This was actually a suicidal! Kadaj story, and seven chapters long. But I decided it's better fit for Yazoo, so it was changed up a lot. Has similar tones, though, I think.

Mr. Divinity.

That's what I occasionally called the baby, in my mind only. It's a joke, really. But it's a joke too above the god to be said aloud. Mr. Divinity is too far in his own little world to see the lesser deity below him.

The lesser deity is what I call myself. Always the god below the god, the servant to the blind master. I have no quarrel with this, though. I'm glad to be Kadaj's servant. I would do anything to protect him, I would do anything to please him, anything to save him, anything to make him laugh his quirky little laugh.

Which is why I hate Mother.

Mother twists his mind so that he is blind. Loz, I can save. Loz is simple-minded; he would believe anything if I said it with enough interest to make it sound like I believed in it. But Kadaj is stubborn and steadfast in his love. He sees only one path and no other. I want to teach him real love, not this blind, puppetised belief in love. Like all those teenagers you see who think they're in love but it's some kind of wanton lust that's most unjust.

One day, while lazily lying around in the cold, blue shells of the Knowlespole, I turned to him. He looked asleep. But before I had second thoughts, he spoke.

"What is it? I can feel your eyes on me."

I opened my mouth before I could stop.

"Do you love Mother?"

His sharp eyes glared into me, fast as lightning his head had turned. But he was still in the boyish position of just lying out like a cat sunning his self.

"Of course I do. What kind of question is this?"

I fell sheepishly quiet. I looked away from the god's contemptual glare. But his eyes burned into the side of my face. I couldn't get away from his inquisition.

"I meant... How much do you love Mother?"

"More than a"

"No."

I stopped him, and finally turned my face towards him. He was confused now, looking almost like a lost little kid. He was sitting up next to me, his curious head tilted. I felt like laughing, but I didn't even smile. His wrath was a biting one, and I didn't want to tempt him.

"How much do you love Mother... really?"

His eyes narrowed, and I sat up, the glow of the spirited trees lighting my eyes as the rim of the shell pulled away its shadow from my lying position. He watched me completely, from my delicate hand movement, to the way my hair fell swiftly, to the sound of my leather sliding against the calcium carbonate of the shell. Though I can read Kadaj relatively well, I couldn't tell if those piercing eyes really were piercing me. Did he see my treachery?

I waited, and he turned his head towards the expanse of the forest. A breeze had picked up earlier, and it played on our hair, shuddering our leather, whipping our coats around noiselessly. He closed his eyes, and I wondered if he was still thinking. The howling of the forgotten spirits in the forest echoed in the shell in which we sat, sounding like a distant scream or a faraway ringing from a belltower or like souls being ripped from the dying and injected into the Planet's core...

When he opened his eyes, he looked at peace. Or as if he really did feel love. He finally turned to me, and smiled an earnest smile that made his boyish cheeks puff out as the grin cut his face.

"I love Mother this much."

He said nothing else, did nothing else, but he just stared at me like that answer was enough. When my brows lowered in confusion, he held his arms out as if in a shrug and continued to stare at me, as if his eyes alone held the rest of the answer. I didn't need it. I understood.

Kadaj was more or less saying he loved Mother with his entire being.


I made the foolish mistake of talking to Loz about my issues. Loz, who was like a teenage girl, who couldn't keep a secret if his life was threatened, who feigned understanding long enough to tattle...

I was pleasantly greeted by Kadaj the day after, strolling like a confident kitten as he often did. The god seemed happy; His question stuffed shallow fear into me.

"Had your way with Loz, did you, traitor?"

I showed no emotion to him, but when I glanced at him his faade had disappeared. I had never seen the look he had then. His face was contorted with rage, the intense anger almost leaking off him in waves. His teeth were bared like a feral cat's, his pupils half hidden behind his knotted eyebrows. His shoulders were raised slightly, tensed from fury, and the worse part, his sword was in his hand...

"Kadaj, what are you talking about?"

I feigned ignorance, but it only made his blade come flying within inches of me as the tree I stood next to shattered with a loud crack and fell to the misty ground noisilly, spliters flying everywhere.

"I hate liars!"

