Final Fantasy - All Series Fan Fiction ❯ sore kara... ❯ owari no hajimari da ( Chapter 25 )
[ 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: 2.3K | Visits: 189 | Status: Completed
Non Anime: Final Fantasy - All Series Fan Fiction | Genre(s): Adventure / Action | Type: Crossover | Uploaded On: 02.23.2003 | Pages: 3 | Words: 2.3K | Visits: 189 | Status: Completed
Standard disclaimers apply.
-------------------------------
sore kara...
-------------------------------
owari no hajimari da
"But still..." It was Zidane who broke the silence in the observatory of the Invincible, having been instructed to keep a lookout from there, "... I don't see how those normal looking coins can... help us in any way... hm Squall?" He directed his attention to the morose teenager known as Squall. The morose teenager merely shrugged.
"What else can we do now?" He effectively put a stop to all protests the monkey was throwing in his direction with that question.
Unable to prolong the conversation any further, the bright-haired youth whined incoherently and proceeded to sulk in a corner of the room, watching the continents fly past him in quick transit.
The silence droned on.
"Did anybody ever tell you how boring you can be, Squall?"
"......................"
"I can't believe it. I can count all the words you've said since we came here with the ten fingers on my two hands! Can YOU believe it? Huh?"
"........................."
"You haven't moved from that spot, yes THAT SPOT you're standing on right now ever since we came in either! How is that humanly possible?!"
"............................"
"You haven't looked away from that window pane once either. In fact, I think you haven't even blinked! Don't you like need to sit down or anything? Are your bones made of rubber or something? Are-"
"Shut up, Zidane." Squall sighed and finally relented. "Do you have something really major against silence and quietness?"
Turning around, he was semi-appalled to see the bandit jumping high and low with various victory hand poses, muttering "Yes! He said more than ten words in a row! Victory! WOO!" and things like that. As much as he resented that, he was in fact, slightly grateful that Zidane had taken the initiative to at least be cheery. As a trained loner most of the time Squall blended well with the scenery but in fact he hated solitude. It made him think about unnecessary things which bogged him down further than he already was. Turning on his heels he relaxed a little and sat down heavily beside where Zidane had made himself comfortable.
Curiously tilting his head to a side, Zidane asked, "What *were* you thinking about?" in an inquisitive manner, not at all demanding.
Fighting the urge to say "Nothing", Squall bit his lower lip and said, "Just... stuff... Like... What's happened so far, what started this all, and what we're going to have to do now..."
"Hrm..." Zidane turned his sights away from the dark and gloomy guy to look outside the window pane. "Logical questions to ponder at this point of time."
Silence again.
"Well then, did you come up with any answers?" The brighter boy beamed widely as he asked.
"Not really," was the nonchalant reply.
"Except that gut feel that things are finally beginning to come to a conclusion."
Zidane peered peculiarly at the SeeD.
It was truly rare to see Squall smile with that glint of optimistic determination in his eye.
-------------------------------
Cloud had seen many a contemplative man in his life. Sephiroth, for example, was known to brood like a statue from time to time whenever the ambience was proper enough for him to brood. Vincent - now that man was more than an enigma. He could move around so quietly you sometimes wondered if he was even solid. Of course, Squall was an all new level by himself. He didn't need to brood. He WAS a brood.
And now, he had one more subject to add to his bank. Kuja the Silver Feather. Brooding had always been a serious matter to Cloud, but to Kuja, it was as floaty as the quill perched peculiarly in his hair. With an ethereal frown mixed with the ghost of a smile he swept around the control room with grace and poise. For a while Cloud followed the hypnotic paces Kuja was engrossed in striding out. Then, blinking to snap out of the trance, Cloud opened his mouth to ask, "What's wrong?"
The ex-villain turned to regard him slowly. "What?" He countered, nonplussed.
"You've been running around in circles ever since... ever since just now," the mercenary shrugged.
