When Ryuji gives up his Grand Cause and settles onto the land, he loses his life. Before his death, his thoughts drift back to the glory that he has longed to pursue: " Emperor palms. Wine palms. Surging out of the splendor of the sea, death had swept down on him like a stormy bank of clouds. A vision of death now eternally beyond his reach, majestic, acclaimed, heroic death unfurled its rapture across his brain. And if the world had been provided for just this radiant death, then why shouldn't the world also perish for it!"