#I have Sephiroth's sword (was broken so in danger of being lost) at least

[s-ephiroth]

Sefikura Week [Day 2]

Prompt for today is Puppet! And as such, the usual warnings for stories with puppet elements go here. There are also implications of self-harm and a nod here and there to zombie-like biology.

Proceed with caution or don’t proceed at all if any of those things cause you any sort of discomfort.

[On AO3] || [Ko-fi]

Necromancy

Sephiroth wins, but there’s a catch.

When the fight is long done and the dust resulting from it has long since settled down, when there’s nothing of the world left, he takes the pieces of what used to be Cloud Strife and keeps them safely close to himself as he prepares for the long trip through the stars.

Search for a new home, search for a new Planet.

The empty shell of what used to be Gaia fades so many light-years away behind him, behind the trail of Lifestream following his lead. He’s tired as he finds his final destination; all the way east of the previous Planet and west of a beautiful, glittering constellation. A place where the wind will blow gently and everything will start anew.

Sephiroth allows the Lifestream to touch it, to merge with the new Planet’s already existent (but fading) life force and take over; creating life wherever it was missing it, without having to worry about a wound to heal.

And just as the new world takes proper shape, he locks himself away and places the pieces of Cloud together with the utmost care, intending to bring back to life his perfect puppet, the one who will lead the humans into not going back to the old ways of mako and experimentation as he pulls the strings behind the curtain. An oracle of a god.

On the seventh day, Cloud Strife comes alive again, willing to obey his every order.

Sephiroth adores every single part of him, from his messy golden hair to his bright, blue eyes to the tips of his fingers in hands that look so small when resting on the palms of Sephiroth’s own. He loves the soft sounds of his breathing when Cloud is too tired to remain awake with him through the quiet night. He loves the gentle reverence with which Cloud regards him and, in turn, he’s loved.

He is loved so deeply that Cloud breaks away from his strings in an attempt to praise him even further.

And once that happens, Cloud begins to think, starts to question; inquiry after inquiry until he’s no longer satisfied with the vague answers Sephiroth gives him and starts to seek knowledge out on his own. He remembers what he has lost. He remembers the fire, the blood and the pain. He recalls a long sword being thrust through his chest countless times and grows restless, doubting his trust in Sephiroth.

The places where his old scars used to be open again by themselves and the despair eats him alive until he’s no longer singing love songs, until he’s no longer touching gently.

Until he’s no longer breathing.

Sephiroth picks up what remains of him and settles down to work again, fixing Cloud up as though he’s nothing but a broken automaton constructed from scratch, a beloved wind-up doll of beautiful, delicate yet fierce features.

Cloud breathes again.

He has no clue of what happened to him, but he’s ready to serve once again, offering guidance to the humans by day and entertaining his god by night. He fits in his strings just well, passing forward the message Sephiroth wants him to and returning home whenever he’s summoned back.

Cloud offers him those small, gentle smiles once Sephiroth has satisfied his urges with him, finding the simple reward of obtaining a similar relief to be good enough. Sephiroth thinks he likes him just like that, all the willing gentleness serving as a proof of the actual prize conquered long ago. No longer opposing him and never to oppose him ever again.

(Unable to show that defiance of his true self.)

The most beautiful, precious thing in the entire universe.

Sephiroth breathes life into him and earns back love. No one interrupts them or questions anything.

Well, except for Cloud, once his love grows enough for him to take a dip into (dangerous) sheer curiosity; once the inquiries come again and are rewarded with false answers, false promises. Detours.

“Will we be together forever?” Cloud asks, but Sephiroth isn’t sure of his answer anymore when he says “Yes, we will.”

Cloud breaks again, such a fragile little thing.

“I brought you into this world and I’ll always love you,” Sephiroth tells him once he’s up again and can breathe, not a memory of the past left to spoil any of it; all completely erased when Sephiroth adjusted his hold on him, tied back the strings he’d pull on once more.

So please, please I beg, love me too.

Cloud loves until he remembers again, injuring himself in his personal guilt and regrets and leaving Sephiroth to deal with a messy, bloody scattered puzzle again; to assemble him back piece by piece until everything is only love, love and love.

(Or is it nothing but a self-indulgent illusion?)

And Cloud breaks, his body unable to deal with the truth that he’s been dead for a long time without returning to the Lifestream even once. He shatters as he's no long supposed to exist, so long gone back when they traveled through the stars, and he’s put back into the shape of the doll Sephiroth liked the most, reanimated into life to play house together.

The cycle repeats, endlessly.

