~Half Forgotten Memories~
by:GoldenSilence
CH.5-Nightmare
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A/N=More good ol' confusing chapters! There is a plot to this, I promise. I was kinda sick with a cold when I wrote this, so I hope it's still good!..*honks on a tissue*. You know, maybe I am a little too much into writing..*thinks*..nyahh.
Oh yeah, don't you just love the chapter titles?Geez, they get more and more foreboding by the minute.
BTW=I hope there isn't a single obscure reference to FF8 in here-as, I'm warning you guys, I was playing it today.
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Sephiroth's victory against Cloud had been shallow. If it had been a victory. Neither had really won and neither had lost, though Sephiroth wished more than anything that he could have been the one that died. More to the point, that he could die.
The blurring silver of their swords as they slashed through the air and their bodies were all that were visible in the pitch black void of space. Then after several times of their swords meeting-metal upon metal- it had happened. Cloud's weapon had found a permanent sheath in Sephiroth's body, but not before Sepiroth's weapon could do likewise.
Cloud had died and Sephiroth should have-but he couldn't. Through his veins flowed the blood of Jenova..Sephiroth was cursed to be immortal.
At the moment, however, he looked merely mortal. A captive of the grime, muck, and decay that was otherwise known as Corel prison , Sephiroth lay curled up in a fetal position.
He tossed and turned, unable to attain the reprieve he craved even in sleep. The prison, he had hoped, would be his sanctuary. From her. He should have known better. It was like being a ball on a chain; one tug and he was back where it had all started, his own thoughts a mix of revenge and the ultimate glory that was his..if only he reached for it..if only he killed again...
Sephiroth was stronger now, he could refuse the pull of the voice, the images of bloodshed, of the world as his-but only just barely. And the voice persisted, never stopping. It and him had been one-and it was determined they would be one again.
Deep within insanity, the last remains of Sephiroth's own personality hid, slowly coming back together piece by piece after it had been corrupted and twisted by Jenova.
Sephiroth's appearance was similiar to that of all the prisoners Corel Prison held. His hair fell in long unkempt strings of tangled white down his back, his face was gaunt and his body nothing but a frame of bones- as if he had not eaten in decades.
Within prison was this man. Within this man was the dream. Within this dream was the voice. Fighting, fighting. Why must he always fight?All he wanted was peace. Peace from his own nightmare of a life.
"Go away," Sephiroth muttered in his sleep. "You're fucking with my head is how I got here in the first place."
The voice had found its way hazily into his dreams. It had found it's way in, but Sephiroth knew he could make it leave just as quickly. It didn't- and never would, if Sephiroth had his way about it- own his dreams again.
"And it's how you'll get out," the voice hissed, but it's sound was only a mere ripple in Sephiroth's brain.
Already, it was losing it's power. The fact that it could only enter his through his dreams instead of when he was fully consious was proof of that. It didn't have the control over him that it once had had.
"Let me guess, another ancient has been found and you want me to kill him. Typical." Sephiroth could hear himself speak even in his dream.
The voice ignored his comment as Sephiroth knew it would.
"You are not the only one infused with the blood of Jenova. There is one other. I need you to find her . Only through her and you can I come back to power."
"Who?"
"You need not know. Concern yourself only with bringing her to me."
Jenova back in full power. Him back in full power. The thought was terrifying.
"And if I don't?"
Sephiroth was still in his dreams, but he felt as wide awake and clear minded as if he wasn't. A sudden sharp pain wracked his head, and even in his sleep, he felt it.
"Then I'll have to kill you," calmly stated the voice.
"Kill me?When I am immortal?You yourself made me so."
"I made you so and I can just as easily take it away!Your life is in my hands, you know it."
"Go ahead. I have nothing left to live for anyway."
The voice laughed and the noise resounded around and around in Sephiroth's head 'until he wanted nothing more then to heave. "I won't do it," he stated again.
"Tsk tsk..have it your way. In that case, I'll just have to bring her to you.."
He could feel the voice ebbing away from him-but its presense would remain. Sephiroth was wrong. Jenova had not gotten weaker. Jenova had gotten stronger. Sephiroth refused to succumb to it.
"WAIT!DON'T GO!YOU CAN'T DRAG SOME OTHER HELPLESS PERSON AND ME INTO THIS, YOU JUST CAN'T!UNDERSTAND??JUST KILL ME IF YOU WANT, IT'S TEN TIMES BETTER THAN GOING THROUGH THIS ALL OVER AGAIN!"
No response. The youngest guard on duty looking apprehensively towards Sephiroth's cell as he heard the yelling coming from it. The other guard; a big burly man, gave him some advice.
