Title: Happily Ever After
Chapter: Jenova's Spell
Author: Raserei Hojo
Summary: FF Crossover. When you die, you're not really gone. In separate worlds, two men died. They were brought together in the darkness and a friendship began to grow. In an attempt to see an opera, magic is used, and witchcraft is called.
Rating: T
Feedback: Very much so desired!
Story Warnings: Male/Male, shounen-ai
Pairings: Kuja/Sephiroth
Disclaimer: Any recognizable characters of Final Fantasy VII or Final Fantasy IX belong to Squaresoft. Any that are NOT recognizable belong to me. However, feel free to use them in any story you wish.
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Author's Note: I usually put these at the end, but I thought you should know early that Kuja and Sephiroth may be very out of character. Mostly Sephiroth, but I swear, there is a reason for it! So bear with me, please? This chapter is supposed to be humorous…! I hope it makes you laugh, or at least smile a bit, at least til the middle. And this is primarily a Sephiroth focused chapter, so enjoy!
---
Sephiroth's body awkwardly turned to face Hojo. They both stared at each other, their eyes stony and emotionless while a few beads of sweat dripped down the sides of Professor Hojo's face.
"Miss Laurabelle, please! The umbrella is not in its proper position!"
Kuja could have swore that Sephiroth nearly fell over at that. A pretty girl with blonde hair and tanned skin, the one in the tight blue bikini, immediately straightened the umbrella so that the shade was covering Hojo's entire body.
"Thank you, Miss."
"So…" Sephiroth's voice had lost its suave tone for just an instant. "What are you doing out here? At a beach? With all of these women? In your lab coat, Professor?"
"My! So many questions!" Hojo offered a smirk and crossed his arms over his chest, nodding to himself. "I see the Reunion is complete."
Sephiroth remained silent, waiting for the older man to continue, in which case, Kuja did not.
"What reunion? Father and son?" Kuja guessed. After all, they did have slightly similar appearances. It must have been the hair, the way their bangs were shaped. But unexpectedly, Sephiroth and Hojo both turned towards Kuja, glaring with their steely eyes at him as if he had uttered the foulest thing human ears could ever hear.
"Or not." Kuja shook his head and placed his hands on his hips instead. "Well, what kind of a reunion is it?"
But Sephiroth and Hojo would not be insulted so lightly.
"Do I look like this man at all?"
"You're obviously mistaken! This Jenova-Reject happens to be the LAST one here!"
Kuja took a step back, waving his hands in front of himself. "No, no! I didn't mean that! Get a hold of yourselves!"
What happened to the wonderful smart and mature Sephiroth I had just a few moments ago?
"Come on, Kuja. Let's go find a hotel or something."
"And do what?" Hojo queried.
"GO TO SLEEP!" Sephiroth replied angrily.
Hojo merely laughed with his hand covering his mouth.
Muttering under his breath, Sephiroth roughly grabbed Kuja by the arm and took him down the path towards what looked like an inn. He had figured out what Hojo had intended to do—cause a scene, and either get him in trouble with authorities, get Kuja in trouble, or simply make him embarrassed.
"What's wrong with you, Sephy?"
"Don't call me 'Sephy', Kuja. I've told you a thousand times not to."
"Psh… You're certainly cheery today."
Sephiroth's eyes softened a moment and his grip on Kuja's arm loosened. The truth was, he hadn't been feeling himself at all since they entered Costa de Sol. The feeling was familiar, like he would lose control at any second.
"I'm sorry, but when I'm around the Professor, I just get so irked." He tilted his head slightly and looked at Kuja. "I just can't stand him, and I would rather be anywhere else than with him."
"Sort of like myself and my Master?"
Letting go of Kuja's arm, Sephiroth merely sighed. "…I guess. Hey…" He placed his hands instead on Kuja's shoulders.
"Uhm… Yes, Seph…iroth?"
"Would you like to go get a glass of wine?"
Kuja's hopes had just been buried ten thousand feet beneath the ocean. "Sure…!"
"Not now, your face is all red anyway. Probably from the heat… How about tomorrow morning?"
"If that's what you want to do, then yes." Kuja stared down at the sand. Oblivious, oblivious, oblivious. First he goes from being my cool hero to an immature brat to this weird romantic guy! What's up with him today? "Are you bipolar or schizophrenic by any chance?"
"How'd you know? I was doing my absolute best to hide it!"
"…"
"I was kidding."
"Damn it! You really piss me off!"
Sephiroth chuckled and shook his head. "You've been around me too long, you're starting to talk like me. I thought you were 'too noble' to say such dirty words! Now, come along. We'll see if the inn takes my money."
---
"Well, it seems that your Shin-Ra card has been accepted, Mr. Sephiroth." This made Sephiroth happy. For one, he did not have to mutilate the kind clerk to get a room, and secondly, he was not addressed as Mr. Hojo.
