[KH2] - Crucify My Love (Xigbar/Xaldin/Sephiroth)
“Oh very good… Now throw him up against the wall. He likes that. No, harder you fucking pussy. When I say throw, I mean like a fucking Berserker. Oh that’s better… I can see the dent in the wall.”
It wasn’t the first time Xigbar had narrated the perverse events that he observed through the scope of his arrow-rifle. He usually quite enjoyed it, the crow’s feet at the corners of his eye deepening with the squint and the sick grin he wore as he saw people do things that they would never reveal to the outside world. It pleased him, being a collector of sick and nasty little secrets. Not because he intended to hold it over their heads - after all, what could insignificant meatsacks like them offer that he couldn’t just more easily take over their dead, disfigured, partially-devoured corpses? But just because he enjoyed being a voyeur to their dirty deeds.
But this time… there was no glee on his face. No thrill in his empty veins. Instead there was a twitching, manic smile that seemed to wind across his creatures dizzyingly, like a broken carousel. The one eye remaining to him, the eye which usually danced and sparkled with things great and terrible was now dead. Dead, save for a tiny pinprick of light writhing in the center. If anyone had looked into his eyes, they would have sworn that the light was screaming in pain.
What was the cause of this strange change in behavior? What caused Xigbar to clench his teeth so hard on his grin that tiny fracture lines appeared in his molars? (They appeared with a tiny popping noise - like the sound of cracking glass. With each one, pain shot through Xigbar’s jaw like fire. He was almost beginning to enjoy it.)
For one thing, Sephiroth was fucking Xaldin up the ass down there. For another, he was doing it well.
What bothered Xigbar the most was that Xaldin knew better. He should have been smarter. His intelligence (along with the fact that he was a fucking animal in bed) was half the reason Xigbar liked him in the first place. But doing something as monumentally fucking stupid as cheating on Xigbar was so beyond dumb that it completely destroyed Xigbar’s ability to function on a rational level. And unfortunately for Xaldin, Xigbar’s ability to process information on a rational level was fucked up to begin with.
As for Sephiroth… Xigbar couldn’t even force his feelings about that into a cohesive sound. A growl or a snarl didn’t cut it. Nor did a howl. Xigbar had a feeling that the sound of Sephiroth’s throat separating from the rest of his body may work, but he wasn’t positive.
His madness-laced eye peered through the scope again. He was gazing through the window of a tiny, nondescript house in the middle of Hollow Bastion. His guess was that Xaldin just portaled his way inside. He had no idea how Sephiroth got there without one of the Hollow Bastion defense brats jumping his ass, but he didn’t care. What mattered was that the two of them were in there now, fucking on top of the kitchen table. The wood creaked and groaned as the two of them thrusted on top of it, a tangle of dreads and white hair and wings and naked, sweaty flesh.
“Fuck me, Sephiroth.”
Xigbar could read Xaldin’s lips, even from this distance. His fingers tightened around the handle and barrel of the arrow rifle and another crack appeared in his teeth. It was when Sephiroth kissed Xaldin deep and bit his lip hard, drawing blood and licking it off his face that he stood up, no longer capable of keeping still. His face was distorting as though in a fun-house mirror - one moment it was a hideous grimace of rage and the next a mad grin.
Xaldin was under him, moaning in that growly, husky way that only Xaldin could. It turned Sephiroth on so much - he would fuck Xaldin just to hear him. Touching and tasting and seeing and smelling was just a bonus. He twined his fingers in Xaldin’s dreads and bit his shoulder, then his jaw. Xaldin loved the biting - it made him squirm like a virgin schoolgirl, although Sephiroth had no idea why.
“I hope you’re having a good time fucking my boyfriend.”
The words came just half a second before blinding pain erupted from Sephiroth’s left eye and sent him reeling backwards, stumbling back off the table and into the wall, crushing his numerous wings. He opened his eyes (or tried - the left one wouldn’t open all the way) and found himself looking at something he’d hoped never to see.
Xigbar was standing on the table, over Xaldin’s naked body. There was an arrow rifle in one hand and another hanging from his belt. His face was twitching uncontrollably and there was a level of madness in his eye that neither Sephiroth nor Xaldin had ever seen before. He cocked the rifle and grinned crazily down at Sephiroth.
“Because now, Sephy, you’re going to get to fuck with me.”
“Xigbar…” Xaldin started to speak, pushing himself up from the table, but Xigbar’s heavy boot crashed down on his chest and forced him back down.
“Shut up,” the cannibal hissed through his smiling teeth.
