Disclaimer: I do not own anything that Squaresoft owns, though I wish I
did. Hmph!
A Word From the Author: Yo, I'm back! ~waits expectantly for applause~ Uh, never mind. By the way, I've just posted a new poem into the last chapter at the end so if you haven't read it do it NOW!!!
...
Assuming you have done as I said, welcome back. Sorry for the delay in updating, 'cos I had a giant case of writer's block. Down with writer's blocks! THEY OUGHT TO BE EXTERMINATED! ...okay. And now, ta-da, THE STORY!!!
Chapter Four: Half Past Four
It was very late—or very early, depending on how you looked at it. The moon had vanished hours ago, into the pitch blackness of the sky, wreathed in misty gray clouds that obscured the stars.
The darkness that shrouded the man below like a cloak mattered not to him. To his thinking, he had walked in darkness all his life, so it should be right he should now feel almost comfortable in its embrace, as though it were an old friend.
He sighed softly, letting his head fall into an open palm. He wasn't young anymore; his once fine, short-cropped blond hair was graying, and his handsome visage was lined with time and dark dreams. Another sigh, even softer than the first, flitted past parted lips, echoing emptily into the night, his only witness to his anguish. Around others, in the light, he joked and smiled as before, but now, in the absence of the warm sunlight, the barriers of his soul were stripped away, baring his dreadful secrets for all to see and revile.
"...Why me?" he whispered, a bitter murmur of a broken man. He sunk to his knees, eyes fixed intently on the heavens above him as though determined to wrench some sort of answer from them. None was forthcoming; the skies remained still and dark, unmoved by the plea of a mere mortal.
With a cry of ringing steel he drew his blade from its sheath where it hung at his belt, bringing to bear so that it hovered just before his face. He gazed at the world-weary, white face of his reflection, which stared back with silent turmoil in its eyes. The razor edge of the blade seemed to sparkle almost temptingly, and his hand trembled as his mind visualized that heavy steel weapon pressed against his throat, swooping it for one last fell stroke.
(Oh, so easy it would be, for me, to sink into dreamless sleep, with one instant of pain...then all pain, washed away forever with one...single...stroke...)
He lowered the weapon almost angrily as his indomitable will broke past the death wishes that clouded his thoughts and befuddled his thinking processes. That was a coward's way out, and there was no way that he would prove himself a coward after what he had made people go through.
Not only that, his death would bring pain to the people who (surprisingly) still cared about him, and doom for two people whose friendship he had valued beyond all others...
He smiled, but it was a mirthless, self-mocking smile. He had come back full circle again, hadn't he? What had happened to his oh-so dearly cherished beliefs, his honor? Back in his old role, and playing it as bloody efficiently as he had done a little over twenty years ago. He clenched his fist, cold anger consuming him, burning in his chest with a dull ache.
(Ah, well. Nice to know that some things never change.)
He smirked at the cynical thought, and at the same time, heard a low, buzzing electronically produced sound that instantly wiped it away. His time of peace, now measured in treasured, precious moments, was gone, with servitude in its place. A grimace twisted his lips as he reached up and tapped a spot behind his ear in a precise order.
"I am here," he said emotionlessly as the comm'link installed there activated with a low hiss of static.
"Good dog," a voice replied, its tone husky and clearly feminine, dripping with amused sarcasm. "Nice to know you are still alert."
"Under these circumstances, as you should know, I can't sleep a damn wink," he snapped bitterly in response.
"Bad dog, don't snap at master." Silvery laughter danced across the millions of miles that separated the two. The man clenched his jaw and did not answer, though the woman's biting words had touched a raw nerve deep inside his heart. He indulged himself by imagining what he would do if he ever got his hands on her.
(And a knife, yes, and a few offensive spells...)
The female was speaking again, scorn still evident in her voice as she issued instructions. He listened, growing more and more distinctly unhappy with each word, but forced himself to bear with it, hating the person at the other end but hating himself even more.
(Oh, sweet Hyne...)
