While this is the seventh installment, it’s the first in the United States and so it was marketed as simply Fire Emblem. I’ll be referring to it as “Blazing Blade,” its subtitle. It’s probably my favorite SRPG of all time. It was the second SRPG I really got into, the first being Bahamut Lagoon.
One hallmark of the Fire Emblem series in general is perma-death. If a character dies, that character stays unusable unless you restart the entire chapter; the game reinforces that by auto-saving after every move you make. The enemies’ AI is programmed to do the maximum damage possible on its turn, which basically means it’s programmed to kill your weak units. Tactically it’s a terrible strategy, since it leads to the enemy rushing into your army just to attack a weak unit, but if you’re trying to keep everyone in your army alive, the game does its best to put you through the wringer.
Unlike Bahamut Lagoon, Blazing Blade has much less grinding. The only “grinding” you can do is in arenas, and those (1) involve wagering gold, which isn’t exactly common and (2) may result in a character permanently dying. As such, you need to gain experience for your units based on the missions themselves, so not only do you need to fight tactically, but also you must ensure that you’re letting your weaker units fight so everyone’s leveling up at comparable rates.
I beat the game four times: twice on Eliwood’s story and twice on Hector’s story. All times I played through Lyn’s story prior. The game grades you in 5 areas on a scale of 1 – 5: tactics (how quickly you beat the game), survival (how many units you lost), funds (how much money and items you amassed), experience (how much experience your units gained), and combat (how many battles you won versus how many you didn’t). Here’s how I did:
One hallmark of the Fire Emblem series in general is perma-death. If a character dies, that character stays unusable unless you restart the entire chapter; the game reinforces that by auto-saving after every move you make. The enemies’ AI is programmed to do the maximum damage possible on its turn, which basically means it’s programmed to kill your weak units. Tactically it’s a terrible strategy, since it leads to the enemy rushing into your army just to attack a weak unit, but if you’re trying to keep everyone in your army alive, the game does its best to put you through the wringer.
Unlike Bahamut Lagoon, Blazing Blade has much less grinding. The only “grinding” you can do is in arenas, and those (1) involve wagering gold, which isn’t exactly common and (2) may result in a character permanently dying. As such, you need to gain experience for your units based on the missions themselves, so not only do you need to fight tactically, but also you must ensure that you’re letting your weaker units fight so everyone’s leveling up at comparable rates.
I beat the game four times: twice on Eliwood’s story and twice on Hector’s story. All times I played through Lyn’s story prior. The game grades you in 5 areas on a scale of 1 – 5: tactics (how quickly you beat the game), survival (how many units you lost), funds (how much money and items you amassed), experience (how much experience your units gained), and combat (how many battles you won versus how many you didn’t). Here’s how I did:
As you can see, I take my time in playing the game and I don’t hoard treasure, so those two suffered. Otherwise I’m not a bad tactician, I think.
BONUS: Here’s my ranking in the sequel that released before Blazing Blade, Binding Blade:
BONUS: Here’s my ranking in the sequel that released before Blazing Blade, Binding Blade:
I spent some time trying to figure out a good way of structuring this shrine. I think I’m going to do something similar to how I structured the Bahamut Lagoon shrine – I’ll talk about the characters I used in the final chapter and write a sort of expanded epilogue for them. The characters I generally put in teams of support – in Blazing Blade, you can build supports between compatible characters and they’ll get a bonus to stats if they’re near one another. So I’ll present them in groups where in-game I generally sent them out in those groups as they supported one another.
Lyn and Florina
Blurb: when enemies see this team, they should probably finalize their wills right then and there.
Lyn and Florina
Blurb: when enemies see this team, they should probably finalize their wills right then and there.
We’re starting with the best team. Lyn is one of my favorite characters in all of video games. I think her being the first Fire Emblem Lord character I encountered in my life spoiled me, since she puts other Lords like Eliwood and Roy to shame. In my last playthrough she performed a double-critical with the Sol Katti (60 total damage) to kill the last boss. The only solace enemies had was that I had to pull her back for most of the middle part of the game so that other characters could gain some experience.
