AN: Once again a hearty f you to all my readers with the exception of Reiko. Aside from her the rest of you all are major league jackasses who apparently don't understand the principle that when you enjoy someone's writing in one story, you'll probably enjoy the other stories they've written. I especially despise you Aira Slytherin what with how you talk the talk but refuse to walk the walk. Once again we broke the 600 hit mark, whopdee freaking do, have some free mindfuckery on me!

The screen went blank. "And that is what happens to failures." J stood up and looked at his father. "He made... he made, such beautiful music to the end..." The dark haired man just chuckled. "Black M was nothing but a pathetic braggart who even had the afrontery to believe himself my equal in the field of science."

Red J stood up his voice a low growl. "How... how can you say that about him?" The black haired man smiled. "Easily. Remember you go last, and it will be White M's turn soon. In cells ATP provides energy by breaking its bonds. The same will be true of you. The destruction of that pathetic bond I've been unable to notice you two forming should provide you with more than enough energy to properly prepare yourself for what comes next."

Red J's mouth opened, but his mouth flapped like a fishes, leaving nothing in its wake. The black haired man continued to press button on his watch and Red J's body shook back and forth slightly.

Then in one solid leap he went from sitting, before the group to standing before them, belting out lyrics in a fine tenor. "Love is required, whenever he's hired, it comes just before the kill! No one can catch him, no hit man can match him, for his million dollar skill!" "J, are you okay?" "I feel fantastic, and I never fever felt as good as how I do right now, except for maybe when I think the day I felt the way I do right now!"

Chapter 8 The wrong inside you can't get it right, you might as well get on the train, It's a war!

Aeris could only hope that Sephiroth was right when he gave her the location of the slavers' main base. If he wasn't, then she might end up ridding this chocobo out into the dessert and never coming back.

It was a slightly comforting thought that Sephiroth was almost never wrong about anything military. He was a God given (a particularly appropriate turn of phrase given his new profession) genius when it came to things involving war. Aeris had no particular reason to doubt Sephiroth's ability to read the mind of your average human being; if he could control them the way he had, then reading a mind must be child's play by comparison.

Oh yes, he could control them, that thought was heavy on her mind. She remembered how it had happened as she rode onward.

--

It had seemed a simple enough tavern, a place to stop for some food and maybe some information. Sephiroth was content to only order a few glasses of water for himself (he reminded Aeris of a plant, sometimes, all he ever needed was sunlight and water to survive, but then maybe that was the effect of mako in his bloodstream) and let Aeris get some real food.

They had sat there, Sephiroth letting Aeris lean on his cross because she was tired from the day of driving through the desert, even without walking, the sheer heat had worn on her.

Aeris began to slowly eat the food she had ordered as the two sat in complete silence. Side by side they made a very, very, odd picture, Sephiroth tall and imposing, Aeris practically nonexistent compared to him. Either way, both of them seemed like just two more customers one way or another, until they walked in.

"They" in this case was a group of roughly 20 men, all of whom wore black jackets and white pants. Every single one had a body that bulged with muscles. Sephiroth took one look and snorted in contempt.

In Sephiroth's eyes, these men might as well have been children; they were showoffs. In a real fight, all the muscles you needed could be hidden under your clothing, truly made the difference between survival and death was the skill and finesse with which you fought.

Aeris' eyes flickered between the men and Sephiroth, the men seemed like lumbering bears next to a lean hunting dog. She knew nothing good could result from any interaction with them, so she simply ignored them.

However the men did not feel like ignoring her, especially one man in particular. He was the biggest and the burliest of the group, and he approached her slowly. He reached out to grab her but Aeris moved to just outside her reach.

The man might have continued to pursue her, but he suddenly found a very large cross being held between him and Aeris. He looked at Sephiroth who was holding the cross with one hand and his glass of water with the other. "You're one arrogant son of a bitch! Don't you know who you're dealing with?" Sephiroth shrugged "Frankly I don't care who you are. Every person here can quite clearly see that you are terrible sinners, and a true man of god can never be defeated by such."

The man only laughed in response. "Did I hear that right priest? You wanna be a hero? For your information, we're the Dragon Hunters, and we take whatever or whoever we want!" Sephiroth sighed with air of a man contemplating the time it would take to clean the carcass of an ant off the underside of his shoe. "All humans exist only by the grace of God, if you wish to lose that grace, then by all means, attack me."

