In the mind, the world was only what one made of it.

It was a battle, therefore, on a blank canvas. Wheras Ajora had been fought in the future amongst an inky black canvas, this world was a clear white.

A clear mind that only summoned death when it was called for.

My enemy and I clashed in this world, creating swords out of the fabric of the land itself. Excalibur onto Chaos, I struck down.

Both shattered by the knight's 'Sword Break'. I cast Firaga, for here I had the mana.

The spell was bounced back with 'Reflect', but I quickly sidestepped and crashed down onto the Ramza from the future.

At least I had forced the reflect into place. True I could not use offensive magic on him now. But he could not cast protective magic on himself either. I couldn't let self-raise be cast, or this would never end.

And I had more resources.

I ran across the empty battlefield with a musket in my hands. The very same that Mustadio favored.

I wasn't able to cripple the legs of the enemy, but I clipped his shoulder.

Shallow.

The enemy was before me not with teleport, but with the direct rush of a ninja's fleet-footedness.

Clearly he wanted the momentum, which meant a physical attack.

So he saw through me.

While firing the musket, I muttered a chant under my breath.

Not offensive magick. Something that could punch through reflect existed. In this case, it was…

"Bahamut!" I declared, and the dragon king rose out of the white ground beneath our feet. He bled out of the white canvas and took to the sky, the size of a small castle onto himself.

And we two copies of the same man fought atop his spine in a clash of shattering greatswords.

The first to loose footing would be cut in two. The first to be unable to replace a weapon would be felled in an instant.

But if Bahamut lurched such that I lost my footing, the other Ramza lost his footing as well.

If I could not recall from my memory any greatswords I had not shattered, the other Ramza ran out of stock at the same time.

As I switched to short swords, and he switched to axes, I realized the futility of it.

So that was Ajora's gambit.

There could be no victor here. We could both live, or we could both die.

With a frown, the other Ramza pulled back. Pulling back one arm, he launched a holy explosion into the neck of Bahamut.

Strange.

I would have done the same thing.

The summoned dragon fell from the sky and disappeared. Ramza and I, in freefall, threw spells at eachother. But with the arial nimbleness of the Dragoon twisting through the air, nothing could land on either side.

We struck the ground in a kneel at the same time, staring at eachother.

"You… are naïve." He said.

"You have no heart." I replied.

And yet these things were not reflected in our blades, for our abilities were exactly on par.

"A blade turned on itself cannot be victorious."

"I know that much." I replied.

"When two equal forces collide, they either stop without change or both are destroyed. Either is victory to one such as Ajora."

"Obviously."

"You've damned us to this fate."

"Not so. You can give up." I suggested. "And I will duel Ajora in the real world."

"I will never surrender."

"You already have." I said in disappointment, raising a recreation of my brother blade to point at my brother life.

The blade was a molten pool in the real world, but it lived on in my heart.

"You've surrendered my sister."

The other Ramza levelled a blade at me as well. I couldn't make it out across the white distance. "Even in the Airship graveyard when Ajora would first possess her, I was prepared to take her life. If I had done so sooner… everyone else would have lived. Isn't that your justice?"

"No." I said slowly. "I think it was your justice, bleeding through me. The shadow of your ideals gave birth to the shadow of your skills. I did not learn to use the Holy Sword. I relearned it, based on your justice. My whole life… I've accomplished nothing new."

"Then what is your true justice?"

"I don't know how to explain it!" I explained, charging across the distance. I wanted the momentum. I wanted to break on him like a high wave, and go from there. "But it has to be better than that!"

We clashed and bore down on the conjoined blades. Each side was unable to move.

We were both running tired. We were both fully focused on the deadlock.

The first to flinch would die.

And to my dismay, I felt a blade slip through my chest. I was run through be a steel rapier.

The cruel tip punched through my heart at an angle and through the chest of the opponent in front of me.

Twins to the end, both Ramza's looked down at our chests together with wide eyes.

"Ajora." The future me muttered. "Damn you…"

With a lurch we were free of the metal, and fell to our knees.

The pure white floor was ruined by a harsh red tint now.

And I saw Ramza look upwards with hate in his eyes as a stoutly built woman walked out from behind me.

So it was Ajora's true form. Before being a 'saint' or a 'demon', the soul of the female knight Ajora.

She had a wicked smile and a bloody rapier. With a kick, she knocked my other self onto his back and laughed. "Goodbye! My one peer in this world! Old friend, goodbye!" She cried "When you see God, tell him evil wins again!"

Her laughter was grating as my other self was quickly put out of his misery with a series of swift punctures through his head.

"And you." She cooed softly as she turned on my person. "How fitting to die of a bleeding heart."

I said nothing.

"Tell me, childish one, what were you after?"

"I thought…" I said slowly, in pain. "… that if one had to die… Agrias. She had a stronger body than Alma. If I made you so desperate for power to shield your pride then…"

"And you'd cut down a poor innocent knight?" She asked in amusement. "How droll. But your body is the one that holds incredible power. Your mind is the one that holds a library of masterful tecnhiques. Above all, the identity of a saint… oh, for me to have access to those miracles once more."

"Saint?" I croaked out.

"You still don't know." She said, almost sounding as if she pitied me. "All those coincidences lining up in your fate. All those impossiblilities coming true. You are blessed, and only that unfair divine intervention could ever stop me. Now, I shall inherit the one force I could not hoard through my demonic armies. Armed with evil and good as well… oh… the blood rivers that I shall let."

