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year 5, quarter 3
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Sephiroth watched her impassively. She’d pulled him from the streets so that he could ward off some stranger strong enough to make her nervous. He smirked faintly, eyes closed. He should have expected it. A Turk preferred to work in the shadows. It was little wonder that she’d have her battles fought for her.
Once she’d finished, he took a moment to think. Test his mettle? Clearly she knew nothing of him on a personal level. He was not some aggressive recruit eager to prove himself. He had nothing at all to prove, and the very idea that he’d act on something so basic…
Sephiroth touched his palm to his forehead and laughed.
”I didn’t ask for your help.” He lowered his hand, eyes glinting with amusement. ”Do you think I owe you something?”
He didn’t. While he’d wondered why the police had been looking for him, it had hardly mattered to him. He'd dispatched them in seconds, and he’d had no reason to think that the others would prove any more troublesome. It had been Cissnei who had insisted that he retreat. He had followed her for one reason and one alone.
”I came to talk.” His expression cleared. He locked his eyes on her unblinkingly. ”My memories…” He gave a dry smirk. ”Are compromised.”
He walked towards one of the shelves and touched at the rim of a glass. Despite the dim lights, it reflected with a careful polish. ”I’ve met Zack,” he said. ”And Genesis. They told me of my defection at Nibelheim. They claimed that I died.”
His gloved hand smudged the glass’ light. He turned to her. ”So tell me. What exactly did I do to Tseng?”
I don't think Sephiroth knows how to not be professional
I knew mine was a special existence
A mercenary. Sephiroth considered the sky with an idle curiosity. He had known mercenaries on occasion, and he had never taken to them. They were course, unfocused, and lacked discipline. Worse than that, they were overconfident, and that carried with it a certain weakness that refused to listen to reason. It seemed uncharacteristic of Squall. He’d been forged by the military or something very closely like it. No matter how the boy corrected him, Sephiroth knew better than to listen. He trusted his instincts far stronger than Squall’s word.
He lacked confidence. Sephiroth knew talent, and he knew that Squall’s potential outweighed itself. Perhaps Sephiroth could help to unlock it. The thought gave him a kind of passing satisfaction. He wondered if Angeal had once felt this same appeal.
”Hm.” Sephiroth closed his eyes, smirking with a kind of deep satisfaction. Squall would not accept failure even at the cost of his life. What had started as only a seedling of respect had instantly blossomed into something stronger. Sword skills and intuition could only carry a soldier so far. In Squall, he saw something more resolute. It would do him well.
”No,” he said. He’d known already that he was peerless. ”I’ve trained my entire life with a sword. I was a general.”Was. It had a sickening ring to it, but it was true. Even if he should return, that life was over. He had no choice but to accept it.
”You’ll need a team,” he said. ”Your intuition is apt. She can’t track more than one target at a time.” He touched at the side of his head, smirking. The unspoken question hung between them carelessly.
”I expect to be briefed.” Sephiroth turned to him and met his eye with an odd air of amusement. Squall wasn’t a leader -- not yet -- but Sephiroth would treat him as one for now. In this situation, there was no chain of command.
Cissnei was no different. While he’d never worked with her, he knew her kind well enough. They were special operatives -- which meant whatever they needed to be. While Sephiroth was a public face and only allowed a quiet level of atrocity, the Turks were bound by no one but ShinRa themselves. Sephiroth knew better than to trust them, but he trusted in his own abilities and that was enough.
Would she lead him into an ambush? Sephiroth smirked at the idea. If she acted against him, he would cut down each of her company in turn. It was as simple as that.
She moved more nimbly across the rooftops than he could have expected, and did so with a practiced ease. Sephiroth followed with a feline balance of his own, hopping lightly over slicks of black ice with hardly a thought. They moved too quickly for a sniper’s aim, but he kept an eye on his periphery all the same. Given the circumstances, he calculated the likelihood of her betrayal at approximately seventy-five percent.
They came to an abrupt halt, and Sephiroth eyed her with a mixture of curiosity and suspicion. She had no eye for him -- only for the single patrol below. Sephiroth’s hand swept carefully to his sword, but he had no need for it. The guard moved on, and after waiting long enough to assure he wouldn’t return, Cissnei gestured their descent and swung onto a ladder, sliding easily down. Sephiroth waited until she had reached the bottom to hop over the edge, landing lightly with only the slightest recoil. He didn’t need to lighten himself. He had trained well enough for this.
