Oblivion
"No matter how much time passes, no matter what takes place in the interim, there are some things we can never assign to oblivion, memories we can never rub away." –Haruki Murakami
Chapter 1
Life burned Sephiroth. It thudded in his ears, roared through his veins, and flowed into his nostrils on the air. He opened his eyes only to close them quickly in the sudden onslaught of light. Where? Lucidity bled into his blind awareness. How? The man pulled himself to his knees and held his palm before his eyes. He blinked slowly. Memories flit through his mind with no definite fixture. He shoved aside a mountain of paperwork on his desk in Shinra HQ. No, that wasn't right. He walked up a brittle stairway into a musty reactor.
No.
He remembered now. A broad blade cut him down. His power spent, Sephiroth felt himself careen backwards and die. He'd been so close to realizing his and Mother's mission only to have that…that failure thwart him. Sephiroth peered within, reaching out with tendrils of his consciousness for her soothing touch. Mother was with him always, her intent a bell-like hum that led with precision. He sought her out as only he could and found nothing. No hum. No vision. Void. He hadn't been alone since he discovered her on that fateful day. Sephiroth was more than unsettled.
Perhaps he was still healing? He still didn't feel quite alive, but everything was becoming more real by the second. He was cold and hungry. The stony earth told him that his feet were bare. Truth be told, he was wearing nothing save for the threadbare remnants of his SOLDIER's uniform pants. Where was he? The strange glen divulged none of its secrets. Fissures of white limestone overgrown with moss and creeping vines told him that he wasn't too far from the coast. From his kneeling position, he cupped a little water from a meandering stream nearby to taste. Brackish, unsuitable for drinking. He let it fall through the sieve of his fingers and stood unsteadily. How long had he lain here? Hours? Days?
Sephiroth reached reflexively for his blade, the Masamune, and cursed under his breath when his hand grasped air. No materia, no weapon, and weaker than a newborn, he might have laughed at the absurdity of it all if he hadn't been so panicked. Hunger dazed him. He strode forward, fighting his buckling knees, and spied a large, sturdy branch, which he seized. It was no sword of course, but it was good, live wood with a green-ringed core. It would have to do.
He exhaled sharply. Everything was a still a muddle. The blistering light, the disintegration, the all-consuming blackness…the death of sound and thought, remembering it sent a new spurt of nausea through his roiling guts. Twigs snapping in the distance brought him back into the moment, and he tensed, his fingers tightening around his branch. Very still now, he thought, his eyes penetrating the green abyss that yawned out before him. Where did the movement come from? His left? Nothing. Just a small animal. Proceed. He trudged through ground that gave way to wet peat. A patch of chicory loomed ahead. Purple blossoms bobbing to and fro on an eddy of emerald. Staring ahead, he recalled survival training that seemed almost a lifetime ago. Chicory plants were good foraging. Pick out the young plants, he recalled. Every part can be eaten raw.
He plucked them greedily, not bothering to see that the roots were entirely free of soil, and after he had devoured two heaping handfuls. He took a moment to breathe. Though not quite sated, it was enough, but he would something real, some meat…anything, and he was dying for a drink of water. There it was again. The weakness. He hadn't felt this way since before…before? Before, he found Mother. He had evolved past base human need. What happened to him? Where was Jenova? Why couldn't he feel her? A flurry of feelings bowled over him. No, keep the fear at bay. Focus on what's real. The anger, the betrayal, and the hatred. His rage was what sustained him, kept him moving forward on his mission in the past, but he felt so strangely vacant.
Sephiroth dropped the branch and clutched his head. Perhaps he had eaten too many chicory flowers. Yes, that was it. He was sluggish. Nothing more. He wanted to scream, to tear at his hair, and rend the earth with his fingertips. He'd never been so lost, so confused. He drew a sharp intake of breath. Calm yourself. Everything would explain itself soon enough.
