At the exit of the canyon, the Nabateans began readying themselves to make their way westward. They knew they couldn't stay in Zanado, with the risk of Nemesis attacking again with greater force.
"Happy shall be the one who shall reward thee as thou hast served us, Nemesis," said one of them, a Nabatean man with a sizable burn scar on his face, who had introduced himself as Krios.
"Hear, hear," said Seiros.
A little girl tugged on Link's tunic. "Is it true, mister? Are you really the Hero of Hyrule?"
"Yes, that's me," Link said. "You've heard of me?"
"Mama told us stories of you and Princess Zelda," the little girl said. "She said Grandma Sothis told them to her."
"I see," Link said. "Well, I'm here, and so is Princess Zelda." He indicated Zelda. "I wish we could have gotten here sooner, but..."
"That you got here at all is something to be thankful for," the girl's (visibly human) father said. "If you hadn't shown up...none of us would have made it out of Zanado."
Seiros turned to Flayn. "I do have questions, Cethleann. First, how did you know we were in danger, and second, how did you manage to bring the Hero of Hyrule to help?"
"Well, that's...complicated," Flayn said. "First of all, while I am Cethleann, I'm not your Cethleann. I'm Cethleann from the future. Or...a future?"
The Company began giving a short version of the explanation of how they got there, leaving out a fair amount of detail, which still took the better part of an hour, especially with several of the survivors asking questions.
"So I would have been the only survivor of those who were in Zanado at the time," Seiros said, a haunted expression on her face. She steeled herself as best she could. "What do we do now? How do we defeat him?"
"Start by gathering all of the Nabateans who weren't in Zanado, before Nemesis can track them down," Yuri said.
Edelgard nodded. "You'll also want to seek out a man named Wilhelm Hresvelg. In our timeline, he was your closest friend and ally, both before and after learning your true identity, and I'm told he was adept at rallying others to his cause. You can trust him, and quite frankly, you'll need his help."
Seiros nodded. "Is there anyone else we should trust or distrust?"
"Yes, unless there are things that are different in this timeline that we aren't aware of, you can trust Duncan Varley, Alexander Ochs, Darius and Flayn Hevring, and Robert von Aegir. You should not trust Salvia Hawkins, and you should definitely not trust Merrett Riegan. Oh, and Nemesis will use the Crests and bones of those he killed today to empower his generals. We never figured out exactly which of them knew where their power came from, or which would care if they knew, but in our timeline, four of them turned against Nemesis upon finding out what sort of man he truly was."
"He didn't bother to find men as depraved as him to be his generals?" Krios asked.
"Men often don't expect others to act upon virtues they themselves lack," Dimitri said. "Honor and justice mean nothing to Nemesis, and he likely assumes they mean nothing to anyone else as well."
"I don't know for sure whether or not the other ten can be turned," Flayn said. "But Joachim Aubin, Abner Chevalier, Timotheos Athan, and Noa Nuvelle will be receptive to switching sides. Maybe not immediately, but in our timeline, they all turned their backs on him in the twelfth year of the war. They didn't know our true identities when they declared for us, but they didn't regret their choice when they found out."
"That's very interesting," Seiros said. "And is there anything else we should know?"
"Yes," Kronya cut in. "There's an Agarthan remnant backing Nemesis. They're led by a man named Epimenides. Our history is...unreliable, and I wasn't much of a history student in any case, so I don't know if he's done his Darkhallow ritual yet—mass human sacrifice ritual to give him the powers of a god sans Creation, if you don't recognize the term—but I expect he will have by the time he chooses to act in person. At least three of his trusted subordinates will be getting Crests along with Nemesis's generals."
"Good to know," Seiros said. "I assume, from your use of 'our' rather than 'their,' that you're a...former member of this Agarthan remnant?"
"Yes, that's right," Kronya said. "It took me some time, but my eyes were eventually opened to the...flaws, in the Agarthan way of thinking. Unfortunately, I can't tell you much else about their capabilities. I don't know their current numbers, and Agarthan technology has changed often depending on which resources were plentiful and which were scarce. The Agarthan city of Shambhala does have a conventional gate, but I only ever left or entered it through teleportation, so I don't actually know where it's located." A thought occurred to her. "I don't know if they've developed it yet, but when I'm from, the Agarthans had a way to disguise one of our own as another person. It's not something that can be done quickly, though. We can put together a quick disguise in an hour or so, but it doesn't change anything but skin, hair, and eye color. A perfect disguise takes months to create. Be suspicious of anyone who goes missing for a long time, especially if they return with changed habits."
Suddenly, Linkle looked at her compass. "My compass is spinning again."
Zelda nodded. "That's going to be our portal. We're sorry we can't do more, but Hyrule is also in need, and we can't stay here for too long."
"What you have already done for us is more than we can ever repay," Seiros said, shaking Zelda's hand with both of her own.
The portal appeared about ten meters away from the group, and the Company members began making their way toward it. However, Hubert paused. "Wait."
"Is something wrong, Hubert?" Edelgard asked.
Hubert hesitated, then took a deep breath. "I'm staying."
"Wait, really?" Claude asked. "Isn't 'wherever Lady Edelgard goes, I go' your whole thing?"
"It was," Hubert said. "But things changed the night Link found the Master Sword. When Mercedes and I became immortal, it became inevitable that my path had to diverge from Lady Edelgard's. And now...I have made a decision. I have to stay here, with the Nabateans. And I need Mercedes to stay here with me."
"Why's that?" Cyril asked. "Is it because she's also immortal, or..."
Hubert shook his head. "That's part of it, but no. The Church of Seiros...in our timeline, I won't deny that it did do its share of good, but in the end, it failed. When we were taken from Garreg Mach, Fódlan was on the verge of a civil war poised to devastate the continent. Now, you may be able to return to Fódlan and stop it in time, but that doesn't change the fact that even if you avert that civil war, it will have taken a literal miracle to prevent. I want to influence the Church as it exists in this timeline so it won't fail the way it did in ours...but as I have come to understand in the past year, my perspective on the Church is biased and unreliable. For me to succeed in this endeavor, I need someone who has seen the side of the Church that I have not. I need Mercedes."
Mercedes nodded. "I'll do it."
Raphael embraced the two enthusiastically, tears in his eyes. "Does that mean this is goodbye? I'm sure going to miss you two!"
As they all embraced the two of them in turn, Dimitri turned to Flayn. "Do you want to stay here as well? You have another chance to be with your family."
"Tempting...but no," Flayn answered. "Father and Rhea, the ones from our Fódlan, they need me. And if I stay here, that would be giving up on finding a way back to them."
They all finished saying their goodbyes, and the Rising Sun Company, sans two members, walked through the portal, which closed behind them.
Once the portal had closed, the members of the Company looked around. "Are we back in Hyrule?" Caspar asked.
Link observed the worn-down road and their surroundings. "I don't recognize where we are."
"Because we're still in Fódlan," Balthus said. "We're several kilometers north of where Garreg Mach is, or will be, or would have been."
"Do you recognize this place?" Annette asked.
"Yes, I've been here before," Balthus answered, indicating a sign. "We're about a kilometer from Westmont, a town with a couple of casinos and a boxing scene. I used to visit every month or so to go a few rounds in the ring and gamble away my winnings, until my debts got too high and I stopped being welcome."
Ashe looked down the road toward the town. "Is Westmont usually on fire?"
"What?" Balthus asked.
"Because that's a lot of smoke," Ashe pointed out.
With that, the Company started rushing to the burning town.
