Chapter Text
Disclaimer: I make no claim whatsoever to the characters or world of Final Fantasy VIII, which is the property of Squaresoft/Square Enix.
Chapter I
"Rinoa, I know it's still you in there."
"I know it is."
The young man stepped closer, too close, his slate-blue eyes gazing into hers.
Stay back, she thought desperately, as her fingertips twitched and tingled with a limitless power she knew she would not be able to control.
"I'm going to bring you back to me. I promise".
No Squall, don't, she screamed silently in her mind, as he placed a hand on her bare shoulder.
His face, that beloved face more familiar to her than her own, was far too close now, and the throbbing at her fingertips increased until it was almost all she could feel. Nononodon'thurthim I'llstopyouI'llstopyouIwon'tletyou, she shrieked inwardly as a cold, cruel voice spilled out of her lips.
"You're no longer any use to me, Knight."
The man's eyes widened in shock as the lightning that pulsed from her fingers surged straight into his heart.
Rinoa's chest heaved with hysterical sobs, as she struggled to open her eyes. A heavy pressure informed her that her arms and legs were restrained tightly. Through the tears she could see a gleaming white room, medical equipment, and a man. Long hair falling in front of his eyes. Laguna, she thought dimly.
"They said you were screaming his name."
Laguna's voice was harder than she'd ever heard it, and his expression was guarded and cold. Rinoa was suddenly struck by how much he resembled his son when she'd first known him. His son… his son… Squall.
She felt a cold, sick emptiness grow within her as the realization returned. Squall, dead in her arms. Squall, dead at her own hands.
"So which one of you is in there now?" Laguna asked, his eyes fixed on hers, as if trying to read something from her face.
Rinoa tried to speak, but nothing came out. She breathed out one last juddering sob, then tried again. "It's me. I mean, I'm in control of myself again, but I don't know for how long."
Laguna gazed at her for a long moment, then his hardness seemed to soften slightly. He believes me, she thought.
"Please, Laguna… kill me. Please."
Laguna sighed and shook his head. His eyes were red, and his preternaturally youthful face suddenly seemed so much older than when she'd last seen him.
"Can't do that. Your magic will just be inherited by someone else as soon as you die, and the power will only grow stronger with each generation. We can't allow that, Rinoa. We're going to seal you in the Sorceress Memorial, like we did before."
Rinoa felt panic rising up in her. "No, it won't hold me anymore. It won't. I'm far too powerful now. I'm much stronger than Adel ever was. I'll break free as soon as the magic comes back. I know I will."
Laguna looked at her with more than a shadow of misery in his eyes. "You may be right, but what else can we do?"
Rinoa looked away. "I don't know. I just want you to kill me. I deserve it. Please."
Laguna sighed again. "You know we can't. It won't achieve anything."
Apart from ending my pain, thought Rinoa emptily. She looked back at Laguna, who seemed to have tears forming at the edges of his eyes.
"Laguna? What happened to… his body?" You can't even say his name, you coward, she thought with a surge of self-loathing.
Laguna's tears spilled out down his cheeks, and she felt the gnawing void grow within her. "A retrieval team from Esthar Garden took him after you were restrained. They had a hard time prizing him from you, even though you were unconscious. You wouldn't let go."
She remembered that. She'd clasped onto him for hours, or maybe even days, screaming, sobbing, weeping, as the corrupted magic left her back in charge of her own mind, for however long until it next claimed her.
"He's being taken to be buried at Balamb, along with Quistis and Zell."
Rinoa looked up at Laguna in horror. "I killed them too?" The abyss inside swelled and threatened to consume her.
"Yeah. You took out about forty SeeDs before Squall got to you. You'd completely flipped."
Rinoa closed her eyes. I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry. Her dearest love. Her dearest friends. Obliterated by her cursed power.
"I… couldn't stop it. Even with Squall, I could see myself doing it, but I couldn't stop it…" she whispered. She looked up at Laguna again, whose tears were now flowing freely.
