Disclaimer: I do not own Final Fantasy or anything associated with it. And all of you Sephiroth fans out there, I'm very sorry. I love him to, but he's just so much fun to mock.
To all of you who reviewed- Wow. Thank you so much! I can't possibly convey to you how much it made my day to find that fifteen people wanted to give feedback on the first chapter alone. Thank you, thank you, thank you! This second chapter is for you guys. I hope that it's worth the read. : )
The Second Fiasco: Sephiroth Vs. Masumane, or Why Sephiroth's Hair is so Straight
Sephiroth heaved a massive sigh, settling down into a nearby chair with a solid thump. He hurled Masumane to the floor, where it landed with a loud, highly satisfying clang. The venerated warrior then proceeded to sit there and glare resentfully at the gore-encrusted blade.
Masumane didn't care.
Sephiroth's glare darkened significantly, his upper lip curling into a half snarl, half sneer, his slender, shapely eyebrows tilting diabolically while his hate-filled eyes burned fiendishly beneath them. His hair belled out impressively behind him and he clenched his hands, tearing deep scars in the arms of the helpless chair. A deep, low rumble built slowly in the General's throat, and the shadows in the room seemed convulse, swirling around the him and welcoming him for what he was, a created of hatred and pain and eternal darkness.
Masumane still didn't care.
The chair, however, decided that it had had enough.
One of the badly abused legs, (Tooth marks? Bad Sephiroth!) collapsed without warning, sending its leather-clad occupant headfirst into the wall behind him. The resulting dull thud and yowl of,
"Ow! Shit!" echoed loudly through the deserted room. Sephiroth froze immediately, surveying the surrounding area to assure himself that none had witnessed his indignity. The Great General extricated himself from the ruins of the chair, glanced around once more, and then turned and gave it a vicious kick. The chair took up a new occupation—as kindling.
Sephiroth gave a self-satisfied nod and turned sharply on his heel, his trench coat swirling flamboyantly around him. He was on his way out of the door, until he tripped over the former object of his contemplation. He turned back and stared at Masumane, and then picked it up with another weary sigh. He settled down once again, this time on the floor. All of the furniture was out to get him…
Sephiroth further examined the weapon. It was stuck, well and proper. It was not, of course, his fault. The drama of the scene had required him to replace Masumane back in its sheath without wiping it off. That, of course, had resulted in all of the blood and other nasty gunk drying—and thus becoming a rigid adhesive that shared most of the properties of super glue, though without the drying paint smell. The General took a deep breath and set about top solving the problem.
First, he placed one hand on the hilt and the other upon the body of the leather sheath. He flexed his arms impressively and began to pull, his muscles rippling, teeth clenching, and eyes squeezing shut with effort.
Absolutely nothing happened.
Sephiroth swore softly to himself. He hated cleaning up his own messes! Someone else should do this for him! …But there was no way in hell that he was letting anyone else touch Masumane. So he would do this on his own.
The General swiftly wedged the hilt of Masumane in the door and then dragged as strongly as he could upon the base. Once again—nothing happened.
Sephiroth let loose an enraged shriek, scaring one of the poor innocent people passing by through the halfway to death. While it made him feel much better, it did nothing to solve his problem. He thought for a moment, and then reached out and snatched a hyperventilating employee by the scruff of the neck.
"You..." He hissed softly, pausing for dramatic effect. The employee squeaked a reply.
"M...M... M-me?" The poor man looked ready to wet himself, but Sephiroth didn't care. On the other hand, perhaps he did... It would get on his nice shiny dry-clean only jacket. He sneered.
"Yes. You. I have a job for you." He paused once again for dramatic effect. "Get me..." Another pause. "Liquid nitrogen." He considered inserting a wicked cackle, but then decided that it would be to cheesy and Hojo-ish. Besides, the employee was already sprinting down the hallway.
Sephiroth strode back into his room, looking quite pleased with himself. He had decimated one piece of furniture, terrified a little minion, and was rapidly on his way to solving the dilemma of his sword. Life was good, he decided, picking his stubborn blade up off of the floor and heading into the bathroom. He crouched down next to his tub and clicked the drain shut, and then gently laid the Masumane lengthwise into the large bathing apparatus.
