Disclaimer:I don't own Final Fantasy or Squaresoft even though I wished I did, almost as much as I wished that I owned 51 percent of Microsoft or invented post-it notes…….oh well if wishes were horses, beggars would ride.

Summary: Set 1 year after FFVII:AC. The world is encompassed in battle as Wutai proclaims war using an army ten years in the making, now the only thing that truly stands in their way is Avalanche, but its not enough, and with the planet ready to come apart at the seams, the only man who can help is the greatest general the world has ever known...

Dreams of Existence

Prologue: Green

Green. That was all you could use to describe the place, green. As far as the eye could see, land stretched out in every direction, undulating and twisting sinuously to form hills and vales. Trees cropped up every so often, not towering giants but large enough to warrant the name, and bushes peppered the landscape as if they had been carelessly chucked there in hindsight while puffy white clouds scudded across a sky so blue it looked as if it had been painted with great care. Of course there was grass, too much grass, filling every nook and cranny till it was almost stifling. The grass was perfect…of course. Perfect height, perfect colour, perfect feel, perfect, perfect, perfect. The entire place was the epitome of perfection; it was paradise to anyone who beheld it…heh…almost anyone.

He stood there amidst the waving grass, a smudge on the otherwise perfect tapestry. His hair flowing like liquid silver in the wind, muscles taut with sweat slowly journeying its way down his bare chest and onto his black leather pants where it was invariably absorbed. His body moved fluidly from one stance to the next, slowly and purposefully executing intricate katas with practiced ease, his sword seemed to be a thin line of light moving as if it were lighter than air and a part of his arm. His eyes focused on something in the distance that only he saw, pools of emerald fire that swallowed everything in its path. Suddenly the wind picked up, blowing harder and faster, as the man burst into a flurry of motion too fast to track with the naked eye. He seemed to strike everywhere at once, his sword now a network of dancing light around him. Faster and faster he moved, the wind howled, uprooting trees and tearing huge swaths of grass from the ground yet leaving him somehow unaffected, black ominous thunderclouds gathered in the sky and jagged white bolts of lightning scored the earth leaving smoldering patches of land in their wake, and as suddenly as he began, he stopped. He remained in one place, unmoving, frozen on one knee with his right arm extended beside him having disemboweled an unseen foe and killed countless more. The wind vanished instantly and the sky regained its former appearance while bits of debris rained down on him and the surrounding area. The once serene landscape now looked like battlefield, overturned trees and large bare patches where lush grass once grew showed the sheer intensity of the winds, while other areas still smoldered from the violent onslaught of lightening that had scarred the land. The man slowly rose to his feet, casting around an unconcerned gaze, and casually straightened the hairs on his head that were out of place.

"Sephiroth" The voice was light and carefree yet sounded serious at the same time. He rounded on the person that called his name and saw the innocent green eyes that he had grown so used to looking, no, glaring at him with anger. "Why do you always have to do that every time you train?" She spread out her hands to indicate the ravaged countryside and looked at him with exasperation; unseen anger laced her words with promises of pain and torture that she was too gentle to carry out. "Why?"

He just looked at her, displaying no emotion at, or regard for her words, shrugged slightly and replied nonchalantly "Y… is a figure… with a very long tail."

Aeris's eyes bulged and her mouth worked furiously, like a fish, trying to form coherent words to make a reply yet failing fantastically.

Having reduced Aeris to a gibbering idiot, a satisfied Sephiroth turned and slowly made his way across the ruined meadow he was currently standing in to a small house that had remained surprisingly unharmed.

Aeris recovered her higher brain functions soon after and rushed after him, her face flushed with embarrassment. She skidded to a stop a few feet from Sephiroth, who was currently in the process of removing a bush that had gotten tangled up on the house's doorknob, lifted a shaky finger at him and said tersely "I'm not done with you yet mister, the council wants to have a word with you!"

He stiffened imperceptibly and a muscle in his back twitched. He wrenched open the door and said quietly, "Oh?" There was a dangerous undertone in his voice that did not escape Aeris's notice. "Is it another one of their little 'talks'?" He slowly turned around, his hair blowing gently in the breeze and fixed her with an intense yet unreadable look.

