Final Fantasy - All Series Fan Fiction ❯ sore kara... ❯ mezashiteiru ( Chapter 24 )
[ 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: 198 | 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: 198 | Status: Completed
Standard disclaimers apply.
-------------------------------
sore kara...
-------------------------------
mezashiteiru
There was a flash and two new beings phased into the control room.
Four pairs of eyes interlocked.
"!" went one.
"!!" went another.
"!!!" went the third.
"You guys!" went Kuja, determining not to look or sound equally spastic.
"Kuja!" Cloud seamlessly connected from where the silver-haired villian left off. He desisted the Float spell and gently landed, breathing a sigh of relief to be standing firmly yet again. "Wow! This is getting too good to be true! Everytime we separate we'd be sure to meet up one way or the other again!"
"I definitely think somebody is behind this now," Squall tapped his chin with his fingers and struck a thoughtful pose, "Coincidences should never happen so many times in a row."
"Bummer! Don't spoil the fun!" Zidane was hopping around practically on his tail. "We're back together again and that's all I care about!" He laughed mercilessly, making it hard for both Cloud and Squall to believe that he was really glad to have them back. "It was getting soooo boring around here- errr, I didn't mean you, Kuja, don't look at me like that." The blond bandit quickly backed away from the older genome, who was giving him the Evil Eye.
"Anyway," always quick to be gracious, Kuja flicked some of his silver tresses across his shoulders and stared expectantly at the new arrivals to the ship, "what happened to you guys? What possessed you to go near that thing anyway?"
"Well, I dunno," Cloud spoke up after a while, "one moment we were in the training centre of Balamb Garden, then we appeared here. Then we got chased around by a tree. Then all of a sudden we're here again. Ugh..." He stopped, after realizing what a complete moron he just sounded like.
All the others stared at him with large, mystified eyes.
"So we found this underground cavern of sorts and blah blah blah," Squall next spoke up, feeling talkative all of a sudden, "oh, and we even found this!" He held up the necklace he had been clutching tightly to all this while.
"What is it?" Zidane squinted to try to look more closely at the thing.
"A necklace of sorts, brainless," Kuja snorted derisively, earning him a none-too-amiable glare from Zidane. "Doesn't look like it'll bring us closer to solving this whole time compression thing, though... why did you pick it up, Squall?" Kuja reached out to feel the rings around the chain so he could determine their make and type.
Squall shrugged, but did not withdraw his hand, confident that Kuja would merely touch it, and not snatch it away. "In that entire crystal chamber, this was the only thing that stood out, being metal, so I-"
A bright flash of light from the bowels of the chain he was holding stopped the teenager from continuing his explanation. He let go of the necklace out of astute fear and took a step back in semi-horror. Even though this wasn't exactly the most horrible thing he had ever come across.
The silvery thing fell to the purplish grounds of the Invincible with a tiny bell-like sound. It rolled on it's perimeter and finally came to rest with it's head to the world and tail to the ground.
It wasn't a necklace anymore, no. The bright flash had seemingly morphed it into something round and flat. Both Squall and Kuja took some time to review what they were seeing.
"Now where have I seen that coin before?" Zidane burst into their thoughts by thinking aloud.
Cloud was the one to pick it up, examining it closer. "It looks like the one you should be holding onto, Kuja."
The mercenary took his time to flip the coin back and forth, noticing with slight distaste that it indeed bore a striking similarity to the coin he had received from Ipsen while examining the Lunatic Pandora. He ignored the background music which was Kuja complaining to Zidane about something while trying to find the coin Cloud had spoke about. Also, Squall was mumbling away while pacing around the room, apparently trying to locate the chain he had dropped, refusing to believe that it had turned into a coin which he had no sentimental feel for. The blond mercenary kept silent, musing in the noise.
And then.
"Hey, Cloud, I found the coin!" Kuja was surprisingly hyper for his usual cool demeanor. Cloud turned around just in time to catch the thing Kuja had tossed over. He nearly asked the silver-haired man why exactly he was in this near-ecstatic mood, but thought the better of it. He concentrated instead on comparing the two coins in his hands.
