-------------------------------  
Standard FFIX and other disclaimers apply  
-------------------------------  

Streams of Life

Chapter 9: Streams of Life

-------------------- 

Dry lips cracked open, and a horse voice croaked. 
"Find...blue...light..."  

A moment of silence ensued, but not for long. 

"Find the blue light...and find your birthplace..."  

Kuja flipped over to lie on his stomach, fed up of being awakened by nonsensical mumbling from his bunkmate below.  He covered his head with the fluffy pillow and growled. 

"Uhh..." A moan came from the sick genome, and he started to struggle. 

The level of noise increased as Zidane began to thrash around on the bed.  A pillow hit the lamp on the table and the whole room went into complete darkness as the oil lamp fell onto the floor. 

A silver-haired man groaned, "Mikoto! Watch the monkey, won't you?" 

Nothing happened. 

"Oh shush, Zidane!" 

A long wail came from the bunk below the long-suffering Kuja, forcing him to unwillingly sit up.  Feeling cold, the silver-haired one wrapped the blanket around himself and started going down the rungs of the ladder.  Tired in both spirit and body, his attention slipped and his body fell.  And if that were not enough, his back hit the table leg as he landed on the hard wooden floor.  

Groping around, he found the lamp, still intact except for the glass cover.  He supported himself with the help of the table and set the lamp atop it, lighting it with a small fire spell.  The first thing he saw absolutely appalled him. 

His hand was covered with blood where the broken glass on the floor had cut him.  Then his gaze rested on a particular finger.  Embedded in his fingernail was a glass shard from the lamp, and he winced as he pulled it out, not at the pain but at the sight.  Half his fingernail came off with it and he was about to go hysterical.  If it ever left the smallest of scars...no, he refused even to imagine it. 

"My pretty hand!  Now I'll have to wait weeks for my fingernail to recover!"  Wallowing in self-pity, the pale genome meticulously cleansed his injured hand set at the foot of the double-decker bed. 

After a few minutes, it then sank into him that his brother had stopped moving and was awfully quiet.  He snucked over to Zidane's bed and stared closely at the sleeping boy's face.  He took a damp towel and soothed the blonde's forehead.  As he did so, the young boy stirred, and started moaning.  

"Why can't I find the blue light?  Why can't I find where I belong to?"  The golden strands of hair hung over his shoulders, as the dim yellow light from the lamp gave the silken gold a soft warm glow.  Two streaks of tears were highlighted by the lamplight, and a hand reached out.  

The hand felt something soft and immediately grabbed it, causing Kuja's head to press against Zidane's chest.  

"Quit grabbing my hair!"  Hissed the irritated Kuja as he tried to untangle Zidane's fingers from his long hair.  His ear could hear Zidane's erratic heartbeat and it tickled his eardrums when Zidane spoke.  The taller genome pushed himself away from Zidane and watched the poor boy try to grab something.  Kuja reached for a pillow from his own bunk and pushed it to the boy.  The young genome grabbed it and hugged it for a while, but then threw it on the floor afterwards. 

"I'm not from Gaia!  Don't come near me!  I'm the Angel of Death created by Garland, I wasn't born...I was created..." 

Kuja raised an eyebrow, and decided to refute the latter statement.  

"So what's wrong with being created?" 

As if replying, the crying boy sat up, eyes still tightly closed.  

"I'll die soon, I know and I feel it.  My life span is modeled after Kuja's.  I'm not going to outlive my fate...I'm from Terra, Dagger...I can't go back to you.  Even if I do go back, I'm not going to live long, and it'll upset you...I'd rather if...I just...I just...died at the Iifa tree when I went back for Kuja!" 

Kuja felt that a knife slowly impaling his breast at that statement.  He felt his anger rising and struck a loud slap across Zidane's face.  The silver-haired youth felt his face starting to redden from anger, but it soon became a blush of regret.  He opened his mouth to apologize, but felt choked. 

Zidane opened his eyes and stared ahead blankly, tears still slowly forming and rolling down his swollen cheek. 

Kuja could feel his own eyes wetting, out of frustration or out of despair, he did not know. 

"I'm not going to live long enough to be together with Tantalus...or even with Dagger..." The blonde boy whispered, still trying to control himself from breaking into sobs. 

