Chapter Twenty – The Final Reset

Dimitri was still my student the first time I turned back time to save him. I watched him get thrown to a wall by Miklan's monstrous form at Conand tower and heard his head crack against stone. He wasn't the only one thrown about when the demonic beast raged around the room at the top of the tower: Sylvain, his own brother; Felix, who took up the front lines by Sylvain's side; Gilbert, who was there only to support us in what should have been an easy fight; Ingrid, Dimitri's protector even then. All wiped out by the thrashing of a tail and claws.

I loved all of them. I had only been their professor for about five moons at that point, but that was long enough for me to care about what happened to them, and certainly long enough to not want them all to die.

Admittedly, though, it was Dimitri's body that I hurried to first. I stuck two fingers to his neck and two to his wrist, searching for a sign despite all the blood leaking from his skull that he lived. But silence, a lack of pulse, was all I found. I touched a hand to his cheek, still warm, and forgot for a moment that I was gifted the ability to turn back time. It was all I could do to hold his lifeless form.

You can still save him, but not if you get attacked by the monster first! Hurry up and use the gift of Divine Pulse! Sothis ordered, and reason returned. I pulled us all back through time to as far as I could go then, since the power was still relatively new to me. Miklan was just overcome by the Lance of Ruin and turning on his own men.

"Get back!" I yelled to my own group, and we retreated just out of the room down the few steps leading up to where Miklan was. And this time, when Miklan's enraged form thrashed and attacked, no one was close enough to get swept up by his tail.

Dimitri beside me looked up at the beast with wide eyes, and I put a hand on his shoulder.

"Be careful," I said to him. "Watch for his tail, and try to limit yourself to throws. Getting too close will be dangerous."

From there, everything went smoothly. Our class surrounded the beast and subdued him without further issues, and it was Sylvain himself who landed the finishing blow to his own brother—or what was left of him. We all remained in one piece.

It wasn't going to be the last time I saved my students, least of all Dimitri, who lived recklessly during the war and wouldn't listen to reason. It was unusual for me to not have to save Dimitri during a battle, whether that meant jumping in front of him and protecting him from an attack he couldn't see or turning back time to save him from himself.

Today, though, there was no turning back time to save him. I sobbed while holding him in my arms, tears falling from my cheeks and splattering against his armor.

"Go ahead, then," Theron said. "Turn back time."

He knew I couldn't. That was why he was here now. Had he collected data on me all along when I was practicing building my power? Determined the number of times I could use it before thoroughly exhausted? He knew somehow, and that was why they showed up now of all times.

Felix and Sylvain, my ever-reliable knights, were here now. Sylvain dropped down beside me and held me in his arms and trying to convince me to leave Dimitri behind. Felix pulled out his sword and pointed it at Theron, but he surely knew it was a battle he couldn't win, given the mass of Agarthans also present.

But he had to try. He charged at Theron, who didn't even raise his arms. The other Agarthans cast their dark magic, and Felix flew back, blasted by the purple cloud he couldn't avoid.

"Felix!" Sylvain shouted.

I gripped my hair, begging myself to pull one more Divine Pulse from within. But nothing happened.

"Sothis!" I screamed.

She listened, and I was pulled within myself to a familiar place in my mind. It had been ages since I saw her sat on her throne. Like my memories of my father, her image in my mind had begun to fade ever so slightly, but being here again brought her back into full clarity. I wished it was so simple for everyone else I lost along the way.

The two of us were connected, so I knew she wanted to chastise me for not listening to her—give me a good old I told you so—and perhaps that was enough to satisfy her. Because she gazed upon me so pitifully, not angrily as I suspected she might.

"Let us weigh our options," she said instead of scolding me. I wiped my eyes, still damp even in this plane of existence within my mind, and nodded. "By coming here to speak with me, time is indefinitely frozen… I do not know how that affects our enemies, but for the moment, let us assume they are frozen in time, as well."

"Can we save them? What if—what if I just waited here until my powers recharge? Stay stuck in time until I can turn back the wheels of time again?" I suggested, reeling my mind for ideas. I had never tried anything like that before, but surely…

"You are weakening your powers as we speak by being here, by keeping time at a standstill. There is no possibility that remaining here will allow you to use the gift again," Sothis said. She stood from her throne and approached me. Did she look a little older now? A little wiser?

She reached for my hand and smiled. How could she smile at a time like this? My husband… my greatest friend in life… and Felix, too, just now. I couldn't save them.

If turning back the hands of time was not enough to save his life, you must accept what came to pass was fate, Sothis told me after my father's murder. I had tried to go back and save my father from Kronya's blade, but Thales intercepted my own attack.

Had… he, too, known when I turned back time?

"I believe so," Sothis responded to my thoughts. "Perhaps I was misguided in telling you that it was fate that took your father. Thales appeared and stopped you from saving your father because he likely knew that you would know to save him. Kronya was surprised to see him when he arrived, meaning he was not meant to be present there that day. And do you recall what he told her?"

I nodded. "That she had to survive because there was some role she needed to fulfill."

