Disclaimer: I do not own Final Fantasy or any of the characters therein

Disclaimer: I do not own Final Fantasy or any of the characters therein. Final Fantasy is owned by Squaresoft, so please don't sue me. The only characters I own in this fic are various people and villains I think up.

This fic doesn't have and will never have any Lemon or Yaoi content whatsoever, and no amount of asking will get me to put any in there. Flames will be accepted, but be mild, it's all part of constructive criticism, the more to tell me how and where the story sucks, the better the following chapter will be.

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Only Time Will Tell

Prologue

The Redemption of a Tortured Soul

Lifestream, one of the most beautiful naturally-occurring phenomena on the planet. The place where people's souls go when they die. It is either a place of happiness and joy, or a place of sadness and desolation. It all depends on the amount of good or evil in a person's soul. People with good souls go to a place where they are surrounded by their friends and loved ones. People with evil souls, however, go to a place all of their own. Their soul resides in a wasteland, they come in contact with no other soul, good or evil, for as long as the cleansing process takes, which could be months to years. Think of it as solitary confinement until your soul is judged and pronounced cleansed. The cleansing process is sheer torture, the soul is racked with images of its past, whatever evil deed was done comes back to haunt it, images of the people it hurt or killed comes to it, mocking it and torturing its mind, many a soul has gone insane during the cleansing process, never to be the same again. After the judgment is made, the soul may be moved to the light part of the Lifestream, or banished forever to the darkest recesses of the Lifestream.

     

One soul, however, suffered a slightly different process. The process was the same up until one crucial point, the soul would never be judged, it could never redeem itself, it had done the ultimate evil, it tried to destroy the planet. This was the soul of Sephiroth, the misunderstood 'madman' with a horrible past, and now, a horrendous future. Sephiroth had long since learned the truth to the mystery surrounding his birth, the planet showed him during one of its 'torture sessions' as Sephiroth calls it. It had been bad enough to find out that Jenova, who he had considered his 'mother' had played him for a fool, that he was as much of a puppet as that idiot Cloud was, but then the planet showed him that his mother was not Jenova but a woman called Lucrecia, and that his father was none other than the one man he hated more than anything else in the world, Hojo. That news nearly drove Sephiroth to the brink of total insanity. It took nearly a year for Sephiroth accept that his father was Hojo, but Sephiroth still hated him. These images bombarded Sephiroth every day for years, he didn't know exactly how long it was since he had lost track of time due to his severe mental anguish. This treatment would go on for eternity; there was no redemption in sight for the poor one winged angel.

Only one other soul bothered or even cared about Sephiroth. This was the soul of the Cetra girl who gave her life to save the planet, Aeris. She felt enormous pity for Sephiroth, he had been burning in his own personal hell for 35 years and now she felt that this was the limit. She knew the planet would have him there forever, but she felt that Sephiroth, as evil as he was, deserved another chance. She requested a meeting of the council of light. These were the Cetra who judged if souls were ready to be transferred from the darkness to the light.

The council met the next day, after all Aeris was an important woman; she was well on her way to entering the council of light when their term was up. Their term was 40 years long and would be finished in 5 years, this was their 35th year on the council and the head of the council was her mother, Ilfana.

Aeris stood outside the huge, wooden, double doors. She wrung her hands, she was anxious and nervous, this would be the hardest case she had ever had to deal with, to give Sephiroth a second chance at life, to make up for what he did wrong. The doors opened and she entered.

She was in a pitch-black room; suddenly a light came on overhead, bathing her in its warm glow. The council members were beyond the reaches of the light and sat in the shadows, this gave them a mysterious and imposing aura and this unnerved Aries.

"Why have you requested a meeting of the council of light?" the head speaker asked.

     

"I have an issue to put in front of the council." Said Aeris.

"Oh?" said the head speaker, "Well what is it?"

Aeris took a deep breath, and rallying all her confidence and strength said "I want Sephiroth to have a second chance at life."

The head speaker gasped and murmurs spread through the council like wildfire. "You can't be serious!" said the head speaker, "Are you going crazy, what makes you think that the council would unleash a monster such as Sephiroth back on the world!"

"Because it wasn't his fault" said Aeris, "You know as well as I do that he was under the influence of Jenova, he wasn't in his right mind, Jenova manipulated and warped his mind into seeking to become a god for her benefit. She would wait until meteor hit and kill Sephiroth and absorb the Lifestream herself. She never counted on Sephiroth or Avalanche becoming as strong as they did. When she realized that when she killed Avalanche, if she turned on Sephiroth, he would be too powerful for her to handle and when she realized that Avalanche was going to kill her, she changed her plans; she gave the rest of her energy to Sephiroth, forcing him into his Safer Form after his Bizzaro form lost, and when he supposedly won, he would absorb Lifestream and become a god. He would naturally try to resurrect her and she would absorb him and become a god anyway. All this went to waste when Sephiroth was defeated, and he has been in the Cleansing procedure for so long, he should be cleansed 5 times over; he has been in torture in the place of someone else, Jenova. Why should he have to pay the price when Jenova had this all planned out and just used him as a vessel to do her dirty work. He is innocent." Aeris took a well-deserved breath and waited for the reply.

