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year 5, quarter 3
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You don't want to go fight zombies? No? Well okay then.
I knew mine was a special existence
The night was thick with death. Sephiroth heard its anguish whistle on the wind. He tasted the air thick with humidity and blood. His sword slashed out in front of him, catching on flesh or what had once been flesh at least. When the rotting husk collapsed before him, he moved on without sparing it a second glance.
He’d woken that night to vivid, half-remembered dreams and a temple aching with pressure. He’d pressed his palm against it, grimacing, but the pain hadn’t left him -- not then and not now. Something felt wrong. His instincts never lied. So he’d searched their rented room only to find a stray paper left hurriedly on the table. Zack. His careless scrawl told him only that he’d had to leave suddenly and he’d be back soon.
Sephiroth’s hand had clenched around the edge of that letter. Some sleep-dampened image flickered from the back of his mind. A ghastly skeletal figure too detailed to have been imagined, and with it, the sense of a single place. Metaia. Sephiroth’s eyes hardened. He didn’t believe in premonitions. He didn’t place any weight behind dreams, but his instincts were blaring, and his instincts never lied. This was where Zack had left for, and this was where he heard his own call.
He left within the half hour. He needed nothing else.
Sephiroth readied his blade at his ear and then dashed forward, slashing twice before thrusting himself into the air and adding eight more blows through nothing but the aftershocks of his rapid fire swings. Three more of the monsters were sent flying back into a ruined wall before they could so much as reach for him. He landed slowly. This was not where he wanted to be, and yet, the familiar motions were almost invigorating. His mind felt sharper than it had been for weeks. His boots clicked on uneven cobblestone as he started forward again.
The town had long evacuated, or at least he assumed it had. Enough dead lined the streets that it was hard to be sure. Corpses days dead. Corpses leaking fluids with flesh torn asunder. Corpses with sunken eyes and jaws slack in grotesque parodies of surprise. It didn’t faze him, but his nose wrinkled at the smell. And perhaps at the sight. He had not particularly missed the battlefield.
He stopped outside of a massive temple looming overhead beneath a single, towering arch. He considered it with a careful eye. The gates were broken and hung half ajar. The dual staircase that led to the entrance was shattered, presumably by the trembles he sensed underfoot. He’d heard talk of this place on the streets of Torensten. It was one of the last archives of old knowledge, the last place that might have any leads on this place’s history.
And power. The thought rose rough and unwilling to his mind, but he quickly thrust it away. Sephiroth needed power from no one. All that he needed was answers.
He ignored the ruined staircases, choosing instead to take to the air and land lightly (too lightly?) at the entrance itself. He’d been right. The darkened halls teemed with undead, but he cut them down as quickly as they noticed him. They were not his targets. Instead he searched for something greater. Something quiet and long sealed away. He pressed forward in a strategic pattern, checking every room and hall in sequence. When he came to a locked door, he simply shattered it with a few well-placed strokes of his sword. He was certain to come across something before long, and he did. A deep set of archives spread before him like a sprawling sea.
The smell of old paper dampened the rot as he stepped forward, boots crunching on ruined paper scattered by some kind of struggle that had taken place here. A few sparing glances proved him right. Corpses clad in monk’s attire slumped over study tables and pressed against the walls. Sephiroth paid them no mind as he started towards the back shelves, falling naturally into the shadows as slipped behind the cover of the shelves.
The room was too dark for any normal person to read by, but Sephiroth’s eyes had always been sharp. His finger trailed across faded bindings until he found a title that suited him. ”A History of Zephon and Its Gods.” He pulled it from its shelf and opened it with a single hand, choosing to stand rather than clear a bloodstained table.
His eyes scanned the table of contents. Beyond these walls, he heard sword strikes and the hissing of feral men. The chaos would buy him time.
Genesis was out of sorts after leaving the Crystallus Divider. The immortal woman’s words kept bothering him more than he’d wanted to admit. Why hadn’t he been able to bring himself to kill the injured man that she’d thrown at him? If she was to be believed, then she might have been his only ticket back home, and he’d squandered it to save the life of a stranger. It was pathetic. And it was a hollow comfort that Angeal might have been proud of him for it, or that it was the only thing he’d done since his arrival that hadn’t been completely terrible. What did it matter what Angeal would think when Angeal was dead? Genesis didn’t need honor. He just needed a way home.
