melodiesofeternity | Apocalypse || Sen Riqeaux Castle

Corrin likewise readies herself. She has no special abilities she can prime with Nohr Noble, but she's in the front of the group, ready to protect her allies, Shadow Yato at the ready.

"Everyone who has died to this madness...has died because of you." And her tone is ice-cold, devoid of the usual warmth and kindness she usually speaks with. "You betrayed your world, your own country...for what? What in the name of the Gods and sanity was any of this for?"

"I already gave you the solution, Finn. You awake the four Legendary Eidolons and then you summon them. I believe you did the first step. So all you need now are four Summoners with the Supreme Skill—" A pause, eyes widening as she feigns surprise. "Oh, right, you have none..."

She smiled at Tyzias and Corrin.

"Of course it was on me. Fear controls our lives. When you manipulate the fear in people's hearts, you can get them to accept anything."

She looked at all of them as they asked those questions, before closing her eyes.

"Let me regale you with a tale. The tale of this world's birth."

She started walking amongst the Heroes, going near Kuja and Naomi first.

"There was once a woman named Kalki. You know her as the Goddess of Death. She was faced with a conundrum. She hated living. Life was, ah, painful to her. But more than that, she was afraid of death. How can one exist when they hate life and fear death? Such an existence is nothing but miserable. Thus she sought to make a new world. One where neither death nor life would exist. One where the very concept of existence as we know it would be revoked and changed."

She then stopped next to Vimes.

"This was made possible by her world of birth, Crystallis and by the monstrosity plaguing it, the Calamity from the Skies: Narayana. An entity born from Crystallis's sins, made from the fragments of dead worlds, made from the broken souls of those who had once lived. Narayana was neither alive nor dead, and in an attempt to become whole again, devoured worlds. Thus, Kalki sought to become one with the Calamity. Her goal was to absorb all existence inside her, and recreate the world as she envisioned it."

Taking a few steps forward, she looked down at Frisk.

"She would have succeeded, if not for those called Heroes of Light. Your predecessors. Once useful pawns, they became her very demise. Following her death, the Heroes of Light tried to heal Narayana. And thus from the Calamity, a new world was born. A world where all the broken souls making up the Calamity could find peace and heal. This world is Vaikuntha. And all who died were reborn. Why, Kalki too."

Finally she stopped by Richard and smiled sadly at him.

"Even though she never wanted it. Even though she never desired it. Her burden was to live once more, to fear death again. And not just once, oh no. The cycle of reincarnation is eternal. How many times has she been reborn on this world? She has lost count. How lucky you are, not to remember all your lives..."

She looked at Dante when saying those words before going back to her original position.

"But there was something else... Something that is still here. Is it sorrow? Sadness? Anger? I am not sure. Vengeance, perhaps... Or could it be envy? Perhaps this is why I did it all this way. So I would see by myself your faces crumble in despair as you realize there is nothing you can do. Perhaps I gave you hope I would see that last flicker of hope be crushed by myself. So I would see you suffer just as much as I have."

[ Please reply to this thread to go forward with the main event. ]

Naoto glanced sideways at the interaction going on, but still looked up at the sky.

"Interesting story, still selfish. Waiting for a better reason."

Just like the Cloud before, Naoto didn't care. Fact was true, she didn't have Supreme Summoning, but there had to be something she could still do with what ability she had - buy the group time to deal with this.

Gave them hope just to watch them crumble? Finn didn't entirely believe that, thinking there must be something more beneath it all. Then again, she did seem the type. Sort of reminding him of Hux a little.

Finn's Aim stayed trained on her, ignoring the calls for restraint. It was too late to stop her now, and with this confession-

"I think I know one Summoner with the Supreme Skill, Kalki." He adjusted the grip on his gun, getting ready to at least buy them more time. "How about you summon Pheonix or someone for us and, in return, we'll make sure you stay dead this time? Otherwise, we'll kill you now, stop Bahamut anyway, and be right back here later."

Tyzias shrugs. Now this? This was a good opportunity to get some shit off her chest. And even she knew that villains always let the heroes monologue back if they were given the chance. Hopefully she'd give the others more time to prepare for... whatever's coming next.

"That scans." She pauses, rubbing the back of her neck. "I had somebody just like you on my home world. The Condesce. Massive bitch. She loved fucking with everybody just for the sake of messing with us, of seeing us suffer. She had a justification too. Conquering the galaxy for all of trollkind.

"Except that's bullshit. Just like all the crap that just spewed out of your mouth.

"You don't care about the suffering of everybody. You don't care about this pseudo-philsophical fuckery about life and death. No. You just like inflicting the same pain, the same emptiness deep inside you on everybody else. You're just like that.

"And like I said before. This stops today. Right here, right now." Tyzias points her sword at Rama, but she's putting most of her attention on the edges of perception, up at the sky. They were all fucked if Bahamut came down along with whatever Kalki had in store for them.

Realization had dawned the moment Kisegawa had seen the Empress's eyes. And the tale she told -- the very end of it, more than anything -- all but confirmed it.

"So that's how it is... I've seen those eyes of yours in a dream before, and I don't mean that as a cliche pick-up line." She readied her staff, glaring at Ramaa.

"I saw them in the Dream Width -- in a memory of yours, if I'm not mistaken. You must have enjoyed giving me all that claptrap about how very sad her statue made you feel."

As if her strange demeanor wasn't enough, the new look in her eyes just drove the point home. Of course. He should have listened to those gut feelings when he first had the displeasure of setting his eyes on her. And now- just like before- she'd gathered up all the heroes of light in one place.

But they were still heroes. They even had some summoners among them. And if Red knew anything, things didn't need to be perfect in order to still work. It may have been a long shot, but going •Sentinel in front of Uendo was something... And Red wasn't the sort to roll over and play dead.

"Give up hope?"

A quiet, splintering crunch sounded from his jaw. His bone snapped and spun out from his bared teeth.

"We're not like you."

Richard didn't like the thought that his whole life was just a cycle of reincarnation and return to this place. It trivialized the struggles of what he went through back in East Point. It trivialized Rooke, Katie, Hightower, Gessler.

He wasn't going to let her have this.

"Afraid you aren't going to get what you want here. Even if you weren't being fitted for a pine overcoat by almost everyone here, I am too damned tired for anything approaching suffering anymore. Bring out your dragon or kindly sit down while we fix all this."

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