Squall sighed, as he sat down in a corner of the ship, depressed. The necklace was by far the closest thing he had come across to home and Rinoa. Of course he would feel terrible losing it just right after he had acquired it. Nevertheless he waited to see how things would unfold.
Cloud had this disturbed look on his face as he stared at the coins. He looked so uncomfortable, Squall could have sworn someone must have stuck his foot into a toilet bowl - nevermind they didn't have toilet bowls - and flushed it 10 times over. In their own spot in the airship, Zidane and Kuja were seemingly engaged in their own rather deep and interesting conversation, judging by the looks on their faces. Squall half imagined Kuja must be teaching Zidane something, which was not entirely untrue. Kuja was actually trying to coach the blond genome how to pilot the Invincible using the reddish globe.
None of the four were really paying attention to each other.
A long silence reigned.
Until Cloud cleared his throat for attention.
"Um... Kuja?" He directed his query to the purple-clad angel of death, who looked nearly ready to blow a blood vessel at Zidane, who currently had half a hand dipped into the red globe with a look of wonderment on his face. Both of them looked up to regard Cloud squarely.
"Yes?" The pale-haired mage managed to eke a somewhat friendly looking smile. Zidane continued playing around with the red globe.
"Did you..." Cloud hesitated, "... do something to the coin... ?" he eventually settled for the simplest way to ask.
"Except keeping it, nothing else I know of," was the reply, "Why?"
Wordlessly the ex-Shinra soldier brought the coin closer to his view, with the side that had Ipsen's name imprinted facing Kuja. As Kuja stared weirdly back and forth at the coin, then Cloud, the blond finally flipped the coin around to let the genome know what he was truly talking about.
On the side of the coin that was supposed to be just a smooth, flat silver surface, purposeful words had formed. They appeared to be deeply etched into the coin along with engraved symbols and patterns, not something even the most skilled could claim to craft within the short span of time that had elapsed from since Cloud last saw the coin. Time compression aside, that is. Kuja was visibly taken aback.
"Now when did that happen?" He mumbled to nobody in particular.
"Somewhere between when we first found it to now?" Cloud offered the most logical reply he could muster. "Anyway, I'm sure these words mean something - you have any impression about it? I think I've heard someone say it sometime before..."
"The Final Destiny..." Squall read the words on the coin aloud, ambling his way into the conversation, determined not to be left out.
As if on cue, Zidane stopped with whatever he was doing with the globe of the Invincible, an unusual gleam reflecting off his eyes. Without turning around to face any of them he slowly said, "... so the final destiny was closer to me than I thought it was... ?"
"Ah yes," Kuja snapped his finger, "I remember now! Zidane was saying it just before time raced forward and then we landed up in Squall's ruined Garden!"
"I resent the implications of that sentence," Squall rebutted Kuja with something akin to a distorted pout on his face.
"Oh, so Zidane said it before time decompressed, eh?" Cloud quickly came into the conversation, audibly strained. "Um... so was he supposed to know that he said it, since I don't think he was in control when it happened?"
"Nope," came the clear reply by both parties.
Then there was silence.
They all turned to look at Zidane, who had his back against them.
"Don't tell me..." Kuja blinked warily.
The younger genome quickly turned around and grinned like the monkey he was.
"That was me, don't worry guys!" He waved around like a lunatic in a parade. For their part, the others didn't know whether to feel really relieved or utterly ashamed he was even part of their brood. It was a good thing he wasn't nearly half as insane when out in the open.
"You mean you remember what you did when you weren't in control?" Squall was more than amazed.
"Not entirely," Zidane frowned, "but when you mentioned that 'final destiny' thing that sentence just popped up in my brain like it had been there all along."
"Well that calls for serious re-evaluation of events..." Kuja sighed. "... anyway what about the other coin? Does it have some similar words?"
Cloud carefully scrutinized the silverware. He then shook his head, passing it to the nearest person at hand, who happened to be Squall. "You see anything?" He asked.
".........................................." was the long pause which happened thereafter. "There's this word on the coin..." He began, slowly, "... it says 'Heart', whatever that means..."
