Xenoblade Chronicles 2: The Fourth Driver

Book II Finale Part 2

Chapter XV

     I woke up with a splitting headache. "Oh what the hell!" I said, getting off the ground.

     I was soon distracted by the scenery around me. I was... in Pyra's Dream of Elysium. With the tree overlooking the hill. I immediately climbed the hill and approached the tree. The church bell wasn't ringing out, and no one was at the tree. I gently rubbed my fingers along the tree's surface when the bark twisted and morphed right in front of me, I jumped back in surprise.

     It twisted into what looked like Mythra's face, it was crying.

     "You have failed," it hissed at me. I instinctively grabbed Mythra's sword, but as I did I noticed the sword was crimson red.

     "Wh-What is this?" I asked in fear. The sword began to reek like rotted corpses and I had to hold myself back so I didn't throw up from the pure stench. The sword turned into blood in my hands and I watched as my hands became covered in blood stains.

     I screamed and jumped back, landing against something. I turned around to see Zaccharias behind me, crying with a twisted grin.

     "Why didn't you save me?" he shouted at me.

     "You knew I was in trouble. You knew it! Why did you let me become like this?!" he cried out.

     "Th-There was nothing I could do!" I argued back.

     I tried running the opposite direction, but I was blocked by another figure.

     It was Vale.

     "Had it not been for you, I would still be alive!" she shouted angrily.

     "I-I didn't mean for this to happen! I swear!"

     "Just like friend didn't mean to hurt Poppi?!" I heard a familiar voice say.

     I turned to her. "P-Poppi! Please don't tell me your—"

     "You are bad friend!" she said. "You constantly put everyone in danger and all you can think about is yourself!"

     "That's not true! I'm doing this for all of you!"

     "What about letting my sister watch you die, huh?"

     I spun around to see Pyra.

     "You took her from her one true driver and then you couldn't even grow the balls to protect her! Now she's all alone with Cereza and it's your fault!" Pyra accused.

     "I—," My tongue fell silent as I turned to see Mythra.

     She turned away, "You weren't ever going to be my driver."

     I yelled out in despair. "I just want to protect! Why is that so hard to do?! I just want to—" I dropped to my knees and began crying. "I just want to protect," I sobbed. "Am I really asking too much? Where did I go wrong? What did I do? I... I couldn't have known. And yet it's all my fault."

     Everything around me went black. I was alone. No one to help, no one to save, no one to protect. Maybe it was better this way. All I had done was hurt people, maybe I could live in an eternity of hopelessness and finally not be such a burden to the world. Of course that's not how I really felt. There was still so much I wanted to do, but at this moment, I had no idea what to feel.

     "So you failed," a voice unfamiliar to me said. I didn't really care who it was, so I stayed down and away.

     "You only statistically had a thirty-three percent chance of success anyway. Ignoring skill and backstory, of course," he continued.