Chapter 7

It was the biggest party in living memory. The whole city was decorated. Coloured streamers crisscrossed above the streets. Flags hung from every window. Flowers were handed out on street corners. People laughed and smiled at the slightest joke. Musicians held impromptu concerts in marketplaces and parks. The castle, towering high over the city, was the centrepiece: Moogles had laboured for many days to attach a glittering framework of stained glass to the Great Crest. Coloured pennants waved from the many towers, while the usually silver-blue mako streams were transformed into dazzling rainbows.

The parade took place on the morning of the second day. Starting at the main gate, it took a circular route around the city, before finishing at the castle gates. Cloud and Squall, along with the other cadets, had been ordered to help with crowd control and so had a clear view of the whole spectacle. At the front rode the proud knights, their chocobos dressed in delicate silk caparisons. Behind them came chocobo-drawn artillery: cannon and mortar on wheeled carriages. Then the infantry in shining plate armour, rifles resting against their shoulders, swords at their belts. Squall spotted Kiros and Ward, two of his father's old friends, marching with their regiments. They waved and shouted to him but, because he was on duty, he could not reply. Now the crowd cooed in amazement; regiments from the distant provinces were marching past: fierce Ronso from the mountains, Burmecian lancers with long rat tails, sable-clad ninjas from Wutai, Viera archers with gold rings in their rabbit-ears. Then came the magi in flowing robes. Cloud spotted Master Magus amongst them. He did not wave.

And then, in pride of place, despite bringing up the rear, came Ansem and his retinue. The crowds cheered themselves hoarse: each one a hero in their own right. There was General Sephiroth with his legendary sword, the Masamune, at his side. Colonel Zack was alongside him, beaming broadly and blowing kisses to the girls. Auron was there too, head bowed, with Braska and Jecht either side of him. Rinoa's father, General Caraway, resplendent in full dress uniform, marched stiffly alongside General Beatrix and her lover, Colonel Steiner. Ansem himself was dressed in a simple red robe. His apprentices walked behind him as a personal honour guard: Braig in the uniform of a sky captain, Dilan in knight's armour, Aeleus in leathers. Even, Ienzo and Xehanort wore civilian clothes, not having served in the war.

The parade halted at the castle gates at midday. Ansem turned to the crowds that had gathered in the road behind the parade. He raised his arms. At that signal the air above the castle exploded in a riot of colour, as a thousand fireworks erupted together. Then, racing down out of the clouds, came the air fleet. Highwind Mark I led the way. Battered and ugly she may have been but she flew with more grace than anything followed. The fleet flew in a series of cells: a hulking battleship or carrier at the centre, with smaller frigates surrounding them and then individual one man jets or helicopters swarming around them. They passed over the city three times, firing a salute each time, which the castle guns echoed. With a second burst of fireworks, the gates opened and Ansem entered his castle. That afternoon a sombre ceremony was held in the chapel, attended by the most prominent city members, to remember those who fell. Dilan laid a wreath for those who perished in Kinoc's Folly. Cid laid one for the airfleet and Sephiroth one for the army.

Now it was night time, and Cloud and Squall were waiting anxiously in the Entrance Hall of the castle. Many couples had already met and departed to the ballroom and the two boys were starting to feel self-conscious. Thankfully, they did not have to worry about their appearance: the Corps dress uniform of dark blue trimmed with gold was nothing less than dashing, and the boys carried it well.

"What time is it?" Squall asked, for the eighth time in five minutes.

"What're you asking me for? You've got a watch, haven't you?" snapped Cloud, checking his reflection in the pool beneath the fountain that stood in the middle of the hall. Behind the fountain, two staircases led up to a raised walkway at the back of the hall. The central door led to the elevator shaft, while a door on the far left led into the castle library.

"Cloud…" Squall hissed, digging his friend in the ribs. Cloud turned round and froze, slack jawed. Aerith had just walked into the Entrance Hall. She wore a most flattering dress of green silk that carefully emphasised her curving figure. She wore an emerald clasp in her carefully arranged hair. At that moment, Cloud knew he would never see anything quite so beautiful again in his life.

Squall, however, did not even notice Aerith: Rinoa was only a few paces behind her. She wore a small white dress that showed off her shapely legs and long white arms. Around her throat she wore a chain of silver, and a single braid of diamonds glistened in her hair. He was quite glad to note that she had left Angelo at home.

"Shall we?" she said, holding out her arm, cheeks a little flushed. The couples linked arms and climbed the stairs to the lift.


"Must it be tonight?" Ienzo asked.

"Yes" said Xehanort firmly as he adjusted his cufflinks in the mirror.

