Chapter 47 - My Beautiful Monster
May, 1991
Sephiroth can't breathe.
He's sure of it. His body stopped functioning outside of the heartbeats pounding in his ears and the questions running through his mind. Sweat is everywhere. His face is covered in moisture and his hands are swimming in his gloves. Only a few orange lights blink above him, throwing the ship's hull into strange shadows.
The chattering of the weapons echo from above on the deck. The attack started but he is still sitting in the dark. The boat is coming to shore. Once that happens, his job will begin. He closes his eyes and forces himself to relax. The steel barely leaves his spine. His heart hurts. Every sound reverberates in his ears.
At first, Sephiroth questioned SOLDIER's order to put on the outfit of a Third Class, keep the helmet down and not speak. Now with the chalky dust falling and hazy prayers floating around him, it makes sense. This is his initiation into war. Most of the men around him had never been in a battle. His mind chokes, unable to track orders or these men.
This anonymity is his shield.
Shinra is giving him one chance to do this.
An explosion goes off and the boat rocks. Someone whimpers. Feet pound the deck.
Sephiroth closes his eyes.
Lazard called this a skirmish.
What he is about to confront isn't even a real battle.
So why is he so scared?
The sword placed across his knees centers him. He puts his hands on the flat and hilt of it. He's seen Orlin do this, pressing down and testing the strength of the steel. The cold cuts through the warmth of the leather. It won't bend. It is his weapon. He can rely on this. He's held a sword for seven years.
He has trained for this. The conviction in those thoughts are sheer.
Their orders are simple. They are to land and charge the line protecting the half built machinery that would take out Shinra warships if completed. They are the reinforcements. A radio is pushed in his ear if there is a change in plans. He tries not to think about the electrodes, microphone and wiring hanging around his body under his shirt. While R&D's initial plan sounded like it was made up on the spot, they are taking advantage of it now. The plastic sucking to his chest, tracking every emotion in measurable numbers, does not help him.
Twenty SOLDIERS sit around him. The mutters of several continue on. The tops of the helmets shine in the light. He presses the sword harder. There is only one god on the battlefield and he is holding it.
Orlin had texted him one message before this battle: Stay safe. Follow the orders. Think of it as sending them back to the planet. Text me after.
Hydraulics hiss. A voice in his ear tells him to get ready and good luck. Most rise from their seats. The guns are incessant. A high scream cuts through it. He's not sure what side the dying man is on. He thinks about all the ways that the sim soldiers attacked and how to defeat them. A new smell starts to leak from the opening door. It's muddy and acrid.
The light comes in as the gangway opens.
Why is he doing this? The thought staggers him. Why is he risking everything like this? Why should this be worth it? Why didn't he run away when he had the chance?
The ramp hits the shore. The men behind him scream. Everything whirls. His heart rockets. He's taken an extra dose of medicine. It should be enough to keep an attack at bay. He takes a step forward. Rocks crunch under his shoes. The other SOLDIERs brush past him. They might be saying words but he can't understand them. One shoulders him so hard that he is pushed forward into a half jog until he can pass. The smell of sulfur and blood burns.
The sunlight hurts his eyes as he blinks and looks out at his first battlefield. The sword is tight in his hands. The fear grabs at his throat. His knees lock and wobble. They are all right. He is going to fail. He's seventeen. He's a kid. He's not meant for this. He just wants to go home. Tears run down his cheeks.
He is off the ramp. The other SOLDIERs run ahead. He doesn't care for the mass of two forces pushing against each other further up the hill. There are bodies everywhere here. The faces are real this time. Some are frozen in a cry. Others are still moving. Organs, some that he can identify and others he can't, are sprayed across the ground. Nausea twists his stomach. Sephiroth leans forward, pressing his hands against his knees. Blood rushes to the front of his face.
It's all so real.
He can't do this.
They made a mistake.
"So this is what will become of the great Sephiroth, a pitiful rat throwing up on the sidelines?"
