Copyrights: Kuja, FFIX, the Iifa Tree and all other references to Final Fantasy just don't belong to me. Of course they don't; it wouldn't be fanfiction if they did.

Here's the shounen-ai warning again. Not this chapter, though...

Anyway. Kuja doesn't belong to me, but most of the other characters featured are mine.

If you have time to drop a note about the way I'm writing this, about technical errors or continuity or if you just want to give a shout out, have no doubt that I'd be thrilled to hear from you. I haven't played FFIX in a while, so anything to help clean this (rather ancient) fic up would be hugely appreciated.

June 24, 2003: Hmm. Just updated, and am listening to music. SA hasn't been getting too many reviews, but I'm not a glutton for R&R so I don't mind. So long as I'm writing! I just may have the next chapter finished tonight, as I finished this chapter a week or two ago and have, indeed, been writing since. This depends, however. Later, everyone.

---

"Good morning."

Kuja sat at the table and pushed the layered locks of white-lavender-silver hair from his eyes, but they resisted. The feathers that had been lost with Asper's shearing had somehow regrown during his sleep, and now they decorated his shortened hair somewhat awkwardly, looking out of place with his newly short hair. Even Kuja, in his shattered vanity, had to admit it looked pretty stupid.

Asper, flapping in the air rather clumsily, landed on the table in front of him. They had moved into a different part of the humans-only area of wherever they were at present; by now Kuja had deduced they were in the gigantic roots of a huge tree, though whether it was Iifa, Cleyra or otherwise was beyond his understanding. He had not ventured to ask regarding it, so his lack of comprehension was his own fault. Kuja thought this rather stupid of him, but he figured it would be best to wait, especially for Asper's explanation. Either way, it was best to focus on the present, and now it was time to eat breakfast.

"It's not morning, you know," Asper said in a rather snide tone. He scratched his black-furred hip with a tiny black claw and yawned unpleasantly; he didn't brush his dagger-like teeth often, Kuja decided, by the smell. "It's nighttime. The undead only function to their fullest in the evening." This was said in a somewhat indignant, annoyed tone, as though the patched-together genome did not comprehend the word 'undead'. The moogle yawned a second time, and Kuja could only hope he would not launch into another tirade. His stomach won the battle of wits, and before Asper could continue, Kuja asked, "What's for breakfast?"

"Mmph," came the answer. "Living things are so inefficient, needing to combust fuel," said the moogle, snapping little claws loudly as a command.

A lumbering creature, limbs as rubber, hands dragging to the floor, plodded from an adjoining room and up to the table. Kuja was thoroughly disgusted. While he had seen the undead before and, indeed, had had to contend with them often, this creature's face was particularly gruesome, though it did not smell or rot as badly as most other zombies he had seen. This one's skin was dead gray, more dead than the clouds on an overcast day, its hair was stringy, silver, and gathered in knots at its neck, and its eyes were black and hollow, sunken in like bottomless wells with too little water at the bottom. It stared at Kuja with something that, to his utter shock and horror, resembled intelligence. Zombies were not intended to be intelligent, and the silver-haired genome was alarmed. Still, the intelligence in the sharp, dark eyes softened into something resembling pity, clemency, understanding, and Kuja noticed the creature staring at his sewn-shut wounds empathically.

His heart was still beating quickly, and he looked away from the half-intelligent creature, embarassed and sickened and heartbroken all at the same time. Asper didn't worry whatsoever, and patted his hunched zombie on the head. "Kuja," the moogle said, demanding his attention, "this is Lanobred. He serves our meals." Then, his attention turned to the serving zombie and he continued the introduction. "Lanobred, this is Kuja. He will be living here with us for a while."

Lanobred nodded slowly, and looked at Kuja a second time, extracting a half-curious look from the feathery-haired one. "Kuja," the zombie said, and though its speech was slurred, Kuja was shocked it could speak with any clarity at all. "You will want breakfast, then?" the undead creature asked. Again, he was shocked. It could put together an intelligible phrase, which was more than many living creatures could do. Kuja nodded a little, still not venturing to look into the zombie's face.

