Hiatus: Testing and school stuff aren't quite out of the way, but the hiatus can be considered over. I also just lost some inspiration, but I've been feeling in the mood to write now. All I'm going to say is, expect frequent hiatuses from me. I'm sorry. My brain just doesn't work in a linear way and it's easy for me to procrastinate and get distracted. I'm also just lazy and tend to be too ambitious with these projects in terms of length and scale. I was also stressing over releasing this interlude because of the writing decisions I made. I don't know. This is the natural result that came about from my pantser-infested mind. Hope I didn't get too preachy with the thematic stuff.
Interlude: Was initially iffy on putting an interlude right after chapter 1, but after fully writing out chapter 2, I came to the conclusion that it was integral to have one right here, or else many things would've fallen flat, I think. So I wrote this all out after chapter 2. I think it helped make the story flow more naturally. I consider this an interlude because it focuses on a specific relationship, and while important events are shown, it only focuses on a certain character's perspective and is extra thematic the whole way through. It's more heavy on the flashback side out of necessity. There will be another interlude entirely focused on another character in the future and possibly more than that.
Bias: Also, apologies for writing so much about said character, especially outside of this story. My bias for them is huge and they play a major role in this story, but I will try to let the others get more spotlight when they can. That's part of why this interlude specifically focuses on this single character, so we understand what makes 'em tick and understand part of their motives/who they are thoroughly in this narrative, thusly meaning they won't require as much POV focus in the future.
Flashbacks: Gave them headers to make them easier to comprehend both in this and the previous chapter.
Warning: Stuff happens here. Really sucky, depressing stuff. I made controversial writing decisions here. Decisions that have a high likelihood of bumming many out and crushing their hopes, expectations, and dreams for this story. That's the warning. Read if you dare.
Graphics: Last chaps were pretty tame by my standards. Starting here, things get pretty detailed. Proceed as you wish.
Flashbacks: Similar pattern to last chapter.
"And I asked myself about the present: how wide it was, how deep it was, how much was mine to keep."
— Kurt Vonnegut Jr. , Slaughterhouse-Five
Interlude I - Daring to Believe
12th cycle, Many days ago
The moon's rising, colossal, radiant, and teeming a healthy silver that night. It's so idiotic that Lightning wants to flip off the sight.
Six months so far of risking her life in this stupid as hell war in the slim hope that she'll get to go back home, and yet, the moon and sun still rise and fall in this deadly, psychotic hellhole, like everything's fine and normal. As if everyone here is living everyday lives, not nearly dying a number of times. It doesn't fit right; that nice-looking stars and clouds and pretty stuff get to exist in this shitty place at all.
Clicking her tongue, Lightning intertwines her arms, ignoring the chill of the outside air that's always doomed her bedroom to being a fridge. It's so idiotic and nonsensical, all of this: living in some stupidly exposed tower when she's not out there throwing herself in the face of destruction; serving some indifferent goddess that doesn't give two shits about war strategy; the fakeness of it all.
She's standing before her window. Milky whiteness of ageless marble seems to almost gleam in the moonlight, all around her. The silk-thin fabric of her camisole isn't doing much to battle back the wind, but she doesn't mind, really. The bitter weather's refreshing. Unlike Cosmos, Sanctuary, and Chaos, it's something that belongs in actual reality, and isn't just made up from someplace that's a twisted joke of a bedtime story.
Maybe that's why most of the aspects of Dissidia piss her off so much. It's based on what should be the make-believe. Myths, miracles, fairytales. Stupid shit that doesn't make a lick of sense. Except now it's worse because now there are actual lives on the line, some of which she feels responsible for maintaining, along with the fact it's not just some harmless story. And it's all because some gods couldn't do the work themselves.
Screw the abstract. Gods, legends, fables, even hope. They don't fit in with the real world, and Dissidia's the epitome of why that is. Those concepts don't work in existence. Not always, anyway. Or maybe not at all, actually.
Her eyebrows quirk at the mixed answers. She shifts her weight on an inclining leg, outstretching her other. She fumbles for the best answer, sharply knots her brow, hates that doubt is managing to cleave through her mind when it usually never does. She thinks she feels worse now.
Instinctively, she reaches for her namesake-shaped necklace, only to remember that she's lost it. Lost that precious treasure a month ago, somewhere out there. Fuck. She really does feel worse.
There's no way it's okay. Probably got screwed up by those Chaos assholes by now. But still, there's a bit of herself, she thinks, that wants to… dream. But then she shuts it up, curses out loud.
There's the echo of her door being opened, and she tenses, pivoting around, arms whipping to her sides. It's then that she remembers — Ah, fuck — that besides her camisole, the only other thing she's got on is her plain panties (because her skirt and shorts smell like crap, and she's got nothing else for bedtime). By the time the doorway's exposed and she sees a tall, familiar man, she's pulling down her shirt as much as she can. Tries to cover what she can.
Her hands remain at the rims of the bottom of her shirt. Forcing a keen composure to align her expression, she scowls at Kain. Her oceanic eyes cut through the starlit room efficiently. "Knock on the door next time, jackass."
Dressed in smooth slacks, barefoot just like she is, he makes an uninterested-sounding noise, walking forward with the poise of a professional soldier. Broad frame, broad biceps, broad steps. Effortlessly, he towers around a head higher than her.
"I would have if you didn't vulgarly tell me to leave the last time I knocked, which was around a month ago." His ashen hair flows around an expression that's somehow simultaneously distant and intense.
Unfazed, Lightning rolls with widening her range and intimidation, propping a knuckle on a hip and angling her chin higher. She does her best to ignore the upward peeling sensation at the bottom of her once-tugged camisole. "Why are you here?"
His mauve eyes scan her own intently. Almost as if in something of disappointment or disapproval. "I approach you whenever you're brooding in your lonesome a trillion times, and yet you still ask?"
Lightning huffs, forcefully yanking down one side of her shirt again. She resists the itch to growl. "Well shit, it's not like you could've picked a better time to do your stupid schtick. Or whatever."
"Au contraire, sarcastic woman," — Kain's getting all smirky, risking a glance that's lower, away from her face — "this was perchance the best time to do so."
She's been around him so long that she doesn't get offended as she expects to at his prying gaze. It's not like it's the first time she's been scantily dressed around him, anyway, now that she thinks about it. He's been so close to her, actually, all these months, that she's strangely… okay with it.
Not entirely. She's still a little embarrassed, wearing less than what she typically does around other people. But, then again, that's her with everyone. And she's okay enough with his behavior to the point that she's not considering decking him in the face for coming here and doing that, as she would do with any of the other guys if they dared.
It really doesn't make sense to her. Him always being around her, her always putting up with his sophisticated jargon. And now suddenly she can't tell when she started to feel so… alright around him.
Her eyes grant passage, let him tread that boundary further.
"Oh, shut up," she says, but the tone's not as biting as she wants it to be. A smile wants to twist her lips, but she rejects it before hints of it show up. "Smartass."
Kain's eyes are focused on her own again, despite her previous consent. "Perhaps you may consider getting a thesaurus. Your retorts are becoming repetitive."
Lightning turns away from him, draping her arms on the spiral-patterned windowsill, letting the haunting chill seep into her skin. She focuses on the inky night and its beautiful stars. "Hn. Your whole act is."
"Are you so certain of that?" When he asks the question, she feels the warmth of his torso rush along her cold back, and before she can blink, there's a flash of something metallic, shiny, pretty, dangling in front of her. And then the breath that barrels out of her lungs, she can barely keep it calm…
The oxidized, bronze-spotted pendant manages to take some pure moonlight captive. Its edges are impossibly intact, and when Kain perfectly hooks the necklace around her neck, the coldness soon lingers there, right around her chest. Right where it should be.
