Chapter 60 - Step Back to Insanity

January, 1994

The only reason that the nurse continues to speak is because Sephiroth shuts down.

They are in a Wutai facility. She doesn't have to explain. He already knows. Logic clicks the pieces into place. It explains everything. They lost the battle. They lost because of his own personal vendetta. They lost because he killed Dinand. Had he not done what he had, they may have won. That anger ticks up wild in his lungs. Surely, Shinra has not lost the war yet because he is still alive. No, they are bargaining with his life.

He has been foolish. So incredibly foolish. He's a damn prisoner of war.

The babble comes back into focus. She's talking at him. "You are safe. Of course. You've been here for a while. If we were going to do something we would have. If we wanted you dead, we would have left you to bleed out on the battlefield. In full transparency, we did have to remove the tracker in your back, congratulations, you are free of that."

"There is no tracker." He blinks and responds out of surprise.

"And I didn't expect you to be the lying type." She smiles in a way that has nothing to do with his mood. Either she's entirely dumb to what is going to happen next or this is her way of trying to keep him calm. He knows that Mariella has done this. She has made light of the situations where it was possible. This is a stranger. The pain in his side rises above the level of drugs. A throb forms indistinct.

He stiffens. He hasn't been getting his daily medication. She frowns at the panic she manages to catch in him before he shuts it down. Is that one of the reasons he feels so weak? Is that why he has been healing so slow? Hojo explained that if he was off it too long it would severely hamper his abilities. He would even peter out and "succumb to a sloth-like death." The fangs of a smile comes along with the memory.

It sets off a ticking clock in him.

He's hurt. He doesn't know much but it is the first thing to address.

"Where is my materia?"

Sephiroth doesn't expect that they would keep his standard sword but the materia is of worth. The loose clothes he wears now are soft and harmless. Wutai's love is the materia only manufactured out of Midgar is so deep that he knows that they wouldn't miss it. They would seek it from every dead body on that battlefield.

Her hand rests over one of his frozen one. "I can't tell you that."

The materia…that would be a loss. The quality of them is pristine, the highest out of Scarlet's labs and outright dangerous in the hands of anyone. His mind dwells on the white materia, the gift from Orlin. He kept it as a good luck charm, never wanting to use it. It is irreplaceable.

He holds his breath, putting a plan into place, anything, so he doesn't feel this sensation of freefalling without anything to grab onto.

"When the deal with Shinra goes through tomorrow, you'll be returned with your materia. Everything is set for it." Her eyes are earnest. "You just need to hold on one more day. As much as we would like to wheel you across to your side, they dictate you walk. That's why you are awake."

He ignores most of that statement and focuses on the important part.

His materia is likely in the same building as him if everything is set.

He closes his eyes. That's all he needs. He'll get to that materia and heal these wounds. He lets out the breath. If he was at Shinra, they would send him to the OR, reinjure the area, rend the scar tissue and smooth it over. When he finds his equipment, he won't get that luxury. It will be a patch job.

She comes closer, trying to be reassuring. "No walking yet though. You are still much too weak."

"Don't tell me what I can't do," Sephiroth says.

Adrenaline surges. It washes the stiffness away. It makes him remember himself. It's a relief to be angry. He's embarrassed himself long enough. Self-flagellation got him nowhere. It is time for action.

Her smile is still brave when he attacks the nurse. His hands come forward towards her temples. His left wrist catches on something invisible but his right hand makes it to its destination. He hits her head forcing her unconscious immediately. Her eyes fuzz and slide closed. She slumps out of his reach. Yet another body on the ground by him.

He glances at his caught left wrist. A handcuff is locked onto him. The chain leads to the wall.

They had the guts to lock him down.

He closes his eyes and tries to take a deep breath. His body is heavy. He fights it. He has to stay awake.

The monitor chirps a warning when he peels off the first electrode on his chest. The machine wails at the second one. He methodically works on the third one, watching the unconscious face next to him in bed. Calm. He needs to stay calm. Too much adrenaline will burn too quickly. He wouldn't have the strength afterward.

The rest of electrodes land like a net over her legs.

The catheter comes out next. He's seen Mariella do it enough but the pain tenses the muscles in chest. The blanket presses down on the welt of blood. Fluid stains the mattress on the covers from the tubing. He's committed to this now. He is cut off from any strong painkillers they have been feeding him.

He closes his eyes, steadying himself. Once he starts moving, he won't be able to stop for an uncountable amount of time. He will have to push through his body wanting to collapse. Finding the materia and healing himself are the next steps.

That Turk's knowing smile from the gala comes back to him with a sense of confidence. He is lethal without weapons.