He’d flown west for a while after that in an effort to leave both the Crystallus Divider and the woman behind him. In the back of his mind, he thought to maybe return to the Reiken Woods. It was the first place that he’d woken up in when he’d come to Zephon after all. Maybe it had more answers than he’d known how to find at the time. But after a few days of travel, he had to admit that he might have gone off course. It appeared that he’d flown too far north in his distress, or so he learned in some backwoods hole of a town. The nearest landmark was some sort of temple that he had zero interest in right now. If the goddess wouldn’t answer his call at the divider, then why would she do any differently at a temple? No, it was best to stick with his original plan and return to the woods. Genesis made plans to fly further to the south in the morning before settling down at the first country inn he could find. He was certain that things would start looking up from here.
Instead, he’d woken up in the middle of the night gasping for air in a pool of his own sweat.
Cursing, Genesis rolled out of bed and made his way to the bathroom mirror to stare at his reflection. The room was pitch dark, and the wing hovering over his left shoulder made him look like some sort of villain from a terrible play. His glowing eyes stared back at him from the mirror, but a swirl of toxic green married his usual blue irises.
“The end is nigh,” he lamented, leaning over the sink and scooping a few handfuls of water into his mouth before just gripping the edge of the bathroom counter and leaning against it. He’d felt this kind of odd pull before, but only after he’d abandoned Shinra. And certainly not since his friends had died.
He cast his reflection one more uncertain glance before pulling away and fumbling in the dark for his sweater, coat, and boots. It certainly didn’t mean what he thought it did. Or so he told himself, though his fast heartbeat suggested otherwise. No, he just wanted to go check out whatever his instincts were telling him was wrong. That was all. If he repeated that enough times, then he’d have to believe it, right?
Once he was dressed and had collected his sword and scattered bits of materia, Genesis rushed outside and took to the skies. At first, he followed where his instincts told him to go, but eventually, he assumed it was safe to follow the sounds of distant screams and crashes instead. He followed the clear sounds of destruction to a town on the outskirts of what he assumed must be the fated temple and hovered uncertainly in the air, his eyes drawn to the creatures shambling through the dark streets.
“You have got to be kidding me,” he muttered, tucking in his wing and landing on a nearby roof so that he could get a better look at the moving corpses. The smell of rot rose up to hit him, and he recoiled in disgust. “Zombies?! What is my life now? Some sort of trashy B movie?” He scowled, glancing at the sky as if to blame the goddess for this, before turning away. That was it. Whatever this was, Genesis had no intention of getting involved in it. Odd instincts or no odd instincts, he was going back to bed.
He caught a flash of silver out of the corner of his eye and whipped around, staring at the distant figure on the ground that was moving towards the front of the massive temple. “Impossible,” he muttered, feeling something cold drop into his stomach as he rubbed his eyes on his coat sleeve in an effort to make the specter disappear. But however much he blinked, the man in the black coat remained, his silver hair reflecting the moonlight as he cut down every undead monster in his path. Genesis knew that comically long sword like the back of his hand.
The man disappeared into the temple, and Genesis let out a breath that he hadn’t entirely been aware that he’d been holding. His fingers twitched at his sides, and he cast the sky another accusatory glance. “The arrow has left the bow of the goddess,” he murmured before leaping into the air and unfurling his wing. He landed near the front of the temple steps and immediately drew his red rapier. A few of the undead still lurked nearby, and Genesis set them on fire almost casually as he followed the man in the black cloak into the temple.
Genesis took inventory once he was inside and carefully peeked inside every room and hallway that he passed. Eventually, he came across a door that looked like it had been freshly forced open, and he made himself pause and take a breath before stepping inside as lightly as possible. Sephiroth always had possessed excellent hearing.
The room was a library. Genesis blinked in surprise and glanced around at all the disturbed shelves and bodes slumped in various angles and undignified positions. What a pity. Books didn’t deserve to be draped in such carnage.
The sound of a page turning stilled him, and he turned to consider a row of shelves to his left. Hesitantly, Genesis approached, moving his way down the row of shelves directly next to where he’d thought the source of the sound to be. Reaching out a hand, he trailed a gloved finger along one shelf as he walked, considering the stone ceiling as he went. “My friend, do you fly away now? To a world that abhors you and I? All that awaits you is a somber morrow, no matter where the winds may blow.”
He’d reached the end of the shelves. Pausing for a moment, he stepped into the next aisle, staring up at the man who’d always been a few inches irritatingly taller than him.
