Disclaimer: I don't own Dissidia.

Where did the updates go??

I got sick. To the point that I now have tons of insight into the phrase "bedridden illness". But I'm better now, which rocks. I'm sorry I didn't get to responding to everyone's reviews; thank you so much for taking time to talk with me a bit!! Please enjoy chapter six!!

Chapter Six: Reflection/Realization

Who was I?

Someone who hated to look at himself in the mirror.

"Hey, Zidane, does Kuja have a… personality problem?" I asked delicately.

"Yeah, a god complex. Like the rest of them. Why?" Zidane shrugged. But that wasn't what I meant.

"No, I mean," I began, not really knowing how to phrase it. Then I just decided I wasn't really going to win any points by being polite anyways. "Does he have more than one personality? Like a… disorder?"

I'd expected a weird look. But he just laughed. "You noticed it? Yeah, he does that when he's ticked. Drops the fake accent and starts talking normally, I mean. He comes from my world, but ordinarily he talks like he's from Hikaru's or Firion's. The only way you can have a normal conversation with him is if you piss him off."

And I thought I knew people with problems. "Uh, why does he… do that?"

"I don't know. I think he does it for authority, but if he wanted that, he could just put on some pants."

"I… yeah," I agreed. Nothing else to say to that, really. "Wait. Why does he wear that?"

"Some questions have no answers, Cloud," Zidane said solemnly, hanging his head. "He wears the skirt to hide his tail. He hates it. For him, it's like your eyes."

What? How did Zidane know?

"Huh?" I answered. Now my voice sounded fake.

"You know, the ways your eyes glow like that. Don't Sephiroth's eyes glow like that too? You must hate it, being reminded of what they did to you every time you look at yourself."

"Zidane—"

He cleared his throat. "When I was a little boy, I ran away from the place I lived in search of the place that was home. The only clue I had was a blue light."

"Did you find it?" I asked him.

Zidane laughed. "Not. I didn't find it when I was little. I found it later, but by then I had other things going on. Unlike some people, I'll actually admit that I have a problem or two. By some people, I mean my brother, and by problem, I mean my brother. But talking about him won't make him go away."

"But I thought you—" I began.

"Not that I want him to go away," Zidane interjected. "That's really what I mean by 'problem'. Take a boy with no idea what his real family would look like and stick him in with a bunch of other orphans. Take a boy who had never so much as even seen anyone else with a tail, and stick him in a huge city that'll make him only more desperate to find someone who matches," he said, shaking his head.

"Take a boy like that and just try making him a hero," Zidane continued before I could find the words that would possibly appropriately respond. "Works, doesn't it? All he needs to do is fall in love with the princess and subvert his need to be accepted by a desire to save the world that adopted him."

"You don't have to think about it that way," I told him. But I don't think he heard me.

"Works until that heroic boy remembers that thing he's been missing all this time: his family. And guess where family shows up? The other side. Yeah. Talk about fate pulling a fast one. And it didn't matter that I thought he was a narcissist with megalomaniac tendencies; he was my older brother. After an entire lifetime of searching for that blue light, I found it reflecting in Kuja's eyes. I wasn't going to let my only family slip away from me."

"But I don't," he said, sighing, "think I have a choice."

I didn't know what I was going to say. I didn't end up saying anything.