Final Fantasy
"Laynakou's Final Chapter"


Prologue

Sit with me, friend, for I have a tale to tell. I am Laynakou, darkness incarnate chosen by fate, however, to be one of the greatest heroes humanity has ever known. I have saved more lives and destroyed more evil than most men even know exist. For over 5,000 years I wandered the cosmos looking for something. During the course of my existance, my memory became twisted and faded. My undead mind so ancient and warped by power and magic, I had forgotten most everything I have experience in my millenia of life. Yes...I am a vampire. Atleast I used to be. When I was known as Laynakou, I was of the undead. I was created by a being so ancient he could remember the death of Christ. So powerful, he could've undone mortal existance. He created me, though not as one might think. You see, friend...Onikage never bit into me and drained my blood. My human form never died and then was then reborn as a vampire. No, you see, I was never human to begin with. I was never even alive. My creator, Onikage, put me together from shadow, dark power, and his own undead essence. It was his vile essence that gave me the identity of a vampire.
I was not aware of my creation, though. I awoke one day as any new vampire does. I didn't learn of my creation until after my master had betrayed me. Centuries after, to be precise. Once I learned my master had betrayed me...had been using me, I went on the run, staying as far away from civilization as possible. Yet, no matter how far I ran, Onikage would somehow find me. So, after 300 years of running, I fled the planet to a bustling community planet known as Wyard. After a few "peaceful" decades on this new planet, someone, somehow, brought Onikage to this world to fight me again. It was then I learned of Onikage's sadistic plan, and of my own creation. Onikage created me, a being born of darkness, to exterminate life. To do this though, I had to be destroyed by him. As you can understand, I didn't take this too lightly. Using the dark essence from my freshly slain corpse, along with a few powerful artifacts, he sought to burn all living things from existence. True, I was able to stop him. But, in order to stop him, I had to die. And I did.
I know what you're pondering as you read this...if I died, wouldn't that have activated Onikage's plan? Shouldn't we all be dead right now? You'd be right, too. Onikage would have slew me and ended all mortal life in the universe....if not for her. Jade. A half-breed girl, young and beautiful and a powerful fighter, too. An angel in disguise. I gave her a necklace before my fight with Onikage. This necklace was specially crafted to steal essence. My essence. When Onikage's sword destroyed my body, my essence was drawn away and quickly locked inside the necklace's amulate, safe around Jade's neck. Using what little power I still commanded in the physical plane, I augmented Jade's own power enough to destroy Onikage once and for all.
After the battle, Jade searched the left-over belongings from where I fell in battle. Beneith my sword and dagger was a note telling her what action to take next to ensure my return to the physical plane. Before the battle, I used Onikage's own power to manipulate shadows, creating a new body for myself. By reciting a dark incantation, Jade was able to free my locked-away essence from her necklace and force it into this new body. As I began to take form and power, I learned that Onikage's essence which still dwelled inside me was now mine to command. I became far more powerful than I had ever been before. I gained new powers over darkness and shadow. I became faster, stronger, and much more intelligent.
As for Jade's necklace? Well, I left a small portion of my essence inside it. Its power was now hers to command. With my essence of undeath augmenting her power, Jade gained immortality, as long as I remained alive. Everything seemed to be on the up and up from then on out...but serenity was just too much to ask for.
Shortly after Onikage's demise, some of the biggest and bloodiest wars ever seen in the universe broke out all over Wyard. Entire cities were leveled. Countless lives were lost. After these terrible and senseless wars ended, those that lived on this planet decided to leave and find a new place to live. Civilization on Wyard ended that year. I, however, stayed behind. Left alone on a now dead planet, most certainly the only intelligent being left alive. For more than 500 years, I lived alone on this planet. I studied magic and necromancy to pass the time. Over the years, magic altered my physical appearance. My hair turned from pearly black to icy blue. My vivid cerulean eyes changed to emerald green. My pale skin turned stone grey. Once I felt that I had learned enough, I decided that it was high time I left this dead planet. I was able to salvage enough ancient machinery to construct a fully functioning space craft...with a little magic, that is. Once finished, I departed immediately. Little did I know what I had gotten myself in to.
I wandered from planet to planet, searching. Searching for a home. Searching for knowledge. Searching for friends. Searching for...Jade. I searched and wandered for several thousand years. In this time, my brain...my memory, became damaged. Warped beyond most recognition. I could hardly remember who I was anymore, or what all I was searching for. The only name that stuck with me throughout it all was Jade.
I knew that Jade was still alive. Somewhere in the endless cosmos of space, I could feel my small portion of essence radiating. I could feel her power radiate through it aswell. I felt this radiation strongest on Eranos-Alchez, the same planet where Onikage first created me. However, when I arrived, the planet was not as I left it nearly 5 millenia ago. Vampires and undead had taken control of civilization. Humans and other intelligent mortal creatures that dwelled there were forced to live either as slaves to the undead, or as underground resistance fighters. Those humans who refused slavery, or were too weak to be of any physical use were simply put to another use by the ravenous vampires as food. I knew that if these vampires learned that I sided with the humans on Wyard and killed a top-ranking vampire like Onikage, they would seek my destruction. I also knew that if the humans discovered that I was a vampire, they most likely would not let me live long enough to explain myself. So, I stayed hidden. In my exile, I met a kindred spirit. A self-loathing vampire by name of Zyren aided me in gaining the humans' trust.
