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.
at adventu, we believe that colorful story and plots far outweigh the need for a battle system. rp should be about the writing, the fun, and the creativity. you will see that the only system on our site is the encouragement to create amazing adventures with other members. welcome to adventu... how will you arrive?
year 5, quarter 3
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Kuja mocks everyone in his head. xD Because he's a dick.
Why should the world exist without me?
The boy did not respond to the barely veiled jab at his intelligence. A pity. Kuja had baited him, after all. Instead, the boy merely lifted his head, looked Kuja over with a kind of curiosity (reasonable, given his magic and beauty), and asked a question of his own in a peculiar and archaic tongue. “Ye are quite strong to rebuke my flames, either brave or foolish to challenge my mastery of fire. Please, tell me what is thy name, mage?"
'Brave or foolish.' Kuja felt his lips purse in a smirk. Not even the most dramatic of plays spoke in such a manner -- like some ancient god scolding the hubris of mortals. It would have been laughed off a theater stage for being too melodramatic, and yet here it was, spewing from the mouth of what looked like a teenager. 'What is thy name.' It sounded straight from a medieval reenactment, but Kuja stifled his mockery and merely gave the boy an amused smile. There was no need for hostility, after all. Not when he didn't know the source of that boy's powers.
"My name?" Kuja echoed, tilting his head. "Oh, but I was under the impression that one should introduce himself first. My mistake." He uncrossed his arms, took a step forward, and bent into a low and eloquent bow. Magic trailed his fingers like ribbons, sparkling with every flourish. "I am Kuja. A mage, as you've noted, though I have taken several titles more." Kuja straightened, looked to the boy again -- still pale, still kneeling, still weak -- and smiled. His eyes glittered with derision. "And I assure you that I am neither brave nor foolish. It's not as though I unleashed incinerating flame in a dryforest. That would be a true act of foolishness, wouldn't you say?" He glanced wryly towards the charred remains of a tree stump. Its base still glowed quietly with embers. "I was merely drawn by curiosity. You've created quite the distraction."
A distraction that was quickly proving itself pointless. His tail lashed irritably within the shroud of his skirt.
“Tell me, where are we? Have you seen Lord Belias!”
A pointless and clueless distraction, apparently. Kuja had absolutely no desire to act as a welcoming crew to inter-dimensional travelers. Yet still, he feigned helpfulness if more out of habit than true inclination. His actor's facade would not fall so easily.
"Oh, this?" Kuja gestured vaguely to their smoldering patch of forest and crossed his arms carelessly. "I've been told the country goes by the name of Sonora, though more specifically, this is the Headstone Forest. A cursed place, allegedly. Though I don't believe in it." He gave a short and almost sorrowful sigh. "As for your Lord, I'm afraid you'll likely never see him again. You see, this world has a way of gathering lost souls. It's quite the phenomenon. Mysterious strangers appearing as though merely dropped from the sky! I'd find it fascinating if I was not a victim myself." He sighed again, deeper this time, and offered the boy a regretful frown. "There's nothing to do for it, unfortunately."
lol. Guess Kuja decided to approach this using his dick personality. That's cool.
Why should the world exist without me?
The Headstone Forest had more legends to its name than it did travelers. Some said it was a haven for dragons. Others told tales of odd phantoms seen lurking through the fog. More often than not, the name was spoken breathlessly over some collection of driveling ghost stories or cautionary children's tales. It all seemed pointless, and yet, even the most trifling of myths often had their root in some distantly claimed fact. If nothing else, the slack-jawed locals had been correct in one aspect and one alone.
The Headstone Forest was a place of evil.
Kuja did not use that word lightly (honestly, he found it cliched), yet that was the only way to describe the vague sense of danger that pricked at the back of his neck as he approached. His soul stirred at the touch of that fog -- not natural -- and he stifled the growing urge to dodge away before its ethereal fingers could get a tighter grip. Even before he'd reached the entrance, his mouth had soured in distaste.
Of all the potential magical sites around Zephon, he appreciated this one the least.
It wasn't just the thick branches, crawling ivy, or petrified wood that offended him. He could have gotten used to the drab colors, the creaking landscapes, and the treacherous gorges hidden by underbrush. He could have even dismissed the shadowed sunlight and the persistent scent of wood rot if given long enough. No, it was that fog that bothered him. That miasma that seemed to seep from the very core of the planet itself, ebbing and flowing over his body as though testing it for weaknesses. With it came that ever-present and ever-loathsome sense of being watched, not just from behind, but from above, below, and everywhere the fog touched. It was offensive. It was unsettling.
