PART IV:

" Why Are You So Far Away From Me If You'd Known Me So Much? "

She was in a field. A meadow full of flowers she had never seen before. But they smelled good. They smelled nice. And she felt her mind being put to serenity because of that smell.

She wondered how in the world she could get to be here. In a spacious place, surrounded only by white light.

But she felt as if she knew this place, if not by heart, or by mind.

Do you have any regrets?

She listened to the voice as if it was her own, her inner heart's. She closed her eyes.

Yes... more than anything.

Why?

She clenched her eyes. Trying not to cry. Trying not to sob.

She inhaled, exhaled, as deep as she could. She wished she could stay in that place forever. If it could keep the pain away.

Because there's something... something that I need to do. Something to be done.

Is that so?

The voice chuckled. Laughed. She was confused.

Is it so important to you, that you want to end your own life once you've reached your goal?

She was muted. Speechless. She didn't think she would go that far.

...Would she, though?

Who are you?

The question. She had asked that question. She didn't know if she'd get a definite answer.

But she needed to know, nevertheless.

Because, if this person felt so important to her, then why...?

You'll know when the time comes.

She didn't expect that.

And I should... wait?

It's up to you.

...

May I ask you something?

She flinched, waited.

Yeah?

Have I... been living a lie, all this time?

Another chuckle. Another laugh. She was confused, again.

I can't really say anything about that.

Why?

Because...

She held her breath.

...If you can't really differ from yourself in the past and yourself in the future, can you really tell if you've been living a lie?

...Was that true? She'd never known. She couldn't really, truly remember anything about her past.

Who was she? What was she doing in this life? Who were her parents? Who were her important people? Where did she come from? What was her true purpose?

She never really knew the answers.

And, if doubt hadn't made its way into her mind, she wouldn't have asked about her real name, too. She suspected that the one she had been called for the past sixteen years was a fake name, a name to shroud her own past, and to make certain of her own bleak future.

...I'm... not sure... but...

You've got a future, the voice had said. You've got a future ahead of you. You decide on how you'll shape it.

How?

You decide.

It ended there. The conversation simply ended there.

But lots of questions began swarming her mind. As if the previous questions weren't enough to fill her head with.

Most of them even went unanswered when she awoken to the sound of someone shouting in the hallway; someone was screaming something incoherent, but it was apparent that the person was infuriated.

"I told you it wasn't the thing that- WHAT?! I KNOW ALL THIS WHILE THAT YOU'VE BEEN TELLING ME THE SAME THING, BUT TO GET THE WRONG INFORMATION-"

"Barret! Please, she's sleeping in that room! Low down your voice..."

"-I'M NOT TAKING THAT SHIT! YOU KNOW I'M NOT UP FOR THAT SHIT! AND Y'KNOW WHAT, I'M DONE DOIN' BUSINESS WITH YA! YOU AND YOUR FUCKED UP FART ASS CAN GO AND SCREW YOURSELVES IN HELL, I WON'T GIVE A FUCK ANYMORE! GOODBYE!"

"Barret!"

Eve mumbled something with her eyes closed, tossing her head slowly from side to side, wondering how on earth would anyone be so ignorant.

She slowly opened her eyes, and the first thing she saw was the door of the bedroom being opened ajar. A head was peeking through the crack; and she was staring at it for quite some time before she realized who it was.

"Hey," her voice sounded croaked, hoarse. "Come in; I'm wide awake now."

The boy carefully slipped into the room, closed the door behind him, finally silencing the air around her. He took a few steps to her bedside and sat on a stool next to her.

"How're you?"

He nodded, though she sensed that his smile was forced. Something was up in his mind and it was bothering him. It bothered her, too, seeing him like that.

She gave him a soft smile, and he cast his gaze to the floor below.

"Something wrong?"

He smiled again, shook his head. Then cast his gaze to the floor again.

She smiled, reached out a hand to touch his shoulder. He flinched, but didn't respond.

"You can tell me anything, you know. Anything."

