(A/N: Before I begin, I'd just like to say that I once looked upon this medium in skepticism, but a few weeks of general browsing cured me of that. I hope I can learn something from my time here.
On canon: This is set several years before the game, and since I haven't seen any of the new FF7-oriented media other than AC, a lot of this is ambiguous. However, it is not exactly AU, either; I'm not making any huge deviations from the canon I know of the game. Hope no one finds that too troubling.
Note that long italics designate a flashback, and short italics designate a thought. Long italics refer to a paragraph or more in length.
Bear in mind that I don't think of myself to be a very good writer; I'm always seeking to improve and I welcome the opinions of others. Now, let's get this started.)
Disclaimer: Final Fantasy VII is the property of Square-Enix. Original characters and ideas are my own.
Threads of Spirit:
Quiet Time
Shadows were the only constant in the slums of Midgar. Shadows, and tears. One to hide, and the other to weaken. One to doubt, and the other to break. Every day the people stepped into that world of resentment and fear, a world of desperation and pleading, apathetic and uncaring. It was a world where one wished to hide in, a world where one wished to weep. And those above were only too willing to give them a place to do so.
The old train, dying in a lingering fashion so like the Sector it was manufactured in, stopped gradually, its Mako-adapted engines slowing to a groaning halt and the brakes applying themselves with a soft, if protracted squeak. Of the dozen passengers on the last line from the Sector One plate to the Sector Five slums, all but one had been lightly napping and thus weren't in any position to be bothered by it. They fitfully awoke as the conductor called for them to depart, his own voice weary at this late hour. The one who hadn't been asleep didn't care anyways about the noise and had already walked out of the compartment, not wanting to be troubled or delayed.
Shrugging his midnight black trench coat back into its normal position, which had been disrupted by the slight jostling of the train, Sephiroth began walking slowly but purposefully, letting his slanted eyes drift across everything in his path and storing it away for future reference. Any good military commander had to have an eye for terrain in order to survive, and the General was a master of reconnaissance, as well as everything else necessary to prosecute any armed conflict. Recalling the morning's conversation perfectly – it wouldn't have mattered if it had occurred half a year before; he smirked slightly and shook his head, silver bangs swaying slightly with the motion.
He had never been actually invited to these bi-weekly meetings, and nowhere was it said that one of his rank was meant to attend, but Sephiroth had been so instrumental in Shinra' s plans that not one of the five department heads had remarked on it when another chair, straight-backed and of dark wood, was added to the conference table, rich oak lined with gold. The General had tried not to miss a gathering ever since he began to attend – overseeing the war both on the front and as a commander didn't make for easy long-term schedules – which certainly couldn't be said of the people who were actually meant to be there. Idling in his hard-backed chair, the swordsman let his eyes take in the room, disregarding the elegant wall tapestries and exquisite original paintings. Shinra, man and company both, loved to spend to excess for no reason than to prove it possible.
He fully expected Professor Tideki Hojo to be off conducting another experiment and disregarding the summons, and he all but knew that Charles Palmer II would also be nowhere to be seen. Sephiroth didn't care much for either of them; one too inhuman to see anything not laid on a microscope slide, the other a fat buffoon lacking any practical use whatsoever. He wondered idly how both of them had ever been hired.
In fact, at the moment, only he and Reeve were sitting at the table. The others, in a truly bourgeoisie way, seemed to think that it was quite all right to arrive half an hour after being called, but they two at least recognized the importance of punctuality, which for both meant life or death, albeit in very different ways, and under very different circumstances. Sephiroth was glad that he was able to tolerate Reeve's presence. It would have made for very painful waiting, otherwise, and he hated to wait, always preferring to be the master of his own decisions and actions.
Shaking his head mentally at the President's wisdom or lack thereof, he focused on what the man sitting across from him was saying. That one, Sephiroth admitted with grudging respect, knew what he was talking about, and unlike others in his downsized department; he remembered that there were people in the cities he planned, and that they weren't just profit generators, but places where millions of stories were told on a daily basis. Sephiroth agreed wholeheartedly, but for a different reason. Riots and civil unrests were such pains to deal with without harming structural and technological infrastructure, and there was no point forcing the issue when it could be decided by simply re-allocating a few million Gil – a pittance – from the elitists on the Plate to the more unfortunate people of the slums. The General was not so heartless as to deny the hopelessness of their collective situation, partly born of bad luck and partly from the acts of the corporation he served. For now.
