A light tap on his shoulder made him start and fight to keep from gripping the throat of his 'attacker.' Seeing Ifalna standing behind him, he relaxed.
"Sephiroth?" she queried. "It's time."
He nodded and stood, murmuring an apology.
"It's all right. It isn't as though you can harm me."
"I suppose not," he agreed. "Where am I being tried?"
"There's a clearing we use for meetings," she answered. "It should serve well enough."
"Right..." He cast one final glance at Aeris's form in the mirror. "I have to go," he told her quietly.
She paused mid-sentence to whisper, "Good luck."
Sephiroth smiled faintly, but when he turned to Ifalna his face was steely. "Lead the way."
She led him down from the tree house and headed deeper into the forest, where the trees grew close together, forming a thick green canopy above them, blocking out most of the sunlight. They reached the clearing abruptly, and Sephiroth stopped by the last tree, one hand on its rough bark, staring out at those gathered here.
The nameless faces of Nibelheim stared back at him, and he knew that somewhere in there were Cloud's family and friends. Shinra executives, troops, SOLDIERs, President Shinra, Talya, and--here he stiffened--Hojo. He did not let his gaze linger. Zack was there, as were Tseng and Ira, the gatekeeper. Only Jenova and Aeris seemed absent from those he had killed.
Despite what Aeris had told him, he saw none of the living here. But then, perhaps they could not exist here for long.
Reluctantly, the crowd parted to allow him through to the center, where an arc of wooden chairs sat with their backs to the crowd, all facing one lone seat. Only one of these places was occupied; in one chair of the circle sat a stranger who nevertheless seemed oddly familiar.
Ifalna led him through the crowd, and he kept his gaze fixed on this being until finally, as he sat down across from it, he realized who it was. Its figure was sexless, slender and elegant, garbed in loose robes of earthen colors. Its soft brown hair was cut short, and its eyes were like the Lifestream itself: sparkling, glittering green.
The Planet's chosen Cetra form smiled at him. "Welcome, Sephiroth," it said in a voice neither distinctly feminine nor masculine.
He nodded slightly, tempted to stand again and bow, but something in the being's manner told him it was unnecessary. "Thank you, Planet," he said softly.
Ifalna sat down in the seat to the far left of the Planet as it rose and turned to face the crowd. "Soldiers, peacemakers, friends, and strangers... People who died for no reason, and people who died for every reason... I have called you here, so very close to me, that you may cast your judgment on your friend, your murderer, your idol, your deceiver. All I ask, require is that he may speak a word of his for every one of yours."
It glanced back at Sephiroth, and he saw traces of amusement in those eyes--amusement, perhaps, at the simple act of crafting sentences, of using words for the first time. Oddly, logically, he thought he sensed some of Aeris's patterns in its short speech.
The Planet took in the seats with a sweep of its arm. "Any who wish to speak, to debate may come sit here. But only so many should speak at a time, moment; we've no need of an uproar." With that, it returned to its seat. Four chairs sat empty on its left, five on its right. People from the crowd threaded forward to fill them up.
Narsa, a pair of Wutains, a Shinra guard, Saerni... the Planet... a Cetra he did not recognize, a Shinra soldier, Zack, Ira, Ifalna. All save the one Cetra looked at least familiar. Faces glimpsed before his Masamune cut them down, perhaps.
The Planet looked as though it wanted to say something more to start out, but Zack spoke before it got the chance.
"Hey, Seph," he said with a rueful grin. "Looks like some predicament you've got yourself into. How are you gonna get outta this one?"
"With Aeris's help," he replied. It was the truest answer he could give.
"Yeah, she was always good at helping people--but she's not here right now."
The swordsman could only shrug.
"Anyway," Zack went on, straightening. "I guess I was the only one who saw you snap, huh? That seems like as good a place to start as any," he decided, and several of those present nodded agreement. "When I try to think about it, I really don't get how all these people cam blame you for it. I mean, damn, reading an entire library full of reports about some screwed experiment that created you, all in the space of a few days? Who wouldn't go nuts? I don't know much about your other problems, but that in itself is almost enough for me."
"Almost?" the Wutain man queried.
He nodded. "Yeah, almost. I can accept it 'cause I knew him beforehand." He looked back at Sephiroth. "You were quiet and mysterious for sure, but anyone who paid attention saw you had feelings just like anyone else. You just made it near impossible for us to tell why or exactly how you were feeling. You weren't cold either, like everybody always says. You cared about shit. Tried to be all steely and tough, but you can only hide so much."
