Chapter 18
Squall stood, his back firmly pressed against a wall, watching the group of men making their way through the town. Observing the way they moved swiftly as a single unit only heightened his suspicions as to their intentions. It was always a possibility that they were sent by Garden to locate Rinoa and himself. If that was the case, he certainly wasn't prepared to let them succeed without a fight. He followed them as they moved silently from street to street, making sure that he remained safely within the cover offered by the shadows cast across the road by the full moon. However, as he tracked their every movement, it soon became apparent to Squall that he was not their target. The group clearly had no interest in the town of Balamb, instead, heading directly for the exit to the town and passing into the open countryside.
Squall was stuck in two minds, torn between finding out the truth behind all of this, and returning to Rinoa. On the one hand, he was worried about her being left in the hotel room for too long without him being there to protect her, but on the other hand, his instincts told him not to go back just yet, and he had learned to trust his instincts over the years. On many occasions, they had been all that he had to rely on, all he could trust, and he wasn't about to abandon them. Against his better judgement, and against the will of his nagging conscience, he decided to continue following the group of men to their destination.
"She'll be fine without me," he thought, his mind now set on his course of action.
"He's gone. He's really gone, and I drove him away." Quistis downed the contents of her shot glass, staring at her reflection in the bottom.
"They all hate me, Zell, Selphie, Irvine. They can't even look me in the eye. And Headmaster Cid, I let him down. He trusted me and I betrayed that. I didn't mean to, it was an accident, but still, I betrayed that trust. He's going to take my instructor's licence away, maybe I'll even have to leave. But where will I go? This has been my only home. I've lost everything and I deserve it. I forced him to leave so why shouldn't I be punished like this?"
Is this how he was feeling? Lost, alone, unsure of himself? Now I can understand what was going through his head when he found out that he was no longer a SeeD. He must despise me right now, after all, I'm the one to blame. I have to try and redeem myself somehow. I can't live knowing that he hates me."
"I have to go and find him and bring him back home."
"I'm really worried about her, Zell. You know her better than the rest of us, have you ever seen her like this before?" Zell shook his head in reply to the question posed by Selphie.
"No, she's always been the sensible one. She's always been in control. In all the years I've known her, she's never cancelled her lessons or locked herself in her room. This is really out of character."
"I agree," replied Selphie. "This isn't like her at all. I may have only been here a year but I know her well enough to be worried. We don't know what she might do."
"Hey, aren't you guys forgetting something?" asked Irvine. "What about Squall and Rinoa? Shouldn't we be more worried about them? We don't even know where they are."
"They'll be okay. As much as I want him back, I have to admit that as long as Squall's with Rinoa, he isn't going to do anything stupid. I know he wouldn't do anything to endanger her. They're probably just lying low at the moment, enjoying each other's company." This last comment prompted snickers from both Irvine and Zell. "Oh get your minds out of the gutter," muttered Selphie indignantly.
"Sorry Selph," they replied in unison, trying to hold back their laughter.
"Guys, this is no joke. This is serious. What do we do about Quistis?"
"She'll be fine. She always pulls through. Why should this time be any different?"
"She's never been like this before. I'm terrified in case she does something she might regret," she replied.
"You don't think she would do you?"
"We don't know what she might do."
Squall was crouched down on the grass, as low to the ground as he could possibly get. Fortunately for him, the men were too involved in their mission to notice the figure that had been silently stalking them in the shadows. It appeared that they had finally reached their destination.
Balamb Garden.
"Why aren't they looking for us," he thought, confused. Logic decreed that Garden would have left hours ago in their search for the missing couple. "And what interest do these men have in Garden?" His mind raced, trying to come up with a satisfactory answer to this question. He found none.
"What does it matter? They don't pose any threat to Rinoa, I can go back to her now. Garden isn't my responsibility anymore." He began to leave.
"They turned their back on me, now I'll turn my back on them."
He set out back towards the town, but despite himself, he found that he just couldn't leave. Instead, his conscience was tugging at his mind, telling him to stay.
"I guess I owe the place something. After all, I grew up here. They may have disowned me, but they can't erase my past."
In the time he had taken to reach his decision, the group had entered Garden, so Squall wasted no time in following them. He expected his progress to be halted by the gate guards, but found, to his surprise, no resistance.
"Strange."
He opened the door to the room the gate guards occupied, and soon discovered the reason behind their absence. All four of them were lying sprawled across the floor, their throats slit open. Squall felt a tinge of sadness at the sight before him, although he was not shocked by it. He had seen far worse in his time serving as a SeeD. It was clear that these men died quickly, which was more than could be said for some he had known.
He quietly closed the door, making sure that it clicked shut behind him. A quick glance down the corridor betrayed the location of the majority of the enemy squad, although Squall noted that there must be several that he could not see.
He made his way towards the nearest soldier and managed to reach him undetected before swiftly disposing of him. Only seconds later, the man's radio began to crackle into life.
"Anderson, report."
