Chapter Thirteen
Day of Reckoning

She hadn't thought about what would happen next. And in all her haste to get away from him, she hadn't realized that she'd be locking herself in, with no way to get out at all. Her door locked from the outside … and she had the key with her … inside.

She discovered all of this upon waking. She wondered how long she'd been asleep. And then she wondered if Cyrus was still passed out. Had she done serious damage to him? Frowning, she considered blasting the door open with a tiny bit of magic. She concentrated, as she had done earlier, but felt nothing. No tingles, no tiny sparks of magic … nothing.

Perhaps she was drained? Or perhaps she wasn't supposed to use her magic for little things. It made sense … if you became too reliant on magic, you could easily lose sight of anything else.

Sighing, she sat back down on her cot, and winced a little at the stinging in her ribs. Earlier, her adrenaline had kept her moving and she hadn't been able to think about the pain. But now that things were settled down, the pain hit her like a Deling City bus. She glanced at herself in the tiny, grimy mirror and was suddenly overcome.

Her face was so swollen and bruised that it was almost unrecognizable. Her hair was matted and tangled. Her hands looked like they'd gone through a shredder. There was pain in parts of her body that she didn't realize could feel pain.

Bursting into tears, she wondered if she'd ever recover completely from what this monster had done to her. She was sure the nightmares would haunt her into old age.

She had no more time to reflect on her present situation, for there was an enormous clatter from outside, and she heard the sound of an inhuman, animalistic thing making it's way to her door.

Her door suddenly flew open, and she shrank back into the corner, suddenly terrified of what was about to happen.

"Did you really think that it was going to be that easy, Rinoa?" Cyrus sneered. "Did you think, honestly, that that was the only key to this room? Stupid girl!" He slapped her across the face, and Rinoa felt that her eye might pop out of it's socket if he did that too many more times.

She moved to raise her hands and try to blast him back again, but he caught her hands roughly, and without a second thought, bent back the middle two fingers on her right hand until she heard a sickening crack and felt the unimaginable pain that coursed through her entire arm.

She screamed in agony as he stuck the syringe in her arm. Whatever was in there burned more than anything Rinoa had ever experienced in her life. She tried to fight him off, flailing, kicking, biting, scratching. And then her body went limp.

"Tranquilizer, Rinoa," Cyrus said, tisking at her like one did a disobedient puppy. "You've gotten a little out of hand here lately, and I'm going to have to do something about that."

She could barely move her head to look up at him. She was more than tranquilized … "Paralyzed …" she managed to whisper before she lost consciousness.

xXx

Laguna, Squall, Irvine, Selphie, and Quistis all arrived at Odine's Laboratory, and for a moment, they just looked at it. From where they stood, it appeared to be abandoned. "Are you sure that it's here?" Quistis asked quietly.

Squall turned his head slightly to acknowledge her. "Rinoa said it was underground. Far, far underground. There must be an elevator or something hidden somewhere inside."

Laguna looked thoughtful. "When we were imprisoned here, we were underground. But we heard talk that even farther below us was a sort of asylum where the victims of some of Odine's more heinous experiments were held. It's how he got away with it for so long … the people just disappeared, couldn't tell their tales, I suppose."

"So, like, any idea how to get there?" Irvine asked.

"I know how to get to the cells," Laguna said. "I'm sure the entrance to the asylum -- if it exists -- is in there somewhere."

"So we start there," Squall said. He immediately became gruff and business-like. Now was not the time for unnecessary fuck-ups. "Selphie, Quistis … when we get down there, you will find Ellone and Edea. I'm sure that he's holding them somewhere nearby him. He wouldn't want them to be out of his sight. As soon as you find them, you leave. Do you understand?" The two women nodded resolutely.

Squall then turned to Laguna and Irvine. "And you two … find Rinoa and get her out."

"What about you?" Laguna asked, though he was pretty sure he knew where this conversation was going. If something like this had ever happened to Raine, he certainly knew what he would have done.

Squall's eyes flashed venomously. "I'm going for Cyrus."

Quistis took a deep breath. "Squall … are you … I mean, will you …"

He knew what she wanted to ask, and for a moment, he wanted to answer with a resounding hell yes. But there was another part of him, a part of him that knew that no matter what else he was, he wasn't a killer. He wasn't Cyrus Blakeslee, and he never wanted to be.

