Yo yo yo! ^_^ This is a Gala/Songi two-shot (huge surprise, right? :P) and the first part of a birthday fic I wrote for Barako. Part one is being posted a week before her birthday (I hope - I suck at math XD). Originally it was only going to be a short fic, maybe two or three pages, but it got way out of hand, which shows how obsessed I am with Gala/Songi right now. ^^
I'm sorry I never write birthday fics for anyone else. This thing just came to me in a huge flood of inspiration, and I didn't want to resist it. With any luck, I'll be able to get some inspiration for some of my other friends sometime soon. :)
Warnings: Gala/Songi; slash; non-canon; mild sexual references. Originally I rated the story M just to be safe, but Barako and I agree that it's probably no worse than a T. There's no sex, but it's semi-vaguely referred to. Please be wary if you don't like reading that kind of thing, and be sure to submit your thoughts on the rating if you don't think it's appropriate. Thanks!
Chapter 1
"How much longer do you think we'll be able to keep doing this, Songi?"
Gala had lost count of how many times he'd asked this question, and he'd lost count of how many times Songi had responded with the exact same answer.
This time though, the red-head didn't answer at all. It took Gala some moments to realize he was dozing, which he could only tell by sound because Songi currently had his back to him.
Impatiently, Gala reached out and shook him roughly by the shoulder. Songi's bare skin felt warm and sweaty under his fingers, but Gala doubted he was much better. These meetings always exhausted them both, one way or another.
In fact, even just thinking about their relationship was enough to tire out Gala. After all, they'd gone from best friends, to rivals, to mortal enemies, to reluctant allies, to... this, all in under three years.
Despite that, Gala never regretted his decision in the Seru-kai all those months before, the decision that had been the only thing that'd kept his former best friend from dying a horrible death in that sacred dimension. Well, his decision and Ozma's words to him just before they'd left the wasted Rim Elm to pursue Songi.
'Gala, there's... there's something you should know.'
Gala turned his attention from the small bag of supplies he'd been slowly setting in order and focused instead on his Ra-Seru.
"What is it, Ozma?" he asked softly. He didn't want to disturb Vahn and Noa, who, like him, were busy making sure they had everything they needed to enter the Seru-kai.
'You don't...' Inside Gala's head, Ozma's voice seemed to falter for a moment. 'You don't want to... kill your friend, do you? Songi, I mean.'
Gala felt something cold stirring up inside him. It was something he'd been trying to ignore for several months now, and something that had been becoming increasingly hard to ignore. Especially after what had happened less than an hour before.
"He's not my friend anymore, but no, I don't. I don't like killing anyone if I can avoid it - even that miserable bastard."
Gala's fists clenched. He sure wouldn't mind pummelling Songi to within an inch of his life, though. He deserved nothing less after what he had done. Not only had he betrayed his own people, killing several of them in the process, he was also the reason Gala, Vahn, Noa and their Ra-Seru now sat in a town that had been completely engulfed by the evil Sim-Seru Juggernaut.
The town was Vahn's, and practically everyone he knew had lived there, not to mention Maya, who had been almost like a mother to Gala and Songi. Vahn hadn't said much since the village had been swallowed, but his pale, set face and tense body had shown his feelings anyway: Vahn was terrified, terrified that his family and friends would be lost forever to the terrible monster, just as Noa's parents had been.
'If you truly mean that, Gala...' Ozma's quiet voice snapped the man out of his thoughts. '...Do not fight that man in the Seru-kai. Lure him out of the place if you can.'
"Why?" Gala asked, still taking care not to let the others hear him.
'Meta and Terra don't want me telling you this. Even now, they're urging me to keep silent, but... But you're my partner, and I can't lie to you like this.'
"What are you talking about?"
'The Seru-kai is a place intolerant of ordinary humans. Whatever that man tries to claim, he is only a mere human aided by the immense power of others. If you hurt him enough to separate the Sim-Seru from his body, Songi will be nothing but an ordinary human again, and the Seru-kai will reject him.'
"'Reject?'" Gala repeated dully. He didn't like where Ozma was going with this. Not at all.
'He will die,' the Ra-Seru said simply. 'The dimension will rip him apart from the inside-out, and he will die.'
Gala felt himself shudder involuntarily. Ozma ignored this.
'If, however, you manage to get him outside of the Seru-kai, Songi will merely separate from the Sim-Seru, and assuming you don't use too much force to do that, he should live. He's an insolent, power-hungry tyrant, but he's not an evil person. I know what the influence of a Sim-Seru can do to a person; it brings out the evil within them and makes them into blood-thirsty monsters. And I also know...'
