Chapter 5: Puzzle Pieces

"It just doesn't make any sense." Seifer shook his head, watching the fluffy clouds passing below them out the windows of the Ragnarok. "This guy disappears from Winhill and is missing for years. Suddenly he's found in the ocean near Centra, and he's been killed by some previously unknown super monster that's immune to all magical attacks. In what way do those two things fit together?"

Quistis propped her feet up on the arm of his chair and leaned back heavily in her own. They had left Esthar immediately after their meeting with Neperin and were on their way back to Deling City to deliver his results to Kelly. The doctor had been visibly upset at their unwillingness to tell him where the sample had come from. But he probably had no idea that neither of them had any real information to give him. Neperin's report indicated that the monster was not aquatic, which ruled out Maurden being killed after entering the water. But if he had been killed on dry land, that left them with the questions of where, why he'd been there, and how he'd ended up in the south sea. No answers were forthcoming.

Seifer turned to her, noticed her feet sitting up on the arm of his chair, and pushed them down.

"Don't be such a grouch," she said and put her feet back up.

"I'm not."

"If something's bugging you, you should talk about it. Not take it out on me," she said. "Besides, we both know that in an open fight, I'd win."

He sent her a long, irritated look. "You wanna try me? No 'just magic' rules this time."

"No. I just want to hear what you're thinking."

Normally, she would have let the issue drop. But she was in a good mood and feeling talkative. Seeing as Seifer was her only source of conversation until they landed in Galbadia, she wasn't left with many other options. On top of that, she was genuinely interested in what was going through his mind. She'd never spent much time with him before, and their short time in Esthar had done a lot to ease the tension she'd felt about being around him. Now she wanted camaraderie; she wanted him to open up.

"This whole mission is just frustrating," he said. "First, we have this body found drifting in the biggest ocean on the planet. Yet, none of the fish have touched him. And then it turns out he was killed on dry land. But, years before he meets up with this mysterious land animal no one has ever heard of, he's kidnapped from his hometown. So, what sort of scenario can that possibly leave us with? He ran off the join the circus and was tragically killed by his mutant monster? We're not trained for this kind of thing."

"You suppose he ran away?"

Seifer rested a gloved hand on her foot and grinned sarcastically. "Why would he run away from Winhill? It's such an exciting place."

"It might be a good lead," she pointed out. "So far, we've been assuming that he was taken against his will because that's how his mother reported it. But maybe he wanted to go. Maybe that's why he was gone so long without anyone hearing from him."

"He was old enough to go wherever he wanted," Seifer replied. "Who the hell checks in with their mommy when they're in their twenties? Aside from Zell, I guess."

"We wouldn't know. But I think if I had one, I'd tell her what was up in my life. I'd keep in contact at least."

Seifer squeezed her toes and seemed to think about this for a moment, his green eyes working over an invisible knot in the air. Quistis had kicked her shoes off, and the way his thumb was pressing into the pad of her foot felt good.

"Maybe he wasn't that close to his mom," Seifer postulated. "Or maybe he didn't want to tell her about wherever he was doing. Like, maybe he thought she wouldn't approve."

"Sascha Maurden may have been a bad boy," Quistis replied, looking at Garden's own resident bad boy in a way she never thought she would. He was playing absent-mindedly with her feet, his body relaxed and his eyes half closed. It wasn't often that Seifer wasn't tense.

He smiled and shook his head. "Nah. I don't buy that. He'd have been eaten alive in a pack of teenage boys."

"Why do you say that?" she asked.

"His transcript." Seifer shrugged. "He applied himself way too much — all those advanced classes. You can't be a bad boy and…you know…care. You've gotta be a little…" He struggled to find the right word.

Quistis could think of quite a few could complete his sentence, not all of them flattering. "A little bit of a rebel?" she finally supplied.

"Sure." He shrugged. "I just mean, this guy doesn't seem like the sort who would buck authority or throw his life away."

"Well…" Quistis pulled her feet from his grasp, her toes warm where he'd been gripping them. "People aren't always who they seem to be."

The Ragnarok's cabin was brightly lit by the yellow sunlight of the upper atmosphere, and Seifer looked resplendent.

"How long until we land?" he asked.

"Another hour, at least," she replied, not really sure where they were as the auto-pilot handled the flight.

