Final Fantasy - All Series Fan Fiction ❯ No Man Shall ❯ No Man Shall ( One-Shot )

No Man Shall

I watched all of you so long, laughing at your stupidity.

Yet, one thought consumed me above the madness of Jenova.

One thought that kept some small part of me sane though I appeared to be a mako-high lunatic to all of you.

I simply wanted to be seen.

Your purity and sweet innocence could have saved me when I couldn't even save myself.

I was wrong, as with so much else in my life.

Hojo, you bastard, what have you cost me?

Only the chilling cold that is my ultimate punishment and consolation answers that question.

Silence echoes within what is left of my heart, beating stubbornly on against my fever dream wish to just die.

Why won't you just leave me alone?

Haven't you done enough to me already?

Killing you is the only regret that burns through me.

Perhaps that is simply the last life sparks within my broken body causing me to return to madness and yet, that does not feel quite right.

I'm lying to myself again.

Lying is what brought me to the frigid, lonely place I am lost in now.

The only reason I even know I'm still alive is because I hurt too damn much to be dead.

I still see the look in your eyes lurking behind the darkness of my own, especially now when death is approaching so close I can feel the chill tickling my spine.

The look of utter shock, regret, and forgiveness in your eyes when Masumame bit through the middle of your body, silencing the beating of your heart and smile forever, will haunt me until the day I die.

You forgave me.

How could you do that, knowing the monster I had become?

You were an angel that saw me too late.

You looked straight into the confusion of my soul, the lies that bastard had fed me my entire life, and the utter need for redemption.

You saw me for what I truly am.

A lost boy, scared out of his mind with only one wing to fly on.

An angel that has too much blood on his hands to ever know heaven and too much fear surrounding him for anyone to forgive him what he became.

And you forgave me.

Aeris.

Your name is etched in my heart and mind, though both grow colder even now.

I killed you because you saw me for what I truly am and you would never have touched me.

You loved the reject, the forsaken boy with his blade, too much to save me from myself.

Cloud Strife.

Your name makes me burn in rage even though I have not the energy for it.

I would kill you for pleasure alone.

I can take a small measure of satisfaction in knowing that I took your angel from you in the end.

If I could not have her, then no man shall.

I will rise again from the flames and find your scrawny ass.

Smile for me, Cloud.

You're dead and do not have sense enough to lie down and give it up.

If Meteor did not wipe your pathetic life from this planet, than I will when I arise once again.

This I vow.

From the agony of my broken carcass, I can feel the smile that slides across pale, still handsome features even through the ravages of illness and darkness.

A smile that will sustain me when all else has deserted me.

I will live again simply to kill you and because I remember the look in her eyes as she died.

That is something that you will never know.

I am the original Sephiroth and you, little boy, are nothing compared to that.

Nothing.

~*~

I refuse to even think about what I went through to get here.

How I crawled out of that stinking crater on all fours like a baby, weak from head to foot and clinging to my precious sword as if it was the only thing in the world to me.

I hate being weak, especially when I have no one to blame for it except my own foolish actions.

I hate being a fool as much as I hate being weak.

Really, I'm not evil, just vastly misunderstood.

Go ahead and laugh but it is truth.

I no longer give a shit about anything in this world or the next, except one single thing.

My purpose has changed from purging the Planet for Jenova to annihilating that little blonde pipsqueak.

Simple plans always work much better.

Destroy the planet or kill one little idiot with a big sword.

Let me think a minute on that one.

Right.

I know he will return here eventually because her body was laid to rest in this stinking, oversized mud hole.

Typical Cloud, burying her underwater yet regretting it later.

How do I know all this? How can I even remotely know any of this?

We'll call it magic and not look too closely at it for fear that insanity is the root cause.

It's better to be safe than sorry when it comes to my own mind.

Sometimes, even I fear myself.

I hate to admit that this place does hold a certain peaceful charm for anyone naïve enough to succumb to such feelings.

Peace, contentment and happiness are illusions. Reality is nothing more than a bleak landscape full of hopeless misery and death.

I know.

I am the root cause of it all, not that it bothers me mind you.

I simply state the obvious to pass the time while I await his return to this place.

How do I know he is coming back here, now of all times?

Intuition. Gut instinct. Wild guess.

Who knows. Who cares.

Apparently, whatever the reason, I was not wrong.

Silent as the shadows and twice as deadly, Masumame's familiar weight is nestled against my palm, exactly where it should be.

Through everything I've lived through, insanity, madness, death, chaos, the weight of my sword in my hand always makes sense when nothing else has.

Cold steel and its discipline will always be easier to understand than anything else.

I ghost around, offering only flashes of silver and midnight leather in the deep shadows of the night that surround the pool. Catching sight of Cloud's little campfire, I scoff inwardly at the stupidity of the fool.