Surprised, the blond mercenary took the coin back and looked at it again. On the one side it was as per normal, Ipsen's name. On the flipside of that there indeed was a single word he had missed during his last inspection. Of course, that was rather impossible. Nobody with eyes and hands could have missed something engraved so deep into a coin, even if it was in the darkness. He shook his head slightly to snap out of the reverie he had gotten into. "Now when did this happen?" He turned to ask Squall, who shrugged to indicate his ignorance.
"It was already there when you passed it to me."
"Maybe it reacted to Squall?" Zidane randomly inserted his thoughts into the discussion. "Like how the first coin reacted to Kuja, you know?" He grinned, trying to make a joke out of his own ideas so they wouldn't feel like he was imposing his thoughts on theirs.
"You know," Kuja stared oddly at the younger shinigami, "for once Zidane, without being in Necron mode, has a point." For that he earned an absolutely lethal glower from the monkey. "Which brings us to yet another point - what are we going to do with the coins now... ?"
"I say we collect them!" Zidane threw in yet another wacky thought of his.
"Collect them?" Squall echoed him with an almost hollow voice.
"You mean there are more coins like these ones out there?" Cloud asked.
"How did you know?" Kuja was instantaneously suspicious.
"Ouch, ouch and ouch!" Zidane held his hands out in defence. "I was just giving a hit and miss kind of suggestion, absolutely no basis on anything whatsoever! Don't look at me like I'm the criminal of the year or something, n'okay??"
Cloud nodded, "I'm sorry, we didn't mean anything negative. But it is really an interesting suggestion. Maybe you're right. Maybe we should start searching for similar coins and see if they bring us any closer to the conclusion of this time travelling thing."
"The question here is," Squall sombrely intercepted, "where in the worlds are we going to begin our search?"
For a while Kuja stared at the coins, which had ended up in his hands after being passed around the crew at least twice. He seemed to be pondering something of a really serious matter. Slowly he made his way towards the red globe and stood by it, commanding it to do something. Without warning a holographic screen flickered to life on the empty walls behind the gang, forcing them to turn around and pay attention.
Words scrolled across the illuminated box quickly, like a carefully planned movie was currently playing. Nobody turned away to look elsewhere while the complex formulas continued droning on. There was a map of sorts which then appeared. A bright blue dot kept flashing above one of the continents as they watched on. Curious, Zidane turned to look at Kuja with a silent question written on his face. Although the silver-haired man never did look up to face the boy directly, he already knew the unspoken uncertainty in the air.
"Well," he began, "the Invincible is capable of finding something of like nature if you give it a similar object." He gestured to Zidane, who walked closer innocently. In a flurry of action Kuja made a grab for the bandit's hair, ignoring his yelps and protests. With a stoned face he managed to relieve the boy of a few golden strands before dismissing him with a slight push. He then placed the hair on the translucent red globe and silently commanded it to do something yet again.
The screen flashed a bright blue, and then a red arrow flew in from nowhere to point at the flashing blue dot. The words "Similar object found here" kept flashing until Kuja did something to send the word and red arrow away.
"So if you give it Zidane's hair, it would be able to find Zidane for you." Kuja nodded and drove home the point rather soundly. Cloud and Squall had already edged as further as they could from the evil man and was nearly cowering in the opposite direction. Zidane merely moaned and pat his hair vainly.
"We kindda get the point, Kuja," Cloud nodded morbidly, "so you're going to use those coins to find any other coins there could be in the vicinity... or around the globe, no?"
"Yep." Kuja answered without looking at the blond straight in his eye. He craddled the coins carefully in the nook between his fingers and gently let it roll down onto the red globe, where they stayed for analysis.
All eyes turned to look at the screen on the wall, as information was parsed quickly through a series of unseen formulas, flashing under their noses without demanding for any real attention.
They did not have to wait long.
The by-now-familiar looking red arrow flew in from the outside of the screen to point at their desired location.
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mezashiteita
28/10/2002
I take this time to point your attention down to two lovely places to go!!
Nefas' wonderful fanfic about Cloud!!
http://www.fanfiction.net/read.php?storyid=517511
I can't begin to explain how much I like Cloud, and how much I like Nefas' characterization of him in the fic :D
And the VnYmaGCc!!!
