Chapter 4
Kefka stared back.
"You!" Sabin finally growled after recovering from the shock and flew from his chair, boiling with anger.
"Gogo?" Terra gasped.
"Kefka!?" Setzer choked.
"And now you know," Shadow growled.
His hair was long and wild, uncombed, and the total loss of sunburn made him eerily pale, even paler than they remembered him. A scar went over his left cheek. The eyes had, strangely enough, no insanity. But it was Kefka. A very miserable Kefka.
"That is my name," he said in a low voice, "I am Kefka. That's the name that my twin brother Kerr stole from me as he took my place."
Stop the berserking...
"Twin brother?" Terra, Sabin and Setzer blankly said.
Kefka nodded.
"Yes, my twin brother. Who destroyed the world in my name."
"You mean that… you are not the Kefka?" Setzer said, dumbfounded.
"Yes and no," Kefka bitterly said, "Kerr took everything from me, my name, my identity, my work, my life… but he added his madness."
He sighed deeply. For a second his hand touched his scar, but then he removed his fingers from it.
"But I am not innocent," he continued, even more bitter, "it was I who started to study the espers and found the path to them. I advanced in the empire, reached Gesthal… and Kerr was left one step behind me all the time. But I always thought that he didn't mind, that we were friends. I guess that you know what kind of bond we had, Sabin… I mean, what kind of bond I thought we had…"
He shook his head.
"So, I found the secret of espers, and… Gesthal lead the expedition. I was just as thrilled as everyone else in the whole empire. But then they returned…"
Kefka rubbed his face with his hands.
"Most of the espers had been put to sleep with some drugs, but there was one who they hadn't dared to touch after he had awakened from unconsciousness. He was bound with chains thicker than his own legs, but he was on the brink of breaking free all the time. Never have I seen such fury. It was your father, Terra…"
He couldn't look at the others in the room, just stared down on the table and kept talking.
"I clearly remember his eyes, they have haunted me all since that day. His anger was almost driving him crazy… 'give her back, Gesthal', he called over and over again, 'give me my Terra, my daughter'… and the emperor just sneered at him. Later, as I asked, Gesthal showed me the baby he had got from a dying woman; a woman that had given birth to a half-esper. And he laughed at her pathetic plea that he would take care of her child… I felt tainted, blemished, filthy. It was all because of me, my fault… that wasn't what I had worked for! I kept quiet for a few days, then I spoke with Kerr when I couldn't hold back all my doubts and regret anymore. And he went straight to Gesthal and left his report. I was arrested…"
He clamped his teeth.
"But however, I was well known and liked among the scientists that worked with the espers. Gesthal didn't want their work to slow down a minute, so he allowed Kerr to take my place. Which my brother did with pleasure. And that is my story. Shadow freed me after about five years later… I'm pretty surprised I hadn't turned mad as well by then. I came from the zone eater to find that my brother was still alive, and I was prepared to do anything to mend that. I had no real intention to find… allies. For a while I even wanted to tell you all, but… as I heard you talk about my brother, using my name… and I saw his madness… I couldn't."
He finally looked up at the others in the room. They were silent, watching him.
"It was my fault, Terra," he said, "I found out, planned and showed the way to the espers. This whole war, all those who died… the destruction and pain… is to be put on my account. And also… your and Celes' stolen lives, Terra. The death of Rachel and Cyan's family… the old king of Figaro… Narshe… the whole world's downfall… because of my discoveries."
Silence.
Suddenly Shadow pulled out the Striker and put it on the table before Kefka.
"I know what your first impression was," the assassin coldly said, "I don't know what you think now. But I won't allow anyone to touch this man."
Everyone stared at him, surprised.
"The empire took my friend Baram," Shadow continued, hissing, "so I took someone who they thought was important. Therefore, I won't allow that somebody kills him."
"Don't be silly," Terra said, "if Gogo just happens to be Kefka's… Kerr's brother, what does it matter? He is still Gogo."
She turned to the stunned Kefka.
"You couldn't know what it would turn out like," she said, "I'm sure you didn't believe that the reality would be so cold and harsh. It's like with Celes."
"I wonder how she will take this…" Sabin grunted, still not sure if he would trust Kefka/Gogo, "not to mention Cyan. I remember how long time it took before he accepted Celes."
Kefka rubbed his forehead.
"I guess we better find out," Terra said, "come on!"
"Huh?" Kefka gasped as she grabbed his hand and brought him to his feet.
