(no subject)
Who: Sephiroth (rectifythis) and Cloud (infusedmako)
What: Unfinished business eternal, of course.
Where: Wherever their paths should cross.
When: Sometime after this conversation.
Warnings: Violence. Most def’.
The sun had begun to set on their impending showdown. At last, it was time to finish this. Sephiroth had been reasonably patient for the impatience of his insatiable ambition. While he had been meaning to meet Cloud in arms, there was a discreet part of him that was content to wait. In his mind, it seemed clear that this delay wasn’t the result of his teetering the brink of doom. At the height of his strength, he barely noticed as his very life drained away, because it seemed so impossible, so futile to consider, that this god in the making should fear the mortal wound of abandonment-yet he seemed to realize that his time to make a second coming was short. Failure was not an option. Not when she rose from the ashes to give him that final inch, that last breath of strength to take him to new heights, to destroy what should have been that final barricade.
Ah … but she was dying. Dying beautifully, but dying nonetheless. He felt the entirety of her essence beating a clear course through his veins and felt perfectly enlivened. Just one step higher. Just one step closer to divinity, one step to fuel the flame and carnage for this final stand. With that one step … it was over for everyone. With that one step, he would devastate, unmake, and recreate in her name. That last step would make him god and gatekeeper of the world. Just one more step...
-But she was dying. And so was he.
Funnily enough, he barely even noticed.
When he arrived in Nuadoria, he felt only the emptiness of her demise. He hadn’t died, but she had. At least for now. It was down to the wire when he wondered if it was quite possible that he could have underestimated a pack of vagabond peons so severely . With each blow, they tried to strip her away from him. The circumstances were unfeasible, yet Sephiroth was still well enough to know that with that next strike, he would simply have to take Cloud with him.
A change of tactics and a change of scenery to perhaps change the tides.
… And he knew exactly where to settle this.
Whatever abstract strength he may have had, Cloud was still inevitably weak and it was simply a matter of unraveling the pretended fortitude. Sephiroth knew where to hit him, happened to know where he was his weakest, and set a path for that battleground. His friends weren’t there to lie to him, to tell him he was worth more than nothing, to give him some hope that perhaps he wasn’t the hopeless puppet that he’d made himself out to be. Cloud had done that on his own. Sephiroth had simply made an easy meal out of him in dire straits and he’d been most useful. However, the time had come to destroy him from the inside-out. Drawing him into his subconscious, he would subdue his mind, conquer his body, and ultimately devour his soul. The harsher lessons learned when playing with fire…
… But all that had been put on hold until now.
Things had changed considerably since then, far more than Sephiroth even knew, but one thing remained: a ripe bone to pick with a certain blonde. -A certain blonde that should have been intercepting him at any moment. Somehow, the prospect of spilling his blood warmed him, numbed Sephiroth to the nonsensicality of it, and paved a raw path to hedonism that was rather unbecoming in a god on the rise, but Mother would forgive him that. Bloodlust was something she did not forsake.
Yet he didn’t want the others, could care less what became of them if they couldn’t facilitate the pain, and it was incredible just how much he hoped to make Cloud hurt. It was downright obscene. If it were up to him, he would bleed them all if only to give Strife a decent nightmare. For now, though …
He was the one.
And Sephiroth knew that he would come alone. He wouldn’t risk the lives of the pathetic rabble that had given him the newfound strength he was determined to break. But even with them, he was still weak. He was still breakable and Sephiroth was a little too convinced that he could shatter him one way or another. After all, it wasn’t so long ago that he’d stood by and watched his stolen beloved fall to Sephiroth’s sword.
With so much for the taking … Strife need only show up to guarantee his loss.