He gently shook her by the shoulder as the jeep finally crested and the lights of Deling City blazed on the plains below them. The gas-powered lamps of the industrial districts blazed into the sky, and in the darkness they looked like geometrically-arranged fireflies, caught in some bizarre cubist spider-web. Here and there he could see patches of the web where no light shined, or where the hot orange glow gave way to cool blue and white lines as Esthar's technology gave light to the areas of the city that Dollet's guns had rained destruction on. Even from this distance and at this time of night he could see and hear the headlights of Galbadian APCs as they patrolled the perimeters of the city to proclaim that Galbadian soldiers still defended Galbadian territory. The provisional government had proclaimed it as a return to form, but to Squall it looked more like a beaten man throwing away his friend's help and insisting he could walk upright on his own. There were not many patrols.

"Mmmm?" Rinoa looked with bleary eyes through the windscreen and saw the city before her. The noise she made as sat up and adjusted her clothes was something between annoyance and disgust. Whether at her own condition after three days and two night's hard travel or at the capital city of the nation she had hated for so long he wasn't sure. "Oh. Well, here we are," she said numbly. He didn't blame her for the empty observation. Even with frequent changes of driver all three of them were running on empty.

As soon as they had been escorted gently from the throne-room (and couldn't you feel eyes on the back of your neck like daggers as you went Squall?) they had left the city, flat-out buying the jeep they were travelling in rather than test their luck against the Duchess' changing moods by haggling, and wondering at every pair of eyes that had turned to follow them whether the looks were awestruck, curious or something more malevolent. They'd given a single message to the cadet manning the SeeD boat that had taken them to Dollet and then headed out as soon as humanely possible. Now tired beyond words even Deling came as a relief after the endless quiet of the countryside. He came as close as he dared to the city and waited for the nearest guard to notice them in the dark. Luck, for once, was with him.

"Commander Leonhart. Miss Tyynes." Not a question. The Estharian soldier's professionalism and competency radiated out of him like a rock, and for a moment Squall felt just a little small before the man. He looked old enough to have grown up before the First War, caught and tainted with the sheen of quiet desperation which most of the older troops Estharians seemed to be infested with. Decades of living under a brutal repressive sorceress-dictator with literally no escape from their continent had left a generation stilted and introverted. For all the awe and envy the rest of the world gave to Esthar Squall knew that the technological utopia had scars that might never be healed. The old soldier before him talking gently into his lapel-mike might have seen things that would have turned Squall's blood to water. He turned back to the SeeDs. "Ms Satomi is already on the way sir. Is there anything I can do for you commander, your grace?"

Squall waved a hand and shook his head, not a little embarrassed at the deference from someone easily twice his age with double his experience. "No, thank you. Carry on, we'll wait." The man nodded and turned away, and he heard the small laugh from beside him.

"'Carry on soldier'. The brave commander addresses his troops."

He felt a blush rising up and stamped it down before it could emerge on his skin, and he really hoped that hadn't been a chuckle that had escaped Xu's lips. "Well what was I supposed to say?"

Rinoa leant her head against his shoulder. "Must get a little light-headed, what with being on that pedestal all the time."

He smiled in the darkness, the only light coming from the bright checkpoint lights shining on the jeep. "You keep me grounded Rin."

"Your pillow-talk is great but you mix metaphors badly," she said, quietly enough that Xu didn't hear over the steady hum of the engine.

"Well-"

"Wait. Look."

They watched together as the figure almost coalesced out of the darkness. Rinoa heard the small intake of breath from Squall and her hand found his on the wheel. For all the years they had been together, first as travelling companions, then as true comrades, fiancés, finally husband-and-wife, she had learned all of his habits, foibles. What made him tick and what made him tense up angry as hell. She had smoothed his rough edges and broken through his shell, but for all that she knew there was something primal and instinctive about this subject that would forever be beyond her control to help change.

A literal whisper in the dark as the woman spoke. "Commanders. Ms Hear- Ms Leonhart. Welcome to Deling."

Squall's reply was said through gritted teeth. "Fujin."


"You've done good work," Xu said, staring out of the window and into the night.

Fujin shrugged, unwilling to take the credit, as they rolled through the city. They had left behind the tiny Dollet vehicle for something more befitting their stature. That, and…

We didn't think it would be a good idea for you to travel to light inside the city, Fujin had said, and now as they went through Deling in the armoured personnel carrier he believed it. When it had came to a halt beside them at the city checkpoint Rinoa had at first mistaken it for a patrol leaving the city, so heavily armoured it was. It was only when Fujin had gestured inside that she had realised that it was for them. Even plushly-decorated and as smooth a ride as anything she'd ever sat in, it seemed massive overkill for taking four people less than three miles, and she wondered why the pale woman had looked so nervous as they had climbed out of their jeep and switched.

