Lightning Returns: Final Fantasy XIII, Chapter 9: Fin

Just as suddenly as the apparition of God had appeared, in the form of Hope, it was gone. Lightning was alone with her thoughts, here in the inner sanctum of the cathedral. Well, not so alone, it turned out. Her good friend, Mog, had turned out to guide her way. The door behind him led to the Room of Creation, where God himself awaited Lightning. However, about the room were four altars, each of which led to a treasure. It was yet another trial Mog explained, one that if completed, would grant Lightning a powerful weapon.

Lightning explored the altars in turn, in the order which seemed most fitting. That is, Birth, Atonement, Judgement, and then Salvation. Behind each were chaos beasts, and a locked door. After defeating the monsters of each trial, the doorway opened to a treasure, powerful spells each tied to one of the elements. What was most peculiar though, was what Lightning saw through the windows of each altar room. It was not the sky of Nova Chrysalia, but instead, a view into history.

There was Valhalla with Etro's grand throne at its center, there was Eden, the capital of long dead Cocoon, and even Oerba, the village of Vanille and Fang.

As Lightning completed each altar's trial, a corresponding statue was activated. Each of these massive bronze women held a staff, and from it, energy and light beamed to the apex of the room's central altar. Something appeared to be gathering there, but the answer would have to wait until all four trials were completed.

As Lightning jumped down from the mezzanine to the central altar for the final time, an almost blinding radiance had gathered. From within, Lightning heard Lumina's voice. It whispered, "A gift, from Serah."

On the wings of Lumina's words, Lightning felt the ultimate energy of souls imbue her weapon and shield that were given to her as the savior. Her crimson sword and shield, now teeming with barely controlled energy, became the Ultima Weapon and Ultima Shield. These arms would no doubt prove invaluable against the almost unimaginable divine power that faced her, she thought to herself.

Before she entered the Door of Creation, and gazed upon the new world, Lightning had one more goodbye to make. "Kupo!" said Mog,"I-I should come with you, I can fight too!"

"Of course you can," said Lightning in a soothing tone, patting him on the head,"but Mog, I have one more task for you, I need you to stay here. Someone needs to make sure Serah knows where to go. You'll be our beacon, so she knows how to find her way back here."

Mog nodded his head solemly as Lightning took the final steps toward her destiny, fate... or both. She muttered to herself, "Bhunivelze, God of Light, what madness is it for a human to fight a being of your power? But fight, and defeat you, I will, if I must. I am remade more than human now, and I will drag you down into the unseen Chaos."

The savior was not fully prepared for what she saw ahead of her. All around her was almost empty space, raw matter, it was as if looking back to the creation of her own universe. Floating in it all was a dark sphere, the new world, that "God had wrought." Ahead of her, surrounded by the halo of divinity was Hope, and behind him... a shade.

Holy s*...

Hope, if it really was him, began to speak, his voice echoed like it was a reflection of many beings. "He dreamt of eternity... that this world would last forever. But his dream was shattered. The unseen force advanced, leaving destruction in it's wake. He saw it then, the raw energy that creates life, from which Etro guided souls. With her death, the cycle was broken, leaving a dying world. So, God decided to do it over."

"Right," said Lightning, now face to face with Hope,"He can create and mold matter, it would be a simple thing for Bhunivelze."

"Yes," said Hope,"but it is beyond his power to see inside our souls, he can neither create nor mold them. He needed someone, a fisher of souls, to gather them, to populate the new world. Etro is gone, and cannot be replaced. He needed a new goddess, to manipulate the Chaos, and place it into the hearts of the unborn."

"I'll be the new Goddess of Death, but not the one you want," said Lightning, drawing her sword, "I'll be the one, who kills you!"

The apparition of Hope simply chuckled at this, disappearing in a halo of blinding light. Lightning followed the light, down a translucent cerulean path that appeared before her. About her floated the building blocks of the celestial heavens.

"Behold!" Hope's voice rang out,"The new world, populated with millions of souls, awaiting rebirth. Yet, my glorious new world must be destroyed. It is your doing, you stopped the sacred one from singing the Soulsong. The souls are poisoned, shackled by their past sins and regrets. What God creates, he can destroy. I will create the perfect people for my perfect world, knowing only joy. They will be unburdened by grief and grudges."

"What you're describing aren't humans," countered Lightning,"they'll be puppets that look like people. Your power is great, Bhunivelze, but you could never see into our hearts."

Hope's voice ceased, and was replaced with a booming choir, like that of a hundred demons and angels. "Yes, your souls are opaque to me, which is precisely why they must be redone."

"What value can they have, if your souls are not known to God? Your flesh shall return to clay, and be remolded. Perfect."

"Purified, you shall become a vessel for God himself, supreme and transcendent. Rejoice in the light of God's love! I shall descend and inhabit your frail bodies, to read your hearts, and bring you joy."

"Tell me this," said Lightning,"you took that body, but what did you with his soul?"

"I do not know..." mused Bhunivelze, "your souls are invisible to me."

The god's fist closed upon Hope's body, and it was gone in an instant.

Lightning was willing to hear him out, but now she knew for sure, she would fight. "You think you can slay God?" asked Bhunivelze.

"The Goddess of Death can," answered Lightning,"YOU made me strong enough!"

