The soft dew of morn was just beginning to caress the grass of the surrounding plains. Still, as the morning's kiss soothed the dry vegetation, the hazy eye of fire above overlooked contently. Soon its rays were awakening life in the poverty stricken city below. It was a sight to behold but what showed beneath the canvass of darkness was not one of liking. Lives were scrambled amongst the rebirth and death of what had been only a short time before.
Midgar. It had served as both a holding cell and a heaven for many years. Status of life all depended on where you were born and to whom you were born to. None of that mattered now though. Everyone was at square one again. To bring a child into this world would be a punishment to both ends of the umbilical chord. No one was safe by law, and no one had rights over anything but the clothes on they're back and the weapon in their hand. This was the aftermath of the destruction of Midgar.
Most of the city had been rebuilt, but places like sector 7 were coming along slowly. Urban Development crews had managed to pull the plate back up and bound it to the infrastructure, but the masses of rotting corpses provided a very serious public health hazard. Everyone and everything had been destroyed in the crash of Sector 7. So many thousands of innocent lives had been taken at the hands of Shinra Incorporated. They had the nerve to blame it on the only people that actually did have a good cause, Avalanche.
Overall, the sectors and reconstruction were crossing mountains. It was thanks to him though. Rufus didn't care about anyone but himself. Reeves got up from his seat at the train station. All the hard work he had done over the past month to help the lives of Midgar's citizens; it was all for nothing. Rufus cared for no one but himself. Even some of his own friends and crewmembers had rejoined Shinra after Rufus took control back. Sickening. Everything went the wrong way.
The streets were still dark. A light breeze lifted the heavy air of the sector one train station. The smell of mako, through its years of use, was still noticeable amongst the area. Thank god Rufus hadn't turned on the reactors again. That would destroy everything that Avalanche had worked so hard for. Through the cirrus clouds, high above, the sun was beginning to peer over the edge of the horizon. Reeves glanced at each end of the subway tunnel and put his hands in the pockets of his black tuxedo. The light breeze laced through his short, black hair like thousands of ghostly hands but he defiantly did not turn from it.
"How am I going to explain all of this to the others?" Reeves slicked his goatee down and glanced up at the invading sunlight. "I single-handedly rebuilt Shinra, and somehow or another get no credit for any of it… This is it… Shinra is going to pay for all of this…"
The train's bellowing horn hissed in the distance, getting louder as its presence became nearer. The hissing fire of the brakes screeched for almost a thousand feet before finally stopping at the embankment of the docking area. Reeves picked up his silver briefcase…the one from Professor Hojo's office, and boarded the bullet like train awaiting his arrival. A slight smirk played across his face as he glanced out the window and up at the massive Shinra Headquarters. The Turks were all waiting for him like he had requested. Sitting in perfect silence in the seats across from him…
Everything was black. The sounds of animals brushing around in the darkness would have frightened a man that didn't know how to fight but Sephiroth was far from that. He walked casually through the darkness, his mako enhanced eyes easily making they're way through the opaque atmosphere of the woods. He wanted a fight. He needed something to check his skills in on. It didn't seem like there was anything that would attack him in these woods but he knew there was something ferocious somewhere.
He pushed around through the thickets and trees for close to an hour before coming to a large clearing. It was easily one hundred feet wide by two hundred feet long. Nothing seemed to move within the clearing but he sensed that there was something there. "Sense…"
He held the handle of his sword up for the yellow light of his sense materia to react. The light responded with a message in his mind. The orb sensed something large but could not identify it. He glanced over his shoulder, beautiful silver hair lightly caressing his handsome face. What was it, he thought to himself. A sharp vibration thudded under his feet suddenly, reiterating itself several more times within the span of ten seconds. Sephiroth froze, his senses instantly searching everything around him. It was twenty yards away, at least forty thousand pounds and likely around sixty feet tall judging from the time span between steps. The vibrations ended…right behind him. The ex-SOLDIER swiftly whirled around and unsheathed his Masamune. He gripped the hilt and held the long, curved blade in front of him. What his, currently, blue eyes took in was from a nightmare.
