Chapter Five
With the order for them to fight where no one would see Cloud impale Sephiroth with the poisoned sword, it at least meant, Cloud supposed, that they didn't have to actually act out a fight to the death and Cloud didn't have to act out mutilating the body. Sephiroth simply teleported them to the Dark Depths and then used his illusion magic to make the buster sword covered in blood and cause it to appear that Cloud was holding the proof the witch had desired.
"Oh, ugh. This is sick!" Cloud immediately exclaimed. "Do I really have to be able to see this?!" He looked away. "I mean, if she sees me looking so revolted, that might be a red flag right there."
"You already told her you don't tend to do this," Sephiroth said. "It might look stranger if you didn't seem revolted."
Cloud flicked his wing. "Yeah, I guess. But I'll have to walk all the way into town from here. What if some of the innocent townspeople see and then try to 'bring me to justice' or something before I ever find her?"
"Hm." That really would be a nuisance. Sephiroth finally waved his hand, willing the images to change to a large burlap sack in Cloud's view. "Alright. We'll say you were smart enough to bring something to hide them in to avoid unpleasant scenes such as that."
Cloud sighed in relief. "Thanks."
Sephiroth nodded and stepped back. "I'd say it means a lot that you're so disturbed, Cloud, but I imagine you would feel the same no matter whose body parts it was."
"Yeah, I would," Cloud retorted. "I don't do things like this! . . . But . . ." He trailed off. I can't stand to think of it being you. ". . . Nevermind. I'm getting this over with." He turned away and started off, trudging towards town.
"Good luck," Sephiroth said. He took out a black cloak, covering himself in it. He would shadow Cloud in disguise once he reached town.
The walk was long and torturous. Even not being able to see the contents of the sack, Cloud couldn't stop thinking about it. What if he really had fallen so far into his darkness that he had done as this sorceress wanted? What if he had been more than willing to go through with it? What if he had just heartlessly put his sword through Sephiroth's body, coldly watched him bleed out and die, and then mercilessly cut him up and left him like that? It made him dizzy and ill just thinking about it.
He had never been that far gone, had he? He had refused to go through with killing Sora. But . . . Sora had never been the one he hated. He hadn't been the one Cloud had accepted a contract with Hades to get. What if in his hate he had really . . .
Sephiroth was right. Hate was a poison.
Finally he entered the town and looked around for any sign of the mysterious woman. He didn't really expect to find her until he got deeper into town like before, but instead she stopped him before he'd gone very far. "Have you done it?"
Cloud froze. Was anyone even here to help him out if this got sticky? They had probably planned on the meeting happening elsewhere, as he had. Well, there wasn't anything for it; he had to go ahead with this anyway.
He tossed the image of the sack at her feet. "Yeah," he said roughly. "You can check. Everything's in there."
The illusion was certainly strong. She opened the sack and examined the contents, all while Cloud looked away and tried to quell the urge to throw up.
Finally she looked up again. "You've done well," she said. "But let me run one final check."
"What?!" Cloud turned back with a start. "He's dead, lady! Do you think he could possibly survive me carving him up like that?!"
"No," she replied. "But I still want to be absolutely sure." She reached into her cloak and drew out a hand mirror. "Show me Sephiroth," she ordered. "What is he doing right now?"
Cloud went stiff. They had wondered if something might go wrong, but they hadn't counted on this.
The mirror glowed, showing an image of a cloaked figure stealing down a darkened street.
She gripped it tighter. "Thatis Sephiroth?! I can't see him! How can I be sure you're not defective? That hunter stole you for me from the Beast's castle!"
Another shock. ". . . Gaston's in on this with you?!" Cloud demanded.
"I hired him to steal the mirror. He didn't know why and didn't care," she replied flippantly. "He just appreciated the challenge." A pause. "Mirror, mirror in my hand, show me the fairest in all the land."
The mirror shimmered and another image appeared—Sephiroth uncloaked, his long, silver hair gently blowing in a breeze and his insanely long eyelashes very visible. The sun caught the blue wings, causing every feather to shine.
Cloud's jaw dropped. "Sephirothis the fairest?! Even over any girls?! Look, what is this stupid farce?! Stop wasting my time, lady!"
He could feel the hatred starting to roll off of her in waves. "Sephiroth is alive," she snarled in an almost feral way. "One final test. Who was it that saved his life last night?"
Again the mirror glowed. To Cloud's sickened horror, now his image appeared in the mirror, crying over Sephiroth's body. The tears fell, splashed on Sephiroth, and he glowed and revived.
"You." She looked to him, her eyes glowing green with rage under the hood. "You and Sephiroth came up with this little scheme together, didn't you?!" She gestured at the sack and the illusion broke, the sack and its contents fading into dust.
