A/N: This is v3 of this particular chapter. V1 was fully mentally laid out, and then scrapped before pen went to paper. V2's dream sequence was half-done, and then scrapped. V3 is this. It is preachy, but that is the nature of the organization and the powers that are involved.

Chapter 4

Alma. Meliadoul. Minerva.

Please. Please.

I need to intercept, but they are at the other side of this dilapidated ship, and our enemy ignores the constraints of time and space.

Low on inventory, low on magical energy, and low on stamina.

But I must reach.

I pull ahead of the other members of the attacking squad. They are knights and I…

…I am a squire.

I outpace them.

But I will never get there in time. Yet…

I lash out with a Katana, in a circular Iado drawing-slash.

This cuts the mast down at an angle, and with barely a creak, it begins to slide down.

"Agrias" I yell. "Take it!"

There is clanking behind me. Orlandeau scrapes the wooden floor as he slides into a crouch, his greaves digging into the oak of the ship deck. In another moment, I know he has clasped his hands together, and I turn in time to seamlessly accept a foot up to scale the still falling mast.

And I clamber up, for I was a traveller that had stepped upon every uneven terrain of Ivalace. I could scale, I think, anything.

As the mast falls, when it reaches the 30-degree angle with the floor…

I will have sufficient height, distance, and clearance.

It's there. It must be right.

And the falling mast comes to a lurching halt, for Agrias has taken it. She, with her monsterous fortitude, has caught it.

I am ready to hurl my Katana, spinning through the air, using the Ninja's dissagregation concepts of form and function. Anything could be used. Anything could be thrown.

Anything could kill.

I must not miss.

And I do not.

But my target vanishes again, and my heart sinks as she appears in a flash before me upon the mast.

For she is smiling.

And in a blinding light, that only her imposing form obscures, I see the last of my family disintegrate in a blinding blue illumination that Ajora politely tells me is called 'All-Ultima'.

I lurch forwards in my place beneath the waterfall, Ajora's smirk still frozen in my mind.

I had fallen asleep in this wintry torrent, and now I cannot discern where the water stops and where my cold sweat begins.

"Brother?" Alma 'eep's. "Are you allright?"

She has brought me supper. I do not care, and knock the plate down, that I may hold her to my armored chest and rest my chin upon her shoulder. "Alma. Thank God." I shiver. "Thank God."

"Brother…" She mutters. "You had a bad dream."

I don't care. It had felt real.

Not just her, Minerva…

The faithful Minerva, who stood so strong and fast. She who had so little personal stake in our endeavor. She who fought on by my side from the academy to hell itself… for nothing but pure, undetailed, noble intentions.

And Meliadoul, who had suffered at the hands at war and pushed onwards. When she found her Sword-Skills lacking effectiveness next to the Holy Sword arts of Agrias and Orlandou, she had cast her pride away and taken up the staff. For she would endure anything, she said, to be of use. To bite the bitter hand that had blighted her life. And to help her friends and comrades, whom she had come to cherish more than all the estates she had left behind.

And Alma, last of my blood in that cursed world. She who was naïve and ignorant of the scope of things. Yet, at the end, with so little understanding… she stood up to fight. Not for the world. For me. Because, as children, we had sworn to never let each other down.

They had not deserved to die. Not in life, and not in a dream. Not in fiction. Not anywhere.

They had not deserved to die, and I had failed them.

And I would learn from that nightmare, or I would never forgive myself.

"Alma. Listen to me." I tell her. "I will never let you die."

"Brother? What is this all of a sudden?"

"It's not all of a sudden." I object. "I have always… always been looking out for you. I…" I pause. My mind, it moves so slowly. As if the cold of the relentless waterfall has numbed it. "I… don't need you to understand, actually."

Sister's expression becomes more puzzled, not less, by my explanation.

"It's not about you." I mutter to myself. "It's about me. I…"

I have come to a sudden revelation. I have come to enlightenment. I know what I feel is Good, and what is Evil.

"I will never let you die." I promise to myself, for this is not about her. This is about me. "Never, Alma. I don't care what I must endure. Regardless of what I must suffer, or pay, or lose." I swear. "I will never let you be lost."

