BD-Ringabel + Edea: Revelation

How many worlds had we traversed now on Airy’s urging? The thought itself was purely rhetorical; I remembered as well as the others just how many times we had crossed worlds already. This realm was the third that we’d visited, and the three crystals we’d awakened so far the eleventh of their kind. Agnès’s strength was flagging terribly, and Edea, as our backup medic, had fared no better. Tiz and I had since given up telling them to stop. Why did they insist upon this pace when everyone needed rest? Even the prospect of sleep in the Land of Flowers could not cheer me, for my thoughts were too jumbled to give me reprieve. All I knew for certain now was that Airy’s advice could not be taken at face value.

Yet neither girl cared to listen to our pleas. Next we knew, night was falling over the coast, leaving us shivering in the inner sea breeze. Not for the first time that night, I found myself cursing the vestal and Edea. What madness could drive them on so steadfastly to their destruction? I had seen them perish before my very eyes, and yet these two—!

“I h-had forgotten th-that Florem could be so c-c-cold at night,” Agnès said between chattering teeth. “P-perhaps w-we had best stop f-for the night…”

“No way!” Edea retorted. “We’re almost back in the city; we can rest there! I don’t know about you, but a warm bed sounds a lot better than—Aaaaaah!”

“Monsters!” Tiz and I leapt back at the same time, shoving the girls bodily behind us as we drew our weapons. I swept a calculating eye over the mob, clenching my katana even more tightly. Surrounded by four Zwarts, with Agnès too worn to smite them with fiery light

Tiz reacted first, nocking his bow with lightning speed. “Multiburst!”

Some of the Zwarts yowled as his arrows scored, but not one of the beasts collapsed. I gave them no time to regroup. “Hyah!” Mutsu-no-Kami flashed; the nearest Zwart’s rear legs collapsed under it.

An ominous crackling erupted from behind me, and my adrenaline spiked. I swore under my breath. Damn that Blaster attack—! I barely flung myself out of the way in time. Tiz and the girls weren’t so lucky. All three jolted upright as electricity coursed through them and collapsed, twitching, their expressions mingled pain and defiance. Until they recovered, the duty of defending our party was entirely mine, but they would not have that chance if I did not defeat them first. I swore again and hastily reassessed the situation. Outnumbered; too many to be felled singly; no valkryies to perform Crescent Moon; no magic with both Agnès and Edea incapacitated.

Something sparked in my memory. A tactic I had used before, in almost this very situation! Instinctively, I seized upon it. I growled, low and dangerous, tensing every muscle in my body as years of rage surged back, fresh as the day they occurred.

And then I exploded. “BLACK BANE!”

An enormous wave of dark energy exploded from the tip of my blade, engulfing the entire horde in demonic energy. The Zwarts couldn’t stand against the fury of my attack. Howling, they fell away and disappeared into the night. Somehow... Somehow, I had won. Yet I could not rejoice in my abrupt victory for long. A sudden, sharp pain seized me then, and I fell to my knees, coughing violently. Flecks of red stained the cold earth beneath my feet.

Edea was the first to reach me. “Ringabel! Are you alright?!” she asked almost in a yell as Tiz and Agnès halted behind her to regard me worriedly.

Such energy for a supposedly exhausted young girl! She wasn’t doing my head any favors with that volume. After a long pause, I forced myself to smile, weakly. “I’m fine, Edea. Everyone,” I assured them. “That attack… took more out of me than I had expected. Nothing that… can’t be solved with… practice.”

“What do you mean, practice?” Tiz interjected, shoving past Edea to stare in amazement at me. “You took down that entire mob with one blow! Where did you learn to do that? It could help us out a lot!”
No, it wouldn’t. Somehow, I knew that if the Norende boy tried this attack, he would be done for. Why then did I remain standing? Had I mastered this somewhere before? I gave the boy a snarky grin. “I invite you to try. But be warned—it’ll take far more out of you than it did me.”

“But I’d like to know as well,” Agnès added, gazing abstractedly at me. “That skill… Alternis Dim used it as well. How can you know that same skill when none of us has had time to train with his asterisk?”

Suddenly, it clicked. The blood drained from my face. Could it be…? I stared at my hands disbelievingly, turning them over. Too many things confirmed Agnès’s supposition, but I didn’t want to believe. That would mean—! A glance at the others told me that they, too, were beginning to realize. But before I could say anything, another headache took hold, causing me to lose what little leg strength I had left.

Edea reacted first, darting in to catch me as I fell forward. Small as she was, she could not support my weight without staggering a little, but I wasn’t about to protest. Even if I'd had the strength, why would I, when the girl was presently smothering my headache with her lovely breasts? “We can talk about this later!” she shouted, seeming not to notice the position she had put herself in. “Change of plans! We’re setting up camp right here!”

Tiz and Agnès knew better than to argue. As Edea hauled me upright and over to a nearby tree stump, Tiz bolted for the woods for better firewood while Agnès set about collecting whatever she could nearby. More than this I could not recall, for dizziness overtook me, and I fell into a restless sleep.

