Disclaimer: Please don't sue me. I don't own anything and I have no money.

(A/N: PLEASE READ. For more info about this fanfic, please see my profile.)

So, yeah, I wrote a thing. It's been years since I wrote anything so I'm a bit rusty. Please, bear with me.

This will NOT be a rewrite of FE:TH. (I have already read a few fanfics that explore the idea of rewriting the game or the "NewGamePlus" mechanic and do it well.) The second chapter will be starting during Chapter 18 of the Crimson Flower route. I am mostly using the "NewGamePlus" mechanic as a post-game plot device. It is my intention to give CF a more conclusive ending; explore Edelgard's relationship with Byleth, Edelgard's past, and character supports that weren't in-game; and resolve the war with the Agarthans. Maybe even delve beyond that if there is a demand or if I feel like it.

Moving forward, I will be manually listing the "warnings" and "tags" for each individual chapter at the top of that chapter (see below). So, please, read through those if you are sensitive to certain topics, ships, characters, spoilers, etc. For this reason, I will also be including a brief summary ("TL;DR") at the end of each chapter for anyone who would like to skip ahead.

When I read fanfiction, I know I sometimes skip chapters to get to the "good" parts. I am clearly tagging each chapter so you can do that too. That way, you should have an easier time skipping straight to the angst or fluff or hurt/comfort or whatever it is that you're in the mood to read.

I think I will attempt at least one chapter a month to start while my personal life is full of uncertainties right now. But rest assured: I do have oh so many plans.

Chapter Warnings: violence; violent images; suicidal ideation; major character death; human (Nabatean) experimentation (mentioned); terminal illness (mentioned); alcohol; spoilers for Silver Snow.

Chapter Tags: canon-divergent; post-canon; angst; stream of consciousness; exposition; character study; geopolitics; world-building; time travel; "NewGame+"; M!Byleth; Mercenary!Byleth; Character-Developed!Byleth; Sothis; Jeralt Eisner; Rhea; Dimitri Blaiddyd; Edelgard von Hresvelg; the Black Eagle students; Seteth; an OC (mentioned); the "bad" ending made worse; "Byleth thou hast goofed bigly".

...

FOUR LETTER WORDS

...

CHAPTER ONE

(PROLOGUE)

Ache

...

After the Reunification War ended, the landscape of Fódlan changed once again as nations and bonds continued to break down. The corrupt nobles of the Adrestian Empire were the first to turn on each other as every noble house sought to usurp the imperial throne for its own ends. The Holy Kingdom of Faerghus suffered a similar fate with House Mateus, which had miraculously avoided most of the fighting by remaining within their territory and refusing all calls to leave it. Not long after the war, Mateus's intact army swept through what was left of those who had been loyal to House Blaiddyd, and they claimed the throne by right of conquest. In the Leicester Alliance, the title of Grand Duke was eventually given to Holst Goneril, who scarcely had time to finish grieving for his sister before an army of angry Almyrans appeared beyond Fódlan's Throat amid whispers of wanting vengeance. The Church of Seiros, led by Seteth after Lady Rhea's death, tried to keep the peace within the three realms but ultimately failed, its army of knights too weakened to offer more than a token resistance. For everyone else, the roads had never been more unsafe as hordes of demonic beasts roamed farther than ever before, bandit groups grew bolder by the day, and mysterious mages in black robes were spotted in increasing numbers throughout Derdriu, Enbarr, and Fhirdiad.

In the tempestuous years that followed, it was a lucrative time to be a mercenary.

[...]

