As the ashes of the commander faded, Nocten slowly regained consciousness over the smoke hazed overpass. However, he failed to understand what had caused the commander's defeat and subsequent vanishing. Worse yet, his realization of Lucy's disappearance caused him to awaken from his semiconscious state. He torqued his waist around searching for her, to no avail.
"Lucy!?" He called repeatedly. "Lucy!?"
The last piece of the commander, which was his forearm, had begun to vanish into thin air from a golden light decaying the armor underneath. He kneeled down to examine it further with his fingertips, only for it to dissolve into the air in a myriad of twinkling particles. Turning back around with a perturbed gaze, examining the arena he landed upon in order to find any traces of his missing comrade.
He slid down towards the slippery slope of the clearing and leaned forward, gazing past the darkness below. He could sense traces of movement with a massive trail that resembled a sliding body, only for him to realize the possibility of Lucy disappearing beyond.
His breath slowed down as he slouched backward, seating himself on the dirt below. Believing her to be dead, he dropped his blade beside him and leaned back, pressing his dirt and blood-ridden hands upon his face. He exhaled through his nostrils at full force, still unable to realize the severity of the outcome. Shutting his eyes completely, he began to doze off from utter exhaustion and lack of motivation.
Minutes after he had fallen into a sudden slumber, the bright sun above had cleared the residual smoke and shone down on his eyes. A blurred figure appeared before him, startling him and causing him to bolt upright with his blade in hand.
"Noct?" Scarlet called, raising her palm toward him. "It's me! Are you alright?"
Without responding to her immediate concerns, he looked around once more, hoping that Lucy was beside him in what short amount of time passed. He exhaled softly before looking down at his knees. "Lucy's gone." He uttered with what little hope he had.
Scarlet remained quiet, leaving him alone to stir in his thoughts. Examining the area, she found a gleaming piece of paper wedged between a rock and a patch of moss. Snatching it, she examined it closer, only to react brightly to it as if she had invented something new.
"Whoa. It's an entry pass," She voiced aloud, turning to a disheartened Nocten. "Our key to the city. I can't believe it..."
Nocten didn't react at all to her breakthrough. Instead, he continued staring at his knees in a spiraling trance, failing to uphold the standards of a functioning human being.
Scarlet slid beside him and held the pass beside her flank. She offered a hand over for him, hoping to lift him up from his anguish. "Soldier boy," She called. "You found us a city pass to Curse. We get back, tell Vayne, and we can finally move forward!"
"What-" Nocten's voice cut off immediately on his own accord, turning away toward Scarlet in a disapproving manner. "But Lucy's still out there!"
"Lucy'll be fine," Scarlet reassured. "We can't stay here."
"What if she's dead? Then who's to blame but me for not being able to save her?"
Scarlet leaned forward, amplifying her volume. "She'll be fine," She repeated. "She's a soldier of Sancta, isn't she? She'll survive."
"I am not letting Lucy die out there," Nocten's voice turned bitter, rejecting her hand and her perspective. He pointed his finger toward the slope down from the cliff, almost leaning towards it as if an invisible force was drawing him toward it. "I'm going after her," He said, speeding toward it without hesitation.
"What - no," Scarlet said, quickening her steps to catch up to him. She pulled his shoulder back and held the pass up close. "We don't have time to play rescue. We've got a city pass in our grasp and it's only a matter of time before Curse finds out we fucked over the convoy! We need to go right now!"
"What do you mean, play rescue?" Nocten interrupted. "Is that what you think of her? Just some kind of toy to play around with?"
"I didn't say that-"
"And what about all those refugees in the hideaway? You must have cared about them the moment you chose to save them from whatever danger they were in."
"So, what?"
"So why can't you show that same level of care for Lucy?"
"It's not that I don't-"
"Then, what is it then!?"
"Lucy chosethis life!" Scarlet shouted, pressured by Nocten's overbearing verbal assault. "And so did you. We have a duty to fulfill. The fate of the Huntress stands on us now. Thousands of people have already died for her, and I'm not letting anyone spill blood any longer. Our mission continues. Vayne's waiting for us."
"Then go," Nocten solidified his tone. "Go then. I'll find her myself."
Scarlet scoffed, turning away, only to turn back toward him with a disgusted look. "What exactly are you trying to prove by doing this?" She asked. "You owe her money or something? Is this your job all of a sudden?"
"Lucy's my friend, and I promised her I would protect her. I've already let too many of my people die already, and I'm not going to let her go just like this."
Scarlet's glare hardened, with her disgust sharpening into something colder. "Protect her?" She said. "You can't even protect yourself. You couldn't even hold your own against your own kind, and look where that got you," She bolted up as Nocten reached for his blade, kicking it away like a toy in the wind. "Now soldier boy here wants to play hero, and thinks he can tackle years worth of failure on his own."
"The hell...?" Nocten sprinted forward to snatch his blade from falling off the cliff as he cocked his head toward her. "What are you-"
"Tell me something," Scarlet interrupted, pointing her blade down by her side. "When was the last time you were ever truly alone, like me?"
