“Sephiroth,” a voice whispered hollowly into the small bedroom.
“Cloud?” Sephiroth rubbed his sore eyes and looked down at Cloud who hadn’t stirred
in hours. Depriving himself of sleep had made Sephiroth a mess of nerves. Was it his
imagination running wild or Cloud talking in his sleep? Probably a little of both and
neither were helping his frame of mind. There was still a lingering fog of paranoia in his
brain cells but he refused to acknowledge the problem.
“Sephiroth.”
There it was again. The voice had been too low to belong to Cloud and it had come from
the doorway. “Who’s there?” What did Sephiroth have to fear? He had been mortally
injured more times than he could count and his mind was strewn with holes. Nothing
could scare him or top off a near-death experience.
“Sephiroth.”
“I will not take part in your immature games, cretin!” Acid was boiling in Sephiroth’s
blood by the time the voice called out again.
“Sephiroth.” A short intake of breath followed. “Kill him. Kill Cloud. Do it quickly
lest he awaken and do the same to you.”
Pure, unadulterated hatred came pouring out of Sephiroth’s eyes and from his mouth. “If
any harm shall befall him, I will show you no mercy.”
“It is not I who is the threat to him, Sephiroth, it is you.”
Sephiroth was an extremely intelligent man, he far surpassed even the brightest of
scholars. He eventually began to comprehend the meaning behind the hidden voice’s
accusations. What if he had been freed or split off from his evil, demented self upon
entering the Lifestream? No, it couldn’t have been the Lifestream because that was a
place of quiet and peace. The place he had been in was best described as a hell-forsaken
pit of death and corruption. Still, he realized that the voice he was hearing was his own.
His other half desperately wanted to rejoin with him. If that ever happened…
“What did you say?” Cloud looked up at Sephiroth with an expression all too innocent
and without judgement.
“We have to get out of here as soon as possible.” Sephiroth threw off the blankets and
snapped on the lamplight. “Maybe we can climb out through the roof.” He began to pull
on his long, black boots and fasten his leather jacket back in place so that his cape
covered his bare chest. Then he picked up his sword, his back turned to Cloud.
“I thought your plan was to wait until we get rescued.” Cloud could see that something
wasn’t right by the way that Sephiroth was checking out the room. “Did you lose your
glove?” He held up one of them for Sephiroth to take, the other one was missing. “It
couldn’t have gotten all the way across the room.” He got off of the bed and crouched
down to look under it.
The way with which Sephiroth hoisted him off of his feet was none too gentle or kind.
“You imbecile!” He pinned Cloud down onto the bed and glared at him. “If someone
were hiding under that bed, they wouldn’t hesitate to murder you in that position. What
were you thinking?”
Sephiroth’s mako eyes were blazing a fiery red as he held his sword away from Cloud.
The beating in Cloud’s heart had grown harder and faster, his hands trembling from
fright. “I always manage to upset you,” he said sadly. “That’s why we can never be
friends. You always make it perfectly clear that I’m some flaw of nature that just gets in
your way.”
“N…no, I didn’t mean to…” Sephiroth broke off what he was about to say and propped
his sword up against the bed. He wrapped his arms firmly around Cloud and embraced
him tenderly. “You don’t understand what is happening to me.”
v
A single tear slid down Cloud’s cheek and many more filled in his eyes. “I want to…I’ve
always tried to be there for you but you won’t let me. You push me away.” He started to
cry, clenching Sephiroth’s neck with his arm and soaking it with his misery.
All Sephiroth could do was to hold on tighter and stroke Cloud’s back to calm him. “I
never knew that by protecting you, I was doing more bad than good. Cloud…I don’t
want to give up this ‘bonding’ that I’ve established with you. But, if I don’t, I may end
up losing control of myself. My dark side, the one that knows only evil, was dispatched
from me when our battle ended. It is haunting me, demanding that I reconnect with it. I
can’t do that without jeopardizing your safety.”
“How can you overcome your fears and inner turmoil by setting it apart from you?”
“What do you mean?” This wasn’t what Sephiroth had been expecting to hear. There
was wisdom to Cloud’s words and questions he hadn’t considered himself.
“When I lost my memories, it only made me weaker and less of a person. I had to
confront the truth and conquer it on my own.”
“True. However, you were fighting pieces of your past. What I am facing seems to be an
actual, solid entity. A physical obstacle to deal with who is most likely a mirror image of
myself. How do I fight myself?”
