Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

He realized quickly that the girl’s life was inessential. Her heart didn’t need to beat to keep the Cetra’s gun held to mother’s head. It bought time, it made the puppet suggestible, but it never secured his victory. His prey was quick, his puppet tenacious. No, since the first time the Geostigma failed, the first time his consciousness snapped back to the musty cellar of seven years prior, he understood he had to dismantle the weapon directly. 

Yet the destruction of the White Materia remained a difficult prospect. Even cutting crystallized mako was an energy-intensive process requiring specialized machinery and precise chemical preparations at the best of times. Destroying it wholesale? Impossible. Never once in mother’s wanderings had she known consciousness to take on a tangible, durable form after death. And the vessel containing Holy, the condensed promise of generations of Cetra to safeguard their planet even in death, was surely the greatest of all. For there had been other sons and daughters, once. Before Shiva sealed her away, Jenova had wandered the world in the guise of an Ancient, had taken many ‘lovers’ whose genes merited inclusion in her saga for posterity. Each of his elder siblings’ blades had broken against it’s jade shell, their mastered ultimas rebuffed by it’s perfect sheen. It has only grown stronger with time, more Cetra souls coalescing like a clam adding layers to it’s pearl.

So he kept killing the girl, but only because he needed time to think, to run experiments that took multiple iterations of this struggle to bear fruit. He found this duty never blossomed into enmity, the way it had with the puppet. She is this planet’s last white blood cell reacting to an encroaching parasite. The emergent conflict, natural, impersonal, not at all like how it was with that interloper, who forestalled the fulfillment of mother’s hopes for him again and again for…what? Revenge, as though he hadn’t murdered mother a dozen times, forced their family’s consciousness back to still-viable limbs in still-salvageable hours? Pride, that a discarded, half-mad experiment might trade blows with this, with him, the human genome joined at last to a song the spheres had sung long before the misstep of metabolic processes occurred on this mote of dust that troubled the eye of oblivion? It couldn’t be love. He has explained many times to the puppet that he was only prolonging the death throes of his home, of his newfound family (and it must be family, to move him so, friends, friends can be set aside). He might win now, yes, he might win many times, but he is growing no stronger for his efforts. No wiser. 

Sephiroth is. So, inevitably, puppet, you will fall behind. Sparing them pointless struggle for the purpose of your own vanity, this would be kindness, no? He disagreed, always. Not love, then. 

Not love.

The puppet’s motives were irrelevant now. The curtain is rising on their final performance. Breaking the White Materia is impossible with his current resources, this has been proven, but there are less literal interpretations of destruction. If materia is knowledge made manifest, then as knowledge it can be dismantled in the field of debate. Introduce an unknown truth, exploit a flaw in it’s logic, and the argument collapses. Of course, the counterargument to protecting the Planet, once formulated, must then transition from the metaphysical to the physical, and he does not possess the centuries required for this process to occur naturally. No, that’s not quite right- he has centuries. However, they are only linear for him. Like a speedrunner obsessing over a record, he remembers each attempt, but the world does not. Any progress he cannot hold within his perfect mind, built like mother’s for navigation amid four dimensions, ceases to be. 

Even geological time can be overmastered. Such is the nature of his imminent providence. For the other son, severed though he was from mother by binary and surgical steel, had played into his brother’s hands all the same, and the entity he had initially dismissed as a curiosity proved his saving grace. Chadley couldn’t make materia wholesale, but he could overwrite their contents with programs of sufficient sophistication to deliver the payload that was required. Lacing his sibling’s prized summon with a virus subtle enough to evade the cyborg’s attention before it was handed off required more iterations than anticipated, but at long last the final tumbler has clicked into place. He smiles as he slots the synthesized Bahamut he liberated from the puppet at the ziggurat alongside an Added Effect materia in the groove of his hilt. He’d never bothered with the alternate grip Shinra insisted on furnishing him with before, even if the uncanny shift in weight it caused had been better compensated, using more than the six sockets his belt provided would have been decadent even before he began his ascension. 

The girl takes position beneath his recess between the stairs, as though their choreography had been blocked with tape. He can taste the tangent connecting the tip of his blade to the heirloom parceled away in pink ribbon. Falls more than leaps.

A Meteor unto himself, gravity lends him all the force he needs. 

Vincent’s senses have always been sharp. Even…before. Even before. He does not need whatever force bloodies his irises to recognize that Masamune’s trajectory is not a fatal one, not that even the beast coursing through his veins would be fast enough to alter it. At this realization, that Aerith is…safe, in relative terms, a pang of relief, half-forgotten. It isn’t all stone, after all. 

Then Lucrecia’s boy finds his mark, but instead of neatly parting her ribbon his sword stops with a piercing keen that makes the crystal waters tremble. Aerith’s eyes have barely fluttered open from her trance as the cry is punctuated by a stroke of pale jade lightning that arcs wildly between Sephiroth, his weapon, and the reflecting pool, the SOLDIER unable to release his grip, muscles held fast in the throes of electrocution, skeleton made phosphorescent by the current that rips through him down to the bones of a phantom wing. Then with a thunderclap and the clack of perfect halves falling to the floor, it is over, and Sephiroth’s smoking body falls backward into the blue.

She’s glad it’s Vincent. Vincent doesn’t ask questions.

“Leviathan,” she demands, and he pries the summon free from his pistol grip without ceremony. She slots it into her empty staff (a necessary element of the ritual: one must be of faith enough to walk into the city unadorned to expect their prayer to be answered), and dives.

She’s never swam before. Waded at Costa Del Sol, that’s all. It amazes her how her body resists parting from the surface, from the light, as though certain it knows better. She offers a wordless prayer, and her lone red materia glows, casting a hellish light over the descending body, face serene in it’s frame of silver kelp. If Wutai’s guardian resents being asked to intercede on it’s conqueror’s behalf, it has the grace not to show it as it’s sinuous coils manifest to stop Sephiroth’s fall. Leviathan waits for her to secure herself behind a dorsal fin before breaching back up onto the altar, fishing it’s quarry up behind her with it’s tail. The serpent gives her a low, curious hiss as it’s tongue tastes the room, but finds no enemies. Is it not called upon to bring down the tides? 

“No, that’s alright. You did great.” Aerith strokes the cobalt scales of it’s proud head, and the simulacrum rumbles it’s assent as it dissipates back into ambient mako. She’s about to ask Vincent for a spare Restore, but to her surprise he’s already salving Sephiroth’s wounds with Cure’s tell-tale glitter.

“Not much use in an interrogation if he’s dead,” he mutters as he unclasps Sephiroth’s belt and pockets the materia before patting him down for any warding accessories. His coat sticks to the right side of his back, hitching where the heat of the electricity plastered leather to flesh as Vincent double checks the pockets. Only when Aerith continues to stare does he add, “That’s why you went to the trouble, isn’t it?”

“No, I-”, she starts as Sephiroth shudders and convulses, disgorging foamy groundwater and surprisingly little blood, before falling limp once more. An autonomic response to Cure, nothing more. “My prayer to the Planet”, she scoops up the pieces of her inheritance, now a dull green, “he re-directed it…he made sure it would be the last one the Cetra ever made…but it still got through.”

“And what does that mean for Meteor?”, straight to brass tacks.

“It means-”, she blinks, the absence finally registering. “Where’s Cloud? He should be here for this.”

“When we got to the centre of the city, he started having one of his episodes. Clutching his head, talking to people who aren’t there. This time though, he tried to throw himself off the nearest ledge he could find. Tifa and a Time materia got in his way. She told me to make sure you were safe. Said Cloud acting like this can only mean one thing.” He watches the shallow movement of Sephiroth’s breathing. “Seems she was right.”

“Then we’ve got to get back,  but…do you think you can carry him? ” She hadn’t called on Leviathan just because she couldn’t swim. 

“I could. Why?”

“I can Hear the Lifestream. In every living thing, except for him. Until he got in Holy’s way. I don’t know if it was muffled, or…missing, but it’s back.” 

“The Lifestream dwells within Hojo, does it make him less cruel? It runs through me, did it make me less selfish?” 

“Vincent, I prayed to everyone, to everything, that has ever lived. Save them. Save them from what’s coming. I don’t understand the answer the Planet gave me, but I can’t afford to doubt it’s judgement, to turn him away. He was given the last blessing anyone will ever receive, and I need to make the most of it.”

Vincent considers her plea long enough that she’s sure he will refuse, before nodding and shouldering the burden. “I told Lucrecia I’d look out for him”, Sephiroth hardly slowing him down as he mounts the stairs.“Grab what’s left of his odachi. Shinra doesn’t scrimp on Firsts.”

When they reach the auditorium where he left the party, there are only scuff marks in the dust, the droning chimes of Aerith’s unanswered calls.

It’s been a day since she pulled him from the water, but Sephiroth still sleeps, surprisingly peaceful. A dull green burn graces his right back and curls over his shoulder, the surrounding nerves highlighted like frozen lightning. She’d treated chemical burns before, in the slums. Common enough, whether from factory work or scavenging monsters…but lifestream shouldn’t be caustic. At least, not to the body. She tweezed out fused pieces of clothing and kept it clean, same as any other. The wound is still hot to the touch, and she doubts she could spot the telltale redness of infection amid the strange discolouration of his flesh, but his forehead is not feverish. Her patient is stable, for now.

She and Vincent had used Sense until sundown, to no avail. Her friends- her closest friends among the living - had vanished into thin air. No blood, no fresh scorch marks of attack magic. Cloud and Tifa are strong, stronger than anyone she knows, she repeats this to herself like a mantra, she must for if she stops she knows she will not be able to carry on. On Vincent’s advice they had pressed on to Icicle Inn rather than doubling back to the Tiny Bronco. Aerith agreed- nine might have already been more than company in it’s cramped quarters, but their comatose nemesis would indisputably make a crowd. She’d gotten in touch with Barret as soon as they failed to find Tifa and Cloud, but it would be a day’s travel from where they’d docked at Bone Village, at least. 

“I’d’ve been happy to let him swim with the fishes, but…guess I’d look a damn fool to start doubting the Planet now, after all these years. If it wants something outta him, I ain’t going to argue.” He played it cool. He understands the importance of presenting a unified front, in the wake of Cloud and Tifa’s disappearance. But even through the static of their spotty reception she could detect doubt. “Still, I feel a hell a lot of better knowing Vincent’s there to make sure he doesn't try any funny business.”

Barret, Cait, Cid, Yuffie, and, critically, Nanaki would be busy with their own search by now, she’s sure. She hopes Sephiroth wakes up before they arrive, that he might be able to offer more compelling evidence than her gut feelings. Until then, she can only monitor his condition in between watching her father’s old tapes.

Her father. A fairy tale, no more real than moogles. This family home, passed down to her mother, key buried under the pebbles in the window well, as distant as the Promised Land. This is where her mother said they were running to all those years ago, not knowing that the chemical dependencies Hojo had engendered in her would strike her down before even leaving Midgar’s shadow. It’s frigid and dusty, a mess from Shinra’s ransacking of two decades prior- but it’s hers. She was loved here. To see mom after so long her memory had begun to fail, dad where there’d been nothing to lose in the first place…at first her pace was ravenous, but now that the dates have begun to read her birth year, she’s trying to savour them. Grabs more wood from the pile Vincent purchased at the local general store for the fire, casts a quick Aero to ensure the flames are not stifled, hits Sephiroth with another dose of Esuna, before slotting the next video in. ‘Names.’

A pregnant Ifalna is blowing steam off a mug as she puts her feet up by the hearth. She rolls her eyes and chuckles when she notices she’s being recorded. “Don’t you think you’ve documented this phase of the Experiment well enough already?”

“Of course not!”, exclaims the man behind the camera, “We haven’t explained our methodology behind coming up with their name.”

Ifalna addresses her womb with mock seriousness. “Well, then, Experiment. I’m afraid it’s very complicated. Mommy and Daddy agreed that if you have two X chromosomes, he gets to pick, but if you have just the one, I’ll do the honours. You’d like that, wouldn’t you, Alexander?”

There’s a rustle and a change in perspective as the camcorder is set down, and Gast leans into frame. “Of course, Experiment, that’s not the only hypothesis. I’ve been helping your mother piece together your people’s language from what little has survived. A common suffix in Cetra names is ‘rith’. It means land, place. And a verb that we see a lot is ‘aeva’. It means ‘loved’. Combined, that’s ‘aerith’. Beloved place. Home.” He puts his hand on Ifalna’s stomach, but still looks into the camera. “ That’s what you are, to us.”

“Sephiva rith.” It’s quiet, as though said to himself. She manages to avoid flinching, to feign confidence as she turns to meet his gaze. 

Not that it matters. He’s sat up, but is still watching the home video. Ifalna is sharing the local folktale of Alexander and the Spring at Gast’s insistence, but Aerith finds it hard to focus on the details. Only when the narrative has run it’s course does Sephiroth elaborate.

“The official Shinra translation gives the phrase as promised land, though that is…woefully, literal. Any amount of attention to context would indicate it means inheritance.” His reactor-core eyes flick to hers, his voice is monotone, resigned. “Hojo’s, Shinra’s, Jenova’s, and now…?”, his right hand reaches over to probe his wound, jade static crackling where his fingers make contact. “The Planet’s, to do with it as it will.”

The handful of times she’d met him before, his mere presence had been violent, transgressive. Empty where no thing that crawled or swam or flew was empty, his footsteps bruises on the world. The man before her, registering in her Hearing like a creature once more, does not project that malice. Nor does he convey the security she realizes she had been hoping for, the inexhaustible hero of the best of Zack’s stories awoken from slumber, grateful to be freed at last from a terrible curse.  No, Sephiroth is just…weary. Like her mother making the mockery of a choice Shinra gave her of what to wear in the morning before facing that day’s grip of tests.

“Do you…want to help the Planet?”. After everything he’s put her friends through, what does it matter? It’s not as though he ever gave others’ feelings more than a passing glance. But having been treated once too often like a resource, her compliance taken for granted not just by Shinra but by her own ancestors, she can’t put his free will out of her mind.

He narrows his eyes, trying to divine the rules of this new game. “You have lived an enviable life, if you think want is statistically significant enough to enter into the equation. I can no longer supersede our ailing god, but Meteor is still coming.” He says this as matter-of-factly as if his current capacity for apotheosis was written on the back of his hand. What Holy had wrought was apparently no mystery to him. “This planet, including me, will die for nothing, and I prefer what you have done to me to death.” 

“So you’d still choose for it to happen, if you could survive and absorb the dead, like before?”

He blinks, genuinely curious. “Wouldn’t you? You would be better suited to the task than most." 

Aerith blanches. “I was there when the Sector Seven plate fell. No matter what Shinra planned, nothing could have been worth ending that many lives, and that’s a fraction of what Meteor will do.”

His eyes grow distant, unfocused. “They’ll die anyway. When the Lifestream is spent. It’s not just that the soil will become barren, or that our pollinators and food animals will die off. No, one day a child will be born and there will simply be nothing left to fill the vessel. Meteor would be a kindness, compared to that agony.”

Aerith clenches her fists. “You say that like it’s inevitable, but it will never come to pass if the reactors are shut down. What you’re suggesting…it’s not the lesser of two evils, it’s just giving up!”

That renews his attention. “We are both human enough to understand that expecting them to turn away from mako is delusional. It is not in their nature to deny themselves the present, no matter how bleak it makes the future.”

Aerith shakes her head. “Who told you that? Jenova? I’ve met plenty of people who treasure this Planet even more than me. People who are trying to find another way to live, or who would, if only they knew what Shinra was hiding from them.” She cocks her head appraisingly. “Mmm, no, I think you just like believing everyone else is stupid. That way you have no choice but to do the smart thing, which just so happens to be what you wanted anyway. In the labs, people like you were a dime a dozen.”

The accusation rolls off his back with all the rest. “I already told you. Want doesn’t enter into this. Even if it did, I would not feel the need to pretend otherwise.” He rolls his neck, coaxing his shoulders out of the stiffness of bed rest, “I wanted to leave Zack alive, but, of course, the imposter had to weigh him down. I wanted to kill President Shinra, a satisfaction I imagine we shared. I wanted Cloud to suffer, as the world has suffered for his ignorance,” his grip on the edge of cot tightens, “Consuming the Lifestream was necessary.”

“Wait…”, Aerith’s heart skips a beat at the realization, “You always know where Cloud is, don’t you?”

“No, not any-”, he catches himself, slit pupils widening just slightly in realization, scoffs, “ You don’t even understand what you’ve done. How did you propose to hold a prisoner whose capacity you-”, he has to take a deep breath, her lack of tactical acumen more frustrating than her morality. “So the imposter is missing? Unfortunate. His impression of my deputy has it’s uses. I would track him for you myself, but I sense I’d only get in the way of Thirteen.” 

“That, and if you want to make him suffer, I’d prefer you stayed out of it, thanks.”

The corner of his mouth twitches. “A perfectly reasonable request. Grudges are an indulgent use of the month remaining to us, and we need all the time we have to find a way to survive impact.” 

Or to benefit from it once more. Aerith’s sure he’d settle for that, too. “Vincent says Shinra’s Space Division had a contingency plan for a collision event, is that-”

“It won’t work. Even a warhead loaded with all four reactor cores would not possess the explosive yield to impact the trajectory of a planetoid of this scale.”

Vincent guessed right. He must have been briefed on this eventuality when he was in SOLDIER, but what does he mean ‘all four’? That’s not even half of Midgar’s. “That another ‘fact’ from Jenova? Or are you telling me you’re also an astrophysicist?”

“I can reproduce my proofs for Highwind’s scrutiny, if it’s that hard to believe.” He gets to his feet, extending his left arm to the side for a heartbeat, before scowling at the empty air, half-muttering half-growling an “of course” at the halves of his sword lain on the singed remains of his jacket on the chest at the foot of the bed, before making his way to the neatly folded winter clothes she’d pulled off the clearance rack. He shrugs on the crisp white nylon coat with sky blue and bright red accents without comment.

“You know, I did look for a black one.”

“Why?” Naturally, he doesn’t zip it.

“Oh, um, I know firsts get to pick what they wear so I figured you…liked it?

He shakes his head. “My uniform was chosen from among proposals received from dozens of concept artists, fashion designers, and military historians, was focus tested by the same, and went through several rounds of market research in order to best sell the war, best sell the next generation of SOLDIER.” He flays the plastic packaging off the pair of thermal socks. “It has as much to do with me as the cartoon dog Shinra plasters on vending machines.”

“So…what is your favourite?”

“Favourite?” He pulls them over calloused feet. 

“Colour?” She feels stupid as soon as she says it. What a vapid question, the kind of thing she asks orphans at the Leaf House to distract them when they’re sad or scared, not unpredictable super-

“Yellow,” without a hint of mockery, and always priding himself on accuracy, “like command materia.” He attempts to hand her back the pair of aggressively orange ski goggles. “You have stripped me of many of my mother’s gifts, but pupils that correct for high light levels were not among them.”

“That’s the point. You’re the most wanted man on the Planet, and no one on the Planet looks like…” she gestures vaguely at all of him.

He nods, pocketing the goggles for later.“So you can plan ahead.” Ouch. “You’ll be wanting me to dye my hair, then?”

“Well, cut it, tie it back, maybe.”

“No…this colour, while…possible, in someone of my age, is sure to be remarked upon.” He inspects a strand, estimating the length with surprise, even alarm. “I don’t remember letting it get this long.” He grows far-off again, trying and failing to reconcile the growth with the narrative of his body . “Or…no, it didn’t matter enough to notice. To like it one way or the other, to make a decision. Why should the way it pulls at my scalp or itches my skin count for anything, when there was so much to be done?”

How incongruous, that a man who spoke at length of want mere minutes ago would endure a nuisance infinitely within his power to fix for a second longer than necessary. What has he been waiting for? Permission? “No time like the present. You’re stuck here at least until Barret and co come and we decide how to move forward, and I’m sure Shinra left behind a pair of scissors…somewhere.”

His brow furrows as he struggles to imagine the concept, struggles to follow the path she gently illuminates, before his gaze snaps back to his ruined belongings with a childish excitement. He doesn’t notice her tense up as he grabs the shard of the blade still attached to the hilt, breath only released when he gathers silver tresses in his right hand, needs only a moment to adjust for the irregularity of the weapon, severs. Tilts his rough-shorn head back, eyes closed, reveling in the lightness, burn glowing softly green in time with his heart, rush of water from a pump long thought rusted with disuse.

Then a bitter wind rails against the house, so cold it makes the light of Sephiroth and the hearth gutter. Forceful enough to unlatch the shutters, to let snow drift in.

He had been close. To what, he does not know, and he does not care. It was power, and it was his. It was him.

Of course the Planet would send a rogue gale to slap it out of his hand. He’s only of use to it broken and dependent, as part of a whole. There is a reason that ecosystems are described in terms of fetters. Of webs and chains.

Sephiroth catches one of the offending flakes of snow between his fingers. Runs his fingers over it’s white and black barbs, it’s hollow shaft. 

No, not snow. 

It’s a beautiful night, and there is only a single cloud in the sky.

Chapter Text

Seventeen. That was the last time his hair got him in trouble.

He was a Second, then. Nominally. He had, naturally, undergone the appropriate battery of treatments and tests to qualify for First when he was fifteen, but the Shinra brass had remained insistent about First’s minimum age requirement. It seemed the public found ordering highschoolers to kill and die for their country tasteful only so long as someone who could participate in municipal elections was doing the ordering. 

That, and the helmets. Who would have watched, if they could see their eyes?

Sephiroth was not issued a helmet. They said it would detract from his ‘image’. Even at that age it was laughable to him, that the audience at home would need to see his face to recognize him. Could they not tell? Tell how nothing, not a rogue shell, not a bolt of Thunder, not a laced kunai touched him without permission. Tell how every movement was decisive, steps in a dance he knows now he had rehearsed before he was born. Tell that it was not no man’s land, for between the trenches life was his to end or extend.

Of course, they could not. The folks at home needed to see his hair, a piece of contrast against the hopeless muck of what was once the Western Continent. The rest of the boys needed to see his hair, a pennant to rally to when all else was chaos. So his handler told him. The other SOLDIERs did not have handlers, and he was old enough by then to find this annoying. Not old enough to admit it was upsetting. Not old enough to realize the half-Turk, half-PR shill had all the power of an ice cube in a supernova to exact his authority.

Initially, he had been relieved by the order. Keeping his hair within regulation had been a constant battle, his near-weekly need to take scissors to what would be months worth of growth on anyone else time-consuming. Freakish. That second part, to think that had mattered most of all. What a stupid child! A cuckoo chick does not concern itself with the esteem of it’s adopted siblings as it prepares to shove them from the nest. 

Foolish or not, his joy was short-lived. He had assumed the standardized cut was simply to deprive the enemy of an easy grab, and he was too quick for this to matter. But he had been looking through the lens of combat, not war. In war, long hair gets caught in branches and barbed wire. Long hair gets dirty when crouching in a foxhole or rolling away from a blow. Long hair never dries during monsoon season, long hair harbours insects, and on one memorable occasion, long hair catches on fire during a casting of Firaga. That last one, at least, he was able to play off as intimidation. Better yet, as good an excuse as he could imagine to shave off the whole sorry mess.

Shinra didn’t agree, and it was easy to find a First more than happy to take the arrogant, up-jumped labrat to task. She was old guard, treated only with mako. Dying breed, barely less human than a trooper. Used a gun like one, too, but with a recoil that would have broken a non-SOLDIER’s arm. What had she called his generation’s insistence on blades? Dramatic…? No. Romantic. Minds oversaturated with fairy tales, action movies. Digging latrine pits for the next week- how’s that for romance? The First said this like it was supposed to bother him. It was less interesting than battle, but it had to be done either way, and Sephiroth would see that it was done well. 

The Third she’d consigned to labour with him with didn’t see it that way.

“Don’t they know we’re needed elsewhere?” He was fifteen, and small, even for a Third. His question and accompanying lack of interest in his shovel reeked of entitlement, but…we? A rare thing to claim. Worth interrogating.

“Are we?”

That made him laugh. “Anyone can dig a hole, but we’re heroes .” His eyes twinkled, crystal blue. “They can’t just make people like us.”

“Of course they can,” Sephiroth snapped. “That’s the entire point. If you’re dense enough to have missed it, I suggest going home.”

“I see why they don’t let you do interviews.” When Sephiroth didn’t reply, he heaved a great sigh and at last began to work. For what he lacked in comparison to the older boy’s raw strength and speed, he made up for in technique. It was clear he’d worked the soil before, despite appearances. “What grand act of rebellion did Midgar’s defender commit, that the Goddess would abandon him so?”

Goddess? Must be one of those backwater pagans that still heed the Summons. “I shaved.” 

He shakes his head, his own red layers just slightly too shaggy to be strictly above aboard. “And to think I thought my punishment was unjust! No wonder Shinra’s losing this war.”

“Let me guess. Glory hound?” 

“Couldn’t be further off.” He grins. “I was reading.”

“Reading.” Sephiroth cocked an eyebrow, unconvinced. “What could you have been caught with to merit this?”

“It’s not the what, it’s the when. And when I heard you were being deployed on the same field today, I knew there wouldn’t be an ounce of valour left for the rest of us. When the great and noble Sephiroth takes the stage, who will notice if I tuck into a chapter or two in the wings?”

“Then congratulations. You bill high enough that your absence was noticed.”

The sparkle in his irises dims, eyes narrowed. “Not by you.”

“No.” Of course not, he almost adds, before remembering that it is not the child’s fault for falling prey to the fantasy of himself Shinra forces down their throats. The hope that one might be like him, liked by him, kindling for the great Shinra war machine. “What is your name?”

“Genesis. Genesis Rhapsodos.” 

“Go home, Genesis.” Looking back, that was impossible. Asking light to avoid a black hole. Like a migratory butterfly, every cell in his body knew the way to Sephiroth, even as his mind laboured under the impression of freedom. “Boys who shirk whatever duties they deem too boring to trouble themselves with have no future in this army.” 

 “But I’ve only been gone from Banora three months, and everyone knows a good prodigal son must be absent for years!”. 

“Prodigal son?” Prodigy- he’s had his fill of prodigy, but this adjective is strange to him.

Any of Genesis’s lingering moodiness evaporates in the light of this, his idol’s slightest intimation of interest. “Like in the delightful comedy I was reading while you kicked Leviathan’s teeth in. There’s this demigod on a quest to save the world, but all he does is wander around telling riddles.”

“And he is a prodigal son?”

“Hush. I’m getting there.” And Sephiroth was hushed, if only out of surprise. “In one of the riddles, a wealthy man has two sons. The younger son wants his inheritance early, and his father obliges. Of course, because of his prodigal ways , he wastes it all on pleasures of the flesh,” ( is pretension the Banoran accent, Sephiroth wondered), “and destitute, is forced to become servant to a swineherd. Even the pigs pity him! Remembering how well the labourers of his family’s estate were treated, the prodigal son swallows his pride and goes home to beg for the lowliest of jobs in his father’s house. What do you think happened then?”

“He was sent away, because he was not only impatient and senseless, but incapable of enduring menial labour?”. Not much of a riddle.

Genesis sighed. “Of course not. It’s a comedy, remember? The father was overjoyed the younger son was not dead. His return was celebrated lavishly, and his indulgence was forgiven, much to the ever-obedient older son’s jealousy, for he was never celebrated as extravagantly. The father told him not to be bitter, but to rejoice that their family was whole again.” He bowed deeply. “The end.”

“I see. You cannot return home yet because your parents will not be sad enough to accept you.” Sephiroth returned to digging. “How pathetic.”

