Chapter 35: Tower of Salvation Final: Farewell, Martel
With right hand clasped in anger and his face curling into a wretched scowl, Mithos looked at Lloyd Irving with understandable fury and asked once more "Tell me…How did you get in here?!" Lloyd holds his swords out beside himself and glances at Mithos, as he does so he thinks back to everything he had to sacrifice to reach this point.
"There's no time. You know that. You're the only one who can save Colette…" Regal's voice echoes as he recalls the man standing against a horde of angels while the others continued on through the Tower of Salvation. In his last actions, Regal chose to block the way so the angels could not pursue his friends.
"Of course! You better leave me a piece of the action!" Sheena's voice then echoed in his mind as he remembers the girl using the Summon Spirits to destroy a remnant of the Great Tree, only to find herself gripping tightly to the edge of a pit afterwards. Lloyd and the others moved on without her at her insistence, but Lloyd remembers hearing the cliff giving way as he runs off.
"If you don't understand, then make use of your remaining life to think about what it means for a person to live. That's my final lesson to you as your teacher. Now, go. Do as your teacher says." Raine's voice then comes into his mind, as Lloyd recalls her standing alone in front of a console that opened the way for him, Genis and Presea. She had no way of escaping the platform that came apart around her…
"But if you allow your kindness to interfere with your judgment, you're merely weak." Presea's cold words broke through next as Lloyd remembers her being dragged into a crevice by some rampaging roots. Those words were necessary to get him focused, especially since he had to force Genis with him before he did anything foolish to try and save Presea. Now it was just the two of them…But not for long.
In the penultimate trap room, Lloyd remembers him and Genis being surrounded by magic walls. The two of them used their attacks to open a hole big enough for them to slip through. However, Genis ends up being trapped as he chooses to stay behind. With tears welling up in his eyes, Genis said to Lloyd as his final words "You were my best friend, Lloyd…" Lloyd remembers leaving that room trying to hold back the pain of having to let his friends sacrifice themselves one after the other, but Genis' sacrifice pushed him towards the breaking point…
Now alone, Lloyd had to find the strength within himself to pass the final bridge to the chamber of the Great Seed, with arrows bombarding him left and right until the very end, where one final arrow shot forward towards his chest. But what saved him in the end was the snow bunny that Colette had given him back in Flanoir. It was that reminder that allowed him to push forward, for he could still save Colette from being sacrificed as Martel's new vessel.
He climbed the nearby stairs and found a rather familiar sword stuck to the door that allowed him to enter. It was at that point that his memories brought him back to the present…
Firming his eyebrows as he glared at Mithos, Lloyd proclaimed to him without a second thought towards his question "Let Colette go now, Mithos!" Yggdrasill growls at the boy before saying to him in response "Ridiculous! You think I am going to sacrifice my dream now that I'm so close?!"
"Your dream is going to make everyone act exactly like your angels! How can you think that's a good idea?!" Lloyd exclaims in turn, and Mithos holds one hand against his forehead as the strain of everything that has happened so far is driving him insane while replying "How dare you judge my plans…You think you know whether it will work or not?! You think you know everything just like the Elemental Overlord tried to claim?!"
Lloyd was puzzled by this response, and as he glanced at the teenage Overlord he noticed an exhausted look on his face signifying that he fought against Mithos after being taken away by Zelos. Lloyd then looks back at Mithos and says to him "This isn't about knowing everything Mithos…Your goal is selfish. I'm sorry Martel was killed…But you're just doing all this for your own personal revenge and dragging your own race down with you!"
"And your solution is better?! Do you think you know better?! You're ignorant, Lloyd Irving, you and all other humans are ignorant! I thought you of all people would've understood my plight…But you're just another traitor! Everyone but Martel is a traitor!" Mithos' voice was starting to crack apart, which unnerved all parties involved and making Lloyd say with a brave expression on his face "If you thought I was on your side Mithos, then maybe you shouldn't have tried to kill me…"
Mithos raises his head up with a maddened expression on his face, and with his arms swung towards both the teenage Overlord and Lloyd the half-elf begins to charge energy in the palms while saying "Then I will fix my prior mistake, Lloyd Irving! This is the end of you both!" Lloyd was ready to fight back against Mithos' incredible power all by himself, but before he got the chance a fireball came from the right of Mithos' body and struck him in the shoulder.
