Final Fantasy - All Series Fan Fiction ❯ sore kara... ❯ wakatteru ( Chapter 6 )
[ 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: 02.13.2003 | Pages: 3 | Words: 3.3K | Visits: 211 | Status: Completed
Non Anime: Final Fantasy - All Series Fan Fiction | Genre(s): Adventure / Action | Type: Crossover | Uploaded On: 02.13.2003 | Pages: 3 | Words: 3.3K | Visits: 211 | Status: Completed
Standard disclaimers apply.
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sore kara...
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wakatteru
Clo ud immediately cast Big Guard and Squall started chanting. Zidane began his fancy footwork (the author affirms that no Juventus puns were intended) with Kuja clearing the path with a constant stream of meteorites. When the Orihalcon first touched Midgar Zolom snake scale, Squall cleared away all vestiges of the baby snakes which weren't already toasted by Meteo with a Shiva summoning. With Cloud, they then joined the frontline actions just as Zidane got thrown back violently, landing unceremoniously on the conveniently-passing-by Kuja. Cloud tried not to laugh. Squall merely stood in a defensive pose against the Zolom.
"That guy..." Zidane was trying to get up, and in the event pushing Kuja deeper into the ground than he already was from the impact just now, "has the toughest skin I've ever slashed before!"
As if in reply, the Midgar Zolom breathed a stream of Beta against the heros. Big Guard took most of it off, but a couple of them still suffered minor burns. Squall dashed at the reptile immediately after that, as if trying to confirm what Zidane had mentioned. Cloud strapped the Ultima Weapon to his back quickly, deciding to switch to other means for the moment. He heard Squall's gunblade touch skin - or more specifically, it sounded like it touched Ruby WEAPON armour. When Squall leapt back to the little group they exchanged looks with each other. This was going to take long.
"Cloud," Kuja suddenly popped out from nowhere, having managed to boot Zidane off, "what's this thing's weakness?" he asked, powering up a spell in his right hand.
The blond mercenary turned around with a 'Ican'tbelieveyou'reaskingmethis' look and said, "Isn't it obvious? Ice attacks, of course."
"Right. Just making sure, you know." He smiled sinisterly, pointing evilly at the snake. "Blizzaga!"
The huge iceberg trapped the Zolom within it until it was obvious it couldn't stand it anymore, trashing around desperately to break out of the frozen chamber. It succeeded only because the strong ice spell eventually wore off, but somehow, the attack seemed to have made the snake angrier than it already was. It swung it's gigantic tail around, and although missing all of them, did manage to give them quite a nice scare. Kuja was about to go in for the kill when Cloud held a hand out.
"This might seem rather unjustifiable at the moment, but do you think you could help out in the back row for now?" Cloud gave him a silly grin. "Let the rest of us worry about getting the thing down on it's knees."
The ex-villian sulked and folded his arms across his chest. Cloud was absolutely right when he said it wasn't justiable. After all, red mages had always been more offensive-based. Still, he decided to let it go, until the heat of the battle cooled over. He obediently retreated to the back row and prepared a Curaga.
"Squall, summon Shiva again!" Cloud immediately took charge of the battle. Squall nodded and began chanting. "Zidane, attack once Shiva ices that freak!" He continued. Zidane gave a funny wink and held an 'okay' sign with his free hand. He, too, took the preparative position.
"And what will you be doing?" Kuja mused aloud, semi-interested, semi-bothered. Cloud had a distant look in his eye.
"I don't know if this is gonna work." He said, eyes still looking faraway.
"I'm going to summon Shiva too."
"?!?!" went both Squall and Kuja. Zidane turned his head, but was decidedly uninterested in what they were talking about. Squall looked at Cloud like he was the most ridiculous thing in the whole universe, but couldn't stop in the middle of a chant and so continued until the Guardian Force was ready. Cloud then gave him a nod to signify the go ahead. Although confused, Squall let the creature out of the depths of his body, where he had junctioned it. At the very same time, he saw a red orb in Cloud's Ultima Weapon glow as if in usage.
Then the Shivas came.
