Falling Stars.
By Arian
The sorceress had risen quickly, unknown and unnamed. None saw her who were living. She moved swiftly across the continents, almost invisibly, striking down all SeeDs that crossed her path, and hunting down those that didn't.
Yet, still the years passed and SeeD remained in existence, despite her efforts, and they fought back. The never-ending war between SeeD and sorceress had been refuelled.
There were only a handful of SeeDs left, but they couldn't afford to sit and wait this war out. The longevity of sorceresses was well known. It was likely that she would live a lifetime much longer than any normal human.
Ultemecia, they named her, deriving the name from the word ultimate, because to confront her directly was suicide. She seemed to have no weaknesses. She was the ultimate enemy, the most powerful sorceress that had ever existed.
And so the fight continued…
***************
The dark castle floated close to the ruins of a long deserted orphanage and the sorceress whom the world had come to know as Ultemecia stood at one of the many windows, looking down on the fields and the empty building below.
She had put the castle here for a reason, she knew that. There had been so many reasons, once, but too much time had passed and they were long forgotten. The orphanage had a meaning to her once, but now it was nothing more than a symbol of the memories she no longer possessed.
The SeeDs still flourished and it seemed she would never be rid of them. As soon as one group fell, another sprang up in their place. It did not soothe the anger, as it used to. It was no longer enough, even though the reason for the anger escaped her.
Her face looked coldly up. The stars were obscured by dark clouds and she found that she liked it better that way. Stars were treacherous. They too had meant something once. Now she remembered broken promises, but that was all.
Too many years had passed, years that had taken their toll on her features, but the anger had been far less generous. It had streaked her face with cruelty and that had changed her more than time ever could. She had lived too long. Nothing pleased her anymore, not even hunting down the SeeDs.
She tried to comfort herself with another thought. The final plan was underway. Time compression – the total destruction of everything that had ever caused her pain would finally be brought about.
She had acquired a machine that could send her consciousness into the past, the Junction Machine Ellone. Ellone… that name echoed through her mind and she thought, for a moment, that she glimpsed the memory of a round-faced girl with short, brown hair. It seemed that the girl had the same power as the machine. While the machine could not send her far enough into the past to achieve time compression, she was sure that Ellone could.
So far, her forays into the past to search for Ellone had drawn a blank. Inhabiting the bodies of past sorceresses, she searched for the girl, but recently, she had been disturbed by one such possession. She had taken over the body of a young sorceress, with a face that seemed to scratch at her memory. The mind of the young sorceress seemed too familiar, too comfortable. She didn't like it, and had not possessed the girl for long. The ease with which she had fitted into the girl's mind still disturbed her.
There was another face that she had seen through the girl's eyes. It had also seemed uncomfortably familiar. A young man with floppy hair that seemed to fall constantly into his grey eyes. The sight caused her an unbearable pain, and it had confused her. Something in her memory had stirred at that sight, but she had been unable to reach through her madness to retrieve it.
***************
The sorceress named Ultemecia sat high in her castle, having finally achieved time compression. She was waiting. SeeD would surely send a last ditch attempt to stop her.
The door swung open and she looked up. Six of them, but they were not from this time. They were from the past and there were two that she recognized. The young sorceress and the boy with the grey eyes. The sight rocked her and sent a tremor through her soul.
"SeeD…" She muttered to herself. "SeeD… SeeD." Her eyes traced the features of those that stood before her. "SeeD, SeeD, SeeD! Kurse all SeeDs! Swarming like lokusts across generations. You disgust me." As she spoke aloud, she realised for the first time that her speech was different. The pronunciation of words had changed over the years since her youth. She knew she hadn't always spoken like that.
"The world is on the brink of that ever-elusive time kompression. Insolent fools! Your vain krusade ends here, SeeDs. The price for your meddling is death beyond death." She continued on with her raving, watching as the strange SeeDs readied themselves for battle.
Letting her eyes travel across their features one more time, she attacked.
Not long into the battle, she realised that they were stronger than she had originally thought. Her hand absently reached up to the ring that hung on a chain around her neck. Griever. Her one GF, but the most powerful she had ever seen. He would deal with these children that thought to stop her!
"Griever! Make them bleed!" She watched from a distance as the GF fought, but was eventually thrown back, weakened and fatigued. Junctioning herself to him, she continued to fight, beginning to realise that there was a little more to these SeeDs than they let on.
As she cast another spell, she felt a peculiar feeling of déjà vu. This was wrong. It was too familiar, too… Her concentration lapsed as she lost herself in those thoughts and it gave the past SeeDs just the chance they needed. Griever was sent reeling, disintegrating as she watched, and her own form was too battered to be of any use. It hindered her.