She tried to make conversation as Squall stared out of the thick window. Whether he was still angry enough to let it affect his judgement or simply anticipating and dreading the meeting ahead made no practical difference. She'd broken his shell but some of the pieces still remained, and he had withdrawn behind one. She'd force him out of later, but for now she knew she'd only cut herself on the edges of his anger if she tried. "You heard about Dollet?"

Fujin nodded. "I'm sorry Ms Leonhart but-"

"Call me Rinoa," she said forcefully. She would have swore the other woman blushed.

"Thank you…Rinoa. I wish there was something I could do to help but I fear our position has not endeared us to the duchess."

"What about the murders?" Squall almost barked the word out and Fujin jumped in her seat as she struggled to reply. To Rinoa the scene was surreal and disheartening, watching her husband throwing verbal barbs at his subordinate. Xu's eyes narrowed slightly but she wouldn't chide her own commander in front of others.

Fujin coughed. "I think that would be better discussed later when we-"

He didn't even look at her as he replied. "I'd like to discuss it now."

Fujin sighed and glanced at Xu, who nodded at her. Fujin bowed to her request and began.

"Five SeeDs murdered in Deling City over the past two months. I told that to Ms Trepe and Ms Tyynes. We're now prepared to change that to ten, over three months.

Squall's head whipped around as he forgot his antipathy towards Fujin, and stared at with something between amazement and frank disbelief. "Ten?"

She forged on, as if the words would act as a shield against his oncoming questions. "When we first realised our men were being targeted we went back over all deaths in Deling City involving SeeDs who died in…circumstances other than the line of duty. Asked around and ran tests we didn't before."

Squall nodded, he didn't have to ask for an explanation. Drunken bar brawls, unlucky accidents on construction sites, illness. Unfortunate losses that wouldn't possibly be seen as murders. "And you found five more."

Fujin nodded. "All in Deling, all definitely homicides."

"Why did you need Quistis and Xu here to help?"

If it had been anyone else in the APC with the woman they would have missed it. But Squall Leonhart was a superbly-trained soldier and Rinoa Leonhart nee Heartilly had spent her childhood around conniving and plotting politicians. Both of them caught the lightning-fast glance as Fujin's eyes went to Xu and then Rinoa, and neither needed any time to translate it.

Squall's mouth started working first. "You're kidding. Sorceress Cultists have been murdering Galbadian SeeDs in Deling City?" It was his turn to shoot an accusing glance at Xu, who had the good grace to look embarrassed at keeping it from him.

A pained expression crossed Fujin's face, and this time they watched as she squirmed under their gaze. "Not just Galbadian." She held up a hand as the car came to a stop, and the couple blinked as they realised how distracted they had been by her words. "Come inside and they can explain more."

"Who?"

Both Squall and Rinoa looked on, a little puzzled, as a small smile broke out on Fujin's normally stoic face. "You'll never guess."


Even in the middle of the harshest reality, Fujin wondered as she watched the reunion, there must be some human impulse that looks for the smallest ray of hope and magnifies it into a sun. Even with her own…tenuous…position amongst the gathered group she couldn't help but feel cheer.

The ancient oaken double-doors swung open to reveal the dining room of the Deling Mansion, now converted into the headquarters of the reconstruction effort. Papers laid strewn everywhere and Rinoa took in the old room she had spent her childhood wandering in and out of, and thought that finally it was being used for a significant purpose. Heads turned as she and Squall entered the room. She saw Raijin looking up, their entrance some break from the boredom he was obviously experiencing indoors. Nameless Estharian and Galbadian uniforms stood or sat around the room, obviously waiting for something to begin. The man who's face had once haunted her dreams, then nightmares, and finally nothing at all sat to the right of the head of the table. He must have heard them enter but Seifer Almasy remained engrossed in whatever he was reading. And finally the last two occupants who turned to look at their entrance-

"No way."

She gaped for a second before the man swept her off the floor and into a massive bear-hug, and Irvine Kinneas grinned as he put her back down again. "Oof, you're heavy." He grinned and adjusted the brim of his hat. "How you holdin' up Rin."

"It's been too long!" Selphie's hug was less bone-crushing but much more welcome.

