Chapter 9 - Pain of the Past, Prayers for the Future
Aerith doesn't pay attention as Angeal quietly briefs Zack on the full truth of the matter, about the Jenova Project, Project S and G. She stares out of the helicopter that she, Sephiroth, Angeal, and Genesis are being flown in by Tseng. It's strange, in a way. The first time she had gone for the Forgotten Capital, it had been with a sense of hope and determination. Now it was a trip of dread. A knot in her stomach, a tension in her entire body, because she knew what she was going to have to do.
She was going to have to go to the alter.
Hop across the steps.
Kneel down.
And pray for Holy...
Right on the spot where she had been run through and killed.
A slight shudder rips through her body, and for a moment, her stomach hurts with intense phantom pain. Why? Why was this... intensity... running through her mind? She had been unhappy about dying, true, but... it hadn't affected her like this in the lifestream...
Oh.
Right.
Lifestream. Surrounded by the souls of those who had come before her, wrapped warmly in the cradle of the Planet, comforted in the Promised Land. The place of supreme happiness, where earthly matters didn't have so much weight, except for Jenova and Seph... er... 'the One-Winged Angel'. She recognized she had never dealt with the fact she had died, just shoved it aside, because it didn't matter. She had been dead, and that was all there was to it. Now? Not so much.
How does one deal with actually being dead? For years? And then coming back? It's funny because most people would want to be alive, do anything to return to life if they died and somehow retained their consciousness. Herself? It was the opposite. Goddess... being a part of the Lifestream was pure bliss.
There was no pain.
No more suffering or worries.
Except when everything went wrong the last time the One-Winged Angel performed Reunion.
The time he finally put his arrogance aside, and fought Cloud, fought AVALANCHE, seriously.
And killed them all.
She leaned her head against the helicopter window with a soft thud. Is it wrong to wish she was still dead, in the Planet's embrace, not having to even consider these issues? When she still has so much work left to do? Or is it that? She was willing to do this, didn't really have a choice in the matter if she was honest, but did she really want to do this? Goddess, it had been terrifying to watch Cloud and the other's face down the One-Winged Angel and his Jenova puppet. Doing it herself? Fighting the actual Calamity in control of itself if everything went wrong and it woke up?
There are no words for the dread in her stomach.
Cloud and the other's were always worried about the One-Winged Angel. They never realized what the true danger was, that his will overpowering Jenova actually helped them. It limited the Calamity to his desires and strategies, his plans, his will. The One-Winged Angel HAD BEEN incredibly dangerous, that was true, he DID win after all in the end. He was more powerful than Jenova was. Raw strength and will wasn't everything though. The One-Winged Angel's plans had always been pretty straight forward.
Reunion.
Use the Black Materia.
Become a god by absorbing the lifestream at the wound when Meteor hit.
Or...
Revive and constantly throw himself at Cloud after his remnants or whatever he used to revive himself that time brought him back.
Jenova on the other hand was insidious.
It might have been the One-Winged Angel's power that won in the end, but he never would have existed without Jenova. Could never have pulled himself and reformed out of the Lifestream again and again without the abilities granted unto him from her cells. Jenova could be subtle, in ways the One-Winged Angel never was or could be. Jenova could plot, scheme, deceive, infect and twist, and so much more. The One-Winged Angel could influence his remnants or those with his S-Cells, but she doubted he could control and direct hundreds of thousands of beings infected with J-Cells at the same time like Jenova herself was capable of.
Jenova was not human.
Not in the slightest.
She was an cunning extra-terrestrial sentient adaptable virus-parasitical planetcidal entity that could absorb any traits or memories of those it encountered. It did not think, nor act, in ways humans, or Ancients, could fathom. Killing it's physical body didn't even work, because of it's cells being able to infect the Lifestream. HOW her ancestors actually managed to defeat...
No.
That's not right.
The Ancients did not defeat Jenova.
They didn't even break even.
They had a pyrrhic victory at best. Sealing her away was not a win, in all honesty, Jenova had crushed the Ancients. Beaten them so badly that their civilization had fallen, dwindled down in numbers until Aerith was all that was left. All her ancestors had done was put Jenova off for another day, another generation, to fight. The problem was, no lessons were learned to help the next generations. Great Gospel, and whatever the Goddess and the Planet had done to Aerith's cells and blood, were the only new things in the fight against the Calamity. She didn't even know if she could still use the variant of Great Gospel she had used from the Lifestream, empowered by the planet. So in reality, Aerith herself was the only new thing.
