Sadistic-neko: Hi everyone. This little baby has been jumping around in my head since I first started A Demon's Heart. It finally just got so irritating that I had to start typing it. Now that I've got a decent start on it, I couldn't resist posting it.
Leon: So, this is about Cloud and me?
Sadistic-neko: Yep! It covers from when you first end up in Radiant Garden to some of A Demon's Heart. Hopefully I will not lose my inspiration for this anytime soon like I have Little surprises.
Leon: (deadpan look) Yes, hopefully.
Sadistic-neko: Not looking forward to going through puberty again, huh?
Leon: (shakes head)
Sadistic-neko: Can't blame ya there. (turns to readers) I do not own Kingdom Hearts or Final Fantasy and I hope that y'all enjoy this new story!
Pain. That was all I knew as I lay in an alley somewhere that I wouldn't have recognized even if I had the presence of mind to look. To think, only that morning I had woken up, dreading a meeting that had been set up with my fellow knight, Seifer. If only I had known that a rogue solar flare would almost completely destroy the planet's magnetic field and cause one natural catastrophe after another in rapid succession.
Meteors that would normally be burned up in the atmosphere punched right through it like nothing, earthquakes shook the earth causing landslides, tsunamis, volcano eruptions, and other such fatal disasters that organizations like the one I was part of, SeeD, had no time to save ourselves from let alone anyone else. People were dying all around me from whatever finally got to them. Even Seifer was struggling. Then, everything went black, pain shot through me, and I was dropped at wherever I was now.
I had no idea how long I lay there, but, just as I could no longer maintain consciousness, a red blur appeared. My mind had to be playing tricks on me, though, as I could have sworn that the blur had the vague shape of some kind of red lion. It tilted its head at me in what could have been concern before lowering its muzzle to me to nudge my shoulder. I passed out figuring that it was trying to maneuver me onto its back. Hopefully it wasn't planning on eating me.
Some indiscriminant time later, I woke up in a room that I didn't recognize. It was fairly plain holding very little furniture. The walls had faded green striped wall paper and wooden panels and the floors were old hard wood.
I did a quick check of my body, looking for any injuries or restraints. Nothing. That was good. At least I wasn't being held captive.
Deciding that I had been still long enough, I sat up. My hand flew up to my head, applying pressure to try and fight off the worst headache I ever had. It felt like someone was slowly drilling into my head and trying to pull out my brain through every available orifice. Spots were even dancing in front of my eyes.
After a few minutes of constant pain, I felt ready to open my eyes again and took another look around the room for anything that I hadn't noticed from my previous angle. Such things were the doors in the room. One led to the hallway and, I assumed, the other led to a closet. The shocking thing I had missed before was the second bed. Lying prone on that bed was a blonde boy with pale, almost white, skin, and blank blue eye that simply stared up at the ceiling above him.
My observations were cut short, though, as the door opened. Knowing that sudden movements would bring the pain I had only just gotten under my control back with vengeance, I slowly turned to see who was there. It was a small girl who looked to be about four years old. She had short, black hair and expressive black eyes. Her clothes were strange considering her age. A short black shirt with a white floral print barely covered her chest, showing off her belly and a pair of short kaki shorts hugged her hips and thighs like a second skin. A red ribbon was tied in a bow on her upper arm, close to her shoulder. All in all, she was dressed far more like a teenager than a little girl.
It was kind of unnerving as she stared at me with those wide, soulful eyes. There was just something about them that wasn't right. It hit me in a split second. Those were not eyes that a girl her age should have. They were soldier's eye that had seen death and battle. I didn't have time to contemplate this as she opened her mouth, taking in a large breath and screamed down the hall to someone bringing back my headache.
"Vinny! Aeris! The kid that Red brought in is awake!" A groan escaped me as I reflexively gripped my head at the pain. Damn that girl had a set of lungs and the voice of a banshee!
"Yuffie," another, much softer and more soothing, voice said from what had to be right next to the other. It was definitely female and young. "Why don't you go downstairs and help Red clean?"
"Okay," the loud girl, Yuffie, said before bounding away noisily. As soon as she was gone, I heard soft footsteps slowly come closer to me before stopping right next to the bed. Then there was some riffling from the night stand next to me before a soft, gentle hand was placed on my shoulder. I slowly opened my eyes to look at the new comer.
This girl looked older than the last, maybe twelve. She wore a pink sundress and had her long brown hair pulled back into a low ponytail with a think pink ribbon and braided down her back. Her emerald eyes were green and, like the younger girl, looked too old for her age.
"Here." She handed me a glass of water and two pills. They could have been poisoned, but I didn't care. If they were pain pills then my headache would go away, dying would have the same result. I took the pills and chugged the water in no time flat. "How are you feeling?"