***
Sephiroth never thought he could empathize with those nameless ShinRa grunts whom he had dragged kicking and screaming out of their bunks in the wee hours of the morning more than once (many, many times until he had lost count, he recalled with an evil grin) and sent to do a hundred push-ups during h a brief career as a squad captain, but now he did. A whole lot more.
Shaking unruly silver hair out of his eyes, he snuck a glance at his chrono, then at the sky. Half past four. Wonderful. Positively wonderful. He had been used to be getting up much earlier than this, but after going mad and running about murdering everybody, he hadn't gotten much opportunities for rest, and since he was now a mission to save the world (or help the heroes save the world, anyway) couldn't people at least let him sleep for eight hours out of sheer gratefulness?
He shot an evil look at the backs of the two SeeD instructors walking side by side in front of him and chatting animatedly in damnably cheerful voices. One was a pretty redhead, with blue eyes as clear as a lake on a spring day, who had introduced herself as Mel Flintein in an irritatingly perky voice. The other had hair the color of dark honey, brown eyes that were an odd shade of dark red, and tanned skin, who called himself Keire Wulcan.
It was him the silver-haired youth bore a special enmity for, since this instructor, instead of politely knocking, had seen fit to charge right into his room with the assistance of a master keycard, and scream, "Wakey wakeeeey!" into the ear of the sleeping ex-General, loud enough to deafen him for several years. He rubbed his sore ear gingerly and continued his silent glower.
As though sensing his murderous intentions towards a certain blond man, the redhead turned around and smiled warmly. "Don't be bothered by our Keire," she said in a slow, drawling voice. "He may look twenty-five years old, but in reality his maturity level is really that of a five year old." She dropped back a little to speak in a conspiratorial whisper, "Some of us suspect that he was dropped on his head when he was just a li'l innocent babe in arms. Since then—" she shook her head sadly, but there was a betraying glint of amusement in her eye—"the poor thing has never quite the same in the head."
"I heard that!" Keire yelled from ahead.
Mel just grinned and added, "Don't feel special. He does that to all the new people. You were just assigned the wrong instructor."
"I feel so honored," Sephiroth replied sarcastically.
"Of course!" Keire announced, having overheard the last part too. He struck a dramatic pose, twirling an imaginary hat over his eyes, and finished it off with a grandiose, if somewhat exaggerated, pose. "You are speaking of me, Keire Wulcan, Master of Gaia and Beyond!"
"Pack it up, Keire, no one's fooled," Mel shot back, giving him an eyeball roll, her tone teasing. "Everyone knows that you're just full of air and puffed up ego."
The other instructor mimed a sad face. "How could you speak of your partner of five years that way? I thought we were friends!" he declared tragically.
The two SeeDs continued their joking banter, with Sephiroth observing their light-hearted behavior with interest. Whereas the SOLDIER program had been strict, military formal and frankly, a huge pain in the ass, the SeeDs appeared to be a looser, rougher organization, its members bound together by friendly camaraderie and respect to form one big happy family. Since most of them appeared to be orphans, the SeeDs would naturally come to look upon their comrades as their adopted family, as brothers, sisters, parents.
Sephiroth briefly wondered how his character might have been different if SOLDIER had taken SeeD's methods instead. He was fairly sure, from what he had seen of Garden's Headmistress, that she definitely wouldn't have tolerated sucking up a planet's lifeblood and sticking alien fluids into human beings. He could almost imagine her kicking Hojo out of the door onto his rear and badmouthing him for good measure. The thought made him smile.
"We're here!" Keire declared suddenly, breaking him out of his contemplation. The silver-haired youth blinked and looked around at his surroundings as he and his two companions passed through a set of sliding glass doors. Here the modern seemed to end, replaced by wilderness. His first confused impression was that Keire and Mel had brought him outdoors for some strange reason, but then he realized that they were still indoors after peering up and seeing the ceiling with some difficulty.