Such an attack was enough to disrupt his focus, and the energy disperses from his hands while Lloyd blinks twice in surprise. A familiar voice then calls out to Mithos from the left "We won't let you lay a finger on him!" Lloyd looks over along with Mithos and Riku to find Genis standing atop the outer perimeter of the wall with his kendama raised and Sheena, Presea, Raine and Regal standing with him.
"Guys! How? You're okay?" Lloyd went through both feelings of surprise and happiness as he looked at all of his friends, with Sheena exclaiming down to him "I told you I wouldn't miss the main event!" Regal chimes in afterwards with "You did not want to share the same pain I do, correct?" Then Presea and Raine say one after the other "I can't possibly miss seeing the new world that's about to be made." "I can still fight. As long as I can fight, I will stay by your side."
Genis brushes underneath his nose and chuckles while saying "Hehehe, sorry to make you worry, Lloyd." Lloyd was about to cry out of joy before he says "All right everyone! Now let's stop Mithos, together!" The group leaps off the wall and draw their weapons while looking at Mithos. The man angrily swings his arms out and exclaims "This farce of your has gone on long enough! You should have just surrendered to the traps and died! Now I will show all of your traitors no mercy!"
Mithos then glances back at Pronyma and demands of her "Pronyma! Help me kill them all! This whole mess is all your fault in the first place!" However, the Desian leader was in no condition to fight. Her body was shaking, and her expression was blank with agony. After all, everything was going just as the Elemental Overlord said it would, and she was the only one who realized just what that meant for herself. But Yggdrasill refused to believe his words to be the truth, and was going to have her throw her life away…Lloyd Irving was right, Yggdrasill was going to drag all the half-elves down with him if that's what it would take to fulfill his goals.
But could she really disobey him after all that he had done for her and the other Desians? Disobedience would mean death, but following his wishes would also lead to her demise if what the Elemental Overlord said continued on accordingly. She hesitantly said to Mithos "Surely there is another way to go about this then to fight…"
Mithos glared at her intensely, saying with the most subdued of fury "Pronyma…Are you defying my orders?" Pronyma felt a chill in her spine as she shook her head and admitted "N-No…I just…I just don't want to die…And I'm positive you don't want to either…"
Mithos then says to her "You've truly fallen for the lies that accursed Elemental Overlord spouted, haven't you?! Very well…Then you are just another traitor to me!" Raising his hand with ill intent, Yggdrasill wastes little time in vanishing and reappearing right in front of Pronyma. The half-elf proclaims in a panic "N-No…Mithos…Do-" Before she can finish her sentence, the mere matter of her mentioning Yggdrasill's first name causes her to be obliterated with extreme prejudice by a spread of energy from Yggdrasill's hand.
As Pronyma is destroyed, Mithos says with a growl in his voice "Only my true comrades can call me that name…Traitor." Pronyma's swift and cruel demise disgusts all others in the room, with Genis in particular mortified that Mithos would so willingly kill a member of his own race. With this dead done, Yggdrasill turns around and immediately teleports in front of the kneeling Elemental Overlord, spreading his wings while raising his hand and saying "You are the cause of all my recent distress! So you shall perish first!"
"Sheesh, do you EVER stop blaming others?" Another familiar voice calls down to Mithos from behind him, but he was so dead set on killing the teenage Overlord this time around that he didn't bother to turn around. That would prove to be a grave mistake for him as the one who called out to him and another person leap at him from behind, bringing their swords down in a curved slash on the left and right parts of his back. As the two figures land on the ground their blades are placed into floor before their feet while Mithos feels the pain of both slashes coursing through his nerves.
It was after the energy from Mithos' hands vanished that Riku was able to see who had saved him from death. It was both Zelos and Kratos, with Kratos now wearing his regular clothes instead of the ones that showed him to be one of the Four Seraphim. "Z-Zelos? K-Kratos? What are you two doing here?" Lloyd says in a puzzled manner.
