I do not own any tales of symphonia related things, that's namco tales studios ltd.
I do have permissions for certain things.
It had now been a year. It was Concetta's fifteenth birhtday. Pasiara was two weeks older than Concetta and was therefore already fifteen. Danaisa was five days younger than Concetta and Andrea was twelve days younger. Gifts were given in secret, sometimes not even found by the recipient...
Over their time there, Concetta and Pasiara developed an intense rivalry. They couldn't get past the fact that Concetta tried to be too helpful and Pasiara thought she deserved the title of "Queen of the World." Sadly, with the way Yggdrasil let her get away with everything, she seemed like she already had that title. Both Concetta and Pasiara had been discovered dancing and Pasiara often interrupted Concetta with her vulgar music and abuse of her flying ability. She now only ever used her wings when dancing and her feet never really touched the ground so she would never falter. She claimed she was the best at dancing and began gloating about nonexistent singing skills. In all honesty, Pasiara couldn't have been more tone deaf though she insisted on singing and saying that she was better than Concetta at everything. She would go into her adult form, too, (which she was the only one who had because she needed to be at par with Yggdrasil) and flaunt her fake adulthood. Concetta got along with her the least.
Concetta told Mister and Misses Tewquin about Pasiara and how much they hated eachother. Mrs. Tewquin kept reassuring her that, if she gave it time, there would be a solution to this problem. It may not be the solution that she aspired for, but it would be a solution. Concetta listened to the old woman's words and tried her best not to lose her temper with Pasiara as much as possible.
The solution that Mrs. Tewquin spoke of came during a combat training session with Kratos...
##################################################################
"There is something we must tell you," Yggdrasil stated to the four newest members of Cruxis. "It is the reason for your being here and I feel that your lack of knowledge has gone on long enough."
Yuan and Kratos were in the room as well, already knowing what Yggdrasil was going to say. They had both hoped that Yggdrasil would not give them the entire explanation, in fear that they would run away.
"Lord Yggdrasil," Pasiara started, "is this really that important? I want to go to sleep."
"You don't even need sleep," Concetta butted in.
"Yeah, but I still like sleeping every night. It makes me feel better about myself."
"How that could help you I have no idea..." Concetta mumbled.
"You may have noticed that there are four of you and four seraphim. There are also the opposite genders; one female and three males versus one male and three females. There is a reason for this that you may have found out on your own if you had been thinking logically."
"Hmmm," Concetta pondered momentarily. "I'm pretty sure I know what your talking about unless it's really unobvious. I didn't even need to use my 'powers' to get an idea of what you're talking about."
Andrea nodded. "I'm pretty sure I know what you're talking about, too," he stated. "It seems pretty easy to get." Danaisa nodded in agreement.
"I don't get it," Pasaira said.
Concetta rolled her eyes and decided to explain anyways. "There are four of us and technically four of them. We have three girls, they have three guys. We each have three half-elves and one human. Setting aside Kratos and I, there are six or you, three girls and three guys. What do you think that spells?"
"... A... good time?"
(*Slap Forehead*) "At least you understand that girls and guys can make a good time..."
"Stop treating me like I'm stupid," Pasiara demanded.
"Then stop being stupid! Unless, is that too hard for you?"
"I hate you so much!"
"My level of loathing towards you is higher than the Tower of Salvation!"
"Ugh," Pasiara mentally winced for having to ask this, "What is the Tower of Salvation?"
"Oh, I forgot, you wouldn't know that yet because you're not me," Concetta said, obviously trying to make her feel stupid now. "You'll see it in a few years."
"If I may interrupt," Yggdrasil said angrily, "I would like to finish the explanation because you two are quite obviously too immature to talk to one another!"
"My apologies, Lord Yggdrasil," Concetta said as humbly as she could.
"Forgiven. Now, you four are meant to be married to the four of us. Pasiara is with me, and the rest should all be quite obvious."
"Well, that's close to what I was thinking," Concetta stated, "but why do you say it so bluntly? You just came out with it."
"I'm trying to make it as simple as possible for Lady Pasiara, my future wife."