"Aye. Completely insane, they say. Talks to things that aren't there. Best stay far away from him if ya know what's good for ya."
Sephiroth sat bolt upright on his bale of straw, causing his head to hit the rock hard cement wall. He cursed and rubbed the back of his neck. He wished he could call the voice just a dream, but he knew better than that. Jenova had been real and it would soon be entering his waking thoughts again when it had found the girl.
Sephiroth was sure it would. When he had been in soldier, he had tried to use Jenova to bring about what he wanted. From that devestating mistake, he had learned one thing. No one used Jenova to bring about their dreams..she manipulated them to bring about hers.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Meanwhile, a being of no body or physical appearance(she had lost that long ago)..but a being none the less, was traveling at breakneck speed towards Wutai, it's inn, and one particular room within that inn.
This plan would succeed. Sephiroth was stubborn, but he would succumb to her eventually..once she got just a little stronger and he just a little weaker. Yes. The plan would most definitely succeed. The world would be hers..hers and his.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Tifa stared slack jawed at Vincent, her mind refusing to take in and register the words he had just uttered. She was automatically on the defensive.
"Vincent, that's not funny. I'm really not in the mood, so stop making up shit, okay?"
That comment could be directed at her as well, thought Vincent wryly. After all, Tifa had just said she'd killed Cloud. Vincent had heard her loud and clear (and with the way she had been shouting in that raspy voice, so, Vincent suspected, had half of the people staying at the inn.)
Just listening to her argue with herself like that had sent chills up and down his spine. The death must just have been too much for her to take, thought Vincent. It wasn't that hard to believe.
Tifa had first put the blame for Cloud's death on others, swearing to find Sephiroth and hunt him down if he was still alive while she seethed with hate. It was natural. Vincent had done it himself for awhile when he found out of Lucrecia's death-for approximately ten years seething in a coffin, if you wanted to get technical.
Now Tifa was transferring the blame of Cloud's death onto her own conscience, making herself think if only she had done something, she could have stopped all of it from happening.
Vincent was filled with helpless indignation at the thought. Tifa couldn't have prevented it. There was no way. What had happened had happened.
Like what happened to Lucrecia..If only I had been there for her..if only I had told her once again how much I loved her..
Did Tifa really put the blame for Cloud's death on her own shoulders? Vincent was confused. He wanted to tell Tifa it wasn't her fault, but yet he knew that his words would be wasted because Tifa would not believe him. After all, hadn't Cloud and Barret and all the rest told him time and time again Lucrecia's death wasn't his fault?
Vincent had never believed them. Not once. Not until he saw Lucrecia's ghost at the waterfall and heard from her own lips that he could not have prevented her death.
Or maybe that wasn't the case at all. Vincent was getting increasingly panicky trying to make sense of why Tifa had been shouting at nothing. Maybe she had no control over any of it. Most crazy people (and Vincent was beginning to put Tifa in that category) had no control over their actions.
Vincent gave a slight shiver at the thought. Grief could drive you crazy-perhaps Lucrecia's ghost had only ever been in Vincent's imagination-the same might be happening to Tifa..only if she had seen Cloud's phantom, he certainly wasn't providing the same kind of closure Lucrecia's ghost had.
"I'm not making up shit." Vincent sighed. "But I really hope you are."
Tifa was enraged. "What?You think I'd make up something like this happening to me?Do you have any idea.."- Tifa's voice wavered slightly-"what I have been through?"
All too well, thought Vincent, but decided it was best not to get into an arguement with Tifa. His heart was breaking. He wanted to believe her, but well, he'd seen what he'd seen. And what he had seen was her talking to herself..in two different voices, no less!
"Tifa"-Vincent strove to keep his voice neutral-"What exactly do you believe happened?"
When Tifa spoke, it was in a half whisper. Vincent got the distinct feeling of a frightened animal trying to hide underneath its' shell.
"Not much to tell when you saw pretty much everything. This voice..I don't know where it was coming from-but it wasn't me-it told me things. Horrible things."
"What kinds of horrible things?"
Vincent knew perfectly well what kinds of horrible things, but he wanted to see Tifa's reaction to the question.
"Vincent, you heard them. I can't say them..I just can't.." Tifa's voice was taking a slightly hysterical turn again.
"There was nothing. You convinced yourself you heard something, but there was nothing," Vincent said firmly. "Just shut it out. Shut it out and maybe it'll go away."
Vincent feverently hoped his advice was true. That Tifa, simple as that, could come back to her senses and stop talking to herself.
