Chapter Text
Heero stood looking out onto the rooftop garden, the wind tugging at his hair, as wild as it always had been. He was lost in thought once again, now pondering all he had heard from Sephiroth about what lay ahead for him, if he wanted it. Sephiroth had spent the morning explaining, as best he could, and now Heero felt the confusion from the night before melt away, but in its place had come deep turmoil.
"I have no words to explain the place I was, other than it is not this place, nor any other place, but all places are accessible from it, across the infinite spans of the universe." Sephiroth had said. "I found myself there after I had moved beyond my world, when Mother took me up to be one with her. I do not understand it, but I know one thing of it more than any. It is empty, except for Mother, and you and I would be beyond the reach of all other worlds there." He had gone on, talking of how difficult it was to be pulled back into a physical state, but how every iota of time was observable from the place Sephiroth had been. It could be made to seem as if it were any place, any time, any where, but it always was what it was: empty.
"Nor do I have words to describe what I am. I thought, at first, I would be a god. But I was more than that, and less at once." The look in Sephiroth's eyes had been distant and troubled. "What I am, I am a part of all things, and yet somehow I am beyond them all too. If I listen, I can hear even the smallest soul's life force, and feel its pain, its joy, its hunger, its satisfaction, from every world, throughout the universe. And somehow, I have powers I cannot understand, nor even know the limits of. And often, I wonder, if I am not as unlimited as the universe, were I to only extend myself far enough."
And Heero was to become like this, if he were to cross over, to become as Sephiroth put it. He stood looking out on the garden, feeling the wind, smelling the distant smell of the bay underlying the smells of the city on the wind, and the cool, damp smell of the garden. To leave behind this world, and everything in it, and in fact all things physical, forever possibly, and exchange them for the width and breadth of the universe at a whim. This world had no place for him any more, a solder without wars was nothing. It would be a small thing, a small price, to give up the physical of the world, for everything beyond it.
But what of those he would leave behind, he wondered. Duo and Quatre had a life to themselves, though Heero regretted not having saved Quatre from Duo, he knew there was nothing he could do. That drama would play its self out, and Heero could already see that Trowa, ever protective of the fragile blond that he still harbored some deep feeling for, would intervene before it went as far as it had with his own ordeal with Duo. The results, Heero could not foresee, but they would play out with or without him in the equation. And perhaps the other survivors, as they thought of themselves, would be better off without him as a complication.
As he watched a seagull wheel above the garden, he felt the sudden presence of Sephiroth behind him. Time to leave this all behind me, Heero thought, just as I left the killing and madness behind me, the next step is this. This word no longer needs me.
"Have you decided, Heero?" Sephiroth said softly.
Heero watched the gull flap its wings, and soar upwards into the blue sky with an empty, lonely cry.
"Hai."
* * *
The task ahead of him was daunting, Heero realized, but not impossible. Sephiroth had laid out for him a strict regiment of purification of the body and mind, insisting that these were required before anything else could be under taken. His body had grown used to regular food and sleep, and it protested the sudden return to fasting and sleep deprivation. But it remembered the old trainings, and returned quickly, once the basic protests had been overcome.
For two weeks, though it felt like much longer and much shorter a time all at once, Heero slowly cut down his intake of food and his sleep time. At last, Heero found himself once again surviving on a bare minimum of food, and no sleep. He felt strangely alive, and alert, his senses sharper seeming than they had been since long before. Too, he felt calm, almost serene, his mind filled with a peacefulness he had never known before. Soon, very soon, he would pass from this world, and be beyond its pain and violence. And that thought filled him with joy beyond words.
But there was an equal joy in his life, an equal state of bliss. Each night, Sephiroth drew him closer, rewarding him more, allowing him to feel more each night than he ever thought he would feel. The pleasure was addictive, but he did not hunger for it until he was given it, and there was no pang of guilt nor fear of its being revoked. Heero knew nothing beyond the rhythm of the days, and the icy cold of Sephiroth's touch. And even the icy cold of the alabaster skin faded with the time, no longer burning him from without and then from within. Sephiroth's touch felt as any other touch by the end of the two weeks of fasting and depravation, but it was still what he hungered for, and all he sought.