They both appeared, one descending from the skies and another ascending from the grounds. However, instead of immediately lifting that finger to summon the strongest blizzard upon the opponent, they suddenly dispersed into tiny, white sparkles, then slowly circled around one another. After a while, and a blinding flash of light, Shiva appeared again, looking normal, feeling normal.
Oh, but when she began to attack.
Kuja dared say he had never seen a blizzard so strong before. The ice flakes, big and sharp, acted like they had a will of their own, circling around the monster and trapping it in the valley of the canyon they were building. The snake howled and demanded to be let out by a series of bangs against the icy walls. The summoned creature was not about to let go so easily, of course. With a sweep of her icy hand she brought the worst blizzards from all four corners of the world and made them intercept one another exactly where the Midgar Zolom stood.
The destruction was imminent. Ice shards flew around the area.
By the time Shiva spun and returned to where she had always been hiding, what was left of the Midgar Zolom was simply a pitiful creature writhing about on the grasses of the island. Cloud looked at Squall. Squall looked at Cloud. They pointed at one another, but didn't know what to say. Zidane got out of his battle pose, deciding that he wasn't needed to attack anymore, now that Shiva had done everything, and simply walked towards where snake was, bending on one knee to examine it. Kuja was following closely behind.
"What a sight!" Zidane whistled, poking the scaley creature with a gloved finger. The snake writhed a little more, then stopped moving. He turned around to see Kuja looking at the monster with a thoughtful expression. Before he could ask, the silver-haired man waved for him to step aside.
"Don't mind me," he said, kneeling down and holding a hand over the creature. White mist began to rise from the collapsed body of the Zolom, from a very small wisp to a very large volume. Until finally, the body of the Zolom was no longer there. What was left was felt more than seen. Strong black magic appeared to have been the concentration of what the Zolom was. Zidane blinked at the disappearance of what had been an almost lethal enemy. When he looked at Kuja for answers, the latter had already fallen on his backside and was wide-eyed with what appeared to have been a shocking revelation.
"Zidane! Kuja!" Cloud called out from afar, sprinting alongside Squall towards their comrades. When they arrived, Cloud looked at where the Zolom used to be and shook his head in confusion. "Where's the Zolom?"
The tail-boy merely shook his head, shrugging in genuine ignorance. "I don't know. It was there just now, but Kuja did something to it... and it poof! disappeared into a puff of smoke."
"?" went Cloud, as he noticed Kuja standing up, dusting himself. "Kuja? Anything to add?" He raised an eyebrow.
"Yes." The ex-villian nodded slightly, with his eyes closed.
"The tide is coming in."
"?" went all the other three, before they finally noticed that the island they were standing on was already ankle-deep with water. Squall gacked, Cloud began to run, and Kuja followed suit. The only person seemingly not doing anything about it was Zidane, as he stood where he was, gazing at the peaceful waves that were slowly rising in height.
"Zidane?" Kuja stopped and turned back, concerned.
"Gaia..." said Zidane, with a strange look in his eye, "... used to be covered with water..."
He looked up from the waters, straight into Kuja's eyes, boring through his body even.
"Garland..." Zidane mouthed the name of their creator, shocking the tail out of Kuja. "... Memoria..."
Deciding that he had heard enough, Kuja picked a protesting Zidane up, threw him over his shoulders and jump-levitated around the islands that were still visible to mainland, where Cloud and Squall were waiting.
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"... and the next time you wanna try some backwards prophetic reading, WARN ME!" Kuja was heard shouting over the fire. Squall expertly ignored all of it, having trained all his life to shut people out as and when needed, but Cloud was having a particularly hard time trying to drink his tea peacefully while listening to Kuja lecture Zidane at the same time. Even Zidane wasn't as bothered as he was. Maybe the way Kuja was pacing was just making him motion-sick.
"Hey, cool it, brother!" Zidane grinned, putting a hand to the back of his head. "You do know that I have absolutely no idea what you're talking about, don't you?"
The silver-haired man stopped, turned to face Zidane, opened his mouth to say something, but couldn't get his voice to work. After a while, he stopped pacing and simply plonked down on the log Zidane was sitting on, letting out a long and hard sigh. Squall opened his eyes and tuned in, knowing something significant was probably going to happen soon. He picked up a cup, filled it with tea and passed it to Kuja.
