[OOC] character background.
CHARACTER NAME: Luke fon Fabre.
SERIES: Tales of the Abyss.
AGE: Looks 18, actually 8.
HEIGHT/WEIGHT: 171cm (5'7")/68kg (150lbs)
HAIR: Short red hair with a gradual gradient, getting lighter toward the ends.
EYE COLOR: Green.
PERSONALITY: Luke has... come a long way. XD He used to be an arrogant, spoilt brat with no sense of responsibility and no sense of tact. He grew into someone more mature, someone able to shoulder the guilt of mass murder and able to kill those important to him (i.e. VAN) in the name of ideals, all while selflessly emptying his pockets to build you a bridge or an amusement park and running half-way across the world to find your gorram seeds. While still a whiner ignorant of many ways of the world (and said naivete will frustrate him to no end, but hey, unlike most men, he will ask for directions, whether said directions are "How do I get to Daath?" or "How can I save the world next week?"), Luke no longer denies responsibilities and is one of the most generous, self-sacrificing seven year olds since the Score was written. He does have a few self-esteem issues and isn't one to open up about them (he's also quite good at not being entirely self-pitying but more hopeful and determined to do whatever he is capable of doing), but he's also a godawful liar, so finding out his issues isn't that difficult. He also has something of a major guilt complex and is plagued by both insomnia and nightmares of all the people he's killed. Never one to do anything half-arsed, when he takes responsibility for something, he takes responsibility for it, and if he fails, well, he'll probably blame himself if he can't save your kitten from off that high tree branch too.
BACKGROUND: Uh. The following contains a great many spoilers, so anyone who has not played the game and intends to without being spoiled should stop reading now. Yeah. Enjoy?
Luke fon Fabre, also known as "the Light of the Sacred Flame", was the son to Duke Fabre of the Kingdom of Kimlasca-Lanvaldear. Born with hair of red and of royal blood, he was the boy prophesied in Yulia Jue's Score--a detailed prediction of the future that would lead mankind to unprecedented prosperity--who would be the catalyst in leading Kimlasca down that same prosperous path. Or in any case, he was the Light of the Sacred Flame until he was kidnapped at ten years old and replicated through a process called Fomicry. The replica was then slipped into his place as the prophesied child, as the Light of the Sacred Flame, even as Luke fon Fabre, son to Duke Fabre of the Kingdom of Kimlasca-Lanvaldear. The original Luke abandoned his previous name and life and became--
But this isn't about the original Luke--I'm apping 'Luke', the replica. 8D
Though supposedly ten years old, 'Luke' had just been born. He was a blank canvas, lacking such skills as how to walk or talk and definitely lacking any memories the original had possessed. Though he was in this completely helpless state, Luke was seemingly abandoned by his father who spent less and less time with him, and was instead raised by a servant boy four years his senior, Guy Cecil, and occasionally tutored by the original fiancee, the heir to the throne, Princess Natalia Luzu Kimlasca-Lanvaldear. It was decided that Luke was to be restricted to the manor until he was recognized as an adult, which is to say, until his twentieth birthday, for his own good--what would happen if he was kidnapped again? His complete memory loss was accredited to trauma he suffered during the kidnapping, though no one knew at the time that he was not, in fact, the original heir to the duchy. The kidnapping itself was blamed on the enemy country, the Empire of Malkuth, and Luke was thought to be safe confined as he was in the Fabre Manor in Baticul, the capital of Kimlasca-Lanvaldear.
All was good and well except raised as isolated as he was, Luke grew into a spoilt brat, ignorant of the condition of the world beyond the manor walls. As he had been found a completely blank slate, he had to 'relearn' things like how to recognize his parents' faces and had no time for more in-depth educational pursuits, such as learning the dead language, Ancient Ispanian. His only real 'escape' from his overly sheltered life came in the form of training with his sword teacher, the Commandant of the Order of Lorelei--a military-backed religion dedicated to upholding and spreading the Score--Van Grants.
In any case, Luke was supposed to stay confined to the manor until his twentieth birthday except that three years before the appointed date of his release, a mysterious woman broke into the manor during a training session and attempted to assassinate his master. In defending Van, Luke clashed weapons with the would-be assassin. This clash caused a hyperresonance--a highly destructive fonic reaction caused by two Seventh Fonists using their abilities in tandem--that blew the two of them straight out of the manor and into Tataroo Valley, a beautiful land on the edge of the Kimlascan and Malkuth border.