"Now would that be together or separate rooms?"
"Se—" was all that Sephiroth could get out before Kuja elbowed him painfully in the ribs.
"Together, please."
"Ow! You little bastard!"
"It was just a little tap. Besides, you can't leave me alone. You're basically my body guard, and how is a weakling such as myself supposed to fight off the bad guys?"
"We are the bad guys. And that wasn't a tap! You're stronger than you look, you dirty little heathen." Sephiroth painfully rubbed his side. "Sorry, Miss. We'll take together, I guess."
Choosing to ignore the strange look that the clerk was giving him, Sephiroth took the key he was offered and walked upstairs to their room.
He pushed open the door and was greeted with a very unpleasant thing. "Oh hell no."
"Well if you don't want to sleep with me you can sleep on the floor like a dog!" Kuja hummed and crossed the room, sitting on the only bed. "Okay?"
"Who said you were getting the bed?"
"I'm more fragile than you are, so shut up and sleep on the floor."
Sephiroth rolled his eyes and shoved Kuja off the bed. "It's mine."
Kuja glared from his position on the floor. "Says who?"
Leaning close, Sephiroth smirked his trademark smirk. "Says the big bad meanie who will make you sleep alone in another room if you take the bed."
Weighing the choices in his mind, Kuja decided to slowly stand and brush himself off. "You're not a very good gentleman."
"I don't have to be." Sephiroth hugged the feather-filled pillow to his chest. "You're not a lady, remember?"
"True, but come on, I'm really sore! And I'm frozen!"
"…We're at a beach. It's like…90 degrees. You're not cold. You can't possibly be cold."
"But I don't even feel well!"
Sighing heavily, Sephiroth pressed the back of his cool hand against Kuja's forehead, and was surprised to find it was actually a bit warm. "Looks like going from hot to cold to hot all the time has finally made you sick."
"Wh-What? I'm not sick! I can't be sick!"
Sephiroth buried his face into the pillow. "Well, you are. It's just a cold and a good night's rest should clear it all up."
"But how am I supposed to sleep well on the floor?"
Sephiroth peered up at him, brows raised at the whininess in Kuja's voice. "You sound so pitiful."
Kuja took Sephiroth's arm and snuggled his feverish forehead against the cooler flesh. "I know! So come on, Sephy, let me have the bed, please?"
Not about to lose completely, but feeling sorry for him, Sephiroth very slowly stood. "Fine. But I'm keeping the pillow."
Kuja bit his lip, but finally nodded. "All right. That works for me."
Within five minutes, Kuja was nestled into two comfortable blankets and a flat, but still quite comfortable pillow. Sephiroth patted him on the head before dragging himself and the feather pillow to the corner of the room by the door. He positioned himself so that if someone were to come in, the door would slam right into his head. Painful, yes, but effective if he wasn't knocked out. It also prevented the all-too curious Kuja from venturing outside to do his 'exploring'.
"Are we all cozy? Kuja? You're asleep already, aren't you?" After ten second of no response, Sephiroth decided to take that as a yes. Or as a being ignored. Whichever, Sephiroth decided to close his eyes and wait for sleep to come.
---
"Why can't I have my child? Why can't I touch him! Please, at least let me hold him!" She was very pretty, even after two hours of labor and her once silken brown hair now sweaty and resting in damp clumps around her shoulders.
"It's not your child, woman. It belongs to the almighty Ancient Jenova. It is her child, and it will lead us to the Promised Land."
"It will lead us to the Promised Land," came the murmurs of their colleagues.
"Please! I've carried him for all of this time, I bore him! Hojo, please let me have him! I'll do anything—anything at all…!"
Hojo was cradling the infant boy, his mind filled with the wonderful things this super-human baby would be able to do in the future. "I don't have a use for you anymore, and neither does Jenova. Do you know what Jenova will do to you?" Not waiting for her, he continued, "Jenova will never let you die. You will a half-life, unable to live normally—you'll suffer forever because you bore this thing." Hojo turned to the elderly man with slicked back hair.
"Professor Gast? Take it."
The professor silently did so, holding the silent child in his arms. "He hasn't cried at all, so his lungs are probably stilled filled with fluids."
Hojo was busy filling out release forms for his wife. "So stick a tube down its throat or something and get it out. Just make sure it doesn't die!"
"And what about your wife? Where will she go?"
"She can go to the caves for all I care! She'll be this way for the rest of eternity, so don't worry about her."
"But Lucrecia can't…"
---
Sephiroth slowly lifted his face from the depths of his pillow and groggily looked around. The door was on the other side of the room, and he was sitting on the Kuja-less bed. Covering his face with the pillow again, he mulled over the dream.
He didn't particularly remember it… How could he? If that child was him, then how in the world could he remember it? Babies don't remember anything!
