CH 1
Sephiroth looked out the window at the sharp mountains around him. He took a deep breath and exhaled sharply before returning his attention to polishing his Masamune blade.
"Not long now Master Sephiroth, Sir. Nibelheim is just through the next pass." the driver reassured him.
Sephiroth sheathed his sword.
"Good."
Shinra's JENOVA project was suffering some unexpected set backs in the Nibelheim sector. Hojo, not wanting to take any chances, had asked Shinra to send in the most elite force in the arsenal to check things out.
Needless to say, Sephiroth was no overly pleased with the mission.
Sephiroth moved his gaze from the window to the front windshield. Nibelheim was in sight at last.
The early afternoon sun beat down on the streets mercilessly as the army truck rolled to a stop. Neither the driver nor Sephiroth moved. Eventually becoming very uncomfortable with the silence the driver gathered his courage and piped up again.
"Umm, Master Sephiroth, Sir, shall I see if the inn has a room open?"
The general merely shook his head in a slight but firm 'No'.
The driver looked out the window helplessly, unsure of what to say or do next.
Sephiroth meanwhile was lost in thought. Images of cruel and heartless experiments flashed through his mind. In reality he was staring at the Shinra mansion, which stood at the very farthest end of town. Rising above the regular houses and shops of Nibelheim its shadow was a dark and smothering reminder of how corrupt the government had become. These days it stood derelict, completely abandoned and forsaken. Or so the people of Nibelheim were told.
The residents had no idea just what kind of inhumane experiments took place in the bowls of the accursed building. They suspected it haunted, for many nights the screams of the tormented could be heard ebbing from the mansions depths.
Sephiroth gave himself a mental slap. He was beyond all that now. Those days were past, something to be left alone and forgotten. Hojo would never touch him again. Not now, for he was far to powerful for Hojo to handle anymore. That thought gave him some satisfaction at least, and it showed as a self conscious smirk spread across his face replacing the usual mask of apathy.
Remaining resigned as always, Sephiroth opened the door and stepped from the truck.
"I won't be long."
With that said he closed the door, leaving the driver to fend for himself, and headed toward Mt. Nibel.
He barely noticed his surroundings as he made his way up the mountain pass. He'd seen it before anyway, and knew he was likely to see it again. Sephiroth had one thing on his mind: 'Get in, fix whatever problem I am here to fix, and get the hell out of this miserable town.'
Before long Sephiroth found himself standing before the reactor. He shook his head.
'Damn you Hojo... why can't you just leave things alone?'
It was hot inside the reactor, and humid. Sephiroth contemplated removing his heavy leather trench coat, but decided against it, reminding himself he wouldn't be staying that long.
Sephiroth headed into the reactor, passing through clouds of steam given off by the machinery working hard to pump every bit of Mako from the planet possible. He again found himself disgusted with Hojo and Shinra, but shook the thought off. He had more important matters to worry about presently.
Sephiroth blinked his mako green eyes, waiting for them to adjust to the dim light. The mako presence causing them to glow.
There, in the heart of the reactor, stood eighteen pods, lined up in three rows of six with a set of stairs traveling up the middle. Atop the stairs stood a great metal door. It was sealed shut, both by the scientist who had last closed it and years of disuse.
As if drawn by some unexplainable force, Sephiroth began to walk up the stairs toward the door. It seemed to him the closer he came to the door, the darker his surrounds appeared. Only when Sephiroth stood face to face with the door could he make out the lettering above it.
JENOVA.
Suddenly he was no longer aware of the uncomfortable heat and steam. There was a terrible cold and hellish energy radiating from the door. What could create such an energy? He placed his hands against the door, almost immediately after drawing them away.
The metal was cold, freezing beyond a normal degree. It sent numbing waves through his arms, a burning sensation that began in his fingertips and was slowly spreading like a parasitic disease.
He had to know what was beyond that door! Sephiroth grit his teeth and prepared to try to force the door open when something caught his attention.
