Author's Notes: All Final Fantasy stuff/characters are not owned by me and all rights apply to the lucky bastards who do own them. The song “Head Like A Hole” is by the band Nine Inch Nails and all rights apply to them.

Self-beta job here. All screw-ups are mine alone.

God money, I'll do anything for you.

I never even realized when I became her puppet, her slave. It was just something that seemed to happen. I could never call myself her Knight because that's not what I was to her. But I'd do anything for her. She had God money to pay me. What is God money? It was the price I demanded to betray everyone and everything I held dear. Power was my God money. She could give me all the power I wanted, needed, craved.

God money, just tell me what you want me to.

She only had to tell me once what she wanted me to do and it was done. That God money I wanted so bad was my drug. I needed the rush that it gave me. I don't know what was defective in my soul that made me crave it, but I felt like I needed it to continue to live. I was her slave. Me, the anti-authority, do what the hell he pleases, slick as spit, Seifer Almasy was Ultimecia's willing slave.

And she wanted Squall dead.

God money, nail me up against the wall.

I didn't want to do it. How could I do it? The things I felt for Squall were complicated. He was my opposite; my other half. I loved him; I hated him. I think I loved him more than I hated him. She nailed my ass to the wall by refusing to give me my God money until I killed him. The one thing that made this whole degrading service to her worthwhile and she refused to give it to me. I needed it. I wanted it. I had to have it. I'd do anything to have it. To my shame, I tried to kill the one person who meant more to me than anyone else in the world.

All for my taste of her God money.

God money, don't want everything he wants it all.

If only I had a little more self control. If only I didn't want it so much. If only I didn't need it so much. I didn't need much at first. Just a little. Just enough to make me feel strong. Just enough to make me feel powerful. Just enough to make me feel. But things never work out that way for me. Needing a little became needing a little more. Then the little more became a lot more. After tasting her Hyne damned God money and liking it, I found that it didn't want everything; I wanted it all. I wanted all she'd give me. She knew this. She planned this. She used this to control me and I let her.

No you can't take it; no you can't take it.
No you can't take that away from me.

I tried to kill Squall. I really did. He was strong. He had people helping him. He was just a little better than me. She didn't tolerate excuses. She punished failure. She took it away from me for failing her. I begged and pleaded with her not to. No better than the most drug addicted excuse for a human being; I begged her not to take it away from me.

No you can't take it; no you can't take it.
No you can't take that away from me.

When begging didn't work, I demanded she not take it away from me. I ordered her not to take it from me. She couldn't take it from me. It was part of our deal. I did what she wanted, what she demanded and she gave me what I needed. You never go back on a deal.

Especially with me.

Head like a hole.
Black as your soul.
I'd rather die than give you control.

I fully realized then what I had chosen to ignore when she first came to me. I was just a means to an end. I was a convenient tool for her to use. I figured out the workings of her mind. She had a head like a hole, black as her soul. It was a nothingness that was trying to suck me into the void. I understood then that no matter the amount of God money she could give me, I'd rather die than give her control.

Head like a hole.
Black as your soul.
I'd rather die than give you control.

But arguing with her was an experiment in futility. She didn't care what I wanted or felt. She never had. The blackness in her soul had eaten away at anything that might have once been compassion in her head leaving nothing but a hole; a void of emotions and feelings. One of us was going to have to die if I wanted to be free of her control.

It wasn't going to be me.

Bow down before the one you serve.
You're going to get what you deserve.
Bow down before the one you serve.
You're going to get what you deserve.

I did what she told me to while trying to figure out how to escape her. I bowed down before her, showing her and everyone else, who I supposedly served. I heard them whisper that I was going to get what I deserved. I sincerely hoped so. I deserved to be free. Everybody makes mistakes. Was I not allowed to make some? I was going to fix my mistake. I just needed a little time and a lot of luck.

God money's not looking for the cure.

I wasn't looking for a cure for my addiction to her God money. I knew there wasn't one. Once you tasted the power, you were hooked for life. You had to battle through the need for it. You had to want to work through the constant desire for it. I wanted that more than anything. I wanted to be free of her and her God money.

God money's not concerned with the sick amongst the pure.

