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year 5, quarter 3
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[attr=class,bulk] As the girl went on, it became quickly apparent that Sephiroth had wasted his time.
He couldn’t say whether she was delusional, stupid, or perhaps both. He wondered, vaguely, if there was any insight to her words. If perhaps she misremembered something truthful that had been passed from source to source until it resembles the ravings of a lunatic on a street corner. It was impossible to say. She shouldn’t have known the word ‘Jenova.’ It was clear that she was familiar with Hojo even if she couldn’t remember his name. Her story left him with questions that weren’t worth the dignity of answering.
She finished and then froze, looking up at him nervously. ”Uhhh, you’re not gonna go crazy and try to blow up this world now, are you? Just cause you know you’re part goopy space monster?”
She sounded entirely sincere. It was as though she couldn’t hear herself or perhaps lacked the self-reflection to try.
Sephiroth laughed.
He laughed and pressed a hand against his forehead, and when he felt the damp weight of old coffee in his hair, he laughed harder. Once his laughter had ended, he looked her in the eye and simply said, ”No.”
He tried once again to move past her. Whatever leverage she thought she had on him was nonsense, and it had become clear that she wasn’t the type to attack unprovoked. There was no reason for him to stop for her. If she tried, he’d merely push her aside.
The nerves that had once nearly silenced Cissnei’s contact had subsided now. It was as though the wine had been an elixir of courage, or perhaps Vincent had merely needed something to do with his hands. Either way, he sounded stronger now. More confident. Sephiroth weighed his words and his tone and the situation as a whole. He still found it unlikely. It seemed far too convenient, and while he didn’t doubt Cissnei’s skills at reconnaissance, the chances that she would happen across someone who had known his mother were…
Sephiroth set his glass down and leaned back thoughtfully. The chances were slim, but not none. His story had far too many details to be pure fabrication. He knew too much.
”My mother was a scientist?” That much he could believe though it left a sour taste in his mouth. Not every scientist was a monster -- Gast had been proof of that -- but he knew Shinra better than most, and he knew the odds. It reminded him all too much of him.
’I wish I could have done more to save us all from Hojo and his ambitions.’
Vincent knew too much.
”Why would Shinra decommission a Turk for one of their experiments? Unless you had defected…” He worked through the situation slowly, turning over every detail. It seemed foolish to believe his story, yet the more he thought it through, the more it seemed to align. The public at large knew Shinra to exploit the weak for profit, but they had no idea what lurked beneath its corporate exterior. These were the words of someone intimately familiar with its inner workings. No matter how he considered it, he couldn’t find a motive.
If Vincent was unrelated, then why lie? If this man really had known his true mother, then why seek him out and tell him now? Had it all been Cissnei’s doing?
”I’ve been attacked several times by strangers who claim to know me.” His lips twitched into a bitter smirk. ”I have reason to be on guard.”
[attr=class,bulk] When he slept, he saw those eyes -- desperate, wild, and drowning in mako. He didn’t know the face. The name eluded him, but the eyes...
They bore into him with a terrible dread and then he was falling into the light as the ground gave way and something close to fire rushed to meet him.
He’d wake in a cold sweat, head aching from anemia. He was weak. His body refused full consciousness. And so he would inevitably drift again despite the protests of his pounding heart.
Back to a place of gunmetal gray and flashing red emergency lights. Back to twisted monsters set in a sickly blue glow. Back to those eyes and the man behind them. Zack? No, not Zack. He was…
He was...
Sephiroth took a long breath and opened his eyes.
It was dark in his small, rented room. Night had fallen sometime ago, and he was left alone in the silence. He listened for the distant tick of an old analog clock in the hallway. There were no voices in the street. A sliver of moonlight peered through the half-open window and splashed across the opposite wall. The seconds staggered by. The pain clumsily followed. Sephiroth closed his eyes and grounded himself.
What could he hear?
The clock’s endless ticking. The hum of a gas street lamp. The slow, welling pulse of cicadas.
What could he smell?
Sweat. Blood. The undertones of dish soap.
What could he see?
Sephiroth opened his eyes again and scanned the room slowly. He’d never bothered to keep it anything but clean. There were no personal effects, only his sword against the wall, his pauldrons stashed in a corner, his materia set neatly on the dresser. There was a stack of bandages beside it. A pitcher of water on the end table. Sephiroth watched beads of cool condensation slide down the glass. He swallowed.
