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Legacy of the Lifestream	By : butabara Category: Final Fantasy VII > General Views: 2387 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 0
Disclaimer: I do not Own FFVII or its affiliates. I make no money from this execise in literary creativity.

Chapter List
- 9
- 10
- 11
A.N. Okay, folks! The next chapter is HERE! We finally get to see a little action from the little Guardian! (And a bit of fluff from Kadaj. Don't worry... once the novelty of having Harmony back wears off, he'll be back to our lovable, violent, witty 'Dajjy! R&R! Many thanks to my beta's and co-authors!
Chapter 9: Bonded
"I can't believe I let this happen!" Harmony sobbed. She was hunched over her knees, nearly falling off of the couch. Kadaj grasped her shoulder and brought her back up.
"It isn't your fault. We should have told you." Aerith tried to say, but Harmony cut her off.
"It is!" She cried, "I let myself become too weak! I couldn't even protect unbonded Cetra, or my own daughter! How am I supposed to protect my Cetra?"
"Stop that!" Kadaj snapped. "Self-pity will get you nowhere! If you want to cry and hate yourself, do it later! Right now we have to think! Where do we even start looking?"
"That was harsh." Sassi said with a glare in the Remnant's direction.
"I just meant that-" He started, when Sytherea cut him off.
"I think I can help. I know my information is years old, but it might lead to something, at least."
Harmony fixed her with a curious gaze. "What information?"
Sytherea sighed heavily. It seemed that no amount of storytelling could keep her from having to repeat her past over and over again. "I used to be one of them." She said dismissively.
Harmony blinked, shocked. "You used to be... one of them?"
Sytherea nodded. "Yeah. I was a member of Gaia's Retaliation. I was brainwashed and used, and damned good at my work. They sent me on a mission to assassinate a key member of AVALANCHE... Vincent Valentine... and well, I was going to do it. But he caught me. Blah blah, we traveled together, I fell in love, all that cheesey shit, and here I am today."
"But how can you help us, now?" Harmony asked, confused.
"I didn't just stop being a member. I was a spy for AVALANCHE for a few years. When they held a meeting and assigned myself and three others to assassinate Rozzu Miyake, I knew that I had to do something drastic. I abandoned my team as soon as I got the chance, and came here."
"That's why we've been so close." Sassi cut in. "If it hadn't been for her information, the attempt on Loz's life would have been successful. We'd have never seen it coming. Of course, after that, they knew that she had turned against them."
Harmony nodded, a newfound respect for this almost-stranger in front of her being instilled into her mind. She risked her life for people she didn't even know- not only her life but her mind and spirit, as well. "You saved his life." She said.
"All of our lives." Yazoo put in. "Because of the risks she took, and the information she fed us, we were able to cut off and sabotage every attempt on our lives, ,and even after she had to stop spying, the things she told us lasted us long enough that we were able to get them to stop coming after us. We'd hoped that it was over, for good... but obviously these people are so set in their beliefs that a few years and a few failed missions aren't going to stop them."
Harmony sat quietly, even at that moment she didn't know where to begin.
"Well," Kadaj said, turning her attention to him. "Where do we start?"
Sytherea stood and walked to the whiteboard in the main area of the dojo. Picking up the marker, she began to write names of people, and places.
"Last I knew, three years ago, the base was hidden in the mountains of Wutai. Just far enough to be under the Wu Sheng's radar, but close enough that the people could easily get to them. I wouldn't imagine that they would have moved too far. The base is probably still somethere on the Wutaian continent." She said.
At that moment, Sephiroth and Sukai burst into the dojo, the General looking panicked, and the woman looking pissed about something. Sephiroth's ability to read Aerith's emotions had probably interrupted something that ought not be interrupted, and the half-Wutaian was obviously less than pleased.
"What happened?" Sephiroth asked, kneeling down next to Aerith when he reached her side. Sukai found herself slightly jealous at the tender way the General moved the flower-girl's hair out of her face.
"Gaia's Retaliation has resurfaced. They kidnapped the children." She whispered.
Zack and Aerith stood and led the General and the Inventor to the corner, whispering and catching them up on the situation.
Sytherea was about to continue with her list, when Sukai's voice rang out in a volatile rant of broken Wutaian and Common.