Sephiroth knows he doesn't have any true control over it but he keeps the game up regardless of it, sewing the corpse back up to its former shape and healing the wounds until the scars disappear back into smooth, pale skin before he’s able to breathe new life into his puppet.

“It's good to see you, Cloud,” he says to the doll who doesn't suspect the truth of his own fate, at least not yet.

“I’m glad to see you, too, master,” comes the reply, as it's fit for the occasion.

And so, Sephiroth prepares himself to pull on the strings until they can no longer endure holding Cloud upright, once more.

(Again and again and forever.)

#sefikuraweek #sefikuraweek2018 #sefikura #arkeefic #self-harm cw #puppet shenanigans #zombie biology #i have barely any recollection of writing this #i was very sleepy? #i still can't believe i wrote this

[leonawriter]

To Change A Sombre Morrow

Read it on AO3

Fandom: Final Fantasy VII

Characters: Genesis, Sephiroth, Angeal, Cloud.

Pairings: None.

Summary: The gift of the goddess could be argued to take on many forms, it was said. Genesis had already experienced it in the form of a second chance once, when he had asked and expected it. This time, his second chance was far less obvious, far more time consuming, and had a great many more far-reaching consequences.

Perhaps this time, his role could be the hero, even with the goddess as his only witness.

...

The last thing he saw was blinding light, and deep within it, the impression of her face - the face of the goddess herself, her immaculate beauty something that he had never forgotten in all this time, smiling at him - encouraging him. It was an indulgence... but also a challenge.

He understood her expressions as well now as he had before, when that one disappointed look had made it clear that the one thing that had kept him going for the past six years had been wrong, that he had not been the hero, that he had never been the hero, only mistaking himself as such as he walked further into a prison of his own making, and required someone such as Zack Fair, a disgraced fugitive who no longer even had any reason to have a positive tie to ShinRa, to remind him what his pride as a SOLDIER even was.

Then, even her face was lost to him as he fell, the pure white of her holy light fading into the more natural blue of a clear day, not a cloud in sight.

The wind whistled in his ears, and for a moment he thought that he could hear something, a sound in the distance, but the wind took it away from him. Whatever was happening, it was no matter to him, no business of his-

Closer. 

The wind turned. Smoke - something that smelled of burned metal and sparks flying.

He was holding his sword. The feeling of its weight in his hand a reflex as he tightened what had been a loosened grip on the weapon he had lost so recently.

"-Genesis!"

His name, he realised as he fixed his freefall into something more manageable. And spoken by one whose voice he would know anywhere.

The lifestream? No, something else!

He wasn't dead yet. There was something he had to do - if there were not, then what else had the Goddess wanted of him?

"-ephiroth, stop this! Something's wrong!"

His mind shuddered, instincts taking over from a trained swordsman's technique and finesse, that and the fact that his body knew how to fight even when his mind was no longer there.

Something he had become intimately acquainted with, recently, and had no desire to return to, even for one moment.

Sephiroth. 

Silver hair and silver sword appeared, green eyes glinting at him as though he had called them with the thought of the name. His world narrowed down to one thing - the man in front of him. No other sounds, no other opponents.

They had been friends, once. Genesis was no longer fool enough to say that he had no fault in their downfall, the three of them. He had been afraid, and desperate, and full of self-loathing. A dangerous combination.

His own sword rang out against Sephiroth's Masamune, and if he noted that the man was being more reserved than usual, the words he was using seeming more curious, as if to test him rather than taunt him, then that merely helped him focus better on what he was doing. 

His feet touched something solid - not ground, at least he didn't think so, but it gave cease to the sensation of falling, and as they stared at each other, Genesis' mako-blue eyes meeting Sephiroth's Jenova-green, it almost seemed as though time stood still, or slowed down, even though he knew that no Slow spell had been cast.

A third sword was added to their stand-off. Lesser quality, something that was bound not to last.

He didn't pay it any attention, just as he hadn't for quite some time now - and that was his downfall.

Something changed, and time began moving normally again, but somehow he was now gasping on the floor (a floor, a flat surface, not something found and hollow) and blinking in the bright lights (electric, with no blue sky in sight) and, worst of all-

His hand reached for his shoulder, and came away red.

He'd been here before. This room. This fight. This injury - he'd been here before.

The goddess, looking at him with encouragement and indulgence in her eyes - but also a challenge.

He could hear the blood rushing in his ears, his vision blurring at the edges in the aftermath of being thrown into what his body had been convinced was the middle of a life-or-death match, and then forcibly brought back down to earth again.

