Icicle knight, fiery SeeD

Chapter 12

//\\

Selphie grinned maniacally to herself as she skipped down Garden's corridors. Squall was in lo-ve! And with Seifer no less!!! This was far too good to pass up. She wished she could spread the news, but she really didn't want to test Squall's temper where gossip was concerned. Which was a crying shame because she was sitting right atop the best story ever to hit Garden, and she couldn't tell anybody!!!

For the moment, Selphie forcibly put aside her disappointment on that score, and concentrated on the good stuff. Namely, the prospective matchmaking duties she was bound and determined to perform, by which she was referring to her plots to get both Squall and Seifer snuggled up together doing naughty things. She let out loud giggle at the thought, causing several passing cadets to look at her nervously, more-than-likely already aware of her penchant for well-meaning chaos due to her already-elaborate plans for this year's Garden festival and the pranks she'd played on the various common areas since the War.

Well, what was wrong with wanting a little variety to the daily grind? Sure, there was plenty to do in the day, what with missions and training, and planning, and matchmaking, and all sorts of other mandatory activities (how she hated that word, mandatory, ugh) but even the fullest schedule would get boring if it went on uninterrupted for too long. She was doing everyone a favor, really….

Wait a minute. Just because she'd promised not to talk about her conversation with Squall, didn't mean that she couldn't get help with her scheme to set her old Squad leader up with Seifer. And given how stubborn those two boys were, she'd definitely need all the help she could get.

Now, how to begin, she mused. Well, she'd have to get Fujin's permission to start with; nothing and no one could get near Seifer without the approval of Garden's Sorceress and Security director. After that hurdle was passed, then she could get to the good stuff. Things like coded reminders about Squall placed on Seifer's desk and rumors about both of them in the halls. Investigation into Seifer's favorite foodstuffs would be a must, and the same would have to go for Squall as well. The only thing that put a major crimp on her plans was both how subtle and at the time how obvious she would have to be, given that both in the boys were pigheaded morons who were as clumsy as T-rexars when it came to their feelings (and just as violent when crossed), and if she came on too strong or too weak for any reason at any time, they'd try and kill each other instead of something more interesting. Or they'd kill her before they did anything interesting, and then she wouldn't be able to take pictures of them doing the nasty!!

Thus, a full three quarters of her matchmaking strategies were totally off limits, major suckage that it was. But, she thought with forced cheerfulness, the groundwork for her plans was already in place for her, not that either of the boys were as yet aware of that fact. Seifer no doubt thought that his feelings for Squall were a secret, but well, if he didn't want her to know, then he shouldn't have had that loud and detailed wet dream when she was on watch during the trek to Esthar. There was no need to plant the seeds of attraction here, all she had to do was water what already existed regularly, and nurture them with care, and love (not to mention lust as well), should bloom.

Disregarding any thoughts for both the personal opinions and emotional comfort zones of her vict-er matchmaking clients (and any concern she may have had for her personal safety if either of them got wind of her activities) Selphie began plotting her strategy.

//\\

Two weeks later, Squall snarled to himself as he stalked from the Training Center in a huff. Was there no place in Garden anymore where he could find some peace and quiet? Recently, as in just a few days ago, a rumor has swept Garden, one that seemed to involve him in some way if the furtive silences whenever he entered a room said anything at all.

The one so called "fact" that he'd been able to unearth, was that his wasn't the only name on everyone's lips, thanks to a loose-lipped cadet who hadn't realized he was there when entering the Cafeteria with her friends. Seifer was involved as well, though for once, Squall had no idea why. Though he might have been able to figure it out if Shiva was restored to him: the hearing boost granted by Junctioning the Ice GF would make finding out what the rumors entailed and who was behind them child's play.

As if to affirm his resolve, his hand slipped down to where Lionheart's hilt would normally rest, only to close on air. Right, Lionheart was confiscated, as per one of the conditions surrounding his probation. 'After all, you couldn't have the Sorceress knight, no, make that ex-Sorceress knight, loose in the corridors with a weapon' he thought sarcastically, uncharitably bitter. 'He might just start slaughtering cadets for fun.'

