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 Warrior stood still atop a familiar cliffside, overlooking the Metaia Temple. It had been weeks since he had seen this sight, weeks since he’d spoken to these wonderfully kind residents. Weeks since he had felt the simple relief at the end of the day, scouting for information, and only coming up with new tidbits about this strange world. Things were much simpler a near month ago, when he was only wondering the how’s and why’s, searching for familiar faces.
Now, a heavy burden lay on his shoulders. The Warrior did not wish to see any more familiar faces, as that would mean they were in grave danger. And those he had already run into, his friends, his comrades, his allies, he worried for them. His suspicions had been obliterated by measly words thrown in his face by an angry and vengeful God. And while he wished they were words bated in poison, meant to trick and confuse him, send him down the wrong path, the nameless Warrior was sure of one thing.
Chaos did not lie. He had no reason to.
The God of Discord was many things. Bloodthirsty, typically boiling with a frighteningly calm anger, a walking and flying disaster, he was the rapture that would rain from the sky and the hell that would enslave all souls if he could muster such a thing. However, he was no liar. He did not need to spin lies in order to cause chaos and discord. No, the hard truth was often the greatest cause of madness in the world. Why bother with a crafty lie, when the honest truth would do more to strip your opponents bare and leave them weak, exposed, and confused.
The truth that had been thrown in the Warrior’s face was difficult to swallow. Chaos had revealed, he had figured it out so quickly, that they were not trapped within the cycles. Chaos did not choose this. His will, and the will of Cosmos, are what held the cycles together for as long as they had. Constantly battling, constantly perishing, all over the will of good versus evil. The nameless man frowned as he recalled what little he could now, from those times. All of those experiences, all of that knowledge, it seemed so far away and foreign to him now. Each time he laid his head to rest, he woke up with less than before.
It was frustrating.
The Warrior sighed, and turned his back to the cliffside. He watched, waited, his hand instinctively resting atop his sword. The wind blew a quiet breeze on the cooler night, ruffling the wild, silver hair trapped beneath his horned helmet. Below, Metaia Temple was quiet, many of the residents having already tucked themselves in for the evening, unaware of the armored Warrior that had watched them throughout the day with a quiet, shamed jealousy.
Around his shoulders, the cloak he was awarded in Torensten rested, gently swaying in the occasional breeze. It made him uncomfortable to wear it; after all, he hardly felt he deserved much of anything, as far as recognition. Many people died in that battle. Many people were unable to be saved, because he simply wasn’t prepared, because he simply wasn’t fast enough, he wasn’t strong enough to save them all from the hellish carnage that Chaos dropped upon them. It was the reason he’d avoided going into the temple area throughout the day, as he awaited night to fall.
People would see the crest. They would know who he was, what he’d done. And they would shower him with praise and thanks.
This burden of information was what had brought him back. A month had passed, and one full moon had led to another. The Warrior had always kept a careful watch on the night sky, and as the days and weeks progressed, he’d begun to make his way back to this spot. He’d made a strange sort of pact with another man, after all, a former enemy. They had agreed to share information, and the Warrior had quite a bit of it to unload. Much more than he ever wished for.
His soul felt heavier than his armor ever did.
With a silent frown, the Warrior scanned his eyes over the landscape once more. There was still nothing besides the soft rustling of grass.
However, Kuja was a mage of sorts. The nameless knight would not pretend to know the extent of Kuja’s power, however, he would not be caught off guard by it, if it could be helped. He kept his eyes forward, scanning, his ears strained for the slightest noises of footsteps. His hand remained on the hilt of his sword, but he did not draw it. He was not here to fight, not here to be aggressive, and he wished for that to show.
After he unloaded this burden, the deed would be done, and he could move on. The Warrior did not know if it would make him feel any better, per se, nor did he know what Kuja would do with the information. It could be disastrous, or, if the knight was lucky, it would cause the emotional mage to be more aware and active of their actual conflict.
Not my best, but here you go. xD Kuja likes to push Wolly's buttons
Why should the world exist without me?
A month had passed since Kuja had last stepped foot in these sacred hills. The moon had waned as he'd pondered the mysteries of the Crystalus Divider. It had ebbed to nothing during his short, miserable stay in Sonora. By the time he'd reached the summit of the World Sight, the moon had once again bore witness to the shedding of innocent blood.
