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"To call those two mere 'heretics' is to demean their sins. They did not simply attack Ajura - they dethroned him."

- Quote from "A Reflection on The Heroes of the Zodiac Conflict", by the High Confessor Orcalius Synli, AU 25.

PART I: The Prodigious.

chapter 1: Courting Death

"Again, Ramza? Really?"

The tray clattered onto the wooden table with a jolt, startling the straw-haired boy out of his reverie. How he'd achieved it in the midst of such a vast grand hall, and the scattering pockets of sound that rumbled through it like a herd of chocobo was unclear in the first place. His eyes blinked rapidly a few times, a frown forming on his face as he shot a dirty look towards the boy who had just sat down. The other boy, a brown haired youth who rolled his eyes before tearing into his bread like a ravenous panther.

"If I didn't know you any better," he said, waving his spoon at the blond as he dunked his bread into the academy's atrocious stew, while his friend's spoon absently stirred it in circles. "I'd swear upon my grave that you were a deviant, the way you stare at her."

"A deviant?" The boy replied, finally eating a bit of the damned stew. He chewed it methodically, before swallowing it down with a grimace. "Are you saying that you've no curiosity at all for her?"

"I, Ramza," Delita said with a grin and a mouthful of bread, "Have a brain between my ears. Have you forgotten what she did to Amelie?"

"I don't think I could forget," Ramza mumbled into his stew, before stealing another glance at Degurechaff. "The last time Montgomery spoke of it, Amelie froze his legs in place for a fortnight."

"And yet you persist?" His brown-haired friend arched an eyebrow. "You've some disturbing views on courtship, Ramza. I've seen how she looks at you, and I've already started the pool - when we graduate, she'll slip a knife 'tween your ribs while you slumber."

Ramza flinched at that. Degurechaff had not been kind in the last match between the two constantly-dueling squadrons. It was only natural, though. She was down two at the moment.

"I'm not courting her, Delita," Ramza said, as he went back to staring at Degurechaff. The small girl looked up at him briefly, before going back to her food. "I just find her…"

"Cruel? Wicked? To be a devil in human form?"

"You're exaggerating," Ramza said with a bit of laughter. "She's not that terrible. She's just… unique?"

"I'd rather not meddle with that sort of uniqueness," Delita muttered into his almost-finished meal. "When I asked her if I could perhaps catch a glimpse of her notes in history, she gave me a look so damning I felt as if the maid had caught me in the cupboards again."

"You should really take your own notes, Delita."

"Perish the thought! Why would I waste my time with notetaking when there are so many more fascinating things to explore here, Ramza?" He waggled his eyebrows provocatively at one of the girls on a nearby bench, who giggled and turned back to her meal. "Perhaps if you weren't so fixated on that villainess, you might find a more worthwhile pastime yourself!"

"A fixation?" Ramza mused, taking a deep breath before he took another distasteful gulp of stew. "It's not a fixation, Delita, I just…"

He grimaced. In his mind's eye, he could see her stony visage the first time the two had dueled, and the words she'd said when he'd lost.

"I simply wish to show that she's wrong."

"Well, if anyone could prove her wrong, it'd be you, Ramza," Delita said with a wink. "Second coming of Balbanes, or so I've heard our instructors claim."

Ramza flushed. While in hindsight, the simple act of repeating any of Balbanes' feats at the academy was a mistake, but he couldn't help but push himself after Degurechaff had started to pick up teleportation.

He'd be damned before he let her beat him at anything.

"Enough of Degurechaff," Ramza said, smiling widely at Delita as I leaned forward. "I've heard that Tietra sent you a letter?"

Delita's face lit up like the sun, as he began to explain to his friend the contents of Tietra's letters. The other boy laughed, letting Delita's words about Tietra and his sister's misadventures clear his mind from the blonde girl who constantly invaded his thoughts.

xxx

Economically, I had no idea how the Order of the Northern Sky survived. Donations? Nonsensical. Donations couldn't fund this ridiculous institution that I'd enrolled in to better my future. It was incredibly blessed - or cursed - that this world I'd found myself in was quite progressive, and had little to no problems at all with allowing young girls to sign themselves up to participate in mortal combat. If I were in a different world, that had more strident requirements to pick up a blade, then I would have been in a truly dire situation. My body was small, far smaller than I had been at this same age when I was alive. While trades are a reliable source of income, an orphaned girl has no such opportunities lying before her to become a respectable adult.