"Are you listening, General?" Reeve remarked with a slight air of annoyance. Upon seeing the silver-haired man shrug, the middle-aged man sighed, raking a hand through his brown-black hair. "I was saying that you should consider visiting the slums and reporting on their situation. It's as good a use of your leave as sitting in your room reading, don't you think?"
That was the other thing Sephiroth liked about the Urban Development head. He never fawned, curried favor, or lied to make things sound better. In the banquet celebrating the surrender of Wutai, Heidegger and Scarlet were all too busy congratulating and piling lavish compliments on him until he growled at them to stop, while Reeve had talked with him about expanding business interests to compensate for the sudden change of the balance of power in the area. While Sephiroth didn't really care about that particular field of knowledge, he was pleased that they could speak straightly with one another, disabusing politics and etiquette. It was comforting. Relaxing, in a way. Of course, Reeve never used his name, and that was just as well. Colleagues were not necessarily friends.
"Reeve, we both know that I have no little disinterest in walking through the slums. If you need data, send your subordinates. They're the ones who get paid to do it, supposedly." The two shared a smirk at that. Commissioners of Midgar were usually found sitting in their overly lavish offices wasting their time or making shady deals in high-end restaurants with local business heads. To the General, it was like finding out that your forward scouts were drawing up troop placement maps from their imaginations and committing high treason on a daily basis. On the battlefield, it would have meant death, but the bureaucracy here was too stiff and unbending in its self-perpetuation. The Commissioners' practices were so common as to be accepted. Shinra disgusted him.
"I'm serious, General. The Sector Five pillar was supposed to be down-checked for maintenance over half a year ago, but the war was in the way and the President decided to let it sit. Manufacturers as they are, we're lucky that the Plate hasn't collapsed on us, yet. And of course I don't trust my own personnel to inspect it correctly." Reeve laughed bitterly, taking a deep draught of the coffee he preferred. Sephiroth had tried it once out of politeness, but he didn't require caffeine to operate for extended periods of time, and the bitter, dark brew didn't appeal at all to his tastes. Sitting before the swordsman, instead, was a tall glass of iced lemonade. He had first tried it four years ago, and the taste was still distinctively favorable to him; the chef had an arrangement with the General to deliver a pitcher every morning. Reeve had found it beyond amusing, but Sephiroth thought it helped him concentrate. That, both knew, would cause uproar if it ever leaked. The swordsman took a sip and considered the unspoken offer. Planet Life could wait, he decided. Besides, his personal apartments were on the Sector 5 plate. Both of them knew that, of course. "Fine, Reeve. I'll take a look at the pillar for you later today. I'll keep an eye out for other details, too."
Reeve smiled mildly and nodded his appreciation. The General, both knew, would end up procuring a report dozens of pages long examining every tiny detail that he stumbled across, from the humidity content – carefully controlled to avoid structural degradation – to the price of grain – far higher than necessary. That was how Sephiroth operated; it was a method instilled from years of command, and no one was in a hurry to tell him otherwise, either from indifference, fear, or respect. Reeve was one of the latter.
As the heavily carved and embossed door opened, Sephiroth casually allowed his eyes to take in the newcomers; his extensive time in the military had taught him a lot about observation, though he had mastered the existing year-long textbook training in a week and produced a document six times longer, of his own compilation, for future cadets.
President Shinra came in "first", of course, his red silk suit straining from bulk that the lines of golden buttons barely contained. His blue eyes pierced and saw possible danger from miles away; after all, he had turned the corporation from a small electric company into a monopoly of immense proportions, and it hadn't been done without his share of attempted assassinations. His hair was beginning to thin, now, and he was putting on weight, but his mind was still operating at razor sharpness. He nodded once to Sephiroth, as a master to his dog, and ignored Reeve completely. The two had been on strained terms of late.