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/VnYmaGCc/
Vincent and Yuffie makes a great couple! Yeah!! If you like this coupling, then this is the ML for you! Buahahhahahah!!!!!
-------------------------------
sore kara...
-------------------------------
mezashiteiru
There was a flash and two new beings phased into the control room.
Four pairs of eyes interlocked.
"!" went one.
"!!" went another.
"!!!" went the third.
"You guys!" went Kuja, determining not to look or sound equally spastic.
"Kuja!" Cloud seamlessly connected from where the silver-haired villian left off. He desisted the Float spell and gently landed, breathing a sigh of relief to be standing firmly yet again. "Wow! This is getting too good to be true! Everytime we separate we'd be sure to meet up one way or the other again!"
"I definitely think somebody is behind this now," Squall tapped his chin with his fingers and struck a thoughtful pose, "Coincidences should never happen so many times in a row."
"Bummer! Don't spoil the fun!" Zidane was hopping around practically on his tail. "We're back together again and that's all I care about!" He laughed mercilessly, making it hard for both Cloud and Squall to believe that he was really glad to have them back. "It was getting soooo boring around here- errr, I didn't mean you, Kuja, don't look at me like that." The blond bandit quickly backed away from the older genome, who was giving him the Evil Eye.
"Anyway," always quick to be gracious, Kuja flicked some of his silver tresses across his shoulders and stared expectantly at the new arrivals to the ship, "what happened to you guys? What possessed you to go near that thing anyway?"
"Well, I dunno," Cloud spoke up after a while, "one moment we were in the training centre of Balamb Garden, then we appeared here. Then we got chased around by a tree. Then all of a sudden we're here again. Ugh..." He stopped, after realizing what a complete moron he just sounded like.
All the others stared at him with large, mystified eyes.
"So we found this underground cavern of sorts and blah blah blah," Squall next spoke up, feeling talkative all of a sudden, "oh, and we even found this!" He held up the necklace he had been clutching tightly to all this while.
"What is it?" Zidane squinted to try to look more closely at the thing.
"A necklace of sorts, brainless," Kuja snorted derisively, earning him a none-too-amiable glare from Zidane. "Doesn't look like it'll bring us closer to solving this whole time compression thing, though... why did you pick it up, Squall?" Kuja reached out to feel the rings around the chain so he could determine their make and type.
Squall shrugged, but did not withdraw his hand, confident that Kuja would merely touch it, and not snatch it away. "In that entire crystal chamber, this was the only thing that stood out, being metal, so I-"
A bright flash of light from the bowels of the chain he was holding stopped the teenager from continuing his explanation. He let go of the necklace out of astute fear and took a step back in semi-horror. Even though this wasn't exactly the most horrible thing he had ever come across.
The silvery thing fell to the purplish grounds of the Invincible with a tiny bell-like sound. It rolled on it's perimeter and finally came to rest with it's head to the world and tail to the ground.
It wasn't a necklace anymore, no. The bright flash had seemingly morphed it into something round and flat. Both Squall and Kuja took some time to review what they were seeing.
"Now where have I seen that coin before?" Zidane burst into their thoughts by thinking aloud.
Cloud was the one to pick it up, examining it closer. "It looks like the one you should be holding onto, Kuja."
The mercenary took his time to flip the coin back and forth, noticing with slight distaste that it indeed bore a striking similarity to the coin he had received from Ipsen while examining the Lunatic Pandora. He ignored the background music which was Kuja complaining to Zidane about something while trying to find the coin Cloud had spoke about. Also, Squall was mumbling away while pacing around the room, apparently trying to locate the chain he had dropped, refusing to believe that it had turned into a coin which he had no sentimental feel for. The blond mercenary kept silent, musing in the noise.
And then.
"Hey, Cloud, I found the coin!" Kuja was surprisingly hyper for his usual cool demeanor. Cloud turned around just in time to catch the thing Kuja had tossed over. He nearly asked the silver-haired man why exactly he was in this near-ecstatic mood, but thought the better of it. He concentrated instead on comparing the two coins in his hands.
Squall sighed, as he sat down in a corner of the ship, depressed. The necklace was by far the closest thing he had come across to home and Rinoa. Of course he would feel terrible losing it just right after he had acquired it. Nevertheless he waited to see how things would unfold.
