Disclaimer: I do not own Final Fantasy VIII.

A/N: I hope you guys liked the last chapter! I've got some good ideas for this story, and I hope you guys will stick around with me long enough to see them unfold! It's really interesting to write from Seifer's POV, and I hope I'm doing it right! Well, hope you like!

Firework

Chapter Two

-Selphie-

It'd been a week since I'd last seen Seifer. It was Thursday again, and Seifer was supposed to be helping out in the Quad, but I'd waited an hour and he was definitely a no-show.

I huffed, swinging my legs that dangled from the stage. What a meanie! Maybe he'd finally bucked up and told his teacher off, or he figured I wouldn't say anything about him not helping out anymore. Well, I probably wouldn't, but it made me wonder… Even if it was something he didn't want to do, Seifer didn't seem like the type to just quit. He was a jerk, but he followed through.

Hmm… Maybe I'd ask around. Surely someone had to know where he was.

I checked in with Squall in the Headmaster's office. Headmaster Cid was still presiding over the Garden, but it was no question who would succeed him. Squall always said that he hated being the leader, but it was what he was good at! There was no doubt in anyone's mind that he was perfect for the position, and Rinoa would be able to talk him into it. He could never say no to her.

Squall had nothing to say on the matter. He'd never cared for Seifer, but he did seem slightly concerned with the fact that he was missing. He said he had no idea where he was; maybe in the Training Area. After all, Squall never had time to practice with him, and what else would he do with his spare time?

Then my journey brought me to the Training Area, where I found Zell punching at imaginary enemies, like usual.

"You know," I said as I walked up, "there are real monsters in here. You could try them instead of punching air."

Zell tossed his standard smirk-smile over his shoulder at me. "Already took care of 'em!" he boasted. "Now they're too scared to show their ugly mugs!"

I grinned and rolled my eyes. "I'm so sure." Coming back to more important matters, I asked, "Hey, have you seen Seifer around?"

He seemed confused by the question, and resumed slamming his gloved fists at nothing. "Nawp, and I'm glad. I've been needing a break from that jerk for a long time now."

I sighed. He still hated him, huh? Well, I guess the old feelings die hard, don't they? I mean, heck, I still cringed a little on the inside when I saw Seifer walk by, like I expected him to snap again and go crazy. "Well, any idea where he could be?" I tried.

Zell blew out a breath and stood straight, leaning back to stare at the ceiling and placing his fists on his hips. "Maybe ask Fujin and Raijin? They'd probably know; they never leave his side."

I almost smacked my forehead. Of course! Why hadn't I thought of that? "Right, thanks!" I said, calling over my shoulder as I turned and left.

But Fujin and Raijin had no answers, either.

"We been looking for Seifer for three days, you know?" Raijin said, his face screwed up in concern.

"MISSING," Fujin offered.

"Yeah! He didn't say anything to us, you know? Just left without a word."

I furrowed my brow. He didn't even tell Fujin and Raijin? They were, like, his only friends. Maybe he really was missing, and if so, this was a much bigger deal than it had been five minutes ago.

"SEARCH," Fujin said, her eyes intensely focused on me.

I blinked for a moment, then figured out what she meant. "I've been trying to find him since lunch, and no one knows anything. Maybe we should talk to the Headmaster…?"

"FUTILE."

"Yeah, what would the Headmaster do, you know?" Raijin chimed in. "If Seifer went somewhere, he probably doesn't want to be found, you know?"

"Well, there's gotta be something we can do?" I protested. "What if he's hurt?"

Fujin's brow creased together. "CONFUSION."

"Yeah, why do you care? You're with Squall, you know?"

I pursed my lips. "That doesn't mean I can't worry about a classmate. Besides, he was supposed to help out with the Festival today." This seemed to clear away any more confusion for the two of them.

Stepping forward, Fujin proclaimed, "ASSIST."

"Yeah, we're coming with you. We're worried about Seifer, too, you know?"

I was surprised at first – I'd never spent time with either of them before – but I nodded. They knew him better than I did; it would make it that much easier to guess where he'd gone to.

"Let's go," I said, turning down the 2nd floor hallway and walking toward the elevator.

Raijin and Fujin trailed behind. "WHERE?" Fujin asked.

I could only guess she was talking about our current destination. "We're taking the Ragnarok," I said proudly. It still thrilled me that I could fly that thing.