"What? What? Those soulless, motherless, greasy bastards! Wǒ huì xiǎngshòu dòngjié qí jiěpōu de mǒu xiē bùfèn, bìng dǎpò tā, màn man de, wǒ zuòwéi tāmen de pífū rónghuà yǔ běncǎo! Ránhòu wǒ zhījiě hòu, wǒ huì fènghuángle tāmen de pìgu, shǐ tāmen kěyǐ jìxù de tòngkǔ, wǒ kěyǐ tīng dào tāmen de jiān jiào shēng! Qiúráo, tāmen jiāng wǒ wánchéng qián, hòu, tāmen jiāng xiàjiàng... Wǒ tī chéng gài yǎ tāmen zhème xīnkǔ, tā jiāng cǎiqǔ duōnián de guǎngfàn wājué, shènzhì kěyǐ zhǎodào de yítǐ! Ifrit and Odin be damned, they won't even find remains because I will scorch them with Black Fire before I drop kick them to Odin!" The woman nearly screamed.
The group stared in confusion and shock. Only Sephiroth, Sytherea, and Vincent looked differently. Vincent stared in awe and respectful caution, Sytherea in disgruntled amusement, and Sephiroth looked amused... and very nearly aroused.
"What did she say?" Harmony asked. Vincent answered her.
"Trust me. You don't want to know."
"May I please continue?" Sytherea stressed. When she saw that she had the attention of the others, she nodded and turned back to the board. "The man we want to find calls himself Dà Jiùshìzhǔ, or Great Saviour in Common. He thinks he's 'saving the world from evil'."
"And who is he? What's his rank in the GR? Is he the leader?" Sephiroth asked.
"No, he's not the leader. We never knew who was leading the group. He's like the General of their army. We find him, and they'll drop everything to find us."
"Can we be sure that they'll come to us?" Kadaj asked. "When we took Elena and Tseng, we expected for either the two of them to talk, or for ShinRa to come to us. Neither worked the way we wanted."
Sytherea nodded along with his speech. "I can't guarantee that it will work. What we have to do is decide what we could do that's worth the risk. Personally, I think that going after Dà Jiùshìzhǔ is our best bet to end this quickly."
"But we need to think about this: How dangerous is it going to be for our children? They already have the kids. If we piss them off..." Sassi cut herself off, trying to choke back her sob.
Harmony nodded. "She's right. If they find out what we're trying to do, they'll hurt the kids. And who knows what they would do to them if we actually got the guy?"
"They want us to find them." Loz said. "They want us to come to them. I say we do it."
"Are you insane?" Sukai said, "They want you to find them so that they can kill you. I'd imagine that they don't intend to let the kids go at all. My bet is that they know that they are the children of Remnants, and they want to wipe all traces of Jenova from. This. World."
"I agree." Sephiroth said. He could tell that Sukai was trying to hide her smile when he agreed with her. The Guardian/General could admit that he was angry for more than his charge and his friends, too. Of all the moments, it had to be that one? He shook his head to focus his thoughts.
"Then what do you propose we do?" Sytherea asked.
"We start looking." Kadaj said, but Harmony cut him off.
"We need to find someone lower in the ranks. Someone that they won't care if he or she goes missing. I know that a lower-ranking member wouldn't have a lot of the information we need, but they could lead us to someone who does."
"But how do we keep them from running back to the GR and telling them what we're up to?" Loz asked.
Cloud cut in. "We give them to Rufus. He's already put out warrants on them. They've been labeled terrorists. Each and every member has a bounty on their head, I've seen the books. We turn them over to ShinRa, and to the GR, its just a grunt picked up by a merc."
A thought struck Harmony. "Cloud, why aren't they after you? Or Zack? Or Sephiroth?"
The three looked at eachother before Zack answered her. "They are. They're just less obvious about it, because they remember our strength. They're afraid of us more than the Remnants, because the Remnant's were beaten. And even though Sephiroth and I were also beaten, our Legacy was left behind. Sephiroth is the Dread General Himself. I'm sure that I don't have to tell you how reknowned he is throughout the world. My legacy is different, but just as known. Of course, its only because of how I died. There were over five-hundred ShinRa Infantrymen sent out to find us, when Cloud and I escaped. They found me... and less than sixty of them went home to their wives."
Harmony's jaw hit the floor. She had no idea Zack was so powerful! "You really were holding back!" She said, referring to their sparring matches.
