Chapter 35

Do you know how many times I lost this chapter and had to rewrite it?

5

And it's not like I didn't take measures. And as sorry as I am this took so long, I am just as sorry that it is so fucking big. Ya'll this was fucking cursed.

Anyway I'm back to my tenses bullshit, it gave me as much of a headache as it gave Bella. Additionally I didn't want to rush parts of it because they are important for the characters and I firmly believe it's better to sacrifice and rework plot if it's for the sake of character. Parts of this were such a bitch.

.

Ever since she woke, Bella had been in a haze. Not a bad haze per say. It was just the floaty wooziness of being pleasantly drunk. Or high. Man when was the last time she got drunk? Really, shitfaced, fucking gone drunk? It must have been a bit. She remembered waking up pillowed on Annie's chest. Ah, nice times. She should get some nice booze to share with the boys, not Cloud though, he was still small, no matter what some fuckwits though about age of majority. Cloud would complain, but it would be fine, Angeal would play keep-away along with her if needed. Man Angeal, everyone, must be beside themselves with worry. But as she thought, the darkness at the edges of her vision crooned

It went like that for a bit. But then she had to do things, she couldn't hang back while her body goes on on autopilot, even if thinking felt like wading through molasses. She doesn't mind it though. Perhaps most worryingly.

By the time she's met Weiss she is mostly walking her own skin. And then Sephiroth is there.

Seph...his presence felt steadying and it was something other than blood and alcohol and iodine. He reeks of blood and he was warm. She wanted to latch and never let go but she has to let go, to help them, to movemovemove-

Honestly, she didn't-

Didn't? Doesn't? And what?

Distantly she thinks, maybe she should be worried, but-

Seph walks next to her, his hand on her shoulder and she leaned into it. Even if something in the corner of her eye, something that was not there when she looked, that something recoiled and damn near hissed.

She's not worried. She is the one walking, thinking, acting. And so she acted, bumped her shoulder on Seph's arm and lightly tugged on his sleeve. She didn't even know why, she just did. And Seph, well, emotionally stunted he may be but he still manages to parse out that she needed something. So he walked closer, acting the metaphorical and literal pillar to lean on.

She really appreciates it.

Yeah, she really...did...

Bella's stride stutters like she's stumbled. Sephiroth's arm curls around her in an instant. She hasn't even realized she's stopped walking. Her head was a mess. Thoughts spawning into existence and dominating everything only to be forgotten within an instant, others trailing into nothing. And all of it with the vague sense that even if this is her mind, her thoughts, she is still an observer. And she really shouldn't like that.

"Bella?" Seph's arm has slid to her waist, fully keeping her upright. Or is it on her arm- he had two arms Bella, he is using both arms-

Okay. Breathe.

"Bella is everything alright?" His voice sounded so imploring she didn't have the heart to tell him no.

Truth is "I don't know Sephiroth." The arm around her tightened as his entire frame stiffened. Oh fuck she's worried him now.

Merlin's balls she needs to fucking move. They are sitting in an open hallway, Sephiroths arms are occupied and they are sitting fucking ducks for the love of Gaia move-

"Bella."

Her eyes snapped up to meet his. He had moved in front of her, or did he move her, he was on hr level, she doe-did- Oh fuck she's getting a migraine. "Bella look at me." his voice was soft and she fully focused on that. Oh Lord his eyes are so green, he looks so conflicted. "Just focus on me, okay?"

His hands enveloped hers, grounding her. "Yeah, okay." her voice sounded distant even to her. He's on her eye level and she didn't know if he moved in front of her moved her in front of him. He looks so fucking worried. So huma-

Okay, fuck no.

She groaned in exertion. Something was fucked. She pressed the heels of her hands hard against her eyes, her arms raising with more effort than she would have liked to. She groaned again as even the starburst that shone behind her eyelids felt muted.

"What is wrong with you?" Their eyes turn to look at Weiss. He might have been the one showing it more outwards from her entourage but the other two weren't all that far behind. Rosso was twitching and whipped her eyes around like an anxious hamster and even Nero who is supposed to be dozing, is too stiff to sell a peaceful rest. None of them is happy standing in the same stretch of corridor being sitting...ducks...

Huh.

She closed her eyes and concentrated, trying to do some surface level Occlumency but it felt like she was wading against the current and through sticky tar. She would need to sit down and unravel this shit. Of all the things that could go wrong of course it had to be her. Fucking typical. Her eyes prickle and with great consternation she realizes her frustration was manifesting in tears.

Oh, Fuck no!

Her head was fuzzy "I feel...high?" but it cleared at the most bizzare things. "But at the same time not. Like I'm disassociating. It feels like autopilot but the autopilot feels sentient and I am not worried about it and that is a problem." Even saying it sounded bad but it sounds fine-

Sephiroth's eyes widen ever so slightly.

Good fucking job, you worried him now.

"Is this happening since you woke up?" He sounded- a twinge went off between her temples making her wince and cutting the thought short. She opens eyes she didn't remember closing. His eyes are focused intently on hers, searching hers. Like he was looking for something.

Her mind was intent on that question. It was a good question. Did i- A piercing pain halted the thought before it could even form. She winced her hand flying to her head. Fuck that hurt.

"Is there something I can do?" Sephiroth's hands on her arms tighten, his voice hitched. Some part of her knew that it was him not knowing what to do, but the grip on her arms served to anchor her anyway.

She took a deep breath and closed her eyes. In and she tried to do a surface dive. Out and what she came up with was a migraine and the feeling of pitch. She winces at the throb blooming behind here eyes. Fuck, she needed a full Occlumentic dive. But she would need time that she doesn't have. It's a very long time to be weighing the entire group down until she gets her shit together!

'We'll be happy to help put you back together.'

It just pierces the fog, resounding, reverberating until the words fed into each other into an incomprehensible buzz that sunk into her bones.

Her mouth opens without conscious thought "There is not much, Seph." She hears herself say "Ideally we need to find a room where I can do some Occlu-" She didn't even finish her sentence before Sephiroth has put an arm around her middle and is now carrying her down the hallway.

And just like that the priorities switch.

"Seph, I can walk!" she yelped as her legs left the ground. But the arm around her is steady and unwieldy. Instead he only hiked her up further. "Come on I'm filthy!" No she wasn't fucking whining! "Seph~"

"Focus on what you need to do. I will take care of everything else." He hoists her up even further his arm shifting under her to support her leaving the other free to hold his Masamune. But despite the comforting words and safety she felt her body breaks out in hives. She knows because he is here even if he shouldn't be, he really shouldn't be, he didn't listen to her, of course he didn't so she doesn't know-

"What does being high feel like?" piped up the very innocent voice of Rosso and Bella's shoulders just hunched up in surprise. Her previous thoughts vanished into the void and she felt her neck warm up as she was overcome with mortification. Sephiroth's shoulders trembled. He was fucking laughing!

"I'll tell you when you're older!"

"Promise?" Nero raises his head, stifling a yawn, just to fuck with her. What she squeaked back she was partly sure classified as a 'Yes'.

Not that Rosso is happy about it. "But I'm already grown. I'm thirteen!"

Bella felt something in her chest recoil violently. The dark swells again drowning out everything, her thoughts the world even her own breaths. All she knew is one feeling and that feeling is ra-

Okay no.

Sephiroth can deal with this she needed-doesn't-yes she didHolyFuck-

She draws in a breath, held it in and-

Everything stops, shuts down and she is sunk in numb cold. She's stops registering the outside as her mind started working in overdrive. Her limbs felt like cold lead as she focused everything inward.

Why?-Okay-

Deep breath.


It has been a nerve-wracking few days in Sephiroth's opinion. He can scarcely believe it's only been five. And he's gone through them with a feeling boiling in his gut and a shudder under his skin. Intellectually, he knew Bella was a big girl, he knows that. But for all the overpowered bullshit he only finds another something fragile hiding under snark and apathy to focus on. Which, Sephiroth has words for that thought process none of them kind. Bella would strangle him if she knew.

When he found her he just knew something was off. When he ran(rushed) to make sure she was alright(hold her). And she tensed. He felt her tense and become unresponsive for only a moment, just a blink but he felt it. He felt his heart stutter.

When she called him Sephiroth it was only confirmation.

But, he sees her trying, it is so easy to pick up on her reactions when he's known this woman from half a decade. Sirius in dog form noticed too, and perhaps most damningly, Bella doesn't even register her godfather. Not even when she stumbles because he put his front paws on her back, trying to get her attention. It's a neon sign spelling "ATTENTION!".

What's worse is, she does too. And she wants to care but is unable to. She knows that something is wrong, and she needs to expend effort to even notice that she should care. How horrible will that be once she fully snaps out of it? He knows he would be having nightmares and Bella has enough of those already.

After this Angeal might just actually put her in bubble wrap.

He wasn't expecting her to just lock in his arms, she even grew colder. His horrible, horrible mind draw a distant parallel to rigor mortis and for half a second his heart clenches. But then he feels the soft puff of her breath on his clavicle. She is fine. She is here and she is fine because he will make sure of it.

She feels so light in his arms but he feels she would have a different way to describe herself. He looks down to see her breathing himself, he -he just needs to. But then again, with how fucked his life has been, is it really a wonder? He shudders to think how everything would have been had she never come. Genesis suffering in pain and his body falling apart, Angeal possibly going through the same, Sephiroth himself miserable under Hojo's thumb and possibly being primed to lose his mind. It might never have happened like that, but the possibility was there.

With how Fate herself decided to nerf her, he had a few ideas as to what might have been.

Bella's eyelids flutter ever so slightly and he is suddenly overcome with the desire to lightly caress her lashes.

"What is wrong with her?"

He jolts, acutely very much happy to not have gone through with what his brain suddenly put in front of his frontal lobe. And then he is very much aware of whom he is with and wants to go back to ignoring them. Maybe if he tries he can ignore it into non existence. Children are not his forte, Cloud is a special case. His eyes pan to Weiss and he feels like he's looking at a mirror. It makes him uncomfortable in a way. His own childhood was not pretty and the implication that rests with Weiss stares him in the face.

He doesn't know what to do.

"I don't know." He does, or at least he can make an educated guess, but he doesn't know where he could even start explaining. But Weiss looks him in a way that tells him he knows he is not truthfull. Of course. But he doesn't call him out on it and that smarts. Because he sees the indignation brewing and he knows how that feels. He knows how it feels to know you are fed bullshit and not being able to do anything about it because you have called it out before and the results taught you not to. When the only thing you can do is look and try to make it known you know because you are not stupid and you know and-

"More accurately, I don't fully understand it." He says again. "Bella's magic doesn't work like everyone else's and there are unpredictable consequences when they mix."

"We figured." The red haired little girl chirps only to fall silent again. Weiss shoots her a glance but she is quite elsewhere, humming lowly and dancing around with light steps.

"I can scarcely believe what I see with her." The boy ends up responding with. Did Sephiroth use 'scarcely' at that age. He probably did, he doesn't really remember much of his childhood.

"It's a process." A long one. One he hasn't seen the end of, either.

The boy makes a face. He is definitely younger than Cloud. "She said a few things that didn't make sence."

"They don't at first." Well, they still don't sometimes, like learning a language.

Weiss purses his lips. "I want to make sense of it now."

It's not hurriedness. Weiss' posture is guarded. He doesn't want to get used to it. That is fine. Bella will understand too. But the children don't know that. They probably don't know where they're even going after this. It must be extremely disorienting.