Ozma paused for a moment, and Gala could feel his hesitation before he next spoke.
'I know you wouldn't have once held Songi in such high regard if he'd been as bad as he has appeared to the rest of us.'
Gala owed Ozma an enormous debt for his trust and warning, a debt he'd now never be able to repay. It was because of that trust and warning that Gala had been able to make his own decision on whether or not he wanted to spare Songi. Granted, it hadn't taken him long, since what he'd said to Ozma - about not wanting to kill a person if it could be avoided - was true, and Songi, despite everything, had been his friend once.
But it had still been an awful choice to have to make. Before Gala had been able to completely make up his mind, Songi had used the power of his Sim Ra-Seru, Jedo, to transform into a formidable, hideous monster that had borne almost no resemblance to the man Gala had known for so long.
Then, Gala had been left to think, as he, Vahn and Noa struggled for their lives against the evil beast, Is there any of him left in that thing? Is it worth the risk of setting it free upon the inhabited world? If we can't defeat it, the entire world could be...
And then Gala had remembered something, something that he hadn't thought about in over two years.
It had been Gala's eleventh birthday, and Songi had spent several weeks making him a new pair of sandals to replace the old, slightly undersized ones he'd been wearing before that. Even though he was terrible at weaving, or at making anything really, Songi had put everything he'd had into making the sandals, and they'd turned out so well that they'd ended up lasting Gala until he outgrew them three years later.
Gala, much more open back then than he was now, had thrown his arms around Songi's neck in delight and told him he was the best friend in the world. Songi, slightly embarrassed, had returned the hug for a few seconds before firmly extricating himself.
"Now you have to be super-nice to me for the rest of the year," he had said with a grin, to which Gala had laughed heartily and replied: "Well, I'll be super-nice to you for the rest of the day, at least."
And that memory, so vivid it could've happened only a week ago, quickly brought forth other ones, and eventually they were so numerous that they seemed to be flooding Gala's brain, even as the abomination that had once been his friend continued trying to decapitate him and his companions.
Songi asking Gala for the reading of every third kanji from their reading homework, insisting that he knows them all already, that he's just making sure he does.
Songi, whooping and cheering as he runs through the monastery, Gala hot on his tail as he tries to catch up.
Songi telling some older Biron monk who was picking on Gala the previous day that, next time he messes with his best friend, he'll have to answer to him, and earning himself two black eyes in the process.
Songi laughing his lungs out as Gala tries to wrestle away the small rock-candy he is holding just out of his reach.
Songi, on his fifteenth birthday, staggering and giggling from his first-ever hard-alcohol drink, putting an arm around Gala and telling him that he's his best friend in the whole world, like a brother to him, and Gala, not yet old enough to drink, chuckling in amusement at the effects of the alcohol before awkwardly pulling himself out of Songi's half-embrace and telling him he's glad to have him as a friend as well.
And Gala had made his decision: He wouldn't kill Songi. He couldn't.
With the power of his Ra-Seru, and perhaps Vahn and Noa's as well, Gala had, at the last minute, managed to get his enemy back through the gate to the land of Legaia, just as the Sim Ra-Seru separated from his now-restored human body and disintegrated into the air.
The Seru-kai had then begun to expire then, shaking all around the three heroes so much that they'd been knocked off their feet and unable to follow Songi out of the dimension. The Great Genesis Tree had been damaged too greatly to continue sustaining the worlds, it seemed. But just as all seemed lost, the prophet Hari, whom everyone had believed gone forever, had appeared and, with his powers, bought them enough time to escape and return to their own world.
They'd then been transported to the top of Mt. Rikuroa, where they'd found Songi, unconscious, covered with many bruises and scrapes from their fight, but otherwise unharmed.
"What do we do with him?" Noa asked, looking at their enemy cautiously.
Before anyone could answer, Songi gave a low groan and stirred. He'd been lying face-down on the ground, and he instinctively rolled over onto his back and elbows, probably as a preparation to sit up. Before his back had risen more than a few inches off the ground though, Songi found himself face to face with the sharp point of Vahn's Chaos Breaker sword.
"Don't move," the boy said coldly, the weapon steady in his right hand.
Songi's eyes traveled slowly from the sword to the three heroes, but he made no other movements. Clearly, he didn't believe Vahn wouldn't have any qualms with killing him if he thought he was a threat.
Noa likewise aimed her Heavy Strike claw in the same direction as Vahn's sword. After a brief hesitation, Gala also drew his Power Club weapon, although he secretly doubted Songi was in any condition to fight them right then.
