'He was right.'

The words echoed in my head, snapping me back into consciousness. Sluggish and weary, I almost went back under, but the pain kept me chained to reality.

The broken tiles immediately around me glistened with a deep red. The smell of blood, smoke, and the unnatural stench that followed after a strong spell filled the room. I swung my head, suddenly heavy, to scan the room. My vision was blurry and black crept in on the edges, but I could still make out someone on the ground wearing armor. Well, what was left of them anyways.

The wind whistled through the hallways, so loud and forceful that for a moment I could swear I was back on the plains of Almyra, west of the capital. But I knew this place, I knew it better than almost anyone else. I had spent a year, maybe two, scrubbing each hall clean and having the sound of my home etched into my brain, every sight, smell, and sound.

The wind had no business being that loud here.

The wind danced through the halls, carrying the sounds of metal clashing metal, of metal carving through flesh, and of metal and hooves pounding stone. I tried to pull myself off the blood and dirt covered floor, but my elbow slipped and I fell hard on my back. I could only wince as the breath was driven from my body. Only now did I begin to take in my circumstances; beyond the general aches and pains, it hurt to blink, hurt to move, hurt to breathe-.

'Shut it,' I snapped at myself, pulling my thoughts together as best I could while trying to catch my breath, 'Someone's still fighting, they need ya up and moving, not hyperventilating on the floor'. Every part of me was in pain, but that just meant that I was still alive. And I needed to get moving, 'From the sound of things, the battle ain't going so well. What can ya see?' My head flopped painfully to the side, landing in a puddle of drying blood, the impact jarred my senses into order, clearing up my vision.

A small part of me wished that I hadn't turned my head.

I could see the town at the foot of Garreg Mach, burning and smoking like a pile of fresh firewood. The billowing towers of black smoke rose into the sky, where the winds took the remains of the town and carried them away. Buildings, animals, and people - all turned to ash.

I could feel the veins in my neck tighten at the thought of being bent and twisted into something else entirely.

A soldier I could be, follow blindly down whatever dark road I needed to, maybe regret it like some of the greybeards and older knights seemed to. Live the rest of my life around a campfire with a bottle. A damned and miserable road, but one I could have made the choice to walk on.

But a slave? No, thank you.

Being dead and scattered on the wind was the preferable option between the two. I looked down at my side to see exactly what I was dealing with and hissed at what I saw, pretty sure that "dead-and-scattered" was the direction I was heading as well.

Blisters of dark magic ate up my side, leaving it a charred and discolored mess. Muscles I didn't even know I had were strained, pulling and popping as the magic pushed, pulled, burned through my body, but there wasn't anything I could do about it. Hell, with the massive burn that tore up the right side of my body, it was all I could do to keep breathing and bleeding on the floor, half crushed under the weight of the wyvern Rhea had assigned me. One that she would not be getting back.

Even in the state I was in, the situation I was in, I couldn't help but sigh in disappointment as I racked up another debt.

The sounds of boots thudded towards me up the stairs. A violent pulse of anger swept over me, my rattled head somehow concerned with the dirt that those boots were bringing into the Monastery. Not like I'd be around to clean it, but the thought of someone dirtying the monastery sent me into a cold fury. Had nothing to do with the Goddess, whoever she was, or even the church itself.

This was my home. A place to live, to grow, and to work, where I always welcome. A place given to me if I promised to give my everything for it. It was about time. The pain of the shattered tiles skin was as cold as the anger, but what little I could feel was enough to keep me conscious.

'Shouldn't it hurt more? I mean, it hurts like nothing I've felt, but uh...' the greybeards had told me when I was young that if you had a choice of deaths, you'd be better off being run through by a dozen spears than take a single curse. They stuck to the soul and tore it to bits. They reduced hardened Chiefs to puddles of shit, piss, and tears. 'Why doesn't it hurt more?'

My scattered mind struggled to keep a single thought in focus- 'What's that smell?' 'Where's Shamir?' 'Didn't ya have two eyes?' -before my left hand, my steady hand, reached out and grabbed my bow.

Invaders.

The Empire had broken the truce, declared war on the Church, and attacked the Monastery.