He didn't lift his gaze from the floor. Not for quite some time.

"I heard from Marlene... you tried to fight with Tifa yesterday."

Her smile faded. Her hand dropped from his shoulder.

"What..."

"...I'm sorry. I shouldn't be here for long. Tifa told me to say thanks to you because you saved me."

"..."

She immediately regretted her actions yesterday. If only she had patience enough to hold back...

"So... thank you, Miss, for saving my life."

She didn't know what to say. In fact, she didn't really know what to say.

"Y... yeah... It's..."

What? What was she supposed to say? The air around her suddenly felt so thick, so tensed, that she felt herself choking, gasping for some fresh air.

What was this feeling?

"M... Miss Eve?"

She nearly didn't hear his words when her mind was too swarmed with thoughts. "Y-yes?"

His cheeks had burned bright pink now, and she could see it visibly under the filtered light from the window.

"If... if you feel up to it..." she sensed the hesitation in his tone; was it something important? "Can... can you join us for dinner tonight? Tifa... made us some special soup and... well, I just thought if you could... I mean, if you wanted to join us, that is... um..."

Instantly, she felt everything being swiped out of her mind. Her head felt blank, her brain suddenly turned into a mush of emotions that she couldn't comprehend. She stared at his with almost blank eyes, silenced for a moment.

Then, her mouth moved on its own. And she never knew how.

"O... of course! I will... join you for dinner tonight... if... you know... if it's good..."

He suddenly lifted his eyes from the floor, and gave her the widest smile she had ever seen. She was confused as to what she had said, but she knew she heard herself, her own voice saying it.

"I'll be waiting!"

He dashed out of the room before she could say anything.

And she nearly palmed herself on the face.

What on earth...

xxx

"...What's going on up there?"

Lightning had just returned from some inspections around town, and Vanille came back from a florist - with a disgruntled Fang - saying new flowers needed to be delivered to a town nearby. Cloud quickly got up, headed straight for the front door, and disappeared moments later, followed by the observing eyes of Hope and Marlene. They were soon distracted by Denzel hopping down from upstairs, but they didn't question as to why he was all smiles.

They were disturbed by the appearance of Barret, who seemed like he was fuming from some important matter, and Tifa, who seemed like she had tried to calm him down; they could hear his voice from yards away and she couldn't silence him at all.

"What the hell's going on?" Fang hissed, wiping an invisible pollen that she had sensed landed on her shoulder prior to visiting the florist with Vanille. "I could hear you yellin' even from the florist on the other side of town."

Barret spat to the floor, pulled a stool over and sat on it. "We're gonna miss the oil tank."

Everybody stared at him as if he had just said something incredulous, and this fumed him even more. "I'm telling you guys that we're losing the oil business! That fart ass is going to make me pay for the damage and it's not even my fault!"

"...Well, if you hadn't gone on a rampage and tried to kill the monsters on your own." Lightning mused, to everyone's surprise, as she took Tifa's offer of a glass of beer. "So much as trying to become a hero as you are. How much do they charge you?"

Barret spat to the floor again, earning a disapproving glare from Tifa. "Ten times the price of this place if we could ever sell it."

Yuffie, who was perching at the end of the counter and was laughing to some joke made by Sazh, nearly fell from her seat in shock.

"That's too much! Way going overboard, buddy!"

He glared at her. "I told you it's not even my fault! Why won't you- AH! Forget it!"

He nearly spat to the ground again, before he caught sight of Tifa's look, and decided it against his own.

"The gold mine in the Great Canyon is taken, too," Snow spoke up, showing himself in the crowd, Serah by his side cuddling a squirming Cait Sith, and Red XIII licking his tail at her feet. "But there's one in the Northern Valley, though it's not a big one. What'd you say we go check it out and make sure it's safe?"

"As long as there's food and money supply for everyone," Sazh replied before anyone else. "I'm in for anything. Oh, by the way, have you seen Dajh?"