"You..." Vahn said, his voice trembling with barely-suppressed hatred. His grip on the sword did not falter, though. "My... My whole village may be dead because of you!"
Vahn shouted those last words, and it seemed to be taking everything he had not to thrust the Chaos Breaker forward into the former monk's head.
Gala froze. He hadn't counted on this. Of course, Vahn had every right to want to kill Songi after what he had done, but somehow, Gala had never imagined he would. Like him, Vahn never killed a fellow human being outside of self-defense. He had always been a peaceful, mild boy, and seeing people suffer was the thing that pained Vahn the most. But now...
"Give me a reason," Vahn said, more quietly, "one reason, Songi, why I should let you live."
Songi swallowed, and for a moment his eyes met those of Gala's. Gala thought he saw fear there, but not much. He seemed too groggy and dazed to feel much. Nevertheless, he managed a small, shaky smile and said, in an only slightly unsteady voice:
"Gala wouldn't like it. I mean, back there, in the Seru-kai, as soon as you guys got that damned thing off me, my body felt... l-like it was being torn apart from the inside." Almost word for word to what Ozma said, Gala noted dimly. "I think if I'd been in that place even a few minutes longer, I would've died. But Gala made sure I wasn't, and somehow, I doubt that was an accident. Do you?"
Songi laughed weakly.
"I guess I should be thanking you, oaf, even though no one else probably will. And you know..." Songi looked back to Vahn again, still smiling. "...Even if I die here, at least I got to live to see myself smash Gala's face into the dirt without drugging him. Wearing that miserable thing probably wasn't much better, but what the hell. And hey, I know it's still only one to three - actually, a lot more than that. But at this point, I'm willing to settle there."
Gala noticed Songi's continued negative referral to his former Seru. It appeared the thing really had been controlling him a lot more than he would've liked. But then, how many of Songi's terrible crimes had been committed by his own will, Gala didn't know.
"What the hell are you talking about?!" Vahn demanded in disgust. "Father and Nene, Mei and Maya, Master Tetsu, Ixis, the elder... I might never see any of them again because of what you did!"
Songi's smile faded, and for a split second, Gala saw, plainly, deep sorrow and regret on his face. But then Songi's expression cleared, and he smirked.
"Go ahead and kill me, then," he said calmly. "No one will care much, and it's the only way all your dead friends and relatives will ever get to rest in peace."
Gala didn't know afterwards if Vahn would've risen to this bait and murdered Songi in cold blood. On the one hand, he knew Vahn, and he knew he wasn't that kind of person. On the other hand, the look in Vahn's eyes after Songi had made that cruel - and worse, potentially true - jeer about everyone he loved chilled Gala for a long while afterwards.
Whatever Vahn would've done, and Gala had never dared to ask him, the former Master Teacher didn't risk it.
"Vahn, no!" he shouted, leaping forward and wrapping both arms around the boy's sword-arm.
As he managed to wrestle the deadly point of the Chaos Breaker away from its target, his own weapon dropped from his hands. In an instant, Songi, fatigued as he was, had darted forward and grabbed it.
While Vahn and Gala continued to struggle, their adrenaline not allowing them to do anything else, Noa rushed to try to stop Songi. She was able to slash him hollowly on the side of the face with her Heavy Strike claw as he passed her, but it didn't produce the desired effect of making him stop. All it really did was add yet another cut to the numerous ones he had already.
Not even bothering to stop, Songi struck out at Noa with Gala's club, and though he didn't succeed in hitting her directly, he did hit her hard enough to send her sprawling, out of his way.
In the few seconds it took Vahn and Gala to come to their senses and stop struggling for control over the sword, and for Noa to get shakily but quickly to her feet, Songi had already put a great distance between himself and them.
He was a great runner, both long- and short-distance. It'd been one of the few things he'd always beaten Gala at. And he was further aided by the fact that he was running downhill. There was always the slim hope that he was too injured to run far, or that he might trip and twist his ankle on the uneven terrain, but Gala knew, even as he, Vahn and Noa began to give chase, that their chances of catching up to him were about as high as the chances of Rim Elm's people surviving their ordeal.
And sure enough, they hadn't caught him, and eventually they'd been forced to turn their efforts towards defeating Juggernaut and Noa's brother, Cort, in Rim Elm. Afterwards, after the monster had been destroyed, the Seru-kai had begun to disappear, and Meta, Terra and Ozma had given what had remained of their short lives to restore all the residents of Rim Elm and Cort back to life - after all that, Gala had been able to think more about Songi.
