The sun's light was just beginning to fade behind the mountains as they entered Corral Cave. Aeris sighed, deeply resenting the fact that her enemy's hand was still locked around her arm, and the fact that she was being roughly hauled along like extra baggage.
Sephiroth had appointed her into his precarious position all over questions that he needed answers to. The man seemed omnipotent as it was, what more did he need to know? He had the power to freely manipulate others, he had possession of the...
"Where is the Black Materia?" she suddenly blurted out.
"I thought I was to be asking you the questions," he retaliated, ducking as he entered the darkness of the cave.
"Y-yes," she stammered. "But I-"
He stopped, then, abruptly, and in an instant, he was facing her, his radiant eyes demanding obedience. His hand had left her arm, but its pressure had been replaced on the collar of her dress. To her horror, she found he was drawing closer to her, the rough material of her dress digging into the delicate flesh of her neck. "Disobey me, and I cannot be responsible for the consequences," he said darkly, his fierce gaze holding her eyes imprisoned.
He retreated a few steps, a smirk appearing on his lips. "I shall begin by asking you what this Black Materia is. How is it connected to me?"
Aeris looked at him in shock. Was he mad? He knew everything about it... "W-what do you mean?"
"What is it? Where does it come from?"
Try as she did, Aeris could not withhold her astonishment. "What kind of sick game are you trying to play?" she asked, shivering at the perturbed expression he shot her. Nevertheless, she continued. "You took it from the Temple of the Ancients...we all saw it. Cloud gave it to you, after you manipulated him into it. Using the Black Materia, you were going to summon Meteor, where it would collide with the Planet and create substantial damage, so much that the very life of the Planet would be at risk. You said you would be in the very center of everything, all of the spiritual energy gathered to heal the wound. You would become all-powerful..." her voice trailed off until it was no more than a whisper.
"When did this happen?" he asked quietly. Aeris saw that he had turned away and had paced into the further darkness of the cave. There was a strange, immense anxiety in his voice.
"Not quite a week ago. D-don't you remember?"
"No," he said, facing her. "I do not remember anything."
Aeris stared at him wholeheartedly, her mouth slightly ajar as she watched him. A notion bit at her to press the subject, but she forced it away, allowing her captor to continue his interrogation.
It was a few moments later that he spoke again. "You. Why was he trying to kill you?"
"Because I was a threat to your plans," she replied.
"My plans? You mean to say that I was the one at the helm of this insane predicament? I wanted to dominate the world?"
Aeris stared at him in disbelief. "You wanted to destroy it. You wanted to destroy it, and I had to stop you."
"I see," he replied softly. "And you, a survivor of the Cetra race, had the responsibility of ensuring the safety of the Planet and its beings. You had to die in order to for my plan to fail. Somehow, your death would counteract the summoning of Meteor and bring salvation unto the world..." His words were mystic, and distant, as if his words came to him from another source.
She sighed, not even noticing. "So now you know," she whispered, her voice calm. "Now you know your greatest fault. Now I will suffer for all eternity, knowing that I lived, when I should have died."
She scowled at him in sudden realization.
Is this all it is? Its like a teacher that has read the material a thousand times or more, forcing the student to recite it exactly as it is written...Questions, all in order to torture me by making me relive everything...relive the fact that the Planet is going to be destroyed, because of me...
Aeris was fighting with all her strength to contain her tears, but to no avail. The fading light from the outside shone on her face, causing the water that descended her cheeks to shimmer and sparkle.
- - - - - - - - - -
Sephiroth felt he could no longer mask the truth from this girl's eyes. The way she looked at him, as if he were not a human at all, made him feel compelled to reach out, take her by the shoulders and shout in her face that he was real, he was himself, and that man-that thing that had meant to kill her on the altar was not him, it was someone else. But would she believe him?
He had noticed the light of suspicion spark in her eyes. She could obviously tell something was wrong. But how could he tell her and expect her to believe him? The girl had not even known his alter ego that had been wandering the Planet and making an infamous name for himself. It would be impossible for her to know him, the true Sephiroth. He knew one thing, though. The girl would not be compelled to trust her enemy, and right now, that was all he was in her eyes.
The girl would not tell him everything unless she knew the truth.
And if he was to go about it revealing his true nature, he would have to plot his words carefully.
"I ask you now," he said after a long pause, "How long has it been since I was alive?"
He watched her turn, slowly. She faced him, her face still glittering with her tears. "What do you mean?" she asked in a hollowed voice. "What do you mean, alive?"
