Well, this is where everything is being revealed. OOC, I am aware of it, but I couldn't seem to get it any other way. A huge battle is going on in the next chapter...problem? School...I have no time to focus on stories like this and anything else for that matter. I won't get high grades, but it will be respectful amount.
enjoy, because I can't really ask anything else from you, review or flame me if nessecary.
and thanks to Midori Tsuki for trying to beta-read my story even though her schedule is TIGHT.
An outburst for weirdlilficwriter and schemergirl.
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When they came to the cave, she didn't really felt that surprised to see the many, ancient paintings covering the wet walls. Sephiroth trailed behind her, trying to find whatever it was he searched for. She knew that it was in the middle of the cave, it was dangerous to get there, but people most likely wouldn't find the cave.
It was wrapped closely by greens and trees, showing years of being unvisited. Sephiroth who had no idea where it was just followed her; occasionally, slicing some greens so that they could get through easier.
It had been awkward, especially on top of the events of the day before. It had a strange sensation in her stomach. Touching the necklace on her chest, she trailed the long strange line in the middle of the floor.
They had for over an hour followed the straight line, without seeming to get any where. Sephiroth was growing impatient.
"Are you absolutely sure?"
She nodded with determination and continued to follow it stubbornly. He groaned and searched through his backpack for some water. Gulping it down in three shots, he dried his mouth and saw that she was no where to be found.
"Goddamnit! Stupid woman…"
"Who are you calling stupid?" a voice said behind him, and he didn't bother turning his head, knowing that it was her.
She continued to lead him down the cave when he noticed leaves lying on the ground before him.
Leaves wouldn't be able to grow or blow in here… We are not alone.
He turned to her when her gasp echoed through the empty spaces. "Look!"
He raised an eyebrow and stared into a wide room that was bathed from the sunlight reflecting in the small pools below. What caught his interest though was the huge map in the middle of the floor, covering a large area and with markings he might guess as being ancient.
With a satisfied smile, she ran as fast as she could towards the markings.
"Aaah…. so you have arrived…"
Sephiroth turned his head and found to his surprise Goodbay sitting lazily on a pedestal not too far away.
Ningit hissed and pointed at him. "What are you doing here?"
He didn't move his face from hers, and he smiled shortly. "Ah… because, I found a little notebook in my house…."
She sighed. "So you know…"
Goodbay fumbled with his hands shortly and sat down on the map in the middle of the cave, eyeing Ningit with curiosity. "You don't remember? You haven't figured it out yet?"
She nodded and stepped forward. "The only solution is that I am an Ancient. The way things seem to be, my reaction to things that got to be it!"
He sighed and shook his head. "No…"
Sephiroth and Ningit stood there wide-eyed. Sephiroth from confusion and Ningit from disbelief.
"What? What are you trying to say?" she yelled.
"Ningit, why don't you sit down and I am going to tell you a little story…"
Sephiroth eyed her for a short time and waited for her answer. She narrowed her eyes at her 'uncle' and sat down on the ground, still glaring at him.
"Now, let's see, where to begin. The WEAPONs, you know of them right?"
She nodded.
"WEAPONs are created by using the materials available to the Planet, like metals and mountains. Even forests…"
"…WEAPONs are 'the Planet'. They are living breathing creatures, but they are only capable of that because the Planet gave it its life. That is why the soul of a WEAPON cannot return to the Lifestream; it was never a part of it. It will return to become a part of the Planet."
He scratched his neck as he felt the air grow hotter. Sephiroth was curious about where the conversation was headed.
"Twenty-two years ago a caravan travelled through the area around Icicle Inn where they got hit by an avalanche. Nobody survived—except a little girl."
Ningit narrowed her eyes further.
"That little girl was supposed to be dead. It could be analyzed that she should have died and all, but somehow she had managed to live… How do you say? Because it wasn't the little girl; it was an impostor…"
"The real girl had long gone to the Lifestream, and the Planet transferred its soul into the girl. Using the same progress as if making a WEAPON: it took some of the materials and made it live."
Sephiroth turned around to stare at Ningit in shock, while she sat there wide-eyed.
