Ugh, finally done. Family woes!
Thank you, as always, to Poisonberries for all her help - this fic owes a heavy debt to her characterisation notes and sorting through the canon we're given to work with. Thank you, thank you.
Super huge thanks also to Glynnis, who raked out my crap grammar and typoes despite the fact I can't punctuate to save my life. All mistakes are mine.
Thank you to Apathy for read-throughs and listening to me complain XD
The mud sucked at his feet as he walked, draining him of strength, threatening to pull him down into the mire. For a moment, Kain almost stopped and was tempted to simply allow his exhaustion to take him over, but in the end he kept moving forward, allowed the world to shrink to the space directly in front of him, the raindrops that clung to the dragon's teeth of his helm.
The light from Order's Sanctuary could be seen, glowing dully through the haze of the rainstorm, rising above the mountains like smoke over a pyre. Kain felt warm bile rise in the back of his throat, and turned his face away.
For Cosmos.
The sneer crossed his lips before he could stop it. He wondered if Cosmos could see him now, if she cared to, and what she would think of one of her chosen warriors trudging through the rain and the muck, his hands covered in the blood of his friend – as they would be covered with the blood of so many others before this business was over.
Wetness trickled down the back of Kain's neck, sweat or the storm, and he realised again that his hands were shaking. Even when guided by Golbez's spells, they had been sure, steady, the one thing to never betray him… but now, it seemed no matter what he did, they trembled. Even clenching them into fists did nothing, so instead he let them shake, too tired to care.
The rain had begun to ease by the time Kain made his way to the fens; the sky was almost completely dark, the dense shadow of the castle ruins impenetrable.
Kain paused on the threshold, for the moment unable to make himself take even one step more. The dull strings of dread that had been slowly gathering in his chest knotted into the sickening knowledge that the Warrior of Light would ask him what he had done, and that he would have to tell him.
Closing his eyes, Kain could feel the blood pound in his temples and wondered, almost inanely, what he would not give for some skill at magecraft, for the ability to slow the passage of time, if only for a moment or two. To gather his thoughts, perhaps… or perhaps just to mourn.
Cecil. Kain could not be sure if he uttered the name aloud or not. He might have. Forgive me. Please, I…
"Kain?"
Kain reached out, leaning heavily against the cold stone wall, all that remained of what he assumed had once been a castle not unlike the one in which he'd been raised. He swallowed, but could not find it in himself to lift his head.
"I'm here," he said, his voice cracking in his throat. He heard the Warrior's steps in the mud behind him and knew that eventually he would have to turn and face him. There was nowhere to hide, if there ever had been.
"Kain. Are you all right?"
Drawing in a breath, Kain pushed himself away from the wall, finally turning to face the Warrior of Light.
"I'm not wounded, no."
Kain watched the Warrior blink, his eyes running over him as if trying to assess that for himself. "I'm glad," he said. "An injury would slow us down."
Kain almost had to laugh at that; as it was, a cruel smile worked its way over his lips as he answered. "Indeed it would, my friend. Indeed it would."
The Warrior's brow furrowed at that; Kain could almost see the gears of his mind click over until they seemed to find something that fit. "Did you –"
Kain cut him off with a cold laugh. "Yes."
"Who?"
The back of Kain's throat burned. "Cecil."
He didn't look up at the Warrior's face; he dreaded seeing the calm expression he suspected he might see there, or - even worse - whatever the Warrior could muster that was close enough to compassion.
The silence stretched on, until the Warrior said, "I'm sorry, Kain. Truly."
Sorry. Kain clenched his fist, waiting for something more, while knowing there would be nothing. What could he say, in any case? He turned away.
"It's raining," the Warrior said eventually, as if Kain may not have noticed. "I've pitched a tent. You should – "
Kain whirled around, rage suddenly tearing through him. It welled up in him so quickly and so furiously that he had no time at all to put in place any of the guards he had so carefully constructed against it throughout the years. All of the walls he had built crumbled, and he was more naked now without them than he would have been had they never existed at all. He tore his helm from his head and threw it into the deep shadow beyond, not caring where it fell, not caring if he never saw its grinning teeth again. His breath burned in his chest and for a moment he wished there was something, anything for him to kill.
"Kain." The Warrior's tone was infinitely reasonable, almost blasé, and Kain felt the light pressure of a hand on his forearm. "Come inside. I think we should –"
"Tell me," Kain growled, the words forcing their way up his throat and out of his mouth, noticing that the Warrior did not even have the nous to look startled. Instead, he simply furrowed his brow, looking at Kain again as if he were a problem to be solved. "Tell me what you think."
"You're tired," he explained, as if it should be obvious. "You need to rest. You'll feel better – "
The next moment was a blur. Kain was taller and more heavily built, but even so the Warrior was hardly slight and Kain could not account for how quickly his fists balled in the cape around his friend's throat, how little effort it took him to push him backwards against the wall, his head hitting the cold stone with a dull thud. Kain had no idea what exactly he planned to do next – but before he could think on it long, the Warrior's hand came up, clamping like a vice around his wrist, but that was his only resistance.
They stared at each other, and rain swept between them.
"You know nothing," Kain eventually managed to get out through gritted teeth, but again he did not know what he was accusing the Warrior of or why. "You have no idea – none at all – "
For a moment, the Warrior's fingers tightened around his wrist. Kain blinked, and realised that his eyes felt hot. There was dampness on his face that was not rain. "Cecil was my friend. Do you even understand that?"
Kain looked at the Warrior's face and met that same cold, blue gaze he knew so well. In the past, its certainty had been a comfort to him, but now it only made him angrier
"Isn't that why you did it?" The Warrior's voice was quiet. "You've given him a second chance, Kain. You knew that when you set out. This path – it's to protect them, is it not? To give them a chance at victory?"
Kain was suddenly very aware of the heave of his lungs, the rush of blood in his ears. He dropped his head, feeling light-headed and suddenly, horribly nauseated. His vision slowly began to white out, and he blinked, trying desperately to get it back.
