Final Fantasy - All Series Fan Fiction ❯ sore kara... ❯ haha naru kodai no ki da ( Chapter 22 )
[ 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: 02.23.2003 | Pages: 3 | Words: 2.5K | Visits: 185 | Status: Completed
Non Anime: Final Fantasy - All Series Fan Fiction | Genre(s): Adventure / Action | Type: Crossover | Uploaded On: 02.23.2003 | Pages: 3 | Words: 2.5K | Visits: 185 | Status: Completed
Standard disclaimers apply.
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sore kara...
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haha naru kodai no ki da
"In any case, this is one spunky looking ship!" Zidane proclaimed loudly as he re-entered the Invincible's control room, where Kuja had yet to budge from. He did not notice the obvious cringe Kuja got when he said that.
"Just hang on tight," the silver-haired man touched the globe again, making the ship produce a rather strange sound, much like it was changing gears. "We're about to jump into Gaia after going through that portal," he pointed at an area of diffusion before the speeding Invincible, visible through the clear panels of the control room.
"Am I supposed to expect anything to happen during that period?" The bandit decided to get his facts right before planning his next move.
To this, Kuja merely shrugged. "Not that I know of, since we're in the Invincible."
Silently cheering, the monkey located a corner in the control room and sat himself comfortably there, content to let the older genome handle all the hard work.
Another while more and Zidane's eyes had shut.
Kuja removed his hands from the globe, pulling the Invincible to a stop right before the portal, shimmering with welcome. Wordlessly he walked towards where the blond bandit had his arms crossed and was currently making slightly audible nose sounds. He bent down, as if to check whether the boy was truly asleep - only to cast a Sleep spell on him to make sure he was.
The boy stirred and then dropped back into the depths of slumber, with a heavy sound as his skull connected with the Invincible's flooring. Kuja rose to full height and glanced around the room with an unreadable expression on his face. Finally, he spoke up.
"I know you're there, Garland. Might as well come out and talk..."
The way the icicles dripped off his voice, however, it didn't seem like he was prepared to hold any form of civil conversation with the object of his attention.
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"I don't know what you think, but I sure as anything think that we're back on Gaia."
Squall looked up at his approaching companion from where he was sitting. The blond haired mercenary stepped into the clearing cautiously, glancing around the forested area in search of any predator in hiding. Finding none, he cocked his head to a side and smiled crookedly at the moody teenager.
"Yeah... back at Gaia..." was the SeeD's uninterested reply.
After that, was silence.
"So, err..." Cloud run a hand through his hair, attempting to hold a conversation, "... you... thinking of something?"
The sullen teenager didn't reply.
A while later, Cloud finally shrugged and gave up. Perhaps now would be a good time to recollect what had happened. And as far as Cloud was concerned he only consciously remembered one thing.
The sorceress Ultimecia.
The name of the sorceress behind all the trouble they were having now.
That lady in red which Squall had referred to as Ultimecia did not give him as bad a shudder as he had expected. On the contrary, she emitted an aura of depression so thick, it was choking. What happened, and what was going to happen from now on? Cloud had no idea, and Squall most definitely was not going to speak his mind just yet. Sighing again, the older person paced around the clearing to try to untie the knots in his mind and stomach.
"That wasn't Ultimecia."
As if he had read Cloud's mind, Squall spoke those words out loud, a glint of confusion within his eyes nevertheless.
Curious, the blond mercenary spun around so he faced the moody teenager. "And I was pretty sure you were the one who called her that, when we were in the training centre."
The boy immediately furrowed his brows, wanting to say something but not knowing how to. "It... just wasn't her!" He ended up saying anyway. It was the worse kind of argument he could get himself involved with - the kind which he had no evidence to back him up other than pure instinct - but yet he had never been more sure. The apparition he had thought to be Ultimecia... just didn't feel like her. Maybe it was her, but there was something more to this than just that.
Her last words especially had been deeply engraved onto his heart.
What was it about her that made her so familiar... and yet so faraway... ?
