Final Fantasy - All Series Fan Fiction ❯ sore kara... ❯ tatakau ( Chapter 3 )
[ T - Teen: Not suitable for readers under 13 ]
By: awwaw 
Non Anime: Final Fantasy - All Series Fan Fiction | Genre(s): Adventure / Action | Type: Crossover | Uploaded On: 02.11.2003 | Pages: 2 | Words: 3.2K | Visits: 260 | Status: Completed
Non Anime: Final Fantasy - All Series Fan Fiction | Genre(s): Adventure / Action | Type: Crossover | Uploaded On: 02.11.2003 | Pages: 2 | Words: 3.2K | Visits: 260 | Status: Completed
Standard disclaimers apply.
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sore kara...
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tatakau
The next day found Squall atop the roof of the Chocobo Sage's house with some planks, nails, and a hammer. He lifted a gloved hand to shield his eyes from the piercing rays of the sun as it rose slowly in the background. It was a good thing they couldn't feel the sun the way they could see it, otherwise he'd be wondering about how to stop drowning in sweat instead.
The blue in the sky reminded him of someone. After gazing longingly for a few more moments, he sighed and picked up the tools.
How did he get into this mess? He frowned, nailing a plank over one of the cracks in the roof. They had defeated Ultimecia, but time compression had already occurred. The last thing he remembered hearing was someone crying out a warning about not falling into any time warps and getting trapped somewhere...
... someone cried out a warning...
... who... ?
The hammer slipped off his hand and rolled noisily down the roof. He clutched his head, trying to grasp the memories that came so close but failing terribly. Who? Who was it he had fought together with? Why were there no faces where the people stood? All he could see was a murky picture of a few smiling faces. Some were jumping, some were laughing. They were all very noisy. Then there was the familiar colour of blue. Could it be Balamb Garden? No... it wasn't a place, but a person... a person he knew very well...
"Hey!" A voice from below the roof jerked him out of his train of thought. He cautiously peeked over to see Kuja with one hand on his hip and the other with the hammer he had dropped. "Can you please be more careful with your tools? You almost killed me!" He pouted, and ended up looking like a school girl, even if he WAS twenty-four and male. Squall rolled his eyes.
"Whatever," he then reached out his right hand, "can I have the hammer back, then?"
He got the hammer back and watched with slight amusement as Kuja sashayed his way to the small plantation in the front of the house. That was an interesting guy if he ever saw one. He could still remember the expression on his face when Cloud asked him to 'till the fields' that morning. Although not having known the silver-haired man for long, he knew enough to tell that tilling the fields wasn't exactly his cup of tea. His expression had become even more classic when Cloud denied him usage of magic to aid with the tilling ("Kuja, you don't use earth magic to till fields unless you're trying to demolish the house, too!"). Still, it didn't stop the blond from handing him a shovel and some gloves. And Kuja knew his opinions didn't matter at all.
So here they were, a bright and sunny morning, working their butts off fixing the roof and loosening the soil. Cloud had rode the chocobo off to some village of bones, or so Squall remembered, to stock up on items before they made the journey to that famous city from the Norse legends. Squall frowned.
He hadn't heard Cloud's story, or Kuja's story for that matter. And things were happening so quickly, he hadn't had a chance to tell him *his* story. Somehow, he knew they'd have time for that, but right now, he still wished he knew at least a little of what was going on. He had fallen into a time warp. That he was sure of. Could have kicked himself for being so careless and stupid, unable to let go of the past and all so much so that he couldn't find the present. Once things softened up, he was going to ask for help to get out of this crazy compression. He sighed again, hitting the nails systematically into the planks.
So engrossed he was, he didn't see the Behemoth charging in from the plains across the fields until it was too late.
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Kuja pushed the shovel into the ground, cursing and swearing to nobody in particular. As much as he hated to admit it, Zidane was beginning to rub off him. He would have snorted at some of the words he was saying now in the past, but all he wanted to do now was to shout them out to the open fields. What in the world was he doing??? He destroyed Terra, trapped the Crystal, almost destroyed Gaia, created Memoria, found the Crystal World... just when HAD he converted from a full-time villian to a part-time farmer anyway?
Although it still didn't change the fact that he was going to die soon, he was glad that he at least had a chance to make amends to the world he almost destroyed. Oh well, that meant he needed to exercise more patience with those around him. He flicked his hair out of his face, lifting the shovel into a preparative position.
