Chapter Ten
Barely aware that the continual torture had ended until his breath left him and his mouth flooded with water, Sephiroth jerked sideways roughly and came lurching to a sitting position, looking around with confusion and barely able to make sense of his surroundings. After a few minutes, the heavy confusion blanketing his mind lifted, and he sat up, scowling, now soaking wet and sitting in the surf on a rocky ocean shore.
(...Now what?) The Cetra said nothing, and he peered around the empty beach again, squinting and trying to find something familiar about his surroundings. The beach itself was rocky and barren, and given the cold temperature and slight stench in the air, it meant he probably stood about fifty miles away from Junon, maybe.
"Go to Junon."
The Cetra spoke so suddenly he might have jumped, where he an easily startled person -- but that wasn't the case, and Sephiroth instead took a few steps and leaned against the base of a rocky cliff, looking out sullenly over the ocean and waiting. Finally, a low rumble of anger gradually reached its crescendo inside of his head, and he scowled at nothing in particular, directing all his irritation towards his captors.
(That's it? You're being purposely vague. You must think I'm going to try to refuse whatever order you have.)
"You already know that you cannot refuse."
(And what am I supposed to be doing in Junon?)
"It is only important that you get there. Now, go!"
Like he actually needed a reminder, the Cetra sent a bolt of pain through his head that nearly bowled him over, just to make sure he knew that they could throw him around like he was nothing. He faltered but didn't fall, bracing himself against the rock wall and then closing his eyes tightly, willing the immediate aftershocks to fade away. The Cetra's influence over him seemed eerily precise tonight, he decided -- just a little nonphysical slap and his nerves started screaming. He felt raw, somehow, a little ripped to pieces even without a single physical injury. Worse than the rawness was the feeling of bone-deep exhaustion, and there was also a strange of dizziness -- but it wasn't sickness. That was impossible.
Sephiroth ended up on the cliffs, standing and looking across the seashore, before turning and catching the scent of something odd on the wind. Fires, gunpowder, the odd-sticky residue the use of materia spells left in the air -- there'd been a battle nearby, and less than a day ago, he estimated. It'd been a pitched battle, too -- not just a small-scale skirmish. Turning and looking off towards the Northeast, he squinted in the darkness and re-orientated himself, realizing he was in the region of Fort Condor. He could guess what had happened, and wondered if it had been a victory for Shinra -- or for rebels. That they were already fighting pitched battles against one another meant things were proceeding quickly, and gave him an idea of the when of his surroundings – this was the time he liked to think of as the "present."
Beyond the scent of battle, the taste of smoke and the odd heavy residue in the air, Sephiroth could sense something else -- a deep, rumbling satisfaction. The Cetra were pleased. He frowned and walked along the cliff tops above the beach, eventually trekking inland and wondering if Zack and Cloud had been involved.
(...They were.) Certainly stole over him, rather suddenly, and he frowned and concentrated for a few moments, drawing up a picture of Fort Condor in his head -- and then he saw it in little glimpses, images of the battle coming together. Shinra colors, rebel colors, AVALANCHE, and amidst it all, flashes of two SOLDIERs with gleaming white swords -- Zack and Cloud. Sephiroth realized his connection to the Cetra – and to the planet itself -- must have delved deeper than even they intended, because there was no real reason for him to be seeing such clear glimpses into events that had already transpired. It must have been the mako flowing in his veins -- giving him some sort of extra sense, perhaps the Planet's own memories.
(...This could be useful...If only...)
The Cetra seemed to keep watch over the flow of time. He wondered if it was possible that he had some kind of similar ability, held latent but slowly evolving. Seeing glimpses of events that had already transpired was one thing, but if he could see outcomes--
"It's worth reminding you what your purpose is: you are only here to serve us," The Cetra bored into his skull suddenly, but this time he didn't even cringe.
(But you're worried, aren't you.) Sephiroth didn't speak aloud, even if merely thinking while the Cetra buzzed and hissed made his mind feel much too crowded. (If I wanted to refuse your orders... what could you really do?)
Sephiroth paused, standing and feeling the night breezes flow around him, brushing back his hair and soothing a bit of the raw and feverish heat. The day preceding this had been a hot one, but even in the blazing temperature, he knew he walked on thin ice. Somehow, though, knowledge of what they could do to him didn't stop him.
(You could torture me until I break, I suppose. But that would also require you to eliminate your only weapon, wouldn't it? You can continue erasing my memories, but even that has its limits. If it was just my abilities you needed, you would have erased everything and made me into a mindless automaton, but you obviously rely on some knowledge I have -- which also means you can't see entirely into my mind, either. And you can throw me around, but you can't exert complete control over me, otherwise that's what you'd do. I'd just be a puppet. So, tell me. If I refused to take another step and completely ignored your orders, what would you really be able to do?)
He could sense the Cetra's anger now, all around him -- swelling, burning, and expanding, preparing to engulf him. He'd crossed a line --positively hurled himself right over it -- but in his satisfaction he realized they were also straining around for an answer while sizing him up, seeming to really consider him for the first time. Their state was kind of sad, actually. With the planet crumbling all around them the Cetra were somehow arrogant, petty, and short-sighted, eager to use him in what way they could and yet not thinking any of this all the way through.
"Well?" Sephiroth spoke aloud to the empty night, still waiting for an answer.
