As Byleth sits atop the immense Throne of Knowledge, his thoughts linger only on how cold it was.
Ever since Sothis had fused their beings together, he was unable to see or hear her. She warned him this would happen of course, but actually experiencing the loss of her presence was harder to come to grips with than he had expected.
Something in his gut told Byleth that just sitting where he had seen her sit in so many of his dreams would bring about a revelation, as Rhea eagerly expected where she stood with the Blue Lions at the base of the carved stone seat's pedestal.
But nothing came.
Byleth tries to emulate the posture he had seen Sothis take; crossing his right leg over his left and leaning his head against the swirling pattern carved into the back of the throne. His short, scruffy hair didn't do nearly as much to coat the space as Sothis' sprawling locks, but at least the new color he had taken on better matched the ethereal light shining over the entire Holy Tomb.
The Archbishop calls to him. "Well?"
As Byleth looks back down on the crowd, he could see the older woman's light green eyes shimmer expectedly and with a childlike enthusiasm. He shudders and takes a deep breath. It felt awful, knowing he was about to dash those hopes.
Rhea turns her head to the floor and closes her eyes as Byleth confirms the worst with a brief headshake. Her hands clasp together in prayer.
"It was supposed to be but a step away…" She says with a sharp pang of reluctance. "What could possibly be missing?"
The young Flayn, still done up in her loosely flowing dancer's attire, gently rests a hand on Rhea's left arm and brushes the fabric of her robe soothingly. The Archbishop looks toward her and smiles, comforted by the gesture.
However, Dimitri — standing just to the Archbishop's right — seems tenser than ever. Each passing second his head ticked more and more to the left, as if perceiving something in his peripherals.
Then he completely whirls around, suspicions confirmed by the sight of soldiers in red-and-black armor marching into the chamber.
"Halt! Reveal yourself!"
Every other student turns once Dimitri calls out, many reaching for their weapons as others simply exchange shocked chatter.
Mysterious soldiers line up rank and file, and from the army's core come two figures: The Flame Emperor, dawning dark and heavy armor pieces contrasting with a pale-white geisha mask; and a commander of the Adrestian Empire that a few of the Blue Lions recognize as Metodey.
"Why is the Imperial army here?" Dedue asks.
"This can't be," Ingrid mutters in turn, slowly shaking her head as she tries to think things over. "How did they get into Garreg Mach?"
By that point Byleth had begun bounding down the large staircase that led up to the Throne of Knowledge. His heavy footsteps echoed even louder than the many individuals marching in from the descending room at the other side of the tomb.
"Even the Flame Emperor is here." Sylvain says as he runs a hand through his orange hair, revelation flashing in his stern gaze. "That can only mean…"
"The Flame Emperor is connected to the Empire." Felix interjects, finishing the thought as he draws a silver sword from the hilt of his uniform. "What do you know."
When Byleth finally reaches the level of his students, he gently pushes a fuming Archbishop aside to stand beside Dimitri at the railing that overlooked the general area of the Holy Tomb. There were two balconies at either end, with rows of stone caskets lining the depressed space in between.
The Prince of Faerghus and the Flame Emperor were talking to one another over the gap, though Dimitri sounded far angrier and more exasperated than the calm, warped voice of their impending opponent.
"I never imagined you'd have the nerve to return here," Dimitri snarls. "What are you after, Flame Emperor?"
"Is it not obvious?" The shady, armored figure throws both arms out to gesture across the space, but the loose draping of their black cloak covered their arms. "The Holy Tomb contains great power. The power to rule all of Fódlan."
"And to attain that power, you'll trample anything that stands in your way. Just like you did in Duscur!"
The Flame Emperor stares blankly back for a moment. Meanwhile, Metodey turns toward their troops. He ushers in a few men.
"I had nothing to do with that," says the Flame Emperor in a tone that sounds somewhat reluctant — though it was hard to tell through the metallic voice.
"Quickly, retrieve the Crest Stones!" They continue. "Kill for them if you must."
Many soldiers begin to descend down into the Holy Tomb proper from staircases that extend down the left and right walls around the entrance balcony. However, most of the Blue Lions are focused on the two whom Metodey brought in, as they dragged an unconscious boy and girl in Officers Academy uniforms along.
