"I feel, I fear..!
Never for nothing..!
I've fucked, I love!
Now I remember..."
Static-X:"S.O.M."
"Squall..." Selphie exclaimed, "...What is your reason for this?"
"Reason?" Squall demanded.
"You know... The reason, the cause behind what's been happening to you."
"What has been happening to me?" Squall demanded, absent-mindedly.
"Squall, don't play with me." Selphie said, her voice was serious.
Squall looked at her with a look of suspicion. His stare, to Selphie, also divulged the hurt inside.
"Squall, won't you please tell me why you let her?"
"Let who?"
Two teardrops appeared at the corners of her eyes with his reply.
Squall's eye caught that response. His own mind started to fill itself out with tears, but then, he realised that, there was no more space left to fill with tears in his head.
"Hey, don't cry." Squall said.
"I cry only because I care! Only because you won't tell me what's going on!"
"You wouldn't understand!"
"Just try me!" Selphie blurted out.
"She is my sorceress, dammit! I cannot disobey her! We share a certain bond, can you comprehend that!? Does it get through? The bond of ours is beyond that of words, of emotions, of feelings, of thoughts! She's my everything! I don't even know her, but she's my everything!!!"
After the last sentence left his lips, he regretted it deeply. Because Selphie's eyes couldn't hold back the tears anymore. Right in front of him, she broke down and started to choke in tears; her sorrow was for her dear friend.
"Selphie, please, don't-"
"Shut up!" Selphie replied, her face resurfacing from her arms... Squall saw that her black eyeliner was melting on her face, drawing lines of sorrow onto it.
"Selphie, what-"
"Squall, I loved you... As my dearest friend! My dearest friend, do you know what a friend means? A friend is someone to have fun with, to talk for hours on nonsense stuff, to not talk sometimes; but a friend is a person with whom you share something! You don't share with me, you don't share anything with anyone! And I hate that! I hate it! I don't deserve a threat for being a friend!" she sobbed again, giving signs about her unwilling desire to continue crying.
Squall sighed, but knew that, it wasn't going anywhere. He held the chair to get up.
"But, Squall, I know something." Selphie said, lifting her face up one more time, "You are slipping away. From us, from yourself. I don't think anyone is safe if you lose yourself, Squall, listen to me! You have to hear me! What will happen if you lose control, and she turns evil!? Evil sorceresses with knights is not uncommon!"
Getting up to leave, Squall looked into Selphie's eyes, and said "If something like that happens, Selphie, I will need you to do something for me."
"What?" Selphie demanded.
"You will learn that from Quistis later on."
"Tell me, Squall. It might be of some us to me now."
"You don't need to know what. Quistis will know. She will remember... the last time I had asked such a thing of her."
Then, Squall started to walk to the exit of the Cafeteria, leaving Selphie, and her joy behind him.
He stood in the middle of the hall, all alone, and thinking of what to do. Then, he remembered the clouds, and how he had seen a vision of himself, fighting a battle for a girl he knew but was a total stranger to.
Matron. Matron should know what that means. This has been driving me nuts ever since that day. Matron should know.
Determined to learn what it was, Squall turned to the path leading to the elevator. As he walked, he started to think, without noticing the people around him.
What was that? A man... Me... Holding my gunblade and fighting a war for her.
Fighting? No. I was winning a war for her. And by just looking at that scene, I can definately tell that, he had lost control. He was winning a war for her; my actions only to win it.
For her. I was risking everything for her.
He got out of the elevator, and started to walk towards the classroom currently in which he knew Edea was teaching. He got to it's door, and checked his watch. It was 14:57. The class had ended two minutes ago. He walked straight inside, to find the class completely vacant except for Edea, who was putting her files to an align in her workstation.
"Matron?" Squall demanded acknowledgement of presence.
"Hello, child." Edea said, a bitter smile crossing her lips. Squall found himself wondering why he was seeing that bitter smile too much lately.
"Why do you keep calling me 'child' lately?" Squall spit out before even thinking about his actual question.
