[Epilogue]
After all the battling and defeating Ultimecia, the Final Sorceress, time adjusts itself. Squall gets sucked into a vortex, back into the past, as Rinoa and the others return to the present. Worried about him, she runs to the flower field (the flower field beside Edea's Orphanage/House) where they have promised to meet if they get lost, and stares helplessly as the sky grows darker... Soon, she finds her way to another dimension, where Squall lies, apparently dead. Holding him, she cries and hugs his limp body tight, and the effect is miraculous. The dark clouds shrouding the horizon peel backwards, away from her and Squall, in a circle.
It dawns on her that she's somehow brought them both back to the present (the power of love??). She glances around, then notices a stirring in her arms. The last you see of them is a few sheaves of Squall's brown hair at the bottom of the screen and Rinoa looking down happily. Then they both vanish at the bottom of the screen
Now, after the Garden Festival where you get to watch the others' unlikely antics, the camera focuses in on Rinoa at the balcony and abruptly dies due to lack of battery. Note the extreme suspense and cruelty the team at Square put us through at this crucial point. ^_~ Patience is a virtue. Now leave the PSX on and wait for the credits. At least the music is good.
After a long line of credits scrolling, a last scene comes in. Rinoa's leaning on the balcony and a few scenes of the winds caressing her hair take place. Suddenly, a shooting star flies through the night sky, exactly the same thing that caused Squall and our heroine to meet. She raises her right index finger to her left cheek and smiles... at Squall. He smiles back (ooh, he's a cutie at this part... ^.^) and takes her hand. He then pulls Rinoa close, and kisses her. Finally the both of them admit they like each other. (Of course this is evident throughout the whole game, it's just that the two idiots don't want to admit it. MOSTLY Squall. >_<)
When the words 'The End' flash after the kiss, a sense of depression sinks in. Either you wished you were Rinoa or Squall. And it's also the cue for me to jump up and down on the PSX because the creators of Final Fantasy VIII didn't have the sense to make it a close-up scene of them kissing. The NERVE!! >_< And also because I can never be Rinoa at that point when she kisses him... =-_-=
There is some controversy going on that Rinoa is Ultimecia, around the internet, and I nabbed quite an interesting site in that theory. The site researches this theory very well and can place doubts in your mind... So, check it out at your own risk by clicking here!