At Quistis' request, Edea created a nether portal in a spare meeting room on the third floor. And despite Rinoa's fears, the portal fed directly into the underworld. The adventuring party -- Quistis, Selphie, Zell, Irvine, and Chu-Chu -- was deposited at the top of a dimly-lit tunnel. A line of departed souls - who, aside from the defeated stare in their eyes, looked no different from the living - awaited ahead of them. The line lead to some gates barely visible in the distance.

Zell's shoulders sagged. "We have to go through this? Oh, man, that's as bad as the line in the cafeteria for hot dogs." Selphie giggled.

But they saw no alternative to waiting in line, and so they did. Aside from dutifully lining up behind them, none of the souls even seemed to acknowledge their presence. Nor did the souls interact amongst themselves. They were dead, and nothing had any meaning for them now.

The team had advanced halfway about down the line when someone acknowledged them: A tall, cloaked man stepped out of the shadows, startling them. He glowered at them. "You aren't dead, are you? I could smell you getting off the elevator."

"No," Quistis said. "We came to rescue someone who committed suicide." She spoke firmly, assured she would carry on with her mission no matter how much this stranger told her it was impossible.

This seemed to reaffirm Auron's opinions. "Then you will need my guidance." He stepped closer to them, mingling into their group by his own visitation.

"How do we know we can trust this guy?" Irvine whispered.

Selphie shrugged. "What other choice do we have? We don't know where we're going."

Auron said nothing more until they finally reached the barred iron gates. There they were accosted by Minos, the gatekeeper of hell. His coiled tail flicked with irritation as he peered curiously at them. "You are not of the dead," he grunted. "You have no place here."

Auron stepped forward and glowered at Minos. "Let them pass," he commanded.

He spoke with such authority that Minos' platform instantly crumbled. "Where are you going?" he asked wearily.

"Seventh circle," Auron grunted. "Wood of suicides."

"Seventh circle," Minos repeated. "All right. Here's your TICKET to HELL." He tore off a handful of tickets and handed one to each of the adventurers.

Quistis frowned. "Why are you helping us like this?"

Auron shrugged. "There is no reason not to help others when it costs you nothing. I am firmly dead; I cannot advance my status. At least this gives me some way to occupy myself. Besides, you remind me of someone."

"Ah..." Fair enough. She would have trusted him outright if it wasn't for the fact that they were in hell, which wasn't really supposed to have good people. Then again, Mengshi too was in hell ... so they couldn't all be bad people. "I'm sorry; I don't think I got your name."

"Auron."

Quistis shook hands with him, though he continued to glower at her. "I'm Quistis Trepe."

Zell, always eager to get on with things, had stepped forward to the gates of hell. His attention was drawn to a plaque covering the middle of the gates at chest high. It bore not only the ticket slot, but several lines of Italian text. "'Abandon all hope, you who enter here' ... right?" Zell said.

"Not quite," Auron rumbled from behind him. "A more accurate translation would be 'Those enter here have abandoned all hope.'"

"Oh. Well, we haven't, so... ha!"

Translation issues aside, they all dutifully placed their tickets inside the slot. The gates creaked open and they stepped into the darkness beyond.

Selphie's eyes immediately lit up in delight and she gasped. "A TRAIN!"

* * *

Fifteen minutes later, they were all boarded on the Phantom Train. There was something profoundly unsettling about finding a perfectly amenable-looking train in the middle in the underworld. It would have seemed so much more fitting if it looked gloomy and evil -- run-down, with some broken lights, and maybe even blood dripping out of mysterious holes in the wall. Perhaps that was why the train was chillingly normal. Evil that pronounced itself to be so would have seemed too predictable and classifiable.

But while Irvine, Zell, Quistis, and even Chu-Chu lingered apprehensively at the entrance, Selphie did not concern herself with any of these details. She bounded around the cabin, examining each item in it with delight. A train! This certainly made their journey much more comfortable. And it was a nicely furnished one, too! Someone was at least treated the dead with some respect.

The other passengers, of course, ignored all this. They sat down and stared dead ahead. "Not too friendly, are they?" Irvine chuckled.

"Well, at least until Chu-Chu starts trying to hump them," Zell said.

Chu-Chu glared at him. "Chu-Chu doesn't do necrophilia," she insisted with a trace of injured indignation. "Unless one of these souls were Casper the Homosexual Friendly Ghost. I'd sure like chu get my hands on his ectoplasm."

