In Who's Name? Chapter 14: A Study Of Perfection, a final fantasy viii fanfic

Rating: PG-13

Disclaimer: Characters and universe borrowed from Final Fantasy VIII. Not owned by Gold.

Okay, I'm a mite cross. The second part of my new story, An Angsty Seiftis, just disappeared. I've uploaded it, and it says I've two chapters uploaded and I've even got a review for the second chapter, but where is it?!

And you know something? There are so many characters in FFVIII that I can't put all of them in if I want to. Nida isn't here, I've barely mentioned Xu (just once), and I still have to figure out about Zell's library girl, the one who has such an obvious crush on him, and whose name nobody seems to know.

By the way, I adore tofu. Beancurd. Doufu in Chinese. Oh, and I love soya bean milk. It's great—my beverage of choice! =) Happy reading!

Title: In Whose Name?

Part 14: A Study Of Perfection

Quistis stood in her room, looking around with a frown on her face and a puzzled air. She appeared to have forgotten something very important, but she couldn't recall what it was. She walked quickly to the full-length mirror and eyed herself dubiously. Her hair was in order, her face was clean, her glasses were on, her clothes were perfectly pressed, and she looked neat and prim. Hence, the error did not lie with her appearance. With the frown somewhat deeper now, she circled her room, thinking back over the events. She glanced at the clock. It said eight-oh-six. She could defer breakfast until eight-fifteen.

Quistis paced her room, tracing back her memory of the past few days. Seifer's nightmares…the infirmary…the press conference…the fire…dinner at Ma Dincht's…Fujin's visit…that was it!

Quistis dived under her bed, looking frantically for the little black disk Fujin had left behind. They had all forgotten about it. It wasn't under her bed, though. Perhaps it was under her desk. Quistis scrabbled about in an undignified fashion, searching for the disk until she discovered it on the bedside table, half-hidden by the telephone. Fujin had probably chucked it there without thinking. She picked it up and looked at it, thinking. She could always breakfast at eight-thirty and still make it to the orphanage by quarter past nine.

Quistis booted up her laptop and then inserted the disk into the requisite drive. She tapped a few keys and waited.

"Six files," she murmured. "What's this? 'Trigonometry Made Easy'? 'Tofu Salad'? 'Myths and Legends'? 'Save The Environment Campaign'? 'Madam, I'm Adam'?" Her face twisted with disgust as she caught sight of the last file. "Ugh. Pornography." It had the usual title of all the pornographic e-mail she frequently received in her public, non-Garden e-mail account.

She grimly clicked on one of the files. 'Tofu Salad' looked quite safe.

THIS FILE IS PASSWORD PROTECTED. PLEASE ENTER A PASSWORD WITHIN THIRTY SECONDS OR YOUR DRIVE WILL BE CORRUPTED

Quistis stared at it in horror. Frantically, she typed in the first thing that came to mind.

REFIES YSAMLA

PASSWORD ACCEPTED

Quistis blinked. That was unexpected. In most films, the hero had two minutes to type in a password and he always failed until the dying seconds. She had expected something like that, but here she was, striking lottery on her first attempt! All right—perhaps luck was on her side. She crossed her fingers and narrowed her eyes as she studied what was written before her. The file was called 'Tofu Salad', but it didn't look like a recipe for salad. It had a list of places. Quistis frowned. Balamb—Ambar Di Fashions. Esthar—Incheyon Traders Pte. Ltd. Fisherman's Horizon—Fisherman's Wharf. Galbadia—Garden Software Co. Pte. Ltd. Timber—The Owlery. Trabia—Wetternfield Construction Co. Pte. Ltd.

This was getting stranger by the minute. The only restaurant on the list was Fisherman's Wharf, and it didn't serve tofu salad. It was a seafood restaurant, not a health bar. The list seemed ridiculously incongruous for something headed 'Tofu Salad'. A seafood restaurant, a local clothes design company, a software company, a construction firm, a trading firm, and a museum to resistance fighters?

Quistis continued staring at the list.