"It's been a while since I've had time to think." Was the genome's reply before he sat himself down beside the blonde mercenary, staring out of the Invincible's full-length window.
Peering curiously at the man who was usually full of a clever word or two while wondering why the sudden silence, Cloud slowly leaned backwards against the wall and said, "It's been awfully quiet lately. But there's this irascible feeling that it isn't quiet because it's peaceful... kind of like the silence before the storm, you know?" He tilted his head to a side and pulled at his gloves, "Like something big is going to happen soon."
As if replying to that sentence, the Invincible jerked to a stop, slowly coming to hover above a boundless area of glimmering golden sand. The occasional wind sent stream-like speckles of tiny rocks flying across the dry desert, creating a serene scene of nothingness. Kuja blinked, stood, and approached the mirror offering him the view to the vast wastelands outside. Cloud merely stared impassively. It wasn't like he had never seen desert before.
"Looks like the coins should be somewhere around..." The spikey-headed mercenary clambered to his feet and adjusted the massive blade leaning against his back. "Time to go investigate."
Soon, Cloud's footsteps became nothing but mere faded echoes, leaving only Kuja in the control room, silently pondering a matter of deep concern to him.
A while passed, before almost suddenly, the man visibly bristled. A lethal cold entered the room - so cold you could see it literally walk in. The angel of death did not allow himself to cower in the presence of the one who had made him such, slowly spinning around to regard the intruder.
The dark presence glowered and then became solid, it's single indication of life throbbing faintly, encased the red orb affixed firmly against his chest.
"What do you want now." The silver-haired man was in no mood to entertain his former master anymore - if his tightly clenched fists hadn't already give that away. He continued looking at the balding Terran from the corner of his eye.
"Perhaps the oracles can help you," Garland was surprisingly straightforward this time.
"The oracles?" Kuja raised an eyebrow. To be utterly honest, his interest had been piqued the very first time Garland mentioned something about the oracles and time travellers. "What do you mean?" He decided that he would be civil to Garland... for now.
"You will know when you hear them," the older man merely made a waving motion with his hand.
And the Invincible leapt to life once more.
"Hey!" Kuja balked, the sudden action almost throwing him off balance. He quickly stared out of the window and confirmed his worst fears. The rest of the three had already teleported out of the ship and were now quickly becoming dots on the horizon of the continent. At that he looked up and glared fiercely at the indifferent Garland, who, with a massive sweep of his large cape departed from the room, back into his most fondly loved darkness.
Frustration crept into Kuja's very soul, as he gave a cry of indignance - infuriated at having been fooled by that wily old man more than once. Try as he may, the control of the ship would not return to him, and thus he could do nothing but watch as the Invincible majestically cut through the azure skylines, onwards to it's unknown destination.
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And at this point of time, there were three very confused beings standing atop the hot desert sands, staring bewilderedly at the spot where the Invincible last hovered. There was not so much as a movement for quite some time.
"What the-" Squall was the first one to lift a finger to point. "What just happened??"
"Ugh... Kuja flew off with the ship?" Zidane tried to be helpful.
"Well yeah, I know," The brown-haired student turned to stare at his two other companions, "But why would he do that?!"
"You got me." The bandit shrugged, trying to keep a poker face.
They continued to stare until Cloud found his voice.
"I'm sure he has his reasons..." He blinked his large, mako-blue eyes, not entirely certain if he himself believed what he was saying.
"But that's our only means of transport around now!" Squall nearly whined.
"You think he'll ever come back?" Zidane hooted.
"Whether or not he will, I think we should just continue searching first." The mercenary turned to look instead at the vast inhospitable surroundings staring right back at him with fulsome smugness. He took the first step into the area since first teleporting out of the Invincible. "Let's go!"
Of course, that proved to be the mistake of his life. He walked straight into a slow moving pool of quicksand and disappeared without a trace.
"............................" went Squall.
Zidane smacked his face with his hand.
