Well. I wound up starting this chapter when I wanted, but work then decided that it wanted to tire me out practically every day for around two weeks, which really dampened my desire to do anything at all. Fortunately, it finally let up enough where I could get the rest of this chapter finished.
Begin!
Book I, Part IV: Mortal Conflict - Dissension in the Ranks
Chapter VIII—The Ties That Bind
"Etchel Beoulve," Arragious muttered with a frown, casting his gaze over the Malakh in front of him, who was currently engaged in eating the fruit in his hand. "Infuriating as usual, it would seem."
"I'm told I have that effect on people," Etchel remarked, shrugging lightly. "Course, I don't believe it, myself. It's all hearsay meant to ruin my good name, you know."
Etchel had been a particular point of irritation back during the times when Arragious still commanded the Gilead Order. While he wasn't nearly as reckless as some other Captains he had seen, or even some members in his own Order, he had the particularly grating tendency to do things which seemed to serve no purpose but to rattle the nerves of others. Even now, he was up to his old tricks – Arragious couldn't remember when he'd adopted the habit of eating apples during anything remotely resembling a serious occasion, but it was apparent that he'd never dropped said habit during the years Arragious had been exiled.
"Of course," Arragious said blandly, keeping his eyes trained on Etchel. "I presume you're here to try and stop me, as well?"
"Heavens, no," Etchel said, the smile on his face suddenly growing in intensity. "I just happened to be in the neighborhood, you see, and came across this awful racket that you happened to be making so close to the Palace of Creation. Imagine my surprise when I see you beating up on an old drinking buddy of mine – as you might guess, I couldn't help but get myself into trouble by seeing just what was going on. You understand, of course."
"Interfering, and then claiming that you mean not to stop me?" Arragious queried, skeptical. "You'll forgive me if I don't exactly accept that at face value."
"But it's true," the Grim Angel stated, taking another bite of the sweet fruit in his hand. "I might've even done more than I should've by saving her, since I'm technically working for Kuchiki now and all that – the whole 'non-interference' bit really gets in the way of my leisure time sometimes, you know?"
Arragious searched Etchel's face for any signs that the Malakh was deceiving him, but found none – whether he was merely good at hiding it or, outer planes forbid, being honest, Arragious couldn't tell. Finally, he decided to simply take the good fortune that seemed to have been dropped into his lap and run with it. Breaking off into a swift run away from the complex of the Ethereal Magi, Arragious left Etchel and Kari behind quickly as he retreated from the area, invisibility magic flowing up around him even as he began to mask his power to muddle the searches of the Ethereal Plane's denizens. He was somewhat relieved to see that Etchel did not follow; the Captain had instead decided to make sure that his fellow Malakh would survive instead of pursuing the former Captain-Commander.
On the other hand, however, he was surprised to see Etchel in the Ethereal Plane at all, not to mention wearing the outfit typical of a Grim Angel Captain. The Order, he knew, had been reinstated within Soul Society some time after the war that exiled him from the Ethereal Plane, but he had not expected Etchel to resume his duties as a Captain under the Lord Sovereign. He had seemed far too content with his life of solitude following the dissolution of the order, seemingly satisfied to leave the Ethereal Plane and reside on the mortal plane after the dust settled. Apparently, things had changed for Etchel since that time.
'A foolish decision, on both counts,' Arragious mused, finally feeling the familiar wisps of teleportation energy that he'd been attempting to access engulf him – another gift from his new benefactor. He'd finally made it far enough away from the disrupting field that encompassed the area in order to use it and leave the plane, and he wasted no time in doing so, his body fading away into nothingness as he vanished from the Upper Court's surroundings.
(Play: Never Forget – Martin O'Donnell, Michael Salvatori; Halo 3)
Kari's eyes slowly fluttered back open, giving her a clear view of the sky above for a brief moment before a shadow fell over her. For an instant, her heart rate jumped, her mind believing the shadow that of Arragious coming to finish her off before she realized that she could no longer feel Arragious' distinctive energy anywhere nearby.
"Need a hand?" Etchel asked, looking down at the female Malakh with a faint smile. At first, she almost didn't believe her eyes, but she knew that there was no other person she could be seeing.
"Etchel…" she murmured, still shaking away the webs of unconsciousness strewn over her mind. "…You came…?"