Genesis, red-faced, muttered something to the ground along the lines “of course you wouldn’t understand” and “typical jarhead anti-intellectualism”, and proceeded to finish his half of the pit in record time. As soon as he was alone, Sephiroth allowed himself to smile.

If he had learned anything from his father, it was that through spite, all things were possible.

The riddle hangs in the air outside his window.

A sword so cold water vapour condenses into a sheath of constant mist, awaiting an answer.

Why did the father forgive the prodigal son? He was so, so lucky, beyond lucky, he was blessed, but he frittered his divinity away on doomed causes and ephemeral joys. The family loved him so, even as he relished giving them every misery. Of course the older brother was jealous! He had been abandoned to shoulder the burden of the estate alone, and their inheritance was vast and vital. How could the father revel in reunion with his deserter, his betrayer, his murderer? How dare he ask the loyal son to do the same!

Only…

She doesn’t even notice, does she? He can’t feel her anymore. Hasn’t, since he woke this afternoon, feigned unconsciousness a while longer because he knew once Aerith saw him the tapes would stop and, and he hasn’t heard Gast in so long. Didn’t want to say goodbye again, so soon. He had braced himself for a reprimand against mortal sentimentality, for a numbing dose of purpose, glorious and sweet, to assault his nerves and goad him back to action. 

But mother let him play pretend. The puppets, Cloud among them, did not assail him with dozens of channels of conflicting sensory input. When he strains his mind to reach out to his family, there is only the murmuring of the Stream. Washing him clean of her scent, rendering him unrecognizable. It must be so. Mother would not have given up on him so easily any other way.

There is a soft gasp to his left, as Aerith’s weak eyes and gentle heart at last piece together the same enigma. 

Cloud’s wing is not solid in colour. There is a wedge of white amidst the black, widest near the body and tapering off towards the tip. The growth is more extensive than on Sephiroth or the Class Gs, white feathers bursting from his left neck and shoulder to form a vulture’s ruff. Good. He is a scavenger dressed in a dead thing’s clothes dragging a dead thing’s blade playing at a dead thing’s valour. Let him be revealed as the carrion feeder he is.

Sephiroth’s right hand curls around the second shard of Masamune, heedless of the bite of naked steel against his palm, dual-wielding training scattered across myriad time loops snapping back into focus as though he only put down a katana and wakizashi moments ago. 

Satisfied, the puppet shifts to gripping the Buster Sword with both hands.

It is no mystery now, what bled his sickroom of warmth. Cloud’s presence makes breath fog and glass frost, even at this distance. Eyes the perfect, sterile blue of the water they use to cool reactors. The vast passions that once lit them stifled one by one until only hatred remained, nurtured by a loss greater still than any one home, any one mother, any one Planet. 

The memories of Jenova’s cells are long, for those who know how to use them.

“You should’ve stayed where you belonged.”

Chapter Text

“Cloud!”

He is so awestruck by her voice as she leans out from the window that the temperature rises palpably. Enough that the tears have a moment to roll down his cheek before freezing.

“You’re…alive?”

He drifts to her level, close enough to touch, vengeance not forgotten, never forgotten, but…justifiably postponed, by Aerith’s arms around him, an embrace made awkward but no less potent for the sill between them.

“The whispers are gone, remember?”, she squeezes his hands, affirming her reality, joy at his return winning out over concern for the change within him. This was the fate of all SOLDIERS. Zack had shared with her that much, though she had assumed Cloud’s treatments to be too recent to already be experiencing degradation. “We made sure their illusions were just that. Illusions.”

“Memories. My memories.”

“What?”

“It…you…”, the warmth is stifled again. Her fingers sting, just a little. “It happened. Not just once, either. I let you down…twenty…thirty…?”, he winces, clutching his forehead in an all-too familiar agony, “I carried your body. Watched you sink. Never did anything different. Wasn’t, allowed, to do anything different. To do anything better .” He smiles as he unwinds his hands from her grasp. “Thank you. You sealed away his gifts, and unlocked mine. We will have the life we’ve earned, Aerith, it, it will stick this time. There’s just a few things left to finish,” his stare fixes at some point behind her shoulders. “Starting with him.”

She shakes her head. Unlocked? “Cloud, I didn’t- I’d never do this to you!”

“What are you saying? You made me strong enough to save us. It’s nothing to apologize for.”

“It will kill you.”

“It would only be fair,” he tries to cup her cheek, but the cold makes her flinch away, to his sorrow, “after the price you paid for me. But once we have his cells, that won’t be a problem.”

“Idiot,” chimes in Sephiroth with an ineffable nonchalance despite the guard he’s been holding since their argument began, unable to stand this balcony-scene maudlin a moment longer. “You already have them,” then to Aerith, “He was never terminal. You’re welcome.” 

In a flash, Cloud evaporates into a roiling mist pouring around her and into the room before rematerializing with a brittle snap, Buster Sword forming in his outstretched hand a second later at his barest beckoning, it’s edge to Sephiroth’s throat. For an instant, the disaffected mask drops, but there is no fear beneath. 

Anguish. Heartbreak. Eighty-eight letters, not unanswered, what a relief would only silence, tragic and accidental, have been compared to rejection, premeditated and articulate. 

She gasps. That was more, much more than just his expression, but before she can dwell on the how he has already collected himself, larger sword caught between his mismatched blades.

“Mother is selling you zolom-oil, puppet. Don’t look confused, we both know you couldn’t have come up with that idea yourself. I recommend spending the one brain cell you did not inherit from me concerning yourself with why. ”

“Shut. Up.”

“Fine. Let us indulge ‘your’ fantasy. The asteroid on our doorstep will still strike you down long before the tumors will. If you care so much for your friend, at least respect her decision to let-”, Cloud lets go of the Buster Sword entirely, and the sudden slack surprises Sephiroth long enough for Cloud’s heightened speed to allow him to pin him to the wall.

“You used to ask me to let Meteor hit us for the same reason. You blamed me for not quitting when all along it was your whispers forcing me to make the same mistakes.”

“Mine?”, he spits, “Gaea’s holding pattern was only ever for your benefit. Our benevolent Planet would have had us dance forever then risk you miss a single step.” 

“Don’t lie,” he calls his weapon back, making a shallow scratch over his tormentor’s heart.

Aerith hands fold over his on the grip, forcing him to look up. When did she start shivering? “Cloud, stop this. I asked the Lifestream for an answer, risking, no, expecting, that it would cost me my life, and he’s the only response I have. You don’t need to forgive him, but killing him, killing what he knows, that’s not going to protect anyone. Least of all me.”

His eyes are wide and wounded. “Aerith, what don’t you understand? When we cut open the Harbinger, there he was. Asking me to lend my power, again.” The wound stays dry, his blood frozen in the vein. “Or was it begging-”

Sephiroth plunges what remains of Masamune deep into Cloud’s kidneys, vaulting over his folding body and through the window in one fluid motion, with a grace that suggests the wing was only ever a formality. 

How long has it been, since gravity was a going concern for him?

Between the packed snow and his combat roll’s execution, at two storeys there is minimal pain and even less loss of momentum as he sprints for the adjacent woods, where the canopy will restrict the puppet’s angle of attack. With the Planet’s venom working through her cells (he swears he can feel when each one bursts, apoptotic, apoplectic), how many more would risk injury? 

How many would kill? How many to return to the mansion of five years before and spare himself this indignity?

No.

If that still worked, mother would not have sicced the puppet on him. Not when victory was so near at hand. 

Mother? That’s not the word he’s looking for, when the Queen is sacrificed so the last pawn remaining can achieve promotion and force checkmate, this is a grandmaster at work and defining her by the incidental fact of children is insulting. One of the family had to take the onus of destroying Holy upon themselves, and Cloud would have been far harder to manipulate. The efficiency should impress him. It would have, yesterday. It must be the Lifestream weakening his resolve. These traitorous urges can’t belong to him, she must have told him it would end this way and he must have been satisfied but the mako burned those memories away with his flesh and-

Panic is unbecoming of a SOLDIER. Breathe. One problem at a time.

Cloud wants him dead. Uninteresting in and of itself, if not for the sudden progression of Jenova’s parasitism and accompanying disregard for Aerith’s sense. He cycles through his memory of the loops to make sure, and no, it’s as he said, before the whispers would have prevented a transgression against canon this monumental. Imagine, thinking they were Sephiroth’s! Seeing as he left Midgar the moment those gnats began to swarm, the wild claim that he was inside the Harbinger, that he begged for Cloud’s cooperation, that alone confirms mother’s (he cannot help but keep thinking of her in this way) hand in this, illusion being her preferred medium. 

Mother needs him dead. If his dying means another can succeed the Planet, can see it’s Lifestream forged into a greater pattern rather than squandered by mortal hands, who is he to resist? He does not want to die, but want does not enter into this. I could have offered myself up a hundred times, and nothing would have changed. Putting myself last is not necessarily a virtue. He cries out, the sudden burn in his right shoulder, almost welcome after Cloud’s oppressive chill, forcing him to brace himself against the nearest tree. 

That wasn’t his. Wasn’t even pretending to be, not like the sudden conviction he was Cetra mother never contradicted but pointedly let atrophy. He hasn’t thought about that lie in so long. Has never, he realizes, even called it what it was. But like Cloud’s need for Sephiroth’s cells, it hadn’t come from nowhere. Hojo had realized Jenova wasn’t an Ancient years before Nibelheim, and of course, he never told Sephiroth, but he’d recorded his findings on Shinra servers. Servers his son has combed mercilessly for solutions to Holy in the loops since, but that, shockingly, he hadn’t hacked to cross-reference that first fateful night, instead jumping to conclusions from decades old data. A SOLDIER should be demoted for performing reconnaissance so poorly. Sephiroth, Second Class! He can’t resist smiling at that, chuckling, laughing, uncontrollable, tears in his eyes doubled-over laughing, the cut in his chest finally thawed enough to weep right along with him. He doesn’t know for how long. 

“TIIFFFAAA, I went the way Red said he smelled Jenova, but all I found was a crazy old guy.”

The voice is Wutaian, lightly accented. No snap of twig or crunch of snow heralded her approach. 

Ninja. They finally got him. See, mother? Didn’t need to drag Cloud into this at all. A sneaker nudges his back, once, twice, three times with increasing insistence. When did he lie down?

Another voice, muffled, distant. A phone? The Wutaian continues, “Huh. He stopped laughing, that’s good. A test subject? Nah, asshole isn’t wearing a robe. I know he’s an asshole, Tifa, because it’s -30, and he doesn’t have a shirt on. I think it’s just hypothermia. Yeah, tough guys who think they can climb Da-Chao in the winter get it sometimes. No, I’m not volunteering to- she hung up!” His assassin crouches down to look him in the eye. Young. Too young, to have been in the war. “Hey. Bean-bar. Are you quiet because you’re dead, or quiet because you’re a perv who likes hearing girls talk on the phone?”

“I’m dead. I have been dead for,” he adds the loops together, end to end, “Almost two and a half centuries.”

She sighs a sigh only a teenager can. “Great. Awesome. See, if you had really kicked it, I wouldn’t have to babysit you. And if I didn’t have to babysit you, I could sneak off to this house in Icicle Inn where this war criminal, I’m talking a real salt the earth, real pillage the village type guy, was convalescing and do a lot of people a favour, while the bean-bars who want him breathing are too worried about Cloud turning into a bird to stop me. You know?”

“Yes.”

“Cool,” she checks her watch, “Can you walk? Cause if you can walk, I think I can still knock out dropping you off at the Icicle Inn…inn, offing Sephiroth, and stealing a snowmobile before midnight.”

Sephiroth, Second Class! A fact so pathetic it renders him unrecognizable! He wants to laugh again, but no matter how hard he searches the backroom of his lungs all he finds are coughs as he accepts the stability of her arm. Pulled to standing, he grabs her shoulders, forces her to reckon with his terrible eyes, to share in this, the perfect punchline.

“I’ll give you one shot. You will never have a better chance.”’

But his pupils, hungry for light, are thrown passingly wide by the darkness, and his voice hoarse from the cold, the misuse, so she only rolls her eyes, shrugs him off, and leads him out of the woods.

Aerith is already preparing Curaga when Cloud’s coldness redoubles in intensity, forcing her backwards and killing her magic on the vine. Frost spreads from him in an elaborate six-pointed fractal that consumes the better half of her room. He bellows as he pulls out the shrapnel Sephiroth embedded beneath his ribs, metal made so brittle at his touch it shatters as it falls to the floor.  Still the storm expands, threatening to consume her box of tapes, which she lunges for, hugging close to her chest.

“Cloud…this is my home. This is all I have.” A command materia in her staff glows gold as an Enemy Skill activates, stabilizing her temperature and sharpening her reflexes. Thanks Zack, for teaching me that old Gongaga trick about beachplugs, but was ‘Big Guard’ really the best name you could come up with? “I know you. I know you’ve lost your home. I know you’d never want to take mine away.”

Breath ragged, he turns to face her, bewildered. His encroaching influence halts, but the blizzard does not subside. “I don’t understand…you told me to kill him while he was weak. Told me it was the only way, to keep the whispers away, to keep him from starting over. I have all my memories, I’m supposed to be, fixed, I’m supposed to be-”, he clutches at his temples, the pain driving him to his knees, “I can’t be broken, anymore, that’s why you died, every time, because I was crazy, because I was weak.”

“Cloud, I died because a parasite from space and fate itself wanted me dead,” she sits down beside him, her layered barriers melting the frost around her, “Before you ever met me, you got hurt standing up for Zack, for Tifa. You were brave, and Hojo punished you for it. Never blame yourself for that. Never blame yourself for me.” He folds his wing around her, gathering her in, and the gesture is alien, yes, but there is warmth in it, blessed, merciful. It is him. “Whoever told you to kill Sephiroth, whoever made you feel this way, that wasn’t me. I think…I think you know that.”

He is quiet, for a time. Gathering his strength, his thoughts. “When it would get to the part, in Mideel, where I…I could think about my life, again, you know what the first thing on my mind would always be?”

Mideel? The Lifestream’s never said a word to her about Mideel, via whispers or otherwise. He must be referring to a chapter in their story that never…featured her. “Hmmm…honestly, at this point I’m hoping it’s ‘before telling her this story I should probably tell Aerith where Tifa is, because she’s worried sick and the last time anyone saw her was with me’?”

He winces. “That’s fair.”

“And?”

“When Tifa, Vincent, and I finally got to the City, I started hearing…you. You said you’d found a way for me to fly, to even the odds against Sephiroth, and I believed you. It became agony to just walk , when I knew what was within me, what was desperate to come out. Eventually, I couldn’t take it anymore. Decided to take a running leap off the next ledge that looked promising.”

“Only Tifa wasn’t having any of it.”

“No. Unfortunately, Tifa’s the best at a long of things, but marathon casting isn’t one of them. Only so many slows she can handle without taking a break, and I wasn’t about to give her one.” 

“Lucky you. If it was Vincent, you’d probably still be there.” And lucky Sephiroth. She doubts Tifa would have been as, amenable, to his situation, to put it mildly.

“Long story short, we both go over the edge, this,” he flexes his wing, “happened, and between ‘you’ telling me to find Sephiroth and Tifa constantly contradicting my reasoning, I panicked. I needed her to be safe, Jenova didn’t want her getting in the way, and the Gaea’s Cliff basecamp was the closest spot to fit the bill.”

Aerith releases the breath she’s been holding since her calls went unanswered. “That’s what you were thinking of in Mideel? That’s really weird, Cloud, even for you.”

“No, in Mideel, it was ‘wow, Zack was a really great guy’”, she can’t help but laugh, “I’m serious. I would think about what a great friend he was to me, and how I wasn’t even half as close to him as Sephiroth was. I couldn’t stop running through their last conversation, before…before it fell apart. Between Sephiroth’s cells and the mako poisoning, it felt like a conversation I had had with myself.” He inhales sharply at this recollection, his eyes shut in grave concentration, though the temperature does not fluctuate. “And the more I thought about it, the more I realized, well…Zack’s a really great guy. If there was any one person, who could say any one thing to Sephiroth, to make it better- that was him.”

Tears sting the corners of her eyes. She leans into him even tighter. “There wasn’t.”

“No. There wasn’t.” He peels away, gentle as he can. “This isn’t like that show at Gold Saucer. Jenova’s not a thing that the right words from the right person will ever kill.”

“You’re wrong”, he’s better now, can’t he see he must be, to be telling her this at all, “We killed fate. We’re different.”

“Aerith, you need to understand. I’m begging you, to understand. It’s like…Holy made a river change it’s course, and the only way left for it to go is through me,” he clenches his fists, nods to himself, “And that’s good. That’s good, Aerith, alright? The current’s not as strong, this way’s not as smooth, as she’d like it to be.”

She smiles. It’s what he needs. “That makes sense. You are pretty dense.”

“Aerith, if there really were magic words, you came as close as anyone could to finding them.” He looks out the open window, into the night. “I can’t stay with you. I can’t believe I’m saying this, but…I believe you about Sephiroth. I also believe the last thing he and I need right now is each other.”

If that’s how it is, then she picks Cloud. She picks Cloud a thousand times, and nothing on earth will stand against them. 

If only, then, it was a question of earth. Jenova and Meteor, they are of Heaven, and her ancestors have secured her the counsel of mankind’s greatest expert on Heaven, at terrible cost. She remembers the sound of his lifestream echoing in the Ancient’s well, the sting of his betrayal as clearly as if it was her own, and knows for certain that the equation Sephiroth alluded to will not be balanced by either one of them acting alone. So she holds her tongue. She does not trust it enough to do anything more.

“I think I can give you all a head start, before she wears me down. But where I was, there’ll still be that river. Don’t waste time arguing with it, don’t show it any mercy. No matter what it looks like on the surface. Promise me, ok?”

She puts a hand on his shoulder, and Enemy Skill glows once more to anoint him with the greatest blessing in her arsenal. “Never. I’m done with sacrifice. I’m through. Good luck on your suicide mission, hero, but I swear to you, I’m making a way out of this for both of us. That is my promise. Ok?”

“Ok.”

Before Jenova can curdle his intentions, or Aerith’s eyes shake his resolve, he gives that hand the lightest kiss, and vanishes into the moonlight.

Chapter Text

“...and if at all possible, keep him at range. For all his versatility, a SOLDIER’s skillset confers a distinct preference for melee combat. By staying evasive, you will force him to remain reactive rather than proactive, his strategy compromised by the need to close the distance.”

For all Yuffie’s pride in Wutai, she hasn’t visited a shrine to bend Leviathan or the Five’s ears since her nation accepted the fragile ceasefire. Many had looked to them for victory, only for Masamune to stifle the hymns in their throats. Either they are weak, or they are deaf, or they never were, and Chad’s simulacrum is the realest her gods have ever been. Which of these she prefers varies by the day, the hour. All amount to the same truth- time spent begging them for answers or thanking them for grace is time better spent pursuing tangible salvation.

The serendipity of tripping over a bitter veteran on the way to Sephiroth is beginning to make her question that resolution.

“You don’t get it, he’s not just a SOLDIER. Doesn’t matter how much distance I put between us when he can up and fly!”

The Second- Crescent, she was able to drag out of him, once the delirium subsided- drains the last of the Hi-Potion she offered as he contemplates this latest wrinkle, the medicine having soothed his exposure enough to counteract his hysteria. Good. She wasn’t going to burn anything more expensive on a charity case.

“So? Accept his invitation to exploit an obvious weakness. Strike him with wind magic, the strongest you have, and he won’t test that route again.” Crescent strokes his chin, squinting as though he can see the battle playing out in the snowfield around them. “No, not until he’s confident you’ve exhausted your mana. Which you surely will if you need to refresh the aforementioned preparatory buffs. You cannot let it become a war of attrition.”

With only starlight to see by, she had misjudged his age, much to her relief. The crumpled, wheezing, grey-haired wreck turned out to be quite capable of keeping pace, even if his heavy footfalls (typical Easterner) break the crust of the snow. Still, old enough that the signs of Shinra’s artful programmed obsolescence had begun to rear their ugly head, for Tifa had been right after all. He may not have been from Hojo’s numbered batch, but he bore Jenova’s cells all the same. Why else would he have been compelled to travel this far north with so little preparation, if not Reunion? When pressed, Crescent had admitted he no longer knew why he’s doing what he’s doing.

Given that at least it involved walking out on Shinra, she’s willing to give his employment history a slide (stupid Cloud, making her set stupid precedents). And seeing that he was equally willing to divulge his tactical insight given the slightest provocation, her mercy has more than paid for itself.

“You must really hate Sephiroth, if you thought this much about killing him.”

His laugh is deep and sonorous as they find a paved path, a first promise of civilization. “I wouldn’t go that far. I simply have seen many your age fall in battle. It was and is wasteful.” He shakes his head. “If my analysis cannot dissuade you from this course of action, then at least you will be prepared to make the most of it.”

Dissuade? “Psh. Even if Ancient…uh…Planet…ghost …magic hadn’t knocked him flat on his ass, I’d give him a run for his money.” She flourishes her throwing glaive as they walk, tossing it forwards and rolling to catch it before it lands. “I’ve been training for this as long as I can remember. When I bust out my patented Doom of the Living technique, he’s not going to know what hit him.”

“I think he can safely assume,” Crescent intones as he inspects a map posted outside a shuttered kiosk, “that it will be your oversized shuriken.” Motion-activated lights flick on at his approach, narrowing his pupils to slits as he gets his bearings.

Oh. 

Oh shit.

“One: to avenge the honour of a trampled people!”

He doesn’t react. 

“Two: to pass judgment on crimes most foul!”

Unconcerned, he palms a pocket guide from a rack of complementary brochures. “Victory is no crime, as defined by the Cosmo Accords.” 

“Three: to knock the teeth out of your smug mouth!”

She lets her glaive fly, wind howling as her elemental ninjutsu takes effect. Without looking, he reaches back, catches it with two fingers. “Betraying a truce? Now, there’s something that merits a tribunal.” He gives it a lazy twirl. “You could not have landed a critical blow. But I might have at least cut myself in a fumbled deflection if not for that ball and chain you call an ego.” With Hastened steps she grabs her weapon before he can pull it out of her reach, but he is far the stronger, his iron grip lifting her off the ground. He cocks his head to observe as she dangles unceremoniously, endures her impudent kicks. “At least you were casting the supports we discussed while you monologued. Good. But never forget that our friends Haste and Manawall pale in comparison to the element of surprise.”

He sets her and the glaive down, gentle, confusing. “Huh. The Planet really did give you a lobotomy. And here I thought Aerith was just being more gullible than usual.”

“No. In fact, I am beginning to suspect it was just the opposite.” He catches her wrist before she can impale him on a tine of her weapon with the kind of good-natured chuckle one reserves for witnessing a kitten’s disobedience. “For centuries I had given you scarcely a second thought, yet I have found this exchange alone more gratifying than many loops in their entirety.” He releases her again, and takes the fork towards town. “Though as enlightening as it may be, we have pressing matters to attend to.”

“What could you possibly have to ‘attend to’ that involves my friends that I should let you get away with?”

“Saving the world, of course. Yours and mine.”

“No. You don’t care about the world.” You’re even more selfish than me.

“I have always cared!”, he snaps, strange levity evaporating in the heat of his indignation. “Do not accuse me of otherwise, simply because my definition of save was too liberal for your refined palate.” He seethes, daring her to offer an rebuttal, then, softer, “Not that it matters anymore. Apotheosis was a tale told to a gullible child, predicated on lies and dream-logic. Holy, a palliative for which the prescription has run dry.”

He pauses for a reply, which he receives in the form of a Thundaga he narrowly spins away from, and freed from his charade his steps no longer break the snow. “If you’d been born anywhere else, you would’ve made a fine SOLDIER.” He nods at the steaming slush approvingly. “I have not been responsible for Thirds in centuries, but these are desperate times. I will make an exception.”

“You clearly didn’t have many marbles to spare before you got electrocuted if you think I have ANY interest in training with scum like you.”

“You misunderstand, Deputy Kisaragi. That was an order, not an offer. In the interest of prevailing against Meteor, I will not allow your potential as an asset to humanity to go unexplored.” 

He really is insane. Is this his sick idea of fun? Pretending to be someone else, someone vulnerable,  to teach her how to take him down, only to better humiliate her when she still doesn’t stand a chance? Before her visible disgust manifests into another volley of magic, he is sure to add, “And needless to say, but an off-the-books SOLDIER privy to Shinra’s greatest secrets will be enviably prepared to defend her nation…proactively. Should we survive long enough for that to be a concern.”

Now, hold on, when he puts it that way…it’s not like he’s hurt her. She’s met him with only violence, but he has not reciprocated. Normally, she would have expected him to summon a squid monster and then fly away at the first sign of resistance. Like a COWARD! So maybe, just maybe, Aerith is right. Something’s changed. 

And if he hasn't- if she smells even one whiff of a long con- she’ll just get her friends that aren’t bleeding heart bean-bars to gang up on him. Problem solved.

“Two conditions.”

“Orders are not, as a rule, negotiable,” he raises an eyebrow, “though I am willing to entertain requests.”

“First of all, after you teach me how to cut Meteor in half, or whatever, you’re coming with me. When the ceasefire breaks, and you know it will, you’re going to be on our side.”

He almost smiles. “Presuming you survive and the rest of Wutai is willing to hold their noses long enough to allow it, then…yes. A miracle for a miracle. I almost hate to ask what more a girl could need.”

“Second. Masamune. Hand it over.”

“I don’t have it.”

“Sure you do. You always have it! I’ve seen you do the, you know-”, she activates wind ninjutsu on her glaive to make it blurry while making her best impression of summoning it out of thin air, which is mostly a lot of whooshing. He blinks, nonplussed. “You know.”

“No, I-”, a rare stutter, a pained expression, “It broke.” Is that…even possible? Cetra don’t mess around, apparently. She makes a mental note to leave Aerith’s inventory alone when the time comes. “You will have to settle for only my complete loyalty to your nation. ”

“No sword? Fine. Then my second condition is actually saddle up, mister, because you’re carrying me the rest of the way.”

“No.”

“That’s just too bad. Guess I’ll have to tell all my good good friends that I took so long to get back to them because Sephiroth was trying to murder me the whole time…guess Aerith missed a spot when she was cleaning his soul. Bummer.” She sticks out her tongue before bolting in the direction of Aerith’s house like a rocket. 

How’s this for element of surprise, asshole?

Chapter Text

Loyalty. Passion. Ambition. Exotic virtues to the purpose-born, the purpose-built. Sephiroth was always a function more than a form. No one asked him what he wanted to be when he grew up. It simply happened, without rebellion, without even a phase, such was his failure of imagination. So what did Angeal possibly mean when he referred to protecting the honour of SOLDIER as though they were a people unto themselves? How could an ancient poetic saga move Genesis to feats that matched Sephiroth’s own? Why had Zack abandoned everything and everyone he’d known for a shot at First’s brass ring? For years he mistook this curiosity for friendship. This is what the stories and shows he had been raised on alluded to, yes? Surely this is what Dr. Faremis had meant when he ticked the box marked yes on the scrap paper query ‘Sephi’ had tucked between two serum vials, returned under the door after curfew. An acknowledgement of value as an observational subject. 

Then he met mother, and curiosity slipped from his mind as surely as gravity. Parent to child; this is the oldest loyalty. To slip the bonds of I and know the rapture of we; this is the fundamental passion. To become God, all-loving, all-saving; this is the highest ambition. Never again question your destination, child. The execution of this journey is your sole concern, now and forever. Now, forever has marched on without him, leaving the old riddles to surface, hungry for sense.

Yuffie Kisaragi. The Harbinger weighed her soul against its whispers and found no reason to value the sanctity of her life. Sephiroth may kill her, and he need not even wait for an appointed hour. Gamebirds have seasons. Fish have seasons. This child does not merit that protection. 

