Disclaimer: As with all FF8 fanfictions I have written I do not own FF8 or the intellectual rights to its characters, I am merely borrowing them for my own amusement and non profit entertainment of others (I hope). However I do own characters of my own creation... for whatever that is worth. Lol.

Ripples

The castle was nothing but a pile of mouldering rubble now, the power that held it together gone, the creatures that inhabited it now dead or otherwise gone. It had been my home for a year, with her, watching her grow with our child, my old lover's soul reborn in our flesh.

There was the guilt of betrayal as I had given myself to the most hated woman in history so soon after the loss of my first and only love. Ultimecia had created me, manipulated people so that I would be born and come to her at this time to be the father to the child I now hold in my arms. It was funny how someone I had killed all those years ago would come and kill the mother of my child in the form of their younger self but that was the peculiarity of being disengaged from the linear flow of time.

Ultimecia would live forever in a never-ending cyclic movement of time where she would repeat all her past mistakes, her past choices, die again and again to be born in what was her past and her killer's future. That was why she made me, to create this child, so that a part of her would continue on. She defied the laws of biology, having immortality in both ways, yet it had cost me so much, pain, rage, murder… all these I had been and done on the way to where I was now and even as I hold my daughter in my arms I feel sad at Ultimecia's passing, cast into the loneliness I thought was an old friend but was merely a tolerated acquaintance.

When it began I told myself it was because I wanted Meia to live again, to give back the life I had cost her. I had tried to keep myself distanced from Ultimecia, tried to blame her for all the pain my life had been, but I had failed. This woman, this sorceress that I had been told was pure evil had been so like Meia in her personality that I couldn't believe where this idea of darkness had come from. There was no way she was faking it for I could see right through her, the façade she gave to the world as Garden and SeeD rose against her.

Her fear of death was what made her seem this way to the world as she took any path to achieve avoidance of this, the cost of any other life enough so long that she wouldn't lose hers was merely human not evil.

As the time passed and the life grew within her, I had become more entranced by her inner beauty, the side she showed only me. How could a figure reputedly so evil be so good? Then again as she had told me when I first appeared in her world, I knew how easily good and evil co-existed in a single body, my own rage causing me to destroy so many lives. In many ways I was worse than her, so undeserving of the affection she showered on me. I had fallen in love with her, despite the many times I had told myself not to and now I wept at her death, yet I had already killed the one who had pierced her heart. Squall Leonhart had perished by my blade centuries ago, when I too had been a SeeD. But that was when I had been Jayson Croft, when there had been those who had known me as such, but I was no longer that person, I was merely Father to Amie, my daughter, the most powerful sorceress on this world, more powerful than her mother Ultimecia, possibly more powerful than myself, only time would tell for now she was merely a three month old infant cradled in the sling across my chest as I travel this scarred world. It was up to me to see her make this world anew, heal the damage caused by the warring people of this planet after they had fought Ultimecia and themselves in this new leaderless world.

Garden as it once was no longer existed, Esthar was merely a name in history books just like Centra, I myself had destroyed that luminous city, razed it to the ground to get at one single life. The continent of Esthar was still scarred by the ruptures of earth caused by my dark blade Fixxer, which once more hung snugly to my thigh as I began to traverse this bleak world.

It had been hard for me to hide in the shadows, watch the people I once envied and fought alongside battle and invade their way through what had been my home to my lover's room, killing her in the name of good, not realising they were merely following her script. I too was merely following her script, for I knew I was never seen by Squall and the others, I wasn't supposed to exist here. Besides I am now writing the script as the castle fell down around me, Ultimecia's death screams still ringing in my ears, leaving the world in my hands and eventually our daughter's.

The south Centran continent was strewn with the bodies of fallen White SeeDs and monsters, either through wounds or crushed under blocks of stone. The north Centran continent was still as bare as it had been in his past life, the ruins there that had housed Odin and Gilgamesh still standing, if only barely, the strange building ravished by those seeking its supposed hidden powers and the recent Lunar Cry.

What had once been Esthar was now a desolate wasteland, home to the evolved monsters that had dropped from the sky, creatures so much stronger than those that had been subdued by Squall and the others on their travels.

