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CHAPTER 1 – METHOD OF INHERITANCE
With a series of brilliant flares shooting into the early morning sky, the enemy's rear forces had abruptly pulled back. What troops had been able to heed the call by way of their aerial mechs and motorcycles had reportedly diverted back towards Galbadia Garden, before retreating due southeast en masse. The infantry already on the ground inside Balamb Garden had been left out to dry; absent their rear guard, they'd eventually been closed in on both sides, drawing the battle of the Gardens to a close. Those who'd surrendered had been swiftly rounded up and taken into custody.
Victory was far too glowing a term for the outcome; although Balamb's forces had ultimately managed to repel the enemy, their own losses had been severe. The infirmary could find no more room to house all the wounded. Those not in critical condition were simply hauled in, given a rush treatment, and returned to their respective rooms in the dormitories for recuperation. In the distance, out on the snowswept plains through the wide bay window, the remains of Trabia Garden continued to smolder from the phoenix firebombing. A detachment had been sent out to search for survivors, yet to return.
Squall remained standing before Headmaster Cid's desk, taking in the briefing as it was relayed to him. He'd certainly seen none of it firsthand; he and his comrades had essentially been left stranded aboard the floating enemy Garden, until they'd managed to set it down from the command deck. He'd awoken from having taken the leviathan's blast, disoriented and utterly confused. That Rinoa had even been able to summon the creature after a mere month of training was astounding; it had taken a full year for him to do the same. More impressive still, the jet stream had been powerful enough to blast clean through his conjured barrier field, sweeping him and the rest of his team off their feet with the torrent.
She'd clearly poured far more energy into the summon than she could handle, resulting in immense physical and mental exhaustion. Unsurprisingly, she'd been the only one still unconscious by the time he himself had come to, and likewise the only one among them unresponsive to Quistis' CPR efforts. That she still had a steady heartbeat was their only cause for relief. The rest of his team, though appropriately aching and rattled, were ultimately no worse for wear. Only Seifer still remained unaccounted for; they'd scoured the Garden up to the command deck, completely vacant by the time they'd arrived, and found no trace of him.
And then, there was Edea. On cue, a knock at the door cut him off.
"Come in!" the headmaster called.
The door opened right away, through which stepped his squad, one after another. Zell and Irvine brought up the rear on either side of their captive. The blonde had removed his jacket, having loaned it to her for the sake of keeping her face out of sight from the student body at large. Similarly, a swathe of bandages had been wrapped tightly around her torso, shielding her exposed chest courtesy of the shredded skintight dress. As she passed through into the office, and finally lowered the jacket from around her head, her eyes turned to the headmaster. They were still the same gentle green Squall remembered so fondly, regardless of the network of grotesque veins spreading from her cheeks on either side.
"Cid," she breathed in seeming disbelief.
"Edea!" he called her name in turn, rising from his chair.
Throwing all caution to the wind, he immediately rounded the desk and raced forward to meet her. Despite his better judgment, Squall allowed him to go ahead; the tears already welling up in Edea's eyes convinced him that his squad's intervention wouldn't be necessary. The two joined in a tight embrace, neither showing any sign of letting go anytime soon. For however emotionally distraught his wife was, Cid's face peeking over her shoulder hardly looked better. Intent on giving them space, Squall ambled over to Irvine by the door, and looked him dead in the eyes. Evidently, the implication was clear to see.
"She's alright," Irvine told him. "They're just gonna give her a quick look over, and then set her up in her room."
"Any change in her condition?" he asked.
"Not yet."
Disappointing as it was to hear, he'd known better than to expect anything else. Rinoa was far from the first GF trainee to bite off more than they could chew; based on what previous instances he'd heard of, she likely wouldn't be back on her feet until at least the next day.
"I'm… so sorry," Edea whimpered as she finally released her arms from around Cid. "To all of you. I'm so ashamed. Please believe me… I never meant for any of this to happen. To think, I raised you all as my own, and yet…"
"Why don't you sit down, dear?" Cid motioned to the chair opposite his desk.
Taking a deep breath, she shuffled over and seated herself at his request. The headmaster circled back around to the other side, taking his own seat before the window. Squall silently motioned for Irvine and Zell to remain standing by the door, before turning around the desk himself to take his place where Xu always had. Quistis and Selphie stood to Edea's rear on either side, their eyes locked to her.
Such precautions were still much too meager given her tremendous power; Squall now desperately wished he'd had the foresight to take a set of the Odine Industries-manufactured bangles with him from the prison. All the same, she'd been perfectly cooperative ever since recovering from the sea serpent's attack. She'd even provided them with the keycard needed to access Galbadia Garden's command deck, having supposedly 'discovered' it in her dress pocket. Were it all indeed an act, she'd yet to slip up.
