Disclaimer: I do not own Final Fantasy 8 or its characters. They are ALL copyrighted by Squaresoft. ALL the chapters in this fic follow the same disclaimer!!!! I just own my created characters.

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Chapter 8 – The Mission

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"You wool-headed idiot! What about us?!" Selphie has asked angrily.

Rinoa reluctantly released Squall from her hug to turn to her friend. Even though he was her husband, her love, her life, she had been a bit greedy. After all, Squall did have friends, whether that was believable or not. Friends he grew up with since he was a little child, even though he did not know it till only a couple of years ago.


"Ahem!" the yellow-clothed girl added.

With a quick, yet slight smile forming upon his lips, the commander pried Kari of off himself and handed her to Rinoa. The little girl gave a slight gasp as she felt herself torn away from her father. She had so much she wanted to ask, but in a blink of an eye, she had forgotten everything.

By now, Squall was tapping his foot impatiently. "Well, are you going to give me a hug or are you just going to stand there with your mouths hitting the floor?"


'A joke!? Wow, he's changed completely. Not even before he was separated from us would he crack out a joke.' Rinoa gave Squall another intriguing gaze, making sure he didn't notice it. 'I suppose he's cherishing with what he is suddenly blessed with all over again.'

Before she knew it, Rinoa found herself jumping out of the way as Selphie ran full force over to Squall, toppling them both to the ground. "You….stupid…idiot….I should kill you…..again….making us worry like that……stupid…" was all Rinoa could make out from what Selphie's mouth. The young girl had started crying suddenly, not holding back anything. Clearly, Squall was as lost as herself, but gradually wrapped his arms around Selphie, whispering words of reassurance.

After a couple of minutes, Selphie reluctantly let go of Squall, only to be seen sobbing. Offering a sympathetic smile, Squall once again hugged Selphie once more, before setting Selphie on a nearby chair. This time, it was Selphie's turn to smile.

Unfortunately for Squall, he went through the same thing with Quistis, who took a more formal approach to hugging her friend, and not the tackle-hug as Selphie before her.

The intercom suddenly beeped on:

"Attention Balamb Garden students. Team Ultimecia, report to my office immediately. Once again, Team Ultimecia, report to my office immediately. Thank you."

Rinoa, Quistis and Selphie suddenly had a shocked looked upon their faces as Squall looked worriedly over to them. "Ultimecia? Wha!? What's that about?"

"Whenever Cid says 'Team Ultimecia,' he is usually referring to the team who beat Ultimecia. And plus, this usually means something huge is going to happen, something very bad." Selphie replied as she looked over to Rinoa and Quistis, who just nodded at her.

All at once, the three girls hurriedly ran out of the cafeteria, leaving Squall and Kari with each other. By now, the crowd in the cafeteria also seemed to have an atmosphere of panic in the air, but everyone eventually returned to their own conversations.

Both father and daughter stared stupidly towards where the girls had run off to for a couple of minutes until Kari poked Squall on the leg. Almost immediately, he turned all of his attention towards his daughter. "Yeah, what's up?"

"Is that a……gumball?" she asked curiously, wide-eyed as well.

"Huh?"

"That!" Kari emphasized as she pointed to the sheath of his gunblade.

'Ohhh…she meant gunblade.' Squall chuckled to himself. "Yep, but it's called a gun-blade." he said, trying to emphasize the word so she could understand it.

Kari nodded in awe. "Oh yea……Unca Irvine told me about that. Can I see it?"

'Yeah, where in the world are Zell and Irvine. I haven't seen them around yet.' Squall stood hesitant for a moment at Kari's question. 'Should I actually show her it? She probably hasn't seen anything bigger than a kitchen knife, and I don't want to ruin her innocence now. Plus, Rinoa would probably kill me as well.'

Reaching another decision, Squall swiftly and easily picked up the lightweight Kari and perched her on top of his shoulders. "Why don't we go to where your mother and her friends ran off too?"

Kari hit Squall on his head. "You're avoiding my question. Everybody else does that too."

