Hmm... No major A/Ns this time.

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"We have a problem."

"What is it, Asch?"

"The replica. The hyperresonance that brought him here turned him seven somehow."

"Seven?"

"He looks the age he…is."

"That does actually make sense. The seventh fonon controls time, space, and matter, or at least can reshape them. Hyperresonance-based teleportation could work by transferring the fonons and then reassembling them, and while according to the replica data that was used to make him he is seventeen, according to his personal data the replica is seven. Given that fonons contain information on past and future states as well as current, it's possible it used his memories as the marker for what age he should be and put him together resembling you as you were when you were seven."

"He doesn't actually look all that much like me at seven. I thought he was a distant cousin or something, born on the wrong side of the blanket, before Tear called him Luke. That his hair was hiding his face helped, but he's definitely left-handed and his hair has gold highlights instead of crimson."

"Yes… even though he's a perfect isofon there are some deviations. Luckily they weren't important enough to reveal that he was a fake. But this complicates matters. A seven year old claiming to be their son?"

"He figured that out on his own. He doesn't want to go home, Van. He hates it there."

"Tell me what happened," Van commanded quietly, and Asch did.

By the end Van's hand on his shoulder was the only thing that kept him from breaking down. "He wished he was dead, Van. Well, that he'd never been born, technically. He just… wants to get out of there, go someplace he can be himself instead of being trapped in my destiny. But he's willing to go back if that's the only way to keep people from dying, even though… But he has to die, and he has to start that war. He doesn't have a choice, Van, and he doesn't have one because you had him made to give me one. And I chose to leave him there."

"Does he know who you are?"

"Other than someone of Kimlascan noble blood whose parents didn't love them and ran away from home to join the Oracle Knights? Another student of yours? No. But Legretta wondered why I was being so nice to him, and even though she didn't spot who he was she knew that I was because he's just like me, Van. And he knows that too. Someone like him, someone who went through something like what he is, someone who made themselves another life. He looks up to me, Van. I'm the person who got him into that mess and he looks up to me. I give him hope." What hurt was, "And it's false hope."

"Tell me you aren't thinking of going in his place."

"It's supposed to be me, Van. He had half a day of running around like a normal peasant child, and it was the happiest day of his life. Just… I know how you feel now. I looked at him and wanted to burn it all. My 'family' that will force him to go there to die, the Order, the Score, Lorelei, the whole damn world. What good is anything if you pay for it in innocent lives? So many innocent lives. And I would rather die than be like them, I would Van."

"He can replace you…"

"He couldn't, Van. He was killing himself trying."

"Listen to me, Asch. He's a replica. He's weaker. He can't do what I need you to. And I need you, Asch. You are the chosen one, remember. The heir of Lorelei's power. He might have taken your name, but he couldn't take your place. He doesn't have your memories, and he can't match your strength. If he goes to Akzeriuth the effort there will kill him. He won't have to live with what he's done. But I need you for more than one task, Asch. He can take your place in the Score, the Score doesn't care. He can take your place as a weapon. But not as a hero."

"Of course he can't be a hero, he's a seven year old whose highest ambition is to be an errand boy."

Van laughed, and Asch had to join in, and yes, it was funny. So much destiny that he was entangled in, and that was what he wanted. And he couldn't have it. It was ironic, it was weird, it was ridiculous that he couldn't have something so simple.

"Damn the Score. Damn Lorelei. Damn this entire world," Asch said again when the temporary relief faded. "Damn them all."

"I know, Asch, I know." Van's voice was tired and old.

"I understand why you did all that to me. I really do. I've been angry at you for it for so long, but I finally understand. If there was some way to save him, I'd do whatever it took, and I used to hate him just like you couldn't have been all that fond of me."

"Asch…"

"I know you don't blame me for what my father did, but when you came there as my teacher all you knew of me was that I was his son and that I was going to destroy a city. Of course you must have hated me. Just like I hated him until I saw him, not just my replica. Not just the one who would destroy Akzeriuth. I forgave him, Van. It was fine that he was going to die when I hated him, but not when I saw him. I've forgiven you, Van, for everything you did to me. But I think I'm still going to be angry at you for his sake, all the same. Angry at everything."

"Promise me you won't die there, Asch. Promise me. Because if you die there, then the world's one hope of destroying the Score will die with you. You inherited the power of Lorelei. Your power is equal to that which created the Score."

"Are you serious?"

"That is what your birth score itself states. The one who inherits the power of Lorelei."

"I'm as powerful as the Score."

"You can be."

"If I'm as powerful as the thing that has doomed millions, then I'm strong enough to save a single life. And ten thousand with it. And prevent a war with them."

"It's too soon, Asch. And the only means of destroying the score that will work requires that Akzeriuth's sephiroth be destroyed. You're as powerful as Lorelei, Asch, but the Score isn't Lorelei alone. The Score is every single living human being that follows it like a rappig to the trough or the slaughterhouse. Lorelei is simply a manifestation of the planet's memory, of Auldrant and its people."

"And what different am I from them if I submit to the Score tamely? I refuse to be one of those damn fools, Van! I refuse to be one of the people who send innocent children to destroy cities! You understand, don't you? Tell me, what would you have done if you had warning Hod was going to happen? You would have prevented it, right? And if it had been you who was doomed to destroy it, would you have let Tear be used instead of you?"

That seemed to hit home, and hit hard. "Knowing what I know now… Two sephiroth have to fall if the Score is to be destroyed. Hod was one of them, Akzeriuth is the other. If I had known, then I would have killed myself, if that was the only way to frustrate the Score and save all those lives. But it wouldn't have mattered in the end. The Score would have found some way to fulfill itself, even over my dead body."

"How would the sephiroth falling destroy the Score?"