Concetta rolled her eyes. It was quite logical, the halt-elven girl would go with the male half-elven seraph, the half-elven guy would go with the female half-elven seraph, and the humans...
(*Mental Sigh*) He's my teacher! That and he's four thousand years older than I am! I'm usually turned off by guys who are older than me by a couple of years but this is disgusting!
Yggdrasil saw Concetta's look of discomfort and ordered everybody to suit up for battle training. Wahoo, Concetta thought. Now I have to let him teach me after hearing that! These classes are about to get so much more awkward...
The four trainees went to their rooms to get changed for battle. When Concetta was finished she decided to wait by the exit; she didn't know where they would be training yet so she couldn't go there. While she waited Kratos approached her.
"You don't seem happy about what Yggdrasil just said," he started.
"Yeah, well, neither do you."
"I already knew."
"I had a feeling you knew."
Kratos sighed. "Of course you had a feeling..."
"You don't want to be married again, right?"
"Another feeling?"
"Yes."
"Your feeling would be correct then."
"And I think I know why, too. You don't want to hurt anybody else like that anymore, including yourself."
"She deserved better... and so do you."
"I'm a little young to be debating what I deserve or not," Concetta pointed out. "Anyways, me being a psych, my entire life was shaped around becoming perfect for whatever, or in this case whoever, I was meant for."
"Humph..."
Concetta rolled her eyes at his lack of caring. She had a feeling that he meant it to be something along the lines of "you don't need to do anything because you aren't meant for me."
"I hope you don't mind my asking, but how exactly does your life shape to be with a person?"
"I have a theory for that, actually. Whatever you need in a lover is what you didn't get from your parent (of that gender) growing up. My father was a child who couldn't shut up so I find myself happier around men who are more mature and quiet. My dad was a few years older than my mom so I think that means that I would be happier with somebody who was either a little younger than me more a little older than me."
"Humph..."
Concetta rolled her eyes at this. It was kind of a "you're the one who asked," kind of eye roll.
Concetta walked away to see if she could find Danaisa at this point. She didn't want this conversation getting any more awkward.
When she had found Danaisa and they were returning to the exit they found a note saying that Forcystus was supplying them practice space on a cliff just outside of his ranch. Concetta and Danaisa decided that it would be wise to wait for Andrea and Pasiara, especially now that you could say Pasiara was having an affair with the boss and therefore they would be in deep trouble if they mistreated her now. Finally the two late-comers arrived and the four travelled to Sylvarant together for their training...
##################################################################
Training was almost the same everytime. Kratos would make them fight amongst one another for a few minutes, give each person some pointers as to what they were doing wrong, when everybody had fixed their mistakes he would teach them when was wisest to use certain techs, then they would fight two at a time so he could get a better view of anything else that needed tweaking. Yuan was there, too, but usually only for demonstrations and sometimes to give out tips for something Kratos missed.
They went through usual procedure, each levelling up at least once, until closer to the end. Concetta was fighting Danaisa and something about Concetta's battle stance had been bother both Kratos and Yuan. They couldn't quite figure it out yet and if was annoying them both greatly. Concetta beat Danaisa and moved on to Andrea. Each of them would fight three times in a row, once against everybody, so in the end they had fought each of their comrades at least twice. Concetta once again defeated the person she was put up against. Her next fight would be with Pasiara. Pasiara abused her wings even in battle, so she remained at least fifty meters above ground. Concetta hated having to fight in the air but, then again, you never know when a situation may arise where you would need to fly and fight.
Then, all at once, Concetta's stance problem came to Kratos. She continuously switched the way she held her sword from back hand to fore hand; tossing it a little each time. She probably wasn't even aware that she had been doing it since she must have been doing it for a while.
"Concetta, Pasiara, stop," Kratos yelled up to him. He began to fly up to them and while taking off signalled for Yuan to come, too. "Concetta, I'm going to show you how you've been fighting and I want to see if you notice what you've been doing wrong." Kratos began attacking Yuan, who were both now a little higher than Concetta and Pasiara, but about twenty meters away.
"You're switching your sword direction. Am I really doing that?"
"No," yelled Yuan sarcastically. "He just felt like saying you were doing that then asking you if you could tell."
