Welcome to Adventu, your final fantasy rp haven. adventu focuses on both canon and original characters from different worlds and timelines that have all been pulled to the world of zephon: a familiar final fantasy-styled land where all adventurers will fight, explore, and make new personal connections.
at adventu, we believe that colorful story and plots far outweigh the need for a battle system. rp should be about the writing, the fun, and the creativity. you will see that the only system on our site is the encouragement to create amazing adventures with other members. welcome to adventu... how will you arrive?
year 5, quarter 3
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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.”
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.
Sephiroth’s eyes flicked to the man below him. A loud, abrasive man dressed in some kind of medieval armor like a storybook knight. He bellowed after him -- something about “getting moving” to “giving them the same chance of survival.” Sephiroth smirked at his chastising and stepped lightly off his perch to approach the rubble before him.
Somehow, his mind had sharpened in the presence of an over-confident novice. This was a scene that he knew well. Sephiroth drew his sword and eyed the top floors carefully. This was nothing more than an intricate puzzle built out of shattered glass, splintered wood, and stone. It would take a precision strike to break through to the lower floors without causing the whole thing to collapse like a tower of cards.
His eyes caught on a loose beam propping up a small pile of jagged stone and roof tile. He analyzed the angles, calculated the chances of collateral damage should he break it and plunge into the whole he created. After a moment’s thought, he raised his sword to strike.
”Do you see anything? How are we getting in?”
Sephiroth’s eyebrows furrowed, his concentration broken. ”Wait.” He found the angle again, readying his grip. He needed the perfect strike, the perfect timing, the perfect-
Wild strikes echoed below him like a lumberjack swinging wildly at wood. Sephiroth paused. The thought came sluggishly, slow with realization. The man’s sword strokes whistled with wind, the metal hacking away support beams. Sephiroth’s eyes shot open. He flit backwards, reaching out a hand towards the man even before he could see him over the edge. ”Stop!”
The building gave a sharp crack. Sephiroth was in the air before he heard the groan of failing support structures or the chain reaction snapping wood. By the time his boots hit solid ground, the building’s frontmost structure had already collapsed and pinned the man beneath it. He scrabbled wildly at the debris that held his leg like a snare, eyes wide. Inside, female voices cried out in alarm. The structure gave a trembling groan as the last support beams warped under pressure.
Sephiroth’s sword flicked in his hand. He dashed forward, raising it and slashing it sideways on instinct alone. It shattered the debris before him, thrusting it inward in a heavy dust. In the split second before the rubble fell, Sephiroth seized the man in one arm and darted backwards as though on strings. The man’s dragged him down, and he landed hard on one knee some eight feet away as the last support structures snapped and the building collapsed into nothing more than a heaping pile. A heavy wind blasted towards them, scattering them with ashen dust. Sephiroth’s eyes sharpened.
If this man hadn’t charged in...
He fixed the novice with a heated look. ”Think before you attack.” The words came scathing and deadly. He rose to his feet, straightening as he appraised the utter failure before him. What had once been a house of cards was now nothing but a rocky pile. No voices echoed from inside -- only one single, agonizing cry. The girl fell to her knees at the street’s edge. The sight wasn’t unfamiliar.
He watched her impassively before his fist clenched. ”Your carelessness cost lives,” he said without looking at the man. ”Mistakes are paid in blood.”
The question reverberated again and again no matter how he tried to suppress it. He was stranded. Forgotten. Lost in a way he’d never been before. Ahead of him was nothing but open space without definition. There was no schedule, no orders, no responsibilities he kept balanced at the palm of his hand. The silence made him itch.
And so he found himself once again wandering this anachronistic city, telling himself that he had to gather intel though of course there was nothing to find. Nothing to find, no one to prove himself to, no goals at which to excel.
Only a pointless city and civilians that eyed him more with alarm than adoration.
