【SC】Endless Journey

Claude hadn't seen Lucrecia Crescent for nearly 200 years, but he was deeply impressed by the beautiful face that was slightly similar to Sephiroth.

She is Sephiroth's biological mother, a female scientist at Shinra Corporation, and a lover with Vincent that ended before it really started.

At first, Lucrecia supported the Jenova project and was infected with Jenova's cells during pregnancy to give birth to Sephiroth, but Sephiroth was forcibly taken away from her afterwards, and she felt very guilty about it.What's worse is that because of the infection of Jenova's cells, she can't age or die naturally, so she can only seal herself in the crystal to spend the rest of her life slowly—just like he did more than 140 years ago.

But after the Omega incident, she has successfully returned to the stream of life, and she can never appear here.

"I'm sorry, Vincent, I'm really sorry..."

Lucrezia clenched her hands tightly in front of her chest as she struggled to walk through the ankle-deep snow.Halfway through the walk, her foot sprained suddenly, and she was about to fall into the snow.

"Lucrecia!"

Vincent took a step forward subconsciously, but Claude noticed the red light of the magic circle under their feet, and immediately rushed towards Vincent.

"careful!"

In the next second, several bolts of lightning flashed from where they were standing just now, and the violent explosion evaporated all the snow within a radius of more than ten meters.Claude took Vincent away from the center of the explosion with the explosive wind, and when he landed, there was already a charred black hole behind him.

"...Apocalypse." Claude recognized the skill. It was the move of the former first-class special soldier Genesis Rappsodos, and it was absolutely impossible for Lucrecia to use it.

He remembered what Sephiroth said in the dream and what Vincent had added before, and quickly figured out what was going on.

"It has already met Genesis, and it is likely to have seen Sephiroth." Claude almost squeezed the two names through his teeth, "No wonder he knows so much, they really helped Very busy."

He could imagine what happened before - Genesis met the original S type, fought with it, part of the cell tissue was swallowed by the opponent, and then the original S type obtained his ability.If Sephiroth has gone through the same process, maybe the original S-type has also mastered the move.

"You mean it already possesses the ability of Genesis?" Vincent turned around and fired two shots, knocking down several balls of fire in mid-air.

"...Hopefully it has only Genesis powers."

Claude tried his best to run towards his motorcycle, but Lucrecia behind him had turned into a silver-white substance and rushed towards the two of them.When the two were about to be caught up, there was a sudden roar of an engine from the side, and Pete had rushed over from another direction at some point.

"Get in the car!" Pete dragged Vincent into the back seat, and reached out to pull Claude.

Crowder hitched a short ride on the exhaust pipe, jumping off his snowmobile as he passed.He stepped on his locomotive again, turned the front of the car 180 degrees, and faced the chasing silver waves head-on.

Claude raised the Sixth Form and slashed towards the huge waves, and the huge wind rushed the original S-type to the sides.The other party seemed to realize that it was impossible to break through him, so they split into two streams and bypassed him like flowing water, chasing Pete's motorcycle straight away.

"Peter!" Claude turned around and roared.

The black-haired young man dodged left and right in the waves, but was accidentally grabbed by his ankle by a silver tentacle.The other party pulled hard, but saw that the matter gathered again in large quantities, turning into another person they all knew well.

"...Angel." Pete was stunned for a moment.

Claude followed the reputation and found that it was Angel, but it didn't seem to be the Angel he had seen.He had seen this Angel when he was very young, only in Shinra’s profile of the private first class, it was with Sephiroth——

As soon as this thought flashed through his mind, he saw "Angel" pull out a giant sword from the silver substance.

That was Sephiroth's move, and Claude was all too familiar with it.The opposite direction released two silver arcs in the direction of Pete, and Claude immediately cut them off with his backhand.

"That's not Angel, it's a mimic of the original S-type!" He pulled out another side sword from behind, turned around and rushed towards Angel.The opponent tried to parry with Sephiroth's sword skills, but he couldn't keep up with his movements, and he pierced through his chest in an instant.

Claude thought that what he hit would be some kind of fluid, but he never thought that the touch of ribs and flesh and blood could indeed be felt on the blade.He froze for a moment, watching Angel's wound spatter a lot of blood, and then slowly fell down on the snow with an incredulous expression.

The three people present stopped their movements almost at the same time due to the sudden change.

Claude stared at the corpse of "Angel", which looked so realistic that it made him feel a little uncomfortable.But Pete, who had just witnessed the murder of his mentor, suddenly had a nausea, and retched while leaning on the locomotive.