"Breakfast, yes. Fruit for myself; something warm for our guest, if you can manage it, Lanobred," said the dark moogle, smiling at his gray-skinned artifact of a zombie. Lanobred nodded lethargically, and turned once again toward Kuja. "Do you have a preference, Master Kuja?"

Kuja had to turn toward the zombie this time, as he was sure any other movement would be considered rude. "Eggs would be nice, preferably an omelet. Any kind that doesn't contain mushrooms," he replied, smiling as kindly as he could. The utter revulsion, however, at this abomination of an undead creature, was overpowering, and he had to turn his eyes away once again.

Lanobred nodded his heavy nod a last time and turned to go back to the kitchen, closing behind him a door Kuja had not noticed had been open. He felt as though a great pressure had been raised from his entire being, and he exhaled in relaxation, glad to realize with his next breath that there was very little smell of rot left behind by the deplorable undead.

Asper could do little but grin. "Wonderful, isn't he? I'm so very proud of my little 'Bred," he said, and sat once more on his haunches before Kuja. "You see, all the people living in this complex are undead, most of them having been experiments of mine at some point. Lanobred, among others, has since become a companion of sorts, a friend."

Kuja wondered what sort of creature had such a social difficulty that it was unable to interact with members of its own race, much less on its own plane of living-or-dead. Still, he was gnawing to know where he was, and the opportunity presented itself. "A complex?" He tugged a little at a strand of sheared hair. "What sort of place is this?"

The moogle sat more comfortably on the table, staring into the reflection on the polished surface of the wood. "It started off as a laboratory. After noticing the effects Mist had on living creatures, I decided to try and track down the source and maybe use it to my own advantage." He scratched the top of his head, making the single antenna-like head-bopper, the sphere on the end a bright lime green, bob from side to side. "There was turmoil. Lots of monsters I wasn't able to defeat. It was really strange, so I decided to sneak in, with a cunning plan." With this, he tugged at his fur in annoyance. "So I ended up a moogle. Some disguise - I wasn't able to shed it afterwards."

Kuja nodded a little. He absently ran his thin fingers over the white scars on his other hand, noting that the skin in between was still as smooth as ever; this was no comfort, however. Asper continued.

"Months before, I had managed to resurrect a summoner who had died a few hundred years before in Madain Sari, and I used him to get past the barrier surrounding the Tree. Stupid of me, of course, seeing as we were just sealed in again. I suppose the barrier keeps a few spare eidolons, or something. At any rate, we got in, and the poor thing started falling apart - one of my earlier experiments, you see. So we travelled down into the roots, mainly because he was undead and I was a moogle, we're everywhere - we went unharmed by the things inside. I'm sure they detected us, but seeing as moogles are everywhere and I had a zombie with me, it was all good. Or evil, or whatever else.

"We made our home in the tangle of roots. See, roots curling 'round each other make some great cavities, and of course there're huge caverns everywhere under the tree. The best part was the abundance of Mist - and the liquid you'd get when it condensed. It took huge amounts of cold, but once you get the stuff cold enough, it turns into this lovely, potent liquid you can use in just about anything." Kuja lifted his eyebrows at this, but Asper waved aside his worry with a paw and a chuckle. "Don't worry. None of the chocobo eggs you'll eat will have been treated in it."

"Moving along," he said, and, indeed, did move along. "I decided that, as I wanted very much to keep the summoner I had brought with me, that he would become the first part of my experiment with Iifa. Failed, though, poor little creature. Afterwards, I sought out all sorts of corpses, juicy and... otherwise, and managed to create some very interesting specimens of undead - like Lanobred, as you've just seen."

Kuja shrugged a little, nonchalant. "What's so special about him?" Aside from the fact that he's got some kind of a brain, the genome mused, tail flicking a little.

Asper looked a little puzzled. "You didn't notice? His intelligence, his ability to feel, even if very remotely?" He shook his head. "That's one of the major discoveries I've made, anyway. Because Iifa Mist is made up primarily of souls - even if it's their waste, you know - any creature without a soul can have Iifa fluid - the condensed Mist, that is - placed into them, and thus have an emulation of a soul. And because their soul is emulated, they can feel some basic emotion and think to an extent. It's rather fascinating."