"The planet will die if you don't--"
"I already told you I don't care. You're not even giving me a choice, here. No matter what I do, you've promised me eternal damnation. What incentive do I have to follow along with your orders? I'm going to end up being your plaything for an eternity no matter what I do... assuming you'll even be able to do anything to me, once the Planet and the Lifestream have died."
They considered it for a long time -- arguing amongst themselves, their voices suddenly ringing and discordant -- before deciding on an answer. It came out gratingly, an uncomfortable mix between contempt and desperation tainting each word. "Then what is it you want? Presume that you really are in a position to bargain, and tell us what you desire. We wish to rule over the Lifestream... perhaps you want a part of it, too? To rule alongside us?"
Sephiroth considered the offer at face-value, knowing all the while this sparring with the Cetra was tantamount to walking right into the jaws of a trap and not really caring. The idea of ruling alongside them sparked something inside of him -- no, that wasn't his desire. Coming from their mouths it sounded asinine. A fragment of memory emerged, something twisted and splintered, like looking through a cracked kaleidoscope.
I'm going to take back the Planet for you, mother...
Cringing, Sephiroth grabbed his forehead, feeling a surprisingly sharp barb of pain lace its way through his skull, followed by a wave of intense dizziness. It blurred his vision, then took a few minutes to recede completely, leaving him hollowly pondering a single cold reality – everything he did now stank of absolute futility. They were insane. Trying to bargain with the Cetra was a ridiculous move, and with a sinking feeling, Sephiroth realized he couldn't even name what he wanted from them, knowing all the while they weren't going to deliver on whatever they offered.
"Rule alongside you?" Instead of wasting time considering it, he finally let out a derisive scoff and continued on his way through the night. "That's nonsense, and even if we made a bargain, I'd never believe you." His head started to feel crowded again, with all the Cetra humming away and chattering at once. The fact that he could recognize what insanity looked like in others did little to reassure him that he was still sane, not with all of their voices continually and messily derailing his own train-of-thought.
"Then what is it that you want?" The Cetra actually started laughing at him. "...Is it... forgiveness?"
"I don't care whether I'm forgiven by you or not."
"But you must care about someone's forgiveness."
"No. I don't." A few faces went through his mind – maybe his own thoughts, maybe something put there by the Cetra -- and he grabbed his forehead again, reflexively. Everything still felt raw, torn open -- now he assumed this was merely the aftereffect of the Cetra's torture. They ripped into his mind and dissected every thought and impulse in order to use it against him, and that was far from the worst they could do to him. In fact, it was very hard to imagine what their worst was -- he knew he was yet to see it. And yet, knowing he would see it, eventually, kept him from really caring how much he provoked them. The Cetra's ultimatums had done nothing but instill suicidal recklessness in him. They took another probing glimpse into his mind, and laughed.
"That does matter to you. You seem to truly desire some kind of second chance."
"...You're mistaken. I don't want anything, actually..." Then it occurred to him, in a rather cutting moment of self-introspection. He really didn't want anything. His existence in this world felt superfluous and unnatural, somehow, and he felt nothing but distance all around -- he couldn't reach out and touch it any more than he could block it all out. Everything was ghostly and ephemeral, trapped in the flow of a timeline he didn't understand, and more than anything -- he didn't want to be a part of any of this.
"Ah, I see." The Cetra spoke with a more singular voice, now, discordance vanished, almost sounding reflective. "At the end of everything, when Cloud Strife struck you down once and for all – a faint flicker of relief at the end of your life revealed the only remainder of your sanity. Even amidst the terror of dying, your own nihilistic nature led you to believe you'd simply cease to exist -- and that was easiest way of escape... how cowardly."
"You must be mistaken …I'd never come to such a pitiful conclusion."
"Is it a second chance you want?"
"A second chance at what?" Usually the Cetra's words registered as little more than nonsense, but he listened to the irritation in his own voice and frowned, finding it odd that their inane, navel-gazing attempts at probing into his own mind were beginning to have an effect on him.
"Maybe you're clinging to memories of your other life... your times with Zack that seem to come readily to mind, and there are others, too. Professor Gast, in particular. And it seems like you want whatever it is you had back then to return. Feelings of adulation, or maybe just simple regard... is friendship a concept you understand?"
"You're over-analyzing everything. I already know my memories are meaningless, anyway. Did you forget? In this world, I've been dead since the age of seven."
For a while, the Cetra remained completely silent. Sephiroth kept walking -- anticipating -- and finally the Cetra broke loose, their laughter so intense it nearly knocked him right over. With the cloying, derisive sounds of amusement echoing through his head, Sephiroth took a few more steps and forced himself to a stop, leaning against a tree at the edge of the shoreline and gritting his teeth.
"You're right. They are meaningless...your memories are nothing more than fragile lies pasted together by an even more fragile ego."
Sephiroth stood for a moment, arching an eyebrow, before scowling and continuing onwards, now weaving down a forest path and peering about for any signs of people, animals, or monsters. The night felt dead and eerie, and the aftertaste of battle grew even more noticeable the further he advanced into the woodlands. The wind swept down from the North with a hint of cold in it, and again, he saw more glimpses of a battle at Fort Condor. The Cetra, always a background hum in his own mind -- though he was getting used to it -- continued in a kind of contemplative tone.
