[Execution]

Flashes of light were accompanied by the ringing of steel as the Liegeman and the Knight of Baron clashed against the Nemesis. Cecil pressed onward, dark blade in hand, while Firion stood on guard with his bow and stave. Garland, on the other hand, was leaning towards slamming the dark knight with his massive greatsword.

"I'll crush you!" Garland dashed forward, angling his sword for an uppercut. Anticipating such a strike, Cecil deftly parried the blade to the side and leapt away, only for Garland to meet face-to-face with Firion's bow at the ready.

"Hit!" The arrow shone with a white gleam, tracing a streak of light towards the Chaos Knight. Yellow orbs shone as Garland quickly angled his blade to block the arrow, dissipating as it impacted his blade.

"Imbecile. You dare assault me with such pitiful strikes?"

The reply was a shining orb flung towards Garland's direction, stopping abruptly above him.

"Moon transfix you!" And as those words left the Paladin's mouth, the orb shot out multiple beams of light, which caught Garland off guard as he grunted with every impact. Sensing his opportunity, the Split Soul dashed forward, slashing at the Nemesis with such force that he was flung upwards. Cecil did not let up, and continued with a barrage of precise slashes which left a cross-shaped trail of light. The trail exploded as a whirlwind of weapons struck the hapless Garland, still stuck and battered by the combination attack of Cecil and Firion – and flung him to one of the canyons on the Lunar Subterrane, obliterating it into a mixture of dust and stone.

"Did we do it?" Firion took a quick breather, hands still gripping his bow tightly even as he spoke that question aloud. Cecil did not reply, opting instead to stare forward at the dust cloud and anticipating any more moves from Garland. "Do not let your guard down, Firion. I do not think he can be easily defeated with this."

"And you are correct in assuming so. Go!"

The tip of Garland's blade blitzed forward, shot like a hook towards the surprised Cosmos Warriors. Firion's reaction was slightly delayed, and the resulting wave of Garland's blade dragged the Liegeman with it towards another canyon. Armored back and wicked steel met hard stone as Firion coughed violently, and fell to the ground, followed by the blade of Garland's sword embedding itself on the rock. Cecil quickly rushed to Firion's side, but did not expect what was coming next.

"Fool! You dare take your eyes off a battle? Pay for it with your life!"

The chain attached to the blade creaked as the tip of the blade swung loose, directed towards the Paladin. Cecil did not manage to react in time, only barely able to put his blade on the path of Garland's whip-sword, and was rattled badly as he flew backwards due to the impact of the heavy slab of steel. Cecil grunted and quickly tried to stand up, anticipating another attack from Garland. He was right to do so, as the Nemesis was up on the air, imbuing his blade with ancient magic which made his sword glow an unnatural blue. The glow of the blade somehow attracted water to it, as the sword started to spin faster and faster with every passing second.

"You've no escape. Die, knowing that you will never escape this cycle of battle, and doomed for all eternity!"

The blade was rotating furiously now, with the mixed water creating a wicked vortex which was shot outwards towards the helpless knight.

'Firion…I'm sorry. Kain..Brother..I..'

Cecil braced for an impact that never came, as he felt himself float in the air. Opening his eyes, purple met violet as Kain carried him off to the side, avoiding the explosion of water and earth from the impact of Garland's blade.

"Kain!" Cecil brightened up as the Dragoon merely nodded as they both got on the ground. "I apologize for going away at such an important time, Cecil. I have returned."

Cecil smiled in response. Firion, who was luckily left unscathed by the Nemesis' attack quickly joined their side. "Glad to see you, Kain! We definitely need more help to tackle Garland!" Firion smiled, as he once again prepared his bow and arrow.

"Tackle me?" Garland was positively seething. The wicked glint reflected on his eyepiece glowed even brighter. "You dare think that you can tackle me?! You worms cannot even think of besting me! The arrival of another Warrior of Cosmos serves nothing but to hasten your goddess' demise! I shall destroy that foolish belief of yours," Garland lifted his blade, the massive steel shifting to form a violent-looking hammer,

"And knock you all down!"

Save for the constant humming of machinery, the laboratory was quiet. A lone figure sat next to a particularly large machine, the dim blue glow of the room contrasting with the man's white attire.

A hiss was heard as the entrance to the laboratory opened, and gentle footsteps resounded throughout the laboratory until it stopped next to the sitting man. The new figure stood silently, opting instead to put a hand on the man's shoulders.

