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He hadn’t seen it coming at all.
And yet, Cloud had been absolutely magnificent.
Every ounce of pain in his newly reincarnated body, all those stings and cuts piercing his flesh in rhythm with that lethal sapphire dance—worth it. Worth it, just for the chance to see those Mako-charged eyes stare him down. To have him approach with that electric-blue aura, terminating once more his life...
But certainly not his projects.
Death, is not a finality. Not for the Planet's heir. Not for Sephiroth.
As soon as his consciousness returned to the Lifestream, as soon as he had felt his soul synchronize with the flow, his memories, his existence crumbling further and further away—he had refused.
In all simplicity, had told the Planet : no.
And his will, his being, his divinity...exploded.
It crashed like a tsunami into the Lifestream, spreading the will of his mother. His own will. His ambitions, the rage of having been thwarted yet again, his hatred and supremacy—
The purity of his obsession—
Infecting the Mako. Corrupting the flow of life. And death.
His will spread like a cocoon, an impenetrable barrier around the soul of its owner. Not that the other souls polluting the Lifestream had been tempted to approach. In fact, they fled from him.
As they should.
But not fast enough.
With a wave, he touched thousands of deceased souls in the vicinity. Let his mind expand, his mother's cells scatter, until tens of thousands of souls answered his call. Then more, and more with each passing second. Preventing them from fully joining the Lifestream. Bringing their energy to him.
New servants, whose remnants of existence would be devoted to him. Would worship him. Would fight their own mother, their own Planet.
But he was lacking an anchor. An anchor, without which he might dissolve, dissipate, become nothing more than a whisper in the infinite green—
Cloud.
In the midst of the vortex, he focused his entire being on that SOLDIER first-class fraud, on that stain who, somehow, had managed to kill a god three times—
If he thinks I’m going to disappear...
Oh, he has no idea what’s coming.
And Sephiroth had pulled.
The Planet screamed.
Then, like a rope snapping thread by thread——fibers unraveling, fabric of time tearing at its very seams—
Something had given.
And he’d rushed into the breach.
Barely escaping, unknowingly, from another entity, that stirred in the deepest currents.
But never for long.
Don’t dwell on the past, they say.
Unless you want to rewrite it.
Cloud, below, was twirling one of his black feathers between his fingers. And his expression...
Mouth half-open in horror. Eyes caught between fear, hesitant determination, and hatred. And that little tremor in his hand...
Adorable.
Invisible a few meters away, hovering over the group of idiots led by Cloud, Sephiroth reveled in the show his favorite puppet was putting on.
Cloud.
Amnesiac, weak, impressionable. Swimming constantly between full illusion and disillusion—
His Cloud.
What a brilliant idea it had been. Reset the timeline, start from the beginning, while keeping every memory, every expression on the mercenary’s face, engraved in his own mind. The cry building in Cloud's throat as he grabs the Buster Sword he thinks belongs to him, gathers his courage, before rushing at his God. The way his eyes fluctuate with shades of blue, then green, then blue again. Pupils round, then narrowing just enough when Sephiroth whispers things in his ear.
Tender. Imperative. Mocking.
The way Cloud’s delicate pulse fluctuates in his neck, beneath Sephiroth’s hand, when he mourns the half-Cetra, the florist Aerith, that little pest—
Ah.
...
All those memories...Crystal. Clear. That taste—better, far better than pumpkin soup (...pumpkin soup ? Why am I—)
The rest is... foggy. But it doesn’t matter. Less important.
He melts back into the Lifestream, not without a soft chuckle.
That’s it, Cloud. Keep following me.
Through the bond he shares with Cloud, he can feel... cold.
It’s strange, to feel sensations. It’s inconvenient. It’s fascinating. It’s—
He leans in a little more. Discerns the scene through the echoes relayed by the Lifestream.
The small group is walking through the snow. Their breath clouds the air in pale wisps that dissipate into nothingness (though why didn’t these fools put on more clothes—).
Good. Still chasing after me.
