Behind Black Curtains
An AU, Sephiroth and Tifa fanfiction

- by Amaranthos-

Chapter 24: Current Status Quo

It's been a month now since Sephiroth and I became… entangled.

The more we spent time together, the more I learned about him and his eerie ways. Admittedly, someone like Sephiroth is not the tangible readable character - who you immediately begin profiling. As much as I would sometimes like that, it wasn't so.

So far I've learned quite the bit. Sephiroth for the most part is one – a General. Now as mundane and common a fact known, it's a little more profound. He shares a strong appetite for blood as he grossly calls it, and it's not the kind that is timid, but rather Sephiroth has a real blood thirst when he's ready. This I believe is something he hungers for in the enemy.

The second truth I found out – Sephiroth is a kinky lover. A statement like that could hardly be inspired from a man like Sephiroth. A man as dignified to the professional war title as 3rd Star General, could hardly seem to entertain the fancies of deliberate wildness and suggestive obtuse behavior. Why? Firstly, it is occult to suspect a man like Sephiroth to kinky love-making and two… anyone who looks like Sephiroth surely smells of nothing…strange. But from the countless times we've made love, I could tell this General enjoys placing me in positions, unknown to society itself. He enjoys pleasuring me as he enjoys taunting me. The directions, places, movements, statements, things we do behind closed doors is beyond the ill and freaky. One would think, I would be the kind of woman to not fantasize myself with such a sick, perturbed, wry man who has an occult muse of kinky fetishes… but surely I surrender flat into his suggestions.

The third thing I've learnt – was Sephiroth hated Rufus Shinra with a passionate vengeance. Somehow whatever discord took place between these two men, has left them open for dispute and hate. One that is sometimes unbearable, evident and annoying.

These three truths aren't enough when it comes to the sort of splendor some women get from knowing a man in a month. Surely, they must know all sorts of things about the men they date.

But how could I when Sephiroth isn't the readable type.

Lately, Rufus Shinra has employed Sephiroth in the task of interrogating fallen soldiers of Mack Knights. They however are of no help. Of course I didn't find out these details from Sephiroth. No, rather Yuffie is a reliable source of information. Yuffie informed me recently of the turn of events for my father and for Rufus. I was most surprise to find out that a common name like 'Weapon' when I was growing up, actually wasn't some folktale, rather it was a real machine. Knowing my father, he must be greatly angered to the recent loss, but knowing him he always had a plan. A thing I truly did admire about my father. The man could move mountains with determination like that.

Rufus according to Yuffie seems to be in a fit of joy with the recent weapon. One would think he would enjoy this time with his council, rather, his most recent fancy is the interrogations I receive every 2 days apart. Something must have happened for them to be interrogating me so often, and though I suspect the Weapon to be the cause, knowing Shinra… he's also unreadable.

Interrogations aren't so horrible, yet. Usually they take place at breakfast, which I'm invited to. Sephiroth also joins my side in the moment of scrutiny. Shinra asks questions which to be honest I have no answer for. The little that I do know could hardly be sufficient to save my life and yet, I'm alive. An irony, it is.

A lot of the questions asked are based upon Weapon. As if I knew it existed until this moment. Sometimes Rufus understands and at other times he's persistent in what he wants to know. His father is worst. The man is an aggressive tyrant. An old militant fool. Usually his questions are assorted and designed to leave me shaking. He's loud, raw and vile. An absolute anarchist!

Yuffie herself shares a passionate dislike for the man. She confesses he's a bestial man whose done awful things to villages and nations and of course her parents. She laments sometimes that morons are in charge, but what empire can truly be perfect.

As far as teaching pacifism goes, I feel like I've allowed the trade of my life to slowly slip from my fingers. There's not much I can teach in a cold bewildered place like this. With taciturn rulers made of iron and dread, I'm afraid they wouldn't pay a second of their time to a single word of good I had to say. And it's my job to be in such a situation, to teach the exact kind of men what pacifism means if they would allow it, but I believe I was naïve into presuming all the world could be changed. I thought men - all men could be saved. But when you met brutes like Velrog, and blood megalomaniacs like Rufus… you quickly learn how the truths you've subsumed yourself become undone.

There was nothing to teach to men who didn't have an ear to listen. But more correct to say would be, there was nothing I could do for men who did not have the heart to care. They had no will to change and the only will that did exist, was of one made from bloodshed and turmoil.

I've seen men die and I know what blood looks like. It does things to a person like me. Makes me sick, make me tired… makes me squalid. But… it does nothing to men like Rufus and his father. Their bones are made of a different kind of marrow. Their minds together are more perverse than the abominations of nature.

You would think someone like Sephiroth shared a similar thread of megalomania and insanity, but the more I examined all three of them, the more I realized Sephiroth was a separate entity by himself from the father and son pair. Sephiroth may have enjoyed the rain and splash of blood on his skin. Might have indulged in the lustful shades of blood, but has never broadcasted himself to such a sick fancy and philosophy when taking life. The many times I've seen Sephiroth, he's usually studying an enemy that he's absolute is an enemy and that needs to be taken out. There's not much choice for someone like Sephiroth to kill or not, but he makes it his business and his preference of kill. If he doesn't kill, well surely no one throws a fit but Shinra. And it's strange Sephiroth studies his victims before he kills them, but it makes me think he's more precise at his profession. An assassin who makes no mistakes has no evidence of his handiwork.

And that was the point of taking lives, right?

Murderers manifest themselves to be the type to openly take lives and leave messy evidence. But assassins as legendary as Sephiroth attained an ironic title due to the cleanliness in their art of killing. There's a certain degree of grace and tranquility to kill a man in a clean gore-free manner. Not many I suspect wield this key.. but Sephiroth's title is eminent.

It's 4 o' clock in the afternoon and nobody's in the apartment with me. Sephiroth is out interrogating and Yuffie was working. Sometimes the place could get really lonely. Cold quickly, and scary. Sometimes I would just excite myself into fright to snap me from my boredom.

It's sad being in a world like this. There's nothing in Black Crescents that flourishes. The sun, as large and magnificent an icon in the sky, doesn't ray down its hope here. Instead the thick fog of horror and death, reeks in the land, blocking the mighty sun. And still, I wonder how stars as pure as they are could shine here?

The beasts here… were plentiful.

And they never stop. Everyday they wake up, ready to start a new day armed with devices of despair. It could hardly be real – a world known as Black Crescents. But if I am not the best witness to such a monstrous land… who is? For I feel it in the air…

And as much as I would like to save the fallen, it is the fallen to decide their salvation.

To be continued