The face in the water looks up

and she shakes her head as if to say

That it's the last time you'll look like today

Sail away, away

Ripples never come back

Gone to the other side

Sail away, away

- Genesis, "Ripples"


Chapter Forty-Six: Ripples

Zack had wanted to take Hana back to Midgar as soon as possible. Angeal would know what to do – he had always been better at these things than Zack. He wanted to get her on her feet again – literally – and out of Wutai. Medicine was better on the Continent. There had to be some new treatment that Doctor Toh didn't know about, or at least some experimental healing-type materia on steroids somewhere in ShinRa's stockpiles of the stuff. Didn't ShinRa have its own materia production lab? There had to be something useful they could cook up. Heck, even Hojo might be valid source of help at this point – given proper limits, coercion, and supervision of course. What else was science good for? Besides, she had a home there, right? And if Sephiroth wasn't back, she could do as she pleased, at least for a little while.

Her vicious glare was her answer.

Guess she doesn't want to remember him…can't say I blame her.

He tried to use more subtle ways to get her to agree to go back. He talked throughout the day of movies, seeing Loveless live on stage, the city lights from atop a hill outside the city walls – none of it drew her interest. That night, he found a hamburger joint in town and remarked about how good it was and how he missed delicious, monster-sized portions of meat and cheese and carbs. She had taken a few bites (probably to be polite), but in the end, he found five-sixths of the thing uneaten in its wrapper beside her bed that night, placed on the tray of Wutaian delicacies that had been similarly untouched.

He hated to disturb her after she'd gone through so much, but there was only so much longer he could afford to be subtle.

His time in Wutai was running out, and he would rather die than see her waste away alone in this place she so clearly hated.


"They hurt my arms," was the first thing she said.

"It will get better with time and practice," Godo assured her. "You will gain strength fast."

Hana was upright for the first time since the incident, but only with the help of a pair or crutches. Godo had sent a request to the craftsmen this morning, and she had been presented with them nearly on ceremony that afternoon. They had come quickly, far too quickly, and she had no idea why Godo would go to the trouble to try make such ugly and painful things beautiful. No silk or lacquer in the world could hide the galling truth that she was still trying to swallow: she would never walk on her own again.

Even being on her one good leg didn't feel as good as she imagined it would have. She knew she couldn't stay down forever, but there in the futon, she could pretend that she had the ability to get up, while here, her wounded leg dangling uselessly, it was undeniable. She felt like she'd lost a part of her, and she supposed that in a very big way, she had.

"So how do I move?" she asked, gritting her teeth to hold back her emotion. You'll feel better once you can move around again, she told herself, though she suspected that it was a lie, too.

Doctor Toh gave her a short demonstration on a smaller and plainer pair, and slowly, Pa grasping her upper arm tightly, she took a deep breath and swung her good leg, and then the rest of her weight forward on the crutches. She was grateful for Pa's strong grip on her, because without it, she felt she surely would have lost her mind as she crumpled to the ground, both crutches striking her on the way down to add injury to insult.

"It will take time to adjust to," Godo said with a frown.

Hana said nothing. She didn't trust herself to speak. Her breath came in unsatisfying heaves and her arms were shaking. She bit her lip to contain her cry of despair.

Pa grabbed her hands and clenched them tightly. There was so much warmth and strength in those brittle, weathered hands.

With a shuddering exhale, she contained the forces threatening to consume her.

The crisis had passed, for now.

"I'll keep practicing," she said. "Thank you, Lord Godo."

"I hope they serve you well," Godo replied, sounding somewhat doubtful about it himself. "In truth, they are only part of why I have come to visit you tonight. There is an important matter that you and I must discuss."

"I can't take any more important matters. Wait until tomorrow, I want to rest."

"This cannot wait, Kazehawa-sama," Godo said brusquely. "I apologize, but it is urgent."

The use of her family name chilled her to the bone.

He was talking matters of state. There was no other reason to remind her of her bloodline, or how she was tied to this place – to him.

