Alyssa found Bhunivelze's pawns with Fujin and Raijin not far from Seifer's drop-off. The four appeared lost in conversation.

She pulled a knife from her boot and tossed it at Raijin. It landed in his wrist and he screamed before Amarant took him and Fujin by the necks.

"Hey!" Maqui called. "What gives, man?"

Alyssa slapped him and snatched Fujin by the hair. "You'll never see your friends again, you know that?"

"This wasn't part of the plan!" Maqui shouted. "I'm all about sowing chaos, but these guys aren't worth that!"

"Shut up!" Alyssa pulled her knife from Raijin and stuck it in Maqui's shoulder.

The kid yelped and pulled it out. "What's wrong with you?"

Alyssa snatched it back again and wiped the blood on her dress. The kid was useless. She turned to Amarant. "Bhunivelze agreed to listen to me. You will do as I say."

Amarant said nothing. Alyssa stuck her blade back in Raijin and he choked. She turned to Maqui. "Bhunivelze doesn't need both of you, does he? I could just get you out of the way if you won't do as I say."

"You're crazy!" Maqui took the blade out of Raijin and Fujin screamed profanity. Amarant held them both secure. "Do you have any idea what you're doing? There's a method to proper chaos and we can't make that work if you're gonna go around stabbing people!"

Alyssa kicked him back and Maqui grunted but kept his footing. Stupid god shards, making him stronger than the average teenager. "Don't interfere!" she said.

"I don't want to! But we've got a contract to fulfill, and you're not holding up your end of the bargain!"

Alyssa grabbed him by the collar and yanked him close. "You can join them or not, kid."

"I'm an adult, you know! I suppose I still have a year before I catch up to where I was on Pulse, but I'm still legal!"

"And by legal do you mean twelve?"

"No! I'm nineteen, damn it!"

"It's been too long for me to remember legalities on Pulse." Alyssa sighed and dropped him, but not before taking her knife back and angling to look at the two in Amarant's grip. They struggled and flailed, but it was no match for a mercenary enhanced by borrowed power.

"Wait," Maqui said, "you're also from Pulse?"

Alyssa ignored him and looked between Raijin and Fujin. "Maybe I'll just kill both of them. That should teach Seifer a lesson, right?"

"Killing also screws up our plan!"

"I told you to shut up!"

"Want me to kill them?" Amarant asked before moving his hands to the captives' necks.

"Yes." Alyssa pressed her knife to Raijin's palm. "Then I'll scatter their bodies across the halls as a bread crumb for Seifer to find his way back."

Maqui groaned. "You're gonna make things so much harder!"

"It's worth it." Alyssa watched the skin turn colors where Amarant gripped the two. "You wanted a body with special powers, and you'll get it. I just need this one thing."

"That's what you said last time!"

"I was wrong."

"And why aren't you wrong now?"

"Because I'm not!" Alyssa punched Amarant in the chest and he loosened his grip enough for the two to breathe again. "Are you going to do as I say or won't you?"

"I'm not!" Maqui jumped forward and knocked Raijin loose.

Alyssa screamed and reached forward. Knife connected with Raijin's hand and almost took off a finger.

"This is a school full of trained experts!" Maqui gestured and Amarant released Fujin. "We could use this to our advantage if we just went about it right!"

"These two aren't necessary for it," Amarant said.

Fujin screamed and hit Amarant with a disk she kept at her side. Alyssa righted herself in time to catch a hit from Raijin.

That guy wouldn't remain standing for long, though, going by that sickly hue in his skin and the blood staining his clothes. Amarant had Fujin subdued again within seconds, but Maqui fought with him to release her again.

Alyssa focused on the huffing Raijin, whose skin shimmered with sweat. But he was still an operative and her body held no memory of fighting, much less with a student of the Gardens.

Raijin twitched and pulled a bandage from his pocket that he wrapped around his finger before ripping it off again. Alyssa barely registered what he was doing before he ran at her with a pole in one hand.