Victory. The word repeated itself in Kain's head. No. Not victory. Just a chance, a chance to go back….
Kain swallowed. The Warrior was right, as he always seemed to be, but Kain could not help but feel it was for the wrong reasons. For Cosmos. The words were in his mind with new meaning. If he had suspected the moment the Warrior ended their oath with the phrase, the truth of it was unavoidable now. How different our goals are, friend. How different, after all.
The Warrior of Light wanted to win a battle. A second chance, to him, meant a second chance for Cosmos' victory. Kain wanted to send them – all of them, all of Cosmos' chosen – home.
He blinked, and there was only rain in his eyes. He did not bother to ask himself if he could truly have been so blind.
Even as he turned the realisations over in his mind, Kain could not find it in himself to begrudge the Warrior the things he wanted. If there were any man in this godforsaken world who had less, Kain was hard-pressed to think of him. There were no memories of a home for him to long for, no one he could recall with fondness or love. Again, Kain thought of the girl he was certain the Warrior had told him of once and how he had lost her, and wondered if that weren't the key to it. He'd lost perhaps the only friend he had known – certainly the only one he had ever mentioned – and maybe it still drove him, led him to believe that victory was the only answer.
Everything was ground beneath the wheels of the dark, brutal logic of this place, and if the Warrior had ever been anything different, Kain recognised, he had now rebuilt himself to conform entirely to its rules, to accept them as the truth and obey them faithfully: die for another chance to live, kill their allies to ensure their survival.
And he is right, Kain realised, the familiar dull, sickening feeling worming its way through his stomach. There is nothing you can do but commit.
Slowly, Kain became aware of the world around him once more, the warmth of the Warrior's breath against his ear, the grip of his fingers digging into his wrist.
"Kain."
Kain didn't answer him, but he slowly relaxed his hold, letting the Warrior away from the wall. He could not let go entirely, not yet. He felt his legs would collapse beneath him if he tried.
"It had to be done, Kain." The Warrior of Light's breath shifted the hair that lay against Kain's ear as he spoke. He unwound his fingers from his wrist, and Kain felt his hand move down his arm, over his shoulder to the side of his face. "You know that in the end, this path is the correct one." Kain saw the Warrior's eyes flick up to his face, his tongue run quickly over his bottom lip. "It's the path you chose. I'd trust no one else but you to see it done."
Kain's throat went dry. Longing coalesced in his chest, though if he had been asked he could not have pinpointed exactly for what - a different choice. A different life, perhaps - knowing only that the pain was so bright and immediate that it seemed to take on a life of its own, burning him up from the inside out.
He again felt the warm drift of the Warrior's breath on his face. "I know when I explain to Cosmos she will understand that you have done no wrong."
The Warrior's lips were on his before his mind had caught up enough to protest, and he felt the Warrior's hand fumble with the armour at his groin.
Kain pulled back abruptly, too shocked to process much. "What are you –"
"Please, Kain." The Warrior began to bend at the knees. "I know it will –"
Please, Kain.
The echo of Cecil's last words to him sent a shock through him that stopped everything. It knocked the breath from his chest; put the smell of Cecil's blood congealing beneath his fingernails back in his nostrils, undiluted by the rain. Before he had time to think his hands were on the Warrior's shoulders, hauling him upright.
"How dare you?" he managed to get out through gritted teeth, the goodwill, the excuses he had been willing to extend to him just minutes before evaporating. "Do you think that I could –"
Through the haze of his anger, Kain registered that the Warrior was making the same expression as before – his brow furrowed, mild confusion clouding his features. "I'm sorry, Kain," he said. "I only thought to –"
Kain almost snarled at him, about to ask what he could possibly have been thinking, before the rest of the truth he realised he'd been hiding from came crashing round his ears.
The Warrior always seemed to be doing things for their comrades; he'd spar with the Onion Knight for as long as the child had energy - no matter how long he'd just been on patrol - and would repeatedly model techniques for Bartz to mimic. He'd even eaten Laguna's cooking, though he never commented on the taste. It didn't seem to occur to him that he could say no, and thanks were accepted with blank perplexity, as if he didn't quite understand what was required of him. With a sudden, cold clutch in his stomach, Kain wondered if all of this was simply another form of what he'd witnessed time and time again with the others – the Warrior did these things simply because he thought it was something that Kain wanted, something he needed, and he did not even realise he had a choice in the matter.
Morale, Kain thought, a sour twist on his lips. Kindness. Of course. What else could there be? Kain had realised long ago that there was nothing he could give the Warrior of Light that he needed, and the idea that he might come to him simply because he wanted nothing more than Kain himself was so absurd as to make him laugh. It was not, Kain thought bitterly, that the Warrior of Light saw him and cared for what he was, who he was – it was that he didn't see him at all.
Pain stabbed through him so suddenly that he had to close his eyes. Dropping his head, he swallowed, gulped the thought down so it could sit with every other painful realisation he'd ever had, down as deep as he could push it.
Kain released the Warrior's shoulders, turning away from him, disgust – with himself, with everything – curling up from his chest into the back of his throat. He could not bring himself to turn back, even when he heard the Warrior of Light calling his name.
There was no need for a watch – Kain could well believe that the Warrior of Light had cut down every manikin within any dangerous distance, and the fens themselves should have provided adequate defence from other threats.
The rain had begun again in earnest after Kain had walked away. He had known even as he walked that there was nowhere he could go.
It was your choice. I'd trust no one else to see it done.
It had been his choice, of course. It had been a trap of his own making and he had walked into it willingly enough, though he honestly could see no other path but the one he had taken, and there was no going back. He felt ashamed now of how harshly he had spoken to the Warrior and how roughly he had treated him; it was not the way a man should behave. Kain almost had to smile – no, a man killed his oldest friend in the mud and rain and told him it was for his own benefit.
He supposed half his anger had sprung from envy: envy of the Warrior of Light's simplicity and conviction of purpose, his single-mindedness, his belief in his own goodness. It was a familiar feeling; half of his friendship with Cecil had been consumed by it.