"But your thoughts now have shown us something interesting," The Cetra conceded, and he tensed again. "A sort of relief, actually... one of the only people you thought of as a friend never had a real reason to start hating you in this world. You even showed a hint of concern for him... and for what reason? Do you desire to return to something you thought you had before?"
"I don't even know what you're talking about, but it certainly sounds like nonsense," Sephiroth replied, finally, pausing again before continuing on his way, trying to pay more attention to his surroundings than the Cetra. "Listen, let's make this deal. I'll follow orders so long as you stay quiet and leave me alone for a while."
When the Cetra slammed him into a tree and sharp pains laced through his entire body, he actually smiled, a little satisfied by how readily they wasted their strength on torturing him. But he also caved swiftly, fell to his knees and began choking on mako, and they finally noticed what he was doing.
"You're bluffing, aren't you? You flinch like a beaten animal when we so much as poke at you."
"If that wasn't readily apparent, it seems like you're not as omniscient as you want me to believe. You're definitely not gods."
"You're only confident now because you haven't seen the worst of what we can do. Now, go. You're wasting time."
Sephiroth got back to his feet, barely aware that he'd fallen, and gritted his teeth in frustration for a few seconds. Originally, he'd wanted to believe that stripping away his defenses and leaving him helpless was about the worst they could do to him, but they'd disproved that. Erasing his memories, seemingly lighting the very mako inside of his cells on fire, tossing him around like he was nothing -- all of it was infuriating, and he clung to absolute fury only because any other feeling might have left him broken. He didn't want to be a mindless puppet. He didn't –
"You're still pitifully lacking in self-introspection."
"You're one to talk."
"…Or is it that you've truly forgotten everything, to the point where you don't even see the irony in your thoughts? Do you remember any of what happened after you burned Nibelheim down?" The Cetra asked the question curiously – and he thought he detected an odd hint of trepidation. Foolishly rising to what seemed like a challenge, Sephiroth started trying to pull together the pieces and fragments of his memories from after his Nibelheim and then met an unexpected wave of dizziness jarring enough to force him to a jerking halt, clutching his head and closing his eyes tightly, choking on mako again. This time, when he paused to wipe the burning residue off his hand and onto a nearby rock surface, distant murmurs momentarily flooded his mind, incomprehensible, before vanishing and leaving the world tilting until he regained control. He didn't know whether this new sickness was the Cetra's usual insanity or his own sanity slipping, and worse, he couldn't be sure which was worse. The Cetra might have been psychotic, but new shadows loomed in his own mind, eerie dark spaces in the recesses left behind by erased memories.
"Some of your memories are meaningless, but there are others that we can't allow you to forget."
A flash of burning light followed by a fleeting image of Aerith and an altar he recognized flooded his consciousness, but suddenly, inexplicably, everything went black.
Sephiroth twitched seconds later, opened his eyes, and watched the world swirl for a long time before getting to his feet, more weary than confused, not knowing the origins of his sudden black-out but willing to guess they were directly responsible.
"Just what are you doing to me now?"
To his surprise, the Cetra didn't respond. No laughing, no taunting – just disconcerting silence broken only by quiet murmurs, followed by the unusually invasive feeling of them reaching into his mind, trying to unearth something. Even with everything else they'd done, such a simple action sent him stumbling, clutching his forehead again and shaking with fury, unable to put up even the flimsiest defense against them. He'd never encountered an opponent like this, ever, one who left him pitifully unable to strike back, to even defend against their attacks. The Cetra searched at will through his mind and memories, seeking something and crowding his own thoughts out of his head entirely for a few cold and oddly distant moments, before finally and abruptly leaving him twitching with the aftershocks. They could do as they wished to him --
-- And yet they certainly weren't omniscient, because whatever they sought for in his mind remained hidden. Maybe they weren't any more capable of seeing outcomes and results than he was. Maybe their insanity blinded them completely to most things. Perhaps the increasingly noticeable cracks in Sephiroth's own mind blinded him to reality, and what he couldn't see about himself, they couldn't discern even if they completely invaded his thoughts.
And maybe none of it mattered. A fleeting hint of a frown passed over his face, and he continued onwards into the night, feeling all the while that he was walking right into the jaws of another of the Cetra's many traps and completely oblivious to some greater, lurking danger awaiting him.
Well, shit.
Zack took a deep, gulping breath and realized he was letting it get to him again, before pausing and leaning against a tree, scratching his head and resisting the temptation to go and dunk his head in the nearby stream. His nerves were getting the best of him, and he didn't really know why.
Okay. That was also bull. He knew exactly why -- somehow he'd expected he'd be able to waltz onto the battlefield and take a chunk out of Shinra fueled by anger alone, but he didn't expect anything afterwards. Suddenly, members of AVALANCHE, Wutains, and all kinds of disparate groups and causes looked at him with actual grim respect in their eyes. The Fort Condor rebels saluted to him, Wutains didn't protest his every word, and it seemed like Tifa and even Barrett were both pretty willing to admit he knew what he was doing. So, he was now a leader.
And there were two problems with that. The first was that there was a difference between being a top-ranking SOLDIER officer mostly acting on orders dropped down from the executive levels and being the leader of a ragtag and ever-growing rebel army that actually wanted to take down an entire empire. Suddenly it felt like him against the world, one little renegade idiot standing with his sword in hands facing down the most powerful military force in existence -- and that was a bit of a confidence shaker. His confidence felt even more shaken, now that things were picking up, starting to grow.
