Absolution - Version 1.0
Summary: AU. CloudxLeon, SephirothxCloud. Freedom has always been something that Cloud has desired. But when the chance finally presents itself, he learns that it's harder to reach than what he had anticipated, the Darkness whispering seducing words in his ear and the military hot on his trail making life a little rough.
Warnings: Yaoi (malexmale relationships), cursing, violence, dark content, future of lime content, possible lemon
The nights of Twilight Town were definitely far different from the light facade that the city put on during the day. It was a known fact amongst the people that inhabited the large, towering city that it never really lived up to the names that it had been issued, "Town of Dreams" in being one; no one really kept their dreams alive once they had spent over a year or so living in the city itself. Old, crumbling buildings littered the ground haphazardly, as if the people constructing them had suddenly become bored with their job and dropped the task before it could even be finished. An array of trash also lay scattered throughout the streets and the alleyways, the latter of the two filled so full with discarded junk and clothes and people that it was almost impossible to walk through it. When peering through the veil of darkness brought on by the night, these things became a reality, and the "Town of Dreams" seemed to be more of a Town of Nightmares to the people unfortunate enough to fall into poverty.
During the day, however, Twilight Town actually lived up to its name. Large businesses and fancy restaurants littered nearly every corner of every perfectly paved street, each building towering high over the head's of any who walked beside them. A line of expensive hotels and theaters designed for the great were littered sporadically throughout the city, welcoming the wealthy with their rich colors and attractive lights to come and spend their money away. Business officials and military commanders made up a vast majority of Twilight Town's "richer" population, and markets designed just for their type were placed in neat little rows amongst the food markets and clothing markets as if war and fighting were a daily part of everyone's life, just as the necessities of clothing and food were a daily part of everyone's life. That was the mentality in all of Twilight Town and the surrounding cities; "fight to survive"; "survival of the fittest"; "if you aren't rich, then you fall into the trap known as despair and are better off living on the streets than polluting the government and military with your idiocy." Thriving markets, renowned restaurants and glittering theaters forgotten, the town became more of a place for the riffraff of the slums rather than the high-class officials that occupied its streets during the daylight hours. Gangs and renegade soldiers littered the streets, and blood was such a common occurrence that the nightwalkers even forgot to be afraid.
Twilight Town, essentially, lived up to its name of being trapped into its own warped vision of twilight; it possessed a light side and a dark side, much like the myths from the past said that the heart held. A Darkness, and a Light. Night and Day. Despair and Hope.
Twilight Town was equally famous for both of its sides.
That was why it was no surprise to anyone nearby when a loud thud echoed throughout the shadowed alley of the side streets, a darkly clad figure tumbling from the second story of the nearest apartment complex and slamming to the ground harshly. The form rolled several feet before coming to an abrupt halt amongst the debris of broken boxes and wooden crates that lingered in the dark, cluttered alleyways, the form remaining limp on the concrete for less than a minute before scrambling to his feet, tearing off down the alley and into the main street as if nothing had ever happened. He kept close to the side of the nearest buildings, half crouching, half running amongst the shadows that tended to gather in places such as those, his body nearly melding into the stone walls in his efforts to remain hidden.
"When the hell did these guys get so persistent?" Cloud Strife squeezed the words out around rough pants, the man turning his head to the side and glancing warily over his shoulder in a desperate attempt to find his pursuers. Good, looks like they can't keep up with the lunatic that jumps off of buildings and onto concrete. Slender fingers, wrapped in what remained of his torn and tattered leather gloves, reached through the mass of blonde spikes that comprised his hair, running through it as he slowed his pace a little in an effort to conserve his energy. He had been running for nearly an entire day, the exhaustion that was brought about by his constant flight from his pursuers leaving him more than just a little tired and irrate.