"I can try to explain, but I can't promise it will make sense."


When her eyes opened again it is to a twilight sky. She was in the uppermost surface and as she descends it would become darker, like an ocean even if that metaphor made something...inside, more inside? her wither. Almost drowning in a frigid lake does not a fan of water make, 'nough said.

But then she actually looked down.

Oh that was not okay.

Below her everything was submerged in water. Her inner mind, the protections she'd put in place, the vast sky full of beautiful colours and fluffy clouds and invisible gale force winds because the pretty was there to hide the murder. The whole thing is fucking sunk. Slowly draining, yes, but sunk! In retrospect that's the only fucking way her mind could have been this compromised.

After this she was putting in an actual drain.

The water wasn't normal either. This thing was green hued and she was pretty sure those were screaming faces in the surface if she looked at it from an angle. Oh yeah, the reflection is better in the chains coming up from the bottom. Oh shit, those were still swaying, did the air currents still function? There was gonna be invisible riptides, weren't there? Because why would they not? She had no issue riding invisible winds running at Mach 5 but put water in there and well, Bella and water...underwater...not jiving well.

She wants Nadeshiko.

She took a breath and slapped her cheeks.

Stop bitching.

You can't always rely on everyone else.

'We'll be happy to put you back together'

She sighs. Her shoulders drop.

'It wasn't your fault.'

She takes a deep breath and dives. She could deal with her fucking trauma later.

A shudder wracked her frame. It was hot and cold and most of all it was fucking uncomfortable. And it felt...sentient. It dragged against her, stuck to her limbs and twined in her joints like grasping hands. The water caught on her limbs with a single mindedness to stop her from advancing and the further she got the stronger the drag. Like it knew.

She couldn't fix this now but she could slap together something functional. She grabbed one of the chains coming from the dark depths, half to anchor herself and half for leverage. She pulled it free and tied it around her waist and then caught the closest current. Just dart around, expend as little energy as possible, grab whatever is judged absolutely necessary in regards to free will and then drag it to the surface. Merlin it was a fucking hassle.

The water rushing past her ears almost sounds like words.

Halfway down Bella realized she couldn't completely filter out the influence like she would be comfortable. As if prompted the water's hold becomes gentle and lulling, crooning comfort in her ear. It all feels so heavy, feels like she wants to lie down.

Fuck that, she wasn't doing that. Not when she's dragging behind her a chain full of enough mind matter to start registering as heavy. Her grip on the chain, her sanity was numbing.

She couldn't fix it now, but she could make it so she would register it. And for now that was enough until she got Nadeshiko or Yuri to expunge it all.

Why?

Because fuck you, that's why!


Angeal recognizes that perhaps the worry was probably unfounded. But he is a cautious man, when someone runs up to him yelling to go help his apparent friend, a man can be excused. The way his body just snapped to motion made even his back ache from the recoil. But worry tends to be illogical, even when the people it's directed at may not be people he cares about.

The bow tipped him off. Perhaps it was his mind taking him in a certain direction for the sake of staving off worry, but it gave him pause. He knew the armory that Bella carried, Nadeshiko was a nightmare with a pair of scissors as described by Genesis, he could make an educated guess about Annalise, Bazett he didn't even want to think about, and he'd seen how Tsukiyo worked. That left Sei, who he was pretty sure was a close range fighter, and Yuri, the closest fit since it stood to reason for a healer to be a long ranged fighter, if they chose to be part of the battlefield. But when had this team even conformed to such boring things as logic?

Oh Gaia that sounded way to similar to Genesis. It still didn't fit and those two are catastrophes on legs anyway.

So who is it then?

Is he even going the right way for that matter, it is far too quiet.

A thundering crash breaks the silence and it jolts Angeal out of his thoughts and into a sprint. Whatever and whomever it is he is about to find out.

And he does. The more he runs forward the more evidence he finds of the struggle. The walls are cracked, the floor cratered, entire places where pieces of the linoleum have gotten upturned and ripped out. But he sees no arrows scattered in between the loud displays of carnage.

What he does see is a hole that has been punched through at least three walls, very reminiscent of another lady he stumbled upon. For a moment he wonders if Tsukiyo got here in front of him, even if she's basically on the other side of the map. There's another crash and the sound of people screaming pierces his eardrums. He rushes through, heart in his throat.

He clears the broken open wall and almost loses an eye to an arrow.

Well his thought process wasn't wrong...

He has to applaud her pokerface. Their eyes meet for maybe a fraction of a second before Feng Yu-Heng's focus is back on her opponent. And what an opponent that is too. A monstrous man, his body, his back in particular littered with glittering arrows. A beacon in the darkened hallway. Yu-Heng herself looks slightly battered, her camos are slightly frayed and speckled with dust but she isn't bleeding. She has arrows manifesting and nocked on a bladed bow.

And behind her is a group of civilians huddling against a corner in the far left. And some distance back he can see two bodies.

He doesn't nee to think about it. He's off. His boot finds the man on the temple and sends him flying against, and through, the far right wall. Yu-Heng gives chase while Angeal rushes to the civilians and starts herding them towards the hole he came through. Three older men, and by older he means more than 20, probably, and two younger women. One of the men is injured, holding his side with a bloodied hand. Angeal picks him up in one arm and brings up the rear. His free arm grasps the handle of his blade in its sheath. Behind him he can hear howls of pain and cement shattering.

A shudder blooms right between his shoulders that tells him to hurry the fuck up. His ear are primed to the background noise and even if the loud destruction becomes more distant, the need to get away only becomes more urgent. He feels inexplicably cold and heavy.

Just when the sound of the battle they left behind become nigh inaudible, the feeling of cold becomes exponentially worse. Because the sounds remain, persistently there, refusing to fade...like they are following them. Angeal tenses, the hand gripping the handle tightens to a numbing degree when he hears a wall crumble in the background. And then another one. And another. Closer.

Motherfucker was chasing them!

There is a thundering crash right behind them and Angeal turns on instinct. The sword slides free just in time to catch the man's fist on the flat of the blade. He locks eyes with him for the first time, sees the blazing blue-green of mako and the light of bloodlust and Angeal knows this is not a man anymore. Blue hair is plastered on his forehead, sweat quite possibly dripping into his eyes but the man only grins with glee. "You think you can get away from me?"

Crazed glee. Angeal is surprised he can say words. The way and his grin widens, stretching almost inhumanely, at the shrieks of the people he is chasing, relishing in the fear he elicits is grotesque. The man still on Angeal's arm shudders and clings to him. His ears catch a small "Please."

His arm twist and lets the the punch slide across the blade. It takes Angeal inside the man's guard and he swings.

Maybe Angeal put more force into it than was necessary. When the man is pushed back however, instead of being bisected, Angeal considers that perhaps he should have tried a bit more. Much, much more, he barely fucking gouged him what is this?!

No, he did not just click his tongue, Genesis.

There is something in Angeal that recoils in being close to this man. A frigid shot pierces his back and spreads across his shoulders, numbing and burning and shooting pain in his lungs. Angeal takes advantage of the other's off balance state to plant his boot on the blue haired man's sternum and kick him back as hard as he can without unbalancing himself. Just on time too.

"Eyes on me motherfucker!" he hears Yu-Heng scream right before he hears the arrow fly. The magic somehow sounds heavy as she looses the arrow. Angeal catches a glimpse of golden strings swirling and coalescing before a shining helix is embedded into the back of the man's hand. The sound of it combined with the way the arrow is shaped is viscerally unnerving. It is a flimsy, instinctual, defense that nonetheless keeps his nape guarded. It would have been a debilitating blow. The blue haired man's attention is forced back to Yu-Heng, wrenching the arrow out of his hand with a just as horrible sound. Angeal takes the chance to put more space between him and the man's back. The way he is riddled with the iridescent rays reminds him of a macabrely glowing porcupine.

"Persistent bitch!"

Angeal really wants to see this man go from a porcupine to a pincushion. Mostly since pincushions are not alive-oooh that was really close to Genesis.

He gently deposits the young man to his feet. His side doesn't seem to be bleeding anymore but he is still hunched over. Angeal helps him stand and hands him to the two other men. "Go, he's not getting past me."

In the time it takes him to turn back to the fight he hears another three arrows fly. Somehow Yu-Heng has moved so close to man, she's inside his guard. He raises a meaty arm, heavily telegraphed but no doubt painful if he caught her. Her arms are a blur. A thin ray is embedded straight through his palm and another through the bicep. The swing goes wide and Yu-Heng is inside his guard. Only she is not holding a bow now. Somehow, the bow...snapped(?) closed.

Well, now he knows why the edges are bladed.

The bow is now a curved sword and Yu-Heng just stabbed a man with it. Okay. Cool. His brain goes through a mild aneurism at the shape of the thing because with the way it...closed one of the end has to twist and-

There is no way it is supported by any sort of normal mechanism, is what he's saying.

This entire team is saturated with madness. Endearingly so.

But he is marginally less okay with what is(not) happening, namely that the guy doesn't die. Angeal knows, that stab right there just bisected a kidney and cut into the stomach. Allong with the chaos of arrows, sticking out of the man's back and bleeding heavily, this...guy should be in debilitating pain if not bleeding out and yet.

And yet.

The arm she knocked wide comes down, aimed towards her head. Yu-Heng twists to the side with impeccable grace, wrenching her blade out as she goes and carving even more into his side. But he laughs and charges. Just laughs and laughs and laughs all the way through. Yu-Heng falls back, her blade twisting back open and she gathers magic into coiling strings.

Her back finds the wall.

The helix isn't quick enough to form.

Angeal's heart hammers into his throat. His hand clenches on the handle of his sword and air whistles in his ears. Maybe, if he's quick enough he can divert attention to himself again.

Yu-Heng jumps.

With her boot squarely on the man's face, she swiftly jumps over him. And just like that his back is open. Only this time when her arrows fly he can't guard. The man screams, more animal than man. The arrows are buried deep in his back - lodging in the bone of his shoulder blade, crunching next to the spine, scraping ribs. It's been a long time since he heard noises like these coming from a human being.

And the man tries, he really tries to turn to face her, a snarl twisting his face. He grasps the spiral buried in his shoulder, wrenches it out and even throws it back. His attempt to alter his course fails, he manages to turn partly, but his momentum is too great and it carries him through. When he slams into the wall (inevitably), he does with his back.

And exacerbating the damage. Hopefully.

But the surprise that crossed the man's face in that moment was telling enough.

Angeal has just enough time to gather himself and brake before he slams into her. "That worried me for a bit." He breathes out as Yu-Heng lands in front of me. He looks at her prompting for an explanation.

"Sorry about that." she pants lightly.

"You took him by surprise" he states simply.

"Tanked the previous ones. Not many thankfully." she sighs. Angeal grimaces. Dodging out of the way is not an option when that leaves the wounded behind you open. "Motherfucker has been going at the civilians. Something-something the weak die." The rubble moves, getting displaced from movement underneath. "Didn't pay attention to the rest of the bullshit."

With little more forewarning, the man bursts from the rubble amidst an explosion of debris and dust. He is very unsteady on his feet but he is till standing and gearing up. Angeal makes a sound in the back of his throat, half disbelieving, half questioning and Yu-Heng rolls her eyes skywards and with a whine. "He apparently has no pain receptors and there is something going on with his skin. I'd say Enhancement but this isn't Earth. He should have bled out already so I'm guessing there's some sort of regeneration going on too." she clicks her tongue "Fucking liquid grudges!"

