Broken Mirror
act one - shatter
i - the wounded
Oh I don't know why they,
have taken all my favorite things away.
But one thing that's for sure,
I don't know what they were.
-- Rose K., Rasputina
***
There are certain things about a mission that one must simply expect to be caught off guard by. Reserve troops, secret passages, hidden caches of aura, smarmy and condescending employers…. whatever. Life as a mercenary was not renowned for it's predictability, after all. Technically, however, Fujin Asher was no longer a soldier of fortune - and in point of fact never really had been. But then, it had always what she'd been expecting to do after a few years as hall monitor in a school where the students regularly brutally maimed one another. All in the name of education, of course. Although education for what.. who knew? It wasn't as if the world needed that many mercenaries.
She liked to think that she might have been at the top of that heap. In that belief the albino was not unfounded.
Oh well. The point was that she was a Commander now, and Commanders had to expect entirely different obstacles. Her ignorance in this particular case was, however, understandable, as she had only been Commander of Galbadia Garden for the better part of two hours.
Of all the goddamn things that could have gone wrong with Seifer's plan, the albino would have never thought that it would be boredom.
For some bloody reason or other things had actually gone quite smoothly. The students were docile – if untrusting - while under lockdown. Smart kids. That was to be expected, though. The first thing that an orphan learns is what to do when they pawn you off; lie low and hope to whatever hell you believe in that your new guardian doesn't crawl into be with you that night. It hadn't happened to her, but there were stories… bound to be, with so many homeless kids around after the Estharan War. Too many. Enough to be expendable. Enough to scare every kid in a twenty-mile radius when you saw the look in their eyes.
And so the students were staying down, giving in to an armed guard and the more visible weight of their new commander's threats. They were all orphans, and they knew the score. Oh, the Headmasters claimed that these were schools like any other, but Fujin knew better. What the hell kind of parents would pack their kid off to become some teenage killer? The albino had to give a hand to Headmaster Cid for that… upon first glance one wouldn't expect the man to have the audacity to take advantage of such an unethically cheap source of military strength.
Then again, on first glance one wouldn't think that Headmaster Cid would have the balls to choose Balamb's paint color.
In any case, Fujin found herself currently staring at her refection in the overly-polished walls of the Garden's largest auditorium. And thinking foolish, overly-analytical thoughts at that. Though much more lively when filled with loyalists ready to carry out her orders, the room's color had faded to the cold impartiality of gunmetal. Normally she would have liked that sort of thing; been relieved at the break from the white noise of Raijin's prattle. Yet at the moment the woman really did want him around , if only to fill up the air-conditioned vortex which swallowed the sound of her boots hitting metal grating. The wind was pacing again, for her body needed something to do even if her mind was forced to remain idle.
As so it did, completely empty - the utter absence of thought prompting seemingly unfounded restlessness. Not Seifer Almasy, whom she was not thinking about. It wasn't as if she was worried about him being late to return, after all. She certainly didn't want to give in to some nonexistent weakness, make a mad dash to Martine's office, and get an outside telescreen feed, and obsessively check for his presence among the inevitably joyful revelers at the Sorceress' coronation. Just like a gnawing worry was not getting a strange-hold on her heart. Seifer was a great fighter, he could take care of himself…. Even if she didn't know what the hell he thought he was doing being an hour late. She wasn't worried. Nope.
Not at all.
Of course, one more hour and Fujin would drag his scrawny – and definitely not cute – ass out of there if she had to fly the bloody garden to Delling to do it. There was not telling what that witch would do to her friend.
Goddamit... where the hell was Raijin!?! Galbadia's indestructible steel chairs didn't make for great targets..
***
"Ya should have been transferred to Balamb, ya know."
"What?"
"I said that ya should have been transferred to Balamb. For tha SeeD test. 'Cause, like, ya look like ya could have made it, ya know?" the bronze giant smiled.
"Yeah. Yeah I could so, ummm.. "
"It's Captain Raijin."
"Oh. I'm Jonny," a small child stared up at him, flanked by others of a less courageous temperament who were seated in the row behind him. Seifer'd told him to look after the little kids - and he was right. Raijin might not be a very smart man, but he knew enough to get the little guys to leave Fujin well enough alone. Fuuj didn't like kids, and kids... didn't like Fuuj.
Not that he could tell her that to her face and live to breath another day, of course.
