Author's Note: Just in time! Merry Christmas to all, here is my Christmas present! Yes, after months of absence due to FFXIV, I'm finally back with the last chapter of Undying. For realsies now.

Alright, so it's not a Christmas special, never fear, that will come, just not quite now. You see, I could have done one for today, but that would take a lot of the surprise and weight of introductions and reintroductions of this chapter, so I decided that it'd be better for me to simply release this and get the special a bit late. Okay? Okay.

Without further ado, the final chapter in Undying Sentiment!

An Undying Sentiment

Chapter Five

Ever After... Part 2:

Heritors

Branford Academy, the most prestigious school formed in the wake of the Rebirth. It kinda came out as hero worship, not something you, I or anyone would think the Branford family would be happy with.

Well, that was semi-correct. Unlike what you may think, they did not suggest, greenlit, or were even able to dispute the process of building said academy. This tied into the timing for its creation. As was previously said, the Branford Family had passed a great deal of their life living in the quietness of Narshe. Ten years to be exact. During that time, Edgar had taken over rebuilding Mobliz as best as he could, and, always the grand over spender, he had decided to create something to honor people who would never allow honoring to happen to them.

That isn't to say that the Academy was a money waste. No. Much the opposite. It was just what Mobliz needed to survive. As airships became the norm again, the need for a port town for commerce was soon becoming obsolete. Mobliz needed to get with the rapidly changing times of the Rebirth. Now striped of their previous main income of commerce, they desperately needed a way to both capitalize on the previously built structures and to have a function in a world whose size and population wouldn't survive with "useless" towns.

Killing a murder of crows with one stone, transforming Mobliz into an academic town was the perfect solution for all of it. The Academy's location, along with the highly esteemed scientific minds that had agreed to work in it due to longing a centralized place where to share and gain knowledge and the production value behind the massive installations which had more than punctured a hole in Figaro's coffers, had instantly made it an instant favorite through the entire Fantasian globe. By the time Terra's family had returned, they had been forced to just accept what had come to them.

It was at the entrance to these very premises that we found most of our group. Nimbus had passed by them and assured she would head for the PE pavilion while riding her very own, well… nimbus.

"We've arrived just in time… we have a couple of minutes to get to our classes. Anyone need anything?" Terra questioned, taking a quick glance at her schedule for the day. Ever since had word had got out that the namesake of the school was going to actually teaching in it, her schedule, needless to say, had expanded.

"We can handle ourselves by now Mom, don't worry. I'll just get Pris to class and go," Tina told her mother, wrapping an arm around her youngest sister and smiling down at her, Pris just sighing in response. Tina almost felt like a second mother to her. In the bad sense.

"Alright, but don't be late yourself. Same goes for you young ma-"Terra was… barely surprised when she noticed Kefka was long gone. "Oh Kefka… you never change, do you?" she asked herself for a moment before sweeping herself away into classes.

"I'll come to pick you up at lunch time!" Tina exclaimed as she left Priscilla next to her classroom, ignoring all the ogling looks she got from the girl's class members as she made her way to the other side of the building. She still had a few minutes to get to her History class, so she wasn't particularly worried, and if she was a bit late, she was the master of getting people to let stuff slide.

However, just as she was turning the corner towards her hallway, she was met face to face with someone she knew very well. How could she not know her neighbor of over ten years now? Ciro Adamas young man just about her age and nearly as tall as her, however, his body frame left much to be desired, even if he was of the opposite sex. One can attribute that to the fact that, while not even close to the bookworm Kefka was, he was still a fairly studious person. His eyes and hair matched, as they were both variants of yellow, even if his eyes were closer to gold. She better knew him as the class representative to every single class she had ever shared with him. That being all of them since she came to Mobliz. While he was not very forward most of the times, he was still someone with very good people skills, just in a more subtle way, and most importantly, responsible. He was kind of Tina's opposite really.

"Stalking me, are we Ciro? And here I was putting you on a different stand then the other guys in the school," she teased, making sure to sound as hurt as possible, despaired movements to boot. She expected to get some of his immediate and somewhat denials she had grown so used to cracking a laugh about, instead, she found him awfully gloomy for the moment.

"Tina, we need to talk," Ciro stated, taking a small pile of papers he had been holding on his left hand and starting to browse through them.

"Oh Ciro, if you want to ask me on a date, get in line," Tina half-heartedly replied, the shock of how serious the normally mild-mannered young man had become canceling any chance at sass her tone had.

"Four students were admitted on the Alexandros Foundation Hospital yesterday after being found severely injured on the forest. Doctors reported several gashes, broken bones, internal bleeding and one of them had a ruptured stomach. Three of them will be able to come back to school within the week, but the last one is still under probation. Coincidentally, they all shared classes with either you or your sister…" Ciro stopped, his somber tone intensifying the more he read into it. Tina's previous expression had completely changed, it was just as dark as the person in front of her. "Why?"

"They deserved it," she simply replied, venom slithering down her tongue as her hatred became more and more evident.

"Tina, I can't keep things under the rug for much longer. Hell, this is going to be front page news, the best thing I can do is give you an alibi!" he exclaimed, pushing the papers onto her. They had pictures of them. Tina winced, she did not expect them to be as destroyed as they appeared there.

"They didn't see me. They saw an animal," Tina pointed out, trying to sound in control and handing the papers back to Ciro.

"You talk like you don't know how many people see you and your family," Ciro replied, touching on something he clearly shouldn't have. Before he knew it, he was being slammed against the wall.

"Don't." Tina spewed, her features crackling for a moment. She stopped herself moments later, but the guilt had already come to her. "S-Sorry,"

"Don't worry, I knew how much this affects you. I was going to ask you to tell me why again, but… I think I got my answer. Just try to take it easier, okay?" he suggested, Tina shaking her head vigorously.

"I can't let what happened ten years ago come back to haunt us," she explained, the tension of the room reaching an all-time high.

