A/N: Here now... another chapter. I've written so much this week it's not even funny. God bless two days off from regular week of school! Hallelujah! Or whatever... yes. This is where most of you might not like Hikaru that much... remember, he's evil and insane and all those good crazy things that made you love Sephiroth...

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Ubi solitudinem faciunt, pacem appellant

(Where they create desolation, they call it peace)

Hikaru leaned against the railing. The morning was fresh and clean. The air was not tainted up here, but it was thin and made a lot of people breathe a bit longer in order to get their oxygen. The sleek craft shifted in and out of wispy, ribbon-like sirius clouds, invisible only to the eyes so many kilometers below.

The Captain sidled up to him, murmuring respectfully, "Droppin' altitude, just as you ordered... we'll be a-port in an about an hour, sah."

"Good," Hikaru smiled, rolling his shoulders slowly in relaxation. He looked askance at him boredly. "Are you going to just stand there or pilot this ship, fool? Get away from me... oh, yes. And bring the prisoner with green eyes to me."

The Captain hissed, puffed himself up before ambling off with a string of curses. Hikaru turned away again, resting his chin in the palm of his hand, staring out over the cloudscape intensely.

He was not phased by the ruckus that ensued after the clank of the bay doors opening. He rolled slowly, leaning his weight against the railing as he regarded Sephiroth, bound by handcuffs and a pair of security guards on each side of him. He wore a normal attire of pants and shirt and boots tricked out in black.

"What is it now?" Sephiroth demanded wearily, sagging his shoulders as he parted his legs somewhat, eyeing the slouching panther figure Hikaru.

"An execution," Hikaru murmured drowsily, waving his hand in the general direction of their destination. "Yes... a martyr..." He rolled his head back and closed his eyes, breathing deep till the veins in his temples stuck out. He chuckled in a raspy, dry-paper way and forced a hand into his jacket, fishing out a lighter and a pack of cigarettes.

Sephiroth watched him light up a fag and he wrinkled his nose. The air was thin enough but he seemed oblivious. The wind hardly bothered the tiny flame of the gilded lighter he replaced back into his pocket. "What? You're going to kill me... that's rich... but unexpected. So how did this great decision come about?"

"You'll see," Hikaru said, after a noted pause and blowing of smoke through his nostrils.

A moment later, an explosion knocked every man on his back but Hikaru. Several smaller explosions echoed from different sections of the ship. When Sephiroth managed to roll onto his knees and raise his head, he saw Hikaru standing calmly as before, looking out to the horizon, eyes half-closed as though listening to a beautiful, dark symphony. It was as though he could feel the death of men before it ever touched their hearts.

"What are you doing!?" Sephiroth roared, his worry for Ansem fanned to radioactive intensity. He found that his handcuffs were loosened and many of the guards were scrambling to calm the crew and the passengers. He threw the cuffs aside and lunged for Hikaru, only to find himself suspended uncomfortably by his throat, in an obvious choke-hold.

Hikaru was not touching him physically. But his eyes held him as surely as any cold grip may, gazing at him with burning yellow orbs which flashed with lightning. "You'll see! Have patience! Besides... I'm not doing anything."

"S...Stop..."

Let him go! Golden fury launched itself from the ruined doors, jaws open and from them coming a most terrible shriek like an out of tune brass section. Her wings flapped broad to catch her balance and stability. Before she crashed into Sephiroth's floating prone body she ducked her head and reached her narrow head beneath the space that seperated the man's feet and the deck.

Hikaru's foot kicked out, smacking with a crack against the side of her angular, bone-thin snout. Sephiroth fell on top of her, tangled in her wingsails and she shrieked again, violently bucking and throwing the man to one side.

Chaos erupted there on the deck. Raven emerged with Ansem, who immediately utilized a few Spirit stones to cast a spell.

It was Holy, a well-reknowned and perhaps too powerful a spell for Ansem to utilize. Its element consisted of light and goodness - effective against men like Hikaru. Yet while he cast it, he felt the pain of its energy coursing through his veins. All the same, while it filled the air with painful, agonizing light he was satisfied by Hikaru's shrill screaming.

The airships engines whined like a dying mammoth, pitching to one side as the earth started swirling into view. Sephiroth didn't feel the like that harshly, but it stung his eyes, like staring into a sun on a clear, cloudless day. He lunged, his feet kicking out from the wooden planks at Hikaru, taking him off of his feet and spinning them over the edge of the bow.

The pair's limbs entangled, they tumbled end-over-end, crashing against the smoking hull until Hikaru's arm reached up to snag a rope. Sephiroth clung fiercely, his heart drumming in his ears as his mind desperately fumbled for some way to get out of this new problem.

