My Blood Betrays Me
Final Fantasy VII. What would it have been like had Sephiroth survived, and Cloud had been defeated? What if all reality was altered and all existence was different?
Note: AU, Altered storyline, yaoi, shoujo-ai, violence, angst, romance, suspense included.
Read and review please. Thanks.
Part I: Lust-Driven Proposal
I feel betrayed.
What he was feeling was pain.
Lost, lost in my own anger...
After having his own blood spill on his hands, he was in pain.
I might as well be dead...
And no one could stop his broken lamenting.
I'll show him...I'll show everyone...
And he awoke, slowly, silently, yet angrily. Cloud's head throbbed, stricken as if he was hung over. He surveyed his surroundings to find he was in a small Icicle Inn town. Outside, snow was falling heavily, the ice sheets scratching the windows. A fire roared in the fireplace, and squatting over it was a figure draped in a red cloak.
"Vincent?" Cloud asked as he rose from his bed. The cloaked man turned and stood from the fireplace.
"Good, you're awake."
Vincent motioned Cloud over to where he was standing. "Warm yourself. I will return, but the others wish to speak with you."
Cloud nodded, and sat in front of the fire. Vincent slipped out the door, cold air wisping inside even as he shut the door. Cloud looked at the ceiling, almost as if he couldn't bear to look into the fire. But he turned his head down again and stared into the flames. Slowly, an image seemed to resonate within the flames. Shadows. No, not shadows, but a man in shadow. The flames were burning a village. What village? Cloud shook his head. Nibelheim. Nibelheim was being burned to the ground, and standing in the middle was the shadow. Sephiroth. Sephiroth was the shadow. Sephiroth. Sephiroth.
"No!" Cloud screamed defiantly to himself, as if to claim victory against the images in his head.
He shook the false memories away quickly, and all that remained was a fire burning warmly in a fireplace. But it haunted him. Sephiroth, how he had caused so much pain, how he killed Aeris, and then bested Cloud in battle. But Cloud looked at himself, alive. Sephiroth had not the decency to end the eternal torment. He had summoned a great force from deep inside the Core of the Planet, and the energy swelled inside him until it burst, and it came and removed Cloud and his fallen comrades from the Crater. What happened afterwards, Cloud could not remember. If anything existed, he did not know. Or perhaps he did not want to remember.
The door of the house opened again, and Vincent entered, followed by Barret, Tifa, Yuffie, and Cid. Cloud smiled up at them weakly.
All a charade... Cloud muttered to himself. The inner torment was too great to release. No one would understand, and none would ever bother. No one would ever understand his anger, his pain, his distress. or, perhaps, no one would under stand his lust. His unnatural lust. The images. The wild dreams. It was that he could not shake his image from his mind. Cloud knew hat had happened, yet still he lusted for that man. He was my idol...I wanted to be like him...but why does he deny me so?
"Are you feeling better, Cloud?" asked Tifa. Cloud jerked his mind from his lamenting, and looked up at Tifa. He stood up, and brushed the soot off of his pants.
"Yes, I'm well," Cloud replied, "I'm pretty well rested, though my scars still ache." He moved his right arm to cradle his left shoulder. "Is everyone alright?"
"Yes..." said Tifa, who kicked the floor around with her feet. "Except, umm, we don't know where Red XIII is. He didn't show up, and we haven't heard anything about him."
"I'm thinkin' he musta been thrown somewhere else, by that goddamned energy," said Barret, "I hope he comes back. I jes' kinda miss that fellow."
Cloud looked around. "Whose house is this?" he asked.
"I think it used to be the house Professor Gast and his wife Ifalna used to live in." said Vincent, who was cradling his face in his long, flowing cape. "If you'll remember, they were seized in a Shinra raid shortly after Aeris' birth."
Cloud fell silent. Aeris...
Cloud paused in silence, then raised his head and looked up. "I'm going downstairs into the basement." he said, and Vincent nodded.
As he left, Yuffie sighed. "Cloud seems very depressed," she commented, shivering from standing in the open doorway. "I hate to see him so sad..."
"Just let him be. We should leave him alone." replied Vincent, and he turned to the doorway. "Let's go. he's troubled enough as it is."
