Bright Seraphim
Eighteen

"What did Jamie mean, Scissorman?" Jaz panted, running for the emergency stairwell with Sephiroth close behind. "I thought we got rid of him... are there two of them?" She slammed open the door of the stairwell. "We've got to get down -"

A black shape lunged at them from the lower flight of stairs.

Sephiroth pushed Jaz out of the way, toward the upward flight of stairs, and they were running up again.

As soon as there was at least a flight of stairs between them, Jaz began to try the doors on each floor - but none of them would move. "This is supposed to be an emergency stairwell!" She panted, pounding up the next set of stairs. "Why are all these locked?"

"~~Save your breath for running,~~" Sephiroth told her, becoming winded himself. He pulled her away from a door just as Scissorman reached the landing in the stairs below.

Jaz ran ahead, around the next landing, up another set of stairs, onto the next landing -

Sephiroth had been looking back and almost ran into her. Jaz was kicking at the windowless metal door in front of her. He turned to the next flight of stairs -

Only there were none. They were at the top of the stairs.

The door suddenly gave way. It had been unlocked, but the snow drifted in front of it had made it difficult to open.

Jaz paused for only a moment before crying, "There must be a fire escape or something!" and rushing to the nearest edge of the roof. She looked down. There was no fire escape, only the street, many, many floors below.

Sephiroth pulled her back and led her across the roof, down to a lower part, and through the middle of a large drift of snow that had accumulated over some feature of the roof. There was a fire escape on the far side of the building, directly ahead.

Metal screamed against metal close behind them; Scissorman was standing on the higher level of the roof, looking down at them. He began to laugh. "Geh-heh-heh-heh..."

Sephiroth took his battle stance, his eyes never leaving the enemy.

"Geh-heh-heh..." Scissorman leapt into the air with surprising agility and landed heavily on the snowdrift with them.

There was an ominous cracking sound, felt more than heard.

It wasn't a snowdrift at all. It was one of the snow-covered skylights over the atrium. They were all standing on one pane of glass.

Between the cold and the weight, the snow-covered glass snapped and shattered.

Jaz shrieked; Scissorman gave an angry howl. Sephiroth let go of Masamune and grabbed Jaz around her waist, reaching out blindly with his other hand.

The atrium was ringed with vertical banners, hung from poles set at the tenth floor balcony. Sephiroth caught one of these. Jaz realized what was happening and threw her arms around his neck.

They momentarily jerked to a halt; Sephiroth screamed as his shoulder dislocated.

Then they were falling again, but swinging this time. The banner had torn free, but the nylon rope that controlled it was still attached to the support pillar at the tenth floor.

They slammed into the pillar. Sephiroth lost his grip and they fell the rest of the way, crashing through a canopy sheltering a group of tables spreading out from the hotel's coffee shop.

Scissorman hit the gazebo in the center of the atrium, plunging through its roof and deflecting slightly to land in the shrubbery beside it.

Masamune clattered loudly onto the cobblestone patio several feet away from Jaz and Sephiroth.

The atrium was quiet for a few long seconds.

A choking gasp tore through the silence. Jaz struggled for breath; the wind had been knocked out of her. She was bruised, but fairly certain that nothing was broken.

There were footsteps. Katie, Jamie, Ramsey, and a few other policemen appeared at various levels of balcony around the atrium. They'd heard the crash.

Jaz grunted and rolled onto her side, then sat up, drawing her legs underneath her. "Sephiroth..."

He was laying next to her, on his back, his dislocated arm lying across his chest. At her call he turned on his side and curled into a near-fetal position, groaning.

He'd been hurt worse than this before, but the only times that he'd felt this much pain were when Jenova was causing it, or when she was too weak to influence him. He hadn't realized how dependent he'd been on her...

Jaz moved forward, touching the side of his face. He looked up at her, giving her a weak smile that was closer to a grimace. "Your sword," Jaz murmured. "It's here... I'll get it for you."