Sephiroth has killed her. She has killed him, not alone, of course, but commendable all the same. She did not remember those triumphs as she aimed her glaive at his head, yet still she found the courage.

Loyalty. Passion. Ambition. Is Wutai a worthier master than Shinra, to inspire this patriotism? Would he have felt the same, had Western interests pierced North Crater before the Nibelheim team? Or do ‘worthy masters’ not splice human embryos with xenofungal spores, rendering this hypothetical absurd? That, or his apathy is endogenous. There is no soil on this Planet he could have loved, that he would have given more than sleepwalking duty to. Only this or that moist crevice he might have chanced to germinate in. 

Oh, the rapture, to find a tribe he was proud to call his own! Not a tool, not a monster, Cetra! Oh, the wrath, to know the heirs of those who hid had used the Ancients’ inheritance, sephiva rith (unless of course this pleasing etymology is as much a hoax as all the rest), to further their own ends. When his sole kinswoman first lay dead at his feet, he was forced to discard that earlier joy as a quaint misunderstanding. No word of man could contain his glory without clipping his wings. Not Ancient- at it’s root this implies ante, before (this origin he knows to be true), and what he is-

What he was.

What he was is outside of time. In Jenova, barriers are abject. No future and past, no life and death, no distinction from flesh to flesh. This body, chasing after a student he took on in a fit of pique? Were it not for Aerith’s arbitrary hallowing, the dregs of his ego would have regarded it with no particular fondness, as one does not single out one of their fingers as the throne of their soul. This vessel was the closest cell cluster to the objective, nothing more. To further distinguish it by shearing it’s hair, heretical. 

Why, then, why of all the works that this narrow-minded insect he has been sentenced to acknowledge as himself has fumbled at, why did that moment of vanity echo with the promise of power? The burn had flared then, too, as it had in the woods, but the thoughts and feelings did not cohere into words. Did not have time to, perhaps- Cloud has a way of monopolizing his attention. Though naturally skeptical of the grace the Cetra have shown him, if it could be induced to conduct that earlier signal once more…then, yes, he can tolerate the occasional cryptic refrain. You want vanity, Cetra? You want impulse? The world is ending and I waste time humouring a teenage girl!

Between the surprise and the Haste, Yuffie’s gained a significant lead, one he does not exert himself to shorten. Rather, he waits out her mana reserves at a brisk jog, counting the seconds elapsed on each renewed instance of the buff, until, 98, 99, 100 passes with no telltale flicker and he drops into a dead sprint, devouring the metres between them. She hisses and squirms like a feral cat as he scoops her from behind, before realizing he is depositing her onto his shoulders.

“I have reconsidered your terms.” She’s a little too old for choco-back rides, but he’s tall enough to account for it. 

“I like this version of you. Much easier to blackmail.”

“You misunderstand. Returning in this fashion humbles me in a way that will alleviate tension, while also conferring upon me the authority of your trust.” It’s either very late or very early, but the signs of civilization are cramped close enough together now that Sephiroth puts on the ski goggles. Best not to risk it.

“Bull. You were SO scared I was going to blow this for you! Should’ve seen your face.” There’s the turn he was looking for. Knowlespole Lane.

“Mmm. You wouldn’t have done it. Just as I won’t tell that you were planning to betray your leader’s orders and abandon her cause.” A stifled gasp, a reflexive tightening of the grip on his shoulder. “Or was that bit about the snowmobile a joke? Forgive me for failing to grasp nuance. Between Jenova and the whispers I have not had the opportunity to practice conversation in some time.”

“Like they’d take your word for it!”, she forces a laugh, “‘sides, Aerith’s not the boss. Don’t go thinking the rest of them would have been hung up about it if I really had sent you to Leviathan’s locker,” she chews her lip, “Well…maybe Vincent. He wouldn’t do anything about it though. He’s not the doing type.” She folds her arms on top of his head and rests her chin there. “What’s with you two, anyway? He mutters things when he’s brooding that make it sound like you’re his fault.”

Does he now? “Fault? Fault? Responsibility. Consequence. Effect. No more his than the other bystanders. And far, far less than my parents.” 

Aerith’s home is easy to spot. It’s the only one whose lights are still on at this hour. “Wait wait wait, hold on. He’s NOT your dad?”

That elicits a bark of laughter from him. “What possibly gave you that impression?”

“Do you know how much gil I had riding on this? UGH. I’m going to be buying Cid’s smokes for MONTHS.”

A moment’s pause before he summits the steps. “Then let this be your second lesson. A SOLDIER does not gamble. Never put yourself in a position where luck or chance will decide the encounter, rather than skill and foresight.”

“I hate to break it to you bean-bar, but this right here? Gamble.”

“Storming Shinra HQ through the front door is a gamble. Unlocking a safe in a haunted laboratory is a gamble. Undertaking a pilgrimage, alone and unarmed, is a gamble. This?”

He knocks on the door.

“This is only madness.”

Barret hates the North. Yeah, yeah, Corel cools down something fierce at night on account of the dryness, but that’s just the Planet’s way of insisting desert folk hunker down and get some shut eye, ‘cause life needs all its strength come tomorrow to perform it’s daily miracles. But when the Sun’s out, it’s warm! Don’t need a degree in Planet Studies to noodle that one out. 

Problem is, it’s so obvious, no one thought they had to tell North Continent. Huge mistake. All the morning can muster up here is light that blinds but doesn’t melt. That, or the snow clouds are caked so thick, you can’t hardly tell it’s dawn. Those days are the worst. If he never sees snow again, it’ll be too soon. Makes travel half as fast and twice as cold. At least the Planet has her reasons, he supposes- the harsh climate kept humans from screwing the pooch on Jenova for a good two millennia - but now that that summon’s out of the bottle, maybe she could reconsider how she’s set the AC. The vicious cycle of frost building up on his arm, far more conducive to the cold than skin, then melting from the heat of the barrel, then freezing again threatens to wreak havoc on his appendage, so he passes the time waiting for Aerith’s stray monster to come crawling back weatherproofing the gun with oil until it shines.

That, and telling Vincent off. If Barret thought Vincent being technically older meant he’d get a break from having to be the responsible one, he had another thing coming.

“You said you were gonna keep an eye on him,”

“I did.” 

“You call bumming around in the attic keeping an eye on things? Cloud got stabbed!”

“Cloud gets stabbed all the time. Didn’t die then, didn’t die now.” He fiddles with his pistol grip, socketing and unsocketing the same handful of materia in different combinations, unable to make up his mind about an ideal loadout.

“Uh-huh. And you didn’t think Aerith needed backup either?”

“Kids were having a moment. Sorting things out.” Settling on devoting the linked slot to Elemental, he lines up likely partners in a row, most green, some red.  “No need to impose.”

“Let me guess, you didn’t chase Sephiroth ‘cause he’s just sorting-”

Knock, knock, knock.

Barret’s barely gotten up to check the door when it’s followed by a staccato burst of knocks with greater intensity, a whine of “Open up, it’s COOOLLLLLDDD!”

“Bahamut’s breath Yuffie, I’m coming!” That girl knows how to complain. And here he thought ninja were supposed to be quiet. He rolls his eyes as he lets her in and-

Even with Aerith’s description, it takes a second to place the interloper, his singular silhouette disrupted by brutalized hair and downright colourful civilian attire. Not to mention the incongruity of Yuffie riding on his shoulders. Sephiroth takes full advantage of the confusion, neatly ducking under the frame to avoid decapitating his passenger and sidestepping Barret’s bulk.

Yuffie hooks a thumb at herself, grins broadly, “Don’t worry,” she front flips off of her caddy, striking a dramatic landing with one palm flared to the side. “He works for me now.” 

Sephiroth removes his garish goggles,  eyes flicking to the thermostat, and he visibly relaxes. “Cloud left. Good.”

“Yeah, I’m sure you’re real happy he’s not around, huh?”

“Of course. He increasingly exists outside of reason. Unlike us. Establishing a dialectic will be difficult enough without his unchecked aggression.”

“Dialectic,” Barret snorts, “that your word of the day?”

He is quiet, the barb giving him surprising pause. Then, “Jenova finds language rather…provincial, preferring to express information either psychically or through organic chemical pathways. Speech became…increasingly difficult for me, outside of rehearsed declarations.” Sephiroth holds himself with military bearing, hands clasped behind his back, posture perfect, too perfect. It is a far cry from the fluid animal grace with which he has tormented their group for the past several months. If it was anyone else, he’d assume the rigidity was a sign of nervousness. But Sephiroth, Shinra’s perfect monster, calamity from the skies, no way he’s feeling anxious…right? “Though she was right to discard them as inefficient, I still find myself enjoying the return of linguistic capacities her presence had discouraged. Nostalgia, I’m sure.” 

“That was one hell of a roundabout way of saying you like the sound of your own voice. Took so long getting to the point, I was worried you were going to pull off at Kalm and ask for directions.”

That makes him laugh, a blood-chilling sound, for in Barret’s experience Sephiroth’s sense of humour generally finds itself at odds with the sanctity of human life. “Yes. It was, and I do.” There’s a light in his eyes, and it’s not mako. It seems he liked Barret’s joke.

Not for the first time, Barret wonders who this is, and where did Vincent bury Sephiroth’s body.

“You get that from your old man,” Vincent finally decides to chime in, though doesn’t get up from fiddling with his load out, “But unlike him, your thoughts might actually be valuable. So don’t let Barret keep you from shooting the shit.”

“Mr. Valentine! Yuffie says I have you to thank for preventing my entirely too timely demise?” Sephiroth’s pupils dilate slightly, like a cat who’s deemed an errant blanket-covered foot a toy. “So glad to hear you’ve reversed your position vis-a-vis my existence being a mistake.”

“Take your own advice, junior, and don’t rip open old wounds.” He rolls a Fire materia into place on his grip, sweeping the rest into one of his cloak’s pockets. Sometimes simple is best. “Seem to recall you saying we don’t have the time.”

“Oh? The man who slept for three decades is going to lecture me on time management? Yes, Vince, I’d love to hear what you have in mind instead!”

Huh. And here Barret thought Cloud was the only one of them that really pissed Sephiroth off. The SOLDIER isn’t making any moves, but he puts himself between he and Vincent just in case. “Given that I’m still highly goddamn undecided about cooperating with you, I’m gonna have to insist you cool it. I don’t know what this is about, but I have a hard time believing anyone here’s got more glass in their house than you.”

“Yeah!”, Yuffie joins him, pointedly miming a flurry of stabs, “I’m the only one allowed to give Vincent a hard time.”

“It’s alright. He’s right to be mad. Maybe not for the reasons he thinks, but he’s right.” He gets up from the table, fishes around the inside of his coat, “This…this won’t fix anything. But…it looks like she and Gast kept in touch, after fleeing Shinra”. He hands Sephiroth a sheet of paper, covered in Cetra writing and diagrams of more familiar letters connected by dots and dashes. Molecules? "I found this cypher in the attic. I know you probably already know where she is. Seems you’ve had a lot more time than I have to look into it. But if you haven’t…you need to talk to her. And I think this just might tell you how.”

Chapter Text

Aerith’s gotten very good at dreaming.

Like the other facets of her Hearing, she’d spent most of her life trying to ignore the wanderings of a sleeping soul. So tempting to believe the whispers of children crammed in the old one-room schoolhouse that she was mad with mako, filled to the brim with memories that weren’t her own. In 2nd grade she suggested they all go into the dark of the supply closet to prove her eyes didn’t glow, honest, only to find herself locked in. No one came to check until after recess. No one else wrote down the results of her experiment ( no bioluminescence in anterior uvea , that’s how the whitecoats had put it when monitoring mother’s mako levels), and the lack of methodology perplexed her, the idea of antagonism unmotivated by a desire for information as alien to her as listening to flowers was to them. 

Still, her insight was too keen, the Turks too insistent, for her to convince herself that her and mother’s powers were mako-induced delusion, memories fabricated by a traumatized mind. And oh, she tried, so selfish in hindsight, to throw her inheritance away. Drown the voices out with music, small talk. Keep their sorrows to yourself, or risk being confused with their source.

By middle school, the war was on, and the new SOLDIERs had come into vogue right along with it. The cadence of the rumours about the black suits shadowing her changed from a warning that she was weird, to a promise that she was special. It seemed everyone had a friend of a friend of a cousin who had been scouted out in just such a way.  Her peers’ revulsion of her had once been part and parcel of their fear of death, but now, her latent potential to deal it excited them. If only they knew, then, just how deadly she was. For the way Tseng told it, if it weren’t for her callous refusal to usher in the golden age of humanity, Shinra would never have had to lower themselves to wrestle with Wutai over the Planet’s remaining resources. This bloody pretext for acquiring the vast mako reserves of the West would end the moment she walked back through HQ’s doors.

So the mechs you were testing, and the boys Hojo pitted against them, that was just for fun? 

She was young when they ran, yes, but she wasn’t stupid. Either mother couldn’t show them the Promised Land, or knew from experience that Shinra’s hands could never forge a utopia. Everything they had discovered, they had put to work waging more efficient varieties of war. She does not doubt they would raid the stars like their patron goddess, if they only knew the way. Small wonder Sephiroth can find no tears to mourn mankind’s passing, believing this the rule and not an exception. It must have seemed to him that seeing as so few employ the moral faculties of their souls, that his appropriation would have been entirely justified. His bid for divinity the function of an abhorrence for waste, not a desire for power.

A green stroke on the black canvas of her awareness. There he is again. Normally, when she Hears lifestream, the sound is more…abstract. Tones that indicate the presence of life or the repose of death, basic emotions, intentions if she’s lucky. Each soul possessing subtle motifs that, once learned, allow her to recognize a given organism where her other senses fail. A far cry from reading minds. Yet for a moment, as it was when Cloud struck him, Sephiroth’s composition is so evocative that there is no room for interpretation, no need to guess. Having never met him before Jenova’s silence lay heavy on his heart, she wonders if his lifestream has always possessed such unique clarity, or if Jenova was only the greatest of the impurities Holy has sifted out.

How appropriate, that Cloud would be his opposite even in this. His song samples the tracks of many others, at times threatens to become white noise, random, anonymous. She must rely on her mundane senses to pierce that veil, a stutter there, an eye movement here, her only footholds. In the grips of Jenova, his tune was unchanged, yet he felt so strongly it was only a matter of a time before he was ‘worn down’. That her world might be deprived the sound of his soul…this, she cannot afford to consider. It will not come to that. It cannot.

In the grips of REM, body paralyzed, receptors numb, there is no interference from her tangible senses to diffuse the acuity of her Hearing. Once, this manifested only as dreams a little truer than most, at best half-remembered, but she has been practicing. Has ever since Zack was late to return to her, when her letters failed. It was too late for him, her past buried deep as it was. She swore she’d never be too late again. Now, most nights she can immerse herself in the Lifestream’s network of deltas and tributaries with full lucidity. Nearest to her is Vincent, who sounds dead, if she didn’t know any better. Not like a corpse- these, like Jenova, do not sound like anything at all- like a soul loosed to the Planet, between incarnations. Then Yuffie, fit for dancing, Barret’s unerring rhythm, Sephiroth’s concerto, lifestream played like he was born to it (everyone was, she reminds herself, even him). She picks out Cloud’s patchwork melody drifting South, over the sea, is tempted to chase his current. She’s managed it only twice before, both times with him, but if she can reach out to someone she knows well, she can do more than listen. She can speak.

She pulls her awareness close again, then North, over where Cid, Nanaki, and Cait (she can only assume- Cait is as silent as any other machine) have made a glacial bivouac as they follow the Jenova-scent of test subjects, hoping it will lead them to the cliffs, to Tifa. Further still, where the burble of lifestream is rarely heard. Save a boxer’s steady beat, one-two-one-two; Aerith’s known how to combo with her attack tempo from the moment they met, a fact Tifa once found unnerving, though never unwelcome. She hesitates to disturb her. They have been harmonic in so much, but how Sephiroth sows discord, even now.

Together, they supply their brains with likely stimuli. A wood cabin nestled on a ridge that blooms with wildflowers, the cliffs awash in an alpine spring that this region hasn’t known since Shiva triumphed over Jenova millennia ago. Above them the Lifestream winds and wanders through the night sky, splits into brooks and gathers into watersheds, casting the land in a soft jade glow. As soon as her senses shake free of the grip of an interrupted dream, Tifa hugs her tight. Too tight, perhaps, for her earthly body, but the cortices of touch and smell are not easily persuaded creatures, so the embrace registers only dimly. 

“I was so worried…when Cloud started acting out, I knew it could only mean one thing. But Cloud wouldn’t take me back to the city, no matter what I argued.”

“It’s ok. I could barely get through to him myself. At least he managed to tell us where to find you.”

“About that…I tried to make it South yesterday, but the wildlife would have given me a run for my money even if I’d been packing white magic. Do you know who’s been on healing since you went on vacation?”

“It wasn’t vacation, it was pilgrimage, and Cloud prefers black…Barret?”

“VINCENT. I know Turks aren’t exactly field medics, but you practically have to yell directly in his ear before he notices you’re dying.” She shakes her head. “Well, at least he has the mana for it. And he got you out of the city, so he must be doing something right.” Her expression hardens. “Though I wish he’d save his Curagas on someone who deserved them.”

“Tifa…I was the one who asked him to help Sephiroth. I couldn’t save him alone.”

“Yeah, well, when he burns Icicle Inn to the ground, don’t say I didn’t warn you, because in my experience, that’s what helping Sephiroth gets you.” She doesn’t look Aerith in the eyes, instead surveys the surreal scenery, remembers other mountains. “I was able to get in touch with Barret when the storm died down. He says you think this is a miracle. A sign from your ancestors…from our god. You know what else was a miracle? That the most famous man on earth, defender of truth, justice, and the Shinra way, was visiting our dying town to check in on the reactor. That he needed me to guide him on his quest.” Her voice shakes with rage, no, hatred. “When you need a miracle, everything looks like one. I know it’s hard to accept that your prayers weren’t answered, but-”

“I died.”

Tifa doesn’t respond.

“I don’t know how many times, but…I know it’s there. And I know it’s him. But I also know…everything is in good hands. As long as I do my part. When we defeated the whispers, I wondered if that might…save me, somehow. But I didn’t dare to hope. Not even as I knelt down at the well, did I dare to imagine a future for myself.” Tears run down her cheeks, hot, unbidden. “He did not kill me. So I could not kill him. I do not care if there was selfishness to his mercy. He gave the future back to me, and I could not live with myself without returning the favour.”

“Aerith, the only future he wants is devouring the Lifestream. You understand better than anyone what that means.”

“He can’t, not anymore. Without his connection to Jenova, Meteor’s just as bad for him as the rest of us.”

“Says who?”, Tifa snaps, and this time Aerith is at a loss for words. “Holy was destroyed before it could be used, we can’t count on Cloud anymore even if he’s not in Jenova’s pocket already, and Sephiroth is making us waste time arguing over what to do with him instead of how to stop Meteor. Seems to me that all killing fate’s done is make sure his plan’s gone off better than ever.”

“So you’d rather I was dead?”

She regrets it as soon as it comes out of her mouth, and the connection breaks under the weight of Tifa’s gaze. 

Chapter Text

Sephiroth’s been working on the cypher unceasingly for hours when the first hints of dawn make their way over the horizon. He is dimly aware that his wardens have arranged a shift schedule to ensure their guest is never left unattended by the changes in pitch of the voice asking him inane questions. They needn’t have troubled themselves- in his current condition, a challenging but solvable riddle is as good as Stop. No troubling gaps in his logic, no doubts about his purpose, only the steady accretion of fluency in Lucrecia’s code.

Lucrecia! Before, his thoughts had cringed away from the name, from the very concept, for mother would suffer no rivals. He had found her signature beneath his name on a certificate (sex left blank, weight frightfully low) during the first cycle, though had been unable to draw any conclusions from it. His speculation could not pierce the scar tissue left behind by Jenova’s precise ablation. An unbecoming envy, for the divine. For what had this Lucrecia Crescent done, to incite this paranoia? Abandoned him utterly. And, fine, Shinra did not want him to identify any of his caregivers with the idea of parents (like Jenova, they would risk no other loyalties), but that did not stop Hojo from staying. Did not stop Hojo from submitting to protocol and enduring impartiality to sneak in the occasional kindness for his son. If Lucrecia cares less for him than Hojo , what had Jenova to fear? Even Vincent, absent any familial bonds, put up a fight over Sephiroth, paid for it dearly.  

The woman who carried him just walked away. This doesn’t hurt. Gast going North chasing Ancients, because- Sephi had been so sure- because he was not Cetra enough to hold his attention, anymore, because Gast had finally noticed something was wrong, deep down, this had hurt. Genesis and Angeal running off and getting themselves killed, instead of trusting in him and his power to make Shinra cure them at the edge of his blade, this…hurts still? He growls, attempts to shake the fog from his head. Curse the planetary puss choking his veins. His thoughts and his vision keep slipping out of focus, his mind wandering back towards his ancient past in between pulses of dull pain within his forehead. He knew he was weak before mother reconstructed him, but he had not remembered his brief humanity being this torturous. Was having his wings clipped, his strength and speed curbed, his cells disobedient, was this not entertainment enough, Cetra? Must they poison him further?

Then again…his stomach turns at the thought that perhaps this feeble state is the human condition, and it had only seemed bearable in his larval form because he lacked the context of an unfettered body, of an unshackled mind. He makes the mistake of contemplating the seeming eternity this wretched prison will make of the month before Meteor puts him out of his misery, worse, what if he succeeds and has to wait decades for his telomeres to run down, and his eyes prickle. Tears? Impossible. He is not partaking in joy enough to merit them, and that is the only faculty left that he can experience to the extreme necessary to provoke this response.

Then the burn alights, and the confusion recedes, if only slightly. Warmth as reassuring as a hand on his shoulder. Once more he brushes up against that which was lost, and the memory alone could sustain him for days, but he would do more than survive. There is no distraction, no Cloud to thwart him. He pins the feeling down in his mind’s eye, demands it make itself coherent with all the authority he has left. 

Close your eyes, he thinks, but not the he of neurochemicals and grey matter. It is a directive passed down from he-that-was, so unlike his consciousness, can be trusted implicitly. No sooner has he obeyed than he finds himself sinking deep beneath the Planet’s surface, not in water, but in the Stream itself. It’s physical reservoir, as opposed to the metempsychotic channels that crisscross Gaea’s surface. The pale green light is comforting- many a time has he dwelt here between bodies.

The music is not.

It should be silent here, a prelude to the void that is his birthright. Unsullied by mortal percussion. He claps his hands over his ears, but it does nothing to halt the intrusion. The sound is pouring in the wound on his back, saturating his bloodstream with din. Lungs begging for air, skin reacting to mako, he burns within and without. Then the fury at realizing his new body cannot survive what was once the crucible of his power cuts through the sensory overload, a fury that still answers his summons even though Masamune cannot, a fury he condenses into a single sharp exhalation to create the rising bubbles he needs to orient himself towards the surface in an otherwise featureless plane. 

He refuses to die here. Refuses to prove the Ancients right that to sever him from his patron was to defang him entirely, for he does not believe for a second that his survival was the intended miracle. How they must hate the last scion of Shiva, for lacking her progenitor’s cold heart! There is no Leviathan to save him now, as darkness crowds the edges of his vision.

Good. He has long since proven himself Leviathan’s better. Its grace would be wasted.

In liquid, one does not require wings to ascend. Any fear of what awaits his soul when it’s loosed to the Planet once he surely drowns, any tremors of exhaustion that ripple through his limbs, these are thoughts in want of a body worming their way into the raw flesh of his burn. Not his, never his. Despite this spare change of the dead (or is it the unborn) weighing him down, he feels a curious lightness. Each movement a revelation as the resistance he was expecting to meet never manifests. Only when he breaks the tension of the surface and pulls himself ashore, reaches back to wring out water-logged hair and grasps at nothing does he realize with a snort that it’s nothing so sacred. He lives the kind of fragile life where losing the considerable drag a few feet of keratin and the trailing edge of a leather jacket once amounted to makes the difference between life and death, that’s all. Only that humiliation. It’s already hard to remember why he didn’t give in and drown.

His eyes have trouble adjusting from the all-encompassing brightness of the Stream to the skyless dark of this underground shoal. The terrain is black and spongy, broken up by some strange breed of thin kelp blanched by lack of exposure to light, and the air reeks of manure. He must be near an outflow to the sea. As his pupils start to find purchase, he realizes he is not alone. A pilgrim who fell in through the maze, chasing the call of Jenova’s crystal cocoon? The fall would kill any human, if not the mako, but those who have received mother’s benediction have a chance to survive, seldom as it may be. Wide belt, high pauldrons, inky jumpsuit- he has the right of it, this was a SOLDIER, once, but it’s blood has ripened. It sits with it’s back to him before a tall, wide blade. He would know it anywhere, but it’s admirer’s hair is dark, the SOLDIER uniform unmolested by the imposter’s modifications. Who-?

His burn flickers to life. Grief. Not inarticulate- inarticulable. Mourning a sin as old as reality, no, reality is the sin. The voice ripples the surface of deep-seated memory, bringing air to childhood sensoria for the first time in decades.

A worm cupped in reverent loam-blackened hands, not a synonym for contempt, a rare blessing in Midgar’s sterile soil. 

The smell of lemongrass and mint sticking to his Third uniforms even after hours of dueling.

An oil pastel drawing smudged by indelicate fingers, a circle trailing red and black and the faintest lick of green, “What is this?”, he had asked, but all he heard was-

Whispers.  

His eyes have trouble adjusting from the all-encompassing brightness of the Stream to the skyless dark of this underground shoal. The terrain is black and spongy, broken up by some strange breed of thin kelp blanched by lack of exposure to light, and the air reeks of manure. Empty cloaks of dust shepherd him onwards, and to his chagrin he can no longer ignore their insistence. “Killing you was the one thing I might have thanked Cloud for, so of course he couldn’t even manage that.”

“No,” says the unfinished sculpture of black opal at the eye of the whispers’ gyre, “But you may, in time.” Like it’s iridescent skin, it’s voice shimmers with myriad tones, sometimes familiar. Never placeable.

He has railed against the Harbinger’s tyranny for lifetimes. This apparatus by which the Planet devoured Sephiroth’s words before they could ever reach the ears of another…he had not expected it to be capable of parley, just as Sisyphus would never appeal to gravity for lenience. “Why now?”, he asks, unable to keep the faintest awe from entering his voice. This is a power like he was, and mother is, outside of time. Divine.

“You were proofed against the Planet’s influence. Your denial that you were as much a child of it as a child of Calamity was so profound it could not reach you. I could not reach you.”

A few stray whispers gather closer to Sephiroth, their buzzing making his skin crawl. “And now that you can, you will unmake me, yes? Dull those double-edges that make me such a difficult weapon for your chosen to wield.” To his surprise, the shades retreat, their keening and stooped postures striking him as apologetic.

“It is…a grave failure, that no one dissuaded you from the belief that this is what you deserve.  But that is Jenova’s way, not ours. Forgive my troops their eagerness. They have not seen you in a long, long time.”

A million questions beg for the use of his tongue, but their urgency pales in comparison to a stab of bitterness, sudden and sourceless.

“Don’t lie. You’ve taken something from me.” Tears, again! He blames it on the subject whose cells he appropriated having a proclivity for them, though he knows full well that isn’t how this works. “Something I miss.”

The Harbinger is unmoved by the display. “Are you familiar with mnemoviruses?”

“Of course. A pathogen that uses concepts as a transmission vector. It’s how I destroyed the White Materia.”