I laughed even as I coughed. I laughed even as the corners of my vision were invaded with a dim haze. "I am not strong, skilled, or even a good strategist." I said. "There are no miracles here. Every chance was one grasped through cooperative effort. Every unliklihood of those crystals finding me in that giant abyss was a simple matter of friends gravitating towards eachother naturally. You will find nothing of note in this body Ajora. Only… I was fortunate to be surrounded by allies greater than myself. That… is your inheritance."

"What?" She asked wearily.

I was so happy.

I grinned up at Ajora with a torrent of blood running down my chest.

I should be dead, clearly, but in this place my will could do what my body could not. My will could pump the blood through this figurative body of mine.

And I tackled Ajora at the waist and wrapped my arms around her in a bear hug.

"What are you doing?" She asked with a tone of growing concern. "Stupid child, what are you doing?!"

"Something new." I said viciously. "Something simple. The basics work everywhere. The Sword." I said, and an ancient man of profound mastery crawled out of the stained red floor.

"The Sheild." I said, and a heavy built woman with an unyielding blue gaze grew out of the stained red fabric of this world.

"No. No!" Ajora cried, and struggled against me.

"The staff, the cross, and the raw stubbornness for victory!"

Minerva, Meilandoul, and Alma appeared all around us. We were encircled.

"The bluff, and the ambush Ajora. Remember you that?"

"You bastard. You wanted it from the first! You wanted me to invade your mind!"

They were all still here. The memories of my friends, that fueled every skill I had borrowed.

The true masters of every sowrd art and arcane spell still existed here.

And if the other Ramza, memory he was, could fight. Then these…

Hahahaha.

"You bastard! Let me go! Let me out!"

"It wasn't me, fool!" With vicious glee I shouted her favorite derogatory term back at her. "That power you feared, it was never I alone! The spells and teleports were not mine! How you forget in your maddening hubris!"

"You… You can't do this! I'll not be stopped here! I stabbed you through!" She cried in a shrill voice, and struggled against me.

"The chest is stabbed through, but I still have enough heart to fight!" I growled. "Come to hell with me Ajora! I'm sure you're awaited eagerly!"

And I held firm enough. Soon we were both held in place by vines of geomancy and crystals of the stasis sword all around us.

She screamed in abject agony when faced with her defeat.

"I won't forget this!" Ajora screeched at me, while blades were aglow with holy power all around us. Terrible magicks and summoned creatures loomed overhead. One decisive barrage and we would be ash in the mindscape of a young boy. "I won't forget thiiiiiiis!"

And I laughed. It wasn't a petty thing such as slaying the body she possessed, or even her demonic form.

I was going to rip her apart here. Her mind. Her soul itself.

A real real death for the two of us.

A victory that had been promised a lifetime ago.

I am Ramza. The bastard. The untalented. The least son of the Bevolue house.

Justice is my mead, and friendship is my bread.

I had learned nothing new of war in my second lease on life. Even the holy swordskill was but a shadow of my past.

But I had learned to love, and protect, and make it through without burying another loved one.

And I was proud of my lot.

Remember me fondly Alma. Ovelia, forget me quickly.

World… with this spirit of violence absent from your lands, please choose peace.

Please.

My friends… it's your turn now. I fought my best.

It was the last thought that echoed in my mind as the explosive attacks descended.

I fought my hardest…

It is your turn now…

I loved you all.

A/N: This has been an interesting story undertaken by myself and my Alpha Reader. Originally it was undertaken out of pure boredom and because I love FFTT so much. It grew into a serious side-project due to the overwhelming response in reviews (compared to the smallness of the reader base). Part of tapering off of staying on this project was my foyers into original work. Fingers crossed. Let's see... I really enjoyed many parts of the story, especially the areas about justice.

I originally had big plans to go on a long, long journey. Each demon would be it's own arc, and so on, and so forth. I made the decision to condense the story at my Alpha Reader's judgement. Well, the whole story was heavily influenced by that guy, more than any other story I wrote. You see it was made out of my whimsy but he took it seriously. Anyways, when I look back on it my original plans were a very plain time travel fic that was almost like one of those novelization fanfics.

You see, all that content is just the filling. The real plot of the story was always just the begging and the end, both of which were Ajora vs Ramza. This is a 40k story about the battle between Ramza and the End Boss.

This entire story is an epilogue of the game.

The final battle between Ramza and Ajora actually started in chapter 1. Yes, the romance with Ovelia is unresolved, but that's death. War and death, and the unresolved feelings left behind. 'Forget me quickly, Ovelia.' That's the resolution. Ramza leaves the world as he found it, taking Ajora with him. That was foreshadowed too. The closest vision to a happy end I had was Ovelia, Alma, and Ramza getting launched into the past through another ultima tear. But I didn't want Ramza to stay in the world as it is.

There is more to the story, of course. It's called Final Fatnasy Tactics. It's on PS1, PS Vita, and on android and IOS now.

Anyway, my favorite thing about this story was the succinctness of it all. The princess shows up. The princess is the love interest now. Now she's gone! But she doesn't disappear for 5 years or 20 chapters. She's back again, and involved in the new plot twist with the brother (alpha's idea). I much prefer it this way. It might seem like an abrupt ending, but it wasn't made up suddenly. It was planned months and months ago. From like 5 chapters ago, I started writing A/N's about going into the climax arc.

The other fun thing about this story was the ability to break out into old English like sentences for no reason. Surprisingly no one ever called me out on the inconsistency of when it was used (it was used to be dramatic).

It's really odd. I feel like I have more I should say, but nothing really comes to mind.