The man laughed, and Aeris shivered, not in fear for Sephiroth, but in fear of him, Sephiroth had a habit of being vindictive when humans where concerned, very vindictive. Aeris did the only thing she could to try and stop a fight she pleaded with the two combatants. "Sir, if you would, kindly leave us alone, we don't want any trouble." Unfortunately much like Sephiroth's apparent theory (that theory being that humans were little better then animals) these men could smell fear, or at least hear it, and they heard it loud and clear in Aeris' voice. These men were too used to no one fighting back for them to realize why she was afraid.

Sephiroth calmly took another drink from his glass of water, swallowed, and spoke. "I would advise you to rethink your choice of careers, for even though humans must be sinful by nature, you are more so then most. While I do not consider it my responsibility to bring such people to task, if you wish to see a land filled with people like you, try your best against me."

The man laughed long and hard. "You talk mighty big for a man with no gun against so many of his betters, priest! Why don't I give you a demonstration of why no one else ever bothers us!"

With lightning speed (at least from the man's perception, to Sephiroth it was like watching someone wade through honey) he drew a pistol and fired. The glass of water in Sephiroth's hand shattered; none of the shards pierced his gloves him but some of the water splashed on them. Sephiroth and turned away from the man to face the bartender. "Might I have another glass of water?"

Aeris covered her eyes, she knew what was going to happen next, and knew she didn't want to see it. "DON'T MOCK ME YOU ASSHOLE!" The man emptied his entire clip at Sephiroth from less than ten feet away. Not a single one of them touched him, in fact like an expert vetronliquest Sephiroth just sat their calmly draining a glass of water while he practiced his craft.

After a moment to swallow again Sephiroth put down his drink and stood up; these men where already his, from the moment they had entered he had cast out a net, and now they were helplessly caught in it. His movements had the languid grace of a tiger stretching before battle. "Impatience is such a detestable trait that so many of you humans seem to share.

You are always rushing, here, or there, never stopping to think about what your actions mean. You never stopped to realize that there are two ways out of this tavern, one of them is the door, the other is the next world. You have apparently chosen the second path."

The man only laughed as he slipped another clip into his gun. "What are you gonna do? Call down God on us, preacher?" Sephiroth smiled and nodded. "That is exactly what I am going to do. You have violated a solemn covenant I have made with the Lord.

I once wished to destroy every last bit of humanity down to the smallest speck of dust, but I put desire aside. I told the Lord that I would not seek out and destroy his children regardless of their sins, I would let them come to me. You have come to me in your sin, and you have tried to kill me, leaving aside what your base wants for my companion. She is worth far more then all of you slime put together, now, since you are so impatient, you may be the first. I suggest the rest of you watch, and more importantly learn, you may yet leave by the door if you pay attention."

The man raised his gun at Sephiroth and steadied his aim. "Stop spouting nonsense and fight back you bastard!" "BANG"

The noise rang out through the tavern, and the man fell to the floor, blood dripping from the hole in his head, he had shot himself. Sephiroth's hand turned to the others with the grace of a master puppeteer producing a show. "I would say God's made his intentions quite clear, if you have any grasp of how limitless his divine power is, you will get down on your knees and beg for his forgiveness."

As he spoke those words, Sephiroth truly smirked for the first time; God hadn't directly intervened in the fight, at least not yet anyway. Sephiroth had simply controlled the man's mind, it wasn't hard, though it typically took about a minute or so of doing nothing but poking around his foes craniums. Thus, while it was a talent he rarely used in combat, it proved a most effective one for making his work transcend the bounds of the ordinary. Doing it to several foes at a time was no real challenge, and right now every single one of these men was in Sephiroth's control. He simply had to give a sharp yank and they would dance like puppets.

Passion rules reason however, and the men didn't seam to realize just who they where up again. Guns where drawn, guns where fired, Aeris continued to cover her eyes and keep them shut, Sephiroth's face took on a look of lurid joy for a few moments. Then, finally, the gunfire ceased.

