Final Fantasy - All Series Fan Fiction ❯ Vanitas ❯ Vanitas ( Chapter 1 )

Disclaimer: This is pure individual interpretation on Zack, Hojo and Sephiroth and their relationships with each other. I own nothing of Square.

 

Author notes at the end.

 

 

 

“Whatever makes you tired, the resting always fails,

`Cuze anywhere you lay yourself's a bed of nails.

Whenever you exhale I breathe it in the end,

You offer me a seat in your electric chair.

Are you safe to leave behind? Every anchor in your mind,

You know better then I do, so pull me in.

And everyday you ask yourself, `Why was I born?'

`Cuze every migraine feels like wearing a crown of thorns.

And all the time I find you crawling on all fours,

`Cuze any movement sends you falling through trap doors.

 

No tongue in cheek,

Too late, it's already days and weeks

Before we can make ends meet,

Am I right and you're wrong?

Too late it already takes too long,

Too much to be flushed with you,

Oh,

Too much to be flush with you.”

Cave In, Anchor

 

 

Vanitas

 

 

“Hell and night

Must bring this monstrous birth to the world's light.”

Othello, ACT I, SC. III, (421-422)

 

He is still in the Shinra laboratories, idly swishing around the leftover parts of some organism drowned in formaldehyde when the news was delivered to him. Even though it is late he still sees the storm clouds approaching from the North, the glow of the city blooming orange and green light up into the clouds. Beyond those, far into the West, tucked away neatly in a cocoon of mountains and nothing- Nibelheim. He is already calculating the time it will take to load up the helicopters with supplies and… necessities, the actual flight itself would most likely be relatively short- but still perhaps not short enough.

Tseng says, “We have a situation.”

He is standing in front of the scientist, blue suit smooth and starched over his frame, his face tilted slightly up to give an arrogant posture. His eyes are half lidded to look down on Hojo but are still a little too wide for normal sight. Tseng gives away that the situation is very, very serious, very serious indeed for the usually smooth man to blunder. In this light, there is darkness under his cheekbones and shadows under his eyes cast by his eyelashes, and Hojo is reminded for a brief moment of his son.

And yet, Tseng does not need to tell him what happened. He knows the story, bit and bit, and if inclined to do so could probably tell the truth even better then any survivors would in the future. He knows the story that has been building since Sephiroths conception- he knows the fear Shinra must be feeling to have their most powerful weapon yanked out from underneath them.

The General is AWOL, and Shinra knows what their sharpest tool is capable of. They are afraid of the consequences, they are afraid of being bitten back. Hojo knows that they should be, he made him after all.

He knows this because he was the one to put all the pieces in place in this little catastrophe.

Hojo is far from stupid, he would not have sent his son to that damned town in the first place if he didn't want him to find out his past. Misguided it may be, though, Hojo never mentions Lucrecia in any of the logs for a very close, very good reason.

For his plan to work, Sephiroth must think Jenova is his birthmother. Hence, the planet his birthright.

Although no one, perhaps not even his son, thinks of him as an emotional person- that does not mean he doesn't observe emotions in other people. Because of this, he knows Sephiroth very, very well, and can see what it is he fears most.

Himself.

Sephiroth fears his own being, he knows what he can so but does not know where he came from. Hojo knows that being misguided into thing Jenova is his mother will no doubt send him over the edge.

And that is exactly what Hojo wants.

He is getting up and following Tseng back to the entrance of the laboratory as the man explains everything he already knows about what happened. They haven't found Sephiroth yet, but Hojo isn't worried, nothing could have stopped him before, and nothing will now.

Some of the lab technicians and a few grunts are packing equipment into metal boxes under the orders of 2 SOLDIERs- as HOJO speaks they follow his word.

 

When he arrives in Neibelheim, he is greeted by ashes. The mansion is still standing- he is not surprised by his son sparing it. There is nothing of interest inside at the moment, he departs with the grunts and one of the SOLDIERs to the reactor with Tseng promises to meet up after he speaks with reconnaissance.

When he reaches his destination, it is already scoured and put into order by the reconnaissance sent to the reactor.

The highest ranking approaches him.

“Sir!”

He gives the officer the time of day, “Status report.”

The man nods his head and says, “The tank the specimen Jenova was contained in has been broken open and drained, it is intact except for the head, sir.”