Cloud took a step back. The jig was up. "This would be a really great time for you to show up about now," he hissed under his breath. Louder he said, "You got me. Yeah, we did. I wasn't going to kill him after last night! Who are you and why do you want him dead so much?!"
She straightened to her full height, her voice sounding almost inhuman as she screamed at him. Now she no longer cared if anyone saw or heard them. "Insolent worm! You love Sephiroth! Well, you will kill him for me whether you want to or not!" Her hands began to glow that same green.
Terror filled every part of Cloud's being. "What are you doing?! Stop it!" he yelled. In a panic he struck out with the buster sword, but hit an invisible shield. In the next instant, the dark magic rushed over him and he gasped, falling to one knee. It was swirling through his mind, eclipsing every bit of free will he had. No matter how Cloud struggled to fight it, the pull was too strong. He recognized these feelings, this hate. He remembered how it had been eating him up inside the last several years, starting with when Zack had fallen and only growing stronger in the time since. He hadn't really cared then, but now, after having experienced such different feelings for Sephiroth and knowing how dangerous it would be to feel hate in this spell, he wanted out.
God, help me! Please . . . don't let this happen.
But it was no use. The spell pushed him under.
Sephiroth arrived in that moment, casting off the useless cloak. "Cloud!" he yelled.
The sorceress ignored him for the moment. "I am drawing all the past hatred you had for him out to the forefront of your mind and mixing it with my own hate," she sneered. "That hate is the only emotion you will feel now. Get up, my puppet. Get up and fight him to the death!"
Cloud pushed himself to his feet and turned to look at Sephiroth. His eyes were empty and cold, glowing that same eerie green.
"Cloud . . . !" Sephiroth stood his ground, horror flickering in his eyes. "Is this it? Is this witch stronger than you?" His expression hardened. "I'd expect better from you, Cloud."
Without speaking, Cloud brought up the buster sword and charged Sephiroth.
The Masamune was immediately brought up to defend himself. Sephiroth held fast, staring into Cloud's vacant eyes. What to do? Saying things that would provoke Cloud would only make a hate spell worse. What could he say that might instead break through the spell to the real Cloud now trapped in his body?
He started to push against the heavy sword, forcing Cloud back with his weight. "Are you so quick to forget last night?" he asked. "You still don't understand how you did it or why you did it, but you saved my life. If you murder me now, you will never get over it."
Cloud clenched his teeth. His hands were shaking.
The sorceress would have none of it. Her hands glowed again and Cloud's eyes flamed with green fire. The shaking stopped. He lunged without mercy.
For the next several moments, the battle raged across the street, so different from the show they had put on earlier or even different from their previous hate-charged duels. No matter how Sephiroth tried, he could not shatter the wretched spell that had been put on Cloud. The witch only increased the strength of the hatred fueling him on each attempt.
This was the scene Merlin found when he teleported in with several police officers. "See here! What's going on?!" he cried.
"She found out what we did!" Sephiroth told him. "Now she's cast a hate spell on Cloud as punishment!"
"She did?!" Merlin looked to the sorceress in outrage.
She barely cared about his presence. "You can do nothing to stop me," she said. "You know how hate spells work, Merlin. Even if the person who cast it is defeated, the hate still remains in the victim because it was theirs to begin with. And it poisons them to their death."
Merlin glowered at her. "We both know there is a way to fully break and cure a hate spell," he replied. "And I will have you stopped regardless!"
"Can you shatter my shield?" she answered. "I never go anywhere without one these days."
"It takes concentration to keep your shield," Merlin said. "You can't maintain it and the hate spell at the same time!" With that he began concentrating hard to penetrate the barrier.
Sephiroth, meanwhile, had to throw all of his concentration into protecting himself. Cloud's attacks were growing more frenzied and more dangerous. He cut off pieces of the nearest blue plateau, throwing them at Sephiroth with the strength of the buster sword. It was all Sephiroth could do to slice them and dodge them.
"Cloud!" he finally said. "Look at yourself! Look at what you're doing! Is this what you want?" He knew it wasn't.
Cloud stabbed the buster sword into the ground. It shook and cracked, the earthquake bringing down more loose boulders from the mountains.
Sephiroth took flight, slicing and dodging once more. He still had plenty of energy, and even though normally Cloud would be wearing out by now, the spell was making him seemingly on par with Sephiroth. But he wasn't, really. Not with his heart buried under the hatred of the spell. He came at Sephiroth again, slicing through boulders himself to have more to throw at him.
Sephiroth cut through the latest batch. "Is this the strength of your hatred, Cloud?" he demanded. "Is this how much you still hate me for what happened to Zack? It's making you forget everything that happened over the past twenty-four hours!"