Zelos quickly stands up and glances back at Lloyd while smiling to him before he explains "Heheh, you really think I was gonna let you down now, Lloyd?" Sheena rubs the back of her head and begrudgingly admits "Yeah…Zelos and Kratos both rescued us from those traps. We wouldn't have made it here without them both."
"Lloyd…Are you all right?" Kratos calmly asks without acknowledging the remark about his involvement, and Lloyd takes a disbelieving pause before nodding his head in response. Before Kratos or Zelos could say anything more, Mithos recovers from the blow to his backside and quickly spins himself around while drawing out some energy from his hand in the form of a blade and swinging it at the two traitors, who leap back before they are struck.
Mithos' anger was reaching a boiling point as his brain began pounding against the innards of his skull and his chest clenched up in pain. He glares at Kratos first and foremost and exclaims to him "How dare you betray me again, KRATOS?!" Kratos calmly looks at his former ally and says to him in response "…I do not mean to betray you. I am simply full of regret. Regret that I could not stop you alone…"
"And you, Chosen Zelos! Didn't you want me to sever your fate?!" Mithos exclaims. Zelos merely shrugs his shoulders and replies "Meh, wouldn't you figure? I decided to change my mind after a certain little buddy of mine knocked some sense into me. Besides, once we beat the snot out of you, that'll pretty much end the Chosen system anyways."
"INSOLENCE!" Mithos thrusts both of his arms in front of his body and releases an incredible burst of energy around his entire body, which strikes all parties in the room save for the protected Colette and Martel and throws them across the room until they hit the walls. Their bodies jerk forward with a slight feeling of pain coming through as they land on the ground, and Mithos pants in anger at all that was happening in the aftermath.
"You…How dare you…Humans…Humans will always betray us half-elves! …No…Even half-elves will betray me and Martel!" Mithos was breaking down mentally, much sooner than Riku knew he was going to. However, this only made him far more dangerous if his rampage was not stopped quickly. But there was only one thing that could make him calm down now…
A depressurizing noise comes from the right of Mithos' body, and he turns to see that Martel had vanished from the Great Seed…Her essence had been fully placed inside of Colette's body, and the chamber holding her was slowly opening up. Mithos turned to face the chamber while laughing eerily to himself, and then he floated towards it while quietly saying "Finally…Finally…Martel has returned to me…"
As he waited for the chamber to open all the way, Lloyd gets onto his knees and exclaims "No…Colette!" He understandably feared that his friend had been lost by Mithos' unholy process, but before he could get onto his feet Riku looked at him and said "Lloyd! Don't try anything…Just stand back and watch…Everything will be ok…" His words weren't heard by Mithos, who was so indulged in Martel's return to the living that he began to enter a rather unnatural state of happiness that greatly contrasted his earlier insanity.
As the chambers opened up, Colette's eyelids creaked open at the same time. She slowly lifted herself up from the chamber and stood up in front of it, but when she finally got the chance to speak her voice expectedly different from Colette's own. "Mithos…what have you done?" The voice had a mortified tone to it that caught Mithos off-guard as he heard it. His heart skipped a beat, but before he made the wrong move he made an assumption "Martel? Oh, you mean my body. I hastened my growth to have an appearance befitting the leader of Cruxis. Wait just a moment. I'll return to my old form…"
With a flash of light, Mithos becomes his younger self before Martel's very eyes. He smiles at her, but the vibe he projected was rather eerie. Martel was perturbed by the process and controlled Colette's body to shake her head, saying to her brother directly "No, Mithos, not that…I've been watching all this time. Unable to move, unable to do anything, I watched all those foolish things you've done. Have you forgotten everything? We stopped the Ancient War because we dreamt of a world where humans, elves and those in-between could live in harmony…"
Martel's words were a little harsh in tone, but she tried nonetheless to be warm towards her brother. Mithos didn't understand anything, and blankly stared at his sister for a few seconds before mentioning "What are you saying? After all the trouble I went to prepare a new body for you…Oh, I see…You don't like that one, do you?" He let out a cracked chuckle afterwards, and Martel says "Mithos, please. Listen to me. What you have done…is wrong. It is not what we strived for."
