A Galbadian missile had pulverized the Training Center and the monsters long since escaped, so Seifer had gone to the woods. The aching that was starting to take over his limbs told him that had probably been several hours ago, and now the daylight was starting to fade.

Still, he pressed on. It wasn't as though there was anything at Garden to go back to.

How the hell had everything gotten so messed up? The damned plan had worked; he'd captured Deling and linked up with the SeeD team, even if Trepe had dogged him like she was after a gold star. But then Squall had disappeared on him, and after that it seemed like every damn thing Seifer tried ended with him either knocked on his ass or in jail.

And now this. They still hadn't found Fujin and Raijin, Xu had one arm, and all Rinoa wanted to do was talk about how it was maybe their fault for taking on Galbadia. Oh, and Squall had stolen his dream, humiliated him and left him right back where he'd started, getting lost in a forest.

"Dammit!" He'd barely been paying attention to the monster in front of him, and it responded by spraying him with a sticky mess of webbing that jammed the trigger on his gunblade. He hacked at the thing, trying to power through the web, but his swing went wide and the blade got lodged in a tree. "God DAMMIT!"

Because adding insult to injury was the theme of his week, the monster whacked him in the ass while he tried to pull the gunblade out. Which was the final straw; Seifer turned around and incinerated the damn thing in a pillar of fire before returning to free the weapon.

This wasn't working. He was wasting all the high-level magic he'd picked up in Galbadia, and his GF was getting a workout, but he still had the same damn problems, and they wouldn't go away no matter how many Caterchipillars he shot in their stupid facebutts.

Which didn't change the fact that the last thing he wanted to see was Chicken-wuss charging up through the trees. Dincht skidded to a stop as soon as he spotted Seifer, looking a bit like a dog who can't figure out what to do when it catches the truck.

Seifer shook his head. "Where's the fire?" he asked. The words 'Chicken-wuss' were supposed to go at the end of the sentence, but somewhere between his brain and his mouth they got lost.

"It sounded like you were —" Dincht stopped himself halfway through the sentence, frowning at Seifer suspiciously. "Hey, shut up! The hell were you thinking, running off an' not telling anyone? You know what things are like back there?"

Seifer was pretty sure he had told Rinoa what he was doing — something like, "Screw this, I'm gonna go train" — but he didn't care enough to argue. And what the hell kind of question was that, anyway? "'Course I know what it's like. You think I'm out here in the forest 'cause I want to be one with nature?"

Dincht sputtered for a second, doing that thing where he balled his fists and shook like he was being electrocuted. "The hell is wrong with you! They need everyone back at Garden, helpin' with the recovery. You're not just supposed to just run off!"

"Kids aren't suppose'ta play with fireworks!"

Seifer winced. That sent a stinging sensation through the scar across his nose, which he'd found was a good way to get his mind off things. Those damn voices and half-remembered scenes had been chasing him all day, and something told him they were important. Maybe even vital. But what the hell kind of sick joke had made Chicken-wuss the key to his childhood?

With a flick of his gunblade, he turned away, trying to remember what Dincht had been saying so he could dismiss it properly. "…The hell do you think 'recovery' even means?" he asked over his shoulder. "Everyone's lying around, wallowing in their misery. They don't need SeeDs for that."

"You're not a SeeD!"

"Well, I SHOULD be!" Seifer had rounded on Dincht before he even knew he was doing it. Damn Chicken-wuss was a lot closer now — must have been running after him again, and clearly hadn't expected Seifer to turn around either; he ended up getting the response yelled right in his face. "I've been the best fighter in that damn place for years, and I'm not so tied up in their damn protocols that I'm scared of taking action! And if Garden hadn't had its head so far up its ass, then maybe there'd be more of it left!"

Dincht had rocked back on his heels, and he was doing that shaking thing again. But this time, he looked genuinely shocked. Sort of like he had down in the B1 level, when —

"Cry-Ba-by-Ze-ll! Go back to bed!"

Seifer winced, so hard that his jaw hurt too, and turned away again. He could just see the coastline beyond the trees, and made for it as quickly as he could without looking like he was trying to get away.

"I'm tell-ing! I'm gonna tell on yoo!"

They'd been on the beach that night. He'd hidden the fireworks there, so Matron wouldn't find them.

Goddammit.

"Why do you always think you're so much better than everyone else?" Dincht was following him again. "Like the rules don't apply to you? You really think the world would be better off if everyone acted that way?"

"Oh, you're one to talk." Seifer forced himself to keep walking. "How many times did we have to write you up just this month? Speeding in the halls, disrupting class, disrupting the library. We probably confiscated enough T-boards to start a league."