This is a bad idea…

Pa frowned deeply and pushed a lock of Hana's hair behind her ear. He looked concerned, and angry. "What is it?" she whispered to him. Pa only narrowed his eyes at the emperor and defensively pulled her back toward the futon. Godo's expression was tired, and Pa's fierce. The reversal made Hana extremely uncomfortable.

"Fine," she conceded at last to Godo. "But we will talk civilly, with dignity befitting our ancient bloodlines, over tea."

"In private," Godo said, looking at Pa who squeezed her arm in a warning that screamed in the marrow of her bones.

"…Very well," she said softly, placing one hand over Pa's to ease it off.

"I will have tea brought."

"Don't hurry," she said beneath her breath.


Pa helped her get back to the futon, and even helped to wrap a more formal yukata around her body. She smiled at his gentleness, and wondered if he ever had a daughter. Few men knew how to tie an obi, after all.

He fussed over her in silence for a long time, smoothing her skirt, straightening her long sleeves so they hung just-so around her. He tucked its lengths beneath her, arranging her kimono with meticulous attention to detail, until it looked that she had alighted gracefully and sat as properly as a court lady instead of being confined to the ground to begin with.

He took a brush and began to fix her hair, gently drawing its thick lengths through the bristles until it hung in a straight and sleek veil down her back. He gave her a hand mirror and placed a kit of makeup on her lap. As she began to paint her face an alabaster white, she heard Pa pulling a full-length mirror behind her.

When she had applied her makeup, he tilted the hand mirror so she could see the back of her kimono through the reflection in the mirror behind her.

Hana lost her breath.

He had expertly folded her obi into the shape of a wing, folded material extending from the center of her back and up past her shoulder in a powerful, thick arc.

"Beautiful," Pa said with a sad, soft smile on his face.

Hana held back her tears. Crying would ruin her makeup – the kohl would stain her tears black as night and the red paint from her lips would drip like blood.

Why? She asked herself silently, eyes fixed on the arc of the fabric wing on her back. She cleared her throat. "Nande?" she asked Pa aloud.

"Don't forget who you really are."

I am a Kazehawa. I am bound to the emperor, to the throne. Whatever he wants of me, no matter how much I hate it, I'll still have to do it…

But the wing on her back was clearly not to remind her of that.

Sephiroth…

The ache in her heart was too deep for words.


Hana had been acting very strangely since she met with Godo last night. Zack found out too late that the emperor had said something to her in private, over a very formal tea, with both of them in very formal wear. Zack was against the idea of her engaging in anything formal. Formal meant serious, and Hana didn't need one more serious thing on her plate, even a small one. He hated how Godo had put even more on her when she had already suffered far too much far too fast.

Not, he thought sadly, that he wasn't about to do the exact same thing.

The bright side was she got a change of scenery. She had been moved into a room that Zack thought was much more fitting for a royal guest. Despite the room being filled with more items, as the last one had not, this one felt much less stuffy. Maybe it was the large, circular windows that looked out over a charming garden path to the north and a steaming hot spring to the east, or maybe the charm of the Orient in the beautiful calligraphy and paintings on the wall, or maybe still the familiarity of things with which to live – a wardrobe with bright clothing, a mirror and make-up kit, house slippers and a wash basin and a kotatsu topped with dainty china dishes.

Hana was playing the koto now, her thin fingers deftly dancing in a slow melody. The notes were haunting, the melody bittersweet, and the words quietly whispered in her mother tongue heavy. Pa sat beside her, silent as ever, but his hand was on her arm. For some reason, Zack got the feeling that Pa understood her on a level that he couldn't himself.

"Hey, Hana?" he asked.

"Hm?" she hummed, her fingers forming one last dying chord before she stilled the strings with a delicate press of her palm.

"I…have to go back to ShinRa."

Hana raised her eyes.

"I don't want to," Zack said. "I want to stay with you and help you heal. But…things are getting bad back there. SOLDIER is in trouble, and 'Geal and Genesis can't handle it on their own much longer. They're going crazy."

"I understand," she said. "My father must be wreaking havoc. You should go and help them."