"And if you are spotted?" said Ienzo, his manner deliberately casual.

"I will not be spotted" Xehanort said with equal certainty "And even if I am, what is so suspicious about someone leaving the ballroom?

"And, if someone should raise questions" Xehanort said, pulling on his dinner jacket "we shall deal with them. We won't stop now. We're too close."


The castle ballroom was vast, filling a whole floor of the west tower. The dance floor was in the centre of the room, covered in a single slab of brightly polished marble. The west wall was made up entirely of windows, with doors opening out onto a wide patio looking out over the city. The orchestra was on the east side of the room, behind the buffet and drinks stand. By the time the two couples reached the room, the ball had already begun. People were mingling and chatting around the edges, while the dance floor was filled with couples performing a lively gavotte.

"Hey, Squall-ee!"

Squall turned and blushed with embarrassment as Kiros and Ward pushed their way towards him.

"Hey, lookin' pretty sharp!" Ward said, ruffling Squall's hair with one huge, paw-like hand.

"And who is this beauty?" Kiros asked, taking Rinoa's hand and raising it to his lips. Rinoa suppressed a giggle and held herself with a mocking dignity worthy of an empress.

"Err… Rinoa, this is Kiros Seagill and Ward Zabac," Squall said, heartily wishing they would leave him alone.

"They're old friends of my dad's" he added.

"Rinoa Heartilly?" said Kiros thoughtfully "You're General Caraway's daughter, aren't you?"

"Hey, she does look like Julia!" Ward said with a laugh "Same eyes, right? Hey, you got good taste Squall-ee!"

"Why don't we get some drinks…?" said Squall, steering Rinoa away. He glanced back to glare at the two older men but they just guffawed and waved.


Xehanort scanned the ballroom, his manner carefully disinterested. Inside, however, he was growing nervous. The anticipation was mounting. His palms were sweaty. He was fighting down the urge to simply march out the door. Patience, he reflected, was not one of his virtues.

The ball was well under way by now. The dancing ebbed and flowed across the floor, while others conversed at the edges. Several not unattractive women had requested that he dance with them but Xehanort had brushed them off with a smile and an excuse about a bad leg.

Xehanort glanced over to where Ansem stood, surrounded by a crowd of admirers and well-wishers. Dilan and Aeleus were stood just behind him. Xehanort caught Dilan's eye. Dilan gave an almost imperceptible nod. Xehanort returned the gesture and slowly stepped back into the shadow of a pot plant. A small door, for servants' use, was concealed there. Not looking around, he eased it open and stepped backwards into the narrow passage beyond.

Xehanort then turned and strode off. He took a route that had been carefully planned to avoid all the castle's major thoroughfares. As he walked, he stripped off his formal clothes. By the time he reached the laboratory, in the very deepest reaches of the castle, he was bare to the waist. Discarding his clothes on a workbench, he drew on a white labcoat and a pair of sturdy boots. Then he opened one of the storerooms. His master – Xehanort corrected himself – his former master thought that these housed only the hearts that had failed to survive their experiments. In a way he was right, for beneath the banks of storage jars, under Xehanort's most powerful spells of concealment, were cages filled with Heartless, captured from the pits beneath the castle dungeons. Opening one of the cages, Xehanort stretched out his hand. With the greatest of care, he levitated one of the Heartless up, out of the cage and placed it lightly on the floor in front of him.

"Now," said Xehanort, producing a notebook from inside his coat, "show me what you do"


Cloud leant back against the pillar, one arm around Aerith's waist. They were both flushed from dancing. He grinned down at her. She smiled back. He leant towards her. She pulled back, a teasing smile on her lips.

"I'll go get us some drinks, shall I?" she said, slipping away and moving towards the nearest table. Cloud was admiring her shapely figure as she walked away when his view was suddenly blocked. Annoyed, he looked up into the face of Setzer Gabbiani.

"What're you doing here?" Cloud asked, his surprise lending his voice a touch of indignation.

"It's nice to see you too, kid. And I was invited" said Setzer smoothly. He was exquisitely dressed in crimson, trimmed with burnished gold.

"Invited? You're a criminal!" said Cloud. Setzer smirked.

"A criminal gets caught, kid."

"So you stole an invite?"

"Not at all. Me and Ansem go way back. Oh yeah," Setzer smiled at Cloud's incredulous stare "he owes me more than a few. What, you think you can win a war with just swords and airships? It takes allsorts, kid."

Cloud scoffed. Setzer just smiled.

"There you are, sugar!"

Setzer turned round. Two very pretty girls, one blonde, the other a brunette, had appeared behind Setzer.

