Author's Note: This is for a certain friend of mine, to whom I promised a Mikoto fic. You know who you are, and I love you.

Without Purpose

By LeFox

She could not see it, but she could feel its presence: the dead, charred shell that had been her home, her reason for existing. She felt it when Gaia was quiet; when the souls of Gaia lay silent and nearly still within the planet's cycle, in the early hours of the morning, and in the late hours of the evening. Terra. It cried out in desperate agony, screaming like a man flayed alive, yet still it lived. She could hear the heartbeat of its shattered crystal, still pulsating within the burned ruins of Bran Bal; she could hear the cycle of souls as it moved, slowly, like blood drying within a dead man's veins.

Terra was not dead. Wounded. Torn. Ruined. But not dead.

Mikoto sat in her bed, listening. The Black Mage with whom she shared this hut - she had not bothered to learn its number - watched her, fretting as it always did. It did not like her. She reminded it too much of its creator, and it had never gotten over the fear of its creator. For her part, Mikoto had difficulty believing such a weak creature had ever come from the hands of Kuja, and she despised it for its weakness. If indeed the Black Mage did see some part of Kuja within her, she took it as a badge of honor; Kuja had been strong. A failure, Master Garland had said, yet that failure had accomplished much in his short time, and if a failure could do what Kuja had done, what then could she, a masterwork, accomplish in her own allotted time?

The thought of Kuja brought an unexpected pang to Mikoto's chest, and she closed her eyes. Dead and gone, she thought, fighting down despair. Gone, and look what you've left behind. My inheritance. Terra's screams filled her mind again, and she lost herself within them, absorbing them, accepting them. My inheritance from you, brother. Brother. It was the term Zidane used, Zidane the fool. He had brought Kuja's body to the Black Mage Village for burial, and had given a speech over the grave; an idiotic speech. To hear it, one would never believe the two had been enemies. Zidane used the term brother over and over and over, as if he had ever known Kuja at all; as if he could have ever known Kuja. No one ever had. Five minutes within the Tree of Life could not change that.

She rolled over, away from the eyes of the nervous Black Mage, so it would not see her fighting back her tears. She was strong; she would not cry, not now, not over memories. She had not cried when she learned of his death, nor at the funeral. The funeral for Kuja had been pitiful; only she and Zidane seemed to mourn, and then only she seemed to know what had been lost.

The day after the funeral, she had walked to the Tree, and there, unseen by all, she had whispered her own eulogy to the brother she had lost… and to the master she had believed to be immortal, though this, she said in silence. And she damned him. She damned him over and over, a thousand times, standing perfectly still and trembling within. All he had taught her. All he had forced her to learn. All he had created her to do. All of it… for nothing. Terra lied in ashes, the Terra he had said would be her domain, in time, when her power came to fruition. Already she was more powerful than Zidane; she felt it, though she remained untried in true battle. And she would remain untried, as it seemed unlikely enough that any threat worthy of her strength would come to the Black Mage Village.

And I will serve no purpose. The thought infuriated her, though she remained still, lying on her side in the bed in the hut, listening to the cries of her shattered planet. And you, too, will serve no purpose, she thought, oddly disturbed. It was true - Terra would no longer serve any purpose, and still it moved on, moving ever closer to Gaia. What Garland had set forth, nothing could now stop: Terra's burned, bleeding corpse would merge with the still-healing Gaia at some point in the future, and what would occur would be… ruin. Mikoto's eyes flew open, and she sat up.

"I'm going out for air," she informed the Black Mage, who stammered something or other; it was of no importance to her. She stepped out into the night air, her nightgown fluttering around her ankles. Out here, surrounded by Gaia's living essence, she could no longer hear Terra's death cries. She shuddered, here where none could see her moment of weakness, and she drew in Gaia's night sounds: the planet hummed and sang, and its souls echoed the songs. Gaia was a melodious planet, even now, wounded as it was by the war and destruction Kuja had unleashed upon it.

