and your fight-or-flight alarm. and you tremble and you stumble. and you scrape up your palms. WHO: Squall Leonhart & Seifer Almasy. WHAT: Their bro-breakup :'( WHEN: Fourth day of the mission. WHERE: Galbadia Garden auditorium.
It had been three days since they’d last seen Seifer Almasy. The cadet was missing, presumed dead.
But now he sat on an uncomfortable Galbadian bench, elbow resting on his knee, foot jittering against the ground as he listened for the distant rumbles of combat. They were in a huge and echoing auditorium decked out in Galbadian colours (with an enormous drapery that was, to Seifer’s eye, ostentatious as fuck). It seemed to be a room reserved for assemblies and guest speakers, now abandoned and near-empty -- Edea perched on the central podium as if giving a speech to a graduating class of cadets. Video screens hung on either side of her. They showed nothing but muted snow. There was a distant buzz in his ears, and for a moment he couldn’t tell if it was coming from the screens, or something else.
He glanced up at Edea; her pale shoulder was turned and her face averted, so he could only see the curve of her jaw. The sorceress’ thin-lidded eyes were closed, her head tilted back. The aeons had left with most of the dispatched SOLDIERs the day before, only leaving five lingering guards behind. And Seifer.
“Go,” she said. He rose and went into the back room.
Then there was the rapid clatter of footsteps on smooth marble -- he felt it more than heard it -- and the doors were thrown open, bouncing on their hinges even as he stepped away.
The sound of battle exploded in the auditorium while Seifer waited in the side room, one hand on the handle of his gunblade and his head resting against the wall. Waiting. One boot tapping on the floor. The minutes stretched out into what felt like hours, with spells cascading throughout the room beside him. What sounded like ice shattering. Anima screaming. And then Edea’s voice, the one word necessary to summon him back to her side -- Help.
Seifer threw the door open and stormed in, and then he saw the influx of students, like milling cockroaches swarming in the auditorium. Most of them were familiar faces, and he felt that pang of recognition like a blow to the gut. They were still dressed in their mission uniforms, looking more haggard for wear and some of them bloodied; Seifer had shucked his uniform days ago, changing back into his familiar worn trenchcoat as he took his place by Edea’s side.
They’re my classmates, he thought.
They’re trying to kill me. The soft female voice in the back of his head was plaintive, almost weeping. His heart rattled in its ribcage.
He stepped back onto the podium, moving between the SeeDs and the sorceress (the loyal knight) and reached out with one hand, helping the woman back to her feet. She’d fallen to her knees in a surprisingly graceful huddle, black dress pooled around her legs.
Seifer planted himself in front of the sorceress, and he only had eyes for the one. The boy with the blue eyes, the dark hair, the scar mirroring his own. There were other names and other faces in the small group, but a thread seemed to knot and tangle in the air, linking the two of them.
“Good job, boy scout,” Seifer said, taking one step down the stairs, then two, then three. The sorceress remained at the top, her hands splayed across her spilled materia. The air shimmered with a toxic lavender barrier that sealed up behind him. He walked towards Squall with full strides, his own body fully-healed compared to three days ago. (Though his arm ached from black gouges carved into his skin, a poisonous spiderweb tracing his veins.)
“Nice to see a familiar face again. So you made it to the inner sanctum. What are you gonna do now?”
It had been a treacherous journey to where Squall stood now. His muscles ached, his head throbbed in pain, and there was still blood, in fresh streaks across the side of his face and neck. The din of battle had become a distant buzz in his ears. His mind was racing, however. Racing with thoughts of what the final toll of this battle would be. The news that Seifer had died -- somehow he knew that Seifer (vainglorious as he was) wouldn’t give up so easily. Squall’s eyes narrowed, staying silent as he edged forward towards Seifer.
He was fully healed. It made Squall shift his eyes towards Edea, acknowledging that someone couldn’t have healed so fast without a modicum of help.
Squall was worse off, the lump in his throat was ever present as he huffed a sarcastic chuckle through his lips.
“I knew you weren’t dead.” he said, matter-of-fact but at the same time filled with a distant hope. Squall canted his head to one side, looking at Seifer with eyes that betrayed no emotion, that betrayed no sense of what he felt. Squall stopped yards in front of Seifer.
