【SC】Endless Journey

When the first twilight appeared in the sky, Claude and Beard had already driven the racing bird onto the truck.After the two cleared the manifest, Sephiroth arrived late with his luggage.

They lived in the town for two years, and everyone in the town knew Claude, but no one had ever seen his older brother who couldn't go out because of illness.It was also the first time the proprietress of the hotel saw Sephiroth's face, so she couldn't help but take a few more glances.

"...Although there is a big difference in height, they are indeed similar." She whispered to Beard.

Sephiroth pretended not to hear, but his mood was very subtle.

It was the first time in his memory that he was thought to "kind of look like" Crowder.If it was his past self, he would be very happy with this evaluation, but now that he knows that he is not a clone of that person, everything becomes ridiculous.

Sephiroth suppressed the harsh arc of his lips in time, and turned his attention back to Cloud.On the bright side, at least this shows that Claude's disguise for himself was very successful.

In the early morning, there was a milky white fog in the field, and the damp and cold air poured into the carriage through the gaps.Sephiroth boarded the truck, moved the birdcage next to the cab to a gap, and then began to carry his and Claude's luggage into the car.

Two years have passed, and they don't know the current situation in Zhunong, so they can only hide in the cargo box of the truck for safety.This time Beard prepared a few wooden boxes and two blankets for them, and the two placed the wooden boxes along the wall and put blankets on them, and it became a simple seat that they could lie down on.

Sephiroth put on one of the blankets and listened quietly to Claude communicating the itinerary with the driver.When Claude returned a few minutes later, he wrapped the boy together in thick blankets and huddled together like chocobos to keep warm.

Cloud wasn't comfortable with this level of intimacy, and it reminded him of Sephiroth's unsuspecting out of bounds last night.He moved a few inches away from Sephiroth's side, but he was hugged by the waist with irresistible strength, like some kind of gentle warning.

Since leaving the institute, Sephiroth has been uncertain. He couldn't figure out the mood of the other party, so he had no choice but to let the young man hold him in his arms.Sephiroth seemed satisfied with his reaction, and moved his posture to let him rest against his chest, in case he would get motion sickness on the way later.

The truck slowly drove out of the farm, the noise of the engine drowning out all the noises in the cabin.Although the heat on Sephiroth's body was comfortable, Cloud was restless and couldn't fall asleep for a long time.

"Yesterday you said you were looking for someone, who is that person?" Sephiroth asked suddenly.

Claude became a little more awake, and his peripheral vision quickly swept across the opponent's face.

"...a friend of Claude Strife."

"Mother's friend? Has lived until now?" Sephiroth was very surprised.

"It's possible." If there is no accident, Vincent should be nearly 260 years old, and they are all old antiques that have spanned two eras.

Claude thought that the other party would ask him how he knew this, but Sephiroth pondered for a moment, then asked, "Is he not human?"

He was stopped by the question, and he didn't know how to explain Vincent's situation: "He...used to be."

"Once?" Sephiroth smelled the ambiguity of this statement, "Then what is he now?"

Claude lowered his eyelashes and fell into a brief silence.

Although the matter between Vincent and Chaos will not involve Xenovia, it is Vincent's personal privacy after all, and it should be said by the other party.He considered for a long time, and decided to only talk to Sephiroth about the part related to the planet.

"Do you still remember the picture book on the history of the planet when you were a child?"

A trace of doubt flashed in Sephiroth's eyes: "Remember."

"Our planet is a living planet. Our life circulates on the surface and core of the planet like blood, and these life streams themselves belong to a huge life body. He...was the power derived from this special life body You can understand it as a planet-level creature, so he has obtained an immortal life."

Sephiroth couldn't help but froze.This is the first time he has heard about the planet from Claude, and this knowledge has never been recorded in the research institute's materials.

Claude has acquired a lot of knowledge he didn't know from his mother, met people he didn't know, and now he has to travel across mountains and rivers to seek help from a stranger, but he refuses to trust himself around him-just thinking about it It made him feel inexplicably uncomfortable.

"What about the mother?" he asked, "Is the mother also such a creature?"

Claude froze for a moment, as if he didn't expect him to ask this question at all.

"No, that person is...human." Claude whispered.

Due to the angle of view, Sephiroth couldn't see his expression clearly, but saw his hands tightly clutching the fabric in front of him, and the back of his hands was almost bulging with veins.

