Disclaimer: Final Fantasy IX and Dissidia are the property of Square Enix. The people who came together to make these characters and their worlds made their fans a home to which they will always return.

Evening, everyone. It's been more than a few months. I've gotten sick in a series of thrilling and time-consuming ways all while trying to wrap up a degree and move forward in my career. That, and a certain someone really wanted to work on a different story, with all sorts of different research and development. He's capricious like that. But some of us do try to keep their promises, so here's the next chapter, at least.

Best,

Grey

CHAPTER TEN

In dream and intermittent waking, I shifted between a stark landscape and the fantasy of a room.

In this cramped room I was lying in an honest-to-goodness bunk bed, buried under a mass of patched quilts and knitted blankets. Someone had removed my jacket and my armor and draped it all on the ladder rungs. A low hum cradled me.

I wasn't unaware I was dreaming. But while I lay there, I could pretend I was in both places. I knew which of the two awaited me when I woke. I felt my thoughts slipping upwards, away from sleep, and braced myself for the raw and exposed rock.

I sat up and the covers fell away from me. I almost struck my head on the upper bunk. I ducked and ran my hand over my hair, to keep my feathers from getting stuck between the slats. There wasn't another pallet in the bunk above me, but there were plenty of boxes suspiciously missing any signs of port clearance stamps. Stacked on the floor were books, trunks, tools, all manner of evidence of other people.

My brother sat not a foot away, his back propped against the bed and facing away from me in the pool of a lantern's meager light. His hair fell loose over his shoulders. It looked like unspooled golden thread. He was tired, as tired as I have ever seen him. I was afraid that was my fault.

The fragments connected. I was inside that airship of his, the one that had been shot down into forest. Salvaged afterwards, it must have been. Chaos was the dream.

"You saved me," I said with relief. I laughed. I couldn't help myself. What did I say to him? How did I express the gratitude I only found in delirium? There was no Cosmos, no Chaos, no pointless battle, only…

Only me.

I couldn't look at him. "Where do I start?"

He shifted but didn't reply. Of course. I didn't expect him to. I supposed he'd had all this time to regret his decision to save my life. Two separate eternities spun by regret, lived in a matter of days.

He cleared his throat, then turned around to look at me. "Well, how're you feeling?" he asked me as he gathered his hair back and out of his face.

There was a knock. The hinges squeaked. I had never been happier to find myself surrounded by squalor.

The door opened just enough for someone to poke his head in. "We've gotta talk about Cloud. He's acting strange. I don't mean he's keeping to himself, that's not strange for him, I mean a whole different kind of strange—"

Cloud?

I choked back a cry as my vision blurred. Immediately Bartz was hovering next to me, his hand over the ghost of the wound in my side. It had been completely healed as soon as Zidane pitched in, but he wouldn't have known that.

"What's wrong?" he asked.

I shoved him off and retreated as far as I could into the dark shelter of the bunk bed. "Don't touch me—"

Sephiroth's voice came back to me. Don't expect one. Don't expect an answer.

The memory of the Emperor's magic forcing its way through me was still branded into my bones. All that pain, to supposedly save me from the person sitting within arm's reach.

Zidane stifled a laugh as he crossed his legs. "You sound fine to me, anyways."

"Shut up!" I snapped at him. "Where the hell am I?"

He laughed, but didn't say a word. His brow rose up under his shaggy hair: I did tell him to shut up, didn't I?

I collapsed against the pillows. "Thank you for taking care of me," I muttered. "Where are we?"

"You've been out for three days. You are our honored guest aboard the fragment of the M.S. Prima Vista. I hope you'll find your suite to your liking, because this is pretty much as good as it gets."

He kept talking after that, something about me being their hostage. My attention buckled under the current of a thousand thoughts. And underneath the current, there was an emptiness that shouldn't have weighed on my mind as much as it did. I spent all but a few days of my life with it, so who knew why it bothered me so much now.

