Disclaimer: You know that saying "If you wish for it hard enough it will come true"? Not the case.
Chapter Seven: Demons of the Past
Fujin leaned against a wooden crate, irritated at the occasional bump and rattle that ensued as the train made its way along the tracks. She was irritated at how the floor shook beneath her. She was irritated at how hot it was. She was irritated by the sound of her fellow escapees' voices as they watched a soldier try to catch up with the train.
She was irritated because it was better to feel irritated than…whatever it was she would feel if she allowed herself to think about Seifer. Fortunately, the combined presence of Squall, Quistis and Rinoa was irritating enough to keep Fujin…irritated.
She wondered if the missiles would hit Balamb before they could even get there. They were, after all, traveling by train.
No. Irritation. She was irritated.
She wondered if Selphie, Zell and Irvine would stop the missiles. Or make it out alive, for that matter.
No, she was irritated. And she didn't care. She clenched her fists.
She wondered if Seifer was punished for letting them escape, and a small part of her dimly hoped that he had allowed them to escape, if not because of concern for her well-being, then at least out of old loyalty. She hoped Seifer would stop-
IRRITATION.
AAA
"Hey, looks like everything's all right!" Rinoa chirped as they walked through Garden's gates. Squall scanned the area, and though he couldn't find anything to contradict Rinoa's observation, he sure as hell wasn't about to agree with an optimistic statement.
"We have to report to the headmaster. Come on," he said in his usual monotone. Rinoa pouted but walked at his side.
Fujin felt herself gradually relax as they walked up the large steps. She was home. She would say whatever was required of her to Headmaster Cid and use her intimidation to help with the evacuation that was bound to take place. And after that, she she would never work directly with a SeeD again. She'd figure out where Raijin was, find him and decide where to go from there. It was as sound a plan as she could come up with, for now.
All of her hopes were dashed when she saw the students running all around the school, some already hysterical. Rinoa stared with her mouth slightly open, Squall tried to assess the situation and Quistis stood dumbstruck. Fujin was personally a little offended. She had worked hard to maintain order in the school, and to see it in disarray struck a nerve.
"What…?" Rinoa looked around, confused.
"Seize him! Kill him if you must!" a tall, ugly Garden Faculty member yelled. He turned his head toward the only group of adolescents who weren't running around in a frenzy and asked: "You four! What side are you on?" Squall glanced back at the females for a second before approaching the odd man with a confused look on his face.
"Answer the question!" the faculty member insisted impatiently. "Are you with Garden Master, or are you with Cid!?" Squall looked to Quistis for a possible explanation, but she was just as lost as he was. He sighed.
"I don't understand what you're talking about," he muttered slowly.
"Do you swear your allegiance to Garden Master NORG!?" the faculty member elaborated impatiently.
"Can you tell me what's going on?" Squall snapped. The faculty member's eyes twitched from Squall's eyes to his gunblade.
"You're with Cid, aren't you?!" the man accused. Before anyone could agree or disagree with the statement, he blew a whistle, and a handful of grats jumped out before him.
I don't have time for this crap. As Squall, Rinoa and Quistis pulled out their weapons, Fujin grabbed her chakram and barreled between two of the grats before anyone -monsters or supposed teammates- could register what had happened.
"Hey!" she heard Rinoa yell a few seconds later, but ran regardless. She needed answers, and she needed them now.
Things only grew more chaotic as Fujin entered the school. She stopped by the directory and narrowed her eye as she looked for someone, anyone who could explain the situation. Before a familiar boy could run past her, she grabbed the back of his shirt and yanked him to her.
"Gahhh! Hey!" the boy bit back his retort when he saw who was glaring down at him. "F-Fujin! I thought you were gone-"
"Raijin, where?!" she snarled. It took a second for the boy to mentally convert her two words into a sentence.
"He's not here! That's why we thought you were gone!" He squirmed a little, as if to free himself from her grip, but she only held on tighter.
"Factions?" she asked, gesturing to the running students behind her.
"The school's split into two groups, Garden Master's or Cid's. Garden Master's group is trying to kill Cid and everyone who gets in their way!" Fujin let go of the boy's shirt out of pure shock. He hesitated for a moment before running away.
Cid was in hiding. The school was split into factions. Missiles were heading toward Balamb. Why? Why did it all have to happen now? What was she supposed to do? What did she cover first? She took a deep breath. The evacuation. She'd just have to try to get as many people out of Garden as she possibly could.
AAA
Raijin had finally reached Deling. He didn't have much Gil left, and with a sense of defeat he told himself that if he couldn't find Seifer in the city he would have no choice but to return to Balamb.
He wandered along the street, looking for the infamous Deling Hotel. Though he dragged his feet, it didn't take long. He took a few steps through the door and drank in the scene. He remembered staying there just a summer ago with Fujin and Seifer, remembered staying up all night making trouble only to wake up first thing in the morning to report to Caraway's. And after Seifer talked to Rinoa for hours on end, he would come back with a dreamy look in his eye and relay little facts from or about Rinoa to his comrades.
