Disclaimer: I do not own FFVII and I do not make any money with this writing. Characters belonged to Square Enix Inc.
My Dear Enemy
Sephiroth opened his eyes. Hours or minutes later, he could not say. Still alive he thought in disgust, but something was different. Warm light and a distant sound of water replaced the darkness. Sephiroth blinked to focus on the image. Forgotten Forest. Why in the hell he was there. "Another miserable implant on my mind…"
His first thought after opening his eyes was about Cloud. He closed his eyes again, struggling with the hard reality that crossed his mind, and unveiled their past together with aligned interests. Jenova designed her plains with both men. "You never pulled the strings alone Sephiroth."
One thing he knew after his last seizure, she was not doing that with him. Cloud killed her, indeed, Aerith did it with Holy. Sephiroth could only think about two reasonable possibilities: he was trapped inside Shinra's high tech or dead, still lingering on Jenova's cells, impossible to return to Lifestream for a greater reason far beyond his acknowledgment. He was picking up the first one, maybe because it was the less hurtful than believe he was dead and his life could have been entirely different.
Panting, he struggled to get up, his body weighing as a thousand tons. With effort, he tried to lean on his elbow, and drag himself closer to a tree until he felt that someone was behind him. He thought it could be Cloud and actually, he did not want to deal with him. He rather preferred to believe the memories he had were fake, implants from Shinra's scientists. A perverted gift for their sick Midgar's hero. Frowning, he veered his head and cursed, groaning his rage at invisible scientists to be painfully surprised, again.
"Go ahead, it seems the hunter is open."
Aerith smiled at him, her same cheerful face. Helpless and with no idea of how to react, Sephiroth just chuckled, letting Aerith aid him to sit properly, leaning his back on the tree.
"Why would I hurt you?"
Crouching on the floor, Aerith stared at him.
"I killed you?"
Chuckling, she calmly sat by his side.
"Well, it sounds fair, but I don't blame you for that because I would do the same with you. We were both wrongs at the time. It didn't need to happen the way it did, but I'm not here to make you suffer. It's time to understand, Sephiroth, and evolve to greatness. Don't break the link the lovely ones are trying to make with you. Your purpose has to be accomplished."
Sephiroth frowned, that limbo was everything but boring in those last days or hours. His victim was there, giving him comfort. He really should be raving, in a great number of drugs. It had no point to fight something beyond his comprehension, allowed from some force, compromised to play with him or whatever. At least, she seemed inoffensive. However, Sephiroth could not help the irony.
"Enlighten me, Aerith, my last guest was making more sense than you."
She veered his head at him.
"Now, you are free of everything, Sephiroth, and what you think as suppositions are right. You just misunderstood the paths. All of us. This is a unique journey…"
"For what? Let Shinra's scientists abuse me, let all my enemies relishing in pleasure to torture me?"
Sephiroth rolled his eyes, heavily sighing, and feeling extremely tired, he arched his back trying to balance his weight against the tree, feeling a huge need to lay down. "Please, are we done?"
Landing his both hands on the floor to get up, Sephiroth twisted when he felt Aerith touching his shoulder, looking at him. She took off her hand and got closer as if he was a risk, wounded animal.
"Don't be afraid of me. Come."
She opened her arms calling him to lay down his head on her lap. Ages ago, Sephiroth would never think about it as possible, but nowadays, everything was. The most absurd could be a reality. The turning of events was so intense, it drained him mentally, emotionally and physically that if he still had a body, alive. Thinking himself lost and drugged in a mako tank, he closed his eyes, giving up making sense of what was happening at that moment, and indulged in her cuddle.
"Are you an implant?"
"No, I'm not. Neither Cloud. You are not inside Shinra. Stop to believe in this, you already have your memories back." Aerith tenderly caressed his hair, her tone soft and maternal.
"Please, Aerith, I know you don't have to help me, but please where am I?"
