【SC】Endless Journey

The starry sky covers the earth, and the dark depths are connected to the universe hundreds of millions of light-years away.The only life on the barren surface is lying in the middle of the ice field, looking for the next life in the vast galaxy.

The sun rises and the moon sets, and the stars move.When the stars rose from the horizon thousands of times, and the morning glow illuminated the thin atmosphere, he finally saw the scenery around him clearly—it was a silver-white land, and the mountains and rivers were covered by some kind of metallic substance.When the sunlight falls on the surface of the raised ridge, the ice crystals refract the arc of the rainbow, which is like a magnificent alien landscape.

"The planet is dying."

Countless small voices murmured in Claude's mind.They were neither words nor melodies, like some strange electromagnetic waves, but he could just understand their meaning.

"The planet is dying. And I must live."

Thousands of suns and moons passed, and the silver-white substance gradually faded from the surface, exposing weathered rocks.But something rumbles beneath the crust, ready to burst forth at any moment.

One day, the surface of the earth began to sag, the rocks gradually melted, and the stream of life spewed out along with the silver-white material, enveloping the lava layer by layer.The hot ball of lava is propelled high into the sky, through the clouds, through the atmosphere, and finally becomes a new "moon".

The silvery substance has extracted all the life stream of the planet, pushing the newborn satellite into the orbit of the planet, while the planet that has lost the life stream gradually stops its rotation and falls apart little by little.

Without the shackles of the planet's gravitational force, and using the remaining stream of life as fuel, the meteorite carrying the silvery substance began to wander in the cold and dark universe.It traveled hundreds of millions of light years, and finally came to a certain galaxy, exhausted its last fuel and flew towards a blue planet.

When it reached the finish line, Claude finally saw the appearance of the planet clearly.

—Gaia, the cradle that gave birth to him and all life he knew.

The meteorite began to fall, plummeting toward the ice caps of the North Pole.The huge explosion pierced the planet's crust, and the stream of life continuously gushed out from the bottom of the large cavity created by the impact, nourishing the almost withered life on the meteorite.

The sky is rapidly changing between night and day, and the ground under the feet is also constantly changing scenery during the rotation of the planet.He saw the silvery-white substance spreading out from the Great Northern Cavity, like an insatiable monster, quickly devouring the ice sheet in the extreme north.

"This is our origin and destination, Claude."

The familiar bass sounded from the ears.Claude turned around sharply, and saw Sephiroth standing not far from him, his strange vertical pupils showed some unclear interest.

He nervously leaned behind him, but found nothing, only then realized that he did not carry the Six Styles in the dream.

"This is the origin of Xenovia. You and I were both conceived by humans, so it has nothing to do with us—at least it has nothing to do with me." Claude said coldly.

"But this will be your destination." Sephiroth smiled slightly, "You have been unable to enter the cycle of the planet, and you are destined to witness its demise in a long eternal life, but before that we still have a chance to find the next one that can A living planet. Cloud, just you and me, we can last forever until the end of time."

"That's not something you can decide for him."

Before Claude opened his mouth to retort, an arm suddenly and forcefully took him into his arms.He felt his back hit his solid chest muscles, so he turned his head slightly, and saw another Sephiroth with a serious expression.

——This is the Sephiroth he knew.

The moment Claude realized this, he was relieved, but he quickly felt ashamed of his relaxation.

"Let go!" He struggled slightly in the opponent's arms.

Sephiroth ignored his request, and spread his wings to completely block the view from the opposite side.

"Get out of here. He wants to gain stronger power through recombination. Once you are absorbed by him, you will not be able to maintain yourself."

Claude gave him a hard look: "What's the difference between that and what you've always wanted to do? Oh, except that you hate me even more."

Sephiroth was silent for a few seconds, and finally let go.

"I don't," he explained calmly. "Not a long time ago."

"You think I'll still trust you."

Sephiroth didn't seem to intend to continue entangled on this topic, so he turned his attention to another self.The other party had been watching them quarreling with great interest, and at this moment they finally intervened in their conversation.

"When life is integrated, individual consciousness is no longer so important." The thing imitated Sephiroth's tone, but there was no emotion in the pupils, and the inorganic green was chilling, "Your thoughts will Incorporate into our thoughts, as did his, and finally all thoughts will become part of our consciousness, so that you don't have to dwell on past hatreds - reconciliation with past selves is what you have been seeking huh, Claude?"