“Sephiroth,” he said, and then because his throat felt suddenly dry, he covered for the nauseous feeling in his stomach with a quip. “Why is it that I can’t take you anywhere without there being mass carnage?”
The book weighed heavy in his hand. Sephiroth’s finger trailed across places and dates and legends that held no meaning. His eyebrows furrowed. Even at a glance, he could tell he wouldn’t find what he was searching for here. The closest he could find were names -- Shiva, Ifrit, Bahamut. Summons worshiped as gods. The idea was as ridiculous as it was foreign. No one in the world still considered the beings summoned through materia to be anything but weapons. Which left only one conclusion no matter how impossible it might have seemed.
He was nowhere on Gaia. He’d had his suspicions, knew that it was impossible to miss a country this expansive in the modern age. He’d heard Zack’s delusional explanations, but they had refused to carry weight for them. If he wasn’t anywhere in the world, then where was he? There were no answers.
”My friend, do you fly away now? To a world that abhors you and I?”
Sephiroth froze. He’d been so lost in thought he hadn’t heard the footsteps until now, but it didn’t matter. He’d have recognized that voice anywhere. ’All that awaits you is a somber morrow.’ Loveless, Act 3.
He knew what would come around the corner before he saw the tip of a heeled boot, the flash of deep red, or the swish of layered auburn hair. For a moment, Sephiroth could only stare at the man before him. He still had the same fiery eyes. The same snide voice. The same cool expression Sephiroth had last seen next to a name on the warrant for his arrest.
”Genesis.” Something swelled in his throat at the sight of him, something almost painful. Finding anything familiar here was like a lifeline. Even Zack had grounded him in his own way, but to find Genesis in particular...
Had he missed him? It had been weeks since he’d last seen Genesis, pale and distraught in that hospital bed. Since he’d stayed up night after night with Angeal, waiting for news on a hard plastic bench, stomach twisted with nerves. They never heard anything. Sephiroth had half suspected him dead until the news of his defection. And what had he felt then? Relief? Anger? If Genesis had survived then why hadn’t he come back? If he had a reason to defect, why hadn’t he told them?
Sephiroth snapped his book closed and set it carefully back in its place. Whatever he’d felt had quickly cooled.
”Why are you here?”
Sephiroth turned to face him. Genesis looked exactly as dry as he ever did when mocking him. Biting. Impassive. Dramatic. But there was something else there too. An expression he’d never seen on Genesis before. Sephiroth eyed him closer. ”You never come unless you want something.”
There was something pained in Sephiroth’s face before he was able to school his expression into his usual cool, unblinking stare. Genesis thought that he understood. The nauseous feeling in his stomach throbbed the longer that he looked Sephiroth over. Everything was the same. The same flowing silver hair that was never out of place unless Genesis had stolen his conditioner. The same unnerving green cat’s eyes that always narrowed in annoyance whenever Genesis had pulled him away from his work for too long. The same black leather coat that was a blatant disregard for the Soldier First Class uniform. The same visible pectoral and ab muscles that Genesis would sometimes whistle at when he wanted to annoy him. It was like nothing had changed. Like Sephiroth hadn’t aged at all.
Clearly whatever was caught in Genesis’ throat was just a product of the musty air in the library.
“You never come unless you want something.”
Genesis recoiled a bit, staring at him In disbelief. “That’s the first thing you want to say to me?” Rage pricked at him, and he suddenly wanted to throw something into Sephiroth’s perfectly chiseled, smug face. He wanted to scream at him about the four years that he’d spent slowly rotting away alone in the caves of Banora. About the weeks that he’d spent aimlessly wandering Zephon. That he was trying to improve damn it, and he’d done it without him or Angeal there because they’d left him and gone to the lifestream. But none of that was ever as satisfying as a good Loveless quote.
“Legend shall speak of sacrifice at world’s end!” He yelled instead, but that didn’t feel like enough. Stepping forward, he swept the book that Sephiroth had been reading off the shelf, and he was sure to make eye contact with him the entire time as it hit the ground. Now that felt a little better. That would show him. Crossing his arms, Genesis paced a few steps away as he seethed. Finally, he whirled around and looked at Sephiroth accusingly.