Then there was his final problem: where the hell he was going to go. He had no home outside of the military, and he definitely didn't have any remaining family that would be willing to take him in after what the news had been broadcasting all afternoon and well into the night. "Wanted: Man by the name of Cloud Strife, blonde hair, Mako blue eyes, height is around five feet, seven inches. Charged for murder of the highest ranking SOLDIER officer and threats to the government. Is armed and dangerous. Wanted alive for questioning." He could recite the entire commercial by now, a sigh working its way from his supple lips as he ducked once more into the cover of a forgotten alleyway. When had those things been so descriptive? The only information that the commercial had managed to get incorrect about him was the fact that he was allegedly 'armed;' he had been forced to drop his weapon off long ago, leaving it in a place where he could find it later when the pursuit for him had died down to a low hum amongst the population.
The sharp pain still lingering in his ribs from his slightly suicidal leap and the loud rumble of his stomach snapped him out of the daze of thought he had brought himself into, Cloud casting a quick glance around the area to make sure no one else was there before stopping his mad dash entirely. The exhaustion and pain were finally getting the better of him and he slumped back against the dirt and grim covered brick wall, Mako blue eyes slipping shut for a brief moment of relaxation, his senses still alert for any sound that might signal danger in the vicinity.
The blonde let a forced sigh work from his cracked and bloodied lips, his hand working to brush away the trail of crimson that had started there when he had bit his lip during his leap. It was just his luck that the military would find his last hiding place in just two days, a definite new record for the 'retrieval squad,' as the people in the slums referred to them. Apparently some woman that had lived across the street from the abandoned apartment he had taken up as a makeshift home had seen him going into it one night and had decided to call the authorities on him. Damn the authorities and having to mention his eyes and hair; not many people had hair that naturally tried to defy all laws of gravity and blue Mako eyes like his. At least, not since the ban had been placed in the past few years.
He'd just have to be more careful from now on.
Pulling himself away from the wall hesitantly Cloud ran his line of vision along both sides to the alley, weighing his options absently. One way led to where he had just come from, the other leading off in a winding dark path toward only Lifestream knew where, a low growl signaling his frustration with the current situation. Turning his eyes toward the unknown path at his right he cast a long glance at it, inspecting each and every visible area – which was not a lot, really – for any signs of something that could get in his way or prevent him from fleeing if need be. Apart from rows upon rows of garbage along the walls it seemed clear enough and he gave a brief nod, more as an act to confirm his decision in his mind than anything else.
"Well, it'd be better than going back that way." Without waiting another second he took off toward the darkness to the right, sprinting and leaping around fallen trash and other discarded items that the people of the town had carelessly decided to toss into it. Huh. I guess people here are just as bad as people in the slums. It was almost interesting, how the stories and the tales of Twilight Town being just as horrible as the Midgar slums seemed to be more true than he had taken them as, his lips pulling tautly into a line of concentration as he ran.
If he was lucky, it could find another place to stay for the next few days and recover his lost strength before even attempting at escaping the town, the mere idea of it causing Cloud to frown deeply. Escaping the town was going to be the most difficult obstacle of this damned 'mission;' fleeing from captivity had been one step, managing to avoid being killed by the retrieval squad and making it through Twilight Town was the next, and being able to move on to the next town was the last, final step before he was finally free from the military, captivity and persecutions layered upon him at last.
However, the boundaries around the town were going to make that difficult. The boundaries consisted of rows set up along each and every mile of the town's borders in towering, red brick buildings that seemed to taunt any that tried to leave without authorization from the authorities. Each building was regularly filled with the strongest of SOLDIERs and SeeD from both countries – a claimed method at peace, although Cloud highly doubted that was what it really existed for. SeeD was more or less a branch of SOLDIER, ever since the force behind SOLDIER had bought out the Garden, SeeD's training ground. It had been in a spur of power lust from the corporation, the desire to possess any and all competition that they may face by merely buying out the opposition.