"Tina, need your help!" someone called from the corridor Tina had just come from. A mix of his father and mother, Sky Chere Cole was to Kefka what Celes was to Terra. They were near brothers, which made Tina wonder why he was here. The eighteen-year-old had silvery brown hair tied into a small ponytail that grew just above his shoulder with his bangs slightly parted to the sides. He also wore his father's trademark bandana as a headband to boot. However, whereas his hair was his father's, his eyes were his mother's sharp icy blue eyes, however, much warmer ironically. He was not a very tall man, yet he was not short either, standing at slightly over 1.75 meters.

"Sky? Did Kefka blow something up again?" Tina asked with a hint of amusement. Kefka was always a way to blow off her steam.

"Nothing that major, is just that I don't know if he knew we lecture today. Since he's not in the auditorium, I figured I'd ask if he said anything at dinner," he explained, Tina recalling that Kefka had said that the day after the dinner of yesterday was just going to be a regular old Friday. And so, she shook her head. "Figured. I'll have to go get him then, bye! See ya tomorrow or something!" he exclaimed, Locke's energy showing through the veil of responsibility he had put as he departed.

"Your family is just a whole bunch of trouble, isn't it?" Ciro sighed as he picked up his stuff. "Anyway, let's get going, we all know how the Principal handles those who miss classes,"

"I… guess we are, aren't we?" Tina said, chuckling in a rare moment of serenity.

"C'mon Kefka, why the doom and gloom?" Sky asked his newly found classmate after a bit of sitting on the auditorium without a word coming from the blonde. They had arrived early for the lecture, well, they had been late, but they had comparatively arrived early considering it had been ten minutes since they got there, twenty past the appointed hour, and there was still no sign of the lecturer. Of course, for most in the auditorium this meant a euphoric ecstasy. They were missing Chemistry class of all things for this. Kefka, however, while he didn't exactly love being in a class, did not mind fiddling with the equipment of the class outside of the teacher's gaze. He'd prefer it to sitting around in an auditorium any day of the week.

"Look, I'm as much of a fan of the idea of not being class as you are, but I am less of a fan of the idea of spending that time doing absolutely nothing. I'd rather be productive than doing jack," Kefka explained, Sky sighing in response. True, he did see his point, in a completely logical standpoint, but he just wished Kefka would use his gut and not his brain for once.

"Still, it's a lecture from one of the teachers that have been with the Academy ever since its founding, they say only Doctor Shantotto has a better resume than our lecturer. Maybe you'll actually learn something from this," Sky pointed out, Kefka actually semi-nodding back. He was, in fact, interested in seeing who was the lecturer. While they knew it was a teacher, it was one of the college section of Branford Academy, which meant they knew little to nothing about him.

It was then that Kefka literally jumped off his seat, his finger pointing towards the front of auditorium and shouting:

"Since when?!" the booming question turning more than a few heads, first towards Kefka but then looking back to the would be lecturer's table… only to find someone there. He thought to have been looking at the stage this entire time out of boredom and hope yet, it was obvious to him now that someone was sitting at the lecturer's table, snacking on some fries while typing absentmindedly on the computer.

The person, rather, the woman had a completely aloof look on her expression when she turned to the rest of the auditorium the moment it grew silent, apparently either apathetic or bored out of her mind. She had long teal hair that had been braided into a loose French-styled braid leaning over her shoulder, azure eyes eyeing the entire auditorium with near robotic accuracy and consistency. She wore no special garments, simply the usual researcher's gown; she didn't seem the type to be flashy anyway. Her only special ornament was a quite intricate red hairpin that hanged on the side of her hair, one that many of the kids of the Blue Planet recognized as the symbol of Mist.

She stood up from her chair, fixing her teal braided hairline before throwing her long serpentine braid to her back and walking up to the center of the stage, adjusting something on her ear that Kefka assumed to be connecting to the speakers, and began talking.

"Have you all finally talked your fill? The lecture has been delayed for quite some time now," she asked, eyeing everyone in the room with a calculated impassivity. One of the braver souls actually spoke up against her.

"With all due respect, our lecturer hasn't arrived yet, nor have you tried to contain our talking at any given moment," the girl that Kefka did not know nor cared about knowing explained, surely feeling full of herself he thought. How sad was she about to look.

"Point taken, however, if you were not even able to notice I was here for the entirety of the time of the lecture, I'd honestly feel like it'd just be a waste of time. On your first point though, you are mistaken. I'm your lecturer for today," she explained, shocking everyone in the room but Kefka.

"Sorry, but we were told we'd be talking to someone that founded the Academy, you don't look that much older than us!" the same girl exclaimed, Kefka nearly laughing out loud. The lecturer sighed in exasperation, no doubt having been met with such claims on a nearly daily basis. And then, as if repeating for the one hundredth time, she said:

"My name is Cuore Mist Geraldine of Eblan, I've been teaching and investigating Quantum Physics for fifteen years now, you can go check it on my resume if you feel so inclined. Anyone who doubts me will just take those problems with Doctor Shantotto. I am here to educate you, not tell you the story of my life, now, are you all ready to start?" she questioned, the slightest bit of irritation coming through her voice, understandably so in Kefka's and Sky's eyes. They had known her ever since they were born, Kefka more than Sky, but they all knew how difficult it was for Cuore to fit in into human society given inherent superiority to them. Thankfully, Cuore's name resonated in more than a few people, and the auditorium quietened as a result. Good. "Now today's lecture is about the theory that I am most known for, the theory of Temporal Singularity,"

"Now, before I start, are any of you familiar with it?" silence came about the entire auditorium. Cuore smirked for a moment before waving it off. "Good, that is because I have not published yet. It is still being analyzed by the scientific community. Things work much slower Post-Rebirth," Kefka sighed exasperatedly. She was always like this. He could never realize if she was really taunting them or trying to imitate the emotion and posture of someone taunting. "In layman terms, it is there to dispel many misconceptions humanity has inherently clung to when it comes to the time-space continuum. Say, the most believed theory, on the masses at least, is that perhaps, every time you make a decision, that simply creates two or more diverging "possibilities of reality", ergo, timelines and that ours is just one out of the insane amount of these possibilities that exists, correct?" Most of the auditorium nodded in response to her as she paced down the stage and back into her computer. "That is both multiversal impossibility and a coping mechanism for humans who can't handle how small they are," Cuore wasn't exactly known for her tact, nor was Kefka, but even he knew that was simply going to create unnecessary traction between Cuore and the students.

