'You are! Fight him!' an entirely new voice
spoke in his head.
Squall was so surprised he jerked the controls,
and narrowly missed crashing into the face of a cliff.
"Rinoa?" he whispered.
'Yes. I'm here, and I believe in you. You can
escape him. Everyone and everything has a weakness. You just need to find
h...'
"Rinoa? Rinoa!" Squall yelled, confused at
her abrupt ending.
'Never, ever listen to her again. You can't beat
me, so don't bother trying.'
"What did you do to her?" Squall asked, feeling
completely defenseless now without her supporting words.
'Never mind. Concentrate on steering.'
"Fine," Squall replied, pondering Rinoa's
words as he flew through the silent night.
***
"Woah, classy," Zell commented when they stepped
through the revolving doors and into the lavishly decorated piano club.
"Yeah. Isn't this the place Julia used to play?"
Irvine asked.
"Naw, that was in the Deling Hotel," Zell replied.
"Come on you guys. We'll never find Seifer if all
you do is talk," Quistis interrupted, pushing her way past the two dawdling
guys and up the stairs to where the pianist and audience were.
"Do you see him?" Quistis whispered when they had
sat down. The music was quite beautiful, but it had a touch of melancholy
that made your heart ache.
"I think... is that him?" Zell said, straining his
neck, then standing up when he couldn't see over the heads of the people
seated around them.
"Zell! Sit down!" Irvine whispered harshly, pulling
Zell back down into his seat roughly.
"Don't be rude. We'll see when the song's over,"
Quistis also whispered, glaring at him.
"Well sorry," Zell said, sulking until the
song was over.
Quistis and Irvine were standing up and clapping
enthusiastically when the pianist left the stage.
"Wow," Quistis said. "She was really good."
"Yeah," Irvine said, sitting back down.
"If you two have stopped playing around, I think
I saw Seifer," Zell grumbled.
"Really? Where?" Quistis said, finally paying attention
to him.
"Over there, by the bar," Zell said, pleased he
was finally getting noticed.
"Okay, let's go," Irvine said, walking through the
mass of small tables to reach the bar.
"Is that him?" Quistis said critically as they sat
across the bar from the supposed Seifer.
"I dunno, he kinda looks it. But it's kinda hard
to know without seeing his face. If it is Seifer, he grew his hair out
some," Irvine said, taking a drink of his lime Coke.
"Come on dammit! Turn around!" Zell whispered urgently.
"Zell! People are staring!" Quistis hissed.
"He's turning around!" Irvine said, stopping the
other two's argument in it's tracks.
Zell crossed his fingers, praying it would be Seifer.
He was tired, and wanted to go back to Garden soon. Oh yeah, and the Rinoa
thing.
"Shit!" Irvine said, and the entire group groaned
aloud. The supposed Seifer's face was being blocked by a ditzy-looking
blond, who had leaned over to flirt with one of the bartenders'.
"We're gonna have to go over there if we want to
see his face. She looks like she's gonna be here for a while," Quistis
instructed, slowly moving towards the suspected man.
Zell and Irvine both followed her slowly, both grinding
their teeth at the annoyance of the situation.
***
Squall landed the Ragnarok in Esthar after a short,
uneventful trip.
He slowly walked out of the aircraft and looked
at the bright lights of Esthar for a while, before he felt the familiar
pain in his head that told him to get moving.
"All right," he muttered, walking the rest of the
way across the barren land to get to the entrance.
'Hurry for fuck's sake,' the voice growled.
It was starting to sound more and more like someone he knew, but he just
couldn't place his finger on who.
'Don't Squall!' Rinoa's voice screamed inside
him before he could feel her energy being smothered by the voice.
"Stop it," Squall commanded as he came closer and
closer to Esthar. "I'm doing what you want, leave Rinoa alone."
For once, the voice said nothing cynical back.
Squall, being even more scared of the silence than
he was of the voice, moved faster.
***
"Umm... what are you doing?" a voice came from behind
the slowly moving trio.
"Wha...?" Quistis started, but trailed off when
she saw who was speaking.
"Hey Quisty, why'd ya st..." Zell also tried to
say from in front of Quistis, but was also abruptly stopped by shock when
he saw the speaker.
"SEIFER!" the three gasped loudly, causing half
the people in the place to stare at them.
"That's my name," he said, smirking.
"We need to talk to you," Quistis finally said after
a long and ackward pause.
"Fine. Ya want to get a table?" Seifer asked, still
grinning.
"Sure," Quistis replied, seeing as the guys were
still too shocked to say anything.
The four headed for a table in the corner which
was partially hidden by a large fern.
"So, what did you guys come here for?" Seifer asked
when they had all gotten steaming cups of hot chocolate.
"Rinoa has been killed," Irvine said.
Seifer stopped drinking and set his cup down. "She's
dead?" he said, staring down into the universe of whipped cream and liquid
chocolate that existed within the mug.
"I'm sorry, but we have been instructed to take
you back to Garden for questioning," Quistis said, finishing her beverage
quickly in case Seifer tried to run away.
"Why?! You think I did it!" he said angrily.
"You're the key suspect. I mean, you are the one
who had the most reasons to do it," Zell said, coming up from his mug with
whipped cream all over his upper lip.
"And what exactly are those reasons?" Seifer
asked icily, glaring at all of them.
"Well, we weren't told, but if you come back to
Garden, I'm sure Headmaster Cid would be happy to explain it all," Quistis
said after a moment of thinking. Why had Cid suspected Seifer?
It didn't make sense. Maybe he had thought that Seifer was jealous of Rinoa
and Squall's relationship. Yes, that must be it.
Quistis looked at Seifer's expression, and decided
to keep her conclusion to herself. He was already mad enough at them.
"So, will you come?" Irvine asked.
Seifer sighed, and said, "Fine."
Thank you. The car is waiting outside," Quistis
said, then Irvine, Seifer, and herself got up and left, leaving Zell behind,
who was trying to finish his hot chocolate and making quite a large mess
doing so.
***
Squall stood over Laguna's bed, watching as he slept,
dreading what he was about to do.
'NOW!'
'No, don't Squall. You don't have to.'
"Yes I do," Squall whispered, before loading
his gunblade with a silencer, and putting a mute bullet through Laguna's
skull.
The voice didn't say anything, but Squall could
almost feel it smiling in his head.
'Oh Squall. You didn't have to. You could've
fought him. But now you've just made him stronger.'
'That's right. I'm stronger. You will never get
away from me Leonhart.'
The voice had gotten louder, and now sounded
even more like the person who was on the very tip of his mind, but he couldn't
grasp just who it was.
"Who are you?" he asked aloud as he walked out of
Laguna's mansion.
'You will know soon. I have one more job for
you tonight. Ellone lives just a street away.'
"Please no," Squall whispered, walking along
the dimly lit streets.
***
See! Rinoa's death was not for nothing all you flamers!
T-T