"Only if I have to," he answered honestly. Quistis nodded, satisfied with the answer.

"But you're going after him alone," Selphie said worriedly.

"And I don't want you to worry about me," he retorted shortly. "You get Edea, Ellone, and Rinoa out and take them back to Laguna's. No ifs, ands, or buts. Just do it."

He turned away from them and walked resolutely to the door of the lab. Laguna used his master key to get inside, and soon they were following the President through the labyrinthine halls toward the lift that would take them down to the prison floor.

The "prison" consisted of a main room, with three elevators leading to different sections of the lab along the wall. Down a long hallway were the actual cells, three on each side. They weren't ordinary cells though, Squall knew from his time spent in the past as Laguna. They were areas that the prisoners were forced to work in, making repairs or anything else that Dr. Odine hadn't felt like doing himself. To Odine, prisoners had been the equivalent of slaves.

"Which way do we go?" Selphie asked after a moment.

"We check all the rooms, and once we've found our way in, we split up," Squall said.

It took them less than fifteen minutes to find that there was absolutely no way to get from any of the cells down to a lower level. Squall was beginning to wonder if the place Laguna had mentioned even existed at all.

"Damn it!" he cursed as he tossed his gunblade across the room in anger. It skittered across the floor and Quistis jumped a little at the clatter.

Suddenly Squall felt an sharp pain in his right hand; it was so overwhelming that he actually gasped. Then he felt her screaming. He couldn't hear her, but somehow, he just knew that she was crying out in agony … she was being hurt at that very moment, and she was very near.

Selphie's startled squeak caused him to jerk his head upright and look at her. She pointed in the direction of Lion Heart.

It was glowing, the same soft glow it had emanated earlier, when Rinoa had been calling on him. He walked over to it and knelt down to examine it. It was then that he noticed that the area of the floor where the weapon lie was actually a hatch. "Hey," he said quietly. "This is it."

xXx

The staircase was narrow -- they couldn't walk side by side -- and interminably long. It was dimly lit and hard to see very far into the distance. Squall didn't think they'd ever reach the bottom. The staircase might well be leading them into the mouth of hell, for all he knew.

He took another step forward and, anticipating another stair, tripped upon reaching the landing. His knee cracked against the unforgiving concrete of the floor and he hissed in pain. He stood up and hobbled around ungracefully for a moment, trying to discern the severity. Satisfied that nothing was broken, he turned to the others.

He motioned for everyone to be quiet, and then gestured for them to move on. "Get them and get out," he whispered fiercely. "I'm serious. Nobody better try any hero crap."

Selphie rolled her eyes. "That goes for you too!" she muttered. "Just … be safe, okay?"

"Go!" he hissed.

They nodded, and everyone parted. All eyes were on the lone figure that walked down the hallway in the opposite direction; all thoughts were the same in that moment.

Were they seeing Squall Leonhart alive for the very last time?

xXx

Selphie and Quistis made their way down the corridors quickly and quietly. Now that they were in the old asylum, the lighting was better, though it was freezing. They peered in every door they came to, to no avail.

They turned a corner and found themselves facing an extremely long hallway, lit only by a single dim bulb that swung from a fixture about halfway down. The smell coming from the hallway was so horrible that it almost felt like a living creature, one that was oozing its way down their throats and permeating their nostrils.

"It smells like death," Selphie gasped out, holding her nose and trying not to retch.

"Let's go," Quistis said, nodding farther down the hallway. "There's a door at the very end … come on."

"We'll be dead by the time we get there!" Selphie protested, but she followed the older girl dutifully.

They reached the end of the hallway, the smell now heavy and thick in the air. Selphie would later swear that she could see a greenish fog all around them. Quistis tried the door, and found it to be, of course, locked.

"Now what?" Selphie asked, but Quistis was already pulling a pin out of her hair. "Good thinking!" It took Quistis a surprisingly short amount of time to get the door opened, and Selphie raised her eyebrows. "Do this a lot?"

Quistis rolled her eyes. "Oh, yes, all the time," she remarked sourly, pushing the door open.

