The Seventh Month
Seifer and Other Annoyances
The horrible and scary truth of it is that a certain rival of mine has been haunting me. Of course when the war was over one of the first things Garden did was to send out a search party for Seifer. He was spotted in Balamb, but somehow escaped the SeeDs looking for him. No surprise there. If he didn't want to be found he wasn't going to be. It's just that even after the search party was called off, I still couldn't get him out of my head. Pathetic. He would probably be laughing at me if he was here. Which I might add he damn well should be. He doesn't know it but he made SeeD. Cid and the other board members decided that since he did an excellent job as a leader he truly did have SeeD material. It wasn't his fault he was brainwashed by a Sorceress Psycho to believe that destroying the world was a good thing. Edea told us after the war about how she helped Ultimecia manipulate Seifer, but that it was his skills that we saw during the war. Just not his motives. Somehow that is not a completely comforting thought to think about when a person has been tortured. 'Don't worry Squall, it wasn't really him.... He just couldn't see you were the good guys.' Yup really comforting. Especially since that Bastard has invaded my dreams.
Anyway Seifer has been made SeeD and even promoted to SeeD rank 19. Although he is on probation for going AWOL and all. The funny thing is that although Seifer tried to destroy the world, the world can't do anything about it. One he has the protection of Balamb Garden so if anything happens to him and we hear about it... Let's just say it wouldn't be pretty. Garden protects its own. Secondly since SeeD can be hired out by anyone as a mercenary trained not to question orders we have an immunity to these situations and if you ever took one of us to court you couldn't convict us. You could however convict the ones that hired us. But since that was technically Ultimecia, and we already sliced and diced her there isn't a damn thing the world can do except whine and complain. Oh Well. No skin off my back. Even if I have to answer some sort of question regarding Seifer and the whole situation every bloody time I'm roped into an interview. "Excuse me, Commander Leonhart, can you explain to us why Almasy is not being hunted down by SeeD and instead is being protected by them, but is also on its payroll?" Yeah, because we can....Whatever.
I mentioned earlier that he has invaded my dreams. It wasn't to surprising to me. He has been one of the only constants in my life, maybe not a stable one, but a constant. He has always been there. He was at the orphanage, we went to Garden together and both picked up the Gunblade. A weapon that was so advanced that no one has ever mastered it. Well now they had two, and all it took was two rivals whose main goal in life was to beat the other. Also several trips to the infirmary for major wounds. Whoops... It's hard to practice with the cheesy replica safe Gunblades, so we always used our real ones. I can't even begin to count how many detentions and extra duties we got because of our training/fighting habits. But maybe that is one of the reasons Seifer and I did so well on tests. We had all that extra time in detention to do nothing but review notes and do extra credit. But it's not like I'm ever going to thank the man for it. As commander I have access to everyone's personal files. Let's just say I don't think the entire Garden has enough paper to print off my record with all the incident and disciplinary reports attached to it. The miracle is that I was never expelled for it.
Seifer was also one of our main enemies in the war. So after it was over I wasn't surprised that he was making near nightly appearances in my dream. At first he was torturing me again, or challenging me to a duel. Over time though he started doing different things in my dream. For one he was almost nice to me. We would train, or study but not in a mean way. We joked and were friends. But I would have to say the weirdest dream was the one I had last night. Okay my Dream Seifer had always been more friendly then I prefer my friends but last night he all out kissed me! That wasn't the scary part though. What is, is that I don't know what would have happened if my alarm hadn't gone off to wake me up and nearly fall out of the bed. Even so I still had take my morning shower colder than usual. I've been trying not to think of it since. Seifer is still my rival, I can't be having these dreams about him. I have to say I almost miss the dreams of him torturing me. At least I knew what the hell those met.
Either way Seifer isn't the only thing annoying me in my life. Oh no, that would be to simple. Where should I start? How about Rinoa. So, you know we broke up this morning, meaning I can now speak badly of her fur ball. Anytime Rinoa left Angelo in my room I would return to find him eating something. It was almost cute the first time. "Oh look Angelo just ate five hours worth of work on files..." "Awww, Did you just eat Squall's 2000gil leather pants? How cute" "Look Squall, Angelo just ate all your belts, and is drooling all over your shoes, while shedding fur onto all of your files and desk...." I loved those belts.... It took me months to find and break in new ones, and they just aren't the same.... Anyway my question is how can a dog that can find items and save its master in battle be so undisciplined and horrid. And every single time I tried to talk to Rinoa about her dog, she would say how cute he is and how he is just showing how he likes me. Well I'd hate to see what he would do if he didn't like me. You may be asking if Rinoa and I broke up why am I still complaining about the dog. Simple, Rinoa can't move out of Garden for her own protection, We are still friends, and she asked me to dog sit for her in a few days. I swear Hyne has something against me.