"Let's go to our friends and tell them," she resolutely said, "it's the only way they could begin to break their distrust and accept the truth."
"But Terra…"
"Not another word," Sabin said and grabbed Kefka's shoulders, "go on, we're blowing this joint."
It seemed like Edgar's brother finally had come to a more understanding decision. He and Terra more or less dragged Kefka towards the door. Setzer shrugged his shoulders and hurried over to his friends.
Shadow blocked the door.
But there was no weapon in his hand, only a big piece of yellow cloth; the biggest remain of the torn veil.
"Better put this on if we're going to walk around outside," the assassin said, "your face is not very anonymous."
"Right… thanks," Kefka mumbled.
He took the cloth and wrapped it around his head with skilled hands.
Shadow opened the door and walked out into the night, followed by his friends. Interceptor strode on behind, as if being on guard. Kefka didn't seem too fond of the idea to show his face to the rest of the world.
"Your Majesty, Mr. Gabbiani seem to have landed outside of the castle," a servant announced.
"Oh, bring him in at once," Edgar said.
He turned to his guests with a smile.
"Ah, yet another of our comrades approaches?" Cyan smiled, "mayhap these dull discussions of state can be turned down for a moment…"
"I haven't heard a boring word for an hour," Locke pointed out.
"That may be because thou dost not turn thy ears to king Edgar and myself, my friend," the leader of the rebuilding of Doma kindly said, "thy whole concentration is aimed towards thy lady."
"Now, now, Cyan," Celes laughed, "since when did I become a lady in your eyes?"
"Since the first moment I realized that thy soul not stored the great darkness I accused thee to carry within."
The servant came hurrying back.
"Your Majesty, apart from Mr. Gabbiani, Your brother prince Sabin, miss Branford, a Mr. Shadow and Gogo are also here."
"Good grief," Edgar said, "now we've got almost everyone…"
Terra, Sabin and Setzer stepped into the room, watching Gogo over their shoulders as they walked. Shadow and Interceptor closed the surrounding of the mimic.
"Hello, people?" Locke said, as puzzled as everyone else.
"Hello," Gogo said in a low voice.
"May I ask what you are doing?" Edgar said.
Terra put her hand on Gogo's arm, calming.
"There's something that our friend here wanted to tell you," the woman with green hair said, gravely.
"You act as if he's Kefka resurrected or something," Edgar said.
Gogo groaned.
"Well, brother, please don't scream…" Sabin said and reached for the veil.
"Sabin, please don't…" Gogo weakly began.
The veil fell.
"… Be so hasty… good grief."
Figaro castle shivered by a roar.
"Kefka!?"
"Next time I'll have you talking first, I promise," Sabin muttered and parried a guard's arm.
"I'd be happy if you would…" Kefka miserably said.
"Stop it!" Setzer shouted, "he isn't Kefka… I mean he is, but not that Kefka… I mean, he is his brother!"
Edgar pushed himself through half his army and waved at the soldiers to back off.
"Alright," the king grimly said, "what's going on?"
"It's Kefka, that's what it is!" Locke concluded, playing with a dagger.
Cyan and Celes said nothing, but their hands were close to the hilts of their weapons.
After Kefka finally had time telling his story again, the air was still thick with distrust. Especially Cyan was very skeptic and resolute.
"And thus, we shall believe the words of this man and Shadow?" the swordsman coldly said, "I am sorry, but in this matter I cannot trust what I hear of the foe's mirror and an assassin."
He was angry, very angry. That he had dared saying something like that about Shadow was proof enough. One had to be very close to rage or completely out of one's mind to say something like that with the man in black present.
Kefka, or Kerr, had murdered Cyan's family, and also many, many others. Everyone had thought that Cyan had forgiven himself for not being able to protect his love and son. Well, he had forgiven himself, but by no means the face that had poured the poison into the water.
"You mean he could be the Kefka we thought we killed?" Terra said, disbelieving, "that is impossible, don't you see that?"
"What is this word 'impossible'?" Cyan growled, "be he Kefka or Kerr, or carries a third and even fourth name, he might be the same man, trying to fool us into new, false feelings of security."
"My name is Kefka," the man in the center muttered, "but I was not the one who poisoned the people of Doma."
"How canst we know that?" Cyan snapped, "thy guise might be merely a new one! Could it be so that 'Gogo' was a game thou played, mocking us while we fought for what was left to love in our dying world?"
