The Posse

[01.27.00] » by Alicia Hutchinson

Author's Notes: When I started writing fanfic and posting up at the message boards at Final Fantasy Online (where regulars there will recognize me as FFO's one and only Quistis), the one request I kept getting was to do a fanfic for Fujin and Raijin. As the pair always interested me, I took the request, and this fic, the Posse, was the result. It remains one of my personal favorites.

Fujin frowned slightly and adjusted the patch on her arm. It was supposed to sit right near her shoulder, but it kept slipping down past her elbow. Having to fix it every five minutes was starting to seriously grate on Fujin's nerves. "STUPID." She grumbled.

"They didn't design them with you in mind, you know!" Raijin assured her with a nervous little laugh. "You know, I don't think there's ever been a girl on the Discipline Committee, y'don't expect girls to handle discipline, y'know."

Fujin scowled at him, the muscles around her one brown eye tightening in anger. "VERY STUPID." She kicked him in the shin.

"Well, it's true y'know!" Raijin said defensively, but hopping back none the less away from her, oblivious to how absurd that looked. He was backing down to a slim little teenage girl barely two-thirds his height and probably not half his weight…and in Raijin's opinion, he was doing so wisely. Nobody knew Fujin better than he, except maybe Seifer, and Fujin never lost her short and considerably hot temper with Seifer. She adored Seifer unconditionally…well, Raijin couldn't fault her for that. Raijin himself admired Seifer more than anyone, even the Headmaster. "Girls usually work in the library committee or…"

Fujin bared her teeth. "SILENCE!" She ordered. Meanwhile, her armband had slid down again, and was currently nearing her wrist. She growled to herself and hiked it back up again.

Raijin watched her. "Maybe you could get someone to shorten the band or something, y'know. I don't think that you could manage too much in the way of disciplining with your Committee patch falling off every ten seconds, y'know."

"OBVIOUS." Fujin replied through gritted teeth. Still, she seemed to have calmed down a bit, which relieved Raijin to no end.

"I wonder where Seifer is." Raijin mused aloud. "He should've been here by now, y'know…"

"LATE." Fujin agreed, finally giving up on the patch. It began to slowly slip down her arm again.

"Yeah. And that's not like Seifer, y'know."

Fujin stared at him for a moment. "AFFIRMITIVE." She paused, then added, "Y'KNOW." A rare smile crossed her lips at her own joke.

"Hey…y'know…that's not funny, y'know!"

Fujin began to laugh right out loud. "YES, Y'KNOW!"

A low chuckle interrupted Raijin's sputtering. "She has you there, Raijin. I thought it was funny."

"SEIFER!" Fujin snapped around to face him. Her armband promptly slipped all the way off and fell on the floor.

Seifer picked it up with the tip of his gunblade and held it up to her. "You should really get that fixed." He remarked. "What will people think of the Disciplinary Committee if your committee patch is always slipping off?"

"AFFIRMITIVE." Fujin agreed with a nod and a sigh, taking it and putting it back on. This time, she clamped her arm tight to her side so it couldn't fall off.

"Hey, when I said that, Fujin, you got all angry at me, y'know…" Raijin muttered. "Ow!" Fujin had turned and kicked him again. "That hurt y'know!!!"

Seifer snickered.

Fujin watched Raijin hop around in pain for a moment for looking back at Seifer. "EXPLINATION." She requested.

"Yeah man, we've been waiting for you for almost an hour, y'know…" Raijin added. "Fujin was getting impatient."

"Instructor Trepe insisted lecturing the whole class on weapons theory." Seifer shrugged. "As if I needed to listen to her drone on for an hour about the history of gunblade use and development in the Sorceress War…" He shouldered his gunblade arrogantly, grinning.

"USELESS." Fujin agreed.

"Yeah, you could teach a class on gunblades, y'know!" Raijin added.