Over to his far right he saw the glimmer of light. Seeming to come from everywhere and nowhere at once it shone on in complete and absolute defiance of the darkness. He stepped away from the door, now desiring to seek this light, or at least find out where it was coming from.
It didn't take him long to find a second door. Though hidden by masses of wires and pieces of scrap metal he felt drawn to it much like he had been to the first door. It seemed to send out waves of tranquility and, despite his familiarity with corruption and violence Sephiroth did not find the feeling unpleasant.
The very last thing he noticed before opening the door and passing through were the markings above it. It was old and faded, peeling away at a rapid rate, but still legible. Written in a holy form of Wutain kanji were the words "Pure Dream".
Sephiroth made his way down a long and narrow hall lit with dieing mako lights that flickered halfheartedly, causing what little illumination there was to come and go. He was met with a dead end. Sephiroth furrowed his brow. This couldn't be right. Something was tugging at his insides and told him to go further. But there was no further to go.
He placed his hands against the rock wall, searching for perhaps a lever or a switch of some kind. Instead he felt very subtle vibrations in the wall. As if there was machinery running on the other side. He pressed his ear to the wall. There was certainly something on the other side of the wall... but how to get at it? Whatever was beyond the wall, Hojo certainly did not want it to be seen.
Sephiroth did not allow himself to get frustrated or impatient. Even after several minutes of searching. Perhaps the words above the first door had something to do with it. Pure Dream. What did that mean anyway? He shook his head and continued to feel his way around the wall, still searching.
Close to the left side of the door he felt something unusual. He brushed away the dusk and looked at the carved markings. More holy Wutain kanji. Luckily he had learned Wutain during his time as general in the Wutain war. However he had rarely encountered this form, (no one spoke it anymore except the wutain priests and clerics, and they were a rapidly diminishing breed) but he managed to make out the words.
They spoke of a fallen god, and his seal on the door. Sephiroth snorted. He didn't believe in gods or blessings or curses. But as he read them aloud to himself the wall shifted and the rock in front of him vanished revealing another door. This one however was not sealed as the Jenova door had been.
He found the handle and a keypad. It didn't take him long to crack the code. The only oddity of the correct password was that the series of numbers were his. The door 'blib'ed at him and then slid aside revealing another short hallway.
Sephiroth stepped through the door which shut behind him and walked down the hallway, emerging into a great cavern at the end. There were only three lights. Each resting upon the dirt floor against the rock walls, angeling upward shining into an egg shaped pod of glass sitting in the middle of the chamber. The pod was roughly twelve feet tall and five and a half feet in diameter in the middle. It was pure glass except for two thick metal bands that circled it around its middle both horizontally and vertically.
It was filled with a translucent pearly blue liquid that swirled and shimmered in the light, catching it, twisting it, and casting it out to dance upon the cavern walls.
Sephiroth had never seen a set up like this and it was rather unsettling, but more surprising than the oddity of the room was the reason for the room. Curled up inside the pod, suspended in Mako, was a being unlike anything Sephiroth had ever seen before.
She looked young, 16 maybe 17. Her hair was not the platinum silver of Sephiroth's, but a soft white, and very long. Her skin was a pale creamy color. She had a soft face upon which three blue markings were visible. A long uneven diamond shape in the middle of her forehead, almost as if it were a jewel hanging from a tiara. And two diamonds with a single line on the far side of each, one on either side of her eyes, but below the temple. Her eyes were closed. Yet more astonishing than her odd appearance was her wings. Beautiful white feathered wings mounted between her shoulder blades. They had been folded neatly to her back, though the tips of the feathers on the ends of her wings extended further down than her curled figure.
Sephiroth walked toward the pod, stopping only when he was close enough to touch it. He was entranced and without realizing it, he reached out and pressed his palm to the glass.
