(( OMG GASP CAN IT BE?! Yes, an update after so long. I apologise so much for my absence, there has been this horrible thing called real life getting in the way of everything and sundry. So I hope to swing back on track and hope that all my readers haven't deserted me :) - Bhryn xxx ))
Heart Less Love
Chapter Eleven: Legacies
"Life is just like a river. It flows from the large ocean of life and eventually it returns back to it."
She almost wiggled a finger in her ear to check that she wasn't hearing things. The stunned look of incredulity refused to slide from her face, glancing towards Arkilles to see if she was the only one a little distressed by Yuffie being able to see him, but to her dismay, he didn't seem in the least bit bothered.
Yuffie waited as long as she could for an explanation, but patience had never been her strongest suit. "Seriously, who is he?"
"This is… ah…"
"It is alright, Honoured Daughter. I will admit, I had not expected her to see me so well." Arkilles bent his head graciously, "M'lady Kisaragi."
Yuffie, to her credit, managed a sort of formal inclination, but her eyes glanced between Aerith and the darkly robed man and when she straightened her hand hovered about the razor like shuriken suspiciously. "What's going on?"
"I am Arkilles, a spirit of a world long past, a memory of someone who loved this world and fought hard for it."
"As hard as we did? As hard as Aerith did? Have you died for this world?" Yuffie snapped, "And what do you want anyway, bothering her? And what does he mean, see him so well?!" She swung her reactionary temper back onto the ancient, who felt a little unable to answer that. "I don't know what's going on here but is that guy something to do with those things out there?"
"In part, perhaps I am to blame." He bent his head again, "My apologies for this distress it has caused, but there are things that the Honoured Daughter needed to know, and now you too have come to see me, things you should know. Things I don't think you were precisely aware of before."
"That I'm a little bit Cetra?"
"…hmmm, perhaps." He looked at Aerith, eyebrows faintly knitting, "You told her this?"
"Yuffie has the ability to heal without materia, it is a trait strongly passed down through Cetra blood and only Cetra blood." Aerith grasped for the right words for this and shrugged, "It was the only viable explanation for it."
"A child with Cetra blood and something more…" He looked at Yuffie again and it was in those locked stares that she felt a shiver rush down her spine.
"Y…you cannot be suggesting…!?"
"Suggest? No, flat out telling you, Honoured Daughter."
"I don't get it," Yuffie snapped, fingers tapping the shuriken under the folds her specially made trouser-skirt.
"I don't think I want you to get it either," Aerith groaned. This was not precisely what she had been expecting when he had begun to explain the mystery behind her dreams, but it certainly fit the unusual instances that had been occurring and not only that, but what she could piece together of her memories of their travels.
"Anyway," coughed Yuffie, "The monsters gone, it won't come for you now Aerith."
"…Yuffie, can I have a moment more, please? Don't mention this to anyone… this is between us Cetra." Aerith looked at her with pleading green eyes, "Please?"
"Sure, but if that creep lays one hand on you…"
"He won't."
"Well alright, cause he's scared. You hear me?" her finger pointed at Arkilles, "Not a touch!" But true to her word, the ninja slipped back outside, closing the door behind her and the long knock of it closing echoed inside the room where the Ancient had secreted herself before with the black cloaked man who had been invading her restful dreams.
She was trembling, from head to foot, and her hands quivering with that unexpected revelation. Unable to contain her disbelief a moment longer, she turned to Arkilles, "Yuffie?!"
"Perhaps, perhaps more strongly than any other. They were drawn to her to start with, but the mixed blood-"
"Yuffie is part-jenova?!"
"The blood of a woman from another world that I loved, the blood of the Cetra, intermingled with human blood. The link is distant, but there nevertheless. You say yourself, it would explain so much." Arkilles looked towards Aerith, "And of those few, she is the strongest of my legacy left behind. She will hear the shadows, she will hear the darkness."
"Hear it?"
"Long after this is resolved; perhaps even then, she will always hear the darkness and wonder at why only she can. But her Cetra blood, that is strong enough to manifest healing powers which will keep her anchored."
