Epilogue: One Day to Future Days

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The Weapon's phosphorescent wings stretched out to their true span miles wider than Midgar itself, drawing down the hapless clouds in eerie attraction. Twisting indifferently below it, the beast's armored tentacles lit up like torches from the garnered Lifestream, sprinkling the city ruins with their embers. A solemn roar echoed as the Weapon finally started a slow, winding ascent into the parted clouds.

Sephiroth grudgingly shrank at the invisible pull on the life still fixed to his body. He beheld the faintest wisps of it rising from him, singing odd sighs of release that nearly slipped his ears. The spectacle exhausted him just watching it. It was much too soon. In the departing flight of the massive creature in the sky, his heart faded. It couldn't have been possible, but it was. No thing was supposed to have the power to kill him, not like this, much less now, but there it reigned. He thought that perhaps now the Planet would finally be rid of him, as its grand, old adversary.

The warring winds didn't touch him, but the rubble it crumbled overhead draped him with dust. Like something discarded at the bottom of a giant's box. Shameful, yet fitting for his demise.

"At least," Sephiroth started to say, lifting his burning arm into his line of sight. Beyond the ragged remains of his coat's sleeve and haze seeping from his pores, his arm was normal. Not a hint of Jenova remained to take his body. But the aura of light embracing his limb, white as his skin, unnerved him. He feared it'd take him before Weapon did. "At least I can disappear without dear, failing Mother shadowing my every step...

"Free. Haha... ha."

--

I have a confession to make.

I haven't been true to myself. I've... actually been quite selfish. And I've done something that I know some will think is a misuse of power... Planet, Aerith, Lucrecia, everyone here with me now, I'm sorry. I did this for me; for once, I really did something for myself. And I'll have a clear conscience when this is over, even though I understand what could happen if my actions are mistaken, and instead, disaster threatens the Planet.

It's his choice, too.

We're bound together. Sad and pleasant, yet true, whether destiny called for it or not. My decision's made. Sometimes, through thick and thin, you want to dedicate yourself to someone. My love is unconditional. I think that's the only unselfish thing about me right now. If I'm doing what I think is best and it helps someone in need, then I'm satisfied.

If it helps him... I'm satisfied.

Oh. Um... I'm really scared. I want to be able to go back. I don't care how long it has to take. That's why I'll make him wait until then, but... I want to go back.

Let me go back, not just for me, not just for them... Him. We're not done yet. Aerith, you put me in charge. So I want to finish what I started.

Thank you for listening. Thank you. I'll be praying now…

--

--

Sudden rays of Lifestream sprouted forth from the depths of Midgar, shooting debris into the air as they converged upon Weapon drifting higher and higher from the earth. Like a cage, the rays formed around the monster, perfectly halting its ascent.

As soon as they appeared, they vanished in little more than the blink of an eye. The dazed beast howled before its brilliant wings disintegrated and fell to earth in great cascades of Spirit Energy. Shortly thereafter, its tentacles ignited with the Planet's life force, burning away the segmented plates, leaving behind a glitter of green like falling ash. The Weapon lifted its towering limbs heavenward as if beckoning for space. But they, too, sparked at the tips of their claws, kindling into clouds of Lifestream that ruthlessly showered down upon Midgar.

The soil, mortar, and steel trembled with life. The rush of the Planet's lifeblood melted into the earth, driving a force up in its place.

Green.

In wild swishes of sound and color, lush, abundant green animated the scorched land, overturning the dead slums. Sprouts empowered by the Planet shattered rock and demolished the toppled metal towers to be swallowed up by lesser trees. Weapon's fizzling spirit sprayed Shinra headquarters so fiercely that the upper floors crumpled like paper under the impending growth. As if on cue, mottled yellow sunlight beamed down through the eternal gray overcast, greeting the overwhelmingly newborn life in silence.

The fading beast let out a final wail before its halo-crowned head exploded in a blast of white light and Lifestream.

Sephiroth watched the helicopter plunge from the sky, grimacing at the sound of a boom somewhere in the distance.

Good riddance.

The thing had been annoying, anxiously circling the skies while the windstorms tossed it this way and that. And now, apart from the constant noises of forest springing up all around and beneath him, as well as the liquid rain of Lifestream drenching him to the bone, he had some peace and quiet. Just when he thought he was going to suffer a true death, this, this occurred. The monster in the sky turned to rain and completely transformed the nasty scar of Midgar into some wondrous burgeoning entity.

His body rested comfortably in a still-growing bush of delicate white flowers, though they had no scent at all. But that detail he laid aside with ease. As a matter of fact, he laid aside the entire green earth surrounding him as nothing more than a distraction.

