Chapter 6

Alpha woke with a headache from a night's worth of crying, his body surrounded in a warmth he didn't want to leave him. Slowly opening his eye, he saw the source of the warmth was Sephiroth, the man sitting asleep in bed, cradling the teen wrapped in a blanket in his arms. The man slept soundly, a black blanket different from Alpha's hanging over his shoulders. Alpha sighed to himself, curling closer to the warmth of Sephiroth's body and the comforting sense of his presence.

"He was up all night, watching you sleep," Tifa's voice sounded in the doorway.

The teen looked up at her curiously. "You...don't hate him the way Cloud does, do you?"

She shook her head. "In a way, I hate Sephiroth for what he's done in the past...but when I see him with you..." The girl placed a hand on her heart. "All the hatred fades away when I see how human he can be. The Sephiroth I knew was a monster...The one who holds you when you sleep, that is a different Sephiroth. That one is an angel of the night whose power is only equaled to the greatness of the pain he must bare in his heart forever."

"What do you know about Sephiroth?" Alpha's voice had lost its innocent tone, giving him an older aura.

***

The man stirred in his sleep, slowly waking at sunrise. He shivered, the warmth of Alpha no longer near him. Sephiroth sighed to himself, rubbing the sleep from his eyes. Once again he had dreamt of that single moment of happiness in his childhood, the fragment of his memory that kept him from being driven further into insanity. Feeling his joints pop in many places, he stood up out of bed and made his way to his room to dress and wash. As he entered the hall, the man could hear the childish laughter of the android in the dining room along with the voices of Tifa and Yuffie. He sighed once more as he stood in front of his door, his forehead leaning against the wood.

"Its worse than you thought, isn't it?" Vincent's voice asked behind him.

Sephiroth nodded his head against the door, not turning to face the man. "I can sense it. There's an enormous source of power heading this way. I think its after Alpha, but I'm not sure." He finally looked up at Vincent. "What did you tell him last night? Before he came in, I know he spoke to you. I could hear it."

Vincent's ruby-red eyes stared deep into Sephiroth's aquamarine. "Why do you ask a question you already know the answer to?" countered the ex-Turk.

Sighing for a third time, Sephiroth shook his head, looking over the wooden railing at the dining room below. A soft smile played his cold lips as he watched Alpha eat breakfast beside Tifa and Yuffie, the two girls chatting away with the teen. "I don't know...Probably the same reason you do. Hope..." The man turned away from the railing and opened the door to his room. "Tell me Vincent...did I make a mistake? In helping Alpha, I mean."

For once, Vincent's cold mask was shattered by a rare, fatherly-smile he gave only Sephiroth. "I'm not the one to answer that question, Sephiroth," he told the dark angel.

"Who is then?"

The dark-haired man went to Sephiroth and pointed at his heart. "The answer to your question lies there..." He pointed to Sephiroth's forehead. "And there. Think about it with your heart and your head. Then all your questions will be answered." That said, he stepped past Sephiroth and silently walked away like the shadows he resembled in his own ways.

Alpha looked up at the two men, seeing a flash of silver as Sephiroth turned to go back into his room. "What's wrong sweetie?" Tifa asked him, seeing sadness in Alpha's silver eye.

Shaking his head, the android forced himself to smile. "Its nothing Miss Tifa," he replied as cheerfully as he could. His disguise faded though as he thought once more of the sadness and pain he had shared with Sephiroth the night before. "I just can't stop thinking about...how much pain is inside him."

"Its what gives him power," Yuffie said. "Sephiroth's power isn't like a normal person's. A normal person gets power from positive emotions and energy. Sephiroth's, on the other hand, is driven by his hatred, sadness, and pain that has cursed him. Its the only emotions he knows."