— Claude is lying.Or, Claude was trying to convince himself.

Sephiroth knew that the answer was not that simple, but he didn't continue to get to the bottom of it.Once again, he felt that Catholm's theory had been verified, and he had mixed feelings in his heart.

It took about five days to drive from the ranch area to Junong Port. On the third day, the trucks arrived at the border of Junong, and they were inspected by the outpost together with the goods.

When entering the country, Sephiroth and Claude walked together. The huge height difference and outstanding appearance of the two attracted a lot of attention.After reading their documents, the soldiers at the outpost asked about their relationship as usual. Sephiroth replied brother without changing his expression. The dyed light blond hair and blue contact lenses reduced the difference in appearance between him and Claude, so The other party just glanced at them and let them go.

Since the golden dye bought by Claude is a one-off, they should try their best to arrive at Junon Port before the dye fades. Claude will follow the bird on the cargo ship as a breeder, and Sephiroth will be his family member. , once the cargo ship enters the high seas, it will temporarily escape the control of the Midgar and Junong military, and the Golden Disk is not under the jurisdiction of any country as an extrajudicial place, and the two will be much safer there.

That night they checked into Zhu Nong's hotel, and the driver still opened two rooms.The driver only reported his and Claude's names. After checking in, Claude secretly opened the window of their room to let Sephiroth turn in, so as not to be caught by the surveillance video in the hotel.

Sephiroth observed the facilities in the room. There was only one bed in the room, and they naturally wanted to sleep together.Claude washed up and went to confirm the escape route before returning to the bed and carefully lying down with his back to him.

"Why keep a distance from me." Sephiroth frowned slightly.

Claude shrank instinctively, but quickly put another person's body temperature on his back.

It is really difficult to squeeze two men of 1.9 meters and 1.7 meters in a normal size bed, but Sephiroth's puberty is menacing, and Claude doesn't want to give him more stimulation, so he can only turn over Lai explained to him: "I didn't." The scene in the bathroom that night flashed through his mind, making his ears feel hot. "I just want us all to sleep well."

Green vertical pupils sized him up for a while, then suddenly asked with interest: "Are you shy?"

"No!" Claude retorted immediately, "But I won't be able to sleep if you stick too tightly."

"Why? We used to sleep together a lot too."

Sephiroth reached out and wrapped his arms around his waist, pulling him a little closer to his side, and he held him with his elbow.

"We didn't bring so many replacement clothes, it would be troublesome if..." Claude reminded tactfully.

The young man finally understood, and tilted his head amusedly: "So you care about this. Don't worry, I will handle it myself."

Claude cast a look of distrust, so Sephiroth agreed to leave a distance of about one finger between the two to ensure that they would not touch each other.

After entering the night, Sephiroth fell into a dream again.

This time he stood in the middle of a burning village, surrounded by screams.Houses continued to collapse in the flames, burying the fleeing people together with their charred bodies under the rubble. He was wandering aimlessly in the village with that giant sword in his hand.

This scene seemed familiar, but it was not a scene he had personally experienced. After thinking about it for a while, Sephiroth realized that it was the man's memory.

This time, unlike before, he shared other senses with the man, so he could feel the scorching winds searing his skin as he walked through the flames.This feeling seemed to be on the scene, which made him change from a bystander to the protagonist of the dream, and a strange sense of nostalgia surged in his heart.

He hadn't figured out where this sense of nostalgia came from, but the next moment the scene changed, he was already in another strange facility.The facility smelled like Mako, and there were densely packed egg-shaped training cabins along the walls. He walked through these training cabins, walked through a closed door, and saw something... something indescribable.

Suddenly there was a sharp pain in his head, and Sephiroth began to be unable to see the picture in front of him clearly.He only knew that he moved some heavy objects, walked to a huge container, and said something to a person or creature in it, and then there was a clear sharp pain in his chest.

Sephiroth lowered his head, a broad epee pierced his body.

...So this is what it feels like to be penetrated.

The metal forcibly broke the protection of the ribs, tore the muscles and penetrated the internal organs, and the ruptured organs caused blood to pour into the chest cavity, accompanied by a somewhat indescribable familiarity.

But he shouldn't feel familiar, he's never been pierced through his chest by anything.

Sephiroth turned around enduring the severe pain, and saw a soldier wearing a helmet.The opponent's eyebrows and eyes were completely covered under the iron helmet, but his figure and voice still revealed his identity.