"Ah…" He sighed, letting his mouth hang open so that Lifestream pooled in his throat, slowly gulping it down in a subtle rise of his chin and chest. The lasting pains in his limbs were soothed away in an instant, but Sephiroth hadn't thought to rise from his bed of leaves and flowers. He merely chuckled at the sky, full of immediate understanding. "I know it's you. Are you blessing me, your favorite beast... ?"

The electrifying rain pooled in his open eyes, overflowed, and spilled from them as though his own tears. But there wasn't anything he'd cry for. So it seemed, the Planet cried in his place, quite possibly for nothing. Or, if anything, the newfangled beauty brimming here in this old city.

"I have no home to go to anymore," said Sephiroth in a mired hush. He took a deep breath, still not quite smelling the sweet scents of revived earth. "No matter. New Midgar, welcome me...

"Let me sleep for a while. I'll... need energy for one last task…"

-----

About a month later…

"I... still can't believe it. Midgar, like this. Aerith's church, ruined."

Cloud perched grimly on a tree trunk which bent forward onto the splintered pews of the church's left side. The clinging moss threatened to dampen the seat of his pants, but that was far too trivial a thing to grump over. The fact of the matter was simply this: Aerith's church had been practically destroyed, and it pained him to see it like this. The lonely little chapel had braved Meteorfall and ended up with just another hole in the roof; but to finally fall victim to the same green earth that everyone wanted to save...

Tifa stood next to the moping blond while leaning on a single crutch, a similar look of disappointment plaguing her round face. Eventually, she blinked in Vincent's direction as he squatted amongst the miniature meadow replacing Aerith's flowerbed before the altar.

"It still took you long enough to get here after I had everybody call you," Tifa remarked.

"I was up north," he replied soberly. "It was hard trying to get a ship here. There were more monsters terrorizing the routes than mariners could handle."

"Oh."

"So," Cloud started, "everything happened here because of that woman. Drana. Right? Where is she?"

"No one knows," Tifa said, hobbling from her companion's side. She moved towards Vincent, to offer a bit of company to the silent one.

"What about her kidnappers? What happened to them?"

"Slipped through our fingers once again. Except for a few personnel, a lot of the militiamen they had employed, a few that turned human torches..."

"Right. And Sephiroth."

"Yeah..." Tifa bit her lip in reluctance, gazing down at the top of Vincent's still, raven-haired head.

When Cloud at last returned to the continent, nearly all his friends had gathered together to bring him to Midgar, to witness a dramatic spectacle: the city of sin transformed, from a wreck of twisted metal and death to a tower of forest in the middle of a wasteland. Amongst the sea of green, pieces of the final Weapon that fell rather than turn to Lifestream jutted like standing monuments to the beast, its halo, of the worthiest note, wedged into the side of Shinra's tower.

Revisiting the thought of Sephiroth, Cloud had been led to what he dutifully remembered as the Sector 5 slums after his arrival. Here was where his old enemy lay in a nest of vines and flowers, his face completely overgrown and obscured; there, he and his friends stood over the motionless man like curious mourners at a stranger's funeral. Although, out of everyone who attended the pseudo service, Vincent had been the only one to wear an expression even remotely mournful. As to why he looked that way, Cloud didn't venture asking, and he didn't bother Tifa to try, either. Since then but a few days ago, the group's dark companion took to being as silent as ever, though gracious enough to spare a word every now and then to show he wasn't just dead on his feet.

Now wasn't one of those times. Instead of a word, Vincent's responses were simple movements, thoughtless gestures. Grunts and little clicks of the tongue. Cloud scoffed but he knew that given the time, he'd open back up. For now, he'd leave him be and grieve for Aerith's church.

"I've been wondering this, a lot," Tifa sounded, earning a tilt of heads in her direction. "What... what happens now? Drana, those guys who kidnapped her, Sephiroth, Weapon, Midgar, everything? Do... do we just take all this in stride?"

She hobbled back to Cloud's side and took a seat next to him on the tree, pushing the crutch off to her left. Bending over, she ran her hands down her long, bandaged leg to her ankle and sighed herself securely into that position. The blond watched her endearingly then frowned.

"I think we just take it in stride and get on with our lives," he confessed. "Just like usual, I guess. If those guys show up again... we'll get them for hurting Drana."

"Hehe, it's funny," Tifa said, her giggle muffled by her knees pressed into her cheeks. "We barely knew her. But, listen to you, sounding like some avenger. S, sounding like Vincent, even... Now, I know why he wanted to help her so bad but, you, Cloud…"

"I don't know if I'd bother asking about that, because I don't really know," Cloud answered. "And I don't like to think about it either…"

"Wow, I can't ask anyone anything, huh? When the mysterious maiden of Sephiroth vanishe... we're suddenly emotional zombies."

