3wingedangel | Various PSLs

It was supposedly an ordinary day at Radiant Garden. Of course, that meant there was always a high probability of things going wrong at any given time, Sephiroth thought sarcastically. He was wandering the streets, looking over the progress being made on the rebuilding. He still patrolled for Heartless and other threats.

Then there were those who believed he was one of those threats. Some of the people were nice enough to him while others were leery. He didn't bother anyone and at least they didn't bother him either.

Usually.

The situation with Cloud was a special case.

He paused at a house with a picket fence, just resting his hand on the top of it while his mind wandered.

Cloud only just came back to Radiant Garden today, and so far he's managed to avoid the usual chorus of 'maybe you could stay a while this time, Cloud?' from his friends. They don't get it. He's tried to explain - Sephiroth is out there because of him. He's Cloud's responsibility. He could be dragging some unsuspecting world into the darkness right now for all they know, and all those souls lost would be Cloud's fault.

But they tell him he's being too hard on himself, and he shouldn't take everything onto his own shoulders, and why can't they fight alongside him? He could tell them the whole truth - that Sephiroth isn't just a manifestation of the darkness in his heart, but his actual, literal Heartless. He could tell them he spent most of his time away from them as a mere husk of himself, single-minded and unable to care that he abandoned them. That he fell to the darkness so thoroughly that he'd lost his heart entirely for a while.

He won't, though.

Instead, he goes out on patrol alone before he even bothers visiting the castle. He knows he shouldn't. He knows it's a dick move not to tell them he's here right away. But if he did, he'd have to tell them he couldn't find Sephiroth and has come home a failure, and he just wants to...put that off, for as long as he can.

Which is why it's easy for Sephiroth to spot the familiar blond where he crouches, perched on a ridge that overlooks the ravine. Keeping watch.

Sephiroth really wonders how on Earth Cloud arrived at such bizarre and erroneous ideas concerning him. He is just a normal person ... well, no, not normal.... Can he ever be normal? But he isn't just part of a person. He'd grown up in the usual manner, even though his past was shrouded in complete mystery before he'd risen as a hero known in multiple worlds. He'd taken Zack away from Olympus Coliseum and trained him too, when it had become clear Phil wouldn't. They had worked together protecting worlds for years, until ...

He looks away. He had wanted to find something powerful enough to eradicate the Heartless. Zack had protested when they'd learned such an object was dark magic, but Sephiroth had been bent on finding it. And when he had ... everything had gone to Hell, just as Zack had feared. The object had taken him over and he had started lashing out at everything in blind rage and hate. Zack had tried to stop him, but they had become distracted and the Heartless had surrounded them. Zack had fallen off a cliff trying to beat them back....

That shock had broken the hold the artifact had on Sephiroth. He still looks desperately for Zack, wanting to believe he's still alive somewhere. And he is disgraced as a hero, at least in his own mind. He never goes out publicly as such anymore. His actions had led to his only friend being missing and quite possibly dead. He cannot think of himself as a hero anymore.

When he had first seen Cloud, he had recognized that hunger for the darkness. And he had decided to try to stop Cloud from making the same mistakes as he had. But then Cloud had somehow decided Sephiroth was his darkness, an idea Sephiroth had initially mocked before deciding to run with it in the hopes of teaching Cloud they are similar. But it had backfired, badly. Now it seems Cloud will never let go of that idea.

He does indeed catch sight of Cloud on the ridge, and he sighs to himself. Here they will go again.

"Hello, Cloud," he greets, walking away from the house and goes over closer to the ravine. "Have you been looking for me?"

Cloud stiffens immediately at the sound of that voice. He'd know it anywhere.

"Sephiroth." He jumps to his feet and whirls, taking his sword into his hands. "Did you follow me? Or..."

Or has he been here the whole time Cloud has been out there searching for him, doing who knows what? Cloud silently curses himself for his selfishness. Coming out here instead of going to see his friends...what if Sephiroth's done something to them? Taken them captive, or worse?

He takes a menacing step forward - just one. "Why are you here? What have you done?"

He smirks. "I actually do have other things to do with my time than follow you around from world to world."

Although he does do quite a bit of that.

He shrugs. "This is my home too. I have a right to be here. As for what I've done, well ..." He makes a sweeping gesture towards the city behind him. "You can surely see everything is still intact."

Cloud scowls. His 'home,' is that what he's calling it now?

"This is my home. You don't belong here. You don't belong anywhere but in my memories." He doesn't even bother to follow the gesture - yeah, he sees it.

"Don't play games with me. How long have you been sinking your claws into this place, just waiting for the opportunity to strike?"

