Origonally Published 6.8.2005
ORIGONAL AUTHOR'S NOTE:
i know, i know. another ficlet before i get another chapter of sunrise sherbet or free as a bird out. i'm sorry. progress is being made on both stories tho, and i should have another chapter of free as a bird up tonight. also, i've put my "stories" series on hold for a bit. massive writer's block has decreed that i not work on them for a while. i'm looking for my chainsaw to fix the problem, but it seems to have gone missing.
oh, and if anyone knows where i can get accurate game scripts for the FF games, let me know. i can use them in a big way!
eerian
It was easier when the madness was only Jenova's. Before I knew that my own mind was spiraling down out of control.
Knowing that I had no more control over myself was the hardest part of the insanity.
It was Jenova's idea to kill Aeris Gainsborough, but the madness inside me decided to go through with it. The part of me who railed at the madness, the lack of control, knew she was no true threat to Jenova's plans even if her prayer for Holy was heard. Jenova's power, as channeled through my body was more than enough to hold Holy at bay indefinitely.
No, the true threat was Cloud Strife, who'd been bound with mako and Jenova the way I was. And who'd somehow acquired all of the SOLDIER Zack's memories during Hojo's warped experimenting. The boy was powerful and determined—two things that only got stronger after the Cetra's death and his swim in the Lifestream.
I wish, now, that I had taken Zack's advice and gotten to know him better during our missions together.
The madness began in my earliest infancy, I think. For truly, I never had the kind of childhood others did—and not just because my father was a negligent mad scientist. I was always too strong, too fast, too coordinated. Too much better than everyone else at everything. When I was young, other children stayed away from me in fear. When I was older my peers stayed away because of envy and fear.
Only Zack and Cloud never feared me. Zack because it just wasn't in his nature, and Cloud because he was too in awe of me to be afraid.
But they feared me when I burned Nibelheim. Though Cloud used his rage to suppress his fear and managed to run me through. Something that truly astounded me. It would be a long time before I understood the determination that had allowed him to do that.
I wish I had died in the reactor the day Cloud and I faced off. Instead, my mind became divided in two—half of me eager and willing to do "mother" Jenova's bidding, the other enraged at my violation and wanting nothing more than to be rid of her.
The madness only got worse as time passed. My other self became harder to suppress and what little control I possessed slipped free. Five years had passed when this happened and Jenova decided that her time to attack was at hand.
She took my two halves and made in reality what had before existed only in my mind—she gave the other a body. A copy of my body in fact. He became her willing tool for tormenting Cloud and his companions—and for killing the last of the Cetra and claiming her vengeance for wrongs two thousand years old.
I decided that I would be in my best interest to exert whatever control I could over my clone and use him to bait Cloud into destroying us. I refused to live under Jenova's sway any longer—and I would be damned if I let her destroy me in some quest for revenge that could never be had.
Neither of us had counted on my mad copy's own ambitions, however. He was bent on destruction—as he'd proved in Nibelheim, if either of us had been paying attention. What he couldn't have, no one else would either.
And so, the three of us became enmeshed in a titanic power struggle. One that I was fast losing.
It was my madness, the part of me that I could no longer control, that won. He took my body and, using Jenova's powers, changed it into something that he hopes to crush Cloud and his band with. I know it won't work.
And now, we wait. I've stopped fighting my madness, for I could not live with what he's done in my name if I should manage to win the power struggle.
No, it is better for Cloud to kill me. Far, far better than this madness that Jenova has infected me with.