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Standard FFIX and other disclaimers apply ------------------------------- Streams of Life Chapter 6: The Tree of Life // represents someone's thoughts -------------------- "Life..." Vine after vine, branch after branch, leaf after leaf. "Death..." All entwined tightly together around the tree trunk, refusing the slightest entry to it's interior. "I do not fear either, yet a sense of helplessness overwhelms me." A man in his mid-twenties pouted at himself and gave a snide snort. "Who would care to possess a sense of helplessness at this time?" Tuning his mind to more important things at hand, Kuja gave full attention to The Tree. Hovering his palm over the twigs of leaves, he observed each slightest movements of the plant. "The Iifa tree is still reacting to Necron's defeat, it seems. It may be no longer as violent as to attack anyone, but it seems extremely defensive to intruders...perhaps it is protecting something?" A curious little twig curled around Kuja's pallid hand, not noticing a grin forming on it's observer's face. "Flare!" A blast of pure red-hot energy rushed and slammed itself into the layers of leaves and vines surrounding the giant tree trunk. Almost immediately, the layers of stubborn protection around the tree trunk was disintegrated into ashes. The trunk itself was much more obstinate, scratched only by burn marks. The silver-haired man lowered his arms from the spell-casting and examined the base of the tree trunk where the roots stood out like solid sea waves. There was another mess of vines and roots creeping up slowly to cover the precious entrance to the core of the tree. Little bits of glowing greenish light seeped through the roots covering the base of the tree, confirming the position of the gate. A low growl sounded, quiet and gentle. Kuja perked up his head to see his silver dragon a little away from where he was. "Ah yes, I should give you your last orders before you and I part ways." The majestic dragon fluffed up its feathers for a while as would a bird, totally at ease as Kuja walked up to it and stroked its chin. Having been with Kuja for weeks, the feathery creature had became quite comfortable with its master.* The creature bowed its head lower to meet the tall man's eyeline. *note #1: That would include the dragon finally coming to terms with Kuja's queer habit of (silver dragon) feather plucking. "Perhaps this will be my last task for you, my pretty one." Kuja smiled, his eyes blank as he leant his forehead against the dragon's cheek, passing his message mentally. With an agonizing screech, the dragon's wings flapped and the warm wind surrounded Kuja for a moment. The blank look in the man's eyes turned to slight despair for a second, before narrowing into a menacing glare to match the smile on his face. For that moment, he gave the same confident expression as he did in the during his past battle with Bahamut. Marching back to the base of the Tree, he held out his outstretched hand. "Flare!" That did the trick. The hardy roots finally relented and he was granted entrance. The tall youth sashayed his way into the Iifa Tree, the entrance slowly closing up behind him. Without glancing back, the purple-armored youth made his way as deep into the tree as he could. Pricking up his ears to listen to any slightest sound that may have been made, he navigated his way through as inconspicuous as he could manage. It was probably hours before he finally found the base of the tree. Giving in to a long-suppressed yawn, Kuja stretched as he settled down beside a platform, a device of Terran technology. His estimated destination was not far; he could feel a peculiar pressure exerting on his senses that tensed him up. At first it was not uncomfortable, but now as he sat there staring downwards at the supposed direction of Gaia's life source, something in the air tempted him to wince. Before Kuja could give a strong shudder to express his uncomfortable disposition however, he was shadowed by two beings. "Nice of you to provide me shade, but I have not need for any indoors," sneered the silver-headed one who got on his feet, and held out a hand on which a ball of red glow started take form. -------- And a flash of bright light hit Zidane in the face. "Oww!" The monkey-tailed one exclaimed as he cupped a hand over his pained eye. The other hand put the pain-causing culprit on the groundsheet and joined its other half in easing the pain out of Zidane's eye. "I may not be good at such gadgets and gizmos," a young girl commented from a metre off, "but I do know that examining a torch by looking into it is not a wise method." "Yeah, yeah." The older genome grumbled. "What does this torch run on? I don't see lamps of this sort hanging around just anywhere." Realising that Gaia was a world still in the oil-lamp age, Mikoto briefed Zidane a little on basic Terran technology in the area of illumination while having a light supper of dry biscuits. Zidane scratched his head, "Say, Mikoto, is there such technology in Terra for someone to control a whole airship with telepathy? You know, just by mentally communicating to the airship?" "Honestly, I don't know." Mikoto answered as she spread out the sleeping bags in the tent. Sitting down on her side of the tent, she started to lean lightly on the sturdy tent support. Zidane
supplemented his question.
