These Hands Will Never Hold Anything.

((This loses a lot of effect without ingame HTML, imo, so I've included several screencaps so you can see it like it was there. Logs are below them:

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It'd been a long, tiresome road to his inevitable end, but it was an end that any could've seen coming in the end.

Siegfried had never been born to succeed. From the moment he had set foot into Agartha, his story had been destined to be a tragedy.

"Excellent job, Siegfried."
"...Wait. Wrong timeline."
"..."
"Not nice!"
"Decent job, Siegfried! Keep it up!"
"I wonder if that Siegfried has a wife..."

It was funny, when you thought about it.

The joking conversation that Satsuki, Siegfried, and Calael had would be some of the last words the Fool had ever uttered...and they would be some of the most fitting to represent the adversity and tragedy that had colored every tidbit of his pitiful lifetime.

---

Siegfried can feel a thousand hands crawl over his skin like ants. Grasping at the soft spots of his skin and pulling, pinching, scratching with invisible nails. Shadow layered atop shadow. Smoldering crimson eyes burn into pale blue ones.

"Why throw away a good life? You needn't that anger. You needn't be burdened with that duty. Whatever dreams of justice dance in your heart - it's a flame that's easily snuffed. You can walk away right now and remind yourself the comfort of a nights rest. Indulge in liquor and work an honest life until you die a peaceful death surrounded by people who love you dearly, young Siegfried.
(Taiga Rowan)

---

One moment, he's fighting for his life, but he realizes...rapidly...that time has caught up to him. His injuries have caught up to him. The weight of the world has caught up to him.

Years ago, Isaac's javelin embed itself into Siegfried, and he'd never walked the same since.
Zeno Morvan's claws had nearly torn his throat.
Godfrey's reika circulated throughout his human body, weakening his casting.
A hole remained in his stomach, never to be closed.
The flames of a dragon, everburning, just underneath his skin...

The man that'd been Emiri Taiyang's only son, in his dying moments, would raise his sword, as he had done his entire life, but he knew. The spirits left him, then. He could not hear their call, could not feel them...he is deaf to them, as he had been before he'd slain his own lover.

I'm coming, Clara.

---

"I want to kill Sors Ultovex...but I kissed hisdaughter, and saved her life, and I don't think that any of this is going to work out," he blurts. "And I...I've never sat in any one place before, and tied myself to it, and it feels good, like, Levengard is like the home I never had growing up, and Niklaus and Taiga and Noel were so good to me, and I feel obligated, even though I know they don't see it that way, you know? Like I have to fight for Levengard...against Sors, who I hate anyway, but also against..."

He trails off.

And then he just straight fucking chugs the hot cocoa, his burning throat be damned.
(Siegfried)

Cal sipped his own drink while he listened to Siegfried's story, showing no real signs of judgement or disagreement. It was the boy's tale to tell, his life that he had lived. And though Calael was often not seen in the company of others willingly, he had unlocked his gates for the youth.

"You don't owe anyone here a thing, Siegfried." he said when he finally decided to respond. "Kindness does not... require a price, it's not an exchange. You can help them by fighting against Sors and his people... you can help the world by doing so, but don't do it because you think anyone is expecting it of you." With that the demiangel's eyes flickedto the boy. Where his irises had once been a burning amber, they were now a perpetual golden, a shimmer that was strikingly vibrant.

"But if I am... getting this right, you are asking what you should do?
(Calael E. Kang)

---

His pendant has never felt so heavy around his neck, the steel, never so cold. Siegfried's breath is so loud...his heartbeat...so loud. When the super massive black hole is formed, and Siegfried's body does not react, and for all his godbreaking ambitions, and for all his daring feats, and for all the things he had made so much ground in accomplishing...

Here, he would die, before anything he'd ever attempted came to fruition.

Defeated by Isaac. Defeated by Sors. Unable to best Kuja Mori, who'd slain his father. Batted aside, time and again. Failing as an Enforcer of Levengard, losing his status, and being relegated to sitting outside in meetings. Considered unworthy to wield his dead father's blade, he had still made due, fighting against all odds and trying to accomplish some semblance of success. In the end, victory had come so close, so many times, that he could taste it. And yet? Those thoughts are far from his mind, as the nebula creeps unto his legs and feet, and swallow him whole, and soon, nothing would remain of Shirou Taiyang.

