Chapter 3

Squall's Plight

The next day came with a sound cock-crow as Worce tried to push himself up from his sleep. Who could blame him? Hardly had he slept when those darn chickens signaled him that it was high time he had gotten up. Still tired, the boy decided to have himself a wash, and then do what he should- go down to the clinic to check the poor man's status. But hardly had he stepped into the luxurious bathroom of his suite when the bedroom door banged open and a very exhausted, yet smiling Ingham stepped inside.

"Your Lordship" he addressed solemnly, bowing down "It is done"

"Done?" Worce spoke, with a definite sigh of relief "Is he well yet?"

"Sleeping soundly like a wrapped-up baby, nice and well again, my lord"

"Oh great" the boy exhaled deeply, doubling himself so as the tip of his hand reached the ground "So all what we have to do is to wait for the Heroes Master to come for him, right?"

"Yes, sir" answered the ex-abbot, who then quickly switched to telling some off-topic details "And by the way, sir, this guest seemed to have had some trouble… emotional trouble, or that was what I think"

"Well?" asked an astonished Worce "How did you know that?"

"Last night, the genies in charge as well as my humble self have all heard this man mumbling phrases like "Rinoa, where are you" or "How can I find you…Rinoa" and all things like that. The young genie in charge of the medicine cupboard even told me that he couldn't sleep yesterday when that man kept mumbling in his sleep like that"

"Rinoa" thought Worce "Isn't she the lady in blue armor the other day? Isn't Rinoa her name? What had she to do with this young man?"

Thinking so, Worce immediately sensed something fishy around. He then dismissed Ingham and went to the clinic himself to see to this young man.

Upon reaching the well-decorated clinic, the Grand Lord was informed by the genies there that the poor victim had been brought round. Worce decided that he would lose no more time there and went straight into business. He entered the ward, walked towards the half-sitting wounded man with the proud stroll of a full-fledged king, and stood majestically in front of his guest.

"Greetings, distinguished guest" He spoke up, again trying unsuccessfully to sound like a real king- his voice sounded childishly ridiculous, which could make everyone laugh. Fortunately, this man didn't laugh. He might be too weak, or maybe, too depressed to laugh. Or maybe he found it to be not funny after all.

"So you are the one in charge here, I suppose?" the man replied, then raised his right hand to make a sort of salutation "My most sincere greetings"

"Well, I don't have so much time here- you see, it is hard running an academy like this- so let us make this quick. First, please tell me about yourself"

The wounded man said nothing. Instead, he shoved his left hand into his leather jacket, and took out what seemed to be a sealed scroll, with the seal bearing the shape of a blue parrot, and then handed it over to Worce, who then opened the seal carefully and started reading- aloud

"To Whom It May Concern,

I, the Heroes Master, hereby declare the bearer of this letter a Person of Ultimate Importance. The standing heroes, armies, both garrisoned or on field operations belonging to Castle Agoura must put the protection of this man's life and safety to the utmost priority. As for the identity of this messenger, his resume is attached below"

Worce then turned over the leather scroll, and read its contents out aloud once more

"-Name: Squall Leonhart

-Age: 18

-Current occupation and rank: A-rank SeeD, standing Commander of Balamb Garden

-Mission briefing: It is highly recommended that this man's identity and status be kept in discreet until the Heroes Master's envoy arrives. Until then, Castle Agoura must do whatever it takes to safeguard his existence."

Worce folded the leather scroll and laid it on the table, then turned to the man again

"So you are Squall Leonhart, an army commander? What an honor"

"In fact it is not an army. I am a SeeD… a member of the Balamb Garden"

"SeeD?" Worce opened his mouth widely and rolled his eyes "What on Earth is SeeD, for King Gryphonheart's sake?"

"So you don't know SeeD? This is quite surprising..."

"OK then. I don't have that much time for you to explain right now. I just have to know you are a soldier, that's it isn't it? Fine then. By the order of the Heroes Master, you will be granted Official Asylum Right here. You will be free and safe to do whatever you want as long as you remain within the town." Again, Worce made himself sound ridiculous by trying to sound political, or more likely, royal.

"Is there anything I can do to help?" Squall asked

"Well, just make yourself at home here, and do not mess up with things you don't know what it is, that's all. Now, I would like to excuse myself…"

Saying so, Worce bowed to his guest, and then slowly left the room in the pseudo-royal pose he had been in the moment he stepped in. Squall was left all alone then, to think of what sort of situation he had been through…

Talking about Squall… The reason why he ended up at Castle Agoura was no less interesting.