"Wow!" said the head speaker, "what a mouthful! You can really make a speech!"

"Thank you." Said Aeris.

"Anyway" said the head speaker, "Back to the matter at hand."

"Yes, we know all about Jenova and how she manipulated Sephiroth, but why couldn't he be strong, like Cloud?"

Aeris smiled, she had been waiting for this, the head speaker had made a grave mistake.

"You cannot compare Sephiroth's ordeal to Cloud's." said Aeris, Baiting the trap.

The head speaker took the bait.

"Oh yes we can, Jenova controlled Sephiroth and Sephiroth controlled Cloud, yet Cloud could resist, why?"

Aeris cracked a smile, the head speaker was treading on thin ice and now it broke.

"Yes, Cloud had been under Sephiroth's control and resisted, but not before he beat me up, he nearly killed me in the Temple of the Ancients and he gave Sephiroth the Black Materia, he later went insane and Tifa had to help him regain his sanity. If that is what you call resisting, Cloud did a poor job of it. You also have to remember that Jenova took control of Sephiroth's mind in a moment of weakness when he thought that all of humanity was against him. He hated Hojo and Jenova took that hate and changed it into hate for the world. Cloud also had a better and more solid childhood than Sephiroth. That was a major part of his being able to resist Sephiroth. Jenova weaved a pack of lies that fit in so smoothly with his childhood and explained so many things that he did not understand, that he believed her word for word. Jenova also had greater experience than Sephiroth with manipulating and controlling people's minds and even though Jenova might have boosted his power, Sephiroth did not have the mental capacity to properly control Cloud and he was able to resist him. If Jenova had controlled Cloud's mind directly, he would have more than likely ended up like Sephiroth, and before you ask why she didn't do this, it is because it took a lot of strength to control Sephiroth, and if she tried to manipulate Cloud, Sephiroth might have broken free from her and turned against her and she might not have been able to get him back due to his mental strength, it was pure luck she got him in the first place. Sephiroth was more valuable to her than Cloud and she took the best route of action that she saw. Which was to control Cloud indirectly."

Aeris took another well-deserved breath and waited for the head speakers reply.

The entire council absorbed this information and silence reigned for about 2 minutes.

"Have you forgiven him?" said the head speaker.

"What?" said Aeris.

"Have you forgiven him for killing you?!" the head speaker repeated.

"Of course I have!" said Aeris, "I am fighting for him, am I not, and I understand that it wasn't his fault"

"Have the people of the world forgiven him?" said the head speaker.

Aeris didn't miss a beat.

"No, but I have an idea." Aeris said, "I was in contact with the planet about a week ago, and it said it had looked into the future and saw a great evil approaching that none of the people of that time could handle, it could even destroy the planet, I propose we send Sephiroth to help them, he is very strong and it would be a perfect way to redeem himself."

"What!" said the head speaker, "are you sure?"

"Yes" said Aeris, "contact the planet now if you don't believe me."

A few minutes passed as everyone on the council did just that. When they were finished, the air became tense

"What is the purpose of sending Sephiroth there? I know he is strong, but so is Cloud, we could wait until he enters the Lifestream and ask him." Said the head speaker.

 

"What if Cloud declines?" said Aeris, "There is a possibility of that happening, what would you do then?"

"Ahhhh........." said the head speaker, "Maybe we could....like...."

"Aha! You don't know what you would do, would you?" said Aeris, "This opportunity is perfect for Sephiroth because, according to the planet, a great cataclysm occurs, and most of the planets history was lost or forgotten during the rebuilding process so no one knows about him 900 years in the future. Saving the future is a perfect way to redeem himself and have a second chance at life."

"What if Sephiroth refuses to go, or if he goes, how would you know that he won't snap again?" Said the head speaker.

"That's easy." Said Aeris, "He would do anything to leave the tortured existence he leads and, I will go with him, and if he snaps, I will send him back to the hell he would have created for himself."

"Are you sure about this Aeris?" said the head speaker.

"Yes, I have a feeling that Sephiroth deserves this second chance." Said Aeris, and if it means that I will put myself in personal danger, so be it, it was my choice."

"So be it," said the head speaker, "I will grant you your request."

There was a flash of green light and Sephiroth appeared in front of the council. His clothes were tattered and he had various cuts on his body. Aeris's eyes widened in shock, she had never seen Sephiroth look so pathetic in her entire life. There was another flash of light and Sephiroth's clothes were restored, the same black suit he always wore, and all of his cuts were healed.