The swordsman was surprised that Zack had noticed so much. The boy had never struck him as particularly observant. Rather, he had always seemed somewhat dense; but he had had a knack for cheering people up, and maybe to do that one had to have an understanding of the other person's emotions.
"Shinra's most efficient, ruthless, and deadly general cared about things?" the Wutain scoffed. "You would not say such things if you had seen him in the war. He even killed civilians!"
Sephiroth forced himself to speak up. "Most of your 'civilians' were armed almost as well as any soldier. Was I supposed to stand there as they butchered me? Ask them politely to move aside?"
"You should have at least given them a warning first!"
"They knew who I was; that should have been warning enough."
"Damned arrogant--"
"Quiet," Ifalna interrupted. "I think you'll all agree that name-calling is pointless. He's heard it all before." She waited for the grudging nods and murmurs of assent from the seated group before turning to Zack. "Were you finished?"
He shook his head. "'course not. Seph may've been ruthless to the Wutains, but I've gotta say that he looked after his own men. When I was first placed under his command, he did a hellova good job at protecting me. Wasn't his job to look after me, but he did it anyway. He did a lot of little things like that. I'm not sure he even told me to shut up unless it was for my own good, which is like, amazing."
Someone in the crowd started to laugh, but quickly fell silent when no one else joined in.
"But surely you have seen how deadly he was in battle," said the Wutain woman, whose face reminded him of Yuffie's, only she spoke with more grace and maturity. "He showed mercy to no one, and I heard nothing about prisoners. Any wounded unlucky enough to be discovered by him or his troops were probably killed."
Sephiroth hesitated to counter that, but Aeris had told him to defend himself. "I had orders from Shinra not to take prisoners."
"You could have disobeyed them."
"I could have," he conceded, bowing his head, "but I chose not to."
"Disobeying Shinra's orders brought on pretty harsh punishments," pointed out the soldier whose name he could not recall.
"Oh, please," the Wutain man scoffed. "He was their hero. They wouldn't punish him. Isn't that so, Sephiroth?"
The swordsman could only nod.
"It was war anyway," the soldier persisted. "Were your soldiers any more merciful to ours? I know there were a few prisoners, but not that many."
The man frowned, and the woman lowered her gaze.
Narsa spoke up. "Some of the wounded soldiers they found were likely in terrible shape. You expected them to waste their healers' energy and supplies on enemies when they had enough of their own injured to care for?"
"Was it really any different on Shinra's side?" the nameless Cetra countered.
"The Shinra had far more materia at their disposal," the Wutain woman answered. "Any one of them could act as a healer. We relied far more heavily on the older arts of healing."
This assertion remained undisputed, and into the silence the Planet spoke.
"So we have established, confirmed that Sephiroth was needlessly hash, efficient during Shinra's war with Wutai," it said, giving this as a sign that it wanted to move on. Sephiroth noted now its use of multiple words to convey a single meaning, as though the word it wanted did not exist and it could not decide between those that did. Apparently language was less precise than what it was used to.
Having said her piece, the Wutain woman got to her feet and rejoined the crowd. A man in civilian dress took her place, eyes even more accusing. Sephiroth struggled to place him, and recalled only his corpse, lying in the Mako reactor with blood everywhere and the Masamune abandoned beside him. "What about Nibelheim?" Tifa's father demanded.
"By that point, sanity had left me," Sephiroth said, meeting the man's gaze levelly. "As foolish as it sounds, I truly believed that I was justified in killing all of you."
"Then explain it to me: how could you possibly reach that conclusion?"
"What, you can't see how someone could go mad from finding out they were created by some crazy experiment?" Zack asked.
Tifa's father cast him a sharp look. "As you said, you were the only one who saw him snap, so while that may explain it for you, the rest of us can't quite fathom it."
"Then perhaps we should hear Sephiroth's account of it," Saerni suggested.
The swordsman frowned, and when the crowd looked to him expectantly, he began hesitantly, "I... had always known that I was different from everyone else. It was such an obvious thing. Doubtless most of you believe I thought myself to be superior, but more often than not, I thought the opposite. Even though I could not remember my childhood, the feelings of inferiority that had been ingrained in me persisted.
"It was frightening to see the monsters being created in the Nibelheim reactor and the name of the only mother I knew inscribed on the door. It was frightening to think that I was something so much less than human. So I wanted to know the truth. I wanted to know what I was. The library in the Shinra mansion had answers for me." Sephiroth let his regret show in his voice. They need to know you have emotions. "I wish I had known then, as I do now, that they were merely half-truths fabricated as part of another experiment.
