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Zack watched warily as the first light of day broke across the sky, despair coiling tightly in his gut as the pink and orange rays pierced the dark veil of smoke encompassing the Nibelheim village, casting the charred and wrought destruction of the once towering Reactor into golden luminescence.
Before him, his General was collapsed on his knees, almost slumping in on himself as he looks upon the rising, black smog and the sparking embers that remained of the Reactor he had so thoroughly obliterated. The metal support beams groan and shriek from the heat of burning throughout the night, warping out of shape from the blaze. Some of the structure had already surrendered from the fire, the rest having fallen to Masamune and materia, collapsing to rubble and pieces.
As the plume continues to rise and the ashes of the building’s foundation scatter to the winds, the dust dispersing into the air with the smoke, Zack approached his commanding officer with cautious steps - his last friend on the ground surrounded by the evidence of his wrath.
"Sephiroth… how long have you been out here?" He tests, voice soft and tentative, barely carrying over the thunderous boom of another beam cracking and falling to the fire bellow, sparks dancing along its frame before slowly catching alight.
He knows that Sephiroth heard him despite the fallout, just as he knows he’s been out here the entire night, tearing the building and everything inside it apart piece by piece. After witnessing the ferocious power of the First Class Soldier unleashed, just to hear his voice would be a good start. To know that he could still come back from this abyss he had fallen into.
When no answer comes forth, he takes a few hesitant steps forward, giving him as wide a berth as possible, but after he receives no reaction from his presence, his strides become more purposeful. If Sephiroth was going to cut him down, he would have already done so, not allowing himself to be put in such a vulnerable position as backed against a live fire.
Now, standing in front of his friend with his back to the blaze, he regards Sephiroth apprehensively. Ash falls like snow all around them now, landing like flakes in his long, silver hair. Following its descent briefly as it settles on him, Zack realises that it has built up in a thin layer, covering his dark leather and even his forehead and chest in soot. All around him it has rose up in a thin circle where he has been sat on his haunches for a time.
"Sephiroth," he urges softly as he kneels before him, desperate for a sign of acknowledgment and to better see his face. He looks… almost hollow. Tired in a way Zack has never seen him before. Usually bright, green eyes are downcast, unfocused, his face void of any expression as he stares at the ash and dirt between them. "Please come inside," he insists quietly.
Most of the villagers had kept away from the roaring blaze of the Reactor going up in flames during the night, terrified of its intensity and source like wild thunder recklessly clashing over the land, many running away to ensure the safety of themselves and their families.
Even the Infantry that had come with them on this mission had been hesitant to douse the flames, unsure of how to handle the situation of their commanding officer gone rogue, AWOL. They had been glad to see him take command, obeying his orders immediately not to intervene with Sephiroth's rampage but to keep the fire from spreading towards the village, redirecting it to the dead, snowy trees nearby in the surrounding mountains.
But now, with dawn on the horizon and the fires mostly dwindling to embers, the villagers would likely come to investigate or help. Seeing the cause of the ignition exposed and laying before the remains of the income for their remote location would not do anyone any good.
Despite his thick vest, the heat of the huge fire behind them, the hot and agitated blood pumping through his veins and pounding in his ears, a shiver of terror ran through Zack’s every nerve as Sephiroth spoke in a hissed whisper, “I should have buried them.”
Slowly Sephiroth raised his head, his green eyes glancing straight past him. They trained on some invisible spectre beyond them in the dancing flames, reflecting the steady furnace. His eyelids were heavy and a fraction too slow to blink, his irises too stationary before suddenly - finally - sliding into focus and landing on his face.
"I can't stop thinking about them, Zack,” he practically whispers, voice raspy from inhaling the smoke and dust, from shouting his fury to the heavens he swore to tear down. “About what I did. About what I should have done instead," he breathes out horsley. Zack doesn’t doubt he would have missed his words if not for watching his lips move, but to know his thoughts...
He remembers the glass cases, finding three bodies floating in cylinder tanks, neon blue lights and the agonised cry of his General as he released them and they collapse lifelessly into his waiting arms. He remembers being frozen, watching with dread and a breaking heart as his friend whispered something and laid three bodies next to each other.
Then, the complete desolation and eradication of the Shinra Reactor that followed, swallowed in a rage that rivaled the fury of the Gods.
"I…" Sephiroth starts, but cuts himself off, looking back to the flames over his shoulder, allowing his hair to fall across his chest and smearing the soot there. Zack follows the wispy strands fall, his mind's eye returning to entwined silver hair, foreheads pressed together and pale corpses being cradled on the cold lab floor.
"What if they were mine?" Sephiroth continues, no longer expressionless, his jawline tight from gritting his teeth and furrowing his brows.