"Happened to be passing through, really," he said, kneeling down and helping her get back to a sitting position. "He did a number on you, huh?"
"P-Praetor Minami," she said, her voice catching a bit in her throat. "He…killed Praetor Minami…"
"I know. Nothing I could do, to be honest."
"Did he escape?"
Etchel nodded in affirmation, before shrugging. "I…might've let him go, really. Depends on how you look at it."
"You…let him go?" Kari asked, the impact of the statement causing her to sit up a bit straighter, her pain and fatigue momentarily forgotten. "Why?"
"Look at it this way," he started, glancing back for a moment in the direction Arragious had left. "First, you were already injured when I arrived – if I had fought, you might've been even more injured, and there was no guarantee I'd have been able to stop him myself. Call it cutting losses, in a sense." Kari held up a hand weakly to protest, but Etchel continued speaking before she could voice any objections. "Secondly, you've realized what Arragious is up to, right?"
"I…wasn't sure before now, but…yes," she said, caught off guard by Etchel's change to a matter-of-fact way of speaking.
"Then you know where he'll be going now that the Praetor is out of the picture."
"You don't mean–"
"Exactly," Etchel said, a note of triumph lingering in his voice. "It's really quite amusing to me. Arragious still thinks that he'll be able to just walk in and do what he wants here, but he hasn't realized that, well…it's all going exactly as Freya expects it to."
"You think Lady Freya…allowed the Praetor to be killed?" Kari questioned carefully, disbelief flooding her mind. "Like Master Hirota? She couldn't have…!"
"No, no…" Etchel began, offering a jaunty wave of his hand as he spoke. "I mean that Freya expected it to happen. She took steps to keep it from happening, certainly, but it wasn't out of the realm of possibility that it would happen despite that."
Kari's mind worked feverishly as the pieces started to click into place for her following Etchel's words. Arragious was, as she now realized, taking out those responsible for his exile – first, Master Masaki Hirota, and now Praetor Arisa Minami. Those two Erudite were the only two of Master or Praetor rank still alive who were present for the discussion of his sentence; the others had either died following the war or left their stations. That meant…
"By the Creator…" Kari breathed, suddenly realizing what Freya intended. Etchel smiled.
"Looks like you really realize it now," Etchel remarked, nodding. "With those two out of the picture, Arragious is going to move up the chain…starting with Odin."
"Kill the Grand Master?" she whispered, still in shock that her thoughts a moment ago were as close to the truth as they had been. It seemed sort of surreal to think that even someone such as Arragious would be bold enough to make an attempt on the Grand Master's life, but it certainly seemed as if that was the direction that things were heading.
"First Odin, then Xeios, and then Freya herself. Pretty ambitious on his part, don't you think?" Etchel continued, glancing out towards the direction of Freya's palace. "Course, Arragious never was one to leave something halfway-finished."
The female Malakh started to say something in response, but fell into a short fit of coughing instead that caused waves of pain to shoot through her chest – the sword wounds she'd taken had been healed somewhat by the curative magic and the use of her Diviner, but the place where Arragious had stabbed her had been given no such aid, and the fiery magic he'd stricken her with before Etchel's arrival made all the wounds hurt even worse.
"Can you walk?" Etchel asked, waiting patiently for her to finish coughing before asking the question. Gingerly, she tried to get back to her feet, but the motion only intensified the pain she felt coming from her torso, and she slumped back down after a few seconds.
"I'll be fine here," she said, shaking her head. "Just get to the Executor, make sure he–"
Etchel cut her off by moving over again and placing one arm around her back, then the other around her legs before scooping her up and into his arms as easily as he could manage.
"Can't have you lying down on the job," Etchel said, meeting her brief look of surprise with the small grin he usually wore. "It isn't becoming of a Captain, after all…well, except for me, maybe."
"Six hundred years, and you're still lazy…" Kari murmured, shaking her head slowly. "You never change."
"Changing would be too much work," he replied, chuckling faintly. "Let's get you patched up." The younger Malakh finally smiled, resigning herself to being carried and trying to ignore the pain flowing through her body as she and Etchel disappeared in a burst of Shunpo.