"Hmph!" He brought the shovel down. "Patience, Kuja, patience!" Some soil flew out where the shovel went. "What's this compared to trying to take over the world? You can do this! I know you can!"
The low growl from afar forced him to look up from the soil, however. Squall was still perched atop the roof, nailing the planks in with a bored look on his face. But what Squall failed to notice Kuja did, and he almost thought he wouldn't be able to make it when he levitated towards the jaded teenager and abruptly kicked him off the roof. The boy gave a yelp of surprise, but managed to find his feet before landing onto the ground. At that precise moment, the purple Behemoth leapt, flew and tore the roof apart, leaving only the body of the house intact. The beast snorted and turned around to face it's two prey, bloodshot eyes suggesting the unnaturalness of it's existence.
"What the-" Squall immediately whipped out his Lion Heart from hammerspace, getting into battle position. Kuja threw away the shovel, all too glad to be rid of that ungraceful tool, and got into battle position as well. "Since when did Behemoths become sentient?!" Squall asked, in that demanding little tone of his. Kuja turned his head and shrugged.
"How would I know?" Was the plantitive reply. Then, "Here it comes! Watch out!"
Both barely managed to leap out of the way as the Behemoth charged at full speed towards them. The beast was surprisingly fast despite it's bulk, and the fact that it seemed pretty anal over something didn't help. It roared, tossing it's head and two front legs high into the sky, at the same time releasing a jet of poisonous fume into the air. Kuja tossed a wind spell and carried most of it away, but before Squall had the chance to close in with his gunblade, it landed it's front legs and caused a massive earthquake around the region.
Kuja immediately fell over, but Squall managed to keep his ground. While his unlikely partner-in-battle tried to quickly jump back to his feet, Squall sneaked behind the purple thing and slashed-and-shot with his might at it's back. The beast roared in pain, turning around and getting ready to toss Squall into the air if need be. "Crap." Was the only thing Squall could say as he got ready to defend himself from the attack.
Before the beast could move, however, a blinding white light flashed across the area as a flare of energy burst through from the skies. It converged and rounded itself around the Behemoth, making the beast retreat in all directions in an attempt to get the sparkles away. Finally, the energy gathered at the center of the Behemoth and exploded outwards, seemingly tearing the beast apart in a none-too-civil manner. Squall leapt backwards to avoid having to pick monster guts off his hair. When the light simmered down, he could see that the beast was still in one piece, lying on the ground in a helpless heap. He frowned, but didn't say anything as Kuja walked over and examined the body.
"Oh well," Kuja stood up, hands akimbo, inwardly praising himself for the wise use of Holy, "good thing he didn't tear apart, or I don't know what Cloud'll say when he gets back here later."
For some weird reason or another, Squall could imagine the spikey-headed mercenary screaming his head off, ranting about how the Chocobo Sage was going to kill him, then forcing the both of them to sweep up the pulsating organs into a bin before personally incinerating them with the strongest fire spell he had. He chuckled at the weird expression on Kuja's face, confident that the sorcerer was thinking along the same lines.
"What are we going to do with it?" Kuja mused. Squall's mind, however, was on something else.
"I think," he said, turning to look at the house, "we have an even bigger problem at hand."
They both looked at the house.
"Noo~~~" Kuja put both his hands on his head, terrified, "Cloud is gonna kill us," he declared.
"And we're all gonna die of frostbite tonight," Squall was slightly more optimistic, believing more in natural death than death by violent hands, "whoever heard of sleeping in a roofless house so far up north?" he almost grinned, finding the entire episode morbidly amusing. Noticing that Kuja wasn't even paying attention, he sighed and walked towards the house instead. Might as well inspect the inside to see how bad the damages were, while he was at it.
He knelt down somewhere near a portion of the damaged roof now on the ground. The tiles had flown all over, and needless to say there was no point in trying to even fix them. What he was surprised at was how clean the roof had been torn off from it's buckles. It was as if the Behemoth's purpose had been the roof all along. Although it didn't make any much sense as why it would suddenly develop an attitude and start attacking when nobody provoked it in the first place...
Footsteps sounded out in front of him. Glancing upwards, he could vaguely make out a blond head looking down at him with curiousity.
"Cloud?" He asked, slowly getting up. When he rose to full height, all he saw was a tired face of the blond who had been lying in the hay stack all along, from when he was abruptly awoken by cold water to when he left to fix the roof that morning. The new guy flashed him a careless smile, putting his hands on his hips as he did that. From the back of his subconsciousness, another name popped into his mouth.
