Chapter 103 - Only Wolves Howl
September, 2002
"Man, you've got such a big brain. What are you using it for?" Zack Fair asks.
Sephiroth looks up from where he has been studying his clasped hands. The truck rumbles over the back roads. The temperature is changing. It is getting colder. They are rising into the mountains.
"What are you saying?" Sephiroth asks. "I am thinking. I am always thinking."
"I'm asking what you are thinking about. What's on your mind?" Zack scoots forward on his seat. He's smiling. He's genuinely smiling at him. It feels wrong, like someone took a sword, placed it to his throat and told him that he loved him. Sephiroth would know. That almost happened to him.
"Nothing."
It's almost true.
Zack's eyebrows raise. "Really?"
If Sephiroth could stop thinking, he would. He would float in the silence of his own mind.
Since it isn't true, he sees the scar instead. It is still there, barely faded.
Sephiroth had hoped it would go away. The SOLDIER healing would wipe clean Angeal's final signature. The deep double mark is carved in deep. A twinge stirs in Sephiroth. A mistake, Zack is his mistake, the one person that Angeal would have wanted him to look after. Sephiroth is too selfish and broken to do the one thing that would have been asked of him.
"We have a mission to focus on. Genesis should not be underestimated, in any state."
Zack is another in a string of failures that Sephiroth has committed.
They sit across from each other in the truck. The two infantry are nearer the door. The blond one that Zack likes is curled into a ball. The motion of the truck has already made him throw up once. The other one still has his helmet on, lost to the world as he stares out the crack of the truck's door.
The First snorts. "Huh. Didn't you just tell me that you are always thinking?"
"I am."
He reaches forward and taps his knee. "Sooooo what are you thinking about?"
Sephiroth blows out a breath and moves his leg. "Leave it alone, Fair."
"Okay," he drags out the letters and then asks, "but can I tell you what I am thinking about?"
"Do I get a choice in the matter?"
"Nope." He grins.
It will pass the time. It will distract him from his thoughts.
"Tell me what you are thinking about." Sephiroth pauses. "No, I know. It's the woman, under the plate. You continue to visit her."
"Aerith. We're dating." It's warmth and pride in his eyes. "Have you ever felt a certain something for someone else? I just…she's amazing, you know? How could this world make someone like that? She's…"
Sourness rises in his throat. "The one person in your life that you can't live without."
"Yeah. I don't know how I got that lucky. I don't know what she sees in me." Zack's smile turns brighter. "And she's been there. Like, when everything happened, she was there. She picked me up."
"I understand." He remembers the heaviness of Angeal's hand on his shoulder. It could bring him down from any emotional state. Something cracks. Sephiroth fights it from spilling across his face.
Zack doesn't notice. "When we're done here, I'm thinking I need to do something special for her. I've been working overtime so much and she keeps understanding that I can't be there. I know that my next paycheck is going to be absolutely ginormous. I want to spend it all on her. What do you think I should do?"
Angeal.
Genesis.
Sephiroth struggling to breath. It feels like an attack. It's not. It is the wires of his past life cutting through him.
"I could go to a really fancy fancy dinner but neither one of us are like that."
Sephiroth is never going back to Midgar. It hits him. His new life begins now.
"I know that she wants to travel and really hasn't gone anywhere. Maybe a nice place somewhere in nature. Did I tell you how much she likes trees and dirt and flowers?"
He's prepared. He surely is. Once he understands where Genesis is, the rest will fall into place. He doesn't need to feel like this.
"I could take her shopping! I could take her to those really nice shops on the plate and let her have fun. I can carry all the bags. I've never been shopping but anything with her is fun."
Sephiroth shouldn't be falling through the floor.
"And then I'll take her to a fancy fancy jewelry shop. We will pick her out something nice. Something she can always wear."
Zack bursts out laughing, knocking Sephiroth out of his thoughts and almost making him jump. A beat is in his throat. He had been spiraling somewhere but he's been caught.
"Okay, don't get the wrong idea. Maybe not a ring. We're not there yet." There is a wink. "Do you think a SOLDIER could even get married?"
A pause drags out.
Sephiroth is supposed to respond.
"Lower Classes have families and children, I don't see why not." It comes out of him safely and logically. It's the correct answer.
Joy ripples out of Zack. "You'd approve?"
Sephiroth blinks. "Why would I need to approve?"
"…you are the Director of SOLDIER?"
Of course.
"Yes. It would be fine." It is a toss away line. Insignificant. "Attend to your friend."
The blond infantryman has unwound from a ball but his face is pale, eyes glazed over with human sickness.
"Aw shit, Cloud. Not again! Breathe through your nose!"
Nibelheim appears from the blood of the monsters that they slaughtered on the way.
The mountains carve into the sky, tucking the town in between them. It's the first thing Sephiroth notices about Nibelheim. The second is the air. It is cold and hugs around him as he steps off the truck. It pulls against his hair and throws it in his eyes.
He takes in the place where they would be stationed.
The town is small, a huddle of houses in a valley. Small, insignificant places decorate the center and Sephiroth knows every single one of them. The steps to the inn, the red drapes in the house next to it, the two windows always too close together, the brown brick of the bakery, it all is known to him.
His boot catches on the ground. His step stutters. The town stays in place like a photo he's studied a hundred times. He waits for it to snap away, to disprove itself, and it doesn't.
It stays in focus.
And so does he.
He must be truly exhausted. He had never been here before. He slips away from himself. He's knocked back from his body, standing at a distance, confused. Or, he supposes, he should be confused if he could feel anything anymore.