Like me, Zyren was also a champion of justice and a powerful warrior in his own right. However, he was not native to this planet. He came from a place of medieval stature and honor. He told me that in his human life, he was once a proud samurai warrior for his lord. However, a great evil swept his kingdom. He was called to the front lines to battle a dark army sent by this great evil. He was one of the first to fall. Though he was spared by the dark soldiers, he was brought before their master. Zyren pleaded with the master for an honorable death, but instead, the master sired him. When he awoke as a vampire, he took up the Katana once again against the master and his dark army, only this time, he fought not as a noble samurai, but with his dark fate as his greatest weapon, as a Ninja.
I stayed with Zyren and the humans for many months, aiding them in their fight against the undead. Toward the last months of the struggle, I encountered a supremely powerful warrior sorceress named Jada and her raven partner Dante. Zyren knew Dante from his home world. They were once a great team and ever-trusted partners. They were over-joyed to see eachother again. Jada was a bit of a mystery to me, however. I kept getting a strange feeling whenever I was around her. Strangely enough, I could not place it though. In my dreams however, I saw her clearly, and I could feel something so powerful about her, that I knew it was something I had felt before. When I woke, these feelings disapeared. I could sense that she was using her power to block my senses. I just didn't know why, nor did I have the courage to confront her about it. Atleast, not then.
With the aid of the human rebels, Zyren, Dante, Jada and I were able to overthrow the undead's grip on the planet. When we faced off against the undead master and his elite guard, I noticed something. When Jada swung her sword, a familiar necklace was uncovered.
Jada was Jade.
When the battle was over and the undead master was killed, I confronted Jade. She told me that she did not reveal herself to me because she was not going to stay on this planet after the battle. Another mission of much greater importance was awaiting her. She didn't explain to me the details, and she told me not to follow her. After so many centuries, we finally meet again...and she wants nothing to do with me? I was broken. My will was shattered. Before she left, however, she offered me something. She offered me a chance at something I had never experienced before. With her new powers, she was able to give me....life.
Though I would still be as strong as I ever was before, I would no longer yern for the blood of the living. I would no longer need to kill those that I wanted to save to feed my appetite. In gaining human life, my warped memory would also restore itself. Knowing these things, I welcomed Jade's gift with open arms, even though it meant giving up immortality. However, Jade's race of people had a typical life expentency of 2,000 years. Now that our immortality was broken, "young" Jade still had a good 1950 years of life left. Thanks to the necklace, I was granted Jade's longevity aswell.
Zyren also welcomed Jade's gift. After spending nearly a century as something he hated so very much, he didn't even care that he would age as any typical human does. He was just so happy to be rid of such a curse. He and I became very good friends, and excellent battle partners. Even after Jade left us, I was happier than I had been since my rebirth after the death of Onikage.
I spent the next 50 years on Eranos-Alchez making sure that peace was kept.  As expected, though, most of the humans I came to befriend there began to age and die. Zyren had also succumbed to age, and was no long able to fight. His feathered partner Dante had died some time before. Knowing that peace now reigned on my home planet, I felt no need to stay. Since I was finally able to get a good long rest after countless centuries of toil and effort, I decided to leave the planet in search of a new mission, a new world to save. It didn't take me long to find one.
My travels lead me to the world of Spira, a world caught in a spiral of sorrow, death, and tragedy. This is the one world I've come upon that teeters so evenly on the line of darkness and light. Though its denizens are almost constantly under seige from vicious fiends and giant monsters, they remain hopeful and determined to survive another day. A few select people, known as Summoners, are chosen to help rid Spira of the fiends. They travel from place to place, temple to temple to obtain new Aeons, summonable monsters of great power, to help them vanquish the fiends. However, because the fiends are at such a tremendous number, some of them also extraordinarily powerful as well, and some fiends even organized into small armies, the Summoners have had little success at keeping them away from towns. Because of such relentless and destructive fiend attacks, towns in Spira rarely got much bigger than a few buildings, shacks, and/or shanties. I knew that even though my own magic was something considerable, my spirit was simply not enough to become a Summoner myself. Knowing this, I searched Spira for other ways I might be able to lend my services.
The first thing I did was stop at the closest temple. Perhaps the priests and monks there would be able to give me some information. When I got there, a Summoner's entourage had just arrived. The Summoner only had one person with her to protect her on her journey. I thought that this might be the perfect opportunity for me to prove my usefulness and lend a little aid to this poor ravaged planet. When I approached the Summoner, I was shocked to find that the Summoner was none other than Jade! She made no attempt at conceiling herself from me this time. After a brief moment of greetings, she told me that this was the mission she chose after she left Eranos-Alchez. She then became slightly angry at me for "following" her. I explained to her the truth, and she quickly turned her mood around back to happy. Because of us being so insanely outnumbered by the fiends of Spira, even our great powers were somewhat insignificant. Knowing this, Jade hesitantly agreed to having me as her guardian. Thus began my greatest adventure, and a string of my most difficult challenges. This is our story...