20 Horsebow Moon, Imperial Year 1218

In taverns and inns all across Fódlan, everyone knew at least one tale about the enigmatic mercenary who had — single-handedly, some said — ended the Reunification War. Noble or commoner, rich or poor, men and women alike spoke of him in hushed tones over flagons of ale and games of dice with the same kind of devout admiration they'd had for his father. If they were drunk enough, two strangers could quibble over the details of the mercenary's life with the same fanatical enthusiasm as church scholars when they debated the histories of Seiros and the four saints. They speculated about his past, lauded his heroic feats, and argued about the many battlefields he had fought on. Children fell asleep listening to tales of his bravery. Entire operas were written about the war and his role in ending Edelgard's tyrannical reign. They called him the Ashen Demon, the Blade Breaker II, the Hero of Fódlan, and Seiros herself reborn, but they rarely, if ever, used his true name. Considering Fódlan's ongoing turmoil, it was almost mind-boggling how quickly the tales spread. And the more people talked, the more impossible the tales became, year after year. Decade after decade.

They said he killed his first enemy at age ten. They said he could kill an entire horde of demonic beasts by himself and regularly did so for the remotest villages. They said he was a descendant of Nemesis, the King of Liberation himself, and had once wielded the legendary Sword of the Creator.

From there, the tales only grew worse. Less grounded in reality.

They said he could become an actual demon in battle, using his razor-sharp fangs and claws to shred his foes to pieces. They said he did not age, that he could not die. They said he killed as easily as he breathed and did so without a drop of emotion. They said, for good or ill, he had been sent by the Goddess to liberate Fódlan from never-ending war.

And then there were the conspiracies.

Some said that he was the secret love-child of the late, but much-loved, Lady Rhea. They said he was her spitting image all the way down the glowing green eyes and seafoam-green hair, and they questioned if Jeralt the Blade Breaker had been his father at all. Who knew? History was full of surprising turns. Pilgrimages to Garreg Mach Monastery were once seen as an important part of every noble's duty as demonstrations of their faith. The blood of emperors, kings, and grand dukes could flow in his veins, they whispered. Maybe it was because of his parentage that he was made a professor at the prestigious Officers' Academy while still so young. Maybe, they continued, their voices low, he was the rightful heir to the empire, the kingdom, or House Riegan. Emperor Ionius XI in particular had been known for having many consorts, and Lady Rhea was said to have been beautiful. Edelgard might have had another motive for declaring war against the church in pitting sibling against sibling. But why he had never stepped forward to claim his birthright, no one could say. If such things were true, he alone had the ability to put an end to the bloodshed once and for all.

They said all this as if one man could do such a thing. And they believed it.

If nothing else, the tales were a great source of amusement, thought Byleth as he paid his bar tab, readjusted his hood to better cover his face, and went on his way, returning to camp for the night. Tomorrow, the Jeralt Company would move on and look for contracts elsewhere. "In these parts," the grizzled innkeep had told him slowly, scrutinizing him over the bar top, "the only one hiring mercenaries is Count Bergliez. And you look too young to be of much help anyway."

But Rhea's love-child? Edelgard's half-brother? Fódlan's rightful heir? That one was certainly new. Maybe it was just the alcohol, but the entire idea was silly and made him chuckle quietly, deep in his throat.

In a way, he almost envied them for their imaginations. He could only wish that he saw his own life with the same wonder they did and not as the failure it undoubtedly was. But then again, he thought as he plodded along the dirt road that led towards camp, everyone else had such short memories. Most were too young to remember a time when Fódlan was not at war with itself. Even he himself at times wondered if those hazy days at Garreg Mach Monastery had been anything but a pleasant dream. If he had been anything but a broken man who thought too much and felt too little.

He never doubted for long at least. All he had to do was look into a mirror to see the truth. The green eyes and hair, and the young, brooding face. So many years had passed, and yet he remained unchanged. It was . . . unsettling.

During the day, it was almost possible to trick himself into believing he was whole. During the day, he could focus on the minutiae of commanding a mercenary company: ensuring they had enough weapons and supplies, haggling with merchants over the price of vulneraries, mediating disputes between his people, negotiating with nobles and commoners alike for a heavier sack of gold, caring for their various mounts, plotting their route to the next town or city, distributing the monthly pay, setting up and dismantling camp at the appropriate times. As a child, wide-eyed and curious, he had watched Jeralt do these things so many times and make it look easy. Now, it came to him too as second nature. He could lose himself in the white noise of mercenary life, the mindless marching, and the adrenaline of battle. He embraced the little monotonous things that helped to keep his mind quiet. Even the watered-down alcohol and the ridiculous rumors.