She wants to disbelieve it. But no, it's really right there, still fine and well…
"Kain, you…" — she scrambles for a reserved response, presses eager fingers to the rough-textured jewelry, slowly re-faces him — "you found it."
She wants it to sound like a question, but her articulation fails her.
There's something between a smirk and a smile on his face, and he's leaned in closer. "I was scouting the coasts of Cornelia Plains earlier today when I found it. I hadn't had the chance to return it until now."
Their stares persist on one another's. For a long time. In gazing, she sometimes finds it okay to say "thanks". But even though she's getting her freezing irises to be more like the skies or seas, she finds that it's not enough.
Kain nods, gradually turning back to the door. "That is all. Now sleep well, lest you wish to wake up with eye bags."
She's hearing his footsteps on the tiled floor. Shit. She's running out of time. Fuck a verbal thanks; he deserves something more."Thanks" is intangible, forgettable, and too much of a pussy move to say. Screw tomorrow. Forget consequences. All that matters is that she's gotta repay the damn favor right here and now, the way she believes is best.
Besides, she thinks, he's said several times that he wouldn't mind if we kissed, and it's clear he means it. And at this point, I'm dying to.
So she runs. Runs before he's even halfway to the door, her wild feet slapping against the frigid tiles. By the time he's turned around with clearly held-back shock, she's got her arms hooked around his neck, standing on her tippy toes. And when she puts her lips to his, she can sense the boiling restraint in the biceps that capture her arching waist in crisscrosses.
Saliva slides down their motioning chins, runs down her curves and his pectoral muscles. He nips her bottom lip, so she bites back on his upper one. She brushes fine hands along his steep cheekbones while his arms also change positions, strong fingers clawing along her scalp and shoulder-resting hair.
She likes his warmth. His fervor.
It's some time amid all of this, that Lightning realizes that, maybe, just maybe it doesn't kill to… hope or dream a little. To believe that miracles can happen. In all kinds of ways.
A part of herself always felt that way, in fact. And now she's realized that… or rather, remembered that.
And it's all thanks to him.
Present
It's still night when Lightning's gotten them to the cave she's been resting in. The region of Melmond Fens smothers her battle-bruised flesh with humidity, but she's not bothered by it. She likes it, actually.
What does bother her, however, is that she's gonna take care of that Esper girl even though she's a liability with nothing reliable to back them up. She's got powers that are dangerous, and if Vaan's descriptions of her are anything to go by, she's the absolute last person that belongs in a war like this. Besides that Onion kid.
Still, her powers can be useful, if risky. Especially the nifty flight ability. Lightning decides that she'll only consider putting them to use if they're really that necessary.
Only one chance.
She's done a shitty job of healing Tifa and Terra so they're at least in decent condition. When it comes to her powers, healing's a pain in the ass to do properly, and doing it for long periods of time leaves her huffing and that crappy brand-leech-parasite thing on her chest seething.
Getting up from her shit work (Terra's leg is wrapped in a red-soaked gauze, and beneath it is a mess of half-stitched lesions and partially healed wounds that are bubbling), Lightning feels searing agony claw its way into her breast, so she clenches it.
Lightning looks away from Terra's still-unconscious form, glancing at Tifa, who's settled on a rock right beside them.
"You alright, Light?" Tifa's tone tilts with concern. "Something on your chest or what?"
"I'm fine," Lightning replies, turning away from her, fixing her sight on the cave exit. "Just need a break."
Tifa's response is lighter with relief, but Lightning's not sure if it's a facade or not. "Alright. Thanks for well… everything. Really."
"Don't mention it."
She walks out from the firelit cave into the natural luminescence that awaits her outside. Beneath her, mud and gunk inflate around her bloodstained boots in clumps of sludge.
There are ghosts, spirits in her head. They've been prowling there, ever since the Rift portal was closed. Ever since the tattoo on her breast went from a scorched, pretty snow-white to a corrupted, disgusting obsidian black...
Come to us, inane servant. Return to Pulse.
If she can describe the vocalization properly, she'd say it sounds like something of a ghastly whisper, and it pricks at the corners of her psyche, electrifying and frigid. It's quiet, the voice, but since it's in her mess of a brain, it's as if it's always there, always whispering things, even if she can't always hear them.
She wants it to screw off.
No. Get the hell out of my mind.
Exhaling a bitter, brief laugh, Lightning rubs an aching temple, her slender fingers dipping into fine skin. Either she's going mad or that thing's really telling her shit. Along with all the other spirits that've already crowded her mindfucked head.
This time, the inflections that come are fainter, and they're more human, more haunting. Kids, women, men, elders…
Save me…
Get. Me. Out. Out… from… here, I demand…
Follow my voice… Help…
Come to the chasm...
Grabbing her necklace, she feels for the stinging indentations of the pendant, inhales against the evil pangs that bite into her chest, against the scabs she feels pick and tear beneath her turtleneck.
Screw them all, these damned wraiths.
She almost wants to look back on everything. Wants to re-see the things she hasn't let herself recall for the past few days. But it'll be too much to take. To remember.
That's right. People aren't meant to look back. It's hard enough that there are fragments of her past she can't stop from invading her should-be peaceful mind already.
So she sure as hell won't let herself think much more on these things.
Lightning hasn't moved from where she's standing. Behind her, she can hear Tifa making shushing sounds and Terra's fast-paced exhalations.
Continuing to look into the barricade of twisty, towering swamp trees, Lightning listens. There's no sobbing coming from Terra, just some frantic breaths. And Tifa's whispering to her words of comfort.
Hell, Lightning can perfectly envision it. Tifa hugging Terra's pale frame, telling her calming things, whether they're pretty lies or sore truths. Terra taking it however she is.
Probably having an existential crisis or some shit over that, Lightning ponders.
"But… I almost killed you."
Terra's voice is pitch with tranquil yet daunting fear. She's not breathing loudly anymore, but the trepidation is easy for Lightning to decipher. Lightning remembers hearing that same horror all the time, back in the foggy, few memories she's managed to regain of her home. All those teenage soldiers, not knowing what they were getting themselves into; men dying every which way and their close ones mourning and coping with the same tone Terra's got.
In contrast, Tifa's is burdened by the immutable weight of the truth Terra's brought up, yet also graced by insistent optimism. "But you didn't. That's all that matters."
A sad note of contemplation. More rapid inhalations. "Because… she saved you from me. And what if I have to do that again? No… I don't want to do it ever again."
"You did the best you could. I don't know what would've happened to us otherwise. But you got us out of there. That's what matters most."
More "shhh" noises. Lightning almost lets her eyes perform a roll. She's never understood Tifa's tendencies to sugarcoat (or not even mention) ugly truths when it comes to her friends, or even outright avoid bringing up the truths when she can. Hiding from the truth usually ends up making things a fuck-ton harder than they need to be.
"I didn't, not intentionally," Terra says, voice delicate with light fear. "I happened to get us out, but all I cared about was killing things, I'm sure."
Silence. Lightning can tell Terra's won this battle.
Which means Tifa's likely gonna change up the subject, she's sure. To avoid the realness of it all while being considerate to insane degrees.
A Tifa-like sigh. "I… I'll leave you alone. You should get some sleep."