The night that marked the end of two weeks of the fast, Sephiroth and Heero sat together on the black futon couch in the small, unadorned living room. Sephiroth had been oddly silent that night, even more so than usual, if that were possible. Heero felt something stir in his mind, something beyond himself, that felt like Sephiroth's presence.
/It is time for the next stage, my dear one./ Came Sephiroth's though in his mind.
"Next?" Heero said, looking at Sephiroth, who regarded him with passive emptiness.
/You must seek out your last attachment to this planet, that one who still ties you here./ Sephiroth lay long graceful fingers on Heero's knee, and griped it firmly. /You will know the one, and you will know the way. But with that bond in tact, you cannot cross over as a whole being./
"I don't..." He started to say he didn't understand, and then, he understood. There was only one last tie for him in this world, and though he would give it up willingly, it still bound him even now. "Forgive me that was a foolish question." Heero shook his head.
/It is best you do this now, while you are pure of body and mind. Else it will be difficult for you./
Heero nodded. "Then I should go now."
Sephiroth looked at him with a strangely vacant expression, but the hand on his knee tightened its grip subtly but firmly. /Do not forget your destiny, perfect solder./
Heero bowed his head, and reached for the phone.
* * *
"This is completely out of character, Heero. Is there something wrong?" Trowa looked at him with open concern.
"Nothing is wrong, Trowa, nothing at all. I just needed to see you, and talk to you." Heero sat down on the couch that he remembered too well from his last visit to Trowa's home as Trowa shut the door and bolted it shut behind him. "I came to say goodbye, Trowa."
"Goodbye? What do you mean?" Trowa walked over and seemed about to sit, but did not. "What is going on, Heero?"
Heero shook his head. "I don't have a way to explain it, Trowa. I'm going away soon, and I will not ever be coming back to Earth. I can't tell you where I'm going, because I don't really know myself." Trowa looked at him with narrowed green eyes.
"Is this some secret mission? Surely they haven't summoned you up out of retirement for something?" Heero shook his head. "Worse, you haven't killed someone, have you?" The concern was serious in Trowa's eyes, but Heero could have almost taken it for a joke. "Surely this isn't necessary, Heero. Whatever it is, someone else can do it."
"I have to go, Trowa." Heero sighed. "I wanted to say goodbye first, before I leave."
"I can't pretend to understand, Heero, but if it means enough to you to come all this way, out of the blue, and very out of the norm, then I only know it must be important." Trowa sighed. "Why come to me, Heero?"
Heero looked up at the taller ex pilot from where he sat, and the memory of that unspoken affirmation seemed to be conveyed in Heero's eyes. Trowa looked pale, and suddenly vulnerable, and sat down hard on the couch next to Heero.
"It really meant all of that to you?" Trowa said softly.
Heero nodded silently, and put a brave hand on Trowa's knee.
"I didn't know, I didn't dare hope that it did." Trowa was suddenly seemingly lost in thought. "I don't know why it happened, or how, but it just felt so right." Trowa sighed, and started to say more, but Heero stopped him.
"Don't say any more, Trowa. Words only ruin that memory, and you know it." Trowa nodded. "I came here to say goodbye, to make whatever peace I needed to make with you." Heero laid a hand on top of one of Trowa's, and smiled inwardly when Trowa laid his other hand on top of it.
Trowa looked up at him, and that unspoken acceptance passed between them like a breath of wind. Heero laid the palm of his hand against Trowa's cheek, and felt the burning heat beneath the skin. Trowa closed his eyes, and sighed into the hand, pulling gently against his face.
"Heero, this shouldn't-", Heero stopped him, placing his fingers against Trowa's lips.
Once more, like it was then, Heero moved his lips to say. Trowa kissed the tips of his fingers in response, and relaxed visibly.
"Gaman dekinai," Trowa whispered softly. I cannot resist.
* * *
Silence is a powerful force in the universe. It is the natural state in the universe; sound is the disruption of order, the introduction of chaos. Silence is a static state, and as such, is the antithesis of life. Silence can overwhelm living beings, driving them to fight against it, or if unable to, they may be driven insane. But there is a power in silence, as unnatural as it seems to living things, that is awe inspiring and awful all at once, and this is a power that living things inherently respond to.