A little farther down the alley stood a man. Cissnei approached him easily, and he didn’t seem surprised to see her. They spoke with hardly a glance in his direction, and he obliged with a silence of his own. ’Singing?’ He glanced at her with a silent amusement. An odd hobby for a Turk, but perhaps she was using it for her own method of infiltration. He tried to imagine her on a stage and couldn’t. She was simply too suited for the shadows.
She slipped inside, and he followed, sparing only a glance for the doorman as he passed. Their eyes met, and the man’s widened, startled. Sephiroth smirked. His eyes tended to make that impression. In his work, he didn’t much mind their fear.
She brought him to what looked to be an ordinary stockroom. Sephiroth glanced at the boxes with mild curiosity. They were made mostly of old cardboard inset with plateware, glasses, and the crowns of liquor bottles. A bar then. Sephiroth’s eyes drifted from the iron-wrought shelves to the shadowed ceilings. Cissnei had a way of surprising him.
”Do you drink?”
”No.” His voice held less ice than he’d expected. A side effect of his curiosity, he supposed. He wandered to the center of the room, his defenses weakened. The room was too secure for a surprise offensive. He wondered if the choice was purposeful.
His eyes locked on her again. ”You brought me here for a reason.” He wasted no time or sentiment. Their relationship was purely pragmatic. ”Why?”
Sephiroth knew that stance. He knew that respect and that discipline honed into him through years of training. The boy was more than a cadet perhaps (impressive at his age) but it was there all the same. No matter how he wilted or how he tried to pretend, that initial reaction didn’t lie. He had sensed his commanding officer, and he had acted on instinct. Sephiroth knew that instinct well.
Then the boy’s eyes dropped. Sephiroth knew that instinct better.
“…No. They died because of me. They lived because of you.”
Sephiroth said nothing. He had no need to, and he would let the soldier contemplate his thoughts in peace. He had seen it too many times -- from those he worked with, from those he relieved from duty, and from those returning from the front lines. ’They died because of me.’ It was a natural thought, and one that had haunted him since he first saw active duty at the age of twelve. That was the burden of blood.
He pretended not to notice how the boy’s eyes wavered or how his nails cut into the skin of his palms. Those too were natural. Instead he simply nodded in acknowledgement of the boy’s name. Squall. That was enough.
”Sephiroth,” he answered in kind. The boy waited nervously as though he expected something. Questions likely, but they were questions that Sephiroth would not ask. Not now, at least, when Squall's nerves seemed so on end. Instead, Sephiroth merely waited for the boy to choose the path of their conversation, and he did, gesturing vaguely at the sky.
”I’ve never seen anyone who could fly before except her. But you’re not a sorceress.”
”No.” That was his only answer. A single, expressionless ’no.’ He was not whatever the boy thought of him, and he was not willing to answer the question buried within his words like a landmine. 'What was he? How could he do it?'
No.
”You’re a soldier,” he said instead. It was obvious enough, and if Squall had a hint of perception, he would have noticed the obvious of Sephiroth as well. He turned to Squall and looked at him plainly.
”There were lives that you couldn’t save, but you held her in place. You enabled an evacuation by drawing attention to yourself.” Sephiroth smirked faintly. Squall had shown bravery he'd rarely seen. Even as they’d fought, the soldier had consistently distracted her at great personal risk. ”Their lives were in your hands -- those who died and those who lived. You made the right call.”
Sephiroth felt something like a tinge of respect. He turned before he could feel any more. Genesis would have slapped him at he seen them both now. He'd insisted that Sephiroth leave the military and all of its thinking behind, but that was itself unnatural. It was as much a part of him as his very name. In a strange way, Sephiroth felt comfortable.
”Will you fight her again?” That was all he needed to know, and the only question he needed to ask.
My god, Sephiroth, could you be more military? Genesis would slap you right now
I knew mine was a special existence
Footsteps.
Sephiroth stopped, not bothering to face them. He’d known that he had an audience. He’d known to expect interruption, and in fact, had been counting on it. The only question was motivation. Was it hostility? A challenge? Or mere curiosity? Sephiroth waited with his sword at his side.
The answer was not what he’d expected.