He wraps the chain around both hands. The machine's wails have turned into one monotone noise. Simply something to ignore now. He holds onto the chain, braces his feet against the wall and pulls hard.

The wound in his side tears like paper. The healing he has done is ruined in a second. He yanks. Blood trickles onto his hip. He is more than this. He is stronger than this.

The chain snaps.

Satisfaction explodes in him.

The momentum pulls him back. The floor hits his spine. His ribs bruise immediately. The room spins. The chair behind him clatters to the floor as he knocks into it. As fast as he can, he curls onto his side, putting his hands against the solid floor. Pain spikes and throbs as fast as his heart. The room loses some color. He can't focus on it as he gets to his hands and knees.

Already a wave of coldness washes over him making him swim even more as his feet find the floor. He coughs sharply with acid. It doesn't matter. The pride rolls down through him. He's going to do this. He will not be handed over.

The room spins and settles. His mind scrambles to the medical materials before his body can make it there himself. He presses his hand against his side to stop the bleeding. It's only a matter of time before they figure out what has happened. Once that occurs, his troubles will continue to escalate until he either expires or finds the materia.

His fingers are soaked with his blood. The table shows some promise. She had set up for changing his bandage probably later in the day. His hands shake as he takes a surgery towel and presses it deep into him. White gauze wraps around it as tightly as he can make it. His eyes want to roll back then but he uses the table to stabilize his legs until numbness kicks in.

A familiar bottle of painkillers sits next to the remaining gauze. He swallows three down raw and tucks the bottle in his waistband. His fingers shake as he rips open plastic drawers until he finds surgical scissors. They clatter against each other in their plastic casings. He takes two. It's not much but it is better than nothing.

A deep breath stops his spinning head. Adrenaline is blazing. Everything has become warm. His limbs are jumpy and light. He curses it. It is useful but he has no idea how long it will last and he will not be better for it in the end.

Warmth dribbles down his right leg.

He presses his teeth together until they threaten to crack.

The door handle breaks when he pulls hard enough and then he is limping down a dark empty hallway.

It's getting harder to walk when he tracks down a staff member still awake at the dead of night. The doctor's eyes go wide as Sephiroth pins him up against the wall. The man's fingers work against Sephiroth's wrists but fire runs hard in his blood.

"Where are you keeping my materia?" He asks. His throat constricts for some reason and he swallows to get it to open back up.

The doctor wiggles and says nothing. The man's weight is hard to lift but it is better to keep him off the ground.

Sephiroth slams the doctor up harder against the wall.

"The materia."

He doesn't have time for this. Pressure is forming in his head. The new bandage is starting to leak and slip off.

By all respects, he really should be dead.

The doctor babbles in Wutainese mixed with a few common words that Sephiroth knows.

"The location of my materia." Sephiroth tries again in his language. The accents are wrong and the grammar has been inappropriately slaughtered but it should suffice.

Sephiroth can hear boots hurrying behind them. He's been able to avoid most of the soldiers but there is a new problem. He's starting to leave a trail.

"I-I don't know."'

That came out in common. Sephiroth shakes his head. The language switching plays hell on what is left in his mind. He presses harder against the man's collarbone. It waivers and almost snaps.

"Where?"

"I don't know, please, I am not important," The doctor cries out in his own language and the rest comes out too fast for him to parse into meaning. His face goes ugly with fear and tears. He shakes. This is hopeless. Sephiroth growls. The shouts are getting loud, aggressive, nearby.

Sephiroth brings the shaking body toward him. The man yells, his free hand pressing hard against his face. Sephiroth slams him hard against the wall. The doctor's head cracks back. Consciousness, possibly more, leaves him. Sephiroth snaps off the hospital pass off his belt and takes a step back. He peels a pair of scissors from its casing. The plastic clatters against the flooring.

Three guards come out dressed in combat gear. The Shinra guns in their hands glint sharply in the light. They yell, the weapons coming up but Sephiroth closes the gap before they can adjust. He rams into one of the guards, forcing him back against another wall. Close quarters will only help him here. The steel grip is slippery in his hand. The pointed end digs deep into the unprotected sliver of skin at the soldier's throat. He drives it down with it before ripping it through the muscle in between.

Hot air crosses Sephiroth's face in a choke.

The man's knees give. Sephiroth clamps over his gun and lets him fall. Guns are not alien but it takes a moment to remember the grip and the stock. The weight is strange but it is better than before. The other two guards have recovered. He finds himself staring down two identical barrels.

Surprise is gone. They are ready for him. Sephiroth brings up the gun anyways, seats it against his shoulder, aims it at the man who stands a little bit straighter than the other.