There was a jolt and energy raced though his arm and spread, a force unlike anything he had ever encountered. Though it was not painful he drew his hand back in reflex. It could not have come from the machinery, for there was none to be found, and so he concluded it must have been the girl inside. Glancing down at his hand he rubbed his fingers against his palm and found it wet. The pure mako tingled against his skin, reacting against the Jenova cells inside his body. The pod was full of cracks and leaking.
Problem located. Though Sephiroth was sure that Hojo would have never sent him had he know the problem was with this experiment.
The girl inside twitched and another crack formed in the smooth surface of the glass. Whoever she was, she wanted out. Pity was not something often felt by Sephiroth, but at that moment he felt something very akin to it.
He would fix the problem alright, but his solution was certainly not protocol. Hojo would be very displeased. Sephiroth smirked, let him be displeased, there was nothing Hojo could do to stop him.
Sephiroth removed his trench coat, carefully setting it aside with his Masamune. He turned back toward the pod. This would take some time.
There was a slight tingling in his back along the edge of his right shoulder blade and then pain. There was an odd sensation of bone forming and then filling out with muscle, flesh, then feather. Completely unphased by this unusual event Sephiroth merely stretched and folded the wing a few times. However the first time he had experienced it, circumstances had been much different.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ flashback ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
A young Sephiroth stood in front of a large alter. He was deep underground yet there was light everywhere. Pure Mako gathered in pools throughout the room, pulsating with light and energy. He was in a huge shrine of sorts. The walls the ceiling, even the floor was covered with murals, each different but linked by some common thread. The Masamune. How else they were linked, he could not decipher. But he knew it was something. The meaning was there... in the back of his mind, just beyond reach.
He strode forward, his boots thumping against the stone floor. The sound echoed off the walls and revibrated throughout the room. Passing statues and pillars, most broken and toppled, he made his way across the expanse of the cavern, and up a flight of stairs that spanned the entire length of the room.
The alter was made of pure white marble, and carved with delicate images. All depicting life, preserved and thriving. Sephiroth walked around the alter, his hands exploring the images carved upon the smooth stone. He let his fingertips trace and retrace the designs a hundred times as his eyes fell upon image after image.
This alter... these pictures... this place, ancient. It was all ancient beyond words. He could feel it in the air and on the stone, he could smell it in the air, and hear it in the silence. Though it no longer held any of the splendor it would have had were he witnessing it in its former glory the place still had the ability to instill awe upon a visitor, and Sephiroth was no exception.
An object covered by a white ceremonial cloth lay upon the alter. Almost hesitantly Sephiroth touched the cloth. He found it smooth, unaffected by time, preserved. With growing curiosity, he gripped the cloth, lifted it straight up and whipped it back once it ceased to touch the alter.
Dropping the cloth he stared at what had lay hidden. Sword and sheath. But unlike any he had ever seen before. The sword was done Katana style, but was over eight feet long from pomell to tip. The hilt was simply black, wrapped in an X pattern with black cloth, but the blade... It was a shinning polished silver that shone out with a resilience Sephiroth had never seen in any metal before. It reflected the light of the Mako in a myriad of colors and he could only wonder what it would do in the sunlight.
He had to touch it, take it, make the sword his own. He reached out and grasp the hilt firmly.
There was a warmth. It began to spread thought his being. As it began to reach his core there was a cold jolt and he felt something shatter inside him, the force caused him to sink to his knees, but still he held the Masamune.
Jenova was fighting back.
Suddenly there was a shock, and a stinging sensation. Through sheer force of will he ignored the pain and clamped his fingers shut around the hilt, refusing to let go. He shut his eyes tight, only to be shown an entirely different surrounding. He didn't understand the pictures that flashed through his mind, though they would stay with him the rest of his life.
Images of too opposing forces, green and red, raging and battling. There was no form to them, only color. And as the touched each other they transformed, red became green, green became red, a never ending cycle of death and rebirth.