Marianne gasps and Annette quickly hides her head in Mercedes' smock as the soldiers throw their captives over the balcony, letting them plummet.
Their broken bodies are soon immersed in thick black clouds, however, which expand and contort before condensing into the immense forms of Experimental Demonic Beasts — the same that had been seen back in the ruined chapel.
Waves of anger and disgust wash over the Blue Lions, none more than Dimitri.
He practically snaps the jade-green stone railing with his bare hands. However, before he can give any sort of command, he's surprised to be usurped by Archbishop Rhea. Her usually motherly, soft tone is lost to a scolding yell.
"Insolence!" She cries out. "You will atone for the sin of trampling on this holy resting place!"
Multiple students stare at her, not used to such an aggressive presence and, frankly, unsure how to proceed. But they all rally into battle-readiness as she continues:
"Professor. Destroy these villainous traitors who dare dishonor our creator!"
Byleth simply nods in reply, face as stoic as ever when he unsheathes his Sword of the Creator and lets it extend out into its barbed whip form aglow with a sun's heat.
The Blue Lions follow their Professor into the Holy Tomb's main chamber, where they split up to meet the myriad of soldiers flanking the caskets along the left and right walls as well as the beasts careening down the open central corridor.
Mercedes, Linhardt, Ashe and Bernadetta are the only students who stay behind with Rhea: Two healers to cast Physic spells from afar and two archers to pepper their foes with a barrage of arrows.
Ingrid, being one of the most lithe members of the makeshift army, is the first to reach a foe as they try to race for the leftmost casket closest to the throne.
She stops his charge with a slick maneuver, sliding to a stop so she can thrust her lance toward the soldier's abdomen. It lodges into him non-lethally, leaving the soldier crying in pain and stuck to her whim. From there he still tries to swipe at Ingrid's head with his sword, but she keeps him at a distance and dodges her upper body back.
Before any of the soldier's allies can come rescue him, Sylvain is able to catch up to Ingrid's scuffle. He rushes past her and leaps into the air, throwing his own lance out like a bat as he descends.
Sylvain's heavy metal weapon practically knocks the soldier's head off with a wicked crack, and then he drops dead before the pair of students.
"Still useful without that winged steed of yours I see?" The redhead comments with a jovial grin.
He's met with a glare.
"Is now really the time to be throwing out jokes?" Ingrid asks with a huff before holding out her lance like a defensive pikesman.
Sylvain shrugs and jumps back to join her in the same pose. Together they're able to block the hallway between the caskets and the wall.
"Probably not. But everyone's going to deal with these traumatic revelations their own way, right?"
The blonde girl rolls her eyes.
"Better than trying to hit on my grandmother, I suppose."
Without losing her pose, Ingrid begins to scoot forward with one leg before bringing the other up to meet it. Sylvain briefly drops the tip of his lance to the floor as his shoulders slump, but he soon pulls himself back together to follow her.
"You're never going to let me live that down, are you?"
On the other end of the Holy Tomb, Felix and Caspar mow through a number of soldiers trying to loot Crest Stones from the burial chamber. The pale green walls are covered with splattered lines of blood from each killing blow Felix manages to cut across the exposed necks of Adrestian soldiers, as well as webbed cracks from each punch that Caspar missed with his heavy iron gauntlets.
As he approaches an open casket near the center of the room, Caspar grabs one man who is rummaging around inside of it by the shoulders, pulls him back up and whirls around to toss the stringy footsoldier into the wall. The unsuspecting man hits his head hard and crumbles back down to the floor, leaving a slight indent on the wall in his wake.
The Crest Stone he had managed to fish out of the casket rolls away.
"My father would be embarrassed if he knew you all were getting so thoroughly beaten by a bunch of students," the blue-haired boy taunts over his recent victim's body.
While he does so, a burly woman with a heavy battleax runs up from behind, ready to strike. Before she has the chance, she's struck by one of Bernadetta's arrows and knocked off course with a harsh grunt. She careens into the top of one of the other caskets, helmet pierced by the sharp projectile.
Caspar turns toward the thud behind him, but is distracted again as Marianne comes over to pick up the discarded Crest Stone.
"Be careful!" She says, voice somewhat higher than usual as she works over hyperventilating from the combat around her.