"But I did not. And I believed it when I read that I had been created from the cells of a Cetra, an Ancient. Reading through all of that, it was the only thing that I could cling to to keep from seeing myself as a lab rat. I told myself that being a Cetra made me superior to these humans, superior to these people who had lied to me and used me. It did not matter then that the only ones I could have blamed were Shinra's scientists and its president, who allowed them to do this."
He lowered his gaze and shook his head. "To me, it was the perfect excuse to eliminate all those people who had always looked on me with hollow admiration, jealousy, and disdain--all the people who had never wanted to know me. The few who saw me as human got mixed up with the rest of them in that haze of glorious madness." He turned his pale blue gaze on Zack. "I am sorry, Zack."
Zack shrugged it off. "I would've lived if it hadn't been for Hojo."
Sephiroth blinked. "You mean I did not kill you?"
"You hurt me pretty bad, but I lived."
"Then you were...?"
He nodded. "Hojo collected those of us who survived and used us in an experiment. Injected us with Jenova cells--so I know a bit what it's like to be a lab rat. But me an' Cloud escaped. Almost made it to Midgar, too, but some soldiers caught us up, put about a million bullets in me, and left Cloud for dead 'cause the Jenova cells got him so damn screwed up. Guess he recovered, huh?"
Sephiroth nodded slightly. "Still, Zack, if I had not--"
"Hey, don't sweat it," his old friend replied casually. "I blame Shinra, not you."
"Thank you."
Tifa's father spoke slowly. "I suppose I should consider myself lucky for dying in Nibelheim, if the survivors went through so much. Tifa was the only one who escaped Hojo, and even she was badly off, having to go on when she'd lost everything. I still can't understand how you could have done that."
"I did not know what happened to the survivors," Sephiroth told him. "I did not plan on there being survivors, and the dead were only returning to the Planet--'what was so terrible about that?' I thought." He glanced at the Planet, and it smiled encouragingly.
"But that's no excuse for what you did."
"How isn't it?" Ifalna asked. "If you yourself were not human, but instead lived as such an outcast among them, and found out that they deserved whatever death you wanted to give them, wouldn't you accept it as your duty?"
"I could never kill anyone," Tifa's father protested.
"But Sephiroth was a soldier. Killing was hardly new to him, only the killing of defenseless people whom he nevertheless saw as traitors."
"But we were people you killed!" the man cried, directing his anger back at Sephiroth. "Not a lot of criminals. How could you not see that? How could you ignore it?"
The swordsman shook his head. "I admit, I had my doubts in the beginning. I debated with myself, and eventually the anger and the hurt drowned out what doubt there was. Humans were evil for what they had done to me and my people, and that was all there was to it."
There was a short silence. "Besides, Mr. Lockheart," the nameless Cetra said softly, "Tifa and Cloud are happily married now, aren't they?"
"You think they've forgotten?" he demanded. "Terrible wrongs were done to them, and to us, and--"
"And they were paid for then, when Cloud killed him."
"One death doesn't make up for hundreds," the Wutain man put in.
"You would have me die a hundred times to atone?" Sephiroth asked. "Fine. So long as I do not remain dead long enough to cause Aeris any grief, fine."
"But then you would be given a hundred lives as well," Narsa said.
"I see it as one life interrupted a hundred times by death."
"Then you would be given one more life in addition to those you've already had, whereas these people"--Narsa waved a hand towards the crowd--"have had no such second life."
"Most of them had decent ones, though, didn't they? I cannot say that I have, except for this last life which scarcely lasted a month, if that."
"And what was so terrible about your life?" the Wutain asked. "You were Shinra's greatest general, and you had all the luxuries that went along with that position."
"All the luxuries in the world count for nothing if you are alone," Sephiroth stated. "Besides, I spent most of my life in a laboratory."
"How long?" Saerni asked.
"Eighteen years."
"Holy," Zack breathed. "And I thought what I went through was hell; I was only in a lab for a year at the most. Eighteen times that... and as a kid... Gods..."
Silence fell. No one dared challenge that this had been terrible, nor did anyone challenge its truth. Somehow they knew that the man before them spoke with honesty, despite being a murderer.
"All right," Narsa said finally. "So you have already suffered, and maybe that makes up for something."
