“You see? I told you I wasn’t lying.”
Noel’s tone remained cool, yet assertive. Not wanting to escalate the delicate calm temporarily established. There was still a brewing rage to quell within his mirrored self, and any words to follow were required to be delivered with tact. Even with an air of composure presented, he was currently irked by all attempts at proving his validity. The dying breath of the seeress carried the weight of her words, and he was present to retain them.
The pair had been the last two remaining, among ashen sands lain to choke the land of life. And soon she had joined the departed to an inevitable fate— returning to the motherly embrace of Etro in the void beyond.
But her time had been too short.
No one else remained but him and he alone. So what logic could his reflection use against him? There was so little flexibility when relating to the truth.
And he did kill Etro, but had the Historia Crux already ceased from existence? It was a phenomenon he could no longer explain. To his immediate knowledge, the crossroads had been relinquished along with the essence of time. How odd it had been to have something so integral to everyday life be robbed of existence, plunging the world to an eternal state of sterility and decay.
Eventually, Noel supported himself up against the wall, warily observing. The weapon within his grip was no longer brandished in a way to intimidate.
It killed him to witness sorrow maim his being, his soul, his spirit. If anything, it was the utter loss of ambition that troubled him the most. This was not the person he knew himself to be, and it rattled him to discover that he had quite literally lost himself.
Would it be possible at all to alter his destiny? They had done so, he and Serah— but with the meddling of a secondary hand. What if it was only he responsible with tampering to correct? And what if it was paired with the absence of the cursed guardian of eternity?
This was far worse than the future he had originally intended to craft.
But he would still fight for it.
“Look! In the past, you used to be so enthusiastic! Yet you let the chaos get the best of you? She promised we’d meet again, have you given up on that? What would Yeul think if she saw you like this now?”