"What's wrong, Sephiroth? Nothing going according to plan?" Hikaru hissed above his ear, thrusting his knee between the other man's legs. "You wanted to kill me, didn't you... now's your chance... it's either us, now, together... or never, boy."

Sephiroth growled, his hand knotted in Hikaru's cloak at the shoulder. His feet scrabbled against the hull, gradually becoming aware of a distant roaring from inside the ship.

"Smoke... fire... flames..." Hikaru purred softly, looking down at him with a softened, poisonous smile. "Doesn't this seem all too familiar? What are you going to do...?" He chuckled softly, the wind drowning out the sound of his voice.

Vara swooped down close to them, shrieking desperately, turning and dipping and gliding as she struggled to find a way to get Sephiroth away from Hikaru and back to safety. Beyond her, more dragons fell and dived, screaming in unison and sharing in the pain of their suffering humans.

"You can't save them!!" Hikaru taunted wickedly, squirming. "Just fly around and suffer, the bleeding lot of you!"

"Rrrrr....!!!!" Sephiroth snarled, before throwing himself from Hikaru, whose laughter ceased at once as he watched Sephiroth begin to plumet... only to be plucked out of the air by Vara, borne on her wings to immediate safety.

Hikaru hissed, turning to watch them. Then he stretched out his hand and mind, calling...

Darkness grew in the sky, swirling orbs whose unbroken surface rippled like water. It grew contorted, what looked to be an arm and then a wing bursting from the darkness. A great winged dragon caught Hikaru as he let go, and at once the pair gave chase after the little golden female.

Bent across the neck of the beast, Hikaru swore to himself he'd not lose him again this time. Yet before they were far from the ship, a terrible agony started and fanned itself into torture as the man cried out, beating at his chest. The dragon was afflicted also, as it turned on its wing jerkily and started circling downward.

I know!! Hikaru roared in his mind, his focus dwindling. I must retrieve Ansem and bring him to the Source.

But... that... Sephiroth--!!

Hikaru was enraged, but a thought came to him from beyond the echoes of frantic dragon calls. He looked toward their glittering gem-hued shapes and gave them silent encouragement to fetch the survivors and bear them safely home.

* * * * *

Raven swallowed, clinging to the insecure railing while Ansem, crouched on the floor next to her. Their cloaks whipped wildly about in the winds, torn by debris. The sky was choked with flames to their eyes, and as far as they knew they were alone and careless survivors burned alive in the airship's rooms.

"I'm frightened," Ansem murmured to her in a moment of white fear.

"You've every right to be, but this isn't the time to let it rule over you. Focus your mind on surviving this! There's got to be--"

A flash of light flickered by them, followed by a rush of air that kicked up around them. Ansem turned immediately, spotting a topaz stranger unfold his huge wings and regard them fearfully. He got the message, like a gong in his brain.

Get on!

The pair pulled each other to their feet and staggered unsteadily to the dragon's side. Raven climbed astride first, and reached for Ansem when another explosion suddenly set the ship off-balance and essentially into a violent downward spiral.

The dragon's claws raked deep furrows in the deck. Ansem clung to Raven's hands, while her legs squeezed around the dragon's broad neck tightly. Swinging around, the beast leapt from the deck but wasn't clear of the flying, red-hot wood-kindling that crumbled around them. One such flaming debris clipped a wing.

Ansem clung to Raven's waist, his thoughts revolving around Sephiroth. He wanted to believe he was safe and sound on the ground somewhere, but he knew in his mind that it wasn't so. Wherever there was Sephiroth, danger followed. Whenever there was worry and unhappiness, Ansem was sure to also be close in tow.

He felt his heart beat powerfully, thudding in his chest, and thought he heard another heart, distant and strong, pounding right along with his. It said "Sephiroth" with each pulse and he nodded, digging his fingers into Raven's side and searching for the golden gleam of Vara's wings.

* * * * *

You're heavy!

Sephiroth grit his teeth against the dragon's protests. She swung violently with each wingstroke, trying to ease them into a gentler glide toward the ground. There were fields, with dirt-roads leading and branching off into different directions. The lower they went, the more Sephiroth's fear of crashing increased.

"I'm not heavy at all," he growled, struggling to keep equilibrium. "It's just that you're too small!"

Vara issued a low hiss, arching her neck slightly and swerving. Down there, when I say, let go, you let go and I'll come back.

Before Sephiroth could exactly comprehend her message, she turned, and dumped him into a haybale on the side of the road. The landing wasn't the least bit graceful. When he found his bearings again, he was rolled over and the hay-bale parted carefully by Vara's claws to find him.