Standing about twenty feet away was, as he expected, a sixty foot tall, several thousand pound creature. It was not what he had expected, and it sure wasn't something that he really wanted to fight. But, he had went out looking for trouble and now he had found it, and in a larger amount than he had anticipated. Suddenly, images flashed through his mind. They were images of catastrophe and destruction. It seemed that he was watching from above. It was this same monster, trudging out of the ocean and towards Midgar. Some people intervened for a brief few minutes. They looked very familiar but he couldn't place who they were exactly because they were so far away. They survived the battle but did not come even close to scratching the beast's thick gray armor-skin. The monster turned towards the city slowly and just stared.
The deep red eyes of the hulking beast seemed angry, vengeful. Its body was so large that it seemed that it was just another small mountain. Its huge, clawed feet seemed to clamp to the planets surface like two giant leaches. The beast stared for several minutes before, almost mechanically, folding back the armor on its shoulders to reveal magical laser cannons. They glowed brightly with a yellow light before blasting simultaneously towards the massive structure of Midgar. The rays of light crashed with the infrastructure violently, creating mass destruction to several floors of the Shinra Headquarters. But, just as the opposing blasts impacted upon Midgar, the Sister Ray, which had somehow been moved to Midgar, made its own attack, killing the creature and destroying a large chunk of Northern Crater.
"What are you…" Sephiroth muttered as he stepped back a few paces. The giant monster screamed a hellacious roar of anger and charged forward with more speed than the much smaller man had expected. Sephiroth dove to the side with blinding speed and rolled to evade the crashing claw that attempted to smash him. A large crater, in the shape of the creatures foot was indented into the ground. The versatile young man did several back-flips and landed perfectly with his blade ready to defend. He knew he didn't stand a chance with his sword, but he had enough magic to possibly stun the monster. He veered his hand back, magical power beginning to swell around it, and slowly squeezed his palm shut as the monstrosity lurched at him again. The swordsman leapt thirty feet into the air and released the magical energy into the monster's frame with a shout of "Lightning Three!"
I giant lightning bolt fired out of Sephiroth's black palm and collided with the creature along with several more from above. As he landed, he had to dive away and roll as the beast came tumbling down from the stunning attack. Sephiroth quickly cast the Sense spell again and leapt onto the monster's back, slicing its armored skin deeply with his sleek katana blade. The powerful sword didn't even draw blood, but he didn't care as the monster shot up quickly and thrashed about to get him off. The sense spell returned with a message that only read the word 'WEAPON'. "…oh, you have got to be kidding me!"
The beast came roaring after him like a rabies- infected pack of wolves on a three- legged cat. The small man below, while actually quite built compared to a normal person, did several back-flips to avoid the attacking nemesis ahead. Upon the foothold of the last flip, Sephiroth jumped several feet into the air and sliced several times faster than the eye could see. The monster's armor was just too thick to penetrate though and he soon found his sword to be absolutely useless to him. WEAPON batted the young man out of the air and began to charge its super-weapon, a large beam that fired from the ruby inlayed at its chest.
"Ahh-uh," the ex-SOLDIER cried out as he hit the ground hard. His head hit a rock and instantly sprayed blood from his forehead. He got hit, he thought to himself. He hadn't gotten hit this hard since his days in Second and First Class. That really hurt, he thought, annoyed by the pain in his head. He arose to his feet, shaken a bit and slightly staggered. He could feel the mako in his body instantly treating the wound, but something else stirred within him and began channeling him strength. "Limit Break?"
The magical red light began to encase his body, filling him with unbound strength. He hadn't had a limit break for so long…this was his chance to really show this monster who was boss. Within seconds he had retrieved his blade from the ground and was ready to attack. WEAPON was just reaching the final stage of his charge up and was just getting ready to eradicate the man when a flash erupted from below.