"......................." went the sullen teenager, after Kuja had taken the cup. His eyes danced around the people sitting in front of the fire they had started for the night. At first, he had objected against setting up tent in the middle of a large, flat piece of grassland. So large and flat, Midgar's silouette was already visible on the far east. But Cloud had insisted, the same way he was so insistent on coming to Midgar in the first place. It was almost as if he was trying to delay their arrival. Although that wouldn't make any sense at all, considering how eager he had been to coming anyway... he really didn't know. Trying to figure things out always gave him a headache. His glance finally rested on Cloud. From since a few minutes ago he had expected Cloud to start talking about something, but it had been quite long and the spikey-headed mercenary showed no signs of being conversational. Squall brooded about it for a little more longer, then said, "Cloud?"
"... yeah?" Cloud looked up from observing the coals of the fire. Good, at least he was still attentive.
"Aren't you going to talk or ask questions or anything?" The teenager inquired. His reply was in the form of a blank look on Cloud's face.
"Ugh..." he finally managed to say, "let me off for a while, okay? I'm feeling a little motion sick." He blinked a couple of times, head in a swirl, face in a blur. "You can start asking the questions you wanted to ask, Squall." He managed a little smile, then retreated back into the dark recesses of his mind.
Squall raised an eyebrow at the notion, wondering if he should indeed bring up the topics of his concern. Noticing that Zidane and Kuja were looking at him expectantly, he cleared his throat.
"... I just... wanted to know what happened to the snake." He asked rather bluntly. From the corner of his eye he saw Zidane shrug and shake his head. Kuja, however, was behaving a little more in-the-know. The ex-villian brought his cup to his lips, pretending there wasn't a need to answer.
"Come on, Kuja, you have to at least answer me." Squall frowned, and tried his own little smile. Might as well be friendly while they still needed each other. "Or I'll be forced to tell you I spiked that drink of yours." He put a hand to his mouth in mock surprise. "Oops, I told you anyway."
He then quickly dove away when Kuja spat out all the tea that had gone into his mouth before hearing that statement. Zidane's features contorted severely. He then proceeded to laugh like crazy. Cloud put his hands to his ears, deciding that he'd better turn in for the night or risked throwing up all over the fireplace. He quietly crept towards the tent.
"Shut up, Zidane." Kuja murmured, wiping the residue tea left on his face off with his sleeves. When Zidane didn't, he flung the cup at the tail boy and managed to get him to. With a smirk, he waited for Zidane to recover from the cup and start amusing him with that ridiculously colourful language of his.
Before that happened, however, Squall intercepted, asking the same question again, "Well? Aren't you going to tell me? I might consider giving you the antidote."
"Oh, you don't scare me." Kuja rolled his eyes and looked away. "Poisoned the tea, feh. You obviously never studied your chemistry."
"Squall, tea is generically anti-poison," Cloud's disembodied voice came from somewhere, "think of something more believable the next time, heh."
"Okay, okay," Squall shrugged indifferently, "shoot me for ever trying to fool around in the first place, no? But Kuja, you still gotta answer my question." He gave Kuja a Look. Zidane had returned to his seat and was getting interested in the topic. After all, he HAD witness Kuja do whatever he had done to the reptile.
The older man in the pack sighed. "I... I don't know if you guys want to hear this, but...
"That snake, Midgar Zolom, you were calling it... it was... it was made up of Mist."
A series of dots greeted him.
"Okay, okay... Mist... how do I put this..." Kuja thought hard about it, "it looks like white smoke, but is essentially not white smoke, and is harmful for the living... but it's not like you'll die breathing it or something... Well... it's generated as a result of refining too much green stuff in the bottom of the Iifa Tree, which someone once called it the Soul Divider. The Mist itself isn't harmful, but as you saw, Mist can be used as a catalyst to produce monsters, beasts, as long as it's mixed with the right magic."
He sighed again, realizing he had began to rant.
"I... I felt that in the reptile when it laid there on the ground. I was merely trying to see if I could reverse the process and... yeah... it's true. The Zolom was created with Mist and black magic. That's why it dispersed into Mist and black magic when the process was reversed."