"... Zidane?" He pronounced the name with caution, wondering if he had gotten that right. Zidane's tail swished around playfully, but he didn't acknowledge the call.
"Zidane?" Came another voice from behind Squall. He turned to see Kuja walking slowly away from the body of the Behemoth to where he stood, and remembered that it was only last night Kuja was saying that he was friends with this Zidane guy. When Kuja stopped in front of Zidane, there was a queer expression on both of their faces. Squall merely stood to the side, eyeing them both oddly. "You... You're awake!" Kuja finally smiled and said, eyes glossing over ever so slightly. He was about to say something else when Zidane took a step back cautiously.
"..." Went the monkey boy, appearing to be disorientated. Looking up at the both of them, he finally said, "... do I know you?"
Time stood still.
"Hell," Zidane scratched his head and gave a silly grin, "for that matter, is Zidane supposed to be my name? I can't remember, you know." He shrugged.
For a really long time, Squall observed Kuja staring in disbelief at Zidane, and Zidane staring back like he was a fruitcake. What the heck?! - were the only three words bouncing around Squall's consciousness at that point of time. That really did it. He hereby declared himself officially lost. Once Cloud got back, he was gonna get some answers out of him, even if it meant threatening him at point blank with his gunblade.
Day passed quickly, and nightfall came.
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When Cloud neared the house, he was surprised to see smoke billowing out in great volumes through a large hole in the roof. His eyebrow twitched tremendously when he came to realize that it wasn't *just* a large hole in the roof. It *was* the roof - or rather, what used to be the roof. Great. Just great. What did Squall do, pulled out all the nails in the roof so he could fix the leak from the inside out? He shook his head and slowly made his way into the house.
He saw what he thought was an unusual sight.
The blond boy with a tail... what was his name... Zidane, was awake and sitting in the middle of the stairs leading to the top platform, seemingly deep in thought. Squall was kneeling down beside the large water receptacle which contained his chocobo's everyday necessities, and staring at something underneathe the stairs Zidane was sitting on. Kuja was nowhere to be seen - that was, until Cloud led his gold chocobo back to the stables.
"... you can't stay there forever, you know." Squall was saying to the darkness underneathe the staircase. A question mark popped out of Cloud's head, as he stroked his chocobo's chin and gently locked the indoor stable gates. He turned around and walked closer to Squall, wondering who he was talking to. Squall didn't seem to feel his presence, as he continued, "I mean... aren't you hungry? I'm not that much of a cook, but..."
A small noise came from the darkness Squall was talking to. Squall stayed knelt for a while longer, then sighed, threw his hands into the air and stood up. "I give up." He declared, turning to face the confused Cloud. "I've tried everything, threats, persuasions, coercion, even brute force. He still refuses to come out, or talk to me." He shook his head, walking up the stairs, ignoring Zidane, and settling down in front of the fireplace, poking it violently. More smoke billowed out into the open.
Although confused, Cloud went over to the darkness and knelt down too. He sort of knew who was there, but he still didn't understand what was going on. "Kuja?" He asked quietly, hoping for a response. What had happened in such a short time to reduce the over-confident vainpot to sitting in a dark corner of the house, wallowing in self-pity? "Kuja?" He tried again, trying to see where the silver-haired man was.
"Um..." a voice from behind him caused him to turn his head. Zidane then knelt down beside Cloud, looking at the confused mercenary, "... can I talk to him?" he asked, sounding a little embarassed.
"I don't see why not." Cloud stood up and rounded the stairs to join Squall at the fireplace as well. He stopped in mid-step, wondering if he should stay to hear out what the two of them were going to say to each other.
"Kuja?" He heard Zidane first. The boy then scratched his head in a familiar notion - Cloud recognized it as something *he* always did, and chortled a little.
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"... are you angry with me?" Zidane continued, wondering why he was doing this, "... for not recognizing who you are... ?"
A short silence ensued, before a sigh came out from the darkness, followed by, "I honestly cannot be, and am not angry with you, Zidane."
"Then why're you hiding in there?" The boy frowned. "Come out and let me take a good look at you, why 'doncha?" He leaned forward a little, biting his lips, feeling nervous. "Tell me who I am, why 'doncha? I'd really love that, you know."
An even more frustrated sigh came to his ears.
