I thought I could save him. I thought I could open his eyes to the truth of
what Jenova is. True, he's done horrible things, but so did I when I was in his
place. The fact remains that no one deserves to be Her puppet. No one deserves
that fate.
I honestly thought that I could save him.
I was wrong.
He doesn't want to be saved. At first, I thought it was because Jenova
presses in on all sides of his mind. Enclosed in Her embrace, She whispers
madness to him and he thinks that it's his own voice speaking. But that's not it at
all. He's just... weak.
I'm so much stronger than he is. That's why he couldn't control me in the
Prison, why I turned the tables and began controlling him. I've got so many
things to make me strong-- Aeris and the others, plus the strength that comes
from finally knowing who I am and why I'm here. All he has is Jenova, so it
should be simple.
It's not. I forgot how strong Jenova is. She's the queen of lies and
illusions. Even now, She tries to make me doubt who I am. She tries to tell me
that I belong here, with Her and the other part of my soul.
She doesn't get it. He's no part of me. Sure, I thought he was but that was
Her doing. She put that suggestion in my mind when she first poisoned me with
Her madness back on the freighter. She subtly twisted my thoughts until they
were no longer my own, and it took death for me to straighten them out. I'm not
about to fall back into this trap now. I said I was through being her pawn, and I
meant it. What those Shinra Troops faced is nothing compared to what I'd like to
do to Her.
I haven't lost my touch, Jenova, just my taste for death.
Unfortunately, that will return as well unless I find someway to slip out of
Sephiroth's hold. The wings that my new life gave me can't carry us both. Not
when he's already given in to Jenova's embrace. It sounds cruel, but it's time to let
him fall before he drags me down with him.
I guess one of us has to play his role. One of us has to walk that path.
One of us has to return to the ice. He thinks he wants to. After this long, I see
that's not failure on my part. It's just his fate. So let him be the One-Winged
Angel. I've got better things to do than fly around in circles.
* * * * *
Final Fantasy: Fated
World Crisis
by: Chandra Rooney
Original Concept by: Samantha Rogers
* * * * *
The first arrow struck Ioviano in the side of the neck. It had been meant
for the bulbous growth beneath the beast's chin, but Jenova's 'champion' wasn't the
sort of target that held still for very long. "Damn," Abel Woodshed muttered,
reaching into his bag for another arrow. Not a good time to be wasting arrows--
the battle with the Shinra trrops had already depleted his supply. "We have to hit
him hard and fast," he called to Reeve. "Time isn't on our side."
"It's beginning to look like there isn't many things that are," Reeve
muttered, taking aim at the beast. His bullet nicked the beast's ear.
"Tell me," growled Ioviano, "how do _you_ intend to hit me hard and fast
when you're all so pathetically weak?" He lunged at Cait Sith.
"Cait!" Reeve cried, and the small AI made the attempt to dodge.
Unfortunately, his moogle wasn't built for swift evasions. The only thing the
small cat could do was leapt off of the moogle to safety as Ioviano crashed into it.
Scrambling over to Reeve, Cait Sith looked back mournfully at his
wounded mode of transportation. One of the moogle's robotic arms protruded
from between Ioviano's jaws. "My moogle!" Cait Sith wailed, raising his
megaphone. Reeve and Abel instinctively clamped their hands over their ears. It
didn't completely mute Cait's angry cry but it helped. "WHAT DID HE EVER
DO TO YOU?!"
Ioviano's ears flattened, his eyes momentarily closing against the sonic
onslaught. Spitting out the moogle's arm and shaking his mane, he padded
towards the three of them once more. "Is this the best that the Other can offer as
resistance?" he asked, scanning them. "A robotic toy, a man with a rifle, and--"
His eyes settled on Abel.
Abel didn't give him time to finish the sentence. He let another arrow fly,
and the projectile sunk deeply into the fleshy collar about Ioviano's neck. The
beast howled in pain and shook his mane.
"All you need to know is that you won't stop me from finding the White
Materia," Abel told him, sternly. He knocked another arrow, aiming for the same
region of the Firetooth's body.
