Disclaimer: I do not own Final Fantasy.

A/N: This story was intended to be more serious, but as I was writing it it ended up being a bit goofy and then deathly serious again, a whole mix of stuff. I wasn't sure what I was going for with this, but mainly it was to focus on someone on the opposing side, even if it was just an OC.

There had been massive thunder clouds looming over the plains almost the whole day, yet it wasn't until around evening that it actually started to rain. Fortunately, it was a light rainfall, but still enough to cause some minor discomfort to the stationed Milites soldiers. They had been preparing all day for the arrival of reinforcements from Suzaku Magical Academy's Class Zero to arrive. Even though they were just teenagers, they still had to be killed.

The blood-stained grass and mud hinted at how well Suzaku's previous attempts to bypass the blockade had worked out. It was late last night that the squadron had received information that Class Zero was being sent in to personally deal with them. They were considered the best that Suzaku had to offer; it was going to take alot of concentration, skill and luck if they were hoping to win against such talented young mages. However, not all of the soldiers appeared to be so concerned.

A recent recruit, Yanmer, felt like he would eventually be driven mad by the dull pitter-patter of water droplets hitting against his armor. More so by that than the screams of dying men or deafening explosions in the far distance. He was already used to such sounds back at home. Every now and then, one of Milites' gigantic Magitek Armor mecha would slowly lumber past.

'Dammit all,' the young man thought with a scowl hidden beneath the mask of his helmet, 'When will those stupid brats show up already so we can fill them full of lead and go home?'

Truth be told, Yanmer had never had any desire whatsoever to fight for his home country. Unfortunately, he had no say when it came to the decisions of his father, an incredibly wealthy man and an extreme patriot in every sense of the word. His family were one of the first few to immediately show their support for Cid Aulstyne and his newly-obtained rule over the nation. Yanmer's father had served many times in the Milites army as a youth, but old age and creaking bones kept the high-strung warmonger from being able to pick up a weapon and fight anymore.

Thus, the duty had fallen upon Yanmer to take up the task of helping Milites take control of the crystals. Yanmer wanted to point out that he had three siblings just as equally suitable for this 'job' but he knew his parents would simply ignore him. They expected his two sisters to continue the family lineage (a.k.a. wealth) by marrying men who ran casinos and drove the most flashy of convertibles. His older brother was a worthless recluse. It couldn't have been a worse time for the young man to be sent to war; he was finally going to give in and buy himself an expensive hooker.

'If I die here, they better have hookers wherever I'm going...'

Suddenly, Yanmer's monologue was brutally shattered by the sound of a siren from over the next hill. Its loud, mournful wailing filled him with a sense of dread. Several of the other soldiers stopped and turned their heads in the direction of the siren. It always meant something bad was going to happen, and soon. Yanmer subconsciously gripped the handle of his gun a little tighter; this would be his first battle in quite some time.

Another soldier, whose name Yanmer did not know, was chattering quite loudly to himself. "Ohhh man...I don't like this...I don't like this one bit..." He was a new recruit as well, Yanmer figured.

An explosion much closer to the base immediately caught Yanmer's attention. Thick streams of black smoke billowed out from over the hillside. Nobody said a word. And then, darting through the smoke, were three figures wearing uniforms and red flowing capes. Underneath his helmet, Yanmer's eyes bulged wide.

"They're here!"

A few of the soldiers began firing, but Yanmer simply stood and stared at the approaching enemies. He was able to get a better look at them as they drew closer. There was a blonde man wielding a lance, a black-haired man with a sword in each hand, and a girl holding daggers. They were all young and ridiculously well-kept in appearance despite the circumstances. More mechs rolled out of the base to confront the attackers head-on.

However, Yanmer didn't care about any of that. The only thing that really caught his attention was the latter-mentioned girl. She was...she was...

'My god...' he thought, 'She's the most beautiful woman I've ever seen!'

Her perfectly cut shoulder-length brown hair, her captivating light-brown eyes, her face unmarred by the violence of war, a slim body, a skirt short enough that left little to the imagination...she had it all.