Sephiroth's complexion sank, and he summoned Zhengzong to stand in front of the two. "He's reading your memory, can't let him continue. Can you wake up now?"

Although the anger in his heart still persisted, Claude tried hard: "...no way."

Sephiroth froze, and suddenly bent down to him.

"What are you doing—" Claude instinctively dodged back, but was tightly held by the opponent's lower back.

The face that was so beautiful that it was almost terrifying was enlarged before his eyes, and then the wet touch was imprinted on his lips.It took Claude a few seconds to realize that the other party was kissing him, and he wanted to push Sephiroth away angrily, but suddenly felt a sharp pain in his chest.

He lowered his head subconsciously, and found that his heart had been pierced by a cold blade.

"Maybe you don't believe it, but I never intended to deceive you." Sephiroth stood up slowly, lovingly wiping the blood overflowing from the corner of his mouth, "I don't hate you either."

Claude opened his mouth with difficulty, and the fishy liquid rushed into his throat instantly.So Sephiroth placed another soft kiss on his forehead, covering his eyes with his hands.

"I need you to live, Cloud. For me, and for yourself."

"Wake up, Cloud."

Claude opened his eyes suddenly, sat up from the bed, his clothes were soaked in cold sweat.He panted violently for a while, then suddenly remembered something, and hurriedly picked up his clothes to check the wound on his body.

The wounds on his legs and shoulders had healed, leaving only two faint red marks.Claude remembered the last scene he saw before he fell into a coma, and couldn't help punching hard on the bed.

Sephiroth is simply playing with him!

Once the opponent returns to the stream of life, he needs to read his own memory to be resurrected, so Sephiroth does not want to kill him, but this does not contradict the opponent taking pleasure in his pain.He repeatedly stopped when he could kill Sephiroth, and missed the opportunity after the other party recovered his memory. These self-indulgent and futile anger must be very ridiculous in the eyes of the other party.

Claude's mood became extremely irritable.He took off his sticky clothes, went to the bathroom to take a quick shower, and then began to pack his things and prepare to go.

The previous clothes had been cleaned and placed on the bedside. Claude checked the places that should have been scratched, and there were traces of magical repairs on them.Just as he buckled the belt back around his waist, he suddenly noticed a recovery magic stone beside his pillow.

——"That's for you."

A face of a silver-haired boy appeared in his mind, and his heart suddenly throbbed.

He remembered the origin of this magic spar.On the night they escaped from the institute, the teenager Sephiroth was worried that his body would not be able to heal itself, so he specially prepared one for him.Who would have thought that the first time it was used according to the boy's wish, the person who hurt him was the other party who had recovered his memory.

Claude stared at the magic spar in silence for a few seconds, then suddenly picked it up and threw it out the window.

"Where are you going."

Claude turned his head after hearing the sound, only to realize that Vincent was already standing at the door sometime.The other party seemed to have witnessed what happened just now, and his eyes became somewhat intriguing.

Claude had no choice but to put down the magic spar and start packing again: "...Beida is empty."

Vincent walked into the room and pressed the hand he was about to disassemble the Six Forms.

"Sephiroth said that it has spread out and intends to absorb you and him to obtain the abilities of both of you, so you'd better not come into contact with it."

"It's already looking for me, and it knows I'm here." He remembered the last scene he saw before waking up, which was only a hundred kilometers away from the Ice and Snow Village, "Besides, if we don't investigate, we won't be able to stop it from spreading We can't hope that Sephiroth will solve this matter, you know he doesn't care about the life and death of human beings, he only cares about himself."

Vincent pondered for a moment, agreeing with him.But the other party immediately reminded: "It can only be an investigation. You should try to avoid fighting it, lest it really acquire your abilities."

"I will pay attention." Claude inserted the side sword into the sword belt behind him, and then walked out of the room.

Not long after the two left the attic, they accidentally ran into Pete in the corridor.The other party's expression was particularly heavy today. The moment he saw Claude, his eyes widened slightly, as if he wanted to say something, but he swallowed those words back after realizing Vincent's existence.