That really never sat well with Balamb, if he could remember right. Balamb, the small harbor town that lay off to the east of Twilight Town – his final destination, actually – was the home founder of Garden, the base created solely for the purpose of training children from a young age, normally around five or six, to become cold-hearted mercenaries – also known as SeeDs. The minute town seemed more or less like a peaceful place to live, if every rumor and tale that Cloud had heard about it had been true. A real place where he could feel his freedom at last, with little rule from the government and more rule from the people.
It sounded like a fantasy that he didn't want to dwell on for too long, for fear of it vanishing into thin air.
Cloud sighed irritably as he leapt over another line of unidentifiable garbage strewn across the length of the alley, the blonde landing soundlessly on his feet before continuing his dash. How long had he been running for, now? Three blocks? Maybe even more? It was getting hard to tell, with the veil of night still lingering overhead and marring his visibility and sense of time. Night in Twilight Town seemed to last longer than night in normal places, or so Cloud had realized, the darkness never really seeming to fully lift from the town and bring about day. The place always seemed to be wrapped in the middle, in twilight, as its name told, the day time bringing about a somewhat lighter and more lively atmosphere and the night bringing forth a dark and dead feeling to the city as the only form of change.
Cloud brought himself to a halt after several minutes, shaking off such notions as nonsense and letting his breath catch up with him, his hand running through his tussled hair and snagging on the knots there. He hadn't had a decent shower in what felt like days, his hair and skin so dirty from his recent dash through the alleyways and forgotten buildings of the town that it was growing uncomfortable. The first thing he wanted to do was have a nice, large meal and take a long hot shower to loosen his tensed muscles. Brushing off his wishes he tilted his head up toward the sky in an effort to check for some sign of change in the time of day, peering for a signal that the night was almost over and the day was coming. If that was the case, he'd have to find somewhere to stay sooner than he was currently moving, or face being caught in the broad daylight.
Unfortunately the towering buildings stood in his way, the blonde groaning inwardly in frustration. "Dammit, how big are these buildings?" The words barely had time to escape his lips before he found himself being grabbed roughly by his left arm and tossed, almost as if he were an unwanted rag doll, against the hard brick wall at his side. A sickeningly loud crack exploded in his ears, accompanying his flight across the alley and into the wall, his left arm pinned beneath his body and pressed heavily into the brick surface. Hissing in pain Cloud blinked against the wave of nausea that filled him at the sound, the man forcing it back to try to focus on what had just happened and who was standing merely three or four feet away from him.
"Pretty tall, actually, but you'd have to be standing on top of them to see just how tall." The voice paused in its taunting to be replaced with the casual sound of footsteps in what Cloud could almost refer to as a lazy beat, a snicker filling that laid-back voice and flooding the blonde's ears. "'Makes it a whole lot easier to see people like you," the man jabbed a slender finger at the blonde on the ground, sneer firmly in place,"who are trying to run away from people like me."
Cloud choose to ignore the sneer, his mind a blurred haze of a mixture between pain and confusion. Where had this guy come from? He had been doing perfect, had managed to escape them hours ago, but here he was, tossed against the wall like the garbage he had fallen into, his arm pressed beneath him in the most painful manner he had ever felt. A sense of worry filled him at the notion of his arm, the blond glancing down at it swiftly out of the corner of his eyes, face contorting into a look of pain and concern at the sight.
His arm . . . Was it supposed to be twisted like that?
"Yo, say something, 'kay? This gets boring if you're just gonna sit there and let me drag you back without some kinda fight." Mustering up his wits Cloud tore his vision away from his left arm, eyes squinting dumbly against his clouded vision to make out the man's form, the blonde cursing inaudibly under his breath. This was definitely not good.
