Ah…so it comes to an end. I'm actually immensely sad, for I thoroughly enjoyed writing this. Though don't worry…I'm creating another FF9 fic in my head…and maybe I can twist it slightly so it's a sequel to this?
Thank you to my reviewers! You guys rock! A special thank you goes out to: Protektor93, Atla, demonSurfer, gipsy queen, Emily the freak, fawkespii, tc chan, prozac fairy, malevalla, coalar lee drake, beastie wolf, rose mage, meteor vs holy, Yuffie-babe and anyone else who I missed out! It wasn't intentional!
Hope you enjoy the ending! And look out for my other stuff! If you liked this you'll probably like, 'Just below the Skin'…FF8.
Review one last time! Thanks!
Chapter fourteen
'What power has love but forgiveness?
In other words
By its intervention
What has been done
Can be undone.
What good is it otherwise?'
- William Carlos Williams
When Vivi thought about it, the worst time the group experienced out of the entire gruelling ordeal was when they witnessed Zidane disappearing through the portal, because after that they lost the hope that they'd been clinging to – the hope for a happy ending.
There really wasn't much they could do after that except carry on with their set mission to hold the monsters at bay (though they didn't see what good that would do anymore), for none of them could – nor wanted to – follow their possessed hero into the other dimension. So they fought on as a united team with belittled strength in a dull sort of desperation so that everything became a kind of routine.
Eiko cured, Beatrix and Steiner attacked front and right, Amarant and Freya fought back and left, Vivi cast his destructive black magic hovering above.
They hardly saw their foes, so clouded were their eyes with despair and anxiety. Images of Zidane killing an unpossessed Garnet in his unawareness of the situation constantly played out in their minds and the rain only seemed to fall heavier upon their weary bodies.
So when the monsters stopped tumbling in disarray toward them like gushing water from a pot, they hardly noticed at all. In fact, it was only when they had slain the last beast and were waiting for the next that they wondered what was happening. They stood with the rain hammering against their broken armour and battered bodies and the distant sounds of the Eidolons destroying civilisation playing in their ears.
Eventually, still in formation, they lowered their weapons and defences looking mystified.
'Um…anyone care to explain?' Eiko said, looking around at the demolished and deserted square.
For a moment only the hum of the portal in front of them could be heard. And then Freya said a little hesitantly:
'How odd. You don't think…?'
'Surely not?' Steiner gaped.
Vivi was just about to tell them that they should have more faith in their comrade when an earthshaking explosion ripped through their senses and shook the cobbles beneath their feet. Any intact windows shattered and rained splinters of glass, houses shuddered and rubble broke loose from its larger foundations and showered to the ground.
They recovered from the shock quickly and started around them in awe, each knowing that the explosion was far too powerful to have come from any of the nearby Eidolons.
'Where,' Steiner mumbled, 'did that come from?'
But they knew already and absently turned to the portal, whose blue window to the other world was shuddering violently.
'It's Zidane, isn't it?' Eiko said.
Vivi looked doubtful. 'I'm not…sure…It's too powerful – even for him.'
They could tell there were smaller explosions setting off on the other side of the portal, for small tremors were emitting rapidly from its colossal mouth. They all felt so useless standing there immobile and apprehensive, waiting for something to happen. What ever that something was…Tension grew with such an intoxicating rapidity that panic blossomed brightly from its thick vines, each person desperately wanting to run, help, cry, fight.
Suddenly, Beatrix released a cry of alarm. 'Look! Look!'
She pointed to the base of the portal, which hovered inches from the ground. The group watched with transfixed revulsion as a viscous black liquid oozed from its mouth like saliva, dripping in slurping globules to the ground below, where it fizzed and hissed, dissolving the stony surface.
'What is –'
But Amarant couldn't complete his question as another explosion rocked their environment. This time the darkened sky erupted with the blood chilling cried of the Eidolons, swarming in distress around the ruined city. Something had disturbed them greatly, and no one dared make a guess at what could unnerve these frightful beasts.
'Erm…guys?'
The group turned and stared at where Vivi was looking.