Sephiroth cups the vision between gloved hands, leans in closer—
Ha.
A smile curls at the corner of his lips.
Cloud lags behind. Stopped at the back of the group, he speaks into the air—likely hallucinating the dead Cetra, probably generated by his failing brain swimming in denial. Around him—
Oh. Oh, this is delicious.
The faces of his little band of so-called friends. The furrowed brow of the man with the machine gun slung across his arm. Tifa’s hesitant step behind, swaying on one leg, her expression almost maternal. Always looking like she’s on the verge of wavering, hesitating. Such repulsive weakness, how pathetic.
The little ninja from that decaying nation, and her forced smile as she moves toward his puppet, clearly about to ask in her annoyingly cheery voice what's wrong—
Who would Sephiroth be if he passed up such a beautiful opportunity to play ?
The smile of his spectral form widens. The Whispers anticipate his will, swirling around him, venerating their master, their harbinger of destiny. Loyal hounds, fallen protectors of the planet’s fate.
A rift opens with a simple thought—
And the place Sephiroth once occupied in the Lifestream is now deserted, his consciousness projected into the real world. Toward Cloud. Toward—
BAM.
What—?!
Sephiroth is violently shoved back.
The Whispers swarm around him like anxious beasts. He immediately scatters them with a furious swipe of Masamune, the blade singing through the void.
He looks up toward the rift.
“Who dares—!”
A figure emerges.
Sephiroth grips Masamune tightly and glares with clear disdain.
A man. Average height. Office shirt. Red and burgundy plaid tie. Immaculately groomed. Graying black hair at the edges, strangely real in a space where only lost souls should roam.
Thin, pinched mouth.
Very pinched.
The man adjusts his portfolio and straightens his rectangular glasses, which tilt slightly to one side, as if he'd just dashed out of a meeting that had gone—well, terribly. His small brown eyes meet the god of the Lifestream Black, the harbinger of fate, the heir of the Calamity of the Sky, the inhuman prodigy General—
With disapproval.
"You wish to visit...hm, Cloud Strife, is that correct, sir ?"
The question is asked with such evident weariness that it could almost be taken as mockery, if not for the monotone delivery. As if he’s already tired of asking a question to which he knows the answer.
Sephiroth wastes no time.
“Move.”
Cold. Icy.
Masamune arcs gracefully—
To rebound off the man.
Literally.
Sephiroth stumbles. Floats back a few steps, stunned. He looks at his sword, then at the intruder, then back to the sword.
Masamune. The blade that never misses its target. Part of his soul, an ancient manifestation of his blood and Mother’s cells capable of slicing through the very fabric of the universe—
“You don’t think you’re forgetting something, do you ?” The man in the suit raises a condescending eyebrow. “No ? Doesn’t ring a bell ? You must’ve received my sixteen follow-up notices, sir ?”
No matter who he is, the man is clearly far too comfortable in the presence of the literal bringer of calamity.
Which leaves Sephiroth speechless. And static, for one second too long.
One second too long during which the madman before him—whoever the hell he is—continues.
“You’re a hard man to find, you know ? Well, a man.” He shrugs and briefly checks his polished watch, clearly not interested in untangling the complexities of the subject. “Anyway, at this point, whatever...”
"You’re blocking my way."
The phrase comes out like a sentence of condemnation.
Cold. Unyielding. Irrevocable.
Who is this…this creature ?
The spirit of a Cetra ?
No. No Cetra would have the power to restrict me.
The leather glove creaks against Masamune’s hilt. Mako-bright eyes narrow into a slit so fine the green hue devours the pupil.
"Ah, that, I fully intend to, my good...hm, sir. Block your way."
The man leans his elbow—yes, his elbow—on the rift, as if it were a physical object, and begins to smooth an imaginary mustache with one hand.
Cloud would have likely lunged at the man, tried again to attack him—unsuccessfully.
But Sephiroth does not lack judgment. He wouldn’t have risen so high in the ranks of Shinra, so close to uniting the worlds, if he weren’t among the greatest minds of his time.
