Sylvain Hose Gautier looked out at the horde of soldiers approaching them. Even as Nemesis' forces were close, he couldn't tell exactly what his troops were. They appeared out of nowhere and gave off a shadowy aura of death, so Sylvain wondered if they were a type of undead. Or perhaps they were simply soldiers created by shadow to obey Nemesis' command.

"Serios! You cannot hide from me any longer!"

Nemesis' voice boomed across the battlefield, larger than life. Sylvain looked over at Dimitri next to him, whose shoulders were tense and his lips pursed. Sylvain was proud of how far his friend had come. He remembered the day over five years ago at this point when Cornelia announced that Dimitri was going to be executed. Sylvain wanted to stage a rescue mission, but his father and Felix's father Rodrigue said that they didn't have the army to take Fhirdiad on their own. Sylvain had known they were right, but when the news came he felt personally responsible for Dimitri's death.

And then he found Dimitri alive, but… changed. Mercedes did her best to soften the words and focus on the hope of a better future when she approached him about joining their strike force that would end up cutting through the Alliance and towards Enbarr before being stopped by Edelgard and Gronder Field, but seeing him in the flesh and blood was something else. He realized that Felix was right all along. Dimitri was the Boar Prince, someone who knew only carnage and slaughter. The sweet boy he had known at the academy was a mask that had been torn off by Cornelia and Edelgard.

On that day, Sylvain gave up on his friend.

But here Dimitri was, alive and leading his army in the honorable way of old Faerghus. Not backing down from duty and protecting others, but valuing the lives of his knights over glory. Even the Alliance troops trusted him to lead them well, which Sylvain never expected from the centuries-long squabbles and pontificating about freedom the Alliance lords were so fond of. Another reason to thank Claude and Seiros, he supposed. Together, they walked Dimitri back from his darkest place into the light. And man, Seiros' hips were…

Okay, Sylvain. He needed to focus on the battle.

"I'm surprised we've been at a stalemate for this long," Dimitri said, "But I don't know how much longer we can hold out. Reinforcements from the church won't come quickly enough, and when Byleth enters the fray for real bodies will start dropping. Do you think we should pull back?"

"You're the commander today," Sylvain said. "Give me the orders and I'll follow them. That's all I have to say."

"No opinion at all?" Dimitri shook his head. "Commanding officers are supposed to listen to input, you know."

Why was Dimitri placing this burden of choice on him? Sylvain didn't want to be the one to make the wrong choice and have the blood of hundreds on his hands. Didn't he have someone else he could-

Oh. Claude wasn't here.

"What would he do in this situation?" Sylvain said. "I mean, we've been doing a good job of luring out the zombies in small groups and crushing them like he does. Though I think he learned that one from Byleth."

The enigmatic professor was someone Sylvain had his eye on ever since they stormed the tower Miklan took and dispatched him with such ease that Sylvain found himself gawking more than once during the mission. The others must have thought he was staring at Byleth's… figure, and they were quite lovely to behold, but it was the way they cut through entire legions of soldiers while barely breaking a sweat. And now Sylvain and Dimitri had to fight against that.

"Claude was someone who charged Byleth at Gronder in a desperate play," Dimitri said. "Though I think he regrets that."

Oh, yeah. Sylvain was there for that fight as well, where the Kingdom and Alliance forces joined together for the first time in order to take on the Empire. But Byleth stopped all of them dead in their tracks. As they did during the invasion of Garreg Mach. And the Battle of Eagle and Lion. And the mock battle at the start of the school year. They couldn't even let someone else win the fishing contest or the dance contest.

"Have we ever beaten Byleth at literally anything before?" Sylvain said.

"That question is coloring the decisions I want to make," Dimitri said. "I don't know how much of a chance we stand here, but we also can't keep running forever."

All of their grueling work reclaiming their land and taking down the Empire piece by piece could be for nothing if Nemesis used Byleth's strength to ravage all of Fódlan. Nemesis didn't seem to have the strategy of Byleth, but he wasn't a military legend for nothing. Sylvain couldn't expect an easy or even winnable fight if he and Dimitri decided to engage Nemesis directly.

Who had proven they could take on Byleth and do something? The second time they vanished was from the javelins of light, which was a hopeless avenue to pursue. Which left only one person who had managed to make a real dent in Byleth's plans.

"We need Seiros' help," Sylvain said. "I know she's weak from stopping the javelins of light, but she's our only hope."

Dimitri met Sylvain's gaze and nodded. Then he sounded the retreat. Sylvain wondered if he was making a mistake. If they could beat Nemesis here and now, they could stop him from rampaging villages on the way to Garreg Mach. Today, Sylvain was condemning those civilians to death. He ground his teeth together and started to ride off. How did people like Dimitri, Edelgard, and Claude manage to give commands to armies without second-guessing every decision?

As he was riding away from the battle, Sylvain caught a group of Nemesis' forces looping around the army, trying to cut off their escape path. Oh no they didn't.