"Requiem of Darkness," Sephiroth whispered. His silver hair fanned out around him angelically as he began to soar higher and higher into the air. The world around the WEAPON and him shed its woodland texture and was slowly pervaded by a black so deep that it seemed to annihilate any and all rays of light. All sounds became silent as two feathery, black angel wings burst from Sephiroth's back, shredding his leather coat. The Masamune slowly began to crystallize into a beautiful translucence, which closely resembled diamond, beginning to glow with a red light as he soared higher near the monster's face. Raising the crystalline blade into the air, the dark, angelic form of the silver haired swordsman suddenly blurred downward. The wings tucked in closely to his back as he dove towards WEAPON with his powerful katana. Within a split second he had carved a giant vertical gash in his nemesis's head, landing to the ground and returning to his normal, humanly stature.
WEAPON screamed in fury as blood and gore gushed out of the giant gap between his eyes. The Masamune had easily cut through the thick armored skin. Sephiroth shook the weariness of the magic pervading from his body and glanced up to see the monster swinging ferociously to hit him. One giant claw came very close but he had barely enough time to leap out of the way and make a quick run. The monstrous WEAPON came crashing to the ground dead only moments later. Sephiroth slumped against a nearby tree, breathing heavily from the hellacious battle moments ago. "Damn that was tough. I don't know if I'm losing my edge or getting better, but that thing was strong. What's going on…now?"
Where the body of the dead beast lay, the ground began to shake violently. Tremors rushed into the corpse from all directions until finally a giant column of Lifestream burst from the ground and consumed the mass of dead weight. Slowly, little by little, the dead monstrosity was disintegrated into nothingness. All that was left afterwards was a slowly submerging pool of Lifestream. Sephiroth ran his hand through his hair after sheathing his blade and took a breath, his deep blue-green eyes glowing in the shadows around him. The moon shown brightly through the trees above, glaring off of the bright mako pool a few feet ahead of him.
Walking up to the pool he kneeled down and examined it. The glowing green fascinated him as he reached into its warmth. The tendrils of green instantly caressed around his gloved fingers like tiny fish, fascinated by the gentle life-form above. Images of the past suddenly began striking through his memory, his voice crying out with each flash of light and every faint voice. He fell…fell deep into the soothing, warm pool in front of him. His eyes fluttered shut as the images continued to fly by his pupils. His whole body seemed to give into the warm liquid around him, arms and hair flailing out carelessly as if unconscious. Then the blackness overwhelmed his senses and he found himself spiraling into oblivion.
It was just like before, when he had woken up on his little island of despair, deep into the fathomless abyss of nothingness. Voices seemed to haunt his every thought, yet they were in faint tongues that even he, a man fluent in all four languages, could not understand. Unlike before though, the whispers were not harsh and did not threaten him. Everything became silent as he suddenly felt like he was waking up. It was such a strange feeling that he couldn't describe it, yet it alls seemed strangely familiar…like déjà vu.
As he opened his eyes, he found himself lying upon a large rock in the middle of an endless sea of blue and green. There were many other large rocks placed miscellaneously around his own stone, each one haunted with graphic images that were too blurry to identify. Many seemed welcoming, many seemed uninviting. It appalled him so much that he began walking in circles trying to gather all the images in his mind. Then he looked up. To the young man's shock there was a figure that resembled him greatly. The dark figure rolled and twisted in the air, contorting in painful ways. What was this place he thought to himself.
Stepping over the small stepping-stones between the first island, Sephiroth stood before the flickering light before him. Something inside of him just seemed to scream at him to go into the light…and with only a few second's hesitation, he stepped through. Where his feet led him was straight into the past…a past he could not remember, for he was too young. He watched in amazement as the seemingly three dimensional movie played by him…
"Dear? What are we going to name him," asked the soothing voice of what seemed to be his mother. Clouds of haze covered up everything that would have identified the woman who obviously was his mother. Another figure entered the scene to answer the question. His voice was young, at about the same age as the woman. He seemed to have long, dark hair with white clothes. Whoever the figure was had to be his father, he thought to himself.
"This is your choice my dear. You may name him as you please."
