Zack's Final Mission
Chapter 16: The Temple
Aerith's heart pounded strongly against her chest as she approached the huge pyramidal structure of the Temple of the Ancients. The temple had been built with the hands of her ancestors and it emanated some kind of soothing and comforting energy toward her. But there was something about that energy that was making her uneasy. She could tell it hid something inside those walls, something mysterious.
"The gate is open." Cloud pointed ahead at the rocky door of the temple's entrance which was burst open.
"What are we waiting for then?" Zack walked past the group heading into the temple. Aerith watched as his hands were turned into two tight fists and his eyes frowned as he walked inside. He was revolted and angry she realized and bit her lip before running after him followed seconds later by the rest of the group.
"What the f—" Cid started.
"What a creepy maze!" Yuffie exclaimed as they all looked around the place they had walked into. Thousands of creamy staircases filled with green and dry roots stood mixed together in a confusing labyrinth of steps. Some stairs led up to another set of stairs leading down to different paths. Some of the stairs led to dead ends while others led them into caverns while others went under bridges no one could see how to reach. Down the first set of stairs they were on Zack noticed someone was badly injured moaning on the floor and placing one hand on a serious stomach injury to hold the blood in.
"Is that Tseng?" He called straining his vision to recognize who it was.
"Arrgh." Tseng moaned as he laid down on the ground, his breathing was heavy. "Zack." He cried as the spiky black-haired man approached him and tried to sit up leaning his elbow on the ground.
"What happened?" Zack asked crouching down beside Tseng. Cloud joined them followed by Aerith who gasped as she watched his state.
"Sephiroth is here. He attacked me to get the keystone and I followed him but I needed to rest." Tseng looked down at his injury and shook his head.
"I can help you..." Aerith said.
"No. Leave it. I already asked for someone to come get me." Tseng lifted one opened hand to stop her from coming close.
"It's good he is here." Zack looked away gritting his teeth, his fists shaking. "Were you there?"
"So… you know." Tseng avoided looking at Zack, knowing what he was asking about. Zack nodded once.
The vicious creatures that were shaped like a dog trotted at them letting out piercing howls as they attacked. But there was nothing of dog in them at the same time. Purple fur, red eyes and their torsos had the spine lumps tightly crafted on their backs almost ripping through their skin. Their mouths opened and revealed two lines of sharpened wet green teeth as they growled at them. Tseng shot them with several bullets before the hell creatures finally gave in.
"These came from those damn pods they keep in the labs didn't they?" They heard Shinra infantrymen ask as they passed by them running.
The sound of shot guns bombed through their ears from all around the different floors as they ran through the corridors of the Shinra building. Their guns tightly gripped between both their hands, their arms stretched down. They hid behind one corner peeking to see if the corridor was clear so they could run for it. There was a track of blood on the floor and there were more than many Shinra soldiers laying down dead.
Cissnei looked around at the death path in shock. Her eyes watered and she let out a sob watching the lifeless bodies scattered all around their feet bleeding.
"Are you ok?" Tseng asked her, leaning against the wall next to her.
"Y-Yes." She stammered but didn't look at him. She quickly wiped away the tears from her eyes with her sleeve and managed to slightly smile at him, reassuring Tseng they could continue.
"He's reached the President's room! All forces come now! Protect the President at all cost!" They heard the communicator on Tseng's belt shouting.
"Come on!" He called to Cissnei and they both ran as fast as they could stumbling on the corpses of the dead men as they did.
"This is it." Tseng paused at the entrance of the president's office to careful examine their situation. "Ready?" He turned at Cissnei, both stood at each side of the door. She nodded, her lips pressed together.
They slammed the door open to find Sephiroth in front of the Shinra president, his masamune pointed at the large man on the chair. There was a pile of bodies on the office's floor.
"Drop it." Tseng ordered Sephiroth. His eyes narrowed, his heart beat fast but his hands didn't shake. Both Tseng and Cissnei walked slowly and carefully to the side toward where the president sat behind his desk. They noticed his forehead was sweating and he had his teeth showing as he growled at Sephirtoh.
Sephiroth smirked watching the two getting near the man on the chair.
"Pitiful." He hissed and jumped elevating himself off the ground and reaching for the president, his long sword going straight in the direction of the president's heart. But what its edge impaled wasn't the fat chest of the man but the slim chest of a young woman. Tseng watched her golden brown eyes pop open, her expression was of shock and pain. She screamed and dropped to her knees and finally to the side, her hands filling with her blood as she covered her chest.
