A light tap on his shoulder made him start and then fight to keep from gripping the throat of his 'attacker.' Seeing Ifalna standing behind him, he relaxed.
"Sephiroth?" she queried. "It's time."
He nodded and stood. He hesitated. "Sorry," he murmured.
"It's all right. It isn't as though you can harm me here. Or anywhere, for that matter."
"I suppose not," he agreed. "Where am I being tried?"
"There's a clearing we use for meetings. We don't use it often, but it should be a good place for this sort of thing; hopefully we won't have too many unwanted observers."
"Right..." He cast one final glance at Aeris's form in the mirror. "I have to go..." he told her quietly.
She paused mid-sentence. "Good luck," she whispered to him.
Sephiroth smiled faintly, then turned to Ifalna and gestured towards the door. "Lead the way."
She led him down from the treehouse and headed farther into the thin forest, the trees growing closer and closer together as they went. Their trunks were thick and strong, their leaves coming together to form a thick green canopy above them. Only a few young trees and sparse undergrowth struggled to reach the scarce sunlight filtering down.
Abruptly, the trees ended. There were no more new trees around the clearing's edge than there had been in the forest. Sephiroth stopped by the last tree, one hand on its rough bark, staring out at those gathered in the clearing.
The nameless faces of Nibelheim stared back at him, and he knew that somewhere in there were Cloud's family and Tifa's family. Shinra executives, troopers, SOLDIERs, guards, President Shinra... He stiffened. ...Hojo. He did not let his gaze linger. Zack was there, as were Tseng and the gatekeeper whose name he did not know. Only Jenova seemed absent from the dead he had made to suffer.
Despite what Aeris had said, he saw none of the living here. But then, perhaps they were not able to exist here for long.
He noticed that he had come in to the side of the clearing, relative to what seemed to have been designated as the front--a small semicircle of wooden chairs with their backs to the crowd, all facing one single chair. Only one of these was occupied; in one seat in the center of the curved row was a stranger who nevertheless seemed oddly familiar.
Ifalna led him towards the front, and he kept his gaze fixed on this being until finally, as he was sitting down across from it, he realized who it was. Its figure was genderless, slender and elegant, garbed in loose robes of earthen colors. Its brown hair seemed almost like a mane, fluffing softly over slightly pointed ears. Its eyes were like the Lifestream itself: sparkling, glittering green.
The Planet's chosen human--or Cetra?--form smiled at him. "Welcome, Sephiroth." The voice, too, was without gender.
He nodded slightly, tempted to stand again and bow, but something in the being's manner told him it was not necessary. "Thank you, Planet," he said softly, simply.
Ifalna sat down in the seat to the far left of the Planet as it rose and turned to face the crowd. "Soldiers, businessmen, friends, and strangers... People who died for no reason, and people who died for every reason... I have called you here, so very close to me, that you may cast your judgment on your friend, your murderer, your idol, your deceiver. All I ask, require is that you let him speak a word of his for every one of yours."
It glanced back at Sephiroth, and he saw traces of amusement in those eyes--amusement, perhaps, at the simple act of crafting sentences, of using actual words for the first time. Oddly, logically, he thought he sensed some of Aeris's patterns in the short speech.
The Planet took in the semicircle with a sweep of its arm. "Any who wish to speak, to debate may come sit here. But only so many should speak at a time, moment; we've no need of an uproar." With that, it returned to its seat. Four chairs were empty on its left, five on its right. People from the crowd threaded forward to fill them up.
Narsa, a pair of Wutains, a Shinra guard, Saerni... the Planet... a Cetra he did not recognize, a SOLDIER, Zack, the gatekeeper, Ifalna. All save the one Cetra looked at least familiar. Faces glimpsed before his Masamune cut them down, perhaps.
The Planet looked as though it wanted to say something more to start out, but Zack spoke before it got the chance to.
"Hey, Sephiroth," he said, a slight grin on his face, a soft sadness in his eyes. "Looks like some predicament you got yourself into this time. How are you gonna get out of this one?"
"With Aeris's help," he replied. It was the truest answer he could give.
"Yeah, she was always good at helping people... but she's not here right now."
The swordsman could only shrug.
"Anyway..." Zack straightened. "I guess I was the only one who saw you snap, huh?" He paused, and went on at Sephiroth's slight nod, his voice taking on an incredulous tone. "When I try to think about it, I really don't get how all these people can blame you for it. I mean, hell, reading an entire library full of reports about some screwed experiment that created you, all in the space of a few days? Who wouldn't go nuts? I don't know about all your other problems, but that in itself is almost enough for me."
"Almost?" the Wutain man queried.
He nodded. "Yeah, almost. What makes me okay with it is knowing him before hand." He looked back at Sephiroth. "You were quiet and mysterious for sure, but anyone who paid attention saw you had feelings just like anyone else. You just did an incredible job of making it near impossible to tell why or exactly how you were feeling. You weren't cold either, like everybody always says. You cared about shit. Tried to be all steely and tough, but you can only hide so much."
The swordsman was surprised that Zack had noticed that much. The SOLDIER had never struck him as particularly observant. Actually, he had always seemed rather dense... but he had had a knack for cheering people up, and maybe to do that one had to have some understanding of the other person's emotions.
"The most efficient, ruthless, and deadly general ever cared about things?" the Wutain scoffed. "You would not say such things if you had seen him in the war. He even killed some of the civilians just because they were in his way!"
Sephiroth spoke up. "They were armed, they were opposition. Was I supposed to stand there and try to reason with them as they butchered me? Ask them politely to move aside?"
"You should have at least given them a warning first!"
"They knew who I was. That should have been warning enough."
"Damned arrogant--"
"Hush," Ifalna interrupted. "I think you'll all agree that name-calling is pointless. He's heard that often enough before." She waited for the grudging nods and murmurs of ascent from the seated group before turning to Zack. "Were you finished?"
He shook his head. "No... But I just wanted to say that when I was first placed under Sephiroth's command, he did a hellova good job at protecting me. Wasn't his job to look after me, but he did it anyway. He did a lot of little things like that. I'm not sure he ever told me to shut up unless it was for my own good, which is like, amazing."