There was a moment where he felt he might be torn apart, from the inside out, and then the warm and the cold simply neutralized each other. The colors faded to gray and all was quite within him. Sephiroth opened his eyes. He caught the sight of blood dripping out from between the fingers that clenched the hilt of the Masamune blade.
He stood, pulling the Masamune from the alter. He felt something hot and sticky run down his back. Blood. There was a burning along his right shoulder blade and he felt the skin break as bone pushed its way through. He clenched his teeth and fists in attempts to stop himself from making any sound in response to the pain.
He could see out of the corner of his eye the bones growing and stretching. Once they were formed tendon and muscle encased them, followed by flesh and black feather.
Sephiroth did not feel panic. He never had, and probably never would. He was too detached from humans and their host of emotions to feel such petty things. So he did not feel panicked, rather... perplexed.
Turning his head back and looking over his shoulder he flapped his wing a few times, wondering how he could get rid of it. He closed his eyes and focused his metal energy. Perhaps he could simply will the wing away. For several minutes he stood there, shrouded in silence, concentrating. The whole wing began to tingle and then it disintegrate, leaving a few stray feathers to hang in the air before floating to the ground.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
Sephiroth shook himself. He stretched and rustled the black feathers of his single wing. Something few people had seen, and those who had did not live to tell about it. He decided to leave it for now. He'd send it back to the ethereal before going back to Nibelheim.
It only appeared these days during certain rare and seemingly random instances. He decided that its appearance here must be a result of his touching the pod.
He looked around the room and found a small panel built into the rock wall. It turned on at his approach. Since when did Shinra put such high technology into Hojo's projects? Sephiroth would have plenty of time to think about that later.
After several hours Sephiroth stretched again and turned to face the pod. This was it. It had taken him longer than he expected to hack into the system and then decode the information enough to be able to accomplish what he wanted. Firewalls and encrypted data had made for slow progress. These things usually didn't give him trouble, but he had never seen protection to such a degree.
By now there was no doubt in his mind that this was something top secret, something that even Shinra did not know about. Something he was certainly not supposed to be uncovering or snooping with.
A loud crack in the glass sounded and Sephiroth moved around to the front of the pod to get a better view. The metal bands clicked and broke apart, falling away. There was another loud snap and a large crack trailed its way down the pod. The girl inside twitched again, but this time it seemed from pain more than simply longing to be free.
Suddenly the glass shattered and Sephiroth put an arm up to shield his face. After the glass settled he brought his arm down. The Mako still held the shape of the pod, continuing to swirl about.
The girl uncurled herself and spread her wings wide. As she did the Mako broke shape, scattering in all directions, sounding like a gentle rain as it collided with the walls and the floor. The girl hovered a few feet off the ground, her wings barely moving yet still keeping her aloft.
She shivered and opened her eyes slightly, then closed them and opened them again, blinking a few times as though she had not actually used them in quite some time. They were a vibrant blue and definitely Mako. The color was simply to brilliant to be natural, though he had a feeling it was not entirely mako's doing that gave them such intensity. And they were deep. Looking into her eyes Sephiroth could see the intense sorrow and lament buried within. Were he not the man he was, it would have shaken him.
"Who..." he paused. What did he care who she was? "What are you?" asked Sephiroth.
Her eyes fell upon him, and he met her gaze fiercely. She shivered again and averted her eyes. But when she spoke it was unlike any voice Sephiroth had ever heard. She did not speak but a gentle whisper, her words hanging in the air before they sank to grace Sephiroth with their sound.
It was hauntingly beautiful, and absolutely enchanting. Filled with purity, sorrow, and pain it had an unusual but marvelous tone to it, a voice that once may have been filled with the power to do and shape incredibly things... but no more. The angel had long ago lost her will to use or summon any of the powers that went along with the title.
She had said, simply this, "Watashi no namae wa KiyoYume desu soshite tenshi deshita." She spoke in the ancient holy Wutain, her soft silvery voice causing the words to sound like music. Sephiroth had understood her clearly.