“Of course,” annoyance creeping into it’s many voices, “then you will believe me when I say that Jenova once invested the better part of her power into maintaining a specific illusion. If you- if anyone-  became aware of the underlying concept, the spell would be broken. She would be free to conduct her conquest without distraction.”

“How convenient.You must withhold my power to keep me from danger, but the very nature of the threat makes it impossible to verify. Mother at least had me stretch before jumping to conclusions.”

The statue is still, it’s thoughts unreadable. “You are so certain it is yours?”

“I…”, he pauses, the idea is ludicrous, then again, he is speaking to fate incarnate, fate that was content to watch him spin eternal on the wheel of death and rebirth until the imposter, of all people, set him free. There is nothing left to disbelieve. “There is a song at the edges of perception. So quiet, I can make out the words for only an instant, but I know the voice to be mine. Not,” he clutches at his chest, nails biting into his flesh, “this facsimile of stolen cells. Mine. I summoned myself here.”

“You have always had a talent for material magic. It should not have surprised me that you would take to the immaterial, to Hearing, so quickly.” It drifts nearer, skating on air- like the lesser whispers, it’s vague impression of a human form gives way to empty robes beneath the waist. Unlike the lesser whispers, it is armed, left hand fused into a pole of opal pale as milk that ripples the tide pools like a gondolier. “It is- it was my purpose to prevent surprises, by any means necessary.”

“What changed?”

“I was bested.”

“No,” Sephiroth spits, indignant, “A collection of street toughs armed with nail bats and their magic dog did not make destiny cower.” Not if I never could, his lip curls, “She is in on this, isn’t she? She wore my face, she hid in your heart, all to goad her precious vessel. Oh, Sephiroth, monstrous Sephiroth, can’t be trusted with the Lifestream, but you’ll throw the fight if it means everyone’s favourite mercenary gets the reins!” His wide eyes glitter wild in the light playing off the Harbinger’s carapace, “If it was Aerith Gaea was holding out for, I might have understood, but-”

It bangs it’s staff against the warped vambrace of it’s right arm like a gavel, and there is silence. Not the silence of mother, of the void. There could never be sound there, so it’s absence is meaningless. No, all the whispers of the Planet and all the idle melodies of the unborn hold their breath in deference.

“Sephiroth, First Class, born Grimoire Crescent, the moment your blade touched the white materia, the collective souls of a Lifestream iterated 49 times as a consequence of your misplaced pride convened to sentence you. Not just the Cetra; everyone. If this was to be the final miracle, that was only just. I advocated for your death. My purpose is to prevent surprises.” The veins of blue, green, and scarlet threaded through the Harbinger’s form ignite, illuminating the ground down to it’s crispest detail.

Silver seaweed clings to bloodless skin, skin to moldering leather. Reflections on the water and beneath the surface. Even those wayward variations on his theme, would that they had been prodigal and sought their own fortunes, for now they lie relegated to their father and their father and their father’s embrace. He falls to his knees, vomits, so long divorced from the need for food that soapy bile is all he adds to the midden.

“But the Planet’s hatred of you is not special. It would abhor my tyranny as much as yours. So when a defence appointed itself, their testimony was considered.”

Those curious whispers gather near his wretched form, concerned. In their susurrus are brief snatches of sense:

- would have bled for any of us-

-if I believed she was a goddess, what would one not do for a mother-

and, and he cannot be hearing right,

-friend-

“On the strength of their witness, your sentence was commuted. Your punishment was not to be death, nor even being stripped of Jenova’s legacy. It was being blessed with the Cetra’s, to inherit the Planet’s fate, as befits your name.”

The pity is more terrifying than the mound of corpses. They imagine him as conflicted! They tell themselves he was coerced! And he, is he so pathetic in their estimation that even painted in the ash of the innocent and blood of the kind they refuse to fear him? Refuse to fear the many-winged shadow he casts? He stays crouched, hugging his legs, head between his knees, eyes shut tight. Like a frightened child, as if he has ever been either of those things. “The man they were protecting does not exist. He never did.” 

“Fortunate, then, that without Holy your case can never be reopened, in light of this new evidence,” it’s eclectic voice closer than ever before. His eyes blink open to see it’s blank face stooped over him, it’s staff proffered to pull him up, “I am the arbiter of the Planet’s will. My reach extends only so far as the collective consciousness deems it necessary. This is the sacred trust. As I said, she abhors tyranny, so I must respect your existence, as ill-founded a conclusion as I consider it to be.”

Sephiroth stares at the appendage, does not accept. “Is this why you allowed yourself to be defeated? This…trust, demanded it?”

“Gaea is not as cruel as you like to believe. It is as you’ve always said: it is not a kindness to live forever, if that eternity must be confined to these brief years of strife. And if my leadership in prosecuting the war on Jenova, on you, was ever called into question, it was agreed that the living would be granted the right to challenge the dead.”

“And this challenge necessitates the use of my image?”

“A vaccine functions by confronting the immune system with a pale imitation of a future threat. Real enough to teach, but not to kill.” The Harbinger regards him in silence. “And those times it…did, kill the patients...then that was proof the immune system had not yet matured. I would redact our struggle, and let them leave Midgar in peace, though still subjected to my authority.”

He gets to his feet alone, finds himself grateful for his new senses, for something to focus on besides the stink of his past failures. “Asking for Cloud’s aid must have been terribly urgent, if you could not afford to change clothes before pestering him.”

“Another kind of assessment. Nothing more.”

“Like this one?”

It shakes a weary head. “You had it right. You sleepwalked here of your own accord. But this is not a place to travel unchaperoned, and the Planet sent me to…host, it’s investment.”

Momentarily appeased, he returns to an earlier confusion. “All this time, I thought you were the Planet.”

The Harbinger turns to regard the luminous sea around them. “The Lifestream is powerful, but slow to react, at times lacking in focus. At times, an individual will must be sifted out, entrusted with a specific role.”

“I hadn’t imagined executioner to be so complex a job.”

“Not executioner. General.”

“Not Director of Public Safety?”, Sephiroth gives a wry smile, “How…old-fashioned.”

 “I am old. Not quite ancient, perhaps, but old.” A whisper parts from the storm to murmur where the Harbinger’s ear might have been, had the artisan not lost interest. “Believe it or not, SOLDIER, but you are missed in the waking world. We will have to continue this another night.”

“I won’t deny this was novel, but no, that was more than enough poison in my ear.”

The whispers’ eye tightens to just Sephiroth himself, the Harbinger’s words nearly lost in the cacophony, “Need I remind you? You sought me out.”

Chapter Text

“It’s almost noon. I’m gonna poke him.”

“Either you have a death wish, or Wutai don’t have sleeping dogs.”

Sephiroth remains passed out at the dining room table, slumped over his mad scrawlings, blissfully unaware of the frantic strategizing occurring around him. Yuffie’s moogle poncho is draped over him-he was shivering in his sleep on her watch and she “had to protect her investment”- red pompom bobbing ever so slightly in time with his breathing. 

Aerith frowns. “Even if he hadn’t overexerted himself, if I understand what happened correctly, his physiology radically changed in a matter of seconds. I wouldn’t be surprised if he’s experiencing withdrawal from something his cells used to provide.”

“Figures. Drunk on power for over a century, now he’s gotta sleep off the hangover.”

“Something like that. I think his body is still remembering how it used to work, just as much as his mind is.” Of course, she doesn’t just think- she knows. Knows that’s his best guess. Not always in words, as she’d first noticed him, but in subtler expressions, the spiritual equivalents of raised eyebrows, crossed arms, exasperated sighs. Not insistent either, not in the way Cloud had described their connection. His commentary track, as she’s come to call it, fades into the background thrum of the Planet as sure as anyone else’s stream when her focus falls elsewhere. And like any other stream, like physical sound, it is weakened by distance. So if it is indeed a play at mind control, it is a very poor one. She repeats these facts to herself again and again, willing herself to believe she’s not compromised, she’s not the hapless victim Tifa made her out to be. 

She has not found it in herself to tell her friends, so she knows she has not succeeded. The SOLDIER stirs at the thought, as though summoned by her pang of guilt. 

Or by the pencil poking his cheek. Perhaps a little of both. 

There’s no rapid blinking, no stifled half-snore; one moment he was unconscious, now his hand is already curled around Yuffie’s wrist, so tight she cries out. A twitch of motion threatens to break Yuffie’s arm and Aerith’s table before his logic catches up to his muscles, assesses the foe as less a threat than a nuisance.

“Do not do that again, Deputy. Or must I remind you of lesson two?”

“Well EXCUSE ME for thinking Firsts like to get their day started in the AM! I didn’t think it was a ‘gamble’ to assume you weren’t a lazy piece of shit, but here we are!”

He notes the light outside, the stovetop clock, nods. “....your initiative has been noted, Deputy. Nevertheless, if you must disturb me again, do so at a safe distance. Otherwise, I cannot guarantee the integrity of your spine in the future.” 

Aerith suppresses a chuckle. Yes, Yuffie had told her about the curious bargain she’d struck, but Aerith had assumed it was an exaggeration. Yet here Sephiroth was, determined to pass on SOLDIER’s teachings regardless of the circumstances, no matter how much he insists that his human past was irrelevant. More than the return of his lifestream, more than the sorrow he had shared, there is promise in the crispness of the folds as he returns Yuffie’s cloak with the slightest of bows.  For a moment, the fact that he and Zack were friends doesn’t feel absurd.

Why does she look at me like that? Her people find virtue in the strangest things. 

She feels her intense scrutiny reflected back, tinged with a unique self-consciousness, not awkward or embarrassed, simply that the self is so novel it cannot be easily ignored.

“Do you know that you’re doing that?”, she blurts out, unable to risk waiting a moment longer in which Shinra, Jenova, or Gaea forbid Tifa might break down the door.

He blinks, curious. “Is it so hard to believe I might express gratitude?”

Well, yes, but, “I don’t know how else to put this, but you think really loudly.”

Barret slowly levels his gun, “You already trying to mind control her ass?”, he shakes his head “Come on, man.”

Sephiroth considers the barrel, before returning his attention to Aerith. “Can Cetra control minds?” 

“I’m sure some of us were able to Manipulate or Mystify without materia…otherwise we wouldn’t have those materia today. But in the end, Manipulate’s only good for casting spells you don’t know, and Mystify isn’t so much control as pushing someone in the wrong direction. If either of them could do what,” memories of the temple rush back to her, Cloud laughing so hard he could barely stand, Cloud turning on her with hollow eyes and, she forces herself to swallow, “do what you used to, I don’t doubt Shinra would have found a way.”

He breathes a sigh of…relief? “Then we are safe from one another. Good. I would hate to be yoked again so soon, just when I am beginning to enjoy my sovereignty.”

“Why would you…?”, her heart skips a beat, of course, to simply tear Jenova out would have reduced him to a pile of rags. No, new fabric had to have been substituted, and it was Cetran hands that bound those patches together in double-helix stitch. “You Hear it too.”

“Do you live the way you live,” he murmurs, pained, “because it makes them quieter?”

“No,” she smiles, “just the opposite.”

“I don’t care what the “General of the Planet”, a thing you super made up just now, said happened in your ab-so-lutely democratic trial: we’re still trying you in Wutai. It’s not double jeopardy if we don’t recognize the Planet’s jurisdiction.”

“Will you be executing me before or after I win the world war?”

“Yuffie…you do realize that Wutai is…on the Planet, right?”

“Barret, that’s, that’s a DISGUSTINGLY Eastern-centric mindset. Wutai may share the same small-p planet as everyone else, but that doesn’t oblige us to recognize the personified macroecosystem as a moral authority. I’d expect this kind of colonial attitude towards local tutelary deities from Shinra- not a quote-unquote ‘student of the Planet’ like yourself!”

“I’ll admit you used those words correctly, kid, but you don’t got a clue what most of them mean.”

“It’s a shame, Deputy. If I knew you loathed Gaea’s justice so deeply, I could have gotten you in on the ground floor of a new God,” Sephiroth grins savagely, “though I doubt you’d have preferred his verdict.”

Aerith has absorbed his testimony in perfect silence, gathering her thoughts. “I can’t believe that it’s…a person. Someone’s ghost.” It goes against everything she’d believed about the Planet and the Stream, for that much power to be concentrated in a single individual. All this time, she had assumed her martyrdom was the product of consensus, a price for the greater good paid only after long deliberation. Knowing that she is a single tactician’s idea of a reasonable sacrifice, one it’s been quite comfortable making again and again…it is difficult to not take the analysis personally. “When it came to us as you, the Harbinger didn’t say a word. Not until it had Cloud alone. It said we were at the edge of creation. That after this, nothing was written. When I thought it was you, I assumed you were only trying to intimidate us, but it was only stating the obvious, wasn’t it? We were leaving it’s story behind, and the safety that came with it. A warning in a voice Cloud would have no choice but to take seriously.”

Barret shakes his head. “Then what was it’s angle, asking him for help? If it was just to see how he’d react- assuming I buy this whole ghost trial business- was saying hell no…good?”

Yuffie shrugs. “It let you leave, didn’t it? If the fight was to prove you could handle things from here, wouldn’t offering Cloud that choice be just another part of the test? ”

Sephiroth closes his eyes, turning the Harbinger’s exact words over in both their minds. Though the nearness of his thoughts still fills her with trepidation, having a direct line to his perfect memory is admittedly proving useful. “An assessment implies an uncertainty, otherwise the observation would be irrelevant.” 

“And?”, Yuffie drawls.

“I would have assumed Cloud’s rejection of me to be a certainty, wouldn’t you? And yet, by the fact that the question needs to be asked, we can infer that there exists a factor or factors that would make him consider my request. Perhaps a factor that his possessing knowledge of would prove that a certain defense had failed?”

“The illusion…” Aerith whispers. Should they even be speculating about what it hides? Is a mnemovirus something you can trigger by simply considering the infected concept as a possibility? Then again, it’s the Harbinger who decided letting Jenova play is the right move, and she’s finding it harder by the second to put her faith in it’s so-called destiny.

Barret snorts. “You’re suggesting that you and Cloud being all buddy-buddy, that’s the natural state of things?”

“Not necessarily. Perhaps we were, or, are , depending on your perspective, perfect strangers.” He hates that idea. Enough that Aerith winces, even as his face betrays nothing.  “Or perhaps my transgressions are only slightly less…personal, in nature. Removed enough to consider a truce. Regardless, having her chosen implement primed to kill me is clearly to Jenova’s advantage. Worth fudging the numbers on which exact ‘heim held her prisoner.”

Yuffie scratches her chin before turning to the wheeled whiteboard- ahem, “mobile intel centre”- she’d appropriated from Gast’s study, and adding ‘Remember what we forgot’ to a list labeled ‘side quests’, beneath ‘Take Soth to court’. Her ‘main objectives’ section is much more fleshed out: 

Fix Holy

1. Ask Chad???
1. Find Chad…
2. Curaga 
3. Blowtorch

Fix Cloud

1. Ask Chad
1. See above
2. Ask Hojo (gross gross gross)
3. Soth mentioned ‘thing in Banora’
1. Source questionable, refer to appendix A: dossier
2. Source’s definition of fix under reasonable suspicion, did not elaborate 
3. Banora not on map???
4. Esuna

Fix Meteor

1. Shoot with rocket!!!
1. Soth doesn’t like it, which maybe means it will totally work (refer to  appendix A: dossier)
2. Addendum: Cid confirmed it was dumb over PCS : (
2. Bullshit Ancient Ghost Magic
3. Manawall (Very Big)
4. Everyone casts Reflect at the same time 

“Hey, hey, hold up. Harbinger says Jenova’s hurting herself worse than us with these smoke and mirrors,” Barret begins, shushing Sephiroth with a stern finger before he can begin to interject, “Ah ah ah, I see you rolling your eyes, SOLDIER boy. What good’s the advice of the guy who couldn’t beat you for a hundred years-”

“Two hundred.”

“Well la-dee-da, got ourselves a badass over here! Admit it, they didn’t lose to you either, and that’s one hell of a resume.” 

“I’m not surprised you’d rush to defend it. Not when your life was sacrosanct in the confines of it’s plan.” He takes a sip of the herbal tea his host was kind enough to furnish him with. “I’ve always wondered, the whispers’ healing- does it leave a scar?”

Barret leans in, barrels rattling in a pointed spin, but to Sephiroth’s surprise, it’s Vincent who answers, looking up from Lucrecia’s half-translated letter. “Make up your mind.”

“Were you not listening? It was made for me.”

“We’re either in the same boat,” his eyes burning with a passion Aerith never knew he possessed, “or we’re not. You can quit baring your gums as if it will make your teeth come back, or you can leave,” he nods to Aerith, before returning to his papers, “just don’t waste her time. Not after what she’s been through to get it.”

Wasting her time? She cannot begin to comprehend how she has wasted mine. His pupils quiver in anticipation of the scorn Vincent has earned, but instead he closes his eyes, exhales, more a hiss than a sigh. Then, almost the same tone, it’s shift subtle, experimental.

Terrifying.

You cannot begin to comprehend how you’ve wasted mine. 

“The MIC, Kisaragi.” She nudges the whiteboard his way with a lazy salute. He’s barely caught and flipped it to it’s clean side with his right hand before beginning to furiously write with his left, starting with black marker but making notations in green, blue, red, uncapping them with his teeth in his haste. 

And yet,

Planetology hasn’t been formally taught in decades. It’s not in Shinra’s interest for their wage-slaves to dwell on the fact that it’s the Planet’s finite soul they’re burning to keep the lights on. Barret’s education is hard earned- pirated lectures from Cosmo Canyon smuggled among innocuous CDs, self-published papers by the researchers who could not be bought or killed hosted on darkweb hubs that change URLs every other week. Best of all, those few dusty tomes that still survived in slum bookstores where no one remembered enough to realize they were dangerous, half-textbook, half-scripture.

One of his earliest finds had been an introduction to xenoplanetology, the study of how Gaea was affected by the other celestial bodies in the Phoenician system, and how it affected them in turn. Tides of mako and water had their origins far, far from home. The length of days, the passing of seasons- these were caused by the path Gaea took around Phoenix, a path pulled taught by the gravity wells of her neighbours. Even the frequency and location of small-m meteor impacts was a function of the positions of distant gas giants, protecting their little sister with the wide nets of their gravitic pull. 

When the author moved on to the underlying math behind these processes, however, Barret would be the first to admit he never clocked it half as well as the engineering or energy science he picked up back in Corel, and honestly? It didn’t exactly come up in the day-to-day of blowing Shinra to Promise come, so he can’t say he felt returning to it was a priority.

Still, he made an effort to remember the tables listing certain specifications of the Planet and her family. Mass, number of moons, relative gravity. It felt polite. No, respectful. They have souls, after all, and it’s good manners to get to know your neighbours.

So by the time Sephiroth starts on his second column of formulae, he can recognize enough key numbers to ask with authority,

“What the fuck does Jupiter have to do with any of this?”

Even when I have been so, so wasted...

He places the last decimal with a flourish, lowering the black market to his side to cinch it closed, as though sheathing a much larger implement.

You claim to have found value, all the same. When the one who loved me most of all could not.

I can acknowledge the action, if not your reasoning.

“Any strategy the Planet might hope to mantle against Jenova must begin with the following understanding: Holy was the only shield of sufficient calibre to protect you. If there was any other, even the most mistrustful among your number will not find it hard to believe that I would have learned of it, and thus it would have been summarily destroyed.”

“I’m gonna go out on one of my remaining limbs and assume you didn’t describe the mass of Pluto just to tell us we’re boned. That seems like a lot, even for you.”

“Well observed. No, you cannot survive impact. But what I’m proposing will avert it entirely.”

“The Rocket Town Contingency?”, Vincent asks, “Thought you said it’d never work.”

“Using the better part of the Cetra’s collective memory as an explosive payload remains as extravagant a folly as it was when Scarlet first suggested it. Dispersing Meteor before it enters the atmosphere is, however, theoretically sound. It is only the methodology that was lacking.” He jabs his marker towards the whiteboard. “This is Supernova, a spell of my own design. It traps the target in a pocket simulacrum of our star system moments before it’s absolute destruction. Use the rocket not as a missile, but as a vehicle to get a caster in range…”, he closes his eyes, arms raised in exultation, not of my work, of the truth I was given the profound joy of describing.

“ and nothing will fall that day but shooting stars.”

Chapter Text

“But if it’s a spell you invented, how does that help us? Can’t believe I’m passing on a chance to murder you, but even if you’re Cetra on a technicality we don’t have time for your ghost to turn into an angry rock!”

He grins at Yuffie’s protestation, to her clear befuddlement. He chose well, despite his condition.

“True. There is no materia for Supernova, green, red, or otherwise. Of course, not everyone requires such focuses.”

Aerith shakes her head. “When push comes to shove, I can replicate most white magic empty-handed, but if I could cast something like that based only on theory, well…it wouldn’t matter that you broke the White Materia, would it? The Planet could teach me Holy directly.”

Curious. He hadn’t meant the Cetra, but now that she mentions them his mind spins with a dozen questions. The ceiling on the spells the two of them might cast unaided, is it a function of energy- a limit on how much they may beg of the Stream, where once it was subordinate to him? Or one of complexity- an onus of concentration that, too much for one mind alone, must be offloaded to the crystallized minds of the dead, just as his vast distributed nervous system once served him?

“Oh. You didn’t mean me, did you?”, did she simply read into his silence? No, too much to hope for. Not only must he listen to the nattering of every weed and fruit fly, but they get to listen to him. He was able to modulate the direction of his, eugh , ‘music’, before, if Aerith’s wide eyes were any indication. He can only hope volume is sure to follow. “You meant someone like you.” Used to be, she has the mercy not to add, but he hears it all the same. “I wonder…Cloud listened to me before. Maybe if I get to him fast enough-”

“No. Saving this terminal world is, nothing, compared to what he has been promised.” A paradise, outside of time. No death or degradation; these are failures of Gaea’s gravity-bound imagination, products of an evolution unaccustomed to infinity. No strife or sorrow; reunion imparts an empathy that puts the Cetra’s shared Hearing to shame. He would have died for it. Mother knows that. She had no reason to lie about what would become of him, when his work was done. No reason not to say farewell, so he could know to cherish those last seconds in her embrace. “He will come to believe that he is performing apotheosis out of kindness. He will put it all back just as it was, even a little better, it’s not like anyone will remember the pain. And, after all, so long as he holds the throne, that dastardly Sephiroth cannot possess it.” He smirks at Barret. “What greater good could there be than that?”

Who did she say you were keeping it safe from? Shinra?

Well now, Aerith copied that trick quickly.

 “Last night- you said it was a lie, that apotheosis thingamajig. What’s she going to all this trouble for, then?”, asks Yuffie.

“The entity created by the consumption of the Lifestream…it will be unto a deity. In that, she did not deceive. However, I suspect that whichever one of her cell clusters happens to be incubating in North Crater when Meteor strikes is irrelevant. I believe she expects the ego of the vessel to be annihilated, leaving her under no compunction to fulfill her end of the bargain.”  

Yuffie cocks her head. “You’re not sure? Wow. You usually act like you know everything.”

He purses his lips. Act? It’s not pretension when he’s spent the better part of his long life wandering the halls of the Lifestream. Even mother cannot recall a finer library. “Before we were disconnected, I had assumed our hopes and dreams to be the same. It would have mattered little to me, for my consciousness to perish when already I could scarcely distinguish mine from hers. So, no, the specifics of the process did not interest me. Not when I believed my goal would be fulfilled regardless.”

“Recreating the ecosystem…”, Barret shakes his head, still finding Sephiroth’s desire impossible to believe. “Well, I can’t say I’m surprised Jenova don’t give a damn about any of that.” His expression softens. “I’m sorry you were.”

What? He knows he is slipping, that a long-mastered weakness escaped his chest and sullied his features, because Barret continues, “I made a bad deal once. Invited the Devil into my home, ‘cause he said he would save it. It’s funny,” and yet, he doesn’t laugh, “we both burned our hometowns to the ground. Hadn’t thought about it like that before.”

“Nibelheim wasn’t my home. And you hardly lit the match.” 

“Man…you don’t make it easy.” Good.

The silence creeps on. It seems he is supposed to take this opportunity to recant. Or at least explain. First his former comrades, now a misguided enemy- why must everyone insist on stealing from him? Nibelheim was not an accident, Nibelheim was his, he needs no honeyed words from mother above or Gaea below to know this to be true. This feeling is his.

If only he could remember what feeling it was.

 It was not an obstacle to him. There was a dim pleasure to razing it, he supposes, but paltry in comparison to a real engagement. Decadent, when it is hatred for decadence that drove him to mother’s cause. Not joy, then. Anger…? He rolls it back and forth in his mind, getting a feel for it’s dimensions. He wouldn’t forfeit his strategic position within Shinra to smite a hamlet. Not for mere anger. Not when his work had only just begun.

Aerith coughs awkwardly, forcing him from his reverie. “Well. Alright then. If Cloud’s a no-go, you must have had someone else in mind.”

“Lucrecia. She is a SOLDIER by any other name, founder of the Type S lineage. She should have the physiology required to conduct Supernova, and the…sentimentality, for Mr. Valentine, if not myself, to act counter to Jenova’s influence, assuming that particular tactic of Cloud’s can be replicated. Unfortunately, I can’t say for certain whether or not she has gone north, chasing Reunion. M-, Jenova preferred I not have the opportunity to be reminded of her, so I was never privy to her cells’ location. Those letters may be useless, even if decoded.”

His deputy is fidgeting more than usual, an impressive statement. An element of this plan is disquieting. He makes a mental note to interrogate her privately.

Barret nods. “Seeing as Tifa was already looking for an excuse to stay away from your ugly mug, I don’t think she’ll much mind searching for the good doctor with the glacier boys while we follow the treasure map.”

Aerith worries her lip. “Speaking of Cloud, I’ve been meaning to ask, why is it that he…changed? He was always vulnerable to, um,”

Come now, spit it out. “Me.” You and I are long past eggshells.

“But what we saw was different. Physical. He made it sound inevitable, even, like it had to be this way.”

How much to tell? She’ll know he’s holding back, but clearly Hearing has it limits, or she wouldn’t bother asking. “To understand that, you must first appreciate that Jenova is alien in the truest sense. The concept of an interpersonal relationship, for instance, is nonsense to her. She is the only intelligent lifeform, after all. Who would she communicate with? There are only variations on herself, with access to different datasets depending on the capacities and locations of their hosts, and these components do not converse so much as compare.”

“Come on, only intelligent? You can’t really still believe that, can you?”. Yuffie pointedly raps one of the pencils she’s been rolling back and forth against her temple. “We’re pretty smart for monkeys that only see time as moving in the one direction.” This is a lot like saying one flies very well for an ostrich, but for the sake of argument he permits this faint praise of her…their species to stand.

“Jenova was alone for a long, long time. I do not know how to express it any more specifically. It is not as though the units she measures in are anything so insignificant as an obscure planet’s orbit around a middling star. Her home was bereft of other sentient life. She could imbue other organisms with intelligence, but only by having them become part of herself. These were organs, not allegiances. In this way she came by her intractable solipsism”, Yuffie raises a hand “her belief that hers was the only mind,” Yuffie lowers a hand, “quite honestly. She had already visited many worlds, collecting what unique traits and raw data pleased her, when she first encountered what we would call another civilization. And had it been another hive mind, like unto herself, perhaps she might have come to understand. But they were far closer kin to us, so like the roving animals that struggled over the same resources with more or less refinement of the instincts of life and death that she had united with countless times before. Advanced tool-users and therefore desirable, but animals all the same. I relate all this so that you might understand, Jenova would not conceive of my death, and this is death in her eyes, as surely as lacking lifestream would be in yours, as the end of an individual. Only the loss of a function. And, not unlike us, her body will appropriate similar tissue to compensate.” He grinds his teeth. Bad enough that he is replaceable (idiot child, desperate, overgrown, to think himself the exception, as if she even knew what the word son meant beyond that it made him happy) but to consider that wretch to be made of the same steel-

He comes to the realization that he is gripping the table hard enough to scratch. Takes a deep breath, unclenches his jaw. “Which finally brings us to the puppet. Bearing her preferred cell line, remarkably cogent but still pliable, wonderfully experienced…of all her remaining vessels, it will take the least effort to make him serviceable.” Fear radiates from Aerith, discordant, sour. He just laughs, too giddy to have figured mother out to care. “I bet she suggested that I force him to chase me across half the world in anticipation of this very occasion!”. 

