Disclaimer: All standard disclaimers apply. Non standard disclaimers only
apply every other Friday. And today. The shounen-ai disclaimer is always
applicable, all day, every day.
/./ - indicates italics //.// - indicates thoughts *.* - indicates telepathy of any sort, should I ever have the occasion to use it ---- - change of scene, flashback, dream - the multipurpose stream of dashes of choice.
----
Xehorista Tora
Chapter Five
----
If I loose my faith - It would be too late
right back to neverland
It would drag me down - Suck me underground
right back to neverland
You don't understand
I'm down the hole again
- "Neverland" Skold
----
"To be perfectly frank, General, I don't know what to tell you."
Dr. Tabitha stood before the blond with her hands in the pockets of her lab coat and a general haphazard air of one who is too tired to care. She had spent the better part of an hour talking to both Sephiroth and Zackery, and the experience had been a trying one to say the least.
"Admittedly, it's difficult to get information from people when they appear to be under the impression that I'm going to /eat/ them as soon as they turn their back, but I did the best I could."
Cloud didn't quite smile, but as facial expressions went, it was close. "You did pretty well, Doc."
"Oh yes. The suppressed fear followed by the 'come near me with that needle and I will kill you' are the reactions every doctor wants to see in their patients." Tabitha sighed and removed her glasses, holding them in her hand as she collected herself.
"I wasn't able to get much from them, General, but what I can tell you is that they are both perfectly sane, clinically speaking. But - "
"We don't long how long they'll stay that way?" The resignation in Cloud's voice was no more and no less than could be expected.
"Precisely. What we do know is that, in all probability, Sephiroth - the original version, that is - went insane the first time due to Jenova's mental tampering and his own delusions." The glasses were still off, and Tabitha began to fold the arms in and out, a nervous twitch akin to pacing.
"So it was partly his own fault?" It's not difficult to ask a question when you already know the answer.
"Yes and no. I've looked through his files - all the ones left from Meteor, that is. Sephiroth was raised with little resembling family so it makes sense that he would latch on to whatever family was presented to him. From that, Jenova wouldn't have found it difficult to cultivate lies and half-truths that were worse than lies and make Sephiroth do whatever she wanted him to do. With so many of her own cells in him, she had an easy foothold."
Cloud didn't need to reply to that, and he doubted Tabitha expected one. He knew how easy it was from Jenova to gain ground from that foothold. He knew far too well.
"Anyway, the point is that there /was/ a foothold. When we revived General Sephiroth and General Zack, we told them all the information that we did because we hoped that the correct knowledge would eliminate that foothold that Jenova could use against him."
"But it didn't really work..." Cloud trailed off, thinking, remembering.
"But it did work, General. From what you've related to me of..." Cloud stared at the scientist's hands, trying to hear the words that he knew would come, and a vague, detached part of him wondered how long it would take before the arms of her glasses were ripped off from the repetitive motions. "the incident, by all accounts Sephiroth was taken completely over by Jenova - an event that, given the different circumstances, could have as easily happened to you. Before that, he severed himself completely from any of Jenova's ties."
Yes, he /had/ severed himself from Jenova. Cloud could remember, after the shock of having them here again had worn off, and before Sephiroth had changed again. Despite the war, despite Zack's new jabs of "Should I call you Sir Spike now?", despite the constant suspicion of his friends, everything had been like it was, and somehow close to perfect. Everything he could have wanted.
It hurt so much, when it was taken away again.
"So, I think, that if we tell the both of them everything - and I do mean everything - we'll have the same situation as before Jenova took over Sephiroth. I'm not sure whether we're going to try to send them home, or keep them here - that's Aeris's department, after all - but at least we won't have to deal with two psycho boys."
"And if Jenova takes him too?" To see this Sephiroth staring at him with that same expression, eyes flat as glass and nothing alive behind them, to see that again.....he would break, shatter into so many pieces that he'd never be able to piece them all together again.
"Well, there is always that, yes. However, we run the same risk having you go out into the field everyday. Besides, the direct presence of the she-bitch decreased after her seizure of Sephiroth. We can either assume that she doesn't feel the need to interact directly with her representative there, or that controlling Sephiroth takes too much out of her for her to appear in public."
"Thank the planet for small favors," Cloud said, with no small amount of bitterness tainting his voice.
"No, General, thank the planet for the fact that I have an army to keep healthy and a force of imbeciles to watch over, lest they inadvertently kill said army while trying to heal them." Tabitha stopped the constant motion of her hands and slipped the glasses back onto her face, absently tucking her hair back as she stared up at Cloud.
"You complain about those 'imbeciles' all the time Doc. And now you're glad that they're there?"
"Precisely, General. You see, having people look at you as if you are the psychotic doctor himself is hardly a fun filled experience. However, those other pressing duties are calling me away, so I /do/ hope you'll have fun with a friends from the past." With that and a cheery wave over her shoulder, Tabitha walked down the hall, leaving a bemused Cloud in her wake.
"Sometimes Doc, I think I'd be afraid of you if I had any sense left." Cloud let a resigned sigh slip out of his lips as he moved back through the door.
----
"A bit of a shock, I know." The future Zack said it with a wry grin that told Sephiroth he was well aware of how much of an understatement he was making.
"No, you think?" The other Zack - his Zack, and damn if this wasn't going to give him a headache soon - snapped back at him, his natural defense of wry wit coming to the front line. Zack tensed, then launched his own counter, and shaking his head Sephiroth removed himself from the argument.
//He's arguing with /himself./ There are few ways that this can end, and none of them are good.//
Zack was good at arguing, that much Sephiroth knew. He'd always had hell trying to get him to follow orders, because of course Zack /knew/ his way was better, and screw the orders from the high commander. Never disobedient enough to get court-martialed, but always enough transgressions to walk the line.
Still, one would think, against himself, he'd be evenly matched. But the other Zack had years on his Zack, and there was something determined in the set of his shoulders, a perseverance that went beyond what the years should have given him.
//I wonder.what would I look like now? Cloud changed so much, and so has Zack's although it's subtler.but what am I?//
A wry and bitter inner voice intruded.
/What, you mean besides insane? A servant of /evil/? A misguided fool that, from Strife's accounts, killed the two people you actually trust? Can I stop now, or would you like me to keep going?/
He wished he could argue with his common sense, but it had the annoying ability of being right. Even when he didn't want it to be.
The door creaked open, breaking off Zack's argument, and Cloud walked into the room. Clearing his throat, he spoke, short and clipped words searing through the remnants hostility.