Zack watches silently, the clash of his primeval instinct to remain still and his rationality to snap him out of it colliding and screaming in his head all the while his heart breaks. Sephiroth is a paragon of building wrath, the way to madness forging a path in the flashing green of his gaze in a bottomless spiral of 'what if's' .
He’s dancing just at the edge of sanity now, courting that slim line in between functioning and falling, the dark circles under his eyes highlighting the mako glow and the trembling of his muscles growing.
"Sephiroth..." he tries, leaning closer, hands itching to yank him away from it all and back to ignorance, To shrink away, hide in the woods, escape . Fear ripped through him, the dread of imminent loss striking him through the chest. It was the kind of fear that made his spine prickle and heat unfurl in his gut all in one.
Angeal would have known what to say to him, how to help him back from this. He’d say something wise, soft, pull him back from the brink all on his own. But Angeal wasn’t here, and laying in the fire and sorrow of all this destruction, for the first time in a long time, Zack doesn’t know what to do.
"I've never considered having children before. It's likely impossible for me. But seeing them… To know that I could have-" He stopped suddenly, fingers clenching tightly in the dirt, ash and debris squeezing out between his fingers as something that could have been his was given and just as suddenly, ripped away brutally.
Zack barely stopped himself from reaching out as Sephiroth trembled in the ruins of the Reactor; of everything that he could have had and been smouldering into charcoal.
With the sun now shining fully upon them, Zack had no explanation for the sudden, icy chill that rose between them, seeping through his clothes and freezing his bones. He met green eyes as they looked on with cold fury, Sephiroth suddenly becoming rigid before him and sitting straighter, moving at last as he leant towards Zack.
"What if I had known? If I'd had the chance to meet them?" He hissed, fingers uncurling in the dirt and now digging into the stained leather covering his thighs. "I could have… I could have raised them - protected them. Far away from all this…" Just as fast as the fires in his eyes had grown, they were drowned out with wet tears threatening to spill over.
"I would have done anything for them," he hoarsely sobbed, the dam breaking at last. He truly cried after his words, a tear racing down his face and falling from his chin.
Zack did hold him then, putting a hand on his shoulder and another on his knee. He knew there was nothing he could say that could fix this - perhaps there never would be - but he could be here now, when the man needed him most.
He supported the shuddering frame, subtly leaning closer to the man. He looked on without judgement as sephiroth sobbed quietly, a few more tears falling and Zack felt his heart break, watching the shock and anger fade away to despair - the stages of grief all rolling into one turbulent expression.
The sound of his sobs intermingled with the memory of him clutching the crumpled body that had fallen from the vat of suspended mako. Wet, pale skin and soaked silver hair mussed and mixed together among glass shards and crystallising mako. A mirage of possibilities engulfed in sadness. Then, two more, all laid besides one another.
Eventually, the tears stopped flowing and with a little sigh, sephiroth turned his head to look back, the Mansion looming in the distance a trigger in his eyes. All was quiet for a time - nothing but the crackle of timber.
"I read their files, before burning them," Sephiroth stated. Zack nodded shallowly, watching him breath deeply as he attempted to regain his resolve. "Subjects 1 to 3, propagated via Specimen S. 4, 6 and 9 years old," he enumerated.
How long had he been fixated on those documents to be able to recite them from memory? When did he read them; did he keep them? A million thoughts flooded Zack’s mind, but not enough to distract him from the dim flare of light gathering around Sephiroth’s fingers. The glow grew brighter, white hot, before morphing into a wild blue flame licking along his palm. Zack flinched back as the fire grew in his hand, racing along his arm like a wildfire.
He suddenly rose to his feet like a shot from a gun, whirling around in the smoke and ash, aiming his hand high towards the ruins. He released the spell at last, a splitting wail on his lips as it sailed like lightning through the air towards its target.
"They were just numbers! Barcodes to be scanned!" He shouted. "Why didn’t I see the signs? Why didn’t I know?!"
Zack barely covered his eyes in time for the Firaga to burst into life, blasting apart the remains of the Reactor. The rubble exploded and scattered, flying upwards in a wall of debris as the flames engulfed the ruins all over again. Glass shattered upon impact and the building collapsed entirely upon itself with a final screech, embers raining down all around them.
Slowly, sephiroth lowered his hand, the crumbling echoing throughout the silent village and the crackling of renewed flames. Zack quietly got to his feet, standing a step behind his General, feeling the rage encompassing his entire being and watching the gravity of his grief sink down on his frame. The sight sent a chill that needled its way down into his bones.
“Loz, Yazoo, Kadaj…” It took Zack a moment to realise that the words he whispered were names. The clone’s names; the children’s names. Is that what they were called? Did it matter now? “They didn’t stand a chance.”