"Right," Caspar responds starkly, as he's still catching up on what fate almost befell him. "Sorry, I was just… Uh…"
"Chastising our foes?"
If he was having trouble catching up before, now Caspar looked even more lost as he watches Marianne take such a serious — and confident — tone. She stands tall while holding the recovered Crest Stone to her bosom, and he has no idea how to respond.
"… Yeah?"
"That's rude, don't you think?" Marianne lets her eyes drop to the bodies around them and sighs. "Even if they're our enemies, the dead deserve respect. I know I would want that if I were in their place."
Her gaze lingers for a long pause before Caspar pulls her back into reality by clearing his throat.
"Are you okay, Marianne?" He asks with one gauntlet at his hip.
The soft-spoken cleric retracts into herself more as she nods.
"Y-Yes," she mutters. "We should get back to the battle."
Caspar grins as the offer to go back to doing what he does best, and gently rests the bottom of his gauntlet's fist on her shoulder as if it were a regular pat.
"Right! Get my back, would you?"
Before she can answer, he's already turned around and rushing back into the thick of things.
"Of course…"
Marianne sighs and then jogs after him.
While they continue to move toward the balcony where the Flame Emperor waits, the Experimental Demonic Beasts reach the slightly elevated platform in the center of the room. Its layout was much like a courtyard, but instead of having a fountain as the centerpiece the Holy Tomb elevated a larger, more ornate stone casket: The very same casket where the Goddess herself was laid to rest.
The Demonic Beast who was once a male student threatened to crush the casket under its bile-soaked bandage foot, but was stopped by the overwhelming heavenly light of a Seraphim spell being cast by Flayn.
It rears back on its hind legs, crying out in a shrill screech that occasionally dips into a low gurgle while fighting against the intense blast of magical energy being conjured. The power was so intense that Flayn, too, struggled to keep Seraphim active as the blowback of its energy blew her drill-shaped ponytails back behind her head.
Byleth supplied encouragement where he could; assuring Flayn that he would come to finish the job as soon as a moment presented itself. As it stood, he was busy slicing flaming balls of goop out of the sky with his active Hero's Relic.
The formerly female beast was lobbing them from a position slunk away from its once-male partner, hoping to blot out the source of the intense light.
Their onslaught was relentless, as the beasts proved much harder to scale when they weren't constrained by a maze of ruins.
However, that wouldn't stop the Blue Lions from trying.
Eventually Byleth is distracted from his target practice when he hears the clomp of metallic footsteps approaching the once-female beast. Looking toward it, he finds Dedue taking a solid position before getting down on one knee.
"Dedue?" He asks, seemingly just as the flame-spewing Demonic Beast notices its new prey. "What are you doing?"
"Do not worry Professor," the large man responds in a calm and collected tone that rivaled Byleth's own. "His Highness and I can handle this one."
Byleth looks confused at first, but soon finds Dimitri racing toward his vassal at full speed.
He looks back-and-forth between the two students, who seem completely undaunted by the inhumane monstrosity slinking toward them. Dedue raises his large silver shield up above his head and ducks.
The Prince leaps into the air and lands on Dedue's upturned shield, using it as a stepping-stone to leap forward again. Dedue thrusts the shield out at the same time, which sends Dimitri sailing through the air.
Even when he reaches an awe-inspiring height, Dimitri's face does not betray a hint of fear. His focus is dead-set on the beast continuing to make its way toward Dedue.
Dimitri falls, lance at the ready, and impales his monstrous foe straight through the dull stone in its forehead.
Much like the Demonic Beast he had taken out similarly at the Chapel, this new target drops to the floor and dies with little resistance.
"Destroy the stone!" He breathlessly calls to Byleth while riding the felled beast down to the floor.
The Professor looks back at the creature under Flayn's care and nods.
"Flayn," he says simply while turning completely toward the foe and approaching it. The girl picks up on his command and stops her spell, having to cradle her hands as they burn in the aftermath of the attack.
When the Demonic Beast lands on its forelegs again, it's face-to-face with Byleth's blank expression.
He flicks his sword out to the right, letting it extend into the barbed whip. Then, with just a few grunts, he slices the monster's face five times. All the lacerations left behind create a bloody star shape.