Ifalna cast him a sharp look. "It doesn't 'make up' for anything. This is a terrible wrong done to him, and someone else's sin committed against a sinner does not weigh into the balance. It was punishment for nothing, not for sins he had not yet committed. Hearing of his suffering can only help us understand what Sephiroth went through that led him to kill so many, and maybe it will help stubborn people like you to forgive him."
The other Cetra nodded in grudging agreement. "So it's a reason, not punishment."
"But what was it really like?" Mr. Lockheart asked.
"If you want accounts, stories aside from Sephiroth's," the Planet said softly, "perhaps we should ask those two who can offer, recount them to do so."
Talya showed herself immediately, though she did not meet Sephiroth's gaze, much to his disappointment. Did she think he hated her? The nameless soldier got up, offering her his seat, and she sat down beside Zack with the barest of nods.
Professor Hojo was longer in coming, and the Wutain man much less eager to relinquish his chair. Tifa's father scooted away when Hojo sat down, and Narsa looked as though he wanted to. The scientist looked up at his son with ferocity, but Sephiroth met that gaze coldly, keeping the hatred and disgust that remained tucked far away.
"Well, Professor?" Ifalna asked, no little revulsion in her voice. "What have you to say?"
He muttered something under his breath before snorting. "I intend neither to defend him nor accuse him. I will give you only facts, and you may make of them as you will."
"All right," Saerni said. "Go ahead."
"Well." Hojo pushed at his glasses and fixed his gaze on some point slightly beyond Sephiroth. "I believe most, if not all, of you know he was created with the intention of producing a Cetra, so there is no need to get into that. We kept him in the laboratory as an infant, Professor Gast and I, and we conducted many tests during that stage, but nothing serious. By the time Sephiroth was two, Gast had grown disgusted with the Project, and he left. Which meant I got to do things my way.
"I had a Turk brought in to keep him in line and did whatever experiments necessary to get the information I wanted. I kept him confined to his room except for when I called for him, though when he was older Talya allowed him into the rest of the mansion under her supervision."
"What kinds of experiments did you do?" Saerni asked before he could go on.
The scientist waved a hand. "You wouldn't understand. But I expect it was rather painful, if that's what you want to know. He never complained though. I trained him to ignore the pain from very early on, which made the tests easier to perform, but the discipline harder to administer. I think the principle of the beatings meant more to him than the actual pain."
"You beat him?" Ifalna asked, startled.
"I had Talya do it most of the time, but yes, I did beat him. Why do you think he is so leery of being touched?"
"I thought... the experiments themselves..." She trailed off and glanced at Talya. "Weren't you his friend, though?"
She flinched. "I wish I could say that. But... If I'd disobeyed my orders that often, then I would've been out of a job. Hojo would've just replaced me with someone who didn't care, and then..."
Ifalna shook her head slowly. "So it became ingrained in him that both friend and foe would be cruel to him. It's worse than I had thought. The Professor never went that far with me."
"You did not need the discipline," Hojo told her matter-of-factly. "Sephiroth, on the other hand, he loved to be a nuisance to me. Even went outside once."
"How did you keep him under control once he realized he had the power to kill you if he wished?" Saerni wondered.
The Professor shrugged. "Obedience, however spiteful, was ingrained in him since infancy, so for a long time he didn't dare flinch from my experiments or run away. There was only one instance where he really challenged me."
"What was this one instance?"
"There were a couple, actually," Talya cut in, "but the real biggie was when Ifalna and Aeris escaped."
Ifalna took over, meeting Sephiroth's gaze. "He startled us--just came into our room one day, saying that he would help us escape. I didn't want to trust him at first; what Cetra would have? But Aeris seemed perfectly at ease with him. She was seven, old enough to recognize what he was, young enough to doubt it anyway. She sat down with him and they talked for a bit. He was so boyishly awkward, so anxious, that it convinced me. So I told him to come back that night, and he used his magic to send us nearly to Midgar."
"Why didn't he go with you?" Zack asked in surprise.
She shook her head and looked to Sephiroth.
The swordsman faltered and avoided the Professor's gaze as he spoke. "I... thought that I could protect you in a way, if I stayed behind. If Hojo lost all three of his prized specimens, he would have been even more intent on getting them back, but if he at least had me... then maybe that would mollify him. Maybe he wouldn't send soldiers--or worse, Turks--searching for you."
Hojo scoffed. "So that's what you were up to. Odd that it actually worked. It wasn't until you left that I asked President Shinra to send someone looking for them."
Sephiroth nodded slightly and could say nothing.