However, no matter how many wrathful or disgusted insults were to come about from it, not one was allowed to even grace the auditorium however, as they found themselves fading away with the air of a hundred throats running silent.

"Did she just cast Silence on anyone who opened their mouths?" Sky whispered Kefka somewhat fearfully.

"Without even speaking the incantation or the name. Now she's just showing off," Kefka gnarled, even if he was half-impressed and half-thankful that she had not cast it on himself, he still had some questions brewing.

"Remember everyone, I am here to lecture you. You will speak when I tell you to speak," Cuore reminded everyone somewhat coldly, albeit stating it more as a fact than it was a spiteful remark. "Now, what I meant by that is simple. Humans like to think their decisions matter in the grand scheme of things. Except for some very rare exceptions, humans themselves don't matter in the face of the cosmos. That's the cold, hard, truth. To believe you create billions of timelines on your own lifespan by simply deciding things is simply arrogant. But I'm not going to discuss how big your ego as a species is right now. What I am here to explain to you is simply how it is a wrong notion,"

"Now, follow me for a moment. Let's follow a simple chain of thought. A multiverse, like ours, is constituted by several pocket dimensions that operate separately from each other, correct?" Kefka was fully aware that 90% of the auditorium was just nodding their heads out of necessity. They didn't understand anything. "However, while that was, at first, chalked up to being a byproduct of several timelines, history has recently showed us that that both isn't so and that it all has one single point of convergence, so that theory is not only debunked, but serves to strengthen mine. You see, this just means there's just that many more humans, or should I say, living beings, to sample from. Imagine if, for only a moment, every single one of them made a simple decision, let's say, on the level of simply deciding on what they'd eat that night. In a single moment, billions of alternate timelines, perhaps even more, would have been born,"

"You're assuming that any decision would create a completely different world," Kefka suddenly said, raising from his chair and gesturing towards Cuore. If he was to be silenced, so be it, he still wanted to prod for chinks on the armor for the theory. "Consider this. Maybe only decision that would come to inherently create great differences in the cosmos would make a reality so different in its possibilities that it simply realized itself. Like, to make or not to make a sandwich would not create such a difference, but to kill or not to kill the leader of a revolution that is reaching its apex possibly could," contrary to how most of the auditorium was already praying for the safe delivery of what was left of Kefka's soul to heaven, Cuore smiled slightly at the comment, more than content on having someone that actually wanted to use their brain.

"An apt response, however, it is unfortunately flawed," Cuore explained, a certain degree of care coming into her voice. Anyone would change if they finally felt like people were caring about what you were saying. "Tell me Kefka, what IS it that changes what is "relevant" to what is not? And relevant to what? The cosmos? Humanity? Something in-between? A revolution happening in one country is relevant to that country, but not to, let's say, an alien race three super galaxies away," for a moment there, the auditorium almost transformed into a simple room as the lecture slowly descended into a discussion between what looked to be the only two people either interested or understanding of the subject.

"What you mean is that, for that to happen, someone or something would have to decide what was relevant or not, right?" Kefka guessed, the twenty four year old Maenad sitting on the edge of the stage and nodding back, her legs starting to unconsciously rock back and forth. "But that is still a logical possibility," he gleamed, Cuore nodding yet again.

"If that was the only or even more decisive argument against it, yes. But it isn't. Here is the paradigm that destroys that theory. If a timeline creates billions of timelines every second, or even if we go by your theory and it only creates, let's say… two a second, that is being generous may I add. This means that every timeline it spawned would also create the same two a second, causing in an infinite inflation that would eventually clog the very time stream," Cuore explained, Kefka countering nearly immediately, just as she'd expected it.

"How are you sure that the timestream even has a limited space? Better yet, how are you certain that time even has a mass?" Kefka questioned, completely unaware of where Cuore was taking these arguments from and what her info was.

"Kefka, is the universe infinite?" Cuore asked, Kefka becoming stumped. "No, it isn't. It's expanding indefinitely. Infinity is a concept, not something achievable. There cannot be something forever. Same goes for whatever the timestream is. It may be constantly expanding, but the timelines would also be constantly increasing in number, but exponentially more so considering that every new timeline would also be creating timelines, ergo, the number of timelines is indefinitely increasing as well as it is indefinitely accelerating. In short, it is an eventuality that the growth of the number of timelines surpassed the timestream's potential expansion and then it'd be a matter of time before it was filled. Which in a space where time is relative like the timestream it'd be… nigh instantly. As for the mass? Information can only be transferred through mass. Spirits have mass, magic has mass, everything has mass, that's one of the basis of existence. We exist because we have a mold in which to exist," at that moment, Kefka simply nodded back and plopped down on his seat. He had been utterly told. And the funny thing is? He was the only one that understood that.

Cuore soon understanding that no one else in the room was following her, decided to make it into a more accessible experience, "Look at it like this," she took out a controller and turned on the projector connected to her computer, showing a large tree with apples hanging from it on an empty field. "Think of the tree as our timeline. And apples are what we call "deviations", that your decisions create," the moment she said it, the apples fell from the tree, planting themselves on the ground and creating even more trees. "As you can see, the deviations create more timelines. However…" the process then began to repeat itself, both for the trees that already existed and for the new ones. Creating more than double the trees this time. "If this keeps repeating itself, then even if some trees, or timelines, die along the way, the rate of creation is always rising, the more it rises the more trees are created and at higher rate," One thing happened on screen that differed from the norm. Just as the trees were about to fill the orchard, some humans tore down the barriers and began prepping new soil for them to grow on." Now, as you can see on the background, some humans have been expanding the field as the number of tree grew… still, since the trees are born at an increasingly fast rate, there comes a time where the soil they are preparing simply cannot keep up with the tree and fruit production. This is the problem with the previous theory on time. It can't be sustained," she explained, enlightening the smarter minds and at least leaving an expression on the… less than blessed ones. At least they weren't all lost. Kefka was aware of Cuore's theory in full by now, however, he still had one final question.