His inclination to believe her went beyond good faith alone, however. The change in her eyes had been so much more than yellow to green. Gone was the malice, the bloodlust, or any inkling of wickedness he'd seen in them before. The difference was night and day; this woman couldn't possibly be the same sorceress who'd wrought so much death and destruction in the last 6 weeks. For however much she still resembled that fearsome woman in appearance, there could be no doubt about it: this was the kindly Matron they'd known and loved all those years ago.
"Just relax," Cid reassured his wife. "Squall's already given me a report of what happened. I understand now that none of it was your fault. And remember that I'll still always love you, no matter what. So, please, Edea… tell us everything you know."
She raised her eyes from the floor, tears still spilling down her pallid face. Her gaze briefly swiveled to Squall, lingering on him for a moment before pivoting back to her husband. Unbelievable though her explanation had been, it was clear to Squall that this raw emotion was no facade.
"It… it wasn't my fault," she eked out as she wiped her face. "I've always known that another sorceress war would arrive one day, and that there would need to be an army standing at the ready to fight it. But… never in my wildest dreams could I have expected things to turn out like this. All this time, I've been… possessed. By a force more powerful than any I've ever known: Sorceress Ultimecia."
Stony silence fell over the headmaster's office. The notion was no less insane than when she'd first told them as much. Who exactly this new sorceress was, or how she'd been able to allegedly take control of Edea's body, she'd yet to elaborate on. Whatever the case, Squall was eager to hear her explanation.
"Ultimecia?" Cid repeated.
"Yes," Edea continued, lowering her eyes again. "She is a sorceress from the future, many generations beyond our own time."
"And how do you know this?" he immediately followed up; evidently, his concern for his wife did not take priority over his need for sensible answers.
"I… I felt her presence come over me one day, trying to wrest control of my body. In doing so, a channel was opened between our minds. I fought back as best I could, and was briefly able to catch a glimpse of her own in the process. That's how I learned her identity, and of her ultimate goal. Even as I resisted, she was gradually forcing her way through my memory, trying to find any information she could on Ellone's whereabouts. There was no way I could hold her off forever. And so, in my desperation to keep her from seeing any more of what I knew, I had to… detach from myself, and recede from my conscious mind. It was the only way to cut her off from my memory, at the cost of giving her full control of my body. I don't remember anything after that. The next thing I knew, I was lying on the floor, surrounded by these five."
As she continued to expound, Squall pondered how Edea could potentially have detached herself as she claimed. Had it been the work of a spell she'd invoked? Or perhaps a case akin to Dissociative Identity Disorder, in which her mind had developed a separate personality specifically to act as a vessel for this other sorceress? Regardless of how she'd managed it however, he otherwise had little difficulty believing her story; he already knew too well the experience of having inhabited another person's mind in the past.
"I don't understand," Quistis interjected from behind. "Why would this other sorceress be after Ellone?"
"For the sake of her special power," Edea answered. "Ellone has the ability to manipulate the energy frequencies of a person's consciousnesses, and even overlay them with others. By doing so, she can send herself or anyone else into another person's mind, at any point in their past."
"That's impossible!" Zell called out from the door.
"It's true," Squall finally spoke up. He swept his eyes across the room, meeting all those staring at him in turn. "She's done it to me. Those times before, when I would randomly pass out… that was her doing."
No one among his team dared say a word in response. He was content with their surprised, silent stares, and even more so with Edea's look of gratitude; she was clearly happy to have someone in her corner.
"I remember the first time I ever experienced it myself," she continued. "I'd pulled her aside over something back at the orphanage all those years ago. She must have invoked it out of compulsion, because the next thing I knew, I'd been thrust into the mind of her father."
A chill ran down Squall's spine as she detailed the scenario for them. Though he'd already experienced the same numerous times now, and even had Ellone confess to him that it had been her doing all along, Edea's testimony gave him further relief to know he wasn't simply going crazy.
"After that, I sat her down, and talked it all over with her. She told me she'd been abducted from her family and taken to Esthar years before. Clearly, Sorceress Adel must have also wanted this power for herself. Her father somehow managed to rescue her, and bring her back home. It's strange… I'd actually met him once before, and always wondered if he'd ever been able to get his daughter back. I certainly never would have expected her of all children to wind up on my doorstep one day."
Hearing so much of what he'd seen through Laguna's eyes corroborated by her was surreal. And yet, despite it all, he still had no idea what had happened to him and Raine, nor how he'd managed to get Ellone out of Esthar.