The vestal’s defenders, dead. My limbs, immovable as lead. I could do nothing but stare in horrific fascination as the creature before me cackled, the gored remains of my beloved upon its claws. “Puny dark knight!" it sneered. "Where is your bravery now? Your marshal is dead, your friends’ remains scattered about our feet, your beloved powerless to resist me! And still you do not raise your blade against me? His harbinger? Pathetic.”

A wet splat. “Fine. Keep your beloved then, if that will give you will enough to fight!”

The mangled mass she flung back at me barely resembled the woman I had grown up with. Numbly, I forced myself to limp over to her side, forced my arms to support her weight. Though her killer stood before me, nothing filled my heart but paralyzing despair. Why did she have to perish before me?! I had sworn to protect her with my life! It wasn’t supposed to end like this!

I had not even gotten the chance to tell her that I loved her—!

If only I had known to slay that accursed fairy before—!

Bile rose in my throat. I let the hate suffuse me, give me strength enough to draw my blade. I would make that deceiver pay for her crimes in blood! Never again would she be allowed to wreak havoc upon my foster land! I launched at her with a guttural cry, twirling in midair away from her grasping claws, slashing at her bulbous abdomen. She screeched in pain as green ichor spurted out of the wound, but it was minimal, and already beginning to close. I rushed at her again, sword primed, ready to flay the beast wide open, but she slammed her shoulder into me, sending me flying. I collapsed hard on the deck, unable to resist crying out in pain. Something had surely broken, but at least she still lay in my arms! I could still protect her body, if nothing else!

I struggled to regain my feet, fell back again as fire stabbed through too many of my ribs. No! It couldn't end like this! The world spun before my nauseated eyes. Somehow, I wrenched my helmet away in time to retch upon the deck. My chest heaved; my face was stained with mingled sweat, blood, bile, and tears. Overcome by despair, I could do nothing but clutch her gutted corpse to me, sobbing freely into her hair. Nothing remained for me in this life, not without her. I was the only one still alive on board, other than the horrific creature that had led my beloved and her companions astray. Would she kill me now? Even death was preferable to this tortured existence without her…

In front of me, the harbinger scoffed. “Is that all, dark knight? The blood of your beloved stains you; yet still you cannot stand against me? I should kill you now, but why bother? Wallow in your impotence, and know that it was your failure that ushers my master into these worlds!”

And suddenly, I was falling, falling, the mangled ruins of my beloved clutched in my arms. My tears mixed with her drying blood, covering us both in a gruesome rain. The light swallowed up my screams. Such terrible light! Had I always been so incapable of protecting her? If only I had trained harder, cherished her more—! Furiously, I pressed her ravaged lips against mine, relishing their sick, sweet taste. Edea’s lips did not move against mine as they always had, surprised, awkward, and then fierce. I pulled away. Her eyes, though unseeing, remained open; if not for those thin rivers of blood engraved upon her face like tears, if not for her lips, hanging slack as a death mask, if not for the hole in her chest that revealed the light beyond, she might have still been alive. Gently, I reached for her eyes, closing them. What would she have said if she had known what a wreck I had become?

Why was she now hovering above me? Was I hallucinating? Had she become an angel? With a start, I realized that I had let go of her in order to close her eyes. “EDEA!!!” I reached out for her, but my efforts were in vain. In an instant, she was gone, consumed by the light. Such cruel radiance! I had been living too long in the shadows to know how to retaliate against such a thing.

The light engulfed my screams, my tears, as ravenously as before. Was this what Heaven was like, on Judgment Day? Was this my punishment for my failures? How fitting that she at least should ascend to the world where all was just, the way she liked it.

If only I could be so lucky…

Something was prodding at my waist. An enemy?! I flung myself upright, slapping my hand on the nearest possible weapon, but dropped it immediately as my headache returned in full. “Agh—!”

“Ringabel?!”

It took me a solid minute to understand. That voice! Clutching my temples, I looked up to see Edea kneeling nearby, her eyes filled with worry. She leaned in closer when she saw that I was no longer armed—she must have recoiled when I suddenly sat up. “Good! You’re finally awake!” she exclaimed. “You had us all worried last night, Ringabel! What were you thinking, throwing out an attack like that and then collapsing right after?”

I groaned and massaged my temples, pretending that the action made it better, when truthfully it was Edea’s presence that cured me. At length, I felt comfortable enough to smirk at her. Something about the gesture felt off. “What do you think, my dear?” I asked. “A gentleman can’t leave his friends unprotected and vulnerable, now can he? I merely did what anyone else would do, and I’d say it’s rewarded me nicely.”

“Rewarded you—?” Suddenly, it hit her. Edea flushed a lovely shade of red and scooted away quickly enough to have teleported, covering her breast with her hands. “Y—you stupid lech!” she retorted, her face still aflame. “You’re lucky you’re hurt, or else I’d punch you into next month; not next week!”

Ah, that spirit! Her every word reminded me why I had fallen for her at first, why I still loved her now! As long as we lived, I could atone for my past sins, rejoin her as her guardian! Blithely, I persisted. “But why, Edea?" I asked, grinning. "Fire becomes you, and you’re very pleasantly aglow now.”

