Okay, so last time we had Ike nearly gets himself killed by Roy. But, he's not dead. So, what happened?

We'll see. For now, we get hints...

Chapter 7: Past Phase 3

"Ike, you're okay!" cried Maria. She had to fight the urge to jump into Ike's arms at this, but the relieved flash in her eyes was great for Ike to see.

"Of course I am," he said, nodding. "Why wouldn't I be?"

"Damn it, don't ever do that to us again!" cried Cecilia, glancing away from the hand that did not hold Guinevere's rapier anymore. "You could've been killed!"

The mercenary's sapphire eyes blinked in confusion. "But we were just sitting around!"

At this, everybody there blinked uncertainly, except for Fiordiligi. "What do you mean?" asked Calvin. "I followed you all the way from--"

"Wait, Calvin, you followed us?" asked the purple-haired human, blinking at the priest.

The priest nodded. "I could not simply leave you to be on an assassination!" he replied. "So I followed you..."

"Huh?" asked Ike. "Assassination?"

Maria raised an eyebrow at this. "You don't remember?" she asked uncertainly.

Fiordiligi shook her head. "We haven't the time for this!" she exclaimed, stamping her feet on the ground for emphasis. "We must head back to that grand battle, now!"

The group looked at each other before the mercenary shrugged, unsure of what to do.

"We'll handle this later," said Ike. "For now, let's move!"

And without another word, the five of them departed into the woods, running to get to the grand battle as quickly as possible.

As they moved throughout the forest, something suddenly occurred to Cecilia, and as she ran, she turned to Fiordiligi.

"Oh, you never did explain what the whole deal with being able to see spirit signs was..." she said. "What's a spirit sign?"

Fiordiligi held on to Ike's hand as he led both Maria and herself along. "A spirit sign?" she asked. "That's what the virtuous dead see for people..."

"It's how they can tell who's supposed to be in hell and who isn't," added Maria. "So it's sort of like... well, I don't know..."

"It looks like an aura," replied Fiordiligi. "Like... imagine I can actually see you. Now, imagine you're on fire with a blue flame. That is what you look like to me..."

At this, Cecilia blinked, her face setting into a frown. "Wait a minute, you can see after all, can't you?" she asked.

"I can see people," replied Fiordiligi. "I can't see objects or the ground. So I still need someone to lead me since I can still run into things..."

"But still, that doesn't mean you can't--!" began the Elibean native loudly.

"I also have no depth perception!" replied the lady of Jericho angrily. "You try making out where people are going on a black plane where there is no floor and everyone looks like they are floating in the air! Then you come back to me about following people!"

"Ladies, can we please not argue at a time like this?" asked Calvin as he moved as quickly as he could behind Cecilia.

The two of them were silent for a brief period after this. However, Cecilia still had yet another question that was in her mind.

"Then can you tell me that you can at least tell which one Nergal is?" she asked.

Fiordiligi nodded. "Certainly," she said. "The aura behind Nergal is a stark black... And I have a feeling it has to do with being dead and belonging to hell more than it is that he is a blackhearted fiend..."

"Whatever the case, we know we have to kill him too," said Cecilia.

"The problem is, he's already dead," replied Ike. "So we have to send him back down to the underworld with the spirit trap."

At this, the female nodded. "Sounds like a plan," she said. "It's too bad we have to kill a dragon too!"

"Well, hang on," said Maria, a thought coming to her head. "If we don't kill either, then... what happens if certain people die?"

At this, the group had to fight off the urge to pause, realizing that the laguz had a point. The other four gave each other confused looks.

"That is a very good point," said Calvin. "Roy probably would not have succumbed to Nergal's mind-control so easily if that blue-haired girl hadn't died..."

Here, the group stopped, trying to catch their breath from nothing but running and then stopping to think. Ike nodded.

"That's true," he said. "So if we kill the dragon and don't kill Nergal... but we keep Lilina alive..."

Maria shook her head. "This just got a whole lot harder," she said. "Now we have to keep everyone alive..."

Fiordiligi nodded at this, letting go of Ike's hand after a brief period of time. "That's assuming everybody survives in the one timeline where everything turns out okay..."

The group mulled on these thoughts for a few minutes, catching their breaths as they pondered what to do about trying to keep the people in the battle against Nergal and the dragon alive.

A few hours later, they had managed to get all the way through the Dragon's Gate. Ike and the group suddenly found themselves within the chamber, seeing Roy and his army fighting the same opponent they had encountered in the last timeline.