"My friend, do you fly away now? To a world that abhors you and I?" 

His lips opened to mouth the words, but he was uncertain whether he ended up speaking them loudly enough for even a SOLDIER's hearing to pick up before the darkness took him.

All that awaits you is a sombre morrow, no matter where the winds may blow...

He wished, a fleeting thing, that the goddess was more prone to communicating in more than expressions and deeds. 

...

"If you could go back. To the past, and change even one thing... would you?"

The sun had been rising - a new dawn over the ruins of Midgar. And yet, even with the light hitting the fallen buildings, only a rare few times had it ever appeared even slightly like nothing had changed. 

The place had been levelled during Meteorfall, and become a literal war zone when the WRO had waged their war against Deepground.

They were both sitting at the edge of a building, the height not holding any threat for either of them. For Genesis especially, he had lost the remainder of his fear of high places and falling when he had first learned that he could fly.

He turned to Cloud, who was staring resolutely forward and toward the sky, one boot lightly kicking the bricks of the roof they were on, as though he hadn't just asked that kind of question.

Genesis had smiled, then. 

"My soul, corrupted by vengeance, hath endured torment. To find the end of the journey in my own salvation, and your eternal slumber."

Perhaps it was right, that they would be the ones to ask such things of each other. Everyone else was gone. Everyone who had been involved to that degree, at least. And no one else had quite the same experience with questioning their own humanity, and coming out somehow cracked and broken in places, but still in one piece, more or less. Despite everything, neither of them had truly lost who they were.

"Does that mean you would, or... you think you've done enough?"

Cloud, Genesis had slowly started to realise, was the kind of person who didn't really care for the art of drama, but never said that Genesis was taking the play too seriously, or too far - but he also questioned what Genesis' intent was. Something that not many had thought to ask.

He reached up to flick a few errant hairs out of his eyes, and watched as the sun's rays reached the Shinra building itself at long last, the reds and yellows of daybreak making it seem almost as though the building were on fire.

Fleetingly, he wished that it were, and he had been the one to set that fire. It would have been satisfying. 

"I have regrets enough that there's plenty I'd change. If the opportunity presented itself, of course. And yet, those regrets are in the past, along with everything that caused them. For myself, there is nothing I would go to such drastic measures for." He turned back to Cloud, smile on his face once again. "And you? You were the one to bring this up, were you not? You owe me an answer of your own."

Cloud ducked his head, and Genesis almost - almost - regretted having asked. A shadow fell over them for just a moment, before the blond not-SOLDIER smiled again.

"I'd never be done with just one thing, if it was to make the future better for everyone. But... all the people I care about are safe and okay, and things are improving." Cloud's shoulders shrugged, awkward as a teenaged trooper even though he was in his twenties now. "So, I'm okay with things as they are."

...

"-can't say you didn't notice something wrong. You could have stopped, like I was trying to tell you to."

Reality came back to him lazily, with muted voices sounding as though they were being heard through a great distance, but up close at the same time.

"I did notice. And I deemed it unwise to simply 'stop', as you would have had me done. What would have happened then, Angeal? Two of us injured, instead of just one." The old pain in Genesis' shoulder spiked with Sephiroth's voice, although something was wrong about it - almost as though it had been reopened, like an enemy picking at an old weak spot.

It wasn't just that, though. Something about Sephiroth's voice sounded off-

"You're saying-?"

"Some trauma he had preferred not to speak of, for the sake of his pride, perhaps? Whatever the cause, our fight turned from a training room spar, to..."

Realisation struck him like a blow to the chest, along with all of the disjointed memories of the events leading up to his falling unconscious in such a way. He gasped, cutting off whatever Angeal might have said in response.

His attempt to sit up on his own was hindered by Angeal's hand on his good shoulder. No longer in the midst of a fight for what he had believed was for his very life, he had the first chance to take the time to understand what this meant - this was Angeal as he remembered him, with no pale hair and no ashen complexion. No white wing flaring out on one side.

The Buster Sword, still attached to his back.

There are no dreams, no honour remains... the words no longer held the weight they once had. The arrow had not yet left the bow of the goddess.

"You know, I wonder if Sephiroth might be right. First that fight, now this - you should talk to someone about this. One of us, or one of the psychiatrists. It is their job, after all. And maybe get someone to have a look at that shoulder and-"

Genesis didn't even let him finish, eyes narrowing as he shoved Angeal out of his way in order to not only sit properly, but also stand. A fainting spell was humiliating for a decorated SOLDIER First Class, but he was no invalid. Even suffering from the later stages of degradation, he had never been that.