You know this hotel has a reputation as a love nest? I'm not joking, quit rolling your eye, Fujin. There was a singer who started off here, mostly just playing the piano, but she wrote a song -her first big hit- here, here in this room! She fell in love with a soldier and wrote a song to him…It didn't work out between the two, but the point is that it started here. Rinoa says the singer used to come here even after she was married just to look for a chance to see him again…
Raijin snuck down to the closed bar, glanced at the table he used to sit at. After Rinoa had told Seifer that the love struck soldier used to sit there Seifer insisted that his posse do the same, maybe believing that it was a lucky spot, or perhaps because he thought Rinoa would like it. Raijin could never read the boy when he was infatuated. The large man walked slowly up to their old booth and gingerly sat down and closed his eyes.
That singer had always believed she would find her lover. Maybe Seifer would return, too, looking for Rinoa. Heck, on the rare occasion that Rinoa couldn't find the mercenary outside of her father's house or in his own room she'd be sure to find him in the booth. It became their meeting place. A smile broke out on his face.
"Hope you don't think I'm trying to take the place of your girl. Just trying to find you, ya know?" he whispered sadly.
"How does that one quote go…'ask and you shall receive'?" Raijin jumped and opened his eyes at the familiar voice.
"But…wha…what!?" Raijin stared in disbelief at the blond sitting across from him. Seifer only smirked in reply. "How?!"
"It wasn't easy," Seifer replied, voice pitched low. "You were walking pretty fast, it took me a few minutes to catch up."
Unlike Fujin, Raijin didn't notice the odd glint in Seifer's eyes, the desperateness that seemed to loom over him like a dark cloud. He was just happy to be reunited with his friend. "You know what I mean, how'd you survive, ya know?"
Seifer laughed. "All thanks to the grace of one beautiful woman," he said, and Raijin turned as a shock of purple formed in his periphery vision.
AAA
Fujin found herself once again running for her life. However, instead of sprinting through prison corridors, she was sprinting through the hallways that she had grown up roaming. A handful of cadets -most of them at least five years her junior- followed closely behind, wide-eyed and struggling to keep up with her pace. They were the only people she had managed to convince; everyone else had assumed it was a tactic to weaken either Cid's or the Garden Master's defenses. Idiots.
They were just passing the garage when a group of burly SeeDs ran up and blocked their way.
"Whose side are you on?" the largest asked, arms crossed. Fujin sneered up at him, and he shoved her.
"Don't get cocky with me, you don't have Seifer to back you up anymore," he snarled. Fujin looked back at her small group. A lanky blond boy, probably around twelve, stared at her, waiting for orders.
"Run," she whispered, then, turning to face the SeeDs, she yelled: "AERO!"
Screams were cut off as the group of SeeDs were twirled into the air. The lanky blond led the group of kids out toward the main entrance. Fujin avoided the SeeDs as they plummeted, running to bring up the rear of the cadets.
"FASTER!" she ordered as the leader of the SeeDs commanded: "Get them!"
They had almost made it to the front doors when hot pain seared through the back of Fujin's knee. She fell to the floor, and, trembling, awkwardly turned to examine the damage. Someone had shot her. She looked forward and made sure that the cadets were still running. They were, and it seemed that she was the only casualty of the group. A SeeD started running past her, aiming his gun at one of the kids. Fujin threw her Chakram at him, leaving a large gash along his arm.
"Bitch!" he yelled. She scrambled to pick up her chakram to hit him again, but he must have shot her twice more, because suddenly mind-numbing pain spread from her shoulder and stomach.
She fell over, pain lighting her on fire, agony keeping her down. She could only seem to breathe in, not out. Gunshots and battle cries continued despite her fall, and though she knew she needed to get up if she wanted to live, she simply couldn't force herself to do so.
Fuck. It probably hit an artery…Fujin watched the SeeDs run after the cadets, even though they were long gone. One of them kicked her side before running away. Her sleeve was already soaking wet, she was sure her torso and leg were no better off. She would be painted red in seconds.
I need to stop the bleeding. She took a slow, fragile breath. If anyone had been close enough to hear it, they might have thought she was sighing. Weakly, she reached in her pocket for her last potion, but her fingers were met with broken glass. It was wasted.
Can cut the bullets out later… She tried to lock onto someone, anyone and draw cure magic, but her vision was spotted with black, and people fuzzed into blurs. With a heroic effort she pushed on, trying despite all of the hopelessness to cling to life.
She couldn't die. Not like this. A vein on her forehead throbbed as she fought to lift herself from the floor. Her head raised almost an inch before smashing back down to the floor. Her breaths came out shallow and labored, and she clenched her eye in pain. She couldn't die like this. She tried very hard to make eye contact with one of the blurs, to let them know she wasn't dead yet. She couldn't die because…
Because what?
Fujin tried very hard to think of something she needed to do, of someone who needed her to exist. But lying broken and alone on the floor with everyone running past her, she realized that there was absolutely no one who needed her, no one who would miss her. Not as a friend. Not even as an ally. Not anymore.