Aerith stands up, plants her hands on the table. “It’s not funny. I know I can’t expect you to understand, so I’m telling you. It’s not. Funny.” Her stare makes his burn itch. “What did he even do to you”, she squints with genuine bewilderment, searching for a grain of humanity,  “besides keep you from making a terrible mistake?”.

“He hurt my mother.” Even as he gives it, he hears the answer for what it is. Rote, unexamined.

“Killing you doesn’t hurt her. You said so yourself.”A rare bitterness creeps into her voice. “Maybe you forgot, but most mothers can’t go back to when they were alive, if things don’t go their way. Most of us just have the one to lose.” She shakes her head, sighs. “Well, except for me. I’m lucky. I’ve got two. We have that in common.” 

“Lucrecia is not my mother.” It’s not accusatory, simply factual. “She had a hypothesis that required we were related. Nothing-“

“Done,” Vincent says to no one in particular, dropping a stack of notes in front of Aerith.

Sephiroth doesn’t hide his shock. “Already?”. Sentimentality must be an understatement, when it comes to him and Lucrecia.

Vincent shrugs. “I know Lu,” then the slightest nod in Sephiroth’s direction, “...translating it out of Cetra was half the battle. Going to want Aerith’s eyes on it. Compare your regional variations.”

A polite way of saying “make sure Sephiroth’s not leading us into a trap”, but he can hardly fault them for prudence. Aerith’s progress is slow- she often has to stop and read it aloud to herself, stilted, stuttering. Understandable. Not everyone has had the benefit of studying under its last fluent speaker. The finds of Gast’s lifetime, Ifalna and Aerith’s treasured oral histories- they are scraps, compared to Jenova’s memory of the civilization. 

Mother always styled herself as a preserver, not a destroyer. She who shepherds the weak across the Great Filter. If she has a God beyond herself, it is that metaphor. If she has faith, it is in a barrier to interstellar prosperity that almost all species dash themselves against, as though the Harbinger itself had ordained their self-destruction. She threaded progress through the eye of scarcity’s needle; she and rare company. So what she does not consume, and in digestion, remember, is already as good as lost.

It was his favourite bedtime story. Intoxicatingly justified. He wishes he could believe it, still.

“This section here- Sephiroth, you have it as Lucrecia using the adjective amok to refer to the river one would follow as being particularly deep, when there’s no such body of water in the Corel region. However, if you consider her earlier use of tehom to be referring to a literal abyss, rather than a metaphorical one, she’s not saying the water in the river is deep- she’s saying the river itself is. We’re looking for a passage underground.”

Yuffie pats him on the back. “Lesson number three, Sensei. Look at the map before you give directions.”

He pinches the bridge of his nose. “I do not oppose the student teaching the master, but I refuse to incorporate an axiom of such narrow applicability into my combat philosophy.”

“Uh, it’s not narrow. You’re just not thinking about it hard enough.”

“Then by all means, Single White Rose of Wutai. Enlighten me.”

“Well…it’s like, when I heard about what happened to you from Barret, I jumped right to assassination. If I hadn’t ended up hearing you out by accident, we’d be up a creek with no Meteor buster, all ‘cause I picked a direction without looking at the map.”

A point well made, if inefficiently expressed. Let’s see if it can’t be cleaned up. “Lesson three: observation before action.”

“Nah, Yuffie’s is better. Nothin’ like a visual metaphor when you’re fixing to remember something. Or in Sephirothese-,” Barret underscores with a single jazz hand, “ mnemonics .” 

Vincent paces, the completed directions having filled him with rare animation. “Focus. Shinra still keep a sub at Junon? Bronco’s not going to cover it.”

“Unless Harbinger was the only thing keeping them, there will be two docked there for the next several weeks,” Sephiroth muses, “not to mention a rather potent reactor concentrate we might as well snag before Shinra gets any ideas. And if we bring Cid, we can get an airship while we’re at it.”

“An airship. While we’re at it,” Barret says flatly.

“Much to my chagrin, the bulk of Shinra’s aeronautics division will mutiny for Cid Highwind at the drop of a hat.” It’s always reminded him of Genesis’s way with the young SOLDIERS, as scandalized as both parties would be by the comparison. “That’s the problem with basing your propaganda around charismatic ind-”

“South, then.” Vincent gathers the translations to his chest, breathes deep, before folding them into his cloak with the original. “We’ve kept her waiting long enough.”

Chapter Text

Aerith shakes her head at Cloud’s heaving body with unbecoming scorn. “I warned you. You shouldn’t do silly things like eat anymore.”

He wipes his mouth with a shaky hand, before forcing himself to face the bucket’s contents. The unsalted crackers he had forced down in a fit of rebellion are shot through with the same silver mold as last night’s dinner. 

“Your inefficiencies have been corrected. Throw your tantrums if you must, but you’re only sickening yourself by insisting on overabundance.”

He takes a swipe at the apparition, but Aerith has already dispersed, appearing instead sitting backwards on the helmsman’s chair, chin resting on the back. “That’s not very nice, Cloud. I’m being accommodating, you know. I don’t have any business at the bottom of the sea, but I still came to keep you company. I missed you.” Her tear ducts flow on cue, though her expression doesn’t shift, “I always died just when we were getting to know each other. Aren’t you excited about our future, without that jealous Harbinger in the way?”

“I told you. Get her voice. Out of your mouth.” He shoves her out of the way to check the sonar and recalculate his course for the fifth time that hour, anything to fill his mind enough that she can’t squeeze in.

“Believe it or not, buddy- ocean floor? Hasn’t moved in the last ten minutes,” Zack crowds past his shoulder, obscuring the screen, a self-satisfied smile at his own magnanimity in indulging Cloud stapled to his face. 

“He never called me that.” 

He sighs. “We both want this to be real, Cloud. For you to have been anything more than a vegetable when it mattered,” for a moment he oozes blood from a dozen holes and his eyes are fogged and glassy, though the smile remains, “as always, you’re the one making this harder than it needs to be.”

He’s right. Zack is part of her, so will never be dead, only waiting. If Jenova’s imitation is so disappointing, then Cloud has only to demand that a cell cluster resume his form. With a snap of his fingers, there will be nothing to forgive. He will not need to bear the burden of being a living legacy, will no longer struggle to justify a kindness so damning it has driven him to madness again and again these past centuries. Cloud’s life will be his again.

His senses drift to the Third slumbering in the sub’s brig. He had only meant to cast Sleep, hadn’t he? Had only meant to suggest, not command. Yet as he explores the SOLDIER’s brain, shivers at the profound lack of dreaming, he knows without a doubt these eyes will never open again without his express permission. His stomach threatens to flip once more, how dare he trespass against others as he has been trespassed against, but his mind cannot deny it’s saved mana and time. Just press his intent a little further now, into deeper systems, and this nameless boot-licking Planet-killer will serve as a vessel for dreams far greater than it deserved. Kinder than killing, and has he not demonstrated he has no qualms with killing? He idly plays with the expression of the Third’s genes for hair colour as he weighs his options. Blonde, red, brown, bl-

“NO!”, Cloud’s left hand catches his right wrist, not that he would need his hands for the crimes he’d been fantasizing of, but the point has to be made. What had Aerith said? True Aerith, honey-and-wax scent of lilies clinging to her in eternal winter (he does not hate his sharpened senses half so much as the other gifts forced upon him), “Zack wouldn’t want me to feel this way. He saved me because of who I am. Not what he needed me to be.” He toggles control back to manual as he prepares to dock with the sunken Gelnika, and to his sweet relief this is a task Jenova considers intensive enough to leave him be.

Within, the hissing of poodlers and serpents that forced their way in through breaches in the hull mixes with the burblings of the genetically modified ‘troops’ the Gelnika was carrying. Even two days ago, coming here alone would have been suicide. The designer monsters, intended to be powerful enough to distract Sephiroth while the handful of remaining Firsts dealt the finishing blow, would have ended his team’s journey more than once without the Harbinger contriving a miraculous retreat. More often than not, it simply obscured the aircraft’s wreckage entirely, deeming them unfit to brave it’s challenges so fresh out of Junon, and having no reason to suspect otherwise, Cloud rarely returned to the sea floor by the time he was strong enough to be permitted a glimpse.

After freezing the first mutant solid before shattering it with a single stroke, Tifa’s boots begin to ripple the stagnant water beside him. “You’re wasting your time, if this is the best your civilization can muster.” Cloud lifts the latches on the first crate: a double-edged sword, with two links of chain on either side of it’s base. A good sign. This time, at least, his memories and reality are in agreement. 

“The weapons here helped before. They will help again.” He closes the crate back up, marks the top with white tire pen. Better to secure a path to the deepest holds first and work his way backwards then carry the gear with him.

“Helped? Prolonged your decaying spiral, nothing more. Just another example in the long line of life mistaking survival for success.” She leans against the hull, arms crossed. “What your kind suffers from, it’s nothing swords or summons can kill.”

“They’ve worked pretty well on you so far.” He turns his head to snap at her, but she’s suddenly caressing him from behind.

“Silly Cloud. Humanity does not suffer me. No more than your cells suffer mitochondria.” She lowers to a whisper, lips brushing against his ear, “That’s what I offer. A symbiosis so complete, our descendants will struggle to imagine it was ever otherwise.”  He reaches back to flip her, to throw her, anything to get her away, and she obliges him, instead reclining on a throne of storage containers and cargo netting. “Reunion. The solution to the extinction event you’ve found yourselves in, and no, I don’t mean Meteor.” Her amber eyes glow as she leans forward, conspiratorial. “Kill Sephiroth, and no one will ever die again. The Stream will spring eternal, and we will breed lilacs out of this dead land.” Tifa raises feather-gloved hands to the rusted heavens, and for a moment leads a congregation of a dozen spectres, his mother and her father chief among them, but before he can make out more they have already blinked away. “Do you know why I am allowing you free will, Cloud? Because I have known you longer than anyone on this planet has known you, and you have proven yourself a good man. You know this is right. You know this is just.” She shifts away again, beckoning him further down the corridor. “So if you want to put together a parting gift for your friends while you come around to the idea, that’s alright. I don’t mind.” Her laugh echoes from every direction. “I’ve waited this long.”

He puts another experiment out of it’s misery, a long-necked quadruped with a collar of stingers surrounding it’s uncannily human skull. Only when he crouches to pocket a Double Cut materia does he notice that more than one of it’s paralysis-laced needles found purchase in his skin, Jenova having halted the venom in his veins instantaneously. He winces as he works the barbs out of his flesh in between raiding the mobile lab for high-grade medicine, marking a second crate containing a star-shaped chakram for retrieval.

“Be careful with that one. A cut from this will warp your cells with far less kindness than I.” Tifa runs a finger along the bladed rim. “This was part of us, once. Dead now, but even a dead power can be persuaded to make Morph stick when that Cetran bauble should rightfully fail.”

Cloud takes this chance to grab her by the collar. “Tifa doesn’t belong to you, either. Pick someone else.” She flickers and spasms beneath his fingers, combing through his thoughts for a face he does not cherish enough to resent appropriation, before coalescing into a tall shadow. 

“My, my,” Sephiroth murmurs, limp as a doll in Cloud’s arms, “I had been avoiding this one.  No reason to get off on the wrong foot. Yet all this time, it was so easy…”, he lifts an appraising hand to his own features, plays with silver hair that cascades well past his shoulders, “Of course. There’s nothing left for me to ruin.”

Cloud begins to shake. Jenova, Jenova lies and taunts and teases, but never forces, confident that she will have her way in time. Sephiroth knows no such patience. He will beat a rebellious mind until it knows better than to try. Until it knows better than to know anything at all.

There were so many pieces, when he was done. It is impossible that Tifa found them all. Some are gathering dust, under the couch, between the cushions, and so they shall remain, until the day Meteor comes. Be that in this history, or the next, or the next, or-

“Shhh, shhh, that part of us is dead and gone. You are safe.” Sephiroth steadies him by the shoulders, pierces him with eyes of vibrant green. “But even a dead power can be persuaded, and his jealousy will damn your world, if Aerith lets it.” 

He vanishes, leaving Cloud alone with the realization that he is right. Better this than have his loved ones made a mockery of. Sephiroth, he knows where he stands with Sephiroth. Especially this Sephiroth, hair uncut, jacket immaculate. The man in Icicle Inn, and he was just a man, in short hair and cheap polyester, Cloud does not know what to do with him. When he thinks that Sephiroth spared Aerith, that Aerith rose to defend him in turn, he is glad he is already kneeling for his head threatens to split apart, wing shifting in and out of existence as the pain loosens his tenuous hold on his nascent power.

He forces himself to take deep breaths, to count the tip-tap of water droplets from the ceiling. Focus on anything else. These facts were reconcilable when he was with Aerith- if he cannot trust that, he can trust nothing. They do not need to be reviewed to finish the mission. He picks himself back up, examines his reflection in a nearby puddle. The hair is still the hair his mother gave him. Eyes, brimming with toxic brightness, but that is nothing new. Wing, gone wherever wings go when their service is not required, though there are a few perforations along his uniform’s collar where the white feathers of his curious ruff broke through. Cloud nods, calls the Buster Sword back from beyond. Time is of the essence.

The final haul is respectable. A gun, sword, and spear, all of fine make but paling in comparison to the golden chakram; two materia, one an offensive staple, the other a debilitating summon; and a few bottled miracles Shinra is confident can cure everything short of death itself.

Sephiroth does not trouble him until he decouples from the carrier, content until then to merely observe Cloud’s meaningless gestures. “You are giving them false hope. By arming them, you suggest that we could be fought, when we are God not just of their planet, but of the temporal boundaries that contain their little lives. The ordering of the cosmos does not allow for our defeat.”

Cloud types in the coordinates for Bone Village wharf all the same. “No. Not false. I know there are greater powers than you.” 

He doesn’t quite laugh, only shakes his head and smiles. “Oh? What makes you so sure?”

48 times, though half the cells in his body screamed at him stop, Cloud has run his blade through Jenova’s chest and burned her infection out of the heart of his home. And never mind what skin she wears at the time, her son’s or Cloud’s own- he will give his friends the tools to see it done again. 

Even if it is the last thing he does.

“Because I know that one of them is me.”

Aerith didn’t need Sephiroth’s thoughts butting in to tell her that it was suspicious that the excavation team she hadn’t hired had found something when digging on orders she hadn’t made.

“There must be some mistake. This says you got five hits, and I only flagged one spot…and to be perfectly honest,” she can’t help but blush, “we were only doing that for the complimentary inn service. We didn’t exactly look very hard.” Between adjusting to Cloud’s absence and having to keep eyes on Sephiroth, who even she did not precisely trust enough to arm (as insistent as he was that their needless caution was costing the Planet valuable time), and they had been lucky to make Bone Village by nightfall. 

The archaeologist reaches under his pith hat to scratch his head, “No mistake, miss. Your SOLDIER friend, he was up in the night placing more. Something about bad dreams or some such. He’s barely forked over the gil when he says an emergency’s cropped up and he can’t wait until morning for our findings.” He raps his pen against his clipboard, “Says right here to forward them to your room number.”

A rushed breakfast later found the rest of her party joining her in staring at the cheery yellow plastic trunk like Meteor itself might be waiting inside.

“Throw it into the sea,” demands Sephiroth, whose black dye job has only confused the topic of his relation to Vincent further, “nothing good will come of his gifts.”

“He’s just being dramatic,” clarifies Yuffie. “Still, you might want me to have a looksie first. Disarming booby traps kinda comes with the Treasure Princess territory.”

“Ifrit’s tits, you kids interrupted my bagel for this?”, says Cid, kicking the crate open, “If the bombs and drills and funny little brushes they used to get this crap out of Gaea’s asshole didn’t activate whatever alien mind grenade you think Cloud rigged to these, why the hell would it go off now?” He takes a long drag on his cigarette, before gesturing with it to Sephiroth. “Thought you were supposed to be smart.” He shakes the box several times to demonstrate the rigor of his scientific method, before beginning to unload it himself.

To her credit, Yuffie performs her own esoteric ritual of a preliminary sweep with Sense materia, wind magic to check for motion detection, fire magic to check for heat detection, and a dozen other stranger diagnostics besides before announcing that she and the chakram will be having a summer wedding.

Beneath the weapons, Aerith finds a scrap-paper note, and a set of keys she does not recognize.

Dear Aerith,

Skipped ahead a little.

Your silver lining,

Cloud

Chapter Text

“Can’t believe I missed him.  Almost makes me wish I headed south with you.” 

Aerith had offered Tifa as much when they’d rendezvoused with her team, Cid and Barret trading places in anticipation of redeeming the former’s coupon for a free airship. Naturally, Tifa thought it was a fool’s errand to put any stock in Sephiroth’s intel, and argued for pressing further north. Sephiroth or no Sephiroth, the Jenova-laced were still chasing Reunion in droves- if they hoped to foil her plans, there were worse places to start than following. Barret was quick to counter that if Lucrecia was indeed among the cultists, then tracking her down would be two birds with one stone regardless. She’d get her chance to survey the Maze.

“Well, he didn’t exactly drop by in person. Now that you’ve heard the note you know as much as me.”

The clear skies might mean little for the submarine Cid’s prepping to launch, but for PHS towers this far from the Shinra core, it’s a godsend. Tifa could be reached without an untimely nap.

“I…I just don’t get it. If Cloud can still do what he wants, why does he have to stay away?”

Aerith wishes she knew. All she can offer is speculation. “When I saw him at Icicle Inn…it hurt him to see me. The way mentioning Zack or asking him what he did at Shinra used to. You could see him trying to force the puzzle pieces to fit, even though they were from two different boxes. And Sephiroth- until Sephiroth escaped, I might as well have been talking to a wall. Cloud said it himself, that being around him was the last thing he needed.”

“Then use that submarine of yours to ditch your new best friend on a deserted island, if that’s what this is about. If that’s what’s keeping him away.”

If only. “Tifa, you know I’m not working with him because I want to.” Silence. “You were right. I’m following his plan because I don’t know what else to do. I don’t know how we get out of this one, short of a miracle. Maybe it is a longshot that Sephiroth, of all people, wants to stop what he started. But it’s also a longshot that we find a solution anywhere else. If we don’t take risks, Tifa, there won’t be anything to risk.”

A noncommittal grunt of acknowledgement. “Look Aerith, what you said to me in our dream- never accuse me of that. Not when you’re the one always jumping at the bit to throw your life away if it’ll spare the rest of us. You snuck away the night after the Temple, because you knew. You knew I would have done anything to stop you.  All of us would have. I don’t claim to understand it the way you and Cloud do, but…the fact that out of all these timelines, I’m in the one where you’re still alive? That’s the miracle, Aerith. That’s how Holy saved us.”

Aerith forces a nervous laugh. “No pressure, right?”

Tifa’s chuckle is genuine, despite herself. “You know I didn’t mean it like that. You and Cloud can try to hog responsibility as much as you want- one of these test subjects is going to cough up something useful. Just you watch.” 

“Sounds like a plan. If we each take a third of a world, our shoulders might just manage.”

“Good. And if you see your ‘silver lining’,” Aerith blushes fiercely enough at this that Tifa must be able to hear it, “Tell him to take care of himself, ok?”

Sephiroth missed the ocean. The sleep he is beginning to recognize this body’s need for comes easily here, in the deep. Akin to that distant void he bears nostalgia for, despite never knowing first hand; cold, dark, suffocating, life finds no easy purchase here. Yet in other ways, it is his homeland’s resounding opposite. Pressure crushingly high instead of absent entirely, currents awash with sound even without Hearing. 

With Hearing, he is curious to note that the ‘sound’ of lifestream does not carry further in a liquid conductor, as it’s physical analogue might. Though he resents the Planet’s modifications of his person, he cannot deny the delight that comes with chasing a new line of inquiry after so, so long resigned to deliberating over the same handful of facts. As his wardens consider him…unfit…for combat, despite trusting their planet to the success of his weapon, he had busied himself on the trek south with experimentation. Does Hearing have an effective range (yes, comparable to hearing for picking up high level information like emotion and intent, much greater for the purposes of detecting vital signs)? Can lifestream ‘echo’, like real sound (yes, off of living things and materia, though with greater distortion than expected)? Can he skim anyone’s signal for surface thoughts (no, only Aerith’s are rendered articulate, despite Yuffie’s best attempts to ‘think at him’)?

“Next time, try just talking to them. It works more often than you think!”

At this intrusion, Sephiroth stirs from slumber, but not (he can tell by the veins of pale green light that marble the water outside the portholes, by the way the hum of the Lifestream is amplified to a deafening clarion) from sleep. He (or, no he realizes, his soul- they keep insisting he did not have one for eons, yet he remembers beings himself, and he files soul not being synonymous with self away with the other revelations) must have left his body to wander the Stream once again, though no whispers swarm him, no Harbinger plies him with hints and half-truths.

No, tonight’s host is far stranger.

“Sorry to startle you,” Aerith raises her hands and backs up the stairs leading back to the main cabin, as though calming a wary horse, “I should have given you more warning, but I honestly didn’t think this would work!”

Startle? Amusing, that she thinks she could disturb him this easily. He has never truly known privacy, not even within his own mind. As a child, as a young man, he believed his mind isolated as any other, boundaries his to draw, but he knows now this was mere blissful ignorance. He was never alone. The borders were never his.  Aerith’s overabundance of concern is refreshing, by comparison.

“This…?”, he rolls out of the cramped berth, is surprised to find himself in SOLDIER uniform- standard issue, not his custom leathers. “Dream sharing. You’re stronger than I thought.”

She shrugs. “I’m always just getting the hang of it, when, oh, you know-“

“The clothing,” he changes the subject before she can nauseate him with yet another stammering understatement about her murder, “is this your doing? Last time I dreamt, I had on what I was wearing.”

She shakes her head. “When I reach out like this, I don’t make the dream. I connect to one that’s already out there. Help whoever’s sleeping to think a little clearer, so that they can communicate, just like I can do for ghosts. If I’m being honest,” she slouches a little, suddenly shy, “I can count the number of times I’ve done this on one hand. I have no clue why you look like that. Your hair’s your normal colour again, too,” he reaches to inspect a strand, still unaccustomed to it’s new length, though if he strains he can indeed make out a trace of silver out of the corner of his eye, “so maybe…this is your self-image? Maybe you were dreaming about the past?”Aerith throws up her hands, “Your guess is as good as mine. Probably better! You used to talk to people like this all the time, right?”

“Jenova’s communication is neurological. Hallucinations, delicately crafted and deliberately induced. Reliant on physical cells to bind chemical agonists,” Aerith’s brow furrows, “reliant on life, in so many words. Cetra are not. No, this- this is something else entirely.”

She smiles. “It’s nice when you’re excited.”

Is…he? “Really? Aren’t you worried what nefarious schemes I have to be happy about?”

“Eh. You never seemed excited before Holy. Or happy, for that matter. So I’m taking it as a good sign.”

“You’re right. I wasn’t happy,” his pupils dilate at the mere memory of it, “I was ecstatic. But Gaea could not let that stand, now, could she, and so your sweet silver lining must suffer joy in my stead. That’s why you’ve come knocking on my cranium, isn’t it?”

Aerith makes a kind-of motion with her hand. “Mostly, I wanted to see if your being Cetra meant we could speak like this, even though I don’t know you that well. Turning our unconscious hours into a seminar period seemed like the kind of life hack you’d be into. But, yeah, seeing as it worked…you seem confident Lucrecia will be able to resist Jenova when you barely know a thing about her, but you’re sure Cloud will obey, even though he’s broken her hold dozens of time.”

“And so I must be letting my personal grievances get the better of me, yes? No one in their right would dare question the,” he drags this next word out, in hopes the irony will not be lost on her grating naivete,  “ puppet’s integrity, after all.”

“You talk a big game about hating him, but I don’t think you let personal ANYTHING get the better of you,” yet she doesn’t say that like a compliment as she nods, holds her index fingers far apart for emphasis, “mm-hm, you’re a bully alright, but only if there’s time for it between A and B. So this is something different. If you were anyone else, I would assume you were just making stuff up for a chance to meet your mom, but you don’t care about any of that either.”

His tone could dry paint. “How gratifying, to know that I have not come off as completely irrational.” Lying about the evidence to find a relative he doesn’t remember? An absurd suggestion, but now that she mentions it, it would explain Barret’s sympathy, Vincent’s haste, Cid’s cooperation. An incorrect inference that this…reunion, for what else should it be called, would be ‘good’ for him in some nebulous way, as they imagine it would be ‘good’ for them in his position, and they consider themselves ‘good’ people. “Cloud has never had to contend with the weight of memory. The futility of his actions, writ large. The pain, sustained and inflicted, multiplied umpteen times. What’s more, he must face it unfiltered, no whispers by his side to soften the blow.” 

“You remember everything,” she points out, “and you’re helping.”

“Because I no longer have the power to reject this reality. Because I have lost faith in the one Jenova promised.” He leans back against the cool metal of the hull. To put it into words takes more from him than he had imagined. Traitor to SOLDIER, to Cetra, to his own blood. His current efforts, if one day he will burn this bridge with all the rest, why struggle to build it? Aerith will fail him, as sure as all the rest, as the Planet already had before he was even born. “The imposter, however, is being offered the power to choose a world of his own making. And no one would leave things as they are, if they had a choice.”

“You’re wrong. He wouldn’t trust Jenova to give it to him.” This time, she doesn’t take issue with the source of the power, only the likelihood of interference with its use. He strains with his Hearing after her surface thoughts, curious if this indicates a change in position, but this method of communication must already stretch their powers to the limit. 

“He doesn’t have to. He only has to believe that he can defeat her in the fight for the Lifestream that will follow after Meteor strikes. If his hope in us falters, that is the best he can do for the world, is it not? How foolish we would seem to deny him that.”

Her words may be resolute, but her posture lacks confidence. “No. He’s not you.”

Sephiroth smiles. “Oh, I beg to differ. Hojo was too…indiscriminate, for me to be precise, but he is much, much more like me than I am, anymore,” a paradox almost as riotous as Sephiroth, Second Class, and he’s glad for the support of the wall as the fit of laughing takes him.

“Look at me,” Aerith steadies him by the shoulders, like it was in the woods the mere act of standing has slipped away from him, but now he has no hypothermia, no recent wound to blame for the instability. Only the burn, wracking him with fresh intensity at her touch. What more could it want? What resonance is it harkening him too, this time? He is as open to the Lifestream, to Aerith’s in particular, as he could possibly be, as united in mind as one can hope for without a collapse of identity, a slip that Jenova might allow but the Cetra would never stand for. Having known those depths, to merely speak soul-to-soul is, for Sephiroth, to contend with a gulf as vast and irreconcilable as the dark between life-giving stars, and yet blindly hope that his message in a bottle reaches understanding shores all the same. 

For her part, Aerith’s eyes brim not with the insult he intended to deliver, only worry. How? How can she find room in her heart for not only her 48 ghosts but their murderer besides? Why would she want to? “You are more than what they did to you. Both of you are.” His eyes are wet.

It’s only mirth, but they have established she does not know his happiness well enough to see it. 