"I know that you didn't choose this, Rin," he said thickly. "I can't imagine how much pain you must be in, knowing that you were the one that did it."
"You're probably the only one to see it that way," replied Rinoa dully. But what did it matter now? She didn't care any more if others hated her. No one could ever match the hatred she had for herself.
"Maybe," he replied. "I can't speak for the world, but I don't blame you for what's happened. I… I'm at fault as much as you are." He slumped in his chair.
"How could you be?" asked Rinoa, finding it almost impossible to tear her thoughts away from the image of Squall's cold, unmoving body.
"I was the one who asked you to take Adel's powers in the first place, right?" he replied wretchedly. "I didn't bother to think about what consequences that would have for you. But it's not only that. Right up to when he died, Odine kept warning me to monitor you closely. He thought your magic would get corrupted as time went on because of your exposure to Ultimecia. Said that even though she was defeated, the fact that you were a receptacle for the combined power of all the future generations of sorceresses was enough to warp your magic permanently. I guess he was right." Laguna cast his eyes downwards. "I ignored him. Didn't want to believe it. I couldn't. Seeing the person you were, seeing how much my son loved you…" He broke off, and covered his face with his hands.
Rinoa was silent. There didn't seem to be anything to say that could effect the slightest change onto this hell she had created. She wanted to feel sorry for Laguna, desperately sorry, but all she could find inside herself was emptiness.
Laguna took a deep breath and looked back up at her. "You really think the Memorial won't hold you?"
"I'm sure of it," she replied quietly. "I don't know what you can do, but that won't do anything."
"Can you feel the magic coming back yet?"
Rinoa closed her eyes and tried to feel for her Sorcery. It was there, somewhere, faint but pulsing; but the sickening loss of control and the terrifyingly deep currents of cruelty were not. Yet.
"No. I think the shock of …losing Squall shook up my mind and let me slip back in. But it's only a matter of time, I think." So kill me, and do it quickly, she thought hopelessly.
Laguna raked his hand through his long hair. "Okay. I'll have a team go through Odine's old lab and see if we can find anything at all that might look like another option. If not, I'm still going to go with the Memorial plan." He stood, and reached for the door.
"I'm going to have them put you back under now. I assume you understand that we can't risk keeping you conscious any longer than necessary." He looked at her with an unreadable mix of emotions and turned to leave.
Rinoa nodded, and closed her eyes, knowing that she would welcome the oblivion.
And yet, oblivion did not come.
Sorceress.
Against a dim background of gray - stone? - Rinoa could discern a wispy figure flickering in front of her.
I know you, she thought. I've seen you somewhere. But her drowsy mind couldn't place where that was.
You stood in my tomb once, the figure imparted to her, in a sound like rustling leaves.
And then she knew that she had. The Tomb of the Unknown King. Three years ago, before their failed attempt on Edea's life. Standing next to Squall, she had watched with concealed awe as he addressed this ghost of a long-dead ruler as casually as if he were speaking to a shopkeeper.
Why? Why are you here? And how? she asked.
Spirit is not bound in the same way as flesh, the apparition answered. As for why… I believe there is a way to remove the curse of your Sorcery. I know there is little time before it returns to claim you.
Rinoa opened her mouth, but found herself speechless. The wispy figure seemed almost to sigh.
You already know that I was a King. Hyne… was my Queen. My wife.
What? But.. in our legends, Hyne was a man. I mean, a god. A male god. We say that he made mankind, then split his body in half, and left Sorcery to us, Rinoa had never exactly taken the old creation myth literally, but to hear Hyne described as female was bizarre.
Quite an imaginative retelling. The truth inevitably becomes warped and distorted over so many centuries. And it cannot have escaped your notice, Sorceress, that history is always written by men, not women.
Rinoa remained silent. She could not argue with that.