It was the nights that were always the hardest, and tonight his mind was wandering more than usual. For good reason.

Byleth turned off the road and half-walked, half-slid down a muddy embankment. From here, he could just make out the cluster of campfires in the distance, nestled in between a copse of trees, and he could hear the faint bubbling of a brook somewhere off in the dark to his right. Even after darkness had fallen, the hot, early autumn air still clung to his skin, thick and sticky, causing the small ball of flame in the palm of his hand to flicker as if it might go out.

At night, his mind became unbearably loud. Left to his thoughts, he could do little but wonder where he had gone wrong, if this life wasn't a sort of penance for the choices he had made. He picked at the hollowness in his chest like a crusted-over scab, despite knowing it would be better if he just left it alone. Night after night, he picked and he picked, ruminating on all of the decisions he had made up to the present moment.

Would things be different if he had never chosen Edelgard? Would they be better? What would have happened if he had chosen Claude or Dimitri instead?

Had leaving Garreg Mach been a mistake as well?

After the war, he had been so tired of all the secrets. And with Jeralt dead, only Rhea had been left to answer his questions.

When they finally found Rhea in the imperial palace's dungeons, she had all but collapsed into his arms, so pale, so thin, looking more like a waif than the archbishop he remembered and whimpering something incoherent about "blood," "magic," and "crests." She had been so weak he'd had to carry her from the palace. He still remembered nearly dropping her out of surprise when she wrapped her slender arms around his neck, buried her face into his tunic, and sighed deeply, almost like a child would. Later, during one of her lucid moments, she had told them that Hubert and a cabal of dark mages had been taking her blood and experimenting with it. She said her blood sometimes felt like it was boiling in her veins and it was driving her mad. She did nothing but sleep for days when they finally returned to Garreg Mach, waking only for short intervals and showing no noticeable improvement in condition.

Seteth had locked her away in her quarters on the third floor and refused to let anyone see her but Cyril and himself, saying she was very ill, that it was too dangerous. And every time Byleth broached the subject of learning the truth — about himself, about Jeralt, about Sothis and the church, about everything — he was shut down with more of the same.

"I am sorry, but what Rhea needs now is rest, not an interrogation," Seteth had told him outside of Rhea's chambers, looking worn and sallow-faced, little more than a shadow of his former self. "Please, Byleth, try to understand. I know how eager you are to know the truth, but she is not behaving like herself. You can ask her these questions once she has recovered. For now, I must ask that you have patience."

He secretly wondered if this had anything to do with her transformation into a dragon during Edelgard's initial invasion. Flayn at least had been sympathetic, keeping him company while he fished and waited. "My brother is simply being overprotective, Professor," she had told him while dangling her legs over the edge of the pier. "Truly, I cannot blame him as it is to be expected. Rhea is like family to the two of us. And you . . . well. She is gravely ill." With a short cough, she trailed off, returning her attention to his fishing line bobbing in the water.

With Flayn by his side, offering tight-lipped and sometimes cryptic explanations, he waited. He waited one month, then two, and a third, but Rhea never recovered. The entire monastery began to speculate about her feverish ramblings and cries for her mother as well as the bizarre behavior of some members of the church, undergoing abrupt personality changes and forgetfulness. If anything, Rhea grew worse, and still no one would tell him a thing. Not even Seteth, who refused to part with secrets that were not his to reveal. By then Byleth decided he'd had more than enough. He left the Sword of the Creator lying on the bed in his room one day and said goodbye to Flayn, Alois, and his Black Eagles that remained. Then he left the monastery and never returned.

