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CHAPTER 1:
BLADES OF PRISMATIC ICE
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Author's Notes: The compositions for this Chapter are, in order of scene: 'Omen,' from the XENOGEARS Original Soundtrack, Disc Two; and then 'To the Last Drop Of My Blood,' from the VALKYRIE PROFILE Original Soundtrack, Disc Two. Both of these compositions can be found on KINGDOM HEARTS Insider.
Something was off; and in ways Cloud had never perceived it as off before in all the decades he'd been fighting for Chaos since Shinryu had either wiped his memory, or he'd been brought here to begin with.
Garland still refused to tell him whether he'd been living here for more than the around one hundred ninety years since he'd woken up in the Land of Discord, near the end of the Ninth Cycle.
That was something else to get out of Garland when he finished tracking him down.
Assuming Cloud could even find him, with the usual whorls and warps in the currents of discord and harmony that engulfed this unnatural planet far quieter for miles around than Cloud could recall them being since he'd first began filling the all but empty vessel of discord he'd become with memories and energies.
A stick broke under his left foot, the sound sharper than usual in the unnatural silence of the forest.
He could sense Garland nearby, in a Gateway just a little further south, but even the presence of a warrior of Chaos was muted.
Cloud's eyes narrowed slightly.
No.
Quiet wasn't the right word.
The sensations of shifting and flowing discord and harmony around him were muffled.
They were suppressed, drowned out by something that clawed faintly at the edges of Cloud's senses in a way that was even more alien than this world had registered when he'd completed his first set of lessons under Garland about how to register it in its timeless tides.
Cloud started violently, stumbling to a halt, as he at last realized what he was perceiving.
He was still wrong.
Garland's presence wasn't muffled.
It was obscured.
Because, whatever the reason there was nothing wild or unrestrained about it, the silence he was feeling was actually an incredibly calm blanket of discord, so spread out and coalesced at the same time it was akin to white noise.
His heart rate picked up, and he broke into a run in the direction of the Gateway almost before he realized he'd decided to; ignoring the leaves and stones and other terrain of the forest while keeping as much of the terror and horror gripping his heart away as he could justify.
Whatever Exdeath was up to this time, it was something much more ambitious than any strategy the warriors of discord had implemented since as far back as Cloud's memory stretched.
His attempt to assassinate Chaos hadn't just been futile, Chaos himself may no longer even be the worst threat to Tifa.
Perhaps even to Kuja; because Cloud didn't know if the forces he was now sensing were an ally of Chaos or Cosmos, or even a third army seeking to claim this all but untamed and uncivilized planet as its own.
"Strife, was it?" a helmeted voice Cloud had just heard a few times questioned from nearby.
Cloud skidded to a halt and twisted, the Buster Sword in his hands and at the ready midway between attack and defense within seconds.
Kain Highwind was standing on top of a log, his own lance in a neutral position.
Someone else was sitting slouched against the back of a tree trunk to his right, but Cloud couldn't tell whether he or she or it was taking a break or asleep.
Or dead.
"Don't worry," Kain spoke before Cloud could say anything.
"I'm not here to engage you this time. I'm in the process of assisting one of my companions in making a strategic retreat."
"From Garland?" Cloud questioned; seeing no reason not to allow his tense fright into his voice, or to reveal to Kain that he'd deserted.
Kain's visible eyebrows rose in his visor.
"You weren't informed yet?" Kain asked back.
"Your comrades in arms have recruited new allies, a vast throng of crystal soldiers they name manikins."
Cloud couldn't breathe.
"If you're worried about Lockhart; as far as I'm aware, she's all right for the time being."
A bit of the tense terror loosened.
Cloud shifted to see who was resting behind the tree, but Kain moved and brought his lance into a more defensive stance.
"I'm with Bartz, not Tifa.
"But I don't rate Tifa's chances of survival as successful for long.
"The manikins have us drastically outnumbered, and they themselves are inexhaustible. They're the most merciless adversaries I've faced in all my time fighting to defend this world. Even the most unrelenting among you, such as Kefka, show less restraint than they do; they're nothing but mindless drones who are aware of solely one impulse.
"To murder."
A small amount of further tension left him.
"Sounds like the kind of strategy Exdeath can be relied upon to create, all right," Cloud replied, forcing
"Swarms of soldiers who think for themselves even less than him won't do him one bit of good when their opponents can just run circles around them."
