[There was a reason why he delegated the last mission to Zack Fair, why he had looked at the briefing for Banora and deferred it, instead, to the other, the one eager to prove, eager to perform his duty, even at the danger of meeting an old and treasured mentor. Perhaps that reason was shaped like cowardice, or selfishness — maybe it was wrong to shuck off responsibility due to emotional rationale, something he has never allowed to define him before. But what was done was done, and at the time, Sephiroth had neatly avoided facing either of his old friends in conflict. Masamune was not raised against them; someone else’s hands could be dirtied by the task.
(Maybe that decision still settles unevenly in his gut, like glass shards sticking to his insides. But he does not regret it. He knew it was the right choice.)
He knows it now more poignantly than ever. Here, facing Angeal (white feathers sprouting from his back, defining himself as a monster, what did he mean?), the war machine in him stutters and sticks, glitches against the notion of cutting him down. His veins sing to fulfill what is expected of him, but emotion becomes nettles against his nerves, slowing him just enough to birth a concept altogether foreign to the legendary SOLDIER — hesitation.
It won’t be enough to bring him down. Both he and Angeal know that. But the other man had always been wise, observant, clever in ways almost enviable, and so the ground beneath Sephiroth’s very feet is assailed instead. There’s not much he can do to fight gravity, not with metal world around him groaning and collapsing, and a second later and he’s falling, falling, back slamming against Sector 5 reactor’s foundations on the way down, silver hair trailing up and whipping all around him, and in the next moment all he can see in his mind’s eye is Zack’s distraught features after he returned from Banora, and Sephiroth thinks to himself that maybe this is deserved.
A second collision sounds like wood splintering, or glass shattering, but he’s met with darkness immediately after.
When consciousness later grasps at him with clumsy, searching hands, he’s stopped falling — something scents sweet in the air, floral and foreign — and he thinks, maybe, that he hears a voice through the haze.]
but your life is just one big mess.
(Maybe that decision still settles unevenly in his gut, like glass shards sticking to his insides. But he does not regret it. He knew it was the right choice.)
He knows it now more poignantly than ever. Here, facing Angeal (white feathers sprouting from his back, defining himself as a monster, what did he mean?), the war machine in him stutters and sticks, glitches against the notion of cutting him down. His veins sing to fulfill what is expected of him, but emotion becomes nettles against his nerves, slowing him just enough to birth a concept altogether foreign to the legendary SOLDIER — hesitation.
It won’t be enough to bring him down. Both he and Angeal know that. But the other man had always been wise, observant, clever in ways almost enviable, and so the ground beneath Sephiroth’s very feet is assailed instead. There’s not much he can do to fight gravity, not with metal world around him groaning and collapsing, and a second later and he’s falling, falling, back slamming against Sector 5 reactor’s foundations on the way down, silver hair trailing up and whipping all around him, and in the next moment all he can see in his mind’s eye is Zack’s distraught features after he returned from Banora, and Sephiroth thinks to himself that maybe this is deserved.
A second collision sounds like wood splintering, or glass shattering, but he’s met with darkness immediately after.
When consciousness later grasps at him with clumsy, searching hands, he’s stopped falling — something scents sweet in the air, floral and foreign — and he thinks, maybe, that he hears a voice through the haze.]