So, he fixes the man with his inhuman, alien eyes. A gaze that could make any living creature falter. A gaze that has already driven away all the spirits of the dead in the Lifestream.
A gaze that makes Gaia itself tremble, halting the flow of life for just a moment.
“You’re trying to stop me from manifesting in the world of the living.” From joining Cloud. From touching Cloud. From speaking to Cloud. From— “You will tell me who you are, and what you want. I will not tolerate interference, no matter what power you think you hold in this place.”
The man straightens abruptly, as though struck.
No.
Sephiroth frowns sharply.
This insect seems offended.
And steps boldly toward Sephiroth, walking with an energetic, annoyed gait.
"Listen, young man, this is all well and good, but you’re gonna have to pay."
"Pay ? Excuse me ?"
"Has being dead caused you to lose your hearing, good sir ?" The spirit rips a sheet from his notepad and slaps it into Sephiroth's empty palm.
"Yes, that's right. Pay. Money. Six hundred seventy-six thousand, three hundred and fifty-four gil, to be exact."
Sephiroth stares at the sheet for exactly one second.
The Black Whispers swirl faster and faster.
The man steps back—no, not out of fear, unfortunately—and places his now empty hand on his hip. He proceeds to regard the literal one-winged angel with an inquisitive look, his tone flat, as if he’d just spent eight full hours of a business day dealing with this nonsense.
"How many times have you visited Cloud Strife, sir ?"
How many times I’ve...
Sephiroth takes a moment to regain his composure. The paper is crushed in his palm, every mocking number crumpled beneath his fingers.
"And you thought this was free ?" The man nods toward the rift. "That you could just keep coming and going, at your leisure ?" He looks back at Sephiroth, then with clear disapproval, at the sad, crumpled black paper.
"And the taxes, sir ? You’ve got to pay your taxes. You don’t just visit like that."
Sephiroth takes a deep breath through perfect, clenched teeth.
"Cloud and I are bound by destiny and blood—"
"Yes, yes, talk to somebody who cares."
Sephiroth stares, stunned and—let’s not kid ourselves—enraged, as the man pulls another sheet of paper from his pocket. With numbers. More numbers.
Masamune trembles in his hand. Sephiroth tilts his head slightly, his eyes locked on the man with such intensity that a cobra about to strike would slither home with its head lowered.
“The result is, you owe money, mister, and a great sum at that, so until you pay, you can say goodbye to your little blond lover—HEY——”
The Whispers surge toward the man, surprising him from behind, like a monstrous wave.
A wave that is clearly at the end. Of. Its. Patience.
“I’VE BEEN FOLLOWING YOU ! All the way here, working overtime, unpaid, because of course—ah—but get off me, damn mops !”
Sephiroth watches, chin held high, with a haughty, disdainful look as the hounds of fate drag the man away.
The man’s voice grows fainter, carried away by the dark current.
“This is unfair ! Totally unfair ! I come here, dealing with a case no one else wants at the office—and—hey, you have to pay to see him! And I don’t have enough vacation days to handle cases like thiiiiiiiiiis—!”
...
He’s no longer visible.
Some Whispers return to Sephiroth’s side. They look at him with an almost questioning expression—if it’s possible to interpret the expression of a purple orb beneath a black hood.
Sephiroth’s coat swishes through the air of the Lifestream as he turns, sending some constellations of green and emerald scattering around.
He doesn’t try to identify the man.
It’s not that it’s not on the agenda. It’s just that he has more urgent matters to attend to.
If that clown made me miss the opportunity to torture Cloud...
Turns out, that clown made him miss the opportunity to torture Cloud.
His little puppet and his merry band of mortals had already managed— while Sephiroth's time had been consumed by a first-class bureaucratic failure—to cross the Northern Snowfields, arriving at the gates of Icicle Inn.
Tssh.
...
No matter. It doesn't compromise his plans. Delays them, yes. But compromise ? No.
