Happy birthday to thebaconfat! Have another chapter of the Final Fantasy VIII/Final Fantasy XIII crossover I am writing hilariously slowly.


Title: With These Signs Upon Our Souls, Chapter Six
Fandom: Final Fantasy VIII/Final Fantasy XIII
Rating: PG-13
Wordcount: 2,700 (this chapter; 14,100 cumulative)
Summary: The exam brief is simple enough: protect the fal'Cie from the Timber resistance. Squad B are about to get the mission as wrong as humanly possible.

Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five



Ellone.

More and more memories Squall didn’t know he had are coming back as he crosses the square towards her, his legs unsteady: Ellone laughing, smiling at him, comforting him, before Matron took them all on a trip to Timber and everything went wrong.

“We should’ve killed that fal’Cie,” Seifer mutters. “Forget our Focus; let’s go back and finish the job.”

Squall lays a hand on the plinth. He tries to pretend it’s not to keep his balance.

“She lived in Winhill, didn’t she?” Quistis asks. “Before she came to the orphanage.”

“We were all there,” Zell mutters. “Well, apart from Rinoa. That’s so weird. I can’t believe I forgot. There was another kid as well, right?”

“Irvy,” Selphie says.

Quistis nods. “Irvine. I wonder what happened to him?”

There’s an inscription on the slope of the plinth. Squall is expecting the usual clichés – the gods now grant you life eternal; though we are mortal, remember us – but when he leans in to read it he finds it’s something more personal and altogether stranger.

Guess you’re home again, huh? it says, and then I knew you’d be beautiful. I’m sorry I wasn’t there, and then, in very small letters, somewhat ruining the effect, Paid for by the Timber Maniacs Memorial Fund.

“Did we all forget?” Quistis is asking. “How did that happen?”

“You know,” Selphie says, “back in Trabia there were all these rumours goin’ round about GFs...”

Squall can’t concentrate on what’s being said behind him. It’s not just the shock of remembering; something... something strange is going on in his head. Is it...?

He looks up at Ellone, at her face, at her blank eyes. Her features are so familiar. It’s so hard to believe he had no memory of her until a moment ago.

“Can you... hear something?” Squall asks. ‘Hear’ isn’t the right word; it’s as if he’s catching flickers of visions and thoughts that aren’t his own. It seems impossible, but... “I think it’s coming from Ellone.”

Rinoa comes up beside him and tilts her head, listening. “Oh, hey, that’s weird. There’s definitely something.”

Are these Ellone’s thoughts? Is there still some aspect of her trapped inside that crystal statue? Squall has seen her crystal once before, although he’d forgotten until now; he doesn’t think he heard anything then, when he was a child. Can they hear her now because they’re l’Cie as well? Or because they’re l’Cie of the same fal’Cie?

“I think she’s dreaming,” Rinoa says.

And then there’s a high-pitched whine in Squall’s head and he stumbles away from Ellone’s plinth just before his vision cuts out.

-
Squall wakes lying on sun-warmed cobblestones and sits up abruptly, pulling his hand away from Rinoa’s. They’re still in the centre of Winhill; Ellone is still on her plinth, trapped forever in crystal. “It was another dream,” he says, getting to his feet. “Laguna. He was here, with Ellone. Selphie, Seifer, did you see it as well?”

“Aw, I missed Sir Laguna?” Selphie asks, shaking her head, and that’s when he realises that Zell and Quistis are just waking up.

“I saw it,” Quistis says. “Ellone was very young, wasn’t she? I think I was Kiros. That was... extremely strange.”

Zell sits up, rubbing his head. “Huh. I was... I was the other one, I think. Ward. But I wasn’t here. He was working in some prison somewhere. Pretty quiet guy.”

“Now that you mention it,” Quistis says, “I don’t think Ward was in my dream. I mean, I don’t know what he looks like, but there didn’t seem to be anyone by that name. Squall?”

Squall shakes his head.

“Come to think of it,” Quistis says, suddenly, “Kiros said something about Ward being a prison janitor.”

Actually, Squall remembers that as well. “D-District.”

“Okay, this is seriously weird,” Zell says. “So we’re having these linked-up dreams, but it’s not always the same ones of us? I mean, Seifer was this Ward guy last time, right?”

“Do you think it’s a vision of our Focus?” Rinoa asks, frowning.

“Unless our Focus is to clean a prison, I don’t see how my dream could’ve meant much,” Zell says. “How ’bout you guys?”

“Well,” Quistis says, glancing over at Squall as she speaks, “the dreams certainly seem to be targeted at us. I’m just not sure what they mean.”

“If the fal’Cie wants us to do something, why can’t it just tell us?” Seifer snarls.

“Seriously,” Zell says. “Does it think this is funny or something?”

Ellone was in that dream, Squall thinks. A younger Ellone, but he’s sure she was the Ellone he knew. Does their Focus have something to do with her? She was a l’Cie of the same fal’Cie, after all.

What was her Focus? Nobody ever told him.

He looks at Ellone one more time; she’s frozen with one hand half-raised in front of her, gazing into the distance with her empty eyes.

