Every shard of cruelty that any of you might feel at the moment is also felt by me, I assure you. This is the second anniversary I've had to celebrate alone, after all.

[And even for the one before that, Bartz had still been in this world but not in the same city. He's not sure if that counts.]

Learning that people you'd just seen had preceded you here, especially by months, must have been extremely confusing. But I've no doubt everyone's presence was worth the initial confusion and the loss that followed.