"Now watch how you should be holding it," Kratos yelled back at her. "If you need to switch directions do it when you're not attacking instead of whilst your still attacking." Kratos began attacking Yuan properly. They had be fighting over and past the edge of the cliff and both Pasiara and Concetta had been fighting a little bit past the cliffs edge. Kratos didn't like being up here but he had no other choice. This cliff brought back some painful memories that he would just be reminded of.
Concetta had been watching Kratos and Yuan demonstrate a proper battle and was too focused on that to notice Pasiara behind her. Pasiara pulled out the dagger that she kept on her person and slashed Concetta from the lower left of her back to the upper right, using all of the strength that she had to dig the small dagger in as deep as she could make it go. The sudden attack drew Concetta's wings in and she began to plummet, fast. She had been teaching herself to take pain in silence so she didn't scream when the initial slash hit, then she had fainted whilst falling and therefore did not utter a sound.
Kratos and Yuan were still battling, both assuming that Concetta and Pasiara were still watching. Danaisa and Andrea were healing themselves and therefore not paying attention either. It was only Pasiara, who began giggling and, after about thirty seconds, (around the same time she saw Concetta's body falling out of sight) the giggle turned into loud, maniacal laughter. She began lowering herself to the cliffs edge slowly, too deafened by her own thoughts to hear Kratos yelling her name. Danaisa, who was now close to fully healed, looked up to see Kratos and Yuan flying back down angrily to Pasiara and that's when it dawned on her that Concetta wasn't there.
"Where is she," Danaisa yelled. "Where is Concetta?" Kratos and Yuan both landed on either side of Pasiara who stopped laughing.
"Why, fallen off the edge of the cliff," she said excitedly.
"You pushed your comrade of the cliff," Kratos asked, major fury coming into his eyes.
"Yes, of course I did! I hate that girl so much! How dare she mess with me! I thought that a fitting punishment for dubbing herself my enemy would be to make her meet a painful and dramatic death. I'm sure that, if you looked on the side of the cliff, you would still see blood."
Kratos looked back at that cliff and at the blood splattered on the edge the had fallen from her body and all her could remember was the last time he had been on this cliff... the last time somebody had died because of him... on this very same cliff...
Kratos pulled Pasiara away from the rest of the group and punched her in the face.
"How dare you," Pasiara tried to say whilst spitting blood. "How dare you punch me, Lord Yggdrasil's fiancé?"
Kratos pulled out his sword and signalled her to fight him. She brought out her whip and began attempting to fight him; though it was to no avail.
"Kratos," Yuan yelled, "what the hell are you doing? Yggdrasil will have your head if you hurt her!"
Kratos looked back to the cliff and memories shot into his head: his three-year-old son being attacked by his own mother who had been turned into an uncontrollable monster because of Kvar; no, because of himself. All he could see was three forms; a small boy, and young woman, and a protozoan, all falling off the edge of the cliff. He began to hit Pasiara harder.
"Kratos, stop," Yuan yelled, running up to him and grabbing his sword arm. Pasiara was bleeding all over and was on the ground. Her whip had been shred to pieces from defending and her dagger had fallen whilst trying to defend and was now a few feet away. "As much as we all hate the little piece of scum, Yggdrasil is supposed to keep her. We can't kill her right now."
"Oh thank you, Yuan," Pasiara cried. "Oh, I mean, Lord Yuan. Thank you so much!"
"You're not welcome," he answered, glaring at her. She seemed hurt that she had caused that much damage. She thought that Yggdrasil didn't really care about the four of them that much, especially not about a psych who knew things that she couldn't tell him. "I'll go look for the body," Yuan continued. "You all go back and, Pasiara, you have to tell Lord Yggdrasil what just happened. We'll see what your punishment will be." Pasiara was hurt a little bit inside that he would treat her like a child; but she obeyed.
##################################################################
Yuan re-entered Derris-Kharlan about an hour later. All he said were two simple words:
"No body."
Hmm... killing yourself in a story... I'm not emo I just pictured it happening... I also found that if was a good reason for Pasiara to get punched in the FACE! I wanted to do it myself but I thought that it would be more painful if somebody stronger did it.