"We're going to have to move you all to rooms until we can meet with the others. Which won't be until tomorrow, by all accounts. There's no way to disguise you" he gestured toward Sephiroth, and the white-haired man marveled again at the change in Cloud, the solidity of him now, the presence "but Zack."
"Yeah?" Both of them spoke in tandem, and Cloud winced.
"Not you, Zack, but the other Zack. Zackery. Past Zack...You really need nametags, you know that? Here, put this on. Cover your face." He threw a bundle of cloth at Zackery, who fumbled the catch but managed to hold onto it, unraveling the material into a large, black cloak. He groaned softly, but put it on.
"Black. What, am I possessed by Seph's lack of fashion sense?"
Everyone couldn't help but grin at that, even Cloud who moved toward the door.
"Let's get this over with."
They entered the hallway and began moving, Cloud in the lead, Zack trailing behind, and Zackery attempting not to trip on the dragging hem of the cloak. Almost immediately the man could feel the force of the countless eyes trained on them.
Sephiroth decided that, had he any choice in his future, he would have liked to be a hermit somewhere in the mountains. One of those hermits who lived in a small hut somewhere, and never interacted with people.
Because if there were no people to interact with, it also meant that there were no people to stare at him.
He'd always been in public view, since before he could remember. See the boy, Shinra's golden boy, and watch him move and fight, and watch when we hold him to the light; cold and cruel, untouchable and perfect. A façade like that was not easy to maintain, but it was necessary, and well practiced, and he found himself falling back into the routine now, as the eyes of everyone burned into him, and every soldier's hand moved toward his gun.
If not for the company of Cloud, and the presence he carried with him, Sephiroth was sure he'd have been shot before he could move.
Of course, despite the fact that they were /two/ of them, Sephiroth was sure that Zack would be able to talk his way out of the entire incident, no doubt befriending the head of the enemy camp while doing so. Perhaps he'd even challenge him to a game of cards. Zack had that charisma, and Sephiroth took some comfort in the fact that, with his head forced down and cloaked so none could recognize him, Zack was as uneasy as he.
He could hear the whispers that trailed behind him, words like "Sephiroth" and "Jenova" and "enemy" and "monster" and they hurt because they were true.
Strange, because they said his name the way the fighters of Wutai had said his name, when he had laid the nation at Shinra's feet, and he'd never thought to be ashamed of his name until now.
//This is your company, your /home/, no matter how many years into the future, and they're afraid of you.//
If /they/ were afraid of him, Sephiroth shuddered to think what his reputation must be around the rest of the world. Maybe he could try to prosecute the other him for defamation of name.
//And then Cloud, Zack, Zack and I can all live in Costa de Sol and raise Chocobos. Right. Never knew time travel could make someone so stupid.//
/And since when do you know so much about time travel?/
Sephiroth would have twitched at the dry intrusion of his common sense, but he was fairly sure that he'd be shot if he did.
//...I thought all my inner voices were supposed to be on /my/ side.//
/Sorry. No./
//You really sound to much like Zack for my own good health, you know that?//
He swore his common sense snickered, and he wanted to kill it. Painfully. Preferably with a blunt object, and maybe no one would mind if he were just to go over and start beating his head against the wall?
The sound of quick footsteps brought him out of his reverie, and he tensed, anticipating whoever would approach, until the form became clearly defined, the uniform that of the common soldier. A grunt, in layman's terms. The soldier paused before them quickly catching his breath, and Sephiroth pushed his inner monologue aside, prepared to watch and listen.
----
The trooper that approached them looked to be a private, and terrified out of his mind by his proximity to Cloud. He shifted his weight uncertainly from leg to leg, before clearly his throat hesitantly.
"Umm.Sir?"
Cloud looked at him, not unkindly, and his posture straightened ever so slightly, something almost unnoticeable, except for the fact that this was Sephiroth, and he noticed everything.
"Yes, Private Jonson?"
Nametags were high on the list of very good things. As far as Cloud was concerned, the were seconded only hot showers in the morning and a clean uniform after two months in the mud flats of Wutai, spent fighting giant insects.
Because of nametags, Cloud had managed to realize the names of each of the multitude of troopers. He often forgot them immediately after, but that couldn't really be helped. There were so many of them, and there were always new ones enlisting.
//.to replace the dead. You will lead this boy to his grave, and you won't even remember his name.//
It still hurt, although Cloud has reconciled himself to that inevitable fact long ago. The kept the dog tags and the rankings of the dead, if they could, but there was still that amorphous mass of unknown soldiers, rotten corpses. They burned them when they could, because the bodies never lasted long, especially with the rancid lifestream that would sometimes come up to touch the graveyards of past battles, hoping to steal the energy of a lingering soul.
Cloud didn't know if it was a gift or a curse that Hojo needed to inject Jenova into living specimens before they could be absorbed by the host. He suspected it was a bit of both.
"Sir.I was sent to retrieve the files that you requested. Here they are, Sir." To the trooper's credit, the hand that handed him the thick folder shook only slightly, and the salute that the man, more of a boy really, threw him was nothing short of perfect, if a bit hurried. The boy scrambled away, his regulation boots beating out a quick tempo against the tiles.
"When'd you ask for that, Spike?" Zack looked at him querulously.
"I didn't. Doc must have. She knew I'd need it."
At the mention of a medical personnel, Zackery perked up. "'Doc'? You mean the short woman earlier? The...colorful one?"
Both Cloud and Zack laughed, the sound of Zack's laughter almost drowning out Cloud's more reserved snicker. "Colorful is certainly one way to put it." Cloud said. "She's Doctor Tabitha, head of medical and scientific personnel. We needed to have to look over both of you. You can trust her, by the way. And I wouldn't say that about many people in Shinra, let alone the medics."
Sephiroth was watching him carefully, his green gaze sliding over him, like water over glass. "No, you wouldn't, would you? I doubt you've had good experiences with doctors." He drew the last word out slightly, still testing Cloud.
But Cloud had had years to perfect dealing with references to that time, when the water dripped from the ceiling and the floors, except it was blood, always blood, dripping from his veins and the light flickered on and off, keeping pace with the screams.
//.and it was always cold down there, and always the screams, except when they stopped and you held your breath until you thought you would burst, waiting for the screams to return because it meant Zack was still alive. And you hated yourself for wanting Zack to be in pain, knowing that you'd rather have his pain than being alone.//
Nothing was worse than being alone. Cloud had known many sorts of hell in the forms of burning blood in battle, and watching men he'd known get ripped apart before his eyes, and their screams as they died, so filled with fear and pain..
