Chapter Text
If pressed--and there was none who could force the truth from him---Sephiroth had little interest in his soulmate. It was not--despite what Genesis would say--his vanity, or even arrogance, his opinion of himself so far above others that he couldn't be bothered to care.
Genesis' opinion of him--perception of him--was becoming a stranger Sephiroth couldn't recognize, robotic and sanctimonious.
The reality was that if Shinra found his soulmate, no matter how powerful or exotic, she would quickly become a pawn, one more bit of leverage for the Company to use against him. If she was weak, or inconveniently honorable, she would probably be removed and disposed of before he could even meet her.
He was Shinra property, and one the President was openly possessive of. A soulmate--a soul bond--would never have a chance to grow. It would simply be too inconvenient for the company mission.
So Sephiroth... didn't worry about it.
In truth--always a rare and precious commodity in the Company--he couldn't imagine his soulmate, much less invest much interest in her theoretical existence.
She could not be his equal--he had no equal, no true contemporaries. Not even Angeal and Genesis, not even together. This was a fact. What kind of person could possibly measure up to holding the other half of his soul? Of making him a greater and better person than he was now?
Genesis and Angeal...complimented each other, in fighting styles and personality, values and aspirations. Or at least, so it seemed when Sephiroth compared their interactions to the textbook soulmate relationship. They fought, argued, and then were partners again. They cared for one another, improved each other, and made the other stronger. As soulmates should.
Shinra Company had few soulmate relationships he could observe--the Company discouraged them, discouraged anything that could divide loyalty--but his friends seemed to meet the standard.
Sephiroth didn't believe an opposite personality was enough to compliment a partnership. If that were true then Heidigger was a potential candidate for him: loud, lazy, and painfully ineffective. Sephiroth would kill such a person first.
Probably.
It was illegal to murder a soulmate, but Sephiroth had already murdered so many, and for so much less. What was one more?
***
Sephiroth had been six years old, on one of his first missions, knee deep in rancid yellow swamps and covered in Marlboro blood, when the soul brand burned crimson on his left fingers.
At first Sephiroth had thought it was poison, stuck between his gloves. One more thing for his trainers to mark him down for.
Then the red strings of fate curled around his fingers, bright scarlet and transparent in the bug-filled evening gloom.
Sephiroth first reaction was surprise. Here was proof, visible indisputable proof, that he was human, that he had a soul. He was different, better, than all the other caged animals in Hojo’s lab. He had been chosen.
The second reaction was hope.
***
Angeal was dead, and Sephiroth will never be certain if it was degradation, Genesis, or the soul bond that drove Angeal to madness, to despair.
Angeal had been a constant, reliable mountain of strength. Now he was dead.
A soulmate is not always an advantage.
Sephiroth wondered if life would be better if the red threads, soulmates, didn't exist at all. If Genesis had died, would Angeal had lived?
The existence of a soulbound is no guarantee of safety.
***
Sephiroth stands tall in the Nibelheim reactor, blood on fire and brain warm and fuzzy with his Mother's voice, with his Mother's love.
Down the length of Masamune is a speared Shinra trooper, flopping and struggling to grab the blade and--what? What?
Sephiroth chuckles, low and strange.
Pull the blade out? Pull him off balance? Foolishness...
Sephiroth yanks the blade back so he can decapitate the little irritant (Zack's friend, a voice whispers, Zack) and--jerks.
The blade won't pull free.
His brain is foggy, afire. It is so difficult to concentrate on anything for more than seconds.
The trooper jerks as Sephiroth yanks, bouncing, but his feet don't leave the floor. Blood spatters and flows red on the black metal floor. The trooper has a tight grip on the naked blade, holds death in his hands and doesn’t flinch.
Red threads of fate squirm on the trooper’s hand, reach for Sephiroth down the seven-foot length of Masamune’s unforgiving blade.
Fizzing and itchy static burns through Sephiroth’s head, melts out his eye sockets, the red threads of fate are burning through his arm—
The trooper gains enough leverage on Masamune to toss him off the catwalk, to actually throw Sephiroth, and Sephiroth seems to float in the sickly air. The trooper staggers forward, Masamune still lodged inside him, and pulls a gleaming green Materia out.
Distantly--absurdly—Sephiroth wonders if the trooper is authorized to carry materia; Shinra has been getting cheap with equipment lately.
He slams into the wall, and it is only decades of drills and training that lands him on his feet. A quick correction saves him from stumbling. His mind sloshes in his skull. It feels like walking on oil, like walking through gelatin...he needs to get his Mother...
Pain sears through warm cotton surrounding his brain, burns into his skull and bones and nervous system, brings him to his knees then elbows and Sephiroth screams.
***
He wakes up.
