Silent Knight

[11.30.00] » by Luke Taylor

Fujin Kazeno had been accused of being many things in her life.

Vicious.

Arrogant.

Disturbed.

Heartless.

Heartless. That one hurt most of all. She’d heard some students talking about her in the library once, that girl with the pig-tail and that conceited SeeD who thought all the girls were lusting over him. Curiosity had breached Fujin’s normal uncaring exterior, and she remember creeping up to the shelf like some criminal so she could catch what was being said about her.

"...What about Almasy? You interested in him?" said the SeeD, words floating effortlessly to Fujin’s ears through the silence of the library.

"Seifer? He’s kinda cute.... But there’s that Fujin..." the girl sounded hesitant, like maybe she knew Fujin was around. Fujin drew away from the bookcase slightly, hoping she hadn’t been spotted.

Why are you cowering behind a bookcase, listening to mindless gossip from a air-head and a prick who thinks he owns every girl in the Garden? What do they matter? You’re being childish. And I thought we’d got rid of all that... Her mind scolded her, as it often did. But Fujin had to know what they were saying, even though she knew it was going to be bad.

"Kazeno? Ha, she’s cold, that one. Heartless." peering through the gaps in volume on GF care, she saw the conceited SeeD lean back in his chair, grinning like he’d just told the wittiest joke the world had ever know.

Normally, Fujin would have marched around there, picked the guy up by his balls and dragged him off to the Disciplinary Room. But this was... different. Fujin felt like she’d been kicked in the stomach. Yes, that’s how people see you, Kazeno, The inner voice spoke to her again, as she slumped down against the bookcase, tears forming in her eye. Yeah, you’re the unlovable and the unable to love, all rolled into one. Nice combination.

And people wondered why she’d put up that impenetrable layer of icy words and stony expressions, when everywhere she turned people were harsh and cruel. Well, she could play at that game, and it turned out she was better than anyone else at it. And so she’d become the way she was due to all sorts of things. She was a psychiatrist’s textbook in human form, the way she was due to a broken home, no parents, constantly shuffled and shunted from foster parent to foster parent who ranged for the insane to the abusive, never loved by anyone.

But no matter how cold she seemed, Fujin wasn’t heartless. Her usually dispassionate outer layer, which hid the heart many said she didn’t have, made her seem like a rose without petals, the beauty tangible in the imagination but all that was physically there was the sharp, tough stem. And although no-one had loved her, she loved someone.

It had dawned on her slowly at first, not realising at first that after all those years of burying feelings she could still feel this way. Maybe she’d begun to believe what people said about her. She gradually grew to accept it, and it made a lot of sense to her. Of course, she analysed the situation more than acting on impulse, instinct and feeling, but that was just the way she was. She’d given up trying to change a long time ago.

She guessed that their similarities were what she was attracted to. He, like her, knew what it was like to be an orphan. He grew up in an orphanage with Quistis, Selphie and the rest, he had no family, he knew that people couldn’t and shouldn’t be trusted. They always hurt you, in the end. He was as aloof and detached as Fujin was, he knew his job and he did it. She had often watched him, before the whole Sorceress thing, training with his gunblade. He never knew she was watching, or if he did he never showed it. Lurking in the roofspace, watching her Knight practising with that most noble of weapons, Fujin felt almost ridiculous. This was what giggly little bimbos like Tilmett did, not Fujin. She was better than this, she didn’t need to be doing this... but she couldn’t help herself.

She lost count of the number of times she cried herself to sleep. Knowing that she could never have what she wanted. No-one suspected a thing though, not even Raijin who would usually pick up on these things. Although he wasn’t exactly bright in most areas, he was sharp as a pin when it came to spotting when Fujin was upset. She remembered once, on a fishing trip, he asked her if she had ever been in love, ya know? She wanted to say yes, she was desperate to say yes, to shout out the name of the object of her desires as loud as she could. But as always she bit her lip and said "NO." with all the conviction she could muster. Raijin never mentioned the subject again.

That was before the Sorceress Incident. Then, it all got even worse. She could remember the day when it all began to happen perfectly: it was the day of the SeeD exam, where the best were chosen and the rest discarded. She knew he was going to pass, she was certain of it. How could he fail? Even Trepe said that he had huge potential. She remembered the agonising wait, sitting in her room while he was in Dollet, praying he was okay.

When he stepped of the vessel, alive and unharmed in the warm afternoon sun, the wave of relief which coursed through her body nearly knocked her of her feet. She wanted to cry, run up to him and fling her arms around him right there in the middle of the harbour. But she knew she couldn’t, and never would be able to, either. He didn’t want her. And why should he? He was strong, attractive, self-assured, confident. She’d seen the girls drooling over him in the corridors and classrooms. Why would he want her, a one-eyed, white-haired freak with a non-existent personality? Why have her when he could have anyone? So, she resigned herself to her fate. She tried to carry on as normal, tried to pretend she didn’t care, ran the errands Cid set her that usually she would have ignored just so she could keep her mind occupied. But he was always on her mind, and everywhere she went there he was. She didn’t know if that was a good or a bad thing.

********

Then came the point where she just couldn’t take it. Standing in the Lunatic Pandora, fighting for something she didn’t believe in, for some she didn’t care about, holding innocent girls hostage, all the conflict. She couldn’t take it any more.

She clutched Ellone tightly, too scared to let her go because she was her only link to him. He looked so self-assured, in total control while all around him was collapsing.