Kain had returned to the ruined castle eventually; apologised for his behaviour, of course; retrieved his helm from where he had thrown it and crawled inside the tent away from the rain. As the Warrior of Light removed his own armour Kain saw a spreading bruise on his shoulder, noticed for the first time the small lacerations across his fingers and forearms, and realised that he had not asked if the Warrior had been injured. It was one other thing to add to his growing tally of sins, he supposed, if a minor one by comparison.
"Why didn't you use a potion on this, my friend?" he'd asked as he watched the Warrior dress the badly injured fingers on his left hand, over the dirtying bandage that covered the slice Kain had made in his palm only days earlier.
The Warrior glanced up as if mildly surprised. "I was saving it in case you needed it," he said. "You should take it." The Warrior reached into his pack and then pressed the small green bottle into Kain's hand. "Your path is more challenging than mine."
Kain had looked down at the bottle in his hands, before muttering a word of thanks and tucking it away.
Now, he listened to the sound of the rain falling lightly on the outside of the tent, the pale glow of morning beginning to crest the mountain peaks. He had not slept but merely listened to the sound of the Warrior's steady, even breath in the darkness.
They had not talked about the logical outcome of their plan. It remained unspoken between them, Kain because he couldn't bring himself to speak of it just yet, and the Warrior, he imagined, because he felt no need for debate.
Kain couldn't help but wonder at the Warrior's mind. Kain could not deny that he had pictured the two of them together at the end – he could ask for no better fate than to die as he wished he had lived, but he now realised that the Warrior would likely deny him even that. Would he attempt to cut Kain down, telling him that he would be needed the next time around, that Kain should be thanking for sending him forward to take part in Cosmos' triumph? The mere fact he had said nothing about it suggested that it was already decided, and Kain held no illusions about the Warrior's capacity for self-sacrifice. He wondered, when it came down to it, which one of them would be quick enough to strike the final blow.
With more bitterness than he wanted to feel, Kain realised that all the trials of Mount Ordeals were capable of was revealing a truth that life had buried: the mountain had not changed Cecil - it had merely set him on the path he should have been on all along. But with Kain it had only served to reinforce that he could not be different. The years he had spent breaking himself against its flank had taught him that much, at least.
The Warrior did not stir with the dawn's light, and the rain began to lift. Kain rose slowly, his shoulder and neck aching where Cecil's sword had so very nearly cut him. He had only removed enough of his armour to make sleeping possible, and, after a lifetimes of training, could replace it quickly and silently as he needed to now. After a moment's hesitation, he removed the potion the Warrior had given him from his pack, placing it on the ground at the end of his bedroll. He did not spare a backward glance at the Warrior's sleeping face, fearing his heart would fail him. Without further pause, he exited the tent into the half-light outside.
Goodbye, my friend. Goodbye.
He was the same man he had been at fifteen, twenty, twenty-one – realising that he was falling in love with Rosa but not having the courage to tell her, running from his friends because he could not stand to accept their forgiveness. It seemed that he was always leaving in the middle of things, with matters unfinished or ruined behind him. It didn't matter, he supposed. Perhaps he was unsuited to anything else, for sweet goodbyes and promises of returning, or of seeing each other again before the end, either for good or for ill.
The path would burn behind him, but he would walk it until it was done.
"Growing weary, are we, warrior of Cosmos?"
Kain bristled at the sound of Garland's voice. He had known the man was tracking him for some time – after taking Squall to the hidden cave in the Mirage Sandsea, he had been forced to take a circuitous route, doubling back through Lufenia and doing his best to make his wanderings look aimless, fearful that the Chaos warriors would discern where he was hiding his comrades. So far, it seemed they had not guessed. Leading Garland on a merry chase had been necessary, but it had taken its toll. The landscape was treacherous, the mountains not easy to navigate.
Kain did not answer him; he merely straightened his spine, allowing a smile to creep across his face, a snigger to escape his lips.
"The price of treachery is high, and one that you can ill afford to pay. Do you honestly think your efforts will make any difference?"
Kain turned. Garland loomed in the shadows of the pillars of the Chaos Shrine, his eyes glowing behind his helmet, his blade almost as tall as Kain himself. "If you've come to fight, then fight. I've no time for conversation," he said, spitting the last word with as much contempt as he could muster.
To his surprise, Garland simply laughed, the sound echoing through the shrine's inner chamber. He lowered his sword, letting the long edge lean against the floor. "I needn't waste my time or energy. You'll share the same fate as that insolent woman."
Kain blinked a moment. Surely Garland could not mean that, having failed to bring Lightning down himself, she had fallen to the manikin horde. He tightened his fingers around his lance, pain and regret suddenly coursing through him, before looking into Garland's eyes. Kain paused. Garland's gaze was trained on him, but this time it was accompanied by something else. With a mild jolt, Kain realised that there was a glimmer of amusement behind the usual flat, cruel stare.
The man was deliberately provoking him.
Kain allowed the corner of his lip to twitch, letting Garland know that he had his measure. "No," he said after a moment. "I think not."
"Hmph." Garland raised his blade again but did not move into an attack stance. "As if it matters what you think. All your plans will come to naught."
"Perhaps." Kain watched him, looking for an opening to attack, a sign that Garland had let his guard down. He could not afford an injury at this stage of the game, and any strike would have to be quick and opportunistic.
"Do you know how many have tried to escape the cycles? How many petty players have been brought low by their own schemes?"
Kain was barely listening, his eyes skating over Garland's armour. The knee. There's a gap above the knee. A weak joint below the elbow. A space above the groin. In the end, however, Garland was too seasoned an opponent for such trickery, and, as if reading Kain's mind, he moved his blade across his body, blocking any path to attack.
"Would you like to know," Garland asked, almost conversationally, "how you died last time?"
Kain narrowed his eyes, sucking in a quick breath. "No."