...but nothing was worse than being alone.
So caught up in a nostalgia that burned like the acid blood from some of Hojo's beast, Cloud was caught completely unaware as Tifa rushed up, almost out of nowhere, and cocked back a fist to slam it into Sephiroth's face.
----
Tifa Lockhart was tired, dirty and covered in at least three layers of blood, each with the added bonus of being a different color. For the past few weeks, she'd been out on recon, something she dutifully accepted, with only slight grumbling. Reconnaissance, to her, was something she enjoyed doing more than leading a troop - not that she enjoyed anything in this war.
Perhaps it was because she'd seen too many die and at far too young an age, but leading other to what was likely their deaths had stopped being something she could handle early into the war. She wondered sometimes, how Cloud did it, greeted those new troops who looked at him with stars in their eyes and dreams of glory in their hearts, and sent them to an early grave.
Even those that survived were still dead. When Tifa had lead troops, she would leave with a hundred and come back with fifty walking corpses, minds shocked and scarred from what they'd seen. After the first few months, those that lasted got used to it, the reckless sense of near-death that lingered around the edges of the camp, like blood stains in the harsh fabric of the uniforms.
The soldiers scratched messages in the walls, in the common letters of the continents and the willowy lines of Wutain. She couldn't read the Wutain, but she'd asked Yuffie once what they said.
//"Well, a bunch of them aren't polite, Tifa, and those that are aren't any better." Pausing, the girl who was now more a woman, with the muscles of a fighter and the bearing of a commander, tapped her foot on the ground and stretched linked fingers in front of her.
"Near as it translates, one of them's 'Death to Hojo' another's 'Fight for honor and the planet' - you know, stock stuff like that. The big one over there" Yuffie pointed with her outstretched hands to a jumble of diagonals "is pretty neat."
She grinned once as she read it, a fierce, hard grin that Tifa couldn't remember seeing on her before.
"Leave your mortality behind. You no longer require it."//
Tifa passed under those words now as she walked across the main courtyard to the SOLDIER's section of the barracks. She stared up at them, and from this angle they distorted vertically, becoming slanted and narrow, spreading across the wall.
The problem with that, Tifa thought, was that mortality wasn't all you had to leave behind. You had to leave behind fear too, the gut wrenching terror and the voice that chanted a litany of 'I don't want to die' in your head during a charge. You had to leave behind worry, for yourself and for others. You had to leave behind the memories of house and home, although you cherished them, because to remember that there was somewhere else during a battle was death.
Of course, you didn't leave everything behind. You carried your gun and your gloves and your rations on your chocobo. You took the feeling of being a part of something, of fighting for something, and of those that were worth fighting for.
Later than she'd thought, as she crossed the courtyard, and the shadows grew until they were as long as the letters. They twisted into a mass of slanting lines, and Tifa wondered if it spelt anything like 'hope' in Wutain, because you never left that behind either.
When she entered the building, she couldn't see the shadows anymore, and she blinked back the glare from the lights overhead and tried to remember the shapes they made.
"Ma'am? Ms. Lockhart?" Tifa was not a general, or a commander, though she did the work of one, and carried the authority of one. Like Barrett, like Vincent, she had refused the position when it was offered her. She'd never thought she would be a good one anyway.
//Or maybe, you just didn't want to lead people to die.Cloud took the responsibility, so did Yuffie, and even Cid, in his way.but you.//
"Ma'am?" The trooper's voice again, likely wanting her report, although the state of her clothes and the nick and tears on her skin should be evidence enough that the mountains to the east of Midgar and the adjacent swamp were not as cleared as they'd first believed.
//you ran away.//
Shaking her head slightly to dispel her own thoughts, Tifa turned her attention to the trooper - a young man of moderate rank in the Shinra forces, short with dark brown hair and nervous eyes. His lapel bore letters that formed his name: Victor Donawy.
"Yes, Victor, I'm sorry. I was thinking about something else." Tifa liked calling the soldiers by their names. It was an unexpected perk of not having a rank, that she did not have to obey the rules of other people's rank. In this great mass of bodies and souls that was the army, it made it human, to call someone by his name.
The boy blushed slightly and stammered, a kid looking for glory and awed that a hero of the War for the Planet, (and the first time Tifa had heard the name people had for what Avalanche had done, she'd felt the capitalization settle into her, like history, a heavy weight) would deign to call him by his name.
"Um..I...I...I need your report, Ma'am!" The words came out in a rush, and the bow bowed slightly, something adopted from the Wutain soldiers, no doubt.
Inwardly, Tifa smiled. So nervous, so scared, so much like so many other people, before the fear and shyness was covered in scars. "There's decreased activity in the mountains outside the swamps. I didn't run into too many problems. A few, as you can probably tell, but nothing serious. I met up with a good number of troops and several first and second class SOLDIER's as well. I'm assuming they were a division sent out to maintain that area?"
"Yes Ma'am. About half of the fourth division was sent into that area several weeks ago."
"Well, then they're holding it just fine. They didn't seem too beaten up, either. But you've probably learned that much from radio contact?"
Two exchanges counted as a conversation, and she knew he'd be telling this story tonight to his barrack, that Tifa Lockhart had a conversation with him.
"Yes Ma'am...I mean, they haven't contacted us all that much, so we were kinda worried, Ma'am, but what they did tell us, it said that, Ma'am." The trooper was obviously trying for the record number of times one could fit Ma'am in a sentence, and the titles and honor tired Tifa, dragged at her until she felt like she was in the swamp again, trying to fight as the mud and water clung to her and pulled her down.
"That's good, then. I'll write up the technical and send it to the head of the fourth, since his men are in the area." She nodded once to the trooper, who recognized it for the dismissal it was and bowed again before hurrying away, his walk hurried, a step below running.
Tifa smiled at his departure. He was a good kid. They were all such good kids, and they were all so young. She knew she'd been younger, when she went to work in a bar in the slums of Midgar, when she'd broken into Shinra corporation, when she'd watched her best friend die and lost her heart loving someone who couldn't love her in return.
But that all seemed so far away. As if it had happened to someone else, events that happened in a book she read as a child; a story she only remembered when she saw the stars at night, or that exact shade of green, or the hint of fire on silver.
//And after Nibelheim, you weren't so young anymore, were you?//
The troops that came in were green, so new and full of hopes of saving the world that they might as well wear a sign stating: "I want to be a hero when I grow up." Cloud had said that he was sometimes forced to use them in the front line, because they were so unafraid to die, because they were too young to be afraid of death. His voice had been cold and clipped as he said that, the voice of a general, and she did not recognize it.