'Gods protect us!' Freya breathed as she witnessed what was happening.
The group watched in spellbound dismay and horror as the portal began to sink into the recesses of the acidic juices, being eaten slowly, slowly away. Then another tremor emitted from the portal, stronger than before, and knocked them off their feet. A deep rumbling, like the growl of a gigantic beast thundered through Alexandria, and the group was forced to crawl away from the spreading liquid that puddle further out from the portal, which had tilted on its side, as if cocking its head quizzically at them.
The howling of the Eidolons became palpable, and they tore at themselves and each other in a sudden bout of maddened panic.
'If the portal's destroyed Zidane wont be able to get back!' Eiko cried in despair above the racket.
For the first time since the incident, Vivi actually lost hope. Everything fell away from his grasp, sinking like the portal into a desolate pit of despair. So Zidane had failed? Was this the end of everything? Of life? Existence? With the Eidolons ruling the world it would be no better than if Necron had deposited everything back to the Zero world.
The Eidolon's howling increased to a catastrophic level as the six watched in utter despair as the portal window became nothing more than a slither of blue rising out of the jet liquid like a dying blue fish in an ocean of oil. It was flickering and the droning hum it emitted became less audible but more desperate as it reached its final peak.
Vivi stumbled forward as close to the portal as he dared without the magma burning his feet, and watched forlornly as the it ate away the only entrance and exit to the other world. He felt an indomitable sadness rise and swell inside of him as he realised that things would never quite be the same again. 'Zidane.'
And then, as if to answer his forlorn call, a blur shot from the tiny blue streak and skidded across the rain soaked ground beside him. Vivi's immediate thought was that it was monster, making one last futile attempt to fight and escape from the other planet, but when he stared longer at the bundle and heard Eiko scream –
'Zidane!'
- he knew everything would be okay.
The Genome lay on his back with his eyes closed, the rain hammering his face.
Even when they were laying face down on the Hill of Despair, Vivi had never seen Zidane look so physically destroyed as he did now. His face was covered in so much blood the black understood why he had had trouble identifying him at first. His chest had been clawed open in three ragged lines – his shirt practically nonexistent. Blonde hair matted with more blood, skin the rainbow colour of bruises. A rib protruded from his chest like a horrific claw.
And with an unmatched horror that shook Vivi on a profound level he realised just what – who – the fallen thief was clutching with an unwavering desperation to his battered body. Queen Garnet.
What looked to him like thorns, massive, thick and sickening, curled from her back and sides as if they were grotesque disfigurements. Dark blood oozed from her open wounds, deep cuts shearing her skin, staining the remnants of her dress a reddish-black. Vivi could not see her face and he was glad – he felt certain that she was dead and feared what her once beautiful visage might behold.
Beside the couple was something the little mage did not expect to see. A dead bird of a wonderful white, strangely out of place in this dreary background. Kuja. Dead. His beautiful body lying lifeless on the ground, emitting a sad demeanour all around him.
Vivi took all this in within a few seconds but before he – or anyone them for that matter – could run to their aid, something they all begged would happen, happened.
The portal must have been the trigger, for the moment the black liquid consumed it completely the Eidolons screaming reached its peak and the earth began to rumble to violently beneath their feet Vivi wouldn't have been surprised if Gaia shook itself apart. And then a series of blinding lights lit the darkened sky.
It took a while but the black mage finally understood where the lights were emitting from: the Eidolons! He could see them no longer, though their screams still pierced and vibrated through his entire being. And then with a series of five deafening explosions the Eidolons – once sacred creatures that had aided them in saving the world – were blown to nothing more than atoms, never to be seen again.
They all could hardly comprehend it.
And then faster than their eyes could register the clouds that rolled and thundered overhead above the desolate city Alexandria, broke and began to disperse like steam disappearing through a window in a hot room. They sky could finally be seen; and it was beautiful.