He was awake. He was coherent. He was thirsty.
Sephiroth braced himself, placed his palms down on the mattress, then cautiously slid himself upright. His wound jolted alive in protest. Sephiroth pushed harder, hissing between his teeth, until he was sitting comfortably with the pillows at his back. The pain did not subside. He endured it through several staggering breaths before he dared to touch the wound. There were no stitches. Only scabs and the raw, smooth ridges of a newly formed scar. His body had been forced to heal too quickly. The materia had done its work, but it was a crude job -- harsh, clumsy, and unfinished. He’d suffered worse injuries before, but back then he’d had access to Shinra hospitals and field medics. He likely needed a blood transfusion.
’How is Genesis’ condition?’
’Is there no other way to treat him?’
’You won’t do.’
Sephiroth grit his teeth and reached for the pitcher. The pain wasn’t as blinding this time, and he took the glass without issue. The water was cold on his tongue. The ice hadn’t yet melted. Someone had been by recently.
Once Sephiroth had had enough, he carefully placed the pitcher back on the end table and leaned back, watching the ceiling. He heard no sounds of movement outside his door. They were likely sleeping. From the silence, Sephiroth guessed that it was somewhere between two and four a.m.
He was alone.
Alone.
Sephiroth waited as the minutes ticked by. Then he slowly, carefully forced himself to his feet.
His vision went black and he grabbed the headboard for balance as he swayed and his ears rang in a swelling chorus that threatened to overtake him. It reached its peak and then subsided, and he was left standing aimlessly in the dark, breathing slowly. He took it one step at a time. First, he crossed the room and found himself a pair of faded pajama pants. Then he dealt with his hair. It was tangled and frayed and greasy with sweat. It looked like someone had tried to soak the blood from it with an old rag and only partially succeeded. Sephiroth couldn’t do much better so he simply tied it back and left it at that.
Clothed and groomed, he felt more human. He was capable of looking after himself. He would not return to the dreams so willingly.
He left his room and staggered down the hallway, wincing as he stepped on a creaking floorboard that his body was too sluggish to avoid. He made his way to the kitchen, rested for a moment against the counter, and then proceeded to open the cabinet, pull down the tea pot, and fill it with water which sloshed over the side when he tried to move it. His hands were shaking.
After a few tries, he managed to light the gas stove. Then he set the pot over it, watched it for a moment, and finally lurched towards the couch. He sat heavily, gasping sharply as his wound rejected the movement. He checked it for blood and found none. It hadn’t reopened.
He was exhausted. He was nauseous. He knew that he shouldn’t have left his bed, but he felt better out here. Less helpless. Less at the mercy of his own mind. It was easier not to think as he struggled against his own body. It was preferable.
For a while, he merely sat, fading in and out of consciousness, vaguely aware of the pot that he’d have to watch before the steam whistled and woke the others. He was weak, he was injured, but he could do this.
[attr=class,bulk] ”I’m not talking about Wutai! Uh, although yeah, you can pay for that too!”
Sephiroth watched as she worked herself into a frenzy. He was no stranger to being accosted by the bereaved. They always wanted answers, meaning, or perhaps some sense of justice. He could give them none of it, and so he’d found that silence was often the best response. He didn’t know this Aerith. He couldn’t recall stabbing anyone through the back -- not in particular. He didn’t know this Wutaian girl, and he didn’t know what she was talking about.
Her emotions were clumsy and violent. There was a time when they would have frightened him, but he had experience now and knew better. He would let her say her piece and then he would go. She did not threaten him.
”Poor little Sephiroth doesn’t remember? Well, let me tell you!” She stepped forward, eyes flashing with rage. ”Jenova! Yeah, bet you remember that name, right? You found out all about Jenova, and it drove you mad!”
”Jenova?” Sephiroth blinked, startled. ”How do you-?”
’What is it? I’m very busy.’
‘Professor, I...had a question.’
‘Oh?’
‘Do I...have a mother?’
‘Don’t ask useless things.’
‘Please, Professor! You must know! Please. Tell me about her!’
”Jenova,” Sephiroth muttered. It was a name he hadn’t heard in a long time -- or at least, he couldn’t remember hearing it. Yet, as he said it aloud, it almost sounded…
His fist tightened. ”What do you know about that?”
’We stopped you. We killed you, and we destroyed Jenova too! We saved the planet!’
”There are so many things I don’t remember. Everyone seems to know more than I do.”