After leaving the Garden, Squall wandered all over the world, going to places he thought Rinoa might be. And yet, all of his efforts were futile. She certainly was nowhere to be found all over Galbadia, for if she had been there, the search teams would have found her. Not even was she in Centra, as the White SeeDs would have very well discovered her if they continued their seafaring trips around the Centra archipelago. And in Esthar, perhaps? Not a chance, as his father- President Laguna Loire himself had commenced his own search teams at a grand scale all across the Great Plains of Esthar, and the enchanted guards of this once-sorceress ruled nation would be capable of sensing the presence of another sorceress were she there. Let alone rumor was in the air that she was having something to do with the President's family. All things considered, there was simply not a place in this planet that Rinoa could be logically in.

Squall was distraught. He couldn't bear the fact that Rinoa might have died, and yet couldn't help thinking so. A person being lost for so long without a trace could very well be dead, couldn't she? And Squall was simply unable to cope with such a fact should it be the truth. And yet…it might very well be the truth. The poor brunet's hope lessened day after day. It was three months now since she had mysteriously vanished, and there had yet been any progress in the SeeD commander's search. And he just couldn't be blamed, for full-scale search parties had been sent tout to no result, let alone his single-handed effort.

Hopeless, one particular afternoon Squall unconsciously went back to Edea's house… A promise had linked both of them to this place, and Squall's subconscious mind took him back to this place, where he believed that Rinoa might be waiting for him.

The gunblade-slinger entered the ruins. No one was home, not even Cid and Edea, which was actually quite strange. But Squall did not quite care about that old couple then. His mind was fixed on Rinoa. He moved quickly for the blooming field just beyond a broken archway. It was at this place that one year ago, the couple had made their most solemn promise to each other. Everything was the same since then. The flower field was still in full bloom, the sky was still blue, and the air was still bittersweet with both the scent of the flowers and the saltiness of the ocean. Everything was the same… except her. By terms of the promise, Squall again found himself standing at the old place, waiting,. So on, so forth, the distraught brunet sat down there at the place for three full days without leaving, in the vain hope that she would show up there, provided that he waited. But she didn't, to which there were only one possible explanation: She is dead.

"It mustn't become like this…Not now…I am her knight…Her K-N-I-G-H-T! She trusted me so much…and I can't do anything when she's in trouble?" Squall thought, sitting down at the wall. He had been waiting for well over three days, without leaving the place. Finally, fatigue and exhaustion had taken its toll, and the Commander collapsed on the flower field, and fell into a deep coma…

That was it. This time he was going to die. Losing Rinoa was one thing, but the feeling of guilt was another. No longer could he withstand that. He had promised never to leave her again, never to hurt her, never to give up his embrace to her. Yet he had just failed. And now the complete exhaustion he was undergoing seemed to be a perfect end for him… the end for a complete loser. But yet still, when the young brunet was about to give up and perish, a hooded shadow hovered directly above him, and the unconscious Squall was, strangely, able to hear what he had to say to him.

"Wake up, Squall Leonhart. Your times hadn't ended yet."

Following that speech, rays of light coming from nowhere started to shoot at Squall, covering him completely, blurring whatever was left of his vision. Still weak from the long wait, Squall tried to push himself up, but failed all too well, as hunger and obvious fatigue could apparently bring down the proudest of lions.

"…Who…who are you?" he spoke feebly

"You are not supposed to die yet. One day you will, of course, but this is not the time. Not here, not today." The hooded figure hovered around him once more; shedding rays of blue light in his wake "As for me, I call myself the Heroes Master"

"The…Heroes…Master?" Squall spoke, gasping for breath

"You have an important mission, young one. A very important one indeed, one that you MUST go as a matter of course"

"I am not going" Squall put all his strength in one berserk negative, and then fell back on the ground again.

"Well, well, well…" the Heroes Master spoke sarcastically "A so-called lion going to die over a mere woman? What KIND of a man, let alone a SeeD are you?"

Squall's eyes flared with anger. Who did that man think he was to insult him like that? And insulting his Rinoa too? Putting the last ounce of his strength on his Lionheart, Squall threw a desperate slash at the hovering shadow, only to find out that the mysterious hooded flying figure was able to block out his deadly attack wholly.

"No hope, Squall" the Heroes Master smirked "You have become quite… pathetic already. Well, that's bad for you only."

By now, Squall had become so weak that he could barely keep himself standing. He fell down on his knees, still maintaining a savage eye contact with the man who called himself the Heroes Master.

"What do…you…mean?"

"Well, if I told you that your world is coming to an end and you are amongst the few who could save it, would you believe me?"

"What...Urgh…" Squall could only mumble those words, and then collapsed on the ground again

"Oh, my most sincere apologies. The memory of this old one has obviously failed him" the Heroes Master said, landing on the ground on his feet, proving that he did have one pair, and then produced a flask of greenish water "Here, young man, drink this"

Squall did not know why, but he actually reached for the bottle and poured the whole content into his mouth. It tasted like seltzer water, but after he had swallowed the last drop, the exhausted brunet suddenly found his lost strength rushing back to him. Squall then found himself on his feet once more, looking at the Heroes Master in his eyes again.

