No Regrets

Serah's finest trait is the ability to believe in others and the people she loves.

This fierce determination is what carries her. It turns her to crystal. It means she remembers Lightning when no one else does. She waits and she journeys and she believes, and someday she’ll find Lightning with open arms.

Serah has a will of tempered steel, an almost stubborn loyalty; she can count on her family to persevere towards a distant reunion, no matter the trials faced along the way. And, above all, Serah will do what is right. No matter what.

She’s here to change the future, and she will, no matter what becomes of herself. Serah’s journey begins selfishly, thanks to the simple want and her need to find Lightning again. She has a chance, and a choice - a small choice in the grander scheme of things, a personal and insular choice, but Serah still decides. She decides to pursue her sister and it’s Noel that accompanies her, because every step forward is Serah’s to make.

It’s not long before Serah realises that each step towards her sister also takes something and not necessarily from herself. She discovers greater things at stake: the world and time, mostly. Diverging timelines bring about different places, people, and as each one is unravelled to betterment, some of those things are inevitably lost. They simply do not exist anymore, and it’s Serah that’s taking them away. Caius says it plainly - each time she fulfills a wish of her heart, someone else’s dies. “Can you live with that? That responsibility?”

It’s a terrible burden, and the true price of being the Seeress. Serah knows there’s a better future out there, not just for herself, but for the world, but not everyone will make it there. Does she stop? No. She tries. Serah takes that responsibility onto herself. She accepts the guilt for what it is and retains her humanity. Never is Serah unfeeling.

But trying to save the world takes from herself too. Serah’s visions come at the exchange of her life, and in a constantly shifting future, it becomes much more likely Serah will not live out her goals. It’s not a suspicion even before the final battle. Serah explicitly knows she won’t make it. Serah has another choice to make, a big one - her needs, or the fate of the world?

Serah doesn’t choose herself. She chooses everyone else.

But she doesn’t care. And she doesn’t regret it for a moment. She’s here to change the future, and that’s just what she’s going to do. She accepts the odds of her death with no complaint, and with that conviction, never wavers or falters again, even as Caius attempts to goud her.

Serah’s choice makes her become great. It is never thrust upon her. Every step, her choice.

Even without her, the world can keep going. And in dying, her soul passes to Valhalla, where Lightning is.

And Serah finds Lightning, her journey’s destination reached, at last.