I rejected the bargain in prayer. I fell prostrate where I was and prayed fervently for oblivion. I received an answer.
To break the time loop... we needed to accept it. Forsake our roles, allow it all to come crashing down in one moment in a defiant refusal to fight Chaos. My tongue unbounded itself and I told my party this revelation I had from my goddess.
Nova laughed and said, "Ah! Why not! Maybe then we'll finally be dead!"
I felt horrible for thinking this but Fritz looked hopeful at those words, for once having a glimmer of firelight in his deep brown eyes. Titan scrunched his face up in indignation and looked to be about to tell me off but caught his old love's face in the corner of his eye before he said anything. He just sighed instead.
It was a trek to Chaos like any other. We approached and dispatched of his minions mercilessly. Cutting them down, healing our wounds, and blasting them away.
"I see you want to try again, mortals." Chaos was seated in his throne in front of us. He stood up and summoned his cursed spear.
We four looked at each other for a brief moment and nodded. We stood there, doing nothing.
Chaos looked puzzled, "isn't this the part where you.. What!?" The ground quaked suddenly.
Chaos began to unravel. He attempted to attack but he couldn't. We stood there, motionless and refusing to submit to him and his machinations. We were defying fate itself.
And there was Light.
Those four were not recorded in legend. As it all never happened.
Those three forgot it all. Every moment of torture as if it never happened, and remained friends.
Those two were married. They lived their days and died soon after each other.
That one, she remembered. And she was never the same.
The only thing that remained was one phrase, locked deep inside a blank diary:
"Nothing is forever."