Yes, he really should be dead by now. The blood dripping off of him is profuse as is and adrenaline can only do so much. It is clear that this man was...made to counter people like her. Well, that's what happens when you inject someone with the 'instant possession juice' that is Stagnant Mako, Bella's words not his. That's the best guess Angeal has as to why this guy isn't dying.

But the man is stumbling. At least. "We are going to have to drag it out aren't we?" Angeal says, readying his sword again. At some point the souls powering him are going to run out of energy. So the Behemoth treatment it is.

Yu-Heng's bow disappears in a burst of light and its place takes a sawed off shotgun, the metal glowing with a particularly destructive array of runes. Her other hand closes around a spectral arrow, holding it like a dagger. "I had thoughts about how fighting a Tsviets could go but I wasn't expecting the answer to be annoying." she laments. "At some point I'll need you to take his attention off me.

"Barrier?"

She glances at him and he can glimpse the barest idea of a smirk "Purifying barrier." with the composition of the Mako he's pumped with that would be the equivalent of a poison field.

With a nod he readies his materia "Done."

She cracks her neck and they lunge.

.

.

.

Wait, this guy is a Tsviets?


He feels Bella's breaths change on his collarbone. Sephiroth turns his attention to her and conversation stops as she stirs in his arms. The children, and he is counting Dog Sirius here too, flock to him to see. But only Sirius is uncaringly obvious about it, even Rosso acts like she just noticed and was just following the other two. She moves her neck around a bit, working the kinks out but doesn't open her eyes. Slowly she starts to flex her limbs trying to get some movement going. She groans long sufferingly. "Lord I fucking hate that". She tries to move her arm around his shoulders and the joints click loudly in protest.

They both wince. "Don't push yourself." Sephiroth murmurs, hopes she'll take him up on it.

Bella slumps back in his arms with another groan. "Didn't manage to find a room?"

He hums "You didn't take long."

She moves her free arm slowly trying to get the movements right "It sure didn't fucking feel like it." she snarks.

"How are you now?"

"Not good, but better. I'll be able to actually distinguish now." she sighs. Her ankle makes a series of very painful sounding clicks when she rotates it. "But I just know I'm going to be having a bad time when I deal with it." There is a pause as she tries to move her lag as a whole only to get a sad little twitch. Sephiroth really hopes this is enough to get her to stop and actually rest- "Magic it is then."

Of course she's not.

"Bella please-" he does his best to channel Angeal at his most nagging, something that is infinitely more effective when Dog Sirius picks that exact moment to whimper. But the woman furrows her brow and she kneads the bridge of her nose.

"The voices in my head really don't like you Seph." she drones, flopping her head on his collarbone, out of spite he bets. He is torn between horror at the statement itself, or incredulity at the nonchalance of it.

"That sounds like a bad joke." Weiss says, walking right next to Sephiroth. He isn't sure if the boy trusts in him or Bella.

Bella herself chuckles mirthlessly "Weiss, my entire life is a bad joke." Sephiroth has the urge to pinch the bridge of his nose and laments both his arms being occupied. With impeccable timing Bella taps him on the shoulder, indicating she wants to be put down. She even kicks her feet like the shaky movement he sees is ever going to convince him. He shoots her a look and gets a blank one in return, but he complies nonetheless. Part of him reminds him that she can float away anyway so he's not stopping her no matter what he wants to do.

Slowly and carefully he lowers her and deposits her on shaky feet. His arm is immediately around her waist before she even tries to walk, making sure her legs can actually support her. And maybe it's also a reminder that he will pick her up again and if she floats off, he'll get to it when it happens.

No he's not being paranoid(clingy), what are you talking about?

"I'm not going to fall on my face Seph."

"Humor me."

She sighs. For a moment a sad smile twists her lips "I really worried you, didn't I?"

Sephiroth sees the cogs in her mind turn and he already knows the direction they're heading to "It wasn't your fault." he stamps it down immediately. And because he knows how she works "And because I know you won't believe me, Cloud tried to scry and he was blocked."

She tensed "Annie said that too. I need to stop doing that, don't I?" she groans. "And I really need to have that talk with the Big Boss. It is so much worse than I imagined, fuck."

Sephiroth has to swallow down the retort forming in his tongue that she didn't imagine it happening because she didn't put her own safety along with theirs, that she had explicitly stated was not in question years back.

"That's the second time mentioning this Boss." Weiss' tone is low and accusing.

Bella's foot goes from under her, twisting her abruptly and she almost slips out of his arms. She manages to salvage it before he has to stabilize her but Sephiroth still looks at her very blankly, eyes panning from her death grip on his arm to her very awkwardly propped legs. She sticks her tongue out at him and turns to address Weiss. "Nah, he's not my boss in that sense. He just set me out in the world and gave me free reign."

That. "That is...objectively true." Sephiroth mutters. But also very ominous.

Weiss' face takes on a disdainful grimace "How very irresponsible of you "Boss"."

He lets the laughter that bubbles up free. Genesis would love Weiss if the boy decides to stick around.

And then the lights flicker.

Benign, really.

The lights flicker again and this time they are not alone in the hallway. Sephiroth takes a look at his phone to check the map. Oh, so they're in Nadeshiko's zone then.


In the darkness a figure can be discerned a ways away. And it stares. A giggle resounds in the claustrophobic hallway. The lights flicker and as light floods the hallway the figure is gien. Only to reappear when it all sinks into darkness again. Only it's closer now. The small figure of a child blinks in and out along with the light as they rush in a flurry of fabrics.

Just before the figure would be near enough to discern a face the lights blink and the moment they come back on, the figure is right into Bella's personal space - thank fuck he didn't call her Bells out loud too. Nicknames. And she even called the General one too - the Sephiroth, The General, the man he was made to best. They are not just allies they are friends.

A multi-pitched giggle resounds in the emty space and the figure runs right into Bella's legs. She stumbles a bit and the child looks up at her with a wide grin. "Hello" she coos at the grinning child. It's a little girl and now she is very solid. Weiss doesn't recognize her. Her features remind him a bit of Argento, just the shape of the eyes. Wutaian maybe? The little girl raises her hands to Bella, clearly indicating she wants to be picked up and Weiss notices she is not as solid a he's first thought. As she raises her arms, the fabrics covering the slip down to reveal transparent fingers. Bella herself isn't even phased. She pushes herself off of Sephiroth, smoothly starts floating again and just picks up the little girl. The fabrics pool on her arms, half of them solid, half of them see through and they just fall and fall until they pool to the ground, like a waterfall.

The lights stop flickering. That's what he thinks at first. But they only work in one particular expance of the hallway. Off in the distance the light still flicker. And just at the edge on the light stands the figure of a woman.

"'Misery is waiting at the gates of Armageddon'." It comes out of nowhere and resounds in the hallway. The woman is way too far but it is so clear.

Weiss has to take a minute to process the jumble of words that has just assaulted his ears.

Bella stops dead in midair, blinking rapidly "Excuse me, the fuck?"

Yes. Same.

"Answer the fucking question." The woman drawls and the little girl clutching Bella's shoulders laughs. That smile looks sinister somehow.

Bella rolls her eyes very openly but answer anyway "'Raging fires will burn the very souls of dead and dying.' Do you want me to do the next verse too?" She leans so far back she is basically sitting on the air and crosses her legs. The little girl squeals and snuggle further into her arms.

What? That gives no answers at all.

But the lights stop flickering and something...lifts. Weiss hadn't noticed but now that it's gone it feels lighter, easier to breathe. The woman approaches with no further preamble, her steps quick and light, they barely make a sound on the tiles. Among the cast of...colorful characters they met because of her, he can believe that those two have some kind of relation, they look so similar. The height, the build the hair, the only difference Weiss can see are the eyes, fathomless black, the only part of her face not covered by her mask. They are even similarly splattered in blood, only somehow this woman makes it seem...elegant in a way, instead of the terror Bella inspires.

"The fuck? You running a daycare?" The way they talk too, apparently. Part of him wants to laugh along with the giggling child perched her on Bella's lap.

Ma'am you cannot just restart an interaction like that!

Bella tilts her head and cocks a brow. The other just looks at Bella searchingly. The look she shoots at both her and Sephiroth is knowing. "Look, I can appreciate the theatrics but this is a bit much." she chooses to say, crossing her arms. Sephiroth takes a few steps back, nudging Weiss and the others to follow too. Maybe give them some privacy?

"But Shiko~. It was the perfect opportunity." Bella whines. Whines.

Also, opportunity for what?

Shiko cocks up a brow. The little girl's giggles are drowned out when a torrential downpour engulfs Bella with a snap of her fingers. Out of nowhere, like a well has opened above her. The rush is not able to completely drown out her squeak of displeasure. The water runs red and keeps running. It runs until it pools underneath her and the two women are standing in their own little lake of red. When the deluge finally stops Bella stands there, shoulders hunched, dripping and looking like a drowned rat. A terrifying, floating rat.

Ah, that's why then.

Bella rights herself in the air in some approximations of a standing position and even more red splats down. Just how much of the stuff did she have on her? With a notable amount of concern he notices the child is nowhere to be seen.

"Did you fucking have to?!" Bella exclaims, glaring at the other woman. Weiss privately thinks the whole thing warranted more than the exasperation he was seeing in her eyes. But she wrings her hair calmly, reddish pink splashing on the ground and lab coat. He shoots a quick look at Sephiroth and the man just looks on at the interaction with a slight upturn on his lips, like it's fucking normal.

Like the one before, Annalise, this one hands Bella a wrapped package as well. "Use it." And there is no negotiating it, Shiko stares Bella down.

Bella just whines again but moves to open it anyway. "Why are you ruining my fun? You're always right beside me in this kind of stuff." Weiss is impressed and suddenly afraid. But Sephiroths's stance is - He is content! He doesn't want to call that upturn a smile, but for him, Weiss thinks it fucking is. Combined with that glint-

Something moves in the direction of the two women, and he turns to see the woman with the mask holding a sheet around Bella. "It's not hygienic." The woman lectures. "You don't know where that viscera has been."

What did he just hear?

"Inside someone?" Bella snipes back with an amount of snark that would have gotten him locked in solitary. Well, before today. The sheet shifts as an elbow juts out and he sees the very sodden, beyond salvation lab coat splash into the puddle at her feet. He has no idea where that sheet came from and he doesn't care to know. Rosso lets out a little disheartened whine.

Shiko cocks up a brow. Less than half her face is visible yet he knows she is completely unimpressed. "And do you know where these someones have been? I doubt they were even tested."

Fucking excuse me, lady?

When the sheet is finally lowered Bella is dressed, in actual clothes. Rosso whines again, louder. Weiss wouldn't bother, the clothes are very, very white. It really defeats the purpose but Weiss' fucks have all expired. A wide sleeved, thick white overcoat with a short lace trimmed cape held closed with a chain belt. He can see a dark blue fabric peeking underneath, possibly a skirt. She nudges the lab coat with a bare toe "Hey Rosso, Do you want to make a cape out of this?"

"Yes!" she runs past him with an overjoyed shout and Weiss can only stare. Rosso reaches Bella as the woman shakes the fabric off and also, apparently, dry. Because of course. He is absolutely astonished at the amount of trust Rosso is putting on a woman she just met. Her hands are way too close to her neck, yet Rosso lets the woman place the labcoat over her shoulders where it stays and flares out in a non existent wind.