He feels his eyebrows nearly raise.

“And where is the head?”

“We cannot find it, sir.”

He took her head. How very like him.

He pauses before issuing a command where to store her. He is beginning to turn away and head into the reactor to have a look himself when the officer says, “One more thing, sir!”

He turns, “Yes?”

“There were two men in the reactor, both wounded pretty bad, sir. A, um, private along with a SOLDIER.”

His eyebrows almost furrow. Sephiroth left them alive? A minor detail to clean up.

As he thought, a question stuck him and began to weigh heavily in his mind, where was he, then? Where was the General?

 

“Imagine how his heart ached… and

Yet he never blinked.

His eyes might have been made of horn or iron…

He had this trick- wept, if he willed to,

Inwardly.”

The Odyssey

 

/No. No./

What the cadet had told him.

/No./

He peers over the catwalk, down, down into the green, so much like his eyes.

/No./

The cadet, he had to be lying, there was no possible way. No way, not for a mere boy to…

Disbelief.

His gaze darts toward the antechamber, beyond that the containment room, storage, temple of the Goddess.

/Is this how far I've brought you, both of you, to have you fail now?/

No reply, not from the Goddess, not from his dead son.

His dead son.

/Oh my God./

The grunts finished moving the cadet and the SOLDIER out of the reactor, one of them stands at the entrance, fidgeting nervously.

He won't remember that he told the SOLDIER to go, but now that is not important, this, this concept, this thing, that has happened it's beyond him, he can't get his head around it-

/No, this is a trick, the cadet was lying, there is no, no way, you were immortal, nothing could touch you- nothing- I made sure of that, there is no way, not you, I made you better then/

The thought comes that he might have been wrong, wrong all along-

But it is strangled and thrown over the edge of the railing like the cadet did his son and he is turning with everything inside him towards the confinement room, someone is responsible and he know it is-

“Professor!”

He stops, jarred our of his anger, and looks to the reactor entrance.

Tseng stands there, says;

“The SOLDIER is waking, professor!”

He stares at the man for a moment as an irrational urge to claw his eyes out lurches up.

Tseng stares back. Of course, this is to be expected.

Expected, but why not in any simulation he ran in his head? Why didn't he see this coming, a lowly cadet-

Beyond Tseng is an inky blackness so deep it seems to swallow the man.

“Yes… yes, very good. Take them to the mansion, see what they know.”

Tseng remains for a moment longer and says, “Sir.”

He melts back into the oil and blood from whence he came.

He is left alone again, the light in the reactor too bright and the shadows too dark and deep, he looks back into the lifestream.

/My son./

//that cadet//

Her voice, so soft, so quiet it was a whisper perched on the hum of the machine.

//they are alive//

He thinks he understands the meaning behind those words, and he is angry enough to do what he must. The SOLDIER and the cadet would pay for what they had despoiled, they would pay with their being.

//so take them…//

Hojo is very good at destruction, just as he is good at changing and twisting what is holy and pure. He knows without really knowing what he will do, how he will do it, how he will make the cadet into what his son was because his son isn't, not anymore. The blood and pain and sweat will all come to pass, and when he is done the cadet will not make up for it, but will be enough of what he killed to take away some of the sting, some of the failure.

Hojo knows how to make this as painful as possible, and as he stares down into the emerald waves and vapor lapping against the bottom of the reactor, he focuses beyond it, down, down, past the water of life, down into the depths in which his son has been lost.

 

 

 

“Nothing begins and nothing ends,

That is not paid with moan;

For we are born in others pain,

And perish in our own.”

Francis Thompson Daisy

 

Zack slowly woke, his eyes opening to the soft light filtering in through the window, hazy yellow strips draped across his bed and floor, as if afterthoughts of the falling sun.

He rubbed at his eyes gently, absentmindedly glancing at the clock at beside his bed, but not really bothering to read what time it was. He was very warm, a cozy sense of surrealism soaking into his mind. A pleasant ache has set into his body, and as he stretched, arms haphazardly thrown away from him and muscles tensing while his legs reached towards the end of the bed, he knew he was forgetting something (a vast, ominous cliff edge) and his leg brushed against someone else's.

