Hello everyone and welcome to the fifteenth chapter of ET.

For some reason I'm posting this chapter a week after it was written and edited. Even more strange is that this is the second time in a row I've done this. Both the past two chapters I've written were finished a week before I posted them. I think my mind is subconsciously telling me I have an issue with some of the names I put in the chapters. Since a name in this chapter was meant to be Abbie, but I forgot the name and only remembered it yesterday so I only just put the correct name in. I used Anna to fill in the space. For some reason I always turn to that name when I can't remember what A name I was meant to be using.

A heads up too, this chapter continues directly from the last one so you might want to go read the last couple of paragraphs from the last chapter to freshen your memory, unless you read them together. It's a short chapter since it's mostly dialogue, but we should have a longer more plot heavy chapter next update. Not sure when it'll be updated since I'm in year twelve now and you know, assignments, assignments, assignments, but I've been doing well with pacing myself with school work so it might be better than six months. Cause I can see that happening if I pace myself badly with school assignments. I've been using Lightning returns to tempt myself to finish all my homework as soon as I get it because it means I can play it more. That game is depressing, I find myself thinking while playing it that the series got uselessly out of hand, I like Etro's temples story more. Like it's not sunshine and rainbows, but it's not the end of the world either.

Hope you like the chapter.

Disclaimer: I do not own Final Fantasy, Square Enix does.

Behind a revelation

Hope's tight grip on his arm released. He stared at Serah a gape. He sought the words to describe what emotion her story had brought up in him, but they weren't there. The only word to escape his lips in the end was a pathetic, "What?"

It was like his mind couldn't process it, it didn't actually. It was like putting two and two together that didn't fit. He didn't want to imagine that someone could have done that to Light. She had always seemed so strong when he had known her, that someone could hold such a dominion over her and rape her. He didn't want to think about it.

Yet as he looked up to the bitter expression of pain on Serah face he knew she was telling the truth. The dead truth. She wouldn't lie about this. Never this.

She laughed bitterly, "So strange isn't it, to you? That someone could have done that to her. Someone like Lightning doesn't seem like they could be laid low by something like this. But she was just a little girl then, and that man too large, too strong."

Without warning an angry sob tore itself from her throat. She shook her head in fury "What's worse, she hid this for a year before anyone found out. I don't know how Harry kept her from telling anyone but he did. It probably wasn't too hard though, so long as he threatened to snap my neck if she spoke out I think she'd comply. She never could stand the thought of me being hurt." Serah bit down on her lip and attempted to hold the angry tears at bay, shaking in anger.

Hope sat back to absorb the knowledge. Every word that poured from Serah was horrible, and it only served to beat it into his head just how much what she was saying was real. He clenched his fist, the anger Serah felt towards this man, he understood. In amount only decreased by never having been involved in the incident, he felt it too. That that man did this to Lightning was unforgivable. "What happened to her after that, after that man put her in a coma, what happened?" He forced out.

Breathing a deep breath, Serah tried to calm her building fury. It did little good. "When she woke, she was able to give the details of Harry's crimes and he was prosecuted and found guilty. In a way I'm glad the purge came along to truly kill that man, because even with the vast number of his crimes one day he still would have gotten out." Serah clenched her fists.

Feeling dread from a particular wording in her sentence Hope had to clarify, "Vast number?"

Serah looked to him, and responded bitterly, "Oh yeah, Lightning wasn't the only girl he abused. There were four actually, her included. The eldest fell pregnant, so he killed her. Another we found had killed herself a month before Lightning woke up, and the last killed herself a couple years later. So then Lightning was left, the only one alive out of them all. And she had to bare the man's child on top of it. Can you imagine what it would have been like to wake up eight months pregnant with the child of a man who'd the past year been abusing you every chance he got?" Serah lowered her eyes, "Not that Lightning ever took the same sentiments as I did regarding children begotten like that." She smiled bitterly again and the angry look faded to favour one of her generally being upset, "But that's getting into why Lilea hates me."

Hope startled, "Lilea hates you?" he questioned.

Serah nodded, "Yeah, and I deserve it completely."

Hope narrowed his eyes confused. He didn't see Serah capable of inciting someone's hate and actually deserve it, "How could you deserve her hate? What could you have done to make her hate you?" he fired back.

"Enough." Serah answered meekly. "As it is I'm surprised Lightning doesn't hate me for it either. It was horrible, and I know I hurt them both by doing it."

"But what did you do?" he inquired again.

Serah hesitated. She looked up, then down. When she met Hope's gaze again her own was filled with guilt. "You know how I said Lightning didn't harbour the same feelings towards rape babies as I did? Well, our feelings conflicted a lot. To Lightning, after she got over the initial trauma, she accepted that baby as her own, it didn't matter who the baby's father was because she was its mother. Only, I didn't see it that way. It nearly killed her to deliver that baby, it felt like when I sat by her holding her hand that I was watching her life fade away. As it almost did, her heart stopped for a couple seconds during the delivery. And once Lilea was finally born she was so exhausted that it was almost too much to close her eyes, yet alone open them again. From that moment onwards, I hated that baby, as if I didn't already hate her already. Abbie, the woman who had been Harry's wife shared my hate. We had her adopted out behind Lightning's back, though it was Abbie who took her in the end. I'm not sure why she took in a baby she hated, it might have been out of guilt, pity, I didn't know. I just cared that that baby was gone." Serah bit her lip and a tear dripped down her face, she sniffed, "That hurt Lightning, I know it did, yet I looked on the whole ordeal so heartlessly. Abbie never loved Lilea, she just looked after her, though she did put up a good façade. I just don't think Lilea fell for it." wiping away the gathering tears in her eyes Serah continued.