The second day after the victory, when he'd woken up in the morning and blearily crawled out of bed, rubbing his eyes and groggily confusing the cave for his old flat in Midgar, for some unknown reason, Zack had heard voices -- the real kind, not the head ones. Emerging from his room and into the hall outside he'd been assaulted with a whole bevy of new people, crowding every single corridor inside of the now-increasingly-tiny fort. The little town outside and to the north of the Fort looked fit to explode, and a growing encampment Zack simply called Tent City sprawled out across the valley around Condor, and there were more. People had news of Shinra's loss, probably all exaggerations -- and they were coming.
...And somehow, when he started hearing talk of how a renegade Shinra SOLDIER was one of the main reasons for their decisive, near-complete victory, he realized he was the main selling point. People wanted to follow a SOLDIER only because they'd been hearing all their lives how unstoppable they were. But that wasn't it -- he could sense it, a real, palpable rage all directed at the company and growing every minute, practically leaking out of the very pores of the countryside. People whose properties and lives had been destroyed by the sight of reactors rising towards the horizon above their small towns, the slum-dwellers from Junon and Midgar who'd known nothing but the dirty underside of a plate all of their lives, people from towns that had been decimated by reactor accidents... it was amazing, seeing all of this pour out at once, like a single battle really was the breaking point.
From a tactical standpoint, the culmination of the long-standing, festering hatred towards Shinra Inc. was definitely a good thing. Most of the people flooding into Condor were freaking kids who didn't know their asses from holes in the ground, and they even had to turn away some of the very young, very old, and very helpless -- but a lot of good men and women were showing up, too, bringing whatever they could with them. Fighting experience. Money. Chocobos, in the case of two kids who'd came down from the Swamps, from where their father ran some kind of ranch. Minerals from the mines. Food and grain from the farmlands down South. Insider knowledge -- two Shinra managers had already arrived right from the company. Neither had seemed very useful, though Zack had assigned both of them to do the accounting stuff (it'd only occurred to him this morning that rebellions actually needed accountants).
But from a rational standpoint? It was all freaking overwhelming, because as Zack, Tifa, and a few others stood at the fortress entrance and greeted every newcomer and walked through the encampments, he realized with a sinking sensation that he'd somehow become the head of a big, writhing crazy snake.
The second problem with the situation was the biggest, though. Cloud was gone. On the first morning after the battle he'd woken up to an empty room, and even with Tifa worrying herself sick and Zack tearing through every nook and cranny of the fortress and the little town beyond, not a single trace or rumor of Cloud even emerged. It was like the other had simply vanished, and for all Zack knew, he may as well have.
It hurt a little. Tifa worried to the point of being unhealthy, and when she thought no one was looking, a kind of shell-shocked and heartsick look kept on spreading over her face. And Zack, oddly, let it start to sink in by the end of the next day that he was alone, now, and realized that maybe he needed Cloud more than Cloud needed him -- though whatever he'd left to do, Cloud was at least sorry.
The weird thing was, it didn't really worry him, so much as it left him feeling tired and a little empty, maybe even confused. Cloud definitely had some kind of good reason, but he'd never given any indication what it was. Zack just remembered how distant Cloud had been ever since waking up from mako sickness, and hoped the kid could deal with whatever it was that he was trying to take all on his shoulders.
To each their own burden, Zack supposed. To each their own --
"Well, shit!" It felt good to cuss and shout a little at the night sky. He wasn't exactly trying to be inconspicuous, anyway, and letting out a bit of frustration eased his nerves, just a little. Around him, the night was neither quiet nor noisy, just a woodland with hooting barn owls and other night creatures masking an overall feeling of unease. But coming out here to clear his head was a good idea. Zack liked this little forest during the night, almost felt at home here -- if the trees had been a little saggier and the ground soggier, it might have even seemed like Gongaga. Thinking of Gongaga brought images of home, his parents, and some of his childhood friends to mind, relieving and familiar in the light of all the confusion of the last few weeks… hell, the last five years.
Zack was out here now after some dragons, more of the big scaly ruby bastards he and Cloud had encountered just a few days back. They'd been menacing travelers around the area for a few months and Shinra hadn't done anything about it -- so it was up to the friendly neighborhood rebel army to sort it out. That'd been Zack's determination, anyway. Barrett had taken one look at Zack before he'd left and scoffed.
"Gonna desert or something, Shinra? You seem pretty eager to be gettin' outta here."
Zack had just played it cool and confident, an act that he was way too good at putting on. "Hey, it'll be easier sending me after 'em than it would be to send about fifty other guys, wouldn't it?"
Surprisingly, that kind of stupidly over-confident statement -- even if there was some pretty obvious truth to it -- seemed to have amused Barrett, though, and Zack had to admit that if they could put the whole Shinra thing behind them, the two of them were probably set to become pretty good drinking buddies, at some point. Sitting at a bar even if alcohol didn't do much to blood tainted by mako was just one way to clear the head.
Hunting dragons was another. Zack figured that meant he was kind of a weird person, but he'd also stopped caring about stuff like that an extremely long time ago. Maybe that was his main problem.
And he had another problem: No Aerith. No sign of Aerith. No Shinra guys with any information about Aerith. No indication that she was either alive or dead, and if the latter were the case, suddenly he didn't feel so hot about being the leader of a rebellion, because the others didn't need to rely on the total berserker he knew he'd become if they'd killed Aerith. But maybe no news meant good news. He certainly had to believe that about Cloud, anyway.