Squall froze, knowing that he could not impersonate the dead man well enough to fool whoever was on the other end of the radio.
"Anderson, what is your status?"
The voice was becoming more and frantic.
"Men, we've lost contact with Anderson. We must assume hostile activity. Proceed to his last known position."
"Dammit," Squall cursed under his breath as several of the soldiers had begun to make their way towards his location. He saw no option but to fight his way out of the predicament.
As soon as one of the soldiers came into striking range, he found his heart pierced by a gunblade, and fell to the floor immediately, alerting the surrounding men. Squall had been discovered, but the soldiers were clearly unprepared for a fight. Squall managed to dispose of five more with relative ease before he found himself surrounded. He was undaunted, however. Many times before he had found himself in a similar situation, and he had always emerged victorious in the past.
The enemy appeared restless, obviously not intent on maintaining their position surrounding Squall in the full view of the corridor. If anybody happened to be walking past at this hour, the whole of Garden would soon be alerted to their presence, a fact that they seemed to be acutely aware of. It was not long before one of them broke rank, only to be picked off by Squall's flashing blade. All chaos promptly broke loose, with the surviving men attacking Squall head on. A further five fell to his superior prowess before he found himself staring down the barrel of a gun.
"This all ends now," the soldier growled at him, before moving to pull the trigger.
Quistis ran blindly through the halls of Garden, determined to bring Squall back. Nothing else mattered to her now, her only thought was of her redemption.
"I don't care that I don't even know where to start looking. I'll search the whole damn planet if I have to. I'll do whatever it takes to find them."
She clasped the Save the Queen that hung from her waist, praying that it would give her strength.
"I will bring them back, I won't fail," she told herself in an effort to dispel any doubts that still plagued her mind about her upcoming journey.
"I can do this."
As she rounded the corner near to the main entrance, the sound of clashing swords met her ears.
"What in Hyne's name?"
She instinctively removed the whip from her waist and prepared for battle. She headed out into the corridor, and was shocked at the sight that met her eyes.
"Squall? He's here."
Her initial shock wore of quickly when she saw the gun pointed at his head.
"This all ends now," she heard the man holding the weapon tell him.
Without thinking, she flung her whip towards him, hoping against hope that she didn't miss her intended target. As she saw the tendrils of the whip wrap themselves around the gun, flinging it from the man's hand, she breathed an enormous sigh of relief. Squall was safe and was now able to completely neutralise the attack force, leaving nobody alive. A closer inspection of one of the bodies revealed them to be from the Galbadian Army.
"Rinoa…she was telling the truth." The realisation that she had been wrong dawned upon Quistis. "This…this is all my fault. If only I'd have kept my mouth shut." She was not able to ponder this for long, however, as she was interrupted by shouting from across the hallway.
"So, traitor. You actually had the audacity to come crawling back here. I'm really going to enjoy this." Quistis recognised the voice as belonging to Simmons, and a quick glance towards the pair confirmed this. "I've finally got my chance to prove that I'm better than you," he leered, his sword snaking towards Squall's throat.
"You'll regret that," he replied, clearly not phased by Simmons' sudden violent behaviour.
"What will you do Leonhart? Run away again?" he taunted.
Quistis could see from the look in Squall's eyes that Simmons had touched on a nerve, causing his anger to boil.
"Simmons, stand down," she ordered, knowing that any fight between the two could only result in Squall being victorious and she didn't want him to get into any more trouble than he was already in with Headmaster Cid.
"But, Instructor Trepe," he protested. "I've found the traitor."
"I said, stand down, Simmons. That's an order."
"But…"
"Do you want me to report you to the headmaster?" she threatened. Seeing that his situation was impossible, Simmons backed away from Squall, lowering his blade.
"You'll regret this," he muttered, causing Squall to raise one eyebrow in amusement.
"I'll speak to you later about this Simmons," Quistis admonished firmly. "This isn't the last you'll be hearing of this incident." She fixed him with a glare, causing him to slink away at the first opportunity, leaving her to deal with more important matters.
"This is my chance," she thought. "I need to tell him just how sorry I am."
She turned around to talk to Squall, only to find that he was gone.
A/N. Sorry this update took forever. I'm in the middle of exams at the moment so this has been sitting around, unfinished, on my computer for weeks. Hopefully I will be able to update some of my other fics soon, but I can't promise anything. Sorry.
Thanks to:
Rinoa Heartilly
Rinoa Heartilly-Leonhart
Quadrono
Dan
Riona
Light_of_the_Moon
Dark Raion
Vindemon64
Keiry
Renegade Seraph
Angel's Destiny
Sammy-Chan
Mika
Mariko
Sandra Leonhart
CTHKSI
RadicalEdward
Mia
KinOfDragons
Pretty-anonymous14
Penny
TuRkEy R EvIl
Morganeth Taren'drel
SwordAndSoul
Luna Verde
Yuki
Crystal Night
LuvlyLatina
Angelprinczess29
Rhi-an
Cherry6124
Browneyez
The Insane Rinoa
Lionhearted