Someone in the crowd started to laugh, but quickly fell silent when no one else joined in.
"But surely you have seen how deadly he was in battle," the Wutain woman said, more calm than her companion. "He never showed mercy to anyone. I don't recall ever hearing about prisoners, so any wounded that were unlucky enough to be discovered by him or his troops were probably killed."
Sephiroth hesitated. Aeris told me to defend myself. "I had orders from Shinra not to take prisoners..."
"You could have disobeyed them."
He bowed his head. "I could have. I chose not to."
The woman nodded. "And so you killed more than was necessary."
"Disobeying Shinra's orders brought on pretty harsh punishments," the nameless SOLDIER put in.
"Oh please," the Wutain man scoffed. "He was their hero. They wouldn't punish him. Isn't that right, Sephiroth?"
The swordsman could only nod.
"It was war anyway," the SOLDIER persisted. "Were your Wutain soldiers any more merciful to ours? I know there were a few prisoners, but not that many."
The two Wutains shifted uncomfortably. Narsa spoke up. "Some of the wounded soldiers they found were likely in terrible shape. You expected them to waste their healers' energy and supplies on enemies when they had enough of their own injured to care for?"
No one seemed able to counter this.
The Planet spoke softly. "So we have established, confirmed that Sephiroth was needlessly harsh, efficient during Shinra's war with Wutai." It seemed to be a sign that it wanted to move on. Sephiroth noted its use of multiple words to convey a single meaning, as though it wanted a word somewhere between the two, or that combined the two, but that did not exist. Apparently language was less precise than whatever wordless means the Planet normally used.
Having said her piece, the Wutain woman got to her feet and rejoined the crowd. A man in civilian dress took her place, eyes even more accusing. Sephiroth struggled to place him. Lying dead in the Mako reactor, Masamune abandoned by the corpse, blood everywhere... Tifa's father? "What about Nibelheim?" he asked.
"At that point, insanity had ingrained a false sense of right and wrong into my mind," Sephiroth said, meeting the man's gaze levelly. "I truly believed that I was justified in killing humans, as foolish as that sounds."
"Explain it to me--how could you have gone so utterly and completely insane as to abandon your previous ideas of morality? For I do believe that you had some."
"What, you don't think someone could go mad if they found out they were created by some crazy experiment?" Zack asked.
Tifa's father cast him a mild glare. "As you said, you were the only one who saw him snap, so while that may explain it for you, the rest of us can't quite fathom it."
"Then perhaps we should hear Sephiroth's account of it," Ifalna suggested.
The swordsman frowned a little and began hesitantly when the crowd looked to him expectantly. "I.. had always known that I was different from everyone else. It was such an obvious thing. Most of you probably believe I thought myself to be superior, but more often than not, I thought the opposite... Even though I could not remember my childhood, the feelings of inferiority that were ingrained into me then remained.
"So it was frightening to see the monsters being created at the Nibelheim reactor and the name of the only mother I knew inscribed on a door there. It was frightening to think that I was something less than human. So I wanted to know the truth. I wanted to know what I was. The library in the Shinra Mansion had answers for me." Sephiroth let his regret sound clearly in his voice. You have to let them know you have emotions. "I wish I had known then, as I do now, that they were merely fabricated half-truths that were just another afterthought experiment.
"But I did not. And I believed it when I read that I had been created from the cells of a Cetra, an Ancient. Reading through all of that, it was the only thing that I could cling to to keep from seeing myself as a lab rat. I told myself that being a Cetra made me superior to these humans. Superior to the people who had lied to me, made me oblivious to this fact. Superior to all these pitiful humans... It did not matter then that the only ones I could have blamed were Shinra's scientists and its president who allowed them to do this."
He closed his eyes. "To me, it was the perfect excuse to eliminate all the people who had always looked on me with hollow admiration, jealousy, disdain. All the people who had never bothered to know me. The few who viewed me as human got mixed up with the rest of them in that haze of glorious madness." He hesitated and turned his pale blue gaze on Zack. "I am sorry, Zack..."
Zack shrugged it off. "I woulda lived if it hadn't been for Hojo, actually."
Sephiroth blinked. "You mean I did not kill you?"
"Nope. Hurt me pretty bad, but I lived."
"Then you were...?"
He nodded. "Hojo collected the survivors from Nibelheim and used them in an experiment. Injected us with Jenova cells--so I know a bit what it's like to be a lab rat. But me an' Cloud escaped. Almost made it to Midgar, too. But some Shinra soldiers caught us up, put about a million bullets in me, left Cloud for dead 'cause the Jenova cells got him so damn screwed up. Guess he recovered, huh?"
Sephiroth nodded slightly. "Still, Zack, if I had not--"
"Don't sweat it," he replied casually. "I'm blamin' it on Shinra, not you."
"Thank you."
Tifa's father spoke slowly. "I suppose I should consider myself lucky for dying in Nibelheim, if the survivors went through so much. Tifa was the only one who escaped Hojo, and even she was badly off--having to go on when she'd lost everything. It still boggles me how you could have done that to people."
"I did not know what happened to the survivors," Sephiroth told him. "I did not plan on there being survivors, and the dead were only returning to the Planet--what was so terrible about that? I thought." He glanced at the Planet. It smiled encouragingly.
"But that's no excuse for what you did."
"How isn't it?" Ifalna asked. "If you yourself were not human, but lived among them, and found out that you were perfectly right if you wanted to kill them--and of course you never particularly liked them because they'd never been nice to you--wouldn't you accept it as your duty?"
"I could never kill anyone," Tifa's father protested.
"But Sephiroth was a soldier. Killing was nothing new, just the killing of unarmed people. And when you think even those deserve death, I suppose you can't find much wrong with it."
"But we were people you killed!" the man continued, directing his anger back at Sephiroth. "Not some kind of criminals. How could you not see that? How could you ignore it?"
The swordsman shook his head. "...at first, I had my doubts. I debated with myself, and each time the anger and the hurt seemed a little stronger than the doubt. Eventually, I had drowned it out entirely. Humans were evil for what they had done to me and my people, and that was all there was to it."
