I have returned.
Only one or two more chapters. I hope all of you enjoyed reading this story, even if there was a huge break in the story, and the events moved rather swiftly.
Everyone could simply stare at the Sephiroth, Vanille hybrid being. The large group of warriors began slowly walking backwards in order to escape the immediate kill zone of the Masamune.
"Not a body I would choose, but you would have expected me to use Kadaj," Sephiroth said to the group, partially explaining his choice.
"But why Vanille?" Fang half yelled at Sephiroth.
"I would have used you, but Ragnarok is preventing me from doing that," Fang took a step back as if she had been struck "You didn't know? I thought that would be something mister Valentine would have told you about."
Fang turned to Vincent with a look that showed she wanted to taste blood and did not care who it would be from "Why would you have to tell me?"
"I will explain later. Focus on Sephiroth," Vincent said quickly.
Suddenly, without any warning, Cloud charged forward with his sword above his head. Cloud launched off the ground directly towards Sephiroth with both hands on the handle of his Fusion Sword. Bringing the sword down with every ounce of power Cloud could summon, there was nearly no way the attack could be blocked. No human could block the attack, but Sephiroth had been far from human since the day he was created.
A flash of steel and an instant later Cloud was flipping end over end towards the group. Vanille was standing with her left arm crossing her front and the Masamune pointing to the right. She relaxed her arm and moved her arms and shoulders around.
"That took a surprising amount of strength," Vanille said with a confused tone "Humans are weak. Can't even handle the simplest tasks in my arsenal," Vanille started walking forwards. As she strode forward, her clothes faded to a undefined ink black form and distorted.
Vanille's clothes grew black tendrils that snaked their way over her body until they formed pants, boots, sleeves, gloves, a cape like coat, and large shoulder pads. The ink like black slid away until the shoulder pads turned into white steel and the rest of the clothes became black leather. The white steel pauldrons were obviously to large for Vanille's small frame, but that quickly was becoming a small issue.
Everyone could see Vanille's arms, legs, and torso stretching and growing, becoming a more masculine frame. A frame identical to Sephiroth. As the bones and muscle in her body and face morphed they all could hear rapid popping of bone and tearing of muscle. Simultaneously, Vanille's hair fell out of her usual pigtails, grew longer and started turning silver; kept on growing until it was the same length as Sephiroth's. All but one lock of hair turned silver.
Within a span of one minute, the person in standing in front of the group had transformed from Vanille to Sephiroth. Sephiroth had one lock of Vanille's bright orange hair is his right peaked bang just to remind them all that he was inhabiting Vanille's body.
"This is much better," Sephiroth said to himself. He lifted his right hand over his left arm and placed the Black Materia on his arm. Giving a small push, the materia slid into his arm. Sephiroth's gaze slid upwards as his hand moved away from his left arm and suddenly, he vanished.
Everyone heard someone get hit in the gut and noticed Sephiroth standing slightly in front of where Cloud had been standing. The group of warriors scattered to flee Sephiroth's definite kill range, the area where the Masamune could reach and kill anyone without resistance. Sephiroth straightened from the post-punch stance and strode over to the blond warrior.
Cloud was on his feet in an instant and charged at the tall silver haired nightmare. Out of his peripheral vision, Cloud saw every gun wielder ready their firearms. The Masamune sliced through the air in a horizontal attack, making Cloud raise his fusion blade vertically to defend against the would be decapitation slash. Partially solid ground abandoned Cloud's feet the moment after the Masamune collided with the fusion blade, the world began to tilt and soon after slammed into Cloud's back. The uneven landing sent Cloud tumbling across the beach, the loose sand acting more like a cushion than a barrier.
Ligthning watched Cloud leave the ground once again, and Blaze Edge was in gun mode in an instant. She did not hesitate in releasing a salvo of bullets towards Sephiroth. Barret, Vincent and Sazh joined the gunfire at almost the exact same time. Even though they have all seen things that seemed impossible in their wildest dreams, Sephiroth amazed them once more.
The elite soldier was blocking countless shots from four directions. The Masamune ceased to be a sword and became a spherical shield around Sephiroth, cutting every bullet out of the air long before they got close to him. Vincent holstered Cerberus when everyone had to reload and let all of his mental defenses against Chaos, fall. Sephiroth turned to the gunslinger, extended his arm and spoke.
"Lets keep those beasts under control," the light from Vincents chest that showed Chaos breaking through quickly diminished and vanished entirely.
"Unbelievable," Vincent muttered while quickly drawing Cerberus to continue shooting at Sephiroth.
The gun wielders gave up after a solid minute of shooting at Sephiroth. It was impossible to hit him with a bullet outside the range of two feet. Cloud and Lightning charged towards Sephiroth to force him onto close combat. Sords flew through the air, and the three of them were crossing the beach quickly, approaching the road where reporters and civilians stood.
