Disclaimer: I don't own Kadaj, or he'd be a lot more cooperative, the little punk. Don't sue me, this is just for fun and I don't claim ownership of the FF7/Advent Children characters, world, etc.
Warnings: Minor violence and bad language. And the plot twist is all my muse's fault.
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Open Hands
Chapter 6: Rebellion
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Kadaj was lost.
Cold wind rushed violently around him, snaking down his collar to chill him, trying to push him off his feet. Tiny pellets of ice showered him and Loz with each gust, stinging Kadaj's skin. It wasn't completely dark, but it was dim. He couldn't seem to find any point of reference anywhere, except for the ground—if it was the ground—under his feet, and the hard grip of his hand on Loz's arm.
Zack had opened the doorway; Kadaj and Loz had stepped through, and almost immediately Kadaj had been flung into oblivion as though he'd jumped from a high cliff. Flailing frantically, he'd found something solid with his fingers—Loz's arm—and seized it. He wasn't sure how long or how far they'd fallen, but they'd suddenly met the ground with a jolt that had almost made Kadaj lose his hold on Loz.
Being on (presumably) solid ground hadn't helped much. It was all Kadaj could do to stay on his feet; the surface he was standing on, whatever it was, was slippery with the falling ice and every small step made him stagger. Kadaj's face, and his fingers even inside their gloves, were turning numb with the cold.
Zack! he shouted with all the force he could muster, trying to keep his balance. But it was no good. When he'd entered Loz's reality, he'd been able to sense Zack somewhere nearby. As soon as he and Loz had been whipped into this maelstrom that was supposed to be Yazoo's reality, Kadaj had lost that sense, as he'd lost all other sense of direction.
He betrayed us, a small, cold corner of his mind whispered. He never meant to help any of us. He threw us in here on purpose and he's going to leave us here.
It made horrible sense to Kadaj. How can I adapt to this? There's no way I can change to find my way through this!
He thought he heard Loz shouting something, but the wind was screeching and whistling in his ears and Kadaj couldn't catch a single word. He gritted his teeth. He was angry, and even as his anger built, the wind seemed to pick up, hurling a fresh torrent of ice pellets—he stumbled, backward into Loz, and they both fell onto the cold, hard ground. Kadaj put his arm over his face to keep the ice and wind out of his eyes. They were stinging. Maybe we never had a chance.
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-What happened?
---They got in, but he shut me out. You were right. It's pretty bad in there. I don't know if they're going to be able to find him.
-We can't risk going back in. If he's pushed far enough, he might even take them down with him.
---You didn't mention that little wrinkle.
-I didn't think it would go so bad so quickly.
---Will Kadaj be able to do it?
-I think so. But for the most part, he's on his own.
---I hate this.
-I know.
---Did I do enough?
-You did all you could.
---Some consolation.
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Someone was here.
Someone was coming. It made him laugh, even though it hurt to laugh. It hurt to do anything. It hurt not to do anything. It hurt no matter what.
He didn't know where he was. He wasn't even sure who he was. It was cold, it was dark, and until now, he'd been alone. It hurt to be alone, but he thought someone else being here would hurt even more.
I don't want anyone here.
Go away. Go away. Go away.
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"Go away!"
Kadaj's head snapped upright in spite of the harsh wind in his eyes. The voice had been faint, so faint Kadaj wasn't sure how he could have heard it over the rush of the wind. But it was a voice he could never mistake. "Yazoo?" he tried to call, and choked on the ice pellets that flew down his throat as soon as he opened his mouth.
His hand on Loz's arm had gone numb, but he felt Loz sit up and huddle close to him. He heard Loz try to shout something over the wind, but the sound was whipped mercilessly away. Kadaj gritted his teeth, gathered his feet under him, and dragged himself back to his feet. It took all his strength; Loz hunkered behind him, holding on to his other arm.
The wind seemed to redouble, the ice showered down, and they were both pressed down to the hard ground again. Kadaj snarled in frustration. Yazoo, you idiot. I'm here to help you, what the hell are you doing?