"Well anyway," he tore away from his train of thoughts when he heard Cloud reply, "this isn't exactly the best time to be talking about that." He invited Squall to look around themselves with a sign of his hand. "Want to first figure out where we are and how we can get back into civilization?"
Squall had to take a really deep breath to finally push all thoughts about the sorceress away from his mind. He stood stiffly up and looked at his partner, trying to communicate his readiness. Of course, Cloud quickly saw through the stiffness and sighed, shaking his head sadly. Obviously it was going to be a long time before the SeeD can really pull himself together.
Cloud put a hand on a nearby tree for support, so that he could sigh dramatically.
It was dramatic, indeed.
The moment his hand touched the tree the earth quaked and tremored in response. Quickly he retracted his arm, but it didn't stop the quake in any way. It was difficult standing firmly on the ground, but surprisingly, it wasn't exactly impossible. When he finally caught onto the momentum of the trembling, something large burst out from the ground behind him, uprooting a few trees in the event and casting a heavy shadow of loom over his back. Instinctively he bounded forward and then turned around to behold the thing in it's full glory. By the time he did that, the trembling had stopped, and there was a new addition to the scene they previously had not known to be there.
"What the-" Cloud could not believe his eyes.
It was Squall who stepped ahead of him first to examine the large structure. The thing was tall - almost twice Squall's height - and had a narrow, gaping entrance which led into pitch darkness. The boy stood just at it's line of entry, taking in the sounds that were coming out from within. It appeared to be just a massive thing carved of nature, much like how the interior of the Lunatic Pandora was shaped. Even it's glowing jade-like texture was similar. The young mercenary bit his lips nervously. Just as it had been previously at the ruined Balamb Garden, this structure gave off an aura which demanded his attention. It beckoned at him, wanting him to enter and find out for himself what awaited him inside.
Dangerous, but so, so appealing.
"Tell me you're not thinking of going in there."
Once again, Cloud brought him back into reality.
"......................."
Was Squall's poignant reply.
"Oh... great..." The blond put his face in his hand.
"I mean..." Squall mumbled, "... surely nothing could go wrong this time, if we go in there together..."
"......" It was Cloud's turn to be poignant.
"We can't find anything out by just standing around this clearing doing nothing, anyway..."
"And we can find everything out by going in there and sending ourselves to our doom, right?" The older man rolled his eyes.
"Well I don't know." Squall shrugged indifferently. "I just know that I wanna go inside there to investigate. It's better than walking in the forest for the whole day."
They stared at each other for a moment.
"I guess you have a point," Cloud finally gave up, "but we turn back the moment any danger is sensed, you get that?"
"Sure." The boy smiled slightly. He took a step forward, and into the darkness, followed soon by his partner.
Their footsteps echoed ominously into the heart of the structure, which slowly inclined downwards. No longer could their voices be heard, for they had both fallen silent.
As soon as the sounds of boots trodding on hard soil completely faded out from hearing range of the dark, looming entrance, the jade-like structure vanished without a trace.
The forest resumed it's normal outlook.
It was like nobody had ever stepped foot in it before.
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"Sure is one dark place." Cloud commented drily. They had stopped descending down a path he had imagined to be steps and now stood in front of a looming corridor which was lighted by only a fire torch on each side of it's walls. Squall was about to take a step forward when Cloud stopped him, frowning slightly.
"What is it?" Squall asked.
"I don't know for sure," Cloud merely side-stepped and deftly grabbed a torch off it's place on the wall, holding it out as far as his arm allowed him to without taking a single step forward. "This place just feels weird."
Without another word, he flung the torch forward. The metallic fixture hit the ground and produced a hard chime, bouncing a few more times before coming to a rolling stop.
The fire continued to burn in it's placeholder. Not two seconds after the torch came to a stop, however, the fire was cut out like a large object had clamped it shut to deprive it of air. As if that was a trigger, the entire corridor suddenly gushed with new light, flames bursting forth from torches lined up against the walls in the darkness, previously unlit. Both Cloud and Squall took some time to marvel at what was going on, before locking their sights on an opening some distance away, down the straight passageway.