Quistis seated herself. The seat pocket ahead of her held a map of hell, she soon discovered, and she unfolded it to look at it. Hell seemed to be a giant pit, with all the constructions built into the sides. The upper levels held the mildest of sins and the most souls; the lower levels got progressively narrower and progressively more offensive. "Let's see ... seventh circle ... suicides. Looks like we have quite a journey ahead of us."

"The train moves quickly," Auron grunted.

Sensing it was prayertime, Chu-Chu brought her compass out of her purse. The trip to hell had done a number on it: the needle had tried to point towards the Wondrous Mambo God and ended up having to point straight up. It was now bent permanently out-of-shape upwards, and the glass around it was shattered. But Chu-Chu was quick to adapt to this change. She merely flopped on her back and faced up to pray. Her compass was never wrong.

Heedless of the rest of them, Auron strode forward down the aisle, seemingly lost in his own thoughts. He paused and glowered over his shoulder. "You know that you cannot free your friend unless she wants to be freed."

Some of them were confused, but Quistis understood his meaning immediately. She frowned, troubled by the truth he had spoken. Mengshi had killed herself; she didn't want to be alive. So unless she had had a change of heart since then, she wouldn't want to escape hell. "But..."

"I suspect she believes herself to be irredeemably evil," Auron said helpfully.

"Why?"

He shrugged. "That I cannot say. I do not know her personally. But I have seen far too many souls damned here because they believe that they cannot be forgiven for their crimes."

She continued probing him for information. She needed to know everything she could about Mengshi's situation if she were to have any hope of finding her an exit. "I don't understand; why are they damned here for that? She hasn't hurt anyone besides herself..." Well, Mengshi's suicide had actually hurt her quite a bit, Quistis reflected. But she was willing to forgive her for that.

"Then I am afraid you misunderstand the nature of this prison." He finally turned away from the window and walked closer to her. Still he did sit down, however; he remained standing and glowering. "Imagine you have committed a crime so great that you could never be accepted back into society. Your past deeds would stain your record forever and you would always be denied the chance to live as a human being. If that were the case, you would have no further reason to act virtuously. You might as well break every law in existence, because no amount of future good behavior could ever make you into a good person. Thus, one who is unforgivable only goes on to commit more crimes - out of desperation, because they have been denied the resources afforded to a normal human being. That is why we must forgive. Without forgiveness, there can be no hope. If you remain burdened by the past, you will be unable to attain a better future."

Okay, his argument for forgiveness made sense. "But, still ... I don't see why Mengshi has to be sent to hell."

Auron shrugged. "As I said, your girlfriend most likely believes herself to be unforgivable. As such, she will only go on perpetrating destruction. Hell has removed her from the world so that this cannot continue. Consider it like putting down a rabid dog. No one wished it for to have to die, but if it is not killed, it will only go on causing more damage. We are protecting the world from the dog, and the dog's life was worth nothing because it has no hope of a future free from its destructive behavior.

"And Mengshi has no hope? Is that what you're saying?" Quistis' voice belied a touch of suspicion of what Auron said. Even at her worst, Mengshi was never rabid; how really relevant was this comparison?

Unmoved by her concerns, Auron continued glowering. "That is what she believes," he deadpanned. "If she has a future, it will be because you create one."

Yes, of course. Now the pieces were fitting together. Quistis was beginning to catch on to what the problem was, and what she needed to do...

* * *

Squall Leonhart was having another terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day.

"I handwrote out a poster listing 50 reasons I'm obsessed with her. And she just tore it up! She didn't even look at it, Seifer! I haven't been this crushed since the time a near-sighted bear hibernated on me. How could she not want to have me worshipping her? I'm all ready to settle down and she won't even give me the time of day. I don't understand at all. Why are girls these days so afraid of commitment to creepy, obsessive stalkers?"

"Because Ri-ho-a is flakier than the cereal aisle, that's why. Forget about it. There are plenty of other fish in the pond."

"Yeah, and I'm a bicycle," Squall moaned in despair. "It's all over. I'll never be happy. My mojo's gone. Nothing feels good. The world has turned and left me here."

The situation should not have gotten any worse, but Squall's bellyaching had already dragged the conversation on for too long. Too long, in this case, was long enough for Seifer to start scheming. Squall was a doofus and beyond hope, but maybe he - Seifer - could twist this weakness to his advantage. "All right, fine. Squall, your problem is you're too nice," Seifer said. "I mean, who wants to date a nice person? The next time you talk to Rinoa, you should get real pissed and tell her to make you some tea. Keep on her toes and she'll respect you. Also, get some T-shirts with misogynistic slogans like 'Feminist Broads Dig Me' or 'Bikini Inspector.' Chicks love those."

