Welcome to Adventu, your final fantasy rp haven. adventu focuses on both canon and original characters from different worlds and timelines that have all been pulled to the world of zephon: a familiar final fantasy-styled land where all adventurers will fight, explore, and make new personal connections.
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year 5, quarter 3
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The name had haunted him for weeks, months, perhaps for the entire sixteen years since his successor's creation. Zidane. It was such a terrible name. It came bitter off his tongue and darkened everything it touched. It was a herald of a new era. The pinnacle of a fool’s perfection. The harbinger of destruction to the one thing that mattered most. Him.
And yet, Zidane was the only person that Kuja could trust to tell him the truth. The irony didn't fail to escape him.
Kuja leaned over the wings of his dragon to watch the world below. Fields and wild foliage swept beneath him in level sheathes lacking detail. He couldn’t guess where to find Zidane -- he hardly knew him after all -- but he felt his presence somewhere on the planet and growing closer. Zidane had the only Terran soul alive other than his own.
It had been some time since the mage had finally told him what it knew. That Kuja had forgotten. That he’d overthrown Garland only to be faced with his own impending mortality. That he’d razed Terra (how he wished he remembered -- it deserved to burn) before turning his eye to existence itself. It was absurd. Laughable almost. And yet, when he considered it all carefully, he couldn’t call it implausible. Given the stated circumstances, would he have done it? It wasn’t uncharacteristic of him.
It felt almost fated that Zidane would have returned to him in the end. If the black mage was to be believed, Zidane had risked his own life in an attempt to save his. The idiot. What happened next, the mage couldn’t say. The implications twisted inside him as it had since he’d learned the end of his story. There was only one way to know for certain.
His senses led him to Torensten. He supposed it was only natural when it reminded him so much of Lindblum. The winding spires. The grinding of pre-industrial gears. The weakened monarchy dictated more by commerce than blood. Kuja landed his dragon far outside the city limits and wandered the streets in search of the one he’d once hated most. He combed every sector of the city until he pinpointed that faint, crimson connection to a rustic inn not far from the city’s northern edge.
And then he stopped. The building loomed over him in two stories of weathered brick. The doors stood unlocked and waiting. Kuja did not approach them.
What was he supposed to say?
He must have imagined it a thousand times. Approaching his door. Knocking politely. And then...what? ’Why hello, Zidane. Pleasure to see you. I’m terribly sorry for abusing the woman you love, toying with your life, and obliterating every city on Gaia. Would you mind if I came in?’ Even the thought made him grimace. What would he do if Zidane turned his blades towards him? What would he do if he didn’t?
Kuja longed to just lure Zidane into a trap and be done with it all, but he’d never been one to complicate a simple task. Instead, he steeled himself and stalked through the inn’s double doors. At only a little past dawn, the lobby was empty but for the inn’s groggy looking owner and an old woman watching the sunrise. Kuja approached the counter and asked for Zidane, throat tightening when he was given a room. He drifted towards the stairs, heart fluttering like a caged bird desperate to escape.
He didn’t know what he was doing. He didn’t have a plan. For the first time since he'd left Terra, he was walking blind. This itself made his head spin, but it was all the worse knowing what waited behind that fated door. His hand paused before he took a breath, tightened his fist, and rapped three times against the wood.
You'd think with all the problems in this world, there'd be more answers. It's not fair... but that's the way things are.
❞
Tap. Tap. Tap.
Zidane was roused from his deep sleep, sitting up in place and rubbing his eyes. Since he had made it back to the city, Zidane had more or less stayed put, not quite giving up on finding his friends, but in taking a well deserved break from his adventuring. He needed time to think.
Zidane, sometimes, ya gotta use tha' melon of yours when ya don't know where t' go next.
Baku's wisdom came to him like an echo from a dream. Growing up with him proved to be rough, sure (they fought daily), and there were a lot of times when they would disagree on a lot of stuff (literally everything), but Zidane knew that Baku was right. The stress was insurmountable. Unforgiving. Aside from Kuja's cold demeanor, and subsequent destruction of one of Provo's gates, Zidane had no one. Making new friends was fine and dandy, sure, but there was this looming sense that whatever had him here may have just… ended his friends. His family.
His life.