"Cuore, hypothetically speaking… if the timestream began to be strained, what would happen to the timelines?" he asked, Cuore taking a finger to her lips and going into deep consideration.

"Well, I can only theorize. This is how I see it however," Cuore said, pulling up a small leaf of paper from one of her pockets. "Imagine this is paper is Time. If I do this…" she said, beginning to crush it repeatedly until it was nothing more than a formless ball of paper. "If I crush this paper, it will be full of "malfunctions". "Time" would be "cramped". You either would not see what is written in the paper or it'd be ripped apart in the process of crushing it. I'd say that the timelines themselves would either begin experiencing unions or simply malfunctioning due to lack of space, either skipping parts of it or looping. They would all lead to one thing though, that is undeniable," Cuore said, standing back up and going back to her chair, picking up a single bottle of water and chanting under her breath the "Water" spell. The bottle began to expand and expand as more and more water was added into it, until it inevitably exploded in a burst that resounded throughout the auditorium and everyone's minds. "Complete collapse,"

"Damn Kefka, I sometimes forget how big of a brain you're packing, "Sky commented off-handedly as they left the auditorium. Kefka had been pensive this entire time, as had Sky. Sky however, was just trying to piece together everything he had just heard, he was somewhat above average on the brain department, he was a B+ student, but he felt out of his game in the implications thrown around there.

"And I forget how much of a difference there is between me and her…" Kefka said for once in a blue moon genuinely bummed out. Sky almost never saw Kefka let loose such a tired sigh of defeat. "It's so obvious in retrospective, but that's the entire difference between those who discover and those who reproduce,"

"You should at least give yourself some credit," Kefka thought for a moment those words came from Sky, but instead he found a very familiar hand touching his shoulder. "You were still able to put up a solid argument, without any prior study on the matter even," Cuore assured with the closest you'd get out of her for an uplifting voice.

"You didn't tell me anything about what you were investigating," Kefka said, turning away his head in a gesture of indignation, leaving Cuore genuinely confused while Sky could just shake his head.

"There they go again…" Sky sighed, slightly amused but mostly exasperated.

"You didn't ask," Cuore simply responded, as if she had done nothing that could have ticked off the blonde.

"You know that I'm interested in this kind of things!" Kefka shot back, crossing his arms and frowning. He didn't expect Cuore to get it, but it wasn't in his nature to take these things lightly.

"This thesis never came into conversation, so I withheld talking about it. You humans take such insignificant things too much to heart," she said, biting her tongue in the process. She had said humans again. Generalized them. For a moment, looked down upon them. This was not something that had just happened now, she had done so repeatedly in the lecture. She was not proud of it. It had become increasingly common lately. The more she studied the more she saw the gap between her and them grow and… the more alone she felt.

"Maybe. But you still owe me one!" Kefka exclaimed, holding up a case familiar to both of them. Cuore smiled. At least there was still someone that made the gears in her head need some oil.

"Is that a challenge? Your win ratio has still not risen above ten percent," Cuore sneered back with an energy very few saw in her, much less provoked.

"I need two more wins to do it! Don't get so full of yourself, I have improved more than you lately," Kefka exclaimed, taking her hand and starting to drag her. "Sky, tell Quists I'm sick or something!" he exclaimed, his mind set on the library.

"What?! You and me both know that she won't believe it!" Sky exclaimed, but Kefka had already dragged the Maenad around a corner. "And… she always shoots the messenger…" he sighed and skulked in the direction of his next class. He knew he was dead meat.

"Alright teach, what's in for today?" Nimbus asked as she arrived on the pavilion for her PE class only barely past five minutes late. Every one of her class had already arrived by now, however, instead of preparing themselves for whatever they were supposed to tackle today, they were all in a straight line, picking up papers from a box the teacher held.

"Ah Nimbus, change of plans. The Blitz Sphere ain't working, so we switched PE with SD for the day!" the now noticeably manlier musk of Tidus exclaimed, the retired Blitz player handing one of his students their own paper. Tidus had never quite reached Jecht levels of muscle, but even now you could see that he had beefed up considerably in his Blitzball playing days. Old age had done nothing but good to him, as he had finally been able to grow a beard, much like his old man had, one that he didn't even need to care for. The rest was still the same ol' Tidus, just with a deeper voice.

"SD?! So that means we're sparring today?!" Nimbus exclaimed, stars in her yes. Self-Defense classes had become standard the past school year. Monsters were everything but extinct, and the fusion of all worlds had only made the wildlife more unpredictable. As a response to that, they had at least tried to make teens more combat ready than their previous societies would ask. Nimbus adored this mindset, most other people… not so much.

"Yes we are, BUT-"Tidus warned, removing the basket from Nimbus grasped just as she had jumped for it, causing the young Esperian girl to crash and burn on the floor. "You're not going to be in the draw!"

"Aaaaaaw! Why would you do that?!" Nimbus exclaimed, feeling robbed. She had anticipated the day that her school would stop trying to ease her classmates into fighting and just let them pound each other to the ground! In a completely sportive way mind you.

"Because most people here would just be thrown around like a ragdoll by you. I'm giving you a task that will benefit me and you at the same time though!" Tidus exclaimed, smiling as he pointed with his thumb to his left side. "You and Stratus can get the first spar, for educational purposes. I mean, what better way to study something than to see it in action, right?" Nimbus' teacher said while gesturing to the girl's best friend as she stood there, ready to go.