Fortunate, then, that Ivalice didn't give a damn about your age, sex, or prior occupation if you had enough martial skill to join one of their two militaries. Being that Zeltennia was several hundred miles away, I felt it easier to join Garland's academy than to attempt the long trek elsewhere. But this did not solve the economic issues I was sure would be inevitable in such an unstable monarchy. Monarchies are an excellent form of government in general, as they are fundamentally just a corporation. The CEO, or the King, gains many accolades for leading his human resources to glory and riches, but he can just as easily be deposed for ruining the company. I have no general problem with a monarchist system, but the more I look into the history of Ivalice, the more fearful I grow of the future.

Fifty years of constant war?! This damned devil threw me into an economy that was already in depression, with an absent-minded king who lets his advisors walk all over him! This was the last thing you wanted in a company - a CEO who can't say no to his stockholders!

As I took a sip of what this military institution claimed was 'food', I wondered why Being X had sentenced me to such a fate. As a salaryman, I had simply done the duty that was required of me, as it was required of me. Faith had no part in my role as a salaryman, because there are only three things that the ordinary person needs to believe in:

Himself.

His superior.

Supply and demand.

Anything else is unnecessary. You will fulfill the tasks you are capable of, which your trustworthy superior will assign to you to fulfill, which will be created based on the demand of what you must do versus the supply of things that need to be done. It is best to keep things simple, as once you enter more complex concepts, it is very easy to get lost in the constant shuffle of ideas. Even if Being X wishes for me to live in a time of war, he forgot the most obvious solution -

If I am already an established and respected member of the military before the war even begins, I will most assuredly be assigned to the rear. Especially if I continue to show such prowess in these wargames. Although…

I sneaked a peak at my only rival in this school. Ordinarily, I would be pleased; having reliable and trustworthy coworkers at your side is always something that makes one feel relaxed. Knowing that the laughing blond was competent would put me at ease when we inevitably deployed for battle, but right now he was threatening my wonderful future in the backlines. I had already had it well underway - learning time magic so that way I could support my allies from far away from the battlefield, learning healing magic so that way I could heal myself in case I nearly died, and even dabbling a bit in my native roots in case I was somehow, inexplicably, forced into a melee.

Ramza Beoulve was a noble, which meant that he was far ahead of me in social class. As a common orphan, I am of a social class that is equivalent to the pond scum beneath the nobility's feet, barely fit to lick their fine boots as they walk all over my back. This is why a free market economy is far superior; individuals are assigned worth based on their value, and more valuable resources naturally float to the top. In a monarchist society, valuable resources are often discarded in favor of nepotism or pedigree based resources. As the son of one of the previous generals, Ramza's value naturally far outweighs mine, so I was hoping that my scores in the academy could help boost me over him.

And yet…

And yet…!

He keeps beating me! Isn't this a bit ridiculous?! I train just as much as he does! I even train with him sometimes, just to make sure that I know all of his moves in advance before any of the matches! I've whipped my entire squadron into a shape that I can only describe as 'barely competent', but I can't even fault them for losing to him sometimes. Honestly, prodigies like that are scary. People like him will be all over the frontlines, which is the absolute last place I want to be. Just lose five - no ten - no twenty more times to me Ramza. That way I can secure my rightful place where I belong - safe in the rear.

The academy overall has been very good compared to the orphanage at least. In my previous life, I had never gone hungry or felt the pangs of hunger in my belly, but here, they were a constant. Ivalice had not fared well at the end of the war, it'd be easy to say that Ivalice and Ordallia didn't stop fighting because they ran out of human resources, but golden ones. Those tinkling little resources were starting to run dry, and the upper class was starting to feel their belts tighten a little too much for comfort. So, call off the war for now, and pretend as if we're friends for a few years while we prepare to slaughter each other again.

This era of knights and sorcery is so simple it's almost nostalgic. It almost makes me long for those ancient days of playing games like Dragon Quest late at night until my eyes closed, waking up to the quiet beeps and tones of the music.

