Sephiroth awoke from his slumber with the grace of a cat. It took him a few moments to realise that he was, in fact, now completely awake. For a few moments he lay there, trying to figure out what it had been that he had been dreaming about, Yuffie lay at his side completely content in her subconscious. When nothing came to mind he rose to his feet and headed for the door; there were soft voices downstairs, it sounded like someone singing, he didn't recognise the voice and he knew that no burglar would sit around and sing, not when they should surely know the occupants of the house. Eventually Sephiroth decided that the wooden flooring of the house was distorting the voice vibrations and so, with equal grace as he had arisen, he headed out of the door and into the darkness of the hallway.
The house was quiet, with only the soft harmony of someone singing downstairs; now that he was closer Sephiroth could identify the voice as that of a man; but he still didn't recognise it. Dropping from the second floor, he hit the woodwork softly and ran, crouched, towards the door. Placing his ear against the woodwork Sephiroth could only hear a buzzing; the singing had stopped but there was still the odd vibration through the ancient oak door. There was nothing for it, he mused, and pushed the door open.
Stepping through Sephiroth found the room dark, there were no lights, nobody was sat at the piano but across the table sat....well at first he wasn't entirely sure what it was he was looking at; a glamour perhaps? Some form of magical entity? No, he felt sure of what he was looking at; it was himself.
Sephiroth the second was sat at the table, he was younger, dressed in a black coat with strange armour adorning his shoulders. There was no weapon in sight but Sephiroth knew his own power; a sword was just handy. "Ghost of Christmas past?" he queried with a chuckle. The other Sephiroth smiled too, and gestured for himself to sit down.
"Ghost of conscious past maybe" he replied; his voice was like the morning air of winter; as smooth as a fresh glass with the bite that was physical. This was not Sephiroth-current's voice, it was a memory to him and for the first time he was feeling what others had felt when they had faced him. Sephiroth sat across from his past, placing his hands on the table. Despite being half-naked he found the room rather warm, he was sure that this was something to do with the fact that he must still be asleep, wrapped up in bed, snuggled next to Yuffie who had a fiery temperament that even kept the bed warm.
"You were singing?" Sephiroth current smiled "I never imagined you would sing, or should I say I?"
"You were not singing, not now and not then, that was the planet I channelled to you; the planet you live in these days is a far cry from mine. It is a harmonious place where you can coexist with your lessers; very pretty" a cold smile twitched his soft lips "Imagine me in a world like that, all our power, all your new found focus and all my mind; isn't it beautiful?"
"It's creepy" Sephiroth replied "And it would never happen. You are the world's nightmare, I am the planets hope; I am one of the few who can really hear it and so I know where exactly the problems lie and I'm making it my job to sort it out. A healthy planet is a healthy population, Mr. Past"
"Your sunny attitude breaks the very ice of my soul. Please rescue me from damnation oh-holy brother" Sephiroth past mocked, slumping in his chair and raising his hand to his forehead. He sat up with speed that even Sephiroth-current almost missed.
"I regret to inform you that in light of your current situation, I much prefer your sunny attitude to only be used when setting objects alight; do you understand? Mr. Present, as it were" he smiled "Maybe you don't want to, in fact I'm very sure you don't want to. Nothing to break your new-found lovely life; well I regret to inform you that you have to kill everyone you know because I want you to. And I get what I want because I am you, you are me, and I am the stronger" he grabbed Sephiroth and dragged him half way over the table to meet him standing. They were so close Sephiroth-current could actually smell the scent of the manor when he had first come there; damp and phosphors used in the lamps in the cellar; all reminiscent of his past.
"You see Mr. Present; I am the stronger psyche, I was far too strong before they upstairs beat us. Then you got your powers back; woo-hoo! But regretfully you're not as strong as me because you're good. Good never prevails over evil" Sephiroth-past smiled but so did Sephiroth-Present
"Wow...I really had an ego" he laughed, "You really think you can swan into my consciousness and take control? Remember I have your memories, I know it all and I choose to say no. I say no to you then and I say to you now" he waved mockingly "Bye-bye Bad Mr. Sephiroth. You are just a memory and I'm going back to bed"
Sephiroth-Past grabbed Sephiroth current by his hair and smoothly, yet completely viciously, ran his face into the tabletop. He released his later self, allowing him to slide off the table onto the floor in a heap. "Hello reality!" Sephiroth Past said waving his hands in the air. He sighed as he reached under the table with one hand. It didn't take much effort, Sephiroth current noticed, for his past-self to flip the table end-over-end into the wall with a deafening crash that would have woken the others; something told him that wasn't going to happen.