It was familiar.
Despite the many more fantastic legends of this place, it was the fog that had brought him here. The others were almost certainly false. Ghosts did not exist except perhaps in the technical sense when describing a soul held in stasis. No dragon worth its name would settle in an enclosed and barren place like this -- not as an apex predator known best for flight. And yet, he had paused at the mention of fog said to spawn monsters and corrupt men. He had heard that kind of tale before. In fact, he had dedicated several years of his life to researching and manipulating it. Here, the fog was a mysterious force haunting the backgrounds of dubious legends, yet on his adopted planet it had gone by a much simpler name.
Mist.
Yes, there was little doubt about it. This fog reeked of the undead. Just as the Mist of Gaia had seeped over its lowly plains, the fog billowed and swirled as though it had a mind of its own. Or more accurately, several minds. If Kuja dared open his soul to the voice of the planet, he could almost hear the fog's whisper in his ear. They were many. They were incomplete. They desired retribution.
Kuja ignored the fog's call after that. For some reason, the thought of letting corrupted souls anywhere near his mind made him physically ill.
Instead, he continued on, following the fog where it proved most abundant. If he could find the source, then he could confirm his theories. And if it really was Mist, well, then perhaps a new airship or a few armies wouldn't be far behind.
The fog led him off the path -- a mistake punishable by death if you asked the terrified locals, but he hardly cared. He moved with a kind of careless saunter, occasionally flicking his hand to set fire to detritus blocking his way or to deter any local monsters that might have made the unwise choice of attacking. Before long, the ground sloped downward into loose gravel. The air grew colder and thick with death. Far ahead, he could sense a cool, malicious something waiting in the heart of the forest. He quickened his step, breaths short, heart racing from nerves before coming to a stiff and sudden stop.
Something had changed.
The forest's heart was no longer the only source of malicious energy. No, in a single heartbeat, the forest's magical signature had shifted. From one end came the icy waves of something dead or dying, calling forth with apathetic hands. On the other came a brutal force of wrath and heat. Kuja hesitated. Both were unusual phenomenon. Only one would sit quietly for him to investigate later.
He turned towards the flames. The fog was depressing him anyway.
It did not take long to find the source. Within a few yards, he no longer needed the magical trail -- his eyes could see enough. From almost worryingly close came the hot glow of fire and the smell of acrid smoke. Burning flesh, most likely. Still, he continued forward. He did not need to hear the death throws of incinerated monsters to know that this magic was not natural. It had a peculiar kind of hunger to it and an edge that his own magic lacked.
His eyes lit with desire.
The flames lashed towards him as he approached, but he deflected them with a casual wave of his hand. Without focus, the flames ran off his spell like water. He edged closer, peering around the charred remains of a tree to find the flames' caster kneeling and panting in the center. Kuja observed him coolly, from black leather armor to the braid of unnaturally red hair. Pale and trembling, the mage looked no older than eighteen. Still a boy, really, if Gaian aging was to be believed. Surrounding him were the blackened remains of what Kuja could only assume had once been monsters. That scene was so tragic that it might have given even Kuja pause if only he'd been capable of pity.
Instead, he merely crossed his arms, hand still idly raised in an arcing protection spell. "Whatever it was that attacked you, I do believe it's dead now." Kuja glanced dryly at the charred embers that had once been flesh. "Please try to manage the delicate art of not spewing fire. Unless you wish to join them." He gestured vaguely at the boy. "I'd think not."
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.
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?"
Welp. This is what happens when villains aren't stopped. xD I asked Baha, and he said it was okay. If we get another Tidus, he can just wake up in a snowy ravine.
Why should the world exist without me?
At first, the boy had only jumbled noises to offer in answer. He looked almost fish-like with his eyebrows down-turned and his mouth gaping. Kuja waited as the gears turned in the boy's atrociously slow mind. He waited for the dawn of realization -- a horror that the boy's life had almost been forfeit, and then perhaps a reluctant trust. However, it seemed that Kuja had miscalculated in his schemes.
This boy was far too stupid for manipulation.
"Uh...I, uh..." The boy stammered incoherently as he brought a hand roughly to the back of his neck. All at once, something seemed to click in his defective brain, and he shoved the hand away impatiently. "No way!" he screeched through his nose. "I don't know what you're talking about, but I know you did something!"
The warmth left Kuja's eyes. They watched the boy like glittering diamonds.