Sephiroth was able to get out of Cloud and Lightning's pincer attack and positioned himself so they were both in front of him, with their backs to the road. One powerful slash made the two heroes stumble and a second one sent them flying. Lightning spun off to Sephiroth's left, tumbling onto the sand and Cloud sailed backwards up to the road and into the side of a news van.
The people screamed and began running away from the scene as Sephiroth walked up the beach to where Cloud had landed. Every news person on the scene dropped their equipment and sprinted away. Cloud ignored the immense pain in his back and stood again to fight the self proclaimed god.
Tires squealing made Cloud look around. All the vehicles in the area slid away from him and Sephiroth forming a half circle twenty feet wide. The power of Sephiroth would never cease to amaze the blond warrior. The Masamune rose into the air as Sephiroth readied another attack.
Before the sword could part the air, a shot rang out. Sparks exploded from the hilt of the Masamune and it tumbled out of Sephiroth's hand, across the pavement and landed fifty feet away from the black clothed elite. Cloud knew that who ever fired that shot was soon to be killed or severely injured, Sephiroth's gaze sliding towards the direction of the shot's origin was the obvious clue.
"How was that?" A black haired women said into a headset radio.
"Great shot Lebreau. Now take him out," Snow said from the ground. The group other than Lightning had gathered and tried to think of a plan. Their best idea so far was a sniper. Snow saw his friend with ink black hair turn and give a thumbs up from the roof of her beach side cafe and bar, 7th heaven.
Suddenly, a fireball the size of a car exploded out of the door. Most of the roof had caved in and Lebreau had disappeared into the smoke.
"Lebreau!" Snow yelled as loud as he could and charged towards the flaming building. He knew there was no way in through the front of the burning building. The tall blond sprinted around the back, closely followed by the large group former l'Cie, NORA, and Avalanche.
They found Lebreau lying on the ground trying to slap out flames that had latched onto her shorts. Vincent up in front of the group, to Lebreau, and used his cape to suffocate the flames. Vincent lifted the black haired sniper and handed her to Snow, the gunslingers message was clear, the message of get her to the hospital. The flames had melted part of Lebreau's shorts, boiling the skin and causing damage that she would never recover from.
Cloud was quickly getting overwhelmed by the sheer strength of Sephiroth. It was confusing to try to think of how Sephiroth could get stronger from being dead for an extended time. Sephiroth had warped the Masamune back into his hand and was trying to dismember the blond warrior. Every time the abnormally long silver blade slammed into Cloud's huge fusion sword, the muscles in his arms grew more fatigued. Knowing he would not last much longer against the nightmare, Cloud prayed for a miracle.
Lightning had considered removing her boots so she could effectively sneak up to Sephiroth, but did not because of what could be on the ground. Silently she walked, slowly, stealthily, hoping Sephiroth would not pick up on her presence. Lightning watched Sephiroth move the Masamune into his rest position and catch her reflection. Her eyes widened at the sight, but she kept moving forward to take this chance. A white van shifting attracted her gaze, the very instant it left the ground Lightning dropped to the ground.
The large vehicle launched towards her and nearly bounced off the top of her head. The van crumpled as it rolled across the ground behind Lightning. She looked back at Sephiroth who was half way through a downward slash at her neck. Quickly rolling to the side, the blade barely missed her and got imbedded in the concrete.
Cloud sprinted up behind Sephiorth and received a hard back kick to the chest. Cement crashed into the back of Clouds head and he knew blood was now oozing out of the wound. Sephiroth spun away from Cloud and threw his fist into Lightning's back as she was racing to her feet. Being forcefully slammed back onto the ground robbed Lightning of her breath and bruised several ribs. She could not even fathom trying to get up off the ground again with Sephiroth standing over her. Cloud on the other hand, lying less than twenty feet away, felt his consciousness slipping as his vision wavered between a crystal clear view of the cloudless sky and fading to black.
Sephiroth could not really believe this situation. He was standing between the two most annoying enemies he had ever encountered and they were on the ground ready to die. It would not be good enough to simply kill them now, he had to publicize this event somehow. The news van off to the side most likely had a camera of some sort. He remembered seeing a reporter flee the scene as he approached the area so that camera should be close by.
"There it is," Sephiroth said quietly as he spotted the aerial camera. He levitated the camera over to him and activated it, making look down on the scene.
Hope despised Math class with a passion. It was just so boring and drawn out. He wanted something to happen, anything to make this day more interesting. The television suddenly turned on without warning, grabbing the attention of everyone in the room including the teacher. The static on the screen screeched for a full minute before anything happened. The screen changed to a picture of a top down view of three people with swords. A man lying on the ground with a large sword, a woman lying on the ground with a small sword in her hand and someone standing, holding a very long sword.
Without even thinking, Hope yelled loudly "Lightning!"
The view zoomed in on the man standing, the man with long silver hair and a long black coat. The man looked up at the camera and smiled, his cat like bright green eyes flashing with madness.
"Hello citizens of Cocoon, today I kill the two that saved your world."