"Mr.Raijin... what's going to happen to us?"
"Well," he knelt down, recalling when he'd been just as little, "I have this friend..."
"The scary lady?"
"Awww.. she's not so scary. She just acts tough, " he winked conspiratorially. " But I have another friend who's a Knight, ya know."
"A real live knight!?"
"Yep. An' me an' him an' Commander Fujin are a posse, see..."
"What's a posse, Mr.Raijin?
"It's kinda like bein' best friends... when you're in a posse, ya do what's best for the posse. Like, telling each other the truth, and bein' loyal an' stuff..." somewhat reassured, the writhing mass of children inched forward. All in all there were about four hundred primary school kids in Galbadia Garden, and all seemed fixedated on his every word as he took the podium in Sub-Auditorium C. Seifer had said that it would be the best way to avoid panic. He'd also called them mewling brats. Seifer was funny like that sometimes.
"Would you guys like to be in a posse too?"
The majority of the youngsters raised their arms. Cautiously, granted...
"They do things that are, like, noble an' loyal an' knightly an' stuff, " Raijin parroted his missing buddy. "Now, the guys that were here before.. they didn't have a posse."
"Where did Headmaster go, Mr. Captain Raijin, sir?"
"He want away, ya know? 'Cause he wasn't like a knight, or in a posse or anythin'"
"Mr.. Raijin, can I be a knight when I grow up!?!"
"Mr.Raijin, does this mean that I don't have to take math anymore?"
"Mr.Raijin, can lights out..."
The crowd had formed into a large chorus of 'Mr.Raijin's, it took some wild gesturing on the part of an errant Edean loyalist to capture the captain's attention. Well, that and the fact that Raijin was currently daydreaming about catching some Delling pike...
"Captain! They're getting restless down in the dorms What.."
Face falling after the slim euphoria of actually doing something right for a change, Raijin pondered his options. Fujin was not supposed to know he was here. If he showed up to see Fujin late, then she would kick him. Raijin didn't like to get kicked. Sooo...
"Ummm... go tell Commander Fujin, ya know? And, like, tell her I'm busy..." he chirped, smiling, while attempting to ward off the advancing high-pitched tsunami.
"Yessir"
Wow. He didn't actually have to tell Fujin. Maybe Seifer'd been right about this knight thing after all. He was kinda bright that way, ya know.
***
At that moment two other figures were struggling through a much less sanitary environment. Well, three if you counted the comatose body suspended between them. Zell wasn't exactly sure what had happened to Instructor Trepe, but he did know one thing. They had to get to Caraway Manor. Why? Because Zell needed Squall to tell him what the hell he was supposed to be doing about this. Good old Squall... he always came up with a plan somehow.
The fighter would, however, have settled for a familiar landmark right about now. Man, this whole thing was really not good.
"Zellllll.... are we lost?" Selphie's trademark whine emerged from behind him.
"No!" the martial artist yelped. As if he was going to tell Selphie that Quistis was the only one with a clue how to get back.
His shoulders were aching by now; the girl behind him really wasn't suited to carrying heavy loads what with her being so short and all. And the pain wasn't the good kind of aching, either. Like, when he was using the punching bag that Ma gave him for his birthday, that was good pain. Muscle-building and easily forgotten after a hotdog or three. This pain though... his ligaments just hurt like hell.
Grandpa would have told him to work out more.
It seemed as though they had progressed back to the same waterwheel again. Well, if you could call that water. Putrid sludge was more like it. Pretty nasty, really. The smell had been okay before, but now that Instructor Trepe was injured it was so nasty that it wasn't even funny. Panic tends to clear the mind, at times. Saving Quistis' life and getting out of this mission alive was quite literally on Zell's shoulders, and that just wasn't cool. Not at all. In fact, it hella sucked.
He had just wanted some action, for crying out loud! He knew that he wasn't the leader type - leave that to his buddy Squall - and this just wasn't what he was supposed to be doing. SeeD missions were supposed to be, like, exciting and adventurous and stuff. And he was supposed to get to practice all of the wicked-cool moves that he'd been learning. Nothing in the academy's lectures had mentioned anything about tromping around in a bloody sewer with his comatose teacher. What if she died? Poor Quistis...
Dammit, this really sucked.
"Zelllllll... aren't those the stairs?"