Sephiroth slowly pushed himself away from the wall. He had seen Xigbar fight before against a myriad of opponents - he knew how the sniper acted in a battle. His eye was throbbing so badly that he thought his whole head was going to explode. He hadn’t ever felt pain like this before, but then again, Xigbar was the only person who would dare to kick him in the head.
“Xigbar, let us explain.”
Words were useless in the face of Xigbar’s madness and Xaldin and Sephiroth knew it all too well. Sephiroth was only trying to buy time.
Xigbar laughed and walked down the table, long legs criss-crossing over Xaldin’s body as he did so.
“Yessss… an explanation. Was it love at first sight? Considering that you’re just someone’s shadow and he’s a whiny, heartless bitch, I find that hard to believe.” He kicked Xaldin in the ribs here, hard enough to fracture several. Despite the pain the Lancer did his best not to move or catch the attention of his enraged lover in any way… it would just provoke him. Xigbar nibbled a thumbnail, biting down so hard that the nail cracked deep into the quick. He didn’t even appear to notice. “Well then, if not love at first sight, then what could it possibly be… Oh I know!” Braig reached the end of the table and stood on the edge of it, aiming his rifle so that the crosshairs were right between Sephiroth’s eyes. They were less than three feet away. There wasn’t a chance in hell that he could miss. “You were bored because you just can’t get Cloud to come and fight you. Tut-tut, Sephy. It’s a sad antithesis who can’t even provoke his good side to come and fight him. At this rate you’ll be out there on that cliff forever and all your dramatic posing and shit is going to go to waste. Poor little remnant.”
The insult hit close to home. Xigbar could tell just from how Sephiroth’s face darkened. The bruise around his left eye was turning a spectacular shade of purple and Xigbar was pleased to see that he’d kicked Sephiroth hard enough for the blood vessels to break in the eye itself, turning it red.
“So why don’t you just kill me and get it over with?” Sephiroth asked coldly. He could almost feel the handle of the masamune in his hand. He just had to wait for the right moment to draw it.
“But where would the fun be in that?” Xigbar pulled the trigger of his arrow rifle.
At the exact same moment, Sephiroth drew the masamune out of thin air and swung it in an arc that should have taken off Xigbar’s head. But the Freeshooter wasn’t where he had been standing mere seconds ago. Sephiroth brandished the sword as best he could in the enclosed space and looked around. Xigbar could be anywhere.
A shot rang out like thunder in the tiny kitchen and Sephiroth felt pain explode across his shoulder. He cursed and swung the masamune in the direction from which the shot had come, but the sword was simply too long for the small room they were fighting in. It knocked into walls and destroyed the furniture with every swing. And worst of all, Xigbar was still nowhere to be seen.
“Stop swinging, you fool!” Xaldin shouted at Sephiroth over the destruction. “You’ll never hit him.” The Lancer had climbed off the table and was in the process of pulling on his coat.
Sephiroth heeded Xaldin’s advice and stopped, listening. Maybe he would be able to hear where Xigbar was…
But all of the sudden, Xigbar’s arrows flew through the air as thick and fast as raindrops. They riddled Sephiroth’s body, puncturing his thigh and shoulder and chest and even his wings. Blood and bits of gore exploded across the partially demolished kitchen as Xigbar mercilessly assaulted the shadow.
This was what Xigbar lived for. He did not fight fair and he didn’t believe in playing nice. He was out to hurt. The exhilaration of being once again reunited with his old friend massacre thrilled Xigbar to his core each time he teleported to another part of the room and saw Sephiroth’s staggering, bleeding form from yet another angle. He found the whole thing exquisite.
As for Sephiroth, he had never been in so much pain. Pieces of metal, still hot from the barrel, pierced his body in a dozen places. He could smell blood in the air and knew that it was his. The masamune was forgotten in his hand. His wrist had been shattered by an arrow anyways. Shadows like Sephiroth didn’t have a survival instinct. They charged blindly forward, throwing themselves at their target until they broke it down. They had no concept of retreating.
But Xaldin did. It was difficult avoiding the arrows, but Xaldin managed to escape major injury so far. After all, he wasn’t the one Xigbar was aiming for. Xaldin crouched under the table, waiting for the barrage to end.
It took several agonizing minutes, but even Xigbar had to reload eventually. Xaldin knew all too well that the pause in the blitz would not last long, but it was enough time for him to dash across the room, grab Sephiroth and portal the fuck out of there.