(End: Never Forget – Martin O'Donnell, Michael Salvatori; Halo 3)
[July 7, 2152 | Trabia Garden, Third Floor, Headmaster's Office – 9:17 AM]
Darius DeValle Sr. rubbed his eyes momentarily, glancing over the latest mission reports to hit his desk from the morning and last night. Several SeeD teams had made it back from assigned missions, including his son's team late last evening, and he'd stayed up later than he'd cared to in order to sift through the pile of reports and documentation that accompanied the missions in order to organize it enough to deal with in the morning. Even though he was now a bit more tired than he was accustomed to, he was glad that he'd pushed himself to do it last night – more reports and papers had been coming in since he had awoken, and were only serving to add to the blanket of white and blue covering his desk. A cup of coffee sat steaming to one tiny, cleared section of desk, and he reached for it as his eyes began to scan another paper listing new inventory acquired from Esthar for sale in Merchant's Alley. Inventory reports and purchase receipts were a fairly common thing to grace his desk's surface, even though he left most of those dealings to Katanas – which meant that more often than not, they really ended up in Ein's hands. His eldest son was shrewd enough to get the job done right, he knew, even if he lacked the stomach to handle some of his father's more unorthodox dealings. Ein – though Senior had been faintly skeptical of the boy's abilities at first – had also proven to be remarkably talented at his job, juggling multiple reports and contracts with ease nearly each and every day on top of the studies he still had to undertake.
A light on the screen in front of him suddenly turned to green with a faint tone, signaling that he was receiving an incoming call from outside of Garden. Typically, he simply let any calls to him go through Garden itself and be routed to his office through the organization's main system – OSIRIS – but he occasionally made exceptions for exceedingly specific or important matters. Absently, he tapped a button, pulling up the video call without taking his eyes off the report in his other hand.
"Headmaster DeValle."
"Good morning, Headmaster," James Alnon said, seated behind his desk at Executive Outcomes in his normal business attire. "I received your message about the mission this morning when I walked in. Your team already has the data, you said?"
Alnon's voice sounded impressed that Senior's SeeD team had already managed to extract the data he was looking for; even knowing the reputation of SeeD, he hadn't expected the mission to be completed for at least two or three days.
"That's correct," Senior replied, now putting the report in his hand down and taking another sip from his coffee mug. "My team retrieved the information yesterday, a few hours after insertion into the complex. However, it appears that the data is heavily-encrypted. I've had a team of decryption specialists working on it for several hours now, but so far they've not been able to crack the encryption algorithm used."
"Understandable," Alnon commented, nodding. "First Division's security protocols are incredibly complex and intricate. However, I believe I may be able to assist you with that."
"I'm listening."
"I assume that you have a secure channel over which you can transmit me the data?"
"Of course. The OSIRIS network's protocols are second-to-none when it comes to informational security procedures," Senior replied casually.
"If you would be kind enough to transmit the data, I'll take care of the decryption for you," Alnon stated. "I currently have the encryption scheme, as well as a corresponding decryption algorithm created by one of my programmers. I'll share the data with you once I complete the decryption."
"How do I know you won't simply decrypt it, and then hold some of the information back?" Senior asked. He only halfway believed that such a thing would happen, but he hadn't become the businessman he was without a healthy knowledge of how to keep deals even.
"In this case, I have everything to lose by keeping all the information to myself," the Executive Outcomes president replied. "I intend to bring down Vector Industries with this information if my suspicions are correct, and having multiple copies of the decrypted data – as well as the original encrypted files – increases the chance of that happening even if something happens to my data."
Senior smirked faintly on-screen. "Aiming to eliminate the competition, it would seem. A bold move."
"Don't misunderstand me, Headmaster," Alnon said, shaking his head. "Vector Industries may compete with Executive Outcomes, but the purpose for this wasn't simply to find a way to make Vector fold in the business sector. If this information shows what I believe it will show, then this becomes an issue of morality for me – I do not intend to let such practices get away unnoticed by such a large company. It would set examples for other companies that do not need to be followed."
"Very well," the Headmaster said, opting instead to change gears. "Might I ask how you came across the decryption scheme to the most heavily-guarded and secretive division in Vector Industries?"
"I have…a contact, you could say." Alnon's voice was hesitant, despite the fact that he felt Senior could be trusted with at least this much. He didn't know how much he could really share without compromising the position of his contact, but he didn't want to simply stonewall the Headmaster who had risked the safety of his team to investigate on his behalf. "Obviously, I can't give specifics, but they took a great personal risk to extract the decryption algorithm from Vector Industries and provide me with it."
