A/N: Again, this is by Sefie Lynne Tilmitt too.  But we couldn't post it under both our names because it violates code 3969235 of section 2925802 chapter 43905683405 book 349, so…yeah…it's here instead.

Forgot the disclaimer last chapter, but me and Sefie don't down Final Fantasy.  Squenix formerly Squaresoft does.  We don't own it this chapter, and we didn't own it last chapter.  Sayaki is ours, though, and so is the entire storyline idea!  Whoo!   …hope you like the chapter!  Love and peace, Xifa and Sefie

Chapter Two

"Leonhart, report to the office NOW!" 

          Although I'd only heard his voice a few times before, I easily recognized this as Headmaster Martine, who'd gotten his job as headmaster of Galbadia (and now Trabia as well) Garden back sometime after the defeat of Ultemecia.

          I closed my eyes for another minute, hoping I would open them and it would all go away. But it didn't. So I got up and grabbed my gunblade, which was now pretty much useless. There were no longer 100 Ultimas junctioned to it, because now there were no junctions. I hurried to the office, the feeling of hatred at no one in particular but myself coming back quickly. I saluted to the Headmasters awkwardly.

"Good morning, Squall," Cid greeted me with almost sad cheerfulness.  It was obviously hard to be happy in such a situation.  "Today we leave you in power.  Martine and I will be running the schools and all the...you know, non-battle-related stuff so you won't have to worry about that.  Your co-commander..."        

         A girl I'd missed the first time stood up.  She'd been sitting in the floor, surrounded by papers, and forcibly trying to memorize all of them.  She saluted me, although she obviously wasn't a SeeD, her strange pinkish-violet eyes locking into mine.  She had long white hair that went down to her knees that was pulled into a braid, and an expression so serious it was almost strange.

"Commander Leonhart," she nodded professionally.

"Squall." I nodded. "Nice to meet you."

"This is Sayaki Ghost," Martine introduced her.  She still stood in attention, trying not to blink.  "Sayaki's a mercenary...not like a SeeD, though."

"This is her first time in a Garden," Cid grumbled.

"But we feel she'll be useful to you," Martine finished, directing all death-glares at Cid.

In the back of my mind I doubted it. But I had doubted Selphie and Zell and the others, especially Rinoa. I didn't know what to say to Sayaki or Ghost or whatever she went by.

"I would prefer to look at this as more of a president/vice-president situation," she spoke up, still not blinking and still standing in attention.  "Instead of all of this 'we are on the same level' stuff that Headmaster Martine was talking about, I see myself as more of a vice-commander.  I'll help you make decisions and stuff, but obviously you have more experience than I, so I'll just kind of be around to help you or whatever it is you want me to do.  Think of me as your personal servant.  I won't go get you lunch, though.  Don't even ask," the expression on her face was still almost annoyingly serious, however.

          I raised my eyebrows, amused. The president/vice-president system was if the president died, then the vice took over. I erased that morbid thought from my head, hoping the situation wouldn't come up.

"…Er... thanks." talking to her was like trying to talk to thin air, and it was creeping me out that she didn't blink like normal humans do.

"Cripes, Sayaki, stop that!  At ease!"  Martine barked.

          She diverted her gaze to him.

"You're not in charge anymore.  I'm working for him now."

"I AM--"

"She's right, Martine," Cid put in with a triumphant smile.

"BUT--"

"I only answer to Commander Leonhart now, or whoever it is he tells me to answer to," Sayaki didn't smile, but you could tell she wanted to, as she looked back to me with an amused, unblinking gaze.  I blinked, hoping to make her blink, because it was quite unnerving to have an unblinking gaze on you for five minutes.

"At ease." I said blankly, trying to keep from smiling at Martine's behavior.

          She did so, blinking a few times. 

"Dangit...dangit dangit DANGIT!  She'll listen to him but not to me?!" Martine scowled. 

"Well she's not even a SeeD you kn--"

"--I KNOW THAT CID!  You've only told me that two hundred and thirty-six times since I told you I was hiring her!  She knows a lot about GFs, okay?  I think she'll be useful."

"She's never even junctioned one!" Cid scowled back.  "She's never been in Garden!  How can she know anything about GFs?!"

"You wanna take this outside?!"

"Headmaster Cid? I think it's actually useful that she's never junctioned. For one thing, she doesn't have a big empty space in her mind--"

"I beg to differ.  Her entire mind is a big empty space," Martine mumbled almost silently.  A pencil flew at him and hit him square between the eyes.  Sayaki obviously had good aim.

It was hard to keep from laughing. "And she probably hasn't come to depend on the abilities GFs give you, like we have. Besides, if she hasn't used GFs, they have nothing against her most likely."

"Well, it's whatever you two think is best...you're in charge now," Cid stood up.

"So you do wanna fight this one out!" Martine jumped up.

"........"  Cid walked out the door.

"Aw, c'mon, wait for me!" Martine ran after him.

The four words that pretty much sealed my fate. 'You're in charge now.' I looked to Sayaki, not knowing what to say. I think even without GFs she had some form or shape of magic, because every time I looked at her I couldn't help but blink in memory of her unspoken stare down and all the words from my head were gone. It was really annoying.