"Can you imagine that Hope? Having to grow up in a loveless household? If it was up to me, her name wouldn't even be Lilea. It was the name that Lightning's and my mother wanted us to call one of our daughters because it was her mother's name. The only reason Lilea was ever named that was because Lightning put up an argument that was beyond her exhausted state to give. I lost only because I gave up since because I didn't want her to hurt herself further. But I didn't want that child named after our grandmother. I resented it for a long time afterwards."

Serah clenched her hand again, "And Lilea knew it was me who put her in that household. When she was five we met her again. Accidentally really. Sometime afterwards she found out who we were, somehow. But I'm pretty sure it was because Lightning told her. That girl, loved whenever she got to see Lightning, but I still hated her more than ever, and I didn't hide it. That girl represented so many bad things to me, I didn't want her anywhere near me. So soon she grew to hate me too. I can't blame her." She made a sharp intake of breath, "It was only after I lost Lightning that I began to rethink my thoughts about her. Looking back on it now I can't believe I'd been so mean to my sister's only daughter. I despise myself for it. But by the time I began to think all of this, there was nothing I could do about it. When Lilea was eight Cocoon fell and she disappeared, I believed her dead, and it cut me like a knife to think them both dead."

Choking on a sob, Serah's tears began falling down her face in a violent stream, she didn't bother to wipe them away from her eyes anymore. In a quivering voice she said to Hope, "To think that she'd turn up here, of all places. It's like the world's telling me that I can't forget my cruelty. I'm such a horrible person aren't I Hope? For doing that to a kid."

Hope didn't know how to respond, the images provoked in his mind at the mention of Light nearly dying long before he'd met her wasn't pleasant. Of course the things Serah was saying were horrible, but at the time they had suited her side of the party. But sadly just as much as it had held back that side's trauma, it would have increased the trauma of the other. It would have hurt Light a lot either way. It was cruel, heartless, something he would have never expected out of Serah. Still…

"Maybe it was your way of coping." Hope offered.

"Well it's one stupid when of coping." Serah sobbed past her tears.

…:…

Aaia stood by at the entrance to the clearing where Lilea had deigned to sit. The elder girl looked up at the girl across from her. She watched her intently, then asked with a measure of annoyance on her face specifically due to the need to mention Serah, "So what are you three doing here?"

Aaia shifted her weight to another foot. "I'm here to protect." She answered simply.

"I mean those two, why did I have to meet that bitch in a place like this? What's she doing here?" Lilea bit back.

Aaia shrugged, "I don't know the start, but they were both captured by Valhallans. When I freed Serah from them, she was being guided only by grunts, but I found Hope with one of you guys."

Letting her eyes wander to the burning red brand down her arm Lilea understood she meant those under the cursed trance, "Which one?"

"Robert." Aaia clarified.

Lilea nodded, "That kid huh." She shook her head, "Poor guy, to be made to do things like this. Tranced he's just under complete autopilot, he does whatever he's ordered as malicious and brutal as he's been made to do it." She gripped her arm tight and added quietly, "Like that even he'll call me a psycho, and that was never like him. He's too kind for this treatment."

Aaia lowered herself down to sit so she was more comfortable, "If it's anything, when I knocked him out when he was harassing Hope I broke the trance, not that it would have lasted long. But at least it would have given him a little reprieve."

Lilea smiled a little, "Thanks for that." Then she sighed and lifted her arm to the sky to view the burning brand. She mused to herself forlornly, "Do you think that when the Untundra dies that this curse will break? Seeing that the one who cast it is gone. If he could pass the mantle of controlling us over to someone else I don't know what I'd do. It's been so long since I've been myself." Lilea halted, before backtracking as she decided that she had to fix something up in that last sentence, "Well in control of myself at least, being a psychopath and all my personalities no problem. You just have to manipulate my actions, unlike Robert and your guy."

Aaia flinched at the mention of the third unnamed cursed one. Lilea took note. "What, you don't like me mentioning him, if I remember right he was someone important to your side right?" she paused and scratched her chin pondering, "What was his name again?"

Aaia's face turned downcast. "Not important to our side," she said, "precious to us." She closed her eyes against the pain speaking of him brought her, "And his name was Martan."

Realising that she'd touched on something more personal then she'd thought it was, Lilea backed away from the subject. She didn't feel like dealing with someone sad, it was a pain in the butt. She tapped her fingers against her leg, "I guess we all have casualties from this war don't we? I mean, not that I would object to Serah getting violently killed by those Valhallan men you mentioned before like I really wished she would have, but what they've done to Robert is cruel." She sighed again and sat back, "When will this war end Shishi? It's gone on for so long."

"As yet," Aaia told her sympathising with Lilea sentiments, "We don't have the means to end it."

But she was right about one thing, this war had gone on too long, and sadly it's casualties were only going to increase from here on in.

Hope you liked the chapter, my sister told me it was depressing and made her cry, but I'm too used to this plot point so I can't feel what's sad about it like I'm meant to.

Also I haven't received a review for this story in seven months, in twelve more days it'll be eight. Envious skys reviews don't count cause she's my sister and has in most cases already told me what she thought of the chapter, but reviews becuase she's nice like that. It's been months since I've gotten any review for all four of my stories, I'm going insane, can someone please review.

Seriously, It'll help my sanity.