A navy blue jacket was hanging off of the lanky figure's shoulders, unbuttoned and hanging lose around his thin form in a sign of his carefree nature. He wore a matching pair of slacks, also worn in an uncaring manner, and a white undershirt that was revealed by his inability to follow the dress code and properly button his jacket. Spiked red hair sat on top of his head, a ponytail that hung to the small of his back tied at the base of his neck with the longer strands of his renegade hair. A pair of goggles sat, lopsided, across his forehead, almost as if they were there to hold up his hair, and a smirk was plastered onto his light features around a cigarette, green eyes glittering with entertainment at his 'catch.'
Cloud frowned, mind sweeping into a panicked state as instant recognition at the man's uniform flooded into his mind. So one of those guys had managed to get to him already? The blue suit and the power that this man held definitely confirmed in Cloud's mind that this man was one of the 'retrieval squad' sent after him in the company's pursuit. He knew that uniform anywhere, had seen it at least a hundred times in the course of his life. That suit had almost become a sure omen that his life was suddenly plummeting from bad to worse in one horrible downward spiral.
"Fuck you." Cloud ground the curse through clenched teeth as his uninjured arm flash over to his other wrist and gripped it lightly, running up and down the majority of it for any signs as to where the break had occurred. It's definitely not just a hairline fracture; how much force did I hit that damned wall with? The blonde found his thoughts interrupted by the resuming of footsteps at his side, the man coming to a halt before him and peering down at his wounded form with a look of amusement, laziness and taunting all rolled into one simple gaze. It was obvious that this man was an expert at what he did, Cloud noted, the figure holding the air of a viscous animal about to kill its prey.
It would have been unnerving, were it not for the searing pain in his arm distracting him from such trivial things as being afraid.
"Aw, somebody has such bad language." In one swift motion the red-head had grabbed Cloud's broken arm away from the blonde's tender grasp into his own grip, tossing him to the ground and away from the grim-coated wall with the force of his broken arm, slamming him into the concrete with enough might to knock the wind out of him. Old pain from his abused ribs sent white-hot needles through his chest, Cloud hissing and clutching at his torso futilely, eyes blurred once more from pain. "Look, you're pretty and all," there was a pause before he lifted his foot over Cloud's broken hand, the abused limb splayed over the ground in a perfect position in the man's eyes, the glimmer of a trained assassin doing his job filling his eyes, "and I probably would take you up on that offer under any other circumstances, but I don't really fuck criminals. It's just not my style."
Without warning he brought his foot down on the blonde's hand, the cracking of already damaged bones filling the air and mingling with the screams issuing from Cloud's chest at the eruption of pain that had suddenly filled his entire hand. The man grinned at that, grinding his heel into the delicate flesh before pulling away, a feigned look of innocence and affection flittering onto his face. "Oh, I'm sorry . . . Did I hurt you?" The man leaned forward, a smirk taking over his lips and showing off the air of ignorance that the man bore oh so well. "That looks pretty damned painful, if you ask me. I think you'd better get it looked at before it gets even worse, yo."
Cloud didn't even hear what the man had to say, despite the closeness between them. All he knew was that everything in his body hurt, more so than it ever had before. His arm, his hand, his ribs, the center of his chest . . .
"Use it, precious."
A growl escaped from the blonde's throat, his Mako tinted eyes squinting shut as he tried to block it all out, shove away the pain and the laid-back voice and the snicker that was filling his head. The sudden urge to simply turn around and tear out the man's throat was getting the better of him, Cloud hissing as the pain in his palm and fingers seemed to double in intensity, a startled shout working from his throat as he cringed away from it. What the hell was happening to his hand now? He opened a single eye in an effort to seek out some sign of what may be causing him the pain, his eyes tracing over his hand and moving toward the dark corners of the alleyway almost as if his vision had been called there and away from its initial object of attention.
