Chapter Forty-Three: Betrayal
She fell with her scream still unreleased on her lips. Without a sound, Hana crumpled to the ground, eyes wide and face bloodless. A savage gash of crimson ran across her body, knee to opposite shoulder, stark against the white of her gown.
Vincent was fast as a nightmare. Three shots were fired in rapid succession, which were battered away by the silver general but succeeded in getting the madman to retreat a few steps. That narrow gap was all Vincent needed to swoop down on the wounded Hana, gather her limp body in one arm while the other fired warning shots to keep Sephiroth away, and all without his burning red eyes ever leaving the son of the woman he loved. Vincent leapt back, impossibly far, and removed her from immediate danger.
It all happened before Zack even had time to process what he had just seen.
"She's in shock," Vincent said, his voice a darker twin to the roar of the flames. "…But she's alive."
"Get her to help," Zack called, voice dead as he slowly drew his sword, eyes now locked with the silver general who stood untouched by the flames that had claimed so many other lives.
"Where?"
"The palace," Zack said. "Emperor Godo knows who she is."
Vincent looked for one more moment at Sephiroth with eyes unreadable. "Lucrecia foresaw this day," he said, voice heavy and sorrowful. "I thank the goddess that sorrow took her before she could witness the nightmare again." With that, he dissolved into the waves of heat and flame.
The paper walls had ignited quickly, but the hungry flames were spreading tendrils into the garden in an eternal search for more. The beautifully sculpted bonsai trees had already begun to catch, and petals of nearby flowers were blackening and withering before they too were consumed. The roar of the flames was now mercifully loud enough to drown out the cries of the dying, but not so loud enough that Zack didn't hear the mighty wooden columns of the mansion snap and collapse like twigs. The building itself was falling, dying.
The flames would soon claim the building and whomever of its habitants that still drew breath, but Zack stayed amid the carnage, in the heart of the heat, with the man he had called commander and friend.
"Who are you?" Zack demanded pointing his sword at the silver wraith who wore the destruction like a regal mantle. "You're not the Sephiroth I once knew!"
The silver specter smiled, but it was false. The malice in his eyes when he had struck down his wife was gone. Something about him was off. He was no longer the immaculate god of the wreckage he had wrought. There was unsteadiness in him, invisible but to those who knew where to look. It was if the master hand still fought to maintain perfect composure of the puppet while a central string had been cut. The actor was set, but the soul was gone.
"Do you understand what you just did?" Zack screamed at the man he no longer knew. "You could have killed her!"
"It means little," a sinister voice said through Sephiroth's borrowed lips. "Such a frail creature…though no different from any other human, I suppose." The Masamune, gleaming steel painted red with Hana's blood and firelight, was raised. "Do not fear. Her pain will soon end as she passes, and you will follow her shortly."
"What the hell are you say—?!"
Sephiroth struck fast and hard. Zack managed to put his blade between himself and his attacker, but the blow threw him backwards through a paper wall. He landed on his back and couldn't suppress a cry – he had landed in embers, and he felt the fire eagerly grip his clothes.
Blindly, he rolled, trying to squelch the flames, but there was no release. He couldn't see, he couldn't breathe, and the fires were eating him alive. He would have died – suffocated or consumed, he didn't know which would have happened first – if a second blow hadn't thrown him into a spacious room whose floors were still untouched. This time, as he rolled out the flames but coughed and gasped for breath, he tasted blood, and a lot of it.
He's toying with me! Zack realized in horror. He's drawing this out for fun!
Zack knew he couldn't best Sephiroth, not in a million lifetimes. At the same time, he found he didn't care.
He forced himself to his feet, wiped the stream of blood from his cheek with a swipe of his arm, and shouldered his sword. "Where are you?" Zack screamed.
"You should scurry away and hide like your ancestors," Sephiroth's voice came from everywhere and nowhere. Zack looked wildly around but could see no sign of the man. "Those who hid while the Cetra sacrificed themselves to save the planet from disaster. They were cowards. Traitors.
"That is your legacy, filthy human."
Zack didn't even see the blow that threw him into the air. The weight of his body and the terrible momentum with which he had been thrown propelled him through the roof and onto the floor above. The floor then collapsed, too weak to withstand the blow, and he was falling again only a fraction of a second after he had landed. At the last moment, he caught onto a solitary surviving beam and dangled helplessly as he grappled for a more solid grip, feet flailing to find a foothold that didn't exist. He lost his grip on his sword, and it clattered as it fell out of sight.
Zack swore as Sephiroth, wing extended, glided down to land soft as a breath on a ledge beside him. Zack stared at his commander's boots and glowered. How was he immune to the fire? His hair, his wing, his clothing – something should have caught by now! And how could he breathe?
Zack grit his teeth and screamed a battle cry as desperation fueled his last chance at a counterattack. He reached down and grabbed whatever reserves of energy he had left and shoved it into the small orb nestled in a bracer in his arm. Once the familiar light engulfed his arm, he let go of the ledge, and as he fell, thrust his hands towards Sephiroth.
"I'm not going anywhere!" he screamed.
From his hands exploded a devastating ice storm.
Zack landed gracelessly, looking around for his blade. It wasn't readily visible. He swore again. That spell had cost him dearly. Blood was now dripping from his nose.
"You dare to use materia against me?" Sephiroth said, his voice again disembodied, all around him and within him. "Materia is the condensed knowledge of the Cetra – my people. It is wasted on the likes of you."