Aerith couldn't help but consider this possibility. Yuffie always claimed her senses were sharp, sharp enough that she had helped them to track Sephiroth over the Gaea cliffs as she recalled in fragments from her memories within the lifestream, watching their journey. Yuffie and her desire to own more and more materia. Perhaps she was always looking for the black chunk of rock that her long distant grandmother, removed by many generations had coveted. But the blood of this wise and worn man too ran within Yuffie's veins, and that would surely prevent the worst.
"You think on if she too will succumb and seek to kill you?"
"No," Aerith shook her head, "Yuffie's Cetra blood is stronger than that. I'm wondering how to tell her these things without her completely flipping out on me."
"A ninja, flipping out?" He sounded amused and when she looked up, there was indeed a hint of a smile on his face.
"You know," she murmured, "There are other things I wanted to ask."
"Please, do."
"My memories."
Her memories were still a painful and confusing blur for her, a mish-mash of cobbled together feelings and sensations. She had hoped over time they would repair themselves, but it was hardly getting to the point where it could be called repairing. More than ever, the holes in her memory were gaping blots of nothing. The frightening possibility she may never gain them back filled her with despair, a sensation Aerith was completely unused to. Even back then, even the splintered dreams of her life before life, there had never been such a bleak despair.
"Will they ever come back to me?"
Arkilles' eyes were unreadable, but he moved towards her and unexpectedly placed his hands on either side of her face, tilting her head so she was made to look upon him, tears standing in her green eyes. "You want an answer?"
"Yes."
"Honoured Daughter, for this world that you have given so much for, you will be asked for sacrifice upon sacrifice. There will always be pain and there will always be suffering. Are you sure you want to remember everything? Today, not yesterday, tomorrow, not today. Is that not the way of the Cetra?"
"Today is a veil over my eyes and tomorrow a dream of a thousand possibilities," she replied, tears trickling down her cheeks, "but yesterday, the days when I was Aerith, I want to remember, so I don't feel so alone."
"You are alone."
"No, I'm not." Her eyes closed, a little hint of a broken smile touching her lips, "I'm not alone anymore. I remember; there was a fire and people, faces filled with thoughts, staring into those flames. The fire doesn't have answers, a fire is only fire. And she was whispering to me, and he asked of me, if they could help. I said then, 'no one can help me, I'm all alone.' But I was wrong, don't you see?" Aerith laughed, looking up at Arkilles defiantly, "I'm never alone. They'll always be there with me, sacrifice after sacrifice. Day upon day upon week or month or years that yawn forever in the face of time, they'll always be there with me. So I'm not alone."
He studied her as she stepped away from his hands, "Honoured Daughter?"
"So those memories, I don't deserve them back, perhaps, but they deserve them back. They gave up so much too, so they deserve back the person who remembers everything they say, all the things we shared, the love between us all. This person I am is but half a person."
"They will come back then," Arkilles bent his head, "But you must give up something else."
"If the price is to be paid, let the payment come only from me."
"An' it be."
"So, we have to find the Black Materia then."
"Yes, Honoured Daughter." The face of K'listo's brother was set now, drawing his black hood up, "Find the rock of fallen stars before another comes who would destroy this world and seal it away, deep within the planet."
"Within the Planet?"
"Yes."
"But… to enter the Lifestream…" Aerith frowned as Arkilles began to fade, "Hey, wait!"
"That is for you to figure out, Honoured Daughter, and time runs down quickly for you. You'd best be hurrying…"
"Wait, tell me how!? Wait!"
But the chamber where she stood by the stone was empty now; the light source faded more than before and only her shadow, looking up at her from the patterned stone blocks of the floor was with her.
Her memories, her sacrifice and yet more of the same. The high price she paid for being a defender of this world, would it prove too high for her this time? The echo of his words though hung thickly in her ears and casting one searching look back into the room, she turned and left, opening the door and closing it behind herself, secreting away once more the room where ancient Cetra magic had once flowed like a river.