"What did you say again?"

"I have readily told you that your world is facing its very END, son of Laguna"

"Sorry, old man. This is none of my concern"

"If that business had something to do with a young lady called Rinoa Heartilly, would you say yes?"

For a split second, the "son of Laguna" thought that a lightning bolt had struck right through him, sending him into a berserk state yet again. He leaped at the Heroes Master, attempting to grab his neck, only to find that the "old man" had teleported himself a safe distance away from his rampage. Unable to grab the ghastly figure of the man, Squall took one step back, still facing the shadow of the man, drawing out his Lionheart threateningly

"Listen, if you dare touch her even by the fingertip, I swear you will not make it through today!"

"Interesting, young one" the Heroes Master grinned, and then approached Squall slowly, thus making the brave SeeD commander unconsciously back off. He then looked at Squall's blade, and looked at him again "This blade you call it the Lionheart, right?"

"Move off, old man" Squall ordered furiously, to no effect

"The Lion and the Griffin are the proudest and fiercest wild beasts that the universe had ever seen" the Heroes master said serenely, then suddenly clenched his voice "You are neither of them, I am afraid. Instead, you are just a below-average stag going head over heel for a female one, and tending to go nuts when she goes missing. Pathetic, Leonhart, pathetic indeed"

It was quite visible then that Squall's face had turned red with anger. Not saying a word, or in fact, not being able to say a word, the gunblade-slinger drew his gunblade, charged it up, and with a loud battle cry, rushed at the Heroes Master, and unleashed the Renzokuken with the fullest degree of fury. When the final blow went home, and the meddler seemed to have been finished, Squall look back with a proud smile, but then dropped his jaw when he saw that the Heroes Master was still there, well protected by a purple sphere covering his whole body.

"Hah, nice work, young man, but what a pity… not good enough to take me down" The Heroes Master spoke between the psychotic beep all around him

Squall dropped his knee on the ground, panting. "Who was this man?" Squall thought bitterly "Why did he come for me? And what did this have to do with Rinoa?" He looked up at the meddler in an obviously tormented look.

"Well, so what now, young man?"

"What did you do to Rinoa?" Squall screeched between his teeth "I have warned you already…"

"Say, young man" the Heroes Master looked at Squall again, this time with a much more serious look "She is NOT in my keeping. Her whereabouts is still a mystery to us all. We only know one thing. She is probably NOT dead and NOT well as well"

Squall's heart sank upon hearing this. He looked at the Heroes Master and questioned him weakly

"What can I do to save her?"

"That's more like it, Squall Leonhart" the Heroes Master remarked "You must make a sort of journey… well, in fact, something resembling a pilgrimage"

"A pilgrimage? Where to?"

"As you can see, in the desert southwestern of Galbadia now lays a new city… a fortress in fact, called Castle Agoura. This is your destination"

"Castle Agoura? I have never heard of it before… not even in my dreams"

"Because it has just been erected quite recently. Now, your mission would be to get there secretly by any means possible, in one week's time. You will be welcome like a very special guest there, provided that you arrive at the correct time and place. After that, all what you have to do would be to stay put there, until you receive my further orders. I insist that as a SeeD you have gotten used to following to orders, am I right?"

"Well… If this has anything to do with Rinoa, then I'll do it"

"Alright, there are also a few restrictions you will have to follow. First, you must not show others your identity. Let them all think that Commander Squall Leonhart has gone missing in action. Secondly, you must arrive as punctually as possible, for the Grand Lord of that city would be very unlikely to accept late guests"

"No problem. What else?"

"Here" the Heroes Master said, drawing out a leather scroll, firmly bound by a blue parrot seal "when you arrive at the destination, the first and foremost thing you have to do would be to hand this sealed scroll over to the Grand Lord of that castle. He will then give you primary orders, and you will have to wait there until you receive further instructions. Did I make myself clear?"

"You did, old man, except that even now I don't know what the hell you are talking about"

The Heroes Master said no more, but instead handed him something that looked like a map of the Galbadia continent, blinked at him, and then vanished into thin air in the same mysterious way he had appeared.