"Tifa," Cloud whispered, harshly launched from his seat on the hunched tree. "That isn't-"

"The case, I know, but still," the woman huffed. "She hasn't affected me like you, Vincent, and... Sephiroth. So I don't quite understand this little... guardianship thing you guys have going. What did she do? Could, could it be... Aer... ? No, it couldn't. "

"Like I said, it's no use asking me."

Plainly unsatisfied, Tifa sat up straight and glared past Cloud to Vincent. Even knowing her gestures would go unseen, she pointed squarely at the back of their quiet companion's head. "Vincent, you knew the most about her. How does she make you feel? And don't count Lucrecia into any of it."

"Wait, what about Lucrecia?" asked a puzzled Cloud.

"Not to air dirty laundry, but our prince of unrequited love here thought Drana could call ghosts. And so…"

"I didn't know you were a blabbermouth, Tifa," Vincent announced, his low voice soaked in husky darkness.

"Anything to get you to talk," she retorted.

"... I don't want to talk about it."

"Okay, so no one wants to talk about it," she voiced in defeat. "We'll just look at this as a miracle, plain and simple. And we ignore the trivialities of Drana disappearing, those scientist guys disappearing, Sephiroth... er sleeping, and all this other stuff. I feel very enlightened. Now, what you do guys say to a little booze?"

----

The transition from death to life had always been so tormenting but now, something had changed. There rose a new flame, far brighter, far hotter, far more powerful than anything ever felt to date. Out of nowhere it appeared, just a tiny flickering light in the corner, so small and weak that even the faintest breath could snuff it forever, but as the days passed, it grew.

And the time came.

----

In the deserts north of the Corel Mountains, where nameless nomadic villages lived on the edge of civilization, Saristis Noah endured his failure. It was, however, a failure not left empty-handed. In exchange for his wounds, which miraculously hadn't killed him, he and his colleagues had stolen away with several canisters. The saving graces of their so-called fool's errand. Holding these, his dreams could still survive to fruition.

Dreams too good to dream.

The stifling, arid heat couldn't keep his high spirits down, even while he sat bedridden guzzling water as if he'd been starved of it for weeks. Besides the canisters, he still had his confidants, except for one. Emerson defected eagerly, but not before dooming Saristis to certain catastrophe, throwing the redhead in achingly absolute stitches. Evvey, on the other hand, stayed with and defended his superior like a loyal puppy, as did Aridale, ever the opportunist she presented herself and a woman attracted to the man full of that mighty Shinra ambition. It was the best two out of four he'd managed to keep in the end.

Saristis played on a mountain of thoughts while he recuperated, confined to bed in his measly tent. What would he do with this precious Lifestream just itching to be used? He'd pondered using it on himself, to see if it'd heal his injuries, but the chance couldn't be taken. He wouldn't go the way Hojo did with Jenova's cells. Yet, he felt the urge. To be something a little greater than human.

"Not yet," he thought aloud to himself. "Not until I know more."

A single breeze pelted the front of his tent, coaxing the cloth to flap inward then fall still again. Startled only slightly, the redhead scholar slumped down into his sheets, off the side of his bed. He snatched up a glowing green canister in his hands and cradled it almost like a baby.

"Hm, maybe... maybe Kit and Emerson were right." Saristis glowered briefly, still pondering. "Heh, no, what's wrong with me? It's not like me to think so dourly, much less second guess myself until proven otherwise. In my hands rests the power of life and death beyond imagination. Heh…"

"Saristis!"

Aridale sailed hands first into the tent, plummeting to the dirt floor in a cloud of dust. The bedridden Saristis jumped at the sight of her, struggling for the foot of the bed. He peered down at the woman lying in a heap, her hands gripping the sheets. She was a total mess, clothes ripped and hair matted with blood, but from what, he had no idea.

"Sar…"

"J, Jenna, what happened to you?" he asked breathlessly. "What's going on?"

"It's…" The injured scholar grabbed both her arms and helped her onto the bed, pulling the tangled mess of hair out of her face. His fingers came away with blood, acting fast to wipe themselves on the front of his awkward looking smock-shirt.

"Jenna, pull yourself together," Saristis commanded softly. "What is it? Is it monsters?"

"No," she croaked, pointing ahead. "He's..."

"He? He who? What? Finish what you were saying."

"Saristis Noah. In the beginning, you were so hard to find. But now…"

Black gloved hands pushed aside the tent's flaps, allowing hot white sunlight to briefly flood the interior. The disoriented couple pulled close together, near unaware of how intimate their embrace really was. They found a comfort in the pointlessness of it, as humans tended to do. Saristis could almost feel himself want to laugh, a habit he wished he'd drop for once.

"I, it's been a while," greeted the nervous redhead.

A menacing shade parted the sunlight, ushering in the Shinra-born angel of death. Emerson's curse on him had just come true, in an absurdly wrong place at an absurdly wrong time. Still brittle from the last onslaught weeks ago, he would break like a twig, crumble like a dry, fragile leaf underfoot. And if he gunned for a chance at his materia hidden under the bed, there was no mistaking that he'd die quickly for trying. The odds were definitely against him.

