Freyd

Feathers and bellhop caps rained from the sky to the captain's great satisfaction. Sam and Freya were wreaking a more than satisfactory level of havoc. "They've both come far," he said aloud, for Eruda's benefit. "You have too. I've seen you in action more often recently. It seems fair to say that we're both a long way from our first outing against the Hoya." A small grin graced the edge of his lips as the cowl turned her way. It nodded on the Whisper's behalf as he vanished into the cloud of feathers-turned-to-fractals. "Raidou is proud of you." Hope and pride invested, he mo

As if waking from a dream, Freyd found himself back where he started: inverted, facing oversized beady black eyes the size of bowling balls. A giant fist with immense sausage-like fingers wrap around his legs, dangling him in a dank, dark cave and glaring at him with suspicious intensity. Something warm and comforting spread from within. A sense of irrepressible joy and harmony pervaded every inch of Freyd's body. "Hey, Uggy," he joked, a happy smirk spreading between his ears. "Nice to see you again. Happy Groundhog Day. Oh, and sorry, not-sorry for what's about to happen, again.

His sight was unchanged. All things remained as they were, yet Freyd's perspective had somehow and irrevocably changed. Cupping his grandson's face with a pair of gnarled, arthritic hands, the figure before him smiled and nodded, affirming what he already knew. "You have what you need," he said, his voice croaking through the a throat and lungs that were as ravaged by cancer in Freyd's memories as they had been when they last saw each other. "Go, Takeshi. Listen to your friend's advice. Give them all the hope you can, and they will always rise to aid with the challenges set before yo

That proved to be enough: a simple gesture of acknowledgement and consideration, laden with sincerity. Takeshi had always managed to navigate through the courtesies as a matter of protocol, but the nuance of genuine gratitude had always eluded him. Here was a figment of a man who had shown him infinite tolerance and compassion, and he had callously dismissed it, over and over again. Lifting his head, he found his grandfather standing before him, barely taller than his own seated vantage, with a withered, veiny hand pressed tenderly into Freyd's unruly mop. He swore that his hair actually r

A grimace found purchase on his face, even as his face fell into his hands. "I feel like some damned, stupid child again. Is there ever going to be an end to this? Any opportunity to move beyond it?" "That's really up to you, isn't it, kiddo?" His grandfather chuckled softly. "You have everything you need. It's just a matter of choice: do you stay in the nice, safe, comfy corner that you've created for yourself, where everything makes sense, or do you venture into the unknown?" The bobber did a thing. Grandad's eyes never veered away from the water, consummate fisher that he w

"Accepting that change means casting aside the only thing that ever gave me the power and courage to contend with this utterly stupid existence." Another soft chuckle echoed across the dreamscape. "Look up, Takeshi. The truth has been staring you in the face for so long that you've lost your ability to see it. What else does the universe need to offer for you to save yourself?" Elongated ears. Vibrant, blue eyes filled with hope and promise. The laughter and thumping heart from a race against waterfalls in search of a stubborn pile of stones. Hiding, exhausted in the woods,

The feeling of cool, slick leather palmed his face. "Really? REALLY? You went there?" Grandad gave his victory wheeze, nearly folding forward into himself from the coughing fit that swallowed him. Tell him, Freyd. You may never get another chance. "But, he's just..." Be a goddamn human being for once, even if he isn't. Say what you should have said so long ago. ... "I'm sorry." Silence fell over the scene, like a lid had been dropped over the rest of the world to drown out its cacophonous clutter. "I'm sorry that I screwed up so bad that w

Freyd complied, choosing his own seat off to the side, from where he could keep a watchful eye on the phantasm that was proving too familiar. There was no reason for it. Why indulge an enemy? This was a dungeon, wasn't it? It's cunning boss sat before him, prodding the inside of his mouth with his tongue as he struggled to push his teeth back into place. "Okay. I'll give you points for creativity. This is definitely one of Cardinal's weirder ploys." Slender girl sat herself down on grandad's far side, obscuring her features all the more. Staring out into the dark expanse t