Sephiroth paused, head tilted slightly. Thanked him? He turned slowly, one eyebrow raised, and found a pair of dark eyes meeting his own. The boy who’d fought beside him. Sephiroth’s lips twitched into a smirk. He supposed that was a result one way or the other.
He willed himself lower. Landing had always come more naturally to him than rising, and he found his balance easily, touching lightly at the ground. He refused to acknowledge the rush of relief that met him as his usual weight fell into place. It felt natural. Practiced. Here he was in his element. The skies would come with practice.
”You survived.” It wasn’t relieved nor was it surprised -- merely a statement of fact. Her magic had taken countless casualties. He’d had no way of knowing whether the boy had been among them.
Sephiroth examined his sword without interest before sheathing it. It seemed his training would have to wait. Until he could break from conversation that was.
”You’ve trained well,” he said, and he meant it. There weren’t many who could prove their use to him in a fight. Only SOLDIERs, and only the first class at that. Had the boy’s eyes not said differently, he would have thought him one of them. ”The people of that city lived because of your actions. You should take pride in that.”
Sephiroth’s smirk twisted. Perhaps it was the boy’s age, but he felt himself naturally fit into his usual role. General and soldier. What did it matter to this boy what Sephiroth thought of him? Here, he meant nothing.
”Your name.” Sephiroth crossed his arms. He had the feeling this boy’s was worth knowing.
Sephiroth’s eyebrows raised. How very unlike a Turk though he supposed that answered one question. Now that she had found her way here, she had no particular affiliation to Shinra. It seemed unlikely, but then he’d have said that of himself not long ago. This ordeal had done more than enough to sever his ties, and he supposed it was only natural that it would do the same to others.
Still he kept his sword raised. He knew better than to trust a Turk at her word.
He cared little for her chastising. No one had appreciated her work? She had done her job -- nothing more -- and he had no sympathy for it. Only the last words gave him pause. ’Shinra excised me.’ He knew the implication well enough.
For a moment, they both stood silent. Her eyes met his, and his trained unblinkingly on hers. The wind howled sharply between them punctuated by the distant wail of a siren. In that moment, Sephiroth thought something might have passed between them. They had both followed doggedly in Shinra’s shadow, and they had both paid the price.
The moment ended as quickly as it had come. They had both defected. They had nothing more in common than that.
She continued to accuse him though he had no idea what she meant. Zack imprisoned? Meteor? It was only the last that him pause. What exactly had he done to Tseng?
He and Tseng had never particularly bonded, but they had worked together often and gotten along well. More than that, he respected Tseng in a way that few others rivaled. He was as much an expert in his field as Sephiroth was his. In his right mind, Sephiroth would at least have hesitated before cutting him down. In his right mind…
That left whatever had happened at Nibelheim. Would Tseng have stood in his way? No. He was too smart for that. He would have watched from the sidelines as always, watching and waiting and calculating the best moment to act. The Tseng he knew would never be so reckless as to fall by his hand.
The woman circled him. Scrutinized him. Sephiroth followed her with his eyes rather than his body. He had no need to shield himself from her, and she would know better than to attack. She stopped at his back, turned away. She would set the rest aside to help him. He couldn’t imagine why.
”Agreed.” Sephiroth sheathed his sword in one fluid motion. Taking to the rooftops? That was fine by him.
He waited for her to clear the wall before he hummed to himself and cleared the distance between them in one solid bound. He willed himself weightless -- or close enough to it at least -- and his body followed through until he landed lightly at the roof’s edge. Perhaps she would question it. Perhaps not. It was no matter to him.
”Once this is done, we’ll talk.” He glanced to her. His lips pricked with a smirk. ”Cissnei.”
"I should make sure they don't kill each other," he said before he left them alone.
I knew mine was a special existence
For once, Genesis hadn’t lied. Whatever had happened between him and Zack had been exactly as dramatic as he’d made it seem.
Sephiroth’s eyebrows knitted together as he listened. Hojo. Hollander. Zack and Genesis had battled over them -- protecting one and killing the other. The scene played out in a sickly haze. Genesis, driven by fury and spite. Zack, his naive sense of good will. It could have just as easily been Sephiroth standing in his place, eyeing Genesis over the edge of a sword. Shinra had seized the both of them in its grasp. Genesis had been the only one to break free.
Sephiroth’s eyes flicked back to Zack. He was thinking aloud, and Sephiroth didn't interrupt. He'd learned not to discount his thoughts to easily.