In silence unbroken except by the subtle sounds of movement, Trowa and Heero broke the bond that had stood between them, coming together in a quiet moment which seemed to last far longer than it did. For Heero, it wasn't the moment that mattered however; it was the flood of old memories that poured through his head. He was awash in a sea of remembering, every movement from the external mirrored by a surge in the ocean of past events.
Exchanging guiding touches, the occasional kiss, the two wound themselves around each other on the couch, lying together intertwined. Trowa's hands roved slowly, softly, over Heero's stomach beneath his shirt, at once teasing, and puling Heero back against his own body, rubbing against him gently. How many memories Heero had of the same movement, repeated either here, on this couch, or in the shower, or on the bed, he could not count, and felt each instant happen in tandem with the motions of the present. Trowa's hand strayed lower, sliding beneath the waistline of his pants, reaching and then fingertips brushing against the head of his dick, slowly wrapping around it with a gentile squeeze. Heero gasped silently, and closed his eyes, aware suddenly of how awakened his senses truly were.
There was no filter of the mix of pain and pleasure, only the sensation as it should be, as Trowa gently played with him, lingering touches along his length. Trowa pulled his hand free, and separated from the entanglement for a moment to pull off his shoes and pants, and then curled back behind Heero, lips brushing his ear and neck sending shivers along his spine. With a gentile tug Trowa told Heero to do the same and Heero allowed Trowa to help, relishing the heat of Trowa's hands against his skin. Better still, Trowa pulled close against him, letting Heero know what it was he wanted, bare skin from waist to toes touching as fully as it could against Heero's back and legs.
Heero pushed back, the silent acceptance, as Trowa's hand resumed its wandering, spidery tease across his lower body. Heero felt Trowa's free hand, lying between them, move, and felt the tentative adjustments of Trowa moving himself into place, the head of his dick pushed against, but not pushing against, Heero's ass. Heero breathed out slowly, relaxing his body, feeling the memories surge up and swallow him as Trowa's saliva wet fingers darted around that meeting, preparing for what was inevitable.
Trowa paused, placing his roving hand against Heero's hip, bracing in preparation. Heero nodded slightly, and Trowa pushed forward, pushing himself into Heero with one deep thrust, grunting deep in his chest as Heero opened his mouth in a silent moan. Heero lost himself then, memory flooding his mind along with the waves of pleasure each outward pull and inward thrust filled him with. He felt himself lost in the moment, unaware of anything then beyond what he felt, reality overwhelmed by the pleasure of the moment. Heero closed his eyes, and let go of himself.
* * *
And when it was over, he was left feeling drained and empty, his mind and body spent totally. But Heero knew he could not linger. And yet, he found himself tempted to stay, just for the night, there in that peaceful moment. He laid on the couch still, Trowa behind him, with his arm across his ribs, both filled with the exhaustion that settled over the body and mind. Gratification, deep and indescribable, filled him with a warm glow of pleasure, overlaying the ache within his spent body. He felt content to do nothing more to stay there, unmoving, until morning. Trowa laid his head against the back of Heero's neck, and Heero could feel the heat of his soft breathing against his skin like the heat from a flame held close to his skin. How wonderful it would be, Heero thought, just to stay here and drown in this heat. The fatigue of the afterglow settled over him heavily, deep from within his body, weighing him down, pulling him towards sleep.
But Sephiroth's reminder chided him from within his mind. He had to leave, and soon. Heero waited, and listened to Trowa's ever slowing breathing. Soon it became deep and regular, entering the first stages of sleep. Still Heero waited. Finally, Trowa's breathing settled in to a shallower, regular cycle, the breathing of one deeply asleep. Now was his time to leave.
He extracted himself from the couch, slowly detangling himself from Trowa, trying not to disturb his sleep. Trowa did not stir, not at all, even as Heero stood and pulled back on his pants and shoes. Even when Heero turned to look back at Trowa on the couch, there was not a stir of movement other than breathing. Watching Trowa, with his eyes closed and face lost in the relaxation of sleep, Heero felt despair close its icy fist on his heart, yet the feeling was strangely distant, far removed from him for all its pain.