"I see Exdeath thinks as little of you as you of him," Kain responded, a small amount of dry humor in his words.
"No manikin I have yet faced is as proficient at physical combat or magic as the ordinary warriors of harmony, but every single one of them is much more talented and skilled and strong than the best typical soldier I recall from my homeworld."
Cloud's heart couldn't beat.
He wasn't sure if it mattered if this led to a duel, as he'd be forced to confront a warrior of Cosmos in battle sooner or later anyway.
But if he kept up the pretense of serving as a loyal soldier of Chaos, he might at least be able to delay how long it took the warriors of harmony from learning he was now traveling on his own, and the most vulnerable soldier of discord around.
"In that case, I could have a talk with Exdeath; but I see no reason to when I have a means of filling in the blanks right before me," Cloud said with calm challenge.
He ran his gaze over Kain.
The other warrior's armor was dented and chipped in a number of places, and scorched as though from explosions or spells. His posture was balanced, and he still appeared capable of putting up a major fight; but now that Cloud was looking for it, he could see clear signs of exhaustion in how Kain was breathing, and a small but significant degree of slow reaction time in the alertness of his eyes.
"I had disagreement with Bartz about whether or not his refusal to retreat was reckless; and, shall I say, it happened when neither of us could afford that," Kain explained.
But Cloud could tell there was something the dragoon wasn't telling him about that argument that had no direct tie to the manikins.
"Do tell," another, high pitched and sarcastically whimsical, familiar voice interjected.
Cloud clenched his teeth.
On the other hand, if Kain could be convinced not to get involved, he might be able to settle at least one major score now.
"I'm just fresh from a fun bitty whining carnival of bathetic blather of my own, looking for a likely sight for sore slaughter to take out my currently boundlessly bubbling rotten lousy mood on," Kefka remarked from where he was floating above a thicket of pine bushes while reclining in the air with the side of his head on his right palm.
"And looksee' here who giggled to grace me with their prattle.
But Kefka's own jester's garb was much more torn and shredded and charred than Kain's armor; so Cloud knew he had recently lost, or at least been pushed so much on the defensive he'd withdrawn from; a duel to the death with a warrior of Cosmos.
He must have been alerted by now that Cloud had deserted, but he was still willing to confront him and a warrior of Cosmos when he was not just outnumbered, but in no condition to fight them both.
But Kefka's recent success at playing him against Sephiroth was just the most recent reason for Cloud to know better than to believe the harlequin could be written off as a mostly harmless prankster.
Cloud carefully reached out with tendrils of discord, probing to see if any other warriors of Chaos were nearby and preparing to ambush him.
Kefka rolled not just his eyes into the back of his head, but his head and body in a number of midair backwards somersaults.
"Why go to all the trouble of springing a bush-am-I-now-going-to-whack with my has been pals o' mine; when I have an enemy neighborhood friendly at my beck and phon. Ey, to do it for me?" he cried in euphoric glee, and he broke into giggles at the end of his words.
Cloud jolted violently.
He turned in Kain's direction, but Kain was already gone.
"Not."
Cloud barely registered the shadow appearing above him before a substance that felt like a rubbery globe rammed into the back of his head.
He staggered forwards, shifting the Buster Sword in front of him to block what he knew would be a magical strike from Kefka or a Havoc Wing and using his momentum to break into a run.
Something that felt like the edge of a sword sliced across his back in an arc Cloud was unfamiliar with and he knew the warrior of Chaos who had been tasked to work with Kefka to dispose of him was the one soldier whose fighting style he was unfamiliar with, and thus the least capable of countering when facing even an injured wizard who could strike at him from long range.
There came the sound of metal clanging and jarring against metal, and Cloud whirled to see Kain standing behind him, his lance braced against another swing from Tidus' partially translucent Brotherhood.
"Joy and happiness upon wretched wonders," Kefka snarled with vicious savagery, now sounding not just genuinely angry, but lethally furious and hateful.
"Does the concept of 'enemies without silver lines' mean anything to you brainless baboons?"
"I don't believe I professed to have betrayed a single one of my companions," Kain replied evenly, pushing forwards to attempt to push Tidus backwards and off balance.
"So I see no reason to stand by while you turn on one of your own without knowing you have a valid reason for doing so.
"I am, as I said; merely attempting to dissuade my own companions from taking rash courses of action."
"By knocking out every single one you can and then dragging them off somewhere out of some obscure illusion the manikins will be less capable of sweeping them away if this tricks Shinryu into performing his purification on the battlefield?" Tidus snarled back with furious hate of his own.