Luke's companion identifies herself as Tear and while she won't divulge why she was after Van's life, she does promise to take responsibility for taking Luke away from his manor and to escort him back home. Thus begins Luke's first adventure out of the manor walls.
Because of a misunderstanding, the two wind up trespassing into Malkuth territory and are caught up in a series of events during which Luke learns more about the world outside and that end with them being arrested by Colonel Jade Curtiss. Upon learning from Fon Master Ion--the supreme leader of the Order of Lorelei--and Jade that the two are on a top secret mission to form a peace treaty between the two countries, Luke and Tear offer their help and accompany them on a journey to deliver a letter of peace from the Malkuth Emperor, Peony IX, to the king of Kimlasca. Accompanying them is Anise Tatlin, a personal bodyguard to the Fon Master and Guy, who had come to Malkuth in search of Luke.
After the letter had been delivered, Luke and his party are sent to Akzeriuth--a territory often fought over by the two world powers because of its resources. At present, Akzeriuth was under Malkuth control, but because their bridge had been damaged, the town could only be reached by the Kimlascan side. As a result, Malkuth not only petitioned for peace in its letter but also sent an entreaty for Kimlasca to send aid to the inhabitants of the mining city who were suffering from the plague known as the Miasma. The Miasma is a deadly poison that kills over extended periods of inhalation.
Sent as an ambassador of peace, and now accompanied not only by his earlier party but also by his fiancee, Natalia, Luke goes to Akzeriuth with another idea instilled in his mind: Van told him that he had been confined to the manor not because of his trauma but because he was able to produce a hyperresonance on his own, something thought to be impossible. Because hyperresonance is so destructive, Kimlasca had decided to use him as a weapon of war, and in truth, the Score predicts that the events at Akzeriuth would start a war instead of prevent it. Van lured Luke in with the idea that using his hyperresonance to get rid of the miasma would not only save the city but would also make him a hero and free him from his life in his manor.
Unfortunately, Van's true intention was to destroy the Sephiroth Tree supporting the land of Akzeriuth and destroy not only the city but all its inhabitants as well. Because the land of Auldrant is not actually on the crust of the planet but is rather floating above the crust, supported by the Sephiroth trees, when a Sephiroth is destroyed, the land in turn falls into the Qliphoth--an endless sea of miasma. Luke was manipulated into destroying the Sephiroth, effectively murdering everyone in Akzeriuth. Luke, however, refused all responsibility and was thus shunned by everyone he had trusted until then.
It's also around this time that Luke learns of his original and his existence as a replica. The shock of mass murdering an entire city, of being nothing more than a replacement meant to derail the Score, and of being so utterly used and manipulated by a man he trusted causes Luke to go into a catatonic state, during which Asch allows him to see the world through his original's eyes. Everyone, save for Tear, returned from the Qliphoth to the Outer Lands.
After seeing everyone's reactions to his irresponsibility while he wasn't actually physically present--seeing how Anise, Jade, and Natalia seemed entirely too ready to abandon him and yet how Guy, even faced with the original 'Luke' declared that it was the replica who was his best friend--and remembering things Tear had said to him earlier about taking on responsibility for killing people, even if the killing was done in self defense, Luke awakens with a resolve to change. To prove it, he asks Tear to watch over him, to act as his moral guide in a way, and cuts his hair.
When he rejoins the others, they all treat him with derision, but he still holds fast to his resolve to change. Learning that one way to save the Outer Lands is to lower them all into the Qliphoth, Luke finds his own way to save the world in using his hyperresonance to slowly lower the Outer Lands before they fall of their own accord. They also work on stopping the vibration of the planet core, which is the man-made cause of the miasma. However, as Luke is lowering the last of the Outer Lands, he quickly realizes that as a replica, he is not as capable of controlling his hyperresonance as his original. His hyperresonance is not as strong as Asch's either--thus, Asch's help was needed in lowering the Outer Lands, and eventually, they all are safely lowered. Inevitably, they are met with resistance from Van and the God-Generals: Legretta the Quick, Dist the Reaper, Largo the Black Lion, Arietta the Wild, and Sync the Tempest. Van's plan is to destroy all originals and replace them with a world of replicas--since replicas are not accounted for in Yulia's Score, replacing original--who are bound to the planet's memory--with replicas would free the world from the Score's power.