"Come with me?"

She was struck hard by the question. "Zack..."

"It'll just be you and me. You can stay at my place. Or even better, I'll get a new place! It may not by much, but I can get us a flat outside the ShinRa building. You'll never have to go to ShinRa again if you don't want to, and I can take care of you there. You won't have to be alone."

Pa took Hana's hand. "I wish I could go with you, Zack, but I can't go back," Hana said.

"Why not?"

Hana lowered her eyes in evasion. She'd been doing that all day, just staring out into space. Zack was afraid of what she was seeing through her dead, vacant eyes.

"Think about it?" he pleaded, putting on his best puppy face. Inappropriate though it was for the situation, it had gotten him places in the past.

"Zack," Hana said, giving one hollow chuckle at what was doubtlessly a ridiculous expression on his face. "I will. I will think about it tonight, and give you my answer tomorrow."


Hana could not sleep. She wasn't surprised. She hadn't been able to since the incident.

She missed Pa's presence, and Zack's too. But the two of them were tired. She had sent them away for the night, hating to see them go but wanting to be alone at the same time. They deserved rest. After all, they hadn't gotten much of it these past few days either.

The bright side of the meeting with Godo was that now she was so overwhelmed so as to be past feeling. The pain was gone, and even the almost physical ache in her heart was dulled so much that it took very little to distract her mind from it.

The moon was full tonight, its pale light spilling in from the window overlooking the onsen outside her room. She smiled hollowly at the sight. It was beautiful – the earth wrapped in the white of winter gleaming sliver under the light of the moon. Steam rose from the water's surface, a haze that wreathed the landscape in a warm, living softness, and making all but the nearest features fade into gentle nothingness. Tendrils of mist rose from the depths of the pool, illuminated by the moon and rising up as if to return to that distant world in the skies. Hana was entranced by the beauty before her and let herself dream for a moment that she could drift away as easily as the vapors.

How long had it been since she could let the scalding waters of the onsen burn away her cares as the minerals of the planet restored her? She had been a child, still in her mother's arms, young enough to scream at the strength of the heat of the water straight from the heart of the earth.

She turned her head to find her crutches beside her.

It wasn't far, just a handful of steps to the door and then a few more to the embrace of the waters….

It was not easy, and it was not quick, but she did it.

The winter's air, tinted with the promise of warmth from the steam, was like an elixir. Strength flooded through her limbs, and she had not even stepped into the pool yet. She smiled, letting her crutches drop to the ground. She would not need them, not as she rested weightless and free in the arms of the waters.

She did not hesitate as she untied her obi and let her yukata and then her undergarments fall to the ground. Everyone else was far away. There was no need to be ashamed or afraid. She shuddered once with the chill of the winter's night against her bare skin before she breathed in the mists anew together with their promises of warmth and healing.

A few more steps, and she could escape.

She allowed herself to draw several more breaths as she closed her eyes and drifted, free as the wind. Renewed, using a large boulder for support, she was able to maneuver to the edge of the water and gaze deep into its dark depths.

Under the tendrils of mist, the water's surface was smooth as glass. Small lanterns above her hanging from the edge of the roof and surrounding the pool cast enough light that she could see everything around her reflected in the surface as perfectly as a mirror. She saw the dark silhouettes of trees, branches spread wide despite being bare, and the caps of white resting there while the leaves retreated for the season. She followed the intricately intertwining branches further out into the waters with her eyes, stretching into the distance, clarity never fading.

The branches led her to him.

Her eyes widened and she gasped at the clarity with which she could see him in the mirror of the waters. Under the mists, she could see him in staggering detail – the fey glow of his otherworldly eyes, the silver veil of his hair – the sight made something bubble up inside her that made her feel like a girl again, younger, freer.

She reached her fingertips out over the water's surface. He seemed so real that she almost believed if she could reach out she could really touch him, that he really was here in this world of mist and warmth and moonlight with her.

But something was wrong. The image of him in the waters faltered. She heard some sort of choked noise that hadn't come from her, and then, as the water settled again, she was jarred from the dream and back into reality.

