Chapter Seven
"There you are!" called the musclebound, dark man to the petite, silver-haired girl, sporting an eye-patch, who was sitting at a table, hunched over the Galbadia Argus newspaper, a half-eaten hot dog in one hand, running a finger along the print of the newspaper with the other. "Seifer wants to meet us in the hotel bar, ya know!"
"WHY?" the girl snarled, a little annoyed at being disturbed whilst reading. What was it with Raijin that he had to interrupt at the most inconvenient times? She was right in the middle of an interesting article about the mysterious disappearance of a wretched morgue porter, and most of the corpses he had been in charge of.
"I dunno," shrugged the big boy, named Raijin. "Said he had something important to tell us."
"WAIT," the girl, named Fujin, commanded, not looking up from her paper, shaking the hot dog a little. "FINISH," she embellished, spraying bread roll crumbs out of her mouth as she spoke.
Raijin shook his head. "Jeez," he sighed. "You're worse than Zell lately, with those hotdogs."
Chewing up the last of the toasted hot dog bun, Fujin paced over to her strongly built companion. She then gave him a hard, painful, yet – as Raijin knew – friendly kick to the side of his left knee, which nearly felled the large guy. "OWWWW!" he cried, doubling over and clutching his injured leg. "That hurt, ya know."
"GOOD," Fujin answered, a hint of a smile crossing her stony, emotionless face, if only for a second.
"Shall we get going?" Raijin asked, and Fujin nodded in affirmation.
As they took the corridor out of the cafeteria, and turned right around the circular atrium of the Garden towards the front gate, Raijin had to ask: "What were you reading in that paper, Fujin?" Raijin himself didn't read the local newspapers such as the Argus, preferring to get his news from the Daily Doings, a paper sneered at by the female half of the Garden's population as porn. Yet he knew that Fujin would thumb through it and read the 'problem' page, just for a laugh.
"DISAPPEARANCE," Fujin grunted in reply. "MAN MISSING."
Raijin seemed indifferent. "Yeah, yeah," he snorted. "Big deal. At least nineteen people a day are reported missing in Galbadia alone, ya know."
Fujin shook her head. "NO," she insisted. "THIS, DIFFERENT. WEIRD."
She then reluctantly reverted to normal speech, and explained how there was no trace of this porter or the bodies in the chamber in which some remains were found. "They claim," she drawled, "that Mr Crowley stole the bodies and absconded somehow. But his car was still in the mortuary car park, and all the vans were accounted for."
"Whoa," Raijin put in, wide-eyed and for once, at a loss for words.
"What's more," continued Fujin, "his colleagues don't have a high opinion of him. Always claimed he was a bit of a weirdo."
Raijin shuddered, trying not to gag at his own ideas. "You don't wanna know what I'm thinking, ya know," he wheezed, looking pale.
"NECROPHILIA?" suggested Fujin, in her usual robotic monotone.
Raijin nodded stiffly.
Fujin frowned and shook her head slowly. "IMPOSSIBLE," she monotoned. "FORTY BODIES. HIDE, WHERE?"
"You… you got a point there," Raijin said, a little relieved, but still freaked out at the idea of a man stowing away some forty stiffs in his basement.
Pulling her lips tight, Fujin nodded in agreement. "DISTURBING," she concluded.
They exited the Garden. Whilst the sun was shining, and it was a beautiful day, the concourse was eerily quiet. Usually, gaggles of SeeD cadets, girls, by and large, would be grouped around, gossiping about the events of the weekend, and who was going out with whom at Garden. Today, there was nobody. Even the homesick guy who would usually be leaning on the stone wall, whimsically staring out to sea, missing his family, was absent.
"UNUSUAL," Fujin commented, and quite rightly.
"It's quiet, ya know," Raijin agreed. "Too quiet."
The silence continued as they walked along the winding path towards the town from the Garden. Raijin marked the surfeit of disembowelled Geezards and Bite Bugs strewn across the green fields. The allies walked on the grass for a while, yet encountered no live versions of these common monsters.
"Whoa," Raijin commented vapidly, "someone put in one hell of a training session, ya know."