“Like I’d ever come to you for help again!” he said scornfully. “I’m healed now. Thanks for asking. No thanks to you.” Would it be overkill to knock over a shelf onto Sephiroth? That might be overkill. Genesis waved his arms dramatically instead as he tried to reign in the urge.
“But apparently your stupid grudge over that day is more important than your trip to the lifestream, so I guess that’s what we’re talking about now!"
Clearly the burning in his eyes was just a product of the musty air in the library too. Stupid library. Stupid temple. Stupid Sephiroth. Maybe he’d burn it all down on the way out. What did it matter?
“Wings stripped away, the end is nigh,” he muttered more to himself than to Sephiroth.
Sephiroth recoiled at the outburst, staring as Genesis seized the book he’d been reading and thrust it at the opposite wall. Their eyes locked -- Genesis’ furious, Sephiroth’s taken aback -- before Genesis turned roughly on his heel and stalked away.
Sephiroth watched Genesis like he was a cornered wolf with its teeth bared. It wasn’t that screaming rage was out of character for him -- no, Sephiroth had seen enough of that -- but that it had come from nothing. Not unless Sephiroth’s cool demeanor had somehow set him off. Perhaps he could have seen it if Angeal had done the same, but for him…?
Genesis turned on Sephiroth so suddenly that his coat swished around his heels. ’Healed?’’No thanks to him?’ Sephiroth felt his eyebrows twitch together in confusion. Did he mean from the hospital? But that didn’t seem right. He went on about grudges and something called the Lifestream, and by the end of it all, Sephiroth’s eyes had hardened.
Confusion could only get Genesis so far.
”You’re out of line.” Sephiroth watched him coolly. Genesis’ eyes reflected at him -- fiery, desperate, and hysterical. Sephiroth’s fist clenched. ”If you have something to say, then say it.”
The words came harsh and clipped before he could think them through. It felt right, like talking down a belligerent soldier, but with it came a twinge of unease. Was this really the right way to handle this? After weeks stranded and longing for direction? After all those nights sleepless and pacing in the sterilized halls of a medical ward? Was this what Angeal would have wanted?
No. That was self-evident.
After a moment, Sephiroth closed his eyes, steadied himself, and opened them again. He would walk the high road if it had to be done. Genesis surely wouldn’t.
”We waited for you,” he said. ”Angeal and I. After your accident, we waited for any news of your recovery. It never came.” Sephiroth looked at him directly and tried to meet his eye. ”I don’t know what you’re talking about. You never came to me for help, and I don’t have a grudge. I haven’t seen you since the day you broke Angeal’s sword.”
Lies. Something rolled in his stomach, nauseous and tinged in a deep green-blue. He touched at the side of his head and glanced away. His temple buzzed with static.
Out of line? Genesis recoiled a bit, suddenly feeling like an unruly cadet being told to stand down by a superior. He bristled at the implication and wanted to yell at Sephiroth for acting like they were still in Soldier after everything that had happened.
“Don’t pretend that you’re still my commander,” he said, turning his head to the side with an angry flip of his hair. He was prepared to take it further, but Sephiroth suddenly took a short breath and closed his eyes for a moment. Frowning, Genesis eyed him closely until he opened his eyes and continued with a much softer tone.
At hearing Angeal’s name spoken for the first time since his arrival, Genesis felt his fingers curl into fists, and he had to resist the urge to throw more books around the aisle. How was Sephiroth able to just drop that so casually? Didn’t it bother him at all?
“Broke his sword?” Genesis finally found his voice as Sephiroth finished, feeling a bit outraged by the implication. “However little you might think of me, I’d hardly dare do such a thing. His protege took it over for him. And as little as I like seeing it in someone else’s hands, he’s certainly inherited his spirit.” Not wanting to think about Zack or the buster sword right now, Genesis crossed his arms with a scowl until he noticed that Sephiroth had stopped to grip the side of his head.
Genesis blinked at him slowly. “Sephiroth?” It reminded him of the last time that they’d met. Of Sephiroth gripping his head and letting out something soft that was almost but not quite a sob as he’d stared up at Jenova’s name above the reactor door. Of his cool green eyes swirling with something hateful as he’d struck the apple out of Genesis’ hand and told him that he could rot.
Bitter anger swooped through Genesis’ stomach. He supposed that he’d never really gotten over that day either. He wanted to yell at him for it, but something about Sephiroth’s softer words had been bothering him since he’d spoken them.
“We waited for you. After your accident." Genesis hesitated for a moment, his eyes flicking to Sephiroth’s in a moment of comprehension.
