Chapter Six: Death
I didn’t want to. I didn’t want to be there, didn’t want to watch this, didn’t want to have to do any of this. I shuddered slightly, just once, and then looked over at Riku. He was grasping the hilt of his sword very tightly, and had his eyes tightly shut. Obviously he was as worried as I was as I stepped onto the pad. Meanwhile, Gildas was looking at Zexion expectantly, who was staring very pointedly at the ground. “Go on,” Gildas whispered. Zexion took a deep, shaking gulp of air, and looked up.
“I hate it here,” he breathed hesitantly. “I hate the way you act when we’re here, it’s just so pretentious! I really miss you when we’re here in Lindblum, I miss the way you used to be! This isn’t who I fell in love with, I fell in love with the old you. I just want to be with you, be able to be myself around you, be able to show my love for you! Why can’t I hold your hand, kiss you, give you a hug? What does it matter what everybody else thinks when all that should matter should be you and me?” Zexion’s voice had worked up to a raving shout now and his face was quickly turning pink. Gildas swallowed as Zexion took a deep breath and prepared to go on.
“I wish we could go back to the way we used to be, to the carefree love we used to share. Knowing that we can’t is tearing me apart inside; it’s like I’m only half a person when I can’t be with you openly! These past few days have been painful and worrying, but it’s been worth it just to be able to be with you as opposed to by you. It’s agonising, having to be cut off from you!” Gildas’s eyes were closed now, and one glistening tear rolled down his cheek. Riku took a huge breath, and swung his sword upwards. I could see the pain in Rikku’s face even though he was keeping it deliberately blank. Gildas gasped as his severed hand fell to the floor, where it joined the fallen tear. And then, darkness surrounded us all.
Ouch. I mean, really ouch. I hadn’t expected that pain, I just expected everything to be so quick… but that didn’t matter. A long, slow laugh came from nowhere, and everywhere, and in an instant Sephiroth was upon us. He grabbed Riku by the throat, walking up towards the side of the crater. It was so hard to concentrate, all I could think of were Zexion’s words, all of which were true. (Diamond Dust!) The entire cavern was bathed in light blue as the only entrance and exit disappeared above the ice. He was trapped. (Gigaflare!) Nothing. Come on! Think… focus…. (GIGAFLARE!) Sephiroth was blasted in the centre of his back, sending both him and Riku flying. It also split the two, Riku landing far to the left, whilst Sephiroth landing far to the right.
I walked over to the pad of Alpha-Six, and pressed the ‘Assemble’ button. Jumping off of Alpha-Six, I watched the pieces come together to form the mighty Alpha robot, which stood tall at 3 metres high. I looked over my shoulder at Haru, and nodded. She immediately threw her rod out in front of her and cried “Blizzaja!”. Sephiroth was encased in solid, crystalline ice. This wouldn’t last long, however, and now was the only chance we’d have. Sephiroth was no fool. Once I was dead, he’d run into hiding, and get more people to do his dirty work for him. This was the last chance. “Do it!” I cried. Haru stood still. A tear rolled down her cheek, and she shook her head violently. “No more tears! No more crying… I have to be strong!” She ran over, slapping me hard. I stumbled, and she pulled me into a tight hug. “I’m sorry…” She said calmly, and turned away. She raised her right hand, brining it down swiftly. “Thundaja!”
Darkness. So this was what Death was, just darkness. Poor Zexion, how would he fare without me? And Haru and Riku, would they run Lindblum well? I’m sure they will. I began to swim through the darkness, as I never could through water, and thought of all the things I was missing. I never did get married to Zexion, like we’d planned. I never learnt to swim, never perfected my Scythe skills. I made plenty of mistakes; Demyx was the biggest of them all. I can’t believe, after all that time with Zexion, I had to lose my… never mind. Zexion, Demyx, they were all in my past. I had to look now to my future.
After a while, there was a bright light coming from somewhere. I pulled myself towards the light, willing it to get larger. Then my head seemed to be in air rather than nothingness, and I swallowed it down. Looking around, keeping myself aloft, I saw a small pier to my right, and swam towards it. Pulling myself up, I felt my weight return to me, and I struggled to continue. A wrinkled hand grabbed my own, and pulled me up in an instant. “Thank you, kind sir. I surely wouldn’t have-“ I looked at the man’s face. Was that… King of Feymarch? Leviathan? “Come, my boy. We have much to discuss.”
He took me back to the library throne room, where other people stood. A woman in blue (clearly Shiva), a man in dark red, a small boy in purple, an aged man in yellow, and Leviathan stood to my left, whilst to my right were a woodsman in brown, a man in a black cloak and a woman in radiant white. They smiled at me, knowingly, and I laughed. “What, do I have something on my face?” Shiva stood forward. “As the first Aeon you summoned, I feel it my duty to tell you, if his Highness doesn’t mind?” Leviathan shook his head. “Master Gildas, you have collected together the Council of Aeons. Under Law X-29 of the Aeon Code, we proudly confer upon you the Crown of Summoning, titling you as King of Aeons. Neo Bahamut, in his draconic form, walked down the stairs ahead of me, a crown in his hands. “Know this. I will always be God of Aeons, but you surpass me in strength, and in spirit. Congratulations, your Majesty.” They all bowed before me. I was escorted out the doors, and everyone clapped, and applauded me.
I think I will like it in Feymarch.
I had to turn away. I just couldn’t watch as the light left him. Was it selfish of me? Probably. But maybe that was something that I would just have to come to terms with. I turned my gaze to the sky, but I couldn’t shut my ears off. I still heard the cry of pain that Zexion wailed out, and the soft thump that meant Gildas’s body had hit the soft earth. Zexion was kneeling by the body, crying wildly and shaking. Riku went to comfort him. Everything felt so disjointed, disconnected, separate; nothing seemed to make sense. Words rushed over me backwards. I turned to their source numbly.
Seeing Gildas’s body lying there, empty and broken, a shell of a great person, something snapped inside of me. As I stumbled forward slowly, I could see Riku look up at me quickly, before turning back to a sobbing Zexion. I dropped to my knees. I didn’t know what to do, so I just sat there, my arms dangling uselessly at my sides.
“People will realise soon,” Riku was saying to Zexion. “We need to move the body, and work out what to tell people.” Zexion shook his head, but Riku heaved him up to his feet with a meaningful look at me. Hearing his words had chilled me. I was so busy thinking about my own feelings that I had forgotten that he was the Regent of Lindblum. “You expected a lot of us, didn’t you?” I whispered to Gildas, but I didn’t mean to place any blame. “What made you think we can do this? I…we can’t. You can’t leave us, Gildas, you just can’t. Come on, wake up.” Riku tried to pull me up, too, but I stayed on the ground. “Life! Life! Full-Life!” I said shakily. “Dammit, life! Why isn’t it working?”
I knew, deep down, that it wouldn’t work. Life was for people who were knocked out, or unconscious – not dead. But I didn’t want to give up that final hope. I wasn’t ready to give up. That done, I let Riku pull me up. Zexion was looking at me disgustingly. I was about to ask why when he burst out angrily, “Why did you do it? Why did you kill him?” I looked at him blankly. “He asked me to.” It was the only answer I could think of. “What, so that makes everything better? You shouldn’t have done it, you shouldn’t have! If you hadn’t, he would still be here, still be alive!” Zexion ranted vehemently. I just stood there, unable to answer him, or respond at all.