The image wasn't right! His eyes were too wide, his controlled and guarded expression gone, twisted. Pained. Anguished. He was choking – she saw his lips part as he suffocated, even as his eyes were fixed forward, unable to be torn away.

On Sephiroth's face was an expression of absolute, abject horror.

He could not speak.

He could not even breathe.

My wound…!

She made a grab for her yukata but it was too late. He had seen what he had done, the proof of his betrayal carved into her flesh. Still shaking from her none-too-gentle return from her day dreams, and off-balance from her mad grab for her clothes, she threw her arms around herself, as if such a feeble gesture could really hide anything.

Even if she could have, it was already too late. She knew from the look on his face that he had seen everything, including the crutches at her side and how the leg marked with his blade hung useless and limp.

Sephiroth turned his back and ran.

"Wait!" she cried, frantically reaching for him. "Sephiroth, wait! Stop! Come back!"

Her screams were useless.

In a final, instinctive attempt to reach him, she sprung forward, and though her spirit was strong enough to follow in pursuit, her leg failed her and she crashed into the water.

She did not even have time to scream before she was submerged, but then she did, all her air escaping her as she cried out from the sudden, fierce burn. She writhed beneath the surface, disoriented, the pain in her heart and the burn from the water searing all coherent thought from her. She tried to escape, kicking her good leg as quick and hard as she could and flailing her arms wildly, but it was useless – she could not figure out how to swim with one of her legs hanging like deadweight.

She panicked in the heat and heartbreak, floundering for air. A second cry as her good leg hit a stone hard caused her to suck in a mouthful of water. Somehow, gasping and sputtering, she found the surface just before her world went black.

"Sep-!" she tried, using her precious breath to try to call him back. "Wait! Come back! Sephi—!"

She could not keep her head above the water, and was submerged again. The longer she stayed under the surface, the less she could think, the more she panicked, and the further she sank. She didn't know how many times she fought her way to the surface only to fall again, wasting breath and energy on calling to someone who was already long gone but unable to stop.

Come back!

One foot hit the bottom of the pool, so she finally knew which way was up, but at that point, she could do little about it. She'd lost. She fell to rest on the bottom, and stroked the stone with her hand, her tombstone in this watery grave.

Just before she gave in to the urge to draw her last breath and die, strong hands seized her and ripped her from her resting place, rocketing to the surface.

She was roughly dropped to the stone and hit repeatedly and hard on her back. Water and bile spilled from her mouth and choked on the air that was far too sweet, far too heavy.

"You idiot! What were you doing?!" Zack screamed at her, striking her back again and forcing her to expel another mouthful of water. The blow hurt and she cried out, but he didn't seem to hear her. "What were you thinking?! What about your situation made you think a little swim was a good idea? Huh?"

"Her wound," a second voice said, concerned. "She's reopened it. I'll awaken Doctor Toh."

"Stupid!" Zack roared, pounding his fists hard into the stone next to her. His ferocity did not frighten her. She knew that this anger was only a false voice for his fear.

"S-Seph-" she sputtered.

"He was here?!" Hana regretted telling him that, but she nodded. "All the more reason to…why would you…?!"

Hana's chest was heaving and she was shivering. Zack grabbed his shirt to remove it and give it to her, but he was a sopping wet as she was. "Get me a towel or something!" he called after the second man.

Eventually, she was wrapped in blankets and carried inside, but until the last moment when the shoji screen was closed behind her, she did not take her eyes from the horizon where Sephiroth had vanished.

"Come back…please…"


A/N: I'm evil. I'm bad, and maniacal, and evil. But this scene was one of the ones that has been around since the very beginning so I pretty much had to write it.

And you know, Pa keeps saying this thing...

Admittedly, I've been a bit depressed (*snort*). You could probably tell from this agony of a chapter. I'll go through and "shear the sheep", so to speak, and make it less of a monster.

And you know, Pa keeps saying this thing...

(Wow, you'd think I was dropping a hint about the next chapter or something...)