Does he even realize how close death is to him?

He is too dense to even comprehend how easily I could kill him without even exerting myself.

Why don't I?

I must play with him a bit, for old time's sake.
Besides, as much as I am loathe to admit it, I am actually curious what has brought him back here to her watery grave now of all times.

I knew he was coming, not why.

You can't know how frustrating a lack of knowledge is to me, a man who once knew all the secrets of creation or at least thought I did.

So, I wait and I watch as the little shrimp sleeps.

He has not changed at all during the passage of years that separates this moment from the last I saw him.

It has been years?!?

I had no clue until now.

Startled, I slip back into the shadows and take a perch within the boughs of a high tree, feeling more at home in its dark branches than on the ground where I am vulnerable to attack on any side and am highly visible as well.

I will never find true sleep or rest again.

Those are my last thoughts as dreams take me down into their tormenting oblivion.

~*~

Predictably, I dream of her.

I cannot remove her eyes or smile from my mind, even when I should be blissfully asleep.

I never had nightmares until I killed her.

Why did she bother me?

Why her, alone amongst all the men, women and children I've slain?

Aeris is the only one that plagues my nightmares, though I have killed enough to have armies of the dead haunting my slumbering hours.

Do not question the dead for they don't hear you or give a rat's ass anyway.

I learnt that long ago.

Once, I laughed at those fools and martyrs who felt remorse over the lives they had taken.

That was when insanity cushioned every drop of blood I had spilt.

Before I drowned in rivers of blood and madness.

I start awake, glancing around and seeing sunshine haloing around the pipsqueak.

He is hip deep in rippling waves of water and slowly heading to the shore again, carrying a sodden package that can only be her corpse.

She hasn't changed a bit since I last saw her either and that frightens me to no end.

That can't be right.

I fear nothing and no one.

Then why am I trembling and shaking all over with a cold that goes straight into my bones and soul?

I don't know.

Too many questions unanswered and prayers unheard.

What holds my blade from striking him down in the back now when it would be so easy?

So easy to run him through from behind, never knowing who or what wiped his sorry carcass off the face of the earth.

Why can't I when once I would have done so without a second thought?

Honor.

I cannot stab a man in the back, especially not when he is holding the corpse of my only nightmare and regret.

That and I want to see the look on his face when he realizes who is sending him to the death he so deserves.

I want to smirk and laugh as he bleeds into my blade.

Killing a man is the most personal of things, much like hatred and vengeance.

This will be either him or I.

Guess who I'm betting on.

~*~

Curiosity killed the Sephiroth but amusement brought him back.

That's what I want on my tombstone.

Where the hell did that come from?

Obviously, the little shrimp is rubbing off on me, even across the distance I am trailing him.

I followed him across the land, making an odd side trip to see a person I truly wanted to forget as much as Aeris.

Vincent Valentine.

My real mother's true love and Hojo's pet science project.

Curious.

I feel kindred to this man.

We were both Hojo's pet science projects, though he killed the bastard ultimately before I got the privilege.

I'll have to buy him a drink for accomplishing what I could not.

Then again, I might just buy him a drink for no other reason than to see his face as he realizes I'm still alive and kicking.

I do so love annoying and shocking people.

The topic of the runt's conversation with Valentine almost makes me reveal myself to both of them.

And I'm the insane one?

They're discussing bringing Aeris back to life by calling her spirit from the Lifestream, though her body has been dead for at least two years if what I'm hearing is right.

Two years?!?!

It cannot have been so long.

Only these two would discuss something as insanely stupid as the Lifestream and spirit calling.

Only the little runt would be foolish enough to try it.

I continue following him, discovering the spot he picked for her grave because he so conveniently stopped along the way to pay homage to it or rest his weary ass. I'm not really sure which.

The spot was pleasant enough, I suppose, if you actually care about such niceties.

I refuse to admit that insignificant pimple has taste of any sort.

He is beneath my notice in all things other than the painful death I am going to bring him.

I hope he survives this insanity so that I can have that pleasure.

Knowing him, he will die in this act of ultimate stupidity just to piss me off.

It would just figure.

~*~

I can't believe it.

Cloud I-am-the-stupidest-idiot-on-the-face-of-the-planet Strife actually entered the Lifestream with her body in his arms, hoping to bring her back to life.

What's a Sephiroth to do?

I could follow him and watch him burn to cinders from the overwhelming power that is contained in the Stream.

It would be worth the pain just to laugh my ass off as he is consumed by it.

I didn't fare so well in it last time either, a small voice adds in the back of my mind.

I calmly ignore that little voice as unworthy of me.

What the hell, you only live once.