Cloud found his mouth was dropping a little.
The warriors of Cosmos knew about the purifications?
"I know a treacherous monster just like you, who used to give me that precise spiel when I begged him to stop drinking.
"'Never do today what you can put off until tomorrow.'
"There is no tomorrow unless you win today!"
With those words, a rubbery blue and white ball that must be a blitzball appeared before Tidus' feet, and he disengaged his lock with Kain to pull back and kick it up into his face.
Something shifted over Kain's face at Tidus' words, but this didn't cause him to drop his guard so much he was unable to use his dragoon dexterity to leap up once, land on top of the blitzball, and then jump up a second time to somersault forwards and stab downwards with his lance in a double handed thrust at Tidus' head.
But Tidus must be a prodigy of his own on whatever planet he lived on; because even though he'd just been newly brought here, he didn't take a defensive stance.
He slid forwards under the downward thrust, inside Kain's guard, and formed another blitzball to kick it up into Kain's face with incredible wrath.
Kain went flying backwards through the air in Kefka's direction.
He turned his tumble into a back flip to land between Cloud and Kefka, who was now standing behind Cloud; enabling Cloud to confront Tidus with less impediments; but one of his legs buckled as he landed and he almost fell.
It was very likely, due to the confrontation Kain had already been in, Tidus would be able to outfight Kain.
Cloud considered his options.
If he used the distraction Kain was providing him to run; it was very possible either Kain or Kefka would lose this battle, or perhaps both, before Tidus defeated Kain maybe even temporarily or permanently fatally, leaving him with two less hunters.
But if Cloud left, and then Kain escaped; whether or not he neutralized Kefka in the process; his unusual knowledge of the repeating phases of the war and his plan for exploiting it made him a certain wild card danger to both Tifa and Kuja.
Cloud had no clear idea how to protect Tifa and Kuja from the general cycle.
Another rogue warrior was a different matter.
He could ensure Kain was no longer a danger to either of them, or both; one way or another.
Kefka must have seen something in Cloud's face, for he then stuck his tongue out at Cloud as derisively and mockingly as possible.
"Don't you fret your boorish broody bitterness about Kujie-coo any longer."
Coldness screamed up Cloud's spine and washed throughout all of his body.
"Shinryu, and little meddle young me; will be sure to take very good care of him."
Cloud pushed the surge of hatred and anger away as far as he could, and he hoped his face wasn't revealing anything.
He didn't know precisely what had happened, or what Kuja had done.
"Can I assume this isn't just another of your diverting escapes?" Cloud questioned mildly.
Kefka's face contorted into a visage of utter and full hatred and furious loathing, but he threw both of his hands above his shoulders and shrugged exaggeratedly.
"Assume?" he questioned.
"Do I look like a sumo?"
Even with how much Tidus hated Kain, he must have retained an amount of his good cheer; because he laughed a small amount in true amusement, clearly picturing Kefka painted and dressed as he was but with a figure the same as a sumo wrestler's.
"Oh no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no yes to all of those noes, all that happened was the flopping turkey in a freak ow-sh-ameful-slush flunking at chewing up the sludge-ery fop removed my gaes from Terra because he didn't like how I was giving him a pep talk about ceasing and desisting to lounge in the petty past and to hang himself as horrifically and excruciatingly torturously as potentially possi-impaled-on-the-horns-of-a-posse-of-bulls in the ruin-bow of the present for plagiarizing the intelligence of my property."
Cloud pushed down the rising flood of light relief.
"If you intend to ensure Chaos doesn't revive him before Shinryu does, I take it you want him returned to a vessel without most of his memories so you can take vengeance for what he did to Terra by virtually turning him into her."
It wasn't a question.
"Give the dunce a black and blue and purple all over rip-out-all-of-his-bones for dullness," Kefka responded with hateful and furiously bitter sarcasm.
Then, if he could at least somehow delay the manikins' likely victory until Chaos resurrected Kuja first, with all of his memories intact; Kuja would emerge from his recent loss little the worse for wear.
Could he afford to risk battling two warriors of Chaos to protect Kain, when there was no guarantee even the two of them together could defeat another battle weary warrior and Tidus?
Or that Kain wouldn't see him as a full fledged enemy if Cloud said the wrong thing, or made the wrong move?
However, whatever else Cloud did, Kefka needed to fall here for certain now.