***
There are several madmen on the streets of Delling City. Some are impossibly right, some are terribly impoverished, and some are just devoted and rather vocal in their own incoherent way. All manage to remain invisible, however, if only by the grace of the apathy of the masses. The good people of Delling did not want to see the human refuse that littered their streets and could not help but turn a blind eye when their view of madness was filtered through gil-colored glasses.
Seifer Almasy was an exception - but then, Seifer had a knack for being exceptional at anything he put his mind to. Enraged madness; that really would fit the bill after his Sorceress' death. Rage is the anesthetic of choice when the world falls apart; the former Knight's subconscious had learned that much from Fujin years ago.
Former Knight? No. There was too much to be done, vengeance to take, order to create, and a new reality there for the shaping. In her name, of course. More accurately, perhaps, in her memory.
What kind of a world was it where the fairytale couple didn't live Happily Ever After?
"ENOUGH!"
Those who still considered their loyalty Edea's paused in what could only be considered a bloodbath. Scarlet on their nightsticks, scarlet on the concrete, scarlet tainting the shrieking of herd of lost lambs. Even the soldiers themselves were far too worked up for this even to be considered a riot, the stark Galbadian uniforms often playing victim to humanity's crush rather than vice-versa. Seifer could see it all, perched behind the protective bonds of a deathtrap.
"You! Open that gate!"
"Ummmm....." the guard paused.
"NOW!"
Seifer had a way about him, in that respect. Strange, really, in a man not to be considered a natural leader. But then there has always been a difference between the leader and the commander, has there not?
And so the somewhat ancient gates once more rattled into their accustomed resting place. Not the most graceful of calls to arms... considering the circumstances it would have to do.
Seifer Almasy was, after all, a man on a mission.
"You! To the Palace... break through that crowd! Do I LOOK like I care about this float!? "
"N-no sir"
"The Sorceress is dead, and so is the President... "
"Who the hell is that guy?"
"Are you questioning me!? The Knight!?! You're going to do what I say or get crushed by these goddamn lunatics, do you understand!"
"Y-essir..."
" But isn't the ...
"Shut up. Edea's dead, prettyboy."
"What!? What do you mean I'm nothing without the Sorceress? Who said that there was no more Sorceress? What the hell kind of Knight do you take me for? This is all Edea's plan. Now MOVE OUT!"
If anything, Seifer Almasy was a stubborn man. Stubborn enough not to let the dream die in this tawdry place. And if the whole world was as corrupt and broken as this relic of a Galbadia square.. then he would simply have to fix the world.
It was a Knight's duty to protect his Sorceress.
Seifer Almasy did not fail.
***
"Irvine... we have to get out of here."
The words reached the young man's ears and, instead of being process as was their due, seemed to fade into thin air.
"You were successful," his companion continued, "Look, we have to get out of here..."
Yet still, he sat immobile. Waiting. Mayhaps for the red-clad soldiers wending their way through the mob to reach him, and put him to a well deserved justice. Or maybe, just maybe, for his mother to get back up and say that this was all a game just like when he was little.
"I-it wasn't supposed to be this way," a muttering, scattered to the wind. Before he... before her... it had been a warm night, before.
"What are talking about?" and another cool breeze paid homage to the north wind. Willfully declining either to understand or care, the young man's countenance was ice.
That was good. He deserved that. He deserved... no he didn't. He couldn't have done that. He couldn't....
"It wasn't... it was just a signal...just... just a..."
And when the blood ran down her dress she was smiling.
Smiling.
Smiling.
Why were they screaming?
It was, it was...
"Pull yourself together. We have to leave before Seifer..."
"Do you remember her smile, Squall?" his voice cracked, broken. A symptom of the greater disease.
"Why are you..." even the impeccable Squall Leonhart had his limits.
"You don't remember," the sniper rasped. "YOU don't have to remember, do you?"
And when she looked at him, her eyes fixed on his soul.
And she was smiling.
So why was there blood, blood everywhere.
And why ... what could have done such a...
No
No
NO
"It was your job, not mine. Yours."
"...Whatever. If you don't come with me I'll have to take you." Squall rose, looking down on the expendable man.
"It's not my fault."
"Point and shoot, focusing on the heart. Have all of you loaded your clips successfully?"
Brass, shining in the neon light as Balamb's avenging excalibur
"Good. Did you know that you have perfect aim, boy? We shall have to develop this..."
Don't think about it...
Blood, blood everywhere
And she used to smile at him... like a mother.
