Near the western end of Esthar City, just inside the mirage wall before the Great Salt Lake, was the towering blue spire of the Esthar City West hospital. A center for cutting-edge care, this hospital had once taken in the sickest and most mortally wounded patients, returning them to society not only healed but with their life expectancy increased by ten years. Esthar City West was a symbol of medical advancement, an icon of healing, a testament to human endurance against suffering.

In the higher floors of the spire was the hospice ward. Here, patients spent their final moments in peace, blessed with windows that looked out on the Esthar skyline: towers of silver and blue against an azure sky, shining in the sunlight like rainbow-flecked prisms… the only skyline most of these patients had ever known. Here, as the sun set behind the shimmering mirage wall, so too did the sun set on their days, accompanying them into their final slumber.

But today, the hospice ward was noisy and its patients troubled. Throughout the glassy blue halls, people in pastel robes and conical headdresses were hastening to evacuate their loved ones, packing up belongings, securing ambulatory hover chairs, placing hurried calls to relatives – less like a quiet place of rest and more like the ER many stories below. Outside the windows, sirens wailed and heavy traffic clogged the east-bound lightways. Westward, where the sun usually set behind the mirage wall, plumes of black smoke were rising from the salt flats. War was coming to Esthar.

Riding up the elevator to the hospice ward, SeeD commander Nexi Leonhart was inspecting her uniform in the reflection of the cabin's polished mauve doors. One of the buttons in her dark gray jacket was undone, and as she tucked it back in, she found that the gold embroidery of the button hole was fraying. Just when she thought she couldn't look shabbier, she noticed salt dust on her gray shoulder pads; grumbling, she brushed it off with her hand. But then she saw the reflection of her face, framed by her round black bangs, her hair still kept in a fine long ponytail like when she was a cadet a few years ago. She saw her eyes… lucid like steel, looking back with a quiet, piercing intensity, with a wisdom that she didn't quite feel on the inside. Their message, though, was clear: Nexi, her eyes said, from here on out, the condition of your uniform will be the least of your worries.

She sighed with resignation just as the elevator opened into the busy ward. The hall was crowded with people and hover chairs, all struggling to enter the elevator. She quickly stood aside as people jostled through, one patient crying out as her chair bumped another. Nexi did her best to keep out of the way, but at the same time she was scanning faces across the chaos, seeking out the man for whom she had come to deliver an urgent message.

Down the hallway on either side were doors that opened to patient rooms. At one door, Nexi saw there were stationed two Esthar soldiers in silver and purple combat armor – bodyguards, she perceived from their posture and positions. Coming out the door to speak with them was an old man, his robin egg blue shirt untucked from his khakis, his dazzling green eyes obscured slightly by his thin-framed spectacles. Laguna Loire was still dashingly handsome, but showed obvious signs of age: his arms were thin and frail, his long hair gray and beginning to turn white, his face taut and wrinkled.

Laguna turned and caught Nexi's eye, staring at her for a moment with a joyless, somber expression. He nodded slightly and beckoned her over.

Nexi approached, came to attention and saluted Laguna. "Sir, I've come from the front. Commander Argus and Assistant Kiros both agree – we must regroup and tighten our defense. This section of the city must evacuate."

Laguna acknowledged her only with a simple shake of his head. "Nevermind that for the moment, Nexi," he answered. As he finished speaking, his head drooped slightly, his eyes staring vacantly into space.

Nexi glanced worriedly at the door behind Laguna. "Sir? Who is it?"

"It's Ellone." Laguna swallowed, his voice hoarse as he pushed back tears. "She doesn't have long."

Nexi suppressed a gasp. She knew Ellone had been sick, since Laguna had first told her two years ago; she just hadn't realized how quickly she had progressed.

"She asked for you, Nexi," Laguna continued. "Won't you go to her?"

Nexi gulped, staring wide-eyed at the door. Laguna moved aside, allowing Nexi to step forward and place her palm against the lock. It hummed briefly as a white light pulsed through her hand, and the door chimed and slid open.

Ellone was lying on a wide bed, resting on clean pillows under soft white sheets. Her head was turned away, her eyes closed, a serene smile stretched across her pale face as it glowed from the light of her window. Her hair was still a silky brown, still combed straight with a slight wave tapering by her cheeks, but there were thin lines of gray and some of the ends were frayed. On a cherry-stained end table was a photograph of a young girl in a light blue dress, held playfully by a young and bold Laguna. At his arm stood a beautiful woman, her long brunette hair kept back by a yellow headband, her apparel a plain white turtleneck sweater and relaxed fit bluejeans. Behind the photo was a cream-colored ceramic flower vase, brimming with the bold yellows and whites of narcissus white lions.