The two men tumbled out of the portal into the barren landscape of The Dark Depths. Their chests heaved and Sephiroth was gasping hoarsely for breath. Blood poured from a dozen wounds onto the hard-packed dirt and his wings hung limp and torn from his naked back.
“This isn’t over yet.” Xaldin got to his feet, helping Sephiroth do the same. He knew that the construct was in a lot of pain, but he’d live. Having been one of the men who had made Sephiroth in the first place, Xaldin couldn’t help but feel somewhat proud of his creation’s ability to survive.
“No it ain’t. Not by a long shot.”
A drawling, shaking voice hissed like acid as Xigbar appeared out of thin air high above their heads. His entire body was inverted - he stood upon nothing but the stark blue sky. He was trembling with the effort of keeping himself still long enough to really look at Sephiroth and Xaldin. The shadow’s clothes had reappeared in the meantime, probably donned in an effort to staunch some of the bleeding. His one red eye blazed out of his bruised and bleeding face. Xigbar personally thought that Sephiroth had never looked more appealing, not even when he’d been just a confused little child lost in the Hollow Bastion laboratories.
The next second, he had vanished and was now standing in front of Xaldin.
“What’s the matter baby?” He stared down at the Lancer, the pupil in his sole remaining eye widening and shrinking with terrifying rapidity. “Having regrets now?” Another tooth fractured and blood filled his mouth. He didn’t notice, not even when it began to drip down his chin.
Xaldin looked up into Xigbar’s eye.
“It wasn’t meant to be like this,” he growled softly, raising a hand to touch Xigbar’s chest. His eyes were locked on Xigbar’s.
“Yeah, I bet it wasn’t,” snarled the madman around his bleeding grin. He wrapped one hand around Xaldin’s throat. “I never thought you’d be the one to stab me in the back, Xaldin.”
“I’m not.”
The masamune blade slid through Xigbar’s gut like a knife through hot butter. It protruded almost a foot out of his bony stomach, blood dripping from the gaping wound. Xigbar looked down at it, then over his shoulder at Sephiroth, who was holding the sword that was impaling him. He could feel the pain rip through his body, but somehow he didn’t feel it.
“Ow,” he said, without even the slightest trace of pain in his voice. “It’s a good thing I’m already dead, buddy-boy, or that would have really hurt.”
Sephiroth curled his lip into a feral snarl. Braig’s carefree attitude on the battlefield infuriated him. With both hands, he moved to wrench the masamune to the side, intending to slice Xigbar in half.
But Xigbar was too fast for that. He teleported away again and reappeared seconds later at Sephiroth’s back, blood still gushing from his gut. His face was drawn now, the madness combining with exhaustion. Not even Xigbar could keep this pace up forever - it was beginning to show in the lines on his face.
“I’m going to deal with you in a minute,” he hissed into Sephiroth’s ear and held the barrel of his arrow rifle to Sephiroth’s spine.
He fired and Sephiroth collapsed with a sickening crack to the ground. He couldn’t move… he couldn’t even feel his legs. Pain obliterated his sense of everything else. All he could do was twitch pathetically as Xigbar stepped distastefully over him and walked over to Xaldin.
“Baby, listen to me.” Xaldin stood up and attempted once again to supplicate his lover. But even still, he clenched on of his hands, ready to draw a spear at any time.
“I already heard you. Fuck me harder, Sephiroth,” he drawled mockingly as he pointed his arrow rifle right at Xaldin’s head. “I’ve heard. Quite. Enough.”
It was Xaldin that lunged first, down to avoid the inevitable shot and then forward as he swept up the spear that was now in his hand. The blade sliced through Xigbar’s coat and opened a deep gash in his chest. Xigbar hissed a laugh and clutched at his chest.
“Glad to see you’ve decided to join the party.”
The cannibal fired another bolt, almost casually. It caught one of Xaldin’s dreads and jerked him back. Thrown off balance, the Lancer tried to steady himself and stumbled badly, almost falling. Another spear appeared in the air and sliced through the caught cord of hair so that Xaldin could regain his footing. Grasping both spears in hand, he steadied himself and glanced around. The distraction had only been for a few seconds, but it was still long enough for Xigbar to potentially pull another crazy move. Out of the corner of his eye, Xaldin could see Sephiroth still on the ground, now trying in vain to push himself up. His fractured wings flapped feebly, trying to lift him up onto useless legs. Blood dripped from his ruptured eye onto the dirt.
“Did you think you were gonna get away with this?”
Xaldin could hear the familiar clicking sound that Xigbar’s arrow rifle made just before it fired and whirled out of the way just before an arrow sliced through the air where he had been standing. He hurled a spear in the direction the sound had come from, but Xigbar had already vanished. The spear returned obediently to his hand and Xaldin tightened his grip, just listening.