"Tell that to Instructor Trepe." Seifer replied. "Instructor Trepe…what a joke…well, come on, enough time's been wasted. Lets patrol."

"PATROL." Fujin nodded.

"Yeah, keep an eye on the students, y'know…" Raijin agreed, but by that time, Fujin and Seifer were already leaving the Quad. "Hey, wait for me, y'know!!" He hobbled after them.

The Disciplinary Committee was in charge of maintaining order in Balamb Garden by enforcing school rules and reporting dissidents to the Garden staff. The group who had served as Balamb's Disciplinary Committee for most of it's existence had finally all either graduated, entered SeeD, or passed the age limit without doing either and left. Headmaster Cid's appointment of Seifer Almassy as the new head of the Disciplinary Committee had caused quite a stir at first; after all, Seifer was one of the students most known for blatantly ignoring Balamb's rules…which actually turned out to be a big chunk of the reason Headmaster Cid had appointed him to lead the new Committee.

"Who better to monitor and control rule-breaking than one who's broken all the rules?" Cid had said with a shrug when Xu, his aid, had protested Seifer's appointment. "Besides, having responsibility would be good for him."

"Headmaster…I think you've just created a monster…" Xu had protested, but Cid had refused to change his mind.

Seifer took his duties very seriously indeed, and everybody in Garden knew it. The old Committee had cut you some slack every now and then for minor transgressions, especially if up until then you had been a model student.

"Giving someone a break" was a phrase that wasn't in Seifer's vocabulary. Needless to say, if it wasn't in Seifer's vocabulary, it wasn't in the vocabulary of Fujin or Raijin either.

Nobody had been surprised when Seifer chose only Fujin and Raijin for his Committee members. Fujin and Raijin were commonly referred to as Seifer's Posse; even as young children newly arrived at Garden, they had always backed Seifer up. That wasn't to say they always agreed with him. Seifer had it in for certain other students, namely Squall Leonhart, and not even his Posse knew why that was. Raijin rather liked Squall; he was brooding, quiet and anti-social, but never made Raijin feel stupid the way Fujin (and just about everybody else at Balamb) sometimes did. Fujin was merely indifferent towards Squall…as Fujin was indifferent to just about everybody except Seifer and Raijin. Well, she wasn't so indifferent in her feelings about that girl that Seifer knew in Timber either, the often mentioned Rinoa that neither Fujin nor Raijin had ever met. Raijin had never seen Fujin so angry as she was when Seifer talked about her.

Still, Raijin couldn't blame her. Fujin owed Seifer a lot. Fujin was born in a little village in the middle of nowhere out in the wild lands between Dollet and Galbadia, were they still spoke the old Dolletion language and hadn't converted to the more modern common language used everywhere else in the world now. She hadn't spoken any Common at all when she'd first arrived at Balamb Garden, and had gotten teased for it…and Raijin was pretty sure that was still why she spoke so little. Her command of Common Speech was perfect now, almost eleven years after her arrival at Balamb Garden…but her accent was still thick enough to slice with a knife when she spoke for any length of time.

It was Seifer who stuck up for Fujin when the others harassed her. It was Seifer who helped her learn Common Speech when she struggled with it. It was Seifer who ran to get the doctor when Fujin lost her eye in an accident in the Training Center. No matter what the others thought of Seifer, he'd always been there for Fujin when she needed him. No, Raijin couldn't blame her for adoring him the way she did.

Raijin himself was a Balamb native, but his family had been killed off during the Sorceress War with Esthar. Raijin had drifted from orphanage to orphanage as a child before coming to Balamb Garden. He'd been in much the same situation as Fujin once there; a loner. Raijin had always been tall, and strong…and he had the disposition of a marshmallow. He also had an admittedly pathetic need for approval. That approval wasn't always easy to get; Raijin was a fantastic fighter with his staff, but unfortunately that was where his prowess ended. He was average academically and not very good with Junctioning, and he was almost painfully aware of it, too. He lacked any hint of leadership abilities, and honestly, he wasn't all that great of a subordinate either. His attention was just too easy to distract.