"No." 

They both turned to look at him, and perhaps it should have hurt how alien an expression of honest concern was on Sephiroth's face, after so long of either expecting it to be nothing but pity, complete disinterest, or only the slightest attempt at pretending that even a drop of compassion could exist.

"If it is for your own good," Sephiroth said slowly - cautiously, unmoving - with that same expression still on his face, "then you are the only one that you are inconveniencing by choosing to decline."

"The last thing that I want, or would be good for me, is the idea of being poked at, and especially not by scientists."

Being at Hollander's mercy for the better part of seven years purely on the desperate chance that the scientist would find a cure for the degradation had been bad enough, especially on the realisation that no cure was forthcoming. Then, despite his hope that his restoration at the hand of the goddess would be the end of his trials... Deepground had taken him.

He had had far more than enough of scientists for one lifetime.

It was the slight widening of Sephiroth's eyes, the minute nod, that put him off balance, however. Even remembering what he knew of his... friend's past, he hadn't expected to be reminded of it in such a human way, opposed to the wings of destruction and control that he had become accustomed to.

"Very well then. As long as that is your decision."

And then both he and Angeal were staring after Sephiroth's back as the silver-haired general swept out of the training room as the repair techs started to file in, fire extinguishers in hand.

It'll heal up soon enough, he told Angeal on the way out, using all of his willpower to not put his hand to the old (new) wound. We've all of us had worse on the battlefield. This is nothing.

The words turned to ash in his mouth. Pretty little lies. A dramatic sort of poetry, in that it was almost as though he were repeating a previous verse, but this was his life, and not a poem, or script, except in one way - that like LOVELESS, what had once been his immutable past was now open to... variation.

...

AN: Okay so this came about because I love time travel fics and I love FF7 time travel fics but although I love Cloud time travelling my mind threw up but 'what if it was Genesis instead' - partially, I wonder, because I'd been having a hard time imagining any Sephiroth from the future regaining himself enough to want to change the past for the *better*.

I have a few vague ideas for the missing adventure that Genesis will be referring to occasionally, but it might just be small scenes and glimpses into what goes on, rather than a long-term thing.

As for the main story itself, I've got a specific idea of where I want to go with it in some places, but as for others it might have a few time skips.

#final fantasy VII #ff7 #ff7 stuff #genesis rhapsodos #Leona fic #to change a sombre morrow verse

[s-ephiroth]

Sephiroth Week || Day 6: Monster

Read the other week prompts on [AO3]

(A monster is, sometimes, a man in a lab coat.)

After they part ways exactly where they met before leaving for the church, Cloud… disappears again, just like a Turk in infantryman blues going on a delicate mission.

Sephiroth, for various reasons, finds the prospect of it intensely distressing. Even more when he’s informed that he’ll go in mission to Nibelheim as soon as the arrangements for it are concluded. He leaves the company in the middle of one particularly difficult night to go to the church Cloud took him to meet Aerith that one time; not because he hopes to find her there so he can seek some sort of… comfort, no.

It’s the timeless nature of the place itself. That’s enough for him to relax at least for a moment.

Nibelheim is steadily approaching, and with it the answer to their question of whether or not they’ll successfully avoid the nasty effects of it. He can’t help but think that if he didn’t know, he wouldn’t be worrying so much about it, in the same fashion he often thinks of the matter of his mother. The knowledge of both her existence and the events that may happen in Nibelheim feeds his curiosity and only works to keep him going towards those in a pursuit to learn more; to seek a good outcome.

I feel as if somebody important to you is really troubled right now. Maybe she’s been for a long while, Aerith’s words flutter back to him from his memory.

I’m troubled too.

Sephiroth finds it strange that, when he looks at the spot where Cloud curled up into himself the day they visited Aerith in this place, he misses him in almost the same way he misses Angeal and Genesis, despite knowing so little about the trooper and having spent similarly little time around him as well.

He blames it on his getting obsessed with learning more about what may happen in Nibelheim, rather than choosing to believe he somehow got attached like that in such a short while.

In the silence of the church, the sound his phone makes when he receives a message is almost deafening.

“I’m in an elevator. Hojo’s here too. I don’t like the way he’s looking at me.”

The pang of fear that takes over him is enough to have his body moving before he can think, so much that he bumps into a rather alarmed Aerith on his way out. It seems as if she left her house in a hurry, by the way her hair isn’t contained in its usual braid and by the oversized coat she’s wearing.