'My name is KiyoYume... and I was an angel'
Sephiroth looked out the window at the sharp mountains around him. He took a deep breath and exhaled sharply before returning his attention to polishing his Masamune blade.
"Not long now Master Sephiroth, Sir. Nibelheim is just through the next pass." the driver reassured him.
Sephiroth sheathed his sword.
"Good."
Shinra's JENOVA project was suffering some unexpected set backs in the Nibelheim sector. Hojo, not wanting to take any chances, had asked Shinra to send in the most elite force in the arsenal to check things out.
Needless to say, Sephiroth was no overly pleased with the mission.
Sephiroth moved his gaze from the window to the front windshield. Nibelheim was in sight at last.
The early afternoon sun beat down on the streets mercilessly as the army truck rolled to a stop. Neither the driver nor Sephiroth moved. Eventually becoming very uncomfortable with the silence the driver gathered his courage and piped up again.
"Umm, Master Sephiroth, Sir, shall I see if the inn has a room open?"
The general merely shook his head in a slight but firm 'No'.
The driver looked out the window helplessly, unsure of what to say or do next.
Sephiroth meanwhile was lost in thought. Images of cruel and heartless experiments flashed through his mind. In reality he was staring at the Shinra mansion, which stood at the very farthest end of town. Rising above the regular houses and shops of Nibelheim its shadow was a dark and smothering reminder of how corrupt the government had become. These days it stood derelict, completely abandoned and forsaken. Or so the people of Nibelheim were told.
The residents had no idea just what kind of inhumane experiments took place in the bowls of the accursed building. They suspected it haunted, for many nights the screams of the tormented could be heard ebbing from the mansions depths.
Sephiroth gave himself a mental slap. He was beyond all that now. Those days were past, something to be left alone and forgotten. Hojo would never touch him again. Not now, for he was far to powerful for Hojo to handle anymore. That thought gave him some satisfaction at least, and it showed as a self conscious smirk spread across his face replacing the usual mask of apathy.
Remaining resigned as always, Sephiroth opened the door and stepped from the truck.
"I won't be long."
With that said he closed the door, leaving the driver to fend for himself, and headed toward Mt. Nibel.
He barely noticed his surroundings as he made his way up the mountain pass. He'd seen it before anyway, and knew he was likely to see it again. Sephiroth had one thing on his mind: 'Get in, fix whatever problem I am here to fix, and get the hell out of this miserable town.'
Before long Sephiroth found himself standing before the reactor. He shook his head.
'Damn you Hojo... why can't you just leave things alone?'
It was hot inside the reactor, and humid. Sephiroth contemplated removing his heavy leather trench coat, but decided against it, reminding himself he wouldn't be staying that long.
Sephiroth headed into the reactor, passing through clouds of steam given off by the machinery working hard to pump every bit of Mako from the planet possible. He again found himself disgusted with Hojo and Shinra, but shook the thought off. He had more important matters to worry about presently.
Sephiroth blinked his mako green eyes, waiting for them to adjust to the dim light. The mako presence causing them to glow.
There, in the heart of the reactor, stood eighteen pods, lined up in three rows of six with a set of stairs traveling up the middle. Atop the stairs stood a great metal door. It was sealed shut, both by the scientist who had last closed it and years of disuse.
As if drawn by some unexplainable force, Sephiroth began to walk up the stairs toward the door. It seemed to him the closer he came to the door, the darker his surrounds appeared. Only when Sephiroth stood face to face with the door could he make out the lettering above it.
JENOVA.
Suddenly he was no longer aware of the uncomfortable heat and steam. There was a terrible cold and hellish energy radiating from the door. What could create such an energy? He placed his hands against the door, almost immediately after drawing them away.
The metal was cold, freezing beyond a normal degree. It sent numbing waves through his arms, a burning sensation that began in his fingertips and was slowly spreading like a parasitic disease.
He had to know what was beyond that door! Sephiroth grit his teeth and prepared to try to force the door open when something caught his attention.