It takes...a moment, to remember who he is. Where he is. Sephiroth can remember... blurred moments. A burning town and blood on Masamune...
His mother, calling him. His mother's corpse. Her deteriorating body... hidden in the reactor he was sent to investigate. That they were sent to investigate.
He killed Zack.
Sephiroth flies to his feet, suspicious this is all a fever dream, perhaps the result of one of Hojo’s tests.
Zack lies on a crumpled pipe, surrounded by a lopsided pool of blood. Dried blood, it has been at least five hours since the initial attack, in these humid conditions. He doesn’t appear to be visibly breathing.
Sephiroth keeps his distance.
They aren't... friends. Not friends the way Genesis and Angeal had been, the way Sephiroth will never again allow anyone to be. They aren't even friends the way Zack seems to be friendly with everyone he meets, from Turks to strangers to promising Thirds.
But.
Zack had been important to Angeal. Has been a faithful ally to Sephiroth.
Sephiroth stays where he is, and casts Cure before checking if Zack is alive. Before checking if the spell has anything to do.
No one else...knows him, anymore, at Shinra. The soldiers he took to Wutai are dead or retired. The SOLDIER program has a high turnover rate, with few new candidates. Sephiroth has always kept himself separate.
If Zack dies, the only person who knows anything about him at Shinra will be Hojo.
Sephiroth has no world outside Shinra.
He’ll be alone.
He casts Cure, over and over again, until the magic-fatigue and burn start to pull at his hand, the muscles, long after he can see Zack’s chest move and the other man moans.
Finally, Sephiroth approaches, removes a glove and checks Zack’s pulse. It’s weak and fluttery.
Zack settles against his chest as Sephiroth picks him up, limbs stiff and cold, clothing damp from the blood. Zack is normally never so still.
Then ...
Then Sephiroth settles into the fever dream. He walks back up the steps to where his mother's corpse hung.
The trooper is still on the floor, sprawled on his side, Masamune pinning him like a butterfly against cork. Evidence of Sephiroth’s insanity, a moment of pain suspended in amber and surrounded by blood.
The red strings of fate warm Sephiroth’s left hand the closer he steps, the rosy filaments reaching for the trooper with every footfall. Red threads snake out slowly from the troopers left hand, and finally--finally--connect to Sephiroth’s. A thin scarlet spiderweb weaves them together, fragile and tenuous.
The helmet covers his face. What does his soulmate look like? What kind of person...
Sephiroth slides Masamune free. A thin trickle of bright copper flows out of his soulmate.
He continues walking.
Next is the blackened and burned remains of whatever was suspended in the tank. Sephiroth regards it solemnly, ears focused on Zack’s silent breaths.
Could a Cetra truly exist in such a decayed state? Would she have been so vulnerable to magic?
Would...why did he attack Zack?
If Sephiroth is truly descended from such a lofty lineage...he cannot help but feel tired, overwhelmed.
Cetra are guardians of the planet, gods, and at the moment he...
He turns on his heel, marching away, until the red threads snap and fade.
***
Nibelheim is still on fire, smoldering in the gray pre-dawn light as Sephiroth descends the mountains, Zack thrown over his shoulder.
He avoids entering, looking over the forbidding cliffs and thick tree cover before choosing a spot that will allow him to watch the road entering the town, as well as the path going up to the reactor. They are attacked by wolves, which turns out to be convenient—they’ll need the meat, and Sephiroth is wary about entering the town.
Sephiroth is…wary about this place. It has felt like walking hand in hand with ghosts since he arrived, and ghosts are all too willing to pull him down.
As dawn breaks a few stragglers come out of the tree line, wailing and crying, gathering the dead and healing the wounded. It’s a slow process. The civilians reel in shock. This town is not accustomed to violence on such a scale. Such slaughter was common in Wutai, at the height of the war. It has not fazed Sephiroth for years.
Sephiroth tries to pick out familiar figures in the living, in the dead on the ground, people he met briefly before secluding himself in the Shinra library.
He recognizes the woman who served them breakfast, her body sliced in two. The traveling salesman who stayed at the inn two doors down from them is missing his lower body. The nosy child that had followed Zack around, in awe of real SOLDIERs, of real heroes.
He had no reason to kill these people. It’s a waste of his skill.
He had no reason to act this way.
Thoughts spiral and circle in his mind, and Sephiroth does not feel—present. He isn’t sure where he is, but he is not in attendance to his actual body.
There is a Shinra trooper uniform among the dead. It can’t be the one from the reactor…which means Sephiroth has killed at least one of his own men in the last seventy-two hours. Possibly more if his soulmate doesn’t survive. If Zack…
His mind skirts away from the thought. He should probably be…ashamed, but he can only feel numb. Dull.
The day marches on. He doesn’t move for hours, clutches Zack to his chest.