Still, it was a shame, really, that most of them didn't get to grow up. They never got to grow out of that dream of heroism.
When she saw him passing by in the intersection, a figure of tall black and silver and so terribly familiar, her first thought was that she hadn't grown out of her dreams either, her nightmares.
Her second thought, when she saw Cloud walking with him, not alarmed, was many things at once.
She remembered Cloud's eyes. During the time before Meteor, they were always distant when he was using the memories of Zack or the influence of Sephiroth, retreating into himself. When he gave Sephiroth the black materia, his eyes had those of someone else's, a shade of blue too much like green, and she didn't recognize him. After Aeris's death, his eyes had been over bright with something that was not mako, but he never cried.
And when Sephiroth was taken over by Jenova, his eyes had been vacant, devoid of anything that resembled life. He had stared at the wall of his room for days, until Zack had gone in and forced him to eat, to live.
Every time he'd met the Sephiroth that was not Sephiroth, he'd come back with wounds and that awful blankness in his eyes.
She may not be able to be with him like she wanted, but Cloud Strife was still one of the most important people in the world to her, and she'd be damned if she was going to allow that Jenova jackass to hurt him again.
Tifa placed that determination behind her fist and charged forward. The man turned toward her, but didn't move fast enough and the fist hit with a satisfying solid sound. She jumped back, readying for a fight.
//I have wanted to do /that/ for /years/.//
She was expecting him to fight back. What she wasn't expecting was for Cloud to fight back, sweeping her arm behind her in a gentle but strong arm lock, his voice insistent in her ear.
"Stop it, Tif! He's not who you think he is! He's not a threat!"
Not a threat? After all he'd done, he wasn't a threat? Tifa snarled and twisted out of Cloud's grip, a movement that caught the blond by surprise.
"Not a threat?! And when did that happen, Cloud? There's a lot you're not telling me and I'd /really/ appreciate it if you'd take the damn time to fill me in!"
Cloud shifted his eyes always from her, locking eyes first with Sephiroth, then with Zack. The robed figure Tifa hadn't noticed moved closer to the group, almost trying to avoid the eyes of the troopers watching the group.
"Zack?"
Zack nodded and walked over to them, placing a hand on Tifa's shoulder. "Come on, Tifa. I'll explain. Cloud will be fine, don't worry." He placed his other hand on her hair, ruffling it. He did that occasionally, and she wasn't sure if she hated the big brother gesture or not. "Everything will be fine. Trust me."
Tifa let out a noise of disbelief. "Trust you? I value my life and sanity, thanks Zack."
Zack clutched his heart, wincing in pain. "Wounded to the core! The pain!"
Cloud rolled his eyes. Tifa wasn't sure, but she thought that Sephiroth did as well. "Go Zack. Tifa, he'll explain. You might have to beat it out of him, but he'll explain."
And then Cloud walked away, Sephiroth and the robed man following, after one long appraising look from the former. She tried not to shudder at the feeling of those emerald eyes as Cloud lead them to the residential area.
----
"So, how does it feel?"
The air in Nibelheim was not quite cold, but bordered on it, the indeterminable range of crisp and so clean it almost burned lungs that felt like they had been breathing Midgar forever.
Sometimes, the cure is worse than the disease.
"I wouldn't know, because I don't have a hometown."
Steps behind him, and the person grabbed his shoulders to face him. Sephiroth wondered why he hadn't noticed him before, and then he didn't, because it was him, and of course he could sneak up on himself.
His other self wore the leather uniform that he did, the Masamune at his side. His hands burned into his shoulders, and the green gaze stared into him, flat and cold, dissecting. Like a doctor. Like a scientist.
Like Hojo, his mind whispered, and suddenly Sephiroth wanted to retch.
The other's hands burned, and everything burned. Nibelheim was burning, the fire reaching out to lick the timbers of the buildings, and the screams were mounting, and somehow he knew it was all his fault.
"So that means, you don't have one either. You don't have a home to be away from, but if you did, you're so far away from it now."
He was so calm, the other him. So calm and so utterly insane, the light of madness burning as bright as the fire that ravaged the town. The people ran about, those that still could, trying to get away - from the fire, from everything. The sparks settled into hair and ignited it, and Sephiroth couldn't help but wince as hair of one frantic girl exploded into a burst of incendiary glory.
Sephiroth wore black because it was tactically the most effective color to wear, allowing him to hide as a shadow in a shadow, and for symbolism. It was right, somehow, fitting, to wear a color that symbolized the death he brought.
Cloud had told him Nibelheim was "a quiet town. Boring really, that far up in the mountains. One of those places where everyone knows everyone else, and you're either part of the family or you never will be." He knew that had to be true, that even the apparent bitterness in Cloud's voice couldn't twist the truth that much, but seeing Nibelheim burning all around him, it reminded him of the greatest cities of Wutai during the war, where everyone was a faceless figure, waiting to die.
Symbols. He wore black, but looking at Nibelheim, Sephiroth knew he should wear red.
"You don't need to. Look, you make your own symbols."
He /was/ wearing red, red that drank in the lights from the fires as it clung to his coat, warping the leather as it dried. Covered in blood, and it wasn't the first time.
"I wonder...if you even know where it all came from. Some of it is very old, after all, and from so many different people. Can you tell? Which part comes from Zack?"
There was something wrong in the way his other self smiled, something wrong in his eyes, a green too bright and too alien. He couldn't ever remember tilting his head like that, at that foreign angle and degree of inclination.
"Which part comes from Cloud?"
----
When Sephiroth woke up, the sheets in the bed were drenched in sweat and his hair stuck to his back in wet, clinging strands. The ceiling of the room Cloud had placed him in was unfamiliar, and for a moment he couldn't remember where he was, or where he was supposed to be.
Maybe there wasn't anywhere he was supposed to be.
"I don't have a hometown." The words felt off, bitter and wrong, a metallic taste. The other Sephiroth had worn them better.
//And if I don't have a hometown, how can I feel so far from home?//
He did not sleep again that night.
----- Author's Notes ----
1. If Jenova doesn't kill the world, then two Zacks will. That violates some law of physics, I just know it.
2. Seph, so far is the only one with inner debates. I'm sure they'll all develop them to some degree, but right now he's /special/. Like the way schizophrenics are special.
3. I know there's been a lot of plot and talk, so I'm making up for it. My personal desire to see Seph get punched had nothing to do with my actions in this chapter. Nothing, you hear me! Nothing!