Edelgard had betrayed Rhea.

The Professor-

'Seteth was right.'

The thought that had woken me up rang through my head as I struggled into a sitting position, grimacing as pain, excruciating and sudden, flared up through my fried right arm. The smell clung to me, and as I looked around I realized that I had been the luckiest - or simply the hardest to kill - of those within the blast. One of the perks of being me: strong enough to survive, but still weak enough to lose. Armor melted and warped around bodies, weapons shattered and broken around the hall with no way to tell the knights from our enemies. The smoking corpse of a full grown wyvern on my legs, my right knee buckling in a way that was in no way natural while my left shin was shattered entirely.

'How did it go so sideways?'

We fought off the first wave of soldiers as they came roaring up the road, spears and swords at the ready as the battalion I had been told to 'lead' met them and kept them busy. I took any openings I saw and did my best to relieve pressure on anybody who looked to be in over their head, but I was in over my head. First time riding a dragon into battle, first time leading men, and I was trained as an Archer.

A perfect storm of bad ideas.

I was meant to be in a tree somewhere, waiting for my target to do something stupid so I could make my move. Waiting and watching, reporting on troop movements. No one should have been able to see me, let alone attack me, and never in a thousand years should I have been dodging arrows and spears on top of an angry lizard. I must have made quite the target, a kid riding a dragon, because everyone and their mother seemed to be aiming at me. It was all I could do to return fire.

I'd even been doing all of that well, when I thought about it like that.

I barely saw the blast coming, a ball of black and purple twisting even as it honed in on the entrance that Lady Rhea had told me to hold. My eyes looked around the hall with a quick glance, seeing the sweaty and exhausted faces of the men I held the hall with.

And then the big lizard moved, and the spell broke upon both of us.

Judging by the state of the place, me and the wyvern were not enough to stop it. The entire battalion of knights, brought low by a single spell. I felt nothing when I saw the skin of my right arm, a mess of cracked and broken skin and purple smoke that looked more like the claw of a monster than the hand I had known my entire life. That was still better than how it had left the rest of the hall, seeing as I was the only one still breathing.

Not to mention whatever the right side of my face looked like, heck, I was pretty sure I'd lost the eye.

A small part of me wondered how someone could fire such a nasty spell on their own men for the sake of winning, the men we'd been occupied with, but the rest of it slapped that thought down quickly.

This was war, no matter the treaties and fancy words or royal blood. And I knew war better than most, had known it since I was just a kid. People made it seem so clean and pretty once it was done, with neat little rows of graves and flowing poetry in song. In reality people die, and commanders make hard calls. Sometimes men get thrown away. Everything and anything was on the table, no matter how low of a blow. Besides, this was the Empire.

They probably thought fifty or so men was a pretty cheap cost to take the Monastery. As far as they were concerned, honor was a personal matter not made for war.

Pissed me off to think about it, honestly.

The sound of encroaching boots pulled me from the thoughts, and most likely the shock that was making my mind wander, and reminded me of my job. Rhea had begun evacuating the remaining staff in the Monastery the moment the village of Garreg Mach, the decidedly neutral village, had been hit. Civilians were not safe with Empire forces, and you needed time to evacuate them.

Time I hoped had been bought with my life.

'Really don't wanna die here,' I thought as I tried to move again, my limbs barely moving when I asked them to, 'But that's what it's lookin' like. Damn it.' Maybe somebody else would have been praying to the Goddess if they were here, or maybe begging for their life.

I was just annoyed, maybe a bit spiteful.

Who were they to kill me? I still had debts to pay, people to help. And now I was dying in my home because someone wanted to… do whatever they wanted to do. Wage war on the church of all the stupid things to do.

If I was going to die, like hell I'd make it easy for those boots to get closer.

My disfigured arm bucked and twitched as the curse slowly ate through the skin, but I ignored it with the focus only granted by being this close to death and reached for an arrow that had fallen from my quiver. I readied my bow as the clanging of boots and armor made their way up the stairs. I let out my breath as the crest of a helm peeked into my vision and released the string of my bow. Without waiting to see if I had hit my target, I snatched another arrow, cursing like a sailor when the battered shaft shattered in my rugged and raw fingers.