Sad to say, Sephiroth going insane and subjugating Jenova was one of the better scenarios. AVALANCHE had held him off and won many victories against him. He had been fairly straightforward, though, there was nothing safe in that fact, since he was still deadly even if they knew he was coming and knew what he wanted.
Jenova however was THE worst case scenario.
Well... to be fair. Jenova controlling all of SOLDIER including the trio would be the worst case scenario. The Calamity without control of her three 'children' wouldn't be as much of a nightmare, but still bad.
But...
With the trio on her side, and a cleansed SOLDIER...
How would that fare in an open conflict? She knew that Jenova infected beings exhibited increased strength, but that wouldn't match SOLDIER, at least not one on one. Still... if it came down to say... an infected city the size of Midgar or Junon against SOLDIER, how would that pan out?
Could SOLDIER win against such overwhelming numbers?
Could the Planet handle that much infected Lifestream if those numbers were cleansed?
She brought up a fingernail to gnaw on. She was not a battle planner, nor a general. Weighing such odds in her mind was an alien concept to her. And a nerve wracking one. Especially since in such a scenario, she'd be in the middle of that battle, killing innocent people who no longer had free will, enslaved and infected by the Calamity... who would never find peace and absolution and rebirth in the Lifestream.
There were no winners in such a conflict.
"Do you actually have a plan, or are you just making it up as you go?" came Genesis's drawling voice.
Aerith blinked a few times, pulling herself out of her bleak thoughts. "Pardon?"
Genesis snorted. "If I didn't know any better, watching you hit your head against the window racking your brain for something, I'd think you made me an empty promise and are trying to figure out how to come through."
Aerith gave him a disbelieving look, and was very tempted to ignore the fear and uncertainty emanating from the man and vent her own such feelings at him. She didn't however, as much as he didn't show it, he was very insecure about the idea of degrading. She could imagine she hadn't been giving out a very confident vibe at the moment, and he had called her out correctly, just not on the right topic.
"You're degradation isn't a problem," she said simply, "Other issues aren't so clear cut."
Genesis crossed his arms and glared at her. "Oh, so glad you take degradation and going insane so seriously. Dreams of the morrow hath the shattered soul."
Aerith rolled her eyes and returned to staring out the window, silent, her lips pressed tightly closed. They were closing in on the Northern Continent now, it wouldn't be more than half an hour until they reached their destination. Funny thing about helicopters. Flying over the Sleeping Forest worked wonders for circumventing its magic. Her ancestors never considered the aerial approach. She wondered if that was how it fell to Jenova thousands of years ago.
"Penny for your thoughts?" came Zack's voice, his foot sliding over to nudge hers.
Her eyes briefly flickered towards Zack, noting the concern on his face, and couldn't help but notice the others all watching her. She closed her eyes briefly, and took a moment to forcibly relax herself. Her shoulders stopped tensing, her fists stopped clenching, her face stooped scrunching up in serious thought and apprehension, and she leaned back against the helicopter seat.
"Just thinking about the future," was all she said before closing her eyes.
"The future will come at it's own pace," said Sephiroth, "Think on it, prepare for it, but don't let it dominate your mind or you will find yourself consumed by it."
Aerith opened her eyes to briefly meet his, staring at him silently. Wise words she supposed, especially from one so young. It kept surprising her to hear such things from him. She really knew next to nothing about who he had truly been before madness took him. The few times she discussed pre-Nibelheim Sephiroth in the Lifestream with her Zack didn't do him justice, he had already been damaged and withdrawn from losing Genesis and Angeal.
She gave him a brief nod and re-closed her eyes, silently listening to the sound of the helicopter blades swooshing through the air. The landed on the outskirts of the Forgotten Capital. The trip had been long, and the day already mostly spent, night was quickly falling, the atmosphere so similar to her final hours of life in her other life. For a moment, she saw a ghost, an echo of her older self, walking through the ruins. Then... Sephi... 'The One-Winged Angel', following silently, watching, waiting, Masamune in his hand, cold hard madness in his eyes.
