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I. / X.
As daylight receded on the Mi'ihen Highroad, the summoner and her guardian sat shoulder to shoulder in the twilight. Their day had begun with the taming of another Aeon. It would end as it had many times before: In the towering shadow of a rusted machina that both of them studied thoughtfully.
"Strange," said Aerith softly, and Sephiroth felt the weight of her head against his shoulder. "I almost recognize this one."
On that, they agreed. The mass of metal was as foreign as the writing etched into its sides, but it stirred something in his chest, like walking through pyreflies. Neither of them knew why all the crumbling monuments of the past were achingly familiar, but they were.
"How long have we known one another?" Sephiroth asked.
"As long as I can remember."
"How long is that?"
Aerith lapsed into troubled silence.
He abandoned the topic and slid his arm around her shoulders. Their bodies were solid, warm and real. The impression would fade with Sin’s toxin, and the journey’s end would bear their answers. Before their final breaths were drawn, they would have the truth.
Until then, they had one another, and pyreflies to watch in the dark.
II. / VI.
In the blink of an eye, there were fifty Magitek soldiers strewn lifeless on the ground, the scent of smoke and burning flesh choking the air. Aerith returned through the flames. The half-Esper’s power was impressive, but Sephiroth was struck by something else: The moment was so familiar.
The heat of the fire, the sweat between skin and leather, the sense of release. An old fury burned in his chest.
Aerith looked at him, her eyes blank and hollow.
The slave crown meant she remembered nothing. In a fit of pity, Sephiroth removed it from her, wondering what he’d forgotten.
III. / VIII.
To be a Sorceress was to be burdened, and just as often, alone.
Aerith had her knight, of course. Sephiroth was a constant and comforting presence, but his true purpose always hung precariously between them, like a sword over their heads.
"I dreamt that you killed me again," she murmured into the pillows.
In the dream, she hadn’t yet lost control of her power. Sephiroth hadn’t done it the way he had promised her, either. From above, his sword had...
He took her hand, squeezed it, and brushed his lips against her knuckles.
"But I didn’t."
He seemed disquieted anyway.
IV. / T.
The girl - the vessel - was stirring. Sephiroth bent closer as her eyes fluttered open, greener than before. A mark of Her awakening?
"Before… another time… the same, yet different..." Aerith murmured, feverish. Her rasping voice was so quiet, he brought his ear nearly to her lips. "Hark, Templar... the angel, you, and the blood, mine own..."
"You speak in tongues."
Virgo gleamed. The girl was herself and another, white-haired and many-winged.
"No," she whispered.
Ultima's transformation halted at her word. Magicks reverberated, tearing violently through them. Light. Memory. Blinding pain.
"It’s happened before," Sephiroth gasped, their blood pooling between them.
V. / IX.
Memoria showed them phantoms of places they knew. Aerith moved her hands over the Eidolon Wall, the drawings no longer depicting her summons. A fireball striking a great tower. Pale green ribbons rising from the earth to stop it.
"This is us," Sephiroth frowned, pointing at an image of two souls swirling in darkness and starlight. His tail twitched.
Memoria changed, surrounding them with Oeilvert’s death masks. This time, they recognized each face.
"Not quite like Garland, but…" Aerith said slowly, "You wanted the rebirth of everything."
Gingerly, she touched the mask that resembled her.
"And maybe... I did too."
VI. / XIV.
The battle ended. The final days echoed in a vision all around them, falling stars and rising sorrow painting their surroundings. Sephiroth threw back the hood of his robes and pulled the red mask from his face.
Aerith hesitated.
"We once lived," he said, struggling to stand. "Remember?"
The dream city... it moved her to tears when she first saw it, overwhelming her with an ache for a home long forgotten. It hurt worse than the light searing inside of her.
She smiled sadly. "There’s no going back."
"Remember," Sephiroth urged, holding out his hand, "that we might go forward."
VII. / VII.
"My mom said this place is 500 years old!"
"Even older."
"Wow! How’d you know that, Miss Aeris?"
"Just a hunch. Go on, explore!"
The kids charged forward into the church, laughing. Back then, all the local children had loved coming to visit her garden. Kids these days had lives that teemed with flowers, but when she guided them through what once was Midgar, their faces lit up with the same old magic.
"I found a fossil!"
"That’s a rock, stupid."
"Hey, look!"
"Miss Aeris! There’s somebody else here!"
Sephiroth slowed his gait. Aeris locked eyes with him from across the distance.
Sometimes, their paths crossed here. Whenever they were seized with an all-too-human nostalgia for both the good times and the bad, they returned to the same broken old haunt to meet. Aeris interrogated him under the moonlight, but as far as she could tell, the life he lived now was as quiet as her own. No secret histories or destructive ambitions. Just another chance.
"He’s..."
An old enemy.
An old lover.
An old friend.
Sephiroth nodded faintly to her. Aeris smiled fondly back.
“Don't worry. I know him."
Seven lifetimes worth of memories changed too much for words.