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Chapter Text

Year 865 A.C

I wake again. The light burns, yet shadows cling to the corners of my mind. I can feel it—something alive—stirring within me. The Phoenix… it whispers, though I cannot yet command it. Dreams haunt me still. Flames devour and shield at once. I see the halls of Phoenix Gate crumbling, Father falling, Mother… I cannot bear to look. Clive—my brother—he is there, yet distant, unreachable.

A voice, soft and strange, calls my name: “Joshua... awaken, child of fire... awaken, Phoenix..." I do not know if it is Clive, Jill, or some fragment of my own memory. I try to move, to speak, but the fire inside me resists. The words feel both comforting and disquieting, and I try desperately to respond, to move, to speak, but my body refuses, frozen as if bound by the weight of my own power. Beneath my ribs, the Phoenix stirs, quivering like a caged bird, impatient and alive, eager to emerge but held back by my own uncertainty. The Undying are here, their presence palpable even though they do not speak; I sense their vigilance, their patient watchfulness. I am alive, yes, yet the peace of life eludes me entirely.

I reach for my thoughts, trying to grasp something solid, something I can hold onto, but they scatter like sparks in a storm. Perhaps this is my curse, to carry the weight of these visions, these powers, and these responsibilities alone. Or perhaps it is my gift, a chance to rise from the ashes and be more than I have ever dreamed. Either way, I must record it, even if the words fail to capture the fire that churns inside me. I must remember, for forgetting is a luxury I can no longer afford.

Chapter Text

Ⅰ

"When chaos veils the world, the Warrior of Light shall come."

The sky above Cornelia had once been a gentle blue, a veil of heaven beneath which its people lived and prayed. Now it was torn asunder, warped and broken like glass cracked against stone. Stars bled into daylight. The very fabric of the firmament flickered as if stitched together by trembling hands—and in the seams of that trembling, a greater power pulsed. Something beyond Chaos himself, perhaps… something that had no name.

The Warrior of Light walked alone through the ruin of the kingdom. His boots pressed into dry earth that had once been fertile, the air around him thick with the silence of absence. For there were no voices here, no laughter of children nor shouts of merchants. Cornelia’s villagers, its guards, its mothers and fathers—all had been erased. Not slain. Not buried. Erased. Their presence removed from story, memory, and time, as though they had never been.

The throne room, too, lay empty. The king who had sent him forth with blessing, and the princess whose grace shone like dawn—gone. Not slain, but conceptually struck from existence, their threads pulled out by an unseen hand. Even the stone of the castle trembled, distorted, like a dream unraveling.

Darkness spilled into the void their absence left. Creatures unlike any known in this world crawled through the tears in reality. They bore no names, no lineage, no place among Cornelia’s annals of monsters. They came from beyond, their forms twisted mockeries of flesh and shadow. And they came not as invaders of land, but as deniers of story—parasites feeding on what should not have been breached.

The Warrior of Light stood among the remnants, his heart as heavy as his shield. He had failed. His companions, his brothers and sisters in arms—their courage had been spent, their light extinguished one by one. He alone remained, and though his body still bore strength, his soul was numb. He felt the cold of failure deeper than any wound.

And yet, in that hollow cold, a spark still lived. It was small—fragile as the ember of a dying fire—but it glowed, nonetheless. He gripped his Braveheart sword in one hand, and in the other his battered shield, scarred and pitted from the claws of fiends. He drew both close, the weight of steel grounding him. For though numb, though broken, he was not yet undone.

Through the wasteland he walked, the world itself mirroring despair. Trees stood barren, leafless skeletons of what they once were. The fields, once green with life, were dry and cracked, the soil thirsty and unrewarding. The river that had sung its song along Cornelia’s plains now ran black and sluggish, as though poisoned by the distortion of the heavens. The air smelled of rust and smoke, yet no fire burned.

Each step carried him closer to the throne where Chaos now sat. Not a throne of majesty, but one built upon absence, upon the collapse of Cornelia itself. The god of discord wore triumph as easily as a crown, his laughter echoing like the grind of metal against bone. The endless cycle he had always relished now turned into something more—a true unmaking, a rewriting of what was once known.

The Warrior’s chest tightened, fury sparking through the numbness. His friends deserved more than to be forgotten. His kingdom deserved more than to be undone. Even if the cycle was endless, even if Chaos could not be slain, then still he would stand. For though the light flickered, it did not yet fade.