Before the Rift closing
Couple of months ago, Lightning would cherish teasing Kain with all kinds of secrets. Even with some of her too-personal ones. All those times they'd spent together, in beds or tents, fondling one another with splendid elegance as they whispered mysteries to one another. It was the hope of gaining an answer or two during those times that gave them the incentive to tease and discover. And over time, one by one, Lightning could feel her barricades lower.
Not long ago, though, specifically on the day she and the others set out on their journey to the Rift, Lightning would've wanted nothing more than to knock Kain the fuck out, if not outright murder him, for the shit he put their allies through.
He'd gotten so close to hearing her actual name, too. So close.
And now? She's stuck in limbo. In some sort of stupid in-between of those two opposing feelings for him. On a nonsensical spectrum where she won't experience either of the two extremes ever again.
Definitely not after all the crap he did. Not after he put into action those stupid methods of his.
They're at Bahamut Isles, inland. Mirage Sandsea's exit is several miles away. In the distance, a chorus of rustling grass blades and leaves sing. It lulls the sun into a gratifying slumber with crepitating florae, helping it set below the tree-covered horizon. In sync with the surrounding rhapsody, Lightning and Kain's even footsteps crunch upon dewy grass.
Behind them, the striking firelight of the camp becomes a particle of beaming amber that defies the incoming night. They stop in a stupendous clearing, flowers moving like little wavelets around their feet.
Kain's hair hides some of his profiled expression in Lightning's sight. All she can glimpse is a taut clench in his soiled jawline.
"Still insistent that I cannot keep watch with the others?" Kain's question is flatly stated, dulled with shrinking interest.
Lightning can't tell if he's putting up a front or not with that tonality. A newborn grimace flourishing on her changing features, she sighs. In the cooling evening light, the multicolored bruises around her biceps are lighter, a little less noticeable than usual.
She keeps her response as level as possible. "Like hell if I'd leave you near any of them alone. I'm not about to risk letting you kill one of them. Not on my watch."
Twisting around on a leather-clad heel, the unveiled gaze Kain strikes her with is fine and aloof. "Ah, this again," — a gust of wind hides some of the erupting emotions on his face by whipping coils of his hair around his lips and parts of his eyes — "you pushing sore subjects on a whim. Such persistent folly. Tell me, is this a symptom of an illness I've yet to be informed of?"
It takes ripe willpower for Lightning to not reply to the bait. That and sequestering her fury in her gritting teeth.
"Stay on topic," she growls, a jerk throughout her lilt. "I'm never letting you out of my sight. Not at times like this."
The stormy gales die down so she can fully drink in his intense gaze. "I must ask," Kain begins, eyeing his filthy nails and flicking off chipped polish. "What good does hinging upon obsolete grudges do for you?"
Lightning steps forward, stance growing in wrath. "It helps me keep backstabbing cunts like you in check."
He looks back at her, his scowl tightening. "Enough with your needlessly scathing remarks." Purple eyes brighten with the aid of emotion and withering sunlight. "I've no incentive to kill them like I did the rest."
"Maybe you don't," she fires back. "But knowing you, I won't take my chances with trusting you fully again. Shit, Kain. Even after everything we went through together, you just had to pull off that stupid plan."
He makes a straining guttural noise for a bit, stance broadening. Before he replies, she's already turning away from him and heading for the nearest and highest tree. She's sick of talking to him and wants to do something else.
She ascends the contorted bark with constricting, jittery limbs, swings herself atop a branch and inhales against the internal torture from the movement.
That's when she catches the odor of something burnt. Against the smell of the rain-afflicted trees and leaves, the stench is jarring and out of place.
She turns to the source, sees a blackened Kuja-shaped carcass dangling on an anorexic branch, face up. His body is in an acute crescent, bent heavily around his spine. Shriveled, uneven hair hangs around his bony, darkened face in silvery cascades. He's thin and naked. Bones protrude from mouths of ripped skin everywhere, sticking out like the pins of a voodoo doll.
Maybe the manikins got him too. Good. The last thing Lightning knows they need is some Chaos cocksuckers impeding their progress.
Cushioned on her own branch, below him, flower-patterned garments mimic the unnoticeable movements of the breeze's song. The fabric is nestled in a nest-like area, and bright, heeled boots are laid on it.
On all fours, Lightning makes her way across the expanding, fattening branch, scoffing. Of course that theatrical maniac would keep those kinds of things for himself.
It could come in handy to have for later. Maybe something to use as a splint when she's too exhausted to heal something broken when she's got to, or when Yuna's out of mana. Or just some extra clothing to use if their own start to fall apart.
They'll just have to make do with what they've got now.
Sitting on her knees, she fiddles with the clothing before folding it. That's when she hears Kain grunting behind her while landing on her branch, and she sucks in a dry, long breath. Right. That jumping move of his makes him hard to avoid when she wants to get away from him.
"What?" Lightning doesn't move to face him, setting the creased material on her knees and grabbing the shoes.
"Hmph. Another slain foe." He makes a sound of thinly-concealed interest, and Lightning imagines he's looking at Kuja with cold scorn. "But nevermind that for now. I thought you were insistent on keeping me on your 'watch', as you put it." She hears his calculated steps, feeling him shadow her as he comes around her. "You relish in your rage for a different reason."
She doesn't look at him, just eyes the material in her lap. "Whatever. Go away." Her twitchy fists strangle the fabric as if attempting to suck away the life from those disgustingly idealistic, botanical designs.
"I'll do no such thing," Kain declares, kneeling so she feels the pressure of his unyielding sight on her. "Not when you've verbally attacked me when it was not necessary."
"I do it all the damn time with you." Lightning's response is as fast as her name, and she fires back with a stringent glower, face coming up to meet his. "And this time, you're gonna piss off when I tell you to."
Kain's stare doesn't relent, but there's a nanosecond flicker of vehemence in it. "Oh, more intimidating threats," he remarks, a hitch of boredom stemming from his vocal cords. "How lovely. But no, I will not. But you will tell me why you're using me as the target for your cathartic tendencies as of late."
"Why wouldn't I?" She finds her feet, drops the clothing beside her, widens her steep and sure form as she looks down upon him. "You're a traitor. You killed them, all of them."
"Indeed, I have. We've been over this ad nauseam." He stands tall against the dark blue-tinged sky and silhouetted leaves, too close for her liking. "So you truly are doing this out of spite? Bitterness? Pathetic. And here I thought you'd learned to let go of such matters when duties of greater importance are upon us as we speak."
A knotted feeling in Lightning's chest snaps. How dare someone like him tell her this crap? A backstabbing, untrustworthy guy like him scolding her like this? No. Fucking unacceptable.
She balls a fist, clamps her teeth with undying vitriol. Strikes him against the face without holding back, her hardened knuckle colliding into his dirty temple.
Kain's footing remains stable. His head shifts slightly from the force and his gaze quickly realigns itself to hers. Calmly, one of his hands comes to cushion his temple as his look from before the hit remains.
"Clearly, you haven't learned." Kain still retains his upright stance. "Does this show of strength ever become tiresome for you to maintain? Do you ever think about what lies in our futures as we come closer to the Rift? Or are you always blind to the consequences of your foolhardy actions, Lightning?"
Lightning's fists tense, but the meaning behind Kain's words somehow keeps her and them in place. "It's not an act." She pauses, finally looks down at her feet because she's so sick of looking at his prying stare and because her thoughts are a wreck to sort through. "And of course I think about what's in store for all of us."
"Yet you still allow yourself to linger upon trivial, old plights." Kain leans in closer, breath tickling her grime-speckled facial features. "Even though our comrades' lives are coming closer to a potential end with each passing day."