Heidegger followed, his dark green military uniform bedecked with awards he did not deserve, from battles he had not been anywhere near and involving valor that he did not have. The Head of Public Welfare was an arrogant fool in Sephiroth's opinion, one who knew nothing of military doctrine and would have merely wasted men and resources had he ever been allowed to lead. The General had been pleased that he had remained in Midgar to" supervise", a term which both knew had absolutely no merit whatsoever, as Sephiroth had coordinated everything from his personal directive. With a false grin planted behind his monstrosity of a beard, his bulk – muscle, though, not fat – made the chair creak slightly as he sat upon it. Sephiroth watched him carefully at all times; he knew that Heidegger was incompetent, but the man in question did not agree, and ignorant incompetents always had the potential to be a threat, and they were always nuisances. As usual, he attempted to strike up a worthless conversation with Reeve, who batted away his moronic words with a tired patience. Sephiroth mentally sighed; it seemed this meeting would be routine in all manners.
Scarlet closed the door behind her as she entered at the end of the group, cold eyes calculating as always. She wore her typical blood-red dress, cut low to reveal an expanse of pale bosom and with long slits on the skirt that bared her legs to the mid-thigh when she moved. For all of that, Sephiroth respected the head of Weapons Development for her ability to undercut anyone whom she thought stood in her way, and she was unafraid to use whatever was at hand to advance her position. It was rare indeed for a woman to get so high up in any corporation. However, she had an undue liking for the infliction of pain, even when a single, well-calculated surgical strike would be far more effective. A good interrogator, but not at all what the General would have wanted on the front lines. Laughing in her sultry, throaty way at whatever inane drivel Heidegger was spouting, she eased herself into her chair, not bothering at all to re-arrange her skirts. She was dangerous, perhaps, but too engrossed in the temporal to be a real threat.
Sephiroth snorted softly. That meeting had truly been a waste of time for him, with the President discussing how to further line their pockets, even though all of them had at least nine figures of hard currency for various purposes. Reeve had wanted to push for a focused development campaign through all of the continents, starting up new settlements and towns while renovating the existing cities. In time, it would have been massively profitable, but Scarlet had been resolved on further armament for the armed forces, even installing a massive cannon in Junon harbor. Sephiroth had very carefully not asked what in the world she thought it could possibly be used for, now that Wutai was crushed and the last of the rebel militias were quieting down after witnessing how Shinra had completely and utterly annihilated the Wutain Imperial Army. Of course, the political situation as it was, very likely Scarlet would get her wish, if not for its validity, then merely because the President wished to spite the Urban Development head. A cannon across the ocean, of all things... Sephiroth decided to focus at the task at hand.
The first impression of the area was not at all good from the General's perspective. The air, trapped as it was between the plate and the locked gates of the city, was thick with smoke and smog, which Sephiroth ignored and the locals were apparently used to. Trash lay in random heaps, adding its own rotten sweetness into the air, along with various junk piles and twisted, rusting shapes that he could only guess the original function of. The locals, he noted, walked with heads down and faces covered, and everyone carried weapons, though not openly. Eyes such as his, though, sharpened by Mako and knowing what to look for from both textbook readings and years of practical examination in Wutai, picked them out in an instant. Knives seemed prevalent, as they were fairly easy to hide, though one graying man was probably concealing a gun in his overlarge jacket, while another had throwing stars, of all things, tucked into his boots.
Even knowing that he could annihilate all of them instantly, Sephiroth's instincts warned him not to act so indolently around armed hostiles. With a thought, the Masamune appeared in his hand, earning a few shocked gasps from nearby spectators. He didn't know how he did it, but he could, and that was good enough for his purposes. He took a moment to simply savor the power flowing through the blade, the blade he had never known life without. His earliest memory, of a young, determined adolescent walking into one of Shinra's recruiting centers, had him holding the Masamune - the name came unbidden, just as the sky was called the sky. He hadn't gone a day since without handling it, as he alone could do. The blade was not all that heavy, and he knew somewhere there was another man of the necessary height and strength to at least pick it up, but for all of his years in Shinra's military, no one but himself could raise it a mere millimeter. He did not understand why, but he didn't really care, either. If it served his image and heightened his subordinates' respect and fear of him, so much the better. Now he was truly safe from anything these locals could do.