”You would join us?” Sephiroth’s lips twitched with a smirk. He hadn’t been certain where Zack’s allegiances would fall. Despite his damages at Shinra’s hands, Sephiroth hadn’t thought him cold enough to strike in either vengeance or cruelty. When the time came, could he bring himself to spill defenseless blood? Only time would tell.
Zack spoke of others who had fallen to similar hands. Another experimental soldier? Sephiroth's eyebrows raised at the thought. He'd met another -- not one of Shinra’s, but one of a nameless empire with a conquest of its own. The idea unsettled him. There was nothing like Shinra -- no one like him. Zack must have been mistaken.
Zack left. Sephiroth watched him with something between relief and concern. The conversation had been nothing if not painful, and already Sephiroth felt a tinge of exhaustion from thoughts he didn’t want to have. Zack had returned, and with him the complications of morality. And then there was Genesis.
Sephiroth glanced to him sharply. ”Don’t provoke him.” Even as he said it, he felt the intention fall flat. He wondered what Angeal would have told him. ’It isn’t honorable?’ There wasn't any imitating him. Angeal would have wanted to broker peace, and Sephiroth felt almost laughable in his shoes. He needed space. He needed silence.
”I need to think.”About Zack. About Shinra. Could they really work together? A part of him doubted it, but another part -- the stronger part -- told him that a failure was nothing but a sign of weakness. He would do it even if he had to pacify them at the edge of a sword.
Sephiroth sheathed his blade and sighed. "At least try," he said before he started towards the door. He would strategize and find his plan of action, and when he returned he would have some idea of how to execute it. Until then, there was nothing he could do but trust in Genesis' self-restraint.
'They'll be dead before I'm back.' Sephiroth smirked as he touched the door handle. At the very least, he could trust that Zack would hold his own.
She gave him a warning and an offer. The guards were relentless. She knew why they had placed their mark, but Sephiroth couldn’t have cared less. Whatever their original reasons, he had given them reasons of his own now, and he would dispatch however many he needed.
”You won’t stop me?” His lips twitched with a smirk. She knew what he was if not who. She knew that he had taken lives and yet still she sought to help him -- seemingly at least. He supposed her offer was enough to warrant his attention.
He turned.
She was a woman with shrewd eyes. Even with her hands raised, she carried a flawless sense of control, and despite her new clothes almost like a disguise, he knew in an instant who she was. She was a business woman, an informant, an inquisitor.
In short, she was a Turk.
Sephiroth closed his eyes, smirking. Yes, he remembered her now. One of the younger operatives, if he recalled -- not inexperienced, but not an expert in her field. She was often assigned to lesser SOLDIERs than him though he had seen her as often as any. He pulled his sword and let it fill the space between them.
A Turk meant business. A Turk meant Shinra.
”You came.” It had only been a matter of time before someone recognized him. His face was not one to be forgotten. ”Who do you answer to?”
The President? Rufus? Tseng? Or perhaps someone else. Turks always followed the chain of command. They were not allowed the freedom of individual action.
The snow flurried between them down an empty street silent but for the distant rattle of train tracks. His sword glinted in the yellowed street lights flickering with age. She would choose to speak or she wouldn’t. Either way, he would have his answers.
Sephiroth’s boot crunched on compacted snow muddied with exhaust. There were factories here. Factories and unmuffled cars and children in torn jeans. They shirked away from him as they passed on rusted bicycles, turning over their shoulders to stare with wide eyes. Sephiroth didn’t mind. The air smelled of metal and gasoline. He hadn’t realized he’d missed it.
It had been over two weeks since he’d made his resolution with Genesis. They would root out Shinra wherever they hid. It was a poor proxy for the vengeance they’d promised to each other, but it was something at least. An outlet for their anger. Something to hold onto in this place without meaning. They couldn’t have come alone -- not when they’d found each other and not when they’d found Zack. There was something more here that had nothing to do with gods or magic. Staged deaths. Mako poisoning. Genetic manipulation. His mind rang with questions he couldn’t answer. Questions he would ask at the edge of a sword.
”I have sight on a possible A-301. Suspect at Elm and Stop 12.”
A low mutter trailed from the back of an alley to his right. Sephiroth glanced over to find an unmarked car crammed inside with the head of a man peeking over the dashboard. They made eye contact. Radio static burst to life between them along with a muffled voice.