Though Luke was able to save the Outer Lands, Van left him with a haunting question: "Can you not live unless you were born for some purpose? That's why you're nothing more than a replica. Well then, you poor, pitiful replica. You were born as a throwaway pawn, a substitute to overturn Yulia's Score. That is all."
As Van fell into the core and disappeared, Luke and the others all thought him dead. However, an eerie message from Lorelei--the sentient aggregate of the Seventh Fonon, also the one whose power Luke and Asch both inherited--begs for his help in freeing him. Luke, not understanding the warning, dismisses it for now.
After a month of peace, Luke becomes depressed and begins to question the meaning of his own existence: by continuing to live when no longer 'needed', he is denying Asch of the life and existence that he was originally intended to live. His existential depression continues even through the party's next journey; the miasma has returned and is slowly killing everyone. On top of that, because the lowering of the Outer Lands was not in Yulia's Score, the inhabitants of Auldrant have become restless and have no sense of direction in their lives. Perhaps even worse, the number of replicas began to expand exponentially--throughout different cities in the world, originals who were not strong enough to survive having their data replicated began to die, replaced by barely sentient copies of themselves. The replicas were in turn persecuted, some abused or enslaved, and this knowledge certainly didn't help Luke's self-worth any.
Luke finds out from Jade that there is a way to neutralize the miasma; however, the sacrifices would be too great. Ten thousand lives and one Seventh Fonist would need to be sacrificed for the sake of getting rid of the miasma. Since the replicas had no place to go and were suffering at the hands of the originals, they offer themselves as sacrifices; since Luke was already doubting his right to live, he offered himself up as well, believing that perhaps neutralizing the miasma was his true purpose after all. Also, having discovered that Lorelei was trapped within Van, who had survived his fall into the Core through absorbing Lorelei, Luke felt that because his hyperresonance was inferior to Asch's, Asch should be the one to survive and save Lorelei. Though Asch originally intended on giving up his life, Luke is the one who starts the reaction; unfortunately, his hyperresonance is indeed inadequate. The Jewel of Lorelei, an artifact that disperses collected Seventh Fonons, had been absorbed into Luke's body and as a result, all the Seventh Fonons he had absorbed from the other replicas were separating instead of concentrating to destroy the miasma. With Asch's help again, Luke was able to neutralize the miasma, and somehow survived though the chances of surviving such a feat were next to none.
Afterward, Luke realizes that neutralizing the miasma had indeed great consequences for him: he is dying, his Seventh Fonons slowly separating. He had finally realized the true meaning of life: as long as one is alive, one wants to live, regardless of whether or not they 'deserve' to live. Knowing his remaining time is short, he resolves to stop Van and free Lorelei.
Van, in the meantime, began to replicate the island of Hod, renaming it the Glorious Land of Eldrant. Because the replication of such a large scale land began to disrupt the original land, if the replication were allowed to continue, whole chunks of the world would be completely destroyed. Luke and his friends head to Eldrant to stop Van once and for all.
Unfortunately, while in Eldrant, Luke falls into a trap--one that Asch fell for only minutes before. The trap requires one person to hold the door open using hyperresonance while the other can escape; the two of them cannot escape together. At first, Luke volunteers to stay behind, giving the reason that Asch is the original and thus the stronger of the two. Asch is enraged at Luke's lack of self-confidence and thus, challenges Luke in a final battle of the self: the winner would be the stronger and the one with the right to defeat Van. Luke is victorious and before he leaves Asch to fight several replicated Oracle Knights, demands a promise out of his original that he would survive. Asch promises, and Luke leaves him behind.
However, Asch is killed by the last few remaining knights--as he dies, he leaves the rest up to his replica and his hyperresonance merges with Luke, giving Luke the ability to control the second-order hyperresonance. A second-order hyperresonance, while much stronger than a simple hyperesonance, is also more controllable. When they face Van, Luke is told that by having the second-order hyperresonance, he has surpassed his original and his status as a replica and has become a true human being. No longer needing Van's acknowledgment, Luke fights his former Master, and with Tear's help through the singing of her hymns, Van is defeated.
Luke stays behind to free Lorelei, knowing full well that this time, he really will die. As the replicated land begins to crumble, Asch's body falls, and Luke catches his original's corpse. As Lorelei is freed, the aggregate congratulates Luke on being able to overcome the Score, and Luke begins to dissipate. The two--replica and original--are engulfed in blinding light.
And Asch's hand twitches.