The general aura of mistrust and suppressed hatred was overwhelming. Sephiroth immediately understood Reeve's purpose in telling him to visit. Shinra's official media portrayed the slums as a happy place, if not an affluent one, but the General thought wryly that either the backgrounds had been carefully cleaned before the taping or had been constructed like backdrops on a theater stage. The people in those broadcasts were always smiling, or at least appeared amused, but Sephiroth didn't see a single expression before him other than grim neutrality. They knew their hopeless scenario but couldn't afford to give up. The General had seen the look before, when the Wutain soldiers had lost so many battles that each narrow victory seemed only a delay of the inevitable, when a tide of despair had overrun the entire nation. And yet they had fought on, resorting to blades and even their bare hands when their weapons failed them. He remembered watching bloodied fields as Shinra machine guns decimated the rows and columns of Wutain soldiers, all screaming and charging, knowing how hopeless their task was and yet refusing to give up. He had watched impassively then, but observing the exact same thing in the city of those whom he had been fighting for... its shook him, so much that he forgot momentarily to let his memory do its work.
Walking slowly down a street lined with trash and rubbish, he once again began to record everything he observed in the recesses of his mind for future analysis. He had a job to do, and another part of his mind was focused on going over just how he was supposed to check the pillar without having it explode or do something embarrassing of a similar nature. That was when he heard a voice, soft and timid, from behind him.
"Excuse me?"
Today had been a bad one, Aeris thought, though it was increasingly harder and harder to discern between the good and the bad; they all blurred and merged into a similar shade of gray. A light rain had washed the Plate, and while she welcomed the influx of cool air, not many people had been on the streets, and those who had were plainly hurrying, not interested in buying flowers. She hadn't made a single sell for the entire day, and that meant there wouldn't be any breakfast on the table tomorrow. With only a heel of bread tonight, her stomach was already muttering. Elmyra would look at her and do nothing of course; it certainly wasn't her fault Shinra didn't pay out her pension. All the same, Aeris couldn't help but wilt at disappointment and sadness in her foster mother's eyes.
She only knew that the woman wasn't her birth mother because Aeris had asked on her tenth birthday, to be responded to with soft words and what was meant to be a soothing smile. The other important event of that day was more troubling; it was the first time she remembered that the voices had begun speaking to her. They had seemed rambling, chaotic and unintelligible at first, but with the passing months they had became more coherent, more clearly directed at her. That was when she asked about her past, the first time she had consciously directed a thought towards them. She tried to remember things before her eighth birthday, but her memories came up only as a hazy blur of sounds and colors. Something ingrained deep within her told her that she didn't want to find out the truth, and eventually she simply stopped wondering what her life had been like or who her real mother was. Life in the slums had left little time for idle thoughts, so she let the matter rest and took the new speakers in her mind in stride. Aeris had few other choices available, after all.
She had been asleep on the train, weary after a long day of walking and talking, and she hadn't noticed the man who'd lounged in the back of the compartment, the shadows easily blending with his clothes. After waking up to groggily totter off the train back to her home, though, she became aware of the man striding purposefully ahead of her, and her curiosity, which Elmyra had always said would get her into trouble, had gotten the better of her. After all, this was probably the chance of a lifetime to talk to the Great General Sephiroth. If nothing else, Aeris as a young woman shared the desires and fantasies, however absurd and unlikely in retrospect, of her peers; Sephiroth easily fulfilled the role of "most desirable male" in so many ways. And it was her birthday, though Aeris had the sinking feeling that she was the only one alive who cared. She was sixteen now, and she could do whatever she wanted. Or, at least, that's what she told herself.
And so, she, like a stone-blind idiot, had run off towards him to close the distance from his long stride, well aware of all of the stares in her direction from the people of the slums. Noticing just how tall he was, she called to him in a somewhat small voice. "Excuse me?" Part of her, a small voice in the back of her head, was afraid, almost trembling at the thought of being scrutinized by the man who had killed thousands, but the greater by far was full of adamant curiosity and stubbornness. The man seemed uncertain whether or not to face her, which struck Aeris as very strange, indeed.