"I call the ones I have raised as 'child' because you are practically my children."
"You call the others by their names."
"You should figure out why I am calling you only 'child', child."
Squall tried to make sense out of her sentence. Failing to do so, he decided to ask a question to start the train...
...A train which was on the rails that lead to his actual question.
"Can someone see hallucinations after great shocks... Or revivals?"
"Yes." Edea said, "Someone can see hallucinations in those conditions. That 'someone' is capable of many hallucinations if he or she does drugs, though."
"I don't do drugs."
"Have you been having conversations with your pet friend bunnies?" Edea demanded.
"No." Squall replied, "I don't have any now or had any anytime near. I just... Saw something a while ago. Something strange, something I couldn't explain."
"You need either a psychoanalist or a psychic, child."
"You are a sorceress."
"Was, a sorceress."
"You come pretty close to a psychic."
Edea sighed, that bitter smile crossing her face again. Saving the current settings, she turned her workstation off, and stood up, her plain gray dress hanging over her like a funeral outfit she was too elegant to carry.
"Do tell me." Edea demanded.
"When I awakened at the flower field... I saw something."
"Exactly what?"
Squall gave her a description of how the skies had swirled to a hole to show him a man with a trenchcoat and a gunblade stand on top of a mountain, ready to win a war for the girl...
...He told Edea that the man was him.
When his words ceased to be, Edea's questions arose;
"Child, don't you know!? Do you even listen to my lectures!?"
"It's been some time since you started teaching, Matron, but remember, all my time is wasted in missions!"
"Don't lie to me, child!" Edea shouted, "You were here during every lecture!"
"So what if I was!?" Squall demanded, "That doesn't explain what she didn't like me telling you!"
"Of course she won't like it!"
"Why, because you will lie to me?"
"No, because she knows what it means!"
"WHAT THE FUCK DOES IT MEAN THEN!?"
"FOR HYNE'S SAKE- YOU GAZED INTO THE FUTURE, SQUALL!!!"
Squall stood there in absolute silence, as Edea welcomed his move as well. She hung her head in despair, as Squall tried to grasp the meaning of those words.
"It can't be true."
"Every once in a while, a peekhole opens in the fabric of time-space, and it does only so after a great amount of magic is used in a certain area... The Flower Field would suffice to be that area, wouldn't it? Yes... I see you're accepting it, so why don't you see what that means?"
"It's impossible."
"No. What supports this theory is the idea that if you gaze too far into the future, your stare travels around the spiral of time and space, turning to show yourself. That would explain why that man was you... But do you know whom that girl was?"
"No."
"What was she doing again?"
"Making the man win a war- no, wait! I was winning a war for her because I wanted to. Not because she had forced the man or anything."
"No. She was manipulating him. That's what you said in your initial description. She was manipulating him. And that makes her Rinoa."
"I don't think so."
"Why? I've watched you try to resist and slowly drift away. I watched your hope disappear. And now, I see you deny it too."
"Such thing is impossible; you can't see your own future!"
Edea's eyes widened with the expression in his voice; and the meaning it carried. Her hands started to shake as they moved up to her mouth to clamp over it as she sighed a prayer;
"Great Hyne in Heaven save us!"
"What?"
"Child..." Edea said, her voice shaking, "It's not impossible now."
"Why not?"
"It is not impossible. It's just... inevitable as of now. You've given in. You've seen it. You know it. And yet you deny it. You have already given in. You're broken, child. No one can fix you but her, and she... Will not."
"What!?" Squall demanded, his voice rising slightly, "She wouldn't like to see me suffer! She would hurt inside if I hurt! How can you say such a thing!?"
"Rinoa likes it when you're under her control... Under her undying influence."
"That's a lie." Squall said.
"You can decide whether it is or not later on by yourself, since Selphie took a great risk by talking to you today."
"What?"
"Rinoa went up to her and told her to stay away from you. Evidently, you've been spending too much time together... For her standarts, anyway."
"That's not true."