Cloud had this disturbed look on his face as he stared at the coins. He looked so uncomfortable, Squall could have sworn someone must have stuck his foot into a toilet bowl - nevermind they didn't have toilet bowls - and flushed it 10 times over. In their own spot in the airship, Zidane and Kuja were seemingly engaged in their own rather deep and interesting conversation, judging by the looks on their faces. Squall half imagined Kuja must be teaching Zidane something, which was not entirely untrue. Kuja was actually trying to coach the blond genome how to pilot the Invincible using the reddish globe.
None of the four were really paying attention to each other.
A long silence reigned.
Until Cloud cleared his throat for attention.
"Um... Kuja?" He directed his query to the purple-clad angel of death, who looked nearly ready to blow a blood vessel at Zidane, who currently had half a hand dipped into the red globe with a look of wonderment on his face. Both of them looked up to regard Cloud squarely.
"Yes?" The pale-haired mage managed to eke a somewhat friendly looking smile. Zidane continued playing around with the red globe.
"Did you..." Cloud hesitated, "... do something to the coin... ?" he eventually settled for the simplest way to ask.
"Except keeping it, nothing else I know of," was the reply, "Why?"
Wordlessly the ex-Shinra soldier brought the coin closer to his view, with the side that had Ipsen's name imprinted facing Kuja. As Kuja stared weirdly back and forth at the coin, then Cloud, the blond finally flipped the coin around to let the genome know what he was truly talking about.
On the side of the coin that was supposed to be just a smooth, flat silver surface, purposeful words had formed. They appeared to be deeply etched into the coin along with engraved symbols and patterns, not something even the most skilled could claim to craft within the short span of time that had elapsed from since Cloud last saw the coin. Time compression aside, that is. Kuja was visibly taken aback.
"Now when did that happen?" He mumbled to nobody in particular.
"Somewhere between when we first found it to now?" Cloud offered the most logical reply he could muster. "Anyway, I'm sure these words mean something - you have any impression about it? I think I've heard someone say it sometime before..."
"The Final Destiny..." Squall read the words on the coin aloud, ambling his way into the conversation, determined not to be left out.
As if on cue, Zidane stopped with whatever he was doing with the globe of the Invincible, an unusual gleam reflecting off his eyes. Without turning around to face any of them he slowly said, "... so the final destiny was closer to me than I thought it was... ?"
"Ah yes," Kuja snapped his finger, "I remember now! Zidane was saying it just before time raced forward and then we landed up in Squall's ruined Garden!"
"I resent the implications of that sentence," Squall rebutted Kuja with something akin to a distorted pout on his face.
"Oh, so Zidane said it before time decompressed, eh?" Cloud quickly came into the conversation, audibly strained. "Um... so was he supposed to know that he said it, since I don't think he was in control when it happened?"
"Nope," came the clear reply by both parties.
Then there was silence.
They all turned to look at Zidane, who had his back against them.
"Don't tell me..." Kuja blinked warily.
The younger genome quickly turned around and grinned like the monkey he was.
"That was me, don't worry guys!" He waved around like a lunatic in a parade. For their part, the others didn't know whether to feel really relieved or utterly ashamed he was even part of their brood. It was a good thing he wasn't nearly half as insane when out in the open.
"You mean you remember what you did when you weren't in control?" Squall was more than amazed.
"Not entirely," Zidane frowned, "but when you mentioned that 'final destiny' thing that sentence just popped up in my brain like it had been there all along."
"Well that calls for serious re-evaluation of events..." Kuja sighed. "... anyway what about the other coin? Does it have some similar words?"
Cloud carefully scrutinized the silverware. He then shook his head, passing it to the nearest person at hand, who happened to be Squall. "You see anything?" He asked.
".........................................." was the long pause which happened thereafter. "There's this word on the coin..." He began, slowly, "... it says 'Heart', whatever that means..."
Surprised, the blond mercenary took the coin back and looked at it again. On the one side it was as per normal, Ipsen's name. On the flipside of that there indeed was a single word he had missed during his last inspection. Of course, that was rather impossible. Nobody with eyes and hands could have missed something engraved so deep into a coin, even if it was in the darkness. He shook his head slightly to snap out of the reverie he had gotten into. "Now when did this happen?" He turned to ask Squall, who shrugged to indicate his ignorance.
