Chapter Text
Opera Omnia: Opus Divinitas
Lost Chapter: Heart of Stone
Sarah Burtgang ( Final Fantasy Dimensions )
Voiced by: Chiwa Saito
A princess of the fallen kingdom of Burtgang, which was conquered by the Avalonian Empire. Taken captive by the empire and forced to carry out their dirty work, she is on a mission to steal the crystal of Lux when it unexpectedly chooses her to be a Warrior of Light. Generally cautious and reserved around others, she has a caring heart and becomes vocal about defeating the Empire, avenging her family, and restoring her kingdom.
LIGHTNING
Jihl Nabaat was not one of her first choices for a companion, to say the least.
The Torsion that opened as the airship started to crash had spit them out in a craggy mountain pass, with gray slate, dirt paths, and scraggly weeds that clung to the mountainside. When it had been just the two of them, Lightning wasn’t concerned about Nabaat taking her by surprise and betraying her, but when they regrouped with Lenna and Sherlotta she wasn’t sure if the others would be on their guard around her. With so few allies, Lightning wondered if Nabaat would take her chance.
“Where should we go?” Lenna asked, when they took a moment to rest after coming across a den of coeurls. “Without Mog, how are we supposed to find everyone?”
“We wait for Mog to find us,” Lightning said, dismissing her sword. “It’s our only reliable way to regroup with the others. He has our dimensional coordinates.”
“So what do we do? Just wait here?” Sherlotta asked, and her expression of distaste told Lightning everything she needed to know about her opinion on that.
Nabaat brushed her hair over her shoulder and looked around. “I say we make ourselves more accessible, at least. Work our way down the mountain pass so it is easier for the others to find us.”
“Not a chance,” Lightning said, narrowing her eyes. “You know there’s tons of monsters down that way. We’ll be overrun with just us four.”
Maybe it was best that Nabaat was close so that Lightning could keep an eye on her.
“Very well,” Nabaat said, showing her palms. “It is only natural for you not to trust me yet. But I needn’t remind you that I was a PSICOM officer – and an accomplished strategist, if I say so myself.”
“Maybe we should consider it,” Lenna said to Lightning, an imploring softness in her eyes that reminded her all too much of Serah. “This pass is like a maze, and that path was the only way down that we’ve found so far.”
Lightning was about to retort to Nabaat when a screeching sound echoed among the crags.
Sherlotta clamped her hands over her ears and scowled. “What was that?”
“Mandragoras!” Lenna exclaimed. “Sounds like they’re fighting something. Maybe one of our friends!”
When they arrived at the scene of the battle, it was to see an unfamiliar girl with blue hair and a dull yellow shawl over a leather bodice and white robe. She fended off her enemies with a sword, light on her feet and jumping in and out of range of her five mandragora foes. Two lay dead at her feet.
Lenna was the first to attack, striking one of the mandragoras with a flurry of arrows. Sherlotta followed it up with a blast of magic from her hands, while Lightning dashed to dispatch two of them together before Nabaat could join the fray herself. With four of the monsters taking their focus off the stranger, the girl finished off the last one with an elegant slice, and then all the mandragoras disappeared into Torsions.
“Are you all right?” Lenna asked, dismissing her bow. Lightning was slower to unarm herself, checking the area for more monsters, but Nabaat didn’t even lower her baton.
“I’m fine,” the girl said. She looked between the four of them, her expression yielding nothing other than what Lightning perceived to be guarded indifference. “Who are you?”
Lenna introduced them, gesturing to each of her companions in turn. “Do you know this place?”
“I do,” the girl said, apparently deciding it was safe enough to dismiss her own sword. “My name is Sarah, and you are on Mt. Burtgang.”
Sherlotta clenched her fist and grinned. “That’s great! Then maybe you can guide us out of here. I’m so tired of just wandering around!”
Sarah’s eyes widened upon seeing Sherlotta’s tail flicking back and forth, but it was brief and she schooled her expression back to show an impassive wall. “Very well. Though it is rather strange… some parts of these passes appear to be different from what I am used to.”
Lightning put a hand on her hip. “There’s a reason for that.”
Sarah remained withdrawn as Lightning explained the World of Respite to her, but through the clenching of her jaw and the widening of her eyes Lightning saw right through her mask to the doubt carefully hidden beneath it. She walked at the head of their party with Lenna, who kept a conversation going to get to know their newest companion.
“You are awfully quick to trust her,” Nabaat said to Lightning, out of Sarah’s earshot. “She could be leading us right to our doom.”
“We have to give anyone new the benefit of the doubt, at least,” Sherlotta said. “What kind of life is that, to just reject them outright?”
“She could be taking advantage of our ignorance,” Nabaat continued. “Both regarding her identity and this place. It does not seem as if she is from the same world as any of our allies. She could be anyone.”
“You mean she’s only pretending to be friendly like you did when you first came to this world?” Lightning asked.
Nabaat smirked. “Exactly.”