"That's 'cause you're a jerk, and you're always out to get me!"

"Yeah, it's always someone else's fault when it happens to you." Dincht was right behind him now, and Seifer knew he was doing that thing with his fists again; plus, he was making that weird noise like an engine revving. Seifer allowed himself a smirk.

He made it nearly to the edge of the woods before Dincht spoke again. He'd backed off a bit, and his tone was almost timid. "Hey, Seifer," and then another pause. He almost had Seifer wishing he'd get on with it. "How much…do you…remember?"

And there it was. Seifer'd known he wouldn't have run all the way into the woods just to tell Seifer he shouldn't be running around in the woods; even Chicken-wuss wasn't quite that dense. But Seifer thought he'd almost talked his way out of it.

"Yoooo! C'mon! Stop it! Matwyn, help!"

The honest answer, the one he'd never actually give, was that he had no idea. There were images and voices that swam together into a mess that he couldn't make ends out of — how much was real memory, how much some stupid dream. Had Trepe really been trying to boss him around his entire life? Had that Trabia girl really been setting off fireworks with him while Squall was off moping about…what the hell was Squall always crying about? Seifer knew that was important somehow, but he couldn't quite grasp the memory.

Instead, he said, "I remember you were always this whiny, if that's what you mean."

"Shut up!" Dincht ran forward, falling in beside him. Seifer tried to walk even faster. "But seriously, where is that place? It isn't Balamb. I mean, I remember a beach, but it had way more rocks, an' these weird ruins. Hey, there's suppose'ta be a ton of ruins down in Centra; you think we might've been there?"

Seifer scowled and shook his head, but couldn't get the image loose. There was the beach, strewn with coarse leaves and broken columns, a wall of rocks on one side and ocean on the other; the tiny strip of sand vanished entirely whenever the tide came in. Down at one end, a finger of rock stretched into the sea, with an old stone lighthouse built on top.

"An' what were we doing there?" Dincht asked. "Was it like a camp or something? I think I remember takin' classes, but…."

"You really can't figure it out?" Seifer stopped at the edge of the woods and turned on Dincht. "Why do you think a bunch of kids would be living in a ruin in Centra? And why do you think so many of them ended up in Garden? It was an orphanage, dumbass. They set them up all over down there, 'cause that's the only place in the world that wasn't at war."

He turned away again while Dincht was standing dazed, blinking at him, but didn't get very far. "—Hey, I'm not a dumbass, all right? And that doesn't make sense, 'cause I'm not an orphan! What about my parents in Balamb?"

Seifer rolled his eyes. "You're adopted, all right? Get a clue."

For once, Dincht didn't sputter, or protest, or yell something asinine; he just got this weird distant look like his head couldn't quite process the thoughts it was having. Then, for the first time, he turned away.

"…Why the hell did I forget all this?" he asked.

"Who cares?" replied Seifer. "It's ancient history now."

"You don't think it's crazy we've been having the same stupid fights for 13, 14 years?" he demanded, turning back around.

"Not if you're still as big a whiner as you were back then."

"Just shut up and listen, okay?" Zell barely even raised his voice that time. "I'm thinking, maybe losin' our memories is what caused it all. I mean, we can't learn from what happened if we don't remember it, right? So we end up livin' our childhoods over again, 'cause we can't remember growing up."

Seifer was not prepared to start having his life psychoanalyzed by Chicken-wuss. "That's the dumbest thing I ever heard," he said, and started walking again.

"Come on, man!" And Zell was back to chasing him. "Don't you think if you could remember the way things happened, you might've done something different?"

"I'm gonna see her again!"

Now Seifer blinked. That voice was different. It didn't sound anything like Squall did now, but Seifer knew it had to be him. And he still knew it was important, and still couldn't remember why.

A flash of light caught his attention down by the beach. The evening sun, which had disappeared behind the mountains to the west, was casting long shadows across the landscape, and the water had taken on the sort of flat gray tone of a Balamb evening. So if it weren't for the glint of sunlight on metal, he probably might not have seen the ships at all.

"WOAH!" Apparently Zell had seen them, too. "Is that—"

Seifer brought up his gunblade, checking to make sure he'd gotten the monster gunk out of the trigger. "Guess we're done with Memory Lane."

The surviving students in the Technical Committee had made it their project to restore power to as much of the Garden as possible. Considering Cid and the senior SeeDs were talking about evacuating, Nida wasn't sure what the point was, but he'd volunteered to help out anyway. He spent the afternoon climbing through the remains of the perimeter fence, trying to work out how much of the defenses could be salvaged. Most of the time had gone into running cables out to the sentry cameras and the streetlights that had avoided getting eaten by a crater. The work was tedious and boring, but after the week he'd been having that was almost a relief.