Zack nodded, and she continued. "I don't know if I respect you more, or if it pisses me off."
"Focus, children." Sytherea sighed. When they looked back to her, she continued. "If we're going to go that route, I suggest starting out in one of your home towns." When they looked at her curiously, she clarified. "We had small bases in each of your home towns. The idea was that if you ever went home, we could watch you better. The GR owns most of the land in Banora, now. If we owned it, we had to be close. At the moment, those will be the easiest to get into and snatch someone from. If they're so serious about keeping the kids from you, most of the forces will have been called back to the main base."
Kadaj let out the breath he'd been holding. He hadn't seen Banora in twenty-eight years...
He shook his head and stood, turning to face the group. "Well then." He said after a deep breath. "I guess its time for me to go home."
!#$%^&*()
"I'm scared, Fionn!" Miriam whimpered into the dark.
"Its gonna be okay, guys. My mommy will come to save us." Kiku's voice rang out. She could feel the anger and fear from the two in the cell with her, and the combination of their emotions and her own was making her physically sick.
"How do you know?" Miriam asked.
"My mommy said that you guys are special."
"Yeah, we're Ancients!" Fionn stated proudly.
"My mommy is special, too. She said that she's supposed to protect your mommy. If your mommy is sad, my mommy will do whatever she can to make her happy again. She'll save us, you guys. I promise. And my Daddy will come, too!" Kiku said, determination in her voice.
Cruel laughter sounded from across the room, and Kiku felt the fear in her body spike, shared between three people.
"I hope your stupid mother does come here. And I hope she brings the rest of them with her. Those who harbor Jenova cells are a poison to this planet and must die, and anyone who associates with such filth deserves to share the same fate." The large man stated. He grinned wickedly and slowly unlocked and opened the door to their cell.
"I'm glad they had girls. I like girls." His grin widened as he stepped inside. "I'll kill you anyway, but if you try to fight me, little girl, I'll make damned sure it hurts." He said as he moved toward Miriam.
The little girl whimpered in terror, plastering herself to the wall and wishing desperately that she could dissolve into the cold stone.
The man snickered when Kiku stepped between them.
"Don't touch her!" She hissed. She lashed out with her tiny fist, intending to hit the man in the place her mother told her to go for first.
He caught her hand with a sneer. "Little brat!" He growled, tossing her aside. She cried out when her tiny body bounced off of the hard stone wall, and watched with growing panic when the man continued to move toward Miriam.
"S-stop!" She whimpered, trying to lift herself from the floor. The man ignored her, instead grasping Miriam by the arms and hauling her up to him.
Kiku writhed at the emotion that exploded through her senses as Miriam's terror grew to an unbearable level. Just below Miriam's fear, she felt Fionn's. His fear was mixed with rage and helplessness as he watched the ugly man plant his peeling, disgusting lips on his sister's.
And then a new emotion swept through Kiku. She felt her own rage rising and falling, to be replaced by an unimaginable calm. She looked across the room to her new friends, staring at them in awe through her tears.
Miriam was glowing. The most brilliant and amazing thing that the little girl had ever seen. Warmth flodded her senses, strength seeming to come from nowhere as she lifted herself from the ground with a silence that would have her Uncle Yazoo-Sensei furiously applauding with pride. She glanced to Fionn on the ground, shocked to see that he, too, was glowing.
Slowly and silently the girl crept behind the assailant, warning Fionn with her eyes to keep quiet about it. And then a different kind of heat washed through her, tingling at the base of her neck and washing down through her arms, forcing her to lift the appendages. As she did, she could see the sparks igniting from her fingertips, begging to be released.
She allowed it. Stretching her hand out, she gave an enraged battle cry as lightening erupted from tiny finger-tips and shot straight into the man's back.
He cried out and dropped the struggling Miriam to the floor, grabbing at the burning spot on his back and whirling around to face Kiku.
"Why you little Bitch!" He shrieked. He lunged toward her, but was not fast enough. His enraged expression turned to one of utter shock when he saw the girl's face. Her normally green-and-yellow eyes were instead a glowing white, her teeth grinding as she snarled in fury. She raised her hand to him again, and the man was truly afraid at the electricity crackling across her skin.
"What the fuck are you?" He tried to say, but only made it half-way through his sentence before his own cry of pain choked past his lips, a bolt of lightening embedding itself in his chest.