And so, sword in hand, shield raised high, the last Warrior of Light pressed onward. His stride steady, his gaze unflinching. For if Cornelia was to fall, then it would fall with him standing at its gates.

The houses of the village warped. Stone cottages folded into themselves like paper, timber beams stretched into crooked lines that bled into the sky, boulders in the courtyards split and hovered, glitching in and out of place, never truly falling. The world was unravelling not as flame consumes, but as a script rewritten mid-sentence.

Above, the rift-portals multiplied. They yawned open in the skies like wounds, gaping holes bleeding ink and light in equal measure. Some were small as a man’s hand, others wide enough to consume castles. They tore into corners of streets, hung above broken walls, even opened in the very air the Warrior of Light breathed. He turned his head one way, and reality tore open another.

And then came the things.

From the first wound in the ground bubbled an inkish portal, swirling black and wet as tar. Out of it spilled creatures without faces, their eyes like hollow yellow lanterns glowing against nothing. They leapt as though jesting at their prey, bounding toward him with comic swiftness—mockery made manifest. The Warrior of Light did not flinch. His sword was already drawn.

The Heartless.

The first creature lunged. His blade sang through it, a brutal arc that severed its shadowed form in two. The thing evaporated with a shriek of nothingness. Another bounded over his shoulder—he twisted, shield snapping upward to crush its form mid-leap, scattering it like dust. They came in a dozen more, and he cut through them with fury, each strike faster, each blow heavier. Shadows dissolved beneath him, their laughter swallowed in silence.

But the rift did not cease.

Above, a second portal shimmered, its edges glowing sickly blue. From it dropped gelatinous slimes, quivering masses that pulsed with a life alien to this world. One slammed into the earth, splitting into two with a wet sound. Another tried to engulf his legs. The Warrior’s shield cracked forward, smacking one creature with such force that it burst apart, spraying shards of its body across the stone. His sword skewered the second, blade pushing through its liquid mass until it split, dissolving in a hiss.

Then the ground shook. To his left, a larger portal yawned wide, and from it shambled machines of rusted iron and cold eyes, their forms clunky yet driven with terrible intent. The first swung down with arms like axes, metal grinding as it moved. Sparks lit the air when its blow met the Warrior’s shield, the impact forcing him back across the warped cobblestones. He gritted his teeth, twisted low, and sliced up through its chest. The machine shuddered, wires snapping, before crashing down.

But more followed—two, then three, their motions unnatural yet relentless. One raised its arms and fired bolts of light from its chest, searing across the empty square. The Warrior rolled, shield angled to deflect the beam, the edge glowing with heat. He surged forward, shield-bashing one so hard its metal shell cracked, then drove Braveheart’s blade into its core. Sparks erupted, flames pouring from its hollow chest as it fell.

The last machine swung down at his back, its shadow towering. He spun, catching its strike on the rim of his shield, the clash ringing like thunder. With a roar, he shoved the weight aside and brought his sword down in a cleaving strike, splitting its head in two. The machine convulsed, sparks flying, before collapsing in ruin.

For a moment, silence returned. The Warrior of Light stood among smoking husks, slime fragments, and the fading remnants of shadows. His chest rose and fell, his arms weary, but his gaze never left the skies above, where more portals flickered. For every one he closed with steel, another opened.

And in the distance, upon Cornelia’s desecrated throne, Chaos waited.

From the largest portal overhead, a voice rumbled a laugh deep and jagged, dripping with cruelty.

“Pathetic… worm.” Chaos’s voice slithered through the air, a sound that cracked stone and churned the river below. The word carried venom, filth, insult sharpened into mockery.

The god of discord extended one clawed hand from the rift. In his palm, fire gathered—molten flame, raw and liquid as the heart of the earth. The sphere pulsed, bled heat, then shot forth like a comet.

The Warrior raised his shield. The impact roared, flames bursting around him as though a star had struck the earth. His body was hurled back, the force slamming him into a crumbling roof. The shingles shattered, wood split, and he crashed through with a thunderous clang, armor dented and groaning against the impact. He slid across warped beams before rolling to a stop, coughing, ash painting his breath.

Above him, Chaos’s laughter deepened.