A timid rap on the door, signifying the random minion's return with the liquid nitrogen, drew his attention. Sephiroth pivoted slowly and tip-toed over to the door, then crouched down next to it, waiting. Just as the tapping started again, the General flung the door open with such force that it cracked against the wall and loomed dramatically over the terrified worker, his teeth bared in a snarl and his gloved hands tensed into frightening, monster-like claws.
"WHAT!" Sephiroth bellowed. The employee's hair was blown back by the force of the general's roar, and, to frightened to speak, the poor man gestured frantically to the icy canister next to him while gibbering incoherently.
This, of course, made Sephiroth very happy. Deciding to give the poor man a break, the tall Adonis shooed the traumatized employee off with one hand, grabbing the handle on the nitrogen tub with the other and hauling it inside. The general dragged it over to the bathtub, pausing for a moment to examine the situation. Reaching over, Sephiroth gingerly plucked the Masumane out of the tub, deciding to dip the sheath into the nitrogen rather than pour the nitrogen over it, in order to avoid damaging the grip. Once he'd frozen the sheath, it would be brittle enough to simple crack off of the tempered steel of the weapon itself. He set it on the floor next to the tub and reached back, grabbing the canister of deadly liquid and dragging it up to the rim. The general lifted the entire container off of the ground and tipped its contents into the tub, moving the exact precision and catlike grace. After making sure that the last drops of the ominously steaming liquid had been eked into the basin, Sephiroth carefully tilted the canister upright again
Until he dropped it on his foot.
Now, ladies and gentlemen, I'm sure that we've all heard the term 'swearing fit to blister the paint off the walls'. While this is usually taken to be a highly exaggerated and greatly overrated hyperbolic phrase, it is said that the walls of Sephiroth's bathing room were, after that day, a startlingly inexplicable shade of paint-less, and that the local garbage collector spent nearly an hour speculating as to why Shinra's trash can was stuffed with what appeared to be a large amount of charred paint peelings.
But moving on.
After having vocally made his displeasure apparent, Sephiroth decided that more violent measures were required to fully vent his ire. After all, wreaking one's decor—while highly satisfying—was far to bloodless for his taste. Why bother having a temper tantrum(1) if there was no-one around to be terrified by it...?
Sephiroth pivoted and snatched up the large mental jug, heaving it over his shoulder and stomping(2) towards the single, heavily curtained window that graced his rooms. He ripped said curtains open violently, taking a secret delight in the noise of expensive cloth rending. The general poked his head out of the window, searching the group below until he located a likely-looking victim. After a few moments of calculation, he withdrew his head, closed the window,(3) hefted the giant metal jug, and smashed it ferociously through the glass. Once the unfortunate capsule had made its exit, Sephiroth stuck his head back out of the now pane-less window, watching with glee as it landed neatly and with a resounding clang on one of the many employees below. He resisted the urge to cackle at the sight of the other passersby running around frantically, some trying to pry the man out from under the canister and others fleeing the area.
Sephiroth decided that he should keep a stock of large, preferably metal, objects stacked by the window so that he would have a handy supply when he felt like target practice. Or just for when he was bored. The though cheered him immensely.
The General turned and strode arrogantly back into his bathroom, feeling fully optimistic about the upcoming confrontation with his irksome weapon. He strutted into the now color-less tiled interior, coat billowing behind him as he kicked the door shut with one foot, the force of his stomp nearly cracking the frame. He paused for a moment, surveying the situation, before taking a large, confident step towards the tub, reaching out to grasp the Masumane with his left hand—
Imagine his surprise when he was jerked back violently, the corner of his specially-made, dry clean only trench coat that had caught in the door arresting his momentum sharply and causing his feet to skid out from beneath him on the slick tile floor. The next few moments seemed to take place in slow motion for the powerful warrior;
the nitrogen-filled tub approaching his face at a highly alarming rate—
his grasping hand catching on the shower curtain, checking his fall moments before a fatal plunge into a tub of -364 F liquid—
his awkward, left handed-hold on a shower curtain located to his right causing his body to twist about—
his right hand flailing wildly for a moment before his elbow painfully whacked the rim of the tub—
and his body finishing its 180, leaving the back of his head hovering inches above the basin of liquid death.