“I’m going to stop you.” His voice was calm, measured, yet authoritative. It took all of Squall’s resolve not to yell at him, chide him for being an idiot, or even ask him why he was doing this. Even though their relationship could be summed up in a simmering rivalry, Squall still respected the man -- the boy he had known for many years -- that stood in front of him. It was a bittersweet moment for Squall, that he faced him now at the climax of a bloody battle and standing in the way of victory. He gripped his gunblade, bringing it into the familiar battle stance to show that he was prepared.
Seifer hesitated for a heartbeat. Mouthing off was one thing, and sparring in the training centre was one thing -- but raising his sword now would be another issue entirely. And in the second that he paused, time itself seemed to slow. His green eyes (which looked paler than usual, hazed over and strange) caught on the sight of a dying SOLDIER firing his last bullets into the back of a familiar blonde figure. The hulking silhouette of the aeon shifted, and then Anima’s claws were raking two cadets who could only be Fujin and Kain.
Lightning. Fujin--
A stabbing pain drove between his temples, practically tracing the lines of his scar. Fire in his veins. Oh, Sir Knight, save me from the wicked--
His arm shot up, reflexively, and then he’d settled back into his gunblade stance mimicking Zefer from the film. Hyperion held unwavering and shoulder-level, whereas Squall clutched Lionheart diagonally. It was time to rid the world of these pests.
“Shame it came to this,” Seifer said, his voice hardening. “I was hoping we’d be on the same side in the end. I probably should’ve graduated before becoming a knight, but I’ve wasted enough time in that school already.”
Quistis was in the group, he realised with a start. And other faces he recognised. Luzzu. Xu. Relm, the plucky little sorceress.
There was another burst of agony in his temples -- Seifer suddenly surged forward in a fluid motion and their swords met in a clang of metal, colliding like two out-of-control trains.
The swords released a spark when they crashed into each other. Squall held his gunblade forcefully against Seifer’s own, like a mirror trying to overpower its own reflection. He met his opponent’s eyes for a brief moment before they parted, both skidding back across the ground. They both lunged forward again, Squall crouching to the ground to deliver a rising slash with his gunblade. Seifer deftly stepped to the side to avoid Squall’s attack, instead slashing his gunblade in a horizontal fashion to attempt to cut at Squall’s now-vulnerable abdomen.
As if picking up on that very fact, Squall quickly twisted around, pitching his gunblade vertically so that their gunblades met in a cross-like formation. Another spark was released from their battling blades. For a moment, Squall thought about how alike they really were.
Seifer used Squall’s gunblade as leverage, pushing on it to gain some momentum before jumping backwards. They circled each other, mirroring one another in all but their battle stances.
The entire world had shrunk down into this, these two, him and him, his heart pounding in his throat, and trying to anticipate Squall’s movements before he could make them. Action and reaction. One lunge leading to another parry, their weight shifting from foot-to-foot. Between Seifer’s height and his opponent’s exhaustion and pre-existing wounds, he had an edge. And he knew he had an edge.
But this wasn’t getting there fast enough.
His fingers flexed, knotting into a fist, and the Firaga materia in his wristguard started building up into a searing glow.
Flames balled against his palm and then exploded outwards, lashing out at Squall’s face, the heat almost enough to blister the skin -- the blond then leapt in, ducking under the other cadet’s defense and managed to drive the gunblade into his side, a spear of Longinus to the man he once considered a brother. Still considered a brother.
Save me from the wicked SeeD, she whispered.
Squall’s gunblade came up to block the incoming Firaga spell, magical fire ricocheted off the blade in all directions. The heat from the attack spilled over, he felt his hands burning but he kept his blade in front of him for a moment more.
A moment too long.
The squelch of blade entering flesh was all too familiar, all too apparent to Squall now. He felt the breath inside his lungs evaporate along with the remnants of the Firaga spell in front of him. The burning embers seemed to linger, as if time stopped for Squall alone. He struggled to breathe, pushing himself off of the blade and staggering backwards. Warm blood rushed out of the wound, wetting his shirt and, very quickly, running down his thigh. The second wound delivered by Seifer. For a moment, Squall couldn’t fathom Seifer -- a person he admired regardless of any wound he was given -- doing it. He realized it couldn’t be the real Seifer, he realized he didn’t want it to be Seifer and his mind began dipping in and out of lucidity.
Squall gritted his teeth, dragging his gunblade along the floor. Seifer stood up, blood dripping from the end of his gunblade. Squall lifted his own for a brief moment, enough to send a bullet flying out of the revolver. Seifer jerked once, smirking at Squall -- You missed. It wasn’t until the burning sensation clawed its way out of Seifer’s shoulder that he realized Squall had hit him square in the shoulder blade. Still pretty accurate, he thought, even when he was critically wounded.