Alyssa breathed and leapt right at him.

The surprise wasn't enough of a hindrance to knock him off balance, but it was enough of a stutter that she got past him with a slice to his ankle.

Only for something heavy to crush her shoulder.

Alyssa shrieked and scrambled back to her feet in time for Raijin to kick her in the stomach. Breath left her and Alyssa choked.

Maqui grappled Raijin from behind. "Stop it! We need her, too!"

"Get off, yo!" Raijin twisted about, but Maqui kept it up like a monkey backpack.

Alyssa took the chance and ran. Her legs still worked even if her stomach and shoulder burned in agony.

Ellone's presence stuttered back to lucidity and she wondered why they ran until images of the fight rushed through Alyssa's head. Confusion rattled them until Ellone centered herself on smug satisfaction.

"If we die," Alyssa reminded her, "you go, too."

Ellone was okay with that. She was tired of only being used for her powers that she never asked for.

… The Purge.

Ellone recoiled at the memory that wasn't hers, but Alyssa grit her teeth and let it come back. The horror that sent her spiraling through paradox space and brought her outside the realm of possibility.

"We can still save you," came the girl's hopeless thought. "You don't have to settle for the monster you're becoming."

Alyssa cracked a smile. "You have no idea what I'm becoming. And I'll kill both of us before you stop me."

"We can salvage who you used to be! We can bring you back!"

"Or we can both die now before it gets worse."

"I won't accept that."

"But you'd prefer that over joining me, right?"

Reluctant agreement. Alyssa chuckled to herself despite the pain that flared up in her stomach. She remembered a similar attitude from the Director before she tried to kill him.

They found an isolated corner where Alyssa sunk against the wall and nursed her shoulder. Trying to move made it worse and ignoring it didn't help. But maybe if she waited it out, it might heal.

"And then what?"

"I'll kill everyone in this school."

"Why?"

"Because they hurt me."

Ellone didn't follow the logic and Alyssa wanted to burn her for it. Such righteousness from a girl that hid so many of her own dark secrets like she could pretend she wasn't her own flavor of a monster. Alyssa scoffed.

Time passed.

She didn't know how she would kill everyone here, but if she could at least start with Seifer and his "crew," then she might see some progress before Maqui and Amarant inevitably got in the way.

She could cut off Fujin's hair and twist into a tight braid around Raijin's neck. Then when they both turned cold, she'd bring them to Seifer and watch him despair before slitting his throat and saving his blood for a rainy day when she needed a pick-me-up.

Ellone retreated but didn't disappear. She adjusted to the violence in Alyssa's thoughts and that made her annoyingly persistent.

"Found you."

Alyssa snapped up to see Maqui framed by the light outside her alcove. "You don't give up, do you?"

"Nah, not when eternity's on the line."

"Don't touch me."

"Kinda hard to transfer consciousness without that." Maqui stepped forward and Alyssa jumped to her feet.

She pulled out her knife. "I'll slit this girl's throat."

Maqui didn't say anything before flicking his fingers and blasting the knife from her hands.

Alyssa scrambled to take it again, but Maqui was faster. Even this gadgeteer kid put wrestlers to shame when imbued with divine power.

He took her by the wrist and twisted behind her back. Took her other hand and kicked the knife out of the way. "I really didn't want to do this, you know."

"Of course not," she spat.

Amarant joined them, covered in blood. Perhaps he disposed of those two without her.

And trailing behind him came Hope Estheim, looking ten years younger than she knew him. She never thought he could look so small after their years together in the Academy.

"Director?" she asked.

"Not anymore." His voice reflected two intonations, one deeper and more commanding than what she remembered and the other like a budding teenager's. Like Estheim's.

He approached and with each step his robe shimmered with unseen light.

Thunder rumbled outside and Alyssa squirmed. Ellone's confusion radiated through her like a part of the storm and Alyssa snarled at the kid holding her back.

