RoS: This’s just one of the one-shots I decided to post. I was bored, so I needed something to help me think of a way to pull out Someone like Me from my brain. It’s finished in my mind, but not on paper. You decide what this is about…read it like ya see it, k?

Disclaimer: I, RefugeofSouls (RoS)/ Alesha, do so solemnly swear that I will not poach on Square soft/Enix’s work or characters. Okay?

---

I can’t believe that I’ve done it. Me and myself alone. What I’ve done and what I could have done. Limitless power and control.

With a little effort, I raise my pale and trembling hands. Hands so pale, so perfect. They helped me. Delicate, slim, and agile, yet strong enough to claim hundreds of lives. Beautiful, oh so beautiful, too. And deadly. Deadly enough to take lives, to claim lives, and deadly enough to destroy a planet older than my own existence.

Enough to destroy Terra, my lonely Terra.

The lovely, yet cursed planet planet where my existence started.

A planet cursed to house me knowing that I’d destroy it without a single thought on my mind but my own needs.

The blue planet with its blinding light, mirror-like plants, and still waters. Frozen in time. Forever.

Motionless water, motionless life, useless artificial life forms, soulless vessels. Such a cruel and taunting place.

And yet, it housed the silver Ryu that make me so powerful as we are almost one in the same. Such beautiful lifeforms. As pale and perfect as me. Equally destructive, equally lovely. The true rulers of Terra and Gaia. My true brethren. And yet, they have not embraced their insanity, nor have they even hinted at being like me. It makes me wonder, at this reflective time, hovering and floating between life and death, what makes me different from such ethereal creatures?

I slowly turned my hands and found my answer.

They are scarred. Marred with blood and dirt. Echoes of death exude from them and call for life to fill them.

This is the flaw of my perfection.

The silver dragons have beautiful claws that could be marred if they chose to destroy. If they wanted to, they could have chosen to be like me and glory in the feel of warm blood splattering over their beautiful muzzles. But they don’t, because no matter what they did, they did it because they valued me. Regardless of what they all believe, the dragons are all innocent. They remain, in my eyes, noble creatures of virtue.

They did not choose as I did to end lives as easily as blowing out the flame on a candle. To bask in the terrified and anguished screams of innocents, and watch impassively as the light of humanity and emotion leave their eyes. I loved to watch the souls flee their damaged and empty shells and join the cursed Mist that crept around silently.

I watched with delight as these perfect mechanisms of destruction formed small, but powerful orbs of blue and gold fire. Fire that burned with my inner rage and was fueled by my madness. Blue for sorrow, gold for eternal beauty. Eternal beauty and sorrow. Sad, yet beautiful forever, but not immortal.

Never immortal.

I’m…mortal…?

No…No! NO!

Who are you to decide my fate?!

I am everything, and you are nothing!

I am Death, and Death is eternal!

I am forever, I am eternity!

The mere ramblings of my fear showing. Immortality is for those who have something to offer the universe. I chose to take. I took lives, I took emotions, I took anything I could and twisted it to my will and my whims. Because it was my choice to damn myself. To watch the fear and terror fill their faces. Enemies and Comrades alike. There was a certain power knowing that you were distrusted, oh how I loved to see the knowledge in their eyes of how I was superior to them, to see the mark of my influence.

The power to know that you were finally in control.

I closed my eyes and drew in another shaky breath. It hurt so much just to finish my reflections of my misdeeds. I dropped my hand and felt another wave of pain crash over me, causing me to clench my hands in the earthy soil in the Iifa Tree. I am almost completely oblivious to Iifa, as it is unimportant now.

I must know what I did wrong.

I remember smelling the acrid scent of their fear, no matter how hard they tried to cover it or banish it. It was almost as potent as their hatred and my power.

Their hatred was always such raw, open, and indignant thing.

Who was I to end their lives? To snuff out their existence? To force them to live their lives out in fear?

It was almost alive, it felt that I was physically struck when it was unleashed, because it always burned off them in scalding waves, sometimes nearly burning and burying me.

But I always rode the tide of anger, or I fed it to my own bottomless pit of rage and insanity. And I reveled in it. Such wonderful rage.

It was what I had lived for.

If anything, it fed my growing power, made me more ferocious, more ruthless, and more dangerous. I became the master of my own reality. I controlled everything. For one shining instant, I was the power and the intensity of the universe converged into one vessel…no one being. All power was given to me by the Crystal of life.

Crystal of power,

Crystal of Fate,

In this crucial hour,

Feed my endless hate!

Lend me your strength,

By offering these Lost Souls,

I embrace my Fate!

Its power snapped my fragile control, ripped away my sanity, and shattered my corrupted soul. It was what I wanted. Ultimate Power, complete control, a purpose, unity within myself.

