Noct hates math, and always did. Math offers too little give: chart the equations, and they will never allow relief or mercy. There are only so many hours in the day, there are only so many pints of blood in the human body, there are only so many opportunities.
Math tells him that he spent three priceless days uselessly recovering in Altissia - that Ignis was with Ardyn Izunia for every minute of those three days - seventy-two hours, four thousand three hundred twenty minutes. For all Noct knows he's bored out of his wits in some cell somewhere, or maybe Ardyn's playing his dementedly good persona again and regaling Ignis with tea and tall tales - but in his heart of hearts Noct knows they're late. Math never lies, and math tells him that they are racing to find a corpse.
They run through the echoing metal halls, Gladio and Prompto at his back, and Noct sweeps the attacking daemons away with rage as well as skill. In his head he tries to bargain with the math - maybe if they win just a moment sooner? Maybe they will arrive just in time? Maybe, maybe, maybe.
Ardyn's voices come over the comms, silken and mocking, and Noct makes himself listen through the roar of blood in his ears, waiting for him to mention Ignis, waiting for the recorded screams to tear through him. But it's just mockery and faux-concern, and invitation - some doors stay closed and some open, and the daemons make way for them. Before Noct's ready (he'll never be ready), they're in the heart of Zegnautus Keep, in a cavernous cathedral of steel and chains, where the Crystal suspended in the middle of it beckons Noct forward like an always-remembered dream.
In the heart of the Crystal, outlined carelessly in its jagged shine, there's a body.
The sight of it hits Noct like a blow; he stumbles, and would have gone over the edge of the walkway if not for Gladio's fast reflexes. A fitting end for the King of the Light, splattering against the far-below floor of an enemy's fortress; it would be fun to explain to Dad in the afterlife. It's...
He can recognize his own brain stalling, spinning its wheels while reality fights to reassert itself. Prompto moans behind him, high and reedy, and Gladio is swearing without inflection, each word leaden and dead, and Noct - and Noct -
And Noct steps forward. He can't tear his eyes away from the body - arms stretched wide, a parody of a greeting, ash gathered in soft piles underneath, skin charred. The Crystal shines against the body's contours, jagged and sickly bright, horrendously alive, and Noct warps before he knows it, a throw and only then a thought, the stench in his nostrils, the endless stretching desert of his thoughts.
He reaches out, and the body opens its eyes and its mouth, their jagged holes filled with the holy purple.
"Noct," Ignis whispers. with a voice not his own. "No."
Gladio's hands are on his shoulders, trying to drag him back, and Noct shakes him off, snaps at Prompto to start getting the Phoenix Downs and elixirs out. He doesn't care if it's a miracle or some of Adryn's tricks, if Ignis is alive, he will keep him alive, and if he's never going to get another night of sleep unspoiled by this sickly purple light, so be it.
"It's okay, Specs," he babbles, almost meaningless. "It's fine, it's okay, we'll get you out, it's fine..."
Ignis moans, a splintered sound like a grinding of rocks, like nothing that should come out of a human throat. "The gods... don't... don't touch..."
Gladio grabs for his shoulders again, this time more firmly. "Listen to him."
Noct whirls and rounds on him. "We need to get him out, now."
"No," Ignis says again.
"Look at him," Gladio hisses. "How can he be alive? It's a trap, Ardyn - "
"Indeed," a honeyed voice says. "What would you do now, dear Noctis?"
Prompto's gun barks before Noct has time to register Ardyn's presence or understand how he managed to appear behind them, the walkway empty one moment and then not. The bullet drills a hole in the dead center of Ardyn's forehead. oct's torn between satisfaction and dismay -
- and Ardyn begins to laugh. The wound on his face oozes black, and Ardyn's eyes flash yellow, and he laughs like Prompto's made the perfect joke and he's inviting them to join in his mirth.
"Tsk," he says. "Tsk, how rude are you to your host. And here I am with a perfect gift to welcome you!"
Gladio roars and swings his greatsword, but it passes through the space Ardyn occupies harmlessly, Ardyn blinking in and out of existence.
"How tiring," he says, and clicks his fingers. Noct feels a wave of magic sweep through space, and Gladio and Prompto freeze, caught mid-motion, their faces identical masks of enraged horror.
"Ardyn," Noct says. "What do you want?"
He's unaffected by whatever foul magic Ardyn uses, but terror roots him solidly in place. He's painfully aware of the fragility of his friends, of their helplessness. Rage rises in him, choking him, but he can't afford to give it space, not when so much is hanging in the balance.
"Oh," Ardyn smirks, "no. What do you want, little kinglet? Here it is, your inheritance."
"What," Noct says through his teeth, "did you do to Ignis?"
"I weep for your observational skills," Ardyn says. "You'd think it would be obvious at a glance."
The Crystal paints the hollows of his face purple, throws his shadow at the opposite wall, twisted and menacing. Noct grits his teeth; his palm itches for the hilt of his sword.
"Anybody who touches him," Ardyn continues conversationally, "will share his fate. Profaning the sacred light, and so on. But you, of course, hold a key to this little piece of destiny, don't you?"
He tips his hat at Noct. "I will leave you to puzzle this little conundrum out, little king. Let us meet on the other side."
A blink, and he's gone; Promtpo and Gladio jolt back into life, Gladio curses ringing loud and inventive through the echoing place.
"Gah," Prompto says with feeling. "Did he just?.."
"Noct," Gladio says over him. "You know what he meant, don't you?"
"Yes," Noct says. He pulls the Ring from the Armiger without looking, his eyes riveted to Ignis again, and the familiar loathsome weight burns his palms. "The Ring permits the king to touch the Crystal and to harness its power. Wasn't that what you wanted?"
"I'm not happy about wanting the same thing Ardyn does," Gladio says. "Maybe we should regroup and think it through."
Prompto sucks air in. "But Ignis..."
Gladio brings his palm down on the metal railing, hard, and Prompto jumps. Noct thinks, suddenly and irrelevantly, that he's never seen Gladio look so much like Clarus. "Ignis knows his duty. He wouldn't want - he doesn't want to be worth Noct's life."
Ignis' harsh breathing, less a sound produced by human lungs and more fire cracking, echoes between them, fills the resulting silence.
And Noct, unable to bear it, slides the Ring on his finger.
This close to the Crystal, the power of it comes over him like a wave - sacred light, holy agony, the heavy might of a star concentrated in his palm. He feels like he can tear Eos apart with a flick of his finger, and like a flick of a finger can bring him down. He thinks he can hear his father's voice - his ancestor's voices, all at once, clamoring for his attention, blurred together into one indistinct voice of anger.
And Ignis; agony overlaid over the Crystal's light, threaded and melted into it. The Crystal is killing him and keeping him alive, burning him and resurrecting him in one endless stuttering cycle, and Noct can barely trace what's left of his mind, of the scattered particles of Ignis' soul. And yet there's a ferocious refusal to surrender. There's Ignis' keeping himself awake, just for the sake of this desperate no.
"No," Noct says, echoing him. "I will not allow this to stand."
He turns to Prompto and Gladio, reaches out for them - the light is enveloping him, surging within and without him, and he can feel its impatience, its hunger, but this is important - and he's grateful beyond belief when they clasp his burning hands without hesitation.
"Wait for me," he asks them. "I promise I will come back."
And finally he reaches for Ignis, lays a gentle palm across Ignis' blackened lips, silencing him. Leans his forehead against Ignis', and when the light of the star calls him, he wraps his hands against Ignis, tight, tighter, and takes them both to the Beyond.