"Shut up..." Kuja hissed, wiping his face with the blanket that covered his cold shoulders. 

"I'm an angel of death...I'm not meant to live on Gaia..." 

"I SAID SHUT UP!"  

The older man shouted, his voice on the verge of breaking. 

Everything was silent. 

Kuja wanted to break down then and there.  One of his only companions in the whole world had just said the cruelest things that dug his heart out and pierced it through with a thousand needles.  Controlling his sobs, he rested a hand on the younger Angel's shoulder and took deep breaths. 

Zidane's tears would not dry, and more tears followed uncontrollably from the shock of being slapped physically and verbally. 

"Look.  Garland created us both.  *I* am the Angel of Death, not you.  You'll live longer than I do."  Kuja offered consolation as he pulled the young boy into his arms and embraced him tightly.  His fingers dug into Zidane's flesh as he continued.  "I will personally make sure you live longer than I do." 

A hoarse voice hesitantly questioned beside the taller man's ear.  "Then what about you?" 

Kuja felt a strong wave of fear sweep over him.  Fear that he thought he would never again feel after resigning to his fate.  Zidane had just addressed his worst fear right in front of him.  Gripping Zidane tightly, the pale destroyer of Terra could only grit his teeth and hope for the terrible feeling of apprehension to pass. 

"Don't be afraid, there's nothing to fear, nothing at all..." Kuja whispered again and again beside the younger genome's ear, not knowing who he was consoling now.  The pale one gently soothed the boy back into lying down on the bed and stroked the blonde's hair, trying to coax him to close his eyes and rest. 

Zidane refused to sleep, and kept moaning softly, eyes half open.  Then he reached out and grabbed Kuja's shirt violently, thrashing on the bed again.  A greenish glow was starting to spread around Zidane.  Kuja pulled up Zidane's shirt and immediately saw that the glow was strong at his abdomen where the small bit of the life essence of Gaia life was lodged in.  The glow had spread from there.  

Kuja seemed to know what to do. 

"Hold on, Zidane!  I'm going to dissolve this lifestone in your body.  Just hold on, you hear!" 

With that, Kuja firmly pressed a hand onto Zidane's abdomen and started to concentrate.  Instead of just lying still like what Bobby Corwen did in Kuja's earlier experiment, Zidane started to squirm.  And as the life force of Gaia liquidified, he started to thrash and scream. 

With a hard jerk, Kuja was flung off the bed.  Quickly clambering back onto his feet, Kuja tried to pin the violent genome down, only to be rewarded with a kick in his gut.  As the taller man felt warm, sticky blood soaking through his shirt, he realized that he was he was hit at the same spot where the Tree-like monster attacked him in the afternoon. 

Overwhelmed by pain, the silvery-haired one bent over and threw up.  Fighting hard not to pass out, he crawled his way back to Zidane and clamping a hand down on Zidane's forehead, he chanted a sleep spell. 

**************** 

"Can you hear me?"  A girl's voice echoed through the communication systems of the Invincible 3.1 Beta Experimental.* 

*Note: Which I shall just call it the Invincible for convenience's sake. 

"Roger that, but who are you?" Blank shouted from the pilot's wheel as Cinna spooked out from the creepy monotonous female voice. 

"I'm Mikoto.  Who are you?" 

"Oh, so you're Zidane's lil' sister, eh?  I'm Blank!  I'm his friend too!" 

"Good, that means you're on our side.  Look, that stampede of monsters is heading in the direction of the Black Mage Village.  I need you to help me stop them." 

Blank scratched his headband.  
"Well, I would help, but I don't know how to fire this ship.." 

"I'll tell you how.  Now please pay attention." 

Mikoto grabbed the fur on the silver dragon's back and concentrated on her telepathic link with the ship's public announcement systems. 

The monsters below were of all variety, coming from the direction of the Iifa tree where the concentration of the monsters was the highest in the area.  As if attracted by something, they were all united in destination. 

Granted that the village, being hidden, would be able to confuse most of the monsters, but the numbers were still too large. 

Blank grabbed the firing controls and tugged at it.  Aiming at the front line of monsters, he fired from the safe haven of the skies. 

One big beam of light went down like lightning and fried most of the monsters in the front line. 