He shook the sleepy thoughts from his head, grumbling as he hopped out of the bed and walked over to the door. In less than ten seconds from when he woke up, he cycled through light depression, hopelessness, regained resolve, and self frustration. The emotions that would come next would be a mix of surprise, fear, anger, and relief, as he would open the door and see Kuja's violet eyes burning into his own, causing Zidane's own azure eyes to widen, before kicking back and taking a defensive stance, letting out a sharp exhale.
That next second, however, Zidane would notice that the cold fury, that cold fury he saw before Kuja obliterated Terra, wasn't present. His eyes were more like the eyes he saw when he sat with Kuja in his last days. Not quite remorseful, but also not filled with fury, and hatred. Everything he had done was unforgivable to most, but Zidane had forgiven him before, and he found himself doing the same thing, again.
Besides, the thought crossed his mind; If Kuja wanted him dead, he would have blown up this side of the building, instead of knocking.
He stood up straight, looking at Kuja with a kind of pensive stare, before finally speaking, not realizing that there was a light shudder in his voice as he spoke.
"So… do you remember? Who you are? What happened?" he said quietly. The last thing he wanted to do was evoke panic or rage from Kuja (this was a well populated Inn, Zidane had remembered), but he wasn't sure if he knew that he watched Kuja pass away before going home.
Kuja was dead. But, here he stood again. Flesh and blood. His flesh and blood. A man created to destroy… but with the potential to do so much more than that.
Zidane had seen the good in him before, and, the little spark in his eyes had told him all he needed to know. This was his second chance to save Kuja.
This was his second chance to get his brother back.
The door creaked open and Zidane stood before him. Their eyes met, blue on ethereal blue, and Kuja froze at the sight of him. That genome’s form, youthful and feminine. That face, teeming with emotion like no other of their kind. That expressive tail swaying behind him to a familiar beat. It was like a step back through time to the relentless child he’d so hated, to the idiot tool he’d strung along, to something indistinct playing at the back of his mind in an unfamiliar melody.
Zidane’s eyes widened, and he thrust himself back, raising his arms defensively, body ready to fight and tail swishing its aggravation. Kuja felt his gaze cool. If he wished for hostility then that would make this far easier.
Except it didn’t. After the initial shock had passed, Zidane relaxed his stance. The panic left him though its replacement wasn’t much better. He looked wary. Cautious. And perhaps a little sad.
”So do you remember? Who you are? What happened?” The words came quiet and almost somber. Kuja shot him a scrupulous look. Of all the things…
”That’s what you have to say to me? No ‘why are you here?’ ‘What are you plotting?’ You've always been an idiot.” With Zidane already pulled away from him, Kuja had no issues strolling right through the door, raising a hand to magic it closed behind him, and sauntering past Zidane without so much as a dismissive glance. He stopped by the window, arms crossed and hip cocked to the side.
Somehow, his anxieties had already melted away. Kuja’s disdain for his successor came naturally.
”But to answer your question, no. I don't. Your black mage pet told me everything. Or your ’friend,’ whatever you’re calling it.” Kuja glanced back carelessly. ”I’ve released it by the way. Somewhere near the desert though I haven't kept track of it since then. I had no more use for it, and it didn’t seem keen on my company.”
Nor was he keen on the mage’s. Its sentience unsettled him.
”But I'm not here to catch up. I wish to have the story completed. What the black mage implied…” Kuja’s glanced to the side. There was that same chill, that same fear he’d always known. Death. The word refused to touch his lips.
”I want to hear it from you.” Kuja uncrossed his arms and turned towards him. Once again, he felt the itch to ensnare Zidane in magic. To force words out of him that would likely have been freely given. It would have been far easier that way -- easier on him at least.
Instead, Kuja stood vulnerable and almost pleading. He refused to let it show in his eyes even as his shrouded tail swished its unease. He would never give Zidane that place of power.
”What happened at the end. What I don’t remember. Tell me.”
You'd think with all the problems in this world, there'd be more answers. It's not fair... but that's the way things are.
❞
The days of swashbuckling adventure had passed the moment he looked up and saw the Princess- now Queen- stand on the edge of that balcony and swing down. The look in her eyes had instilled a sense of purpose in him that he didn't realize, sparked a new feeling that, until that point, he dismissed as an unnecessary thing to tie him to reality.