"What the hell are you guys doing here?" Rinoa could hear the genuine pleasure in Squall's voice and it made her heart sing as the two men shook hands and embraced.

"Heard you guys had some trouble down here. We talked with the lady here" – he nodded in Fujin's direction, who nodded back solemnly – "and thought you might want a hand."

"It's just good to see you too." Squall stepped back and looked at the pair. "Dressed for the occasion too?"

A lot had changed since the end of the war almost half a decade ago. Just as he and Rinoa had discarded their old clothes – practically uniforms really, the sheer amount of time they had sometimes had to go without access to anything resembling civilisation – as their own whims and experiences had taken them farther and farther away from their teenage years. But even the old Selphie and Irvine probably wouldn't have recognised the new. Irvine had tried as much as he could to stay ever the cowboy archetype, simply switching the material of his clothing from fair-weather leathers to something warmer Squall couldn't identify, and Selphie had swapped her summer dress for a buttoned-up cotton jacket and greatcoat, the latter now open in the warm Galbadian climate. Both were in cool blues and whites, with their SeeD emblems pinned to the lapels.

Irvine shrugged and grinned. "When you talk about Trabia you don't talk about summer weather and winter weather, you talk about winter weather and frozen wasteland weather." The tall Galbadian glanced around the room. "What do you think about this whole mess?"

Squall shrugged. "It sounds pretty serious. You came down from T-Garden?"

"Laguna ferried us across in a borrowed airship, about the time you guys were getting kicked out of Dollet I guess. Or not getting kicked out, as the case may be."

"You heard about that huh?"

"I swear it's the seaside air that drives them all crazy. Martine used to scream bloody murder about her father back when he was headmaster and he was the duke." Irvine looked across at Xu. "We'll get her out, depend on it."

"I believe you," she replied.

"Thanks." Squall grinned. It really was good to see them again. It had been too long since the last time they had all gotten together. He and Rinoa at Balamb Garden making sure cadets were trained and the work taken care of while Quistis and Xu made sure the world kept spinning on it's axis. Zell spent more time travelling than he did with his feet on the ground, and finally Selphie and Irvine in Trabia Garden, keeping the organisation functioning and working with Esthar in the east.

We spend so much time apart. We should make a reunion happen.

Just one more thing to add to the list.

Unconsciously his hand went to the pocket of his jacket, the small piece of paper with the name written on it that Xu had handed over after they had been safely away from Dollet. Idly he reached down to bring it out and see what was written there, but it never reached his hand as his thought process was suddenly de-railed by a single sound.

The looks ranged from outright hostility to cool calculating appraisal as Seifer Almasy knocked gently on the table. Silence reigned as for a moment the new arrivals tried to sort through their feelings and come to terms with the presence amongst them they had until now been trying to ignore.

He saved them the trouble.

"All this is very sweet but we have actual problems to solve here," Seifer said as he watched the reunion scene playing out in front of him.

Squall sat down at the opposite end of the table and stared down its length as Fujin sat at the head of the other end. He very pointedly did not look directly at the other man. "Report in then, by all means," he said, his tone sounding every bit as bored as Seifer's, and the blonde man bridled at the insult. Mercifully he held his tongue.

"Ten dead SeeDs in the city. One of them the property-"

"The friend," Selphie interjected icily.

"-of our Trabian guests." Seifer spread out pictures on the table, a record of smashed and broken bodies hauled up out of sewers, picked from disposal sites and found lifeless in back alleys. "Attacks on SeeD and Esthar personnel in the city, and this." This last image he slid directly across the table, but not to Squall.

Rinoa picked up the paper distastefully, then gasped and almost dropped it as she realised what was pictured there.

"So we have two problems?" Squall asked as he looked over Rinoa's shoulder at the crude depictions of eyes and wings spray-painted onto some anonymous brick wall. "There's a SeeD-killer on the loose in Deling, and there's a Sorceress Cult active in Galbadia."

"They're the same problem," Fujin said softly. In the quiet air of the mansion she didn't need to shout to be heard. She raised a hand and ticked off her fingers as she talked. "Deling. Dollet. Centra-

"Centra?" Squall asked, before the knowledge floated out of his brain. "Zell."

Xu looked thoughtful. "Cultists active on three of the four continents. Maybe more…?" She glanced around at Selphie, who shook her head emphatically.

"None in Trabia."

Raijin looked unconvinced. "It's a big country y'know ma'am. Rocky too. You sure you-"

"I'd know," Selphie said quietly.