"I suppose you bumped into her."

A gentle voice replied back. "Give her time. She understands."

"Of all things that I expect her to feel, 'understanding' would be the last thing I would have thought of." Turning his head to the side, the Chief merely gave a derisive smile. "I'd hoped it to turn out this way. She was not meant for such work."

"You do know that your reasoning fails to grasp why she is still driven to keep working with you. She can do it, I know she can. For now,"

Slender hands moved to cup the Chief's face, gently turning it to face a billowing golden mane and gentle, shining blue orbs. "You should rest. It wouldn't do for her to find that you exhausted yourself due to your self-guilt, you know?"

The Chief replied with a small smile. "You're one to talk." Gingerly placing a hand to the obvious bulge on the woman's stomach, the Chief Researcher gulped. "Your health is more important than mine."

"No, our health is important. I will not let you be stubborn about this. We are going back home, and you are going to rest. If you don't," softly batting the Chief's hand away, the lady stepped backwards with a mock pout on her face, "I'll not let you hold the little one for a month.

The Chief immediately stiffened after hearing the ultimatum, and let out a short sigh.

"There's no arguing against you, it seems."

"That is why you are a good boy. Quickly pack up and let us go home."

"Yes, sure, whatever you say, ma'am."

"I love you too."

"You seem to be greatly troubled yet again. Is there something bothering you?"

The Warrior was startled out of his reverie as he took a quick step back and knelt in front of the Goddess.

"Cosmos! I apologize, my thoughts were running astray and I do not put enough attention to notice your presence."

"Raise your head. You have done nothing wrong."

Silence filled the Sanctuary for a moment, one which was broken by Cosmos.

"Accompany me."

The Warrior looked up at her statement. "Cosmos?" Standing up, he maintained a respectful distance as he continued. "Forgive me, Cosmos, but I cannot let you leave. I am not in full fighting strength, and I fear that I cannot protect you when the situation calls for-"

"Please."

The Warrior went silent, blue orbs staring at each other as he tried to understand his Goddess' request, to no avail. There is only sadness in her eyes, and a glint of regret.

He did not have a say in the matter.

"Very well, Cosmos."

The Empyreal Paradox. Space holds no meaning as the floor reflects the numerous stars lazily moving about. A gigantic red crystal floated above, unmoving, glowing with a dim light that never seems to waver despite the ravages of war.

"Do you not wish to tell me what ails you?"

The Warrior did not give an immediate answer, looking downwards to the stars instead. After a few moments, he replied.

"I have been seeing visions, Cosmos. Visions of a past long gone from my mind. I feel that these fragments of memories hold some sort of clue to my past, but," Turning his head to the side to watch the gigantic crystal slowly rotate without a care in the world, the Hero continued.

"I cannot help but feel that it is somehow...strange. It does not seem to correlate to anything that I can think of."

"Continue."

"At times, these memories seem fleeting, and yet at times, it comes to me so vividly it seems that I am the one experiencing all these memories. Even so, as I have said before, these thoughts keep on occupying my mind as of late. I am quite ashamed to admit this, but my mind has been too focused on trying to comprehend these memories that it does not focus well enough to do my task which is at hand. I could say that it is…quite a pitiful path for one such as me to follow."

If the stars could reply, they chose not to, and decided to observe the knight and the goddess instead. Cosmos stepped slowly, inching closer towards the Warrior.

"It is not your fault. Is it not a good thing, that you finally obtained a clue regarding your past?"

The Warrior made a small, derisive smile. "It should have been, if I were to feel familiar with it. However, it is not as what I have expected."

Cosmos shook her head slowly. "Even so, that does not mean you can simply discard these thoughts. Hold on to it. You do have comrades that are willing to assist you in overcoming these thoughts, do you not?" The Warrior shook his head as well in reply. "This is my burden to bear. I cannot possibly push my troubles onto the other warriors. They have their own battle to fight."

"But do you not share the same battle as them? Do you not fight the same fight as them? Why do you not seek help from your comrades?" Her tone wavered at the end. After a dim silence, she continued.

"Do you not trust your comrades?"

The reply came terse, and swift. "It is precisely because I trust them that I do not wish them to do any more tasks than what they are supposed to handle." Looking back at the Goddess he swore to protect, he was about to continue but was stopped by the hardened gaze of the Goddess of Harmony.