After a moment's consideration, though, he did, and Aeris took a step back. That small voice urged her to run, but she forced it down by strength of will. His eyes had been what shocked her, a bright, piercing green that seemed to glow and shine in the permanent semi-darkness of the slums. She knew from the media that his eyes were that color, but in the pictures and television footage, it had seemed dull, perhaps because of the pickup of the recorders, and perhaps for other reasons. Here and now, they positively blazed with energy, and it seemed all of it was focused on her small, thin frame. Light, but she was a fool for attempting this. The voice agreed with her. She winced mentally at the thought of the dirt staining her face, her coat, and her pink dress. The latter two were threadbare and worn, and she realized sadly that the rest of her was hardly better off, having spent the day in the rain. Cleanliness was never a priority in the slums – it if nothing else only made you more a target, but she knew her first impression on the General would not be a good one.
On the other hand, his first impression on her was everything Aeris would have expected, and more. Normally, one's flaws were disguised by distance, and once close it was apparent: the slightly stooped back, the wrinkles, and the unease. Sephiroth simply had no flaws at all. It wasn't fair. His clothes were masterfully tailored and of the highest quality, and he wore the black leather with an natural elegance that Aeris couldn't match on her best day. The General's waist-length hair was pale in the failing light of the slums, not gray or white, with nothing of the feeble luster of the elderly. Instead, it was brilliant, chromatic silver, illustrious and magnificent. Sephiroth's perfection just denied any chance of definition. She could use only the weakest comparisons; hair like a river of silver, eyes like burning emeralds, skin as pale as the most exquisite china. He set a standard that would never be met, a godly being of limitless beauty, but his manner spoke of an underlying wariness more dangerous than anything Aeris had ever seen before. It was that last that stopped her from falling into his arms, and the consequences be damned. She had heard the stories, along with every girl in Midgar and possibly on the Continent, from those women who had been lucky to share the General's bed for a long, sleepless night. Her heart sped up merely at the recollection of the details, faint spots of color appearing on her face.
His mouth opened abruptly, and his voice was harsh and rough, shattering whatever illusions Aeris might have been harboring. "What?" Of course, Aeris thought with a twinge bordering on panic; she was interrupting his business. And that wasn't good for her health, if the rumors were even halfway true. He certainly looked to be in a killing mood, with his pale, drawn lips tight with disapproval and slightly raised in a smirk, brow furrowed and hands clenched in fists. Aeris had no doubt that he could quite literally pick her up and snap her in two if he wished. She decided to not let her eyes or mind dwell on the Masamune, held loosely at the General's side, at all – The very thought of what it could do to her ... as if Sephiroth knew what she was thinking of, the corners of his mouth raised slightly upwards for a mere second before settling back into that neutral line. Repressing a slight gulp at the mental imagery of him laughing wildly as he cut her to pieces and shaking with mirth as the blood flew – she had heard those stories as well, of course – she urged her thoughts to steady. Her mind seemed to want to spite her tonight; the next words came without thought.
"Would you like to buy a flower?" Even as she heard herself say it, that little voice in her rose up again and began berating her in a laughing, scornful tone. Oh, good job, Aeris. You just asked the most dangerous man in the world if he wanted to buy a flower, of all things! Do you really have yourself a death wish? She cringed inside. Well, it was late, and she was tired, and that line was quite possibly what she had said most often in her life. Naturally, she told the voice, it was a perfectly normal thing for her to say. You're crazy, Aeris. Always was, always will be. The voice laughed at her. She didn't quite have the heart to tell it to leave her alone, and it wouldn't, most of the time, even if she did ask.
Instead of laughing or just walking off – or, as Aeris almost irrationally feared he would, readying his sword – the General stared at her. Quite possibly he just wasn't accustomed to hearing those words, but Aeris quickly became uncomfortable as his gaze lingered and swept her figure. It had been one of the first lessons of her adolescence, given to her quite forcefully by Elmyra, who had insisted on "educating" her before she could begin her present career. When a man is staring at you, be on guard. If a man who was staring at you moves towards you, run. But no, that wasn't it, really. The Mako-green eyes still burned with all of their previous ferocity, but it wasn't the light of a hunter examining prey; that was something she had seen before, in eyes drunken or not, and she knew what to look out for. In this case, though, they seemed to be scouring her soul, searching for answers. Still, it made her uncomfortable, and just as she planned to give it up and head home, he nodded as if comprehending some great secret and spoke again.