He felt responsibility.
It had taken everything he had, almost at the cost of his own life, to realize that he had grown to believe that everything is worth treasuring in a way. Feelings, experiences… People.
It was this feeling that came to a head when he gazed at Kuja, broken and dying in front of him, realizing that what had happened to him over the course of sixteen years, Kuja had experienced in mere minutes. Was it compassion that enabled Kuja to launch that final spell that teleported Zidane and the rest to safety? Maybe pride? Remorse? Zidane wasn't sure. Their last days together wasn't spent so much as happy, social brothers. Zidane did his best to make sure Kuja was comfortable, and Kuja responded with calm, somber silence. It was sobering, the man who had murder and vengeance in his eyes being as a once savage storm that had fully calmed.
These eyes looked at him pleadingly, and Zidane could do nothing but gaze back. Even the fact that Vivi was here, and alive as well, struck him not like lightning, but more like a slow, flowing wave of the ocean. Zidane considered the cornucopia of thoughts and emotions he had been experiencing, and decided to speak.
"We fought in front of the Crystal... then some kind of God, or beast, not too sure which, appeared and attacked, after our fight concluded. We fought back to save the world, and in our victory, had accepted that we were going to die. Until… you saved us." He sat on the bed next to him, resting his palms next to him as his feet dangled ever so slightly above the floor.
"I came back for you. The Iifa Tree had reacted violently and was closing it's roots in it's death throes… I managed to find you, and protected you from it's death, taking you back to the Black Mage village." he tilted his head forward a bit, looking at the floor, letting out a sigh. "You died, some time after. I stayed with Mikoto for a while, and went back to Alexandria." he looked up to Kuja, his eyes locked on his brother, knowing that hearing this from Zidane could evoke a less than favorable response. But, he was ready. He now knew that Vivi was out there, somewhere, so he needed to find him as soon as possible.
It was only a matter of time, however, before he knew what Kuja was going to do with this new wealth of information given to him by his once sworn enemy.
The Crystal. There it was a again. The same absurd tale about ending all life in a dimension only theorized in the annals of Terran archives. Kuja pressed his thumb to his lips, brow twitching into a furrow. It wasn’t something that either Zidane nor the mage could have imagined -- not that they would have had the depth of mind to lie about it if they’d wanted to. No Gaian alive knew about the soul cycle let alone Memoria. With all the facts spread before him, there was only one conclusion he could draw.
Zidane spoke the truth.
He laughed shortly to mask his own unsteady breath. If he’d learned he would die, that it was all meaningless, and that he’d never been anything but Garland’s toy. If he’d had the power of a thousand souls at his fingertips, would he have done it? A light pulsed within him -- perhaps as a memory or perhaps merely imagination. He felt himself drawn towards it as though mesmerized, felt the urge to touch its smooth glass, yet he stayed his hand. He stood perched at the ledge of a cliff, gazing down into darkness. Could he have thrown himself off the edge?
No. But he might have tried.
”You really are an idiot.” He walked past Zidane (or perhaps closer?) to consider the room’s peeling wallpaper. ”Risking your life to save mine? And if I was dying anyway…” The word struck him with nausea. His voice dropped to a mutter. ”I don’t understand you.” It felt right somehow as though he’d said it all before. Only an idiot would have thrown himself into death’s grasp for the life of a dying man, and after all Kuja had done…
He finally turned to face him. ”What do you plan now?” The fire had left his eyes and with it, the biting derision that came to him naturally. ”There’s nothing here. I’ve searched every corner of this forsaken planet, and there’s no portal or airship or anything else that could leave it. I thought I’d return to see my plans come to fruition, but now…” His lips twitched into a smirk. ”Well, there’s no point, is there?”
He turned away again, biting at his nail. He’d been granted his life, his freedom, complete anonymity, and for what? He’d never lived a day without a fight for his survival. Without it, he felt strangely hollow.
”You’ll be searching for your friends,” he said. ”Or gathering new ones. They’ve always swarmed to you like flies.” The princess, her knight, the puppet, the rat. No one had ever been beyond Zidane’s reach. For the first time in years, his tail gave a violent lash that stirred its shroud.
