A/N: Thank you so much for your last comments! Latest update ever, sorry I was vacationing like crazy and this whole summer I've been working on this chapter. Working on theories, ideas, fantasies, watching inspiring movies and anime. I really hope you guys like this chapter and I hope I made it makes sense, haha. I've revised it tons of times.
Hmm… love is a confusing thing. It comes whenever it pleases. I directed a piece of this chapter totally inspired of what I learned from a certain anime. …Gosh this is going to be a depressing chapter… Oh and before that Caraway carries a gun that I'll refer to it as a TMP because in the Resident Evil 4 game it's what it's called, lol. Hey I hope you remembered anything in Italic is Rinoa's thoughts and they're not aloud even in quotations, if you forgot way back read everything again, lmao.
Chapter 13 – With regret, hesitation, I'm listening… I'm waning.
He breathed harder and harder. "Still prepared as a Galbadia soldier, I see" he said firmly holding on to his guns. His back to the wall, the General looked over his shoulder passed the wall to the center of the lobby floor where Laguna stood.
"You're getting tired old man?" Laguna spoke pointing his own gun to where he hid. He slowly took small steps behind him getting closer to the entrance.
"Tired of you" Caraway said as he took his courage and confronted him. Laguna shooting merely a few times suddenly turned to run out the doors behind him. Rounds were fired, one, four, seven, left, right, left, shards of glass falling like hail. His body could not move faster then the bullets, his mind did not think faster then the bullets and his heart could not beat as fast as the bullets.
Laguna had plunged rolling brutally to the side at his black car. He sought to use it as a protective shield but it was too late. The barrage of bullets had already stopped. The onslaught had gotten to him. He groaned and clasped his torso covering his chest wounds. He hauled himself around the tail light edge of the car and caved to a stop. The dire pain increased and reminisces of his past. Leaving for war and barely surviving. How mortal he was. Having to suffer so and to atone for so much he left behind. Julia, Raine, Ellone… Squall… was this to happen again, he thought. He glanced towards the skyline. His lips parted to speak …nothing. Then his stomach snarled of hunger. '…I guess I won't be home for dinner Ellone' he thought.
"That was superb. The tragic hero falls with not a woman by his side to say goodbye." Caraway approached his victim. "You won't live long."
Laguna's face tensed tight and he relaxed his head back to the car. Caraway lifted his TMP and placed a cigar in his mouth, lighting it up. Laguna gazed at the sky, through all the darkness the moon glistened past the clouds as a light of optimism leading to him. "…Why don't you just walk it off, you'll die quicker" Caraway said grimly. The general took one last look at the solider and walked away. Laguna did not watch him. He kept focused on the moon lighting up his face. His lungs burned to speak, to breathe, his heart to love, to live.
"Father!" She screamed scared leaping out of her chair awoken by a recollection of the past. They were Caraway's plans. Once more her chest felt writhedwith a sort of pain, a concern for her dear uncle. "…father" she said once more to her own surprise.
Ellone had never referred to her dear uncle Laguna as father before. As a child she would imagine her family …Laguna being her dear father. However she was not a child anymore, she does not need a father although quickly she desired it. "I'm so worried Laguna…" She voiced as though he can hear her. On her feet, she walked out of the room, past the dining room with a dinner for two towards the entrance closet and opened the door. She reached for her suited jacket and hesitated. "Caraway is planning on…" Ellone hesitated once again and grabbed her coat. She turned to exit and stopped with her back to the door to muse over about earlier.
"It'll be okay… Nothing can bring him down. He's strong just like his papa." She remembered as well as his reassuring smile.
Her body slid down to the floor and there she sat to think of one more thing. "…Do me a favor and stay inside the palace." He had said.
"Headmaster, we've located the prison's coordinates."
"We've locked on, sir! He is not at the base."
"Quistis is notified and on line 1 in your office requesting permission to use the Ragnarok."
"Nadia confirm permission. Have Quistis departed towards the General's previous position alongside Team B. Xu give the coordinates to Selphie. Team A and C will infiltrate and evacuate everyone. They will be our captives for questioning."
"Umm sir, please allow Quistis to go to the prison base." Xu plead.
"I understand Quistis is worried about Squall but it is best if she does not get anymore emotionally involved." He replied.