"Then let me assist you. I cannot do much compared to your fellow Warriors, but surely two people can handle a task easier than one."

The Hero's eyes widened. "Surely you jest. It is unthinkable for me to even seek assistance from you, Cosmos, for something as trivial as-"

"It is not trivial!"

The Goddess was half-shouting at this point. The Warrior stood still, stunned to silence by the sudden outburst of the normally gentle and quiet Goddess.

"It is about you – your memories. If you can glean something related to your world, your past, surely it must be very precious and important to you! Do you not realize the weight of these memories? Do you not wish to learn what you were before, and where you came from? I can understand if you do not wish to burden your comrades with something such as this, although I doubt that they will mind, but even I, too, wish to assist you. I cannot bear the thought of leaving you struggling with these thoughts alone! But why do you refuse?"

Cosmos went silent, and faced away from the Hero. The Warrior was still, blue eyes observing the Goddess and her figure – her tightly clenched hands, her furrowed brows, and her terse expression – and the Warrior can literally feel sadness radiating off Cosmos' entire being.

The Goddess continued with a barely audible voice this time.

"Do you not trust me?"

He steeled his wavering mind, and hardened his eyes. "I cannot ask you to assist me in this matter, Cosmos. It is not that I do not trust you, but," he hardened his eyes.

"It is not your duty."

This time, the eyes reflected in the Warrior's sight only showed pure sorrow.

"…Let us return to the Sanctuary."

The Warrior did not reply, deciding to walk towards their Sanctuary instead with turbulent thoughts driving up a storm inside his mind.

The death match began anew as lance and sword met greatsword, and knights faced off with each other.

Kain began the assault, lance aimed forward in a straight charge towards the Chaos Knight. Garland did not make any moves to dodge, choosing to instead meet the Dragoon in his own lance charge. "Hmph. Charging headlong? How foolish. But very well, have at you! I'll crush you!" The Dragoon smirked in response. "Got you."

As soon as Kain approached Garland he made a hard step and leapt upwards, letting the Chaos Knight pierce empty air instead. The Captain of Baron's Dragoons quickly dashed downwards, slashing towards the Nemesis with a wide sweeping slash of his spear. "Impale!" Two slashes caught Garland off-guard, and it was followed up with multiple sharp thrusts of his lance, ending with a strong kick that pushed the fallen knight upwards. Kain turned to his friend and nodded.

"Cecil, go!"

Cecil nodded back in reply, and dashed upwards, a white light streaking through the pale moonlight of the Lunar Subterranean. "Moon, guide me!" The Lunarian Knight made several flourishes that struck Garland with every blow, ending with his paladin form burning into dark armor and descending downwards with his feet on Garland's hapless back, crashing down to the land.

The impact shook the ground and caused dark purple flames to explode around the two knights, as the ground cracked and Cecil leapt back to safety. Firion quickly stepped in, his weapons floating with arcane magic on the air. "My turn! I'll give it everything I got!" And with that, his weapons, as if having a life of its own, came crashing down towards the fallen figure of the Chaos Knight. Once again the ground exploded forcefully, expelling dust and sand around the area as the Weaponsmaster's equipment swiftly returned to his side. The three Cosmos Warriors stood back, reflexively grasping their weapons and renewing their vigilance – the mishap that happened a few moments ago caused Cecil and Firion to be especially tense, gripping their respective weapons tightly.

Emerging from the smoke was a smoldering knight, golden eyes wickedly shining with a ferocious rage aimed at the three Cosmos Warriors. "You worms, for you to damage me in this manner…unacceptable! You imbeciles, crumble and smolder to ash!"

The Chaos Knight lifted his blade – now shifted to a wicked-looking hammer glowing with a malicious brown aura – and slammed it downwards with force. The aura blew up the ground and sharp stone spikes jutted outwards as a wave aimed towards the three knights. Garland then quickly shifted his blade upwards and split it into two, as the blade now glowed with an otherworldly red light. Swinging it downwards, the red light coalesced into multiple flaming arrows that were shot directly towards the heroes.

Kain, seeing the barrage of earth and fire, turned to Firion and nodded. "Now's our chance, Firion! We will deflect it and escape!" Cecil also turned to Firion, black lance at hand. "I shall assist as well. Let us begin!"

Firion nodded with a shout of "Got it!" and brought his hand downwards as a magical shield shimmered into view. The Dark Knight slammed his lance downwards, and dark flames sprouted out from the ground meeting up the earthen wave.