Lightning quickened her pace, walking past Nabaat to match Lenna and Sarah with the gravel crunching underneath her feet. “That’s the difference with what we do. We don’t immediately assume the worst of people.”
Not anymore, at any rate.
“Do you live here, Sarah?” Lenna asked, as Lightning caught up to them.
“I live in the Kingdom of Burtgang,” Sarah said, keeping an eye on their surroundings. “If I really am in a different world, I worry for the state of my people. We’ve only just emerged from the end of a horrible battle and things are still unstable. Can you show me how to go back home?”
Lenna frowned. “I’m afraid not. I’m sorry. I worry for my kingdom back at home, too. But we must have faith they’ll remain strong in our absence.”
Sarah caught Lenna’s eye, then lowered her gaze to the ground as they walked. “I see,” she said, and offered nothing more.
Lenna looked back at Lightning with a wordless gesture, as if not sure what to make of Sarah.
“Well, we know Nabaat’s wrong,” Lightning said. “If she’s ‘acting friendly’ to get our guard down, then she’s doing a bad job of it.”
Sarah shot her a look, brows furrowed. “Excuse me? Are you accusing me of being the enemy? I have no association with the Empire of Avalon.”
“If you think your enemies only consist of that empire then you’ve got another thing coming,” Sherlotta said. “This world is full of all kinds of foes. Plus, you may have forgotten – we have no idea what Avalon is.”
Sarah looked away and crossed her arms. “Right.”
“Maybe we should stop and rest for a little,” Lenna suggested. “Regain our bearings. It’s been a long day.”
A chill descended over the mountain as the sun began to set, but after Lightning built a fire she still had to deal with Nabaat pushing her issue with Sarah.
“You just let her go off on her own?” Nabaat asked, the firelight reflecting in her glasses. “No one to watch her, no one to ensure she won’t just find some way to betray us?”
“She’s entitled to her privacy.”
Lenna clasped her hands together, frowning at Nabaat. “Coming to a new world, especially with none of her friends, is overwhelming. I’m sure you remember, yourself – it wasn’t that long ago for you. Sarah is kind. I can tell, so we don’t need to talk about her like this.”
“That boy Vivi trusted me from the moment he met me, and look how that turned out for him,” Nabaat countered.
“Are you trying to get us to kick you out of the group?” Lightning asked.
Sherlotta pursed her lips as she watched Nabaat. “I think I know what’s going on here. You’re not used to the concept of trust, especially if someone’s a stranger. You think the world is out to get you, and can’t really fathom when that isn’t the case.”
Nabaat scowled at her. “You don’t know me.”
A monster roared from the darkness, putting an end to their argument.
“That’s coming from where Sarah went,” Sherlotta said, springing to her feet.
“That sounded like a wind drake!” said Lenna, rushing toward the sound. Lightning scoffed at her tendency to rush right toward the danger without a second thought – without Faris here, it was her job to look out for Lenna.
“Are you coming?” Lightning asked Nabaat, who gave her a wordless nod and followed them into the night.
Beyond their camp, the sharp rocks jutting up from the mountainside looked like teeth, casting shadows under the moonlight that elongated into fangs that almost felt like they would clench around the party. Lightning mentally pushed away Nabaat’s warnings – she would not let Nabaat turn them against each other.
They found Sarah in an open space below them in a part of the mountain that seemed to have been a quarry at some time. She had her back to a winged blue drake, which bled from a gash across its scaly chest. Opposed to Sarah, with his blade glinting under a moonbeam, was Sephiroth. He looked as if even his hair was spun from moonlight.
Lightning cursed and leapt down to fight him, but Sephiroth was too fast for her and went on the attack.
Sarah’s shortsword came up in time to parry his first strike, but she had to dodge his follow up blows which cut gouges into the earth. When she was unable to dodge further, she conjured a magic barrier to block his next attack, but the force of it launched her back toward the wounded drake. Before he could finish her off, Lightning made it in time to lock her sword against his.
“What do you want?” she asked him, staring into his eerie, unblinking eyes.
He pushed her blade off of his and leapt backward so gracefully it was as if he was floating. “Conflict. As we always do. We were summoned here for a singular purpose, and it was in my way. I sought to impale that dragon upon my blade. A trophy.” He smiled at her; the grin of a predator locked onto its prey.
Lightning clenched her jaw. She wondered if he knew their protections against death were failing.
“Cloud’s not here, so you’ve got no reason to obsess over us,” said Sherlotta, as the others caught up and checked on Sarah. “Leave us alone, why don’t you?”
“If it’s a fight you want, fight me,” Lightning said, holding her blade ready for any sudden movement.
“I’m fine,” said Sarah, refusing to back down. “It’s the drake that’s hurt, not me!”
“This wind drake is Hiryu!” Lenna exclaimed, and she fired off arrows at Sephiroth. “You hurt him!”