Estheim stepped forward, hands clasped before him like some Luxerian priest. His complexion looked different than she remembered, with a blue tinge and odd eyes. "She won't give up her vessel?"

"No," Maqui said. "And she's going crazy!"

"A pity." Estheim looked her up and down. "I'll give you another chance, Tattered Spirit. Give up your body to the light."

"Go to hell!"

She almost expected a quip about the irony of that, but Hope didn't react. "She bears links to this one."

"Yeah," Maqui said. "She knows Pulse. What does that mean?"

"It means that we can extract the spirit without destroying the body," Amarant said.

Estheim stepped closer and she made out a black outline in the unnatural blue and white of his eyes. "This mercenary is right. Spirit, you fear enclosure. Closets?"

Alyssa stilled, blood gone cold. "What?"

"She kept to the biggest rooms possible in… an old home." Hope blinked and frowned. "I prefer not to taint myself with these mortal memories."

Maqui shifted his position. "I thought you couldn't see memories?"

"My vessel proves resilient."

"For the Breaking of the Galaxy," Amarant said.

Estheim said, "It is for such."

Alyssa struggled, but Maqui's grip held strong. She liked it better when the guys were on her side. Used to love how they didn't flinch at any pain and she didn't worry about someone taking them out of the picture.

"Rocks." Estheim placed a hand on her cheek and Alyssa spit in his face. He grimaced. "Rubble. You hated your time in Bresha more than anything yet insisted on working there. Hm. A contradiction."

"You know why," she hissed. "Stop pretending."

"God doesn't pretend," Estheim said. "Yet humans confuse me still. Perhaps more study will enlighten me on this topic."

"Study?" Maqui asked. "You never told me you studied people."

"None other method would prepare my vessel holy. Yet such study would destroy the vessel and I will not waste this."

He pushed her hair back and Alyssa bit his finger. Estheim didn't react despite blood trickling from the new wound.

"Your power belongs with me now," he said. "To resist is sin."

Alyssa snickered. "Do you have any idea what a girl from Academia would have given to be in my shoes right now?

"Your words hold no meaning to me."

"It's funny anyway."

"You say I know why you lingered near the very place that struck you with fear. Was it the twisting of time? No. Related to that, you remembered your own death that never happened. But it did. Etro's failure, then, her dying whispers amassed to rendering rattles that tore asunder your existence."

"Kept me alive," Alyssa said. "She restored what was taken from me!"

"Yet you mortals wonder why I would fix your chaotic troubles." Estheim leaned away and straightened. "Mercenary, you seem to know something about this."

Amarant said, "If she fears enclosure, then we should find the smallest space we can and trap her there until the vessel is purified."

Alyssa wrenched at Maqui's grip and screamed, "No!"

Estheim nodded. "You'll inform me when the spirit has left."

"How will we know?" Maqui asked.

"You can't do this!"

Estheim put a hand on Amarant's shoulder. "I grant you a portion of my sight. Don't fail me."

Amarant nodded and strode toward her.

"I'll never leave!" Alyssa thrashed against Maqui but to no avail. "I'll keep her until she dies of starvation! I'll break all her bones and leave her worthless!"

Estheim paused and sized her up. "Watch her."

"We will, Your Eminence!" Maqui said.

Estheim left and Alyssa raged against her captor. She stomped at his feet and slammed her head against his until Amarant took her and pressed against his chest. Muffled her cries with one hand and held her still with his other. She kicked at his shins and scratched his arms, but it had no effect.

It took countless tries for them to force the sleeping draught down her throat and not many more to force her into a cleaning closet where she had little space to move her arms. She clawed at the door until her strength faded and darkness took over.


The voice in her head was fading. Time taught Vanille that over the span of years, most of which she didn't have with Mwynn. With the power granted her by immortality, she remembered her time on Gaia well enough to realize that the Mwynn she spoke with now carried only a fraction of the power that She held when first making Herself known to Vanille.