Nexi entered the room and studied Ellone as the door closed behind her. She didn't look sick; her body was physically fit, her skin a normal color, her cheeks flush with a healthy level of body fat. But the illness, Nexi understood, was not of the body, but of the mind. Chronic temporal dislocation, Dr. Odine had named it, practically the last scientific contribution he had made before the old coot died himself a few months ago. A fatal side effect of her unique power, the disease caused Ellone to gradually lose control of her ability, finding herself more and more junctioned to the past and unable to keep herself in the present. The prognosis, as Odine put it, was that Ellone would soon lose all connection to the present, and without her mind her bodily systems would fail and result in her death.

Ellone opened her eyes and turned her head to Nexi, smiling slowly. "Hello Nexi. I'm so glad you came. Won't you sit with me?" she asked, gesturing to a plain wooden chair.

Nexi stood conflicted, hesitant to step further into the room. She still had not quite forgiven Ellone for the traumatic journey through time she had taken with her, when Ellone had forced her to see Rinoa-Ultimecia in the black void of Time Compression. And yet now, Ellone was lying innocently on a hospital bed, peaceful in her final moments despite the specter of war.

Ellone's smile faded into a sad expression of concern. She weakly extended her hand across the bed sheets toward Nexi. "Please forgive me. I'm so sorry I hurt you."

Nexi stared at her hand for only a moment. Would she deny Ellone's dying wish? Of course not. Nexi came and sat in the chair, took Ellone's hand and kissed it. "I forgive you, Aunt Ellone."

Ellone smiled once more and turned her head away, looking dreamily back toward the window. "Squall, I'm so happy to see you again."

Nexi looked at her confused. Oh, her illness, she realized. "It's me, Aunt Ellone. Nexi."

Ellone sighed, still staring out the window. It faced east, overlooking the center city's skyline, away from the encroaching battle. "I'm so sorry. I got you involved in so many things… so much hardship."

Nexi looked down. Ellone was revealing so much intimacy, conversations from a long time past… Nexi felt like she was invading Ellone's privacy. She gripped her hand tightly. "It's alright, Aunt Ellone. I understand what you were trying to do. Rinoa is Ultimecia. But we're ready for her. Her fate is sealed… we know we will defeat her."

Ellone stirred, suddenly seeming to be more aware again, more present. She turned back to Nexi, but now Nexi was surprised to see an odd kind of urgency in her, the way she strained up from the pillow, trying to gaze directly into her eyes. "Nexi… I need to tell you…" Her eyes blurred and cleared again as she struggled to focus. "The circle… it isn't closed."

Nexi felt herself grow cold. "...The circle?..." She began to sweat, her hand trembling slightly as it held Ellone's. "You mean Ultimecia?" Nexi stared desperately at Ellone, her steel eyes now filled with fear, begging for a straight answer.

But Ellone smiled wistfully, the sense of urgency gone once more; she was again no longer present, no longer in control. She looked back into Nexi's pleading eyes: "I remember those eyes… those curious, innocent, puppy dog eyes…" She sighed happily as her own eyes closed one last time, her head relaxing against her pillow: "I loved those eyes…"

Nexi was dumbstruck, gaping at Ellone in utter shock. "E-Ellone!" But Ellone would not answer. There was a long beep from the vitals monitor on the wall, a steady flat line… and Nexi knew that Ellone would not speak again.

In the minutes after, Nexi couldn't remember much. There were some moments of grieving, to be sure. She recalled holding Laguna a long while as he sobbed loudly into her shoulder, and she had cried with him, or so she imagined. The body had been removed, led out of the room on a hover bed covered by a silver sheet, escorted by Nexi and Laguna to the elevator where it was taken over by nurses. But beyond these moments, Nexi's memory was clouded; she couldn't stop thinking about Ellone's last words. Even after the hospice unit had finished evacuating, still she sat alone on a bench in the hall, her arms crossed on her knees, staring down in thought.

The circle isn't closed…

"Don't vorry!" Odine had told them. "Defeat of ze sorceress is certain!" All their strategies, all their operational plans and contingencies, were dependent upon the premise that all they needed to do was survive, outlast Ultimecia until the Fated Children would travel to the future to destroy her – the circle of fate closed. But if that wasn't true? If there was more that needed to be done before Ultimecia's fate was truly sealed?

The building shook, the movements and stresses from an impact echoing like the groans of a wounded giant. A particularly potent shockwave had struck it from a nearby explosion, heralding the approaching war. All that had felt safe and secure were suddenly not so, and now Nexi was unsure if she, or indeed any human, would come out alive.

How, Ellone? How do we close the circle? Nexi covered her face with her hands, trying not to let the creeping despair overwhelm her. What do we have to do?