Miraculously, Cloud stopped. His eyes flickered from green to blue and back again. "Ugh. . . ." He held a hand to his head. "Sephiroth . . ."
But he had taken his concentration away from the still-flying boulders. One was coming right at him from behind.
Sephiroth had no choice. He sprang into action, snatching Cloud around the waist and diving away from the violent rock. But he still felt it hit him from behind as it went past. He collapsed at the base of the plateau as everything went black.
Cloud was stirring in the next instant. "Sephiroth? . . ." He blinked, his eyes fully blue again. He was still being held in Sephiroth's arms, and that state of being made him flush in mortification. But it only took a moment to realize that the grip was very limp.
He sat up with a jerk. "Sephiroth?!" The lifeless arms fell to the ground. Sephiroth was completely still, all the wings motionless as they lay spread across the blue rock.
Cloud rocked back, shaking. "No . . . no, oh God, no. . . ." He remembered the spell, being covered by hatred, and the horrible fight. Sephiroth had tried so hard to break the spell, and he had actually started to get through the heavy molasses covering Cloud's mind. But then the boulders had been coming and he had grabbed Cloud to save him, and . . .
"SEPHIROTH!"Cloud grabbed for the other man's shoulder to shake him, but jerked back almost immediately. This was his fault. This time his hatred hadfueled the spell without a doubt. He had done this. He had done everything. He wasn't worthy to touch Sephiroth.
If he was even still alive to begin with. . . .
"Cloud!"
Vaguely he heard Merlin calling to him. He stumbled up, still dizzy, as he spread his wing. "I . . . I can't," he choked out. "I can't stay here. I did this! Oh God, it's my fault. . . ."
"Now, that's nonsense!" Merlin exclaimed. "It's this wretched woman behind it all! It was the Evil Queen after all! Apparently she came here after the fiasco in Snow White's world and discovered Sephiroth was more fair than she. You know how she can't take that sort of nonsense."
Cloud shook his head. "She used my hate to put the spell on me," he said. "I didn't take responsibility for what I was doing before. I won't deny it now! This happened because of me!"
"She also used her own hate!" Merlin said. "This wasn't just you, Cloud!"
"It only matters that it was me!" Cloud screamed. "He's hurt because of me! Or even dead! I don't know! I can't stay here! I can't touch him!" And he flew off on his wing into the night sky.
Merlin stared after him. "Oh, that poor boy," he said sorrowfully. And he couldn't go after Cloud right now. The police had the Evil Queen in custody and Merlin needed to tend to Sephiroth.
A shadow fell over him just as he was about to bend down. "What's happened here?"
He frowned at the cool voice. "Ms. Kala-Ansa," he greeted. "You'll have to forgive me. I'm very busy right now."
A woman with jet-black hair pulled back in a bun and a blue business suit came closer, nudging the nearest wing with the toe of her shoe. "Is the winged demon dead?" she asked.
Merlin looked to her with barely controlled anger at that. "Sephiroth is a man," he retorted. "A very good man! He just broke a hate spell with an act of true love." He knelt down, worriedly examining Sephiroth for signs of life.
"A being like that is capable of love?" Kala-Ansa stayed where she was, staring down at him, her expression impassive.
"Everyone is capable of love!" Merlin retorted. "Now please, I must ask you to leave! He's very badly hurt!"
She kept standing there, watching. She had never liked her daughter Sun's interest in the man or her desire to always watch his fights with Cloud. Wings on humans was unnatural and demonic, as far as she was concerned. She already knew he had fallen to the darkness in the past and caused the death of Zack Fair. He was a wretched creature, barely human, if that.
But . . .
He looked beautiful there, as he lay unconscious or dead—his silver hair spread in multiple directions, long and lustrous and perfect, his eyelashes closed and just barely brushing his cheekbones, his coat open to expose his strong chest. . . . Even the wings, unnatural though they were, carried a certain beauty as the moonlight shone down on every feather.
She bent down, picking up a loose feather that had fallen to the ground. She carried it with her as she walked off into the night.
Cloud didn't stop flying until he reached a cathedral that stood tall and dark against the night sky. He landed on a balcony next to a gargoyle and curled his knees up to his chest and his wing around himself.
Sephiroth was . . . he was . . .
"It's my fault," he whispered. "Maybe it wasn't about the other spell, but I caused this! I . . ."
"Are you alright, my son?"
He looked up with a start as a priest emerged onto the balcony. Swiftly he brushed away the helpless tears that had started to flow. "Sorry," he mumbled. "I . . . I'll go. I . . ."
"No, it's alright," the priest replied. He drew closer. "I'd like to help, if I can."
Cloud shook his head. "No one can help," he said morosely.
