Chapter - 12: Guilt

"There aint no way in hell I gonna let him on with us." Barret yelled as he held his arm-gun pointed at Sephiroth.

From the side of the highway where the Highwind had set down, Reno approached, forcing Yazoo to walk in front of him while he held his baton over his head.

"You…" Sephiroth mouthed as he walked over to the other silver haired man, grabbed him around the throat, and lifted him into the air.

"Brother…" Yazoo gagged. "You betray us too?"

Sephiroth ignored him and continued throttling him. Reno watched but had no intension of helping either of them.

"Sephiroth…" Cloud muttered, half tempted to stop him, half tempted to let him finish Yazoo.

"Where is Jenova?" Sephiroth demanded forcefully as he yanked Yazoo's face down to eye level.

"Reunion…" he said.

"Where?" he shouted right in the other man's face.

"Nor…ther…n……Cra…ter…" Yazoo said, fighting off unconsciousness.

Sephiroth grunted and hurled him face first to the ground. He started to rise to his feet as Reno's boot came in, sending him into darkness.

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Barret, Cid, Tifa, and Red sat in the Highwind meeting room as Cloud paced.

"Remember, when I gave Sephiroth the Black Materia." he said, waiting for acknowledgment. "Remember when I almost killed Aeris? I was being controlled by the same master that held Sephiroth dancing on strings. The puppeteer is Jenova, she makes us dance for her delight, for her whims or wills."

"How will going to face her end anything if she controls and spreads so easily?" Tifa asked.

Cloud sat down and turned to face his friends. "I want to give her what it is she wants, a reunion. If all of the Jenova cells are in the same place, maybe then she can finally be defeated. We just cannot leave any trace of her behind to come back."

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"Vincent…I know how you feel." Vincent stood in front of the water near the City of the Ancients, where he had earlier taken Cloud after he rescued him from Kadaj. Uneasily, the entire party had let Sephiroth come with then to the Northern Crater, Cloud wanted to stop where they were for a night before setting off for the final attack. Now from behind Vincent came the voice of Sephiroth, as Vincent stood in though before a large pool of water.

Vincent turned to face him but said nothing.

"I know the feeling of responsibility for your actions." he continued. "I burned Nibelheim, I killed Aeris, and I called Meteor."

"I did not kill you…" Vincent said. "That makes your actions mine."

"You really believe that?" Sephiroth asked mockingly. "You hate me; you hate me because I am your failure."

Vincent stared and said nothing.

"Sometimes…" he tilted his head to the side and looked off into the grass. "I hate you. I hate you for not killing me when you had the chance. I hate you for leaving me alive to do what I have done."

Vincent's face was blank, as if a slate of steel.

"I hate you for loving Lucrecia so much that you could not do what should have been done." Sephiroth had learned much in the journals of the mansion. "I can feel it deep inside you Vincent…the anger, the rage, the hatred. Kill me now, it could still matter, you could still say that I was punished for the evil I had brought."

In a flash of movement, Vincent pulled his gun from its holster, raised it at Sephiroth, and pulled the trigger.