Author's Note: I'll get on Angelus Lacrima, I swear! xD;; I've just got an Final Fantasy muse explosion, sorry! The next chapter is nearly done, okies? No killing the nice author~ Also, this fanfic has just been rotting away on my comp for a few months, I decided to post it when I got inspiration. So, technically, it's OLDER the Angelus Lacrima. xD

Disclaimer: I wish I owned Square Enix, then I could make a sequel to FFIX like there should be! Wait… this is an FFVIII fanfiction? Oops…

Prologue

I am Ultimecia

"Time is a companion that goes with us on a journey. It reminds us to cherish each moment, because it will never come again. What we leave behind is not as important as how we have lived."

– Captain Jean-Luc Picard, Star Trek

I was called mad. If this is true madness, then so be it. I shall be mad. Murder, witch, devil incarnate, whore, monster; these were the names with which I was raised to call those known as 'Sorceress'. Raised in this bias, I foolishly believed that a sorceress is born pure evil.

Oh how wrong I was.

A sorceress is but a product of their time. A product of her upbringing. The succession of witches cannot be cut off, cannot vanish from this world. Sorceress Adel was a ruthless tyrant, yet Sorceress's Edea and Rinoa are heralded as saints.

But none of them… none of them had to go through what I did.

The pain… the suffering… I was an innocent once too. No, worse then that… I was a SeeD! A SeeD and I was treated that way… tortured, manipulated, ran down until there was nothing left. I became as the Phoenix, rising from the ashes of my former self and taking on the role others had given me.

I am Ultimecia.

That name was not the one I was born with. History has recorded the battle between the 'valiant SeeDs' against the 'evil Sorceress Ultimecia'. What parent would give their child that name, knowing what it would put them through in the long run? Hah! No… I was not born Ultimecia, I was made Ultimecia. Made into this being, no humanity left in me, by the very society that I grew up in. My friends, my parents, those I trusted all turned on me. Destroyed what was left of 'Seraphim' and created 'Ultimecia'.

They wanted an 'Evil Sorceress' so I gave them one!

And one by one they all fell to my magic. Call me mad, if you will; I may be the only sane one left in this dead world. A world in which even a child cannot live their life happily so long as they wear the scorn of 'Sorceress'. I wear it proudly! Proud to stand up to this injustice… this persecution I have faced for so long.

What right do you have to judge me? It is the unjust persecution, the judging, of my 'friends' and 'family' that led us to this point. Led me to the desire to end it all. End it all and usher forth a bright new future for myself and for all the Sorceresses before me. Is that really so wrong? To want to be free from this oppressive fate that was pushed onto me by others?

I am Ultimecia.

They killed them. My parents; butchered like animals for having a daughter inherit the powers of a Sorceress. My own group, the SeeD, burned by house to the ground. Killed my family; killed all that I knew.

The SeeD killed Seraphim; now I am Ultimecia.

They killed their own kind to come after me… come after me for being who I was, what I was. To the people, what a Sorceress had done in the past was all the fault of a young, innocent little teenage girl. Oh yes, even I was innocent once.

I loved picking flowers; my house and the fields around it were always covered in flowers. All types, all shapes, colors; just fields of beauty stretching far. My room was covered in artwork, paintings of the flowers, of my friends, and of my fellow SeeD.

The house I grew up in was a happy one; it was brightly furnished and welcoming. A happy home with a happy family. I was a SeeD, my mother a gardener, and my father owned a shop in Balamb. We lived by Winhill; the only way to commute to school and work was by teleportation pads in the ciy; a technology released to the rest of the world by Esthar shortly after the fall of Ultimecia at the hands of Squall and his friends.

Squall was my role model, my childhood hero. Looking back, I realize now that I am more like his lover Rinoa. We both have a person we wanted to spend our life with, both wanted a time to just stand still. Both of us had happiness. Once.

I am Ultimecia.

They killed him. Their own leader, charged with the crime of standing up for his Sorceress. My knight died in my arms, and it was that moment I become who I am. Cast away my conscious, my humanity, and became the ruthless Sorceress from the stories. How they screamed, how they begged for forgiveness… what leniency should I show them when none would be given to me? To their own leader. None. They died like the filthy, cursed, disgusting, vile little SeeDs they were; begging for mercy.

Some even had a worse fate. Trapped in an eternal spiral by my magic, never dying yet wishing for it all the while. This was their punishment; revenge for the deaths of my family. Revenge for the deaths of my friends.

Revenge for the death of Mitsuru.

So many innocent people dead because of an unjust bias against me. So many… none of them deserved life any longer. The moment my family and friends were struck down, I knew they would all meet the same end. I would see to it.

Then I would create a perfect world, one where I could finally be free, finally be happy once more. A world full of flowers, full of life and beauty… with those responsible cursed and tormented as they had done to me for all eternity.

And what finer way to enact the perfect revenge then to refute the very story, the very history, that led to the condemnation and destruction of everything I held dear?

I am Ultimecia.

They will be here soon. Time Compression has begun. I will see to it that history does no unfold as preordained. The SeeDs will perish, and with them the obstacles left in my way. Once they were gone… I will become as a god. A god with reign over every soul, over time itself. The world will be remade to reward the persecuted and punish the persecutors, give us Sorceresses back the happiness we rightfully deserved.

How many senseless deaths, how many murders, have happened in the name of both following and opposing a Sorceress? None of us are born to want the deaths of our family and friends at the hands of the unworthy traitors. Yet we have lost everything from the moment that power enters our bodies.

We are feared, we are hated, we are persecuted. To the rest of the world, the 'gift' of sorcery is a disease, one that must be stamped out, trampled over, decimated until naught a bit of it remains. It is not the power that makes us evil, it is those that destroy our humanity that send us over the edge.

Would my life have been different if I had not inherited the Sorceress power? Yes. Would my family and friends still be alive? Yes. Would Mitsuru still be by my side. Yes.

The Sorceress power inside me grows with each part of time absorbed into me. Soon will come the time for recompence. Soon I will bring them all back. Soon the last of the SeeDs will perish.

Mother, Father, Irina, Chris, Leon, Sarah, Heather… I am sorry.

Mitsuru…

Mitsuru… we will be together again soon.

I am Ultimecia.

Author's Note: This has been a fanfic rolling around in my head for years. The story behind why Ultimecia did what she did. I'm too lazy to get into the whole 'history is recorded, they would have known Ultimecia was coming' thing… so go read the giant Time/Ultimecia analysis on gamefaqs. A very good an enlightening work. Anyway, that's the prologue! I'll get to Angelus Lacrima soon, I swear! xDD

CHAPTER ONE PREVIEW

"What are you doing over here all alone?"

"…"

"What, shy? How about I keep you company. What's your name? Mine's Mitsuru Leonhart."

"… I… I'm Seraphim… Seraphim Kramer…"