damned_institute | Day 27: Sun Room (4th Shift)

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Day 27: Sun Room (4th Shift)

Momo's mind was turning over all the possibilities surrounding this "field trip" to the surrounding town when she settled down in the corner of the Sun Room away from the Arts & Crafts room. She curled her legs underneath her as she waited for Shouko-san to find her. The shinigami had no idea what she looked like, so she kept an eye on all those entering the room.

It was still very cold, or at least she was cold, and the momentary thought of getting her coat from her own room passed through her mind amidst the field trip thoughts. She pushed it away and decided to deal with it being as cold as it was since she'd already been late to one meeting today and didn't want to start making it a habit.

As she waited, she pondered the next day's possibilities. Maybe, just maybe, once away from the institute the shinigami will have access to their full reiatsu. And if not, maybe they'll have a better idea of how they are being limited so much. Maybe Aizen would be able to find her then. He'd save her... right? Right?

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Sephiroth was a bit disappointed. He had hoped that Cloud would move or try something, a situation that would allow Sephiroth to judge how much (if at all) the other's abilities had been reduced. Finding such out in combat had already worked against him once, and Cloud was a far more dangerous opponent than the one-eyed man would ever be.

Oh well. One worked with what they had.

That trace of a cold smile remained when Cloud met his gaze, the pupils of his eyes narrowing down further to mere slits. That low pitched hum that ran through every cell of his body seemed to rev up a bit at their proximity, at least to Sephiroth. It was the call of one to another: Reunion.

"Both if you wish," he said quietly. "He may actually come to you to verify it. It does not matter. You cannot take part of myself from me, and you know as well as he does, that all of it is true... from experience if nothing else. One would think you would be pleased that my focus was not on you at that moment."

Although it is now, he added mentally.

Cloud was somehow used to being crowded, and he simply crossed his arms over his chest. He had a feeling that Sephiroth had crowded him purposefully. Everything Sephiroth did had an underlying purpose to it, even if he was not aware of it right away.

He watched as the pupils thinned, but his own no longer followed the gesture similarly. He sensed the hum only be instinct rather than by actually feeling the call himself. He had spent years listening to that call, feeling that drive to hunt Sephiroth down for something that had escaped him for a long time. He had once been part of the Reunion; he was no longer infected to hear it.

Slowly, he pulled a hand away and placed it against Sephiroth’s chest, pushing the other man back a little. “Even if he does come to me, there is nothing I will say on the subject. That is between you and him; he would not believe me anyway.” He shook his head a little. “I am not a puppet to you, not anymore.”

He drew his hand back again in a purposefully slow manner. “Where you place your focus is usually obvious.”

"I see."

That razorblade smile lingered still, a hint of what passed for amusement sliding through Sephiroth's eyes. His gaze lowered to the hand that pressed against his chest before locking back onto Cloud's once more. He chose not to resist right now, taking the step backwards. He had given his word after all.

Whether or not he was disappointed that there was no answering call of Reunion from Cloud was anyone's guess.

"Is it? I had thought that I was better than that at not letting so transparent."

The expression on Sephiroth's face mirrored that of long ago when he asked Cloud to tell him what meant the most to him.

"The flower girl was here sometime back, along with that dark haired woman fighter. What was her name again? I disremember. The humans have no idea what happened to them. People do go missing so often around here in the night."

Sephiroth paused there, eyes going to the ceiling and then back to Cloud as if he were trying to remember something.

"I do not suppose that two or three days is enough for rats to get brave enough to attack still living flesh, but I do not know. It may."

With that, he stepped away and back to his window to stare out it once more.

Cloud was pleased when Sephiroth did back off. It appeared that they might even make it through an entire conversation without raising swords at each other. He thought that would be only a second or possibly a third in the entire time that he had known Sephiroth, which included the debriefings before the Nibelheim mission.

“I think I have dealt with you more than most have,” he pointed out softly. He somehow always seemed to get some reaction out of Sephiroth, whether he wanted it or not. “You are usually transparent to me.”

He remained silent as the topic turned to his friends, and he had already heard of their disappearance from Barret and Yuffie. He had a feeling that whatever this place did to people had possibly happened to Aerith and Tifa. “…Tifa was her name,” he murmured. He hoped that both would return to this place in some capacity… or maybe not. Things might have been better for them if they had not been pulled from that time.

“I think there is something in this place that is beyond simple animal instincts,” he said. He kept an eye on Sephiroth as the other man went back to the window.

“You seemed to indicate that you were looking for me in the bulletin. Why?”

His head turned slightly to face Cloud instead of the world outside. There was a sharpness to his eyes, searching for something that he didn't seem to be finding. The traces of a smile were gone, leaving him as cold and emotionless as a marble statue brought to life. He turned back to the view beyond, silent long enough to make one wonder if a reply were coming.

"I wanted to see if you were still the hero of the humans."

Whatever that meant to him beyond the obvious, Sephiroth didn't say. Turned away, a curtain of white-silver was between them, shielding Sephiroth's face from view.