"Give me back mother... the village!" The young man cried out in a trembling cry, "I used to respect and worship you so much, but you—"

That was young Claude Strife.Sephiroth's heart was strongly shocked.

He never knew that his mother knew that man when he was young, let alone that his mother had such feelings for "him".

His mother's desperate expression made him feel a little affection. He wanted to reach out and touch her face, but his body couldn't accept his instructions.When the man came to the door again, he saw his mother rushing forward with the sword, and immediately pierced the opponent's chest with the giant sword named authentic.

"Ugh-"

The mother's face was contorted in pain, and her soft blond hair was stained with blood.Those immature blue pupils were full of hatred for him, even if the blade penetrated deeper into the wound, he struggled to get closer to him.

The young mother was so much like another face he was familiar with, Sephiroth was in a daze for a moment, only to realize that the person walking opposite had turned into Claude at some point.

The younger brother had a soft expression on his face that was completely different from that of his mother, and he stretched out his hands calmly to him.

"You were my hero when I was a kid..."

The similar words contained completely different emotions—the mother hated that man, but Claude loved him so deeply.

Sephiroth's heart filled with vague joy, he embraced the other side, and then was sealed by a pair of soft lips.

They hugged each other hard and responded passionately to each other's kisses.The boy kept curling up and stretching under him, his docile appearance caused a flame to rise in his body, Sephiroth entangled with each other's lips and teeth, while holding the boy's buttocks to get close to his lower body.Claude did not resist, but hugged his back intoxicatedly, and slightly opened his legs to welcome his invasion, so the two bodies were more tightly fitted together, and they began to rub and collide crazily.

At this moment, he accidentally met the youth's misty eyes, and suddenly found a face that was very similar to him but much more mature than him reflected in them.

As if aware of meeting his gaze, those green vertical pupils showed a cold look that did not belong to him at all, and an intriguing smile curled up on the corners of his lips.

"He's your...doll. So he'll be yours forever."

Sephiroth woke up suddenly, and found that he had been half pressed on Claude at some point, and his lower body was as hot as a soldering iron.

Claude was woken by his movement and pushed his chest a little, but didn't push.He touched the opponent's pajamas with his hand, and Claude, who came back to his senses, grabbed his wrist tightly.

"You promised me, Safi." Claude warned with his eyes.

"...I'll do it myself." Sephiroth retreated to the next best thing, and teased himself while pressing Claude to kiss.Claude didn't resist too seriously, but tried to tilt his head to avoid his soliciting kiss, and it took him a long time to let it out in his palm.

When Claude got into the car the next day, his face was pale. Sephiroth thought that his younger brother was going to educate him about what happened last night, but the other party unexpectedly didn't mention it at all.Sephiroth's mind was also in a state of confusion, because there was something in his dream last night that he was very concerned about, that was the first time he knew the man's appearance.

They are too similar, second only to Claude and his mother... No, it's better to say that the differences between them are all due to their different ages. If he is six or seven years older, he may be exactly the same as that person.

"This is in your place, and you can use it at your own discretion."

Cloud's voice brought him back to reality.Sephiroth looked down and found that Cloud was handing him Bahamut's Summoning Stone.

"You lack the means of self-protection more than I do. It's better to keep it for yourself." Sephiroth pulled off his coat, revealing his belt studded with magic spar.

Claude shook his head and said in a low voice: "You must ensure that you can leave at the critical moment. As long as you leave, I will always have a way to catch up."

"You think they already know?"

"I have a hunch." Claude looked at the scenery outside the grille, with a hint of worry floating in his pupils, "Although the matter of the research institute is a military secret of Midgar, there should be many people who know about you. If they can find out about Chocobo Farm, maybe they also know that we are fleeing to Jindie now."

——Especially when they asked Beard, the other party could only tell the truth.

"...This kind of thing is not unheard of. The military may pretend not to know that we have entered the country, and finally set up an ambush in a certain place—such as Junong Port—to catch us all."

Sephiroth finally took Bahamut's magic stone, thought for a while, removed a recovery magic stone from his belt and handed it to him.

"Even so, we must go to sea?" He asked in a deep voice.

"Well. Otherwise, there will be no better chance." Claude accepted the magic stone and put it on his bracelet.