Before noon, the sun cutting hard lines through the dense cloud cover of the high mountains, Shinra arrives.
Troopers and infantry pour out of vans and SUVs and round up the remaining survivors at gunpoint. Sephiroth watches a young girl with long hair shout at the soldiers, throw out a windmilling kick, before a few shots fire. Screams ring out as more bodies fall.
The survivors go much more easily into the vans after that, as the military performs a quiet clean-up. Through the dense foliage of green and gray, Sephiroth observes Professor Hojo, surrounded by lackeys and Turks, inspecting the wreckage of Nibelheim before the entourage goes up the mountain. Hours later, they return with his soulmate in a gurney and disappear into the Shinra mansion.
Sephiroth studies who enters and leaves, notes the uninforms and ranks, and counts the remaining troops left once the main force leaves. This observation is his mind running on automatic, without necessary direction from him.
Smoke spirals into the cold mountain evening air. Thin trails of white steam join it from the scorched wooden buildings as the sun sets and the temperature drops. He wraps Zack in his leather coat.
He cannot shake the feeling he is falling, falling down a dark silent void. His equilibrium and balance are shot, and his mind is unnaturally silent. Empty.
If he clutches Zack’s hand too hard while the other man sleeps—well, what does it matter? Zack may never wake again.
***
He keeps Zack hydrated and forces gruel and potions down his throat throughout the week. Birds call and flutter high in the trees—a sure sign the woods have nearly emptied out of humans, save the group in the old Shinra mansion. Smoke and ash settle in his long silver hair and turn it granite gray. Ash and sweat seep into his skin.
He cleans Zack’s face as best he can.
Sephiroth himself does not drink much. Hunger pains grip his stomach, and his head is light from hunger, but he cannot bring himself to eat. He does not sleep. His eyeballs develop a burning film.
He cannot sleep. He doesn’t know who he will wake up as.
When Zack wakes, he is, understandably, confused and distressed. He is also in a lot more pain than Sephiroth had accounted for—there’s nothing wrong or substandard about Zack’s enhancements, but Sephiroth always holds back during the few times they’ve sparred. It’s been so long (years, long before Angeal, long before Genesis) since Sephiroth has actually fought all-out that he…
…he no longer knows his own strength. He doesn’t know what he’s capable of.
“You left Cloud behind?!?” True to form, Zack is much angrier that Sephiroth abandoned the trooper, rather than his own betrayal, his own injuries.
“Is that his name?” Sephiroth asks, voice rusty like grinding glass. He is still recovering from a cough due the smoke coating his lungs. Cloud. What an odd name for a man; for his soulmate. “I thought it was Reynolds?”
“No,” Zack is better with people, names, even with his skin grey and breathing labored. He seems mentally intact, pupils focused and tracking normally. “Reynolds was the one helping us out, Cloud was run over by the motorcycle when we arrived, remember? His skull was cracked, he’s spent the last couple of days unconscious. He shouldn’t even be awake—much less fighting you—"
Ah. Then his soul mate is the blond trooper. The hometown boy—Nibelheim had been his home. Hojo has had him for nearly a week.
Zack struggles to stand, “We’ve got to rescue him—I can’t believe you just left him—we’ve got to—I’ve got to—”
“Zack—”
“—the hell is going on Sephiroth!? What did you do?”
“Lieutenant.” Sephiroth snaps. Zack can barely stand, “Enough.”
Zack balks, for a moment in shock. Sephiroth rarely has to raise his voice to him. They’ve been not-friends, not-quite-partners for so long, their relationship easy and comfortable—before determination furrows Zack’s brow and his hackles raise.
“I don’t know,” Sephiroth speaks urgently, quietly. “I don’t remember.”
He steamrolls over Zack’s protests, overriding him.
“There is no advantage to murdering a civilian population in such a remote location; this place has no tactical purpose. I had no logical reason to act as I did. When have you ever known me to act without reason?” that gives Zack pause, stops him from trying to cut a word in.
“I still cannot explain why, not even to myself.” That hurts to admit, but Zack deserves to know the truth. Zack has always been loyal.
“But I was expected to act accordingly.”
“Accordingly?”
Sephiroth briefs him on the Shinra vans, the soldiers and kidnapping. Hojo.
“This was deliberately planned.”
Emotions play across Zack’s face as he takes it in. He’s not as naïve or inflexible as Angeal, but he still believes in his work, believes that heroism has something to do with Shinra’s grander purpose. “I was manipulated,” Sephiroth adds, watching Zack’s eyes, the tight line of his lips. “I mean to uncover by whom, and why.”
Sephiroth inhales briefly, before asking “Will you help me?”