Red and orange swirled in a bright display of shocking colour wile ribbons of cream clouds adorned the sky, tinted with light pinks and hints of glowing gold. All around the sky was clear and calm, and the sun was a bright sphere in a wash of yellows to their right, the sunset signifying the end of a devastating period in their history. It bathed the crumbled mass of ruins in a light so pure it filled them an overwhelming sense of well being they'd never felt before.
Right now, all they wanted to do is live.
With the calm washing over them, the portal gone, the Eidolon's world gone along with
Eidolon's themselves and existence saved once again, the six turned their attention back to the three inanimate forms laying unaware of their triumph.
Xxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Dull lights flashing. Flashing. Above him? All around him. Everywhere. Flashing incessantly. And then…and then…
Just one light. One bright light. Shining so bright but it didn't hurt his eyes, no, it felt good.
Relaxing…quiet…calm…peace. He'd forgotten…forgotten these things. He felt at one. A whole. A piece of something. Of everything. He could drift here for hours. Days. Months. Years. Forever. To feel nothing… But there was something else…what was it?
Why can't I…?
The light's becoming stronger…no pain…no feeling. Stronger. Brighter. Whiteness.
Think? Think of what?
Drifting somewhere. Far away. Further than anywhere he'd ever been. Away…away. Away into the blinding light. Upon a liquid atmosphere as smooth as water.
'Where…going…all.'
What?
'Finally…said…going…hurt.'
What are you saying? Who's there?
Drifting toward the light. The soothing light. Into a world without pain. Alone. By himself. Going away. Away.
Wait. Garnet? Where are you? Are you coming too? Garnet? WAIT! I can't go on without you! STOP!
Pain.
'Ouch…'
'He's…up!'
'Zidane…you're…'
I'm what?
'You're alive!'
xxxxxxxxxx
Six months later…It was beautiful really; a marvellous piece of craftsmanship that couldn't have reflected his personality better. It held an unmatched striking elegance, with its smooth edges that curled up at the top into a spiral; a perfectly sculpted rose crowning its very pinnacle, as exquisite and as seemingly delicate as a real rose. The memorial poked its way through the ground and beamed proudly at its ruined surroundings, standing out as clearly as dewdrops on a delicate spider's web. Carved from amethyst crystal, a name was impressed within the sparkling limestone besides a superb carving on an owl in flight: Kuja.
Zidane sat alone before his brother's gravestone on the hill outside of Alexandria, where he had once stood, seemingly a millennia ago now, calling upon his Eidolon, Amias, to posses his body. A slight breeze ruffled his hair and clothes, the knee-high grass on the hills around him rippled like a wave on the ocean as the gust shifted its thin blades.
The Genome reached out and ran his fingers over the indentations of his brother's name, feeling the cool surface and the gentle curves of each line. He had given him so much, and he felt like he'd given nothing in return. But he knew kuja wouldn't want him to think that way, and so he had this tombstone erected in his memory, and the owl which his soul had possessed was buried beneath the very ground on which he knelt.
Suddenly a hand clutched his shoulder gently, and he didn't need to turn round to know who it was.
'How are you feeling?'
It still hurt all over. His outer wounds were healing rapidly, thanks to the care, medicine and surgery the medics at Lindblum were able to give him – the place which Freya, Vivi, Amarant and Eiko had rushed both him and Garnet to almost the moment they had lunged from the Otherworld. His skin was still blotched with bruises of blue, black and purple, and he was still wrapped up in bandages and slings to support his broken bones. But he was alive. And so was she.
'I've been better,' he replied to his wife, 'but I'm coping. You?'
Garnet knelt before him delicately, wincing only briefly under the pain. 'The same as you I'll wager.'
They sat in silence for a moment, listening to each other's breathing and staring with a kind of melancholy at the opulent gravestone before them.
'It's beautiful,' she said.
Zidane nodded. 'I wanted it to be.'
He saw her look at him out of the corner of his eye as she said: 'I think he'd have liked that.'
They had removed the black thorns with some difficulty. One had punctured her lung, another missing a main artery by inches. They said it was a miracle she'd survived. Now she too, was swathed in bandages and her back and sides were swollen and bruised. Zidane knew it caused her great pain to move too much, so it made him even more grateful that she had come to see him.