"INDEED," replied Fujin, trying not to show her concern by fighting her temptation to cling to Raijin's strapping arm. Something was going on, and it wasn't going to be good news. She shuddered as they passed Selphie's memorial, which had been desecrated. The floral and plush tributes had been ripped apart, rose and lily petals strewn across the path, a headless Moogle doll, stuffing spilling from its neck, lay stupidly in the scorched grass.
Raijin shook his head mournfully. "Who coulda done such a thing?" he muttered, feeling pity not only for Selphie, but also for the mindless, ignorant morons who had no respect, and were driven to such an act for pleasure.
The pair eventually reached their town, where their suspicions that something odd was afoot were further confirmed when they found the garage, both closed for business, and seemingly abandoned.
"DISTRESSING," Fujin commented.
They continued on, along the deserted streets of Balamb, past the Dincht's house, where there were more floral tributes for the murdered family, mercifully left respectfully untouched. Then, as the pair turned the corner, onto the seafront near the hotel, they noticed a group of no less than forty scruffy, grey-skinned individuals, loitering vacuously around the entrance to the train station.
Raijin tutted derisively. "Look at that, Fu," he snorted. "Frickin' hoodlums, tearin' up the barriers at the station." For that was exactly what they were doing. "Hey, bastards!" he called to the destructive group. "Show a little goddamned respect!"
This was the wrong thing to do. A particularly large, air-headed member of the group jerked inhumanly towards Raijin and stared at him with milky white eyes.
"Hmph," Raijin spat. "Want to make something of that, eh? Look at ya, all pale and lardy. You should eat some proper meat, not just that processed junk you get from Trendy Burgers."
The fat being seemed angered by Raijin's comments, and came stalking slowly, threateningly, towards him and his companion.
"HA!" hollered Raijin, readying his weapon, a large brass pole, weighted at both ends. "You want some o' this, eh? Do your worst!"
Fujin however, was unusually reluctant to fight. "NO," she hissed robotically. "DON'T."
Raijin laughed heartily. "Ah, don't worry," he replied confidently. "Look how slow they're moving towards us, it'll be ages before they get in striking distance." He readied himself into combat position. "I'll wait here and give them a running start. COME ON!" he yelled. "I'LL TAKE YA ALL ON, YA KNOW!"
The fat member of the group, seemingly the leader, lurched at Raijin, his rotten-toothed mouth aiming for his left upper arm. It almost made contact with Raijin's rock-hard flesh, before he backed away. "Hey, hey, hey, hey, hey!" he cried, thwacking his assailant about the torso with his pole. "That was uncalled for. Fu, help me out here!"
Fujin, however, made no attempt to fight; she ha noticed something else, something most sinister. "RAGE!" she called urgently. "LOOK!" She pointed, with three fingers, to a group of the grey thugs, mysteriously sticking together.
"What?" asked Raijin, annoyed at being distracted in battle. The fat beast was proving bothersome; no matter how hard he was hit, the wind refused to be knocked out of him, and he kept lunging at Raijin with his teeth, and his dirty, yellowing, overgrown fingernails. Fortunately, Raijin, despite his bulk, was far too fast for his opponent, who would always be clawing hopelessly at thin air.
"DINCHTS," Fujin relied, trying to keep the quiver of fear out of her usually steady, mechanical voice.
"Don't be ridiculous, Fu… oh, this guy is severely pissing me off, ya know… take THIS!" Raijin hit the thing about the head with his pole. The head exploded in a flurry of blood, bone and brain tissue. The torso hit the ground, but this seemed to anger his friends.
"Oh great, he's dead," Raijin lamented sarcastically. "Now I gotta whole buncha paperwork to do. Right you sons-of-bitches, you asked for it!" He span his pole over his head, spraying a little of his victim's remains over the slowly approaching, rapacious crowd. This seemed to make them more agitated and keen to get to Raijin.
As he surveyed the crowed, he finally latched onto what Fujin had been trying to tell him. Three of the crowed were otherworldly doubles of Jackie Dincht, Zell's Ma, her daughter Shelly, and her son Conor was unmistakeable, as he was smaller than most of the others, and sticking like glue to his young, brown-haired, but deathly pale mother.