Now Squall was left all alone again. He laid his head down on the field, thinking. So he now got one week to go to a place nonexistent just one week- a little more or less- ago, secretly and probably manually, for taking any other sort of vehicles would end him up being spotted- Squall was at that time universally famous as a hero which would come in direct violation of the first order. And walking on foot from Cape of Good Hope to the Galbadian Desert was just as hard as hell. But anyway, it was for the safety of Rinoa. For her he would do anything… even going to the moon (he had done so already)

What happened next was only enough to demonstrate what kind of a man-with-a-pathetic-luck Squall Leonhart could be at times. It took him four days and a half to hire a fishing boat to Galbadia, something that was quite too difficult because the number of ships happening to pass the Cape was extremely rare, let alone fishing boats. And then it took him another two days to find the way around the desert, fighting off numerous monsters quite unnecessarily, as the Heroes Master was definitely not a cartographic expert, and Castle Agoura's position was left dangling ambiguously over an area ten times the size of Deling City on the map. Squall moved all around the desert in such w way, cursing the Heroes Master for such a bad map and an unlikely mission all the way.

But nothing was impossible for one knight determined to find his missing damsel in distress, especially if the damsel happened to be his wife-to-be, and by sharp noon on the seventh day, a large, white-walled, well-guarded and beautifully fashioned appeared right in front of his eyes as if it were a mirage. And what was better, it was just not. It was real. Ands he was probably just two or three miles away from it now. Castle Agoura was just up ahead.

But as an overjoyed Squall ran down the dunes to reach for the city, the sand below him suddenly trembled and broke, as if from a huge fissure, and the temperature around him suddenly rose to an unbearable level. Squall was blown pretty badly away from his standing position, landed squarely on his posterior, and when he managed to raise his head above the ground, in front of him stood a magnificent, ferocious, flame-breathing pitch black dragon, seemingly carnivorous and was apparently hungry for some well-chewed and grilled humans. It was the mystical, ominous and chaotic evil Black Dragon, one which was obviously, and strangely enough, NOT a resident of the Galbadian Desert. And Squall, a young, juicy human who have inadvertently violated the Black Dragon's 'resting place' was perfect for his lunch.

As a matter of instinct, Squall immediately jumped one step backward, facing the fierce dragon, then yelled out for Ifrit, who at once heeded his call and appeared, after which he brought this huge flaming red comet down on the dragon's head with a loud explosion. Squall moved forward again, thinking that the dragon had obviously blown up. But to his surprise, the Black Dragon was still there, unscathed from the explosion. He took virtually no damage at all, which was something Squall had never seen before, since the first time he had ever used GFs. Being unfamiliar with creatures of Axeoth, Squall got no idea that dragons were completely spell-proof, and thus was immune to Ifrit's fearsome Hell Fire as well. And the dragon's counterattack was far quicker than any other wild creature Squall had met before, and its scorching Breath Attack had obviously thrown young Leonhart off the ground with a badly scalded chest, and he collapsed.

The dragon did not stop there, though. This time it was not only Squall's meat that he was after. Everyone knew what kind of a filthy scavenging beast who loved gems, treasure, glittering artifacts and gold as much as good- probably humanoid creatures- meat and carnage a Black Dragon was. Unfortunately, the son of Laguna had, upon falling, revealed to this unearthly dragon what kind of treasure he was having- the marvelous, shining blue-bladed Lionheart gunblade. And upon realizing the treasure and just how rare and valuable it was- those greedy dragons also had a knack for determining the actual monetary value of a certain piece of artifact- the dragon started to attack poor Squall even harder, with both his claws and fire breath, in the hope of taking away the Lionheart sword as well as having a good lunch.

After just barely five minutes Squall Leonhart was covered in wounds of all sorts, and was hardly standing upright. A dragon's might was anyway legendary, and no one except other legendary creatures could hope to stand up against it. By then, the dragon was roaring- in fact, laughing in a Black Dragon's tongue- and flew up high with its huge spanning black wings. Its goal was to completely devour the human in a solid killing dive. By then, Squall was quite defenseless, with his GFs unusable, and his arm barely intact to use the Lionheart properly. Right when all hope was lost, though, Rinoa Heartilly's familiar image span around his head, and when Squall realized just how hard he must try to live for her, to save her like one brave sorceress' knight- she was alive and needing him by the words of the Heroes Master- his strength came back once more. He slowly reached for his Lionheart, and, at the very moment the Black Dragon thought he had eaten and robbed all to well, a blinding flash and six decisive slash went home, and the dragon was split into ten-odd pieces. Renzokuken had just done what it should, and the greedy dragon's life had come to an abrupt end, without his even realizing that he had died.

Alas, Squall's vitality was exhausted when the mutilated pieces of the dead dragon fell down on the ground. And when the last drop of dragon blood had splattered on the burning desert sand, he also lost his balance and fell down comatose again…

Though, a sense of duty was able to keep Squall a bit conscious of what was going on, and when he finally woke up, the sun wad already setting. "Castle Agoura! I am late!" Leonhart screamed in his mind, and then, pulled himself together and sprinted for the white castle over the horizon. What happened next was that he barely made it there, after which he once again fell into a coma due to loss of blood, exposure to extreme heat and exhaustion.