That mirror image struck Cloud’s overactive imagination. What if? He clearly
remembered Sephiroth dropping his gloves on the floor with the rest of his stuff. Where
was the other glove? “He’s in here,” Cloud whispered, terrified. The Sephiroth that had
inflicted unspeakable torture upon him was in the same room as them.
Still holding onto Cloud, Sephiroth grasped the handle of his long sword and tested it.
“You know how to use this, right?”
“It’s your sword.” Cloud couldn’t fathom the predicament he’d be in if he had to fight
Sephiroth’s evil twin. He didn’t want to be put in that situation because he still hadn’t
recovered from the last time.
“If anything should happen to me…if I turn on you, I want you to kill me.” A cry of
protest was all he got for the order. Then, all he heard was Cloud sobbing in his arms. “I
don’t want to live with your death on my conscience.”
“It isn’t fair.” Cloud grasped a handful of Sephiroth’s hair and wouldn’t let go. “Why do
I have to kill you? I won’t do it! No matter what you do to me, I won’t!”
Could it be anymore futile than it already was? Sephiroth couldn’t push Cloud into
promising to kill him and Sephiroth didn’t want to be the instrument of torture for Cloud
again. But the evil side of him wanted Cloud dead, and wished for Sephiroth to accept
his destiny of havoc.
“You should have let him look under the bed.” It was Sephiroth’s voice and yet it
wasn’t. The voice lacked substance and emotions but the darkness dripped from each
word spoken. Another version of Sephiroth slid out from under the bed, one black,
leather glove on his left hand. He was an exact carbon copy of Sephiroth in height,
weight and form. There was one thing missing though. The evil Sephiroth’s hair was
black, his skin black and his shadow failed to grace the wall along with the others. Only
two red orbs for eyes shone out from his two dimensional form.
“This has gone on long enough.” Sephiroth lowered Cloud onto the bed and menacingly
approached his counterpart. “If I had been given the chance to separate from you before,
I would have gladly done so and then disposed of your useless husk.”
“The boy was correct. You can’t live without me. We are forever magnetized. You
can’t kill me. But, I can kill him.” The evil Sephiroth raised a black replica of
Sephiroth’s sword and pointed it at Cloud’s throat.
With one simple stroke, Sephiroth had knocked the weapon away from Cloud. “I don’t
give a damn about the consequences of killing you but I am certain that it can be done.”
Sephiroth attacked his twin, slashing for vital organs and pressure points while deflecting
any directed at him. His emotions drove him onward for he knew that if he died, Cloud
would be lying right next to him in a shallow grave.
As the evil Sephiroth was backing away from the thrust of Sephiroth’s sword, he was
unprepared for the harsh kick that smashed into his groin. Then, he was grabbed by the
neck and choked by Sephiroth’s pinching fingers. “I will do whatever it takes to defeat
you.” Sephiroth removed his hand and stabbed the black apparition straight through to
his heart and out the back of his ribcage.
“Very nice,” Evil Sephiroth chuckled. “If I were a normal human like yourself, this
would have hurt.” He discarded his own sword and pulled out Sephiroth’s which was
dripping with a green goo.
Cloud watched with horror when Evil Sephiroth plunged the sword into Sephiroth as
deep as he could. “SEPHIROTH!!!” Cloud screamed and ran towards him, oblivious of
the danger he was putting himself in.
The wound in Sephiroth’s chest was real but he acted as if it hadn’t hurt at all. With the
sword still imbedded in him, he stood in front of Cloud, blocking him from Evil
Sephiroth’s reach. Sephiroth withdrew the sword from his body and inspected the red
blood now tainting the metal. “Don’t interfere, Cloud. I can settle this on my own.”
“But…”
“The bleeding has stopped and the wound has healed. We are equally matched but
neither of us can really harm the other. I cannot kill myself and therefore he will not be
able to do away with me. It would seem that you are the pawn in all of this…again.”
“What is the point of fighting him if you can’t win?”
“If I don’t, he will certainly kill you. That is an alternative that I cannot bear.” Sephiroth
whipped his arm upwards to halt his twin’s sword from slicing open his skull. A large
gaping hole appeared in his arm from the blade but disappeared as if it had never been
there.
From the sidelines, Cloud watched as one blow was exchanged for another. They fought
each other with a firm resolution but could neither could break the constant stalemate.
Sephiroth couldn’t do any permanent damage to himself but Cloud on the other hand…
Would it be permitted to interfere in their abnormal battle? Could he make a difference?