"I hear them whimpering," Sephiroth uttered in a dulcet tone. He slid one black-booted foot in before fully entering the tent and presenting his customary leather-bound physique. With him came a gentle hum like a power generator on an idle night. His whole veneer radiated a passive bloodlust, glorified further by glinting streaks along the front of his coat. As he approached the bed, Saristis caught the slight metallic odor of blood stinging his nose. Had it just been Jenna's or more?

"I…"

"Drana and the Planet, their whimpers… You know what they tell me?" Sephiroth bent forward into Saristis and Aridale's faces, his feline eyes glowing as plainly as the sun. Jenna buried her face sharply into her superior's chest, forcing him to flinch out of accidental shame. The bloodstained man saw this, sweetly piping up, "Today... you die."

"M-my dear general, you can kill us," the scholar murmured, "but... where would the point in that? Y-you'll only get your hands dirty and you wouldn't have accomplished a thing in the long run. Why? Because as visionaries, w-we'll always have successors."

"Your little lackey with the glasses doesn't have a way with words like you," Sephiroth remarked. "Of course, with a broken neck, you can't say very much."

"Kit?" Saristis stiffened abruptly. "He's…?"

"I saw it," Jenna said lowly, choking back a disgusted moan.

"The woman here is very slippery," their invader hissed, slipping a hand under the lady scholar's head. She writhed but didn't dare move anymore than that. His fingers gripped the nape of her neck, the leather all at once hot, rough and smooth on her skin. "I wish I could spare her."

"Saristis, do something," she pleaded. "Please…"

"Jenna…"

"Sar, I love you, okay? Screw propriety, I can say it now because— Aaaagh!"

In a heave, Aridale vomited thick, dark blood into her superior's lap, convulsing as Sephiroth dragged her from his arms by the neck. Too stunned to react, the bedridden scientist let her go freely and watched her flop onto the floor at Sephiroth's feet, looking quite the poor, discarded doll leaking blood which it shouldn't leak. Compared to Saristis' own, the man's face was just a dark, angry husk focused solely on him.

"I-I-"

"Back then, I protected and served people like you," he told Saristis, peering dangerously close into his frozen eyes. Like a monster, he bared his pearly white teeth, yet only chuckled, "But guess what? Those days have been long over. So now I shall serve you on a plate to my glorious Drana, to the Planet at large. In hopes that she'll be mine again."

Sacrifice? He was to be offered up as a sacrifice? As though a moebius strip, this idea of a final fate raced over and over in his mind. As a scientist, Saristis had no problem sacrificing a part of himself, like a social life, in the name of research. But to have another take his life in their own hands and toss it to the winds? It was laughable. It was mortifying. It shamed him. He was alone now. He'd given up Quelin, he'd been renounced by Emerson, and Aridale and Evvey were on their way to being one with the Planet. He was on his own now, staring Sephiroth down like the angel of death he was, awaiting the ultimate lights out.

"Well then... I'll see your precious Drana on the other side," Saristis said, smiling and closing his eyes against the bloody hands advancing upon him.

"When we're done with you... no, you won't."

----

--

From Sixth: The Other One-Winged Angel (also, or now known as Patchwork Wings... or whatever it will be in the future, if not that) on its own felt simply resolute. BWG put meat on a bony relationship and opens one last door. I think it's up to me on whether or not I should shut it or walk right on through. I have an idea for a resolution... I think, someday sooner or later...that idea'll come true.

Lil factoid: Drana's been with me for a whole decade, maybe more. Hah. What an old character. And she WAS a Mary Sue in the beginning, if, I'm hoping, she isn't so much now anymore. Hot fuck, it was bad. Pardon my French. I was a terrible person. Haha, okay folks, you've been great, who, where and whenever you are. Thanks.

Just so you know, this isn't the end.

P.S.:

A NEW message, circa 2010 from Sixth. It is as follows:

So I'd been editing this offhandedly and discreetly for a few weeks. Why? Well, having seen my email inbox with the amount of faves/reviews and crap I'd gotten in the span of two to four months, more than I'd ever seen in like years, well I was urged to do something that wasn't more ineptitude for once. So anyways... Being that this fic is old as fuck and I haven't the energy to do a full fledged rewrite right now, I'm going to leave it at that because there's only so much I can do sometimes, and I... want to be able to move on to something else. Namely, the "sequel" to this. Far flung it will be, but whatever.

Just wanted to clean this up a bit because, gods, it was so... icky. Gods.

Also, other things. Hopefully better things.

I should get a beta. God damn... Social ineptitude, how you torment me. That and self-consciousness. Ass.