Kuja nodded. He had to admit, it was rather remarkable that any Gaian creature had been able to devise such a use for Mist, much less find its nature. Asper was most certainly more impressive and accomplished than the patched-together one had previously thought, though he still stood adamantly by his decision that the little creature was sadistic. "I'm impressed, Asper," he said, voicing how he felt. "So this entire complex is a residence for yourself and your creations?"

Asper nodded. "Yes. Pretty much. That's how we found you - you literally fell upon us, as it were. Somehow that other fellow escaped, but you managed to land right on our doorstep. What luck," the moogle said, showing Kuja once more his yellowed teeth. Kuja feigned a smile.

Once again, the moogle expressed his glee by bobbing up and down. "And you haven't heard the beginning of it, Kuja," he said, grimacing excitedly.

"Oh, joy," said Kuja, his grimace lacking the excitement to match Asper's.

---

"Breakfast," Kuja rumbled, looking down at the plate of omelet before him. It looked delicious - then again, in the state his stomach was in, even Asper looked delicious. But the omelet smelled appetizing, at least, and he could see, through the folded egg, the little sweet parcels of onion and cheese and olive that made it all the more wonderful to behold. "Hungry," he rumbled again, and stabbed a silver fork into it, too desperate to fill his empty stomach to think about table manners. Slicing through the perfectly cooked egg - just a little on the crisped side, at the edges - he broke off a piece of the omelet, dipped it in a little bit of sweet tomato sauce, which he didn't mind, and shoved the whole thing into his mouth, savouring the sweet, mingling flavours.

After he had chewed and swallowed thoroughly, he grinned ravenously at Asper, too glad about the delicious food to mind his manners. "It's excellent," he blurted, and proceeded to feed himself another piece.

Asper munched his piece of ugli 1 fruit affirmitavely. "I make sure to get all the best cooks once they've gone. They may not remember their lives, but give them a recipe and they'll make it beautiful." He munched a slice of the rather homely fruit, held in a tiny paw, and licked the juices from his face with a green tongue. Kuja had noticed the colour of Asper's tongue before, but hadn't remarked; he had noticed that most of the other areas that were normally pink were green, as well, and assumed it was just a fluke that came along with his disguise.

He, as he bit another sweet morsel of onion, then remembered that bit in the conversation about 'placing Iifa fluid into creatures without a soul', simultaneously recalling the colour of Iifa mist - blazing, bright green. He locked his eyes upon Asper as he savoured the flavour of his omelet, examining the green tones of his head-bobber and eyes, as the moogle daintly stuffed himself with citrus fruit.

"What about you?" Kuja asked, dipping a little of his omelet into the sweet tomato sauce before putting the bit on his tongue to enjoy it thoroughly. The tomato sauce had just enough tanginess, and contrasted with the sweetness of the cheese and onions; he was exceedingly pleased, and stuffed his own face - though just as daintily as Asper was. He had decided that stuffing one's face daintily involved eating very very quickly, but neatly, and did so with great enjoyment.

"Hmm?" Asper asked, through bites of ugli.

Kuja stirred the tomato sauce absently with his fork, leaning his textured cheek on his empty palm. "Well, you're the wrong colour, but I figured black was just a personal choice..." He then stabbed the air before Asper with his fork, and, looking closely at the little moogle, asked, "The green bits confuse me, though. Does the green mean you..."

"...used myself as a test subject?" Asper asked, finishing Kuja's question almost to the word and ending with a toothy little grin. "Of course. Black was a personal choice, but either way, that's the best way of doing things - first-hand." "So?" Kuja asked, intrigued. The effects of Mist had always been known to him, but never had he seen or heard of such a thing as the experiment of inserting Mist directly into a creature. "How did it end up, other than changing pink to green?"