"No. The voice comes and goes as it pleases-it said so. Said it was part of me forever or something..I don't know what it is..but I want to get rid of it."
No doubt about it, Tifa's voice was back to being full blown hysterical again. Though he was slightly relieved at the fact that at least Tifa didn't want to keep acting like a loony, Vincent was still very worried.
Vincent went over various things in his mind to say to Tifa. Words were not his forte-and he desperately needed them now. Mostly, he just wanted to ask her about her feelings, what she was going through; how she was coping with Cloud's death.
How she was coping on the outside was plain to see, but it was the inside that troubled him.
Looking at Tifa's trembling,bathrobe clad form, Vincent's mind was settled. If he wasn't sure how to talk to Tifa at the moment, at least Shera would be. Tifa was right. Shera would be able to help..somehow. She had been a doctor-she would know if the voices Tifa was hearing were simply a product of an overactive imagination.
He had to take Tifa to see Shera, what alternative did he have? There was no way Vincent was going to leave Tifa alone in her room. Not as she was now. Taking her to Shera would probably be a good idea..of all the group, Shera was the calmest and most collected. She wouldn't make Tifa even more hysterical than she already was.
"Tifa, you were right. You should go see Shera. NOW." Tifa had never heard Vincent's voice so determined and scared at the same time. Scared of her, she presumed. Anger came on top of everything else Tifa felt at the moment. If anyone had a right to be scared, it was her.
She knew what she had heard. She KNEW... and Vincent thought it was all in her own head.
Tifa didn't try to resist as Vincent gripped her firmly by the one shoulder and guided her down the hall. As if I can't be trusted to walk by myself, thought Tifa. She was trying to show Vincent she was perfectly fine by acting rationally ( which was hard to do as Tifa felt anything but rational) , yet at the same time concocting statements and speeches that would make him realize that she hadn't been talking to herself early in the morning for no particular reason.
But there are times you are unable to make someone believe something, no matter how hard you try to explain. Besides, how the hell do you explain something you can't explain?
The dilemma Tifa was caught in with Vincent was a complicated one. The dilemma she was caught in with herself was even less easily solved.
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A/N#2=*Grins*...and the plot slowly starts to unravel...sorry for the short chapters. It's hard to write long ones when I have alot of other stories besides this one to update!
by:GoldenSilence
CH.5-Nightmare
---------
A/N=More good ol' confusing chapters! There is a plot to this, I promise. I was kinda sick with a cold when I wrote this, so I hope it's still good!..*honks on a tissue*. You know, maybe I am a little too much into writing..*thinks*..nyahh.
Oh yeah, don't you just love the chapter titles?Geez, they get more and more foreboding by the minute.
BTW=I hope there isn't a single obscure reference to FF8 in here-as, I'm warning you guys, I was playing it today.
---------
Sephiroth's victory against Cloud had been shallow. If it had been a victory. Neither had really won and neither had lost, though Sephiroth wished more than anything that he could have been the one that died. More to the point, that he could die.
The blurring silver of their swords as they slashed through the air and their bodies were all that were visible in the pitch black void of space. Then after several times of their swords meeting-metal upon metal- it had happened. Cloud's weapon had found a permanent sheath in Sephiroth's body, but not before Sepiroth's weapon could do likewise.
Cloud had died and Sephiroth should have-but he couldn't. Through his veins flowed the blood of Jenova..Sephiroth was cursed to be immortal.
At the moment, however, he looked merely mortal. A captive of the grime, muck, and decay that was otherwise known as Corel prison , Sephiroth lay curled up in a fetal position.
He tossed and turned, unable to attain the reprieve he craved even in sleep. The prison, he had hoped, would be his sanctuary. From her. He should have known better. It was like being a ball on a chain; one tug and he was back where it had all started, his own thoughts a mix of revenge and the ultimate glory that was his..if only he reached for it..if only he killed again...
Sephiroth was stronger now, he could refuse the pull of the voice, the images of bloodshed, of the world as his-but only just barely. And the voice persisted, never stopping. It and him had been one-and it was determined they would be one again.
Deep within insanity, the last remains of Sephiroth's own personality hid, slowly coming back together piece by piece after it had been corrupted and twisted by Jenova.
Sephiroth's appearance was similiar to that of all the prisoners Corel Prison held. His hair fell in long unkempt strings of tangled white down his back, his face was gaunt and his body nothing but a frame of bones- as if he had not eaten in decades.
Within prison was this man. Within this man was the dream. Within this dream was the voice. Fighting, fighting. Why must he always fight?All he wanted was peace. Peace from his own nightmare of a life.