OoOoOoOoO

-Selphie-

Fujin and Raijin were a little weirded out by the Ragnarok, I could tell. They tried to hide it, but I saw the way they looked around with wide eyes, staring out at the passing sky or glancing at the blinking buttons. Fujin didn't seem too freaked by the thought of flying – she did excel in air magic, after all – but Raijin was tapping his foot and drumming his fingers, and was pretty silent. Even though his element was thunder, he reminded me of a boulder, and probably felt more comfortable on the ground.

"Where should we head to?" I asked, calling over my shoulder while still keeping my eyes set forward. "Any ideas?"

Raijin seemed to think – or maybe he was even more uncomfortable than I perceived and just didn't want to speak – so Fujin spoke up. "BALAMB."

"Balamb?" I furrowed my brow. If he was gone for a week, he wouldn't be so close; he could've just come back to the Garden.

"CLUES," she clarified.

Finally, Raijin opened his mouth. "He probably went through Balamb, you know? Maybe someone saw him, you know?"

Once again, nearly smacked myself. I wasn't seeing the obvious! "Right, right," I muttered. "To Balamb, then!"

OoOoOoOoO

-Selphie-

Taking the Ragnarok to Balamb was almost unnecessary; it took maybe two seconds, and most of that was lifting off and landing. The town remained unchanged, as always, with the same hotel manager and the same car rental station that, honestly, I hadn't used since acquiring the Ragnarok; the same Junk Shop man and train station and the lady who made you pay for information. Same Ma Dincht, who welcomed us with open arms and warmed up a few slices of pie as we loitered in her house.

The three of us sat down at the kitchen table and let her serve us. "Actually, Mrs. Dincht," I started.

"Oh, please, I told you to call me Ma!" she reprimanded.

"Sorry. Ma, we're here looking for someone. You remember Seifer Almasy?"

She huffed, going into the kitchen to set some dishes in the sink. "That awful boy? Of course I remember him."

"Hey, he's not awful, you know?" Raijin defended, but Fujin raised her arm to calm him.

"Anyway," I continued, looking at them pointedly, "we were wondering if you might've seen him around anywhere? He's missing, you see, and he probably came through Balamb."

Ma put her hands of her hips and pursed her lips in thought. Ultimately, she said, "I can't say I've seen him. I'm sorry, sweetie, but I'm sure you'll find him."

I held back a sigh. "Yeah, thanks."

"GRATITUDE," Fujin said, standing up.

Raijin stood right behind her. "Yeah, for the pie, you know?"

Ma grinned and nodded. "Anytime."

We went on our way from there, asking around town, and getting the same results: "Sorry, haven't seen him."

"This is getting nowhere!" I pouted, leaning against one of the armored carriers in the harbor. "How are we supposed to find him like this?"

"There's gotta be something, you know?"

"PERSERVERE."

I sighed. "I know, I know." I thought for a moment. "Well, he couldn't have gotten off of this island without a boat, right? So he must've rented one!"

But Raijin and Fujin looked at me with dubious expressions on their faces.

"What?" I asked.

"UNLIKELY."

"Yeah, Seifer doesn't rent stuff, especially for these crazy prices around here, you know? Probably thought of a better way to get one, you know?"

"You mean… he stole a boat?"

Raijin laughed, straight from the chest. "That'd be just like Seifer!"

"That's terrible! How do you even steal a boat, anyway?"

"You talkin' about a stolen boat?"

Raijin stopped laughing and looked past me, and I turned to follow his gaze. A man, looking about forty-something, stood a little ways away from us, and walked a few steps our way. "You three know who stole my boat?"

I blinked. "Someone stole your boat?" Perfect!

"Yeah, must be a week ago now." Perfecter! "He shoved me in between those carriers and practically tore the keys from my hands!"

Booyaka! I whipped around to beam at Raijin and Fujin. "That sounds just like him!" Turning back to the man, I asked, "Please, could you tell us which direction he went off in? We might be able to get your boat back for you."

"Well, it's about time someone came to get it back. Yeah, he went off that way, then turned and started goin' south, southwest."

"Thank you so much!" I was already halfway out of the harbor by the time the man had finished with his directions. "We'll be back before you know it! Come on, Fuu, Rai!"

"Hey! Only one who calls us that is Seifer, ya know?"

OoOoOoOoO

-Selphie-

"Southwest, alright," I muttered to myself as I got into the captain's chair of the Ragnarok. "Ready?"

Fujin and Raijin each gave me a nod, and we lifted off, turned on an imaginary heel, and headed southwest across the world.

Across the world… What a cool thing to say! And with the Ragnarok, it was true! Man, I just couldn't get over it!

