【SC】Endless Journey

Consciousness is floating in the chaos, and there is only silent darkness around.

As if soaked in warm amniotic fluid, everything around him was flowing, and Sephiroth's consciousness was constantly drifting with that flowing energy, until he finally saw a ray of light at a certain moment, and fell into a blank world .

"Sephiroth, are you okay?"

He opened his eyes suddenly, and the needle on his arm was stinging.

Sephiroth turned his head with difficulty, and found himself lying on the cold laboratory table, his young hands and feet were tightly bound by restraint belts.The monotonous ticking sound of the recorder echoed throughout the space. An unknown color liquid flowed out of a certain container and flowed into his veins along the rubber hose. The corrosiveness of the medicine caused his body to burn from the inside.

"It hurts, I know. They can't do this to you."

A hand brushed his forehead lightly, wiping off the sticky cold sweat for him.The man's fingers were calloused from holding the sword for a long time, and his movements were extremely gentle, not at all rough like when Dr. Baojo inserted the needle into his arm.

... no, not right.

He doesn't know this man.

"Who are you?" Sephiroth asked.

The other party did not answer.So he raised his head reluctantly, and saw a pair of moist blue pupils.

The person held his little hand, and with a light tug, all the restraints on his body were released, and then he fell into a warm embrace.

"Even if you're..."—a word he didn't catch—"...have the right to be a normal child. So I'll protect you."

……why?

I am special, I was born to be the strongest fighter, so I have to bear all this.Why do I need the powers of an ordinary kid?

Sephiroth was full of doubts, but he opened his mouth and failed to make any sound.That person hugged him very tightly, and the embrace was too warm, and he was really reluctant to leave.

...Ah, he remembered.

The person who cares about his pain, the person who wants to protect himself who is invincible on this planet, the only person left in the world who is related to him by blood——

"……Mother."

Sephiroth opened his eyes again and unconsciously read the word.

What he saw this time was a steel city shrouded in gloom, and the man appeared in front of him in a younger appearance, looking angrily at the opposite side through him.

Sephiroth turned his head and saw a thin man with a sullen expression standing behind him, inputting instructions at the console.

... Baotiao.The Shinra scientist who created him and thousands of Jenova modified bodies.

"Why? Why did you do that?!" The blond youth asked loudly.

"Because my son needs strength and help." The man replied without looking up.

"...your son?" The young man's expression became extremely shocked.

"Although he himself doesn't know about it—" the man moved his fingers away from the console, and suddenly smiled sullenly, "But what would Sephiroth think if he knew that I was his father? After all, he Always hated me so much."

"Sephiroth is your son?!" The young man asked again in shock.

"Ah, that's right. After his mother conceived him, I put her on Dr. Gast's Jenova project, so Sephiroth was injected with Jenova's cells while she was still in her womb... ..."

As if thinking of something, the man suddenly laughed hysterically.For a moment, all the blood faded from the young man's face, and then more intense anger broke out.

"It's unbelievable...you actually committed such a heinous crime against Sephiroth!!" The young man roared and raised his epee, as if he was going to charge up and chop Sephiroth into pieces at any time.

The hatred and anger in those blue pupils were so familiar, Sephiroth felt a strange sense of dislocation in a trance.

For a long time, he has always been the object of Claude's hatred, and he never imagined that the other party would be angry for what happened to him.But he soon realized that it was not entirely out of admiration or pity, but because Claude had empathy for him.

……what.

He remembered.

Here is Claude's memory.He used to go deep into the other party's soul to find fragments related to himself, so he had already read this past.

Although Sephiroth didn't care about his laboratory experience, Claude did.The other party has experienced similar pain, so after rebirth, he tried to prove that he was not unable to feel those human emotions, but abandoned those useless emotions for the sake of perfection.

He hurts, and Claude understands the pain.He loves too, so Cloud tries to be his mother and brother.

Thinking of this, Sephiroth felt a strange warmth in his heart.

——His lovely, poor puppet, even after experiencing so much pain with him, still chooses to empathize with him; even if he can't understand his thoughts, he is the only one on the planet who tries to understand him people.

He thought he was perfect, and Cloud was about to prove that there was still something missing.Now he knows that Cloud is right, they are each other's mirrors, reflecting the truest selves in each other.That's why he wanted Cloud so badly, why he couldn't bear losing him so much—

"—Because only Cloud can complete me."