"Really," he said. "Well then. I will make this simpler for you. If you raise your blade against me, then you will become my enemy. And if you lower it..." Kuja salvaged his least intimidating smile. "Then perhaps we may meet some middle ground."
The boy faltered for only a second before his eyes lit with childish impulse.
"Oh, who needs you?" the boy said, and in the next moment, he charged.
The boy floundered forward with long, slapping steps. His sword dragged clumsily behind him as though he couldn't properly lift the thing, and yet his eyes screamed of such fiery determination that Kuja couldn't restrain his sudden and wild laughter. This boy was a child with his wild impulses, fierce sense of justice, and complete lack of self-awareness. He couldn't even dress himself properly, let alone defend the innocent, and the absurdity of it all proved far too much for Kuja's sense of irony. In the ten seconds it took for the boy to bridge the gap between them, Kuja had touched his forehead, tilted back his neck, and stood laughing at the sky.
The sword swung. The boy let out a wild grunt. Kuja's hand lifted and the sword was deflected with a flash of ethereal light. The boy gave a pained cry, stumbling backwards until his feet dragged. Kuja let his laughter subside before giving the boy a sidelong glance.
"Would you like to hear a story? It's about a villainous sorcerer and the idiot who tried his patience." Kuja clenched his fist together and captured his victim in a web of blue-white light. With a flick of his hand, the light and boy rose together. "Once, there was a villainous sorcerer who had grown tired of the world that held him. He traveled from temple to monument to ruined city to find the key to his freedom -- all in vain." The boy wriggled against the magic that bound him. He grunted and cried and protested as ethereal ropes hung him helplessly in the air. Kuja stepped past him thoughtfully. The magic followed at his heels like an eager pet.
"Then one night when the moon shone above in a nearly perfect whole, the sorcerer found himself halted by the complaints of an idiot." Kuja stopped at the edge of the terrace's sheer cliff-side. Darkness stretched far below him. "Would you like to guess how the story ends?"
"Ah...haha...No. No, I'm good," the boy stammered. Kuja raised an eyebrow.
"My, but you have such little imagination. You won't even give it a try?"
The boy paused for a moment. "Um. He said sorry and you let him go?"
Kuja's eyes darkened. "No," he said. With a wave of his hand, the magic catapulted the boy into the ravine. It wasn't the most efficient means of murder, but it proved oh so satisfying.
Kuja listened as nasally screams faded into the distance and then stopped altogether. Once again, he was struck by a sudden sense of deja vu. "Have I killed him before?" Kuja mused, but then silenced himself with a quick shake of his head. "How absurd. It seems that knight's rubbed off on me." He twisted a loose tussle of hair around his fingers and tossed it carelessly to the side. "Now then..."
Kuja turned back to the iron-wrought gates that barred his entrance. A few spells and they were blown apart. Kuja stepped delicately through the wreckage. "What secrets do you hold, I wonder?"
The World Sight's inner sanctum smelled of dust, parchment, and blood. There were three more security checkpoints between the outer walls and its most sacred core, but Kuja had little patience for delay, and his magic spoke words he didn't care to. The guards fell with only token resistance. Without them, the native priests and scholars fled like mice aboard a sinking ship. Kuja spared only a few for questioning, and once they'd sputtered their answers, their blood mingled with that of his enemies. He had no need of witnesses.
Through seven barred and guarded gates, down three flights of spiraling stone steps and crumbling archways, there stood a library that had never known moonlight. Kuja's fire flickered across rotting wooden tables, dusty tapestries, and stone inlets like catacombs along the walls. In each of these inlets rested several scrolls, bundled together tightly by leather and cobwebs. Kuja touched them only with magic and gently pulled them aside without daring to rustle their pages.
This place, it seemed, was a tomb. And in this tomb, the knowledge of ages past had died.
The scrolls spoke of ancient legends -- of the reign of two brothers, of the clash of good and evil, and of the eventually decline of both. It spoke of forests haunted by regret, of heroes entombed forever in stone, and of the divide of worlds held apart by only a thread. Though their authenticity could not be spoken for, the scrolls painted the picture of a world somehow caught in the middle. A kind of resting place between conflicting planes. It seemed the perfect landing place for wayward dimensional travelers --perhaps something about this world had called them to it? What that was, however, Kuja couldn't say.