“My accident.” He said in a deadpan voice before staring at him in disbelief. “Wait. You meant that tiny sword he used to carry?” The one that had caused him so much pain and had caused his wing to sprout from his shoulder. Genesis had almost forgotten that something so benign had changed everything. It had hardly mattered after a while.
“The wandering soul knows no rest,” Genesis said in frustration. “What do you mean that you haven’t seen me since then? That was over four years ago!”
Genesis’ voice echoed back to him, uncertain and wary. Sephiroth glanced to him. There they both stood in the middle of a shadowed library that smelled equally of dust and blood. Sephiroth bit his tongue and suppressed the odd pull at the back of his mind. He didn’t have time to consider either his dread or the flickering images that spawned it. He was still in hostile territory.
Genesis repeated him blankly, and the source of his anger quickly became apparent. For one reason or another, he’d forgotten the incident that had very nearly killed him. Sephiroth’s eyebrows furrowed. That kind of trauma wasn’t something brushed aside so lightly. Genesis had been near hysterics, pale and weakened and speaking only in poetry. In his delusion, he had even expressed an appreciation for their friendship. Those were the actions of a man close to death’s door. For something to have overshadowed it…
Sephiroth tensed. He was missing something just as he had with Zack. But what could possibly have driven Genesis farther than his own defection?
“The wandering soul knows no rest.” It was an exclamation more like a curse than an insult. ”What do you mean that you haven’t seen me since then? That was over four years ago!”
”Four years ago.” Sephiroth glanced away. It felt impossible -- absurd -- yet hadn’t Zack said as much? ’The last thing we remember are years apart.’ A laugh rose to Sephiroth’s lips, and he touched at his temple, shoulders shaking.
What else had Shinra taken from him?
”They did something to me.” Sephiroth straightened and looked at Genesis straight on. Something dark burned in his eyes. ”My memory’s incomplete. A symptom of mako poisoning.” His lips thinned to a sneer as he paced towards the window. Beyond it, the town reflected a shell of its former self -- deathly and ruined. He’d seen too many places like this. He’d created them on Shinra’s command.
”I met Zack,” he said. ”He looked nothing like I remembered. And he told me…” Sephiroth ran a hand through his hair, head tilted to the ceiling. ”Angeal’s dead.” His own impassive tone surprised him. It should have been traumatic, and yet, he had the sense that he’d already accepted it before. His weakened grief felt like an insult. Angeal deserved better than this.
”Shinra didn't bring us here, but they would have done this to me. Clouded my mind. If I’d fallen out of line, they would have…” His eyes glazed with pain. Why had he devoted himself to them for so long? Why had he never questioned? He’d known on some level that he was nothing but a tool to them. He just hadn’t considered that he might ever become disposable.
”Whatever I did to you, it was a mistake.” Sephiroth’s eyes cooled. Shinra had torn them apart. Of that, he was certain. ”We should have defected with you when we had the chance. Angeal and I questioned…” Nausea rolled in his throat. They’d questioned, but they hadn’t acted. They’d made an agreement to speak with Genesis rather than bring him back to face Shinra’s judgment. Apparently it hadn’t gone well.
He faced him, straight-shouldered and resolute. ”I want to stand with you now.”
Sephiroth seemed to recoil a bit at his words. He laughed shortly and pressed one hand to his temple as Genesis stared at him, waiting for him to explain. He had no reason to react so strongly. All Genesis had done was point out how long it had been since the accident that had driven him from Shinra.
“They did something to me. My memory’s incomplete. A symptom of mako poisoning.”
Genesis took a step back, eyeing Sephiroth with something between frustration and disbelief. “You don’t remember what happened?” he finally ventured. It seemed unbelievable, but the green eyes looking back at him weren’t the cold gaze he remembered from the mako reactor before Sephiroth had struck the apple from his hand. It was the patient, long-suffering stare of the man who’d always tried to put up with his antics. The man that he’d sworn to surpass one day (though that felt like something he’d cared about in another life at this point). The man who had been one of his closest friends.
Genesis felt a little tongue-tied, which rarely happened to him. He never had a problem finding something to say, so his own vulnerability made him annoyed even before Sephiroth mentioned Zack.