The sight that met their eyes was beyond horror, beyond grotesque, beyond anything they had ever, and gods-willing, would ever, experience in their lives.

The room was only about the size of one of the dorms back in Balamb. At least sixteen corpses, rotted and maggoty, were strewn about the room. If the smell in the hallway had been bad, in this room it was putrid. Quistis was blinking back the tears that had formed in her eyes from the odor, and Selphie was already vomiting in the corner.

"Oh, my Hyne," Quistis choked. "Did he … did he kill all these girls?"

"Quisty?" A small voice came from the farthest corner of the room.

"Is someone here?" Quistis called back, unable to see in the dimly-lit area.

"Quisty!" Suddenly, one of the corpses was standing up and walking toward her, and Quistis instantly recoiled and tried to push Selphie back into the hallway. It grabbed her by the arm and she yelped.

But when she turned around, she saw that it wasn't a corpse. It was Ellone. She looked frightful … skin and bones, her hair limp and lank, her face sunken and hollow. "Elle?" Quistis choked. "You're alive!"

"Yes, yes, and Edea …" Ellone motioned at the older lady now walking toward them. She looked just as terrible as Ellone, and yet there was a happy light in her eyes at the sight of them.

"Oh, thank Hyne," Selphie breathed. "Not that I'm not thrilled to see you guys, but we really need to go. Before …"

The others nodded and quickly followed Selphie back to the stairwell. "It's a long way … will you be all right?" she asked the other two women, concern in her eyes.

"If it gets us out of here, yes, we'll be fine!" Edea breathed.

"Okay, then go!" Selphie motioned for them to go ahead. "We're supposed to take you back to Laguna's." She turned to Quistis. "Let's go." Quistis nodded, and the four women hurried up the stairs.

Once they were outside the lab, Selphie turned around and looked back at the building. "Two safe," she whispered.

"One to go," Quistis finished for her.

xXx

Laguna bowed his head in grief when he entered the laboratory. He and Irvine had split up to make the search speedier, but Laguna had not expected to find … this.

She was lying on what appeared to be a surgical table, her body covered in bruises of varying stages and severity. Her right hand appeared to be broken; the two middle fingers were bent at awkward angles. She had ugly red welts marring nearly every visible part of her. Laguna supposed they were from the electrodes that he could see attached to the chairs on the far side of the room. She was wearing nothing but an old muslin dress that was torn and ripped in various places, leaving her all but exposed.

Frowning, he looked around and saw the vast array of inhumane-looking machines and paraphernalia that were strewn about the room. Beside the table that Rinoa was lying on, in fact, was a sliding tray laid out with surgical tools. What had this monster done to her? And what was he going to do to her now that she was …

With tears in his eyes, he approached her and cautiously tried to cover her body as best as he could. He saw a tattered old blanket lying on another table, and he placed it around her gingerly, as though he were tucking a child into bed. He stood back from her, and for a minute just stared.

Aside from the bruises and lacerations, she looked peaceful. And so much like her mother … Suddenly overcome, he knelt down beside the table, and gently took her hand in his. "I'm sorry," he whispered hoarsely, taking her hand in his own.

"Laguna, I couldn't find any …" Irvine trailed off as he entered the room and saw the older man on his knees beside the table. When his eyes finally landed on Rinoa, sorrow such as he had never known filled him. "Rin?" he whispered, disbelieving. "Dammit! We were too damn late!"

He went to the table and looked down at the girl. "There's not a part of her that's not bruised or bloody," he choked hoarsely. He brushed the hair off of her forehead softly, blinking rapidly at the tears that were forming. "We need to get her out of here before Squall sees her like this," he finally said quietly.

Laguna didn't move. "No." He said it firmly, more firm than Irvine had ever heard him. "No, Squall needs to see this. Look at her, Irvine," he said. "Looks like an angel, right? Any man who would do this to her … is not a man at all. And Squall needs to realize that."

Irvine's eyes widened in understanding. He'd never known Laguna to be one for retribution. But as he looked down at Rinoa's lifeless form, he understood. "This can't go unpunished," he replied dully.