Not long after, he heard a string of troubling rumors while traveling that Rhea had died, there had been some kind of deadly illness amongst the church's highest-ranking members, and Seteth had assumed the position of archbishop himself. It made no difference to Byleth. He certainly hadn't wanted the responsibility of being archbishop, rife with all the things he and Jeralt had hated — the self-righteous pomp, the rigid ceremony, the intricate dogma — so he'd had no intention of returning. What could an ex-mercenary like him, totally ignorant of the Church of Seiros's teachings, really offer them anyway? He hadn't wanted to teach again, either. When he left, the monastery had been filled with so many ghosts, and everywhere he looked he saw another reminder of someone they had lost. In the kitchens, in the dining hall, in the dormitories, in the gardens, in the classroom, in the library, in the marketplace, on the training grounds, and even on the little pier that pushed out into the pond.

It would have been hard to stay. Even for him.

Tonight, the Jeralt Company was camped just upriver of a battlefield they had passed earlier in the day. If the wind hit just right, they could even smell it from their camp: the coppery scent of old blood as well as singed hair and rotting flesh left to bake in the sun for too long. It wouldn't be long now before the smell attracted wild wyverns and other large scavengers. It had looked recent when they passed it by, so Byleth himself had searched it for survivors. The skirmish hadn't been too large, maybe fifty combatants total based upon the number of bodies left behind, and he'd recognized the opposing colors of House Bergliez and House Hevring on the ragged banners left behind in the mud. The sight had stirred something in him, memories of better days, before he grimaced and turned away from the carnage, shoving those unwanted thoughts aside.

If there were any survivors, they hadn't stuck around for long.

Byleth wasn't surprised. Within Adrestia's old borders, it wasn't too unusual to come across small skirmishes such as this one. House Hevring, with House Arundel's assistance, was probably testing House Bergliez, which was one of the best suited houses to rule now and the most eager to see the empire restored, having already annexed House Hyrm's, House Varley's, and House Aegir's territories. Last he'd heard, Bergliez was even starting to apply pressure on the dying House Ordelia and House Gloucester while Holst remained as fixated as ever on defending against both Almyra in the east and the aggressively-expanding kingdom to the west, led by Crown Prince Martin Mateus.

His face flushed and feeling uncomfortably warm, Byleth yelled a greeting to whoever was on guard duty before he slipped back into camp and slowly made his rounds for the night, telling each of his people to sleep well and wake at dawn because he wanted to make an early start tomorrow for the Great Bridge of Myrrdin. Some faces, he noticed, showed disappointment at hearing that but most simply nodded. It was well known within the Company that their boss didn't like working for the warring lords and only took their contracts when he had to. They knew he preferred contracts for bandits and monsters, but that didn't mean everyone approved.

Eventually, Byleth returned to his tent and made sure the flap was tied closed behind him in spite of the heat. It was only then, safe within the relative privacy of his tent, that he finally allowed himself to think about what he had been repressing all afternoon and evening. He thought about the two banners lying in the mud, about Caspar and Linhardt, remembering them as he had first met them — one so enthusiastic and the other so lethargic. Despite being friends, they had been each other's polar opposite in so many ways. Like two sides of the same coin.

He hadn't known them well. In truth, he hadn't known any of his students well. All but coerced into teaching despite inheriting Jeralt's distaste for "spoiled brats," Byleth had kept what he believed to be an appropriate distance. That had been a mistake, in retrospect. Maybe if he had gotten closer, known them better, then Edelgard—

Byleth cut off the thought abruptly and took a deep breath as the hollowness in his chest throbbed. His students had grown on him eventually, but by then it had been too late.

Some time after the Reunification War ended, he'd heard that Caspar had died in battle trying to realize his father's dream of a reunited empire, and now House Bergliez was being led by his older brother. He didn't know what happened to Linhardt. He could be dead or disinherited, and neither would surprise Byleth.