Ignoring him, Garland let out a low laugh. "Perhaps it was the time before. In any case, it was a mercy killing after what that jester had done to you. You thanked him in the end. I always suspected Golbez had a soft heart."
Kain set his jaw. Enough of this. He began to raise his lance, but Garland's next words stopped him short.
"Or perhaps you'd like me to tell you how he died."
Kain did not need to ask whom Garland meant. Their eyes locked, and Kain wondered what, exactly, Garland knew.
"I won't deny I was surprised when he returned after the first time – it was planned that he should perish with that obnoxious girl. I suppose that is the benefit of artificial life."
Kain could almost hear the smirk in Garland's voice. He opened his mouth, knowing full well that he was walking into a trap. "What do you mean?"
"You don't know?" Garland leaned back. Kain could not tell if his surprise was affected or genuine. "I suppose he does not yet know himself. But I had credited you Cosmos warriors with at least some small amount of intelligence."
Kain swallowed. Artificial life? Could it be? He shook his head. No. The Warrior of Light was as far removed from the manikins as he himself was. And yet…
Kain was jerked out of his thoughts by Garland's voice.
"I won't deny, however, that it has been amusing to watch him play at humanity." The motionless mask appeared to sneer, and Kain could not help but wonder if there were anything left beneath it at all. "Amusing, but pathetic. I can't imagine what you thought you were gaining from such an… alliance."
Kain could hear the anger behind Garland's voice. He glanced up, eyes raking him, attempting to produce with a glare what he could not risk doing with his lance. He let his lip curl. "Jealous, are we?"
Kain was barely quick enough to leap out of the way before Garland whipped his blade down, the tiles where he had been standing a moment before shattering under the impact.
Satisfied, Kain danced back, studying his neck for a vent, anything he might use to ram his lance straight through the man's throat.
But then, as abruptly as it had begun, Garland's attack halted, and he seemed to pull back into himself, reining in his rage with effort. "Do not test me, warrior of Cosmos. Even if you bested me, you'd be in no fit state to carry on with your futile plan."
In that, at least, Kain knew he spoke the truth. Nonetheless, he cocked his head at Garland, raising his lance. Sneering, he said, "And perhaps next time you'll have a story of your own death to tell me."
"Perhaps," Garland said mildly, "but it will not be by your hand." Garland's horned helmet moved slightly sideways, as if he were sizing Kain up. "Do you imagine you know what you're dealing with? Do you think, in the end, all your plotting, all your penance, will mean a thing? You have no understanding of this world whatsoever." Garland's voice grew cold. "You don't even know the man you call a friend. Believe me, he is far from that."
Kain said nothing, watching him.
"The measure of a man is in battle. Your petty friendships are mere ashes on the wind – they change nothing. The cycles continue. They always have, and they always will." Garland leaned back, some of the aggression going out of his stance. "I have seen that man die so many times I have lost count. Sometimes cleanly. Sometimes far less so. I remember more than you have ever forgotten. Think on that, before you speak to me of such petty things as jealousy."
Kain almost considered launching an attack on Garland as he turned to go, but in the end he refrained, for practical reasons yes, but also for others he could not explain. Watching the man's back as he disappeared into the dusk outside, Kain realised that perhaps Garland too had seen so many cycles that whatever place he had come from, if not forgotten, had ceased to hold any relevance for him. Startled, Kain thought that perhaps he was as much of this world as the Warrior of Light was – the world that had formed his friend had also formed this man, breaking them down to build them into something that better suited its purpose, whatever that may be.
Even so, the Warrior had learned at least a modicum of compassion, of kindness and mercy. With Garland, being trapped in the cycles had seemed to deepen the layers of his cruelty and sink him so far into despair that he would ever know anything else. Kain felt a twinge of regret as he thought again of the Warrior waking alone in the fens – for all that he had failed, he had at least been trying to be kind.
Kain did not understand Garland's purpose in coming here, and for a moment he wondered if the man truly understood it himself. He had made clear the fact that he intended to let the manikins wipe out what little remained of Cosmos' army. The only thing his coming had achieved was to steel Kain's purpose – the cycles would end. If with his lance Kain could ensure it, then there was little else to think about, and only one direction to go.
He could have left her, he supposed – whether he took her down or whether he allowed the Chaos witch to do it for him, it made no difference. Looking down at Tifa's sleeping face now, he wondered if it had been a mistake not to turn away, to continue on past the battle as if he had not seen it. Zidane, for all his lack of height, was surprisingly heavy, and he weighed Kain down.
At the last moment, he had been unable to do it – misplaced duty or something else had made him turn back, to intervene before Ultimecia could strike her killing blow. He had not expected the witch to remain silent about what he had been doing, about the allies he had felled. He counted them off in his head. Cecil. Bartz, Firion, Zidane. Squall. The Onion Knight. The last time he had seen Lightning he had been trying to drive the point of his spear into the back of her spine. Kain was surprised that UItimecia's revelation to Tifa seemed to be the first she'd heard of his treachery – after he had failed to ensure Lightning's silence, he had felt certain that she would not stop until all of the others were warned, though he supposed he should not have been surprised that she had failed. He had weakened her after all, and he found himself wondering if Tifa's ignorance was a sign that Garland spoke truly of Lightning's fate. Exdeath had made clear their intention to allow the manikins to wipe out those of their number that remained; after all, and the horde grew greater by the moment….
He hoped it was not the case, but it seemed unlikely
Or perhaps not. Lack of field training could explain Tifa's confusion just as well. His allies were disorganised, and communication between them was poor. Asking Bartz, Zidane and Vaan to stick to a schedule was worse than futile, and Laguna looking for a rendezvous point, despite his claim to have been a professional soldier once, was something Lightning had only bothered with once.
Tifa shifted in her sleep, the long dark rope of her hair falling from her shoulder.
Why did she follow me?
Ultimecia had denounced him, and Tifa had seen him pick up Zidane's prone body and depart. Her own eyes must have told her that what the witch said was true.