Outside, the scene in the corridor was grim. One wall had suffered some debris damage, chunks of rock and fine stone dust littering the floor as well as a long splash of some dark substance that could only be blood, sticking to the entire hallway. Three bodies of men-shaped creatures were in a little pile by the debris. Each bore signs of mutation, similar to the explosive genetic mutation that Jenova had exhibited; squid like limbs and pincer shaped claws.
Her friends were sat on the other side of the corridor, looking a little worse for wear. Yuffie was holding up a cure materia to a long gash in Vincent's thigh that he seemed bound to ignoring. Beside him, Cid was tinkering away at a lighter in desperation, cigarette hanging from his lip, held there by saliva; he looked a little grey and breathless. Cloud and Tifa were still stood, Cloud's hair matted on one side with the dark blood of the monsters and his left arm looking a little stiff. Tifa had her hands on her hips, but Aerith spotted a white bandage snaking up the right leg and disappearing underneath her clothes, a similar one wrapped about her head so tufts of the dark hair poked out at vaguely comical angles.
"I see you just couldn't resist destroying the place," she murmured softly.
"Aerith!" Tifa exclaimed and turned, bounding across to her with only the vaguest hint of a limp, arms encircling her and pressing her close to her. "I was worried, it took a while!"
"I'm sorry," she said, muffled into Tifa's shoulder as she held on just as tightly in return, "I didn't mean to worry you."
"You always worry me, in a good way though. Ah, don't mind the bandages, one pesky blighter decided to take a chomp from me. What can I say, I taste good."
Cloud opened his mouth, but Tifa shot him an icy look, "Don't even say it!"
"Whaaat? You make me out to be such a jerk."
"Not a jerk, just a smartass."
Aerith smiled and looked over at Yuffie who was studiously trying to ignore them all, working the green globe of materia about in her deft fingers, the magic coming to her call easily. When would she ever have the time or situation to explain to Yuffie about who she was, or what she was?
"So, what happened?"
"It's to do with the Black Materia. When Sephiroth removed it from the temple area, the protective magic about it failed. As long as it remains outside of the influence of the Planet, the magic will continue to call to those who share a genetic nature with Sephiroth and Jenova. Jenova had children…" She frowned a little, "This isn't going to be easy to explain."
"Just tell us slowly then," Vincent advised, pushing Yuffie's fingers to the side.
"Alright." Aerith nodded, more to assure herself than anything, "Jenova, an alien from the skies as Cetra originally once were, a migration type race. Once perhaps, her race had not been evil, but the proximity of the black materia made everything worse for her, those primal, unformed instincts inside her… see, the white materia was made of this world, shaped by Cetra love and cares to speak to the world beneath them more clearly. The Black Materia came from outer space, a chunk of a meteorite perhaps, black as the skies and with a million stars inside it. The radiation of it was enough to draw Jenova close by, on another mission to somewhere else. Cetra history states her as a destroyer, but before the radiation of the materia at such close nature and when it was not around her; Jenova was as any other normal person. She could love, and did love; a man called Arkilles and with him, had children.
"But one day, the effects of the materia were so great that she was pushed to many terrible and insane acts, acts that would give her the name 'Calamity from the Skies.' They tracked her finally to the Knowlespole where, upon demanding she give up the materia, she did not. Arkilles was forced to attack his own wife and trapped her in the lifestream, eventually becoming that 'geological stratum' that Professor Gast discovered. But long after they hid away the materia, Jenova's genetic legacy fused with the blood of Cetra and eventually human blood continued. The cells of Jenova were enough to resist the madness of the virus which changed so many Cetra into monsters. But when Sephiroth moved the Black Materia, it began to radiate dark energy again into this world. The dying thoughts of Jenova, the last wishes of her to see this world destroyed passed to Sephiroth and to some extent, those creatures.
"Those things, monsters, changed by the resurfacing of the Black Materia. Once they were probably as human as Cid there, but now only their wish to destroy Cetra and reclaim the materia to destroy the world lingers on, echoing faintly inside them, changing them. So we have to go and find that materia and for the good of this world, seal it away." Aerith paused there, unable to explain just now what would be required to seal it away.