Sephiroth returned to his seat, and ordered yet another class of water. Aeris, however, couldn't return to her food, the sight of so many dead bodies on the floor had completely destroyed her appetite. Sephiroth finished the glass quickly, paid, and then followed her. He showed no concern for all the men who had blown their own bodies apart. On the way out he tossed a few extra coins to the bartender. "Have the bodies cremated and scatter the ashes, at least in death they can do something useful."

--

Aeris gripped the chocobo's reins tighter. Sometimes she thought Sephiroth was turning into the nicest man in the world, and at other, other times it was all to easy to remember that he had once wiped and entire village off the face of the Planet.

It was strange, in this world that was still mostly populated with Cetra and in his dealings with them, Sephiroth was to all extents a normal priest. However, mix in a human who was in any way doing something wrong, and Sephiroth turned into a veritable angel of death. He could kill any number of human bandits, but when surrounded by Cetra he could make you think he wouldn't hurt a fly.

She had thought Sephiroth had gotten better over the forty years since his death, he even gave the appearance he didn't even like to fight, most of the time. He no longer obsessively practiced with Masamune the way he had at first, as if his blade was the only thing in the world which he could trust not to betray him. She still saw him practicing hand to hand fighting, some of the time but not that often, though she supposed he often did so before dawn when she woke up.

But even if he only killed humans in self defence, the fact of the matter was that she could tell he loved to do it. To snuff them out like candles because they dared to oppose him. Sometimes she wondered if Sephiroth really did have some kind of multiple personality disorder, it certainly would explain things if there two of them. One of them was a the priest, a pious man of god. the other was General Sephiroth, a man who thought about only one thing, killing.

--

Sephiroth caught up with Aeris outside the tavern very quickly, too quickly for Aeris' liking. He placed a calming hand on her shoulder, but she spun around and knocked it off. "What do you think you were doing?" "Self defence, more importantly, those people will never harm anyone again."

Aeris' rage was only increased by Sephiroth's lack of emotion. "You know Sephiroth, you are truly lucky if you ever bothered to think about it. You have everything in this world, but you don't think about it, you're still fighting the last war. You would think with all the power you have, you could find a form of conflict resolution that doesn't involve killing people."

Sephiroth ran the hand that had been knocked from Aeris' shoulder along his cross. "I could, if it was in the best interest of others, but is it? I could have simply left those people with a stiff lesson, but those kind of people don't learn. Sin begets sin, once you start down the path of sin, and the longer you stay on it, the harder and harder redemption becomes. In the end the only redemption for those who are truly sinful is death."

Aeris scowled and shook her head. "I still believe in the heart that feels in the sin Sephiroth! I still believe that no one has the right to take someone else's life. If you had wanted to, you could have just marched them into some jail cells, maybe they even would have gotten justice at the end of the rope, but you didn't. You'd rather just dispense your own form of justice, and with you Sephiroth, justice always comes with fire."

Now both of Sephiroth's hands were resting on his cross. "I grant the same justice to humans as I would to any one else, rabid animals are shot. Humans who take slaves, who abuse women and children disserve death." Aeris glared right into the empty green lenses of Sephiroth's glasses. "Then why did you wait till they attacked you?"

Using just his right index finger, Sephiroth began to trace an invisible pattern on his cross. "I made an agreement with God, I will only strike out against his sinners when they threaten me."

Aeris felt like she was going cross eyed. "Sephiroth, what is going on in your mind? You say you only killed them in self defence, but every time I see you do it, I wonder have you changed in the least? What does a human life mean to you?"

Now it Sephiroth's entire left hand which was tracing the pattern. "An equivocal question, I simply take pleasure in doing the Lord's work, would you tell me those men deserved to live?" Aeris sighed, she was getting nowhere fast with this line of conversation. "How do you know they kept women and children as slaves?"

Sephiroth gave her a patronizing look "I had plenty of time to go over the cracks and crevices in their minds, believe me, what I saw would have made any decent person's blood boil."

A long pause hung in the air, somehow as if by focusing on someone else's pain, Aeris was able to forget her own. She was filled with determination now, just like when she'd been on her way to summon Holy. She silently wondered if the overwhelming sense of determination was what Sephiroth often felt.

"Make any decent person's blood boil you say? That's the problem with you Sephiroth, you're not a person, but a machine. You say the things they've done would make a decent person's blood boil, but yours didn't, you just sat there and waited, it isn't rage you kill them with, it's cold calculating pleasure. You didn't need a reason to kill them Sephiroth, you just needed an excuse!"