"It was already there when you passed it to me."
"Maybe it reacted to Squall?" Zidane randomly inserted his thoughts into the discussion. "Like how the first coin reacted to Kuja, you know?" He grinned, trying to make a joke out of his own ideas so they wouldn't feel like he was imposing his thoughts on theirs.
"You know," Kuja stared oddly at the younger shinigami, "for once Zidane, without being in Necron mode, has a point." For that he earned an absolutely lethal glower from the monkey. "Which brings us to yet another point - what are we going to do with the coins now... ?"
"I say we collect them!" Zidane threw in yet another wacky thought of his.
"Collect them?" Squall echoed him with an almost hollow voice.
"You mean there are more coins like these ones out there?" Cloud asked.
"How did you know?" Kuja was instantaneously suspicious.
"Ouch, ouch and ouch!" Zidane held his hands out in defence. "I was just giving a hit and miss kind of suggestion, absolutely no basis on anything whatsoever! Don't look at me like I'm the criminal of the year or something, n'okay??"
Cloud nodded, "I'm sorry, we didn't mean anything negative. But it is really an interesting suggestion. Maybe you're right. Maybe we should start searching for similar coins and see if they bring us any closer to the conclusion of this time travelling thing."
"The question here is," Squall sombrely intercepted, "where in the worlds are we going to begin our search?"
For a while Kuja stared at the coins, which had ended up in his hands after being passed around the crew at least twice. He seemed to be pondering something of a really serious matter. Slowly he made his way towards the red globe and stood by it, commanding it to do something. Without warning a holographic screen flickered to life on the empty walls behind the gang, forcing them to turn around and pay attention.
Words scrolled across the illuminated box quickly, like a carefully planned movie was currently playing. Nobody turned away to look elsewhere while the complex formulas continued droning on. There was a map of sorts which then appeared. A bright blue dot kept flashing above one of the continents as they watched on. Curious, Zidane turned to look at Kuja with a silent question written on his face. Although the silver-haired man never did look up to face the boy directly, he already knew the unspoken uncertainty in the air.
"Well," he began, "the Invincible is capable of finding something of like nature if you give it a similar object." He gestured to Zidane, who walked closer innocently. In a flurry of action Kuja made a grab for the bandit's hair, ignoring his yelps and protests. With a stoned face he managed to relieve the boy of a few golden strands before dismissing him with a slight push. He then placed the hair on the translucent red globe and silently commanded it to do something yet again.
The screen flashed a bright blue, and then a red arrow flew in from nowhere to point at the flashing blue dot. The words "Similar object found here" kept flashing until Kuja did something to send the word and red arrow away.
"So if you give it Zidane's hair, it would be able to find Zidane for you." Kuja nodded and drove home the point rather soundly. Cloud and Squall had already edged as further as they could from the evil man and was nearly cowering in the opposite direction. Zidane merely moaned and pat his hair vainly.
"We kindda get the point, Kuja," Cloud nodded morbidly, "so you're going to use those coins to find any other coins there could be in the vicinity... or around the globe, no?"
"Yep." Kuja answered without looking at the blond straight in his eye. He craddled the coins carefully in the nook between his fingers and gently let it roll down onto the red globe, where they stayed for analysis.
All eyes turned to look at the screen on the wall, as information was parsed quickly through a series of unseen formulas, flashing under their noses without demanding for any real attention.
They did not have to wait long.
The by-now-familiar looking red arrow flew in from the outside of the screen to point at their desired location.
-------------------------------
mezashiteita
28/10/2002
I take this time to point your attention down to two lovely places to go!!
Nefas' wonderful fanfic about Cloud!!
http://www.fanfiction.net/read.php?storyid=517511
I can't begin to explain how much I like Cloud, and how much I like Nefas' characterization of him in the fic :D
And the VnYmaGCc!!!
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/VnYmaGCc/
Vincent and Yuffie makes a great couple! Yeah!! If you like this coupling, then this is the ML for you! Buahahhahahah!!!!!