"…Wrong? Are you…rejecting me?" Mithos' voice cracked up slightly as he began to misinterpret Martel's words once again. Martel wanted to step back in fear, but stood her ground despite her concerns as she shook her head and stated "No, I want you to remember. Please stop this and become your old self again…"
Mithos paused in place for a few moments, blinking his eyelids with a blank expression on his face before he breaks out in a slightly creepy laugh. He shakes his head to deny what was said, saying to his sister straight up "Martel, even you reject me? No…Martel would never say something like that…" Suddenly, with a completely emotionless expression on his face Mithos bursts into a chilling laugh for a good seven seconds.
He then glares lifts his head up while glaring at Martel, telling her as he puts on a vicious scowl "I won't allow that, do you hear me?!" Mithos then folds both of his arms close together, gathering energy within his body before he swings his right arm out towards the frightened Martel. Lloyd angrily proclaims "No!" Since Colette's body was in danger from Mithos' insanity. Before he can move though, Kratos gets to his feet and runs forward, pushing Colette's body out of the way before Mithos' attack can kill her.
Mithos immediately glares at Kratos and says "How dare you! It was all your fault Kratos! You must have conspired with Lloyd and the Elemental Overlord to ruin Martel's revival! You tainted my sister's memories and words!" Before he can fire an attack at Kratos, Mithos is stopped by Martel running in front of him and holding her arms out, where she defiantly tells him "Please Mithos…If there exists any part of my brother inside of you, I want you to listen to me this final time…Please, return this twisted world back to normal…"
"W-What? No! Martel, don't go!" Mithos snapped back to reality for just a moment, begging for his sister not to leave him yet again. But Martel makes Colette's body lower her head before she explains "If things were going to end up like this, perhaps the elves should never have left Derris-Kharlan. If they hadn't, people like us never would have been born…" Martel's voice begins to fade away at the end of her sentence, and with a mere thought she is able to remove the essence of her soul from Colette's body and push it back into the Great Seed. This time, however, she did not have her body to inhabit.
Mithos just stood there, devastated by the fact that Martel had vanished from sight with those final words being the last thing he'd ever hear from her. He thought that everything would be better with Martel's return, that everything would finally be right for him and her…But the words she said couldn't possibly have been right. Martel would NEVER say such things to him. She had to have been manipulated by an outside force…Kratos? That accursed Chosen? Yuan? The Elemental Overlord? Mithos found himself blaming everyone in the universe for the things Martel said…Everyone that is, sans himself.
Then Mithos thought about Martel's final words, and with his stoic expression returning he begins to laugh coldly to himself. A desperate chill fills his heart as he looks towards the ceiling and says "Martel…You just wanted to leave this filthy world and return to Derris-Kharlan…Yes, of course. That world is the homeland of all elven blood." Even after all that has happened, Genis couldn't help but try and approach Mithos while saying empathetically "Mithos? …Are you ok?"
Mithos stepped towards the Great Seed like a robot, raising his arms out and stating "Yes, dearest sister…Let's forget these filthy creatures and return home together. To Derris-Kharlan…" As he focused on the Great Seed, it began to rise up from above the machine, while at the same time the once unconscious Colette began to awaken with her body now returned to her for good. She was in a bit of a daze, but was well-aware of everything that had happened as she turned towards her friends and urgently proclaimed "Everyone, we have to stop Mithos! Martel is calling to me! Martel wants us to stop him!"
Mithos drops his focus on the Great Seed long enough to turn towards Colette and exclaim to her "Shut up! Martel would never say something like that. You…miserable failure!" Colette firmly clenched her fists together and proclaimed to Mithos in response "She did say it! She was crying! She said 'Please don't make everyone suffer any longer!'"
While Colette was fiercely telling Mithos off with Martel's words, Lloyd looked towards the Great Seed rising and commented "No! Mithos' is trying to take the Great Seed off the planet!" Kratos glances at him and says calmly "Lloyd…You know what you must do now, right?"
Lloyd nods his head and then draws both of his swords, saying firmly to everyone to rally them back to their feet "I know! We're gonna stop Mithos with everything we've got! This is the last battle, we have to stop him now!" Mithos hears Lloyd's voice and turns around, glaring at him fiercely while his body begins to glow "I won't let any of you interfere again!" He then becomes Yggdrasill, exclaiming to them "I will kill you all!"