"Exactly, meaning that he knew you planned on killing her in order to save your father." Sothis let go of my hand and turned her back to me, her long hair swaying as she shook her head. "So, Theron is not the first to have the power to recall time changes. This must mean I was wrong about fate. They have been manipulating things from behind the scenes all along."

Wrong… about fate?

"This is good news. I do believe we can save the prince—oh, the king, I mean," Sothis corrected, shifting slightly to look over her shoulder at me briefly. She turned back, lifting her arm in front of her, and from there, I could not see what she was doing.

When I stepped around her, it was as if time stopped within this place, too. Sothis was perfectly still, hand outstretched before her and eyes shut. Her chest did not rise with breath the way mine did, and her arm did not sway in the slightest.

"Sothis?"

She opened her eyes suddenly and dropped her arm back to her side. "Yes, this can work. I can harness the power developing within your unborn child for a single Divine Pulse. I'm afraid that is all this child has the energy for, and only for a five-minute journey back in time. Any more than that, and you could risk the child's life."

This baby, who bore the Crest of Flames as I did, could save his father. Could I be grateful to someone not yet born? Could I be indebted to my own flesh and blood still in the womb?

"Will any harm come to the child otherwise?" I asked.

Sothis shook her head. "He should be able to handle it. But again, you only have one chance at getting this right. Do you understand me? You will listen to me this time, won't you, Byleth?"

In this world of my mind, it didn't make sense to feel, yet I could feel my cheeks begin to burn as she dug this knife deeper into my wounds. Surely I didn't expect that she wouldn't make some reference to my inability to obey her orders.

I bowed to her. "I understand."

"Good. Do you have a plan?"

Five minutes would bring me to even before the Agarthans arrived—barely, but it was enough. I would be overriding a previous Divine Pulse, which Theron would know. He would arrive more quickly this time, perhaps exactly where Dimitri was to prevent me from getting there first. Was it inevitable? Would Theron and the Agarthans murder Dimitri anyway?

No, he wouldn't know where Dimitri was. He was tuned into me. Dimitri was nearby somewhere in the battlefield, that much I knew. It would be a race to see who could get to him first. They wouldn't attack me, so if I made it to him first, he would live.

The other advantage—and I didn't know how it would play as an advantage, simply that it was one thing I held over the Agarthans—was that they thought this was a true battle. Theron said something about Claude not being able to prevent this. He thought it was real…

How could I use this?

"We can't keep this up forever, Byleth." Sothis gestured to the space around us. "Are you ready?"

It was now or never… even though I served as a tactician during the war, I didn't compare to Claude. And I certainly winged it more than once, gone into battle without so much as a plan with lives relying on me. But the thing was, I always had my powers to fall back on. And I didn't this time.

Was… was I anything without my powers?

"You were a renown mercenary even before I shared my powers with you," Sothis reminded me. "You can do this. Get back out there, save your husband and your friends, and stop the Agarthans from carrying on this foolish quest."

She gave me no choice. I was thrust back into reality, back to where I was before I called out her name. Theron made no indication that he knew I stopped time to confer with Sothis. I pulled myself from Sylvain's arms, who stared at Felix's crackling body in the distance and made no effort to stop me. There were more tears staining my cheeks here than in Sothis's plane of existence, and I wiped them away as I stood.

"Standing strong now?" Theron asked.

Ready? Sothis asked.

Theron laughed. "It's futile, you know."

Good luck.

I didn't have to do anything. Sothis pulled the strings, as she did the first time she ever turned back time for me, back when I saved Edelgard. I was pulled through time, sucked through a hole in my mind. The world warped around me, until it didn't, and I was back on the battlefield.

This was it. I had to go now, while I had the advantage.

Which direction did Dimitri come from? I searched quickly, racking my brain for the memory of not too long ago.

There.

I gripped the Sword of the Creator and sprinted. Even as the Agarthans appeared around me, I kept running. Felix and Sylvain were both nearby, and I diverted temporarily from my path to latch onto Felix's wrist.

"What the hell?" he snapped, but he followed me even after I dropped his wrist. Sylvain, too, was following.

"I'm saving your life, just keep running," I said.

He didn't object. No attempts to attack us were made from the Agarthans, most likely because if they did, they would end up hurting me, too. I would serve as both the sword and shield of my family now and protect them while bringing this new war to an end.

We made it to Dimitri before the Agarthans. I threw myself into his arms, pressing myself against him and leaning into his neck so I could whisper into his ear. "I'm out of chances to turn back time. I can't save you again, so do not leave my side."

"Again?" he repeated.

I wriggled out of his grip and turned to face the small army of Agarthan people. Theron emerged in front, his face contorted in rage.

"How?" he demanded.

"Almyran and Fódlan armies!" I yelled, though only those directly around me could hear over the clanking of metal from the false battle beyond. "Our enemies have shown themselves! Attack at will!"

The shift was immediate. The battle around me ceased, which served as a catalyst to direct the attention of the others fighting around us. Blades turned, different weapons unsheathed, wyverns bearing their teeth for the first time, and amidst the chaos turned unification. War cries rang out from the Almyrans, while the Fódlan army shouted to direct their attacks at the ones in hoods and masks.