Zack heard a rustle in the nighttime forest, and dove backwards suddenly, sensing the dragon before he saw it, then charging. It felt good to use his muscles again, to not have to think for a bit -- he dodged a great clawed paw and hewed the dragon's head off, then flipped backwards, landing in a crouch and avoiding a puff of flame from another. These definitely weren't the regular local monsters -- dragons smart enough to actually organize an ambush couldn't be found anywhere in nature, not even in the far North.
Two of them came from the side, now, streaking towards him and hissing. Zack whirled and dispatched the dragon to his right almost easily, feeling the mako really begin to rush through his veins, and held his ground against the dragon charging at his left, blasting it with a well-aimed lightning spell and then leaping. Zack brought the Buster Sword right down on its head. The monster's skull didn't explode like it had with Cloud, but Zack ended it all the same and came to a stop, not even panting.
"SOLDIERS are real bastards, huh?" Zack asked one of the corpses, before scowling and looking around. There were more out here, probably tracking his every move. Fine, he thought. Let them come.
But it was definitely a little unnerving. These stupid dragons were pretty benign in their natural state, usually avoiding humans unless mako drove them nuts, and sometimes not even bothering to come out of their caves. Hunting them down usually wasn't necessary. These dragons, though, seemed positively driven.
Another leapt out at him, just as he predicted. This time Zack dove right through the flames, heedlessly, knowing that if he damaged anything mako would take care of it, except perhaps his clothes. They remained intact, though, and he landed right on the scaly back of one of the dragons and hewed away at the back of its neck. Another came crashing through shrubbery, trying to close with him -- restricting his ability to use his sword, another eerily smart move -- and didn't anticipate Zack driving his fist right between its eyes and crushing its skull. He dispatched it quickly and messily, and then stood, grimly taking stock of his surroundings.
Dragons were also solitary. No way in hell did they travel in herds of five or more. This particular group had taken the lives of about forty people so far, apparently, entire traveling parties at once -- and the fact that Shinra hadn't even sent out a cursory patrol looking for them meant that maybe Shinra was behind this, in some way. And that was a very shitty thing to do, even for Shinra.
A second later, Zack revised his opinion. Five seemed like a ridiculous number already, but six, seven and eight seemed to come right out of nowhere, diving at him from every angle -- every bad angle, trying to try to hit a blind spot. More eerily smart behavior, and this time, it damn near got the best of him. Zack dove and rolled, avoiding the swipe of a claw and twisting around just as fast, throwing up his sword at the last minute in an attempt to block. A heavy clawed foot struck him and sent him flying, though lady luck kept him from slamming headfirst into a tree. Instead he skidded through the loam and rolled back to his feet just in time for a ninth dragon -- "OH, DAMN IT!"-- to come charging at him, hitting him in another blind spot.
Nine damn dragons.
Zack anticipated taking a few hits, but as soon as he turned to ward off the ambush, a flash of dark clothes before him swept out of nowhere and the dragon fell. Zack decided not to question it and whirled around this time, preparing for the next three. Two of them broke away towards the dark-clothed man who appeared next to him, and he went right for the third, now practically hissing himself. He drove his sword right into it and it deflected off a hard, scaly hide, before Zack blasted the dragon with his most powerful materia spell and leapt through the air, flawlessly pulling off an insanely flashy attack and splitting its head right open. He even pulled off a perfect landing, then turned around, wiping a bit of sweat off his forehead -- and scowled, when he saw the other leaning calmly against a tree, weapon sheathed, looking like he'd done no more than lift a finger. Two dead dragons sprawled out on the ground behind him.
Strangely, Zack's first impulse was to rush up to the other or jump up-and-down, and he didn't even know why. Luckily, he managed to suppress it -- possibly because he did feel just a little bit of disappointment that it wasn't Cloud -- but Zack couldn't fight back a grin.
"Just passin' through the area, Sephiroth?"
Grim and emotionless though he might have been, the other cocked his head a little, and perhaps the ghost of a smirk appeared on his stoic face. "You let your guard down."
"Hey, I would have been fine. What are you again, my drill instructor?"
The ghost of a smirk faded. Maybe it'd never been there in the first place -- with Sephiroth, it was hard to tell.
"There was a battle here, a few days back."
Zack nodded. "Yeah, there was. And know who retreated with their tails between their legs? Shinra. It's the first time they've lost since Wutai."
Seeing Sephiroth looked pensive, now, Zack turned to him with a smile. "I wanted to talk to you about all this, anyway. So I'm glad you're here. You got a minute? 'Course, even if you don't, I'll probably just follow you and make you listen, anyway."
Sephiroth actually seemed to consider it, before nodding. "...I'm in no hurry." He said that, then shifted in discomfort, almost like it was the wrong thing to say – or maybe for some crazy reason, like the voices in his head disagreed. Sephiroth was actually kind of a strange guy, Zack realized, but that didn't stop him from grinning.
"All right. C'mon. I want to show you something."
Sephiroth cast one glance back at the dragon corpses in slight consternation, before following Zack through the woods, heading South -- the wrong direction, back towards Fort Condor. They walked for a long, quiet couple of minutes before the ground gradually began to ascend, taking them upwards and out of the trees, to a rocky hill above the valley where the Fort sat. As soon as they were there, Zack spread his arms, a grin on his face.
