Rinoa sat, bound but not uncomfortable, in a chair atop the central spire of Balamb Garden. It seemed like she could look over the whole continent, but she found herself in no mood to enjoy the view. She took a quick glance around. She saw an empty weapons rack and a stainless steel table, the kind used in operating rooms.
The door to the roof opened, and General Mallis came through, dressed in polished black armor.
"My dear Ms. Heartilly," he smiled. "So nice to see you again."
He looked out over the horizon, watching the clouds in the distance. Mallis took a deep breath.
"There's a storm coming," he said.
Rinoa's jaw locked. "You have no idea."
Mallis whirled on her. "You think your Knight will come rescue you?" he asked.
"I know he will," she replied, voice never wavering.
Mallis's smile cracked wide open, grinning in madness. "My dear," he hissed, "I'm counting on it."
Rinoa's eyes widened as she saw what Mallis held in his hands: a massive sword, fully eight feet long and two feet wide. It didn't end in a point, but rather with a blunt, square edge. Its purpose seemed abundantly clear to Rinoa: dismemberment. Mallis practically dragged it behind him, and she could see the effort it took to maneuver the thing.
"You're looking at this?" he inquired. His hands glowed with purple fire. The fire spread from his hands and ran the length of his blade as Mallis lifted the sword for her inspection. It seemed lighter now.
"It is called The Scar," he said. "And it is as old as humanity itself."
Rinoa didn't react.
"You know, of course, the legend of Hyne?"
Rinoa nodded. "Hyne grew tired of fighting monsters and created humans before going to sleep. When Hyne awoke, he was alarmed by the number of humans and attempted to control the population by taking the children. The humans retaliated and hunted Hyne, who escaped by surrendering half of his body. This half has somehow become the power that... fuels Sorcery."
"That is the myth, yes," he nodded. "The truth is rarely so straightforward."
"You want to tell me the truth?" she laughed.
Mallis shrugged. "I can't force you to believe me."
"But you can force me to listen," she replied.
Mallis's mouth turned up a little. "The legends would have you believe that Hyne was the creator of this world. That is not necessarily true. The world is much, much older than that. Untold eons ago, this world was inhabited by beings of untold power. Elemental spirits. Creatures that wielded magic on a scale we can't imagine."
"Guardian Forces," Rinoa mumbled.
"Eidolons. Aeons. Espers. The nomenclature is inconsequential," Mallis shrugged. "This was their world. The creature we call Leviathan labored over the tides. Ifrit heated vast sheets of rock and the Brothers split them into continents. Shiva's breath cooled the surface of the planet. Eden set the stars in their courses and set the gradual hand of fate into motion. The Cactuar coaxed life out of every plant. There were countless others, but the ones we know today were among the most influential."
"And Hyne?" she asked.
"Hyne was one of them. A minor functionary of Eden, actually, one of those responsible for ensuring the course of fate ran smoothly. But..."
"But?"
"At a certain point, Hyne detected... an anomaly. A knot in the tapestry, if you will. A flaw in the cool precision of order."
"What was the flaw?"
"He couldn't say. None of them could. Eden knew, perhaps, but it was as inscrutable then as now. None of the Eidolons could tell how to resolve the problem. Should they take action? Should they wait it out? None of them knew. There were a few certainties."
"Such as?"
"The knot was fast approaching, and whatever it was, it would be monumental. And... whatever the nature of the knot, humans were at the center of it."
"But we didn't exist!" she exclaimed.
"Not as such," Mallis admitted. "We had ancestors. Crude, unintelligent brutes. We had not even advanced far enough to become cavemen at the time."
"Wait," Rinoa said. "If this was their world, why were we here?"
"We had a role in the natural order, just like the other animals. That's what we were – animals. They created us to be one more gear in the clockwork universe that they built for themselves. But somehow... we found ourselves at the center of a very big storm."
"What did they do?" she asked.
"They debated. Humans – like the other animals – had a course charted for them. Over time, we would grow, and change. Mature as a species. It would take hundreds of millions of years, but eventually, we would become modern man. Intelligent and inspired. Capable of great works of beauty. The majority of the Espers refused to believe that we could cause the destruction they foresaw.
"And Hyne proposed a radical solution: accelerate the development. Reweave the tapestry. Give us the wisdom and insight prematurely, and let us find our own way past the storm. This was not a popular notion."
"Understandably."
"When the debate ended, the lines had been drawn. The most ancient and powerful Aeons – the Guardian Forces of today – voted in favor of nonintervention. Bahamut himself decreed that humanity would remain untouched. The younger generation wanted to intervene. They believed that it was the only way to save us – and themselves. Unbidden, Hyne and his followers – amounting to a third of the existing Eidolons – manifested to our ancestors. They gave us the gifts of reason. Language. Memory. All those things that make us truly human. But in doing so, they violated Bahamut's law."
"What happened?"
"War. A war the likes of which the world has not seen since. A war that leveled mountains and blasted away forests. In the conflict, a massive piece of earth was ripped away and cast into space, becoming our moon. This resulted in the destruction of Leviathan's carefully structured oceans, and the kingdom of the summons disappeared under the waves."
Rinoa nodded. "Which is why we found an entire city beneath the Deep Sea Research Facility. That's where we located Bahamut. And Eden."