"SHIT!" exclaimed Raijin! "That… that's Zell's Ma, ya know… And… and his sister… and rascally nephew…" He observed the sinister family unit as they came limping towards them.
"TOLD YOU," Fujin replied, more composed now that she was sure that Raijin believed her. "RUN."
This time, Raijin didn't think to not listen to his companion. He turned and fled, towards the hotel door.
They reached the doors, and Raijin made to barge through the large revolving door, but was bounced off it; it had been locked tight shut. He glanced over at the approaching mysterious mob.
"DON'T LOOK," Fujin warned, starting to panic again. She took a breath, and smiled to herself, in spite of the situation.
"Hey," Raijin called, rapping his large, solid fists urgently on the plate glass. "HEY! LET US IN!"
"CALM," Fujin said, more to herself than her panicking partner. She was sweating profusely, and somehow knew this was in part, what was attracting these… things (well, they aren't people, she thought morbidly).
"I AM calm, ya know!" Raijin fumed. "I'm just trying to get IN! HEY! IDIOT DOORMAN! WE'RE SUPPOSED TO BE MEETING SOMEONE IN HERE, YA KNOW!"
"SHUSH," Fujin commanded, approaching the door. "Excuse me!" she yelled, once again using normal speech, as Raijin continued to hammer. "We just want in. We're not one of…" She flailed about for the right word, finishing with "…them."
A uniformed concierge could be seen approaching through the glass, noticing the thickset man, and the slightly built woman.
"Hello?" Raijin called angrily. "We're supposed to be meeting someone in here!" Impatiently, he hammered on the door.
Eventually, the harassed-looking concierge reached the door and fumbled with the keys on a chain.
"Hurry!" hissed Raijin, resisting the urge to glance at the approaching horde.
"Yes?" the concierge panted sharply. "Who is your appointment with?"
Raijin opened his mouth to speak but Fujin interrupted him. "We arranged to meet with Seifer Almasy in the bar area. He's a guest in the hotel," she said in an unusually sweet voice. Raijin gave his companion a surprised look. He had never heard her speak like that since she had tried to talk Seifer out of all that 'young revolutionary' nonsense in the Lunatic Pandora a year ago.
"May I take your names?" the concierge replied urgently.
"Raijin, y…" Raijin had to stop himself from saying 'ya know.' It was his nervous habit.
"FUJIN," Fujin answered automatically.
"Okay," replied the concierge earnestly. "I'll just go and check. If you'd like to…" He opened the door. "…step into the lobby and take a seat…"
"Finally!" hollered Raijin, almost pushing the poor concierge over as he entered.
"Thanks," breathed Fujin in relief, handing a 1000 Gil bill over to their saviour.
The concierge beamed, as if all that disturbance had been worth it for such an unusually generous tip. He cleared his throat as he re-bolted the door so it was secure. "I'll just go and inform Mr. Almasy of your presence."
Raijin gratefully slumped into one of the padded chairs, rolling his eyes and shaking his head. A prominent muscle was twitching obviously in his cheek.
Fujin joined him "RELIEF," she sighed.
A different member of staff turned the corner, dressed in a white tunic, carrying a small green case. "Hello," he said amiably. "My colleague just informed me of your, uh, dramatic arrival. I'm just here to check you weren't injured in the scuffle you were just involved in."
"Nope," Raijin answered, confidently.
"ESCAPED," Fujin informed the medic. "BARELY," she added, dramatically yet truthfully.
The medic smiled. "Excellent," he said, with a weak smile.
The concierge joined them. "Okay, that's all fine," he said. "Everyone's kind of holed up in here, there's a gang of criminals going about the place, looting, vandalising, doing all sorts. We just had to make absolutely sure. I'm very sorry for making you wait out there." His voice dropped a little. "It must have been terrifying," he whispered to them, as if the pernicious people outside could hear him.
Fujin opened her mouth to say YES, but Raijin shrugged, seemingly unshaken by the incident, although Fujin knew that was not the case. "I'm from Garden," he said. "Used to it, ya know."