Blood was seeping out of the wound, staining the tan coat red. When Seifer tried to raise the gunblade again, his arm shook -- the bullet was lodged in the bone, it seemed, a hunk of metal driving into the tendon. Seifer’s face contorted for a second, before he managed to wrestle it back under control.
“Sure you won’t reconsider?” he asked, a pained grin flickering its way into place. Their blood splattered the floor between them, gouged lines painting their back-and-forth across the auditorium. There were other battles going on around them -- SOLDIERs and cadets and aeons clashing in flurries of movement -- but Seifer still couldn’t stop staring at his rival. Unblinking. “We could go together, you know. Be her guardians.”
The gunblade clanged against the floor unceremoniously, Squall’s weapon hand barely holding onto it while his other hand held his still-gaping wound. The wounded rivals stared at each other in a sort of danse macabre, neither one letting the other out of their sight. His breathing had become shallow and labored, the blood loss was quickly becoming an issue. The pain was almost unbearable, it seemed like Seifer knew right where to hurt him.
“Reconsider your... offer?” he said through gritted teeth. Squall thought about it for a moment, weighing the choice he had to make with the consequences. He thought about the people fighting beside him, fighting outside. He thought about Celes. He thought about the person in front of him -- Seifer, his ‘brother’ and his brother.
This is where their similarities ended.
“My mind is made up.” Squall said firmly, cutting through the noise of battle that filled the air. He gripped his gunblade with a renewed vigor.
Those words cut into Seifer better than any gunblade could, and for reasons he couldn’t articulate to himself. Somehow the half-cocked idea of dragging Squall with him had seemed feasible, plausible, doable. There was a bone-deep familiarity to the other gunbladist; they’d always walked the same path, chosen the same weapon, even slept with the same women. His proclaimed rival understood him on a level that no other fellow cadet did.
He’d always assumed that wherever he went, there would always be a Squall Leonhart to counter him.
They faced one another across the slick floor, not moving. This was a diverging path, he knew; he could sense it like salt in the air, a sickening bitterness at the back of his throat that made it difficult to swallow. Like bile on his tongue.
“Fine. Have it your way.” More pressure on his temples, as if someone were clutching at his skull. Squall’s face seemed to be slipping, the skin sliding unpleasantly on his skeleton, his eyes gleaming yellow. Fire steamed from his nostrils. Teeth lengthened. Save me from the wicked dragon.
He felt like he was going to vomit.
No elaborate flourishes for his weapon this time; Seifer lunged forward and soon they were trapped in another cycle of smashing swords, crashing against one another, blades dragging across skin as they each managed to score a variety of hits.
He fought against the pain in his heart, in his body, and in his head, gritting his teeth to stave off the lightheaded feeling now clawing at him like a rabid cat. The swords clashed against each other, still a match for each other even with their wielders wounded. Blood still dripped from his wound, Squall felt it, but he put it to the back of his mind.
“You’re not— This,” he said with a low growl as their swords’ blades fought for supremacy. Squall doubled back, bringing up his hand and balling it into a fist. Lightning crackled around his fist as the Thundaga materia studded into his belt burst into his life. He pointed his hand forward and the lightning coalesced into his hand. Several lightning bolts rained down on the battlefield, cracking the marble beneath.
Like a lightning rod to the storm, Hyperion caught the blast; Seifer’s gloves didn’t protect him from the electricity coursing through his gunblade, and so he recoiled instead, his entire body spasming backwards. It sent him sprawling across the floor, back arching as he was shocked.
Seifer struggled to get back to his feet, collapsing back to his knees, then scrambling back up.
“If I’m not this,” he said through numb lips -- he’d bitten his tongue somewhere through the electrification, blood was pooling into his mouth -- “then what am I?”
But he didn’t give Squall a chance to respond. He went stumbling forward instead, balance askew, lungs heaving. One long final slash of the gunblade, and then -- at the last moment, Seifer turned the sword aside. Switching to the broad, flat edge, he knocked Squall squarely in the head with it, a blunt and stunning blow rather than a lethal cut.
The blow hit its mark, a sharp crack to the skull, and Squall crumpled like a doll with its strings cut.
And just like that, it was over. The knight was limping, his coat was red, the sword was red, and the dragon was still.