Chapter Text
Noctis sits on his father’s throne, gold light spilling across the black stone and marble stairs. The air hums with warmth; the kind that seeps into your bones and tells you you’re finished, that you’ve finally done enough.
He takes a deep breath.
No pain, no weight, only stillness.
Luna’s hand slips into his. Her skin is warm, her smile soft, her eyes the same calm blue he remembers from a lifetime ago.
“You did it,” she says. “It’s over now. You can rest.”
He wants to believe her.
For the first time since he was a boy, he doesn’t feel the ache in his chest, or the pull of duty, or the echo of steel in his hands.
This must be what peace feels like, he thinks.
But the horizon doesn’t move. The sun rises with clockwork precision. The light never fades.
And beneath the stillness, something hums—low, magical. A sound he knows too well.
The Crystal.
He glances down at their joined hands. A faint glow seeps from his skin into hers—no, not into hers, through her, like a current leaking out of him into something hollow.
“Luna,” he says softly, “do you feel that?”
She tilts her head, the same small, polite motion she made in childhood. “Feel what, my king?”
The title hits him wrong. She never called him that. Not when it was just the two of them.
He takes a step back. The warmth in his hand is gone, replaced by the faint vibration of power being drained, strand by strand. It’s subtle at first—as natural as breath leaving his lungs—but it builds, clawing deeper, pulling at everything the Lucii gave him.
He tries to speak, but his voice comes out as a whisper. “Why would you say that…”
Luna smiles again, frozen and perfect. “You saved everyone. You can rest now.”
Her tone doesn’t change when the world flickers once, like a skipped frame. The air jitters, then smooths. Her hair drifts in a wind that isn’t there.
He looks past her and sees figures in the distance, kneeling shapes of light: the kings who came before him. They are screaming, mouths open in silence, light pouring from their eyes. The hum becomes a roar.
And beneath it, another voice stirs.
Ancient, layered, metallic.
Rest now, King of Light. You have earned your eternity.
The false sky bends. The horizon warps upward like glass under heat. Luna’s body glows too bright, her outline dissolving into glyphs and sigils that coil into a shape he knows: great wings, endless eyes, a crown of blades.
Bahamut.
Noct staggers back. The light burns through his skin, through bone, through memory.
He feels his friends in that pain—Gladio’s steady hand, Ignis’s quiet faith, Prompto’s laugh breaking through darkness—and the knowledge hits him like a blade: He thought they were free.
He died believing this peace was real.
“You lied,” he says. The words crack in his throat. “It was always a lie.”
The god’s voice folds the world in half.
You were never meant to perish. You were meant to reign. You are the vessel.
Something in him breaks. He reaches inward for the Lucii, for the light of every king before him, and instead of surrendering it, he holds on. The energy tears through him, unbearable, molten. Every nerve is fire.
He sees their faces—his father, his friends, the people who trusted him—and the grief becomes rage.
“No!”
The illusion collapses. The palace turns inside out. He drags every ounce of stolen divinity into his heart and lets it detonate.
For a heartbeat, the Astral plane itself shatters.
Silence.
Then sunlight.
A soft wind across polished stone. The smell of engines and city air.
Noctis blinks, vision swimming. A familiar voice cuts through the ringing.
“Walk tall, my son.”
Regis stands before him, withered and weary, the same solemn smile as that morning long ago. Behind him, the Regalia gleams, packed and waiting.
For a moment, Noctis just stares, disoriented. His throat aches. His hands tremble. The words won’t come.
“Dad…?”
The king’s hand settles on his shoulder, warm and heavy. “Are you alright, Noctis?”
The world sways. The hum is gone—but a faint echo lingers under his skin, like static waiting to speak again.
Noct’s knees buckle. The last thing he sees before darkness takes him is the sunlight glinting off the Regalia’s hood.
Then nothing.