A strange series of posters caught his eye. He slowed to a stop in front of them, wondering at the meticulously drawn image of a dragon wrapped around a sword. It seemed to be an advertisement for some kind of mercenary group. Something twinged within him before he quickly stifled it. A hired sword. It felt beneath him even if a payroll wasn’t much different. Angeal would have taken it out of the simple principle of helping those in need. Genesis would have done it for the money. But Sephiroth had neither Angeal’s honor nor Genesis’ low standards. He had a sense of pride that refused to be compromised.
But that left him with...what exactly? Sephiroth glanced at the poster again, reluctantly memorizing the address before turning to take his leave. Perhaps if his boredom overcame him. Perhaps if he needed a hobby…
He felt the vibrations under his feet before the earth groaned beneath him. In a second, the whole street was trembling beneath him, rocking and churning like the deck of a ship. Sephiroth grounded his stance as civilians screamed and ducked for cover. An earthquake.
He dodged backwards as the street in front of him cracked and caved in on itself. Forty feet to ahead, he heard the groan of collapsing wood and a childish screaming. His eyes caught her in an instant -- a girl of maybe seven standing frozen and dumbstruck under a doorway about to collapse. He moved on instinct alone, dashing ahead and diving for her, wrapping her in his arms and rolling on impact, careful to shield her along the way. They hadn’t hit the ground before the arch fell in on itself, showering them both in debris.
Sephiroth quickly dropped her and stood to straighten himself. The vibrations were quieting now and so were the cries of fear. Far away, someone wailed mournfully. He kept his eyes sharp, ready for any further disaster. If it was an earthquake, then it would likely come with-
Small arms wrapped themselves tightly around his waist. Sephiroth recoiled instinctively, grimacing down at the embrace and the girl it belonged to. She shoved her face directly into his armored plate, sniffling with free flowing tears.
Sephiroth stared at her. What was he supposed to do?
”Y-you-you s-saved me!” The words came jagged and breathless. Still, Sephiroth’s mind conjured no words. He cast his thoughts desperately to anecdotes of childhood from both Angeal and Genesis. They came back with nothing.
”Yes.” The word came slow and delayed. Was he supposed to comfort her? Is that what one did with a crying child?
His hands were raised defensively. He lowered them slowly.
”You have to help!” The girl clutched at the hem of his coat, looking up at him with puffy, reddened eyes. ”Mom and-and my sister! They’re still-!” Her voice broke into another sob and she shoved her face against him again. Sephiroth glanced towards the collapsed building. There were no voices from inside.
”It’s pointless,” he said. The girl froze and looked up at him, eyes slowly widening in horror.
”Wh-what?”
”The likelihood of casualties is high.”
She stared at him without understanding, eyes wavering and tears still streaming down her cheeks. Sephiroth hesitated. What would Angeal have said if he saw him now? ’There is no strength without honor.’
He sighed. ”I’ll try.”
The girl burst into tears again, and he wondered briefly if he’d done something wrong. Then he freed himself from her grip and leaped to the top in a single bound. The building had completely collapsed. The debris on the upper floors would be less concentrated.
Yet once he reached them, he found himself perched uncertainly atop a half broken wall. The building was entirely in shambles, the floor unsteady, the doors blocked. Sephiroth had never been trained for rescue missions, and he could only guess as to how they worked. Was he supposed to dig through wood and stone with his hands? Should he break through the rubble by force or would that only destabilize the structure further?
With no obvious direction, he simply stood there analyzing the situation for the best point of attack. Below him, he heard the girl’s continued cries.
The snow crunched under his boots. He kept his head tilted down against the wind, focused more on his footing than navigation. His guide would handle that. At the moment, he was nothing more than his sword, nothing more than a lost soldier in foreign territory. What could he do but follow?
Images echoed through his subconscious as he trudged forward. Genesis, pale and despairing on what they feared to be his deathbed. Angeal, unbalanced and trembling from both blood loss and exhaustion. Angeal had slept in the hospital waiting room with his arms crossed and his chin down, taking a break to eat or shower only when Sephiroth took over his lonely vigil. Sephiroth turned his head to an overcast sky. How would Angeal manage once he learned that Sephiroth had gone missing? He doubted the blow would come as sharp as it had for Genesis. They were, as Angeal had said, as close as brothers. Sephiroth could never have hoped to rival their bond.
