Disclaimer - I don't own FF8.
A/N - Cid Kramer's turn in the spotlight.
Rose Colored Hindsight
Cid was the first to admit he'd screwed up a lot over the years.
Making the deal with NORG, giving up so much of his control of Garden to the Shumi Guardians, agreeing to train the cadets with Guardian Forces instead of restricting their use to SeeD only...
In retrospect, the thing with the GFs was probably the most idiotic move he'd made out of all of them, which said a great deal considering some of the stupid things he'd done.
From the start, he'd known that GF were attributed with causing memory loss amongst the users, but Cid agreed anyway. He'd felt that destroying Ultimecia was worth any cost. What he hadn't understood was that the cost wasn't merely memories - it was experience too.
Seifer was the perfect example of the true cost Guardian Force usage could take on a person. Seifer learned through action best. He needed to gain experiences that would shape how he handled life instead of learning it by rote from books like Quistis or putting up with things he didn't have an opinion on the way Squall tended to. Seifer had to act things out and take the fall on occasion. He learned his lessons best that way... but with his memories continually being shortened from GF usage, Seifer's experiences would slip away to leave him back at the start.
Because of Cid's mistakes, Seifer kept learning the lesson of looking before he leaped into situations and then forgetting it despite its importance. Because of Cid, Seifer had practically been handed to Ultimecia on a platter.
Cid doubted he could ever forgive himself for failing Edea's boy like that.
There was a stupid saying about how hindsight was twenty-twenty... that a person could look back and know what they should have really done to get things right. Cid didn't know, however, what he could have changed. He regretted the deal with NORG, but the Shumi was the only investor Cid could find who was willing to back both the mercenary and academic parts of Garden. Every bad decision from there on out could be linked to his agreement to work with NORG. He wished there could have been some other way, but reality didn't typically work out the way he wished it would.
It was too bad hindsight couldn't be viewed through rose colored glasses. Maybe then Cid would be able to sleep through the night.