"I said you can decide whether it is not or it is later on by yourself. Just try asking Rinoa..." Edea sighed, "You will find that I am right, and that there is no escape from it now."
Squall looked into her eyes, begging for a sign of light to appear for him to follow. Nothing happened. Her eyes were filled with a desolate sorrow now.
"Whatever the cost... I think someone will save you. Someone to redeem you... As well as herself."
Squall missed that she had used a "her" as his savior. He gritted his teeth and said,
"Permission to leave the class?"
"Permission granted. Dismissed." Edea said.
As Squall got out of the classroom, Edea's hand fondled the wooden covering of her workstation.
That child, Edea thought, has longed for the warmth of someone permanent for so long that... It'll be his doom. It'll lead him to torment and pain...
...And yet there is no way I can save him.
I guess... I must accept that maybe he doesn't wish to be saved... That maybe, just maybe, he loves her and that love could reach out through all the pain and the torment, the desire to control and the addiction, and cover them in the storm.
Outside, as Squall walked to the elevator, the gears and wheels in his mind had started to work.
This isn't true! Rinoa doesn't practice influence on me! She loves me, and is a little bit jeolous, that's about it... I don't think she would...
I don't think?
What am I thinking? Of course she wouldn't do such a thing!
Determined that this was the truth, Squall felt the elevator shake and start to move down.
Why would she want to control me when she knows I will not bend?
I remember...
She had said something about that once...
"In life, dear love, you either bend or you break."
Did that mean me, by any chance?
His thoughts were interrupted by the sound of the elevator doors sliding open. He guided his steps through New Balamb Garden, and as he turned his direction to the dormitories, his train of thought continued to advance.
If that meant me... Then she would have me broken.
Broken if I won't bend, which I had been trying to for the last few months... But it's hard. Nobody knows how it is when the only one person you love tries to manipulate your mind.
Guess I should've followed what a quotation I had once read said to me;
"Manipulate my mind, I don't mind."
He noticed that he had just arrived at the door of their dormitory. He reached into his pocket to find the key to this door.
I wonder if I will keep on searching for keys for all my life... Key to salvation, key to her heart, key to logic...
...Will I ever have all the keys and seek the locks?
Opening up the door, Squall walked inside of their dormitory... The name was too humble for a rather large suite with built-in kitchen and a private bathroom with a jacuzzi(an addition requested by Rinoa).
Rinoa was already inside the room. She was wearing black denim jeans underneath a black blouse, and her black boots were shining.
"Hello, Rinoa." Squall said, walking up to her. She was sitting on the bed, reading a book. Squall bent down, and Rinoa lifted her head up for him. Their lips met for three seconds, and then, Squall broke the kiss, sitting at her side.
"Hi, Squall." Rinoa said, "How was your day?"
"Not bright. Edea told me some strange stuff."
"She's strange all over, dear lion."
"Whatever." Squall replied.
Silence fell into the room. Squall was searching for a way to break it gently, so it wouldn't hurt anybody, let alone her. He smiled bitterly to himself, he didn't even know how to start a train of words that would lead to the final destination of the conversation.
He then, thought that, a simple approach could solve everything. Determined that this was a valid logic, he said;
"Rinoa, I need to ask you something."
"Go ahead."
"Would you threaten anybody other than the politicians or enemies?"
"I would, if that person is doing something I want to."
"Like what- seems an affection to a possession of yours that you adore?"
Squall hadn't noticed it, but after the sentence reached his ears, he noticed that he had just named himself as a possession of hers.
"I can be very, very intimidated and intimidating in that situation."
"So you really did tell Selphie to stay away from me?"
"What I said was, exactly, 'Stay away from my knight, or I'll have you raped for a hundred times and murdered through torment.'"
"How the hell can you say that to a dear friend!?" Squall demanded,
"I said what I said because I don't like her! She's too open, too liberal! She likes fucking around you, so I gave that little bitch a lecture about borders and how three's a crowd!"