The god moved the boulders of Cornelia with but a gesture. The ruins of houses lifted, rocks floated, whole chunks of the world hung suspended in midair, shifting like a labyrinth of death. The path forward—the throne of Cornelia—hung far away, unreachable, glimmering like a mirage.

But Chaos would not let him walk there.

With a flick of his hand, the stones crashed together, then split apart again, turning the ruins into a shifting gauntlet, a parkour trial carved from the apocalypse. Houses rotated in the air, beams bent like bridges, the very foundations of Cornelia twisted into a cruel obstacle course.

The Warrior rose, gripping his sword, his chest heaving. Pain scorched through him, but his eyes burned brighter.

“That bastard will pay,” he growled under his breath, his voice hoarse yet steady.

He leapt.

The first boulder quaked beneath his boots, wobbling as if to throw him down into the void below. He steadied, shield raised as another slab came crashing toward him from the side. He rolled across the stone, barely escaping before it shattered where he’d stood.

More blocks whirled past like blades. He ducked beneath one, then sprang upward, boots catching on a broken rooftop suspended in air. He sprinted along its edge, sparks flying as debris struck around him.

A second leap—his gauntlet scraped stone as he grabbed the edge of a floating wall and pulled himself up. Another boulder came crashing down, and he vaulted aside, flames licking where it struck. Every step demanded not just strength, but instinct—steel discipline pressed into survival.

Chaos’s voice carried across the warped skies, dripping disdain.
“Struggle. Leap. Crawl. It changes nothing. This world will be mine. Your flame is ash.”

But the Warrior kept moving. Sword in one hand, shield in the other, he bounded from fragment to fragment, each jump fueled not just by vengeance, but by the faint spark still burning within him.

The throne of Cornelia loomed closer, distant yet drawing him forward. Chaos waited, and the Warrior would reach him—or die grasping.

The Warrior steadied himself, breath burning in his lungs. Ahead, the first path revealed itself: a toppled chimney stack, still smoking, jutting from the void like a jagged stepping stone. He sprinted forward, boots clanging against brick, then launched across to a half-collapsed timber roof, the wood groaning beneath his weight.

The ruins quaked, drifting further apart, but he pressed on. A shattered stone archway floated before him, cracked and ancient. He gripped it with his gauntlet, swung himself over, and landed hard against a splintered wooden beam, balancing as it teetered like a seesaw in the nothingness.

From the nearest rift, a glob of black slime plopped onto the beam. Its gelatinous form jiggled mockingly before leaping toward him with a squeal.

The Warrior snarled. He raised one armored boot and kicked the slime square in its wobbling face. The creature bounced, flailing, before tumbling off the beam into the abyss. Below, the very fabric of reality cracked like glass, breaking open into a rolling sea of galaxies. Stars shimmered as though drowned in a cosmic ocean, rippling waves of infinity. The slime vanished into it, swallowed by lightless eternity.

The Warrior pressed on, leaping to a hanging chunk of cobblestone road, then a floating market stall splintered in half. But before his next step, the air pulsed.

From another rift above, machines poured forth—Stubby Units and Medium Bipedals, their glowing eyes flashing crimson. Blades whirred, metal feet slammed against stone, and they lunged at him with mechanical shrieks.

The Warrior dodged. One blade swept across where his chest had been a second earlier, instead tearing through the wooden beam and sending it crashing into the cosmos below. He rolled across a crumbling wall, leapt onto a tumbling roof tile, and twisted his shield into another machine’s arm, deflecting the blow before springing again.

Every boulder, every fragment he touched shattered behind him under the machines’ relentless assault. The Warrior darted between them like lightning, his movements precise, fluid, but fueled by sheer desperation. He reached a higher slab of broken road, spun his blade in his palm, and roared:

“Thundaga!”

A brilliant storm erupted from his raised hand. Bolts of violet lightning cracked across the sky, exploding into the machines. Circuits fried, their bodies convulsed, and one by one they fell, smoke trailing as their wreckage tumbled into the starlit abyss below.

The Warrior panted, gripping his shield tighter. For a moment, silence.

Then, laughter—mocking and shrill. Another rift tore open. This time, winged shapes flapped out: Drackies, their beady eyes wide with mischief, their tiny bat wings buzzing as they swarmed him like gnats. They squealed and dove at him with little fangs bared.