Hyne was, nevertheless, a woman. She bore me seven daughters, each a Sorceress. My wife was the source of all Sorcery in this world. But she came from another. She was mortal, but akin to what you call Guardian Forces. She crossed from their realm to ours. I was a young man, and I saw her face through a waterfall. She stepped out, in all her resplendent beauty. It is a pity that the day we met did not survive in your legends. She was a glorious sight.
I… I don't understand what any of this can mean for me, Rinoa imparted.
You have a friend who can visit the memories of others. The sister of your slain Knight. Bring her to the place where my body rests, and…
Ellone? He could only mean Ellone. But what could Ellone's powers do for a ghost?
I believe that if she takes you to the moment that my Queen crossed through the waterfall, you could prevent Hyne from ever leaving her dimension.
The spirit's words sunk into Rinoa, as did the sheer impossibility of his plan. I'm sorry, but we can't. Ellone always said that she could never change the past.
On her own, or through the eyes of your Knight, she could not. But your nature is different to theirs. You possess the magic of thousands of Sorceresses. Magic only grows and multiplies over the generations. You have become more formidable than Hyne herself ever was. I believe that your powers are strong enough to reach across time and bend reality to your will, as Ultimecia did.
Rinoa's thoughts spun frantically. Could it be possible? Could this be a deranged hallucination, or even some sort of trick?
Why? Why would you try to help me by telling me how to remove your wife from history?
A wave of sadness and infinite weariness washed over her as the spirit sighed again. My Queen did great things. Great things, and terrible things. And the legacy she left on humanity has grown into a curse that corrupts everything it touches. Your pain and suffering called out to me across the ether, amplified by your magic. But countless others have suffered even more. Sorcery has brought only pain to this world. And my role in creating that pain has become clear to me over time. I was always at her side, as her Knight. I did things I cannot bear to remember. My regret consumes me.
The spirit seemed to waver at the edges, and Rinoa again felt a great weariness seep out from his presence.
I have long wondered why I still linger, so many centuries after my death. I have come to believe that only atonement for my sins can release me from my bond to this world. If you succeed, perhaps my suffering will end along with yours. I ask you for selfish reasons as much as any other.
I… don't know, she thought.
The faint wisps of the spirit seemed to be drifting apart from each other.
Sorceress, I believe this to be the only way to free this world. Bring the memory-walker girl to my tomb. ...Please… End this.
The gray gloom faded from before her eyes, and Rinoa was alone again.
Rinoa woke to find herself looking into the fearful eyes of a young Esthari soldier, with the cold metal of a gun barrel pressed into her neck. A nurse in surgical scrubs and a mask stood at the soldier's side, holding a syringe ready.
"Are you -"
Rinoa once more struggled to form words."It's me. I'm myself," she croaked. The gun did not move from her throat. "I need to speak to the President, and Ellone Loire. It… it's important."
"Tell me first," the soldier said, but Rinoa could see the panic flicker in his eyes.
"No…" she mumbled. "It's got to be them. You can put me back under until they get here."
The soldier's gaze shifted to the nurse, who nodded. "Do it now, then," he ordered, and the needle sunk into Rinoa's thigh. She barely registered the pain as her eyes drifted closed once again.
When she next opened them, Ellone and Laguna were sitting on two chairs by her bed. Laguna was wearing different clothes to before, but his exhausted demeanor suggested that he had not slept since then. Had it been hours or days, Rinoa wondered.
Ellone's brown eyes were hard. Rinoa could sense that the older girl did not possess Laguna's all-encompassing empathy. She probably only sees a murderer when she looks at me, she thought.
Ellone spoke first, and her tone was cautious. "Seems like it's her. For now. You'd better talk quickly, Rinoa. Why did you ask for me? I can't take you back to just before you killed Squall, and stop it from happening. You know it doesn't work like that."
"I know that." Rinoa took a deep breath, and haltingly described the visitation from the Unknown King, watching as Laguna's eyebrows rose higher and higher, and Ellone's frown deepened.