A full month had passed since Kuja's stay at the Metaia Temple, and in that time, everything had changed.
Kuja paused as he reached the cliffs of the Temple. Beyond the fields and stone-rimmed valleys, the Temple reached towards the silver-touched sky. It stood as a monument to the tenacity of mortals and to their foolishness. Once, many centuries ago, some reckless architects must have traveled through these desolate paths with mad visions dancing behind their eyes. How many hundreds of builders had toiled to death for the sake of the great arch before him? How many thousands of stone slabs had been meticulously carted up these mountain passes for the sake of a remote and crumbling relic? It was a testament to reckless vanity -- a misguided desire to leave one's imprint on the world, no matter the costs.
Kuja admired it. Oh, how he wished he could one day reach such astonishing levels of narcissism!
"There is a smile of love, and there is a smile of deceit , and there is a smile of smiles , in which these two smiles meet."
Kuja stepped lightly over the wind-swept earth. He moved with the grace of a mountain lion, nimbly side-stepping uneven terrain and vaulting soundlessly over rocky chasms. His heart beat with a pulse of purpose. He had waited a full cycle of the moon for this night.
"And there is a frown of hate, and there is a frown of disdain, and there is a frown of frowns , which you strive to forget in vain."
His own voice sounded like the sweet echoing of bird song over the cliffs. He laughed softly at the verses, imagining the look on that light-chosen paladin's face. Would he roll his eyes again at Kuja's musing? Would he give those stiff expressions? Those stony glances? Those thin-lipped frowns? Ah! But that was not the full story, was it? No, before their meeting's end, Kuja had managed to crack the impenetrable armor of that holy knight. A fire had lit behind his eyes, and Kuja had caught darkness in that clear sea of blue.
Not even heroes could escape the mortal vices of indignity and humiliation. Kuja wondered how the passing month had treated his dear white knight.
If it had treated him as wonderfully as it had Kuja, then the Warrior had surely fallen to petty murder by now.
Kuja laughed again, harsher this time. He imagined the knight's armor streaked in the blood of the innocent. He imagined a heated look in the man's clear eyes, and it gave Kuja endless amusement. Even the righteous could not flee their own impulses forever. One day their own repressed desires would catch up to them.
All they needed was a little push in the right direction.
Kuja stepped foot on his familiar cliff-side just as the moon rose to its peak. From this vantage point, the entire temple could be dissected and devoured. During his stay here, Kuja had grown intimately familiar with those dusty halls. He'd mapped its crumbling labyrinths, analyzed its traces over power, and read every document he could get his hands on. Yet ultimately, Kuja had yielded no concrete results. The temple stood as mysterious to him as it had exactly a month prior.
As Kuja silently ascended the path's peak, he might have been stepping back in time. The mountain stood as solid and lifeless as ever. The temple continued its battle against the erosion of the winds. Only Kuja himself had changed. Kuja, and the paragon of virtue standing before him.
From a distance, the Warrior of Light looked no different than when they had parted. He wore the same, shining armor. He carried the same sword and shield, held peacefully at his sides. He stood the same as he ever had -- ridiculous and cliched as some story-book fable. The sight of him stirred some dormant muse deep within Kuja's soul. He smirked and raised a sculpted hand.
"Oh, noble paladin! How fares thy quest? Hast thou slain thy evil foes, or hast the darkness taken thee?" Kuja touched at his mouth with the tips of his nails. His laughter was barely suppressed. "My, so you are a keeper of promises? But I should have expected nothing more from the chosen warrior of the gods!" Kuja stepped forward into the moonlight. His hips swayed with every step. His eyes searched the Warrior eagerly. "But I must admit, I am surprised. Promise or no promise, it doesn't befit your reputation to fraternize with someone such as myself. A villain in your story, if I remember correctly." He laughed louder at this. He tossed back his hair and looked to the sky. "A villain. Yes, that is the part I play best, isn't it? But don't revile me for it. It's in my nature, you see."
Kuja let out a long and wistful sigh. He glanced from the knight to the temple and then over the grassy fields. If he looked long enough, perhaps they would morph into something familiar. But then, nothing was ever truly familiar to him, was it?
"So. Have you found anything of note, Sacred Warrior of Light? What secrets have you discovered on this strange new world?"
