If he could act on hindsight, Kratos would have willingly gone back in time and punched himself in the face at the Tower of Salvation for what he'd done, even though he knew that at the time, there was no way he would have disregarded orders, no matter how conflicted he might have felt. That Kratos had still been Yggdrasill's man, had been utterly convinced that he could and would rid himself of the last vestige of his ill-fated attempt at independence up until the very moment he'd raised his sword above Lloyd's head and found himself shockingly unable to bring it down. It was only then that his resolve, the resolve he'd thought he'd rebuilt so solidly over the past fourteen years, had proved paper thin, only then that he had realized what Anna had done to him was in fact irreversible.

"And yet, I did," Kratos said softly as he retracted his hand. "And I had my reasons for everything I ever did to you - long, complicated reasons that I thought would let things turn out for the best. Now, of course, I know that they were all wrong...

"I will not try to excuse my actions to you, Lloyd." As your father--no, he wasn't ready to say that. More importantly, he had no right to say that. Not yet. In the mean time, he would face the consequences of all the lies and poor decisions he'd ever made. There would be no Yuan to come between the two of them, no passing of time to soften Lloyd's rage. He would face it all now, as perhaps he had always wanted to.