The voice oozes into his brain. Sephiroth jerks to the side, pulling himself up and raising the sword. No one is there. Is his imagination going that wild that he is hallucinating?
"Pathetic. Just pathetic."
He lowers the sword. The voice is coming from his ear piece and he recognizes it.
"Professor Hojo?"
"Gods. A carrot reacts faster to light than you do."
Sephiroth can't believe this voice is coming through the comm. The head of the R&D department doesn't drop into the army communication lines without trying to. He takes a few steps back and stares at the destruction happening around him. He's lost.
"What are you doing?" Hojo asks.
The question is so simple but Sephiroth can't answer it. He's standing still in the middle of the battlefield.
"I am gathering myself." He straightens and tries to speak into the small mic wired to him. Maybe it would be a good enough answer.
"Your actions are deceiving you."
"I'm just trying to adjus-"
"You are weak," Hojo snaps.
Sephiroth saying that to himself is one thing. Professor Hojo throwing it in his ear is another. It hacks into his fear. This is the man that he needs to impress. Professor Hojo has been the one that has overseen his life since the beginning. Mariella has made that clear enough.
"I'm not weak, not after everything." Sephiroth swallows and shakes his head. All the experiences of his life have led up to this. He's ready. He's just scared. The front line wobbles in front of them. Shinra pushes forward a few feet and he sees a regular infantry man fall down the hill.
He's dying.
"How will your friend Orlin react to this performance? Since you care so deeply for him?"
Sephiroth looks at the ground. Empty noises come from his lips. His face grows warm. He clamps onto anger, trying to keep it from spreading. He needs to stay in control. Dinand trained him to be able to do this. A sick acid comes into the back of his throat. He shouldn't use what that man gave him but he's trapped in a corner. There is no way out. Sephiroth spins the sword in his hand, focusing on anything else. Gun fire continues overhead.
Dinand dictated so many years of his life. It isn't easy to discard it.
And he needs something, anything, that can help him through this.
"Ah, or shall I remind you of your dear Mariella? She confessed fears to me that you might choke. You might become a disappointment."
His heart beats harder as he fights the venom from his voice. "I am not a disappointment. I'm getting ready."
The worry had been heavy in Mariella's eyes. He knows members of her department have disappeared. More deserters. More SOLDIER secrets out in the world. She needs him to do well for the department, for Shinra. The pressure in him grows. He's going to explode with it.
"You are still within the range of the security cameras of your ship. I've been watching you this whole time. I saw you almost throw up." Professor Hojo pauses and then says the rest in a playful tone, "Oh whatever shall you do now?"
"Stop. Just please stop."
His fingers shake. The adrenaline that scattered him is congealing in his head. The pound against his skull makes it even harder to think.
"Please you are just the baby who got bullied by his teacher until he wept to mother."
"No." Sephiroth turns back towards the ship, imagining where the camera is. He sees several small glass eyes. He can't seem to pick one. He keeps throwing his focus between them as if he will see Professor Hojo peering through one of them.
Every method of keeping his frustration at his life is starting to crack. Professor Hojo should understand. He should see how hard everything has been. Being the poster boy of SOLDIER sucked everything out of him.
Then there is graduation.
Thinking about that is like trying to enter an endless sea. If he goes there, he will not come back the same.
Hojo says softly, "Well then, prove me wrong, S ."
Sephiroth's stomach drops.
Either Professor Hojo knows about the journal or he's mocking him aimlessly with the nickname. Professor Gast's pride hurts him deeper than anything Hojo has said. Sephiroth is failing one of the only people who has shown him compassion. Professor Gast believed in him. He supported the Shinra therapies. He must have supported Sephiroth becoming a SOLDIER as well.
Now he's failing him too.
That imagined disappointment, along with the hopes of Mariella and Orlin, hits him.
Sephiroth trembles.
He tries to hold it all in one last time.
The radio gives him static and a chuckle that vibrates too deep.
His temper snaps.