“Zack’s here?” He asked a tad bitterly. It didn’t surprise him as much as it should have. The last people that he remembered seeing were him and that comatose blond cadet after all. At this point, he wasn’t sure if he’d prefer to shake Zack’s hand or to punch him in the face the next time he saw him. Zack had nearly killed him, but he couldn’t deny that he owed the boy something for refusing to strike the final blow and for reminding him of what his friends would have wanted.
“He told me Angeal’s dead." The words struck him out of his thoughts like ice water jolting down his spine. Even after four years, the blunt reminder that he’d never see his best friend again made his chest burn. Whoever said that grief got easier over time was a goddess-damned liar.
“Suicide,” he muttered. For once, he had nothing else to say. What else was there to say? That Angeal had been that disgusted with himself? That he had decided that he’d rather die than be the same type of monster as Genesis? That for all his talk of honor, it hadn’t mattered in the end when he’d forced Zack to kill him? Those weren’t the actions of an honorable man. For the only time in his life, Angeal had chosen the selfish path. And Genesis had nothing else to say about it. He could recite Loveless a thousand times, but nothing would come close to expressing how much it still stung.
“Whatever I did to you, it was a mistake.” Genesis froze, staring at Sephiroth in disbelief at his admission.
“Don’t tell me the great General Sephiroth is apologizing. Surely he can do no wrong,” he tried, but the insult sounded weak even to his ears. Sephiroth faced him then, straight-backed and steady, and Genesis was reminded of the first time he’d seen the man on the battlefield. Sephiroth was discipline and grace personified. He truly was a sight to behold.
“I want to stand with you now.”
Had the world swallowed up everything around them, or did the heartbeat pounding in his ears just make it seem like it had? “My soul, corrupted by vengeance-” he tried, but the quote died in his throat. He couldn’t finish.
Letting out a hiss of air between his teeth, he swung his fist at the nearest bookshelf. The wooden frame toppled over and collapsed into a mass of dust and broken wood on top of the row of desks next to it. A lamp flickered dangerously in the rubble, but Genesis found that he didn’t care if it caught fire. Let it burn. Let the entire world burn.
A few loose pages swirled through the air around them as Genesis turned accusingly back towards Sephiroth.
“You were dead! They said you were dead!” His voice cracked mid-word like he was a teenager again. “You told me to rot! You took a page from my book and burned down a town! And I never saw you again.” He stared at Sephiroth, feeling the unreality of the situation weighing on him the more he looked at the silver-haired man. Conflicting thoughts raged at each other in his mind. I missed you. I hate you. I missed you. I hate you. Genesis clenched his fists at his sides.
“How are you alive?” His voice sounded small and tense, and he hated it. “Did they lie? Have you been in a tube in Hojo’s basement for four years?” He wouldn’t put it past Hojo, especially when Zack had also vanished during that time. But he hadn’t thought that Shinra would take the same risk with Sephiroth. Genesis had seen the flames consuming Nibelheim from a distance. They were high enough and had spread with a speed that only Sephiroth could have managed. He hadn’t seen a town burn like that since Wutai.
“You say you want to stand with me. But you both left me to do it alone.”
Genesis’ face twisted with anger as he struck the nearest bookshelf, shattering it into nothing more than scattered pages and slabs of shattered wood. Sephiroth's eyes flicked to the ancient texts he'd sought all along. Some were unharmed. Others ruined. He doubted Genesis cared.
While Genesis’ initial outburst had taken him aback, this one hardly fazed him. In a way, he’d expected this, or something like it at least. Genesis had always been the type to lash out when his emotions flared, and his emotions flared often. Sephiroth stood resolute against them. He would not waver in his own convictions.
’I want to stand beside you now.’ He could leave no room for doubt.
Still, he did not expect what came next. ”You were dead! They said you were dead!” Sephiroth’s lips twitched into a frown. The words felt odd spoken with Genesis’ passion, his cracking voice and equal anger and pain. Sephiroth might have felt surprise. ”You told me to rot! You took a page from my book and burned down a town! And I never saw you again.”
”To rot?” The words struck him. He had little doubt that Genesis could be trusted when he hadn’t had time to think of a lie, but his claims twisted in their own impossibility. After all that had happened, after the nights spent sleepless agonizing over Genesis’ defection, he would never have spurned him that way. The town paled in comparison. Would he have razed a village in his anger? If the circumstances aligned. Would he have forsaken his friend so completely? Never.
”How are you alive?”