"And so, for her sake as much as yours, we decided to take her out of the orphanage," Cid finished for her. "We've done all we could over the years to keep her whereabouts obscured should anyone else come looking for her. But… how could we have expected something like this?"
"So, what's this future sorceress need her power for?" Irvine asked out of the blue. "Sounds like she's already got something like it herself."
Squall concurred; having already successfully possessed Edea, having Ellone's power at her disposal seemed all the more redundant.
"It seems that way," Edea agreed. "But that alone isn't enough for Ultimecia to achieve her ultimate goal."
"And what's that?" Zell egged her on.
She hesitated, took a deep breath, and answered him.
"Time compression."
"Time… compression?" Cid echoed her. "What does that mean?"
"She wants to reshape the world into a state where all of time, past, present, and future are condensed into one."
"What?!" Selphie blurted out. "Why? Why would anyone want to do something like that?"
Squall could hardly imagine a world existing as she'd described, much less guess at a motive for it. No matter its absurdity however, he continued to take Edea at her word. Indeed, it wasn't the first time they'd heard such a thing from her own mouth.
"The future… or perhaps the past? It is all the same to me. And so it shall be for all mankind, one day, very soon."
"I couldn't tell you her reason," she sighed. "I didn't manage to glimpse anything about that when I looked into her mind. All I know for sure is how she plans to make it happen. It is an extremely complex incantation, requiring the combined power of three separate sorceresses across three different time periods."
"And that's what she needs Ellone for?" Quistis interrupted. "To send herself further back from this period into the mind of a third sorceress?"
"Exactly. But it's not nearly so cut and dry as that."
"Cut and dry?" Zell moaned. "This is making my head spin!"
And I've got a feeling it's about to get worse…
"I'm afraid there's really no easy way of explaining this," Edea apologized. "I'll try to simplify it as best I can. To begin with, each sorceress' power carries its own unique frequency about it. Millennia ago, when The Great Hyne hid his magic away with the first generation of sorceresses, he bestowed each with only one individual strain of his full power. Before she can rest in piece, a sorceress must pass that power on to a successor, to ensure its continued subsistence in the world. It was the same in my case, when I received the holy gift from another sorceress at the age of 5."
It stunned Squall to learn she had been given the power at such a young age. All the same, he was reminded again of the sorceress from his youth, the one who'd come to the orphanage in search of Ellone all those years ago. Perhaps now, with Edea present to explain all, he would finally have some closure for the experience that had left him scarred.
"For Ultimecia's time compression spell to be successful, the three sorceresses must all share at least one common energy frequency between them. In her own time, she has already received my own, among many others through a long lineage of power transferal. And so, to complete the ritual, she would need to use Ellone in our time to send her consciousness back further, to another sorceress from my own line of inheritance. And therein lies the issue.
"The vast majority of sorceresses have lived in secret through the ages, keeping their power concealed from the public eye. There would be no record of those women she could possibly draw from. Furthermore, Ellone would have to be familiar with the sorceress in question in order to hone in on the exact frequency of her consciousness, and overlay Ultimecia's atop. Both of those factors together severely limit who she can potentially choose from. In other words, the third sorceress must be someone well enough recorded in history for Ultimecia to know of, and who Ellone has already had some prior affiliation with."
"Adel," Squall answered on the spot.
"Precisely," Edea lauded his intuition. "No one really knows what happened to her after the war ended. And unfortunately, I wasn't able to get a definitive answer from Ultimecia's mind before she began to overwhelm my own. Whether or not she is still alive in this time period however, it makes little difference. As I said before, a sorceress cannot rest in peace until she passes her power on to a successor. One way or another, that lineage, that strain of energy passed down from Hyne long ago continues to live on in this world. All Ultimecia would need to do is find whoever possesses it now, and force them to pass it on to me, uniting the two lines of inheritance here in the present. Then it would just be a matter of coercing Ellone to send her into Adel's mind in the past through me. You would have three sorceresses across three separate time periods, all bound by a common energy frequency, and sharing one unified consciousness. The ritual would be complete. There would be nothing left to stop her from achieving time compression."
"Man… this is some heavy stuff," Zell spoke in a deflated tone.
"I can't make heads or tails of any of it," Quistis admitted.
Squall could barely wrap his own mind around the explanation. Not even two months earlier, he wouldn't have entertained the notion that the sorceress power even existed. And yet, convoluted as it all was, he was now prepared to believe every word. If recent events had taught him anything, it was that nothing was truly impossible.