The power that commanded stars and moved space and now only ghosted whispers of affirmation. The power that held Vanille steady and protected her from the threatening whispers of the void outside the Historia Crux and beyond Valhalla's blurred borders.

Vanille saw Mwynn's plans so many times, yet she found It so vast that grasping the whole of it proved futile. Even in the weakened whispers, Mwynn held onto Her ambitions because it was one of very few ways the galaxy would survive the coming storm.

"What chance do we have?" Vanille asked as she walked empty halls, heels clicking against the stone. Mwynn murmured away in her head, too quiet to understand.

Quiet. Mwynn reserved Her strength for Her final words with Zero.

Vanille entered King and Queen's room and found them locked in conversation with their world-side friends.

"Good morning!" Vanille said.

Queen said, "There is no concept of morning in Valhalla. There are no astronomical occurrences that could dictate such."

Queen sat at a desk summoned days prior. On top of the desk was a neatly sorted array of papers, all sorts of scribbles over them. "We may change, but the world does not."

"I just thought the day outside looked especially nice today." She stopped by the desk. Queen stiffened and Vanille wondered why even after the time they spent together, Vanille couldn't get Queen to even crack a smile.

King looked towards the beach despite the windowless walls. Vanille assumed they gained special sight from Mwynn's shards, but they wouldn't tell her how it worked.

"Valhalla does not change," Queen said.

Vanille felt a spark of indignation. "Well, I still think it's nice."

"If you have something to say, then say it. Please. Otherwise, please respect that we're busy."

"I never said you weren't. But Mwynn has something she'd like to say."

"Go on," King said while Queen blinked and straightened herself.

"She says it's time."

Queen shot to her feet. "Already? But there is so much left to do! Without her guidance—! It cannot… she cannot mean it!"

"She does," Vanille said. "And She's fading fast. But it's okay because I'll hold on to everything She knows and Mwynn believes that you're ready. It's time for you to ascend."

Queen worked her mouth and King twitched in all the ways that guys did when they didn't know how to address something.

"Will you speak Her words for me?" Vanille asked.

Queen bowed her head. "Zero, listen to us."

"It is within you to save this galaxy," Vanille said and King repeated the words to Zero. "And in addition, not by necessity, you gain My power to raise higher. You are bound by laws of your own, meant to carry these worlds in safety from the greater cosmos. Extinguish Bhunivelze and cleanse his corruption from your domain. Go now and save, little ones, for this is what you are."

Vanille barely felt Mwynn disappear.

Queen watched her, expectant. Vanille shook her head and King swore. The two took on a deep red glow, but they didn't act like they noticed. They didn't see it.

Vanille shuddered and wrapped her arms around herself like she could feel better.

"I can't see," Queen whispered. "I can't see the timeline."

"That's up to Serah now," King said.

"But the void—"

"Is Dajh's problem now."

"Devourer of space and time," Yeul said and Vanille startled at her sudden appearance, "destructor of all things. The void is nothingness and the void is chaos. What could Bhunivelze derive from such a thing? It is against all he desires."

Queen said, "Bhunivelze was not stable when the pact was made."

"We will disrupt it," King said.

Vanille found her mouth dry, but said, "If Bhunivelze made a pact with such a thing, then Hope—"

King said, "Void comes later. Right now, our focus remains on getting our missing people dealt with."

Vanille barely felt her feet. They ran on timers and they couldn't beat every clock. She wanted to go home. To Oerba, with people she knew. Flowers at the outskirts of the village. The bright sunrise, the calming sunset. Fang, ever at her side. Mwynn, soothing her fears.

She ran. The others barely reacted.

She traded her life for that of a l'Cie and never thought she would regret it so much. Days spent searching for signs of life before Cocoon and the people she never imagined could be so nice.

And now, after so many centuries, they still faced gods trying to kill them. The one being they could trust already died forever.

She found herself stopping on the beach. The waters could take her so far but never far enough.