“I can’t believe you’d be that stupid.” Xigbar appeared out of thin air before Xaldin. “After all we’ve been though. You’re smarter than this.” He tapped the barrel of his rifle against his own temple, shaking his head disappointedly, as though Xaldin were a child who had brought home bad marks.
Xaldin didn’t answer. Instead, he hurled a spear at Xigbar with every bit of strength he possessed. His mark was true this time - Xigbar didn’t have enough time to get away. It connected with the cannibal’s shoulder, adding another fatal wound to the one that Sephiroth had already given him.
But Xigbar would not go down without a fight. Xaldin felt pain explode across his leg and looked down to discover that Xigbar had fired another bolt in the confusion and that it had embedded itself deep in his thigh. With a curse, Xaldin began to pull it out.
Xigbar’s entire body was beginning to tremble from the strain. His mind was torn and at war with itself. A voice inside his mind hissed at him to just kill them and eat them - their flesh was his for the taking. But another told him to wait… to be patient… make them suffer slowly… The grin plastered across his face was beginning to fracture - he wouldn’t be able to stay coherent for too much longer.
It was a simple matter to pick up the spear that Xaldin had thrown. He was going to make the Lancer regret ever having traitorous thoughts or wandering eyes. While Xaldin was still distracted with the bolt in his leg, Xigbar teleported behind him and plunged the spear deep into his left shoulder, impaling him right through his absence of heart. Blood sprayed across Xigbar’s face, but he didn’t even appear to notice as he wrapped an arm around Xaldin to pull him further onto the blade.
A low groan escaped Xaldin’s throat and he began to go limp despite himself. There was no sound but his own slow breathing and Xigbar’s raspy pant. Almost gently, Xigbar lowered Xaldin to the ground, his arms still around him as he pulled the spear from his chest. The cannibal laid him out on the ground and grabbed the other spear from Xaldin’s hand as he kneeled on Xaldin’s chest.
“I’m gonna come back and eat you,” he told Xaldin plainly. Blood dripped from between his teeth and spotted Xaldin’s cheek. He turned his head to the side and spat out a piece of a broken tooth. “I’m gonna start with your face and I’m gonna make sure you stay alive as I do it.” He forced Xaldin to stretch out his left arm and drove one of his spears through his palm and into the dirt below. Xaldin tried to bite back his yell of pain, but it tore out of his throat despite his efforts. Xigbar smiled at the sound as he stretched out Xaldin’s other arm. “But first I’m gonna make you watch as I take care of your little friend over there. How long have you been fuckin’ him for, Xaldin? Since we made him in the Garden in our past lives? He was only a little kid then. I know you’re a pedophile, Xally, but really. Wasn’t I enough?”
He drove the spear deep into Xaldin’s right palm and the Lancer didn’t even cry out this time. He shuddered once, clenching his jaw to keep from screaming as he stared up into his lover’s face.
But Xigbar was already standing, walking away from where he had crucified his lover on the ground to where Sephiroth was still trying to push himself up. He kicked Sephiroth in the other eye.
“I always did think you were an obnoxious little shit.” He regarded the broken shadow on the ground with apathy in his eyes and leveled his rifle at Sephiroth, flicking the switch to semi-automatic. He tilted his head, as if trying to decide what would be the most fun to shoot first. It only took a few moments of deliberation before Xigbar took aim at Sephiroth’s wings and fired.
A volley of arrows ripped through the wings. When the barrage finally stopped, all that remained of Sephiroth’s once proud wings were a few scant feathers and strips of flesh hanging from fractured and splintered bones.
That done, Xigbar pushed Sephiroth onto his back with a foot and crouched on top of him. He grabbed Sephiroth’s chin with a bony, trembling hand.
“Yanno, the only reason I’m not fuckin’ you right now is because you can’t feel it.” He slapped Sephiroth’s thigh and true enough, the shadow couldn’t feel it at all. Sephiroth’s eyes were both swollen almost completely shut and his vision was blurred, but he could see that strain was tearing Xigbar apart. Several wounds, many of them fatal, gaped from his body. Sephiroth doubted that Xigbar would be able to last much longer either.
Xigbar knew this. He’d died once before - he could smell death in the air now. But he knew one other thing. He wasn’t going to go unless he took these fuckers with him.
He reached for his rifle and removed one of the bolts. His hands were shaking so hard that it took him a few tries, but he grasped it in both hands and held it as steady as he could. The last thing Sephiroth was aware of was the point of the bolt pressing against his forehead. Then a flash of blinding pain. And then nothing at all.
