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This is an FFVII fanfic by kleptomanic0. The characters are not mine and never were. Otherwise Yuffie and Vincent would be proper characters, not secret characters, and have their own CG moments of glory. I swear, those two are the worst kept secrets in video game history.
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Once they had eaten and rested, the two travelers moved on. Aeris was relaxed despite her rough dinner, and she did not really pay attention to her surroundings. That was why when the Allemange dropped down from the ceiling and flew at them, screeching, she stayed where she was and blinked stupidly. The thought that went through her head was "Oh. Well, that's unexpected..."
Luckily Sephiroth was not stunned. With the reflexes that had made him famous he swept Aeris out of harm's way with one hand and scooped up a rock with the other. Then, pivoting neatly on one foot, he hurled the stone at the offensive creature, smiling in satisfaction as the rock, thrown with all the superhuman strength a top SOLDIER could muster, went right through the beast's giant eyeball and exploded out the other side. With a dying shriek the monster toppled to the ground, and as its meaty carcass hit the floor with a wet thump, a weapon skittered out of its outstretched wings. Sephiroth ran forward to investigate, and a grunt of irritation he picked up a fanciful gold-headed staff.
"Well, this is useless," he muttered as he turned it to and fro. Clearly it had been made for a woman, being as slender and delicate as it was. Aeris, rising from the floor, gasped in surprise.
"The Princess Guard!" She exclaimed, running forward and taking it from Sephiroth, who looked at her in surprise. "This was the last staff I used," she explained, running her hands fondly over its lacquered surface. It seemed to warm up under her grasp and Aeris had the fleeting fancy that it was pleased to see her. Or maybe that was because she was just happy to see it. Inspecting the materia, Aeris touched the orbs to identify them and blinked in surprise. "Oh! It seems the Planet is still taking care of me..."
"What do you mean?" Sephiroth asked, looking at the staff.
"Well, I'm pretty sure that these weren't the materia I had in there last..." Aeris said, turning the staff around. Materia of all colors glowed in the staff's slots and she ran her fingers over them, naming each piece as she touched it. "Restore, Revive, All, HP Plus, MP Plus, Barrier and...Final Attack?"
"Let me see that." Sephiroth took her staff and inspected it. "What, no attack materia?"
She shrugged. "Oh well. Can't have it all, I suppose." Aeris frowned as Sephiroth began to rearrange her materia. "What are you doing?"
"Getting this into order." He muttered, efficiently popping the magic spheres from slot to slot. "Is this all you have?"
"Well, it's all that was in the staff..."
"Do you have armor on?"
Aeris checked and sure enough, there was a Dragon Bangle on her arm. But no materia. Sephiroth took this in with a glance and snorted in annoyance. He handed the staff back to her and looked around. "Well, let's get going," he said, and walked off. Aeris followed after him, twirling the staff in her fingertips so the elaborate head spun in golden circles.
They walked on for several hours—or rather, Sephiroth walked and Aeris jogged, seeing as he had the longer legs and could stroll faster than most people could easily walk. Luckily, he noticed when she was getting tired and they took a rest in a small bubble of a cavern, Sephiroth leaning against one rounded wall and Aeris sitting down on the floor. The Cetra pulled out a bundle of leaves she had stuffed into her jacket earlier and began to munch on them to quell her hunger pangs. Sephiroth studied her for a moment before looking around and stepping away from the wall.
"I'm going to hunt," he said.
Aeris looked at him curiously. "Hunt what?" She asked. "I don't think there are any more underground lakes around here..."
"There aren't," Sephiroth said. "But there is meat, so..."
Aeris thought for a moment and blanched as something suddenly occurred to her. "Oh, sick! You're not going to eat a monster, are you?"
"I might," Sephiroth said seriously. "It wouldn't be the first time. The Wutaiese did a very good job of cutting off our supplies during the War."
Aeris perked up. "The War?"
Sephiroth frowned at her. "You don't know about the War?"
She shook her head. "Not really. I mean, I knew it was going on, but Mom never read the papers or watched TV, so..."
"You do know we won, right?" Sephiroth asked, his face perfectly blank.
Aeris glared at him. "I lived in the slums, not a cave."
"Just checking."
Aeris popped a leaf into her mouth and chewed it thoughtfully. "So...what was it like?"
"The War?" Sephiroth inquired. When Aeris nodded, he said simply, "Fun."
"Fun?" Aeris repeated, her eyebrows shooting up in skepticism.
Sephiroth nodded. "War is complete chaos. On the battlefield, the strongest one rules, and, well..." He grinned. Sobering, he added, "I'm sure to the others it was hell, but for me, it was paradise."
"You like killing?" Aeris asked with more than a hint of acid in her voice.
"Killing is easy," Sephiroth said. "But no. What I liked about the War was that there wasn't anyone who could tell me what to do, no one to make me do something I didn't want to. I was in the commander-in-chief of the combined armed forces; even President Shinra couldn't order me."
Aeris's eyes widened in surprise. "Really?"
Sephiroth nodded and glanced off to the side. "Of course, once the War ended, I was stripped of a lot of my so-called 'emergency powers' and became something of a glorified clerk... Filing reports, writing condolence letters, sitting in executive meetings..."
"Sounds fun," Aeris said, chewing another leaf.
Sephiroth smiled insincerely, his eyes narrowing. "Just wonderful."