The corpse stayed on the snow for a while, and did not turn back into a silver-white substance, but disappeared into the air just like all the modified Xenova bodies they had killed in the past.

"...a life that is not accepted by the planet." Vincent looked at Pete sympathetically, and his brows were slightly tightened. "It even made bones and flesh...why?"

Claude was silent for a few seconds, walked up to Pete, and patted Pete on the shoulder.

"It may be to truly restore the strength of the body it imitates." He hesitated and replied, "Without those bones and muscles as support, it cannot release such power."

Vincent thought for a while: "So it's not a simple mimicry, it's creating life?"

Claude didn't answer right away.He has mixed feelings, and if it's true, every time the original S-type process of killing someone who mimics someone they know will be as disgusting as before.

Vincent knew what he was thinking, so he said these worries for him: "It seems to have a certain amount of intelligence at present, it will read our memories, and then mimic the person who is most important to us. It is not conducive to our combat."

Claude nodded and added hesitantly: "But this is not necessarily a bad thing. If it becomes a new life, it means that this part of it can be killed, and we may be able to use this to weaken it. "

Vincent pondered for a moment, but did not refute his thoughts.

Just as they were discussing, there was a loud rumbling noise from the top of the ice cliff.

The sound was very distant at first, but as it approached, Claude felt the ice under his feet start to vibrate.

He vaguely had a bad premonition, and immediately pushed the two of them onto the nearest snowmobile: "Go! Vincent, take Pete back to Ice and Snow Village, and let the villagers evacuate now!"

Vincent picked up Pete who hadn't recovered yet, turned around and asked, "What about you?"

"I'm going to lure it away."

As soon as the words fell, several cracks appeared on the cliff, and the solid ice attached to the rocks began to peel off and collapse. The shock wave from the landing of the giant pushed them several meters away, and then the snow poured down like a torrent. Instantly submerged everything under the ice cliff.

Claude was the first to climb out of the snow, and hurriedly searched for the other two buried nearby: "Peter? Vincent?!"

A metal arm stretched out suddenly, and pulled another black-haired youth up by the way.

"I'm fine, what happened up there?" Vincent just stood still when he noticed several huge cracks in the ice under his feet, so he pushed Claude away.

In the next second, there was a loud noise from the crack.The ice layer shook violently, and the ground on both sides of the crack undulated to varying degrees, revealing an abyss leading directly to the core of the planet.

"God, look up!"

Pete's exclamation made the two of them turn their heads, and they finally saw the entity of the rumbling sound - a silver wave hundreds of meters high and stretching for dozens of kilometers appeared above the ice cliff, and the top of the wave almost touched the low-altitude clouds, covering The sky covered the sun and devoured the earth under the waves.

It is too high and too huge, like a moving city wall, crushing everything on its path with a destructive force, even crushing the ice sheet that has existed in the extreme north for hundreds of millions of years, it is already a kind of tsunami The presence.

"...It's too late." Claude murmured.

This is the first time he intuitively felt the number of the original S-type multiplication.

He suddenly realized that even if it didn't continue to evolve, it had become a disaster enough to level the planet.

Since Sephiroth refused to deal with the empty S-cell evolution of Peking University, Genesis has been caught in a dilemma.

Intellectually, he knows that Sephiroth is right, and it is best not to touch it until they can deal with it once and for all; but on the other hand, he suspects that if Sephiroth is never ready to take action, even if the planet is razed The other party will not care.

Although also entrusted with the duty of guarding Gaia, Cloud Strife and Vincent Valentine have an innate sense of responsibility to protect the vulnerable, which Genesis has no interest in.The relationship between him and Gaia is more like a contract. 200 years ago, his body deteriorated due to another Jenova cell transformation experiment similar to Sephiroth. At that time, he used the power of the goddess Minerva to Heals himself, so in exchange must fight for Gaia when she calls.

In fact, he and Cloud Strife have known each other's existence for 200 years after being cured, but they rarely see each other.He just heard that Sephiroth reappeared in a certain corner of the planet from time to time, had a dark battle with Cloud Strife again, and was sent back to the stream of life by that little blond youth again , and repeat.

In a way, he resonates more with Sephiroth's ideas-he doesn't care about human beings, and he doesn't deliberately protect others. He protects Gaia just because he wants to live, and he believes that human beings are important to Gaia. Ya is also not necessary to exist.

But Claude will definitely not agree with his point of view. Under the other party's indifferent appearance is a slender and enthusiastic soul. Even if he is tired of fighting, he will stand up when others need him, so he knows that Claude must I will try my best to prevent the things in the void of Peking University from spreading.