TIMELINE: Right as he disappears. Before Asch's hand twitches.
SERIES: Tales of the Abyss.
AGE: Looks 18, actually 8.
HEIGHT/WEIGHT: 171cm (5'7")/68kg (150lbs)
HAIR: Short red hair with a gradual gradient, getting lighter toward the ends.
EYE COLOR: Green.
PERSONALITY: Luke has... come a long way. XD He used to be an arrogant, spoilt brat with no sense of responsibility and no sense of tact. He grew into someone more mature, someone able to shoulder the guilt of mass murder and able to kill those important to him (i.e. VAN) in the name of ideals, all while selflessly emptying his pockets to build you a bridge or an amusement park and running half-way across the world to find your gorram seeds. While still a whiner ignorant of many ways of the world (and said naivete will frustrate him to no end, but hey, unlike most men, he will ask for directions, whether said directions are "How do I get to Daath?" or "How can I save the world next week?"), Luke no longer denies responsibilities and is one of the most generous, self-sacrificing seven year olds since the Score was written. He does have a few self-esteem issues and isn't one to open up about them (he's also quite good at not being entirely self-pitying but more hopeful and determined to do whatever he is capable of doing), but he's also a godawful liar, so finding out his issues isn't that difficult. He also has something of a major guilt complex and is plagued by both insomnia and nightmares of all the people he's killed. Never one to do anything half-arsed, when he takes responsibility for something, he takes responsibility for it, and if he fails, well, he'll probably blame himself if he can't save your kitten from off that high tree branch too.
BACKGROUND: Uh. The following contains a great many spoilers, so anyone who has not played the game and intends to without being spoiled should stop reading now. Yeah. Enjoy?
Luke fon Fabre, also known as "the Light of the Sacred Flame", was the son to Duke Fabre of the Kingdom of Kimlasca-Lanvaldear. Born with hair of red and of royal blood, he was the boy prophesied in Yulia Jue's Score--a detailed prediction of the future that would lead mankind to unprecedented prosperity--who would be the catalyst in leading Kimlasca down that same prosperous path. Or in any case, he was the Light of the Sacred Flame until he was kidnapped at ten years old and replicated through a process called Fomicry. The replica was then slipped into his place as the prophesied child, as the Light of the Sacred Flame, even as Luke fon Fabre, son to Duke Fabre of the Kingdom of Kimlasca-Lanvaldear. The original Luke abandoned his previous name and life and became--
But this isn't about the original Luke--I'm apping 'Luke', the replica. 8D
Though supposedly ten years old, 'Luke' had just been born. He was a blank canvas, lacking such skills as how to walk or talk and definitely lacking any memories the original had possessed. Though he was in this completely helpless state, Luke was seemingly abandoned by his father who spent less and less time with him, and was instead raised by a servant boy four years his senior, Guy Cecil, and occasionally tutored by the original fiancee, the heir to the throne, Princess Natalia Luzu Kimlasca-Lanvaldear. It was decided that Luke was to be restricted to the manor until he was recognized as an adult, which is to say, until his twentieth birthday, for his own good--what would happen if he was kidnapped again? His complete memory loss was accredited to trauma he suffered during the kidnapping, though no one knew at the time that he was not, in fact, the original heir to the duchy. The kidnapping itself was blamed on the enemy country, the Empire of Malkuth, and Luke was thought to be safe confined as he was in the Fabre Manor in Baticul, the capital of Kimlasca-Lanvaldear.
All was good and well except raised as isolated as he was, Luke grew into a spoilt brat, ignorant of the condition of the world beyond the manor walls. As he had been found a completely blank slate, he had to 'relearn' things like how to recognize his parents' faces and had no time for more in-depth educational pursuits, such as learning the dead language, Ancient Ispanian. His only real 'escape' from his overly sheltered life came in the form of training with his sword teacher, the Commandant of the Order of Lorelei--a military-backed religion dedicated to upholding and spreading the Score--Van Grants.
In any case, Luke was supposed to stay confined to the manor until his twentieth birthday except that three years before the appointed date of his release, a mysterious woman broke into the manor during a training session and attempted to assassinate his master. In defending Van, Luke clashed weapons with the would-be assassin. This clash caused a hyperresonance--a highly destructive fonic reaction caused by two Seventh Fonists using their abilities in tandem--that blew the two of them straight out of the manor and into Tataroo Valley, a beautiful land on the edge of the Kimlascan and Malkuth border.