"I won't play any more of these games. Begone, old man." Confusion fell over his elder's face, blending his expression with just the right note of false yet mirthful sorrow. "Games? You know very well that this is no mere game." The old man gave a hint of crazed laughter. "The eternal challenge between man and fish is an epic contest of wills, the likes of which can shatter the heavens and lay low those foolish enough to make mockery of its proud and ancient traditions!" Splayed, spindly fingers waved around like kite strings dancing erratically in the wind at the man's exagge

"What is it you want, figment? What round of torture do you think you can inflict? Am I to endure this time?" A sneer remained cloaked behind the words, but even Freyd carried too much respect for the man's legacy to show his phantom such disrespect. Here was the only man who had ever tried to reach out and understand him. How alike had they actually been? What wisdom had the old fart garnered that granted him the patience of saints to reach out to such a troubled child. He had never raised his voice, never judged or prodded. He always managed to find just the right tone of voice,

"Come, Takeshi. Sit with me a while." The hunched figure held a rod in its right hand, worn, paper-thin skin pulled taught over a withered frame of bone and veins. His other hand patted the stone at his side - the same that he'd always reserved for their quiet chats. If the mob was aware of Freyd's defeat of himself, he failed to show it. "I doubt if my bite could do much harm, even if I managed it. These dentures are also just too troublesome for the effort." Another raspy chuckle wracked his frail form. "You are not my grandfather." He'd wanted to spit those words

Recollection was power enough, in this place, to spawn the image to which his father had directed his son's attentions. The old man appeared, seated upon a stone that grew from the cave floor to support him. A raspy cough as his cardigan-clad torso compressed painfully upon itself. His back heaved, turned away as he was. It was a sight Takeshi had seen countless times before the end. "Keep away from him, you twisted monstrous thing!" Fake Freyd interposed himself, his blade beaming brightly as it rose to guard its two companions. "He never did anything except try to help you, and yo

Someone had left a loose oddly-decorated book on the stoop, far from whatever forlorn shelf was surely missing its presence. "Always picking up after the kids." A sigh filtered through smirked lips, cloaked beneath a cowl of fine, charcoal-coloured wool. The Whisper had snared it upon his exit, meaning to return it to its proper place, but their promised meeting point was so close that it took him no time at all to meet up with the rest of their party. The Cathedral of the Lost was already nestled in the Forest of Memories, after all. Eruda, Sam and Freya were waiting for him when

Black figures in the darkness. Innumerable. They hovered close about, like ghosts that all could feel but never see. Only Freyd could hear their voices, echoing in the recesses of his mind: dogs of war, indeed. He found purpose in the role, sorely needed and eagerly fulfilled. A one-man pack of death unfolded and converged upon its hapless prey. The Big Red was teetering, broken by the smaller one in its ever-familiar robe. Ice and Fury had likewise drained the villain's strength. The boss needed only a gentle nudge to finish its fall and break the last bastion safeguarding the Crimson

"GO AWAY!" A second blow fell with less effort, but accompanied by that all-familiar screech. Absence of force made no difference to the void. It simply un-made whatever it touched, including those things most precious to him. Fake Marvin didn't falter. He simply fell apart, sundered into empty component pieces of armor that collapsed as Freyd swung through. "Hey! What the hell are you doing to my friend?" Fake Takeshi had taken notice. Pulling his hand away from his partner spawned a beam of light between them. It promptly whirled and twirled and smashed into Freyd's elbow w

Picking himself up off the floor, the shade wiped the corner of his mouth on his translucent sleeve, as if dismissing a trace of blood not in actual evidence. "You always were a violent child, Takeshi - impulsive, unpredictable and rash. Even now, you rush to conflict as some sort of solution." Shorter than his son, the man's smaller, slighter build only reinforced his words. "Is this all you can manage? Anguish between some teenaged infatuation, as compared to the stolid mindlessness of a drone?" More figures emerged from the shadows, the first a hulking titan in gaudy, ceremo

"I'm not going to have to carve open Darth Vader's mask to see myself inside, am I? I swear, if Kayaba tries to tell me he's my dad, I'm gonna run him through - twice." Montjoy just pointed at the opening, immune to Freyd's rambling taunts and attempts at distraction. He saw right through them. Ultimately, there was a point beyond which no one could lie to themselves, and he'd crossed it long ago. This entire delusion, if that's what it truly was, might well be self-inflicted. It struck him as his mind's way of forcing him to face the undesirable quandary that had plagued him since