Her face paled at the sight, and she abruptly shook her head, banishing the vision and steeling herself, to little avail. She started walking down the broken pathways. Ghosts of AVALANCHE danced across her eyes, her old and gone friends, coming in search of her... oh Cloud... Tifa... Barrett... Nanaki... Yuffie... her Vincent... Cid... even Cait Sith...
A tremor went down her arms, a ragged breath escaped her lips. She shook her head again and picked up the pace.
"Dude, is she okay?" she faintly heard Zack whisper, "Something's seriously not right with her."
"I don't know," came Angeal's hushed response.
She tuned them out. Right now, she couldn't care less what they thought. This place... it was far more painful to be here than she could possibly imagine. Her chest where Masamune had run her through was aching, growing worse and worse each step she drew closer to her destination. She walked down the center path, through the narrow pathway to...
She froze briefly at the lake, where Cloud had laid her body to rest...
Nervously stared at the shell house, whose depths she had died in...
She forced herself to walk inside. She circled around the railing, touching it and sending a tendril of her power to activate the translucent staircase downward to the alter.
"Woah," said Zack.
"Shush," came Genesis's soft voice, "This is... a sacred place, be civil here and quiet."
"Sacred?" came Angeal's confused response.
Aerith slowly began walking down towards the alter, her memories playing havoc on her mind. She saw herself walking in front of her, and moved to match each step. Down and down she went, on the staircase made of Ancient power and magic. The others followed silently behind her. She could feel Zack's awe to the place around them. The trio were far more serious. She didn't know if it was her reaction to this place that set them off, but they were wary, as if expecting danger.
The danger had come and gone, death with it, in another life.
She passed through the old hut before the alter, to the final stairway, and then paused briefly as the alter. For a moment, she saw herself already there, in her pink clothes, hair tied back in a ribbon, kneeling down to pray for Holy. A ghostly Cloud started leaping across one step after another towards the alter, and she moved to follow.
She paused briefly to say hoarsely. "S-stay here."
She crossed, one jump at a time, until she came to the foot of an alter. She walked up the steps, each footfall echoing heavily through the air. The phantom pain in her chest flaring with each step closer. She brought a hand up to clench her chest as she stood infront of the spot where she had knelt. She felt tears start to slip down her face, soft 'plunks' as they hit the glass. She couldn't bring herself to turn kneel down, she simply stood there and stared at the spot where her life had ended, her heart pounding in her head.
She may have loved being in the Lifestream, but death... her death...
She watched, as an echo of Cloud appeared, struggling with himself, with the will of the 'One-Winged Angel'. He came so close to actually killing her, if not for his friends words, he might not have stopped. She watched herself open her eyes with surprise, then smiling at Cloud, and then... then...
The One-Winged Angel descended from the heavens and ran her through, the shock, surprise, and agony on her ghost self's face echoed through her as her life faded, and the pain in her chest was debilitating...
She wasn't sure how long she stood there, struggling with herself, it may have been minutes, it may have been hours, but finally, she forced herself to move to the spot, turn, and kneel down to pray. She briefly saw hints of surprise, confusion, and concern when they caught sight of her tear-stained face, but she closed her eyes to block them out. She took a ragged breath, took Holy out of her pocket, clasped her hands around it, and prayed.
She prayed for Genesis...
For the light to heal him...
For a pillar of strength, a friend, for Sephiroth to lean on to maintain himself...
To avert a tragedy before it could begin...
To stop his madness before it could cause so much harm...
To stop the cascade of events that lead up the Nibelheim...
To stop the endless battles AVALANCHE had fought against the One-Winged Angel...
In truth, she prayed for more than just him...
She prayed for a chance to change the future.
And Holy answered.
A shine flashed out of her hands, and without the One-Winged Angel's power to suppress it, she felt Holy rush out of the Planet. The lake beneath their feat, all around them, began to dance with teal translucent light. The others were pushed away from Genesis as Holy burst out of the lake in a torrent of light and wrapped around the man. To his credit, he showed no fear, only a wonder she didn't think she had ever seen on his face. The energy lifted him, and wrapped him in a cocoon of light, blocking him from sight and swirling around him. It took only mere minutes, when it was finished, the light slowly set him down and faded away.