Stratus Fair, age 16. Stratus looked the part for being the only daughter of Zack and Aqua, proving that the Mako-infused eyes of SOLDIER did, in fact, pass down to the next generation, along with a hair that seemed to take a page out of both of her parents, unruly dark blue spikes falling down until they hit her shoulder line. While she was of her mother's gender and took most of her body build and facial features from her, she was so much like her father that it made her the perfect companion for Nimbus' spunk. Even now, Nim was sure that Stratus had been the one to suggest the switch to their teacher. Not that she minded at all.

"Exactly teacher, I think this is the best way to get people into the cla- give those back!" Stratus began, voice dripping in confidence as she began drawing on a pair of wooden bamboo swords. All that swaggering turned into whimpers as Tidus confiscated both, with a smile that showed just how he not only knew that she had tried to use him, but he was about to get his revenge.

"We're teaching hand-to-hand combat, remember? No need for these things!" he pointed out, waving the pair of weapons in front of Stratus and dodging any attempts she had at getting the swords.

"Hehehe… hey Nim, give me a hand here!" she half-begged, understanding in just how bad of a situation she was in. Nimbus just laughed in the face of her suffering. "C'mon! Just because YOU focus on martial arts doesn't mean I should get backstabbed like this!"

"Alright fine, fine," Nimbus agreed, taking a deeper breath while she gave a thumbs up. "I won't use magic, that alright?" she offered, Tidus shutting it down immediately.

"Of course you won't. Half these kids can't use magic, so magic is off limits… for both of you!" Tidus teased, taking off his chronometer at the same time. "Five minutes girls, give us a show!"

"Why you…Oh, to hell with it!" Stratus shouted, beating her feet against the floor in frustration before stabilizing her breathing, taking a fighting stance. "I'll give you a handicap Nimbus!"

"You sure you want to do thi-"Nimbus began to ask, suddenly feeling the need to let her body fall backwards to avoid the coming roundhouse. "Oh, we're serious, are we?" she taunted, flipping just before she hit the ground, landing safely and propelling herself backwards. Her feet hit the ground just in time for her to brace herself for the right handed punch Stratus had thrown in her direction. With the dexterity of a wild beast, Nimbus not only avoided it with as little movement possible, but she grabbed her opponent's outstretched arm, using it to flip the girl straight into the ground.

"This, everyone, is how you use your opponent's strength against them!" Nimbus exclaimed, proud of her accomplishment as she could be. "Heh?" she gasped as she felt her body suddenly become airborne. It took moments for her brain to process that Stratus had just pulled the cushioned floor straight from beneath her feet. When she did however, it was too late. The bluenette had taken a hold of both of Nimbus leg's and spun her in place twice before throwing her straight into the nearby wall.

Nimbus didn't have much time, but she managed to twist herself in midair in order to impact with her hands and feet on the wall. Not that her opponent didn't predict that, Stratus had started sprinting the moment she threw Nimbus, jumping to deliver a flying kick on the draconian girl. It took Nimbus backflipping horizontally on the wall to dodge it. Not once, not twice, but three times, as Stratus chased after her with a flow of kicks. She only stopped because both could feel their momentum dying and gravity starting to show them who was boss, forcing them to jump off the wall and land safely on the ground.

"Not gonna lie Strat, that carpet thing was a dick move," Nimbus told her whilst putting on the best taunting grin she could manage.

"Yes, because what you did to my hand was aright and all," Stratus replied, turning her right hand to show a gash that went through the side of it and into her arm. "Your scales did that to me if you're wondering," she pointed out, referring to the crystalline scales that grew on the side of Nimbus' face.

"Oh, I'm not. I was just wondering how I could utilize it better… got it!" she said happily, throwing off both of her shoes, revealing her clawed feet. Stratus' sweat suddenly became tenfold.

"Hey, you're not gonna…" she gasped, gulping down heavily as the light of the sun reflected on those especially sharp nail-like-claws.

"Heads up!" Nimbus threw, only moments before swinging her right leg wildly through the air towards Stratus' face. On the side, Tidus was simply sitting back and shaking his head. Students had asked him if he shouldn't stop this, but he knew it damn well that the girls did far more dangerous spars on a daily basis. At least they would maybe impress some people enough to have them be enthusiastic towards the class.

"Will. You. Just. Cut. It. Out?!" Stratus exclaimed, stopping every time she had to either block or dodge one of the razor sharp strikes. She noticed that she had gathered some deeper than scratch injuries now, she was overflowing with adrenaline. "FINE! Be that way!" she screamed, letting one of Nimbus' legs connect with her torso on purpose. She took the impact as well as she could, surprising her opponent for long enough to get a good grasp on her shoulders. And just like that, Stratus straight up headbutted Nimbus as hard as she could, crystalline scales and all.

Needless to say, it hurt her as much as it did Nimbus. The pavilion just stared in sheer shock as both girls proceeded to throw themselves on the ground, grabbing their injured head and flaying their legs almost comically.

"Was that really necessary Strat?!" Nimbus shouted, still half-dazed from the power behind the headbut. This went both ways however, as the girl in question took more than a few seconds to say something back.

"Look at me, I have more holes in me than Baronian Cheese, yes, I very much think it was necessary! Now let's just finish this so that I can actually heal myself!" Stratus exclaimed, the lack of adrenaline making her cuts and punctures more than noticeable. This, however, had a strange effect on Nimbus.

"Hey, teach! You said we can't use magic, right?!" she asked in a tone that clued Tidus in that she was onto no good. Still, he couldn't really deny it, could he?

"Yes, but why are you asking?" Tidus asked, cursing himself for being so dumb mere seconds later. Nimbus' grin had gone wide and brilliant at the response, lengths doubling over, as if bracing for some sort of impact, hands cupping on the side of her torso.