There wasn’t much that Cloud could use for a weapon in his bedroom. His swords were
still on display in the living room. The Ultima Weapon was locked away in a safe place
which happened to be nowhere convenient. Cloud slipped by the pair of identical
fighting men and pulled out a coat hanger from his closet. He twisted it in his hands until
it was nothing but a mangled piece of wire. Then, he stood back and waited.
“Are you getting tired yet?” The evil Sephiroth was dancing around his counterpart,
showing off fancy moves.
“Never!” Sephiroth was in top physical shape and had no trouble keeping his double’s
pace. He even managed to get the upper hand a couple of times. However, the same
could be said for the evil Sephiroth who acquired sudden bursts of energy.
Just as Sephiroth was about to bring his sword down to meet the evil Sephiroth’s sword,
Cloud appeared from behind him. Sephiroth was startled when Cloud leapt forward and
roped Evil Sephiroth’s throat with the copper wire. Evil Sephiroth was quite a bit taller
than Cloud so he was wrenched off of his feet when the crazy entity went bezerk. Cloud
hung on with a powerful determination. He tugged harder on the wire, strangling the evil
Sephiroth with all of his might.
The sane Sephiroth bent over and gasped for air, choking and grabbing at his own throat.
He felt the wire biting into his flesh, cutting off his air flow, restricting his circulation.
Sephiroth reacted instinctively and rammed his elbow into the unseen opponent.
On the opposite side of the room, Cloud howled in agony and collapsed onto the floor.
Was this his reward for finally discovering peace with Sephiroth? Was he damned to kill
his friend for a second time? All of the things he had needed to say to Sephiroth would
now remain silenced in his heart. There was to be no second chance for them. It was
over. Cloud felt cold hands on his arms and didn’t know which Sephiroth had gotten to
him first.
“We have to go…now.” Sephiroth cleared his throat which was raw from choking.
“I’m sorry…I didn’t know that…”
Sephiroth cut him off by stroking a finger over Cloud’s bottom lip. Cloud thought that
the action was odd but he kept it to himself. “No, you did the right thing. He took the
brunt of it.” Sephiroth indicated the prone form of Evil Sephiroth writing on the ground.
“We have to hurry.”
Using the bed shelves as a ladder, Cloud and Sephiroth clambered up them to reach the
fault ceiling. Sephiroth poked it with his sword until a tiny ray of light shone in. He
knocked at it some more, making room for them to squeeze out onto the roof. They
carefully made their way along the side of the house although their eyes were still
unaccustomed to the morning light.
“If it was that easy to get out, why didn’t you do it last night?,” Cloud asked suspiciously.
“Leaving would have been the easiest thing to do but it wouldn’t have been the right
thing to do.”
What could Sephiroth mean by that? “It was ‘right’ to stay with me?”
“That evil side of me has been in control for too long. I have many regrets and nearly all
of them relate to you. I had to let you know this in case I were to be put into a position
where that privilege would not be available to me anymore. My feelings for you have
always been brushed aside.” Sephiroth took Cloud by his hand and led him past the
wreckage of his house towards an empty building. They sat on the steps of some
restaurant which would be closed for another couple of hours. From there, not even the
evil Sephiroth would be able to find them…at least not right away. “It’s entirely my fault
and I don’t want you to remember me as some cold, emotionless bastard.”
“You have to stop blaming yourself.” Cloud smiled faintly at Sephiroth, gazing into his
remorseful eyes. “I told you that I forgave you, isn’t that what you wanted to hear?”
“In part - yes - but more than that.” Sephiroth placed his hand on Cloud’s face and
looked at him with an expression which spoke of warmth and a secret passion.
“Cloud…I…”
Cloud saw a twitch in Sephiroth’s mouth and moved closer to him. He reached over to
touch Sephiroth’s arm when the man violently shoved him off of the stairs. The fall
winded Cloud but confused him more than the pain. A harsh, bitter laughter erupted
from deep within Sephiroth as his eyes seared with red fire. “Pitiful child! You fell for
my fake concern for you. What a stupid creature you are to fall for that line of crap.
What was I going to say? I care for you, Cloud. I want to be your friend,” Sephiroth
jeered. His mouth turned up in a snarl to reveal his teeth which were grinding together.
When Sephiroth stomped his foot down, he missed Cloud entirely noting that this was
one adversary that couldn’t be underestimated. “Sephiroth, please…think about what
you’re doing. That isn’t you talking, it’s him.”
“Does it matter who speaks for me? It won’t to me or you once I’ve finished what I came
to do.” Sephiroth raised his sword and pinpointed the exact spot where he’d start off in
shredding Cloud out of his life.