He snorted in derision at the thought. He'd been a cadet himself, just over a year ago, though sometimes it seemed longer than that. Back then, his only worries had been fighting with Seifer, completing his classes and preparing for the Field Exam, back before he'd ever heard of Sorceress outside of the history texts, back before all the trials and tribulations that had befallen them all since his graduation as a SeeD.

All that shit aside, his body was antsy for another match with Seifer. While monsters in the Training Center took the edge off, nothing could compare to the challenge he found in an opponent that matched him in almost every way, right down to the choice of weapon. Even the new monster in the database, some sort of human-sized lizard that had come down with the Lunar Cry, started to pale after the first dozen of the things he'd slaughtered over the past few days.

Knowing full well that his clearance was restricted due to his probation, Squall slipped into the Library, the one place in Garden where silence was actively enforced. As always, he ignored the sharp look he always got from the SeeD librarian on duty, he'd earned their collective ire long ago, and quite unjustly too. It was Seifer's fault, because after the sixth time Seifer had loudly dragged him from the stacks, and he'd had to admit that he'd raised his voice at the moronic blond in there on more than one occasion, both librarians, former Intelligence-class SeeDs who'd been forced to retire from the field due to injuries, had declared given up determining who was responsible and had simply declared him guilty by reluctant association.

Never mind that he'd never asked Seifer to come after him, in fact, at the time had wished for Seifer to leave him alone. Now, perversely, the blond was fulfilling that very wish, and he found that he didn't like it, not at all. Shiva, he'd liked being a knight better than Seifer ignoring him.

Midway of perusing through a stack in the likely futile search for something interesting that fell into his current level of access, Squall froze slightly in thought. Why had he thought about that? The reason he hadn't been brooding more on his time as Ultimecia's knight was mostly because Seifer's mystifying behavior had been occupying most of his thoughts and because he truly didn't recall much of what had happened during those months. For example, the entire time between Galbadia Garden's attack and the clash at the Lunatic Pandora was a complete blank, totally gone. What memories he had left was…muffled somehow, as if the events he recalled had happened to someone else and he'd only later read about what had occurred.

While he knew that in Edea-Ultimecia's name he'd ordered the destruction of Trabia and Balamb Gardens, and that while Balamb Garden had escaped, Trabia Garden had been nearly completely destroyed, it wasn't clear, no matter how he searched his memory for details on what had happened during those days, something he would never tell anyone, not Seifer, not Selphie, not anyone. He was well aware that even if he did remember what had happened, his contributions weren't wanted or needed, given that the other SeeDs had already established the accepted version of events, which, while he apprieciated that it laid all blame on Ultimecia's doorstep, he was very aware that it relied only upon Balamb Garden's experiences and what they had encountered.

He understood it was nothing personal. That was the nature of victory, the victors detailing events according to their own point of view. He accepted that, what disturbed him was the very narrow focus of events; the minimal involvement Ultimecia's ruinous search for Ellone that had been accorded to events as to their cause, that he knew had been the central issue. Ultimecia's number one goal had been to procure Ellone, destroying SeeD had been merely to stop them from interfering with that search, though the events in Garden's version said differently. He knew that the towns of Fisherman's Horizon and Balamb hadn't been the only ones searched for the girl, but that was the impression gained when one read the account of the Sorceress War. Other towns and cities had also been occupied, Dollet for instance had been nearly destroyed when those still living in the city after the Communication Tower raid, had risen up and tried to push the Galbadian army out of the city. And that when the Galbadian Army had finally occupied Fisherman's Horizon after Garden had left, they had found it empty, save for an old man so preoccupied with fishing that he refused to move from the spot. Unfortunately, the commander of that detachment had quickly gotten frustrated with the old man and had ordered him killed on the spot, making him the only fatality in Fisherman's Horizon.