"I remember," Talya began quietly, "he was so happy the next day, glad that they were free. Not jealous in the slightest, but proud that he had helped them. He seemed to relish in the thought that he had done something so wonderful for them, and so terrible for Hojo. He couldn't even keep it from me. The Professor... had me beat him pretty bad for that, but I don't think he cared." She finally looked up to meet his gaze. "I am so sorry..."
He shook his head. "I understand, and I've forgiven you. It is him"--he looked pointedly at Hojo--"whom I will understand, but never forgive."
"And I would never expect it of you," the Professor stated with distaste. "All this emotional nonsense. Honestly, you morons can't simply determine this logically?"
"But, Hojo," Sephiroth said, "a man who atoned for his deeds merely because of logic would have accomplished nothing; he would still be the same man. It is the regret, the guilt, and the eagerness to make up for one's deeds that make the difference. And that is part of what they are searching for now."
"Well, aren't you the bright one?"
He refrained from making an arrogant retort and said simply, "That is what you made me, isn't it?"
Hojo frowned and did not reply.
"It didn't end with their escape," the nameless Cetra said into the silence. "What happened then?"
"We moved him to the Shinra building after that," the Professor said, his tone flat. "The security was better there, and I took measures to rid him of his memory so that he wouldn't be able to think so clearly, and so he might forget his spells. Unfortunately, he escaped before the drugs took their full toll on him."
"But you went straight to SOLDIER anyway?" Tifa's father asked of Sephiroth.
"I had it programmed into him," Hojo explained, "so that if he ever escaped, he would come back to Shinra, and, consequently, to me. But..."
Sephiroth took up the sentence with a scoff. "But he did not manage to erase my hatred of him, and I was outside of his authority, so I no longer had to obey his summons, nor did I let Shinra's medical staff touch me if I could help it."
"It's no wonder we all thought you were invincible," the Shinra guard commented. "If you had injuries, you never reported them..."
"Do you see now, Mr. Lockheart?" Ifalna asked. "How someone with that kind of background, whose only memories were 'programmed' into him, might snap upon finding what Sephiroth did at Nibelheim? How, with as much pain as he had, one could let it loose upon finding some kind of sanction, finally seize the chance to cry out?"
Tifa's father nodded faintly. "I think so, yes." He stood, offering a respectful nod to the Planet before he returned to the crowd.
After a short silence, Narsa turned to the Shinra guard and the gatekeeper. "Well, what have you two to say? You've barely said a word yet."
"I just wanted to... I..." Ira faltered.
The Planet took over. "Ira wanted to see, to observe Sephiroth from this close, so that he could catch, notice everything and be able to pass better, more accurate judgment."
The gatekeeper nodded gratefully.
The Shinra guard hesitated. "I wanted something like that. Wanted to know why I died. I'll speak when my turn comes. But, if anyone wants my seat, feel free..."
As Tifa's father had left an empty seat, no one asked for his. Instead, President Shinra moved to take the seat beside him, cool and condescending as ever. "What do you have to say for your actions five years later? Your needless slaughter of the people in my building?"
"Jenova wanted her body," Sephiroth answered levelly, "and, as it happened to reside in the Shinra building, I went to retrieve it. I killed those in my way because I still believed what I had in Nibelheim. I killed you, President, because I know you were the one who agreed to fund the Jenova Project, and you were the one who decided to use my skills without telling me what I was."
"I had surmised as much," Shinra replied. "But why didn't you kill Hojo?"
"I would have, had I been able to find him."
Hojo snorted. "Not thinking so clearly, were you?"
Sephiroth shook his head. "It is difficult for me to even remember things when I first regenerate. As it was, Jenova reminded me of my... 'mission.' Otherwise..."
"So you're saying that if Jenova hadn't stirred your memory, you might have had the time to look at things sanely again?" the nameless Cetra queried.
"I might have. I am far from certain."
"Just how much influence did she have on your actions five years ago?" Saerni wondered.
The swordsman faltered, frowning. "It is... hard to say how much was my own desire, and how much was her manipulation of me."
"It's almost too bad she isn't here to offer her account," Narsa commented with a scoff.
"Why wouldn't I be here?" a voice queried archly from somewhere in the crowd. He did not recognize it, nor did he recognize the dark-haired woman who stepped into the circle. He did recognize her pink eyes and hint of a smile.
"Planet?" Ifalna asked uncertainly.
"She is almost-child now," the Planet explained. "She wanted, desired to speak, to apologize to Sephiroth. I gave her a voice, words so that she could defend him."