Yet as he closed the door softly behind him and began heading for the elevators, he felt the strange, cold feel of tears on his face.
"Farewell, Trowa."
* * *
Trowa waited until he heard the door click closed, and then slowly counted to one hundred in his head. Sure then that Heero was gone, he opened his eyes and sat up. Trowa sighed deeply, and leaned back, making no move to dress, and only moved the towel to vaguely cover him. He held his head in his hands, and closed his eyes.
"He's gone." Trowa said without even bothering to look up.
In response, the guest bedroom door swung open silently, and a tall, pale skinned man with a disorderly mane of ebony black hair stepped from the darkness inside. Dark eyes looked out of a thin, high cheeked face, focusing on Trowa who did not look up.
"It was exactly as I said, wasn't it?" The man said, leaning against the bedroom doorway.
"Exactly," Trowa said. "His skin was like ice, and he smelled like dead flowers. Whatever that was, it wasn't the Heero that I know." Trowa looked up and met the gaze of the dark haired man. "It was horrible; I had no control over myself. None at all. I can't believe I did that, without a second thought. And yet..." Trowa shook his head.
"You wanted it." The man shrugged, and pushed himself off the door frame, walking towards the couch. "Such is the power that foul thing has over the world, and worse, over those it takes over, such as Heero. It warps and twists will so that it can prey on the darkest desires of the human heart to gain its own goals. I have, unfortunately, seen it before." The man brushed loose strands of hair from his face, and continued. "But he is not too far gone yet. There is still something left of his human nature still. I can still smell the heat in his blood, so Sephiroth has not drained the life from him completely. Not yet."
"Then, he can still be saved?" Trowa's eyes followed his visitor to the closet.
The man nodded as he reached for a long, red leather duster coat from the closet. He put it on with a practiced, easy twirl, and turned to look at Trowa.
"Heero is still human until the moment he crosses into the Life Stream, and as such can still be saved. But if he crosses into the Stream, even for a moment, he will be like Sephiroth, another arm of that deep evil that has tainted the universe." The man pulled a pack of slim, white cigarettes from the coat pocket, and pulled one out. He started to light it, and then stopped, looking at Trowa for a moment. "I have to leave you now, Trowa. I'm sorry, but I must stop Sephiroth, this time for good. I cannot let him claim any more souls."
Trowa nodded. "Will I see you again?"
The man shrugged. "I cannot say, because I do not know. But I do hope that I do see you again, someday." The man lit the cigarette, letting its long trail of thin, white smoke rise. "You must take care, Trowa. You have the taint of Sephiroth on your body yourself now. It can be cleansed, but you would not like the way."
"How? I can already feel the cold settling into my body. How can I be rid of this?" Trowa shivered.
"There is only one way to be rid of that cold touch." The man started towards the door, turned, and looked at Trowa much as Heero had not long ago. "A bath in freshly let human blood is the only thing that will wash that taint away." He saw the appalled look on Trowa's face and sighed, breathing out a plume of smoke. "I have washed it from my body many times, as I have hunted Sephiroth across worlds, and it never becomes any more pleasant." The man sighed. "I am sorry, Trowa, but I must follow him now, before I loose the scent."
Trowa nodded, and the man turned to go, but Trowa spoke again. "Vincent," Trowa reached for the drawer in the end table beside the couch, and pulled out a medium caliber hand gun. Vincent turned, and a bloodless smile formed beneath the gracele hook of his nose.
"Keep it, Trowa. I have no need of it now that I know how to find Sephiroth." Vincent turned, opened the door, stepped across the threshold, and vanished from Trowa's sight as it closed behind him, leaving Trowa alone in the silence of the night.
* * *
"You are back faster than I had expected," Sephiroth said without turning from the garden overlook as Heero came through the door behind him. Heero stopped, waiting for Sephiroth to say more.
"I am impressed that you came back at all." Sephiroth turned, the unnatural blue of his eyes almost glowing in the dim light. "But you passed that final test much better than I expected."
"It was a test?" Was all Heero could manage in response.