Their faces looked upon her, all eyes sombre and thoughtful, each one sparkling with something unsaid and she bent her head a little. Finally, to break this silence, Yuffie snorted, "Alright but I got one quibble."
"What's that, Yuffie," Tifa said.
"Since when was Cid human? He's half tar by now."
After the sounds of the visitors faded away, the shadow of Arkilles sighed heavily, looking down towards the floor where the young, or perhaps, not so young now Cetra had stood, seeking salvation from someone long past such martyred acts of forgiveness.
Everything she had achieved was incredible; that the Planet whispered so strongly of her, down through the legacy of a 'shared memory' between Cetra, it filled him with awe and pride to look upon her. She was frailer than he would have thought, with a nervous smile, unsure if she should be smiling. But despite the soft colours and the long, wisps of soft brown hair and her soft skin and soft way of speaking; Arkilles had seen the veiled steel in those green eyes.
"So you should be proud," he said softly.
His sister did not answer him. Unlike Arkilles who had chosen to linger between life and death, K'listo had slipped into the lifestream and faded away. The spiritual energy that had sustained her physical form was given away to create new life. That which remained, her memories would sometimes speak to him through the hive mind that dawned through centuries of Cetra existence.
Instead, another voice spoke quietly to him, another figure in a robe but this one a soft green with a white lining to the hood. It materialised close to the door, of a similar build to the Cetra who had left. "I am prouder than anyone."
"She has done so well, in such a short space of time."
"She will keep this world safe, she will take care of it, for now and generations to come." The hood tilted a little, a hint of feminine chin underneath with straight bangs of pale brown hair peeping out. "But she did not ask."
"No."
Aerith had not once asked Arkilles what the price to pay would be, she had not asked what she would be made to sacrifice yet again. She had never asked, and Arkilles wondered if he could blame her, for the knowledge the last time had almost broken the gentle flower.
"I wonder, if she will be truly willing to pay the price that the Planet will ask of her."
"Maybe, but there may yet be rewards to come."
"I do not doubt it. The planet she cherishes and which cherishes her, it will keep her at all costs."
"You speak so coldly of it," Arkilles admonished, stepping to the door and beginning the routine of fading back to the stream of life, a home and yet not a home all at once. But even as he did, he heard her speaking;
"She is truly my daughter, then."
The air from up this high was cold and it brushed her skin brusquely, her dark hair rising up in streamers from her beautiful, pensive face. Her skin was still alabaster pale and her eyes as dark as the depths of night, filled with mystery.
Her hands were curled over the railing and despite the ague of muscles spent without fighting for so long, she felt refreshed, alive. The burning fire of yesterday she had thought faded and dying was again there, swaying strong in her chest, filling her with a zeal for this life and this place she was in. Beyond the rails of the airship as it flew silently in the night was a valley of darkness and the glowing distant crest of the forest, the spires of a broken and forgotten city and the sea, stretching out far past the white capped peaks. The sky, midnight with a moon that was a bare slinky slice of pearl white, glowing brightly, was dotted with a thousand or more stars.
It had been so long since Aerith had been taken from them, long since she had forgotten the betrayal of a childhood and the fires that burned her dreams. But now, with the re-emergence of the black materia and the threat it could generate to not only Aerith but those who shared an unwitting genetic link with Jenova, the shadow of that memory was there once again, gnawing away at her.
Tifa had no way to express with words the way she felt about this new path, the way she wanted to ignore it all by sticking her head into the proverbial sand and hoping it would all fade away. She didn't have to say such things aloud, but she had seen the same feeling mirrored in Cloud's blue eyes when Aerith had spoken hesitantly about what he happened within the room, hidden away from the world for so very long. In those blue, blue eyes of his had been deep fear, the same fear she knew festered in her heart.
As the wind whistled past her soundlessly, she closed her eyes against the pressure, the almost ghostly tears pushed upwards against her eyelids and in small diamonds of water, flicked away from her face into the night and for a brief moment a wild, fey side of her could almost imagine those helpless tears becoming stars.
