A/N: Hi guys! Here's chapter 37 of COTF, and we only have one last chapter (and an epilogue) before this series ends! This is the end of the battle and shows a bit of what happens after, but the next one we'll really have some last family/ship moments and I hope you all enjoy!
—
At Lumi Castle
Nacht watched as the young Noir looked confused at his statement, she was young so she probably didn't quite understand what he meant by 'go away'. He watched as Noir looked from him to Discordia.
" What does he mean mama?" She asked Discordia innocently, and the dark haired woman shook her head.
" N-Nothing, don't worry about it!" Discordia told her softly as she cut Nacht a look, but he ignored her.
" You see Noir, there's a future version of you that's out there doing really terrible things right now. She took the children from their parents, much like what happened to your 'mama's' child." Nacht began and Noir tilted her head.
" She did? Why?" Noir asked innocently, and Nacht shrugged.
" We don't know. But does it really matter?" He asked. " Right now, she's hurting a lot of people and is doing really bad things. Don't you want to stop her?"
" But if I leave, mama will be sad." Noir argued softly as she looked back at Discordia.
" She will, but it's okay because she has many people she can lean on. But those other kids don't have many people to lean on, and they're sad too. Don't you want to be the one to take their sadness away?"
Nacht knew what he was doing was wrong, he was manipulating the devil into doing what he asked. A part of him felt something akin to guilt, but he was just doing what had to be done in order to save his cousin and his squad.
" Will you be one of the people my mama can lean on when I go away?" Noir asked, and Nacht thought for a moment.
He looked over and saw tears of anger and sadness streaming down Discordia's face. It was true that the two rarely got along, but he knew what this pain was like. The pain of losing someone you loved so much. It was as though you were in never ending anguish.
" I'll try to be." Nacht assured the devil and he watched his cousin's head snap up and turn in his direction. Although he highly doubted his cousin would want anything to do with him after this, he still wanted to assure Noir that he would try his best to be there for Discordia.
" Okay…then I'll go." Noir said hesitantly but Discordia instantly wrapped her arms around her and shook her head.
" No! You're not going anywhere." Discordia insisted, but Noir pushed away from her a bit and looked her in the eyes.
" But I have to mama, people are sad and hurt because of me, and you always said when you hurt someone you have to pay for it. So doesn't that mean I have to pay for it?" She asked Discordia, and the older woman looked down.
The dark haired woman really didn't have a response for that, other than she had meant for the bad guys to pay for what they did. Noir wasn't a 'bad guy', at least not to Discordia.
" Let me do this mama," Noir said softly as she patted her on the head, much like Discordia had done to her in the past. " let me make the other kids less sad please?"
Discordia let out a sigh before nodding and giving Noir another hug, she looked over at Nacht who stared down at the ground.
Soon Nacht stood up and extended his hand towards the devil, and she took it as Discordia let her go. As Nacht and Noir walked towards the door he could hear his cousin sobbing softly behind him.
" Discordia," Nacht said as he turned a bit to look at her. " Once all this is over, I'll help you find your real daughter." He added, he heard her stop sobbing for a moment, probably from surprise if he had to guess.
Nacht then turned and walked out of the room with Noir, when he did Gimodelo appeared on his shoulder and looked at him curiously.
" Nacht, are you really gonna help her find her daughter?" He asked and Nacht nodded. " Why?"
" Because Morgen would want me too." Nacht answered simply before using his Shadow magic to take him back to the group.
—
Back in the City
" So come at me with everything you got!"
Yami, Hikari, and Charlotte all looked at each other and nodded. She wanted everything they had? Then that's what they'd give her!
The three each used their magic to dodge, block, or attack the devil, and Noir did the same. With her Fear magic she created monsters that came straight out of nightmares, but the three weren't phased, and took them down with ease.
" Dammit!" The devil growled, she knew she wouldn't be able to get close enough to them to use their fears against them like she had before.
So instead she decided to try a different way.
" You know that white haired kid, what was his name…ah right Alistar! You know he wasn't supposed to die right?" Noir asked as she tried to dodge Charlotte's Briars and Yami's Dark Slashes.