Sephiroth fell back as if he had been struck physically. "What do you know? I swore a long time to stay out of human matters, I tolerate them, but my power doesn't make me slaves to them. If they insist on their own deaths I am glad to oblige them with it."

"Your problem, Sephiroth, is that you're afraid to be happy. You look at the things you have, but you're afraid to let anything go your way. That's why you want to be with Cetra in this world, because you know no matter how hard you try, they'll snub you since you're descended from Jenova. You'd rather do things for Cetra who don't care then do them for humans who might think you're a hero to them. If I were you, the first thing I would be doing was going after the rest of those scum and freeing their slaves!"

Sephiroth crossed his hands in mock helplessness "They have no Cetra prisoners, I refuse to take part in matters solely concerning humans." Aeris slapped him, and knocked his glasses off, regardless of how dangerous it was for someone to see his eyes. "SEPHIROTH YOU'RE A HUMAN, START ACTING LIKE ONE!

I know what you're going to say, probably some pithy bible quote to explain why you shouldn't do anything. Hell, I'll give one to you: 'Blessed are the meek for the kingdom of God shall belong to them.' Well for those people who are here, this world is the kingdom of God, there may be no afterlife for them! What right does anyone have to control anyone else, to treat them as slaves?

You could do so much to help people, but you're only picking and choosing to help the Cetra who are in need. Some priest you are, refusing to help those who truly need your help! This isn't about religion Sephiroth, this is about simple right and wrong. Some things are just that simple, there are no shades of grey or silver here. What those people are doing is wrong, and I'm going to stop them or die trying! But before I go let me give you a bit from my own knowledge of the good book 'In truth whatever you do for the least of my people you do for me!'"

Aeris turned and Sephiroth slowly picked up his glasses and put them back on his face. "That was a very foolish thing to do Aeris. The bandits are several miles west of here, but it's only about an hour or two ride by chocobo. There are still another two or three score of them left, you would die trying to take them all on by yourself."

Aeris didn't look back. "You would kill without thinking to save a Cetra, and do nothing to save a human. I guess it's up to think about what exactly you would do to save a half Cetra, because you know deep down that's what you are." With that Aeris walked off leaving Sephiroth standing alone.

Slowly he relaxed to his normal state of being ready without looking like a frightened cat with its fur on end and leaned against his cross. He let out a very tired and very irritated sigh. "She does everything I can't like it's no big deal at all, dear Lord it's irritating."

--

Aeris gave the chocobo she had rented for less then a day her heels, urging it to go faster. As she urged her chocobo on she saw them, she saw those flags flying. It was the same flag that had flown on the vehicle outside town, a dragon with a knife through it.

She slowly dismounted, but was unable to find anything to tie the chocobo to amid the near total desert of sand. However, releasing the reins for a moment proved that the chocobo had been well trained, it would wait for her, if she ever came back.

Even as she went forward they where coming out to meet her. Five men, wearing black shirts and white pants and armed with automatic weapons. They looked at her with lecherous grins and she felt her skin shiver as they looked her up and down. Aeris stood up straight, but that only made the men laugh louder. "What do we have here boys? Usually we have to go looking for our trade, but this time we've got one of 'em coming to us!"

Aeris raised her staff in front of her and tried to give one of Sephiroth's patented smirks that made it quite clear that the person giving it controlled the universe. Sadly she messed up slightly, and it looked more like a lopsided grin but her voice came out all right. "I'm going to give you people one warning, if you come with me you'll be tried fairly. If you resist then I can't promise what will happen."

The men instantly broke into laughter, it took more then a full minute for it to subside. "What do we have here! This bitch's got some bite, well why don't we teach her some respect!" The man walked towards her, intending to beat the fight out of her. However Aeris hadn't been spent the last four decades of her life in Sephiroth's company without learning a thing or two about how to use her staff. Even if Sephiroth preferred a sword, he had knowledge of practically every weapon imaginable and gave Aeris some real training with her staff.

She sidestepped to the left as the man came in and gave him a whack upside the head with her staff. She must have gripped it in the right place, because the man dropped like a ton of bricks from the impact. The other four came at her, but Aeris quickly cast a haste spell on herself before they reached her.