”I got what I came for,” he said. It was as close to a thank you as he’d get. ”I won’t waste any more of our time.”
You'd think with all the problems in this world, there'd be more answers. It's not fair... but that's the way things are.
❞
Every word was biting, and it held the same pang of discomfort that followed every syllable into Zidane's mind, but these words held something that he had heard only when Kuja was practically on his deathbed. What that would be called, he was unsure, but he felt Kuja exude this emotion, and Zidane didn't know whether to give into the unnerved sense of foreboding, or be more accepting to the possibility of him pulling back to a better side. Mindless slaughter and vengeance was Kuja's very life, all the way up until his split second decision to sacrifice himself, and Zidane was seeing that change… somewhat. There was still some of the malice there, the hatred he held so deeply for Zidane possibly still existed.
Deep in his heart, he felt himself being pulled between the memory of the Iifa Tree, and Pandemonium, the darkness having crept into his heart, rendering him a shadow of his former self. Even Amarant stepped in to remind Zidane of his strength of will, and had it not been for his friends, he wouldn't have ever pulled away from the deep. He would have likely become the 'Angel of Death' that Garland had created him to be, and likely destroyed everything as a result.
It was his friends that pulled him out of the deep before, and none of them had been around since he arrived.
No one, except for Kuja.
Kuja mentioned Zidane finding his friends, or even making new ones, and he just looked at Kuja, trying to decide if he was being sarcastic, or genuine. Zidane chose the latter (because it wasn't worth dwelling on the former), and then Kuja stepped to the door, stating that he got what he came for. He was silent for another moment, before relaxing slightly and looking Kuja in the eyes.
"But did you, really?" he said quietly, "There's never been a moment of time in your life when you simply 'wasted time.' At least, none that I recall. There's been a purpose to every step, every word, and every decision you've made, so… What are you going to do, now? Why not stay?" he asked. He knew getting Kuja to stay was fruitless, but in a way, he wanted to let Kuja know that he could stay. The option meant just as much, and Zidane, as disgustingly forgiving as Kuja probably viewed him, hoped he understood. There wasn't a need for company, necessarily, but, familiar company.
You know, I didn't think it would go this direction
Why should the world exist without me?
"But did you, really?”
Kuja’s lips pursed. Did he get what he wanted? The answer was so obvious he felt no need to reply. He’d come to fill in that which he’d forgotten. There was power in knowledge, after all, and he’d loathed the idea that anyone could have played the game better than him. Still, the words resonated through him like the echoes of words he could no longer hear.
What else could he have come for? He’d played his part. He’d acted with the purpose that Zidane claimed came naturally. So why…?
“Why not stay?”
Kuja stopped. There it was, the offer he had somehow known would come. ’Why not stay?’ Zidane must have realized the absurdity in the question. Kuja had caused him nothing but strife, and he had taken pleasure in it. The razing of Burmecia, the obliteration of Cleyra, the raids on both Lindblum and Alexandria alike. Zidane knew what Kuja was and he knew how he operated. He must have known that the most dangerous place he could find himself was at Kuja’s side.
And yet…
Kuja laughed, mouth covered, shoulders shaking. ”Stay?” Zidane was nothing but an idiot. An idiot so driven to help people that he couldn’t stop for a second to consider the consequences. Had he said the same to the others? The Burmecian knight with no kingdom to call her own? The child lurking in the rubble of a ruined people? The bounty hunter, humiliated and disgraced? Had he asked his idiot question with that same sadness in his eyes?
’Why not stay? Kuja could think of a reason or twenty.
”You think I would?” Kuja turned to him, a mocking smile at his lips. Maybe he would have once. At his death. With no other options. But that was not now, and now the idea felt as appealing to him as a day trip to Terra. He’d have rather thrown himself from a cliff than listen to that endless optimism and faith in humanity.
Kuja touched at his forehead and laughed louder. Only once he’d finished did he finally look at Zidane again. ”It seems I owe you something of a favor.” Not that Kuja cared. Honor was nothing but a self-imposed chain for those too stupid to think for themselves. ”Is that really how you’d waste it?”
You'd think with all the problems in this world, there'd be more answers. It's not fair... but that's the way things are.
