HUGEFUCK SPOILER WARNING for Chi's ending and some Back Cover.







The bell sounding the end rings.

You and the two wielders look up at the same time, your discussion interrupted. What timing, you can't help but think, sarcastically, to yourself. It's as though speaking of the end has brought it closer.

(You remember reading once, in your research after your Master gave you the Book, that speaking prophecies causes them to come true faster. You wonder if this meeting has hastened the end.

You can't bring yourself to care if it has. All the better. Get it over with.)

The two wielders have turned their eyes toward the ceiling, following the distant sound of the bell with their eyes. Their thoughts are only on the coming battle, and perhaps on the Dandelions' escape. Yours are elsewhere.

Venture forth in secrecy... Ava, what did you discover?

It doesn't matter, in the end. The only way you would get the chance to ask her is if the both of you survive. You don't know about the others, how they think this will end, but you know better.

None of you are going to survive. Wielders, Masters, it matters not; save for the Dandelions, you all may as well be dead. The hour proclaimed by the bell has come.

You send the two wielders away. Their search for Ava is pointless now, and it's time for the Dandelions to say goodbye. The rest of you have a battle to prepare for.

Except you remain here, at your makeshift desk in your hiding place, for a moment longer. You press a hand against your side - Ava patched your wounds, but they haven't fully healed. Dealing with wielders won't be too difficult, but if one of the others come across you on the battlefield, especially Ira or Aced...

You know that you're going to die. You just refuse to die easily. If nothing else, you refuse to be the first to fall. Even when your Union crumbles around you. Sitting back in your chair, you tip your head back and address the belltower, hidden from your sight by hood and mask and the walls around you.

"Master... You never intended to come back, did you?" No matter what I did. You already knew what that would be, after all. "I'm a fool." This was your plan all along.

You stand, not glancing back as you retrace the steps the wielders took from your door. There's no point in looking back. This world too will come to an end - you've already said any goodbyes you had to say, and it's time to call your Union together one last time. For a scant few hours more, you exist, and you will be their leader.

You wonder how much would have been different, if not for that day. (In your hand, take this key, your memory provides, perfect as the day you heard it.)

Perhaps, in the next life, you'll find out.