Turing his head, he wasn't really surprised to see Sephiroth reclining next to him, half propped against the headboard and reading a book so ancient that Zack could not tell the title or the cover. Sephiroth's eyes lazily scanned the page and Zack noticed he was wearing one of his shirts.

“I had a horrible dream about you.”

His own voice was groggy and slightly slurred, and he was going to ask Sephiroth to go back to sleep with him when he said,

“Many do.”

Green eyes slid over to his and the General brushed some hair out of his eyes, which fell right back into place. Zack frowned slightly, knowing and hating Sephiroth knowing people feared and hated him.

“I had a dream that you died…”

A slight smile there, Zack loved the way his lovers hair looked so glossy even in the fading light and spread out on the pillows, and he could read his eyes, `You would be the only one to think that horrible.'

But it came out as, “I am not going anywhere.”

Zack reached out and grabbed the ancient book from Sephiroth's fingers and leaned across him to drop it on the opposite nightstand. His lover's skin looked so soft in the yellow hazy, darkening still.

He heard the General give a mock sigh as Zack rested against him, head cradled against the mans shoulder and the rest of him finding space wherever there was heat and skin.

“I was just reading a good part.”

He felt a strong arm wrap around him and fingers slid into his hair. He felt drowsy again.

“I'm gonna give you a good part if you don't shut it up.”

Zack knew there was a smile on Sephiroths face without seeing it. The light, turning a darker orange, was still fading outside, casting everything in the room with shadows, soaking in the darkness and silhouettes, Zack thought of how Sephiroth didn't need a light to read. His gaze fell to the floor, where there was a leather jacket, his lovers jacket, and it had blood on it.

He blinked and the blood was gone,

“You know…”

As he looked at the jacket, a cold feeling crept up his spine and curled into his chest.

“I keep thinking on what happened.”

Sephrioth's tired, almost lazy tone did nothing to sooth Zack. He tried to push it down along with the bile and the beginnings of panic sliding up his throat. An idea, a picture and words but so black and threatening were forming in his head and suddenly the yellow and orange light seeping through the blinds made everything look like it was on fire and Sephiroth says;

“I dwell upon what might have happened if you had not saved me in the reactor. I would be dead, and that would have been quite the shame, for we still have so much work that needs to be done.”

 

 

 

“I therefore apprehend and do attach thee

For an abuser of the world, a practicer

Of arts inhibited and out of warrant.”

Othello, Act I, Scene II, (92-94)

 

The image of himself was cast through the cornea, the pupil, then the lens, where it was twisted upside down. He was still inverted when the rods and cones that made up the macula received the image and transferred him, still upside down, along the optic nerve all the way to the part of the brain that receives and interprets visual stimuli, where he was once again righted. The image in the brain was connected with a name, a color (colors), a background, an emotion (multiple), relations, questions, thoughts, reasons, assumptions, and accusations. This all happened in less then a fraction of a second. It was enough, however, to recognize him, and that's all that was needed before he reached out swiftly and snapped the man's neck.

He was faceless and nameless to him, a blur of dark hair and pale skin underneath green and black camouflage paint. The head was attached to a neck, which was attached to a torso, which bore the insignia of one of Wutai. The rest of it was buckles, slightly reflective of light because of rain, and folds of heavy clothing- they billowed and surged as he tipped backwards. The tree branch that had supported him was made slippery and, even though he was to fall anyway, insisted on making the trip easier. The buckles, the heavy canvas thrown about his shoulders to guard from the rain but not from him, the boots and the name, all went tumbling over and into the open air. The fall was quick and he hardly made a sound, perhaps only a rustle of leaves and a thump, over the downpour. It was so drowned out that from 10 feet away you would have had to strain to hear it, and at 20 feet it was impossible to notice. Sephiroth liked it this way.

Now his perch, he settled into a more advantageous position and observed the surrounding environments. The forest line was visible about a mile down the canyon, and each Wutain tree perch could be seen from his position. It made sense to him, each perch was set into a tall tree, completely hidden from frontal view. The perch farther back would see the one in front of it, messages, body language and alerts could be sent back to the Wutai camps in this method without alerting the enemy (Shinra) or being seen by any competent officer (Him). The only problem with this was, if the soldier at the very back of the perch line was unavailable (had his neck snapped), the message would never reach the camp. They didn't even have radios, to check on their seers. Again, to keep from alerting the enemy that they were watching them.