But she had followed him anyway, thrown her last potion over him. She had told him that she trusted him. As much as it had galled him to admit it, he had needed the potion – pride had made him return the one the Warrior had given him, but the encounter with Exdeath and the manikins he had set on him had extracted its pound of flesh. There was nothing he did not believe he could endure, physically at least, and the manikins were no match for him one-on-one, but the sheer weight of their numbers could be deadly.
For a moment, Kain watched her sleep. Now would be the time to do it, if he dared – Tifa was utterly peaceful, face unclouded, her lashes dark against the softness of her cheeks. Kain realised that part of him felt she was a fool for trusting so easily and so completely; another part wished desperately for her to retain that faith. It would be a kindness to do it now – she would never know of his betrayal, and he would not see it in her eyes before they went dark. But try as he might, he could not bring himself to lift his lance. She trusts you. Can you bring yourself to abuse it? What kind of man are you?
Kain supposed, in the end, that that was the question he had been trying his whole life to answer. In allowing Tifa to live, he wondered if he was betraying the Warrior of Light, the oath that they had made to see this plan through, to ensure the survival of their friends. No, it's not a betrayal. He simply needed time.
Kain's back stiffened. Darkness crept slowly over his consciousness, a sensation he could not have described had he been asked, except to say that it was like ice creeping over a frozen lake, a shadow that seeped along the ground with nothing to cast it.
He had accepted that he might never be free of the hooks in his mind, the spells Golbez had sunk into it that told him of the man's comings and goings. The latticework of scars that ran across his back - the origin of which he had not even been able to bring himself to tell the Warrior of Light – still ached in the cold, as if the mental reminders were not enough.
The magic was too deeply embedded, Golbez's terrifying proficiency in the dark arts too complete for him to rid himself of its influence. Kain had not expected to see his Lord again after Zeromus' final defeat, so he had supposed it mattered little. Now, he gritted his teeth, so black and so powerful was the sensation. He wondered if Golbez either knew or cared about the effect he still had, or if he would have spared him it if he could.
Kain stood, casting a backward glance at Tifa as he did. He would not wander far, but he did not wish for her to wake and see him speaking with Golbez. More subterfuge, more lies, he thought grimly as he made his way a short distance from their camp.
"Cecil is safe," he said aloud to the empty air when he was far enough away to be confident he would not wake Tifa.
"I am aware." Golbez drifted out of the darkness, silent as ever, his helmet caging his unknowable face. "You've done well."
Kain swallowed, the words echoing through his mind. He did not like to think too hard on what memory they might unleash, or what he had done in the past that might have prompted Golbez to say them to him.
He knew that Golbez was far too observant to miss the whitening of his knuckles as they tightened around his lance, and he asked himself again how much remained of those spells and leashes; if he attacked the man now, could Golbez simply stop him with a wave of his hand?
He would not attack, they both knew. But the thought unsettled Kain more than he could say.
"I need no pleasantries or petting from you," Kain spat, loosening his fingers from around his lance with effort, letting his arms drop to his sides.
"Of course." Golbez did not seem perturbed, but Kain could only remember a handful of times when he had been: when the dark spells that controlled him suddenly dissipated and he realised he'd been attempting to murder his own younger brother; when he discovered how close he had come to destroying the inhabitants of the blue planet, just as Zemus had bid. And even then, he had quickly shrouded himself once more, leaving with Fusoya to attempt to atone for what he had done and most likely lose his life in doing so.
Kain wondered suddenly if Golbez regretted the fact that he had not perished in the fight but had lived on with the knowledge of his deeds burning bright in his mind.
Something close to pity wormed its way into Kain's heart for a moment, before he abruptly crushed it.
"Then why have you come here? Surely not to tell me how pleased you are with my progress," Kain said. It was your words that put this in motion, he wanted to shout. You should have done it, not me. Cruelty surged through him. "Have you finally come to assist me in killing the girl?"
Golbez said nothing for a time. Truly, Kain had thought he might simply leave, but then, he knew that if Golbez had something to say, it would take more than petty barbs to drive him away.
"I am aware I set you on the most difficult of paths," Golbez said eventually. Incredulous, Kain turned his eyes upon him. Golbez appeared to ignore him. "I would not have done it had I not believed you capable of seeing it through."
Kain had to laugh at that. "Indeed. It's flattering to know how many people think me capable of killing my friends," he said, aware even as he said it of the irony in his words. Hadn't he proved himself entirely capable of just that?
Golbez was impassive, silent in the darkness. "Or perhaps," he said after a pause, "of protecting them."
Kain opened his mouth, but the stinging rebuttal died in his throat. He swallowed and stared at Golbez.
"Any mage worthy of the name can sense the magic he has sown," Golbez said after a moment or two of silence, "even if the spells have faded or worn down over time. Even if they have been struggled and fought against or if someone has tried to erase them."
Kain watched him, almost fearful of where Golbez's words were heading. "Stop –"
"The damage to your mind," Golbez interrupted, "was due to struggle." In the darkness, his helm creaked towards Kain, a shadow against the night sky. "I do not bear similar scars."
Kain barely had time to digest the meaning behind Golbez's words before he went on.
"I could tell myself that I was a child when he first spoke to me. But even a child knows the difference between right and wrong." Golbez paused, and Kain wondered if he was waiting for Kain to offer him some kind of reassurance or condolence. Surely not. After a moment, Golbez continued, "The scars will fade."
Kain realised now that Golbez was entirely aware of the dark pall that he cast across Kain's consciousness whenever he was near; knew that whenever Kain said his name, the words 'my Lord' still tried to force their way from his lips instead. It had been years – the spells still held, though Golbez had ceased to pull upon them.
"Did you come here to mock me?" Kain snorted, a harsh, bitter noise. "I've no magic to rid myself of you."
"Perhaps not," Golbez replied, turning away. "Not yet."
Kain wanted to call after him, to ask him what he meant. Instead, he found himself choking on his words, his throat too tight to let them pass.
"Know this," Golbez said as he walked away, his armour a ghost only slightly paler than the night. "I would not have entrusted my brother's safety to you had I not been forced to break you in such a way as to leave those scars upon you. Know that and remember it."