The woman stopped and Sephiroth followed suit. In front of them, the snow expanded in a level field of white. Sephiroth frowned. There were no markers here and no landmarks to guide them. For the first time, he wondered if their descent from the mountain would go awry. He glanced at her for guidance. ”Watch your footing,” was all she had to say before starting forward. Sephiroth’s eyebrows furrowed. Nothing but obvious advice.
He followed her, careful to stay light on his feet. He could feel where the slight inconsistencies in the snow, where it shifted slightly looser than it should have, where his boot sank so much as a centimeter lower. He hadn’t needed her warning, but chose to keep his opinions to himself. It wasn’t professional to so harshly criticize those with skills he lacked.
After some time, the woman glanced at him over her shoulder. ”So just the one wing?”
Sephiroth tensed. He did not need the reminder. She mocked his asymmetry, and his stomach rolled with the nausea that he swallowed back once again. ”How does that even help?” she asked, and he felt his eyes go cool. He would not be berated. His thoughts were hard enough to stifle as it was.
”It’s a new development.” His was voice was colder than the ice they shattered underfoot. He straightened and looked past her, letting his silence speak louder than he ever could. In truth, he didn’t know the answer. In that moment, he hadn’t flown so much as he’d risen and then hovered until he’d willed his descent. He doubted that the wing had anything to do with it, but perhaps it was a matter of visualization. He’d unfurled it on instinct, afterall. But where had that instinct come from?
Sephiroth’s lips tightened. This was not the time to think.
”You should keep your eyes ahead,” He shot her with a cool gaze and started past her. With no path, her guidance wouldn’t do much good until they found some manner of landmark again. He kept his pace brisk even as he remained cautious in his step. There was nothing more to say.
As they approached the edge of the snow field, horizon shifted -- no longer mountainous, but looking down upon plateaus, villages, and roads. He breathed a sigh of relief even as the sight strengthened his unease. He had never seen this place before.
”We’ve found the path,” he said without turning to his guide. ”Your guidance was appreciated.” He didn’t mention her intrusive questions, and he hoped that she would do the same. ”I can manage from here.”
He glanced at her over his shoulder. Crowe, she had said her name was. He nodded his thanks. Perhaps their paths would cross again. If they did, he would take both her skill and sharp wit into consideration. The journey could have certainly been worse. ”It's Sephiroth,” he said, ”In case we ever meet again.” He started down the path before she could answer.
Sephiroth felt at peace with the night. He knew every crash of its waves, every rustle of its leaves, the exact shifting of sand beneath his feet. He kept his eyes closed, his focus centered. In that moment, there was nothing but him, his thoughts, and the night.
Then came the footsteps.
They were clumsy and loud, scratching over stone with an inexpert scrabbling. Sephiroth felt his eyebrows twitch. How had anyone found him here? To anyone of average balance, climbing those unstable cliffs would be suicide, and yet, the scrabbling came ever closer. This was not Zack -- at least, not if the soldier had any semblance of self-respect. But if not him, then who?
Sephiroth paid it no mind. Whoever had chosen to risk their life to reach this place had no business with him. Still, those footsteps scraped against his focus like a droning insect. He felt his jaw clench with every passing second. Then they stopped at the level ground behind him.
Sephiroth readied himself for the inevitable reactions. Would it be awe this time? Confusion? Fear? His focus slipped and he swung it two centimeters out of place. Perhaps if he merely ignored them. Perhaps then he would be left alone.
“Pardon the intrusion.” The voice was sharp and controlled. Sephiroth stopped without turning. What did he want? Advice? Directions? Protection?”But I must ask; why are you causing such potential harm to your blade?”
Sephiroth paused. Whatever he had been expecting, it hadn’t been that.
”I would imagine having a sword re-sharpened in this place may be difficult, or expensive,” he went on before the strange tapping continued. Sephiroth hesitated, considering his words, before a soft laugh escaped him. He touched at his brow, laughing into the flat of his glove.
Perhaps this man was worth his attention after all.