/./ - indicates italics //.// - indicates thoughts *.* - indicates telepathy of any sort, should I ever have the occasion to use it ---- - change of scene, flashback, dream - the multipurpose stream of dashes of choice.
----
Xehorista Tora
Chapter Five
----
If I loose my faith - It would be too late
right back to neverland
It would drag me down - Suck me underground
right back to neverland
You don't understand
I'm down the hole again
- "Neverland" Skold
----
"To be perfectly frank, General, I don't know what to tell you."
Dr. Tabitha stood before the blond with her hands in the pockets of her lab coat and a general haphazard air of one who is too tired to care. She had spent the better part of an hour talking to both Sephiroth and Zackery, and the experience had been a trying one to say the least.
"Admittedly, it's difficult to get information from people when they appear to be under the impression that I'm going to /eat/ them as soon as they turn their back, but I did the best I could."
Cloud didn't quite smile, but as facial expressions went, it was close. "You did pretty well, Doc."
"Oh yes. The suppressed fear followed by the 'come near me with that needle and I will kill you' are the reactions every doctor wants to see in their patients." Tabitha sighed and removed her glasses, holding them in her hand as she collected herself.
"I wasn't able to get much from them, General, but what I can tell you is that they are both perfectly sane, clinically speaking. But - "
"We don't long how long they'll stay that way?" The resignation in Cloud's voice was no more and no less than could be expected.
"Precisely. What we do know is that, in all probability, Sephiroth - the original version, that is - went insane the first time due to Jenova's mental tampering and his own delusions." The glasses were still off, and Tabitha began to fold the arms in and out, a nervous twitch akin to pacing.
"So it was partly his own fault?" It's not difficult to ask a question when you already know the answer.
"Yes and no. I've looked through his files - all the ones left from Meteor, that is. Sephiroth was raised with little resembling family so it makes sense that he would latch on to whatever family was presented to him. From that, Jenova wouldn't have found it difficult to cultivate lies and half-truths that were worse than lies and make Sephiroth do whatever she wanted him to do. With so many of her own cells in him, she had an easy foothold."
Cloud didn't need to reply to that, and he doubted Tabitha expected one. He knew how easy it was from Jenova to gain ground from that foothold. He knew far too well.
"Anyway, the point is that there /was/ a foothold. When we revived General Sephiroth and General Zack, we told them all the information that we did because we hoped that the correct knowledge would eliminate that foothold that Jenova could use against him."
"But it didn't really work..." Cloud trailed off, thinking, remembering.
"But it did work, General. From what you've related to me of..." Cloud stared at the scientist's hands, trying to hear the words that he knew would come, and a vague, detached part of him wondered how long it would take before the arms of her glasses were ripped off from the repetitive motions. "the incident, by all accounts Sephiroth was taken completely over by Jenova - an event that, given the different circumstances, could have as easily happened to you. Before that, he severed himself completely from any of Jenova's ties."
Yes, he /had/ severed himself from Jenova. Cloud could remember, after the shock of having them here again had worn off, and before Sephiroth had changed again. Despite the war, despite Zack's new jabs of "Should I call you Sir Spike now?", despite the constant suspicion of his friends, everything had been like it was, and somehow close to perfect. Everything he could have wanted.
It hurt so much, when it was taken away again.
"So, I think, that if we tell the both of them everything - and I do mean everything - we'll have the same situation as before Jenova took over Sephiroth. I'm not sure whether we're going to try to send them home, or keep them here - that's Aeris's department, after all - but at least we won't have to deal with two psycho boys."
"And if Jenova takes him too?" To see this Sephiroth staring at him with that same expression, eyes flat as glass and nothing alive behind them, to see that again.....he would break, shatter into so many pieces that he'd never be able to piece them all together again.
"Well, there is always that, yes. However, we run the same risk having you go out into the field everyday. Besides, the direct presence of the she-bitch decreased after her seizure of Sephiroth. We can either assume that she doesn't feel the need to interact directly with her representative there, or that controlling Sephiroth takes too much out of her for her to appear in public."
"Thank the planet for small favors," Cloud said, with no small amount of bitterness tainting his voice.
"No, General, thank the planet for the fact that I have an army to keep healthy and a force of imbeciles to watch over, lest they inadvertently kill said army while trying to heal them." Tabitha stopped the constant motion of her hands and slipped the glasses back onto her face, absently tucking her hair back as she stared up at Cloud.
"You complain about those 'imbeciles' all the time Doc. And now you're glad that they're there?"
"Precisely, General. You see, having people look at you as if you are the psychotic doctor himself is hardly a fun filled experience. However, those other pressing duties are calling me away, so I /do/ hope you'll have fun with a friends from the past." With that and a cheery wave over her shoulder, Tabitha walked down the hall, leaving a bemused Cloud in her wake.
"Sometimes Doc, I think I'd be afraid of you if I had any sense left." Cloud let a resigned sigh slip out of his lips as he moved back through the door.
----
"A bit of a shock, I know." The future Zack said it with a wry grin that told Sephiroth he was well aware of how much of an understatement he was making.
"No, you think?" The other Zack - his Zack, and damn if this wasn't going to give him a headache soon - snapped back at him, his natural defense of wry wit coming to the front line. Zack tensed, then launched his own counter, and shaking his head Sephiroth removed himself from the argument.
//He's arguing with /himself./ There are few ways that this can end, and none of them are good.//
Zack was good at arguing, that much Sephiroth knew. He'd always had hell trying to get him to follow orders, because of course Zack /knew/ his way was better, and screw the orders from the high commander. Never disobedient enough to get court-martialed, but always enough transgressions to walk the line.
Still, one would think, against himself, he'd be evenly matched. But the other Zack had years on his Zack, and there was something determined in the set of his shoulders, a perseverance that went beyond what the years should have given him.
//I wonder.what would I look like now? Cloud changed so much, and so has Zack's although it's subtler.but what am I?//
A wry and bitter inner voice intruded.
/What, you mean besides insane? A servant of /evil/? A misguided fool that, from Strife's accounts, killed the two people you actually trust? Can I stop now, or would you like me to keep going?/
He wished he could argue with his common sense, but it had the annoying ability of being right. Even when he didn't want it to be.
The door creaked open, breaking off Zack's argument, and Cloud walked into the room. Clearing his throat, he spoke, short and clipped words searing through the remnants hostility.