His mouth twisted. He'd hoped for a better future. For them and for himself.

Slowly, Byleth peeled off his cloak and armor, stripping all the way down to his sweat-soaked small-clothes. He removed the wooden charm, which Jeralt had carved for him when he was deemed old enough to start joining his father on missions, from his belt and left it lying on his neatly-folded cloak before he crawled onto his bedroll. He lay on his back, staring into the dark and wondering which would be worse tonight: His thoughts or his dreams. So far, his thoughts appeared to be winning.

His fingers fumbled for the ring that hung on a silver chain around his neck, and he turned that over, rolling it between his fingers. The feel of the cold, polished metal, and the familiar shape, was oddly soothing. It reminded him of Jeralt. Strong and stoic, a man of few words. More distantly, it reminded him of a mother he had never known, a woman whose only legacy was a name on a gravestone at Garreg Mach.

Inexplicably, his thoughts returned to his students. Their smiling faces arranged in a half-circle around him as Edelgard presented to him a pendant engraved with the symbol of their house—

I failed them, he thought suddenly. I failed them all.

The hollowness in his chest throbbed again, this time more intensely, and he wondered if that was Sothis's way of agreeing. He could only imagine what she would have to say about the sorry state of Fódlan now.

Later, long after the war, he had tried digging up what happened to everyone. Ferdinand, he'd learned, had tried to return to House Aegir's territory and been put to death by a mob of imperial loyalists. Bernie and Dorothea had both disappeared, never to be seen again. Petra had returned to Brigid and eventually inherited its crown from her grandfather. When the Adrestian nobles began turning on one another, she declared Brigid's independence from Fódlan and closed off the archipelago's ports to the mainland.

Catherine and Alois were still Knights of Seiros, he'd heard. He didn't know what happened to Shamir or Cyril. He didn't know what happened to the Ashen Wolves either. They could still be in Abyss for all he knew.

Ashe had fallen in the Valley of Torment. Then Lorenz died defending the Great Bridge of Myrrdin. The rest of the Blue Lion and Golden Deer students had died with Dimitri and Claude on Gronder Field all those years ago. Gilbert too. Hubert had died during their assault on Enbarr, and Dedue had vanished not long after the confrontation in the throne room. And Edelgard . . .

Edelgard he had failed most of all. He didn't like thinking about her. She was little more than the hated villain in the tales now — an embodiment of pure, unrepentant evil used to frighten children — and maybe she did deserve that epithet for everything she had done. For plunging Fódlan into the flames of war, for killing her classmates, for what she and Hubert had done to Rhea. It would have been easier if he too saw her that way, if he could hate her for it all. He remembered how hard and pitiless her expression had been when she gave the order to kill them all in the Holy Tomb. But he also remembered a very different Edelgard: the dutiful house leader who had helped him adjust to life at the monastery, who had assisted him with the planning for their monthly missions, who had always been the first to class and the last to leave, who had hunted down (or sent Hubert to find) Linhardt, Bernadetta, and even Caspar on occasion just to make sure they made it to class on time, who had kept her expression so carefully guarded around others but whose pale eyes had held the most profound sadness in them when she thought she was alone. He had never asked her why. Maybe she had known then what she would eventually become, what she would be remembered as: The warmonger, the traitor, the heretic, the monster. She must have believed it would be a worthwhile sacrifice to achieve her ambitions. She must have, he thought. The Edelgard he knew had been nothing short of prudent. She would have never done it otherwise.

In many ways, she had been a mystery to him. He didn't pretend to understand why she had done what she did, only that she believed the Church of Seiros was corrupt and had been stifling humanity's progress somehow. He must have spent hours poring over the manifesto she had left behind when she fled the monastery, searching for the truth in her words — how culpable she was for Flayn's abduction, Remire Village's destruction, and his own father's death — and struggling to read between them. In hindsight, she had been dropping hints like breadcrumbs for him to follow, but he had been too stupid to see, too naïve, too preoccupied with everything else to notice the way her face crumpled when he told her he believed the events were all connected and the Flame Emperor had to be involved in some way. In the end, he still didn't know which version of her, the Edelgard he had known or her Flame Emperor persona, had been the most authentic, but she had paid for her actions with her life. To hate her after her death seemed excessive.

