Chapter 4

The crossing

"Buckle up kids! This isn't the training centre anymore!"

Xu Katsuragi usually found that teasing the SeeD candidates when you possessed an authority that demanded respect was always just too tempting an offer to pass up. She loved to watch them writhe under her bordering on manic grin, sense them cringe as they found themselves pinned by her gaze. Then she just laughed a little, giving them all a much saner smile before turning the candidates over to Quistis. The blonde regarded them with a much more serious approach.

"Instructor Katsuragi will give you your boarding allocations and team number start points. You will be briefed en route to the site and the field exam will start the moment we land. I recommend that you use this last half hour to prepare, candidates, as we will not be going lightly on you. This is for real."

-Hmm, I think she has a tad more of a professional approach than me, - Xu thought with a sarcastic smile, -but I still prefer scaring them. -

The students accepted their numbers and allocations with a nod and a word of thanks. That was everyone except Seifer. After handing out the team numbers Xu followed Quistis along the walkway to transport ship 02 with practiced grace, not slipping or missing a rung. She had been doing SeeD exams for four years now and so she was just going through the motions at the moment. Yet, despite her experience, she still believed that it never got any easier watching your students be disappointed when they failed. She had known some of these kids almost all their lives and had had her part in teaching them. Sure she had her hopefuls, her favourites, every instructor did, but she also had the innate desire to see every one of them pass. The SeeD field exam was one of the hardest events of the year for Xu, having to watch her pupils turned away, feeling their sadness because she herself had been there before.

"Excuse me ladies," Seifer feigned a gentlemanly air as he brushed past the two instructors and disappeared into the ship before either of them could reprimand him.

Squall had been walking so closely behind the blonde that he almost walked right into Xu, stopping right before impact, his head snapping up to meet her irate gaze. Zell, having been too busy looking at a seagull to even notice that Squall had stopped, banged right into his back. Squall however hardly moved when Zell careened into him causing the smaller boy to bounce back hard and fall on his ass rather ungracefully.

"Ow!" he exclaimed loudly, jumping to his feet and rubbing his behind; with Zell there was always an odd mix of acting as if nothing had happened while drawing as much attention to himself as possible, "What's the deal? Planning on giving me some sorta' warning?"

Squall looked round at his counterpart with an unconcerned look, not even gracing Zell with and answer. He turned back to Xu with the same look on his face and then simply stepped back out of her way. From the look on his face Xu had to wonder if Squall had looked back out of concern for Zell or if he had just done it so that he could tell how far back he could step without bumping into him. She gave him a begrudged nod and continued along the walkway with Quistis. Now don't get me wrong, Seifer annoyed the seven hells out of Xu, but in a way she still preferred him to Squall. Seifer at least had feelings like a real person whereas Squall…he was so robotic, uncaring it came across as to the instructor, so dead as a person, to perfect to be real. Quistis defended him to the nth degree of course though and Xu did respect her friend's opinion. That, and her professional demeanour being the only reason that she acknowledged Squall at all.

Once on board Xu closed the transports hatch and secured it, checking the safety locks for faults. Xu had been on missions before, embarrassingly enough, where they had had to abort the mission due to a faulty hatch that had burst open and nearly sank the transport vessel. The instructor knew that the Garden received large sums of money as funding (exactly where from she did not know) but where all the money went she wasn't so sure of. It wasn't on maintenance anyway, that was for sure.

Once everything was secured and to Xu's liking she turned to walk into the control cabin but stopped at the door as the sound of Seifer's voice permeated the thick bulkhead.

"Just remember who the leader is in this group and I think you'll be fine."

"Hey, who appointed you leader anyway?" she heard Zell retort.

"Instructor Xu decides the teams for field exams," Quistis's calm, reasoning tone cut through but did nothing to silence Seifer.

"Yes, not you that decides, eh /instructor/ Trepe."

"……."

"Hey, leave Instructor Trepe alone!" Zell's angry voice way only met by a snort from Seifer, "she's far more qualified than you Mr.Three-times-failure!"

"At least I've been in the field before you chicken-wuss."

"Don't call me a chicken-wuss!"

Xu sighed before resignedly opening the door. This was going to be a long trip.

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(Squall POV)

So this was our "captain"? I'm going to fail, we are all going to fail. This is ludicrous, Seifer's never followed an order in his life, I have never known him to…known him. When did I meet Seifer? I feel like I've had to put up with him for eternity already, but I can't actually recall…but that's really beside the point. Like it or not he was our leader, all I can do is follow orders and hope he doesn't ask me to do something really stupid. I can always hope can't I?