~
It wasn’t the first time Xigbar had narrated the perverse events that he observed through the scope of his arrow-rifle. He usually quite enjoyed it, the crow’s feet at the corners of his eye deepening with the squint and the sick grin he wore as he saw people do things that they would never reveal to the outside world. It pleased him, being a collector of sick and nasty little secrets. Not because he intended to hold it over their heads - after all, what could insignificant meatsacks like them offer that he couldn’t just more easily take over their dead, disfigured, partially-devoured corpses? But just because he enjoyed being a voyeur to their dirty deeds.
But this time… there was no glee on his face. No thrill in his empty veins. Instead there was a twitching, manic smile that seemed to wind across his creatures dizzyingly, like a broken carousel. The one eye remaining to him, the eye which usually danced and sparkled with things great and terrible was now dead. Dead, save for a tiny pinprick of light writhing in the center. If anyone had looked into his eyes, they would have sworn that the light was screaming in pain.
What was the cause of this strange change in behavior? What caused Xigbar to clench his teeth so hard on his grin that tiny fracture lines appeared in his molars? (They appeared with a tiny popping noise - like the sound of cracking glass. With each one, pain shot through Xigbar’s jaw like fire. He was almost beginning to enjoy it.)
For one thing, Sephiroth was fucking Xaldin up the ass down there. For another, he was doing it well.
What bothered Xigbar the most was that Xaldin knew better. He should have been smarter. His intelligence (along with the fact that he was a fucking animal in bed) was half the reason Xigbar liked him in the first place. But doing something as monumentally fucking stupid as cheating on Xigbar was so beyond dumb that it completely destroyed Xigbar’s ability to function on a rational level. And unfortunately for Xaldin, Xigbar’s ability to process information on a rational level was fucked up to begin with.
As for Sephiroth… Xigbar couldn’t even force his feelings about that into a cohesive sound. A growl or a snarl didn’t cut it. Nor did a howl. Xigbar had a feeling that the sound of Sephiroth’s throat separating from the rest of his body may work, but he wasn’t positive.
His madness-laced eye peered through the scope again. He was gazing through the window of a tiny, nondescript house in the middle of Hollow Bastion. His guess was that Xaldin just portaled his way inside. He had no idea how Sephiroth got there without one of the Hollow Bastion defense brats jumping his ass, but he didn’t care. What mattered was that the two of them were in there now, fucking on top of the kitchen table. The wood creaked and groaned as the two of them thrusted on top of it, a tangle of dreads and white hair and wings and naked, sweaty flesh.
“Fuck me, Sephiroth.”
Xigbar could read Xaldin’s lips, even from this distance. His fingers tightened around the handle and barrel of the arrow rifle and another crack appeared in his teeth. It was when Sephiroth kissed Xaldin deep and bit his lip hard, drawing blood and licking it off his face that he stood up, no longer capable of keeping still. His face was distorting as though in a fun-house mirror - one moment it was a hideous grimace of rage and the next a mad grin.
Xaldin was under him, moaning in that growly, husky way that only Xaldin could. It turned Sephiroth on so much - he would fuck Xaldin just to hear him. Touching and tasting and seeing and smelling was just a bonus. He twined his fingers in Xaldin’s dreads and bit his shoulder, then his jaw. Xaldin loved the biting - it made him squirm like a virgin schoolgirl, although Sephiroth had no idea why.
“I hope you’re having a good time fucking my boyfriend.”
The words came just half a second before blinding pain erupted from Sephiroth’s left eye and sent him reeling backwards, stumbling back off the table and into the wall, crushing his numerous wings. He opened his eyes (or tried - the left one wouldn’t open all the way) and found himself looking at something he’d hoped never to see.
Xigbar was standing on the table, over Xaldin’s naked body. There was an arrow rifle in one hand and another hanging from his belt. His face was twitching uncontrollably and there was a level of madness in his eye that neither Sephiroth nor Xaldin had ever seen before. He cocked the rifle and grinned crazily down at Sephiroth.
“Because now, Sephy, you’re going to get to fuck with me.”
“Xigbar…” Xaldin started to speak, pushing himself up from the table, but Xigbar’s heavy boot crashed down on his chest and forced him back down.
“Shut up,” the cannibal hissed through his smiling teeth.
