AN: Mwahahahaaaa – the first (?) *checks previous and new versions of fic* ok, the ~second~ drastic plot change
Disclaimers: Don't own characters...blah, blah, blah...Squaresoft is god...yada, yada, yada...I'm running away with Squall and Seifer on Tuesday...and so on, and so forth... (hah! bet they won't notice I sneaked that in there *cackles madly*) @~@ OK, seriously, characters from the game aren't mine - despite my wishes and prayers and offers of bribes - but anyone/anything not mentioned in the game is mine
Book One of the Sorcerer Arc ~ History Repeating ~ Chapter Eleven ~ Old Enemies
Squall remained standing behind his desk as the office doors closed. Something was off about Rinoa's aura, it was weak in places he remembered it being strong, dull where it had once been bright. That didn't necessarily mean that something was wrong with Rinoa herself. It might mean nothing more than that she had matured since their last meeting. But he doubted it. Something was different in a worryingly familiar way. If only he could place why it seemed familiar, then he could tell what was different. Until then... He would remain standing – an easier stance in which to draw his weapon.
Rinoa turned, smiling thinly. Her golden eyes seemed to mock Squall, looking altogether too smug and knowing for the woman he knew.
"I only ever wanted to give this world a chance." The voice. The words. So simply, calmly stated, and yet it seemed the direst of threats. "All I needed to do was find a worthy successor and pass my powers on to them. But those who opposed me couldn't see what I had seen, and I didn't have the power to show them." The past tense. Squall frowned. Rinoa had been...possessed? But where were the physical signs? Where were the delicate veins, swollen to gross proportions? "In Ellone I found both the successor and the power, but my enemies found their champion - Laguna."
"Adel." Somehow the two had to have merged when Seifer had thrown them together. Or if not merged, then some fragment of Adel's being had somehow made Rinoa it's home. But why had no one noticed until now? Maybe they had. Maybe... Squall's frown deepened. Yes, there had been something that had nagged at him after Rinoa had received Adel's powers. But he had put it down simply to the fact that Rinoa was suddenly more powerful, and had assumed the lingering feel of Adel had been a side effect. Just as he had attributed Ultemecia's presence around the girl – when she had been unconscious – to the fact that Ultemecia was maintaining the spell controlling the young sorceress.
"Yes." She smirked at him. "Do not worry about Rinoa, she...sleeps...for now." For now? "I am dying," Adel's words answered his unspoken question. "But I have one last way to throw Kylari's chance of winning back into doubt. You must bring Ellone here, to me, and then kill me so that she inherits my powers. You must find all the other sorceresses that Kylari has not yet found, and their powers must also go into Ellone. Only that way will there be a sorceress strong enough to stand against her."
"What you suggest could simply hasten the end." Would simply hasten the end. Squall had already seen the consequences of such a strategy.
"True. But Kylari is seeking something. She will not make a move until she has found it." Vague. Too vague to say for certain if Adel knew exactly what, or rather whom, Kylari was currently seeking.
"How do you know all this?" He didn't think she was spying for Kylari, but then again, he hadn't thought Adel still 'lived'.
"I have been spying on her - carefully of course. Who would suspect Rinoa Heartilly of such cunning?" She had a point. Although, given that he knew Rinoa had run away from her home, and set herself against the might of the Galbadian Military – all because her father was the General in command of it – Squall had long ago learnt ~never~ to assume Rinoa ~wouldn't~ do something.
"Do you know ~why~ she has set herself on this course, and what she seeks?" Adel/Rinoa shook her head.
"No. I suspect both answers, however, lie in the past. Perhaps Ellone could tell you. Bring her here and we will ask." Back to this again. Squall suppressed a sign.
"I don't have the authority..."
"You have as little or as much authority suits you best, SeeD!" Adel interrupted with an angry grimace. "No matter, I can see now I am wasting my time here. There are others who will aid me, who will see as I do that there is only one course of action to be taken." Her face, Rinoa's face, had settled into a scowl, and red was beginning to bleed into the edges of the gold. With a last glare at Squall, the sorceress whirled around and headed for the door.
"Adel." She halted. "Do you remember why ~you~ had enemies?" There was no answer, but a slight shift in her posture told Squall that she was suddenly paying very close attention to his words. "Temper your actions with that recollection. I have no desire to send SeeDs against a potential ally." She snorted.
"If you thought that highly of me, you would bring Ellone here." Squall bit his tongue on the automatic response. He ~didn't~ have the authority to get Ellone brought back from space. Not even Laguna did. Only Ellone knew the codes that would allow her to return to the Earth. Instead he played his last bargaining chip – an act of desperation, but given the consequences of the actions that Adel wanted to take, worth it. Otherwise he would have to kill both host and possessor here and now, an action that could very well see him revealed to the world. But that would be a risk he would have no option but to take.
"I will tell you something that no one else, outside of the uppermost ranks of SeeD, knows." Adel/Rinoa still didn't turn, but her head tipped to one side. "Ultemecia - the 'manipulator' as she is now being called - was herself being manipulated, or at least aided by another force."
"You suspect Kylari."
"Yes."
"I see." There was a long pause. "That sheds new light on previously clouded matters." Adel/Rinoa nodded sharply. "Very well, you have bought yourself some more time, SeeD. I will not act - but I will inform Edea of this conversation, and the conclusions I have drawn." With that the sorceress drew herself up and swept out of the room, somehow managing to make Rinoa's scant five feet three inches look more like Adel's once-impressive six feet seven.
It was, thankfully, only then that his hands began to shake uncontrollably. Staggering slightly, Squall managed to make it into the chair before the trembling made its way to his legs. He could feel all the pent up emotions fighting to escape his control, fighting alongside writhing tendrils of power that, if allowed to escape, were quite capable of destroying Garden. Warm wetness began to cascade down his cheeks, and the brunette managed to control his hands long enough to pull off his gloves and swipe at the tears. He examined his shaking fingers carefully, but there was no hint of red in the glistening liquid there. He still had some time it seemed, although he doubted it was long.
Slowly, as he sat there, blankly letting the tears flow, the trembling in his limbs began to subside. The battle was waning, control – and sanity – returning as the excess emotions hurled themselves out in teardrop after teardrop. This was what the future currently held for him. One day the tears would not stop, and the emotions would not die away fast enough. Slowly the tears would turn to blood, his eyes to crazed red, and he would let his powers go without thought or care for those around him. He would go insane, and there would no longer be a way to save him. All Kylari had to do, or so it seemed, was wait for that day...
AN: bleh... just realised that this plot change means I can't be lazy and leave Death's Angel pretty much as is... hmm... or maybe I can... *goes off to consult plot bunnies and muses*