"Isn't it ironic? All this time we try and seek the Plant, trying to talk to the Planet like the Ancients…" Goodbay smiled softly. "… When the Planet is witnessing this conversation with us…"
"LIAR! You freaking liar!" Ningit yelled as she stood up and ran towards him, only to be stopped by a pair of leather hands.
"Get off me! I am going to kill him! Kill him…"
Goodbay narrowed his eyes. "Calm down… I am not done…"
Sephiroth held her hard and struggled to make her calm down.
"The thing is, the little girl came to us, even though she was a half year old, and a half year old girl can't survive like that can she? And talk she could too…"
"She called herself Ningit…"
Everything went silent, and the brown-haired girl stared at her uncle wide-eyed. She bit down her lip and closed her eyes slowly.
"Do you even know what you are implying?"
Goodbay looked up to stare at her face. The cold tone in her voice didn't comfort him at all.
"Do you know what kind of sick story you just told there…?"
Sephiroth narrowed his eyes and was about to hit her hard when she yelled as high as she could. "There is no way that can be true! It doesn't explain anything! You sick bastard! I am the Planet? What a joke—haha! You almost got me there…"
She continued to laugh and Sephiroth stared at her silently.
"It is not a joke…"
She stopped laughing and looked at Goodbay with a mocking smile.
"Have you ever wondered why the Lifestream hurt you where they use lot of it for electricity, like in Midgar…?"
The smile slid of her face. "You knew…?"
"And why you somehow can't remember most of your childhood…"
"Well, that is completely normal!"
Sephiroth tightened his grip on her and pushed her a bit backwards.
"Why are you so angry?"
"What?"
"You do not have human emotions—It is something you believe you have; you have been lying to yourself, forgotten your true nature…."
"SHUT UP! SHUT UP! SHUT UP!" she screamed.
"Ningit…."
"NO!"
"—you—"
"I DON'T BELIEVE YOU!"
"—are—"
"YOU FREAKING LIAR!"
"—the—"
"I AM GOING TO KILL YOU!"
"—Planet."
She would have slumped to the ground if Sephiroth hadn't caught her.
"It makes sense doesn't it? All those years you studied Reeve's and Hojo's emotional patterns and began to develop one for your own, and that is the reason why you didn't know what to do after your little incident with Reeve…"
Her eyes began to water.
"You didn't know how a girl would react, so you actually asked him how you should…"
She sniffed and brought a hand to her face.
"Isn't that right? It makes sense… You have no human emotions… You are just…"
"A plastic flower…"
Ningit and Goodbay turned their gaze to Sephiroth who had his face covered by his silver hair. "You said you were a plastic flower, a nonexistent thing. It just looks pretty… You were right…"
She stared at him wide-eyed, "Sephir—"
"All this time I think I had this feeling that we had just a bit in common. However, it really does make sense…" He let go of her shoulders and let her fall towards the ground.
"I don't even think that I can treat you as a human…"
Her mouth opened wide and she looked at him in disbelief.
"Why would Hojo and Shinra be after you if they didn't know? Why would AVALANCHE hunt you too? "
"I…" she muttered.
"Ningit…" Goodbay called, which made her turn his head.
"You were created from the dead body of a child found many years ago, the Planet transferred itself into you… However, you are different from WEAPONs."
"…"
"You see, the thing is… you have been too far away from your original self. If you die you won't return to your original state, you will be a wandering soul who cannot enter the Lifestream… A—"
She closed her eyes and turned so that she faced the ground. Placing her forehead to the ground, she began to gasp ever so lightly, her brows bending down into a frown.
"I hate you…" he raised an eyebrow.
"… I hate you so much! How dare you! Why didn't you tell me this before! Why didn't you stop it?" She screamed "I will kill you! You made my life miserable! You are the reason for why everything went wrong in my life…"
"You don't care for anyone do you…?" he asked.
"SHUT UP! SHUT UP!"
"You don't know how to love anyone…"
"SHUT UP!" she screamed and covered her face with her hands.
"You…"
"SHUT UP!" The tears streamed down her cheeks. "…"
"You know it is the truth… even the Ancient Ilfalna confirmed our thoughts…"
She didn't stop and continued to cry on the floor.