None of that was in the 'official' history of the Sorceress War, something that was more of a Garden propaganda piece than a true historical work. And no one seemed interested in probing deeper into those events to find what had been left out. "Victory's Blindness" he'd once called it in an assignment in an upper-level theory class. His Instructor, he recalled with a scowl, hadn't been interested in pursuing the lines on inquiry he'd been proposing.

But just because he couldn't remember clearly, or didn't remember at all, didn't excuse his responsibility. He hadn't been able to prevent Ultimecia from taking him as Her knight, thus, he bore at least some measure of responsibility for what happened, whatever Seifer might say. And however he might chafe at the restrictions of his probation, he knew that he'd deserved far worse for his actions than what he'd received.

Shaking off the contemplative mood, he rounded the stack, determined to find something to read, even if only obsolete Weapons Monthly issues were available to him, and nearly tripped over Fujin.

For a moment he simply stared at her, fighting the siren call of her magic that still resonated with the part of him that had been a knight, urging him to bow, to kneel, to lower his eyes in submission before Her. He resisted, shoving the urge down far enough to meet her single eye squarely.

A single silver eyebrow rose above her patch in acknowledgement of his audacity. "LEONHART." She said stiffly, but in a quieter tone than normal, most likely given their surroundings.

"Fujin." He returned, wondering why she was here. While she was the most studious of Seifer's posse (which wasn't saying all that much) he was well aware that she wasn't one to spend much time in the library for pleasure, unless researching defensive protocols and bodyguard formations, counted as pleasure.

Abruptly the answer came to him with all the force of one of Ifrit's Hellfires. Seifer. Somehow, for some reason, this was about Seifer. Squall was totally unsure just how he felt about that.

"SEIFER." She said shortly, confirming his suspicions.

"What about him?" he asked, more than a touch defensively. He hadn't done anything to Seifer, had hardly even seen him since Time Compression. But the truth was unlikely to save him if Fujin believed that he'd done something to the blond.

She shook her head. "IN LOVE." She declared matter-of-factly.

"What?" Squall was confused. Why in Shiva's name was Fujin telling him this? Seifer had fancied himself in love before, had dated girls both in and out of Garden with little to no fanfare like Fujin was giving this latest obsession. The last girl Squall knew about, Rinoa, may have been the first to get a SeeD contact out of what had been, for Seifer at least, a minor dalliance, but she was far from Seifer's first girl. It made no difference to Squall that Seifer had found a new sweetheart. Whoever she was, it meant nothing to him.

Fujin proved him wrong. Just as he was turning away, convinced that she had no further information of interest to share, only to freeze in shock as she clarified her previous statement.

"SEIFER. LOVES LEONHART."

"What?!" he hissed, voice threatening to break on him in his shock. No. No, it couldn't be true. 'But why else would he kiss you?' a nasty little voice in the back of his skull muttered spitefully. It was true that the impossibility of Seifer holding any kind of feelings for him would explain The Kiss quite nicely, but only if you ignored the utter ludicrousness of the situation.

Fujin had disappeared after her announcement, thankfully leaving Squall to struggle through the revelation on his own. After several long moments of wrestling with his thoughts, he abruptly turned around and left the Library. It was time and past to talk to Seifer.

/\

Seifer massaged the bridge of his nose as Tillmit flounced out of his office, having yet again failed to convince the petite SeeD that there were no funds in Garden's treasury for any Garden Festival, much less the elaborate bash she was already deep in planning. And while it was well known that he enjoyed a good argument, which he did, there were times, like now, when he simply had to be obeyed.

He wasn't being fair, and he knew it. It wasn't Tillmit's fault that her precious Garden Festival was only one of many compound problems that were clamoring for his attention. Right now he had on his desk: 3 demands for breach of contract fees (for missions canceled by the Sorceress War), 17 reports from the spymasters of Garden's various networks scattered across the world, no less than 20 mission reports from SeeD squads in the field, 4 massive sets of class evaluations and assessments, 7 new possible contracts to consider, and one completed contract that was simply waiting for the proper signatures before SeeDs could be sent out on the proposed mission.