"We're going to have to move you all to rooms until we can meet with the others. Which won't be until tomorrow, by all accounts. There's no way to disguise you" he gestured toward Sephiroth, and the white-haired man marveled again at the change in Cloud, the solidity of him now, the presence "but Zack."
"Yeah?" Both of them spoke in tandem, and Cloud winced.
"Not you, Zack, but the other Zack. Zackery. Past Zack...You really need nametags, you know that? Here, put this on. Cover your face." He threw a bundle of cloth at Zackery, who fumbled the catch but managed to hold onto it, unraveling the material into a large, black cloak. He groaned softly, but put it on.
"Black. What, am I possessed by Seph's lack of fashion sense?"
Everyone couldn't help but grin at that, even Cloud who moved toward the door.
"Let's get this over with."
They entered the hallway and began moving, Cloud in the lead, Zack trailing behind, and Zackery attempting not to trip on the dragging hem of the cloak. Almost immediately the man could feel the force of the countless eyes trained on them.
Sephiroth decided that, had he any choice in his future, he would have liked to be a hermit somewhere in the mountains. One of those hermits who lived in a small hut somewhere, and never interacted with people.
Because if there were no people to interact with, it also meant that there were no people to stare at him.
He'd always been in public view, since before he could remember. See the boy, Shinra's golden boy, and watch him move and fight, and watch when we hold him to the light; cold and cruel, untouchable and perfect. A façade like that was not easy to maintain, but it was necessary, and well practiced, and he found himself falling back into the routine now, as the eyes of everyone burned into him, and every soldier's hand moved toward his gun.
If not for the company of Cloud, and the presence he carried with him, Sephiroth was sure he'd have been shot before he could move.
Of course, despite the fact that they were /two/ of them, Sephiroth was sure that Zack would be able to talk his way out of the entire incident, no doubt befriending the head of the enemy camp while doing so. Perhaps he'd even challenge him to a game of cards. Zack had that charisma, and Sephiroth took some comfort in the fact that, with his head forced down and cloaked so none could recognize him, Zack was as uneasy as he.
He could hear the whispers that trailed behind him, words like "Sephiroth" and "Jenova" and "enemy" and "monster" and they hurt because they were true.
Strange, because they said his name the way the fighters of Wutai had said his name, when he had laid the nation at Shinra's feet, and he'd never thought to be ashamed of his name until now.
//This is your company, your /home/, no matter how many years into the future, and they're afraid of you.//
If /they/ were afraid of him, Sephiroth shuddered to think what his reputation must be around the rest of the world. Maybe he could try to prosecute the other him for defamation of name.
//And then Cloud, Zack, Zack and I can all live in Costa de Sol and raise Chocobos. Right. Never knew time travel could make someone so stupid.//
/And since when do you know so much about time travel?/
Sephiroth would have twitched at the dry intrusion of his common sense, but he was fairly sure that he'd be shot if he did.
//...I thought all my inner voices were supposed to be on /my/ side.//
/Sorry. No./
//You really sound to much like Zack for my own good health, you know that?//
He swore his common sense snickered, and he wanted to kill it. Painfully. Preferably with a blunt object, and maybe no one would mind if he were just to go over and start beating his head against the wall?
The sound of quick footsteps brought him out of his reverie, and he tensed, anticipating whoever would approach, until the form became clearly defined, the uniform that of the common soldier. A grunt, in layman's terms. The soldier paused before them quickly catching his breath, and Sephiroth pushed his inner monologue aside, prepared to watch and listen.
----
The trooper that approached them looked to be a private, and terrified out of his mind by his proximity to Cloud. He shifted his weight uncertainly from leg to leg, before clearly his throat hesitantly.
"Umm.Sir?"
Cloud looked at him, not unkindly, and his posture straightened ever so slightly, something almost unnoticeable, except for the fact that this was Sephiroth, and he noticed everything.
"Yes, Private Jonson?"
Nametags were high on the list of very good things. As far as Cloud was concerned, the were seconded only hot showers in the morning and a clean uniform after two months in the mud flats of Wutai, spent fighting giant insects.
Because of nametags, Cloud had managed to realize the names of each of the multitude of troopers. He often forgot them immediately after, but that couldn't really be helped. There were so many of them, and there were always new ones enlisting.
//.to replace the dead. You will lead this boy to his grave, and you won't even remember his name.//
It still hurt, although Cloud has reconciled himself to that inevitable fact long ago. The kept the dog tags and the rankings of the dead, if they could, but there was still that amorphous mass of unknown soldiers, rotten corpses. They burned them when they could, because the bodies never lasted long, especially with the rancid lifestream that would sometimes come up to touch the graveyards of past battles, hoping to steal the energy of a lingering soul.
Cloud didn't know if it was a gift or a curse that Hojo needed to inject Jenova into living specimens before they could be absorbed by the host. He suspected it was a bit of both.
"Sir.I was sent to retrieve the files that you requested. Here they are, Sir." To the trooper's credit, the hand that handed him the thick folder shook only slightly, and the salute that the man, more of a boy really, threw him was nothing short of perfect, if a bit hurried. The boy scrambled away, his regulation boots beating out a quick tempo against the tiles.
"When'd you ask for that, Spike?" Zack looked at him querulously.
"I didn't. Doc must have. She knew I'd need it."
At the mention of a medical personnel, Zackery perked up. "'Doc'? You mean the short woman earlier? The...colorful one?"
Both Cloud and Zack laughed, the sound of Zack's laughter almost drowning out Cloud's more reserved snicker. "Colorful is certainly one way to put it." Cloud said. "She's Doctor Tabitha, head of medical and scientific personnel. We needed to have to look over both of you. You can trust her, by the way. And I wouldn't say that about many people in Shinra, let alone the medics."
Sephiroth was watching him carefully, his green gaze sliding over him, like water over glass. "No, you wouldn't, would you? I doubt you've had good experiences with doctors." He drew the last word out slightly, still testing Cloud.
But Cloud had had years to perfect dealing with references to that time, when the water dripped from the ceiling and the floors, except it was blood, always blood, dripping from his veins and the light flickered on and off, keeping pace with the screams.
//.and it was always cold down there, and always the screams, except when they stopped and you held your breath until you thought you would burst, waiting for the screams to return because it meant Zack was still alive. And you hated yourself for wanting Zack to be in pain, knowing that you'd rather have his pain than being alone.//
Nothing was worse than being alone. Cloud had known many sorts of hell in the forms of burning blood in battle, and watching men he'd known get ripped apart before his eyes, and their screams as they died, so filled with fear and pain..