"Zidane," the shadows said, "I don't know what to tell you."
Somehow, that felt sincere. Zidane stood up and folded his arms across his chest, brow creased. Waking up to a world you didn't know existed, opening your eyes to a face you never remembered... for starters, he was smart enough to conclude that he was suffering from some temporal memory disorder - in short, amnesia. Next step? Find someone within the region where he had awaken in and hope that they knew him; at least enough to help him know the who what when where why and how. And then after that? Well, beat the crap outta that guy until he spilt everything? It all seemed so easy! For an unexpected moment, Zidane was stunned by the truthful tone his 'friend' Kuja was having on him. It almost seemed as if he really didn't know what to say to him.
But Zidane would not rest. He forced himself to ignore the tone his 'friend' held. He wanted to know. He had to know! How else was he going to keep living for tomorrow? For the future?
"J... Just tell me the truth, for crying out loud!" Zidane shouted, storming over into the darkness and grabbing the entity that was inside. In a short while, he had dragged the shocked Kuja out and loomed over him ominously. "Like where I came from, who my friends were, what I was doing, and... who you are, to me!"
Kuja looked at Zidane with an unwilling glint in his eye. He then stood up and dusted himself carefully, shaking his head and frowning hard. Once that was done, he snapped his head up angrily and shouted back, "I DON'T KNOW WHAT TO TELL YOU!!" scaring the living daylights out of everybody in the house, "AND YOU PROBABLY WOULDN'T UNDERSTAND OR BELIEVE ME ANYWAY, SO WHY DO YOU CARE?!"
"Woah! Hold your chocobos, people!" Cloud came running down the stairs, with Squall following behind at a slower pace. "The last thing I want is a horde of monsters clamouring over the mountains because of the din we're making," he put a hand on Kuja's shoulder, then said to Zidane, "give him a break, okay? I promise we'll talk more about this, but right now, I think we all need some rest."
"..." went Zidane and Kuja. The latter then shrugged Cloud's hand off and proceeded to walk out of the door into the open, not turning back to glance at any of them in the event. Zidane curled up his hands into fists and slammed them against the hard floor. He then sat down and remained silent and unmovable. Cloud and Squall gave each other looks of uncertainty. Cloud then shook his head and went back to the fireplace area to get ready to rest. Squall wondered if Kuja would be all right out there, then shrugged and went back to the fireplace as well.
For now, what everybody needed was some time to themselves in each other's presence. There were so many things to think about.
Then after that, there would be things to talk about.
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tatakatta
21/5 /2001
http://cloud-is.ourfamily.com/
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sore kara...
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tatakau
The next day found Squall atop the roof of the Chocobo Sage's house with some planks, nails, and a hammer. He lifted a gloved hand to shield his eyes from the piercing rays of the sun as it rose slowly in the background. It was a good thing they couldn't feel the sun the way they could see it, otherwise he'd be wondering about how to stop drowning in sweat instead.
The blue in the sky reminded him of someone. After gazing longingly for a few more moments, he sighed and picked up the tools.
How did he get into this mess? He frowned, nailing a plank over one of the cracks in the roof. They had defeated Ultimecia, but time compression had already occurred. The last thing he remembered hearing was someone crying out a warning about not falling into any time warps and getting trapped somewhere...
... someone cried out a warning...
... who... ?
The hammer slipped off his hand and rolled noisily down the roof. He clutched his head, trying to grasp the memories that came so close but failing terribly. Who? Who was it he had fought together with? Why were there no faces where the people stood? All he could see was a murky picture of a few smiling faces. Some were jumping, some were laughing. They were all very noisy. Then there was the familiar colour of blue. Could it be Balamb Garden? No... it wasn't a place, but a person... a person he knew very well...
"Hey!" A voice from below the roof jerked him out of his train of thought. He cautiously peeked over to see Kuja with one hand on his hip and the other with the hammer he had dropped. "Can you please be more careful with your tools? You almost killed me!" He pouted, and ended up looking like a school girl, even if he WAS twenty-four and male. Squall rolled his eyes.
"Whatever," he then reached out his right hand, "can I have the hammer back, then?"