Sephiroth slowly pushed himself away from the wall. He had seen Xigbar fight before against a myriad of opponents - he knew how the sniper acted in a battle. His eye was throbbing so badly that he thought his whole head was going to explode. He hadn’t ever felt pain like this before, but then again, Xigbar was the only person who would dare to kick him in the head.
“Xigbar, let us explain.”
Words were useless in the face of Xigbar’s madness and Xaldin and Sephiroth knew it all too well. Sephiroth was only trying to buy time.
Xigbar laughed and walked down the table, long legs criss-crossing over Xaldin’s body as he did so.
“Yessss… an explanation. Was it love at first sight? Considering that you’re just someone’s shadow and he’s a whiny, heartless bitch, I find that hard to believe.” He kicked Xaldin in the ribs here, hard enough to fracture several. Despite the pain the Lancer did his best not to move or catch the attention of his enraged lover in any way… it would just provoke him. Xigbar nibbled a thumbnail, biting down so hard that the nail cracked deep into the quick. He didn’t even appear to notice. “Well then, if not love at first sight, then what could it possibly be… Oh I know!” Braig reached the end of the table and stood on the edge of it, aiming his rifle so that the crosshairs were right between Sephiroth’s eyes. They were less than three feet away. There wasn’t a chance in hell that he could miss. “You were bored because you just can’t get Cloud to come and fight you. Tut-tut, Sephy. It’s a sad antithesis who can’t even provoke his good side to come and fight him. At this rate you’ll be out there on that cliff forever and all your dramatic posing and shit is going to go to waste. Poor little remnant.”
The insult hit close to home. Xigbar could tell just from how Sephiroth’s face darkened. The bruise around his left eye was turning a spectacular shade of purple and Xigbar was pleased to see that he’d kicked Sephiroth hard enough for the blood vessels to break in the eye itself, turning it red.
“So why don’t you just kill me and get it over with?” Sephiroth asked coldly. He could almost feel the handle of the masamune in his hand. He just had to wait for the right moment to draw it.
“But where would the fun be in that?” Xigbar pulled the trigger of his arrow rifle.
At the exact same moment, Sephiroth drew the masamune out of thin air and swung it in an arc that should have taken off Xigbar’s head. But the Freeshooter wasn’t where he had been standing mere seconds ago. Sephiroth brandished the sword as best he could in the enclosed space and looked around. Xigbar could be anywhere.
A shot rang out like thunder in the tiny kitchen and Sephiroth felt pain explode across his shoulder. He cursed and swung the masamune in the direction from which the shot had come, but the sword was simply too long for the small room they were fighting in. It knocked into walls and destroyed the furniture with every swing. And worst of all, Xigbar was still nowhere to be seen.
“Stop swinging, you fool!” Xaldin shouted at Sephiroth over the destruction. “You’ll never hit him.” The Lancer had climbed off the table and was in the process of pulling on his coat.
Sephiroth heeded Xaldin’s advice and stopped, listening. Maybe he would be able to hear where Xigbar was…
But all of the sudden, Xigbar’s arrows flew through the air as thick and fast as raindrops. They riddled Sephiroth’s body, puncturing his thigh and shoulder and chest and even his wings. Blood and bits of gore exploded across the partially demolished kitchen as Xigbar mercilessly assaulted the shadow.
This was what Xigbar lived for. He did not fight fair and he didn’t believe in playing nice. He was out to hurt. The exhilaration of being once again reunited with his old friend massacre thrilled Xigbar to his core each time he teleported to another part of the room and saw Sephiroth’s staggering, bleeding form from yet another angle. He found the whole thing exquisite.
As for Sephiroth, he had never been in so much pain. Pieces of metal, still hot from the barrel, pierced his body in a dozen places. He could smell blood in the air and knew that it was his. The masamune was forgotten in his hand. His wrist had been shattered by an arrow anyways. Shadows like Sephiroth didn’t have a survival instinct. They charged blindly forward, throwing themselves at their target until they broke it down. They had no concept of retreating.
But Xaldin did. It was difficult avoiding the arrows, but Xaldin managed to escape major injury so far. After all, he wasn’t the one Xigbar was aiming for. Xaldin crouched under the table, waiting for the barrage to end.
It took several agonizing minutes, but even Xigbar had to reload eventually. Xaldin knew all too well that the pause in the blitz would not last long, but it was enough time for him to dash across the room, grab Sephiroth and portal the fuck out of there.
The two men tumbled out of the portal into the barren landscape of The Dark Depths. Their chests heaved and Sephiroth was gasping hoarsely for breath. Blood poured from a dozen wounds onto the hard-packed dirt and his wings hung limp and torn from his naked back.