He turned slowly to face him, glancing him over quickly. The man had a certain poise to him, a certain restraint in both voice and stature that Sephiroth couldn’t help but respect. He leaned on something that Sephiroth thought might have been a weapon, but was actually a cane. It was then that he noticed the man’s unsteady balance, the scar stretching around his eye, and the tinted glasses despite the veil of night.
This man was blind.
”I sharpen it myself every night.” The shadow of a smirk trailed at his lips. ”My blade wouldn't break so easily.”
He drifted past the man towards the cove’s entrance until he stood only a few feet away, facing out towards the ocean. He hadn’t yet decided if he’d have preferred the quiet, but this was a promising start. At the very least, the man knew something of swords.
”Why did you come here?” Their ledge dropped to a sheer cliff face at the edge of his heels. The ocean crashed against it. ”There's nothing worth finding.”
His blade flicked easily in front of him, slicing through the air with pinpoint precision. Sephiroth grounded his stance, readied his center of balance, and then took to the sky, jumping off the edges of a cliffside until he’d reached a tree dangling off its edge. He shattered it in two easy strokes and then flipped backwards, landing solidly in the sand. His heart rate had quickened if only slightly. That was a good start.
With nothing to occupy himself with in town, Sephiroth had taken to mapping the surrounding areas for strategic vantage points. The coast, it seemed, was riddled with abandoned beaches and hidden coves rife with monsters but quiet enough to provide him the isolation he craved. The wind struck him with bitter salt. The sand shifted beneath his feet providing resistance and difficult terrain. This wasn’t the perfect place to train, but it would do for now. Sephiroth readied his blade, balanced its weight on his wrists, and shot forward again.
Zack had explained everything he needed to know at the docks. He’d informed him of the missing gaps in his memory, of Shinra’s twisted nature, of the fate of his friends, and of this world at large. Sephiroth still didn’t quite believe it, but given no other plausible explanations he had no choice but to accept Zack's explanation for now. The only question remained what to do next.
Sephiroth closed his eyes and let his sword dictate his movements. His blade created its own wind and he followed it instinctively, stepping like a dancer to its rhythm. For the first time since his arrival, his thoughts came clear and sharp. The panic had left him as had the shock, disgust, and anger. Now there was only him, his blade, and the rolling waves.
Finally, he could think.
His mind drifted to Angeal. To the friend he knew now to be dead. Zack had taken on his likeness perhaps as tribute or perhaps merely by coincidence. Either way, it was jarring every time that Sephiroth saw him from the corner of his eye. It was one of many reasons Sephiroth had taken to avoiding him even as they shared the same living space. Sephiroth didn’t need the reminder, and Zack’s endless conversation exhausted him anyway. How much better would it be if the city was empty and there was only this silence forever?
Still, he supposed that would prove impractical.
His sword clashed against stone, chipping it with the force of his blow, and Sephiroth leaped back again, hand at his temple. This was pointless. Everything here was pointless when he had no direction, no objective, no mission. He’d tried studying the civilians, noting how they passed their time without purpose, but it ended in nothing but awkward glances. Here, he was unknown, unimportant, worthless.
In short, he was himself a civilian. The word rolled like bile in the back of his throat. No. Sephiroth steadied himself, stretched his sword out to the side, and arched it forward until he gripped it in front of him with both hands. Later when he sat at the edge of his bed watching the moon outside the window to the sound of Zack’s snores, that was when he’d let the pain overtake him with thoughts he couldn’t control. But now was not then, and now he would sink into his movements rather than his mind.
And so Sephiroth released his pain in a breath and dashed forward again.
Wow this bodes well! Let me tell you how well this bodes!
I knew mine was a special existence
Zack was horrified.
Sephiroth should have expected that reaction, should have anticipated the widened eyes, the trailing voice that lost its focus. He should have expected it all, and yet his anticipation did nothing to dull the blow. Because it said that while Sephiroth might have expected this, Zack certainly had not.