There was something moving in the darkness. Something that seemed to twist and slither as it traveled across the ground, as if it were alive, creeping in a pool of black toward where he was lying, spread out onto his back, his head turned to the side in captivated horror. A sudden urge to work his way to his feet and run crept into his chest, Cloud struggling to gain his wits enough to get off of the ground, to get away from whatever the hell that thing was. He moved to push himself to his feet with his good hand only to find that his body refused to take orders from his mind, as if that thing curling across the stone had trapped him in its spell and bound him in place. It was entrancing, that slithering darkness, the nothing creeping closer to his outstretched hand and arm.
"Embrace it. The Darkness can heal it for you, can wash away the pain that ravages your body."
"What the hell . . . ?" The startled question from the red-haired assassin went unnoticed as Cloud flipped off of his back and onto his hands and knees, his vision struggling to focus on the hand that was causing him pain, the blonde muttering a surprised gasp beneath his breath as he took in the sight before him.
The slithering black pool had finally made its way over to his body and onto him, working its way to his hand in a matter of seconds. Tendrils of what seemed to be made up of pure Darkness were twisting like some form of grotesque snake around his hand and wrist, creeping along the tanned flesh and searing deep into his skin in burning strings, as if their only purpose was to try to claw their way through the protective layer of his skin and beneath his flesh. A strangled yelp made itself present in the night air as he watched them move, too enthralled by the ethereal shifting and gliding of the remaining Darkness along the concrete surrounding his hand and his hand itself to make a move against it. A sense of supreme chill filled his entire arm as it was engulfed in the Darkness, as if there never had been any form of light or heat there, and he shuddered, his lip curling up in displeasure at the sensation.
"Accept what you truly are, allow the Darkness to correct your wounds and bring you closer back to the truth."
And before he could blink the 'serpents' of the Darkness had finally accomplished their goal of making it into his flesh, Cloud's eyes widening in surprise and shock as the remainder of his body seemed to finally snap back into reality and flush with movement. Rocking back onto his heels to free his other hand he gripped at the Darkness engulfed one, blue eyes flooded with panic and terror, his mouth hanging open as a second wave of sharp pinpoints of pain stabbed into his hand. What the hell was happening to him?
"Shit!" Distantly Cloud heard the assassin let out a string of curses at the sight, green eyes wide and startled as he moved backward away from the blonde, face drained of any and all color that might have once been there. A nauseating feeling of Darkness – cold and thick and invading, as if it were trying to pry into his mind as well as its current victim's – lingered around the blonde's crouching form, the redhead taking in one last glance of the man before spinning on his heel swiftly, deciding it better to leave him where he was than become the next object of the Darkness' attention. Whatever the hell was happening to that boy, it couldn't be as important as his own life at the moment – screw his job, someone else could come hunt him down next time.
Cloud didn't catch the man's escape, his mind too focused on what was happening to his own body, his fingers digging at where the Darkness had left blackened skin spreading wide across his hand in an effort to almost pull the threads out of his flesh once more. A sickening feeling of emptiness had crept into his chest as the final strands of Darkness melded into his skin along with their companions, vanishing in a curling mass of black and purple around his left side. Panicked the struggled to pry them from his hand in one last effort, his nails digging at the hand and causing thin lines of blackish-crimson to spill over his nails.
"Allow the Darkness to become one with you, to meld with your body." A sudden lightheadedness was overtaking him, Cloud muttered inaudibly under his breath as he fought to stay sitting upright, the wave of vertigo capturing his attention now. Unable to hold off the dizziness and regain consciousness for much longer Cloud allowed himself to fall forward onto the concrete, Mako blue eyes fluttering shut as the Darkness that had engulfed his hand ate away at his vision, sucking the world around him away in a spiral of blended sound and color.
"Good boy. Allow yourself to become one with the Darkness, allow the Darkness to become one with you."
It was horribly dark where he was at. Dark and cold and empty, as the place normally was during these times of night. One would expect that the Darkness could never really creep its way into the sterility and bright whiteness of the room as it was during the day, but it proved possible once the veil of night had draped over the entirety of the small room. Bright blue eyes darted around the chamber in an almost paranoid manner, taking in everything once more for what seemed like the hundredth time that night.
