Disclaimer: I don't own Final Fantasy VIII, but I do own some of the characters in this story.
What is SeeD?
I can't tell you when I first heard the word SeeD, but I can tell you that I'm not supposed to know.
I heard my uncles talking about it once, on the shores near that old stone house in Centra. Apparently, they, as well as my parents, were fond of the place. I sat on the beach near Uncle Irvine and Uncle Zell, uninterested in playing with all the other kids who ran and screamed behind us.
The two of them were reminiscing about old times over several beers. I was playing with the sand; grabbing handfuls and watching white grains seep through my fingers. I don't think they knew I was there.
They kept saying it.
"Remember back in SeeD?"
"Those were the good ol' days."
"What was that guy's name? The one SeeD who piloted the ship?"
My ears perked up, and my little mind kept thinking of plants and flowers like the ones in that flower field just outside this house.
I heard the familiar voice of my mom beckoning us kids to come back inside for dinner. Irvine and Zell didn't move; they completely ignored her, engrossed in their conversation.
I looked back at the setting sun, the sparkling sea, and asked myself,
"What is a SeeD?"
I asked the question again a few months later, this time at the dinner table. My eyes peered up at my father. I looked up to him, wondering if I'll ever grow up to be as big and strong. His frame was of a medium build, solid muscle hidden under the white dress shirt he had on with a few buttons undone. His brown hair cut short to his scalp, a neatly trimmed beard on his jaw, and that mysterious faded diagonal line between his eyes.
A scar.
"Daddy," I asked, drawing my mom and sister's attention as they ate, "What's a SeeD?"
His blue eyes bore into mine for a moment. He had this way of changing what was in them, expressing emotion without moving or twitching a muscle in his face. When he was happy, they sparked like a flame. When he was mad or annoyed, they hardened like ice.
He was mad now.
Dad brushed me off, going back to his dinner, "Eat your rice, son."
Mom looked at both of us, particularly at my father. In what felt like a split second, she looked concerned, but then smiled, "How was school Lukas?"
Disgruntled that my question was never answered, I lowered my head, feeling my father's calculating stare, "Good. We got to take an old computer apart today."
And my previous question was forgotten as my family began discussing other things like extra curricular activities, upcoming birthdays, and what we wanted to eat for lunch tomorrow.
I never brought it up again.
The next time I heard that word I was twelve. Winter had come blowing through the city, and I was feeling the effects of the heat drying out my skin and throat.
Deciding to grab a glass of water from the kitchen downstairs, I walked past my parent's room. Now, sometimes this old house had walls of solid stone, other times they were as thin as paper.
"….SeeD."
When I heard Dad say the word, I stopped and pressed my back against the wall next to the door and waited. They often had conversations well into the night, way after Raine and I had gone to sleep.
I listened intently, still of any movement, and my breath hitched.
"I thought we were way past that now." Mom sighed.
"How can we forget?" Dad asked her. "It's what we are, what we've always been. This life…"
I heard a shift on the bed, "Is what we worked so hard for. Squall, we sacrificed so much to have what we have. To have a home, our children, a family. In SeeD we had nothing compared to this."
"I know." Dad replied after a while, "I just wish it wasn't such a secret."
And it was. SeeD was a secret. I just didn't know how big it was at the time. I knew this though: Mom and Dad, Irvine and Zell. All of them had been a part of SeeD. I remember asking Raine when we got older. I was fifteen, and she was thirteen.
Her blue eyes just stared back at me, and then she shook her head. "I don't know what you're talking about, Luke."
I gave up asking my family. Nobody would give me an answer, and there had to be a good reason why.
I needed to find out.
I sat in UX Design class one afternoon, mindlessly scrolling through pages of useless content. An odd post here, a meme there, just the same old crap. I glanced next to me, noticing my best friend Austin Dincht looking at pictures of scandalously dressed girls again.
Typical.
Trey was sleeping to my left, and with both distracted, I typed into a search engine the words:
"SeeD group."
After a few seconds, I got nothing but gardens and shrubs. I sighed. Damn it!
So, I did the next best thing. Taking years of computing and UX coding courses, I learnt the ins and outs of the Internet. Backdoors, how to break through firewalls, even how to hack into high security sites made by the Galbadian government.
It started as a game my friends and I would play. You would hack into…let's say, the Galbadian Health Ministries site, and post a funny picture, maybe rearrange some words, replace phone numbers with Pizza delivery services. One day it got crazy when Trey decided to send out an alert for a new virus.
Apparently nobody realized that the symptoms were actually just a copy-and-paste list from some Zombie game he had been obsessed with at the time. Turns out most of the Deling City's doctors were on high alert, the military was getting ready for…ahem…a zombie invasion, and people were lining up at gun stores to arm themselves.
I knew everything went out of control when my Dad came home from work complaining that the council had him doing a briefing with his men about how to properly take down a Zombie. I had a good laugh until my parents found out how it happened.
Anyway, off topic.
As the teacher made his way to the front of the room, I started typing away in a kind of hacker language. It brought me to a black screen, changing the browser window completely. I was in, the green and white type telling me so.
The Underground Network.
First, I went to a common message board with announcements and conversations between resistance members. I remember finding a link somewhere posted a few years ago. I scanned through the messages until I found it.
I tapped the link, and it opened another window.
The Archives.
This was a depository of information gathered by the resistance over the past few decades. The amount of topics were endless. From Galbadia oppressing Timber in 1985, the Estharian rebellion just a few years' later, and other major historical events.
I rifled through the information, and found nothing. I grumbled.
"Dude," Austin said from behind me, "Control+ f that shit, man."
"Fuck you, Dincht." I growled.
"What're ya lookin' for anyway?" Trey stretched, getting up from his nap.
"None of your business."
"Tch. Fine, man. Be a scrooge." Austin went back to his girls, and Trey got up to go to the bathroom without asking the teacher for permission.
This was my chance.
"SeeD."
I got 3 hits.
Three's better than none, right?
"Class dismissed!"
I clenched my jaw, thinking of a way of getting this information quickly without drawing too much attention to myself. Thankfully, Austin was pissed off at my comment and exited the class without a word. His sensitivity was a blessing in disguise sometimes.
I pulled out my tablet and wirelessly connected the two devices together. Within moments, all three articles were added into my documents, and I was off to my next class with the biggest smile on my face.
"So, bro, bro, I told 'em, like, if ya wanna get me ta do my homework, ya gotta make this shit worth while." Austin was mid way through his story at lunch when he noticed that I wasn't paying any attention. "Yo, Leonhart, ya listein'?"
I looked up from my screen, "Y-yeah."
His anger never lasted long. Well, he got pissed about one thing, forgot about it, and got pissed about something else right after.
Austin Dincht everyone!
"What's that yer readin', man?"
I figured I'd give it a shot.
"What do you know about SeeD, Austin?"
His blue eyes went wide, like he knew what I was talking about. Couldn't say it wasn't refreshing to know that someone had heard this word before.
His voice hushed, "I wouldn't say that so loud. Someone could hear ya."
I furrowed my brow and frowned, "What do you mean?"
"I heard my dad talk about it before."
His dad was my Uncle Zell. Austin and I weren't actually related. Our fathers were best friends, but Zell acted like family regardless.
"Says he misses those days. Says he's gettin' restless livin' the domestic life sometimes. My dad was a soldier like yers, but he's more vocal about it. The name SeeD slipped once, and my Ma got all pissed."
I told him about what I heard my parents say and about my dad's reaction when I asked him about it. I stood up, "Come with me."
We slid into the guy's room down the hall. We waited for a few of them to leave before I took out my tab again. I opened the page, greeted by green writing.
We both read the caption:
Balamb SeeDs overthrow Sorceress From the Future.
"After the fall of Sorceress' Edea and Adel, a six SeeD Squadron lead by SeeD and Commander S. Leonhart were hired by Esthar. They were sent to the future to defeat Sorceress Ultimecia…"
My heart leapt into my throat, and I couldn't speak.
