sephiroth, “tol alien boy”, SOLDIER first class. (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
supersoldier) wrote in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
finalflight2020-05-14 12:15 pm
supersoldier) wrote in finalflight2020-05-14 12:15 pm
supersoldier) wrote in finalflight2020-05-14 12:15 pm
no subject
Not yet, anyway.]
Cloud.
[Masamune gleams. There is one way to bring him back to the “present”, and Sephiroth’s mastery over the art of violence makes it easy.]
Pay attention to me.
[He darts forward, quick for someone of his size, his blade arcing in a long sweep towards Cloud. The man needs to block if he doesn’t want to find himself severed in two. And the crashing steel of the blow should neatly send him flying off of this steep mountainside if Sephiroth has his way.]
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[it's just enough to keep him whole, but not enough to put any weight behind any attempt at a parry.]
[cloud loses his footing, pushed upwards almost like it's the will of the flow, of this dream-like place they've found themselves in. and he falls, unable to control the imbalance, the only solid thing the hilt of the buster sword as the world slides by, like paint draining down a wet canvas, all colors mingling together until it's just black.]
[he's falling downwards, headfirst—...or so he thinks, anyway. it's hard to tell if he is moving at all anymore, or if he's going anywhere at all. but one thing is certain, and it's that the pain that plagued him has disappeared almost entirely.]
[again? how many times are you going to keep losing your footing?]
[closing his eyes, cloud forces himself to focus. swinging the blade at hand, he manages to put himself upright, and soon his boots touch ground again; a gloved hand on the floor to keep himself steady. the cold of the steel plate doesn't escape him and that's when he opens his eyes. pods as far as the eye can see, an eerie glow within, tubes and pipes like tentacles of some inanimate horror. he looks around himself.]
[hojo's lab? slowly, he brings himself up to his feet, looking around, waiting for sephiroth to appear. or was it really all a dream?]
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The cold hum of Hojo’s lab, the steel structures and winding tubing swallow the man up, planting him in its belly. It’s only after Cloud has had a chance to take in his surroundings — monstrous in their own right — does Sephiroth suddenly speak up from directly behind him.
Whether or not he’s jumped down and landed silently, or just appeared from the aether? It’s anyone’s guess. The world has a strange habit of bending itself to his own will. Even this place.]
The Shinra building.
[An old life, like someone else had lived it for him. He remembers it so very vaguely, but the shape of it is there. He can hold onto that; this place still exists closer to the forefront of his mind than the years prior, where all starts to lose its coherence.]
They hid so much, and for so long. How strange to walk these halls again, like striding through veins of an open heart about to collapse in on itself.
[His smile widens, and he almost laughs at the nostalgia that doesn’t quite reach him. Sephiroth himself had only recently (again) strode through this place using the form of another, controlling from the outside.]
Look at how many there are.
[A room lined with pods.]
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[but for some reason, words are evoked, from long lost memories. it only hurts his head to a lesser amount as he repeats them.]
SOLDIER is like den of monsters. Don't go inside.
[who...?]
[the vibrant green insides that glow from the pods start to bubble, quietly, as if tickled excited by their notice of them. darker green shadows pass over the round windows, indicating more, but nothing else comes from it. cloud feels himself called by the closest one, stepping over tubes and around them, placing a hand over the glass, much without thinking.]
[it's... familiar. mako, isn't it?]
I thought Hojo's lab was restricted.
[his hand curling into a fist, he brings it back down and turns to look at sephiroth.]
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[He echoes, and through the weft of time, looking back through it as he once could through the Lifestream's pull, he remembers those words even though he was not there to hear them. The shape of a man's face who had spoken them once, to a Cloud so much younger than now. He knew him, didn't he? He exists now in the Lifestream, in some reality that had become his reality, before Sephiroth had begun to unravel the strands-
Focus on the here and now.
He meets Cloud's gaze, then lifts his chin to indicate the long row of pods again.]
No. SOLDIER is a stolen inheritance.
[Stolen from his Mother, her essence imbued in lesser beings as though they deserved even an ounce of it.
A few more pods shudder, shadows writhing inside. Blink and you'll miss it.]
It is. [Was. Is. The surroundings flicker again, like another is trying to bleed into its place.] To most. But do you believe that monsters are the only things that ever existed on this floor?
