Chapter 12

Half sisters. The words echoed in her brain. Half sisters. Their pasts linked together, their futures entwined. Destined to kill each other, to drive each other to their horrible deaths.

She saw herself, much older, fighting with a force of true evil. She heard herself say the words; "You will regret this."

They were to be the last words she would ever utter. She was struck to the ground, her head crashing against the rocks. The evil being held her hand to Rinoa's throat, strangling her. Rinoa tried to speak, the words wouldn't come. And then she stabbed her, over and over again, and walked off into the shadows, leaving Rinoa's bloodstained carcass on the grey rocks.

He came over to her; he had been watching in the darkness. He sat down on those rocks, and he cried. He had failed…

Rinoa suddenly sat up in bed. Quistis' transformation led to a drop in all her vital organs; the signals were too small to be picked up by the paramedics. Her heart rate had decreased to a beat a minute; the paramedics only measured her pulse for 30 seconds.

How could she get out of there unnoticed? There was only one route of escape she could use, and it was far too risky. She could jump out of the window.

Rinoa didn't realise that they thought she was dead, she thought she could just walk out the normal way. But something told her not to. She heard a loud voice downstairs, talking to the owner of the hotel. She recognised it, but didn't know, couldn't remember whom it belonged to.

Then she realised. It was Cid, the owner of the garden when she had been there. Another voice began to yell, sounding slurred, but she still recognised it. It was Norg. Back from the garden, and back from what Rinoa and the others had assumed was his death.

"We're looking for a woman, by the name of Rinoa. We believe she knows something."

A million thoughts came to her mind at once. Was it to do with their adventure, to do with the garden? Were they still in control of it? Was it something to do with…Squall?

She knew what she had to do. She marched downstairs, and looked at them. Cid looked a lot older then he had done when she had known him, But Norg…Norg looked strange and mysterious, his eyes like a whirlpool, attracting her, dragging her into a world of slavery, poverty and death.

She looked away from him. She looked towards Cid. Though his eyes were scowling at her, the rest of his face looked almost friendly. She spoke. "Why do you want me?"

The people at the hotel continued to remain silent, they had truly believed she was dead.

Cid replied harshly, "You know something about the garden, Rinoa. What do you know? We were thrown out of there a few months ago. All the SeeD's there, from what I've heard, are unhappy. I will take it over again, and fulfil the garden's true original purpose."

"I will tell you the little I know, whether it is lies or truth I cannot determine, " she said, "but you must return the favour. I wish to know the whereabouts of Squall Leonhart."

Her mission was still to find him; even her discovery about Quistis could not deter her.

"Tell us."

"I heard from Quistis that you had left the garden, and she told me some SeeD's took over. Apparently they spent all of the Garden's funds. The SeeD's are trying to raise funds in any way they can. They tried stealing and everything, I saw them in Ma Dincht's house taking some of her things."

"Go on."

"She mentioned something called the Great Deling Plot."

"Did she explain what it was?"

"She said they were going to shut Deling City down, and turn it into a military base. The reasons she gave were that the city had connections with the military, and she also mentioned…Caraway. She didn't mention how they were going to do it."

"And now… I will tell you about Squall."

"Thank you…"

"He stayed on as a SeeD for a little while. He stopped being a SeeD soon after we left, I know because he came to visit us. He had never told you this, but Xu had asked him to kill you. The reason was because you were not part of their intricate world.

"He said…he said he was going to find his father. He said he knew who it was. And when he found his father… he was going to kill him."

She ran out of the door. There could only be one person who it could possibly be. "Laguna…" she muttered to herself, "Esthar…"

How could she get there? She had no Ragnarok, no flying garden. But there was a way, there was a disused train track leading from one continent to the other. She had made her decision. She would walk across it.

She ambled in the general direction of where she thought the train track was. Cid called after her, "where are you going?"

"Esthar. "

"How?"

"I am walking across the disused train track."

"No, they rebuilt it. It is no longer disused. If you want to go to Esthar, I will take you."

She found herself trusting him, and followed him to his aircraft parked outside Deling City. As she got into it, she felt warm and happy for the first time in months. As he took off, she fell asleep in the chair, happy and contented. Maybe she didn't need him after all…

***