Title: Even Through Tears
Author: Raserei Hojo
Title: Competition
Rating: PG-13
Pairing: ZidanexKuja
Summary: When Zidane woke up, he was in excruciating pain. It was eerily dark with small patches of glowing green light. Beside him was a figure, but Zidane wasn't sure if it was alive or not. What exactly happened back then?

---

Silence blanketed the small village of Maiden Sari that night. From the bed where Kuja lie awake, he could see the rubble of great towers that had fallen. The moonlight that slit through the tiny square windows suspiciously illuminated every crack and decrepit piece of stone that held the guesthouse together.

"Mmm, I am honored to accept this award," Zidane groaned from under his pillow.

Kuja stared blankly at his brother for a few moments. "You're not supposed to speak so fluently when you're sleeping." He pulled himself to his knees and crawled to the edge of his bed, peering closer at Zidane. "Then again, you never did submit yourself to human standards…"

"For making…" Zidane cooed. His tail coiled lazily around his leg.

"For making what, Zidane? The record number of girls you've dated at a single time?"

"For making Kuja go to sleep," Zidane responded, glaring at his older brother with an icy blue eye.

Kuja's face fell. "You know, spying on me really is not all that amusing."

"How can I sleep when you keep tossing and turning and sighing these great big heavy siiiighs," Zidane retorted, repositioning his head on top of the pillow. "I'm worried about you. You and your lack of contractions."

Kuja forced an exaggerated laugh. "How very thoughtful of you. The Hero Zidane, worried over a poor lowlife such as myself."

"Well, here's an even cheerier note: we're going to be leaving Maiden Sari soon."

"Oh…?" Kuja decided now was a good time to curl up in the middle of his bed. "And why would we be leaving?"

"C'mon, Kuja. Don't play dumb, it doesn't suit you at all well. But we're leaving for Alexandria, remember? Dagger will be there, and Rusty, and probably Beatrix. You remember Beatrix, don't you?"

"The blondish brunette, right? General Beatrix?"

"Yeah, her!" Zidane hid his smirk with the pillow. "I'm surprised you remember her."

Kuja shot his brother an odd look, coupled with a frown that had grown ever-present. "Why would you be surprised? She was, after all, a beautiful, intelligent, and strong woman." He sighed and pulled the covers to his chin. "Unfortunately, she did not posses the same kind of intelligence Queen Garnet did at the time."

"I do believe Kuja had a little crush on the sexy general, eh?"

"I do believe you have completely lost your mind. She definitely is not the type of person that would interest me. As for Queen Garnet, in case you have forgotten, she's sixteen. That would make me a pedophile."

"Hey! What's wrong with sixteen year olds!"

"Zidane! You're sixteen. It would be legal for you to do…whatever it is you think of doing in that perverted head of yours, to the queen."

Zidane sprang up in his bed, and then pounced across the room, onto his brother. "Hey, you're not using your mind-reading abilities to see my thoughts, are you?"

Kuja barely resisted the urge to roll his eyes. "Really, you definitely are not the kind of person that takes a mage to see their thoughts… Oh, and perhaps, when Queen Garnet turns eighteen, I will snatch her up for myself."

"What!"

"Hmm?" Kuja grinned innocently up at Zidane. "You know I have always been the type to look for competition."

Zidane scoffed. "I think I liked it better when you pranced around in your half-skirt and frivolous armor, and let's not forget, the thong."

"What's wrong with my old attire?"

"The fact that you hid your tail so easily when you weren't even wearing pants!"

"It's called magic, brainiac. Now could you please get off me? You exhaust me beyond all imagination!"

Zidane grinned and leaned back. "Mission accomplished." He patted Kuja on the head before going to his own bed, stretching all the way.

For a while, the two settled into a kind of content silence. But without conversation, the thoughts and questions sprang back into Kuja's mind, ready to spill from his lips. Finally, he felt he had to ask his Zidane why he had even bothered to save the man that had threatened the very existence of the universe."Zidane…"

"Yeah?" Zidane murmured, wrapping himself with the blankets.

"You never really…told me why you saved me back there at the Iifa tree. I still don't understand it… Even now, you care so much, when I..." Kuja's fingers nervously tapped the sheets, and he mentally berated himself for creating such an awkward silence. It was a full minute before Zidane broke the silence.

"I saved you because I wanted to. Besides, you saved me before, when I was little, and then again in that world of nothingness, didn't you? If you hadn't put me on Gaia, I would have grown up with Garland. I would have been evil, and I never would have gotten to experience life the way I know it."