As expected, Kuja had arrived on time and in a show. Somewhere, deep down, the Warrior had hoped, prayed that some misfortune may have befallen his ”ally”, so that the flamboyant sorcerer would show up sullen and serious. However, such luck did not belong to the nameless man, and his contact in this world arrived in a flashy, poetic fashion, his tongue slinging words like small daggers, meant to boil his blood, meant to offend and to hurt.
For the most part, they had no effect. After all, it was until recent times that he would have been able to decipher the insults hidden within charming words to begin with.
Yet, the Warrior’s mood did remain sullen. His spirits had been low, and he knew this meeting would do nothing to really raise them. All he brought with him was terrible tidings; how things were not as he thought, how he was back to square one. How they were not the playthings of the gods the once served, but clearly, of some greater force. If he wasn’t so loyal to his word, perhaps he wouldn’t have even bothered to show up.
The cloak on his shoulders felt heavy. He did owe it to them, the dead, innocent civilians of Torensten, to spread what knowledge he had.
The Knight managed to remain stoic, to bite back the urge to roll his eyes at Kuja’s theatrics. However, he could not manage to reign in all the bite in his words, his eyes narrowing slightly as he opened his mouth to speak.
“As fate would have it, I did happen to encounter Chaos after we spoke,” the words left the Warrior’s lips easily, his thumb tapping his sword hilt with a sort of bound energy; fidgeting, uncomfortable, “The one who pulled the would-be villains strings during the cycles, if you will recall.”
The Warrior began to pace, the fire in his chest suddenly fueled, the events of the attack in Torensten replaying in his mind. Kuja did not need to know every detail. It was likely he would enjoy the story of senseless slaughter, and the nameless knight was suddenly all too keen to sap the smug smile off of Kuja’s face, to slap on a brooding frown.
“During my encounter with the God of Chaos, I learned that he, and Cosmos, are not the reason we were unwillingly dragged to this new world.”
In his eyes flashed something foreign. Unbridled anger, rage even. A darkness that was slowly beginning to settle in his heart, in his mind. Being inexperienced with such emotion, the Warrior was unaware it was creeping into his every movement. The harsh grip on his sword. The way he grit his teeth. His heart pumping harder, faster. His chest heaved for a breath to calm himself, but it was hardly worthwhile.
“From what I have gathered in my travels,” the Warrior continued coolly, managing to swallow back the venom that so sorely wished to flow from his mouth, “Some higher power has pulled us here, has addled our minds, and is pulling our strings for whatever purpose it may have. This is no cycle controlled by gods.”
The Warrior turned his back to the sorcerer, ice blue eyes scanning over the top of the cliff side, down to the world below. Innocent people, milling about, lost in their own world, with little idea that something else could be happening on their world. He tried to will out the negative emotions swirling in his mind, yet they stuck, as they had ever since the battle in Torensten had occurred. His shoulders threatened to tremble, his lungs threatened to rattle.
Deep down, he wished Kuja would just mindlessly attack him. Losing his mind in battle, the rawest, most simple experience he could have, was all that had held him together.
Instead, the Knight simply sighed, and kept his back turned.
“What of you, sorcerer?” The Warrior quietly inquired, contempt barely hidden in his voice, “Have you discovered anything worthwhile, or have you simply tormented the innocent people of this world?”
Welp, my villain is being villainous. Let's see if Wolly can restrain himself from attacking him
Why should the world exist without me?
Silence.
Kuja waited patiently, hand posed at the side of his cheek as the Warrior stood resolutely against him. For several brief seconds, it was as though Kuja did not exist and his words meant nothing.
When the Warrior finally turned to face him, his expression had cleared. He eyed Kuja as though there was nothing between them -- not history, not battles, not even animosity. Sometime in the last month, the well-meaning, if awkward, knight of fables had washed away. He was unmistakable in his great horned helm, legendary sword held at his side beneath his gleaming white armor, and yet, Kuja's mockery came slower in the face of those cold, narrowed eyes. This was no hero of legends. This was a force removed from earthly strife and the social impediments of mere mortals.
Sometime in the last month, the Warrior's heart had cooled.
“As fate would have it, I did happen to encounter Chaos after we spoke,” the knight said with a thumb at the hilt of his sword. “The one who pulled the would-be villains strings during the cycles, if you will recall.”
"Chaos."Kuja's smile soured at the taste of that word. His tongue turned against it like garlic. "Yes. Thanks for the reminder." He raised a hand and imagined these so-called "strings" about his wrists. Those were words not meant for him. Strings were only useful for someone without control of his fate. A pawn. A victim.