"You're sure the algorithm is correct?"
"I trust them implicitly, so yes, I am sure."
"Then you wouldn't mind if I sent an analyst over to work with your team on this matter?" Senior asked, once again taking a drink from the coffee in his hand.
"Feel free to send them over," Alnon remarked, nodding. "I can arrange for transportation, if you like."
"That's quite alright," the Headmaster replied curtly. "Garden transportation can have them in Esthar later today, assuming your team is ready to begin the decryption once the data is received.
"We'll be ready to go within the hour we receive the data. Once we have the data decrypted and backups have been made, we'll contact you to arrange for data transmission."
"Excellent." Senior was always happiest when he could gain something without having to spend much to do so, and this was turning out to be a textbook case of that situation.
"I do hate to cut and run, Headmaster, but I've some other important business to attend to this morning. I appreciate all that you've done for me so far, and I hope to return the favor shortly," Alnon said, again nodding politely to the Trabian headmaster.
"I'll contact my analyst at once, and they'll be in Esthar by this afternoon," Senior replied. "Also, one of my specialists here will contact you shortly over a secure channel in order to transmit you the complete files recovered from Vector. I hope to hear good news soon, mister Alnon."
"You will, Headmaster DeValle. I assure you."
[July 7, 2152 | Trabia Garden, Front Concourse | 10:30 AM]
I can just faintly hear the sounds of birdsong over the hustle and bustle of the large, park-like area between Trabia's outer perimeter and the actual main complex itself. In a way, it's peaceful, but I've also come to regard the typical busy activity of the Garden itself as equally peaceful, even welcoming. Over time, I've started to think that it has something to do with my nature, as I tend to get somewhat impatient and irritable when just sitting idle or relaxing – I like having something to focus on or somewhere to go rather than just sitting and relaxing most of the time. With thousands of people in the Garden, it's almost impossible to find a time of day when it isn't flitting with activity from students and faculty alike, barring possibly the few hours of the night between midnight and sunrise. It's a far cry from what I was used to back on Earth, or even Spira, coming from a small town with absolutely no predilection for large crowds.
Normally, I wouldn't really be out here this early in the morning, as I typically go to the first floor's training center during the morning hours when I don't have class. However, I got a call from Yuna late last night that asked me to meet her out here at ten-thirty, and I wasn't about to turn her down just to go out and beat up some fiends. The only problem now, it seems, would be finding her – the entire area between the perimeter gated fencing and Garden itself is littered with a variety of chairs, picnic tables, trees, and various forms of shrubbery and foliage, almost like a circular park surrounding the structure. Trying to find Yuna in this throng of people seems like it'll turn into the classic problem of finding a needle in a haystack.
'Some days, she's far smarter than I could ever hope to be.'
Or it could be relatively simple, as I've just discovered – instead of wearing her Garden uniform like a lot of the people here are doing, myself included, Yuna seems to be wearing her more familiar attire from the Gunner dressphere, sitting quietly at an open table and peacefully watching her surroundings. I had kind of expected Rikku and Paine, or at least one of them, to be with her today, but it seems like both of them are busy. Brushing by a small group of cadets laughing and talking on their way towards Garden, I walk over to where Yuna is sitting and casually plop down on the other side of the table, giving a rather goofy grin to accompany my arrival.
"Hi."
"Hi," she replies, returning my smile with one of her own – albeit, a lot less goofy.
"You wanted to talk to me?"
Leaning forward, I decide to rest my chin on clasped hands as I give Yuna my undivided attention. If she called me specifically and asked to meet, it must be important, after all.
"You've been…okay?" she asks, nodding in affirmation to my question. My first response is a faint shrug – after all, I'm still not sure whether I really am okay or not.
"More or less," I say after a moment, deciding to split the difference to keep from worrying her too much. "Busy, really, but that's life. What about you?"
"Just…the same, really." Her expression shifts back to a more even one as she speaks, meeting my attentive look with a serious look of her own. "It's very busy around here, all the time…there's so much to do and see, even when we're not training or working."
"I hear that…" I remark, nodding understandingly. "Sometimes, I wonder how I ever survived without all this to occupy me."
