Chapter 9
Litta said nothing as Sephiroth carried her in the air. She was a little afraid of falling, but she said nothing. They flew for a while, and eventually Sephiroth put them on the ground again in a strange city. Litta let out a quiet sigh of relief.
"Afraid of flying?" He noticed.
"Just a little."
"You'll soon get used to it. Do you know where we are?" She shook her head. "We are in Hatari. It's a city that I created so no one would bother us." She wasn't sure she liked that idea. "No one can get here by the railroads, and no one uses boats anymore, or flying machines for that matter." She liked it even less now.
"So what are we doing here?"
"We are going to perfect your current skills and teach you some new ones." He walked towards a building, so Litta followed.
When she walked in, she stopped dead. Inside the room were weapons of every sort. There were gun blades like Squall's, shurikens, rifles, pistols, brass knuckles, a bigger blade closely resembling the one she remembered Cloud using, a replica of Sephiroth's masamune, and plenty of others.
"What is this place?" Sephiroth smiled.
"This is just what it appears to be. It has every weapon ever used in history that I could find. We are going to work on your battle skills first. You will finish learning to use guns, and then I will teach you how to wield a blade."
"I don't want to learn to use a sword," Litta said.
"You don't have much of a choice. Come." He motioned for her to follow him to another building. This one was filled with all sorts of materia, and places where she could draw magic. "You will also learn to use materia and magic."
"Wouldn't one work?"
"If you learn to use both, you will always have a backup." She followed him to many other buildings, each filled with different tools to be used for her training. Finally, they came to a good sized house.
"Is this where you live?"
"Yes," he said simply.
"Why do I even have to learn how to fight?"
"It is for your own protection Litta," he said softly. "I don't want you to be in a battle and unable to defend yourself."
"Then I just won't ever get into a battle." He laughed. She didn't like the way it made her feel. It seemed cold and heartless.
"You won't be able to avoid them. Now, we will start your training tomorrow. You can rest until then."
"Even if I do learn to use all of them, I'm not going to carry them all around. What good will they do me then?" He turned back around.
"You will learn them all despite the chance you may never use it. Wouldn't you like to know how to use all these weapons when your friend Squall abandons you?"
"He'll never abandon me." Sephiroth raised his eyebrows in question, but said nothing. He went into another room and shut the door. She walked around the house, and then outside.
She went into some of the buildings again, and ended up back in the one with weapons. Why do I have to learn to use all of these? Shouldn't I become experienced with just one and leave it at that? She walked around and picked up the various weapons. She picked up a gun blade and started playing around with it. She eventually put it back and headed back to the house. She found a room to sleep in for the night. Before she fell asleep, she wondered how Squall and Vincent were doing.
Squall woke up first. He shuddered when he remembered the dream. Litta had been fighting him and killed Vincent already. She was angry at him and Sephiroth was enjoying watching her destroy him. He hadn't slept well after that.
He guessed it to be early in the morning; the sun was barely above the horizon. He walked around a little to stretch his legs. Vincent wasn't long in waking up.
"Sleep well?" he asked Vincent.
"Not really, you?" Squall shook his head.
"Ready to get going?" Squall asked. Vincent nodded and stood up. They kept going in the direction they had started yesterday, and thought about where Sephiroth would have taken Litta. They reached the beach and walked along until they knew they had to have missed something.
"Where could he have gone?" Squall asked. "The only town close to Shin-Ra is Esthar, but that's even father, and in the wrong direction. I don't understand how he could have disappeared."
"He must have gone somewhere that no one knows about. He has powers even Cloud was never able to understand. We must keep looking. Maybe he led us this way, only to turn in another direction while we slept." Vincent headed in the direction of Esthar, and Squall followed.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
The blade went straight through Vincent's side. She pulled it out and watched him fall. She saw his eyes flicker, and watched the light life leave him. She charged at Squall. The battle was unending. All the while Sephiroth watched from the side, obviously pleased.
"I'm going to kill you Squall," she told him.
"You won't kill me, and I won't let Vincent die," he told her.
"Vincent is already dead," she pointed out. "There's nothing you can do to save him, again."
"Squall, why don't you just give up," Sephiroth interrupted.
"I'm not going to let you ruin her life and destroy the world."
"I'm not ruining her life. This was her decision. So to make it easier on her," Sephiroth took one swing at Squall, and ran him through. She looked on in horror as she watched Squall fall. "Come," Sephiroth told her. She looked back once.
"Don't go," Squall whispered. She ran back, but he was dead before she reached him.
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Litta woke with a start. She was sweating, and she was afraid. Sephiroth came into her room.
"Good, you're already awake. Meet me downstairs in ten minutes." He left her room. Hopefully it was just a dream. But what if...No, she refused to finish that thought. She got ready and went downstairs. Sephiroth led her to the weapons building.
"I want you to pick out a weapon," he told her.
"Which one?" She had no idea what he had planed.
"The one you can handle the best." She picked out the gun that most resembled hers. "Now follow me."
"Where are you taking me?"
"You will see." She followed him and he led her to something like a practice field, only it was a forest designed for target practice. "We are going to perfect your skills with a gun first then, and after we will move gradually to the weapons you have never seen before."