It wasn't an emptiness, but the clean absence of the sweet and heady spell of Cosmos' light.

"Kuja. Hey. Did you hear me? I said I don't care," said Zidane. His voice shifted into a precarious gentleness. He ducked his head into the bunk. It was suspicious.

Bartz was sitting next to him on the floor. He looked particularly wounded; I seemed to have hurt his feelings when I pushed him away. I was trapped by well-meaning gazes and hopeful expressions. Wonderful.

"What are you even saying to me?" I asked him.

"Truce," Zidane elaborated. "What's done is done. The Crystal's gone. There's nothing we can do about it now."

That didn't sound like him at all. Unless it did. Perhaps he was so eager to put it behind us because his plan had failed. Best to forget it had ever happened.

"The only thing we can do is keep going. Did you mean what I think you meant when you said I needed you if I wanted to go home?"

"I did," I said. My voice curled up in my throat. He was right, in more ways than he intended. The only thing to do was to move forward.

"That's why Sephiroth attacked me," I said to him. "He figured out I only have a chance to tear through this world when I'm my most complete self. You do remember what I'm capable of?" To my credit, it didn't sound entirely like a warning.

"I do," he murmured. He took strength from a sigh. "All right. What do you need?"

"Excuse me?" I looked at him, and at Bartz, who was only somewhat less surprised than me.

"Cosmos is gone," said Zidane. "We may find the other crystals, sure, and that might change things. We might even win, but I don't see how any of this ends with us being allowed to go back where we came from. So tell me what you need," he insisted. "If it's something I can help you with, then I'll do it."

He didn't save me. I'd taught him how to look out for himself. What an influence I was.

I motioned to get out of the bunk. They gave me enough space to do so. I took my boots from the ladder. I'd always been so ashamed at the thought of telling him what my intentions had been and what they led to, and now that conversation would never take place. One less thing I'd have to worry over.

After I pulled up my leggings to protect my skin from the leather, I slipped my feet into my boots. I adjusted the sculpted dragon hide armor over my knees.

It was best kept to myself, when it came down to it. What happened didn't matter. Only the result mattered. Zidane was right. Cosmos was so weak she was practically gone.

I pulled my scale armor flush to my chest and slipped my arms through my sleeves. All the layers fell into place with a shrug. I strapped my gauntlets over my hands. I ran my fingers through the tangles in my hair and dragged myself to my feet.

I always assumed the day would come when Zidane would force me to tell him and I wouldn't know how to begin.

One look at him, and the mask slipped. How was it that I was once able to say anything to anyone, no matter what I thought of them?

I pushed past them into the narrow hall. One of them called out after me. I couldn't breathe in this stale air anymore. I followed suggestions of sunlight until I reached the deck. I winced at the unfailing light and stepped out into its warmth.

Then I saw Cloud and the three manikins.

He wasn't fighting them. They weren't fighting him. He stood behind them, his expression blank, his gaze so far away—

His eyes had already shifted to that unsettling green, his pupils the same shape as a cat's. Bartz had good instincts, but neither of them would have known the signs.

I forgot the Emperor's insistence, Zidane's possible treachery. I teleported past the manikins. They turned and looked at me. They paused, unsure what to do. They weren't expecting me.

At first I didn't recognize their features, but then I saw I wasn't meant to. They were variations on the same theme, all starlight hair and long coats.

I shattered the manikins just as Zidane and Bartz ran out onto the deck. I spelled Cloud to sleep and caught him as he pitched forward. His shoulder armor dug into my collar.

"What did you do to Cloud? Where do you think you're going?" Zidane demanded as I passed Cloud off to him and rushed off to the edge of the deck.

Sephiroth already knew I was still alive and where Cloud was. There wasn't much to be done about that, but I could make it hard for him to attack out of nowhere again.