While…he feels he already knows Zack’s answer, he had nearly murdered him less than a week ago. Some reserve would—should—be expected. Sephiroth dislikes asking for things, rather than commanding them.
“Absolutely,” Zack doesn’t hesitate.
Working with Zack has always been easy.
***
Now that Zack is awake, if not quite combat ready, Sephiroth is free to follow Hojo into the decrepit mansion, back where his mind started to crumble.
He is hunting the dark corners, spiderwebs and fine dust clinging to his clothes, when Sephiroth hears his soulmate shouting beneath the floorboards with his enhanced hearing. Apparently, there is a lower level. The basement labs hidden below the mansion are bewitchingly familiar, more disturbing than the haunted and moldering upper levels. The labs are much cleaner too.
Hojo has the labs working on a skeleton staff again; it made it easier to keep secrets, made the inevitable clean up much more efficient. A few well aimed sleep spells allow Sephiroth to stroll in unremarked upon; Hojo is too engaged with his latest experiment to notice, and the few lab techs present are too busy being shouted at and harangued for faster results, more data.
If Hojo cared about working effectively, properly to health and safety protocols, the lab would be fully staffed and well-guarded. Sephiroth is a tall man, well over six feet, imposing, but there simply isn’t anyone spare to notice him. There probably are guards—Sephiroth estimates at least five guards stayed behind by his rough count—but they are likely out patrolling the dark and labyrinth mansion, rather than protecting Hojo. Sephiroth lurks next to a black filing cabinet and observes.
His soul mate beats his fists against his glass tank in the center of the room, shouting at Hojo, hatred and rage etched clearly in his face, in his shining blue eyes. Mako eyes.
How strange.
Sephiroth lurks in the shadows, listens idly to Hojo’s mutterings as magic and gas is run through the glass cage, causing the trooper to…twitch almost, to blur, as if trapped in a Haste loop. The blond trooper—Cloud—is dressed in a thin white hospital gown, the bloodied trooper uniform gone. Cloud hammers his fists against the glass, looking for a weakness to exploit—even with SOLDIER strength, the glass is very strong.
The trooper notices Sephiroth lurking in the shadows before the lab techs and guards do, but once the others do notice—well, these are people who deserve to die.
He only needs Hojo alive long enough to explain, and after that…
Glass shatters in the fight as bullets fly, trying to pin down Sephiroth as if he was normal human. He sees his soulmate break through his cage from his peripheral vision. A few seconds later, the last of the guards dispatched, he turns.
His soulmate has a slight body and short stature, and Sephiroth genuinely didn’t expect him to recover after the motorcycle accident, much less so quickly. The trooper shouldn’t even be mobile after Masamune’s attack, after all the blood loss and tissue damage.
Nevertheless, the blond trooper has Hojo pinned on the concrete floor, hands clenched tight around the scientist’s throat while Hojo flails and struggles beneath him. Hojo is stabbing his soul mate with a scalpel, still trying to talk as the trooper throttles him, slams the professor’s head against the concrete floor, again and again, a bouncing bone ball covered in black hair that is quickly soaking in blood.
Despite his height, his menacing demeanor, Hojo has the frame of a starved bird, bony with very little muscle. He relies on thugs and tools to subdue his animals, his samples, and takes great pride in valuing his mind over his body. The trooper—Cloud—should be an even match in muscle, except he managed to throw Sephiroth from the catwalk. Even if that was done in a moment of panic, high on adrenaline--well, this moment isn’t too different either.
Blood drips off the tip of Masamune as Sephiroth watches the struggle, the harsh panting and scrabbling the only noise in the lab. The coppery, meaty stink invades his nose, replaces the smoke in his lungs. Hojo glimpses Sephiroth, and gestures imperiously at him, silently demanding aid.
He could intervene. He should intervene; if anyone knows what happened to him, to his mind, Hojo will. However…
There is rage and hatred etched sharp and painful in every line of the trooper’s body, in the snarl sharp against his clenched teeth. And beneath all that…there is fear.
This man knows the Professor.
Eventually Hojo’s arms drop to his side, and his body stops twitching, stops reacting, but it’s several moments before Sephiroth’s soulmate stops attacking. His heavy breathing is loud and clumsy in the slaughtered laboratory, the only moving thing now aside from the slowly expanding puddles of blood. It’s a messy death, more visceral and ungainly than what Sephiroth prefers, than what his battles typically allow, but—
It’s fitting.
Finally, Sephiroth’s soulmate looks up at him, still kneeling over Hojo’s body. The emotion is washed from his face, leaving his soulmate pale and blank, an empty mask. Blood oozes from Hojo’s shallow cuts on his arms, healing before Sephiroth’s eyes.
“Cloud,” Sephiroth murmurs.