"Well then, here's Uncle Sabin's…"she began, a pure whitish blue sphere forming between her hands, growing with each passing moment. "AURA CANON!" her voice thundered, her hands thrusting forward and letting flow a streaming wave of energy whose shockwave was enough to clear any cushioned floors and the people standing in them between it and its target, Stratus. The girl in question just yelled:

"What the hell Nim!" turning to what seemed to be to run away from the beam, but, knowing she could not outpace it, she was instead rushing towards the wall, jumping towards it to gain a higher foothold and attempt to dodge it. What came next was the utter destruction of the pavilion's wall.

"The principal is going to murder me…" Tidus could only whisper as he saw his life being scattered to the four winds along with the remains of the wall.

"Sheesh… maybe I overdid it." Nimbus pondered, giving herself a healthy laughter while she scratched the back of her head.

"Ya think?!" Stratus blared from one of the chandeliers at the top of the pavilion, hanging on for dear life. "And what was that about, didn't we agree to no magic?"

"I used a Blitz… it's not technically magic!" Nimbus replied, knowing full well how she was arguing semantics. And winning. "Now come on down, time ain't over yet!" the irritation on Stratus was visible by this point. Heck, she was about to bust a blood vessel.

"You know what… screw it! If you want to play dirty, you won't outplay me! Blizzara!" she boomed, caring little about the rules at this point, Nimbus had thrown that off the window the moment she blew up half the east wall. She first created five shinning spears of pure ice around her body, then commanding them to attack with her hands, the five dashing towards their target in an irregular fashion.

"Oh, you shouldn't have gone there! Tremble!" Nimbus commanded, stepping on the floor as hard as she could… which caused three enormous spears of rock to apparently cover all directions around her, nearly giving Tidus a heart attack due to the property damage that was about to happen. The icicle spears could do nothing but crack the structure, Stratus being expecting this, as she was already chanting yet another spell.

"Out with it Nim, Blizzaga!" she boomed, blasting the structure apart with a giant chunk of ice… only to find nothing there. "How? Wait, there was no pillar on the opposite end!" her realization came far too late. She heard the distinct sound of a certain cloud wheezing behind her, turning to see her friend and rival swinging down a staff made out of rock direction into her forehead.

"Lights out!" Nimbus exclaimed… just before feeling her entire body being thrown around against her will. Before she knew it, she was near ground level, her body being carried under one of Tidus' arms, Stratus being held by his other arm.

"Time's up for the both of you. And let me tell you, you two just landed on a minefield of trouble!" Tidus exclaimed, more relieved that she was able to avoid any further property or student damage than he was angry at the two for letting their hot blood gain control of their heads. That relief didn't last long. For any of the ones on the pavilion. It only took one distinct laughter.

"Ohohoho!" to freeze the class in place. They didn't breathe, they didn't even need to look at the small round bony bouncing in their direction. They knew the tidal wave that was coming. They just hoped it'd pass by them, not over them.

"P-Principal Shantotto!" Tidus, Nimbus and Stratus all gapped, the former trying his best to keep a straight face, even in the face of all this destruction.

"Girls, your teacher speaks true, I've got a Promanthian punishment, just for the two of you!" Shantotto exclaimed, the Tartaru being nigh gleeful… okay, fully ecstatic about getting an excuse to boss around two of the school's biggest troublemakers. They weren't Tina, but they were damn close. However, she didn't end there. No, before Tidus could relax, she added: "Still, professor, have you seen the state of this facility? You better be ready to take… responsibility," she whispered, her staff forming itself on her hands.

The pavilion would take months before it could be open again after what transpired next.

Morning had come and went rather quickly for the smallest and youngest of the family. Priscilla was not an honor student by any means, nor was she someone that paid attention to every single detail in class. She did, however, truly excel in keeping herself entertained. Drawing, writing, wondering about the shows, books and games she had played, if she was ever bored, she was able to simply clear it away on her own.

Whenever that failed, there was always her neighbor, with which she shared a table with. Iris Fuco had been Priscilla's best friend ever since childhood, and it was easy to see why. One of the first Alexandrians to attend the school, she was, like many people in Zidane's world, not exactly human. Sure, at first glance one could see a really short, as in, shorter than even Pris by a few centimeters, red-haired teenage girl. What people did not miss for long, however, were the quite prominent wolf ears sticking out of her head or the fluffy-but-not-as-fluffy-as-Pris' red wolf tail tipped in a bit of white. Her heterochromia also made her present herself with a green eye and her right blue one.

That being said, Iris had bolted off the classroom as soon as the bell rang, making a beeline for the bathroom, leaving our girl to pack her things as she waited for her sister and her.

It was then that she was approached by a single teenager that she knew nothing about. She wasn't shocked about the fact that she didn't know this teenager, transfer students were frolicking about due to a program with Academia recently. However, to come talk to her was strange. While Priscilla wasn't persecuted in her class, she was hardly the most popular person in there.

"Why hello there," the boy greeted, raising his hand and doing his best to sound friendly. Priscilla smiled back and returned the greeting. "So you're Priscilla Branford, am I correct?"

"Yes, but how did you know?" she asked back at him, feeling somewhat uncomfortable. It wasn't that he was being rude or forceful, but there was something in his eyes that didn't sit right with her.

"I only listened to the roll call. Your family must be quite the doozy, to have an Academy named after them," Priscilla couldn't help but raise her eyebrow. He didn't know who her mother was? True, her Papa's books hadn't exactly reached the entire population, but Mama had saved the entire universe. Twice. She was too famous for him not to know who she was. Still, she played along, wanting to know if what he wanted.

"Y-yes. But I'm not that special," she hoped she could do better than that, but while her mind had formulated the answer immediately, she still stuttered once or twice while trying to look him in the eyes.

"Well, I'm new here, and I'd be honored to have someone has prestigious as you showing me around the school, if it's not too much to ask that is," for anyone else, it'd be obvious that this guy was hitting on Priscilla. For someone that was ten times as dense as her mother, he sounded like someone asking for help. This put Priscilla against the wall, as she fiddled her fingers, trying to find a way to tell him that she had to meet her sister and her friend for lunch. It wasn't until she heard Iris' voice that she knew that something was up.

