The rest of the tale came and went. Kuja listened with his hands folded, his eyes closed. He focused most on keeping his breath even and his panic subdued. He’d lost his control at the truth of his impending death. That, at least, he could believe. Even now as irrelevant as it was, his teeth grit against the pain that threatened to rise there.

In his wrath, he’d destroyed all of Terra. Yes, that too seemed plausible -- rational even when he’d been denied everything and that planet stood as the mocking symbol of what he’d hated most. Its sterile air, its artificial surface, and the vacant-eyed dolls that populated it. Even now with his mind cleared and his wounds dulled with time, he wouldn’t mourn that place. In fact, its end was the only solace in this entire story.

Poor Garland. Conscious just long enough to see everything he’d built burned to ash.

The next part seemed…less plausible. Yes, Kuja had learned theories of Memoria. And he supposed it could have been possible to tear open a dimensional gate to it given enough power, but would he really have gone so far as to end all of existence -- both past and future?

Somehow he doubted it. Even so, he could imagine himself at the crystal’s edge, watching it with morbid fascination. It came to him in vague echoes like a dream lost within a dream. The violet expanses of unformed space. The disorienting sense of vertigo as he hovered effortlessly above it. And that sickly light engulfing him in ghostly potential.

Would he dare lay a hand upon it? Would he commit the final taboo? Would he take his own life…?

The rest was nonsense. He dismissed it mostly as delusion or perhaps a trick of Memoria. Yet still that memory remained. Would he have done it at the end?

No. Not unless he’d had his back against a wall. By Zidane perhaps. Such terrible irony that his end would come at his successor’s hands. After everything Kuja had done to prevent it. After all his tortured nights setting his plots into motion. It had all come to the same end. The hands of fate were nothing if not cruel.

"Zidane felt you were still alive in there. He...he....he went back for you. He said you were still alive, and that was the last time I saw him."

”What?” Kuja had almost lost track of the mage’s words, at least not until he and Zidane were mentioned again. Zidane had come to him. He’d abandoned his friends, his future, perhaps even his life for...what? ”That’s not...” Kuja shot the mage an incredulous look. ”I don’t understand.” The words reflected dully like light upon still water.

’I don’t understand you.’

The mage wiped at its eyes. Odd, its physiology shouldn’t have allowed it to cry. It was all for Zidane, he presumed. It seemed there were many left behind who mourned him.

"Everyone and everything matters, Kuja.” The words came foolish and naive, but the mage spoke them with a strength that opposed its nature. ”Because of you, there's almost no mist left in Gaia. All my friends learned something, and I learned what it meant to truly live and then to die.”

Kuja laughed to himself, hollow and humorless. Was that what his legacy had left behind? Nothing but puppets and meaning carved from trauma? At least he’d rid the world of Terran influence but that came as little solace. With him gone, none would remain who remembered it. None but his nebulous “sister”, he supposed.

”Why would he risk his life for me? That’s..” Insane. Foolish. And yet, it twisted something within him. Zidane had known. Everything he’d been, everything he’d done. He’d known it better than anyone, and yet as Kuja was at his most vulnerable, Zidane had come. The idiot. He’d been impulsive to the very end.

Kuja ran a hand through his hair. The sky above came clear and blue. A faint wind touched pleasantly at his cheeks, and the desert heat held him in its warm embrace. This was what he’d most enjoyed about life -- not his plots or his victories or even the revenge he only vaguely recalled. When he’d first stepped from the Invincible’s teleporter into a world that breathed, he’d been stunned by its beauty. He’d almost forgotten his initial admiration.

”That planet was doomed.” For once, the words came unbidden. Unplanned. Natural even in its own wistful way. He touched at the water’s surface and marveled at the cool sensation. It slipped between his fingers like silk. ”The people. It was my purpose to slaughter them in the end. It would have been foolish to-” There was that old pain. That old resistance. His lips pursed against it.

”To grow attached.” He trailed his finger across the water’s edge as though stroking the neck of his dragon. Yes, she was something he’d cared for at least. ”You said you found meaning in friendship. Tch. That’s such melodrama. Yet I can’t help but wonder if I…”

His reflection mirrored back a dull gaze. Sharp blue eyes like ice. Glittering orange eyeshadow angled into points. His ghostly pale complexion, his face sculpted as though by an artist’s hands. He himself was nothing but a living doll, a puppet he supposed, strung along by cruel hands. Garland had foreseen everything. Every betrayal, every thought, all of it except for the true extent of Kuja’s wrath. Garland had built in a fail safe of his own. Kuja could have laughed at the irony if it hadn’t been so painful.

”After everything, I don’t know what to…” He took a long breath and smirked to himself wryly. ”Perhaps you understood life better than I did.”

He rose finally to his feet. That was enough for now. Already, his soul ached for silence. ”I need time. And perhaps…” He ran a hand through his hair over that stubborn feather of his and the soft downy that tangled at its roots. ”Zidane.” The word came sudden as though it had been there all along, lying in wait for this moment of revelation. ”I need to speak with Zidane.”

The words felt wrong, almost blasphemous, but there could be nothing else. This mage -- this boy -- had taken him as far as he could. As for the rest, he’d need someone else. Someone who could finish the story in its entirety. He needed Zidane.

Kuja’s eyes shot back to the boy. Vivi. ”You’ve been searching for him. Perhaps I’ll do the same. If he’s even here. As though fate would grant me that.” There was that dry smirk again. He tilted his head to consider the sky. ”We’ll speak again. Perhaps I’ll even take you to the desert’s edge. I don’t care what you do so long as you don’t bring judgment upon me.” He gave the boy a dismissive wave and started away. Already his mind was churning. He needed time. He needed silence. And after that…

Well, he didn’t know what he needed after that, but perhaps Zidane would point him in the right direction. Oh, how low he’d fallen. Seeking advice from an idiot.

”Until then, Vivi.”

ulla