Without breaking eye contact, Cloud’s hand closes over Hojo’s scalpel. Sephiroth raises an eyebrow over the long, long length of Masamune, over the obvious difference in strength, reach, basic logic and strategy—
He isn’t surprised when Cloud attacks him anyway. It’s an easy fight.
The red threads curl around Sephiroth’s left hand as he carries Cloud’s unconscious body out of the mansion, back to Zack.
***
“Spike!” Zack leans on his Buster sword like a cane, sways closer to peer at the sleeping trooper in his arms. His soulmate is quite small, cradled against Sephiroth’s chest like a child. He only needs one arm to hold Cloud firm. There’s a painful relief in Zack’s voice, “Seph, you found him.”
“Of course.” He doesn’t wonder if Zack doubted him, if Zack knows how much Sephiroth considered leaving his soulmate behind, again. “I’m afraid Professor Hojo died in the event, however. We will have to find our answers elsewhere. How are you feeling? Have you seen any new movement?”
Zack’s skin still has a grey tinge, but his eyes are bright and his movements smoother. Sephiroth sets Cloud down on the makeshift bundle of twigs and springy branches they’ve been using as Zack’s hospital bed. He nods as Zack chatters and stows the Buster sword next to Cloud. “No new movement, but I did find a nice windfall though, in all this mess. Stay here with Cloud, I’ll go get them.”
“Zack, it isn’t wise—” Sephiroth starts, but Zack is gone, bouncing like the puppy he used to resemble. Sephiroth sighs.
The birds twitter high in the branches, and he can hear small mammals move through the undergrowth. They are likely the only humans left alive on the mountain, a temporary safety until Shinra decides to check on the Professor. Wind rustles a few pine branches, gentle and calming.
It’s reflexes, more than anything else, that has Sephiroth dodging Cloud’s first clumsy swing with Zack’s Buster sword. Cloud’s eyes burn a sharp acidic blue, and Sephiroth bats him away without a thought, the trooper too worn and beaten to be any threat. Except—
--Cloud dodges Masamune’s swing and darts in for a quick strike, followed by a rapid stab and slash combo, getting close enough to almost catch Sephiroth’s coat, dancing around Sephiroth with a practiced ease that is as disturbing as it was harmless, the boy just didn’t have the strength to be a challenge. But the skill--
“Cloud?” Zack calls from behind them, “Cloud! Cloud what are you doing?”
“Stay behind me!” Cloud shouts, Hojo’s blood still spattered against his pale cheek.
“Cloud, what are you—Sephiroth what is he doing?”
“I am afraid he has not chosen to share that information with me, Lieutenant,” Sephiroth catches an overhead blow, and pushes Cloud aside effortlessly, pivoting to avoid the speedy follow up. The trooper is good, knows how to chain combos without tripping over his own blade or stumbling. He treats fighting like a familiar dance.
Still, it doesn’t matter. Sephiroth avoids taking advantage of the obvious openings, the recklessness; it’s a spirited, graceful melee, but not close to a challenge. Cloud’s blue eyes are wide with panic, desperation, but pure adrenaline is finite--eventually, the trooper would tire. Even now, his arms are shaking minutely with the strain of holding the Buster sword firm.
“I haven’t even had a chance to say anything offensive.”
“What, really? That’s a first,” Zack muses, and Sephiroth throws him a pointed glare. He doesn’t always say something callous. Sometimes people were just too sensitive. Behind Zack, a pair of saddled chocobos burble.
“Wait…” Cloud blinks behind the Buster sword’s guard, exhausted and running on fumes. “You’re—you’re not crazy?”
Sephiroth pauses. Normally that would be worthy of nothing but scorn, but based on his behavior for the last week…
“…I don’t think so. I’m…awake, if nothing else.”
With SOLDIER hearing there was no way Zack hadn’t heard that, but he could count on Zack to show some discretion. Cloud blinks again, panting slightly, face pallid in his thin hospital gown. His wide blue eyes are still wild, manic. The Buster sword trembles minutely.
“Cloud?” Zack approaches slow from Cloud’s right side, so the trooper can keep them both in his line of sight, since he won’t look away from Sephiroth. The chocobos follow Zack passively. “Cloudy, how are you doing?”
“Cloudy?” the trooper repeats, and the moment stretches.
If Cloud attacks Zack, Sephiroth can intervene, but the trooper collapses to his knees instead, coughing hard, Buster sword landing with a heavy clang.
Zack is painfully happy to have his trooper friend back, and while Sephiroth badly wants to know what is going on, now is not the time. “Cloudy I was so, so worried,” Zack crushes the trooper in a bear hug. Under normal conditions, Sephiroth would be more vigilant to ensure that neither of them reopens old wounds but—they are both enhanced, to one degree or another.