Voices rose at the entrance and I grabbed the last arrow within reach. I pulled the string back as best my broken body could, and my eyes tightened when I saw who was there- 'Traitor' -and let the string loose as they raised their hand, the telltale sign of a magic circle in the air in front of them. 'Sorry,' I genuinely thought, despite the situation.

I liked him, really and truly. He looked at me like I was just me, not some kid, and that was hard to come by. But- 'but it doesn't matter who you are. I'd fight the Goddess herself if I had to.' The arrow struck true and slammed home into his shoulder, barely missing his outstretched hand as the spell activated.

The ball of fire homed in on me so much faster than any arrow I had ever shot. The force of the spell slammed me to the ground and I felt my legs try to pull themselves apart underneath the wyvern. Somehow, I managed to keep a hold of both my consciousness and my bow, though just barely. I blinked the flashes of light and spots of black out my eye as my vision swam and tried my best to sit up once more, but all too soon I found the point of a sword under my chin. I stilled under the weapon, the length of which looked like it was made of bone, before I followed it up to the face of its wielder.

The green hair, the green eyes, they were unfamiliar, but they did little to stop the bone-chilling dread that gnawed at my bones when seeing that face. An ordinary face for such an extraordinary individual, he was a man of few emotions, even when staring down an enemy on the end of his sword. 'When holding a child at the point of his sword.' It was fitting that the scariest part of him was also the one that made me enjoy his presence, he saw me as a normal guy.

Unfortunately that also meant he'd have little trouble dealing with my death hanging over his head. No different than the dozens of soldiers he'd killed making it here. What's a bit more blood for a seasoned veteran? This was the man that Rhea had allowed into the Church with open arms, employed to teach despite the many issues that it brought.

I had thought at the time that it was because Rhea was simply kinder than anyone had a right to be, but soon after I had heard the rumors. Rumors that Shamir had quietly agreed with, that the new professor was a ruthless mercenary with unmatched skill and not a single loss to his name. A man known to tear through entire companies of enemy forces with nothing but his sword and mind. Someone that Rhea thought could teach and protect the students of the Church, students that happened to be the three heirs to the largest countries on the continent of Fódla and their soon to be vassals.

A man who everyone and their mother thought could hold the weight of the world, for some reason.

This was Byleth, the Professor of the Black Eagles, a swordsman superior to even 'Thunderstrike' Catherine, the Ashen Demon.

And a demon he had proven to be, his betrayal sending Rhea over the edge and setting those of the church into a frenzy to properly defend against it. Armies were called and more came to meet him, but he was still just as calm as when he was teaching a lesson or fishing.

He was kind of terrifying.

'He gave his word,' I justified in my mind, battling against the hurt that threatened to tear my mind apart, 'Ya heard him. He'd protect his students, said so himself. Lady Rhea shoulda known better, asking him to execute one of them.'

The tip of the Creator's Sword tapped me on the bottom of the chin as those eyes bored into my own, or the single one that remained, as the rest of the soldiers closed in around us, all of whom had simple iron spears in their hands as they formed a ring in the hall.

As though I were in any position to escape.

"I have to ask, Cyril," The voice startled me out of my thoughts as I gripped my bow with white-knuckles, the usually silent Professor now addressing me, "Will you join me?" I envied how easily he spoke despite the arrow sticking out from his shoulder and the obviously broken collarbone. I tracked the alien green blood as it slowly inched down the age-old sacred sword, wondering how he could be so calm in a situation like this.

As it stood I could barely breathe without screaming in pain.

I grit my teeth and the tendons strained in my neck as words flew around my head. How he could ask that, I had no idea. He had turned against the world for his people, and he expected me to just fold? Just 'cause I kind of, not really, got why he did what he did, that didn't mean I could just join him and help him burn down the church.

But what did he expect from me? To ditch the church, my home, just because he asked?

I had a job to do. Earning as much time as possible for those I was protecting. I needed to respond.

"Would ya let Rhea live?" It was the first thing I could think of, and it was probably the most important question on my mind.

"If she stood down," He returned easily, and I could only squint in confusion as the men around us shifted. They were obviously uneasy with the talk of forgiving the target of the invasion, the archbishop herself.