There was a short silence. "...besides, Mr. Lockheart," the nameless Cetra said softly, "Tifa and Cloud are happily married now, aren't they?"
"That's not the point," he argued. "Terrible wrongs were done to them, and us, and--"
"And they were paid for then, when Cloud killed him."
"One death doesn't make up for hundreds," the Wutain man put in.
"You would have me die a hundred times to atone?" Sephiroth asked. "Fine. As long as I do not remain dead long enough to cause Aeris any grief, fine."
"But then you would be given a hundred lives as well," Narsa said.
The swordsman shook his head. "Think of it as one life interrupted a hundred times by death."
"Then you would be given one more life, to add to those you've already had, whereas these people"--Narsa waved a hand towards the crowd--"have had no such second life."
"Most of them had decent ones, though, didn't they? I cannot say that I have, except for this last life which lasted a bare three weeks, if that."
"And what was so terrible about your life?" the Wutain asked. "You were Shinra's greatest general, and you had all the luxuries that went along with that at your disposal."
"What good are luxuries if you are alone?" Sephiroth inquired.
"You're going on the 'money can't buy love' idea?"
He shrugged. "I am only stating that I may have been able to live in luxury, but I did not want to, and it would not have made me content. And I think spending most of my life in a laboratory is the truly terrible part."
"How long?" Saerni asked, speaking for the first time.
"Eighteen years," he replied.
"Geez," Zack breathed. "And I thought what I went through was terrible; I was only in a lab for a year at the most. Eighteen times that... and as a kid... gods..."
Silence fell. No one dared to challenge the fact that this had been terrible. They all knew it had to have been. No one challenged its truth either. Somehow they knew that every word this man spoke was true, despite the fact that he was a murderer.
"All right," Narsa said finally. "So you have already suffered, and maybe that makes up for something."
Ifalna cast him a sharp look. "It doesn't 'make up' for anything. This was a terrible wrong done to him, and someone else's sin committed on a sinner does not weigh into the balance. It was punishment for nothing, not for the sins he had not yet committed. So hearing of his suffering can only give us a better understanding of what Sephiroth went through that might lead him to kill so many, and maybe it will help stubborn people such as you to forgive him."
The other Cetra nodded in grudging agreement. "So it's a reason, not punishment."
"But what was it really like?" Mr. Lockheart asked.
"If you want accounts, stories aside from Sephiroth's," the Planet said softly, "perhaps we should ask those two who can offer them, recount them to do so."
Talya showed herself immediately, though she did not meet Sephiroth's gaze, much to his disappointment. He had not seen her at first; she must have been hidden amidst the crowd. Did she think he hated her? The nameless SOLDIER got up, offering her his seat, and she sat down next to Zack with the barest of nods.
Professor Hojo was longer in coming, and the Wutain man was less eager to relinquish his chair to him. Tifa's father scooted away slightly when Hojo sat down, and Narsa looked as though he wanted to. The scientist looked up at his son with ferocity, but Sephiroth only looked back coldly, keeping whatever hatred and disgust remained inside him tucked far back.
"Well, Professor?" Ifalna asked, no little repulsion in her voice. "What have you to say?"
He muttered a few things under his breath before snorting. "I intend neither to defend him nor accuse him. I will give you only facts, and you may make of them as you will."
"All right," the nameless Cetra said. "Go ahead."
"Well." Hojo pushed at his glasses, and fixed his gaze on some point slightly beyond Sephiroth. "I believe most, if not all, of you know he was created with the idea of producing a Cetra, so there is no need to go into that. We kept him in the laboratory as an infant, Professor Gast and I, and we conducted many tests and experiments during that stage. By the time Sephiroth was two--and looking more like he was six--Gast had grown disgusted with the project, and he left. Which meant I got to do things my way.
"I had a Turk brought in to keep him in line, and did whatever experiments I needed to get the information I wanted. I kept him confined to his room except for when I called for him, and a few times when he was older and I let him go to different rooms accompanied by Talya."
"What kinds of experiments did you do?" Saerni asked, interrupting.
The Professor waved a hand. "You wouldn't understand. But I expect it was rather painful, if that's what you want to know. He never cried out though. I trained him to ignore the pain from very early on, which made the tests easier to perform, but the discipline harder to administer." Here he glanced at Sephiroth. "I think the principle of the beatings meant more to him than the actual pain."
"You beat him?" Ifalna asked, blinking.
"I had Talya do it most often, but yes, I did beat him. Why do you think he is so leery of being touched?"
"I thought... the experiments themselves..." She trailed off, then glanced at Talya. "Weren't you his friend, though?"
She flinched. "I wish I could say that. But... if I disobeyed my orders that often, then I'd be out of the job. Hojo would've just replaced me with someone who didn't care, and then..."
Ifalna shook her head slowly. "So it became ingrained in him that both friend and foe would be cruel to him. It's worse than I had thought. The Professor never went quite that far with me."
"You did not need the discipline," Hojo told her matter-of-factly. "Sephiroth, on the other hand--he loved to be a nuisance to me. Even went outside once."
"I remember that!" someone from the crowd exclaimed. When she finally threaded her way to the front, Sephiroth noted her wild blond hair and blue eyes, and thought that she could easily have been related to Cloud. Zack started to get up, but she waved a hand.
"I'll only be a minute... I just remembered that day... Cloud must have been about three, and he was out playing with some of the children by the well. And there, leaning on the gate of the Shinra mansion, was the most forlorn looking boy. He looked about fifteen, and he was watching the boys with this wistful look on his face, almost like he wished he could join them. But then one of them noticed him, looked petrified when he smiled, and the sad boy went back inside. He looked... hurt. It was the saddest thing." She fell silent.
"I do not recall seeing you," Sephiroth said softly, "but I remember the boy. It did... hurt. A little. It was the first time I had seen anyone normal, and he was afraid of me... I had done nothing impressive or intimidating, and already someone feared me."
The woman, Cloud's mother, smiled faintly, almost apologetically, then retreated back into the crowd.
