Quaero
quero redemptio: Chapter Four.
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….
Cloud woke to the smell of food, for once
not screaming and sweating from a nightmare. He sat up, blinking.
His memory was still fuzzy, it had been ever since Nibelheim, but
he was pretty sure he hadn’t really gone to bed dressed last
night, so he had to have been awake during the night for some
reason. He looked out the window. It was still dark, and still
raining. Of course, he thought bitterly. When I finally
get some sleep without having nightmares, it can’t last for
more than a few hours. What he couldn’t understand was
why he’d gone back to bed without undressing. Sleeping in
clothing was one of the most uncomfortable things he knew of.
The smell of food puzzled him. He knew for a
fact that there was nothing edible in the house, unless you
looked really hard. Not eating anything had become a habit of
his, due to his general lack of appetite. But the smell of food
still lingered in the air. Maybe he was still dreaming. That
would explain why he’d woken without having a bad dream. His
dreams had been very odd lately, filled with strange things.
Mostly Sephiroth. The man might be dead, but he was still
haunting Cloud, five years after his defeat. I can’t be
dreaming. My dreams are never this peaceful, he thought. He
got out of bed and headed to the bathroom. Mechanically, without
thinking, he filled the sink with cold water and dunked his face
in it. For a moment, he was tempted no to move, to just stand
there until he couldn’t hold his breath anymore. But the
knowledge of how ridiculous that would look to whoever found him
kept him from following through with it. Still, he kept his face
under water for further than what was needed, just enjoying the
feeling of cold water against his skin. When he came back up, he
looked at himself in the mirror. He could hardly recognize himself anymore.
The face he saw in the mirror, a face that was both strong and
oddly fragile in features, wasn’t the face he remembered. He
remembered himself as a young boy, a bit on the scrawny side. But
all the time he’d spent in Hojo’s laboratory and the
last five blurred years had left him so much older. I’m
twenty-six now, he thought to himself with a small sigh. And
I feel even older. His hair poked out in every direction,
having been left un-brushed for too long. Sighing, he opened the
closet to grab his hairbrush, and came up with a handful of air. Hmm?
He looked into the closet. His hairbrush was nowhere in sight. Where
did I put it, then? Cloud was a believer in routine. He always
placed his belongings back where they were supposed to be once he
was done with them. Mostly because he was aware that he acted on
autopilot more often than not, and if he didn’t follow a
certain routine, he’d never get anything done. So
discovering that his hairbrush was missing surprised him. He
looked around the bathroom, seeing if he could spot it anywhere.
He couldn’t. Instead, he realized that a couple of the
towels were misplaced as well. There was, of course, a chance
that he had moved them in one of his “moods”, but he
didn’t think so. Something wasn’t quite right there,
and he wanted to find out what. He quietly slipped back out into the hallway
and crept silently towards the living room. There was nobody
there, yet something seemed wrong. His Ultima Weapon had fallen
over from its usual position in the corner. Cloud looked around
once more, to make sure he wasn’t walking into an ambush,
and walked over to the massive sword, placing it back into its
former position. Suddenly, he realized what was wrong. The
Masamune was gone. He should have seen it at once. He had always
taken care of both his own massive sword and the elegant sword.
He kept tabs on both of them. Yet he hadn’t noticed once he
came into the room. Am I really that much out of shape? Something made a small sound in the kitchen,
causing him to whirl around and stare at the door. He abandoned
his sword; it was too large to swing around inside, and he was
confident that he could take out a burglar without a weapon. Even
a failure like him could do that. He moved over to the kitchen
door and listened. Not a sound came from the other side. Taking a
deep breath, he opened the door and went into the kitchen. There
was nobody there. But there had been someone there. A casserole
with soup was standing on the table, an empty bowl next to it. At
least the smell of food wasn’t a hallucination, he
thought grimly, and looked for any trace of an intruder. I
know someone was here, but where did they go? Behind him,
someone suddenly shut the door. He grabbed the first thing that
could be used as a weapon and turned around. The man standing behind him lifted a silver
eyebrow. His expression was faintly amused. “What exactly,”
he asked, his voice deep and smooth, “do you hope to
accomplish with that?” Cloud looked down at his hands. He
was holding a toaster. The man smirked slightly. His hair spilled
down his back in a way that Cloud had seen many times before, and
had never been able to forget. He looked at him. “Did the
cat catch your tongue?” He asked, flickering a few errant
strands of silver over his shoulder. Cloud attempted to glare at
him, but it was hard to look menacing while wielding a toaster.
“You’re dead,” he finally managed, putting the
toaster down. “I killed you.” Sephiroth nodded. “You did.” He
sat down at the table, apparently unafraid of Cloud. Cloud sighed
and lowered his head. “I’m hallucinating again, huh?”
He hated this. He hated the endless hallucinations and headaches.
It was tiring. Sephiroth smirked. “I certainly hope not,”
he said. Cloud blinked. His eyes flickered from Sephiroth to
where the Masamune was standing by the wall. Like his own swords,
the Masamune was not meant for indoor combat, but he knew all too
well that the sword could easily cut through nearly anything if
Sephiroth wanted it to. Besides, it wasn’t like Sephiroth
even needed a sword to kill someone. A burglar he could have
taken out with no problem, but alone and unarmed against
Sephiroth, he didn’t stand a chance. He slowly looked up. He
had no will to fight, but he’d be damned if he was going to
run away, either. He’d run away too many times in the past. A small chuckle tore him out of his thoughts.
He looked over at Sephiroth, who was watching him with a
decidedly amused expression. “If I was going to kill you,
Strife, I would have done so earlier, before you passed out.”
Cloud bit his lip. The Sephiroth he knew from Zack’s
memories had never been one to play games with his victims, but
the man had changed after learning about Jenova. He didn’t
dare trust the man; even though he would love to be able to
believe that this was the Sephiroth Zack had known. “Fine,”
he said, relaxing slightly. “What are you doing here, then?”