"Fine," I said freezing in shock at the sound of my voice. It was much higher than what I was used to, childish. It took me all but two seconds to jump out of the bed and bolt to the full length mirror I could barely make out on the other side of the slightly ajar closet door.
My knees almost buckled under me in horror as I stared in disbelief at my own reflection. It should have been that of a nearly thirty year old, five foot, ten inches tall man with slightly tanned skin, a scar running across their face, chocolate colored hair kept short and neat, and gray eyes was some child. I still had most of my basic characteristics, like the scar, but now I looked like I was eleven! The only thing I had on was a white shirt that would have been small on me the last time I was awake but now could be worn like a dress.
"It would appear that our guess was correct." I jumped and turned to look at the source of the deep, slightly hoarse voice. Even in my state of shock, I was able to admire his beauty. Long, raven hair fell down to just below his shoulder blades with a red cloth wrapped around his forehead, pale skin stuck out from the fully black outfit he wore. The long sleeves and gloves covered all of his torso and the pants went all the way down to the gold, metal boots he wore leaving only his neck and face visible. There was a gauntlet like thing on his left hand that matched his boots. Piercing, red eyes scrutinized me as I openly stared at his near feminine appearance. "Your age must have regressed on the journey here."
I shook myself out of my awe and schooled my features. It was not the time to allow myself to be distracted. I needed answers and wandering through lala land was not going to help me get them.
"Where am I?" I asked, cringing at the way I sounded. There was no way I would be taken seriously looking like I was.
"Radiant Garden," the girl said giving me a kind smile. My brow furrowed in confusion. I had never heard of such a place. None of the gardens that I could think of were called 'Radiant'. "It's another world than where you are from."
"Another world?"
"Yes. There are many worlds out there. You must have been brought here because of your strong heart."
"How do you know this?" Never before had I heard of such a thing. Other worlds? What did my heart have to do with anything?
"We are all from another world too. We ended up here when our planet met its natural end. Our hearts were too strong to just fade away so they came here. It had some unusual side effects, though." I snorted.
"I can see that. Regressed age is kind of blatantly obvious." She let out some giggles, her hand coming up daintily in front of her mouth.
"Well, yes, our bodies did become younger, but that is not the most unusual." I raised a brow in askance wondering what could be stranger. "I had died about ten years before we ended up here."
I almost fell over from the shock as my jaw went slack. She had to be kidding right? There was no way in hell that she had been brought back from the dead.
"It is the truth," the man said. By now, he was leaning against the wall with his arms crossed over his chest. "She had been stabbed by our enemy. We laid her body to rest in the ancient city she was murdered in."
"Wow." That was all that there was to say. There was moment of awkward silence before I cleared my throat. "So, who are you people anyway?"
"Oh yeah," the girl said, slightly surprised. "We haven't introduced ourselves yet, have we? Please forgive our bad manners. My name is Aeris Gainsborough."
I shook the hand she offered me and watched as she rushed out of the room to get the other members of the household.
"Vincent Valentine." I nodded to the man to let him know I heard. It seemed that he was a man of few words and that suited me just fine. Then, a sound that could only be described as a stampeding herd began from somewhere outside the room and, fractions of a second later, the room was filled from wall to wall with people I didn't know. To try and avoid being crushed, I jumped up and used the shoulder of the largest man as a vaulting table to propel myself to a safe landing on the bed I had vacated. Apparently I had impressed someone as I heard a low whistle come from behind me.
"Nice kid." I bristled at the accented voice and had to remind myself that I was a kid now and I wasn't in Balamb anymore, so my previous title meant absolutely nothing. As soon as I was sure that I wouldn't try and attack the speaker because of the unintentional disrespect, I turned and took in the sight of all of the new people. There was only one person who could have spoken before.
The man was large, looking to be in his early to mid-twenties. He was bulky, especially in his arms. His yellow blonde hair was short and combed back, held in place by a pair of goggles that had a pack of cigarettes, one of the cancer sticks hanging out of his mouth, under the strap. Stubble was prominent on his face along with the occasional grease smudge. He had blue eyes. Leather gloves covered the whole of his forearms and he wore a blue t-shirt, another red ribbon poking out from beneath his left sleeve, and green pants that were tucked into an old pair of work boots. He looked like a grease monkey if I ever saw one.
"Well, kid," he said, giving me a wide grin. His voice was almost as loud as the banshee's. "The name's Cid Highwind. Ah'm the best goddamn pilot and mechanic ya will ever meet. Ah'm also called the cap'n."
My brow crinkled up a little bit as I heard him speak. Loud, rude, and a potty mouth. Lovely. I could just imagine the matron from the orphanage I grew up in rolling in her grave from the sound of him as Vincent shook his head a little in the background at the man as the banshee stepped up.
"I'm the great ninja Yuffie Kisaragi!" I looked at her skeptically. Her a ninja? Sure, and I was a horse. Cid could see where my train of thought was heading as he let out a bellowing laugh.