[He would remember Aerith and her room, wouldn't he? Kept caged with four metal walls.]
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Stolen from... Mother.
[another of those painful glitches happen, just for a moment. he's been getting them a lot—the more sephiroth speaks, unravels things from his mind that make no sense but pick away at a truth. he still doesn't understand who mother is, but just like that time when he walked the halls of hojo's lab, it's not quite something he's under control of.]
[cloud finds himself sinking at the question, of monsters existing on this floor.]
[and before he can do anything he's pushed through the floor and standing on flat surface again, seemingly upside down, like he's walking on the ceiling. his sword is back on his back and there are glass-cells around him, aerith sitting in one of them—and multiples of her, behind her, a kaleidoscope of color. the world rights itself slowly, turning, and cloud's walking like a dizzy man, stumbling over chairs and tables, grabbing onto machines—until he's back solidly upright, the drums of hojo's lab dark and menacing; curtains and surgical tables hidden, as if abandoned.]
[the echo of hojo's laughter can be heard across the walls.]
—he's a madman. Everyone knows that.
[does he know that everyone knows that? or is he simply assuming a truth? it's easy to follow a thread.]
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But when the world twists and turns, becomes Aerith in an infinity of glass cells, then spins again into the depth of Hojo’s laboratory, Sephiroth is a presence living in shadow. Just a voice this time, reverberating in Cloud’s mind.]
Yes.
[Hojo. A man of science and housing an obsession with how far that science could take him. An obsession with Mother, endless and cyclical. He knew him once, didn’t he? For such a long time, day after day— These memories are so far away, given away in the Lifestream as parts of himself that he no longer needed.
But this place, representing the cavernous stretch of time, cares not for what one remembers and what one erased. Even Sephiroth finds himself grasping at these rememberances, misshapen as they are, no longer fitting the mould of his mind.]
He cares only for his research. The science, the numbers, the applications.
[Behind one of the drawn surgical curtains, shadows flicker across dimly cast light. Voices murmur, the sound of movement. So close, if Cloud wishes to inspect further, or simply leave it be.]
The small mind of a human, seeking that which it cannot understand.
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[it's the sound of voices, of people, that fuels cloud's curiosity to move forward and towards the surgical curtains. he draws it back a little more with a hand, slowly and carefully... but it's like he's not there at all.]
[scientists stand there, white lab coats, syringes at hand, clipboards at the ready. his eyes are unable to focus on who is on the surgical table, but the edges slowly... slowly start to sharpen the more he focuses his gaze away from the figure directly. these are not memories of his own, but they're—interposing with someone else's. sephiroth?]
[he draws closer towards the table, almost dreading what he'll see if he can focus his eyes on the face of the individual.]
[and when he does look down, and actually manages to focus, fear grips him at the unexpected sight. a strange coloration on the skin, long white hair, and glowing purple eyes that make direct eye contact with him. jenova— a shake of his head and it changes, a younger sephiroth taking her place, an all-knowing smile as he looks at cloud. but it's not the same sephiroth as the one in his head right now. looking up, the scientists who had seemed unable to notice him earlier are all now looking directly at him, unmoving.]
You know this place.
[the memories are not his own, and as unnerved as he feels, cloud takes several steps back, away from the surgical table and pushing past the curtains.]
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But he’s getting ahead of himself again.
This memory is so entrenched in the past that its edges are blurry, some of the men faceless, their features fuzzy or altogether missing. One of them, still looking at Cloud, reaches for Sephiroth’s arm. Make a fist, he says, and the silver-haired boy does so, and suddenly there’s a long needle puncturing his skin and drawing blood up into a large syringe.]
Yes. [—the boy says, watching Cloud carefully, as the company takes from him, like they’ve always taken from him.] I remember now. I grew up in a lab like this. On a table like this. In a training room, always the same thing every day.
[Yes, he remembers. Breathe in, says another scientist, or perhaps a doctor, and Sephiroth breathes in deeply, a stethoscope pressed to his back. Exhale. He exhales.]
It’s what I told you. You think monsters are all that ever lived on these floors?
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[to see sephiroth as a boy, younger than himself when he joined the shinra ranks in hopes of becoming SOLDIER, it's somewhat... rattling.]