Van hesitated. "Consider the nature of the Score."

"The Score is Lorelei. Lorelei is the Planet's Memory. The Planet's Memory is Auldrant itself." Asch's blood ran cold.

"The Score cannot be bent. It gives us no freedom to go outside its bounds. It has to be broken."

"Yulia created the Score, didn't she? Through a pact with Lorelei."

"We would need the Key of Lorelei, which is in Lorelei's possession, and do you really think Lorelei would submit tamely to another binding it when part of Yulia's Score states that no other may form a pact with Lorelei for this very reason?"

"How exactly did Yulia make that pact?"

Van was one of her descendants. "The war to control the future, to create a Score, was destroying Auldrant. Lorelei chose Yulia since she was better than the alternatives and was the one who enabled her to do it. He created the Key, he guided her into composing the hymns while posing as a human, and he tricked her into killing him with the Key, which did kill him but resurrected him in the form of the Score. She wished to create the Score, don't doubt that, but she had no idea that her friend had been Lorelei all along, and helping her. He took his true form and pretended to be her enemy in order to enable her to kill him, trapping him first in her sword and then in the core."

"I want to destroy this world. A lot of me does. But how is that different from what we're trying to stop? If there's another way… I must admit defeating Lorelei in battle appeals. As does forcing Lorelei to destroy the Score and clean up its own mess." But aside from that, "So we need a special weapon, hymns, and a manifestation of Lorelei. We have two out of the three."

"What are you…" Then Van got it.

"Lorelei's power is the seventh fonon. So, Lorelei's power is Lorelei itself. If I have inherited Lorelei's power then I contain Lorelei within me." Asch regarded his right hand, then placed it over his heart. "Am I correct?"

"But Lorelei is trapped in the core… but then, a fonon sentience can have multiple manifestations, with differing traits. Luna and Rem, Undine and Celsius, the three Sylphs… Perhaps that is what Yulia truly intended."

"Another Score would be no improvement. But, if Lorelei could be bound to destroy the Score and never permit another one to happen, something along those lines…" Asch closed that hand into a fist. "Then I wouldn't care what happened to me."

"The Key of Lorelei was made out of the pure seventh fonon and possessed Lorelei's own frequency." And a weapon could be anything. A sword, a spear, a lollipop… a bare hand.

"Do you think it would work?" Asch asked him.

"…I would need to go to Yulia City. I have some of Yulia's journals and records that I managed to salvage from Hod there. Is it truly that simple?" Van wondered. "Was this why the Score allowed me to create him?"

"Lorelei ended up sealed inside the Key, however." That seemed likely to be important, and how could they reproduce that?

"That would happen. That would happen if he killed you. It's called the Big Bang Effect, exclusive to perfect isofons. His body would become your vessel. Which, I suppose, means that if this doesn't work then if we have enough time to create a new replica before the year is over and you would still survive to bring about Eldrant."

"I would inhabit his body? What would happen to him?"

"Well, the worst thing that could happen is that he dies. It's also the likeliest, I'm afraid."

"But then, his death was already both the worst and the likeliest. At least this way he would have a chance." Asch looked up at Van. "You're the only one that can sing the hymns. That's good. I wouldn't trust anyone else with Auldrant's future."

Van's raised eyebrow made Asch smile. "Yes, you were planning to destroy it. Destroy it in order to free it from the Score. You're that dedicated to this world's freedom. Dedicated enough to let nothing distract you from it, not power or glory or love. And… a lot of me also wants to destroy it. To cleanse this planet and begin anew. I… It's not right for me to do that. Not any more than it was for Lorelei to destine Hod and Akzeriuth's destructions to, if I'm right, allow the possibility of a new world."

"This world can't survive without Lorelei in the core. The miasma still exists, you've seen it. Lorelei enables the planet storm and the other measures that keep it contained."

"Then we need to destroy the miasma. Good. This might not work, but if it does then at least I get to destroy something."

"Even Yulia and Lorelei couldn't destroy the miasma."

"Possibly because they wanted to create a Score. That was what they cared about. What we want… I want the Score destroyed. If the miasma means that the Score is necessary, then I want the miasma destroyed. And I want him to live, and no others like him to have to die. Creating a future of peace would not be right, but I would like to be able to kill anyone who dares try anything." That required not being trapped in the core. "What do you want?"

"The same as you."

"We both want vengeance. But… consider all that they have done for the Score. Mohs and my father and all those people like them. Imagine their dismay when it is all for nothing. The rappigs kicked out of the pen into the monster-filled woods." Oh yes. "No guarantees. Forced to make every choice on their own with no way to find out if it is a good one or not until too late. The fear, Van. The fear that we have when we imagine the consequences of going against the Score. Imagine them living in that fear every hour of every day. No protection, no security blanket, nothing but the freedom to die at any moment because they made a mistake the Score would have warned them against. You know how dependant the countries are on the Score. Kimlasca-Lanvaldear would fall apart in a decade without it. Sheridan and Belkend aren't on speaking terms, my Father used to consider secession very seriously until he was promised his son would be king and I don't think he's all that happy that promise will be broken. Without the Score… there will be chaos."

"You're right." Van seemed surprised he hadn't thought of it that way before. "Dying is easy. Living is hard."

"And the more dependent on the Score they are the more they will suffer. I want them to suffer, Van. The way we all have." All of the god-generals had suffered because of the Score, even Dist, whose teacher had died so that fomicry would be invented.

"We don't have all that much time. This scared them: they're certain to send him to Akzeriuth as soon as he returns to Baticul. If I write you out an operation plan, can you handle matters here while I have Arietta's pets take me to Yulia City?"

"Of course. What needs to be accomplished?"

"Synchronizing your fon slots is now very, very urgent…"