The three of them stalemate in the corridor for a few seconds before Pete managed to pull a smile: "That... sorry, I heard it all. If you want to go to the Big Hollow, you need to rent a snowmobile. I can drive that thing, so I can take it with me." fuck me?"

Claude was still thinking about the dream, and nodded absently.Vincent suddenly cast his eyes on Pete's face, looked at it carefully for a while, and then turned to Claude again: "Why don't you rent a car first, I'll wait for you here."

Claude didn't object, so Pete followed him out of the hotel.

Snow Village is small, only 3 minutes from their hotel to the rental car.Pete was quiet all the way, and he pretended to ask casually, "What's going on with you and Sephiroth?"

Claude finally woke up from his contemplation: "What?"

"He sent you back." The black-haired young man glanced at him cautiously from the corner of his eye, "You guys had a fight before, you were injured, he healed you, and then sent you back. He... Already remembered?"

Claude's mood suddenly became very complicated, and he nodded hesitantly.

Pete was silent for a full minute, then suddenly sighed, walked over to him and sat down.

"I know it's weird to ask, but why... no, when did you become in this relationship?"

"What?" Claude was a little confused for a moment.

Pete looked away, looking out the window where the snow was falling. "Sephiroth said he needs you, just as you need him. If according to what you said, he is the disaster of the planet, then he should be your enemy. But you didn't kill him before, and he didn't kill you, You still have to fight repeatedly like this, and you don't want to really destroy each other... I really don't understand."

……No.not like this.

Claude gripped the fabric on his lap tightly.

Sephiroth needs him only because the other party wants to live on his own memory, and he has really wanted to destroy Sephiroth for more than 200 years, there is no doubt about it.

"This relationship is very strange, very strange, Claude. I can only feel that you are all in pain."

"That's impossible!" Claude blurted out.

There was a moment of silence in the air before he realized his gaffe and coughed lightly.

"...I didn't kill him at that time because he was still a child." Claude nodded slightly, his eyes fell on his clenched hands, "He has already paid for those things, if he doesn't remember what he did There is no need to bear those responsibilities... Besides, I think he should have the right to live a normal life like a human child, so I tried to provide him with such a childhood. But now he has remembered everything, he That's Sephiroth, who not only knows what he's done, but doesn't change his mind. He doesn't suffer, he only takes pleasure in the pain of others, and he—"

Claude paused, skipping some parts that he didn't want to recall.

"...that was his essence. I failed, so I had to destroy him."

The black-haired young man looked at him deeply, seemingly hesitating to speak, but in the end he didn't say those words out of his mouth.

The two sat silently in the room for a while, and finally Pete patted him on the shoulder and said in a low voice, "I see."

Genesis was reading in front of the fireplace when Sephiroth returned to the snow hut.

When the other party saw the blood on his body, he was surprised for a moment, but soon realized that it was not his blood.

"Pray that the 'Gift of the Goddess' will guide you to the bliss, just to fulfill the agreement with your friends." Genesis finished reciting the non-existent words on the page in a cadenced tone, and cast a teasing glance at him, "It seems The reunion of your mother and son was quite touching."

Sephiroth ignored him and went straight into the bathroom, the blood-stained clothes turned into feathers and dissipated in the air.

"Strife knows what your attitude is when you recover your memory? I guess, he must be extremely disappointed. His good baby no longer exists, and it is replaced by someone who will take revenge on him and make a few holes in him—"

Genesis tilted his head slightly, and Zhengzong immediately nailed it to the back of his recliner.He found that he seemed to have found Sephiroth's minefield, so his smile became more meaningful: "Oh? So you did make a few holes in him? Tsk tsk, poor Strife. Is he still alive? ?”

Five minutes later, Sephiroth slammed open the bathroom door and came out wiping her wet hair.

"It has nothing to do with you." Sephiroth pulled out the authenticity and put it back into the soul.

"I need to remind you, you are the one who hurt Strife, not me, so don't get angry." Genesis brushed off the water drops on the book cover in distaste, "Or when you go to remind him He snatched Zhengzong from you and stuck it in himself?"

Sephiroth had learned to ignore his speech at the right moment, so he went to the bar and poured himself a glass of water, then walked back and sat down in front of the fireplace.

He pondered for a while, then suddenly asked: "When you still had an army of clones, how much influence did your will have on your clones?"