"Even so… Zidane, I am not worthy of such honor…"

"Please Kuja, don't be so hard on yourself. You're not evil… You never were. After all, you're the one who grew up on Terra. And don't take this the wrong way, but it was kinda like you didn't know any better, or couldn't do anything to escape Garland's will."

Garland's will… I still can't escape it. He's haunting me, even when he's dead! Kuja thought restlessly.

"And besides," Zidane continued, "I'm a virtuous person. I couldn't leave you down there, even if you hadn't teleported us out of there. Do you know how freaked out I was when you passed out? I thought you had died! If you had, I would have tried to kill you again for making me do all that for nothing."

"I see…"

"So come on, Kuja! Cheer up a little. Tomorrow is a brand new day."

" 'Tomorrow is a day full of promise and sunshine. The day before turns to a memory and is slowly forgotten. But the current day will never truly end.' "

"Mmm… Lord Avon?"

"Of course. Lord Avon is my favorite playwright. He is also the Queen's favorite, if I am not mistaken?"

"Yeah…" Zidane murmured.

"Do you really miss her so much…?"

"Well of course I do! I mean, I really like her… I think it's not even that anymore, but love instead."

"Then perhaps I'll reconsider going to Alexandria… But I still need to rest for a while. In the mean time, we can plan your surprise entrance onto Alexandria's stage. Ah, perfect, a play…" Kuja's eyes shined with the thought of a play. Perhaps he would be able to sit in the audience while Zidane threw off a cloak and surprised everyone.

"And maybe then you'll tell me what happened to you last night?" Zidane asked hopefully.

"…Maybe. At any rate, the run will rise soon. We had best get to sleep."

"All right… G'night, big brother."

A frail smile found its way to Kuja's lips. "Good night, sweet prince."

---

"Zidane…"

"Why did Master Garland do that?"

Kuja looked aside. He felt guilty, and rightly so. To make amends for his previous mistakes, he turned over a fraction of his notes on the Eidolons to Garland. That, of course, sparked the old man's studies of the strange and mythical creatures. When he found that the villagers of Maiden Sari could summon these great beasts…

"Kuja," Zidane sobbed, clinging to his brother's shirt with tiny fists, "why aren't any of them moving? Why did they all stop?"

"They're dead. Garland killed them and captured their souls. They will never be able to reincarnate in the world again."

"But Kuja!"

Kuja bent low and scooped up the boy whom he had grown very attached to. "Shh, it will be okay, Zidane… I will make sure of it. Even if it means taking you away from Garland, so you never have to see those horrible things again."

"I won't be able to forget it… It was terrible… All those monsters—all those people—!"

"But just think of how many more Gaians will suffer if we stay idle? We must act!"

"Big brother…"

---

"C'mon, Kuja! Didn't you learn that it's bad manners for noblemen to stay in bed past noon!"

Kuja gave an uncharacteristic mmrph before burying his face deeper into his pillow. His entire body felt heavy and weak, and he was not in the mood to be dragging that heavy and weak body out of the somewhat comfortable bed. Not even if Zidane's hair was on fire.

"You've got a fever so you have to eat! I'm not sure whether it's 'starve a fever' or 'starve a cold,' but either way you have to eat something…!"

"I can eat in here."

"Grah! Kuja! If I had known you slept in so late, me and the others could have ambushed you at 8AM at your Desert Palace."

"Hnn…"

Zidane stomped his foot angrily, thinking up other excuses to get Kuja out of bed. "Lana's here!"

"I know," Kuja mmphed into his pillow.

"She's got food," Zidane whined.

"Like I said, I can eat it in here…"

"She's got wine!"

"Nobody drinks this early, except for the extremely dependent alcoholics." Kuja's tail almost nodded in agreement.

"She's got back!" Zidane urged.

"…Excuse me?"

Zidane nervously scratched the back of his head. "Did I say 'back?' I meant to say she has a lovely, curvaceous, voluptuous body, and extremely perky… uhm… Well, you know."

"I thought I was supposed to get breakfast."

"Why? Has the thought of Lana made your mouth water?"

"…No, not really." Kuja pulled the covers up over his head. "If you're not going to be polite and bring me my breakfast, then I will eat it later when I feel like getting up. And if you decide the Lana has other features that you would like to share with me, please write a letter and send it to this Rusty person you keep talking about."

"I never knew a guy who wouldn't leap out of bed for sex."