"I don't get it, Seifer; won't this make her hate me more?"

He shrugged. "Trust me."

That was never a good sign, especially coming from Seifer, but Squall was too desperate to care. Who else could he ask? Even he had enough sense to realize that this not the time to trouble his other friend with his love life; Quistis was even worse off than he.

"You should also work on your sense of humor, too. Girls think it's cool when you derail conversations with insensitive, off-color comments."

"Okay, but if this doesn't work, I'm gonna send you airmail to the moon. Or Esthar." He sighed a great melancholy sigh. "You know, I wish I was anywhere with anyone making out."

* * *

They at last reached their destination, the Wood of Suicides in the seventh circle of hell. The Phantom Train stopped in a tiny platform in a clearing, beyond which lay only an endless span of fir trees. The trees, all nearly identical in size and height, meshed tightly together so that their boughs blocked out nearly all light from above. And the trees themselves were pitch black on both trunks and needles.

Auron gestured with his fist in the direction they should walk. "There's no time to waste. Let's go."

They set off through the dense forest. Quistis observed that each tree had a wooden door had been carved into its base. Presumably each one housed one of the souls that had been sentenced here - and presumably it was this that Mengshi now experienced. Well, it didn't seem too hellish. That was nice.

Auron stopped in front of one of the trees and slammed his swordpoint into the dirt. "Your friend awaits."

Quistis swallowed. It had been easy to forget about her real problems when they had this little adventure to distract themselves. But now they weren't just going through hell; she had to rescue Mengshi. And she feared what lay beyond this door. What if Mengshi had been disfigured, was undergoing some great torture? What if she had fallen beyond salvation? And even facing her under any circumstance, after all that had come between them. She had to expose all her wounds to Mengshi, and they were wounds that hurt to even think about. "Selphie, could you see how she is?"

Selphie nodded. "Of course." She pushed open the wooden door and poked her head into the room. "Colonel?"

Xu was sitting in the corner curled into a ball, her knees drawn up to her chest and her head buried in her arms. She looked drearily up, scarcely motivated to even see who her visitor was. "Selphie?" She wanted to believe that it was someone that looked like the living. But, no, this person knew who she was. And she had already seen too many weird things, too many bizarre coincidences, in hell to assume it couldn't be Selphie.

Selphie stepped into the room and shut it behind her to insulate their conversation from the others. "Don't worry, I'm not dead. We just ... came down for you." Selphie scanned Xu's room. There was nothing in it - at all. The room was a completely featureless ten foot-by-fifteen foot cubicle built of stone. Aside from the door, there were no furnishings. Xu must have been sleeping on the floor, assuming that one needed to sleep in hell. "This is it? I was expecting ... you know, torture. Hot coals, lake of fire, pushing boulders up hills, that sort of thing."

"No, thisis torture all right." Xu sighed deeply. "There's no one to blame, no one to pin the cause of my suffering on, but myself. And nothing to do at all but curse what I've done to get myself here and drive myself slowly insane." She held up her hands. Her fingernails were chipped and her hands scarred from clawing at the walls.

Selphie nodded slowly. That sounded horrible, and she felt like any reaction she could give would only trivialize Xu's suffering. She wasn't the one having to endure this, and no matter how much she could claim to sympathize, she could not claim to understand Xu's suffering. "Um... Quistis is here. She wants to talk to you..." She couldn't quite bring herself to ask Xu anything.

"Okay," Xu murmured. She knew she shouldn't be talking to Quistis. And yet even when she knew she was nothing but a threat to and drain on her, she longed for her too much to say no. And if Quistis had taken the trouble to come halfway down hell to see her ... well, that was nothing but a rationalization. So much for that train of thought.

Footsteps, a door closing, and then Quistis was there.

Xu looked up at her, but was too drained, too beaten down, to even stand. "I didn't want you to see me like this, Quistis," she murmured. It was a horrible catch-22: she needed their help to get out of hell, but if they saw how flawed she really was, they would want nothing to do about her

Quistis had been thinking a great deal about this moment and what to say. She knew she had to be positive. And she had told herself this enough times that she was prepared and did not succumb to her frustrations. "It's all right. I'm here to help you."