The silver-haired assassin, the mad SOLDIER, even the Turk and Genesis. They were all hiding something, and all this time he had averted his eyes. There were things he didn’t want to know. That he would be happier not knowing.
Yet he felt it, didn’t he? Somewhere between memory and dream.
’I won’t let you do to this world what you did to mine. I’ll find a way to stop you!’
”You aren’t the first to say that. There were others…” His eyes drifted to hers and fixed her with a piercing stare. ”Tell me. Do you know a man with blonde hair and mako eyes?”
Sephiroth listened as she spoke, impassive but for the slight downward twitch of his lips. ’You killed my friend.’ He was no stranger to the accusation. He’d killed soldiers and rebels and some that were targets for reasons he’d never learned. It was how he’d been trained -- to act in cold blood. What did it matter if it was an act of passion when the end result was the same? Sephiroth felt nothing. He was cool, calculating, and precise.
To this girl, he was a monster. Perhaps she was right.
Sephiroth sighed and lowered his defenses. He tied his sheathed sword to his belt as she went on, louder and with tears brimming in her eyes. She’d held on to these feelings of pain and hatred for some time. So long as they didn’t turn to violence, he would allow her to express them.
”I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he said once she’d finished. Her friend, he could understand, but the rest…
’You summoned meteor. You threatened the entire planet.’
Meteor. Was it some kind of weapon?
”I don’t have answers.” He paused before adding. ”My memory is…incomplete.” It brought a strange and bitter smile to his lips. There were many things that Cissnei had implied and that Genesis kept secret. There were things he remembered and events he’d uncovered slowly, piece by piece. Angeal and Genesis had defected at the end of the Wutai War. Angeal had committed suicide, and Sephiroth had massacred the people of Nibelheim. He was said to have died at the reactor though he didn’t trust Shinra’s press outlets as a reliable source of intel.
Beyond that, he had only suspicions where rumors met with dreams.
”I was sent to Wutai on Shinra’s orders. If your friend was killed there then it wasn’t personal.” He crossed his arms. ”Beyond that, there’s nothing I could explain.”
[attr=class,bulk] ”Hey! Stop!” The girl easily closed the distance between them, dashing ahead then throwing herself in his path. She planted her feet and thrust out an accusatory finger. “You’re Sephiroth! You can’t be Sephiroth! Sephiroth doesn’t drink coffee!”
Sephiroth felt his lip twitch. What?
The girl said her piece, shouting strange accusations loud enough to draw eyes from the nearby stores and apartments. Did she ever stop shouting? Sephiroth watched her coolly. Part of him wanted to simply turn around and start walking in the opposite direction, but he had no doubts that she would merely cut him off again. Pushing past her was possible, but likely to make her louder and more irritating.
So Sephiroth simply stood there, fixing her with his cold, serpentine glare. Then he closed his eyes and smirked, one hand pressed to his forehead.
”What…?” he asked, ”Are you talking about?”
This was the second time that someone had accused him of “blowing up planets.” Interesting.
”I don’t have to explain myself to you.” If she was truly from Wutai then she had every reason to hold a grudge. Sephiroth had dealt with his share of assassins in search of vengeance, but this girl didn’t seem like the type. She was spouting nonsense. He wondered if she’d been exposed to an overdose of mako.
”Stand down.” There was ice in his voice now, chilled with the promise of a threat. He wasn’t dressed for a fight. His armor was under repair, and he had tried unsuccessfully to avoid detection since his ill-fated run-in with the mad SOLDIER. Still, he held his sword sheathed in his right hand, and his materia was set into an armlet on his wrist.
Sephiroth didn’t bother looking up at first. It was only an unruly patron slamming doors open too loudly. He tried to keep his thoughts light. He was in a public place, after all, and disruptions were to be expected. He was of the opinion that every person should do their best to mind their own business and interact with each other as little as possible.
Yet the girl who was now charging the cafe counter seemed to have different thoughts on the matter. She was yelling. Loudly. Sephiroth glanced up at her coolly then determinedly fixed his gaze on his book.
It was pronounced ‘frappuccino.’
She wanted a unicorn frappuccino, extra cream, add sprinkles.
How hard was that to say?
