Sether immediately regretted waking up. The pain was immense, and sleep offered less torture. Still, he could never sleep when someone was staring at him, and Katai was doing just that.
"…I really cannot sleep while you are staring at me like that." He said.
Katai, who was seated by the bed with a book on her lap, drew back with a scoff,
"I see you're feeling better." She got up and approached the small table on which her medical and scientific gear rested, "You're healing rate is exceptionally fast. But that's also… what's killing you."
He looked around him. Either he had slept for 24 hours, or just a couple of hours, since it was still dark outside and raining. He noticed with some wonderment that Katai had blood on her shirt,
"Are you okay? You look dreadful." He managed to raise his head just barely, wanting to take a better look at her. He was right; not only was her shirt spotted with blood, but also her hair was dreadfully disheveled and tied in a tight ponytail with many strands hanging out at awkward angels. He noted she had black circles under her eyes.
"You don't look so hot yourself." She retorted, but was too tired to sound it with enthusiasm.
Sether let his head drop back to the pillow. Now he was wondering how he got all bandaged up and tucked in like that.
Katai did all this…? Got her shirt smeared… With his blood? Didn't she freak out? She hated blood more than she hated him…
A glance at the clock showed it was 4 in the morning. Sether figured Katai must have stayed awake all this time…
But before anything, there was one thing he needed to know,
"What's wrong with me?" He finally asked, his voice hard and cold. Obviously, the question was on his mind from the first moment she had told him he was dying.
Katai sighed heavily, she took a few deep breaths, organizing the information in her head before starting,
"It's a known effect when one researches Jenova cells. I read about it from Lucrecia's researches."
Sether listened intensely. Katai continued, not looking at Sether and her voice trembling ever so slightly,
"When Jenova cells are exposed to a large, but discontinued amount of Mako (which they need to sustain themselves), they will react in the following fashion: They will drink as much Mako as they can without bursting (through osmosis or ATP). When they run out of Mako…" She paused and looked to the floor, "…They die."
She looked at Sether to see how he would react. His face was calm,
"Now explain in a language I will understand." He concluded.
Katai's shoulders drooped,
"Baka…!" She then came and sat on the bed, her back to him. She started to elaborate,
"I don't know why, but the Jenova cells inside you are decomposing and dying. People don't have means of injecting themselves with Mako nowadays, so I really don't understand how this happened to you…"
He turned his head to watch her back, his expression neutral.
"What happens is this; you somehow had a large dose of Mako in you. But your body isn't producing Mako, because you were never properly injected with Jenova cells, but was born with them. When you were born, because Jenova is dead, your cells were… 'inactive'."
Sether frowned,
"Could drinking Mako cause this?"
Katai turned abruptly, astonishment etched on her wan face,
"You drank Mako??!!" She stared at him with wide eyes.
"Well…" He shrugged and then winced with the pain it brought, "Not on purpose… I kind of fell into the Mako pit…"
She was still staring at him, so he elaborated,
"My father and myself fell into the Mako pit by accident when we fought the Sephiroth clan. My father was out cold, so I tried to push him up. I didn't know people sink in Mako. I ended staying under longer than I had air..."
"You drank Mako…" She uttered in amazement, surprising Sether with her musing tone of voice, "I heard it was theoretically possible for people who had high magic attributes or a hefty amount of Jenova cells in them to drink Mako and not suffer from Mako poisoning. That would explain the sudden raise in Mako concentration in your blood stream." Her eyes got a distanced look in them as she internally calculated things and made biological equations with her lips.
"So now my… Jenova cells don't have anything to eat and are dying? Is that it?"
Katai snapped out of her brooding and nodded her head,
"That would be it. I would assume that you aren't totally made of Jenova cells, because you have some of your father's genes too- and normal cells, even abnormal cells such as your father would have don't encourage the creation of Jenova cells in the fetus. So I would say that you got them from what remained in your mother's body after the whole Jenova Project thing, and since your mother was not treated with Mako and fresh Jenova cells while you were growing inside her, your Jenova cells are present and were working as best they can without Mako. That would explain enhanced abilities such as better physical prowess, higher magic affinity and higher IQ."
Sether frowned deeper, but did not interrupt.
"It's a safe assumption that the places in which you have the most Jenova cells in are your stomach and chest, that would explain the headaches…"
"Huh?" Was Sether's intelligible reply, "That does not make a lot of sense to me." In fact, he didn't really understand most of what she was saying, but he got the general idea, which he deemed enough for the time being. He was having a hectic time dealing with all the news as it were.
Katai didn't seem to mind explaining, in fact, she seemed to enjoy it,
"If the Jenova cells were in your brain directly, we would have seen some brain damage due to the decomposition, and besides- the brain doesn't have the neural network for pain- you can't have a brain-ach. Only the skull and skin around it have.
Now, it would be more logical to assume that there are some problems with your chest- before every attack you seem to have trouble breathing- this might cause a shortage of blood or oxygen to your brain, which in turn could lead to your fainting."
"I don't faint, I pass out." He mumbled in a petty tone. Katai was too deep in calculations to pay attention,
"Anyway, luckily for you, it's possible that most of your Jenova cells are in your pigments, hence the 'Sephiroth-esqu' look."
Sether sighed; all this techno-babble was hard for his battered brain,
"…Why am I lucky, then?"
"Because then it could mean that you can survive longer- those kind of cells shouldn't have been 'awakened' by the Mako. If they were in your heart, for example, you would have had a really strong heart for about four seconds before you would have died of heart failure."