This time, it was a different voice, softer, smoother, and darker. "How much for a flower, Miss?" The voice, almost a caress, unnerved her. It seemed to belong to a different person. The earlier gruffness was erased completely, and Aeris didn't know whether to be glad or afraid. After all, Sephiroth was rumored to kill in total coldness, and indeed his voice sounded like the sound of a blade sharpening itself on an oilstone. The voice in her head picked up again. How long before he goes for the throat? How long dare you wait? Aeris mentally ignored it, replying in a slightly shaken tone that the price was one Gil per flower, but that buying a dozen came with a discount. Again, it was more by rote than anything else; her mind still wasn't working fully.
Surprisingly, he shook his head slightly and sighed before speaking again. "Do not be afraid of me. I will not kill you." The accuracy at which he had discerned her thoughts amazed her. But then, he was supposedly a master of manipulations and diplomacy, and both required the ability to see into another's thoughts. "Flowers are such rare things in Midgar ... anything of beauty is, in this place." He nodded to himself again; Aeris wondered with slight amusement if he spoke to another in his mind, as well. "I'll pay you twelve hundred Gil for the thirty of them." A passerby, gaunt and pale with eyes too wide, turned to stare in surprise and tripped in the process, landing in the soft, filthy mud. Aeris' heart went out to the poor soul, but she too was shocked by the offer, rooted to the spot as her mind churned.
It's a joke. You know it is. The Great General Sephiroth, toying with a girl from the slums. Aeris told the voice to shut up and leave her alone. Even as she did so, her resolve cracked, and the voice laughed at her in derision. It probably was a joke. It had to be. "I'm not a beggar, sir. You don't need to pity me." And why in the world had she said that? Declining funds of all things ... the pragmatic side of her sighed. Subconsciously, she had already calculated how long that would last the Elmyra and her, with just a tiny bit of luxury thrown in for her. After all, she deserved – nothing, her morals chimed in. She wouldn't act as a beggar; she was a businesswoman. Pragmatism remarked again in a dry tone that none of this was putting food on the table, and morality asked if she would rather be working in Wall Market. Pragmatism coughed and reminded her to just take the money and run, and stop changing the subject. And to top it all off, that little voice in the back of her head told her wryly, you'd be a terrible prostitute.
Overall, the organism that was named Aeris Gainsborough sighed. She wasn't quite sure who she was, sometimes; more and more frequently, her thoughts would jumble together and conflict. She had given them names based on their views and characters and allowed them to guide her, not knowing that any psychiatrist would have been frowning in worry at her actions. She didn't fret at all, though; her lack of real friends made the voices her only companions, and she didn't mind them too much except for occasional outbursts like this. Another voice, not her own and not inside her head, brought her back to reality.
"This is not pity. This is respect, and it would do you a world of good to acknowledge the differences between the two before one or the other kills you." Though Sephiroth's voice was slightly mocking, he took out six crisp bills from a wallet of black leather edged in silver, putting them into her palm and closing her trembling fingers over them. That done, he spoke again in a stern tone that demanded obedience, one that seemed more suitable for giving military commands. "Head back to your house. The slums are dangerous at night." As if she didn't know that. She had grown up here, after all, and this particular route, she knew from long experience, was fairly safe.
Nodding slightly, she wrapped the flowers and passed them to him, at which time he muttered indiscernibly under his breath, something about "jumping" and "propriety". He took them, though, and shook her hand. "Good doing business with you, Miss." Barely waiting for her acknowledgement, he turned abruptly and strode away, black coat flaring out behind him and silver hair briefly uplifted. The patch of colors, red and blue and yellow, just visible over his shoulder, seemed incongruous in that bleak scene of black and white. The flower girl sighed softly, a part of her wanting to follow him. He hadn't even asked her name.
Tucking the currency he had given her into the lining of her dress, lined and worn with age, she began trudging wearily back towards her house, forcing herself away from the direction Sephiroth was heading. Tired as she was, with her mind still pre-occupied with the happenings of a few minutes before, Aeris didn't at all notice the three men who had lurked in the shadows, remaining silent throughout the encounter. As soon as the unlikely buyer and seller were beyond sight of one another, they nodded to one another and began walking in the direction that the girl had taken. The three were experienced thieves, and they usually didn't trouble women, but twelve hundred Gil from a soft target was just too much to pass up.