…Which brings me to her partner, Florina. You first meet Florina as this shy and meek girl who’s scared of everything. In-game she does begin fairly frail. Train her up, though, and…she becomes a monster. The AI kept attacking her despite me placing other units in front of enemies in the hope that those units would get attacked and gain some experience. Florina would proceed to massacre them all, one after another. Later on, I gave her a Delphi Shield, negating her weakness to archers, at which point she would fly all over the map with impunity, dodging attacks while responding with brutal and swift death.
Epilogue: Heeding Athos’s warning, Lyn and Florina decided to travel abroad to train so they could return and destroy whatever threat from Bern Athos foresaw. They parted ways temporarily, with Lyn returning to Sacae to give instructions to the various surviving clans while Florina returned to Ilia to prepare and say goodbye to her sisters. Soon after, they left Elibe and proceeded to wreck face in faraway lands.
Sacae and Ilia, unfortunately, suffered from their absence, as Bern’s military steamrolled through the two nations at the beginning of Zephiel’s invasion in Fire Emblem: Binding Blade. Ineptitude amongst the standing forces in Sacae and Ilia prevented word from getting to Lyn and Florina, so they were absent throughout the war. Historians unanimously agree that had Lyn and Florina been around during the invasion, Bern’s entire military would have died horribly at their hands.
Eliwood, Ninian, and Hector
Blurb: these three helped save the world and then their next generation will help save the world again.
…Which brings me to her partner, Florina. You first meet Florina as this shy and meek girl who’s scared of everything. In-game she does begin fairly frail. Train her up, though, and…she becomes a monster. The AI kept attacking her despite me placing other units in front of enemies in the hope that those units would get attacked and gain some experience. Florina would proceed to massacre them all, one after another. Later on, I gave her a Delphi Shield, negating her weakness to archers, at which point she would fly all over the map with impunity, dodging attacks while responding with brutal and swift death.
Epilogue: Heeding Athos’s warning, Lyn and Florina decided to travel abroad to train so they could return and destroy whatever threat from Bern Athos foresaw. They parted ways temporarily, with Lyn returning to Sacae to give instructions to the various surviving clans while Florina returned to Ilia to prepare and say goodbye to her sisters. Soon after, they left Elibe and proceeded to wreck face in faraway lands.
Sacae and Ilia, unfortunately, suffered from their absence, as Bern’s military steamrolled through the two nations at the beginning of Zephiel’s invasion in Fire Emblem: Binding Blade. Ineptitude amongst the standing forces in Sacae and Ilia prevented word from getting to Lyn and Florina, so they were absent throughout the war. Historians unanimously agree that had Lyn and Florina been around during the invasion, Bern’s entire military would have died horribly at their hands.
Eliwood, Ninian, and Hector
Blurb: these three helped save the world and then their next generation will help save the world again.
Author’s note: yes, you have Nils in the final chapter and not Ninian, but Ninian is more important to the plot so I decided to show her stats instead; besides, Ninian and Nils have the same stats.
Eliwood isn’t exactly a weak Lord, but he’s the weakest Lord in this game. Hector is a super-tank that can dish out exorbitant amounts of damage and Lyn up there never gets hit while dishing out even more exorbitant amounts of damage through brutal and frequent critical hits. Eliwood is sort of in the middle and he was the last character to hit 20/20 for me (one reason being when I tried to level him up, enemies would attack Florina instead and get slaughtered).
I always paired Eliwood with Ninian. I think that’s the canon pairing, which makes their son Roy ¼ dragon. Hector can pair with a variety of different characters, but I never paired him with any of them for the simple reason that none of his potential wives in-game can use magic, while his daughter Lilina is a mage. I always imagined Hector married someone who wielded magic as a result. I guess here Hector’s the wingman? Is that how wingmen work?