"Hey you?" I felt Seifer kick me in the leg to get my attention and raised my eyes from the data pad slowly to meet his own, "what are you looking at?"

"Data files on the Galbadian army," I replied civilly.

"Why?" he asked with a smirk.

"Threat assessment," I said back in the same tone as before.

"Hmm," his smirk broadened as he thought, "I think you're looking at this all the wrong way."

"What do you mean?" I asked frowning.

"Let me put it this way," Seifer raised his hand to count off his points, "step one: we land, Step two: we encounter the threat, step three: we eliminate the threat, step four: we leave, step five: we pass the exam."

"Don't be too cocky Seifer," Xu warned the blonde, not even turning from her control panel as she did so.

"But what about the details?" I continued seriously, wondering if this was the plan Seifer had always followed when going into his field exam, "Threat assessment and study of the enemy allows a higher chance of victory with maximum efficiency."

I couldn't be sure but as I spoke these words I could have sworn that I saw Xu shiver out the corner of my eye. Must have been a draft…

"That is how we pass the exam," I added, putting down the data pad I was holding and picking up the next one.

"Yeah well," Seifer smirked and sat back, "I think I'll just stick with my own method."

"If it's the same one that you used the other three times then I think that you should consider changing," Zell smirked back.

"Shut it, wuss," Seifer sidelined, keeping his eyes on me the entire time, "and anyway those failures were just down to bad judgement."

"Really?" I asked coldly, raising one eyebrow sceptically and eyeing him over the top of the data pad.

Seifer shook his head and snorted, "That's the biggest reaction I'm going to get out of you today isn't it? You're a cold man, you know that?"

"Seifer, will you please stop antagonising your team mates and focus? You shouldn't be treating this as some sort of game," Quistis interrupted calmly, "you have people under your responsibility now."

"Whatever you say instructor," Seifer smiled, relaxing back in his chair, "whatever you say."

I ignored him as best I could. Well he wasn't exactly easy to put out of your mind; he was just too in your face, too arrogant, too brash, too good looking…I did not just think that, I didn't. Alright, so he was an attractive man, or so I gather from what others have said anyway, but he's an arrogant prick and I don't know how anyone could stand to be around him for too long. Rajin and Fujin must have a swell time.

"Hey," he said, kicking me again as if attaching my name to the end of his sentence was more effort than kicking me in the shin, "I've got an order for you soldier-boy. Go outside and see what's going on."

"His name is Squall," Zell interposed giving Seifer a venomous look and folding his arms, "or didn't you know? I'm beginning to wonder, considering you haven't called either of us by our names since this mission started!"

"What was that, wuss?" Seifer goaded effectively.

"What is your problem!?" Zell exploded, jumping to his feet, his countenance twisted in rage and his hands balled into tight fists.

Quistis was on her feet in a second, well used to dealing with this same situation over and over again, standing between the two boys, one raging and one seemingly calm.

"Seifer, if you not desist in this behaviour I will have no choice but to demote you and put Squall in charge of Squad B! I will not have you jeopardise this mission and these student's chances of success, just so you can have an ego trip and then fail, dragging them down with you! Do we understand each other?"

Seifer eyed her coldly, his eyes holding a maliciously fierce glint, his cocky air having been replaced by one of malevolence and hate. If there was one thing Seifer hated more than the thought of not taking the role of an authority figure it was having to listen to one.

"Perfectly," he said with a forced smile.

There was silence once more then, yet it was not calm. I just stared ahead of me, looking at the reason for the trouble in the first place. I absently heard Quistis trying to calm Zell, telling him to just ignore Seifer, to focus on the exam, etc, etc. I should have been listening, I should have been studying…but for some reason I found myself unable to tear my eyes away from the irate man in front of me. I couldn't look away as he sat slouched in his seat, his fisted hand crushed into his mouth as his eyes smouldered dangerously. Then suddenly, completely without warning, he looked up, catching me staring right into his eyes, and he frowned. Any other person would have looked away, tried to hide the fact that they'd been staring…but I'm not any other person. I don't mean that as a boast, simply as the truth, these sorts of things don't really bother me because I don't become embarrassed easily. I've never really understood the reaction myself, all it does is show weakness.