Shiko crosses her arms and stares, her stance just oozing judgement. Batshit entrance aside, perhaps this one is...normal-ish. "Well, aren't you adorable?"

He stands corrected.

Bella straightens the heavy looking garb, lowers herself to the floor just to hops in place to let it fall correctly and starts pulling on a pair of gloves that he thinks at some point used to be white. She looks at her friend, tugs the gloves a final time and perches a hand on her hip. "If you think I am putting anything other than squeaky clean feet in my nice boots then you are fucking delusional."

Okay, Weiss can understand that.

"If you get tetanus I will laugh at you."

"As if. If I get anything it will be this one obscure, fuck-off thing that happens in one in a million cases." Bella drawls and wrings her hair again, little watery red droplets already staining the fabric. "I'm too good for something so passé as tetanus."

How is this the woman that massacred her way through Deepground? And Sephiroth chuckles, he chuckles!

"Oh also, can you do me a solid and check how the mental interferences are going?"

No, seriously. How?

This Shiko woman is quickly becoming his favourite, solely for giving Bella the look that sentence deserved.

But Rosso is happy and bouncing on her feet, Nero is calm and dozing, so go off, whatever.

Sephiroth walks up to the women, taking the sheet and helping Bella dry her hair.

Yeah, that smile is fucking dopey.

Also, where is the little girl?

And then Shiko puts her hands on Bella's temples and they just stand there. In the middle of the hallway. Like sitting ducks!

Just when he's starting to feel the anxiety settling in, Shiko pulls back. He catches her eyes and for a moment he would have sworn to have glimpsed something far deeper. "You are not going to like the aftermath." So that was confirmation. But rather than the shudder the mere thought inspires in him, Bella just nods and accepts it, like she knew already.

It dawns on him that she did. He thought she was going through a bad episode, he'd seen people have them in Deepground. But to call it mental interferance- "Did you get injected with anything?" He is broken out of his thoughts as something drops in his stomach. That was a very specific question to be hearing a second time.

"Funny, Annie said the same." Bella sounds resigned "So I'm going to say no, to my knowledge."

"You were." Sephiroth steps up, because it is not to his knowledge. "Before they sent us, they showed us the CCTV footage before it was cut. The man you killed gave you a dose of what I believe to be stagnant Mako."

"Makes sense." she shrugs. Shrugs! It doesn't. How did they even get to "Stagnant Mako"?

"So you basically shot up vengeful ghost juice." Weiss feels a hand clamp on his wrist. Nero looks at him concerned. "What I would have done here normally is overpower those souls with a stronger one, aka one of mine," Bella suddenly hisses, hand flying to rub her temple "but with how they are reacting with your magic I don't know how it will affect you." Shiko continues unflappable even if her relative(?) is in obvious pain.

Rosso herds herself back to them as distreectly as she can.

"You mean how it's all sunk?" Bella herself seems to treat the pain as a background detail, tone too nonchalant for the way she is clutching her head. "Oh they didn't like that." Absently, Weiss wishes he was that good at operating under duress.

"Basically. The only ones who can overpower the ocean's worth of resentment is either Qiqi or Sulung. Wanna try shoving either of those two in the tight little space your mind has left? I'll give you a hint, you're not pushing anything out faster and there is no inflation."

"I don't like the way you put that."

"Sure. Anyway the Basilisk venom you have in your bloodstream," what even are words anymore? "is working on expunging the Mako, but it would be best to have Yuri and Annie drain it for you. I strongly advice you be out of here when they do. From what you described of that one incident in Wutai, I would wager the pain you'll be in is going to be debilitating."

Weiss' entire focus is on the word drain.

Frankly, he doesn't understand a thing they're saying and he really doesn't want to. He's still stuck at the fact that they called the shots dead souls. Which is preposterous. They take constant doses of the stuff, the doctors say they need them or they'll die and they have obviously been working. How would that even work? It just isn't correct.

Right?

"Oh shit, you didn't tell them!?" Fucking damnit he spoke out loud! Again!

"It didn't exactly come up in conversation!" Bella sputters, clutching her head.

"It really doesn't." Sephiroth takes hold of her arm, eyes openly showing concern.

Weiss' feet take him a few steps back without his say-so. "What are you even saying? It doesn't make any sense." He tries to sound curious rather than allarmed. Souls? Really? His gut is twisting at the thought. He wants to gag. But he can't appear like a possible threat to these people. He can't take all of them and he will not be the reason his brother dies when they are so close to freedom.

He feels Nero's hand tighten on his wrist and even Rosso steps closer to them.

Bella turns to them fully, her face unreadable. His stomach becomes heavy. "Did anyone tell you what was in the Mako they used?"

Is she trying to gauge how much he knows? If he said he didn't, wouldn't that give her the chance to tell him whatever she wanted regardless of truth? If he said he knew, what if she caught him in a lie? But the woman takes his silence as an answer.

She stands straighter, her pain diminished or otherwise ignored. "I really doubt you will believe whatever I tell you." she says sullenly.

Weiss stiffens. Is this it? Do they need to run? Can they even make it if they do? What comes out of her mouth next-

"Would showing you files suffice?" She catches him by surprise. What?

What files?

"I'd say all of them." At this point Weiss doesn't care that he apparently spoke aloud again.

"Why?" Because apparently the filter is fucking gone. Does he care that he sounds almost hysterical? Not really. "It doesn't serve you!"

Bella makes a sound in the back of her throat and he sees Sephiroth- actually what is the man's face doing? It looks...not pained but- Bella's hands move and he stiffens. Her hand however very slowly is run through her hair, where it starts winding her hair up. "I don't operate like that, I don't do kindness to benefit from it. All I want is to help."

What bullshit! Utopian, a fairytale, absolutely doesn't exist!

"And you expect me to believe that?!" Her eyes widen but even if he doesn't detect malice, he still feels goosebumps "You come here, telling me that everything I know is a lie but 'Oh don't worry, I conveniently happen to have the exact thing you so conveniently need. And also I don't want anything in return.'? I'm a child yes, but I'm not stupid!"

Bella's expression turns into one of hurt while Sephiroth looks pained.

"You are being called out by a child." Shiko snarks.

"Please Nadeshiko, not the time." The General damn near begs. Another fucking nickname, good, they're completely fucked. Her words linger strangely. They should be doing something, they should be perhaps comforting but Weiss didn't want to even consider them to be true.

Bella pats Sephiroth on the shoulder like it's him that needs comforting. She goes to say something but Nadeshiko cuts her off. "Look kid." Weiss bristles but the woman pays it no mind. "Yes, you are a kid, I'm twenty seven, you're less than half my age. And outside this hellhole, people usually don't treat kids like they do in here. But I know that sounds hollow and unrealistic to you." She takes a few very measured steps, standing now between her friends? and them. "I will even bet there has been at least one cruel asswipe that said something." Weiss's chest tightens "Only to tear your hopes down just to see your reaction. I can't possibly know what that exactly was, but I've been there." He wants to call her a liar but he can't. Her tone stays monotonous but he cannot find it in himself. There is this feeling in him, something visceral that tells him she's telling the truth. "I threw him down the stairs." she shrugs with a particularly vindictive undertone to her voice. Weiss had stabbed him. Maybe he wants her to be genuine but- "The point is this. We are strong." Far stronger than him and Nero and Rosso combined. It makes him shudder. And it made it worse, facing his own weakness, his uselessness. "Matter of fact, we are so strong, there is nothing we could gain from you that we can't get ourselves."

"Then why?!" He clenches his fists. There's a prickle in his eyes. "Why bother if you don't want something?"

"Oh we do. Bella got this strong so that I could protect others like me. I think Seph is the same. I did just so I could do whatever the hell I wanted." She said so flipantly, like it was a normal thing to say and not utopic, unrealistic bullshit. "And you see, when you get to our level, there aren't enough people left that can actually stop you." She starts coming closer and even if he wants to, his legs don't carry him backwards. "Basically I do it for my own satisfaction." He hears shuffling and he sees his brother sitting up, his eyes open and ready but not afraid. He's curious Weiss realizes. And Rosso is much the same. She falls back, willing to let him handle this but she doesn't hold herself with readiness for battle.

Nadeshiko stops in front of them and couches down, her arms on her thighs. "To tell you the truth, I didn't understand why Bella was helping me all those, what ten years? Ten years, yeah. Fuck I'm old." she laughs. "But I needed help so I took it fully intending to either ditch or stab her in the back and then ditch. But then a whole world of opportunities opened up in front of me and I decided to stay." He can't see it but he knows there is a smile under her mask. "Bottom line is, you don't need to trust us." And then her eyes lock with his and he can't look away. "I will give you a vow, right here right now, that neither I nor Bella will hurt you and I will put my life on it. And Seph too," she pulls back and turns just to face Sephiroth. "You good with that Seph?" The man has his hand to his face, looking done. She doesn't wait for a response and turns to face him again. "We will show you our backs and you can fucking stab it, but we will not do anything."

Her eyes are so dark. "You are so stupid."

"Who's going to stop me?"

"Brother." Nero speaks up but Weiss doesn't need to look to know.

He sighs "Fine." He snags the cloud his brother sits on and drags it past Nadeshiko and towards Bella and Sephiroth. "Let's go get those files." He doesn't look at them but he sees Bella start floating again. Nadeshiko comes to stand next the her and they start moving again.

He catches Rosso from the corner of his eye following them, riding on the dog that is also a person-

He gives up.


"Did you really plan to stab her in the back?" Sephiroth asks, not exactly sure how to feel about it.

"Oh yeah, I even had a plan to get away form Gakusei."

"Huh." Bella hums. It is not the sound of surprise he expected, but of understanding. "Wait, he knew?" Wait, Bella had known?

"He was onto me from the start." Nadeshiko chuckles "I didn't like it so I reacted bitchily in return. And then when I decided to stay I just kept it up because annoying him was fun."

"You are such a fucking gremling." Bella floats closer, leaning heavily on her friend.

"Are you sure you want to say that to me, Miss Alma Wade Cosplay?"

"How exactly did you take it?" Sephiroth just has to ask. These two, he couldn't imagine them as anything other than best of friends. After all, it was Shiko that stayed with her for what was basically years.

"..." Only silence comes from the witch in question. Tellingly.

She just blamed herself, didn't she?

"You know her. Guess."

The clicking of his tongue was all that was needed. "And how did you decide to stay?"

"What can I say, she charmed me." Nadeshiko shrugs nonchalantly. Her hand grabs the other woman's waist bringing her close.

Sephiroth imagines a sullen seventeen year old Nadeshiko, trying to pretend to be Bella's friend by trying to one-up Gakusei and somehow along the way finding that pretending had stopped a long while ago and he can only laugh.


A Commander, a military doctor, a human experiment and an Irish Enforcer walk together down a halway splattered in blood and gore. Sounds kinda like a joke, doesn't it?

It kind of is.

Why's the scourgify not working? Because apparently Mako plus Magic plus Prana do weird things together. It's why the blood has congealed into jello.

.

"Why won't you die already, bitch!?"

"I live to disappoint!"

Angeal has thoughts about that but now isn't the time to ask.

"Then feel the wrath of Azul the Cerulean!"