Riku, seeing the need to get back into battle, tries to rise to his feet to help while stating "L-Lloyd…We're all in this together…Gah!" But the pain inflicted onto him forces him back onto the ground, which then leads to Lloyd saying to him as he prepares for battle "Riku, sit this one out, we'll handle this on our own this time! You don't have to worry!"
"…Heh…If you say so Lloyd. I guess I should just relax…Catch my breath…" Riku murmurs out before closing his eyelids and leaning back with a smile on his face, though he tries to keep enough awareness on him in case the battle crosses over his way.
Mithos starts things off by raising his right hand into the air full of energy and slamming it against the ground, sending five shockwaves across towards all the heroes. Everyone leaps away as the energy travels slightly up the wall and cracks it apart slightly. Lloyd, Zelos and Kratos throw out a Demon Fang at the man, and the three fanged projectiles meet together and form a gigantic one that forces Yggdrasill to raise his right hand up and summon forth a glyphic shield to block the attack.
But his defense only worked from the front, and while he was distracted with the group before him he forgot about Colette long enough for her to throw one of her rings straight through the center of his body. By nature, the rings inflicted damage without leaving permanent damage to the body, which had the effect of disrupting Mithos' focus on his shield as he grimaced in pain. Colette flew in front of Mithos and grabbed her ring out of the air, flipping around and swinging both of her rings out in such a way that they curve towards Mithos and pass right through the sides of his body before looping back around to Colette's hands.
The Chosen lands on the ground and puts her rings away for a moment to free up her arms for a spell. She raises both of them up and strums away with her fingers while angelic feathers rise up around her body "Thy faithful servant I ask us for thy blessing, honor us with the splendor of your song…Holy Song!" As she finishes her spell off, a wave of pure light flashes out across the room, affecting all of Colette's friends in such a way that they feel empowered.
However, there was something particular about this light that was noticed immediately by Kratos. "…Martel? Are you helping us now?" He murmurs out as he crosses his sword beside his body and smiles. Mithos also seemed to recognize the sensation despite not being affected by the spell, and angrily exclaimed "You aren't the only ones who can use angelic skills! Taste the divine wrath of the heavens! HOLY CROSS!"
Mithos clenches his right fist and focuses his energy into it for a few seconds before swinging it out towards the group, but at the same time he uses his powers to stop time long enough for a cross of holy light to come crashing down in the center of the entire group. He then lets time resume as the cross explodes in a flash of pure energy that consumes the heroes before they can react. Yggdrasill took pleasure in the success of his attack, but that was before someone came through the light to attack him.
It was Regal, who went flying straight at Mithos with an aura of holy light around his body from Colette's previous spell. He struck Mithos in the face with the full strength of his kick, which forced his head back and cracked part of the bones in his neck in recoil. Regal then flips his body around and rises up slightly, diving down onto the ground and folding his arms close to his chest while saying "You're not getting away! Final Fury!"
Regal lifts up and performs a swift kick with his right leg across Mithos' body, placing his foot on the ground after performing a 360 turn and going on to another kick with his other leg. He performs at least ten kicks in rapid succession before performing a straight forward strike to Mithos' chest with his right foot, which leads to him backflipping out of the way as he hears another of his allies running towards Mithos.
Presea leaps into the air over Regal's body, swinging her axe up with one hand before cleaving it down across Mithos' chest. Her axe crashes against the ground with enough force to rupture the ground and send rocky spikes into Mithos' body, which launches him up as the continuous strikes leave him unable to fight back.
At this point Genis and Raine join into the fight, with Raine using her staff to surround Mithos' body with a sphere of light that binds him in place. This gave Genis enough time to get past his reluctance to attack Mithos and raise his kendama into the air while exclaiming "Gravity Well!" In seconds, Mithos is consumed by a black and purple sphere that swiftly drags him towards the ground and breaks apart the Photon around his body. The magic deals continuous damage to Mithos before he's forced to kneel against the ground.
