Quaero
quero redemptio: Chapter two.
Disclaimer: These toys aren’t mine. Sephiroth, Cloud and the others belong to Squaresoft, who can have them back in perfect condition when I’m done, honestly. The plot is mine though, and so is ‘Creci, although, considering that she’s a Chocobo, I can’t really use her for anything but fanfics…
/……/ Indicates flashbacks….
Green eyes blinked open but slid shut again at once; the lights wherever he was were far too bright. He could hear someone moving close to him, but he didn’t have the strength to sit up. Of course, that didn’t stop him from trying. Suddenly, someone was by his side, pushing him back into the bed. “Bed? When did I get into a bed?” he thought, trying yet again to sit up. “Stop that!” someone said and pushed him back, holding him down.
“You’re injured,” the stranger, a man, continued. “If you strain yourself, you will just make your wounds worse.” The man slowly opened his eyes again, looking at the other man. He was a middle-aged man, his brown hair liberally streaked with gray. A smile played around his lips. “Oh, good. For a moment there, we didn’t think you’d make it. You’ve been unconscious for a week.” The tall man sat up abruptly, and winced in pain. “A week?” The older man chuckled. “Yeah. You’re rather stubborn, aren’t you? I told you to lay still!”
A woman came into the room. She looked a little younger than the man. “Oh! You’re awake. That’s wonderful!” she said, smiling at them both. She took a seat next to the bed, and turned to the man next to her. “Darling, go get us some tea, will you?” The man nodded and left. The woman turned to him and smiled again. “You gave us quite the scare there, young man. Planning to climb Gaea’s Cliff in your condition is almost suicide, you know.” The man shrugged, even if it was painful. “I wasn’t climbing. I fell. There was a dragon in a cave, and I fell out.” The woman stared at him, eyes wide. “You fell? From the cave? No wonder you looked like someone tried to make a puzzle out of you!” Her words made him shiver, an instinctive reaction to a forgotten memory. He stretched out his arm, and looked at the almost invisible scars. If it had only been a week, why were they already healed so much? He knew it meant something, but he couldn’t remember.
The woman placed a hand on his arm. “You seem surprised. The doctor couldn’t figure it out. He said that you probably were a former member of SOLDIER or something. But if it surprises you so much, I guess he was wrong.” The man turned to look at her, an odd look on his face. “SOLDIER? Yes, I think I was. I’m not sure, there seem to be something wrong with my memory.” The woman blinked. “Well, that isn’t really surprising.”
She smiled. “I guess we’ll start with something relatively easy, then. Do you remember your name?” The man blinked. “What?” The woman smiled again, eyes showing the patience of a parent. “Your name. You do have one, right? Or should we just keep calling you ‘young man’?” “My name? I think… …it is Sephiroth. Yes, that’s it.” The woman gave him another warm smile. “There we go. Sephiroth, huh? That’s an unusual name. Your parents must have been rather special.”
Sephiroth blinked, his eyes still not used to the light. “I cannot remember my parents,” he whispered. In fact, there were so many things he couldn’t remember. It wasn’t that he had amnesia or something, but rather that someone tried to keep him from remembering. It was like there was an area of his mind that was covered in impenetrable fog.
Frowning, he concentrated on the only thing he could remember, the name that had been repeated in his mind so often over the last weak. He knew the name was important, that it meant something. If he just could remember… “Jenova…”
/ Green light surrounded him everywhere. He
was floating in green light, breathing green light. Everything
was green.
Around him, voices spoke. “This is the
son of Jenova, the man who killed you. Why would you plead for
him?” A shimmering woman appeared next to him. She was
shimmering green. Sephiroth tried to speak. She was that Ancient
he had killed. Her name was… “…Aeris…”
She smiled sadly, shaking her head and lifting one finger to her
lips to signalize that he should be quiet. “He was being controlled by Jenova. He
was not responsible for his actions!” Sephiroth couldn’t
believe that Aeris would stand up for him after what he had done
to her. The voices murmured amongst themselves for a while,
before speaking again. “He is the son of Jenova. He is the
son of the Crisis from the Sky.” Aeris shook her head again.
“He can atone! He is still needed in the world!” Again,
the voices repeated themselves. “He is the son of Jenova. He
must be destroyed.” “Sephiroth is not Jenova’s son!
True, he carries her DNA, but I was the one who carried him to
term, the one who gave birth to him. He is my son.” Another
woman had materialized, also this one brown-haired and green-eyed,
although she looked older than Aeris. She wore a white lab-coat
and her hair was pulled into a ponytail. Sephiroth recognized her
from a picture he had seen somewhere in Hojo’s lab. He didn’t
know her name, though. She stepped over to him, smiling. “Sephiroth,
I’m so happy I finally got to see you, to speak with you.
You are my son. You have always been, no matter what anybody have
told you. You are finally free of Jenova, and I will not let what
she did to you be held against you. I love you dearly, my son.” Sephiroth was left speak-less as his mother
hugged him for the first time in his life. / “Sephiroth?” Someone was shaking
him carefully, and he opened his eyes. The middle-aged woman was
looking down at him, worry written all over her face. “Are
you alright?” she asked, “You seemed like you were
having a fit or something.” Sephiroth gave her a halfhearted
smile. “I just remembered something I’d forgotten, that’s
all.” The woman nodded relieved, and pulled away. “I’ll
go see where that tea has gotten off to, ok?” Sephiroth didn’t even answer, just
closed his eyes, ignoring the warm tears that were sliding slowly
down his face. “Mother…” -TBC Author’s notes: Sorry! You’ll have
to wait to next chapter to meet ‘Creci. I know I said I’d
put her in this chapter, but my muse wasn’t cooperating. *
Kicks Hellcat * Hellcat: Hey!
You were the one that wanted to add that baka Aeris into this…
* goes back to ogling Sephiroth * mmm, bishounen…. Shaded Mazoku:
See what I mean… You can see a drawing of Seph and ‘Creci
here: http://www.mediaminer.org/fanart/view.php?id=21786.
Well, now that I’ve done that… * joins Hellcat in
ogling the poor Seph *