"No." The word came out before Alpha could think. "That's not true." Both Tifa and Yuffie gave Alpha a curious look, somewhat surprised by the sudden response. "He doesn't just know hatred, sadness, and pain. Sephiroth has a wide range of emotions...Its just..." Alpha's voice faded in his throat to a choked whisper as tears once more filled his silver eye. "He just doesn't know it...because no one's given him a chance to feel those emotions..."

"Well that's just sweet," a chilling voice spoke in the doorway. A girl with hair as black as night save for two silver locks that framed her face and eyes as red as blood entered. "I always thought you were the sentimental one of us, little brother."

In a sudden movement, the three were on their feet. "Beta!" Alpha shouted at the girl. "What do you want?"

Her smile was a cold, evil one that sent shivers down Tifa's spine. The smile was much like Sephiroth's before he was about to kill. "Mother wishes to see you again, little brother. She told me to come pick you and your little angel friend up and bring you here." She looked around. "Where is he anyways, this pet of yours? I hear he's pretty strong and quite a looker."

Alpha took a step forward. "Leave Sephiroth out of this!"

The girl's grin grew. "So its true. He is involved in this."

"Who speaks my name?" the shadows called out from all around. From every corner of the room, the shadows manipulated themselves, transforming into Sephiroth until the newcomer was surrounded by a group of five identical Sephiroth's. "You are Beta, one of the three androids created by Hojo?" they asked with the same voice.

"This is the great Sephiroth?" the girl asked, drawing her katana. "Hiding in the background while he lets his shadows fight for him?"

Tifa and Yuffie backed off a bit, pulling Alpha away as well. The images of Sephiroth merely smirked. "Think of it this way, Beta. It'll be good practice for when we truly fight one another."

Beta let out a shriek of rage as she lunged at one of the images. The shadow dodged with inhuman speed as a second moved in to karate-chop her neck. Seeing the chop coming, the female android quickly spun around in her lunge and thrust her katana between the ribs of the image. No blood appeared as the shadow melted into nothing, the girl rolling into a kneel. The remaining four fakes took up offensive stances, ready to fight. But before attacking, she took a quick look around the tavern.

"Where's Alpha?!" she screeched, turning to Tifa and Yuffie, who merely shrugged in response. The android sliced through the fake Sephiroth's in a rage as she stormed towards the stairs. "I'll find that little brat of a brother if I have to burn the entire inn to cinders!" she rampaged, stomping up the wooden steps.

When she reached the second floor, the girl passed Vincent without a second thought, not even looking up at the man who resembled her so much. Reaching Sephiroth's room, the girl kicked down the door to find only an empty room and an open window. Reaching it, she let out a defeated roar of anger and fury, seeing the one-winged angel flying away in the distance.

Behind her, Vincent entered. "A few more seconds and you would have had him," he said. "A shame Sephiroth's plan worked so well."

"Shove it Delta..." the girl cursed. "Your disguise didn't fool me. How it made the others think you were Vincent, I'll never know."

The man's voice shifted a note higher than Vincent's normal dark tone. "Really now, sister? And what gave it away? The fact I didn't care when you walked by?" He smiled as the girl's hand clenched into a fist. Vincent bowed to her. "I take my leave of you now, and vanish like I had before." A fog appeared out of nowhere, filling the room until nothing could be seen. But as quickly as it had come, the fog vanished, taking Delta with it.

***

"Well..." the woman in the shadows sighed. "It seems someone forgot to warn our dear Beta about Sephiroth's little gift."

Hojo turned to glare at the woman. "I thought Gast had it programmed in them the information they needed! That and I never expected Sephiroth to use a duplicating method like that to escape. Normally he saves that for when he needs to defeat an enemy quickly."

"And Delta has returned," Beta spoke as she entered. She walked calmly past Hojo and knelt to the shadows. "He was with them at the tavern and inn, but is gone now. Hidden in the guise of Vincent, I didn't know it was him until he confronted me."

"Now things are getting interesting!" exclaimed the woman. It was clear by the tone of her voice that all was going according to plan.