Watching his own doppleganger, hearing him speaking directly into his mind, the thought occurred to him that he might finally have gone mad. It wasn't unheard of, and more than a few players had turned suicidal or homicidal, or even both, since Kayaba's pronouncement of their doom. For all of Cardinal's purported protections, could they truly rely upon their torturer's claims that the very tool of their imprisonment would also protect them? Raising his hand, which was always glaringly wrong when a shadow moved independently from its casting source, Montjoy pointed at the impact crater m

"Speak plainly!" I am. You're just not used to hearing this part of yourself. For too long, you've buried it beneath layers of obligation and priorities. Now, it will make you hear it. "Montjoy!" Freyd was clearly exasperated and growing angry at the cryptic messaging. You can't understand me because you can't understand the problem. You can't explain it to yourself. Therefore, I cannot explain it to you. This is your subconscious, Takeshi. It won't play by your rules, but speaks its lessons in its own language. Your task is to decipher it. Epiphanies don't just unrave

"I parted ways with you years ago, you creepy old bastard." If the troll meant to offer protest, it was never given the chance. With a brutal upward swing, Freyd hefted the mob clear off the ground and into the cavern ceiling with such force that it impaled itself upon the endless, tooth-like rows of stalagmites. Ugzeke blinked, twice, struggling to process what had just occurred, then burst into a cloud of fractal shards that rained down below, along with a cloud of shrapnel from the broken ceiling. A quick dive and tumble cleared sufficient distance for Freyd to reach safety, even as

Pulling the staff from his victim, Freyd spun to unleash a furious battery of strikes that whittled down the troll's already failing health. Ugzeke's crimson rage was always a tell that his end was near. One or three good blows would usually do him in. The mere notion that the mob had spoken in his father's voice was even more reason to want to pummel the beast into the ground. Freyd hated his father. The man's grating, pedantic prattle and obsessive need to try and craft his son in his own image, by force, had created a monster. Or, at least, such was what Freyd thought of himself. Al

"No, no, NO!!!" Slamming his staff into the ground whirled him with enough force that Freyd instantly regained his footing. Rushing his foe with blind rage, he found Ugzeke doing the same. Steam rose from the troll's back as his mottled greenish-brown skin darkened to that shade of red just beyond maroon, when things are considered to be so angry that they're never coming back to sanity. Colliding with each other, Freyd speared his foe with the blunt end of his staff, releasing its seal and unleashing the void within. What should have been a breath-denying gut shot ate right through

Good fortune had it that Freyd still held Freya's arm as her eyes rolled summersaults in their sockets and she collapsed again. Managing to catch her, albeit barely, he barked a sternly, sympathetic "MOVE" to Simmoné to clear a space upon the couch where he could lay his friend. She nearly jumped to the far end, re-curling herself into an even tighter ball in the process. "Water, and towels. A bucket also..." A demand made of her twin adjutants who scattered like mice before an approaching cat, his tone broking no tolerance for argument. "Please." He added the word as an afterm

A glance askance at his peers, Freyd felt proud that he could call them that. Once, not so long ago, they felt like a rag-tag band of misfits on the periphery of major happenings in Kayaba's infernal tower. Now, they had each come into their own, and so had Firm Anima as a whole. Fledgling Kasumi, once terrified to hurt a fly, had come to understand the importance of standing up for her principles and those she cared about, even if it meant causing injury to others. Her counterpart, Setsuna, was a kindred spirit, driven by cold yet fanatical zeal that chilled the land as much as her victim

"Now, now, Freyd," Ugzeke spoke, softly, "you know yourself better than that. You're struggling with something, and it's eaten away at you enough to lead you here." "Where is 'here', exactly?" Surprise was replaced with wary probing. "Nowhere, actually. Likely, it mirrors your lack of progress with you dilemma." "What?!" Dropping his guard for a moment, incredulous that this numbskull dared to presume to lecture him about his own psychological state, he recognized the foolishness too late to block the giant foot that hoofed him three dozen yards away and into another rocky c