"What're you thinking, walking off like that?" the blonde asked, pretending to be hurt as she slipped her arm through Setzer's.

"Hey, who're you talking to?" the brunette asked, walking round Setzer to look at Cloud.

"Ooh, he's cute" she said. Cloud smiled and bowed slightly. She giggled. Setzer reached over and drew her close to his side.

"Hey, why are you wastin' your time with small fry when you got me?" he asked. The brunette giggled again and kissed him on the lips.

"See you round, kid" Setzer said with a grin, arms round the two girls as he turned back to the dance floor. Cloud shrugged his shoulders and flicked his eyes to the ceiling.

Someone placed a hand on his arm. He turned. Tifa was standing beside him, looking spectacular in a low cut dress of dark blue. She smiled and tugged on his arm, urging him towards the dance floor. Cloud glanced round. Aerith was nowhere to be seen. With a shrug, he followed.


The Heartless had increased its speed. Pocketing his notebook, Xehanort began to jog after it. They were already far below the castle dungeons, past the labyrinthine tunnels of the Waterway and heading deeper. At first, Xehanort had thought that the creature was trying to return to its fellows in the pit, or to its spawning grounds. If it was returning there, it was taking a very indirect path. From its general behaviour, Xehanort guessed it was heading north and down. The caverns there were unexplored and unmapped: Ansem had never seen the need to investigate them. Once again, Xehanort reflected as he left the lights of the Waterway behind him, he was to tread an unknown path.


Cloud felt the music throbbing through his body. His feet rapped along in time with the beat. Opposite him, Tifa was in perfect synch to his movements. Her energy was infectious, and they began to dance harder and faster. Some of the other couples stopped and drew back to watch. Cloud grinned and picked up the pace. Tifa returned the smile as she matched him step for step.

Cloud whirled round and saw Aerith standing on the edge of the circle of onlookers, two glasses in her hand. He froze. She gave him a furious stare, then hurled one of the glasses to the floor and swept off through the dancers.

Cloud stood nonplussed for a moment, then started after her. He stopped, Tifa's hand on his shoulder.

"Let her go," Tifa said lightly, stepping to put her arm round his waist. Cloud gently pushed her away. He hesitated for a second, and then strode off, craning his neck to spot Aeirth in the crowd.


The Heartless disappeared through the narrow gap, down into the crevasse. Xehanort followed. The passage was so narrow that he was forced to go sideways but he carried on, led by the sound of the Heartless's claws skittering on the stone. Above him floated two faint spells of light; dim globes that orbited his head like pale moons.

He was not sure of the time but it was at least several hours since he had left the ballroom. These natural passages, twisting veins in the living rock, seemed to have no limits. Deeper and deeper the Heartless had gone, Xehanort feeding off its unceasing energy. He had passed through caverns as vast as castle halls, along narrow ledges and gaping pits.

The crevasse was long, and grew narrower as it descended. Xehanort was forced to abandon both his lab coat and his boats to squeeze through the ever-tighter gaps.

Up ahead, he heard the Heartless's claws stop: they had arrived.


Squall watched as Cloud pursued an implacable Aerith out of the ballroom and onto the patio.

"He still can't make up his mind" Rinoa said. It wasn't a question. Squall shrugged. She raised one eyebrow.

"You don't care?"

"It's his problem. Nothing I can do about it"

"You know, you're a funny guy," said Rinoa. Squall frowned: she wasn't laughing.

"I mean, you've got so much stuff going on under that scowl. How come your head doesn't burst?" she asked with a teasing smile. Squall shrugged again.

"Well, Mr. Deep-and-mysterious, are you going to ask me to dance? Or am I going to have to ask you that as well?" Rinoa asked, attempting to link arms with him. Without thinking, Squall pulled his arm back.

"What? You can't dance?" Rinoa asked.

"I've learned," said Squall, avoiding her eye.

"Then what's the problem?" she said, taking his arm again. He tried to pull away but she was having none of it. Dragging his feet with every step, Squall was reluctantly led out onto the dance floor.


Xehanort stepped out of the crevasse. He was at the bottom of a pit, so deep that the night sky was no more than a tiny disc, the size of a saucer, high above. The wall opposite the opening of the crevasse was sheer and dark. A great door was set in the middle, with a huge dark keyhole in its very centre.

Xehanort considered the door. These caves were unexplored, so Ansem could not have built it. That meant that it had been here before the castle. So who had made it? Or what?

Xehanort glanced down. The Heartless was standing rigid in front of the door, its antenna vibrating so strongly that they could hardly be seen. Barely thinking about it, Xehanort stretched out a hand and destroyed the Heartless with a thunder spell. He did not need the distraction.