There was only time to glance briefly at each other before breaking into a run towards the chamber.
Perhaps they would find what they were looking for there?
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"As perceptive as I have created you to be, I see, but stubborn and relentless, nevertheless." A loud, booming voice entered the control room before it's source even reached the visible entrance.
Kuja narrowed his eyes cautiously. "Garland..." He snarled. "... you knew all about this time compression thing..."
"I only know," the tall, grand looking man stepped into Kuja's line of sight, "what the oracles tell us..."
"?" Kuja frowned, unable to understand what Garland had just said.
They stood, quietly considering each other's presence.
"Let us go to Gaia." Garland finally broke the silence. "Perhaps that is the place in which you can find the answers you are looking for."
The silver-haired man found himself unable to say anything in reply. Before he could gather his thoughts to ask why they had to go to Gaia, however, the Invincible's engines roared to movement once more, and headed straight for the portal they had stopped in front of. "What the-" The ex-villian almost lost his footing with the airship's sudden jerk. Quickly glancing up to demand an answer from Garland, he was surprised to find that the older man had disappeared from the door.
He turned around warily, and just as he had expected, found the dark-clad senior citizen hovering just slightly above the control globe, directing the Invincible's every move.
"What do you think you're doing?!" Kuja felt an inexplainable sort of rage boiling within him. Of course, Garland didn't even bother to reply, less say turn around. The Invincible soared through the Terran skies and slowly dissolved into the portal that would lead them to Gaia, despite Kuja's loud protests.
Outside the airship, swirls of bright colours greeted them, threatening to engulf them. The sturdy ship showed no signs of breaking or slowing down, however, and kept at it's pace, journeying towards the unknown destination. Blinded temporarily by the bright lights, Kuja had to look away for a while, until he was sure his eyes had adjusted properly. Glancing nervously out of the window, he could see the exit of the portal just straight ahead. Somehow it twisted his nerves so much that he forgot Garland was piloting the ship. All he managed to do was to grip his fists tightly, as the Invincible broke through the vortex and hovered quietly above the oceanic region of the Shimmering Island.
Above them, the portal regressed and soon was no more. Kuja felt like he had just been punched in the guts, as he took in the whole of Gaia once more from the control room of the Invincible.
He could see that Gaia was currently still uncultivated. Trees swamped every single continent as far as the eye could see, and the silence was painful to the ear.
Something was not right about the current scene, though. Kuja briefly recalled what he knew about the land. Suddenly the light dawned, and the silver-haired man stuttered, "Wait... whe- where's the Iifa Tree?" He blinked in disbelief. From what he had known, the Iifa Tree had been with the planet before the other plants grew; which was why it was called the mother of all trees. Now that there were other trees but NO Iifa Tree...
Without a word Garland proceeded to pilot the Invincible where the Iifa Tree was supposed to be. There were trees covering the entire length of the continent, all the way up to the mountains, some even near the beaches. However, there was a curious cirucular clearing right in the middle of the land of the continent. No trees went near it. No leaf or canopy covered it. The grass were of a standard height, and a standard colour. It was peculiar, but that was not what Kuja had noticed about the clearing.
It was that this clearing was exactly where the center of the Iifa Tree should have been.
Garland continued to say nothing. The Invincible rounded the area until it's bottom Eye was exactly above the weird clearing. Kuja quickly eyed the older man with a deep frown, questions evident in his stare. Despite the burning urge to know, the ex-villian refused to ask anything to the balding old man unless it was absolutely necessary.
He watched carefully, as Garland retrieved something from within his dark robes.
It looked like a little seed.
"From here," Garland's voice boomed once more, "things will begin."
"... what?" Kuja blinked, puzzled.
With one gloved hand on the globe, Garland did something and made the ground beneath the clearing open up into a large crevass. This scene stayed for a while, as Kuja stared and wondered what had just happened, before Garland finally placed the tiny seed he had withdrew atop the globe and then pushed it down until the seed could no longer be seen.
Like it had been swallowed up by the blood-red globe.