"The reason why she can't use materia… It is because of what she is, right? She is not a real human…?"
Goodbay nodded at Sephiroth's question, but continued to stare at the broken girl before him. "As she was not created from the Lifestream, she doesn't have the same abilities as us. She will never be able to use materia. Human bodies are a shell of some sort. The soul, or whatever it is that exists in the Lifestream, is what makes us able to use materia—"
"Because materia is made of Lifestream, then we should be able to use it ourselves, right? However, she isn't a human or an Ancient, therefore she is unable to…"
Sephiroth crossed his arms. "Why is AVALANCHE hunting her? Is she dangerous…?"
Goodbay rubbed his cheek for a second. "Yes, I am not aware of what powers she possesses, but it is not a good idea to underestimate her…."
Then, a tiny whisper, which could just barely be heard, whimpered, "That is why you tried to kill me… Wasn't it…? Because I was a threat to all of you… I knew too much…"
"…"
"Is that the reason why you experimented on me! Giving me scars! Making me wake up every night because you scare me to death! You tried to kill me so many times!"
She continued to sob loudly into her hands and bent down further to make her head touch the ground.
"I… want to die…"
Both men were silent and watched her slowly break.
"Let me die… If I am not good enough to be a human… then I can just die, and then you've gotten rid of me…" she dried her tears away and took a deep breath. "Not human…"
She began to snicker loudly into the ground, "It is just like a dream; in a moment I will wake up and this is some horrible dream…"
Goodbay sighed and buried his face into his own hands. "I really didn't expect it to turn out like this. I thought we could be a family; you seemed so happy in Icicle Inn… with your mother and all, the emotions, they seemed so human, you were happy…. We were all happy…"
"HAPPY! What do you know about happiness! You tried to kill a little girl! You punctured her skin with needles! How dare you-!"
Sephiroth didn't say anything and just stood there.
"… Sephiroth…" she spoke and he turned his head towards her. "Go back to the capital, you know what to do…"
He narrowed his eyes and was about to protest when he heard a familiar voice behind him.
"… Ningit…"
There stood none other than the infamous Strife with wide blue eyes and his hair wet from the ocean water; Nero and Olette were no where to be seen. Sephiroth took his sword and pointed it towards him.
"Touch her and you'll regret it…"
Strife smiled all of sudden. "Really? I thought you were past your obsessive state with things…"
Sephiroth smirked in return. "I take what I want and what I need. When I am done I throw it out."
Strife suddenly stood beside him, his finger touching Sephiroth's cheek mockingly. "Too bad isn't it? I am going to take her…"
Goodbay gasped and began to run over to where she lay on the ground. When he stood beside her and touched her back, she hissed. "Don't!"
He moved away his hand and soon as he did that a powerful punch was delivered to his face. He had suspected it to be Ningit, due to the knuckles softness. However, the face of the woman was too Wutainise-looking and the nose was a bit too sharp.
Ningit never smirked too. "Finally, we found you, Goodbay! Hojo will be glad to see you—uhmph!" she gasped when an elbow thrust painfully into her stomach. Ningit turned around and removed her elbow and kicked her painfully in the head.
"I do not care about your goals… but I will never, never let Hojo have him!" Olette frowned at her words and took her sword from her back, but Ningit had already thrown her fist into the other's face and she flew across the floor.
Her brown hair covered most of her face and the sweat trailed down over the tracks from her tears. With her fist closed, she brushed the water away and narrowed her eyes.
In a matter of seconds, she was at Olette's side and slamming her leg into her stomach. The Wutainise woman barely avoided the kick and hit Ningit on the side of her face.
She flew to the ground and slid along with the ground. "D-damnit" she muttered and tried to stand up, but in vain since Olette grabbed her by the hair and smashed her face down, hearing the bones crack.
The black-haired woman had a satisfied smile on her face and continued to hold Ningit by the hair as she panted hard. The girl would be knocked out for a few hours with the force she put into it. A small snicker crossed her lips and she didn't notice Ningit's shaking moving hand, not until it was too late.
Grabbing her left arm, she threw Olette to the other side of her and slammed her fist into her nose. "Payback…"
Clutching her nose Olette felt herself grow dizzy and fell to the ground hard.