“Sh—shut up! Ugh!” Her hands tightened into fists. For a moment, I was seriously worried that the girl would make good on her threat, but thankfully, she glanced away and forced her voice softer. “It’s too early in the morning for this,” she grumbled. “Just let me know if you’re feeling better and I’ll be on my way.”

“But of course I am, with such a lovely angel beside me.”

“Good.” Edea stood and pivoted in one smooth motion, never once looking at my face.

Well, this wasn’t how things were supposed to go. “Wait!”

She paused, but still did not turn to regard me. “What do you want, Ringabel?”

I did not reply for a long moment. I needed to collect my thoughts before confronting her with this. The girl had just begun tapping her foot when I next spoke. “You… remember what happened last night, correct?”

Edea rolled her eyes. “Yeah. What about last night?”

“I… After the last crystal, I remembered everything. Who I am, where I’m from… Why I’m here.”

“Really?” The girl’s voice was sarcastic. “So how many girls have you had before me, Ringabel?”

“I—What? Th-that’s not at all what I wanted to say!” I protested, flustered. She, more than Tiz or Agnès, needed to be convinced of the truth of my revelations. Thank goodness Airy wasn’t around. Casting my gaze about to be certain, I inhaled slowly to calm myself. “Yesterday, when I used Black Bane… Agnès mentioned it first, but I didn’t want to believe. Yet everything in my memory confirms her thought. The reason why I know the same skill as that dark knight Alternis Dim is because… He and I are one and the same.”

Whatever snide comment had been forming on Edea’s lips died when I uttered those words. “You… Wait, what?” she demanded.

I raised my hands helplessly. “I know it sounds ridiculous, but think about it,” I urged. “I am the only one of us who knows how to pilot the Eschalot and Grandship, and you yourself said that only Eternian officers can do that. Our journals share many of the same entries. Even the handwriting is the same. My memories include members of the current Council of Six, among other things. And now, without prior training, I even know his moves… No other explanation makes as much sense.”

The girl remained silent for a very long moment, long enough to make me worry that I had finally offended her beyond repair. The thought chilled me more than I cared to admit. I had not yet confided to her what that meant for us specifically…

Finally, she spoke. “You… do have a point there, Ringabel,” she mused. “Come to think of it, Alternis’s voice did sound an awful lot like yours…” Slowly, she returned her gaze to mine. “What else do you remember?” she asked.

So she believed! How was I not to smile? But my happiness could not last, for the memories I needed to confide now were by no means pleasant. “Nothing much, beyond vague impressions here and there,” I began. “But I do remember a few things that probably occurred immediately before losing my memory.” At her encouraging look, I continued. “Grandship, the number six… and you, Tiz, and Agnès all perishing at the hands of a horrible creature.”

Edea recoiled, shocked. “I—I’ll thank you not to go killing me off in your crazy fantasies!” she blurted angrily.

“No! It’s not what you think!” I clenched my fists tightly as years-old anguish came rushing back all at once. “I… I could only watch it happen. For all my skill, the creature had me paralyzed with fear. Before I could react, I was falling. I couldn’t protect anyone—not Agnès, not Tiz, not you! I couldn’t do a thing! And that beast! I don’t want to believe it, but my memory says otherwise. I think Airy is… I think she’s—!”

“Ringabel? Are you sure you’re alright?”

“I—!” My hands were pressed against my head to beat back another raging migraine. I needed something to distract me, anything—! “E… Edea… Will you share dinner with me tonight?” I pleaded, desperately. “Just the two of us?”

Edea was taken aback. “Huh? Why?”

“I—need someone to—help me—sort out—my thoughts,” I gritted out around the pounding in my skull. “And—no matter what you might have thought—my feelings for you—are genuine!”

“Ringabel… You…” The look Edea gave me now was one of sorrow as I have never beheld upon her face. Did she regret having never understood? Resent my lavishing attention on others when I had just confided to her something else? Pity me my tormented past? Despise me and my counterparts for keeping her from fulfilling her ideals? Only one of these could alleviate my pain. Yet I could not have predicted the next words to pass her lips.

“I… I think I’ll pass!”

Cruel angel! She may as well have torn my heart asunder! “But—Edea!” I protested. “I’m not asking you—just for the sake—of asking! You’re the only one I would offer this!”

“I know, Ringabel,” she replied, her voice soft. “And know this: I’m not rejecting you just for the sake of rejecting you, either.”

Confused as I was, I could do no more than watch as she strode hastily away. Only when she had disappeared from view did the full gravity of her words hit me. I collapsed to my knees and sobbed. Unjust world! What had I done to lose my beloved twice in a row? Was my soul so corrupted by my past as to be denied salvation by my one true angel of light?

Why had I not gone to join her that first time in the Holy Pillar?!

After this, Ringabel retracts into himself for a time, going about his duties robotically until he is mentally restored enough to begin confiding to Tiz. Cue “Conviction” main scene chat.