"In Spira?" Yuna asks, suddenly looking curious. Granted, I can't blame her – I'm certainly not talking about Spira, as we had plenty to occupy us there between Sin terrorizing the planet and Seymour manipulating the world's major religion.
"…Back home, actually."
I'm sure that Yuna noticed the hesitation in my voice, but I can't say that I really care about that. Ever since explaining everything to Rikku some time ago, I've been hesitant to even mention my home to others, though I do still think about it often.
"Never mind that, though," I continue, shaking my head and returning my attention to Yuna. "What did you want to talk about?"
"It's about…well, everyone, really." Yuna is the one to pause this time, and though I hate to admit it, my thoughts immediately go straight to the idea that something's wrong. I thought I had quashed my overprotective tendencies after everything that happened in Spira, but it seems like there's still a little part of me that harbors them.
"Something wrong?" I ask, almost a little too quickly. Yuna quickly holds a hand up in defense, and I force the thoughts away – she doesn't seem to be upset, which means it probably isn't anything terribly wrong, even if there is a problem.
"No, no," she states, shaking her head hastily in an attempt to reassure me. "Not wrong, just…important."
"Go on…"
"Well, I just found out about some of this, but…" Yuna stops for a moment, almost seeming to try and find the best way to say what she wants, before finally continuing after a few moments. "Rikku and Paine are going to be transferring to Galbadia."
(Play: the harsh truth (piano & strings ver.) – Yuki Kajiura; Xenosaga III: Also Sprach Zarathustra)
The words hit me like a rush of cold Trabian air, and I realize that the accompanying chill which suddenly falls over me can't be just a result of the climate. "Galbadia? When?"
"…Tomorrow afternoon," she says hesitantly. She looks a bit upset by the news – at least to me, as I've gotten used to picking up her feelings by now – but manages to keep herself composed.
"And…they didn't think to tell me?" I'm somewhat surprised that the two of them wouldn't decide to tell me on their own…right before I realize that it's entirely possible that they haven't known long either, and telling Yuna to pass on the message might be the easiest way for them to do it quickly.
"They haven't been able to find you, honestly," Yuna remarks, frowning just faintly. "You're always on a mission, or in training, or off in the…Ethereal Plane, I think?"
My nod of assent that she has the name correct seems to be little comfort to either of us.
"It's just…I know that you're finally finding something to do with your life, and I'm happy for you, but it's almost like you've forgotten about us."
"…You know I wouldn't do that, Yuna," I start, suddenly feeling very ashamed of myself. If Yuna feels this way, then how do the others feel? What do they think of me now? "Not after everything that happened in Spira."
"But you barely come by anymore, you know?" she continues, her words coming a little more quickly now. "We see you every so often, but you don't stop and talk as much as you used to – you've always got something to do, somewhere to be…"
"I know, but…it's important–"
"More important than your friends?" Yuna interrupts, cutting off my rather weak protest nearly from the start. My head droops a bit, and I suddenly find that I can't bring myself to meet Yuna's gaze, mostly because I know that everything she's saying is right. I have been distant lately, especially after what happened between me and Rikku and the explanation of my duties as a Planeswalker. There's a long silence between the two of us, broken only by the sounds around us of people walking and talking on their way to or from Garden.
"Shuyin and Lenne want to go back to Spira, too," Yuna finally says, breaking the tenuous silence. "They've been talking with Angel about it, and he's going to take them back to Bevelle sometime in the next few days, I think."
"They're leaving too?" I ask, the tone of my voice coming out a little duller than intended.
"They…well, they miss Spira. Didn't you tell us a while back that you told the fayth something like that – that they probably missed everything they never got a chance to do?"
"…Pretty much," I say, nodding weakly. Hindsight is twenty-twenty, so the saying goes, and that hindsight is telling me now that bringing them along on this trip might not have been the best idea I've had – that I might've been too caught up in my own excitement to realize how they might've felt about everything. "What about you?" I ask, deciding to change the subject back for a moment. "Are you going to Galbadia too?"
The flash of emotion that plays across Yuna's face is brief, but telling. "I'm…I haven't decided yet," she says, shaking her head briefly. "I want to, but I know that I'd feel bad about leaving with you still here at Trabia. I've been thinking about it ever since they told me about it, but I still don't know what to do."