"It must have been Mother… I wonder what she's trying to show me…?" He blinked. "Kuja? Where did you go?" Nearly falling out of bed, Sephiroth hurriedly put on his boots and ran out the door.
If I were Kuja, where would I be? Oh hell, no one knows where that guy would be! He could be buying revealing clothes for women for all I know!
Praying that Kuja really was a cultured individual, Sephiroth chose to visit the library first. After all, it held a vast amount of knowledge that would take Kuja years to siphon through. Of course… Sephiroth didn't remember a library being in Costa de Sol, but he could blame the World of the Dead for all of that.
His bare hands pushed open the double wooden doors to the large library, and as he walked inside, it felt like passing through another dimension. He hadn't been in a library since that day… Since Nibelheim, when SOLDIERs would proudly say sometimes, "And not once did the light in the basement go out."
"I should look quickly…"
The library was so huge, and the temptation to stop and browse the books was overwhelming. But he was a trained SOLDIER, he had to keep his mind focused on his current mission.
"God, I was so stupid," he whispered to himself. "Kuja could levitate right out of the window if he wanted to… I just hope he hasn't been using magic in public."
He walked through the aisles, doing his best to look straight ahead. The option to ask one of the clerks if they had seen a young man with a long silver tail was always available, but Sephiroth doubted that would be wise. He had now idea if those stupid Sages were still looking for him and Kuja or not.
"Where are you… Where are you…"
Sephiroth's breath hitched in his throat as he found himself staring at the bookshelf. "Okay… I really need to get out of here before this place drives me insane." He did not like this déjà vu at all.
Turning to go, Sephiroth's eye caught a black leather book bound with silver buckles. Its spine clearly read: "The Jenova Project".
But Sephiroth had read every book in the Shinra Mansion's library…That book couldn't contain the information he wanted, right?
He stood there and bowed his head, his hair blocking the view of his face entirely. I don't understand. Was that woman Jenova, or was she someone else…? She could have changed her name… and her appearance could have always changed… But…
"You know your mother died giving birth to you, Sephiroth." It was a statement, not a question at all.
"Hojo, what do you want from me?"
Plucking the book from the shelf, Hojo hugged it to his chest and smiled—it looked sincere, but Sephiroth knew it wasn't.
"Give me that!"
"Shh. This is a library, Sephiroth. We mustn't scream and fuss as if we are an infant."
Sephiroth could do nothing but glare. How he wanted to test the how dying worked in this world… But his sword was gone, and it wouldn't be any fun.
"Give me that book, Hojo."
"Say 'please',"
"Give me the fucking book."
"Ah ah ah." Hojo hugged it tighter. "If you don't be a good boy, you won't get your candy, and I'll have to take it for myself."
"You're pissing me off."
"Oh, am I? All you have to do is say 'please' and Daddy will give you the nice book."
"Stop talking to me that way! I'm an adult!"
Hojo laughed quietly. "Yes! You're thirty-one years old, and you don't even know who your own mother is. You're not even sure who your father is! And you're an adult?"
"That has nothing to do with being mature or not." He reached for the book. "Now give that to me, or I'll take it forcefully."
"Tell me, what will you do if the information you want isn't in here? Will you be sad? Will you cry like a little girl? Tell me, Sephiroth, I really do wish to know."
Sephiroth's blood was boiling hot with rage by now. "Cut it out!"
Just a little bit more, Sephiroth. Get angry at me…
"You don't know anything about yourself at all. You don't even know what you think of Kuja! You don't even know where he is."
Hojo was right—about not knowing where Kuja was. "I'm sure he's doing something entertaining, unlike yourself."
Hojo was smiling again. "Yes, indeed. In fact… Several people saw 'a young, silver haired man with a tail the color of his hair getting a ticket for an airship to Lindblum'."
Sephiroth's brain nearly stopped functioning at that. His skin felt very icy, and for some reason his chest was heavy, and felt tight…Abandoned…
"You're lying." And now he was in denial.
"Oh, no. Go on, ask any of the visitors here." Hojo smirked again, knowing Sephiroth wouldn't be thinking clearly enough to do so.
"You're lying!"
"Did you really think a failed Cetra like yourself could make a friend like Kuja? You should have known he wouldn't stick with you long! He just used you, like a car, to get to somewhere comfortable." It was so easy to toy with a confused child's mind…
"YOU'RE LYING!"
Especially one that was half under Jenova's spell.
Author's Note: For those of you who have played Final Fantasy VII, you know Hojo's personality pretty well. Dissect, experiment, toy with the mind… All fun and games with the professor! Jenova's spell started to kick in at the Ice Cavern when Sephiroth passed out. In the next chapter, you'll learn more (or you might figure it out on your own) about the certain goal Hojo has. He's going to be a major character from now on, and he has a buddy!