"Er, Gabriel, why exactly do you keep aiming there?" Reeve asked.
"Ioviano's got some kind of materia in there," Abel explained, letting the
arrow go. "I was trying to see if I could hit it." The arrow split the shaft of the
first one, and Ioviano roared with pain again.
"I'm not sure what exactly you have planned, but I'm game." Reeve took
aim at the collar, and sunk a few shots into it. Each bullet drove Ioviano back a
step. "So... why exactly are we doing this?" Reeve asked.
"...uh...I'm not really quite sure," Abel admitted. "It just seemed like a
good idea."
Ioviano raised his head, pain shining in his eyes. "Fire 3!"
Reeve shot Abel a look. "Like I said-- it _seemed_ like a good idea," Abel
added, sheepishly. "Everyone on the defensive!" He threw his bow before him,
using it as a shield. He held it there for about thirty seconds before he slowly
lowered it and looked around.
Ioviano's eyes widened in shock. "Fire 2!" he cried. Nothing. "Fire!"
Still nothing.
"I don't think it's a matter of not being strong enough to cast," Cait Sith
called to him helpfully. The little cat raised his megaphone to his mouth. "IT
LOOKS LIKE WE PUT YOUR SPELL MATERIA OUT OF COMMISSION!"
Ioviano howled in pain again, flattening his ears and taking a few more
steps backwards.
"Nice work, Cait," Reeve winced, lowering his hands from his ears. He
raised his rifle and again took aim at Ioviano. The bullet sunk into the flesh above
the beast's right hind leg.
"He's not so tough," Cait Sith remarked, raising his megaphone again.
Ioviano snarled and leapt at the small AI, preventing Cait from launching
another sonic attack. Cait bounded off on all fours, with Ioviano snapping at his
tail.
Reeve fired another shot and successfully buried the bullet in the
Firetooth's left hind leg. It also succeeded in refocusing Ioviano's attention on
him.
Ioviano gave them a sickly grin. With the arrows sticking out of his neck
and the blood leaking from the wounds in his hind legs and left ear, the grin was
even more unnerving. Ioviano opened his jaws and roared. A gush of noxious
green gas poured forth from his mouth.
"Poison!" Abel warned, hand scrambling inside his bag once more. "Try
not to breathe it in." He withdrew the ornate mask, and slipped it over the lower
half of his face. It had worked in the slums against Shinra's gas, so maybe it
would at least cut back on the potency of the fumes.
"Is there anything you don't have in that bag, Roomie?" Cait Sith asked.
Abel gave him a funny look and gestured to the air. "I'm a robot," the small toy
reminded him, "I don't need to breathe."
"Oh," Abel replied. His voice was quieted by the mask, but not distorted.
His breathing echoing in the swallow space beneath the metal, he turned his
attention to Reeve. The other had taken the brunt of Ioviano's poisonous vapors,
and as a result he was bent double on his knees coughing.
"Cait, go see if you can help Reeve," Abel instructed. "I'll keep Ioviano's
attention on me."
"Sure thing, Roomie," the small AI nodded. He scampered over to Reeve.
"No worries, Boss, soon enough you'll be as good as new!" Reeve managed to
nod his head between body-racking hacks. Cait Sith bounded towards his fallen
moogle, in hopes of finding a spare antidote.
Abel turned his attention towards Ioviano. The servant of Jenova was
panting heavily, but the wounds Reeve had inflicted on Ioviano's hind legs had
stopped bleeding. As Abel watched, the flesh began to knit back together.
Great. As if things weren't bad enough, now they had to contend with the
advanced healing Ioviano's 'Mother' had bestowed upon Her favored servant.
Wait. Abel's eyes narrowed on his other arrows, still sticking out of Ioviano.
Those wounds were bleeding. He'd hit Ioviano before Reeve had... so why hadn't
those wounds healed yet?
"I don't know how you are before me when I watched the Great Mother
take you into Her body," Ioviano remarked. "But I suspect it has something to do
with the 'corruption' She spoke of."
Take him into Her body? Abel blinked. What did that mean? Had
Sephiroth-- No way! Ioviano must have misunderstood what he saw. Sephiroth
wouldn't have gone willingly to Jenova, not after how hard he'd fought for his
freedom.