A dark, silent overgrown jungle, lighted by some unknown source of illumination that looked entirely natural, met his eyes, fenced off from the rest of Garden by a tall, twelve-foot high fence made of metal with twisted iron barbs featuring nasty looking barbs sticking out from it. From the rustling sounds of something big and dark shouldering through the concealing foliage, this was an excellent idea. It was certainly not a good idea not to let any monsters escape and go wandering around Garden eating up students for breakfast.
Two huge nine foot doors, serving as the entrance and probably reinforced by steel a dozen times over, were held closed by heavy metal dead bolts. Keire led the way, grinning as proudly as though he had planted the whole jungle himself. "Our very own giant garden!" he announced cheerfully for someone who was about to go and fight monsters. "No pun intended. Featuring real, live creatures. No stimulations, I can assure you that they can bite—and they have very, very long sharp teeth."
"Is he always that positive?" Sephiroth queried drolly, raising a silver eyebrow at Mel.
She smiled in response. "Of course. One day I have to tell you about the time we ran into a Marlboro and he—"
The blond coughed. "Ahem, lady, gentleman. Business before pleasure."
Mel gave him a hairy eyeball as she shoved past him. "Like you ever cared about that yourself, you hypocrite." She slipped on a pair of wicked, deadly looking mythril claws that fit snugly over her fingers. "You open the door. Last time Xu gave me blue hell for scratching deep gouges into it by accident."
Keire smiled. "And, if I recall, who just kept telling and telling you to take off those damned claws—"
Mel turned and offered him a deadly smile and a clawed hand. "You were saying?" she asked sweetly.
"Nothing," Keire quickly said, the very picture of innocence. He winked at Sephiroth when Mel wasn't looking, and with some difficulty, hauled up the heavy bar and set it to one side. He pushed it and the door swung silently inwards on oiled hinges.
A blast of hot, humid air hit Sephiroth full on the face. (This is really the real thing) he thought, already feeling himself start to perspire. Keire shut the door behind them, before rejoining them, his weapon in his hand. Sephiroth glanced at it curiously. It was like no weapon he had ever seen before—like the blade of a sword welded to the barrel of a gun. Keire, sensing the youth's gaze on him, looked back and twirled the blade with a flourish. "Like my toy?"
Sephiroth shrugged, drawing his own weapon. The long sword scraped against the ground as he adjusted his grip. Keire gaped at it. "I can't believe you ever got that hunk of steel you call a sword off the ground," he said in a hushed whisper. "It's so unwieldy. Can you use it?"
"Obviously, or I would have been dead by now," Sephiroth snapped sarcastically.
"Why not use a gunblade, like me?" Keire pressed. "It's practically the modern version of the sword these days." He lifted his strange weapon for emphasis. "You can slice and dice and fire off some serious ammo and the same time. It's easy, it's light and fast. Believe me when I say this baby can deal some cool damage. Like my friend's dad, the Leonheart. Best gunblader Garden, and including the world, has ever seen." He grinned cockily. "Why don't you transfer? If you can lift that oversized sword, you should have the skill to swing a gunblade."
"No thanks, I think I'll stick with the sword," the silver-haired youth declined politely.
"A weapon that deals double damage, and you don't want it?" the blond instructor rolled his eyes in disbelief. "And you're already a swordsman! You are well and truly mad, my friend."
"I think my choice of weapons is mine to decide," Sephiroth informed Keire in a frost-laden tone, with an air of finality that left no room for argument.
Mel giggled. "Don't get all riled up. It's just, well, Keire's mad about gunblades. He reads all the magazines ever published about gunblades. He makes it a point to be at every gunblading class to oversee it in case the instructor there makes some crucial mistake during training. He and the captain train together with gunblades at least three times a week and talk about gunblades when they aren't sparring. He gives every new cadet what we call the 'gunblade propaganda speech' in an attemot to make them take up the art of the gunblade. He sleeps with Fire Edge—that's the name of his weapon—under his pillow. He even asked for a gunblade-shaped birthday cake last year..."