" What the hell are you talking about?" Hikari asked as she used her dark spatial magic to send a spell towards her, which Noir wasn't able to dodge in time as it slashed at her arm.
" I wasn't originally going to kill him," Noir said through gritted teeth as she held her arm slightly. " I was going to just manipulate him through my Fear magic like I did with everyone else. But after you killed Botis, well, I changed my mind."
" What's the saying? An eye for an eye?" Noir asked before she felt another slash go across her chest, her eyes widened slightly as she saw Hikari's blue eyes full of anger.
" How dare you," she growled, her voice dangerously low. " how dare you say his name and use him as an excuse for your actions!" She shouted as she sent more spells towards Noir.
" Hikari, calm down!" Charlotte and Yami both shouted, but Yami turned as he suddenly heard the Magical Communication device go off.
" Captain Yami, are you there? Ezio did it!" Vanessa shouted on the other end, and in the background Yami heard Finral shout.
" I can't believe he actually did it!"
" You didn't think I could?!" Yami heard Ezio shout in disbelief, and Yami smirked.
" Great work you three! We'll try to wrap things up here!" Yami shouted as he and Charlotte used their magic to block an attack from Noir.
" V-Vice Captain Nacht?" He heard Finral ask and Yami frowned a bit.
" I'm here, and I brought the past Noir with me. So let's get this done and over with." Nacht said with a sigh.
" No! Nononono NO!" Noir screamed, and she went to run towards where Nacht and the others were. But Charlotte used her Briar magic to wrap around her leg.
" No you don't!"
" Let go of me!" Noir screamed as she tried to send more monsters towards them, but Yami was able to cut them down before they even reached Charlotte.
" Do it now!" Yami said into the device, and he heard Nacht sigh again.
" Don't tell me what to do." He muttered, the communication device went silent for a while and the only sounds that could be heard were Noir's angry screams.
" It's done, Noir's gone." Nacht said into the device, and Yamu, Charlotte, and Hikari all looked.
The Noir from the future slowly began to disappear right in front of them.
" Do…you really think this is…the end?" Noir asked with a humorless laugh.
" Yeah, I do." Hikari said as she lifted up her katana. " but if you do somehow manage to come back, we'll be ready for you." She added before she quickly used her magic to send a slash at Noir, effectively making the devil disappear completely.
—
After Noir disappeared, all the townspeople were freed from her spell. None of them had any memories of what happened, and in a way all the families were relieved about that. Because they could only imagine how the townspeople would feel knowing they had attacked others.
When everyone regrouped back in Spade and decided to go back to Clover to report to Julius, Ciel assured them that she would help rebuild Lumi and would have strong discussions with their royal family.
Back in Clover, the group quickly went to the castle and walked into the meeting room to see Julius standing there with a smile on his face, and the Witch Queen standing next to him.
" You all did it, great work everyone!" Julius said proudly as everyone stood in front of him.
" Did…we really do it?" Hikari asked as she looked at the Witch Queen, who nodded slowly.
" Yes you did, your future has completely changed. But for the better or worse is yet to be determined." She said cryptically and Ezio stepped forward nervously.
" Um, where exactly did I send Noir?" He asked and everyone turned to look at him.
" You don't know where you sent her?!" Everyone shouted in disbelief, and Ezio jumped as his face paled.
" No?!"
" Don't worry," the Witch Queen said calmly as she crossed her arms. " You sent her to a completely different reality, so unless she somehow finds another person with a similar ability to yours, she won't be able to come back to this one." She added with a small smile.
" So…I did it?" Ezio muttered and he felt Aloys clap him on the shoulder with a smile.
" You did." The Witch Queen confirmed, and Josslyn smirked as she threw an arm over Ezio's shoulder.
" Wow, you're not as useless as I thought." She told him light heartedly. " But I gotta say pinky, you did good." She added with a small genuine smile, and Ezio felt his heart skip a beat.
" So, that means everything that's happened so far has been undone right?" Hikari asked curiously, and the Witch Queen shrugged.