"It intrigues me that she doesn't know you are the true source of the
corruption," Ioviano continued. "You, the servant of the Other, whose Host has
turned the Great Mother's only son against Her. It will please Her greatly when I
bring Her your head."
"Wait a minute," Abel began. "You _hate_ Sephiroth."
Ioviano's tail flicked. "And?"
"So why are you so eager to kill me?" Abel asked him. Briefly he
wondered where exactly he planned to go with this, but the words continue to
come to him from somewhere deep inside. "Think about it, Ioviano. If you kill
me, you've lost your chance to be Jenova's second-in-command forever. If I'm the
source of this 'corruption', then I'm the only one who can keep Sephiroth from
taking your place."
Another tail flick. "I should rip your offensive mouth from your face,"
Ioviano snarled, "but first, let's see what point you hope to prove with your
blasphemy."
"You can't kill Sephiroth," Abel continued. The Firetooth growled. "Stop
it," Abel told him. "You and I both know that Jenova would never allow you to."
"You intend to tell me that _you_ can?" A bark of mocking laughter
emitted from Ioviano's jaws.
"No, but someone killed his love for Jenova," Abel said, simply.
"Someone turned his devotion from Her to Aeris." Inwardly, he winced. Was
that his plan? Try to convince Ioviano that he, Abel, was actually the one pulling
the strings and not Sephiroth? Yeah, right, like anyone would believe _that_.
"A problem the Great Mother is remedying as we speak," Ioviano replied.
So Sephiroth had been captured... but that didn't mean anything, right? He
was probably working on turning Sephiroth-half to their side. Okay, okay, don't
panic. Ioviano's swallowed what you told him, so just stick with that. "Oh, sure,"
Abel remarked, sounding much more casual than he felt, "she's trying, but what if
she can't? What if this 'corruption' becomes so bad that his hatred of Jenova
totally consumes him?" Ioviano gave him a skeptical look. "She would let you
kill him at that point," Abel told him. "She wouldn't have a choice."
Ioviano considered this for a moment. "You want me to believe that
you're more valuable to me alive, so you can continue to poison Sephiroth's mind
until the Great Mother begs me to kill him for Her," he summarized. "Correct me
if I've misunderstood you."
Gee, that little sneer to Ioviano's tone made the argument seemed even
weaker than Abel had originally thought it to be. Oh well, he shrugged.
Desperate times and all that. Couldn't blame a guy for trying. "That sounds about
right," he told Ioviano. "So what do you say? A temporary alliance between the
two of us against Sephiroth?" Whoa, wait a minute. A temporary alliance?
Where had that come from? There was no way he was trusting Ioviano-- and
absolutely no chance that the servant of Jenova would concede to an alliance
between the two of them against anything.
(Okay, so I don't think Sephiroth is "controlling" him during this argument, but I
think Abel's still got some sort of connection to Shin-s and it's showing here. My
original thought was that Shin-Seph was a part of Abel and not Sephiroth, but I
don't know if that works... because Eric was working at setting it up so Sephiroth
would turn out to be a good guy. I don't like that. Someone had to die in the City
of the Ancient, someone has to be Jenova's puppet. I guess it goes back to that
"you can change your fate, but fate will find someone else to assign your original
fate" idea that I have. Think about it... change who you are is the specific
instruction. This is the whole problem I had with a lot of what people started
writing with Fated... no matter how hard I tried, no one seemed to _get_ that in
my mind 'possessing' someone does not change who you are. (er... wait, Rift and
BWA may have.) It changes your body. So, the point of this ramble is that my
intention through this thread is to resolve this problem without totally
contradicting the story/compromising myself. It sounds Fatalist, but recall the
Providence of the Planet helping Abel is what changes his fate so... argh, I need
to stop bringing in Eng Lit stuff...)
Ioviano's barking laughter echoed through the air. "The first time we face
each other, you attempt to fake me out with a spell that doesn't exist," the
Firetooth chortled, "and now you try to talk me into an alliance?" He regarded
Abel with unveiled curiosity. "Who are you?"