"I mean exactly as I say. The world as I see it now is not the same world that I remember. How long has it been? Tell me, what you know. When did I die?" At her silence, he brought his sword to her throat. "Tell me, when did I die?"
"Five years." As she said it, and gaped at the blade that should have taken her life, tears began to spill from her eyes freely. "It was...five years ago."
Masamune returned to his side. Five years. It had been five years...and the world had grown and changed without him. Or...had it?
"I was pronounced dead?" he asked.
"Yes," came her meek reply. "All over the news, all over."
His intent gaze seemed to freeze her heart in place.
"Then who was the man that tried to kill you?"
- - - - - - - - - -
Aeris felt it.
It was a change, so drastic she could feel it in the air. But at the same time, she could not believe the words that her greatest enemy had just uttered. The man she spoke to now was surely no villain. He spoke in broken words, as if he did not comprehend anything.
Even as she had hated him and burned him alive in the fires of her mind for making her horrible future more apparent than ever in her eyes, she had felt he was not the same man that had meant to kill her. Now, more than ever, that thought was relevant.
"He was-I thought it was you," she managed weakly.
Sephiroth glared at her. "Explain."
"Everyone did. Somehow back from the dead, continuing your mission after being away for five years. We didn't even think about how, or why you had returned, but we just knew you had, and something obviously had to be done about it."
"And so your journey began," he stated.
All light from the outside had faded. This gruesome day had drawn to a close, and now it was the night's turn to harbor the confusion and chaos its predecessor had passed on to it. Aeris wondered, distantly in the corner of her mind, if Sephiroth meant to press on before morning. He stood at the entrance to the cave, now, one hand bracing himself against the rocky wall. His eyes scanned the darkening world.
She could no longer contain herself. Something tore at her mind to challenge the man before her. Something was wrong about him. He was everything contrary to her darkest thoughts. His voice was the same, his stature, the same. But something was different. Either he had an extremely cruel sense of humor, or he simply was not the man she had envisioned. He was not the man that had described directly in front of her in the Temple of the Ancients just how he meant to destroy the Planet and all of humanity.
"Who are you?" she asked. The words seemed wrong, completely out of place, but at the same time, they captured everything. Everything she was questioning, seeking.
Aeris feared he would reprimand her, remind her who was to be asking the questions, but instead, he turned toward her. Upon hearing her words, his eyes narrowed and he began to approach her. She reflexively backed away. The fear in her heart refused to quench even when her adversary was in this complex, strange state of confusion.
But he was too quick for her, and try as she did, she could not avoid his enchanting eyes. She had backed into the smooth surface of the cave wall; she could feel the coolness of the stone. She turned her head away, but he caught her chin in his hand and angled her face so that she had no choice but to stare directly into his eyes.
"Can it be that you finally understand?" His words were laced in disbelief. His eyes seemed to be demanding of her, Can I trust you?
"Understand what?" she asked him, trying not to shiver at how close she was to him.
"I was lost. And while I was lost, bound to a gruesome fate, the world fell into the hands of chaos." He paused. "And now it is that I walk again. I have journeyed from the unknown, blindly pacing about in the dark, and I have fallen into a world that has continued without me. It has continued without my presence, and consequently, without my consent. Do you understand?"
Aeris's mind was riveted on his words. As far back as she could remember, she had always known honesty when she heard it. Sephiroth's words were nothing less than honest. And then it was that she understood. Revelation had carved a deep wound in her head, festering with denial and disbelief, but it could be healed. Not easily, but it was still possible.
He's...the real...Sephiroth...
That wound in her head began to bleed. Everything was wrong. All along, they had been wrong. On their journey to save the Planet, AVALANCHE had appointed Sephiroth the chief villain, the ultimate adversary in the matter. But now it was obvious that it was not Sephiroth at all. The real man stood before her, in the flesh, claiming to know nothing. And she believed he was telling the truth.
The clone had fooled them all. His face, his words, they had fooled them. They had followed him, he who had been a brutal, heartless being and had completely warped their view of the true man. But did he truly have a mind of his own, only created to suit his evil purpose? Or was there another, controlling the creature as if it were a pawn of destruction?
Something else was at work here, and Aeris realized that it was now imperative she discover what it was. Only then could the Planet be saved, and perhaps she could fulfill her purpose after all.
"What are you thinking?" Sephiroth asked her. He had said nothing for several minutes, desiring only to tread lightly on the prospect that she only might believe and accept him.
Aeris turned toward him, as if he were Cloud, the leader of the group, once again asking what to do next. "We need to find the Black Materia," she said it as it if were painstakingly obvious. "We need to get it back, and quickly."