Author's Notes:
This is war cat!

"Agrona," Arthur said through clenched teeth as he came face to face with the ruler of Alacrya.

He didn't say a word as he entered, as if the events unfolding before him were beneath him. He looked over at Nico's lifeless body with minimal interest.

"This honestly doesn't really surprise me. With his lack of control, this was the most likely outcome." He then looked to Cecilia and Arthur. "Although I did expect him to die by your hand, not Cecilia's."

"Well I'm surprised. I would have thought you would have cared that you lost another Scythe," Arthur commented curiously. He knew Agrona seemed to have a low opinion of lessers, but he would have expected losing one of his stronger powerhouses would have at least bothered him.

"Why should I? He was always expendable, just as you once were."

"Once?" Arthur questioned, deciding that maybe he could learn something useful before he put the next stage of his plan in motion.

"That's right," Agrona began as he monologued. "After I had Cecilia you both no longer served an actual purpose, I only kept Nico because I don't believe in killing without a purpose. But you," Agrona actually smiled. "Clearly I was wrong when it came to you. To be able to not only escape but to also kill Nico and a Vritra, even if he was a scientist, that's no small feat."

"Yeah I have a tendency to exceed expectations," Arthur replied as he began to carefully send aether to one of his runes, just enough so it wouldn't glow.

"With that said," Agrona offered out his hand. "I'll give you another chance to join me. With Cecilia's power and your mastery of aether, Kezess and the Asura won't stand a chance against us."

"About an hour ago you gave them approval to remove my core, now you want me to join you?"

"With the fact that you were able to escape, and your natural aether talent, you've become more useful to me alive."

Arthur just raised an eyebrow, a little confused as his escape was so easy.

"How about this, I'll bring your fiancé back."

This got Arthur's attention. Not because he didn't think it was impossible, since Cecilia proved that, but because he said that in front of Cecilia.

"Won't that put a hindrance in your plans?

"Not really," Agrona replied casually. "Cecilia's presence has already changed her body significantly. At this point even your princess could reach the level of power I need."

A plan started to form in Arthur's mind, so he pressed further to get the reaction he needed.

"Do you honestly think Tess would cooperate with you after you had her parents publicly executed?"

"I've altered Cecilia's memories so much so that she believed you murdered her," Agrona paused as he looked at her curriously. "Although I can't understand why she's cooperating with you now." He then waved his right hand dismissively. "Nevertheless, I can easily alter your lover's memories to something more suitable to gain her cooperation."

There was a sudden change in the pressure of the room, originating from Cecilia.

"So you did alter my memories to make me cooperate." Cecilia balled her fists as her anger reached its peak. "And now you're willing to discard me like trash?!"

Arthur smirked. "That was easier than I thought."

Arthur was never even tempted into cooperating with Agrona, even after he offered to bring Tess back. After he started channeling aether into his runes, he realized he needed more time to use the one he needed, more time than he knew Agrona wouldn't allow him. So he poked Agrona, with the hopes that he would say something that would trigger Cecilia in her emotionally unstable state, and as expected he shamelessly didn't disappoint.

Using wind magic Cecilia rocketed at Agrona as a thorny blade adorned with roses at the base formed on her right hand. Agrona just smiled as he reached up to his horns and touched a red gem. Suddenly golden runes appeared and glowed on Cecilia's dress, and the mana around her dispersed, resulting in her crashing to the ground.

"You didn't actually think I allowed you to get so powerful and not take precautions?" Agrona taunted as she pushed herself up from the ground. He then knelt down and carefully raised her head to face him. "After I deal with him, I will alter your mind to such a degree that you will remain my puppet for as long as you live."

"As for you Ar..." Agrona started as he turned his head back to Arthur, only to stop as he saw one of Arthur's god runes burning brightly.

Arthur stood there facing Agrona with a cocky smile. Golden aetheric runes wrapped around his right arm and connected with what looked like a purple aetheric pocket watch.

"Cecilia, thank you. You bought me all the time I needed to put my plan into motion. As for you Agrona, I'd love to play, but I'm afraid that I'm, no, you're out of time."

"YES! Now that's how you do it!" Regis praised.

Cadell and the soldiers took up a defensive stance to brace themselves for an attack. Agrona however had his eyes wide in shock and fear. Whether he knew what branch of aether Arthur was about to use or not, no one could be certain. All that was certain was that he saw it as a serious threat, and rocketed off towards Arthur as he created a back soul fire blade.