Epilogue: Eliwood, being pragmatic about Athos’s warning, trained his son Roy well to take up arms in defending the world. Ninian died early on, as warned by her brother Nils, but her kindness and love brought Pherae much joy. Hector, on the other hand, decided he would counter Bern’s threat by himself, which honestly isn’t a huge stretch except Zephiel wields a legendary sword and one of his generals (Brunnya) is a sage, both of which speak to Hector’s weaknesses. RNG favored Bern when Zephiel attacked Lycia and narrowly managed to defeat Hector, shifting the burden of saving the world to Lilina.
BONUS: Here are Roy and Lilina at the end of Binding Blade, equipped with the Binding Blade and Forblaze, respectively:
Eliwood isn’t exactly a weak Lord, but he’s the weakest Lord in this game. Hector is a super-tank that can dish out exorbitant amounts of damage and Lyn up there never gets hit while dishing out even more exorbitant amounts of damage through brutal and frequent critical hits. Eliwood is sort of in the middle and he was the last character to hit 20/20 for me (one reason being when I tried to level him up, enemies would attack Florina instead and get slaughtered).
I always paired Eliwood with Ninian. I think that’s the canon pairing, which makes their son Roy ¼ dragon. Hector can pair with a variety of different characters, but I never paired him with any of them for the simple reason that none of his potential wives in-game can use magic, while his daughter Lilina is a mage. I always imagined Hector married someone who wielded magic as a result. I guess here Hector’s the wingman? Is that how wingmen work?
Epilogue: Eliwood, being pragmatic about Athos’s warning, trained his son Roy well to take up arms in defending the world. Ninian died early on, as warned by her brother Nils, but her kindness and love brought Pherae much joy. Hector, on the other hand, decided he would counter Bern’s threat by himself, which honestly isn’t a huge stretch except Zephiel wields a legendary sword and one of his generals (Brunnya) is a sage, both of which speak to Hector’s weaknesses. RNG favored Bern when Zephiel attacked Lycia and narrowly managed to defeat Hector, shifting the burden of saving the world to Lilina.
BONUS: Here are Roy and Lilina at the end of Binding Blade, equipped with the Binding Blade and Forblaze, respectively:
I couldn’t figure out how to get the kill ratios on these character screens like in Blazing Blade, so I’ll list them manually as 41.5% (Roy) and 69.9% (Lilina). Lilina has the kill ratio record for Binding Blade. She is also the only descendant character to achieve a higher kill ratio than her parent(s) did, which goes to show how much more difficult Binding Blade is compared to Blazing Blade.
Athos
Blurb: this guy lived for over 1000 years because…he was learning too much. Seriously, when asked about his age, all he says is that he was so busy learning about and solving the world’s mysteries that he didn’t notice living way past the life expectancy of a human. And to think, in the real world, being a researcher generally reduces your lifespan what with the stress and the large helpings of failure.
…What was I doing? Oh, right, this shrine.
Athos
Blurb: this guy lived for over 1000 years because…he was learning too much. Seriously, when asked about his age, all he says is that he was so busy learning about and solving the world’s mysteries that he didn’t notice living way past the life expectancy of a human. And to think, in the real world, being a researcher generally reduces your lifespan what with the stress and the large helpings of failure.
…What was I doing? Oh, right, this shrine.
Author’s note: in this screenshot, he’s equipped with his signature weapon Forblaze, even though I feel like he mostly used Aureola in the final chapter instead.
I don’t think Athos can develop any supports and even if he could, you only get to use him for 1 chapter, so he’s by himself rather than on a team. I don’t really have a lot to say about Athos – he’s quite effective with well-rounded stats and he fits the “wise old sage with beard” archetype really well, complete with how he forced the army to get to the Shrine of Seals by themselves when he could’ve just teleported them all there, which is even faster than having giant eagles fly them there.
…Anyway…
Epilogue: Athos died at the end of the game and…well, that’s it, I guess. Actually, come to think of it, he prophesized Bern becoming a problem and said Lycia would bring hope…isn’t that more than enough information to prepare? If everyone in Lycia began training in archery like right after the game ends, Bern’s wyvern riders would’ve shown up greeted by a hail of arrows. Back the archers up with some mages/sages like Nino and the invasion would be over in like 5 minutes – wyvern riders/lords have shit resistances and so do generals like Murdock.
