Chapter 8-2: Feast of Destruction (Sophie part)

Story so far:

After seeing the vision shown by the rune that Sophie would be leading a group of people and give them hope to go back to thier homeland. She and her three party members started the journey to find that "tower" which may lead them to find a way to go back to each of their own homeland. Finally they arrived at the tower they saw from the runes, the "tower of hope". At the tower of hope, people have been coming from multiple places because they are shown by the runes that it's their mission to build the tower and protect the world from "Warrior of Destruction (Hametsu no Senshi)". The group called themselves the "Keeper".

After helping the Keeper fending off the fiends, Sophie decided to postpone her journey to find a way to go back, and stay helping at the tower of hope until the Keeper finish their mission. She change the Keeper way of thinking from "We'll stay and fight until the very end to protect Palamecia even if we need to sacrifice our lives because it's our mission" to "We'll keep living, keep fighting in order to go back to our homeland". Sophie changed the name from "Keeper" to "Returner" and ignited the hope in everyone's heart to keep on living, so that one day everyone could go back to each of their own homeland. That way of thinking made all of the Returners stronger because they have their hope and something to cling onto. That is "The story of Returner" as described by Sophie.

(at the end of the last chapter; the rune which Sophie had been clinging onto, the rune that showed her Anozea and her brother, dropped from Sophie's pocket, lost its light and disappeared ... )

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# Chapter 8 part 2 "Feast of Destruction (Sophie part)"

Sophie gave the speech to all the Returners that the fighting will continue, they won't know when it will end but it will definitely ends **someday**. To go back to their homeland, they would overcome all the obstacles and keep fighting till the day they can go back. That is, the "story of Returners!".

"If we're with Sophie, we can go back!" is what the Returners thought. Having their goals solidify by ingraining hope in everyone's heart, the people of the tower had become more cheerful and full of energy unlike before when they keep on fighting and lost their sight on the future.

A thought had occured in Sophie's mind, should she really go back to Anozea? Instead of hurrying back there, it seems like there's something important she should do, something that she must do right now.

"I wonder where the story will be heading since it's continue changing..." Echo thought to herself.

Sophie found the answer to her question before, the more important thing than going back to Anozea right now, is to fight together with the Returners. To her, it was not "I have to fight" but more like "I want to fight" was what she was feeling at the time.

Having Sophie around made the Returners able to fight back and fend off the fiends. With Sophie taking command of the squad, everything became easy. Returners started calling her Sophie-sama and joking around that Masaris (the current captain) should resign and let Sophie take the seat instead. Masaris also asked Sophie to be their leader too, as he thought that she is more suitable than him to inspire people and lead them with hope.

The people gathered because of the runes they saw at this tower, the tower of hope, in order to fight Warrior of Destruction who spreads despair to the world. Before everyone had realized, the tower had changed, from the place of neverending fight without sight of the future to the place where hope gathered which someday will show its people the way to go back to their homeland. Hence "Tower of Hope" became "Tower of Returners". For that one day, us Returners, will be able to go back, we'll live and fight here.

-- many days later --

The progess on building the tower had gone very smoothly at an incredible pace, Sophie's existence had a very huge influence on the ex-Keeper which are now Returners. A lot more new people joined the Returners and they became stronger than ever. It is believed that once the tower reach the sky, people will be able to go back to thier homeland.

Sophie had a weird uneasy feeling that the tower contruction pace was too fast. Echo told her that it is because this is Palamecia, the place where people's feeling gathered, the world changes. The world can change "reality", it can make the unthinkable change become "reality". It doesn't mean that the world wass helping Returners but in the end the world just move and acts on its own, doing what was best for itself.

"Maybe I should really tell you about what are runes, story of hope, and why you had influenced the change to occur to the world". Echo said to Sophie.

Before Echo finally had the chance to tell the truth to Sophie, a huge army of fiends started attacking the tower again.

Unlike any prior attacks so far, this time the fiends are more stronger and larger in numbers.

"Let's go back to our homeland!"
"Let's return with Sophie!"
"With our Sophie-chan!"

Those were the chants of Returners before going to the fight.

At the same time, hooded white hair Echo appeared watching all the things happened...

"The light of hope, when the hope is ignited in people's heart, the world started to sparkle.
The darker the shadow of despair, the brighter the light of hope. And when the light of hope shines brightly that's the time when the despair awakens"

At the top of the tower, light of hope had sparkled and shone brightly. The same time, Sophie's body lit up and aura of light enveloped her. It's like a blessing to all the Returners. She was seen as the War Maiden (or in a sense Valkyrie) to the people who fought there, the hope of all Palamecia.