A puppet.
Kuja watched the Warrior pace before him like a feral tiger. His eyes narrowed into serpentine slits.
“During my encounter with the God of Chaos, I learned that he, and Cosmos, are not the reason we were unwillingly dragged to this new world.”
A fire lurked behind the knight's stoic eyes. There was a new passion to his movements. Rage. Indignity. Perhaps, had Kuja's mood been better, he might have marveled at the evolution of the man before him. Instead, he offered the Warrior a silent sneer.
"Oh? Then pray tell, what is?"
“From what I have gathered in my travels,” the knight answered, "Some higher power has pulled us here, has addled our minds, and is pulling our strings for whatever purpose it may have. This is no cycle controlled by gods.”
'This is no cycle controlled by gods.' Kuja imagined it as a kind of bombshell -- a truth that one could only drown in with its infinite possibility. Or at least, that's what it seemed from the way the Warrior turned his back, examining the country-side with the exhausted air of a messenger bearing the impossible. Kuja waited for one second, two seconds, three as he processed those words.
Then he laughed.
"Really?" Kuja laughed again, louder this time. "You mean to say that you were wrong? That what anyone could have told you remains true? That your wild theories hold no weight? Well then. Please, allow me a moment to process my shock! A higher power is responsible for this? I never would have guessed!" As Kuja took a step forward, an old phrase came to mind: 'Prodding a sleeping dragon.' Some deeply entrenched instinct told him that this was not the time for mockery, but Kuja had laughed in the face of far more threatening evils. The Warrior hardly registered as a threat.
"As for my own travels, let's see..." Kuja touched his cheek with the back of his hand and tilted his head thoughtfully. "I spared a princess from the wrath of a shape-shifting necromancer, mused on the nature of poetry with a red-headed stranger at a dimensional portal, and stumbled upon an...ah...old acquaintance in the snowy tundra. As for the rest...." Kuja smirked faintly. "Why yes, I have enjoyed tormenting the innocent. Thank you so much for asking."
He tried not to linger on the memory of blood beneath his nails. His outing at the World Sight would remain his little secret. He had gone only for the catharsis of senseless murder, but what he had left with -- Well, the Warrior would discover that for himself soon enough.
"No, while you've been looking into the useless matters of gods, I've taken to researching this world's places of power." Kuja raised his head to the moon and clicked his tongue thoughtfully. "This temple, the Crystallus Divider, and the World Sight. Among others." He ran his fingers through the curls of his hair, twirling idly at the downy feathers littered across his scalp. "I believe this to be something of a dimensional anomaly. Each of the lost wanderers do not originate from different planets, but rather, from different realities. Unfortunately, my studies into inter-dimensional theory have been limited at best, but such an explanation would explain the similarities between parties while also accounting for our obvious differences."
Kuja paused. Somehow, he doubted that a simple knight could possibly grasp the complexities of a theoretical multi-verse, but the feeling was hardly new. Kuja had wasted most of his life among idiots, fools, and pretentious scholars so pleased with their primitive findings that they wouldn't hear a word from him. Such was the curse of the intelligent.
"Regardless, I believe this world itself to be the conduit of our misfortunes. There is something odd here to say the least. I believe the Crystallus Divider to be the portal, but as for how to open it..." Kuja touched at his chin and took a thoughtful step to the side. Below him, the cliff cut a jagged gash into old limestone. Kuja could hardly think of a more hostile environment on which to build a templeso grand, and yet, here it stood -- a monument in futility and the vain aspirations of mortals.
It had to have been built for a reason, but as for what, he couldn't say. No, for now he had only one solid lead, and those clues did not lead here.
"I wish to study another site of power," Kuja said. "Somewhere beneath the city of Torensten, I believe. I've heard tell of a portal there -- the Dragon's Gate. If it is a portal, then it could be the key we've searched for. With the tragedy, however, I doubt they'll allow me near it. At least, not willingly." Kuja turned his eyes towards the Warrior and slowly smiled. "Perhaps you could help me with that hero's status of yours. I've heard tell of your victory from far and wide. Surely they'd allow you entry to their inner sanctums." Kuja's gaze flicked to the odd cloak about the knight's shoulders. A hero's token, or something like it.
