Chapter Seven

Shh! Qu'est que tu va faire?

"There is nothing but the void after me." - Vader Eloha, Off

"We were so busy preparing the birthday party that we forgot who it was for." -Batter, Off

Laughter in the distance was all I could hear. Jovial and kind, genuine and light. She was a beauty like none I have ever seen. A reminder of a dying face amongst a crowd meant to leave me in disappointment. I reached for her hair, caressing her locks tumbling by her sharp figure; her pink ribbon tying up her hair. She laughed at my touch, holding my hands in hers. She kissed my forehead and whispered gently in my brain. "He'll find us here. You're not safe." Where was I ever. Somehow, I felt like I recruited another being who cared, but that would, I knew, disappear in the night. Would he care? I wondered as I felt her warmth against me, arms intertwining.

"I've found you," he whispered, replacing the gentle smile on her face, his arms intertwining with what little reserve I could gather to push against him. "You don't belong here." His lips approached mine, breathing words of disappointment and disgust: "Die from the sorrow you deserve."

I woke from my dream, a pleasant one turned soured quickly. I knew what I had to do. I needed to pursue him into the depths of the north, in the deepened valleys—the capital of the Cetra. She was waiting there for us; the last Cetra was praying for protection from a force neither of us knew how to be rid of. I looked through the stained glass windows, tracing the lines of water droplets with my eyes as they fell. The dream was so encompassing—it was taking hold of my waking moments. Sephiroth was taking hold of my waking moments, I started to realize. The thought of melding with a great force was beyond me. I needed to be protected, I cried inwardly; my dreams were screaming to be paid attention to.

"You okay?" Kathelyn reached for my shoulder, squeezing it with compassion, bringing me to the present moment. I refused to turn around; I was scared of what I might see.

"I'm... not sure," I said honestly. Nothing good would come from hiding any more. I was different; she accepted me for who I was. She made it abundantly clear she was here for the long haul and she wanted to protect me. There was still a nagging question: why? It was hard to imagine a caring human in my life. Every care I felt ended in... sorrow.

"I know about the JENOVA theory," she said, not above a whisper, "this must be difficult for you."

"My eye constantly hurts," I laughed. "I injected the cells there. Now it seems like I was a fucking idiot." I rubbed my throbbing eye with the back of my hand, eyes transfixed by the spitting rain outside the window.

Kathelyn placed her head on my shoulder. She was always taller, always more imposing. "I'm sorry for everything that happened to you. Even if you did it to yourself. You were just trying to survive."

I hugged her, hard. My eyes were still tracing the water droplets. "Thank you."

Tell her you want her dead. Tell her you want to watch the world burn. I hugged her harder, closing my eyes, tears tumbling down my glass skin. I wanted this to be over. I wanted to... watch the world burn. I shook myself awake, trembling in her arms. Kathelyn let out a sigh of disapproval, holding me closer. For a moment, the chatter quieted, and I felt like I had never felt before. Fulfilled? Safe? Respected? I couldn't quite place it, but I knew that I could, for a moment, ignore the voices.

Jofrey entered the sitting room, entering a moment of tenderness and joining it rather than pushing it away. "We need to decide what to do next. Unless you're planning to stay here where he knows where you are." His wounds were healing well. The occasional pains, sharp and quick, took hold of his shoulder, but he reassured it was only the remnants of the deep wound healing below. He was capable; he reassured me several times. He was in it for the long haul.

Kathelyn had explained everything to him; from the moment of my conception to the Reunion that I was slowly becoming a part of. I listened as she wove my life before his eyes. He did not recoil from her words but intentionally watched me, his wrinkles easing. "I wouldn't blame you if you left," I told him once Kathelyn was done. "You're nuts if you think I'm leaving at this point." He laughed, shaking his shoulders. Little did he know that I was indeed losing my mind; ending his spoken contract was a prominent thought.

Jofrey walked forward, the light refracted from the stained glass playing on his warm, sunkissed skin. A smile crept on my face, knowing full well it looked like a smirk, and I snapped up the chance to joke, "How much?"

He smirked in response. "Well, I think at this point my fee is immeasurable."

"So where are we heading?" He asked; the sisters unleashing each other.

