A/N: Sincere apologies for the ridiculously long wait. I plan to finish this story…I just don't know when, as I also want to do a complete overhaul of the first 12 chapters (like getting rid of all the chapter titles!). Thanks to everyone who had reviewed; I appreciate it. Special thanks to Noacat, who has reviewed and e-mailed a lot of encouragement. Enjoy, everyone!

Chapter 13

Aeris's voice had completely fled. Her mind was frozen. It was all she could do to simply stare at Sephiroth. Those cold, cruel eyes fixed her in place; the eyes of a wolf, watching a stunned deer, watching and waiting.

Oh God! The girl forced herself to swallow. Her tongue licked at suddenly dry lips. What do I say? What do I say to the one who killed me, and the one who is my fellow Bearer? A mocking voice in her head taunted, And I thought you said you weren't afraid of him! And here you can't even say anything!

She cleared her throat, fumbled a little. "You're…awake."

As soon as the words were out of her mouth, Aeris wanted to die from embarrassment. She sounded like a moron, and a scared one at that! If she could have prayed for the Planet to open out and swallow her whole, she would have done so in a heartbeat. Just to save herself from the glaring scrutiny of those eyes! She braced herself for a scathing, semi-maniacal retort from the former General—the kind she was used to, back from her days with AVALANCHE.

But Sephiroth had remembered her from his nightmares, the ones that the Bearers had sent him, in which the living-dead Aeris harassed him endlessly. They were tempered slightly by a fuzzy memory of a pale and tired voice reading to him throughout the night...only slightly. The juxtaposition of these images, plus being awoken out of a supposedly-eternal sleep, served only to confused Sephiroth.

To keep things simple, he craned his neck to the side, apparently trying to see his surroundings better. He didn't meet her gaze.

Aeris gaped at him. What? No reply, no crazy laughter, nothing?

"What is this place, girl?" He asked, his head trained away from her. Practically ignoring her!

"The Promised Land," she whispered, still in shock from his awakening and his apparent calmness. She knew he was cold, but how could he not allow even a speck of confusion reach his eyes?

Just as that thought passed through her mind, Sephiroth's dispassionate mask slipped for a moment as wonder seeped into his features. His eyes roved hungrily over the landscape, taking in everything: the rolling hills, the meadows, a meandering river, the buildings and homes in the distance, and what looked like pockets of pure Mako. Everything was drenched in dawn's golden sunlight, at times so dizzyingly bright that even the great Sephiroth had to squint. As Aeris watched, a smile spread over his lips; unfortunately, it was one she well recognized. It was nearly the same one that he had displayed to Cloud, after drawing the Masamune out of her dead body…

Mother, we've done it! We made it to the Promised Land—we've ascended from that worthless Planet to our rightful place in Paradise! Sephiroth crowed triumphantly to Jenova through their mental link. He waited eagerly for her familiar voice to praise him.

There was silence.

…Mother?

His hands trembled.

Mother?? MOTHER!

Aeris was completely unprepared for the inhuman howl that ripped itself out of Sephiroth's throat and echoed amongst the trees. She scrabbled backwards fearfully, watching as his muscles strained and tore against the glowing bonds of Lifestream binding him to the tree. His eyes latched onto Aeris, his only target, and he quickly forgot his previous aversion to looking at her.

"You! What witchery is this? Where is my Mother?!" the silver-haired man shrieked, directing all of his pent-up rage and bewilderment at her. Aeris trembled; she had never seen him beserk like this before.

"She…she's dead," stuttered the girl. Her noble ideals and philosophizing attitude about Sephiroth had disintegrated in the face of his raw anger. It was one thing to be accepting of someone who was asleep; when this same person awoke, and one was confronted with his fearsome, practically lethal aura, it was a whole different story. She struggled to speak to him, to explain all that she had learned of his past.

"Cloud and the others killed her. Right before they killed y..." Wisely, she trailed off. He glared fiercely at her, his anger providing a barrier strong enough to force the memories of her out of his mind.

"So your pitiful friends saved the Planet," he murmured. Experimentally, he flexed one arm and then the other. The Lifestream bonds held tight. "What a shame. For as soon as I'm out of here, I will destroy it once and for all. I will not make the mistake of underestimating that failure clone again."

Aeris gasped, her fear at his words giving her hidden strength. "You'll never be able to create destruction like Meteor again, Sephiroth! Don't you see? Your whole life has been a lie! I…I want to show you the truth. You deserve to know."

And maybe, just maybe, I can tell you about the Soul Prophecy…

Aeris brought her hands together and began to summon forth a white light—a light that was painfully familiar to Sephiroth. His blazing green eyes widened as he remembered.

"I can show you answers. Real answers, as to where you came from, who you are, and who you can be. Those notes did not provide you with everything that you wanted; they were sketchy, imprecise…vague. Yet you took it for fact because you had nothing else. Now you have the chance to know. Will you take it?"

Slowly, he looked at her again. She had his attention now, and she knew it.

Gloating, Aeris wiped a smudge of dried blood from her cheek. "Ah, so the great Sephiroth does have questions about his life? Leave it all to Aeris. I can show you what you seek."

She closed her eyes, cupped her hands, and concentrated; Sephiroth was eeriely reminded of when she prayed for Holy at the City of the Ancients. A glowing orb formed in her joined palms, a painfully blinding white light that washed over him.

