(Sorry for being late, holiday weekend, kind of. Also a bit late so proofreading is on a short, hopefully not too bad)

"Love, friendship. I know these words. They are in slumber in my memory. Why awake them?"

-Ultimecia

BROKEN MAN

Temoren and two SeeD's move through the grass, not talking to one another. The entire trip was almost silent. The occasional small talk, nothing more. It is obvious what their job is, and it leaves them silent, perhaps in seriousness, or worry, or both, and then some. They call it a "diplomatic mission". Kill the person they don't like, if that is what diplomacy is, Temoren thinks to himself. He had finally changed out of his torn, dirty and casual clothes and is wearing a full SeeD uniform, as are the other two.

Squall. He had just passed away. But now he is destined to come from the past and defeat Ultimecia, or so it is said. Then what exactly are they doing? None of them are Squall, are they destined to failure? Temoren continues to ponder. Perhaps they can stop it before it even starts? Yes, that's it. The past must be liberated. She must be stopped before it happens. This entire thing begins to give Temoren a headache, the constant cycling of events, or even trying to grasp time in logical terms.

They begin to see the highest tower of the castle as they make it out of a thick group of trees. Temoren walks a bit slower, looking up at it, the other two SeeD's come to a full stop. There it is, like a menace hovering in the sky. Right where it is supposed to be.

"It's right near the--"

"I know." Temoren interrupts the rest of the SeeD's comment. "Everything that has happened all leads to this. All the precautions have failed. I shall slay the witch when we get there."

"Sir, how are we going to do this?"

"The straight forward way." He begins to walk again, heading towards the large castle at the horizon.

The group of three begins to make small talk again, as the usually do when things get tense, when things came up they do not want to think about.

"How was Deling, sir? I haven't been there since I was little."

"The same as it's always been. A bit bigger. A bit louder. Not much other than that." He has to keep his composure, or else the others will get worried. He has a bad feeling in his stomach again.

"What about that girl, that sister of yours in town. She used to visit a lot."

Temoren flinches a little. What is he supposed to say? She is gone now. He is the reason for it. Perhaps she is taking vacation with their parents now? Will he be soon to join them?

"She's...fine."

For a moment, he hesitates. He can't stop thinking about his little sister now. Her appearance continues to flash in his eyes, but none of it is real. He can see her long blonde hair, the loose white robe she would always wear, with sleeves that got larger near her hands. Who was this witch? Who were any of them? The ones who gave the entire group such a bad name. His sister wasn't evil. She wasn't a tyrant. And she did not end up being the one who is this 'Ultimecia'. But who is? The castle is there. Who is inside? Who will he have to kill now? It can't be Rinoa, she was the one who helped defeat Ultimecia. It did not matter, the mystery will soon be solved.

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Ultimecia sits silently in a dark, empty room. It has nothing but a large chair in the center, against the back wall. She stares blankly at the floor, not blinking even once, almost dazed. The room has almost no lighting at all. The chair stands completely in the dark, her gaze continuing into the darkness. She keeps looking closely at the ground. Visions come back at her through the darkness. Laguna, Adel, Esthar, Deling City. Even her dream from the other day. They all pass quickly in the dark, where the floor should be. She moves Squall's ring gently through her fingers at this happens.

The large double doors that lead to this room begin to creak open loudly, taking a lot of force from the one who opens them. At last, a large beam of moonlight blasts through the opening, which gets larger and larger as it opens, illuminating a much larger portion of the room. The footsteps are much more audible now that the doors are open. Ultimecia squints at the large amount of light coming in now. She can only see the outline of the figure, standing there, looking back at her. It is Squall. Her knight has returned.

Gilmahn stands in the doorway, looking into the darkness, a bit confused. After a long pause he begins to limp further into the room. His right knee, and entire leg for that matter look fairly unstable as he comes in, groaning a little.

"If I wait...will he come?" The voice comes out from the darkness.

Gilmahn acknowledges someone is inside, and turns. He begins to start closing the doors again until he realizes that would be pointless. He turns back around and gives a plain, blunt answer. "No."

The figure continues looking down at the floor, with a little more distress now than before.

"Was it something I said? No 'hello', or 'how are you?'" He says, as he begins to move around lighting small candles.

"He's mad at me. I saw it. Why is he mad? I need to go... find him... so I can tell him not to be mad. I just want to be with him again, and if that means going backwards, then fine!"

Gilmahn stops lighting the candles suddenly, and turns. "Those aren't very good thoughts."

Ultimecia turns from a blank gaze, to one of annoyance, probably due to her advisors responses.

"You know...I took you as a stronger person than this." He paces around, keeping his distance, while she grinds her teeth a little in anger.

"You've let, grief, paranoia, and hate...boil your mind, until..." He let's himself trail off before going on. "Until you became the thing you defeated. It must seem so long ago now."

"What would you know, you weren't even born when that happened." She snaps back at him quickly. Gilmahn just smirks back, with all the patience in the world.

"But you were. Oh yes, you were. Not only that, but you were here. In this very room. You remember all of it. It must be terrifying. Realizing what your fate is now. I understand. I wonder what will happen when the shock wears off? Maybe it's happening right now? When everything is said and done, all you can do is reflect on your childhood...your sensation...your words. Time, it will not wait. No matter how hard you hold on, it escapes you. And it will always be this way. Don't try and change this Ultimecia. It will lead to more pain." He says, in his usual calm, comforting tone. Gilmahn catches himself almost gazing off into nothingness as he makes a little speech to her.

"You're a fool." Is her short response to his well thought out commentary.

Gilmahn nods his head, slowly at first, but begins to quicken the nodding moment after moment. Then he stops, turning to the large throne in front of him. He begins to walk slowly towards Ultimecia, until he is only two feet from the sorceress. She silently watches his movements with cold eyes. He looks right up at her, no anger, no fear.

"You want to fall down and not get up again? You want to change time to bring what you 'think' will be happiness. You want to ignore lessons learned long ago? Alright.." He turns his head, looking away now, repeating again. "Alright. I won't stop you. I'll even go back to where I came from to make it easier for you. Even if you destroy your mind and your sanity, remember this. The more down this path you go, the farther away from Squall you feel---" It seems he is going to add more, but instead he abruptly turns and begins to walk to the door again.

Ultimecia watches him go, his right leg dragging a little behind his left. He pushes the doors open a little more and walks away. She blinks a few times. Why was she so mean to him? What was the doing? She even knew where he was going in their conversation the other day. He was going to say something else to her that day, and she knew what. And now her last friend is gone. The world is now in the realm of the surreal, and it will not go back.

She begins to become amazed. About how little she knows about him, despite knowing him for so long, and beings friends with him. It is almost frustrating to her, as she watches him walk away, like a broken man. Sometimes she had visions of peoples pasts, or even to be able to sense their emotions. But it never happened with him.

After the curiosity wears off, a small tear comes from her eyes, and falls to the floor, unhindered. Is he right? About everything? About nothing? If he was ... things needed to be set right.

For the first time in what seemed like forever, there is hope.