Sephiroth remained frozen(4) for several moments, barely daring to breath for fear of loosing his tenuous grip on the shower curtain. He cautiously leaned forwards, tilting his torso inch by inch until his head was well out of danger. He sat on the floor for a moment, weak with relief that he was still Sephiroth, and not the large chunk of ice formerly known as Sephiroth. Once ascertaining that he was unhurt, and taking several moments to breath in that wheezy, squeaky, 'oh my god I can't believe that just happened' manner that often follows near-death experiences, the General promptly shrugged off the incident and leaped to his feet. The moment he was standing, however, he noticed two very odd sensations—that, in his opinion, he really shouldn't be experiencing.
One; his head felt strangely heavy, as if there was a large block of ice glued to the back of his skull.
Two; his back felt very, very cold through his coat—once again, a feeling that reminded him of having a large block of ice glued to the back of his skull.
Three; there was a decided lack of hair swirling about his shoulders.
Now, ladies and gentlemen, remember that a soldier often encounters many situations where having lots and lots of very long, pale hair is extremely inconvenient. (Such as mortal battles, blood, grime, and large tubs of liquid nitrogen.) Thus, any soldier who takes the time to grow, maintain, and protect such hair must be both extremely fond and extremely proud of it.
Thus the earsplitting scream that reverberated through the Shinra compound.
Later on...
Sephiroth faced Cloud and the rest of Avalanche, his hands clenching the haft of his Masumane as he glowered desperately at Avalanche.
"Stop that, dammit!" He bellowed at the group, his left eye twitching spasmodically in his ire. "It's not funny!"
Cloud had collapsed and was writhing on the group, clutching his stomach at the sight of his hated enemy. The slender Wutaian girl was outright pointing and laughing, tears standing out in her eyes in the face of a man who had, previously, terrified her.
"I said stop!" The General roared at them, sure that once he let the full extent of his rage known they would return to their normal cringing pathetic selves. He was cordially ignored by the entire group.
The tall African American had propped himself up on his gun arm, bent over double as he gasped for breath between wheezes of laughter. The blond pilot had, to all appearances, swallowed his cigar in shock, and Cloud's attractive brunette companion was attempting some sort of Heimlich maneuver, but was laughing so hard that all she was managing were several weak thumps against his ribcage. The cat that had attached itself to the group was screeching with delight, the high sound grating Sephiroth's nerves.
The general glanced around frantically, trying to find something to lessen the humiliation of the sight of his magnificent hair frozen into a rigid, slightly steaming chunk sticking out at a rigid angle. His eyes settled on the last member of the group in a sort of desperate plea, sure that the stoic, red-cloaked man was to serious to find humor in such an incident—
—only to have his hopes and his dignity shattered at the sight of the tall gunman's face. His teeth were sunk into his bottom lip, his face contorted in a heroic attempt to avoid joining the rest of the team in hysterics. Once he noticed Sephiroth's horrified expression was directed at him, however, all was lost, and the normally cold man buckled over, choking with silent laughter.
Sephiroth let loose an enraged snarl and fled, unable to bear the embarrassment any longer.
"You'll pay for this, all of you! Just you watch, I'll-" The full effect of the threat, bellowed over his shoulder, was utterly lost as his turned head caused the awkward chunk of ice that had once been his pride and joy to clang loudly against a very inconveniently placed metal wall, the pointy tip of the block snapping off with a resounding ping. Avalanche fell silent for a moment, staring, only to begin laughing twice as hard all over again at the cheery-red faced General and his ungainly block of hair.
Sephiroth decided on a long vacation in Malibu.
Read the footnotes, please. : ) I hope that you all enjoyed the second chapter, and that it wasn't to hard to understand! Thanks again to all of those who reviewed.
(1)Not that the great Sephiroth would ever refer to his behavior as a temper tantrum. No no, that would imply a degree of immaturity, which would imply a certain lack of dignity, and everyone is fully aware that the great Sephiroth is nothing short of perfectly dignified and controlled and just generally per- (pardon the unfinished nature as this sentence, as the author was overcome by a fit of spontaneous giggles and had to abandon her computer for several moments.)
(2) It was, in actually, more like 'stomp limp, stomp limp, stomp limp.' The results of dropping a large chunk of metal on one's toes include a serious decrease in impressive stomping skills.
(3) There's not much point in throwing something out of a window if the window doesn't shatter loudly, now is there? Or if said thrown object doesn't hit something. But that's a given.
(4) Out of a wish for self-preservation, thankfully, not literally frozen. :snicker: