Red Dawn Descending
AU Final Fantasy VIII
Declaimer: I do not own final fantasy VIII. Merely for entertainment purposes only.
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Red Dawn Descending
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Blowing out a shuttered breath, the middle aged Headmaster of Balamb Garden raise a shaky hand to rub his temple.
He had sent all his informants out to gather anything they could get their hands on regarding his missing wife.
His Edea…
Cid Kramer's face turn pained as he recall what his most trusted agent had give back to him just minutes ago.
Sorceress.
His dear Edea had become the current Sorceress that was raising in Deling.
A mission he had approved from General Caraway to assassinate the new Sorceress. He had already dispatched a squad of SeeDs just hours ago.
Cid tried to calmed his breathing. He have to do something and fast. Before his SeeDs went up against the woman he wasn't so sure he knew any more.
The man bit his lips as he press a series of number into his phone, numbers that would bring him his best agent, the Balamb Garden's own Grimm Reaper.
Cid leaned back into his chair, and recalling the event that had landed him with the killer-
"My, do you have anywhere to go? It isn't safe for a child like you to wander the streets at night."
"Child?" The little boy look up with impossible glowing eyes that wasn't really blue nor green for a moment there he could have sworn those eyes had turn red.
"I'm not a child."
"Don't be silly. Where's your home? I'll contact your parents to pick you up-"
"Parents? Don't have them." The boy shrugged in an off hand manner. "Or should I say I did until they were kill off."
"Oh, I'm sorry." His sympathy was thrown right out of the window when he heard what the boy had say next.
"I wouldn't be though. Since I'm the one that killed them all."
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"What do you want Cid?" The Headmaster what shaken out of his memory when a voice spoken out in his semi dark office. Cid shook his head and clear his thought of the blood thirsty grin that look so wrong on the boy's face. He peer through his glasses and watched as a young man step out of the shadow and into the light from his table lamp.
Memory over lapping each other and even now he could still recall the smile that had chilled him like no other stretching over the man's face that once belong to a mere boy.
"Thank you for coming so quickly." Cid glanced at his clock.
Three minutes. It had been only three minutes since he page him.
"What do you want from me Cid?" The man shrugged without care. "I just 'failed' the exam again, I need some time to mop you know." The man flash him a weird grin, Cid shook his head at his antics.
It had always been a game to him. Everything in life was a game to amuse him. The older man had always felt he wasn't older at all when he was in the presence of the other man.
Even when he first met him in the streets of Dollet, dirty rip clothes, unkept blond hair, eyes that look wise, jaded and old beyond his years in the face of a six year old boy. Cid had always felt the uncanny way how Seifer had remind him of his own father, cruel, cold, sharp tongue and been through too much under the Adel's tyranny.
Too jaded and seen more than enough of how terrible life could get, that had been his first impression on the boy but it change as the years went by.
"You could have pass that exam with your eyes close when you're thirteen on your first try, Seifer, both of us know that well enough." Cid reply with a tired smile. Earning himself a arched eyebrow from the supposedly much younger man.
Seifer was just playing. He didn't really care much of becoming SeeD or Garden, he care for pretty much nothing in this world. Cid chide himself. No, Seifer did care for something. The reason why he had asked him here was because the blond hair man did care for something.
"For real, did you call me just to have a nice chat with me?" Seifer rubbed his chin with a teasing look. Cid took a moment to compose himself, as much as he fear the young man, he love Edea more.
"Seifer, as the Headmaster of the Garden I hereby assign you the mission to infiltrate the rank of the raising Sorceress Edea. Do what ever you must, please stop her and bring her back to me alive." Cid had always felt unease in the blond's presence, the young man, no, the young boy in the mere age of twelve had successfully carry out countless assassination missions by himself and earn him the highest ranking agent in their Garden.
A secret that no one other than him knew. Cid thoughts paused. Norg probably knew something but he doubt him could have know more than there was a silent killer in their rank that was so good at what they do, they could have taken out anyone if given the right price.
"Sorceress Edea?" Seifer gave him a lazy smile and the uneasy feeling of being mock return to the older man.
"Yes, Edea. The same Matron you knew, my wife, Edea." Cid took a gulp of air to force the bail from raising up his throat. How have they come to this? Why would Edea start using her power like that?
No, that wasn't Edea. She couldn't be the same soft hearted woman he had falling in love with.