Laguna leaned back. "A dream?" he wondered.
Rinoa shook her head. "Definitely not. I don't know if his plan makes any sense, or if he was even telling the truth, but I know that he reached out to me. It was as real as this conversation."
"You've been on some pretty heavy sedatives, though," Laguna reminded her. "They might be messing with your mind."
"No," said Rinoa firmly. "He was here. Or I was there. But it happened." She hesitantly looked at Ellone. "Do you think your power can be used in that way?"
Ellone's brows were still knotted together. "I don't see how it could. A ghost? When I was… when I was being experimented on, they tested how far go back I could go. I was able to go back to decades before my own birth, as long as the person whose memories I was seeing was old enough. But, centuries… into the memories of a spirit? I'm sorry, but this is…" She tailed off, unable to find a word to describe the incomprehensibility of the idea.
Laguna was running his hand through his hair, and Rinoa could almost see his brain firing up. "We've pulled off impossible things before, Elle. It's not much crazier than going into Time Compression, is it? Or blasting Adel into space."
Ellone looked at him sharply. "You're considering this?"
Laguna shrugged, and for a moment Rinoa saw an echo of Squall's mannerisms in his father's bearing. She swallowed painfully. "You don't need to keep me awake while you discuss it. We don't have time before my magic starts come back, right? If you do… if you do decide to go, you can transport me while I'm out and bring me round when we're there. The burial chamber's on an island at the center of the tomb. There were some monsters there when we went, but they were fairly weak-"
Laguna dismissed her explanation with a wave of his hand. "We'll work out the details. I'm Galbadian, remember? Went there plenty of times when I was a cadet. Never saw the ghost, though." He frowned. "I'm not saying we'll do it, Rinoa. I'll put you under, then call a council with Kiros and Ward. And you too Elle. This is going to be down to you, after all."
Ellone's features were set in a grim line. Rinoa could see that she thought that Laguna was already half-sold on the idea. "If it doesn't work, or you don't want to try it, just do whatever you choose. Kill me, freeze me, build another space station. I don't care." She laid her head back on the bed, suddenly weary.
Ellone caught her eye uncomfortably and looked away. "Laguna, call the nurse in," she said quietly. "Let's get her back to sleep."
Tap. Tap. Tap.
Rinoa's awareness seeped back into her sluggishly, as something cold and metal rapped lightly against her temple. Her eyes slowly opened to focus on Ellone's wary gaze. "She hasn't turned yet," the older girl announced, as she withdrew the metal object and looked down to fumble with something at her belt.
Rinoa's vision slid over to the gray stone walls of the Tomb of the Unknown King, covered with sprawling carvings of ancient glyphs, and she squinted as she took in the square of bright sunshine streaming in from the small skylight above.
"Stand down, men," came Laguna's voice from behind her, sounding out of breath. Rinoa turned to see the four armored Esthari soldiers standing at the back of the chamber bring their guns down to their sides, and in front of her Laguna with his arms braced against his knees, panting.
"Carried you," he huffed, in way of explanation. "Gave me a new respect for Squall, gettin' you all the way to Esthar from Fisherman's Horizon by piggy-back. That son of mine's sure got…" He realized what he was saying, then looked away bitterly.
"I told you to let the troops take her," said Ellone tersely.
Laguna shook his head. "No. My responsibility." Rinoa could not make out his expression in the gloom.
She looked over to Ellone. Squall's sister had two handguns strapped to her waist and was wearing a white ceramic armored vest over black clothes. Rinoa realized that it must have been the hilt of Ellone's gun that had jolted her awake.
Ellone's expression was grim. "Do you feel your powers returning?", she asked Rinoa in an impassive voice.
"Not yet." she replied. "But as soon as you see me start to look like I'm changing, kill me."
Ellone shook her head. Her tone was subdued, but her eyes were stony. "If you die here, your magic will pass to me." Her jaw set in a way that reminded Rinoa of Squall. "And there's no way I'll let that happen."
