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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"I don't mean to show you ill will, but perhaps you should try yourself at manners?"
Kuja paused. He had not intended himself to be heard -- or at least if heard, he had not expected any of the nobility to object. He might have thought it a rebuke from one of the other waitstaff if it hadn’t been for the tone. Kuja knew the cadences of the upper classes well. He’d learned it as a third language.
”Pardon me. It seems my tongue sharpened of its own accord.” Kuja crossed his arms and turned to face his accuser. It was a young boy who met him (he could have guessed from the voice though he knew better than anyone that voices could be deceiving) and Kuja disliked him instantly. He thought it was the eyes. Here was a child with his head held high, practically beaming with self-righteousness. He was highborn -- that was clear enough -- but from his clothes it seemed he didn’t care to flaunt it. He wore a loose tunic with high boots and a simple white shirt underneath.
It seemed he didn’t care much for the formal aesthetics. Extravagance was simply lost on him.
”No,” he said. ”Though I’ve never been one to leave my business in the hands of others.”Unless he was the one pulling the strings, of course.”You wouldn’t happen to know our host, would you? He’s yet to grace us with his presence.” Kuja sipped at his champagne. It met his lips with a pleasant bubble. Light, airy with hints of oak. He supposed it would do.
”Apparently it changes from year to year. And this year they’ve chosen obscurity.” Another sip. He’d speak with the boy no longer than was necessary. Once he was certain to gain nothing more, he’d move to more intriguing company. ”Perhaps they’re merely taken to dramatics.”
He flitted between the crowds like a silver hummingbird in the moonlight. There were women in silken dresses, men with their hair tied back. There were glittering lights, champagne glasses, and talk of wealth and power and all manner of beautiful things.
Kuja was, himself, beautiful. He had shed his usual armor for something more delicate. He wore a skirt that touched low on his hips, wrapped around him and slid up both sides so that a single piece hung like a veil in front. Violet fabric swirled about him in a half-transparent shroud in shimmering water. His midriff was, as ever, exposed. Jewelry arced over it, hung from a top laced with shining beads. His skirt was likewise decorated, and in the lights of the crystal chandeliers, he glimmered.
”May I?” Kuja extended a delicate hand towards a servant carrying a platter of champagne flutes. He smiled and took it by the stem, sipping lightly. His makeup was flawless. His nails, sharp. He wore a thick shimmering bracelet at his wrist, and his hair was half-pulled in ornate braids. His mask was sharply angled and inlaid with violet and gold half extended in a kind of feathered wing. His own feathers mingled within them.
Anonymity. The theme set a fire within him. It brought to mind tragic romance and noble heartbreak. It was like something out of a play, and he would be its player. Tragedy. Comedy. The resolution was yet to be written.
”I’m a sorcerer by trade, and a merchant of charmed items.” Kuja tilted his head and smiled at a woman in blue. ”Perhaps I could interest you?”
She blushed as their eyes met and looked away, smiling nervously. ”Oh! Well I...Well, I suppose…”
Kuja brought his hand to his lips and laughed lightly. ”This is a night of beauty. I wouldn’t be so vulgar.” His eyes flitted to hers. ”Have you any experience with nobility?”
”Me? No no. My father’s a banker.”
”Oh? You had an air of noble blood.” Kuja pushed a strand of loose hair back into place. ”My mistake.”
She laughed and apologized and thanked him, cheeks burning. Kuja hummed along and waited to excuse himself at the first opportunity. He had no time for the powerless.
He drifted away to other crowds and stopped at the edge of the dance floor. Men and women waltzed in pairs, and he watched them, eyes bright. He had missed this. He had needed this after his affairs with Zidane and that hideous witch. Here, he was in his element. Here, he was-
There was a shuffle, a cry, and something thrust towards him.
Kuja raised a hand without turning to it, capturing it in an ethereal glow. A silver platter hung in suspended motion, its glasses tilted at unnatural angles. A waiter blinked at him stupidly as he lowered his offending hand. Kuja shot him a sharp look, but before he could say anything, he noticed the eyes on his back.