"Hey, let go of me!" Iris shouted from the entrance, the small girl being held up in the air by the most generic large bully imaginable.

"Hey Jaune, this dog can talk!" the brute yelled, waving the light fifteen year old around as if she were a puppy. To Priscilla's shock, the teen she was talking, as well composed and nearly charming as he was, adopted an expression she had tried to lock away in the back of her mind for the past years. That was sheer disgust.

"This is why I didn't want to come to this damn planet. Subhumans everywhere!" he exclaimed, turning from Pris and appearing to set his sights on her friend.

"Leave Iris alone!" Priscilla yelled, for a moment losing control of her magic while she stood up in anger, a storm of pure white snow leaving the brute about as frozen as a popsicle whilst Iris managed to jump off his untouched clutches quite easily. This, of course, gained Jaune's attention, whose eyes immediately focused on the tail.

"You… you're one of them. They named this damned place after that thing that they call Esper that killed so many of our race, don't they?" he whispered, his hand sliding down his pocket and pulled out a primed Pulsian Energy Knife. "Hell, I get to catch her spawn on my first day, talk about lucky!"

Priscilla could feel her magic acting up, and she was not sure if she wanted to suppress it this time. She hated the very notion of what magic could do, especially hers, which she barely even understood, she had just frozen a boy without even chanting a spell. Yet, the eyes of this person were dark, hateful, she knew he wasn't about to hesitate.

She was just glad he wasn't even given the opportunity to.

You see, before anything else happened, a hand grabbed onto the attacker's shoulder. He had no time to react as Tina grabbed his shoulders and slammed him against the nearby wall, breaking he window behind him in the process, which put his body dangerously close from a freefall.

"What were you trying to do to my sister, you little bitch?!" Tina snarled, scaring even the very people she was trying to save. Priscilla hated this situation just as much as the one she was in. Tina was glowing at this point as she shoved the teen into the broken glass of the window. "What has she ever done to you?! I should tear you in half!" Pris knew. Tina was serious.

"Tina, stop!" Pris yelled, to no avail, Tina was beyond any words at this point.

"Calm down kitty cat, this isn't your turf," the savior to the entire situation said, another acquaintance to Pris popping in to stop this from getting any darker. Ceres Adamas was, like her name implies, Ciro's sister and the antithesis to Tina. She was head of the disciplinary committee, that should say something. Gifted with green eyes and a long smooth dark chocolate hairline, the girl's hourglass figure somehow had more than enough strength to down Tina easily, even if it was from a sneak attack.

"Thank you for getting that sa-"Jaune quickly received a swift and brutal kick to the balls before he could finish the sentence.

"Not here to help you, I'm here to get her off any more trouble before my brother has a heart attack," she told him, trying to hide the real reason she had helped Tina as best as she could. Pris knew she was as disgusted as Tina however, she just didn't want to agree with her.

"Heh, to think Plain Jane in the Mud would actually help me for once," Tina snarled, shaking her head whilst standing back up. "Tell your brother I owe him one,"

"What?!" Ceres boomed back, her forehead nearly colliding with Tina's. "I stopped you from getting yourself expelled and this is how you repaly me?!"

"Your brother most likely told you to keep an eye on me. That and I see no reason to thank you for doing your job," Tina replied, sliding her eyes to the other side and whistling.

"Why you ungrateful little…"

Priscilla knew that Tina and Ceres were not going to stop her tango any time soon. Smiling for a moment, thankful nothing awful had come of this, she was relieved when she saw her art teacher bust in the room, eyes wide open yelling:

"What in the Warring Triad's name happened here?!" Relm Arrowny yelled out loud, ending the violent encounter.

"Yes! Weekend!" Iris cheered as she and Priscilla left the school at four o'clock in the afternoon, the hyperactive girl jumping over the gate to the school before the gatekeeper even had the time to open it. Priscilla was far less jubilant about it. She loved weekend, but the events of lunchbreak still weighed heavily on her. It was like a blast from the past, in all the wrong ways. "Pris… something wrong?" Iris asked, her ears flopping down like a wounded puppy. Priscilla dispelled her worries as fast as possible.

"No, it's nothing! It's just that, Jaune-"

"Forget about that bozo! My cousin probably took him straight to Shantotto. And you know what happens when a troublemaker goes to Shantotto!" the wolf-girl claimed, Priscilla being unable to not smile in the face of such energy. This is why Iris was the best girl for her to be around. She would always rescue Pris from any of her not-so-rare trips into self-guilt land.

"I'll try. So, heading back home?" she asked her friend, who suddenly had her ears stand right back up, proceeding to take her trusty notebook out of her back and checking something on it.

"Hey Pris, been meaning to ask you, up for some mountain climbing?!" she quite randomly asked, raising a brow out of her friend. "Don't give me that look! I found out this amazing sight of Mobliz, you gotta check it out!" she exclaimed while hopping around with full on glee.

"I don't know, I mean, my Papa is waiting…" Pris began. Immediately afterwards, she was hit with Iris' ultimate weapon. Literal puppy eyes. Priscilla is Terra Branford's daughter. There was no resisting literal puppy eyes. "Okay, I'll go with you Iris,"

"Yes! Let's get going then!" Iris exclaimed, rushing in the direction of the horizon. Priscilla could only giggle in response, taking into chase.

"Wow, slow down Pris!" Iris said… from Pris's side?

"Iris? How?! You just left running!" Priscilla was sure of what she had saw. Iris wasn't good at magic either, so there was no way she had cast any spell. Was she just THAT fast now?

"Huh? I was waiting for you!" she said, her ears immediately standing up… again as she did the exact same motions to get her notebook out. "Hey Pris, been meaning to ask you, up for some mountain climbing?!" she asked, further freaking out Pris. Her tone had been the same, her question had been the same, her position had been the same. Iris had awful memory, part of the reason why she carried down a book to write notes on, but this was just too much for her to forget.