He did not find records of the Metaia Temple nor did he discover anything of note about the Crystalus Divider. Instead, he found lore, legend, and the kind of myths that most dismissed only as the stuff of fairy tales. Kuja learned the names of ancient heroes -- of Atticus, Andrix, and the tomb's patron Zadiken. Kuja did not know how many hours had passed. His mind lulled into a kind of trance, encouraged by the familiar scent of parchment and faded ink. How many hours had he once spent combing the ruins of Madain Sari for something more concrete than myth? How long had it taken to find anything of note? A single lead? A ritual to use as his own?
This did not take that long. In this timeless tomb, he could not say whether an hour had passed or maybe twelve before his fingers caressed the scroll he had unknowingly searched for. At first sight, it seemed no different than the others -- just as cracked, faded, and curled into its natural roll. Still, Kuja's heart fluttered at the title alone.
"On the Draconic World and its Seal."
Kuja's finger traced the words. 'Torensten.' 'Sorcery.' 'The Dragon's Gate.' He copied sigils. He recited incantations. As he reached the page's bottom, he muttered another passage aloud. "Only the kin of dragons may open Certo's seal and awaken what lies beyond."
Kuja laughed. He laughed in anxiety and in relief. Another world, another ancient power slumbering forgotten in its core. His fingers arched carefully about this sacred document. "How interesting," he muttered, "How very, very interesting."
Long into the night, he read. He read until his eyes drooped and his writing hand grew sore. Still, he did not slow as his imagination took form and the future laid before him.
Soon, this world would change forever. And he would be the harbinger of dragons.
((OOC: To be continued in a future plot thread near you!))
So this was obviously really hard for me to do. Mostly because I didn't know how and also because I had to force Kuja not to kill her.
Why should the world exist without me?
The princess hesitated. Her eyes swept nervously from his hand to his mouth to his eyes. Kuja wondered what she saw there. Amusement? Warning? Whatever it was, she wisely denied comment. "I," she started, and then paused to collect her thoughts. ”Of course we may and shall.”
Her answer might have made him laugh if he'd been in a better mood. So calculated. So poised. Her expression cleared so quickly that Kuja barely had time to appreciate the fearful tightening of her lip. In a moment, she had reverted back to the visage of a flawless noblewoman -- quiet and dignified even with her dirtied skirt and flyaway hair.
The princess could play quite the actress -- Kuja had no doubts about that. He knew what she had witnessed better than anyone, and no amount of pretended dignity could mask the alarm he'd seen as he'd turned to face her. She knew what he was capable of. She had caught a glimpse into the well-guarded confines of his soul.
His headache gave a particularly nasty pound and Kuja let his fingertips trail over his temples. She would have to die.
This musty hall would serve as the perfect backdrop to his betrayal. A crypt already in form and function, he doubted that anyone would find her for years -- if they ever found her at all. And if they did, no evidence could possibly link her to him. She was as much a lost traveler as himself -- she'd already admitted that no one would miss her, and he had no reason to doubt her claims. He could see it already, another corpse to add to the ranks of the dead that scattered smoking around them. The spark in her eye would extinguish. That soft hand would dull and then gray.
She touched at his arm and grasped at the hem of his sleeve. Kuja glanced at her with her flushed cheeks and long eyelashes. From the corner of his eye, he might have mistaken her for the portrait of an angel with her radiant hair and high cheekbones. When she started forward, Kuja found himself falling into place beside her. They traipsed like nobles through the ruined halls of their labyrinth. Her feet met the cracked cobblestone with hardly a sound as she walked straight-backed through what could well have been her own grave-site.
Kuja watched her movements coolly. No painting could begin to capture the soft glow of her skin, the glint of her eyes, or the quiet dignity about her expressions. Kuja felt his nails dig deeper into the palm of his hand.
He had always loathed the destruction of decent art.
Neither of them spoke as they ascended from their earthy prison. Kuja's fingers still burned with acrid magic. He didn't dare to ponder the thoughts loosed by that dark apparition. For just a moment, he had frozen at the sight of that illusion. Kuja had felt something then. Something cold and dreadful clawing from the depths of his soul. Helpless. If the necromancer had attacked then, the old fool might not now lie dead and smoldering in the ashes beneath their feet.
Despite the necromancer's many mistakes, he had been right about one thing -- the sight of Garland had triggered something in Kuja. Multiple somethings, actually. Blood-lust. Fury. Sadism.
Fear.
The magic in Kuja's hand jolted. How much had this woman seen?
The wind called his attention before he could linger on the details of her murder. It was a sharp wind -- cool with morning dew. Beyond that came the pink light of dawn. Kuja extinguished the fire at his fingertips as he approached that light. The wind brought with it the smell of lilacs and wild-grasses, and for a moment, Kuja allowed his anger to cool. Perhaps he could save it for another time. Perhaps he had over-reacted. Perhaps...