"At the same place, you never had left Sephiroth. By the way, you are not dead, yet. Rest you will need strength. Another important thing: you can get out of here, but you need to believe in your memories. I can't tell you how to do it, but I'm sure you will find a way to contact him again."
"Why to let him do perverted things at me? Cloud hates me."
He felt her hand on his front, warm and solid flesh as Cloud. Aerith sighed, and placed her hand on his chest, casting a faint golden light in the spot Cloud had stabbed him with his Masamune. It surprised Sephiroth because there were no wounds or scar there, but she knew it.
"You know that he doesn't. He loves you so much that he can't stand to be alive without you. Don't despise love Sephiroth. It's the real motive behind all the acts we do."
They stayed in silence for some time listening to the water sound. It was the first time he felt truly relaxed in that limbo.
"I never hated you, Aerith. I'm sorry to have killed you."
"Me neither, Sephiroth."
"We should have been on the same side; we had the same amount of pain from Shinra."
"Rest, we are the same side now."
"Which side, Aerith?"
"The planet. You will see it. Now, sleep."
When Sephiroth woke up, he was back at his usual habitat, wondering if he had seen or just dreamed of Aerith. The days that followed, Sephiroth plunged all his thoughts to discover where he was. Shinra was a place he never had left in all his life, but actually, he was not so sure about it anymore. He could be hidden in someplace that is keeping his mind and body alive.
Lucrecia Crescent insisted appearing to him. Watching him in ways that he knew, she was there, but he was too weak to fight back. All his remaining strength should be focused on the quest to get out of that hell. At each theory, he came up, the truth about Jenova, old memories and Cloud, grew in his heart, speeding the seizures' attacks and the unbearable buzzing on his ears. Sephiroth could not say how much time his mind, and cataleptic body would stand the convulsions if he won't find, and fast, where he was. After a bad one, he had a good sensation of feathers, covering all his body to keep him warm and cozy; his eyes were heavy, and he did not want to open them. Slumber would come again but this time quiet. Soothing. Maybe it was his brain trying to shut him down for good.
"Mother?"
His mind still refused to leave behind his old faith in Jenova, and a little part of him still believed she could save him. Sephiroth fall asleep before he heard the answer.
"Yes, my love, I'm here and I won't leave you."
Lucrecia, tenderly cuddled her son on her chest, caressing his silver hair, and kissing his forehead. She whispered him words of comfort, staring at him with sad eyes, but her old confidence as a scientist was there.
"Why do you do this to you, my son? You are always hurting yourself irreversibly times. You are as human as everyone else is and it does not make you less remarkable than you truly are. Please, believe me, you are everything that I always wanted to have in all my life. Indeed, a fruit of deep and tragic love, but I have always loved you. They hurt you, told you lies, and we were not there to protect you. I am so sorry...I am so sorry for everything that I have done of wrong to cause you this suffering. My Sephiroth. Now is different, we will not fail again. Rest and do not worry. We are here for you. Soon, all of this would end."
She was a mother and she would do everything to save her child. Everything.
~~/~~
"You don't have any part with this matter since you gave up your rights months ago. In this very lab. Now, your error is my creation. My experiment, my victory, and you are out."
Vincent Valentine remembered that scene clear as daylight, even after so many years ago. The feeling of rage and disgust running through his veins was as same as in the past. He could not tell if Hojo was dead or alive in some kind of cloned body. However, it would not matter, soon if he was still walking over Gaia, he would stop. Vincent stood up from his chair in the shabby hotel room he called home. He pulled out a bottle of red wine from the shelf above the sink and two glasses. The knocks in the door warned him that his guest had arrived, veering to look around if the place was in order, he opened the door and stared at the impressive figure in front of him. He smiled, managing the glasses on his hands.
"So, won't you invite me to come in?"
Rosso the Crimson, the master of the badass women he knew. She entered the room, imposing, gorgeous, making it hard for Vincent's eyes do not look at her body. She stared at him, measuring the man up and down. With no ceremony, she grabbed the wine over the sink, opened the bottle with a knife Vincent had no idea from where she took off, pouring it in the glasses still on Vincent's hands. She kissed Vincent's cheek and took one of the glasses from his hand.