He sent some Whispers to investigate the identity of the strange entity from last time. Not threatening enough to concern Sephiroth himself. After all, as strange as the manifestation had been, it had fallen into the most childish trap possible. That says it all.
His loyal servants, those he stole from the Planet, will do their job.
In the meantime...
Snowboarding.
The fate of the entire planet is about to unfold, the sky has literally torn apart, and that idiot Cloud is snowboarding.
With a mog, no less. And a stupid, feathered cat-shaped mascot.
Sephiroth surveys the snowy landscape. He watches Cloud, a tiny silhouette below, walking at the top of the slope, board tucked under his arm.
...
Perhaps killing the Ancient hadn’t been enough, after all.
Maybe tearing the literal sky apart hadn’t been enough after all—
No.
Frankly, he can hardly see how it could have been anything less than sufficient.
Sephiroth lets himself be carried by the air, his wing whipping the frigid currents in a graceful, powerful curve. His cat-like eyes study every movement of Cloud, who now weaves his way down the slope.
Crooked visor. Probably because of that hair. He must not have managed to make it fit properly.
...That certainly deserves a little intervention. A proper lesson.
Maybe he could impale the cat mascot to make a slalom pillar on the slope ? Or the talking dog ? Or the mog ? Or—
If Cloud wants so badly to clear his mind, his guardian angel is always ready to help.
In his own way.
Sephiroth’s mouth twists into a sly, cruel smile. With a powerful beat of his wing, he surrenders to the wind, spiraling toward the earth in a slow, predatory glide. A few black feathers drift downward, settling directly in Cloud’s path.
A total coincidence, naturally.
Sephiroth lands imperiously, his black boots touching the snow as though it parts for him. Up above, Cloud continues down the slope. Judging by his path, he should soon see his God. Heading straight for him, unable to slow his descent in time.
And Sephiroth will be ready to welcome him.
His eyes follow the figure above, gleaming with a twisted, feverish, rapturous light. His perfect smile widens into a delightful, manic curve full of too many teeth—
"Midgar, Shinra Tower. Is that still your reference address?"
Sephiroth freezes.
No. NO—
“You’ve failed to respond to over seventeen attempts. I’m adding mistreatment of a public agent to your outstanding balance, along with late fees of forty-seven point three percent on your annual base rate. Surely, you understand, sir, that I don't get to—”
"You—" Sephiroth slowly turns, his green eyes glowing with a light that strongly suggests you should not displease him if you value your life, "—are going to disappear. Or I will make you disappear. You dare come back ?!"
Whispers swarm around him at once.
The sound of sliding snow is distant. Buried under a clatter, a low hiss.
The world is cracking. The sky is splitting.
"Your address—"
"I have nothing to do with Shinra." Sephiroth cuts him off, his voice thick with venom, as if his tongue were spitting disgusting acid.
The man briefly raises his eyebrows, looking surprisingly—almost pleasantly—surprised.
“Ah, at last, some cooperation.” He steps forward, grimacing as he sees his business shoes sinking too neatly into the snow. He finally gives up the battle against the snow’s grip, only to rummage through his briefcase. An XL-sized notepad is nearly full. “Will you be paying by check or cash ?”
Does he have a death wish, or is he doing this on purpose ?
"Oh, I have a far better currency." Sephiroth responds in a voice as smooth as honey, almost too quiet.
"I’ll pay you in despair." The words slip into the air like a dagger slowly heated to white-hot, melting the snow beneath their feet, then several meters around them. "Despair so profound, you’ll regret every breath you’ve ever taken, while I absorb your energy and erase you from the very fabric of fate, until—"
FSSSSHH.
A shadow passes to the right.
Sephiroth freezes. Turns his head.
To see that a certain skier has finally taken a sharp turn, due to the sudden lack of snow on his path.
He’s passed him.
For a moment, no one says anything as Sephiroth’s eyes trace Cloud’s silhouette slaloming between the trees below, speeding down the slope, thick visor now pressed too tight to his skull.
