How can I save the world if I’m no longer the hero?

His blood spilled across the carpet of the throne room, the laughter of the demon lord echoing through his ears. His few remaining allies lay behind him, bloody messes.

Slowly, he tried to raise to his feet, gripping his sword. It couldn’t end like this. No. After everything they had lost, after all the lives that had been burned away, it couldn’t end like this. Slowly he stared up at the monster before him, the one he had once called friend, now controlled by that demon and wielding the blade of one of their fallen allies. “I… won’t--”

He never got a chance to finish his words. With a single movement, the sword of his dead comrade slashed across his throat. Time seemed to slow down when he fell one final time.

How? How did it all come to this? After everything they had endured and suffered through, how could he fail?

------

“Wakey wakey!” a voice said.

Slowly his eyes opened and he stared up into darkness. He seemed to be laying on some kind of stone platform. Had it all been a dream? Perhaps a prophetic vision?

“No, no, I’m afraid not. It all happened,” the voice said, now almost sounding sad. Or at least a mockery of sadness.

He sat up quickly, panic burning in his chest. He then saw the source of the voice. A small hooded figure. “It did? But how am I alive?”

“You’re not. You died. Your friends died. The last of the chosen is now bound to the will of the demon lord. The gods were cut off from the world and, within a few hundred years or so, all life there will disappear forever. Then, well, who knows? Perhaps the demon lord will find a way to escape, head to a new world where it can begin a new tale of destruction.”

“If… if that’s true, where am I? What are you? Are you one of the gods? Have--”

“No no no. I’m not a god at all. I’m something that’s both less and more, I suppose.”

He was certain his sight was playing tricks on him, because he swore that, just for a moment, there were three hooded figures, one taller and one shorter, all mixed together. “You’re… it can’t be, you’re the--”

“Indeed. The three sisters. And it’s such a nasty fate that enveloped that world. Not that the journey was a pleasant one. No. So many mistakes. So many deaths. A true shame, honestly.” The hooded figure shook their head.

He couldn’t not feel guilt at their words. So many mistakes had been because of his foolishness, his pride. His selfishness. His own qualms and beliefs. If he had kept his mind clearer, avoided temptation, not allowed himself to be so easily distracted then so much heartache and pain could have been avoided.

“Now now. No need to be quite so hard on yourself. Sure, the whole planet is doomed and everyone you’ve ever known and cared about will die horrifically without any chance of peace, but that’s no reason to beat yourself up. Well, okay, I suppose it’s every reason to beat yourself up.”

He gave a soft sigh, shaking his head. He’d never imagined the embodiment of time and fate could sound so petty. “Why did you bring me here, then?” he asked. “Are you my guide to the afterlife?”

“My goodness, no. What afterlife?”

“What? I thought--”

“Everything is gone. The gods, the souls, the world. When I say disappear forever, I mean forever. There’s nowhere for you to go now. You severed that path yourself, remember?”

The words crashed in on him like a tidal wave. He’d failed. He’d failed in every single meaning of the word. Despite his efforts to stop everything, all he’d done is further doom them all.

“But that’s such a horrible ending, isn’t it? Boring, even. That’s not what we want. After all, if everything is gone, there’s no more threads to weave. Without a purpose for us, we’ll disappear as well.”

“I don’t understand,” he said softly, staring at the figure.

“A second chance, hero. A chance to make things right. We can’t fix the damage ourselves. What we can do, however, is send you back as if it never happened.”

“Send me back?” he asked, hope beginning to blossom within him anew.

“Yes. It won’t be easy. And it won’t really be sending you back.” A withered, ancient hand rose up through the air. Suddenly, a silver thread seemed to materialize in front of her. Then, thousands more. Millions. Billions. So many he could never count them. However, all of the threads seemed connected to this one thread. Soon after it ended, all of the others did as well. “At least, not fully. More just change some of the early threads. Some things will have to be altered.”

“Altered how?” he asked.

“That’ll be up to you! Isn’t this exciting? Not many people are allowed to change their own threads of fate. In fact, you may be the first. Now, there’s more to it than this, but in your last life you were an incredible swordsman. At the age of four you drew your slain father’s blade and slaughtered half a band of bandits on your own. You killed the Troll of Reflections when you were still just a child. You even slew a god.” His entire body tensed up. “Oh, no, that was a bit cruel of me, wasn’t it? I suppose that was when everything started to go bad, didn’t it? You didn’t really think that removing the gods would save everything, did you?”

“I did.”

“Well, you were wrong. Sucks, don’t it?”

He barely suppressed a growl of frustration at the divine being’s dismissive attitude.

“The important thing is you can’t just do it again, otherwise you’ll follow the exact same path. Here. Do you like cards? That may be easier for you to understand.”

“Uhhhh...” Suddenly a stack of cards were dropped in front of him. Gingerly he picked them up and stared.

“Choose from them. Your talent. Your sign. Choose who you will be. Let’s see if we can have a better story this time, yes?”

He gave a nod. He wouldn’t fail this time. He’d save them. He’d save everyone.