Meeting Sephiroth’s cold gaze, Cloud looked aside when Sephiroth went back to gazing somewhere else. He made a soft sound of acknowledgement to the reason given, and he wondered what Sephiroth thought of him now that they had met like this. He fought with himself on if Sephiroth’s opinion of him really mattered at this point in his life; their lives always somehow seemed entwined.

“I hope whatever opinion you have formed about that is not disappointing,” he finally replied. “You should know where I stand on that.” He wanted to say that he defended them because he was human, but… he felt that he might be mocked.

Perhaps he was still just as much a scientific monster as Sephiroth was. He was the only survivor of the original cloning project, but that somehow did not make him feel anymore human. He wanted to ask, but he felt that the answer would be twisted. Was he human anymore? Did his sense of humanness end when he was sixteen?

"You have consistently disappointed me. It has always been the humans over family," Sephiroth replied dispassionately, his gaze never leaving whatever it was he saw outside the pane of glass. "It has always been them over us for you."

Sephiroth folded his arms over his chest loosely, still not facing the other or letting his face be seen past the shade of his hair.

"Time passes no faster in the Lifestream than it does on Gaia. It is slower if anything, all things happening at once and a single event going on for eternity. I have watched these long years, waited patiently as it all passed, and I grew angry. I wanted to punish you for betraying me for them."

He was silent then, taking a breath and releasing it slowly.

"I had to even consider if I were human enough to fall prey to their pettiness."

Sephiroth shook his head slightly, a tinge of regretfulness in his voice.

"In the end, I decided that I was not. You were merely imperfect, flawed in a way I could not correct. Infected as the case was."

Cloud felt the hairs on the back of his neck rise at Sephiroth’s words, and it took effort to keep himself where he was at the wall. How could Sephiroth ever consider him in any sense of family? He would have been disposed of just like the other clones had he not had his friends to pull him through it. Was he… had he ever been a part of this proverbial family?

He shook his head, pushing aside such thoughts. No, he could not forget the lives lost because of Sephiroth… because of this family. Sephiroth was messing with his mind, offering something like that when it could not be true. The master was trying to capture him up in puppet strings again.

“…I was not part of your family, as you call it. I never have been,” he murmured softly but with a hint of discomfort. He remembered well what it was like to feel the surge of Jenova in his veins and to feel the clarity of eyes that matched Sephiroth’s. “You wanted to destroy something precious… I could not let you.”

He let out a soft uncomfortable noise and turned his face away. He was always termed the failure. He disliked it to his core. He never had a number like the others, but he succeeded far more. “Like you would want to correct it…” he replied stiffly.

"You have, deny it as you like. How often have you felt it even if you deny it? It is who and what you are. There is no other. Do the humans understand you at all? Do you understand them?"

Face and expression still hidden, Sephiroth's head lowered slightly, a hand rising to rest under his chin. If he caught the discomfort in Cloud's voice, he made no sign of it.

"I did and do want to correct it, at least until I came to a conclusion. What I told Kadaj on that board does not apply only to him and the other remnants. It applies to you as well. Only with me will you ever be complete. It is why you run from the humans despite how they would hold you to them. It is only me that would understand you from the light to the dark. You may run as far from me as you like, fight with me all you wish, but it does not change what is inevitable. Deep down, you know it just as Kadaj does despite how he screams against it."

A shoulder lifted in a half shrug, Sephiroth making a thoughtful noise.

"Ask yourself how many of the events in your life in which you truly felt alive had to do with me."

Fighting with Sephiroth’s reasoning, Cloud had to back off physically as he slid himself into the corner of the room. He fought for resolve, to solidify how much the other cared for him. His family had been killed in Nibelheim, and he had been doing the best that he could for others, knowing what it was like to feel orphaned.

He bowed his head and forced himself to stop grasping at Sephiroth’s words as he had in the past. This was just like that, the offering of something that he wanted but was often too frightened to take because of a fear of failure. It was dangled in front of him like a prize if he would only take that first step. Why was he having such a weak moment?

“No…” he murmured more to himself than Sephiroth. This conversation was getting out of hand, and he could not afford to slip. Everyone was counting on him to be strong. “You are manipulating things again,” he rasped out.

However, the last utterance froze him against the wall. The answer was pushing into this brain without him wanting it too. He shoved at it in hopes that it would go away, but it snuck in and lazed in front of his eyes. All of them

Sephiroth didn't move as Cloud retreated from him, remaining still at the window. If he hadn't spoken, one could have thought him nothing more than a statue for all the motion he made.

"I do not need to manipulate you anymore than I need to Kadaj. He is a part of me, and without me, he is incomplete. He may grasp at whatever he likes, trying to fill that void, but nothing will, and he knows it despite how much he objects. He sought Mother, but you and I both know that what he was seeking was my resurrection."

He finally did turn then, pupils widening and then thinning again as he focused on Cloud. Thankfully, he didn't move towards the other, staying where he was.

"Tell me, what did you feel the moment you saw me again after all that time? Did you feel loathing? Fear? Or did you feel some brand of relief that finally... finally, all the pieces could fall where they were supposed to? That is, before that side of you that clings to the humans took over. What did you feel then?"