YOU HAVE EXCEEDED TIME LIMIT ALLOWED FOR VIEWING. PLEASE ENTER PASSWORD WITHIN THIRTY SECONDS OR YOUR DRIVE WILL BE CORRUPTED

Quistis hurried typed in REFIES YSAMLA.

PASSWORD INCORRECT

Quistis groaned. SORCERESS' KNIGHT

PASSWORD INCORRECT

Quistis grew panicky. On a hunch, she typed LLAUQS TRAHNOEL.

PASSWORD ACCEPTED

Quistis slumped down in her chair in relief, letting out the breath she had been holding. Whoever had secured this file had an extremely wacko sense of humour. If she didn't know better, she could have sworn that she had done the security herself. It was one of those things she would do—use them both as corresponding passwords. She had actually done so for one of her files. She took up pen and paper, and began to write down the names in the file, her hands still shaking from the panic attack just moments before.

The sharp rap-rap-rap on her door caused her to dig her pen into the pad of paper by mistake.

"Who's there?" She shot a lightning glance at the screen, memorising the last name on the list before she closed the file. "Who is it?"

"It's me, Instructor."

Seifer.

Quistis felt her cheeks grow hot. "Oh. What is it?" she called back cautiously.

"Breakfast." He cleared his throat, sounding slightly embarrassed, even through the door. "Are you going to come out or do you still want to yell our conversation out for the whole Garden to hear?"

Okay. That was the real Seifer. He wouldn't apologise for his behaviour, at least not verbally, but his coming to her room to, well, escort her down to breakfast was his way of apologising—or else he just wanted to irritate her more.

"Give me two minutes," she called. "I need to finish up something."

She shut down her laptop and quickly slid the little disk into the inner pocket of the short jacket she was wearing. Then she opened the door and walked out. She glanced quickly at Seifer, who was leaning against the wall outside, looking bored and sexy at the same time. He smouldered suggestive promises from head to toe, just from the way he looked, and it was bad-boy all the way—the exact opposite of Squall, whose sex appeal lay in the fact that he was untouchable, and everyone wants the smouldering untouchable as well as the smouldering bad, bad boy. Quistis delivered several automatic slaps to her brain for thinking with hormones and tilted her head in an almost challenging fashion at Seifer. It was an unconscious response to the six foot three of tempting male gorgeousness that she couldn't have.

Seifer did not smile, but he did follow behind her, and he watched her move with the same cool confidence and authority he always remembered. It was a confidence and authority born of her certainty of her intelligence, her height and stature, and her looks. She could move the way nobody could, with a remarkable elegance and dignity. But for Seifer, the crowning part was the fact that she was flawed.

That made her human and not arrogant, and made all that confidence, elegance and intelligence worth admiring. She was emotionally insecure. She craved the good opinion of others, wanted to help other people too much, and ultimately pushed herself too far at times. It drove her to take on what others would not, out of some misplaced sense of honour and responsibility—misplaced in an age like this. It drove her to take on him, despite everything, and Seifer knew it. Matron, Cid, whatever—it could not avail to anything if Quistis' own nature hadn't led her to believe that she had to do something about him. Oh, and she had a temper. She wasn't all mercy and goodness and sweetness and light. He should know—he had riled her as often as he could.

To Seifer, that was what made her perfect. He wouldn't have believed that her confident, goody-two-shoes image really was her, unless she had some flaw. If it was that perfect, it couldn't be real, and she was one big fat lying package. There was nothing Seifer Almasy hated more than a false image. But she wasn't perfect and she was real, and he was coming very, very close to worshipping the ground she walked on—

"Would you hurry up?"

The real, imperfect blonde goddess in front of him had turned around and was tapping one booted foot impatiently, her arms folded. She was glaring at him. "Oi."

Seifer arched an eyebrow. "Oi?" he asked, his grin surprisingly warm and boyishness.

Quistis blushed. "Oi," she grumbled, turning her back, but Seifer caught sight of the little smile that edged her lips, and he felt himself soften even further.

He hurried to catch up with his flawed, perfect Quis.