"She said that there would be somewhere else, there would always be more things for her to do. But even when she said those words, I fooled myself into thinking that it would be different, that it was an errand, not something so large or vast or… that she would be mine alone." Tifa turned her head a little, black hair whipping around her pale features and her hands tightening more on the metal railing, the bandages pulling tightly.
"But that's not enough," she continued sadly, "It's never enough, there's always something more. I want it to go away, forever. I want to have a future, not be chained by the past. And now, with where we're going, there will be fire and pain and sadness. All I see is a loss ahead of me and the darkness behind me. Am I so wrong in thinking this?"
"No." Vincent stepped from the shadows on the deck to come to her side. The red scarf he wore with his impeccable suit whipped up with her hair at the rush of air, his own banged hairstyle flaring so his red eyes seemed to glow thoughtfully. Tifa looked at him, really took a good look at the man who had once been a turk – despite his own difficulties, Vincent was still an attractive if stoically silent man. His very presence was a wordless comfort at her side.
"What do you think?"
"It is her path."
"I know but…"
"Would you set it aside for love? Is love not being able to say, 'this might be the future, yet I shall continue with you, because I want to, because you need me more than ever when the worst comes to call'?" His eyes burned her.
"It should be," Tifa lowered her eyes to the world revolving below them.
"This journey, more than the previous one, is about us all. We are growing together, learning to fit ourselves together like a puzzle without a defined pattern. You and Aerith, the love you share shall overcome anything." He touched her shoulder with fingertips, only those. "It has already transcended death."
Tifa whispered softly then, "I am scared though."
"Good."
"Good?"
"You still have enough reason to be scared, maybe it will help you face whatever will come without the blindness of those days before. Where love bloomed without dreams of ill, those days…"
"Those days," Tifa smiled and then laughed, "You weren't nearly so forthcoming, back then."
"I have changed," Vincent said gruffly. "It is all your faults."
Her laughter was honest and shatteringly sane, filled with raw grief, fear and sweet joy, it felt so good to laugh so much and for so little. It surprised her so much that even as she laughed, she cried happily.
Because she was sure, more than ever, that she would find those answers…
…there was… water?
The water was beautiful, a smooth crystal surface of a mirror that reflected a sky of diamonds and the burning fire of a far flung world, millions of worlds, effervescent with energy and life. She walked across the water, the surface as steady as a paved pathway, but each step sent ripples outward, chiming softly with music, every step a new note.
She wore a rippling dress of black made from the night sky and her hair was long, a river of darkness that swirled out and away from her skin, bronzed like the sunshine. Upon the forehead was the eternal kiss of the moon, the sickle reminder of the love it bore for her in the night, limned with pale blue fire. Her eyes were dark as the sky but as deep as the water below her.
Far away was a city of glass and dreams and towards it she walked slowly, everything rippling around her and the stars, high overhead, coming down in slow, sparkling spirals of action and love.
"Be Heartless." The voice commanded her.
"I cannot give away a heart that has never known love." She replied to the moon overhead, the twinkling eyes of the night as she grew closer to the far distant city.
"Take from those hearts that know it then, take it away always. Take the love away so that you may never be loveless yourself."
"I cannot."
"Can you not? Can you? You say so, but time will prove otherwise, Daughter of mine, daughter of the stars and the moon."
The woman was on the highest perch of the tower, looking down at her, robed in blood. It dripped down the sides of the tower, staining it darkly, lurid and slick. The smell of the coppery blood made her want to vomit, but she somehow valiantly held it in, her gaze steady and her voice proud under the glare of those cat-like, amber-green eyes.
"I will not."
"Then the water will claim you."
She sank slowly into the water, bit by chilling bit, but she never once took her eyes from the woman, even as with a screech the horror fell from the tower. Hands clamped about her neck, fingers scrabbling for her chest and with sharp nails, rending her skin and clawing her still beating heart out as the water swallowed them both.
Even then, proudly, she did not cry out as the sad man in black robes watched just as proudly on…the wavering moon of the second month slowly shimmering, breaking apart…
…there was…for now, water…