Frosty thoughts scourge her head with flourishing ice. She looks back up, feels bits of her scowl deflate as she finally starts to understand what he really means. Unruly emotions have his angled eyebrows steep and his glare empowered by the feelings and words he keeps within himself.
"I know we're likely gonna die, you ass — "
"Of course you do. Yet you still exert your energy where it ought not to be wasted. Instead of using it for better purposes, you use it on me like this."
"Because…" Her train of thought is falling apart because talking to him is frustrating as hell. "Because you can't be trusted — "
"Enough with your vile stubbornness." If Kain didn't look enraged before, Lightning can tell he does now, between the rise in his voice and his intensifying gaze. "Why do you linger upon these old issues when the lives of our allies are at stake over a bigger one?"
Sick of his remarks and brewing with thousands of untold passions, Lightning launches another fist his way. He swats it away with decisive force, takes another step.
Kain doesn't stop there just because she's pissed. "Why do you waste what little energy and sanity you've managed to save this far on our journey on me? Why not productively use it for them?"
Growling, she closes the small gap between them to shove him away. Her pulsing arms hurt like hell, but it's worth it if it'll shut him up. She thrusts hard palms into his chest, but he staggers back only slightly.
"Because I've got plenty of that to spare," she finally answers, seething.
Kain marches toward her, faster than she expects. By the time she's considering backing up because it looks like he'll walk right into her, his hands rush into her abdomen, sending her reeling a couple of steps back. Her grunt is hoarse, her larynx aching.
"No, you do not."
Struggling for balance, Lightning scowls, hates that maybe, just ever so goddamn maybe, Highwind's onto something. Light shoves like the one he gave her, they shouldn't send her so far back and unbalance her that easily.
Still, she loathes that he's the one pointing it out to her. That a backstabbing person is the one of all the people that's doing this. So, against the practical and logical parts of her being, she pushes back against his words.
"Whatever." She pauses and considers her next sayings for a moment, because she's truly not sure if she'll really mean what she's about to put out, and she hates herself for that. "You're not worth my trust anyway, bastard."
"You've yet to think about what I've told you thus far."
Kain turns away and sits on the twisty edge of the branch, eyes focusing on the speck of firelight and sleeping bodies meters away.
"Think you can get off scot-free from our talk just like that, Highwind?"
"Oh, Lightning," he chides, shaking his head. "Think. Think for once, you holier-than-thou hussy."
His words get her to hesitate ultimately because she knows he'll keep this crap up if she doesn't take at least some of his words. So she does think for longer than a few seconds. And then she abruptly realizes and remembers.
Realizes that he's keeping an eye on the others from here, making sure they're fine. Remembers that, regardless of all the shit he's done to the others, that's in the past, they've been over it millions of times, and yes, he's right in what he's saying. That what's happened in the past, while not something to let go of anytime soon, is nothing compared to the growing power and aggression of the manikins. And what those monsters are doing to all of them, slowly whittling down their strength.
Uncharacteristically, she becomes chained to the thoughts. Doesn't act or lash out at anything like she normally does despite the striking feelings they give her. She just stares off into a vast somewhere, unblinking, and guilt unwinds its eager claws down her throat. It wants her to say sorry to a lot of things, people, random shit, maybe the whole universe in general, for too many reasons at once. Maybe Kain. Her friends. And… what was her name? Se… ah? Serah? She doesn't get why she's got the feeling she needs to apologize to certain faces, to some young-looking boy beyond Dissidia, or to even… herself, selfish as that sounds.
Off from her A-game, she then notices that Kain's in her face again, standing. A ghost of a smirk lingers on his parched lips. She finally blinks, looking off to the side and intercrossing her arms against her chest. She's worried that looking at him will expose too much of herself to him, make her look too un-Lightning like.
Lightning stops thinking on those things right then and there. It's too much to take, those hopeless, useless thoughts and apologies and losses…
Stay in reality, Farron.
Kain says nothing. He's just staring at her expectantly. And because she's remembered and realized so much because of him, she eventually answers his wordless, unspoken remarks.
"Sorry." She hates that word because it always lacks the weight of sureness it should have, so she looks back at him with unfreezing eyes. "You're — " she sighs, can't believe she's really telling him this — "right. I'll let it go, Kain. For now. No good dwelling on old crap like that."
Again, he finds no need for words. He nods, stoicism influencing his features, and again sits down where he last sat.
Dragging cuticle-thronged fingers to her necklace, she rubs the pendant in circular orbits. And as she faces the freshly indigo-toned sky, she breathes softly. She still hates that he did what he did even though there were less lethal alternatives that could've been considered. She's sure she'll kill him on the spot if he goes traitor again.
In spite of all that, their once romantic past is a stark reminder, something undeniable and unchangeable. It makes her think of things that could've been, though, so she seeks sanctuary in different thoughts. Except, the new ones aren't so different. They're still about Kain. Something about him.
Her fingers don't let up from the jewelry. The thoughts aren't easy to comprehend in her mind, but her heart reads them well. Too bad she's not good at deciphering her heart, either.
Still, it's a part of her.
Suddenly deciphered for a reason beyond her understanding, the translated thought unfolds in her clusterfuck of a tired, war-affected mind.
Thanks for a lot of things, Kain.
The Rift closing
If Lightning truly knows what's going on in her fuck-up of a psyche, then she's really not sure what to make of her relationship with Kain at this point. And now that they're charging straight for the Rift, it's as if it's suddenly too late to.
Still don't trust him, she insists while she's coming back-to-back with him. Firing a slew of electric shots into the incomprehensible blur of psychedelic bodies surrounding them, she hears him impale one with Gungir. The resulting stench of the manikin corpses is something like dead rats and sulfur, and it occludes Lightning's nostrils.
Ignoring the crappy smell to the best of her ability (it's nothing compared to other things she's killed), Lightning conjures up a vivid Thundaga from atoms of fury. The force of the power flooding out of her system leaves her panting and almost doubling over as it pounds several manikins in the blink of an eye. Heavy dust arises from dreary soil and rocks as the spell disappears as fast as it came, so she can't see what the resulting carcasses look like. But the smell reassures her, tells her she's got them.
Do I still hate him? Yes. No. Maybe. Shit. Focus on the fight, you dumbass.
Blazefire Saber, now in sword form, is a beacon of savagery. With it, she decapitates some Cloud grotesquerie, luminescent liquid splattering onto her overcoat.
Behind her, Kain barks her a question as she hears his spear shaft thwack away several mankins. "How do you propose we move onward?"
Lightning looks over her shoulder and past Kain. The Rift is a brilliant spectacle numerous footfalls away, but the clear details of the portal are hard to glimpse through the dust that singes her eyes and messes with her other senses. That and the mass of hollering, varyingly-sized and shaped manikins that wash over the land in a chaotic wave, heading in all sorts of directions.
Getting to it won't be easy, she reasons. In fact, she's not sure if they'll survive if they do.
And knowing Kain, despite his conniving and treacherous nature (because he has some stupid "I must do what I believe is best secretly" fetish) and her lingering hatred and bitterness she's still got against him, she… she doesn't want him to go there.
In the shadowed corridors of her mind, his voice from a recent memory wraps around a mocking chide. 'I may have committed many wrong deeds, but you aren't any better. Do not act like you are. Who is the one leading us to our potential deaths?'
Facing the direction of the Rift and running past Kain, Lightning spits out the chunks of grit that cushioned themselves in her mouth during her onslaught. Of course I'm not better, she thinks as if responding. In fact, I'm probably a fuck-ton worse than you.