As if to verify Claude's hunch, everything went well until entering Junong Port.

The truck enters the dock normally, unloads all the birdcages in the loading area, and then waits for the forklift to come and transport the chocobo to the cargo ship.

Claude kept an eye out and asked the driver to go to the pier for him to watch the chocobo enter the cabin, while he mingled among the porters and observed around.He walked around the pier, took note of all the terrain from the parking lot to the cargo ship, and planned the boarding route for Sephiroth. At the same time, he saw a few soldiers suspected of patrolling on the high point.

Claude returned to the place where Sephiroth was hiding, and took the tightly wrapped six styles from the other party.

"An ambush?" Sephiroth asked.

"It's hard to say. Someone is monitoring near the pier. I'm not sure if it's the military, so you can't board the ship in the normal way." Claude took out a small notebook from his arms, tore off a piece of paper, and sketched on it. The structure of the wharf, by the way, circled the position of the cargo ship, "If you want to sneak up there, you'd better find the captain's room directly, and force the captain to go out to sea if the situation changes."

Sephiroth nodded and boarded the boat first with Murasame in hand.Claude waited among the other passengers for a while until he received the confirmation message from Sephiroth, and then he followed the crowd to check in and board the ship.

At this moment, a piercing siren suddenly sounded over the pier.

"Emergency evacuation! Emergency evacuation! There are militants of unknown origin in the third loading area. Please evacuate the scene immediately!"

As the announcements on the broadcast continued to cycle, the nearby gates began to drop one by one.

——Loading area No. [-] happened to be where he was now, and Claude immediately entered a state of alert.

Passengers around didn't know what happened and looked at each other in confusion.Claude had already heard the sound of soldiers and mechanical guards marching here. In this situation, it is easy to accidentally injure civilians. He had to remove the cloth strips outside the six-style, and shouted to the nearby passengers: "If you don't want to die, you can die!" Get out of here!"

Although most people didn't understand the current situation, they all understood the weapon in his hand and ran away screaming.

Claude looked around, and an army of about a hundred people was surrounding Area [-] from all directions.He raised his sword and retreated in the direction of the cargo ship. While slashing the knife to block the bullets fired from a distance, he took the time to call Sephiroth.

"They have come, let the ship go to sea now!"

"Immediately. Don't hang up yet." Sephiroth hastily pressed the knife against the captain's vest, and whispered, "Let's set sail now."

"But—" the captain tried to say something, the point of the knife cut his coat immediately, and the man trembled in fright, "This distance will be bombarded by the army, and they have submarines and torpedoes. was bombed and sunk."

Sephiroth finally knew why Claude handed Bahamut to him. The other party probably had expected this situation long ago, so he let him be responsible for getting rid of the pursuit.

"You just drive, I have a way to intercept the attack from the air." Sephiroth quickly scanned the console, found the broadcast on the other side of the cabin, and pressed the button, "Tell them to close the cabin, hurry up."

Muru moved forward another inch, the captain's face turned pale, and he obediently obeyed immediately.

Claude was shuttling between the hail of bullets and the mechanical guards, mercilessly smashing the soldiers' shields, then turned around and pushed aside the mechanical guards that were trying to rush over.The enemy hunter crashed straight into the blind spot where a group of soldiers was, overwhelmed the nearby cargo box, and caused an explosion in the chaos.

When Sephiroth connected to the phone again, the two mechanical guards were cut into two by Claude, and the huge explosion almost shattered his eardrum from the receiver.

"Can you come up now?" he barked into the microphone as loud as he could.

"Wait a minute." Seeing that the door of the cabin was half closed, Claude immediately removed two swords from the six-style and threw them far away.The dagger left two footholds on the iron plate of the cabin door. Claude confirmed that he could still catch up at this distance, so he avoided a laser attack behind him and jumped into the sea.

The anchors were stowed, the hatches still closed, and the cargo ship began to roll out of the harbor at full speed amidst a rain of bullets at the docks.

Claude swam after the cargo ship for a short distance, grabbed the hilt of the first sword he threw out, and climbed onto the deck little by little with the pedals made by Six Types, and was finally able to sit on the side of the ship to catch his breath.

The communication terminal was completely flooded. Claude tried to press the screen a few times and found no response, so he knew that he had temporarily lost contact with Sephiroth.He reassembled the six styles, and walked towards the captain's cabin with wet steps under the terrified eyes of the crew.