"Woah!  I'm beginning to love this baby already!"  Blank exclaimed.  Even Cinna was getting interested and kept trying to peer over Blank's shoulder to look at the controls.  With another button, the spiky-headed bandit fired a rain of smaller torpedoes that exploded upon contact with the monsters below, scaring and scattering the hoard below into different directions.  

With the Invincible, the monsters were like ants. 

Meanwhile, Mikoto watched with satisfaction as most of the monsters either gave up or headed back for the Iifa tree or went in different directions from the Black Mage Village.  It was then she suddenly remembered something. 

"Blank, I need to tell you something," she directed to the redhead pilot onboard the airship. 

"Aye aye, Cap'n!  We're preparing to fire one more big laser beam at those critters to get rid of the rest of them!"  Blank reported. 

"No, I mean, I wanted to tell you that the ship..." 

The Invincible fired, but at the same time, it began to cough out smoke.  The shot was comparatively weaker than the first shot and only managed to wipe out one or two more monsters.  The ship began to shake and weird noises came from the artillery section.  When the noise stopped, everyone concluded that the firing mechanism of the ship had just died. 

"...cannot be fired more than twice."  Mikoto completed her sentence. 

"Oops."  The two Tantalus bandits chorused in unison. 

Mikoto sighed.  Although they have gotten rid of most of the monsters, there were still at least a dozen making their way in the direction of the village.  A quick calculation would mean that perhaps a couple might still make it through the hidden guise of the village. 

Without hesitation, she rushed back into the village in hope of reaching there before the monsters could to alert all the black mages. 

-------- 

Outside, the whole village was gradually awakened from slumber.  He could hear Mikoto's voice shouting orders amongst the hustling and bustling.  There were mages outside who started to call out for others to wake and form formations in preparation for the defense of their village.  

Glad that she was still around to take care of the village, Kuja threw the whole world behind him and focused on this one and only task at hand. 

"If anything should go wrong...he might be taken over by Gaia's life force..." Kuja debated, and observed the trembling boy's strained features.  Even under a sleep spell, Zidane was in pain. 

There was no way he could extract the lifestone.  It was deeply embedded, and to take it out might result to further injuries, as he could feel that it was tightly bonded to the rest of Zidane's organs. 

To merge it would be equally dangerous as well.  Being of Terran blood, the lifestone might fight against the Terran life force instead of merging together. 

Regardless, he had to address this problem now. 

Suddenly, a brainwave hit him. 

Kuja chuckled softly. 

"Why hadn't I think of it before?  Terra tried to assimilate Gaia's life force before.  Everything will work out just fine.  All I need is to make sure that Terra's lifeforce must take control of Gaia's and let Gaia adapt to its new vessal...and there's one way I can do it." 

A sly grin was on his face as he held a hand above the lifestone in his companion's body and concentrated the Terran lifeforce to surround the Gaian one.  Sensing that it might not be strong enough, he sucked the lifeforce out from his own body.  Gathering it into his palm and pressing his hand down slowly, he was pushing his own Terran lifeforce into Zidane, to completely force the lifestone to disperse, and to help release the dispersed Gaian lifeforce slowly so as not to let the blonde's body go into a state of shock.  The Gaian life refused to dissolve, but as it was dispersed and bonded with the Terran lifeforce, it calmed down and strengthened the life within the body. 

"I promised that you'll live longer than me, and I'll make sure I hold true to my words...just this once."  Kuja grinned, finally having the upper control and confidence to win this battle. 

Kuja was burning his own life force into the blue energy congregated into his hands to aid the healing process.  His cold perspiration a thin coat around him glistened in the pearl-like moonlight that was finally seeping through the window. 

He was witnessing a phenomenon he had never seen before - the merging of two different streams of life, not fighting each other, but co-existing peacefully without destroying another. 

Gaia. 

Terra. 

Co-existing. 

********************

"Firaga!"  A group of mages stood together and fired at the incoming plant monster.  The strongest of fire spells worked wonderfully in incinerating the monster thoroughly.  Mikoto managed to get all the Genomes to gather at the heart of the village, away from all the battles, serving as cleric and healers while the black mages attacked the trespassers. 

Efficiently, the monsters that came through the barrier were either killed or driven out of the village on sight.  The genomes and the mages complimented each other by being able to attack and heal in the fastest possible time. 