However, he was not actually there to storm the camp. He was on reconnaissance.

Normally, he would have sent another soldier. Zack, maybe, he was very good at being invisible. Normally, it would have been an easy there and back again, report to the General, stew in the new information. But this was not simply to observe the enemy. He may not be back for days.

What he knew, after days of speculation, was that the forest north of the Wutai capital was, as far as he could see, abandoned completely. It was thick, untouched, and he could not understand why the Wutai troops would not be stationed there, or at least keep watch along the borders. As far as he could see, even the eastern ridge, which was a stones throw away from the shore, was not kept under surveillance. He knew that his Shinra's enemy could not possibly be so stupid as to just not watch their borders. He knew there had to be some reason for this lack of competence. If everything looked good, it would be an excellent spot to hid his troops, and pin the Wutains in a pincer attack and bring down the entire regime.

Which was why he was going to take a look for himself.

The tree he was currently residing in was part of an expanse that stretched from the mouth of the canyon up along the western mountains wall and looped around the capital, bringing it to a nice curve which ended at the edge of the eastern shore, slightly northeast of the capital but still south of the end of the continent. It would be too easy for him to simply tree hop to the northernmost forest without ever being seen.

 

The life around him was silent upon his approach.

The rain clouds parted, lifting the funk and murk with their departure. The sun is in the west, now, falling towards the sea.

He walked and leaped and stole over the forest floor, great miles, each leaf and twig, each fallen branch and whisper of grass, each crunch beneath his boots drew him further in. He was in the most ancient, untouched part of the wood. Not even the natives came in this far, and apparent fact, due to the lack of ability to navigate through the bush. This far it was dark, the trees so tall and grown that they blocked out all the suns rays.

He was under a perfect canopy of green, a ceiling of shade and none of the animals made a sound.

It was so quiet he could hear his steps, his own breathing and the steady breath of his heart in his ears. He couldn't remember a time in his life where it had been so for him, his skill in silence so tuned that it was a shock to hear himself.

His feet took him further and it was darker still.

The blur of color and shape beneath his feet was slowed, and eventually came to a stop. The reason, question of his stop was curious, and his gaze was caught upward, trying to discern the shadows from the stone and to make sense of what he was looking at. It wasn't a beats, he knew that immediately, for it would have gone for his throat on site. It was made out of stone, carved out of and separated from the very stone of the mountain, the color a parallel to it, but he would have to go up and up to see the bluish rock face ascending the mountain. It was about 30 feet tall, a totem that went through change and consistency as it climbed into the sky, ancient Wutai symbols and depictions decorating the surface. The totem was finally crowned with the beast that had stopped his progress. It had six eyes carved into its head that faced the sky, no nose but a slope that ran down into its mouth, which was agape. There was no teeth, no tongue, only a hole that lead back into its throat, and possibly down into the totem supporting it. Long arms and paws adorned with blunt, jagged nails (talons) were included, as if it were living and balancing itself. Sephiroth's eyes were recurrently drawn back towards its mouth, and he thought the design may have been intentional, and it served as a warning. The demon looked as if it would swallow up the sky and forest; it reminded him of a black hole.

He didn't recognize it, but it reminded him of something he had seen before. He recalled what he knew about Wutain mythology (jackals, spirits, beasts, virgins) and the demon looked as if it was from days long past, to when the natives were still very much superstitious and believed in the kami. Maybe older still, but the wear and weathering was severe, but not without taking away any of the effect.

Leading past the stone beast was a path (it is a watchdog), to its left another totem, this one destroyed less the halfway up. Yet, with destruction there should be remains, and there were none that he could see. Between them, the path followed up into the mountain. The forest swamped its side, creeping up towards the summit. Above the path, the trees were dead and twisted and tangled together in a weave. What light that filtered through it provided enough illumination to show the grass covering the path to be dry and brown. Dead. The way itself, looked blackened.

He took a step forward.

A flock of crows burst forth from the brush in front of him and flew screaming into the sky.

They past, and his feet took him between the statues, and beyond.

The path itself was not so thick, only a few brambles or frail sticks cluttering it up. The trees surrounding it, however, even disrobed of any leaves, were so close and woven together that he could not see past them for very far around him. The few dead things under his feet, twigs mostly, did snap and crack- silence might have been impossible here, but he feared no beast.