"I completely understand if it's too much to take in at once," Edea said. "But it's all been imprinted in my memory. There's no doubt about what she's planning."
"Well, she shouldn't be able to find Ellone so easily," Cid assured her. "She's safe with the White SeeDs. They're a resourceful bunch. I suppose the only question left to ask is why this Ultimecia has suddenly released her control on you. She must realize that leaving you alive to tell us everything will make her plan all the more difficult to carry out."
Squall had wondered the same from the very moment she'd first claimed to have been possessed. Her passion, gentle demeanor, and thoroughly detailed explanations had managed to quell his initial skepticism; he was convinced this was no act. But then, neither could he believe this alleged sorceress from the future, who'd staged her entire plot thus far so meticulously, would let such a glaring blunder slip by. There had to be a reason.
"I have no idea," Edea responded. "She could possess me again at any time. If that happens, I'll try my best to resist her again. But, if that fails…"
She trailed off. Her eyes dipped down to her hands, clenched side by side atop her lap in front of her.
"If she takes control of me again… then it falls to you to do whatever has to be done. She must be stopped, at any cost."
Squall averted his eyes from her, re-directing them to Cid at his side. The headmaster's face was dour, understandably so at the prospect of another attempt on his wife. A quick glance around the room told him that no one else among his team relished the thought either.
"No can do."
Irvine stepped forward from his spot by the door. His approach was steady, measured, and confident above all else, yet absent the usual swagger Squall had come to expect from him. He sidestepped past Selphie to come to Edea's side, and placed one hand on the top of her chair's back.
"Been there, done that, and I'm not about to go along with that same old song and dance again. But don't you worry about it, Matron. We'll find a way to stop her. That's a promise. Who else is with me?"
One by one, the others began to fall in around her; first Selphie and Quistis from behind, then Zell from the door. Squall looked to Cid for permission to join them, only to see him rise from his own chair and start around the desk. He followed after, coming to stand beside him and Quistis.
Bewildered, Edea gazed up and around at her husband and former children. Tears began welling in her eyes again. And then, in what must have been the most wholesome display of familial bonds ever seen at Balamb Garden, she swiftly stood up and embraced each of them in turn. Even Squall, ever adverse to sentimentality, felt perfectly at home in her arms. For however much comfort he hoped it might give her, he could also feel himself becoming more at ease with each passing second.
I guess… I needed this as much as her.
"Thank you," she said, wiping the tears away. "All of you. I'm so happy. And so very, very proud. I've raised many children over the years, but… you five really are special. You were born to do great things."
Squall turned his head away in embarrassment. He recalled her having told him the very same thing all those years ago, when he'd awakened from the 'nightmare' as she'd passed it off. He'd never been one to believe in fate, much less a higher power; such was anathema to the concept of self-determination he'd always lived by. Given all that he'd been proven ignorant of in recent days however, it was clear he still had so much more to learn of life's mysteries. Regardless of the truth behind it all, Edea had been right about him; he had come so far, and accomplished so much in such a short period of time.
"We'll be here to support you every step of the way," Quistis took the initiative. "You've done so much for us. Now, it's our turn."
"Yeah, we'll put that witch in her place somehow," Zell backed her up.
"I… I appreciate your enthusiasm," Edea smiled. "I only wish there was more I could tell you about her plan."
"Um, actually, Matron," Selphie suddenly interjected. "When you were looking through her mind… was there anything you saw about a special GF sphere?"
Squall furrowed his brow. He'd all but forgotten about the matter among the myriad other issues at hand. But then, she was right to bring it up; the sorceress had specifically made mention of it just before the confrontation, implying she knew of its origin.
"A… special sphere?" she asked with a puzzled look. The headmaster's expression was no different.
"Yeah, one made by Galbadia. I've had it for years, and she was acting like she knew something about…"
Selphie trailed off as she proceeded to rummage through a pocket on the fore of her uniform. Her eyes abruptly went wide, a look of horror coming over her face.
"Where is it?!" she panicked, patting down her entire uniform. "It's gone!"
"Calm down, Selphie," Irvine tried to talk her down. "It probably just fell out after we got hit with that tidal wave."
"Through a zipper?!" she shrilled. In a flash, she was out the door without another word.
"Hey, hold up!"
The sharpshooter was on her heels the next moment. He barely avoided bowling Zell over as he bolted into the grand hall after her.
"I suppose that's meeting adjourned then," Cid broke the awkward silence. "I'm sure we can discuss whatever she meant to later. For now, I'd like some time alone with Edea, if you all don't mind."
"Not at all, sir," Quistis replied. She saluted him before turning to Squall. "I guess we ought to help her look for it."