"I will call him…Sephiroth," the soft voice replied moments later.
"Seph-iroth," the young man's voice asked, puzzled.
"Sephiroth. It means 'Seraphim' in Wutain. His shiny hair and bright blue eyes remind me of an angel…a seraph. Seraphim are powerful, noble angels of heaven. He will be a great man of Shinra one day…" the woman began to sway slightly as the words left her mouth. Sephiroth walked past they're blurry images and peered into the glass room they were staring into. His heart seemed to pause a beat. It was him, curled into the fetal position in a small crib. Soft strands of silver hair protruded from his little head, which lay upon a blue blanket beneath him. His attention was diverted as his mother began to fall, but was caught by the dark man. He carried her out of the room just as the dream world began to fade away.
"Wow… What was that all about," the ex-SOLDIER asked himself as he woke up outside on the center island once again. He shook off the weariness and headed towards the next dream world, glancing above once more to see himself still in anguish. As he stepped through the portal, the still not quite familiar blast of memories greeted him with open arms. What came to his attention when he first entered the portal was shockingly familiar, yet something that he had long forgotten…a memory carried away in the abyss of time.
"You're a freak Sephy! We hate freaks like you! Why don't you go braid your hair with the other girls you fagget!" The voice of a young kid in his early teens mocked and scolded at him, others behind the boy laughing and jeering him on.
He stepped out of the way, and to his fascination, where he had just been standing, was a child version of himself. His long hair went down to his elbows and his eyes glowed just like they did now. It was appalling what he was seeing. Whether it be a hallucination, a nightmare, or reality, it portrayed the truth…he listened and watched further. With each bout of comments and remarks, the young Sephiroth seemed to become more and more rigid. His fists clenched, wringing tightly until the white of the bone beneath his skin could be seen. The tattoo of the roman numeral one couldn't have stood out more…
"What are you gonna do? Beat me up? I dare ya Sephy!" The mean child sneered down at the younger one. Sephiroth looked up at him, pupils narrowed to small slivers of black, jaw clenched tightly. He stared at him for a few moments before shaking his head and walking away.
"It would be foolish of me to do such a thing. SOLDIERs are supposed to be in control of they're emotions… No…I won't try and beat you up. Leave me alone…"
The words echoed through his mind…
"Leave me alone…"
"Leave me alone…"
"Leave me alone…"
"Leave me alone……….."
The three dimensional movie suddenly ended and Sephiroth found himself lying on the ground, sprawled out on the center island as if he had fallen from the heavens. He slowly pulled upward and sat Indian style with his hands over his face. Arched over himself he began to careen slowly… "Just leave me alone…"
"What? I was just passing through here and saw you… But if you really don't want any help…" a new voice found its way into his ears as Sephiroth leapt to his feet and jumped back. His initial instinct was to reach for his sword but he sensed no danger in the voice, therefore he halted. What his eyes took in was an elder man with white hair and a puffy tuft of at his chin. He was dressed in a blue button up shirt with a tattered pair of blue jeans. They had been worn so long that the deep indigo had faded to a fuzzy white. "My lord boy, those eyes of yours…why are you here?"
"What do mean?" Sephiroth's long black eyelashes fluttered for a second in obvious tension. A light breeze cut through the trees around them and rustled the loose clothing of both men. They both looked up. He just realized that he had woken up from the dream world.
"A storm is a brewin' son, we better get on out of here fore' the beasts start feedin'." The old man started off. He was by no means fragile. He seemed as tough as an oak tree as he made his way easily through the forest. "Where be you headed son?"
"Miss Gainsborough's place. I'm new here and she is helping me adjust…to…the changes…" Sephiroth glanced around uneasily… the old man obviously sensed something wrong because he stopped and focused directly on him. His wise old eyes studied him until they came upon the black katana at his hip.
"Who are ye may I ask?"
"Sephiroth… I am a Shinra Officer in SOLDIER…"
"I know who you are…you killed a bunch o' people before you died didn't you? News spreads around like crazy about what's happening over there…" The old man continued to walk as Sephiroth sped up to catch up with him.
