He needed to at least attempt to sleep, he told himself for the third time in as many minutes. The mantle clock said it was nearing six in the morning, not that time mattered here, in this dawnless place. Aerith had gone to bed hours ago. Sephiroth sprawled in her chair, his fingers drumming restlessly on the shredding damask. His mind tumbled with thoughts that were heavy and dark, like quarried clay. He glared balefully into the fire and for the thousandth time considered his fate, the one thing that he knew he could understand.
In essence there was nothing beyond his current life that he could look forward to; no promise of paradise should he repent or even a chance to win a place in hell if he refused.
He smirked. Imagine, wishing for hell. It was at least a place, a state of being. If death came now the Gate would be the only thing to meet him, opening before him like the pupil of a great eye, and then there would be nothing. Would it be painful, he wondered, as the Gate consumed him? Would he go slowly, or just wink out of existence like an errant star? Sephiroth closed his eyes and tried to imagine the awful silence of that complete nothing, tried to imagine what it would be like to feel his consciousness dissolving in the gnawing dark. However it would happen, it was inevitable. He held the thought before him like a held breath and let it sink in.
Gradually he became conscious of the warmth of the fire on his face, the slow throb of the pulse in his throat. He opened his eyes. All he had, truly, was the space of his next breath and the next and the next, until chance or accident ended it forever.
Sephiroth rose from the chair. He could brood in his room as well as anywhere, he thought, and besides, above all he wanted to be alone. Aerith had never dared cross the threshold of his room for any reason and she would not begin now.
Silent as a fox on the snow, he padded down the hall and stopped at the place where the hallway diverged. He held his breath for a moment, listening outside her room. He heard nothing. She was sleeping well. No dreams, no pain. That was good, at least. He turned left and brushed aside the heavy curtain, into his own room.
It was lightless and cold once he stepped inside, as he knew it would be. He lit a fire in the grate and paced back and forth before it, his arms crossed tightly over his chest until he could no longer see his breath. Then he sat on the edge of the bed and put his head in his hands. There was not much in the room to command his attention. Unlike Aerith's cozy and relatively well-furnished space, his was large and sparse, containing only a double mattress with a thin gray quilt and two featureless cabinets of polished ebony.
Sephiroth began to unlace his boots. Legions of twisted emotions were rising in him like a gathering storm, impossible to understand or resist. The familiar restlessness that only plucked at him now would grow, he knew, until it reached a crest that would keep him awake, moving ceaselessly, for days and days. Sephiroth pulled off his boots and threw them into the corner. He stared at the contrast of his large bony feet against the dark rug.
It had never been allowed before, for him to exist like this, constantly tainted with the inconvenience and turmoil of emotions. It enraged and sickened and frightened him by turns, which by the very experience of it enraged him even more.
It was better to be pure and above such petty human weakness, he thought, but those were Hojo's words, not his own. Hojo had always smiled at him when he said that, showing his small sharp teeth. It was better, it would be better… That was the phrasing that Hojo had used to let him know that he had failed, or had trespassed one of his many subtle rules. They were also the words that let him know there would soon be consequences for his failure, which meant he would submit to the Crown. And he would submit. There were worse things.
How many times, Sephiroth wondered, had he woken up on that vinyl-padded hospital table, his arms stretched out and fastened down like a crucifixion, that same sickly-sweet roll of iodine tasting cotton clenched between his teeth? He could almost still feel prickly weight of the wreath of electrodes on his head, could almost hear the steady dripping of the IV. How many painful hours had he stared at his reflection, then, watery and far away, in the pristine steel ceiling? But now he found himself longing for the peace that followed in the wake of that pain, the peace that left him as blank and featureless as a sheet of white glass.
Sephiroth pushed up his sleeve, running his thumb over the fine constellation of needle scars clustered on the inside of his arms. The Crown had not been the only way Hojo had used to control him. He had seen the scans that showed what they had done. Thin polymer rods, as fine as an acupuncturist's needle, had been implanted into specific regions of his brain to slowly release the drugs and Mako Hojo wanted, channeling the growth of his neural network from the inside out.
There had also been the endless injections, cocktails of growth factors, hormones, synthetic peptides, neurotransmitters. When he was very young and kept full time in the lab he had marked time with the stick of a needle, the one thing in his life that had been truly dependable. Three under his skin, one in the muscle, and four samples of blood from the central line port at his hip meant a day had passed; when Hojo came with the large gauge syringes that slid into his spine and belly, it meant he was a year older.
