Faces of Battle

My name is Ike and I was present at the battle that ruined everything.

Okay, first off, I've gotta say that I absolutely despise fighting old friends. Secondly, I want to make it abundantly clear that it was never my intention to overflow chaos.

This woman, Micaiah, was nuts. Like, totally nuts. There was no other explanation for her behavior. What she was doing was not only racist and suicidal, but also fruitless because no matter who won the battle everything would end badly.

I might just be a little angry because as soon as the battle ended, everyone except for my friends turned into stone. And yes, my friends do include parts of Micaiah's army.

I suppose Sothe likes her, so she can't be all bad. And Zihark was fighting with her… which makes me shake my head shamefully to this day. I don't care if he was being loyal to Micaiah. It is never okay to go after an entire race. Or in this case, several.

In fact, I'm glad that everyone turned into stone. No, I shouldn't put it like that. That's not what I mean at all. It was terrible that everyone was rendered helpless and motionless. But at least it put an end to the most pointless fight I have ever been a part of.

It was terrible. I was scared that something would happen to the many people I considered family. I was especially concerned about my little sister, who appeared to get sick on the battlefield. Something about her is like me except without as much anger and chaos.

I worried about triggering unhappy memories for my dearest friend. I knew he went through hell, and this battle was hell again. The fact that he was in charge of directing the whole thing made it even worse.

But more important than any of that, I feared that either one of them, or anyone else, would not come out alive. We're empathetic and kind. Our group was holding back considerably. None of us wanted to hurt the enemies who used to be our friends.

None of us. Even those of us who claim not to care about each other. Even those of us who would not hesitate to cut down an enemy to laguz.

But… I could tell that they weren't holding back. Zihark and someone who I believe was Brom's daughter were kind enough not to attack certain people at all. But everyone else… Micaiah and the others… didn't hold back anything.

Not even Sothe.

Not that I blame him. If he knows that we can hurt him—which he does from fighting alongside us before—he should try his hardest to fight us back. But, you know, it still hurts.

My name is Ike, and maybe I have been premature in my assessment. It's entirely possible that this battle didn't ruin everything. True, it did almost end the world, but it didn't. We were left behind to stop it. And maybe it was our willingness to accept the futility of the battle that left us behind.

It's undeniable that the battle was hard, but perhaps it was just one of the road bumps that lead to the desired destination. I mean, if Soren didn't go through hell earlier we would never have met. And if we didn't go through hell this time, Micaiah may never have learned to trust me.