Genesis froze for a moment, then looked at him suspiciously: "I can control their actions, just like you can control your clone. What do you want to do?"

"I'm not referring to this aspect. Will your emotions affect your clone? For example, if you don't like one of the clones and want him to die, will the clone collapse because of this?"

Genesis thought for a moment, and replied frankly: "I haven't tried it. After all, who would deliberately feel like or hate a clone."

However, as soon as the words came out of his mouth, he realized the subtleties in it.Claude Strife is a copy of Sephiroth, but the relationship between the two of them is obviously much more complicated than the relationship between the mother and the copy.If Sephiroth would ask such a topic, nine out of ten it would be related to Claude.

"What happened to Strife?" Genesis decided to skip the reasoning and start directly with the conclusion.

Sephiroth was silent for a long time before slowly opening his mouth: "When I was young, for some reasons, I really didn't want my other clones to survive, so for a long time, other embryos would be in the process of development. Death. Claude is the only one who successfully grows up, but he has very poor self-healing ability since he was a child, and needs to get my cells to achieve the level of recovery of a normal person. I once thought it was me trying to kill him in his embryonic period The aftereffects left by him, this situation will improve as his strength gradually returns, but today I found out that it did not."

That explains why bloodstains and Sephiroth are so unnatural.Genesis thought.

The usual battle between the two of them was suddenly terminated because Sephiroth found out that the other party might really die.

"Do you think... your will is still affecting him?" He asked after deliberation.

Sephiroth crossed his fingers and lightly touched his lower lip.

"Claude thinks I hate him and that's why I caused this. I may have, but that was 200 years ago, and this time I didn't mean to hurt him, and he was still affected... maybe there is something to me Something that I didn't even realize caused this to happen."

After hearing this passage, Genesis' expression suddenly became very strange.

He vaguely noticed something unusual, and at the same time realized that the things he had been teasing all along might not be so funny.

"Do you ever feel like you're paying too much attention to Strife?" Genesis tried to tone down his suspicions, but Sephiroth shot him a look, beckoning him to continue.

"I don't think you hate him either. Your hatred will have more intuitive manifestations, such as the star mark syndrome that once ravaged the planet 200 years ago." Genesis tried not to be so embarrassing, but facing the seemingly Desperate for the answer, Sephiroth failed, "...well. If you can do it now, but you haven't done it in the past 200 years, maybe that's the difference that caused everything."

Sephiroth listened, lowered his head thoughtfully, and did not continue to ask.

Genesis hoped that this matter would stop here, and hurriedly turned to another urgent topic: "What are your plans next? If that thing continues to spread, I'm afraid the entire Northern Continent will be swallowed by it."

"Not yet." Sephiroth shrugged, "You have tried it, the problem is not whether it can be killed, but whether it can be eradicated. It has eroded too much, and we have no effective means to eliminate it. The surface of tens of thousands of square kilometers is cleaned up, and as long as a few cells are left, it will continue to grow."

"Is there really no way?" Genesis looked at his calm expression and felt that things were not without room for change.

Sephiroth twitched the corners of his lips, lifted the water glass on the coffee table, tilted it slightly, and poured all the ice water on the table.The liquid quickly spread on the table, and the carpet directly under the edge of the table was dazed.

Sephiroth circled a very small area with his fingers and asked, "If your attack range is only so large, how do you deal with these things?"

Genesis thought for a long time, and wiped off a little bit of that circle with a paper towel, and the remaining liquid was quickly drawn over to fill the vacancy.

"In this way, only destroy the things within this range, and it will continue to come to replenish, so that it can be led out of the Peking University hole a little bit."

"It's possible, but what if you clear it slower than it multiplies?"

"So what's your opinion?"

Sephiroth stretched out his hand towards the table, and the liquid on the coffee table gradually gathered towards his palm, condensing into a water ball.He hovered the water polo above the small circle. Although the projection of the water polo on the table was much larger than the small circle, it was dozens of times smaller than when it was spread out just now.

Genesis understood his intention with just one glance, and was a little shocked by his ambition: "You want...to lead them all to one place, gather them, and destroy them together?"