The Warrior of Light did not falter. He swung his Braveheart blade in wide, fluid arcs—slashes at different angles, cutting across the air with deadly precision. Steel sang as he cleaved through them mid-flight. Black ichor sprayed, staining his armor, as the Drackies fell one by one into the chasm. He pivoted with each strike, a deadly rhythm, shield raised to block as his sword carved a merciless pattern through the swarm.

Their squeals turned to gurgles. Their blood rained upon the cracked stones. And still, the Warrior pressed forward.

The air shivered with a metallic hum. From a yawning rift above, a massive figure descended—Omega. Its sleek body gleamed like polished steel, every edge lined with crimson lights. Its core pulsed faintly as it scanned the field, a blinding red lens fixing upon the lone figure below.

“Target acquired.”

The Warrior of Light’s grip tightened. He felt the sheer weight of its gaze. An enemy unlike the slimes, the bats, or the machines. This was no mere creature of chaos—it was an executioner.

Omega’s cannons whirred to life. A torrent of searing energy lanced toward him. The Warrior raised his shield, braced, and slid backward across a floating slab of road, sparks flying as the beam ripped across his guard. He snarled, kicking off the stone, and lunged forward.

His sword cleaved across Omega’s arm, sparks exploding. The machine retaliated instantly with a sweep of its blade, the force nearly shattering his shield. The Warrior staggered, then twisted, shoving his Braveheart upward, cutting through Omega’s wrist joint. Metal shrieked.

Omega roared in mechanical fury, launching into the air with thrusters, then crashed down. The boulder beneath them cracked and shattered, falling into the endless cosmos below. The Warrior leapt just in time, landing on a tumbling house roof. Omega followed, energy spheres erupting from its palms, each one warping the very air around them.

The Warrior dodged, somersaulting from one piece of rubble to the next. His body screamed with exhaustion, but he pressed on. He countered with a burst of magic—Firaga, hurling a molten sphere into Omega’s chest. The explosion tore through its plating, flames licking across its core.

Seizing the chance, the Warrior launched upward, shield raised, sword thrust forward. With a furious cry, he plunged Braveheart directly into Omega’s glowing lens. The machine convulsed, beams sputtering, before a massive detonation ripped through the battlefield. Its pieces scattered, swallowed by the abyss.

The Warrior of Light landed hard on a slab of stone, panting. But the battle was far from over.

Behind him, the void pulsed. A wall of molten purple and dark-red lava, streaked with runes of impossible design, erupted into existence. It was magic liquefied, warping and consuming reality itself. Slowly, it surged forward, devouring rubble, houses, boulders. Everything it touched melted into nothing.

The Warrior turned, eyes wide, and ran. He leapt from a tower’s broken spire to a splintered bridge, dodging falling debris as the molten tide advanced, swallowing everything behind. Every jump was desperate; boulders smashed together like titanic hammers, each collision threatening to crush him. The air reeked of burning stone and smoldering stars.

At last, a massive portal shimmered before him: the ruined throne room of Cornelia. Its pillars cracked, its banners tattered, but its form still recognizable amidst the destruction. The Warrior hurled himself forward, diving through just as the lava-wall consumed the last of the path.

He landed upon cold marble, shield first. The chamber was silent, though the air reeked of charred history.

And there, upon the throne of Cornelia, Chaos sat.

The god of discord leaned back lazily, his scarlet eyes glinting beneath his horned helm. A deadpan smirk tugged at his lips. He let out a low, mocking chuckle that echoed through the ruined hall.

“So… the insect crawls its way back to the nest.”

He shifted his posture, both clawed hands rising as if to cradle the very fabric of the throne room. Magic, black and searing, gathered in his palms. His chuckle deepened into something crueler.

“Impressive… but pointless.”

Chaos mockingly, “So, the dutiful pawn of light dares stands before me once again. Do you feel it, warrior? The chains that bound me shattered. I am discord returned—not a slave to the whim of Materia, nor Spiritus. They squabble like insects, pretending to weave eternity. I have seen the truth. The cycle was never theirs to command.”

Warrior of Light firm, even though his fatigue, “Your truth is poison, Chaos. You revel in destruction as though it were a crown. If the cycle ends, it will not be because of you — it will be because of those who still fight for harmony.”