"That depends on what you're willing to believe," Abel replied, lowering
his bow. "So... do we have a deal?"
"No," Ioviano replied. He leapt at Abel. The man threw up his bow in
defense, but the Firetooth pushed through, knocking Abel onto his back. The
weight of Ioviano, focused in a paw-shaped area of rib-cracking pain, pressed into
his chest as Abel struggled to breathe. Five of the Firetooth's claws tore at his
vest, leaving red welts that burned like the crystal upon the beast's tail in the skin
beneath. The other five claws sunk themselves deep into Abel's side before
Ioviano contented himself to rest his other paw upon the man's chest. "Well,
well," Ioviano leaned in, his hot breath sweeping over Abel's face. "Here we are
again."
"How about next time I get to be on top?" Abel managed to gasp, as
armies of black dots began to gather at the sides of his vision.
"Yes, that's right," Ioviano told him, "how appropriate your last words
should be a joke. It seems fitting."
"Actually," Abel's fingers brushed at the bow still in his grasp. "Those
aren't my last words." He managed to touch one of the red materia, and the
sphere glowed. "Guardian of the Forge!"
Abel vanished and Ioviano's front paws hit the ground. Thrown off, he
looked around. A dark haired man with a large hammer stood before him. The
man's golden eyes narrowed at Ioviano. The hammer's head began to glow with a
strange white-green light. "What manner of trickery is this, Sephi--" Ioviano's
words died in his throat as the hammer struck his back. Crippling pain turned
Ioviano's nervous system into a river of pain. The Firetooth whimpered, tail
between his legs and tried to back away from the man before him. The massive
hammer raised once more, this time coming crashing down onto Ioviano's skull.
The Firetooth saw a multitude of stars exploded across his vision before he
plunged into darkness.
Abel reappeared, clutching his wounded side. For a moment the tall figure
remained and golden eyes met green-blue ones. Abel managed a smile and quick
nod. "Thanks, Dad," he said. The apparition nodded once and then faded away.
"Dad?" Abel looked up. Two figures stood on the steps above them. The
young woman with the clear green eyes continued down towards him, stepping
carefully around the prone figure of Ioviano.
"The calvary is here," Cait Sith called cheerfully. "Aeris, Nanaki, good to
see you both!" The furry toy bounded up the steps to Aeris.
Aeris stooped down and patted Cait on the head. "Good to see you too,
Cait. What happened to your mog?"
"Ah, a casualty of war, I'm afraid," replied the AI, mournfully.
"Gabriel..." Nanaki began, a sort of quiet awe in his voice.
"You're hurt," Aeris interrupted pointing to the blood leaking though
Abel's fingers.
"It's just a scratch," he assured her.
"Now is not the time to try to be brave," she replied, lifting his hand and
having a look. "It's a rather deep scratch." A soft green glow surrounded her
hand as she closed the wound.
"Thanks," Abel told her, gingerly touching his repaired flesh. "How's
Reeve doing, Cait?"
"The Boss is just fine," Cait Sith replied. "I gave him an antidote and then
used that Cure materia you lent me, Roomie."
"Good job." He looked back at Aeris. "I'm not sure how long Ioviano's
going to stay put for. We probably don't have a lot of time."
"Excuse me." They turned to see Nanaki still standing a few stairs up.
"But how is it that you're alive, Gabriel?"
"Long story," Abel replied. "Long, strange story."
"It wasn't his time," Aeris explained. "Right?"
"Okay, it's actually a short, strange story," Abel agreed, reconsidering.
"Have you been here the entire time?" Nanaki asked.
"Except for the part where he was kicking some Shinra butt," Cait Sith
replied.
"Is that what happened to the base camp?"
"No, that was Cait Sith," Abel replied. "Nanaki, do you think you can
keep an eye on Ioviano while we find the White Materia? I promise we'll all sit
down and catch up just as soon as we do what we need to do."
Nanaki nodded. "All right," he replied, sitting down next to Ioviano.
"What do you purpose I do if he awakens?"