'It's going to be really difficult.'
He looked at her. All her previous beauty had been restored almost fully; the gold-flecked beacons of her eyes were no longer sunken and swimming with insanity, but bright and aware. Her hair hung long and lush over her shoulders, shining in the morning sun, her cheeks glowing from the fresh air.
He cleared his throat. 'What is?'
Without looking she signalled with a flick of her hand to Alexandria. What remained of Alexandria. For it now lay completely in ruins, fragments of stone buildings piled upon each other, empty shells of homes revealing their insides. Some buildings remained mostly whole, looking alien in the devastated area, like a tall tree amidst a field of cut down ones. Alexandria castle had escaped quite a lot of damage, for the West side was still intact, as was the massive sword…but the east side had crumbled away.
The citizens had trickled back into Alexandria, weeping, mourning, and rummaging through their remaining possessions. They had no idea what to do at first, and were grieved to hear of their Queens injuries, so they huddled in groups against their ruins for two days until finally news spread that Captain Adelbert Steiner and General Beatrix were taking charge.
Garnet couldn't have thanked them enough. They held a 'meeting' in what remained of the City Square, the only place that was relatively clear of debris, and got the citizens to work immediately, separating them into groups. Some reunited families, others cleared rubble, and several organized food rations. They also allowed most of the citizens into the remains of the palace where there was shelter and basic amenities.
And then finally, on the fourth day, the very city in which Garnet and Zidane were recovering in sent aid for the citizens: food, water, clothes, even transport out of Alexandria to Lindblum – though few wanted to leave.
So progress was slow, yet the ambition and determination to bring Alexandria back to its bustling self was indomitable, and with volunteers from places like Lindblum, Treno and even Burmecia, Garnet hoped her kingdom would be restored in no time.
Zidane recalled all this with little enthusiasm. He had been involved in the war and yet it was an atrocious shock to return and see his wife's kingdom in such a state. If it wasn't for Steiner and Beatrix's leadership, he doubted Alexandria would have been able to get back on its feet all.
He shrugged. 'Yeah, it'll be difficult but…we'll get through.'
The raven-haired queen brushed up against him and reached out to touch Kuja's grave, running her fingers across the smooth curves. Zidane reached out and placed his hand over hers, tracing the symbols with her in silence. She stopped then, and entwined her fingers with his.
'Zidane.' Her voice was breaking and when he tore his gaze away from their locked hands he saw tears coursing down her cheeks.
'Zidane you'll…you'll stay with me…right?'
The Genome wouldn't have been the least bit surprised if his heart just buckled right then, for the emotion he suddenly felt for his beloved wife in front of him was almost unbearable. So he twisted slightly and encircled her with the arm that wasn't in a sling and pulled her close.
'Garnet.' The emotion was too much and the words got stuck in his throat. He took a deep breath. 'Garnet. I'll never leave you now. Ever. Gods if I knew…if I knew the damage I would cause…I never would've left. I was so selfish…so thoughtless. I know this is…a bit of an understatement, and I don't know if you ever will…but I'm sorry, and I hope you'll forgive me.'
The brown-eyed woman hid her face in his bandaged chest and sobbed.
'If anything I don't deserve you,' the blonde continued. 'But if I go leaving you now it shows how little I've learnt through this…and then Gods, I should've burnt along with Eidolon's planet! But honestly, if I've learnt anything…it's that I love you. I love you so freakin' much, Garnet.'
She released a cross between a giggle and sob and looked up at him through eyes glossed with a watery sheen. 'I love you too.'
She smiled thoughtfully, a slight forlorn expression tinting her flawless features. 'You look older now. You've grown up over these past few years.'
He smiled weakly. 'And you're still as hot as I remember.'
She rolled her eyes and punched him lightly on his uninjured arm, then fell back into his warm embrace.
'We'll get back on our feet again,' she said. 'We always do.'
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
The day was very still and peaceful, a light rain had begun to fall in thin silvery sheets. The sound of the owls hooting mysteriously echoed through the hushed village, and the babbling stream gurgled contently to itself, dragonflies swooping to the surface where the fish glided gracefully.