"In its way, it was." Sephiroth shrugged, leaning back against the railing. "It was cruel of me, I suppose, but it had to be done that way, or it would not have been successful." Blue eyes narrowed, regarding Heero from across the room. "I had to be sure, had to make sure, that you were ready to cut all ties to this world. You seemed to have done it well, or at least," Sephiroth gave a sniff, as though smelling something unpleasant "as well as you could."
"What happened, I can explain..." Heero started, fear rising in his gut.
Sephiroth raised a hand, cutting Heero off. "There is no need to explain, Heero. What happened, happened because it was supposed to happen." Sephiroth crossed the room to Heero, and laid a hand gently on Heero's shoulder. "I sent you there knowing well what would happen. It is no fault of yours other than your human blood."
Suddenly a smile crossed the pale face, and Sephiroth laughed gently. "Do not worry so much, dear one." Sephiroth held Heero's chin gently between his fingers. "Go and shower, and when you are done, we will make our preparations to leave."
"Where are we going?" Heero asked.
"Ah, I have not been idle while you were gone." Sephiroth smiled smugly. "I have found where the Life Stream of this world shows through. The place where we will both return to where we are meant to be." Sephiroth laughed. "As much as your culture thinks they know the world, there is an island in your" Sephiroth paused, trying to remember, "North Atlantic – yes, that's where –
"And if you ask me how we are getting there, I will remind you that I have already crossed half the globe with you once, and doing it once again is no more troublesome." Sephiroth pushed him towards the bathroom with the hand on his shoulder, a gentile shove. "Now go shower, and get that smell of human skin off of you. And be quick, I feel that we are suddenly under the knife when it comes to time."
A mile away, Vincent raised his nose to the night wind, searching once more for the trail that he had followed across the continent. Beneath the smell of the city, the automotive stench and the reek of human distress, beneath the smells of the sea and the wind, there lingered a smell distantly described as the sweetly sickening smell of rotting flowers. Vincent smiled, revealing for a moment the curve of overlong canines, and then moved on, his face set in grim determination, walking into the wind.
* * *
A pool of liquid shadow slid its self under the apartment door, silent though there was no reason for stealth. It paused visibly once under, and then slowly solidified upward, like a cat's stretch, into Vincent's tall, frail figure. He stretched once again; popping joints back into place, and then sniffed the air. As he thought, they had been gone only seconds, for the smell of ozone still lingered in the air, overlaying the tainted rot of flowers and the bitter smell of lifeless living flesh.
Vincent looked around the spartan rooms of the apartment, noting the subtle overlay of personality into the form and function of the place, the preferences for light wood grain and black lacquer, the trend for vertical organization, and all of the other small hints of human logic onto simple patterns. The rooms were too light, too airy by far for his liking, but that was a taste born of a love of darkness and silence, and a somberness that had always been a part of his character. But Vincent noticed more what was missing from the room than anything. There was none of the residual smells and heat of human life except for the faintest scent of warm blood, but even that was old, weeks old, and told Vincent he might quite already be too late to pull yet another victim out of Sephiroth's grasp.
Walking through the rooms, he found the point at which the ozone smell was strongest, the center of the living room. This then, would have been where Sephiroth opened the door to step across the distance to wherever he had gone. The question was where that place was, one Vincent had to answer in order to follow. Vincent closed his eyes, breathing out deeply, letting his whole body and mind relax, then breathed in slowly, analyzing every particle of air. Sea salt, atmospheric ozone, basalt, brine, artic ice: the smells of an island in a northern ocean.
"Yes, that would make sense." Vincent said softly to himself, breathing out without opening his eyes. Vincent sighed, flexing the claws of his artificial hand, and stretched his jaws. Now was the part he hated the most.
He breathed out hard, emptying his lungs, and then sucked in breath, focusing on a knot of muscle in his gut. Then, like a shudder, he flexed his entire body, letting loose a flood of power that ran down his nerves like a shock of electrical current. Dark, bloody wings unfolded themselves from his back, ripping through flesh, stretching as the unfurled, and Vincent's jaw opened in a silent scream of pain that flashed fangs and serrated back molars.