Narsa snorted. "This little event was a waste of time..."
"Waste of time?" Ifalna asked. "Narsa, you've been an awareness for thousands of years, so what difference does one deviation make to you? Besides, you can learn volumes about people just from their recounting of one tiny memory."
"Fine," he humphed. "But what about these two?" he asked, gesturing to the Shinra guard and the gatekeeper. "They haven't said one word yet."
"I just wanted to... I..." the gatekeeper faltered.
"Ira wanted to see, observe Sephiroth from this close, so that he could catch, notice everything and be able to pass better, more accurate judgment," the Planet explained for him, smiling.
Ira nodded gratefully.
The Shinra guard hesitated. "I wanted something like that. Wanted to know why I died. I'll speak when my turn comes. But... if anyone wants my seat, feel free..."
No one asked for it.
"In any case..." Saerni said, directing her words to Hojo. "What did you do once he was older and had the power to kill you if he wished?"
The Professor shrugged. "He wasn't much more of a trouble than he had been, except for one instance. Obedience, however spiteful, was ingrained in him since infancy, so he didn't dare flinch from my experiments or run away for a long time."
"What was this one instance?"
"There were a couple, actually," Talya cut in. "There was one time when he went and talked to Valentine.. to Vincent, and then he also read his records--his real records--in the library. I also told him a lot of stuff I wasn't supposed to which might've filtered through to Hojo. But the real biggie was when Ifalna and Aeris escaped..."
Ifalna took over, doing her best to hold Sephiroth's gaze. "He startled us... Just came into our room one day, saying that he was going to help us escape. I didn't want to trust him at first. What Cetra would have? But Aeris seemed perfectly at ease with him. She was seven, old enough to recognize what he was, but she refused to believe it. She sat down with him and they talked for a bit. He was so boyishly awkward, so anxious, that it convinced me. So I told him to come back later that night and he used his magic to send us as far as Kalm."
"Why didn't he go with you?" Zack asked, surprised.
She shook her head and looked to Sephiroth.
The swordsman faltered, avoiding the Professor's gaze as he spoke. "I... thought that I could protect you indirectly if I stayed behind. If Hojo lost all three of his prized specimens, he would be even more intent on getting them back, but if he at least had me... then maybe that would mollify him. Maybe he wouldn't send troops, or worse--Turks, searching for you."
Hojo scoffed. "So that's what you were up to. Odd, it actually worked... It was years before I asked President Shinra to send someone looking for them."
Sephiroth nodded slightly, said nothing.
"I remember..." Talya began quietly, "he was so happy the next day, glad that they were free. Not jealous in the slightest, but maybe a little proud that he had helped them. More than a little proud, actually. He seemed to relish in the fact that he had done something so wonderful for them, and so terrible for Hojo. He couldn't even keep it from me. The Professor... had me beat him pretty bad for that, but I don't think he cared." She looked up at the swordsman. "I am so sorry..."
He shook his head. "I both understand and forgive you. I have for some time now. It is him"--he looked pointedly at Hojo--"that I will understand, but never forgive."
"And I would never expect it of you," the Professor stated. He sniffed. "All this emotional nonsense. Honestly, you morons can't simply determine this logically."
"But Hojo," Sephiroth said simply, "someone who atoned for their deeds merely because of logic would have accomplished nothing; they would still be the same person. It is the regret, the guilt, and the eagerness to make up for one's deeds that makes the difference. And that is part of what they are trying me for here."
"Well, aren't you the bright one?"
He refrained from making a boastful retort in favor of making a more elegant, and more biting, remark. "That is what you made me, isn't it?"
Hojo frowned and did not reply.
"It didn't end with their escape," the nameless Cetra said into the silence. "What happened then?"
"We moved him to the Shinra building," the Professor said, tone flat. "I thought there might be better security there, and I took measures to rid him of his memory so that he wouldn't be able to think so clearly, or even remember his spells. Unfortunately, he escaped before the drugs took their full toll on him."
"As it is," Sephiroth added, trying not to sound accusing, "there is still a gap in my memory, from the moment of my departure, to when I awoke in the house of some citizen of Kalm. She told me her husband found me collapsed not far from the town. I still do not know what happened."
"But you went straight to SOLDIER after that?" Tifa's father asked.
"I had it programmed into him," Hojo answered, "so that if he ever escaped, he would come back to Shinra, and consequently, to me. But..."
Sephiroth took up the sentence with a scoff. "But he did not manage to erase my hatred of him, and I was outside of his authority, so I did not have to obey his summons if he called me to his lab. I never did. Nor did I let Shinra's medical and healing staff touch me if I could help it."
"It's no wonder we all thought you were invincible," the Shinra guard commented. "If you had injuries, you never reported them..."
"Do you see now, Mr. Lockheart?" Ifalna asked. "How someone with that kind of background, whose only memories were 'programmed' into him, might snap upon finding what Sephiroth did at Nibelheim? How, with as much pain building up as he had, one could let it loose upon finding some kind of excuse, finally seize the chance to cry out?"
Tifa's father nodded faintly. "I think so, yes..." He stood, offering a respectful nod to the Planet before he returned to the crowd.
A few moments later, President Shinra moved to take his place, as cool and composed as ever. "What do you have to say for your actions five years later? Your needless slaughter of the people in my building?"
"I was still quite mad at that point," Sephiroth answered calmly. "Jenova wanted her body, and, as it happened to reside in the Shinra building, I went to retrieve it. I killed those in my way because I still believed what I had in Nibelheim. I killed you, Mr. Shinra, because I know you were the one who agreed to fund the Jenova Project, and you were the one who decided to use my skills without telling me what I was."
"I had figured that much," the President replied. "But why didn't you kill Professor Hojo?"
"I would have, had I been able to find him."
Hojo snorted. "Not thinking quite so clearly, were you?"
Sephiroth shook his head. "It is difficult to even remember things for me when I first regenerate. As it was, Jenova reminded me of my... 'mission.' Otherwise..." He shrugged.