"We head north. To the City of the Ancients." My dream was calling me. She was calling me. I needed to protect her at all costs, despite the nagging voice that has increased since my last encounter with Sephiroth. She was calling. He was calling. Jofrey disapproved, so did Kathe; I needed to end this, once and for all. The Cetra would know what to do, I was so sure of this. Jofrey and Kathelyn eventually acquiesced, and we planned our trip out. We would take the boat north.

We packed our meagre belongings in silence, the weight of my decision to see this through was impressing on my entourage. Jofrey was disapproving of my choice to find a way to combat this immovable force that we (I) were colliding with. I felt a passion within me ignite, something that had died a long time ago. I needed to meet him again and prove that I was not the eager-to-please child that hung onto him. I wanted to be free of him and the memory that weighed on me.

Kathelyn doubted my newfound commitment, weary with her looks, I could read it all over her. "Are you sure about this?" She broke the silence, Jofrey listening intently to my response.

"She is the only one who can end this. He's stalking this planet like a festering infection; I can feel it. I'm done hiding or running away." I held the pendant in my hands, Kathelyn scoffing at the sight. I wanted to hand it to his dead body, kicking it over to him in an act of pure drama. The image captured me. You want to watch the world burn. No, I was so certain I wanted to save it. Really?

"That's my girl," Jofrey slapped the side of my shoulder, but with reservation. He was still unsure of all of this but seemed to play along to feel confident in his decision to follow. "You're much stronger than what anyone thinks, I'm suspecting. So give her some credit, Kathelyn."

Kathelyn sluggishly pushed the boat from its perch, moving us in the water. She nodded solemnly, looking out to the horizon. We were heading north, and her eyes unwaveringly looked forward. I followed her line of sight once we reached land, the sense of wholeness consuming me. I was melding into something greater than me. I swallowed the sense of elation—a sense of longing pain. She was there. She was calling to me. The Forest was open to me; I followed the footpaths deeper and deeper in. Calls of stopping ignored. A wholeness awaited me.

I could see him, illuminated through the clearing of the trees, his hand outstretched, beckoning me forward - bear witness. "Welcome home," he whispered as he held me close to his chest. I could hear his heartbeat, hollow and steady. I reached for his face, his arm enveloping me. He was so incredibly warm. Gentle as kisses of tendrils of silver outlined the sides of my face, his lips brushed against my jaw. I closed my eyes, calling his name. He was here. She was just out of reach. Jenova.

I collapsed, empty and unsteady. Kathelyn swooped in and gathered me in her arms. I let out a horrendous cry that rang out through the canopy of the encroaching trees. The pain was cosmic—I could clearly see the universe retract within itself, a meteor aiming for our skies. I reached out to the clearing, calling him for absolution. She was so close, and I was so far. Kathelyn kept my arms from flailing against my head; I was seizing, the universe retracting.

"Jofrey, please, help!" She screamed, and my world went black.

"She's dead," my father said plainly. Tears were welling and on the verge of tumbling from my lashes. "There's no point in crying, Helena. She's gone. And it won't help you."

It didn't. I cried often. "There's something wrong with that girl. Shut her up!"

I was holding onto a fire Materia, balancing it in my child-sized palms, crying that Kathelyn had left me to play by myself as she hung out with children her own age. I could not see the logic of it, only the tears that blurred my vision. "You want to watch the world burn," his voice hissing in the cracks of the barn walls. I conjured a spell, hoping it would claim me once and for all.

Mother found me amongst the smoke and flames, her coughing never ceasing, echoing in my dreams for years to come. I killed her; Kathelyn was so certain to remind me. The only mother she knew, the only mother I could ever have. A hollowness took hold. I would cry, but it was filled with regret, nothing more. I was living in the past, desperately cradling a future that would never be mine. A small house, somewhere in a forest, knitting by the fire. A normal life, he called it. I just wanted peace, for once—peace from myself. I would encroach in Sephiroth's space, tears and sweat caking my cheeks, asking him for consolation. He couldn't offer me that with words but his mere presence. He's here.

I woke with a start, hands out for Kathelyn. I screamed for her. "It's okay, Helena!" She called back. "You're okay." She held my hands, driving them back down. "We can't continue like this," Kathelyn attempted to put her foot down; this was getting ridiculous. After each collapse, Sephiroth was bound to follow. He's here.

"We're getting closer and closer to him," Jofrey held his sword in his hand, eyes stalking the trees.

"Jofrey's right, Helena. We need to get you away from him. You're no use if he finds you."