"I don't want to be helped," a defeated murmur found its way of Xu as she didn't really think about it. She wanted only to be elsewhere, to not be made so worthless to her beloved Quistiy like this, and yet what she wanted even more than that was to love Quistis and mean something to her and be alive... "I just want to disappear so that you'll stop trying to help me. I can't be helped; I just hurt people."

"Mengshi, what hurts me the most is when you insist that all you do is hurt people."

"Yes," Xu moaned. "That's exactly my point. I don't think right, Quisty. No matter how hard I try, everything I say is always going to be tainted by ... what I've done. Even trying to be happy is just a reaction to it."

"That's not the only reason to be happy. I want you to be happy."

"Yes, and I haven't done a very good job of it, have I? I let you down. I let everybody down." And Quistis didn't even know the half of it. She was a >sorceress. A threat to Garden. "Just leave me alone. Please."

Quistis saw that no quick platitude would resolve this mess. It was going to take more time. She walked across the room and knelt beside Xu. "You know I can't do that," she murmured. She reached out and gently stroked Xu's cheek. Xu half-flinched away from the caress, a reminder of what she had lost, but she still held too much hope not to embrace Quistis' affections. Indeed, Quistis thought she saw her almost smile.

"Maybe... maybe I..." She couldn't finish the sentence, it would be giving too much credence to hopes she figured were false, but there was something still alive in her heart that wanted to speak.

Quistis leaned closer lightly pressed her lips to Xu's forehead. Whatever it was in Xu's heart danced again and leapt up through her throat, trying to get out. If only her guilt were not keeping it in... "I love you," Quistis whispered as she drew her lips away.

"I hurt you." It escaped as a soft whimper. She could still think of too many arguments against herself. Only when she had presented them all and had Quistis knock them all down could she really believe in herself.

"You did," Quistis said gently as she stroked Xu's hair. "And I hurt you. But that's okay; we all hurt each other sometimes. I'm not going to let it blot out our future. Nothing I could do to harm you now would ever change the fact that you'd already hurt me, so why even try? Holding grudges is silly, irrational. The only thing that heals wounds is love, not hate. And if I didn't care about you, if I didn't still love you, would I have come all the way here for you?"

But even all this was nothing before Xu's cynical ears. "You don't need me."

Quistis suddenly found herself examining her own feelings. Did she need Xu? She reluctantly admitted that, no, she did not. She had gone on living without her, would have managed to heal and find happiness in spite of this. She could find meaning in her life with Xu. But that did mean she didn't really love her? No, it couldn't. Requiring someone else to exist wasn't healthy. It was co-dependence; it wasn't love, no matter how many tragic stories said otherwise. But ... but ... argh! This was frustrating to think about, and she could begin to see why Mengshi was so conflicted. "Are you upset because I didn't kill myself?"

Xu too was now searching for the base of her own emotions. What was she upset about? She had mostly been unhappy with the current way Quistis was taking her death, not anything before then. No, everything before Quistis had left her had been her fault. Quistis had given plenty of chances and she had misused them all. So what did she want? To feel that Quistis cared that she had erred and was not happy to be rid of a pain in the ass. "I guess... part of me is, yeah." She sighed and shifted, knowing that this was bad. "I don't want you dead, Quisty, I really don't; I want you to be happy. But at the same time I don't know how to live with the fact that you don't need me as much as I need you..."

Quistis nodded in recognition. Now was not the time for judgments; whatever problems Mengshi had, she had to help her overcome. She tried to formulate a response. She knew what Xu had said was the wrong way of thinking, and that there was a good answer to it, but she had to dig it out of her heart and explain what she took for granted. "Mengshi ... we don't need a lot. I could live in a cave, dressed in bearskins and hunting and gathering berries every day to eat, and I'd go on existing. I'd probably even find some things to enjoy. But that doesn't mean I don't appreciate having more than that! Look at all the lasting accomplishments - art, medicine, leisure technology - of the past six thousand years. Do you think any of them have improved our lives?"

"Yeah..."

"But people lived without them, didn't they?"

Mengshi nodded, expecting Quistis to continue after a short pause. But Quistis did not. She leaned forward expectantly and remained staring at Xu. Mengshi eventually realized that Quistis was waiting for her -- and that Quistis had already said all that she needed to. "I, um..." It seemed so obvious now that she wasn't even sure how to defend or explain her previous position. She didn't need to mean everything to mean something.

Quistis smiled. "The world is always getting better, Mengshi. And I know it would be a lot more wonderful with you back in it."

