Rating: K

Genre: Character study

Disclaimer: I do not own Ultimecia, Seifer or the world of Final Fantasy VIII. Everything you recognise from the game's canon is owned by Square, but the story and original characters are my creation.

Summary: How Ultimecia became Ultimecia.

A/N: I've always wondered why on earth there are so little fic's written from her point of view and the ones that do exists are shamefully often very one dimensional. They do not portrait Ultimecia as a believable person with depth. I've always had a very clear view on what happened to her and what make her so damaged that she wanted to end everything. And due to Wulf's suggestion that I should write something from Ultimecia's POV, I wrote this.

If somebody wants to base their own Ultimecia interpretation on this, be my guest. But I still wish that nobody just snatches the plot, because I'm planning on writing a longer story revolving around Ultimecia's past.

Succession of Witches

My name was Mecia.

I was born in the island closest to heaven. I lived there with my mother, in a tiny house along the shoreline. I can't remember what my mother did for a living, I can't remember if she ever spoke of my father, but what I do remember I wish I could forget. Still, regardless of the distance I travelled trough time and space, I never could.

The night I turned thirteen strange, armed, men – SeeD – came to our house and ripped me away. I do not remember what claims they made against me, but I do remember how my mother just stood there. Allowing the SeeD to chain and carry me away. I screamed, kicked, bit and begged for them not to take me, but they didn't listen. They didn't even so much as glance at me when they cast a spell forcing me to unconsciousness.

When I woke up, I was alone in a strange room. In the space was a simple white bed and little else. It soon became very clear that it was my prison. I had been locked up and I didn't even know my crime. I cried myself to sleep, night after night hoping that when I opened my eyes I would be back home. But the nightmare never ended.

I do not know how long they kept me in there, but I aged. My hair grew longer, my clothes became too small and the portions of food given to me larger. I must have been there for years. Not seeing anyone, not speaking to anyone. Completely alone. After a while I was certain that I had died; that this was afterlife. Being trapped inside of nothingness forever.

But then again, everything changed. I still remember it clearly. I was lying on my bed, staring at the plain ceiling hoping to fall asleep soon. Dreaming was the only thing that could alleviate the suffocating, crushing emptiness I was caged in. When I dreamed, I was back home and I was free.

Sleep didn't come to me that night, but something else did. He came. The sound of the fiery explosion he created, was so loud that it seemed to rip apart every atom of my being. And as he emerged from the fire, walking towards my bed, I knew that I had been saved. He wrapped me in my duvet and carried me trough the fire. After I felt the heath of the flames and the icy breeze of the wind on my skin, I cried. The stillness was gone; my world was suddenly filled with sounds, smells and sensations. It was full of life again.

His name was Efreis. He took me into a safe hiding place. It was a dusty, mouldering shack but I loved it from the very beginning. I wanted to stay there forever because it was so different from the clean, inhuman room I had been trapped in. He gave me new clothes, he gave me food, he kept me company and most importantly he gave me the truth.

I was a sorceress, the most powerful creature in all creation and I was not the first – but if it was up to humans I would be the last. They had locked me in to that prison because they were afraid. Efreis told me that once there was a sorceress so powerful that she was about to become one with all time and space, turning into a goddess. But a man, a SeeD, destroyed her before she was done. And ever since that, petty men had hunted Sorceress' using a device that told them to whom the powers were destined to move. For decades they trapped an innocent girl after another to that horrible room.

It wasn't all they did, there were experiments as well. Efreis said that they put the girls to sleep before performing them and that was why I had no recollection of it at all. They wanted to learn what was the source of our power, so that they could extract it and secure it in an artificial vessel that they could control.

And now they had found a way to rid the world of Sorceress'. That was why Efreis had come to my rescue, because he had to. He could not just stand idle while infidels would mock the whole order of creation by stealing that what was mine – my power, my birthright – when they should have bowed down to me. I still remember clearly the fury in his eyes when he told me this, to him it was nothing less than a sacrilege.