S…Leonhart?
My dad's name is Squall, and that's my last name.
"Dude!" Austin shook me, "What the fuck is this? Some asshole got real high and wrote this shit, I bet!"
"Sorceress?" I let out.
"Like a witch?" Austin scoffed, "Since when do those exist?"
I flipped through to another article.
The Fall of SeeD
I read, "The sorceress was after SeeD. She believed that they would kill her. They were designed to kill her. S. Leonhart fought along side them, bringing with him a wave of destruction. SeeD wasn't a military force anymore. It was an extinct species. It is believed that all of them are dead after the final battle that caused destruction to everything they touched."
"They were a military force used to kill sorceresses?" Austin asked me, and I shrugged.
I opened up the last file, and what I found confirmed all my suspicions.
It had pictures of that squad who took down the Sorceress.
He stared back at me, his scar a fresh wound at the time, but I knew those eyes. Those same eyes that glared ice at me when I asked about SeeD as a kid, the ones I grew up with, the same ones Raine inherited.
"Squall Leonhart. Rank A. SeeD Commander." The words came out in one breath, and on the next few pages I found a picture of my mom. You guessed it; she was a SeeD, too.
"Holy shit!" Austin yelled in my ear, "My dad, too!"
"This is crazy." I said. "Why didn't they tell us!?"
"I don't know, but we cant tell anyone we saw these, got it!?" He snapped, "This could be dangerous!"
"To who?" I asked, "Austin, listen, they lied to us!" With that I stormed off, leaving him to follow me out of the bathroom and into the crowded hall.
"Luke, where are ya goin'!?"
"Home." I said, "I bet there's more where that came from."
As a kid, I knew better than to go into the attic. My dad would tell me stories about ghosts and monsters to keep me from going up there. I believed him then, but like hell did I believe him now.
It was the middle of the day, so everyone was at work and Raine was still at school. The room was old, dusty, and filled with junk from over the years. I think this was my second time in here. Raine once dared me to sneak into the attic, and I did, but got quite the lecture after. I don't know what was scarier, spending an hour up here or the fumes coming out of my parent's ears when they found out.
I rummaged through boxes filled with our old toys, skii equipment that had long been forgotten, and old photo albums.
I sat on a box, flipping one open. I wasn't surprised to find baby pictures of Raine and me. Mom liked to have printed images rather than digital ones. She always said that they held more significance. She was sentimental like that.
When I was done with that one, I flipped through three more and stopped when I found another image.
He was a man with long dark brown hair, standing with a woman that resembled my sister. Aunt Elle was even in the picture. I flipped it over and found that it was dated back to 1988, which meant this picture was almost half a century old.
I knew who those two adults were, but knew almost nothing about them. My parents grew up as orphans, but my dad knew his parents. These were my grandparents, and that was Aunt Ellone as a kid. I assumed that this picture was taken before my father was born, as my grandmother died in childbirth.
Her name was Raine, which was why my father named my sister that. Everything we knew about them we knew because Aunt Elle told us. My parents never talked about them. That was when I realized that maybe I didn't know my parents as much as I thought. Two people who gave me life, who gave me love and shelter, were living the biggest lie ever told.
They were SeeDs. A military unit designed to kill sorceresses.
I got up and began to rummage through the contents of the attic again. I pushed aside a few boxes and found a long flat one leaning against the wall near the window. Unlike the others, it was black with a variation of the Leonhart Family crest on it. My fingers ran along the roaring lion head with wings, feeling every detail carved into the silver.
"Lionheart." I read on the small plaque under the motif.
Next, I took in the solid leather case, my fingers peeling away the clasps on the sides. As it opened, a blue light glimmered and illuminated the darkness around me. What I found was the most beautiful thing I'd ever seen in my seventeen years.
A blue crystalline bodied Gunblade. The same motif decorated the black handle that doubled as a gun. I'd only ever heard of these, but never thought that we had one in our house.
That's why Dad didn't want me up here.
