Chapter Ten--- Past Alive

Fujin's head spun. Why? Why were they after her? After so long why chose now to chase her? Why had her parents left her? Hadn't she been good enough for them? The thought struck Fujin like ice cold water. That must have been the reason. She had never been good enough for the Lazelle family, with their riches and priceless good looks. She would only hinder them. And she was just a girl. What use was a girl when you had such fine young boys to carry on the family name?

"...Fujin I-" Fujin's deadly glare stopped him midsentence. She was in no mood for his excuses or his pity. He probably had known where she had been all along and suddenly felt some sort of pity for her. Fujin Kazeno needed no one's pity.

"You lied to Garden when you requested help, you lied to the SeeD's you've put in danger and you lied to me. I don't want to know why I wasn't good enough for your family nor do I wish in any way to be connected to such a family. Now if you'll excuse me sir, I will return to Garden and inform them of my desire to be reassigned to a different mission while the others continue here as needed. Good day." Fujin spun on her heel and walked away quickly, leaving a very confused and hurt man behind her.

"Fujin?" Fujin didn't answer Vincent as she hurried past him into her room to pack her things. He followed her.

"Fujin what's going on? Where are you going?" Fujin's crimson orbs looked straight into his, fierce and uncaring. The same cold and unfeeling look they'd possessed when Vincent had first met her.

"Home. I can't stay here. They lied to Garden, they lied to me and the threats were probably never real in the first place." Vincent frowned. It wasn't like Fujin to just walk out on her duty. She was the kind to stick with it till the end no matter the cost.

"Fujin, this is your mission. You can't just walk out." Her gaze snapped up to him once more, angry and betrayed.

"I can't walk out on them? They walked out on me, Vincent!" By now her voice had drawn the others to witness the scene from the doorway.

"They are the reason I never had a real family, why no one ever wanted me! And your telling me I can't walk out on them? Watch me, Vincent. I'll show them just how much like them I can be. And I won't look back." Fujin zipped up her bag and turned to find the onlookers in the door, among them Shaine. The pain in those vivid cerulean eyes tore her heart in to millions of tiny pieces, but still she shouldered past him to the stairs.

"Fujin Kazeno. As your squad leader I'm ordering you to return to your post immediately or I'll be forced to detain you in the current location and inform Garden that upon our arrival you are to be put on probation and assign a meeting with the review board." Quistis's no nonsense voice cut through Fujin's fury and stopped her in her tracks. Slowly, she turned to face her 'friend'.

"Your kidding. Not even Instructor Trepe would pull such a low blow." Quistis flinched at the loathing in her best friend's voice but still she held fast.

" I'm afraid I'm not. Seifer, Vincent, Irvine and Selphie will also have to meet with Headmaster and the review board as witness of your direct violation of Garden Protocol." Fujin's eyes darted to Selphie, whose green eyes were down cast.

"Selphie?" Slephie looked up at her and nodded sadly. Fujin began to laugh.

"I should have known. If my own family didn't stick with me, why should my so called friends? Quistis, take your protocol and this mission and shove it. I'm done." The slamming of the front door signaled the woman's exit.

"Shaine." Quistis sharp voice was bitter and commanding. He raised his eyes to her and the narrowing of her ocean blue orbs told him she meant business.

"I suggest you explain to me this entire story before I arrest your whole family." Shaine looked to Stone and then around to Arien who was wrapped in Seifer's arms. Seifer frowned and looked down at the younger silver-haired man. Crimson orbs, so like Fujin's, looked away.

"Arien?" Slowly, the blonde stepped away, disbelief evident in his face. Vincent growled and hurried down the stairs.

"Sephrin!" The man was slouched in his chair, looking very much like a grandfather.

"You had better start explaining soon." Vincent's tone held an unspoken threat in it, one that would be made good on.

"...Perhaps...perhaps you should sit. It's a long story. Please know I only wished to protect my granddaughter."

"Protect her? You left her! You left her alone all these years and then suddenly pop back into her life and and expect her to accept you with open arms? Did you not see the dead look in her eyes? That was because of you. She's this way because you left her. And no one's wanted her since." Seifer's voice was low and angry. Hateful even. Fujin was just as much his sister as Shaine's and there was no way he was going to allow this man to hurt her in this way.

"We loved her! You know nothing Almasy! She's my sister, I would never hurt her!" Shaine suddenly yelled, blue eyes bright and defensive.

"I know more about her then you do, Shaine. I've known her ever since you dumped her at the orphanage. 13 years you've been gone Shaine. She's not six anymore." Shaine sank to the couch, defeated. Seifer was right.

Fujin Kazeno was not the Fujin Lazelle he remembered. Garden had utilized her fury at the people who had not wanted her and turned her into the perfect weapon. One they had drilled rules and regulations into and numbed all feeling. To Fujin, the Lazelle's were no longer family. They were a paycheck.

And it was all their fault.

A.n: Short chapter but I had to get an update out their because I've been out of comission for ever! Hope you like! Review and you'll get a huge big giantical twist in the next chapter! Hahhaha. To Jasmine, Hyperion, Sorceress Fujin and my other reviewers I love you all for reviewing! On another note I wish to inform you all that this chapter focuses on Fujin's feelings of worthlessness and are directly related to said feelings from the first chapter all due to her family. However, certain conclusions that she's jumped to shall be sorted out in the coming chapters. I just wish to emphasize the hysterical and nonlogical way in which she's responded to such shock. Anywho, review!

i Ultimate!