After that, there was an uncomfortable silence.
"You mean," Squall began, making Kuja wince as he expected the question, "you know how to create monsters using Mist and black magic, also?"
"I..." Kuja paused, "... know how to reverse the process," and half-lied. It was true, he knew how to reverse the process, but he wasn't going to tell them he knew how to create monsters too. He needed their trust. He couldn't get out of this if he merely hung on by himself.
He was going to die anyway, but... at least... he wanted to do this right...
His scathe attempts to hide the truth didn't hoodwink Squall, however, who frowned even more visibly. "A person can drink and he can spit, a person can cast and he can dispel, a person can summon and he can dismiss... a person can reverse the process of creating monsters... so he can also create?"
"Squall," came the voice, not of Kuja's, but Zidane's, "stop it."
Squall did stop, but he continued to brood.
"What does it matter?" Zidane continued, with a semi-determined expression on his face. "So what if Kuja can create monsters? So what if he can't? If he doesn't want to talk about it, why don't you... why don't WE just... leave him alone?"
"Because it involves a great amount of trust," Kuja intervened, patting Zidane lightly on the head in silent appreciation for the vote of confidence, "something not everybody gives away as readily as you do, Zidane." Turning back to Squall, he appeared hesitant, but only for a split second. He then nodded and said, "You're right, Squall. I guess there's no need to hide it at all. You can look at it as my special ability of sorts, or something, hahaha..." he cleared his throat, "... I can, and have created monsters with Mist before. Of course, I can also reverse the process if I can guess the formula, like I did with that snake. Hmmm... what else should I say... ?" He vainly struck a thinking pose.
Three blue lines slid down Squall's left eye. He coughed for attention. "So, Kuja... can you, create any monsters now?"
The ex-villian questioned the import of that question with a pointed stare and a long silence. He finally closed his eyes and shook his head.
"Can I create monsters? Yes I can, with Mist and black magic... but *can* I create monsters? No I cannot, for it would be unfair. Given an awareness but refused a will, able to think but unable to decide... it's like buying friends with money... the magic will eventually die one day... even if you created tens of thousands of monsters, all at your beck and call, you'll just find out one day that... none of them, not a single one at all... really belongs to you..."
Kuja sat down heavily onto the log. He hid his head into his hands and whispered something that was barely audible.
"... I am a monster... I know..."
Numbed by the suddenness of his words, Zidane kept looking at Kuja with a series of mixed emotions flashing by his face. Even though there were many times his mouth opened to say one thing or another, no sound eventually left his lips. He didn't know what to do. He didn't know how to react.
Squall, however, knew what he had to say. He looked up from his brooding position from the other side of the fire.
"I'm sorry."
It took Kuja some time to realize that Squall was apologizing to him. Pulling his face out from the palms of his hand, he gave the scar-face teenager an inquiring look.
"For not leaving matters as they were," Squall hastened to explain, "for not giving you space for your own little secrets," he smiled, although a mere qwerk of the lips, a genuine smile, "for... not believing you, for suspecting you hid something that would eventually cause me... cause US, to regret this partnership...
"... you made me realize that SeeDs aren't the only ones out there who're thought of as monsters because of strict adherence to instructions they have no say, no choice and no part in. I guess I should say 'Thank you', too."
Being the seeming outsider to this conversation, Zidane found himself thinking about, but unable to comprehend what they both said and meant. Somehow, what they said sounded familiar, to a certain extent he thought he could even emphathize. But how could that be possible? He didn't have any remembrance of what had happened prior to meeting the three of them in the Chocobo Sage's house. But he did remember the bright blue light, the big eye in the sky, and fragments of other things he couldn't quite piece together. What was it they were saying that made him feel so... roused? Was he suffering from some kind of selective memory disorder?
Or was someone trying to make him forget... ?
Just when he thought he had reached a door to his storehouse of memories, a sharp pain jolted through his head and brought him on his knees, cursing and panting. It didn't make the headache go away, but at least he could tell the others about it. Maybe they could do something to help.
Sure enough, as soon as he doubled over in pain, he could see Kuja hovering over him, saying something he couldn't quite hear. In fact, he could see Squall as well, shaking him gently and again, saying something he couldn't hear. Finally, he stopped paying attention to the conscious and gave in to the relentless pain wracking his body.