I dared to take it out of its case, it had weight to it, and I struggled to keep it up with both hands. The grip was strange, and the blade was longer than I thought. I gave it a good swing, but lost control instantly and slashed open a box. Toys fell to the floor, and I dropped the blade to clean them up.
"Shit!" I whispered, gathering them into a pile and tossing them carelessly into another box. I immediately decided to put the gunblade aside for now.
That's when I saw a chest. I knew we had it, but I hadn't seen it in years. It used to be in the basement until my mom moved it up here for safekeeping. As for what was in it, I had no idea. It was locked with a device, but that didn't stop me from taking the opportunity to find out.
Since I'd become a hacker, I knew how to get into anything. It was all algorithms and numbers, really. Sometimes it was someone's birthday, their significant others, the obvious stuff. But if this belonged to my dad, then it wasn't going to be that easy. For shits, I decided to use his birthday.
Of course, that didn't work.
Then I thought of something else. I saw a number under his name in the profile report I found.
I grinned. Two can play at this game.
I punched in: 41269.
No surprise that worked.
Inside was a uniform. The same uniform he wore in that photo. Since nobody was home, I figured I'd take it out. Upon further examination, I realized it was my size. With a huge grin on my face, I stripped down to my boxers, and slipped into the it.
In the old cracked mirror towards the back of the attic, I tugged at the collar with the gold trim. It was black, with silver motifs on the front of the shoulder pads and navy on the back. A chain connected the pads together, crossing over the chest of the black jacket. The pants matched, and were topped off by leather knee-high boots.
I stared into my green eyes, looking over my work proudly. I combed through my unruly brown hair, attempting to style it like his in the picture. After, I grabbed the gunblade and held it to my side. Swinging it over my shoulder, I smirked.
I was my father's son.
I found a letter under a female SeeD uniform, presumably my moms, and read it out loud.
SeeD: Balamb Garden's special forces. We were designed to defeat sorceresses. We were once a force of great strength, great skill in combat and off the battlefield. We are SeeD. We are humanitarians; we are mercenaries, revolutionaries, destroyers, and murderers.
We did good things. We did bad things. The bad outweighed the good, unfortunately. We destroyed cities, we killed people, and we killed ourselves. We vowed ourselves to this life. We offered nothing but our skill. We were devoted to duty and nothing else.
Now we are nothing. We are not in your history books. We are not on the Internet or in archives out in the open.
We are erased from memory, from existence.
We are alive, but you don't know us. You don't know that we are your elders, your brothers, sisters, mothers, and fathers.
We are no longer SeeDs. Just people living new lives, still suffering from the lives we lead back then.
Another life, in another time.
Signed:
Squall Leonhart.
I still can't tell you when I first heard the word SeeD, but I can tell you that I'm not supposed to know. I was never supposed to find that gunblade, or the SeeD uniforms, or even the letter. My parents pretend to still live the lives that was never meant for them. They were children once, living in that stone house, living in innocence, but were redesigned into soldiers.
Soldiers who tried to make a difference, but fell so hard they became 'extinct'. I, Lukas Leonhart, may never know nor understand that kind of life. SeeD is just a hum in the wind now. Something that died when the new world emerged from the ashes of war.
The guilt, the burden the SeeDs carry will be brought to their graves as they will never know the true meaning of peace.
FIN.
A/N: Okay, I never do one shots, but for some strange reason this idea haunted me all day. I suppose it was from reading the story Crismon Lies by Ashbear. I felt like I needed to write something about Squall's kids. This story may or may not coincide with the Naperic Legacy Series, so that's up to you.
I asked myself the question, when you live a life of killing people and war, how do you explain that to your kids? I imagine that in a concept like this, again without SeeD, Squall wouldn't explain much. If you wanna connect this to Naperic Legacy in regards to what's happened up until Chapter 24, then it could make more sense. Otherwise I like to look at this as an abstract, and idea that was dancing around in my head.
Also, Austin was fun to write.
Hope you liked it! Thanks for the support on the other stories! Read and review!
Happy reading!