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Subs: charoplet
People always say the future will be better. They believe the hardships of the present fade with the passage of time.
And so we hope, waiting for a future brighter than today. But Serah, remember this...
As you walk towards a brighter tomorrow, you have to look back to your past.
The path you have walked to reach the here and now will give you the courage you need to hope.
It's so dark.
In ancient times, the fal'Cie devoured the light, darkness cloaked the sky, and the earth knew only night.
This must be the eclipse.
You know what this is?
They said five hundred years ago, a massive fal'Cie appeared.
For a while, it blotted out the sun and turned everything dark.
If that happened five hundred years in your past, then this must be two hundred years in my future.
Right. But something's wrong.
Look, the eclipse is only affecting this small area. That shouldn't be possible.
Okay, so you're saying, this could be... a paradox?
That's what I'm saying.
Hello. Are you here to observe the facility? I can answer any questions you might have.
Ah, yeah, perfect. I do have some questions. Where are we? And what year is it?
you can't just - Noel!
Yaschas Massif, 10 AF, sir.
10 AF? So, nowhere near two hundred years.
I must say, this is the first time anyone asked me what year it was.
I don't suppose you happen to be time travelers?
Well...
Ah, yes. I almost forgot. I'm supposed to hand out this map.
Take it, it's free.
Keep your wits about you. There's no telling what kind of monsters the paradox has let loose in here.
You said the paradox. Are you talking about the eclipse?
Yes. The great fal'Cie Fenrir blocked out the sun.
It was predicted he would appear two hundred years from now. Which means...
Which means, his appearance now indicates some sort of time distortion, right?
But the eclipse is only happening here, right? Maybe all these gates that appeared are causing the distortion.
There's more than one gate in the ruins, isn't there?
Ah, you've done your homework, I see. Yes, we've found multiple gates in the site.
Figures.
Some areas may still be sealed off. We've yet to determine if those sections are safe.
Are we not allowed to go inside?
I'm very sorry. Only persons on official Academy business are permitted beyond this point.
Look out!
S-security!
Maybe this'll count as official business!
Is it dead?
We're being dragged in!
When monsters like these are cornered, they cause a spacetime vortex to appear.
An electromagnetic shock usually shuts them down.
It's been a while, Serah.
Hope?
Is... Is that you?
I'm grateful you remember me.
Who's this?
Director of Academy Research, Team Alpha. Hope Estheim, at your service.
And you, you must be Noel.
Nice guess. Who told you?
You appeared here with Serah some years ago, at the Bresha Ruins.
Subsequently, we analyzed the gate and forecast your reappearance at this location.
To be honest, I didn't really believe that time travel was possible. But here you are.
I'm really glad you're safe.
For me, it's as if time has stopped. Everyone I knew is gone.
Hope...
From your point of view, it's been years since you last saw Serah.
Not just Serah. Snow as well. And Sazh and his boy.
You all disappeared from my life. It's been ten ears now.
I never thought...
When the paradox occurred some years ago, I thought if I could solve it, maybe you would all come back.
Director Hope! There you are!
What were you thinking? Taking off and leaving me all on my own.
It was a shock seeing Hope grown older than me, but he was still the same Hope I knew.
Lightning, Hope listened to my story without saying a word.
I told him about how I'm the only one who remembers your smile on the plain of Gran Pulse.
I told him about how Snow set out to try and save you and Vanille and Fang.
And I told him about Noel. Noel from the future.
There's something I want to show you both. We can continue our conversation as we walk.
I'll show the way.
Shall we?
They put the future in our hands.
We're in a position to build a society based on human technology, no longer subject to the whim of the fal'Cie.
That's the gift we've been given.
How long has it been? Five years?
You two haven't changed at all.
I hope not. And here we are, meeting in ruins again.
Ruins are places where memories gather like dust.
So many layers of time... Probably the easiest place for a paradox to occur.
It's hard to believe it's really been ten years. So much time has passed.
I wonder how Sazh and little Dajh are doing.
We've been out of touch.
Sazh took Dajh to live on Gran Pulse, and he was flying airships the last I heard.
Then suddenly, they both disappeared. I... I searched everywhere but never found them.
Look at us — all gone our separate ways.
Yes, and I can't tell you how much it means to have you here now.
Sazh and Snow may have set off on different paths, but I've started to think that in the end, we're all headed towards the same goal.
I'm glad to see you're doing well, Serah.
So, Hope, have you heard anything from Snow?
Nothing, I'm sorry to say.
Not a single word. Not since he left on his mission.
No sign of him for ten whole years? So like we're not the only ones traveling through time.
You might be right.
Considering Snow's uncanny ability to find trouble, he's almost certainly aware of these temporal aberrations.
Hope, do you still think my sister is trapped inside that crystal pillar?
I always had doubts. And it wasn't just me. Sazh had them as well.
Really? Sazh, too?
Yes.
He couldn't believe that Lightning would just 'up and leave Serah like that.'
After all, she was the one who said we shouldn't face things alone, that we should stick together.
This is some kind of ancient city, right?
The city of Paddra. Or so we believe.
It was the center of a great kingdom built by a nation known as the "Farseers."
The Farseers?
You're telling me there used to be enough of them to build this entire town?
According to our research, we believe they constituted an entire nation, a polity that was ruled by a seeress.
Can you see me now? Standing here in this place...
Here.
Thanks.
You've traveled through time. I suppose it's not surprising you know about these things.
The power to rule was passed down from one seeress to the next. She was always called "Yeul."
If they could read time, why did they die out?
Surely they could see the danger coming, and do something to avoid it.
No, they were destroyed because they could see the future.
Why?
These seeress Yeul foresaw the future destruction of this city.
Some citizens wanted to try to avert the disaster.
Others felt that they should simply abandon their homes and run. A few fell into despair, and took their own lives.
The divided populace clashed. The nation was torn apart by civil war.
Being able to see the future is awfully dangerous. It can mess with people's heads.
Tell me about it.
The nation fell apart, and the survivors fled into the wildlands, avoiding contact with others.
So you know the story?
Come on, Director Hope! I want to show them! It's okay to show them, isn't it?
This way.
Here, this is what lies at the heart of our paradox.
The Oracle Drive. We've been giving it careful study.
But, how did you-!?
Wait, you know of these devices?
Oh, uh... yeah. I’ve — I’ve heard of them. In... books and stuff.
The Oracle Drive appears to be some kind of recording apparatus from ancient times.
We've excavated a number of the devices. However, the recordings depict... things that cannot be possible.
Perhaps you should see for yourselves.
This is how it works.
The device was excavated from an ancient part of the ruins.
We used carbon dating methods to determine age. The device and the recording stored within are several centuries old.
But it shows Lightning...
Someone in the past recorded this vision of the future. Perhaps it was the seeress, Yeul, herself.
What we're concerned about, however, is this. You'll have to excuse the image quality.