Zack got up hesitantly and stepped back to rejoin the crowd, mouthing 'good luck' to Sephiroth.
Jenova took his place with characteristic boldness, and Talya and Ira cast her uneasy glances. All four of the Cetra present shifted uneasily, but the Planet remained as placid as it had been. Whatever quarrel it had with Jenova, it had already resolved.
"Well then," Saerni began, trying unsuccessfully to compose herself. "Je... Jenova, how much influence did you have on Sephiroth?"
Her half-smile left her as she answered. "Not as much as I had wanted, but more than he would probably admit. He usually did whatever I asked him, but he would do it in his own way, which generally took longer than I wanted. Other times, he disobeyed me entirely. It wasn't my idea to use Cloud as a puppet, or to let that... let Aeris live for so long. I knew she would be trouble from the moment he saw her, but he would not listen to me. She was a Cetra, he insisted, not some lowly human, and it wasn't until she clearly set herself in our path that I convinced him."
"Why did you decide to use Cloud anyway?" Ifalna asked of Sephiroth. "And why spare the rest of his friends, if most of them were human?"
"At first it was mere curiosity; I wanted to see what I could do with him, and he needed his comrades to aid him. Eventually, though, he did become useful."
"Useful?"
"He... gave me the Black Materia at the Temple of the Ancients, and brought it to me again at the Northern Crater."
"You manipulated him to do so, you mean," Narsa amended. "And you knew it was wrong."
Sephiroth nodded. "Yes, I knew. But I convinced myself that he was incapable of having emotions, that it did not matter. I rationalized a lot of things to myself..."
"Then you knew you were wrong. Why didn't you stop killing?"
He shifted, dropping his gaze before all these accusing eyes. "I... did not want to admit that I was wrong, so I tried to tell myself I wasn't. Jenova... helped..."
"Harsh on yourself as always," Jenova said. "I did more than just 'help.' I had to construct so many lies and illusions for the boy to be satisfied that he was on the right track, and still he doubted. Especially when I told him he had to kill Aeris."
"...what did he say?" Ifalna asked quietly, distantly.
"A lot of things," she answered. "He maintained that the Cetra had done nothing to wrong him, and that she was harmless anyway. For a time he entertained a delusion of getting her to join us. Eventually he conceded that she did pose a threat, and that killing her was necessary. Still, when the time came, he delayed, and delayed, and delayed. He didn't actually kill her until after she'd finished her prayer and summoned Holy. Some good that did us."
Saerni blinked slowly. "So then, he killed her without reason?"
Sephiroth closed his eyes, hating to remember this but knowing he must. "When I began my fall, she had not yet completed the summon, but she had before I reached her. I... could have averted my blade, I could have ceased my fall, I could have... could have brought her back afterwards... But I did not. I know I have no excuses."
"And yet Aeris forgave you for it," the Cetra pointed out, "even came to love you. Why?"
He forced himself to meet her gaze. "I have asked her that same question many times. Why did she care? Why didn't she condemn me like so many others? And she told me that all that I had done was in another life, done by a different man than the one who stood before her, told me that I understood her, and that was all that mattered to her."
She nodded as if his words had confirmed some idea of hers and returned to the matter at hand. "Then, Jenova, what happened after that?"
"He really began to lose his will after Aeris's death. By the end, he just wanted to let the puppet--let Cloud kill him and have the whole thing done with, but I was able to manipulate him when his mind was weak, a bit like he manipulated Cloud, and I made him fight back. And after he was beaten, but not dead, he called the puppet back so he could kill him for good. Essentially, it was suicide."
"He let himself be killed?" Narsa asked incredulously. "Is this true?"
Sephiroth nodded. "It is true."
"What does all this prove anyway?" President Shinra demanded. "So he was insane, yes; we all knew that. He killed a lot of people for no reason; we knew that, too. But he knew for a long time that it was wrong, and he didn't stop himself until it was almost too late? Insanity is excusable, perhaps, but willing self-deception for the sake of rationalization is not."
The swordsman restrained himself from accusing Shinra in turn; the man had already received his punishment. "I know," Sephiroth said quietly. "I do not expect forgiveness from any of you. I do not expect it of myself. But..."
"Aeris needs it," the Planet finished, a note of sadness in its voice. "If it is all right, acceptable to all of you, I should like to bring in, to pull closer those few of the living who desired to speak."
Sephiroth brightened somewhat. Would Aeris be allowed to have a word? Perhaps, could she simply be here to watch? He would give anything to have her support. These stares hurt, having to recount his basest acts hurt, not having her at his side hurt...