If one were to look from a long distance away, one would see a bright, shimmering trail slowly descending from the Eye of the Invincible. Before long it entered into the hole in the ground that was the clearing. A short while after that the whole of Gaia shook and trembled violently.
As if... it was in great pain...
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haha naru kodai no ki datta
26/7/2002
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sore kara...
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haha naru kodai no ki da
"In any case, this is one spunky looking ship!" Zidane proclaimed loudly as he re-entered the Invincible's control room, where Kuja had yet to budge from. He did not notice the obvious cringe Kuja got when he said that.
"Just hang on tight," the silver-haired man touched the globe again, making the ship produce a rather strange sound, much like it was changing gears. "We're about to jump into Gaia after going through that portal," he pointed at an area of diffusion before the speeding Invincible, visible through the clear panels of the control room.
"Am I supposed to expect anything to happen during that period?" The bandit decided to get his facts right before planning his next move.
To this, Kuja merely shrugged. "Not that I know of, since we're in the Invincible."
Silently cheering, the monkey located a corner in the control room and sat himself comfortably there, content to let the older genome handle all the hard work.
Another while more and Zidane's eyes had shut.
Kuja removed his hands from the globe, pulling the Invincible to a stop right before the portal, shimmering with welcome. Wordlessly he walked towards where the blond bandit had his arms crossed and was currently making slightly audible nose sounds. He bent down, as if to check whether the boy was truly asleep - only to cast a Sleep spell on him to make sure he was.
The boy stirred and then dropped back into the depths of slumber, with a heavy sound as his skull connected with the Invincible's flooring. Kuja rose to full height and glanced around the room with an unreadable expression on his face. Finally, he spoke up.
"I know you're there, Garland. Might as well come out and talk..."
The way the icicles dripped off his voice, however, it didn't seem like he was prepared to hold any form of civil conversation with the object of his attention.
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"I don't know what you think, but I sure as anything think that we're back on Gaia."
Squall looked up at his approaching companion from where he was sitting. The blond haired mercenary stepped into the clearing cautiously, glancing around the forested area in search of any predator in hiding. Finding none, he cocked his head to a side and smiled crookedly at the moody teenager.
"Yeah... back at Gaia..." was the SeeD's uninterested reply.
After that, was silence.
"So, err..." Cloud run a hand through his hair, attempting to hold a conversation, "... you... thinking of something?"
The sullen teenager didn't reply.
A while later, Cloud finally shrugged and gave up. Perhaps now would be a good time to recollect what had happened. And as far as Cloud was concerned he only consciously remembered one thing.
The sorceress Ultimecia.
The name of the sorceress behind all the trouble they were having now.
That lady in red which Squall had referred to as Ultimecia did not give him as bad a shudder as he had expected. On the contrary, she emitted an aura of depression so thick, it was choking. What happened, and what was going to happen from now on? Cloud had no idea, and Squall most definitely was not going to speak his mind just yet. Sighing again, the older person paced around the clearing to try to untie the knots in his mind and stomach.
"That wasn't Ultimecia."
As if he had read Cloud's mind, Squall spoke those words out loud, a glint of confusion within his eyes nevertheless.
Curious, the blond mercenary spun around so he faced the moody teenager. "And I was pretty sure you were the one who called her that, when we were in the training centre."
The boy immediately furrowed his brows, wanting to say something but not knowing how to. "It... just wasn't her!" He ended up saying anyway. It was the worse kind of argument he could get himself involved with - the kind which he had no evidence to back him up other than pure instinct - but yet he had never been more sure. The apparition he had thought to be Ultimecia... just didn't feel like her. Maybe it was her, but there was something more to this than just that.
Her last words especially had been deeply engraved onto his heart.
What was it about her that made her so familiar... and yet so faraway... ?
"Well anyway," he tore away from his train of thoughts when he heard Cloud reply, "this isn't exactly the best time to be talking about that." He invited Squall to look around themselves with a sign of his hand. "Want to first figure out where we are and how we can get back into civilization?"