His boots tapped quietly against the soil. Beyond them, the trees sprang up in bushels of swaying leaves and cracking bark. The woman pulled herself from him only once the sun swept over her. She still held her sword cautiously at her side. As though it would do her any good should he decide to rid himself of her. He smirked at the dirt beneath her nails and the drying blood on her blade. It didn't suit her.
”I had no intention to deceive you," she said, as though her status were his chief concern. Her hand shook as angled her sword back into its sheathe. It took her several tries to make the connection. ”I am…surprised—” she said, and then stopped with a sudden gasp. ”—I did not know I was capable of…” she tried again, but trailed off, unable to say the word.
'Killing,' Kuja finished quietly, 'That you are capable of killing, my dear. But it isn't so terribly hard now, is it?'
”Kuja, I-" the princess started, but the words had barely come out before she had loosened the sword from her belt and thrown it, fully sheathed, at his feet. Kuja blinked once in surprise and glanced from the blade to its owner. Perhaps she understood her situation better than he'd thought. ”I owe you much and more.”
Kuja scanned her expression for traces of deceit, but he found none. She looked at him as though he were truly her savior -- unflinching, grateful, and awe-struck with her wide eyes and careful smile. Before he could think of a response, she had already taken his hand in hers. Her soft fingers melded around the curves of his own. She squeezed them once and then brought them carefully to her cheek. ”I cannot even begin to fathom such ordeals you have endured.” Kuja's stiffened at the implication of her words. He felt his fingers spark with magic, but she only pressed them closer. Her words came whispered on a breath.
”Do not believe my words are forged from pity. I do not pity. I offer apologies for my actions, and for all that has happened prior to our fated meeting.”
'Prior to our meeting.'Kuja's eyes narrowed. 'She saw him. She knows that I-'
She brought his hand to her lips and kissed softly at his palm. Kuja resisted the urge to set fire to her then and there.
”I do pray I am not counted amongst those who have betrayed you," she said quietly before pulling away from his touch. The feel of her cheek lingered beneath his nails.
"No," Kuja found himself saying, "Of course not, my lady. It was an honor to serve one so noble as you." He gave a small bow as though on a puppet's strings -- his usual with the sweep of the sleeve and the flick of his wrist. It came as naturally to him as breathing -- as naturally as the lies that slipped from his tongue. "It is my hope that you continue safely without falling to such cruel tricks again." He imagined fire blazing in her hair. His teeth ground against shrieks he could not hear.
”I must seek directions to the nearest civilization," the princess said, and Kuja nodded as though he did not wish her dead.
"The nearest town would be Torensten to the West. It is a noble town of trade and commerce. Perhaps you will find refuge there."
One swipe of his hand and she would die where she stood. Just one muttered spell, a jolt of power, and he would eradicate that pity from her eyes. There would be none alive to speak of his ordeals.
And yet the moment came then went, and Kuja stayed his hand.
The princess walked slowly between them and retrieved her fallen blade. She belted it quickly to her side and before looking at him fully. ”I do believe this is our farewell, until we meet again. I wish you the safest of travels," she told him with a smile.
"And you," Kuja responded, though he did not return the gesture. She turned and ducked beneath a curtain of leaves and bowed sapling branches. She flitted along with a confident step, a glitter of green wool, tan furs, and auburn hair. Kuja did not move until she'd vanished into the morning fog.
Funny thing, I was actually going to have him say this no matter who showed up. Since I don't want Tidus to die, I made it a bit more elaborate.
Why should the world exist without me?
Kuja did not believe in karma.
As far as he was concerned, there was no universal sense of morality. There existed no sense of cosmic balance nor any gods to smite evil-doers from on high. There existed only planets -- great rocky mounds that cycled endlessly through the empty void of space. As much as Kuja liked to muse on it, life was not like the plays that so consumed him. There was no justice to await the evil-doers of the world. There was no writer's hand plotting judgement against the villains and granting the heroes their reward. All of it was superstitious garbage -- nothing but antiquated children's fables passed on in the guise of wisdom.
Or at least, that's what Kuja would have liked to believe. Lately, his life had a way of proving him wrong.
In fact, Kuja did not make it so far as the tower's door before fate sent him another punishment for the blood on his hands.
"Why?! Why would you do this?"
The cry gave him pause -- not due to any real concern for his safety, but only because the shrillness of it had succeeded in startling him. It was a child's voice: high-pitched, nasal, and forward. His jaw clenched at its atonal timbre.