My need for that God money was a sickness. It was something I would have to fight every day of my life once she was gone. And she would be gone; I'd make sure of it if it was the last thing I did. It was the one thing pure thing I could do to redeem myself for letting this sickness into my soul.

God money let's go dancing on the backs of the bruised.

I let her think she had me trapped in my need. It wasn't hard. I did still need it; want it, but the desire to be free of it was stronger. I'm not proud of the fact that I let her use me to dance on the backs of the bruised, but if I was to break free, she had to believe that I was her creature.

God money's not one to choose.

I sometimes wondered why me? What was it about me that made her pick me? But it wasn't her choice. God money doesn't choose who it infects with the need. She was just as infected as me. She had her own addiction to God money to deal with. It just happens and I was the unlucky bastard who was in the wrong place at the wrong time in life.

No you can't take it; no you can't take it,
No you can't take that away from me.

I must have given her some sign, some small clue that I was planning to take her down any way I could. She abruptly took away all the power she had given me. I needed that to bring her down. I couldn't do it with raw hate alone. At least I didn't think I could. Until I saw the cracks form in her composure from the hate and anger I directed at her. Until I saw how desperate she was becoming.

No you can't take; no you can't take it,
No you can't take that away from me.

She couldn't take that hate from me. The hate was mine. The burning anger was mine too. The iron will that had seen me through countless bad times was mine and mine alone. I had forgotten how strong it was. She had made me forget how strong it was with her God money. When I realized it, I knew that my hate and anger at being used could help bring her down.

Nobody screwed with Seifer Almasy and got away with it for long.

Bow down before the one you serve.
You're going to get what you deserve.
Bow down before the one you serve.
You're going to get what you deserve.

She was going to be the one to bow down to me. She was going to get what she deserved. She was going to die for making me her slave. She was going to die for making me try and kill Squall. She was going to die for making me want her Hyne damned God money so much that I had lost myself to it for a while.

Bow down before the one you serve.
You're going to get what you deserve.
Bow down before the one you serve.
You're going to get what you deserve.

She tried to make me bow down to her like I once had. She offered me more God money than ever before. She said it was what I deserved for doing what she wanted. She lied. She knew that without my hate and rage at her disposal, she wasn't strong enough to take on Squall and his little band of heroes and win the world. I told her if she wanted to use the hate and anger in me, she'd have to bow down before me and give me the respect I deserved. She wouldn't, of course. I was lying anyway. Like I would have helped her after what she did to me.

What junkie wanted to help his pusher once he started to kick the habit?

No you can't take it; no you can't take it,
No you can't take that away from me.

She tried to take it from me. She had no understanding of just how much a part of me this hate and anger was. If she had bothered to ask Squall about it the one time she had held him prisoner, she would have known what a useless effort it was. Squall knew. He even understood. He had a lot of rage and hate locked away in his head too.

No you can't take it; no you can't take it,
No you can't take that away from me.

I was born with the anger. The hate grew from that. They were parts of my soul. She could take many things from me, but those two things would never leave me. If she had lived up to what she had promised me that very first time, she would have had them to use as her tools. But she chose to use me instead. That was her mistake. Squall never used me. He asked me. He understood me.

Bow down before the one you serve.
You're going to get what you deserve.
Bow down before the one you serve.
You're going to get what you deserve.

In those final moments of time compression, I saw her looking at me wondering what could have possibly went wrong with her plans. She was left wondering how I had come to have enough strength to defy her and let Squall do what he had to too keep the world safe. In that final moment she understood too late what she should have done to win this battle.

I gave her a final, mocking bow knowing she had gotten what she deserved. I gave Squall a respectful bow, hoping that he would realize the part I had played in taking Ultimecia down. I knew he did when he pulled me from time compression with him. He felt I deserved it. Squall understood me. He understood what drove me. Why wouldn't he? He was my other half.

You know who you are.

From that experience with Ultimecia, I better understood who and what I was and what drove me. I was Seifer Almasy. I was addicted to God money but I was finally clean of the want and need for it.

I had a new addiction now. I needed to be made whole again. I needed my other half. I needed Squall. And I always got what I needed, what I deserved.

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