"No, that's not true, Cyan!" Kefka cried out.
"Dost not dare to speak my name, fiend!"
Kefka stared at the floor.
"We killed Kefka… Kerr or whatever," Sabin said, surprisingly calm, "that is a fact."
"What tells us that the goddesses had no power to create another evil from the first?" Cyan coldly said, "the one we killed did not have the guise of the Kefka we knew before; that being was nothing of a human."
"Cyan has a point," Locke said, "we don't know if this Kerr ever existed."
"I got this man from a prison cell," Shadow calmly said, "and that was long before the goddesses had awakened."
"What dost thy memory tell us?" Cyan coldly said, startling everyone by showing such courage, "thy own life is still hidden in mist, Shadow."
At first, everybody just waited for something sharp to dash through the air. But Shadow only nodded slowly.
"I do understand your point," he said.
"Isn't there anybody that could have at least known about Kefka having a twin brother?" Setzer said, trying to come to a solution, "Celes?"
She shook her head.
"No, but… that doesn't mean that he's lying," she slowly said, "people had no value at all in the empire, and the less you knew about others, the better for everyone."
"Cid," Kefka suddenly said.
"Cid?"
"I used to work with him before I was arrested… he knew Kerr a little. If he's still around somewhere…"
Edgar and his friends exchanged glances.
After the victory one year earlier, the first thing Celes had done had been to fetch her "grandpa" from the solitaire island. He had attended the celebration at Figaro castle, and then he had stayed there, fascinated by all the machinery. He was still there, now working as chief mechanic and scientist for a good purpose. His research of edible cacti had shown to be a start for growing a new kind of crops in the desert. Figaro had produced weapons and armory, but that industry had been pushed aside for more peaceful industry. What the world really needed was farming to recover food for both humans and animals, and tools for that was highly demanded. And the vast desert was suitable for growing cacti which was starting to become popular worldwide. With little water Cid's discoveries grew and carried fruits. Some of the plants' trunks were also tasting well, if one only could get past the needles…
Figaro was facing a prosperous future, and Cid should have a lot of thanks for that. Oh yes, he was still around.
Edgar looked up at all the soldiers in the room. It was a big room, so there was space enough for many uniformed men. And they were all determined not to move before Kefka had been found either guilty or not.
"Would somebody go and get Cid, right away?" Edgar said, his voice making it clear that he would be happy if there were quite a few people leaving the room.
The soldiers knew their king. They weren't too fond of it, but they left, leaving a lot more air to be used for breathing.
"Put the veil back on," Edgar said, "I do want him to think clearly and all by himself."
Kefka obeyed.
It took a couple of minutes before Cid arrived. The first thing he did was smiling at Celes.
"Hello, dear," he said, "sorry I had to go back to work."
"It's alright, grandpa," she said and managed to smile a little, "Edgar wanted to… we wanted to talk to you."
"Oh, and what's the matter? Hello, when did you get here?"
The last thing was aimed at the five people and the dog who had arrived last of the old crew.
"They just came here," Edgar grimly said, "tell me, Cid, did you know Kefka before he… snapped?"
Cid's eyebrows went up.
"Why yes," he said, "why do you want to know that?"
"I'll explain in a moment," Edgar said, "what can you tell us about him back then?"
"Well, I studied all the old scripts about espers and magic with him," Cid said and shuddered, "on Gesthal's command, of course. There were many others than us working on it, but we were in the lead. We thought that if we found the way to the espers it would be to create some kind of alliance that could help both sides. We never dreamed what Gesthal's real intention was, you see. Then of course, when the espers had come the reality showed up to be different. But I never dared to protest, and so I grew to believe that what happened was alright…"
Cid cleared his throat, realizing he had left the subject.
"But you were talking about Kefka," he continued, "and before we succeeded in our cause, he was someone I liked to know; inspired, hardworking and reasonable. I never dreamed he would change like he did when the espers were brought in. It was like turning a page. I guess it was because his brother was killed by the espers, one of them broke free and… I never saw it, but people talked about it in weeks afterwards. Of course, not even that can excuse what he did."
"Wait," Locke said, frowning and acting as if he hadn't already heard about it, "Kefka had a brother?"
Cid pursed his mouth.
"Yes, he had. A twin brother, actually. I don't like to talk about him, always thought that he was creepy. But Kefka liked him, even though they were like day and night. His name was Kerr, and if somebody of those two had turned mad, I had never believed it should have been Kefka. Now, why did you want to know about this?"
