Warlock How good it was to be in home again, green fields around Midgar City, the hills wasn't a big obstacle to some chocobos, even the Gold Saucer, with it's many attractions, seemed funny for who never had time to have some fun.
So many thing to show Barbara, a magic and glorious world. Sephiroth was happy being home again with Barbara, so he came back to Shinra's Mansion, from where he learned so much.
"We can start a new life and live here, you and I, what do you think?"
"It's sooo big, looks like a castle to, so different of FF7 stories..."
"This won't be a game anymore, Barbara, it's a start of a our lives together" Seph pulled her body close of his, held her strong and kissed her with burning desire. Suddenly everything started to fall down, fire everywhere, Barbara turned in a burning flame with deep cold eyes:
"Watch your dreams burning my silly boy. How do you expect to be someone living of love? You make fell sick!"
"No!! Stop!!!"
"There's no more future for you...Sephiroth!"
"Noooo !!!!! " Seph awoke screaming. He was in a different place, silent with cold white walls, so he looked better and realized that he was with Barbara at the hospital. Sad and still scared, he held her hand softly.
"Please react, Barbara..." - He felt a huge pain inside of his heart. He was... afraid. Eyes looking at him, the antecipate sensation of na attack coming from nowhere... A bad feeling took over his mind, still, Sephiroth held stonger Barbara's hands.
"I'm guilty, if at least I could come inside of your mind, suport you, love you, but now... If I could hold my feelings Hojo wouldn't attack you to hit me. I'm so sorry, but that's what I feel...I love you."
The nurse was watching that tall and pretty silver haired man making such of love declaration...she held her excitation, wishing to be with him, at least for a moment to ease that fire that was running inside of her.
"Time to leave, sir. The time for visitors is over."
Sephiroth kissed Barbara softly in her lips, lowed his head and without a word he left the room, deeply sad.
Outside he met Barbara's family. Her mother went closer, tears in her eyes.
"She was with you when it happened, right?"
"I'm so sorry, I..."
"That's ok, it happens. It wasn't your fault."
Sephiroth and her hugged tight. He felt really guilty. Bob came into the hug, crying too. He loved that boy... they saved him... All that images crossed his mind in a second and his knees almost couldn't hold him.
"It hurts..."
They took Sephiroth to a chair. He looked so bad that Darla felt bad for him.
"I wished my husband could love me the way you love Barbara..."
Sephiroth's head was working as a big engine.
Where is Hojo? Nowhere. Materialized and powerful, but where is that bastard... To kill him? Where can I find... find... fight...
Fight! Sephiroth remembered his last battle with Cloud, and it was... inside Cloud's mind! Hojo wasn't anywhere outside, he was in his own mind!!!
Sephiroth jumped, waved for Darla and left the halls.
If Hojo was inside his mind there was no time to waste.
Sephiroth was walking in a deep melancholy for the streets. His mind however was working madly, he couldn't stop thinking about Barbara.
"Can't you see, Sephiroth? YOU killed her"
"What, who... Hojo!!"
The voice was so clear and mean. But was inside his mind.
"Can't you remember? You hit her."
"I did NOT!!!"
Sephiroth could remember clearly about everything. Hojo brought back some of his summons and Sephiroth felt it, so a blast of energy hit Barbara and her brain ...
"Oh Nooo!! You... You BASTARD!! How could you, I had no more powers!"
"I needed your powers to dominate you, your powers to dominate the dimensions!"
"I prefer to die than allow you to do that!"
The scenes were so clear. Hojo controlling his moviments as a master, the same way he had done with Cloud some day.
"Bastard! Son of a bitch! COWARD!!"
People in the streets were looking at that weird man, silver haired, shinning eyes, screaming bad words to the wind.
"You're nothing more than a fucking puppet now, Sephiroth! I OWN YOU!!"
"MOTHERFUCKER!!!!" - screamed Sephiroth.
"I own you... I AM you... The way you controlled Cloud, I control YOU!"
"This is a lie, leave me alone!!"
"I'll prove you, Sephiroth. See that big truck over there? Throw yourself in front of it, Sephiroth. Wish to die..."
Suddenly Sephiroth felt a pathetic need of throwing himself in front of the truck.
And he did, but the Truck's driver was pretty good and controled the truck in time.
"Wooh you IDIOT!! Watch out your Fucking steps!!"
Sephiroth ran back home, hearing Hojo's laughs on his ears.
Sephiroth, now dressed as a Former General and with his Masamune over his body, tied himself as he could in the bed and concentrated, concentrated, until loose his conscience...
He crossed a big rounded tunnel of lights, and in the end of the tunnel he met...
Hojo.
Smiling, mean, deformed, na evil hand calling...
"Come my son... You'll see that I'm imortal."
Sephiroth was in his own way now. Summoning Meteor and hitting with his sword, he finally saw Hojo fading away. But of course he was hurt too. He held Masamune and supported his weight over it, hearing Hojo's screams:
"I'll be back...!"
Sephiroth, felling his wounds aching and burning, walked to nowhere but smiling.
"It's over Barb, now I'll wear my heal powers to bring you back..."
Sephiroth sat down tired and full of hopes, when he felt a soft hand in his shoulders.
"Sephiroth..."
A soft voice... A voice he knew so well...
"Barbara!..."