He got the hammer back and watched with slight amusement as Kuja sashayed his way to the small plantation in the front of the house. That was an interesting guy if he ever saw one. He could still remember the expression on his face when Cloud asked him to 'till the fields' that morning. Although not having known the silver-haired man for long, he knew enough to tell that tilling the fields wasn't exactly his cup of tea. His expression had become even more classic when Cloud denied him usage of magic to aid with the tilling ("Kuja, you don't use earth magic to till fields unless you're trying to demolish the house, too!"). Still, it didn't stop the blond from handing him a shovel and some gloves. And Kuja knew his opinions didn't matter at all.
So here they were, a bright and sunny morning, working their butts off fixing the roof and loosening the soil. Cloud had rode the chocobo off to some village of bones, or so Squall remembered, to stock up on items before they made the journey to that famous city from the Norse legends. Squall frowned.
He hadn't heard Cloud's story, or Kuja's story for that matter. And things were happening so quickly, he hadn't had a chance to tell him *his* story. Somehow, he knew they'd have time for that, but right now, he still wished he knew at least a little of what was going on. He had fallen into a time warp. That he was sure of. Could have kicked himself for being so careless and stupid, unable to let go of the past and all so much so that he couldn't find the present. Once things softened up, he was going to ask for help to get out of this crazy compression. He sighed again, hitting the nails systematically into the planks.
So engrossed he was, he didn't see the Behemoth charging in from the plains across the fields until it was too late.
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Kuja pushed the shovel into the ground, cursing and swearing to nobody in particular. As much as he hated to admit it, Zidane was beginning to rub off him. He would have snorted at some of the words he was saying now in the past, but all he wanted to do now was to shout them out to the open fields. What in the world was he doing??? He destroyed Terra, trapped the Crystal, almost destroyed Gaia, created Memoria, found the Crystal World... just when HAD he converted from a full-time villian to a part-time farmer anyway?
Although it still didn't change the fact that he was going to die soon, he was glad that he at least had a chance to make amends to the world he almost destroyed. Oh well, that meant he needed to exercise more patience with those around him. He flicked his hair out of his face, lifting the shovel into a preparative position.
"Hmph!" He brought the shovel down. "Patience, Kuja, patience!" Some soil flew out where the shovel went. "What's this compared to trying to take over the world? You can do this! I know you can!"
The low growl from afar forced him to look up from the soil, however. Squall was still perched atop the roof, nailing the planks in with a bored look on his face. But what Squall failed to notice Kuja did, and he almost thought he wouldn't be able to make it when he levitated towards the jaded teenager and abruptly kicked him off the roof. The boy gave a yelp of surprise, but managed to find his feet before landing onto the ground. At that precise moment, the purple Behemoth leapt, flew and tore the roof apart, leaving only the body of the house intact. The beast snorted and turned around to face it's two prey, bloodshot eyes suggesting the unnaturalness of it's existence.
"What the-" Squall immediately whipped out his Lion Heart from hammerspace, getting into battle position. Kuja threw away the shovel, all too glad to be rid of that ungraceful tool, and got into battle position as well. "Since when did Behemoths become sentient?!" Squall asked, in that demanding little tone of his. Kuja turned his head and shrugged.
"How would I know?" Was the plantitive reply. Then, "Here it comes! Watch out!"
Both barely managed to leap out of the way as the Behemoth charged at full speed towards them. The beast was surprisingly fast despite it's bulk, and the fact that it seemed pretty anal over something didn't help. It roared, tossing it's head and two front legs high into the sky, at the same time releasing a jet of poisonous fume into the air. Kuja tossed a wind spell and carried most of it away, but before Squall had the chance to close in with his gunblade, it landed it's front legs and caused a massive earthquake around the region.
Kuja immediately fell over, but Squall managed to keep his ground. While his unlikely partner-in-battle tried to quickly jump back to his feet, Squall sneaked behind the purple thing and slashed-and-shot with his might at it's back. The beast roared in pain, turning around and getting ready to toss Squall into the air if need be. "Crap." Was the only thing Squall could say as he got ready to defend himself from the attack.
Before the beast could move, however, a blinding white light flashed across the area as a flare of energy burst through from the skies. It converged and rounded itself around the Behemoth, making the beast retreat in all directions in an attempt to get the sparkles away. Finally, the energy gathered at the center of the Behemoth and exploded outwards, seemingly tearing the beast apart in a none-too-civil manner. Squall leapt backwards to avoid having to pick monster guts off his hair. When the light simmered down, he could see that the beast was still in one piece, lying on the ground in a helpless heap. He frowned, but didn't say anything as Kuja walked over and examined the body.