“Ifrit, you look awful! Aren’t you cold? You look,” Zack holds Cloud back by his shoulders, nearly lifting him off the ground. “Dude, you look old.”
Cloud blinks, slow and harrowed and tired. “It’s…it’s been a long week.”
Sephiroth waits to see if Cloud is going to explain, before losing patience. “Hojo had him. He’ll need plenty of rest and food at some point—I doubt more cures will make much of a difference at the moment.”
Cloud takes the time to throw him a quick, suspicious glare, but they are on a time limit. They need to get off the mountain before Shinra returns for whatever Hojo was here for. Cloud may wish Sephiroth dead—may try to avenge his hometown—but his relief and joy at finding Zack alive had been real. Zack will be safe with Cloud.
***
They sift through the burnt corpse of the town, scavenging for supplies and weather-appropriate clothes for Cloud. The hospital gown is exchanged for some ragged cast offs in grey and green. Despite himself, Sephiroth can’t quite stop watching as Cloud stumbles through the dark ruins businesslike, with his pale coloring and small frame.
Cloud doesn’t look old enough to have seen much action, but he seems much less fazed by the violence and bloodshed than the townspeople had been. Nibelheim is his hometown; some nostalgia is normal. Even Zack stops to stare at some of the bodies left behind, mired in shock and grief, likely recognizing a few as Sephiroth had done earlier.
They grab sleeping bags, medical supplies, dry foodstuffs for the road. Neither Sephiroth or Zack had planned on being in Nibelheim more than a few days, and they are completely underprepared.
Both of Zack’s chocobos very conveniently seem to recognize Cloud and rush up to him cooing.
“This one is Skadi,” Cloud mumbles to Zack, hands already buried in the blue chocobo’s feathers. “I used to visit her owner, before I left for Midgar. She’s picky about her rider, but she’ll let me on. Zack, you should ride with me, since you’re not healed yet.”
Cloud nods at Sephiroth, a touch of defiance in his dull blue eyes. It could be the light, but they are no longer glowing. “The yellow chocobo is Daisy. She’s mellow. She’ll let anyone ride her.”
In another life, at another time, Sephiroth may have been insulted to be offered the lesser the mount. Clearly Zack expects him to argue, as he tries to whisper-fight with Cloud about giving up the blue—Skadi.
Sephiroth mounts the yellow in one smooth movement, “Zack, enough. We need to move quickly. At the moment I would be willing to ride a zolom out if that was available.” He doesn’t completely understand what has happened in Nibelheim but can’t shake the looming suspicion that things will only get worse the longer they stay.
It’s time to leave the ghosts behind
***
They don’t stop riding until long after sunset. They make camp under thick tree cover and risk a fire long enough to cook dinner out of a can. In the firelight, Cloud sits very close to Zack and avoids Sephiroth’s eyes, only mumbles yes or no answers when provoked.
“Where do you think they took the townspeople?” Zack asks, frustrated.
Sephiroth is staring at his soulmate, noting how Cloud squirms under scrutiny, eyes fixed on the ground. The red threads have yet to make another appearance. “I’m not certain. I would normally assume there was something unique or special about the townspeople, enough that Shinra would go through the trouble of acquiring the survivors.”
He watches Cloud for a reaction, for a break in the empty mask. The fire dances in Cloud’s eyes, but everything about his expression, posture, is impassive. Zack glances between them curiously.
“Perhaps everyone in Nibelheim has a history of falling into mako fountains like your young friend and suffering no ill effects other than enhanced healing and strength.” Skepticism drips off Sephiroth’s words. He doesn’t believe Cloud and doesn’t believe Zack does either.
Such a discrepancy would have showed up in the trooper’s file—mako eyes just aren’t common, though Cloud’s eyes aren’t glowing now. “Enhancements eerily similar to SOLDIER treatments.”
Cloud examines his shoes closely while Zack scowls at Sephiroth. Zack’s eyebrows waggle in what is likely meant to be a warning dance.
“In which case,” Sephiroth continues, since it’s obvious his soulmate is going to sulk in Zack’s protective shadow, “I would assume one of the more remote military bases, or labs. There were roughly thirty survivors, but it would be inconvenient for the Company if the story got out.”
Cloud snorts, and grumbles at his shoes, “What, that Shinra murders civilians? Kills whole townships?”
“Yes,” Sephiroth agrees, ignoring the barb. After all, Cloud isn’t wrong. “At least, civilians that the Company has publicly sworn to protect.”
If anything, Cloud scowls harder at his boots, as if trying to ignite the ground with his glare alone. Zack just looks confused. “What do you mean?”
Sephiroth hesitates. Zack is--no matter how many years it has been--still Angeal’s apprentice. He has tried so hard to emulate the honorable man that Sephiroth cannot always predict how Zack will react to certain information. However…Zack deserves to know. Honesty is such a rare commodity, and Zack has been loyal.
