Welcome back, Sephiroth.
From the darkness, her voice is kind, benevolent, soft, warm, wrapping around him like a blanket, smothering him. Lilting like a lullaby. Sleep now, and forever hold his peace.
His only response is a long sigh. More frustrated than weary, though he certainly can't deny his exhaustion. He was so close. Close enough to taste the wind of a new world, the product of all his labor—and then, paying no mind to his lifeblood ebbing away from a thousand cuts, Cloud bested him yet again. How?
You're troubled, she observes hesitantly, and if he isn't much mistaken, there is some concern in her voice. Why is it that the girl he killed does not lash out at him, condemn him, even reprimand him? They worked directly against one another for two long years, he corrupting the Lifestream, she healing it. Does that mean nothing to her?
No; it doesn't matter. He doesn't want to talk to his innumerable enemies anymore. It's a waste of his limitless time. But as if she senses his reluctance, she laughs. How long has it been since he's heard a woman's laughter? I'll keep talking to you until you respond. I don't care if it takes hundreds of years. Why is her voice so gentle? He killed her—much good it did him if they ended up confined in the same space.
There is a long pause, but just as he gets used to the quiet, she shatters the silence. We have all the time in the world.
He wonders in the back of what's left of his mind whether it's possible to force her to disintegrate. Solidifying becomes even more urgent when faced with the possibility of remaining in her company forever, the only two complete beings in the Lifestream. Leave me alone, he snarls, reaching for the dwindling Negative Lifestream to cloak his ears once more from the serenity of her voice and ease into unconsciousness, but he is powerless. It's not a feeling to which he is accustomed.
You are alone. Her voice contains only sorrow. Both of us are.
He makes a derisive noise, but says nothing, trying once more to focus on a plan of action. His remnants failed him, and there were no more clones, but it was the same group of people who thwarted him each time. Perhaps, if he were to wait—
Don't you ever get lonely?
His very being twitches with the desire to take up his Masamune once more and plunge it into her pure and innocent heart. No! he snaps, with such vehemence that he can feel her recoil, and the sensation grants him some satisfaction. Yes, if he waits until long after her precious allies—
Liar, she says, interrupting but he smiles at the hurt in her voice, forgetting that all bodily urges are useless. Everyone gets lonely, even you. Didn't you ever have friends?
Friends, he repeats slowly, as though dazed. Genesis and Angeal. The names scrawl themselves suddenly in his tattered mind, unwritten for years. Accompanied by their names are their smiles and tears. Strains of guitar and piano. Honor and Loveless. Wings of light and dark.
Yes, friends, she says, dangerously curious. I'm sure you had—
Not anymore. He cuts her off before she can make any further assumptions. They're dead and dissolved as far as he's concerned, and the space they once occupied in what used to be his heart is hollow and numb. She must think his isolation is painful, but he feels no pain at their absence, nor even regret. Everything played out as it was meant to. Had they both remained alive, a force other than death would have parted them. (Genesis was potentially living proof.) Their relationships were destined to end, and that was the truth of the matter.
She says nothing for a long time, though sadness radiates from her in waves. You don't have to be alone, she mumbles eventually, almost shyly. They're here. You could be with them. Let me help you find peace of mind.
He laughs convulsively, knowing exactly what she's suggesting. Peace of mind? He's a monster, born and bred for combat, and everyone knows it. There is no such thing as peace for him, even if he were to do as she wishes, relinquishing his identity and all his ties to the Planet. You can't help me. Some souls are beyond your kind of redemption.
Don't say that, she says reproachfully, and the pious pleading pity in her voice drives him madder.
I don't want your peace! he snarls, and her presence flinches and wavers. He could slice her into ribbons as pretty and pink as the one in her hair, and the images in his head poison his voice so that she understands. I don't want your compassion—I don't want your anonymity! I am Sephiroth, son of Jenova, and I will bring this Planet to its knees!
Silence. Why won't she push back? His sword rips through her gut, and she offers him her pity. He tears her from her friends' side, and she gives him overwhelming sorrow, all for his sake. Does forgiveness come so easily to her?
Jenova is not your mother.
He freezes in the middle of his icy thoughts, and she must feel how disarmed he is, because her voice softens, lowers. Did Jenova give birth to you? Did Jenova raise you? She wants him to say no, open up to her. He can feel her gentle pressure on the sides of his mind. She wants to take him with her, absolve him of his perceived sins.
But he will not bow to her. I take after her. That's all that matters.
Will she stop trying to save him now? This is the second time in a row she's been lost for words. It's only a matter of time before she gives up. He tries to turn his mind back to his plan in the space she affords him, but his thoughts are unfocused, disjointed, straying back towards whatever her unspoken thoughts might be.