"Here it is! Freakin' six-thousand people, maybe, all here 'cuz they wanna fight Shinra! And guess who's their leader?" Zack laughed, then answered his own question. "It's mine. It's all mine. They're all looking to me... and there's no reason why they shouldn't, huh? I've got the experience and abilities, I guess."
"Aren't you glad?" Sephiroth asked, carefully, looking out over their surroundings and deciding it was rather impressive. A sea of tents had sprouted and spread across the valley below Condor, and the little town less than a mile from the fort bustled with activity, even at this late hour. Flags flew, and none were Shinra. It seemed like the rebellion had gone with a red and blue flag, incorporating touches of AVALANCHE and Wutai alike, a sign of the two coming together against a foe greater than both of them -- but perhaps together, and along with the hundreds of others streaming in from all over the continent (and maybe all over the globe) they managed to equal Shinra -- or maybe surpass them.
"Glad?" Zack considered the question and laughed again, sardonically. "Yeah, I guess. But to be honest, it's... a little overwhelming. You think I'm in over my head?"
"...Shinra will capitulate swiftly in their current state," Sephiroth finally said, surprising Zack. "It shouldn't take much."
"You really think so?" Zack looked at him with wide eyes, and Sephiroth nodded.
"Shinra has nothing more powerful than SOLDIER. With your abilities, it shouldn't be a problem. What could they possibly throw against you? Scarlett has an endless supply of weapons that don't work. Heidegger is a worthless third-in-command to the President. The President himself is a buffoon, and his son isn't much better. They might have boundless wealth and resources, but they've done a poor job of handling them. They'll squander whatever they have and probably end up defeating themselves."
"Heh. You're right. About everything. You know this stuff, don't you?"
Sephiroth said nothing, but the Cetra started humming in his head, a distant, angry rumble. They'd been oddly silent the entire time, not even intervening when some kind of impulse had driven him to leap in and help Zack at the last minute, and not seeming to care that he was wondering off course, now heading in the exact opposite direction of Junon. But he'd felt interest spark as soon as he laid his eyes upon the vast gathering outside of Fort Condor, and now he could feel a mix of anger and unease. Something wasn't going according to the plan, and it infuriated them.
"Anyway, Seph... sorry, MISTER Sephiroth," Zack said, misinterpreting a frown as irritation as he walked around, coming to stand in front of Sephiroth. "What brings you here?"
"…I'm on an errand. Where did Cloud go?"
Obviously an unpleasant reminder -- Zack's smile faded in a flash and his brow furrowed in worry and consternation. "He disappeared the morning after the battle. I don't know where he went. I can't leave and look for him now that I've got all this to worry about, but... I don't even know why he left. It might have been battle nerves. He freaking ripped holes through Shinra the day before, made hamburger out of whatever he came across. It was unreal, like nothing I've ever seen..."
Hojo's work, Sephiroth knew -- and Jenova cells, implanted within Cloud, transforming into something beyond a mere SOLDIER First Class.
"Cloud muttered something that night, right before I went to sleep. I don't even remember what it was, I was too tired... and as soon as I woke up, he was gone. He didn't just leave me behind, either. There's some childhood friend of his, a girl named Tifa..."
That name sparked another series of vague memories, though Sephiroth forcibly kept them at bay, trying not to consciously get distracted by whatever lurked in the fog of his own mind. He didn't trust the Cetra not to alter his memories, and he certainly didn't trust his own mind to piece together the fragments into any kind of reliable framework, not anymore. He felt like he was in pieces, actually, with the mere suggestion of unpleasant memories pushing him to that strange, world-tilting dizziness.
"I think he'll be okay, though. That's the strange thing. I thought about it, and now that he's awake, it really seems like he's the one protecting me. He seems guilty, probably since he knows he was unconscious for so long. Which is stupid, because I already told him I'm not mad at him--" Zack continued on in the same vein, rambling, and Sephiroth thought instantly back to his one true meeting with Cloud, looking into this suddenly lucid glaring mako-blue eyes and hearing Cloud's words, soft and forceful.
"...I remember."
Sephiroth wondered if he'd only imagined it. Because if Cloud remembered --
-- Zack stopped pacing in front of him, taking a deep breath and growing calm again, before looking at Sephiroth closely.
"Now that you see all this, I've got a question to ask you. I'll give you some time to think about it, consult the voices in your head, whatever. So don't answer right away."
Sephiroth already knew what Zack was going to ask, and immediately the Cetra swelled up inside of him with an angry warning.
"Fight with us. I can't get away asking you to be my right-hand man, 'cuz I can already tell you're probably twice the commander I am. But..." Something in Zack's eyes flashed, and Sephiroth could see the truth -- Zack needed someone, anyone, apparently even someone he barely even knew. It was better than being almost completely alone, close to the center of a building storm. "…So, join us. I can tell you hate Shinra as much as any the rest. Hell, if Cloud comes back, and with you fighting, too, the three of us would be freaking unstoppable."
Sephiroth's most natural impulse, for reasons he barely understood, was to say yes -- especially with Zack looking right at him with those burning bright eyes of his, apprehension and excitement mingling on his face. Despite what he said, Zack wasn't patient enough to give Sephiroth time to think about it.
