Note: All characters, places, ect. belong to Square Enix.

Avenging the World

By Zero9grl

Back then it was so easy to pick up the pieces and restart life from where it had left. We were so strong and so brave. We could do anything. We faced down the past and the eternal darkness. The only thing impossible was getting through a date with Dagger. Where did all that go? When did we loose what made this so easy? How can we just pick up the pieces this time? What happened to the group who saved the world?

The Darkness in His Soul Trial of Vivi

How long has it been? Five years?

I remember watching that play, I Want to Be Your Canary, with all my friends and family around me. The children so excited to see their first performance. It was bright and sunny, with doves flying overhead. And when Zidane revealed himself, Dagger came running outside, just like a princess in a fairytale…

I see that play every year now, with my children. It's their favorite. I remember the first time I saw that play and how it was the beginning I guess. The answer to my question wouldn't have been known if it weren't for that play… I never would have started down that journey to the truth where I met and lost so many people…

It's snowing in Alexandria now, but still I stand in line at the ticket booth to buy seats for my children and myself. We see this play every year. And every year as I sit in those wooden seats watching someone else's life on stage I wonder, how many gone, how many less will there be when I return? One year, two years, three years, five years… Each passing year takes away my friends until I'm the only black mage who remembers Dali, Lindblum, Kuja, the crimes and victories of the past.

It shouldn't be this way. How can life be so cruel? The planet feeds off my pain, sucking it from my skin like juice from an apple before taking one more bite. Is this what it means to live? To slowly shrivel away inside your skin as you watch your world die off, one loved one at a time, until one day, all that's left is a bitter husk?

Some day only memories and hats on sticks will be left. Until the memories fade away into stories, the stories into dreams and finally into nothing as these hats I remember so well fray and fall apart, become tattered and torn, spiders spinning webs in them and crows using them for perches, no one caring about the souls who are buried beneath, the bodies, beautiful perversions of life made from spirits and mist, empty now of the faces who used to smile so charmingly.

I want to rage at the world each day the sun rises and the birds sing. Why me? Why must I see them all pass from me, one by one, their fading eyes etched in my sight until I see them everywhere! Is this our punishment? For being created? Are we murderers by existence, that life must be so short and fleeting? What have they ever done, but be good and kind and loving?

I can not let the children see these thoughts in the darkness of my face. Their lives will be short enough without sharing the aches that run fissures up and down my heart. Sometimes I wonder what they suspect when I see their faces hiding around corners, gazing at me so strangely after I've broken a window in my anger. Do they think their father is a foolish mage, silly enough to fall for the tricks of the world, the illusion that life is splendid and wonderful and something to be cherished?

What do these children of mine who dance in the sun and splash in ponds, so carefree and real that the forest seems fake in comparison, what do they think when their friends fathers slip away quietly in the afternoon over work, never giving warning that the end is near? What will they think when I finally stop and they're left to the Genomes who outlive us all? What will my children think of this hateful world when they are grown to travel it themselves?

Will I live long enough to know?

It's these thoughts inside me that lacerate me from within. Thick, boiling bile wells up from these cuts in a burning fire, choking me, stealing away my air and contorting my heart as my head spins round and round.

"How many?" The wolf-man at the counter is asking and I'm drawn out of my small center of rage and pain to the cheery world outside where little girls jump rope and friends play tag as men buy flowers for blushing ladies and fighting men brag about their exploits to each other over heady beer, the nearby women soldiers rolling their eyes at every exaggeration. I have six children I love so dearly waiting for me at Black Mage Village who love to see this play every year. "Seven please," I tell him, counting out the money from my pocket and he gives me seven strips of paper that mean all the joy there is to six little boys who look just like me. I check them over, always mindful of the ticket I brought after Grandpa's death that was a fake, but no, none of these reads I Want to Be Your Crow, not this time. "Thank you and enjoy the play," the wolf-man behind the counter is saying as I wander off into the crowd and the line moves up a step, one more closer to its end.

There's no more time for thinking. The world is flashing by. I have these tickets and the children are waiting, excitement in their steps. I can see their faces, glowing in the darkness. Again and again, every year until the planet devours me and I stop in their arms, we'll watch this play and there will be laughter as they repeat the lines we all know so well. My children who innocently enjoy the many things life has to offer. The things I never knew existed until that journey five years ago.

