Chapter Sixteen
Revisiting the Crisis
Bahamut heard the cry of a scared
young girl in his dreams. He whirled around and tried to chase down the
location, moving through the fog around him at a sluggish pace that didn't
change no matter how quickly he tried to move his legs. For some reason, he knew the girl who was sobbing in terror,
but he couldn't remember who it was. A mortal to be sure, but someone…
A trembling shape appeared in front
of him, shaking spasmodically with each cry that ripped through the fabric of
the dream world. Bahamut knelt beside the figure, assuming that it was the
source of the cries, and reached out to touch its shoulder.
The hunched over human turned its head, meeting Bahamut's
eyes with its own. The emerald eyes were steady and clear, showing that the
eyes' owner was not the scared person Bahamut had thought it was. Bahamut blinked
as a flash of silver swung in front of one of the deep green eyes, then another
on the other side. He backed away, finding in front of him a mere child barely
into adolescence, possessed with a veil-like mass of platinum hair and glowing
green eyes that seemed to be trying to peer straight into Bahamut's soul. The
boy stared silently at Bahamut, abruptly seeming to tower over the old dragon
as he himself crouched on the ground, for the first time in his existence
feeling powerless and just as helpless.
Bahamut blinked, shaking his head
from side to side. The silver-haired child had grown into a full-fledged adult
with the same hair and eyes. A slice of silver lightening lanced down between
Bahamut and the young man, taking the shape of a long sword that bore the signs
of use and blood on its still-yet sharp blade. Never taking his eyes off of
Bahamut, the man reached out and took a firm grip on the hilt of the sword,
raising it in front of him in what was clearly an attacking stance.
The air behind the man shifted and
cleared into a pair of eyes that were an uncannily glowing red and having the
same slit pupils that a cat bore. They had the same intense, soul-penetrating
look that strange young man's eyes wore.
And they, too, were staring straight
at Bahamut.
The eyes narrowed, and then widened
into a malicious sense of glee. The continuous sobbing of the girl in the
background made an arcing crescendo in volume, becoming louder and louder as
the two pairs of eyes, red and green, kept staring straight into the depths of
Bahamut's heart.
The girl's cries melted into a
single, drawn out scream.
"No-o!
Zeno-o-o-o!"
Aeris!
* * *
Aeris shuddered as the eerie green
glow disappeared, along with Zeno and the fire that had been burning when she
woke up. A sudden chill shot through her, moving from the base of her spine to
the tip, caressing her back in one long, drawn out stroke.
Your
time is coming soon, girl…
That
voice! Aeris
whimpered involuntarily as the harsh, gratingly familiar whisper threaded its
way through her mind.
A slight movement to her left caught
her eyes, drawing them towards the shadowy figure lying on the ground that was
slowly trying to pull itself to its hands and knees. Its head was shaking
groggily from side to side as if it had just awakened from a long,
nightmare-filled slumber. She crawled as quickly as she could over to it, too
scared to stand and too afraid that the voice would come back again and find
her, alone and defenseless.
The person was Bahamut, his
blue-gray hair and gray skin shining dully in what was left of the brilliant
light from before. He coughed and blinked several times, shivering slightly.
"Bahamut! Are you all right?" Aeris
asked in an anxious whisper, unable to raise her trembling voice any more in
volume.
Bahamut groaned in response.
"What…happened?"
"I don't know!" Aeris bit her lip.
"Can you…make some light? I can't really see in here."
"Isn't there one already…?" Bahamut
turned his eyes towards the center of the platform where the fire he had
created previously should have still been burning. Instead, a strange blankness
met his eyes. "What?! It's gone!" He reached up and gingerly touched the side
of his head, trying to remember what had happened. He had felt so tired, and
then…and then…
And
then?
Nothing. He couldn't remember what
happened after that feeling of overwhelming exhaustion that had taken immediate
control of his mind and body. Bits and pieces came to him, a confusing collage
of glowing emerald eyes and pitiful tears, but not enough to tell him what had
occurred during his unconsciousness.