Nothing would remain of Siegfried.

---

 Siegfried and Isaac clash blades, but ultimately, Siegfried is defeated, ripped from the sky and skewered by a heavy, unending rain of blades.

"All you did was make demands."
"When you are no one."
"When you are not my equal."
"And when you offer nothing."

Time moves on...

"But you're too pathetic. You're just like him...Lost. Weak. Alone." And yet, even with these words...She still moves forth...The promise of darkness and dread found within the way this pride swells within her body. The dress-like kimono billowing from the heated mana that rolls through her frame..

"This blade doesn't belong to your family anymore. From here on out, it's mine." She stands tall once more...The very building rumbling...Her smile turning into a dark, sadistic grin.

"Kneel."
(Ashalle)

And on...

Siegfried's blade strikes Sors true. He's able to beat him back, against all odds - when no one would ever think such a thing possible. Reenergized, moving with the souls of his departed friends and his beloved, he fights his heart out...but loses.

"But ya are wrong. Ya 'ttack Isaac, sur'. But then ya murder tha' person tha' loves ya. Ya run 'way from ya responsibities. Ya are jus' some kid tryin' ta play tha' hero, an' failin' every time."

"Ya are rite. Ya ain't in despair o' hope. Ya are only a weak flame ta b extinguished." The astral blast again surges to Siegfried.

"Ya are not one capable o' grantin' ma wish. It is not mere death I want."

"I refuse ta die until ma soul can b destroyed. Anythang less will b rejected. I refuse ta b born 'gain in this world o' sufferin'."

---

He was but one man. One man who could never have hoped to matter in such a perilous, unforgiving world, the way that he had conducted himself. The odds had been against him from the very beginning, when Emiri had carefully instructed him in the usage of the stave, but he'd chosen the sword. When Emiri had tried to show him how to talk to people, but all he'd ever wanted was to see the world.

A lifetime of sacrifice, regret, and pain was culminating in this. In this infinite expanse of darkness, that would eliminate all hope.

---


"N-NO!" She shouted. Magical energies surround Clara now, her entire body trembling, not from the cold. But from the pain of knowing this was what it had come down to.

"... I don't - please, Siegfried. It's right there! IT'S RIGHT THERE!"

They clash.
(Clara Ultovex)


It's right there, is all he gets from his lover as he brings the sword that had always protected her driving through her body, again. And again. And again.

He's sobbing, but he won't stop.

He loves her, but he can't stop.
(Siegfried)

---

Power had escaped him. Knowledge had eluded him. No matter to what depths he grasped, no matter to what lengths he went, talent was what he lacked. Natural aptitude. Something that every child at Reimara had seemed to have...

But him.

He alone had been unworthy to be there. And he'd known it. He'd known it well, that Ilui Elisheva, Aurora Elisheva, Elyon Hirai, Adrian Rowan, Keitaro...would all go on to do miraculous things.

But it had never stopped him. It had never stayed his course. Knowing that death lied around every corner, that he had already been written off by fate as one who would die a fool's death, he sought defiance of such a fate.

---

Siegfried, imbued with the burning hot rage of a man whose very being had been insulted to his very core, lashes out in his fury, aiming to tear Adrian down and retrieve that sword...

By force.

---

Two brothers, fighting in their family home, their fathers long dead.
(Siegfried)

You have lost any chance you ever had, at touching his blade. He would have never wanted this or wanted you to even do anything so drastic. I cannot banish you from Levengard, but I would prefer if you never spoke in my direction again.''

Moving over, as the house was a mess. Walls destroyed, furniture torn. It was destroyed... Because of them both. And Adrian takes two things from him, two things that he was sure might have been painful to lose. The tome of Wayfinding, and his key.

''If you don't crawl out, I will drag you out by your wounds.''
(Adrian Rowan)

But some time later...

''Siegfried, you... If you can't feel the sunshine on your face, then I have nothing more to say to you. I love you, brother. And if you returned that truly, you would be thinking a lot more about how your actions affect us all, not just yourself.

My entire life I said I was never meant to be in these positions, these situations. And everything keeps pushing me into them... Because no one else wants to be reasonable, no one else wants to be good. It's tiring,you know? I am not special you know, I have as much potential as anyone else.

