I Saw Him Always
DISCLAIMER: I do not own Final Fantasy: Advent Children, it's characters or it's plot, nor do i want to. They belong to Square Enix and Square Soft. I make no profit from this, it is for free entertainment value only.
This is for silverwolf000 about silver's fave character Kadaj.
I saw him.
Out of the corner of my eye, at the edge of my vision.
I saw him.
He was there, as usual, watching me from the shadows. I turn to look and he's gone. He's never in the open. Never presents himself. Never reveals his face. But I feel him watching.
Always.
My brothers, they think I'm paranoid. They think I'm a little mad. They've never actually said this to me of course. But I can tell. I see it in their eyes everytime they look at me. Sometimes, I think they forget, but then I spin around and they look at each other when they think I'm not looking. I just know.
Is that normal?
I know when they lie, how fast their hearts beat, the rate of their breathing. Their pulses are rhythmic and slow. The eldest I've noticed behaves like a child. Always crying and complaining about one thing or another.
Always.
I laugh at the paradox that the oldest is the most childlike and the youngest is not. But I guess he doesn't have a shadow haunting him. Uncatchable and alwasy present. Always listening, always watching.
Always.
Always I see him.
My eyes never stay still for long. Restlessly they flit about absorbing everything. I don't miss a beat.
Peoeple notice this. It's hard to blend in when you're still a teenager with silver hair - not a speck of colour in sight. They ask were I went to school, if I know their darling sons and daughters and what I do for a living. They look expectantly at me with their prying eyes. So I lie to them. Because I can't remember. Only my brothers whom I live with. They are everything. The only thing I have. The only thing I remember.
The only thing I need.
Were we just abandoned?
Were we just left and forgotten like a broken toy by a child? Tossed on the street like garbage? Discarded and useless because they gave up trying? Were we not loved? Was I not loved?
I search my memories. There's nothing. I look harder and all I find are a few scattered remnants of a life I don't remember living. Any solid findings are from when I woke up to the blinding light to now. Why did no one want us? Were we not worth it? How can someone justify this?
Gasping I see that man gain. He disappears as usual. A flick of a leather coat, a flash of silver hair.
Wait...silver?
Could he be?
I call out. My voice echoes and people stare. I pay them no heed and push my way past them, barging through throngs of happy couples ridiculously in love. I glare at them as I run after him. For ages it's just me and the other sound of my feet beating against the pavement.
"Kadaj?" I hear a voice.
It's my brother - both of them. My feet had led me home. "Yazoo," I say. He doesn't reply but gives me one of those calculating looks. I don't feel like being profiled right now. Anger simmers slightly below the surface.
I hate being stared at, he knows this! Why does he dare? I flash him a contemptous look and he adverts his eyes like a good little brother. Loz thumps up the stairs, shaking the room. Dust floats down from the ceiling and the banister creaks. I shake my head. No way on this planet am I going to tell him again.
Do you want the neighbours to think we have an ELEPHANT in here? I yell inside. Breathing deep i feel slightly better. I close my eyes and sigh.
That's when I see him.
The man that's always tehre. Endlessly. Power exudes from him. And I know.
Sephiroth.
He...he tells me things I didn't even know about myself. He tells me truths about this stupid plant and their stupid rules.
He tells me they will want us dead.
Maybe not now. Might not be for a couple of weeks,a few months, perhahps even years. But they will. They always will.
Sephiroth used to be a General. Happy, high profile, high paying salary, successful and working for Shinra. The company that practically ruled the planet. The same company that is now dead in the dust. They betrayed him and I asked how but he just smiled and faded away.
"Kadaj? You alright? Not thinking of Mother are you?" he asks with a slighlt mockery to his voice.
"NO," I say indignantly.
I tell my brothers. I can still remember their laughing and saying I have a wonderful imagination. The best he's ever heard of. How would he know? He has no friends! He never talks, never speaks, just nods and follows orders.
Then something phenomonal happened. It felt like a warm glow and pins and needles. Later Yazoo will claim images not his own flashed in his mind. Images of a man with silver hair flowing like a molten lake.
I told you so.
Our minds merge as we become unified. Drawing us together Sephiroth whipsers in my ear.
I hear him always.
I grin. People cower in fear. They press themsevles against walls and cross the street when they see us. I love this power. If feels so...good. I've never felt good before. Not happy, not like this. I used to feel emptiness. I was beginning to think that was what I was. an empty shell with no purpose. I know the truth now. I feel the sun on my face as I glare at the world.
I laugh in the face of danger.
He was right. The braver sould brush their weapons as they stare. I raise my eyebrows and they hurry by just like the rest. The cowards. How dare they condemn us just by our appearances! How dare they!
A dull ache forms in my head until that's all i can concentrate on. My eyes pulse. Yazoo places a hand on my back as I hold my temples. I shake my head and stumble to the glistening bathroom. A nausious knot tugs in my stomach as the pain grows. It feels like a nail or chisel trying to crack open my skull. Slowly.
I glare at the mirror. I saw him always. I see him now. He walks into my line of vision in the mirror. I spin around gasping because he's not there.
"How...?" I question but I must bite my lip to keep from screaming. My lip splits leaking red water. It' s the only colour in my complexion. My head bursts.
I can't concentrate.
This pain is like nothing I've ever experienced. I've never been sick before. Is this being what sick is? If it is then I certainly don't like it. Being sick is for the weak not people like me. Not for my beloved brothers and certainly not for Sephiroth. I only want to make him proud.
My vision swims as the picture blurs at the edges. I feel a dull pain in my hands and I realise I had been leaning of the sink. Spinning around I look in the mirror once more. That's when I see.
That's when I know.
At first I just see only myself, as one would expect. But looking more closely I noticed something odd.
Sephiroth flashes across mine: his face fits perfectly over my features. Panic rises in my chest. Trembling slighly I stare even harder.
Now I see the truth. Sephiroth's face hangs like a shadow over mine flickering slightly. that's why he's always been there. The reson why he's always been there. The ereason I've seen him everywhere I go, haunting my steps. I feel his presence contantly at the back of my mind like a mothe belittling one child in favour for the other. the possibility of being more united with Yazoo and Loz, the contorl I now seemt to possess over them. It all makes sense now.
Suddenly I laugh. It's high pitched and manic. It's the kind you usually hear from a psycopath. I swallow my next breath because He shows me who I sound like. His image burns behind my eyelids even now like a punishment. Then I realise it is.
A punishment for his imprisonment, for looking for him, for not finding him fast enough and for succeeding. I understand but then I don't. Messed up with no one to talk to. Desperate but shy.
He is my subconsious.
He is me.
More acurately, I am him.
Tears well up behind my eyes as I begin to cry. We were never abadoned but we were never cared for. I had no mother, no father, no sisters and no brothers. Yazoo and Loz were alot closer than that. I was never loved, not even by them. For how can they love me? How can they care when they are me? I know I'm not capable. I know I never could. I was kidding myself before pretending to be fond of them. Pretending I went to school, laughed with friends and talked to their daughters and sons. I hope your happy now. My whole world is a lie. No one told me. No one cared. I looked for you so long and hard but now I wish I hadn't. These images, I don't want them, they are not mine.
THEY'RE YOURS!
TAKE THEM BACK!
LEAVE ME BE. LET MY LIVE MY LIFE IN PEACE.
I try to ignore him but I hear him whisper.
'But it was never yours'
More images stab at my mind. Horrible memories or terror and plight. And I like it. Millions of little Gaians running scared, yelling and fightened. Their pain is my pleasure. I know the plan, what must be done. I know why I saw him always.
The Reunion is coming.