"Pathetic." Sephiroth looked at the girl by the corner of his eyes before striking again lifting his sword with both hands above his head and down impaling the president fully in the stomach. Leaving his sword where it had crossed the president in and out Sephiroth flew through the balcony and away. The president slowly bent down forward until his forehead hit the edge of his desk and stayed there.
It all happened so fast Tseng didn't have time to react. A couple of seconds passed by before he could process what had just happened. He quickly reached for Cissnei who was moaning painfully on the floor. Tseng lifted her head and helped her rest her back on his knee.
"Cissnei…" His eyes blurred with tears.
"Tseng… please tell him… tell Zack…" Cissnei coughed and blood ran in a string down her mouth. Tears streamed down her eyes. "I lived my honour." He saw her lips lightly curved into a tiny smile. She peacefully closed her eyes, her head tilted slightly to the side.
"She was one of the best people I ever met." Tseng closed his eyes remembering. "It certainly was a privilege to have worked as her partner."
"I wish she could have said the same thing to you." Zack's voice broke and his hands shook vibrantly. "From where I stand you did nothing to save her, nothing to help her!" Zack shouted and grabbed Tseng by his collar neck lifting him up a few inches.
"She acted on instinct." Tseng understood his pain, he felt the same way. Even if he was her brother, Tseng had been the one who knew her from the beginning. "I couldn't have guessed she would do such a thing. I should have never… taken her there. I should have given her orders to go to another floor—"
"Don't strain yourself now." Zack cut him off dropping him down again. "Sephiroth will pay for what he did. He'll pay for everything."
"I'm sorry…" Tseng whispered looking down.
"He's here right?" Zack asked to no one in particularly. "Let's go then, it's show time."
"What about him?" Cloud asked his hand slanted and pointed towards Tseng.
"Just leave him." Zack turned his back to walk away.
"Wait!" Tifa called from the stairs. "We should split up into two groups. Obviously this place is much two complicated for us to keep together, so, the first one who reaches the black materia…"
"I see your point." Cloud said. "I'll go with Tifa, Barret, Yuffie and Red. Zack, you could go with Aerith, Cid, Vincent and that spy Caith Sith you agree?"
"Sure." Zack replied, his head slightly turned back at them.
Both groups took different paths from the many stairs around them. Sometimes they'd bump into each others not knowing exactly how that had been possible but they kept going up and going down stairs, crossing bridges and walking into doors leading to some place they were sure they had already been through.
The labyrinth turned out to be more complicated than what they had imagined once they entered a cavern aside from the stairs labyrinth which led them to an empty room that had a wooden clock on the wall. After finally placing the correct hour on the clock it opened to them a door between the stony walls of the temple. They went through it to find another room where six different doors stood. They had tried every single one of them before both groups joined together when there was only one door missing to be entered.
Aerith sighed leaning her hand against one wall.
"Everything alright?" Zack asked her noticing her breathing had changed.
"Yes… This is just a bit overwhelming." She said looking around. "This is the closest I ever got to my ancestors."
"Hey…" He brushed her arm with his hand. "You're not alone."
Suddenly, Zack got a glimpse of someone's grey shadow going into a path made of rock he could swear it hadn't been there before. He took Aerith's hand and called the others to follow. They ran behind Zack and entered another room where the shadowy figure stood in front of a small column which had a triangle-shaped object on top of it. The energy coming from that room was stronger in Aerith's heart. The figure turned around at them and it was Sephiroth they were facing. Only, they could see through his body.
Zack held his sword up in his hands and ran toward him. He held his sword up high and made it go through Sephiroth's body in one slash. The sword went through and out Sephiroth's body like a ghost through a wall.
"Like I thought." Zack grunted. "You're too much of a coward to be here flesh and bone."
"Impressive." Sephiroth laughed pleasantly, his arms lifted as he did.
"Quit the psycho laugh we have business to take care of." Zack said and noticed as Aerith took one step forward in his direction but he stretched his arm to the side to prevent her from walking further. "Where are you?"
"But I'm right here." Sephiroth said and his voice echoed through several different spots on the walls.
"I mean the real you. Not your deplorable photocopies." Zack looked disgustedly at the ghost in front of him.
"You think I'd be stupid enough to risk taking the black materia myself?" The ghostly form of Sephiroth asked. "I'm disappointed at you, first class SOLDIER Zack Fair. You should have been better informed."
"What do you mean?"