Yanmer was completely enamored by the beauty's looks alone. He didn't care if the tough-looking student with the spear had just pierced one of his comrades through the chest. He didn't care if the decapitated heads of two soldiers rolled past his feet, courtesy of the double-sword-wielder. His armor was splattered with blood, but still it couldn't draw his attention away from the girl. Not even the horrible, painful screams of the dying could tear his attention away.

Yanmer was going to make this girl his wife, no matter what it took. He didn't want to bother with cheap crack-whores or sluts paid by his daddy's money; he wanted to live a peaceful, quiet life with this girl. They would run away to escape all the war and conflict to start anew. Everyone would think they had died in the war instead. Yanmer would live together with this girl on a tiny farm, and they would make their living off the land itself.

Every night, the two of them would make sweet love underneath the starry skies. They wouldn't bother using any kind of protection; if she got pregnant, then Yanmer wouldn't run away like how he usually dealt with issues such as this. They would name the boy after his father, whose insane love for his country had influenced the idea to send Yanmer to war and meet the girl of his dreams in the first place. Their son would grow up being loved and cared for as long as he didn't try to go into his father's special shack. It was the life he had always secretly wanted instead of being a big-shot rich bastard like everyone seemed to think he was. He had goals.

The girl, a magnificent specimen of women that she was, was steadily drawing closer to him. Yanmer's heart skipped a beat.

'Now, all I have to do is just ask her what her name is...'

"Hey-"

Yanmer was unable to get another word out before the girl's daggers had sliced his left hand clean off. The discarded appendage flopped uselessly onto the ground at its owner's feet. Yanmer looked at the stump on his arm, then at his hand, then back at the stump.

"G...GYAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!"

There was no way to describe the pain that he felt at that moment. The girl herself was visibly unshaken by her own actions. In the distance, her two comrades were busy annihilating the remaining mechs.

Yanmer attempted to lift his gun with one hand, wanting to pull the trigger and shoot this bitch dead, but he just couldn't do it. It wasn't because he still held feelings for her, but because the weapon was far too heavy without the aid of his other hand. He had never felt any pain like this before. Every nerve in his body was aching for some release; he just wanted it all to end. What happened next only took several seconds, but for Yanmer, it felt like several hours.

The girl swung again, this time tearing open a large gash in Yanmer's abdomen. Somehow her weapons were strong enough to cut metal. A waterfall of blood gushed out of the opening within seconds. Yanmer could not even scream, and he didn't want to. He was starting to go numb all over from suffering so much in succession. He had let his guard down, didn't even try to fight back, all because this girl was incredibly beautiful for her age. It was his own fault for not taking Class Zero more seriously. This girl was seriously going to kill him, and not feel an ounce of remorse about it.

"Please...don't..." he begged in between choked sobs.

Her final strike slit Yanmer's throat, and the poor man was no longer capable of clinging onto what remained of his pitiful life. His body quivered violently for a few seconds before collapsing backwards. A puddle of his own bodily fluids gradually formed underneath him.

Rem Tokimiya sighed.

"Hey, Rem, what's wrong? You don't usually pause in between strikes like that," remarked Machina Kunagiri as he and Nine walked up beside the young woman.

Rem looked down at the fallen soldier. "I thought I heard him saying something to me...asking me to stop..."

"Really? I've had to interrogate one of these bastards before; they refuse to even speak to us! He might have been a new guy?"

"I have no idea..."

Gently brushing Rem aside, Nine stood over the corpse of Yanmer and held his palm over it. "Look, let's not worry about crap like that, okay? You were probably just hearing things; we need to grab some more Phantoma and hurry on! There's still a few more bases we have to clear out up ahead!"

It only took a few seconds before Yanmer's body burst apart in an explosion of red mist, leaving a tiny blue orb in its wake. It almost resembled a miniature soul. The three teens did not bother wasting any more time standing around; their mission was far from other members of Class Zero were already up ahead and fighting for survival. They didn't look back at the carnage as they ran through it.

Rem had grown disturbingly comfortable with her work as a 'killing machine', but the fact that one enemy soldier didn't try to fill her with bullets still made her pause and think. Could it be possible that some of them didn't share Milites' intentions of taking over the other countries and their crystals? And they let themselves die without fighting for the cause?

Unfortunately, Rem would never learn that her assumptions were completely off.