Aeris shuddered as those burning green orbs seemed to fix her in place, scouring away her flesh and looking into her soul. She rubbed her arms violently to rid them of the Goosebumps that suddenly seemed to appear all over them. She took an involuntary step backwards and replied a little more shakily than she realized "No, It seems as if this meeting was organized by the request of Mother Gaia herself."

He quirked his eyebrows and pressed his mouth into a thin line for a few seconds, before turning away and striding off into the house, pausing momentarily in the hall to fix his appearance in a conveniently located mirror before stalking of into his room.

Standing on the now empty porch, Aeris slowly walked into to living room and found herself, yet again, taking stock of the room; it was all very surgical. The walls were all white with no decorations save a single portrait. The furniture was practical, an armchair and footrest in front of the fireplace and sofa at the back of the room with a reading lamp beside it. The entire left wall was a bookcase stuffed with books, most of which she had never heard of. The right wall was a weapons rack filled with items ranging from swords to nunchuku and some that she had never seen before. The center wall housed the fireplace, planet knows why have a fireplace in an area where it does not snow, and above it was the portrait, which was, surprisingly, was a very good rendition of a beach during a sunset.

She was still contemplating the use of the fireplace when she heard the words "If you're wondering why the fireplace is there, it's because I find it calming to look and listen to a fire." from directly behind her. She spun around to see Sephiroth standing right behind her wearing a white long sleeved silk shirt, white slacks and white shoes, he smelled faintly of flowers and his hair was neatly groomed and tied in a low ponytail. He eyed her critically and added, "I can also make it snow here, remember that I have control over this plane and changing weather is a minor problem, in fact it won't be the first time."

Aeris's eyes widened in shock, he couldn't have been out of the room for more than a minute or two yet there he was, clean as a whistle and dressed in completely different clothes.

Noticing how comically wide her eyes had become, Sephiroth sighed heavily and reminded her of his previous statement and as such could clean himself and change his clothes at will. Folding his arms and narrowing his eyes, he suddenly adopted an air of cold indifference and cut right to the chase.

"So why does the planet want me to meet with the Cetran council, surely if she wanted to meet me herself she could come here and do it, after all, this place is of her own making." He said coolly and inclined his head towards a window that showed a breathtaking view of the rolling countryside.

She followed his gaze outside, also taking in the view, and did a double take after noticing the definite lack of carnage that had just been commonplace outside. She turned back to Sephiroth who now wore smirk, if you could call a slight twitch of the lips a smirk, and narrowed her eyes.

"What happened to all the uprooted trees and grass?" she hissed, anger finally clouding her sunny disposition.

Sephiroth merely looked down at his clothes and lifted a questioning eyebrow.

Aeris recoiled as if burned and raised an accusing finger. "You could have fixed it all along!" she said, "So why haven't you ever fixed it while I was here!" She fixed him with an accusing glare and then seemed to come to a startling revelation. "All that wind and lightning, you create that! It's not because of your great power or anything like that, you just cause those things to happen while you train because you want to!"

She stood there taking deep breaths, her face flushed with anger and a tinge of embarrassment while Sephiroth just looked at her impassively.

Sephiroth's eyes lit up with amusement that never reached his face and replied, "One: Yes, I could have fixed it all along, two: I've never done it while you were here because not doing so results in you being pissed off, and three: I don't cause the weather to change because I simply want to, but because…." And the right side of his lips migrated northward ever so slightly as he said, "It looks cool."

Aeris looked as if you could knock her down with a feather. She never expected Sephiroth to actually answer her, much less say THAT. She goggled at him and almost swallowed her tongue as his face suddenly exploded into a full-blown smile. To say she was surprised would be like saying that the Northern Crater was a pothole.

Sephiroth immediately schooled his face back to its relatively expressionless state and got deadly serious and said with frightening calm. "I answered your questions, now you answer mine, now again, why does the planet wish me to meet with the council, and why send you?" His eyes burned into hers until she swore she could see them if she closed her eyes.

Aeris played with the buttons of her shirt and stared at the ground, wishing that Sephiroth was not always as perceptive as he was and cursing him silently for throwing her off balance. She cleared her throat and tried to regain the semblance of composure. "I don't know why the planet wants you to meet with the council, I was not informed of any reasons, I was only told to go and fetch you." she replied, her eyes not meeting his glare.

Sephiroth glowered even more, if that were possible, and Aeris could literally feel the heat emanating from his eyes. "As to why they sent me to issue the summons…. I think you know why" she said finally meeting his gaze, albeit uneasily.