"So you're saying that if Jenova hadn't stirred your memory, you might have had the time to look at things sanely again?" the nameless Cetra queried.
"I might have. I am far from certain."
"Just how much influence did she have on your decisions five years ago?" Saerni asked.
The swordsman faltered, frowned. "It is... hard to say how much was my own desire, and how much was her manipulation of me, if any."
"It's almost too bad she isn't here to offer her account," Narsa commented with a scoff.
"Why wouldn't I be here?" a voice called from somewhere in the crowd. He did not recognize it, nor did he recognize the dark-haired woman who stepped from the crowd. He did recognize her pink eyes and her half-smile.
"Planet?" Ifalna queried uncertainly.
"She is almost-child now," the Planet explained. "She wanted, desired, to speak, to apologize to Sephiroth. I gave her a voice, words so that she could defend him."
Zack got up, hesitantly, and started for the crowd, glancing back at Sephiroth to mouth 'good luck,' before rejoining it.
Jenova took his place no more boldly, and Talya and Ira cast her uneasy glances. All four of the Cetra present shifted uncomfortably, but the Planet seemed as peaceful as it had been. Whatever quarrel it had with Jenova, it had already resolved.
"Well then..." Saerni began, trying to compose herself. "J... Jenova, how much influence did you have on Sephiroth?"
The half-smile was gone now. "Not as much as I had wanted, and more than he would probably admit. He usually did whatever I asked him, but he would do it in his own way, which generally took longer than I wanted. Other times, he disobeyed me entirely. It wasn't my idea to use Cloud as a puppet, or to let that... let Aeris live for so long. I knew she would be trouble from the moment he saw her, but he would not listen to me. She was a Cetra, he insisted, the same as us, and I had to maintain that illusion for him to be of any use to me."
"Why did you decide to use Cloud as a puppet anyway?" Ifalna asked of Sephiroth. "And why spare the rest of his friends, if most of them were human?"
"At first it was only curiosity. I knew he had Jenova cells in him, and I wanted to see what I could do with him. His friends, I thought, might be useful to him. And of course I could not kill Aeris, if she was the same as me..." He shook his head. "After a while, though, he did become useful."
"Useful?"
"He... gave me the Black Materia at the Temple of the Ancients, and brought it to me again at Northern Crater."
"You manipulated him to do so, you mean," Narsa amended. "And you knew it was considered wrong."
Sephiroth nodded. "Yes, I knew... But I convinced myself that he was not capable of having emotions, so it did not matter. I rationalized a lot of things to myself..."
"Then you knew you were wrong. Why didn't you stop killing?"
He shifted, moving his chair so that he could sit backwards in it, facing the group. He felt a little more protected with the chair's back in front of him. "I... did not want to admit that I was wrong. So I tried to tell myself I wasn't. Jenova... helped..."
"Harsh on yourself as always," Jenova remarked. "I did more than just 'help.' I had to construct so many lies and illusions for the boy to be satisfied that he was on the right track, and still he doubted. Especially when I told him he had to kill Aeris."
"...what did he say?" Ifalna asked quietly.
"A lot of things," she answered. "Mostly 'she's the only other Cetra' and 'maybe if we got her to join us.' For a while he even tried to convince me that she was harmless, but eventually he conceded that she wasn't, and that killing her was necessary. Still, when the time came, he delayed, and delayed, and delayed. He didn't actually kill her until after she'd finished her prayer and summoned Holy. Some good that did us."
Saerni blinked slowly. "So then... he killed her without reason?"
Sephiroth closed his eyes. "...when I started my fall, she had not yet completed the summons. But she had before I reached her. I... could have averted my blade, I could have ceased my fall, I could have... could have brought her back afterwards... but I did not. I know I have no excuses."
"And yet Aeris forgave you for it," the Cetra replied. "Even came to love you. Why?"
He forced himself to open his eyes again. "I have asked her that same question many times. Why did she care? Why didn't she condemn me like all the others? And she told me, smiling, that all that I had done was in another life, done by a different man than the one who stood before her, told me that I understood her, and that was all that mattered."
She nodded, as if his words had confirmed some tentative concept of hers, and returned to the story being told. "Then, Jenova, what happened after that?"
"...he grew more and more doubting. By the end, he just wanted to let Cloud kill him and have the whole thing done with, but I was able to manipulate him when his mind was weak, a bit like he manipulated Cloud, and I made him fight back. And after he was beaten, but not dead, he called the puppet back so he could kill him for good. Essentially, it was suicide."
"He let himself be killed?" Narsa asked. "Is this true?"
Sephiroth nodded. "It is true..."
"What does all this prove anyway?" President Shinra inquired. "So he was insane, yes; we all knew that. He killed a lot of people for no reason; we knew that, too. But he knew for a good time that it was wrong and he delayed in stopping until it was almost too late? That only makes his actions worse. Insanity is excusable, perhaps, but willing, self-enforced deception for the sake of rationalization is not."
"I know," the swordsman said softly. "I do not expect forgiveness from any of you. I do not expect it of myself. But..."
"Aeris needs it," the Planet finished, a note of sadness in its voice. "If it is all right, acceptable to all of you, I should like to bring in, to pull closer those few of the living who desired to speak."
Sephiroth brightened somewhat. Would Aeris be allowed to have a word? Perhaps, could she simply be here to watch? He would give anything to have her support. Their stares hurt, having to recount some of his cruelest thoughts hurt, not having her by his side hurt...
Yuffie was the first to appear, looking around in wide-eyed amazement at the crowd. For the barest of instants, she seemed to be searching for someone in particular, but then she turned to join those seated, hesitating when she found all the chairs full. Talya stood slowly, offering her seat with a questioning expression. The ninja grinned and took it with a murmured thanks.
Cloud and Tifa were next, blinking as their minds adjusted to the new surroundings. President Shinra and the guard started to get up, but Cloud shook his head and looked uncertainly to the other side of the group. Ifalna stood first, followed by Jenova, letting the two other newcomers sit down with Ira between them.
Sephiroth found it oddly ironic that Cloud should be the one to take the seat occupied by his designated defender.