He extended a finger and
concentrated, hissing under his breath and feeling slightly relieved when his
powers responded to his call and started a tiny flame of dancing fire on the
tip of his finger. Bahamut plucked the bit of fire off of his finger, cupping
it in his opposite hand before handing it to Aeris, who simply took it out of
pure surprise and the lack of being able to make any other reaction. He had
spelled it so that it would not catch and burn as regular fire would; a tricky
charm that formed a translucent, thin encasing of membrane around the little
flame that still let enough light out.
"Check on Zeno," Bahamut told Aeris,
beginning to stand on his shaky human legs. "I'll look at the others."
Aeris gulped audibly. "Um…Bahamut…I
don't know if Zeno is still there."
"What?"
Bahamut jerked his head around to stare at the girl, for the first time since
they had met using a tone of voice that projected a mix of fear and horror.
Then he was sprinting off towards the bundle on the ground that had marked
where Zeno had lain, kneeling beside it and pawing through it as if Zeno had
somehow shrunk and was hiding beneath each fold of the cape. When his search
ended fruitlessly, he turned once more on Aeris. "Aeris. Tell me what
happened!"
Aeris turned pale under the
flickering glimmer of the fire she held. "Zeno…I saw him walking towards the
edge of the cliff, and there was some sort of green light all around him…"
"What else?" Bahamut demanded,
rising from his kneeling position.
"He changed," Aeris whispered. "His
hair and eyes changed color, and then he just…stepped off of the edge. The
light all disappeared with it…I think that was when your fire went away, too."
Bahamut went silent for a moment.
"That fire that I made…only I should be able to extinguish it…me and…" His eyes
widened. "Aeris, did someone speak to you?!"
Aeris nodded, green eyes growing big
underneath Bahamut's scrutinizing crimson orbs. "Some voice in my mind said
that I would be next, right after Zeno disappeared. I'd never heard that voice
before, Bahamut, it was something like…I don't know, fingernails going across a
piece of slate. A voice that made your spine tingle like crazy and you couldn't
get out of your mind…"
"A
voice that made your spine tingle like crazy"…? Bahamut frowned pensively
before turning back to Aeris. "Go and start trying to revive the others. I'll
work on them, too."
Aeris made a beeline for her father,
but Bahamut had reached his side first. She made a detour in her path and
headed for the spiky-haired man named Cloud, crouching next to him and reaching
out to give his shoulder a tentative shake.
A pair of flashing ocean blue eyes
immediately lit up from within his shadowed face, the pupils expanding and the
eyes narrowing in order to make out who the figure over him was. Aeris backed
away as he practically leaped to his feet, muscles tensed and his hands
reaching for the sword he had been sleeping on.
"M-Mister S-Strife, it's just me,"
Aeris stammered, completely taken aback by the fighter's reaction she had
received.
The man paused in the middle of
grabbing the hilt of his sword before relaxing slowly. "I'm sorry, Aeris," he
said, finishing the journey and sheathing the cleaver sword over his back.
Cloud turned to meet her beautiful green eyes with his own, trying to find a
way to apologize to the ghost of his dead love. But he couldn't bring himself
to make eye contact and ended up just fiddling with the laces on his boots.
"What's wrong? And why is it so dark?"
"I think Bahamut will have to
explain that to you," Aeris replied, juggling the tongue of fire she still held
to her other hand and reaching up with her freed hand to rub at her cheek. "Can
you go help wake the others? I'm not sure what's happening, but Bahamut
should."
Cloud nodded, feeling a surge of
emotions in his heart and unable to do anything about them. He waited for Aeris
to turn to her next patient before coming out of his crouching position and
turning to the person who had been sleeping closest to him. He reached out
half-blindly and managed to find Tifa's shoulder, shaking it gently but firmly.
"Who…?" Tifa yawned, blinking
owlishly. "Cloud?"
"Wake up, Tifa," Cloud said softly.
"There's something going on. Do you remember falling asleep?"
"Falling asleep…? I…I
can't…remember," Tifa replied slowly. She shook her head as if she were trying
to clear cobwebs from her mind. "I feel like someone just stirred up my brain
in a big bowl and then mashed it back into my skull."
