Chapter Forty-Six: A Choice Regretted
"Yo, where are you, Seph? President's looking for you and he doesn't look so happy." Reno peeked around corners, searching for the Soldier. "Going AWOL would not be cool right now, man…"
Reno turned another corner to find Sephiroth leaning against a wall, his eyes closed and his face covered by his hands. Zack's voice came from an intercom that had been dropped to the floor. "Hey, Seph! Seph, are you there…?"
Reno cautiously advanced forward. "Hey man…are you sick or something? You don't look so hot."
Sephiroth slowly raised his head but did not look at Reno. Instead, his gaze wandered out the window, toward the rapidly collapsing building. He stood in shock, his eyes seeing something other than the scene in front of him. He wavered and fell against the wall, slumping to his knees as another tremor shook the building, another flame flaring dangerously high.
"I'll get a doctor!" Reno said, panicking. "Just stay put and…yeah!"
"Sephiroth!" the radio yelled back at the general. "Snap out of it! If we leave her now, she doesn't stand a chance! Get it together!"
Sephiroth couldn't move, and though he wished with all his might that he could, he was unable to tear his eyes away from the nightmare before him. Somewhere in that building, Aralyn was trapped.
"Aralyn," he groaned.
"There's still a chance!" Zack urged from the radio. "Look, you take it easy. I'm going in. Stop looking at the building, it'll kill you too!"
Sephiroth stayed there for literally minutes after Zack stopped speaking to him. Soon footsteps approached, and he somehow managed to pull himself to his feet despite the sudden weakness that had taken hold of him.
"Hey, looks like he's fine after all!" Reno said, waving the white clad scientists away. "Ha ha, Sephiroth, very funny. I'll get you back later, but the President kind of needs his bodyguard."
Sephiroth began walking mechanically past Reno, turning in the opposite direction from the President's office. "Hey, your brain scrambled or something?" He threw himself in the general's way.
Finally, Sephiroth granted his attention to the red headed Turk in the form of a lethal glare. Reno blanched. "Um…that way." He said, pointing a finger in the opposite direction. "Orders are orders…"
Sephiroth extended a hand and knocked the Turk out of his way. Reno pulled himself up and called after him. "You're going against orders! What's wrong with you?"
Sephiroth didn't stop, and determinedly walked away.
Soon more guards were in his way. He met them with the same stone silence, not bothering to explain as he threw them aside. "Someone get the President," a guard called.
The general didn't care about the consequences of his actions at this point.
He met up with Zack at the door to the building. Zack shook his head. "I want you to stay out. I promise I'll bring her back."
"Why?" he countered, though he knew the reason, and the thought made his grip on his Masamune tighten until his knuckles were white.
"Look, I know you're a seasoned Soldier and all - heck, you've got years on me - but well…I don't want you to see this."
Sephiroth didn't bother to respond. He pushed Zack away and severed a beam that had fallen across the doorway. As the beam fell, a large stack of debris that it had been holding at bay came rushing down in a gray avalanche. Small pieces of stone and wood struck the two men, but both remained unharmed as the dust cleared.
"We haven't even gone in yet," Zack murmured.
"Aralyn is in there." With that, Sephiroth strode past the doorway, his posture much too tense and worried to match his calm mask. The fires that greeted him flickered in his eyes, and he looked very much like a demon.
Zack grit his teeth, shouldered his sword, and followed.