The king of Drake Kingdom had been informed, as had the small number of villages in that region, that one of the dreaded allies of the Mist was still alive and at large. Posters had been put up, the royal knights had been discharged, the neighboring kingdoms had been informed, and Songi had, in a very short space of time, become the most wanted man in Legaia.
Gala hadn't seen him for some time after that. He'd returned to the Biron Monastery to resume his duties as Master Teacher. Vahn had gone travelling with his childhood friend Mei to see the now-Mist-free world, and Noa, with her reincarnated brother, had gone to live in Buma with Cara and Grantes, two friends the heroes had met during their journey.
Gala had still kept in contact with Vahn and Noa, and occasionally seen them, but for the most part he'd confined himself to the monastery. It was easier, he'd found, to lose himself in his training than to face his emotions. Besides, he'd been sure for a long time that Vahn and Noa must surely hate him, in a way, for sparing Songi - although he'd since learned that wasn't true.
It hadn't been until about three months after Rim Elm had been restored that something of note had happened.
Gala, unable to sleep, had gone outside the monastery late one night for a breath of fresh air. He'd had a nagging suspicion for a few days that someone was watching him, and the feeling had grown even stronger when he'd ventured outside. After a few very uncomfortable minutes of inwardly jumping at shadows and thinking he heard footsteps that were probably just night-creatures, Gala had suddenly been grabbed from behind by a strong arm and, while placed in a choke-hold, felt the sharp edge of a knife at his throat.
"Don't yell," a low voice hissed in his ear.
Gala went rigid, not daring to move even a muscle. He knew that voice. He'd know it anywhere, even though he hadn't heard it in so long, and rarely so quietly.
"I'm not going to kill you," the voice continued. "I just want to talk to you. Okay?"
"Okay," Gala managed to gasp, struggling to breathe with the other man's arm wrapped around his neck.
He was released, and he staggered back, clutching his bruised throat. Then, turning slowly and carefully around, Gala saw him.
Songi looked much the same as he had when Gala had last seen him, save for the fact that he, like him, had grown at least an inch taller in their time apart. His hair was also a little longer at the back, but somehow he'd managed to keep it tame, or as tame as Songi's hair could be. Likewise, his face was clean-shaven, and he appeared to be at least moderately well-fed and kempt; he hadn't lost any of his muscles, and his clothes were clean and relatively untorn. Gala realized he must've been stealing supplies from somewhere.
"I'm sorry I grabbed you like that," Songi said, though he looked more distracted than sorry. "I couldn't risk you yelling out when you saw me."
"How do you know I won't do that now?" Gala asked coldly, massaging his sore neck.
Songi grinned, but he still seemed mostly preoccupied.
"I guess I don't. But then, you were always a pretty honorable person. I hated that about you. Still do, in fact, but it's kind of serving my purposes here. You're not going to yell out because you said you wouldn't. Sure, you said it while I had a knife to your throat, but I still think you're going to keep your word, at least until you hear me out."
Gala glared at him, more because he was right than for any other reason.
"I see you've been keeping yourself pretty well," the younger man said stiffly. "I guess you'd rather steal from people than try to live honestly."
Songi laughed, and for the first time, his distracted look lessened slightly.
"Thanks to you and your buddies, Gala, if I tried to get a job, I'd be waking up in Drake's dungeon the second someone realized who I was, which wouldn't be too long, and I'd have a noose around my neck less than a week later. Besides, I haven't been stealing for a while."
"Oh, right," Gala said sarcastically. "I forgot about that huge stash of gold you kept hidden under your bed."
"Ha-ha. Actually, Maya has been giving me things."
"Maya?!" Gala almost shouted, then forced himself to speak more quietly. "Maya has? F-For how long? And why didn't she..." Why didn't she tell me?
"About two months," Songi said. "When I first got away from you guys, I tried living in the wilderness, but that didn't last long. I couldn't risk making a fire out in the open, and raw meat... Damn, Gala, you know I love my meat rare, but even I have my limits! And I didn't want to eat any of the fruit or mushrooms I found in case they were poisonous."
"That was oddly insightful of you."
"Actually, it was my dad. He used to take me camping all the time, and he always told me not to eat anything I found in the wild."
Gala raised his eyebrows. Songi rarely talked about his parents, even to Maya, whom he'd told almost everything when he was younger. All Gala knew was that Songi's mother had died when he was a baby, and his father, a somewhat well-off crop-farmer, had brought him up alone. Gala and Songi had lived in the same village before being brought to the Biron Monastery, but they hadn't met until after their village had been attacked by Seru, killing Songi's father and both of Gala's parents.