"Each of you has a story, realizations to tell us," the Planet told them. "However you go about it is up to you."
The three exchanged glances, and Yuffie, the most confident and least disoriented of them, spoke first.
"You're probably wondering what Wutai's current leader is doing over here, aren't you?" she asked the crowd. She scoffed. "I'm defending my friend, okay? Sure, he led the war against us, but he didn't start it. Sure, he's done awful things, but I don't think much of it was his fault. How many of us can really say we'd hold up any better if we went through the same things he did?"
"Sephiroth was conditioned to be logical and to set his emotions aside," Hojo said. "He should have been less susceptible to insanity."
"But when you repress a person's emotions, they'll just build up and build up until eventually they burst," Yuffie argued. "So it only made it worse for him, if he never expressed his emotions." She cast the swordsman a smile. "But lately he's been really compassionate. Even vulnerable. Especially when he's around Aeris. That's why I knew he had to have a reason for it when he killed Ira... He couldn't have snapped again when he was being that open."
"That's what I would have thought," Ira said. "As it was, I was even starting to feel a little guilty that I had tried to keep him out of Cosmo Canyon in the first place. So many good things happened in our village because he came. Granted there was considerable worry, but it was pretty distant for most of us; we didn't know the people who were in trouble very well. But to be present at a Relighting Ceremony...!" He trailed off, smiling distantly.
"I take it you've decided to forgive him," the Planet remarked.
Ira nodded. "I just want to ask him to explain why he killed me. I'm certain now that he had a good reason."
Sephiroth looked down for a moment, feeling as though he was about to disappoint the man. "I had to get to Jenova somehow... She could easily run away if I tried to track her down intent on killing her. So I decided I would deceive her into thinking I would side with her, for the sake of keeping Aeris safe. She had me prove my intentions be beheading you... It got me to her, though she told me that she wanted to face me alone. I..." He shook his head. "It looks as though your death was not so meaningful as you would wish. I am sorry."
The gatekeeper only smiled. "No, it meant something. She obviously wasn't about to let you come to her without a gesture like that. So, in exchange for my life alone, the life of the Planet itself was saved. I think that's worth something."
The swordsman inclined his head in reluctant agreement.
Ira got up, offering his seat to Ifalna, who took it with a smile.
"Anyway," Yuffie continued. "I don't think we should even be judging him for what he did in his other lives. He suffered in them, and he died. Isn't that punishment enough? This past life, he did so much good, helped so many people."
"He even managed to heal some of the emotional wounds we had," Cloud said. "He took the blame for things I'd been ashamed of myself for, like giving him the Black Materia and hurting Aeris."
"It makes you feel better if he takes the blame for your actions?" Saerni asked.
The blond ran a hand through his hair. "Well, yeah. It means that it wasn't entirely my fault. It also helped me to believe that he had changed, and that in itself was good to know. Almost like, if Sephiroth was sane again, and actually showing emotion, then some of the evil in the world was gone."
Narsa snorted, and Ifalna cast him a sharp look.
"And then..." Tifa began. "I don't think I've ever seen Aeris as happy as she was that night when they were dancing together. And after he died..." She faltered, glancing at Sephiroth. "She was so... distant. You could tell she was broken inside, but on the outside, she built up such a strong face. And now she's gone to the City of the Ancients? It's not right somehow, for her to seek solitude." She paused again, and smiled faintly as she echoed Cloud, "Almost like, if Aeris wants to be alone, then some good in the world has died."
"You keep bringing up this idea that Aeris loves him, and that for her sake at least, we should let him live," Narsa said. "But so far I have seen nothing of him that shows he would love her back."
"Are you blind?" Ifalna demanded. "Can't you see that the only reason he's even been trying to defend himself is because he cannot bear to leave her alone?"
"It's easy enough to make us think that so he can be granted life again. He is, afterall, a master of deception."
"But you can't fake that sort of thing," Tifa protested. "It's real."
"He nearly fooled Jenova into thinking he would side with her again, even after defying her and cursing her for so long. He even went to such an extreme as to kill someone for the sake of that illusion. Who's to say he couldn't maintain something far less costly?"
"He deceived Jenova for the good of the Planet, not himself," Ifalna answered.
"Even though he wanted to kill her?" Narsa asked skeptically. "He would have done it anyway."
"There was no other choice left open to him. He had to kill her quickly before she gave up on him and started killing on her own."
"It could easily have been a lie. Look. Why does he not speak now? He cannot prove that he cares for Aeris."
Sephiroth shifted uncomfortably, folding his arms across the back of the chair and looking down at the ground. He was not like Aeris; he did not know what to say. He suddenly remembered his words to Elder Hargo, asking if it was possible that he might have inherited Jenova's traits of deception. He remembered the many times he had deceived himself... and he began to wonder.
"It hurts him!" Ifalna exclaimed, and he was grateful that she could voice it for him. "This whole argument, this whole trial, because he still remembers all the things he has done that you are using against him. He likely even thinks you should!"
"I don't see any pain in those eyes," the Shinra guard said slowly. "They're colder than steel."
"It's a defense," Yuffie explained confidently. "You should have seen him just before he killed Ira. He looked like he'd been crying, but his eyes were steel."
"He's a great actor, wonderful at creating illusions," Narsa insisted. "How can we be certain of anything he does?"
"But what reason would he have to lie?" the ninja asked. "There's no point to it."
"There's a reason for it now: he wants another life. As for before, you'd have to ask him. I'm no genius."
"He couldn't tell you, because it's not true!"
"Then why doesn't he speak up and tell us it's not true? Why doesn't he defend himself if this is so ridiculous?" Narsa turned to Sephiroth. "Well? What have you got to say for yourself? It's true, isn't it? You're just a selfish bastard afterall, and a damned smart one at that?"
"Narsa!" Ifalna exclaimed sharply.
Sephiroth stared at him fixedly. "I don't know what you're talking about," he murmured. "I love her." Inside he was in turmoil. What if Narsa was right? What if he had created an illusion so complex that he deceived even himself? Did that then become truth, if he truly believed it? Or was it still a lie, if he didn't know? No matter what, it was cruel to Aeris. This doubting was cruel to her.