Sephiroth’s mirthless smile didn’t leave his face as he calmly cut her arrows from the air, and Lightning pressed her attack to avoid giving him time to retaliate. Her sword was as fast as his, but she knew enough about him to know he had inhuman endurance. As long as she kept him away from the others, they would be able to get out of this.
Sparks trailed from the end of her blade as she pressed her attack. Wielding his massive katana with one hand, he used his other to call swirling black magic in his other palm, pressing it downward where it exploded outward in a blast of energy. Lightning shrugged it off, leaping high to attack him from above while Nabaat pounced on him from behind. Her baton struck him in the back of the knee when Lightning stabbed down from above, preventing him from fully defending himself from her aerial attack.
“Stand back, everyone!” Sarah called out, and the shaking of the ground accompanied her words. An eidolon from another world – Titan, if she remembered correctly – materialized as if from the mountain itself, calling forth the energy of the earth. Lightning grabbed Nabaat and leapt away, leaving Sephiroth at the epicenter of the blast while they all shielded themselves behind Sherlotta’s magic.
When the dust cleared, Sephiroth had unfurled his black wing and floated high above them, arms spread out. He continued smiling at them as Titan faded away, but his black wing curled around him and he vanished, acknowledging his defeat.
As a single black feather fluttered down to the ground, Lightning turned on Sarah and the drake. “What happened? First rule in this world: don’t confront people like him alone.”
Sarah knelt at the wind drake’s side while Lenna and Sherlotta worked on healing it. She furrowed her brow in Sephiroth’s direction, surveying the damage left in Titan’s wake. “As I mentioned, Burtgang is my home. I ventured out to see if I could recognize any other places and I saw that man about to kill this wind drake.”
Sherlotta shook her head in disbelief. “You put yourself in danger for a wind drake you didn’t even know, huh?”
Lenna’s eyes widened and she reached out to grasp Sarah’s arm. “Thank you,” she said. “Hiryu is very dear to me.”
Sarah averted her eyes, her cheeks reddening. “It was a creature that needed help. I couldn’t hesitate.”
“As I said, wait for backup next time.” Lightning turned to Nabaat and gestured toward Sarah. “Does this suffice for trustworthy now?”
Nabaat pursed her lips. “One of these days, you will meet someone you can’t trust and you can’t use. And it will come back to bite you.”
Lightning wondered if she was just reacting to her own history of distrust and being used as a tool, as Sherlotta theorized. Or perhaps it was just her way of making up for trying to betray them. Or maybe it was something deeper, and trying to understand her former enemy was a futile effort. She decided not to voice her thoughts.
“Oh, Hiryu, I’m so glad you’re here,” Lenna said, rubbing the drake under its chin while it nuzzled its big scaly head against her. It let out a low rumble – presumably from pleasure. “When you’ve recovered, will you let us ride you? We’ll have a much easier time of finding our other friends.”
Nabaat’s eyes looked as if they threatened to leave her skull. “You want me to ride that?”
Hiryu spread its wings and let out a cry.
For the first time since they met her, Sarah smiled. “I think that means yes.”
Character abilities:
Sarah Burtgang (Swords) Non-elemental magic damage, healing/support, buffs, fixed damage based on total party dmg taken/healed
15: Brave Ballad
35: Alabaster Veil
EX: Argy
LD: Dire Shock
FR: Memorandom: Hiryu (with Lenna)
BT: Heroic Hymn: Sunder Earth
Burst theme: “Imperator,” which plays during the penultimate boss fight
Final Fantasy Dimensions uses a job system, and there's really no "canon" job for these characters. In game, you control two separate parties: the Warriors of Light and the Warriors of Darkness, and the story jumps back and forth between them, with their own pools of jobs to pick from (the starter jobs are common to both parties, though). Sarah is a Warrior of Light, so she gets the Light Warrior jobs. One unique mechanic is "Fusion abilities" that are unlocked when two abilities from different jobs combine during battle, which can then be used at will.
Personally, in my game, I made her a Summoner because I think it fits her personality, and it's one of the jobs common to both parties. Story-wise, though, I think Paladin fits her very well, since Burtgang was a kingdom of paladins. That said, the only official artwork that depicts the characters with jobs (as far as I can find) chose to depict Sarah as a Bard. So..... I basically combined all of them into one! It makes her kit a bit busy, but what can ya do. I feel it preserves the spirit of her being a magic sword fighter with support abilities so she looks a bit like a Paladin without fully being one (Paladin will go to a different character).
Brave Ballad is a Bard ability, obviously. Alabaster Veil is a support ability belonging to Paladin. "Argy" is a Summoner spell, one that heals the party, and Argy herself is also one of the guest party members who has a close bond with Sarah. "Dire Shock" is a combination of "Dire Dirge" (a Bard ability) and "Shock" (a Bard/Paladin Fusion ability). "Memorandom" is technically a Memorist ability, which is Argy's job, but the Force ability basically consists of Sarah summoning Argy and Lenna summoning Hiryu for a combination attack. Finally, her Burst is a combination of Bard's ultimate song and a Fusion ability involving the Titan summon.