Her partner did not seem offended, rather more amused. "That was all true, except the birthday cake part," he corrected calmly. "I asked for a mocha- flavored one, round, no cherries, with chocolate sprinklings and cream." He turned to Sephiroth, a glint in his eye. "Very well, let's see just what you can do with a sword!" he stated solemnly. "Monster hunting, anyone?"
Sephiroth smirked. "We shall see who shall prove the better in the end," he shot back.
"Was that a challenge?" Keire asked with a broad grin.
Sephiroth smiled. "Yes."
***
Okay, I know this may be a weird place for an ending, but I urgently needed to finish this chapter and post it since I need to study for an impending science and history test ~doom, doom!~ Also, I'm sorry if I'm dragging the plot on too long. I can foresee the main plot in about another five or so chapters or so. Maybe even ten. ~helpless shrug~ Anyway, see ya all next chappy and stay tuned!
Signing off—the Author
Thanks to:
Majin Jin—for your kind words, but pls check your spelling in future (no offense, seriously!)
T.A. Skywalker— ~makes face of sympathy~ yeah, I'm all loaded up with school as well. Thank you for coming back!
Noacat— Well, sure hope you do! (keep tabs on this story, I man.)
G. Zan—for still remaining a regular reviewer for the fourth time running. And about your observations about Aeris, you're absolutely right. I never really thought about from that angle before...
hawke—Unfortunately, future updates won't be as quick as this one...sadly...sometimes, I wish school could just be abolished...~sighs~ And in answer to your question, yes, this is a story where the OCs, including the one Squaresoft character Sephy, shine and the canon characters pitch in sometimes to help, but that's it. I hope none of you object to a story based primarily on OCs.
Lovely Princess Peach—HEY! Check up on Silver Shadows. Thanx. I was beginning to think no one remembered that story anymore. By the way, Silver Shadows is dead until I finish this story...I'm too busy to write two stories at once, and TIAL (There is Always Light) promises to be longer than I initially thought it would be.
And before you go—
R! E! V! I! E! W!!!!!!
A Word From the Author: Yo, I'm back! ~waits expectantly for applause~ Uh, never mind. By the way, I've just posted a new poem into the last chapter at the end so if you haven't read it do it NOW!!!
...
Assuming you have done as I said, welcome back. Sorry for the delay in updating, 'cos I had a giant case of writer's block. Down with writer's blocks! THEY OUGHT TO BE EXTERMINATED! ...okay. And now, ta-da, THE STORY!!!
Chapter Four: Half Past Four
It was very late—or very early, depending on how you looked at it. The moon had vanished hours ago, into the pitch blackness of the sky, wreathed in misty gray clouds that obscured the stars.
The darkness that shrouded the man below like a cloak mattered not to him. To his thinking, he had walked in darkness all his life, so it should be right he should now feel almost comfortable in its embrace, as though it were an old friend.
He sighed softly, letting his head fall into an open palm. He wasn't young anymore; his once fine, short-cropped blond hair was graying, and his handsome visage was lined with time and dark dreams. Another sigh, even softer than the first, flitted past parted lips, echoing emptily into the night, his only witness to his anguish. Around others, in the light, he joked and smiled as before, but now, in the absence of the warm sunlight, the barriers of his soul were stripped away, baring his dreadful secrets for all to see and revile.
"...Why me?" he whispered, a bitter murmur of a broken man. He sunk to his knees, eyes fixed intently on the heavens above him as though determined to wrench some sort of answer from them. None was forthcoming; the skies remained still and dark, unmoved by the plea of a mere mortal.
With a cry of ringing steel he drew his blade from its sheath where it hung at his belt, bringing to bear so that it hovered just before his face. He gazed at the world-weary, white face of his reflection, which stared back with silent turmoil in its eyes. The razor edge of the blade seemed to sparkle almost temptingly, and his hand trembled as his mind visualized that heavy steel weapon pressed against his throat, swooping it for one last fell stroke.