"Then why don't you sound sure of yourself?"
He closed his eyes. "Please, stop..."
"The vulnerable act isn't going to convince me. Go ahead. Offer me some proof that you actually care, and maybe I'll forgive you." A pause. "You can't, can you? I didn't think so."
His voice caught in his throat. Why couldn't he? Why couldn't he? Too many accusing eyes bore into him. Too many people looking satisfied that he seemed incapable of answering. His own mind, his own heart, both were berating him with questions and accusations, the harshest ones he had ever considered coming back to haunt him.
And then the crowd witnessed what none had seen before: the Great Sephiroth buried his head in his arms, and wept.
He needs you, the Planet said urgently.
Aeris's eyes widened, and she immediately forgot the presence of her friends. "But... but what can I do if he can't see or hear me?"
Forgive me... it murmured.
"Wha--"
Consciousness was suddenly ripped from her, and her body collapsed to the floor.
Pulled, whirling, clasped tightly by giants' hands with a grip intended to protect, but it hurt. Gods, it hurt. She wanted to cry out, but had no voice, wanted to struggle, but had no body. For an instant, she thought the experience terribly familiar, but recognition, too, was torn from her as soon as her mind grasped it.
Then, even in this dim state of awareness, everything faded, and then there was nothing.
He tried to stop the tears that came unbidden from his eyes, but they continued to flow, soaking the sleeve of his shirt and the strands of silver hair in his face. He was thankful at least that he could stifle and silence the desire to cry out caught in his throat. But, Gods, he was crying in front of everyone... He could even hear some of them laughing. Ifalna's and Yuffie's voices rang out, trying to silence them, but he could not seem to comprehend their words.
Above all were the questions in his mind. Why can't you say it? Why can't you give him that proof? Shouldn't it be easy? Don't you care about her? Or are you too much of a monster to be capable of it? Do you really care about anyone but yourself? Has anything you've ever done been for anyone but yourself?
Please, please... I love her. Haven't I given myself for her? Did I not die because I tried too hard to defend her from Jenova's attacks?
But always, the same question. Then why did you kill her?
A gentle hand came to rest on his shoulder. "It's all right, love."
Sephiroth looked up in surprise. "A-aeris!?" he exclaimed hoarsely.
Everyone else had fallen silent, but neither of the two even noticed.
She smiled softly. Tears glistened in her green eyes, and her hair hung in disarray, strands twisting and falling haphazardly about her face. She wore the pale pink dress that he had not seen her in since he revived her, but not the red jacket that went with it. Her shoulders were left bare and smooth save for the narrow straps that held the dress up. She withdrew her arm, clasping her two hands together, bracelets clinking, as she gazed at him with barely-restrained emotion.
Sephiroth stood slowly and reached out, disbelieving, to take her into his arms. Finding her slender form soft and warm and real, he held her tighter. Her arms wound around his waist, and she buried her face in his chest. His doubt vanished into nothing, and he found himself murmuring over and over again, "I'm sorry, I'm sorry..."
Aeris pulled back and looked up into his eyes. "Blue," she whispered, awed. She lifted a hand to trace a finger along his forehead, down his cheek, lightly touching his lips.
He bent down, cupping her face in one hand, hesitated. She smiled softly and pulled his head the rest of the way down, closing her eyes as he closed his. The moment stretched.
"If that isn't love, Narsa," he heard Yuffie comment, "I don't know what is."
Finally, Sephiroth pulled back, looking down at Aeris with an anxious smile. She laughed and pushed his bangs out of his face.
"Planet," Narsa asked, "did you...?"
The Planet smiled. "Of course I brought her, dragged her here. Sephiroth needed her. I think, as she would say, that his heart is not fully healed, mended yet. He is quick, eager to doubt, to blame himself."
Aeris turned to survey the crowd, taking Sephiroth's hand. Her cheeks were pink. "So... how have things gone so far?"
"It's hard to say," Ifalna said hesitantly.
She nodded slightly. "Thank you, Planet, for bringing me here."
It smiled and shrugged. "It was nothing."
"How long can we stay?" she asked, with a glance at Yuffie, Cloud, and Tifa.
"I am not certain, but I'll return you when it is necessary, required."
Aeris turned back to Sephiroth. "Sit down," she bade him, gesturing to the chair. He blinked, then flipped it around so it faced forwards and sat down. She sat down on his lap and he blushed.
Yuffie smirked and winked at him.
"So, Narsa, was that sufficient proof for you?" Saerni asked dryly.
"It will do," he replied, shrugging.
Ifalna pushed at her bangs. "I've forgotten where we were before this pointless argument."
Yuffie shrugged. "Tifa was just saying how happy Aeris was with him, I think." She nodded towards the couple. "I don't think we need any more words on it."
"That's hardly something to argue about," Aeris said. "Isn't it obvious?"
Sephiroth put his arms around her and rested his chin on her shoulder. "And you are far too lonely without me."
Some of those in the group shifted uncomfortably or looked away.
"Hmm," Hojo remarked thoughtfully. "Perhaps I should have waited and kidnapped your child for study instead."
"Ch-child?" Sephiroth queried, blinking.
Yuffie laughed. "Geez, this is great. Planet, you've got to let him live again."
"I thought so, too," it replied. "But, I will respect the wishes, decisions of those present." It frowned. "The three of you must go, return now," it said regretfully.
"Good luck then, Seph," the ninja said. "Oh, and you're welcome for the materia. Any time."
He nodded slightly.
"Sephiroth, I hope you live," Tifa said simply, offering a smile.
Cloud did not smile. "...you know," he said finally, "I think I could learn to like you, Sephiroth. You're all right."
"Thank you. All of you."
The Planet sighed and the three faded away. The three from Shinra on the opposite side vacated their seats and rejoined the crowd. When no one else came forward, the four Cetra moved to sit closer to the Planet.
"But Planet, what about... what he is?" Narsa asked. "Do we really want that kind of power to live?"
Sephiroth shook his head. "I will not use it. Never."