The girl was haggling now. This was a coffee shop, not a marketplace. It wasn’t exactly the sort of establishment for negotiations, but the barista didn’t have the space to stop the girl from babbling on anyway. She wanted a “World Saver’s Discount.” She claimed that she was from the future, and that she’d defeated-
”See, there was this total bad guy called Sephiroth! And he was all like, I’m gonna summon a meteor to destroy the world. And I was like, HA! I don’t think so!”
Sephiroth was no longer reading. He’d lost his position on the page.
There was a loud thunk as the girl jumped on the counter. The barista cried out for her to stop, but it seemed that nothing would stop the girl from shouting her own name from the top of the highest point she could find. ’Yuffie Kisaragi.’
’The single white rose of Wutai.’
Sephiroth closed his book and let out a long breath through his nose. Her stories were nonsensical, but if she was Wutaian then she would know him on sight. He couldn't say what stroke of misfortune had brought them both to this coffee shop on that quiet morning in a city beyond their reality, but he knew his own reputation well enough to predict her reaction should they lock eyes.
It was time to go.
”And he was all like, ‘Oh no, not Yuffie!’ and I was like, ‘Ah ha! Evil doer, now you meet your end!’ and we had this big fight, and well, I totally kicked his butt. Practically single-handed, of course!”
She was throwing punches on the countertop now, much to the dismay of the poor barista who could hardly more than sputter a protest in her general direction. The girl did a flying spin kick, landed lightly on the counter’s edge, started to say something, then let out a shriek as she lost her balance and spilled out over the cafe tables.
”EEK! OOF! HEY!”
And just like that, Sephiroth found himself doused with hot coffee. He saw her flip, stumble, and try to catch herself. He saw her charging off balance towards him, but it all happened so fast that he could only watch as one domino fell into another and then her foot had found his abandoned cup and the table snapped under her weight and Sephiroth was left sitting there in stunned silence as the coffee slowly dripped from his bangs.
The burns didn’t bother him terribly. He’d felt far worse. But his book…
Yes, it was soaked through. The pages were soggy and browned and already sticking together. He looked from it to the girl who was tangled into the broken table wreckage at his feet. She groaned miserably and looked back up at him. Their eyes met.
Hers widened.
There were several tactics that Sephiroth could have taken for the situation at hand. If he had been Genesis, he would have simply set the girl on fire, insulted her, and left. If he had been Angeal, he might have told her off for her recklessness and tried to clear the mess before the store owner had a heart attack. But Sephiroth was no one but himself, and after fixing her with a long, cold look, he merely closed his eyes with a short hum and stood.
”Don’t follow me,” he said as he grabbed his sword from where it was neatly propped against the wall. He didn’t expect that she’d listen -- not this Wutaian girl with the loud mouth and the wild stories -- but it would disarm her for a moment at least, and in that moment, he elected to leave.
The door jingled shut behind him, and he stood on the side of the street, scowling as he smeared coffee off his chin with the back of his hand. Behind him, the barista was shouting her apologies and yelling for the girl to get out. Threats of the town guard were involved. Sephiroth sighed, expecting her staggered footsteps behind him at any moment and yet dreading it all the same.
At least on the street, he could avoid collateral damage.
[attr=class,bulk] The Territories of Provo hadn’t maintained their own standing army in two hundred years. That was what his current book on the history of military affairs in the region told him, at least. The nation had a head of state and a series of independent governors for its provinces, but existed less as its own global power and more as a neutral zone maintained by the vigilant eye of its warring neighbors to the north and south. It was an interesting political strategy, one which cut expenses at the cost of true independence. He wondered if the region would ever pay the price for its neutrality. Sonora was a conquering nation ruled by profit, and as he knew all too well, the profit margin of corporations could never be satisfied.
Sephiroth sighed, sipped his coffee, and turned the page.
He’d found a new coffee shop to frequent after his unfortunate run-in with a bounty hunting mercenary at his last. This cafe was quieter and farther from the city’s highest traffic canals. Sephiroth had chosen a table near an open window, close enough to hear the passing crowds, but not within their direct line of sight. He was dressed in civilian clothes as he often was these days with his hair pulled back and his sword propped carefully against the wall. He wore a silver bracer over the right sleeve of his sweater, embedded with the remainder of his materia. It was an eclectic look, but it wasn’t an iconic one.
Today, he was not a First Class SOLDIER. He was not Shinra’s perfect, cold-eyed demon dressed in black leather. Today, in the cool breeze of a quiet morning, he wanted only to be left alone.
”More coffee?”