"It has only one layer on the surface, and the surface area spread out is very large, but it needs to consume a lot of cells to condense into something with volume." Sephiroth squeezed the water polo into his palm, and it turned into a piece of ice, "Remember The last time it tried to become you in the Great Void?"

Genesis recalled for a while, and then remembered that in order to condense into a him, the thing almost used up all the silver-white substance at the bottom of the big cavity.And the self copied by relying on the short time of contact with him is far less than the strength of the main body. If that thing insists on attacking them in this way, it will provide them with a good opportunity.

So the next question is-

"Who's going to be the bait?" Genesis asked. "It seems like it wants you and Strife more."

"No one will go." A flame burst out of Sephiroth's palm, instantly vaporizing the puck.

Genesis still wanted to say something, but was stopped by the other party's cold smile, so he could only watch Sephiroth leave the room.

Claude and Pete got two snowmobiles from the garage and immediately went back to the hotel to pick up Vincent.His sword took up quite a bit of space in the back seat, so Vincent put the luggage in his car and folded into Pete's back seat.

"It would be much more convenient if it was Fenrir." Claude began to miss the storage tool holder he specially designed for his car.

"If it's Fenrir, even if you change tires and install snow chains, you won't be able to travel in the snow." Vincent commented objectively.

The two looked at each other, and suddenly laughed lightly at the same time.

Claude hasn't chatted with his friends so easily for a long time, and his mood is rarely relaxed.He pulled down the windshield, slammed the accelerator a few times, and rushed into the snowstorm first.

"Hey! Wait for me! I don't have a nav!" Pete yelled in panic from behind, following his rut ​​into the ice field.

However, as the ice and snow village gradually turned into a small dot in the rearview mirror, Claude felt a little uneasy in his heart.He could feel that it was very close, even closer to the Ice and Snow Village than what he saw in his dream, and the residents of the town were under the threat of being swallowed at any time.

When they drove under a vertical ice cliff, Claude suddenly saw something that shouldn't be here, and immediately squeezed the brakes urgently.

The body almost threw him sideways due to inertia, and he rolled twice on the ground, then quickly got up and looked towards the top of the ice cliff.Pete, who came later, also stopped aside when he saw this, and saw a strange picture in the direction of his line of sight.

——The snow on the top of the ice cliff is slowly wriggling, like some kind of living thing, climbing down the cliff bit by bit.

After observing carefully for a long time, Pete realized that it was not snow, but some kind of silver-white substance, shining with a little metallic luster under the dim skylight.

"It is it." Vincent said in a deep voice, and immediately raised his gun to block Pete.

Claude also drew out the main sword of the six styles, and put on a defensive posture.

"It's only [-] kilometers away from Ice and Snow Village, it's too close." He couldn't help frowning, "I'll guard here, you go back and notify the villagers to evacuate.... No, let me think about it, let them evacuate eastward and go to Bone Village , it’s best to cross the sea directly to Midgar.”

"It's dangerous for you alone, I should stay—" Vincent hadn't finished speaking, the wriggling silver-white seemed to smell their breath, the climbing stagnated for a moment, and he suddenly moved madly towards the three of them. coming.

"Oops, run!"

The silver color that was originally staying on the top of the ice cliff turned into huge waves, overturning directly from above their heads.Claude immediately threw Pete out of the range of the huge wave, and then turned around and split the silver substance rushing forward.

"Be careful behind you."

Following a few gunshots, Vincent rolled to his side on the spot, piercing through several liquid tentacles that were trying to sneak attack.

Now that the two of them were completely surrounded by the silver substance, they could only try their best to put on a defensive posture.Claude estimated the distance from himself to the motorcycle, and began to consider using the sword pressure to push away the original S-type on the road, and then cover Vincent's retreat.

At this moment, the silver substance crawling on the ground suddenly receded like a tide, and gathered in a large amount in a certain direction.Claude didn't know what happened, and immediately raised the Six Forms to prepare to attack, but Vincent suddenly opened his eyes wide, looking at the gradually condensed creature and muttering.

"……This is impossible."

Claude noticed the abnormality of his friend, and hurriedly looked at the original S-shaped newborn entity, and was stunned for a while.

After the silver surface peeled off, a woman with beautiful long hair walked slowly towards them, with the sad look on her face that he had seen in the crystal.

"...Lucrecia."