And maybe when he woke up, he'd forget everything...
*... everything...*
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wakatteta< br> 4/5/2001
http://cloud-is.ourfamily.com/
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sore kara...
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wakatteru
Clo ud immediately cast Big Guard and Squall started chanting. Zidane began his fancy footwork (the author affirms that no Juventus puns were intended) with Kuja clearing the path with a constant stream of meteorites. When the Orihalcon first touched Midgar Zolom snake scale, Squall cleared away all vestiges of the baby snakes which weren't already toasted by Meteo with a Shiva summoning. With Cloud, they then joined the frontline actions just as Zidane got thrown back violently, landing unceremoniously on the conveniently-passing-by Kuja. Cloud tried not to laugh. Squall merely stood in a defensive pose against the Zolom.
"That guy..." Zidane was trying to get up, and in the event pushing Kuja deeper into the ground than he already was from the impact just now, "has the toughest skin I've ever slashed before!"
As if in reply, the Midgar Zolom breathed a stream of Beta against the heros. Big Guard took most of it off, but a couple of them still suffered minor burns. Squall dashed at the reptile immediately after that, as if trying to confirm what Zidane had mentioned. Cloud strapped the Ultima Weapon to his back quickly, deciding to switch to other means for the moment. He heard Squall's gunblade touch skin - or more specifically, it sounded like it touched Ruby WEAPON armour. When Squall leapt back to the little group they exchanged looks with each other. This was going to take long.
"Cloud," Kuja suddenly popped out from nowhere, having managed to boot Zidane off, "what's this thing's weakness?" he asked, powering up a spell in his right hand.
The blond mercenary turned around with a 'Ican'tbelieveyou'reaskingmethis' look and said, "Isn't it obvious? Ice attacks, of course."
"Right. Just making sure, you know." He smiled sinisterly, pointing evilly at the snake. "Blizzaga!"
The huge iceberg trapped the Zolom within it until it was obvious it couldn't stand it anymore, trashing around desperately to break out of the frozen chamber. It succeeded only because the strong ice spell eventually wore off, but somehow, the attack seemed to have made the snake angrier than it already was. It swung it's gigantic tail around, and although missing all of them, did manage to give them quite a nice scare. Kuja was about to go in for the kill when Cloud held a hand out.
"This might seem rather unjustifiable at the moment, but do you think you could help out in the back row for now?" Cloud gave him a silly grin. "Let the rest of us worry about getting the thing down on it's knees."
The ex-villian sulked and folded his arms across his chest. Cloud was absolutely right when he said it wasn't justiable. After all, red mages had always been more offensive-based. Still, he decided to let it go, until the heat of the battle cooled over. He obediently retreated to the back row and prepared a Curaga.
"Squall, summon Shiva again!" Cloud immediately took charge of the battle. Squall nodded and began chanting. "Zidane, attack once Shiva ices that freak!" He continued. Zidane gave a funny wink and held an 'okay' sign with his free hand. He, too, took the preparative position.
"And what will you be doing?" Kuja mused aloud, semi-interested, semi-bothered. Cloud had a distant look in his eye.
"I don't know if this is gonna work." He said, eyes still looking faraway.
"I'm going to summon Shiva too."
"?!?!" went both Squall and Kuja. Zidane turned his head, but was decidedly uninterested in what they were talking about. Squall looked at Cloud like he was the most ridiculous thing in the whole universe, but couldn't stop in the middle of a chant and so continued until the Guardian Force was ready. Cloud then gave him a nod to signify the go ahead. Although confused, Squall let the creature out of the depths of his body, where he had junctioned it. At the very same time, he saw a red orb in Cloud's Ultima Weapon glow as if in usage.
Then the Shivas came.
They both appeared, one descending from the skies and another ascending from the grounds. However, instead of immediately lifting that finger to summon the strongest blizzard upon the opponent, they suddenly dispersed into tiny, white sparkles, then slowly circled around one another. After a while, and a blinding flash of light, Shiva appeared again, looking normal, feeling normal.
Oh, but when she began to attack.