"Oh well," Kuja stood up, hands akimbo, inwardly praising himself for the wise use of Holy, "good thing he didn't tear apart, or I don't know what Cloud'll say when he gets back here later."
For some weird reason or another, Squall could imagine the spikey-headed mercenary screaming his head off, ranting about how the Chocobo Sage was going to kill him, then forcing the both of them to sweep up the pulsating organs into a bin before personally incinerating them with the strongest fire spell he had. He chuckled at the weird expression on Kuja's face, confident that the sorcerer was thinking along the same lines.
"What are we going to do with it?" Kuja mused. Squall's mind, however, was on something else.
"I think," he said, turning to look at the house, "we have an even bigger problem at hand."
They both looked at the house.
"Noo~~~" Kuja put both his hands on his head, terrified, "Cloud is gonna kill us," he declared.
"And we're all gonna die of frostbite tonight," Squall was slightly more optimistic, believing more in natural death than death by violent hands, "whoever heard of sleeping in a roofless house so far up north?" he almost grinned, finding the entire episode morbidly amusing. Noticing that Kuja wasn't even paying attention, he sighed and walked towards the house instead. Might as well inspect the inside to see how bad the damages were, while he was at it.
He knelt down somewhere near a portion of the damaged roof now on the ground. The tiles had flown all over, and needless to say there was no point in trying to even fix them. What he was surprised at was how clean the roof had been torn off from it's buckles. It was as if the Behemoth's purpose had been the roof all along. Although it didn't make any much sense as why it would suddenly develop an attitude and start attacking when nobody provoked it in the first place...
Footsteps sounded out in front of him. Glancing upwards, he could vaguely make out a blond head looking down at him with curiousity.
"Cloud?" He asked, slowly getting up. When he rose to full height, all he saw was a tired face of the blond who had been lying in the hay stack all along, from when he was abruptly awoken by cold water to when he left to fix the roof that morning. The new guy flashed him a careless smile, putting his hands on his hips as he did that. From the back of his subconsciousness, another name popped into his mouth.
"... Zidane?" He pronounced the name with caution, wondering if he had gotten that right. Zidane's tail swished around playfully, but he didn't acknowledge the call.
"Zidane?" Came another voice from behind Squall. He turned to see Kuja walking slowly away from the body of the Behemoth to where he stood, and remembered that it was only last night Kuja was saying that he was friends with this Zidane guy. When Kuja stopped in front of Zidane, there was a queer expression on both of their faces. Squall merely stood to the side, eyeing them both oddly. "You... You're awake!" Kuja finally smiled and said, eyes glossing over ever so slightly. He was about to say something else when Zidane took a step back cautiously.
"..." Went the monkey boy, appearing to be disorientated. Looking up at the both of them, he finally said, "... do I know you?"
Time stood still.
"Hell," Zidane scratched his head and gave a silly grin, "for that matter, is Zidane supposed to be my name? I can't remember, you know." He shrugged.
For a really long time, Squall observed Kuja staring in disbelief at Zidane, and Zidane staring back like he was a fruitcake. What the heck?! - were the only three words bouncing around Squall's consciousness at that point of time. That really did it. He hereby declared himself officially lost. Once Cloud got back, he was gonna get some answers out of him, even if it meant threatening him at point blank with his gunblade.
Day passed quickly, and nightfall came.
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When Cloud neared the house, he was surprised to see smoke billowing out in great volumes through a large hole in the roof. His eyebrow twitched tremendously when he came to realize that it wasn't *just* a large hole in the roof. It *was* the roof - or rather, what used to be the roof. Great. Just great. What did Squall do, pulled out all the nails in the roof so he could fix the leak from the inside out? He shook his head and slowly made his way into the house.
He saw what he thought was an unusual sight.
The blond boy with a tail... what was his name... Zidane, was awake and sitting in the middle of the stairs leading to the top platform, seemingly deep in thought. Squall was kneeling down beside the large water receptacle which contained his chocobo's everyday necessities, and staring at something underneathe the stairs Zidane was sitting on. Kuja was nowhere to be seen - that was, until Cloud led his gold chocobo back to the stables.
"... you can't stay there forever, you know." Squall was saying to the darkness underneathe the staircase. A question mark popped out of Cloud's head, as he stroked his chocobo's chin and gently locked the indoor stable gates. He turned around and walked closer to Squall, wondering who he was talking to. Squall didn't seem to feel his presence, as he continued, "I mean... aren't you hungry? I'm not that much of a cook, but..."