"You see, when the Ancients like your little girlfriend over there…" He pointed at Aerith and it made Zack's blood boil feverishly inside him, he shuddered. "Built this temple they knew that no matter how tricky and complex they made it for people to get the black materia it could always be reachable. Let me tell you the true intentions of the Cetra. This whole temple, the whole construction is the black materia. The only way to retrieve the black materia is to shrink the temple and take it. And the way to shrink the temple into its true form is to take in your hands, from the inside, this miniature pyramid that you see… well, right through me." He laughed. "But as you might have correctly guessed, one who takes the miniature temple in his hands shrinks down with the whole structure and dies with it. It takes sacrifice."
"Why do you want the black materia for then?" Cloud asked coming to stand next to Zack.
"Isn't it obvious already?" Sephiroth's see-through clone turned his head to look at the blond. "I intend to summon Meteor to conquer the Planet and revive the Weapons. The Planet will then be under my command.
"You will never do that!" Aerith shouted from behind them. "I won't allow it!" Her lips trembled and her eyes watered as she thought about the Planet dying.
"Well well well…" Sephiroth's light green eyes even though faintly stared down intently at the brunette. "And what does one single Cetra, the only one left in the Planet intends to do to stop me?" He smirked at her.
"Unless you stay here for the rest of your lives to protect the black materia even though I could still reach it, one of you will have to be left behind to take it and keep it away from me isn't that correct?" Sephiroth continued. "Since I enjoy games, I'm going to leave you to decide who is going to be that person." And as cleanly as he had appeared, Sephiroth's form disappeared into thin air.
"I'll do it." They all turned their heads to look at the mechanical cat that was proudly standing up on the moogle's head.
"We'll figure something out, it doesn't have to be like that." Aerith shook her head.
"I disappointed you all. And from what I've seen and heard you didn't deserve what I've done. I'm just a robot meant to follow orders. I'm worth nothing because I can be created again. My life doesn't compare to your lives' worth. Therefore, let me retrieve the black materia. You'll be able to get it then." Caith Sith said.
"Caith Sith…" Aerith whispered. "You just proved to be trustworthy. Don't do it please. There has to be another way."
"There isn't… That's the only way and I'm the only one capable of doing it. No one flesh and bone is going to die." Caith Sith approached the small column. "Now go." But no one moved. "GO!" The cat shouted.
"Thank you for caring..." Caith Sith whispered as she watched the last one of them abandon the room. "I'm doing my part to help you." He waited for a couple of minutes to make sure they could be safely distanced and turned to the small pyramid in front of him. The cat smiled and his canines poked out and seized on his lips. Steadily his paws grabbed the triangular object and lifted it from its rest. "My existence had a meaning."
From the outside, the ground rumbled under their feet and they grabbed onto the trees as the earth quaked. Zack placed his hands on Aerith's shoulders to hold her to him and keep her from falling. They all watched in silence and sadness as the massive pyramidal construction trembled and started going down, its size diminishing little by little. Aerith thought about Caith Sith and closed her eyes. He didn't deserve that as well.
When the ground stopped shaking, she opened her eyes and what was once a glorious temple made of stone her ancestors had built was now a huge squared-hole on the ground.
"Stay here, I'll go get it." Cloud volunteered and ran away to slide down the hole to its centre where the black materia glittered by the sunlight. He took the onyx-coloured heavy rock in his hands wondering what could be so special about it when suddenly his head punctured with pain. His eyes saw a flashing white color and he strained to see the tall figure of Sephiroth in front of him. Against his will, his arm stretched to the front handing the black materia to Sephiroth. He ached to stop his arm and felt it shake with strength to stop himself from doing what he was doing. There was no sound for a moment; he could only hear his heart thumping against his chest.
"NO!" Cloud shouted as he watched himself giving the black materia straight to Sephiroth's hand.
"Now this is the real me." Sephiroth smirked whispering in Cloud's ear as he held the black materia and flew away into the sky. Cloud dropped to his knees and hands panting.
"Cloud!" He heard Tifa yelling as she reached for the blond man. The headache was gone and he realized he could control his movements again. "We saw him… But there was a barrier preventing us to come near you."
"He was controlling me…" Cloud gasped. "I could feel him in my head, telling me to give him the black materia. And I couldn't control my body… He possessed me."
"He was planning this from the beginning." Zack helped Cloud getting out of the temple's crater by placing Cloud's arm around his neck and supporting most of his weight to walk. "Don't worry, we'll get him." He looked at the sky in the direction he had seen Sephirtoh go. If it's the last thing I do.
Note: In the game Caith Sith reappeared after he had shrunk the temple but here he was just gone! I'm sorry about him! And Cissnei! Well, thank you so much yet again for the support! I hope you enjoyed this chapter! We're getting closer to the big end!