Kuja dared say he had never seen a blizzard so strong before. The ice flakes, big and sharp, acted like they had a will of their own, circling around the monster and trapping it in the valley of the canyon they were building. The snake howled and demanded to be let out by a series of bangs against the icy walls. The summoned creature was not about to let go so easily, of course. With a sweep of her icy hand she brought the worst blizzards from all four corners of the world and made them intercept one another exactly where the Midgar Zolom stood.
The destruction was imminent. Ice shards flew around the area.
By the time Shiva spun and returned to where she had always been hiding, what was left of the Midgar Zolom was simply a pitiful creature writhing about on the grasses of the island. Cloud looked at Squall. Squall looked at Cloud. They pointed at one another, but didn't know what to say. Zidane got out of his battle pose, deciding that he wasn't needed to attack anymore, now that Shiva had done everything, and simply walked towards where snake was, bending on one knee to examine it. Kuja was following closely behind.
"What a sight!" Zidane whistled, poking the scaley creature with a gloved finger. The snake writhed a little more, then stopped moving. He turned around to see Kuja looking at the monster with a thoughtful expression. Before he could ask, the silver-haired man waved for him to step aside.
"Don't mind me," he said, kneeling down and holding a hand over the creature. White mist began to rise from the collapsed body of the Zolom, from a very small wisp to a very large volume. Until finally, the body of the Zolom was no longer there. What was left was felt more than seen. Strong black magic appeared to have been the concentration of what the Zolom was. Zidane blinked at the disappearance of what had been an almost lethal enemy. When he looked at Kuja for answers, the latter had already fallen on his backside and was wide-eyed with what appeared to have been a shocking revelation.
"Zidane! Kuja!" Cloud called out from afar, sprinting alongside Squall towards their comrades. When they arrived, Cloud looked at where the Zolom used to be and shook his head in confusion. "Where's the Zolom?"
The tail-boy merely shook his head, shrugging in genuine ignorance. "I don't know. It was there just now, but Kuja did something to it... and it poof! disappeared into a puff of smoke."
"?" went Cloud, as he noticed Kuja standing up, dusting himself. "Kuja? Anything to add?" He raised an eyebrow.
"Yes." The ex-villian nodded slightly, with his eyes closed.
"The tide is coming in."
"?" went all the other three, before they finally noticed that the island they were standing on was already ankle-deep with water. Squall gacked, Cloud began to run, and Kuja followed suit. The only person seemingly not doing anything about it was Zidane, as he stood where he was, gazing at the peaceful waves that were slowly rising in height.
"Zidane?" Kuja stopped and turned back, concerned.
"Gaia..." said Zidane, with a strange look in his eye, "... used to be covered with water..."
He looked up from the waters, straight into Kuja's eyes, boring through his body even.
"Garland..." Zidane mouthed the name of their creator, shocking the tail out of Kuja. "... Memoria..."
Deciding that he had heard enough, Kuja picked a protesting Zidane up, threw him over his shoulders and jump-levitated around the islands that were still visible to mainland, where Cloud and Squall were waiting.
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"... and the next time you wanna try some backwards prophetic reading, WARN ME!" Kuja was heard shouting over the fire. Squall expertly ignored all of it, having trained all his life to shut people out as and when needed, but Cloud was having a particularly hard time trying to drink his tea peacefully while listening to Kuja lecture Zidane at the same time. Even Zidane wasn't as bothered as he was. Maybe the way Kuja was pacing was just making him motion-sick.
"Hey, cool it, brother!" Zidane grinned, putting a hand to the back of his head. "You do know that I have absolutely no idea what you're talking about, don't you?"
The silver-haired man stopped, turned to face Zidane, opened his mouth to say something, but couldn't get his voice to work. After a while, he stopped pacing and simply plonked down on the log Zidane was sitting on, letting out a long and hard sigh. Squall opened his eyes and tuned in, knowing something significant was probably going to happen soon. He picked up a cup, filled it with tea and passed it to Kuja.
