Dad explained a bit of what had happened while they followed Rei. To be honest, Noct only heard half of it because he kept expecting something to jump out of the shadows at them. Nothing ever did. Sure, the Citadel hadn't been exactly teeming on the way down, but they had avoided a couple fights. Shouldn't there have been more daemons, here? More than none?
That wasn't even the weird part. The weird part was they stopped on the front steps and suddenly there were daemons. Everywhere.
Everyone was ready for the fight that never came. Instead, Reina reached out her hands and… something. He didn't even know. Just one more thing to add to the list of stuff he didn't know. But whatever; she got rid of the daemons and everyone was safe. Right? Sure. Yeah. Never mind that whole thing with the black mist disappearing inside Reina and the creepy chancellor waltzing off like his birthday had come twice this year.
When Rei turned around to walk back inside, Luna stepped in front of her. "It is not too late to turn from this path, Princess Reina."
Reina looked through her.
"To protect the crystal is the duty of the line of Lucis," Luna continued. "Would you really forsake your destiny so thoughtlessly?"
Rei's lips twitched like she wanted to smile but couldn't remember how. She laughed once, unamused. "Thoughtlessly? No, Lady Lunafreya. I have spent a great deal of time thinking on it."
Luna pressed on, "When first Gentiana revealed your heart to me, I believed, as Noctis does, that there must have been some mistake. Though we had not met for twelve years, I felt certain that what I knew of you must hold true. Now I see my trust was misplaced. In truth, I pity you; you are very much like him, aren't you? Perhaps you have done these things in the name of protecting your people, but in the end the result will be the same. You have taken the darkness into yourself. Even now I can feel it clutching at your soul. It will take you over, Princess Reina. Just as it did to him. You cannot consume the Starscourge and expect to remain its master."
In the silence that Reina let fall, Noctis chewed on Luna's words. At least she wasn't claiming that Rei was just plain evil, anymore. The idea that Reina might have been destroyed by some desire to protect Lucis wasn't much more comforting. But it did make more sense. And what did Luna mean about consuming the Starscourge? Wouldn't that give her the scourge?
Too many questions and Reina wasn't going to answer even one, at a guess.
After a solid six seconds of staring at her, Rei responded. "Again you are mistaken. On several levels. I haven't the time to fix that, but in short order: It has been twenty two years since we last met; your trust is still misplaced, but not in me; I am as alike him as I am unlike him, but it's true that I have come to resemble Ardyn. Five years with no other company will do that to a person. Not nearly as damaging as two thousand years with no company at all. I have done this to protect my family and friends; the rest is a side-effect. The Starscourge is darkness, not evil. The two are not synonymous. I would have thought the Princess of Tenebrae had made that distinction, by now. What consumed him was not evil, but hatred. Hatred for your Astrals, his brother, and every person who betrayed and abandoned him. If but one person had extended a hand to him, his soul might have been saved."
She had answered. Sort of. Though her responses left more questions than answers.
"Rei." Noct stepped forward, putting himself between them. "Luna said you want the Astrals and the crystal destroyed."
"She's right," Reina said.
"Then you stand against us," said Luna.
"You? Only if you stand in my way." Reina pushed past both of them and walked back into the Citadel.
Not exactly the confidence-inspiring answer he had been hoping for. Noct turned and followed her, jogging to catch up. It wasn't hard. She was still short, even if everything else was weird.
"Why?" He asked.
"Because everything that is wrong in this world has been caused by them."
"But—"
She stopped walking and looked at him. "When Insomnia is safe, I will answer every question you have. Until then, I must continue to ask you to trust me, Noct. Know only that my priorities are the lives and well-being of you and Father. All else stems from those."
She stared at him for a few seconds before she started walking again. And that was all there was to it.
He could do it. He could trust her without knowing why. It would have been harder not to—whatever Luna said. Reina wouldn't have done something like that without a good reason.
They all went back upstairs. A fierce, hushed argument between Rei and Dad ensued before he took himself to bed. Eventually Noctis fell asleep on one of the couches in the main lounge. When he did, Reina and Cor were pouring over papers and talking about Crownsguards. When he woke up, Reina was already gone.