Ultimately, they were all either dead, missing, or hopelessly out of his reach.

In the darkness, Byleth listened to the voices of the other mercenaries as they laughed and talked around the camp fires. A part of him wanted to join them, to put off the inevitable if only for a little while, but he knew his youth, legendary reputation, and lack of emotion tended to make them uncomfortable. They all looked older than him, some even old enough to be his parent or grandparent, with friends and families back at home, and he knew better than to risk getting too attached. Sometimes it was a struggle just to remember their names. They were a loyal enough bunch though, as well as friendly, and that was all he asked.

He turned over on his bedroll and wondered if he would dream tonight. Would he see Dimitri's ghost again — lost, alone, and so full of regret? Or would he see Edelgard? She was the one his dreams always seemed to return to, in the end. Kneeling on a crimson carpet flecked with blood, her head bowed to him, with loose strands of silver hand cascading down around her face, as if she was about to be coronated. Her crown of bone and blood sat heavy in his hands, and his eyes burned, just like they had when Jeralt died. She betrayed us, he'd had to remind himself. She betrayed me.

His thoughts veered again, back to the smiling girl with purple ribbons in her hair holding out a pendant towards him, and he remembered his surprise, thinking: For once, her smile almost seems genuine. Again, he picked at the hollowness in his chest.

Happy Birthday, he thought to himself before he released a breath he hadn't realized he was holding. Words no one has said to him in decades.

Without thinking, his mind went to the dagger he kept underneath his pillow, and he wondered if it was finally time. He didn't have to see them if he didn't want to. It could be his final gift, even better than the Black Eagles' pendant, which he had thrown into the pond after the revelation in the Holy Tomb — another regret, in hindsight. His death would be quick. One upwards plunge right beneath the rib cage or one smooth cut across the hollow of his throat. If he kept quiet, no one would even know until morning, and he would be long gone by then. He wasn't sure if he would live forever, like the tales said, but he didn't want to find out. Not here and not like this, reliving the same regrets over and over again while growing more and more desperate to forget by the year.

If this was all he had to look forward to, then fusing with Sothis had been the biggest mistake of all. If given the choice now, he would have happily stayed with her forever in the Darkness of Zahras, where the darkness seemed to stare back and he could not see the ice-cold tendrils that caressed his body like so many clammy fingers. At least she would be there, faintly glowing, the only source of light in the impenetrable blackness, and having her back would be a thousand times better than this.

He knew she would never approve. She would tear into him, hands on her hips and voice rising shrilly, if only she could hear his thoughts now. And as if to prove his point, the hollowness in his chest throbbed a few times. He thought about the dagger again and frowned, considering. It was one thing to take his own life, but to deprive Fódlan of its Goddess . . . If their souls were truly joined, then what right did he have to end her life as well? Could he even find it within himself to be that selfish?

Byleth wrapped his hand around his mother's ring and balled it into a fist. He wished he could go back. At this point, he would give anything for a second chance. If only the Divine Pulse could turn back decades instead of—

His thoughts stopped abruptly as an idea took root instead. He hadn't activated the Divine Pulse or even thought about using it in decades. He had only ever used the Pulse to roll back seconds, which may as well be the difference between life and death in combat, and the effort was always taxing. Sothis had always warned him not to push it too far, that it was dangerous. If used too many times in short succession, it would leave him exhausted and vulnerable to enemy attacks. The farthest he had ever gone in time was when Jeralt had died, and it was Sothis who had forcibly stopped him from going any further.

But if he was to try again, he realized, Sothis could not stop him now.