"We’ve come to take back Ellone." said Squall, eyes fixed on Seifer as he drew his gunblade. For a while, no-one said a word, no-one breathed. The tension was almost too much for Fujin. She wanted to shout out and break the silence, but she remained silent and bit her bottom lip.

"Looks like we got company. Show 'em your hospitality." Fujin gasped, her eyes widening. She couldn’t fight, not now! She watched transfixed as Raijin advanced towards Squall.

Say something! Her mind screamed at her. You can stop this! Make it stop! And then, she finally snapped.

"RAIJIN, STOP!" she shouted, louder and more desperate than she meant to. The words echoed around the huge monolith, and everyone turned to look at her. Puzzled, shocked and confused faces glared at her. Another silence followed. She smiled inwardly. She thought the last battle would have been a lot noisier than this.

"What’s up?" demanded Seifer, driving the tip of his gunblade into the floor.

"We’ve had enough, ya know?" said Raijin wearily. He looked at Fujin, and she could see he felt the same way as she did. He was tired, and even he knew when the battle couldn’t be won. He smiled weakly at her, and gestured with his head towards Squall. Fujin smiled back and nodded.

"GO." she said, releasing her grip on Ellone’s arm. The girl turned and looked at her, confused, as if she thought it was some kind of trick. Fujin nodded again, and Ellone ran to Squall. Fujin sighed. It was done. She had finally broken away from the Sorceress’ puppet that used to be Seifer. The hard part was over now. She heard Squall whispering to Ellone, telling her to leave and that someone would be here soon. She quickly ran down the passageway and out of sight, the heels of her shoes tip-tapping against the hard marble floor as she ran.

"Hey, hey... Come on, people." Seifer was getting agitated. He certainly didn’t expect his posse to turn against him.

"Seifer, we’re quittin’, ya know? Don’t know what’s right anymore, ya know..."

"My thoughts exactly." Seifer sneered at Raijin. "I thought we were a posse."

Fujin saw Raijin flinch as he accused him, saw the pain that crossed his face. He hero-worshipped Seifer, and this was getting too much for him to bear.

"POSSE..." she mumbled. Seifer looked at her. "We are. We always will be. Because we're a posse, we want to help you." Her voice grew louder, more confident, as she shrugged off her normal manner of speech. This was too important to say in that stunted, stilted way. "Whatever it takes to fulfil your dream, we're willing to do."

Seifer looked at her, taken aback. Fujin didn’t let up. All the years of built up frustration and feeling, it felt so good to get it out of her system. "But... You're being manipulated, Seifer. You've lost yourself and your dream. You're just eating out of someone's hand."

She paused for a second, silent. Everyone else was dumbstruck. "We want the old you back..." she said faintly, looking down at the floor solemnly.

"Since we can't get through to you, all we have now to rely on is Squall!" she had suddenly burst back into shouting. "It's sad... Sad that we only have Squall to rely on..." She glanced over at him. He was staring at her, stony-faced as ever.

"Seifer! Are you still gonna keep goin'?!" She shouted, then fell silent, all her energy focussed into that outburst and spent. She turned her weary eye to Seifer. He shrugged, then gave her a salute with a gleam in his eyes.

"Raijin, Fujin! It’s been fun!" He grinned like a loon at her, and Fujin turned away in disgust and began to walk away. However, despite all that had just happened, she hadn’t forgotten why she had let Ellone go. It wasn’t because she felt bad, it wasn’t even to keep Seifer happy. It was for him. As she made her way towards him, she locked her eye on his, and he watched her make her way towards him. She felt a thrill go through her, the first time that he had looked at her, and not through her. As she drew level with him, he leaned towards her, so close she could feel his hair brush against her face.

"Thank you." Squall whispered, and for the first time Fujin saw emotion in his face, although she didn’t recognise it. Gratitude? Surprise? Relief? It didn’t matter to her. It was emotion, she caused it, and it was good. That was all she had ever dreamed of.

Two firsts in one day from Squall... She though to herself as she and Raijin made their way back to their airship. You’re definitely making progress, Miss Kazeno. She smiled at the thought, then began to laugh, a tinkling, melodious sound than was rarer than chocobo’s teeth.

"What’s so funny, ya know?" Asked Raijin, and she shook her head.

"NOTHING." She said, and that was that.

********

Of course, Fujin knew she wasn’t going to make any more progress. She’d seen the way Squall looked at Rinoa, and she’d seen how he looked back. It was obvious to anyone with eyes (Or one eye, she thought to herself) and ears could tell that the were in love. Fujin didn’t mind though, because while Squall never gave her love, he gave her something much more important: The knowledge that she was normal. Or at least not abnormal. After all, falling in love with the strong, silent type was what normal teenage girls did, wasn’t it? And now she knew she didn’t have to follow Seifer around. She still did, because he and Raijin were the nearest thing she had to a family, but she knew she didn’t have to. After Squall had defeated the Sorceress, everything had pretty much gone back to normal, especially Seifer. Things were as the had always been with the posse, long days of harassing students and fishing.

And, to her surprise, Fujin was happy. Seifer seemed to have a new-found respect for her, and she was beginning to slowly dismantle the cold wall the used to have around herself. She laughed every once in a while now, she used normal speech more often, and she even dyed her hair a few times, a rich auburn that turned more than a few heads in Garden. She noticed a few guys were becoming interested in her. She was enjoying the attention, and she looked forward to dating and maybe finding someone who was right for her. She was more content than she’d ever been, and she owed a large part of that to Squall, the Knight of the World, the first man she ever loved.