"......................." went the sullen teenager, after Kuja had taken the cup. His eyes danced around the people sitting in front of the fire they had started for the night. At first, he had objected against setting up tent in the middle of a large, flat piece of grassland. So large and flat, Midgar's silouette was already visible on the far east. But Cloud had insisted, the same way he was so insistent on coming to Midgar in the first place. It was almost as if he was trying to delay their arrival. Although that wouldn't make any sense at all, considering how eager he had been to coming anyway... he really didn't know. Trying to figure things out always gave him a headache. His glance finally rested on Cloud. From since a few minutes ago he had expected Cloud to start talking about something, but it had been quite long and the spikey-headed mercenary showed no signs of being conversational. Squall brooded about it for a little more longer, then said, "Cloud?"
"... yeah?" Cloud looked up from observing the coals of the fire. Good, at least he was still attentive.
"Aren't you going to talk or ask questions or anything?" The teenager inquired. His reply was in the form of a blank look on Cloud's face.
"Ugh..." he finally managed to say, "let me off for a while, okay? I'm feeling a little motion sick." He blinked a couple of times, head in a swirl, face in a blur. "You can start asking the questions you wanted to ask, Squall." He managed a little smile, then retreated back into the dark recesses of his mind.
Squall raised an eyebrow at the notion, wondering if he should indeed bring up the topics of his concern. Noticing that Zidane and Kuja were looking at him expectantly, he cleared his throat.
"... I just... wanted to know what happened to the snake." He asked rather bluntly. From the corner of his eye he saw Zidane shrug and shake his head. Kuja, however, was behaving a little more in-the-know. The ex-villian brought his cup to his lips, pretending there wasn't a need to answer.
"Come on, Kuja, you have to at least answer me." Squall frowned, and tried his own little smile. Might as well be friendly while they still needed each other. "Or I'll be forced to tell you I spiked that drink of yours." He put a hand to his mouth in mock surprise. "Oops, I told you anyway."
He then quickly dove away when Kuja spat out all the tea that had gone into his mouth before hearing that statement. Zidane's features contorted severely. He then proceeded to laugh like crazy. Cloud put his hands to his ears, deciding that he'd better turn in for the night or risked throwing up all over the fireplace. He quietly crept towards the tent.
"Shut up, Zidane." Kuja murmured, wiping the residue tea left on his face off with his sleeves. When Zidane didn't, he flung the cup at the tail boy and managed to get him to. With a smirk, he waited for Zidane to recover from the cup and start amusing him with that ridiculously colourful language of his.
Before that happened, however, Squall intercepted, asking the same question again, "Well? Aren't you going to tell me? I might consider giving you the antidote."
"Oh, you don't scare me." Kuja rolled his eyes and looked away. "Poisoned the tea, feh. You obviously never studied your chemistry."
"Squall, tea is generically anti-poison," Cloud's disembodied voice came from somewhere, "think of something more believable the next time, heh."
"Okay, okay," Squall shrugged indifferently, "shoot me for ever trying to fool around in the first place, no? But Kuja, you still gotta answer my question." He gave Kuja a Look. Zidane had returned to his seat and was getting interested in the topic. After all, he HAD witness Kuja do whatever he had done to the reptile.
The older man in the pack sighed. "I... I don't know if you guys want to hear this, but...
"That snake, Midgar Zolom, you were calling it... it was... it was made up of Mist."
A series of dots greeted him.
"Okay, okay... Mist... how do I put this..." Kuja thought hard about it, "it looks like white smoke, but is essentially not white smoke, and is harmful for the living... but it's not like you'll die breathing it or something... Well... it's generated as a result of refining too much green stuff in the bottom of the Iifa Tree, which someone once called it the Soul Divider. The Mist itself isn't harmful, but as you saw, Mist can be used as a catalyst to produce monsters, beasts, as long as it's mixed with the right magic."
He sighed again, realizing he had began to rant.
"I... I felt that in the reptile when it laid there on the ground. I was merely trying to see if I could reverse the process and... yeah... it's true. The Zolom was created with Mist and black magic. That's why it dispersed into Mist and black magic when the process was reversed."
After that, there was an uncomfortable silence.
"You mean," Squall began, making Kuja wince as he expected the question, "you know how to create monsters using Mist and black magic, also?"
