This was another spur-of-the-moment musefic, demanding to be written. I never thought I would end up writing FF:U fic! Hah, I'm constantly surprising myself. And I've been bitten by lots of other plotbunnies lately. I'm just slow on sorting things out among the many ideas lurking around in the foggy place called my mind.
I seem to be getting a knack for naming my stories after Latin phrases... Ad Infinitum = To Infinity.
This contains a little bit of my own theories concerning the Unlimited. No big stuff, but just so you know.
I've always liked Fabula. Too bad Square never took the time to flesh out their character developments a bit more in the series…
Disclaimer: What, you thought I owned Final Fantasy: Unlimited? Ahahaha… *goes off laughing my head off*
.:Ad Infinitum:.
by Cassiopeie
"Who stands behind all Worlds?" the voices asked.
She was the centre of the universe.
"Where?"
Hidden deep under the billions of shells that protected her, all the way to her seashell filled with all kinds of wonderful and strange artifacts, she dwelled in the very core of all Worlds.
She saw everything, the slightest movements of the smallest living creatures, and she cared for each of them. But she never interfered, never made an attempt to truly affect the events that occurred in neither Outer nor Inner Worlds, and - most of all - never tried to rule it as the God some would consider her to be.
"But she isn't really a God, is she?" the voices knew.
She was merely a guide. All she did was guiding lost souls to their right place. That was all her true purpose was.
And yet, now there were times when she felt she had gotten something too big to take care of – that she and the many Worlds she cared for were caught up in a war, and that she was the general commanding her soldiers to go to the battlefield.
"Battlefield?"
Yes, no one could deny that this was a war. All Worlds had become battlefields. The enemy was constantly advancing. And she – she had recruited soldiers to fight this war of light and darkness, of Order and Chaos.
The Unlimited. Her response to the horrible destroyer that was Chaos.
"The Unlimited? The eternal warriors? Was it you who bound them to their duty?" the voices exclaimed.
It was she who had bestowed the great powers to Kuroki Kaze and Shiroi Kumo. The Unlimited – "those whose powers rival the gods". Chaos had been designed so that it could not be defeated by anyone, but she had defied its invincibility, and had let two people in two different Worlds be born with a destiny to carry the torch of hope for everything and everyone.
"Then what is an Unlimited?" the voices wondered.
The concept of the Unlimited was based on opposites. Black Wind and White Cloud, Soil and Mist, Windaria and Misteria, the Gun Dragon and the Sword Dragon, the spiral and the straight line. Chaos desired to rule the universe alone, unrivaled and without any equal, but the Unlimited were two separate entities, who only by combining their powers and working together could defeat their fated enemy.
"And it was you who tied them to eternal suffering", the voices remarked.
Few were the times when she let herself be caught up in any negative emotions such as regret, sadness or pity. But as she every day watched the struggles of Kuroki Kaze and Shiroi Kumo, the burden on her heart grew heavier. She knew that by condemning them to their difficult destiny, she had also caused them much sorrow and suffering. They had lost so much. They had been robbed of their worlds, everything and everyone they held dear. She sometimes felt that she was demanding too much, when they every day still had to find the strength to stand and fight another battle that just might take even more away from them.
If they ever would know who had put this cursed fate upon them, they both had all the right in the world to be furiously bitter with her.
"Indeed they have", the voices chuckled.
They were tools that she was using. No matter how much she tried to think of it otherwise, they were. Tools that would be tossed aside the very moment they no longer were needed. They would neither die nor age until they had defeated Chaos. Disposing the universe of Chaos was their ultimate purpose, and they had to remain young and strong and alive until it was fulfilled. But the price they ultimately would have to pay for their success, were their lives. The Unlimited did have a limit, and that was when they had fulfilled their destiny.
"So, in other words…" the voices started.
So she had put them on a countdown to their own death as soon as they were born. And the road on which they walked through life was a harsh one. Their fate was to lose every bit of happiness they would claim.
"And yet they go on. Such heroism, the poor souls…" the voices pitied.
Such thoughts were the ones that made tears, shining like the pearls surrounding her, fall from her deep and all-seeing eyes. She could only pray that they somehow would bear with it, and maybe even forgive her, even though she did not deserve it.
"Don't cry. Don't be sad. That's not your role in this story", the voices warned.
There were so many pieces to this puzzle. Along with the Unlimited, there were the twins, the Chaos Rulers, and the many people surrounding them, the many threads of which their destinies were weaved. It all was a complex and complicated system, with many destinies intertwining with each other, with so many things that needed to work together in synchronization and symbiosis if this terrible cycle was ever to end. But that also made it hard to destroy. The pieces protected each other and fought together, without even being conscious of it. Together, they formed a wall, and as it grew larger, the darkness would someday (or so she hoped) grow weaker, until it finally could be obliterated.
"Someday it will", the voices comforted.
And she would forever watch over it all. And she would forever wonder.
"What will you wonder?"
Chaos. Why in the world did such a being have to exist?
"Why, indeed?"
The usual answer was that darkness was needed to contrast against light – that a thing could not exist without its opposite, and that such also was the case for good and evil. But the massive, merciless and cruel thing that was Chaos – it couldn't be a necessary thing for existence, could it? It was beyond evil, beyond darkness, even beyond utter destruction…
"Beyond human comprehension", the voices continued.
She would forever defy it.
"Of course you will."
She was struggling too. Silently, from the shadows, protecting herself by not letting anyone know of her existence, but she did try to stop it as much as everyone else.
She was not a puppet master pulling the strings from the background– she detested the very term, since it reminded her too much of her dark counterpart Oscha. As opposed to his malicious plotting, manipulating and scheming, she was the guardian angel watching over her lost children.
"And that's a much better thing to be", the voices thought.
She was a guide. She had been born one, in the ancient beginning of time, and would always remain one.
She was the eternal light, that would be concealed, sealed away, veiled, maybe even covered by the darkness some day, but she would always exist. Even in times when despair would rule all, she would be the hidden hope waiting for a chance to shine.
And she would always secretly guide her children, her lost warriors and travellers, and always wish for them to succeed. She would never forget a single one of them.
And she would never give in.
"None of us will", the voices believed.
Welcome to the eternity of Wonderland. She is Fabula, and she will be your guide.