“This isn’t over yet.” Xaldin got to his feet, helping Sephiroth do the same. He knew that the construct was in a lot of pain, but he’d live. Having been one of the men who had made Sephiroth in the first place, Xaldin couldn’t help but feel somewhat proud of his creation’s ability to survive.
“No it ain’t. Not by a long shot.”
A drawling, shaking voice hissed like acid as Xigbar appeared out of thin air high above their heads. His entire body was inverted - he stood upon nothing but the stark blue sky. He was trembling with the effort of keeping himself still long enough to really look at Sephiroth and Xaldin. The shadow’s clothes had reappeared in the meantime, probably donned in an effort to staunch some of the bleeding. His one red eye blazed out of his bruised and bleeding face. Xigbar personally thought that Sephiroth had never looked more appealing, not even when he’d been just a confused little child lost in the Hollow Bastion laboratories.
The next second, he had vanished and was now standing in front of Xaldin.
“What’s the matter baby?” He stared down at the Lancer, the pupil in his sole remaining eye widening and shrinking with terrifying rapidity. “Having regrets now?” Another tooth fractured and blood filled his mouth. He didn’t notice, not even when it began to drip down his chin.
Xaldin looked up into Xigbar’s eye.
“It wasn’t meant to be like this,” he growled softly, raising a hand to touch Xigbar’s chest. His eyes were locked on Xigbar’s.
“Yeah, I bet it wasn’t,” snarled the madman around his bleeding grin. He wrapped one hand around Xaldin’s throat. “I never thought you’d be the one to stab me in the back, Xaldin.”
“I’m not.”
The masamune blade slid through Xigbar’s gut like a knife through hot butter. It protruded almost a foot out of his bony stomach, blood dripping from the gaping wound. Xigbar looked down at it, then over his shoulder at Sephiroth, who was holding the sword that was impaling him. He could feel the pain rip through his body, but somehow he didn’t feel it.
“Ow,” he said, without even the slightest trace of pain in his voice. “It’s a good thing I’m already dead, buddy-boy, or that would have really hurt.”
Sephiroth curled his lip into a feral snarl. Braig’s carefree attitude on the battlefield infuriated him. With both hands, he moved to wrench the masamune to the side, intending to slice Xigbar in half.
But Xigbar was too fast for that. He teleported away again and reappeared seconds later at Sephiroth’s back, blood still gushing from his gut. His face was drawn now, the madness combining with exhaustion. Not even Xigbar could keep this pace up forever - it was beginning to show in the lines on his face.
“I’m going to deal with you in a minute,” he hissed into Sephiroth’s ear and held the barrel of his arrow rifle to Sephiroth’s spine.
He fired and Sephiroth collapsed with a sickening crack to the ground. He couldn’t move… he couldn’t even feel his legs. Pain obliterated his sense of everything else. All he could do was twitch pathetically as Xigbar stepped distastefully over him and walked over to Xaldin.
“Baby, listen to me.” Xaldin stood up and attempted once again to supplicate his lover. But even still, he clenched on of his hands, ready to draw a spear at any time.
“I already heard you. Fuck me harder, Sephiroth,” he drawled mockingly as he pointed his arrow rifle right at Xaldin’s head. “I’ve heard. Quite. Enough.”
It was Xaldin that lunged first, down to avoid the inevitable shot and then forward as he swept up the spear that was now in his hand. The blade sliced through Xigbar’s coat and opened a deep gash in his chest. Xigbar hissed a laugh and clutched at his chest.
“Glad to see you’ve decided to join the party.”
The cannibal fired another bolt, almost casually. It caught one of Xaldin’s dreads and jerked him back. Thrown off balance, the Lancer tried to steady himself and stumbled badly, almost falling. Another spear appeared in the air and sliced through the caught cord of hair so that Xaldin could regain his footing. Grasping both spears in hand, he steadied himself and glanced around. The distraction had only been for a few seconds, but it was still long enough for Xigbar to potentially pull another crazy move. Out of the corner of his eye, Xaldin could see Sephiroth still on the ground, now trying in vain to push himself up. His fractured wings flapped feebly, trying to lift him up onto useless legs. Blood dripped from his ruptured eye onto the dirt.
“Did you think you were gonna get away with this?”
Xaldin could hear the familiar clicking sound that Xigbar’s arrow rifle made just before it fired and whirled out of the way just before an arrow sliced through the air where he had been standing. He hurled a spear in the direction the sound had come from, but Xigbar had already vanished. The spear returned obediently to his hand and Xaldin tightened his grip, just listening.