Releasing herself from her mortal form, she revealed the empty shell she had become.
"I am Ultemecia." She spoke softly, in a monotone. "Time shall compress… All existence denied." None of you will survive. Finally, I will have my way and all SeeDs will perish!
She lifted her hand to cast Hell's Judgement as the SeeDs relentlessly attacked. Even as they fought, the young SeeD with the grey eyes stirred her memory. His gaze seemed to bore holes through her. For a brief moment, she thought she remembered a magnificent airship, shaped like a dragon, with fire crawling up the red metal of its body.
Did the boy remember it too? Was it something he had seen as well? Why did she connect it with him?
She looked into his mind, skimming through his thoughts to find what she was looking for, but she did not see the flaming airship.
"Reflect on your… childhood." She prompted, hoping to see the fire that she remembered in his thoughts. "Your sensation… your words… your emotions."
She saw a frown crinkle his face, as she cast yet another spell, but in his mind she still did not see what she had been looking for. She wished her own memory was not so walled up, then she would know what the image meant. The passing years had robbed her of her memories and she suddenly realised just how old she was.
"Time…" She said sadly. "It will not wait. No matter how hard you hold on, it escapes you." She paused. "And…"
The sorceress trailed off when the boy attacked. As he ran forwards, and swung the gunblade down, she looked closely into his grey eyes and the locked doors in her mind came tumbling open.
She knew the relevance of that flaming airship now. A million other pictures flooded into her mind in a instant. A shooting star, a ballroom and a reluctant dance. A field of flowers. A balcony, birds flying past her and the white swells of waves below.
She remembered this exact same scene, only from a different point of view. Her eyes sought the younger version of herself whose hand had unconsciously reached up to the ring that hung suspended on a chain around her neck. Rinoa, who had become known by a different name, braced herself. She knew now how this fight would end. She had seen it all before.
The gunblade tore deeply into her flesh and she knew that she was dying. She didn't need her new knowledge of the outcome of this fight to know that. She could feel it.
She looked up into the cold face of the wielder of the blade. Squall! Squall… I always said it would be you. I always said it would be alright, just so long as it was you, and nobody else…
She didn't have enough left in her for words and, try as she might, she just couldn't sound his name. Then everything blacked out.
***************
She walked through the blackness for what seemed an eternity, unable to rest and unable to slow her pace. She was tired and she was as good as dead, but the sorceress powers within her pulled her onwards. She had to pass them on to somebody.
The blackness abruptly ended and she found herself in the orphanage on Centra. It was not the shabby ruin she remembered, though. This was an earlier time, beyond her memory of the place. In front of her she saw Squall and Edea talking. When he saw her, Squall spun around and drew the gunblade. That single action hurt her deeper than any of the wounds she had sustained from the battle.
She walked slowly forwards, wishing she had the strength left to speak to Squall, but the little energy she had could only be spent on one objective.
"I… can't disappear yet…" She choked out, addressing Edea but her arms reached out longingly towards Squall.
She was conscious of Edea saying something, but Rinoa couldn't make out individual words anymore. She was beyond that.
A relief, tinged with despair, filled her as Edea willingly stepped forwards. Releasing her powers, Rinoa slumped to the ground, aware that she had continued a chain of events that should never have started. A chain of events she knew all too well.
So you never knew… Her last thoughts spun in circles in her mind. You never knew this was me, Squall… Perhaps if you'd known, you would never have been able to do your job as well as you did. My knight… And a knight's duty is to protect a sorceress from herself. To stop her from falling off the edge of sanity. …And to put an end to her, if that should ever happen…
Rinoa's mind sank gratefully into the darkness as Squall watched, unaware of her identity, and she knew no more.
The End.
Ok, please don't all go and hurl yourselves off cliffs or anything… (Leave that to Laguna! *snigger*) I know this is quite a depressing story, I mean, everyone dies, or has some major tragedy, but it all fits so well! That's the scary thing! I don't really think that Rinoa is Ultemecia, but it does all add up, if you look at it that way… Oh, apologies for cutting the battles really short, but I'm not much of an action writer and you all know what a fight looks like so I figured you could put some effort in and use your imaginations. Honestly, you can't expect me to do everything. Yeah, and I know I changed some of the dialogue from the game. It just worked better this way. I tried to stick to the original stuff but I ended up digging myself into the most enormous hole!
That's all for now! Go and read something to cheer yourselves up! Probably something with Selphie in…*shudder*