I don't know. It's what someone told me.
[the response is automatic, defensive almost, as if the question were an accusation. as if seeing sephiroth like this makes him pity the man that torments him so obsessively.]
[he takes a step forward.]
But you became a monster. You didn't have to do any of what you did, and yet— [another step forward, but cloud's boot doesn't land on solid floor, instead dipping him into the eerie green glow of a mako tank. he immediately can't breathe; it's like soaking in gasoline, and his lungs burn—]
[—until they don't, and he's just floating in this space of just green, a hand reaching forward until it touches glass, and he's on the inside of a tank, looking out and about for an escape, the bubbles pulling out of him as he runs out of breath.]
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I did what was necessary, and what was deserved. [He’s standing now. The needle is gone from his arm, the doctors and scientists no longer surrounding him. He is a silver-haired child, Shinra’s greatest investment, Hojo’s star experiment, with naked palms pressed flat against the cool surface of Cloud’s new encasement. He watches as he struggles to breathe, and as the liquid-soft glow suffuses the brightness of his eyes.]
Poor Cloud. Does it hurt?
[His suffering has always brought pleasure, even now. This memory doesn’t even properly belong to him, but it is always a sight to see Cloud writhe and struggle. He finds it intriguing how desperate his mind is to drag him back to the moments that shattered it to pieces, and Sephiroth leans in slightly, like a child peering into an aquarium.]
We share that, too, in a way.
[Both once at the mercy of Hojo. How funny.]
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[he coughs, in pain, a visceral ache right in the middle of his chest, and he swallows mako. there's nothing there to cause said pain, but blood pours out like silk anyway, upwards and mingling with the flow of mako.]
[cloud curls into himself, one final attempt push his shoulder against the glass. once, twice—]
[he closes his eyes tight as his lungs fill with nothing but poison.]
[you know i wouldn't do that to you. we're friends, right?]
[he opens his eyes again suddenly, and he finds himself on the floor, soaked still, breathing and wheezing to fill his lungs up again. the memories deconstructed, coming like fractured pieces to him, overwhelming what is and isn't. but this is no longer hojo's lab, not the one in the shinra building. cloud puts a hand to his chest where the piercing pain was, coughing as he pushes himself up to his knees. the shinra manor, in nibelheim. he squeezes at the front of his uniform, his vision dazed and blurry.]
[where's sephiroth?]
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I’m here.
[He is here this time. Not that other man he remembers in shimmering flashes, fragments returning in jagged pieces. He cannot be here — Sephiroth will become too large of a presence to allow it, crowding out the space of this memory with his willpower alone, all to spare Cloud’s weak and brittle psyche.]
I can be the one to carry you out this time. To keep you alive, if that's what you want.
sephiroth reel it in
[he knows it's sephiroth who helps him up to his knees, forcefully and with no inch of kindness in his act. it's all to get cloud to see him again, to know he is there, and cloud's heart jumps to his throat in the overwhelming panic that he cannot do anything against him. the edges of his vision are fuzzy, but the voice in his ears is sharp and clear—too close. too close for comfort.]
[cloud's chest contracts unto itself as the blond tries to keep himself from dry coughing, to keep a straight back to show that he won't bend to sephiroth. his lungs burn, though, and his whole body feels too heavy, like he has no say in how it's moved.]
[and yet there's still an angry expression on cloud's face. defiant, even—but the words that come out of his mouth, they're a plea that ricocheted in his head, before, and never made it past his lips that one time when— when— someone — sephiroth? —
zack—helped him escape.][he grabs at the man's arm, his hold slippery.]
Don't— leave me... [a heave, a crack. his lungs are on fire. his grip tightens.] Don't.
don't know her
I won’t. I won’t ever leave you, not as connected as we are.
[He laughs, then. Laughs lowly and amused, his very bearing hunched over the one person his hatred pivots around, whose suffering makes his spirit feel bright, something he would despise losing in a future that threatened to exist without it.
Black feathers ensconce Cloud’s vision. A wing from Sephiroth’s back extends and bends around the both of them, a cocoon of black and oddly whisper soft. It blocks out the manor, the neon fluid spilled from Cloud’s containment unit, the humidity thick and cloying in the air. It’s like being wrapped in oblivion; nearly as peaceful, and almost as terrifying.]