He simply couldn't handle all that paperwork. That's why Fujin took charge of the intelligence reports, the mission reports, and gave a first look over to the proposed new contracts, carefully scrutinizing them for any hint of danger to Garden, and by extension, him. Raijin would handle the assessment packets, daunting as they were, given that each one of them contained a full evaluation of every member of a class, as well as a class evaluation that tracked the progress of the class as a whole. The more muscular member of his posse had found a knack in understanding the complicated reports, and was usually even able to give recommendations based on the evaluation paperwork to the Instructors involved. When the combined efforts of his posse cleared nearly 90% of his paperwork for him, he daily blessed Hyne, Ifrit, Shiva, Odin, and any other deities and summons he could think of, for the gift of his posse and for the insight that had prompted him to gather them to him, however inadvertently it had happened at the time.

But even so, he still ended up with paperwork, paperwork that no one else could get near. The breach of contract compensation demands for instance. Per Garden regulations, once a mission contract was signed, Garden's copy was sealed away, requiring the Headmaster's personal passcode to unlock, or the Commander's passcode in this instance, given that the Headmaster was on a second fucking honeymoon with his doting former-Sorceress wife, paid for by the Garden treasury, no less. And he needed access to those contracts to deal with that kind of paperwork, given that he needed to verify the legitimacy of the claim, and if so, figure out just how much it would set back Garden's still recovering treasury.

He hated all of it; the paperwork, the endless hours chained to his desk, the endless, pointless demands on his time like his recent 'conversation with Tillmit… all of it. He never should have allowed Cid to stick him with the commander's job, he should have known that being Commander entailed more than just commanding Garden in wartime, but how the fuck could he have known that Cid was looking for a successor? And the commander's job was a way to see how his chosen schmuck held out under the pressure?

He refused to pass. He was going to deliberately fail the test so that when Cid did come back from his fucking honeymoon (which couldn't have happened at a worse time if you asked him, which no one did) the Old Fart would have no choice but to take his responsibilities back, permanently. He did not enjoy the work, despite Raijin's recent accusation. He did not. The fact that he got to boss around the whole of Garden unchallenged (ok, mostly unchallenged, given that Fujin could still make him back down) had nothing to do with the fact that he hated the vary notion of deskwork. That sort of thing was more Squall's specialty.

Thinking of the Ice Princess abruptly brought to mind his recent conversation with Tillmit. For some reason, the copper-haired SeeD had dropped his rival's name into their conversation several times, despite that Seifer knew for a fact that Squall had no interest in the Garden Festival and had been staying vigorously away from any and all parts associated with the preparations. So why…

Abruptly he galvanized into action, calling up the automatic record of conversations in the room, a contract tool that Fujin had modified for her own purposes. A long story short, she had bypassed the usual controls to the recording device leaving it on all the time, ignoring his complaints that he had no privacy in his office any more. Right now, he was thankful for Fujin's suspicious nature. As he entered the passcode that gave him access to the recordings with one hand, the other unearthed several blank sheets of paper and a pen from the mounds of paper covering his desk. Quickly finding the record of his conversation with Tillmit, he quickly wrote down her entire side of the conversation, when went back and added his responses on a separate sheet, just in case they mattered. On yet another sheet he recreated the conversation in its entirety, then stopped the playback and tugged out the latest master copy of Garden's cipher list from its permanent place in his desk, along with a fourth blank sheet. Given that the book contained a complete list of all the various codes and ciphers employed at all three Gardens (back when there were three Gardens, his mind couldn't help thinking), if any of Tillmit's remarks had been in code, he'd find it.