Oh the edge. But finally, he enters Limit Break? They're finally getting somewhere.

And then the man turns into a Behemoth. His bulk takes up most of the hallway, his horns are piercing the ceiling but there's no care for the debris falling on his face. He knew he said 'Behemoth treatment' but this was too much. "Yu-Heng, unless you can have something firing anti-tank rounds, guns are not going to be usefull."

She clicks her tongue and exchanges the assault rifle for the bow-blade in its blade form. "I should have packed the fucking bazooka."

And then the thing starts to glow. The back lights up-

"Answerer!"

When asked later, Angeal would say that he had this impression. He had this image in his mind of magic projectiles and gouging arcs and debris and dust. Curiously, his limbs felt a fantom tension, the tremors of running and his shoulders ached with a blow blocked. Or it felt like it should have.

"Fragarach!"

Because everything was over.

The Behemoth that was once Azul twitches and falls heavy to the ground. Angeal can see a hole on his back.

"Is everyone alright?" And Bazett comes running, face carefully blank. Behind her there is another woman with black hair, one eye covered and in a Deepground uniform. He tenses for a second but Bazett catches it and shakes her head. As they come closer, Angeal can see her eyes lingering on the fallen Behemoth, the body still twitching and the back glowing from whatever attack he was unable to execute.

The hallway is almost blocked and the two women stop just behind the corpse. "Yes, we're good." Yu-Heng answers, hands on her knees and panting slightly, now that she can relax. Bazett takes that as enough confirmation and the two women cautiously stick to the wall as far away from the corpse and start coming closer. The corpse twitches again, only this is a bit stronger than before. They all freeze, their eyes snapping to the body. Something in the chest area twitches and that was all the warning they get.

.

"Again, I apologize." Bazett had gone from cold professionalism to holding her hand to her face in utter despondency.

"Don't, Bazett. I'm amazed he had that much blood left in him at all." he tries to placate her.

"Really I'm just as much at fault for not having the foresight to bring the big guns." Yu-Heng pats the other woman's shoulder but Bazett seems insistent.

"That is untrue. The mission location is a lab, there is not enough space, not for artillery or for your stronger magic. You couldn't have known that you'd encounter something like this."

That is not the point against her she thinks it is. Angeal starts having an understanding about her and Bella.

"Right back at you. Am I correct to assume that it's the first time you've seen something like that?"

She nods very reluctantly. "I still shouldn't have used Fragarach that way." She runs her hand down her face. They are so splattered at this point they can't get any more dirty, or gross.

Angeal holds back a sigh "Behemoths are a menace to the Planet and humanity at large. I will argue that you really should have." Gaia knows only Seph can deal with Behemoths this quickly and it is not an one-shot.

"Yeah! The only thing that gets that big back home are dragons and we both know what kind of threat they are considered. Do you really expect me to be mad that you for going for the one-shot?"

"I've seen Golems." she mutters, like she wants to be fucking blamed. Yu-Heng elbows her in the ribs in retaliation and while Bazett doesn't seem to even flinch she does huff, shooting Yu-Heng an apologetic look.

"I don't believe it was your...magic that caused the reaction." Argento speaks up "Azul was a new recruit and had a rare high sensitivity for...Stagnant Mako. The technicians have been rushing through the procedures. As well as some more...experimental ones. More than usual at least."

"See? It was the rush job. I'll bet it was the attack that didn't have the chance to get loosed. The energy that didn't have an outlet." When Bazett looks hesitant still, Yu-Heng continues "If you are not going to blame me for not bringing the rocket launcher then you are not going to blame yourself for bringing the magical equivalent of it."

Bazett stares astonished "magical equivalent of a rocket launcher." she mutters, her eyes unfocused.

"The only reason you are so hung up on it is, I'm assuming, that we are splattered. Are you going to blame me the scourgify not working?"

"Of course not!"

"Yu-Heng, I have a group of civilians, do you think you could take a look at them?" Angeal draws the attention elsewhere because he has seen Genesis digging his heels like that. Ιt is nothing but an exercise in futility.

The woman snaps to him so fast he thinks he hears her neck creak. She nods immediately, before the words have even fully left his mouth. "I can do that, I have a small part of the map left to go, but it should be within schedule."

"I can do it." Bazett interjects. To Angeal it sounds like a declaration rather than the fact it is "Prioritize the survivors and I will cover what ground is left." With every word she becomes even more resolute until in he end her back is straight and she tightens her gloves. Yu-Heng accepts it with a nod but her eyes linger on Argento.

"Would you like to come with me Argento-san?" the woman starts, like she didn't expect to be taken into consideration "I know Shifu cleared you but I know Bazzy hits like a freight train, maybe you'd like a rest?"

Argento pauses, before inclining her head. "I would not be averse to that," there is a certain reluctance there "if you thought it prudent. I could also point us to a shower room, if you are not too concerned about time."

Bazett runs a tight ship, huh?

Yu-Heng nods very matter of factly "I do think it prudent. And a chance to get the grime off is very much welcome. It should give me a chance to take a look at that shoulder, there are certain things I can do that Yuri can't."

Angeal nods to himself. As Argento moves next to Yu-Heng, he goes to take her place next to Bazett "Alright. Then-"

He doesn't even take three steps "Where do you think you're going?"

"Um-"

"No. You're coming with me too, I wan't to see why you're favouring that one shoulder too."

He does what? "I am?"

Yu-Heng for her part just looks at him unimpressed. "Yes, the left one."

On instinct Angeal rolls his shoulder and he is surprised to feel it throb. He must have made a face because the witch looks smugly, the 'I told you so.' all but voiced. Though, if it had been going on long enough without him noticing, it arguably-

"Do not finish that thought." Yu-Heng's voice cuts through his thoughts. The dangerous edge tells him she is fully able and willing to drag him with her.

"You should get checked, I will be fine." Bazett adds, pulling her gloves tighter. Angeal is slightly concerned because while she doesn't look like she needs it, the occasional bit of medical attention would never be remiss, nothing to say about the gore. And Yu-Heng seems to share the thought process.

Wordlessly she cocks an eyebrow and beckons Bazett closer. When the enforcer pauses, the witch clicks her tongue, a sound that manages to get across resignation, annoyance and dismay at such volumes, Bazett almost runs to comply. "Please, save your energy for someone who needs it." she urges even as she lets Yu-Heng place her fingertips on her solar plexus. A complex array of runes lights up on her wrist, followed closely by her fingertips.

"I recharge quickly." she dismisses. "If not there should be one of those ethers somewhere around here. Now shut up, the three scrapes you have will not strain me. Why would you even let them when you're this splattered, do you want a fucking infection?"

Bazett looks like she's contemplating running anyway.


"I hate this." Bella drawls, floating in front of a monitor.

"I know and I agree." Sephiroth drawls in front of another, actually sitting like a sensible person.

"What fucking letter are you?" Nadeshiko yells from across the room in front of yet another monitor.

"C."

"H."

"Well I'm still on J." Weiss can hear the salt "Fucking Hell, multimillion, possibly billion company and they couldn't afford digital storage for more that 4gigs?"

"Eh, I'm sure The President's house needed more gold in the ceiling." Bella snarks, the clicking of the buttons resounding perhaps louder than necessary. "Wait, how the fuck did you get to H already?" she swivels to look at Sephiroth who was almost at the end of his allotted four letters.

"Paperwork."

"I'm so glad we're burning this place." Bella sighs and her monitor flickers again.

Honestly Weiss doesn't understand the extreme reaction.

"Why is this thing so hard to operate?" Nadeshiko groans "It's like I'm trying to work Linux."

"Fuck the software, these charlatans need a bloody organizing system."

"Belladonna Melania Potter, when we get out of here, you are giving Andrew a fucking raise!"

The nickname had a nickname. Of course it did. Thankfully he didn't use it at all.

"I certainly fucking am. If that's what he had to deal any time he pilfered files for me then he is the unsung fucking hero of this entire clusterfuck."

That was very true from a certain aspect. The way files were organized. Subjects were listed in the projects they belonged and it was the projects themselves that were organized alphabetically. That was made more complicated by including all the experiments the subjects were used for, which tended to have crossover between projects. So in that order, Project A, standing for Artichoke, included Εxperiment No-7#68, using subjects 7-017, 7-028 and 19-006_3, the later of which belonged in Εxperiment Νο-19#03. 19-006_3's file was listed in that experiment, which belonged to Project H. The only reason Weiss knew that was because he had had a conversation with 19-006_3 and she was pretty vocal about her cellmates and how at least that project was less painful than Harrow. Weiss saw a footman drag her in the direction of the incinerator two weeks later, still alive but in a vegetative state.

Point is, navigating the files was hard if you weren't one of the higher up scientists that already knew where to look for and had access to all the field notes. Weiss had once had the chance to glimpse at the board in Durr's office. It had been the single most convoluted, disorganized Mess he had seen in his relatively short life.

"Halleluja!"

"You found something?"

"I found Chaton's files!" Who? Do they know more people in here? Bella-Belladonna rockets through the air to hover right over Nadeshiko's shoulder. Rosso makes a grab at the floating skirt, getting a hold of it and trailing behind the woman

"Wait really? What does it say?" Belladonna puts her chin on Nadeshiko's shoulder. Her legs float upwards like they're underwater as she dangles one arm over Nadeshiko's shoulder and the other absently runs down Rosso's head. Weiss is absolutely astounded by how quickly she's taken to the woman.

"Subject 16-109 freshly weaned of subject 16-109-1 was chosen for the injection of Mako of the Stagnant variety in utero, due to favourable results pertaining to subject 16-109-1's Mako sensitivity."

Weiss freezes. It takes him a second to swallow what he heard, to realize. That is his subject number. He vaguely registers the confirmation they're actually there for, the Stagnant Mako.

"From this moment henceforth both subject 16-109-1 and new subject 16-109-2 will be treated with Stagnat treatments so as to..."

Weiss stops listening. That is Nero's number. This was their mother's file. They had found their mother's file. His eyes snap to the side to meet his brother's. He's standing up straight and his eyes are just as wide as his own. Unconsciously, almost unaware, Weiss' feet move him, taking him to stand a little way behind Nadeshiko. There's a picture on the corner. The woman on the screen looks so much like Nero. Or more appropriately, Nero looks like her. Her hair is chopped short and curly, the same black as Nero's. He supposes him and his brother got their straight hair from whomever their father was. But her eyes are unlike both of theirs, a vibrant, dark magenta, littered with slivers of green, like the Mako had slashed her irises open and nestled in there to fill the gaps.

It's the first time he sees what their mother looked like.

These people know, knew their mother.

"Fucking Hell I want to gut the guy writing this, doctor...Leid. Get fucked Leid." Belladonna picks up after Nadeshiko. "For 16-109-2's conception, the same method will be used as 16-109-1, and as per procedure, genetic material from Project G-wait a fucking second! Subject G is Genesis! Our Genesis!"

Genesis as in Genesis Rapsodos? One of the two Commanders of ShinRa?

Sephiroth's back straightens and he starts approaching as well, before Belladonna's voice stops him. "Sephiroth, you do not want to see how they describe the splicing procedure. Poor fucking Shattona and poor fucking babies!"

"Holy fucking shit." Nadeshiko's voice is breathy. For the first time since he met her, Weiss hears motion from her. He doesn't know how to process it. "Wait, does that mean they also have J-cells?!"