The moonlight was almost blue, filtering down through the clouds and dappling the dark earth with light. Of all the things that Kain thought would have made him homesick, this was the last, but nonetheless he felt that familiar twist in his stomach. He remembered evenings spent with Cecil and Rosa when they were no more than children, peering up at the moon through one of Cid's telescopes and wondering what it would have been like to go there, knowing such things were impossible.
Kain and Tifa had rejoined Lightning, Vaan, Laguna and Yuna when they had found them. He had almost considered expressing to Lightning his relief that she was still alive, and that Garland implication had been untrue after all, but he could almost see the incredulous quirk of her eyebrow, hear her spitting the words Why still hoping to do it yourself, Highwind? In the end, he had said nothing.
They had stopped for a short rest and whatever sleep could be snatched so close to the Rift, where the manikins were out in force, relentless and untiring. They had grown fewer more recently, but every precaution was still required. Kain had drawn first watch and had offered to do it alone so that the others could rest, but Lightning had simply muttered, "Like hell you will."
He'd started to tell her that he was more than a match for any manikin, but she'd simply looked at him and said, "It's not the manikins I'm worried about," and no one had said anything to contradict her.
She hadn't spoken to him again or looked in his direction since they'd begun their watch. They'd camped in a dead-ended canyon with the rock face behind them and made no fire, but still Kain could see the tense set of her shoulders, the bunch of muscles in her arms. Once, he watched her head slump forward before she jerked herself awake again, pressing her chin on her forearms where they lay across her drawn-up knees.
"You should get some sleep," Kain said to her, not expecting a response. Instead, she'd turned her head towards him, an incredulous expression on her face.
"And leave you here unsupervised? No thanks."
Kain exhaled, closing his eyes and turning his face upward to the moonlight. "How many times, Lightning? You know I had reasons."
"Stupid reasons."
Kain let that go. "It had to be done," he said, aware that he was echoing the Warrior of Light's own words to him.
She stood then, rage making her eyes incandescent in the dark. "It had to be done? Is that all you can say?" For a moment, Kain watched her ball her fist and thought she was going to strike him, but in the end she simply exhaled, uncoiling her muscles with obvious effort. "Reasons. Fuck, Highwind. Did Firion piss in your cornflakes or something? At least he could have defended himself, but Zidane, Onion Knight – they're just kids - "
"And you'd rather I left them to be cut down by manikins?" Kain asked. "You'd rather I left children to fight alone against those abominations? To perish in this cycle at their hands with no hope of return?"
For a moment, Kain watched a series of emotions chase each other across her face, before settling back into anger. "I'd rather you not do the job for them."
Kain exhaled again, wishing he could make her understand. It was impossible, and he did not have the energy to fight her, not now, not when they were so close to the end. He wondered how she found the stamina to be so endlessly combative, before realising it was probably the only thing that kept her on her feet. "It's done, Lightning. Be content to know they'll have another chance."
"If your Chaos friend was telling the truth. If this world works the way you think it does, and if that idiot can keep the manikins away from Cosmos for long enough to buy us time." She sat down by his side, not too close but just close enough that he could feel the heat radiating from her and drew her knees up, resting her arms across them. Kain saw her give him a sidelong look, and wondered if she was contemplating a truce. After a moment she dug her fingers in the muscle of her shoulder and muttered, "At least he's an idiot with a good sword arm, I suppose."
Kain looked at her in surprise. "You fought?"
"He tried to kill me and I stopped him, so yeah." She let out a long breath. "Don't worry, Cosmos stopped us before it got too far. He's still in one piece, not that it matters."
Kain swallowed, wondering if his relief was obvious to her. He supposed the Warrior had simply been attempting to carry out their plan, as he most likely would have if confronted with any of their allies, but Kain was filled with the burning need to know what had happened, how the fight had started, and what the Warrior had said. Tell me, he wanted to shout, though he couldn't remember the last time he had actually raised his voice in anger. He almost wanted to stand and shake the words out of her, though he knew the only thing that would earn him was her fist in his teeth and, most likely, her blade in his throat. He couldn't help but smile at what a bitter irony that would have been, from this woman, who presumed to lecture him on the morality of this world, who talked of rules he had accepted as obsolete, and tried to use them to condemn him.
Idly, Kain wondered if her anger masked her hypocrisy so well when she was alone with her own thoughts, or whether she, like the rest of them, was simply grasping.
In the end, he did nothing, watching the wind blow the strands of her hair, the stone of her face growing slowly softer with tiredness.
"You can stop staring," she said, jerking him out of his near-reverie, turning her head to look at him. "I won't be as easy to pick off as the others. Stop looking for a weak spot. There isn't one."
His face hardened, her words hitting him like a slap. "Is that what you –"
He only saw her eyes for a moment before she dipped them away from his face, but it was enough to decipher what was truly driving her words. Kain wondered if his surprise was plain on his face. For a moment, his anger abated, and he almost wanted to tell her that he was sorry again, despite the fact he was almost completely sure that she would laugh at that until she was sick, if only to cover up the flash of utter devastation he had seen in her eyes before she had dropped her gaze. She was hurt and he had hurt her – not only physically. He was surprised: he had not thought she cared so deeply about him to be concerned about such things. Even so, he had not wanted it to come to that. But he had not wanted a great many things…
He suspected these were the consequences of what he had chosen. What I have always chosen…
He opened his mouth to say something, though the only things that came to mind were platitudes that she would never accept. He almost considered repeating to her what Garland had said to him but remembered that the man himself had told her as much. Manikins are merciless. They know only how to deal with death and destruction, from which there can be no return. She knew as well as anyone the consequences of her actions, but still she persisted, still she drove them onwards. He wondered if this illusion of control was so precious to her that she honestly felt the bargain was fair.
"So just forget about trying," she said suddenly, her voice snapping through the air like something living. "Your damn boyfriend couldn't do it, and neither can you."