Once again, the commander chuckled out loud, enjoying yet another laugh. "I guess you're smarter than I thought. Maybe some other time, ok? I promise."

The three-year-old girl smiled brightly. "As long as you promised, then kay."

'So beautiful, so precious, so innocent. Something I lost a long time ago. She's so much like her mother. No wonder I took an instant liking to her.' With that last thought in mind, Squall walked off to where the other girls ran off to moments before, with Kari rambling on about not receiving a birthday present. Squall just kept on smiling.

-----*****-----

"But Cid! We can't let the girls get involved in this. If it really is Dragoon, it is WAAY too dangerous." Zell stammered once again, hoping to change the headmaster's opinion.

"And I suppose Ultimecia wasn't dangerous, chicken wuss?" Seifer angrily commented back. "Look, we are going to need all the help we can get with this. If this Dragoon guy took down Squall, then we're in for a huge battle here! I know you're afraid of losing them, hell, we all are. But come to your senses Zell!"

Zell and Zack stared at Seifer as if they were seeing another person totally. Not in a milllion years would Zell have imagined Seifer would have given some kind of speech of the sort. Never. However, as much as Zell wanted to argue, once again, Seifer was right. They needed help, and fast. Instead of saying something, Zell chose to stay quiet. Seifer took his silence as acceptance.

Only moments later, the three girls stormed into the headmaster's office, seemingly out of breath. "Sir! We came as fast as we can. What's the problem?" Quistis asked almost all to quickly. Rinoa and Selphie also seemed to have the same question in their mind.

Unaware too all in the office, Squall and Kari chose to stay outside the door.

The three girls stared at Cid expectantly, but the headmaster chose not to move from his spot. They then turned towards Zell and expected the story out of him, but strangely to them, he stayed quiet as well. It wasn't until when Seifer stepped forward, they actually saw him there.

"Seifer!" the three of them gasped.

Glumly, Seifer walked up to them. "I'll start from the beginning."

Slowly and carefully, Seifer relayed the details upon the three female SeeDs. From the pictures and letter from a devestated Shumi Village, to the investigation, the arrival of Zack, the disappearance of Irvine – causes unknown – to the hordes of monsters they fought and finally to the retreat.

"And this is where we stand at the moment." Seifer stated, adjusting his gunblade to a more comfortable position. "The bottom line, we need more help with this situation. And with our scarce knowledge about Dragoon, we are in for one hell of a battle sooner of later. Otherwise, this planet as we know it, will be turn upside down in a matter of hours, or whatever."

-----*****-----

Squall stared at the floor with blazing, cold eyes. He heard the whole story from Seifer, and without a doubt, it was Dragoon's work. He had witnessed all of that happening first-hand in the past. And now that it happened to one of his closest friends, angered him to no limit.

Luckily for him, Kari had fallen asleep midway in the story, just missing out on the part where Irvine was missing. If she heard that, it would be no doubt she would be asking questions, questions that Squall could not answer without lying. And there was no way he could lie to her. Secondly, if Kari had seen Squall's face at that moment, she would have been terrified. Instead of seeing a friendly face, she would have seen a face full of anger, and eyes that did not glow their usual baby blue tone, but strangely and mysteriously, a deep oceanic, dark blue color.

'It's time I go up.'

-----*****-----

"Irv…..Irv……Irvine's…gone?" Selphie asked, shuddering and sobbing at the same time. If not for Rinoa and Quistis, the girl would have collasped to the ground at that moment. Teary-eyed as well, Rinoa and Quistis looked at each other for some kind of sign or answer. They nodded.

"Of course we'll help." Quistis answered to the three of them. "But even if we do, from the story you told us Seifer, even with our help, we're done for. If monsters keep coming on forever, even our Guardian Forces will eventually become exhausted and us too. The question that I am aiming for is what are we going to be aiming for in this mission. Rescuing Irvine is a no-brainer, but after that? We are totally lost on what to do."