Not having noticed his stalker. Not for a single second.
...
The atoms flee the air.
All of them.
"YOU—"
The Whispers gather, violet flashes lethal beneath their hoods, ready to end this thread of the universe, ready to end the now-counted, brief days—oh so brief—of this miserable intruder—
A silver flash in Sephiroth’s hand—
And he rushes, teeth bared and eyes flashing bloody murder, at the stranger.
But before he can reach him—
A rift opens before him, and he doesn’t have time to stop.
"Im—impossible!"
Sephiroth whips around, his silver mane flaring through the empty space, pushing away the green sparks of the Lifestream—
Just in time to see the rift close on him.
Closing in on the ever-shrinking snowy landscape. Closing in on Cloud.
For a heartbeat, Sephiroth stares into the void.
The spirits of the dead who crowd the space scatter. They bolt as fast as they can, sensing in the air that whatever is coming is not compatible with their continued survival.
Or rather… with their continued existence.
Sephiroth’s fists clench. Leather groans. Splits.
The black Whispers hurl themselves at the stragglers. They smother them, consume them, in a rapid series of pops.
He was caught off guard.
He, Sephiroth.
He, the devourer of worlds, the harbinger of destiny, the very heir of Jenova herself—
Caught. Off. Guard.
“IMPOSSIBLE !”
The roar tears the air open, cracking like a whip through the Lifestream.
Where he has been penned in like a disobedient child.
Or like a common mortal who forgot to pay his taxes.
The souls of the dead squeal and wail. The sounds are thin, inadequate. Maddening. A grating reminder that would gnaw at his bones if he still had a body—
That he is back among the departed.
Back in the Lifestream.
More and more Whispers burst forth. They wheel outward, widening into a ring of ink darker than pitch. They corrupt souls in mid-cry, turning them black as if pierced by a needle of liquid night.
In a flash, the space around him, this corner of the Lifestream, is claimed.
Sephiroth’s palm flares with violet light, throbbing with power. He slashes the air in a furious gesture. The Lifestream groans beneath the assault, like a roof sagging under spreading fractures. The Whispers cry out in answer and plunge into the breach, eager to conquer more.
“I will find Cloud.” The growl erupts from him, cavern-deep and sepulchral, like barbed ice driven into an open wound and twisted. His hatred pours in without end.
“I will…” Sephiroth exhales. “Unite the worlds and wipe you out until your throat can no longer shape a single word, until your voice is erased from the very history of the Planet, until the only way you can beg is with your eyes.”
The Lifestream sobs, its current unstable, like a river gone out of its banks and gripped by convulsions. White Whispers, only just arriving, are destroyed at once, consumed by the spreading dark.
The fabric of the universe is beginning to give. Rents tear open like bleeding wounds, Black Whispers gnawing at the edges and forcing them wider and wider.
The souls of the Planet scream, a single piercing lament that would chill the blood of any living creature. Millions of lives extinguished, converted to nothing in an instant.
Sephiroth’s scream drowns them all.
“You—”
Masamune plunges into the breach. The blade sinks through reality itself as if through warm flesh, and he feels the universe shudder beneath his grip. He drives it deeper, forcing the rupture to yawn wider, tearing the wound until the edges bleed light—
"—are going to GIVE ME BACK CLOUD !"
His voice cracks the void like thunder splitting stone.
...And without warning, everything stops.
Everything goes silent.
The souls mid-scream. The river mid-flow. Even the Black Whispers freeze mid-corruption, their violet cores swiveling from side to side, as if even they were confused.
“What—”
He has no time.
The tear he opened, so vast, so close to breaking free—
Is closing.
As if cement were blooming from nothing to seal it, zigzagging from the outer rim toward the—
Sephiroth yanks Masamune free at the last possible second.
Everything…
He takes a few steps through the emptiness, his grip trembling around his blade.
Everything is calm.
Everything is under the Planet’s control.
No.