"So is that why you took the Nibelheim mission?" Aeris asked, looking at him. "Because I've always wondered why they sent a hotshot like you to do something as simple as kill monsters."
Sephiroth nodded. "It was an easy mission, but I would have done anything to get out of that building—out of Midgar. The noise and the tedium were driving me insane."
Aeris frowned. "The tedium I get, but...the noise?"
Sephiroth tapped his ear. "The downside of supersensitive hearing is that you pick sounds whether you want to or not. The traffic in Midgar was driving me crazy."
Aeris wondered if Cloud's hearing was that sensitive, but all she could recall about listening was Red XIII—no, Nanaki—catching noises before anybody else did. He was AVALANCHE's pre-emptive materia.
"I thought it was the stuff in the Shinra Mansion that did that," Aeris said before she could stop herself.
Sephiroth looked at her sharply, his suddenly hostile emerald gaze making her breath catch. Minutes ticked by. Then, imperceptibly, he relaxed and sighed.
"Yes and no, in a fashion," he said. "I knew I was an experiment—I grew up in Hojo's laboratory, after all; I'd have to be braindead if I didn't remember that. Finding out I was something of a test-tube child didn't surprise me.
"No, it was finding out exactly what was in me that, as you say, drove me insane. I always wondered what I was, and those journals answered a lot of my questions." He smiled and asked, "How did you feel when you realized you had a higher purpose?"
Aeris stopped eating and looked at him for a long moment, her eyes turning hard. "Keep talking like that," she said, "and I won't heal you anymore."
Sephiroth held up his hands in a placating gesture. "It was a rhetorical question. I'm just saying—"
"I get what you're saying," Aeris said sharply. "So that was why you set Nibelheim on fire and killed all those people?"
"Nibelheim was already on fire by the time I got out there," Sephiroth replied. "Summer lightning, as I recall. And I killed some people, true, but that was because they grabbed me."
"They grabbed you?" Aeris repeated incredulously.
"I really, really hate being touched." Sephiroth said evenly.
Evidently.
"Besides, I had more important things to attend to," Sephiroth said, lacing his hands together and resting his elbows on his knees. "Jenova had the final answers to my questions."
"Jenova?" Aeris inquired. "Not...Mother?"
Was it her imagination, or did Sephiroth look embarrassed? "I've learned that a genetic progenitor is no substitute for a real parent," he replied. "And between you and me, she was a one bitch of a taskmistress."
Something about Sephiroth saying the word 'bitch' struck Aeris as funny and she giggled despite herself. Sephiroth continued talking, either ignoring her giggling or taking it as a cue to talk on.
"She led me on with promises of telling me what I was really alive for, but if I didn't like her plans or displayed even the slightest hint of individuality, she gave me the most godawful migraines on the Planet. Once I banged my head against a wall until I nearly had brain damage just to make them stop."
Aeris stopped laughing. He was serious, she realized. Disquiet began to build in Aeris's chest as Sephiroth continued talking to her, or rather, at her.
"I didn't see any real point in killing you—all I had to do was take the White Materia away, and then you wouldn't be able to summon Holy—but Jenova had a personal vendetta against anything with Cetra blood, and she made me feel like my brain feel like it was covered in acid until I killed you.
"And that's to say nothing about the talking. Do you have any idea how painful it is to be used as someone's mouthpiece? It's like suffocating, only worse. All of a sudden, your vocal cords, your lungs, your diaphragm, they're all being manually operated by someone else who hasn't the vaguest idea of what they're doing. Not to mention that she made me say some very stupid things..." Sephiroth snorted. "They will live again as part of me—what a load of crap. I can't believe I bought into her bullshit..."
It sounded like Jenova had been to Sephiroth what Sephiroth had been to Cloud. Aeris couldn't help but feel just a little sorry for him and instantly she was disgusted at herself. The man had killed her for the Planet's sake. He was not going to get on her good side so easily, even if he hadn't done it of his own volition.
Sephiroth rested his chin atop his laced fingers and got a look on his face that was quintessential brooding; the look, however, was somewhat spoiled by his neon-like Mako eyes, which shone through his thick, dark lashes and gave the impression that he was staring at her. Aeris ate some leaves and tried not to be creeped out.
"Stay here," Sephiroth said suddenly, rising to his feet. "Don't move until I come back."
"Where are you going?" Aeris asked, suddenly worried.
"To get something to eat," Sephiroth said. "I'll find some moss for you."
Aeris couldn't decide if he was mocking her or being considerate; his tone of voice could have applied to either. In the end she decided to take the comment graciously.
"Thanks, but what if you get injured?" Aeris asked, looking up and him and frowning.
An interesting play of emotions ran over Sephiroth's face, most of them too quick to catch. Aeris did recognize annoyance, however, and also chagrin. She guessed he had just remembered he wasn't invincible anymore.
"Then I'll crawl back," he said shortly. "Just wait here."
He stalked off and left Aeris by herself in the little cavern, munching on her leaves and spinning her materia in the Princess Guard's slots.
Author's note:
Loooooots of meaningless ramble in this one, but it just flowed so easily... As always, read and review. Constructive criticism is always appreciated.
And if you get the chance, check out the fic "Why Waist Length?". It's fairly recent but absolute gold. Kudos to the author and the concept, which is a different look at Sephiroth's descent into madness. Fast-moving midgets, Sephiroth says, "Roll over," hahaha...