Chapter 105 - Shadows
September, 2002
The air outside is crisp as Sephiroth escapes the reactor. His mind runs too quickly, sifting through his control. The pressure of the conversation in the reactor chamber releases like a burst valve in his mind. He's hurt. It's like a delayed realization of a wound taken in battle. He's hurt in a way that he cannot fix with magic or a bandage. He is pouring out of himself. The shake in Sephiroth's hands won't stop. If anything, it grows up into his arms.
The pain comes from deep, confusingly deep, a place that he thought that he could only bury his feelings. The only location in his body where they could not strike back against him.
A monster.
He tries to breathe, forcing the air through his lungs in a way that must keep him alive. His heart pumps with a franticness that he cannot acknowledge. He needs to leave the reactor. He needs to leave this place. He no longer belongs to these people. That is something that he can concentrate on.
It bleeds out of him again.
Genesis had said that he is a monster like the dead one on the floor.
He should ignore these words. Genesis is no longer Genesis. He is a man who smiles at the words that hurt Sephiroth and then dug the knife in deeper. Yet, the words fit. They fit like the gloves that he wears into battle. They answer the questions swirling in his head.
No. Maybe Genesis is now a monster who would turn on someone he cared about.
But didn't Sephiroth just do the same?
Did he not turn his back on his old friend?
Sephiroth takes the stair steps one at a time, forcing himself to slow down. He wants to run away but this is not a physical problem. No one is attacking him. The physical danger is behind him. He will not run away like a five year old child. That is illogical. He will leave with grace.
It hurts his muscles, tying them tight to walk away.
He will leave with as much honor as he can muster.
Genesis doesn't follow him. Sephiroth would hear him coming but they both know that Genesis will not follow him. Why would he? He knows now that he isn't going to get what he wants. He wouldn't follow him because he cares about Sephiroth. That is an unreasonable expectation now.
Sephiroth's head spins. The thoughts are unfiltered. He puts his hand on the rail. It's solid and cold. It does nothing to anchor him. A monster. The cage. The insane words that Genesis said are sinking into his skin. These were the same mutated men that Mariella pitied. Is that why she helped Sephiroth? She helped him because she pitied him. She tried to fix him. Her hands steady in their mission to change the sickness, to change who he was.
Is his blood the only thing worth anything to anyone? Isn't that what Hojo inferred? He would be confined if he returned. His skills could not be used in R&D. They wouldn't make him fight the monsters. There is no point of that when there is a perfectly fine simulation of his prowess available. No, they would be experimenting on him surely, studying his biology and injecting him with substances until he falls apart.
As he leaves Shinra, he'll be hunted down like an animal for his pieces, he realizes.
He won't be hunted down like a person on the run who knows too much.
The Turks will be after the pounds of his flesh.
Sephiroth has always known there is value in his corpse, just like Angeal's, but he did not realize it overshadows his worth as a person. Sephiroth needs a plan. He needs to focus on something. Where is he going next? He needs to understand his next move. This is how he has always operated, moving forward.
It is useless. It is as if the plan has been dropped on the floor, the pieces scattering in a way that he is not sure how to pick up.
"Sir, is everything alright in there?"
The question jolts him out of his thoughts. Sephiroth stands at the bottom of the stairs. He hasn't moved for minutes.
It's the infantry man who asks the question. It's Zack's friend, Cloud. The near child of a soldier. The helmet is overshadowing his face but there is concern in the way he's reaching out to him. His hand is open. Sephiroth could use a hand to hold. He needs an anchor but there is no way he will take it.
What a pointless gesture.
Cloud doesn't even know him and he is reaching out. A stranger is extending his help because Sephiroth is useless.
"Why are you doing that?" The question comes out of him sharper than he intended.
"Sir?" The hand falters and drops back to his side. "I don't understand."
Talking to him focuses Sephiroth on something. Cloud doesn't know him. He doesn't know anything. He isn't even in SOLDIER. This is an outside perspective. Zack would have influenced him partially but this is as close to what the rest of Shinra thinks of him.
"What do you see when you look at me?" Sephiroth fights a crack in his voice and keeps himself steadier than he is. "What makes you think that I am worth that?"
Cloud looks away. The girl, the guide, has stepped away. Her back is to them as she throws rocks down the side of the canyon.
"I see…you? Sephiroth? A war hero?" The words stutter out of him.
A war hero. Of course. The moniker that has followed him his entire life.
"Why that?"
Even if he can't see the blush, he can hear it in his voice. "Sir, you are the reason that I joined. I wanted to be in SOLDIER like you. You are an incredible fighter. You are undefeated. I saw all those photos of you out in the field, covered in blood and Wutai all around you. I…wanted that. I wanted to be that strong."
The blood runs cold in him.
"A mistake."
Cloud's head tilts.
"Sir?"
Sephiroth turns away. Even Cloud thinks that he is a monster in his own way. It's the blood that he has spilled that is most important to him. A product of his life, not his life itself that is most important.
Gods. He wishes for Angeal and hates himself for it. He shouldn't need it. He shouldn't want someone who has damaged him so badly with his death. Yet, he would tell those patient eyes everything. If they were together before last year, Sephiroth would have cracked himself open and poured open the thoughts around him. Angeal would have sorted him through it. He would be able to straighten the truth from the hurt that Genesis has pulled deep from his bones.