Kain drew in a sharp breath, head flicking towards her. "My – I don't –"
He was cut off by her snorted laugh. "Oh, please. Do you think anyone didn't know? Fuck, even Garland knew."
Kain had no answer for her and simply shut his mouth, looking away.
"You two have been thick as thieves since day one." Lightning stretched her legs out in front of her, leaning back on her palms. "Though he sent you off to die in the end, didn't he? Just like the rest of us. And I'd almost started to think he was a human being, too."
Kain's blood ran cold for a moment, and his thoughts jumbled with each other, trying to find a response. He remembered how he had left the Warrior alone in the Melmond Fens without so much as a goodbye; how different their parting had been from the one before, before Golbez had told him of the cycles.
With a sudden, bright ache in his chest, he remembered the words he'd spoken, the token he'd tried to give the Warrior. I was a fool, he thought suddenly. Nothing could flourish in this place – everything would be cut off and deadened before it could even sprout. Kain wondered what might have been if he had met the Warrior in Baron - or in any place other than this godforsaken world – if things might have gone differently for him, for both of them.
Perhaps. Perhaps not. Perhaps, like him, the man the Warrior was was the only one he was capable of being. Garland's words played through his head again; they still made no sense, but Kain suspected there might have been a certain amount of truth to them, twisted though it may have been by the man's blindness to anything but the fight.
Even so, regardless of Garland's mockery, Kain did not believe the Warrior of Light was entirely devoid of feeling. He spoke of mourning for his friend; the Warrior didn't remember it, but Kain did. And I have seen kindness in his eyes….
"It's not like that at all," he finally answered, his voice cold.
"Really," Lightning said, her voice flat. "Then where is he?"
"Cosmos must be protected."
"Cosmos. Of course." She didn't look at him. "You keep telling yourself that."
Anger seethed within him. Who was this woman to make such simple, damning statements as if they were fact? As if what he did were for Cosmos' sake. "You have no idea what you're talking about," he spat. "You cannot presume to tell me anything about what we discussed, what decisions were made –"
"No, I can't," Lightning cut him off. "I can only see two idiots willing to throw their lives away in the most stupid way possible for some goddess, who, by the way, won't thank you for it."
"I never asked –"
"I suppose I shouldn't be surprised," she continued as if he hadn't spoken. "You men and your stupid need to play the hero. The only thing you end up doing is hurting everyone else."
"There was no other way, Lightning," Kain said after a pause, knowing she wouldn't accept it.
True to form, she snorted a short laugh. "Did you decide that or did he?"
"We both did."
"Huh," she said, her lip curling. "Sure. Whatever."
"You don't know him."
In the dark, he saw the roll of her eyes. "There's always another way, Kain," she said. "Just because the pair of you are too blind to see it doesn't mean it's not there. I tried to talk some sense into him before I left, but he wasn't having it. I shouldn't be surprised." She let out a short laugh, tinged with obvious disgust.
Kain sneered. There was only so much of her impulsive narrow-mindedness he could take. "And is this your other way?" he asked, jerking his head back towards their sleeping companions, not caring enough now to keep the fury out of his voice. "They still die, Lightning. At least with our way –" he watched her eyes narrow as he said our, "they would be safely asleep, with a second chance. As would you."
Kain watched as Lightning opened her mouth to rebut him, anger seeming to make her momentarily incoherent.
"Maybe I meant another way for you," she finally managed to get out, her voice thick with rage. "But whatever, Highwind. Obviously you just prefer stabbing your friends in the back." She let out a short, derisive breath. "But then, I suppose that would require you actually having friends. I mean, apart from what's-his-name."
It seemed to Kain as if her words had sucked all of the oxygen from the air, and he groped for a response. It dawned on him then that perhaps she had not been trying to take anything from him, after all. Perhaps she had been willing not just to fight him, but to fight for him, to convince him of another way to see the world, to understand that his allies had cared for him and would not have asked him to sacrifice himself in this way.
"You said you came up with this fucking stupid plan together," Lightning continued when he did not speak. She turned to him, her eyes furious. "But I bet he never tried to talk you out of it, did he?"
Kain could not answer her; it would have been futile. But even as he sat in silence, his anger at her nearly palpable between them, he knew that if Lightning had been the one he had gone to with his plan she would have fought him to exhaustion to prevent him from carrying it out, not simply for the sake of the others, but for his own as well.
Something clenched in his chest, and for a moment, Kain wondered how he had become so despicable and pathetic that such hollow concern would perhaps have meant more to him than the Warrior of Light's unshakeable faith that he would do what had to be done.
They duelled with silence, and Kain shoved the thoughts away. In the end, no matter how Lightning may have fought him, the final result would have been the same: they would all be dead, with nothing to console him but the thought that she at least had not wanted him to die. Her rage at Cosmos, at the world they found themselves in, had led them all to this place; her will to reassert control had taken them down the wrong path. Tifa, Vaan, Laguna, Yuna - they would die, and would not be brought back. If the Warrior of Light was too much of this world and too conditioned to the brutality of the cycles to consider things differently, he was still, in the end, right. His cruelty was tactically superior to Lightning's version of kindness and would have saved more of them, in the end. And though the Warrior of Light had assented to it, it had been Kain's idea – he had gone to the one person he knew would see things clearly enough to allow him to carry it out, whose certainty would override Kain's own misgivings and doubt.
It was war, after all. And war was many things, none of them kind.
Again Kain wondered who would have been quickest if their plan had been completed, and which one of them would have sent the other to sleep. Now, he realised, he would never know; they would share the same fate, far from each other, never knowing how the other had eventually been taken down. Kain wondered if the Warrior, standing alone beside Cosmos' throne, was having similar thoughts, thinking of the comrades he had not saved or of the man he had not been given the opportunity to say goodbye to.
Lightning turned her face away from him, letting out a short breath and apparently taking his silence as confirmation of her suspicions.
"Lightning."