What other things are driving me insane, I'll tell you one word. Friends. Now I remember why I didn't really have some before. I really do like them and respect them, but sometimes they just need to realize I can not do special favors for them all the time, and that I need my me time. I may no longer be Shiva's lover exclusively anymore but it doesn't mean I want to be the centre of attention and go out all the time. Zell isn't that bad, He's probably my Best friend. He tends to know all this information you never even thought of looking up. He also seems to be getting better at knowing when I want to be alone. If only I could break him of that habit of slipping Hot Dog order forms on to my desk. I swore to him one of the first things I did was practically double the shipment of hotdogs...It's not my fault that he can't get there on time to get one. Selphie keeps trying to get me to approve festivals for her. She has already gotten an annual victory festival to go with the Garden festival, so I think she should be happy and stop bugging me to join her committees. No one should have that much energy, I almost admire Irvine for being able to keep up with her. I'm also thankful that he is normally so busy doing so that he doesn't have time to harass me. He is always trying to pry into my sex life and hook me up with dirty magazines and such. It sort of creeps me out to be honest. Sure I'm a teenage male, but that doesn't mean I do all my thinking with my hormones. Quistis will forever be Quistis. I don't dislike her, it's just that she always treats me like a knowing older sister. Would it be rude to tell her she knows absolutely nothing about me and I want to keep it that way? Yeah, that's what I thought to, so instead I indulge her. But scarily enough I think she actually does no a lot about me. She always knew that Rinoa and I would never work out. However when she isn't trying to analyze me she is nice to be around. she's more mature, and it's easy to have a normal conversation with her. Although I often wonder if she ever stops analyzing me.
You know for all their annoying habits (most of which I haven't even mentioned, like Irvine's compulsive fidgeting of his cowboy hat. twirled onto the head, adjusted, readjusted, taken off, inspected, spun around, tossed, repeat....) I would miss them if they left me. Which I must admit I still fear they will. Hey it's not my fault I have abandonment issues, blame my screwed up life. So what is the mighty Leonhart going to whine about now. Perhaps his klutzy father? No need for that, it goes without saying. I have only one true complaint, after the fact that Seifer is haunting my dreams. It is that I have been forever banned from the Training Centre until further notice.
Okay I understand being banned from the regular training times, because if the person who defeated Ultimecia can't kill some grats and T-Rexaurs that would be just sad. So after scaring several cadets with my taunting and then one swing decapitation of a high level T-Rexaurs I was banned from the centre. Well when the SeeD compulsory training time came around the next month I was more than excited. Once a month all SeeD's have to spend at least an hour in the training centre fighting some dangerous high level monsters brought in specially for that day. Marlboros, Ouchus and Ruby Dragons. I couldn't wait to get in there, but I had to wait until my lunch break. So I went down there and logged in. They give you a special device to put on your weapon so it can measure the monsters you defeat and your levels and such. So when I left the Training Center 57 minutes later, slightly out of breath, but not quite sweating, I was a bit shocked to find out I had killed 117 monsters. Unfortunately there were only 150 brought in and about 30 of those were killed in the morning by my friends. So Cid in the nicest way possible told me. "Commander Leonhart! What were you thinking! over a hundred monsters in less than an hour. It is for Training not a War... You are not to put yourself through that type of punishment and without any back up you could have been killed or worse you. Now what are the other SeeDs going to do? Did you ever think about what destroying the monsters might mean for the others..." That was where I broke into his tirade and told him I hadn't even needed to use any curative magic, and that they might as well have been bite bugs. After reviewing my stats and records from the training session he told me I was forever more banished from the center and had permission to take the Ragnarok to go to Heaven or Hell to train. I swear I saw a glint of fear in his eyes when I told them how easy the monsters were to kill, but I'm sure it was just my imagination. Surely I'm not the first person to be banished completely from the training center. Also with all that I've been through of course I'm going to be able to kick some monster butt, what I wouldn't give for a good sparring partner. I'm getting rusty not training all the time. You know, the thing that bugs me most about the whole thing was that I know there were three monsters lurking in that center somewhere but I wasn't able to find them before my lunch was over.... whatever.
The others offered to spar with me, and I was grateful. The first few times were sort of fun, but not in that I got a great work out way. There weapons are just so different then mine, that it doesn't matter the skill, I'm still afraid I'm going to hurt them. Come on a Gunblade against gloves, or a whip. So I tried fighting with different weapons. Zell taught me some more advanced moves, I worked on my sharp shooting, and even learned a bit about the whip and nunchucks. However, it just wasn't the same as the Gunblade and clashing metal...Hyne help me I miss dueling Seifer. If there was another Gunblader as advanced as him I'd be set, but he is the only one near my level. What the hell is he doing out there and how much longer is it going to take for him to come back?
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~~~~~~~~~Author's Notes~~~~~~~~~~
Wow an update so soon, wasn't expecting it, but I decided to add another chapter of Squall typing his journal. I just loved having him complain, and I'm also still setting up the world. Come on you can't tell me you didn't want to hear Squall complain about Zell trying to get more hotdogs. I just hope I didn't make him sound to whiney. Trust me when I say that the next one will definitely have Seifer in it, and not just the cheap dream version of him either. Okay, well hopefully it will be posted in as good time as this one was...(don't hold your breath) and please review.... it makes me happy. or work harder depending on the post.