Thirty minutes later he was staring at the cleartext, baffled by what had appeared. It had been a moderately complex code, one that had been fairly popular at Trabia Garden before it had disappeared. Seifer was going to have to assign Tillmit more infiltration missions if this was an example of her cryptography skills, if she could code this on the fly and work it into a conversation so seamlessly that he almost hadn't even noticed it, than she'd be invaluable on deep cover missions. Her constant energy would be an asset toward that end as well; given that most people wouldn't expect a giddy, bouncy teenager to be a hardened SeeD and one of the best mages Seifer had ever met. She'd have to work on her focus issues a bit before she was given any solo missions though. Perhaps she could be paired with an older SeeD more experienced in deep cover assignments for her first few undercover missions….

No! He was not planning out Tillmit's SeeD career for her as if he would be in a position to make it happen. That way laid the risk of being trapped forever behind a desk, forever kept far away from the field before he'd ever really had a chance to advance his prowess on missions. Truthfully, he hadn't been on many, just the bungled parade assignment, and the assault on the Lunatic Pandora. Everything else had been required for Garden's ability to survive the Sorceress War, and had not been covered by a contract of any kind.

He had other things to worry about for the moment. Tillmit's message for example, ridiculous as it was. There was no possible way it could be accurate. Squall Leonhart could not, did not, harbor any romantic feelings for him. None whatsoever.

Though, could he possibly be mistaken? No, he couldn't be. Even if, by some great stroke of luck Squall didn't harbor bloody vengeance for the Kiss Seifer had stupidly forced upon him back during Time Compression, the odds of Squall Leonhart becoming interested in anybody was pathetically small. Seifer recalled a story of Trepe's on their way back to Garden from D-District Prison, about how the night of the graduation party and her demotion from Instructor, she had all but thrown herself at Squall, only to be told, in the blunt honesty that could only come from Garden's resident Ice Prince, to "Talk to the wall." Seifer has whistled at the rejection implied in the response and made several half-hearted, sneering comments about the state if Squall's balls if he could turn down an offer like that from someone who looked like Trepe. Not that he'd ever been attracted to the tall blonde, Quisty had always been far too motherly for his tastes, not to mention he had a taste for brunettes or possibly the occasional redhead. Blondes had just never caught his attention. Not to mention, he preferred his partners to be slightly shorter than himself so he could look down into their eyes. All the various girls he'd dated had pretty and distinctive eyes, but they were never quite the eyes he sought.

Ah, no. No. Hyne's balls, what the fuck was he thinking? For some strange reason, thinking about the girls he'd fooled around with in the past had made his mind's eye create an image of Squall's stormy blue eyes, just laced with a touch of silver as the shorter boy's temper began to scrape at the brunet's legendary self-control. He ran through his list of preferences again, comparing them to Squall, hoping against hope that he's somehow fall short. No dice. Squall was shorter than he was. He also had brunet hair that was just touched with red in the right lights and unforgettable eyes. A conclusion as inescapable as it was unacceptable. There was no way it could be true.

He refused to believe it. And he must have mistranslated Tillmit's message somehow, or misread it. That had to be the answer. He was deep in decrypting the coded message for a second time when a perfunctory knock sounded before the door to his office opened, admitting the one person Seifer least wanted to see.

/\

For a long moment, Squall hovered outside the elaborately carved door of the Headmaster's, now the Commander's office, thinking about the information Fujin had given him. Then, steel firming his spine, he knocked once and opened the door, carelessly letting it bang closed behind him.

Seifer's face, white with shock, stared up at him, sea-green eyes wide in the stark face. As he watched, the startled expression firmed into a typical sneer, as Seifer sought refuge in his customary arrogance.

Opening his mouth to speak, Squall closed it again when he caught sight of what Seifer's hands were doing, covertly sliding several papers out of sight behind and under piles of other paperwork that littered the untidy desk. Before Seifer could react, Squall's quick fingers had rescued a sheet and had taken a quick step backward to prevent its rescue.