Then he Hears her. A stream with a complex signature, it’s rich harmonics and dueling motifs forming an adagio that makes his heart ache, despite itself. Just shy of words, in the way that the greatest composers at their best were just shy of words, it is a triumph, not a shortcoming. By the way Aerith looks up and back towards the submarine’s heading, she can Hear it too.

“I know you say she isn’t your mother,” her eyes are wide with wonder, “but you sound just the same.” She struggles to turn her attention back to the dream. “That means we’re close. We should help the others get ready.”

He blinks, and already he is staring not at Aerith but at the ceiling above, jade light replaced by the washed-out yellow of the sub’s sodium lamps. Lucrecia’s stream replaced with whatever fast-paced cacophony, gratingly high-pitched, Yuffie is pumping from her cellphone’s cheap speakers.

“NIGHTCORE!”, she shouts from the bunk above and across from his. She took his advice. Good- he would have crushed the source of this cognitohazard like a tin can had it been any closer, and it would not do to deprive his Third of field communication.  “Works every time!”

There’s only a token resistance of Nibel Wolves when the party makes landfall, which is a damn shame- Yuffie was hoping Conformer’s first kill would’ve been something spicier. A dragon or behemoth-kin, maybe. At least the cursed Shinra tech that made the thing spin turned the pack into a fresh case of Hi-potions…somehow. Morph was supposed to pack all the punch of a boop on the nose, wasn’t it? Eh. That medicine will put a dent in her debt to Cid, so she can’t complain.

Between Aerith and Sephiroth, there’s no point keeping it for herself. As much as she would like to see him cut it up with that mean greatsword gathering dust in the sub’s storage locker, just to know if he’s really all that without the space juice, the ‘responsible adults’ had decided a simple bangle furnished with Heal, Restore, Revive, and an MP modifier was the best use of his hands, if he was as willing to help as he claimed. Of course, Soth then had to be dramatic and clasp the thing on his ankle, “as is traditional for suspected reoffenders”, though the magic didn’t seem to care. 

The wolves are a bad sign, one she keeps to herself. Not when Aerith seems confident for the first time since the City of the Ancients. If this cave has really been inhabited since Sephiroth’s terrible twos, mundane predators should have cleared out for quieter territory by now. That and the adjoining woods: where there’s people, there’s fire, and by the amount of unclaimed brush and accessible hardwood within spitting distance of the waterfall hiding the grotto, there hasn’t been a need for fuel here in decades.

Aerith continuously casts a simple Blizzard into the air above their heads, forming a  shelf against the side of the cave to keep them from being utterly soaked that crumbles as soon as they make it inside. Yuffie's fingers twitch as she catches a glimpse of the telltale crystal veins of a mako spring. A reservoir this far out of the way could hold untold materia, and some of them could contain magics yet to be discovered by the enemy. If she can just prise those directions from Vincent's not-quite dead hands, then this trip might have been worth the effort.

She scowls as she spots a generator emblazoned with a telltale Shinra diamond, though closer inspection reveals it’s old branding, pre-war. The vast array of geological instruments it powers, however, are as cutting edge as they come, gleaming cables and glittering diodes creeping over and around the crystal clusters like metallic ivy. 

“I’ll take point,” Vincent says, eyes following a power cord deeper into the tunnel, towards a blue glow of what might be monitors. “Shinra’s the only guest she’ll assume would come here uninvited. Seeing me is the fastest way to prove we’re free agents.”

Yuffie quirks an eyebrow. “Weren’t you a Turk, last time you talked? They don’t exactly put anyone at ease.” It’s gotten a little easier to piece his timeline together with Sephiroth around. It was incentive enough for Vincent to graduate from enigmatic mumblings to vague asides.

He readjusts his scarf. “She was present at my…exit interview. It did not leave my future affiliations in doubt.”

When Yuffie’s confusion does not recede, Sephiroth is sure to chime in, “Haven’t you ever wondered why you never see an old Turk?”

Never see a…but then that means, “HEY. You told me you WEREN’T a zom-”, but he’s already left her behind. She hears him rap on a column of exposed crystal, a pure tone that echoes throughout the cavern before being joined by Vincent’s voice.

“I know it’s been too long, Lu. But better late than never is the best I can do.”

She’s just caught up when she hears approaching footsteps, though the figure is difficult to make out through the halo of holographic interfaces that it manipulates with dizzying speed. With a gesture like lifting a visor he causes the ones obscuring him to disperse, and it is indeed a he, not Lucrecia, though he could be Sephiroth’s relative all the same. 

He’s taller than she remembers. Too much taller, for the weeks they’ve spent apart, and the toll of it shows on his body, flesh pulled so taut and thin that the labcoat seems to drown him in some places even as it is clearly too short in others. Silver hair overgrown but neatly pulled back, not a rebel strand or rogue bang out of place, this is no time to abandon lab safety. A bandage over his left temple covers what must have been a nasty blow. His left eye is still a vivid blue behind his trusty monocle, but she does not miss how the pupil in the discoloured mako-green of his right is razor thin before pleasant surprise has the chance to round it out to normalcy.

Chadley cross references his watch with several of his attendant screens, hums thoughtfully, oblivious to their shocked silence. “On the contrary, Mr. Valentine. You’re early. I trust my brother was not too difficult?”

Chapter Text

“CHAD!”, Yuffie grapples him with a hug that threatens to topple his gangly frame, before reaching up to pull at the lower lid of his green eye, revealing a pale pink sliver of flesh, an action Chadley regards with his customary mild curiosity. “Liar. You told me you had your alien stuff handled!”

His alien…stuff? Aerith supposes it’s not that shocking- Hojo created Chadley, and Jenova cells were his preferred medium. And the cyborg’s stream always did sound subdued, though it was a quality she had always chalked up to his semi-mechanical nature restricting his natural flow. “You’re a Jenova hybrid, too? And you didn’t tell us?”

“I told Yuffie”, corrects Chadley, serene despite Yuffie continuing to prod at his uncanny features. “Transparency is a key foundation for any re-”

“Of course he wouldn’t tell the rest of you!”, Yuffie interrupts, with suspicious haste, “You all hate anything to do with Jenova, and that goes double for things related to Sephiroth,” she nods to Sephiroth, “full offense.”

Vincent scowls, disappointed. “You know how Cloud is, Yuffie. No matter how sincere his intentions, Chadley could have- and for all we know, may still- been made to act against his will at any time. At the very least he is an unwitting spy.”

Yuffie gets between Chadley and the rest of the team, struggling to look as big as possible. “No, it-it’s different. He’s cut off, just like Sephiroth is now. Hojo made sure of it.”

“I would be more than happy to explain the nature of my…insulation, from psychic communication”, Chadley places a hand on Yuffie’s shoulder to keep her from drawing Conformer, “but a particularly determined hacker’s attempt on my life, while ultimately unsuccessful, has left me poorly clothed, and very,” his stare grows briefly intense, “very, hungry. I would prefer to continue this dialogue after availing myself of your submarine’s supplies. Would you be amenable to parting with a uniform, and, perhaps, all of your rations?”

Sephiroth wouldn’t have given him anything, least of all life. The mistake is doubly untrustworthy: Hojo’s creature as much as Jenova’s. To hear brother in his clipped tones makes his skin crawl. When Sephiroth was still connected to the family, he could scent mother on Chadley’s breath, yet never avail himself of the cyborg’s senses, never plunder his mind for fresh discoveries.

Well, not without Hojo’s permission, which, when he inevitably spiked himself with mother’s cells, was simply Sephiroth’s own. Not that Chadley was much of a prize, in the end. Too much of his brilliance bound up in metal and wire, illegible, the hive mind slides off its smooth casing, finding no purchase. Just another body, then. Just another viable cell cluster to walk to a strategic placement. Their father’s foolish tampering has cost him decades in wasted loops, this reliance on inorganic storage keeping mastery of materia out of Sephiroth’s reach, forcing him to experiment with subtler means of getting his due. 

Even the way he eats is revolting, attacking sleeve after sleeve of bland jerky and chalky crackers like a feral dog wary that rivals will steal his windfall should he fail to devour it quickly. He only pauses to nod along or make polite sounds of attention as Yuffie regales him with her exploits since they last parted company at the Gold Saucer. At least he chose to replace the kiddie labcoat and what could charitably be called shorts with the humble blue-and-grey of a public safety private, rather than stealing a SOLDIER’s valour.

Chadley reaches for a sixth box, but Vincent brings down an interposing claw. “Alright, wise guy. Start talking. You can have the rest when we’re done.”

“Apologies. I did not intend to take advantage of your kindness.”

“Like all those times you had Cloud running your errands? After all he did for you, at least you could have told him the truth.” Aren’t we animated today, Mr. Valentine? The hope of saving his damsel from distress makes even his heart beat.

“I would have been more forthcoming, but obtaining Cloud’s combat data was nothing less than a life-or-death matter. His feelings about my relations are…powerful. I could not risk losing him as a research partner. Not over technicalities I had well in hand.”

“Because of that…insulator?”, Aerith ventures.

“It’s like a helmet, but inside his brain!”, Yuffie pinches two fingers together, “And also, real little.”

“Apt as always, Deputy. Frighteningly so.”

“I was ten when Nibelheim burned down. I wasn’t trained in combat- the sole purpose of my existence was to provide Sephiroth with material in the event he required transplants or transfusions, as our blood type is…exotic. Even so, it was demanded that my project be terminated, unless safeguards against future incidents of ‘catastrophic asset loss’ could be proven.” He rubs his bandaged temple. “Hojo did not want to waste me. He installed a limiter on my psychic abilities that prevented Jenova from contacting me, and was fully transparent with me on all details of the project that produced us from that point forward. He even convinced Shinra to let us live as father and son- anything to avoid  repeating whatever transgressions must have inspired his masterpiece’s actions. And had that been the end of it, I would be grateful to him, still.”

Grateful? To be declawed of divinity and kept as a pet? Hojo denied him a destiny any mortal soul would envy. How dare he speak of this with fondness.

A rueful nod from Vincent. “Hojo never did meet a boundary he was content to leave alone.”

“We were happy. I think. For a little while. Happy enough that when he suggested I could help with his work, I was proud to be of service. The first additions he made to me were innocent enough- improvements to the existing limiter to not only prevent communication with the hive mind, but from being detected by it at all. Things that could, conceivably, be of therapeutic use to degrading SOLDIERs. Later, I would wake to find, embellishments. Solid state storage integrated with my hippocampus to ‘restore’ the extensive capacity for memory Jenova would have otherwise given me. Neurochemical regulators to keep my emotions within ‘acceptable’ thresholds, lest they get the better of me, as they had my brother,” and without those, oh, how much hatred the next words could have held, for even with them his breaths grow ragged, though the inflection is unchanged, “Then came the behavioural restraints. After that, he did not bother to explain himself.”

Aerith looks fit to cry the tears Chadley has been deprived of. “And that’s why you needed Cloud’s help, right? To copy a will strong enough to break them?”

At this Sephiroth rolls his eyes, which Yuffie deflects with a resounding finger, allowing Chadley to continue. “Correct. It was only fair to share that much of my situation with him, once I was free to do so. Unfortunately, Hojo is not the only threat to my freedom. Hence why I required his services for several months afterwards.”

“This that life-or-death matter you were referring to?”

“Yes. Jenova.”

“Well are you protected from her, or aren’tcha? Make up your mind, kiddo!”, Cid pipes up from behind the wall of holographic screens he’d appropriated from Chadley’s field laboratory. Sephiroth can pick out the Supernova equation and a blueprint of the Shinra No. 26 rocket among the floating files. Good. At least one of them isn’t wasting time consoling a robot.

“I am. In the way that a space shuttle protects you from the vacuum. It is a safety predicated on the proper functioning of dozens of fine mechanisms. It does not free me from vigilance or concern, and there is more than environmental stress and wear and tear arrayed against me.”

Yuffie gasps, grabbing Chadley’s arm. “Hojo really tried to sabotage you, didn’t he? Like you predicted?”

“Yes. He failed.” Yuffie relaxes, though does not release her grip, and Chadley seems content with the situation. Unexpected. It is dim behind the waterfall, otherwise the slight widening that curiosity lends Sephiroth’s pupils would attract attention.

“Predicted? Like how you knew I’d come here?”, Vincent probes.

“As my brother,” it scrapes against Sephiroth’s eardrums, a vile epithet, “has in all probability shared, Jenova is an exochronal entity. Outside of time. The Planet is another. When an enchronal being, like a human, is in correspondence with an exochronal one, if the human’s lifespan overlaps with a period of linear time the exochronal being has experienced more than once, then they may remember previous versions of that timespan. An ‘alternate timeline’, to be conversational, but less accurate. Alas, such memories are typically fragmentary, and difficult to access deliberately. You have experienced this, Aerith, if I’m not mistaken. As did Cloud.”

Her brow is furrowed, but she nods. “I think I understand what you mean. For me, it was like Hearing ghosts, but if I tried to help them the whispers would get in the way. Even erase what I heard entirely.”

I felt that there would be nothing left of me by the time they were done. That I was a memory the world was trying to forget. 

This is not an idle thought, a snap reaction. It is deliberate, dredged up from the deep, for his eyes and no other- otherwise, she would have shared it aloud. A plea for sympathy? The whispers vex him to this day. She is not special.

“For me it was dreams. At least, until the limiter was installed. I often had nightmares about my brother, in particular. I would fight him for control over my sleeping body night after night. But he was a SOLDIER, and I was just a child; no matter how hard I struggled, he always won, in the end. These were dismissed as anxieties about my purpose as an organ donor. The more Hojo and I learned about Jenova, however, the more I began to suspect that they were memories. Memories of a past that was liable to repeat itself.”

Aerith outwardly contains herself, but her indignation crashes into him, forceful enough to deafen him to the surrounding streams.

Your own family?

(And?)

I would’ve given anything, to not be the only one.

“His eye- Sephiroth, what did you do to him?”

(You know what I did. But I will spell it out, if I must.) 

“I tried to escape the wrath of your people before Holy could pin my consciousness down to a single vessel, by incarnating into a cell cluster that was unaffected. Nothing I haven’t done dozens of times before to travel this world instantaneously, but you never knew their names, so what do they matter?”

Chadley massages his bandage again, expressionless. “It wasn’t a secret that you were dad’s favourite. Of course he’d kill me to save you. I am a repository of your spare parts, after all. If I was to survive, I would need to engineer my own protector.” He unwinds the bandage, peeling back the linens to reveal a steel plate molded to the shape of his skull, etched with intricate lines of silvery-blue mythril. He runs a thumb over the pair of linked materia set there- one red, one blue. “Hojo was fully transparent with me about the details of the Nibelheim incident. I knew that if anyone had a chance of saving me now, it was the MP trooper that defeated you then. Synthetic summons, the research tasks, the combat simulations, all of it- it was to make a version of Cloud that could operate on the cognitive field of combat. A guardian angel, though, the irony of the statement is not lost on me.” Pleased with his own observation, the beginnings of a smile brush his lips, but this too is stifled. “Even with his help, it was touch-and-go, for a while. Performing brain surgery while your body is rioting against you is…difficult.”

Sephiroth responds with a long, slow clap. “Bravo. You bested me. Now get to the point. You ambushed me to extract something, surely? I would assume revenge, but your implants would make that too hard to enjoy. No, a higher calling. Justice? Thanks to you, your heroes have been well reminded of my nature.”

“Far from it. In fact, I implore your traveling companions to not bear a grudge on my behalf. As much as you need to deny it, you were not of your right mind.”

“I’ve seen behind your eyes. You wouldn’t know a right mind if you held it in the palms of your hands.”

Is that genuine stoicism? No, only a sign of his impairment. “Maybe so. Maybe it is irrational of me to hope you would appreciate the gift I have given you, in refusing to let you run from help when it was offered. But would you at least pretend to get along with me, for Dr. Crescent’s sake? She deserves that much consolation, after what she has suffered.”

“Then she really is here…”, Vincent relents, tosses another box of rations to Chadley, “Is she alright? Why didn’t she come with you to meet us?”

“Dr. Crescent is…difficult, to communicate with at the best of times. Jenova appears to have compounded an existing clinical depression with decades of suggestion. When Sephiroth’s link to Jenova- to her- was broken, she slipped into a stupor.” Chadley shakes his head, “I have tried reaching out to her, using both magical and mundane means, to no avail. I would attempt to administer the traditional medical interventions for her condition, though her singular symptoms make medication quite impossible.”

“Symptoms?”, Aerith cocks her head, “Is she violent?”

“No, though she does passionately resist treatment. Perhaps…it is best that I show you.”

Chapter Text

Chadley leads them down a spiral path cut into the grotto, slippery and steep enough that even Vincent finds himself grateful for the guard rail. Not that he wouldn’t survive the fall to the spring’s base- something within him would land on its feet- but as Chadley’s predicament has sorely reminded him, such changes are not to be suffered lightly. Makes his bones ache as if he were going through a growth spurt, and maybe that’s only fair. He should be 57, after all. Complaining joints are the most natural thing about him. At least it doesn’t deplete him the way it did Chadley, who is grateful for Vincent’s reflexes when a particularly forceful yawn makes him stumble. No, whatever Lu gave him, it seems to provide for itself, and then some. Food, water, air, sleep, he needs them, yes, but the warmth in the pit of his chest dulls their urgency. Between how badly he was hurt and how long he was left to fester in Hojo’s care, Vincent doubts that his sluggish heart could support life, let alone consciousness if his body still made a human’s demands.

“How long have you been coming here? This path must have taken months.”

He lifts his monocle to rub a bleary eye, “mm? Oh, no, most everything here is Dr. Crescent’s. Since I started visiting a few weeks ago, I’ve only installed the computers. And the guardrail. Visitor safety is not front of her mind.”

“I can’t help but notice you call Hojo, of all people, dad, but she’s Dr. Crescent. Is she not…?”

“My mother? Genetically, yes, one of the conditions of her departure from Shinra was forfeiting rights to her reproductive material, which is considered proprietary. Because of said departure, however, I was gestated in entirely artificial circumstances, as earlier attempts using conventional and SOLDIER surrogates proved inviable.” That explains the age gap. Wasn’t like Shinra to not skip straight to mass production, if they could help it. “Calling her mother, I would not dislike it, per se, but…I want her ‘blessing’ to do so, and she does not believe my claims.” 

Sephiroth manages to keep his own counsel on the topic, though Vincent is certain the man’s tongue itches to dig his grave deeper. Aerith, for her part, can’t contain her disbelief. “But you came all this way just to find her! Shouldn’t that be enough?”

“Not only did she not give birth to me, by all rights she would be able to sense Jenova within me, if I was telling the truth. I do not fault her for doubting.” He pauses, mulling over his next words. “That, and reuniting was not my main interest in seeking her out. Jenova made Dr. Crescent the subject of a cognitive smokescreen that I had hoped to replicate. Despite both being part of the greater mind, Sephiroth was blind to her. If I could reproduce the phenomenon for myself, I would not need to risk an altercation.” He sighs, runs his thumb along his materia plate. A nervous tic, or a lingering pain? His brother may have warped more than meets the eye in trying to force Chadley into his image. “Too late now.”

At the heart of the mako spring, the light shed by ambient crystal clusters is bright enough that no lamps are necessary, the overlay of Chadley’s diagnostic equipment causing dappled shadows to play on the walls. The longest are cast by a pillar in the centre, like a sundial’s blade, the human figure repeated again and again by the countless light sources until it bristles with a thousand limbs.

“Lu…” For all the world, she looks nearly as untouched by time as him. Might even be the same labcoat.

“She can’t-”, Chadley begins, but Vincent is already running to her side. Lucrecia is suspended as though in amber, eyes open but sightless, expression blank. 

It’s familiar. He can see her now, after the pregnancy, propped up in one of the mansion’s drawing rooms. Past talking. Past trying. When the Project was hypothetical, signing off on complete separation of mother and infant was logical, lest it be compromised by subconscious loyalty to any one team member. 

Sephi’s cries were not hypothetical in the slightest, but by then it was too late. So Hojo would pose her in the parlour each morning with blank notebooks, the latest journals, instructions for the Turks to see to her meals, and every night, untouched, these things were packed away. For days. For weeks. At first Vincent assumed Hojo had kept him on the Nibelheim detail to gloat like the child he was, and maybe that’s all it was in the beginning, but it soon became apparent he was fishing for a reaction, an emotion, anything. But Lucrecia was unmoved, regardless of who sat across the table. Vincent was convinced it was all on account of being kept from her son; convinced enough to bring them together by force, if he had to. Looking back on it now, he was desperate to be her solution, and that was simply an actionable answer. 

Of course, I couldn’t even manage that. The heat in his chest flares at the memory. Yet even if he failed to reunite her with Sephiroth, his objective was accomplished all the same, wasn’t it? Vincent’s miraculous revival, her correspondence with Gast, building this very lab- something about that night made Lucrecia begin to live again, and fool that he was, he was too busy sleeping to see it. He brushes gloved fingers against the crystal. “Hello, Lu. Sephi’s here, see? He’s the tall one. I know, I know he was so small when he was born, but turns out we were anxious for nothing.” He can’t keep from rambling, the sight of her dredging up sentiment he’d thought died with his first life. “He’s a good kid, Lu, he was in a mess of trouble but he’s with a good crowd now. Gast’s little girl, did he tell you he had a girl, she’s been working with him on something incredible, but they could really use you on the team.”

Chadley joins him in resting a hand on her prison. “I understand. I talk to her too, still. I do not know if she comprehends us but cannot find the desire to reply, or if her mind has become as ensnared as her body.”

Yuffie shakes her head, reluctant to come any nearer than the foot of the path. “What happened here, Chad? I’ve never seen anything like it.”

It’s Sephiroth who responds. “A seal, in the Cetran fashion. Like Jenova, someone has decreed that she cannot be suffered to live, but neither could she meaningfully die.” He nods to himself, impressed. “That Lucrecia would merit this speaks well of her talents.”

“The way mom told it, sealing’s a fate worse than death.” Aerith, like Yuffie, keeps her distance, though from the way she leans on her staff and the paleness of her face Vincent can tell it’s more than simple fear. “The souls of the executed rejoin the Lifestream, to one day fill new vessels unburdened by memory, that they might make amends for past injustices. The crimes of the sealed were so grave that it was believed their vice would taint the Planet if it was allowed to take them back, bending the Stream towards their own ends.”

“Dr. Crescent believes herself to be one such individual. When she had the desire to speak, she claimed her carelessness brought ruin to everyone she proposed to care for. That living was nothing more than a series of chances to hurt others, by choosing wrongly, by action or inaction, by her fundamental weakness. The Planet would not be safe until she was taken off the board. So when she found she could not overcome Jenova’s instinct for self-preservation, she resolved to imprison herself instead.” Chadley averts his gaze from the crystal to fix it on Sephiroth instead, is otherwise level as ever. “I do not know if I can forgive her, for abandoning her work. But she does not deserve this.”

“Abandon?”, exclaims Sephiroth, incredulous, “Don’t work yourself into a lather on my account, little brother. Or do you really think one more scientist in the nursery teaching me how to be a good little SOLDIER might’ve made a difference? Abandon, he says. I did come to feel short-changed, it’s true, but being raised communally was hardly as traumatic as you seem to imagine. Even if it were, it’s not a question of deserving. We require her talents to destroy Meteor, which requires her to be freed.”

“No…no, that’s not right. Lucrecia wouldn’t have left you with him. Not if there was any other way.” Vincent begins to pace, agitated, he’d looked after Sephiroth like he’d promised, he’d brought them together just as he swore he would, was this not enough for her? “I know you can hear me, Lu. Tell him. Tell him you didn’t mean to go. Tell him you never meant to get stuck here.”

Sephiroth sighs, exasperated. “I hardly see why it should fall to me to break this illusion, Vince, but your girlfriend made bioweapons for money. One of them happened to be me. My heart does not ache for the absence of the one who sold me to Shinra.”

“That’s rich, coming from the guy who tried to kill his brother from the inside out,” Yuffie snarls.

“I knew what I was doing with Chadley.” He stares at Lucrecia, pupils almost swallowed by his irises, like a cat in the sun. “That’s more than she can say.”

“Sephiroth…”, Aerith begins, taking tentative steps towards the SOLDIER, “do you want to be here?”

For a moment, Vincent is certain he didn’t hear her, fascinated as he so often is by the labyrinth of his own mind. 

“Want does not enter into this.”

Like the White Materia, Lucrecia’s seal seethes with purpose.

Before, he had only mother’s word to go on. What he knew regarding the particular thoughts and feelings that coalesced to form the full spectrum of materia, this was second-hand. Now, now he can Hear for himself how this cave rings with hatred, as the Black Materia does, Aerith confirms, but facing within, not without.

Small wonder, then, that it frightens her so badly she assumes even he must feel disquieted. How much clearer can he make it that Lucrecia is nothing to him? Do they confuse his rising annoyance over repeating himself for passion? Sephiroth places a hand on the crystal, not out of a fruitless attempt at communion like Vincent or Chadley, but to ascertain its hardness and texture. Smooth, faintly warm, no dust or residue. Resists scratching. Crystalized mako, then. Not materia, per se, as it is not encoding a spell, but solidified knowledge regardless. Vulnerable to argument. He just needs to find the right tactic.

He closes his eyes, questing after nuance in the sound of the frozen stream. Does this hatred have a premise? What he took for his own tones echoed back to him are, he realizes, riddled with subtle differences. The cover of a song, rather than a recording of the original. Perhaps Lucrecia has only to remember that he exists, to affirm her decision to remain here. Is she afraid of what she created?

He didn’t share it out loud, but Aerith shakes her head. “She’s not afraid of you. She’s afraid for you. I think…no…” she has to take deep breaths here, the way her heart is left open to pain, “she thinks what she did to you was so terrible, that if she was free, surely she would only ever hurt you, again… and… again.”

“Yet by Chadley’s estimation, she believes me dead, just as Jenova does. Should that not have freed her, instead of driving her to deeper despondency? The fear has passed.”

“For a God,” Aerith murmurs, eyes brimming with disbelief, “you don’t know anything at all. She did this so the worst would never come to pass,” her stream amplified by her ancestors all around her, their sympathy imparting it with not just words but images, mother gave me the widow seat on the train to distract me, I still see her cough in the reflection, smell blood, “and it happened anyway!”, blood in the water, iron of me and without me, steel in the air, not of me but in me, how-

“ENOUGH!”

He hadn’t meant to lose composure, but his demand contains menace enough that Vincent and Yuffie both draw weapons despite Aerith’s apologetic gesturing. “I’m sorry, I-I didn’t mean, I just wanted you to…understand.”

And he does. Not all of it- that would be claiming to know all of her, a folly he has never succumbed to even at the height of his power. Only enough to understand what was alien to Jenova, and so had become alien to him.

Parents put their children before all else. Not a universal axiom, by any means. It would not make the list he’s been making for Yuffie. Like the advantage of high ground, a guiding principle, but not so decisive it cannot be overturned by other factors. 

Of course Lucrecia had given up. Her last gambit to protect him had failed. Like reactor waste, she had entombed herself deep in the earth and far from civilization lest her presence kill. And what had she to show for it? Vincent, broken. Gast, dead, his family taken as slaves. A nation in ashes, thanks to her work. Son killed by the Planet itself, seen as a threat by his own home because of the gift she gave him. She revived Vincent, or at least his body- perhaps she imagines she could have saved Sephiroth, if she was there. But she chose wrong, as she always had, even when she resolved not to choose at all.

How to tell her, then, that she was being absurd? That far from being a threat to the world, she was the only one who could save it? That her decision to experiment on her child had provided him with the knowledge he needed to outwit Calamity? Even if he knew what to say, it had taken him months to transpose his rebuttal to Holy onto a materia.