Under such a spell Aeris could only guess that she viewed the world somewhat like Sephiroth did, everything happened in slow motion. She stood her ground and dispatched each man with a blow from her staff as they approached her, refusing to give them a chance to gang up on her. Those few seconds between them where enough, she knocked the other four flat on the ground. She gave each of them another good whack to make sure they where out, and then proceeded towards the camp.

The five slavers had gone down quickly and without much noise to reveal that they had been defeated. Thus it wasn't till she was practically among them that the other slavers realized she wasn't a slave. One man grabbed her elbow in a grip strong enough to send waves of pain along her body but she ignored it. The man had faint bits of alcohol on his breath. "Where do yah think your going darling? I think it's time for us to have some fun."

Aeris griped her staff tightly. ready to attack. "I wouldn't do that if I where you." The man just smiled lecherously at her. "Who do yah think you are bitch?" Aeris needed to sound confident to have any chance to pull this off, no matter how she actually felt. "Because I happen to be Aeris Gaste, of course you may not care who I am, but I think you'll care who my friend is." The man's grip tightened. "The way I sees it ya don't got any friends, not any more darling."

Aeris struck the man on the arm with her staff causing him to recoil and release her. She practically shouted her next words, loud enough for the entire slaver camp to here it. "I'm sure regardless of how insignificant your small human trading caravan is you have heard of the man who travels with me. His name is Sephiroth, General Sephiroth." The man apparently didn't recognize the name however. "Well him and me can talk when I see him!"

Aeris shook her head. "You don't see Sephiroth, you don't feel Sephiroth. All that happens is, you die. They call him the silver wind of death, a man who kills without thought, he'll burn your entire camp to the ground if you lay one more hand on me. This patch of ground will soon be called 'New Niblehime' once he's done with you."

The man may not have realized what was happening, but one of the other slavers came forward and scowled at her with contempt. "Sephiroth? No one can control him, that crazy bastard could level any city he wanted, they say he was raised by wolves! It's a nice story, but no little piece of work like you could control him."

Aeris shook her head, struggling to keep her smile steady. "There is one being on this world who can control Sephiroth, his mother, and she happened to decide to adopt me as her daughter! I'm sure even a bunch of ignoramuses like you would know how Sephiroth calls out the name of his mother as he strikes down his foes. Now unlike him, I actually have some value of your lives, if you give up I'll let the law deal with you rather then Sephiroth."

The man snorted in contempt. "Why would Sephiroth care to deal with us personally?" Aeris looked him right in the eyes and shuddered at the memory "Your detachment of twenty men who you sent into the town of Pleasant Breeze will never come back, do you know why?

Because they interrupted Sephiroth while he was drinking a glass of water, he killed all of them, and didn't even get his hands dirty. Hell he didn't get his gloves dirty! He just looked at them they way he does, and their hearts filled with fear, their legs turned to jelly, their spines to dust, they drew their guns and shot themselves in the head rather than face his wrath!"

The man raised his gun, "Nice story you uppity bitch, so nice that I'll spare you the humiliation: I'll just shoot you." Aeris couldn't stop the fear from showing now, this was what she wanted to avoid, but here it was. She mouthed the words as the bullets left the gun, and then they bounced off the invisible magical barrier that she called into existence around her.

In the blink of an eye she jumped forward and slammed the man to the ground with one well placed swing of her staff. Unfortunately, this time she didn't have the luxury of stealth, slavers came at her from all directions. Aeris had excepted the possibility accepted that she would end up being assaulted from all directions, and that she would have to strike first. From her hands came freezing winds, freezing winds that solidified around guns turning them into useless chunks of ice. Some of the slavers' hands even ended up getting the 'cold shoulder' as well, though Aeris hoped such a thing wouldn't kill them.

Still, plenty of the slavers managed to drop their weapon as they became chill to the touch and raced at her. Aeris knew the odds weren't good, but she wouldn't give up, man after man fell as she struck them with her staff, but for everyone who went down there seemed to be another coming at her from a different direction. Try as she did, eventually Aeris felt a strong pair of arms grasp her from behind and watched hopelessly as her staff was ripped from her hand and she was hurled to the ground.