His eyed dimmed to embers, a welcome reprise from the raging inferno that they were moments ago, and he turned away slowly to face his fireplace, which was now lit and burned merrily. He walked over to his armchair and sat down, staring into the fire, his face betraying nothing, and stayed there, unmoving.

Ignoring the sharp cracks and snaps coming from the fireplace, Aeris wordlessly observed him, the glow from the fire making his hair adopt an orange hue. She had an idea of what he was contemplating however, and looked at him with a wide array of emotions flitting across her face; rage, sorrow, anguish and pity were only a few that were visible, it was not that long ago as she recalled it...

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When Sephiroth's body had entered the lifestream after his defeat at the hands of Avalanche, the planet had tried to cleanse his body of the alien presence known as Jenova and absorb his soul so that he could return to the planet and be reborn, the operative word was tried. Jenova's cells were a part of his DNA and, more importantly, Jenova was part of his soul. The taint could not be removed for it would destroy his soul and the planet was not going to do that to one of her children, even as twisted as he was. The planet decided to make a place for him to live until it could decide what would be done with him. In the interim, the planet allowed him to meet with his real mother, Lucrecia, until the time came for her to be absorbed and reborn.

It was during this time that he was made to learn the truth of his origins and he, surprisingly, accepted them without any difficulty, except the part where she told him that his father was possibly Hojo, he didn't like that at all. The surprising thing was that she was not sure that Hojo was his real father, and that his father could be a lover that she had before he was born. She told him that the man's name, which had knocked Aeris senseless, was Vincent Valentine and asked that if he ever saw him again in life or death, tell him she was sorry that she never listened to him and that she forgave him for everything. Aeris had witnessed this exchange from inside the lifestream and wept silently for Sephiroth after she had heard him relate the early experiences of his childhood under Hojo's care and his later experiences during the Wutai War. He shied away from his more recent experiences however and no amount of persuading by his mother would get him to tell her. Soon after this, she was absorbed by planet who had given her an extended period so that she could meet with the son she never had the chance to in life, any longer and her soul would have faded away. He was visibly shaken by the encounter, but that vanished in short order. It seemed that his heart was made of ice and, for a while, the ice had melted, but it had returned many times colder, and many times thicker.

After that event, the Cetran council demanded to see him so that he could be interrogated about Jenova and his crimes against the world…. needless to say, it did not go well. Between Sephiroth giving everyone frosty glares and remaining about as cooperative as a red dragon, the inquisition failed dismally. They tried three more times, meeting with a worse failure each time, and then just seemed to give up. Not for the lack of trying however, they threw everything at him but the kitchen sink, using an array of aggressive and passive tactics, none worked. In the fourth and final session, they had tried to get him to talk by using guilt as oil to lubricate his throat by having Aeris present and visible, it did work, but not in the way they intended. He had looked at her with blank, expressionless eyes that flickered with a shadow of remorse and said that he was sorry for killing her and that's it, her death was not entirely his fault and he was not the only one to blame, and that the guilt was to be shared among many. He had then faced the council and told her to ask them if they had not known of her death beforehand, and did nothing to help her avoid it simply because it was the only way to summon Holy. The council room went deadly quiet and no one stopped Sephiroth as he calmly exited the room and vanished into the hallway, no one stopped Aeris either as she fled the room minutes later.

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Aeris was startled out of her reverie at the sound of a throat being cleared beside her, she jumped slightly as she realized that Sephiroth was standing right beside her, gazing at her intently. She chastised herself silently for making him startle her; she had thought she had grown used to his presence and the way he seemed to appear out of nowhere; after all, they had a relationship that could almost be called friendly, although sometimes it seemed more like a case of mutual tolerance.

Aeris wondered what his final decision was going to be to in regard the summons, but as she boarded that train of thought, Sephiroth moved around, stood calmly in front of her and said almost wearily "Alright, I'll go to this pointless meeting, fifth time's a charm right?"

He swept past her without so much as a backward glance and stepped out onto the front porch and surveyed the rolling countryside in all its glory and grimaced.

Green…. the whole place was too damn green.

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Please review, constructive criticism is welcome. This is not a Sephiroth x Aeris, and for those of you who are wondering, you'll just have to wait for a few more chapters to find out.