Chapter Three
This entire scene is a nightmare.
Corrin has known many people who wish they could go back to a pivotal moment in their life and redo it. (He knows how they feel, because he is one of them.) He doesn't pity them, and sometimes prays that people never find themselves back at pivotal moments in life.
It's h***.
Repeating an abrupt, unforgiving moment that shapes your future is true h***.
So, Corrin looks between the two sides, sees his two older brothers, and wonders if he is in h***.
The world fades to black as the nightmare of his life continues. He is presented with three choices, instead of two.
Defend Hoshido
(Such an impulsive choice.)
Fight with Nohr
(A silly wish.)
Refuse to choose a side
Corrin's mouth opens in a silent gasp.
It looks too good to be true, and it probably is, but he reaches a hand out and selects his choice.
He loves his family in Nohr. Twenty years old, and fifteen years spent growing up in a tower and being loved by only people from Nohr. He will forever regret his first time making the choice.
He has grown to love the family he made in Hoshido; the people he was meant to grow up with. The land that is so bountiful you never go hungry, even after days on the road. He will forever regret the placid role he played as slaughter happened around him in his second choice.
"I…" the world fades into colour and he can see the hopeful, insistent looks on his older brothers' faces. "I won't betray anyone."
He watches with growing horror as their faces turn blank, cold, and stony.
;;;
()
He died.
And then he was standing at a cliff, watching the lives of everyone he loved continue without him.
The fairy showing him these futures wasn't even half done when they were interrupted.
His boss came from the shade of the forest and offered him a choice. Finish watching these memories, jump into the whirlpool beneath the cliff, and go to whatever afterlife he believed in… or continue to live, and help keep time and space in order.
Sometimes he wonders what would have happened if he chose to jump.
He doesn't kid himself, though. He wasn't – and still isn't – ready to die.
;;;
()
Queen Mikoto is dead, and it's all Nohr's fault.
That's all Corrin can think about as he stares between his brothers for the first time. This choice is easy for him, still feeling the anger and pain of that first dragon transformation. The thoughts swirling through Corrin's head repeat, stuck in a loop that shines Nohr in a bad light. It isn't hard, though. Years of resentment and anger are all there, bubbling at his surface. The only reason he hasn't snapped yet is because of his family – the one who raised him – staring at him with hopeful and begging expressions. He is going to disappoint them, and it is going to kill him.
But Queen Mikoto is dead, and Nohr is to blame.
It is not the only reason Corrin picks Hoshido first. Corrin has spent his life in the middle of nowhere. He has spent his life in a castle his supposed father locked him in. His siblings had the rare visit for most of his childhood, and sometimes it feels they had come less now that they are older.
He felt so isolated and lonely in the castle. Even Jakob and Felicia, his two closest friends, never stayed in his castle all the time. They were allowed to shop, to leave, and got called to the capital when parties and events went on. Lilith was there even less than them, sometimes going on trips for months at a time. Gunter, the closest thing Corrin had to a real father, had duties to attend to and could never stick around. Other attendants at the castle-in-the-middle-of-nowhere were switched out regularly before Corrin could get to know them well.
There was so much built up anger and resentment that choosing Hoshido is the easy choice…
…Until Corrin comes to regret it.
;;;
()
He just wants for everything to be okay.
With all the pain and death siding with Hoshido caused, Corrin thinks that it can't possibly be worse in Nohr. He picks the siblings he grew up with, and the family he made in Hoshido - before the reset - loses their minds. He can't take back the choice now, no matter how much pain he is in. Every blow against the Hoshido siblings rips him apart inside, and Corrin has to take a step back to not break down on the battle field.
He has so many suspicions on how this could end, but he has more hope that this route will end better than Hoshido's.
He wishes it will end better.
Oh, how he wishes, with every part of him that is being torn, with every blow he delivers, that it will end better.
At the end of the first battle, after Hoshido has fled and before the long route of siding with Nohr, Corrin hugs Elise and struggles not to cry. The girl is delighted and hugs him back, unaware of the fact that Corrin is just reminding himself that she is alive.