When Squall entered the lab, the first thing he saw was Laguna, kneeling on the floor beside a surgical table, and Irvine beside it on the opposite side, looking down. He crossed the room quickly, his heart in his throat.

No, no, no, no, no …his mind chanted. But the nearer he got …

Dark hair. Pale skin. Covered in bruises. Bloody. Not moving. Not breathing. Not … anything.

"NO!" he all but screamed it as he sprinted the rest of the way. He shoved Laguna out of the way. "Rinoa." Reaching into the pocket of his jacket, he retrieved the silver chain with the rings. He didn't know why he hadn't given it back to her sooner. Leaning over, he carefully fastened the necklace around her throat.

For a moment, he just stared at her, and then he dropped to his knees. Taking her hand in his own, he pressed his lips to it.

Laguna swore he saw her eyelids flutter the moment Squall touched her … but that wasn't possible, was it?

"Well, well, isn't this interesting?" a cold voice sneered from the doorway. "Come to say goodbye, have you?"

Squall was on his feet as quick as lightning, facing the man -- no, monster -- who was responsible for everything. "You killed her."

Cyrus Blakeslee laughed mirthlessly. "Oh, no, not yet. She's just been heavily sedated. She's such a troublemaker, that one. But then, I'm sure you already know all about that. It's a shame, really, to have to do this. She was quite a pleasant … partner." Cyrus cackled cruelly. "But of course, you already know all about that, don't you?"

He no longer cared about anything but maiming this bastard. "Laguna, Irvine, get her out of here," Squall said through gritted teeth as he rushed at the doctor, Lion Heart at the ready.

"Oh, no, that's not going to happen," Cyrus said, as he waved his arm and caused a blast of icy air to shoot through the room, knocking the three other men backwards. "You see, she belongs to me. And I'm not letting you take her."

"She doesn't belong to anybody!" Squall shouted, righting himself. His gunblade was halfway across the room now, thanks to whatever the hell it was the Blakeslee had just done. "But I'm not leaving here without her."

"Well, I can arrange for you two to leave together …" He shot another icy blast at Squall, this one stronger than the last. Squall was flung into the back wall, and when he tried to stand up, he found that he couldn't move.

Cyrus began crossing the room toward Rinoa, and Squall hated the fact that he was so helpless. Damn it, was there nothing that he could do? At the moment Cyrus reached for Rinoa, a gunshot cracked through the silence of the room.

Cyrus jumped back, shrieking in pain and holding his right shoulder, which was now bleeding profusely. Irvine looked triumphantly at him over the barrel of his rifle. Laguna took the opportunity to dive across the room and gather Rinoa in his arms.

"Get her out of here!" Squall yelled, as he finally managed to jump to his feet. Whatever sort of binding magic Cyrus had had on him seemed to have vanished with Irvine's shot, and he quickly recovered Lion Heart.

"Noooo!" Cyrus cried out, still clutching his shoulder. He ran to catch Laguna at the door, and sent out another blast of frigid air, but it didn't even cause Squall to flinch as he ran at the scientist.

Laguna tried to run straight into Cyrus in hopes of knocking him off of his feet, but the man seemed to be impossibly strong, and he managed to knock Rinoa out of Laguna's arms. She landed on the floor, hard, and Squall heard something crack when she hit. Cyrus was now going for Laguna's throat, and Laguna was desperately trying to fight him off.

Irvine couldn't get a clear shot of Cyrus because of the way he and Laguna were struggling. But he could see that it was getting harder for Laguna to fight, as Cyrus' grip on his throat grew stronger. The sharpshooter looked helplessly at Squall, who was as lost as he was. If he tried to run Cyrus through with his gunblade, he risked injuring Laguna when he triggered.

Laguna's face was turning purple now, and Squall sucked in his breath and prepared to attack and pray for the best, when all of a sudden, an otherworldly sound filled the room.

"Fithos. Lusec. Wecos. VINOSEC!" The sound was a low, nearly inhuman growl. And it had come from Rinoa. She was still on her stomach, but she had lifted her head off the ground and was looking up at Cyrus and stretching out her hand. Squall thought his eyes were playing tricks on him, but he swore that he saw a pair of translucent angel wings at her back.