The crowds had gone quiet. They turned to him now, watching his magic with something like awe. The plate was still seized by his magic, frozen in midair. Kuja glanced from the spell to the people and cast them a smile. ”Magic,” he explained before he tilted the platter flat with his finger. The glasses fell in line, and he hovered the thing back to the servant, a fire flashing in his eyes before he cooled it and said, ”Perhaps you could try at competence?”
The waiter nodded feverishly, apologizing in a jumped rush of words before he fled. Kuja watched him coolly. He was, as always, surrounded by idiots.
He hated the wilderness as much as he hated justice and honesty and the conversation of idiots. In fact, if he could have ranked everything he hated, being lost in the wilderness would have ranked only just above incompetence and just below Zidane.
Kuja scowled as he shoved another spider web from his face, swatting flies with every loathsome step. These woods were untamed. Evil, actually if one were to believe in such a word. In all reality, the life here had been corrupted by some particularly hateful souls. It seeped into the flora, the fauna, and the very earth, and the rest overflowed into a chilling fog. Or should he say Mist? He had quite the experience resisting and harnessing the Mist, but that didn’t mean he had to enjoy it.
Ultimecia. The word soured like something profane. He could still see her shadow flickering in hideous detail. Those yellowed eyes, her lips red as blood, her talons biting into his throat. He’d submitted as a matter of survival -- what good would fighting have done him? -- but sheer power would have bought her little loyalty. No, her words that had done that.
What would he do to not be bound by time? Anything.
A marsh opened before him with the noxious smell of mud and fetid water. There was light here shifting in sickly rays through the Mist, spotlighting the shadows of trees rising from the bog like pillars. Frogs rumbled a bass tone punctuated by the constant whine of mosquitoes. He eyed the odious things from his makeshift path, careful to watch his step lest he make acquaintance with the putrid water.
And then he saw it.
It stood like a wraith in the darkness. Black metal. A heart pulsing red. Kuja stopped, stumbling back on instinct as the word reached his lips. ”Garland?”
The shock passed in an instant. It was him as clear bog itself, but it was nothing more than a trick of the Mist. The forest's illusions. He laughed lightly, composing himself with his lips pressed to the back of his hand. ”I’d wondered when you’d play that pawn. I was almost growing impatient.”
The wraith stared back at him -- unphased. Quite the convincing act, Garland had never been capable of more expression than mild disappointment. Kuja’s tail bristled at that face, hard and stern and oh so familiar. And then it flickered away.
He knew what would happen an instant before he heard it. The rustle of a cape furling behind him. He stiffened at its presence. It was nothing more than a projection pulled from the depths of his mind. So long as he stayed calm, it couldn’t hurt him.
”Back so soon from the dead?” Kuja’s lips shadowed with a smile. ”My, but how did you fall again? I so wish I could remember.”
Silence. Kuja’s lips pursed. ”Nothing to say?”
Its voice came like a demon, cool and rasping. ”You’ve served another master.”
Kuja prepared to snap back, but stopped, blinking. He laughed louder than ever. ”Jealous?” he sneered. ”That isn’t like you.”
Metallic footsteps clinked behind him. The wraith circled him, drifting to the path’s edge. ”Satisfied.” It didn’t look at him. ”You were created to serve. It is your purpose.”
”You think I’m her puppet?” His eyebrows raised, and he laughed again, mocking this time. ”I’ll have her kneeling just as I had you.”
”A defect.” Garland thrust his cape aside and turned, stalking before him. He did not deign him worth a glance. ”You knew nothing on your own. You long only for subjugation.”
Kuja’s nails dug into his palm. ”I long for her magic.”
“You will always return.” He turned then. Finally, he turned and met Kuja’s eye. Dead and milky white on cold blue. ”You can do nothing else.”
Kuja felt his lips pull into a sneer. He felt words rise as his pulse quickened, but he stopped himself before they could surface. Instead, he smiled, tilted his head, and touched his chin to the back of his hand. ”Flare.”
Magic. Heat. Light. The force of his spell exploded before him in successive bursts. The force of it thrust against him, rustling his skirt and hair in its aftershock. Kuja raised a hand against it, eyes bright with the fire that scattered Garland like mist. How satisfying. Perhaps he couldn’t remember the man’s murder, but how kind it was that the forest sought to simulate it for him. He brought magic to his hand again for good measure.