"Put down the gun. You can't win," The soldier says. He sees the eyes of the soldier linger on the mess of his pants. The white cloth has gone black with blood.

Every single syllable hurts him. He is so tired. He just wants to get through this.

He puts that all aside and sends a bullet through the visor and into the man's skull.

The soldier snaps backward, head falling over shoulders. The other lights up the air. Sephiroth moves fast, pushing everything to get out of the way. The drywall behind him ripples with holes. A burning sensation zips up his leg.

Sephiroth lifts the gun, sees how it shakes and changes his decision. His ears ring with the gunshots. It's disorienting. He throws the gun right at the man. It works. He isn't expecting it and stumbles back to avoid it.

He pushes forward in that unguarded moment. Sephiroth's bare feet slip on the floor. The sole of his foot is wet. No reason to wonder why. His own sense of gravity falls forward. The soldier is starting to raise the gun again but it is too late. Sephiroth uses his body weight. Slamming into his enemy rips into the remaining stitches. The gun goes off but it is wide and bites into the ceiling.

The soldier cushions his fall. Sephiroth clamps his hand over the man's helmet. He braces his other hand and rams the head down until the helmet splits and the brain underneath cracks. The fight leaves the corpse.

Sephiroth shakes.

Silence falls over them.

He half collapses as he rolls off next to the dead soldier. The pain is oppressively invisible. The wobble in his fingers tells him what will be coming his way soon. He's desperate for some water. The room smudges then his body obeys him, rising back to his feet. The soldier's ID card clips onto his pants next to the doctor's one.

He makes it to his knees and collapses back down.

His stomach rolls. The sounds he makes are ugly. There is nothing in him to throw up. He presses his fingers against the wet bandage and waits. The hallway seems invisible as everything narrows down to the pressure and the will that he needs to get through this.

They didn't torture him, he realizes remarkably as he waits through the wave. If the situations were reversed, a Wutai general wouldn't get a chance to breath before the Turks took him quietly into a room that he wouldn't leave on his feet. They know who he is and even he couldn't deny that most Shinra secrets are locked in his mind. They simply took care of him instead.

Eventually, he moves again because it is better than laying here and waiting to be picked up like a doll and put back in the toy chest.

The vest the man wears is black and tough, it could be bulletproof. That is why he didn't aim for the chest.

Peeling it off the limp body is easy. Pulling it over himself, working his right arm through, it overwhelms him. The stretch rips up his side, breaking through everything in a lightning strike of pain. He shakes heavily. The nurse is right. He is too weak for this. He knows it but SOLDIERs don't get to experience pain like this. They aren't allowed to.

Sephiroth takes both guns and limps forward.

The first window outside stops him.

He recognizes the exploded destruction outside. The snow covering it has gone gray from the ash underneath. The defensive wall has crumpled in at one point. The only thing missing from his memory are the bodies strewn everywhere.

They haven't moved him far. This isn't a hospital. This is the building that he was supposed to infiltrate with Dinand. He's barely been moved. Considering the bloody fingerprints that he leaves behind on the glass, it was a wise decision.

He leans against the window, pressing his head against the cold steel and grips the gun. It creaks as he focuses on his heart. It pounds harshly, driving him even faster towards hypotension. It thuds and calms as he reminds himself that he will get through this. He snakes his fingers between the vest, gauze and the towel. The heat is wet and thick. He presses in. The layers squish against each other.

His entire hand is red and dripping when he removes it.

He takes three more pills, crunching them, almost enjoying the bitterness.

The clock is ticking.

The next staff member knows where his materia is after Sephiroth breaks his arm. They limp together.

They encounter more soldiers but Sephiroth pushes himself then. He stands up, the shots go wild but he goes for quantity over quality. They fall in heaps. The first gun runs out of ammunition. He's down to his last weapon. The staff member takes him to a locked door. The shivering has turned into unending shaking. The bleeding has gotten worse, if that is possible. The guard's card makes the light flash red. The doctor's card clicks the door open.

Sephiroth finds himself coughing, as close to a laugh as he can get.

He lets the man go and locks the door behind him.

The room is impossible for him. It is so clean compared to him. The white walls hurt his eyes. Strange things trigger his interest. His clothes are there, ripped apart and bloody. The jacket neatly draped across the back of a chair like a relic. The sword he killed Dinand is here, still soiled. Even his combat shoes are set on the floor. They are like novelty presents in a gift store.

Materia is lined across the table on velvet. He stares at them impossibly.

He stumbles over to them, knocks over half of the items on the table as he collapses on the surface. He's so tired that he can't be bothered. He's bothered his whole life. He slips further down against the table top. The floor is wet. He can rest a moment. He can stop moving.