"Mr. Almasy is waiting," the concierge said. "Right this way, please."
Waiting nervously in the bar in the Balamb hotel, Seifer sat, nervously sipping on a Bacardi and coke. He had come to the decision that he could not hide his feelings forever, and was about to admit to his closest friends, his posse, Raijin and Fujin, that he was indeed, a player for the other team. He went over and over in his mind what he would tell them, and worried about how they would react.
Come on, Seifer, he told himself, you've been friends with them forever. Surely they won't mind. A moment of doubt crossed his mind. But when they find out about Squall…
Yes, Squall, the man he had professed to hate since childhood. What he had been experiencing all along was not hate at all, but rather a deep, passionate love that was to be hidden at all costs. Lately, Squall had been worrying him. Since the night after Selphie's death, Squall had become distant with Seifer, and that had gotten him cross. Cross enough to frame him for the mysterious murder of Instructor Trepe. However, the ghastly goings-on of recent days, involving Zell's family (even Seifer felt a little sympathy for Chicken-Wuss) had brought them back together again. Squall had caved in, and sent him message after grovelling message, via the Garden e-mail system.
Life's too short, one message had read. I mean, the Dinchts… wiped out… just like that. Let's try again.
They had spent last night in the hotel together, no sex, just kissing, hugging and talking about their fears. Seifer brought up the suggestion of fleeing Garden, but Squall, always playing the hero, disagreed. "As long as I'm commander here, I have a duty to the cadets, SeeD members and staff," he'd replied.
Seifer had shrugged. "Then quit," he'd challenged.
Squall mirrored his bare-shouldered shrug. "Then what?" he'd asked, before sighing and changing the subject, to avoid an argument. "There seems to be a surfeit of hot dogs lately. Perhaps people have stopped eating them out of respect for Selphie. Or perhaps it really was Zell…" That had made Seifer smile, and remember what he saw in Squall. He cared for others, an admirable quality in anyone, but with Squall it was usually hidden behind a silent bravado.
He couldn't get Squall off his mind; he'd never felt like this about anyone before, not even Rinoa. Yet he was scared to admit that he was experiencing this wonderful feeling. If he was honest, he was sure that his posse's reactions would not be favourable. He was certain that Fujin would abandon him, and as for Raijin, a man's man at the best of times, Seifer could see a harsh queer-bashing coming from him. Ignoring the commotion involving a medic near the entrance lobby, he steeled himself for a conflict with his closest friends. Just thinking of the painful beating he would most likely get from Raijin, he began to reconsider telling them.
As he glanced up to think of a plausible excuse, he saw it was too late. The hotel concierge was approaching him.
"A Mr. Raijin and Miss Fujin to see you, Mr. Almasy," he said professionally.
"Cool," Seifer replied, feeling exactly the opposite.
Within a minute Raijin and Fujin strode importantly into the hotel bar, looking a little distressed, which was unusual for them both, Seifer noticed.
"About time too!" Seifer snarled, trying to hide the nervousness in his voice.
Knowing he was amongst friends, Raijin felt comfortable about expressing his shock, even though he had never done so in front of Seifer. He took a breath. "You would not believe what we have just seen…"
"FOREBODING," Fujin commented, before Raijin blurted out the fact of the presence of these fearsome criminals, and about how three of them had, for some reason, resembled Zell's late family.
Seifer frowned, his still prominent scar crumpling into temporary lines on his face. "No way," he said shaking his head rapidly.
"ABNORMAL," Fujin assured him. "HOWEVER, ACCURATE."
"O-kay then," Seifer said, jovially. "You two sit down and tell me all about it." He smiled, half amused, half relieved. This little joke was perfect, a ready-made excuse not to tell them about his sexuality.
"Well," said Fujin, a little disappointed, and ruffled that his friend wasn't seeing things his way, "you've heard stories about these marauding criminals who are going about tearing shit up, right?"
"Of course I have," Seifer answered, in his usual cocky way. That precise moment was interrupted by a dark-haired waitress carrying a tray.
