Disclaimer: I don't own the FFVIII, FFVII or KH franchises. Dur hur hur.
Chapter 1
Forget
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His feet scraped the ground.
Hope, once so foreign to his heart and so recently restored to him, was once again becoming a fleeting, hopelessly effervescent sensation.
He'd been searching for so long. His search always ended in fruitless despondence.
Once upon a time, he had shared his life and his hopes with the one for whom he now searched, a life he would have sacrificed for nothing. A life he was willing to put on hold only for the one he looked for, a life he held at bay only to allow the other to finish his life's work.
But once that other had finished his tasking, once Radiant Garden had been restored, he had vanished.
Cloud had waited that night for Leon to return. The next night had been a repeat of the first. The night following had seen the crest of anger that buried fear.
After a week had passed without a single sighting of Leon in the realm of Radiant Garden, Cloud had felt emptiness begin to fill him. All encompassing, that emptiness ate away at any tears or worries he might have had.
Instead of letting himself dwell in sadness, Cloud instead turned his focus on searching.
Every day, he wandered the same paths. Looked in the same places. Visited the same locals he and Leon always frequented, waiting for some ghostly flicker of the man he was looking for to flash into existence.
While he was never rewarded with what he sought, he took comfort in the fact that he was doing something rather than sitting idle.
Soon he was joined in his hunt – his friends had begun to feel as if something was missing from their lives; a presence that had always been there, that had always bolstered and supported them, had faded away without their notice or knowledge. Together they searched, day in and day out.
The results were always the same. The one they searched for never surfaced.
Memorials were made, offerings presented to the spirits of the afterlife. Cloud found the entire practice distasteful – somewhere deep within his heart, he knew the one he sought wasn't eternally passed, but simply missing. And while the others found their resolve to search fading, he redoubled his own efforts.
One day, the Keyblade's wielder arrived. He immediately joined the search – while his remembrances of Leon were scant at best, time's march and whatever strange phenomena had gripped them all to strip the memory of their dear friend away, his heart resonated with Cloud's own with its steadfast resolve to locate their missing companion.
As weeks dissolved into months, memories of the one who'd so claimed his life fading into obscurity, Cloud redoubled his efforts. And in his desperation, he finally found one he was looking for.
The silver-haired SOLDIER had smiled at Cloud gently, his perch upon the edge of the Crystal Fissure's impressive cliff apparently too great a comfort for him to bother and rise to face his adversary.
"Have you found what you seek, Cloud?" he'd softly questioned, his voice smooth and calm upon the gentle winds that blew past them both.
When Cloud offered him nothing but silence, instead presenting his sword and taking a step forward, the man who was his eternal adversary finally saw fit to rise and face him.
Even as every companion Cloud held in the present reality charged to his side, determination flooding them all, Sephiroth chuckled softly. "There is no need for this, Cloud. This battle is unnecessary. The sacrifice for peace has been accepted."
"Sacrifice for peace?" Cloud quietly questioned before rage filled him. "There is no sacrifice! There is nothing that you can claim, Sephiroth. This battle is between you and me, and no other!"
A silken, velvet laugh shook the tall man before Cloud, even as emerald eyes narrowed coolly. "You would shirk the sacrifice of others then? You would reinstitute the battle the one I've claimed gave existence to see terminated? Are you so desperate to become one with your darkness, Cloud?"
Narrowing his eyes, Cloud felt his heart harden as realization came to him.
This is what he was seeking.
The opportunity to fight for his continued existence in the realm of Light. To deny the one who held his hatred his opportunity for victory.
"Sephiroth…" he whispered harshly, "you're going down."
The man with his green cats' eyes chuckled and conjured his long, thin blade. "Know it is only your resolve that results in this battle. I will uphold my end of the bargain."
"Bargain?" Cloud questioned, eyes narrowed as he tightened his grip on his weapon.
"Yes, bargain. A promise that has given me eternity. Let us honor the sacrifice you and your comrades have forgotten. Let us battle and shirk the peace the insignificant sacrifice so longed for.
"Let us dance."
-to be continued-