Sephiroth opened his eyes for the third time and found himself floating in the ocean of life currents.

A brown-haired girl squatted not far away, carefully observing his condition.He thought for a few seconds before digging out the other person's name from the depths of his memory: "Alice Gainsborough."

"It's unexpected that you will come back here at this time..." The girl sighed, "It's still with Claude."

After a little recollection, Sephiroth remembered how he fell into the core of the planet, so he looked around, but he didn't see Cloud.

"What about him?"

"I've already sent him back, but with his physique, he might wake up a few days later than you. Can we talk about the past now?" Seeing his raised eyebrows in doubt, the girl kindly reminded: "You Cut him off from the planet, and made me unperceived him for nearly six years."

Sephiroth doesn't really remember what he did before his resurrection, but it wouldn't be a surprise if he did.

"Are you representing yourself now, or Gaia?" he asked rhetorically.

"What's the difference?" Alice tilted her head slightly.

"If it's for Gaia to Xingshi, I have nothing to answer."

The girl's pupils are a completely different green from his, like the shade of trees in midsummer.The other party's eyes stayed on his face for a moment before standing up from a distance.

"It's just a question I personally want to know." Alice smoothed the folds on the flat skirt and turned to him again, "Actually, after you fell into the stream of life, I saw your memories—"

Sephiroth's eyes were a little more murderous.

"This is a passive effect in the stream of life. Everyone's memories and thoughts will be shared, and you should be able to see mine and his."

This is true.He calmed down a little.

"For the past six years, I've thought you were going to hurt Claude, and that's why you're cutting us off. In the original Type S—that's what you call it, right?—at the beginning of it After the growth spread, I once thought it was your will, so I asked my companions on the surface of the planet to stop you. It wasn't until you and Claude fell here that I realized that things might not be the same as I imagined..."

The girl's speech speed gradually slowed down, and her expression became serious.

"There is a question that is very important to me and to the planet, so I hope you can answer it truthfully. What does Cloud mean to you now?"

Sephiroth fell silent for a while.

——It’s my doll.

If it was six years ago, he would have answered like this without hesitation.But in the past six years, he has found a more suitable answer, so he doesn't need to use this set of arguments to fool himself, nor does he need to fool Alice who has read his memory.

Claude is his old enemy, and also his only half body and compatriot in this vast universe.

Claude can be his mother or brother, Claude can hate him or love him, as long as it is Claude's emotion, he will accept it all.

Claude has been trying to prove that he needs humanity, but he has no idea that he is the sustenance of all humanity in his life.This feeling cannot be simply defined by any single word, if you have to say it——

"...He is myself." Sephiroth said in a deep voice, "I love him as I love myself."

This answer did not seem to be unexpected by Alice, but it made the other party's eyes complicated.

After a long time, the girl lowered her eyelashes and nodded slightly: "Well, that's fine too."

Alice's attitude was so calm that Sephiroth couldn't help asking: "Aren't you worried that I will take over the planet?"

"I know you will." Alice smiled faintly, "But the planet needs Claude, and Claude chose to let you survive. I respect his decision, so I will fulfill his wish."

"Even if I killed you?" Sephiroth raised his eyebrows slightly.

"Yeah, you've already killed me, so you can't kill me a second time." There was no fear in Alice's eyes.

The two stared at each other motionlessly, as if in a silent war.But this time they didn't stand still for too long, Sephiroth took the initiative to look away.

"He wanted me to live...that's what he told you?"

Alice shook her head.

"His consciousness is not awakened, but I can see his deepest thoughts."

"Really." Sephiroth fell silent again.

The girl glanced at him sideways, and seeing that he had no intention of continuing the conversation, she held out her hand to him.

"Okay, it's time. Go back."

"What..." Before Sephiroth could answer, he felt himself being pulled out of the stream of life by an invisible force.

His soul began to fall into reality, and his consciousness became more and more drowsy.Just as he was about to fall asleep, he suddenly heard Alice's voice.

"Claude needs the support of the planet, which is also one of his sources of strength. If you want him to recover quickly, you have to let him go—"

Claude opened his heavy eyelids and found that he was still alive.

For the first few minutes it was so dark that he could hardly feel any part of his body.It took about half an hour for the dilated pupils to refocus, and another hour for sensation to return to the fingertips.