"We have to move," I told him, as if I had any idea what I was doing. It would have been easier to leave and abandon this fragment forever. But I couldn't bear the thought. It belonged to home; we weren't surrendering it so easily as that. Of all the fragments, this was the only one that made me forget where I was.

At the doorway, I reached for the seams that attached this memory to the rest of the world. I was not surprised to find Sephiroth facing me from the other side.

"Come to reclaim your puppet?" I asked him.

"He called to me," answered Sephiroth. His height bore over me. "I hope he hasn't been too much trouble. I'll take him and be on my way… unless you would like to join us?"

I shook my head. "I'm afraid I can't help you. My deepest apologies, but you'll have to take Cloud over my dead body."

I found the edges of the doorway and I tore them free. Sephiroth's image disappeared as if caught in a sudden gale.

The fragment quaked, even though it was far above land. Pieces of the airship shuddered, then shifted out of sight. This whole fragment would become lost and drift like flotsam in the in-between unless I anchored it somewhere else.

I tore a hole in the air in front of me. Nothing. A strain of darkness reached through, pushed through me with intense cold. I gasped. It was looking for something it wouldn't find within me, but that didn't stop it from trying.

In any other world, any honest world, there would be substance for the darkness to latch onto and grow. A Crystal, a real and true Crystal, surrounded by the memories of the world manifested from its light.

The airship pitched forward. I couldn't divert my magic; I didn't even think. I grabbed the railing with my tail.

I stared down into the engulfing darkness, the nothing that lay in place of our Memoria. If I had fallen into it, then I...

I wasn't sure what would happen to me. Perhaps I would disappear altogether. Perhaps I would never be.

Arms wrapped around my waist, pulling me back onboard.

I shut the portal, my body shaking and shivering from the brush with the void. I couldn't open a portal blind like that again. I felt my way more precariously this time, pushing through instead of tearing.

There it was. A barren portal, one that led to nowhere and from nowhere, a ruin with no door. It took all my strength to pull the two together close enough to connect them.

One thread connected, then two. It got easier as it went, thankfully. This world wanted to make itself as true as it could, even if it would never succeed.

The surface of the deck stopped shaking. Zidane let go of me. He'd saved me.

He wouldn't have done that if he'd ever intended to be rid of me. That would have been the perfect, blameless chance. Right?

When I closed my eyes, the abyss I glimpsed expanded beneath me. Vertigo dropped me to my knees. With nothing in my stomach, I had little to cough up. The taste of acid filled my mouth. I leaned against the base of the railing.

I felt this once before, in a different form. A long time ago.

"Was that… Sephiroth?" Bartz wanted to know.

I sat there, in the warm memory of the sun. I gathered my breath, calmed my nerves. I had never openly opposed Sephiroth. What was I thinking?

Cloud stirred. "Get him inside," I ordered Zidane and Bartz. "He can't know where the fragment's connected. He doesn't see sunlight until we have a plan."

Cloud was Cosmos' champion now. What was the point of him stepping into her light if it couldn't protect her from Sephiroth?

If her light wasn't enough to protect the ones who managed to escape Chaos, then I only had myself to blame.

Zidane and Bartz stared at me. "What are you waiting for?" I snapped. They couldn't honestly have no idea what they were dealing with after they saw Sephiroth in Kefka's fragment, could they?

My head swam. I'd done far too much, far too quickly after my trance.

Oh gods, my trance. I'd killed the Emperor. After all he supposedly did to protect me from Garland in this cycle. After all he said he did to save me from Cosmos' trap in the cycle past.

After all his implausible tricks, to take me to some so-called 'Promised Land'.

Zidane stepped forward. "Hey, why don't you take Cloud inside," he said to Bartz. "Kuja needs some air."

Bartz paused. What was his part? I needed to get him alone. I needed to talk to him.

Zidane didn't waste any time. "You knew what was going on. You saved him. Us too, I think. You know him or something?"

"You told me you didn't care what happened," I told him. I couldn't help it. I left him at the railing and I followed Bartz.