”We’re in route. ETA, three minutes.”
Sephiroth gave a slight tilt of his head, lips pricked into a smirk. Did they mean him? He turned and continued on without a second glance, all too aware of the eyes that trailed after him. He was being followed. It didn’t take long for them to make their move. Exactly three minutes and twenty seconds, in fact.
Sephiroth came to a stop as four guns pressed in on him wielded by four gunmen. Standard issue pistols. They surrounded him in a quadrant and the one directly in front of him urged him still with a jerk of his gun barrel.
”Hands up! Drop the sword!”
It was the same man as before. The same from the car, and as the man’s eyes slowly found his own, something crossed them that was almost fearful. Instinct perhaps? Sephiroth smirked to himself as he closed his eyes in thought.
”No.”
Surprise touched at the man’s face, but he quickly shut it down as he motioned for the others. Sephiroth waited as they closed in. What exactly did they think he’d done? It didn’t interest him. This city was not Midgar.
Someone seized his shoulder.
Sephiroth twisted around before they could register, grabbing the hand and hurling it into another body. The two were sent flying back until they slammed into the sheer face of a brick wall. The others he dispatched with a sweep of his sword. They too were thrust away, blood bursting from them in ribbons. Sephiroth flicked the blood from his blade and sheathed it carefully. No bullets were fired. There hadn't been time.
The men were not dead. Not yet, anyway. Their breath rattled in their throats, and Sephiroth wasted no time to consider them. There would be others soon. He continued on from the scene of his crime -- drifting but not aimless. His boots slipped against red-stained sleet.
It was quiet outside the city limits. He had taken to a clearing off the main road shaded by broad-leaved trees and lush underbrush. Despite the dusky hour, the birds had gone all but silent a quarter of an hour before. It smelled of rain.
That suited him fine.
Sephiroth took a long breath and cleared his mind. Like in meditation, the thoughts slipped away -- the recent clamor of screams, the smell of blood, the weight of raw magic. He let it go and focused instead only on that strange sense of vertigo that overwhelmed him every time that Genesis forced him into the skies. His wing twitched with the thought, but he kept it tightly pinned beneath his coat. This power was not Genesis’ and it wasn’t Shinra’s -- it was his and he would reclaim as his own.
His feet lifted from the ground.
He let them fall slack as he willed himself upwards -- one foot, two feet, three feet, four. For a long time, he kept his position and focused only on balance. The weight of his sword tilted him as though in deep water and he took a moment to right himself. He had mastered that feeling of weightlessness when propelled forward. He could land lightly on treetops far too high for any normal human (normal human -- his lips twitched at the thought), but he had only fought airborne once. The adrenaline had done it, and he could not accept that variable. There was nothing left but practice.
He started with his usual forms (unbalanced, slow, he’d hone them in time) before forcing himself higher. Five feet, six, seven, eight. His grip tightened on his sword. Before him awaited certain failure. Failure, alteration, and failure again. It was a pattern he hadn't suffered since he'd worn violet colors, and it was not one that he missed. Still, he knew better than to falter.
He propelled himself forward.
His movements were sluggish, clumsy, and apprehensive. He could not fly as quickly as he could run, and each step lacked his usual precision. His sword served only to unbalance him. Still, he swung it as he normally would -- slicing the top of a tree clearly in two before backpedaling as though to counter. Every turn drifted. He felt as though on ice. Still, he drove himself on. Eyes forward. Breathe in. Breathe-
Movement caught his eye. The road. Two civilians were gawking at him over the trees. His stomach twisted. And then he was falling.
He folded on impact and landed solidly on his knee. Just like he’d practiced. He grit his teeth against it and forced his hands steady. Why did he still feel nauseous? This was his power. No matter what Shinra had done to him, no matter the toll it had taken, no matter if he was no longer-
His jaw clenched into a sneer as he willed himself upright. He was still human.
”Am I failure to you?” He smirked unsteadily, touching at his temple. Shinra. He had promised Genesis that he would search for them, but why bother when he could simply draw them out? That was why he had chosen grounds so near the road. His spectators would talk, and that talk would draw attention. That was why had practiced here daily for nearly a week. If they were near then they would come.
And so he grounded his stance and readied his sword. He would continue for as long as it took -- either to master his new body or to exact his vengeance on those who had forced it upon him. Whichever came first.