Collapsing on to one knee, he breathed heavily for a moment, letting his body settle again, tasting the blood in his mouth brought up from his guts with the change. The pain and trauma of the change never lessened, but its necessity increased his recovery speed. Though not the havoc that it caused his internal organs. He stood, and opened his wings, fanning them to their full span before pulling them tightly back in, folding them carefully across his back. Only this way, as this Chaotic, could he travel as Sephiroth did.
"This time, Sephiroth, it will not be your victim I kill. This time," Vincent wiped a trail of blood from the corner of his mouth with the back of his hand. "This time, it will be you."
And he smiled, bloodless lips pressed thin, and stepped forward, crossing the boundaries of distance as easily as a threshold.
* * *
Lightening ripped across a sky of boiling slate clouds, a mirror of the sea below that churned and frothed with the wind which lashed across its surface with an icy, bitter bite. Alone in the middle of the chaos of the perpetual storm of the north sea, a crag of an island, a cluster of hexagonal basalt pillars around the rising scar of a crater , rose like a blister. It would have been like any other isolated, forgotten crag in the sea, but for the pale blue light that flooded upward from within the crater, lighting the clouds above and sea around like a torch.
Heero looked around himself, standing on the strange, hexagonal basalt formations, feeling suddenly fragile and deeply mortal in the presence of the sea, storm, and the icy, fiery blue light. The wind tore at him, biting him with ice crystals too fine to settle as snow, and the lightening roared defiance at his presence, threatening him with the primal voice the first humans had scampered from in fear before they had even sense enough to look up. He wanted to turn, run, to find shelter from this, but there was none. Fear was something he had once never known, but now, he knew it in its most instinctual: the fear of the unknown.
Sephiroth stood beside him, untouched by the wind except for his long, silver hair, that danced in the wind like a myriad of silver ribbons. The thunder was not a threat for him, but a trumpet call of triumph. The blue light lit his eyes with an ethereal fire, sending the silver sparks into a spasmodic dance of light and even faint lines of glowing silver light showed beneath his skin, outlining the paths of veins. He laughed, his voice an answer to the thunder, a wordless call of victory to whatever there was to hear it.
"Mother waits for us, dear one," Sephiroth said, laying a powerful hand on Heero's cringing shoulder. "Come, come…" Sephiroth laughed, a mad sound, "We must not keep her waiting too long." And with that, he shoved Heero ahead of him, walking across the beach of hexagonal stone, towards the crater's slope. Reluctantly, Heero obliged.
The crested the ridge of the crater's caldera long minutes later, and stood looking into a seething blue pit of light that filled the crater's bowl like a lake. Heero hesitated, suddenly all of this made far too real for him to face at once. Sephiroth gave no pause, only nudged Heero forward none too gently, pushing him onward, down to the caldera shore below. Unsteadily Heero stepped down the shear loose stone slope, bare feet scraping painfully on the basalt shards, the cold stone cutting into his feet like razors as he stumbled more than walked until at last he stood by the edge of the glowing pool of light.
Sephiroth's face was a wicked, gleeful smile, laughing as loudly as the thunder. "At last, at last!" He all but sang, arms raised up towards the thunder heads. "Now at last, I will have what is mine. Oh yes, Mother, thank you, thank you!" Heero could only stand and watch in amazement as Sephiroth rejoiced, shivering in the cold wind.
At last, Sephiroth seemed to come back, though still smiling, and faced Heero, placing hands on his shoulders. "Now, now is the time, dear one, oh yes. Now you will go meet Mother, and be taken up to her. And then, oh and the, you will be with me for all time." Sephiroth roughly pulled him forward and kissed him, wrapping his arms around Heero so tightly Heero felt his breath leaving his lungs.
Suddenly, Sephiroth pulled back, blue eyes regarding Heero blankly. "Now, you will claim your destiny, Heero Yui, now you will receive Mother's reward for all her solders. And," Sephiroth suddenly turned away from him, looking up towards the crater's ridge, "And no one, not even you, can stop it!" Sephiroth suddenly bellowed. "Have you come to kill yet another one, Vincent? Have you!? If you are, come and show yourself, murderer. No more of this sulking in the shadows, Vincent, no more!"