Squall had to take a really deep breath to finally push all thoughts about the sorceress away from his mind. He stood stiffly up and looked at his partner, trying to communicate his readiness. Of course, Cloud quickly saw through the stiffness and sighed, shaking his head sadly. Obviously it was going to be a long time before the SeeD can really pull himself together.
Cloud put a hand on a nearby tree for support, so that he could sigh dramatically.
It was dramatic, indeed.
The moment his hand touched the tree the earth quaked and tremored in response. Quickly he retracted his arm, but it didn't stop the quake in any way. It was difficult standing firmly on the ground, but surprisingly, it wasn't exactly impossible. When he finally caught onto the momentum of the trembling, something large burst out from the ground behind him, uprooting a few trees in the event and casting a heavy shadow of loom over his back. Instinctively he bounded forward and then turned around to behold the thing in it's full glory. By the time he did that, the trembling had stopped, and there was a new addition to the scene they previously had not known to be there.
"What the-" Cloud could not believe his eyes.
It was Squall who stepped ahead of him first to examine the large structure. The thing was tall - almost twice Squall's height - and had a narrow, gaping entrance which led into pitch darkness. The boy stood just at it's line of entry, taking in the sounds that were coming out from within. It appeared to be just a massive thing carved of nature, much like how the interior of the Lunatic Pandora was shaped. Even it's glowing jade-like texture was similar. The young mercenary bit his lips nervously. Just as it had been previously at the ruined Balamb Garden, this structure gave off an aura which demanded his attention. It beckoned at him, wanting him to enter and find out for himself what awaited him inside.
Dangerous, but so, so appealing.
"Tell me you're not thinking of going in there."
Once again, Cloud brought him back into reality.
"......................."
Was Squall's poignant reply.
"Oh... great..." The blond put his face in his hand.
"I mean..." Squall mumbled, "... surely nothing could go wrong this time, if we go in there together..."
"......" It was Cloud's turn to be poignant.
"We can't find anything out by just standing around this clearing doing nothing, anyway..."
"And we can find everything out by going in there and sending ourselves to our doom, right?" The older man rolled his eyes.
"Well I don't know." Squall shrugged indifferently. "I just know that I wanna go inside there to investigate. It's better than walking in the forest for the whole day."
They stared at each other for a moment.
"I guess you have a point," Cloud finally gave up, "but we turn back the moment any danger is sensed, you get that?"
"Sure." The boy smiled slightly. He took a step forward, and into the darkness, followed soon by his partner.
Their footsteps echoed ominously into the heart of the structure, which slowly inclined downwards. No longer could their voices be heard, for they had both fallen silent.
As soon as the sounds of boots trodding on hard soil completely faded out from hearing range of the dark, looming entrance, the jade-like structure vanished without a trace.
The forest resumed it's normal outlook.
It was like nobody had ever stepped foot in it before.
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"Sure is one dark place." Cloud commented drily. They had stopped descending down a path he had imagined to be steps and now stood in front of a looming corridor which was lighted by only a fire torch on each side of it's walls. Squall was about to take a step forward when Cloud stopped him, frowning slightly.
"What is it?" Squall asked.
"I don't know for sure," Cloud merely side-stepped and deftly grabbed a torch off it's place on the wall, holding it out as far as his arm allowed him to without taking a single step forward. "This place just feels weird."
Without another word, he flung the torch forward. The metallic fixture hit the ground and produced a hard chime, bouncing a few more times before coming to a rolling stop.
The fire continued to burn in it's placeholder. Not two seconds after the torch came to a stop, however, the fire was cut out like a large object had clamped it shut to deprive it of air. As if that was a trigger, the entire corridor suddenly gushed with new light, flames bursting forth from torches lined up against the walls in the darkness, previously unlit. Both Cloud and Squall took some time to marvel at what was going on, before locking their sights on an opening some distance away, down the straight passageway.
There was only time to glance briefly at each other before breaking into a run towards the chamber.
Perhaps they would find what they were looking for there?
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"As perceptive as I have created you to be, I see, but stubborn and relentless, nevertheless." A loud, booming voice entered the control room before it's source even reached the visible entrance.