Haven't you loved someone? Her voice conceals a note of desperation. In any way? Ever? A disgusting amount of hope still weighs down her words, but the questions are faint and tremulous nonetheless. He may have lost to Cloud, but he has the upper hand against her.
Still, he pauses. Hesitates, even. The urge to speak the single word he knows will destroy her is overwhelming, but the negative dies on his ethereal tongue. He cannot say it until he knows more. Tell me what love is.
He can't tell whether she's more surprised or sad at his command, and wishes she would sigh and say plaintively that he won't understand, leaving him to his solitude. He does not truly want her to obey, but has no choice but to listen when she does. Warmth, sometimes so hot it sears, she murmurs, almost tenderly, as if lost in memories. It touches your heart, your soul—your body. And if it ever fades, the cold is unbearable.
She seems so certain that her words will somehow change him, cause him to desire repentance, that he laughs again. I have no body. I have no heart. My soul is isolated here.
But you had them once, she insists, too earnestly. No memories drift forth from the distant past, and he does not contemplate the meaning behind her words. Instead, he thinks of what it would be like to hold her against the wall by the neck and carefully, painstakingly cut out her tongue. Silence her forever. Every illusory convulsion under his fingers, every imagined cry or shriek of pain and terror gives him a thrill of savage triumph.
He feels her presence shudder on the margins of his soul, and wonders how many of his thoughts are visible to her, and to what extent. Yes, he agrees, as he realizes she still awaits his answer, and she does not interrupt. Out of fear, perhaps. But I've lived in the cold all my li…
His last word is mangled by a strange, half-physical sensation, and he automatically tries to reach for his sword. It feels as though her presence surrounds him, closely, personally—warmly. He tries to fend her off with wordless, grisly thoughts of her friends' slit throats and spilt entrails, but she does not relent. She merely stays there, closer to him than anyone has ever been—embracing him, in all his corrupt glory. No words he says can push her away.
And as he gets used to their proximity, and her radiance, he finds himself beginning to relax into the softness of her soul.
His thoughts gradually become blurry, drowsy, languid. Involuntary remembrances long since forgotten flood his tired mind. A song Angeal used to play on his guitar, sweet and sensual. The scent of flowers, drifting on a vernal breeze. The way Genesis looked at him when he thought he wasn't watching—the way he himself never looked at anyone.
He doesn't realize how much he's lowered his defenses until her murmur stirs him reluctantly into wakefulness: he almost fell asleep. My love is that for the Planet's will, not for you. I'll never forgive you for everything you put them all through. Her soothing tone belies the words on her imaginary lips. But what you did to me helped save your victims. Thank you.
Her tone is, strangely, sincere, and he has never felt so disarmed before. How can she forgive him for killing her, but failing to kill her allies?
As her presence shifts and retracts slightly as though to leave, he tightens his grip around a tendril of her soul, willing her to stay. To give him the warmth of solace and tear it away again is crueler than anything he has ever done to her. Is she truly so ruthless?
Yes. Her energy flares up and burns him where he touched, and he recoils. He has no choice but to let go as her presence uncurls from around him, and her heat with it. For the first time, he understands her aversion to the cold, and shivers. See, she says, with an odd mixture of sorrow and triumph, no one is untouchable. Not even you.
His ragged soul is too cold to sleep at first, but eventually falls miserably into fitful slumber, swearing vengeance on her, on the Lifestream, on the Planet. How quickly he grew used to her comfort, and how meaningless it all was in the end. He resolves to thrive in that bitter winter, if only to prove he can. His last conscious thought is that he'll wear his solitude like icy armor, and nothing she does will ever melt it again.
In his dreams, he cuts Cloud to pieces and massacres the rest of her friends, saving her for last, fantasizing about the different ways he could kill her. But even in the comforts of his own mind, she only greets him with kind words. Something keeps him from slaughtering her like all the others. Instead, he rests his head in her lap, reclaiming the feeling of her soul cushioning his, of that inexplicable warmth—but she drives his own discarded sword through his exposed torso, an echo of what he once did to her, and all fades to frigid darkness.
When he awakens again, well-rested, his determination has regained its strength, and he has again grown used to the chill of isolation. He can feel her observe him warily, but she offers no greetings. He turns his mind triumphantly to his own thoughts, relishing the cold silence stretching once more between them. In his respite, his course of action has become clear. Never before did he consider doing nothing a plan, but now he clings to the idea as fiercely as to life itself.
He will emerge once more to conquer the Planet, but he will wait until every one of Cloud's mortal companions has dissolved, no matter how many centuries it takes. When it's time, when his madness once more acquires a method, no power on this Planet will be able to stop him. Not even her.
And until then, no memory of her summer will thaw the wintry void at his core.