"Go away," Sephiroth muttered in his sleep. "You're fucking with my head is how I got here in the first place."
The voice had found its way hazily into his dreams. It had found it's way in, but Sephiroth knew he could make it leave just as quickly. It didn't- and never would, if Sephiroth had his way about it- own his dreams again.
"And it's how you'll get out," the voice hissed, but it's sound was only a mere ripple in Sephiroth's brain.
Already, it was losing it's power. The fact that it could only enter his through his dreams instead of when he was fully consious was proof of that. It didn't have the control over him that it once had had.
"Let me guess, another ancient has been found and you want me to kill him. Typical." Sephiroth could hear himself speak even in his dream.
The voice ignored his comment as Sephiroth knew it would.
"You are not the only one infused with the blood of Jenova. There is one other. I need you to find her . Only through her and you can I come back to power."
"Who?"
"You need not know. Concern yourself only with bringing her to me."
Jenova back in full power. Him back in full power. The thought was terrifying.
"And if I don't?"
Sephiroth was still in his dreams, but he felt as wide awake and clear minded as if he wasn't. A sudden sharp pain wracked his head, and even in his sleep, he felt it.
"Then I'll have to kill you," calmly stated the voice.
"Kill me?When I am immortal?You yourself made me so."
"I made you so and I can just as easily take it away!Your life is in my hands, you know it."
"Go ahead. I have nothing left to live for anyway."
The voice laughed and the noise resounded around and around in Sephiroth's head 'until he wanted nothing more then to heave. "I won't do it," he stated again.
"Tsk tsk..have it your way. In that case, I'll just have to bring her to you.."
He could feel the voice ebbing away from him-but its presense would remain. Sephiroth was wrong. Jenova had not gotten weaker. Jenova had gotten stronger. Sephiroth refused to succumb to it.
"WAIT!DON'T GO!YOU CAN'T DRAG SOME OTHER HELPLESS PERSON AND ME INTO THIS, YOU JUST CAN'T!UNDERSTAND??JUST KILL ME IF YOU WANT, IT'S TEN TIMES BETTER THAN GOING THROUGH THIS ALL OVER AGAIN!"
No response. The youngest guard on duty looking apprehensively towards Sephiroth's cell as he heard the yelling coming from it. The other guard; a big burly man, gave him some advice.
"Aye. Completely insane, they say. Talks to things that aren't there. Best stay far away from him if ya know what's good for ya."
Sephiroth sat bolt upright on his bale of straw, causing his head to hit the rock hard cement wall. He cursed and rubbed the back of his neck. He wished he could call the voice just a dream, but he knew better than that. Jenova had been real and it would soon be entering his waking thoughts again when it had found the girl.
Sephiroth was sure it would. When he had been in soldier, he had tried to use Jenova to bring about what he wanted. From that devestating mistake, he had learned one thing. No one used Jenova to bring about their dreams..she manipulated them to bring about hers.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Meanwhile, a being of no body or physical appearance(she had lost that long ago)..but a being none the less, was traveling at breakneck speed towards Wutai, it's inn, and one particular room within that inn.
This plan would succeed. Sephiroth was stubborn, but he would succumb to her eventually..once she got just a little stronger and he just a little weaker. Yes. The plan would most definitely succeed. The world would be hers..hers and his.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Tifa stared slack jawed at Vincent, her mind refusing to take in and register the words he had just uttered. She was automatically on the defensive.
"Vincent, that's not funny. I'm really not in the mood, so stop making up shit, okay?"
That comment could be directed at her as well, thought Vincent wryly. After all, Tifa had just said she'd killed Cloud. Vincent had heard her loud and clear (and with the way she had been shouting in that raspy voice, so, Vincent suspected, had half of the people staying at the inn.)
Just listening to her argue with herself like that had sent chills up and down his spine. The death must just have been too much for her to take, thought Vincent. It wasn't that hard to believe.
Tifa had first put the blame for Cloud's death on others, swearing to find Sephiroth and hunt him down if he was still alive while she seethed with hate. It was natural. Vincent had done it himself for awhile when he found out of Lucrecia's death-for approximately ten years seething in a coffin, if you wanted to get technical.
Now Tifa was transferring the blame of Cloud's death onto her own conscience, making herself think if only she had done something, she could have stopped all of it from happening.
Vincent was filled with helpless indignation at the thought. Tifa couldn't have prevented it. There was no way. What had happened had happened.
Like what happened to Lucrecia..If only I had been there for her..if only I had told her once again how much I loved her..