(Oh, so easy it would be, for me, to sink into dreamless sleep, with one instant of pain...then all pain, washed away forever with one...single...stroke...)
He lowered the weapon almost angrily as his indomitable will broke past the death wishes that clouded his thoughts and befuddled his thinking processes. That was a coward's way out, and there was no way that he would prove himself a coward after what he had made people go through.
Not only that, his death would bring pain to the people who (surprisingly) still cared about him, and doom for two people whose friendship he had valued beyond all others...
He smiled, but it was a mirthless, self-mocking smile. He had come back full circle again, hadn't he? What had happened to his oh-so dearly cherished beliefs, his honor? Back in his old role, and playing it as bloody efficiently as he had done a little over twenty years ago. He clenched his fist, cold anger consuming him, burning in his chest with a dull ache.
(Ah, well. Nice to know that some things never change.)
He smirked at the cynical thought, and at the same time, heard a low, buzzing electronically produced sound that instantly wiped it away. His time of peace, now measured in treasured, precious moments, was gone, with servitude in its place. A grimace twisted his lips as he reached up and tapped a spot behind his ear in a precise order.
"I am here," he said emotionlessly as the comm'link installed there activated with a low hiss of static.
"Good dog," a voice replied, its tone husky and clearly feminine, dripping with amused sarcasm. "Nice to know you are still alert."
"Under these circumstances, as you should know, I can't sleep a damn wink," he snapped bitterly in response.
"Bad dog, don't snap at master." Silvery laughter danced across the millions of miles that separated the two. The man clenched his jaw and did not answer, though the woman's biting words had touched a raw nerve deep inside his heart. He indulged himself by imagining what he would do if he ever got his hands on her.
(And a knife, yes, and a few offensive spells...)
The female was speaking again, scorn still evident in her voice as she issued instructions. He listened, growing more and more distinctly unhappy with each word, but forced himself to bear with it, hating the person at the other end but hating himself even more.
(Oh, sweet Hyne...)
***
Sephiroth never thought he could empathize with those nameless ShinRa grunts whom he had dragged kicking and screaming out of their bunks in the wee hours of the morning more than once (many, many times until he had lost count, he recalled with an evil grin) and sent to do a hundred push-ups during h a brief career as a squad captain, but now he did. A whole lot more.
Shaking unruly silver hair out of his eyes, he snuck a glance at his chrono, then at the sky. Half past four. Wonderful. Positively wonderful. He had been used to be getting up much earlier than this, but after going mad and running about murdering everybody, he hadn't gotten much opportunities for rest, and since he was now a mission to save the world (or help the heroes save the world, anyway) couldn't people at least let him sleep for eight hours out of sheer gratefulness?
He shot an evil look at the backs of the two SeeD instructors walking side by side in front of him and chatting animatedly in damnably cheerful voices. One was a pretty redhead, with blue eyes as clear as a lake on a spring day, who had introduced herself as Mel Flintein in an irritatingly perky voice. The other had hair the color of dark honey, brown eyes that were an odd shade of dark red, and tanned skin, who called himself Keire Wulcan.
It was him the silver-haired youth bore a special enmity for, since this instructor, instead of politely knocking, had seen fit to charge right into his room with the assistance of a master keycard, and scream, "Wakey wakeeeey!" into the ear of the sleeping ex-General, loud enough to deafen him for several years. He rubbed his sore ear gingerly and continued his silent glower.
As though sensing his murderous intentions towards a certain blond man, the redhead turned around and smiled warmly. "Don't be bothered by our Keire," she said in a slow, drawling voice. "He may look twenty-five years old, but in reality his maturity level is really that of a five year old." She dropped back a little to speak in a conspiratorial whisper, "Some of us suspect that he was dropped on his head when he was just a li'l innocent babe in arms. Since then—" she shook her head sadly, but there was a betraying glint of amusement in her eye—"the poor thing has never quite the same in the head."
"I heard that!" Keire yelled from ahead.
