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Ritz blinked to consciousness on her feet, standing in a violent windstorm. She put her arms up to protect her face and looked to her left and right, searching for life.
“Mewt! Doned!” She hesitated for a moment, then called again when she got none. “Where is everyone!?”
“Ritz."
She spun around and came face-to-face with Marche, his eyes half-closed and his shoulders sulking. He was in his blue coat and white scarf; clothes from real Ivalice.
“Marche!” she said loudly, over the winds, and reached out a bare hand to put on his shoulder. The instant her hand came into contact with him, the winds vanished and a spooky silence took its place.
“Sorry, Ritz,” Marche said, and vanished away, gone in a blink.
“Ritz!”
Ritz looked at her still-outstretched hand and curled it into a fist. She shook her head at it and turned to look at Mewt and Doned running towards her, both garbed in clothes from the real world.
“Are you okay?” Mewt asked and then looked her up and down. “You’ve changed.”
Ritz was confused for a second, then looked down to see she was in her white coat and green pants, both of which from the real world.
“I don’t get it,” she said.
Doned spoke, “It’s how Marche sees us . . . like in Dream Ivalice, we all looked how we saw ourselves . . . you in your armor and Mewt in his . . . the same principal goes for here too, just with Marche.”
“Speaking of Marche,” Mewt cut in, “we have to find him.”
Ritz nodded, “Right.” She turned on her heel and was shocked to see that the landscape changed in the two seconds it took her to do so. It went from the windy wasteland to a lush, green meadow peppered with colorful flowers and oak trees. Standing next to the one of the larger trees was Marche with his back to his friends, head lowered.
“Marche!” Doned yelled and took a step towards him. As soon as his foot took the step, he felt his brother’s hand on his shoulder.
“I’m sorry, Doned.” He frowned and sighed, then turned to Ritz and moved his hand from Doned’s shoulder to Ritz’s. “I’m sorry, Ritz.”
Mewt watched him apologize to both Ritz and Doned and then turn to him. Mewt looked in Marche’s eyes, dark and cloudy with confusion. He kept his eyes like that as he reached up to put his hand on Mewt’s shoulder.
Mewt huffed out of his nose and clenched a fist. He couldn’t take Marche saying sorry for something he shouldn’t be sorry for. Marche’s hand came up onto his shoulder and opened his mouth to say what Mewt didn’t want to say.
Mewt raised his fist and brought it across Marche’s jaw, sending him reeling to the side.
“Don’t you dare say you’re sorry, Marche! You have nothing to apologize for.”
A clap of thunder was heard from over head and rain started drizzling down, light at first then after a few seconds, became a downpour.
“I ruined your paradise,” Marche said softly, getting back to his feet. A grey outline of a bruise had started to form on his cheek already.
“You didn’t ruin anything,” Doned said, “We’re all happy in the real world! Happy with us, happy with you!”
“Liar.” Marche hung his head and the ground beneath his started to change, to morph like soft clay. Buildings and forests grew out of the grass and within minutes, they were standing on a rooftop in Sprohm.
“I saw what my paradise is, what my peace is, and it’s the real world. But . . . but your paradise is here, where you have everything you need . . .”
“We don’t have you,” Doned said. “We don’t have you and that hurts.”
“What good am I? I’m nothing but a destroyer-"
“NO!” Mewt yelled. “Listen to me, Marche! You brought us back to the real world, yes, but you also brought us paradise! Each of us learned something in Ivalice that we brought back with us . . .”
Ritz realized what Mewt was saying and opened her mouth in surprise. She looked over at Doned who was nodding, with his eyes locked on Marche.
“I learned to live with loss. You forced me to learn that life without a mother is livable and that I should not sit back and watch the world pass me by-"
Ritz cut in, “I learned to accept me! I learned to love my family and not to take them for granted!”
“And Marche, you showed me that you loved me! That you cared, whether or not I can walk! Don’t you understand!?” He took a step forward and shoved Marche in the chest, “You gave us paradise! By taking away Dream Ivalice, you gave us our peace!”
Marche was quiet.
“Guilt isn’t what you should be feeling!” Ritz yelled, “You should feel pride! Joy!”
The winds around them whipped up again and the town of Sprohm blew away like ash, leaving the four back in the wasteland which they started in.
Marche looked up at his friends, at Ritz and Mewt, both of which gave him the best smile they could with gales coming at them.
When he turned to look at Doned, he saw him approach him. His brother wrapped his arms around him and he could hear him crying.
“Wake up, Marche . . . I can’t live without you . . .”
The ground beneath all of them vanished and they fell into blackness, tumbling into a endless abyss.
***
Looking out from a cliff on Kudik Peaks, Marche could see the all of Ivalice, laying out before him like a quilt, patches of grasslands and bustling towns all woven together to make the land. The winds picked up and blew through Marche’s hair, carrying the smells of all of Ivalice on it: fresh-baked Sprohm bread, the leafy smell of the Giza plains and even the cold odor of death from the Jagds. Marche closed his eyes and took it in, inhaling deeply through his nose, outstretching his arms and leaning forward into the wind.
For a brief moment, he felt like he was in heaven’s embrace.
He turned around at the sound of a chocobo approaching. He smiled at the Judge riding on it.
His friend’s voices started resonating through his head.
“I don’t hate you, Marche. You’re my brother, I can’t hate you.”
“Marche, I don’t hate you. You did what you had to do.”
“You’re lucky I was here to save you.”
“You should feel pride! Joy!”
“Wake up Marche . . .”
“I can’t live without you.”
The Judge dismounted and started walking over to Marche. It unsheathed its sword and stabbed forward at Marche’s stomach. Marche grinned bigger and grabbed the blade of the sword, letting it cut through his palm as he stopped the attack inches before it hit him. He looked up at the Judge and used his free hand to knock the helmet off of the Judge.
As expected, Ritz was beneath it and she scowled and said her line:
“You had no right to take this away from me.”
“I didn’t take it away,” Marche said. “I gave it to you.” He laughed a little and pulled the sword from the hand of Ritz-judge and tossed it behind him. As his arm flung out to do so, ground and air flashed with light and vanished, everything on Kudik starting to dissipate. Marche put his hand on Ritz-judge’s shoulder and nodded as it vanished. He turned to look off the cliffs again one last time at the world of Ivalice.
“It’s beautiful,” Ajora said, next to him, his body fading away with the light.
“Yeah, it is,” Marche responded and took a deep breath. “Thanks.”
“Don’t thank me,” Ajora said. “I was simply the flint that started the fire.”
“Goodbye, Ivalice,” Marche said and turned away from the cliff, walking into the brightness of the light.
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