Their eyes met for a fleeting moment, and in that moment Sephiroth felt his own vulnerability suffocate him like floodwater. Something passed between them, something that Sephiroth couldn’t understand, and he wanted to flinch away -- to retract that abomination and wish it out of existence with nothing but sheer willpower. But Zack’s reaction was only human, while Sephiroth was…
’a monster’
Sephiroth recoiled. His fingers tightened on his head, into his hair, digging into his palm at his forehead. Where had that come? Those painful two words that wrenched in his chest and took his breath away? Surely, he wasn’t-? Couldn’t be-?
Zack attempted to clear his expression though it didn’t go well. His thoughts etched into him with a childish honesty that the soldier couldn’t shake. ”After Wutai, Genesis had a wing like that.”
Sephiroth’s eyes widened. ”What?”
“Angeal had wings too, but they were white.”
”Angeal?” Sephiroth felt his gaze turn incredulous, felt the tinge of panic there that sparked hot in his throat. Angeal and Genesis, they had nothing to do with this. That Sephiroth himself should fall victim to some bodily anomaly, that almost made sense in its own twisted way, but them? Sephiroth’s eyes sharpened as Zack approached to examine the damned thing. Was he lying? He had to be because Angeal and Genesis were nothing but skilled soldiers, nothing but natives to that nebulous and incomprehensible crowd born outside of Shinra’s walls. And if they weren’t…
If Shinra had done something to them…
If either of them had experienced anything (like he had) then…
“Genesis and Angeal …” The names shocked him back to that rocky cliffside even as quietly as they came. Zack’s eyebrow furrowed in thought. ”They were experimented on by the science department. Hollander, I think. It was because of him.”
Sephiroth stilled. The confirmation chilled him. Genesis and Angeal. They’d been taken. They’d been taken and…
Sephiroth grit his teeth against the noise that rose there. His fingers dug deep into the black leather of his gloves, and he clutched at his temple even harder. Something pulsed there. Something cold and pounding and nameless. Shinra. He’d served their will at every battle, at every rebellion, at every slick of blood flicked from his sword. He’d followed their word unquestioningly, and all this time they’d been…
Zack’s continued. Sephiroth only vaguely recognized it as speech. Zack had not lied. He was too simple to lie, too earnest, and too kind. There was nothing to be gained by inventing that story, nothing but to pain him and there was no honor in that. Whatever he said, Zack at least believed it.
But for how long? How long had Shinra twisted his them all with one hand and used him in the other? Was this why Genesis had rebelled against them? Had he known? At Shinra’s command, Sephiroth had been ready to stop him, to drag him back without questioning his motives. Why had he ever believed them over his friend? Why hadn’t Genesis told him...?
Sephiroth’s gaze caught on the tip of Zack’s sword. Angeal’s sword. Perhaps it wasn’t too late. If Zack had found his way here, perhaps Genesis had as well. Sephiroth would find his answers. He would ask Genesis for himself, and maybe then…
Maybe when all of this had reached its conclusion, maybe then they would stand together.
”Why don’t we head up to the city?”
Zack’s voice came to him unfocused and slow, the first worthwhile words he’d spoken since he’d revealed the truth. Sephiroth let out a final breath as though focusing at the edge of battle. Without Shinra, Sephiroth knew nothing. No purpose, no meaning, not even how to survive. Zack’s offer came from a place of kindness -- the same as Angeal’s. Angeal, who still lived in some way inside him. Refusing would be an injustice to his name.
Sephiroth lowered his hand, forced his focus on the space around him, and then finally met the soldier’s glowing eyes. ”Fine.” There was nothing else to say, nothing useful at least. He needed time to think, but he would find nothing here. If nothing else, he needed someone who knew how to live in the world outside of Midgar.
Sephiroth had managed to smother his emotions. Zack, it seemed, had not.
At the mention of Angeal, he broke in a way that Sephiroth would have found touching if the sight of it hadn’t left him so painfully uncertain. Was this how the rest of the world mourned? It seemed...appealing in its own way. To let his emotions take hold, to allow himself to feel them to their fullest, to be so nearly overwhelmed in a way that felt hot and vivid. But even alone, he knew he wouldn’t. Even without the greater threat at hand, the sheer thought of losing control…
No. For now, there could be only reason and anger.
