AN: so far so good... or maybe not knowing look
Book Two of the Sorcerer Arc Death's Angel Chapter Eight Mind GamesThey got the call on the flight back to Balamb Garden. Nida, quieter than ever in the face of Squall's sombreness, informed them in a near whisper that Rinoa was waiting for Squall in his office. As soon as the call ended Seifer shot the brunette an 'I told you so', glare. Squall shrugged. He never bothered locking his office when out because it was on the third floor of the Garden. Anyone up there had a high enough security clearance that there was nothing they couldn't see in his office. Of course, the only exception to that rule was the one sorceress that neither of them had ever expected to actually turn up...
"What are you doing here Rinoa?" Squall demanded as he strode into his office. The raven haired sorceress jumped at the sudden noise, and quickly tried to pretend that she hadn't been staring at the assignment papers strewn across the desk, much less that she'd been rummaging through them. "Or are you still Adel?" He continued, driving her away from his place behind the desk through his sheer physical presence. Seifer, watching in awe from the doorway, was suddenly glad he'd never truly incurred the brunette's wrath. "No..." Squall decided out loud, watching as Rinoa felt the balance of power shift in the room. "Adel wouldn't stoop this low. This," he indicated the scattered papers by stripping off his gloves and letting them fall on top of the loose sheets, "is positively infantile."
"You..." Rinoa seemed to be struggling for words. Squall frowned, and let his mind brush gently across hers.
You killed cock Robin! He pulled away sharply, feeling the taint of rage and madness. That wasn't Rinoa.
"...wouldn't have minded before!" The sorceress finished in a rush.
"News for you Heartilly." Seifer drawled from the doorway. "Yes he would. He just wouldn't have said anything."
"And you..." Rinoa turned, growling accusingly at him. "You're..." Again the hesitation. This time Squall was even more cautious with his mental touch.
You are the sparrow. But no bow and arrow. No bow and arrow... The foreign mental voice subsided into mutters, fading into the background as Rinoa found the words she wanted.
"You're so pathetic I wouldn't have you as my knight if you begged." Squall was tempted to point out that Seifer was already taken, but Rinoa's behaviour was too strange, too unlike her. There was no way he was going to risk the chance that she might have a complete mental breakdown in his office. Unfortunately, whilst Seifer was prepared to endure Squall's snide comments – mainly because he could tell the brunette never really meant them – Rinoa's he was not.
"Well the same goes. Only you won't get the chance, 'cause Squall beat ya to it, and I said yes." The silence following his statement was deafening. Rinoa gaped soundlessly, wide eyes darting between Squall and Seifer in confusion and disbelief. Immediately he stiffened, realising how close he had come to outright announcing Squall a sorcerer.
And now dig your way out of that hole, using words of one syllable or less. Squall growled into his knight's mind, only half-sarcastic. Seifer swallowed, then threw the still-gaping Rinoa a cocky smirk.
"Besides, as a personal aide I get to quit if I disagree, and I get paid." The gaping mouth snapped shut, and Rinoa sneered...
Because it didn't matter. The moment of shock and horror where, until Seifer's clarification, it had seemed that of the two men in the room with her, one was a sorcerer, and the other his knight – although she hadn't been sure which way round it was – had been too much for Rinoa's stressed mind. In that moment they had shattered any and all hope she had ever had that Squall would one day realise he loved her. It didn't matter that a still-rational part of her mind had screamed that she was being controlled by someone else's mind. It didn't matter that the same part had screamed for her to accept the facts and move on with her life, without bitterness or anger. And it didn't matter that, in her subconscious, she had both heard and agreed with those conclusions, because she had retreated mentally in her shock, and the weakness that possessions by both Ultemecia and Adel had made her legacy, had proven her undoing...
Before Squall or Seifer knew what was happening, the Rinoa they had both known, and at one time, cared for, was gone forever. In her place remained a strange, irrational creature, a mental mixture that was mostly filled with venomous, childish rage and desire for vengeance, mixed with just enough of Rinoa to pass for the sorceress on superficial examination.
"Just a wannabe now Seifer?" It was the voice that gave her away. Rinoa's pleasant alto had changed pitch and gained an edge that threatened hysterical laughter. Even as the two men shared a horrified look, they cast protect and shell on themselves. Rinoa/not-Rinoa giggled at them.
"I'll see you die cock Robin!" She chortled at Squall. "With my little eye. Kylari and I will see you die!" Then she vanished.
"She's gone." Squall's relieved words were still full of tension. Rinoa was gone in more than one sense of the word.
Kylari moaned and opened her eyes, blinking to dispel the double-vision that possessing another sorceress, even passively, left her with. Rinoa was huddled in the corner furthest away from her, rocking and muttering to herself. The host spirit was broken. All of Rinoa was hers, heart, soul and mind permanently enslaved. All she had to do was give this new weapon a purpose.
"Poor child." She cooed at the shaking form in the corner. "Alone for so long." Kylari smiled sweetly as the creature – no longer possessing enough humanity to be called human - started paying attention. The mind was like metal, a good smith could take it in any form, work it with expert skill, and create the finest blade known to man. She had broken the original, added another metal to the mix, and now Kylari was going to create a living, breathing blade. A weapon that would have the subtlety and intelligence that her two Blue Widows lacked.