I sat up, incredulous, "He's going to find me no matter where I go; you know that, Kathe! I need to stop him. I need..." I attempted to stand and fell into Jofrey, who led me back into Kathelyn's arms.

"You need to rest!" Kathelyn instructed, gathering my fractured mind and laying it on her lap. "Just... take a moment to rest." I accepted her words and closed my eyes.

"She's losing it." I could hear them say. "She can't keep going on like this. She's going to get us all killed, you know."

I opened my eyes to see Kathelyn and Jofrey further into a clearing, talking about me. They were close enough to watch over me but not close enough to hear me rustling for a weapon. They were scared of me. I was scared of me. What was I going to do next was an absolute mystery to me, but I knew someone was in the recesses of my mind, creeping along the ventricles, filling the fluid there. I could hear her: "He'll find us here." She needed saving. They needed saving. I needed to be saved. I stood up, my world falling away from my feet. I was going to stop him whether they believed I could or not. I would end the tie that linked us, tearing out my eye if I had to, ripping off my skin if I had to. The weight of my pendant etched itself on my skin.

I walked towards the darkened clearing. It was night now; the low hum of the Planet no longer echoing. It was silent and cold. I pulled my jacket closer to my chest. I stood, asking myself where to next. What would I do? What could I do? The Cetra was waiting for a savior—a god needing a god.

"You're too late." Smooth and cold. Sephiroth's hands took hold of my shoulders from behind, his soft cheek pressed up against my cheek. So cold.

"No. No, you couldn't..." I pounded at my head, pushing him away; scared and alone. He watched as my body went stiff and I expelled what little food we could find in the mansion. He chuckled to himself, watching the whole ordeal unfold. I reserved the feeling to cry out to him, an unsettle from the act of vomiting in front of someone, but decided to wipe myself with the back of my hand.

"Is it really such a stretch of the imagination?" He continued, not missing a beat. An image of a twelve-year-old returning from a mission far away was vivid; eyes even more distant, diffused attention, never looking at me. "You poor child, you are barely holding yourself together. Your fractured self, it's appealing." The back of his hand trailed down my face and ended as a grasp across my jugular and windpipe, lifting me slightly so our eyes met. Such an imposing force. The chain of the pendant pressing into the skin of my neck.

"Please don't hurt them," the sound of my voice hissing against his palm.

His eyebrow tweaked upwards. "So shortsighted." They'll all return to the Planet, to meld with me. Making everything whole again."

He let my body go limp, air sucked out of my lungs before letting me to my feet again. I stumbled around as he observed my reactions. He was studying.

"You're... please, stop. Don't make me kill you." Despite knowing the little boy I knew died somewhere on a battlefield and that this was only an apparition of the man he once was, I felt compelled to reason with him.

"I welcome you to try, Helena. I welcome you to show me some backbone."

I lifted my arm, a gun seemingly materializing. When did I get a gun? When did I dare to aim a barrel of a gun, finger on the trigger, to Sephiroth? His lips taunt and a corner tilted, arms outstretched like the martyr he is. He welcomed it. He wanted me to come home. I pulled the trigger, eyes closed. He was making me do this. He needed me to do this. To prove I could, but instilling a sense of despair when the bullet deflected. He raised his Masamune, the tip of the blade pressing into my shoulder. I kneeled to the greater force. "Tell me, Helena, tell me how you welcome the great Reunion."

"I need it," I whimpered, head in my hands, feeling the blade move from my shoulder blade to the centre of my chest, the weight of the pendant ever-present. Slowly, he pushed forward; the tip of the blade tearing at flesh—the flesh that held together little fragments of memories I wished were washed away. Slowly, the fragments poured from me—red crimson pools gathering at my knees. I swallowed the need to gather them within me, holding the tearing of flesh, cradling the immense pain. The blade continued to my spine, scraping it slowly. Flashes of sorrow-filled crying as I held my mother's head, begging her not to leave me alone. The empty tears as I realized I was in Hojo's grasp and an 8 by 8 cell the only home I could call as such. The tears that welled inside as I noticed Sephiroth and I growing apart, he no longer wishing to carry his childhood with him, foregoing the labs that would always still follow him. The cries of horror as I entered the labs, yet again, JENOVA... Yes, she was here. It was all so gentle and kind. He was saving me.

"Welcome home, Helena."

A/N: New chapter on the real grind now

Song: Silence, Alias Conrad Coldwood