Kiku stood, shaking, over his rapidly dying body.
"I'm a Guardian." She spoke in a voice not her own. She looked to Miriam and Fionn, half-expecting them to be afraid of her. Instead she was met with their calm and grateful faces, staring at her as if she was the Saviour of the Earth.
"Caomhnóir!" They whispered together, not knowing how they knew the word, but knowing that it needed to be said.
Kiku felt a rush of power flow through her at the word, but before she could answer her Cetra, she was forced to turn around at the sound of many booted feet rushing down the hall. She felt strength and confidence fill her mind and body as she turned back to Miriam and Fionn.
"Come on! Lets get out of here!" She said. "Stay behind me!"
With that, she turned to the wall of their cell, doing as her mother instructed and pulling her power into herself; as much as she could possibly stand.
With a cry, she released, watching in awe and smug pride as lightning struck the stone, blowing a great hole in the wall and revealing dark forest on the other side. She ushered Miriam and Fionn ahead of her, wishing that she knew how to create a glamour, and hoping that her 'hide-'n'-seek' abilities would be enough to keep them safe.
She had a job to do. She was a Guardian. A full-fledged, fully-bonded Guardian. Her mother would be so proud.
!#$%^&*()
Kadaj stood behind Harmony as she comically threw clothes and shoes and other things over her shoulder. She'd been instructed to pack lightly, but practically, and was now rummaging through her newly purchased wardrobe to find not only clothes and supplies for herself, but for Kiku as well.
"You need to calm down." Kadaj said softly. "I'll help you. We have an hour before the airship is ever ready to be in the air."
"I'm sorry." Harmony said, her voice shaking. "I just... God, what if she's hurt? What if she's hungry? Scared? What if-"
"Stop." Kadaj said, taking her arms in his hands. "You can't think like that. You're a veteran. You know how much emotions can fuck up the fight. You need to be clear-minded right now. Focus on getting packed. Run the list through your head until its all you can think about."
Harmony took a deep breath. She nodded on the exhale, laying her head on Kadaj's chest. "I know. I just... Yeah. Thanks."
Kadaj placed his finger under her chin, lifting her head to look into her eyes. After staring at her for a moment, he made up his mind. Slowly, and ever so softly, he placed his lips against hers, gently pulling at her bottom lip and shuddering with joy when she breathed a shakey breath and returned the kiss.
Just as she parted her lips to deepen the kiss, he pulled away. This was not the time to get carried away, and he didn't want to take advantage of her emotional weakness. If they were going to be okay, they'd make it work without needing to resort to sneaky and underhanded tricks.
Harmony whimpered when he pulled away, and tried to pull him back. Kadaj only smiled and shook his head, tucking her head beneath his chin and holding her to him.
"It'll be okay." He said. "I know that I haven't been in her life, but she's my daughter. Even though I'm only just getting to know her, she's a part of me. I won't let them hurt her. We'll get her back. We'll get them all back."
Harmony nodded, opening her mouth to reply when a sudden surge of power and fear and anger and relief rushed through her.
She let out a hoarse cry and fell to her knees, grasping her head in her hands.
"Harmony? What's wrong?" Kadaj asked. It happened so quickly, he had no idea what could have caused her reaction.
"So much power!" Harmony choked out. At the same time, they two heard Loz's cry of alarm. Kadaj quickly lifted Harmony into his arms and carried her to Sassi and Loz's room, where the Cetra was found in must the same position.
"What's going on?" They heard Sephiroth's voice from the doorway, Aerith right behind him. "I feel... so much power..."
Emotions rampaged through Harmony again and she gasped in realization.
"Its Kiku... She's bonded!"
A.N. What the twins call Kiku is Irish-Gaelic for "Guardian"
Sukai's rant: What? Those soulless, motherless, greasy bastards. I will enjoy freezing certain parts of their anatomy and breaking it off, slowly as I melt their skin with Materia. Then after I dismember them I will phoenix down their ass so they can continue the suffering and I can hear their screams. They will beg for mercy before I am finished, and after they do..I will drop kick them so hard into Gaia that it will take years of extensive excavation to even find the remains. Ifrit and Odin be damned, they won't even find remains because I will scorch them with Black Fire before I drop kick them to Odin.
(If I ever forget to translate, the Wutaian is actually Chinese, and I get my translations from google translate.
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Legacy of the Lifestream