Kuja groaned into his pillow. "Your sixteen year old brain is over-producing the testosterone, right? And like I said before, it is barely noon! Normal people have sex at night. And in a bedroom. On more comfortable beds."

"You sure know an awful lot about this topic."

A pale hand rose from beneath the blankets, purple electricity pulsating around it. "Oh look, it seems I have enough magic left to cast an Ultima spell."

"Not that I'm saying you're experienced or anything! N—Not that you wouldn't be, it's just—Lana! How about that breakfast!"

---

Forty minutes later, Kuja had silently finished his breakfast (consisting of a slice of bread and part of a scrambled egg) before announcing he was full and would be going back to bed. He was still on edge, but slightly more relaxed than last night.

While Kuja slept, or what was most likely a fake nap in the other Genomes opinion, Zidane mapped out a route from Maiden Sari to Alexandria. He then crumbled the map up and proceeded to make several maps with different routes. Either way, he would have to figure out how to cross an entire ocean, and virtually half of the world if he was ever going to be reunited with Dagger again.

"Zidane," Lana cooed as she made her way towards Zidane, carrying empty plates, "you're working awfully hard. Drawing pictures, are we?"

Zidane frowned. "I may not be the smartest guy in the world, but you and Kuja seem to treat me like I'm a complete and total moron."

"Aww, don't feel bad, darling. At least we don't despise you. Then we'd have to chop you up into little piece and then blast the pieces to dust!" Lana smiled and set the empty plates onto the table Zidane was working at. "So, what are you working so hard on?"

"Mapping out how to get from here to Alexandria… Neither of us have much money, so I was thinking we could head to the Black Mage Village for a while… At least there's people there. Oh! And the other Genomes too!"

"Wouldn't that bother Kuja?"

"Maybe, but… I want to see how everyone's doing." Zidane crossed his arms and nodded confidently.

"Maybe you should wait a little bit longer…? After all, I don't think Kuja's quite ready to meet his own creations, let alone his creator's creations."

"I guess you're right, Lana…"

"Or you could get him so drunk he can't think straight. That always works on most guys."

"Ehh… I really don't think Kuja's the kind of person to get hammered. He's more of the elegant 'having-all-meals-of-the-day-with-a-glass-of-wine-thank-you-very-much' kind of guy. Although, it is kinda funny imagining him completely trashed. I can see him with his hair all messy and him staggering around and—OW!"

Zidane delicately rubbed this forehead where the burst of pain had been.

Quit talking about me like that, Kuja growled telepathically.

"Ah, I guess Kuja agrees that he's the elegant type and not the drunken type," Lana said in a sing-songy voice.

I do, said Kuja's voice in the blonde's head, but if you keep being nonsensical, I will have to drink an entire bottle of wine to keep myself from slaughtering you several times over. The small pieces of your body after I've cut it all up should be in fear.

"Ech… Sorry, we should stop thinking and talking about Kuja. He'll zap us if we keep it up," Zidane said with a tone of resignation.

Actually, I think I'll stick to 'zapping' just you. After all, that is much more entertaining.

"Poor Ziddy-kins is getting electrocuted by sick Kujie-kins!" Lana jested.

"Hmph. Okay, Kuja. Still with me?"

Unfortunately. Why do you ask?

"You said you like challenges, eh? Competitions?" Zidane leaned back on his heels, arms folded behind his back.

…Yes. And?

"Then I've got a great idea. If you win, we'll stay here for a few months and help rebuild Maiden Sari. If I win, we'll leave next week for the Black Mage Village."

Or I could just not play at all and have my way still.

"Oho? Backing out now?"

A few moments later, Kuja slammed the bedroom door open. "Will you hush already! How can I sleep with you screaming in the next room?"

"I'm not screaming! Anyway, you're afraid of a little contest?"

"The only thing you could beat me at is an arm wrestling match, and that's if I played fair!"

Zidane nearly cackled, grinning mischievously. "So you agree to my terms?"

"Partially. Firstly, I refuse to leave Maiden Sari any sooner than a month, unless you intend to be the reason I fall over dead. Secondly, you have no chance of winning. I may be weak and somewhat ill, but I still have an arsenal of magic at my disposal."

"Oh, you won't need magic… Magic won't help you in the least, big brother."

---

Authors Note: It's amazing! It's only been two weeks and this is another chapter! Le gasp! Anyway, you may have/may not have noticed the nice titles and stuff up there. You know, the whole Zidane x Kuja pairing. Thing. Well, it's finally gonna happen! Next chapter!