Squall turns away. There’s nothing but unwanted memories here.

There’s a newspaper lying open on a bench a few paces away, near the edge of the square. Squall walks over and flips it closed to check the front page, more for distraction than anything else.

SEERESS YEUL DIES FOLLOWING ‘OMINOUS’ PROPHECY, the headline reads.

“No way!” Zell exclaims, snatching up the paper. “Yeul died? I liked her!”

“Did you know her?” Rinoa asks, concerned and sympathetic.

Zell flushes. “Well, no, but... I always thought she was kinda cute.” He sits down with the paper, focuses on the article. “Man, and she was so young! This is really sad.”

There’s a moment’s silence as Zell reads.

“Hey,” he says, his tone changing, “I think you guys need to hear this.”

“What is it?” Rinoa asks.

“This prophecy thing,” Zell says. “There’s a lot of stuff about... Time Compression? I don’t know, it doesn’t make a lot of sense. She – Yeul, I mean – she was talking about someone in the future, way in the future, someone at the end of time trying to, like, push all of time together. Anyway, it’s not a good thing.”

“Time Compression?” Quistis leans down beside him to look at the article, tucking her hair behind her ear. “I see. So everything that’s ever happened would exist at the same point and just... repeat, forever. You can’t live in a world like that.”

“What’s your point?” Seifer asks.

Zell glares at him. “You haven’t heard what she actually said yet.”

“You haven’t told us, moron.”

Zell’s fists clench, hard. “Why the hell are you—”

“So what did she say, Zell?” Rinoa cuts in.

Zell looks a little startled, his hands relaxing. “Uh, yeah,” he says. “Sorry.” He looks back down at the newspaper. Squall is privately relieved; they have enough problems already without fighting each other.

“In the end, there will be four,” Zell reads aloud. “The Guardian, the Seeress, the Wanderer and the Sorceress. Two seek to save time, two to destroy it. The Sorceress lives apart and alone; her name is Ultimecia. In a world without a future, she will bring the past to her. In our age her efforts will make themselves felt. Our hope lies in six l’Cie.”

There is a moment’s silence.

“Six l’Cie,” Quistis says, quietly.

“It’s gotta be us, right?” Zell asks. “I mean, how often do six people get the same Focus?”

“You said it’s a prophecy about the end of time,” Squall points out. “A long time in the future, probably. There could easily be another six l’Cie chosen between now and then.”

“What do you guys remember about our dream?” Zell asks.

“When we got our Focus?” Selphie asks, thoughtfully. “Well, there was a clock, right?”

Zell nods. “Exactly! So our Focus’s gotta be something to do with time!”

“Maybe it’s our Focus to open a watch shop,” Seifer says, rolling his eyes.

“Whatever,” Zell says. “I think this is our best lead right now.”

Rinoa nods. “Six l’Cie,” she says. “And time. And she said the effects would start in our time, so it makes sense that the l’Cie would be chosen now. I think Zell’s right. Maybe this is it!”

Seifer frowns. “Guess it might be worth looking into,” he says, after a moment.

Zell and Rinoa high-five. They seem hopeful, but Squall isn’t sure why. If this really is their Focus, how are they supposed to complete it? The sorceress – ‘Ultimecia’, according to Yeul’s last words – lives far in the future. What does the fal’Cie expect them to do: kill her ancestors?

“It might not be our Focus,” Squall says.

Seifer shrugs. “We’re dead either way,” he says. “Might as well save all of time.”

Well, that’s one way of looking at it.

“They’re never gonna forget us if we pull this off,” Seifer says, half to himself.

If they fail, Squall thinks, there won’t be anyone left to remember. It’s almost a comforting thought.

-
Squall stays in the Winhill square for a while after that, sitting on the bench, his head down. He’s vaguely aware that the others are around, wandering off on their own or discussing their Focus, but he’s just thinking, trying to ignore the occasional indistinct whispers and images that seem to drift over from Ellone.

Is she really still in there? Is this the kind of existence they have to look forward to? That’s if they even complete their Focus; maybe they really are meant to stop this sorceress in the future, but how are they supposed to reach her?

There’s the sound of footsteps that don’t belong to any of the others, and Squall looks up sharply, but it’s just an old woman walking across the square. She lays something on Ellone’s plinth: a bouquet of white flowers.

Quistis has noticed the woman as well. “Did you know her?” she asks.

The woman looks up. “Oh, hello,” she says. “Don’t see many young faces around here these days. Yes, I knew Ellone when she was very young.” She looks over at Ellone and sighs. “I suppose she’s still very young now. Such a shame.”

“She was a friend of ours,” Quistis says.

“I’m sorry, dear. She was such a sweet girl.” She shakes her head. “And her poor parents, and then being stolen away like that... I just think she’d been through enough. Couldn’t the fal’Cie have found someone else?”

What?

Squall gets to his feet. “What do you mean, ‘stolen away’?”

The woman blinks. “Oh, did she not tell you? I suppose it must have been difficult to talk about. Yes, she was kidnapped, if you can believe it. Adel’s soldiers. They thought she had some sort of... power to see into the past, something like that. All nonsense, of course. That young man, Laguna, he—”

“Sir Laguna?” Selphie exclaims.

