In the beginning of our adventure we easily defeated the enemies that came our way. We saved a princess, awoke an elf prince, and so on. Ultimately, it was hard and easy at the same time even in spite of our struggles and joys we were able to push forward ever more. That is until we came across Chaos and his damnable timeloop. Every time we pushed and pushed and came close to defeating him he would reset the clock and we'd start from the beginning, over and over again. The constant bright Light filling our vision and minds at the final moment was always a damnable thing. I struggled with this as my devotion to the goddess wavered day in and day out as we came so close to destroying him once and for all only to have our hopes dash—
"Luna, what're you doing writing down all that?" Titan the warrior was peeking over my shoulder curiously and nosily.
"Don't you know that a girl needs her private thoughts to go somewhere?" I swiftly closed my diary. "Hmph! Bad enough that we have to share a tent all the time with you two guys, and now you won't even let me write in peace!"
"Whoa, whoa, now! I just was curious since you never kept a diary before... no need to bite my head off for it." Titan gave her a placating gesture and she sighed in exasperation.
"You know Luna, if you ever need any girl talk I'm... not... here for you." Nova the black mage creepily intoned in the darkness of the night, not nearly near enough to the fire for light to catch her eyes but they remained glowing yellow nonetheless.
"Ah! Um! That's fine Nova... I just wanted to sort out this stuff." I tried to put on a cheerful face for her but she was still unnerving after all these years in the time loop.
Fritz the monk was stoically brooding in a separate coroner near the fire, staring into it.
"I don't think there's any escape, is there?" He said with flat resignation. He was the de facto party leader in the early days, before we started looping. But ever since we started something seemed to have... broken in him.
"You can heal anything physical, but this mental anguish of his..." Titan remarked quietly but everyone heard and stared at him. He started sputtering and gesturing wildly but the mood was even worsened after him saying that unspoken fear of ours for Fritz. It was true though. Fritz is broken, Nova is even more cloistered than when we began, I'm struggling to come to terms that my goddess is powerless against Chaos, and Titan is just trying to keep us together despite it all.
He had always been the hope.
Fritz broke the uneasy silence eventually, "it's fine, Titan." He draws his legs close to his chest and buries his head in his knees. "It's fine."
"Jeez, well, thanks but you know we're always here for you-" Titan begins but is cut off by Nova.
"I'm not."
"Fine, us two are here for you. You always feel like you have to bear the party's weight on your shoulders but we're all here for each other." Nova attempts to cut in again but Titan gives her a glare, "even Nova." Who just shrugs and looks into the woods nearby.
"How many times has it been so far?" Fritz asks no one in particular, probably completely rhetorically.
But Nova answers anyway, "hmm... We've repeated this year around... 6783 times? Yes, that's precisely it. I almost lost count."
"6000, nearly 7000 years in this time looping Hell. And Chaos just won't let me die either."
"Yes we were all spooked when you killed yourself all the time in the 2000s. It seems Chaos is toying with us at this point... it just restarted every time without fail." Nova was nonchalant and this seemed to drive Fritz even further. He was beginning to sob.
"I just want to be done. Done with it all. He won't let us go, he won't let us kill him, he won't let us do anything! There has to be something we can do!" Fritz was manic again. He nearly threw himself into the fire to immolate himself but Titan stopped him and held him gently but tightly so he couldn't.
At first they were lovers when we first departed the castle Cornelia, but for 6000 years... Well, they didn't last past 80. They were fine, more or less, and they briefly reconnected around the 4000s, but they couldn't get past something and I wasn't about to pry.
Fritz and Titan held each other for a while while Fritz sobbed into his chest but eventually broke apart when his panic attack subsided. The secret I've been keeping this entire time though, is there is something I can do. I can ask my goddess to allow me to view the future. But it comes at a cost. A grave cost, it sacrifices our fate. We will be unable to do anything but follow a path laid before us, whether that leads to our annihilation or our total victory.
When my goddess came to me in my dream to tell me of this option I nearly took it right away. She had not looked at it herself so she couldn't even hint at the result. But I stopped myself. We were only in the first hundreds or so when she came, and I was always a patient person. I had thought back then it would nearly be a matter of finding the exact right way of destroying Chaos. But as the years turned to thousands upon thousands... I started to doubt.
I know it has to be my choice, as every time I try to bring up my dream my mind wavers and my tongue slips. I can't speak of it, as the goddess won't allow it. I tried to write it down to myself, even intending to keep the thought to only myself and just... hope... that Titan's nosy behavior would get the better of him. But I couldn't. I physically could not write the start of a sentence about that dream. The goddess has been silent ever since that dream but she says I need only pray for the Sight and I will receive it in perfect clarity instantly.
In a flash of realization I made a decision.