"Great. Not enough time to get in a decent nap, too much time to wait it out." He stood up and stretched, every cord in his lanky body tightening and quivering. Quistis watched him, knowing that she shouldn't. Even thinking about Seifer as a physical and sexual being was wildly taboo. The knowledge that she had a boyfriend at home, and that this was a man she shouldn't feel anything for, heightened the tingling in her toes and in her belly. Seifer had a presence that men like Carson couldn't even touch.

"Hey." Seifer laughed and leaned over one of the Ragnarok's panels, interrupting her thoughts. "We got a message from your boyfriend. And it's fucking hilarious. You gotta read this."

0 0 0

Seifer handed the DNA report from Esthar International to Kelly as he and Quistis entered the coroner's office. Kelly's hair was half tied back, half falling wildly about her face, and her mascara was smeared below her eyes, indicating that she'd been more than a day between showers. She took the manilla envelope from him like a snake striking at its prey.

"Did you find out anything interesting?" she asked. "We've got some mysteries that need solved."

"Welcome to the club," Seifer replied with a snort.

After the long flight, he'd been relieved to finally arrive in Deling City. Especially after the quasi-friendship that he'd somehow managed to establish with Quistis had abruptly dissipated with the interference of Carson Brecht. He didn't even know the man, but Seifer was disliking the stuffy instructor more and more every day. He still didn't understand what Quistis saw in the guy. That letter he'd written her made him sound like a major league wuss. And Quistis was beautiful; she could have her pick of guys.

Kelly flipped through the pages of the report, scanning over them with tired and non-comprehending eyes. Those same eyes turned up to Quistis and Seifer, looking a little glazed.

"Inconclusive? Again?"

Quistis shifted her weight to one foot. "Not entirely. They determined that the tissue belongs to an as of yet undiscovered species. A land animal…maybe a hybrid type of dragon."

"Oh…" Kelly pushed hair out of her face. "I suppose that helps us a little."

"Care to share?" Seifer asked. The entire case bothered him. None of the things they were discovering fit together, none of the answers were those he'd been anticipating or had hoped for. He felt like he was being forced to work on the outside fringes of a puzzle, unable to see the rest of the picture. They were still missing something fundamental.

"Well," Kelly began, "we estimate that he'd been in the water for four to five days before being picked up by the fishing boat. We can't narrow it down more than that since we don't know exactly how long the sailors had him out of the water or how long it took them to get the body on ice. Anyway, with the prevailing currents in the south sea, it's likely that he was pulled in toward the continent from one of the islands south of Centra."

"There's nothing out there. All those islands are deserted," Quistis replied.

Kelly shrugged. "If it was a land animal, that's the only place it could be. Speaking of which, we also discovered why the body wasn't being fed upon: poison."

"Poison?" both Quistis and Seifer echoed.

"Yeah. All of the tissue surrounding the wound in his chest was flooded with some kind of reptilian poison. It was still eating away at the tissue. He had some blood pooled in his heart, but it was free of toxins, so he must have died quickly after he was attacked. Whatever this animal is, it packs one hell of a punch."

"Shit." Seifer reeled. "So, this thing's not just super strong and resilient to magic, it's poisonous too?"

"Looks like it," Kelly replied.

Quistis shook her head. "I'm getting the feeling there was a lot more to Sascha Maurden than meets the eye."

"His mother was contacted by the hospital," Kelly announced. "We could talk to her."

Seifer nodded. "Great idea. Nobody knows a guy like his mother."

"Exactly," Kelly agreed. "She's staying here in Deling until we release the body. I'll give her a call and have her come in."

Seifer made himself at home in the corner's office, propping his feet up on the cluttered desk and leaning back dangerously far in his chair while Kelly made the call, her voice echoing off the taupe filing cabinets lining the walls. The room had a decidedly tight feeling. It was small and filled to the brim, sparse with decor not related to death and paperwork. Quistis looked uncomfortable as she leaned against the wall and crossed her arms.

"So, where's what's-his-name?" Seifer asked once Kelly hung up.

"Who?"

"The coroner."

"Oh. I don't know. We still have jurisdiction though, so we don't have to wait for him. I told Mrs. Maurden to meet us at the information desk. She's coming right away."

Quistis led the way through the labyrinthine hospital hallways back to the information desk, relying on her apparently innate ability to navigate and path-find. Utterly disoriented by the lack of windows and the constant corners, Seifer was certain they were lost until he spotted the receiving area through an open doorway.

They waited in front of the information desk for at least fifteen minutes, Seifer tapping his gunblade against the tile, before a squat woman in a floral print dress waddled through the hospital's rotating doors. Her dark eyes were riveted on the three, and as she walked over to them, Quistis stood up.