"But it wasn't really her that was causing all the trouble in Deling. There must be someone else pulling the strings." They both knew, Cid thought with dread that out of all the children that Edea had taken care of before she disappeared. Seifer was probably the only one who knew the depth that Edea went to make sure they were all safe.
"Infiltrate and get Edea back to me safely." He turn his pleading eyes to the boy, the man, the killer he had once and always called his son in his heart and plead for the safety of the woman he love above all.
"No matter what I must do to ensure the outcome?" Seifer tilted his head and asked for the bottom line he could go to get the job done since every time Cid had sent him off to finish his solo missions the older man had always insisted that he will not kill anyone that wasn't a direct threat to him.
"Anything." Cid felt his throat went dry at the sudden beaming look that over take the blond's scarred face that shown nothing but anticipated blood shed and lust for battle.
"Before you go, you must know that I had sent a squad to General Caraway in Deling to take up their mission to assassinate the Sorceress." Cid braced himself at the sudden realization in those glowing eyes that wasn't green nor blue aim at him.
"Quistis Trepe, Zell Dincht, Selphie Tilmitt and Squall Leonhart." Cid resisted the urge to flinched back from the ugly look of rage thrown at him by the blond.
"Cid… do you want to die?" Seifer hissed as he took another step out of the shadow and giving an unreal effect of detangling his very being from the darkness. Cid thought mindlessly as he ready himself for the impending explosion of temper-
"I have warn you Cid, 'Squally' is by no mean ready to face opponents such as the Sorceress." The blond put special emphasis on the other boy's name. The same nick name that everyone use when the brunet with grey blue eyes was still in Edea's orphanage and remind the Headmaster that yes, he was sending the kids he and his wife had taken in to face someone that could have kill them without much effort.
"Cid…I told you and you agreed that I will be the one that will taken full control of Squall's education." Seifer seethed as his glowing eyes in the half darkness turn into a bleeding crimson.
"I didn't know." Cid rail back in fear. Those eyes… the eyes of the killer. Seifer had given full control to the killer!
"I didn't know the one that Caraway want to kill is Edea! If I had know, I wouldn't have approved! I only knew half an hour ago!" Cid cried out in haste.
"And that… have to do with anything?" Seifer grit out as he raise his hand which was already glowing an unhealthy shade of red, it look like a firga spell but Cid knew better to assume Seifer would just hurl something like a firga at him when he had displease the blond.
Cid had been called many things, and in truth he would always remember the day his own father died in the honor battle he seek since he lost himself to insanity. And he will always remember the day how a child, a six year old child single handedly using no weapon but his own hands torn apart the mobsters in Dollet all because someone pay a heavy sum to do so.
The sky had turn red that night. A dark red like the darkness had bleed along with the mortals that lost their lives that day. And it felt the same, Cid thought frantically. The same feeling he get when Seifer was killing those men was the same sickening blood lust, anger, and it scared him like nothing else.
Like the young man standing before him now, growling in anger wasn't even a man at all, like he was facing something so powerful so unreal that he was cowering in it's presences.
If he hadn't know better he would have thought Seifer was a Sorceress himself. But he knew better, and he knew without any ounce of doubt that Seifer Almasy 'is' someone that was way more powerful than just any Sorceress.
Something very powerful that even him, back when he was nothing more than a normal man who was not even a fighter could felt the 'ancient' being in him.
"Edea had no control over her action. She will killed Squall and the others if they went up against her!" Although Cid didn't think Seifer would care for rest of the children that grew up with him. He had taken Squall under his wings, a dark bloody Death's wings but he had taken him neither less.
"Edea would have kill them! But you wouldn't." Cid breathed shakily as the red glow that surrounded Seifer's gloved hand didn't disappeared but the blond didn't let go of the blast yet.
"You will never kill Squall. Hurt him, teach him, raise him. But you will never truly harm Squall to a point he wouldn't able to heal." Cid said with renewed cheer that he was still breath and talking and Seifer hadn't killed him yet.
"Talk." With a clip tone the blond drop his hand and the red burning glow disappeared as sudden as it appeared.
Cid knew that Seifer was considering what he had meant to say. So talk he will, as long as there was a chance of saving his wife, he will do anything even it meant that rest of the world would have to suffer.
"You taught him almost everything he know, you're always there for him even if he never know it. From all the years you have spent to care for him, you as may well be Squall's father admit your method of teaching your son was unorthodox by most account but I know." Cid looked into his eyes, eyes that shown nothing and yet he knew the blond have a plan.
