Fall Into Ruin [Open to Zack, possibly Cloud and Aerith later?]
Sephiroth was about to answer Zack, rather dryly, that if Zack preferred experienced pilots then perhaps he might want to hitch a ride on another ship entirely, when the sensation hit - and with it all the numbness of impossible nostalgia. The unnatural chill, seeming to emanate from his core outwards, even as his blood (or, a more alarming prospect, something in it) seared its way through his veins so fiercely that it felt like burning. And the irrational, inexplicable urge to lash out at something, anything, as much out of fear and pain as anger...like a triggered self-defense mechanism against a threat he couldn't even perceive.
He'd felt this before, on Hollow Bastion. It was what had driven him to investigate what was happening to him, and what had led him to the discovery of Ansem's betrayal and the life-altering events that had followed. But he'd thought that, with Ansem's furthered experiments upon him, that he'd become accomodated enough to the presence of darkness to never experience such symptoms again...
Whereas, if anything - and if his perception of it wasn't distorted by elapsed time - the sensation now was more intense than it had ever been on Hollow Bastion, and somehow reached deeper. And behind it echoed an almost heartrending sense of loss.
Instinct drew his gaze to the sky, and he watched in silence as the stars fell. He knew what they meant, and wanted to grieve for the sheer scope of the destruction by darkness it heralded, but instead he merely felt empty, as though the cold within him had left him hollow.
"Has the darkness come this far?" he murmured, more to himself than to Zack, and wondered even as he said it whether he was referring to the rain of shattered worlds or the suspicion that, somehow, the emptiness in him was a symptom of his becoming further corrupted in this latest show of power by the darkness.
He'd felt this before, on Hollow Bastion. It was what had driven him to investigate what was happening to him, and what had led him to the discovery of Ansem's betrayal and the life-altering events that had followed. But he'd thought that, with Ansem's furthered experiments upon him, that he'd become accomodated enough to the presence of darkness to never experience such symptoms again...
Whereas, if anything - and if his perception of it wasn't distorted by elapsed time - the sensation now was more intense than it had ever been on Hollow Bastion, and somehow reached deeper. And behind it echoed an almost heartrending sense of loss.
Instinct drew his gaze to the sky, and he watched in silence as the stars fell. He knew what they meant, and wanted to grieve for the sheer scope of the destruction by darkness it heralded, but instead he merely felt empty, as though the cold within him had left him hollow.
"Has the darkness come this far?" he murmured, more to himself than to Zack, and wondered even as he said it whether he was referring to the rain of shattered worlds or the suspicion that, somehow, the emptiness in him was a symptom of his becoming further corrupted in this latest show of power by the darkness.