The tickets are clenched in my hand as I run up the forest paths now. Trees sigh behind and owls call. It's so late, the darkness has descended now! What are you still doing out, tiny mage? Reveling in the blackness that spawned you? The forest always whispers to me as I climb over fallen logs, rotting from within, and weave my way through hidden bushes, leaving the long path behind in favor of the directness of the open woods. Better hurry…You'll be late…the crickets are singing and I increase my pace.

I wonder if they're awake still, sitting up in bed after Mikoto's put them to sleep for the night, wondering what their father's brought them back from the city this time. I barely notice the mist snaking along the forest floor, flying away as my feet pound the ground. An acrid smell begins to assault me, but it means nothing. Just beyond those trees now, my home, waiting in my mind's eye like a picture I've left momentarily.

There! In the darkness! Lights! I give it all in a last run, my breath coming so heavily it's sure to wake them all, but I don't care. I have a home, no matter how constantly death hovers over it, and I know they'll all be worried about me. I want to give a small cheer as I race past the trees which block my view. I'm back!

And then I fall. My heart is finally breaking now. The village is in flames. It wasn't the friendly lights of lamps I saw; it was the flickers of fire, tearing down my straw and wood village.

"Bibi, Riri, Nini!" I'm screaming and no one's answering. I've seen such destruction and worse before. I know this fire has been going for hours. That won't stop me though, it can't stop me.

"Kiki, Zizi, Sisi!" I call out the names Eiko gave them five years ago, trying not to choke on the smoke. They have to hear me! They must hear me! My glove is burning now as I wade into the flames; I tear it off and throw it to the fire. My children! My friends! The black mages still unhatched! Did any make it out?

"Bibi! Zizi!" I scream as I shove the door of my house open. I can't enter. The room has already been devoured. The roof is groaning, beginning to cave in. I cough and run to the stable, my eyes tearing. Maybe my sons are rescuing Bobby Corwen! The stable has been reduced to a pile of blackened wood. In front of the building is a burning pile of clothes. It only takes a glance to know the mage is dead.

Where are they? Where? I charge throughout the village, stripping clothing piece by piece as it begins to flame. Ice spells are no protection here as I burst through doors and up stairs. I look everywhere, but all I see are ashing clothes. There is no life in this village and I'm running out of strength. If I stay any longer I will be consumed too, but my sons, I can't find them!

"Where are you?" I'm screaming and the world is spinning. I can't take it. The heat and smoke rasp my throat, cloud my eyes. The flames eagerly lick at my unprotected skin and the tickets are curling to ash in my hand. I have to save them! I can't give up! I won't let them die. The world won't take them from me like it took so many others!

I want to call their names again, but instead a scream tears itself from my throat as I collapse. The bile inside me is pouring forth and the flames back away as convulsions seize me. "Where are they? My children!" I'm howling now in a voice not my own as I change. My back splits open as the wings come and my hands crack as the fingers grow and become clawed. I'm elongating under the pain as I crawl across the room, nails tearing at wood. Black blood is dribbling down my arms and I can feel it trickling down my back as feathers belonging to a crow singe and dry, tacky with my life essence.

Then the wings are flapping and I'm rising as the ceiling of Mr. 192's shop falls around me. My vision is going blank as I rise into the sky, my skin throbbing painfully, blood oozing to hiss in the fire down below. All that's left of this home is a painful shell. They're dead. Every one of them is gone. I can feel it in what's left of my heart before it turns to dust under the crushing pressure of this rage inside me. Tears are streaming down my face, the last ones I'll ever cry as I watch the place that was my home turn into ashes.

I've mutated into something beyond tears now. Feeling my clawed hands and dirty wings, I remember the angry Black Waltzes. I'd felt sorry for them in my naïve way, but now I understand. Their rage is my own and for this I've become a monster, but I no longer care. My children's bodies are burning away below and my heart with them.

A broken heart, a shattered soul. Vivi watches the ruins of his beloved village smolder and he knows the time of innocence is long past. There are questions to be answered now and someone must seek these things. What exactly did happen in Black Mage Village? Next: Case of Mikoto--Dying Treasure.