Right when people were full of hope, despair had come... A sphere of dark mist appeared near the tower. The brighter the light of hope from tower shone the world, the shadow from that light became more apparant. The color that was darker than any shadow, the disorder that brings out despair... Chaos had appeared from that mist... An event no one would have expected to happen. "The resurrection of Chaos..."

Having seen the appearance of Chaos and his fearful armies, Sophie commanded the troupes to prepare and fight.

Echo warned Sophie that Chaos is not an enemy they could beat, she tried to convince Sophie to retreat to the tower. With Echo's warning, Sophie tried to send out a retreat command but because the troupes already been fighting before Chaos had appeared, if they were to retreat, people at the frontline would definitely be killed. Sophie told her 3 party members to go back to the tower first, to fortify its defense and she'll go help the others alone herself.

Sophie actually knew from the beginning after feeling Chaos's presence that she shouldn't have let the people got dragged into this kind of fight and that Chaos is not a normal enemy. Echo's weird behaviour also confirmed her intution.

Sophie caught up to where Captain Masaris was, Masaris refused to retreat because he insisted on staying to help getting people at the frontline to come back first. She then go further to the frontline and told the troupes to retreat but they refused. They said that they would fight for everyone so that they can go back go their homeland.

Sophie was confused as to why they wouldn't retreat. Why would they decided to fight till their death, didn't they decide to go back together? Echo told her that it wasn't the case. Because Sophie had ingrained hope on everyone, that's why everyone vowed to fight, made up their mind to not give up and to not run away. Because of that resolution, at times this type of resolution can kill people... What kills people isn't only despair, hope can also kill people as well.

"If people won't stop fighting... I'll be the one to end this fight"
"I'll defeat that enemy and end everything!"
"Echo please lend me your strength!"

Sophie got further into the frontline to where Chaos is waiting. As she went on, the Returners wouldn't stop figting and she saw many people got killed by her own eyes again and again...

"I can still keep fighting... Because there's still hope... I won't give up... I won't run away... To get back to our homeland... I won't die... I'll keep living and fighting... and go back there..." Those are the words of Returners but most of them couldn't make it...

...Hope kills people...

Sophie kept on going but she almost hit her limit... Echo told her to go back to the tower, told her that her body won't last. She didn't listen and still kept on going. She told Echo that she can still fight!

"That's why you shouldn't go on! Sophie is one with the Returner! Because you have hope that you think you can still keep on fighting! Fearless of death, that's why you're too drunk in the word of Hope!" Echo told Sophie.

"Me? You're right Echo... Before I knew it, I was consumed by this hope..." Sophie relized.

Her three party member (Raigo, Bandy, and Shanon the three that started the journey to this tower with her) told her that they already took all the survivors back to tower, and they'll buy time for Sophie to catch her breath. They told her that they won't do reckless thing like her so just keep resting while they buy time for her. Because if Sophie is safe, Returner can always regroup and keep going. They decided that they will take some burden off from Sophie. Their lives were once saved by Sophie, so all the more reasons for them to save her right now.

Sophie told those three to wait but without much stamina left, she couldn't stop them.

Sophie finally caught up to them while they were fighting Tiamat that got stronger by the blessing of Chaos. Those three died to the Tiamat...

"Why!?... Everyone... Not like this... I don't like this at all...!" was all Sophie could say witnessing the death of her comrades.

--- Finally Sophie was right in front of Chaos ---

"Sophie! Just run away" Echo told her
"No"
"Sophie!!"
"No way, I'm not going to run away"
"Ahh! I don't care anymore! Just do what you want! Whatever you do, I'll keep you company!"
"...Thank you Echo"

But she couldn't fight against Chaos...

"I'm sorry. I'm sorry Echo... I can't go on anymore... This is probably it..."
"Don't say something like that!! I'm gonna protect you! Don't give up!! Rise up Sophie!"
"That's right, I'll try...!"

Sophie finally stood up... but at that moment Chaos launched another attack at her...
Sophie got sent flying off the ground. And this time she doesn't have the strength to stand up anymore.

Sophie glanced at the tower. The light of hope that was shone brightly from the tower just moments ago have already vanished.

"Sophie!? Sophie!" Echo tried calling her.
"Echo... Thank you... I'm sorry... and Good bye... (Sayonara...)"

Chaos prepared another attack...

A female voice suddenly said
"I'll protect you"
"I'll shoulder on everyone's hope!"

In that very moment, the light of hope came back and once more shone brightly from the tower. Chaos's attack was stopped.

In Echo's blurry vision from the blinding light shone from the tower, a shadow of a warrior was walking towards them...

(End of part)