He had seen it all before, had memorized where everything was at and what every detail of the room looked like during the day, but at night, it was so much different. The corners of the room seemed to possess a life of their own, the Darkness that sat there seeming to conjugate in that spot simply to combine into one and squirm in an effort to frighten him. Lithe hands gripped at the stark white sheets pooled over his thin form, pulling them up around his chin and bringing the sharp scent of bleach to his nose from the too clean of covers.
He ignored it, however. The smell of the blankets had stopped bothering him after a while, and the Darkness was his only concern at the moment.
Because when the Darkness was there, he was never really alone. That man always showed up at these times, the man with the sharp, all-knowing green eyes that glowed with the same inner light that his did from the same testings that he had endured. Those eyes always haunted him, even during the day; something about the half-formed cat-like pupil running through the dark green pools, watching his every move, boring down into his own eyes and picking out his every fear and every thought, stuck with him. It wasn't a bad feeling, all of the time. Sometimes the man would bring comfort, would sit with him on the edge of the bed, would wrap his strong arms around his smaller shoulders and brush away the fears and the pain that the men in the coats had brought during the day with thin fingers through his golden hair.
Other times he would comfort the man in his moments of distress and insanity, those rare times when he would come to him in a state worse than what he had ever been in, screaming at the top of his lungs with forgotten tears showing in the backs of his eyes that would never, could never, fall. Sometimes he thought that only he could see that sadness that lingered in the man's eyes, regardless if he himself realized it, and he actually like it that way. It was good to know that he had grown that much of a connection to the man during the times when they would be called here for days, maybe even weeks, where the that worked here would perform various tests on them both, sometimes apart from one another, sometimes together. It normally varied, depending on the experiment.
The men in the coats told him that the man with the green eyes was his 'other half,' his yin-yang spirit, but he didn't really know what those terms meant. Just that they were destined to be together, to become the same person. That was all that he could discover from the confusing notes and words and analyzes that had been conducted upon them.
The soft, wispy sound of what he had come to note as the other man's appearance flitted to his ears over the darkness and his own heavy breathing, the teen pulling himself away from the covers to glance over toward the corner that the man had entered from. Without any protest he allowed the man to calmly walk – he made no sound as he moved, almost as if he were floating rather than walking, the grace in his step present from years of training and fighting – to the side of his cot and reach down toward him, arms ensnaring his body and pulling him to his chest.
"I'm scared again."
The man frowned at that, glancing down at the smaller figure in his arms with what could be considered caring compared to his normal cold and stoic expression.
"I know." The man pressed his face into his hair, nuzzling the mass of blonde softly and affectionately, "But I'm here now, and I will always be here. So you have no need to be afraid." The boy smiled gently at that, his eyes sliding shut after lying awake for so long, the sleep that he had deprived himself of slowing making its way into his mind and causing a sluggish haze to fill his senses. Before he completely surrendered to the Darkness one final thing forced its way into his mind, the blonde grinning aimlessly at it:"I will always be by your side, Cloud."
Yes, I realized that I have not finished Lunatic Pandora yet, and I realize that it is nearing completion, but I could not resist this idea. It forced its way into my mind and demanded that I write it, so please, do not worry. Lunatic Pandora is in the works, and should be finished in the next month. (Give me a month to allot for homework and the like; school has suddenly become a very large obstacle for me, and will more than likely force itself in the way, along with band.)
As for Sora and Riku, they may or may not make an appearance. I apologize to any that have an undying love for them; this fanfiction is mainly centered around Cloud, the Darkness, and Sephiroth. Opinions on this matter are welcomed, however, do not expect a large role from either character.
Disclaimer: I do not own Kingdom Hearts, nor do I own Midgar, SOLDIER, Balamb, SeeD, or the man in the blue suit (I will love you if you can guess who this is). They all belong to Square-Enix.