The auxiliary support plate pillars were crude things, simple columns of reinforced concrete. And it was this that held up billions of Gil in property and training. It was such a shame that so much relied on so little, really, and Sephiroth had indeed been less than pleased with the behavior of the guards, who had been lazing around in their night office instead of patrolling the grounds. Any amateur could have climbed right over the fence – not even electric or lined with razors – courtesy of a stack of steel girders that ought to have been cleared away. After that, it was as simple as making the short walk to the base of the pillar and planting a reasonably light amount of rough explosive. Anyone with a lighter, freezer coolant, and fertilizer could quite easily annihilate an eighth of the greatest city in the world. It sometimes angered the General that one insane, dedicated amateur could wreak as much, if not more damage than a finely trained, equipped and led military organization.
The maintenance contractor representative had been waiting at the base of the pillar, tired from a long day but smart enough not to raise a comment on the bouquet of flowers the General had brought in with him. A single look on her part had prompted such an icy glare from those glowing green eyes that the normally talkative woman held her silence throughout the entire climb up to the control module. The actual task was simple, and Sephiroth's eyes and hands worked completely independently of his mind, which chose to dwell instead on the more interesting of events of the evening.
The girl had been troubling, indeed. Her outside appearance was hardly unremarkable, with a sense of innocence that seemed so out of place in the miasma of distrust of the slums, but Sephiroth cared little for physical beauty. Her mind, on the other hand, was simply incomprehensible to the General. That was what worried him. From a young age, he found that he could mentally reach in and absorb whatever information he needed, to be used as necessary. It certainly made a much more welcome alternative to interrogations, which took too long to hold, and clean up for afterwards. The girl had been different. Before her, only those who knew something of what to expect from his seeking could muster something similar to a defense, weak even so, against incursion, but getting into her mind was as difficult as performing battlefield surgery with his Masamune and a sledgehammer. He had done it before, for a senior lieutenant during an ambush on the beaches of Wutai, but it had not been easy, and he would not relish doing so again.
Then, as soon as he examined the mind laid before him, he had realized that she could not possibly be human, for all of the physical clues to suggest otherwise. Instead of a single, neat repository for information and another apparatus that controlled emotion like most functional adults, hers had had a thousand rivers all coursing amongst each other, each carrying a different line of thought, but all remaining pure and distinct as they flowed through one another. Getting information out of those rivers had been all but impossible, as each flickered endlessly with every heartbeat. It was as if millions of individual thought processes resided in her mind, and yet her outside demeanor had been as calm and collected as any civilian he had ever seen. Had he been subjected to all the contradiction, all of the swirling eddies of rationality and irrationality, he would have gone insane in an instant. It was obvious that only a mind far beyond human could process such thought, and that any such would be immensely powerful, perhaps almost as powerful as he himself.
No, despite her conclusions to the contrary, she didn't deserve pity. Sephiroth made his mind up on the matter. As much as he hated it, he admitted that she deserved to be watched carefully and respected. At least, he consoled himself bitterly; the girl did not understand yet the full extent of her capabilities. For all of his wading through the chaotic streams of her mind, he had recovered only one emotion, for it had been echoed in every single one of the rivers. As a whole, she was uneasy, distraught. Sephiroth wondered why.
He never once considered examining the state of his own mind.
(A/N: Well, I hope I did a fairly decent job presenting that as I wanted to. I know it was a bit slow in starting, but I needed to get some of the background in place; a foundation, if you will. Things will start speeding up in the next chapter.
If it isn't obvious enough, this takes place six years before the game starts; Wutai has just been defeated; canon seems kind of unsure when exactly that was. The pivotal difference in this from the canon should make for some interesting happenings. If you haven't quite gotten it yet, it'll be reinforced in the next few pages.
Please forgive me if my characterization isn't very good; the last time I played the game was over two years ago, and watching AC didn't really give me the necessary insight. Give me some time, and I'll work on it.
Please leave your reviews; I can hardly improve when I don't know where my errors lie.)