Reading his prize over, Squall fought hard to keep his jaw from dropping. That the message was in Seifer's handwriting was not in question, but the content was so ridiculous that he found it difficult to credit it. "What is this?" he asked, holding the sheet aloft to indicate what he was talking about and fixing Seifer with a harsh stare. "One of your jokes? You do realize, I don't find this remotely funny."

A muscle in Seifer's jaw worked. "Is what a joke?" he asked in return, trying for innocence. Squall didn't believe a moment of it. He and Seifer had played these games in the past, and at the moment he didn't have the patience for the whole song and dance that was seemingly required to spend any time at all with Garden's Commander.

Squall gave the blond a second, harder look and maintained it. Seifer rarely won one of their staring contests, mostly thanks to the blond's lack of patience and the few times he had actually won had been due only to outside interference, such as an Instructor calling Squall's attention when a staring contest had been started in class. Yes, Seifer was ready to break; his eyebrow always gained that exact twitch when he was about to give in.

Almost on cue, sea-green eyes slid away from his own, followed shortly by Seifer's harsh curse. "Hyne's balls, how the fuck do you do that?" his tone was half annoyed and half admiring, also just like all the other times the blond had lost the contest of wills in the past.

"It's a gift." Squall said dryly, not giving an inch. He lifted the paper again. "What is this about?"

There was no way for Seifer to evade answering, Squall could see it in his eyes. Still, Seifer tried. "Just Tillmit's idea of a joke." He said heavily, disgust evident in his voice. Squall didn't understand, he knew what Selphie's handwriting looked like, and he knew Seifer's hand almost better than he knew his own. How could it be one of Selphie's pranks but be in Seifer's handwriting? It didn't make sense. He said as much to Seifer.

The blond in question promptly became flustered. "Tillmit and I were talking. After she left, some of the things she said didn't make sense, so I checked to see if a code was embedded in the conversation." A blond head nodded vaguely toward the paper in Squall's hand. "You've got the cleartext."

For a moment, Squall could only gape at Seifer. There were times where Seifer's stupidity got on his nerves. "Haven't you ever heard of double, or even triple encryption?" 'Idiot' went unsaid, like so many other times he and Seifer had verbally wrestled, that it almost brought a hint of déjà vu to Squall's mind.

Seifer shook his head. "First thing I checked for. None of the indicators were there. It's the final cleartext, though fuck if I can understand it."

Squall could understand Seifer's confusion. There were only a few words on the piece of paper, only a few paragraphs that all added up to one statement that wouldn't, couldn't make sense: Squall Leonhart was in love with Seifer Almasy.

For the life of him, he couldn't understand how Selphie had come up with this, this insanity. He certainly couldn't recall ever telling her anything could be interpreted in such a way. Unless…

Squall sank into a seat, one hand covering his face. That strange conversation he'd had with Selphie two weeks ago. He'd known she'd learned something from him then, but hadn't known exactly what; Selphie hadn't been forthcoming with any details, saying only that he needed to talk to Seifer.

Satisfied that he'd identified that much of what was confusing him, he lifted his head and looked straight into Seifer's watchful eyes. And waited, knowing how much that annoyed Seifer.

"Well?" Seifer demanded impatiently. Squall's only reaction was to raise one chestnut brow as if to say, "Well what?"

Seifer cursed again. "Well? Is what Tillmit wrote correct?"

Squall saw his chance to regain his momentum in their verbal war. "I believe that this is your handwriting on the paper, not Selphie's. If it were her handwriting, I believe that there would be little hearts and smiley faces all over the page and interspersed with the words." It was true, Selphie's writing overflowed with little drawings, something he'd had the ill fortune to experience while they were planning their strategy for the assault on the broadcast studio, thanks to the complete and total incompetence of the Forest Owls. The night before the attack, Zell had had nightmares about little similes and hearts smothering him in his sleep.

Seifer's scowl put that flippant line of inquiry to a halt. "Don't play games with me Leonhart," he snarled. "What I want to know is if you fell in love with me because of that Kiss, or if you want to put that blue beauty of yours through my skull for it. Just don't leave me hanging in suspense!"