Arthur turned his wrist to the right slightly as the hands on the watch followed suit, and everything suddenly began to slow down. Arthur watched in wonder as everyone's movements slowed to a snail's pace, until finally everyone stopped. Agrona stopped right in front of him, with his soul fire blade just an inch from Arthur's throat.

"Cutting it a bit close aren't we?"

"He's a lot faster than I expected."

Arthur then turned his wrist further, and gradually everything began moving in reverse. It started slow enough where Arthur could perceive people's movements clearly, but soon they became blurs. The room nearly looked as if it was frozen in time if not for the occasional changes occurring, until the whole world around him was just a blur of light and colors. His body ached, his temperature shifted from burning hot to freezing cold, but he endured. This was mere discomfort compared to everything he had done to himself to get stronger in the relic tombs.

"Hey, I know you've already decided when we're going, but why not just go a bit further back to baby Agrona and..." Regis suggested.

Even though Arthur couldn't see him, he could feel his paws moving in a way that suggested strangulation.

"First off, that's just wrong."

"It's Agrona," Regis replied matter of factly.

"Secondly, the rune doesn't work that way. I can only go as far back as when I was alive. And even if I could, we have no idea what would happen next. We could end up with someone worse than Agrona."

"Then why not go back to being a baby and start preparing then?"

"Butterfly effect. We have no way of knowing how much we could change the future. What if we prevent me meeting Tess and becoming Gramps' disciple? I could lose all of my connections with all the people I've met, you might not even exist."

"Good point. Me not existing would be a great tragedy."

Arthur just rolled his eyes and continued.

"I chose this point because we can make the biggest impact in the shortest amount of time, while still more or less preserving the timeline."

"Then we get into the last relic tomb, make it to the bottom, and master Fate."

"And here I thought you weren't even listening." Arthur teased.

But before Regis could even reply Arthur gasped in pain.

"Princess are you alright?"

"My arm," he said as he looked at the storage rune. "It feels like it's being ripped apart and being put back together."

"Maybe we should stop and take a break," Regis suggested, considering Arthur actually complaining about pain meant it had to be pretty bad.

"No, we're almost there. I can only go in increments of a year. If I stop now our plans a bust."

Arthur grit his teeth and bore the pain. The colors were now just nearly instantaneous streaks of light passing by with a black background, and a bright white light in the distance that was growing, showing his final destination. As he approached the pain increased proportionally, until finally a small purple sphere emerged from the rune.

"What is that? It looks like a ball of mana and aether?" Regis asked.

"No clue. I'm just happy it's out," Arthur replied, finally feeling relief in his arm.

"Hey Princess, you remember the last time you went towards the light?"

"What are you...please don't remind me about that," Arthur replied as he remembered being born in this world, right before being engulfed in the light.

—————————————————————

Arthur's eyes shot open as he frantically looked around. He found himself in a tent furnished with expensive looking furniture, but nothing that was distinctive enough to give him any kind of hint as to where he was. He got up to look around hoping to see something, and froze when he came across a mirror. He walked closer, his eyes locked on the image it showed, because the face looking back at him was one he hadn't seen in a very long time.

Arthur's eyes lit up as he touched his face and ran his fingers through his hair. The face looking back at him was his, but not the one he had seen after he lost his battle with Nico and Cadell, but the one he was born with. From the auburn hair, to the blue eyes, even the scars, everything was back to the way it was from during the war.

"Well I don't think 'princess' suits you anymore," Regis said from within his core.

"You're still here!"

"Oh yeah, you can't get rid of me that easily. But now I need to come up with a name for you."

"You've got time," Arthur replied as he enjoyed the view.

On the outside his actions might be coming off as vain, but to Arthur it was like seeing an old friend. His biggest concern about this time reversal was he thought that he was going to have to go through the same difficulties of seeing everyone again. When he returned to Dicathen from Alacrya, very few people recognized him. Virion, Ellie, and his mother did after a few moments of staring, and all acted as one would expect from his return. However Alice had a lot of trouble with it. Knowing he reincarnated into this world had already formed a rift between them, but they had been slowly working on bridging it. But with his new appearance the rift grew further than ever. She tried to get over it, to see him as her Arthur again, if nothing else to go back to the way things were, but with her knowledge of who he was and this new appearance, he felt like a completely different person.

Arthur was at a point when he needed his family the most, but Alice couldn't cross that bridge and be the mother she desperately wanted to be. The constant loss she went through and knowing Arthur still had to fight, she couldn't bring herself to reconnect with him no matter how hard she tried. In the end Arthur cut himself off from her and Ellie, and focused solely on the next mission and saving Tess. He wouldn't allow himself anything else.