"Pardon?" Kuja tried to keep the tension from his voice as he sent the intruder a sideways glance. The boy stood alone on the edge of the cobblestone terrace. He seemed almost a silhouette with the silver-lit backdrop of mountains behind him and the shadows of the night at his face. Still, the boy stood with his shoulders hunched aggressively and his eyes burning with rage. In one hand he held a kind of glassy sword -- one that seemed almost made of ice -- but it angled awkwardly beneath his fingers until the tip touched the ground. In fact, if Kuja had to guess from his stance, he would have labelled the wrathful child as a complete amateur -- weak, nonthreatening, and an absolute joke.
And then there were his clothes.
Kuja had never seen anything like them. The boy wore black leather overalls adorned with silver chains, bangles, and several sets of zippers seemingly sprinkled over it at random. The legs cut off at uneven intervals so that one brushed the boy's knee with a strange red symbol while the other barely reached past his hip. Beneath the overalls' upper straps, the boy wore an open yellow half-jacket with one armored shoulder-pad, a single glove up to his elbow, and what appeared to be red wicker holding all the pieces together.
Combine it all, and the boy looked as though he'd been dragged through a stage-production armory by a particularly eccentric grand dragon.
Yet even as Kuja felt his lip curl, even as the first wave of endless mockery touched at his tongue, something gave him pause. Logically, there was no reason to reserve judgement on this young idiot who had dared to interrupt him. In fact, Kuja would have loved nothing more than to destroy the boy with insults and then, perhaps, with fire. Still, as his eyes grazed over the boy from head to bright-yellow toe, Kuja could not bring himself to act. A nameless, inexplicable something told him that he'd met this boy before. It was the same familiarity that Kuja had suffered at the hands of that cliched Warrior of Light, and it could be described as nothing but the most infuriating sense of deja vu.
Still, there was no use in antagonizing a hero -- particularly not one who might know the Warrior of Light. Kuja let the magic drop from his fingers. It was not his most dangerous weapon after all.
For this, his tongue would prove far more effective.
"Ah..." Kuja's eyes widened in surprise. "But you misunderstand." His hand arced from the door to the columns at his left side. A troubled frown touched at his lips as his eyebrows furrowed. "You see, they attacked me. If I had not acted as swiftly as I had, then I'm afraid I might not have survived."
Kuja took a step towards the boy like an actor gravitated towards center-stage. He bit lightly at his bottom lip and glanced at the corpses with a troubled eye. "You look as though you too are from another world. The people here, they do not take kindly to those of us who were pulled from other places. They call us outsiders, thieves, murderers. Haven't you faced the same hostilities?" Kuja touched at his forehead and laughed quietly. His voice trembled with unease. "I awoke many months ago in the hot desert sands. I had no recollection of my coming here nor of anything in this place. And all around me, the people whispered their suspicions that I might be evil."
Kuja couldn't help a smirk at his own dramatics. They hadn't been entirely wrong, after all.
"The guards here knew that I was foreign. They slung curses at me. They told me that I was not welcome on these steps. Then they pulled their weapons and-..." Kuja sighed. "If you had been ten minutes faster, well, I suppose it would not be their blood staining the ground, would it?"
Kuja tilted his head, touched at his chin, and gave the boy his most innocent smile. "So please. If you could lower your weapon...?"
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?"
The moon shone silver off of untouched mountaintops that night. The wind carried with it a harsh sting that might have frozen the bare skin of a lesser being. Trapped between jagged stone cliffs and steep drops, the path rose in treacherous edges. A tower loomed over the nearest mountain peak, its many arches and spires barely visible in the shadows of the night. It had watched over this mountain for centuries, and its eye could catch any traveler for miles.
The World Sight. The highest peak in all the world. Or at least, that was the legend of it.
In practice, it served the world more as a monument than a fortress. The locals spoke of some ancient hero entombed deep into the tower's catacombs, but the tale had grown so old and irrelevant that they couldn't validate that claim one way or the other. Still, it was said that any visitor upon these hallowed paths would be graced with the spirit of a hero, and that their troubled souls would know peace.
Kuja wished the spirit luck in that regard.
After a far-too-long journey from Sonora to this mountain pass, Kuja wondered if he had ever known warmth, or if the entire world was not one freezing tundra from end to end. The ice did not bother him so much as the wet, sloshing snow. It dampened his hair and slid slick where it met his cheeks and hips. His porcelain skin did not pucker as it would with humans nor did his complexion blush. In fact, to the outward onlooker, he would have seemed perfectly comfortable in this adverse weather -- oblivious to it and completely immune to the mortal sensation of cold.