I'm the one who chose to do this charge and got them involved, she recalls, biting her busted lip and savoring the ache. I won't let them die. Never. Not over this.
Guilt claws at her skull, wrangles her with a bunch of regrets her heart and herself can't decode soon enough. Fuck, Farron, she thinks as she messily backs away from an incoming spell that now gnaws the ground in front of her with resulting flames. Focus.
"Have you lost your tongue? Answer me, Lightning." Kain's already beside her, his voice a delicate thing in a distorted ballad of manikin shrieks. The wall of fire in front of them sets several sparkling bodies ablaze, and the smell of carbon dioxide along with sulfur stings her nostrils. Everything is unclear, both dark with an oily sky and light with fire, and most of the manikins that bypass the hazy, blinding flames collapse like ragdolls at varying distances. The few stragglers meet either the end of her saber or his spear, falling apart into burnt shards and oozing more foul-smelling liquid.
Blinking and spitting out bloody bits of ash, Lightning faces Kain, mustering up the sternest glare she can. "I'm going on ahead. You stay behind and survive. And make sure they do, too."
Even though his eyes are obscured by his dented, damaged to hell-and-back helmet, she knows exactly what they look like. The hard grimace that spreads its disapproval over his lips is a dead giveaway. "Have you lost your mind?"
"No," Lightning retorts, cocking her gunblade and gritting her teeth. Sweat tracks down her temples as she gathers her wits, truly embraces the fear of the daunting future. It's easier to do now that she's spent so much time thinking over everything. The consequences. The unknown. The stupid concepts of miracles and dreams, giving her a bit of some hope. "Now move."
As she shoves him away and hears him fall down, she wills her brand to obey her commands. Watera escapes from her free palm in front of her like a geyser, dousing some of the fire in a linear path. Scalding steam rises like banners and muddy dirt underneath her clings to her boots as she runs through the path.
She's gotta hurry. Run faster, slowass. Arrows, spells, swords. She's barely weaving her way all around them, her breath a deafening anomaly to herself. Several sharp things scratch her biceps and legs, leaving dripping gashes.
It's hard as hell to gauge a sense of progress. No matter how much she runs, the portal doesn't seem to get nearer. Between taking a formidable fist to her body and somehow keeping a hold on her footing among other chaotic things, it gets harder and harder to keep moving forward.
Cura expands through her body from her hand, warmth wrapping around the newborn bruise on her abdomen. As it does, she strains against the sore limitations of her body. She runs her blade through the unrecognizable manikin that had struck her, smirking a quicksilver smirk before ducking under an incoming slash from another.
Before she can counter, the manikin goes spastic. Lightning hears a torrent of bullets pierce their way into its back as it wails and collapses into a heap of glass-like fragments.
Standing, Lightning hears someone else, and she denies the relief that wants to grasp her heart. "See that, Light? I can kick ass better than you!"
Inwardly, Lightning smiles, meeting Laguna's gaze, who's several feet away. Beside him, Vaan's looking out for other manikins, but the remaining surrounding creatures, while close, are doing battle with each other in riots of sparks and spells.
Everything around them, destruction and clashing blades, is deafening with the force of a hundred fireworks. Laguna hacks out heaps of ash, and for a moment it's as if he can't keep that stupid smile on his face anymore.
Vaan finally looks her way. "We're almost there."
Almost instinctively, Lightning's features seize up with some combination of guilt and anger. She hopes the cloudy dust hides the too-emotional parts of her face. "I'm going ahead. You guys need to retreat. You need to survive."
The thick particles of grit make it difficult for Lightning to pick out their expressions, but she's known them for so long that she can reason what they look like now. Laguna's, likely straining with a forced smile or the entirety of his mask broken and replaced with a seriousness not fitting him. Vaan's, likely the representation of rage.
"What? But we're supposed to do this together." Vaan's enraged tone. "We're not leaving you."
"You will."
Lightning can't force herself to look at them now, for both the wrong and right reasons. The hell makes them wrong or right? The question's dumb and pointless and hopeless, and she finds herself looking back at the Rift. That's when she truly realizes how, oh just how much everything's truly, finally gone to shit.
Up to this point, the manikins were somewhat manageable, only coming in chunks that wouldn't be a problem for two of them to handle. But the horde that's spilling its way through the portal and leaking out onto the battlefield is a literal flood that covers every bit of surface area in its path. Laguna and Vaan notice it seconds after she has, and uncertainty has them stuck in place.
Racing past them and willing the adrenaline in her system to empower her further, she shouts at them before standing like a statue of an honorable hero in the face of the impending, impossible odds. A single heavenly silhouette outlined by countless luminous demons of destruction.
"You two survive. Now. Go."
"No, we're not — !" — she hears Vaan grunt before he finishes, but whatever it is that makes him do that, whether it's Laguna pulling him along or some manikin they've got to fend off, she can tell it's non-lethal. Good. that's all that matters.
There's no more time to look back, anyway. No more time to think, apologize, regret. She's gotta live long enough to close that damn portal. So she continues to face the incoming wave with steel in her strong eyes and a sure stillness in her stance.
Holstering her sword, she gets the alien nature of her brand to once again bend to her indomitable will. Zantezuken's freezing hilts inhabit her bloodied and sweat-infested fists. Veins mark her skin in zig-zag designs, running along sharp contours of curve and muscle.
Feint. Ruin. Thrust.
Lightning wonders what doing this will really accomplish. Free them all? End this inane bullshittery for good and let them all go back home?
Yeah, right.
A hit to her ribs. A low twist. A stumble forward.
It's not really that she believes herself to be some valiant hero that's doing the right thing. She's far from the most selfless person in the whole damn span of existence. The few memories she's regained of her world tell her that much.
I ditched that kid without a care in the world. Left themall on their own because they were liabilities.
Sucking in ash and arid grit, Lightning doesn't know why the thoughts drive her hilt-filled hands to shake; why her tongue goes dry.
What if I met everyone here in Dissidia the same way I met those people from my world?
Kick. Counter. Blizzara.
I wouldn't be doing this. I'd leave them all to die like the selfish fuckwad I am.
Glower. Dodge. Cough.
I didn't give a rat's ass back then. Why do I care now?
The supply bag on her shoulder jostles from her movements. The lunatic creatures screech under her might and wrath.
I won't get to go back home, won't I?
She's getting closer to the Rift.
Fine. I don't deserve to.
Lightning knows death like her own palms. What it's like to lose all those familiar faces and friends. What it's like to come so close to it all the time.
Not everything can be possible, anyway.
Grunt. Sprint. Focus,Farron.
Oh, she does focus. But not on what she wants to.
Do I want to dream anymore? Believe? I don't know. I believed in Kain once.
Falling on her back from a brutal blow to her gut. Losing her hold on Zantetsuken. Breathing in and out. In and out. In and out. Fira and Thundaga, sloppily casted before several manikins can finish her off with steel and bullets and sorcery.
Trusted him.
Nail-deep wounds become blade-deep. A crack against her skull that would smash any person's head is survivable to her inhumane self. Against the impossible blood loss and soreness, she no longer sprints, but trudges on.
Had more faith in him.
She's using her bare hands to do all the work. The garbage in front of her has to die now. Fuck weaponry.
Told him things I told no one else besides Serah.
Strangles a crystal menace with an electric, sparkly grip before casting it back off into the kaleidoscopic sea she's drowning in. Coughs out vital fluid and dirt. Lets herself exert her wrathful dominance on them as much as she can.