A small noise came from the darkness Squall was talking to. Squall stayed knelt for a while longer, then sighed, threw his hands into the air and stood up. "I give up." He declared, turning to face the confused Cloud. "I've tried everything, threats, persuasions, coercion, even brute force. He still refuses to come out, or talk to me." He shook his head, walking up the stairs, ignoring Zidane, and settling down in front of the fireplace, poking it violently. More smoke billowed out into the open.
Although confused, Cloud went over to the darkness and knelt down too. He sort of knew who was there, but he still didn't understand what was going on. "Kuja?" He asked quietly, hoping for a response. What had happened in such a short time to reduce the over-confident vainpot to sitting in a dark corner of the house, wallowing in self-pity? "Kuja?" He tried again, trying to see where the silver-haired man was.
"Um..." a voice from behind him caused him to turn his head. Zidane then knelt down beside Cloud, looking at the confused mercenary, "... can I talk to him?" he asked, sounding a little embarassed.
"I don't see why not." Cloud stood up and rounded the stairs to join Squall at the fireplace as well. He stopped in mid-step, wondering if he should stay to hear out what the two of them were going to say to each other.
"Kuja?" He heard Zidane first. The boy then scratched his head in a familiar notion - Cloud recognized it as something *he* always did, and chortled a little.
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"... are you angry with me?" Zidane continued, wondering why he was doing this, "... for not recognizing who you are... ?"
A short silence ensued, before a sigh came out from the darkness, followed by, "I honestly cannot be, and am not angry with you, Zidane."
"Then why're you hiding in there?" The boy frowned. "Come out and let me take a good look at you, why 'doncha?" He leaned forward a little, biting his lips, feeling nervous. "Tell me who I am, why 'doncha? I'd really love that, you know."
An even more frustrated sigh came to his ears.
"Zidane," the shadows said, "I don't know what to tell you."
Somehow, that felt sincere. Zidane stood up and folded his arms across his chest, brow creased. Waking up to a world you didn't know existed, opening your eyes to a face you never remembered... for starters, he was smart enough to conclude that he was suffering from some temporal memory disorder - in short, amnesia. Next step? Find someone within the region where he had awaken in and hope that they knew him; at least enough to help him know the who what when where why and how. And then after that? Well, beat the crap outta that guy until he spilt everything? It all seemed so easy! For an unexpected moment, Zidane was stunned by the truthful tone his 'friend' Kuja was having on him. It almost seemed as if he really didn't know what to say to him.
But Zidane would not rest. He forced himself to ignore the tone his 'friend' held. He wanted to know. He had to know! How else was he going to keep living for tomorrow? For the future?
"J... Just tell me the truth, for crying out loud!" Zidane shouted, storming over into the darkness and grabbing the entity that was inside. In a short while, he had dragged the shocked Kuja out and loomed over him ominously. "Like where I came from, who my friends were, what I was doing, and... who you are, to me!"
Kuja looked at Zidane with an unwilling glint in his eye. He then stood up and dusted himself carefully, shaking his head and frowning hard. Once that was done, he snapped his head up angrily and shouted back, "I DON'T KNOW WHAT TO TELL YOU!!" scaring the living daylights out of everybody in the house, "AND YOU PROBABLY WOULDN'T UNDERSTAND OR BELIEVE ME ANYWAY, SO WHY DO YOU CARE?!"
"Woah! Hold your chocobos, people!" Cloud came running down the stairs, with Squall following behind at a slower pace. "The last thing I want is a horde of monsters clamouring over the mountains because of the din we're making," he put a hand on Kuja's shoulder, then said to Zidane, "give him a break, okay? I promise we'll talk more about this, but right now, I think we all need some rest."
"..." went Zidane and Kuja. The latter then shrugged Cloud's hand off and proceeded to walk out of the door into the open, not turning back to glance at any of them in the event. Zidane curled up his hands into fists and slammed them against the hard floor. He then sat down and remained silent and unmovable. Cloud and Squall gave each other looks of uncertainty. Cloud then shook his head and went back to the fireplace area to get ready to rest. Squall wondered if Kuja would be all right out there, then shrugged and went back to the fireplace as well.
For now, what everybody needed was some time to themselves in each other's presence. There were so many things to think about.
Then after that, there would be things to talk about.
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tatakatta
21/5 /2001
http://cloud-is.ourfamily.com/