Aeris had one hope left, if these men didn't realize that she was a half Cetra, that she could still do some magic without the materia in her staff, she would have a chance to start another battle when they weren't expecting it. It was a vain hope though, the face of the man who she looked up at was contorted with rage, he wasn't thinking about slaves or abusing any more, her just wanted her death.

He drew forth a small pistol and fired it into the sand barely missing Aeris' head. He fired again, and again, and again, and again. Each bullet kicked up sand, and Aeris felt shivers go down her spine, as she rolled back and forth, somehow dodging the bullets. The slaver placed his foot on her chest and slowly pressed the gun's barrel against her head. "Time to get yours, bitch!" Aeris closed her eyes, herd a loud impact, but strangely there was no pain.

Slowly she opened her eyes, and looked up. The man who had been about to shoot her was now lying flat on the ground with a cross covered in brown paper lying on his chest. The other slavers turned to face the direction from which the cross had come, and a man in black emerged from the sand to meet their gazes.

His silver hair fanned out behind him in the wind and his voice easily carried to his opponents. "Trying to hurt a Cetra, you scum should be burnt like the garbage you are!" In the blink of an eye the man was suddenly among them, and he removed the cross from the slavers chest before rending the man unconscious with one good kick.

He rested the cross over his shoulder as he faced them. "If you do not repent you sinners will burn in hell, so to that end I will see that you rot in jail and have time to realize the error of your ways." Most of the bandits pulled out pistols and fired, but Sephiroth simply leaned forward, and slamming the cross into the ground before him.

The bullets tore through its paper covering, and wasted themselves on the metal beneath. When their guns ran dry Sephiroth picked up the cross again. "Is that all you have?"

The slavers now gave into an almost animalistic rage and raced at Sephiroth wanting to tear him limb from limb. All they got was the end of a gloved hand, or a leather boot. Without breaking a sweat Sephiroth floored the ten men.

The first one he dealt with through a complicated martial arts throw. He caught the second's punch, broke his arm with a quick twist and tossed him at the third. The fourth he greeted with a kick to the chest that knocked anything resembling air from his lungs. Against the fifth, he simply slammed his elbow directly into the man's rib cage, breaking a few bones but not killing him. The sixth lost more then a few teeth to Sephiroth's uppercut. The seventh and eighth's heads Sephiroth slammed together with ease. Finally he leapt forward and grabbed the ninth and tenth's arms and swung their entire bodies against each other.

He then took a moment to look over the fallen bodies of slavers and at Aeris as she slowly stood back up, and finally he looked up to the sky. "Lord, what the Hell am I doing here?" Aeris smiled at him. "Well I would guess you're saving my life, and giving new meaning to the lives of these people." As she spoke the few slaves who were chained outside like dogs slowly began to stare at Sephiroth and Aeris as if they were otherworldly beings.

Aeris finally brung herself to ask the question that could not go unasked. "What made you, the great, all powerful Sephiroth, decide to change your mind?" Sephiroth looked away from Aeris. "I simply asked the Lord for a chance to reinterpret our bargain a bit. He agreed that by having one of their ranks try to kill me, these sinners had deemed their entire lot to some divine retribution. However he made me promise not to kill any of them, though frankly the release of death is too good for this lot." There was a pause, and Aeris knew why Sephiroth had refused to look her in the eye as he spoke those words.

Aeris slowly approached Sephiroth and gave him a hug. "Nice try, but you're too zealous for your own good, you really stink at lying." Aeris found her hug broken (and not at all returned) by Sephiroth who pushed her away with contempt. "I am a vessel for the Lord, I simply use as much of his endless mercy as he requests me to. Don't think I'm going to do this again, if you want to go chasseing down every cat that ever got caught in a tree I'm going to go back to hunting Jenova, without you." Aeris looked away from Sephiroth, and she smiled a small, knowing smile.

--

General Sephiroth Valentine was not a man known for doing things by halves, something Aeris realized rather painfully right now. He had come to the slaves one at a time, uttered "The lord wished for his people to be set free, you are now a child of god." Then, with deliberate ease, tore apart the metal chains they wore like they were made of paper.