Mallis smiled. "Clever girl. More than that, the force of the conflict sundered this world. It originally connected with countless other worlds. They... overlapped."
"Overlapped?" Rinoa cocked her head.
Mallis looked skyward and pursed his lips. "Imagine... a symphony. The piano plays a melody. The brass plays a melody. Percussion, strings, woodwinds. They all play at once, and create a harmonious sound. That is how our world once was."
"And now?"
"The force of the conflict shattered this symphony. We're locked in a room by ourselves, playing our melody, unsure of the fate of the rest of the musicians. They still exist, no doubt, and I'm sure their legends run parallel to ours. The spirit of ice may not be a frozen queen, as ours is, but it will still be Shiva. The images and names can be different, but the entity is the same."
"And what came of this war?"
"The world the Aeons saw was nothing but a shadow of what it once was. Whatever attraction our world once held for them, it was gone. The watch had run down. Bahamut ordered the withdrawal of his troops, and they simply... departed. Packed up and left.
"Odin remained, for reasons known only to him. It is said that he quarreled with Bahamut over this point. Bahamut said he was willing to force Odin out of this world if need be. Odin placed his hand on his sword and invited Bahamut to try. That was the last they spoke of the issue."
"What happened to the rebels?"
"They, naturally, were no longer welcome among their fellows. Bahamut decreed that, since mankind was so precious to the rebels, they should spend all eternity among us. They were exiled to the many worlds created in the war. Hyne had the misfortune to be banished here."
"So the monsters he fought...?"
"Correct. They were what we call Guardian Forces. The great 'god' Hyne is nothing more than an exile, banished here in the wake of a cosmic mistake. All the rest is mythological whitewash."
"So how did Hyne get to the point where humanity hunted him?" Rinoa asked.
"Some of Hyne's followers retreated to the moon. You saw their legacy in the Lunar Cry. Others buried themselves among humanity. Eventually, they tried to breed with us. The results have not been pretty."
Rinoa raised an eyebrow.
"Every monster you've ever seen – from the tiniest bite bug to the most massive ruby dragon – can be traced to the exiles."
"What happened to Hyne?"
"After the war, he was understandably exhausted. With his waning strength, he constructed a tomb for himself, and... settled in for a nap. His last instructions to his beloved humans were that they never disturb him in his tomb. He had failed, however, to calculate the cost of his actions."
"Cost?"
Mallis smiled, lips pulling tight across his face. "He bestowed tremendous power on an infant race. When he... exalted us, we were little more than animals. Predators. Hunters. And to our race, he granted emotion. Creativity. The ability to use tools. The ability to think.
"So there we were. Savage predators suddenly given the ability to create tools and besieged by monsters we had no hope of combating. It was only natural that our first instinct would be to create weapons. Weapons to hunt our prey. Weapons to hunt each other. War followed upon war. Brutalities inflicted for countless generations, with each man's child becoming a more capable killer than his father.
"And somewhere, deep in our ancestral memory, we knew who to blame. We knew who made us what we were, who created the monsters, and who had the power to put it all right again."
"We went into the tomb."
Mallis nodded. "We went in to claim Hyne's power for ourselves. We he awoke, he was enraged beyond all measure. He should have foreseen the consequences. If you give a loaded gun to a four year old, you shouldn't be surprised when someone gets shot.
"But Hyne believed he gave up everything for us. He forsook the society of his brothers to bring us intelligence. He waged a war so that we might remain free. And now we had the good grace to repay him as a mob of angry peasants."
"So he came for the children."
"More than the children. He came for our future. He came to let us know that what he had given us, he could just as easily take away."
"And we fought back."
"With help. Bahamut, the legends say, is a good ruler. But an exceedingly harsh one. Not one to forgive grudges. He saw events transpiring and took action."
"But—"
Mallis held up a finger to stop her. "The exile applied only to the rebels. While the worlds were irrevocably sundered, the loyalists – Bahamut's faction – could travel between them as easily as you or I walk across the street.
"The ancient Aeons collaborated, as they had so long ago. Where they once worked together to create a world, this time, they forged a blade. One made with the express purpose of killing Hyne. When the blade had cooled, Diablos, Bahamut's Dark Messenger, carried the blade to our world, and placed it in the hands of a woman named Khagrim. She, in turn, gave it to her lover, the warrior Yran.
"Together, they hunted down Hyne – not a difficult task, given his weakened state."
"And they... cut him?"
Mallis lifted the glowing blade again. "They cut him in half with one slice." He turned to her, his eye gleaming. "And this is the blade they used."
Rinoa swallowed.
"What happened to Hyne after that?"
He shrugged. "No one knows. It is not easy to kill a god. Perhaps he simply crawled off somewhere to die. Perhaps he managed to escape this world. Perhaps he fled somewhere to heal himself. It doesn't matter. As far as this planet is concerned, he is well and truly dead."
Mallis paused for a moment before starting up again. "For whatever reason," he continued, "Hyne's powers transferred into Khagrim. And she became the first Sorceress."
"And Yran was the first Knight," Rinoa finished.
"Exactly. Only those touched by Hyne can wield this blade. Normal men cannot even lift it," he said.
"Why are you telling me this?" Rinoa whispered.
He gripped the blade in both hands and swung it experimentally.
"I want you to understand," he said, "that when your Knight comes to rescue you, he will die. It is inevitable. Because this is the sword that killed a god."