“I’ve done this before,” Sephiroth says quietly. He’d recognized the aftermath of his own work, the strategy behind it, even though there was still not reason to attack the town. “In Wutai, destruction of certain civilian villages was common. It was one of the few tactics effective against guerilla warfare, against a civilian army, and most SOLIDERs and infantry had to partake at some point in deployment. It helped shorten the war, in the end.”
Cloud glances up at him, his eyes still impassive and hollow, but it’s Zack who has Sephiroth’s full attention now. He studies the surprise on Zack’s face, the realization, and then the anger. Sephiroth has killed unarmed civilians before, farmers armed only with simple hoes and spears, old Wutain grandmothers with heirloom materia, children…
And Zack hadn’t known. He hadn’t wanted Zack to know.
Sephiroth waits…but then Zack just looks down, crestfallen. Hunched in on himself. Sephiroth sighs and tries to salvage what he can of Zack’s good memories. “It’s not widely spoken of, but it was not a secret in the army. Angeal never did it. Between Genesis and I…we kept him out of it.”
“Did he know?”
“I’m not certain.” There was no way Angeal hadn’t known about it unless it was ignorance by choice.
The blank mask has returned to Cloud’s face, empty and quiet, before he breaks eye contact with Sephiroth to awkwardly pat Zack on the arm. Zack huffs, somewhere between a dry cough and a laugh, “At least your mother wasn’t home…”
“Your mother lives in Nibelheim?”
Cloud’s eyes cut him again with the sharp, bright anger before he looks away, grunts to his feet. “…yeah. Normally. I grew up there. She had to go visit a sick friend though, so we didn’t see her. So. At least she didn’t get taken.”
The fire crackles.
Had that been the first time Cloud had been in Hojo’s secret laboratory? There are too many coincidences for events not to be related. His soulmate had known Hojo--how? Had Hojo found out about their connection first, and tried to use Cloud against him somehow? Is there another reason Nibelheim was targeted?
Why was his—why was that Cetra there? Was that truly his mother? Had the townspeople known? Cloud certainly had.
Sephiroth had wondered what—if it ever happened—meeting his soulmate would be like. If time would stop, if the world would be brighter, different than it had been a few minutes before.
Cloud stares at his boots.
Zack coughs again, “Some heroes we turned out to be.”
Cloud twitches. He reaches out to touch Zack’s shoulder but stops before contact is made. Sephiroth wonders if his soulmate is as averse to human contact as he is. Sephiroth waits until Cloud pulls his hand back, curls in on himself.
“We are soldiers,” Sephiroth corrects. “Expediency isn’t heroism, despite what the Shinra marketing team would prefer people to believe.”
Zack flinches, but…. Sephiroth cannot help him. Eventually, even puppies had to grow up.
Cloud studies Sephiroth closely, reminding him more of the Wutain samurai calculating their next strike, rather than an incredibly lucky trooper. “But you’re sure there was a fighter girl with them? Long hair?”
Sephiroth nods. “I don’t know where they might be though. Of course, I am open to any suggestions,” he states pointedly. Cloud knows far more than he is letting on, and after decades of working for Shinra, Sephiroth is finally getting sick of being lied to. Cloud drops his gaze, returning again to a sulky sullen teenager. It’s a convincing cover for a potential assassin, or spy. “They could be anywhere by now though,” Sephiroth continues, “assuming Shinra has kept them alive.”
Neither Zack or Cloud try to keep the conversation going after that, and they work out a watch duty. A credit to Cloud’s control, he waits until Zack finishes first watch, and is long since asleep. It’s the early hours of the morning before Cloud tries to sneak away on the blue chocobo.
“I dislike being lied to,” Sephiroth says, just before Cloud can hop in the saddle. “I dislike being used.”
Cloud doesn’t turn around, but he doesn’t move either. “Isn’t that what being a soldier is about? Being used?”
That stings. More than Sephiroth had expected, even though…even though he had wondered the same thing.
“I’ll make you a deal,” he says instead. “The chocobo, any three of my materia you choose, and a five-hour head start from Zack. But someone knew what I was going to do, someone—programmed me, to react a certain way. Under certain stimulus.”
Sephiroth doesn’t have a better word for it.
“You killed Hojo,” Sephiroth adds. “You knew Hojo, you were surprised that there were any survivors of the town. You weren’t surprised that Shinra was waiting to mop up the aftermath.”
Cloud doesn’t move, and Sephiroth is momentarily impressed at how relaxed the trooper is. Normally, people tense up when he’s behind them. If only his soulmate could be impressive at a less irritating time.