"Let this be your final trial!" The god's voice rang out, "Bow they head and open thy heart to the benediction of God's light!"

From the far-flung depths of the unseen realm, Bhunivelze called forth his servant God's, Lindzei and Pulse. Using their powers, he formed a massive dual bladed weapon. It seemed the savior would be facing not simply one god, but three this final day.

His first act was to put a curse of doom upon the savior, if she could not defeat him in time, she would simply cease to exist. She fought fast, dodging the god's blows, all while agilely switching amongst her magical garbs. The uniform called, fittingly, but ironically, "the soldier of peace" was her mainstay. The Arrows of Artemis were her weapon, combined with the Ultima Sword, she inflicted egregious wounds upon Bhunivelze. The god switched weapons and strategies many times, always succumbing to Artemis's Arrows.

After they had battled for sometime, with Lightning clearly having the upper hand, Bhunivelze, reached down, digging his claws into the ground he had created there in space. He warped reality around, reversing Lightning's gravity, and she found, that with Bhunivelze above here, the arrow attack was no longer effective. The warp of gravity caused the arrows to fly away harmlessly. She realized she needed a new strategy, and fast. 

Lightning turned to a power she had avoided so far, the forbidden black magic, Ultima. It was almost as dangerous to the user as to their foes. This was because, for the spell to be at full power, the caster had to be nearly wounded to death. This is exactly where Lightning found herself, hovering on the edge of a death that would be all too final, as she cast the blackest of magics.

At first there was silence, as the magic gathered all ambient energy. Seconds, that seemed like eons later, Bhunivelze exploded in a coruscating dome of color. All of the energy within miles had been compounded into a singularity which exploded with the mass of a thousand suns. Lightning held the particles of her body together with sheer force of will. Bhunivelze, it seemed, had not disintegrated either, but he lay severely wounded at her feet. "The light..." Bhunivelze exclaimed," greater than... God's." 

Lightning plunged her sword into his chest as the defeated god reached out a hand toward's the dark globe above. "A... glorious new world," he breathed.

"It belongs to humanity now. There is no place for you there," said the savior.

"No!" boomed the god,"I will not accept it, I will not allow it!"

"I feel it... I feel the grief, the sadness, the anger!" the god cried in anguish, as a river of tears touched his face for the first time in existence.

"Goddess of Death, I cast you out into the Chaos!" cried Bhunivelze.

"That's exactly my plan," replied Lightning, "but I'm taking you with me!"

"Is that your final desperate plan? You think you can survive me?"

Lightning did indeed have a final desperate plan. It relied on Bhunivelze's arrogance, for he had brought the soul of Hope into himself along with the body, and it was this soul that Lightning sought to release. She hoped that releasing Hope from inside Bhunivelze would destroy him. She succeeded in freeing Hope, with the promise of seeing his parents again in the new world. Soon, Bhunivelze was nowhere to be seen, and Lightning took to the Throne of Etro as the solitary Goddess of Death.

There was crack in her plan though... herself. Serah and Lumina both appeared to her. However, Serah explained she was not real, only a pretty fake created by God. Lumina resembled Serah not because she was a young Serah, but that she was a young Claire Farron, Lightning herself.

"I am your weakness, your fear. Those parts of you that you cut away. You tried to kill me," said Lumina.

Lightning suddenly felt very alone and afraid, "Don't leave me alone!" she begged, falling into the endless chaos.

"I need you!"

At that moment of acceptance, Lightning and Lumina were reunited. Hope then appeared to guide Lightning back from the chaos, just as Bhunivelze himself reemerged. The god's power was so great, perhaps it could not be stopped by Lightning alone. Now though, she had friends, Hope, Noel, Fang, Vanille, Snow, they had all heard her cry and come to help. Even Sazh and his son Dahj came, although they were a little late, because they had been searching for something. That something... was Serah. Reunited with her sister and companions, the combined power of those who cared about each other so deeply, was enough to finally put an end to Bhunivelze's reign. "Know this Bhunivelze," spoke Lightning,"You were defeated by a power you cannot see or understand. It comes from the bonds of love that unite us, those things which make us... human."

"We don't need God anymore," proclaimed Lightning.

"The living do not need a god, but the dead do," responded a deep voice.

It was Cauis Ballad. The dead would still need guidance, and the chaos would still need to be controlled. The countless Yeul's of history would take on this task, with Cauis as their guardian. However, Noel could not accept that. He would not let Yeul go. There was one among them, the very last, who wished for this as well. Cauis released her, so that she might reunite with Noel, and fulfill the prophecy.

"Is God dead?" asked hope.

"He has sunk into the unseen realm," Lightning answered,"Will he return? I don't know, but if he does, we will win again."

The companions locked hands, and drifted off into the magnificent glow of the stream of souls, towards their new world. The new world... that is quite possibly your own.

It has been quite the story, that of Lightning, from her humble beginnings as a simple soldier. She then became in turn the servant of a goddess, and then the God of Light himself. However, in the end, it was the unimaginable power that lies in humanity itself that prevailed. 

Thank you for joining me friends, for the tale of Lightning and her companions in the epic of Fabula Nova Chrystalis. Join me again next time for more... of This Bard's Tales!