But that didn't matter to me. Speaking plainly, I'd never been in a position to actually agree. I was raised by two soldiers until they were killed in the line of duty, and then I was raised by the army to be a soldier myself. I only knew the life of a soldier and servant before Rhea took pity on me and changed my life. It never mattered really what he said or even what anyone in the world did. I only knew one thing.

'A soldier dies standing between that which he can't live without and those that would take it from him.'

It was something that the older veterans had said with a laugh when they were drinking or killing time, quoting some superior or another as a joke. They were laughing because everyone in that 'army' would run at the first sight of actual resistance, which made them all bad soldiers as far as I, them, or whoever they were remembering were concerned.

Maybe they hadn't been meant to put that thought in my head, maybe I was supposed to grow to be just as bad a soldier as they were, but those words made sense to me. Running away, abandoning the fight, to put so little of themselves into a battle. Didn't they owe the army anything? Their ability to sleep without fear, eat well and regularly, or even just a purpose. Those were all things I'd have killed to have at some point in my life, things I'd have died to have.

And so I fought hard, not well by any standard, but I put in the effort.

Which probably explained why I was captured all those years ago, never wanting to run away and all that. Running just never occurred to me as an option, honest. Probably explained why I was on the end of the Professor's sword, too.

Or maybe it was because I was young, I don't really know. The years of being a servant hadn't exactly kept me sharp, that much was for certain. Shooting a target was a little different than live combat. Hunting was a bit different, too.

But in the end, none of that mattered. I know who I am.

Currently the guy that's stalling for a whole bunch of people, just because they lived in the monastery. Because this place was my home, and protecting it was the price of living here for the year and a half I had. Never needed to be more complicated than that.

"I am where I stand," I bit out around the blood as my right arm finally gave out and fell to the floor, internally laughing at the thought of being able to stand right now, "In between you and the people that you'd burn." I tried to shrug, but aborted when my entire body lit up in pain. Didn't matter much at that point what I said or did, because I'm pretty sure he got the point.

I heard the leather of gloves tightening around spears, but as usual the Demon showed little sign of what he was thinking. Whether he understood what I was saying or was too blinded by his thoughts was up in the air, but I had used up all of my thinking for the day.

I simply did. Chores needed doing, I did them. Enemy needed to be ended, I took the shot. Trying to explain why I did anything to someone was never going to be easy.

Because I'm a moron, as I'd been told more than once. Thinking wasn't easy, understanding why people or things did this and that, but speaking was even worse. Was just a waste of time as far as I was concerned.

Not that I didn't think it through, either. Wasn't any good at it, to no one's surprise, but I was told it was good practice for hunting, so I tried my best. Tried to put myself into someone else's shoes and all that. Maybe some of the people I shot were innocent and just doing their job, maybe they didn't need to die, maybe I could have just snuck around.

It's just that debt came first, that's all.

I owed Rhea, and that was that. No more thinking necessary, really. Right, wrong, those didn't matter. Rhea did right by me when no one else did, and I owed her everything. Who was I to tell her no?

The worst part of that, of the following someone you thought deserved it, was when you disagreed with them. She had called for the execution of an empress in front of those that chose to follow her. If someone had told me to execute Rhea… Wasn't a good call.

I imagine that I would have done the exact same thing the professor had. How she thought that was gonna go any better I have no idea. What that didn't explain to me was how the professor could sleep at night. He might have promised to protect his students, but he also said he'd serve Rhea. He broke his promise.

But he did it because he wanted to follow through on another promise, so-

I shut down the thoughts as they began to get away from me, wishing I just had a broom in my hand or a brush scrubbing a pan. Some nice mind-numbing work, enough to keep the thoughts out. The doubts, the anger, the everything.

Instead I was dying in the hall that I scrubbed weekly. Great.

"...And I will not take that from you," He finally stated in his usual monotone, as he adjusted his grip on the sword to properly hold it with one hand. "Stubborn to the last, as always," he spoke clearly and calmly, making me squint at him for the way he phrased that, but letting it slide. I was dying, not really the time for questions.