His. It is him. That cursed, damnable, impossible—
“Show yourself.”
Sephiroth’s breath comes short, though he should not be capable of breathlessness. His chest heaves with something that has nowhere to go, building and building and—
“SHOW YOURSELF !”
...
Silence.
After a full five seconds—five seconds too long—something seems to brush the Lifestream’s current from above.
A sound—
Rustle.
As though the man, or whatever merely passes for one, were leaning over the top of a tiny box.
The box in which he has locked Sephiroth inside.
“If it's only so you can disrespect me again, I think I'll pass.”
The voice drifts down, flat. A sigh follows—an actual, put-upon sigh that somehow resonates through the infinite void.
“Listen, this is not complicated. I have baseball Thursday at seven in the evening. So if you could hurry this along, we can both return to our lives. You with your world-domination plans, me with my sport and the kids I need to take to riding lessons this weekend. My daughter's competing in dressage, you see, and my son still hasn’t—”
“Stop.”
Sephiroth’s grip slackens on Masamune. The blade dips, its point dragging through the nothing-space.
“Stop. I need to think.”
The Whispers watch him, curious.
Pop. Pop. Pop.
Sensing their master’s overflowing emotions, they withdraw one by one. Vanish, leaving him alone.
Leaving him to consider whether or not he is going to answer the eighteenth follow-up notice.
He’d been bested.
How long had it been since he had last brushed against the living world ? A day ? Three days ? Three weeks ?
He was not starting to miss Cloud. No.
His plans were… temporarily compromised, that was all.
Was his puppet still looking for him ? Were he and his band of amateurs already hauling themselves up the mountain toward the Northern Crater ?
And if they had already reached it, already found his body—
Yet he could not rejoin them ?
Or worse—
Is Cloud still ignoring me and snowboarding ?
…
No. No, absolutely not.
He has to take control again. Take matters back into his own hands. By any means necessary.
But how ?
His power is blocked. The rifts refuse to open. Something is countering his energy, twisting the Planet’s currents out of his reach.
Far within the Lifestream, a threatening presence stirs. Inhuman green eyes narrow, and the damned souls shudder a little harder.
…
How amusing of him, leaving without telling him when Thursday would come.
The Black Whispers quiver with indignation, ever-faithful sentinels.
Shadows whirl, and from the violet light blooming at their cente, a cocoon of darkness takes shape. From that cocoon—
A leather boot. Then a second.
Sephiroth lifts his gaze, searching for the presence. As if in answer, threads of mako drift loose and circle him.
His features tighten, and for the first time in his existence he wants to rip them away, grind them to dust, and retreat to brood inside his eternal shroud of darkness.
What mockery.
“At last, we can talk business.”
Sephiroth spins. Behind him stands that ridiculous man in the suit. Velvet tie loosened past decency. Eyes bruised with fatigue, as if he has spent hours hunched over a too-small computer in the dark, crunching numbers. His mouth twitches like someone long deprived of bitter, unsweetened coffee.
Sephiroth’s fingers curve in a sinuous arc at his side. He barely resists the urge to summon Masamune and force-feed the man his desk, wherever it currently happens to be.
“You look pitiful,” Sephiroth says coolly.
The man raises an eyebrow.
“And you look desperate.”
Sephiroth’s teeth creak.
"I'm afraid your balance has gone from six hundred seventy-six thousand, three hundred and fifty-four gil to eight hundred seventy-eight thousand, nine hundred and three gil, sir." The man doesn't even blink. "After all, I had to add the late penalties, the charges for assaulting an agent—which you cannot deny—my overtime, the cost of processing your file, the rather glaring longing for the little blond—"
“My savings account,” Sephiroth cuts in, voice razor-sharp. Sparks jitter beside him, and this time the mako is not to blame. “At Shinra.”
“But I thought your registered address wasn’t—?”
The One-Winged Angel’s stare kills the question before it is born.
…
“A quick signature ?”
The world trembles.
And somewhere, Cloud lifts his visor.