Seifer provided the approval Raijin wanted and the firm guidance Raijin needed, while Seifer and Fujin together gave him the one thing he'd always really wanted: something like a family unit.

Even if they were a rather unlikely looking family, the tiny, one eyed, gray haired Fujin, the tall, dark, and muscular Raijin, and the lanky blonde-haired, blue eyed Seifer …

All of whom were currently running around the main hall of Balamb Garden in hot pursuit of the new Disciplinary Committee's first rule-breaker.

"STOP!" Fujin ordered as they chased after Zell Dincht, Balamb's resident hothead, hot-dog lover, and rule-bender. Zell was cruising through the hallways towards the cafeteria in a right proper hurry…on a highly illegal T-Board.

"No! I'll miss them!" Zell yelled back over his shoulder, expertly swerving around passerbys and a couple of potted plants.

Fujin growled and stepped up her pace, leaping over a bench, with Seifer on her heels and Raijin behind, still limping a bit from Fujin's kicks.

"I'm going to get that chili dog today if it kills me!" Zell announced as he skidded around a corner and went barreling down the hallway towards the cafeteria. "The lunch lady said they'd make a few more today…and one of them's got Zell Dincht's name on it!"

"The only thing that's got your name on it is a detention, Dincht!" Seifer retorted.

"Hey…that sounds kinda funny, y'know!" Raijin said with a weak little laugh. "Detention, Dincht…heh heh…"

"SHUT UP!" Fujin ordered over her shoulder.

"Detention, fine, as long as I get my hot dog." Zell said, picking up speed.

He reached out and snagged the door frame of the entrance to the cafeteria, using it to swing himself in without slowing.

The sound of shouts and cutlery hitting the floor clanged through the hall a split second later. Fujin skidded to a stop in front of the doorway, stared, and shook her head. "LOVELY…" she groaned. She slumped over and put her hands on her knees, trying to catch her breath.

Seifer and Raijin caught up with her a moment later, and got to see what just got that response out of her.

The cafeteria floor was an absolute mess. Zell had apparently run out of luck upon entering the cafeteria, and slamming into a group of those already waiting in line…and a couple of people just getting out of it, too. He was currently sitting on the floor rubbing his head covered in what looked like lettuce leaves and croutons, his T-Board floating forgotten behind him.

"Zell?! Ohmygod, are you all right?!" A girl with a brown pigtail—a member of the Library Committee--standing next to him asked worriedly, holding the plate that looked like it contained the other half of the salad that currently decorated Zell and most of the surrounding floor. She rushed over to help him get up, and nearly slipped in ranch dressing.

"What a mess…" one of the cafeteria workers said with a sigh as she surveyed the disaster.

"Do you have any more hotdogs?!" Zell asked urgently, oblivious to the pig-tailed girl's attentions for the moment.

"Sorry. Sold out."

"Awwwwwwww man!" Zell punched his fist into the floor, then stopped and stared. He'd put it down right into a piece of fallen cheesecake. "Bummer. So much for my new gloves…Ma's gonna kill me…"

"You'll have plenty of time to clean them." Seifer informed him, "In detention."

"DETENTION." Fujin agreed.

"Yeah." Raijin echoed. "Detention, y'know!"

Zell rolled his eyes heavenwards and groaned in disbelief. "MAN! Stupid disciplinary committee!"

Fujin stared silently at him for a moment, then added, "Y'KNOW!"

Seifer immediately began to laugh, and even Raijin because to chuckle. Zell gaped at them. "What's so funny?!?!"

"Never mind," Raijin said with a shake of his head. "You wouldn't understand, y'know, you wouldn't understand…"

Zell rolled his eyes. "Stupid disciplinary committee," he repeated. "Never makes any sense!"

-FIN