The three others nodded solemnly, and filed out through the doorway. Cloud listened from the basement, and shook his head. He sat down on a nearby bed and looked out a small window overlooking the icy decline past Icicle Inn. The snow was still falling, and fog obscured the view. All that could be seen for miles, was white. Empty blank whiteness, and the ominous feeling of uncertainty. Suddenly, the door opened from upstairs. Cloud could hear footsteps walking toward the stairs leading to the downstairs area. Slowly, the body of a man came down the steps, and Cloud gasped in surprise and horror. Sephiroth, eyes cold and determined, walked quietly down the stairs.
- - -
"What do you want?" said Cloud, who stood with his hand on his sword. Sephiroth approached slowly, his footsteps echoing loudly.
"Relax." Sephiroth said, brushing his bangs out of his eyes. "I'm not here to hurt you."
Cloud eased slightly, though he still did not release his grip on his sword.
"What do you want?" he repeated, staring down Sephiroth cooly.
"You." Sephiroth muttered. He unhooked his sheath from his belt and threw it to the ground, his sword still undrawn. "I've been wondering how you were."
"Why am I of any concern to you?" Cloud said defensively, crossing his arms.
"Does it matter? You pursue me, have interest in me, wonder of my being. Is it not normal to wonder in return? I mean to harm to you...Strife."
Cloud's glance let up slightly, and he drew his sword, only to throw it on the ground next to him. Though he did not fully trust Sephiroth, he was quite taken aback by his words, recalling that it was the first time since his days in Shinra that Sephiroth referred to him as anything besides a "puppet".
"Tell me." said Sephiroth, drawing closer to Cloud. "What is it you desire most?"
Cloud sat down on the bed. "To kill you. To take revenge for the horror you've put me and the entire Planet through."
"Ha. Do you expect me to believe that you would imprudently take comfort in a whim? There was a reason I self-destructed Meteor."
Cloud trembled with anger. Who was Sephiroth to taunt him?
"What do you desire most? What is your innermost truth?" asked Sephiroth again, his eyes seemingly burning with jade fire.
"What would it mean to you, anyway?" muttered Cloud in anger.
"Do you realize what you are doing?" said Sephiroth rhetorically. "You are hiding behind a veil. A veil of untruths, lies, and fear. Are you inherently incapable of admitting yourself?"
"I-I don't understand..." said Cloud, who began to move back as Sephiroth came close to him. He rose his face only a few feet move Cloud's.
"Tell me." said Sephiroth gruffly. "What is your greatest desire?"
"N-no..." said Cloud. He grasped his head to quell the sudden surge of pain flowing through his head.
"TELL ME!!" bellowed Sephiroth angrily. He raised his gloved hand and slapped Cloud with the back of it. Cloud grimaced in pain, his eyes woven with pain. His head reeled and spun like a hangover.
"Y-you..." said Cloud, clutching his forehead and his chafed cheek. "Y-you..are my greatest...desire..." said Cloud. He moaned in agony from his terrible headache.
Sephiroth laughed contently. He grabbed Cloud's collar and threw him onto the hard floor. Cloud looked up helplessly as Sephiroth stood above him. He slowly kneeled down, and again slapped Cloud across the face with the back of his hand.
"You wish to know the reason for my terror, Strife? It is revenge. For the Cetra, for Jenova, for all that suffered at humanity's palm. I am the heir of this Planet, and this world's inevitable decline will come in time." explained Sephiroth, who began cackling softly and menacingly.
Cloud opened his mouth, hoping that someone would hear his pleas for help, but his dry throat only released a hoarse gasp. Still laughing demeaningly, Sephiroth grabbed the front of Cloud's shirt and ripped it off.
"W-what are you doing?" stammered Cloud. He shuffled on the floor, hoping to shake Sephiroth's steely gaze.
"I told you. I possess all the Planet's greatness. Admit that deep in your heart, you want the power too. Don't deny yourself, fool, just as you wished I would not." Sephiroth slowly stood up. "It's not over, Strife. It's never over. You want to prove you are more than a failed experiment? The time will come to prove yourself. I trust you know how."
With those words, Sephiroth turned away. He turned and managed one last fiery glance at Cloud, who was still lying on the ground, stunned. Sephiroth then turned and walked away, up the stairs from which he came from, his boots resounding and echoing on the cold floor.