Sephiroth glanced up from his book to find a young barista standing in front of him, smiling nervously. He glanced at his half-full cup then back to her. She shifted under the inhuman weight of his gaze, and so he turned it elsewhere.
”Fine,” he said, looking idly out the window. She gave a relieved sigh.
”The same?”
”Mm.”
He watched a couple trot past the window with their dog on a leash. Somewhere, there was the vague hum of engines from the nearby airship docks. A crow landed in the street, hopped twice, and cawed at the morning sun.
Sephiroth looked back to his book and thumbed through the pages. He wouldn’t stay much longer, he thought. He shouldn’t be out alone at all if Angeal had anything to say about it, but their shared apartment was cramped and loud, and he liked the quiet time to himself. He would stay for another hour. He would pay for his coffee, and then he would return to be berated by Genesis and worried over by Angeal.
For now, there was only this moment -- silent, separated, and still. There was only the muttering of early-rising birds, the hiss of a coffee press, and the weight of a book in his hand. Sephiroth breathed in slowly, let his thoughts pass, and began to read again.
Cissnei was back before Vincent could answer, and Sephiroth glanced at her, lips thin. He felt irritable in a way that usually only Genesis could provoke in him. She’d known exactly why he’d been brought here, and she’d said nothing. No warnings. No background information. She’d presented him a nervous stranger who wasn’t particularly good at explaining himself.
“Give him a chance to say his piece,” she said. “If you find it a waste of your day then I will owe you a favor. Fair?”
It wasn’t. She had to know that. After their previous rendezvous, she already owed him more than enough, but that didn’t seem to bother her as she set two glasses in front of them.
”I thought this was your favor,” he said dryly. She’d said she would look into sources. She’d found a source. Still, this was looking more and more like it had been set up for either Vincent’s benefit or her own.
Did she find this funny?
Sephiroth eyed the drinks as she left, cautiously taking the lighter of the two. It was a pale amber shade, shimmering in its long-stemmed glass. Part of him paused to consider the probability of poison. The other, more rational part of himself didn’t think such tactics to be quite Cissnei’s style. No, she was the type to stage an ambush. She wouldn’t provoke him on her own.
Vincent was too nervous to be one of her allies. He was far too garish to be a Turk. Sephiroth sipped his drink. It was drier than liquid had any right to be. It tasted like something that had once been a fruit, but had since had the life wrung out of it by tree bark. Still, it wasn’t the worst thing he’d tasted to fit in at a place like this. He set the glass down in front of him and set his eyes back on Vincent.
He said nothing, but simply waited with a look that said, ’Don’t waste my time.’
[attr=class,bulk] His question seemed to startle Vincent out of his nerves. The man gave a short laugh and answered that he’d been the one to contract Cissnei. Interesting. Cissnei had framed it as though she were doing Sephiroth some kind of favor.
It wasn’t surprising. Turks were known to twist a situation to their advantage.
Sephiroth watched Vincent carefully. He neither confirmed nor denied Vincent’s suspicions. He only watched, impassive and patient. Sephiroth had lost his memories -- that was true -- but he wasn’t entirely in the dark. There were “later memories” that Vincent wouldn’t revisit. Why was that? It felt like some kind of deception.
Vincent clasped his hands together on the table. His eyes lowered. ”What I want to talk about is far further in the past,” he said. ”I...knew your mother.”
”What?” Sephiroth frowned. His...true mother?
”You’re lying,” he said before he could think better of it. Then he stopped and glanced away, eyebrows furrowing.
Where had this come from? Why had Cissnei brought this man here, and why had Vincent been so eager to tell him about it? It was such a personal detail -- something that only Sephiroth should have cared about, and yet, this man said it with a kind of solemn weight that didn’t fit the subject at hand. His claim was too strange and too specific to be some kind of trick. But then why…?
”You said you worked with her,” Sephiroth repeated slowly. ”That’s not possible. My mother...would be at least fifty years old by now.” And the man in front of him looked to be Sephiroth’s age. It was possible that Vincent might have started employment with Shinra younger than most. Perhaps a woman in her middle-age had made some wild claims to a gullible new hire. She would have had to have been a low level employee -- someone too unimportant to have ever crossed Sephiroth’s path.
”I’ve never heard of her,” he went on. ”And Hojo said…”
He felt his eyes darken. He did not want to think about Hojo today.
”There are things I don’t remember,” Sephiroth said. ”But I never knew my mother. I don't see what she has to do with this.”