"Why do you insist on training me with every weapon? That will take such a long amount of time, it could take forever."
"Be that as it may, you will learn the most important weapons and work your way down. You will train with me from dawn until I see fit to let you rest."
"So you won't even let me get a decent amount of sleep?" It was an accusation more than a question.
"I will decide how much sleep you need. If you complain, you will get less. I suggest that if you value your sleep, you will let me train you however I want. Otherwise, you will find your training harder and more intense. Is that clear?" She nodded her head.
"So how long do you plan on keeping me here?" Her voice was barely audible.
"Until I decide you're ready."
"Ready for what?"
"That matters little. For now, show me how you shoot." She fired a few shots before her started criticizing her. She took the first few and then realized he was going to correct every tiny thing she did wrong.
"Is there anything I did right?" she interrupted.
"A few things, yes. But right now mostly everything was wrong." He continued to show her how to improve and they worked all day. He finally let her go to bed at half past ten. She fell asleep immediately.
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She walked into the room, not knowing what she would find in there. She sat down and finally looked. Her mother sat staring at her, the pain present in her eyes. She looked away, unable to stand it for long.
"Why did you make her come?" Sephiroth asked her mother.
"I wanted to see my daughter one last time."
"Can't you see she can't handle this?"
"She's my daughter, but I want her to know the truth."
"You shouldn't put her through this."
"Stop it!" Litta screamed. She couldn't stand to hear them argue anymore. "I can handle seeing my mother. It's you who can't seem to stand it," she told Sephiroth. "What do you have against her?"
"You don't know what you're saying. Come, I'll take you home." He dragged her away without another word or look at her mother. She struggled to get out of his grasp, but he held her tight.
"Let me go!" He released her. When she ran back in the room, she looked at her mother one last time and heard the monitor stop. "No!" She tried shaking her mom, but she was gone. She heard her father come in, but the blackness was already too strong to hold it off much longer.
"Litta!" He yelled her name, but she didn't hear it.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
She was woken up by Sephiroth at three in the morning. She looked at the clock and then over at him.
"What?" she asked.
"You were yelling in your sleep. What were you dreaming about?" He seemed genuinely concerned.
"I was dreaming about...my mother." She didn't look up, otherwise she would have seen the look of pain cross his face. "What happened to her?" She looked, but saw no emotion on Sephiroth's face.
"That's not important, like I've said before. Since you're already up, we'll go ahead and start training today." She followed him out and they practiced all day.
This was the normal schedule they followed for the next couple of weeks. Litta began to wonder if she would ever leave, or be able to get away from Sephiroth. So she just waited for a miracle to happen.
Squall followed Vincent until they reached Esthar. They walked around and talked to different people, but no one seemed to have seen anyone resembling Sephiroth or Litta.
"I don't get it, where are they?"
"I'm not sure," Vincent told Squall. "But worrying won't help us find them any sooner." Squall sighed.
"So where to next? I'm sure they didn't go farther than this town. They didn't even head in this direction."
"Let's just hit every town and talk to our friends. Surely we'll come across a clue sooner or later." They headed off to Deling City the next morning.
They kept up a leisurely pace, but didn't stop for rests. After Deling City, they headed to Nibelheim and visited all the other cities. They spent more time at each city, and once they had searched through Midgar they headed back towards Shin-Ra.
"It's been a couple of weeks now Vincent, where are they?"
"Sephiroth must have taken her to someplace we can't get to. That's the only thing that makes sense at this point."
"Well what can we do then?"
"Just wait. Don't look at me like that. We can't swim the whole ocean. There aren't any flying machines left, only trains, and those can't search the whole ocean. What else can we do but wait?" Squall nodded.
"I guess you're right." They rested in the forest between Shin-Ra and the ocean. They waited for another two days before they saw what they were looking for.
During one of her practice sessions, she was practicing deflecting attacks. Sephiroth was the one attacking, so she hadn't deflected one yet.
"You aren't concentrating enough," he told her. At that point, he charged and sliced her arm. She dropped her sword. "Get up. Keep fighting."
"You just cut my arm. Can't I heal it?"
"Learning to fight while you are injured is important. You say Squall is your friend. If you were injured he wouldn't bother to heal you."
"That's not true. He would heal me," Litta yelled.
"Are you sure?" He said no more and they continued fighting. Eventually, he let her go to bed, but woke her up early again the next morning.
"Wake up Litta," Sephiroth told her. She woke up quickly, used to the early morning practices.
"What are we doing today?"
"We're leaving." She stared at him for a minute before the words fully sank in.
"Why?"
"There is no time for questions, just get up and follow me. You have done all the training you need and are more than capable of using all the magic I have given you. You have even gained control over your two limit breaks. You are ready." She followed him out and ran to keep up.
"What am I ready for?"
"You will see, but come." He gave her a cup of hot liquid. Once she had emptied the cup, he lifted them in the air and they began flying back towards Shin-Ra. She had grown accustomed to flying and it no longer bothered her. They flew over a forest and landed in an opening. "Wait, it will not be long now." She looked at him, but he was staring straight ahead, as if waiting for something.