"You are home, Cloud!" Zack says from behind him. The bags scuff against the ground as he drags them from the truck. "You survived the journey."
"Yeah," The infantryman, the sick one, is quiet. Sephiroth glances back at the slumped shoulders.
"So, how does it feel to be back after all this time?" Sephiroth finds himself asking to fill the space in his mind. Zack has his arm wrapped around his friend, pulling him close.
"It's okay, I guess." Again the words are quiet. "You know, it is the same emotions every time."
Oh. This is something that regular people have. The rooms in the lab he grew up in have been renovated or removed. It wouldn't matter. Nothing would remain anyways. They were wiped clean hours after he left. The apartment of his in Midgar never felt like anything other than a space that he slept in. The closest he got was possibly Angeal's apartment.
The Turks had that stripped down to the bones almost immediately as Hojo presumably did to his body.
"I wouldn't know, Cloud. I have no hometown."
Zack cuts over his response surprised. "No hometown? What? You didn't grow up anywhere?"
"No." It is easier not to lie. He would be caught soon if he tried to fake something that he never had.
"What about family? They moved around a lot then?" Zack's questions are earnest.
Sephiroth looks at the beaten path around the middle of the town. The snow would cover all the imperfections of the stone. There would be a center path, pressed down by snow boots.
"I don't know my family."
"At all?"
Sephiroth stares at the houses, the distant feeling remains. "My mother's name was Jenova. My father…"
He catches the words coming out of his mouth. He is too distracted. He's unfiltered, mentioning a family he never had. They had both abandoned him and died without a word.
"Why am I talking about this?" Sephiroth laughs at how much of a fool he is. These people, these men he is talking to, they are real people who have lived real lives, not the sham of his life. "Come on. Let's go."
Nibelheim continues to haunt him. It is too late to go up and investigate the reactor so they settle in for the night. If Genesis, if he is even here, decides to come down from the mountain to see him, then so be it. The conversation will happen then the strings of this life will snap completely.
After they have settled at the inn, Sephiroth takes a walk around the town. He tells himself he is doing it because it is similar to the town that he is going to be stationing himself near after the escape. Supposedly, his new town harbors deep anti-Shinra sentiments. Sephiroth will be able to live remotely nearby, hiding away from all eyes. Perhaps with time, he will be able to make a local contact to purchase items he will need.
It doesn't matter where he goes in Nibelheim. He knows where he is.
The oddness settles like a second skin over him. The people in the town keep away. The smoke from their chimneys start to rise as the day settles into evening. A dog barks from a distance. He tracks the noise pointlessly. Perhaps the animal is barking at actually a threat. It would be best to head off a problem before it rises from the darkness.
The mountains carve dark shapes against the sunset as Sephiroth follows the animal up a path away from the main center of the town.
The air is strange here, pushing weight away from his mind. The decision to abandon Shinra hangs above him instead of becoming a reality. His shoes are covered by dust as he follows the erratic sounds of the dog barking. They wouldn't miss him below. Zack is taking care of the remaining men.
Already, Sephiroth is becoming irrelevant.
There used to be a time when something like this would concern him but now it is a natural step. It is part of an evolution. It leaves him to follow these childish impulses. He finds himself snagged on a tree, tracing the branches. His fingers rest against the bark. It echoes in him like a bell.
He is truly in need of a different life.
The dog barks again.
He follows the sound up the mountain side.
It's an iron gate that stops him. The metal rusted. Ivy has taken over it and the stone walls surrounding it. At one point there was a padlock but it had been removed. The chains are only linked together by a clip. The dog continues to bark. He has to walk close to see through the gate.
It's a mansion on the other side. The architecture is tall and delicate against the sunset. Sephiroth looks up. He stares at a small window tucked up against the bow of the roof. The plants that used to sit in the window are gone.
Sephiroth swallows and stares.
His body shifts, trying to find a purchase against this oddness that is left in his heart.
"Are you lost, sir?"
It's the infantry man, Cloud. Even now, a civilian shouldn't be able to approach him unaware. The young man stands away from him. The red eyepieces glint. A Shinra produced view looks at him. Even now they are watching him. They want something of him, even when his core has gone. There is nothing left to break or fade. Sephiroth is sure of that.
They just want something from the Sephiroth that he used to be.
"No. Is there anyone who lives here?" He asks finally.
Cloud shakes his head. "I don't think so. Not for a long time. The owners never came back."
Sephiroth glances back. The house's windows are unbroken. The plants, while wild, are not overgrown. Someone is taking care of this place.
And then there is the dog.
"Why is there a dog barking inside then? I tracked it here."
Cloud shifts. "Sir…we don't have any dogs in the town anymore. A disease wiped them out, carried over from the wolves."
"Why did I hear barking? Is there an animal that has a similar sound around here?" He says that too quickly. He's not thinking straight. It sounds like such a ridiculous question. Sephiroth glances back at the house. He was tracking the sound. There had been a dog barking. He is sure of it. It couldn't have been his imagination.
"No. The wolves only howl." Cloud pauses. "Would you like me to show you the way back? Dinner hour is about to start at the inn. You weren't answering your phone so Zack sent me after you."
Sephiroth frowns. He pulls out his phone to see the five missed calls and the ten unread messages. Not a single one had caught his attention.
The pulled out feeling inches him away from himself further.
"Of course," he hears himself say. "Let's return back."
The mansion burns at his back the entire way.