"What? You know me? How…"
"You were, after all, the person who sent Miss Gainsborough here. News journalists rush to get new stories from the new immigrants. Before you know it you have a life story on everybody in the world. Its crazy but its life. Hate to say it but you don't have too great of a reputation in these parts."
"I'm still finding this a little hard to believe. This planet that we're on is exactly like the one I just came from that I 'lived my whole life on'? How is it possible?" Sephiroth shook his head as he walked through the woods, soon coming to the edge of them. The old man sighed.
"In reality this place is no different. Where we are standing right now there is probably a mako reactor in that other dimension. This is a more natural world than that place, and doesn't have all the fake stuff that makes a 'lifestyle'. Here you live off the fat o' the land, not artificially flavored microwave dinners. It's a reality that few really get a chance to live. You're a lucky man, Sephiroth."
Sephiroth remained silent. Aeris's house stood like a small pillar of light in the middle of the darkness. The old man gave a little salute and headed his own way. "See ya around Mr. Sephiroth, and good luck adapting to a normal lifestyle…"
"Goodbye…" Sephiroth walked towards the house. The first drops of rain began falling from the black sky as he headed up the small steps. He looked at the dampening ground and then back up to the sky. Lightning flashed like a blade through the sky, echoing its thunder in his perceptive ears, and reflecting sharply off of his frame. He rapped lightly on the door and awaited a reply. The soft, soothing voice of innocence welcomed his ears again, and as he took it in, he realized that he liked the sound of her voice very much… The rain began to pound harder from the sky…
"Who is it?"
"…Sephiroth…"
"I don't know if I want to let you in. You just kinda walked off and left me here…that was kinda mean, ya know?" Aeris sounded like she was enjoying it but she realized that she was talking to someone who didn't joke around too often.
"…Okay…" Sephiroth instantly agreed and began walking away into the wet tempest of black. He was soaked within seconds. The giant drops of rain dripped across his bare chest and into the long black coat. The light from inside suddenly glared out in the shape of a long rectangle as the door creaked open. Sephiroth never stopped.
"I was just joking you know. You can come inside…" Aeris' small, girlish figure careened against the open doorway as he turned around. The blue hue of his eyes struck her, even from the distance. She had changed her clothes and was now wearing a white night gown that looked like it was made of pure silk. She motioned for him to come in and waited for him at the door. When he finally reached the door she sighed and put her hands on her hip. "And there you went and got all wet, and what the heck happened to your forehead, it looks like you got beat up."
"You have no idea…"
"Well, tell me about it while I get you fixed up, eh?" Aeris shut the door as he stepped through and locked it tightly with several bolts. It seemed a little over protective but after what he just saw, he didn't blame her in the least. As he took in the surroundings he noticed a hot fire burning in the fireplace and the aroma of coffee in the air. It was a combination of smells that he had not known for years…
"I went into the woods and explored for a little while until I came to a big clearing." Aeris reached around his waist and unlatched the small silver buckle around his abdomen. She blushed slightly but proceeded to pull the soaked coat off of him and hang it up. She hadn't realized how heavy it really was with the shoulder armor attached to it. As she turned to him she was almost taken back. Something jumped inside of her when she laid eyes on his wet, muscular upper torso. His hair was soaked and fell down his back and trailed his face in long, thick strands. Each thick strand resembled a silver blade it seemed to her. He still had the leather straps crisscrossed over his chest and back, connected tightly to the metal SOLDIER belt around his stomach. The large belt connected to his black fighting pants, which fit loosely above his knees. They were tucked inside of his combat boots from his knees down and dripped with wetness. "I got attacked by a large creature called WEAPON and it got a good lick in on me before I took it out."
Aeris' eyes bulged slightly but she didn't express it with words. "Oh, wow, you…beat a WEAPON? How did you do that," she asked as she headed into the bathroom to fetch him a towel. Sephiroth walked over to the fire and knelt down next to it.