" More or less, why?" She asked curiously, before Hikari's eyes went wide.
" Then, does that mean Alistar's alive?" She asked softly and hesitantly, she didn't dare to get her hopes up, because if Hikari were being honest, she had a feeling it was a long shot.
" It's…possible." The Witch Queen said with a small frown, and Hikari felt her heart skip a beat. The dark haired woman quickly turned and ran out of the room, with her parents and the others right behind her.
" We're sorry about this Lord Julius." William said with a small salute, but Julius shook his head.
" It's alright, you can all go and report everything to me later. You all deserve a break so feel free to take a day or two." Julius said with his smile in place, William nodded as he followed the others out of the room.
Hikari ran down stairs to the infirmary where Alistar's body had been, if he was alive, then that's where he had to be! She threw the door open and looked around with wide, hopeful eyes.
But he wasn't there.
She looked around the room, and then looked down the hall. There wasn't anyone in sight, not Owen, or any other healer that could tell her where Alistar's body went.
" Hikari-." Yami started as he and Charlotte caught up with their 'daughter', and the dark haired girl frowned in confusion.
" He's not here, but if he isn't here then where would he be?" Hikari muttered as she began to wrack her brain, Charlotte walked up to her.
" Hikari, maybe-?" She started but Hikari cut her off as an idea popped into her head.
" The house! He would go back to the house to look for us!" She said with a hopeful look on her face, she quickly ran past her 'parents' and the two looked at each other with the same look.
They were worried she was getting her hopes up.
—
Hikari quickly grabbed Finral and asked him to take them back to their temporary house, he looked at Yami and once he got the go ahead Finral quickly made a portal to take them back to the house as Ezio used what remained of his mana to carry everyone else.
Once the group was outside the house Hikari quickly ran inside and began to go room by room, shouting for Alistar to come out if he was there. Everyone else stood outside and waited as they could hear her shouting.
But after a few minutes Hikari walked out, with a sad and confused look on her face.
" I don't understand," Hikari said softly as she walked towards her parents. " We fixed everything, and the Witch Queen said we did, so why isn't he here?"
" The Witch Queen said it was possible that he was back, not that it was certain he was." Charlotte told her softly as she placed a hand gently onto her shoulder. Yami placed a hand gently on Hikari's head.
" I'm sorry, brat." Yami said softly as he noticed Hikari was trying to blink away the tears in her eyes.
As the dark haired woman looked around she noticed that everyone had a sad look either on their face or in their eyes, they had all been hoping that Alistar would come back too. So to see that he hadn't, really hurt them.
" What's going on? Why is everyone outside?"
Hikari's head shot up at the familiar voice as everyone else turned around to look as well, her eyes widened in disbelief and she gaped like a fish out of water.
Standing behind them was Alistar himself, alive and well, and with a somewhat confused look on his face but with that same warm smile on his face. He was here…he was alive! Without thinking, Hikari quickly ran towards the white haired man and threw herself into his unsuspecting arms.
" H-H-Hey Hikari!" Alistar shouted as he quickly fell to the ground with a 'thump', he quickly sat up and felt Hikari's arms tighten around his neck.
" You jerk! You bastard!" She shouted angrily as tears fell from her eyes. " You scared me half to death!"
" I-I-I'm sorry! I got caught up talking to the Vermillion twins when I left the infirmary, and then I had a quick stop to make before coming here!" Alistar tried to defend himself, but Hikari moved back a little and began to punch his shoulder firmly.
" Don't you ever scare me like that again! If you ever do that again, I'll revive you and kill you again do you understand?!" She asked him angrily before wrapped her arms around him again and began to cry into his shoulder.
Alistar's eyes widened as he realized what Hikari was talking about, he felt his face turn a small shade of pink as he gently, and hesitantly, wrapped his arms around her as well.
" I'm sorry, I won't do that again. I promise." He told her softly, he held her close as she cried.
" You'd better keep that promise, Pretty Boy." Yami warned dangerously as he, and the others, watched the two.
" Y-Yes sir!"
