Cinnamon
By LoveAnimeForever
Cinnamon is just another word for blood.
Sephiroth believes in this very, very, firmly. He believes in it especially today, when he and Genesis are facing each other, finally enemies and not just friendly rivals. This means that he is allowed to go all out, and show no mercy. This means that he can rip and tear and satisfy that cinnamon hair all he wants, and no one can stop him. The fact that Angeal is similarly MIA is a bonus, too.
Sephiroth starts with disarming the Banoran. Not literally – the crimson rapier doesn't even factor in today. But he doesn't say anything – anything at all would be too cliché, anyway. He just stands, quiet, watching. Genesis does the same. And then he makes the mistake Sephiroth was waiting for.
Genesis spreads a large black wing, smirk on his face, and leaps into the air. He thinks he has the advantage – finally has the advantage that he sold his soul for. Sephiroth is almost sad to prove otherwise, a matching – longer, sleeker, more powerful – wing unfurling from his right shoulder. With years of experience with the mutation that Genesis never knew he had, the silver-haired General is swifter, nimbler, stronger. As always. A forceful flap of the Lucifer's wing on his back, and he is in Genesis' breathing space; if Genesis hadn't reacted so quickly and flipped backwards, he would have slammed straight into that leather coat and twisted his fingers into that… hair…
For lack of a better analogy, Sephiroth compares it to blowing up a Mako Reactor. Genesis' pride and beauty could be wrested away and shredded – too easily. A single well-placed spell and the Mako starts to seep, overflow; it carpets the floor of the cavern, and then – Genesis backs away again, wary yet crazed, wanting desperately to tear at Sephiroth's throat even as he knows it would be impossible. Before, his place had been cemented – he was inferior to Sephiroth, always would be. Now, with the new enhancements – double-edged as they were – he should have been stronger.
He isn't. And he doesn't move away fast enough when Sephiroth leaps forward a second time, knowing smirk on his lips, but… Genesis brings his rapier up just in time and catches Sephiroth in the abdomen. The General can feel the searing pain ripping through his body, and he stores it away as tactic to use in the future, but it won't work on him. Pain, to many others, means death. They fear, they cower – even Genesis has those human eyes now, watching in terrified amazement as Sephiroth's smirk just widens into a smile. To the General, pain is life.
Sephiroth reaches out an arm, slender yet muscular, and gently caresses Genesis' hair. Cinnamon… Not for much longer. His wing beats against the air; the rapier is dyed a darker shade of red than ever before; Sephiroth hovers lazily in the air, letting the Mako in his body do its work regenerating his cells. And all the while, Genesis' eyes darken; anger clouds his pale face. Sephiroth swoops in again, and Genesis strikes out, but somehow there is evasion and movement, and it seems more like the black-clad General is slipping into an embrace.
Hands, swifter than eagles' talons, move – one gloved hand twists into Genesis' locks and the other grips his wrist, twists, catches the rapier and it falls from its owner's hand. Genesis' soft hiss of pain is suddenly louder, a cry of agony as his own weapon spears what was supposed to be his trump card. Crimson rapier stabs straight through black feathers into rough bark, and it's as if the sword itself is dyeing Genesis' wing, not his blood. A dagger – Sephiroth is loathe to use a weapon other than his beloved Masamune, but she would be unwieldy right now – plunges into Genesis' other shoulder, the one unmarred by a wing, and Sephiroth has somewhat effectively – literally – pinned his former comrade to the tree.
He releases his hold on those delicious amber tresses, and Genesis' full weight is returned to him. The effect is immediate; he sags slightly, then screams as his wing is nearly torn is half and his shoulder almost ripped open. Both blades stop slicing his flesh when they hit bone, leaving the Banoran hanging there, tears falling unbidden, because even in SOLDIER no one was trained for this kind of –
"My friend," Sephiroth begins mockingly, "the fates are cruel."
Genesis' eyes narrow and he looks up, anger overriding the pain and the deep, dark, impossible despair. How dare you… The General smirks and leans in, laps up his tears.