"How…How can they be this strong?!" Mithos angrily thinks to himself as he waits for the effect of Gravity Well to subside around him. While he's bound in place by this, Sheena draws out two Summon Seals and proclaims confidently "I call upon the envoy from the dark abyss and the light of the heavens! I summon thee, come, Shadow and Luna!"
The two Summon Spirits are called forth above Sheena, with Shadow in particular glaring down coldly at Mithos as his body is set free from the Gravity Well and saying to him "…Traitor…" Luna and Shadow then both raise their hands into the air and send forth a combined blast of darkness and light upon the infuriated Mithos. Refusing to let another attack strike his body, Mithos begins to swing his arms forward to counter the Summon Spirit's blast while exclaiming "You insolent Summon Spirits!"
But before he can fire off a blast of his own, both Zelos and Kratos finish casting the same spell, which causes the ground to crack apart below his feet and summon forth a large series of rocky spikes that scrape against Mithos' skin and bind him in place while simultaneously forcing him through enough pain to prevent him from fighting back. With a growl of Kratos' name, Mithos is then consumed by Luna and Shadow's attack, which shatters apart the rocks keeping in place as a whirling dome of black and white drags in dust and debris and destroys it all without mercy.
Luna and Shadow vanish now that their part has been finished, and no one in the group assumed that Mithos had been defeated just yet. But what they couldn't prepare for was his rather rapid recovery and his ensuing counterattack as he exclaimed "JUDGMENT!" Mithos uses his angelic powers to send forth a gigantic barrage of holy beams from above, leaving not a single space of the room in front of him untouched.
The beams hit the group, with some of them getting struck multiple times and being thrown against the walls and ground without any chance to get their bearings on what was happening. As the smoke from Luna and Shadow's attack is blown away from the impact of the Judgment beams, Mithos can be seen weakly standing on his feet, his clothes in tatters while his hair had become unkempt. He glared forward with frantically widened eyes and panted while his arms were held out in front of his body.
"Damned…Humans…How dare you…Turn the Summon Spirits…Against me?!" Mithos exclaims, and as he weakly holds his sword against the ground to prop himself off Kratos glances at his former ally and replies "Mithos…You already betrayed the Summon Spirits long ago…" Mithos widens his eyes and lifts his body up while summoning forth a ring of angelic energy around his body. "Enough! One more Judgment shall put an end to this ludicrous farce, and then I will take Martel away from this world forever!"
"Farewell, humans! JUD-GAAAAAAH" Before he can deal the finishing blow, he's suddenly tightly wrapped around the arms and legs by a series of roots that were dragged out of the ground through the cracks. The roots were so tightly around him that he couldn't finish focus all of his energy into finishing the group off with his magic. Mithos is dragged knees first back onto the ground, his arms spread out so far that you could hear the bones slightly crack.
Mithos didn't have to put much effort into figuring out who was responsible for this affront, and with an angered glare to the left he sees Riku barely rising to his feet with his right arm extended. He didn't say a word as he coldly stared at Mithos, and in anger the half-elf exclaimed "You…! You continue to get in my way! None of this would have happened if it wasn't for your presence! YOU'VE RUINED EVERYTHING!"
The teenage Overlord closed his eyelids and shook his head while commenting "I'll say it time and time again…You were already on the road to defeat long before I showed up, Mithos. Right now, I am just helping to hasten your demise…" He then opened his eyelids and exclaimed "Lloyd! Now's your chance! Finish him off!"
Lloyd rises to his feet after the earlier Judgment beams knocked him down, and after swinging his swords out to the side he exclaims "Thanks Riku! This is for all of you guys, and the people of both Tethe'alla and Sylvarant that have suffered!" Lloyd sprints forward, dragging his swords along the ground as he got closer to Mithos. The half-elf exclaimed "How DARE y-" But his sentence has cut short as Lloyd swung both blades up, cutting through Mithos' body in an X-Shaped manner while pushing the limits of his remaining strength.
Mithos' eyes widened as he founds his body feeling somewhat weightless as the steel cut through his skin and muscles. He coughs up blood from the mouth, and Riku chooses to let the roots disappear so Mithos' body can collapse forward onto the ground in defeat. Lloyd steps back before Mithos lands on him, sheathing his swords as the half-elf's wings began to retract into his body.