"Sublime Heaven," Byleth then mutters as he pulls his sword back to normal and rears it over his shoulder before thrusting straight into the center of the star.
The power of the Fell Star he inherited with Sothis' sacrifice channels out from a scarlet orb in the Sword of the Creator's core. It blasts the Demonic Beast with what appeared to be the viscous, roping energy of a sun; shattering its Crest Stone in an instant.
That second monstrosity drops dead, leaving Byleth panting in the afterglow of his attack as it dissipates off his body like steam.
Flayn, Dedue and Dimitri approach him as soon as the power mostly fades.
"Incredible," Dimitri says with widened eyes. "To think this is the power of the Hero's Relics at their most potent…"
"I'm not sure just any Relic can exude that much power, Dimitri." Flayn crosses her arms, as if the sight of Byleth made her cold. "Perhaps the Goddess truly has blessed our Professor."
In lieu of a response, Byleth flicks his sword toward the ground so it casts off a few remaining sparks of power. Then he begins walking, aiming for the staircase against the left wall.
"We can discuss this when the Flame Emperor is taken care of," he says.
The three students look at one another before following along.
Up near the entrance into the Holy Tomb, the Flame Emperor watches as more and more of their men fall before the unstoppable wall of Felix, Caspar and Marianne racing up the right wall's staircase. Even as Metodey falls, no hint of any emotion passes through the eerie mask.
In fact, no emotion seems to come across any part of the Flame Emperor's posture. Their red-feathered shoulder plates and the matching plume that ran from the helmet down to their legs were still, as was their flowing cloak in the absence of wind deep below the ground. The only part of the Flame Emperor moving even slightly was their axe — broad, sharp and speckled with dried blood. A sharp spike capping off the pole grinded lightly against the ancient floor as the Flame Emperor idly drew in the dust.
Despite being seemingly checked out, it took the imposing figure mere seconds to twirl around and raise its axe to block an incoming attack.
They catch Dimitri's lance easily, and in the brief moment that follows the Flame Emperor gathers that Byleth and Flayn had joined Ingrid and Sylvain, whom all distracted a small armada to give the Prince this chance to strike.
"Do not try to say you have forgotten…" Dimitri snarls, unhinged and sleepless eyes masked behind his matted-down gold hair. "Do you know just how many people died in Duscur?"
The Flame Emperor is silent, barely even struggling to hold back the shaking weapon of their opponent.
"Why bother with this?" They finally utter. "Stay silent and fight."
"So you want to turn your eyes away from the lives you have trampled?" He turns his head and spits. "Dastard! You are a monster. The lowliest beast I have ever known."
Their weapons slide off each other with a sharp whine as Dimitri jumps back so he can make another quick dash toward the Flame Emperor to try and catch them off balance.
For a while they parry one another, the Flame Emperor mostly using their axe defensively as Dimitri strikes again and again with bottomless energy.
His swings grow harder and faster the longer they fight, eventually driving the masked figure to back away from the sheer force of the impactful attacks. The Prince chides his foe repeatedly, demanding the Flame Emperor take their battle seriously and fight back. But the Flame Emperor is silent, staring with a beady red glare.
Eventually it becomes too much for the boy, who suddenly shifts focus to that mask with an aggravated call.
It was just sudden enough to catch the Flame Emperor off guard.
With a heavy impact the mask flies into the air, landing face up at Dimitri's feet while the Flame Emperor stumbles back toward a small crowd of soldiers.
The sounds of metal clashing and bloodshed around the room all fade into limbo for the head of the Blue Lions as he pulls back his aggressive stance and simply stares down at that mask for a long while. His eyes dart over every inch, taking in each minute detail. But perhaps it was more than that. His eyes shook with the fear his body was unable to express: A fear of finally confronting the person behind the mask.
The same person responsible for the Tragedy of Duscur and the death of his father.
Dimitri takes a deep, hollow breath before bringing his head up and letting those soft blue eyes focus on the unmasked figure.
Silence. And then… A single laugh.
That single laugh then builds into chuckling, and then further into crazed laughter as a dumbfounded grin of disbelief stretches across the boy's lips.
"Is this some kind of twisted joke?!" He yells, voice high pitched and deeply disturbed.
Staring back at him were the familiarly pale, purple eyes of Edelgard.