Carefully, Zack took a step closer, the pulsing heat of the revived flames brushing against his skin but doing nothing to cut the cold from his insides. Sephiroth looked entirely alone, haloed by the orange furnace and he couldn’t stand it - he approached his enraged friend again.
He placed a hand on the armour covering Sephiroth's shoulder, gently tugging until the man looked away from the flames. Acidic green eyes met his and he squeezed the metal pauldron there, hoping the General could see past the maelstrom of his engulfing sorrow and rage to him - to his willingness to help, to his calmness, to reason .
Zack decides the best way forwards is swiftly - to dip a toe into dark waters without another thought and drag Sephiroth out of its depths, kicking and screaming if he had to.
He was under no delusion that their understanding of the world was equal. Zack considered himself a simple man, with simple desires and simple motivations and he liked it that way. But, for better or worse, their lives were intertwined now and Zack knew enough to learn from their history of missions, battles, Shinra political navigations and loss, that nothing good would come of letting Sephiroth stew in his own overwrought sense of responsibility.
“Sephiroth.” The vicious green seemed to dim for a moment, honing in and focusing on his mouth as it moved. Sephiroth turned fully, facing him and not the ghosts in the fire. He considered apologising, but knew without doubt that Sephiroth would consider it pity, would not understand and withdraw entirely. He inhaled deeply, then continued, “There was nothing you could have done for them.”
He watched his pale throat close around the bitter pill, felt the pull as Sephiroth began to retreat from him. Zack tightened his hold on the armour, thankful for his Soldier strength, but Sephiroth’s struggle was... weak. A token try at escaping his hold. Zack clung to him regardless, because if he could get Sephiroth to give in, to stop thinking and tearing himself up about everything, he could just… just…
“Sephiroth, I have no doubt that you would have given up everything for them. You’d have vanished to Icicle Inn and lived happily ever after with them, far away from Shinra’s reach, done your best for them and raised them right, but there was nothing you could have done for them.”
Zack felt Sephiroth try to pull away again, to turn back to the fire. He knew his superior officer could overpower him at any moment, that he didn’t have to take this from him and the fact that he did nothing to fight back or resist his tightening hold only made Zack more determined - he knew if he pulled away now, he would never see Sephiroth again. As himself or ever was a frightful thought that he didn’t want to explore.
“You didn’t know about them and it’s not your fault,” he insisted, offering Sephiroth the much needed physical contact, acting as an anchor in the storm before his wits were swept away entirely. “You weren’t too late, Seph - you didn’t know and there was no way you could have known,” he repeated. “What I do know is that you feel cheated , lied to and enraged . I won’t pretend to understand why Hojo did this, but you can’t blame yourself for it. We’re not going to let him get away with it, Seph. There’s no way on Gaia.”
Written across his face was one of the countless, complex expressions that Zack couldn’t read. He hoped there was still time to learn them.
"Will you come with me, Zack?"
Will you leave Shinra behind? Will you help me to avenge them? Will you kill that bastard with me, at last? It was all buried into one question. Zack honestly didn't know the answer. The tear in his heart grew to twice the size.
"Hojo…" he hissed, face potent with venom and animosity, gritting his teeth with the effort to restrain himself. Sephiroth’s voice rose as he spoke and the fire seemed to brighten with the increasing volume. Zack felt a crushing weight pressing down on his chest, heavier and heavier with the swelling intensity until Sephiroth suddenly stopped himself, closing his eyes and pausing, calming himself down. "He left them to rot like they meant nothing , and I am going to find him."
Angeal was dead. Genesis was barely alive, lurking and scheming. Cloud was AWOL, abandoning Shinra to protect his Mother and his childhood friend. The Soldier’s he had known were distant, Cissnei long gone and Tseng cold. There was nothing left for him at Shinra now. But in Midgar, Aerith remained under the Turk’s watch. He didn’t want to think about what they would do to her to get to him, to drag him back into their clutches.
He sighs. "I need to get Aerith out of Midgar. I can’t abandon her again,” he said, watching the flames flicker and reflect in silver hair, the fire swell behind him as Sephiroth waited. “Then I'll help you, Sephiroth. I promise. I won’t let you do this alone."
The growl that came forth was more like from a beast than a man, almost a wicked purr; the world and its myriad of monsters crept in all around him in an instant, the hair rising on the back of his neck as he watched Sephiroth stand taller, looking past him to the Mansion in the distance with the blaze behind him somehow swirling in his eyes.
Zack always felt like he had won something when he got Sephiroth to smile, but this was wrong. It was vengeful, biting and sharp. This was no longer his superior officer or friend before him. Instead, stood the demon Wutai had forged, a master swordsman and built Weapon, lips twisted up into a vicious smile with absolutely nothing to loose. "Thank you, Zack."