"Burn!"

Cecil shouted, and dark fire and earth met and blew upwards in an explosion of stone and ember, as the wave spread upwards. The magical shield of the Liegeman, however, absorbed most of the damage and glowed brightly. Firion quickly took out his staff, pointing it towards the still-flying flame arrows and chanted a short verse. "Blizzard, freeze!" The magical barrier glowed blue, as icicle chunks shot out of his staff, impacting the flaming arrows in a mixture of heat and steam. The resulting haze gave the three Cosmos Warriors enough opportunity to dash away from the battle, escaping the still furious Nemesis.

Garland grudgingly put his blade down as he stood there amidst the wreckage of the Lunar Subterranean for a short while. A gentle wind blew away the remaining smoke of the battle, and as the dust settles and the moonlight once again shone upon the ground, the Chaos Knight was gone.

The trio escaped onto the Crystal World, landing on a particularly large crystalline cliff. The orange glow of the floating lattices gave the land a mystical feeling, the massive yellow crystal providing a soft shine towards the tranquil land. Cecil was the first to pick up his breath.

"We finally got away from Garland." Turning towards Kain with a smile, Cecil continued. "Thank you for your assistance, Kain. If you were not there, I fear that everything was going to end."

"It will, for both of you."

A violet blur was the last thing Cecil saw as he felt a stinging pain on his stomach, and everything went black.

The constant humming and clicking of machines roused the Chief from his slumber. Looking left and right, he noticed a rather large cotton blanket draped on his back. Smiling bitterly, he stood up and folded the fabric up as he put it aside. The laboratory was empty, as usual.

'I am sorry, my love. I was very close to discovering a new structural base for the mana infusion system. Please understand that I do not wish to tally here any longer, that I wish to resolve this as soon as possible to quickly return to your side.'

Silent contemplation allowed the Chief to notice a folded letter neatly placed near the table's edge. Opening it revealed a short message:

"I'll only allow you to hold her once. Then it's a month of no holding for you. Good luck with the injection system! I believe in you.

With love and affection,
Your dearest Lady"

The scientist gave a short huff, but the smile never left his face. "Thank you."

No sooner than the words left his mouth, the laboratory doors shifted open as a figure of a strawberry blonde-haired scientist came inside in a hurry. Catching her breath quickly, she turned with a desperate motion towards the surprised man.

Her words froze the Chief Scientist's heart, and the world stopped.

"It's an emergency! She collapsed, vital signs were very bad. Where the hell were you?! You know she is going into labor very soon and you still dare to leave her alone? Even with her current condition?! She might not survive, you bastard!"

The Chief was numb, even as the female researcher dragged him by hand out of the lab.

'Might not survive.' Those three words constantly circled his mind in a flurry. He did not even notice his assistant's venomous glare.

"I swear, if anything bad happens to her, I'll make you pay, you bastard."

He did not reply.

The yellow crystal adorning the sky of the Crystal World shone softly, illuminating the Dragoon.

Besides him, two bodies lay, unmoving.

Everything was silent. The plan had begun.

'I wonder, Rosa…would you forgive me for this?'

Author's Note:

Hello, everyone. It has been a while. I could not think of anything to say on the last chapter, and instead opted to simply post it without anything else. I thank you for keeping an interest in reading my convoluted jumble of thoughts I call a story, and especially to those who even took a step forward and favorited and/or followed Duty. Again I express my gratitude and I hope you would continue to enjoy the story as much as I enjoyed writing it, despite all my laziness reluctance to post a new chapter – at least until I have found it suitable to my liking.

As always, constructive criticisms are always appreciated. Sound advice builds good character, after all, and I would like to take all the advice you have to further improve my writing skills.

I hope that the cliffhangers in the story do not trouble you as much (because I feel that I almost always end a chapter with one and I should fix that, it's bad for you, the readers, to always have it hanging after all), and I hope that the different viewpoints (not only from the Warrior's) would provide a better view of the current realm and the current situation. Also, I would be quite happy if some of you, or even all of you noticed that their quotes when they attack are taken from the battle quotes they have in Dissidia. A little trivia that I tried to abide by as much as possible, I do hope that you find it to your liking.

The plan has just begun, and things would get even more heated up from here. Look forward to the next chapter! It has Lightning in it, supposedly, maybe. And perhaps a little bit of some LightxLight=Harmony. Maybe.

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