"What are J-Cells?" Weiss is surprised by his own brother's voice. He barely talks as is, but his brother is this detached only in the few times he's fighting.

Belladonna lets out a hissing sound and Nadeshiko curses. Weiss heart drops. They shouldn't have asked. Belladonna looks at them with her face pinched. "Can we do that later? After we get out?" she asks imploringly but it only makes Weiss break out in goosebumps.

He is tense as he looks back, making sure his face is set in a blank mask "The reason we are here is so you prove to us that you were telling us the truth about our Mako injections." He swallows. "Are you now trying to hide information?" His voice thankfully stays blank through the accusation. The attention has waves of frost running down his spine but it's better him than his brother.

He is expecting a fight. Everything has been way to good up till now and he has been waiting for the other shoe to drop. Frankly, it is ridiculous that it took this long. But he doesn't get that. Instead Nadeshiko puts her head on her hands, eerily silent and Belladonna herself, seems to just...crumble. He doesn't know what that expression on her face is. Well, he does, intellectually, he recognizes it as 'sadness'. But it looks...more. Just more.

Her eyes are shining.

"I'm not trying to hide anything." she says lowly. She doesn't break eye contact, which is rare when people are lying to him. "It's just." she grimaces and Weiss readies himself for an excuse. Okay. He can do this. He can say he believes her and they will go back to how it was before. And then, they'll see about the then. "It's a lot." she says. "It was a lot when Seph, Gen and Geal found that out and the situation was far more ideal than now." Ah, so it would be 'too long to explain'. His teeth grind.

And then Belladonna tilts her head, her brows furrowed even more. For a second he worries he slipped up and showed his emotions in his face. She looks torn. He can see the cogs turning in her head. "If you want to we can explain, just." she gestures wildly "It's just a lot."

It's a trap. What even is he supposed to say to that? If he says yes then he is forcing them to explain something they don't want and a fight breaks out. If he says no, then he is refuting his previous words and if there's one thing worse than indecisiveness it's being unconvincing about it. He won't fool them and a fight will break out. Either way he shoe drops and they can't fight all of them.

Rosso tugs at Belladona's skirt. Weiss has half a second to be overwhelmed by foreboding. "We want to know now."

His eyes snap to her, his expression runs away from him. Holy fucking shit, do you want to die?!

But Rosso looks back at him impassively, seemingly unable to understand the situation. The tension is hurting his legs and arms and he turns back to Belladonna in what he hopes looks like calm.

Three identical frowns look back at him. They know.

Sephiroth sighs. Weiss inhales.

And then Sephiroth speaks. "Genesis, Angeal and I all have J-cells." He is answering? "They are cells harvested from and organism known as Jenova."

The word organism makes shudders run rampant down his spine. "Jenova?" it comes out of him without his say so. His voice sounds foreign even to himself. He immediately regrets talking and part of him, deep down tells him it's not just that. But he needs to know.

Sephiroth complies and answers. "Jenova was excavated from the Northern Crater about thirty years ago. It was submerged in Mako and completely untouched by decay. At the moment it was believed to be the corpse of an Ancient, dating back to the war that wiped them out."

His ears start to buzz.

"Hojo however knew that was not the case." Hojo. The lauded Professor of Deepground. Every single experiment, project and procedure was approved by him. He always had the last word and wis word was Law. His name was always spoken quietly, either in reverence or utter hatred. "He knew that rather than an Ancient, Jenova was an alien organism. And he fully believed, and still does, that it was Jenova that wiped out the Ancients." The buzz in his ears becomes an unholy rumble that starts to drown out everything. An alien. An alien corpse. "Hojo believed that by using the cells of this thing that decimated a race of humans believed to be so powerfull, he could create weapons that could overcome everything and anything." Sephiroth himself looks a little more pale than before, his hands are so clenched tight they look paper white.

Weiss feels something unpleasant twist in his stomach. He never had any doubts about himself. He always knew he was a subject, a resource. No matter how good he was, he would never amount to anything more than a thing to be exploited and discarded. But at least, he was human. A suit of meat wrapped around fragile bones and held together by collagen and epithelial tissue. Just like them. In the basest of levels, truly and fundamentally, they were the same, and him and his brother and Rosso and 19-006_3 weren't inferior to the ones in white coats.

His breathing is loud in his ears.

"Let's find these fucking files and be done with it or I swear-"

"Why is your screen so flickery?" Rosso tugs at Belladonna's skirt again, now at eye level with how the woman was floating.

"Because I'm pissed and my magic tends to short electronics." she repliers absently.

"How interesting."

The voice rips through him and makes him tense. he knows that voice. Everyone else snaps to the source but Weiss is already going numb to the world. His blood is rushing up his neck and bubbling behind his ears, drowning everything in a wretchedly familiar buzz.

"Kill the intruders." Durr's cold voice fills his head and from then on he can't control his actions. He hears a door shut and despite everything he's been told, he doesn't expect to be himself again.

He is distantly aware that he is turning to the one nearest him as he sees Rosso lunge at Belladonna and Nadeshiko and the two women disperse. And he clashes blades with Sephiroth.

"Fuck!" Belladonna swears in background. Weiss seconds that.

He realizes, remembers, knows that Sephiroth gave no vow to not hurt him. The man himself looks reluctant but it's not the first time he's been in this position. He knows how that story goes. How everyone comes for his throat in the end.

"You're a fast little gremlin aren't you?" Belladonna chuckles over the sound of Rosso's swings.

"I'm sorry pretty lady! I don't want to hut you." Rosso whines in protest.

"It's alright sweetheart, you aren't." Belladonna shoots back lightly, full of comfort "Shiko-chan?" she yells out.

"Little busy right now." He hears Nadeshiko answer somewhere behind him. He doesn't know what she expected from her friend, Nadeshiko should be fighting Nero. "Can you line-of-sight apparate?"

"Oh I can try!"

"If you splinch-" her tone becomes threatening.

"Then you can bitch at me-eeh!" she barely finishes before her words distort and become fainter with distance "Good one sweetie!" she yells when she's facing the threat of fucking bisection. "The fuck even was this guy?" Why is this conversation continuing!?

"Hiding like a rat most likely." Sephiroth speaks up, his blade still held loosely. It's the best chance Weiss is going to get so he takes it. It's fine, everything is fine. Like every other time. This is fine, it's what he was made for, he can do this, he will make-

Sephiroth parries his blade without even looking. Like it's nothing. His heart drops to his stomach. He's pushed back and he rushes again, his fingers numb around the handle of his swords. He brings one of them down and when Sephiroth blocks he brings his other sword to his blind side. Sephiroth's sword is way to long, it shouldn't be very maneuverable. Yet somehow. But he has to try. Again and again and again. The metal shrieks terribly as it drags against his own. Weiss feels the vibrations rattle his arms but he can't let go. He can't stop. Sephiroth draws his arm back, catching Weiss' with the guard and pushing. The long blade draws an arc and Weiss is almost thrown sideways to the other end of the room, away from the others. And away from his brother.

Weiss stumbles but Sephiroth doesn't capitalize on it. He just walks, blade not even raised. Is he fucking playing?! Weiss can feel the snarl that rises to his face but the man doesn't react. Actually no, he raises a brow. He so wishes this whole clusterfuck happened in a week when he could have had Argento add the miniguns to his arsenal.

And like that it goes for a while. Weiss attacking and Sephiroth parrying and redirecting like it was nothing. And then something hits him from the side. He feels like he's been splashed. The cold spreads and for as far as it goes, like a spreading shiver, everything it passes, it cannot move. He falls useless to the floor and curiously, rather than terror, he feels relief. It means he's not an active threat, that Sephiroth has less reason to kill him like this. That's what he's been told about the outside.

"Sorry I'm late!" He hears Belladonna yell, and by the rising volume he knows she's coming closer. If he could he would have turned to look but he might as well be a body. He sees her ams first, depositing an equally immobilized Rosso in front of him with utmost care. When her face comes into view, his eyes lock into shimmering, unfathomably deep green. He could fool himself into believing he's staring into a tank of stagnant mako. But they are so soft and kind, far kinder than the Mako could ever be, and she smiles softly and apologetically. "Sorry I had to do that." He believes it. He believes she's sorry and it is an overwhelming feeling "I figured whatever he ordered, it wouldn't matter if you couldn't move."

As if to answer her the intercoms crackle in an attempt to come to life before ultimately going silent again. His ears catch the sound of something slamming into the control panels. Belladonna floats upright, lifts up like she's dragged from the back of the neck, her arms dangling from their sockets. He has just enough time to catch her smile twisting into something wide.

"Oops, someone didn't like that huh~?" she coos in the most obnoxious voice Weiss has ever heard. Serves Durr right. See how he likes being the one being condescended to for once. By the crash that follows he guesses he is taking it poorly. Weiss sees her legs drag lightly on the floor and then she just...twists. A loud bang rocks the room and resonates all the way up his spine and she's gone.

For a moment it fails to compute. There's a crash. And muffled yelling. In the... he recognizes Durr's voice.

Line-of sight- Was that what that meant?

It's- What? How? And beyond all that comes a resounding why? Why bother walking-floating, fighting her way throughout, if she could do that?

He hears the dog comes closer and he feels it when soft fur settles on his back. So the dog-person decided to guard them. Something nudges his head and he hears a chuffing. Why?

He hears more steps and sees Nadeshiko's boots come into view. She is glowing. "So this went to shit real quick." there is so much shade in that monotone, Weiss is impressed. "If the fucker wasn't behind glass we could have Imperioed him and we'd be done." He wishes he could lift his head, or even move his mouth to ask jus what the fuck they were talking about.

"Without a doubt." Sephiroth drones as Nadeshiko crouches. She has Nero in her arms, just as unmoving as him and Rosso. The sky blanket is clutched in his hands and Nadeshiko is holding his brother in a way that it wraps around his shoulders. "Could we use a rune perhaps?"

"We could. Maybe a component pertaining to will and another ensuring all action are of the free variety." She mutters and Weiss is only partially following.

Sephiroth hums "Perhaps two overlapping matrixes?"

Nadeshiko stands back up and hefts Nero in her arms "I was thinking two linearly connected arrays. Front pocket." It is honestly hilarious seeing how the man freezes. He raised his hands initially, until what she actually asked registered, at which point he flagged like he was going through a system error.

Nadeshiko isn't so amused however. "Oh for the love of fuck." she drones before making eye contact with Weiss "Hey kid can I touch you? Blink once for yes twice for no." Oh he does. Out of his control, three times at the sheer impossibility of that question. What? He stares trying to figure whatever she fucking means.

"Is that a maybe?" Sephiroth muses but Nadeshiko scoffs.

"No it's a 'why are you asking'." she huffs. The glow around her becomes tremulous, distorting place around her, making it all look like it's underwater "I had a very similar reaction the first time. Weiss, it matter if you want to be touched or not, if you don't want me to touch you I won't."

Why? What is the response she wants? He doesn't know.

"Okay new plan. Can I move you up so you are more comfortable? If you don't want me to touch you I will levitate you." She asks again and that is easier. He blinks once and Nadeshiko turns to Sephiroth. "Hold him for a sec." She passes Nero of to a very unprepared Sephiroth, and despite it all he is infinitely amused by how Sephiroth just holds the boy tight like he's afraid to drop him.