There Cetra weren't, either. A fiery blast of white-hot pain blurred his vision for just a moment, but instead of cringing he blinked it away. The Cetra hissed at him, whispering warnings and threats, subtle and sinister and hungry all at once, longing to punish him for the slightest misstep. He didn't even need to consult the voices in his head, really. He already knew what they were thinking.
"...Sorry. I have business elsewhere."
Some of the light went out of Zack's eyes, and Sephiroth almost felt something like guilt, of all things. The Cetra grew even angrier, and he had to fight an impulse to apologize again, even if it was ridiculous. This Zack didn't really know him. They weren't anything to one another at all, not comrades-in-arms, not commanding officer and subordinate, certainly not friends -- just two people who had met by what seemed like chance but was really a pre-engineered outcome tailored specifically by the Cetra and Sephiroth's own inclination.
"...Ah, c'mon..." Zack, again, looked truly and completely alone, before forcing a bit of his usual enthusiasm back into his smile. "...Well, I've got to take your word for it. So... if I get my ass in trouble again, are you still gonna come and save the day like a big show-off?"
Sephiroth looked at Zack, a little startled to hear the other sounded half-mocking, half-serious. "...What?"
"Man, are you clueless. You helped Cloud and I save Aerith. You helped us get to Midgar. And you gave me a hand just now... even though I could have taken those things on myself," Zack asserted, off-handedly.
"That was all coincidental."
"Hmm, really? You never did tell me just whose side you're on, in all of this. And there's another thing..." Zack looked at him, very carefully, narrowing his eyes a little. Sephiroth felt the Cetra begin to stir again, their anger immense, building, ready to crumble whatever frail defense he'd erected against a full-scale onslaught. For some reason, just the presence of Zack drove them into a rage, and it hearkened back to some old, half-buried memory lurking at the edge of his subconscious. He tried to leave it suppressed for now, not wanting to get distracted. His memories were all distractions.
"... I feel like I've known you before."
Sephiroth froze. It felt like the Cetra did, too -- furious and silent, listening as closely as he was and now beginning to actively worry. "...The first time we met was a few weeks ago."
Zack leaned in, looking closely at his face -- and then smirking. "You're talking a little more quickly than you were before. See, when you're a big damn hero like I am, you get pretty used to being recognized," he explained, with obvious irony dripping from his voice. The Zack he'd known, before Nibelheim, had never been quite so sarcastic, either. "I can see it on people's faces. I see it on your face, the way you act when I'm around. At first I just figured you'd seen me on a poster somewhere."
"I did a few times."
" I'm sure. But... where have I seen your face before?" Zack studied him from an alarmingly short distance, before backing up and circling halfway around Sephiroth, giving him a keen eye and putting his hand to his chin, strutting back and forth with an almost comically pensive look on his face. "Hmmm. It isn't just your face... it's not just that it's sort of familiar, it's more like... it's fuzzy, kind of like memories of when you're just three or four. It's hard to explain. You were a three-year old once, right?"
Sephiroth stared at him, nonplused. "Yes."
"And you probably don't remember yourself very clearly back then."
"No." He mostly had some fuzzy pictures of Gast, Hojo, mako tubes, lab instruments, and needles, nothing terribly coherent or meaningful. He usually didn't bother with dredging up those memories, and attached little meaning to any of them.
"But you know that if you're alive now, you were three once, right?" Zack said, waving his hands around, illustratively. "So you know something had to have happened to you, back when you were three. You potty-trained, crapped your pants in diapers, probably ran around outside and fell and cried, maybe played with other kids... You don't really remember those things, but you know you experienced them. And when you look at an old photo album you see yourself doing things you only vaguely remember, but you know those experiences were yours."
"...Just where are you going with this?" Sephiroth asked, a little dryly -- though inwardly, he already knew what existed at the heart of Zack's ramblings and dared to feel a little satisfaction at the Cetra's sudden mortification.
"Well, seeing you is kind of like looking at an old photo album of when I was three or two. I can't remember clearly, but I just feel like meeting you and getting to know you is an experience I've had. Sort of like... well, riding a bicycle. My mom took about a million pictures of me sitting on my stupid little bike, trying to figure out how it worked, and falling down like an idiot. Those pictures are all embarrassing as hell now, but she must have thought they were cute. And I must have learned from that experience eventually, 'cuz I don't have any problem riding a bike now. It's just second-nature, though it's been years and years since I've bothered doing something like that. Sort of like how I know it's stupid to trust some guy I met just a few weeks ago, but I did it anyway because that was second-nature, too. Seeing you is like looking at an old photo album." Zack smirked. "It's an experience I know I've had… but I don't remember it very clearly. It's behind some kind of fog, almost, just like the memories from when I was a really little kid."
Sephiroth stared at Zack, utterly nonplused for a moment -- before frowning, slowly. The other man looked right back at him, intently, smirking just a little, probably able to see right through Sephiroth's nonchalance to the complete mortification resting just below the surface.
(...That isn't even possible.)
"So, what do you think?" Zack asked, finally.
"...I think that's absolute nonsense."
Zack raised his eyebrows, startled -- then, to Sephiroth's utter shock, he burst out laughing. Sephiroth just stared at him blankly, before finally, Zack calmed down, bending over and letting out a sigh.
