He had chased after his quarry, pursuing the girl out of the ruins and following her as she escaped into the dense forestry that surrounded Ancient City. She was fast, and had soon been swallowed up into the darkness that the depths of deep foliage granted, her pale slender form disappearing quickly from sight. Sephiroth sprinted after her, determined not to let the chance of killing her slip through his fingers once again.
His heart beat faster at the thought of the pleasure he would take when he caught her, of the slow, exquisite torture he would make her suffer, before her pleas for a merciful death were answered. He wanted to stare into those violet eyes of hers and see them fade slowly to grey….wanted the screaming of his name to be the last thing that issued from her lips, before they were stilled for eternity. He smiled. He had lost count of the number of times his name had been the last sound uttered in a guttural scream by his victims, before the slice of his blade across their throats had silenced them forever. It thrilled him to think that he had the same fate planned for his 'sister', and his black booted feet literally flew over the ground in his pursuit of her.
As he had hurtled headlong through the undergrowth his body had twisted and turned gracefully through the bracken and briar, his head ducking and bobbing as he narrowly avoided getting his long, loose, silver hair tangled up amongst the low outstretched branches of trees. He had hacked and slashed at the matted weeds and wild flowers blocking his path, his eyes searching all the time, knowing that Eva could only be just ahead of him. Conquest was at hand.
But now, emerging suddenly from the dense greenery, Sephiroth stopped and looked around at the barren emptiness that lay before him, the vast desert that stretched for miles ahead bereft of any sign of life. The girl was nowhere in sight. Damn. She must have cast her invisibility spell again.
He turned and looked back towards the other figure that was lingering a little way behind, and his green eyes narrowed with contempt. He was unhappy at knowing he would have to give up the lead, reluctant to follow the boy. Sephiroth was not a follower.
"Well?" he snapped, impatiently. "Where is she?"
Gone………
"What do you mean... gone? Where is she gone?" Sephiroth asked irritably.
Cloud shrugged his shoulders, spreading his hands out before him.
"You mean, you can't see her?" Sephiroth challenged. Cloud shook his head. Sephiroth knew the boy wasn't lying, he could sense the others frustration at the situation they found themselves in, but he wasn't about to give up yet. Oh no, Eva wasn't going to escape her fate that easily. A caster of magic's she may well be, but she was also still naïve and learning. While he, on the other hand, had years of practice and experience in the arts of seek, chase…..and destroy!
Sephiroth tapped his thigh pensively with the broadside of his blade as he surveyed the area. Where could she have run to? The vast openness before them was bare. Only the occasional bush or boulder spotted the horizon, and if she had run that way, even cloaked in her invisibility spell, Sephiroth knew that Cloud would have been able to detect her and betray her presence to him. No, not the desert, she had to have run somewhere else. She had to be hiding somewhere, concealing herself from them, giving herself a chance to recover her magic. But where?
He turned and gazed up at the high mountains towering above and around them, his eyes squinting in the sunlight that blazed down upon them. Yes, he thought, plenty of places to try and conceal yourself within those jagged peaks. If he were trying to put distance between himself and an enemy, that was where he would go.
He wondered for a moment why she did not just stand and fight, surely she knew that he would not give up in his pursuit of her. Perhaps her power was weaning. Perhaps she was running and hiding because she knew she couldn't win, that she would lose not only the fight, but her very life to him. She's scared, that's why she's running. The thought appealed greatly to Sephiroth, and his thin cruel lips parted slightly in a satirical grin, as he sensed that sweet feeling building up inside of him, the delicious taste of a victory near at hand.
The thought of her impending defeat excited him, and he once again felt the thrill of the chase course through him. She was turning out to be a worthy adversary. He would have been disappointed if she'd proven to be an easy kill. Well, she could run all she wanted. He was more than ready to hunt her down. He just hoped he didn't let his fervour take over when he finally caught her. He didn't want her end to be swift. He wanted to take his time with her. Wanted to savour every single torment he put her through, slowly, and with as much excruciating pain as he could extract from her small body.
As his excitement grew so the air around him became electrified, feeding off his built up emotion, and the skies, like Sephiroths heart, darkened. The clear blue hue changed dramatically in an instant, turning grey, storm clouds racing forwards, billowing and swirling, completely blocking out the brightness of the sun and changing the once humid air frigid and cold. A soft rumbling of thunder could be heard in the distance, its essence building up in a multilayered maelstrom, with wave after wave of energy pulsing forward, in a resonating culmination of power.
As the rushing storm enveloped them, Sephiroth revelled in its power, taking pleasure in its surging presence. With renewed vigour, he leapt up on to a ledge high above him in a single bound, turning back to cast a questioning glance down at Cloud. He wasn't particularly worried whether the boy followed him or not, he knew that he would find Eva, with or without the others help. Nothing was going to stop him in his quest to best her. He was far superior to her. She didn't stand a chance.
Still, Sephiroth couldn't help but smirk when he saw, through his wind tossed hair, that the boy did indeed follow, leaping up easily onto the same ledge as that which he stood upon. With a grunt of self-satisfaction, and a nod of his head, Sephiroth turned and began leaping and climbing higher.
Cloud made to follow once again, then paused. Above the gushing of the storm, he had heard a sound. He tilted his head, and listened. It came again, carried along with the wind. A cry. No, a scream. Tifa! She needed him. Now……
With barely a glance at Sephiroth, he jumped down from the ledge he was on, and hastened back to Ancient City.