Yuffie was the first to appear, looking around her in wide-eyed amazement at the crowd. For the barest of instants, she seemed to be searching for someone in particular, and he recalled the Wutain woman who had looked like her, but then she turned to join those seated, hesitating when she found no empty seat. Talya stood slowly, offering her seat with a questioning expression. The ninja grinned and took it with a murmured thanks.
Cloud and Tifa were next, blinking as their minds adjusted to the new surroundings. President Shinra and the guard started to get up, but Cloud shook his head and looked uncertainly to the other side of the group. Ifalna stood first, followed by Jenova, letting the two other newcomers sit down with Ira between them. Sephiroth found it somewhat ironic that Cloud should be the one to take the seat occupied by his designated defender.
"Each of you has a story, realizations to tell us," the Planet said to them. "Go about it however you please."
The three exchanged glances, and Yuffie, the most confident and least disoriented of them, spoke first.
"You're probably wondering what Wutai's current leader is doing over here, aren't you?" she asked the crowd. "I'm defending my friend, okay? Sure, he led Shinra's soldiers against us, but he didn't start the war. Sure, he's done awful things, but I don't think much of it was his fault. How many of us can really say we'd hold up any better if we went through the same things he did?"
"Sephiroth was conditioned to be logical and to set his emotions aside," Hojo said. "He should have been less susceptible to insanity."
"Conditioned, my ass," Yuffie snorted. "It's a wonder you didn't break the guy. When you repress a person's emotions, they just build up and build up until eventually they burst. Whatever you did only made it worse for him." She cast the swordsman a smile. "But lately, he's been really nice, even compassionate, especially when he's around Aeris. That's why I knew he had to have a reason for it when he killed Ira. He couldn't have snapped when he was being that open."
"That's what I'd thought," Ira said slowly. "I had even started to feel guilty that I had tried to keep him out of our village in the first place. So many good things happened because he came. Granted, there was considerable anxiety, but for most of us, it was very distant; we scarcely knew the people in danger. But to be present at a Relighting Ceremony...!" He trailed off, smiling distantly.
"I take it you've decided to forgive him," the Planet concluded with a smile.
Ira nodded. "I just want him to explain why he killed me. I'm certain now that he had a reason."
Sephiroth looked down, feeling as though he was about to disappoint the man. "I had to get to Jenova somehow. She could easily run if I tried to track her down intent on killing her. So I decided I would deceive her into thinking that I would side with her, in order to keep Aeris safe from her wrath. She had me prove my intentions by beheading you... It got me to her, but she told me that she had wanted to face me alone. I..." He shook his head. "I'm afraid your death was not so meaningful as you would wish. I am sorry."
The gatekeeper shook his head. "No, it meant something. She obviously wasn't about to let you come to her without a gesture like that. So, in exchange for my life alone, the life of the Planet itself was saved. I think that's worth something."
The swordsman inclined his head in reluctant but grateful agreement.
Ira got up and offered his seat to Ifalna, who took it with a smile.
"Anyway," Yuffie continued, "I don't think we should even be judging him for what he did in his other lives. He suffered in them, and he died. Isn't that punishment enough? This past life, he did so much good and helped so many people."
"He even managed to heal some of the wounds we had," Cloud said quietly. "He took the blame for things I'd been ashamed of myself for, like giving him the Black Materia and hurting Aeris."
"It makes you feel better if he takes the blame for your actions?" Saerni asked.
The blond ran a hand through his hair. "Well, yeah. It means that it wasn't entirely my fault. It also helped me believe that he really had changed, and that in itself was good to know. Almost like, if Sephiroth was acting, er, human, then some of the evil in the world was gone."
Narsa snorted, and Ifalna cast him a sharp look.
"And then," Tifa added hesitantly, "I don't think I've ever seen Aeris as happy as she was that night when they were dancing together. And after he died..." She faltered, glancing at Sephiroth. "She was so... distant. You could tell she was grieving inside, but on the outside, she built up such a strong face. And now, she's gone to the City of the Ancients? It's not right somehow, for her to seek solitude." She paused again and then echoed Cloud with a rueful smile, "Almost like, if Aeris wants to be alone, then some good in the world has died."
"You keep bringing up this idea that Aeris loves him, and that for her sake we should let him live," Narsa said, "but so far I have seen no evidence of his love for her."
"Are you blind?" Ifalna demanded. "Can't you see that the only reason he's even trying to defend himself is because he can't bear to leave her alone?"
