Making of A Sword

For Sephiroth

Elfe of the AVALANCHE is finally here! Love her design!

Disclaimer: I don't own FFVII

[Chapter 10]

"Keep quiet. Don't try anything, just walk."

With someone holding back my arms, I staggered out of the auditorium. Bright daylight flushed down and I couldn't keep my eyes open. It took me a few blinks to finally see the people around me. They were "AVALANCHE" soldiers. Four of them, in black, were walking around me, shooting the Shinra guards who caught up to us. They led me near the Sister Ray and lifted open an entrance on the floor to an underground tunnel.

The AVALANCHE member behind me gave me a push, and I fell down into the tunnel. We walked for about five minutes and a metal door appeared in front.

"Get in!"

He gave me another push and I stumbled through that door.

This place was surprisingly spacious, and it looked like the front cabin of an airship. Control panels, screens and engines filled up the space. I then realized this was the control room of Sister Ray. A few more AVALANCHE members were guarding the room and all stared at me with cold eyes.

I looked around and then found out that a young girl was sitting in front of the control desk. She was not in the AVALANCHE uniform, nor in a helmet. She wore a set of celadon outfit, her hands stacked on her knee. A long, thin katana was laying against the desk. She had short brown hair, her eyes were glowing light green, so light that they looked almost hollow, and her skin was so pale that she almost seemed sick.

"Anlila Rain," slowly, the girl stood up and walked to me, her voice clear and fragile as thin glass, "I am Elfe, leader of AVALANCHE. We learned that you are a specialist in materia fusing, and we'd like to invite you to work with our scientist to build a weapon for me."

"A, AVALANCHE…"

I forced myself out from this disaster of being kidnapped by this infamous terrorist group. I stood there in the middle of the control room and my limbs started to wobble.

"I can compensate you." She suggested without any indication of sincerity.

"Compensate…?"

I grumbled after her. My senses were coming back and my slow brain finally started to resume its work. Now I felt humiliated. Anger began to burn inside my. I heard noise from fighting outside the room and that gave me some sort of courage. I licked my dried lips and said,

"Wha - what do you guys want? You are here to assassinate the president, aren't you? And by the way, to kidnap me here? I, I'm telling you, the company is after you and they will be here soon…"

Elfe sighed lightly as if she anticipated my reaction already.

" , you are no match for AVALANCHE. After we fire toward Midgar, we will take you to our base. Please wait right here."

"Fire? Don't tell me that you are…" I stepped backward until my back pushed against a wall. Then I pointed at her with one hand and raised my voice, "No, you won't start the Sister Ray and I'll never make any weapon for you!"

She blinked a few times looking a little surprised at my fight back. I felt as if I was winning to some degree. My strength, which went away from fear, was coming back. So I faked a strong voice and yelled,

"You are all terrorists! You, you try to bomb mako reactors, steal our shipments, kidnap our managers and send spy into our company. That's all terrorists' doing! I won't work for you!"

"Is it?"

Elfe lowered her eyes in silence. Her ban fell on her eyes. Later, she raised up to me again.

"Of course…I was unwise.

"Of course, you don't need any compensation. You are born in Midgar, guaranteed attendance to Shinra Academy, and never been on a team for large-scale weaponry. All the news you watch have been edited by Shinra. Your social media page is full of bullshit like flowers, DIY, art, and food pictures."

She sighed again as if she was lecturing a terrible student, but she continued,

"Then, Anlila, have you seen the life in the slums? Have you seem the lifestream drained by mako reactor? Do you know how many cities have Shinra bombed? Shinra 'negotiated' with Wutai for eight years because the latter refused to build mako reactor on their land, what have they done? Have you seen the homes …destructed, by the swords you built?"

I gazed blankly over her shoulder. My eyes fell on the list of names of members who built the Sister Ray on the opposite wall. Elfe sighed again as she saw my reaction, and picked up her katana,

"If this is it, then…"

She came up to me and raised her hand. The cold gloss of her katana was right in front of my eyes.

"I am sorry, then, but I've heard about what you did with Genesis's rapier. We don't' want enemies with that power."

I saw my own death reflected in her olive-colored eyes.

She spent a few seconds to save up some strength. Then the shining blade lifted up high, and came down toward me. I closed my eyes feeling the swift air stirred up by the movement.

At the next second, a larger gust of wind blew across me with a familiar fragrant smell, then I heard the sound of metal collide.

Her katana blade did not reach me. I put down my hands and shakily opened my eyes. I saw all the AVALANCHE members nervously raised up their guns at my direction. A dark, tall figure was standing in front of me, holding horizontally a extremely long sword, which blocked Elfe's attack.

The stern image in her eyes finally cracked. She stared at this uninvited guest for a few seconds and lowered her katana, then backed up a few steps.

The person in front of me walked up to her in such elegant steps as if he was on the expensive carpet in Shinra office. I looked up to him. His glow lighted up the room just as the first time we met.

"Sephiroth…"

"Well met."

He said very dully.