After a few monsters, the mages still stood strongly in formation, the ones weary from battle immediately moved to the back of the ranks to prevent any serious casualties and were attended to by the Genomes for first aid if necessary. 

They waited patiently for the next monster to come; each and every one of them prepared to defend their village.  However, nothing came.  Mikoto made use of her telepathic link with the Invincible and contacted Blank. 

"Blank, are you still outside the Black Mage Village?" 

"Heheh. Still standing at post, cap'n!  Never moved an inch from where we were!" 

"How are the monsters there, anymore still heading our way?" 

"It's weird, there's a small handful left, but they're all heading back to the Iifa Tree.  But why did they head for the village in the first place?" 

"Maybe there's nothing left for them to pursue now?" Mikoto wondered aloud to herself. 

"I asked someone who's helping us keep watch outside the village, and he says there are no more monsters coming this way now," Mikoto announced, to the relief of everyone. 

After all that excitement, no one seemed to be able to get back to sleep.  There was a lot of chatter going around, especially when most of the genomes and some of the younger black mages had never seen battle before.  Rest assured that there would be many of them awake and staying in the village square in defense of the village for the night, the youngest Angel of Death ran back to her hut to look for her older siblings. 

Upon rushing in, she was stunned for a moment.  Running over to Kuja, she shouted for the medics for help. 

"Mikoto...you're back..." Kuja weakly stirred.  He was lying on the floor. 

"What happened?"  Mikoto gasped as she saw the blood on Kuja's shirt and his lips that had became more pallid than his face. 

"Zidane's fine now..." 

"What happened to both of you?!"  She commanded an answer as she propped Kuja to sit against the bedpost. 

Amidst the noise, Zidane woke.  Tired and aching, but feeling very much alive, he clamored over the bed and quickly looked at what Mikoto was panicking about. 

"The lifestone...is gone now.  It's all a part of you now, Zidane."  Kuja explained, trying not to throw up in the process. 

"So that was what was attracting the monsters." Mikoto grimly concluded.  

Zidane sat right beside Kuja, flustered.  "Are you gonna be okay, Kuja?" 

"Tell me, Zidane...what was the ending of the play 'I Wanna Be Your Canary'?" 

"Well, Cornelia died protecting her father and her lover killed himself...but what the heck has that gotta do with you?"  The sunshine-genome was worried-sick.  His older brother was sprouting gibberish.  Straight away, he held a hand to Kuja's forehead to feel for a fever, but there was none.  In fact, it was strangely icy to his touch. 

"Many years it has been performed...but no one...was able...to change this play's ending..." Kuja gave in and started to cough.  Mikoto stroked the older genome's chest in hope of easing the coughs, but her frown deepened as she saw specks of blood flying out as he coughed. 

"I struggle in life...but I'll never be able to change...my ending." 

"You have a hellava imagination, Kuja, comparing a play to your life."  Zidane complained, though his voice strained from trying to control the panic that was swelling up within him. 

"Life's a stage, my lovable genome." 

"Shut up, Kuja, don't talk as if you're dying."  Zidane brought his fist to the ground and bit his lip, his eyes swollen red from the sheer urge to release tears.  His nose was already beginning to run and his voice was turning nasal. 

"Don't worry...that...lifestone has made your life longer than it originally was..." 

"I'm not worrying about that!"  Zidane cried out, reaching out and grabbing Kuja's sleeve.  Mikoto's lips were bleeding as she bit firmly into them, tears welling up in her eyes.  She grabbed Kuja's other sleeve and tugged at it repeatedly. 

"Kuja...don't go away, please," she said softly, and added, "we'll change the ending of the play, so please, don't go..." 

Zidane nodded fiercely in agreement with Mikoto and slipped his arms around Kuja to lift him onto the bed.  The pale man's skin was cold, and his hair, moist from cold sweat, stuck to his cheeks; his arms hung over Zidane's like a broken porcelain doll.  

Kuja's eyelids fluttered as his breathing became more labored.  With Zidane's warm arms still around him and Mikoto's hands supporting, his lips slowly cracked into a weary, yet gentle and yielding smile. 

"I...resign to fate..."  

With that, he stopped struggling to breathe, and slipped into a long, undisturbed slumber. 

------------------- 

- End Chapter 9 - 

-------------------