Chapter 5 – Pet
Somehow, the difference between knowing something and seeing it with your own two eyes always seemed to elude me. I knew that Midgar was called the Midgar Ruins for a reason. But that reason was stored away like school lessons; simple facts and numbers.
This was more than seeing. It was experience. I was being consumed.
There was a dead city in front of me. Skeletal, abused, and gray... I half expected ghosts to be wandering around the abandoned buildings. But Sephiroth had gone one step further while dragging me here... he'd done his research. He had brought me to the very breaking point.
A church. My church. And there were dead children inside.
My brain had caught up to my eyes. He had unbound and ungagged me just outside of the city; I'd been too transfixed as he led me through the labyrinthine alleyways and streets. We'd encountered several blockings in our path, but he navigated around them with a familiarity that made me wary. He knew where he was leading me, almost too well.
But all that deduction and careful thinking went out the window as soon as I saw the children. Their bodies were unnaturally preserved and some of their eyes were still wide with an odd mixture of despair and terror... I nearly got sick.
That was the first time I felt my sanity slip since the beginning moments of my resurrection.
"Children... there have to be... at least... a... h-hundred or so..." I sputtered, my lips making sounds without my volition. I knew I'd been crying even before it happened... but silent sort of tears. How could something do that? Why was I surrounded by so much... death?
And it was smiling at me.
"Can you now see that I could not do this?" he said, that wicked grin still gracing his features, "You should know personally that this is not my... style." It was almost funny how insanely logical he was. It reminded me of a memory... my mother, and...
There were dead eyes staring at me. I still couldn't get over that. Children were Life... what happened when they were dead? I should have known the answer to that question, but I didn't. I'd only been left with an aftertaste of wisdom and unity... and it was oddly bitter.
"Jenova used... them for..." I was a specter, mind detached from my body. And my body had spoken. My mind was still transfixed on a little girl, her wide blue eyes pleading for a chance to grow up. I wanted to tell her that it was almost better not to...
A hand on my shoulder. I nearly jumped.
"They called it a disease," he murmured, a practiced art that could make lesser people shiver, "Scar Star or some ilk like that. An epidemic that spread amongst those that tried to retake Midgar..." I wondered if I'd ever sounded that way, with my borrowed prophecies and patchwork pieces of stories. An opaque plane of glass; you can't see into it, but you can break through with enough force. Except this man... was a steel wall.
"These weren't the only ones," he continued, delivering the speech with frightful accuracy, "From what I discovered, nearly all the children in the Midgar area were afflicted. And only children. Jenova is smart indeed..." The last part he spoke almost to himself, an odd gleam in his eye.
"What do you mean?" I was regaining control of my vocal faculties. I had closed my eyes... maybe then the faces would quit pleading with me.
"She wanted to make sure you would be around for some time," he said, and I could feel fingers on my hair. I bit back the urge to slap him again. "Children with more potential life..." I could feel it in the air as he grinned, "I am sure you could figure it out."
"Am I... immortal now?" I asked, no thinking, just keep talking. He undid the string that kept my hair up, and I grabbed his wrist after he did so. It shocked me how warm he was. I felt a nip on my hand before I let go. It tingled.
"We're even now," he purred, "A bite for a bite." I was rather annoyed with how he liked to change the subject. Control, control... admittedly, he'd had it this entire time. What was the use fighting it...? No, I didn't need to think like that. I didn't even know what I was fighting now.
I opened my eyes.
"Answer my question," I hissed, feeling angry. Just angry. I had grieved for the children; now it was time to be angry... this simply wasn't fair. I had to die and now I had to live. I hadn't wanted to do either. And I was complaining.
"No human can kill you," he said carefully, an artistic thing. And I caught the drift of his meaning, like a silent threat. Don't dare cross me, little girl. I had finally focused on his face, and wondered in the back of my mind why the most beautiful things were also the most dangerous.
Cloud, broken and with the most fantastic pair of blue eyes, when he raged was the most frightening thing I'd ever seen. Even then, when I was naïve, and alive and wishing for everything... I worried what would happen had he snapped. Had he turned to the darker side of humanity.
And Tifa, behind that light smile of hers... I wondered if she'd ever snapped a man's neck. I wondered, had I actually gotten him, if she would turn that anger that lay just below the surface on him... or me.
And why was I thinking about my friends like that? I loved them, I truly did. I couldn't think of them like that.
"Do you want vengeance?" he asked, a breath away, studying me like a painting. I felt every misplaced brushstroke now, seeping into the folds of my skin. I'd never been so imperfect in my life... but for an odd flicker of a moment, I felt like I could evolve into something. What was that something?
"Vengeance? Is everything that simple to you?" I asked, feeling my temper flare again. How dare he look at me like that... even if it was Jenova that did the deed, it was his entire fault. If I hadn't died in the first place...
If I hadn't died...