"I believe so. I have not seen Garland himself performing this same feat of controlling the ship from a distance. Yet Garland can break the Invincible away from Kuja's controls when he's in the ship." Zidane shrugged, trying to add into the analysis, "Maybe if someone is in the ship, the control by the physical pilot is stronger than a mental one?" "Perhaps so, Zidane...perhaps so. Let's just retire for the night, we'll need the rest." Smiling, Mikoto tucked herself into the sleeping bag right beside Zidane's. Looking at his sister, Zidane sighed. The young blonde girl would probably become a fine young lady in no time. Maybe she already is, being too mature for her appearance? The furry-tailed boy crawled over to his sleeping bag and leant over Mikoto, observing her features. He had never seen her this close up before, and somewhat felt that he never really understood what she was thinking. The only quote from a play he could think of at the moment, was when a particular villain who commented that his father 'was a walking mass of complexes' when he was one himself*. *note #2: You play FFVII, don't you? ^_^ "Which very well describes you, you mass of complexes and confusion," Zidane whispered aloud teasingly, earning him a tweak on the nose from his sister, who stared at him wide-eyed for a moment. "Speak for yourself. And go to sleep." She snapped. "You sound irritated. I didn't know you can be annoyed!" Zidane gave a cheeky smile, which was returned by a wrinkling of Mikoto's eyebrow. "That means you're normal, girl. You know, I never really got to see you laugh or cry before." "Maybe next time." A sleepy voice answered nonchalently. "Geez, you're no fun." Reclining from his crawl, Zidane sat there, stretching his tired arms and was just about to reach for his blanket when he realized that he was just about to sleep beside a girl. "Mikoto," he tapped the young one's blanket, "I almost forgot you're a girl!" "So?" "You sure you are comfortable sleeping with me?" "What's wrong with that? We're all genomes." "I'm a guy, Mikoto. You know, a boy, a male?" There was no answer from the dozed off girl. Zidane was beginning to feel his first pang of confusion caused by a female. A female who totally ignored him, for that matter. Having looked at her face, she was only a child physically. "You're my sister, and I've only got Dagger in my heart. Besides, you're still a kid, eh," Came Zidane's conclusion as he lay down and rolled over to have his back against his sister, mumbling, "though I wonder why you don't behave like any kid I know of. Maybe...you don't even know what it's like to be a child?" The blonde boy switched off the lamp and stared straight ahead, although seeing nothing as his eyes had not adjusted to the darkness just yet. //Did Kuja have a childhood at all? It's ironic that I would have became a second Kuja if I weren't raised in Gaia and given a childhood of my own. However now...I'm no different from him. In fact right now, I'm stuck in the same situation as he is! He probably doesn't know that 'it' is happening to me too...Geez, I somehow think I know how he feels about the whole issue... I'm no different from him at all, not even a bit... In the end, I still can't defy fate...// All the youth could see was an image of a refined looking girl with a pained look on her fair features forcing a smile as she tried to say goodbye. "I promise, I'll try my best to make this not an eternal goodbye...by the sun and the twin moons, I hope I'll find a solution to my problem." Clenching his fist under the blanket, the youth closed his eyes. //If it would really have to be a goodbye forever, I won't go back to you to even bid farewell...I won't, Dagger...I can't. I hope you'll understand...// With his train of thoughts getting more and more incoherent, the young man was soon lulled to sleep with such despairing thoughts. ---------------------- The morning started off with a full scaled warm-up for the Tantalus bandit, who was faced with three Zaghnols the moment he stepped out of his tent. Flicking the icky monster innards off his precious Orichalcon thief daggers, Zidane was not as cheery as normal. There was something not quite right about these Zaghnols, he had noted. The boar-like creatures were more uptight and reckless than usual. In fact, they seemed more bloodthirsty then they usually are. Even wounded, not one of them had given any thought to escaping or healing themselves, but blindly throwing themselves on the Orichalcon. Even to the last breath while being impaled by the dagger, the Zaghnol was snorting and snapping away, trying to bite off Zidane's hand. Normally, the agile bandit might have jumped back in surprise, but he had seen too much happening in his recent teenage life that would let this be shocking. ---------- "Nothing
is more shocking than death itself, my dears."
There was a low groaning rumble from the bottom of the Tree. Kuja could feel more monsters approaching, and not wanting to waste time or energy, he hopped on the leaf-life platform, making his way down the long, spiralling column.* *note #2: The 'long spiralling column' was the exact description used in the Final Fantasy IX Official Strategy Guide by Dan Birlew. "Kuja..." The low rumble started becoming intelligible to the silver-haired man's ears. "...Soulcage. You're still conscious. I thought Zidane and his gang had knocked you out cold for the next few centuries the first time they visited you." Kuja sauntered over to the edge of the jade cliff overlooking the green liquid that is Gaia. A tree shook its branches and bent over from underneath the cliff to face the Genome. Bricks and roots covered the old tree's branches, and while it seemed merely a small branch compared to the majesty of the Iifa Tree, Soulcage still towered over Kuja completely. "I can't die, as long as the Iifa tree has life in it yet. It's strange I awoke recently. There seems to be some sort of a disturbance around here." The old tree reported in a raspy sort of voice. Kuja
folded his arms and tapped his foot, trying to think of all possibilities.
Suddenly looking up at the messily crowned tree, the pale genome inquired. "Is there some sort of energy amplified here? Perhaps there's a part of the life energy here that has became more powerful or stronger?" Soulcage's mouth pursed up, and wrinkled his bark of a nose in realization of what may have happened. "The Life Stone." Nodding his head, Kuja agreed. "A phenomenon that happened once every few centuries - materialization of the life energy into solid state when it reaches a peak of concentration. It must have been left the liquid life at the bottom of the Iifa tree here, or it would be slowly melting back into Gaia itself." Taking
a long-drawn breath and heaving his shoulders, Kuja stated his new-found
responsibilty.
As he spoke, weariness was slowly claiming him. It was way past his naptime and he was getting grumpy. A risk now would be safer and wiser than a risk later, Kuja thought. With Soulcage's big presence around, monsters would not detect him. He decided to find a more or less hidden corner behind the large rock on Souledge's cliff and rest until he was ready for more action. He could still feel a strong pressure on him, as if something was opposing to him inside out in this Iifa Tree. Being too tired to do anything, he chanted a reflect spell followed by a protect spell to lighten the pressure. "I'll think of that problem later..." The silver-furred Genome set up a tent, stretched and then curled into a ball, preparing to take a light snooze amongst danger itself. ---------- Zidane sneezed. Mikoto made sure she was many feets away from Zidane before letting out a restrained sneeze. "You know, Mikoto, I've a feeling that we'll be doing all the work while Kuja is lazing somewhere once we reach the Iifa Tree." Mikoto actually agreed with Zidane rather affirmatively for once. --- - End Chapter 6 - 12:41am
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