In the field of vision is an empty ceiling, the smell of disinfectant floats in the air, and the mechanical sound of life support equipment echoes in the empty ward.

——This is no longer the bottom of the magic spar cave. Someone rescued him and sent him to a very professional ward.

Claude struggled to get up from the bed, the muscles and bones of his body seemed to have not been used for a century.He rang the nurse's bell beside the bed, and soon someone rushed to the ward.

"You're awake." Vincent pushed open the door, his nervous expression instantly relaxed.

Claude tried to answer, but found that his throat was so dry that he could hardly speak.Vincent turned around and fetched the water bottle for him, carefully fed him a few mouthfuls, and didn't put the water bottle down until he could whisper "It's ok".

"Thirteen days have passed since the explosion, and you have been asleep for ten days." Vincent saw what he wanted to ask, and thoughtfully explained.

This time is not too exaggerated considering his body that is intolerable to Moko, Claude nodded.

"Where's Sephiroth?"

"He woke up two days earlier than you, and should be on the front line with Genesis to check the situation."

"Frontline?" Claude keenly caught a word that shouldn't appear here.

Vincent seemed to hesitate for a few seconds, but finally revealed all the truth.

"During your coma, the original Type-S has crossed the strait between the Northern Continent and the Eastern Continent. Now the entire northern part of the Eastern Continent is covered by it, and the officials and residents of the Midgar capital circle have also been evacuated. We are temporarily unable to deal with it, We can only hope that the mountains of the Eastern Continent can stop its spread."

Claude seemed to have heard something incomprehensible, and was a little dazed for a while.

His memory was still at the stage when the original S-type had not yet spread out of the northern continent. At that time, he had just wiped out most of the original S-type in the magic spar cave in the western continent. Logically speaking, things should have improved.But according to Vincent, the situation deteriorated rapidly during his thirteen days in a coma, and even the largest city on the planet had fallen, which was completely different from his expected development.

It took Claude 5 minutes to digest this fact before he managed to find his voice: "So... what is this place?"

"Junong."

Vincent watched sympathetically as his expression changed from shock to silence.

——He obviously fell into the core of the planet in the Western Continent, but he woke up thousands of kilometers away.I must have missed quite a few things during my coma.

All kinds of information were tangled in Claude's mind, and he had to stop to organize his thoughts.After a few more minutes, he looked back at Vincent: "What happened after we parted?"

Vincent pondered for a moment, then slowly said: "Actually, after we separated that day—"

Vincent watched as Claude led the silver tsunami away, and then took Pete all the way to the ice and snow village.

Even as the crest of the flood has turned to the west coast, the aftermath of the original S sweeps over the town.The overwhelming waves caused the entire ice sheet of the northern continent to shake. Vincent drove the locomotive to dodge between the broken ice layers, and couldn't help feeling a little worried about the buildings in the town.

He didn't look back at Pete who didn't say a word until they drove about ten kilometers away.

"Aren't you going to tell him?" He asked suddenly.

"What?" The black-haired youth finally woke up from his fugue.

"Things you've already remembered."

The young man was stunned for a moment, his expression became very tangled.

In fact, Vincent had already guessed the moment when the original S-type transformed into Angel.Although he didn't know when Zack recovered his memory, judging from his previous performance, the other party should have remembered it for a while.

He could totally understand Zack's feelings.For a person whose memory stays more than 200 years ago, one of his friends suddenly became a disaster that almost destroyed the planet, and the other became a savior because he prevented this incident. unusual.He felt that the other party probably needed some time to sort out his mood, so he took the initiative to change the subject.

"Should I call you Zack or Pete now?"

Zacks came back to his senses again, forced a smile: "Just use what you're used to."

Vincent nodded: "Then Zacks, I think Claude will be more used to it."

The young man's eyes flickered obviously, but he didn't refuse in the end.

They returned to Ice and Snow Village and immediately notified the mayor of the situation.Then Genesis also rushed over, and the three of them communicated with each other about the situation, and immediately began to evacuate the residents of the town.

At first, some people wanted to pack their luggage, but the shock of the approaching waves made everyone dispel this idea.They found a moving vehicle in the town and arranged for the panicked townspeople to ride to the village of bones, while they continued to check whether anyone was missed.The three left Ice and Snow Village in a hurry until it was confirmed that the residents in every house in the town had been evacuated.