"If it makes you feel better, you can tell yourself that you're 'keeping an eye on me.' Because whether I have your cooperation or not, I assure you that I have every intention of examining that gate. And I'm certain you can imagine how else I might manage it." Kuja smirked and twirled a strand of hair around his finger. "The last thing that city needs is another tragedy, wouldn't you say?"
The Warrior narrowed his eyebrows, his gaze supposedly focused on the tiny forms of people moving in the town below them. However, he found he could not look at them, only through them, as all of his senses focused more on what was behind. A dangerous creature, a cunning beast with a sharp tongue and razor claws. It prowled behind his back, thirsty eyes upon him, waiting. The edge of the cliff felt less like an escape route, and more like a trap, a wall that held him in place; a prison.
Never before had he prayed, to any god that would listen, for an attack to come to him.
However, it was not the sounds of rustling grass, of tightening muscles, of cackling magic or hard-drawn breathes that met him. There was no need to spin on the spot, shield out and sword drawn. Again, the sorcerer provided him with no relief from this torturous talk, and the Warrior felt his shoulders flood with tension once more. His patience was gone, his well of optimism dry. Kuja’s laugh was worse than the scraping of a rusty sword against stone, worse than the shriek of a banshee. The nameless man felt his stomach knot, felt his face momentarily contort into frustration. His teeth grit together, his mouth suddenly seemed dry.
Yet, he choked it down. He forced a calm, heavy breath through his nose and turned halfway, giving Kuja only a sideways glance as he spoke. The Warrior was plenty aware of Kuja’s flair for the dramatics in storytelling from their last encounter, and something about the sorcerer seemed … different. Whatever Kuja had experienced in the past month, it seemed to have revitalized him in some way. There was life in every breath, an added flair to every step.
The Warrior watched Kuja with a sharp gaze, only somewhat focused, as the sorcerer pranced on and on about what he’d accomplished over their time apart. He was confident that the mage was leaving out some form of innocent bloodshed; there were too many easy targets on this world, something the bloodthirsty couldn’t leave be for any amount of time. The nameless man felt his eyes droop in thought, considering the amount of innocent people on this world, and what terrible atrocities could be happening to them in this very moment, what happened before, and what would come after.
Strange, that it didn’t weigh on him as much as seemed it should have.
However, the Knight noticeably perked up as the mage began to speak of places of power. He turned his back to the Temple, facing Kuja fully, his eyes alert. His mind immediately began to race, recalling Cosmos’ words, recounting the flashes of areas that she’d been able to show them. Gates. Of course, it made sense that a sorcerer could simply feel out these types of things. Grave, powerful, terrible magic. Cosmos had pleaded for them to seal these portals.
The only issue had been finding them.
...find a way to seal that energy below... ...reveal what is needed to open what is known as the Crystallus Divider...
The rest of Kuja’s thoughts on this world were insignificant compared to the bombshell he’d simply waved on without another word. He could see the gate in his mind, the one that Cosmos had shown them; dark, pulsing with power. Dangerous. Somewhere underneath Torensten.
I cannot beat him to it, the Warrior reasoned to himself. Though his body screamed to take off and run, to run until he could no longer move and beat the mage to Torensten, to the gate, to try and do what he needed to protect those people, there was simply no way to accomplish such a feat. The knight’s heart beat hard and fast in his chest. No, quite unfortunately, Kuja simply had to be a part of the equation. The mage was fast, he was cunning -- he was brutal. There was a chance he could simply draw his sword and defeat the mage here, but was that a chance worth taking? If he lost, Kuja would simply take out his wrath on the demolished city, burning it to the ground in order to get access to the Gate.
The nameless man swallowed the hard lump that had formed in his throat. His fingers tapped nervously against the hilt of his sword. His eyes, normally passive and dull, were alight with anticipation, with thought, with an odd fire and excitement that had been missing for weeks.
“I am inviting upon myself the most vile torture imaginable,” the Warrior spoke, never taking his eyes off of the cunning, truly awful mastermind before him. The very thought of spending days of travel with Kuja brought forth the idea of simply leaping to his death, right off of the cliff. He’d rather face Chaos again. He’d rather face Garland and Chaos together.
“However,” he sighed, inclining his head towards the mage, “I cannot let you disturb what little peace the people of Torensten have managed to restore to their lives. I will accompany you to this Dragon’s Gate. Perhaps, it will help you in your theories about this world and the part we play in it.”