"Well," Sayaki said, looking around Cid's office.  "At least his files are easy to find."  She looked down at all the papers she'd been studying.  I realized now they were files on all the students in all the Gardens, what their strengths and weaknesses were, and the like.  "Sorry about the entire thing earlier...sometimes you just have to get professional with Martine otherwise he'll never calm down and act his age," she shook her head.  "It's like adult ADHD, I swear, only he's too stubborn to go get the medicine."  She looked up at me, forcibly blinking a few times just to show me she was human.  "So I'm not normally like that, just felt like I should let you know that."

I nodded, frowning not at her but at the fact that I was in charge of thousands of people.

"Well, I guess I should give you my report," she sighed, saluting me again.  Obviously someone had given her the basics of SeeDs and such, since she seemed to know what she was doing, or at least how to fake it really well.  "GFs are doing more than wreaking havoc upon the Gardens.  They're everywhere.  I mean, not all of them," she shook her head quickly.  "We don't even know how many there are...but some of them are mad, and they're pretty much in all the cities.  On top of this, they've got all those pesky little vermin outside on their side, so the cities are pretty much infested with those little things.  However, I think it's the GFs controlling them...I mean, they kind calmed down after the entire Ultemecia incident," she looked up at me with interest, obviously wondering if all the stories she'd probably heard were true, but didn't press on the subject, "and now they're all worked up again, so I think it might have something to do with the GFs.  I think if we can somehow get the ones at each place defeated, and maybe...I don't know, maybe we could junction them to -something- where they wouldn't cause a problem again..." she trailed off.  "I'm not so sure about any of this, I'm sort of a beginner at the junction system."

I crossed my arms. "The GF Griever... he may still be alive. Griever was junctioned to Ultemecia, but it wasn't just a junction system. Somehow Ultemecia -fused- herself with Griever, and it was pretty scary to see them as one. I don't know if Griever is on a side or anything. I think we need to keep a reasonable amount of SeeD's here, but we need to dispatch small parties of SeeDs to the tows to get rid of the monsters and such, if that's okay with you."

"Right, right," she waved a hand airily.  "I didn't want to be the ones to fight those things anyways.  But, you know, I don't think they can handle the GFs."  She paused, looking to me with a bit of interest.  "...did you always have GFs junctioned to you?  I mean, could you summon without a GF junctioned to you?  Before all this?"

"As far back as I remember... But the terrible thing about GFs... they're in you. They're a part of you, and you have to pay a price for that. They take a little of your memory or a lot, depending on how powerful they are and how much you use them... I was unfortunately too naive to notice this at first, and I've always had the most powerful and memory consuming GFs junctioned to me. I don't remember my time before Garden." I shook my head. "But in any case, I had planned on sending out the highest level SeeDs against the GFs... but I'm hoping we can get some of the GFs back on our side, because my GF, Quetzalcoatl, wasn't just my source of power. He was my friend, and he saved my life more times than I could count. So I was hoping that we could get some back, and not have to fight them."

"I don't know if that's possible," she said quietly, staring out the window.  "I don't think that they're -all- acting of their own accord right now."

"Then we have to destroy the one controlling them as soon as possible."

"I like the way you think," she smiled.  "Question is, which GF is in charge?"

"We'll find that out soon enough." I nodded. "But it's okay that we don't know what to do yet. We've had less than 48 hours to plan."

"We're way ahead of where I expected we'd be.  Of course, I was expecting Headmaster Cid to send some random newbie type SeeD my age who didn't have a clue what they were doing, so I guess I'm just lucky he sent one of his older, more experienced ones."  She paused, and then quickly tagged on, "I'm not calling you old or anything!"  She quickly exclaimed, probably thinking 'I know how old people are about their age and such'...

"I fought Ultemecia, so that does make me sort of experienced, but I'm 19." I said almost irritably.

          She dropped some of the student files she was holding.  Quistis, Irvine, Nida, and my files all landed amongst the other papers.  She quickly scrambled to put them back in order.

"Seriously?" she pulled out my file disbelievingly.  "No way!  You're only, like, a month or three older than me!  I don't believe it!"

I shrugged, helping her pick up the ones she dropped. "Why did you think I was older?"

"Because you don't act like all the other moronic nineteen year old boys I've met," she shook her head, smiling in amusement.  "You're different.  Not in a bad way or anything," she shrugged, looking back down at all the files.  There were a lot there, probably one for every SeeD currently enrolled in all three Gardens.

"Thanks I think. Need any help?"

"Nah, you know most of these people," she smiled weakly.  "I don't, so I guess I'd best get learning.  There's only like, maybe three people out of all of these I know..." she laughed a little.  "And yet I'm supposed to help you make decisions that involve these people's life, and I don't have a clue about them.  I've got a lot ahead of me."

I couldn't help but feel sympathetic. "Don't feel bad. I'll only been in charge once before, and I didn't even -try- to do that..."

"Well, whatever you did last time obviously worked," she smiled.  She picked up a black bag and put as many files as she could hold in it.  "I'm worried about this, yes, but I have confidence we'll be able to pull this off, even with inexperienced me helping you.  I'm sure we'll figure out what to do in no time," she stood up.  "I'll be in the cafeteria memorizing files.  Just call if you need anything," she walked off.

          I sighed. For some reason people having confidence in me was worse. If no one had faith in me, it wasn't gonna be living heck if I failed. If people trusted me like this, and I let them down... they'd hate me.  Forever.