I changed the title from Requiem for a Dream to Nostalgia of the Innocent. I liked the latter title better.
In this chapter we advance the story more, and learn of how Sephiroth is to be returned to life. Whether or not anyone actually gives a goddamn, Sephiroth is revived in the next chapter. And there was much rejoicing...yaaay... (say it flat like Monty Python)
Disclaimer: Do I freaking sound like I own FFVII? Do I speak Japanese? No. Random words and phrases, and teaching myself to read doesn't cut it. I don't own it but I DO own anything you don't recognize. Cheers!
I reiterate that this story was made for my own amusement, and it is due to this sense of wishing to amuse myself that I put this online to view publicly. This is why I focus on more of an original storyline than aiming to please the masses, and why it doesn't bother or offend me in the least bit that I get very few reviews. I could be writing another run-of-the-mill Seph/Tifa fics (I love that pairing), but I'm no good at romance and I'm not going to try and trick you into thinking I am. Have fun, kids.
Major Milne listened in shock as his subordinate rattled off a disjointed and almost incomprehensible story.
"Wait, start again?" Milne asked, now thoroughly confused. "What the hell are you talking about, soldier?"
"Linton! It, it's been hit with an earthquake!" the man said.
"Linton's always had earthquakes. What the hell's so important about this one?"
"It's torn up half the city! We've lost contact with Pershing again and this time it ain't us!" the man said. "We can't tell who's alive or dead! Satellite picture's shit! It looks like half the city nearly caved in on itself and Lifestream's everywhere! The generators have overloaded and there's no power anywhere in that sector! Some of the buildings in the civilian sector have coll--"
"Spare me," Milne snapped. "What about Red Hind?"
"They didn't get any of it that we can see, sir," the man replied. "As far as we could tell, it was a localized quake."
"Damn," Milne muttered.
"…Sir, should we proceed?"
"What? Of course!"
The soldier seemed to jump at Milne's snarled retort.
"Yessir!" he replied. "We'll be ready in an hour or so. We'll wait for your orders."
Milne nodded. He'd continue with his orders, catastrophe or no. After all, there were no orders to the contrary and he was just as anxious as Pershing to see the results.
The Major turned and looked at the figure on the table in the middle of the room. It was almost unrecognizable as a body underneath all of the needles and diodes attached to it. Its dignity was solely preserved under a sheet that covered it from the waist to the knees, and even that had wires and tubes running underneath.
I can't believe that his muscles didn't at least atrophy, Milne thought. He sighed.
Milne was not kept entirely up to date on the procedures that were going to be employed to revive this man. All he knew was that it had something to do with the Jenova project and experimentation done on Sephiroth before he was born.
Kept on hand were heavy-duty sedatives, for when he was reanimated. He'd be kept drugged until he was needed; bringing him back to life early, or at least trying to, would give room for error.
After all, it wouldn't do to have him fully conscious. Chains wouldn't hold him for very long, and Milne couldn't very well ask him 'pretty please.'
"In an hour, sir?" Ms. Finn asked from the corner. Even though she was a normally placid woman, her eyes were shining with anticipation.
"In an hour."
"It's so exciting, sir!" she said, smiling warmly at the body. "I'm so honored."
Milne made a noncommittal grunt and excused himself from the room.
In one hour, history would be forever changed.
"Keep me posted on the Linton situation," he told his assistant, a young recruit named Perry Wilkes, who had quickly joined Milne. "Has security been reconfirmed?"
"Yes sir," Wilkes said. "Double checked."
"Good, tell them to stay on high alert. Even if contact with Pershing hasn't been reestablished in forty-five minutes, commence radio silence."
"Radio silence, sir?" Wilkes asked.
"Yes, did I stutter?" Milne asked calmly, and stared coldly at the man.
"No, sir. I'll alert communications."
Milne nodded, and continued along the hall.
Colonel Pershing was about half a hair's breadth from strangling the man in front of him.
"We've got teams at work right now, sir. If the Black Materia's still in the vicinity, we'll find it." To his credit, the soldier kept his chin up and his voice calm.
Pershing rounded on him viciously. "You'd better," he hissed. "What is the status of our equipment?"
"It's been badly damaged, sir," the man replied evenly. "But we're working with what we've got. We're trying to see if anyone's still alive inside the buildings."
Pershing glanced at his subordinate. Now was not a good time to lose his cool. Damn it! To find the damned Materia and then to lose it again…damn it!