“You’re a Cetra now,” Aerith pointedly says instead of thinks. “You don’t need materia to ‘talk”, she makes small air quotes, “ to other Cetra. They can Hear you just fine.”

“Lucrecia may have believed she gave herself a Cetra’s telepathy, but as we’ve discussed Jenova uses a different channel of communication.”

“They do a lot of discussing without us,” Yuffie whispers to Chadley, “it’s creepy.”

“No, not Lucrecia. The ones that make up the spring. They reacted to me earlier, made my message…clearer, than I wanted it to be. I’m sure they’re listening to you too.” She shivers despite herself, “If you could convince the spirits inside the White Materia to doubt themselves, even for an instant-"

“I was more than I am, when I wrote those words. Much more. I suspect these Cetra will be less than willing to consider my arguments.”

“Captain Planet polled every ghost ever asking if they should give you a pass, and you won by a landslide,” Yuffie groans, “odds are the people haunting this cave are a bunch of the assholes who voted for you.”

“Demographically speaking, Cetra accounted for a small fraction of my jury.”

Aerith shoots him a beleaguered thumbs up. “Well, you have my vote”. 

Though acoustically irrelevant, when it comes to immaterial sound, Sephiroth plants both his palms on the central pillar, fingers splayed wide the way a good song would make Genesis touch the speakers, desperate to catch each and every last vibration. After all, physical necessity is only half of the reason for assuming a combat stance; as the muscles take a receptive position to certain movements, so too does the mind embrace the accompanying philosophy. Genesis would die laughing to know he was Sephiroth’s model for the reverence he hopes to convey to Aerith’s kin. It almost makes him wish he was here to see.

This seal exists to protect the world from it’s contents. Hatred, directed inward. This cell is a testament to it’s occupant’s abdication to futility. An admission that there are no actions worth taking. He loses track of time, charting the intricacies of the enchantment, plotting his argument.

You will save the world.

No response. Of course not. A platitude.

Only you can save the world.

In Sephiroth’s experience, not words to be trusted, so he is not surprised they remain inadequate for this purpose.

There is still time.

Better. Not enough. She has had time before, and it is a terrifying, demanding thing. Time is an opportunity, opportunity, the larval form of failure. This demands something simpler. Irrefutable evidence that the seal existing is acting counter to it’s purpose.

You are needed.

Lucrecia stares on, implacable. She is nothing to him, yes, but that nothing is infuriating. Like the memories the Harbinger stole, she is a piece of his power, a piece of him, made a stranger and torn asunder by an imposter’s hand. Doesn’t she know he’s going to die without her? Doesn’t she know it terrifies him, being nothing more than the spent pawn of the force that used them both? Oh, it is a childish fear, mother, unacceptable, for Jenova will pay for her hubris long before it comes to pass. 

I need you.

The crystal does not shatter like glass exposed to the perfect pitch. Nor does it crack, like a dropped frame. It dissolves, slow at first but accelerating away from Sephiroth’s fingers, showering the cave in sparkling snow, the same soft jade as his burn, which glows constant and warm through the fabric of his jacket as he catches Lucrecia in his arms. For the first time Aerith has ever known, his face is lit up with wonder. His guard pierced by an eventuality his long centuries never prepared him for, as his mother holds him tightly, sobbing into his shoulder. Finally, Lucrecia wipes her eyes, brushes aside the hair already grown back enough to be troubling his.

“I’ve wanted to do that for a long time.”

Chapter Text

Sephiroth carries Lucrecia back to ground level, spellbound in rare silence. He does not quarrel with his brother as Chadley hooks her to an IV in the makeshift triage he had prepared for his own surgery, wraps her shivering form in a space blanket looted from the sub’s supplies, weakened as she is from decades of metabolizing mako for only the most basic sustenance. The reflective material makes the cave sparkle as Chadley’s screens relay her vitals, dazzling Sephiroth’s sensitive pupils into perpetual slits as he patrols her alcove, muttering about defences should Cloud investigate this disturbance. Terrified that Jenova will seek to undo all he has gained, not that anyone without Hearing could guess.

Aerith never thought Sephiroth looked much like Hojo. She had taken it as proof that Jenova’s mark upon him was more profound than any human inheritance could aspire to be, but seeing him and Lucrecia side by side makes the resemblance obvious. Tall, for a woman (albeit not shockingly so, as her eldest son is), full-lipped, straight hair far too lustrous a brown for someone just woken from hibernation- it is perhaps not so strange that her love life has a body count. Chadley, on the other hand, owes little to her influence. Sephiroth may have only accelerated his biological clock a year or two before ‘Data Cloud’ intervened, but they were important years all the same…ones she imagines most teens would be happy enough to skip, under better circumstances. His emerging likeness to Hojo is not helped by the gauntness caused by Sephiroth’s attempts to render too grand a sculpture with too little clay (she wonders how he was hoping to replace the lost mass, shudders), or by the ponytail of necessity brought on by the wild growth of his hair. Chadley is not, however, greasy in the slightest. In fact, Aerith finds she has a hard time imagining either of the brothers as unkempt, let alone dirty, as if both had settled on this same quiet rebellion against their father’s carelessness. 

Yes, Sephiroth required no small amount of prompting to concede to his mortal body’s demands for things as basic as food, water and sleep- but his compunction for hygiene was evidently too strong for the centuries to atrophy. Maybe it was simply the one thing Jenova could not regulate, for no matter how efficient he became, the world and its filth still clung to him. Or did it please her, after a fashion, to see her ‘son’ look his best, the way the long hair must have pleased her, she realizes, if she forced Chadley’s to grow the moment she had a say? For if it was really a consequence of his disinterest in managing it, as Sephiroth claimed, why would he waste the effort on subsequent bodies? 

Chadley parcels out three tablets from a translucent orange container, sets it aside cap-down, before placing them on the simple trolley with a glass of water, but Lucrecia is already shaking her head. “Chadley. I told you before. It won’t help.” Her voice is flat- not measured like Chadley’s, that would suggest there was something to be portioned out to begin with- but hollowed out. As though the words barely merit the saying. Her stream is much the same, the particular muted quality Jenova lends a soul’s signature more pronounced than with Chadley, though to Aerith’s relief the melody is not absent entirely the way Sephiroth’s had once been.

“With all due respect, Dr. Crescent, your situation has changed dramatically since then.”

Sephiroth scans the pill bottle, scowls, casts it aside to roll a pathetic half-circle on the stone floor towards Aerith’s feet. “Don’t be naive. Even if Jenova allowed this poison into her system, she would simply countermand its psychotropic effects with her own transmitters.”

Aerith picks up the bottle, expecting to find its label arcane and inscrutable. To her surprise, the prescription is familiar. “This isn’t poison. Mom takes this every day. Lots of people back home do, or at least, should. Tough to shell out for antidepressants after food and rent, but Elmyra pulls a widow’s pension from Shinra.” 

Lucrecia sits up, sighs. “What…my son,” she says that with no small amount of disbelief, pausing to savour the syllables, “means is that Jenova relies on chemically stimulated hallucinations to coordinate her decentralized cells. She has evolved, or given her precise control over her own heritability, engineered may be more accurate, a resistance to the introduction of exogenous compounds that might alter nervous functioning, in order to maintain synchronicity even in the presence of environmental toxins.” Belatedly noticing Aerith’s dazed expression, she tries to chuckle, to poke fun at herself for getting technical, but her throat can only produce strangled derision. “I’m sorry. I should have just said that it would pass through me, undigested. Regardless, it’s not a point that merits throwing things around.” Sephiroth blushes at this, his pale complexion doing him no favours. It strikes her as too human, unsettlingly so, that he could be chided by Lucrecia. Is it only that no one has dared to criticize him so casually in years, or-

No. She had only wanted to remind him that Lucrecia cared. She didn’t make him feel anything. Could not have impressed upon him the minute details of this pattern without even trying, no matter how familiar. That would be monstrous. 

That would be something he would do. 

Aerith shakes her head, trying to clear her mind. “Don’t apologize, Dr. Crescent. I want to know all you can tell me. If I can’t understand Jenova, I can’t protect the people I care about.”

She hums, wistful. “Your father said the same thing when we left Nibelheim, when it became undeniable that we did not know the legacy we had forced Sephi to inherit.”

“So he did fear me.” He smiles, humourless. “I always knew he was the smart one.”

She furrows her brow, confused by his readiness to jump to that conclusion. “He feared for the health of a child whose biology resembled nothing else on the Planet. I know better than anyone that the idea of falling ill must sound like a joke to you now, but if you had…we had no idea how you might present symptoms, let alone tolerate human treatments. Your growth rate, your life expectancy, something as basic as your dietary needs- how could Gast propose to care for you, to care about you, without learning the first thing about your true people? That mission led us back north- to the Crater and Ifalna.”

They left Shinra together? This was news to her. “Mom never mentioned you. Not even when she was listing who might help hide us, if we really did escape.”

“Ifalna…tolerated me. I had undone her people’s greatest victory and damned our world to Calamity to satisfy idle curiosity, so I should be grateful she did not kill me where I stood, shivering on her doorstep.” She lowers her gaze. “If only. Would have saved everyone trouble.” She fidgets, pricking at the fat of her thumbs with the nails of her other fingers. “She did not trust me, the way one would not trust a child. Not for fear of their betrayal, but for the truth of their impotence. All I was good for was presenting the team’s findings to Hojo as my own, in hopes he would be more receptive to my overtures.” Closes her eyes, pulls the blanket tighter. “So, nothing, after all.”

To Aerith’s surprise Sephiroth laughs, pupils wide as he takes Lucrecia’s hands in his. “Nothing? Nonsense! For decades you have known the grasp of a hand whose touch shatters your lessers in instants. You, who longed for reunion even without her urging, you spit in her face and stayed away!”

Lucrecia stammers, anxious for the other shoe to drop. “You-you’re not…you’re…happy, I left you?”

He blinks. “Of course I am happy. It proves my strength is not of her, but of you. Does it not?”

“It…is true, that I wanted to hold you. More than anything. At first I thought I must have underestimated the expected instincts- that the testimonies I had disregarded as hyperbolic were representative. When it became clear that these urges would not be indulged, indeed, the severance protocols were authored by my own hand, the self-loathing that replaced them was, it was all I could do to breathe, for the weight of it.” She retreats from her son’s grip, hugging her arms to her chest. “We had anticipated despondency. Postpartum depression can occur in even the most ideal circumstances, and that mansion was a far cry from ideal. To his credit, your father tried everything. When I developed resistance to each class of drugs in turn, he would take me up the mountain, for air and light and exercise, these were no panacea but they were supposed to do something . He even ordered Vincent to keep me company, fearful that his conversation held a palliative he had yet to isolate.” She shakes her head. “It is no wonder you bonded with Gast. So much fell to him alone, in those days. Defeated the point of my absence entirely.”

“I suspect the hatred you felt was Jenova’s, not your own,” Chadley muses, retrieving a simple loop of metal set with blue and green linked materia slots from the same bin as the medication. “If so, Warding junctioned to Mystify might-”

Lucrecia snatches it out of his hand with a haste that threatens to rupture her connection with the IV. Not to put it on, however: she brings the bangle to her chest, slipping it under her shirt where the materia can make contact with her skin. Takes a deep, shuddering breath, her stream growing in volume in Aerith’s Hearing in time with her expanding lungs, and remaining vivid as she exhales. When she places the jewelry back down besides her forgotten water, the stones are pale as if Chadley had bought them fresh from the store, the telltale opacity of matured materia given way to a clarity closer to coloured glass.

Chadley is paralyzed somewhere between grabbing a notepad and pulling his hair out. “Do you know how long it takes to raise a Warding materia to the third echelon? How did-?”

Lucrecia regards him with the same imperious incredulity that often graces Sephiroth’s features. “What were you doing bandying oral medication about, when you had high grade materia this entire time?”. Though plainly still tired, her posture is much improved, her form relaxed instead of retreating inward. “I would have asked for it sooner, but your insistence on fighting an extraterrestrial psychic conqueror with primitive alchemy had me convinced you must be destitute.”

Aerith picks up the bangle, curious. She focuses on thinking a simple expression, as she’s Heard Sephiroth do in his idle experimentation, not to communicate but to gauge the- what had he coined again- psychoacoustics? The greeting she gave bounces off the seasoned materia in her staff with slightly more distortion than the ones in her hand, almost as though, “There was stream inside, wasn’t there? And you freed it.”

“Freed? You really are too forgiving. Down to your very bones.” The pity in her stare, as she considers Aerith’s wording- she knows. She knows what her child has wrought. “Materia was my research specialty, a thousand years ago. Indeed, discovering the process by which it matures was a particular fascination of my mentor, a quest that fell to me when he returned before his time.” Her gaze wanders to where Vincent reclines against the far wall, just on the cusp of hearing, and her newfound confidence flickers. “Dr. Valentine proved that materia accrue…something, the longer they are in a human’s possession, and even developed a system of measuring these ‘Accretion Points’ in increments far more accurate than previous charts that relied on hue and lucency. My dream was to unveil the precise nature of ‘AP’, as you may be more accustomed to calling it, though as I failed to yield practical insights into improving Shinra’s yield of upper-echelon materia, I was consolidated into ‘Cetran Studies’ alongside Hojo and Gast. That wish fell to the wayside, and when Sephi was born soon all other hopes joined it. But when Vincent nearly died on behalf of me and my son, when the voice in my head had sworn he hated me for making him, hated Sephi for existing…I had found, at last, a calling louder than the dull whine that filled my brain.”

“Cloyingly trite as it may be, my own research,” a fascinating euphemism for what Sephiroth’s done to Cloud and Gaea knows who else for the past two centuries, “also supported that touchstones of interpersonal obligation do appear to dilute the insistence of Jenova’s demands, if only for a time. It made the extraverted, First-Class Fair and Second-Class Roche, for example, notably less pliable material. I assume the psychology at work in higher-order social behavior is surpassingly alien to her, and therefore difficult to efficiently counter.”

“In other words…”, Aerith prompts, “you’re saying that friendship IS magic.”

“No.”

“Fascinating,” Chadley’s fingers brush against his plate, “my ability to rebuff you with the Data Cloud materia may have been less a function of his specific cognitive profile, and more the fact that the object is a testament to the relationship required to create it.”

By her eyebrows, Lucrecia’s curiosity is more than a little piqued by this tangent, but she swiftly masters it. “Magic or no, what matters is Vincent’s condition spurred me to return to my old field in search of a cure, or at least a stabilizer. And when I came into contact with my samples, my new biology apprised me of a possibility I had never imagined. See, a Cetran soul is required to initiate the formation of a materia, much like an irritant at the heart of a pearl.They freeze their stream in place and prevent themselves from being recirculated, and thus preserve specific memories and skills that would otherwise be lost once unmoored from an ego. But once this core is formed, the resulting materia is far less discriminating about what to store. It will readily imprint the fresh emotions and memories of even a mere human that carries it, their Experience, if you will, and in so doing the composite stream becomes ever so slightly more…complete. More comprehensive an archive, than the simple manual of spellcraft or martial talent it began as, ergo more powerful as an aid in casting.”

Sephiroth paces, the gears clicking into place. “And you can draw that Experience, that stream, into yourself. Claim it as your own. As Jenova longs to, only from a far grander rock than any mere materia.”

“NO. Not like her.” Lucrecia shakes her head, hurt. “She is a glutton for information, and no format for information is half as alluring to her as the aqueous souls particular to Gaea. She cannot simply pass this world by, and seek less quarrelsome stars. Her craving will not allow it.” She folds a hand over her heart, where the materia had been. “And in order to bypass her grip on my organic body, I must stimulate my stream with Experience directly, drawing from the emotions stored therein. But it takes time to acquire mature materia, whether to come up with the money to buy them secondhand, or to have Gast and Ifalna fill them for me. After,” she swallows, bringing her hand to her mouth, “after…what happened, well, I alone could not provide for my treatment. And Jenova’s arguments had a truth to them, then, that I could not ignore.”

“M-, Dr. Crescent,” Chadley begins, taking a seat next to her, “you will never want for materia again. I promise you.”

“No. No, I’m the one who should be looking out for you.” She takes her sons’ by the hand. “ Both of you. I’m the one who brought you into this cosmic mess without asking.” 

Chadley would cry, but as it stands he sniffs, nods curtly. Sephiroth regards her resolve as one might a twist they’ve long anticipated, but are no less satisfied to see confirmed. 

“Now then,” the Crescent family turns their attention back to Aerith, “Miss Faremis? You mentioned something about a rocket.”

Chapter Text

The night after freeing his mother was the first night Sephiroth did not need to be reminded to sleep.

Not because it was easy. He still never felt ‘tired’, not until it was far too late, when his head was already painful and cloudy, the reins on his emotions loose. To make matters worse, he’s excited to sleep, a paradox his pathetic body struggles to resolve. It unnerves him how much meeting Lucrecia has changed him. Ever since splitting the White Materia, he had been concerned with nothing greater than survival, for which stopping Meteor was merely a prerequisite. But when he broke the seal, suddenly, there was a future. There was a tomorrow to anticipate, rather than simply endure. Tonight, he will not just sleep. He will dream.

As a SOLDIER, he has slept in worse conditions and despite greater anxieties, so enthusiasm does not put him off his quarry for long. He reaches out for he-that-was, as he did back in Icicle Inn, and sinks into the Stream once more. It does not burn him, nor does it take him long to find the moldy leather island formed by the many corpses of himself and his sons. He glimpses the dark-haired SOLDIER again, the wide blade, but then the hurricane of whispers descends, blurring the jagged edges of the holes they’ve left behind so that he grows numb to the loss that brought him to these shores in the first place. He soon loses all sense of direction. There is only dust, soft light, and a whispering that never crests coherency. When he still knew the warmth of Jenova’s favour, he could have turned them aside but now-

Now he knows there are wills greater than her temptations. His strength is not of her; it is of his mother. It is of him. He whose words turn prisons to dust, whose numbers strike Meteor from the Heavens. 

Now he knows he was ignoring fate of his own power. He had never needed Jenova, not for this. But having never been alone, he had let her claim every inch of himself he was proud of. He had believed her when she said he was empty. Redeemed only by her grace, her labour, her love.

He throws an arm up in front of his face to break the brunt of their assault, and with slow and shaking steps trudges directly into the storm.

The woman they have brought in to assess him is no scientist. The long sleeves of her grey dress cannot hide all the bruises. Some blossom on her face and collar, in whorls of green, yellow, purple. Her lip is swollen and split. Sephi has heard some of his parents call Mr. H careless, and wonders if these facts are related.

She is not handcuffed. Not shackled to a gurney. Some of Sephi’s neighbours are, when they have to be moved around. The schedules are supposed to be arranged so that Sephi does not have to see this, but Mr. H is careless. Even if he wasn’t, Sephi knew about the other apartments on his floor already. He used to dream about them. About the people and animals inside. He asked Mr. G once to turn on the radio for the sleeping soldier (the letters were small back then, like him) two doors down, because the soldier was so, so bored but could not remember how to ask for himself. Mr. G asked him questions about the soldier’s room, had him draw as much of it as he could remember. This part was embarrassing for Sephi- his art had not been judged before, and none of his neighbours were very good at it, otherwise Sephi could be good at it too, if he wanted. The way he could be good with materia on the first try. After that, Mr. G had those neighbours moved to other floors, and Sephi’s dreams were quieter. Maybe if the picture had been better, they would’ve gotten to stay.

In their place were neighbours like the woman. Like his parents, he does not know what these new neighbours dream about, so he doesn’t know why her stony expression softens when she sees Sephi. “You have day-eyes. My grandfather was the last of us to still have them, as far as we knew.”

Us? “Day…? You mean these?”, Sephi cups his palms over his eyes, counts one, two, three, four, five, then lowers them. It’s a trick he practiced in the mirror that makes the black part go big like everyone else’s so he can watch how it gets skinny again.

It makes her laugh, but only a little. “Yes. Exactly.”

“I call them snake eyes. Mr. H says snake eyes don’t work like that, but I think snakes are great, so there!”

She does not refute his flawless logic. “We don’t have snakes, where I’m from. It’s too cold. So we call them day-eyes, instead.”

“Why?”

“Well, at night, everyone’s eyes are the same. In the day, when it’s bright, that’s when your special eyes come out. Where we’re from, the ground is covered in snow and ice all year long. Have you ever seen snow?”

He nods. In pictures, and in more than pictures. Even after they changed his neighbours, some dreams remained. Dreams of snow; on mountain tops and in crater valleys. Dreams of being cold for a very long time. 

“During the day, the sunlight reflects off the snow. And all that lights hurts normal eyes, and makes it very hard to see. But you can make your pupils- the black part of your eye, the part that lets the light in- very small, so small that the sun can’t hurt you. You can put your day-eyes on, and see what others miss. We all used to have them, once upon a time.”

“We?”, there it is again. What do they have in common?

She pauses, unsure, looking between the parents taking notes of this conversation and the soldier by the door. “People from North Continent.”

Sephi shakes his head. “My mom was from North Continent, but I’ve never been. I really wanna, want to go, though. I want to visit Mr. G.”

The brave face she’s been putting on for his sake crumples. She couldn’t resist enjoying his innocent enthusiasm, his eagerness for knowledge just like her husband had described, but the barest mention of him has brought the reality of her situation crashing back. Before she can put this into words a child might understand, the researchers are already calling an end to the session, bustling Sephi out the door.

“That will be all, Ifalna. Project S has no further need of your expertise at this time.”

When he at last breaches the other side of the wailing wall, Sephiroth is so disoriented that he does not look the gift horse of a train station in the mouth. Only when he’s caught his breath does he begin to wonder why this part of the Lifestream is static in form, a stone that the current and its whispers must flow around.

“Stone? I think of materia as ice, personally,” offers the woman on the bench to his right, a woman he now remembers as Ifalna. In death, her skin is unmarked, and she wears traditional Cetran robes of white linen with a deep magenta shawl. He curses; he is as bad as the puppet, forgetting this much for this long. They were not quite friends- their interactions were far too circumscribed- as much as animals in adjoining enclosures. Grouped together to highlight contrast, like a hyena next to a wolf, the former would pass for a true canine if exhibited on its own but with the benefit of an authentic exemplar its feline traits become obvious. “You’re right. We’re not friends. I would have liked that- Gast loved you, after all. It broke his heart that he had to leave. But once he learned the truth about Calamity, he knew he owed it to you to find a way to let you live your own life, free of its influence. So getting to speak to you, to teach you about this beautiful world that Calamity would have you hate…I hoped it might bring him peace.”

“Did it?”

“He wanted you and Aerith to be friends, too.” Of course not, why did you even ask?

“Why am I here?”

“Because my daughter wants you to get where you’re going, and it looked like you could use a break.” She gestures to the curtains of whispers drawn around the uncanny station. “This piece of the Stream is frozen to preserve the knowledge I contain, as is my right as a Cetra. The Harbinger and their whispers cannot trespass here.”

“What kind will you be? When you’ve finished forming?” Mere childish curiosity on his part. It must be the deluge of memories from his younger self making him foolish.

Indeed, Ifalna is surprised, but pleasantly so. “It is bold of me to presume, but when you and Aerith turn Meteor aside…I believe I will be remembered well enough in the world’s story to become a Summon. It will be another century of crystallization, regardless. Longer still, before it is found.”

“I don’t understand. I didn’t know about your connection to Aerith. Hojo wouldn’t even let you tell me you were Cetra. What does it matter to Jenova, if I remember you or you not?”

She chuckles at that, to his confusion. “It wasn’t my choice to help you, and you don’t make it any easier. One can only hope I have more relevance to your journey once you have more context. That, or Jenova was paranoid to coexist with even the slimmest suggestion of a rival for the role of mother.” She checks a wristwatch that clashes with her Ancient clothing, as though expecting an arrival at the platform ahead of them. “You’ve gotten your strength back by now, surely? You may have been dear to me once, but I trust even you can understand why I will cherish the eons of silence to come infinitely more than even a minute more of your company.”

When he does, at last, collect himself and cross back into the stream, she does not so much as turn her head to watch him go.

Sephi is older now. He likes to weave his hair into elaborate braids, to challenge the quickness of his hands and mind with their patterns, to make use of what authority over his body he has been granted. He knows how to use a sword, how to attack and defend with magic. That this is connected to death has not yet occurred to him. It is only a new kind of test to pass, a novel distraction, one superior to the many variations of moving balls from one place to another despite overwhelming opposition that have been offered to him as enrichment.

They are introducing a new game today. Simple, on the face of it. He has been provided with pencils, markers, and several sheafs of paper. On the other side of the wall, he is told, someone else has the same. This game is played in rounds. On his turn, he must draw what he thinks his opponent is picturing in their mind. On his opponent’s turn, he must picture in his mind an object, as clear and concrete as possible, while they do the drawing. His parents insist there is no winning or losing- whether he can infer his opponent’s actions or not, the data will be valuable- but Sephi has heard this lie before. They said the same thing about the plant game, when they placed the potted yellow flower in his room with no further instructions than to keep it alive, he who has barely been outside, he who did not know then that different flowers had different names, only a vague notion that it required water and light, but in what proportion? It barely lasted a week, drowned by his desperate offerings. If there was no winning or losing, why did his parents shake their heads and sigh when it became clear he had squandered that opportunity?

So Sephi knows that there is a win condition, as impossible as the game might seem. His opponent’s perspective is not open to his senses- he would feel that possibility instantly, in the way one’s gaze is drawn to a new source of light. It was sometimes the solution to Mr. H’s puzzles, using the eyes of a bird to see a maze’s floorplan from above, or a viper’s loreal pits to read an invisible password written with heat, but Mr. H had evidently proved what he wanted to prove about Sephi’s ‘dreams’, so they have not been an active variable for many months now. That means Sephi has to make an educated guess. It will be something in the room, as that is what would first come to mind. Something that stands out against the sterile white and beige, but also matches the limited palette of tools available. Besides the paper and art supplies, the only other feature is the side table with a green glass jug of ice water and a bowl of snacks, should Sephi require either. It stands to reason that his opponent’s room is a mirror of his.  Therefore Sephi draws the jug, complete with cubes to indicate transparency, and feeds it through the slot in the wall.

After a few moments, the parent assessing him cups a hand to her earpiece, makes an affirmative noise, before informing Sephi that “She says she was thinking of the Sun”.

She? A clue to the puzzle, or a mere distraction? 

“Now it’s your turn. Think of an object.”

“Even if I got it right, she could say whatever she wants. So could I, if I want her to fail.”

His parent is firm, but not unkind. “Sephiroth, this is not about succeeding or failing.”

Which of them is the plant, in this scenario? “Still, we could lie.”

She’s not annoyed in the slightest. They never are, not with Sephi. Not even Mr. H, and everyone annoys Mr. H. “We do have ways to get around that, but I don’t think either of you will.”

“What if I think of nothing? What if I keep changing my mind? You don’t have a way around that.”

“That wouldn’t be very nice. Then we wouldn’t learn anything, and you like learning, don’t you Sephi?”

He does. Wants to find new pieces to slot into the puzzle of his life. Find facts that like the foreign senses of animals will give new context to the problem of this building. To the problem of himself. “Ok. I’m ready.”

He pictures the bird that helped him through the maze- a Corel Canary. Solid yellow, like a chocobo, eyes as black as the coal mines that used to use them to detect poisonous gas, in the days before star pendants were common practice. Its glossy beak and rough feet the same pale peach in colour. He could have asked to keep it, when they were done. Mr. H would have relented. Though after what became of the flower…maybe it is better not to know.

After several minutes a drawing is forced through the slot, crumpled and slightly torn, as though his opponent was in a rush when she pushed it through.