Seifer didn't say a word, only returned my stare with his glinting gaze and a frown. It was almost as if, when he'd seen me looking, that he'd accepted a challenge I hadn't even laid down; but then that was Seifer, always seeing everything as a challenge, as a threat to his supposed leadership and authority. I didn't break the stare out, but then I didn't see it as a confrontation and so I didn't see myself as even part of this little ego trip Seifer was having. I suddenly became dimly aware that Xu was staring at us both, looking back and forth between us with a worried and tense look on her face. Quistis and Zell had also stopped talking and were also staring at us, their looks more confused than anxious. Yet it was absently that I noted these facts, Seifer holding my attention as he leaned forwards in his chair as he narrowed his eyes and rested his hands on his knees. I tensed, ready for anything he might do. It was always best to be prepared around people like Seifer Almasy, considering their unpredictably violent nature. What he did so however I was not prepared for. The ghost of a smile played at the sides of his mouth, vanishing as quickly as it had appeared. If he hadn't been leaning so close to me I think I would have missed it completely. I doubted very much whether the others saw it.

"Didn't I give you an order" he said softly, adding in a louder voice, "Squall?"

"Of course," I said standing, suppressing my frown as I headed for the hatchway.

Once outside, the door closed securely, I let my mask slip and leaned back against the wall. What the hell had all that been about? I mean Seifer had…smiled. I had been staring at him as if he was the single most captivating thing since the first time I had seen my first gunblade, and Seifer, well he had smiled! It was all he needed to do to make me feel suspicious and confused.

-Why…am I acting like this? I think that…no, I need to focus.-

I mulled it over as I headed up the small metal staircase and opened the hatch that led out onto the deck of the transport. I tried to dismiss it; I couldn't let it cloud my mind when I was supposed to be thinking about the exam. I started going over Galbadian armour weaknesses instead. Yet, even as my minor inner turmoil occupied my mind, I found myself staring up at the sky from the hatchway. It was quite a sight. The moon was huge and full, harvest time not far away, against a violet tinted sky. Even the SeeD jets, their vapour trails leaving smoky scars across the pure white orb, could not detract my attention from the natural beauty of the scene. It was quite perfect, the hint of evening in the sky, the moon out in full, the blast of sea air against my face as I raised myself over the rail to get a proper look at our destination.

As soon as I spied it however, all other thoughts fled my mind in shock.

The normally peaceful harbour town of Dollet, with its almost sleepy postcard atmosphere, was erupting in flames and destruction. There were boats sinking and thrashing in the water like they were drowning, buildings scattering their bricks like leaves in the wind as the bombs from the enemy fighters fell. The roaring of our own fighter jets as they flew down to intercept the enemy was incredible and I bent down instinctively, covering my ears so as not to be deafened. I took a quick glance at the report sheet, its slim plastic covering flitting violently in the wind as I tried to check if anything major or important had been destroyed in the town. Then I felt it, that unfamiliar boost in power, the stomach lurching change in gear as all of the transports powered up to attack velocity and slipped into attack formation. I felt the ship lurching under my feet as the waves crashed violently against the hull, throwing me thankfully towards the hatchway. I grabbed hold of the slim handle and yanked it open, only being able to hold it open slightly from my awkward position on the floor, before slithering through it and falling onto the staircase bellow. I held onto the rails as I felt a particularly large crash against the transport, freeing my hands just long enough t be ale to secure the hatchway before we were suddenly and unexpectedly in the air. I felt my stomach turn and that peculiarly enjoyable giddiness that comes from sudden almost weightlessness. I just held on to the hatchway clamp for dear life, waiting for the vessel to slam into the water again.

-Trust Seifer to have already given me a stupid order, - was all I could think before we hit the water once more and sped off towards Dollet Harbour Beach.

AN: WOW! A REVIEW! Thank you blessedsilence hee hee. In all honesty I kind of gave up on this story when I saw I wasn't getting any reviews and focussed more on my other fic's. Now that I've got one however, I can write it again, yay -! You think the dialogue was better than the game, hee hee bows low so that beard sweeps the ground Hmm, well maybe I'll forget the beard, but thank you! And I've always thought the garden looks like a big beached jellyfish, glad someone else sees - none of my friends do .-

I actually have the whole story planned out, I just have to write it up (err hopefully a bit faster than I have been already, sorry about the delays!) and then it will be done phew. But anyways, thanks again for the review and as always, please R&R!