"Jaz!" Katie called from the balcony. "Are you -"

"I'm fine," Jaz yelled back, finally turning to acknowledge her presence. She looked around for the sword.

Sephiroth pushed himself into a sitting position. The leg he'd hit the wall with hurt as well, but he was sure that it wasn't broken.

"There it is," Jaz said, rising to her hands and knees and reaching out for the sword. She brought it with her as she pulled back to sit on her knees.

Sephiroth looked up just as Jaz handed him his sword, catching a movement behind her.

Jaz looked over her shoulder.

Scissorman was still alive, covered in blood with its mask torn away, and standing right behind them.

"Look out!" Ramsey drew his pistol and aimed at Scissorman.

Only Scissorman wasn't a man. It was the woman from the elevator, the one who had told them about the first murder.

The scissors were wide open, resembling a double-pointed sword.

She struck before anyone could move. One blade of the scissors stabbed into Jaz. The point ripped through the front of her shirt just under her left breast, piercing between her ribs.

Katie screamed.

Ramsey fired; the bullet tore through the madwoman's shoulder, but had no noticeable effect.

The blonde woman, still wearing the Sailor Moon pigtails, laughed with glee. Blood trickled from the side of her mouth. She staggered backward a few steps, pulling the blade out of Jaz.

Masamune's handle sprang open in Sephiroth's hand, and he didn't think. Instead of touching the green Restore Materia - for which he didn't have the magic to heal himself, much less Jaz - he touched a red Summon Materia. He plucked it out and made a fist around it, calling on the most powerful spell he could with what magic he had left.

"~~Pandora!~~"

The floor in front of the demented woman broke apart into blackness.

Jaz tumbled forward; Sephiroth caught her in his good arm, dropping the Materia. He became aware of Jenova lurking next to him, smiling broadly.

The blackness blazed green with Mako-light. A sphere of white light arose from it; the glow faded to reveal a dark-haired woman in revealing black robes, adorned with twists of golden wire that stood out against her pale skin. Her eyes were empty black wells; her sandaled feet stood on air.

Sephiroth lay Jaz across his lap and used his good arm to attach Masamune, handle closed, to his back. He couldn't speak. His hands felt slick with her blood.

Jenova laughed and began to speak in a singsong. "~~Yes, boy, yes, mine mine mine...~~"

He felt numb, couldn't think. Only the pain in his shoulder kept him focused.

The summoned apparition presented a small, dark, carved wooden box in her hand. It was only a few cubic inches in size.

Jaz struggled for breath, blood pumping out of the wound. Sephiroth could do nothing but hold her; this wound was worse than the shot he'd taken... If he could've avoided that, he thought, he'd still have enough magic to heal her...

The Grecian apparition opened the box. A thousand and one black shapes poured out of it - shapes with too many teeth and horns and claws and scales and stingers.

The woman who had been Scissorman now stood upright, dropping the giant scissors. She screamed once.

The black shapes threw themselves at her, one at a time but with increasing speed, each taking a piece of her away. Then they fled into the dark pit over which Pandora hovered.

The blonde woman fell to her knees, sobbing; the pieces that the black shapes had removed were not physical. She picked up the scissors again, placed the razor-sharp blades around her neck, and slammed the blades closed.

Her head tumbled across the floor and came to rest at the edge of the pit.

Sephiroth wasn't watching. He curled around Jaz, head bowed. She was too weak to try to move any more.

Jenova was singing mockingly. "~~Good girl, sleep, angel, sleep...~~"

Pandora held her box open a moment longer, her face still expressionless, a lifeless mask.

A tiny sphere of golden light floated calmly out of the box.

The summoned woman snapped the box shut and clutched it in one hand, forming a fist with her other hand. She folded her arms across her chest and bowed her head, drifting down into the pit.

The glowing sphere circled the atrium at high speed. It stopped a foot in front of Sephiroth.