Sephiroth's own bracer glowed, and a flare of heat vaporized Zack's ice. What little remained dripped to the floor below in tear-like drops.
Zack looked at the orb in his bracer, hissing at it in disappointment. It had been one of the ones Sephiroth had entrusted him with – the most powerful materia he had ever used, and it had been useless.
It had been reckless to use such a high level spell. He could barely move now, and he had wasted the majority of his remaining strength on a useless spell. He was bleeding and bruised, and smoke was replacing precious oxygen.
His time was running out, and he did not have much fight left in him.
"You, a Cetra?" Zack asked, pulling himself up on all fours, at least. "No, Sephiroth, you are human as I am."
"As false a notion as it is disgusting."
"I think I know what Blackwell did," Zack said. "He gave you that file. Well, you know something? I read it too. Long before you did."
"You did not tell me? Some friend you were. You only continue to prove that humans are helpless but to live true to their traitorous blood."
"I didn't believe it! I believed in you!" Zack said. He could see Sephiroth now. He was standing a ways off, his dark silhouette warped by the waves of heat. He could also see his sword, lying between the two of them. He could run for it, grab it, strike…
But he knew he couldn't beat him. Not on a good day, and especially not as he was now.
He had to strike a different way.
"I went to find the real truth in Nibelheim, Sephiroth, and do you know what I found?"
"I hardly care."
"Jenova wasn't your mother!"
Zack watched another string in the hand of the puppeteer snap. He had hit a chord.
"Your mother was human!" Zack screamed. "Her name was Lucrecia Crescent. She was a scientist at ShinRa. She was bright and happy and had the most beautiful smile in the world. She was intelligent and not afraid of anyone no matter how much they laughed at her theories. The man in the red…Vincent Valentine…he loved her, he knew her, he tried to save her and he—"
Zack howled as Sephiroth's sword pierced his side. He tried to writhe away but he was impaled too deeply, pinned in place by the blade. He bowed over and choked up a mouthful of blood.
Sephiroth looked down on him and silently observed his agony. "I…have always been…different…." For some reason, now he sounded like he was having trouble breathing. "I cannot be the child of a mere…human…"
What was going on? The eyes looking at him now were not of the omnipotent madman of only a few seconds ago. Something had changed.
Something had broken.
Was the old Sephiroth in there somewhere? Could the man Sephiroth knew rise through the vulnerability Zack had created and reclaim himself?
Zack waited for the answer.
"I am going to meet my mother, at last, in Nibelheim. And I will make your filthy race pay in blood for what you have done to us, starting with you. Rejoin the planet, traitor," Sephiroth said, and ripped the blade from his friend's body.
Zack fell and let the world of flames whirl around him.
He knew it was finished, and he had lost.
Sephiroth, as Zack had known him, was dead.
"Sephiroth, we trusted you," he gasped. "Hana…and I.
"And she…loved…."
"Let me go!" she screamed over and over again, thrashing in the arms of the guards. "I can help! I can stop him! Let me go!"
She didn't know a word of Wutaiese, but she would have thought her screaming as they dragged her out of the mansion was a universal sign of discontent. The men grunted and continued to push her toward the medical tent.
"Stop!" she screamed again, kicking wildly now. "I can stop him! I can! Let me go before I lose him!"
"You are mad," was the response. So one of the doctors knew some Continental. The man was shriveled and bent, but his dark eyes were bright with intelligence. He spoke in with a heavy accent, but she could understand him. "You need to stay. Heal. You are hurt."
"If I don't stop him, so many more will die!"
"You cannot stop Sephiroth. Stop your struggle."
"I can! You don't understand, I'm the only one who can!"
"You were captive in the mansion a long time. You need food and rest."
Her strength was going, and she hadn't had much of it to begin with. She had been locked up in there by Blackwell for a long time, underfed, tortured a few times when she continued to resist, but she had known she would have to be strong the moment she was freed. Day and night the only thought that had kept her alive was that Sephiroth would come, and she could finally, after all these years, set things right.
It was agony to know that Sephiroth had lost himself before she had made it to him, but she had to believe that she had the power to bring him back.
"Please," she said, falling to her knees. "Please…I need to go to him. He needs me. I can fix him. Please…I beg you…it's all my fault. If I had told him sooner, none of this…"
The doctor looked at her. "What can you hope to do? What will words do against his sword?"
"They will heal him," she whispered. "Heal a part of him that has been dying since he was very young."
"You need medical care. You are hurt."
"He is hurt so much worse, doctor. Would you turn away a patient in such dire need?"
The doctor looked to the horizon. There was no guarantee she would even have the strength to catch up to him.
But he whispered a few words in Wutaiese and the guards released her.
"Thank you," she breathed, and then ran.
Zack didn't know how long he lay in the flames. He didn't know if Sephiroth was still there, staring at him as he died, or if he had left to rejoin with his mother. He couldn't imagine what was in store for Nibelheim, and only prayed that he would not be privy to it in the Lifestream.
He waited for death to come, but it wasn't to be that easy. The emperor's men found him first. He was dragged gracelessly out and put with a small number of other survivors, cared for by an even smaller number of flustered looking doctors.
Before he blacked out, he saw Sephiroth atop a hill in the distance, and a woman in Continental clothing running as fast as she could toward him, a swath of bright yellow cloth in her hand.
A/N: Yeah...this was a hard chapter to write...but I'm not dead, and still writing, I promise...
Any guesses about crazy lady? I'm curious to know. :)