Seifer nodded. "I know that Quisty…" Rinoa's ears seemed to be the only one who picked up on the nickname for Quistis. Everyone else seemed to be concentrating on what he was going to say. Quickly, Rinoa chided herself for worrying about trifle matters, and returned her attention to Seifer. "…and my only answer to that is we'll deal with that when the time comes. Hell, I'm no Squall, and I did not ask to be picked the leader of this mission, but……"

At that exact moment, everyone diverted their attention towards the opening door. They all wondered the same thing. "Who in the world is that?" No one, however, noticed the relieved look upon Cid's features, and the sudden bright smile upon Rinoa.

In walked Squall………holding a sleeping Kari nestled warmly and comfortably in his arms.

Quietly, Squall closed the door and turned around, only to find everybody staring at him. Still not used to having so much attention put upon him, he averted his eyes anywhere but to the people. "What in the world are you guy staring at?"

Zell's mouth instantly went dry upon seeing Squall. He was the exact last thing he expected to walk through that door. Hell, even if an elephant walked in, he wouldn't be more surprised. Slowly, Zell walked over to Squall and hesitantly put a hand on his shoulder. "Your……your alive?"

Squall cracked a smile. "Is that a bad thing?"

Rinoa had trouble stifling her giggle. 'Yet another joke by Squall. What is the world coming to?'

Zell still had trouble accepting what his eyes were showing him. "But……how? I mean, not that I'm complaing Squall, and no offense to you Rinoa, but how? I saw the moon blow up, and there was no way you could have gotten out of there alive. And even if you did, how would you breathe in space? The Lunar Rings only allowed us to breathe within the moon's atmosphere. How Squall? How do we know that you're not an imposter?"

Squall kept his gaze at Zell till he could not keep his gaze at him any longer, and quickly averted his eyes toward the ground once again. His friend had every right to ask those questions. If he was in the same spot, Squall knew he would ask the same exact ones as well. But truth be told, he was not ready to answer any of them, but he knew he was not an imposter. As to proving that, he had trouble with.

"Zell, I'm sorry, but I can't answer any of those questions about my past, but I can assure you that I'm the real thing." Squall simply stated as he gazed towards the child in his arms.

Rinoa, shocked at Zell's words, quickly came to Squall's defense. "Zell, I know he's the real thing. I can't explain it in words, but……its just this feeling I get when I'm around him. It's the same as it always was before. He is Squall."

A wide-eyed Zell eventually nodded towards Rinoa. Turning back to Squall, he rubbed his spit on his hand and rubbed it on his pants before offering it for a handshake. "Sorry about that. But I'm really glad your back, and eventually, I'm getting the whole story from you, my friend."

Smiling, Squall warmly accepted the handshake. 'That……came out different that I expected it to be.' Normally, he would have expected Zell to be the jolliest out of all of them, next to Selphie. But here he was, not jolly at all. 'I guess Irvine's disappearance has something to do with it. Now speaking of that……' "You were saying that when you were fighting those monsters, they seemed never-ending, right?"

Zell quickly looked over to Seifer and Zack, who simply nodded. "Yeah, puberty boy. They just kept on coming, no matter how many we took down." Seifer replied.

Squall sighed as he kept his gaze upon Kari. 'She looks so beautiful and innocent sleeping in my arms. I can't stress that enough to myself.' Reluctantly, he tore his gaze away from his daughter and stared at everyone else.

Rinoa blinked twice before she gasped. She seemed to be the only one who noticed Squall's different eye color. 'That is not the color of his eyes. Why are they dark blue?' That was something she was going to have to ask him about later.

The commander blinked, his eyes once again returning to the normal baby blue color. Another small gasp came from Rinoa, but Squall ignored it. "Trust me when I say this guys. But half of those monsters you were fighting were illusions."

"What the hell do you mean illusions?!" Seifer asked angrily. "I swore that I touched every single one of them."

Squall shook his head. "No, you're wrong. If you remember acutely, I can guarantee you that half of them were illusions at least. Don't you remember at least some of your attacks or magic spells going through monsters?"

The eight of them stood there silent, awaiting any remarks from Zack, Zell or Seifer. Eventually, Zack nodded. "He's right. Now that I do think about it, I vaguely remember my gunblade going through some monsters. I thought that I hit them, so I didn't pay any attention to it."