If Cloud couldn't delay the purification, but Kefka participated in it, Kefka would lose all of his memories of Kuja's own treachery for at least a short period of time; removing him as a threat to Kuja until the wizard was able to stand on his own well enough to defend himself against any of Kefka's tricks.
That meant he couldn't delay any longer.
He hadn't made any promises to Kuja, but he didn't need to have promised to protect someone to know Kuja deserved his failure to do so no less than Tifa did.
He didn't take the time to surge into a fast move, because that would be too predictable.
He just barreled at Kefka as fast as possible without becoming uncoordinated.
But then Tidus was above him, and another blitzball was smashing into the ground in front of him hard enough to kick up a volcano of chunks of dirt.
Within the next second, before the rubble could fall enough to reveal what Kefka was doing, his six angelic wings were thrusting out of his back and extending to plunge at Cloud's chest and stomach in a Havoc Wing.
Cloud's eyes widened, and he hurled himself backwards, but the reinforced leathery tips of Kefka's wings tore deeply enough into his torso he wasn't able to correct in time to pull forwards and keep the edge of Brotherhood from carving into his spine.
For Tidus to then whirl with fluid and limber athleticism to smash the pommel of it into Kain's lance as it sliced at him from the side.
Sick terror filled Cloud for a new reason.
If Tidus could adapt this well to fighting as a team with someone he'd barely battled side by side with before, yet he was also as determined as Cloud to battle to win, while Cloud had no idea how Tidus fought and the other warriors of discord had had plenty of time to fill Tidus in on how Cloud did; his chances of winning this whether he fought at Kain's side or not were far lower than he'd believed.
But with the terror came desperation, and Cloud drew upon as much of that desperation as he could to bring together enough discord around him to morph the Buster Sword into the shining rainbow of the Ultima Weapon.
Without delay, he segued into a regular, incomparably more lethal, Omnislash in Tidus' direction.
Tidus brought up Brotherhood to attempt to defend himself, but Cloud leapt and whirled and contorted and jumped about and over him with practiced ease, cutting into him with every single one of the strokes in the Omnislash sequence and then jumping to deliver the last overhead double gripped lunge down at Tidus' head.
Tidus staggered back, and Cloud paid as little attention as necessary to the sounds of Kain slashing at Kefka from close range and keeping him staggering back on the defensive while he darted into a series of alternating wide swings at different speeds and tight chops from acute or ordinary angles; seeking to keep Tidus struggling to anticipate how to defend himself.
Then Tidus' own Brotherhood morphed into a brighter blue blade that was less translucent.
Cloud pulled back to position his blade, once again the Buster Sword, in front of him at a medium guard he could adjust as necessary.
Tidus responded to this by unleashing the gathered discord at once and cutting at the Buster Sword with his discord reinforced sword with both hands, and Cloud felt the impact of the drastically superior weapon ram the Buster Sword back against his chest hard enough to tear all of his breath out of him.
Cloud countered by dropping into a sweeping kick at Tidus' ankles.
The blitzer jumped up as Cloud had anticipated, so he then positioned the Buster Sword and swung it in a whirl to send the boulders of a Meteorain into the air that then made a series of sharp turns to cascade down at Tidus from above.
Cloud pushed himself up on his elbows as Tidus fell back, and bent up to swing at the back of one of Tidus' ankles, seeking to sever the tendon there and prevent him from kicking blitzballs as effectively.
Pain detonated out of his stomach as Tidus blocked the strike with his sword and then kicked another blitzball like a cannon into his abdomen.
Cloud took the opening of the unwieldy block to slice another time at Tidus' new sword as the other swordsman landed, loosening the athlete's grip on it; then he kicked out with his nearest leg and tore it out of Tidus' grip with that foot.
Tidus took the opportunity Cloud presented him with his head tilted a large amount back to launch another blitzball into the underside of his chin, but Cloud had anticipated this and rolled backwards with the collision to prevent its momentum from snapping his head back hard enough to break his neck.
As he landed, he spun the Buster Sword and sent another hail of Meteorains crashing down over Tidus' enhanced sword.
Uncertainty passed over Tidus' face.
Energy rushed through Cloud.
He could defeat the blitzballer.
He shifted onto one knee and risked a look behind him to see Kefka turning his head slightly to look at where he must have discerned Bartz was hidden, seeking to convince Kain to drop his guard by believing Kefka was going to target him.