Angeal is not here.
Angeal is dead.
He leaves Cloud behind. He doesn't turn around when the man shouts in alarm and gunshots go off.
The dust flies up from the sides of the mountains as Sephiroth traces their path back down it. The mountain path carves steeply away. He can't even imagine what Angeal would say to him. All that comes back to him is the shadowed gray face and the coldness of the last time that Sephiroth held his hands.
Everything has been ruined.
Nothing has stayed the same.
Gods, he doesn't even have a place to call his own now. He cannot retreat back to his apartment. It's no longer safe. No matter how strong he is, if the Turks corner him somewhere that he does not have the room to move and recover, they will draw out the horrors of R&D and Sephiroth will eventually fall. They will spend the lives it would take. Surely this is something that they have prepared for.
Maybe the only thing he was ever good for was the blood that he spilled. This is the statistic that has mattered to Shinra. Just like the monsters that they use in the field. No one cares for the soul behind the bloodshot eyes of a wrath hound. He rubs his eyes. Most of those experimented monsters were put down because they were impossible to handle and dangerous to their owners.
Sephiroth had never bit Shinra back. He never felt like he had the power to do so.
Genesis had told him that there were countless murdered iterations of Sephiroth before him.
He stops walking and he has to close his eyes against the way he reels. His fingers press against his forehead and his nails dig deep. The pain grounds him back into reality and brings back the logical part of himself. He needs to find somewhere safe. He is exposed now. Enemies could come down and attack him and with his head in the state that it is in, they might catch him unaware. Zack is left behind at the reactor. The puppy would not protect him.
Sephiroth would have to deal with anything himself from now on.
It's shocking how quickly things changed.
All he wants to do is collapse to his knees and to give it all up but he cannot.
The blackness behind his eyes goes oily and a headache blooms. The wind echoes through the mountainside. He's vulnerable like this. He is standing in the middle of the path with his eyes closed and his head clutched in his head.
He has to open his eyes.
He has to move on.
And when he opens his eyes, she's waiting for him.
The naked woman stands a few feet in front of him. Her eyes are calm. Her wings are tucked back and slowly wave in the breeze. Sephiroth's gut twists. Now, after all of this, now this is when she comes to him. She stands there like she's been waiting for him. A soft smile pulls at the corner of her mouth.
It snaps something in him.
It doesn't matter that she is an illusion.
"What do you want?" Sephiroth says. His voice tightens and is more strangled than he wishes. He takes a step forward. He reaches out and pulls Masamune into existence. She thrills against his mind. He suddenly has a direction. A body in front of him that he can confront. Something that he can cut into.
The woman does nothing.
She says nothing.
She just smiles.
"Can you not hear me?" His voice rises. He walks even closer. Masamune rises from his side. He's tensing, the so-called Demon of Wutai ready to spring.
The wind pulls between them. She stands her ground and stares at him. Is he so broken that he is not even a threat anymore?
His breath hitches. His grip goes tight against the pommel in his hand. He stops close enough that he can count the slow breaths that she takes. It digs pain into him to be like this.
"Do I not matter to you anymore either?"
Her hair pulls in the wind. She blinks.
Of course, you do.
It is the wrong answer. It is a placation that he cannot tolerate. It's the words that he wants to hear. She's pulled them out of the air because it will calm him. The anger rises like a storm in his body. He moves before his thoughts put it together. Masamune leaps forward. She cuts through the air. The blade drives into a stab, seeking the place where the woman's neck meets her body. The softness of that skin will peel away to flesh and bone.
Her expression doesn't change. She doesn't move. She doesn't flinch against the attack.
She stands still.
Masamune hits. The sword drives in deep, cutting impossibly through her body. Sephiroth sets his teeth and drives it further. It sinks in, slowing near her chest, the ribs crackling and bursting as Masamune slides through her. Sephiroth misses her heart by a hair. She doesn't flinch. The impact should have staggered her but instead she welcomes it. Lines of blood bloom around the wound. They paint the curves of her body as they trail down her. They patter onto the dust and dirt.
Her expression doesn't change from her smile.
Sephiroth doesn't understand the noise that comes out of him. It is weak. It sounds like a dying animal. He presses the weapon forward but it just slides through her and she only sighs into it. She leans into it.
Her fingers rise.
They lay delicately against Masamune as if she is playing an instrument. She trails the edges, one moving forward and the other moving back towards her chest. The edges slice her fingertips open. The red smears add new decoration, lacing the weapon. Her palm presses against her rising and falling chest, pressing the place where the sword connects into her. The other wraps around the blade at the extension of her arm. She holds on tightly until her blood overflows her palm and pours to the ground.
Sephiroth, she says it gently like a spooked animal.
Masamune twists in his head sharply like she is in pain. The connection snaps. The weapon disappears.
Go home.
And then she is gone too.
Sephiroth can't breathe.
He falls to his knees. He can't breathe. His stomach turns violently in his gut until he's forced forward onto his hands. His mouth opens and he gapes.
The tears come from a place he doesn't understand.
And he cannot stop them.