"I'm just sayin' it's not like-"

"I would have been told," she repeated, for a second the usual bubbly upbeat personality sloughing off her frame to show the edge that a person developed when they grew up in the harshest country in the world. Trabia was a nation of villages. A collection of tiny enclaves of humanity surrounded by snow and ice for ten months of the year that were- had to be – always in contact with the others to survive the endless winters of the continent, like a group of people balancing on a frail rope bridge over a black abyss. Anyone living in that country would view a threat to their tenuous survival as beyond hope. T-Garden and its graduates were less of an eastern military force and more like a collection of men and women that policed the continent and kept humanity alive on the bleak land, its justice known as unavoidable and utterly certain and its requests treated as sacrosanct. From inside the walls of the academy Selphie Tilmitt ruled Trabia.

"So you're talking about three quarters of the world overran with-"

One of the nameless men spoke up. "I don't really think 'overran' is the word to describe unconnected groups of fanatics commander. I wouldn't call them organised."

Seifer cut the man off at the knees. "If they're walking free and attacking our- attacking SeeD personnel then they're organised enough." "Don't underestimate these people kid. They're crazy as hell and they don't give a damn about anything but their warped religion." He glanced across at Rinoa, and Squall felt the urge to step between them as the man's eyes looked on his wife. "Whatever form that takes at the minute."

Fujin coughed and nodded. "They attacked Mr and Mrs Leonhart in broad daylight. Luckily they failed, mainly die to Mrs Leonhart's…extensive…defensive measures. None were captured and nobody even realised they were there until the attack had started. Combined with the focus on killing our personnel I'd say that's more like a military operation than a religious group."

"Aimsland."

Seifer frowned. "That's a word that sounds familiar."

The luckless man who suddenly found himself the centre of the room's attention stepped forward. "Mr Dincht's report mentioned the name in the context of-"

He rambled on until Squall picked meaning from the deluge of bureaucratic words. "He's their leader." Finally, a name. He had taken to the global stage as well as he could, Quistis and Rinoa helping to drag him out of the small-scale picture he had always seen the world in. While he had adjusted as well as he could, Squall Leonhart sometimes longed for the relative simplicity of the small picture. One man he co0uld track down was small enough.

Now it will cost you, Leonhart. Find us when you're ready to pay. We'll be watching.

We'll be watching.

"I might know something."

They listened as Squall told them what the man had said. He could feel Rinoa's eyes on him as he spoke and knew that there would be an argument later, but for now all he could think of was getting to the bottom of the problem, reaching past the anonymous cultists and to the man behind the scenes.

Seifer snorted and Squall bridled at the sound. "So your plan is to what, wander around shouting for cultists 'till one of them decides to Take You To Their Leader?"

"Do you have another?"

"Not yet."

Xu spared a quick look at Rinoa, who rolled her eyes. She stalled the argument before it bloomed by placing herself between the two men. If she felt a chill as her body broke the sullen eye contact between them she had to be imagining it. "We have another problem. Quis- Headmistress Trepe is being held unlawfully by-"

"That's not a problem." Seifer said bluntly.

Xu almost hissed her reply. "I disagree."

The blonde man snorted in amusement. "Have you ever caged a falcon?" Xu shook her head. "The duchess just did, and she'll start regretting it soon enough. I'll be shocked – shocked – if the instructor doesn't find her way out of that mess in under a week." He stood. "I'm done here. Do whatever you feel like you need to, commander. I'll use my own methods in the meantime."

"And those are?" Irvine asked after the blonde swordsman had stalked out of the room.

"Beating people over the head mainly," Raijin muttered.

Rinoa leaned into him and whispered into his ear, her breath warm against his skin. "Squall, can we talk?"


"Don't do it."

"Rin…"

Rinoa paced in front of him as they stood outside of the mansion. The sun had begun to rise but not far enough to pierce through the smog of the city, even as high above the rest of the city as the mansion was. "You've got some stupid idea about going off on your own to solve the whole problem."

We know a lot about you, knight.

"Yeah, I do." He didn't deny it.

"Then you're taking me with you." She held a hand against his lips to stall his objection. "I heard what that man said. You think he knows something about you. Well he sure as hell knows something about me." She held out a hand to his face. "I want to know more about this power Squall. It's a part of me, something I inherited. I wanted you to find your own past? Now I want to find my own future."

He took the hand she offered and smiled. He couldn't resist. Never had been able to.

"So let's do it together."