"How do I get out?" she blurted.

That was what Quistis had been waiting for. "You're here because you've lost all hope," Quistis explained. "And you've lost hope because you can't forgive. Without forgiveness, there can be no hope. We'd all be damned, for the least infraction in our past. So that's your answer, Mengshi. You need to forgive."

"I've already forgiven you, Quisty," Xu insisted, sounding slightly offended that Quistis doubted her good will towards her.

Quistis pursed her lips in amusement. This wasn't supposed to be funny or enjoyable in the least, but Xu was sometimes so relentlessly predictable. "Not me, Mengshi. You need to forgive yourself."

The hardest person to forgive.

"I do forgive myself," Mengshi insisted.

But she hadn't, and they both knew that. Quistis brushed Mengshi's hair again. "It's easy to say, I know," she whispered. "But you have to convince yourself in your heart that you're worthwhile. You have to know you belong in the world."

"That's easier said that done." It wasn't too hard to forgive other people. She could never really change their behavior, so she could accept their behavior as just part of the way they are. But herself? That was the one person she could control. A person who should have known better, shouldn't have made mistakes when she knew the right path in her heart. And she would always be asking herself how she could be stupid, what things would have been like if she had acted differently - and why, oh, why, couldn't she be perfect?

"I know it is. But ... you can start by not saying you're unforgivable. That's very silly; it's telling me I can't do something that I know I can."

"Okay..."

"And try creating something. If you bring some light into the world that didn't exist before, you'll feel better about yourself. Being able to create something from nothing makes you indisputably an asset to the universe. And that's a capacity of every human being."

"But there's nothing I can create here."

Quistis reached into her vest pocket and produced a small book and a pen. "I brought you my diary. It's got plenty of blank pages in it. You can write something, at least."

Mengshi took the gift. "Okay..." She wasn't expecting this, wouldn't have picked a gift like this, but it also didn't seem so bad. She just needed time to come to terms with this idea.

"I know what you're thinking; you don't usually write anything beside mission briefings." Quistis smiled, and they were both momentarily warmed by the fact that she still could accurately predict what Mengshi was thinking. Perhaps they still did understand each other. "But... I think you'd be good at it. Think about how much you read. I know you've got accumulated ideas in your head to have something interesting to say. It doesn't have to be a diary. Anything ... fiction, or non-fiction, or your life story."

"...all right." Perhaps this could. She'd give it a try, at least; anything that offered at least the possibility of rebuilding her shattered self-worth was capital G Good - a chance was more than she felt she had right now. Especially because she could help doubting that Quistis would be offering this chance if she knew the real, awful truth.

"And here's your Triple Triad cards." Quistis produced a stack of cards, bound together by rubber bands, from her other pocket, and then followed it with a second set. "And mine, so you can find someone else to play with."

Mengshi grinned without hesitation this time. This was exactly what she needed, of course, and Quistis always knew what it was. But ... it was also becoming apparent that Quistis had planned on returning to Garden, and not staying here with her until she recovered enough to escape. "Thank you. Um..."

"Yes?"

"Are you ... going back to Balamb?"

Quistis sighed. She knew this wasn't going to sit well with Mengshi, but she couldn't see herself doing anything else. "I'm sorry, but I need to. I mean, I'm still a SeeD, and there's the whole mess about Yuffie ..."

Xu nodded.

"And ... I don't want you to be completely dependent on me. You need to know in your heart that, no matter what, you're worthwhile, not just because I tell you."

"Okay..." Xu clearly signaled that this was not what she had been hoping for.

"You'd like me to stay, I know. And... I'll keep in touch, I promise. If you don't come back right away, I can come back and visit you again. But you need to be able to stand on your two feet, Mengshi; I can't always be around for you."

Mengshi nodded. "Just... promise you'll be waiting for me somewhere?"

That was one request that was easy to fulfill. "You've been, ah... buried at sea, out by the orphanage." Gosh, how odd it was to be talking to someone about where they were buried. "I'll be waiting there... for you... so... if you come there, you'll find me." She smiled. "I promise. I'll stay there for two weeks; if you get out later, I'll be back at Balamb."

Xu smiled. "Thank you. And I promise I'll get out of here as soon as I can. 'I'll come back, even if you've moved on, because I know you'll be waiting,'" she quoted one of her favorite plays.

They kissed again, and then Quistis rose. Mengshi immediately felt a twinge of longing. As long she was talking to Quistis, she knew everything was okay, but as soon as she had to face life without her, the cold grip of uncertainty returned. "Quistis? Can I ask one more thing?"