He led Cloud, stumbling, into a storage room with its contents pushed to the corners to make room for the pallet laid out on the floor.

As Bartz laid him down, Zidane blocked the doorway. "What's going on? I want answers."

"What happened..." murmured Cloud. He looked up at me with suspicion. "What are you doing here? What did you do to Zidane and Bartz?"

He had nothing to worry about on that front. "You showed some symptoms," I said to him. "I had them move you here. Don't worry, I'm well versed in this condition of yours." I didn't bother to soften the edge on my voice. There was no point, with him.

"Condition of mine," he repeated. "I thought we didn't get sick."

"Sick, no. This is akin to an old injury flaring up again. I've seen its like before."

"Where would you've..."

He closed his eyes and turned his head, his unruly hair pressing into the pillow. His breath evened out. That wasn't my doing. That was his own body, knowing what it needed in order to recover itself from Sephiroth.

"If it were a spell," I said with my voice soft, "No matter how complex, I could isolate it. It would be no trouble to extract it, snuff it out. Raw Terran magic has more to do with the treatment Cloud has undergone than the books and scrolls that I used to refine my own abilities… I'm not Garland."

"You remember," I added as I looked up to Zidane. I searched his face. For what, I wasn't sure. "You've seen the place where we were made."

Zidane knelt by my side. "You're saying that he…?"

"No. Cloud was born," I answered him. "He had a mother. Even Sephiroth had a mother. A birth mother," I explained. Not that this crucial difference helped Cloud now. "This was done to him later."

"So instead of taking those influences out of him, as he deserves, I'll need to layer my own compulsions and bindings and barriers," I said, "but my work will never run as deep as Sephiroth's pull."

He frowned. He wasn't a complete moron. He was much smarter than I'd given him credit for. The sway I held over Queen Brahne, versus the bridle Garland could throw over us the second we forgot ourselves. I could enchant, but Sephiroth's authority ran in Cloud's veins.

"Are you asking us for permission?" said Zidane then.

Did you hear a rumor I had found people I could trust? I wanted to ask him. Did you take me away from them? Did you mock me when you stood by my side as I received a Crystal from your goddess?

Did you poison me? Did you do it because you believed it was the right thing to do? Or for revenge? Did you even have to worry about the difference?

"You think you're the one to give it?" I said, too harsh. I paused, then added, "Not that it matters. I don't have the strength for it now."

Zidane stayed for a moment longer, then gave up and walked out. Bartz remained. Now was my chance.

I waited. I wasn't sure how to begin. I couldn't stand the way he looked at me: scared and excited all in one. Instead I turned my gaze to Cloud as I spoke.

"You wouldn't lie to me, would you," I asked Bartz. "Even if… even if it were something you were afraid to tell me."

He made a grumbling sound, then knelt down next to me. "What're you talking about?"

I closed my eyes. I'd never quite figured out the wording.

He threw his arm around my shoulder. It wasn't annoying when he did it. "I knew you hadn't betrayed us," he said softly. "I never doubted you. Never."

Why was he so stupid and sentimental. "It doesn't matter if I betrayed you or not, don't you get it," I finally said to him. "It's gone."

"It must've hurt," he said quietly.

I didn't move. I couldn't look at him. "It took all I had left to destroy it," I found myself saying. "It was the only way to keep it out of their hands. You've no idea how much it hurt," I added with bitterness. "I can still…"

Those were hardly even my own words, they sounded so trite. He actually seemed to take my word for it. What a miracle.

"You're in no shape to be looking after Cloud," he said. "We can handle it. I'll wake you if he starts to go all glowy-eyed."

"I'll be fine," I said. It was the appropriate thing to say.

Dream of fire, I silently mused over Cloud. Dream of a metal sky, dream of a girl laid to rest at the bottom of a lake. Dream of a crater buried in snow, and a cry that shakes your entire planet. Dream your worst nightmares, and remember them when you wake.