”You might be right.” Zack’s voice had steadied. His emotions cooled. This was an old wound it seemed, and perhaps it was to Sephiroth as well in some remote, closed-off way. Even leaning the truth, there was little shock in it. The blunt trauma had faded to mere grief, and perhaps acceptance. There had been that one horrible moment, and then…
Sephiroth’s fist clenched tighter. Angeal deserved better from him than this.
Zack’s words came more careful than Sephiroth had ever heard them. And for good reason. As he spoke of other worlds, Sephiroth’s eyes shot to him, narrowing in pinpoint focus. He felt his anger channel into Zack, felt his confusion color it in cool waves.
Was this some kind of joke? If it was, Zack seemed to believe it at least. And Sephiroth doubted the soldier knew how to lie.
Zack moved past him even farther from the coastline. Sephiroth watched him sharply, mind already racing. If Zack didn’t believe his claims false then was he deluded? Confused by whatever had corroded their memories? What he said was impossible -- absurd even -- and Sephiroth refused to entertain the notion.
Still, it was the only explanation so far that fit with the current evidence. Shinra had surveyed every mile of Gaia in its expansions. This place...No. It was simply too massive to miss. Too isolated. Shinra would have had to purposefully kept it from their maps. They would have had to purposefully masked their presence here. And Sephiroth knew Shinra better than anyone.
The conspiracy sounded plausible. The lack of conquest did not.
Zack crossed his arms. ”I’ve been here for months.” He brought up a nervous hand to touch the hair that he’d so clearly modeled after Angeal’s. ”And I’ve met people here that are from other worlds, and they have no idea how they got here either.”
”Other worlds.” If it was a delusion, it was a shared one it seemed. He trusted Zack’s experiences though given the circumstances, he could not trust Zack’s rationality. He likely wouldn’t have in the best of times. Zack had never had a reputation for his skills in deduction.
Zack fell quiet, a new experience and one that filled the air between them with unease. Sephiroth’s gaze never wavered, but even he couldn’t help a prickle of tension at his neck. He resisted the urge to scratch it just as Zack had done, keeping his stance as cool and ready as ever. He tilted his head instead, eyebrows furrowed incredulously. Somehow, he doubted that anything Zack said to him would reveal a matter of substance.
”The last thing I remember, before I woke up here.” Zack glanced back at him with an uncharacteristic frown. ”I was dead, man.”
”What?” Sephiroth eyebrows shot up in surprise. Whatever he’d expected, it hadn’t been that.
”How could I be dead and then…?” The soldier trailed off, His eyes fixed on a point in front of him, and Sephiroth’s naturally followed. The city’s towers rose in the distance -- a city like something out of a children’s picture book he’d glanced in passing but never read. Nowhere like this could possibly exist on Gaia -- not Shinra’s Gaia at least. His lips twinged with a frown of his own. ”I end up here, alive, barely remembering anything. It doesn’t make any sense.”
”Dead.” He repeated bluntly as though the word would gain some meaning spoken aloud. ”People don’t come back from the dead.” But that much was obvious, wasn’t it? This wasn’t some science fiction melodrama, not some pulpy soft-cover that Genesis would have scoffed at. Yet why did the sentiment feel so…?
His wing shifted uneasily beneath his shoulder blade. He bit his tongue. The feathers itched as though in answer, and after a moment of thought, Sephiroth couldn’t help a short sigh.
”While we’re consolidating information.” Sephiroth paused, uncertainty stilling his hand for the first time in years. ”Perhaps there is something you could...shed light on.” He closed his eyes and took a steadying breath, lips pursed in steely resolution. And then he unfolded his wing.
”I awoke with…” He shot it a disgusted look. ”This.” New bones stetched out in a vague arc. His muscles tensed over them, as controlled and natural as any other limb. The feathers glinted a black-blue in the glare of the sunlight. They spanned across the aberrant addition in soft layers, the downy giving way to the long and rigid like the back of a crow. A feather loosed itself in his movement, swaying quietly in the wind before touching at the water, pulsing there where the current met sand.
