Author's Notes - Okay, okay. List of everything that isn't mine... Final Fantasy... One Winged Angel... and hey, that might be it for today. WH007!
Burning inside with violent anger,
Oh Sephiroth, Sephiroth...
Fate, monstrous and empty,
burning inside with savage fury,
Sephiroth, Sephiroth!
Come, come, O come
Do not let me die
The winged one of the lower reaches
Come, come O come,
Do not let me die.
Sephiroth! Sephiroth!
-The One Winged Angel
All of these worthless humans, kill them. Kill them all.
But she didn't need to tell him that. Sephiroth slashed and sliced his long, silver masamune, through the screaming, pitiful beings. Men, woman, child, it didn't matter. The blood always spewed from his victims the same way, anyhow. The parasites of this Planet. Smashing insects, that was really what it was.
But here, it was far worse, far more disgusting. Sephiroth, if he felt pride, would have been proud of his perfect state of mind that Jenova preached, the state of nothingness in which he would find true enlightenment, true peace, and true power. Power most of all. But in this place, this revolting place that haunted his childhood dreams he couldn't help but smiling at the bloody corpses. Dealing out punishment is the priviledge of the gods alone... then I shall become a god.
The Shinra Headquarters. Where, once upon a time, he lived, as nothing but a powerless, weak, disgusting specimen.
"Oh g-god!" A young red-haired woman shrieked when she saw that the man with the masamune had spotted her from her hiding place from behind a desk. "Please, no! No!"
Insects, all of them. Silence her.
Sephiroth did not hesitate.
He had reached one of the top floors, where the Shinra Laboratory was. His mind went slightly to Professor Hojo, and in a mixed confusion of unfamilier feeling, he wondered if he regretted his father's absence from the building that night, or if he simply didn't care. "Mother?" he called out loud. "Where are you?"
... No. No, there is one more that must die. The Cetra... it's here, it's here, destroy it.
"Yes. Yes, I'll destroy the Cetra." If Jenova said it, that was fine, then. She was very suddenly worried, and he sensed that. He felt no repulsion to the Cetras, as they were superior to humans. But they could also be a deadly enemy, Jenova's anxiety told him.
He smashed the metal door open to the office he recognized to be Hojo's, and found a clipboard on his wooden desk, as he knew he would. The all-too-familier place made him feel awkward, but it served his - and her - purpose. Cetra specimen, cell 5. All of the information needed to end any threat to his plans. Not that it would have been too difficult to shatter every cell door in the building, anyhow.
Sephiroth approached the prison. Here, larger specimen were kept as well as important criminals, or anyone else Shinra deemed worthy. He stood in front of the cell door, thinking, then flicked the human blood off of his masamune. The Cetra was worthy, no need to mock his or her death by tainting the blood. Even if the fool did manage to get captured by Shinra.
Kill her...
SMASH. He kicked the door with such forced that the lock broke, and the door flew inwardly. He narrowed his eyes with slight curiousity to adjust them to the dim light.
What? It can't be... no, this is a mistake...
She was sitting on her knees in the middle of the cell, her head bowed and her hands folded in prayer. Her pink dress was still dirty from gardening, and her hands still contained thin little cuts from working with rosethorns. It was too familier, all too familier. And he knew behind those closed eyelids were the thoughtful hazel eyes of the lonely Aeris Gainsborough.
Do it now! Hesitation is weak. She is a stranger, an enemy.
The voice was a command, harsh, cold and wise as always, but Sephiroth could only stare.
Aeris opened her eyes and looked up at him. "I can't hear it, Sephiroth. I'm trying so hard to listen..." Her voice was too dreamy, too soft. She was in some kind of meditation, not all aware of what was going on.
"What?" If Sephiroth had been a weaker man, he would have whispered. But his voice was cool and lacked feeling, as always.
She's in trance. A pity we won't get to hear her scream. Do it.
"Am I... failing? Should I have... I mean..." Aeris blinked, as if she was slowly waking up. "Sephiroth...? Oh, Planet, how it hurts... I felt so much pain. What was it? I felt terror. Not mine, I mean... I don't understand..."
Sephiroth's eyes flickered involuntarily to the little drops of blood that hadden been shaken off of his sword. He felt no remorse to the dead humans. But there was something about putting the Lifestream-sensitive Aeris through that ... that...
No. You do not know her.
Sephiroth lifted the sword and put the glimmering blade to her pale neck. So close that any sudden movements would decapitate her. So close that a tiny trickle of blood began to run down to her crimson jacket.
Aeris closed her eyes, and when she opened them again, she was back. "Sephiroth, how could you?" she asked quietly. "Why? Why would you do that?"
The words that came out of his mouth were not his own, but Jenova's. "This Planet and all of it's energy will belong to me. And there's nothing that you filthy Cetra can do."
Cetra? Suddenly, Sephiroth began to laugh. Aeris Gainsborough was the Cetra. The mystical Ancient that could stop Jenova, the one who could become a god herself if she had the sense? Aeris Gainsborough, this little flower vendor who had dated that noble idiot Zack? This kneeling girl who was pale from a life under the Midgar Plate, and thin from poverty? Jenova feared her?
Aeris kept her eyes locked on his own, then raised a hand and touched her fingers to the masamune tip, and slowly pushed it back. She knew he would strike - yet. She stood up at her full height, which wasn't much. But when she stood... when she stood, it was different. Her head was high, and her presence commanded such dignity and respect as the legendary Cetra of ancient times would have when facing death.
Sephiroth lowered his sword, as slowly as the girl had stood. Haunting memories filled his head of his mission in Midgar, with Zack. The church, the flowers... Aeris... of course, of course she was a Cetra.
"Go on, Sephiroth. Do what you want." Her voice was swift and sharp. "But just know that I will fight to the death, and after, too."
She was beautiful, he realized with a pang of admiration. No, no... damn this place. Too many feelings. Mother? What do I do?
No. You do not remember her. You do not know her.
A command. Something jerked in his mind, and then... his already foggy memories with this girl became nothing but a vauge, dreamlike memory. But nothing Jenova could say could take away one image... an image of this Aeris in an old church, filling her basket with flowers...
Let me think. She could be useful, perhaps. Leave her, we have other things to attend to. The President. He's upstairs...
The thought of killing the fat scumbag made Sephiroth smile darkly, a tiny twitch of his lips, directed at Aeris. "Stay out of our way, flowergirl. Or maybe it's fated that you won't..?"
"No! Please don't kill anyone else... you've killed so many already!" He was surprised to see small tears form in her deep eyes. "It's not necessary!"
Sephiroth hesitated, not because he was considering the request but because he was considering the girl. He had a power over this ancient enemy of Jenova's. She was begging to him. He laughed again. "Do not worry, touching though it is. They will all be reborn, of course, and each death adds to our power..." With that, he exited, closing the door behind him.
He realized that he had broken the lock on the door, but as soon as he shut it, the dark excitement of ending the President's miserable life overtook him, and it wasn't until after he had left Shinra Headquarters that he once again remembered the mysterious Aeris Gainsborough.
End Notes - I'm assuming that this story will roughly follow the storyline (for the most part), with some added in SephAer... things... I'm not sure how this will turn out, I have a few ideas in mind... but I'm gonna try my darnest not to break Sephy's character. P Wish me luck.