"Fujin…" someone muttered from a far off place.
AAA
Fujin was standing at the edge of her mind. She wondered if it was technically the verge of sanity, but then wondered why she wasn't wondering how she knew where she was. Shrugging it off, she slowly looked around. All of the clouds floating overhead were either black or white with absolutely no grays in between. She herself was outlined with steady light pen strokes, with all insignificant details erased in white.
She took a cautious step and three swirling black tendrils of something like smoke curled up from beneath her foot, rising into the air and taking form in front of her. She stepped back, afraid but unable to tremble or run at what unfolded.
Seifer, Raijin and herself settled into two dimensional forms and stood frozen, regarding each other with happy camaraderie. The air became weighted with stillness, cold and dry. Cautiously, Fujin took another step, but the smoky people didn't move. She slowly stepped between Seifer and Raijin, close enough to graze them, had they been solid. Wisps of smoke trailed along her shoulders where she had intercepted them.
As she took another step away from them, an invisible force knocked into her, rocking her onto the balls of her feet. She glanced just back enough to see that the smoky images were still intact before being hit onto her bottom. She tried to stand up, but the force was too great, pressing onto her chest and forcing her to stay down, and with bone-chilling terror she realized she was being subdued by wind and wind alone. She turned and shielded her eye, deciding to wait out the horrendous force. The winds howled louder, and the whisper of a voice could be heard in the chaos.
"Get up, Fujin. I did not yield to a weakling…"
Startled, Fuin's eye shot open as she stared about her wildly, looking for the source of the hardly-there voice.
"Are you really so weak? Rise!" Angered at the challenge, Fujin slowly stepped up, somehow managing to fight against the ferocious winds.
"Life is only going to get harder from here on out. What will you do?" The wind pushed down on her shoulders, causing her knees to buckle. Her short hair whipped at her face, forcing her eye to squint for fear of being stung.
"Will you lay down and die?" Sweat blew off of Fujin's skin the second it formed. "Or will you fight?"
FIGHT! Her roar was barely audible over the vicious wind, but echoed all around her after the wind abruptly stopped. She straightened out and strained her ears, listening for something, anything.
So softly did the smoky chakram sail that Fujin didn't hear it until it dissolved through her head. Fujin turned fiercely, and was met face to face with her shadowy doppelganger, whose face was set in icy rage. Fujin sidestepped the false chakram as it spun back to its owner. As it made contact with her hand, both her mirror image and its weapon turned incredibly solid.
Fujin took a step back, the sudden materialization of her own weapon in her grip doing little to calm her. Seifer and Raijin's hard-faced replicas stepped out of illusion, their weapons becoming more real as they stepped into place behind the other Fujin.
"Then fight."
As soon as the wispy voice had uttered its orders, Fujin's doppelganger was quick to attack. She tossed her weapon at Fujin once again and ran forward with a raw battle cry. Fujin dodged the chakram and threw her real chakram, timing it so it would hit her opponent at the same time that she reached for her disc. The other Fujin shied away from the attack, glaring as her shadowy weapon skidded behind her. Seifer and Raijin slowly circled around either side of her, menacing glares boring into her.
"WEAK!" Fujin's clone snarled as she backed toward her chakram. Fujin snatched her chakram from the air and backed into a defensive stance, her eye moving from the clone to Raijin to Seifer and back to the other her again.
"From here on out, your battles will only get harder," the voice whispered as the doppelganger once again flung her weapon. Fujin raised her weapon and knocked the chakram off course, causing it to stick into the dirt. Her clone sneered as Fujin smirked. In a quick and ruthless motion she threw her chakram at her clone and ran for the chakram still in the dirt, anticipating an attack from Seifer or Raijin. She yanked the other weapon from the ground and turned just in time to grab her real weapon from the air. Seifer and Raijin had their weapons raised, and both were starting toward her. But their weapons required a close range; Fujin's didn't. Before the boys could get close, Fujin had flung her chakram at her mirror image. It hit her throat, and the clone's one good eye watered and stared from Raijin to Seifer in a sad, silent goodbye as she fell.
Seifer and Raijin stared in wide-eyed, open-mouthed disbelief as the other Fujin crumpled to the ground. Both turned toward the real Fujin, the hateful looks on their faces sending a chill down her spine.
"F-Fujin!" Raijin yelled, agony coating his cries.
"You bitch!" Seifer snarled, raising his gunblade and sprinting toward her as a bull would charge a red cape.
She tried to move, but her body simply refused to betray her friends. Raijin, too, was running at her, not an ounce of forgiveness on his usually kind face.
"But can you handle the truth? The pain? The loneliness?"
Her choked gasp rang in her ears as quick, sharp pain burned from her chest. Inky black blood dripped in heavy globs down the hard-edged gunblade that protruded just below her chin.
"Because sooner or later, you'll have to face them." The gunblade was yanked from her body and she fell onto her knees -hard- before the rest of her body followed suit.
End Chapter