"Even if you don't, what about your descendants?" Saerni asked, again making him blush.
Ifalna shook her head. "Already, there is Minerva. What would you do about her? Perhaps she's not as powerful as Sephiroth, but she is stronger than Aeris. So it won't make much of a difference if you keep Sephiroth out of it."
"Perhaps if we..." Narsa began.
"Set restrictions on her?" Sephiroth interrupted. "What has she done to earn punishment?"
"And you don't trust us to raise our children properly?" Aeris asked. "With each generation, their abilities will lessen, so you'll have little to worry about once it's out of our hands."
Narsa frowned. "I still don't think we should allow the line of Jenova to continue..."
"Then you would wish for the extinction of two races?" the nameless Cetra asked. "If we go by your wishes, Aeris will be the last of the Cetra, and Minerva the last of Jenova's race. All that would be left are humans. There would be no one to head the Planet's voice. We ourselves would be reduced to mere observers. Is that what you want?"
"Ishiri, those of Jenova's line, whether or not by their own fault, have proven too powerful for their own good and the good of the Planet. Minerva is not nearly as strong as Sephiroth; it is not so bad that she be left unrestricted. But Sephiroth... he is the man who nearly became a god! With his power, he might as well be considered one. Even with Aeris to guide them, I would not trust descendants of his to refrain from using that power."
"Even if it means the extinction of the Cetra for good?" Ishiri pressed.
"There is still the Lucrecia woman," Saerni said, sounding as though she disliked to remind Narsa of this. "Sephiroth's mother. She could continue the line of the Cetra..."
"But already, within two generations, they would lose the ability to hear the Planet entirely," Aeris argued. "Do you want Cetra who cannot hear the Planet? Do you want to leave it lonely?"
"It has us..." Narsa faltered.
"And how often do you speak to it as a friend? How often do you look to it for anything but guidance? How often do you view it as anything but a god?"
He fell silent.
Aeris sighed, and Sephiroth tightened his embrace just the slightest bit. "I don't know how we'll keep the line of Cetra going with only one family line left..." she said quietly, "but you can't let it die with me and Lucrecia. You can't leave the Planet lonely."
"But neither can we endanger it with the existence of mortals with too much power," Narsa insisted.
The Planet held up a hand and spoke softly. "What if I could change him?" it asked. "If I could cleanse, purge the Jenova from his body, would that be agreeable, satisfactory, child? Minerva, then, will be the strongest being alive, and you said that you were content, grudgingly, to let her do as she pleases."
"Yes, I think that would be sufficient," he sighed.
Sephiroth shifted uncomfortably. "Won't that alter who I am as well?"
The Planet turned to him with a smile. "You should have learned from Aeris by now--what you are does not make, change who you are. Look. You do not even have a body now, and aren't you still yourself?"
Aeris twisted to smile at him, then looked back at the Planet. "Do you really think you could do that?"
"I am not certain," it replied. "But if enough people decide, agree to give him life again, then I will give it to him whether or not I can manage, discover how to rid him of the Jenova." It looked pointedly at Narsa.
He sighed again. "All right, Planet. Do as you will. With you on his side, he was bound to be granted life no matter what."
"Not necessarily," Saerni said with a frown. "It's still possible that they"--she indicated the crowd--"will decide against him. Not all of them are easily convinced. Some are likely more stubborn than Cloud was."
The Planet nodded, then winced. "Aeris, friend, I am sorry. You cannot stay any longer..."
Sephiroth held her tighter.
She shifted, though, gently urging him to loosen his grip, and faced him, laying a hand on his face. "You had better keep your promise, love."
"Or what?" he asked, managing a smirk.
She hmphed. "You had to ask, didn't you? You know I can't do anything to you."
He shook his head. "There are plenty of things you could do to hurt me..."
"But I wouldn't dare." Aeris kissed him lightly. "Come back soon, all right?"
Sephiroth nodded. "I... I will."
And then she vanished, leaving him alone again. He took a deep breath, then let it out again. "Well?" he asked.
"Is there anyone else who wishes to speak, whether or not it has to do with, concerns this trial?" the Planet inquired.
There was a faint murmur in the crowd.
Zack appeared again, and Sephiroth stood up, grasping his offered hand and shaking it firmly as the shorter man clapped him lightly on the shoulder. "You take care of her, all right?"
Sephiroth nodded slightly. "If I can, I will."
"Oh, come on, how could they still hate you?"
"Easily..."
"Whatever. Oh, and will you tell her what happened to me?"
"Of course."
"Thanks." With that, Zack waved and retreated to the crowd.
Tseng was the only other to come forward, hesitant, though his gaze was direct enough. "I only wanted to offer you my forgiveness," he said levelly. "As a Turk, I probably deserved that death anyway."
Sephiroth shook his head. "No; I understand the plight of Turks... What choice did you have but to follow your orders? And... thank you."
The Wutain shrugged. "After hearing everything that I have, forgiving you isn't that hard. And... do you think you could tell Elena something?"
"If I am granted another life, I will revive you so that you can tell her yourself. I told her I would try."
Tseng shook his head. "Just in case it doesn't work, tell her I'm sorry I ignored her like that. Tell her I'm sorry I didn't ask her out a lot sooner."
The swordsman smiled faintly. "All right. If you do not get the chance, I will tell her... if I can."
The Turk nodded curtly and stepped back.
Ifalna stood, sharing a glance with the Planet. "Come on, Sephiroth... I'll take you back to my house to wait for the verdict."
He knew he could find the way back on his own, easily, but perhaps there was something vaguely ceremonial in being brought in and led back out, so he only nodded and followed her.
"...I truly hope you'll be able to go back," she said as they walked. "And I wanted to thank you for what you've done for me and my daughter."
"It was the least I could do..." he murmured in reply.
Ifalna laughed a little. "It always surprises me that you're so modest."
Sephiroth shrugged.
The reached the treehouse and she motioned for him to go on up. "I expect you want to be alone right now. After all that..."
He nodded gratefully and climbed up, taking the mirror from the table and curling up in the window seat, mirror on his knees.