Did Tifa really put the blame for Cloud's death on her own shoulders? Vincent was confused. He wanted to tell Tifa it wasn't her fault, but yet he knew that his words would be wasted because Tifa would not believe him. After all, hadn't Cloud and Barret and all the rest told him time and time again Lucrecia's death wasn't his fault?
Vincent had never believed them. Not once. Not until he saw Lucrecia's ghost at the waterfall and heard from her own lips that he could not have prevented her death.
Or maybe that wasn't the case at all. Vincent was getting increasingly panicky trying to make sense of why Tifa had been shouting at nothing. Maybe she had no control over any of it. Most crazy people (and Vincent was beginning to put Tifa in that category) had no control over their actions.
Vincent gave a slight shiver at the thought. Grief could drive you crazy-perhaps Lucrecia's ghost had only ever been in Vincent's imagination-the same might be happening to Tifa..only if she had seen Cloud's phantom, he certainly wasn't providing the same kind of closure Lucrecia's ghost had.
"I'm not making up shit." Vincent sighed. "But I really hope you are."
Tifa was enraged. "What?You think I'd make up something like this happening to me?Do you have any idea.."- Tifa's voice wavered slightly-"what I have been through?"
All too well, thought Vincent, but decided it was best not to get into an arguement with Tifa. His heart was breaking. He wanted to believe her, but well, he'd seen what he'd seen. And what he had seen was her talking to herself..in two different voices, no less!
"Tifa"-Vincent strove to keep his voice neutral-"What exactly do you believe happened?"
When Tifa spoke, it was in a half whisper. Vincent got the distinct feeling of a frightened animal trying to hide underneath its' shell.
"Not much to tell when you saw pretty much everything. This voice..I don't know where it was coming from-but it wasn't me-it told me things. Horrible things."
"What kinds of horrible things?"
Vincent knew perfectly well what kinds of horrible things, but he wanted to see Tifa's reaction to the question.
"Vincent, you heard them. I can't say them..I just can't.." Tifa's voice was taking a slightly hysterical turn again.
"There was nothing. You convinced yourself you heard something, but there was nothing," Vincent said firmly. "Just shut it out. Shut it out and maybe it'll go away."
Vincent feverently hoped his advice was true. That Tifa, simple as that, could come back to her senses and stop talking to herself.
"No. The voice comes and goes as it pleases-it said so. Said it was part of me forever or something..I don't know what it is..but I want to get rid of it."
No doubt about it, Tifa's voice was back to being full blown hysterical again. Though he was slightly relieved at the fact that at least Tifa didn't want to keep acting like a loony, Vincent was still very worried.
Vincent went over various things in his mind to say to Tifa. Words were not his forte-and he desperately needed them now. Mostly, he just wanted to ask her about her feelings, what she was going through; how she was coping with Cloud's death.
How she was coping on the outside was plain to see, but it was the inside that troubled him.
Looking at Tifa's trembling,bathrobe clad form, Vincent's mind was settled. If he wasn't sure how to talk to Tifa at the moment, at least Shera would be. Tifa was right. Shera would be able to help..somehow. She had been a doctor-she would know if the voices Tifa was hearing were simply a product of an overactive imagination.
He had to take Tifa to see Shera, what alternative did he have? There was no way Vincent was going to leave Tifa alone in her room. Not as she was now. Taking her to Shera would probably be a good idea..of all the group, Shera was the calmest and most collected. She wouldn't make Tifa even more hysterical than she already was.
"Tifa, you were right. You should go see Shera. NOW." Tifa had never heard Vincent's voice so determined and scared at the same time. Scared of her, she presumed. Anger came on top of everything else Tifa felt at the moment. If anyone had a right to be scared, it was her.
She knew what she had heard. She KNEW... and Vincent thought it was all in her own head.
Tifa didn't try to resist as Vincent gripped her firmly by the one shoulder and guided her down the hall. As if I can't be trusted to walk by myself, thought Tifa. She was trying to show Vincent she was perfectly fine by acting rationally ( which was hard to do as Tifa felt anything but rational) , yet at the same time concocting statements and speeches that would make him realize that she hadn't been talking to herself early in the morning for no particular reason.
But there are times you are unable to make someone believe something, no matter how hard you try to explain. Besides, how the hell do you explain something you can't explain?
The dilemma Tifa was caught in with Vincent was a complicated one. The dilemma she was caught in with herself was even less easily solved.
---------
A/N#2=*Grins*...and the plot slowly starts to unravel...sorry for the short chapters. It's hard to write long ones when I have alot of other stories besides this one to update!