A blast of blinding white light shot from her fingertips and knocked Cyrus completely across the room. His head smashed into a metal table and his eyes immediately went blank. Whatever it was she had done … had done it.

Rinoa's eyes met Squall's across the room, and she smiled faintly. "Squall," she breathed with her last bit of energy, and then she fell limply against the floor.

xXx

Several Days Later, Presidential Residence

Squall sat beside Rinoa's bed, holding her hand, and wondering if she was ever going to wake up. This whole situation … it was so familiar.

Rinoa. I want to hear your voice …

Was that power that she had used … had it been her final act?

His throat felt as though it was closing up, his eyes felt itchy and hot. He knew the tears were coming, but he wasn't ready to cry for her, not yet. She couldn't be dead. Damn it, she can't be dead!

"Mr. Leonhart?" The voice from the doorway caused Squall to look up. Laguna's personal physician, Dr. Everson, was standing there, a file in his hands.

"Are those the test results?" Squall asked, standing up. The doctor nodded. "And …"

Dr. Everson smiled kindly. "She's going to be fine. There's no damage to her brain."

Squall let out a long, shaky breath and ran his hands through his hair. "Then why hasn't she woken up?"

"She's been through a great deal of physical and emotional strain, Mr. Leonhart. And she outdid herself, there at the end." The doctor winked and grinned.

Squall nodded. Laguna, Irvine, and Squall had all agreed not to mention to anyone outside of Garden the full story of what had happened down in Dr. Blakeslee's lab, for fear of what would happen to Rinoa if word spread. But Dr. Everson had been Laguna's doctor for 18 years now, and Laguna trusted him implicitly. And he needed all the facts to correctly assess Rinoa's situation.

"So … she's going to be all right?" Squall asked.

"She'll be good as new in a few months," the doctor said, patting the younger man on the shoulder kindly. "She'll need to go someplace quiet to recuperate."

Squall nodded. He already knew where he would take her. Garden would have to do without him for a few months, because he would be staying with her until she was well.

"Perhaps you ought to share the good news with your friends?" The doctor's voice snapped him out of his reverie.

Squall nodded. "Of course," he muttered, casting a long look over his shoulder at the girl asleep in the bed. For days he'd worried himself sick, not sleeping, not eating, not moving from her side. Now he prepared himself to face Laguna, Irvine, Selphie, and Quistis to tell them the news.

When he walked into Laguna's sitting room, he was shocked to see that they had been joined by Seifer, Zell, Ellone, Edea, and Cid. Ellone smiled kindly when he entered the room. "I've been busy," she remarked lightly.

"What'd the doc say?" Zell asked.

"She's …" Squall paused and let it finally sink in. And he couldn't help the smile that came to his face. "She's going to be fine."

Selphie jumped up and squealed. "That's great!"

Quistis held her hand to her heart and sighed. "Oh, thank Hyne," she breathed, and Seifer, in an uncharacteristic move, took her hand in his own. She smiled at him faintly, suddenly very glad that he had made the trip to Esthar with the others.

Irvine didn't say anything, he just sank further into the cushions of the couch. But Squall knew how he felt. Overwhelmed by what they and Laguna had borne witness to. It wasn't anything that he thought they would ever be able to explain. The whole time was a big blur, mainly, but he knew one thing that was forever going to remain burned in his mind.

Rinoa had been magnificent.

He turned to Laguna then. "I need a favor," he said. "Can I talk to you alone for a minute?"

Laguna nodded, honored that his son was finally coming to trust him. Of course, after an ordeal such as the one they had just been through, very little else could be expected. He led Squall to his study and shut the door. "What can I do for you?" he asked.

"The house in Winhill," Squall said. "The doctor said she'd need a quiet place to recover. I … I want to take her there."

Laguna nodded solemnly, and reached into his top desk drawer and pulled out a small silver key. "It's yours," he said. "As long as you want it. Raine would be so happy if she knew …"

Squall nodded, thinking about the time they'd gone to Winhill, and how Raine's presence still seemed to linger there. "I think she knows," was all he said, and then he turned and walked out of the room.

He went back to the sitting room to find Zell. He had one more favor he needed to ask …

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A/N: Well, there you have it ... except, of course, the epilogue, which will be up VERY SOON. :)