A hiker, by the name of Holzoff, nearly collapsed in the snow. He had pushed himself too hard and he knew it, but nothing was going to stop him this time. His oxygen was nearly depleted, and his lungs felt shriveled and useless weight in his chest. But he had nearly made it. "Yamski, my dear friend, if only we could have done this together..."
He dare not shed a tear, in fear it would freeze on his face and amount to nothing. He gathered his hiking sticks back into his hands where he had thrown them onto the icy surface. "All right, here I go..."
He stopped dead in his tracks. "Oh my God," he breathed, his statement no more than a cloud of mist in the frigid air.
A man lay there, sprawled upon the ground, bare entirely except for a pair of torn black pants and ragged ebony boots that were literally shredded to pieces. Long, tangled silver hair covered the majority of his unconscious form. Steam rose from his skin and the area around him. Holzoff rubbed his eyes, hardly daring to believe it. This has to be one of those mirages you see when you've been out in the sun for too long, it has to be.
Still, even if it was a mirage, it looked so real. The mountain-climber felt he had to interfere, whether this vision was a work of his imagination or reality. He rushed over as quickly as his respiratory system would allow, his lungs now numb and expanding dully in his chest. With his heavily gloved hand, he reached out and touched the man. He felt real, all right, and despite his rapid blinking, he failed to disappear. That's it, screw reality or not...
He pulled the sled that he carried on his back onto the ground, and managed to heave the man upon it. It was no easy action. The mirage-like figure was a great height of six feet at least, and though he seemed lean enough, the muscle in his body seemed to forbid him to be very light in weight. Holzoff, fearing the man's imminent freezing, huddled the great woolen heated blanket over the man. "I'll get 'cha outta here as soon as I can, Buddy."
He fingered the PHS on his belt, bringing it into his hand and rapidly dialing the numbers. He held it to his ear while bent over the unconscious man. It ran three times before there was evidence of a response. "Yeah, Maggio's."
"Mark!" Holzoff sputtered, filled with gratefulness enough to burst.
"Hey, Mr. Holzoff. You want to talk to my dad?"
"Please, Mark."
"Yeah, one second."
As he waited, Holzoff allowed the phone to balance on his ear while he drug the sled into a nearby cave that his eyes had fell upon. His lungs felt ready to burst, but he wouldn't let them, not yet. He was in the entrance when a voice came on the phone.
"Shiro?"
"John! Hi, I'm kind of in a situation here..."
"Oh no, not stuck on the mountain again, I hope?"
"Unfortunately, yes."
"You need a pick up?"
"Precisely."
Holzoff hauled the man into the cave, collapsing with a sigh upon the rocks as he took a green orb from his coat. The man on the other line sighed as well. "Sure thing, Shiro. But what is this, like the one hundred and thirtieth time? Heh heh, I'll need to count you on my income if we get to two hundred."
"Yeah, well...hurry, will you? I have the GPS coordinates..." he set the orb on his knee and pulled the GPS card from his coat. He plugged it into the PHS and pressed the transfer icon. "I'm sending them to you now."
"Ok got it...hold on a sec..." there was a brief encounter of static, and Holzoff took this opportunity to take the orb and wave his hand over it. A small fire erupted in midair and hung there. Holzoff immediately felt the warmth spreading throughout the room.
"Whoa, you're way the hell up there, man. You're in the utmost Northern Boundary, just below the crater! It'll take a half hour or so for us to get there, can you hold out?"
"Yeah. I got some fire materia here, so it should be okay. Thanks, John."
"No problem. Keep warm!"
The connection was broken, and Holzoff closed the PHS. He looked over at the man next to him. Where had he come from? There was no civilization around for miles, except for that one refuge on the glacier, and that had a population of ten square people. So where had he come from and what was he doing shirtless in these conditions? Holzoff pressed his fingers to the man's neck and felt a steady heartbeat. His chest rose slowly and smoothly, granting him the satisfaction a parent would get when watching a slumbering child.