Resolute, she stepped in and kept walking until she slipped into the Historia Crux. Gravity failed and she flew.

Trey explained to her once how this place worked, but she didn't remember a word he said when the vast and grandiose view of the turning gears greeted her.

Time passed. Exits too. None of them felt right, and if she went out the wrong one, she didn't know where she would find herself.

But she had to pick one eventually.

Another appeared in the distance and she steeled herself, then shoved toward it. Moved on down to the exit, past spinning metal and fluctuating stars to that glowing light.

Closed her eyes as it enveloped her and opened again in time to land on a dark world. To land in night, where dark clouds covered the sky and no light illuminated the toughened, dirt ground.

Nowhere looked better than the empty distance, so she struck off that way and breathed in the fresh air of night that left her feeling more alive than Valhalla ever could.

She grew tired of the quiet and muttered to herself as if Sazh was there to shake his head at her "oddities."

The world here wasn't green and full of life, but cracked and dry. Arid. The dead ground stretched on for miles and took the place of old mountains. Maybe she'd find someone to tell her how a mountain disappears.

"It's not fair," she muttered. Fifteen hundred years and a whole other life, and she still fought gods. All she wanted was to be with the rest of her family. To live a life with them and never part again.

Why did the gods insist on standing in the way of that?

Something shuffled nearby and Vanille remembered her old instincts. She crouched and sought the source of the noise before taking slow steps away. She had no weapon thanks to her time in Valhalla and she found only rocks to serve as her defense.

A frail and shambling beast half the size of her watched with frantic eyes as she stepped away. She doubted she could get away, but the lack of body to it betrayed malnutrition enough to shorten the life of it by some margin.

"Wait," Vanille said. "I'm not a good source of food, you know. I'm… well, I guess I'll probably just come right back if you kill me. But I don't want to test that right now."

The beast, which looked like a mix between a gorgonopsid and a sheep, but more feral, shifted gaze between her and someplace else. She felt the poor thing's confusion and desperation like a child caught stealing.

"I'm sorry I don't have any meat on me, and I don't think you'll get much out of plants going by those teeth of yours…"

It would take seconds to minutes if she killed it, and maybe putting it out of its misery was better than leaving it to the harsh conditions of the decimated landscape. But doing so out here ensured that it wouldn't be recycled into food for other animals and she wouldn't gain anything herself, therefore creating waste.

"I shouldn't decide for you," Vanille said.

The critter still looked confused.

Vanille took it and returned to walking while the thing whined in her arms. "But I can look for someone that can help. Or we'll find something else if we have to. Maybe we'll find a fresh corpse! Or some jerky!"

The land didn't offer much, but she eventually found a fire in the distance that warmed one man. He stood above dancing blue lights engraved in the dirt and chopped some root vegetable into a pan carried by wire above the fire.

Vanille approached him and called, "Hello! Do you have enough to share?"

He kept chopping. "What are you doing so far from Lestallum?"

"Um. I needed to think. But more importantly, I found a little someone that needs food."

"I assumed you a hunter, but that sounds like a young boar you have."

"Protecting lives doesn't make me not a hunter."

Firelight danced in the glasses he wore. "My name's Ignis. Pleased to make your acquaintance."

"Vanille." She looked at the food he cooked. "What are you making?"

"A simple garden curry."

"Can I share?"

"I don't see why not."

"What about my friend?"

The man moved his head in odd motions and Vanille wondered why he wouldn't look directly at them. "So long as he saves plenty for the rest of us."

"I think I'll call him 'Baktirel.' What do you think?"

"I think I never heard where you came from. Are you new to this place?"

"In a sense. It's bit of a long story."

"I imagine we'll find the time."

Vanille felt a pang of guilt at his soft tone and looked for stars. "How long are the nights here? You'll want to sleep, won't you?"

"Perhaps a different long story will be necessary. From which planet did you come?"

"Is it that obvious?"