Sephiroth jumped and held her tight, but... Something was so wrong, she was so cold... she was so...
"Barb, are you alright?"
"Yes... what about you?"
"Barbara what are you doing here, how did you-"
Suddenly he felt a sharp pain crossing his body and he noticed that Barbara has wearing her sword ( "but how she could have one?"- he thought.) to cross their body and gluing both of them with blood. Barbara's face became Hojo's and Sephiroth wide his Mako eyes.
"What-"
"I may die... But you will die with me!"
Sephiroth saw the world fading into black.
Warlock Sephiroth awake in his bed, feeling so scared and so light... He took his Masamune and ran back to Barbara.
"I got my powers back! I can heal her! I can save her!"
He didn't try to hide Masamune, or to put his contact lenses. All he wanted was to see her again, and he floated to the hospital really fast.
He came inside her room. The family was there. Crying.
Barbara was pale, as resting in Death's Arms.
Sephiroth touched her face but... his hands crossed it. He was horrified and saw Bob, tried to touch him but... he was invisible at Bob's eyes.
"No... No, Barbara... I'm dead, I can't cure you..."
So Sephiroth finally said the words, for all the angels to hear:
"I wish the hell... I WISH THE HELL!!!"
Sephiroth opened his eyes. But he wished to close back. Nowhere. Nothing. No one could ever imagine the death was so empty, no color, nothing... But the damn pain was there still tearing him in two again and again and again...
"LET - ME - DIE...!", he cried. He looked down. Blood was going out and out as a never-ending source of blood.
So he realized he was naked. His silver hair was a mess, with blood on it. Blood on his very white face. In his lips. He felt the taste, the bitter taste of his own blood flowing.
"So this is the taste of the death...", he thought. And once again he tried to cry, but he could only whisper: "Let... me... die..."
"Oh, God... I've been here before..." he remained. Sephiroth He thought "Will my fate to die and stay, die and go... felling the huge pain endlessly..."
"You will pay no more, Sephiroth."
A voice coming right by his side. Suddenly the blood has gone, the pain that Hojo gave him has gone. Barbara was by his side, naked too, and beautiful as ever.
"Think about that Sephiroth... now we have a second chance. Together."
"Barbara!!" he held her in his arms..
"You can go back to your world now, Sephiroth. Here is your Masamune."
Once again, Masamune first hit his head before hitting the ground.
"Is this what some calls heaven?"
The voice laughed loud.
""No, silly. The heaven is still better. In heaven you feel only joy. But no one is totally prepared for Heaven yet. You still have something to do in the dimension before going to the heaven. But if you manage your life well you will think you're in heaven."
Sephiroth closed his eyes and wished thank the whole life.
Barbara opened her eyes and she saw the marvelous green fields.
"This is better than the game... Where are our clothes?"
Sephiroth easily found his clothes, and he wrapped Barbara in his cloak.
Then all he did was to haunt two Chocobos. Barbara was happy as a child.
"A chocobo!!!"
Sephiroth smiled.
They rode to Nilbelheim, where the Shinra mansion was abandoned.
"Well, Barbara... can we change this trash in a home for us?"
"Yes we can"-she held him tight. "With you I can change the stars into fire."
"Won't you miss your family?"
"One day they'll die and we'll meet again, it happens to everyone. I bet Bob is furious because I left him there... I bet he knows where I am."
Sephiroth opened the gate to Barbara and said:
"There's something I need to do."
He walked for some houses until reach for Tifa's and knocked at the door. Cloud opened the door, wide his eyes, became pale and close the door in Sephiroth's nose.
"Tifa, Vincent... Sephiroth is outside, he's back!"
In some seconds, now armed, they opened the door again and Vincent looked at Sephiroth. No armors, no Masamune and... no materia?!
"You're unarmed!"
"Of course... I came here to... to apologize."
The surprised hit the tree as a ton of bricks right between their eyes.
"You what...?"
"Do you expect we believe on..."
Sephiroth showed Barbara holding Masamune in the end of the villa.
"That's my fiancée. I can't fight no more. We are going to be neigbords and we will help you to bring Aerith and Lucretia back."
Vincent lowed his gun. And his eyes.
"I don't know why, but I believe you somehow. Be welcome."
"How are you intending to bring them back?"
"With some Mako reactors and Barbara's help. I won't hurt anyone never more..."
"Barbara, that little girl over there?"
"Yes, she is naked, we lost her clothes and I'll hunt remainescent monsters to get money and buy her some clothes..."
Tifa went inside and took a dress.
"Here, Sephiroth. Give it to her. Don't let the poor girl naked in the world."
Sephiroth smiled.
"Thank you for your generosity..."
Tifa's chin fell.
"You... You're... we- welcome!"
"I hope you can forgive me one day, Cloud..."
Sephiroth turned his back to them and left. The others keept watching. He gave her the dress, they kissed and entered the old house...
"Yeah" - said Cloud. "Let's give him a chance, who knows..."
Bob came back home happy as a bird. He finally had Final Fantasy VIII!
He turned on the game and after a while playing with Sephiroth and Cloud, he found them a new company... A red hair little girl, whose curls and body, and somehow the face, made him remember...
"So you're there little bastard!!! And forgot me here! Will we ever meet again?"
He could swear Barbara and Sephiroth nodded, "smiling for the camera"...