"Look into the light," she said…

He had, and she had shown him atrocities, hideous lies. She fed him a tale of a foolish scientist named Lucrecia, her Turk lover, and that hateful excuse for a man, Hojo. And she had said…she had said that Hojo was his father, Lucrecia his mother, and Jenova nothing but an alien parasite who had almost single-handedly destroyed the Cetra. The cadaver Aeris had laughed when she saw the horrible truth descend on Sephiroth: he was not an Ancient. He was nothing but a sad boy grown into a deluded man, injected with Jenova cells, blessed with abilities beyond any normal human, and loved by no one. He refused to believe it, despite the fact that the story was apparently flawless.

"No!" He snarled, frightening Aeris and disrupting her concentration. The white light winked out of existence. "I won't fall for your tricks again, girl!"

"What tricks?" cried Aeris. "I haven't done anything!"

"Witch," Sephiroth growled. "You appeared in my dreams. Under the pretense of telling the 'truth', you wove a ridiculous web of lies designed to trap me into weakness! I will not have it!"

The accusation caused Aeris's face to flush angrily, and for the first time she dared to challenge him. "I did no such thing! If you were dreaming about me, then it was your own fault!" Just as I've been dreaming about you…

Mako-enhanced green eyes, as hard as smoky emerald, narrowed into slits. "Don't kid yourself. Every dream I had about you was a nightmare," he said, putting as much venom as he could into the words. It worked. Aeris's lower lip trembled a little before she caught it between her teeth.

"I don't want to fight with you, Sephiroth." She said, regaining her composure. "I want to…I have to help you. For the Planet's sake. It needs my help…and it needs yours too."

"As if I would believe that," responded the silver-haired man tartly. "If you had forgotten, I tried to destroy the Planet. I sincerely doubt it would want my help now. And if it does…" He indicated his bonds. "It has a funny way of showing it."

"That couldn't be helped." She said defensively. "And you're wrong about the Planet. It does want your help. There is a great evil on the move, and…and…" Aeris couldn't bring herself to say anything about the Bearers. Sephiroth merely closed his eyes and leaned his head back against the Tree, giving the impression that their conversation was over.

Aeris covered her face with her hands in despair. This isn't working. I thought his insanity had been cured by the Lifestream, but apparently not! I can't convince him of anything!

She suddenly remembered the book in her hands and the sword lying next to her.

"So you believe I'm lying?"

He didn't even gratify that with a response.

Aeris laid the Masamune across her palms and offered it to him—far away from his grasp, but close enough for him to inspect it. "How, then, would I have your sword?"

Sephiroth's eyes snapped open and he fixed her with a blazing glare. Aeris nearly lost her nerve then, but she pressed on, knowing now that she held some leverage over him.

"How did you get that?" He hissed.

"I'm not exactly sure," she quailed. "It appeared to me after I said that I wasn't afraid of you." Her eyes, clear as a hidden spring, implored him to believe her. Sephiroth snorted and dismissed her claim.

"I couldn't have gotten it any other way. I died before you did. I think the Planet gave it to me, so that I could…" Could what? What did the Planet want her to do with the very weapon that had stolen her life away? The Masamune caught the light and, to Aeris, seemed to land upon Sephiroth.

Oh no! There is NO WAY I am giving this sword to Sephiroth! She shook her head rapidly as he watched her.

Is there truth to this girl's story? He wondered. I died with the Masamune in my hand…there's no possible explanation as to how she could have gotten it…

"What will it take for you to believe me, Sephiroth?"

He regarded her seriously. She sounded as if she truly wished for him to understand. "I think you know."

Aeris gulped. She searched his face for something, and upon finding it, she steeled herself.

"You have to promise to believe everything I'm going to tell you, even if it sounds fantastic. And, naturally, you have to promise not to hurt me." Aeris said. Without breaking eye contact, Sephiroth slowly nodded. She slid the Masamune within a few inches of Sephiroth's right hand. Then, praying silently that she was doing the right thing, she dipped her hands into the Lifestream restraints binding the general to the tree. The Lifestream, magically enhanced by the Cetra, fought her attempts of dispelling it at first. Sephiroth watched with shrewd eyes as the girl, up to her wrists in the shifting green mass, spoke quietly and with great love. Finally, she removed her hands and stepped back a few paces, watching as the Lifestream bonds slowly uncoiled, melded together, and seeped into the ground.

Sephiroth raised one arm, and then the other. His muscles, having lain lethargic for so long, protested the movement but he ignored them. He was free; that was what was important.

"Foolish girl," he sneered.

He would exact revenge. From those who had put him here in the first place, AVALANCHE. From those who had ruined his life, the humans. And from those who had tormented his afterlife, the Cetra.

His eyes narrowed, pinpointed on Aeris. He intended to have his reparations paid in blood and he would collect each drop with his own hands.

He would start with this one.

Sephiroth wrapped his long fingers around the hilt of the Masamune, reveling in the feel of the familiar material against his skin. He was up in a flash, sword in hand.

"Sephiroth?" The girl was saying softly. He approached her, saying nothing, black cape snapping menacingly behind him.

She must have seen the murderous intent in his eyes, for her own widened and her face drained of blood. For a moment, he almost felt a pang of an emotion he had not felt for years: shame, for betraying Aeris's trust. To Sephiroth's surprise, she did not flee. Instead, she merely gazed at him. Amazingly, she managed to look upon him with something akin to sympathy and acceptance in her eyes.

She had the same look even as he raised his sword high above his head.

And as he brought the Masamune down, she didn't flinch.