But Kain didn't take the bait, and he exploited the brief window of opening Kefka had just given him to stab his spear into Kefka's side in front of where the harlequin extended the middle wing of his left set.
Kefka staggered back with a vicious, savage snarl, but Cloud knew the damage was done.
Any attempt to launch a Havoc Wing or morph into the avatar of destruction would wrack him with pain, and leave him vulnerable if he made the effort, at least briefly.
Tidus must have seen this, too, for he snarled himself, angrily.
"If you want me to stop Cosmos from taking over Chaos' home, don't fight as dirty as my old man does!"
Kefka sighed with heavily deep exaggerated melodrama at what he obviously saw as Tidus naïvete.
Kain started a little.
But unease tumbled within Cloud for a different reason now.
When he'd first arrived, or woken back up after Shinryu purified him of all memory, he'd been told the same thing.
Chaos had discovered the evolving species of this planet were close to attaining intelligence and sought to nurture them by utilizing the power of discord to reshape its astral facets and ecosystem at will, but Cosmos believed they should be brought into full sentience by harmony and called skilled warriors from other planets throughout space and time to prevent Chaos from harnessing discord for these purposes, and wrest control of the whole planet. The warriors she'd called to her side were often naïve and idealistic; so Chaos had countered this by summoning seasoned combatants who refused to be restricted by altruism, regardless of how unscrupulously they were willing to wage war.
No one had believed Cloud wouldn't be skeptical of claims as farfetched as this; but Chaos had offered to let any warrior who didn't believe Cosmos had declared the war stay out of it as much as Cosmos' forces let him, her, or it; and thus far he hadn't gone back on his word, so Cloud had been willing to give him the benefit of the doubt this was the truth.
He didn't care to turn a blind eye to the immoral and amoral beliefs of soldiers such as Exdeath and Mateus, but they hadn't yet been able to force those beliefs on anyone here, and Cloud had learned many of Cosmos' humane warriors came from their homeworlds and a large number of them even saw Chaos' warriors as personal foes; so he'd been willing to trust, whenever the war at last ended, any unscrupulous warrior of Chaos who made it home would be neutralized by a warrior of Cosmos or one or more of his, her, or its companions afterwards.
But he'd known from the beginning Tidus' degree of sincere morality had no place among Chaos' ranks, so he'd kept quiet about his opinions of most of Chaos' soldiers the majority of the time.
Even Sephiroth.
Cloud had regained enough memories of Sephiroth by the time Chaos had called him here his initial impulse at seeing the swordmaster Cloud was even more sure now was one of his least favorite people on his homeworld had been to stride right up to Chaos and ask him if he'd lost his senses, because as long as Sephiroth was serving at his side Cloud had no intentions of participating in any battles at all.
But then he realized he was letting his personal bias obscure his judgment; because whatever the full extent of Sephiroth's own crimes against Cloud and his loved ones and friends and homeworlds were, they couldn't be that much worse than those committed by warriors such as Exdeath and Mateus.
So he'd said nothing.
Tidus clearly hated whatever warrior of Cosmos was his father; most likely Jecht.
But, otherwise, his kindness was too heartfelt for him to be willing to cooperate with a warrior such as Kefka.
So how had Chaos convinced him to even fight at the side of one of his immoral and amoral warriors at all?
Something was at play here that was, in countless ways, even worse than Exdeath's utilization of the manikins.
"Sentiment has no place on a battlefield," Cloud reproved Tidus himself, his tone understanding but firm.
"If you refuse to do what needs to be done, you'll lose, and so will this world."
Tidus scowled back at him.
"I don't need to hear even more hypocrisy from a traitor, thank you," he retorted.
"I'm fighting for sentiment.
"Not just to put my old man in his place for what he's done to me; but to show Chaos he has a friend who empathizes with him, and wants to protect him.
"He won't admit it, but I can tell from his overall attitude he has the same issues with his own old man as I do."
Surprisingly, Kefka shifted a very small amount, and a more focused fury and revulsion flickered over his face.
Cloud started violently; and sick empathetic and sympathetic understanding caused his insides to distort.
Partially at the memories of how every child he'd seen in Nibelheim who had claimed to be Tifa's friend had revealed he or she had just been kissing up to her because her father was the major when she'd headed up the bridge and everyone else but Cloud himself had abandoned her to almost fall to her death.
When would he be able to show Tifa someone cared about her as a person, and not just an instrument of social status?
Why hadn't he given up and accepted he'd never be able to show her that?