"Okay, I think we made it in time," said Cecilia, holding her hand out and charging an ice spell. "Now let's take this thing down and see what happens next!"

Ike nodded as a giant plume of black smoke suddenly flew all over the room. Ike took this as his cue to enter, jumping high above the black flames that he had seen. As he moved to slash with Ragnell, he felt a small chill at his hands. He only brought his sword out in front of him and found that Cecilia had enchanted his weapon with ice. Grinning, he slashed at Idoun, the ice creating extra damage and clearing some of the smoke away.

"Wet de hell?" asked the all-too familiar voice of Willie. "Ike? Wet?"

"Yes, it's us!" cried Maria as she entered the room quickly. "Willie, you're all right!"

The Cockney boy seemed to smile at this. "Yeh be all roight!" he cried.

"We don't have time to think about that!" said Cecilia as she rushed for the dragon. "We've still got this thing to take down!"

As the smoke cleared, the army under general Roy blinked in surprise. However, Kuranga, who had shifted into his own dragon form by this time, seemed to pay no mind. Ike leapt back, nodding at the dragon laguz before jumping in to attack the dark dragon again.

Shrugging, Roy decided to play along with this, and so he rushed into the battle as well.

Ike and Roy were then seen both slashing at the dragon quickly, but this time Cecilia was enforcing both of their blades with the power of ice. This seemed to affect the dark dragon in a way nobody had anticipated, and so everybody concentrated their firepower onto the dragon itself. Arrows were being lodged in its hide, spells were flying into it left and right, and weapons were doing great damage. Ike was simply flying around the creature, as was every other person in Roy's army at the time. With this onslaught of manpower, the dark dragon was beginning to get greatly overwhelmed. Soon enough, the dragon was brought to its knees, its eyes betraying that it was frightened of death or some variant of it. It made it a little harder to watch when the lord known as Roy stepped forward, everybody knew it was time for the dragon's death to occur.

However, Cecilia knew that just as Roy would jump at the creature, Nergal would attempt to kill the blue-haired woman that had caused the Lycian lord to break off into rage during the second timeline.

Thus, she turned her head to where the lady stood, and tackled her to the ground. It was then that Cecilia brought her hand up, and upon doing so she froze Nergal's hand. A dagger was then frozen in place, which was then dissolved by a strange kind of black magic.

The distraction was all that she needed. "Look out!" cried Cecilia from where she lay on the ground right as Roy had plunged the legendary blade into the dragon's body.

And before the blackhearted fiend could do anything to anybody, they all turned around, seeing the man in long black robes. At Cecilia's intervention, he only grinned wickedly.

"So I see you kept me from claiming my prize..." began the dark magician.

"Your prize?" cried Roy, drawing his sword out from the dragon by his side. "What, you wanted Lilina's life?"

"Far from that," replied Nergal. "The dragon or your mind was what I wanted. It seems I've been denied both, however."

"Ha!" cried Ike, raising Ragnell high in the air.

"But..." he pondered, his eyes glancing over the group. "I would not mind... a replacement..."

Nergal then lunged towards Roy. Before much could be done, however, Ike blocked the man with Ragnell.

"I don't think so!" cried the mercenary. "You'll have to get through all of us before you can get to him!"

And before the blackheart could reply, Ike brought his blade around, knocking the knife out of Nergal's hands. The madman simply grinned evilly.

you have no chance make your time

"You think I truly needed that knife to kill a man?" he asked, almost deliriously. "Watch this!"

And then, he flung a ball of dark matter in Roy's direction. The lord was prepared, however, and so he swatted the ball of black energy away with a swing of his sword, the ball colliding with the wall in an eerily dark explosion.

Willie sent the fireball in Nergal's direction quickly. This caused him to warp to another part of the room, hoping to evade damage. Thankfully, Cecilia had waited for him to blunder, and so she sent an ice spell in the blackheart's direction.

Unfortunately, all of this had thrown of Fiordiligi's aim as she had attempted to create a spirit trap for Nergal. Thus, when she closed the trap a little to early, a female scream rang out in the air.

The victim was a blonde woman that Maria recognized as Guinevere a little too late.

Looking at this, everybody balked, wondering where the royal of Bern had disappeared to.

And before Ike blacked out, he saw the maniacal grin of Nergal hovering in the air as he teleported away, figuring that Guinevere's accidental sending to the underworld would suffice.