See, this is why I’m a tactician in this game and Hector died charging directly into Bern’s army, probably by himself.
BONUS: Here are the denizens of Arcadia, Sophia and Fae, at the end of Binding Blade, equipped with Apocalypse and the Divine Stone, respectively:
I don’t think Athos can develop any supports and even if he could, you only get to use him for 1 chapter, so he’s by himself rather than on a team. I don’t really have a lot to say about Athos – he’s quite effective with well-rounded stats and he fits the “wise old sage with beard” archetype really well, complete with how he forced the army to get to the Shrine of Seals by themselves when he could’ve just teleported them all there, which is even faster than having giant eagles fly them there.
…Anyway…
Epilogue: Athos died at the end of the game and…well, that’s it, I guess. Actually, come to think of it, he prophesized Bern becoming a problem and said Lycia would bring hope…isn’t that more than enough information to prepare? If everyone in Lycia began training in archery like right after the game ends, Bern’s wyvern riders would’ve shown up greeted by a hail of arrows. Back the archers up with some mages/sages like Nino and the invasion would be over in like 5 minutes – wyvern riders/lords have shit resistances and so do generals like Murdock.
See, this is why I’m a tactician in this game and Hector died charging directly into Bern’s army, probably by himself.
BONUS: Here are the denizens of Arcadia, Sophia and Fae, at the end of Binding Blade, equipped with Apocalypse and the Divine Stone, respectively:
Kill ratios: 66.4% (Sophia) and 69.6% (Fae). I’ll admit I watched Sophia’s level-ups like a hawk to ensure RNG didn’t destroy her; as a result, she became a wrecking machine. Fae, on the other hand…all of Fae’s levels I had to micromanage in the penultimate chapter. See, her Divine Stone has 30 uses and you only get one, so if you use them up she becomes unable to attack at all, yet you’re forced to deploy her. It’s stuff like this that made me not make a proper shrine to Binding Blade. End rant.
Rebecca, Wil, and Dart
Blurb: enemies facing this team must choose between getting shot in the crotch, shot in the face, or cleaved. Or if they have lots of HP, all three?
Rebecca, Wil, and Dart
Blurb: enemies facing this team must choose between getting shot in the crotch, shot in the face, or cleaved. Or if they have lots of HP, all three?
Rebecca and Wil are both great characters in unique ways: Rebecca is fast and can dodge attacks while responding with double hits, while Wil can take more hits while returning more burst damage. They also nicely support one another (beginning with Rebecca kicking Wil in the stomach, which I find hilarious). Dart is heavily implied to be Rebecca’s brother Dan, who set out with his friend Wil prior to the game’s events and got lost. Rebecca/Wil supporting Dart jacks his already-augmented critical rate (from his Berserker class) to insane levels, which coupled with high speed is why Dart has an incredible kill ratio.
I generally pair Rebecca and Wil because Wolt, Rebecca’s son in Binding Blade, is totally Wil’s son. They look the same, basically. I’m pretty sure this is the canon pairing.
Epilogue: Dart went off to continue his pirating ways after Nergal’s defeat. He doesn’t quite understand why he keeps thinking of Pherae, a land he’s totally not acquainted with, like, at all, right? Rebecca and Wil had a son named Wolt, who constantly strove to match his parents’ archery skills and would aid Roy in his future quest to save the world. One fateful day, Rebecca and Wil were vacationing somewhere when Rebecca kicked Wil in the face so hard that he developed amnesia. He fell in love with her again anyway and Rebecca spent her time nursing him back to health so she could kick him again in the future.
BONUS: Here’s Wolt at the end of Binding Blade, equipped with Mulagir:
I generally pair Rebecca and Wil because Wolt, Rebecca’s son in Binding Blade, is totally Wil’s son. They look the same, basically. I’m pretty sure this is the canon pairing.