Loved him.
Fury in her firelit hands. Ice in her firm eyes.
Screeching from brunt and cutting impacts in a way that sounds so unlike her. A battle stance once poised and upright, now slouched with her legs bent and back hunched as she stumbles toward the light of that insufferable portal.
He reminded me to believe those stupid ideals, like I used to do sometimes in my world. And look what happened. So no. I'm only gonna believe in myself. Not him. Not fantasies.
She does. But then everything gets too impossible. Something nearly decapitates her before she loses her balance and gets trampled by a few hard bodies. Blood rushes down her chin from her lips as she briefly yelps, unable to reel in the pain. Some manikins clash with each other while others take aim for her, marching.
Lying on her side, feeling dust knife her eyes as she shakily tries to push herself back up, Lightning bitterly chuckles. And because even the greatness of her power is exceeding those damned limits by the time she's on her knees, she ends up crumpling back onto the ground in a pitiful, battle-fucked form.
I screwed up.
Lightning doesn't understand why that thought hurts her so much. And why it makes her eyes almost want to water up.
I always screw up. Why?
No answer. And even though those jagged bodies are sluggishly approaching as her world starts to go bleak with grit and crystal feet and nonsense noises, she actually wants to cling to the thoughts this time. Not the real world.
"You fool! Have you got a death wish?"
Lightning can't put to paper the feelings she's feeling when she hears Kain's husky, strangely emotional voice. Passion. Relief. Rage. Some weird in-betweens.
Chilling armor makes contact with her pale form as his hazy, obscured-by-the-dark-and-dust face comes over her view. Already, with an expression she can perceive as emotional, gaunt with fear and tight with fury, he's pulling her up, her underarms hooked by his bent arms, her back flat against his chest as she's forced to stand with him. Feeling herself mold into the crevices and dips of his body, she knows that once upon a time she'd smile at this sensation. The touches of his body moments before he'd take flight, off with both of them into a beautiful sky…
But this time she isn't smiling. She's kicking her legs at his thighs, trying to do something, anything with her arms. All though he's not holding her legs and her feet are making contact with the ground, he's still holding her by the arms tightly, and without them, there's not much she can do except flail.
"Let go."
It doesn't work. Nothing works. He's bending his legs. Even as she kicks harder. Even as anger makes the dips of her face steeper and she hears him grunt in pain, they're taking off into the vast atmosphere.
They're ascending, and Lightning can't fight back the nostalgia that floods her at that. She stops kicking, feeling her legs go limp, just stares up at the dismal sky that she almost believes they can bypass, up into space. It's as if she's free from everything. Thoughts. Real life. Rue. Like a dream. Wind billows along their upright forms, stirs her hair into unruly coils and curls. It's quiet up here; feels safe. And when he reaches the arc of the ascent, the feeling of gravity bringing them back down is soothing.
When he lands, it is with effort; too much effort for someone as graceful as him. He collapses, but Lightning can tell between the few seconds they spend falling and lightly tumbling that he's trying his best to keep his weight off of her.
Around here, it is desolate, and the cacophony of war is a faraway annoyance now. She hears him uncork something as she picks herself up on her elbows. A bitter smell wafts through her nose. The jade bottle comes into her hazy view as she feels a gentle hand cushion her scalp, keeping her looking up at him.
They don't need to exchange words. He places the bottle to her lips. She nods, downs the potion whole without faltering. But she doesn't savor the feeling of her battered insides getting mended-up. Not at all.
She doesn't bother with "thanks". She can't afford to. They just stare, not blinking. His face struggling between all sorts of narrowly-restrained emotions, just like hers.
Her eyelids fly higher up. Her teeth grind, but her body trembles. His eyes narrow, but the hand behind her scalp stays there for longer than she expects.
There's one thing she knows Kain was always better at than her. Flying. Or maybe other things besides that.
Focusing. Accepting. Facing boundless tomorrows.
Bearing crushing repercussions. Having the world on the weight of his shoulders, making it look so easy because he's not bound by the ground like she is. Laws, rules, nature. None of those could hold him back.
"No," she croaks, grabbing him but she's too weak to maintain the weak hold. "Don't you even dare — "
Kain snatches himself away from her hold, and her hands fall uselessly back to the ground. Hesitance chains him to the ground for moments before he soars back up into the sky faster than she expects him to. With renowned strength and undying indignation, Lightning beckons her muscles to bring her up to a stand, rushing over to what she soon realizes is a cliffside, in the direction of where Kain took off.
She looks over the edge, seethes when she sees how far down the sea of manikins is. The Rift, some brilliant spectacle of multindous shades in the middle of all that chaos. And though she can't make out Kain's body from here, she can imagine what it all looks like. Him getting shredded to sinewy meat, wailing…
Shit. She can't get back down. Despite herself, she falls to her knees, lets herself get gnawed up by everything she's managed to defy at this point.
There's a flash, a blinding glimmer of the obscene. The Rift giving out in a cluster of chaotic sparks and the scream of a certain someone, churned with all the manolin screeches.
Lightning can't tell what it is she's feeling most. Are her veins becoming more visible because of that unbreakable rage or hatred or whatever the hell it is that's always been a part of her? Is she so damn upset she couldn't be closer to see what precisely happened to him? Is that regret or physical pain dominating her mind?
She can't tell. She really can't tell. All she knows right now is that she doesn't want to think more than she already is. Before she knows it, a pink, luminous light brims through her turtleneck as she uselessly calls his name. Pain slits through her chest, and a voice haunts her mind, new and unrecognizable. She grips her breast and in doing so grabs the necklace.
Come back, little l'Cie.
Shut up.
She unzips the fabric, reels in a breathless gasp from multiple things: Kain, herself, whatever… whatever the hell happened to her tattoo.
It's not whited-out like it should be. It's black, and there's a cluster of welts and blood at the center, shaped almost like an eye…
You want to crush everything.
Shut up.
It doesn't listen. Her emotions are wild, savage, domineering. Too dominating. She's now flying and her eyes are glowing ivory. She glares at the wave of manikins, feels her nails become strong talons, feels the tattoo on her chest expand its plum-dark arrows to lace all around her body, winding around curves of muscle and limbs.
Ravage it all, she and that strange entity think in tandem. Because for once in her life, yes, her emotions suggest, she agrees with a supernatural higher being. She lets its influence expand, lets it mold her into the perfect puppet because she can't take everything anymore.
This power. The power that flies from her limbs, so blinding and ugly and deadly. Water. A colossal geyser that's sixty meters high, bursting out from a wide patch of land that doesn't go out. Fire. A meteorite-shaped spell she flings to the ground, assaulting all those piercing bodies and scorching the earth, leaving a humongous crater. Wind. A spindling cyclone that shifts in zig-zag paths, chomping up and breaking the manikins piece for piece. Ice. Scalpel-sharp darts flowing from her dancing fingers in impossible numbers, smashing into ground and plants and bodies. Lightning. Oh yes, lightning. Dark clouds amassing in a hideous haze as white, millisecond-there shapes singe most prey to a crisp.
Some things manage to hit her, even up this high in her throne in the sky. But it doesn't matter. She's got so many of them. So even as she recoils from a strong blow here and a blast of magic there, she only grins crookedly.
She lowers herself in the sky, casts spell after spell, takes hit after hit. It's not a horde of manikins anymore, reduced to chunks of stragglers that can barely carry on. Soon she's struggling to find more to decimate, and instead finds herself gazing upon a form that looks different. Crystal swords are punctured into its beating torso, and the eyes that capture hers are somehow both frightened and relieved.