He doesn't have the time for the amusement to fade before Nadeshiko crouches down. She's slow, like he could even pull away. Her grip is surprisingly soft and as she moves. He finds himself leaned across her front with his cheek falling on her shoulder. His legs dangle as she moves to the side of the room. He can see the logic, it's practical, but his eyes droop without his say-so. It's really warm. When she places him back, his back leaning soft fur, he feels oddly displeased. But then his brother is placed next to him and Nadeshiko asks Rosso the same question before she too is placed on his other side in short order. He feels like he breathes easier. The dog keeps pressing his snout on them and he still doesn't get it but he minds it less.

They are placed on the side, he can see the room now, and all exit routes are within his field of vision. Which means he has the perfect view of Nadeshiko pulling a sketchbook out of her coat that shouldn't have fit there.

He just...lags. What? What?

His eyes are good, right? He is not hallucinating, right?

But she flicks through it and he hears it and Sephiroth leans further in, as in, acknowledging it's there, so it must be there. "Show me what you mean." she turned the sketchbook and brandished it along with a suddenly there black stick "Do not break my charcoal."

Could you not find a fucking pen woman? Wait no, back to the sketchbook that is wider than her actual waist but somehow came out uncreased like there was space in that coat. Was it like Nero's blanket and she willed it into existence? But she said she had it on her.

Was there some kind of temporal disturbance under that coat where space didn't matter?

"We will have to be quick about it." Sephiroth muses, his hand flying across the paper.

"Seconded." Nadeshiko takes the initiative to keep watch. The room is quiet for now and he sees her take out a pair of bloodstained scissors.

Please don't tell him that's her weapon?

And then she starts cleaning them. Of course that's her weapon. "Let's hope Bella nabs the bastard quickly. I don't feel like ending up in a hallway in the ass end of the complex if I take a step edgewise."

Also, what is she talking about?

"Really, I didn't experience anything like that." Sephiroth replies, eyes glancing at her over the paper.

The other woman shrugs. She tries to look over Sephiroth's shoulder. "Well, yes. Because you have a fucking array on you that makes magical wards read you as wind." Weiss realizes with almost hysterical hilarity that she is too short and she has to grab his shoulder to pull his lower.

Sephiroth goes along with Nadeshiko's "So that's why. Genesis did an impecable job." a small smile plays at his lips

"You should tell him that."

Sephiroth's looks up at her perplexed, but before he can can ask a series of loud noises comes from behind them. A cacophony of cracks that is undercut by a flurry of footsteps. And then an alarm.

The lights change and dim, flashing red and a siren assaults his ears. Durr's footsteps are drowned out by the impact of heavy boots on tile and then metal grating. He knows what's coming before the doors slide open. His heart is trying to beat itself out of his chest and the only reason his breathing is normal is because he refuses to allow his brother to see how panicked he is. His fingers become numb by how much he is straining to move them.

This is horrendous timing.

The first squadron of foot soldiers step into the room.

"Oh fuck this." Nadeshiko drones and lunges, another pair of scissors appearing in her hands. Sephiroth clicks his lips, his brows pulled down in a thunderous frown. The long odachi falls in his hand while the sketchbook and charcoal clatter to the floor behind him. Still, he doesn't move from his place. Instead he lets Nadeshiko take point, so to say. He's protecting them. And not from much too. The woman is ruthlessly effective, stabbing and cleaving her way through the throng that Durr just threw at them. Weiss can sees glimpses and shadows of figures that aren't there, covering up her blind spots, and where Nadeshiko has to duck and weave to avoid bullets and sabers, the shadows just phase through, throwing soldiers around like ragdolls. Sephiroth himself is a constant presence in the edge of his vision. It is comforting, he feels safe.

He also hates it.

It's weird, Weiss, hasn't had to feel so many feeling ever and he would really like to stop. Maybe go to sleep too.

But he can't stop the trepidation from roosting in his chest when they don't stop coming. Squad after squad keep funneling into the room stepping over the corpses. "How the fuck are there so many of you!?" Nadeshiko yells, sheathing her scissors upwards into a man's solar plexus.

"From your estimation how many do you think are left?" Sephiroth shouts to be heard over the commotion.

"Fuck if I know." She rips the scissors out across the man's chest and still sounds bored. Weiss is so done.

Under the observation deck, the small door of the contol room slams open. He can't see who the running steps belong to, the elevation of the platform doesn't let him. But it is soon that comes Durr stumbling, his back slamming into the glass, running like his life depends on it. Which yes. Yes it does. Because Belladonna is right behind him and it gives him pause.

As she comes into vision, staggering, for the first time since he met her, she does not look well. She looks to be in pain. She is not floating, her back is slumped, she is grasping her head and she is bleeding. Bleeding from the shoulder and she still drags a greatsword behind her. Her face twists and with a grunt of effort she swings. The blade carries her forward and further into his field of vision and he sees blood staining her lips and mouth, dripping down her nose, her ears, her eyes.

"Bella!"

Durr yells and barely manages to avoid getting cleaved. The curved blade scrapes the glass with an ear-piercing screech and gets lodged on the floor. It is a testament to both the glass's strength and also Belladonna's that the glass that was supposed to be able to withstand bullets gets damaged like this.

"Stay back!" Durr yells pathetically, a gun rattling on his trembling hand. Even with the glass between them. He snaps his eyes back and forth, absolutely manic, alternating between pointing the gun at Bella or Nadeshiko and Sephiroth. Curiously however, he doesn't shoot. Maybe he knows that it won't do anything. "Why are you so persistent?!" Durr makes this pathetic little sound scrambling along the walls trying to get himself as far away from her as possible "Weiss, Nero, Rosso! Defend me!"

As much as Weiss is done, Durr is just as much desperate.

Which, he hates to say it, but understandable.

The order registers but his body is unresponsive. It should be disconcerting, his arms are tingling with goosebumps. But it feels...oddly exhilarating. For a moment he locks eyes with Durr. The man that hurt him, tormented him, lied to him. And he forces himself. He gives it his all, his muscles hurting from exertion and forces himself to move.

And he grins at Durr.

Durr's eyes fly wide, glistening with desperation and madness "Stop I said! Don't you want to save the children?" Oh this motherfucker. If possible the hostility in the room becomes even more thick. Nadeshiko's hand snaps out and Durr jumps away with an absolutely pathetic screech as a shimmering white jet of light splashes on the glass. The glass cracks shallowly but very loudly. He lets out a noise that can only be called a whimper "They're not even real children!" Durr's voice cracks, scrambling to get away as Bella stands a bit straighter. "The black haired one even killed its own mother!"

Something in that hits him harder than it should. Words do not cut or shoot so they shouldn't cause pain but that- Weiss can't really describe why it hurt. But he knows it devastated Nero. He hears his little brother's breath hitch and he knows Nero is trying to hold himself form whimpering.

But it's not just Weiss that objects to it. Belladonna actually fucking growls at the man and lunges. Her feet are unsteady and it is more of a stumble but her fingers are suddenly tipped with claws that scrape at the glass with an ear-piercing hiss. Her eyes glow to an almost toxic green. Sephiroth just cleaves a line clean through bodies and wall and Nadeshiko just-

She yells for "Qiqi", throws her coat away and her back explodes. It happens in seconds. He feels his chest tighten when he at first he thinks she's hurt.

He is wrong. Her back is not bloody, rather, the skin and flesh are flaking away, fluttering up and away in the form of blood red butterflies. For just a second he can see pearly white bone. Her back bows, knees bent and for a second the fluttering cloud of red stays still. And then there is chaos. The fluttering of butterfly wings becomes almost unbearably loud. It flows from her back and rises like it has a will its own. The room, filled with the fluttering of the delicate wings, suddenly is overcome by the flapping of feathers and rattling of chains as the red bits of skin and flesh congeal and blacken into screaming crows. The chains erupting from her back latch onto the birds, each click ringing like a countdown and then everything becomes a blur.

Blood splatters on the walls, the floor, the ceilings and amidst the howling and cawing, there is a vaguely cohesive unit tearing apart everything it comes across with blades and claws and beaks.

He doesn't know what to feel about that. His mind is a mess of things he wants to feel and emotions he doesn't want to acknowledge. The glare of a blade in his periphery makes him snap to attention, heart dropping heavy in his stomach for a moment. Sephiroth quickly enters his field of vision, his expression perfectly blank. Weiss wishes he could speak just to ask. Even if he doesn't know where he would even begin.

He doesn't have the time to think. A shot rings out and Durr screeches again. The man is barely visible with his back on the door. His arms tremble as he shoots again and again until the clip is empty. Uselessly too, each bullet is lodged in the glass, completely failing to reach Belladonna. Belladonna whose steps become steadier, clearly overcoming what's ailing her.

"Stay back!" Durr screams. Something knocks harmlessly on the glass next to Belladonna's head and Weiss is overcome with hilarity when he realizes the spineless worm threw the gun at her. "Or else I will order them to stop breathing!"

The threat is rushed and desperate, like Durr himself is unsure if he can pull it off. But it doesn't matter. Everything stills and it is long enough, noticeable enough, for Durr to get a second wind. He watches, disgust swirling in his gut, as the man that was once sniveling and begging starts bolstering himself and laughing like he had the power all along. "Ha. Hah! Now that's more like it." he stands up his frame still trembling but he has a smile on his face. "Now just stay there quietly until reinforcements arrive." Oh, what a fucking joke.

Oh how Weiss hates that smug fucking smile, wants to hack it off, slit it wide, just stab-

The assault is over, the results of it littering the floor around them. A massive force just slaughtered and Durr probably doesn't even notice, the foot soldiers were always so far beneath him, and still he thinks he can get out on top somehow.

And the man starts laughing "Even you General, how disappointed would Professor Hojo be?" His voice is piercing Weiss's ears. "How sad, his great project ended up like a common specimen." There is a tension in the room, like an ever winding rope, coiled tightly around Nadeshiko, Sephiroth and Belladonna. He can almost see it fraying.

Suddenly the room feels darker. The lights are not dimmed, he can see the shadows contrasting on the floor. For a second he worries it's his vision and he blinks furiously but it's still there, no changes at all. The darkness does not feel natural, and it feels heavy.

And then he sees it.

Above Durr, a spot has become exponentially darker, so like his own brother's darkness, it looks like it's sucking in the light. It's growing bigger by the second. Just as the though crosses his mind, Nero makes a little sound, that Weiss knows by heart is distress, and he knows it's not Nero's doing.

His eyes fly to Nadeshiko and Sephiroth, trying to gauge the danger-

Nadeshiko and Sephiroth have two very different stances.

His stomach twists uncomfortably because while Nadeshiko's entire stance exudes easy curiosity, Sephiroth wears an expression of wariness and thinly veiled resignation. With a sense of bewilderment Weiss drags his eyes back to Belladonna. The anomaly is in front of her, yet she appears...calm. He catches her shoulders twitch but he knows she's not trembling, he just does. He wishes he could see her face just so he can know what to feel about the darkness, so reminiscent of a bottomless pit.

The dark seems to be roiling. And shifting.

Durr continues to waste air, completely unaware of the unknowable...thing that's starting to form just over his head. Unbidden glee rushes through him and he hopes. "Oh? Why so quiet now?" Durr just keeps winging and Weiss wants the monster in the dark to form faster "You actually care! Oh that's just hilarious!" he laughs like it's the funniest joke he's ever heard, like the very idea is outrageous. "Maybe I should terminate the specimens," the fucking cockroach muses and he does it wistfully, with a lilt to his voice "I can't possibly know how outside interference might have contaminated the experiment."