He took a few steps on the deck, and suddenly felt a shadow behind him.Claude instinctively turned around and raised his sword, blocking a head-on blow.

"Good response." A man nodded at him.

Cloud immediately leapt back to distance himself from the man, noticing the stripes on the man's shoulder straps - it was a captain.

... There was also an ambush on board.Claude's heart sank.

It's not that he hasn't thought about this possibility, but it is undoubtedly worse in the current situation.The two confronted each other carefully with their swords raised, and the rest of the soldiers took advantage of this opportunity to rush onto the deck.

From the follow-up footsteps, it was heard that there were at least three to 400 people on board. Although it was not a situation that Claude could not handle, he could not destroy the hull during the battle, so the situation became extremely troublesome.

On the other hand, this ship is almost an isolated island in the sea, and he and Sephiroth have no way out, which means that the more soldiers alive on board, the more dangerous their situation will be, so they can no longer consider showing mercy.

Claude lowered his eyebrows and clenched the Six Styles in his hand.

Even so, he didn't want Sephiroth to get blood on his hands, so he did it himself.

After making a decision, Claude took a step back, and shot into the crowd like a bullet in the next second.The captain was completely knocked away by him before he could even block it, and the nearby soldiers fell to the ground under the impact of the sword pressure.Since most of the soldiers were still equipped with machine guns, they could not shoot at will in this chaotic situation, but instead became a living target for him.

Claude pulled out the Sixth Form from a guard machine, and a slender black shadow suddenly flashed in the corner of his vision, and a machine behind him was also pierced by a slender sword from above, and was thrown into the sea by the opponent before it exploded. middle.

It seemed that Sephiroth also noticed the situation on the deck, so he rushed from the captain's cabin to support him.

"Sephiroth, is it really you?!" An exclamation came from afar.

The captain seemed to know Sephiroth—this thought only flashed in Claude's mind, and he saw Sephiroth's movements froze, showing a puzzled look: "Angel?"

...Looks like Sephiroth's former comrade-in-arms.

Seeing the commander stop, some soldiers stopped attacking, while others continued to rush towards Cloud.Claude had to deal with the shield soldiers in front of him while paying attention to Sephiroth's situation, and found that the two were chatting on the deck under heavy artillery fire.

Angel temporarily stopped other soldiers from attacking Sephiroth, turned to look at the young man, and was full of emotion for a while: "You have not heard from you for two years, and we all thought you were dead. I heard that this mission is to hunt you down." I still can't believe it, I didn't expect to see you here... They said that you did the thing in the institute, is this true?"

Sephiroth lowered Murame a few centimeters, changed from an attacking posture to a defensive posture, and lowered his head slightly: "It's true."

The man's eyes turned to him, just in time to see Claude throwing a soldier with a gun off the deck, and asked, "So that's——your brother?"

Cloud looked very different from what Sephiroth had described in the past. Although he was indeed blond, he was neither sickly nor cute.Just after fighting with hundreds of soldiers and several mechanical guards, the boy's sword and body were covered with shocking blood, and the killing intent in his eyes even made Sephiroth feel strange.

Cloud Strife had been a fighter, and his clone must be a fighter, too.It's just that the long-term life in the research institute and the ranch has made Sephiroth ignore this point. Even though he has experienced the toughness of the other party, he has never imagined the scene of Claude killing. It was not until this moment that he finally had a better understanding of this matter. deep awareness.

Just as Claude's sword was about to fall towards a black-haired soldier attacking him from the side, Angel and Sephiroth yelled at this side almost at the same time.

"Peter! Get out of the way!"

"Claude! Wait a minute!"

The black-haired soldier named Pete suddenly stopped raising his sword after seeing Claude's face, and his pupils showed a strange daze.

Claude didn't know what was going on, so he stopped to observe the other party for the time being.

The young man was confused for a while, then scratched his head, and asked uncertainly, "Have we... met before?"

As soon as the words fell, three eyes focused on Pete at the same time.

Angel was puzzled, Sephiroth was surprised, and after Claude looked at him carefully for a moment, his pupils shrank in shock.

——Although the appearance is completely different, the eyes and movements of this black-haired young man are very similar to Zacks.

And judging from the time when he knew that Zacks left the stream of life, this young man is likely to be a Zacks who normally circulates between the core and the surface of the planet and has a brand new body and life.