Cloud slowly raised his head to stare over at Sephiroth, forcing himself to gain some measure of composure again. He met Sephiroth’s gaze squarely again, pushing off the wall to stand, clenching a fist at his side before even that faded down to a much more neutral position.

He shook his head a little, pushing out the questions before they even had time to settle in his mind. His eyes flicked to the wall beside him as he forced his mind to remain focused. He could not be swayed and pushed around by Sephiroth; people were relying on him to be strong and face the adversity.

“You do not care how I feel,” he stated and looked back at Sephiroth. “What I felt when I saw you was that I knew, looking at how your guard was down, how easy it would be to finish you off again… for a third time.” He pushed a hand through his hair and glanced to the window. “And even if I felt something else, it does not matter.”

"Perhaps that is why you disappoint me so often, because you believe that I do not care. Have you ever known me to pursue or bother with something that holds no interest for me?"

Sephiroth chuckled quickly, a low rumble in his chest. He turned back to the window then, arms crossing loosely again. Outside the view was most uninteresting, merely trees and more trees. There didn't seem to be anything out there that would hold Sephiroth's attention so unless on counted the ghostly reflections of themselves in the glass.

"It matters. As I said, I am patient. I can wait. In time you will realize that I am right. Your path will always lead you back to me. That is inevitable. I am the darkness to your light if you wish, and one cannot exist without the other. Take your time. I have proved that I have nothing but that."

Cloud felt the air catch in his lungs for a moment as he considered that. He did not want to, but it wormed into his head before he could stop it. Did Sephiroth care about him at all? He never thought that Sephiroth had the capacity to care for anything, least of all him.

However, he knew from the years of experience that Sephiroth did seem to pay a special bit of attention to him. It had been the Reunion first, but even after he had broken free, Sephiroth had haunted his footsteps with constant battering and infections. Geostigma had nearly dragged him back. No, Sephiroth had some interest in him; that much he could not deny even if he wanted to.

“I hardly consider your pursuit of me to be in a caring capacity,” he murmured. He rubbed his shoulder uncomfortably and had a feeling that his path would lead back. “What do you mean by that… the darkness to my light?”

"Do I strike you as the caring type either? I am not human, nor will I ever be."

He didn't answer Cloud at first, master of taking a pause to let his words sink in before speaking again. In his mind, the mistake most humans made was rushing things. He had all of eternity if necessary.

"I mean that you are determined to be light, to be good, and yet you want your darkness that is in me. Have you not heard of the human's theory that one cannot exist without the other? One constantly revolves with other, incomplete until they merge. They could explain it more I imagine."

Sephiroth waved a hand, not too concerned with the theories behind it all. He knew the basics of it. What else did he need?

"You ask me these questions when you know the truth of it, merely wanting me to speak the words to absolve you of any guilt or take no blame for your actions. You will come to me this time. I will not to you as I have before."

“No,” Cloud said simply. He doubted he could ever consider Sephiroth to be caring for anything more than himself. “I contest that,” he softly added. “You started just as human as the rest of us.”

He wanted no darkness; his life would be so much simpler if there was no darkness to haunt him. He doubted that it he could ever escape that darkness for as long as Sephiroth decided to come back though. “Until they merge? You and I will never come close to doing that,” he replied. The theory was as far as it would probably go before they went back to fighting.

“I have already forgiven myself,” he said. He had nothing else to forgive anymore, and that would lend him strength. “So, we are back to the original years of me chasing after you then? I have no reason to chase you unless you continue on the path you were before.”

"I was never human."

The first real sign of being offended appeared and vanished quickly from Sephiroth's cold visage. Now was not the moment to be moved by such things as anger. Lifting his head, that sharp smile came back.

"Tell yourself what you like, but you know the truth. Go back to your friends now or to whatever pleases you. Take what time you wish. I will not stop you."

He waved a hand, letting Cloud leave if he wished. Sephiroth himself remained staring out the window, his expression blank and gaze distant as if Cloud were not there at all.

Cloud sensed the small flash from Sephiroth, a rare moment of emotion. So, that was the key to getting under the other man’s skin. Humanness… Sephiroth wanted to be apart from everything that was human. Not being human probably meant that Sephiroth did not have to consider sins as everyone else did.

He cast his eyes aside at the dismissal, but there was nothing more to discuss apparently. His head was crowded with thoughts and unanswered questions, wavering desires and falsified feelings. He needed the time to sort things out for himself before anything more could come to pass. Would he really come in pursuit of Sephiroth again?

He walked away, pausing as he paused at Sephiroth’s back. “You were human once… just like I was,” he murmured before he walked away and left Sephiroth to stare out the window.

"I was never human. You cling to yours like a weeping woman with a dead lover. Let it go. It serves you nothing to mourn what was lost long ago. You are more like me than them."

That glimmer of anger came and went again, a tightening of his hands into fists before he forced them to relax. He disliked humanity on the whole, them and their traitorous ways. They had left Mother to die in theirs stead, enslaving her to power a corporation. Were they capable, Sephiroth didn't doubt in the least that they would do the same to him.

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Day 27: Sun Room (4th Shift)

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