"Whew. Yeah, I probably do sound like I've lost my damn mind, huh? I hear myself, and even I think I'm nuts sometimes. Maybe the stress is getting to me or something..." Slowly, Zack straightened up, still smiling. "So, we've never met one another before all of this stuff happened? Really?"
"...No." Sephiroth finally averted his eyes. "Never." He denied it -- but even the littlest action could be damning. Sephiroth turned away after a moment, starting his way down the cliff. "Like I said, I have business elsewhere."
The Cetra sat poised and ready to rip through his insides if he so much as opened his mouth on the wrong note, he knew, waiting and gathering their thoughts and strength for another onslaught. They were mad, ragingly mad, positively seething with anger, so intense he could already feel his mako-saturated cells beginning to sizzle. They knew how close he'd been to letting it all slip out -- their secrets, their identity, the truth behind his own actions -- and it drove them right to the breaking point.
Thankfully, Zack, the root of their anger, didn't follow. With just a few yards between them, though, he called out, sounding a little amused.
"Hey! We'll meet again, won't we?"
"...I don't know," Sephiroth muttered, truthfully.
"Just so you know, I don't really plan on taking no for an answer. If you're ever around, come join us and help me beat the shit out of Shinra. Okay?"
"...I'll consider it."
"Ha, that's what I wanna hear. As good as a yes, as far as I'm concerned. And -- oh, wait, Sephiroth. One more thing."
He paused, feeling exasperated again -- and not really minding, once more, a little startled to find that Zack's annoyances were distractions he could actually take. "What?"
"Uh... Aerith. Have you... Have you seen anything, or... do you know where she might be?"
Sephiroth saw it again -- Zack might have put a grin on his face most of the time, but he seemed troubled, right now, and even more so now that he stood at the top of the small cliff in the dark, hands in his pockets and his expression darkening a little. Sephiroth figured his departure didn't make much of a difference, but without Aerith and Cloud, probably the two most important people in the world, Zack's usual confidence seemed uneasy, even shaken.
Sephiroth considered it, briefly seeing green in his vision again -- Lifestream, controlled by the Cetra, but a part of him, too -- and suddenly he caught just a glimpse of Aerith, kneeling over a garden somewhere in the sun, a forced and brave smile on her face and worry in her eyes. It was too brief an image to pick anything revealing out about the location, but it was definitely Aerith, and she was definitely alive.
"...I don't know where she is. I haven't heard anything," Sephiroth said, impassively. "But... she's alive, and I think she's safe. For now."
Zack stared at him, wide-eyed. "You're sure?"
"Yes."
Zack's wide-eyed look melted into a grin. "I'll take your word for it, then. See ya later, Sephiroth. Don't let the voices in your head boss you around too much."
Sephiroth looked at Zack for one long moment, before turning and walking away in silence, hearing a good-natured scoff behind him. He quickened his steps as soon as he reached the forest path, wanting to put as much distance between himself and anyone else as quickly as possible -- knowing what was coming. The Cetra were now one concentrated mass of utter fury fueled by panic, of all things. Zack scared them. And Sephiroth felt like a ticking time bomb, ready to messily explode and take the entire world down with him.
Finally, about three miles away, and on the North road towards Junon again, Sephiroth forced a smirk on his face, bluffing again and doing a convincing job of it.
"Seems like you didn't do such a good job of changing things, after all. What was it that you were saying before?" He asked, pausing a moment, his voice as conversational as he could manage. "'Tiny ripples spread along the water's surface.' What a load of nonsense. If time's anything like water, you're nothing more than brats splashing around in a children's wading pool and trying not to drown in it. If Zack has an idea... and if Cloud remembers, just how badly did you screw up, anyway? The Lifestream must not behave quite like you think it does."
As soon as they struck, his face hit the dirt (they knocked him down effortlessly), thankfully muffling his own helpless screams, but no matter what they did -- no matter how badly they tore into him, violated him, and shredded his mind and his memories into increasingly unrecognizable pieces -- they couldn't shake the deep feeling of growing satisfaction. Midway through what felt like a lifetime's worth of torture, the Cetra stopped abruptly, as if coming to the same realization. He laid, panting on the ground, curled in a near-fetal position, awaiting whatever absurdities they were going to subject him too next -- and expecting them to spit out some kind of sharp retort, irritable and petulant, just like children.
They didn't. Instead, they were sickly sweet, and Sephiroth felt an odd sinking sensation again. Whenever the Cetra's anger faded and their calm, guided complacency returned, it usually meant they had the upper-hand again.
"Just go to Junon. Now. You've wasted enough time."
An order. Nothing more. Sephiroth rose to his feet slowly, trying to keep his limbs from shaking and letting his eyes refocus. His mind felt too crowded to even think.
"What now? You won't even tell me?"
A lazy non-physical slap nearly bowled him over, but the Cetra sounded calm, nonetheless.
"Just go, Jenova's child. You have work to do."
Sephiroth remained still for a moment, silent, before putting one foot in front of the other and walking, continuing on his way towards Junon with silence in his head and hateful apprehension building inside of him.
author's notes
1. This is the "calm before the storm," so to speak. It's also the last of three fairly long chapters. Next week is my "short" chapter… which will probably clock in at about 6,500 words.
2. Next week: Sephiroth in Junon, a message from Cloud. Once more, thanks for the reviews/comments, and please keep 'em coming. Knowing what you (the audience) are thinking about and reading your opinions/comments is not only fun, it's very, very helpful to the writing process.