He was still far enough away from the mountain to have only a light slope to climb, but as he went deeper it became darker, and upon instinct, he lightened his footsteps and watched his step.

The path went on for about a mile, various turns and curves were followed, the slope was increased, and eventually he was heading in one direction for a substantial amount of time. He was now walking on the side of the mountain, about halfway up and going around it, as if he would get to the top by spiraling upward.

Step forward, another, another, step.

A lurch in his knowing. Things are skipping beats.

A wave of nausea. It passes.

He realizes, with a weary, slow kind of surprise, that a spell has been cast upon him. It had been so long since someone had been able to, to have the skill to…

He shakes it off, the Mako and power beneath his skin throwing off the effects before they took real hold and sunk into him. A question of who, and what is clever enough to get past his defense sends his eyes darting about him- his gaze is clawing at the trees surrounding.

Trees, trees and dead grass. Brown sticks and yellow growth reaching up, stretching toward the sky for some life- and the light is growing dimmer, dimmer- a dark choking is around him. It's oil (Shinra- it whispers- Shinra) and it's settled over everything. It's deep and strangling all the life- no air, no air and he can't breathe and his eyes are no longer clawing but his hands are, clawing and pulling and grasping at the invisible hold around his neck- no air and everything is going dark…

He is enveloped and saturated, and he sees the missing teeth of the beast in the woods in front of him- the last bit of the worlds light reflecting off canines-

broken, broken but the shards are still sharp as they are circling, circling him-

and then that is gone as well

 

“I am not what I am.”

Othello, Act I, Scene I (69)

 

He's waking. He is waking up, coming to. Electric messages are traveling through his brain, signals are surfing his nerve cells and he is breathing because of it. He is moving his tongue in a curse that will never leave his mouth as his brain is letting him feels pain (steady ache); now that he is awake enough. He can move his fingers but can't open his eyes- another was of nausea, pain, then a cold feeling in his stomach.

He can see light, even from behind his eyelids and wonders, stupidly, what kind of spell was used on him, to go away only to come boomeranging back to hit him twice as hard.

(In the balls), Zack is saying. He crushes the voice.

He knows that his body is lying on some ground, stone and dirt, he knows he looks like a doll with long silver hair that has been dropped on the ground. He doesn't need to open his eyes to see that, he can feel it, but he opens them anyway.

He is staring at a rotting, wooden corpse ceiling. He has been moved.

It is warm, and he can hear a crack and whip of fire to his left. He immediately knows he is not alone, a whisper of cloth, the clinking and clattering of jewelry making movement music. Not coming towards him, but occupied to his right.

Chanting.

He hears a wooden spoon scraping against a bowl.

The voice is a hoarse screech. It sounds dirty, as if her vocal cords are working caked with dirt. He listens to it, without turning his head to look, and is suddenly filled with apprehension. A knot of ice is still settling into his stomach and he cannot be sure why.

He hears metal, possibly a dagger sound, and he is on his feet and across the room before he is in control.

Being upright so suddenly sends a rush of pain to his head, but it is ignored, along with the ice in his belly. He pushes it under.

He is looking at an old woman. The knife she holds is not being used as any weapon to anyone but herself. She is holding it against her palm, digging into the flesh, sliding and parting through cells at a molecular level, parting tissue and opening up capillaries to let the blood escape. From where he sees, across the room, he can tell if she pushes harder she will send the knife into the deeper tissue of her hand and cut the veins there, but she doesn't, she is not crucifying herself but she still needs the blood, it seems. The red is blossoming across her palm and dripping into the dirty, wooden bowl on the table.

He looks at the table, coarse, hand-made- but it serves its purpose. Brown and black and chipped, dirt and (blood) oils from the herbs she has spread around the table are clinging to it. It is dim here, only the light from the fire to illuminate the room, bright to look into but casting everything in shadow anyway. It must be night, he is thinking, the doorway with no door is inky black. No light from outside.

He looks back to the old woman, who is ignoring him, and wonders if it was she who cast the spell upon him.