Epilogue: Dart went off to continue his pirating ways after Nergal’s defeat. He doesn’t quite understand why he keeps thinking of Pherae, a land he’s totally not acquainted with, like, at all, right? Rebecca and Wil had a son named Wolt, who constantly strove to match his parents’ archery skills and would aid Roy in his future quest to save the world. One fateful day, Rebecca and Wil were vacationing somewhere when Rebecca kicked Wil in the face so hard that he developed amnesia. He fell in love with her again anyway and Rebecca spent her time nursing him back to health so she could kick him again in the future.
BONUS: Here’s Wolt at the end of Binding Blade, equipped with Mulagir:
His kill ratio was 48.6%.
Canas
Blurb: *derives an equation describing how much pain enemies are in for when fighting Canas
Canas
Blurb: *derives an equation describing how much pain enemies are in for when fighting Canas
Yeah, that’s a record for kill ratio. This guy hits hard. In terms for potential to obtain a high kill ratio, magic users have an advantage as they can counter attack at both 1 and 2 spaces. When Canas counterattacks, he generally kills the opponent despite difficulty achieving double attacks due to the high weight of Dark magic. I have him in a (hilarious) support with Bartre, but Bartre didn’t participate in the final chapter so he’s not featured here (the only reason I ever even fielded Bartre was to recruit Karla). As such, Canas operated with no supports, but he managed just fine. In addition, Canas has a wife and son, so I didn’t need to pair him with anyone anyway.
Epilogue: a snowstorm struck the village Canas and his wife were living in. Canas calculated to perfection the magical energy they would need to stop it and set out to accomplish this feat; however, Canas had forgotten to add a constant of integration when he was doing his calculations. Also, he mistakenly computed 4 + 4 as 16. As such, they died from cold and Canas’s wife spends the afterlife punching her husband in the face. Their son, Hugh, would grow up with secret dreams of funding a university to educate the masses on math, science, and engineering, which is why he always wanted more money (not that he ever told anyone that, because…you know…reasons).
Serra and Erk
Blurb: the enemies in this game are VERY FORTUNATE that they got to meet Serra before getting brutally killed (by Serra).
Epilogue: a snowstorm struck the village Canas and his wife were living in. Canas calculated to perfection the magical energy they would need to stop it and set out to accomplish this feat; however, Canas had forgotten to add a constant of integration when he was doing his calculations. Also, he mistakenly computed 4 + 4 as 16. As such, they died from cold and Canas’s wife spends the afterlife punching her husband in the face. Their son, Hugh, would grow up with secret dreams of funding a university to educate the masses on math, science, and engineering, which is why he always wanted more money (not that he ever told anyone that, because…you know…reasons).
Serra and Erk
Blurb: the enemies in this game are VERY FORTUNATE that they got to meet Serra before getting brutally killed (by Serra).
I don’t quite get why I like Serra – I think if I knew someone in real life with her personality I would be as annoyed as Erk is in-game. In fact, there’s this girl named Katie whom I knew in high school who reminds me of Serra and she was…kind of annoying. Like, she wasn’t a bad person at all – she was just sort of dramatic and loud, which made her come across as…
…Anyway.
There are three Light magic users in the game – Serra after promotion, Lucius, and Renault. Renault joins extremely late in the game, so there’s not a lot you can do with him. He has some interesting backstory that lends itself well to fan speculation, but even that requires some effort to see before the game ends. Lucius looks like a long-haired blonde girl when he is in fact male and the artists did this on purpose since the game itself references that. He can use Light magic whenever, but can only heal after promotion. Serra is the opposite – she begins as a pure healer and then promotes to be able to cast Light spells – and healing is more important than having a magic counter to enemy shamans (without one, Florina could just fly up to one and stab him), so I generally choose Serra as my Light mage. She didn’t get into a lot of battles, but when she did she generally melted some face.