I backed away as the words belted viciously from his mouth, the smooth ribbon that was his voice broken with enmity. Should I reach for the Velvet Nightmare? Would it anger my god more? I touched my hip with my left hand. He saw this minute action, and rushed us into a tree behind me. He shoved his stronger forearm into my throat, and dropped his blade into his right hand. He held it to my face, the cold blades lightly piercing my pale skin.

"Do you want this!?" he screamed into my face. When I refused, he pushed, and the blood fell. "Do you!?"

"No," I told him deeply, with no feeling shown. Just a lifeless doll, as we all were.

"Then explain your deception!"

I swallowed stiffly, his left arm bearing into my Adam's apple. My eyes were low; His height deceived his pitless rage. I tried to speak then, a foolish and contemptual comment, but luckily his forearm had stopped the wind. As I began to have trouble breathing, Kadaj growled in frustration, and pushed away aggressively, switching the blade back to his left hand as he jumped away from me. I didn't touch my throat. I didn't cough. I didn't want to show my god any weakness, nothing he could use against me.

"Kadaj..."

He stood still, rigid, those same evil features I had seen not twenty seconds earlier plastered on his face. He listened with feline intensity, hearing every creak of leather, my short breaths, even my swaying strands of hair. His eyes took every detail, but I wouldn't make the same mistake of moving when it wasn't needed.

"Mother is a lie"

Before it was even completely out of my mouth, Kadaj had spun around, and sliced a very large and deep gash into my solar plexus. Unexpected it was, and I showed him so as I slammed straight into the ground, the mist swirling up and away as if to allow me through. I curled into a fetal position, more shocked than anything. I gripped my stomach, the blood suprisingly warm. I glanced up and Kadaj's foot jammed straight into my chin. My eyes shut tight as my teeth banged shut unpleasantly. Before I could try to defend my position, Kadaj raked his blade across me several more times, each one like a searing brand running across what felt like my bare skin. As a last strike, Kadaj spun and his heel connected with my crown.

I lost consciousness for a mere second as my entire body flipped over the other way, the open wounds on my back meeting the unhappy tree I met earlier with a sharp, all-over pain. I doubled over then, my hair hiding my face from Kadaj. Something warm was on my cheek. I hoped it was a stray drop of blood, and not the salty weakness that would break me underneath the god's wrath.

"Why would you betray me, Yazoo?"

The icy question pierced what seemed like endless silence, cutting through a bubble of lost time in my ears. I had to choose my words very carefully, or risk another scarring injury. Very difficultly, I spoke.

"Not you, Kadaj..."

I could feel those eyes on me, feral now, alight with contempt.

"I betrayed Mother..."

There was silence for a few seconds. Nothing moved, except our breaths, which came out like helpless whispers in the dead silence. Where had those deathly echoes gone? Those sirens wailing from a hidden beyond? Why was the silence penetrating my core like this, in my dire punishment?

"Elaborate," he ordered.

Again, I arranged my thoughts in the way I thought he would not attack in the middle. I swallowed, and then finally looked up, directly into his angry eyes, hoping to channel all my thoughts and beliefs to him.

"Mother... She controls us. We're puppets to her, Kadaj."

I paused, wondering if he would snap. I was surprised to see his eyes close, focusing on my words rather than my face, something that would make or break me. I had to convince him.

"We're just pieces of Sephiroth. In the end, Mother doesn't want us or need us. She wants Sephiroth. We're nothing to her, just pawns, meant to be destroyed in the end. Don't you see?"

His eyes opened, and he titled his head in confusion, the same as in the shell the other day. I saw for a moment his innocence shining through. But it was masked immediately by his rage again and I was almost unsure if I had even seen anything.

"Mother loves us, as much as Sephiroth. We're just as precious as he."

He stopped, and began to walk around softly, thinking, speaking, like a cat wondering if his owner is home.

"I know how you feel, Yazoo," he told me, like he really believed it, "I sometimes get so frustrated because I wonder if Mother wants him more than me..."

I closed my eyes, murdering my smile. Mr. Divinity arises.

"But in the end, it doesn't matter. Mother will overcome this miserable place, and in the end we'll have played a greater part. It's no reason to get upset over your fear of death."

I opened my eyes to see him standing just above me, his head still tilted curiously, seeming less angry. I had become very cold, the blood drenching my suit, like a black goo encasing me. I didn't feel safe to get up yet. I didn't know whether he was feigning. He was very good at deceit, himself.