Trabia had been saved by the rift caused by the twin mountain ranges of Mordred Plains, though both the Shumi and Garden there no longer existed, replaced by a city populated by both Shumi and human an elaborate replica of Esthar and pervaded by the adoration for Laguna Loire the long dead president of a similarly long dead city of advanced technology and architecture.

The Galbadian continent had remained untouched by the passing centuries in fact its main countries still existed, though they too had grown and adapted to the passing time.

Galbadia was totally militarised, boasting the strongest weaponry in the world and armed forces second only to Garden. Position in the government was due strictly to military rank, the running of the city according to strict procedures.

D-District prison was derelict, a giant looming corkscrew of rusting metal embedded in the desert, punishment being a lot more swift and fatal in these dark times.

The quaint, old age façade of Winhill belied the luxurious improvements within as younger couples replaced the community that had been there so long ago, the gravestones worn smooth by time, the headstone of one Raine Loire's grave now just a smooth lump of rock, no-one aware of its significance.

Dollet had broken free of Galbadia's grasp despite their inferior weapons, using their superior communications technology to maintain a equal friendship with the stronger country.

Timber's tenacity had finally worn Galbadia down, causing them to increasingly pull away, though the facts that Timber was no longer of no use to them and that there were bigger priorities, namely Ultimecia and Garden, probably also helped in this event. Once independent the people of Timber went one step further to show this and enclosed themselves in a dense forest, much larger than the one that had surrounded it when Galbadia first invaded.

Meanwhile Balamb became the centre for Garden, all other Garden's closed down after Squall Leonhart's death, their role in taking abandoned youths and turning them into Guardians of the world becoming more pronounced as the demolition of Esthar back then caused a small destabilisation in the world powers, radio communication once more enabled, opening pathways to greater technologies and deadlier weapons.

Under the control of Quistis Trepe and Seifer Almasy Garden was able to prevent the escalation of Galbadian greed for rule, though like-minded parties such as General Caraway in Galbadia were also a positive influence on this.

I muse on the way the world was now, how some names stuck and others didn't. Poor Zell and Selphie went the way of many other people, not even making part of the footnote in their part of Ultimecia's demise. The present wrote the past and sometimes things were lost… but also things were never forgotten, or forgiven.

Just like I had never forgiven my father Kazen Orca and his mad cult Pandora for making me the way I was, neither Garden or Galbadia had forgiven me for the murders on my hands. I had taken Garden's great heroes, a great leader who could have prepared them better, prevented so much deaths in the centuries to come as Ultimecia rose from a precocious sorceress, the masses of deaths as Galbadia was locked in a feud with Trabia over a metal ore discovered in the depths of the crater that marred the Trabian continent, were what had caused the young girl to fear death so much and want to avoid it so much. Trabia was entitled to the ore as it was on their land and required its use for buildings and in the production their airships, whilst Galbadia desired merely for its defensive/offensive capabilities, the metal so resilient that it tore through anything else. It was Ultimecia herself who ended the battle as she took the ore from crater and melted it before all their eyes with a fiery hand, a sea of liquid metal scorching the battlefield as the tide of silver washed away into the sea where it sank to the ocean's depths never to be found again.

That was when the world realised who she was and what she was to become, especially those in Trabia where the Junction Machine Ellone had been built from surviving plans of Odine's and enabled to see into the past further than most.

Garden mobilised immediately to paradoxically protect her from the other worldly powers until she reached maturity, the Galbadians thought them crazy as they didn't prevent her from destroying lives and the Centran continent in her quest for immortality, finally taking Junction Machine Ellone from Trabia by force and learning of her cyclic immortality by feeling her way through the collected souls of sorceresses past.

She knew that to remain alive forever she would have to create a loop in time and so she began her search for the namesake of the machine that had helped her see her path, to find the young woman who would become the linchpin of her immortality. Ultimecia never desired the compressed world that would occur as she was shunted back through time by Ellone, she merely wanted it as a reason for Squall, Quistis, Zell, Selphie and Irvine to come to the future to kill her, create this continuous loop of events as she was dropped in Edea as time broke allowing her to shape events so that Ellone would call upon her foster siblings when she felt Ultimecia coming for her. Ultimecia's possession of Adel due to Ellone pushing her back there to create the compressed world had a dual effect; that of causing Adel to hunt Ellone in the first place so that they'd meet and also in creating me.