When I played this game in the past I chose Nino as my mage (and paired her with Jaffar). This last playthrough I chose Erk because he sort of reminds me of myself – overly studious and terrible at socialization. Unluckily for Erk, he’s compatible with Serra, so in my last playthrough he got to stand next to Serra for hundreds of turns until he fell in love with her, a phenomenon I consider close to Stockholm syndrome except not quite.
…If it makes Erk feel any better, his kill ratio is amazing because he likes to hit hard (twice) and enemy resistances in this game tend to be low.
Epilogue: Erk and Serra were wed in Etruria in a beautiful ceremony where Erk pledged to worship his lady and mistress Serra for the rest of time. During the ceremony, Pent informed his pupil that the king was seeking to appoint him Mage General, as Pent would soon be retiring to go adventuring with Louise. Erk responded that worshipping his lady and mistress Serra was a full-time job and he could not possibly take on the responsibilities of Mage General.
Benamin
It was twenty years since Nergal’s defeat. Benamin stood outside Bulgar. Some scouts had returned a few days ago telling him of a large fleet of wyvern riders massing on the border. Invasion was imminent.
Benamin had gone to the chieftains around Bulgar and told them to send their fighters away from the capital. Knowing they would refuse any advice looking like a retreat, despite Benamin knowing the enemy forces would massacre the unorganized defenders, Benamin told them that Bern was preparing to attack on multiple fronts, taking advantage of their wyverns’ mobility over the mountains, and that a wider defense would be more effective. He hoped that, while he knew Bern in fact would mostly invade through Bulgar, the chieftains sending their forces over a wide breadth of territory would serve to warn more tribes and perhaps mobilize a wider defense of country as a whole.
Bulgar was mostly empty now. Sacaens never lied, so they believed every word Benamin said. But…Benamin was not Sacaen.
He walked through the deserted streets of the city, letting his thoughts wander as they would. He’d had a long time to think over these past years. Ever since Lyn had found him unconscious on the plains, near death from his journey through the Dragon’s Gate from Orelus, he had tried to forge a new life and a better world around him. He guided Eliwood’s army to victory against Nergal and spent the following years planting the seeds of a future resistance against the coming tyranny of Bern throughout Elibe. He had seen bonds forged new and old bonds strengthen. But through all of his experiences, the gulf around him – once filled with hope – remained empty and desolate.
It was sort of like Bulgar now, Benamin mused.
He had tried to discard his past. The twin swords of the Cross Knights were buried far from one another and he hadn’t used those old techniques in years, instead learning some basic single-wield stances from Lyn. During his stay in Etruria he’d befriended Cecilia, soon-to-be the new Mage General, and learned to channel the elements through magic tomes. Yes, he was much different now from the captain who served the Queen of Kahna, but still that cut through his heart refused to heal.
As he turned the corner, a crash behind him scattered an abandoned cart into an equally abandoned food stall. Bern’s wyvern riders had arrived. The invasion had begun.
Benamin took a deep breath. He had sown the seeds of resistance across the continent. He’d done what he could. He closed his eyes and repeated the words he had recited to himself for days, maybe even weeks now – words that he wished he didn’t need, but whose truth was undeniable.
This is how my story ends.
BONUS: Here are the rest of the units that finished Binding Blade (the “seeds of resistance”). I included Larum even though she didn’t take part in the final chapter (her slot was taken up by Fae) because her dancing was quite important throughout the game. Equipment: Cecilia had the Saint’s Staff that I didn’t ever have to use, Perceval had Durandal, Elen had Aureola, Melady had Maltet, and Echidna had Armads.
…Anyway.
There are three Light magic users in the game – Serra after promotion, Lucius, and Renault. Renault joins extremely late in the game, so there’s not a lot you can do with him. He has some interesting backstory that lends itself well to fan speculation, but even that requires some effort to see before the game ends. Lucius looks like a long-haired blonde girl when he is in fact male and the artists did this on purpose since the game itself references that. He can use Light magic whenever, but can only heal after promotion. Serra is the opposite – she begins as a pure healer and then promotes to be able to cast Light spells – and healing is more important than having a magic counter to enemy shamans (without one, Florina could just fly up to one and stab him), so I generally choose Serra as my Light mage. She didn’t get into a lot of battles, but when she did she generally melted some face.