"Anything you can to keep him from stopping us," Abel replied. "Reeve,
if you're feeling up to it, we'll start looking again."
"Are you sure it's here, Roomie?" Cait Sith asked. "Maybe Aeris has it."
Aeris shook her head. "No, I don't."
"Then it has to be here somewhere," Abel told Cait Sith. "So, where
haven't we looked?"
"Did you try your bag?" Aeris asked.
Abel looked at her. "My bag?" he repeated. "No. I think I would know
if--" He stopped as Aeris reached her hand down into his bag, and after a
miniscule amount of digging, produced a white crystalline sphere.
"Wow, Roomie, you really do have everything in there!" Cait Sith
exclaimed.
Abel looked at the materia and then at Aeris. "Has it been in my bag the
entire time?"
Aeris giggled, nodding. "I thought that would be the safest place," she
explained. "So I placed it there before we left the first time. That way if
something happened and I couldn't get back, there was still a chance that Holy
could be cast."
"...by whom?" She smiled, taking him by the hand and leading him
towards the pillar steps that marked the path to the center platform. "Aeris... what
are you doing?" Abel asked as they reached the platform.
She gave him a very serious look. "Do you want Holy to come?" she
asked him.
"Yes," he nodded, gravely. "My mother told me about it. Why it's so
deadly to not only Jenova, but the Other as well."
"Do you understand the risk?" Aeris asked, lowering her voice. "You
understand that Holy may cleanse the Planet of more than just Jenova and the
Other?" He nodded. "You're willing to chance that?"
He nodded. "Yes. Why are we whispering?"
"Because," she told him, softly, "do you think that the others would be
willing to take that chance?"
"I guess it might seem a little risky to them," he agreed.
She paused. "You don't think it's risky?"
"I was under the impression it had worked when you cast it before."
"Things are different this time. You're here."
He gave her a puzzled look. "I've been here the entire time," he reminded
her.
"Exactly." She paused. "I've been thinking about what happened, and I
have a theory about why Holy didn't come when I tried to summon it earlier."
Stepping back she walked over to the bloodstain on the crystal platform. "The
Other said something interesting to me. Something about there having to be pain
before there could be healing." She looked back at him. "Any other time that I
called for Holy, it was my blood that stained this floor." Abel shifted,
uncomfortably. "After what the Other said, I started thinking," she continued,
"what if Holy can only be cast if the person who calls for it sacrifices their life?"
"If you still believe you're fated to die here," Abel said, after a long
moment of silence, "then everything that we've done-- everything that's been
sacrificed-- means nothing."
"Gabriel." He looked up. "Someone already died here." She walked back
towards him. "Hold out your hand." He looked skeptical for a moment, then
complied. Aeris set the White Materia in his palm. For a moment nothing
happened, and only the black of his glove curved strangely by the rounded sphere
was visible, then slowly glimmers of green and white began to dance inside the
depths of the materia.
"It wasn't doing that before," Abel remarked, looking up at Aeris. "What
does it mean?"
"It means Holy didn't come when I called before because I'm not the one
who should be summoning it," she replied, simply.
"I can't cast Holy," Abel told her.
"I think you can," she replied. "I think it's why you were sent back."
"Aeris," he looked awkward, rubbing the back of his neck. "I don't even
know where to begin."
"You could start by kneeling down," she told him. "That's how it usually
goes." Abel's eyes involuntarily turned upwards. Aeris leaned in closer. "I don't
think that's going to happen this time."
"It had better not," Abel muttered, kneeling.
Aeris hid a smile as she knelt before him. "Take off your gloves," she
suggested.
"...my gloves?" She nodded and accepted the materia back as he pulled
off his black leather gloves. Setting them aside, he reached out again. "Any
reason why I needed to do that?"
"It's better this way," Aeris replied. She set the materia in his palms, and
then enclosed his hands in her own. "This is it," she told him. "Are you certain
this is what you want?"
"It's what has to be done," he replied.
"Then close your eyes, and quiet your thoughts," she instructed. "Focus,
and listen for the voice of the Planet."
"Then what?"
She smiled. "Then," she replied, "what is meant to be will be."