I took my self-proclaimed universal powers and I used them to boost my insanity. I destroyed Terra. It wasn’t a threat to me, but it was disturbing to me knowing that it was there. It was a silent witness and testament to my former weakness. But not only that, but it had lived longer than me. Was it immortal? It taunted me. It was immortal. More so than I was. It was…unacceptable.

“If I cannot exist, then nothing else shall!”

Flare Star: the power of a supernova contained in a palm-sized orb of beauty. Ultima: cool fire and burning ice that spread like the vastness of the universe. My power, all mine. Tiny fragments of my glory that contained all the powers of destruction. Enough to destroy entire planets at a time. Terra: planet of birth; Gaia: planet of scorn and yearning. They were the banes of my existence.

But in my moments of glory and power, there was the Other. He is Zidane.

He is the Second, and for the longest, he has been my enemy. In earlier times, I wonder if he plotted my downfall or was unaware of my scorn for him. Golden Perfection and Obedience to my Angelically Androgynous Perfection and Rebellion. He is the Second, and said to be my superior, better than me. My replacement. The best angel.

This is what continuously puzzles me.

If he is Garland’s best, then why is he so soft-hearted? He never defended himself when I attempted to kill him on Gaia. He didn’t want to help me accomplish the mission in the summoner village. He is strong enough to defeat me, and yet he blanched at killing. He thwarted my plans numerous times, and I remember the determination and absolute certainty on his face as he and his little band of misfit friends defeated me. Maybe….maybe he actually cares what happens to the Gaians. What makes him stand for them?

‘You don’t need a reason to help people.’

It had given me a slight jolt when I’d recognized him in Burmecia helping those rats defend their city. But I didn’t worry. Hadn’t he been defeated by the lovely General Beatrix? If he couldn’t defeat her, then how could he possibly even dream of defeating me? No, he was just a boy, and I underestimated him because I was too thrilled with the progress of my plans and my rising power.

He defeated me. I dropped my guard and he crushed me, extinguishing my blood lust and thirst for power. He destroyed my power; the power of the universe, the power of the Life Crystal, and the power of the Lost Souls.

I….I…I... failed.

They defeated me, using their friendship, unity, love, and determination as their strength. I was overwhelmed with concepts that were very unfamiliar to me. Their strength overcame mine, and it was in those fresh moments of defeat that I realized something. No matter how much I try, I will never defeat them, because I have no of the things that they have.

I have no unity, I have no joy, I have no friendship, I have no love, I have no…hope.

These emotions build the foundation of life.

I have none, so I don’t deserve life.

At least, I helped them escape…I’m glad…that they helped me find the true meaning of life.

“Wake up, Kuja! Don’t you go dying on me now!”

It sounds like…Zidane. The only one to ever show me true sympathy or compassion. But I know he is not with me, for I am nothing more than a hopeless cause now….I open my eyes and find myself face to face with cerulean colored eyes filled with concern. Surely I am hallucinating…but I see him talking…although I can hear no sounds coming from his mouth, over the frantic beating of my heart. I don’t know what this new emotion is, but it fills me with warmth. It’s strangely comforting.

Could it be- I can’t help but wonder-could it be…hope?

And that’s when Iifa started reacting violently.

It thrashed around evidently sensing life and sent large, soul-seeking vines into its inner heart chamber. I looked at him wondering what had made him come back for me. Hadn’t I told him to leave with his friends? Why was he here? I already knew what his answer would be by the stubborn set of his jaw. I used what little strength reserves I had left to get my message of gratitude across my lips.

“Than…thank you, little brother…”

He smiles at me and then all the vines swing inwards, and I know with a sudden clarity that I will not survive. I can accept my fate, but he cannot die, I won’t allow it if it can be helped.

He jerked his head up and I saw the same knowledge fill his eyes. The roots came hurtling down, and he dove over me, protecting my frail and almost lifeless body. Its shocking me so much that I can’t help but give a strangled cry and force what little life force I have left into his braced body. As my body shuts down, I smile at him knowing that I have finally done something right. And I whisper as I can, “You will live. Consider it….a…gift from…your…big brother.”

He will live.

---

Zidane was not conscious afterward to realize that Kuja had passed from this world. But on some level…he just knew that Kuja had died peacefully.

May his free soul rest in Eternal Peace.

---

RoS: OMG! That was so freaky! I hope you guys liked that and that I don’t get murdered for letting him die. I don’t know why, but I cried after I wrote it…It was so…deep, and to think, it came to me in my English class…Anyway, you can count on me to try and finish Someone Like Me by August….I know it sounds like it’s a long time away, but it’s really not. Oh yeah, if you haven’t checked out my bio, you should, because it’s got good pics from a VERY good artist…(sighs) I hope I can cheer myself up soon…and you guys have NO idea how many times this thing was deleted and I had to start over. The name was originally one of these four at the bottom, but I changed my mind at the last minute. You can go review now!

Embracing Insanity, Embracing Life, Before My Eyes, and What Went Wrong