She is small, looks it, anyways, hunched over she is four feet and her back is bowed, forcing her head down. Her hair may have matched his in length and color, but was dirty and rough looking. It almost fell into dread locks, but was limp, and it spread around her frame (skinny) and into her face, obscuring his view. She wore a some sort of robe, dress, rags, he couldn't tell for they looked so ancient and tattered, so caked with muck. They covered her body, what a frail skeleton and skin it was, except for her head, hands and feet, which where bare. Her nails on her hands seemed long, jagged and torn. They were yellowed and there is brown packed underneath them, the same of her toe nails, but they are shorter. Attaching her nails are her hands, long, crooked bones with sallow skin hanging off them. They work with a diligence and knowing that takes years perfecting. He is reminded of Hojo.

The long dirty stands of gray are still hanging in her face and sway with her movement, but do not reveal what is beneath.

There is jewelry, pale off white bits off rock (BONE AND TEETH) maybe, they make noise when her hands move, and Sephiroth notices that there are characters, symbols etched into them.

She finishes with the knife, and snatches an herb from the table. She crushes it between her fingers, rolling them back and forth as it sprinkles into the bowl.

He is tired of being ignored.

“Who are you, witch?” He holds authority into his voice. It is not a habit of his to abuse elderly women, but she, he knows, has a foul part in his abduction- and to be not afraid of him- does she not know who he is?

She would find out soon enough.

She is finished with the herb and uses the spoon to mix it with her blood.

She stops chanting, and speaks to him finally, in an ancient form of wutain he has the skill to recognize.

“Your head is full of numbers, of words. I see the old man in you.”

She does not look up as she mentions, somehow he knows, Hojo, casually.

So casually, as if she has nothing to fear from him.

“Do you know why you are here?”

He feels the heaviness in the air, it obstructs his senses.

“Do you know why I summoned you?”

“I answer the call of no one.”

He is actually surprised by how quickly the words flowed from his mouth, much to the displeasure of his mind, which didn't grant a passage for the words to his mouth, it seemed, in the first place.

“Oh, he says, no one, but I am eternal, shall you answer eternity, child? Shall you answer to fate?”

He feels his stomach drop, her words are like a poison twisting into his belly. What manner of beast is this, to insist on commanding him and to call itself eternity? What does it mean? What does it know?

/Hold yourself with strength, boy, the wolves are closing in/

“Eternity, you say? I will answer eternity, not to it, but at it, maybe. There is no fate for me, witch, I will burn my own path through.”

The ancient thing laughs at him, low and chortling and somehow much more mocking then any being had ever managed to slip into anything directed at him.

“You will certainly burn through, through and through, you need not worry about fire or the blaze, and you will get there soon enough.”

She turns as if to look at him from behind her spiders-hair, and he begins to see a gleam from where her eyes would be burrowed.

“I will lead you there, child, I will lead you to your fire. Lead, yes, come to me, come to the Beginning.”

 

“I felt that I must scream or die! --- and now --- again! --- hark! louder! louder! louder! louder!”

Edgar Allen Poe, The Tell-tale Heart

 

JENOVA

 

It is revealed, the washing away of his present thoughts following her transformation like the tide.

And as his thoughts are the tide, she is the moon, pulling him, with gravities grasp, in, out, inside, out.

The age and brilliance of the light makes his heart ache, and as he gazes upon her face he is absolutely sure he has seen it before reflecting back at him.

“Mother…”

Her sound is like a melody, soft and drifting, looping, sad and eternal. He pauses and searches inside himself for its accompaniment, and discovers the sound of the beginning, the steady hum of a thousand machines singing a thousand songs of his birth.

 

 

 

 

 

Like I said before, pure individual interpretation. There were a few reason that I wrote things the way I did, specifically the way both Sephiroth and Jenova spoke to each other at the end, not exactly common English, and that was done to illustrate how bizarre the situation was. Sephiroth is walking through his life when Jenova begins to take hold of him, and things get stranger and stranger from there. So, if you were confused, they spoke like that just to illustrate the growing madness.

The first two sections take place in chronological order, the Nibelheim incident from Hojo's perspective, then Zacks dream occurs after he and Cloud escape and he feels guilty for not being able to save his lover, but the last one introducing Sephiroth takes place during the Wutai war, and is in my opinion the most likely place to introduce Jenova, since war is an emotional catastrophy.

Since this was as much a work of art as I tried to make it, I used as many symbols and metaphors as were appropriate, I hope, for your reading pleasure.

Vanitas means roughly, “one's own death.”

Reviews welcome!