As if it had sensed his thoughts, the wind blew even harder; the ice pellets seemed to grow larger, striking him like ball bearings and leaving bruises. He winced, and put an arm over his head.
"The difference is that where we're going to go, that isn't going to work."
It was as though Zack were speaking beside Kadaj's ear, but Kadaj still had no sense of his presence anywhere nearby. He scowled. Loz's reality wasn't that complicated. Makes sense, since he doesn't have a complicated mind. All I had to do was turn myself into a kid. What am I supposed to do here—turn myself into sleet? At this rate, that's going to happen whether I want it to or not!
That thought gave him a weird feeling—as if he'd tripped over the right answer by accident.
Which means what—that I should just let us be blown away? I can't see what's out there. I could get pulped before I even knew what hit me.
Very true…but huddling here on the ground was getting them nowhere, in any sense of the phrase.
A slight crooked smile twisted his lips. Let's see what happens. He turned, taking a fresh, firm hold on Loz's arms. They'd always had a certain level of communication that didn't require speech, but now he attempted to send thought directly to his brother, the way he'd spoken to Zack when he'd taken bird form. Loz. I'm going to try something. Trust me, hang on tight as you can, and don't let go no matter what.
There was no verbal response, but he felt Loz's grip tighten until it hurt. Loz was stronger than he was; he would be better able to hang on through the buffeting Kadaj suspected they were about to take. He closed his eyes again.
We are nothing. We are lighter than clouds. We are part of the wind. We blow where it blows.
He no longer felt the solid "ground" beneath them, and it gave him an instant of vertigo, but he forced himself to keep focus. We follow the wind. We let it carry us. We go where it takes us.
Opposing winds were beginning to blow, tossing them in one direction, then another. Kadaj felt Loz's hands tightening even more in fear, and for a moment Kadaj lost his focus again, realizing he was equally as terrified.
And that he was beginning to fall again.
Suddenly a furious gale of wind came at them, then another—and another—coming from all different directions, wrenching at Loz's grip on him until he cried out in pain, inaudibly in the deafening rush. Follow— he thought frantically. We follow—carry us—
The wrenching grew less; they seemed to blow in whatever direction the wind took them again. Kadaj started to relax. Well, that was—
A ferocious gust seemed to blow up between them—and he felt Loz torn from him.
NO!! He flailed in the air, his focus vanishing, and then suddenly the winds vanished, and he was simply falling, the only moving air coming from below him as he plummeted. A dull blue glow began to grow around him, a dark expanse materialized below, and he remembered in time to change form again, becoming a gray bird, floating instead of falling.
He was circling above another city, but this one was a ruin. No structure was left standing. The piles of rubble were traced with deep fissures; the blue glow issued up from the cracks. Ice glazed everything, and the warm feathers of his current form didn't seem to keep the chill out.
Kadaj came to a careful landing on a sturdy-looking chunk of concrete. He reverted to human form, huddling on the flat surface and shivering from more than cold. Loz! he cried out, trying to send the call as far as it would go. "Loz!" he shouted aloud.
There was no reply, only the chilly silence, and tears stung Kadaj's eyes. Was Loz still out in the sleetstorm somewhere, or had he fallen somewhere else in this ruin? He switched back to bird form, taking flight over the ruined buildings. He couldn't see any sky above—only a sullen, not quite-black darkness like a bowl over the broken cityscape. Every beat of his wings in the motionless cold seemed to tire him, as though there were weights on them.
He had to find Loz, who would be terrified without him. He had to find Yazoo, who, Zack had said, was almost out of time to be saved. Damn it, I can't do both at once! He pictured Loz, trying to struggle through that sleet storm—or even through this freezing, forbidding maze—without him. Alone, frightened. Thinking Kadaj had abandoned him.
But Zack said that Yazoo controls this reality, like Loz did the other one. If I can get Yazoo, then the two of us can get Loz.
And if he failed to find Loz before Yazoo slipped away entirely, they might be trapped here forever, with no way out.
Still in the bird form he'd taken, Kadaj circled above the ruined city. He saw nothing moving, nothing living. The place chilled him in more ways than one. He'd always known Yazoo had a darker outlook than either he or Loz. But he'd never known this aching-cold place existed inside his brother.