"You two go on ahead," he told her and Zell. "I want to check up on Rinoa first."
"I… I'd like one of you to stay, please," Edea insisted. "To stand guard outside the room. Like I said, there's no telling when Ultimecia might possess me again."
"Say no more, Matron!" Zell volunteered on the spot.
"Are you sure you can handle it?" Squall asked him. While he agreed Edea ought to have some kind of security detail on hand, he questioned whether the overly excitable blonde alone would be enough.
"Why not?" he frowned. "You don't trust me?"
Not nearly that much…
"I just think you might need some backup is all. You've seen what her power's like. I'd feel a lot better if there was more than one person on duty."
"I'll stay with him if that's what you're asking of me," Quistis spoke sternly. "Commandant."
The title pierced through his heart just as when she'd addressed him by it in the halls of Galbadia Garden. Just as then, the implication was clear; he needed to start living up to the responsibility he now carried.
"I'll be counting on you two," he firmly responded.
Evidently satisfied, Quistis saluted him, and began towards the door with Zell. Squall remained standing in place; there was still more he had to ask of Edea. He turned to her as his comrades stepped out of the room.
"These visions Ellone's been showing me lately… I've learned so many things from them," he started. "I saw the time you met her father. He was the one who inspired you to start up the orphanage, right?"
"That's… that's right," she flinched, clearly surprised he knew. "It was so much more than that, though. He gave me the courage to pick myself up out of the rut I'd been stuck in for so many years, and the motivation to make a difference in the world."
"I'll say!" Cid chuckled. "It was like night and day when I finally came home from my business trip. Up and out of the blue, she tells me she wants to start taking in all the orphaned children she can, without any prior experience of being a caretaker. I'd heard of women catching baby fever before, but this was on another level completely."
"Oh, stop!" she blushed, playfully slapping his arm.
"I was willing to humor you, though, wasn't I?" he joshed her back. "Anyway, I told her we ought to start slow, with just one child, and work our way up. That ended up being Seifer… he was our one and only for a couple of years until we were comfortable and financially secure enough to start expanding."
"So, Seifer was… your actual adopted son?" Squall asked for clarification.
"I suppose you could look at it that way," Edea answered. "For those first 2 or 3 years, at least. He was always special to me, and I certainly never would have dreamed of letting someone else adopt him from us. But, that's not to say he ever got special treatment over the rest of you once we began taking more children in. We obviously didn't want him to end up being bullied over something like that. We even gave him my maiden name, 'Almasy', once we enrolled him in the Garden, to better distance him from us in that regard. It's a shame, but ultimately we stopped being his parents a long time ago."
No wonder he's always had a chip on his shoulder.
However well meaning their intentions, Squall could perfectly envision how Seifer's childhood neglect might have been responsible for his delinquent streak. Clearly, those feelings of abandonment had left an impact, just as they had for him after Ellone had been taken out of the orphanage. They'd doubtless made it all the easier for Ultimecia to manipulate him under Edea's guise.
"And it was also you who gave me 'Leonhart', right?" he pivoted. She smiled at the question.
"Yes. And from what I can tell, it's come to suit you very nicely."
Again, he embarrassingly averted his eyes.
"So, what else has Ellone been showing you?" she swiveled back around to his original point.
"More or less her father's entire life story. I couldn't begin to tell you why, though."
Of all the mysteries still weighing on his mind, there was perhaps no other he hoped to get an explanation for sooner.
"I… I see," Edea hummed. Her eyes, previously alight, had suddenly become distant. "Well, I'm sure she has her reasons."
"I'm not complaining," he told her. "I'd be happy to get another one from her soon, just to know she's safe."
"I think she'll be okay," Cid reassured him. "But there's no use stressing over it now. You said you wanted to see to Rinoa, right? Give her my best wishes when she wakes up. She's got guts."
Squall nodded, and prepared to take his leave. He stopped just before the door; he'd almost completely forgotten.
"Matron," he turned back to Edea. "What really happened that day at the orphanage? When that sorceress came."
He anxiously stared her down, his heart beating in his chest as he waited for an answer. She hesitated, seeming lost in thought. After a moment's contemplation, she met his eyes again.
"I don't know what you mean, Squall. I told you, I received my powers when I was 5. I've never met another sorceress."
Despite her best efforts to keep a straight face, Cid's own confused expression betrayed her lie. Squall likewise knew better; her own husband had already told him as much. And yet, whatever the reason for her reluctance, he was prepared to respect it. He had no intention of forcing the truth out of her, especially after all she'd laid bare already. With a curt nod, he turned his back, and stepped out of the headmaster's office.