"Poor little sorceress. Used and discarded by SeeD..." She spoke quietly, appealing to the mind she had added, but also to the remnants of the host mind. The shaking had stopped, concentration being diverted into considering Kylari's words. It made sense, even to the broken and tangled mess that was Rinoa's shattered mind. She was a poor child, no one understood her, how she felt, and how it had felt watching Squall drift further away, helpless to stop him slipping from her grasp. She hadn't understood why, or more importantly who and how, he'd been taken from her. Had it all simply been an act? No... She was been certain that he loved her...
Kylari listened carefully to the raven-haired sorceress's mind. She was doing with words what a smith did with his hammer, and listening for the tell-tale changes in tone that signalled what stage of creation the blade was at.
"And then they insult your intelligence by refusing to give you even honorary SeeD ranking." That had hurt. That had really hurt. After all the fighting she'd gone through with Squall and the others, and then to receive a curt thank you from Cid, and not even that from Squall. They had, she was forced – grudgingly - to admit, freed Timber from Galbadian rule. But, she suspected, that was only because Squall, Zell and Selphie were under contract to her until it had gained its independence.
The resentment in Rinoa's mind finally rang true. Whatever rational core had remained, it had been swayed by Kylari's words. Now to add the seed of doubt...
"They didn't even have the grace to tell you what you'd been fighting for. What SeeD's true purpose is." Rinoa frowned. That was what Squall had said Seifer had been torturing him to know. But, Squall and the others had all claimed not to know. Had that only been because she was around? An outsider? A sorceress?
"But... Squall cares..." She moaned plaintively, wilfully ignoring the fact that caring for someone didn't mean you trusted them. Kylari arched a delicate eyebrow. She hadn't expected any more resistance, but still, she could work with this.
"Does he really? Are you so sure?" Rinoa nodded, sniffling slightly, the resistance in her mind growing.
"He jumped into space for me..." She trailed off as Kylari laughed, her certainty wavering.
"Poor, innocent child. He used you. They needed a pet sorceress, someone who would blindly follow orders, too infatuated to think straight." She stared sympathetically at the glaring Rinoa. "You were seduced by one of the best. I've seen the reports." Of course, there were no such reports, but Rinoa didn't know that. She would believe it, because even if she hadn't been seduced by one of the best, she was currently being manipulated by one of the best.
The resistance dissolved as suddenly as it had reappeared, the sorceress's mind snapping into the mould that Kylari had shaped. Perfection. Kylari smiled smugly to herself as Rinoa's physical appearance slowly warped and changed. She became taller, thinner, but her features and body lost their definition, becoming the androgynous lines of a child. Her eyes darkened almost to black, seeming darker thanks to the shadows of experience the shared consciousness now had. The older sorceress beckoned her creation, her child closer.
"What do you think SeeD's true purpose is?" Rinoa shrugged. "Alright, then who do you think might know?"
"How should I know?" Kylari's creature spoke for the first time.
"Well then, I'll tell you exactly who to start with..."
Kylari made no move to stop the sorceress as she left the orphanage. Rinoa was bound tight to her side, her cause. She would be a loyal and obedient puppet until there was no further use for her. And then the raven haired sorceress would die, and she would take her powers into herself.
"You think Kylari's possessing her?" Squall shrugged. He wasn't entirely sure what he thought. It was just too, too, illogical. Something was seriously screwed with Kylari's mind. Whether it was because the sorceress was insane, or whether she was making an effort to be unpredictable, he didn't know.
"I...I don't think so. She's done something, or is doing something, but I don't know what." He shook his head in bafflement. "It felt as if Rinoa's somehow developed a split personality..." Seifer snorted.
"She has enough trouble with one personality, how would she get a second?" Squall shrugged again.
"I honestly don't know."
"Maybe Adel had something to do with it."
"Maybe." Squall agreed with a sigh. "It doesn't matter how it happened though. It has happened, and Kylari's numbers have grown at our expense."
"So what do we do now?"
"We need to let everyone know that Rinoa is on Kylari's side. But..."
"You're still not sure." Squall nodded.
"She might escape Kylari's clutches somehow. I don't see how, on her own, but if someone else interfered..." Seifer nodded. If it did so happen that Rinoa genuinely managed to come to her senses, she needed a loophole back into SeeD's official good graces. So what she really needed was to be blacklisted unofficially, and that meant a combination of the tried and tested Garden grapevine, and meetings that wouldn't officially take place.
"Shame Chickenwuss and his big mouth aren't here to help." Seifer remarked. "When are he and Quistis due back?" Squall grinned.
"Mission should have concluded today, but I said they could take a couple of days coming back. They didn't get much of a honeymoon after all." Seifer snorted.
"Well look at it this way, how many other people can say their marriage was part of an infiltration mission?"
"Be that as it may, if you can get rumours started and then sort out transport for those heading for Galbadia Garden, I'll clear up the paperwork here, suffer through another conference report on the Blue Widows with Caraway and Laguna, and meet you in your office in three or four hours." Seifer grimaced. "What?"
"Just remembered that I still need to stick a lock on my office door..." The blond left Squall's office still chuckling at Squall's expression...
AN: hooray for lack of exams! Phew wipes away sweat I really don't like statistics :( Anyway, finally, chpt 6 of DA... I'm all happy cause my muses finally let me know a whole lot more about Kylari :) Plus I have a much better concept of the ending now I know what her motivation is ;p still, about hmm consults muses 4/5 chpts of DA to go... hehehe
Well, scarily enough, 'hooray for lack of exams!' is relevant again ;; Not statistics this time though – computing mathematics and principles of computing this time (IEEE Is Evil Evil Evil o.O)