He'd even forgotten her this time, even though he'd remembered her before Cosmos had brought her here.
Just as he was sure his attempts to treat her as an actual person that night at the well, had all been for nothing; and she'd wholly, or all but wholly, forgotten about him once he'd left for Midgar even though he'd successfully been able to–
Whatever had really happened, Cloud knew he must have broken almost all of the rest of his promise in every way that mattered.
He needed to focus on the surging hope.
Maybe he didn't need to find Garland after all.
"I couldn't tell," Cloud responded.
"Chaos never talks to any of us about his past, with the possible exception of Garland. Mateus doesn't believe he even remembers all of it."
Tidus blinked in surprise.
"He must remember enough," the blitzballer replied.
"He's filled with the same sense of abandonment and betrayal I am; and hatred for one or more people because someone murdered at least one of his parents.
"Maybe his parents did once care for him, and something went wrong, or maybe they never loved him from the beginning."
An idea came to mind, and it was one that caused Cloud to feel even sicker everywhere within him.
Should he have deserted?
"But whatever the case, one or both of his parents must have died; but before they did, and perhaps even now if one is still alive; one or both began attempting to run his entire life for him. So he now both hates one or both of them and wants to make one or both of them proud of him; while at the same time he wants to stick it to whoever murdered his mother or old man, or both his parents.
"That's what Chaos is fighting for.
"So I want to show Chaos I'll be proud of him whether he wins or loses, and all I want is for him to stand up for himself.
"That's why I'm fighting for Chaos, even though most of his warriors are as rotten as my old man is.
"I don't care what the rest of his soldiers think; if they're going to cause him to prove himself to his family and get back at its murderer or murderers by sinking to their level, I'm not going to put up with it."
Kefka brought one hand to his stomach, and the other to his throat, and then he floated up into the air on his stomach and bent his face down to just above the ground as though he was about to throw up violently.
"Toodle loo, toddler.
"This is war.
"War divides families against themselves."
Tidus glared at him.
"You don't need to tell me that.
"That's also why I can beat both of these hypocrites by myself.
"Make like the clown you are and go frown somewhere else."
Kefka stiffened violently, but then he smirked with smug triumph.
"And watch you pass up your chance to get even with your own dear old Daddy-O?
"Mateus initially wanted to track him down and bring him to you; but since we're relatively closer to the Gateway the cloud that doesn't have her head all filled with fluff likes to hole up in when she has nothing to do to balance her null and Void checkbook, we made a switcheroo, and she's been keeping an eye out for him.
"She found him while I've been dodging dragoon goon, picking fights and taking glass numbskulls apart with someone else from your homeworld."
Surprise, and genuine interest, manifested on Tidus' face.
"Now what was that about not having a tomorrow unless you win today?"
"The day isn't over yet," Tidus responded, innumerable contained feelings whirling through his voice, and across his shifting face.
"If I stick it to him now, that means losing my chance to do it to Kain.
"One thing at a time.
"Tell Cloud of Darkness to keep them under observation, and I'll alert you when I've found another Gateway with a Dream's End memory fragment in an active state."
Kain leveled his lance at Kefka, a clear threat about what would happen if he dropped his guard long enough to tell his ally to continue spying on two other warriors of Cosmos.
"It's your move," he informed Kefka, his words contained and warning.
Kefka opened his mouth wide and dropped his chin all the way to the ground while dragging his feet and back up in an arc sending them backwards and upwards to pantomime his jaw dropping all the way to the ground.
"This is one for the record books.
"The truculent turkey, the slithering sky," what did Vaan have to do with any of this? "the whiny weather, and now the ace asphyxiating in melancholy morality.
"I take it back.
"This is the least fun that I've had in epochs."
Kefka's voice became quiet and engulfed in exaggeratedly bitter and dismissive revulsion.
"I'll just find me some nearby ruins I can raze near moogles meeting to mouth melodramatically with much meaning, who will actually give me a resounding thankupo and cacophonous ovation for enlivening their dull daylight."
Before Kain could stop him from teleporting away; perhaps to truly do this, but undoubtedly to telepathically contact the Cloud of Darkness, Kefka dispersed into the air.
Kain turned to face Tidus, and repositioned his lance.
Cloud rose to his feet.
But then Bartz's voice sounded with weak, partially aware disorientation from behind a tree; seared with pain from severe injuries Cloud knew Kain was competent enough to have ensured would leave him too weak to move for enough weeks the manikins had plenty of time to initiate the next purification, and unconscious the majority of that time.