She turned back towards him, annoyance flickering across her face. For a moment, the words wouldn't come to him; the thought of placing himself in her hands, of opening such a vulnerable part of himself to her, repelled him to an almost violent degree. Then the look he had seen in her eyes the moment before she had glanced away from him played across his mind again, followed by the harsh cut of her words.
He decided to take the chance. He supposed there was nothing to be lost in it now.
Swallowing, Kain asked, "Before you left, did he say… anything?"
"Anything what?" she asked, knitting her brows. "A whole lot of stuff about Cosmos, yeah. But what else is new."
Kain looked at her a moment, wondering if she was wilfully misunderstanding but then saw comprehension dawn in her eyes. She blinked, and understanding was replaced by pity.
She opened her mouth, and Kain realised that she was contemplating a lie – but in the end it was not her way. She closed her mouth.
"Sorry," she muttered to him after a moment, before turning her face away.
For a while, the only sound was the howl of the wind between the rocks, low and inhuman. Lightning shifted next to him, exhaling audibly.
"I don't know what you cooked up together, but at least he did seem like he intended to keep his oath to you," she eventually said, her voice soft and less loaded with venom than it had been before.
For a moment, Kain was almost sure that he had misheard her and wondered if she had resorted to a lie after all. "Oath?" Even he could hear how hoarse his voice sounded.
He saw her glance at him quickly. "I don't know. Laguna talked over the top of most of it. About being your shield or something equally stupid."
Kain swallowed, feeling his throat constrict. Again there was the low indulgent beat in his heart. Perhaps, perhaps. The regret at how he'd left things played across his mind – at the very least, the Warrior had always had the best of intentions. He had suggested the oath, knowing it would mean something to Kain, even if he did not understand it himself. Kain had no doubt the Warrior had meant it sincerely, even if the words had been no more than that – just words. Even after everything, he felt the same misguided sense of duty again pull in his chest, and he almost considered standing and calling an end to their rest.
Lightning glanced at him, evidently discerning his intentions. "Leave them," she said softly, jerking her head back to where Yuna, Vaan, Tifa and Laguna sat with their backs propped against the rock face. "They're exhausted. Laguna's okay, he's an old soldier. But the others… they shouldn't even be here. They're not made for this."
She suddenly pounded a fist down into the earth. "None of us should be here," she muttered, turning her face away from him and staring into the distance.
"And yet, here we are," Kain said after a moment, and for once, it seemed, she did not have an answer for him.
In the end, it was nothing at all like what he had expected.
He and Cecil had discussed it only once, after a particularly bloody battle, a morbid discussion that had made Kain uncomfortable.
As usual, Rosa had been the one to turn their minds from it, leaning across the table to tuck a strand of Cecil's hair behind his ear. "Don't think on it," she had said, her voice straining to be soft and light. "You either." She had turned her luminous green eyes to him, and Kain could see the sadness that burned in them. "You survived, that's all that matters. You both did."
Kain remembered that Cecil had looked doubtful for a moment, before laughing gently. "You're right," he said, his voice carrying that same artificial levity. "I'm sorry, Rosa. I didn't mean to frighten you."
She hadn't been frightened though – Kain could see that at the time. Or if she had been, it was not for herself. Kain sometimes pictured her alone in her room, wondering how many times she would see Cecil like this after a battle, how many more times he could strap on the Dark Armour before it consumed him, before the man who came home was no longer a Cecil she recognised. Before he never came home at all.
Kain wanted to open his eyes but found he could not. He thought he felt something warm trickle over his forehead.
In the end, he realised, he had been the one to fulfil Rosa's fears – Cecil had become a Paladin, while he had become the thing that Golbez and his own darkness had made him. He had left them for Mount Ordeals with no promise to return. He wondered if she mourned for him as she might have mourned for Cecil, as she was perhaps mourning for them both, right now.
Cecil is safe, he wished he could tell her, as if this one thing could make up for everything he'd done. He will come back to you. He has another chance.
Light filtered down through the darkness, illuminating the prone forms of the comrades he had felled in the name of this second chance, of halting the cycles and sending everyone home. He wondered if he'd forfeited his own chance to return and decided in the end that it mattered little.
Movement caught his eye in the golden half-light, and Kain watched the Warrior of Light stumble upright, seeming to haul himself to his feet by sheer force of will. Kain's heart leapt into his throat – he had not thought to see his friend again, but when he opened his mouth to call to him, he found he had no voice.
There's a limit to what one man can do. Every second we delay is a blow against him. He recalled the words he'd spoken when Exdeath revealed Chaos' end game to them, the reason the manikins' numbers had seemed to thin even as they came closer to the source – the Rift had been a distraction after all, to keep Cosmos' remaining warriors away from Order's Sanctuary, leaving it utterly vulnerable to the manikins' attack. If his comrades had seemed more concerned for Cosmos, he could not blame them, but Kain had thought of his oath, of what he had sworn to do. Perhaps he had failed in that. But he need not fail in this.
Kain watched as the Warrior swung around, confusion and uncertainty registering on his face – the first time Kain could remember him ever having displayed either emotion, except in the mildest of forms when trying to puzzle through the intricacies of human interaction. Kain lowered his head as the Warrior turned to face the space where he and his comrades floated – if he would carry any memory of this place with him to wherever he went from here, he did not want his last to be the look on the Warrior's face as he realised what he had lost.
He would have memories now, Kain realised, although what he might do with them was anyone's guess. Garland was wrong, Kain told himself again. Perhaps the memories would warm him, push him or change him – give him whatever it was that he currently lacked, fill in the gaps that Kain had once hoped he would fill himself. Perhaps he might think on them and come to believe there were things in a man's life that burned brighter than victory. Or more truly, at least.
Kain hoped so.
He watched from the corner of his eye as Lightning seemed to incline her head to the Warrior, communicating some message he didn't know the meaning of. Kain had not arranged to give him any message – there was no way to reach him in Order's Sanctuary – and he wondered if the Warrior would look for one from him. In any case, the darkness had begun to descend again.
Perhaps, in the end, there was nothing to say.