Chaos rising, laughter echoing like steel grinding, “‘Harmony’…? That illusion spun by false gods? Materia and Spiritus are but masks, fragile things. I will unmake them. I will sit upon the throne of reality itself, no longer a prisoner of their endless game. But even that conquest is… trivial.”

Warrior of Light narrowing his eyes “Trivial…? You speak as if even godhood is beneath you. Then what is it you see that we do not?”

Chaos leaning forward, voice dropping, dangerous and solemn, “There is a shadow neither you nor your precious gods dare name. Greater and beyond than the Planesgorgers. A will outside every crystal, every cycle, every world. It gazes upon us not as reality, but as… fantasy. And like all fantasies, ours will end.”

Warrior of Light gripping Braveheart tighter, defian, "You lie. You seek only to break my resolve. The Planesgorgers devour dimensions, Shinryu births calamity—yet even they are not beyond defeat. What is this phantom you speak of?”

Chaos' voice booming, the throne quaking as he spreads his claws, "It is no phantom. It is the Beast. The nameless terror that watches from beyond the walls of fiction itself. To it, your victories are but fleeting sparks in a dying fire. It will come, Warrior — not to devour… but to erase. Not even I, Discord incarnate, can oppose it. But perhaps I can welcome it.”

Warrior of Light bravely, stepping forward, his voice cutting through the growing storm, “Then I will defy even this Beast you conjure. Fantasy does not end so long as one heart believes in it. Even in ruin, I will not surrender.”

Chaos darkly chuckle, half-amused, half-menacing, “Good… rage against inevitability. Struggle against the end. Let your fire burn. For when the Beast comes, it will delight in your defiance before snuffing it out. And I, Chaos reborn, shall remake a new world in my own image."

Chaos’s laughter faded into a low hum, his crimson eyes burning with cruel amusement as he leaned forward, “Do you truly think this broken kingdom is all that falls, Warrior? No. Countless realms beyond yours bleed into ruin. Dimensions collapse into one another, waging wars their champions cannot win. Kingdoms against kingdoms. The skies scream, the seas dry, and all their gods are silent.”

The Warrior of Light raised his shield, though the gesture was as much defiance as it was protection. His voice was hoarse, but steady.
“You speak as though you mourn them. But you do not. You hunger. You always have. That’s all this is.”

Chaos chuckled, low and venomous. “Hunger? Call it what you like. The multiverse is breaking. Dimensions bleed. And where Materia wrings her delicate hands, and Spiritus drowns in his hollow prayers, I shall act.”

“You mean destroy.”

“I mean liberate. Drag the fragments into the very chaotic Void, the realm of Distortion, where no crystal binds them, no cycle imprisons them. I will stitch them together—a patchwork kingdom of every broken realm—and rule as their true god. One will. One order. One Chaos.”

The Warrior’s teeth clenched, his sword trembling in his grasp. “You would erase their gods. Their histories. Their lives. To serve only you. That’s not salvation—that’s enslavement.”

Chaos tilted his horned head back, his laughter spilling through the ruins like wildfire. “Lives? Histories? Do you not see how fragile they are? Already collapsing, already lost. All that remains is to decide who shapes what is left. Them? Or me.”

“You selfish son of a bitch,” the Warrior snarled, the words torn from him like a blade from its sheath. “You dare stand on the bones of my people and speak of shaping the world? You’ve taken everything, Chaos. My friends. My kingdom. My hope. And still you dare—”

Chaos interrupted with a vicious sneer, voice dripping with mockery, “Hope? Tell me, Warrior, what is hope when gods abandon you? When your companions fall and the cycle spits you out again and again? I am the end of hope. The end of despair. The end of gods who play their endless game.”

The Warrior’s breath came ragged, anger etched into every word. “And what you offer instead? Slavery to one tyrant. One false god. You’d make yourself king of the ashes.”

Chaos leaned close, his molten eyes boring into the Warrior’s very soul. “Ashes can be shaped anew. And unlike your Materia, unlike your Spiritus, unlike your pathetic crystals, I will not lose. This is my era. My dominion. When the Beast comes—yes, the Beast, the one outside your precious bounds of fantasy—you will see. I will not cower. I will not bend. I will be the last god standing.”

The Warrior spat blood, his voice a growl beneath his helm.
“Fuck you. You’ll fall like the rest of shit.”