It's when he starts to fall off the table entirely that he is dragged out of the revere. His eyes open and he swallows a breath. The oxygen floods his brain. Was he not breathing?

He forces his fingers around the healing materia close to his head and drags on it like people smoke cigarettes. He pulls slow and steady, a weak consistent stream pouring into his lungs. Healing orbs don't necessarily have the same inherent aggression that the elemental ones. It depends on momentum. It warms his fingers and it is so pleasant that he sinks down even further. He's missed this. It's been so long since he hasn't felt some sort of pain.

The warmth spreads like molasses. His remaining energy is drooling away.

He needs to heal faster before he completely succumbs to shock.

He doesn't know if he can go faster. Pulling more makes his head numb. Any sense of the room gives way. The magic pushes through him, not settling deep in his system but traveling through his fingers and into the outside of his body. It hurts. Healing is not necessarily a clean process. He feels parts of himself struggle to stitch themselves back together. Pieces of his muscles strain, pulling, trying to find each other.

When he heals others, he has found his limits. He knows when something has gone too far. This is stretching over that line. His tongue catches in his throat.

Sometimes he imagines that this is the point in which he died.

It is too much.

The healing materia works too slowly. His heart gives out, drained of everything it needs, deep in the middle of a building, surrounded by enemies. He slips completely under the surface, drowning with dignity. His book closes here. A disappointing end, but he is sure that PR will find a way to spin it.

In this dream, Wutai buries his body. They don't give it back. All of him collapses into the planet where he belongs. He flows into the lifestream and joins it.

He knows what happens when he is gone if Hojo gets his way.

It is not peaceful.

Shinra would probably triple the ransom to get him back sooner, before the decay sets in.

He slides down the table further and wishes it isn't true.

The pain eats into him. The healing sucks away into his marrow.

Patiently, he is dragged back. The first real breath his body takes makes him realize there is a world beyond this. The second reminds him of obligation and the men rely on him. The third and final is the most remarkable one. It's the one where his body seals itself, that the muscles knit back, that he feels himself bump out into the shape that would recognize in a mirror.

It's not perfect.

It's not even close.

But he blinks, focuses on the empty room and revels in the clarity that is in his mind. Does he want to be back here? Does it matter? Obligation straightens his back. Responsibility forces him to sit up.

Getting to his feet makes him wobble. His coat finds his hands. It falls over his shoulders as he pulls it on. The leather falls to the right length. The side is ripped open but it feels like his second skin, yet another layer to keep him safe from himself. His mouth is dry. The materia slot inside his belt and then he hitches it around his bloody shirt. His fingers slip across the skin on his side. The door shakes.

They found him.

It's funny. Sephiroth doesn't care.

It's no longer a problem.

He leaves the white materia on the table for last.

His fingers touch it. The glassy surface is cold and steady. The white mist twists inside, pressing against the points where the two of them connect. It hums in the back of mind, asking the question that it has been asking since he got it. It's not like the other materia. This one is personal. The others feel foreign and solid, separable from himself. This one blends the line. It bleeds into his emotions. He can't tell where it ends and he begins.

Orlin says they never worked well together and suspects both of them are haughty enough to get along. That it is a waste on him and Sephiroth should give it a try.

Sephiroth watches it flicker. It twists in his mind, curls of mist stitching into who he is. It has been passed down Orlin's family line for generations but it had fallen to him.

The materia purrs. It's been his way of remembering Orlin, the way that he's been taught that isn't harsh. He's never truly used it. It's violent. It reminds him of Dinand. It's impractical and everything he tries not to be. Yet, it gives him strength now. He's carrying something with him. He will carry these mistakes forward. He will not do it again. His personal pain will not outweigh the lives of everyone else around him.

He squeezes the glass and accepts it. He leans over his fist, holding it tight. Fine, they can work together. A frighteningly human spark of pleasure dances in him.

The door jumps.

The materia goes with the others but it doesn't leave him. He used to be nervous to use it but now it simply doesn't matter. He's been through too much to be worried about such things.

He blinks and walks to the shaking door and unlocks it.

The men on the other side are astonished.

Sephiroth doesn't see this. He doesn't see the guns, the swords, or the opposition. Instead, he steps back and summons the white materia. It screams blistering in his head. It is angry for him. It feels like a fire wanting to destroy everything that's hurt him.

Masamune materializes in his hand.

The long sword is right. It shines clean as Sephiroth sets the weight and then brings it upwards, into a ready position.

It wants blood.

So together they rend into the flesh in front of them without another care.