...but nothing was worse than being alone.
So caught up in a nostalgia that burned like the acid blood from some of Hojo's beast, Cloud was caught completely unaware as Tifa rushed up, almost out of nowhere, and cocked back a fist to slam it into Sephiroth's face.
----
Tifa Lockhart was tired, dirty and covered in at least three layers of blood, each with the added bonus of being a different color. For the past few weeks, she'd been out on recon, something she dutifully accepted, with only slight grumbling. Reconnaissance, to her, was something she enjoyed doing more than leading a troop - not that she enjoyed anything in this war.
Perhaps it was because she'd seen too many die and at far too young an age, but leading other to what was likely their deaths had stopped being something she could handle early into the war. She wondered sometimes, how Cloud did it, greeted those new troops who looked at him with stars in their eyes and dreams of glory in their hearts, and sent them to an early grave.
Even those that survived were still dead. When Tifa had lead troops, she would leave with a hundred and come back with fifty walking corpses, minds shocked and scarred from what they'd seen. After the first few months, those that lasted got used to it, the reckless sense of near-death that lingered around the edges of the camp, like blood stains in the harsh fabric of the uniforms.
The soldiers scratched messages in the walls, in the common letters of the continents and the willowy lines of Wutain. She couldn't read the Wutain, but she'd asked Yuffie once what they said.
//"Well, a bunch of them aren't polite, Tifa, and those that are aren't any better." Pausing, the girl who was now more a woman, with the muscles of a fighter and the bearing of a commander, tapped her foot on the ground and stretched linked fingers in front of her.
"Near as it translates, one of them's 'Death to Hojo' another's 'Fight for honor and the planet' - you know, stock stuff like that. The big one over there" Yuffie pointed with her outstretched hands to a jumble of diagonals "is pretty neat."
She grinned once as she read it, a fierce, hard grin that Tifa couldn't remember seeing on her before.
"Leave your mortality behind. You no longer require it."//
Tifa passed under those words now as she walked across the main courtyard to the SOLDIER's section of the barracks. She stared up at them, and from this angle they distorted vertically, becoming slanted and narrow, spreading across the wall.
The problem with that, Tifa thought, was that mortality wasn't all you had to leave behind. You had to leave behind fear too, the gut wrenching terror and the voice that chanted a litany of 'I don't want to die' in your head during a charge. You had to leave behind worry, for yourself and for others. You had to leave behind the memories of house and home, although you cherished them, because to remember that there was somewhere else during a battle was death.
Of course, you didn't leave everything behind. You carried your gun and your gloves and your rations on your chocobo. You took the feeling of being a part of something, of fighting for something, and of those that were worth fighting for.
Later than she'd thought, as she crossed the courtyard, and the shadows grew until they were as long as the letters. They twisted into a mass of slanting lines, and Tifa wondered if it spelt anything like 'hope' in Wutain, because you never left that behind either.
When she entered the building, she couldn't see the shadows anymore, and she blinked back the glare from the lights overhead and tried to remember the shapes they made.
"Ma'am? Ms. Lockhart?" Tifa was not a general, or a commander, though she did the work of one, and carried the authority of one. Like Barrett, like Vincent, she had refused the position when it was offered her. She'd never thought she would be a good one anyway.
//Or maybe, you just didn't want to lead people to die.Cloud took the responsibility, so did Yuffie, and even Cid, in his way.but you.//
"Ma'am?" The trooper's voice again, likely wanting her report, although the state of her clothes and the nick and tears on her skin should be evidence enough that the mountains to the east of Midgar and the adjacent swamp were not as cleared as they'd first believed.
//you ran away.//
Shaking her head slightly to dispel her own thoughts, Tifa turned her attention to the trooper - a young man of moderate rank in the Shinra forces, short with dark brown hair and nervous eyes. His lapel bore letters that formed his name: Victor Donawy.
"Yes, Victor, I'm sorry. I was thinking about something else." Tifa liked calling the soldiers by their names. It was an unexpected perk of not having a rank, that she did not have to obey the rules of other people's rank. In this great mass of bodies and souls that was the army, it made it human, to call someone by his name.
The boy blushed slightly and stammered, a kid looking for glory and awed that a hero of the War for the Planet, (and the first time Tifa had heard the name people had for what Avalanche had done, she'd felt the capitalization settle into her, like history, a heavy weight) would deign to call him by his name.
"Um..I...I...I need your report, Ma'am!" The words came out in a rush, and the bow bowed slightly, something adopted from the Wutain soldiers, no doubt.
Inwardly, Tifa smiled. So nervous, so scared, so much like so many other people, before the fear and shyness was covered in scars. "There's decreased activity in the mountains outside the swamps. I didn't run into too many problems. A few, as you can probably tell, but nothing serious. I met up with a good number of troops and several first and second class SOLDIER's as well. I'm assuming they were a division sent out to maintain that area?"
"Yes Ma'am. About half of the fourth division was sent into that area several weeks ago."
"Well, then they're holding it just fine. They didn't seem too beaten up, either. But you've probably learned that much from radio contact?"
Two exchanges counted as a conversation, and she knew he'd be telling this story tonight to his barrack, that Tifa Lockhart had a conversation with him.
"Yes Ma'am...I mean, they haven't contacted us all that much, so we were kinda worried, Ma'am, but what they did tell us, it said that, Ma'am." The trooper was obviously trying for the record number of times one could fit Ma'am in a sentence, and the titles and honor tired Tifa, dragged at her until she felt like she was in the swamp again, trying to fight as the mud and water clung to her and pulled her down.
"That's good, then. I'll write up the technical and send it to the head of the fourth, since his men are in the area." She nodded once to the trooper, who recognized it for the dismissal it was and bowed again before hurrying away, his walk hurried, a step below running.
Tifa smiled at his departure. He was a good kid. They were all such good kids, and they were all so young. She knew she'd been younger, when she went to work in a bar in the slums of Midgar, when she'd broken into Shinra corporation, when she'd watched her best friend die and lost her heart loving someone who couldn't love her in return.
But that all seemed so far away. As if it had happened to someone else, events that happened in a book she read as a child; a story she only remembered when she saw the stars at night, or that exact shade of green, or the hint of fire on silver.
//And after Nibelheim, you weren't so young anymore, were you?//
The troops that came in were green, so new and full of hopes of saving the world that they might as well wear a sign stating: "I want to be a hero when I grow up." Cloud had said that he was sometimes forced to use them in the front line, because they were so unafraid to die, because they were too young to be afraid of death. His voice had been cold and clipped as he said that, the voice of a general, and she did not recognize it.