The dark magic began at once, as well, and there would be nothing I could do now to save the people who met it. And if I died now—if Dimitri or Felix or any of my friends died now—it would be in battle, not by some cowardly trick. This was the time that mattered.

"Stay with me," I ordered Dimitri again, and I charged forward with the Sword of the Creator held high.

Theron did not attack with magic this time; he pulled out a sword of his own, one that appeared to be coated in the same way that the blade that killed my father had. Some sort of Agarthium metal.

But he used it merely for defense and held it up to block my rain of attacks upon him.

"The child," Theron said breathlessly as he withstood my slashing of my blade. "You used it."

I finally got the upper hand. I struck upward, knocking the blade out of his hand. Dimitri, close behind me as promised, reached up into the air and snatched it by its hilt. Theron fell back, blocking what I hoped to be my finishing blow with a wall of magic as he held up his hands from the ground.

And then Dimitri and I both stood over him, the tips of our swords pointed at his chest.

The battle behind us grew loud. Strained cries, those of defeat, rang out from every direction. Agarthans, Almyrans, the people of Fódlan… all fell here. But for the first time since this mess began, we were one step ahead of them.

"This is not the end," Theron growled. "And now you have only made us more desperate."

Dimitri and I both swung, determined to cut his head clean off his shoulders. But when our blades finally crossed, it was without a body in between. There was no evidence that he had ever been there at all, except for one thing… the one thing that gave some hope that there might be an end to his trickery.

"Look," I said, pointing to the side of the sword Dimitri held.

Against the black metal, something gleaming against the light. Blood. Dimitri got Theron.

"If it's like the dagger used to kill my father, the metal has to be laced with some sort of dark magic, some sort of poison. It will kill him," I suggested, but Dimitri did not appear as hopeful.

"The Agarthans will surely have the antidote…"

"Then let's eliminate the rest of—"

I stopped when I looked up and glanced around the battlefield. Our soldiers and the Almyran army remained, some bodies strewn across the field. But the only Agarthans who remained were those that lost their lives, all others who came here to fight gone like Theron.

"Damn it," I hissed, sheathing my sword. Dimitri dropped the Agarthan blade into the grass.

"We need to do a count. There are an incredible number of Agarthan mages who have fallen here. I would call this a success," Dimitri said.

As would I, Sothis interjected. You saved him.

"Dimitri, wait." I grabbed his hand as he began to walk away from me, and he turned back. I moved my other hand to the back of his neck and pulled him into me, kissing him with all the might I could muster from the strength that remained within me. He kept his grip on Areadbhar but looped his free arm around my waist, feeding into my desire to keep him near.

"Do not leave my side. Still. Until this is over," I told him when we broke free of each other.

"What happened?"

"I'd rather not discuss it," I said and kissed him again.

We were interrupted not a moment later by Dedue, Felix, and Sylvain, who had not strayed far from us. "Your Majesties," Dedue began, bowing as was his custom despite our repeated attempts to convince him otherwise. "The Agarthans have retreated, but their casualties were numerous. Of those that appeared here, I would estimate nearly half perished."

"What of our numbers?" Dimitri asked. He squeezed my hand, still holding tightly despite those around us being able to see. "How many casualties on our side?"

"More. Hundreds, most likely. They were able to take out dozens at a time with their magic," Dedue said. "The Almyrans suffered heavy losses due to their use of wyverns. They could not withstand the magic. Among the casualties, it is reported that the new Almyran general fell."

My stomach churned. "How are we supposed to explain that to Claude?"

"It also could lead to disarray among their army," Sylvain added. "They are already skeptical of us. If they sustained heavy losses, including that of their general, they're not going to want to fight for us. And those of them who already dislike Fódlan might use this as an opportunity."

"What, to attack? They'd be fools to do that," Felix countered.

"It certainly is a possibility. Perhaps we are best off asking them to return to Almyra to regroup. We can use their retreat as a chance to deliver a message to Claude, as well. And with the Agarthan numbers down, we don't require as many troops to stop them, should they attack," Dimitri said.

I nodded. "In the meantime, let's return to Garreg Mach. I feel like we're painting a giant target by staying here."

"Agreed. Gather the troops and prepare for roll call." Dimitri looked at me this time as he said, "And let us count this as our first victory against the Agarthans."

A victory that almost was not. Do not frighten me like that again! Sothis yelled in my head.

"Thank you," I told her. I could picture her rolling her eyes.

Do not thank me. Thank your child. You must spoil this little boy rotten when he is born.

I smiled, but part of me could not feel that pride… because if I spoiled that child for saving me, entirely due to his inheritance of his crest, did that make me a hypocrite? What if it had been Alexi or Katrina in his place? They would not have been able to do all this…

No. Regardless, I would love my children all the same and hope that this boy would never have to be born into a world where he would have to use this power to save lives.


Author's Note: Sorry about the delay, especially after leaving it on the cliffhanger I did last time. Here is an update, and I hope to have another quite soon!

Dimitri is safe for another day, but that boy is walking on eggshells if fate truly exists. Poor guy. Dies in every route but his and then still has to suffer here. My bad.