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It wasn’t meant to end like this.
And he knows that for sure. He knows that the gods have set out a path for them all, and that their journey is to end with the death of a king. He knows the price the Lucii demand, and that they think they can demand it of their chosen. Of Noct. And Ignis could have torn that future to shreds. He has, and he’s almost done it, and he dares to give his life if it means he can destroy the king who never was. He can pay the blood price.
He runs out of time.
Ignis feels it in his heart first. It stutters and stops and starts once more, shuddering through the motions of forcing boiling blood through his veins. He snarls past the pain and conjures lightning along his blade, chasing Ardyn across the ruined keep in a clumsy parody of a warp.
He sees it next, through the haze of fire that turns his vision into shades of blue and red and crystal. Everything grows overwhelmingly sharp even as darkness begins to overtake the flames around the edges of his vision. It’s like being knocked into danger, but somehow he knows that this is different. There’s no time to take a potion; he’s not even sure if it’d help at this point.
He knows it won’t. He hates that he knows it.
Ignis grits his teeth against his panic.
He keeps fighting. He must. For Noct.
The Ring turns his skin to ashes, spreading death even as it spreads power. But the power is waning, and Ignis grows desperate, yelling around the pain of one of Ardyn’s strikes even as he conjures his spear to retaliate.
And then the world stops around him.
The kings don’t offer him another deal. The Ring grows cold on his hand, and suddenly he is freezing, and there are no flames to keep him warm. Only the pain is left behind, and that is the only thing that burns, and it burns-
He collapses.
It was always supposed to end with death. He’s seen it. He knows. The Lucii are not kind. They want Noct’s life. They want Noct dead.
He’s not going to let that happen.
The kings have had their due. The life of one chamberlain is an easy price to pay to change the fate of the Chosen. It’s all worth it if Noct gets to see the sun rise.
Gods, maybe this is fate too.
He coughs, tasting ash and blood in his mouth.
Ardyn’s fingers tangle in his hair and jerk him painfully from the ground; Ignis doesn’t have the strength to fend him off. He lets Ardyn mock him for his hubris and taunt him with the reality of the plan. This was a trap. This was always a trap, in one reality or another, and Ignis has walked into it this time, and he has bought victory with his life.
Through the haze of agony and spectral fire, he can almost fool himself into thinking that Ardyn looks like Noct. Noct, beside him once more. Noct, for a final moment, here with him at the end of all things.
Ardyn saunters off beyond where Ignis could ever hope to reach him. Ignis hates him. He hates him. He hates that he couldn’t stop him, and that Noctis is walking into a trap. That his body is the bait.
Ignis closes his eyes.
“Ignis!”
Noct.
It can’t be. The gods and the Lucii would never be so kind as to give him something like this. Mercy doesn’t exist, especially not for the dying. Ignis chokes and opens his eyes again, ignoring the blackness that threatens to overtake his sight. He blinks at the ashen distance, and at the three figures rapidly approaching, scrabbling over rubble and screaming his name.
Ignis tries to call Noct’s name, but his voice fails him. Everything’s failing him.
He fixes his eyes on Noctis in the distance, and he hears the distant crackle of a warp. It rings in his bones with the magic of the Crystal.
He knows Noct won’t make it in time.
It’s a distant realization, solidifying into crystalline total clarity in his mind. His mind flashes, painfully, with the fleeting snapshots of a future where Noctis is older and radiant and a king, and where he dies, and where Ignis stays by his side but never again sees his face. A future where Ignis stayed in Altissia. A future Ignis defied. And every image of a future he has only glimpsed - it just fades away. Like it never even existed. Like it never will, now.
And, oh-
This is the end, then.
“Noctis,” he whispers.
Ignis can’t remember a time without Noctis. Or he doesn’t want to. Every moment since meeting Noctis, and every conversation, and every fight, and everything in between - it’s all precious. Here, now, it’s all he wants to recall. He remembers kissing Noct for the first time in the middle of some secret glade in Duscae, lit only by the impossible starscape above them that they’d never truly known in Insomnia. He remembers every kiss after that, and the way that the stars felt sacred. They hadn’t had enough time, and now they’ll never get the chance, but they’d always known, somehow.
And Ignis remembers Noct’s smile.
Yes. That’s a good memory.
He focuses on the only period of his life that was full of joy, and he thinks-
It was always worth it.
Noctis drops to his knees beside Ignis. He’s sobbing; screaming, but he can’t do a thing. There’s no saving this. Not now. He pulls Ignis into his arms anyway, and he rips the Ring from his finger, but the damage is done. The deal is made.
It was always supposed to end like this.
Ignis smiles. Noct’s eyes are so, so blue.
It’s the last thing he sees.