Ningit touched her cheek softly and winched at the pain, but strangely it should have stung a lot more. Maybe… maybe…
Sephiroth though jumped from corner to corner and barely avoided Strife's sword that dug through stones easily. With a frown he decided to smash his foot into his face while blocking the sword with his own. It was difficult, and he had the feeling that he would barely come out alive.
The scream from the ninja made him turn his head and to his surprise he saw Ningit smash her fist into the girl's face. It seemed as though he wasn't the only one; Strife too had his head turned, leaving him open for an attack.
"Don't be so op—k" Before Sephiroth could swing his sword, Strife had his pointed at his throat. "The magnificent Sephiroth, I know your plans… Those clones, you know very well that if you go through the plan you'll be the strongest person that ever existed…"
The grey-haired youth's mouth curled up into a snicker and he pushed the sword away with his own. "Only a person on the edge of death says things like that…"
Strife jumped into the air and flipped over Sephiroth while saying, "Really? You seem very much like that person now…!"
Goodbay stared wide-eyed at the two fighting. They are just playing with each other…!
Strife smiled and kicked Sephiroth, but only hit air. "Ah… you have grown faster. I have a question though, what did Ningit tell you to make you her 'bodyguard'?"
Sephiroth jumped a bit backwards and stared at him. "Why should that concern you?"
His laughter rung through the room as he charged the younger male. "I think she hasn't told you the complete truth…"
He narrowed his eyes and hit Strife with Masamume, but was only deflected by the other's sword. "I think you have misunderstood her motives… Don't you think?"
The blonde was suddenly pushed back. "What do you mean?"
"She has been lying to you… She isn't Hojo's favourite for nothing you know."
The sword glinted as the sun escaped through the hole in the ceiling. "What are you implying…?" Sephiroth turned to stare at the panting woman who clutched her chest.
"What if she tricked you into taking you here so that she could finish of Hojo's magnificent plan? Ever wonder why no body has contacted you, searched for you? And I thought you were the best man in Shinra…"
The air suddenly became very silent and Sephiroth stood there, staring dumbfounded at the man before him. The smile on his face disappeared and was replaced with a deep frown.
"She is not who you think she is, and, certainly, you don't like when people do something that doesn't suit you…"
Strife tensed all of sudden when the cool metal of a gun was placed at the back of his neck. He narrowed his eyes. "Ningit Goodbay, what are you doing?"
"Who is Ningit Goodbay…?"
Strife's eyes widened and he clumsily tried to attack his opponent behind him, but it was too late. The soft click of the gun made his whole world turn black and Strife fell to the ground dead.
"Who are you?" Sephiroth hissed and readied his Masamume. There wasn't an answer; only the wind blowing in the small cave.
He repeated his question and pointed his sword forward towards the shadow.
"…"
A hand grabbed his own and showed him the way out. Ningit stood dumbfounded at the person holding Sephiroth in a tight grip. "You are not going to hurt Ethan!"
Before him stood a girl that was smaller than Ningit and with a midnight dark hair. "You'll not touch him!"
"Let him go, Olette…"
Ningit was surprised by the fact that she hadn't at all noticed her move.
"Let him go…" Nero repeated.
Olette took out a kunai and pointed it towards Sephiroth.
However, before she managed to do anything else she lay on the ground, dead. Nero staring emotionless at her, a frown on his face.
"IAH!" Ningit screamed as she noticed the two bodies before her, and desperately tried to crawl backwards towards safety.
Nero snorted and threw Ningit's gun back to her, which she desperately tried to push away. "He was stupid enough to reveal the secret…. for what purpose I ask…"
"Y-you killed them…" she whispered.
Sephiroth then turned his head and stared at her. "Did you lie to me…?"
She gazed at him confused and tried to stand up. "Did you lie to me?"
"I…"
He turned his head forward and his green eyes turned into slits. "You'll regret it…"
Too be continued…
I killed Cloud's dad…am I mean or what? Anyway…guess you didn't expect this at all. I will explain the theory further, it is just important for you to know.
According to Wikipedia and the official guide book, Weapons are created by the planet by using dead materials ect, and give them life.