Genesis stood there, almost exactly as he had before, some would say exactly as he was if they didn't pay attention to detail. His skin had tanned so ever slightly, reversing the beginning of a paleness most would not have noticed starting. There was extra focus and sharpness in his eyes where there hadn't been before. His posture, ever so slightly more straight. A minor tension across his body had relaxed and faded away. There was a soft smile on the man's face as he examined himself. She could see that the other two of the trio saw what she did, and they seemed almost stricken, self-reproach and disbelief on their faces. So in tune with the planet right now, she could clearly hear the thoughts echoing through both of their minds:
"He was my friend, and I didn't even notice what was happening to him."
"Gift of the Goddess indeed, you don't realize how off you were until the rust falls away," he muttered, clenching and relaxing his hands, "I dread to think how awful it would have been to really start degrading if this is how good I feel right now. Goddess, I didn't even realize it was happening now, I thought it started with the wound I eventually received..."
She couldn't help but pity the Genesis from her time at that. She wondered briefly what he must have felt to degrade like that, and then, for the Goddess herself to heal and bless him, freeing him from a heavy degradation so much worse than the one before her had started to feel. Speaking of feeling bad...
She felt awful tired all the sudden, drained.
Calling Holy took a lot out of her. She had died before it had set in last time, but oh, was there a deep ache she knew she would be feeling tomorrow, probably for longer. She pocketed Holy and adjusted her legs, sitting against the back of the alter, propping up a knee to wrap her arms around. She placed her forehead against her knee and closed her eyes, taking some time to rest while the others appraised the 'new and improved' Genesis...
She frowned briefly, feeling an odd difference to his presence. It was strange, something almost... 'ancient'... to him. Yet at the same time not. She paused, raising an eyebrow, when she heard the Planet giggle softly in the back of her mind. She slowly shook her head, let the Planet do as it wanted. It obviously had something in mind for the man, whatever role it wanted him to play, she'd find out in time she supposed.
She could hear the light sound of someones feet crossing the stepping pillars to the alter, and then a soft patter up the steps of the alter itself.
"Thank you for helping him," came Sephiroth's soft voice.
Aerith didn't react to his words, at least, not right away. To have him so close to her in a spot where they had been in a different life, giving gratitude instead of death was... an unusual sensation. The past life won out though, discomfort set across her immediately, she... didn't want him here... as unfair as it was to a Sephiroth who had not committed the crime.
"You're welcome, I... need some time to rest, explore the Forgotten Capital if you so wish," she said, hoping he'd take the hint to leave.
He did no such thing. Instead, a quietness filled the air. She could feel his curious eyes upon her.
"What is this place to you?" he asked.
She tensed, a shiver running through her body. She contemplated not telling him.
Contemplated lying.
Contemplated smudging the truth.
Contemplated telling him to leave.
Instead, she slowly raised her forehead off her knee, and met his gaze with her own, whatever he saw in her eyes caused him, a man of such control, to briefly flinch, before she spoke the four words she dreaded to say, said them with painful intensity and a hollowness, "It's where I died."
His eyes widened slightly, a stillness coming over his body, conflict crossed his face, guilt, apprehension, shame, and anger, before the mask came back over, forcing them away. "I see."
The man slowly turned and started to walk away. "We'll return in an hour."
She nodded absentmindedly, closed her eyes, and felt herself drift away. In a place so treasured by the Planet, it embraced her with murmurs of comfort, lulling her into a gentle sleep with the sound of the Lifestream flowing through the back of her mind and the soothing sound of the lake around her...
Review Responses:
NocturneX: Aerith hasn't even started missions yet, it'll be a bit.
Izanagi Basara: Yeah, unfortunately, a lot of the good ones are unfinished. I so want 'Once More With Feeling' to finish.
Tocasia: Well, everything can't go Aerith's way. Has to be a balance of to and fro. The future will change from what she had, but there will be heavy prices to pay for it. What those are? Time will tell.
Sakurablossomhime: I deeply dislike stories that are written JUST for the smut/sex/coupling. Sephiroth/Aerith will come eventually, but in time with buildup to it to have meaning. Even regardless of that, the story isn't built just for them, it has it's own purpose and tale to tell outside of just these two, even if they are perhaps the two most important characters in it.