I mean, how many people can seriously say they've flown an airship? And the Ragnarok was a spaceship, first and foremost, so it was even cooler! Squall and Rinoa had told me the story of when they found the spaceship – well, mostly Rinoa had been the storyteller – and it had been filled with awful alien monsters called Propogators! They weren't too hard to kill, but you had to kill them in pairs, or else they'd resurrect themselves and you'd have to start all over again! How frustrating must that have been? Rinoa said they did it wrong at least four times before Squall finally figured it out. And in such an emotional time as that, too! When Squall was finally realizing how much he actually cared for Rinoa. They were so cute together… Hopefully, I'd find someone like that one day… Well, I had Irvine, of course, and he was absolutely wonderful, but sometimes he was just –

"SELPHIE!"

"Hey, watch the sky, ya know?"

Their voices brought me out of my thoughts and I let out a sound that seemed to be a cross between a squeak and a scream as I brought the ship above a mountain. We cleared it, but I was still shaken, and took a moment to catch my breath. "Phew," I breathed. "Is everyone okay?"

"FINE."

"Man, just keep your eyes ahead, ya know?"

"Right, sorry, sorry." Let's see… There were mountains and…. Where did the mountains go? It was just… "Ocean. Ocean, ocean, ocean! Where's the land!"

"Where's the land?" Raijin echoed. "You got us lost?"

"No!" I snapped back indignantly, but inside I was screaming. "GPS, GPS..." I muttered, pressing the button to bring up the mini-map on the edge of the dash. The little blinking light was in the southwest corner of the map, surrounded by ocean. "Okay, so we're off the shores of the Centra continent, that's fine. We'll just follow the ocean until we get to Trabia, and start off fresh!"

"So we wasted all that time to start again?" Raijin asked in disbelief.

"Oh, please, we didn't even waste, like, two minutes," I argued.

"ISLAND."

"Huh?" I brought my eyes to where Fujin was pointing and, sure enough, a tiny island was visible just off to the right. "Let's check it out."

Southwest… There's a chance he could be there, right?

OoOoOoOoO

-Selphie-

Landing was simple, courtesy of the huge landing pad someone had put there long ago. Upon leaving the Ragnarok, it was obvious that anything that had been done to this island had been done loooong ago. The place was ancient! Vines were growing everywhere, and the scene was completed by a rickety old rope bridge that I had to tiptoe over, even though Raijin had gone before me to test it.

Our target was the building in the center of the island. Even though it was covered in plants and the walls were worn away here and there, it would be the most logical place someone would go to if they were stuck here. Plus, the Balamb boat in the harbor was a pretty big tip-off. He was here; he had to be.

"What is this place, ya know?" Raijin asked, glancing around as he made his way through the foliage, holding back various branches and leaves to let me and Fujin through.

"Maybe…" I thought for a moment, ducking to avoid a low-lying branch. "Maybe it's one of those mobile research island. I heard one was searching for a huge draw point a long time ago. This could be it."

"POSSIBLE…" Fujin said, but was obviously more focused on finding Seifer than having a history lesson.

The building loomed closer, and so far there hadn't been any fiends to block our path. It made me wonder… Why had Seifer stayed here for so long? No fiends, so he couldn't have been hurt… There had to be a reason.

Well, I thought, standing in front of the door to the building, Raijin and Fujin at my side, you're about to find out, Miss Tilmitt.

The door was heavy, but Raijin made short work of it, shoving it to the side and letting me go in first. The inside was even more decrepit than the outside – the vines had literally made the place their home, and the bodies of fiends lay here and there, decomposing. Rocks and pebbles dug into the bottom of my boots, and the wall was cracked nearly everywhere. What was holding this place together? Duct tape?

But everything was swept away when my eyes caught sight of him.

Seifer Almasy, the most immortal, unbreakable person I'd ever met, was propped up against the wall on the other side of the room. The left side of his face was covered in dried blood until you couldn't even see his eye anymore, his hair was mussed and dirty, his clothes torn, the white of his shirt and the gray of his trench coat stained red where it actually touched his body. His pants were nearly torn off at his right knee, exposing a grotesque wound on his ankle, and his shirt was practically hanging off of him, his chest entirely a musky red.

I was struck silent and still, mouth agape and breathless. For so long, I was under the irrational belief that Seifer Almasy couldn't bleed. Even though I'd fought him many times, I'd never seen him shed blood, even under Squall's gunblade. And now, this… I could hardly believe what I saw.

"SEIFER!" Fujin yelled, apparently handling the sight better than I was, and started to run toward him, Raijin falling into step behind her.