"Sylvain," Dimitri said. "Be careful. You shouldn't engage-"

Sylvain ignored him. Dimitri took his word to retreat, and now the lives of everyone in the army were his responsibility. He kicked his horse into a full gallop and rode towards the force of undead soldiers, barking at his cavalier battalion to follow. He and the cavaliers were the first ones who reached the enemy forces, slamming into their lines and forcing them back.

Too damn many of them. If Sylvain could find and kill the commander of this little flanking operation, the rest of the enemy force would fall into disarray. A normal force would scatter, but these Agarthan and undead soldiers might be content to get run over instead. Now where was-

There. An undead warrior atop a horse with a fancier outfit than the rest of them. Sylvain readied his horse to face the commander and prepared the charge.

Then he noticed the Lance of Ruin in their hands.

Impossible. Sylvain looked down and indeed, the Lance of Ruin was still in his hands as well. Even if Nemesis could have created a replicate, the only other person with the crest to use it to its fullest extent was…

"Father?" Sylvain said.

The commander looked up at him. Different facial features that decidedly did not belong to his old man. Still, there was a family resemblance that Sylvain couldn't deny, but he had never seen this person in his life before.

Wait a minute. If these dudes were all dead and risen, this one had the Lance of Ruin, and Nemesis went to war with the ten elites…

"Oh, so you're the one I can blame for having this damn crest," Sylvain said. "Do you know how much pain this has caused me? I'll give you a little taste of it."

Sylvain charged towards the commander—his ancestor Gautier, he was certain of it—and unleashed a flurry of jabs when he passed by. Gautier caught him in return, a nasty stab to the chest that lit up in pain, but Sylvain pushed through it. Like a joust, he turned his horse around after passing Gautier and prepared to charge again.

"Go back to the Eternal Flames and burn until the pain makes you forget what you did to Fódlan," Sylvain said.

Another charge. Sylvain let out a roar. This time, he caught Gautier in the throat as his enemy's Lance of Ruin slammed into Sylvain's thigh. Gautier, his horse, and his weapon turned to ash and floated off a second later.

That wasn't so bad. Sylvain was bleeding and panting, but he was alive. Now he needed to-

A jab to his side. A flash of pain. Sylvain went tumbling off his horse. When his vision cleared, he looked up and saw a Pegasus hovering above him, flapping its wings. The rider atop it bore a replica of the Aegis Shield.

Not this. Not now.

Not him.

The pegasus rider swooped in for a lunge at Sylvain. He took the brunt of the attack head-on and dug in his heels, responding with a stab to the pegasus' wing that sent the beast tumbling to the ground. Sylvain walked over to the landing site, each heartbeat bringing new pain.

"Get up," Sylvain said. "I know you're stronger than that."

The rider hopped to their feet and brandished their lance at him. A woman this time, though for once Sylvain didn't care that he was going to be killing a lady. He saw the same family resemblance as in Gautier, but not to him.

"You forced so much pain upon Felix, you know," Sylvain said. "You and your damned crests. Your knighthood ideals. You didn't live to see how they tore us apart, Fraldarius."

Fraldarius didn't respond. She lunged at Sylvain. He tried to leap to the side, but he knew he was too weak and slow to dodge. Her spear rammed through his stomach while her Aegis Shield created a barrier that weakened Sylvain's own return attack. As she held the lance embedded in his stomach, she looked up at him with wide, hazel eyes. Exactly like Felix's.

Sylvain grabbed onto the shaft of Fraldarius' lance. He didn't let his gaze waver.

"Felix, I'm sorry for what happened," he said. "Do you remember our promise? You must."

Fraldarius didn't respond. She tried to pull the lance out, but Sylvain's grip kept it in place. As soon as the weapon left his body, he knew he would bleed out.

"We were going to die together. I meant it too, you know, even though were dumb little kids. Ever since you left us, I felt like I was living on borrowed time. A part of me wishes I died there with you."

Sylvain let himself get lost in Fraldarius' eyes. So beautiful, even in death.

"But I'll do the next best thing, Felix," he said. "We both die here."

Sylvain readied the last of his strength and unleashed a Ruined Sky combat art. The blow went straight between Fraldarius' ribcage. A critical hit. She disintegrated to dust seconds later.

The world started to go blurry, then dark. Sylvain sunk to his knees, and then came the sensation of his face hitting the ground.

Finally, free of his crest. Who knew that all it took was death? He knew it was only seconds before he drifted off for good. Sylvain drew a ragged breath with tears of pain leaking out of his closed eyelids.

And then he smiled.

The special conversation that you get when Felix and Sylvain fight each other during the war really hurt me. It's such a good detail, that the two of them raised as knights from such a young age agreed to die together, and that Sylvain still holds onto that promise as a source of meaning even though Felix has (or at least acts like he has) moved on.

And at the same time, it's been smooth riding for a while in terms of deaths on the Kingdom/Alliance side. Sylvain's character was one I wanted to explore through death, and that conversation with Felix was the perfect opportunity to do so.

Back to Claude in the next chapter.