And a king-sized sandworm lifted itself up from the layers of sand behind the duo, twitching it's stubby tentacles and twisting it's ungraceful body in all directions.
It screeched, sounding like it was hungry. If it had hands one could imagine it throwing them around in a flurry of movement, trying to look intimidating and succeeding to a certain extent. Instead, it tried to flail it's rows of raw and fearsome teeth like the waves of the sea. Of course, owing to how tiny it's teeth actually were, it rather much resembled a rippling puddle than the sea.
The shadow it cast told Squall and Zidane that it had it's sights set on them.
Between a slow moving pool of quicksand and a fast moving blob of hungry monster, the choice was obvious.
Squall and Zidane leapt into the quicksand.
-------------------------------
The descent wasn't as hard as either of them had expected it to be.
After snaking through a tunnel with no light, Squall and Zidane found themselves in mid-air, having gone through the tunnel opening, staring at solid ground which laid a few feet beneath their airborne position. Quickly reacting, both adjusted their positions so they would land on the floor without having to sustain much injury.
The cloud of dust which formed when they landed soon dissipated, leaving three people staring at each other.
Or perhaps, they were staring beyond each other.
"Well," Cloud breathed, "this is a rather nice place, don't you think?"
Squall nodded mutely. He had never seen a place so vast, so grand, and so beautiful in his life. "Just like a palace..." He could barely whisper, as if afraid to disturb the serenity.
There was a shade of faint doubt mixed with recognition on Zidane's face. His mood darkened considerably. "I've been here before," his eyes were locked on the looming hallway with many statues and checkered floor tiles, "I think." He added as an afterthought.
Cloud and Squall regarded that cautiously, each ready to bludgeon Zidane into unconsciousness anytime should Necron take over. Sensing that, Zidane grinned uneasily at them and held his arms outstretched, "Calm down guys," he tried to reassure his comrades, "I'm still me, okay??" Trying to diver their attention, he glanced around briskly and asked in a subdued whisper, "Do you think the coins are somewhere around this big, creepy place?"
Breaking out of staring for Zidane, for now, Cloud and Squall also took to examining the surroundings.
This was very big place. A very very big place.
"I must say I honestly don't know," Cloud glanced upwards, wondering where all the light was coming from when they were underground. "But if the Invincible dropped us here the coins must be somewhere around..."
"Do you have the coins?" Squall asked.
"I sure hope so," Cloud reached into his pockets and fumbled around. The suspense was over soon enough. He retrieved the one silvery coin he had been carrying around and brandished it with a small smile. "Just this one. The other one is with Kuja on the Invincible."
"Better than nothing..." Squall took the coin. Almost immediately it flashed a brilliant white and paralyzed everybody for a while. This time, Squall didn't drop the coin. He held on to it until the light diminished. The coin was still there in his hands, looking like it had been when Cloud had passed it over, except that now it had the word 'Heart' inscribe on the one side that was previously empty.
"I think the coin likes you, Squall," Zidane grinned madly, his tail swishing around and causting mini dust storms.
"I think whatever it is, you hold on to this coin from now on." Cloud looked slightly under the weather.
"What did you want it for anyway?" The monkey boy was curious, as usual.
"I want to see if I can modify one of my GF's spells to see if there's anything familiar in this large cove," he informed them while mentally preparing for the ability, "unless, that is, you don't mind scavenging around here for days looking for that minute coin."
His two other companions were rendered speechless. This gave the SeeD the silence he needed for the ability, which he was already in the process of using.
Now all they had to do was to wait.
-------------------------------
Somewhere in Oeilvert, the imposing figure of the Invincible hovered over the abandoned structure, looking for a place to stay stagnant.
Having done so, two figures flitted into view from apparently nowhere.
Garland advanced towards the edifice without a care in the world.
And left a discontented Kuja behind him to decide whether or not he would follow.