Over to his far right he saw the glimmer of light. Seeming to come from everywhere and nowhere at once it shone on in complete and absolute defiance of the darkness. He stepped away from the door, now desiring to seek this light, or at least find out where it was coming from.
It didn't take him long to find a second door. Though hidden by masses of wires and pieces of scrap metal he felt drawn to it much like he had been to the first door. It seemed to send out waves of tranquility and, despite his familiarity with corruption and violence Sephiroth did not find the feeling unpleasant.
The very last thing he noticed before opening the door and passing through were the markings above it. It was old and faded, peeling away at a rapid rate, but still legible. Written in a holy form of Wutain kanji were the words "Pure Dream".
Sephiroth made his way down a long and narrow hall lit with dieing mako lights that flickered halfheartedly, causing what little illumination there was to come and go. He was met with a dead end. Sephiroth furrowed his brow. This couldn't be right. Something was tugging at his insides and told him to go further. But there was no further to go.
He placed his hands against the rock wall, searching for perhaps a lever or a switch of some kind. Instead he felt very subtle vibrations in the wall. As if there was machinery running on the other side. He pressed his ear to the wall. There was certainly something on the other side of the wall... but how to get at it? Whatever was beyond the wall, Hojo certainly did not want it to be seen.
Sephiroth did not allow himself to get frustrated or impatient. Even after several minutes of searching. Perhaps the words above the first door had something to do with it. Pure Dream. What did that mean anyway? He shook his head and continued to feel his way around the wall, still searching.
Close to the left side of the door he felt something unusual. He brushed away the dusk and looked at the carved markings. More holy Wutain kanji. Luckily he had learned Wutain during his time as general in the Wutain war. However he had rarely encountered this form, (no one spoke it anymore except the wutain priests and clerics, and they were a rapidly diminishing breed) but he managed to make out the words.
They spoke of a fallen god, and his seal on the door. Sephiroth snorted. He didn't believe in gods or blessings or curses. But as he read them aloud to himself the wall shifted and the rock in front of him vanished revealing another door. This one however was not sealed as the Jenova door had been.
He found the handle and a keypad. It didn't take him long to crack the code. The only oddity of the correct password was that the series of numbers were his. The door 'blib'ed at him and then slid aside revealing another short hallway.
Sephiroth stepped through the door which shut behind him and walked down the hallway, emerging into a great cavern at the end. There were only three lights. Each resting upon the dirt floor against the rock walls, angeling upward shining into an egg shaped pod of glass sitting in the middle of the chamber. The pod was roughly twelve feet tall and five and a half feet in diameter in the middle. It was pure glass except for two thick metal bands that circled it around its middle both horizontally and vertically.
It was filled with a translucent pearly blue liquid that swirled and shimmered in the light, catching it, twisting it, and casting it out to dance upon the cavern walls.
Sephiroth had never seen a set up like this and it was rather unsettling, but more surprising than the oddity of the room was the reason for the room. Curled up inside the pod, suspended in Mako, was a being unlike anything Sephiroth had ever seen before.
She looked young, 16 maybe 17. Her hair was not the platinum silver of Sephiroth's, but a soft white, and very long. Her skin was a pale creamy color. She had a soft face upon which three blue markings were visible. A long uneven diamond shape in the middle of her forehead, almost as if it were a jewel hanging from a tiara. And two diamonds with a single line on the far side of each, one on either side of her eyes, but below the temple. Her eyes were closed. Yet more astonishing than her odd appearance was her wings. Beautiful white feathered wings mounted between her shoulder blades. They had been folded neatly to her back, though the tips of the feathers on the ends of her wings extended further down than her curled figure.
Sephiroth walked toward the pod, stopping only when he was close enough to touch it. He was entranced and without realizing it, he reached out and pressed his palm to the glass.