"Iris… you alright?" Priscilla asked with genuine care for her fiend. She was half-worried about her, half of her told her this was a prank, she did not want to listen to the other half.

"You're the one acting weird Pris! You know what? You're coming, whether you like it or not, you need some fresh air in that brain!" Iris exclaimed, grabbing onto Pris' hand and sprinting down the street. Pris wasn't half the athlete Iris was, it wasn't long until the inevitable happened. She tripped.

And then she woke up.

"Where am I?" Priscilla questioned, her eyes scanning the area. A lush green forest, on a hill if the inclination was to be believed. Was this…

"Wakey wak- oh, you're up already! Darn Priscy, you need to work on that stamina, you fell flat the moment we arrived here!" Iris exclaimed from atop the tree Pris was leaning against.

"Was it just… a dream?" she asked herself, unsure of what she had experienced. She didn't remember getting to the hill and she was sure that the way she tripped would at least leave a bruise… but nothing had come to her. She shook her head and decided it was best to just leave it as a strange dream and a rude awakening for now.

"Check and Mate," Cuore stated as she decisively drove her custom made queen piece into the exact square she had driven Kefka into not being able to counter for the last ten turns. "That is nine point seventy eight percent win ratio Kefka, you lost over two decimals today," the Maenad pointed out, bumming out Kefka to no end.

"Shut up… I'll start my counter attack now!" he assured her, ruffling his blonde hair in frustration before starting to put the pieces back together.

"Not today you won't," Tina said from the entrance of the library as she and a somewhat burned Nimbus stood there, waiting with crossed arms.

"We're only supposed to rendezvous when classes ended," Kefka told them, being shocked once Nimbus pointed at the clock at the center of the library, which clearly read 18H: 21M.

"Leo ain't gonna wait much longer," Nimbus told him, forcing her brother to begrudgingly give in.

"We can continue our match tomorrow," Cuore suggested, causing the slightest glimpse of a smile to douse Kefka's expression.

"I guess we can," Kefka always tried to sound as distant as possible, today, he failed horribly.

Cuore felt her lips also pucker into a smile as she saw them leave, reminded why she had more people than just her family that she had befriended. However.

"Ohohoho! Look who we have here! A Researcher that has missed an entire afternoon of work I hear!" this was enough to make even Cuore's blood freeze. And then sear.

"Took you long enough!" Leo Cor, the son of Duane and Katarin said, checking his watch in the process. His hair had finally grown into a wild-spiky sandy blonde mane that was only outspiked by Nimbus' and of course Cloud's. He was slightly tanned in complexion, much like his father and his namesake, but not too much, stood at a dead average 1.80 meters and was, much like Nimbus, sporting a sportsman's build. Fitting for who was…

"What boyfriend complains for his girl to be late?!"Nimbus asked, gripping Leo's chest as hard as she could. Thankfully for Leo, he trained with Nimbus on a day to day basis, so he didn't get his back broken… by chance.

"Honestly, I have to agree, I mean, you're already the pinnacle of patience for letting THIS one be your girlfriend, yet you complain about a couple of minutes?" Kefka added. It was a gigantic shock to every single person in the family that the first person to have a date life was Nimbus of all people, yet, it had worked spectacularly for the past year, Kefka finally making sure that Nimbus was in fact a girl, and not an asexual being in the process.

"Stores close at half to eight," Leo simply said, opening his car with a simple click of his key. "Now get in, we have barely an hour,"

"Alright! Operation: Buying The Best Gift For Pris is a go!" Nimbus shout with enough ham to feed a behemoth for a week. And so, they rode into the coming sunset.

"We're just in time for the sunset!" Iris exclaimed, plopping down on a large cliffside while motioning Pris to sit by her side. The view was pretty, but not too much in her view, just a overview of the city with the sea leading towards the horizon. "Just wait a bit, alright?" Iris asked, her best friend nodding. "Hey Pris… you know we're tailies, right?" she asked, her "taily" giggling at the term Iris had invented to replace "besties". She wrapped her tail around Iris and performed a "tailshake" to a confirm it. "Well, after what happened today, don't hesitate on asking me for help! I don't know what happened ten years ago, but I won't let it happen again!" The commitment and devotion Iris put in that statement touched Priscilla to her very core. She had hidden what had happened in the year before she moved there to the best of her abilities. She and her family had done their best to remove that time for existence. And yet, iris didn't hesitate in offering to help her. "Huuuuh… it'd help to know WHAT happened ten years ago though," Priscilla knew she was right, yet, she was not ready to tell her. Not yet.

"Ten years ago was the only time I saw Mama cry," she vaguely responded, leaving a soft silence to take the two friends as they both waited for sunset.

Just as Priscilla was about to think nothing would happen, it was as if the sea had caught on fire as the sun touched it. As the flames took the sea, the reflections of the water and sun took to every window in the town of Mobliz, creating an unrivalled burning sea of light and water that took Priscilla's eyes by storm. She had never seen anything quite as beautiful as this.

"So, whadaya think?!" Iris asked, chest pumped out of pride.

"It's beautiful Iris! I… I promise I'll make it up to you. Tomorrow, at my birthday!" Priscilla exclaimed, emboldened by the flames of the horizon and the previous words of her friend. She felt, no, she knew, that tomorrow she would start a new chapter in her life's tale.

Little did she know, that chapter was one to be written in the annals of history.

An Unending Saga to be concluded in:

An Unending Stream

Post-Chapter Note: What, you thought I wouldn't tease plot? Pft, you wish. Yes everyone it is official. AUS2 will happen. This was all a set up for it. I know that AUS1 is still to be finished but don't worry, that will come soon enough. This was a celebration and I hope that you loved every bit of it. I sure did.

So, did you like the kids in this chapter? Were they who you thought they'd be? Did your preferences on the kids change? Tell me, I hunger to know!

Alright, so we finally finish this story for good. I'll probably post the Christmas Special here too, but it's outside the plotline, so this will be the technical final chapter of it. I hope you had as good of a ride as I did, see you next time in our Unending adventure!