Die twice, reborn a thrice, and cloned a million and one times.

Wait, that's just me.

Note to self, destroy all Sephiroth clones if the Lifestream doesn't toast me.

It's always nice to know what your plans for tomorrow are.

I like to think ahead.

It saves time when things fuck up too badly.

As they are now.

Cloud is holding his own and I can feel the pain shooting up my limbs from the burning power of this place.

The pulse of the Planet is consuming me again, from the inside out and there will be no salvation this time for me.

No miracle will save me this time.

I don't care.

I will see him dead because she loved him and not me.

He chose the shrimp over the monster.

A rejected clone of me, no less.

How could she?

Truth? I don't blame her.

Who could love the monster I became and still am?

No one, not even my own mother.

I raise my sword to him as he collapses, intent on causing his death before my own finds me at last.

There will be no salvation this time for the great Sephiroth.

I welcome the ultimate cold I can feel consuming me.

Wait.

Where the hell did all the light come from?

And why is my sword glowing blue and immovable now?

Oh shit.

I think I might be in trouble.

That was my last thought before the cold consumed me again.

~*~

"Don't cry. I can't stand it when you do. The heavens weep for the bitterness of your tears. You were always my little angel, no matter what happened to you as you grew and changed before my very eyes. He could never take away the joy I found in your smile, though he tried. Hojo took everything else away from you and I, my son. Don't let him take that."

Mother?!!?

Not Jenova but Lucrecia?!?

Mother!!!!!!!!!!!

I jerked awake, feeling the comforting hilt of my sword caressing the calluses of my palm.

I was alive, by some miracle or curse.

I didn't know whether to weep or laugh, instead doing nothing but staring around me in cold denial of what my senses were telling me.

Not only was I alive but I had somehow been transported back to Aeris's grave.

What was to be her grave if you want to be all anal retentively politically correct.

Rising to my feet, a bit shakily I will admit only to my own private thoughts, I surveyed the scene before me.

The little runt was laying prone and unconscious, just ripe for the killing.

What stopped me from killing him?

Well, it wouldn't be the glowing corpse of Aeris beside him now would it?

No, not at all.

I swear I was on a mako high when I saw this.

It had to be drugs, insanity, or anything but the truth.

The truth that stared at me across two bodies and a million miles of possibility.

Aeris.

An angel of mercy and light.

So beautiful and unimaginably pure.

Her eyes looked straight into my soul, smiling with love and forgiveness for all my sins.

I think I cried out but I'm not sure.

Those few moments are clouded for me, perhaps with good reason.

The apparition with her eyes and grace winked, yes you schmuck, winked and disappeared into her corpse.

She breathed life again.

The white, feathery wings and glowing light disappeared but still the angel remained.

She was smiling as she slept.

My heart leapt somewhere into my throat, even as a startled gasp brought my head around to see him.

I could have killed him on principle alone in that moment.

Only….

I couldn't.

Why the hell couldn't I just kill him before she woke up?

Always the hard way, eh, Sephiroth?

It's hard as hell to argue with yourself.

I watch, in shock and horror as he crawls over to her and lightly touches her porcelain features with the back of his hand.

"Aeris?" he says, breathing and looking down at her as if she is the most precious thing in the world.

In his world, she is.

In my world, she is only a dream.

The reality is the steel in my hand, not the vision that lives and breaths out "Cloud" in response to his words.

Her eyes are open and she is smiling at him, as if he is the center of her entire universe.

He is her sun, moon, and eternal sky.

Pointless drivel for two fools who defy the gods with the useless thing called love.

Love.

That's a laugh.

What is love?

Nothing, just as they are to me.

Nothing at all.

"Come what may, I will find you and love you until my dying day," the little runt says in a whisper I can barely catch as his fingers trace through her skin and hair as if he is afraid she will break.

Truth?

I'm afraid he will break her with his brainless words and idiotic looks yet she returns them.

How can anyone look at that little pipsqueak like she does?

I feel something at the look her eyes hold for him.

I think it's my heart breaking, shattering from the cold that brushes through me again from head to boots.

I can't be jealous of that little, of that, of him.

But, I am.

I want to strangle him for the love shining in her eyes.

For looking at him the way she will never look at me.

Some things are just not meant to be.

That thought brings me no comfort, same as the steel at my side brings only death and regret.

It's what I was made for and by made I mean literally created out of a test tube.

I have only one mother now.

Strange as that seems, that thought does bring a slight smile out of me.

Lucrecia.

Truth may kill you, shred you to pieces but it also sets you free.

Am I free?

Will I ever really know what it is to be human?

"I know, else wise I would not have found you again. I love you, Cloud. I will not leave you again," she says to him, laughing and resting against him.

I have never felt this envious of anyone or anything in my entire life.