”Flare.” He cast it farther now, splintering a distant tree with its force. He sneered and turned again. ”Flare!” The fog went up in flame. It fled before his magic like something alive and terrified, and Kuja smirked after it, breath sparked and heavy. ”Would you like to try that again?” Kuja didn’t know if the forest could hear him. He didn’t know if the souls were capable of conscious thought, but it felt good to call after it, voice chiming with muffled laughter.
The condescending hag. Ultimecia was a creature of few words, it seemed, and even fewer thoughts. She cared little for his at any rate. Familiarity flickered at the back of his mind like a painting in candlelight. The hushed halls of Daguerreo.
’I’ve studied the lights of Esto Gaza my whole life. What could you know?”
The gleaming marble manors of Treno.
’You’re the supplier, I’m the seller. I don’t care what you think, just keep making more.’
The sickly blue haze of Terra.
’Your feelings mean nothing. You have a purpose. I expect you to follow through.”
Kuja touched at the side of his head and stifled laughter. Idiots, all of them. Self-assured idiots too dense to see the world outside their own thick skulls. He’d proven them all wrong in turn. Each time had satisfied him more than the last.
’You think I’m your tool? I’ll play along, you hideous, deer-antlered, monstrous, old-’
Kuja flicked his hair over his ear, turned to her, and smiled. ”As you wish.”
The walk took longer than he’d have liked. Directing them by nothing but sense would do that when he hadn’t a clue where he’d started. The forest was dense and shadowed, and Kuja kept a hand in front of him, using magic to clear a path for them both as he swatted away the bugs and the spiderwebs with a short scowl. How she’d planned to traverse this place on her own, he had no idea. No paths, no directions. Truly, a brilliant plan. But what were plans when one was already perfect? The immaculate had no need for such trifles as forethought.
In fact, why exert any effort at all when there were inferior beings to do it for you?
They made their way in silence. Of course, Kuja could have used that time to inform her of every property of the Mist she had such interest in. He could have told her the exact position of the shrine and its likely importance. He could have shared the magical implications, but she’d have only silenced him again. She cared nothing for the shrine or its magic except for how she could harness it. For her, there was only power. How he longed to exploit her greed.
He guided them to a clearing and ritualistic obelisk that loomed at its core. The Mist twisted in a thick and living haze that Kuja had no desire to approach. Instead, he waited at the clearing’s edge and watched her do it for him. A fire lit her eyes as she reached for it. It wouldn’t work. His lips twitched as her hand hit solid magic. My, but who could have warned her? She wouldn’t have listened anyway.
She tried her spells. She brought her power to her fingertips and punched it through the wall like a dagger. All for nothing. Satisfaction welled in him like a rising tide.
She scoffed and turned to him, uncurling two wicked claws in turn. "You will help find the solution to this enigma. Soon enough this power shall be ours."
’Ours?’ He could have laughed. She was as likely to share her power as she was to waste her precious time solving puzzles. Her orders were nothing but a farce to cover for her own failure. He would know when the deed was done? Of course he would when he would be the one doing it.
He glanced to her as their paths crossed. ”Certainly,” he said. ”And shall I exert any other facets of your-?” She shimmered away. ”Will.”
Silence closed in from the space she had once occupied. He’d been left alone in the thickened center of a haunted wood without supplies and out of reach of his dragon. How kind of his new master. He supposed he’d had worse.
Kuja sighed and strolled to the obelisk for himself. The Mist was suffocating. It thickened around its source until Kuja could hardly see it through its shroud. There were inscriptions there etched out in a dead language he could only cypher through books she had tossed violently to the floor. ”You want me to solve it? What happened to your endless time?”
He laughed. Every word she’d spoken had proven insincere. His trivial magic. His useless curiosity, and of course, her infinite patience and the superiority that came with it. ”But surely a goddess could do no wrong.”
Only the swell of crickets answered him. He scowled. He could ruminate on matters later. Tomorrow. As the forest resisted him and he forged ahead blindly with no other direction except away from the shrine's core. He would live. He had suffered in the wilderness before, and he would do it again, but still the question bubbled its dissatisfaction.
Had he made a mistake? He had made the only choice he could have, and a choice he would have made again in an instant. He willed his mind forward and his eyes sharp, but still he felt something watching him as though peering between the branches.