"To hell with all the common sense relationship notions you read in those damn newspapers everyday! You did tell her that, now is it true?"
"Yes, I did."
Squall stood in silence for a single moment.
"Behave, Squall." Rinoa said, her eyes carrying the crimson grin he had known for quite a while.
"Shut the fuck up! You had no right to tell Selphie to stay away from me!"
"Why the hell not? I am your girlfriend, Squall, I do have a right to get jeolous!"
"Being 'jeolous' means spitting off puns about the acts the opposite end of the relationship carries in my dictionary, not threatening her!"
"DON'T TALK ABOUT WHAT YOU DON'T UNDERSTAND!"
"ADMIT THAT YOU'RE A VIOLENT, JEOLOUS, COMPLEX'D, PARANOID BITCH!!!"
"SHUT THE FUCK UP!!!" Rinoa's hand drew a swift curve in the air, scratching the skin off Squall's neck, and splattering blood all over the floor. Squall let out a grunt of pain, as his left hand immidiately went to the wound on his neck. The next move came from his forehead, and slit open his scar. Squall screamed this time, trying to see through all the blood covering his eyes. Rinoa'Ss feet came in contact with his chin, and sent his head backwards.
Squall lost his balance, and saw the floor approach to him in a very familiar way...
...I am falling... Just like thousand times before. How I would love to recoil... But I can't.
I don't want to hurt her.
Squall smashed onto the ground, and felt the pain scorch his body. His world spun for three times, such as the chamber of his gunblade, and then crashed with all it's might.
As it crashed, Squall felt his own shooting star explode into oblivion.
"Why don't you listen to me when I speak!!!" Rinoa demanded, as she came to his side.
"Rinoa..." Squall could let out, "Just... Stop it."
"I won't." She replied, "Not until you tell me what I want to hear."
"What do you want to hear, that you are a violent-"
"I SAID SHUT UP!!!" she shouted, her kick landing onto his groin, making him scream out in pain. Rinoa knelt immidiately and reached out to the cut on his neck. Squall tried to keep away, but her fingertip had already reached that spot. She briefly tapped onto it.
Squall's throat let out blood as he started to let out a drowned scream which immidiately turned to sobs out of the blood that filled his throat. He started to choke on the ground.
Maybe this can make me die... Hyne knows I wouldn't deny it.
"Now..." Rinoa said, "What will you say?"
Squall mumbled something between choked breaths.
"What was that?" Rinoa demanded.
She felt her grasp hold him; and her mind add another brick to the wall she was building around his mind and soul.
"I'm... sorry!" Squall managed to get out between his coughs.
"Good... You better be." Rinoa replied, as a satisfied smile stretched itself across her lips.
"I am." Squall said, "I am sorry."
"That's so nice of you, love."
Outside the dormitory room, Selphie heard Rinoa say "Now, Squall, my dear, let's go to bed, shall we?"
"What about the wound?" Squall demanded.
"I can heal it... I will too; if you're nice."
Selphie pressed her back against the wall, not being able to supress her tears anymore. Her eyeliner was running as she listened to Squall say;
"Don't hesitate to do what you have to do to me..."
As Selphie heard Rinoa's cheerful sigh, she felt the tears press harder against her eyes. She buried her face into her broken hands, and then, started to cry with loud sobs.
In her mind; in her mind of happiness and how things will always work out, a bomb had just exploded. Her dreams and her own personal, pink Ockham's Razor anology had just gotten unequated.
One thought had destroyed the basis of her way of thinking; and had killed her right at his dormitory room...
He has given in.
Author's Notes:There you go. "Symptoms of Mercy" will hopefully be the first part of a trilogy(it's "hopefully" because I hope I can write the damn thing). Later on will come the two later chapters of this story of manipulation... Extending it to further levels of self-control, and emotional hardships with how a broken mind functions.
The quote was taken from Spiral Architect's song "Excessit". The lyrics of the only major Spiral Architect release "A Sceptic's Universe" are written by the vocalist, Oyvind Hægeland.