"It wasn't easy. It probably would have killed me if I hadn't limited so quickly. I'm not sure if I'm getting better or worse. I haven't been hit that bad for a long time…" Sephiroth trailed off as he gazed into the burning embers. Images flew through his mind of burning houses and…even humans. He shook the thoughts away hastily as a fluffy white towel laid across his shoulders. Aeris quickly pulled the small couch over near the fire place for them to sit on and added her piece to the conversation.
"You must be pretty darn good if you killed a WEAPON. I don't know a single person who has ever defeated it. You really amaze me Sephy." Aeris huddled up on her side of the couch as Sephiroth sat on the other end, drying himself as not to get the furniture wet.
"What did you just call me," he asked, glancing over at the younger girl. She blushed slightly, glancing towards the warm fire a couple feet in front of them.
"Sorry, it just kinda came out…"
"Okay Aeri…" Sephiroth smirked slightly.
"What did you just call me? Did The Great Sephiroth just let a joke slip?" Aeris gently threw a pillow at him from the small distance away. Sephiroth caught it easily and set it down between them.
"I may be a serious person but I do have a slight sense of humor…"
"Wow, I'm kinda shocked. I remember the first time I met you with Zack. You were so stern. It was around the end of the Wutai war," Aeris glanced at him slightly as she stared into the fireplace. Her slender fingers kneaded at a loose thread on her gown, almost nervously. Sephiroth sat in silence as she spoke, taking in every last detail of the small inferno before him.
"I was pretty young back then, only eighteen when I became… well, you know," Sephiroth trailed off slightly. He didn't like to talk about how famous he was, and certainly hated talking about his accomplishments. People often labeled him as a stuck up, or arrogant. In reality he wasn't. He was just very successful. "I think I was really busy the day we met. I was working on an important air strike operation if I remember correctly. The other generals had kind of dumped the whole project on me and I was a little ticked off. Sorry if I was less than appealing."
"I was too young to really care anyway. I remember all the other girls in town were so giddy over you, though. You were loved by so many, even at such a young age. After all, any First Class SOLDIER was a celebrity." Aeris paused for a moment. "That was why I was so hung on Zack at the time. He was an actual First Classman and he liked me."
"Him and I had some good times. We went on a lot of missions together. He was even a big help just before Shinra took out Wutai. Then we went on the Nibelheim mission. That was when everything went to Hell. Everything after we went to that reactor is a blur. Sometimes I get faint visions of what I did, but they disappear before I can grasp them." Sephiroth became silent.
"You don't have to talk about that. It's in the past and it wasn't really you who did all those horrible things. Believe it or not though, there are very few people who actually knew that it was you terrorizing the world. You still have many 'fans' on the other side." Aeris smiled, glancing over at him. Deep down inside she was excited at the fact that she was able to tell him all these things. "After you were stated 'missing in action' all those years ago, you know, by the Shinra press or whatever, there were a lot of people who thought you were still alive. People figured that you had run away from Shinra and lived on an island somewhere."
"That's pretty crazy. I don't know why people liked me so much. I hardly ever gave public speeches, and its not like I was the president or something…" Sephiroth smiled briefly but it faded within moments. He was always so…dry…
"You were so famous with people because you protected them. You're a strong leader, and you're dang good looking too. People…like…that…" Aeris turned red instantly. Sephiroth looked over at her with a smirk on his face. Aeris burst into laughter. He turned a little red but acted like he didn't hear it.
Aeris hopped up from the couch and stretched out, obviously over her embarrassment. Her fairly short gown pulled up just enough for him to see her thigh. She didn't notice it, but it was all he could look at out the corner of his eye. For the first time he realized that Aeris Gainsborough had a damn nice body…but he quickly tossed that thought away.
"Okay, well I'm going to bed, it's late. Looks like your sleeping on the couch cause' I've only got one bed. Sorry." Aeris smiled at him and walked back to the room he had woken up in earlier that day. Sephiroth gave a slight glance in her direction as she fled to her quarters and leaned back, stretching his arms out behind him. After a few moments of staring into the burning logs before him, he dozed off…