Terra, Edgar, Locke, Celes, Cyan, Setzer and Sabin exchanged glances.
"What's going on?" Cid asked, puzzled.
"It's me, Cid," Kefka bitterly said and removed the veil, "Kerr never died. It was just another of Gesthal's lies."
Cid stared at him.
"Kefka?" he stuttered.
"Yes."
Kefka looked at those at whose side he had been fighting against his own brother. Terra was smiling carefully, and there were signs of accepting in Sabin and Setzer's eyes. But they had become slightly used to the thought by now. Edgar, Locke and Celes might turn a little softer in time, but Cyan's eyes were like poisonous needles in Kefka's soul. The swordsman was as stubborn as he was strong, the mimic had known that if somebody wasn't going to accept the truth, it would be Cyan or Celes. Kefka had hid for a reason.
Still Kerr kept haunting him. He would always do so. Whenever Kefka looked at his own, scarred face in a mirror, if he destroyed even the tiniest blade of grass or even laughed (which he actually hadn't done in years), he would think of Kerr. That madman, that monster who had been his brother wouldn't ever stop torturing him, always finding new ways to do it. Right now he was smashing the delicate friendships that Kefka had built up using another name. No, those people wasn't his friends. They were Gogo's. He looked down at the yellow piece of cloth that he still held in a tightly clenched fist. That veil was Gogo. Another person; a mysterious but trustworthy ally. But without it, he was simply… Kefka. And not the Kefka he was born to be, but the Kefka that Kerr had created. And that Kefka was not an ally or a friend.
Kefka. What a name to carry…
He noticed in the corner of his mind that the Cyan and Terra party had fallen into a discussion, but he didn't listen. Either they would decide to leave him alone, or they would choose to forgive him for carrying the face which they hated. Or to do away with him, but he didn't believe they would consider that. Whatever the decision became, they wouldn't be the same now that they knew. They couldn't be the friends of Kefka. Gogo had been quiet and mysterious, but he had been a much closer friend that Kefka ever could be.
He lazily wondered how long it would take to find another zone eater…
"Kefka."
He looked up and found Cid's eyes.
"I'm glad it wasn't you," the mechanic gravely said.
"You must be the only one," Kefka bitterly muttered.
"Aren't you?"
Kefka glanced at Cyan's back and then looked away again.
"Not that much."
"Hey," Cid kindly said, "at least forgive yourself when it comes to the espers. You weren't the only guilty one, and none of us knew the truth. Besides, they are all well and alive according to Terra."
"Yeah," Kefka muttered, "that's the last good news I had in a long time."
He absentmindedly scratched the scar on his cheek. Kerr's last gift. Had almost disclosed Gogo that time. It was good that he had been able to rehide his face before Celes had seen it. They hadn't needed the confusion in that moment.
'Pity, pity, pity, pity, brother!'
His imagination had a horrible way of making a replica of Kerr's mad, screeching voice when Kefka felt helpless and miserable.
'Poor, poor Kefka! Loosing all your little friends, does it hurt, brother?'
He fought back a shudder as his memory played the insane laughter he had heard on the top of the tower one year ago.
Brother. Why did you hate me so?
"Kefka?"
He turned his head, finding himself looking at Terra.
"Look, can you go through with facing Strago and the others who are left?" she carefully asked.
Kefka scratched his scar.
"I'm not ready, but I'll do it anyhow," he said with a sigh.
"And I am going to keep an eye on you!" Cyan growled.
Actually, they ended up with everyone, except Edgar, on the airship. Cid just followed, without a word or explanation. Celes and Locke decided to do as Cyan, not one more grain forgiving. And the only reason the king of Figaro stayed was probably that he was needed in his castle. No, they didn't trust Kefka. Not at all.
'Oh dear, oh dear, brother! They all hate you, don't they?'
No!
"You'll get that to bleed again if you don't calm down," Terra warned him.
"Hmm?"
Kefka realized that he was scratching his scar again, almost furiously. That habit was really getting a grip of him, or it had just had so many chances to be used lately.
He put the veil back on to save the old wound. He felt much better with the cloth hiding his secrets.
Back on the airship he stood alone, watching the ground below. It was green, but there were spots of brown, dead parts. And all edges of the continents were still mostly dead cliffs, as if the water was dangerous to the plants.
He sighed, and without notice the right hand reached up to his face again.