He sat up slowly, his hair in much disarray and straw sticking to it in a number of places.

Funny, Varafel snickered in his thoughts.

Sephiroth just sneered, blowing straw from his mouth. "...Thanks."

Vara tilted her head with child-like innocence, multihued eyes flashing curiousity and happiness, ignorant of his displeasure. Cheerily, she replied, Your welcome!

* * * * *

The dragon continued after them, Hikaru's eyes fixed on the topaz dragon overhead. He raised his arm, gripping the lacquered riding saddle of the dragon. Before he could utter a phrase, a bolt of thunder shattered above and nearly struck the side of his beast's head.

"Feiii!!" Hikaru cried angrily. "So you want to play with spells, little girl? So be it!"

Fire generally did not work against dragons. He opted for freezing spells instead, and called upon the inner powers vested in him by the Source. He shifted slightly, drawing his hands in a smooth circle, signing silently as the ice crystals curled into the shape he desired. From solid killer point to blunt end, four glittering spikes of ice rocketed forward with sudden force.

He watched them intensely, hoping at least one make its mark. The topaz wheeled franticly, with little choice to avoid narrowly only two of them. The two that struck buried into his shoulder and flank. Gray-red blood poured forth, staining its gleaming hide and spattering Raven's pallid face.

"This isn't going so well, is it?" Ansem groaned, looking over his shoulder only to have his head whipped about violently from the force of gravity, the dragon losing altitude and straining against all its burning injured anatomy to maintain a safe rate of descent.

Hikaru followed after them, the black dragon swerving to avoid a flash of light and a second crack of thunder. He leaned forward, watching eagerly as the topaz swirled left and right, blood raining in its wake as it bled profusely from the melting daggers.

"That's right," he hissed softly. "Keep safe my prize, little beastie, that I may keep my own safe..." His eyes, yellow and burning, swirled hungrily as he anticipated a satisfactory victory.

And maybe, he thought as they landed in a small reedy marsh, he could hope for that he hadn't felt in years. Freedom.

Maybe...

"You're out of spirit stones," Hikaru called plaintively to the bleeding dragon and its riders. "You've no place to run unless you like the stench of rotting things."

"I hate you," Ansem roared, "and I have enough Spirit Stones to make you burn!"

"Not likely. Forget Sephiroth, boy. You've got a very special ceremony to attend, and it's imperative you be there."

Hikaru giggled, hugging himself as he walked cleanly over the boggy water, like a terrible dark messiah, never touching its glossy black surface, but leaving faint glowing ripples in his wake. Ansem's terror was exquisite. It made him remember Sephiroth.

...Maybe.

* * * * *

Nearly a mile away, Sephiroth walked beside Varafel, whose odd silence disturbed him. The buzzing of cicidas in the grass. She moved with graceful ease, her wings folded along her narrow, curving back, striding on all fours like a great feline. Similar hay barrows lined the fields to their right and left, with other four-legged beasts with tan or chocolate hides feeding on the thick grasses.

"Are we getting any closer to them?"

Not far now. Raven is not too far. But too far to hear.

"You can't hear her...?" Sephiroth tilted his head, turning to look at her, but her eyes were fixed blindly on her lady's whereabouts. She didn't stop, even when Sephiroth noticed a group of people coming down the road.

He slowed in his steps, reaching to get a soft hold on the edge of her wingsail. "Wait a minute."

The crowd approached. They were easily out-numbered, but not quite over-powered. They literally looked pissed off, and bore pitch forks and meat-cleavers as though possessed by some mad, heathenistic desire for bloodshed.

"Great," Sephiroth groaned, sore as hell already as he bent his knees, baring a bit of steel on Masamune.

"Blasphemers!" a woman cried. "Devils! You must be tried for your sins!"

"Sins? What?" Sephiroth did not relax. Varafel scrabbled backwards, spreading her wings and mantling threateningly, eyes swirling. She was becoming more and more agitated into a rage simply because she was kept from Raven for so long.

"Even the lowliest have dragons of their own, wretched-looking as they are. That's not your own, I can see as much. It's not her we want. It's you! You, embodiment of sacriledge, murderer of kings!"

Sephiroth was stunned. And angered. His madness broiled at a bearable level before, but now fueled by this new obstacle he did not hesitate to charge through, shouldering past the lot of them. Many hands groped to keep him back, angered shouts following him as Vara's shadow fell over their heads as she flew past.

Then another shadow. And another, then another, cheered by the angry mob that chased after him.

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A/N: Ahhh..what's going to happen to Sephiroth!? And Ansem! Noooo!! Grrr... feel free to send your hate to Hikaru soon...hee, hee... don't worry, it's not the end of the world.