"Ah know. Pretty unbelievable, huh? The little monkey will steal ya blind, though if ya ain't careful."
"Shut it old man!" the girl yelled as she turned to face him, pointing a finger at him.
"Why dun ya make me?" That initiated a small battle as the girl jumped the man and they began to wrestle on the floor. All of the others merely sweat dropped and then turned their attention back to me and introducing themselves.
"I am Tifa Lockheart," said a girl who looked alarmingly like Rinoa, the sorceress that I had once served. She looked around the same age I now did. Her dark brown eyes were kind and matched nicely with her long dark brown/black hair. Even though she was so young, she sported small breasts and slight curves could be seen through her white tank top and brown miniskirt. It was a sure sign of how voluptuous she would be when she was older. Her lean frame and fairly toned muscles showed that she was an athlete. Like Yuffie and Cid, she had a red ribbon tied on her upper left arm.
"It's a pleasure," I almost chocked out, not sure what to make of this look-a-like yet. She tilted her head in confusion before shrugging her shoulders and going to check on the boy in the other bed. I was thankful that she hadn't questioned my behavior.
"I am Nanaki." I looked down and found that the red lion-thing that I had seen the other night. He, or what I assumed was a he from his voice, had a spiky mane that seemed to only be on the top of his head and continued down his back in a ridge. There were some parts that were longer than the others that fell to the sides of his face and were decorated with beads and feathers. His tail had a glowing tip that looked like it was on fire. As strange as it was that he could talk, Aeris had been brought back from the dead and I was on another world, so I just stopped caring. Different worlds had unusual things and I wouldn't get anywhere if I let everything stun me. "I am also called Red XIII or Red."
"You are the one that found me, right?" I asked. He nodded. "Thank you."
"You're welcome."
By this time, Cid and Yuffie had finished their scuffle and everyone was making themselves comfortable be it on the floor, leaning against a wall, or, in Tifa and Aeris' case, on one of the occupied beds. The expressions on their faces alone was enough to tell me that I was about to be interrogated.
"So," the pink clad girl began, "What is your name?"
"Squall Leonheart." My answer was simple and to the point, much like how I spoke during my time in the academy before Rinoa and the others shoved themselves into my life and heart. I shook myself out of my thoughts. Dwelling on that would only hurt me. They wouldn't want that. In my effort to distract myself, I noticed the boy in the other bed. "Who is he?"
"His name is Cloud Strife," Tifa said with a small smile. The two must have been close.
"What's wrong with him." She gave a sad smile as she looked back to the boy and brushed some hair out of his face. He didn't react to the touch at all.
"He has mako poisoning." I must have let my confusion leak into my expression as she immediately began to elaborate. "The planet we came from had a current that ran through it that governed life and death and kept the planet alive. Some people learned how to harness its power, mako, and used it to their own benefit. It was helpful and created energy that all could use, but it had some nasty side effects if one was exposed to too much of it. One such side effect is mako poisoning. Cloud has a serious case of it right now and has been in a coma since we arrived in this world. People have died from cases much less severe than his, but he should be fine."
"If people usually die from even a little of it, then how are you so sure that he'll survive?" I didn't mean to sound mean or anything, I was just curious. Luckily, she seemed to realize this as she turned her smile to me, looking so sure of herself.
"Because this is the third time that he's had mako poisoning. Each case has been worse than the last, but he didn't let it beat him and he won't this time either."
"How did he get it before?" Surely he would have learned after the first time and avoided whatever caused it like the plague if it almost killed him. I almost regretted asking when her expression turned pained. Her fists clenched on her knees and began shaking a little. Even the loud Cid and Yuffie quieted as the whole room went silent.
"Cloud has been through a lot," Tifa said in a whisper. "It isn't my place to tell you what happened the first time that he had mako poisoning. The memory is a particular painful one for him. The second time happened while we were all fighting to save our planet. We don't know for sure what is causing it this time, but we think it has a direct connection to how he got it the first time."
"You guys saved your planet?" I asked, trying to get off of the current topic and genuinely curious. This was a subject I could understand having saved my own planet from destruction.
"Yep," Yuffie cheered out. "We kicked butt and took names! Our planet would have been taken over and destroyed if it wasn't for us!"
"What exactly was going on?" The others seemed content to let the "ninja" explain.
"There was this mega strong guy named Sephiroth who had, like, godly powers. He was the hero of everyone except people like me who were from Wutai, but he went insane after he found out that he was part of some experiment involving this alien thingy's cells. He thought that the alien thingy was his mom so he decided that he would get revenge on the planet that 'hurt' her. At first he just killed a lot of people but Cloud stopped him! He came back a few years later and decided that he would use his mad power to make this thing called meteor fall happen and kill everyone so that he could use the planet as a ship and travel space so he could kill off all of the beings that he considered inferior, which was everything!"