Even now, he could feel her talons tightening on his neck.
Kuja had seen that same look in their eyes before -- the same shock, the same realization, the same denial. ’What was he doing?’ Laughing for one. The satisfaction could have been a reason all in itself. Perhaps it was in its own quiet way. He might have felt some remorse for the knight if he’d been capable of such things, but the other two…
”I did warn you.”Nothing but idiots.
Kuja didn’t care much for the Lich’s orders. Let their blood nourish his wrath? Why yes, Kuja was quite thrilled to add more rot to the Lich’s hovel. The place was disgusting as it was, and the image of their bones nearly soured his moment. Nearly. Kuja had never been one to let orders ruin what he’d have reveled in on his own.
The girl was rendered useless (wasn’t she always?) while the knight was swatted away like a particularly persistent fly. Only the dragontamer acted quickly. Perhaps he knew that his time was short. Perhaps he’d been expecting it in his own imbecilic way, but as soon as Kuja’s spell landed, he was already moving. His blades blazed with fire as Kuja muttered his incantation. He'd thrown himself forward in a flash of light as Kuja raised his hand. For a moment, Kuja paused, preparing to backstep if those blades came anywhere near him, but no. The idiot had eyes only for the Lich.
His swords landed with a flare of heat followed by the breath of the dragon. Kuja hesitated, scanning for his target again, when he found the swordsman flat on the ground struggling to so much as stand. Well then. It seemed pointless to even bother, but Kuja’s spell was primed and there was no use wasting it. He brought his hand down like an executioner’s axe.
”Cura.”
The magic launched from his fingertips in cool mist unbefitting of its purpose. It was a sweet irony.
Now for the others. The girl was incapacitated but could act as a threat should she rise. The knight was more of a nuisance than a danger, but the Lich had taken enough damage already. Kuja’s eyes crossed with irritation as he readied his magic again.
With the guardian’s magic still sparking through him, his spells came rapidfire. ’Protect.’ That would weaken the knight’s sword. ’Reflect.’ That would take care of the girl. His eyes narrowed on the dishonorable swordsman.
What a shame. And he’d have served as such an adequate pawn.
It hit him like a deluge of glacial water. Kuja gasped against it, nails digging sharp into his palms. Magic. It sparked unrestrained at his fingertips and he touched at his forehead, nearly numbed by the power that hammered in his heart.
He laughed. His sight had tinged with red.
As quickly as it had come, it waned. Not weakened, only balancing. A hand touched at his cheek and swept loose hair behind his ear. ”Just as easily as it was formed, this bond can be broken.” Could it? This magic had already taken root inside him. It was his now, locked away as tightly as his own soul. Perhaps it could be severed from another, but his body had been crafted for this.
To accept magic. To accept a soul. The sensation flitted through his memory like a butterfly with broken wings. This power was his. Its possibilities were endless.
She walked away. Kuja smirked as her back turned. Whatever she planned for him, it wouldn’t come to pass. He’d make certain of it.
The forest engulfed them in a chill breath. ’Could he feel it now?’ Of course he could though not quite as sharply as he had before. Before, the Mist had clawed across his skin -- desperate and wanting. Now it slid off like the cool waters of a stream. That place inside of him had already been filled. The lost spirits could take him no longer.
”The heart?” His voice echoed lightly against the gnarled and twisted branches. ”There’s a shrine southwest of its center. The tomb of an old dark knight.”And he’d found it almost immediately. He wanted to hold the victory above her head, but he sought her favor more than his own satisfaction. He’d play along for now.
”I would have brought you along my usual route had we come by physical means. Shall I guide you by sense in its stead?”
**And then Fin was an absolute idiot and accidentally overwrote her entire post while replying to the next one. Kuja examined the ruins, got really irritable that the other two showed up, reacted the Lich jerking him around, stayed his hand until the Lich turned on him, and then got really into betraying them. He wanted to help the Lich so that he could ask it about what the hell keeps breaking into his mind so he could find Chaos and kill him. He then cast Flare on Rem after taunting them about it. I'm crying.
Kuja crossed his arms, choosing to watch the gnarled branches of a tree rather than meet her eye. She was circling him again, eyeing him like a predatory bird. He hummed at her acknowledgement before finally glancing her way. ”Kuja,” he said. ”And might I ask yours?”