Sometime or another, Holzoff had dozed off. He was asleep when the man next to him came to. The blanket shifted and fell away. The man moaned and his hands reached through the air. His eyes slid open, revealing eerie, Mako-illuminated green irises. But he saw nothing, only blackness. "Ugh," he groaned. His hearing seemed to be more stable, the voice he heard that was his own actually seemed to be so. His lips formed words, and he cringed from the effort. "W-where am...I? W-who am I?"
His mind seemed to pulse in an agonizing pain as it attempted to conjure the answers. "I'm...Se...Sephiroth..." the name sounded right, yes that was his name. It fitted him, like a relay clicking into place. The blackness he had witnessed it seemed for eternity had refused to fade, and it suddenly occurred to him he could not see. "I'm...blind? I..." but he nearly screamed in pain as his head began to throb, and he felt he could no longer hold control over his consciousness. It was slipping from his grasp, slowly, until all together it was gone and he lost all thought of being.
Holzoff was awakened by the sound of helicopter blades cutting through the frigid air. He rose and sprinted outside. He leaped up and down and waved his arms. "John! Over here!"
The helicopter descended, spewing snow in all directions as it did so. It threw a rope ladder from the side hatch. "John! I can't do that! I have another guy here! I need some help!"
A loudspeaker sounded. "Okay. How big is this guy?"
"Pretty big! Hurry, I don't know what his condition is or even if he's going to make it!"
"Roger."
Two men decked in heavy snow suits hurled a stretcher overboard, that Holzoff rushed to and stood upright. He ran in and grabbed the sled that harbored the still-unconscious man and began to drag it outside. He hoisted it atop the stretcher and tugged on the rope. As the platform began to rise, he leaped on himself. The two mean hauled the stretcher and Holzoff aboard as the helicopter flew off.
"Can you take me to Bone Village from here, John?" Holzoff shouted over the roar of the engine to the man in the pilot's seat. He clambered his way around the miscellaneous cases and crates to the cockpit.
The pilot turned and nodded. "Yeah, probably. We might have to make a fuel stop in Icicle Town, though. I dunno when Mark last filled the tanks. Where'd the guy come from, Shiro?"
"I have no idea!" Holzoff yelled as he sat in the copilot's chair. He sighed as the helicopter drifted away from the small cave. It would be about an hour's ride.
Sephiroth remained unconscious, but the two men in snow suits tended to him. They kept him bundled in thick blankets and placed heating pads beneath him. They murmured amongst themselves as they did so. "Hey, you know who this guy looks like?"
"Oh yeah...the General of the Shinra Army, right?"
"Yeah! The Great Sephiroth! He could practically be his twin. He must be a real junkie."
"And a lunatic. Who in their right mind would go to the Northern Boundary shirtless?"
Holzoff and John Maggio caught up on things, like the weather conditions and such, and got pretty far into conversation before they reached the small town of Bone Village. Maggio brought the copter to rest within a clearing in the trees.. "You takin' 'im to the infirmary?"
Holzoff nodded. "I feel I must. I feel responsible. Thanks again, John."
"No problem. Stop by soon, we got those oxygen tanks you wanted in stock. Goodbye, Shiro."
Holzoff, with the help of Maggio's two aides, managed to haul the unconscious man into the confinements of the infirmary, which was a plain, wooden building with smoke sprouting from the chimney. The receptionist looked up from the desk with raised eyebrows. "Do you require some assistance?" she asked merrily. Holzoff was grateful that the people in this town were so gracious.
"Yes...this man is alive, I have no doubts, but I do not know what his condition is."
"We'll have him examined as soon as possible, Sir!" The receptionist rang a bell and two doctors in white lab coats rushed out from the hall. They both found the stretcher and hoisted it, carried it into a room, and disappeared.
Nothing to do now but wait, its in fate's hands, thought Holzoff.
"I'll be staying at the Inn," Holzoff informed the receptionist. "Can I request for you to contact me when there's some confirmation?"
"Of course, Sir. Your name?"
"Shiro Holzoff."
He paced out, gracious for the air being so plentiful and thick here. It was warm, too, and his lungs felt better than they had in years. He entered the inn, paid his fee, and went immediately to sleep when he entered his room.