She huffs, and gives me an amused look – perhaps writing my ranting off to my present state.

Honestly, she doesn't seem particularly moved by my heartfelt declaration. But then again…

…it wasn't anything new.

It is cold. It is dark. Sir Guinevere stares at my watery encampment

"Yes Squire? I heard you wished to speak with me."

The moonlight glints off of her armor and, again perhaps due to the blistering cold-induced hallucinations, she seems to be rather ethereal.

"What did you wish to discuss?"

"I want to discuss…" I tell her around my chattering teeth. "Good and Evil."

Her delicate eyebrow raises. "Interesting." Is her only word.

"Good…" I mutter, thinking back to what I felt when I saw my comrades die within my dreams.

Yes. It was a dream. But that did not make it less real where it counted.

It was 100% real within my heart, and my heart was very clear on how it felt.

"Good is… to help others." I tell Sir Guinevere. "That is Good's definition, to me. "True good and evil is for God to decide." I amend. "But I will call it Good."

She says nothing.

"And Evil is to hurt others. That is Evil's definition." I continue. "And when a man must strike down another man, to save yet another… Then that is both Good and Evil at once, and I must not forget or excuse the Evil I have born for the sake of Good." I say. "For such a thing would make me a monster."

Sir Guinevere's lips quirk. "Oh… really?" She asks.

I can't help but think she's laughing internally.

"Really…" She mutters.

"I suppose you think it's naïve." I sigh. "But that's how I really feel."

It is then that my teacher deigns to step into the pool at the bottom of the waterfall, walking up to me with a steady clank-splash-clank-splash as she comes to stand before me. "We are all a bit naïve, Ramza. That is how I know humanity is worth saving. But, Ramza…" She muses. "What of the man who does nothing to others? What of the hermit, who neither helps nor harms another soul? What of the average man, who has no intentions but to give and get what is due?"

"That is neither Good, nor Evil. It is normal." I answer, staring into her cerulean eyes. "And it is wonderful."

Peals of laughter break from her then, such that my rigid instructor must turn from me and even fight to catch her breath.

I await her calming patiently.

"You are beautifully naïve." She commends, at last.

"Do I fail?" I hazard.

Am I to be stuck in this waterfall, forever?

"Fail? Pass?" Sir Guinevere shakes her head. "That is not for me to decide." She nods down. "Try it. If your heart is clear and good, the Holy Spirit within shall be open to you. And that is all there is to it."

I look down to the sword I have buried at my feet, enduring this 'baptism' at my side.

With shaking hands, I reach out towards the plain knightsword my father had given to me.

And I grasp it…

… And as I grasp it…

…I feel whole.

And it is in that moment, that I know what will come to pass.

I have succeeded. I have defined Good and Evil, fully and truly, to my own heart.

The world snaps into an array of black and white, and many shades of grey which can all be defined.

And I feel at peace. And I feel certain.

And I feel I am Justice itself.

With a lurch, I mutter the name of the Holy Knight's first skill. I feel the fire in my soul cry out, and roar through my whole body.

I feel it roar through my sword as well, for the sword is as myself. It is my brother. It is my twin. It has endured this task with me and has been reborn with me.

And I launch this power out and into the world.

With a wet crash, I know that above me a crystal has imbedded itself within the crest of the waterfall.

It does not obstruct the water. It does not part it, or alter it's trajectory.

It halts it, midair. It traps it, frozen in time.

It is settled. I am a Holy Knight.

"I'll be inside." I tell my teacher as I stumble past, clutching my brother to my chest. "I could really use a hot coffee."

She doesn't answer. She only continues to look past me, frozen as she stares at the water frozen in time.

A/N: I'll keep writing if you keep reviewing. Deal? Deal.

Oh man. Ok guys, I'm really hurting for good fanfiction. I feel like all the good writers I've been following have quit, and it's really hard to find new ones. Someone give me a heads up on some classy stuff. Like, you know... classy. Like... with class. Agh, I can't describe it. Something like mine. Not the grammar, or the genre, though that's all fine. Just... something with class. Please help a guy out, I have like nothing to read. Even TFF has dried up a lot.