"You can ask me anything, dear."

"If loving you doesn't mean needing you to live, then what islove?"

Quistis sighed. Tough question. How was she supposed to define love, especially when she had only grasped it fleetingly - or perhaps not at all? "Can I get you back to you on that? I'll think about; I promise."

Xu nodded. "Okay." Not quite what she was hoping for, but she knew Quisty didn't have all the answer. She stood up. "I want to say goodbye to everyone who came down here before you go."

"Sure. They all care about you, too, know." The couple stepped out of the tree, where Selphie and her friends were waiting. Selphie's lips parted into a hopeful half-smile. Was Xu coming out with them?

Xu looked to Quistis to explain the situation, and she was happy to oblige. "Here's the situation," Quistis said. "To be blunt, this is a prison of Mengshi's own invention. She won't be able to escape until she finds hope again, forgives herself, and convinces herself that she doesn't have to be here."

Chu-Chu was concerned by the direction that Quistis' ideas had now taken. Quistis seemed to be playing right into Chu-cthulchu's hands! "Be careful, Instructor Trepe," she cautioned. "The greatest trick Chu-cthulchu ever pulled was convincing the world he didn't exist. Hell isn't just something chu can wish away!"

Quistis shook her head. "No, Chu-Chu. I think the greatest trick evil ever pulled was convincing the world it exists."

Chu-Chu wasn't quite sure what to make of this unusual statement, so she decided to kept her mouth shut and meditate on it. Instructor Trepe usually knew what she was talking about, after all.

"Anyway ... unfortunately, Mengshi isn't quite ready to leave yet. And much as I'd like to stay here to help her find what she needs, my duties at Garden beckon. So you could say we'll be leaving empty-headed ... but I think Mengshi will be leaving with additional strength to find her way out." Xu nodded her confirmation.

Chu-Chu raised a paw. "Chu-Chu can stay here instead! Um, if you'll let me make up my midterm when I get back, Instructchu-or Trepe."

Quistis could not help but chuckle that Chu-Chu would even think of such a concern. "Well, of course I would, but ... I wouldn't want to keep you here on the behalf of someone you barely know."

"Um, Chu-Chu, I hope this isn't just another ploy to try to 'get some,'" Selphie said.

"Of course not!" Chu-Chu said with an indignation that surprised the others. It wasn't exactly like Chu-Chu to deny she had prurient interests. But to Chu-Chu, it was perfectly obvious, for she was serving something that was even better than sex. "I just want chu help out the needy when I can. I mean, the Wondrous Mambo God is watchu-ing over me, but chu humans don't have His guidance! So I'm sort of obligated to do what I can chu help you gentiles through difficult times, you see?"

"Ohhh... so you want to adopt some sort of missionary position," Selphie nodded. "I get it."

Chu-Chu winked at her. "I adopt missionary positions all the time, Selphie."

Irvine chuckled. "You walked right into that one, Sefie, I'm afraid."

Selphie covered her face in embarrassment but mostly in self-rebuke for saying something that so blatantly asked for a perverted response. "Yes, I know."

Quistis looked to Xu. "Well, would you like the company?"

Xu sighed. She didn't feel she deserved any company. And she wasn't sure that someone like Chu-Chu would be any of use to her. Which just made her feel doubly bad, because here Chu-Chu was trying to being kind, and she was just hurting her by rejecting her...

"It's okay, Colonel," Chu-Chu said. "I don't mind. See, life is a 'non-zero-sum game.' Just because chu are get something doesn't mean chu are taking away anything from me!"

Quistis smiled. I'm glad she learned something in my class. And it was true, too.

Chu-Chu winked at Xu. "And I brought all my Casper the Homosexual Friendly Ghost doujinshi, chu. We'll have a blast!"

Selphie fished her two-part SeeD talisman. "I think you two should have this too. I know this might sound kind of silly, but I thought you could each have half of it. Just so you'd have something to remind yourselves that the two halves will come back together someday."

Quistis took one half of it. As she looked it, an alarming suspicion flashed on her mind. "Selphie, this isn't -"

"She'd want you to have it," Selphie said. "She loved everyone, Quisty. And if through me she could stop at least one person from dying who doesn't have to, I know she'd be delighted."

"Thank you," Xu mumbled. A promise. Yes, this would happen. She would see to it.

Next chapter: Three Women and a Baby