There was a jolt and energy raced though his arm and spread, a force unlike anything he had ever encountered. Though it was not painful he drew his hand back in reflex. It could not have come from the machinery, for there was none to be found, and so he concluded it must have been the girl inside. Glancing down at his hand he rubbed his fingers against his palm and found it wet. The pure mako tingled against his skin, reacting against the Jenova cells inside his body. The pod was full of cracks and leaking.
Problem located. Though Sephiroth was sure that Hojo would have never sent him had he know the problem was with this experiment.
The girl inside twitched and another crack formed in the smooth surface of the glass. Whoever she was, she wanted out. Pity was not something often felt by Sephiroth, but at that moment he felt something very akin to it.
He would fix the problem alright, but his solution was certainly not protocol. Hojo would be very displeased. Sephiroth smirked, let him be displeased, there was nothing Hojo could do to stop him.
Sephiroth removed his trench coat, carefully setting it aside with his Masamune. He turned back toward the pod. This would take some time.
There was a slight tingling in his back along the edge of his right shoulder blade and then pain. There was an odd sensation of bone forming and then filling out with muscle, flesh, then feather. Completely unphased by this unusual event Sephiroth merely stretched and folded the wing a few times. However the first time he had experienced it, circumstances had been much different.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ flashback ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
A young Sephiroth stood in front of a large alter. He was deep underground yet there was light everywhere. Pure Mako gathered in pools throughout the room, pulsating with light and energy. He was in a huge shrine of sorts. The walls the ceiling, even the floor was covered with murals, each different but linked by some common thread. The Masamune. How else they were linked, he could not decipher. But he knew it was something. The meaning was there... in the back of his mind, just beyond reach.
He strode forward, his boots thumping against the stone floor. The sound echoed off the walls and revibrated throughout the room. Passing statues and pillars, most broken and toppled, he made his way across the expanse of the cavern, and up a flight of stairs that spanned the entire length of the room.
The alter was made of pure white marble, and carved with delicate images. All depicting life, preserved and thriving. Sephiroth walked around the alter, his hands exploring the images carved upon the smooth stone. He let his fingertips trace and retrace the designs a hundred times as his eyes fell upon image after image.
This alter... these pictures... this place, ancient. It was all ancient beyond words. He could feel it in the air and on the stone, he could smell it in the air, and hear it in the silence. Though it no longer held any of the splendor it would have had were he witnessing it in its former glory the place still had the ability to instill awe upon a visitor, and Sephiroth was no exception.
An object covered by a white ceremonial cloth lay upon the alter. Almost hesitantly Sephiroth touched the cloth. He found it smooth, unaffected by time, preserved. With growing curiosity, he gripped the cloth, lifted it straight up and whipped it back once it ceased to touch the alter.
Dropping the cloth he stared at what had lay hidden. Sword and sheath. But unlike any he had ever seen before. The sword was done Katana style, but was over eight feet long from pomell to tip. The hilt was simply black, wrapped in an X pattern with black cloth, but the blade... It was a shinning polished silver that shone out with a resilience Sephiroth had never seen in any metal before. It reflected the light of the Mako in a myriad of colors and he could only wonder what it would do in the sunlight.
He had to touch it, take it, make the sword his own. He reached out and grasp the hilt firmly.
There was a warmth. It began to spread thought his being. As it began to reach his core there was a cold jolt and he felt something shatter inside him, the force caused him to sink to his knees, but still he held the Masamune.
Jenova was fighting back.
Suddenly there was a shock, and a stinging sensation. Through sheer force of will he ignored the pain and clamped his fingers shut around the hilt, refusing to let go. He shut his eyes tight, only to be shown an entirely different surrounding. He didn't understand the pictures that flashed through his mind, though they would stay with him the rest of his life.
Images of too opposing forces, green and red, raging and battling. There was no form to them, only color. And as the touched each other they transformed, red became green, green became red, a never ending cycle of death and rebirth.