"I've always been alone-"
"Wrong," Scarlet's voice dropped into a cold, dismissive scoff. "You people from Sancta are all the same, marching around like you're invincible, when you're just pawns on someone else's board," She leveled her blade at the ground, eyes locked on him. "Everything about you disgusts me. Spitting your righteous nonsense like a weapon proves that you're not ready for anything. Cowering in fear. Running away from your problems. Relying on Vayne and me to cover your ass."
Nocten sighed briefly before turning his head away. His shoulders sank, pretending as if he didn't hear her. He snatched his blade and placed it in a sheath behind his hip. "I don't have time for this." He clearly stated.
"You look me in the eyes and tell me I'm wrong," Scarlet said, extending her blade outward by her flank, steel basking in the sun-ridden sky. She reappeared beside him in a flash of light, pointing it toward the side of his nostril. "Otherwise, prove it to me that you're worthy. Or I'll kill you here and now to end your suffering."
"Get out of my way." Nocten firmly threatened.
After a brief moment of respite, Scarlet struck down with her blade, forcing Nocten to duck swiftly. He ejected his blade outward and primed it behind his back, clashing against Scarlet as a tense standoff between them had begun.
Nocten stood straight up, keeping the momentum against Scarlet's blade. He swung outward, forcing her to bolt back in retreat.
"Oh, the things you could have done to have kept her alive..." Scarlet taunted.
Exhaling with a breath of insulting offense, Nocten charged forward as their steel blades clashed against each other. Their blades met with a sharp clench against their shoulders with the impact nearly forcing them to slip. After pushing each other off, Scarlet swung wide overhead with a jolt of frustration in her form. Nocten slipped past her, winding behind her and catching her wrist mid‑strike.
Scarlet's eyes flashed widely. She spun around with her wrist still pinned and struck out again on Nocten's opposing side. Their blades clashed once more before he twisted her wrist to redirect her momentum. She gasped as he drove her backward. With a decisive blow, he sent a full-fledged kick against her back after flanking her. Her body flew toward a dead tree, sending bits of bark digging into her shoulders. The clank of Scarlet's sword rang out as it struck the branches below her, thrown off balance by Nocten's sudden charge. He closed the distance in a heartbeat, driving his blade into the tree beside her cheek. It was close enough that the edge of his blade kissed her skin and left a bleeding line.
Scarlet froze. She knew that one wrong tilt of her head meant the end of her. But she also knew he wasn't there to kill. It was only to send a message.
"We're done here," Nocten's voice deepened so low it almost resembled a furious beast. He locked eyes with Scarlet, continuing to place one hand on her wrist as the other braced beside her head. "I'm going to find Lucy with or without you or Vayne. If you want to go to the city without us, then be my guest."
She performed a light chuckle, smirking in delight. "Heh. You really think you have me, don't you, soldier boy?" She continued to playfully insult. She squeezed his wrist to add pressure to him to the point of gradual pain. "Too bad all of that effort could have gone toward saving her. Run then, like the coward you are. The Huntress is the reason why you live. You have a debt to repay to her, and all you're doing is being useless on this worthless pursuit."
"Is that what your sisters told you after your parents died?" Nocten's voice turned cold.
Scarlet's reaction went still.
Her smirk dropped, and the pressure on his wrist eased without her meaning to. She didn't flinch or snap back. Her eyes instead hardened in cold, bitter ceaselessness before arising in blossoming shame at the memories of their existence.
"They ran away, didn't they? You stayed, but you still couldn't save them. How do you think they felt about you moments before they died? You don't think their last thoughts of you were how useless you were, do you? And the things you could have done to keep them alive? Don't you still think about that?"
Her fingers slipped from his wrist entirely this time. Her posture didn't collapse, but something inside her did. The hardness in her eyes fractured.
"Don't ditch it if you can't take it, Scarlet-"
Nocten finished before she swung her wrist out of his grasp. She stepped outward and snatched her blade from the branches below her, sheathing it on her back. A ringing in her ears begun as she swallowed her shame, eyes beaming toward Nocten with an antagonistic glare. They locked eyes for several seconds as the ringing in her ears arose to its maximum crescendo before it finished altogether as she uttered a single word.
"Go."
Stepping aside with her back turned, she whittled her steps toward the leaves and began a slow descent on the opposite side of the cliffside. She wiped the blood line against her right cheek with the back of her wrist and placed her hand against a rocky structure for balance. Without turning her back, she heard Nocten pull his blade out of the tree before his footsteps gradually hollowed in sound from their distance apart.
Turning around, she faced Nocten's previous presence with a set of hollowed and wettened eyes, nearly succumbing to a waterfall of tears. But she knew she deserved it with how far she had pushed him, and with that, she realized the cowardice inside him was nothing but pure rage and spite. There was a monster inside him that was looking for an excuse to release after torment and regret that had followed his life, and she knew he didn't care for anything besides that journey to redemption.
Before she turned back, she stepped forward toward his path instead, intending to seek the answers to her own ambitions.