But behind that simplicity lies the extreme danger of this world. With such simple ideas, they have simple tactics and simple beliefs. The only one who even thinks with a modicum of strategy is the Beoulve, and his friend to a lesser extent. I'd hoped to have both of them in my squadron, as the rest of the class had to be dragged screaming and crying to competency, but my hopes were dramatically shattered when the rosters were announced. Ramza and I were doomed to never work together, and I would be forced to desperately train my subordinates to be able to even touch him. It was really unfair, the standards that Ramza made me set. I let out a sigh as I dipped my bread into the stew, taking a mournful bite of it as I cursed my circumstances. If only I could have born a noble, my life would have been so much easier, but I know exactly who is at fault for this. It's that cursed Being X! It's simply attempting to eat away at my resolve, by making go through hardships that I would not have to in a civilized society! As if that would endear me to its ridiculous belief system. Why would causing someone to suffer make them want to pray to you? It's completely counterintuitive. If anything, Being X should have rewarded me for my excellent analysis for why it's system was no longer as attractive as it previously once was, but I was used to being punished by ridiculous superiors for nonsensical reasons. As a salaryman, I had learned to only propose such ideas if nobody else would, or if there were simply no other options. Even if Being X is a fool, I should have acknowledged its superiority even temporarily to allow for me to live - or die, I suppose - peacefully.

But now?

Now?

Never, Being X. If you offered me your hand when I was falling to my death, I would try to fall faster before accepting your aid. You'll never manage to trick me again! You say you're a god, but aren't you just a kid throwing a tantrum that nobody wants to play with him right now? What an idiotic being you are.

I lifted my bowl to my face, gulping down the last bit of stew before tossing the bread in my mouth and getting out of my chair. I had been researching Haste, after one of the teachers had quietly pulled me aside and said that it allegedly makes learning to teleport easier. Why moving extremely fast makes instantaneous movement easier is nonsensical, as they are two entirely different forms of maneuverability with entirely different drawbacks and gains. Obviously, instantaneous movement is preferable in almost every situation, isn't it?

Off to the library I went. I smiled politely at Ramza as I walked by, who gave me a small wave back. His friend, on the other hand, froze and looked at me with a visage of utter horror. I winked at him, letting him know that I was in on his little practical joke at long last. He had been doing it for so long I had feared he was actually afraid of me, but his best friend was Ramza.

I'm nowhere near that scary.

xxx

"She knows."

"Knows what, Delita?"

"I haven't the faintest, but she knows I did it! I've got to apologize," the brown-haired boy scrambled to his feet, waving to Ramza as he moved. "I'll see you in class, Ramza. I've a maiden to beg forgiveness from."

"A maiden!? Delita, what on Earth-"

But it was too late, the boy had already run off, slipping out of the cafeteria after Degurechaff without a second word. Ramza sighed, turning moodily towards his food as he picked through it. He didn't know what drew him to Tanya Degurechaff - the shortest girl in their year, yet arguably their ace. She wasn't the strongest person at the school, nor was she the smartest - there were cleverer geniuses, and stronger mages and warriors - but the flair she had was all her own. It was just…

He clenched his fists.

The way she went about things was wrong. It wasn't heinously wrong, or horrifically wrong, but it was incorrect. He didn't know how to put into words what the girl was wrong about, but he could feel it in his soul, that something about just the way she did things was unjust. Ignoble would be too far; and Degurechaff would always roll her eyes when someone called her ignoble, pointing out with a wide smile that she was as common as muck, so wasn't everything she did ignoble? This usually drew some of the more foolish students into a debate over what nobility was and meant, but all of that was too far above his head for Ramza to understand.

He just knew she was wrong. That was all that was in his mind when he trained, when he fought, when he thought - in order to prove her wrong, he'd have to match her. It was almost unfair, really - he'd had to run his squadron into the ground just for them to even touch Degurechaff's ridiculous standards.

With a determined look on his face, he wolfed down the rest of the atrocious academy lunch, before standing himself. If Degurechaff was in the library, that meant he had time as well - and he'd been getting closer and closer to finally grasping the hilt of those knightswords that his grandfather and brothers cherished so much.

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Yeah it's been a while, here I am again, writing something completely different. I am not a consistent person, but I am a fun person! I've been reading Would that I were born no Princess, which is also FFT/YS (so I can't deny the concept occured to me because of it), and you should as well because it's very different from this. I'm going to immediately fuck off canon rails like I do everywhere, but that's mostly because I've beaten FFT like 25 times. I don't need to retread the plot of a game I know like the back of my hand. The starting point is a bit before the start of canonical Final Fantasy Tactics. This is Tanya's first reincarnation.