"It's not that," I told him, and his attention caught, an eyebrow raising. "It's you."

He stared at me for a moment, then gave me a half smile.

"Me? What did I do?"

I was going to bite the bullet with this one, so I blurted it out as fast as I could.

"Mother has you blinded. You're willing to commit suicide to please her. She's just a head, Kadaj, near nothing. Mother doesn't care about you!"

It seems like a shallow comment, I know, but Mr. Divinity, he who thinks himself above others, would take it like a heavy blow, bricks coming at him at one million miles an hour. And that was my point.

His face became incredulous, as he backed away in disbelief.

"How dare you!?" he asked, shaking his head. "How could you betray us, Yazoo!?"

"I didn't, Kadaj!" I tried to plead my case, "I would protect you forever, beyond the ends of time. And Loz, too!"

He stopped suddenly, a sinister idea coming into him. I could see the payment of my actions then in just his face. I may be in stitches for a short while, but I would forever remember the look of pure malice that he showed now. He came closer and I glared at him, steeling myself.

"Tell me one thing," he said, almost sweetly, "Who do you love more: Mother or me?"

I gasped. It was small, but audible. And this made Kadaj smile most wickedly. I knew that Kadaj had a terrible plan, and this was it. Mother or him. The answer was easy. But I knew the answer I should tell him. So was I to tell him the undying truth and get what's coming to me? Or should I lie and live in an eternal fabrication? Either way, I would suffer the consequences, good or bad, now or later.

I decided to never lie to my god.

"I love you... more than Mother."

His smile never changed, by his malevolent eyes tightened with sick glee.

"Wrong answer."

The hilt of his blade flew to my temple, and all I saw thereafter was black.


In the end, I was incapacitated for a long time, and I received daily lectures and chastisements until I said what Kadaj wanted to hear. The lies came from me like acid flying up my throat, but not all lies are lies, or so I thought. Opinions aren't lies; they're the truths of those that behold them. What my truth was wasn't necessarily a lie to him. Just my truth...

In the end, I decided to ever will my god, to the last breath. I would protect him, I would save him, I would do anything for him. If he did something for Mother, that was fine. But I wouldn't. I would do whatever he asked, but for him, not her.

A few days after Kadaj's intense reprimanding, I was lying down. I was trying to sleep, but it was difficult with Loz and Kadaj joking around and play fighting like the bunch of idiots they are. I tried very hard to rid my "disloyal" thoughts from my mind, always thinking of something else when they suddenly popped up. But it was terribly difficult.

In my concentrating, I had almost fallen asleep, my thoughts wandering off strangely as they always do. But I felt the weight of something press down beside me on the makeshift bed. I opened my eyes halfway, and saw Kadaj sitting there, watching.

It was the Kadaj I love. The one that cared, the one that was at peace and happy, the one that was innocent and boyish, child-like in all his ways, the one who cared more for us than for her.

I closed my eyes, suddenly tired. I felt him watching me, but unlike usual, I didn't care. I didn't feel that pierce.

"Yazoo..." he spoke gently. "I love you m... More th... Mothth"

I opened my eyes, wondering why Kadaj was having such difficulty speaking. He was shuddering, almost like he was convulsing. His head was downturned, his face veiled but obviously pained. He looked and sounded like he was choking. I was about to sit up and try to help, but then, he suddenly stopped, his entire demeanour changing. He was cocky, like when he consulted Brother and his company and when he spoke highly of Mother. He was the "I am above it all" person with which I joke inside myself for fear of constant punishment.

"Night," he said casually, and slapped my shoulder playfully, standing up and strolling out in his confident cat way.

This is where I began to hate Mother, as I lie bruised and injured in that shell in that hidden place up north, forgotten in all the whole world and our purpose just the same. Kadaj wasn't just obsessed with Mother, in love with her, at her every beckon call, conforming to her every whim: She controlled him. Physically, maybe even mentally, she controlled him. I know what Kadaj had meant to say. She ripped it out of his mind, right out of his mouth.

Mother controlled Kadaj, and so, I would need to protect him. I would need to save him. For I am below my god, and my opinion matters not.

I am the lesser deity.