"Where am I" whispered Sephiroth, "What am I doing here, who are you people?"

"It doesn't matter where you are, what you are doing here or who we are." Said the head speaker, "We have a proposition for you."

Sephiroth raised one eyebrow and smirked at them.

"Well, what is it?" asked Sephiroth

"Someone has asked that you try to redeem yourself by doing a certain task for the planet." Said the head speaker, "The person wants you to go to the future and save it from a new evil that will arrive there."

Sephiroth was shocked, who would care about him enough to get him to try and redeem himself.

Aeris was pissed, she wanted the council to reveal her to Sephiroth, but she realized that the council must have a reason for this.

The head speaker was amused. She had never seen Sephiroth look shocked in her entire life.

"Do you accept?' asked the head speaker.

"Before I consider this offer," said Sephiroth, "I want to know who arranged all of this.

A light came on in the corner above Aeris; she turned and looked into the glowing eyes of The Great Sephiroth.

"The Cetra girl?!!" Sephiroth thought, "What kind of joke is this!!"

"This is no joke Sephiroth" said Aeris, "I have forgiven you for killing me at the alter, I don't hold grudges, besides Jenova made you do it."

Sephiroth looked at her and what he saw scared him, she was too beautiful, she looked like an angel with her silky brown hair and her green eyes. She was also very shapely.

"I...uh...am...(cough, cough)...ahhh" Sephiroth stumbled over his words. "Damn," thought Sephiroth "How can she have this effect on me!! What is this tightness in my chest?"

"SEPHIROTH!!" said the head speaker shouted, "We do not have all day, make your decision now!!"

"Alright," said Sephiroth "I accept, anything to get me out of that hellhole"

"Great!" said Aeris, "I told you he would accept"

She looked at the council with an expression of victory evident on her face.

The head speaker sighed and said, "Well, I suppose we should let you go"

Simultaneously a portal appeared in front of Sephiroth and Aeris.

"Hold on," said Sephiroth, "you never said that she was coming!"

"Oh be quiet," said Aeris, "I am coming whether you like it or not"

Sephiroth grumbled and cursed under his breath.

"Whatever," said Sephiroth, "Just make sure you don't get in my way!"

Sephiroth prepared to jump through the portal.

"WAIT!!!" screamed Aeris.

Sephiroth, startled, stumbled and fell flat on his face.

"What the %#@$ was that for!!" shouted Sephiroth.

"Well," said Aeris, "First we must be in contact with one another when we jump or we may end up in different places and number two...."

Something clattered to the ground behind Sephiroth

Sephiroth turned around and his eyes looked like they could fall out of his head, there on the ground was his sword, the Masamune.

Sephiroth bent down and picked up the finest blade ever created in the history of the planet. He felt as if he was reunited with the other half of his soul. Many days while he was locked away in Hojo's lab he used to speak to the Masamune as if it was his best friend, his only company in the darkness of Hojo's lab. After that they had become inseparable. When he lost the Masamune, he felt as though someone had ripped his soul in half, but now they were reunited and would never be apart again.

Aeris watched the emotions play across Sephiroth's face until in a gruff voice he said, "Its time to go, if you are coming Aeris, come now."

Aeris ran across to where Sephiroth was standing, he grabbed her hand and jumped into the portal. As he grabbed her hand, he marveled at how soft and silky her skin was and at the same time she marveled at how strong and possessive his hold on her was. They looked at each other and blushed. That was the last conscious thought Sephiroth or Aeris had as the portal swallowed them up.

They fell out of the portal and Sephiroth woke up almost instantly. He saw that Aeris was still unconscious. He looked at his surroundings. He was in an elegantly decorated room with music and people who were evidently dancing but now had stopped and looked at them with surprise.

A group of men gathered in front of Sephiroth and pulled out their swords. They were dressed in bulky armor and had normal sized swords. Two people stood out though, they stood in front of these men with determination on their faces. A man and a woman. They were obviously the superior officers.

"Who are you?" the man asked

Sephiroth did not answer

"Well then, you must be trying to assassinate the queen" the man said, "Apprehend him" he ordered his men. They walked warily towards Sephiroth, that is, until he drew the Masamune.

Everyone in the room gasped, no one had ever seen such a long sword. The men stopped advancing.

"All of you attack at the same time, he can't take any of us, he is just trying to scare us. That sword must be a fake; no one could lift, let alone use such a long sword effectively.

Sephiroth cracked a smile as they all rushed at him, this would be fun.

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Authors Note: There you have it folks, the prologue to my multi-chapter fanfic. Hope you liked it. Remember, flames will be accepted, -_-(), but be mild, this is my first fic.

The next chapter should be up sometime in the near future.

Check back soon. ^_^