The woman frowns slightly. “I wasn’t aware he’d been knighted. But he did bring that girl back, for all his faults.”

-
When the woman leaves, Squall is even more confused than before. Laguna is a real person? What does it mean?

What it means in Selphie’s mind is evident enough. “Sir Laguna is real,” she says, clasping her hands in front of her with a sigh. “Maybe I’ll get to meet him!”

And then she runs off, to do whatever in Selphie’s mind is the logical next step. Maybe she thinks she’s going to find Laguna here, now.

“Don’t go too far,” Squall says, but he’s not sure whether she hears it. Seifer’s already gone off on his own somewhere. If they decide on where to go next, they’re going to end up wasting time herding people together.

“How is this possible?” Quistis asks. “I don’t think any of us knew about Laguna before, did we?”

“Maybe we forgot,” Squall says. “We couldn’t remember Ellone.”

“Hey,” Zell calls, standing next to Ellone’s crystal, “have you really listened to this?”

-
When he concentrates, Squall can pick things out in the vague whispers coming from Ellone. A few words, a few faces. At one point he catches a glimpse of himself as a child.

“Was that you?” Rinoa asks, laughing. “You were so cute!”

Squall ignores her.

And there’s Kiros, in the pictures from Ellone, walking across the square they’re in now. There’s another man next to him: long hair, gun at his hip. Squall doesn’t know exactly what Laguna looks like – he’s only seen through Laguna’s eyes, and the guy hasn’t been helpful enough to look in a mirror while Squall’s been in his head – but he’d be prepared to bet that that’s who it is.

“Were we... overhearing her dreams?” Quistis asks, frowning.

“But we were nowhere near her the first time, right?” Zell asks.

And why would Zell have been Ward at the prison when Squall was Laguna in Winhill? Was Ellone dreaming both of those things simultaneously? She couldn’t have been with Ward when he was at the prison, so was she just making that part up? How much of what they’ve seen is real? None of this makes any sense.

Unless what Adel’s soldiers thought was true. Unless she really could see into the past. Still can, it seems, even though she’s been turned to crystal. And somehow she can show that past to other people.

Did she make a conscious decision to show them? It doesn’t seem like she has any consciousness left; they haven’t seen or heard any clear thoughts from her. It’s probably not something she can control.

“Maybe she’s been transmitting this stuff the whole time,” Zell suggests. “Like, a long way. Like the radio interference. And we can pick up on it now because we’re l’Cie.”

“Or because you knew her,” Rinoa says. “I mean, I can see stuff when I’m near her like this, but I haven’t had the visions you guys have. I guess the l’Cie thing made a difference if you didn’t see them before, but I don’t think it’s just that.”

“Well, we’ve only had two visions,” Quistis says, “and Squall’s the only one who’s had both. We can’t be sure that they’re passing you by just yet.”

Squall tunes out the others and goes to sit on the bench. When he remembers that he can still hear Ellone from there, he goes to lean against the wall of one of the buildings instead. He doesn’t need this. It was easier when he couldn’t remember what he’d lost.

“It’s getting late,” Quistis says eventually, looking up at the sky. “We should probably look for a place to spend the night. Rinoa, do you know of anywhere?”

Rinoa nods, and that’s when Selphie comes skipping back into the square, dragging a murderous-looking Seifer behind her.

“I found Seifer!” she exclaims, gesturing grandly towards him. “And...” She produces a stack of magazines with a flourish. “I found Sir Laguna!”

Sir Laguna apparently looks a lot like several old issues of Timber Maniacs.

“I asked around,” Selphie says, “and Sir Laguna ended up becoming a travel writer!” She frowns slightly. “Some of the people here really don’t seem to like him. But I started asking people if they had any of his articles, and I got these!”

-
Squall is slightly disconcerted when the place Rinoa books them in for the night turns out to be somewhere he’s been as Laguna: a room above a bar adjoining the square. Not everything is exactly the same – not really surprising; it must have been fifteen or twenty years since the time in his vision, judging by Ellone’s age back then – but it’s unmistakably the same place. If they hadn’t already learnt that Laguna was real, walking in here would have told him that their experiences have been more than just dreams.

A woman called Raine lived here. If Laguna is a real person, perhaps Raine is, too, but there’s no sign of her now. Maybe she moved on. Squall can’t imagine spending two decades in a place like this: a tiny village with nothing to do, no distractions. He thinks too much as it is.

They settle down and try to sleep, an effort occasionally hampered by Selphie’s efforts to regale them with Laguna’s articles.

“Weird things can happen when you’re on the move,” Selphie reads aloud. “I’ve never had a GF, I’m not a l’Cie, and you can probably guess I’m not a sorceress either. But a couple of times—”

“Selphie,” Zell groans, “please stop talking.”

Selphie huffs and flips the magazine shut. “It was interesting!”

“Sleep’s interesting,” Zell mumbles.

And maybe it’s just having a clearly-defined goal at last, even if they’re yet to work out the method, but Squall actually manages to fall asleep fairly quickly.



Chapter Seven