[Part of him had known. Not all along, not from the start. But the more sunlight began to irritate him, the more things lost their taste and a kind healer became quicker and quicker to anger--he'd known something was wrong.]

[But he didn't stop. He couldn't. As long as Ardyn Lucis Caelum had the power to save even one person out of millions, he would have sacrificed everything. He did sacrifice everything. If he'd been afraid, he couldn't remember. If the savior had ever hesitated, ever faltered--...no, that wasn't possible. To question if what he was doing was 'right' would have rendered it all meaningless and invalidated every single life saved at his hand.]

[Even if it had all been planned and orchestrated--hadn't he still saved people? Didn't that still mean something?]

I can not claim to understand the workings of the Six by any means, apart from Ifrit himself.

[Burn it, he'd thought. Burn it all to ash, that's what they get. Ungrateful humans, the descendants of people that would never have lived if not for the man they condemned and forgot, the line descended from his brother to end in a child who never asked to be a piece of this game...he'd wanted it all destroyed.]

...Yuuri.

[And now here he was, neither savior nor Accursed, willing to sacrifice himself for this group and this group alone. He moved and knelt down in front of Yuuri, gently pulling her hands away from her head.]

I never...thanked you, for everything. For all you've done these past months.