“I felt— There’s something very wrong going on,” she says.

“I know. I was just heading back.”

She grabs his hand and puts something round and small on it. Materia, he realizes, apparently a restorative one.

“I really hope you don’t need this.”

It’s convenient, as he left home with nothing but Masamune — just in the case he’d find monsters lingering around — and a fire materia, as the bangle he uses for missions was left behind. He thanks her and dashes out and on his way back to the headquarters. If she seems to linger behind instead of going back home… well, he doesn’t question it.

All the way back, he kept trying to get in contact with Cloud, only to get redirected to his voice mail instead. (Hi, this is Cloud. I don’t know why you’d call me but leave a message, maybe?) Sephiroth left a message once — “It’s me. If you got out of that elevator safe, please call back.” — but that didn’t yield any results and so, he kept trying.

When the elevator drops him at the Science department’s floor, he’s filled by nothing but pure rage.

He’s ready to barge into the labs when he hears the scream and pauses just outside the door, trying to make out what’s going on inside before entering, despite the fact that doing so makes his stomach turn in an unpleasant way.

“You should be pleased, boy!” Sephiroth can hear Hojo yell “At least your remains will be useful here... where you can’t ruin years of planning again!”

There’s a sickly sounding noise and more screaming that makes Sephiroth slash the door open, drawing attention to his presence almost immediately. Hojo is in the middle of twisting what looks like a small dagger into Cloud’s belly, the latter tied up to a wall. (Not the chest, but dangerous nonetheless.) He leaves it there as he turns to greet Sephiroth as if he’s doing nothing out of the ordinary.

This, of course, earns him a Masamune in the chest.

“Ugh… ungrateful little monster…” the man manages but Sephiroth doesn’t dignify himself to give an answer, shoving the blade deeper and tossing Hojo aside as soon as he’s sure the older man won't be an issue any longer; promptly sheathing his sword afterwards.

The only monster I see here is dead.

Sephiroth dashes to the blond’s side as soon as he can to provide assistance, maybe a little too fast, even.

“...Se—… Seph—… roth?” He asks in a broken whisper.

“Shh, save your energy. Stay awake for me, please.”

Just as fast as he can, Sephiroth's pulling out the knife and making sure nothing else is wrong that requires non-magical treatment before casting a cure. It slowly sews the wound shut, keeping more blood from coming out. It repairs tissues even inside. However, it’s incapable of recovering any lost blood.

“So… tired…” The cadet mumbles as his bounds are undone, making him fall forward into Sephiroth's arms. Even in his weakness, he reaches out for something on the general’s back, sending a shiver down the taller man’s spine. Sephiroth looks over and notices with a certain horror something that shouldn't be there.

A wing.

“I… didn’t die… right?” Cloud manages, causing the general to look down at him.

“As if I’d allow it,” Sephiroth says but he’s nervous both about it — after all, death is something out of his control and it could’ve happened tonight — and the intrusive appendage on his back. How could he not even notice it’s appearance? How long had it been there? Was it a sign he would end up the way Angeal and Genesis did? Did that make him… a monster?

“Then… why are you… an angel?” There’s a weak, yet noticeable smile accompanying that. It’s not an entirely genuine question about that new part of himself.

Sephiroth doesn’t know how to take this. So he just doesn’t.

“You... shouldn’t talk. The blood loss is probably getting to your head.”

His face feels rather warm and he notices Cloud trying to chuckle before being taken by a cough fit that’s quite concerning.

“I’m… I’m fine…” the blond says in an attempt to dispel that concern “I just… you are… blushing.”

“I’m not and you should shut up. We… need to get out of the building. And out of Midgar.” After all, what was one supposed to do after killing a head of a department? And mostly important, what was the point in staying in Shinra after that — and after everything that happened and that he knew that was allowed to happen?

The blond groans when he’s properly picked up, mostly likely due to the lingering pain that couldn’t be soothed by the cure.

At some point before they make it out of the building, the cadet — or former cadet, as they’re not likely to return — simply falls asleep. Sephiroth checks with a Sense materia he retrieved on his way out to make sure the blond’s alright, but finds nothing wrong with him other than the tiredness caused by that whole ordeal. Maybe it’s for the best that he sleeps anyway, for the time being at least.

And then, he thinks, onto the plan of eliminating whatever’s in Nibelheim before Shinra gets to it.

#sephirothweek #sefikura #(eventual sefikura!) #(which means.... tomorrow my dudes) #arkeefic #sephirothweek2017 #violence tw #death tw