"I..." Kuja paused, "... know how to reverse the process," and half-lied. It was true, he knew how to reverse the process, but he wasn't going to tell them he knew how to create monsters too. He needed their trust. He couldn't get out of this if he merely hung on by himself.
He was going to die anyway, but... at least... he wanted to do this right...
His scathe attempts to hide the truth didn't hoodwink Squall, however, who frowned even more visibly. "A person can drink and he can spit, a person can cast and he can dispel, a person can summon and he can dismiss... a person can reverse the process of creating monsters... so he can also create?"
"Squall," came the voice, not of Kuja's, but Zidane's, "stop it."
Squall did stop, but he continued to brood.
"What does it matter?" Zidane continued, with a semi-determined expression on his face. "So what if Kuja can create monsters? So what if he can't? If he doesn't want to talk about it, why don't you... why don't WE just... leave him alone?"
"Because it involves a great amount of trust," Kuja intervened, patting Zidane lightly on the head in silent appreciation for the vote of confidence, "something not everybody gives away as readily as you do, Zidane." Turning back to Squall, he appeared hesitant, but only for a split second. He then nodded and said, "You're right, Squall. I guess there's no need to hide it at all. You can look at it as my special ability of sorts, or something, hahaha..." he cleared his throat, "... I can, and have created monsters with Mist before. Of course, I can also reverse the process if I can guess the formula, like I did with that snake. Hmmm... what else should I say... ?" He vainly struck a thinking pose.
Three blue lines slid down Squall's left eye. He coughed for attention. "So, Kuja... can you, create any monsters now?"
The ex-villian questioned the import of that question with a pointed stare and a long silence. He finally closed his eyes and shook his head.
"Can I create monsters? Yes I can, with Mist and black magic... but *can* I create monsters? No I cannot, for it would be unfair. Given an awareness but refused a will, able to think but unable to decide... it's like buying friends with money... the magic will eventually die one day... even if you created tens of thousands of monsters, all at your beck and call, you'll just find out one day that... none of them, not a single one at all... really belongs to you..."
Kuja sat down heavily onto the log. He hid his head into his hands and whispered something that was barely audible.
"... I am a monster... I know..."
Numbed by the suddenness of his words, Zidane kept looking at Kuja with a series of mixed emotions flashing by his face. Even though there were many times his mouth opened to say one thing or another, no sound eventually left his lips. He didn't know what to do. He didn't know how to react.
Squall, however, knew what he had to say. He looked up from his brooding position from the other side of the fire.
"I'm sorry."
It took Kuja some time to realize that Squall was apologizing to him. Pulling his face out from the palms of his hand, he gave the scar-face teenager an inquiring look.
"For not leaving matters as they were," Squall hastened to explain, "for not giving you space for your own little secrets," he smiled, although a mere qwerk of the lips, a genuine smile, "for... not believing you, for suspecting you hid something that would eventually cause me... cause US, to regret this partnership...
"... you made me realize that SeeDs aren't the only ones out there who're thought of as monsters because of strict adherence to instructions they have no say, no choice and no part in. I guess I should say 'Thank you', too."
Being the seeming outsider to this conversation, Zidane found himself thinking about, but unable to comprehend what they both said and meant. Somehow, what they said sounded familiar, to a certain extent he thought he could even emphathize. But how could that be possible? He didn't have any remembrance of what had happened prior to meeting the three of them in the Chocobo Sage's house. But he did remember the bright blue light, the big eye in the sky, and fragments of other things he couldn't quite piece together. What was it they were saying that made him feel so... roused? Was he suffering from some kind of selective memory disorder?
Or was someone trying to make him forget... ?
Just when he thought he had reached a door to his storehouse of memories, a sharp pain jolted through his head and brought him on his knees, cursing and panting. It didn't make the headache go away, but at least he could tell the others about it. Maybe they could do something to help.
Sure enough, as soon as he doubled over in pain, he could see Kuja hovering over him, saying something he couldn't quite hear. In fact, he could see Squall as well, shaking him gently and again, saying something he couldn't hear. Finally, he stopped paying attention to the conscious and gave in to the relentless pain wracking his body.
And maybe when he woke up, he'd forget everything...
*... everything...*
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wakatteta< br> 4/5/2001
http://cloud-is.ourfamily.com/