Hey guys, sorry about the LONG delay between chapters. I've not been doing so well in my classes, but now i'm doing better and I can actually start transferring what's in my notebook to the computer. YAY!

Chapter Three: Alliance

He finally awoke with the sun's rising. Kuja was weary of, but not frightened by the unfamilliar surroundings. From the welcoming decor, he could only guess that he was somehow in a room of the inn he had tried to make it to before he was attacked. Kuja moved to sit up, but as he did the terrible pain in his side screeched at him, causing him to collapse against the pillow. 'At least pillows are better than concrete' he thought as he rubbed his aching head.

"Don't try so hard...you've been badly injured." He heard a voice, distinctly female, say to him from the chair in the shadowy corner of the room. There he saw a figure in a navy blue cloak, one he recognized with anger and fear at once. "So, it was you..." he tried to sit up, fueled by his anger, but only recieved the same results as before. It left him gasping and groaning in pain. "I told you, stop" she said forcefully. Then, following a long sigh, she said "Yes, it was me. You'll someday have to forgive me. I thought you were...someone else." Kuja had not yet let go of his anger. "Someone else? Who did you think I was exactly?"

"I thought you might be my brother's murderer. In that black cloak, you looked as much"

'Heh, this cloak will keep you safe, huh?' he thought, recalling the awakening guardian's words. After a moment's pause, he spoke up with a reply to her. "Well, the fact that you don't show your face does not exactly inspire trust in me either!"

"Very true...I see your point. Very well." A hand, almost Kuja's equal in color reached for the hood draping over her elusive face, drawing it back. Deep violet eyes peered back at him as he first looked upon the face of this girl who had both attacked him and rescued him at the same time. She was clad in black, royal blue, and silver, as to aid her in moving undetected at night. However, he could understand the need for the dark cloak, as her pale skin would easily betray her in night's depths in an instant. Her unique silver hair had a blue hint and shimmer to it, and was pulled back to avoid interfereing in combat. Though he couldn't see most of it, Kuja supposed it to be quite long.

"I am called Rykashi" she said quietly, snapping Kuja from his enchanted trance. "And your name?"

"Kuja"

He saw her violet eyes turn downwards in sadness for a brief moment. "So you are not him..."

"Who?"

"My brother"

For a moment, Kuja sympathized with her. After all, there was no certianty of finding Zindane at all, and there was a likely chance that he would fail. "What was his name?" He asked after a while. She paused for a moment, half-shocked at the audacity of this stranger for asking such a question, and at the same time half slashed by memories.

"That...is not important, you are not him, and that is that." She sighed, but her indifferent attitude could not shroud the shouts of her blazing but sorrowful eyes. Rykashi turned her head to face him. "Now that I have caused you enough trouble and pain, I will be on my way."

Kuja wanted to panic. He knew from the crimson stained bandage covering his wound, which he figured she had dressed while he was unconcious, that he was not yet strong enought to fend for himself. What woud happen if these 'souless shadows attacked him? He doubted that they would show him the mercy Rykashi had....

"Wait!"

Rykashi stopped in the doorframe, puzzled, as Kuja tried to push himself to stand. It took no words, simply the thud of Kuja falling to the floor to convey his message, but at a great cost to him. The pain in his side multiplied as he felt the almost clotted wound tear from itself and the bandage tied to it, which began to turn a deeper scarlet as this blood-dam broke. He felt his warm lifestream flowing out of him at an alarming rate from his belly button all the way to his spine. If it kept going much longer and he would likely bleed to death. He looked up from his gash to Rykashi's deep eyes as she kneeled beside him on the floor as she began to pick away the remains of the bandage. A certian determination graced her face as she, to Kuja's immense surprise, thrust her bare hand onto the gaping wound, cosed her eyes, and wispered something barely audible. "Heal."

The excrutiating pain subsided slowly and his irregular breathing eased a great deal. Rykashi's hand still held its place, all coated in his crimson blood, however his pale skin was completely devoid of it at all. When she finally removed her hand, the wound no longer existed, but that itself was not what most astounded him. The gash was gone, yes, but in it's stead there was a pale crimson mark, in the shape of her hand. In disbelief, he traced his brand with the tip of a shaking finger.

"I told you not to move...you will carry that mark for the rest of your life." Her tone was not repremanding, but rather...kind. When he looked up to meet her gaze, he found that her eyes were closed and she had fallen deathly still. Her hand clutched a pendant hanging from her neck, a blood-red crystal flame surrounded by a platinum ring. Kuja gave a puzzled thought as to what it was, and why she was clutching it so...

"You too, are searching for your brother, are you not?" Kuja's head was about to combust. So many secrets in at one time, so many mysteries, and all stemming from this one girl. "How on earth could she possibly know what he was searching for?" His puzzlement was obviously readable across his face. "You will figure it out someday, I can't hide it forever." With that remark she grew sad, as if she had done this all before.

"Rest well, Kuja...Tomorrow we will begin our search."