As he looked in the mirror another thought entered his mind. If his appearance had reverted, what about everything else.

"Don't worry pretty boy," Regis chimed in, hearing the questions in his head. "you're still mostly dragon."

"And my aether core?"

"Yeah, about that..."

"I lost it?!"

"Oh no, it's still here."

"Thank god."

"But it's kind of..." Regis started, but was cut off as Arthur fell to his knees in agonizing pain centered at his core.

"Aghhh." "What's going on?"

"I was getting to that. It's like you have a core in a core. You've got your aether core, but your mana core is back too. It's like they're trying to mix, while also fighting for dominance."

"Can you try and separate them?"

"I'll try."

After a few moments the pain subsided.

"Thanks."

"Just so you know, this isn't easy. I think you need to release some pressure, and not in the intimidating way. You need to use up some of one of them to make some room, it might make it so they aren't clashing."

As the two were talking, they didn't notice the small girl with wheat colored hair and black horns rush into the tent.

"Arthur!?"

Arthur quickly turned around at the sound of his closest friend and surrogate daughter's voice.

"Sylvie?" Arthur said as he felt overjoyed so see her again.

"What's going on?" Sylvie asked, confusion and fear mixing into her voice.

"Umm," Arthur hesitated as he tried to think how to explain.

"I have memories in my head that don't make sense. I know what day it is, but suddenly I have memories of things that are going to happen, or have happened? I just don't know!" She went on starting to panic.

"Hey, she technically was with us in that egg. So maybe..."

"Who's there?!"

"Where?"

"In our heads. Don't you hear him? He's using our bond to talk in our heads. What if it's Agrona? He could be..."

"Shhh. Calm down," Arthur said in a soothing voice. "I think I know what's going on here, and that's not Agrona's voice, that's Regis, the sentient Asura weapon."

"What's up."

"Wait, he awoke? When?"

Just then two people entered the room, Trodius and Senyir Flamesworth.

"Yup, right where we wanted to be. Shall we execute the bastard now? I personally would love to see his panic when you use destruction on him slowly."

"Easy Regis. Technically he hasn't done anything wrong yet, and if everything goes as planned, he won't get a chance either."

"General, allow me to introduce you to my daughter Senyir. Although I believe you two have already met," Trodius said with pride.

"Please," Regis pleaded.

"No," Arthur said sternly.

"Arthur?" Sylvie said, bringing attention back to her.

"Sorry Sylv. It's too much to explain right now. My memories are an open book, go over everything starting at this event two years ago to get up to speed," Arthur said, remembering the last time he was here to make it easier for her to find the starting point.

"Hello again, General. I saw your father earlier and gave him the gauntlets you ordered for him," Senyir said as she bowed slightly, and Sylvie poured through Arthur's memories.

"I know, I was lucky enough to run into him a little bit ago," Arthur replied as he walked over, and noticed the two swords wrapped in her arms. "I doubt you came here just to tell me that. So what can I do for you?"

"More like what Princess Tessia asked me to do for you," she replied as she laid the two swords on the table and pulled away at the cloth wrapping. "She told me you prefer a narrower blade, so I made these. They are the finest blades I have ever created," she concluded as she stood a bit taller with pride.

Arthur remembered the last time this happened, and how cold he was to her despite the obvious hard work she put in. The blades were definitely worthy of her praise, and if not for Dawns Ballad he would have agreed.

Arthur picked up the longer of the two swords and drew it, swinging it around a bit to get a good feel for it.

"Good weight."

He then tossed it in the air and caught it on his index finger at the hilt and balanced it there for a second.

"Perfectly balanced."

He then tossed it back into the air before grabbing the handle and placing it back in the scabbard.

"Only the Asura could create a finer blade," Arthur complimented with a neutral face.

"Thank you General!" She replied, her face beaming with pride.

"You know you don't actually need those anymore," Regis commented, as Arthur picked up the two swords and secured them to his belt.

"I know, but I want to hide my aether abilities for the time being. I don't want Agrona catching wind of it just yet."

"Then why not fix Dawn's Ballad?"

Even though his face remained neutral, on the inside he wore an excited smile as he remembered his Asura made sword was stored away in his dimensional ring.

"Well General, if you're ready, I believe it's time," Trodius stated.

Arthur looked to Sylvie.

"Are you ready?"

She nodded.

"I just finished. So what's the plan this time?"

Arthur then used the bond the three now shared and filled them in on his new plan for this time, as they exited the tent, ready to change history.