Disclaimer: I don't own Dissidia. I ran out of ways of being creative with these a long time ago.
I admit it: I believe in using the Western localized names for certain people. My experience with Nihongo leads me to believe that 'Bartz' is acceptable, and how can I, a IX fan, pass up the significance of a girl named Terra? But I have no support for Firion/Frioniel other than Firion sounds cooler. Don't hold it against me!
*Puts down white flag*. Please read and enjoy!!
Chapter One: Terror/Wonder
Who was I?
Someone very, very lost in a very, very strange place.
"Hey Cloud, going out by yourself again?" Bartz said to me. I did have a place to go if I couldn't go anywhere else—we did the stupid thing and all stayed together in one place, waiting for something like a meteor to come down from the sky and kill us all in our sleep.
Like a meteor. What a comparison. I looked at him blankly. He really wasn't all that bad, comparatively.
"I don't want to put any of you guys in danger," I told him. "You guys don't know him. I'm better off by myself."
Bartz rolled his eyes. "You're almost as bad as Squall."
But he didn't press it. And for that, I was glad.
You can't tell the difference between the real people and the dolls. Lucky for me, I knew half of them, and I was fairly certain that the other half would try to kill me on sight.
The Zero World wasn't really a 'zero' world at all; it was a thoughtless smattering of all the worlds that we had all come from. Well, almost. A lot of them came from worlds where there was more wilderness than people. But in the Zero World, the only thing that was left were the cities and villages and hamlets, all jumbled into one. Maybe because it's harder to feel Gaia in a city, and this was Chaos' world, not Cosmos'.
I wanted it to rain. Rain here like it did that day back home, and take away the darkness and let the sun shine. Rain that speckled the sidewalk and steamed the streets clean as the heat burned the water off the cracked pavement. Maybe rain and sunlight in one, to make the droplets fragment and turn the air into a veil of crystals.
The crystal. That's what I was supposed to be looking for.
Supposedly he had it. Not that I believed that; if he had it, what was to stop him from doing what he wanted with it? Our world had already been torn apart, but that wasn't what he had wanted.
But at the same time, if I believed that he had the crystal, it made things considerably easier. At least then, I knew where it was.
Maybe this would be easier if I asked for help.
"Sorry," I muttered as I brushed against one of the dolls walking along the sidewalk.
"It's nothing," he responded in return without even looking at me. So I looked over my shoulder at him instead. I didn't expect him to turn around after he felt my stare on his back. But he did.
He must have come from Tidus' world. Maybe mine, if he called the Golden Saucer or Wall Market his home. The hair, the eyeliner, the subtly morbid skull on his—well, whatever he was wearing.
But he had a basilisk's eyes. Like diamonds, they were so cold I felt I would turn to stone just for meeting them.
"Don't worry. I won't tell," he said.
"What?" I demanded.
"Him, of course."
I wanted him to explain himself, but he turned away and just kept on walking. I almost ran after him. But I didn't. I just went back to the others.
That night, Bartz was gone. And Squall was even more pissed off than usual. And no one had heard from Zidane since that afternoon.