"Taking into account what you're talking about; there's a Gateway known as the Chasm In the Rotting Land where, from what Squall once told me to try to convince me to leave him in peace and go on another treasure hunt; I have reasons to believe you may be able to find clues about what has Chaos' goat so much.
"Including how, if it's true; someone as kind as Cosmos can possibly be Chaos' mom."
Cloud just registered one array of events unfurling along with the horrified sickness and terrified shock.
Tidus eyes flew wide.
And then tears brimmed in his eyes and his face contorted in a vicious, pitch pearl scowl of total and whole unrestrained hatred and fury that appeared to be one of the very last expressions that belonged on his visage.
Then so much discord coalesced around him in distorting and coursing eddies and whorls that it could be seen visibly; the sign of Tidus breaking through a restriction limiting how much discord he could draw into the vessel of disorder he was while also very likely causing at least a small amount of his memories to become clearer.
Within a second, his sword was back in his hands, and the dimming black washed out around him in a spreading corona as he threw all of his enhanced self into a burst of potency that would expend it all.
"Don't you dare betray Yuna!" he screamed at Kain in a coagulation of anguish and hate and horrified despair and terrified desperate determination.
"Terror of Zanarkand!"
Then, before Cloud could react in time to say or do anything to attempt to protect Kain from the combination assault; Tidus rocketed up into the air to swoop low and down at the badly injured, exhausted warrior of Cosmos; who Cloud knew was all but defenseless before a combination assault he was most likely in no condition to endure.
"Hey, why don't we make a promise? Umm, if you get really famous and I'm ever in a bind… You come save me, all right?"
"Cloud! Why'd you bring Tifa to a place like this!?"
"What the h-ll's the matter with you!?"
"What if she dies!?"
Tidus was shrieking into Kain from in front and above and in long, wide slashes–
–Tifa was walking up the path towards the bridge and the other children were turning away or moving uncertainly and frightened to follow her and then spinning and running–
–Blood was geysering out of Kain's chest and stomach from locations that Cloud could tell meant at least one of his lungs had been punctured and most of his ribs were broken and then Tidus sprang into the air above Kain and in front of him and another blitzball appeared in front of him–
–The bridge snapped free from its moorings and distorted to the side at an odd angle and Tifa staggered and slid to grab for purchase and Cloud broke into a sprint reaching out for her but she lost her traction and
fell
fell
fell
fell
fell
fell
to land on the copper tiles with blood drowning her stomach and legs and chest where it had been severed by a long, curved blade as though she was nothing more than crumpled tissue paper bent at odd angles
Kain's head snapped back as the blitzball seared into his face like a careening planetoid of pallid blue corroded oceans and white frigid deathly ice of its own
"What I want, Cloud, is to sail the darkness of the cosmos with this planet as my vessel."
"The planet's dyin', Cloud."
and the dragoon fell back boneless to lie unmoving on the ground as Tidus landed and his sword came apart and coagulated back into the Brotherhood, breathing weakly, blood bubbling up into his mouth with each breath.
"So, Cloud. Are you – I mean – do we know each other? I can't remember much of anything from before… all this. But when I heard your name, I thought we might–"
Tidus shifted to charge Cloud, and for a brief instant Cloud just wanted to let him do it.
Tifa hadn't thought about him at all after he'd promised to be there for her if she needed him, after he'd spent almost all of his life striving desperately to show her someone genuinely cared about her and didn't just see her as a thing for attaining popularity; and it had all been for less than even the polar opposite of nothing.
And now she literally didn't possess even the most threadbare recollection of him.
"Those memories you have, I hope you manage to keep them."
"We are far from being friends, but I suppose it does no harm for me to wish the same for you."
But Kuja was now in danger of losing all those memories, and he was deaddeaddeadbrokendead and for all Cloud knew it was absolute and not transient and Shinryu couldn't even repair his ruined body and soul while wiping clear his mind or Chaos mend him without him losing any of the precious memories he could now hold near and close
Cloud wasn't sure why he was shifting into a defensive position.
But then Tidus saw Kain more clearly, what he'd just done registered, and his eyes went slack and his mouth dropped drawn in horror and self hatred.
Terrified, self hating tears appeared in his eyes and spilled down his face.
For an unknown reason, he brought his fingers to his mouth, shaking and trembling and shuddering with begging desperation; and he began to whistle so desperately he appeared to be striving for breath.
