Author's notes: Hello, I am ravenswan32 and I am new here :) Please read and review... Feedback is appreciated.

Rating T

Notes: This will contain Crisis Core spoilers. Slightly pre-game, slightly AU.

AerisxSephiroth pairing, a hint of AerisxZack

Hidden Weakness

Prologue

5 years had passed since he fell in the mako pool. 5 years had passed since he started to hear her voice in his head.

However, he couldn't distinguish the voices. Sometimes it was wicked, somewhat loud, with a hint of evil in it. It was enticing, alluring and he couldn't resist the soft whisper. Then, the Voice confused him, screamed at him, asked things he couldn't achieve. Sometimes he couldn't even understand what the Voice said, because his mind was closed, with a tight shield around it. But that shield was breaking and the Voice was becoming more alluring. He was even starting to ask to its requests.

The other voice was different. It was the only reason he wasn't totally insane. This voice was pure and talked in sweet innocence. Sometimes it could get demanding too, but not the way the other did. This one tried to put feelings in his darkened heart. He liked the caress of this voice that sometimes made him feel human. He never felt that human before. Not even when he thought he was human.

For a while he thought in which plane of existence he was drifting. The voices were clear but disturbing, one made him feel closer and closer to something that was above him, above all the humans, above all things on Gaia… the other one made him feel closer and closer to his planet, to the grass under his feet, to the sky he tried to touch. Closer to some kind of happiness he tried to deny all those years, to the simple things of life.

He had made decisions in his past that reflected themselves on the rest of his life. Hard decisions, somewhat painful. His isolation of human company, for example. Even if he looked tough and more and more resistant to life threats, he was just getting more weak. He regretted it.

He always felt superior to common humans. He always felt there was a strength in his body, a strength no one could manage to achieve. He always felt out of place and stupidly better than anyone else. However he knew that wasn't a special ability he adquiried when he was born. All was planned. He knew that very well. But his inner truth was hidden.

The only problem was that. The truth was hidden. His weakness was hidden inside. And it looked like no one knew what was troubling him. No one knew he was struggling inside.

He grew up to be a general and a perfect man, without weaknesses. But the ones who tried to create the "perfect monster" failed. He was weak, and that was the thing that made him hear her voice. She was searching for powerful, yet not perfect monsters. Monsters who could have weaknesses and bad moments. That was the thing she was searching for.

And who better than Sephiroth to fulfill her request?

Some time before...

Aeris was singing in her church. Softly, her song made the flowers grew better. With care and affection. Love.

She knew amounts of people that were disposed of these kind of things. Men raised in the slums, alone in the dark, alone in the world. A lot of them had joined SOLDIER, to battle in exchange of money. To live better. Almost to sell their strength to ShinRa. Upwards was a dark world she dare not see. Where the sky stretched from east to west, from south to north. She was afraid of it. As if it was going to swallow her.

In her little church, with her sparkling flowers, she was safe. Surrounded by her own small world where no one could hurt her. No one could break her dream, a dream of seeing a better world blooming in front of her eyes. No war, no battle, no madness. She was always hoping for the day to come, hoping for the day the planet would rejoin again, and all its darkness would disappear on the stream.

She stood up.

Tiny sparkles of light were irrupting from the roof, making a exquisite pattern of light on the floor. Very carefully, she walked past the flowers and went down on her knees, right in the middle of the flower-bed. She looked up. She didn't saw only the roof, but the light that was far beyond it. She focused on good things. She focused on her own singing early in the morning. She focused on the laughing of children on the streets and the colours of the flowers that surrounded herself. She just thought of good things, things that made her smile, not cry with sorrow.

And moments later, she felt an energy. Light spread all around her, her heart light with joy. Then, the whispers of the planet came. Firstly, they were calm, like the vibration of harp strings in her ears... but the mood of the planet changed quickly, to the beat of drums later at the night. She heard the own lifestream, singing in her ears, gentle as the breeze, soft as velvet between her fingers. He didn't spoke to her. He just let her be surrounded in happiness and light. Then, she was aware of everything around her: the sound of people's footsteps, the noise of cars up the plate. She was aware of each presence, each noise, and each sound. Each sparkle, and each drop of water. Everything was so clear.

But then, when she started to raise up, to go home to make the daily chores, a blast of presence woke up in her mind. It appeared as the planet. Soflty, like harp strings, growing up like the beat of a drum! But she couldn't estabilish a connection between herself and him. He was protecting himself from her! Like if she meant some kind of harm to the poor fellow.

But she was insistent. She moved up her mind closer to his, to feel his fear, and his feelings. But he backed away. She tried, she focused on him. She just couldn't lose the oportunity to talk to him. He was special, like her. She focused again, filling all her mind with memories of joy. But he was too distant.

She talked to him. In a soft whisper, trying to calm the poor one. Like if she was trying to calm a scared puppy. She tried, she asked who he was, and where he was, and why was he there. But slowly and slowly, the shield around his mind grew tougher and Aeris lost him.

It all ended in a glimpse.

She raised and brought her hands to her face in shock. That wasn't possible. She was the last cetra. She was the only one on the entire Gaia who could hear the planet. Another ancient couldn't be out there. Or could he? Was he an ancient? Was he human? Was he even from Gaia?

She smiled. She would hear him again, and soon she would know his name. She was sure of it. And, on its time she would make a new friend!

A friend. Long ago she had a special one. But he was part of the dark world she tried to avoid. Even his eyes remembered the thing she feared the most. The sky. She had spent time with him and felt attached to his cheerful personality. He lighted her days. He made her feel rejoice where before was regret.

But long ago she had been said "all good things most come to an end" and it was that way. He had fall in the heat of battle and she had lost him, forever. She would never see his eyes again, or hear his jokes. It ended. However, it had been the most beautiful moment of her life. When he was alive.

Aeris walked out of the church silently. It wasn't easy to remember Zack. He had been so precious for her and made her smile in the most difficult moments. She prayed every night for his safety. Once when she spoke with the planet, she tried to sense his mind travelling down the lifestream. She had once sensed him. But when the tears started to run down her cheeks, he disappeared and she never tried to find him again. It would be too painful.

She smiled again. Her fingers the paper on the pocket of her jacket. The wishes she had never dared to show him. For him, she wrote "I would like to spend more time with you", but that wasn't what Zack asked her to do. She took the first written piece of paper out of her pocket and looked down at it. She put again the hand on her jacket and retrieved a pen. Looking at her wishes, she underlined the nineth "to find someone like me". It was one of the most important ones for her and it had came true. She was happy.

Then, as she walked to the exit, as soon as her foot touched the outside, the presence came, forcefully and brutally into her mind. She stared confused at some point on the ground when she heard his words.

"I think I am lost".

Author's notes: Here it is, I hope it isn't really really really really bad. (At least I hope so). I don't know if I will keep this up, it will depend on what people say about it, so... feel free to review please!