❞
Kuja had begun his monologue, but Zidane already knew. It wasn't the sad smile that would meet Kuja, but the jesterish grin that Zidane would always give his friends. Of course he wouldn't stay! But, the offer was out, and Zidane had crossed his arms and shrugged.
"Eh. Worth a shot." he looked across at Kuja, knowing that the next time they would meet would either be similar to now… or even likely locked in a life and death battle. His feelings towards Kuja had always been… mixed. Though it was impossible to ignore the things he had done, the people he had killed, Zidane knew that one singular act of mercy had been left in Kuja, and he redeemed himself (to Zidane, anyways) almost instantly in that moment. This was, somehow, the same Kuja, and if he was to be believed… Vivi might be out there. Having heard so many people describe Vivi before, like other Black Mages that had shown up, he knew that Kuja either didn't know any better, didn't care enough, or could flat out be wrong. But, it was a chance.
He shook his head, giving out a chuckle. "Yeah… we got dealt one messed up hand of cards. So, go. I know you don't have a problem taking care of yourself, so I'll spare you the formalities, but, I will promise you one thing."
His smile remained, but his eyes locked with Kuja's. "If you do anything messed up, out there, I'll find you." he narrowed his eyes. "And I will stop you."
At this, Zidane let his arms drop, his grin fading slightly, his eyebrows furrowing a bit before he finally looked away, knowing that their exchange was over. He, over everything else, knew that they couldn't have the storybook brotherhood that he grew up reading about (much like what he had with the members of Tantalus), but he knew that somewhere within Kuja's soul was a spark of goodness. Something he knew that rubbed off on him from Zidane and his friends. He turned to one side and opened a drawer, pulling out his vest and his gloves, then his hair tie, proceeding to put them on before letting out a sigh.
Zidane would be damned if he was going to let too much emotion show, here, but he knew that, in this world, the only other person he actually knew was about to leave. The moment Kuja walked out of that door, he would be alone again, and that was the second worst feeling he had ever had.
Next to waking up and realizing he may never see Garnet again. The harshness of this emotion settled on his face as he slipped on his last glove, listening to any parting remarks that Kuja would have.
His pilgrimage would begin today to find Vivi. The only thing standing in his way was letting Kuja go again.
Kuja cast him a playful grin more fitting for the idiots he called friends than for the mage who had so often sought his life. Kuja didn’t know what to think of it. Derision? Amusement? Something pricked at the back of his mind that he didn’t quite recognize. Was he...disappointed? The thought was absurd, and yet, he couldn’t help the biting remarks that he felt rise to his tongue. ’Was that all he had to say?’ Certainly Zidane arguments had lasted longer for that useless band of idiots he’d gathered at his side. Kuja would have rejected him anyway, of course, but Zidane could have at least tried.
Not that Kuja cared.
Zidane laughed. ’One messed up hand of cards?’ Kuja hadn’t thought much on it, but for someone who had thought himself Gaian, it must have come as a shock. Zidane knew Kuja could take care of himself -- he always had -- so there was nothing left between them. Except for one last warning.
Zidane would find him. He would stop him. Kuja couldn’t help a laugh. ”Stop me?” He tossed his head aside, smirking. ”Is that what you think happened?” From the beginning, Kuja had always pulled the strings. Even Zidane’s supposed victories were nothing but another step in his plans.
Kuja might not have remembered it all, but he knew it could not have ended any differently.
Kuja shot Zidane a careless wave as he turned and started towards the door. The conversation was over. He had taken what he’d come for though he didn’t yet know what to make of it. He had died. He had never been intended to live. The implications chilled him, but he refused to think on them now. That could wait until he was alone. Until he could show weakness.
Still, he felt himself pause at the door. What else did he have to say? He didn’t know until the words left his lips.
”Your friends,” he started slowly. ”If I should come across them, I’ll point them in your direction.” He hummed to himself, smirking and raising a hand. ”Perhaps I’ll pretend I’ve taken you hostage. They’d believe that, I think.” And it would amuse him. Deceit did not always carry ill-intent.
”Until next we meet.” Kuja hesitated. For some reason, their parting felt final. Would they meet again outside some hostile confrontation? Kuja doubted it, but that suited him fine. He needed Zidane about as much as he needed the rest of the world. That was to say, not at all.
He left without another word. He didn’t look back.