He had never given much thought to Sothis's identity as the Goddess before. She had always just been Sothis to him, his sometimes-annoying friend that shared his thoughts. Maybe it was because she hadn't acted like a Goddess, or because he had always cared more about a person's character and ability than their title, but he found himself giving it a thought now. Just how far did her power extend? If pushed, how far could the Divine Pulse go? Back to before he left Garreg Mach? Before the battle on Gronder Field? Before the war even began? Was that even possible?

Byleth sat up on his bedroll, wide-eyed and cross-legged, still clutching his mother's ring in his fist. The effort could very well kill him, he thought, considering. More than likely, he would fail to turn back more than a handful of seconds and simply wake up tomorrow feeling exhausted. Or . . . it might just work. Didn't the risk of reward outweigh the risk of failure? If he could save his Eagles, if he could save the Blue Lions and the Golden Deer too, wasn't it a risk worth taking? Surely Sothis would understand that.

Still, he hesitated, lingering on all of the ways it could go wrong.

Then he thought of Caspar and Linhardt. He thought of Petra, Dorothea, Bernadetta, and even Hubert. He thought of Claude. He thought of Edelgard. He thought of Dimitri. If it worked, he thought, he could save them all. Somehow, he would save Fódlan and avert this fate. He would finally be the Goddess-sent hero the tales described.

After taking a deep breath, Byleth reached into himself, fully grasping the hollow feeling in his chest, and tugged. All at once, reality shattered, and the seconds began to slide by in reverse. He was suddenly a passenger in his own body. He watched as he lay back down on the bedroll and stared into the darkness. He could feel the effort draining him, leeching away at the fringes of his consciousness, but he held firm. He thought again of his students: Linhardt, head nodding, slowly dozing off in class; Caspar, cheerfully digging into a platter piled high with a mountain of sweet buns and beast meats; Petra, aiming her bow at a practice dummy with a look of fierce concentration; Dorothea, smiling so brightly as she danced with him before the White Heron Cup; Bernadetta, offering him a small, tentative smile as she slipped past him into the classroom; Hubert, sullenly glaring at him after being complimented on his excellent spellcraft.

Just as he began to feel tired and to wonder if there was any point to this after all, something changed. Time seemed to have sped up as seconds blended into minutes and larger chunks of time sailed by. He watched himself quickly get out of bed, dress himself, and exit the tent. Tiredness began to broach into a tight pressure building in his head, right between his eyes, a subtle pain almost like the onset of a migraine. He continued to hold it, despite the pressure. Despite the pain. He would endure. He thought about Edelgard — older and more refined — in her full war regalia, and how her carefully guarded expression had cracked ever so slightly in the Goddess Tower when she recognized him coming up the stairs after being missing in action for years, changing so quickly he might have missed it if he'd blinked. Surprise. Warmth. Relief. Then she recovered and her walls went back up, her expression turning cold and cautious once more.

He watched himself make his nightly rounds, starting backwards. The pain grew from a dull ache to a full-on, stabbing pain. His vision began to distort and darken, his grip loosening slightly on the Pulse, but still he held firm. He thought of Dimitri, pale and gaunt, his blond hair greasy and unkempt, hanging in long and limp strands around his haggard face. His sunken, pale blue eyes had been haunting, so empty and filled with regret, as if begging to be saved. It almost hurt to see. As a student, he had always been so kind and polite.

If this worked, he resolved suddenly through the pain, he would save Dimitri. They could find a way to stop Edelgard together—

The minutes lengthened to hours, and then he saw only flashes of the day's events: having a few ales at the inn, making camp for the night, investigating the skirmish. The pain became agonizing, like white-hot rods jammed into his eye sockets. He wanted to scream. A primitive part of him desperately wanted to let go, to escape the pain. It told him that he would die if he didn't, and soon he even began to believe it. His grip slipped again, and this time he did let go, releasing the Divine Pulse.