Where do you want to go? Let’s see if I can take you there.
THIS IS THE OPPOSITE OF REEL IT IN
[it's... peaceful, yes, but just as terrifying, too.]
[cloud doesn't speak into the darkness, but his eyes meet sephiroth's—an eerie emerald that glows, disdainful but full of some kind of appreciation. it leaves cloud feeling all sorts of convoluted inside. cloud grabs at the arm, static filling his ears.]
[flowers, a church; there's water where the flowers grow, children jumping around him. a presence. a pink dress, an x-shaped scar. home.]
[aerith's church.]
[the smell of flowers pervades in the air amidst the darkness of oblivion. bright, sweet, welcoming, actually peaceful.]
seph has no off button
And then he stands, bootheels grinding into the flower bed, his great black wing fanning to free Cloud of its confines. Sunlight cascades down through a hole splintered into the roof to the church, wetly throwing his flight feathers into an inky, glossy shimmer. Each striation shines as he folds it back.
This is a place where he does not belong. He knows this, every speck of soil beneath his boots made hallowed through that woman’s memory. Sephiroth is just a blackhole void in a picture-perfect recollection. A gaping emptiness where light is disallowed.
And yet he feels the peaceful aura here, too, looking up through that break in the rooftop, watching as motes of dust float past, dancing and disappearing. His wing tucks closer to his body, a solid black mass against his frame.]
Does this place comfort you?
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[this place does bring him comfort, in a way that he doesn't quite know how to measure.]
Yes.
[his back is to sephiroth, as he stares in awe, in wonderment. this is aerith's church, but it's not quite like the one he remembers. it's... older looking, somehow. like the environment outside it crumpled and added some extra tumbles and cracks. instinctively, his right hand moves to his left arm, grabbing there. his eyes move downwards to it in confusion.]
[he drops his hand and tightens it into a fist at his side.]
Those visions I saw— [of aerith, of sephiroth, of a pool of water] —are they real?
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And so his eyes turn towards Cloud, away from the light, with a little more consideration than before.]
What do you think those visions represent?
[Answers his question with his own.]
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[it dawns on him, like a slow realization, that he cannot escape.]
A future that hasn't happened yet.
[he puts these thoughts together, but he isn't sure how it works, or if he believes it himself.]
...or one that has, but not for me. [a pause, as he turns to face sephiroth properly.] For you?
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Yes. For me.
[Masamune's blade whispers against sunlit yellow petals, walking forward two steps closer to Cloud.]
But do not forget what I told you.
[That which lies ahead does not yet exist.]
Those visions are but ghosts of your... failures that have not yet come to pass. Your inability to protect those you care about. That one, perhaps, the most egregious of all.
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[of protecting — aerith?]
[a light breeze ruffles the flowers, making them sway gently to the side. the earth beneath their feet sinks slowly, fills with water, as the whole church pushes and groans under the weight of change; of perches and pillars succumbing to the different years, the different states of its being. but the water keeps filtering in, creating a pool, slowly swallowing up their boots in it.]
[cloud's eyes remains on sephiroth.]
So what do you want from me?
[change fate, he had said. together.]
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He’s unmoving in the rush, the motion rippling all around him, teasing at the bottom of his length of hair. Sephiroth cants his head at Cloud, meeting his obstinance with more answers — though perhaps they are not satisfactory to him in this moment.
The old church groans and aches with time.]
I want you to work with me. To lend me your strength, as I told you once before.
[And as before, a gloved hand extends, palm-up. Fingers uncurling in Cloud’s direction, and the feathers of his single wing flares.]
Won’t you do that for your precious Planet? Our Planet? Or are you still too afraid?
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[he is, but not to the extent sephiroth is giving him credit for. cloud worries that whatever he accedes to do will only be like signing a deal with the devil. there is not enough for him to come up with a decision that feels satisfactory to him, and it just feels like a ton of weight on his shoulders, suddenly.]
[the anxiety that keeps gnawing at him over unknowns.]
What's the catch?
[the water surrounding sephiroth grows murky, a darkness teeming from him and pulsing forward, reaching for cloud. the sky that can be seen from the hole on the roof of the church grows darker, like a storm is brewing.]