"Squall is the child you raised, you will never kill him." Cid spoken those words again.
"He will have a better chance of surviving an unnaturally strong enemy if there's someone on the other side that won't kill him." Seifer rubbed the newly acquired scar Squall gave him when he 'taught' him to expect the unexpected from his opponent.
That's a lesson he believe the brunet will never forget and he kept his scar with pride knowing that the boy that trail behind him sniffing with unshed tears back in his younger days was strong enough to land a decent blow on him.
He wanted the world to know that the child that was so weak among rest of the children had turn out to the strongest of them all.
He wanted the boy that he consider his little brother, his son to be stronger than even now, stronger than him. Seifer smirked as ignored the nervous man infront of him. Yes, Squall will be strong even if he wasn't up to the standard he would have like him to be, the blond will make sure Squall will be stronger than any other mortal in this world.
"If there is someone controlling Edea, you still want me to take her place in this game of war?" Seifer tilted his head, his usual mannerism restored making Cid letting out a relieved sigh that he still have his life to himself for another day.
Seifer's temper was very hard to predict. One moment he could be as cuttingly friendly as he could get, another he could have torn your heart out just because he suddenly felt bad.
"Yes, do what ever you must to ensure Edea's safe return. Even it mean the rest of the world will know the true horror within you." Cid nodded and spoken in a flat toneless voice. One he gain through years of hardship, one he used when he must do something the cowardly little artist boy would never dream of doing in his nightmares years ago.
"Ah~" Seifer smirked at him, and said in a teasing tone. "What do I get in return?"
Of course, it was never free to get Seifer Almasy to do anything for you. Cid hissed beneath his breath but he believe the blond had heard him anyway by the look of bemusement in his eyes.
"Anything. I'll give you Balamb Garden if you like." Seifer snorted at his words.
"Why would I want something that will give me more trouble than it's worth? Don't think I don't know who was in the Garden's basement. What's his name again? Norn? Nort or something?" Cid shook his head at how totally disrespectful the blond had toward 'him'.
"It's Norg." He said and the blond shrugged.
"Norg, whatever." Repeating the phrase the brunet had pick up from somewhere and use it too often for anyone's liking, Seifer plan to milk everything he could from the other man.
"What would you like as payment Seifer?" Cid asked with a softer tone, he had fail miserably at becoming Seifer's surrogate father, the blond would have never let him even if he really was. Seifer had grew up too fast, faster than anyone in his age, at six years old, he was already a full grown adult mentally. At twelve, he had become the Garden's number one nameless assassin. At eighteen, the boy Seifer had train and raise had become the youngest SeeD ever grace the Garden, one of the most promising agent in their field and a formidable fighter with a gunblade, one of the most difficult weapons to wield.
Even though Cid really doubt that Seifer's mental age was anything like his physical ones, right now, seeing this eighteen year old boy, just a boy stepping into manhood. He couldn't and wouldn't treated him anything less than an equal.
Underestimating Seifer Almasy was a mistake one should never do unless they want something akin to a painful death.
"I don't want any of those political crap trailing me after Squall take care of who ever is behind Edea, and I want triple the payment I got from my last mission." Cid winced but nodded. Seifer's pay have always been a heavy one but it was more than worth it to get the job done.
"Good, anything else? I think I better catch up to those idiots before they got to the Sorceress and taken out of the game before it started." Seifer was about to turn away when Cid called out.
"Wait. Is there something I should beware of?"
"No, just keep your mouth shut and do your job." Seifer gave him a mock salute and step into the shadow darkness of the room. Cid could have sworn his door had not open but the blond was already gone from his office like a shadow ghost slipping through the walls.
And again the image of the red dawn that faithful day where he met the fallen god flash before his eyes. A golden demon that had once been a powerful god… a blood thirsty entity that he had sign his life to…
Hyne forgive him…
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Slipping away from the unsuspecting SeeDs and cadets milling around in the halls, the blond was moving through in the shadow like a ghost, his mind was working in a speed that rival the fastest moving train there was to offer.
He had taught Squall to expect the unexpected, now he think it's time to teach him the lesson of how to look underneath the underneath.
And Seifer smiled as he had a plan, a back up plan and a master plan if all else failed.
It will be so much fun to get away from this restricting persona and create a new one again…
He think he will call his new alter-ego…
Knight.
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Red Dawn Descending
End