Focus on survival. Survival was finding water in this pristine wilderness — water that wasn't ruined with salt or mud. He wandered in a stupor until he happened across a thick blackberry bush. Fat and deep purple, the berries glittered like jellied drops of wine and smelled as strong. Sephiroth cleared an entire stem not caring for whatever scurried across them. He was almost drunk on the flavor, his tongue thick with thirst. The branch lay abandoned, his back open to the forest.
"What in the name of Gaia…" came a gruff exclamation.
Sephiroth leapt to his feet at once and turned toward a rapidly whitening burly man.
Make this quick. Draw no attention. Sephiroth didn't have to assume that he loathed around the world. He dove for man, reaching for the rifle, but he was too slow.
"Like hell you will!" the man parried and paced backwards, "Hey, Johnny, get the boys and the hounds and get o'er here right now!"
Damn. Sephiroth didn't need this now. He ran for the deep brush past the thickest muck of the bog. He sucked his teeth to keep from screaming when a heavy maw set itself deep into his ankle.
"Holy shit. Is that…" another man joined the other.
The first answer, "I don't know who that is, but the boss will damn sure be interested. Because, it just can't be. It can't be him. C'mon."
No, Sephiroth wasn't going to wait around for this. He fought against the pain, panting as he seized the dog's throat. He didn't want to imagine how it'd ripped his flesh as he freed himself. He almost swooned at the pain, but this was survival. With a strength that he hadn't been able to muster since reviving, he flung the beast and heard its spine snap against a tree trunk with a sickening crack. Rifle fire sounded in the air as he rounded about on his pursuers. No materia, no magic. No Masamune, no defensibility. He grabbed the nearest stone and chucked it at a small wiry redheaded man's skull. This must've been the Johnny who'd just spoken. The voice was the same when he collapsed to the ground with a shout. Sephiroth dove behind another tree for cover.
"Goddamn it," that was the burly man. He fired off two more rounds for the rifle, "Somebody get Johnny up. Check on him. Simon, with me."
Sephiroth panted for the briefest of moments and then willed his breath to be still. Another dog whined at his tree, giving away his position.
"Come out, whoever-the-hell-you-are, come out right this damn second," the rifleman fired another shot that echoed throughout the forest and shook the treetops like thunder. That was close. Sephiroth could see the round smoking in the earth not too far.
All that was left was a gamble.
"Small words from a mite like yourself," Sephiroth spat, summoning all of the authority that he could muster in his voice. He strode into the clearing, blood streaming freely from his torn ankle. He wouldn't collapse. He wouldn't scream. He would appear strong. Frighten them. His life depended on it.
"It really is you. Oh my god, oh my god," this must've been Simon, a black-haired, gangly thing with a quivering pistol fixed right on him.
Sephiroth stared down on him imperiously and scanned the scene. Five dogs. No, four. He'd mortally wounded one which lay immobile and keening. Six men. One down. Three armed. One bearing supplies. Water?
"I think that you'd better leave. Leave me your pack, and I may spare your lives."
The rifleman swallowed and stopped himself from shaking, "And what puts you in the position to make demands? What are you really?"
Simon calmed too, "I bet you that he's some sort of sick, crazed fan…or, he could be a clone. What then, the boss would want to see him, right?"
This wasn't going as planned, and Sephiroth was just about out of steam.
"I say," Johnny said, somewhat recovered but wheezing and clutching a bloodied eye, "We put a bullet between those damn snake-like eyes of his. Let the boss look over his corpse"
"That wouldn't be wise," Sephiroth strode closer, but a blare of sound, fire, and light cut off whatever he had to say next
Flying backwards, dumb and in shock, Sephiroth fell. Blood pumped out of his abdomen. He tried in vain to staunch the wound with hands. A coughing fit seized him, and his mind worked wildly. Who was this boss? Johnny staggered over him only half visible as Sephiroth's vision dimmed. The other man clutched a large jagged rock and slammed it into his skull. Unconsciousness took him.
A/N: I'm taking another crack at writing a Tifa/Sephiroth story. This will be similar to Glimpses of Normalcy but primarily told through Sephiroth's perspective, and it will also be more plot-driven but expect significant character development as the story unfolds.