*
When he had been a child, he'd had a reoccurring nightmare about
drowning in darkness. There had always been something pressing in on all sides
of him, and a heavy weight pulling him downward to the bottom of a black abyss.
Within a smothering embrace, where incomprehensible whispers plagued his
mind, he slowly sank deeper and deeper into the darkness.
The worst thing about the dream was the feeling of being totally and
completely unable to save himself. Once he sank to the bottom, no matter how
far in ran or what direction he ran in, he couldn't escape the whispers of those that
pursued him through the shadows. The nightmare only ended when someone,
whose face he couldn't see, reached out their hand to him and pulled him back
into the light.
As he slipped further under, he wondered if anyone would be able reach
him in the place where he was going. Was this what he had been sent back for?
To return to this oppressive darkness?
After a while, the sensation of sinking stopped. He felt as if he was
hovering, treading water while somehow remaining under water. Where was he?
What was this place?
"This is where we say goodbye," said a voice, and he knew it to be his
own. Not the voice that other people heard when he spoke aloud-- no, this was
the voice that he heard inside his own thoughts. "You see," the voice continued,
"I've made my choice."
He turned towards where he assumed the voice was coming from. Light,
soft and white. A small white sphere-- a materia-- shimmering in the dark. Its
soft glow cast radiance over the darkened void. He could see the other standing
before him, holding the White Materia in his hands. "Sephiroth," he began,
addressing the man before him, "where did you go? You left me in the
Lifestream."
"I wanted to try and save him," Sephiroth replied.
"But you couldn't," he guessed.
"He's not meant to be saved, Abel."
An uneasy feeling settled in Abel's stomach. "What do you mean by
'you're here to say goodbye'?" he asked Sephiroth. "What choice have you
made?"
"We made a good team, didn't we?" Sephiroth asked, ignoring the
question. "We both fought for control, but overall, we worked well together,
didn't we?"
"I...." Abel trailed off. "I suppose we did."
"Promise me you'll take care of Aeris," Sephiroth implored. "I won't leave
unless you do."
Leave? Abel swallowed. "Who said I wanted you to leave?" he asked.
"Abel, we tried to coexist," Sephiroth reminded him. "It didn't work.
Besides, I've done what I set out to do, and you don't need me anymore."
"You can't just leave," Abel protested. "What about Aeris? You expect
me to believe you worked so hard to save only to leave her when she needs you
most?"
Sephiroth smiled. It wasn't his cold-hearted smirk, but it was still a
secretive expression, one that suggested he knew something Abel did not. "Do
you know what Holy will do?" he asked Abel. "It will cleanse you, Abel. It will
remove all traces of Jenova from your body. As all traces the Planet cleansed
Cloud while he was in the Lifestream."
"How did you know about that?" Abel asked.
"The same way that I know about anything else that happens," Sephiroth
replied. "Through you."
"But that's going to stop after Holy comes," Abel remarked. He looked
down at the white materia in Sephiroth's hands. "Are you going back to Jenova?"
he asked. "After everything that we went through?"
"Everyone has a fate, Abel," Sephiroth replied. "If you wish to change
that fate, then you must change who you are. Completely, totally change. Do you
know how you do that?"
"You merge with some poor human who's had your tissue matter
transplanted into his body," Abel replied, flatly.
Sephiroth laughed. It sounded suspiciously like Abel's own. "No," he
replied, shaking his head. "Fate is a matter of the soul, Abel. Possessing
someone only changes your body." He paused. "I never possessed you, Abel. I
never did anything if you didn't allow me to. Think of it. When I tried to cast the
Fallen Angel spell in the Prison, the spell failed because you resisted."
"You said you couldn't control me in the Cosmo Canyon--"
"Only because you believe that the wards of that sacred place wouldn't
allow me to." He paused. "Think of how the guardians brushed your mind. What
was their reaction?"
"Surprise."
"Not concern."
Abel shook his head. "But all those times you were in control," he
protested.
"Had you tried, you could have easily taken control back. You never
tried," he explained. "As much as you complained, you knew that was how it had
to be, because you needed the knowledge I had." He paused. "In fact, the only
time you ever stepped in was when Sephiroth-half gained control."