Elfe didn't answer and pressed both hands on the katana. She lowered her body and her grey mantle flew up behind her. At the same time, all of her comrades fired together - at us. I screamed and shut my eyes again, my body already stiff like a corpse. In the infinite darkness, a strong force took hold of my shoulder, pulled me back and started to push me around. I heard sound of the wind and metal colliding again. The swift air roused by movements of blades cut my face like winter wind, as it blew off the smell of gun smoke. Maybe thirty seconds passed, maybe a minute, the gunshots stopped and the hand on my shoulder went away.

I opened my eyes again, afraid. It was hell in front of me and I almost screamed again.

All the AVALANCHE members were lying on the ground. Their goggles, helmets and clothes intact. Thing streams of blood flowed under their bodies.

Sephiroth stood in front of me. There was a slit on his left upper arm and blood was dripping from it. Elfe, holding her sword, stood ten steps away from him.

"You…you…"

Elfe pushed forth this phrase in between her teeth, her voice full of hatred and sounded like broken glass.

She pressed down her blade again and raced to Sephiroth. The soldier lifted Masamune with both hands, raised his elbows, and his feet parted. Then he strode up elegantly. After that I couldn't identify their movements because that kind of speed was not meant for human eyes. I could only see their swords became two strips of silver light. They were not even making any sound this time except howling wind and intermittently blasting sparks.

Their fight almost overturned this control room. Every attack seemed to be dodged or blocked by the other person. After a few rounds of back and forth, they both fell back to their feet and left a distance in between them. Sephiroth raised an eye brow as if he saw a worthy opponent.

But Elfe obviously didn't feel appreciated. She threw her left hand up the air and a materia glowed somewhere in her arm. Fire magic exploded around Sephiroth. He blocked it with his sword. Then she lifted the katana and casted another spell, the glow on her left arm growing brighter. A spinning blue sphere formed above her blade. She swung her sword to Sephiroth and hurled the light sphere straightly toward him.

"Sephy!"

I cried. He didn't back off. Instead he led forward and cleaved the sphere in half. His force not only penetrated the magic, it even reached Elfe. She fell back hastily to discharge his attack. When she was about to fight back, I heard her moaned in pain. Then her body started slumping and she thrashed the katana into the floor to stop herself from falling.

Sephiroth forcefully paused his movement as he saw her collapse. Elfe then let go of the katana. It made a loud sound falling to the ground. She pressed down hard on the source of pain - her left hand. Even from this far away I could see the blue veins on her skinny arm.

Sephiroth was stunned for a moment. Then he seemed to find out something. He back off one step, reached out the Masamune, and used the blade to lift up her right palm that was covering tightly her left hand. I almost fell to the ground in fear when I saw what was underneath-

She was wearing a pair of regular gloves with no materia slot. The materia which she used to cast magic from, was embedded in the back of her hand!

How…how is that possible…to implant a materia in human flesh!?

I pressed my chest to hold back the nausea. I wanted to look away but couldn't take my eyes off her. The materia was light pink, with foggy texture floating inside as her pulse raise up and down.

I couldn't see Sephiroth's expression as he was standing sideway to me. After a long and awkward silence, he suddenly spoke with a deep voice,

"Your strength is impressive."

When this wave of pain finally passed, Elfe hid the back of her hand away and picked up her sword, slowly picked herself up. Her face was paler than ever and covered in cold sweat, but those blank, green eyes let out a weak beam.

"Hah…"

She leaned back against the control desk and smiled, looking weary and panting heavily,

"I don't remember anything about my past…my family… the only thing I know is…AVALANCHE is my family. I fight for them. Even…even if that materia…is draining my life….."

"But you…" those lightly colored eyes shined brightly as if all of her life and energy were concentrated in there, "You are also…very strong, Sephiroth, but you couldn't…beat me. Have you thought about…what are you fighting for?"

Sephiroth's body froze slightly. He didn't reply, but lowered Masamune.

"Go,"

He even waved his blade to point at the exit, "tell your comrade to pick you up. The Turks are coming."

And then he turned to me as if Elfe was not in the room, swinging the non-existent blood off his sword,

"Anlila, go stop the Mako Cannon."

Tocasia, thank you so much for your comment. Yes, it is not like I prefer a colder Sephiroth, but I can't really imagine a super friendly Sephy…that would seem strange to me, haha! Don't get me wrong, I still think in CC he is a pretty nice person (while Genesis can be really mean), and he will definitely joke around with his friends, but I can't imagine him being very nice or talkative to someone he doesn't really know very well.

Also, Anlila is a very timid person and she gets nervous very easily, so the Sephiroth in her eyes is definitely more intimidating than he seems to someone else. If will be a completely different impression from Zack or Angeal, or even fan girls who just want to see him...you know...

I also believe that the timid/shy type sometimes could annoy Sephiroth (definitely Genesis too). Because it means some extra emotion shit that he has to attend to...I guess? It is almost like this frustration "ugh shit i'm scarying this person again". But I think this is common, a lot of people can be annoyed by extra-shy type. This is just my impression, though ; )