But nothing happened, and after a large amount of time passed Tidus laughed with broken and agonized hatred and reproachful guilt directed at himself as much as Kain.
"Who am I kidding?" Tidus questioned to no one.
"Even if Yuna remembers me, even if that promise had been for her to come running to protect me, there's no way she can see me as me any longer, or want me to be myself."
Everything emptied from inside Cloud.
"I've crossed the line of no return.
"I'm just an unfeeling, remorseless murderer now.
"I've truly begun to fill the vessel I am with discord, but I've now wholly enlisted as nothing but the empty vessel of death and pain I was conscripted as.
"And, unlike Kain, I don't believe in false hope."
But then his eyes lowered towards Kain.
"Unlike Kefka, though; I refuse to give up all my scruples.
"I have no intention of finishing off an enemy at my mercy.
"You look like you want to know more about Chaos yourself, so let's finish this at the Chasm In the Rotting Land."
A column of rising black surged up around him, and then he was gone.
Nothing more than seconds of misgiving filled Cloud.
He knew, if he did this, any chances he had the often idealistic, altruistic warriors of harmony wouldn't see him as an enemy would vanish.
Particularly if Bartz was somehow able to return to Cosmos or his companions now that Kain was incapacitated, and might very well die from his wounds, and Bartz informed his comrades in arms that a warrior of Chaos had deserted but was still willing to fight at the side of a loose cannon for Cosmos who was willing to take down his own companions if he believed losing the battle gave them a better chance of winning the war.
Sickness warped Cloud's insides.
A deserter who was now about to desert Kain, as well; and in very large likelihood leave him here to die drowning asphyxiated in his own blood; because Kain would almost certainly be in no condition to threaten Tifa or Kuja for a good number of weeks now even if he did survive his wounds.
Even if Kain lived, that would cause him to look even more like a murderous foe to the warriors of Cosmos; because he'd still abandoned Kain when he was horrifically injured and at risk of an absolute or transient death.
And what he was about to do would all but ensure all the warriors of Cosmos would hunt for him, whether or not he was successful.
Yuna was well recognized as one of the most capable veterans of all the warriors of Cosmos.
Unlike Tifa, she could take the risk of seeing a foe as more than a faceless adversary, and not risk being cut down for having misgivings about doing what was necessary.
Whether Yuna remembered Tidus or not; Cloud refused to give up as Tidus was and believe she'd now see him as nothing but an adversary to strike down, fatally or by disabling, and submit entirely to a life of nothing but eternal death and torment and bloodshed and despair and combat and pain past all potential salvation.
He hadn't teleported to Garland's location because that would have ruined his chances of ambushing Garland, or luring him into a trap.
But he had no reason to ambush, or snare, someone who would be far more on guard for him.
He'd confront Yuna, and defeat Jecht if necessary if the other blitzballer sought to interfere; and if Yuna refused to accompany him to the Chasm of the Rotting Land, he'd drag her there.
And then maybe Tifa would banish any remaining doubts she had about seeing him as anything more than a faceless foe, so he could at least protect her by convincing her to do everything in her capability to stay alive.
And if enough of the warriors of Cosmos knew he was a vital weakness in Chaos' forces, they might spend more time searching for him than facing off against the manikins; delaying Shinryu's Twelfth Purification and giving Chaos more time to resurrect Kuja himself, with his memories intact, or Kefka to lose his own memories.
It had been too late for him long ago, before he'd even been called here.
He'd never been capable of living as anything more than a vessel of slaughter and bloodshed, no less of a systematic serial mass murderer than Sephiroth.
But it wasn't too late for Tidus.
Cloud refused to accept that.
Cloud would not let him give up his individuality and identity, and cast himself entirely and headlong into a life of everlasting death and combat as an empty vessel absent of all warmth and laughter and kind smiles and effervescent whistles.
He probed the currents of discord around him until he located Yuna and Jecht; both in close proximity on the other side of the continent, but far enough apart they must currently have separated on different travels.
No relief rose inside him at the discovery they, at least, were a lot closer to the Chasm In the Rotting Land than Cloud currently was.
Cloud concentrated, and a black geyser rushed up to enshroud him and move him hundreds of miles across the surface of the world.
.
"All I wanted to do was protect my friends. But once you pull the trigger, there's no going back."-Kira Yamato
GUNDAM SEED:
Phase 39: ATHRUN