But a loud sound made them stop and move to cover their ears, practically shaking the entire island. The low, guttural roar stopped my heart, and from the darkness, yellow eyes shone bright, coming forward along with a great, dark blue head and silvery gray horns on either side, white teeth bared.

"Who are you humans?" the dragon growled, stomping across the room one giant clawed hand a time.

The spell finally broken as the dragon's head concealed Seifer's mangled body from view, I ran forward to meet Fujin and Raijin, bringing out my nunchaku. "We're here to take Seifer back!" I declared, gripping my weapon and dropping down into a more stable stance, in case this got ugly. "What have you done to him?"

The dragon seemed to blink, and lashed its tail. "I? I have done nothing but given Seifer what he wanted."

"What?" Raijin asked in disbelief. "He couldn't have wanted this, you know? He's…" He stopped short, and I knew what he couldn't bring himself to say: dead.

"He's not dead," I reassured him, while keeping my eyes on the dragon. "Who are you? Please, we're friends of Seifer's; we're not here to hurt him."

The dragon hesitated, then brought his eyes to my nunchaku. After a moment, I obediently put them away, and the dragon noticeably relaxed. "Friends of his, are you? Then surely you would know. Or perhaps not…"

"Just tell us, you know?" Raijin yelled, brandishing his fists in frustration.

The dragon shot him a glare, but continued. "I am Bahamut."

My eyes widened. Bahamut! I thought. The legendary GF… Wow…

"Your friend came to me not to die, but for another reason entirely. His death was only a side effect."

My heart skipped a beat. "So… you mean he's…" Now that I was confronted with the word, I understood Raijin's dilemma; I couldn't say it, either.

"ALIVE!" Fujin cried, looking like she was fighting back tears.

"Relax, Seifer is alive, but not for long. He must leave this place."

"Why haven't you taken him somewhere?" I questioned. "You care for him, don't you? Why couldn't you help him?"

Bahamut was already shaking his massive head. "I am junctioned to Seifer. I go where he goes. Since he does not leave on his own, I cannot either."

A tick working in Raijin's jaw, he stepped forward. "Then let us take him, you know? That'll work, right?"

"Yeah, and you can come with us!" I chimed in.

Bahamut mulled this over for a second or two, then nodded. "Alright. Take us with you, and I will tell you all you want to know."

OoOoOoOoO

-Selphie-

Raijin had picked Seifer up and thrown him over his shoulder, despite my commands to do everything gently. Bahamut followed us into the Ragnarok, and I was thankful for how large the entrance was and how high the ceilings were, especially in the control room. Seifer was placed in a reclined chair with Fujin next to him, and Raijin stayed by Bahamut, still distrustful of the giant dragon, while I flew the airship.

"So," I started, "why did Seifer go to you? What did he want that you could give?"

Bahamut rolled his shoulders, looking out the side windows wistfully. It probably felt strange for someone with wings to be in the air but not flying. "You are well aware, I assume, of how GFs work when junctioned."

"Mmhm. They take up residence in the host's brain, and while they take up space, the memories of the host get pushed aside."

"More or less. Seifer came to me not to abuse my power, but to wipe his mind. And going through his memories and his mind itself, I can understand why."

I winced, and Bahamut didn't bother explaining; we all already knew. It was just what I had suspected – Seifer couldn't get past the past, and was always running while the rest of us had learned to live with it. All the bad things that he'd done… it must've haunted him for so long.

Seifer… If you were suffering, you could've just told somebody. But that wasn't like him, was it? Seifer took care of Seifer's problems, end of story. Asking someone for help would just be desperate.

So to ask Bahamut for help… He really must've been desperate, huh?

"You understand, little one, don't you?"

I nodded. "Yes."

"Hey…" Raijin rubbed the back of his neck, drawing Bahamut's attention. "Thanks for taking care of Seifer, you know? I mean, without you, he probably would've…" Died? Killed himself? Who knew? But at least now, he was alive.

"What else would I have done?" Bahamut replied matter-of-factly. "He is quite an interesting human. Strong, willful, honest… His story is intriguing. He is an admirable host."

I was quiet as I listened to his words. I'd never really thought much about Seifer as a person, mostly just an enemy or a classmate, but the way Bahamut described him. It was true. He'd done bad things, but his character wasn't all bad. Maybe he wasn't as shallow as I'd always thought he was.

"WAKING," Fujin said, beckoning Raijin closer, and Bahamut strained his long neck toward Seifer, who was furrowing his brow and blinking his eyes open.

I let out a sigh. Here goes, I thought. Seifer with no memories… What could that be like?

Well, we were about to find out.