"There are no dreams, no honor remains…" Sephiroth purrs, magicks a dagger out of seeming empty air, "The arrow has left the bow of the Goddess…"
And Genesis arches into him, fierce gasp tearing from his lips, as it wrenches into his gut. My soul, corrupted by vengeance; Hath endured torment, to find the end of the journey in my own salvation… The verses fly through Genesis' mind, but – for once in his life – he rejects them, searches desperately for some other prophecy. The fifth act lurks in his darkening mind, and he clings to it as if it were a ray of light and not just another shadow.
"Even if the morrow is barren of promises…" he pauses to catch a ragged breath, and Sephiroth backs away, satisfied with the newest addition to the trio of knives holding his former comrade up. Genesis looks up hatefully. "Nothing shall forestall my return."
It is certain; it is steady. Sephiroth doesn't fall for it. The smirk returns to his face – had it ever left? – and he materializes a third dagger from… Mako. Genesis can feel the jealousy and rage boiling up within him, numbing the jolts of lightning attacking his brain, screaming at him about his body's critical condition. Why? Why does Sephiroth get every skill, every advantage, every opportunity – so effortlessly – without toil, without hardship, without sacrifice?! Why must only he suffer? Suffer – and still come in second. Suffer – and still be helpless against this silver-haired arch angel from hell. Why, why, wh-
"You have yet to learn your place, Commander Rhapsodos," the silky voice caressed his ears, tauntingly soothed his pounding head. "Perhaps I should endeavor to teach you… Again."
The knife slides along his cheek, drawing blood and a stinging but quieter pain. Sephiroth laps at the blood, then the daggers dissolve into a million fragments glowing in the dusk light, leaving Genesis held up only by his rapier. The black feathers surrounding it disperse as well, Genesis' body naturally reacting to prevent any more of that loathsome weakness to pain. He falls to the ground, coat and hair splaying out, and for a split second he's just jumped from the tree, gracefully closing in on a poised landing…
And then there is a sickening crack. While he's on the grassy forest floor, recovering from shock and trying to figure out which bones are not broken, Sephiroth pulls the crimson sword out of the tree easily and holds it in a lazy grip, tip pointed downwards – Genesis' pupils dilate in fear. His own sword falls from the vague black-silver silhouette framed against the orange sky – soon to be bloody, for various reasons Genesis can only begin to fathom – and with frightening accuracy, it lands a mere centimeter from his head, slicing through some of his hair.
"Dreams of the morrow hath the shattered soul; Pride is lost; Wings stripped away, the end is nigh…"
Sephiroth lands beside him, his black leather coat and silver hair encountering slight air resistance, and Genesis almost – almost – mistakes the billowing colours… The goddess descends from the sky; Wings of light and dark spread afar… But Sephiroth brings anything but bliss, almost dreamy as he drops into a languid crouch and picks up the cut strands. He absently throws them to the non-existent wind before retrieves Genesis' rapier. He lays it flat across the forest floor some distance away and rests Masamune beside in the same manner. But Genesis knows Sephiroth isn't in any faraway state of mind; as always, the General is sharp and attentive, even behind the mock-gentle eyes that greet his glazed own glazed eyes when Sephiroth returns to his side. The swords look like lovers, Genesis thinks to himself, trying to keep his mind off the menacing presence looming over him.
"Well," Sephiroth murmurs, thumbing the slit across Genesis' cheek, "I've run out of quotes from that useless book of yours. Nonetheless, I am sure blades will suffice…"
Genesis wants to move. He desperately wants to move away. He never expected that he would ever have this mindset, but his shoulder and stomach are still bleeding profusely, and there is yet another dagger in Sephiroth's hand, and he is frozen as if this were Icicle… Genesis has never felt a fear this paralyzing, and he realizes it is only because all this time he's challenged Sephiroth's superiority from behind him. Now, he's challenged Sephiroth from across, and he's going to pay for it… He cringes instinctively away from Sephiroth, but can't get his body to respond anymore than that. He's going to pay for it…
"Dearly," Sephiroth whispers in his ear, as if he'd read his mind, and sharp emeralds pierce frantic sapphires –
Genesis feels a tip of metal slicing through his coat and clothes, nearly but not quite cutting his skin as well, just ghosting, promising… The Banoran wishes he's dead right now, and vaguely wonders why he isn't at least unconscious – from blood loss, pain, or just trauma. Instead, he is all-too alert when leather gloves push his ruined clothes aside, exposing his chest. Milky pale, Sephiroth observes – not that he's not seen Genesis nude before, let alone topless, considering the countless battles and Wutaian stakeouts without formal bathrooms. Milky pale, until the stab wound in his stomach, and there is blood there, and Sephiroth likes to think it probably tastes like cinnamon, like the blood from Genesis' cheek. He tastes it. It does.
