Chapter Text
she would oft think of the notion of sacrifice with the same vitriol as she would a betrayal– something that only exists to take, inherent in its selfishness and cruelty. to sacrifice is to give up a piece of one’s self in an exchange for an ideal, rather than fight for it.
and she knows, she knows… to fight is to suffer. it’s to risk consequences worse than failure, wherein the thought of simply giving up provides more comfort than the hope for victory. when she’s exhausted, battered, beaten, there’s little else she desires above rest.
and it’s there at those crossroads where her resolve is put to the test. she doesn’t want to give up, not for any reason. to do so would be to sacrifice others who cannot fight like she can… yet, these battles waged are in themselves a sacrifice: her body and soul for theirs.
‘which is the greater sin,’ she’d wonder. 'forcing me to endure the impossible, taking my very existence from me to use as a tool for the hope of all–? or is it how i would sleep peacefully, without care, even knowing my choice of inaction would lead the innocent to demise?'
but as always, that choice was never hers to make… or at least, she thought so. unable to recognize her own hypocrisy in the depths of her hatred, she allowed herself to drown in the riptide. it was easier to give up the brittle pieces of heart, rather than feel them be taken.
and yet. and yet– she had made her own decision all that time ago, hadn’t she? to sacrifice herself for the sake of others– no, for the sake of the people she’d grown to cherish. even if it hurt, and even if she suffered, she could never escape the reason she yet stood.
there’s no such thing as heroic sacrifices. there is only death and not, and the choice one must make with the full weight of their soul. to sacrifice is give up. to sacrifice is to fight. to sacrifice is to live, when all the world presses down upon you. to take another step.
at the end of eternity she yet stands, staring into the abyss of nihil with the gentleness of someone well acquainted with its tides. she has been broken and reforged countless times over, with each successive awakening bringing her another step towards the answer. her answer.
she realizes, understands, in the same moment her grip on the shrieking teleporter loosens, and she allows the howling winds to tear it away. she smiles against the panicked cries of her name, hands desperately reaching out, and speaks words knowing they will never be heard.
she hated the idea of sacrifice. she hated the idea of loss, of helplessness, of giving up. but far greater than those, she hated herself for denying the love she had been given freely, by those who believed with all their heart that she was worth losing themselves for.
she has no plans of sacrificing herself to save the world. if that’s what others believe her to do, then so be it. if they would call her heroic, then let them. it matters not to her, not when she’s finally reached the precipice, her conviction unyielding and absolute.
the final battle is nothing like any before it. the stakes are limitless, and so is she. every boundary is shattered under heel. every threshold crossed without hesitation. she tears through all that she is with her own hands and rises higher, and higher.
the old her would have never made it this far, so preoccupied by her misdirected grief as she was. in a sense, she was not unlike meteion, and the knowledge of their mutual agony softens her voice. wipes the girl’s tears away with gentle hands. a burden shared.
her answer, she would say much later, is that there isn’t one. semantics regarding winning and losing and self-sacrifice were only that. the purpose of one’s life and the reason for their death cannot be so easily defined, nor should they be.
it was never a matter of sin– she had those aplenty. but she could yet stand where she is, beyond the end of the world, by virtue of the path she walked to get there. there is love and guilt in her heart both, and they weigh as they should.