"They attacked precisely as you instructed, sir, and he killed three of them without receiving a scratch."
"The fourth?"
"In custody. Almasy let the boy escape."
The fleeting desire to smile flickered and died within him. He enjoyed seeing his subordinates tremble under his cold gaze, and didn't want to ruin the effect by betraying his curiosity.
"Interesting," he said.
"What should we do with the survivor, sir?"
"Kill him. Collect the evidence of the brawl and conceal it in the Dollet safehouse. See that Cid Kramer doesn't find out."
"Sir."
The other end of the videophone disconnected as he sat back into his chair to contemplate this turn of events. Clearly, the Almasy boy had more power than he'd anticipated. And while he longed to pursue his inquiries, he, as a veteran manipulator, sensed the influence of another, more desperate hand. So, he would watch, and wait. He'd decades waiting, and he could continue to wait weeks, months, years if necessary. He had nothing but time.
* *
She slid through the door to her office, a large pile of books stacked in her arms. As she crossed the room, Quistis noticed a small slip of paper lying on her desk. She immediately recognized Seifer's intricate, flowing script.
Pond in the training center. Bring weapon. Seifer.
She smiled, wondering what Seifer considered important enough to warrant breaking into her office. She set her books down, and crushed the note in her hand as she locked the door behind her.
Selphie stood in the lobby outside the offices, waiting for the elevator. Her face lit up as Quistis approached.
"There's my favorite lush!" Selphie squealed. Quistis felt the embarrassment crawl up the back of her neck. "How did you enjoy your evening of depravity?"
"Who told you?" Quistis asked, mortified. "Was another Instructor there? Did someone see me?"
"Relax," Selphie laughed, "it was just Zell. You know how he gets when he has a secret."
"Fair enough. What else did he tell you?"
"Just that you went back to the Balamb Hotel and slept with the two of them."
The flush had reached Quistis's ears by this point. "Slept being the operative word."
"Still," Selphie shot back, "I'll bet you were surprised to wake up, with a hangover, between two men."
"To say the least," Quistis replied, rubbing her forehead at the memory. "You should have heard the way those two laughed at me."
"I can imagine." Selphie's jade eyes danced in delight. "And what's this I hear about a resolution?"
Quistis squared her shoulders and stood up straight. Looking Selphie in the eyes, she recited, "I'm not going to spend the rest of my life waiting around for Squall. The time has come for me to be my own person."
Selphie nodded. "I admire your conviction, Quisty. When does your new life begin?"
Quistis sighed, knowing the difficulty inherent in overcoming her long-standing crush. "Any day now. I hope."
* *
Seifer stood, Hyperion at his side, looking out over the water of the training center's small pond. He whirled as he heard her approach, but made no effort to raise Hyperion.
"Quistis," he said.
"Yes?" she replied, allowing Save the Queen to unfurl to the ground. "Did you want to spar?"
"No," he shot back, keeping his voice low. "I just needed a pretense to meet you here."
"And why, exactly," she asked, folding her arms over her chest, "did we have to meet here? We could have talked in my office."
"You'll think I'm crazy," he said, stepping forward and putting a hand on her arm, "but I think Cid has the offices bugged. This way, he sees us coming in here with weapons, and he can't trace us, but he thinks we're here to train."
"Okay," she laughed, "I don't need to tell you how paranoid you sound, right?"
"You'd be paranoid too," he exclaimed, "if you'd just killed three people in a street fight."
"What?" she whispered "Are you being investigated?"
"That's just it. There is no investigation. These guys have dropped off the planet. No newspaper reports, no police, nothing. It's like it didn't happen."
"Did you and Zell hide the bodies?"
"No. We hightailed it right back to the hotel. By then, you'd already gotten a room, so we just came up and crashed. In the morning, everything was gone. Every single stone on the street had been washed."
"So what do we do?"
"I don't know!" he shouted. "If Cid finds this out, I'm a goner. This is exactly what he's been waiting for."
"Settle down," she said. "Since the investigation hasn't taken place, he has no reason to find out. So let's not draw attention to ourselves unless something happens. Then, we talk to Squall."
"He's already put his neck on the line for me. I can't ask him to do it again."
"Don't worry, Seifer. Don't get alarmed until there's cause for alarm. Besides," she smiled, "I know something that will cheer you right up."
"What?" he asked.
"Oh," she said, coy, "just a little 'thank you' for getting me out of the dumps. Follow me."
Quistis led Seifer out of the training center and back to the elevator. Once everyone else had left, she removed a pendant from around her neck, upon which hung a card key. She pushed it into the key slot. The elevator began its descent as Seifer watched Quistis in amazement. She delicately replaced the key, and smiled at him.
"Is that one of...?"
"Yes," she answered. "I filched it from Cid's office when I was thirteen. Some of us are smart enough not to get caught."
The elevator stopped, the doors opening onto a dark hallway. Quistis, her route memorized from years of illicit visits, carefully threaded her way through the labyrinthine passages, Seifer close on her heels. They stopped outside a sealed door, Quistis's gloved hands tapping out an intricate code on the keypad. With a pneumatic hiss, the doors slid open.
Seifer found the room behind the doors small and unimpressive, but meticulously clean. The small space contained shelf upon shelf of ancient books, many of them with exotic bindings. By glancing at different tomes, Seifer could see the rich, dark hues of behemoth-skin, the iridescence of ruby dragon scales, and the thick, blistered chitin of hexadragon armor.
"What is this place?" he breathed.
Without waiting for an answer, he picked up a book near him an opened to the nameplate, where he read the words Esthar College of Magic and Thaumaturgy, and below it, inscribed in a neat hand, the owner's signature: Cid Kramer.
"He was a student there," Quistis explained, "before the Sorceress War. Before the orphanage."
"And what did you want me to see?" Seifer asked, awed but still perplexed.
The coy smile danced back across Quistis's face. She held something behind her back.
"I believe," she said, taking a step forward, "this belongs to you."
With this, she brought her hands around, revealing another of the old books, this bound in a rich brown. The words on the cover quickened Seifer's pulse as soon as he read them: History of the Cruciform Knights.
And emblazoned on the cover lay the same sigil Seifer wore on almost all of his clothing. The one piece of heritage he possessed. His emblem, his standard, the cruciform sword.