He needed no tools, he ripped them apart with a twitch of the wrist, careful not to hurt the people bound by them. To these humans, many of whom had never personally seen Sephiroth before, he might have well have sprouted wings. In their eyes he was an angel, having come down from heaven to free them. They thanked Aeris, but she was mortal like them, if not for Sephiroth's intervention she would have failed, Sephiroth could have wiped out the entire camp. Some said he could have called down a rain of fiery rocks on his merest whim, and he made sure not to comment on how right they were.

Either way, Sephiroth went on a bit farther then Aeris had expected, he quite willingly handed out all the money the two had left to the former slaves, thought it wasn't much, particularly divided among the four dozen of them. Sephiroth showed a few of them how to use the slaver's vehicles to head back into town, leaving Sephiroth and Aeris alone with the captured slavers. Not that Sephiroth in any way felt the odds where not in their favor if it came to battle.

Sephiroth had yet to reveal the power of his cross to the slavers, (or even to Aeris) but none of them felt in anyway confident against a man who had so easily defeated them. Aeris may have taken down most of them, but even from the start of the fight she had known she could lose, one look in Sephiroth's eyes made it clear that he expected to win any fight he took part in, and not because of bravado. Thus, in what Aeris thought was payback for dragging him into this, he and she had to personally guard the slavers on their walk back to civilization.

Aeris, of course, could still ride her chocobo while Sephiroth had to go it on foot (Sephiroth had "walked" out to the slavers camp, if you could call going a mile every four minuets walking for more then an hour a walk), but Aeris was still subject to the pains that came with spending considerably amounts of time out under that blistering heat.

More to the point, as the entire affair of freeing the slaves had dragged on for so long they had to camp out in the desert for a night. A few unfortunate slavers learned that when Sephiroth told them it was futile to try and surprise him, he meant it.

He had gone from what Aeris would call "sound asleep" to "full combat" in all the time it took for one very stupid slaver to try and get his arms around the resting priest. The man was rewarded with a hard landing on the sand as Sephiroth easily grabbed both his hands and tossed him like a sack of potatoes. There where a few stupid enough to try to sneak off in the night, and they got the pleasure of making the trip back to town on extremely wobbly legs.

Still in the end, it was resolved without anyone else having to die, and Sephiroth felt that the members of the town were quite capable of making sure at least that the slavers didn't see the light of day for several decades. At least after he gave some of them a quick course in how to unsafety a gun and aim. Armed with weapons of the slaver who Sephiroth had killed in the tavern, the slavers wouldn't be breaking free any time soon.

Sephiroth seamed glad to be rid of the entire business and refused to take money for simply showing people (particularly the Cetra in the town) how to stand up to bandits. Thus when he and Aeris drove off in the jeep (the keys for which Sephiroth wore around his arm when they weren't in use) it was the only possession they had which they couldn't carry, at least Aeris didn't Sephiroth could have carried the jeep.

--

Sephiroth shrugged, opened the door and stepped out. "This is the end of the ride for us Aeris, the thing's got no mako left. From here on in, we walk." Aeris looked at the jeep fondly as she stepped out. "Your doing this to me on purpose, I know it. Waiting till I thought I was going to die to show up, making us walk back, giving away all our money, what are you trying to teach me? You better have a reason because if you're doing it just for kicks, I swear I'll drain you blood into that things engine, it should have enough mako in it to get me to the next town."

Sephiroth gave her a small smile "I am merely giving you a lesson in cause and effect Aeris. Good intentions without the ability to back them up do little but create more pain and suffering. We each carry burdens in life; to lighten the load of another, you increase that on your shoulders. Some of us can carry more, and some carry less, but no one can just make those problems vanish into thin air. I hope my lesson will make you consider your actions a bit more thoroughly next time, while you may have been right, you acted with blind desire to help others. Blind desire and blind ambition have the same results in the end, you trip on something."

Aeris sighed and grabbed her staff from where she had put it down in the jeep. "Remind me never to travel with you again Sephiroth, you seam to enjoy walking through this wasteland far too much." Sephiroth shrugged. "Jesus always travelled on foot, it is the only true way to learn how far you have gone." Aeris looked out into the desert and shook her head. "I don't mind how far I've gone by foot, it's how far I still have to go that bothers me." "Don't we all, Cetra, don't we all?"

FN: Red J starts singing "The Man With the Golden Gun" and then segues into "I Feel Fantastic" Jonathan Coulton a song which might as well be his theme song if you take the time to look up the entire lyrics for it.