He took a step towards the door. He could feel something behind it. A great, pulsating something, terrible and fascinating all at once. The thrilling iciness in his chest that he had come to associate with the darkness blossomed. Xehanort embraced it, trembling as he felt its power spreading through his being. He stepped forward again, his mind filled with nothing but the single intent to open that door.

He raised his arm, still a good ten feet from the door. He did not know why. Something he could not understand, something deep inside seemed to command it. His fingers began to shake as power, crackling like electricity, flooded into his hand. A silhouette, a half-seen mirage, appeared in his hand. Was it a sword? A key? Xehanort could not tell. A beam of light shot from the tip of the object, right into the centre of the keyhole. Xehanort heard a deep, booming note sounding from the door.

The silhouette in his hand faded. Xehanort stared, uncomprehending. What had a happened to him? What had happened to the door? It appeared unchanged. Xehanort stepped towards it. He grasped the handle. It swung open.


Rinoa took Squall's hand and placed it firmly on her hip. Looking up into his eyes, she began to follow his reluctant lead. Squall tried but he was distracted, partly by his own self-consciousness and partly by how pretty Rinoa was close up.

They stumbled. Squall turned to leave but Rinoa held onto his hand. She stepped close to him again, counting under her breath to help him find the beat. Squall began to dance again, desperately focusing on nothing but Rinoa's words. Rinoa's mouth… Rinoa's lips…

They collided with another couple. The man shot an angry rebuke at them but Rinoa just scowled at him and turned away. She smiled up at Squall. It brought a pleasant queasiness to his stomach. His mind cleared. He could focus on the dance. He remembered learning it. He'd been good at it.

As the dance reached its climax, the couples spun apart, holding hands at arm's length. Then, in an instance, they'd whirled back together, into each other's arms. Squall and Rinoa embraced, as close as they could be. Squall leant his head forward. Rinoa stretched up, lips parted. Their noses tilted ever so slightly, their hands entwined, they shared their first –

"AAAARRRGH!!!"

Squall's head whipped round. The dance floor was in chaos. Through the panicking couples he could just make out a lady, fallen on the edge of the dance floor. Something was standing on her chest. It was black and insect-like. It raised its clawed forelimb to strike.

A flash of steel, glittering in the light of the chandeliers, and the creature vanished in a strange black cloud. Sephiroth was standing over the woman, the Masamune drawn. But now the woman's screams were being echoed across the ballroom. More of the strange black creatures had appeared, their luminous yellow eyes bright against the polished marble. For a few seconds everything was chaos. Squall clutched Rinoa tight to him as guests rushed in all directions. He caught glimpses of swords flashing in the light. Then Sephiroth's voice, clear and calm, was raised above the tumult:

"Everybody over to the east-side of the room!"

People, not knowing what else what to do, obeyed. Squall, arm around Rinoa's shoulders, followed. There was some irritable mutterings as Cloud, Aeirth and Tifa elbowed their way towards them. They exchanged confused looks, then turned to watch the small knot of people talking quietly in the centre of the ballroom. Sephiroth was there, along with Zack, Auron, General Caraway, General Beatrix, Ansem and his apprentices. Their expressions were grim and they had not put up their weapons.

There were some startled cries at the muffled sound of gunfire out in the corridor. A moment later two Turks in dark blue suits entered the room, smoking pistols in their hands. They approached the group in the centre of the room. After a few minutes discussion, the group fanned out to the edges of the room, leaving Sephiroth alone in the middle.

"Ladies and gentlemen!" he said, his voice carrying easily to the back of the crowd "For your protection you are to be relocated to the Grand Hall! You will be accompanied and guarded by Colonel Zack, and Agents Tseng and Vincent. Please do not attempt to leave the group. This is an extremely dangerous situation!"

"OK, could you all start movin' towards the door?" Zack shouted, pointing the way with his Buster Sword. An uneasy murmuring rose from the crowd as it began to drift towards the exit. Suddenly, a voice:

"Ooh. Look at that!"

As one, the crowd turned. Through the patio windows, they could a great meteor shower descending from the night sky. Dozens, then hundreds, of thin silver arrows were falling, blazing brighter than the moon. The crowd cooed at the spectacle, while Zack and the Turks urged people to leave. As Squall turned to go, he saw something that frightened him far more than the creatures: Ansem looked scared.


Hi, sorry about the length of this chapter. I'll try and keep the rest down to below 3,000.

Besides that, what did you think? Was it good? Bad? What am I doing well? What could I improve on? Please review and let me know.