Genesis thought that if Sephiroth's ultimate goal was to take over the planet, then waiting for Gaia and the thing to lose both before joining the fray would be a good choice.Sephiroth's indifferent appearance seems to have this intention. At least for now, they cannot destroy the evolved S-cell lifeform, and the opponent has no ability to swallow Sephiroth. As long as that thing has not evolved enough to defeat the opponent, the opponent You can continue to wait.

Just when he thought that Sephiroth was going to stand by and watch, the next afternoon, the other party suddenly rushed out of the room with a solemn expression.Genesis noticed that he was fully armed and Masamune was summoned, as if he was about to rush to a certain battlefield.

"What happened?" He called Sephiroth to stop, but the other party had no intention of stopping at all, so he had to pick up the red sword and chase after him.

"Claude is fighting that thing, the situation is very dangerous." Sephiroth replied succinctly.

For a moment, Genesis thought he was hallucinating, and couldn't help raising his eyebrows: "What did you say when you reminded him last time?"

"All that needs to be said"—but he never listened to me either.Genesis understood the second half of the unspoken sentence from the other party's eyes.

As soon as Sephiroth was outside, he spread his wings and rushed into the snowstorm. Genesis didn't even have time to ask him how far Cloud was from them.He is used to the other party's calm and unhurried appearance, and this is the first time he has seen such anxiety.

However, as soon as they flew about [-] kilometers away, they found that the matter had developed to a level a hundred times more serious than their last inspection—the silvery substance diffused from the Peking University cavity began to gather in one direction, becoming hundreds of meters away. High tsunamis rolled over the ice sheets of the far north.

Its density was greater than the tsunami, and it was also more deadly. It not only flattened everything on the surface, but also caused the ice layer to break. The huge structural changes shook the southwest direction of the North Continent.

Sephiroth's eyes suddenly became very tense.He continued walking in the direction of the tsunami, and after about ten minutes, he saw three small black dots appear on the snow-white wasteland, two of them were running towards the ice and snow village, and the other was facing the huge waves Stay where you are.

"That's Vincent Valentine and who?" Genesis caught sight of the two on the motorcycle, identified them for a while, and finally gave up. "And Strife. Wait, what's that?"

Part of the silver-white substance was stripped from the huge waves, and instantly transformed into a long-haired woman.She flitted toward the fleeing duo, unleashed a few fire spells, and transformed herself into another male with a large sword after finding it difficult to hit moving objects.

"Angel?!" Genesis was shocked.

"It will read the memory and imitate the image in its favor, so that's probably whoever is more important."

Sephiroth swooped down towards the huge wave, swung his knife and released a silver arc that penetrated the sky and the earth, completely separating the tsunami that stood in front of Claude.

After the wave blocking the view disappeared, Genesis realized that the other party was fighting with something.Perhaps to prevent being touched by that thing, Claude's movements are very cautious, most of the time he dodges, and the few that cannot be avoided are directly cut off with sword energy.The thing bombarded with the Apocalypse, and Claude drove away in the opposite direction from the other two, as if he didn't intend to join his companions.

Before he could see what it was, Sephiroth's movements froze suddenly.

"I thought you were here to help?" Genesis' fingers slid across the red sword, and the spell on the sword began to glow red.

Sephiroth was still looking down in the dark, so Genesis followed the opponent's line of sight for a few seconds, and suddenly found that the thing that was fighting Claude had exactly the same appearance as the former comrade-in-arms beside him.

When Claude saw such a large number of original S-types, he realized that it had become a natural disaster.It will not only flatten everything on the surface, but also devour other life forms that contain Jenova's genes to continue to evolve.In other words, it is a planet-level behemoth, much more dangerous than planetary weapons.

Claude's heart sank gradually.He can survive through the huge waves, but the residents of Ice and Snow Village cannot, nor can the humans living in other corners of the planet.If he can't stop the original Type-S here, it could destroy all life on the planet.

The original Type S seemed to have sensed his thoughts, so a considerable part of the silver-white matter broke away from the huge waves and gathered into a sphere in the air.The amount of cells consumed by mimicry this time seems to be hundreds of times that of the previous two times, and the time is much slower.After about 3 minutes, the outer shell of the sphere finally disappeared, revealing the formed life form inside.

"We meet again, Claude."

Long silver hair fell from the sphere, followed by a male body.The other party slowly opened his eyes, and under the silver eyelashes were a pair of bright green vertical pupils.