There's no helmet, only long, wind-blessed hair. He's somehow stupidly alive. Impossibly alive. What was his name again? Who was he? No… that shouldn't matter. Right. No. Yes. Or maybe not.
She flies his way, bathes in some unstoppable thoughts of destruction before the thumping thing in her chest strains her movement.
Wait, no. Do I want to wreck everything?
Fuck. No. No.
But there's a part of herself that's still not in control, a part of herself succumbing too much to aimless emotions that don't know where to start. Against her protests, power beats to life in her quivering palms. Terror scourges her face as she regrets. But on his, there's a strange serenity, even amid the sadness.
Stop.
The magic in her hands dissipates, but that doesn't stop her from strangling him. She bestrides him, hooks iron-strong legs around his abdomen as the rosy light of her brand rips through the dust and darkness around them.
Even though she's sucking away bits and pieces of his life at an alarming rate, all he's doing is reaching up a jittery hand to stroke her cheek.
Lightning can't bring herself to say anything. Even so, they don't need words to understand each other. Not this time. His eyes are soft and understanding enough for her to know that he somehow forgives her for the mess she's caused.
But then they shake, his eyes. It hurts more than the fact that she's physically killing him, somehow.
She hopes that she's seeing things. That this is some sort of hallution bullshit, some cruel mind trick from her brand. Her view distorts every now and then, but the reality seems clearly apparent. Too real.
And it unnerves her.
What have I done?
The pulse beneath her grasp wanes. There is a newfound depression in his wavering gaze, in his fading smile.
God… Why did I… Kain… I have to tell you, Kain, I… Fuck, where do I start… I — I —
Her view, railing and crackling with all kinds of colors and blurs. Her mind, going feral.
Something lethal-sounding comes her way, from above. She has just enough energy to yank her bowed head out of the way, leaving Kain vulnerable. And then a crystalline spear punctures him from above, right through the breast and heart. He grunts and she glares upward. And when the manikin lands feet before them, it looks stupidly weak.
She's still straddling Kain, but she's not strangling him anymore. She's not in control of herself, and the reins on her mind have her in absolute control in this moment. It is a ravenous Ruinga she casts at the stumbling, stupidly should-be-insignificant mimic of Kain, and when the thing shrieks and gets blasted into bits of crystal, she feels empty. Her eyesight cripples and falls into a rhapsody of nonsensical noises and sounds again. Her mind feels like it's going to break. She's losing a consistent idea of the information her senses hurl her way.
She looks back down, and this time she's able to resist the impulses her brand wants her to submit to only because she's barely in control of the passions that are consuming her soul. For his sake or hers? She doesn't know.
She knows it's too late for her crappy Cures or Curas to fix this. But still, by Odin's grace, she tries. Throws jade spell after spell. She's so lost, so shaky, so unbearably irrational, that she doesn't bother with the spear yet. She doesn't care if she heals a tendon backward or fucks up a ligament as long as she gets the heart beating properly again. He doesn't deserve to die because of her selfish ass. Over her stupid rashness.
Finally, in a riot of green magic light from the healing spells and her unsteady movements, she reaches for the spear to pull it. But it dissolves like sand before she touches it, purple grains flying on indifferent wind. And his wounds, for some reason they're hard to focus on, to access, to make out…
Her sight goes into a frenzied panic again. The imagery around her seems both right and wrong. She can't tell what's real, what's not. Her hands go somewhere on their own will, lost. She can't feel, can't see.
I screwed up. Please… please let me fix this.
Rejection, in his stare, as the hand on her face goes cold, quivering. All the secrets of his soul, bore at the last moments of his life.
A shuddering inhale.
"You… You know…"
A painful exhale.
"I… I really wonder… if I… if I could've taken the chance to deserve to know… to know your… your name."
A failed inhale. A final flash of life, going over dimming eyes, and all the things he never revealed to her, shown too much and too fast for her to process.
"Kain. Kain!"
When that final breath of his comes and goes and his eyes go still and dull while the soft touch of his hand leaves her, the new wave of emotions is too much for her to take. Cura finally stops pouring from her thin wriggling fingertips, ever useless.
She's still unsure if this is reality. Doubts the spells she had cast were Cures even though she knew they wouldn't work regardless. Everything in her head is schizophrenic.
"Kain!"
It sounds so unlike her. So very un-Lightning like, as another tear escapes her rapidly blinking eyes.
She loses her sense of time. Suddenly, spiraling out of precious control, she's being yanked away from Kain and back into the sky.
I'm sorry. Who or what precisely she sends the thought to, she's got no idea. But still, it repeats even as she wails and shifts like a marionette in the bleak sky. I'm so goddamn sorry for everything.
Present
Lightning stands guard by herself. She's exhausted as hell, and sitting down with her legs crossed doesn't get the groveling pain from thousands of sources to let up from her sore arms and throbbing head.
She gathers dry mud in a gloved palm. Squeezes, tight. It helps her tangle with the occasional ghost voices that mock and question her and the migraine or headache she's got. Or whatever the hell it's called when you have to put up with annoying spirits in your head that cause your brain to feel like it's gonna burst or pop whenever.
Dull torment courses along the arrow-embroidered lattice of the brand beneath her turtleneck, and through the cells and neurons that patrol her brain. Against it, she just clenches her closed fist tighter. Dirt-darkened nails dig deep crescents into the worn leather of her glove.
"Rough night, huh?"
Lightning's so focused on suppressing pain — pain she can't tell is mental or physical — that she's only just become aware of Tifa's presence. Tifa's boots crunch crack-etched dirt before she sits on her knees. Now Tifa's sitting next to her.
Not facing Tifa, Lightning sluggishly shrugs, the bright neon of her pauldron leaving brief trails of yellow in the obsidian air. "For you, maybe. I'm fine."
"Sure you are," Tifa responds in an unconvinced, acute tone. "Doesn't kill you to get some shut-eye every now and then."
"Don't need any right now." Lightning spreads out the cruddy wings of her fist, watches the torrid grit she's held skitter beyond her expanding fingers. "Besides, you and that freak need it more than I do."
She's not looking at Tifa, but the chill of the rose-red eyes prodding her is too real to deny. "You don't have to call her that. She's got a name just like us, you know." At this, Tifa inclines her body so Lightning's unable to avoid seeing her, and her head's tilting slightly as she does, ease keeping her expression from being too offended. "I got her to tell me her last name too. I know how much you love addressing us like you're some drill sergeant, after all."
Lightning snorts through dreggy nostrils, feeling crusty mucus peel upward in random bunches. She's always felt super dirty in Dissidia. "Cute, Lockheart."
Despite the nail-like, leaden dints beneath her eyes, Tifa's slight giggle seems to come from the body of someone who's got a reservoir of vast energy at their disposal. "It's Branford. Call her that instead, okay?"
Grumbling, Lightning adjusts her sitting position so her knees are sticking up, plonking her chin on them and enveloping her arms around her legs. The restoring circulation reassures her sleep-stressed nerves, numbs a bit of the ache in her breast and head. "Sure."
Unyielding luminescence has the two of them smothered in a thin ivory glow. Pale, filthy flesh further contrasts the deepening shadows of the decrepit swamp trees and serpentine vines around them. They stare into the cluster of nature in front of them, remain in a united silence that's only interrupted every now and then by the croaks of some frogs or whistles of nearby birds.
"Light, I've been meaning to ask. How did you end up in Melmond?"