Kuja narrowed his eyes cautiously. "Garland..." He snarled. "... you knew all about this time compression thing..."
"I only know," the tall, grand looking man stepped into Kuja's line of sight, "what the oracles tell us..."
"?" Kuja frowned, unable to understand what Garland had just said.
They stood, quietly considering each other's presence.
"Let us go to Gaia." Garland finally broke the silence. "Perhaps that is the place in which you can find the answers you are looking for."
The silver-haired man found himself unable to say anything in reply. Before he could gather his thoughts to ask why they had to go to Gaia, however, the Invincible's engines roared to movement once more, and headed straight for the portal they had stopped in front of. "What the-" The ex-villian almost lost his footing with the airship's sudden jerk. Quickly glancing up to demand an answer from Garland, he was surprised to find that the older man had disappeared from the door.
He turned around warily, and just as he had expected, found the dark-clad senior citizen hovering just slightly above the control globe, directing the Invincible's every move.
"What do you think you're doing?!" Kuja felt an inexplainable sort of rage boiling within him. Of course, Garland didn't even bother to reply, less say turn around. The Invincible soared through the Terran skies and slowly dissolved into the portal that would lead them to Gaia, despite Kuja's loud protests.
Outside the airship, swirls of bright colours greeted them, threatening to engulf them. The sturdy ship showed no signs of breaking or slowing down, however, and kept at it's pace, journeying towards the unknown destination. Blinded temporarily by the bright lights, Kuja had to look away for a while, until he was sure his eyes had adjusted properly. Glancing nervously out of the window, he could see the exit of the portal just straight ahead. Somehow it twisted his nerves so much that he forgot Garland was piloting the ship. All he managed to do was to grip his fists tightly, as the Invincible broke through the vortex and hovered quietly above the oceanic region of the Shimmering Island.
Above them, the portal regressed and soon was no more. Kuja felt like he had just been punched in the guts, as he took in the whole of Gaia once more from the control room of the Invincible.
He could see that Gaia was currently still uncultivated. Trees swamped every single continent as far as the eye could see, and the silence was painful to the ear.
Something was not right about the current scene, though. Kuja briefly recalled what he knew about the land. Suddenly the light dawned, and the silver-haired man stuttered, "Wait... whe- where's the Iifa Tree?" He blinked in disbelief. From what he had known, the Iifa Tree had been with the planet before the other plants grew; which was why it was called the mother of all trees. Now that there were other trees but NO Iifa Tree...
Without a word Garland proceeded to pilot the Invincible where the Iifa Tree was supposed to be. There were trees covering the entire length of the continent, all the way up to the mountains, some even near the beaches. However, there was a curious cirucular clearing right in the middle of the land of the continent. No trees went near it. No leaf or canopy covered it. The grass were of a standard height, and a standard colour. It was peculiar, but that was not what Kuja had noticed about the clearing.
It was that this clearing was exactly where the center of the Iifa Tree should have been.
Garland continued to say nothing. The Invincible rounded the area until it's bottom Eye was exactly above the weird clearing. Kuja quickly eyed the older man with a deep frown, questions evident in his stare. Despite the burning urge to know, the ex-villian refused to ask anything to the balding old man unless it was absolutely necessary.
He watched carefully, as Garland retrieved something from within his dark robes.
It looked like a little seed.
"From here," Garland's voice boomed once more, "things will begin."
"... what?" Kuja blinked, puzzled.
With one gloved hand on the globe, Garland did something and made the ground beneath the clearing open up into a large crevass. This scene stayed for a while, as Kuja stared and wondered what had just happened, before Garland finally placed the tiny seed he had withdrew atop the globe and then pushed it down until the seed could no longer be seen.
Like it had been swallowed up by the blood-red globe.
If one were to look from a long distance away, one would see a bright, shimmering trail slowly descending from the Eye of the Invincible. Before long it entered into the hole in the ground that was the clearing. A short while after that the whole of Gaia shook and trembled violently.
As if... it was in great pain...
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haha naru kodai no ki datta
26/7/2002