Claude's pupils shrank suddenly, and instantly slashed towards the face that was exactly the same as Sephiroth.

Perhaps because the body of this mimic was stronger than the previous ones, "Sephiroth" dodged a blow that was enough to cut him in half, and then turned around and drew out a huge sword.Claude didn't give him any chance to make moves. After a stormy attack, the original S-type had to spread its wings and fly high into the sky.

"I thought you would like this image." The original S-type still maintained a Sephiroth-like smile, but there was a bit of confusion in his eyes.

"That's really sorry, I remember him deeply because the relationship between us is very bad." Claude raised Six Styles coldly.

The original S-type seemed to have difficulty understanding this emotion, and decided to continue the attack after thinking for a moment.

The silver tsunami is still moving forward, and it will take at most two hours to reach the snow village at this speed.Claude estimated the time left for the villagers to escape, and began to fight and retreat in the opposite direction from the ice and snow village.

He didn't know how many kilometers the edge of the huge wave extended, so he could only try to keep the flood peak away from the villagers' refuge route.Pete and Vincent in the other direction were constantly pursued by another mimic from the original S-type. He saw the situation there from the corner of his eye, and finally had no choice but to grit his teeth and give up the rescue.

——Although the original S-type mimicry was a bit troublesome for the two of them, at least Vincent should be able to handle it.

Soon Claude found that the situation on his side was not optimistic.The original S-type didn't have too many Sephiroth's abilities, but it learned a lot of Genesis's skills, and it has a huge number of cells to deliver energy to it, and its magic power is almost unlimited.Before he ran too far, dense magic circles appeared in the direction of his advance, and red lightning and flames exploded around him like cannonballs, and he had to ride the motorcycle again to walk through the blast wind.

Just as he was checking in the rearview mirror whether the other two had successfully escaped, a silver light suddenly flashed in the middle of the tsunami chasing him.Claude heard a loud noise behind him, instinctively turned the front of the car to avoid being hit by the aftermath, and then turned the car body ninety degrees to check the situation behind.

The wall-like silver-white substance was completely separated by the impact just now, and both the original S-type cells and the snow on the ice sheet were completely evaporated along the trajectory of the silver light.Claude and the original S-type stopped at the same time, looked up at the direction of the impact, and saw a figure that shouldn't appear here——

The real Sephiroth was hanging high above the top of the huge wave, icily overlooking everything on the ice field.There was another less familiar man in red on the other side's right. Claude recalled it for a while before realizing that it was Genesis Lapsodous.

His nervousness reached its peak in an instant, and he immediately removed a secondary sword from the Six Forms to prepare for attacks from two sides.Sephiroth seemed to have no intention of fighting him, and slowly landed beside him.

"What are you doing here?" Claude asked in a deep voice.

Sephiroth cast a quick glance at him, then turned his gaze back to "Sephiroth" on the opposite side, the corners of his lips twitched slightly.Claude followed his line of sight and found that the original S-type had become himself at some point.

Claude choked for a moment, and gave up thinking about the reasons behind the mimicry of that thing.

It feels very strange to look at my own face, especially the other person's expression is so strange.The blond young man on the opposite side looked at Sephiroth with a strange smile that he would never make, and suddenly said softly: "We will reunite sooner or later, this is also your wish, isn't it?"

Sephiroth's face suddenly became very scary, he raised his hand and swung a knife at the opponent, immediately there was a wound across the right shoulder and left abdomen on the young man.

Blood stained the face that was exactly the same as his own, and part of the internal organs flowed out from the wound. The young man looked at Sephiroth in confusion again, and slowly fell down in the snow.After witnessing all this, Claude suddenly felt a dull pain from the knife wound on his chest that no longer existed.

"Tsk tsk, you're really good at it." Genesis also landed beside the two, and made a silent gesture to the disappearing corpse.

However, after hearing his voice, the remaining silver substance quickly turned into his appearance.

"We are one," the man with short brown hair invited Sephiroth elegantly, "You, me, Cloud, all the lives of Jenova share the same consciousness, and we can become a more powerful life , Even if the galaxy is destroyed, you can take this planet to the next promised land. I will live, and you can take your little lover to escape the fate of being destroyed with Gaia. Isn’t this better than being trapped in the stream of life? Is it better in the loop?"

Two sharp knife-like gazes pierced Genesis in an instant, and the latter quickly denied: "I never thought about it that way! He said the little lover!"