Here's hoping I'd get a nice burial if Rhea remembered to scoop up my body. If not, I hope no one wasted their time mourning me.

That'd just be sad.

His eyes hardened as he took a step forward, and if I looked hard enough I thought I could see another emotion in them. The spiteful part of me hoped it was anger, maybe annoyance, or something else that could be exploited by those that would fight him later. Maybe my death would be the chink in this madman's armor.

Probably not, though. He barely even looked phased as his blood soaked blade broke through my skin.

I smiled as death came closer, the stink of it already filling the air from the soldiers butchered around me. I was nothing more than another death on the day, and nothing less. I wondered when I'd pass on, when some ghost when come and ferry me to the gods, or even if i'd just fall into nothingness. Sounded fun.

A moment turned into many, and moments stretched out until I realized none of that was going to happen. I could only watch, my eyes glued to the professor, his face chipped from stone as the wind stopped and the sounds of battle left me. Neither of us breathed, and my body refused to move, to take advantage of this opportunity. I tried to scream, but my lungs didn't respond. I tried to do anything at all, but couldn't.

Instead I was trapped in this moment of time. Unable to do anything except… experience death.

I couldn't even close my eyes.

So there I sat, staring at the blade stuck in my chest, the green blood that ran down it to stop at my chest, and the demon holding it.


This had gone on long enough. Too many times had he seen the past tampered with, futures rewritten. Too many things have changed to even call this the same world he once lived in, so far from the simple and brutal warfare of his life. His body slept once more, but his soul was restless. Stuck outside of time, he was forced to watch some young Godling tamper with something he didn't understand, and in the process risk existence itself. With each explosion of magic a new crack formed, it was only a matter of time before this world fell apart.

No longer.

Time itself is being destroyed by this interloper, Whether they meant to or not they had awoken him from his long sleep. He had a chance, a chance to stop them from making more mistakes. 'I would not let it go to waste.'

The Crest that once burned in his chest, a signal fire of past mistakes and of betrayals in the dark, was the only thing that allowed this. That cursed him to this eternal nightmare. He had no body to tie him properly to the flow of time, no way to affect the world, left only to watch like some demented bird perched on this Godling's shoulder.

This place was not supposed to burn this soon. These people were not meant to die like this. The bricks burnt and the tile ran red with blood.

And as always, soldiers lay dead on the floor like leaves in the fall.

If he were still alive, his knuckles would have been broken from trying to beat this Godling to death. These men did not die on their feet, they did not look their death in the eyes. They died because of his treachery. Nothing more, nothing less.

The thought set his mind on fire, familiar anger burning cold in his long dead soul. These were men and women of Fódlan, the land he had fought, bled, and died for. To say nothing of the legacy of his followers, always working and falling for this man's goals. To see them cast aside-

He didn't let it stop him, distract him. This day would be reset even if he did nothing, it was an eventuality. The Godling would not stop, would not even give the dead that peace. Always fighting, always marching. Never resting.

No man should have that power.

And now, just as it always was and would be, the Mother Dragon was silent. She had merged with the young man, son of a failed experiment and a lucky man blessed with the blood of a dragon. The boy was more monster than man, but unlike the other Monsters wearing human skin he hadn't been alive a thousand years, practicing to get his temper, his mind, in order.

Instead, he was given a power no man should have, and had he been a man he would have broken long ago. Unfortunately, he was more dragon than even the Mother Dragon herself. He wanted his brood, all of them, on the same side and he wanted a victory without loss. No loss was acceptable. And anything else was tinder to his flame. Now he was focused on an eternal warpath, with no care given for those he did not know.

The restless soul would not stand for this. The Goddess, 'Mother Dragon' herself, was resting once more. He had a chance to enact his plan, and it had to be quick. The magic was bucking in his grip now, raring to go. He could hold no more, he'd have to make due.

He knew who his enemies were, and where they would be. He would make the calls that the Godling could not force himself to, he would remove the threats that the young dragon thought too dangerous to approach alone.

You'd think the ability to turn back time, to remove any consequence, would make someone a gambler, but the Godling had become the opposite, fearing any consequence so much that anything bad at all would be undone on a moment's notice.