But I guess I digress, I was speaking of being unforgiven before I started talking about how she came to be, but I guess that is tied in with my own guilt at my past, how the SeeDs that protected her to begin with turned on her, to be found lying dead around the castle by Squall and the others when they arrived. They wouldn't have attacked or died so needlessly if I had never killed Squall and those that I did back then, my name somehow surviving through all this time on the lips of SeeD, my face etched into their memory somehow. I have no idea who or how they figured I disappeared in time after I killed Squall on the coast of Esthar way back then, maybe it was Selphie, after what I did to her I guess she could never forgive and let go, and so SeeDs were prepared to confront me through the generations, yet when I finally arrived their sense of vengeance was futile, Ultimecia wouldn't let me be taken from my purpose of raising our daughter, for I couldn't die, all they'd do is inflict me with wounds for eternity… what good would that do to abate their rage? I know that the death of tormentors gives only a fleeting reprieve from the pain and rage, that healing only comes from within.

Yet they wouldn't give up their purpose until they saw me dead, attacking the castle walls again and again, tearing masonry until I myself went out to confront them with my upgraded Fixxer, the blade enhanced by the metal that had been instrumental in Ultimecia's lifelong purpose. Now their weapons had advanced a lot since my time yet they still remained the same in form. It took nearly a day of fighting, me and my metallic blade against a sea of trained warriors brandishing whips, swords of pure energy rather than metal, fists, staffs, projectiles, all decaying into gore, sweat, screams as I cut through it all, tears of sadness at it all yet knowing it had to be done, show them that they wouldn't succeed, to let it go before there was none of them left.

That realisation finally dawned and a faintly familiar figure called an end to it all, pulling back all those living and wounded. This also meant that we were open to attack from the other countries of the world as Garden no longer had a presence at the castle, yet it seemed my actions demonstrated to them too that they had no chance of winning and so we were left alone, to wait for the past to come and catch up on us…

Extract of audio journal found in a strange relic at the Centran ruins.

He rewound the recording, the smooth stone pulsating in his hand as his fingers pressed the groove that caused it to do so. It had taken them days to work out what this large fist sized orb did, when they first found it they assumed it to be some simple gem like that had been used by their parents to open the door to Odin. It was a technology that was so far in advance of their own and yet held the voice of someone recent even if they described a time and reality that didn't exist.

'Wasn't that the voice of your dad?' Chika Kinneas asked the figure that held the orb.

'Sounds like the way I remember it… but that can't be right… my parents died years ago…' Jaymie Croft answered his eyes not leaving the stone.

'Damn right cause he didn't kill my old man, no one's that good.'Zephyr Leonhart said huffily.

Jaymie shot him a glance but didn't say anything, then again he didn't have to as a fiery blonde shoved the dark haired Zephyr.

'You wish! My dad is just as good if not better than yours!' Dana Almasy told him sticking her tongue out.

'Will you two children give it up?' came the weary voice of Dylan Trepe, the oldest of the group at sixteen and showing the precocious maturity of his mother.

Jaymie was the second oldest at fifteen whilst the other three were thirteen. This excursion to the Centran ruins had began as a training exercise, their first time out of Garden alone, but was actually the beginning of something more when they came across the stone…

Author's Note: Well I hope those of you who read Jealousy and Tainted Blood like how this one starts. I have no idea where this one is going to go... the first two were basically me connecting the dots of major plot points but since I changed the beginning of this from Third to First person so that it'd make sense of how I was explaining things (I hope) I kind of also totally changed the whole plot idea for this... all I know it's going to be twisted. Lol

RML: Hope you're still with me here.

Dacera: Since you already second guessed this sequel I guess it's up to you to keep me from going too far off track with this one... especially since I'll be weaving ideas from how things could have gone from both endings of Tainted Blood, so I'm counting on you to keep me from losing it :)