Asper adjusted his seat, pushing the fruit aside and gathering his little paws daintily into his lap. "Well, because I was alive when I decided to insert Mist-fluid into myself, I knew the results would be significantly different from those results I'd get from any undead creature - but the promise and the idea were just too much for me to resist, even with the dangers involved. So, bit by bit, I had Mist inserted into my bloodstream until my blood was fifty percent Mist fluid."

Kuja nodded, motioning for Asper to continue as he finished his omelet and reached for a kiwi that sat in the basket in the middle of the table. He split it with a knife and began scooping out the tangy flesh with a spoon, listening intently on Asper's talk.

"The changes were... significant, at first - nothing severely physiological, other than making my pink parts green; more mental changes. The first additions of Mist into myself caused hostility and very violent reactions - just general bad reactions. But after I got used to it being in my bloodstream, I found it to be more invigorating, and it cleared my head quite a bit, as though I had just inhaled a whole whack of ether..." - here he shook his head and made a face at the memory - "...so I decided I needed more, and more, and eventually it got to be like a drug." Asper grinned, but shook his head. "Now I depend on the balance of Mist and blood, and I get regular treatments of Mist. It's great. I'm like Super-Moogle."

"Mmm," the genome murmured, through juicy bites of kiwifruit. He was surprised at its freshness - then again, he was more surprised at the fact that anything at all was alive down here, in the roots of a giant tree that had once filtered the souls of Gaia into Terra. "That's all very exciting. You've made some fascinating discoveries, Asper, as to the origin of the Mist and its composition."

"Actually," said Asper, beastly face plastered with a blithe expression, "I was wondering as to whether you had anything to impart on the subject."

Kuja looked up from his kiwi, lips sticky. He wiped it away with a napkin, though his stare never left the merry moogle. "What? Why? You seem to have sufficient information regarding it..."

Asper gave a melodramatic shrug, his expression changing to a pathetic, almost depressed one. "But since you're going to be staying anyway, would you please at least talk to me about it?" His expression shifted again, this time to an idea-filled, inspired one. "A partner in research and development would be simply marvelous, and you don't really get anything miraculous outta the peanut gallery, y'know." He jerked a paw in the direction of the kitchen. Kuja assumed he meant Lanobred and the rest of the population of the complex.

"An intellectual equal would be astounding to have around," the moogle continued, munching the last bits of his fruit with pulp-stained teeth. "Someone upon whom I could disclose my discoveries. Bounce them off of. You know?"

The genome finished his kiwi and placed the empty skins on the plate before him, and reached for one of the cucumbers that sat in the basket of fruits. "Any salt?" he asked, acting as though Asper hadn't said anything. Fumbling for and with the salt shaker, the little black moogle brought the salt to Kuja, who lifted the glass container, sprinkled the grains on a part of the cucumber he had bitten off, and chewed. However, the feline creature's expression told him he was still intent on the question of scientific discovery.

"Um," said Kuja, munching the cucumber and marveling at its firmess. No fruit or vegetable should be able to survive down here and be so water-filled, he mused, enjoying the flavours of salt and cucumber mixed together on his tongue. "It'd be nice, I suppose."

Despite Kuja's somewhat deadpan response, Asper appeared thrilled with this development. "Oohoho, how excellent! I believe we shall start as soon as... um... as soon as you're ready, Kuja..."

In Asper's outburst, Kuja had draped himself over the chair, stuck a leg up on the table, and was munching the cucumber with one arm behind his head, apparently comfortable where he stood - or sat.

The moogle was a little shocked, but half-managed to camouflage it with a sweet smile. "I'll have the servants run you a bath, then, hm? We can talk more about this later."

1 Ugli (pronounced hoo-glee), a Jamaican fruit, is a delicious cross between a mandarin, a grapefruit and something else. It's quite true to its name on the outside, with a sometimes shriveled green peel, but the inside is ravishing, sweet, and seedless. It's soft and it just melts in your mouth. If you come across it, sometimes under the name 'uniq fruit', I suggest you try it, even if it looks rather unappetizing. You can eat it straight, no sugar or anything. .

finit: troisième chapitre