"We haven't seen the sun on this world for over a year. Get the plates, will you? They're behind me."

She did so and by habit said, "Dark nights make the mornings all the brighter, right? The sun will rise, and everything will be made right again. Don't you think?"

"Assuming it ever ends."

"… I've only been here for an hour or so. I just… wanted some company. And a change of scenery, I guess."

"Why did you leave?"

"It's, well… my world's gone now."

"Gone? Or changed too much to be yours?"

She didn't even consider that Gran Pulse's desolate husk might still lay out in the stars. "Both, I suppose. Why do you have four sets of these dishes?"

"Because I like to be prepared. Are you the last left?"

"No, but I'm still trying to find my family."

"Is that why you're here?"

"Sort of." She helped him set up a table and move the curry over to dish into plates. In addition to the curry, he had hot rice ready to go with it.

Ignis sat and gestured for her to do the same before he asked, "Do you plan to stay on Eos for long?"

"Not really." She gave most of her food to Baktirel, who lapped it up. "But… what happened to the sun?"

"Disease of a sort. Until such time as our king returns, it will remain dark. Hence the daemons, if you've met them."

"Daemons?"

"They appear in the dark and with the night eternal, the only way to keep them at bay is with manmade light, or a haven."

Vanille looked to the blue lights about them while Ignis took his first bites. "And this is a haven?"

"Indeed."

"That sounds terrible."

"We manage. I worry more for newcomers like yourself that haven't spent your time adapting to our harsh environment."

"I doubt you'll see many more than me." Vanille tasted the curry because she could and it tasted amazing, wasteful though it was for her to take what she didn't need. "You said some don't believe that the sun will ever come back out. Do you think that, too?"

"… I believe the night will end, but I am in a unique position to do so."

"Really?"

"I have, shall we say… inside information."

Vanille watched him eat, then took her shoes off and felt the ground with her bare toes.

The earth carried a thousand warped stories of where it had come from and why it spun here now. It sucked away her anxiety and calmed her racing heart. Mwynn may be gone, but this stone was almost as old. It came from other places and saw many things before it settled into this solid planet and provided so much life. It felt like Hecaton.

Deeper down, she felt a similar presence. Not quite Hecaton, but still a guardian of the earth, shaped and molded as part of the planet. Only, this one felt cold and…

"… Dead?" Vanille whispered, throat constricted. "Titan, he's dead?"

Ignis cocked his head and looked past her. "How would you know about that?"

"How wouldn't you?"

"I know."

"And that doesn't worry you? Are there others like him?"

"Any that yet survive are not likely friends. But yes, Titan's death is part of why our star has gone dark, so it is worrisome."

"But you fight anyway?"

"As I said before, we must. Otherwise, we die."

"How? Aren't you blind?"

"I am, but I make a point of not letting that inhibit me from what I consider most important."

"I'm still making excuses." Vanille's face burned and she stroked Baktirel, who nestled at her ankle. "But I've been fighting for so long. This might not be the end, but if I turn my back, I'll be abandoning them."

"Them?"

"My… friends." And also, the worlds and the universe. And that was unforgiveable.

"I'm sure you'll find your way back to each other. Aren't you going to eat?"

She looked to Baktirel's polished plate, then to her scraped one. "I did."

"You're a quiet one, then."

She wanted to be there, fighting alongside Lightning and Fang and the others. Not for blood or vengeance, she'd lost her taste for that a long time ago. But for the sake of her own ego.

Vanille felt the earth again and let it soothe her fears before replacing her shoes. She wanted to be there when they found Dajh and Hope and she wanted to be the one to show that it would all turn out okay.

"Thanks, Ignis." She drank her allotment of water and stood. "I've got to go."

He raised his cup to the right of her. "Travel safe."

"Will do!" She turned and ran back the way she came.

She would protect everyone.


A/N: I'll be out of town next week and will miss the normal upload. But I'll pick up as usual the week after.