That would be a hideous lie.
Thrice Kuja had cast high-level fire spells just to warm himself. Far more often, Kuja had brought weaker flames carefully to the ice on his boots. The cold would not kill him (not even the icy waters of the Esto Gaza would do that) but it could do much to infuriate him.
The World Sight was the last stop on his tour of Zephon's wide array of magical ruins. Kuja had opted to explore the Metaia Temple, the Crystalus Divider, and even the city of Sonora before braving its foreboding archways. The reason for that had been two-fold: first, that security had tightened after a massacre had stained the mountain pass in red, and second, that Kuja had not wished to draw attention negative attention to himself.
But the second no longer held true, and the first fell apart without the second. Kuja would examine the ruins here, and he would not accept no for an answer. This time, there would be no coy manipulation and no exhausting himself with teleportation. Kuja longed for the feel of blood beneath his nails.
'Listen, whatever you remember, we're on the same side here, okay?'
Zidane's voice rang inside him like a siren. Again and again, Kuja heard those words. He saw the honest emotion in Zidane's eyes, he saw that outstretched hand, and each time the vision made Kuja's jaw tighten. There were memories behind those images -- memories and pain. He didn't wish to think on it, and yet, he couldn't rid it from his mind.
Standing in that desolate, snow-lined street, Kuja had caught a flash of clarity in the dull haze of amnesia. He had remembered a broken green canopy and the feel of gnarled wood. He'd gazed through shattered sunlight and closed his eyes to the scent of rotting leaves and fresh blood. Above it all came an overwhelming sense of loss. And then he knew -- his life had been meaningless. His quest -- futile.
Kuja's nails formed deep white crescents in the palms of his hands. Was this why Zidane had looked at him with such pity? Had something happened on that terrible day in the Iifa Tree?
'And to answer your question, yes, I do trust you. Even though you don't trust me.'
"How careless of you to tempt me like this, Zidane." Kuja's eyes wandered above stone spires to the faces of merciless guardians. "You know how I so love betrayal." He ascended crumbling staircases as though floating on an inhuman wind.
Above him came shouting voices. "Stay there!" "Turn back!" "We're not accepting visitors!" Kuja did not slow his step. It had been far too long since Kuja had ended a life. It had always been safer to work from the background, manipulating the trust and greed of his pawns like puppets on his strings. Yet, such manipulation would have required patience that he no longer had.
Besides, this method was far more satisfying.
There were twelve of them in total. Large men, all of them, bulky in their down-feather coats and wool scarves. They carried their world's strange weapons -- small black cannons -- aimed and ready at him. Kuja eyed them coolly and then touched lightly at his forehead.
His laughter echoed like the soft ringing of bells on arching stone ceilings. His shoulders shook with his own amusement.
"My, such hostilities! And here I am, just an innocent scholar in pursuit of knowledge. Surely, you would not stand in my way?"
The soldiers answered with their predictable cries. "Stand down!" "No trespassers allowed!" "Leave now!"
Kuja sighed heavily. "And what exactly are you afraid of? Me?" His hand slid up to the flyaway hairs of his bangs, and he flipped them back over the side of his armor. A smile played on his lips as he observed the men before him. His eyes lit with anticipation. "Hm. Perhaps you're right. It seems the world needs a villain, and I am more than happy to play the part."
There was a gasp to his right. One of the men took a step backwards. "Oh god, I think it's one of-!" Kuja raised a hand and the man burst into flames.
Screams gripped the night. Screams, smoke, and the smell of burning flesh.
The others joined his victim's panic. Their weapons rang out against him, but their projectiles were deflected with only a few simple spells -- Protect. Shell. Reflect. He laughed at them.
'Do you see what I am, Zidane?' Kuja brought his hand down and with it, the wrath of the heavens. Violent thunder seared the air in super-heated cracks. Every strike quickened his heart as he watched his victims writhe. 'Do you see what I am capable of?'
Zidane would never offer him that loathsome hand again. His eyes would clear of pity and fill again with hatred. There would be no more painful memories, no more confusions over lost guilt. With every death, Kuja imagined Zidane's anguish at the meaningless destruction. It was almost more satisfying than the blood.
Almost.
The mountain regained its natural silence. The air cleared of his magic, and the shrine was still. Kuja listened to the soft whistling of wind through the rocky chasms below. He stepped carefully around the motionless figures strewn in his path.