Fucking die.

The more he looks at it, the less sense it makes. It ripples but he barely sees the waves. It's so black but it feels much deeper that Nero's own bottomless dark. And then a claw grasps onto the wall. Something has breached the surface.

"You will not." The indiscernible, solid, black mass drops. Right on top of Durr.

He screams and it resonates incredibly uncomfortably around the room before it sputters out untill all he can hear are wheezes and croaks. It's music to his ears. He closes his eyes, takes in a deep breath and savours everything, from the assault on his eardrums to the sounds of suffocation.

And then he registers that the voice he just heard belongs to none of the people in this room, meaning the dark thing just talked. His eyes are instantly back to it and it's an entirely different assault to the sense, mostly due to the lack of thing to register. He knows there's at least one claw in that mass, he sees a bleached white canine skull with the face of a woman rising from its forehead and two protrusion that he can't decide if they're ears or horns. And nothing else. He knows it was mass and volume, it takes up space the way he sees it he knows he should be seeing other features but he cannot. And he knows it has a voice. A deep resonant timbre that still remains feminine.

"Where have I heard that voice before?" Sephiroth muses. Weiss tears his eyes away from the thing that's holding Durr by the throat. The man has his sword hanging easy by his side in a state of relaxation and Weiss waits for answers.

"Probably from the caffe." Nadeshiko flicks of her...weapon at the same time the ravens flying around her head make one final synchronized flap and burst in a flurry of feathers. With nothing to hold them, the chains fall to the floor with a jarring clang and start to disperse, slowly enough that the metal still hisses as Nadeshiko starts coming back, dragging them behind her.

"So she's a Reaper." Sephiroth follows her lead, flicks and dismisses his weapon. Weiss has, again, no idea what they're talking about.

Even if he's distantly noted her the dragging sound of her sword, Belladonna's voice still startles him from the rising amount of questions. "So since you dealt with this shit before, do orders get canceled if we kill him?" It takes him too long to parse that her voice is closer, too occupied with the content of that question. It takes him even longer to realize the question must be directed to the dark mass.

He looks dumbly as she lumbers through the door. Sephiroth hurries to support her and holds the door open further than necessary for her. He nods in greeting at what Weiss supposes is the creatures direction and he braces himself to take a closer look at it. But-

Short curly black hair and vibrant magenta eyes. He hears his brother's breath catch and he feels his own do the same. He really wishes he could takes Nero's hand. His brother never forgave himself for their mother's death, even if instinctually he knew it wasn't his fault.

And now here is a ghost, staring back at them. But the eyes are not the same as the photo, there are no slivers of green and Weiss can only conclude that she is a relative of their mother's. Their eyes lock as she crosses the threshold and she fully comes into view. The hand that becomes visible last is clamped tight around Durr's jugural, the man himself fruitlessly struggling agains her grip.

"Unfortunately no." She is the creature. And her eyes are so warm. He can't decipher the look on them beyond that. The corners uncrease, there are suddenly much less sharp angles and she just looks brighter. And she's smiling a smile that makes him feel inexplicably warm.

The unknown woman breaks eye contact when she is close enough, and he hopes she is as reluctant as he is. She lifts her arm and presents Durr to them. "Who wants to kill him? Do keep in mind I also want my pound of flesh." Her voice sounds so much warmer and he can't explain it.

He can't explain a lot of things and he doesn't like it.

Belladonna laughs darkly, fully leaning on Sephiroth as he helps her sit on a part of the floor that is not covered by corpses. "We have a Necromancer here." she directs a smile at Nadeshiko. It can only be described as a slash. "How many deaths do you think you can hold him into the mortal plain for?"

Excuse me, what?

Nadeshiko tilt her head and hums. As in, in consideration. Like what he just heard is normal. "Three, four depending on the damage."

"Good." Belladonna bends her knees and rests her head on them. "Imperio him so he can cancel the orders and then we silence him. He won't be able to scream but we take what we can get."

"With pleasure." She rolls the words on her tongue. "Shattona, if you please?" she prompts and he locks up. Did he hear that right? But then the woman responds by throwing Durr at Nadeshiko's feet, where the other woman proceeds to stomp on his back to keeps him down while she roots though her pockets.

His eyes are so wide, his irises look like pinpricks. The man tries to scamper away, his hands scraping at the floor ineffectually. He looks absolutely terrified. "How is it you?! You are dead!" That is quite strange, Deepground was very meticulous about cataloguing and disposing of dead specimens "I saw-!" His voice cuts out abruptly his voice just fails to come out. It is, quite frankly, hilarious to see Durr's gob just flap like a fish

"You are right, I did die." A pang goes though his chest. Every single argument he comes up with is handily demolished by the very ghost they pertain to. The...woman (his mother!) states nonchalantly, looking down on the struggling man coldly. "But not even death could hold me away from my children." static explodes in his 's hot and it's cold and his ear are filled with cotton and it all just feels so distant now. "It could only just delay me."

Distantly he hears a 'Holy shit!' in the background.


In the aftermath of the 'Control Room Debaucle' Sephiroth is left bereft of anything to do but hold Bella upright while she tries and fails to convince him she is not ready to keel over. A task that she gives up halfway to bury her head n her knees and groan in pain. Oh she tries to not make it obvious she is in pain but Sephiroth has had an entire army to sharpen his observation skills on. He digs his hand in his coat's inner pocket to take out the Mastered Blizzard he carries on him whenever he goes anywhere with Genesis. He sits down next to her and presses the chunk of ice on her temple.

Bella jumps a bit with a near silent yelp and turns her head to nail him with an incredulous glare. Sephiroth just presents her with the ice with a smirk playing at his lips. "Har-har." she drones and takes the piece of ice, placing it fully on her temple. "Ooh that feels good." she downright moans. "I take that back you are hilarious, can I have another for the other temple?" she looks at him pleadingly and he complies with a chuckle.

As the sit back and watch Nero take his brother's sword to take his turn, Sephiroth can't help but think that they should have been at this point a lot sooner. "How are you?" he ask what has been in his mind for a while.

For a moment she seems to not be paying attention or ignoring the question all-together. He likes neither option but won't force it if she doesn't wan't to.

"Honestly, not well." she sighs and Sephiroth feels a brief shot of anticipation. She has either decided to be honest or has realized that she is really not well and has been forced to be honest. "I should have left it as it was." And then he remembers that this is Bella, of course.

"Why?"

Bella drops her head on her knees "It was too much. The moment I saw the guy" she makes some vague movement but they both know who she means "they were immediately clamoring for murder and since I could actually realize it, feel it, they were bombarding my mind. And well" her shoulders hunch up and she makes a huffing sound. "you saw what happened." No matter how she may try to mask it, he can hear the helplessness under it.

"That was still not your fault." He says firmly. Her shoulders drop. She looks tired and leaning slightly to the side, like she's trying to not sway.

"It could have been avoided if I could deal with it like when I woke up." That wording, for the love of-

He puts his hand on her shoulder and drags her to his side where she crumbles. "If you could "deal" with letting some vague unknown entity interfere with your mind in ways that you might not have ordinarily been able to detect?" He does his absolute best to convince her that this does not all hinge one her, that it is not due to some kind of "failing" on her account "Making you unsure if your actions and thoughts are your own? Unabe to trust your judgement?" He feels her shudder ever so slightly and nestle deeper in his side. "Yes, you are right, how dare you?"

"Jesus, I thought you liked me." she huffs. And slides her temple where his chest is the least covered. With the piece of ice between them.

"I do." He suppresses the trill that wants to run up his spine due to the sudden cold "But you make me have a lot of thoughts."

A loud clang brings their attention back to the center of the room, where Durr lies dead once again. Nero has let the heavy sword fall from his hands and he has fallen allong with it, his knees hitting the floor. His arms are trembling, be it from effort or emotion they can't tell. Weiss is by his brother's side and Shattona trembles and hangs a little bit back along with Rosso. The only way he can describe the woman's face is shattered.

What a discovery that was. It always made sense, Shattona's readiness to participate in the Deepground operation. In a world that continued to run largely because of its Reapers, a place like Deepground that sucked in Reapers, kept them trapped for weeks or months at a time and spat them out somewhere, somewhen outside with no discernible pattern was a very real danger. Now, her being the first to jump down that hole added an extra layer of sadness in this fuckery. It made so much sense it hurt.

"I should have tried to find this place sooner." Litteraly how? The only way she could have found it, was being carted inside as a specimen. F.E.A.R. had needed a tether to get in and out and Sephiroth felt like he missed parts of the elevator ride that got them to these levels. Sirius finding it was a very lucky shot, probably something to do with him being Bella's Reaper and whatever that implied.

But looking at the scene in front of him, he can understand where the thoughts stem from. Weiss pulls his brother up quickly but still gently. He can't be more than fourteen, by a generous estimation. And yet he is distrusting of anything and everything he can't identify, trying to find motives behind such things as compassion and love because to him they are unnatural outside of his little brother. That reaction to his own question when it very clearly slipped away from him regarding the J-Cells hurt. Expecting to be betrayed and hurt when he exhibited any signs of not being serviceable to them anymore. He expected Nadeshiko to snap her own fingers with how she was clenching her hands and Bella, she had been good at hiding it but he knew she had been ready to cry. That constant state of tension and alert so full of anxiety, it could only be called harrowing. Hojo's perfect little playground away from the labs up top where he had to adhere to regulations. Don't make him laugh. Sephiroth had been so fucking lucky to have had Gast, however short lived. He can't imagine what Genesis and Angeal would have found, what Bella and his father would have found without those precious few memories making him feel human.

Nero and Rosso aren't much better. Nero has stayed in a constant state of alert as well, that looked like a very believable sleep. But he is willing to trust them, if not believe them, and he knows for a fact that it's not the difference in age. In this environment trust in others went flying out of the window the moment sentience settled in. Gaia knows how long it took Sephiroth to trust Gast. No, Sephiroth is sure there had been something that happened before he found them all grouped together, and judging by how it did not translate to Weiss it was probably when the boy was alone or without his brother at least. It is the only conclusion he could come too after he saw Nero actively trying to reassure Weiss.

The only one of the children that seemed willing to both trust and believe was Rosso, with her infatuation to blood that had seemed to attach herself to Bella. And with the experiences carved in his own bones, he knows there is some other extraneous reason for that. He is so sure of that in fact. As sure as he is about the fact that he will not like it when he learns the reason. Still she had seemed willing, if reluctant and unsure, to follow Weiss' lead. They were a unit, each other's support base. Sephiroth doesn't know for how long they would have been afforded that in this Gaia damned place if F.E.A.R. hadn't stormed in today.

It really hurt to see.

"How am I going to fix this?" It is not on you- for the love of-!

His hand is on her head and he doesn't remember when, but none of them move away. "We are fixing it."

If only it could be this easy, but by Gaia they will try.

.

Well...at least this time, other than the cursed bullshit my devices put me through, I can say I was away because of good life choices.

Originally I wanted to add more but then I looked at the word count. So I, hopefully, will have the aftermath in the next chapter. Funny, I've put the word Aftermath in my outline for three fucking chapters now. Also, I've been meaning to say this for a while but I always forget. Just because I like writing mini fucking novels, doesn't mean you guys like reading it, so, should I actually start putting out shorter chapters?