It wakes up everything in him at once in a rush of fire.
Fine.
He will give everyone exactly what they want.
The anger makes him warm as he turns away and walks towards the battle.
Everyone wants him to kill. They want him to be this hero that they can put on a pedestal. No one at Shinra cares what happens underneath. He shouldn't care either. He is in SOLDIER. This is the path he was given. He will fight. He has been trained to do this. From Dinand or not, every part of him should be sharpened to this.
His fingers quiver.
He's so angry.
He has no right to these emotions.
It shuts off.
He shuts it all off.
A Wutai soldier breaks off from the edge of the line. He ducks around the edge and his eyes meet Sephiroth's. Wildness plays on his limbs as he takes off down the hill at him.
The spear in the Wutai's hand aims for his stomach. A part of his mind hiccups. Sephiroth slips mentally. He isn't sure where he is. Some of the simulations were done on battlefields. The man running towards him could be just another model. This could all be another bad dream, encoded in ones and zeros. The fire in his stomach could be from something Dinand said. Sephiroth could be in Midgar. He could be safe.
The screams around him blend into one sustained sound in his ears like a piano key pressed too long.
The Wutai soldier steamrolls forward, too fast for his own good.
Sephiroth steps away from the charge and the sword flicks out in a force of habit. The steel comes down sleek and quick, digging into the soft place where the neck is unprotected. The sword is sharp. It slips into his throat with no resistance. The Wutai soldier drives forward, tearing into the blade deeper into himself with momentum.
Sephiroth doesn't expect the tug on the hilt as the soldier catches entirely on the edge. It pulls on his wrist. The man's feet fly out in front of him. His neck and shoulders are held back by the weapon. A choking noise sputters out of him. Another sound in the mess of them. Sephiroth yanks his arm back. The sword comes free. Blood coats his left hand. The man slips on the mud. With another destroyed sound that is like a cry, the dying soldier drops to the ground.
Sephiroth's attention catches on the gleam on his left hand. The red is sticky. It oozes in rivulets on the Shinra produced leather.
Blood falls off his fingers like rain.
Sephiroth exhales.
Oh.
He expected this to be difficult.
He expected to be upset.
But it was easy
Sickeningly easy.
Part of him withers.
Something else clicks in him, mechanical and intoxicating.
It becomes oddly clear.
He has been shaped for this.
Every part of him has bled for this.
He's doing something that he is good at.
He's ready to be in control.
Like a wave, that knowledge hits him. Every fear breaks down. He's not worried as he steps over the soldier. The bodies are still everywhere. He doesn't care to tell them apart. They aren't him. He will never be laying on the ground in the mud, bleeding out helplessly. He won't lay on the floor, crying into the tile ever again, screaming as the sim continues to pound on him.
That won't happen ever again.
His body is alive as he walks towards the throb of men further up the hill. It's chaos. Dirt sprays across him. The sword is loose in his fingers. Something whistles close to his ear. He doesn't stop walking but looks up to see the Wutai soldier ducking behind a fresh boulder. The helmet sticks up over the ridge. Sephiroth knows what to do. He has done it a million times in practice. It purrs seductively in him.
The materia flares on his sword. The resulting explosion dislodges the rock. It hits the ground and resumes its roll down the hill. Black char is left behind it. Some part of Sephiroth wants to smile. It is that easy. The man is gone, scorched from the planet. He was another person that wanted to hurt him and now he would never get the chance. It was his decision to attack Sephiroth so it was his responsibility to strike back.
It is all part of this calamity.
An eye for an eye.
He's striking back.
The line writhes with people. Other SOLDIERs are entangled in the rush. Several of the people are already sprawled out in the dirt. The dark blue of a uniform is going black in the sun. It smells like shit and gunpowder. Sephiroth breaks into a jog for the last twenty feet. He raises the sword close and dives at the edge of the line.
This new part of him screams as his blade digs into flesh.
