Disclaimer: I don't own any previously copyrighted material. But everything not associated with such (original plot, original characters, etc.) does belong to me.
Kuja's has a long overdue heart-to-heart with Jecht, Golbez, and the Warrior of Light, especially since they can help him fill in the gaps as to just what happened to him while he was asleep. Please enjoy, and please let me know what you think!
Chapter Fifty-Two: Adoration of the Earth
"I'm sorry."
"You already said that," Jecht tells me. Golbez nods agreeably. The Warrior of Light smiles sheepishly.
"I know," I add. I want to say it ten, fifteen, a hundred more times. I heard a conversation that I was not meant to hear, and now I know too much about just how much I've worried Jecht.
Worry. It's not new to me, not anymore. But that was when I didn't have to sit less than five feet away from the man who wanted to do a better job of being my father than Garland, and perhaps was hoping that I'd be a more loving son.
When did I turn back into a child?
"We lost track of you for a long time, didn't we," Jecht says then. "Golbez and I found the Warrior of Light before we found you. Long before we found you. We had some pretty interesting conversations, to say the least. About light and darkness, and order and chaos. I'd like to think we taught each other some pretty important lessons, but none of that would have happened if we were just wandering around aimlessly. Hell, we might have even come to fighting."
Judging by the look on the Warrior of Light's face, Jecht isn't telling the whole truth. "That might have happened occasionally," Golbez whispers to me as he placed his hand on my shoulder.
"What was that? You say something?" Jecht calls over.
Golbez just smiles and shakes his head. "Nothing, nothing at all." It's strange to be able to see Golbez's face; he really does look like Cecil. Which means that they both look not unlike me.
And it wasn't just the helmet he had discarded; half of his armor is now gone, so that he looks more alive than automated. It suits him better.
"Hey, look at you," Jecht says then, "putting up with physical contact without exploding into a ball of fluff. There's hope for you yet."
"Jecht—" Golbez warns.
"It's all right," I say before Golbez can continue. I even laugh afterwards, even though it's more of a conscious addition than natural. Progress is progress. "You think Zidane would still be in one piece otherwise?"
And then there's something more serious I want to address. "I see that your son's sword made it into your hands," I say to Jecht, who's carrying, pound for pound, even more weaponry than Firion.
"Cecil held onto it," Golbez tells me. "He said that he didn't know why, but he had a feeling that it was one way of keeping Tidus amongst their—our—numbers. And then it just made the most sense to give it to Jecht."
"I'm glad," I reply.
"If you don't mind," the Warrior of Light begins, "I'd like for you to tell me why you decided to bring the Crystal to the false Cosmos. Garland told me that—well, he told me everything. It's the one thing I've always wanted to ask you. You never seemed like the type to sacrifice your life."
"I'm not," I insist firmly. "Especially not now. I was just…"
Well, there's nothing quite like the truth.
"I was in a strange frame of mind where I thought that I didn't deserve to live, that I had cheated my lot in life by taking the Crystal—accidentally—into my possession without earning it. I believed myself on borrowed time. It must have been the shock of everything. Of seeing Garland… of watching him die… and I'm sure Jecht and Golbez told you that I didn't exactly behave like one who was used to trusting others," I added with a self-effacing smile. "And Garland never told me Cosmos' true intentions."
"I'm sure he meant to," the Warrior of Light says, "just as I'm sure he didn't intend to die after essentially forcing you to take the Crystal. I thought he had given it to you specifically because you wouldn't bring it to Cosmos, among other reasons," he adds with a smile. "Perhaps he underestimated you."
"He did that a lot," I say without thinking, and then as soon as I hear it, I can't help myself. I collapse into a fit of exhausted, relieved laughter. Strangely enough, it feels almost like a eulogy. I never laughed that honestly as a child; Garland had trimmed away the instinct in me and whether I like it or not, it's a little bit thanks to him that such an instinct has returned.
And I have a sudden, sobering realization. "Zidane never meant anything that he said to me before I tried to give up the Crystal. I always thought he had meant it and that he had subsequently forgiven me. But he never—he never meant any of it in the first place, did he?" My voice is pale.