More than anything at this moment, I want her to say those words to me instead of that little shrimp.

I'd give up forever just to have someone say those things to me and mean them.

To have someone see me for what I am, not that monster I became.

Her laughter hurts, only driving the cold ice deeper within the shards of my heart.

Impossible.

I am stronger than this and beyond such petty, low emotions.

Why don't I believe that?

~*~

I clear my throat, striding up to the pair of them as they lay there in the grass still laughing and embracing each other as if they have all the time in the world. I move with the same dangerous, rolling gait that once struck fear into the hearts of more soldiers and monsters than I care to recount right now.

I am still just as deadly and dangerous yet I am free of the insanity that bound me.

A freed monster that cannot fly because blood holds him to the earth faster than any chains made by man or god.

Glancing down the edge of Masumeme at the pair of them, I smirk with satisfaction at the look of utter shock, horror and dismay on Cloud's face.

He is rather adorable in a stupid kind of way.

Odd, I can see what she loves about him.

Aeris just looks at me the way an angel would a lost soul that has found its way home.

She smiles at me and for a moment, I feel lost and utterly alone.

I've been alone all along.

I move the sword between the pair of them as Aeris touches Cloud's lips to keep him silent, though he glares at both of us for the longest time because of that simple gesture.

At least he obeys as it spares me listening to any of his whining drivel.

I lean down, leaving the sword buried in the ground and reach out to her, across the miles and lifetimes between us.

I touched the angel and the infinite.

All I felt was bitter cold and the warmth of what might have been.

It is small comfort to one such as me, yet you take what you can get.

"You are no monster, Sephiroth. You're the angel and the man. Go and find what destiny has planned for you so that we meet our destiny as well. Please, don't do this," Aeris pleads with me, looking at me with those eyes of hers.

What might have been if things had been different, angel?

Would you have loved me, instead of him?

Would I have found enough emotion within me to care?

If I ever start feeling now, I'll never stop again.

I don't want to feel any of this.

I cannot.

I will not.

It will break me and undo me faster than you could say Mako High.

I won't let it though.

For you. For my mother.

I'm stronger than this, stronger than petty revenge that will break your heart to match mine.

I won't have another regret haunting me, since I lost my first one as you breathed again.

No more nightmares for this monster that would be a man.

Softly, I cup your chin in my fingers and do something that brings a shocked gasp from blonde boy.

I smile at you, meaning it for the first time since I was a small boy who had learnt the joy of a true smile.

You deserve it, though he does not.

I will never like him.

Don't ask me why.

I think it's the hair or the fact he tries to be me.

Whatever.

"I won't, because of you, Aeris. I owe you alone this much. Know that I will truly never leave your side. I will always be your one winged angel as you are my angel of mercy," I said softly to her, whispering into the wind and ignoring the glare the runt was shooting me.

"You will never be me, runt. If I find out you aren't taking good care of her, I will hunt you down and make a throw rug out of you," I said, smirking at Cloud as I rose and sheathed my sword with a fluid motion.

I smiled one last time to her, listening to her chuckle at both of us. Females always seem to find males amusing at the oddest moments.

I know I'll never understand it.

"I don't want to be you. Who would want that dishonor? For all your greatness and strength, you want what I have but I promise you that you will never have it while I'm breathing. You will not have her," Cloud said to me with enough passion and anger to bring a surprised lift to one of my silvery brows.

"She loves you, baka. That is the only reason I did not kill you where you stand," I say, shrugging and offering a bow to Aeris.

"Until next I see you, angel," I said to her, turning and flipping Cloud a nice little finger gesture before I disappeared into the darkness.

The sounds of various oaths and insults to my parentage and me personally followed after me into that welcoming darkness.

Funny, I wouldn't have given the kid credit at knowing half of those words.

Perhaps he was a better soldier than I had been lead to believe.

And pigs fly.

~*~

So now what?

That's the first question in the front of my mind as I open cat green, glowing eyes to the world.

I don't know what happened to Aeris and Cloud after I left them at the grave site.

I'm lying to myself again.

I've followed any word of their whereabouts and adventures as avidly as any gossip.

I can't help myself.

I don't know where I'm going or what I will do next.

I don't even recognize myself in the mirror any more.

Which me is the real one now?

Tomorrow's agenda is clone killing, that much I can promise you.

After that, the sky is the limit.

I might just grab destiny by the throat, strangle it and demand to know what the hell it was thinking when it created me.

Either that or I will simply laugh in its face as I always have.

I just have one desire in the darkest parts of my black little heart.

To have someone look at me the way she did him, smile at me and say three little words.

To see me, not as a monster but as who I really am.

Sephiroth.

The man, the myth, and the nightmare.