It was an odd thing to field introductions only now, but he supposed he hadn’t been worth a name before. Now her talons were sharpened. Now he had come willingly into her grasp.
”Do you feel it?” The woman stopped and looked out into the Mist. Kuja wanted to laugh. Of course he felt it. He’d felt it since the first moment he’d stumbled across this accursed forest, and he’d studied it ever since. In fact, he’d dare say that with his sensitivity to souls that he felt it better than she ever could. Such words would only draw her ire, however, and with his choice made, he had no use for the truth.
”The Mist?” he asked lightly. ”It’s a point of interest. I would share my findings by your leave.” After her previous performance, he doubted she’d find his research worth her time. If she did, she would most certainly dismiss it as nothing but the prattlings of a child. Idiot. Her own ego would be her undoing.
But it seemed she had no intentions of engaging in conversation. Instead, she moved on quickly from her musings and started about business instead. A bond. She summoned some sort of dark magic to her hand and held it before her like a gift. Kuja tilted his head in interest before he touched at his lips and laughed lightly behind the back of his hand.
”And are you to be my queen?” He supposed it had a certain dramatic ring to it. He far preferred the role of sorcerer, of course, but he could twist the part to his liking. They were both to be villains, afterall. He had no need for valor.
She offered him her magic. Kuja had never seen such a power before, and that uncertainty gave him pause. He captured it in a magic of his own, pulling it towards him without meeting its touch. Could he learn such a spell? Perhaps with enough study and dedication.
But that would come later.
He glanced at her and knew instantly what he must do. Take it. His blood chilled at its dark power, but he brushed such instincts aside and instead cast her a placid smile. ”Certainly,” he said.
The girl spoke. She spoke of schemes and deceit with an oh so righteous conviction. Kuja smirked to himself, waiting for her to finish. Had she thought him to be bluffing? Or did her petty sense of morality supercede intelligence? Either way, Kuja felt laughter rising to his lips. His magic tensed around the basin -- waiting for a snap of his fingers and its own destruction.
And yet the others seemed unphased. Even the idiot dragonkeeper chose to chide the girl rather than him. In fact, he continued as if she’d hardly spoken at all, and Kuja paused at his forward thinking, swirling his magic idly between his fingertips. Had he misjudged the situation? Perhaps. But how satisfying it would be to watch the betrayal in their eyes. His mood had fouled. His body -- weathered. He weighed his choice on a fickle scale.
Then the knight straightened.
Or rather, he tried to straighten. In his condition, he merely shoved himself upright on his sword, and that faux attempt at dignity twitched at the edge of Kuja’s lips. Still, it was safe to say that the knight had had enough. He agreed with Kuja’s judgement. He turned on both the idiot dragonkeeper and the idiot girl alike. And then he claimed the basin for himself.
Kuja didn’t stop him. In fact, he merely tilted his head and watched in idle interest as the knight seized his cure and swallowed heavily. The magic shifted almost instantaneously. The man’s flesh was restored. The strange green haze lifted. The life returned to his eyes, and as the curse was finally lifted, Kuja could no longer contain his laughter. What a kind twist of fate.
”And so the chosen hero takes the stage.” Kuja smiled at the other two over the back of his hand. ”Do stay out of our way, won’t you? If you so desire death, I’ll happily grant your wish.” He laughed softly and started forward, casting a spell over his shoulder with a careless wave. Cura. It enveloped the knight like a healing wind. With their advantage in mobility, it wasn’t hard to outpace the others.
”Shall the knight not take the lead? Such a chivalrous role though perhaps not quite as honorable as it might seem.” A smirk pricked at his lips. ”There's little point to valor.”
The journey back was uncharacteristically tolerable. Perhaps they had cleared this place of nuisances or perhaps the Lich’s forces were only biding their time. Regardless, Kuja hardly complained as they met the crossroads once again. He started towards their chosen direction without hesitation. He wished this done and over with.
They came to a set of gates in short measure. Or rather, a tunnel leading between them. It was quaint and unassuming and so very out of place, and yet a darkness lurked cold within it. Kuja glanced at the knight and smiled. ”Shall we announce ourselves?”
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.