-------------------------------
owari no hajimari datta
13/12/2002
http://www.tougenkyou.net/xd/
*shamless plug*
Join the VnYmaGCc!!!
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/VnYmaGCc/
Vincent and Yuffie makes a great couple! Hooray! Hooray!! Hooraaay!!!
-------------------------------
sore kara...
-------------------------------
owari no hajimari da
"But still..." It was Zidane who broke the silence in the observatory of the Invincible, having been instructed to keep a lookout from there, "... I don't see how those normal looking coins can... help us in any way... hm Squall?" He directed his attention to the morose teenager known as Squall. The morose teenager merely shrugged.
"What else can we do now?" He effectively put a stop to all protests the monkey was throwing in his direction with that question.
Unable to prolong the conversation any further, the bright-haired youth whined incoherently and proceeded to sulk in a corner of the room, watching the continents fly past him in quick transit.
The silence droned on.
"Did anybody ever tell you how boring you can be, Squall?"
"......................"
"I can't believe it. I can count all the words you've said since we came here with the ten fingers on my two hands! Can YOU believe it? Huh?"
"........................."
"You haven't moved from that spot, yes THAT SPOT you're standing on right now ever since we came in either! How is that humanly possible?!"
"............................"
"You haven't looked away from that window pane once either. In fact, I think you haven't even blinked! Don't you like need to sit down or anything? Are your bones made of rubber or something? Are-"
"Shut up, Zidane." Squall sighed and finally relented. "Do you have something really major against silence and quietness?"
Turning around, he was semi-appalled to see the bandit jumping high and low with various victory hand poses, muttering "Yes! He said more than ten words in a row! Victory! WOO!" and things like that. As much as he resented that, he was in fact, slightly grateful that Zidane had taken the initiative to at least be cheery. As a trained loner most of the time Squall blended well with the scenery but in fact he hated solitude. It made him think about unnecessary things which bogged him down further than he already was. Turning on his heels he relaxed a little and sat down heavily beside where Zidane had made himself comfortable.
Curiously tilting his head to a side, Zidane asked, "What *were* you thinking about?" in an inquisitive manner, not at all demanding.
Fighting the urge to say "Nothing", Squall bit his lower lip and said, "Just... stuff... Like... What's happened so far, what started this all, and what we're going to have to do now..."
"Hrm..." Zidane turned his sights away from the dark and gloomy guy to look outside the window pane. "Logical questions to ponder at this point of time."
Silence again.
"Well then, did you come up with any answers?" The brighter boy beamed widely as he asked.
"Not really," was the nonchalant reply.
"Except that gut feel that things are finally beginning to come to a conclusion."
Zidane peered peculiarly at the SeeD.
It was truly rare to see Squall smile with that glint of optimistic determination in his eye.
-------------------------------
Cloud had seen many a contemplative man in his life. Sephiroth, for example, was known to brood like a statue from time to time whenever the ambience was proper enough for him to brood. Vincent - now that man was more than an enigma. He could move around so quietly you sometimes wondered if he was even solid. Of course, Squall was an all new level by himself. He didn't need to brood. He WAS a brood.
And now, he had one more subject to add to his bank. Kuja the Silver Feather. Brooding had always been a serious matter to Cloud, but to Kuja, it was as floaty as the quill perched peculiarly in his hair. With an ethereal frown mixed with the ghost of a smile he swept around the control room with grace and poise. For a while Cloud followed the hypnotic paces Kuja was engrossed in striding out. Then, blinking to snap out of the trance, Cloud opened his mouth to ask, "What's wrong?"
The ex-villain turned to regard him slowly. "What?" He countered, nonplussed.
"You've been running around in circles ever since... ever since just now," the mercenary shrugged.
"It's been a while since I've had time to think." Was the genome's reply before he sat himself down beside the blonde mercenary, staring out of the Invincible's full-length window.