Before him stood a great iron-wrought door. He approached it breathlessly. The ancient tomb awaited.
How dare you imply that Kuja could be a decent person. He takes personal offense to this.
Why should the world exist without me?
Zidane backed away from Kuja's biting words. His shoulder had hunched defensively and his tail had picked up an uneasy rhythm. Zidane did not take his bait. His eyes did not flash with anger nor did he finally reach for his blades. Instead, he merely withered beneath Kuja's gaze, wincing as though every syllable burned.
There was once a time when Kuja would have relished in the look Zidane gave him now. It seemed that time was no longer. Now Kuja could barely bring himself to meet the boy's eye.
"That's okay. Maybe someday you'll remember. And when you do, come find me."
Something surged in Kuja's chest, and he fought the urge to strike him. The boy's eyes welled with sympathy. His voice wavered with sadness. Perhaps if Kuja lit the space between them in flames, perhaps then Zidane's pity would falter. Perhaps then he would finally reach for his blades, hold them again him, and shout his usual heroic lines. Perhaps fear would overtake whatever pitiful scenes played in the boy's mind, and then perhaps that fear would lead to anger...
Kuja raised his hand, but the boy had already turned away. Kuja's fingers sparked with magic. Just one spell...
"And to answer your question, yes, I do trust you. Even though you don't trust me."
'Prove him wrong.' The impulse came like a siren's call. 'Take him now.' The boy did not look back. He stood there without protection, without weapons, with his back turned and his tail swaying warily. Kuja's breaths came sharper. He imagined the thrill of murder. Just one spell and the air would super-heat around him. It would be quick -- bloodless -- the boy would only have time for one look of betrayal and fear. 'Prove him wrong.'
But his hand did not move. No spells left his lips. For several seconds, there was nothing but the rush of snow around them and the biting of chilled wind. Zidane trotted away.
Kuja slowly lowered his hand.
Why couldn't he do it? The question lingered even as the boy's tail still whipped around the corner. 'Why couldn't I kill him?' Never before had Kuja hesitated in the act of murder. He had struck down solitary merchants, had sent assassins after political adversaries, and had slipped arsenic into the wine of wealthy businessmen who had trusted him far too much. His earliest years had been marked with tragic "accidents" for the hated genomes forced upon his presence. Some were discovered battered and still at the bottom of cliffs. Some in mangled strips after seemingly provoking a silver dragon. And Kuja could always be found nearby, innocent of everything, but far too unsettlingly present.
Looking back, Kuja wished he could have warned his younger self to greater discretion. Garland had undoubtedly suspected the truth of Kuja's hobbies long before that terrible day of exile. Perhaps that was why Zidane had been given life.
'A failure.'
Strange that a weapon made for death should be condemned for relishing in it. And Kuja had always relished in it. Every time but once...
The snow had fallen then too. Fresh, powdered snow outside the cliffs of Lindblum. Kuja had crept through the tangled brush of the plains, breath quick with excitement and fear. He had abandoned his forbidden cargo unconscious beneath a thorny bush. He'd reassured himself that the cold would do it or the monsters perhaps -- and it all came to the same thing, didn't it? Dead, gone, out of the way -- so long as Kuja's life was free of it once and for all?
Yet he'd left with that same, persisting question, 'Why couldn't I kill him? Why couldn't I kill Zidane?'
His fingers found their way to the ridge of his forehead. Their sharp touch scraped above his brow and he raked his nails up through the roots of his hair. His mind swam with crimson feathers, the rustling of leaves, and those eyes -- far too large, far too benevolent, and far too blue. The cautious sway of his blonde tail. A gloved hand, not unlike the one just offered to him. 'Yes, I do trust you.'
'Why?' Kuja could have hissed in frustration. 'What did I do to earn your trust? Who do you think I am?'
Someone who would not attack him from behind. Someone he would leave to wander at will. Someone who would not kill him.
'That's okay. Maybe someday you'll remember. And when you do, come find me.'
"Oh brother." Kuja opened his eyes to a gray and clouded sky. The snowflakes caught in his hair and eyelashes. "Do you really think there is good in me?" The wind offered no answer. Only the hollow prickle of cold.
Kuja left without speaking to anyone. Sonora's civilians would later report to hearing an explosion at the front gates of the city just before sunset. The charred remains of over a dozen guards would be uncovered from the wreckage, but the incident had left no living witnesses.
A thorough inspection would discover only a set of pointed footprints and a few strands of long silver hair.