Before anyone else could reply, the door suddenly bursted open, and in came a certain young, spiky redhead, with a balded glasses-guy at his side. They took their seats on adjacent stools and faced the group; silence had suddenly consumed them and suddenly, they were paying attention to the two Turks. One of them seemed like he was hunched over by something, while the other was wiping some red liquid off his suit.

Reno cleared his throat loudly, then pulled something - or someone - out of his behind. "Just come out and show them, kid. There's nothing wrong to it."

A little head with the same afro hair as his father suddenly popped out, clutching something in his little hands. He saw his father, dashed out from Reno's behind, and hugged his parent on the thigh. Sazh let out a surprised, happy yelp, raised his son to his eye level by the armpits, but then his excited expression turned to one of horror.

"What... this can't be..."

Something bluish was apparent on the left side of Dajh's cheek, together with a few rashes under his chin and lips; something blue dripped out from a small gash on his underlip, and he was on the verge of crying himself.

Dajh was infected by Geostigma, something that Sazh had been dreading.

By now, everybody was standing up, and inspecting Dajh's infected face more clearly. Dajh was starting to cry now, and Vanille immediately went forward to calm him, pulling him into her arms and cooing him despite of his infection.

Sazh was nearly beside himself with anger, grief, sadness... everything. From anyone's observance, he could lose his mind very quickly because of his son.

"Who..." he muttered, mostly to himself than to anyone. "...in hell... would do this... to my Dajh?!"

Lightning immediately began to unstrap her gunblade. "Calm yourself, Katzroy."

Rude stepped forward, and put one gloved hand on Sazh's shoulder. "We understand your feelings, buddy. But there's nothing we could do. She's out there, watching us."

Tifa's ears perked up immediately. "Diabora? You don't mean-"

"Yeah," Reno lazily sipped a glass of beer offered to him by Tifa earlier. "She was out there, disguised. She's gone now, though. She gave candy to some children out there and suddenly, the children got Geostigma. I never know how she did that."

"She tried to kidnap some children," Rude went on. "But Tseng, Elena, Reno and I, we saw her first. We did tried to stop her, but... Dajh is all that we could save."

"Diabora? Out in the open?" Lightning couldn't believe her ears, either; she seemed surprised about it. "But, to expose herself out in the sunlight... She must've planned something..."

"Yeah, well," Reno finished the last gulp of his beer and put the glass on the counter, before he pulled out a recorder, and pushed on the Play button. "I don't know what did she meant by this, but you gotta hear it; I know this would be important to you."

He pushed on the Play button again; for a few seconds, there was nothing but the sound of static, and someone shouting in the background, as well as a few gunshots and some screams. Then, suddenly, there were some movements, as well as someone grunting in the background.

Then, they heard it.

xxx

She heard the commotion downstairs, but she didn't dare peek her head outside to see what was happening.

She stepped out of the bathroom, relieved that she had finally taken a real shower for the first time in days. She only draped herself in a towel, and had let loose her hair, so it trailed behind her in a wet trail. A simple white shirt, and a pair of baggy shorts was left on the chair next to her bed; must be the woman, Tifa's doing, she thought.

Nonetheless, she put them on, happy that at least there were some clean clothes left for her.

But, suddenly, her ears caught some noises downstairs. Noises that began to escalate to a pitch where anyone from the other road could hear it. And she heard a name being mentioned among the noises, a name that she was too familiar to pass as unrecognizeable.

"-Sazh! I know it's-"

"FUCK OFF! FUCK OFF! LET ME AT HER! LET ME AT HER!"

"He's losing control... Lightning!"

"Sazh!"

"It's that woman's fault! Her fault! Her fault!"

"-Diabora, I know! But, we can't-"

"Somebody hold him-"

...Diabora?

They knew Diabora?

Diabora, her main target since two years ago?

No.

No.

It couldn't be... this couldn't be...

She immediately dashed out, and climbed down the stairs, not caring about anything anymore.

"Diabora?"

The area immediately went silent.