"Those guys have tranquilizer guns," said Laguna quietly, gesturing with his head at the soldiers standing at the back of the room.
"That won't be enough," said Rinoa, feeling her fear growing. Would her Sorcery come back suddenly, and Laguna and Ellone both be lying dead at her feet within minutes?
"Then we'd better act fast," said Ellone, without emotion. "This is the casket, isn't it?" She gestured at the stone coffin at the center of the room, the lid slightly ajar. "It's open."
Rinoa nodded. "When we came three years ago, we freed him from his coffin after we defeated the GF that was here, but I don't think the King left the tomb itself."
I am here.
She felt him before she saw him, a soft haze that dissipated under the ray of light from above.
Are you prepared? Time is against us.
Ellone was gazing up at the Unknown King, her mouth half-open. "I don't know how to… forgive me, but well, you have no body…"
"You see somethin' there, Elle?" Laguna asked from behind. Evidently, the ghost had only made his presence known to the two women.
In your usual way, Memory-walker. I do not need a body to open my past to you. My memories are all that is left of me.
Rinoa watched as Ellone seemed to take a deep breath, and then in an instant found herself blinded by bright sunshine, a brisk breeze whipping her hair around her face.
She and Ellone were standing on a grassy bank beside a fast-flowing river, with a slender, impossibly long waterfall splashing down from reddish-brown rocks that towered far above, many times higher than the tallest trees.
"You did it, Elle," said Rinoa, half disbelievingly. The stunned look on Ellone's face told that she felt the same.
Rinoa could not make out the dim wisps of the Unknown King's spirit in the dazzling sunlight, but she felt him at her side. "This is your past?" she asked, wonderingly. "I've never seen a place like this anywhere."
You stand before Heaven's Gate Falls on the old Centra continent, he replied. These lands lie under the sea now, but in my lifetime this was the longest waterfall in the world. In our oldest legends, the barrier between realms was said to be thin here. My curiosity led me to visit this place.
Rinoa saw that Ellone had turned around, and followed her gaze to see a huge, creamy yellow chocobo slowing its pace, with a young man sitting astride. He dismounted with ease and knotted a rein attached to the chocobo's neck firmly around the trunk of a tall cedar tree. The man was handsome, with sandy blond hair and a closely-trimmed beard, and was dressed in simple robes of a style Rinoa had never seen. She watched him as he gazed over at the waterfall.
"Is… is that you?" she asked.
Yes. A face I have not seen for centuries. I had almost forgotten it.
Rinoa felt a rush of pity for this ghost and his interminable wait for release. The strong-looking youth in front of her was a sight that was impossible to reconcile with the weak strands of light that were now his only physical form.
Ellone spoke, her voice uncertain. "Should I try to send Rinoa's consciousness into your body?"
No. Do not allow me to see Hyne. My fate was sealed the moment I looked into her eyes.
"But, we need to possess someone's body to move around in the past. We can only observe like this. That's how my powers have always worked…"
Hyne is no human. The force of your magic will allow you to interact with her, Sorceress. Go to the waterfall.
"What do I do? Just talk to her?"
Neither the ghost nor Ellone answered, and Rinoa turned her head towards the tumbling, frothy water. The sun was blazing bright in the sky, the air impossibly fresh. How can the distant past feel so much like a brand new day, she wondered.
She walked slowly across the grass, aware that she could feel the thin green blades bending under her feet. How can that be? Are my feet leaving footprints in the past? she found herself thinking, and looked down to see that her boots had left no indentation at all.
She was close to the waterfall now, and felt cool droplets of spray hitting her face. She stepped down to stand on a large rock that jutted out of the pool of water at the base of the falls, and the splashing on her face intensified, as did the rushing sound in her ears.
Her eyes searched the cascading water carefully, looking for any sign of something unusual. Then without warning, she felt an implosion of shock in her chest as the dim outline of a humanlike figure turned slowly around behind the white froth. I have to do this, I have to do this, Rinoa told herself as she stepped, trembling, into the water.