"Sir …I was wrong to question your judgment" she apologized and walked to Nadia asking for the phone. "May I?" Nadia handed her the phone. "Quistis?"
"Yes Xu I know"
"I'm sorry. I'll have Selphie keep in contact with you."
"That is enough… thank you."
They all moaned once outside the doors of the imprisonment. Finally they escaped but the mercenaries still approaching. The three moved forward and stopped to their exhaustion. Squall and Rinoa both had their arms on each other holding themselves up. Rinoa clutched around Squall's arm and sighed deeply. "I can't… hold up."
Squall glared at Seifer. "What! How should I know, that it was going to take effect like this!" Seifer defended but it was no time to act like this. Rinoa was slowly getting weaker to a finish which they did not know of. Squall released her on the ground. "Rest for now" he said.
Seifer volunteered the option of disposing the men that would dare come outside on the premises by simply searching for his victims. "Come over here you little shit!"
Men exited to the entrance of the secure unit and onward went Squall with Seifer charging from behind. He hogged the situation of removing the danger while Squall dealt with only one man. With that complete Seifer advanced toward Squall. "Your chest wound is pretty bad, anyone can take you out" he warned swinging his gunblade as if it was a threat.
"I can handle it." Squall lied closing his fist tightly together.
"Alright then" Seifer nodded. "You watch over Rinoa but hey word from the wise… I'd keep your distance from the princess. A knight that can't protect himself from who he is protecting is in a lot of trouble. A knight that can't protect himself can't protect another."
More fighters rushed out as it was almost time for sundown. Seifer headed into battle and Squall worked over single deadly slashes. Additional men, one by one, came as backup. From the distance, he walked to them, the very proud figure with a cigar in his mouth. "Ahh, I see it still isn't dark yet in these parts." He spoke to the far left of where they stood.
"Not yet, the fun just started" Seifer remarked after finishing several men.
General Caraway drew near his fallen militia. Many men have been taken out and yet there were more simply frightened to come forward. "Now what is this? I leave things in your hands and you betray me?"
"Change of heart, that's all."
"You don't say?"
Seifer turned to Squall. "You should move while you have the chance."
General Caraway looked at Rinoa on the floor and couldn't help but comment. "You lie there just like your mother…"
…Mother? She didn't even defend herself. It was as if she was prepared to die. No sense of assail. Julia was a frail woman. I am not like her. "…Mother?" Rinoa said looking down to the ground with tears in her eyes.
"How disgusting, there with her love's offspring…"
Squall felt apprehensive. It's time to let go, Squall thought. He turned his back on him and kneeled to the girl phased out. "Rinoa?" He called to her.
"Mother" Rinoa whispered to herself as she clutched her arms around her body. Don't let that swine talk. I need to deal with him.
"You're so weak and fragile. You'll die so easily. Just like Juila."
Seifer ran to the general with a fist full of hate. "Shut the fu-"
"I HATE YOU!" Rinoa screamed. Wings sprouted out of her back as the area engulfed in flames from firaga suddenly cast. Squall backed away from the blaze between him and her but not far enough into more behind him. Seifer had protected himself well shielding off the fire. Caraway was far in distance for her to harm him.
She rose up and her wings stretched wide to its freedom. Rinoa's nature was not her own rather suited for the dimmed area in her heart. That darkness lingering had now conjured Demi indirectly at Caraway, cutting down everyone's health. Squall dropped his weapon. He already could not heal his deep wound and now had to deal with being near death. He slouched down and struggled not to collapse. Rinoa watched. She seemed blank and detached but cried tears that couldn't be seen from the dark eyes not her own.
"My daughter… you must have inherited my hostility. How many times is it now that you tried to kill me or harm another?"
"Quiet!" She roared clenching her fist, slowly marching towards Caraway.
"…Rinoa don't…" Squall started to beg.
"Julia is watching you. Aren't you shamed of what you become?" He taunted.
"Stop… Rinoa" Squall said.
Rinoa stopped her pace with more unseen tears. These tears left scars perhaps impossible to heal. She wanted to cry real tears instead of ones that pained her more so. Momentarily she tried to but all she accomplished was being able to speak up. "NO! It's not me!" She bawled covering her ears and closing her eyes.
Caraway continued. "Isn't there… a human soul?"
What?