------

“Wow, that time was even worst than the first. You’re a terrible archer, you know that?” the hooded figure said with a light laugh. “Even when you’re a hero, that was quite a shameful display.”

“Please don’t remind me...” he whispered, the tears falling down his face while he clutched his chest. He could still feel where the spear had lodged deep in his heart.

“It’s okay. Here. We’ll try again. Pick your cards.”

------

“Well… ummmm. I mean, at least the demon lord won’t destroy the world this time. And hey, you finished in record time!”

He just gave a sigh, not responding as he went through the cards once more, the pain of being melted alive still fresh in his mind. There had to be something, anything he could do.

------

“Wow. You know, you think you know a girl. I never would have expected her to do that. Did you at least have fun this time? You looked like you were having fun.”

“Please, don’t.”

“I mean, it… kind of went better?”

“Please...”

“Okay, you know the deal. Choose.”

------

Over and over he went through the cycles. Again and again the world ended. Be it by demon lord or mad god, always the world ended. Always he failed. Always he tried to stop everything. Most frustrating of all, however, was that there was nothing he could change. Nothing he could fix. Even if parts of his life were altered, he always failed to realize until too late who he could trust and who he couldn’t. Sometimes those who hurt him were those closest to him, other times they were those he hurt.

“I have to have done this at least a thousand times, now,” he said softly.

“Sure feels like it, doesn’t it?” the all too familiar voice of fate said back.

Yet no matter what he was, it always seemed to fail him. Worse, he was finding himself assaulted by strange thoughts as he traveled this strange loop of heroic failure. He looked at the cards for the longest time before speaking up. “Is this the only way?” he finally asked.

“What?”

“Is this the only way? Must I keep fighting, keep dying? Must everyone else pay for my failures again and again?”

“Well, you are the only one who can fix this, hero. That’s what it means to be the hero. Everything depends on you. Isn’t that how you wanted it?”

“Then send me back with my mind! Send me back with my memories of who I was!” he demanded, his own voice rising in anger.

There was a pause, then. Finally, the hooded figure shook their head. “I can’t.”

“Why not?”

“Because you didn’t have those memories. We’d have to create a new string for that.”

“Can you not?”

There was a long, long moment of silence before the cards disappeared. “Oh, hero. You know not. I can. But you’ll lose much.”

“That’s fi--”

“No, you don’t understand...” The hand appeared reached out, gripping the silver string. “You are gifted, hero. A strong warrior. Capable, yes. Powerful. As a mage, your spells are earth shattering. As a warrior, you can cleave the wind. None can oppose you, none can face you. You wield the strength to slay titans, the equal to all of the chosen. But a new thread? You would lose all that. You would have your knowledge, but not the capability to use it. You would be normal. Mundane.”

“Most people are normal.”

“Most people do not have the world resting on their shoulders, hero. You may not have the power to fix things if you do this. Can you accept that?”

“I do not have the power to fix things now. Could you do it?” he asked once more.

There was a long moment of silence before the figure nodded. “I can. However...” Once more the cards appeared. They were different, though. There were hundreds more. “If you do this, everything will change. You will die, hero. And from your death, a new life will spring forth. One filled with all of your skills, your thoughts, eventually your memories... but none of your power. Someone of limitless talent, but a body incapable of doing much of what you can now. You’ll likely be considered one of the most gifted to have ever walked the lands, but only by the average person’s standards. The holy relics you once used? The chosen? The horrific beasts you faced? All will be beyond you. Worse, you may not even be able to grasp everything that has happened. It will take many years for all of your memories to awaken, for you to even realize who you were. You may not be able to even fully grasp all you lived through, most living minds couldn’t view them as you can now. On top of that, there may never be another hero if you do this. Are you really willing to take that risk?”

“The chosen, will they still exist?”

“Of course. Do you really think you will be able to stand besides them? Will they accept you? You’ll just be a normal person.”

“I have fought besides them across a thousand lifetimes. I will convince them, somehow.”

“You’ll only get one chance, hero. If you do this, you will not be able to go back. Ever. Who you were will be set in stone. Once that thread is ended, it cannot be reformed. This new life will be your only chance… so choose carefully. There will be no turning back. Your form, your body, it will be crafted from what you most desire to be, shaped by the choices you make now. Know that there will be no turning back once you have given up all your power for this knowledge.”

He gave a nod, staring at the cards once more. He had been blessed by the gods, or so they said. What would it be like to be a normal person? Could he try again, was there some selection, some small alteration he could make that would allow him to save the world and keep who he was? Would knowledge of all that would come really mean more than the power he now wielded?

He gave a soft sigh and began to make his choices. He couldn’t make his friends suffer all over again. He couldn’t doom the world again.

“I’ll trust the chosen.”

“Very well. Oh, intending to be a swordsman again? Yes, I suppose the blade always did suit you. This will be your last try though, hero. Please, try not to destroy the world again, okay?”

Those were the last words he ever heard before he was reborn one last, final time.