I don't even know what to say... I have run out of words. Good luck, Siegfried.''
(Adrian Rowan)

It was something he could not condemn.

Calael pocketed the White Oil and sighed. His shoulders fell and for a long time he only continued to stare at the Fool, trying to figure out what to say. Until finally, he kept it short, and hopefully simple enough.

"...Give them Hel." The demiangel moved forward to place a solid hand on the Enforcer's shoulder. He gave it a tight squeeze, and offered him a look of understanding, before saying, "And good luck..."
(Calael E. Kang)

---

Many of them here...hadn't even liked him. Some, perhaps, would even be relieved that he had died. People like him didn't belong in society. They existed in spite of the natural order, a wrench in the eternal cog. Siegfried had not made anything easier on Agartha. In his time here, he had been drumming up a rebellion against Isaac, he had spoken out often against his own friends in Levengard, when he believed that what was occurring was not right, he had bled, bled, bled, until eventually, all that sustained his rapidly decaying husk of a body was sheer willpower, and memories.

Siegfried learned to utilize the Mystic Arts and communicate with the spirits just so he wouldn't have to be alone anymore.

And so it was that, surrounded by others, many of whom that he would have died for, he is consumed by the universe, without a trace. Nothing is left.

---

You drop Spire Shard x1.
[01:56] Calael E. Kang says, "..."
[01:57] Calael E. Kang says, "This is... yours, Siegfried."
[01:57] Cordelia I. Avitus says, "...."
[01:57] Siegfried says, "I ain't a thinker. You do that for me."
[01:57] Siegfried says, "Then you point me at things, and I hit them."
[01:57] Siegfried says, "On me, that thing's jewelry."
[01:57] Siegfried asks, "On you?"
[01:57] Siegfried says, "It's a miracle."

---

As he bleeds, the pendant around his neck shows him Taiga's ethereal image. He calls back to when Godfrey was dying, and he promised his brother he'd see them on the other side. He thinks of the dinner he still owed Setsuna. He thinks...of Lea...

Lea.

---

She knew how to love better than anyone.

And so she loved him, grasping his back tightly while their lips met, holding him so tightly that it was a wonder if she'd ever let go. The blush on her face gave way to a kind of confidence one would never expect Lea of all people to have in such a situation. After all, she had to make this count.

And she did.
(Lea Elisheva)

The woman who had been there, time and again, as he drowned to his despair. The woman who he had held in the silence. The woman whose hands were on his back, tugging him in...

"Lea..." He says breathlessly as the sun rises, starting a new day.

(Siegfried)

---

Siegfried fights, but he has no limbs. He tries to scream, but you cannot scream in space. He is in the void. His defiance, his indomitable spirit, it gets him nowhere. Siegfried reaches out, but even as he moves toward death, Clara, Godfrey, and Taiga have never felt so far. It is cold. Very, very cold. And it's only getting colder. The color is draining from those eternal, ethereal blue eyes.

He is dead only when he stops fighting, he reasons, so he keeps struggling, keeps struggling...

Too stupid to quit.

---

I'm coming.

---

His body violently contracts, and then he dies. It's like a man snapping the neck of a bird, and the way his limbs escape him isn't pretty. I will not bore you with the incessant, gorey details of how Siegfried dies a death that is far from heroic, far from amazing. It is not quite unlike how his father died, and that is all that could be said of it. It is the death that many who knew him expected him to die. It is the death that could have been seen coming from around page seven of this tale.

But it is a death he fought to his last, pathetic breath.

Siegfried dies alongside the greatest coalition, the most powerful assortment of mages that the world had possibly ever seen. Hundreds of years of warfare had bred this, mages who had improved on the works of their predecessors, who had united cultures and learned methods from multiple, bred into angelic bloodlines and done many things to elevate their strength beyond what could've possibly been dreamt of when man set foot in this colony.

Siegfried dies, out of everyone here...

Because he just didn't make the cut.

---

Will the wrongs that were done to my loved ones ever be made right?

It's not my place to wonder. I wondered my entire life.

And now, I am dead.

---

Siegfried died close to the Spires of Agartha, near the ultimate treasure, before his eyes would ever glimpse upon it.

And it could not even be said that his presence had made the journey any easier.

All that he leaves behind are broken promises, unfulfilled dreams, a mantle no one would take up, and a book...

Unfinished.
(Siegfried)