"Are you always going to be so weak?" he snarled, more of an enjoyable expression than anything threatening. It made me frown, I could feel it, just seeing how he tried to bait me. But before I had a chance to answer, I heard a voice.
"He has risen." Soft, light, and wholly reverent. He turned his attention from me to the voice. My legs urged me to run, to get away from this place of death... but I couldn't. Curiosity, still as strong as I was when I was a little girl tugged me to look at the speaker.
"Show yourself," Sephiroth demanded, the ever present smirk widening. He already knew who it was... why the elaborate act?
When he stepped into the light, I wondered if it was one of his illusions. The man looked like him... same ridiculous hair and sneer. Unless...
"We come to offer our services, Great Sephiroth," the man said, voice refined in a way that reminded me of the original (no doubt he was a clone) but just roughened enough to show that he'd lived a real life. But there were more... he said "we"...
Two more; a shorter one with an air of leadership, and a tall, muscular one... hair short and with a sense of athleticism. A triad. I knew that there was something significant with threes... what knowledge could I remember? I looked to the dead eyes for the answer... no, only sorrow here. Sorrow and death.
"I do not go by that inappropriate title anymore," he replied, calm and practiced... his amount of control was unnerving, "...Azrael. That is my true name." They nodded, in almost perfect unison. It was creepy, in a place like this. I felt myself shiver involuntarily.
"Flower. Would you like to aid us?" he said, turning to me. I hadn't realized that I had spaced out, floating in some place between waking and dreaming. It was safe there, no wonder I had retreated.
"I-in what?" I asked, and immediately regretted it. No way, in a thousand years, would I help Sephiroth. Only evil came from him. Even in the barest touches of his fingertips, I could feel the power and malice. Yes, that tingle was malice, evil and malice.
"Giving these poor souls a proper sending," he replied, grinning. It was then that I noticed the match in his outstretched hand. Such long musician-like fingers. But I couldn't be noticed that. Must have been the match. It was one of those extra large ones, used for bonfires.
The triplets, from the corner of my eye, were busy pouring something... Oh, I knew what they were doing. But instead of disgust, like my brain would normally register it as... I saw it fitting.
I didn't like the dead eyes staring at me. And no one should see this place; there was enough madness in this very church to go around.
Before I could answer he was leading me, with the gentleness that a gardener would to a prized rose, out of the falling doorway. One of the triplets lead a trail of liquid after us, and the other two exited in different ways. And I now held the match.
I struck it on the bottom of my shoe.
The flame caught quickly. Whatever they have poured everywhere, it was very flammable. I remembered Cloud right then, fists clenched in order to not betray the anger and sadness he felt as he described the flames as Nibelheim burned to ash. How he described those eyes, mirroring the fire... And here I was having set flame to the unnaturally dead children in what once I grew flowers in...
I hadn't even looked to see if they still grew.
He patted my shoulder like an obedient pet. If only this weren't so logical, if only I wasn't happy to see the place turn to ash, I would have smacked his hand away. I still felt the urge to beat him, to strike at him with my fists... if only I'd been as powerful as they were. As he was.
I was crying, silent tears that I'd longed to shed over so many things. Aeris, she had to keep smiling, keep reassuring... but Manakel just wanted to die, wanted to hide, wanted to... to...
Aeris had served her purpose. Manakel had yet to find one.
I stopped crying. It was such a sudden thing that I gasped. It made sense now, and it was just too terribly ironic that it can in the form of my murderer...
"Do you plan on killing them?" I asked, knowing he caught my meaning. I could feel that maniacal grin behind me, lighting up the air even more than the fire did.
"Do you plan on becoming strong enough to stop me?" he replied. But I expected that answer.
"Yes," I answered, though the quiver in my voice belied my intent, "I think I know how to now." I turned so I could see him head one, smirk and beauty and madness all in my view. And I wondered for a brief moment if Cloud had ever felt the same way, looking at how the silver of his hair turned golden in the flickering light, how his eyes almost looked blue like the ocean as the light danced in them...
Sometimes, in order to preserve life, there has to be death. I could see that now. In order to protect...
I grabbed onto his neck, leveraging my light weight so that I was face to face. Eye level. He only looked surprised for an instant before I slammed my mouth violently onto his.
No wonder people sold their souls... it felt surprisingly good.
AN: Umm... ya. I'm not changing Sephiroth. And the suddenness... I don't want to trifle with scenes upon scenes of unnecessary conflict or travel. I go straight from point to point... this is more of a character focus and such. Oh, and I was listening to the RaXephon OST while writing this one... check out "Ongaku" to catch some of my thought processes. Oh, and for the kinky sex comment: shame, shame on you. XD And for those that say Aeris is OOC... I'm sorry, "happy-go-lucky" resurrected Aeris is OOC to me. This is how I would imagine someone who's essentially lost everything would act. And the SHM cameo... Aeri's request. I didn't put them in there just to add to the sexy man count. XD