They had barely driven out for about 5 minutes when the silver tsunami appeared on the northern horizon.Although the huge wave did not come directly to the Ice and Snow Village, a little aftermath on the edge still ran over the entire town.The dense fluid flowed through buildings and streets like mercury, and masonry houses were vulnerable to the weight.About ten seconds later, the entire village was reduced to ruins.

Genesis had seen worse in the Great Cavity, so his reaction was calm.But Vincent and Zacks witnessed the power of the original S-type for the first time, and their hearts became extremely heavy.

——Fortunately, the ice and snow village is not large, and this time is enough for them to notify the residents to evacuate.Assuming that the original S-type attacked a more densely populated city, I am afraid that most people would have no chance to escape.

After that, the three of them have been busy helping the residents of Ice Snow Village and Bone Village cross to the south, and have no time to take care of the situation of Claude and Sephiroth.It wasn't until noon the next day that Vincent received a call from Claude.

"I've arrived in the western continent, and the original S-type is still chasing me, but it can't cross the strait for the time being. I plan to lure it to the magic spar cave on the north shore, and then use the Ultima magic stone to blow it up underground. "

"Absolutely not!" Vincent immediately dismissed the plan, "It's too dangerous for you to do that. And there are so many of them, even if you use this method, you can't wipe them all out. If something happens to you, the loss will outweigh the gain."

"It's because there are so many of them that we can only use this method, otherwise it will sweep across the Western Continent like it did on the Northern Continent." Claude realized that he was worried, and added another sentence of comfort: "It's okay, I will be there It destroyed my body before it devoured me. As for Sephiroth, it should not be easily swallowed by it. My expectation is to cut it to about half. If I can't come back, I will trouble you to recover the Ultima magic stone, and then continue with me work……"

"Claude!" Vincent interrupted him eagerly.

"Ah, yes, there is one more thing. The Western Continent is very dangerous now, please ask Nanaki and White to evacuate to Midgar..."

Vincent wanted to say something else, but a low battery notification sound came from the other side, and the call was forcibly hung up.

Vincent looked down at his communication terminal, feeling vaguely ominous.He contacted a few people who were still in Nibelheim, told them in detail what had happened in the Northern Continent, and then asked Nanaki and Angel to take White to Midgar.

After arriving in Midgar, White observed the samples they brought back in a petri dish, and soon found that the original S-type could double every 24 hours.White was taken aback by its proliferation efficiency, and hastily used the data they collected from the Northern Continent to build a model. The results showed that the thing could spread to the Eastern Continent within four days at most.

White informed Vincent of the news, and Vincent immediately organized a meeting for everyone.They reassessed the severity of the current situation and realized that the Grand Duchy must make preparations to evacuate residents and establish a front line as soon as possible.So Vincent rushed to the Prime Minister's Palace with the information that night, trying to persuade the Grand Duchy's military to take action.

He admitted that breaking into the prime minister's office at night is not a very good way, but he still had a "friendly" conversation with the prime minister.It wasn't until the communication was over that he discovered that Midgar's high-level officials had actually learned about the situation in Ice Snow Village through satellite cloud images, but the cabinet decided not to disclose the truth to the public.

The reason given by the Prime Minister was that this would easily cause panic in Midgar. Before they had prepared a response plan, the citizens would start looting supplies and preparing to flee, causing unnecessary riots.But Vincent knew that they had far underestimated the danger of the original Type S. That thing was proliferating at an exponential rate, and it was hardly restricted by any environmental factors. If it continued like this, the actual development would only be worse than the calculated result.

Just when his negotiations with the prime minister had reached an impasse, news of an earthquake suddenly came from the north shore of the Western Continent the next evening.Vincent was stunned for a moment, and then realized that it was because Claude activated Ultima, so he hurriedly put down the negotiation to find the whereabouts of the other party.

They searched for two full days in the ruins of the magic spar cave, but neither Claude nor Sephiroth heard anything.The two seemed to evaporate from the planet at the same time, and even Genesis couldn't perceive their traces.

Until the early morning of the third day, Alice finally dreamed to Nanachito, telling him that the two had been washed to the east coast of Midgar by the sea.Several people rushed back to Midgar non-stop, and finally found Claude and Sephiroth unconscious on a secluded beach.