Underneath that stony mask lay a nervous wreck, someone that no sane man would entrust the safety of the world. While he had never been known for his sanity in his life, he had witnessed enough of the Godlings eternity to make him pause. And it was becoming worse, trying to perfect his way through time to figure out how to do it right. And to reset it at the first major setback, one of his students killed, one of his enemies staying alive a moment too long, or even the minor injury of a pupil in training.

Without a thought and without hesitation the world was replaced with an uncomfortable bed and an irritable dragon in his head.

The interloper stopped counting how many times he failed after it reached four hundred.

Before he even knew what he was planning, he began to steal magic from the Godling he was strapped to every time he shifted through time, whether to stop a fatal blow or simply to try to perform better at some inane task it mattered not to him.

An hour's worth here, a month's worth there, and eventually he had a sizable chunk of magical energy enough to move a year or two at most.

An amount that was painful even to look upon, let alone hold in his hand.

The issue is that no matter how strong he had been in life, no matter how deadly his blade, in death he was still but one mortal soul. He was no wellspring of magic like the Godling, he was but a thief in the night taking what his host wouldn't miss. He wasn't the source, he was a beggar stealing table scraps.

And as such, he had very little clue what he was doing. He'd tipped his hand a while back, when both the Godling and his Dragon were asleep and tried his hand at shifting through time.

It had taken years to understand how to go back even five seconds, let alone gather enough power. He had lost entire decades to trying to go back an hour. He had no idea what this magic, or the cost of using it, would do to his soul but he doubted he would be intact after this attempt.

He had only one chance at this, there would be no second try for him.

The only thing he was missing was an anchor to travel to. His body was dead and decaying and he had no way of reviving it even when he'd been alive, so he could not return to it. He was left with only one option.

He needed a new host.

And host was the correct word, for just as he would be carrying them to the past, braving the rivers of time with a weight on his back, they would be his vehicle toward a future, hopefully a better future than any he had seen.

And so he waited, and waited, and waited for a soul to come close enough, or to burn bright enough to gain his attention

His grip on the ball of magic was beginning to slip, the power coursing through nonexistent veins as it sought to destroy his soul. With his free hand he reached out- the boy on the end of the Godling's sword-


My little slice of eternity, my own little afterlife, was peaceful. Probably the most peaceful time I'd ever had.

No dirt fell on the tile, no vermin ran around, and no one needed any help. No chores, no students, no knights, nothing at all. Just me, with a smile on my face and my blood hanging in the air.

I hated every second of it.

The damnable peace shattered as the form of the professor shifted. As I had been since his sword had gone through my chest, I was forced to watch as his pale green eyes shifted to red and unnatural purple flames began to rise from his body. The flames burned brighter and brighter as the seconds dragged on.

And then a second man appeared from within. His eyes burned in true demonic red, with black surrounding them in his sunken and weathered face as he inched forward. He'd have made a more intimidating figure had his face not been contorted in obvious effort and pain, but it wasn't like I could even move to stop him.

I could do nothing as he moved forward, looking just as haggard as I felt. His hand followed the path of the Blade in my chest, before the massive paw clamped down on my wound. There was little pain, at least in comparison to the damage I'd taken earlier, and I could do nothing as he tugged me forward.

The hallways began to shift and darken as everything stretched and bled together into greens, reds and purples, while my brain began to break down under the sight. The Professor disappeared, as did his men, while the sword and its green blood stayed the longest in view as it began to pulse with the same colors I could see, until only the grimacing, red eyed old man was the only thing I could see.

And then he began to break apart, like dirt under a brush. My head began to throb in pain and my heart began to pound in my ears. As the old man's hand came away from my chest, which still felt hot and as heavy as a block of lead.

When my mind began to crash with all the otherworldly sights I was subjected to, I welcomed unconsciousness like an old friend. Maybe when I woke up, the world would make sense again.


End of Chapter.


I like Cyril, but he's underutilized and underdeveloped beyond a passion for Head MILF Rhea and cleaning. Here's hoping I can spin him into someone worth following. Probably not though.

For those wondering, I'm currently rewriting Exercise at the moment to get at the very least the first ten chapters up to snuff, because they hurt me to read.