Luke's companion identifies herself as Tear and while she won't divulge why she was after Van's life, she does promise to take responsibility for taking Luke away from his manor and to escort him back home. Thus begins Luke's first adventure out of the manor walls.
Because of a misunderstanding, the two wind up trespassing into Malkuth territory and are caught up in a series of events during which Luke learns more about the world outside and that end with them being arrested by Colonel Jade Curtiss. Upon learning from Fon Master Ion--the supreme leader of the Order of Lorelei--and Jade that the two are on a top secret mission to form a peace treaty between the two countries, Luke and Tear offer their help and accompany them on a journey to deliver a letter of peace from the Malkuth Emperor, Peony IX, to the king of Kimlasca. Accompanying them is Anise Tatlin, a personal bodyguard to the Fon Master and Guy, who had come to Malkuth in search of Luke.
After the letter had been delivered, Luke and his party are sent to Akzeriuth--a territory often fought over by the two world powers because of its resources. At present, Akzeriuth was under Malkuth control, but because their bridge had been damaged, the town could only be reached by the Kimlascan side. As a result, Malkuth not only petitioned for peace in its letter but also sent an entreaty for Kimlasca to send aid to the inhabitants of the mining city who were suffering from the plague known as the Miasma. The Miasma is a deadly poison that kills over extended periods of inhalation.
Sent as an ambassador of peace, and now accompanied not only by his earlier party but also by his fiancee, Natalia, Luke goes to Akzeriuth with another idea instilled in his mind: Van told him that he had been confined to the manor not because of his trauma but because he was able to produce a hyperresonance on his own, something thought to be impossible. Because hyperresonance is so destructive, Kimlasca had decided to use him as a weapon of war, and in truth, the Score predicts that the events at Akzeriuth would start a war instead of prevent it. Van lured Luke in with the idea that using his hyperresonance to get rid of the miasma would not only save the city but would also make him a hero and free him from his life in his manor.
Unfortunately, Van's true intention was to destroy the Sephiroth Tree supporting the land of Akzeriuth and destroy not only the city but all its inhabitants as well. Because the land of Auldrant is not actually on the crust of the planet but is rather floating above the crust, supported by the Sephiroth trees, when a Sephiroth is destroyed, the land in turn falls into the Qliphoth--an endless sea of miasma. Luke was manipulated into destroying the Sephiroth, effectively murdering everyone in Akzeriuth. Luke, however, refused all responsibility and was thus shunned by everyone he had trusted until then.
It's also around this time that Luke learns of his original and his existence as a replica. The shock of mass murdering an entire city, of being nothing more than a replacement meant to derail the Score, and of being so utterly used and manipulated by a man he trusted causes Luke to go into a catatonic state, during which Asch allows him to see the world through his original's eyes. Everyone, save for Tear, returned from the Qliphoth to the Outer Lands.
After seeing everyone's reactions to his irresponsibility while he wasn't actually physically present--seeing how Anise, Jade, and Natalia seemed entirely too ready to abandon him and yet how Guy, even faced with the original 'Luke' declared that it was the replica who was his best friend--and remembering things Tear had said to him earlier about taking on responsibility for killing people, even if the killing was done in self defense, Luke awakens with a resolve to change. To prove it, he asks Tear to watch over him, to act as his moral guide in a way, and cuts his hair.
When he rejoins the others, they all treat him with derision, but he still holds fast to his resolve to change. Learning that one way to save the Outer Lands is to lower them all into the Qliphoth, Luke finds his own way to save the world in using his hyperresonance to slowly lower the Outer Lands before they fall of their own accord. They also work on stopping the vibration of the planet core, which is the man-made cause of the miasma. However, as Luke is lowering the last of the Outer Lands, he quickly realizes that as a replica, he is not as capable of controlling his hyperresonance as his original. His hyperresonance is not as strong as Asch's either--thus, Asch's help was needed in lowering the Outer Lands, and eventually, they all are safely lowered. Inevitably, they are met with resistance from Van and the God-Generals: Legretta the Quick, Dist the Reaper, Largo the Black Lion, Arietta the Wild, and Sync the Tempest. Van's plan is to destroy all originals and replace them with a world of replicas--since replicas are not accounted for in Yulia's Score, replacing original--who are bound to the planet's memory--with replicas would free the world from the Score's power.