"Sounds fun." His tone was getting more cynical and tired by the moment.
"The awakened cells in you are what make you now more powerful, your healing faster and probably enhance your magic attribute a ten fold."
"Is that good?"
Katai rambled on, absorbed in her biological theories,
"Some of the 'awakened' cells can go on without Mako, and they just 'sleep' again, but I would think that a good deal of them would die. A normal body can, most of the times, regenerate and fill the gaps with normal cell mitosis, but the rate of the decomposition is faster than your body's regenerative capabilities."
Sether wet his lips with a nervous clear of his throat,
"…How long to I have…?"
Katai inhaled deeply, the flow of words stopping in the favor of some squirming. She looked at her hands in her lap,
"Around two weeks, more or less."
Silence.
Two weeks to find someone who doesn't hate Sephiroth…? That's a challenge…
"Of course," Katai opened, "You have two week if you keep yourself well."
"What does that mean?"
"If you get injured or strain your body, the Jenova cells in you would work harder to fix the problem and to provide you with more strength. That would cause them to want more 'food'- more Mako- and you don't have that."
"So technically, getting beaten up might kill me. That's new. I would never have thought that getting beaten up might be bad for my health…"
Katai got up with exasperation,
"You're impossible!" She scoffed.
He smiled faintly, then grew serious again and asked,
"Isn't there anything to be done?"
Katai opened and closed her mouth a few times, trying to phrase herself the best.
Sether understood all too well.
No.
He was silent a long moment. He didn't want to die. Nobody wants to die. He… Had dreams and stuff…
But… Did he deserve to live?
His parents would hit him on the head if he said that in front of them, but the doubt was always there… Did a killer deserve to live? Katai should be told … If she was Ryuto's girlfriend, She… He should…
"If we're talking about serious things; I would like to take the opportunity and ask you about… Ryuto."
She turned around to look at him with surprise,
"Why do you want to know about him? He's dead."
"I know he's dead." Sether said in an icy tone, "I want to know about you two."
Katai sat on the floor near the bed, leaning her head on the mattress and looking solemnly at Sether,
"He was my boyfriend three years ago. His parents used to travel around the world a lot on vacations, so I met him when he visited Rocket City. It was about five years ago."
Sether's eyes were fixed on her with a frown. Otherwise, though, his expression told nothing.
"I was pretty sad when he died. I mean, we were together for two years- nothing… too close," She added with a slight blush, "I was still rather young at the time- I was two years younger than him." She paused to think, "Didn't really have any relationships since, and it's been three years now since he died…"
"…Do you still miss him… and… love him?" His voice revealed no emotion, and Katai gave him an odd look,
"I don't know… Sure I miss him, we were good friends, but if I still love him?" She then scoffed and gave Sether a stuck up look, "I guess that's my business." She then rested her head on her hands beside Sether and tilted her head just so,
"Now that I think of it, he was Wutian- did you know him?"
Sether looked at the ceiling, the same cold expression on his face,
"Yes. He was my best friend." Then, with the same detached tone he added, "I murdered him."
"W… What…?" Katai raised her head.
Sether's face still showed no emotion, but his eyes could tear a hole in the ceiling with the intensity in them,
"I killed him. Murdered him, really. It wasn't exactly self-defense." Katai was now on her feet, staring at him again,
"…You… Killed him…? W… Why? Tell me why!!!" She stumbled away from the bed.
Sether was still looking at the ceiling,
"You want to know? Well, I guess you're entitled to know… You were his girlfriend."
He inhaled deeply and started to tell, all the time keeping his voice so emotionless that he sounded bored with the tale.
"Three years ago we were both studying under Kisaragi-sensei in Wutai. There were also a bunch of older kids there that made it their life's goal to pick on him and me. It rarely got physical, but they really did taunt us a lot. Together, we never were afraid of those idiots… But… I left for a couple of months." He his voice cracked ever so slightly and the pain just seeped through, "I guess I deserted him, because… When I returned… He was with them."
Katai couldn't restrain her anger any longer, and he told it as if he couldn't care less!
"So you killed him?! Is that it? Why?! How could you!!!"
Sether lowered his eyes from the ceiling,
"There's no excuse." His voice was calm, "People called it an accident. But it wasn't. I didn't mean to kill him…" His eyes became even sadder, "Like that changes the fact that I did…"
His eyes darted up when he noticed Sephiroth in the room. The dead man then reached up a finger and poked Katai's forehead once.
She fell to her knees instantly, her expression swiftly changing from rage and shock to a wide-eyed-staring-at-nothing- one.
"What have you done to her?!" Sether kicked the sheets off him and tried to roll off the bed, only to discover his legs were still too weak. He glared at Sephiroth from the floor.
"Ma, ma," Sephiroth waved his hands in a calming way and said, "I'm just showing her the truth, Otouto."
"What truth?!" He tried to get up again, grabbing the bed and a nearby bedside mantel, "I told her! I told her why he died!" As pain tore through his body, he fell to the floor with a frustrated grunt, tears choking him.
He was upset because he couldn't help her. He couldn't even help himself. There was no other truth. He told her the truth! He had no reason to lie! Ryuto was dead and he killed him!
Dammit.
Sephiroth was now beside him, looking down at him with another compassionate expression,
"Now, now, Otouto! You should rest while I talk to her!" He then poked Sether's forehead as well, and before he could utter a word of protest, Sether's head hit the floor, asleep.