Peering curiously at the man who was usually full of a clever word or two while wondering why the sudden silence, Cloud slowly leaned backwards against the wall and said, "It's been awfully quiet lately. But there's this irascible feeling that it isn't quiet because it's peaceful... kind of like the silence before the storm, you know?" He tilted his head to a side and pulled at his gloves, "Like something big is going to happen soon."
As if replying to that sentence, the Invincible jerked to a stop, slowly coming to hover above a boundless area of glimmering golden sand. The occasional wind sent stream-like speckles of tiny rocks flying across the dry desert, creating a serene scene of nothingness. Kuja blinked, stood, and approached the mirror offering him the view to the vast wastelands outside. Cloud merely stared impassively. It wasn't like he had never seen desert before.
"Looks like the coins should be somewhere around..." The spikey-headed mercenary clambered to his feet and adjusted the massive blade leaning against his back. "Time to go investigate."
Soon, Cloud's footsteps became nothing but mere faded echoes, leaving only Kuja in the control room, silently pondering a matter of deep concern to him.
A while passed, before almost suddenly, the man visibly bristled. A lethal cold entered the room - so cold you could see it literally walk in. The angel of death did not allow himself to cower in the presence of the one who had made him such, slowly spinning around to regard the intruder.
The dark presence glowered and then became solid, it's single indication of life throbbing faintly, encased the red orb affixed firmly against his chest.
"What do you want now." The silver-haired man was in no mood to entertain his former master anymore - if his tightly clenched fists hadn't already give that away. He continued looking at the balding Terran from the corner of his eye.
"Perhaps the oracles can help you," Garland was surprisingly straightforward this time.
"The oracles?" Kuja raised an eyebrow. To be utterly honest, his interest had been piqued the very first time Garland mentioned something about the oracles and time travellers. "What do you mean?" He decided that he would be civil to Garland... for now.
"You will know when you hear them," the older man merely made a waving motion with his hand.
And the Invincible leapt to life once more.
"Hey!" Kuja balked, the sudden action almost throwing him off balance. He quickly stared out of the window and confirmed his worst fears. The rest of the three had already teleported out of the ship and were now quickly becoming dots on the horizon of the continent. At that he looked up and glared fiercely at the indifferent Garland, who, with a massive sweep of his large cape departed from the room, back into his most fondly loved darkness.
Frustration crept into Kuja's very soul, as he gave a cry of indignance - infuriated at having been fooled by that wily old man more than once. Try as he may, the control of the ship would not return to him, and thus he could do nothing but watch as the Invincible majestically cut through the azure skylines, onwards to it's unknown destination.
-------------------------------
And at this point of time, there were three very confused beings standing atop the hot desert sands, staring bewilderedly at the spot where the Invincible last hovered. There was not so much as a movement for quite some time.
"What the-" Squall was the first one to lift a finger to point. "What just happened??"
"Ugh... Kuja flew off with the ship?" Zidane tried to be helpful.
"Well yeah, I know," The brown-haired student turned to stare at his two other companions, "But why would he do that?!"
"You got me." The bandit shrugged, trying to keep a poker face.
They continued to stare until Cloud found his voice.
"I'm sure he has his reasons..." He blinked his large, mako-blue eyes, not entirely certain if he himself believed what he was saying.
"But that's our only means of transport around now!" Squall nearly whined.
"You think he'll ever come back?" Zidane hooted.
"Whether or not he will, I think we should just continue searching first." The mercenary turned to look instead at the vast inhospitable surroundings staring right back at him with fulsome smugness. He took the first step into the area since first teleporting out of the Invincible. "Let's go!"
Of course, that proved to be the mistake of his life. He walked straight into a slow moving pool of quicksand and disappeared without a trace.
"............................" went Squall.
Zidane smacked his face with his hand.
And a king-sized sandworm lifted itself up from the layers of sand behind the duo, twitching it's stubby tentacles and twisting it's ungraceful body in all directions.