Not unaware of the irony, he found himself longing for all of that, too. With the drugs, pain became a merely intellectual phenomenon; he noticed it like he noticed the direction of the wind. Under their sway he had never been conscious of either strength or frailty in his body or of its incessant demands for food, water, sleep.
As effectively as the drugs made him insensible to his body, they had also made him immune from any dissention in his mind. They had dissolved his strife and pain, condensed his consciousness to a single diamond point, made him clear and purposeful…and hollow.
Perhaps that was why Jenova had found him so excellent a host when She had awakened in him, he thought bitterly. There had been so much room left in him for Her to occupy, since who he was had occupied so little. In his mind he said her names again. Jenova. Mother. Color came to his face as he flushed with shame and hunger.
She had opened him in a way that he had never experienced before, freeing all the secret thoughts long silenced from years of the drugs and the Crown. Relentless in the pursuit of Her ends, She had not stopped until She had finally unlocked the vast wellspring of rage that She knew lay sleeping in the core of his heart. Sephiroth smirked. That was all it took, to make him Her willing slave, that little taste of freedom, that opening. How easily he was twisted for Her own ends. The feelings of power She had allowed him then were better than any drug, even while he knew he was being used. The memory of those feelings still echoed in him like the lingering vapor of an exquisite taste. He had loved Her for it, as much as he could love anything. But all of that was long ago, a lifetime ago, he told himself. All of it was meaningless. He was alone now, and free. No one and nothing would enslave him ever again. He swallowed, hard, still feeling the flush of heat on his face, as a familiar but unnamable emotion tore through him like the November winds.
Sephiroth got to his feet. Unsure of what to do with himself, began to pace over the bare rock in front of the hearth. It never helped, when he got like this, to be still. He paced faster and faster, becoming more and more agitated with each circuit. The chill of the stone stung his feet and finally he sat down again on the edge of the bed and put his head in his hands. He rubbed at his temples, wiping a long shock of pale hair back from his face. Still the restlessness gnawed at him, impelling him to move, to do something, anything. He turned around, toward the far corner of the room where a tall dark cabinet stood like a sentry. Its blank polished face showed nothing of what lay inside. But he knew. Masamune.
It had been five months, twelve days, and sixteen hours since he had found it lying half buried in silt on the shore of a subterranean river deep within the Crater. From the moment he had touched it, held it once more in his hands, nothing had ever been quite the same.
One by one, as if they were too poisonous for the earth to hold, other things from his former self began to surface in the underground lakes and rivers. He found a piece of harness one day; the next his shoulder pauldron. One nights' wandering brought him the twin prize of his carbonite bangles, each still glittering with powerful materia. Everything he had lost, he found again over the long months, storing it all up piece by piece until all was complete. He told Aerith none of this. There was no need to give her yet another reason to fear him, he thought, she had enough to overcome.
Sephiroth stood in front of the cabinet in the gold firelight and laid his palms flat on the smooth face of the door. He could sense it immediately, the power rushing through the dark wood like echoing voices. It pulled at him, compelling him to once again to be a part of it. He reached for where the latch was buried, but pulled back at the last moment. What was he doing, and why? There was no logical answer he could think of to give; it just was the thing he must do, the only thing that felt right to do.
The old death-hunger rose in him like sheet lightning and clawed up into his head, impossible to argue with. His fingertips pressed forward, trembling on the cold metal of the latch. The cabinet door arced open and the long wicked blade of Masamune caught the light with a razor sheen. God, it was beautiful. Sephiroth took it down from the peg where it hung, sleeping, and brought it out into the air. With his contact Masamune awoke, calling for him to remember itself, weaving silently its beautiful song of mercy and death. Sephiroth rested the cool flat of the blade against his cheek, listening, and somewhere inside of him something slid into place like a great block of stone. It had been too long. A sword like that needed to be used. He paced over to the other cabinet, and opened it. Inside his armor glittered like lost treasure, his infamous black cloak beside it. Without question he drew it out and dressed hurriedly in the near dark. He relaced his boots, impatient with himself, and stood up. Light was rising in his head, a bloodlust that knew no bounds. In a blind daze he ran the pad of his thumb down the length of the blade. The skin split effortlessly. Dark drops of his blood fell on the carpet. He focused on the pain like it was a blessing.
Sephiroth bolted the outer door safely behind him. It was almost completely dark in the outer caverns, the only light the dimly glowing moss on the wall and the pale white orb of Light materia that was obediently floating at head height in the air beside him. He turned and glanced at the bolted door. Aerith? She would be safe. He deliberated for a half a second more, then turned and broke into a run.