With everything her father has mentioned and questioned she paused with uncertainty. Rinoa opened her formerly darkened eyes consumed by madness to her original beautiful dark brown eyes. Eyes that told truth seeing her world around her as it is. Rinoa was but herself. Not what others depicted as but how she saw herself in her mind. What does she see? What is Rinoa Heartilly to herself?
His tolerance, all patience had run low and he scolded the emotionally naked Rinoa. "Go! …Into Exile!"
Rinoa swooped like a bird to the green filled forest not far behind her. Everyone observed. Suddenly over the hill to their right came a mass of SeeDs Selphie leading the parties. The three men looked towards the clamor of men that split up. "Squall!" Selphie called running to him.
"Haha!" The General laughed. "I should have known better."
"Like I said, it's only begun" Seifer threatened.
The battles began. Men of both forces appeared. Seifer had to rid of Caraway and so they clashed as a blue light lit over Squall. He stood with less effort and the girl handed him potions. "Your condition will keep returning over time until we bring you to the infirmary. Use these till then." She spoke knowing what he had to do.
Squall glanced at the woodlands beside and thanked Selphie. "Yeah… I'm glad you're here. I'll contact you soon. Don't go over board here."
"Who's stopping me?" She giggled and Squall hurried along after Rinoa.
He rushed through the forest which grew more enticing the further he traveled. A place that felt fitting, the green comforting her inexperience in her situation. Rinoa had arrived at the shore of the continent towards the ledge of a very small cliff. She abruptly came to a stop her wings disappeared with the wind. She slowly sat and lied against a large boulder. Fright pained her head. Listening to the sounds of the waves she asked "Why did you leave me" She thought of her in the sky "…why didn't you fight him?" Her hands touched the earth and her body sunk down. Her tears sled down her face to her nose and dripped to the soil beneath her.
Squall became weary of traveling although he came along a feather and continued. He rushed alongside a pond. Lucid crisp water showing a foul ground dappled with crimson colored frogs and bright golden fish swimming along the rim. Soon appearing further were olive trees with lilac floral. He traveled towards the end where you can see the sky. It was lit with strange colors, a rainbow near nocturnal.
He saw her lying there ahead and came to her side, shaking her. She did not move. He checked her pulse. It was faint but there. "Rinoa! …speak to me" he said worried. Squall held her to him and called Selphie. "Urgent! Someone pickup" He spoke.
"Found her? Over?" Selphie had spoken.
"We need medical assistance. Get here." He commanded.
"Roger. A.s.a.p."
He threw his communicator down and kept Rinoa warm holding her to him. He cuddled her closely and felt her warmth dwindling away. His head slowly rose. Glancing around the area, his view came to the horizon lightened by the sun. His face tensed like his father would do. He held back tears prying threw his steel blue eyes. He trembled and shivered vibrations of such sorrow. Squall wanted not to think, not to cry, nor to hear the voiceless whisper in the air. He just wanted to watch this sunset. No matter agonizing or how it burned, his head hot being ready to give out. He wanted to focus on the sun's light, that which was constant. Love like the sun. In times hiding behind a cold exterior but a burning passion that never dies down and is ready to come out. She was his sun which made this cold person shine bright like the moon because without the sun there would be no shine.
Rinoa's eyes shut saw her own open in her mind. A dream, her world where lies truth so fragile, that it is able to change by the way you accept it. Here she walks past her present state with Squall and looks at herself clothed in blue and black, her typical clothes when she was younger. She notices a female. There near the entrance of the woodlands dressed in dark clothes with a mask. "Erase from my world" She asked her plainly as if it was a statement, a command.
"Without me you'd be incomplete. I am sorts' colors; your darkness, a piece of the whole."
"You are not Rinoa"
"What makes you think you are?"
"Such a tragic life you've lived… what are you searching for?"
"Vengeance is all"
"Lies" She responded and looked at the Rinoa in Squall's lap. "Stop using her and return from where you came from."
"Ahahahaha" The woman laughed "I will cease to exist when I am pleased."
The female walked into the mysterious woodland forest. Rinoa turned around to observe more in this world. A rainbow and at the end of the rainbow, where the sun has gone down and the colors come together… The dew drops of nature fall into the concrete jungle surrounded by dark ignorance… "Life struggling to rise up, take meaning of our existence, find the beauty within our souls… the colors of the rainbow."