"Hmm…red wine, how perceptive you are, Vincent Valentine."
Vincent was a demon, also a man, and Rosso beyond lethal was an astonishing woman. She was his last hope to get what he needed without judgment. He let the glass over the sink and approached her, taking off her velvet red cape, sliding the fabric down to reveal her excessively sexy dress. How she could fight inside those clothes? He asked himself while wandering his eyes to the deep neckline on her back. She was a sight for his weary eyes.
"You are beautiful tonight. Good, we are on the same page this time."
She smirked and sat in the chair of the small table in the room. Slowly crossed her long shapely legs, never averting her gaze at Vincent, one hand the wine glass, in the other a small red satin box.
Vincent's eyes narrowed at her and he could not help to smirk at the woman. She slightly shook both objects in her hands, tilting her head at him. If Vincent tried to swindle her that red wine glass would cut his throat faster than he would think. Rosso…there was someone even more cautious than he was.
"Oh, but we will fight if you don't give me what I came to get here. Win-win remembered, my dear?"
Vincent nodded at her and sat in the other chair. From his pocket's trousers, he took a magnetic card, and slid it over the table at the same time Rosso handed him the small red box. Rosso's eyes landed over the card pass, she seemed satisfied, and her hand softened the grip on her glass after smiling back at Vincent. She put the card on some sort of garter belt on her right thigh.
"Why Earth, Rosso?"
"Anywhere but here my friend. Especially, after someone like you ask for this little favor."
She said it pointing with her glass to the small box at Vincent's hand. They smiled at each other and sealed their agreement joining glasses. Vincent's eyes reddened looking at the box. He sighed, and when he was to put the box inside his pocket, Rosso raised her hand to prevent him to do it. The woman shook her head negatively.
"Don't or it will blow us. This is extremely volatile equipment. I guess, we have better ways to call the night."
They finished the bottle and Rosso straightened her body in the chair, sensually opening her legs. Vincent's eyes accompanied her movements in awe, wetting his lips from time to time. From one leg, the woman took off one weapon, two knives, and one ninja star, from the other, her beloved Gunblade in its hidden mode. Vincent giggled and the woman gave him a questioning look.
"I just wondered, how do you fight with those clothes, and you keep an entire army between your legs."
Rosso gave him a mischievous smile.
"There's another one that I will let you take."
She stood up from the chair, letting her dress, and lingerie fall on the floor while strolled towards Vincent's bed. Only the garter belt on her right thigh adorned her naked body. Vincent maliciously smirked and followed her.
"I appreciate it."
A couple of hours later, a disheveled and naked Vincent, watched from his window, Rosso the Crimson, nodded at him from the street. He imitated her and she vanished in the dark streets of Nibel.
"Good luck, my friend."
Vincent glanced over the red satin box above the table and went to the bathroom. After turned on the light, he looked at his face in the small mirror above the sink and averted his gaze. His face was so tired. He hoped for all that was sacred that his plan would accomplish well. He got in the shower, and let the water at least try to clean all his sins. Although, Rosso was not inside his pack of sins, and Vincent was past done puritan morals to feel guilty. She was a very practical, hot as hell woman, he enjoyed her company, and when it suited them both, they would indulge themselves. He never was concerned with their 'sex truce' once in a while until a great reason for that crossed his life. It was amazing, and terrifying, what recently happened at Lucrecia's cave. Over the years, a few times Vincent felt exhilarated with something of this world or another's he visited. Everything now would be for the greatest reason for his life, and the meant would justify the way. Vincent Valentine was a very old man to know that everything always comes with a price. The difference is that now, he would gladly pay it. He got out of the bath, dressed his usual weird clothes, and went to his daily life ritual, this time with his purpose encouraged, and fulfilled hope. Before slamming his door behind, he took the small red box.