There was a moment where he felt he might be torn apart, from the inside out, and then the warm and the cold simply neutralized each other. The colors faded to gray and all was quite within him. Sephiroth opened his eyes. He caught the sight of blood dripping out from between the fingers that clenched the hilt of the Masamune blade.
He stood, pulling the Masamune from the alter. He felt something hot and sticky run down his back. Blood. There was a burning along his right shoulder blade and he felt the skin break as bone pushed its way through. He clenched his teeth and fists in attempts to stop himself from making any sound in response to the pain.
He could see out of the corner of his eye the bones growing and stretching. Once they were formed tendon and muscle encased them, followed by flesh and black feather.
Sephiroth did not feel panic. He never had, and probably never would. He was too detached from humans and their host of emotions to feel such petty things. So he did not feel panicked, rather... perplexed.
Turning his head back and looking over his shoulder he flapped his wing a few times, wondering how he could get rid of it. He closed his eyes and focused his metal energy. Perhaps he could simply will the wing away. For several minutes he stood there, shrouded in silence, concentrating. The whole wing began to tingle and then it disintegrate, leaving a few stray feathers to hang in the air before floating to the ground.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
Sephiroth shook himself. He stretched and rustled the black feathers of his single wing. Something few people had seen, and those who had did not live to tell about it. He decided to leave it for now. He'd send it back to the ethereal before going back to Nibelheim.
It only appeared these days during certain rare and seemingly random instances. He decided that its appearance here must be a result of his touching the pod.
He looked around the room and found a small panel built into the rock wall. It turned on at his approach. Since when did Shinra put such high technology into Hojo's projects? Sephiroth would have plenty of time to think about that later.
After several hours Sephiroth stretched again and turned to face the pod. This was it. It had taken him longer than he expected to hack into the system and then decode the information enough to be able to accomplish what he wanted. Firewalls and encrypted data had made for slow progress. These things usually didn't give him trouble, but he had never seen protection to such a degree.
By now there was no doubt in his mind that this was something top secret, something that even Shinra did not know about. Something he was certainly not supposed to be uncovering or snooping with.
A loud crack in the glass sounded and Sephiroth moved around to the front of the pod to get a better view. The metal bands clicked and broke apart, falling away. There was another loud snap and a large crack trailed its way down the pod. The girl inside twitched again, but this time it seemed from pain more than simply longing to be free.
Suddenly the glass shattered and Sephiroth put an arm up to shield his face. After the glass settled he brought his arm down. The Mako still held the shape of the pod, continuing to swirl about.
The girl uncurled herself and spread her wings wide. As she did the Mako broke shape, scattering in all directions, sounding like a gentle rain as it collided with the walls and the floor. The girl hovered a few feet off the ground, her wings barely moving yet still keeping her aloft.
She shivered and opened her eyes slightly, then closed them and opened them again, blinking a few times as though she had not actually used them in quite some time. They were a vibrant blue and definitely Mako. The color was simply to brilliant to be natural, though he had a feeling it was not entirely mako's doing that gave them such intensity. And they were deep. Looking into her eyes Sephiroth could see the intense sorrow and lament buried within. Were he not the man he was, it would have shaken him.
"Who..." he paused. What did he care who she was? "What are you?" asked Sephiroth.
Her eyes fell upon him, and he met her gaze fiercely. She shivered again and averted her eyes. But when she spoke it was unlike any voice Sephiroth had ever heard. She did not speak but a gentle whisper, her words hanging in the air before they sank to grace Sephiroth with their sound.
It was hauntingly beautiful, and absolutely enchanting. Filled with purity, sorrow, and pain it had an unusual but marvelous tone to it, a voice that once may have been filled with the power to do and shape incredibly things... but no more. The angel had long ago lost her will to use or summon any of the powers that went along with the title.
She had said, simply this, "Watashi no namae wa KiyoYume desu soshite tenshi deshita." She spoke in the ancient holy Wutain, her soft silvery voice causing the words to sound like music. Sephiroth had understood her clearly.
'My name is KiyoYume... and I was an angel'