Mikoto walked, her bare feet absorbing the peace within the soil, her own soul calming as she resonated with Gaia's rhythms. Garland had created her to have a keen sense of a planet's resonances, so as to best detect how to control that resonance, thus controlling the cycle of souls itself. This ability, too, had become all but useless in these days without her master. It was an ability she had shared with Kuja, she believed - he was certainly effective in his manipulations of the cycle, and how else could he have resonated so clearly with the Invincible? - yet not with Zidane. She wondered, occasionally, about the exclusion of the ability in Zidane's development: an oversight? It seemed unlikely. Why had the ability seemed unimportant at the time, yet important enough to include in Mikoto's own design? So many questions she wanted to ask her master, now that her master was no longer there to be asked.

She had never questioned him in life. Only now had she discovered the questions why and what if, and those questions would never be answered.

The Genome paused, looking up. Unthinking, she had walked to the cemetery, where she so often spent her days - the other Genomes did not wander this way, and few Black Mages ever strayed this far, not since the death of "Mr. 288," the only intelligent one in the bunch. Occasionally, Mikoto missed him, though she would never admit it. She paused, hesitating, before stepping onto the grassy hill. She passed by the pitiful monuments the Mages had built to honor their fallen friends: staves bearing their hats, coats, and other items. Many of the staves were barren, their offerings long since carried away by the wind. Mr. 288's grave bore his staff, his hat, and a book he had been reading at the time of his death, its pages rotted and moldy from the rain. Mikoto paused only for a moment to flip the book open to the page she believed he would be at if he had continued to read - something she did only when no one else was near to see - and then she carried on.

Her feet carried her to Kuja's grave, far from the others, lonely at the top of the hill. His grave was marked only by a stone, upon which Zidane had carved his name. Mikoto sat at the foot of the grave, staring at the stone. Such a simple thing. It fell so short of what he had deserved, and in no small way represented the unfairness of his resting spot. Though Garland would never have a proper grave, at least he had been buried with the planet he had loved and despised. Kuja had been cast here, among the creations he hated and the "siblings" he detested, there to rot for all eternity.

"It was always your lot," she said softly. "To accomplish, yet receive little in return. And it was Zidane's to sour those accomplishments and bask in the light of his own success as you licked your wounds." Here she paused, turning her gaze up toward the cloudless sky, at the half-moon hanging there, surrounded by stars. Somewhere out there, Terra was moving through the darkness, approaching this doomed planet. "And it was my lot to finish what you both could not." This, she said flatly, bitterness creeping into her voice. Kuja had failed to completely destroy Terra, and Zidane had failed to completely save Gaia, and so both were doomed to die as one. It was my lot to finish what you both could not. She rose then, looking down the hill to where the lights in the Black Mage Village were guttering out for the night, and the Mages and Genomes were returning to their homes to sleep.

It was my lot to finish what you both could not.

Somewhere out in the darkness, Terra crept slowly toward Gaia, a process which could not be halted with Garland dead.

It was my lot to finish what you both could not.

Mikoto walked down the hill, past the staves and hats and coats billowing in the night air, pausing only to turn Mr. 288's page.

It was my lot to finish what you both could not.

She did not return to the hut she shared with the Black Mage; there was nothing for her there. She walked through the Village's main gate, moving through the forest in her nightgown, hearing the planet whisper beneath her cold bare feet. It remained calm, unaware of what approached, unaware of what she must do to prevent it. She had heard Terra's history. She knew what would happen if the two merged in the states they were in. All would be thrown into chaos. The cycles of souls would fall apart, no longer bound to their paths, and the souls would wander lost through time. Terra's crystal would fail to absorb Gaia's, rendering life impossible. And the people of Gaia would become wretched, twisted creatures, neither alive nor dead, forever tearing themselves apart to escape their own hideous forms, as their souls tore free of their bodies.

It was my lot to finish what you both could not.

Mikoto knew what she must do.

"Master Garland," she said aloud, standing on the rocky shore of the Outer Continent, looking out across the sea, into the sky, where the Eye of the Invincible loomed, having answered her silent call. "Master Garland, I know my purpose. It has remained unchanged." She reached toward the Eye, toward the souls trapped therein. "I will save Gaia. I will destroy Gaia. And in doing so, I will wipe the slate clean."

She felt herself lifted into the ship, where the Eye shifted toward her, awaiting her commands, as ever it had for her master, and as it had for Kuja. Now, it served a new master: a young woman, barefoot, wearing only a nightgown. She reached over it, and spoke once more to her dead master.

"I will restore Terra."