Claude was quiet for a long time after listening, and suddenly whispered: "...But it still spread to Midgar."

Knowing that he was blaming himself for this, Vincent shook his head slightly.

"That's not exactly the case. You did wipe out all the original S-types that landed on the Western Continent, so it avoided that area. The Western Continent is safe so far. And according to White's calculations, it should have died nine days ago. Proliferation to this extent is that you have bought precious time for the evacuation of Midgar residents."

Claude did not comment on this, but instead looked at a yellow lily in the glass bottle by the window and began to lose consciousness.

……flower.

"Alice?" Claude asked suddenly, "Has she been here?"

Following his gaze, Vincent also noticed the familiar little yellow flower.

"Well, she told Nanaki that you were washed up in Midgar."

Claude curled his fingers unconsciously, with a look of guilt in his eyes.

There was a moment of silence in the ward. Vincent thought he was going to take a rest and planned to call the nurse over, but Claude asked again, "Did Sephiroth say anything?"

Vincent hesitated slightly, and quickly sat back on the bed.He wanted to answer, but hesitated for a moment when he opened his mouth.

In fact, there was one thing he omitted to mention just now, and that was the scene when they found the two on the coast according to Alice's instructions.

At first they only saw Sephiroth on the beach, the other party wrapped his body tightly with black single wings, and his feathers were wet and glued together from absorbing Mako and sea water.It wasn't until Genesis turned the other person over that everyone realized that he was holding another person in his arms.

Sephiroth hugged the man tightly, his wings almost covering his whole body.It took them quite a while to separate Sephiroth's wings a little, and suddenly found a clump of pale golden hair under the feathers.

Almost instantly, the people present recognized the owner of the blond hair, and they all fell silent.

——This is an out-and-out protective gesture, and there is no room for other explanations.

This gesture can happen to any two people on the planet, but it cannot be Sephiroth to Claude.

The entire planet knew the hatred between the two, and they kept fighting repeatedly for a long time, until Sephiroth seriously injured Claude in Ice and Snow Village a week ago.However, now that Sephiroth fell into the core of the planet with him in order to protect Claude, the sense of absurdity was as if someone told everyone that Jenova would protect Gaia.

But it was what it was, and each of them was forced to understand the meaning behind the move.

The hardest hit was Genesis.He stared at the two of them dumbfounded for a while, and his expression became a little indescribable: "He is actually serious..."

Angel was a little out of the situation, but he vaguely realized that this was neither a relationship that an old enemy should have, nor a brother in the usual sense.

Vincent knew a little bit about the relationship between the two a hundred years ago, but he always thought it was a fate caused by repeated intertwining of fate.Nanaki felt similar to him. Compared with the shock of the incident itself, he was more surprised that he had never really understood the thoughts of his friends in the past 200 years.

Zacks is the only person here who is familiar with both sides, so his mood is the most complicated.If all this had happened before the Nibelheim incident, he would have been genuinely happy that Claude had found favor with the man he most wanted.But he already knew what Sephiroth had done, and he had also witnessed how Claude felt pain for the other party. It was difficult for him to judge whether such a development was a good thing or a bad thing.

Because it was really difficult to separate the two, they had to let the two enter the hospital in a hugging position.The medical staff stripped Cloud from the wings little by little during the process of cleaning the demons, and spent extra time cleaning the demons on Sephiroth's feathers. seabirds.Several people couldn't help standing outside the window to watch the whole process, and when they left, they had a little more subtle expressions on their faces.

But when Sephiroth woke up, he seemed a different person, uncharacteristically taciturn.He didn't say anything about what happened that day, and even Genesis' insinuations couldn't pry any information out.

"...No. He hasn't said a word since he woke up." Vincent finally replied truthfully.

Claude suddenly turned his attention away from him and looked straight at the door.

Vincent turned his head instinctively, and found that Sephiroth had stood there at some point, staring at Claude with a deep gaze.

"...Sephiroth." After Claude called his name, a trace of vicissitudes that did not belong to this age appeared in the young pupils.

Sephiroth walked to the side of the bed, Vincent got up to make way for him, saw him hold Claude's hand from the quilt, and asked softly, "You and I both survived, so do you regret it?"

Claude didn't answer, but heaved a long sigh.

So Vincent knew that they needed a little private space and left the ward on his own initiative.