Mikoto was the only one outside. Everyone had withdrawn to their homes when the rain had started to fall. She found the rocking of the tiny bridge quite calming, and the sound of the rains gentle song soothed her aching spirit.
It had been months since she'd heard from her brothers. Her two most beloved of relations. Surely they could not be dead? She'd heard malevolent rumours about them since the victory over the Eidolons – which she was thrilled with. She had doubted their chances of success…yet what was success when they weren't there to indulge themselves in it?
And Kuja had worked so hard to train Zidane! Half of that training would have been wasted if he did not return!
Even though the entire village had rejoiced at the good news, Mikoto just couldn't bring herself to. The world may have been saved and existence as they knew it…but what was life without her brothers? The blonde couldn't even bring herself to join in in the festivities. Not until she knew the news – whether it was good…or bad.
'You're soaked! You know, you'll get a cold if you sit out here too long.'
Mikoto's heart leapt into her mouth and for a moment she couldn't bring herself to look up at where that singsong voice had sprung.
'Is this the welcome I get?'
Her head swivelled round jerkily, and there she beheld her brother, standing on the end of the bridge, as drenched as she. Her blue eyes filled with tears and she scrambled up and forward, lurching herself toward him.
'Zidane!' she sobbed.
He caught her in an embrace and let her sob against his chest.
'Hey, how are you doing?'
She tried to calm herself and managed to splutter: 'Fine.'
He laughed and led her back to where she was sitting and reclaimed her place on the soggy planks of wood. Then he began shuffling about in a bag he was carrying and brought out a plastic box.
Mikoto watched his clumsy movements as he struggled to do everything with just one hand – his other arm broken and bound in a sling. In fact, his whole body seemed to be covered in bandages, every other part of him bruised and battered. he looked exhausted, truly like he'd fought a war.No wonder she hadn't heard from him.
'Oh Zidane…'
He looked up at her quizzically and grinned. 'I'm all right. I'm alive aren't I?'
She smiled gratefully then looked down to see that he had laid two plates full of sandwiches on the bridge before her.
'Wha –'
'Remember what I said? I said that when I come back we'd have dinner here on this bridge? Okay so it's not much…and they're kinda getting soggy…but it's still dinner right?'
Mikoto's vision blurred with tears again and she managed a nod before reaching out and tenderly picking up a sandwich. She stuffed it into her mouth before she could start sobbing again. She couldn't even bring herself to say anything! Everything was just so…
Sheglanced around suddenlyas realisation struck her.The blondelooked at Zidane who was watching her sadly through his slender blue eyes. He sighed and averted his gaze to the stream.
She swallowed. 'Kuja…?'
Zidane didn't reply.
Mikoto felt as if her heart had transformed to lead, and it was plummeting down, down, down to her stomach.
No…no…Kuja…
'He…sacrifised himself,' Zidane explained slowly, 'to save myself…and Garnet…'
The male genome looked up and startled when he saw Mikoto was smiling. Her eyes were shining, glistening was tears, and her smile was warm and passionate.
'Then…he finally fulfilled his purpose. He can move on…oh Zidane. You set him free.'
Zidane blinked and returned the smile. 'I'd say he set himself free really.'
Zidane's little sister crawled over to him on her knees, closing the gap between the two and settled down in her older brother's arms. She watched the stream bubble and gurgle and then a flash of white further up stream caught her eye. A perfect owl feather was drifting on the currents down stream like a beautiful unmanned vessel, as if it was a last gift from Kuja.
She gave a broad smile when she saw it, and her brother smiled too, for he then realised that it didn't matter what happened next; it was what happened then that counted, for everything around him was as delicate as the feather being washed away beneath the bridge, and all that really mattered – be it family, friends or lovers - was what he had now.
So he watched as another part of his life washed away with the stream, disappearing round the corner and out of sight, like the sun slipping down over the horizon. And he realised then, that all he really could do is live and never take for granted the people around him. Even his enemies, and especially the people he loved most.
END