And, perhaps, you may help me further my goal as well.
It was a dangerous game. Easily, one of the most dangerous games he’d willingly taken part in. The Warrior of Light was a master tactician and knight, however, he was not much one for mind games. He did not have a cheat’s tongue, he did not have a liar’s vocabulary. He did not have a thief's hands. Crafty games, such as those Kuja likely took part in, were beyond the scope of his reasoning. Yet, he had to try. The knight could not reveal the information he’d gotten from Cosmos, lest the sorcerer simply do the opposite of what needed done just to spite him. It would be best to remain mostly clueless, to simply play the part of the heroic knight trying to protect the innocent people from a dangerous beast in human form.
The Warrior desperately needed a companion to tell him that this was a terrible idea, an awful plan, but he had no such help. Only a faint memory of Garland’s mocking laughter at some previous failure filled his ears. He shook it away.
Turning away from Kuja, the nameless knight began to make his departure down the grassy path towards the Temple. There was a purpose in his stride, an unspoken thirst in his step. However, his visage betrayed no such emotion; only minor annoyance and frustration.
“Let us make haste. There is no alternate reality where I wish to spend an extended period of time with you.”
I refuse to believe, that I’m nothing more than a machine I refuse to believe, that we can’t learn to see The truth was in a dream I will not kill No I will – believe.
He saw it in the knight's hesitation, in his silence and the way he nervously fidgeted with the hilt of his sword. With hardly a thought, Kuja had set a trap that this man was inept to escape from. Of course, the knight could have simply attacked him for the implications he had made, and yet, Kuja doubted that would happen. The Warrior of Light was not one to react in rage nor was he one to deal the first blow over simple words. No, some naive sense of honor would staunch that impulse before Kuja could wave a hand in defense. That was the thing about the righteous -- they were so terribly easy to predict.
Like Zidane, though he had his own streak of grayed morality. There was a certain simplicity to those who believed in selflessness. Their minds had no room for scheming.
Kuja tapped his fingers impatiently on his sleeve as the knight considered his offer. He knew what the answer would be, of course, but he preferred to hear it out loud -- an admission of defeat and of Kuja's own victory. After a moment, the Warrior met Kuja's eye and, with a great weight of agony, finally said, "I am inviting upon myself the most vile torture imaginable."
Kuja blinked in recoil, his composure thrown. Then he laughed. He would not have thought the knight capable of such animosity or sharp words, even in defeat. Something truly had changed the great white knight before him. Kuja tilted his head and smiled back. "And whatever could you mean by that?" he asked innocently. The knight did not elaborate.
Instead, he merely watched Kuja with the kind of pained expression one might expect from a man awaiting his own execution. When he admitted defeat, it was as though every word had been dragged through his teeth. "I cannot let you disturb what little peace the people of Torensten have managed to restore to their lives," he said, "I will accompany you to this Dragon’s Gate. Perhaps, it will help you in your theories about this world and the part we play in it.”
'Or something like that,' Kuja thought with a smirk. 'Yes, yes. Play your part like the puppet you are, dear knight of fables. We will see together how this story ends.'
"You have my thanks," Kuja said instead with a short bow straight out of the courts of Alexandria. "It really is just scholarly curiosity. We all wish to leave this place, and I am one of the few with the knowledge of magic to bring it to fruition. I'm glad that you've seen that there truly is no other choice."
The Warrior didn't respond to Kuja's over-wrought display of gratitude. There were no sighs to greet him, no pained expressions, or -- god-forbid -- eye-rolls from his unwilling ally. Instead, the Warrior merely turned away as though something else had captured his attention. He walked away without a good-bye, slinging only one last slander over his shoulder.
“Let us make haste. There is no alternate reality where I wish to spend an extended period of time with you.”
Once again, Kuja recoiled at the unexpected slander. Then the hidden meaning processed, and he was struck with sudden and inescapable laughter. "Have you discovered irony?"When the Warrior made no response, Kuja shook his head and followed so as not to lose pace. Just a month before, he would have thought the man incapable of such nuance, and yet, here it was thrown before him with all the grace of a gossiping noblewoman.
'Perhaps there is a streak of malice in you yet, noble paladin. Perhaps that holy light has faltered.'
Kuja laughed softly at the thought of it. This act of their story was coming to a close. Kuja couldn't wait to see how it ended.