Something keen pricks at Lightning's nerves at the inquiry, so she decides against answering. She's kept the existence of her brand a secret from most of them, and she's not about to start telling them about it now. "None of your business."
"What? But I'm — "
"Leave it alone, Tifa."
Protest in Tifa's eyes persists, but she just stares away, nodding.
"Hey," Tifa starts again, and there's something in her voice that's too breakable, too weak for Lightning to stand. "How do you think the others are doing?"
Squinting her eyes at nothing in particular, Lightning pushes out a tense breath from a dry mouth. It doesn't want to leave, the same way she doesn't want to answer back. "Don't know. Could be dead, could be alive." When she forces the words out, she can't withhold the light strain of anger in her inflection; the feeling of crushing bricks on her gut as she scrapes her legs with fidgety nails.
Lightning thinks Tifa's trying her damn hardest to squelch back any signs of discomfort at the reply. And when Tifa finally says something, all the evidence she's tried so hard to hide prospers in her vulnerable intonation. "Well, I've got faith they're A-okay. I was with them, while you and Kain were… somewhere else. And then we got separated."
The mention of Kain's enough to twist Lightning's stomach with the brunt of a cutting sword, but she subdues it. Lightning decides it's not worth the effort to reply.
Tifa won't stop there. "Do you think he's alright? I mean, it's just… I know you guys spent a lot of time together, is all."
"Who didn't know ?" The question comes out as though it's more of an accusation than anything else, and Tifa's eyes soften with sorrow. "Anyway, he sure as hell isn't. He's dead. For good. A manikin got him."
"Oh," is all Tifa fires back with at first, and it's a pitiful, meek little noise. It's a little frustrating for Lightning to listen to, actually. She can't stand it when someone exhibits so much heartbreak and anguish over these sorts of issues even though it won't make things better or help. Not for her, anyway. "You saw him — "
"Yes; I saw him die. Right in front of me. No hallucination bullshit or anything."
Tifa inhales loudly, and Lightning thinks the way her wine-red eyes murken with a deeper crimson makes her look like the embodiment of sadness. "I'm sorry for asking."
Lightning punts away some of the powdery dirt-mud stuff she's nestled on with the oxidized scuff of her boot, grimacing. Dust unravels in the stagnant air, a transparent curtain of grime that's free from the prison of the earth for now. "Don't be."
The response Tifa hits her back with sounds wounded, betrayed; even a little angry. "Why not? You two were close. And I know how it feels when you lose someone like that."
Against the tide of chilling fears and stewing doubts that swell in her abdomen, Lightning kind of shifts the subject. "Right, right. Look, he's dead, and the others might be, but I got something. Something that could bring them back. And I used it."
Tifa's gaze alights with bright relief and dark shock. "What was it?"
"Some weird plant called a Wish Hyacinth. And it should bring him back. And the others if they're dead. It should do that when a new cycle starts."
Right there, something not quite readable in Tifa's gaze surfaces. "Oh," is all she says.
"Yeah," Lightning replies, going against her gut feeling of suspicion and believing Tifa's just as skeptical as she is. "Sounds like a load of absolute bullshit."
Lightning can't will her expression to sharpen at the assertion. When Tifa responds, that undecipherable vibe about her face doesn't go away. "But you still chose to believe it can work."
Lightning refuses to think too hard about it, just pummels Tifa back with a quick response. "No. Why hope for it? There's no proof it'll do what it should."
"Aren't you already doing that? Hoping?" Tifa blinks, and her down-curving lips hide the intensity of the other feelings that scour her face.
Settling with kicking more dirt in the air, Lightning shoves away the emotions that want to taint her tongue with their asinine notions. "No."
"It sounds like you are. " Tifa looks frustrated, dark eyebrows sharpening and lowering in protest. "Why else would you bring it up in the first place?"
Anger uncoils from a suffocating wedge in Lightning's heart as she steps up and walks forward, leaving Tifa behind. Hands clenched at her sides, she just looks skyward, seething, wanting to be left alone. She spits out whatever's the easiest thing to say. She's sick of thinking about her past, and talking about it only makes her more likely to accidentally ruminate on it.
"Because frankly, Lockheart, I'm sick of talking about Highwind. Now let it go."
After the Rift closing
She's still flying.
Sorrow, for everyone involved. Rage, at nearly everything, including herself. It drives her to defy the monster she either is or is inside her head. And it's good. It keeps her from thinking too much. The emotions are a detriment if they're aimless and lost, wanting to ravage everything.
Don't think. Focus, Farron. No… I can't.
Kain's dying moments, still a huge weight on her psyche. But then she wills herself to focus on the air, on her control. Reminds herself that if this thing gets to control her for good, it'll all be over. And… and she can't let everything end here. Not like that.
She stops voluntarily thinking, counts — one, two, three. Little by little, it starts to work.
By the time she's regaining her control bit by bit, she's noticing that she's flying over the sea, heading from the Land of Discord to Melmond Fens.
Obey us, little l'Cie.
No. This body is mine, dipshit.
That's the final thing that gets her back in control. The light of her tattoo fades as the sinful arrows around her retract back to the symbol on her breast, leaving bright flesh where it once was. Her flight dies, and as she falls into the ocean in a u-shape, gathering the shattered bits of her resolve and dignity, she shudders as the coldness of the water strangles her in its deathly embrace.
I'm sorry…
Lightning doesn't know if she wants to drown or carry on for a moment. Maybe in death, she'd be back with him, and everything would almost be normal again…
We'd keep sharing those secrets. He'd keep bothering me with his sophisticated nonsense. Maybe it doesn't hurt to —
The soldier part of herself reaffirms her intent, slaps her out of the emotional daze. Suicide's just an easy way out. To hell with it.
It's then that she notices something glowing, defying the squalid dark of the restless sea.
What is that?
She swims toward it under the ocean surface with implausible left-over strength, grabs the brimming thing she now notices is a plant. She ignores the bounds of pressure around her, effortlessly keeping her breath held.
If Lightning hadn't been through so much crap recently, she'd question why she'd found a plant in the ocean out of all the possible places.
In the deep dark of the blue rippling ocean, her eardrums feel pressured by an overseeing type of quiet. A ghostly, genderless-voice comes to life within her brain as she holds the plant, and it's nothing like the one she heard before. This one is placid; understanding.
The bright white petals of the flowers drift in rhythmic motions. It's a disgustingly idealistic-looking plant, this one.
Brought into this dismal ocean by the unruly elements of this world, we have been, from our cradle in the Rift. We are a Wish Hyacinth. We can make anything come true at one arbitrary cost, and can only be used once. Name your wish.
Skepticism wants to influence her mind, but so does something else strange. She has no idea what it is. But if there's a chance she can bring him back, the others if they're dead too…
She kicks her legs, powers her way to the sea surface. Takes in broad breaths and lets the air refill her lungs as soaked dregs of hair stick to her features.
She dares to believe as she speaks her wish.
Because no one's looking at her, she decides, strangely, against part of her will, to look more vulnerable. Even though her throat's heavy, she doesn't cry, but her head angles itself down. She looks down at her rippling reflection, watches herself as she uses both hands to bring the hyacinth to her chest.
At an arbitrary cost, she thinks as doubt seizes her up.
Instinctively, she grabs her necklace with a hand, feels the grooves to find solidity and reassurance. But it never comes. So she's left lost, scared, unsure, despite her wish.
Pearly and pristine, a tear falls from her face.
Note: Since I feel I didn't make it clear enough, the "arbitrary cost" is the fact that the Hyacinth won't take effect until the next cycle. Sorry for my questionable-quality writing.