"You're not the only one," Cloud
assured her as he moved on. No sooner had he touched the next person's shoulder
than there was a flash of silver that was pressed up against his throat, just
barely drawing a thin line of blood along its edge. He froze, knowing that this
type of reaction was to be expected of some people, including himself. But he
had never met someone who was so sensitive that they actually tried to cripple
the person before at least finding out who it was.
Dusk peered at him with clear,
blood-colored eyes. She apparently recognized him for she took the edge of her
blade away, but she never relaxed in the slightest even when Cloud gave her a
thin smile as he swiped the blood away from his throat.
"What do you want?" she asked in her
voice that was as cold as the blade she was rubbing blood away from with her
bare fingertips. She licked Cloud's blood off of her fingers and put the sword
at her side again, the long length of the sword shining even in the shroud of
shadows that surrounded them.
Cloud restrained himself from
grimacing as she finished cleaning her fingers of blood, nevertheless taking a
half step that was more of a flinch away from her. "Bahamut wants to talk to
us. Apparently, something has happened, and that something isn't that good."
"It never is," Dusk remarked
offhandedly as she rolled her neck from side to side, making audible pops with
each twist.
"Everyone, pay attention," Bahamut
called out to the group as heads turned. "In case you haven't noticed by now,
Zeno is missing." He held out a hand to gain attention as eyes immediately grew
frantic and turned to each other. "And there might be a reason for that."
"What is it?!" Cid demanded. "Tell
us! I may have only known the kid for a short time, but he's a good one. He
wouldn't run off without telling anyone first."
Bahamut paused and then chuckled.
"He's a 'good one'? You should know, Cid. Didn't Cloud tell you who Zeno was?"
"But…I thought that that was just a
theory…" Cid deflated. "You mean it's true?"
"Every bit of it." Bahamut's eyes
grew hard. "Jenova has been here—I can feel her traces in the air. And she's
even stronger than before; she was the reason why all of us, including me, fell
asleep, and most probably also the reason why Zeno is missing."
"What does that old chunk of
bacteria want this time?" Yuffie demanded irritably.
They got a reply.
You
can be more creative with insults than that, a creaking voice hissed
into their minds. Aeris and Cloud both stiffened perceptibly; out of everyone
in the group, only they had heard that voice before.
It's
Jenova!
I've
been listening to all of your theories, the voice continued. I probably shouldn't tell you this, but then where would the fun
be? They're all absolutely correct. Your… "Zeno"…is Sephiroth. Just as Aeris is that annoying girl from the
past…
"What do you want here, Jenova?"
Bahamut asked the air calmly. He folded his arms across his chest and glared at
some unseen entity.
I
just wanted to play with you, that's all. The voice took on a tinge of
malicious humor. I will succeed in
destroying this pitiful world this time, Bahamut, and this time none of you can
stop me. Meteor never was destroyed; it simply withdrew until it was summoned
again.
"You've forgotten one thing,
Jenova," Cloud abruptly said in a clear, fearless voice. "Holy can come again.
Its seal was broken and all it would take is one word to bring it back."
Oh,
no, my little puppet, Jenova replied mockingly. I'm so scared. I took care of Holy while I was still growing…the
poor thing was just too worn out to fight back. And I've reconstructed the
seal. You won't be able to come close to opening it without the White
Materia…and that's been long lost to you. Even then…my son is there to keep
Holy from aiding you pathetic parasites again.
A sinking feeling filled Cloud's
heart as he began to realize that what Jenova had just said was true. Holy
would have been too tired from stopping Meteor that it wouldn't have been able
to even put up a decent fight, and the Lifestream…
"Where's Zeno?" Aeris demanded
suddenly. "What did you do with him?!"
Zeno?
The voice was streaked with malice as the group fell silent, waiting for an
answer. Zeno…is mine now. Jenova
laughed, a coldly derisive call that made Aeris' knees begin to shake. And then,
Jenova's alien presence was gone, vanished like Bahamut's fire that she had so
easily put out on her own.