The sight of it rolled in his stomach. This was not natural. Not human. This was…
His hand passed over his eyes. ”Do you have any explanation?”
Zack’s reaction told him everything he needed to know.
In that one instant, Zack’s pretenses fell away. There was nothing left there but pain, and the implications stilled Sephiroth’s breath. Time had passed. Far too much of it just as he’d suspected, and in the space between was tragedy. Sephiroth didn’t need any further confirmation. He didn’t need Zack’s familiarity, the way he finished the unsaid and paced along the rocky cliffside. Already, Sephiroth’s vision had narrowed, his hearing dulled. Something had happened in the time he’d forgotten. And no matter how he fit the pieces together, they always amounted to one truth.
Angeal was dead.
He closed his eyes, felt his lips twist in pain. Angeal. Even now, Sephiroth could nearly mistake him for the man pacing back and forth along the ocean’s edge. Even now, he could imagine Angeal standing beside him, arms crossed and expression even with that slight smirk at his lips. He had been the first to befriend him -- the first to show interest -- and without him, Sephiroth would have-
He touched at his mouth to hold back the grief that welled there. No, now was not the time for that. If he let himself waver, he would be overwhelmed. Not now. Not in front of Zack, and not when he found himself so lost in possibly hostile territory. His training wouldn’t allow for that, and he set his emotions aside on instinct. He couldn’t let his thoughts run uncontrolled and he couldn’t let his pain cloud his judgment.
In an instant his expression cleared. He doubted Zack had noticed.
Zack stopped and breathed deeply to steady himself. ”The last thing you remember.” The soldier stopped and looked at him straight on. ”And the last thing I remember are years apart from each other. If it was Wutai then I was…I was still a second class SOLDIER.”.
Sephiroth hummed his agreement. Zack still seemed out of place in a First Class uniform. Like he hadn’t quite grown into it though that was likely bias on his part. The vibrant purple of a Second far better fit his personality than the dull gray of a First.
”Damn,” Zack said and then laughed. For some reason, the laugh calmed Sephiroth as hollow as it was. Pain twinged at the edges, and Sephiroth wondered if they weren’t so different after all. “That’s gonna take some getting used to. I can’t answer a lot of questions about what happens after that, even if you ask me. My memory is all kinds of busted up.”
Sephiroth smirked faintly despite himself. Perhaps in some isolated corner of his mind, he’d developed a fondness for the soldier’s light-hearted nature. Perhaps if he really had forgotten the years between them, that dull spark had remained. Or perhaps Zack merely appealed to him in a way that Sephiroth had never noticed before. He’d never particularly given him the chance.
”Years.” He looked out to the horizon and the sweeping embrace of the sea. Its waves were endless. Crashing and fading forever upon the shore. He stepped towards it until he stood at the edge. The wind tangled in his hair, and for a moment he felt that dizzying sense of vertigo. If he only tilted forward, would he crash into the sea? Would it swallow him or would he stop himself on instinct, hovering there above its grasp? He closed his eyes and breathed bitter salt and ocean mist. He did not fall.
”Then it’s a mystery to you. How we got here.” He gave a short laugh, hardly more than a puff of air. ”None of this makes sense.”
The ocean pounded its eternal rhythm. This place was foreign to him, unfamiliar, and yet the fundamentals remained the same. The same sun smoldered against his black leather. The same wind brushed against his skin. And Zack stood behind him, incomprehensible and yet so familiar. Sephiroth tilted back his head to watch the sky.
”Angeal is dead.” It wasn’t a question. ”That’s what you’re hiding from me. There’s no other explanation.” He turned to face Zack then. Pain flared at those words, but he tried his best to smother it. ”Something in those years changed us. I wouldn’t forget him so easily.” His fist clenched and he stalked past Zack, back still turned to him. His jaw clenched and he tilted his head to glower at the ground. ”If not Hojo then something else. Something that corroded our minds.” Sephiroth let out a short scoff between his teeth.