Or maybe it didn't, until he died, and found himself here all by himself…
Kadaj pushed that thought away. Movement caught his eye, and he coasted for a moment, looking down. His hawk form, he found, gave him the almost supernatural eyesight of a bird of prey.
A figure dressed in black, with long silver hair, picked its way slowly through the debris below.
Yazoo! Kadaj dove before he could think twice, soaring toward the familiar figure, his heart swelling in relief.
The second thoughts came only when the figure below him loked up, narrowed his eyes, and brought his weapon to point directly at Kadaj.
For a few endless seconds, Kadaj stared stupidly into the barrels of Yazoo's gun. Then he saw Yazoo's finger move on the trigger, and at the last moment, he wheeled away. He's really going to—
The gun went off with an unnaturally loud crack in the stillness, and pain ripped through Kadaj's left wing. He screamed, the cry coming out as a hawk's shrill keen. Then he was falling again, back in human form, feeling blood from his left arm soaking his coat sleeve.
He cried out again when he hit the ground, a human scream this time. He lay sprawled on his back, too dzed from pain and shock to move. He heard booted footsteps approaching, crunching through what sounded like a gravel of crushed concrete and broken glass.
He didn't know it was me… Kadaj sat up, slowly and painfully, pushing up on his good right arm, the bleeding left pressed to his chest. His back and shoulder ached where he'd landed on them. He'd never found out from Zack what he was supposed to do if he got hurt in one of these false realities. He hadn't even been sure he could be hurt…
Yazoo came into sight around a large pile of rubble. The gun was still gripped firmly in his hand. His cold, blank green eyes fell on Kadaj with no sign of recognition. He leveled the gun again.
What? But he can't—wait— Kadaj stared back, tearing his gaze away from those dark gun barrels and looking up at Yazoo's hard eyes. "Yazoo, don't," he whispered. "It's me. It's Kadaj."
A flicker of expression touched the icy face, and Kadaj started to try to push himself to his feet. He froze again when Yazoo's lip curled, his eyes narrowing. His brother shook his head once.
"Kadaj is dead."
The gun fired. Kadaj could hear nothing, but he saw it in slow motion. The flash, the smoke, the bullets coming at him. When they struck, he felt no pain, though he felt himself flung backward.
No…
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The intruder was dead.
Smirking, he made his way toward the body. Another cheat, did they think he was stupid? Kadaj was dead, Yazoo had seen him die at Big Brother's hands. Well, now the imposter could have a taste of being dead, and how would they like it?
He approached and stood over the body that looked like Kadaj's. He'd felt them watching him, playing with him. It was another of their lies. He folded his arms, looking down.
The body didn't change.
He stared down at it, and backed away a step. It still couldn't be what it looked like, he insisted to himself. Kadaj was already dead.
The body lay still. It didn't change, and blood was leaking out of the corner of its mouth, congealing quickly in the icy air.
He began to shake, with anger and fear. What kind of trick was this, to make him think he'd shot Kadaj? Whoever they were, he hated them, and if they'd just let him go, it could be over, and he could sleep.
He just wanted to sleep…
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Loz jolted painfully upright, panting. He looked around frantically. He was sitting in a pile of something that felt and looked like rocks. The sky was dark, but blue light was coming up from the ground around him. He shook his head, trying to remember what had happened.
"Kadaj!" He jumped up and staggered as a stone rolled under his foot, barely catching himself on a big jagged boulder. He leaned on it, panting, and looked around. He couldn't see anyone, anywhere.
Kadaj had come and gotten him from the playground. They'd gone to get Yazoo. They'd gone into a storm. Kadaj had told him to hold on and not to let go…
He swallowed. I lost him. He looked around again, but he didn't see Kadaj anywhere. And his chest hurt, so it hurt to breathe.
Loz swallowed fear, and forced himself back to his feet. Kadaj has to be here somewhere, he told himself.
All Loz had to do was find him. Taking another fearful look around, his breath puffing white in the cold air, Loz started walking.
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End Chapter 6
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