He nodded. "Very well. Carry on, let me know if you find anything."
"Yes, sir."
Pershing looked out over the scene. Soldiers were rushing to contain the Mako leaks, and the ground itself looked like tossed salad.
Damn it all…
I wonder if we've left the city yet, Rue thought. It's not so loud anymore, and we've sped up.
Her breath came out in thick white clouds, testament to the below freezing temperatures she was trapped in.
She leaned forward, not of her own will. The truck was turning right, pretty sharply for these speeds. It evened out for a few moments and then Rue was pressed backwards so that she had to shove a canister away from herself with her legs to keep it from pinning her down.
I'll bet we're out of town, Rue thought, and the realization brought a numb feeling that couldn't be described. Since that guy said the road gets all bendy.
Rue leaned forward, inching towards the loose flap of fabric she'd been shoved through.
Timidly, she pulled it back, and white light invaded her darkness. Pristine white light.
She bent over further, and stared out the tiny peephole. It was a landscape of blinding whiteness, a shallow 'street' stretching behind her, and in the distance was a great gray edifice with a wall around it.
"That's the Bank One building!" she whispered, in utter awe. It took her a few moments to realize that what she was staring at were the outer walls of her city. She'd never left it before; it would have been against the law without a government pass.
It is against the law, she thought morbidly.
Rue fingered the black ball in her hand thoughtfully. I can't believe what I'm looking at!
When the truck swerved again, Rue was reminded of what the Lieutenant said. Jump out the back end of the truck into the snow.
If this were a caravan Rue's truck was the last in line, which was all the better.
Rue swallowed nervously. There was the chance she'd be seen jumping out the back end of the truck, but then it was only a chance. Waiting until they got closer to wherever they were going would make it much harder.
She pulled the fabric back further, and got up on her knees. The light was almost painful. She peered harder at the Troy-like walls of Linton, and wasn't sure what to feel. Should she be feeling happy? Scared? It was lost on Rue to know what to feel while seeing the outside of her own city for the first time. She'd only seen pictures of it once or twice in her life.
In all truth she felt more sad than she'd have liked. Jumping out of this truck would mean she'd leave behind everything she'd ever known and loved, come what may.
Then again, staying in it meant dying for them.
Rue glanced at the little black ball, then at Linton. I don't know what you are, but…
She stuffed the black marble down securely into her collar, and steadied herself to leap. She took a few deep breaths to try and calm herself down.
Just don't slip, she told herself. Don't slip.
When the truck swerved to the right, Rue hurled herself forward at the bank of snow with a grunt of effort, and landed solidly with her face down.
She waited in absolute stillness until she couldn't hear the trucks very well, and then she sat up. They were far away, and getting farther.
Rue glanced over her shoulder at Linton, whose cold walls towered impressively even at this distance. The wind was freezing, and relentless.
I'm really alone, she realized. I'm all…alone…
Suddenly, the silence seemed all the more painful.
She got up to her feet, and hugged her arms. I wish this were a dream…
"Exactly how are you going to bring Sephiroth's soul back from the dead?"
The man in charge of reviving Sephiroth had white hair and half moon spectacles, and a leering yellow gaze. He had a long beard and looked, for the most part, like a Santa Claus gone wrong. His name was Edward Carter.
Major Milne leaned in the doorway, glaring at the rotund man with intense dislike. As a soldier, it was his job to obey orders, but that didn't mean he had to like the arrogant fucks they told him to work with.
Professor Carter glanced up at the Major.
"You'll see soon enough," Carter said coolly, and squeezed himself into his favorite chair. "Haven't I already told you that it would be too hard to explain?"
"I'm sure I could piece it together," Milne snapped back at him. "We do speak the same language, after all."
"On the contrary," Carter said dryly, and turned away. "Gertrude, how are we with the Mako levels?"
Ms. Finn's voice threaded through the intercom. "We're stable!"
"Great," Carter replied.
"Pershing will be expecting a report, Carter," Milne snapped shortly. "He won't be happy if it's incomplete."
"Yes, that's right…you Military people always have to have your I's dotted and your T's crossed, eh?" Carter muttered, not really paying any attention. "Fine, if you absolutely insist on knowing, I'll give you the dumbed down version."
Milne, who was well aware that Carter's 'dumbing down' was being done less out of charity and more out of his belief that everyone was less intelligent than he was, gritted his teeth.