Slowly, from his hiding place behind the ridge, Vincent rose, spreading his wings. With a single, graceful leap, he landed several yards from Sephiroth at the edge of the light, wings flexing and folding as he balanced.
"No, Sephiroth, I am not here for him." Vincent said softly. "I am here to kill you."
* * *
Sephiroth laughed, a mad sound that made Heero pull back and away from him, stepping closer to the edge of the light without realizing it.
"Then come, Vincent, if you have come to kill me, now there is no better time." Sephiroth spread his arms, as if welcoming a blow. "I wear flesh and blood, frail and mortal, just as you." Sephiroth stepped towards Vincent, the motion threatening. "The Masamune is long gone, Vincent, its blade cannot hurt you now. All that is left is this lonely, torn soul and body." Sephiroth smiled and evil, oily smile across the icy air at Vincent.
"How many more worlds would you purge if you had the Black Materia again, Sephiroth?" Vincent asked, flexing his metal claws. "How many more worlds would you infect with Jenova's taint? How many more lives will you take before Her foul work is done?"
Sephiroth's eyes narrowed. "As many lives as it must take. Her work is the work of the Universe." Sephiroth seemed to hesitate. "She is the soul of existence, Vincent, and you should know the truth before you speak such lies."
"Lies? You are the one speaking lies, Sephiroth." Vincent growled. "You never learned the truth of your birth, nor the truth about Jenova. You think that mass of cancerous tainted cells was your mother? She was only a contaminant in the system, Sephiroth, another of Hojo's sick and twisted experiments. You are Lucrecia's child by blood and birth, Sephiroth, you are her flesh more than you were ever Jenova's. And do you know who your father was, Sephiroth, do you?" Vincent snarled angrily. "It was Hojo. He sired you, and you are nothing more than a perversion of the life Lucrecia was trying to bring into the world."
"Liar!" Sephiroth bellowed. "She has told me herself, Mother tells me the truth! Hojo may have made me, but I am the child of Jenova! I am the last of the Ancients, and I have attained godhood as was my destiny!"
Vincent spread his wings, and narrowed darkly glowing eyes. "I will let you kill no more, monster." Vincent growled low.
"Monster? I am no more a monster than you, Vincent. We were both made, and worse, made by the same hand. At least you avenged yourself on him. I unfortunately had no such chance." Sephiroth stepped closer to Vincent, who did not back away. "Did killing Hojo make the dreams go away, Vincent? Did she stop screaming in your dreams?" Sephiroth stepped forward again, looming closer with each question. "She bore me into this life, this torment, Vincent, from her own flesh I was made. Don't you think I wished just as much to punish Hojo for that as for making me?"
They were only a foot apart suddenly, and Sephiroth stopped, looking strait into Vincent's face. "You still dream her, and that's why you hunt me: the perversion of life born from your beloved's body." Sephiroth snarled at Vincent, "Do you think I asked to be born as such?!"
"No one asks to be born." Vincent said without stepping back from Sephiroth's press. "I kill you to save worlds, not for my own vendettas. No longer can you be let run free."
"Foolish mortal." Sephiroth said with a laugh, and turned away from Vincent dismissing his presence.
In the instant of the turn, Vincent lunged, lashing out with his clawed hand, reaching for Sephiroth. The claws raked across Sephiroth's ribs, cutting to the bone, spilling silver blood across torn black leather and pale skin. Sephiroth yelled, a groan of pain and outrage, clasping at his side as he fell to one knee. Vincent's roar of rage opened up a reply to the cacophony of thunder as he lunged forwards once again, seeking flesh with his claws, feeling the shift complete its self mid lunge, his body taken over by the monster within him.
There was no conscious thought after that, only the spray of silver blood, the reek of dead flowers, and the dying cries of a god.
* * *
Forgotten in the instant are often the smallest details. In the instant that Vincent's claws raked across Sephiroth side, Heero Yui stepped backward with a cry of shock and horror. His foot found no surface, only empty space, and slowly he fell backwards, watching the spray of silver blood as Vincent tore into Sephiroth rise as he fell into blue light.