Just don't think about it.
It's not your fault.
It wasn't supposed to happen that way.
"Look, Irvine. I don't care if..."
"You were supposed to kill her. YOU were."
"Matron, can I play outside?"
"Why don't you play with Squall, Irvy?"
"...whatever. We can't have you fall into enemy hands."
He didn't hear the screaming as a swarms of Galbadian Soldiers cut a swath through an ocean of humanity. It was her. She was screaming. And he wasn't supposed to have...
Don't think about it...
DON'T THINK ABOUT IT
"I'll... be okay..." he chocked, slowly pulling himself up from a tear-stained huddle.
"Squall... they're coming!"
Practically dragging the shell-shocked assassin away from his perch, Squall nodded to his second charge.
"Let's go."
***
An hour and a half.
He was supposed to have called her back, then.
She really, really wanted to see Raijin.
"Commander Fujin? Ma'am?" a generic soldier poked his head about the entryway.
"SEIFER, CALLED?" that was as anxious as Fujin was about to let herself get.
"Ummm.. no Ma'am," he shirked.
"DISTURB, WHY!?!" his commander snapped in return.
"We seem to have a problem...
"RAGE!" Something lacking in Siefer-related content was definitely on the 'not wanting to hear' list.
That was it. Am hour and a half.. who knew what had happened to Seifer in all that time?
"GARDEN, FLY."
"I'm sorry Ma'am, but there seems to be a bit of a situation on the dorms. Some of the students..."
"GARDEN, FLY!"
"... are rebelling Ma'am. I'm sorry Ma'am, but you might want to go down there. Some of them have set fire to.."
She glared. He finished.
There were now two options to be considered. The first was, of course, to get her ass down to Delling and make sure that the third member of her posse wasn't engaged in some kind of magical sacrifice. The second would be not to disappoint him when he got back...
Inaudibly sighing, though maintaining ramrod posture, Fujin grabbed the front of the unfortunate private's uniform.
"TAKE," a hoarse growl emerged to to swipe at her inferior.
"TAKE NOW."
The occupants of the Galbadia Garden dorms were going to pay for this. Dearly.
***
"What the..."
There was once thing that General Carroway had thought to see when he entered his office, fresh from a rather revealing message delivered by one of his soldiers. Specifically - his daughter. Probably demanding to be let out, or using that devastating look on him which he'd never really been able to figure out. Even her mother, the great and worldly Julia Heartilly, couldn't put one past his baby girl Rinoa's tried-and-true puppydog eyes.
Oh, and those friends of hers. Mustn't forget to keep them away from it all as well if he could - he had a feeling that this would end badly.
As such, it would be an understatement to say that three teenage mercenaries covered in filth were a bit of a surprise.
"What the..."
"General Carroway, sir," a boy, blondish and underwhelmingly attired, addressed him while plopping a human-shaped load on the divan. A very expensive divan. Which was now covered in slime and dung and the Guardian Forces knew what else.
It was fortunate that General Carroway was of the breed overwhelmingly dedicated to the military.
"What's going on here? And where's my daughter," the pitbull bark of a man as used to giving orders as breathing made its entrance. This couldn't be happening again...
"Answer me!" he had, of course, the requisite matching gaze of iron. Standard equipment, don't you know.
Perhaps his disposition was not such a blessing after all.
"We.... the Sorceress is dead, sir."
"I know that! Now why isn't Rinoa with you!?!"
He had no time for this.. why must the girl always run off at the most importune moments?
"Please... Instructor Quistis here is in helluva bad shape. You've gotta help her.. " shirking, Zell got to the point. He wasn't such a dense guy when things were put properly.
"We thought that Rinoa was with you."
Mentally cursing life, his daughter's flighty temperament, and humanity in general - the officer sharply turned away.
"Well go and..."
An anonymous underling, clad in the ubiquitous Galbadian red, moved to interrupt.
"Sir! The Sorceress' guards are moving to shore up in Delling palace! Lieutenant Xen asks for your orders, sir."
"Dammit..." the older man growled, obviously struggling to hold back more... ungentlemanly comments. "You! Call someone about the girl... and if Rinoa comes back send a messenger. I've got work to do."
Once again, Rinoa Heartilly had abandoned her father. And once again, duty called far louder than any mewlings which might cross the chasm is his heart that was Juilia Heartilly.
Some days, he didn't blame her for not loving him