Before, he thought that the enemy was going to be as strong as the ones in the simulation. Those enemies had been custom built for him by AI, learning his patterns and methodically attacking weaknesses over the course of thousands of hours and bodies. He knew this but surely the rest of the world has access to this as well. This is not the case.
Only two Wutai soldiers manage to hit him as he works his way through their squad. One taps his side. He doesn't feel it. Sephiroth's sword is carving music in front of him and he's reveling in every second of it. Every hit is a validation. It's a jolt of joy to pay for all the pain given to him. Sephiroth is right. He's desperately right. He can make up for everything that has happened to him. He can deal it back.
The second hit is near the end. He has his sword deep in the chest cavity of a man. The blade is caught between two ribs and they aren't letting go. He glances up. A woman, the naked woman from his drea, stands apart, cut away from the gore. She stares at him, eyes knowing everything about him. She's smiling. Her broken wings have gone black. The feathers float towards him. He freezes. What is she doing there?
The dying soldier's friend screams and throws himself at Sephiroth.
Sephiroth tries to dodge the attack but his foot lands on the thick muscles of a thigh of a fallen soldier. It rolls him forward and the body on his sword weighs him down. Sephiroth dips. He tries to get under the attack as he slides the body off his blade. The dying man's eyes flicker. He reaches forward and grabs Sephiroth's wrist. The fingers feel like Dinand's. Sephiroth's attention slids in fear.
The friend's sword rings hard against his helmet. Sephiroth scatters backward. His vision goes white. Numb aftershocks find him stumbling. He forces his hands to grip the sword as the world comes back oversensitized.
The attacker is still coming and Sephiroth raises his sword. The soldier's body is gone from the edge. Everything looks different but he doesn't get a chance to figure it out. The friend manages a slash and Sephiroth parries it. The impact tickles up his shoulder. The soldier is still screaming a name as he pulls back to what might have been a thrust. Sephiroth doesn't allow it. He takes the strength and anger that's been curled up inside him. It winds so tight and he screams in response as he lets it go.
He strikes against the man's neck.
The body falls in pieces.
He takes a breath.
He checks.
The woman is gone.
Feathers are still scattered around his feet.
"…Sephiroth?"
One of the SOLDIERs stops fighting and stares at him.
White hair tickles his face.
The helmet is gone.
He should feel insecure.
He should feel young.
He should feel wrong.
Instead a smile grows across his lips and he turns away to find the enemy.
The battle continues on. Men gather behind him. He feels like he lives a life that he will never live again. The power and faith in the men that follow him swells. Shinra machines tear through fences and men with bullets and saws. He cleans up the remaining. Sometimes the men scream. Other times they reel helplessly. The words they say mean nothing to him.
It is all part of the music he makes with his sword. The song sings intoxicatingly in him, numbing everything except the action what he is doing. As more and more men fall to the grass, he thinks of sending them back to the planet. To that green mist in the illustration as the serene Ancient summons it from the planet in his book. They could hear the planet's call. As the guns go off and the bodies feed the dirt, he stands and wonders if this is what they heard.
It's impossible to know.
Maybe these sounds are his song.
A Shinra photographer catches his eye near the end of the battle. A camera is aimed at him. He glances at it once before turning away to do his job.
He sees the picture later.
He's standing with the dead sprawled around him. His body is tall and straight. The helmet is gone. His short silver hair falls half across his face. He's lifting the sword as he's starting to turn away. Dark red is sprayed across his clothes and on his cheeks. A small cut rolls a stripe down into his eyebrow where it stops.
What is captured in the photo is the look in his eye. He must have focused on the lens for a millisecond but that is all the machine needs to cut the moment into a lifetime. There is no softness here. His shoulders are challenging lines. His feet are planted between the arms of two men. The look in his slitted eyes is different. The green in his eyes is sharp and deadly. Confidence burns in them.
Sephiroth looks like a man you wouldn't want to meet on the street.
He looks like a man who lives off death.
He looks like a man who was born to do this.
He looks like a monster.