Still, it was a shame, really, that most of them didn't get to grow up. They never got to grow out of that dream of heroism.
When she saw him passing by in the intersection, a figure of tall black and silver and so terribly familiar, her first thought was that she hadn't grown out of her dreams either, her nightmares.
Her second thought, when she saw Cloud walking with him, not alarmed, was many things at once.
She remembered Cloud's eyes. During the time before Meteor, they were always distant when he was using the memories of Zack or the influence of Sephiroth, retreating into himself. When he gave Sephiroth the black materia, his eyes had those of someone else's, a shade of blue too much like green, and she didn't recognize him. After Aeris's death, his eyes had been over bright with something that was not mako, but he never cried.
And when Sephiroth was taken over by Jenova, his eyes had been vacant, devoid of anything that resembled life. He had stared at the wall of his room for days, until Zack had gone in and forced him to eat, to live.
Every time he'd met the Sephiroth that was not Sephiroth, he'd come back with wounds and that awful blankness in his eyes.
She may not be able to be with him like she wanted, but Cloud Strife was still one of the most important people in the world to her, and she'd be damned if she was going to allow that Jenova jackass to hurt him again.
Tifa placed that determination behind her fist and charged forward. The man turned toward her, but didn't move fast enough and the fist hit with a satisfying solid sound. She jumped back, readying for a fight.
//I have wanted to do /that/ for /years/.//
She was expecting him to fight back. What she wasn't expecting was for Cloud to fight back, sweeping her arm behind her in a gentle but strong arm lock, his voice insistent in her ear.
"Stop it, Tif! He's not who you think he is! He's not a threat!"
Not a threat? After all he'd done, he wasn't a threat? Tifa snarled and twisted out of Cloud's grip, a movement that caught the blond by surprise.
"Not a threat?! And when did that happen, Cloud? There's a lot you're not telling me and I'd /really/ appreciate it if you'd take the damn time to fill me in!"
Cloud shifted his eyes always from her, locking eyes first with Sephiroth, then with Zack. The robed figure Tifa hadn't noticed moved closer to the group, almost trying to avoid the eyes of the troopers watching the group.
"Zack?"
Zack nodded and walked over to them, placing a hand on Tifa's shoulder. "Come on, Tifa. I'll explain. Cloud will be fine, don't worry." He placed his other hand on her hair, ruffling it. He did that occasionally, and she wasn't sure if she hated the big brother gesture or not. "Everything will be fine. Trust me."
Tifa let out a noise of disbelief. "Trust you? I value my life and sanity, thanks Zack."
Zack clutched his heart, wincing in pain. "Wounded to the core! The pain!"
Cloud rolled his eyes. Tifa wasn't sure, but she thought that Sephiroth did as well. "Go Zack. Tifa, he'll explain. You might have to beat it out of him, but he'll explain."
And then Cloud walked away, Sephiroth and the robed man following, after one long appraising look from the former. She tried not to shudder at the feeling of those emerald eyes as Cloud lead them to the residential area.
----
"So, how does it feel?"
The air in Nibelheim was not quite cold, but bordered on it, the indeterminable range of crisp and so clean it almost burned lungs that felt like they had been breathing Midgar forever.
Sometimes, the cure is worse than the disease.
"I wouldn't know, because I don't have a hometown."
Steps behind him, and the person grabbed his shoulders to face him. Sephiroth wondered why he hadn't noticed him before, and then he didn't, because it was him, and of course he could sneak up on himself.
His other self wore the leather uniform that he did, the Masamune at his side. His hands burned into his shoulders, and the green gaze stared into him, flat and cold, dissecting. Like a doctor. Like a scientist.
Like Hojo, his mind whispered, and suddenly Sephiroth wanted to retch.
The other's hands burned, and everything burned. Nibelheim was burning, the fire reaching out to lick the timbers of the buildings, and the screams were mounting, and somehow he knew it was all his fault.
"So that means, you don't have one either. You don't have a home to be away from, but if you did, you're so far away from it now."
He was so calm, the other him. So calm and so utterly insane, the light of madness burning as bright as the fire that ravaged the town. The people ran about, those that still could, trying to get away - from the fire, from everything. The sparks settled into hair and ignited it, and Sephiroth couldn't help but wince as hair of one frantic girl exploded into a burst of incendiary glory.
Sephiroth wore black because it was tactically the most effective color to wear, allowing him to hide as a shadow in a shadow, and for symbolism. It was right, somehow, fitting, to wear a color that symbolized the death he brought.
Cloud had told him Nibelheim was "a quiet town. Boring really, that far up in the mountains. One of those places where everyone knows everyone else, and you're either part of the family or you never will be." He knew that had to be true, that even the apparent bitterness in Cloud's voice couldn't twist the truth that much, but seeing Nibelheim burning all around him, it reminded him of the greatest cities of Wutai during the war, where everyone was a faceless figure, waiting to die.
Symbols. He wore black, but looking at Nibelheim, Sephiroth knew he should wear red.
"You don't need to. Look, you make your own symbols."
He /was/ wearing red, red that drank in the lights from the fires as it clung to his coat, warping the leather as it dried. Covered in blood, and it wasn't the first time.
"I wonder...if you even know where it all came from. Some of it is very old, after all, and from so many different people. Can you tell? Which part comes from Zack?"
There was something wrong in the way his other self smiled, something wrong in his eyes, a green too bright and too alien. He couldn't ever remember tilting his head like that, at that foreign angle and degree of inclination.
"Which part comes from Cloud?"
----
When Sephiroth woke up, the sheets in the bed were drenched in sweat and his hair stuck to his back in wet, clinging strands. The ceiling of the room Cloud had placed him in was unfamiliar, and for a moment he couldn't remember where he was, or where he was supposed to be.
Maybe there wasn't anywhere he was supposed to be.
"I don't have a hometown." The words felt off, bitter and wrong, a metallic taste. The other Sephiroth had worn them better.
//And if I don't have a hometown, how can I feel so far from home?//
He did not sleep again that night.
----- Author's Notes ----
1. If Jenova doesn't kill the world, then two Zacks will. That violates some law of physics, I just know it.
2. Seph, so far is the only one with inner debates. I'm sure they'll all develop them to some degree, but right now he's /special/. Like the way schizophrenics are special.
3. I know there's been a lot of plot and talk, so I'm making up for it. My personal desire to see Seph get punched had nothing to do with my actions in this chapter. Nothing, you hear me! Nothing!