After he had told me the truth of my identity, he told me the story of his family. Efreis grandfather's father had been the Knight of the last free Sorceress. Conniving, jealous and frightened politicians had blamed them for trying to bring down all the governments so that they could rule the entire world by themselves. And so they justified a war, to hunt down the Sorceress Lona and all who supported her. Efreis grandfather's father had been the last man standing between her and the whole world, but in the end they both were slaughtered like animals. But their son, hidden in safety, survived.

Efreis was sure that now we would be hunted too. That if we wouldn't be strong and smart, we would be killed. And I was angry. I wanted to rip out the throats of all those people who had done us wrong. I wanted to smite my vengeance upon them, to cut off their tongues so that they could tell no more lies. To plunge my hand inside their chests and pull out their hearts that knew no loyalty. And as my anger grew, the earth itself began to shake. And Efreis laughed, for he felt the abundance of my power and he knew that we would make them all pay.

Years passed by as we waited and prepared. Efreis swore that he would be on my side until the end of his life and I made him my Knight. Joining him to me with a bond that is too profound and great for others to even begin to understand it. We trained together, we lived together and I fell in love. I loved Efreis more than I had ever loved anything, he was a vital part of my being. I was certain that together we could conquer anything.

And then we heard that Junction Machine Ellone had been created. We knew that it was our chance, to travel back in time and to change the future. We would help the powerful Sorceress' in her quest to become a goddess and the world would be back to what it was supposed to be. Governed by powerful, righteous woman who was above of all the deceit and anger and jealousy that men were cursed with. She would ensure peace and justice in the world, just as it was meant to be.

But something happened that I had not expected – something that I had never even dared to think. Just as we reached the hiding place of the machine, Efreis was killed. The greedy, bloodthirsty, power-hungry SeeD murdered him before my eyes and their blades cut deep in to my flesh as well. When all blood poured out of my Knight, I felt myself disappear too. I was crippled, an empty shell in which there was nothing else left than pain and rage. As I activated the machine with my last powers, I swore that I would become more powerful than anything in the universe. I swore that my powers would extend beyond time and space, so that I could make the world pay for what it had done to me. And bring Efreis back.

I ended up here, in this very same place that I am now. In the front steps of an orphanage. I transferred my power and my essence into Edea, the Sorceress' of the present and I waited. I waited for thirteen long years, planning and preparing, sleeping within the subconscious of her mind.

As I set my plan into action, I was aiming to find a way to bring Efreis back. But when I saw Seifer for the first time, something within me moved. His tall, strong frame, his blond hair and his sharp green eyes were just like Efreis'. It was as if I was staring right into the eyes of my own Knight – my love – and I realised that Efreis was already here. Waiting for me. Seifer might not had known it, but the he had been marked as mine. Thus my plan changed.

I decided that I would end all the suffering and injustice of the world in fire and build a new one from its ashes. A world in which only Seifer and I could live in. And I would merge with all the power in the universe, becoming one with time and space. Then I could unite Seifer's body and Efreis' consciousness together. I was sure of my success, I was convinced that this was my destiny.

I was foolish, blinded by my own pain, crippled by my rage. And so I could not see what was right in front of my eyes. But now as I once again lay here, before Edea's orphanage. Trying desperately hold on to life, I see it all so clearly. I am the Sorceress Efreis told me of, I am the monster that humans fear. I am the reason why men locked little girls up in that room, I am the reason why they will do everything in their power to ensure the Sorceress' demise. I am to blame of everything.

I am to blame of Efreis death.

And I know that as I merge myself with Edea once more, I will convict myself in living this loop over and over again. I will be damned to witness how my lover dies, becoming a ruthless, soulless shell who'll burn the world and then with my last breath I will realise that I could have changed it all. Still, I'm too weak to just let go. A part of me still wishes that I can change the future – that next time I know to do everything differently. But I know I won't. It's my punishment. But even though I know my crimes this time, it doesn't make anything better.

This is still my hell.