The way she says the words just makes me want to kick myself even more; all I can think about now is how much of a heel I've been acting like.
"Don't let me stand in the way, Yuna," I reply, finally able to look her in the eyes again. "If you want to go, go – they're your friends, and…really, they're closer to you than I am. I think I'd feel bad if you didn't go on account of me."
"Don't say that–"
"Come on, Yuna – be honest," I say, reversing part of the earlier discussion and cutting her off instead. If I don't get this off my chest now, I think, I won't be able to say it. "Before I came back, after we beat Sin, how long was I gone? Two years. Two years that Rikku probably didn't leave your side at all, that Paine joined up and stayed with the two of you. You girls are a team, a family. You're always there for each other, no matter what happens. And I think that if you stayed at Trabia solely because of me, you'd never really be happy."
Another silence seems to fall over the two of us as I finish speaking, glad that I finally managed to say what I mean for a change but loathing the circumstances of the words.
"Besides," I say, deciding to try and keep her from feeling bad about everything, "it's not like I couldn't visit easily. You know, with the Planeswalking and all."
Yuna nods even as a series of chimes emanate from one of my pants pockets, the alarm I had set on my GLD last night finally going off and alerting me to the time. Quickly, I reach into my pocket and pull out the device, glancing quickly at the time before shoving it back into the pocket it came from and turning back to Yuna with an apologetic look.
"…Sorry. Class – can't be late, or there'll be hell to pay," I explain, receiving another nod from Yuna as I stand up from the table. "Listen, Yuna…do you think I could meet them on the Celsius before they leave tomorrow?"
"I'll tell them you want to," she replies. "They'll be happy to, I'm sure."
"Good," I say, hoping that I can still salvage what little bit is probably all that's left of my friendship with them. "Yuna, I swear that I'll find some way to make this up to you…all of you. I promise that I'll be there tomorrow to see Rikku and Paine before they leave, no matter what."
To my relief, the smile that graces Yuna's face this time is genuine, and not sad. "When you make a promise…"
"I keep it," I finish, smiling at the words. "I'd say that you know how to pick 'em, but I think I sort of picked myself."
"Yeah," she says, giggling as she also stands up from the small picnic table in the concourse.
"I mean it," I repeat, looking her in the eyes again. "I'll be there. Call me and let me know what time they're leaving later – leave me a message, anything. I'm not gonna miss it."
(End: the harsh truth (piano & strings ver.) – Yuki Kajiura; Xenosaga III: Also Sprach Zarathustra)
Even as I speak, I start to walk away, waving as I finish and watching long enough to see Yuna return the wave before I finally start heading back towards Garden for class. There's a tingling feeling in my gut even as I leave, however…an almost-sickening feeling that seems to permeate my body, enough to make me faintly nauseous the more I think about what just happened during that talk with Yuna. I know that everything she said was right, that everything really is all my fault for not taking the time to see them more often, and it makes me wonder just how badly I screwed up, how badly I might've hurt all of them by acting the way I have. In my mind, no matter what I do to rationalize it, there's really only one plain, simple word that describes how I feel about myself and how I've treated them.
'Betrayal.'
This chapter is a little on the short side, I realize, and it's also more or less exclusively dialogue-driven. I enjoyed writing this chapter (when I had energy to write, that is) because of the chance I had to write character interactions, all of which I want to expand more on as time goes by. There is a lot of backstory behind Etchel, Kari, Arragious, and the Ethereal Plane in general that I won't get to do more than take passing glances at in Dimensional Legend - the more in-depth look will be saved for one of my planned tie-in stories, Clouded Horizons: Origins.
The last part between Yuna and Ben was hardest to conceive, but actually easiest to write once it started flowing. This marks the point at which Ben really realizes that he may have acted a little too rashly in several ways, and that it might've cost him something he can't replace in the long run - friendships. Yuna, as the one most inclined to speak her mind (along with Paine, that is), seemed the logical choice to call him on it, and the scene flowed fairly smoothly once I started writing it. Most of this will, in fact, come back to bite him later.
I'm hoping that work winds down a bit so that I can write more when I get home, but I have no illusions that it will happen at the present moment. Hopefully, I'll be able to get some work done on my days off, at least enough to keep everyone interested. As always, please read and review.