The blue light closed over Heero's head, immersing him in the sensation of warm, thick fluid. A current in the light pulled at him, tugging him down and away from the surface before he could react. Overcome, he struggled against the pull of the current, trying to regain the surface, struggling to reach air. He held his breath until it burned in his lungs, his body screaming for air. Yet still he could not seem to swim back to the surface as some powerful current pulled him further down deeper into the light. Heero began to panic, to flail, feeling his lungs demand to breath even against the knowledge that if he breathed, he would drown.
(Breathe.)
Heero stopped flailing. The voice had resonated through the liquid light, through his body, making his entire body the ear that heard the voice. He tried to swim again, but found himself sinking like a stone. Black spots danced in his vision.
(Breathe in. No harm will come to you.)
Heero realized he had no choice. He would pass out soon, and he would breathe then one way or another. And it would be better, he thought distantly, to die under my own power, than to die unconscious. And so he breathed out, watching the bubbles of dead air escape, and then breathed in.
The same warm fluid sensation that was exterior filled his throat and mouth, flooding into his body, and filling his lungs. He gagged, choking on the liquid in his lungs as the residual air rose to the top and escaped in large bubbles as his diaphragm lurched, trying to expel the fluid from his lungs. He panicked again, flailing as he sunk deeper, and tried to scream, but found he only breathed in more warm liquid.
(Be still, and breathe.)
And his body stopped fighting. And he breathed. The warmth of the fluid light filled his body, and suffused through his body. He felt peaceful, sinking deeper into the light, his body floating limply as it drifted in the currents of the light. How is this, he wondered, that I am still aware. I must be dead, drowned in this, Heero thought, and this must be the hell I am damned to.
(You live, you are. Now is the time.)
Heero closed his eyes, yet found it no different from his eyes open. The pale blue light flooded through everything. And then something simply let go, a relaxing of some binding that released the torrent. Heero suddenly was caught in it, the current swelling and rising, washing around him, flooding through him, washing him away.
There are no words for the experience of this. Experience is even the wrong word, for there to be experience there must be something to experience. The duality of existence and non existence, being and not being, even thing and not thing: all of this is without meaning - even meaning and no meaning mean nothing.
This is the presence of all and nothing, of emptiness and everything.
* * *
"What happened to him, Vincent?" Trowa's look betrayed the concern he tried to hide.
"There are no words for what happened to him. He is still who he was, but he has been made more. How much more, I cannot say. I am not sure even he knows how much he has been changed."
Together they stood looking across the cityscape of uptown, the domes alight with the glow of the buildings beneath, many pierced by the spires of taller buildings that towered towards the star studded night sky. Trowa put his hand on the glass of the plate window, eyes seeing only the lonely, dark figure perched on the spire of a building rising from the neighboring dome. Vincent stood beside Trowa, eyes watching the same figure, but with a much different expression.
"How much longer will he stay out there?" Trowa asked.
"Again, I can't say. He is coming to terms with what he is." Vincent placed a comforting hand on Trowa's shoulder. "I can much relate to what he feels, but he must feel it a thousand times over from what I felt."
"He won't become like..." Trowa trailed off, looking at Vincent fearfully.
"No. There is none of the taint of Jenova on him, nor any residual of Sephiroth's being still in him. He will be nothing like them. But what he will be like, I have no way to tell."
Outside in the darkness, the figure stirred, shifting its perched weight. The being that once had been Heero Yui shifted to sit back, easing his weight off his knees. He stretched, full body extending its self, every muscle flexing and relaxing, including the slew of new ones across his back and shoulders. With them, he flexed the most outward sign of his change, a pair of white pinions with an almost ten foot span, and carefully refolded them. He settled back in, and pulled his knees to his chest, resting his head on them.
What is this I have become, he wondered.
(You are what you are meant to be.) The voice whispered to him in the night wind. (The world still has need of such as you, and will have even greater need very soon.)
What am I supposed to do?
(You will be, and continue to be. And you will do what you need to do.) The voice rippled through his hair, like the touch of vocal fingers. (And that is all you will do.)
Heero closed his eyes, and it was only with the next breath of wind that he felt the cool evaporation of tears on his cheeks