“I can’t believe you’d be that stupid.” Xigbar appeared out of thin air before Xaldin. “After all we’ve been though. You’re smarter than this.” He tapped the barrel of his rifle against his own temple, shaking his head disappointedly, as though Xaldin were a child who had brought home bad marks.
Xaldin didn’t answer. Instead, he hurled a spear at Xigbar with every bit of strength he possessed. His mark was true this time - Xigbar didn’t have enough time to get away. It connected with the cannibal’s shoulder, adding another fatal wound to the one that Sephiroth had already given him.
But Xigbar would not go down without a fight. Xaldin felt pain explode across his leg and looked down to discover that Xigbar had fired another bolt in the confusion and that it had embedded itself deep in his thigh. With a curse, Xaldin began to pull it out.
Xigbar’s entire body was beginning to tremble from the strain. His mind was torn and at war with itself. A voice inside his mind hissed at him to just kill them and eat them - their flesh was his for the taking. But another told him to wait… to be patient… make them suffer slowly… The grin plastered across his face was beginning to fracture - he wouldn’t be able to stay coherent for too much longer.
It was a simple matter to pick up the spear that Xaldin had thrown. He was going to make the Lancer regret ever having traitorous thoughts or wandering eyes. While Xaldin was still distracted with the bolt in his leg, Xigbar teleported behind him and plunged the spear deep into his left shoulder, impaling him right through his absence of heart. Blood sprayed across Xigbar’s face, but he didn’t even appear to notice as he wrapped an arm around Xaldin to pull him further onto the blade.
A low groan escaped Xaldin’s throat and he began to go limp despite himself. There was no sound but his own slow breathing and Xigbar’s raspy pant. Almost gently, Xigbar lowered Xaldin to the ground, his arms still around him as he pulled the spear from his chest. The cannibal laid him out on the ground and grabbed the other spear from Xaldin’s hand as he kneeled on Xaldin’s chest.
“I’m gonna come back and eat you,” he told Xaldin plainly. Blood dripped from between his teeth and spotted Xaldin’s cheek. He turned his head to the side and spat out a piece of a broken tooth. “I’m gonna start with your face and I’m gonna make sure you stay alive as I do it.” He forced Xaldin to stretch out his left arm and drove one of his spears through his palm and into the dirt below. Xaldin tried to bite back his yell of pain, but it tore out of his throat despite his efforts. Xigbar smiled at the sound as he stretched out Xaldin’s other arm. “But first I’m gonna make you watch as I take care of your little friend over there. How long have you been fuckin’ him for, Xaldin? Since we made him in the Garden in our past lives? He was only a little kid then. I know you’re a pedophile, Xally, but really. Wasn’t I enough?”
He drove the spear deep into Xaldin’s right palm and the Lancer didn’t even cry out this time. He shuddered once, clenching his jaw to keep from screaming as he stared up into his lover’s face.
But Xigbar was already standing, walking away from where he had crucified his lover on the ground to where Sephiroth was still trying to push himself up. He kicked Sephiroth in the other eye.
“I always did think you were an obnoxious little shit.” He regarded the broken shadow on the ground with apathy in his eyes and leveled his rifle at Sephiroth, flicking the switch to semi-automatic. He tilted his head, as if trying to decide what would be the most fun to shoot first. It only took a few moments of deliberation before Xigbar took aim at Sephiroth’s wings and fired.
A volley of arrows ripped through the wings. When the barrage finally stopped, all that remained of Sephiroth’s once proud wings were a few scant feathers and strips of flesh hanging from fractured and splintered bones.
That done, Xigbar pushed Sephiroth onto his back with a foot and crouched on top of him. He grabbed Sephiroth’s chin with a bony, trembling hand.
“Yanno, the only reason I’m not fuckin’ you right now is because you can’t feel it.” He slapped Sephiroth’s thigh and true enough, the shadow couldn’t feel it at all. Sephiroth’s eyes were both swollen almost completely shut and his vision was blurred, but he could see that strain was tearing Xigbar apart. Several wounds, many of them fatal, gaped from his body. Sephiroth doubted that Xigbar would be able to last much longer either.
Xigbar knew this. He’d died once before - he could smell death in the air now. But he knew one other thing. He wasn’t going to go unless he took these fuckers with him.
He reached for his rifle and removed one of the bolts. His hands were shaking so hard that it took him a few tries, but he grasped it in both hands and held it as steady as he could. The last thing Sephiroth was aware of was the point of the bolt pressing against his forehead. Then a flash of blinding pain. And then nothing at all.
~