Mel just grinned and added, "Don't feel special. He does that to all the new people. You were just assigned the wrong instructor."
"I feel so honored," Sephiroth replied sarcastically.
"Of course!" Keire announced, having overheard the last part too. He struck a dramatic pose, twirling an imaginary hat over his eyes, and finished it off with a grandiose, if somewhat exaggerated, pose. "You are speaking of me, Keire Wulcan, Master of Gaia and Beyond!"
"Pack it up, Keire, no one's fooled," Mel shot back, giving him an eyeball roll, her tone teasing. "Everyone knows that you're just full of air and puffed up ego."
The other instructor mimed a sad face. "How could you speak of your partner of five years that way? I thought we were friends!" he declared tragically.
The two SeeDs continued their joking banter, with Sephiroth observing their light-hearted behavior with interest. Whereas the SOLDIER program had been strict, military formal and frankly, a huge pain in the ass, the SeeDs appeared to be a looser, rougher organization, its members bound together by friendly camaraderie and respect to form one big happy family. Since most of them appeared to be orphans, the SeeDs would naturally come to look upon their comrades as their adopted family, as brothers, sisters, parents.
Sephiroth briefly wondered how his character might have been different if SOLDIER had taken SeeD's methods instead. He was fairly sure, from what he had seen of Garden's Headmistress, that she definitely wouldn't have tolerated sucking up a planet's lifeblood and sticking alien fluids into human beings. He could almost imagine her kicking Hojo out of the door onto his rear and badmouthing him for good measure. The thought made him smile.
"We're here!" Keire declared suddenly, breaking him out of his contemplation. The silver-haired youth blinked and looked around at his surroundings as he and his two companions passed through a set of sliding glass doors. Here the modern seemed to end, replaced by wilderness. His first confused impression was that Keire and Mel had brought him outdoors for some strange reason, but then he realized that they were still indoors after peering up and seeing the ceiling with some difficulty.
A dark, silent overgrown jungle, lighted by some unknown source of illumination that looked entirely natural, met his eyes, fenced off from the rest of Garden by a tall, twelve-foot high fence made of metal with twisted iron barbs featuring nasty looking barbs sticking out from it. From the rustling sounds of something big and dark shouldering through the concealing foliage, this was an excellent idea. It was certainly not a good idea not to let any monsters escape and go wandering around Garden eating up students for breakfast.
Two huge nine foot doors, serving as the entrance and probably reinforced by steel a dozen times over, were held closed by heavy metal dead bolts. Keire led the way, grinning as proudly as though he had planted the whole jungle himself. "Our very own giant garden!" he announced cheerfully for someone who was about to go and fight monsters. "No pun intended. Featuring real, live creatures. No stimulations, I can assure you that they can bite—and they have very, very long sharp teeth."
"Is he always that positive?" Sephiroth queried drolly, raising a silver eyebrow at Mel.
She smiled in response. "Of course. One day I have to tell you about the time we ran into a Marlboro and he—"
The blond coughed. "Ahem, lady, gentleman. Business before pleasure."
Mel gave him a hairy eyeball as she shoved past him. "Like you ever cared about that yourself, you hypocrite." She slipped on a pair of wicked, deadly looking mythril claws that fit snugly over her fingers. "You open the door. Last time Xu gave me blue hell for scratching deep gouges into it by accident."
Keire smiled. "And, if I recall, who just kept telling and telling you to take off those damned claws—"
Mel turned and offered him a deadly smile and a clawed hand. "You were saying?" she asked sweetly.
"Nothing," Keire quickly said, the very picture of innocence. He winked at Sephiroth when Mel wasn't looking, and with some difficulty, hauled up the heavy bar and set it to one side. He pushed it and the door swung silently inwards on oiled hinges.
A blast of hot, humid air hit Sephiroth full on the face. (This is really the real thing) he thought, already feeling himself start to perspire. Keire shut the door behind them, before rejoining them, his weapon in his hand. Sephiroth glanced at it curiously. It was like no weapon he had ever seen before—like the blade of a sword welded to the barrel of a gun. Keire, sensing the youth's gaze on him, looked back and twirled the blade with a flourish. "Like my toy?"