He got to his feet and faced himself who stepped over the bits of broken table with devilish-grace. Rounding on himself, Sephiroth raised his hands for combat; he had been good in the past but now he had Tifa's training on-top of what he'd known. "Ohh, physical combat; in a dream do you think you can hurt yourself?" Sephiroth past crossed his arms and frowned
"You can hurt me, I can hurt you!" Sephiroth said as he stepped forwards and punched himself.
The thing about a time paradox is that no-one really knows what's going to happen. Sephiroth-current surely didn't, but got a not-so-pleasant surprise when he learnt that punching yourself....really is punching yourself.
As the double vision started, in one mind Sephiroth saw himself punching the other version of himself, while in his mind he also saw himself being punched by himself. When both minds collided; Sephiroth hit the floor.
Groaning, the half-naked Sephiroth could only see white flashing lights that danced on the ceiling. A head appeared over him, white hair dropping down either side of his face. "Now that was a weird scene" his past self commented, he reached down and lifted Sephiroth into a sitting position. Dragging two chairs towards them, Sephiroth past placed his future self into one of them and sighed as he sat himself down.
"I think you now understand one of the rules of this; you can't hurt me. I am you so you are basically hurting yourself" he tapped his future self on the head "And I can hurt you. Because I am not you. I am just your mind" Sephiroth groaned; he was irritating, well had been irritating.
"Don't you ever stop talking?" he asked
"Yes, when I finish taking over your mind" Sephiroth-past smiled "You know, the bit when I wake up next to Yuffie, snap her neck, get out of bed and go beat the hell out of your family; that is when I stop talking"
"Not going to happen, eventually something in the house will wake me up then this will all finish; that's how nightmares go" Sephiroth-current pointed out
"Yes" the past agreed "But who will wake in that bed?"
"I covered that with me" Sephiroth current said getting to his feet, "In fact, I'm going back to bed, right now" he turned for the door and threw it open only to find himself re-entering the room by the other doorway.
"Now that could be a problem" Sephiroth past said, running his fingers through his hair. Sephiroth entered the room to find everything covered in a fine layer of ash. Through the domed roof red light speared through the darkness; he was back at the point of meteor descending upon the earth.
"Memories" Sephiroth-past sung mockingly "How far back are you willing to go? Back to the crash? Oh, wait, we've already passed that! You're floating somewhere in that cave, about to be fired towards the surface at an inhuman speed; but then again that's our life; inhumanity"
"Why are you taking me back?" Sephiroth-current rounded on himself, roaring angrily
"Back we go! Or should I say back you go" replied himself "I can take you back as far as the very-old days, back at the academy…now imagine that. You back then with all the memories you have now. All the good ones removed of course; I think I'll leave you with mine"
Sephiroth shook his head; if he resurfaced twenty years earlier with all the power and knowledge he had gained over those years he would be an unstoppable force; sweeping across the planet like a plague of death and forbidden magic. No-one could stand up to him as he was everything, he had the planet's details stored in his head; he could stop Cloud Strife from ever being release. He could kill Avalanche when they first began their planning stage; no-body could stop him as he had the blue-prints of the future.
"Now that train of thought I like" Sephiroth past smiled "'a plague of death and forbidden magic' poetry so true"
Above them the life-stream blossomed, white light swept through the manor as the blue/white magic tore through the sky only feet above the roof. Sephiroth-current looked up; out there his friends and family were close to dying, in fact he himself was dying somewhere but the white magic was so pure, clean and cleansing.
"Oh do I hate the lifestream" Sephiroth-past cradled his head in his hands "It sounds so nice, its song it all good-fortune and life to all"
"Yes, it really is" Sephiroth-current smiled
"Don't you start getting any ideas; I have plans for you" he wagged a cold, warning finger at his future self
"The life stream has plans for me" Sephiroth-current smiled; and vanished.
"Treacherous bloody…" Sephiroth past was about to shout when he too vanished from existence.
The Lifestream