When I played this game in the past I chose Nino as my mage (and paired her with Jaffar). This last playthrough I chose Erk because he sort of reminds me of myself – overly studious and terrible at socialization. Unluckily for Erk, he’s compatible with Serra, so in my last playthrough he got to stand next to Serra for hundreds of turns until he fell in love with her, a phenomenon I consider close to Stockholm syndrome except not quite.
…If it makes Erk feel any better, his kill ratio is amazing because he likes to hit hard (twice) and enemy resistances in this game tend to be low.
Epilogue: Erk and Serra were wed in Etruria in a beautiful ceremony where Erk pledged to worship his lady and mistress Serra for the rest of time. During the ceremony, Pent informed his pupil that the king was seeking to appoint him Mage General, as Pent would soon be retiring to go adventuring with Louise. Erk responded that worshipping his lady and mistress Serra was a full-time job and he could not possibly take on the responsibilities of Mage General.
Benamin
It was twenty years since Nergal’s defeat. Benamin stood outside Bulgar. Some scouts had returned a few days ago telling him of a large fleet of wyvern riders massing on the border. Invasion was imminent.
Benamin had gone to the chieftains around Bulgar and told them to send their fighters away from the capital. Knowing they would refuse any advice looking like a retreat, despite Benamin knowing the enemy forces would massacre the unorganized defenders, Benamin told them that Bern was preparing to attack on multiple fronts, taking advantage of their wyverns’ mobility over the mountains, and that a wider defense would be more effective. He hoped that, while he knew Bern in fact would mostly invade through Bulgar, the chieftains sending their forces over a wide breadth of territory would serve to warn more tribes and perhaps mobilize a wider defense of country as a whole.
Bulgar was mostly empty now. Sacaens never lied, so they believed every word Benamin said. But…Benamin was not Sacaen.
He walked through the deserted streets of the city, letting his thoughts wander as they would. He’d had a long time to think over these past years. Ever since Lyn had found him unconscious on the plains, near death from his journey through the Dragon’s Gate from Orelus, he had tried to forge a new life and a better world around him. He guided Eliwood’s army to victory against Nergal and spent the following years planting the seeds of a future resistance against the coming tyranny of Bern throughout Elibe. He had seen bonds forged new and old bonds strengthen. But through all of his experiences, the gulf around him – once filled with hope – remained empty and desolate.
It was sort of like Bulgar now, Benamin mused.
He had tried to discard his past. The twin swords of the Cross Knights were buried far from one another and he hadn’t used those old techniques in years, instead learning some basic single-wield stances from Lyn. During his stay in Etruria he’d befriended Cecilia, soon-to-be the new Mage General, and learned to channel the elements through magic tomes. Yes, he was much different now from the captain who served the Queen of Kahna, but still that cut through his heart refused to heal.
As he turned the corner, a crash behind him scattered an abandoned cart into an equally abandoned food stall. Bern’s wyvern riders had arrived. The invasion had begun.
Benamin took a deep breath. He had sown the seeds of resistance across the continent. He’d done what he could. He closed his eyes and repeated the words he had recited to himself for days, maybe even weeks now – words that he wished he didn’t need, but whose truth was undeniable.
This is how my story ends.
BONUS: Here are the rest of the units that finished Binding Blade (the “seeds of resistance”). I included Larum even though she didn’t take part in the final chapter (her slot was taken up by Fae) because her dancing was quite important throughout the game. Equipment: Cecilia had the Saint’s Staff that I didn’t ever have to use, Perceval had Durandal, Elen had Aureola, Melady had Maltet, and Echidna had Armads.
Kill ratios: 34.2% (Cecilia), 53.7% (Perceval), 26.3% (Elen), 48.0% (Melady), and 41.9% (Echidna).