"Mrs. Maurden?" she asked, offering her hand.

The woman nodded, but kept her arms at her sides. Instead, she looked at Seifer and said, "You're the SeeDs who found my Sascha?"

"We are," Quistis replied, though Mr. Maurden was still not looking at her. "We'd like to talk to you about your son, if that's okay."

"I'm sure you do," Mrs. Maurden barked. Holding her hip, she sat down and motioned for Seifer to come sit next to her. "I've talked to these two quite enough — the call in the middle of the night, 'We've found your son. He's dead.' No feeling at all. No sympathy. But you look like a gentleman. What's your name?"

"Seifer," he replied, uncomfortable. Quistis and Kelly were both smiling, not even trying to hide their amusement.

"Sit down," she said, patting the seat next to her again. "I'll talk to you. But I won't talk to these two so that they can cut up my poor Sascha some more."

"That's fine," Quistis said suddenly. "We have some…some tests to go over. So you can sit here and talk to Seifer for as long as you'd like. Okay?"

"Job's all yours, Seifer," Kelly added and the two walked away. Seifer's stomach dropped at the idea of being left alone with the woman and he stood, more uneasy than he would have been facing down a t-rexaur, not sure what to say. Reluctantly, he sat down, and Mrs. Maurden's hand snaked out to grab his knee.

"So, dear." She squeezed, the bulky rings on her hand pressing into his skin. "What is it you'd like to know about my Sascha?"

"Well…" He shifted, wondering if there was any polite way to get out of her grasp. "You reported that your son was kidnapped."

"Yes. Of course he was. I went over all this with the police back then — it's in their report. One day, he just didn't come home. And he wouldn't have gone anywhere without telling me. He wouldn't have left on his own. So someone must have taken him." She looked sad now. "He was a smart boy, but kept to himself mostly. Never really had any good friends. It was just me. I was all he had. He wouldn't have left me."

Seifer wondered if maybe their relationship was the other way around, but asked instead, "Who do you think might have taken him?"

"There were these people," she started, "hooligans he met at school. Fanatics. They left town around the same time, so I always thought they had something to do with it. Probably some sort of cult. Sweet Hyne, you don't think they…what do you call it…sacrificed him to some pagan god, do you?"

"Uh…no. I don't think so," Seifer replied. "What kind of fanatics were these?"

"The usual." She shrugged, as if that explained everything. "Pet cause they couldn't see past. They were trying to get Sascha to join up with them. But I wasn't worried about him. I knew he'd do what was right."

"Do you have any idea what their cause was?" Seifer asked.

"Never bothered to find out. I just knew from the look of them, from the way they talked. I'm sure that Sascha said no, and they took it personal."

Seifer shook his head. "Well, whatever your son got himself involved it, it was bad."

"You'll find them, right?" Mrs. Maurden asked, leaning in close. "These men who killed my son have got to be punished. We can't just leave them out there, kidnapping people's babies like this."

"Maybe if you could tell us a little more about them…" Seifer offered. She hadn't given him very much to work with, though he wondered how a group of "fanatics" might fit in with a monster. That they were apparently recruiting smart young men like Maurden definitely pointed to something sinister.

"I just want my son back. It was years ago when Sascha left. I don't remember anymore…they were just thugs. I didn't want them around the house so I didn't see them much. You people've got to know something about them. Don't you? Sascha was a good boy. They killed him for it. I know it. When can I have my son back?"

Seifer shrugged. "I don't know. Once they're done with the autopsy, I guess."

"You'll be the one to call me, to let me know?" she asked and squeezed his knee again. "I don't know if I could take it if it wasn't you."

"Sure," he promised, knowing that when the time came he could easily pass off the task to someone else. He didn't particularly care about Sascha or his mother, and didn't want to see this woman again. This wasn't his thing.

"You're a good man, Mr. Seifer," she said. "A kind and gentle man. Bless you."

As she got up and walked out of the hospital, Seifer sat back in his chair and digested what he'd heard, able to think clearly now that an old woman's hand wasn't groping him. If Sascha had been mixed up with a bad crowd, Seifer thought that he probably left with them voluntarily, not abducted like his mother thought. If he'd been abducted, it would haven't taken so many years for his body to show up. And if that path had led him to an island in the southern sea, into the maw of a terrible, monster…then Seifer figured Sascha Maurden might not be as much of a victim as he appeared to be.