He didn't notice Xu standing behind him until he managed to restore the video feed of the camera he was checking, and saw her image on the display. "—Ma'am?" he asked, glancing up, turning around and very belatedly saluting.

"Making progress?" she asked, either not noticing or ignoring his discomfort.

"We've got about 40 percent of the security grid back," Nida said. "The rest is going to need major repairs; it would probably take weeks, and that's assuming we get mechanics from Balamb. But this will do a decent job of covering the perimeter."

"Last I heard," Xu said, "power was still out in the Security Room."

Nida nodded. "Yeah, that whole transformer needs to be replaced. We've run the cables up to Instructor Trepe's — er, to that classroom on the 2F, so we can monitor the equipment from the instructor's terminal up there."

Xu's gaze flicked away for half a second, and he could practically see her mind going over the setup. "Sounds good." She turned to walk away, but stopped. "Nice job."

"I'm just helping out."

She regarded him for a moment, and Nida got the impression she was really looking at him for the first time. He tried not to fidget. "Quistis filled me in on your mission in Timber. It was impressive work."

"…Which part?" Nida tried not to sound too incredulous.

"You executed the client's operation flawlessly, even if the president was a decoy. And smuggling the real Deling out of Timber was no small feat." She shrugged with the shoulder that wasn't in a sling. "What's more, it's nearly unprecedented for three new SeeDs to be sent on a mission the day after they graduate. Cid was concerned about it, especially considering how vague the mission was. And the fact that Selphie was new to this Garden."

"And he was hoping Squall would graduate."

Xu's eyebrow quirked at him. "So there is something on your mind."

Nida couldn't help feeling like he'd just been trapped somehow. "Maybe it was my imagination, but when Cid told me I'd be leading the Timber Team…he didn't really seem crazy about the choice. And the day before, when I graduate, he tells me, 'Do your best, even if you don't stand out.'" Once he'd started talking, it was surprisingly easy to keep going. "What was I supposed to do with that? My career's just started, and he tells me I'm destined to be unremarkable?" He had his mouth open to say something else, but his mind had apparently run out of steam.

Xu's expression hadn't changed through his entire diatribe, although he thought her eyes had narrowed by a shade. "Cid doesn't know what your destiny is. You want to know what that advice meant?" She moved to cross her arms, but stopped herself with a shake of her head and put her hand on her hip instead. "A lot of the kids who grow up in Garden think of SeeD as glamorous special agents. But to the rest of the world, we're mercenaries. People don't put up statues to us, and most of the time even our clients would rather nobody knew we were there. You don't become a SeeD to get noticed."

"Story of my life," Nida drawled.

"Is it." She didn't make it sound like a question. "Your academic marks were high, but not excellent. You took a lot of difficult and unusual operational courses, and gave a consistently average amount of effort. In the field exam, you flawlessly executed the orders you were given, and nothing more. It's like you were trying not to stand out."

Nida was having trouble focusing on what Xu was saying while he grappled with the fact that this conversation was even happening. "You…memorized my file?"

She did the thing with her eyebrow again. "Three students graduated this year. It wasn't hard."

"…Right."

"Now, if Squall or Seifer had graduated from your class, we might have sent one of them to Timber instead." She seemed to think the revelation was just as obvious as Nida did. "But it wouldn't have been an obvious choice. True, you're an average fighter, and you've got a fairly low GF affinity, but you're clever and resourceful. To be honest, we could use more SeeDs like that."

For a second, Nida thought that was the most backhanded compliment he'd ever heard. Then he remembered who he was talking to, and began to think it was the highest praise he'd ever received. "…Um," was all he managed to say.

"Don't worry so much," said Xu. "About your abilities, or what others think, or any of it. You have a good sense of discretion, but if you lean on it too much, then it's just self-doubt. And then you're useless as a SeeD. Or worse."

Recognizing that the pep talk part of the conversation was over, Nida straightened a bit. "Ma'am."

Xu saluted, then turned to walk back toward the main path. Nida was just turning back to the sentry camera, when a flash of light caught their attention. A red flare, leaving an arc of smoke that glowed in the evening sun, glared at them from the darkening sky.

"Nida," Xu called. "Is that security grid online?"

Nida glanced down at his console to be sure. "Such as it is, yeah."

"Good. Find the patrol teams, and make sure they're accounted for. I'll rally Garden's defenses, and tell everyone the Galbadians are here.