Though Luke was able to save the Outer Lands, Van left him with a haunting question: "Can you not live unless you were born for some purpose? That's why you're nothing more than a replica. Well then, you poor, pitiful replica. You were born as a throwaway pawn, a substitute to overturn Yulia's Score. That is all."
As Van fell into the core and disappeared, Luke and the others all thought him dead. However, an eerie message from Lorelei--the sentient aggregate of the Seventh Fonon, also the one whose power Luke and Asch both inherited--begs for his help in freeing him. Luke, not understanding the warning, dismisses it for now.
After a month of peace, Luke becomes depressed and begins to question the meaning of his own existence: by continuing to live when no longer 'needed', he is denying Asch of the life and existence that he was originally intended to live. His existential depression continues even through the party's next journey; the miasma has returned and is slowly killing everyone. On top of that, because the lowering of the Outer Lands was not in Yulia's Score, the inhabitants of Auldrant have become restless and have no sense of direction in their lives. Perhaps even worse, the number of replicas began to expand exponentially--throughout different cities in the world, originals who were not strong enough to survive having their data replicated began to die, replaced by barely sentient copies of themselves. The replicas were in turn persecuted, some abused or enslaved, and this knowledge certainly didn't help Luke's self-worth any.
Luke finds out from Jade that there is a way to neutralize the miasma; however, the sacrifices would be too great. Ten thousand lives and one Seventh Fonist would need to be sacrificed for the sake of getting rid of the miasma. Since the replicas had no place to go and were suffering at the hands of the originals, they offer themselves as sacrifices; since Luke was already doubting his right to live, he offered himself up as well, believing that perhaps neutralizing the miasma was his true purpose after all. Also, having discovered that Lorelei was trapped within Van, who had survived his fall into the Core through absorbing Lorelei, Luke felt that because his hyperresonance was inferior to Asch's, Asch should be the one to survive and save Lorelei. Though Asch originally intended on giving up his life, Luke is the one who starts the reaction; unfortunately, his hyperresonance is indeed inadequate. The Jewel of Lorelei, an artifact that disperses collected Seventh Fonons, had been absorbed into Luke's body and as a result, all the Seventh Fonons he had absorbed from the other replicas were separating instead of concentrating to destroy the miasma. With Asch's help again, Luke was able to neutralize the miasma, and somehow survived though the chances of surviving such a feat were next to none.
Afterward, Luke realizes that neutralizing the miasma had indeed great consequences for him: he is dying, his Seventh Fonons slowly separating. He had finally realized the true meaning of life: as long as one is alive, one wants to live, regardless of whether or not they 'deserve' to live. Knowing his remaining time is short, he resolves to stop Van and free Lorelei.
Van, in the meantime, began to replicate the island of Hod, renaming it the Glorious Land of Eldrant. Because the replication of such a large scale land began to disrupt the original land, if the replication were allowed to continue, whole chunks of the world would be completely destroyed. Luke and his friends head to Eldrant to stop Van once and for all.
Unfortunately, while in Eldrant, Luke falls into a trap--one that Asch fell for only minutes before. The trap requires one person to hold the door open using hyperresonance while the other can escape; the two of them cannot escape together. At first, Luke volunteers to stay behind, giving the reason that Asch is the original and thus the stronger of the two. Asch is enraged at Luke's lack of self-confidence and thus, challenges Luke in a final battle of the self: the winner would be the stronger and the one with the right to defeat Van. Luke is victorious and before he leaves Asch to fight several replicated Oracle Knights, demands a promise out of his original that he would survive. Asch promises, and Luke leaves him behind.
However, Asch is killed by the last few remaining knights--as he dies, he leaves the rest up to his replica and his hyperresonance merges with Luke, giving Luke the ability to control the second-order hyperresonance. A second-order hyperresonance, while much stronger than a simple hyperesonance, is also more controllable. When they face Van, Luke is told that by having the second-order hyperresonance, he has surpassed his original and his status as a replica and has become a true human being. No longer needing Van's acknowledgment, Luke fights his former Master, and with Tear's help through the singing of her hymns, Van is defeated.
Luke stays behind to free Lorelei, knowing full well that this time, he really will die. As the replicated land begins to crumble, Asch's body falls, and Luke catches his original's corpse. As Lorelei is freed, the aggregate congratulates Luke on being able to overcome the Score, and Luke begins to dissipate. The two--replica and original--are engulfed in blinding light.
And Asch's hand twitches.
TIMELINE: Right as he disappears. Before Asch's hand twitches.