His head jerked up.

There were silent tears running down his face, which now held a strange and wild expression.

Hope.

Jenova fell silent.

As the ball of light moved away, Sephiroth threw Jaz - now unconscious - over his shoulder and stood. He knew it was rough on her, but there was nothing else he could do.

He took a step and nearly faltered - his leg was hurt worse than he'd thought.

He didn't care.

He crossed the rest of the short distance to the pit. The golden sphere plunged down into the darkness.

Sephiroth looked up at the first floor balcony. Most of the cops' mouths were hanging open. Katie was reaching out toward him. Jamie was shouting something and looked more excited than frightened.

"Go! Go! Now!"

Sephiroth stepped forward, into the pit.

There was another flash of green Mako-light.

The pit was gone.

The only sound in the atrium was the rustling of papers floating down in the suddenly still air.

"Jaz," Katie choked.

Jamie ran, down the steps from the first floor to the atrium, then across to where the "battle" had taken place.

Seeing him unlocked his aunt's voice. "Jamie! Get away!"

"Huh?" The boy looked down. The former Scissorman's pigtailed head was staring up at him.

He gave the head a spiteful kick and kept going.

"JAMIE!!!"

Katie and the police were running down the stairs now as well. Jamie had the feeling that none of them were going to be too happy with him.

Some other people were appearing on balconies, wondering what all the noise was about. A few of them - some of those from the Space Station Monongahela - had seen what the noise was about.

Jamie fell to his knees and groped about the floor until he found what he was looking for - the red Summon Materia. He wiped Jaz's blood off of it with his shirt, then held it up to the pallid moon showing through the broken skylight. The clouds had cleared at last.

"Boy! Put that down!" Ramsey yelled. "That's evidence!"

Jamie only laughed, slipping the useless stone into his pocket. "Evidence of what?"

Ramsey looked around, losing his momentum. "Nevermind."

Katie picked up one of the atrium's overturned chairs and sat down, placing her head in her hands. "God," she whispered, calling the word as a name rather than an expletive for the first time in years. "Jaz..."

Jamie uprighted another chair near his aunt. "Aunt Katie? Are you okay?"

She looked at her nephew as though he were insane, and figured that he probably was by now. "Jaz. She's... She's... gone," she said haltingly. She was having trouble finding words.

"But that's good, Katie," Jamie exclaimed. At her incredulous expression, he added, "Don't you get it? Sephiroth took her back with him. He'll be able to heal her now."

Katie blinked with incomprehension. "I don't -"

Jamie became impatient. "Don't the words 'happily ever after' mean anything to you?"

Katie's face relaxed as she stared at him. Then, very slightly, she smiled.

A song ended; another began.



End: Bright Seraphim
The Author sincerely intends to complete the sequel, Dark Nephilim,
but will only post when it nears completion (so as not to annoy people).

Further Author's Note: The track "Injection" from the Mission Impossible 2 score (by Hans Zimmer) has turned into my soundtrack for the end sequence, though I had that written before that movie came out.
And, um, Thank You For Your Support. Those reviews mean a lot to me! :-)


Disclaimer: Final Fantasy VII, its story, and characters (particularly Sephiroth) are the property, copyright and trademark of Square Electronic Arts L.L.C., and no ownership or claim on said property, copyright or trademark is made or implied by their use in the work(s) of fan fiction presented here. This fan fiction constitutes a personal comment on the aforesaid properties pursuant to doctrines of fair use and fair comment. This fan fiction is non-commercial, not for sale or profit, and may not be sold or reproduced for commercial purposes. The same goes for Clock Tower, Tekken 2, Soul Blade, Star Trek, Dark Shadows, Lost in Space, Pepsi, and any other games, television shows, movies, etc. mentioned in this fanfic: all belong to their respective owners. Clock Tower, its story, and characters (particularly Scissorman) are the property, copyright, and trademark of Ascii Entertainment.