"Anyway," Songi continued, a little flustered. The comment about his father seemed to have slipped out unintentionally. "That wasn't the only reason. My clothes were ripped to shreds in just a few days, and my hair was getting far too long. And I was starting to grow a damned beard. A beard, Gala. Could you imagine how bad that would look on an perfect specimen like me?"
Gala sighed impatiently. Songi seemed more concerned with losing his good looks than with being captured and executed.
"So how long did you last out there?" he asked. Songi looked a little embarrassed and shuffled his boots.
"Two weeks."
Gala suppressed a contemptuous laugh.
"Still longer than I expected. So I suppose you stole from villages and such after that, right?"
"Obviously," Songi said with no trace of shame whatsoever. "But then people started seeing me, and I was afraid one of them would recognize my face - even though those posters of me are incredibly inaccurate - and tell someone who mattered. Eventually I got desperate enough to go to Maya, and she... Well, she helped me."
"Maya is far too forgiving," Gala said, but his anger was directed more at Songi than at her.
Songi, who'd been looking periodically around throughout their conversation, presumably for any other people, looked back at Gala, and the younger man saw a bitter smile tweak his face.
"Oh, I know," he said evenly. "That's why I went to her. When I apologi- I-I mean..." Songi dropped his gaze briefly. "When I saw her, Maya told me it wasn't my fault, it was all the Seru's."
"She's wrong," Gala said coldly. "I know that thing corrupted you, and I know you never would've killed anyone if you hadn't been stupid enough to put it on, but you have to have a lot of evil and greed in your heart to begin with to be controlled by a Sim-Seru, and especially by a Sim Ra-Seru."
"Sorry for being human, Gala," Songi snapped back, lifting his head again and glaring at him. "I'm sure you would've been just fine if the Ra-Seru you'd buddied up with had turned out to be one of Cort's as well. But I didn't come here to argue with you."
"Right," Gala said, and looked at the knife still clutched in Songi's right hand. He had no means of defending himself against that...
"I haven't come to kill you," Songi said, as though reading his mind. "I meant what I said before. Even if I wanted to, and I don't, I know it would destroy Maya. I won't do that."
Gala was surprised at the sincerity in Songi's voice, and despite everything, he found himself almost believing him.
"Well, then," he said, a little uncertainly, "what do you want? If you came for food, I can't-"
"I don't want anything. Maya gives me everything I need, and I've found places where it's safe to hunt and start fires. And she gave me some advice on what sort of fruit and stuff I can pick out in the wilderness. Basically, if it's not a berry or a mushroom, it's probably safe. The reason I came here is because Maya told me to."
"What?" Gala looked at him skeptically, and Songi shrugged.
"Well, she did. She told me there was no point in living if I had to be alone all the time, and she knew you'd forgive me."
"I don't."
"I know. That's what I said. But Maya thinks the world of everyone. You know that."
"So... So what, you want to come into the monastery and greet everyone?" Gala said with a bitter scowl. "I suppose they might be willing to give you a last meal before they lock you in the cellar and send word to King Drake's knights."
"Great. It's been a while since I ate in company."
"What, then?" Gala asked, much more seriously. "Songi, I..." He swallowed. "I'm glad you're alive, I really am. And I'm glad you're not living like an animal, even though you deserve to. But what you did... I can't just-"
"I know." Songi nodded slowly. His expression said all too clearly, 'I told her so.' "But I promised Maya I'd try. I'm hiding out in a cave in a small forest near Rim Elm, to the south. You know the one?"
"I think so, but-"
Songi waved his hand impatiently.
"Yeah, yeah. I'm not completely fine with telling you where I'm hiding, either. Maya assured me you wouldn't rat me out, and I kind of believe her, considering how eager you were to let me live before. But I still don't like telling you. The fewer people who know where I am, the better. But, if you feel like coming to see me - and believe me, I would be perfectly happy if you didn't - you'll find me there for the next few weeks. I change locations all the time to be safe, but if you go to the cave and I'm not there, just talk to Maya. I always tell her where I am."
Without waiting for an answer, Songi turned to go, the knife glinting in the moonlight as he moved.
"See ya," he said carelessly, not even looking back. "Or, probably not, but at least it'll keep Maya off my back for a while."
And before Gala could reply, Songi had slipped away into the darkness, leaving nothing but the sound of chirping crickets behind him.
Whew! XD Well, that's it for now. The fic starts off a bit clustered, but it all comes together at the end. I won't wish you a happy birthday yet, Barako, since it's not for another week, but hopefully the fic is okay so far. ^^ And as always for anyone who reads this, please point out any typos or such that I make, and give constructive criticism if you have it. I really want to improve. Thanks! :)