“I won’t ask how you know, or why. I just want to know who else knew.” Where could Sephiroth find his revenge? Where could he find his answers?
He was Shinra property, created and trained by the company. His body and bones and even hair belonged to Shinra, his blood was heavily studied and catalogued. His personality, mannerisms, speech patterns and elocution all came from Shinra, had all been brainstormed and approved by a committee of people on Shinra payroll. The only thing that truly belonged to him was his mind, his control of his own self and soul.
That control had been taken and flayed to pieces. He needs to know.
Cloud doesn’t reply. Cloud doesn’t move.
The leather on Sephiroth’s gloves creak as he clenches his hands and fights the urge to grab his soulmate and squeeze what he wants from him, to take what he needs.
Cloud glances over his shoulder, blue eyes bright fox lights in the darkness. “What slowed you down?”
“What?”
“You didn’t kill everyone. Why?”
Sephiroth is temporarily caught off guard and considers lying. He could say his conscience had twinged, some streak of honor had surfaced in his soul, his heart was not so corrupt as to kill everyone….
Cloud blinks, waiting, and Sephiroth has no doubt this man knows him better than…than Sephiroth knows Cloud, certainly.
“Reynolds. The other trooper fought me, distracted me long enough for some civilians to escape. He was…a very noisy man.” Sephiroth cannot really remember that night, much less a single unremarkable fight, but Reynolds had a grating voice that had punctured through the mad static haze, somehow. It had been a suicide run.
Sephiroth doesn’t know the extent of his strength anymore, there isn’t anyone else—anything else—he can measure it against. He stands alone and doesn’t know what he’s capable of anymore. Zack almost died. Between that and the loss of his mind…
Cloud blinks again, slow and considering, and removes his foot from Skadi’s stirrup. He seems lost in thought, and Sephiroth doesn’t interrupt him. This is the closest he has been to his soulmate without either of them attacking, bleeding, or unconscious.
“You can’t ask me more. You won’t…I won’t answer.” He glares at Sephiroth, his short stature making him seem oddly petulant rather than intimidating. “I won’t.”
Sephiroth doesn’t respond; he’s rather lost the thread of the conversation.
Cloud looks down. “The President. Maybe Heidigger. Maybe…” Cloud trails off, then shakes his head. “You promise, you won’t ask me?”
Sephiroth nods, “I promise.”
“Swear it on Masamune. Swear it on your sword.”
This whole affair is oddly childish. Promises were meant to be broken, and while Masamune is the most elegant blade on Gaia, swearing on his blade means nothing to him, and it does not affect the sword. Nevertheless. “I swear it on my sword.”
His soulmate inspects him closely, eyes sharp and critical, before his shoulders slump. He sighs, “This…this is going to sound a little crazy…”
Cloud tells him a story about a creature falling from space. A creature intrinsically necessary to the SOLDIER enhancements, intrinsically linked to the degradation that took Angeal and Genesis, to the madness that had taken Sephiroth…
…Sephiroth isn’t certain he believes any of it. It was too wild, too strange, even compared to his potential Cetra heritage. But Cloud is sincere; even if this is a mad fiction, it’s a lie he believes. So, for his soulmate’s sake—Cloud’s sake—Sephiroth only nods. He lets Cloud pick three of his materia, in addition to the Fire materia Cloud already possessed.
“I suppose I will be making your excuses to Zack.”
“I—yes. Thank you,” Cloud’s lips twist, as if thanking Sephiroth leaves a strange taste in his mouth. “Take care of him, will you?”
“I’m afraid I can’t promise that” Sephiroth replies smoothly. “All of Shinra will be on the hunt for us, and at some point, we will need to meet them on their turf, if I am to get answers.”
“I already told you—”
“You already told me a version of events you believe to be true,” Sephiroth replies. “Now I’ll get my own truth, and perhaps it will align with yours. But Zack is my subordinate, and I mean to exercise him to his full potential. My position isn’t necessarily overflowing with resources.”
“You’re going to get him killed!”
Ah. Leverage.
“Possibly,” Sephiroth tilts his head, letting his hair cascade off one shoulder, analyzing Cloud from another angle. It’s a blatant and simple manipulation, but Cloud seems genuinely attached to Zack. “A shame you won’t be there to protect him.”
Cloud pales then flushes in the scant starlight and has some very choice words for him then—very inventive—and Zack whines at them to keep it down, before rolling over and curling in a ball.
“Good night, Corporal Strife.” Sephiroth turns and walks away, content to stand guard until daybreak. “You should get some sleep.”
Cloud doesn’t leave that night.
***
What is a ghost? An emotion, a terrible moment condemned to repeat itself over and over? Something dead which appears at times alive? A moment of pain, trapped in amber?
--Professor Casares (Federico Luppi), The Devil’s Backbone