Chaos grinned, wicked and cold. “We shall see.”

The end of this fantasy is near.”

The Warrior of Light’s breath came ragged, his muscles coiled like springs as he lunged forward, blade flashing in the dim light. Steel screamed against air, and for a fleeting second, it seemed like the tide might turn.

But Chaos didn’t flinch. Not even a twitch. His finger—a single, impossibly calm digit—met the WoL’s blade. The impact was like striking stone. The sword shuddered, clattering harmlessly aside. In a motion so swift it blurred the eye, Chaos’s other hand shot out and wrapped around the WoL’s throat.

“Ugh!” The warrior choked, his lungs screaming for air, hands clawing at Chaos’s grip, but it was like grasping shadow.

Chaos tilted his head, a cold, hollow laugh rumbling from deep within him. “Pathetic,” he whispered, voice threaded with dark amusement. The laughter grew, echoing like a storm inside a tomb.

Then, his eyes shifted, dark pools of malice focusing elsewhere. “Enough stalking, Phoenix.”

With a gesture, the air before them rippled and darkened, projecting a vision that made the Warrior of Light’s lungs tighten even further. Flames erupted, consuming all in their path. There, in impossible clarity, the second Eikon of Fire—Ifrit—descended, a tempest of burning fury. Phoenix, caught in the inferno, screamed as claws of molten flame tore him apart, bones cracking, wings incinerating in bursts of crimson fire. And then, with a final, cataclysmic explosion, Phoenix was obliterated, leaving nothing but smoldering ash swirling in the air.

Chapter Text

Year 865 A.C

I wake again in the dim chamber of the Undying. The stone is cold, and so am I. My body, though tended with salves and herbs, trembles still as if the Phoenix within me wars against my flesh. The coughing fits linger; my chest rattles with every breath. They tell me I was gone for years—slumbering, half-alive, neither waking nor dead. In that time, Father has perished, Clive is lost to me, and Mother’s shadow grows long.

The Undying whisper of duty, of inheritance. Father once held their loyalty as regent, awaiting my time. Now, that time has come. Sickly though I am, I wear the mantle. Master of the Undying, though I scarce feel master of myself.

When I pray at night, I pray not for strength, but for answers.

And the answers come—yet not in waking, but in fire-lit dreams.

I dream of warriors, men and women clad not as Bearers or Dominants, but as something other. Strangers to Valisthea, yet wielding power that rivals even the Eikons. One was a solemn king, draped in midnight, whose blade drew light from the heavens and whose command was answered by gods themselves. The Undying call him myth; I call him the King of Light.

Another bore the favor of a goddess unknown to us. A warrior woman, whose radiant strength seemed forged from endless trial. She called upon deities I do not know, yet their might shook the firmament. I name her the Champion of Etro, though none here know that name.

Others flickered in fragments—

A rebel prince cast from his throne, leading warriors against an empire of cruelty.

A thief with a tail like a beast, laughing in defiance of fate.

A boy who commanded the tides, with aeons rising at his side.

An army of adventurers who stood not for crown or creed, but for fellowship, bound by oaths deeper than blood.

What strange tapestry is this, woven of heroes from no land I have seen?

Yet my dreams do not end with heroes. I saw again the god of discord—Chaos. His laughter is thunder. His wrath, endless flame. He slaughtered the brave, twisted their victories into ash, and in his throne of ruin mocked them as insects. Even now, the echo chills me: “The end of this fantasy is near.”

I asked the Undying if they know this name, or this doctrine of cycles without end. They stared at me, unknowing. To them, it is but fevered fancy. To me, it feels like prophecy.

So I have resolved: I will take quill to parchment. Fifteen… seventeen… however many blank pages I can gather, I will fill them. A book of dreams. Perhaps only a tale for myself, perhaps a chronicle meant to outlast me. For though my body falters, my spirit must endure.

Still, one question burns brighter than all: Chaos spoke of other worlds. Of a multiverse—though no such word exists in our tongue. Worlds beyond Valisthea? Is such a thing possible? I know not. Yet the Phoenix stirs within me, and I cannot shake the sense that my flame burns in answer to something greater, something beyond our skies.

If these dreams are but fantasy, then let me give them form. If they are prophecy, then let them serve as warning. Either way, I will write.

And thus begins my story.

FINAL FANTASY.