Zell nodded as well. "Yeah, even some of my magic spells went through some of them."

"That is how Dragoon likes to work." Squall replied. "He uses his powers to create illusions of his monsters so he won't have to send as many as he should have. His goal is to confuse his enemy with illusions and then strike with the real thing when the enemy is lured deep enough into his trap. Luckily for you guys, you realized quick enough that the monsters were not diminishing, as they should have, so he couldn't do any damage to you guys."

"And what about Irvine then?" Zell asked all too quickly. Selphie's ears perked up instantly.

Squall sighed as he once again looked towards his daughter. "To tell you the truth, I honestly don't know what could have happened. The fact that he didn't contact you or anything could prove, that he too, saw some kind of illusion, but unlike you guys, he fell for it and now Dragoon has him. But that's only a guess. That fact of the matter is that Dragoon does have him, either way."

Seifer sighed impatiently, "So what the hell do we do puberty boy?"

Walking towards a nearby wall, Squall leaned against it and adjusted Kari more comfortably in his arms. "First of, before we go on a rescue mission, it is important to realize the power that Dragoon has at his fingertips. I know for a fact that the Sorceress's Powers he assimilated from Rinoa has not adjusted to his body completely, meaning he can go out of control and hopefully do some damage to himself, like what happened back on the moon."

Taking a deep breath, he continued, "You must, and I can't stress this enough, must learn the difference between an illusion and reality. That will prove to be the ultimate factor between your life and your death."

"Makes sense." Zack commented, although nobody really paid attention, for everyone was in his or her own reverie of some sort.

"Then let's go!" the all too excited martial-artist yelled as he made his way towards the door.

"Hold it right there, Zell Dincht."

Zell stopped in his tracks as he turned around. Everyone had completely forgotten about the Headmaster, and his sudden outburst snapped everyone back to reality. "No one is going anywhere today."

"But…….." Zell and Selphie both started to protest.

Cid held up his hand and both of them stood silent. "Look. Zell – I'm pretty sure you and Zack and Seifer are still exhausted from today's predicament. And plus, evening is already setting in. By the time you get there, nightfall will already have settled itself comfortably. And I don't want you guys to go rushing blindly into whatever trap Dragoon has. You guys are the best Balamb has to offer, and more importantly, each of you are like my children in your own sort of way. I don't want to lose any more of you……again." he stated, looking at Squall especially as he completed his sentence. "And you Selphie, I know how much Irvine means to you, but you have to understand – your no help to him if you get captured as well. It will be best for all of us to take this slowly and carefully. That way, we'll hopefully be aware of everything."

After Cid's speech, no one dared to speak up, leaving each person to think of what they would do in the morning.

"I expect all of you to rest tonight and be out of here early in the morning in the Ragnorak." Cid continued. "And if there aren't any other questions, you are dismissed."

After Cid's order of dismissal, nobody moved. Everyone stood their ground. No one wanted to move. Something did not feel right. For some reason, it was not right for them to be resting easily for the night while Irvine was somewhere out in the unknown, who knew what was happening to him. However, finally, after what seemed like eternal minutes that had gone by, Seifer was the first one to exit the room, followed next by Zack. Selphie exited next, still choking back sobs, followed closely by Quistis, who kept a strong grip on the brunette's arm, in fear for her collapsing. Letting out a huge sigh, Zell reluctantly left.

Rinoa, Squall and Kari were the only one's left.

"If you don't mind, I would like to speak with you two privately." Cid asked in a monotonic voice.

Almost immediately, Rinoa walked over to Squall and rested her head on his shoulder. "I'm scared Squall."

"Don't be. As always, just stay close to me and everything will work out fine." was his only answer.

Rinoa smiled inwardly. "Is it ok if we spend the night with you?"

It was Squall's turn to smile. She had no need to ask that. "Of course."

"Ahem!" Cid coughed out softly, breaking the intimate conversation between the couple short. "I don't mean to intrude here, but I asked to you two to stay because I want to remind you, even though I don't see a reason to, that you two out to be extra careful tomorrow. You're not only fighting for yourselves, but you have someone else who wants your safe return as well. I just wanted to clarify that."