Squall forced himself to scoff. "I wouldn't flatter yourself, Almasy. While a kiss from you might send someone like Rinoa into a swoon, it would take more than that to woo me." A pause, then he continued, voice insulting in its very blankness. "The spar was much more thrilling for me."

A breath later, he knew it was a mistake. Seifer smirked unpleasantly and pounced on his unintentional opening. "Sooo, you admit to enjoying the spar, but not the kiss." The smirk, Squall noticed, was really beginning to irritate him.

"I admit that the spar was a unique experience that would be apprieciated if it happened again, by which I mean that if for some miracle we were able to arrange another double kill duel, but the kiss was…" here Squall faltered slightly, and Seifer seized the opening again.

"Do tell us, Sir Leonhart, ex-sorceress knight, was the Kiss really that bad? Could it by any chance have been, dare I say it, good? Or did your Lady kiss so well that everyone else pales by comparison. Because she's very happily married now, by the way. Or at least, the body that you actually had a chance to kiss."

Squall saw red. How dare Seifer bring up his experiences as a knight. Blinded by fury, he struck out as best he could. "Let's hear your side of the story for a change, Almasy. Speaking of the kiss, what exactly prompted you to kiss me in the first place, hmmm?" he knew he'd hit pay dirt when Seifer colored abruptly, sputtering as he attempted to find an answer to the impossible question Squall had just asked him.

Finally, the sputtering gained some semblance of coherency. "We're not talking about me!" Seifer protested, cheeks still hot. "It was the heat of the moment, that sort of thing…" he trailed off in the face of Squall's disbelieving stare.

"So, do you plan to kiss me every time we spar from now on? Is that why you've been hiding from me?." He demanded angrily.

Seifer regained control of himself. "Scared, Leonhart? Afraid for your virtue if we fight again?" he asked in a mock casual voice.

"Name the time and place!" Squall shot to his feet, incensed by Seifer's suggestion.

Seifer didn't hesitate as he followed Squall up with his deceptively lazy grace. The blond smirked again, the same lazy smirk that made always Squall want to physically rip it off his face with his bare hands, his sea-green eyes as cold and hard as gemstones. "Tomorrow, 1700 hours. The clearing three meters due west of the Secret Area, given that you still can't leave the grounds without permission yet." The syllables dropped into the atmosphere with insulting precision.

The false consideration in the choice of location nearly made Squall belt Seifer, but he restrained himself to a sharp nod, not trusting himself with speech. Leaving the office with sharp, almost insulting courtesy, he nearly ran over an older man in a military uniform escorted by a SeeD Squall didn't recognize, far to distracted by his rage to see the light of recognition lit the older man's face, followed closely by a mask of hatred. Forget tomorrow, he needed to get to the Training Center now, to work off some of this rage before, lacking a weapon to hand, he tried to commit murder with his bare hands.

//\\

At the appointed time Seifer made his way down to the Training Center, Hyperion in hand and ready to kick Squall's ass flatter than a pancake. And while Squally-boy preferred to hide his emotions, Seifer knew that the brunet was just as eager to kick ass as he was, and would make him work hard for the takedown. Which just made it all the better as far as Seifer was concerned. While Trepe and the other Instructors that had had the privilege of attempting to teach him would say he was lazy when he thought he could get away with it, he would happily have proved him wrong in this instance. Easy victories were a waste of time, as far as he was concerned, it was only when a fight could go either way, with live steel, where death rewarded a single moment of inattention, those were the fights he, and any other fighter worth his salt, lived for, and Squall Leonhart was the only warrior that Seifer reluctantly called his equal and knew, deep in his bones that the Ice Prince was the only one who could offer him that kind of match.

He arrived at the arraigned section of the vast complex slightly ahead of schedule, and took a seat on a handy rock, taking out a polishing cloth in order to buff his gunblade as a way to pass the time. Squall wouldn't be long; in fact, he was half surprised that the ex-knight wasn't already there, given the way the brunet seemed to almost live in the Training Center these days.