It screeched, sounding like it was hungry. If it had hands one could imagine it throwing them around in a flurry of movement, trying to look intimidating and succeeding to a certain extent. Instead, it tried to flail it's rows of raw and fearsome teeth like the waves of the sea. Of course, owing to how tiny it's teeth actually were, it rather much resembled a rippling puddle than the sea.
The shadow it cast told Squall and Zidane that it had it's sights set on them.
Between a slow moving pool of quicksand and a fast moving blob of hungry monster, the choice was obvious.
Squall and Zidane leapt into the quicksand.
-------------------------------
The descent wasn't as hard as either of them had expected it to be.
After snaking through a tunnel with no light, Squall and Zidane found themselves in mid-air, having gone through the tunnel opening, staring at solid ground which laid a few feet beneath their airborne position. Quickly reacting, both adjusted their positions so they would land on the floor without having to sustain much injury.
The cloud of dust which formed when they landed soon dissipated, leaving three people staring at each other.
Or perhaps, they were staring beyond each other.
"Well," Cloud breathed, "this is a rather nice place, don't you think?"
Squall nodded mutely. He had never seen a place so vast, so grand, and so beautiful in his life. "Just like a palace..." He could barely whisper, as if afraid to disturb the serenity.
There was a shade of faint doubt mixed with recognition on Zidane's face. His mood darkened considerably. "I've been here before," his eyes were locked on the looming hallway with many statues and checkered floor tiles, "I think." He added as an afterthought.
Cloud and Squall regarded that cautiously, each ready to bludgeon Zidane into unconsciousness anytime should Necron take over. Sensing that, Zidane grinned uneasily at them and held his arms outstretched, "Calm down guys," he tried to reassure his comrades, "I'm still me, okay??" Trying to diver their attention, he glanced around briskly and asked in a subdued whisper, "Do you think the coins are somewhere around this big, creepy place?"
Breaking out of staring for Zidane, for now, Cloud and Squall also took to examining the surroundings.
This was very big place. A very very big place.
"I must say I honestly don't know," Cloud glanced upwards, wondering where all the light was coming from when they were underground. "But if the Invincible dropped us here the coins must be somewhere around..."
"Do you have the coins?" Squall asked.
"I sure hope so," Cloud reached into his pockets and fumbled around. The suspense was over soon enough. He retrieved the one silvery coin he had been carrying around and brandished it with a small smile. "Just this one. The other one is with Kuja on the Invincible."
"Better than nothing..." Squall took the coin. Almost immediately it flashed a brilliant white and paralyzed everybody for a while. This time, Squall didn't drop the coin. He held on to it until the light diminished. The coin was still there in his hands, looking like it had been when Cloud had passed it over, except that now it had the word 'Heart' inscribe on the one side that was previously empty.
"I think the coin likes you, Squall," Zidane grinned madly, his tail swishing around and causting mini dust storms.
"I think whatever it is, you hold on to this coin from now on." Cloud looked slightly under the weather.
"What did you want it for anyway?" The monkey boy was curious, as usual.
"I want to see if I can modify one of my GF's spells to see if there's anything familiar in this large cove," he informed them while mentally preparing for the ability, "unless, that is, you don't mind scavenging around here for days looking for that minute coin."
His two other companions were rendered speechless. This gave the SeeD the silence he needed for the ability, which he was already in the process of using.
Now all they had to do was to wait.
-------------------------------
Somewhere in Oeilvert, the imposing figure of the Invincible hovered over the abandoned structure, looking for a place to stay stagnant.
Having done so, two figures flitted into view from apparently nowhere.
Garland advanced towards the edifice without a care in the world.
And left a discontented Kuja behind him to decide whether or not he would follow.
-------------------------------
owari no hajimari datta
13/12/2002
http://www.tougenkyou.net/xd/
*shamless plug*
Join the VnYmaGCc!!!
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/VnYmaGCc/
Vincent and Yuffie makes a great couple! Hooray! Hooray!! Hooraaay!!!