"As you know, Sephiroth was no ordinary man."
Milne knew that, every schoolchild on the planet knew that.
"I know that," Milne snapped. "That doesn't have a damn bit to do with getting his soul back from the Lifestream."
"It has everything to do with it!" Carter snapped imperiously. "His uniqueness is the very reason it's possible. His soul is different."
"Even if that were true, how does that tie into bringing him back to life?" Milne asked. "I don't see any magic circles to draw his soul up from the Lifestream."
"Don't mock me, Major," Carter warned. "A soul is matched to his body, and a soul stays close to where it was released from the body. That's why I specified we remain mountainside."
"What?"
"Generally speaking, a soul haunts the place where it died. Typical ghost cliché, major," Carter said bluntly.
"That has nothing to do with bringing a body back from the dead!" Milne snarled. "Get to the point!"
"Sephiroth actually died two times; one, at Nibelheim but he was able to maintain his soul within his body since he fell into the Reactor. But when he died the second time, his body and soul were separated."
"Even if you could revive his body, how are you supposed to get his soul?"
"A soul is drawn to its body, it's connected."
"…Are you're saying…once you revive the body the soul is going to be attracted to it?" Milne asked, a look of total incredulity on his face. It was a very strange theory, and he had no idea what to make of it.
"A soul can't remove itself from the Lifestream except in rare cases," Carter said. "So no, it's probably not going to fly up in a tangible form."
"What kind of rare cases are we talking?"
"Even I'm not sure," Carter said, shrugging. He barked adjustments to his team. "But no ordinary human is capable of it."
"So exactly how do you plan to revive Sephiroth?"
"I plan to reanimate his body, and wait for his soul to arrive."
"Isn't there a chance somebody else's soul could take over?"
"A certain key for a certain lock, Major," Carter said. "We'll be running Lifestream through Sephiroth to provide a conduit for his soul."
That explains the green tubing, Milne thought. "How certain are you that this is going to work?"
Carter glared at the man as if he were offended he was even doubted.
"You keep speaking in general terms, Carter. Why did you say Sephiroth was so unique, earlier?"
"Because it's possible to revive Sephiroth's body in the first place. He's been dead five hundred years, that's more of a permanent death than if you shot a man in the head five minutes ago."
Milne stared. "A dead man is a dead man!"
"If we took the body of…say, one of the members of Avalanche," Carter said, "And performed the same procedures on them as on Sephiroth, their body would be unable to handle it."
"Explain," Milne commanded.
"Sephiroth's body is infused with alien cells, Jenova cells, his very essence is, which provide for Sephiroth's ability to regenerate whether or not he's physically dead. They will respond to the treatments, and restart his body."
"Basically you're using jumper cables on a human being," Milne said.
"In a very, very small nutshell, that's precisely right, Major. I'm impressed," Carter said, though the compliment was only half hearted.
"And then you'll wait for his soul to travel through the Lifestream into his body. What happens when his soul returns to his body?"
"What is this entire experiment for, Major?"
"I meant," Milne snapped, clenching his fist though he was outwardly calm, "What happens to the Lifestream that's still running through Sephiroth when his soul reclaims his living body?"
Carter glanced at Milne. "Major, exactly how many questions do you intend to ask?"
"As many as I want, until I'm satisfied."
Carter's snort sounded like a foghorn. "You are a thorough man."
"I try."
"Major, either take a seat or get out," Carter snapped, turning his huge back to Milne.
Milne stepped into the room, glowering at Carter's audacity.
"I prefer to stand," Milne said coldly. He glanced at the operating room beyond the one-way mirror. "Proceed."
"I'm not a soldier, Milne, so I don't have my head up my ass until I get told to take it out again," Carter snapped. "Furthermore, you are not qualified to tell me when to jump."
"You are subject to my scrutiny," Milne shot back. "I am authorized to report any hints of - "
"You sound like a goddamn tape recorder, Major. I'm subject to the Military, but you haven't gone to scientist school and I don't think you have half a clue what's going on out there. So leave it to me to tell them what to do."
Milne stared at the Professor, who turned to his computer and flatly refused to acknowledge Milne.
"You don't actually know what will happen to Sephiroth, for sure, do you?"
Et voilà, the fifth chapter. I promise nothing bad will happen to our dear, precious Sephiroth. Can't say the same for the Military.