Squall nodded, however Rinoa gasped, obviously very shocked at the Headmaster's words. She was no so lenient. "Of course Cid!" she stated rather harshly. "Don't you think I know that? Not to be rude or anything, but I don't see your place in issuing those words!"

Cid shook his head gravely. "Right now, it seems like common sense, my dear. But believe me, when your out there, in the middle of the battlefield, you tend to forget things, and act on spur of the moment ideas. I just wanted to emphasize to you two not to forget probably the most important person in your lives, who is in Squall's arms right now." After taking a loving look at Kari, Cid once again faced his window, looking out at the main hall as evening was setting in. "Sometimes you feel the need to sacrifice yourself to insure the safety of your loved ones. I just want you to avoid that scenario at all costs. Am I not right, Squall?"

Rinoa looked disbelievingly at Squall, who merely nodded. "Headmaster, this time will be different. I swear it."

The Headmaster, strangely, chuckled. "Of course. You may go now."

It took a while for this event to digest into Rinoa, but in the end, it finally hit her. This was the same thing that Squall did back on the moon – sacrificed himself to save her. 'Squall's right. This time will be different.'

The couple walked out of the office silently.

Unknown to all of them, Kari just fell asleep.

-----*****-----

"Squall?"

"Yea Rinoa?" he replied, while setting Kari down onto the sole bed he had in his dorm room.

"You know. If we are going to be spending more time with you, I think you should get a bigger room, don't you think?" she asked.

Squall shrugged, not really paying attention to the question. "Yeah, sure."

"Actually, it should be as big at Cid's and Edea's room, because we'll be married and all, right?" she asked, seeing if her love was actually paying attention.

Shrugging once again, Squall replied, "Yeah, su………wait a sec there! Hold up! Marriage!?"

Rinoa grinned, finally getting the attention she wanted, but saddened a moment later at the fact that Squall was so surprised at the idea. "Why? Is there something wrong about it?"

He was left speechless. Rinoa did have a point. It did make sense to get married. Hell, he even suggested it beforehand to. "No……nothing at all." He answered rather apathetically. "It's just, should we really be talking about that when there are other things more important than our own happiness? Like the fate of the world? Or Irvine's well-being?"

Almost at once, Rinoa pouted. 'Damn idiot. He's right. Still, sooner or later, I'll get him to confess that he actually likes the idea of marriage. I can see it in his eyes. Hehe!' "Yeah, sorry Squall. Your right."

In return, he smiled shortly. "Whatever." he simply stated, lying besides his daughter.

"Oh no! You're not going back to that just when you started to open up like a book to me, Mister Leonhart!" Giggling, softly, Rinoa took the spot on the other side of Kari as she stared into her lover's eyes. "I'm scared about tomorrow Squall. What's going to happen?" she whispered very softly.

Rinoa could hear him breathe in heavily, and exhale the same way. "I don't know Rinoa. Honestly, I don't know. Even with all that's happened in my past, I still don't know anything about the power Dragoon has at his fingertips. Just remember what I said earlier, and everything…hopefully…will work out fine."

Grasping Squall's hand and giving it a squeeze, Rinoa nodded before closing her eyes. The last thing she remembered was a squeeze in return.

Author's Notes: Once again, I'm sorry for the delay in updating, but between graduation and writer's block, it was hard to get this done. But alas, here is the next chapter or Reality and Illusion.

I hope you all have enjoyed this installment. It took me awhile to actually see how this chapter would end, and whose perspective it should be in, but since this fic is more Rinoa/Squall pairing, I decided to end with them instead of the other characters. The chapter was a bit fluffier than the others, I think, but whatever.

Anyway, I would love to hear your thoughts about this chapter and for those of you awaiting some action, its soon on it's way. But don't worry for those who want romance - there will be plenty of that as well.

I still have many more chapters planned before I finish Reality and Illusion, so hold on.

And as always, READ AND REVIEW! ^_^ Thanx!!