Sephiroth glanced towards him. The obvious answer had already struck them both. Shinra was no stranger to public propaganda.
”A cover-up.” It was not a question. He felt his thoughts knit together in sharp spirals. His path of destruction. The memory loss. His supposed death. His lips drew into a wry smirk. ”It sounds as though I turned against them,” he said, glancing towards him. ”They wouldn't waste my life. Maybe they planned to reset my loyalty. Or maybe Hojo just demanded he not lose his 'research specimen.'” The mere idea soured on his tongue. Even in death, Hojo would never have surrendered him to the grave, and if he’d been taken alive…
His stomach rolled. Sephiroth turned to hide his nausea. ”They changed me.” He heard it creep into his voice. A harsh edge that hadn’t been there before. Why was his throat so tight? ”My mind and...body.” Hadn’t Zack told him that Genesis had suffered the same? But how was he to ask?
I’m no longer human. His nausea threatened to overtake him. Showing Zack had proven difficult. Showing Genesis -- impossible. There wasn’t the same bond with Zack. There wasn’t the same vulnerability.
He opened his mouth, but no sound escaped. His will had been stolen. His life, deemed worthless. In the end, he’d become nothing but one of Hojo’s twisted experiments, just as the man had always wanted. Perhaps as had been destined all along.
With no words to offer, Sephiroth was left little choice. His lips twisted with something he couldn’t identify. Perhaps it had something to do with his pounding pulse.
His wing twitched. He had nearly forgotten it, or perhaps he’d chosen not to remember. It edged its way through the slit in his coat, paused, and then extended. Sephiroth’s jaw set. Vulnerable. He hadn’t felt like this since those days of harsh fluorescent lights, vinyl padded tables, and sharp antiseptics, uncertain whether time had passed at all. It felt like baring his arm to the needle. It felt like a mistake.
”They changed me.” Somehow he forced the words through a strangled throat. There was nothing else that needed said.
Sephiroth confirmed that it must have been a cover-up and that Hojo must have dragged him away after the Nibelheim incident. Genesis scowled, his fingers curling at his sides as he wondered why he’d never considered the possibility before. Sephiroth had been declared dead at the same time as Zack and that blond cadet, after all. And they had both turned up alive and intact four years later (or at least relatively intact in the case of the blond boy). Why hadn’t it ever occurred to him that they might have just done the same thing to Sephiroth?
Genesis felt some kind of emotion churning around his stomach, and it took him a moment to realize it was guilt. Ugh. He didn’t want to feel that way. Like maybe he should have looked for Sephiroth. How was he to know the man wasn’t really dead? It certainly wasn’t his fault. As for the complete meltdown that Sephiroth had suffered, that certainly hadn’t been his fault either.
“They changed me.”
Genesis frowned slightly, eyeing Sephiroth closely. The man looked more vulnerable than Genesis had ever seen him, and he blinked slowly at the hesitation on his face. He didn’t like this. He didn’t like this at all. How was he supposed to stay mad at Sephiroth if the man went and made devastating facial expressions like that? It wasn’t fair. His normal impassive expression was so easy to hate.
Something shifted at Sephiroth’s right shoulder, and Genesis glanced at the dark feathers creeping over his shoulder pauldron before his lips partied slightly in surprise. Sephiroth had a wing. He couldn’t extend it very far in between the shelves of books, but the dark shadow hovering over his shoulder was unmistakable and painfully familiar. A short laugh escaped Genesis’ lips as he stared at the man across from him. It was like looking into a mirror. The same black feathers. The same panicked vulnerability that he remembered from the early days after his accident before his rage at Shinra had set in. It was like looking at himself from four years ago. But if Sephiroth had no memories, then Sephiroth was doing what he had refused to do. He was trusting him with his secret when he had no idea how Genesis would react.
“You don’t remember why I ran off?” Genesis’ throat was dry. He didn’t like how it made his voice sound. “Then let me remind you.” He hadn’t tucked his wing back into the slit in his coat, so it was easy to unfurl it. A few stray black feathers fell around them as his wingtips lightly brushed against Sephiroth’s.
“We match. ” He gave his friend a slightly bitter smile. “Angeal had white wings. But out of all of us, he was worried that he was the one who was the monster. As if he’d ever approach our level.”
Talking about Angeal made his stomach ache again, so Genesis laughed without humor as he rubbed the side of his head. “My friend, the fates are cruel. There are no dreams, no honor remains.”