Hyperion was so shiny that it was almost glowing before Seifer realized that something was wrong. A quick glance at his watch told him that the compulsively on-time Squall Leonhart was a full 45 minutes late. Something had to be wrong.

The next hour passed in a blur as he turned Garden upside-down in a full-scale, futile search for one absent Ice Prince. The Quad, the Dorms, the Library, the Lobby, even the Infirmary were checked, and all inhabitances ruthlessly interrogated as to whither or not they had seen Squall Leonhart. No one had, no one could even remember if they'd seen him at all during the day. Eventually a discarded gunblade holster was found, two meters from the entrance to the Quad, half hidden behind some shrubbery.

Sea-green eyes narrowed at the sight. Proof positive that Squall had been abducted, Seifer knew very well that the brunet had never left his dorm room without his blade, or in recent days his holster, since they'd first been trusted to carry their own blades. Wooden ones then, to be truthful, but they'd both graduated to live steel soon enough.

There was no way Squall would remove his holster for any reason outside of sleeping in his quarters at Garden, other than to repair or replace it, just as there was no way any SeeD or Cadet would leave behind such a vital piece of equipment, given that the weapons harness, no matter what form it might take for a SeeDs individual weapon, was second only to the weapon itself in the care, respect, and maintenance accorded it. Every cadet had that drilled into their heads as soon as they arrived in Garden, and those who refused to learn, were kicked out in disgrace. No exceptions were tolerated. A SeeD who didn't care for his weapon, and his harness or holster, was a dead one, one who would likely take other members of his or her squad down with them when something critical broke down.

Hah. Look at this. Already narrowed eyes locked on one strap in particular, near were it would have fastened around the wearer's thigh; the stitching had been slightly torn, not allot, but enough to tell him that it had been violently ripped from its normal place. It was further evidence that Squall hadn't removed it willingly, as if he needed it.

Holster in hand, he stood, facing away from Garden, fury suddenly boiling in his veins. Just because it had been months since Time Compression and Ultimecia's downfall didn't mean he'd forgotten how he'd felt during the long months of the war, the constant burning rage he'd felt because his rival was in the hands of the enemy. He felt it again now, almost as if it had never left, the chilling rage that sharpened his thoughts and reflexes, that had allowed him to drive the Last Sorceress into a corner, and then cut her down where she stood, flooding through him again. It didn't matter that he didn't know who the enemy was, it didn't matter that he didn't know who had taken Squall this time. Whoever they were, wherever they were hiding, he would hunt them down and take Squall back to Garden. Again.

//\\

I'm evil, aren't I? Getting all of your hopes up for a reconciliation between Seifer and Squall, then dashing your hopes so cruely. But then, those two are going to fight against the possibility that they need each other for as long as they possibly can. But I'm doing my best to make them hurry it up as much as possible. Be patient, if you can that is…..:evil laugh:

Selphie is quite the yaoi fangirl, isn't she? And poor Seifer's miserable, trapped behind a desk like he is. At least he's better acquainted with his feelings than Squall is, mostly thanks to Fujin's help in pointing them out for him. All I can say is, Squall had better wise up soon, for both their sakes.

Sorry about the delay, but though I anticipated that I'd have more time to write during the summer, the reverse is actually true and I actually have less, slavedriving parents. Not to mention that they're pushing me to start writing some origional fiction, not fanfiction, and while I managed to hold off mom for this chapter, I might not be able to do so for the next one. So again, be patient, and I'll try to get this out as soon as possible.

Please please, please don't not review theis chapter!! I know I took too long on this, I know I've been lazy, I know all that and I'm begging you not to abandon hope!!! I swear to finish all my stories, so please hold on and be patient so I can get these next few chapters out before the summer is over. Reviews make me want to work harder, so the more you review, the more quickly I get the next chapter out, so it's really in your best interest.