"I could have told you that, if you didn't insist on dressing up like someone you're not and pretending that you didn't know any of us," Jecht growls softly. "We were there, remember? You didn't even stop to think about what we had in mind—Kuja, you told us that you were getting better. When I found out you'd lied to us, I… anyways. That was why we took you away from everything. We didn't want you to die alone. And when you told us that you had the Crystal, we thought that meant that the Crystal had revived you. We didn't know that if the Crystal was taken from you, then we would have done all of that for nothing."
"What Jecht's saying is that we never would have allowed you to bring the Crystal to Cosmos if we had known it would have killed you," Golbez clarifies.
"I figured it out pretty quickly though, although not quickly enough to stop you. I might have raised my voice a little with your brother," Jecht says to me. "I figured that the least thing I could do was defend your actions, even if they really pissed me off."
I laugh. "I have a question: what in the name of everything sane happened to me afterwards? All I remember is this tiny little sliver of white where Zidane was standing above me, and then all of a sudden I'm in the last place I want to be—"
In the Emperor's arms. Because Cecil had wanted to protect Golbez. I couldn't fault him for that, and I hope that I had never done anything as Cosmos to even accidentally suggest that I did.
"Zidane killed the false Cosmos," the Warrior of Light says.
"He did what, exactly?"
"Knowing that she couldn't keep any of us from returning the Crystal to you, she pretended to help. I—I take full responsibility for allowing her to do so."
"I'm afraid I can't allow you to do that," Golbez states softly. "She used Origin World magic on you. To keep you from assuming your role as the avatar of Cosmos, she separated you into two people, and your consciousness went to that other. From what Cecil and Terra tell me, she took your consciousness and created a life form not unlike herself. His name was Nuage."
"Nuage…" I repeat softly to myself. "That much I already know."
"Nuage knew about you too," Golbez adds. "Sephiroth told him. Sephiroth had found an archive of our worlds within the Origin World, and took Nuage away from the ones who were your keepers: Cloud, Terra, and my brother. The Warrior of Light had found the others, and explained what had happened, before going off in search of your body and Zidane. Nuage, having been made truly in your image, refused to rejoin your body, believing that he would die and his own personal consciousness that had developed would be overthrown by yours."
"What was I—what was Nuage doing, wandering around in the first place?" I want to know. I shake my head in disbelief.
"From what Cecil and Terra had to say, he was looking for his brother," Jecht tells me. "Except his brother didn't really exist. It was a suggestion of Zidane that somehow survived the transition. When he figured it out, Sephiroth promised him that he would help Nuage maintain his own identity, if Nuage did something for him."
"Create a new world," I fill in. Terra had told me that much; how else would I know that Cloud was someone else I had to worry for? "I—thank you for telling me all of this. I wonder," I say to myself more than anyone else as I press my palm to my heart, as if I can feel another soul that's only half-mine pulsing through my veins, "how did… how did Nuage and myself end up together again?"
Golbez sighs. "He sacrificed himself so that Zidane and you could have a chance to live together. He wanted to live through you, because for him, it was the only way he could be with his brother."
"I see," I whisper. Then I look up. Terra stands there hesitantly, her eyes fixed on me.
The problem with Terra is that even though she has the worst possible name, I've never wanted more in my entire life to blind myself of those associations. But Nuage is the one that she really and truly wants to talk to; I'm frightened of how she might be frightened of me.
She took care of me when I first woke up, when I slipped under the façade of a clueless deity in order to hide. I think she saw something of herself in my apparent blank slate, and I've been uncharacteristically shy of her ever since. It's much easier to be brave about romance and love when one isn't actually under its sway.
"Well, that's our cue to go," Jecht says as he stands up and pats me on the shoulder with enough force to set me off balance as he walks past. Golbez and the Warrior of Light follow.
Terra and I protest at the same time: she murmurs something about not wanting to interrupt while I am much less polite. "Jecht, what the—" I begin, but then cut myself off; I at least have to be more of a gentleman than Zidane.
While I stifle a simmering blaze across my cheeks, Terra sits down beside me and stifles a laugh. "I suppose… I suppose you really are Zidane's brother after all, then," she says. "But you're different from what I remember. I'm sorry, that should be a given, considering that you… are you still Cosmos?"
She makes me smile, despite myself. "I am."