"When Sephiroth-half..." Abel trailed off. "Is that what happened in the
Prison? All I noticed was that you started acting weird. Saying things that didn't
make any sense. I only reminded you of how things were."
"You did more than that. You gained control over Sephiroth-half."
"So... I did something you couldn't."
"You can do a lot of things I can't," Sephiroth replied. His eyes flashed.
"But don't let it go to your head, Abel. Jenova-Sephiroth and the Other are still
far more powerful than we are."
"We?" Abel raised an eyebrow. "I lot you said coexisting didn't work."
"You can't lose something that's a part of you," Sephiroth told him. "This
choice that I made, I made it a long time ago when I chose Aeris over Jenova. I
chose to be someone else. Before Jenova laced her tentacles into our mind, and
even before Shinra used us as their guinea pig." He allowed for Abel to mull that
over for a moment. "You told Aeris yourself," he continued, "I've been here the
entire time."
"Wait, if you've been with my entire life-- that's what you're trying to say
in your own melodramatic way--" Sephiroth gave him a very dark look. "Why
would I have only heard you for the first time after I died?" Abel finished.
"You should have never 'heard' me in the first place," Sephiroth replied.
"But I suspect we weren't meant to die at that time. The Planet had-- has greater
plans for us. Your 'death' served as a catalyst; it created an opportunity for you to
return to the Lifestream long enough to be reminded of what you were meant to
do."
"...Right."
"Well, isn't that the point at which this whole mess began?" Abel gave
him a very skeptical look. Sephiroth sighed. "I've never lied to you, Abel. Have
I?"
"No," Abel admitted. "But you've withheld information."
"Everyone keeps secrets from themselves." A pause. "I think deep down
you knew about your parents." Abel gave him the skeptical look again. "Didn't
strike you as the tiniest bit strange that you were the only one who could learn
your mother's technique?"
"Hindsight's twenty-twenty," was Abel's reply. A few moments passed in
silence. "Are you certain that this isn't just going to screw things up again?" he
asked. "I finally know who I am, Sephiroth. I'm not willing to lose that again."
"You won't." Sephiroth walked towards him, stopping when he was a
metre from Abel. "There will be a reduction in your strength and stamina."
"How much of a reduction?"
"It's hard to say." Sephiroth looked thoughtful. "The cells from the body
in the scar didn't cause a great increase, but after three years even a little
difference is going to take some getting used to."
Abel nodded. "Do you think those cells kept Jenova and the Other from
sensing that I'm a--"
"Most likely."
"What do you think of Aeris' theory about Holy?"
"Holy will only come after Cetra blood has been spilled," Sephiroth
replied. "It's a safeguard. Holy is the ultimate white magic, a spell of incredible
power, and it costs the Planet a great deal of energy. Ideally, one would want to
solve this world crisis without resorting to Holy."
"But Holy is the only thing that can kill the other."
"Yes."
"And we're back to there not being a choice."
"Well, it is our blood all over this platform." Sephiroth paused. "You're
the only one who can call for Holy, but that doesn't mean that you can't choose
not to."
"I did not die and come back _twice_ just so I could live to see the Planet
get devoured by some parasitic space creature," Abel told him. "Give me the
materia."
Sephiroth smiled. "I thought you'd feel that way." He extended the white
materia towards Abel. "Thank you."
Abel reached forward. "You're welcome."
"Goodbye, Abel," Sephiroth said, as Abel's fingers brushed the surface of
the orb. The lights began to dance within the materia's glassy depths.
"Goodbye, Sephiroth." Abel's hand closed over the crystal sphere. The
darkness vanished as he was swept away by a wave of light.
*
"So... what do you think they're doing?" Cait Sith asked Nanaki.
"Summoning Holy," the Firetooth replied. "I suspect."
Reeve coughed, and the two of them looked back at him. "Sorry," Reeve
replied, "I'm still not completely recovered." He looked over at the platform
where Aeris and Gabriel knelt, their faces inches apart. "How long
*
'Mother and I will be waiting, Traitor. You know where to find us.'