"No one?" the priest repeated. "Not even God?"
Cloud gave a helpless shrug. "I . . . don't know. Maybe when it's someone else who needs the help and not me, He would. . . ."
"How did you even get up here?" the priest asked.
Slowly Cloud unfurled his wing. The priest stared in surprise.
"I know, I know," Cloud muttered. "I look like a demon. And I proved I really am one tonight."
"A wing doesn't make anyone good or bad," the priest said. "Please, won't you tell me what's happened?"
"I . . ." Cloud stared out at the town. "I hate this guy, see? Or I did.But then last night I saved his life with . . . with true love. Someone was trying to kill him and she used this creepy poison that kills unless true love's used to fix it. We were trying to find out who wanted him dead, but everything went so wrong! She put me under a hate spell to force me to kill him. I couldn't control my body and it was like my mind was just covered up by hate. I kept fighting him, and he kept trying to get through to me, and I didn't listen . . . or couldn't listen, or something. And then I was throwing boulders at him and he finally said something that started getting through to me. But I wasn't paying attention to the boulders and he had to grab me to save my life. . . . Then he . . . he got hit by one instead of me! I came out of the spell and he was just lying there. . . ." He shook his head. "I don't know if he's dead or not. I wasn't worthy to even touch him! I left Merlin with him and flew off. . . ."
The priest frowned in concern, listening to the whole heartbroken ramble without interrupting. "What a horrible experience for both of you," he said. "But how can you blame yourself when you were put under a spell? You weren't trying to harm him on purpose."
"It was my hate she used to make the spell!" Cloud cried. "Okay, so she used hers too. But it was mainly mine! This is all my fault!" He shut his eyes tightly. "I was trying to keep him safe and everything backfired. . . . Oh God, I don't know what to do. . . ."
The priest came over closer to him. "I think the first thing you need to do is to find out if he's alive," he said kindly. "Merlin may need help with him. And if he wakes up and you're not there, he'll surely be worried. You know why you came out of the spell, don't you?"
Cloud grunted. "Because of the shock of him saving my life."
"Yes, I'm sure that's part of it," the priest agreed. "But hate spells can also only be broken by acts of true love."
Cloud rocked back in disbelief. "You're trying to tell me he loves me?!" From his expression, believing the moon was made of green cheese would be easier.
But the priest nodded. "He clearly does."
Cloud just shook his head. "No. No, that's not possible! He's been shadowing me for years, telling me all kinds of junk about myself that I don't want to hear and driving me crazy! He just likes messing with my head!"
"While I don't know your specific situation, are you so sure you haven't misunderstood him?" the priest asked.
"I haven't misunderstood him!" Cloud retorted. "I know a lot of people in town like him. Even Aerith likes him now! But they're just crazy! He's just out to drive me nuts! That's all it is! That's all it's ever been!"
The priest looked worried. Cloud was growing more and more frenzied in his insistence and he was crying again. "Is there anyone I can call for you?" he asked. "Maybe Aerith?"
"No!" Cloud insisted. "No, don't call anyone! I shouldn't have come here. I'm going. I'm going right now. I'm sorry I bothered you." And he took off into the sky.
The priest stared after him as he flew up near the moonlight. "Dear Father, please bless that poor soul," he prayed softly. "And his friend. Please help them come to understand each other and find happiness and healing in the truth. Amen."
In the sky, tears were still slipping from Cloud's eyes. "It can't be true," he whispered. "It can't be! If Sephiroth loves me . . . and I did this to him . . ."
I know I can't deal with it.
And new horror struck him. For him to feel so horrible about this, how must Sephiroth have felt when Zack fell off that cliff due to Sephiroth being corrupted by a dark magic artifact?
Cloud swayed, nearly falling out of the sky. Sephiroth loved Zack. How had he ever dealt with knowing he was responsible, even if indirectly, for what had happened? And how much worse was what Cloud had done when in his mind he was very directly responsible?
He couldn't possibly fly right now. He careened out of the sky in a tail spin, only barely stopping himself from crashing on the ground. He landed in an alley and sat on an old crate, sobbing his heart out.
Sephiroth . . . I'm sorry. I'm so sorry.
And, he realized with further horror, he didn't even know if Sephiroth was alive. He had felt too tainted to so much as touch him. He had quite insisted on believing Sephiroth was alive, but could that possibly be the truth after what had happened?
He's probably dead. Dead because he was saving someone as worthless as me.
He wrapped his wing around himself again, willing it to hide him altogether.
Notes: Out of the frying pan and into the fire. Kala-Ansa was the Big Bad of the original story and will be again here. Dr. Hojo was the secondary villain of the original story who set off the original problem, while the Evil Queen serves that purpose here.