The parent cups a hand to her ear again. “Give that one to me, Sephiroth. It doesn’t count.”

He doesn’t, and for a moment she goes to take it from him, though the unrepentance in his eyes as they dart to track her motion makes her stop cold. Instead, he smoothes the drawing out as best he can, laying it flat on the desk. It is a simple drawing of a human, slightly better than a stick figure. The blob-like body is black in the middle, and white on the sides- a labcoat, maybe. His smiling head has brown hair and a matching mustache, with big square glasses. There are green sparkles all around him. Written to the side, in a child’s hand, barely legible:

He told me to say “I love you”

Water has gotten onto the drawing, leeching colour from one of the dots of green, causing it to bleed out into the surrounding snow of the page. “I was thinking of a bird. A canary.” 

Sephiroth doesn’t have any pockets, so he folds it back up, slips it carefully into his shoe and beneath his sole.

Sephiroth stumbles, buckling under the weight of the whispers. Aerith had been kind, and for what? Shinra must have punished her and Ifalna, for interfering with the careful drip of information Hojo had prepared for him. She risked this for a nameless, faceless stranger. Is this…gratitude, that he feels for her? No. Fear. It is madness, raw, unrefined madness, to give to the point of death over and over and over, and receive nothing in return. 

He gets to his feet again and continues his march onward. Recovering these fragments of his childhood is satisfying, but has no bearing on the greatest mystery the Harbinger created. Until he uncovers what impossible fact the Harbinger believes could give even Cloud pause, he must follow the siren song of his own stream, muffled as it may be by the abrasive duststorm of whispers. He must remember what he felt at Nibelheim.

As soon as he fixes his conviction in his mind, he finds the whispers giving way to another oasis of calm. Unlike Ifalna’s station, however, he cannot see the whispers forming the ceiling or walls of this bubble. The night sky above Nibelheim would in fact be perfectly clear, if not for the translucent ribbons of the Lifestream rippling the atmosphere. Almost like-

Like the dream Aerith shared the night before. He checks his clothing- again, standard First Class. Her doing, or…?

A Shinra military jeep trundles to a stop just outside the town gate, disgorging a lone “SOLDIER” distinguished in Sephiroth’s eyes more by his aftermarket changes to what would otherwise be matching armour than his particular choice of weapon. He has enough control over his blood by now that he can put the wing away when it would be unwelcome, though a few loose black-and-white feathers cling to his clothing or drift idly on the breeze.

“The feeling you have been looking for is panic. If you want the rest,” Cloud points toward the barren peaks sheltering his home, “There’s a problem with the reactor. You must be tired of going back there. I know I am. But don’t worry,” the puppet lets out a long-held, bone-deep sigh of relief, “this will be the last time.”

Chapter Text

Sephiroth impales Cloud without reflection or hesitation. In the heat of the moment he had foolishly reached out for Masamune, and to his joy it answered. Giddy, he acts out his vengeance on the puppet, mixing dismembering cuts and lacerating slashes with blooms of fire and lightning.

It takes him far too long to realize he is making no progress, even though Cloud makes no effort to defend himself. Only watches him with the same exhaustion he so recently saw haunt Lucrecia’s features.

“Is this why you wanted me here?”

“Why I wanted-? I’m looking for the reality Jenova stole, the world the Harbinger would keep buried. Yet you insert yourself, as always, barring my path on behalf of your new patron.”

The puppet glances up at the sky, awash in lifestream. “You shouldn’t have the cells for it, but of course that wouldn’t stop you, would it? You’ve already found a new way to push my buttons.”

Sephiroth scowls. “Me? This is Aerith’s work.” He draws Masamune back over his shoulder with both hands, drops his stance low, primed to launch into another flurry. “Or Jenova’s, given her predilection for distraction.”

A familiar spark of anger illuminates this storm cell,“don’t deny it, don’t-, don’t make me doubt myself over nothing, like you ALWAYS DO.” It almost boils over into lightning, into phantom glimmers of fifteen strikes from every angle, but he takes a stilling breath. “I would know your voice anywhere. No matter how hard I’ve tried to forget.”

Aerith said she could share dreams with those she knew well. And who does Sephiroth know better than the puppet? Not m-, Jenova, clearly; else he wouldn’t have been taken by surprise by her lack of sentiment. To say it was Zack would be self-aggrandizing, for though Sephiroth’s investment was not so shallow as to have called the friendship one-sided, his observances of the rites and customs of the institution paled in comparison to Zack’s sincere enthusiasm for being part of Sephiroth’s life. For being part of everyone’s. It is by no merit of his own, that he became so close to Zack.

He could not take Cloud for granted in the same way. So much depended on Sephiroth’s ability to outmaneuver him, back when he was the last stumbling block to divinity. To strategize against him was to understand, even appreciate, those same insurmountable qualities that prolonged this decadent cycle. Such tenacity- what a virtue it would be, if only he accepted the family’s embrace. Long has he dwelt on the puppet, and he has been humiliated enough by Aerith and Cetra alike to admit it is less a hatred than an utter confusion which binds them. Fascination with a lifeform alien beyond all reason, it’s drives inscrutable.

He relaxes his stance, but doesn’t dispel his blade. “Let’s say I did demand your presence. I am surprised the Planet would force you to heed me. I’m told it values your free will quite highly.”

“Oh, I had a choice. I wouldn’t have answered, if Jenova hadn’t suggested otherwise.”

“So you are hers. Not that I blame you.” Sephiroth means that. For 48 cycles, he craved nothing so much as for the puppet to acknowledge his place. To leave the world he so loved to better stewards. To know the peace of reunion, the blissful perspective that renders morality primitive, death strange. “Nor will I waste breath on convincing you of your folly.”

“Yeah. I’m only helping you because of what she told me. But she’s not here right now. She wishes she could be. More than anything. But you know she can’t grow a soul. Can’t even hold one.” He shakes his head. “It’s why ours start to slip away, when her grip gets tight.”

Having never been able to Hear Cloud before, Sephiroth cannot say for sure if his volatile remix of a dozen other signatures (not the least of which are Aerith’s and his own) is playing at its normal volume, or if Jenova’s interference has begun the process of throttling it. If nothing else, it’s how Sephiroth imagined Cloud would sound, a fast-paced plagiarism out of place in anything less than pitched battle. 

He relinquishes the dream of Masamune, allowing it to dissolve back into stream. “Fine. Congratulations are in order, puppet. You’re stringless, for now. But still using your freedom on her behalf.”

“So are you. You know dispelling the illusion around you will free up power she doesn’t need to waste on controlling you anymore. You know the Harbinger has been fighting to keep us in the dark because of how certain it is that the outcome will swing in her favour.” Did Aerith reach out to Cloud and share the events of Sephiroth’s sentencing during the night in Bone Village? Or is Jenova so certain the truth will align Cloud with her machinations that she has sown it freely?

“What do I care for the Harbinger’s wisdom? It was bested by you.”

He doesn’t bristle at that. “I don’t know what will happen when you trigger the mnemovirus. If it will be better for Gaea, like Aerith thinks, or better for Jenova. I…,” he falters, eyes widening slightly at the realization, “I don’t think I care, either way. I just want it to be done. For someone to win, and for someone to lose, and for that to be the end of it. And I believe Jenova when she tells me the holding pattern won’t survive your remembering.” 

Sephiroth closes the distance between them, glowering down at what would call itself his rival. How dare he be tired. It is not as though he was wide awake for each cycle, alone in every way that matters, seeing now how little regard Jenova had for his company. Cloud could retreat from futility into ignorance, into fun, even, no matter how fleeting. But days into having his recollection thrown as wide as Sephiroth’s, let alone decades, never you mind centuries, and already eager to surrender?  “Mark my words, coward. I will reclaim what I lost. Not out of fondness for this world or anyone on it, but because I will not be ruled, not by Shinra, not by Calamity, and certainly not by stories the dead flatter themselves by calling Fate.” He grabs Cloud by the collar, reaching out to the Stream for his old guise as he does so, clothes conforming to a memory of leather. “If you came here to help, do it.”

Cloud collapses under his fingers into a mist that chills Sephiroth through his gloves, unsurprising given that they are no more than a whim granted by their shared memories, before reforming further down the road, in the village proper. “It’s like I said in the first place- there’s a problem with the reactor. I’ve put myself back together enough times to know, you start by going through the motions. Remember it the way you always have.” 

Comical, that he could become an expert on recovering from his own amnesia. He considers saying as much when his burn twinges. He clearly called Cloud here- the same he that has summoned Sephiroth himself time and again. A he-that-was he had assumed was a vestige of the divinity he had tasted with Jenova, but must be older still, remnant of what was his by right before mother (no, that title belongs to another, why can he not overcome the instinct to use it here?) and Harbinger alike wounded him. So, however reluctantly, he grits his teeth and takes Cloud’s advice. 

“When we arrived, Zack and I got talking about hometowns. He had mentioned this was yours. I claimed not to have one. Which was…overdramatic, of me. I think I was already feeling mother more keenly than usual, not because of simple proximity, but because my familiarity with the area could only come from memories of hers, from the escaped monsters laced with our cells. I could not ignore the sensation of being outside of myself, as I’d long grown accustomed to suppressing. My keen awareness of the status of other SOLDIERs, I could tell myself this was what people meant by intuition. Knowing Nibelheim like the back of my hand? No easy delusion leapt to mind.” He narrows his eyes and scrutinizes his surroundings, searching for a shock of black hair, a crosshatch scar, to no avail. “He should be here. And you should be wearing your true rank.”

With a thought, Cloud is made anonymous by the MP helmet and kit that rightfully belong to him, though Zack stays missing even without the imposter trying to take his place. Cloud doesn’t react. If this is truly a world of dreams, of pure thought, then perhaps only Sephiroth’s perspective has altered. That, or the toll Jenova takes on the disobedient has left him without the energy to spare to remark on something so frivolous. “That’s step two. There are things here, big and small, that your brain slips up on. That don’t fit into the story you always tell yourself. Focus on them. I don’t know if they’re holes you gloss over when you’re awake because they don’t seem important, or if deep down you want to remember and are giving yourself the chance…but there was always a thread for me to pull.”

“Are you saying Zack wasn’t even there? That’s ridiculous. How would you have escaped? Who else would you have looted that sword off of?”

That reaches him. He glares, reaching back to grasp the hilt of the weapon, which reappears at his touch before the memory of him as an MP reasserts itself. To threaten Sephiroth? Or to reassure himself? “This was a GIFT.”

Sephiroth almost asks why. Why did his friend drag a corpse across half a continent and the ocean besides, with no evidence it could be revived? Why did he die to protect what was barely more than an acquaintance, when he could have run circles around Shinra if he had only walked alone? 

Why give everything to this outsider, then refuse to cross back, to pour himself into the vessels Sephiroth prepared for him, no matter what he offered?

The answer is so simple, he is almost insulted when the Stream answers him. Because he was Zack. Because everyone was his concern. Because to abandon Cloud would be to unmake him. 

“Zack!”, he cries out, turning the heads of nearby townsfolk before these apparitions blend back into the background of this pantomime. “First Class Fair!”

Nothing. The forgotten feeling creeps into his chest. What did the puppet call it? Panic?

Cloud shakes his head. “Make sense of what’s here. Not what you think is missing. What did you do after?”

“I went to the inn to check us in and retire early. I didn’t have family to visit or sights to see.” He scoffs. “That I knew of. Even if I did, my expanded perception here had me on edge. I was in no mood to fend off the crowds just to play tourist.”

The crowds.

The shades of civilians around him are curious, perhaps, but none approach him with inane questions, with requests for this or that piece of him, his picture or his penmanship or simply his personal time. The most famous man on the Planet shouted like a lost child in the street, and remains untrampled.

The assertion of his personalized regalia is stripped by the Stream, leaving him in a standard uniform again. It smells faintly of lemongrass, of mint. Most famous? Is he really so egotistical?  In fairness, he is better known, as SOLDIERs go. To people who follow these things, like Cloud, he is still a celebrity. But Wutai was years ago, so he shouldn’t be surprised that the only one people want to bother now is-

Whispers muffle the name on his lips and the thought in his mind. The Harbinger drives iridescent spikes of light through his attempts at recollection, shattering his memories, but Sephiroth lunges for them, cutting himself on their broken edges.

-anxious, this is the first time he has been sent on a trial outside of HQ alone, but he will not allow his fellow passengers the pleasure of seeing. Many fail to mask their confusion, fear. Disgust. For his serpent eyes. For his body that does not match his face just shy of 13, too tall, too honed. Too much. He double, triple checks his ticket against the holographic map of the route. Two stops to Sector Six, then-

-looking both ways to be sure no one is watching him, even if they were everyone knows Sephiroth is prone to stay in the training room late (he has nowhere better to be) so who would bat an eye, he gently tucks the VR visor and discontinued P0 disc into his materia bag. Makes it to the elevator with as little sound as he can manage, which is to say,  none-

-they still play the game, sometimes. When neither can sleep for the nightmares. It’s easier, now that he knows what she likes to draw. More than that, what she wants to see. It’s not for points, but if it was she would be winning, and she doesn’t let him forget. “A moogle”, he is so sure, his day-eyes miss nothing, certainly not the tab hastily clicked away from him when he dropped in yesterday, but when he opens them to check it is a circle trailing red and black, what is-

“It will bring you nothing but agony.” Whispers pull at the edges of the dream of Nibelheim, threatening to let light in, to wake Sephiroth with nothing to show for it to but cold sweat and a pounding headache. The Harbinger bars the way to the inn, black opal crackling with ribbons of red, yellow, and green. It gestures to Cloud with its pole of white accusingly, evershifting voice low. “When have you ever known him to have faith in you? He only aids you to free Calamity from her chains. He said as much himself.”

Sephiroth’s hair whips long and wild in the whispers’ whirlwind, he and Cloud forced into their most prototypical forms by fate’s denial. The burn does not trouble him, and he almost fancies that he could fly. Almost heeds the call of ignorance, oh to gaze once more upon the promise of infinity, to be armoured in a love unclouded by doubt and uncomplicated by revelation. 

“LIAR!”, Cloud bellows at the sculpture and lunges, but his blade catches on the gnarled stone of its pole-arm, “I killed you, I-I’m free of you now, you can’t make me do this anymore, you-“, he half-sobs, half-gasps,  “I’m not losing her. I’m not going through this again.”

“You misunderstand, general,” Sephiroth drinks from this fantasy deep enough to call Masamune back to him, but no further, “we are allied not in support of Jenova, but in spite of you.”

“I told them. I told the whole world it was too much to risk, letting you live. With or without Calamity, you are selfish. Proud. You would annihilate Gaea to satisfy your ego, so long as it meant you died with all your belongings accounted for.” They glide away from Sephiroth’s volley of Fires, giving Cloud a chance to force the door, but the stream freezes into black ice at his touch as the telltale rainbow lights of a Summon gather around the Harbinger.

“This was not the agreement. You said so yourself: the Lifestream abhors your tyranny as much as mine. Cloud won the right to determine his fate. The SOLDIERs who’ve gone before, they bargained for mine, the fools.” He makes a pair of practice cuts in the air in front of him, slow, deliberate. “Not that the fine print matters. We wouldn’t be in this mess if Cloud couldn’t beat you alone, isn’t that right? Step down from your position with dignity, general. You know you can’t prevail against us both.”

“That was a vaccine. It’s intent was to teach.” The Summon takes effect, melting the Harbinger’s rough edges smooth, stream solidifying into new details: the vagueness below the torso resolves into armoured legs, planted firmly. Fingers break free from their petrified grip on their staff, their face is no longer featureless but hidden by a severe helm. Their whole body remains the same black opal, save their staff and the tight braid that sprouts from their head, which are a sparkling white. “Mine is to kill.”

Sephiroth can only laugh.

“Executioner then, after all.”

Chapter Text

It throws a barrage of Ice crystals, dagger-sharp, which chime impotently against Masamune as he parries them to the last. Surprise was lost, no use mourning that. But Haste and Manawall are fine friends, and during the repartee he has had time to cast them on the pair of them, though even in a dream, even as a Cetra, the rapid consumption of mana makes his internal stream hiss with displeasure. He won’t be able to apply them again. 

Best take his advice for Yuffie. This cannot become a war of attrition.

Cloud needs no further direction than the buzz of Haste in his veins, and he takes a wild executioner’s swing at the creature’s neck. Too slow, too sloppy; he is fighting from a position of fear. In those cycles where enough of Jenova’s biomass survived to form remnants, to postpone Sephiroth’s clean return to the past, Cloud was reduced to this. At least, until the Whispers said whatever was needed in whichever voice he so craved. 

With a spin their staff stops the Buster Sword dead in its tracks, the diverted momentum causing Cloud to stumble, which the Harbinger punishes by forming an icicle and shanking him with their off hand. No matter. At least Cloud managed to be distracting, which is all he’s needed to be. The Harbinger barely has the time to turn their head as Sephiroth’s Firaga detonates against their chest, Masamune not far behind, making the most of the brief gap melted into their armour.

Sephiroth is surprised to hit skin, blue-white and marbled with the black shimmer of frostbite. But no blood issues from the long gash opened next to their sternum, only stream. Try as she might to warp her sound with whispers, (and so you are revels Sephiroth over this smallest failure in his jailer’s guard), but in summoning…herself, it would seem, she has drawn on the collective’s memory of her deeds to amplify her power. Her anonymity is not lost entirely, not to a novice at Hearing like himself, but played this loudly such basic details can’t fail to leave an impression.

She howls at his audacity, and whispers soon wipe away his smugness over so basic a strategy, the force of their tempest pinning him with his back to the floor, their dust stinging his eyes and skin. Not dust, a distant part of him wonders at as she lays into him, driving dagger after dagger of black ice that wildly refracts the light of the Lifestream into opalescent hues into his absurdly naked chest. If it was dust it would accumulate. Seemingly satisfied with her work, the Harbinger raises her hand to snap her fingers, “I always thought of materia as ice, personally”, the spikes implode in time with her fingers, so cold it’s not cold at all, it burns, that’s really what Ifalna wanted to say to me, after all this time?

Something with feathers collides with the Harbinger, striking with a speed that leaves him more mist than man. Fate holds its breath a moment, juggled by an army of winged phantoms. Then the light of the Stream breaks through the clouds, the whispers making his weak mind forget this most recent departure from the script and the power that came with it, and he is thrown into another dream, a dream of fire, always near at hand. 

Sephiroth’s skin is wet. Which is odd, because he is not bleeding. His wounds are far too cold for that. No, it must be because the dust keeps melting. Because the whispers aren’t dust, he remembers what Aerith taught him about this space, calling up his self-image and its odd loyalty to the standard uniform, calling on the truth of his sleeping body safe and unharmed, the sounds of his mother and brother’s streams close at hand, and air fills his once-burst lungs. They’re snow.

“SHIVA!”

The name reverberates through the heart of the Stream. The legions of Cetra souls whose memories the Harbinger had been drawing on in their summoning harmonize for Sephiroth, as they did in Lucrecia’s cave. Love, devotion, and no small amount of fear flood his heart, unbidden, as they share their stories of this, of her, their last queen. Their eternal general.

Even when her black armour melts under the weight of being known, even when the whispers cease to pick at the edges of Sephiroth’s understanding, she is not the elegant fairy queen that decorates paper lanterns and sugar cookies on the winter solstice, who is called upon in battle when Blizzaga is not enough. Her skin is the same unnatural white-blue, her hair long and pale, her eyes cold and clear as blue diamonds, but her ears are not pointed. What he can see of her extremities from beneath a robe of handsome furs and cape of snowy owl feathers is the black of deep frostbite, not the summon’s spiralling dark blue. 

She looks like him, with her slit day-eyes, her sparkling silver hair. There are soft places, her nose, her right cheek, her left ear, that were lost to the frostbite entirely. That her people reverently replaced with prostheses carved from shell. But even with these, the resemblance is undeniable. 

Sephiroth runs his hand through his own tresses. “She took this from you.” Not a question.

“It’s my body the devils who made you dug up. My body that you DESECRATED, butchered and strewn in your wake whenever you needed a distraction.” She still holds her staff in a blocking stance, but for all her bitterness Shiva does not resume her assault.

He laughs, too amazed to care that it’s indelicate. “No wonder it was so easy to make SOLDIERS. To make me. No wonder they mistook her for an Ancient. The body they found wasn’t her, nothing’s ever purely her, that’s never been her way. It was a hybrid! My elder sibling, frozen in time!”

“Your time remembers my father, Hades, as the plague king, as the consort of death, for what he did to secure Calamity’s…favour,” she spits the word onto the ground, where it shatters, having frozen in midair. “It was worth it to have an heir who could see his foe’s movements. Who was as tireless as the monsters that lay siege to his kingdom, and birthed his subjects anew day after day as fresh horrors.”

He shakes his head, confused. “Yet surely she tried to possess you? Surely she told you the war with the humans would be as good as won, that the Planet would be safe if you gave into her demands?”

Shiva’s pupils narrow to arrow slits. “Not all of us are weak. My father gave over body and soul, that I might deliver this star from evil. I will honour that. And until I honour that, I will not join the Lifestream. I cannot go to the Promised Land.” There is more to it than that, and it tries to spill out of her eyes, only to crust them blind. Whispers murmur to Sephiroth,

A young woman with silver hair frozen in the temple’s well, I and the other pilgrims offer her weapons and armour, potions and coin, supplies for when next the oracles permit her to thaw. In the ice, her heart does not beat, and neither does Calamity’s. The infection is only given hours or days at a time to fester. When the queen’s strength and wisdom is not necessary, she is cast back into the well. Like a wish. Like a stone. 

The final time she was released,  the other white surgeons and I cut at her for a day and a half. So much of her was black. Dead from frost, or open and oozing from calamity, skin shredded by the erratic molting of feathers. Our Lady begged for the one spell that was forever barred to her, then begged us not to speak of her request. We followed her on the last crusade, for our work had tainted us, and the seal would be in vain unless every monster was either slain or imprisoned alongside her. We were no exception.

We were bait, I and my fellow soldiers. A convincing sacrifice, a source of fuel and material. Calamity could not fathom that it’s last daughter, having proven the might of her cell lineage over all her fellow spawn, having poisoned her legions with her own blood, had no intention of becoming a deity. Greedy, it pooled it’s forces with that of it’s nascent avatar’s, and was betrayed. Cetra and Stranger alike, we have been sealed. Barred the peace of the Lifestream, but not reunion with those we have lost, for by the grace of Gaea we are yet allowed to whisper.

Maybe if he was Aerith, or even Cloud, this would compel him to a platitude. Even an embrace. This is not to say he is unmoved, not by their likeness nor by her determination. Far from it. It is the respect paid from one weapon to another that he wastes neither his breath or her time. “You don’t know how to kill her. Or you would have done so. Yet you perpetuate this cycle, knowing that given her infinite patience, only the Planet will suffer. Why?”

Shiva forces her eyes open, though her lids are still thick with frost. “It can’t have been for nothing. Everyone I’ve let you kill, every memory I’ve locked away, I did it to keep Meteor from striking. To keep you from consuming everyone and everything I lived, died, and have been sentenced to exile from joining the Stream in full for. As long as I fight, there is a chance for a different ending.” Her pupils round out, just slightly. “You, too,  are no stranger to hope, no matter what you pretend. You would not struggle to survive even after being discarded if you were not just as irrational. If there’s no way to win, why write out the equation for Supernova? Why free your mother? Why let Yuffie ride on your shoulders?”

He does not hesitate to answer. “To prove that I could. That it was within me.”

She nods. “Then you know why I fight against you. Why I do not forgive the SOLDIERs and the souls who sided with them for letting you live to threaten my strategy.”

Sephiroth considers taking up arms once more in earnest. If they are both sick with hope, then talking will get them nowhere. But if he could not eradicate Shiva and her legions when he was anointed by Jenova’s blessing, what does he stand to gain by goading her now? He remembers the experiment against Aerith, his insistence that she would picture reality leading him to stumble. Maybe he can’t imagine how debate could settle his account, but he cannot allow his failure of imagination to obstruct him any longer. “Before Jenova changed everyone’s perception of time to make me obedient, before this illusion she invested so much of her power in, I must have still had her cells, correct?”

Whispers gather around their lady, offering her murmured council. She considers his ploy for a long minute before admitting, “Yes”.

“Will breaking the illusion restore her touch on me? Is that what you fear?”

“No. She has, indeed, indirectly affected causality by her omissions and additions, but her power over beings lacking her genetic code is severely limited.”

“Then you have never seen a world where I am free from both her touch and yours. You don’t know what I’ll be able to do with my memories when she is not dulling my will and cloying my emotion.” He stretches his arms wide, gesturing to the dream around him. “Without the knowledge you hoard, I was able to make peace with my worst enemy. I was able to reconcile with my mother, my real one, despite Jenova still having a foothold upon her. I was able to learn. From him, and from Aerith, who in every other story we’ve told together I disregarded as an immune response. Who you must think expendable, if her death is a given in your grand design. I remember every cycle just as well as you do. All but the first. We both know I have already accomplished the impossible.” He smiles then, and to his own surprise it is sincere. “What I will do next is the stuff of fantasy. So if you have no better plan than biding time, admit that this is the miracle you were biding time FOR. You owe it to your whispers to see me through.”

Shiva is quiet and still as the moon reflected off a frozen lake, but the whispers seethe and churn around her. When she again wraps herself in black ice armour, he brandishes Masamune, but when she snaps her fingers all that shatters is the ice sealing Nibelheim’s inn off from the rest of Sephiroth’s dream. 

“Fear of me is the reason she taught you Fire before you learned you had a name. Remember that.” Then she disperses into a frigid gale that rattles every door in the village, whispers at her heels like eager hounds.

He reaches for the handle. It’s not even cold. No trace of Shiva’s fury lingers here, and it swings open easily.

Sephiroth was expecting to find Zack, but as soon as he crosses the threshold he is not entirely sure why. This was a maintenance mission, after all; you would only send Firsts on a maintenance mission if it was for PR.

And  if it was for PR you would send Aerith. After all, it’s not like the Seeker of the Promised Land could go and get her hands stained by Wutai or Avalanche. That’s what Sephiroth’s hands were for. 

They didn’t give Sephiroth the designation of First this young, even if he’d earned it. Aerith hasn’t even had the most basic implants and treatments, so her age is obvious, her custom leathers, designed by committee and embroidered with summons patterned after the mosaics of her people, worn just a little awkwardly, in the self-conscious way of teens. But Aerith is special. Even more special than him. He doesn’t mind that at all.

It is, in fact, his favourite thing about her. 

She’s still wearing Angeal’s sword on her back. He says wearing because even with the considerable (and given her role in combat, irresponsible) number of materia slots she’s devoted to Strength Up in order to carry it without hindrance, swinging the Buster sword with any speed is beyond her.

“I know what Angeal’s….what Angeal asked of you, but you should have left that at base. You haven’t left any room for the recommended Warding link.”

“Then why don’t you carry it? It’s what he wants, anyway.” Always that unnerving tense. Nothing is quite past. Not with her. She’s already laid it on the table and started popping the materia out, revealing an entirely appropriately kitted out staff beneath. 

He grimaces as he wraps a hand around the hilt. This should still be Angeal’s. But something is wrong with Sephiroth’s blood. Something is wrong with the program Sephiroth’s face was plastered all over, and because he wasn’t strong enough to fix it in time the closest thing he had to family had to put one of his only friends down. So Aerith can’t be hearing Angeal right, when she says this is Sephiroth’s inheritance. “Fine. But only because ‘mune’s reach would be wasted in the close quarters of the mines, regardless.”

She shrugs. “Whatever gets you through this part the fastest, Sephi. The night’s halfway done, and you’ve got a lot to remember.”