Sephiroth shrugged, drawing his own weapon. The long sword scraped against the ground as he adjusted his grip. Keire gaped at it. "I can't believe you ever got that hunk of steel you call a sword off the ground," he said in a hushed whisper. "It's so unwieldy. Can you use it?"
"Obviously, or I would have been dead by now," Sephiroth snapped sarcastically.
"Why not use a gunblade, like me?" Keire pressed. "It's practically the modern version of the sword these days." He lifted his strange weapon for emphasis. "You can slice and dice and fire off some serious ammo and the same time. It's easy, it's light and fast. Believe me when I say this baby can deal some cool damage. Like my friend's dad, the Leonheart. Best gunblader Garden, and including the world, has ever seen." He grinned cockily. "Why don't you transfer? If you can lift that oversized sword, you should have the skill to swing a gunblade."
"No thanks, I think I'll stick with the sword," the silver-haired youth declined politely.
"A weapon that deals double damage, and you don't want it?" the blond instructor rolled his eyes in disbelief. "And you're already a swordsman! You are well and truly mad, my friend."
"I think my choice of weapons is mine to decide," Sephiroth informed Keire in a frost-laden tone, with an air of finality that left no room for argument.
Mel giggled. "Don't get all riled up. It's just, well, Keire's mad about gunblades. He reads all the magazines ever published about gunblades. He makes it a point to be at every gunblading class to oversee it in case the instructor there makes some crucial mistake during training. He and the captain train together with gunblades at least three times a week and talk about gunblades when they aren't sparring. He gives every new cadet what we call the 'gunblade propaganda speech' in an attemot to make them take up the art of the gunblade. He sleeps with Fire Edge—that's the name of his weapon—under his pillow. He even asked for a gunblade-shaped birthday cake last year..."
Her partner did not seem offended, rather more amused. "That was all true, except the birthday cake part," he corrected calmly. "I asked for a mocha- flavored one, round, no cherries, with chocolate sprinklings and cream." He turned to Sephiroth, a glint in his eye. "Very well, let's see just what you can do with a sword!" he stated solemnly. "Monster hunting, anyone?"
Sephiroth smirked. "We shall see who shall prove the better in the end," he shot back.
"Was that a challenge?" Keire asked with a broad grin.
Sephiroth smiled. "Yes."
***
Okay, I know this may be a weird place for an ending, but I urgently needed to finish this chapter and post it since I need to study for an impending science and history test ~doom, doom!~ Also, I'm sorry if I'm dragging the plot on too long. I can foresee the main plot in about another five or so chapters or so. Maybe even ten. ~helpless shrug~ Anyway, see ya all next chappy and stay tuned!
Signing off—the Author
Thanks to:
Majin Jin—for your kind words, but pls check your spelling in future (no offense, seriously!)
T.A. Skywalker— ~makes face of sympathy~ yeah, I'm all loaded up with school as well. Thank you for coming back!
Noacat— Well, sure hope you do! (keep tabs on this story, I man.)
G. Zan—for still remaining a regular reviewer for the fourth time running. And about your observations about Aeris, you're absolutely right. I never really thought about from that angle before...
hawke—Unfortunately, future updates won't be as quick as this one...sadly...sometimes, I wish school could just be abolished...~sighs~ And in answer to your question, yes, this is a story where the OCs, including the one Squaresoft character Sephy, shine and the canon characters pitch in sometimes to help, but that's it. I hope none of you object to a story based primarily on OCs.
Lovely Princess Peach—HEY! Check up on Silver Shadows. Thanx. I was beginning to think no one remembered that story anymore. By the way, Silver Shadows is dead until I finish this story...I'm too busy to write two stories at once, and TIAL (There is Always Light) promises to be longer than I initially thought it would be.
And before you go—
R! E! V! I! E! W!!!!!!