"Your whisky, Mr. Almasy," she said, setting a small glass of amber liquid in front of Seifer. "And for your friends… two complementary beers." She elegantly put down two brown bottles, as well as two glasses for the two newcomers.
"Wow… thanks," said Fujin, talking normally in surprise.
"Cheers," Raijin acknowledged, following the waitress' slightly jiggling buttocks as she walked away from the table. "Wow, now that's service, eh, Seifer?" he said, indicating the pretty bar worker.
"Anyway," Seifer avoided the conversation of supposedly attractive members of the opposite sex, "tell me about these weird things that are raping and pillaging Balamb as we speak…" He didn't sound the least bit convinced.
"Well," Raijin explained, "they came at us, and they just wouldn't stop, teeth gnashing, sharp yellow fingernails trying to tear at our flesh… unusually strong, they were…"
"SLOW," Fujin interjected with a sigh.
"Almost drew blood, they did," Raijin continued, with a sideways glance to Fujin. "Anyway, I was fighting this huge one, thought he was the big man, givin it all that, ya know…" Raijin flailed his arms about in demonstration. "…I tried and tried to fight him off but he just wouldn't give up… invincible, ya know… so I hit him over the head… and his whole head exploded!" he went on with relish.
Seifer stifled a snigger.
"TRUE," Fujin said, backing up Raijin, for once.
"She's right, ya know," Raijin continued. "Check this out!" He held out his pole to Seifer, the end stained with blood, and pink lumps of goo, plus some yellowish-white fragments sticking to it.
Seifer flinched, smelling what was unmistakably blood… human blood? And something else he couldn't quite put his finger on.
"BLOOD," Fujin detailed. "BRAIN, SKULL FRAGMENTS."
Raijin pulled his pole away from the slightly affronted Seifer. "And then the whole tribe started running after us. Plain furious, ya know…"
"WALKING," corrected Fujin, rolling her eyes again. "STILL, UNSETTLING."
"We barely made it in," Raijin gasped, "Luckilly your doorman was kind enough to let us in just in time."
"I heard," Seifer said, a glimmer of belief in his eyes. Then he sighed. "Oh, God, I have to get back to Garden tonight. I promised I'd meet Sq… uh… a friend." He covered his tracks just in time. "D'you think they'll let me go?"
"Why would you want to?" Raijin asked. "It's like death out there."
Seifer shrugged. "It's an important appointment," he said dryly. "Besides, if it is as bad as you say, then trusty Hyperion will get me through it." He grinned and patted his left hip.
"FOUND?" enquired Fujin.
"Yup," Seifer replied. "It was in the Training Centre… just where I left it." He didn't tell his friends that it had took him half an hour of unarmed combat with bad-tempered Grats, his whole supply of Cure magic, seven Potions and a Hi-Potion, to find his trusty blade, which he had lost in a drunken stupor the night of Quistis' death. Thank Hyne he hadn't run into old T-Rexaur, otherwise he probably would not have been here to tell the tale… or not, in this case.
"Do what you like," Raijin snorted, pulling out his wallet, "Fu and I are going to hold up here for a while, ya know. Our presence at Garden's not that urgent. I'll… just go book a room before it's too late." He rushed to the reception desk.
"So…" Seifer sighed to Fujin, taking a sip of his whisky, "how've you been?"
Fujin could tell Seifer was being strangely evasive, but was tired, mentally and physically, so she decided it would be a mistake to pursue it. "FINE," she replied in her usual monotonous manner.
"Good… good…" he murmured, not sure that was the case if the main parts of Raijin's story were true. "So… what's going on in Garden? Anything special?"
Before she could answer, a strangely smug Raijin approached them once again, affecting anger. "Would you believe," he said crossly, though Seifer at least, could see through it. "The only room they have left is the Presidential Suite! And they won't even let me have it at a discounted rate, given all this trouble! Hmph! I take it all back about good service!" He spat angrily into the ashtray.
Fujin seemed fooled. "REALLY!" she growled angrily. "GREAT! JUST GREAT!"
Seifer and Raijin exchanged knowing glances, and Seifer sat back and relaxed. After all that drama, the pair had completely forgotten about the 'something important' he had to tell them.