For a moment, Lloyd looked at the half-elf with a pitying glance, saying to him "Mithos…" In a quiet tone. Mithos lifts his head up, the blood drooling from his mouth as his eyes looked blank and emotionless. He creaked his head around and held his right hand towards the Great Seed, saying with his last breath "How…? …Why? ….I just wanted….I just wanted to go home with my…sister…"
The Cruxis Crystal that had sustained him up until this point then gave out, and it dragged both his body and soul into it almost instantly. The crystal fell into the small pool of blood left before his death, and as Lloyd lifts his head up to take in a few deep breaths Genis suddenly runs forward and picks the Cruxis Crystal up from the ground, shaking it off so the blood is replaced with the glow that usually surrounds it.
Genis had a few tears in his eyes, even after all Mithos had done, he was still a fellow half-elf…And a friend. Now that Mithos had been killed, however, the Great Seed descended back to where it was before, and everyone was able to let out a sigh of relief save for Riku and Kratos. "It's finally over…" Lloyd comments, and he collapsed onto his rear while letting out a tired breath.
Kratos, who had recovered rather quickly from the battle, walks beside Lloyd and stares towards the Great Seed while commenting "I think you are forgetting something, Lloyd…" Lloyd looks up at him, and Kratos points out in turn "The Great Seed is still here…The worlds are still split…You know what you have to do still."
Lloyd quickly rises back to his feet and looks at Kratos, telling him straight up "You have to be kidding me! You can't expect me to kill you, not after this!" Kratos glances at him and gestures his hand out while saying "Just because I helped you this one time doesn't change anything, does it? I was still a member of Cruxis, I have taken countless lives including that of your mother…Why should you have qualms with taking my life in order to release Origin?"
"Kratos…There has to be another way! I'm not giving up on that!" Lloyd boldly claims to try and get Kratos to see things his way, but at the most the man smiles subtly and lets out a single chuckle, saying to Lloyd "…I shall be waiting for you at the seal of Origin in Heimdall…Take your time, I do not want you to fight me when you're weary like this."
After saying that, Kratos teleports out of the room, leaving Lloyd feeling frustrated that things will still have to go about like this. "Damn it…" He growls out in anger as Riku slowly walks up behind him and whispers out "…One problem is solved, and yet another one still remains…"
Lloyd turns around to face the teenage Overlord and lets out a distressed sigh, saying to him "Yeah…But it's either kill Kratos or let the worlds stay separated…" He hangs his head low for a moment, and Riku comments "It goes against your whole 'no more sacrifices' ideal." Lloyd nods his head in agreement of that, and as he does this Riku glances around and notices a few members of the group staring at him awkwardly.
"…There's no way they've forgotten about what Zelos said. I have to say something about that sooner or later." Riku thought to himself in a melancholy manner. He then glanced at Genis as the boy hid the Cruxis Crystal away in one of his pockets, and continued to think "I wonder if I should do something about that now…Nah, I've done enough interfering for today…I'll just worry about that when the time comes."
The teenage Overlord stumbles back a bit after finishing his sentence, recognizing a bit of dizziness in his body due to overdoing it with his powers. Lloyd says to him afterwards "You should really have Raine heal you up, Riku." The teenage Overlord shook his head in response and said to Lloyd "It's fine Lloyd…I'll heal on my own."
Riku glances over at Raine and thinks "Besides, after last night, I doubt she wants me anywhere near her…" With that rather disheartening remark, the teenage Overlord joins everyone in heading out of the Tower of Salvation. They managed to not run into any angels, but without Mithos around one could only assume that they just had no reason to fight against the group…
Once they exit the Tower of Salvation, they look towards the afternoon sun, with Zelos cracking a wide smile as he says "Heh…Can't believe I'm out here looking at the sun again. You really did it Lloyd, you managed to stop Mithos." "But now I have to defeat Kratos…We should head to Heimdall right away." The group agreed with that sentiment, and headed for the Rheairds so they could go towards the fated battleground…The place where Mithos' life began, Heimdall…
Next Time: The Sinner and the Forgiver