But to his horror, it just kept going, as if another was holding the Pulse now. Reality did not reconstruct itself and grind to a halt. Time continued to fly by in bits and pieces, and he tried to dig into the hollowness again, to stop it, but there was nothing to grab onto now. It had taken on a life of its own. The wheel was spinning, and he could not stop it, could no sooner stop it than he could bring Sothis back. He begged for the pain to stop, despite believing deep down Sothis would not, could hear.

Hours stretched into days, and he saw only the briefest flickers of distorted images that made little sense without context. He could only recognize a few things as his vision faded in and out: a sword in his hand, a horse underneath him, a vaguely familiar face, a crackling fire. He no longer knew where or even when he was. He screamed. He could not think or do anything but scream. He wanted the dagger; he wanted to die. Days became weeks, and Byleth could take it no longer. He felt exhausted, like his blood was boiling in his veins, like his entire body was on fire, like he had been flayed alive.

His very identity was being burnt away. His thoughts, his feelings, his memories. Pain was all he was. Pain was all he knew. Eventually, he passed out and knew no more.

[...]

When he awoke, he found himself lying in a relatively empty room with two beds. It looked like it could have been a private room at an inn, but without any distinguishing features beyond rustic charm, it may as well have been any village inn. His vision bucked and swam, and he felt so exhausted that he could probably sleep for days. He sat up slowly. The hollowness in his chest was gone, replaced by a familiar warmth, and he felt so strange. He lifted his hands in front of his face, clenching and unclenching his fingers, and watched them move in fascination. Remarkably, there was no pain.

He remembered using the Divine Pulse, and he remembered sheer, mind-numbing pain but not much else. His memories were hazy and indistinct. How far had he gone back? Where was he? When was he?

"Honestly! What were you hoping to accomplish with that little stunt!?"

Hearing that, his head jerked upwards, and his breath caught in his throat. But Sothis was there, sitting on the ceiling above his head like it was the most natural thing in the world. She glared at him and bit her cheek, her hands placed on her hips. The warmth in his chest swelled, and his lips pulled apart in a small, exhausted smile.

"I do hope you are pleased with yourself," she said, sounding sullen as she floated down to eye-level. Then, stretching like a cat, she yawned. "Now I feel . . . so tired. . . ."

"It worked," he whispered hoarsely. If she wasn't floating just out of his reach, or he felt less spent, he would have leapt out of bed and pulled her into a hug.

"Yes, yes. You really are a boulder, aren't you?" she sighed. "This is entirely your fault, you know. Did you go and forget everything I told you?" she asked, her voice rising dangerously, green eyes narrowing, still biting the inside of her cheek as she gestured wildly. "I never intended for you to take the Divine Pulse back so far! You could have died! I could have died! And then where would any of us be?"

Her face softened as she allowed herself one watery smile, but the concern in her eyes stayed. "Oh, little one," she said softly, "I am so very happy to see you again, but . . . what have you done?"

Byleth was just about to open his mouth to answer when Jeralt walked into the room. "Oh, good," he said, sounding relieved. "You're already awake."

[...]

Yes, this was my attempt to differentiate the Silver Snow ending from Verdant Wind. I did make it the undeniably "bad" ending. This chapter is kind of meta if you consider the TH fandom at large but I genuinely enjoyed writing this one. Please, let me know if anything is confusing because the rest of the story does sort of depend upon this "NewGame+" ability making sense. Also, be sure to leave a review to let me know that I'm not just writing this for myself to enjoy lol. A review is as good as gold to me.

Also, if you're interested, my other FE fic "Ends" acts as an angsty prequel of sorts to this one.

TL:DR: Byleth finishes the Silver Snow route but doesn't enjoy it because everyone dies, he doesn't get any answers from Rhea, and Fódlan breaks down between various feuding warlords without Edelgard, Dimitri, Claude, and Rhea to keep things together. Without Sothis to stop him, he uses the Divine Pulse to go back in time as far as he can — only to pass out and wake up in Remire Village once again.