The waterfall, the blue sky and the sunshine all vanished at once, and Rinoa found herself standing, almost floating, in a starlit void. She could feel dread and bile rising in her throat at the familiarity of her surroundings; this was just like the place of her nightmares, of the time she had barely escaped death out in space. And this time, Squall's strong arms would not be there to bring her back to safety.
Rinoa willed herself to focus on her only companion in the void, a painfully beautifully woman with jade-colored skin and thick tangles of green hair like snakes slithering down her shoulders. Hyne, called Rinoa, and watched as the woman's blindingly bright silver eyes locked onto hers. Rinoa fought down the terror that shuddered up from her feet to her legs and lower body.
You are Hyne, she willed herself to say.
The voice that rang back at her was deafening, like a thousand bells chiming at once. Yes. What creature are you?
Human. This realm is ours. I will not… I will not allow you entry, she stated, desperately hoping she sounded stronger than she felt.
Would you defy me, little human girl? smiled the woman, and Rinoa's insides twisted at the sheer power that radiated from the being. How would you try?
I carry your powers, strengthened through the generations.
Hyne seemed to study Rinoa's face, fascinated. You walk in time?
Yes. I have returned to this day to stop you from coming here.
Hyne laughed, which was somehow both a light girlish giggle and a hellish churning cacophony of sound. You tell me that my power will grow through thousands of lives, and you think that will make me turn away? You only tempt me to your realm all the more.
Something in Hyne's voice called to the dormant magic deep within Rinoa, and to her horror she started to feel her Sorcery rising up, trickling along her arms like warm water. No! Not now! she thought to herself in desperation.
"Hold yourself together." A small, firm voice rang clearly in her mind.
"Ellone?" she whispered back. "Are you here too?"
"I'm with you. In your mind, but I'm with you. Rinoa, you've got to stop panicking," she admonished.
Rinoa's arms trembled violently as the reviving Sorcery crept and swirled under the surface of her flesh. Hyne was watching her lazily from afar. "I don't know if I can keep a hold on my magic. What if I turn it on you and Laguna? Our bodies are still in the tomb, right?"
The calm strength in Ellone's voice served to anchor Rinoa's mind to her jittering body. "It seems to me that you have two choices, Rinoa. You can try to do this, or you can give up and die. Squall believed in you. Prove him right."
Rinoa took a gulp of air, and fought to breath it out slowly. She took a step towards the strange, impossible being in front of her, and forced herself to be the person Squall thought she was. His face as she'd last seen it flickered into her mind for an instant; exhausted, determined, hopeful. For you, she told him fervently. I love you.
Hyne. You have one more chance to turn away.
Hyne's lips curled into a terrifying smile. You amuse me, little one. And if I do not turn away?
"Now," Ellone was calling to her, and Rinoa let go: she let the magic flow, rise up and spill out. Her Sorcery responded with vigor, pouring and bursting out of her hands as jagged bolts of lightning, searing waves of fire and shards of ice that crashed into Hyne in unrelenting succession. The surprise on Hyne's face was visible only for an instant as her image seemed to tear apart like shreds of paper; then she was sucked backwards into nothingness as if falling out of an airlock, and Rinoa felt herself being dragged forcibly away in the same manner. The next few seconds were a jumble of confusion as she returned to the dazzling daylight in front of the waterfall, where the sky suddenly seemed to be hurtling towards her as the world started to collapse on itself.
The rocks at the top of the waterfall were tumbling and crashing, the trees were shrinking, and the ground shook and crumbled under her feet. Rinoa felt a delicate hand gripping hers with surprising strength - Ellone? - as the rising winds whipped faster around her, swirling into a vortex and screaming painfully in her ears, until the deep, dark oblivion she so craved finally rose up to meet her, dragging them both down, down, unimaginably down, to where there was nothing but silence.