Claude seemed to understand a little bit of the current situation. He remembered the content of his previous dream, and a chill filled his heart: "He wants to turn the planet into the next wandering meteorite?"

Sephiroth didn't answer, but he knew that was the default.

Claude glanced at the silver tsunami that was still advancing, and realized that he couldn't waste any more time, so he yelled at Genesis: "Go and help the residents of Ice Snow Village evacuate, and let them evacuate directly to Midgar!"

Genesis glanced at him, a little inexplicably: "Isn't there a shortage of manpower here?"

"You've already taught it Fire Magic and Apocalypse, what else do you want to teach?"

Sephiroth finally spoke, but did not stand by him: "It is already resistant to your moves, and you can't help here."

Genesis couldn't help but choked, glanced at the two of them angrily, and pointed at Sephiroth with his sword after a while: "Remember to call me next time Strife sends you back to the stream of life, I will go to the stage Give him flowers!" After speaking, he spread his wings and chased after the two who left.

Claude ignored him, turned the car and drove towards the west coast of the Northern Continent.Sephiroth flew over his head from behind, and the shadow of his wings enveloped him all the time.

The peak tide of the tsunami really chased them westward. Claude dodged the magic circle that was constantly exploding on the ground, and took the time to stare at Sephiroth: "What the hell are you here for?"

This is the second time he asked this question, Sephiroth turned around to intercept the flame magic from the air, and lowered slightly: "Prevent you from being swallowed by it."

Claude remembered the big sword in the original S-shaped hand, and couldn't help but reply: "Then you also teach it some sword skills and train it to become a more difficult monster?"

"It was an accident, and we didn't know it had this ability at the time."

Cracks in the ice stretched all the way from below the tsunami, and the shaking ground made it particularly difficult for Claude to drive.One of the ice surfaces suddenly sank to reveal the hollow valley below. Claude turned the front of the car suddenly, but found himself driving into the magic circle on the side.

"boom--"

The huge explosion caused him to fly out with the car, but the moment he got up, he found that the magic shield around him was lit up at some point.

Sephiroth fell behind him, and raised Zhengzong against the oncoming huge waves: "Don't stop, go!"

Claude realized that Sephiroth had been slowing down and waiting for him before, and couldn't help but open his eyes wide: "What are you doing, why don't you go fast?! The consequences of being caught by it are the most serious!"

"I can't be caught as long as you don't get caught."

As soon as the words came out, the two of them froze at the same time.

For a few seconds, Claude wanted to say something, but his chest seemed to be blocked, so he could only get back on the motorcycle and prepare to set off.Before starting the ignition, he suddenly said sullenly, "Give me Bahamut's magic stone."

Sephiroth turned his head slightly, glanced at him inexplicably, removed a red magic spar from his belt and threw it to him.

They are only [-] kilometers away from the west coast of the North Continent. The original S-types continue to gather here from other directions. Sephiroth overlooks the ground from a high altitude. Most of the slender one followed the tsunami towards the two of them.

The ice cap of the northern continent continued to shatter under the pressure of the original S-shape, and the entire edge of the continent was shaking violently.He covered Claude's escape route in the air, and at the same time blocked the silver wave rushing towards him, and rushed to the edge of the cliff facing the sea on the west bank in one breath.

When he was about to reach the end of the cliff, Sephiroth wanted to take Claude away from the land, but found that the other party had no intention of slowing down.He hurriedly turned around and swooped down on Claude: "Claude! What are you doing!"

The blond youth glanced back at him, and even stepped on the gas pedal, rushing straight off the edge of the cliff.The moment the motorcycle started to fall, the other party stepped on the seat and jumped up high, taking out Bahamut's magic stone.

Sephiroth finally knew why Claude wanted the magic stone back, and his expression sank.At the moment when the magic stone in the opponent's hand glowed red, he suddenly flashed to the opponent's side, hugged the falling young man by the waist, and directly released a silent magic.

"What are you doing!" Claude's call was interrupted, and he was so angry that he elbowed him in the ribs.

"Do you think it can take you to the Western Continent with your magic power?" Sephiroth restrained his struggle and gave him a cold glance.

At the cliff not far behind, huge silver waves plunged into the sea and were quickly submerged by the sea.It took a while for it to come up a little bit, but it could barely move any further.

Seeing this scene over Sephiroth's shoulder armor, Claude heaved a sigh of relief.

"It is difficult to move in the sea, maybe the strait can isolate it from the northern continent." Claude murmured.

Sephiroth was noncommittal, changed his posture, picked him up horizontally, and then flew all the way to the western continent.