"It's an easy task for him to make us think that, so he can be granted another life. He is, after all, a master of deception."
"But you can't fake that sort of thing," Tifa protested. "It's real."
"He nearly fooled Jenova into thinking he would side with her again, even after defying her for so long. He even went to such an extreme as to kill someone for the sake of that illusion. Who's to say he couldn't maintain something far less costly?"
"He deceived Jenova for the good of the Planet, not himself," Ifalna argued.
"Even though he wanted to kill her?" Narsa said skeptically. "He would have done it anyway."
"There was no other choice left open to him. He had to kill her quickly before she gave up on him and started killing on her own."
"His love could easily be a lie. Look: why does he not speak now? He cannot prove that he cares for Aeris."
Sephiroth shifted uncomfortably, dropping his gaze to the ground. He was not like Aeris; he did not know what to say. And, with no little horror, he considered that Narsa had a point. He remembered the many times that he had deceived himself, and he began to wonder.
"Can't you see it hurts him?" Ifalna demanded, and he was grateful that she could voice it for him. "This whole argument, this whole trial, because he still remembers all the things he's done that you're using against him. He likely even thinks you should!"
"I don't see any pain in those eyes," the Shinra guard said slowly. "They're colder than steel."
"It's a defense," Yuffie told him. "You should have seen him when he said goodbye to Aeris. He looked like he'd been crying, but his eyes were steel."
"He's a great actor, wonderful at creating illusions," Narsa insisted. "How can we be certain of anything he does?"
"But what reason does he have to lie?" the ninja asked. "There's no point to it."
"There's a reason for it now; he wants another life. As for before, you'd have to ask him. I'm no genius."
"He couldn't tell you, because it's not true!"
"Then why doesn't he speak up and tell us it's not true? Why doesn't he defend himself if this is so ridiculous?" Narsa turned to Sephiroth. "Well? What have you got to say for yourself? It's true, isn't it? You're just a selfish bastard after all, and a damned smart one at that?"
"Narsa!" Ifalna exclaimed sharply.
Sephiroth stared at him fixedly. "I don't know what you're talking about," he said helplessly. "I love her." Inside he was in turmoil. What if Narsa was right? What if he had created an illusion so complex that he had deceived even himself? Jenova had often spoken of such deceit. Did it become truth, if he truly believed it? Or was it just an empty lie, if he didn't know? No matter what, this doubt was cruel to Aeris.
"Then why don't you sound sure of yourself?"
He shut his eyes. "Please, stop."
"The vulnerable act isn't going to convince me. Go ahead. Offer me some proof that you actually care, and maybe I'll forgive you." A pause. "You can't, can you? I didn't think so."
His voice caught in his throat. Why couldn't he? Why couldn't he? Too many accusing eyes bore into him. Too many people were satisfied that he could not answer. His own mind berated him with questions and accusations, the harshest ones he had ever considered coming back with a vengeance.
Unable to stand up to so many condemnations when what little belief in himself he had was crumbling, Sephiroth buried his head in his hands and struggled to hold back tears.
He needs you, the Planet said suddenly.
Aeris's eyes widened at the urgency its tone carried, and she immediately forgot the presence of her friends. "But... but what can I do if he can't see or hear me?"
Forgive me... it murmured.
"Wha--?"
Consciousness was ripped from her abruptly, and her body collapsed to the floor.
Pulled, whirling, clasped tightly by giants' hands with a grip intended to protect, but it hurt. Gods, it hurt. She wanted to cry out, but had no voice, wanted to struggle, but had no body. For an instant, she thought the experience so very familiar, but recognition, too, was torn from her as soon as she grasped it.
Then, even in this dim state of awareness, everything faded, and then there was nothing.
Author's Notes
Sometimes it's really a struggle to come up with a title for a chapter, other times the perfect one comes even before you've started it. This is one of the latter cases. Back in elementary school, I did a research project involving the Egyptian afterlife. Obviously it's been a long time, so I don't remember the details, but I recall that after a person had died, their heart was placed on a scale opposite a feather, and if it weighed the same or was lighter, they could enter the afterlife. If it was heavier, their heart would be devoured by this foul beast. I always thought it was a neat concept, and I think it fits here.
I ended up splitting this chapter in twain (fun word!), because it was pretty long to begin with. Pluse there wasn't much I could cut (Cloud's mother originally made a brief appearance here, but I decided that wasn't important), while there were a number of things I wanted to add. Heh. I think it works out better anyway. You get a little bit of a cliffhanger this way. XP