A soft whimper, and Sephiroth is satisfied that he's reduced his arrogant second-in-command to a shivering human. Stripped down, released from all that beauty and power… Sephiroth almost wants to trade positions with him and understand what helplessness feels like, but opts to crush Genesis' left lung instead. The Banoran lets out a strangled scream as his left ribcage shatters and punctures his lung – he can almost feel the oxygen rushing the out – and his heart feels compromised, overly-constricted. He should be dead. A normal person – Genesis stops there. Normal would not benefit him in the least. Normal is weak, useless, easily forgotten, would be all-too-easily overlooked by the silver-haired god that is currently paying him such… minute… attention…
Genesis is in the midst of backtracking and asking himself if he's gone insane – not that he isn't already – when a hand punches through his skin and past bone fragments and past his punctured lung, and grips his heart. It feels foreign, and of course, it hurts like hell. But there is some sick pleasure in the feeling as well – in fact, there is a sick pleasure surging up from all his other wounds, dancing with the pain, making it more bearable.
"Finally, you learn."
Sephiroth's mouth is at his ear again, his hand still buried deep within Genesis' chest, constricting, releasing, constricting, releasing, and Genesis finds it somehow easy to let that hand guide his heartbeats and his breaths.
"Commander Rhapsodos… Did you know, that your blood tastes like cinnamon?"
Lips brush against his earlobe, then he feels teeth nipping gently, then there is a pull, and Sephiroth guides – using his free hand – one of Genesis' hands to accept – his own earring, torn from his ear… The shock wears off and the pain burns straight into his brain even as Sephiroth's mouth returns to the rip and laps at it, making it sear even more. Constrict, release, constrict, release. His heart is forced to be calm, but still strains against the slender fingers he can just feel imprinting themselves on the most vital organ in his body. Sephiroth drops Genesis' hand, and the earring rolls from his palm across the forest floor, stopping when it meets the two blades.
Genesis' eyes follow it in an attempt to stop focusing on the pain – which is becoming too good too fast. It is already night, the sun set and white stars the same color as Sephiroth's hair are twinkling at him. It scares Genesis that he can think of such peaceful scenery when his heart is literally in someone else's hand – Sephiroth's hand. It also scares him that he's beginning to like the burn across his limbs and the dizzying throb in his head.
Constrict, release, constrict, release, con –
Tight. Genesis can't breathe. There's a hand at his neck, closing, closing, he can't breathe, and the hand around his heart is also closing, closing… The world drifts in and out of focus, and Sephiroth is also only half-there. His lips move; the words take a while to reach Genesis.
"Loveless; Prologue; Verse four," Sephiroth purrs.
The words sluggishly find their way into his already cottony head, but Genesis doesn't want to admit defeat. There is a twisted part of him, twisted more than any other part of his already dark psyche, that just wants this torture to continue forever – this delicious torture… Cinnamon. Does –
"my blood" – ragged breath – "really" – hiss – "cinnamon…"
Sephiroth smirks and pulls his hand from within Genesis' chest. There is a sort of ripping sound – there are already too many pain signals for Genesis to register more. Instead, his brain registers pleasure. A reluctant moan tears from his lips and Sephiroth takes the chance to press his heart against its owner's mouth, more veins and arteries ripping in the process.
"If you want to know so badly…"
Genesis is suddenly emboldened. Suddenly, pain isn't such a frightening concept anymore. And – compared to this – compared to the gradual degradation he would have to suffer because of his wing – death suddenly sounded like a good option. He takes a bite. It's hard to overcome his body's instinct against self-harm, but he manages it, biting through the tough muscle and is this heaven or hell?
It tastes like cinnamon.
Cinnamon is just another word for blood. Genesis knows that Sephiroth believes in this firmly. Genesis has his own firm beliefs, too. For example, as he lies in a pool of warmth the same colour as his hair, his heart pulsing slowly – dying – against his neck, he decides that…
She guides us to bliss, her gift everlasting…