Garland being a complete badass w/feelz because I like.

Broken sobs echoed in the dark, damp hallways of the cavern. Claude covered both sides of his head with his hands and bowed down, wailing as he did so. Then, something broke him out of his trance and he immediately got up. He heard...

Footsteps?

There wasn't supposed to be anyone who could enter this place but him...unless there was someone who was strong enough to go against his spell. The only other one was...

"Garland." The tension in Claude's body fell when he saw the other. Garland brought his sword into the ground and leaned on it, for some reason refusing to lean on the walls. "That's Sir, to you. Well, you why I'm here."

"..." Claude broke down when he remembered why he was here and slumped to the floor again, and began to cry. Behind his helmet, Garland rolled his eyes. "Well, well, well. I can't have this now can I?"

Claude only continued to cry, ignoring the other across him. Garland drew his sword again and let it drag alongside him, creating deep marks on the floor wherever he went. He walked next to the crying Claude and lifted his chin. Then, he slammed his face on the wall.

"Rule number one in battle. Never let your guard down." Garland said nonchalantly as Claude kicked himself away and slashed at Garland. With such a brutish grace, Garland easily swung his sword and didn't just block Claude's attack but also sent him flying a few feet and hitting the wall hard. The pain that shot through Claude's body sent his mind swirling. He had to have broken at least two ribs because of that. Garland nonchalantly walked to the other while he was still getting up, and kicked him back down. "I came here to talk and that's what I'll do. So do not ignore me and do not waste my time crying."

"You're not even supposed to be here..." Claude retorted and Garland laughed. "Ahahaha, that's true. You know what else holds true? The fact that you weren't supposed to vanish from my sight before the execution of phase two."

"I've done this before! Why can't you just trust me? Haven't I already proven myself by choosing!?" Claude's voice broke as he slashed upwards. Garland nonchalantly moved away from Claude's blade and brought his foot on the other's stomach. "Then explain to me and I'll possibly look things over. You haven't been this way for the past centuries. So why the sudden change?"

"You've changed. That much I can see." Garland said, narrowing his eyes as Claude began to laugh while coughing up blood. He backed away and began to circle Claude, dragging his sword and leaving a mark whereever he stepped. "You hold the same power as I do now."

"So quit pretending." Garland said and helped the other up. Then, there was a flash of light and they were somewhere...which could be described as a space in between realities, in the form of a long deteriorated castle. The sky was a dark maroon and clouds of universes speckled the sky.

Garland looked Claude in the eye and saw the very same sadness that ate away the righteous man he was a very long time ago. Once upon a time... "I'll have none of it."

"Your era...your destiny ends here Garland." Claude said and dragged his blood against his blade, causing it to become black with red streaks like veins running through it. Garland saw the dark aura he was emitting and smiled. He grabbed his sword and it began glowing dark much like Claude's sword. "End it if you can."

His voice wasn't at all like the frightening being that Claude knew. It was one of a man, aged with countless years of sorrow. A cry of a man trapped within his own darkness for so long it ate away his sanity.

"I had someone like you once. He was...a dear friend. A fool, if I may say so myself." Garland said as he blocked one of Claude's attacks and grabbed him with his free hand, slamming him to the ground. "Kept going on and on about the light. How he was going to protect it, and stay by it, do this and that, and do whatever for it no matter the cost. And me? Hah, with our personalities you wouldn't think we could be friends. It was, quite literally, an endless battle of arguing and arguing, over and over again."

Garland blocked the flurry of kicks, slashes, and spells that came his way. And Claude got kicked in the stomach and sent flying to the other side of the cavern. He couldn't help but notice how strange Garland sounded the whole time he was talking to him. He sounded...pleasant, almost at peace with the memories yet his voice was also riddled with a deep sadness.

"But then on a mission one day...something happened...I got careless and he left this world." Garland said and Claude could have sworn he was crying under that helmet. "So I looked for a way to get him back...and then I found this place. And millennia upon millennia I was here. Stuck in this hellhole of a space Lord only knows where. Looking, searching for a way to get him back. And I finally found it. I finally found a way to change things...to set things right!"

"Ahahaha...HAHAHA!" Claude burst out into a maniacal fit of laughter then slashed angrily at Garland, who took the hit with full force. Garland blocked Claude's sword with his arm and held firm, unflinching even with the sword deep in his arm. His blood littered the floor and he listened to what Claude had to say...something about his state intrigued him. Was it, perhaps, because he was once the same a very long time ago? He didn't know. "Don't talk shit to me about setting things right! These are our lives you're using! Just because you lost someone dear...it doesn't mean you have a right to take away the lives of others! You don't have a right to take our lives away from us!"

"What do you know!? How could you possibly understand!?" Garland roared with a voice of burning rage. "What it's like...the madness that consumes you when you lose someone dear! My madness!"

"How can you even say that when you've made me go through it time and time again!? Cycle after cycle you've been doing nothing but killing us! Me, Leon, Saria, Amilia...Ailith...Erick...You've forced me to watch their deaths over and over and now you've forced me to choose between them! Between...who I want to let live...And you're talking about madness to me!?" Claude roared and kicked him in the chest. This time, Garland was sent tumbling through the pillars that lined the degraded castle. He immediately got up, however, seemingly unfazed. There was something off about his state...

But Claude was too far gone to care.

"I'm going to take your throne...whether you like it or not." Claude got another hit but this time on his leg. Garland barely even flinched when the blade cut through his skin but he just lay there...almost as if he was fazing out. Then, without warning, he grabbed Claude by the neck.

"There is no way...no possible way I will let you take my place. Not while I breath...not while I am." Garland growled at Claude and threw him back to the ground, crushing him underneath. "Not until I get him back."

"Then I'll...save him." Claude could barely speak but he looked to Garland and made himself clear. "...and I'll save you too."

Then Claude fell to the ground, unconscious.

"Ahahaha..." Garland laughed sadly and poured something over the other. Almost instantly, his wounds healed. "You sound just like him."

"But you're too late..." Garland said, a great sadness washing over his voice. "Someone like me can't be saved...not in the depths of cycle that I'm in now. But him..."

"Even if it takes all of eternity, even if it takes trillions of lives over and over again...I'll find a way. I'll fix things and I will save him.

Give a guess who he is? ^D^