in an instant, you know. We had to call off troops, succor wounded, and rehabilitate the survivors. Some died to infection, others to confusion. Some took their own lives."

"We should have stayed here."

"Where did you run off to?"

"Somewhere far away. Beyond the borders of… screw it, do you know about Valhalla?"

"Never heard of it."

"It's somewhere far away. And inaccessible from here."

"Neat."

They arrived at Mother's office and Cater felt a gnawing emptiness in her chest at the sight of all her old tools. She didn't use much in the office. And now that Cater knew her as a fal'Cie, that made sense, but it still hurt to see everything as it was.

"Can I have a moment?" Cater asked. "I… want to say goodbye."

Naghi opened his mouth and closed it again. With sudden solemnity, he asked, "Is she gone, too?"

"… Yeah. She died giving us a way out again."

He nodded and left her to it. Cater closed the door behind him and sunk into Mother's old chair. It was still plush and the room meticulously clean, if dusty in some places. Everything remained in perfect neatness and the floor reflected the ceiling. The cleaning crew only grew lazy with some of the wall and desk ornaments.

"Queen," Cater whispered. "Where are you guys?"

"Battle room. You sound perturbed."

"… Just thinking."

She remembered her checkups with Mother. She remembered Mother not explaining the strange memories and the déjà vu. She remembered nightmares and plaguing doubts. She remembered Mother dismissing it as nonsense. The deep and sickly smell of magic pervading her nose.

"Why did you lie?" Cater asked a mirror on the desk. "Why hide it instead of raising us to handle it properly? If you couldn't once tell us the truth, then why did you give up in the end?"

No answer. Eventually she relented and said to Queen, "… I'll just join you guys over there."

She found the others and they went over their plans. Yeul eventually joined them as well, looking somehow paler than usual, and contributed even less than the previous day.

Cater couldn't help the nagging doubt that she missed something critical. She remembered her life so many times over, but those memories came before she gained her new insight as Mwynn's inheritor. Arecia fought a war above their heads without ever letting them in on it. Though Cater suspected Queen knew. What else could Arecia not tell them about it?

"Noel and Fang are here," Eight said, interrupting discussions and snapping Cater out of her thoughts. Yeul perked up and Eight said, "Don't look surprised—his connection to Yeul is stronger than anyone else's."

Nine swore and said, "Good for nothing idiots. We should have given up on them a long time ago!"

"No offense, Yeul," Deuce said, though Yeul didn't seem to hear their words. "He's not talking about you."

"We'll fight them," Sice said. "We can take at least two of them between us."

King shook his head. "Our priority is to protect the students. I'll find Machina and Rem and we'll draw their attention away."

"That is exactly what you won't do," Queen said. "The students are less important than Bhunivelze not winning."

"No!" Cinque yelled as everyone erupted into arguments. Most argued for battle while Jack complained about not wanting to go to Eos. Ace and Queen stayed quiet, though they exchanged glances between each other like they shared a secret.

Queen eventually hushed the room with a wave and gestured. "The longer you argue, the more ground you give our guests. We need to warp out at the right moment."

Cater needed to speak with Machina and Rem, first. "Tell me when," she said before bolting from the room.

What are you doing? Queen asked.

"Satisfying a curiosity of mine." Cater asked here and there and found her way to one of the balconies offering a view of Akademeia's recovering landscape. Machina spoke with a staff member and Cater all but shoved the dude aside.

"I only have a few minutes," Cater said at Machina's confused look, "but before we dash, I gotta know. You were a l'Cie, right?"

"Yeah, what about it?"

"We—" Cater looked about them. "Where's Rem?"

"Handling a fire on the first floor."

"If it's what I think it is, then it won't stay on the first floor. When you worked for the fal'Cie, what were your biggest holdbacks?"

"My what?"

"What threatened the Crystals the most? You know, what stopped you from fulfilling your purpose?"

"Rem—"

The door burst open and Noel and Fang came at them.

Cater summoned her gun and shot out Fang's foot while Machina took on Noel. Fang tackled Cater and took them both off the balcony.

Cater hurtled through the air. Noel yelled and Cater slowed. Fang spun and landed below her while a young librarian froze beneath Cater and glanced between her and Noel.

Fang grabbed Noel before he landed and shoved him aside. Cater touched down and took the librarian to transfer enough memory to send her the point

Noel rushed Cater and the librarian got out of there. Rem and Machina joined and took on Fang.

Cater fought with Noel, but his space powers made it impossible to gain distance.

Noel warped right up to Cater again. and she caught sight of Bhunivelze's glimmering brand on his neck.

"You're l'Cie," Cater told him before catching him in the side. "How can you be so stupid?"

Noel barely paused, but he betrayed hesitation in his swing. Cater got free again and ran.

"You preferred to die once!" Cater yelled. "Whatever happened to giving up your life for others?"

Noel caught her in the stomach and slammed her to the ground. "I won't let Bhunivelze kill anyone!"

"But that's exactly what he's doing!"

Noel grimaced and leaned away. "You won't stay dead. You'll come to Valhalla where you belong."

"Like you do?"

"Noel!" Yeul cried from an open door.

He looked up at her and Queen said across the link, "Now."

Cater fired and hit Noel between the eyes before taking Yeul and warping out of there.

They hit the Historia Crux and Cater helped Yeul into a side path before asking her, "What's a l'Cie's number one weakness?"

"They have few," Yeul said as they joined the rest of Cater's siblings. Yeul shook and wouldn't look her in the eyes. "They have personal weaknesses and obstacles in fulfilling their purpose. Do you wish to make them cieth?"

"No." Cater held Yeul's hand and wondered at Noel's familiarity with her. Cater couldn't imagine getting close to such a cold and distant person—but then, she knew Queen. "Are you Noel's weakness?"

"In many ways, we are such to each other."

"Then I think I've got my answer." Cater pushed toward Eos. "I know how we're gonna get these guys back on our side."