Angeal's face remained lax and quiet, unaffected by the rest of his physical changes.


It was nearly dawn of the third day since Sephiroth had left. Another day of fear and loneliness for Zack, with only his mentor's head and his mentor's copies, the A-Ahrimans, for company.

Sephiroth had taken his sword, some money, and the burner phone with him. Zack had always hated being alone. Angeal's head and the A-Ahrimans didn't provide the sort of companionship he craved. He particularly missed the phone. It was one of his few links with the outside world. Without the truck, he didn't even have a radio to listen to. Without that access, he couldn't learn anything about whether Shin-Ra had finally decided to announce him and Sephiroth MIA. The only sounds came from birds and animals in the woods, and the trickling water of the stream, the gurgling of the aeration equipment in Angeal's specimen container, and the soft noises made by the A-Ahrimans as they waited with him.

He spent much of the past few days talking to Angeal—just like Sephiroth, though unlike him Zack didn't pretend that Angeal ever replied. Zack rambled about anything that came to mind: his old training, running laps or swimming trials, the firearms and marksmanship competencies that were required of all SOLDIERs but that were rarely utilized in the field. He chatted about his favorite foods.

When he caught himself speaking of his friends, of Kunsel and Cloud and Luxiere and Aerith, he shut down the chatter. He didn't want to talk about them. They were lost to him. He hoped not forever.

The sun rose. Zack retrieved his Seal materia and cast the morning Sleepel over Angeal. Angeal's head. His head and his new body.

While Sephiroth had been gone, Angeal's body had grown and changed, and was definitely getting too large for its container. Its skin seemed human, but it remained veiny and ball-shaped. The forward limbs developed into thin legs, folded up against the body, their ends terminating in feet tipped with claws. Toes? Four, not five as Zack had expected, and one was in the rear of each proto-foot where the heel should have been. The protuberance that Zack had once thought the end of a spine had elongated into an unmistakable tail. A couple more growths of leathery tissue had erupted on either side of the back, along with a short line of weird nubs between them.

The two horizontal creases across the front of the flesh-ball's middle were definitely slits. The bottom one was longer than the upper. Sometimes Zack saw them twitch and even open a sliver, but he never looked closely enough to determine what they hid within. He didn't want to see. He didn't want to know.

Angeal's face remained lax and quiet, unaffected by the rest of his physical changes.

It seemed Sephiroth's fears had come true, and Angeal was mutating into something unnatural, something deformed.

Something inhuman.

This must be what Sephiroth had meant when he'd made that ambiguous statement about letting Angeal continue to grow. Sephiroth must have feared that Angeal's changes hadn't been for the better. During his life, he'd spent so much time in Hojo's labs... He'd seen...seen things. Known things. He must have recognized what was happening.

Was that the real reason he'd abruptly decided to obtain better medical supplies? Did he have a plan?

"Sephiroth, hurry back," Zack muttered. "Please hurry back." He felt utterly helpless, and he didn't know what to do. He could only pin his hopes on finding Hollander, but could even Angeal's creator be capable of fixing this...this aberration?

The six yawning A-Ahrimans stayed near, maintaining a dedicated circle around the campsite. The Sleepel always affected them like that, though Zack made sure to keep the magic confined to Angeal's head. Twice a day Zack cast that spell, and the results were always the same. The Sleep status effect always, always somehow traveled through whatever link the monsters shared with Angeal.

"Two-way conduit," Zack whispered into the silence. The magic passed from Angeal to his copies. What was passing from the copies to Angeal?

He focused on making his breakfast to distract himself.