It is, actually ... but he wouldn't expect Cloud would believe him.

"I will never be a memory," he sneers.

He flicks a wing in a bored manner. "Most people pay no attention to me whatsoever. Just what do you think I want to do, Cloud? Burn the town to the ground? Overrun it with Heartless?"

Ironic when he had tried so hard to defend it from the Heartless for so long.

"Or maybe you think I'm after it as some personal vendetta against you. That's it, isn't it?"

"How should I know?" Cloud takes another step forward. "You're the one always going on about darkness this and darkness that. Well, the light returned to this place, and if I get rid of you, it'll return to me, too."

And one more step.

"And then whatever your nasty plans are won't matter anymore."

"You're so sure of that, Cloud?" Sephiroth moves to draw his sword into position for a fight. "You used to accept that it was your own fault you fell into the darkness. Then you started blaming me because you couldn't accept what you'd done. You can't accept that you're the one who hungers for the darkness. Defeating me won't solve that problem for you."

((OOC: Should they start fighting and end up teleporting somewhere where there's a problem they plunge into, like a monster after them?))

"Shut up! I've had enough of your lies!"

Cloud doesn't stop to think too hard about what Sephiroth's saying, because to some extent, he can't. His heart clings to a solution, to something he can fight, because he knows he's still missing some key memories - memories that, if he were to dredge them back up or restore them somehow like Sora seemed to think he could, might either help him or break him. What happened to make him lose his heart in the first place? How did he regain it?

It's too difficult to think through and it gives him a headache when he tries, so he's stopped trying.

Now this, this is simple: just him and Sephiroth, blades drawn and ready. Cloud punctuates his shouting with his footsteps as he charges forward and leaps to close the distance between them, bringing the Fusion Sword swinging down hard.

((OOC: Sure! Maybe Cloud accidentally opens a darkness portal, like subconsciously reaching out to the darkness in his desperation to win, Terra-style?))

((OOC: Sure! That would be perfect. And I'm a hurt/comfort junkie. How would you feel about the problem they plunge into ending up with Sephiroth supposedly killed, especially if it happens because he's trying to protect Cloud from a sudden attack from the monster or whatever it is? Then he's dead but of course doesn't vanish into Cloud's heart or whatever Cloud thinks would happen. (He'd come back, of course, maybe after a brief out of body experience.) ))

Sephiroth meets Cloud's attack and forces him back, wings spread to add extra weight to the push. "You fight me because you enjoy it, because you're too afraid to actually do something to face your real problems. It's so much easier to think someone else is at fault for your own sins, isn't it? 'The Devil made me do it' used to be an argument people used a lot when they did something wrong and were ashamed to own up to it. Most people these days know that's idiotic. But you're still clinging to that type of mindset."

((OOC: Ooh, works for me!))

Cloud snarls at Sephiroth as he skids back but stays on his feet, and then he's charging back in again.

"My mistakes are my own. I know that. But you? You are my sins!" He punctuates it with a flurry of blows designed to put Sephiroth off-balance.

((OOC: Great!))

Sephiroth meets all of the rapid-fire blows head-on and then crosses the Masamune against Cloud's sword, again trying to force him back.

"Exactly my point," he says. "You're projecting your sins on me. And what do you think will happen if you win this fight, Cloud? Why do you think it will be different from any of our other battles? It doesn't matter what you do; you can't eliminate me. You have enough strength and skill that you could. But you cling to the idea that I will just up and disappear somehow, and that never happens."

Cloud holds his ground this time, maintaining the clash as he narrows his eyes.

"Changed your tune? Whatever happened to 'I am you', and 'your darkness keeps calling me back'? You really think you can deny it all now and I'll just believe you?"

Sephiroth smirks darkly. "I don't deny it. But you never understood what I really meant. Think about it, Cloud. If your darkness calls me back, I can't be your darkness."

"Stop trying to confuse me!"

Cloud jumps back, letting the force of Sephiroth's clash propel him further into the air as he reaches with one hand to call a bolt of lightning down on his foe before landing in a half-crouch.

"I know what I have to do. I won't let your poison drag me back down into the darkness."

Sephiroth looks up, actually startled by this. Cloud rarely uses these powers. He barely leaps out of the way in time to avoid the lightning.

"Really? And what are you going to do about it?" he asks. "If it's magic you want instead of swords, I can deliver that as well."

He starts to raise his hand to summon pillars of fire.

As the fire rises, Cloud can feel the force of it pulling him in. He tries to plant his feet, but the magic's too powerful - he finds himself sliding closer despite his best efforts. Gritting his teeth, he lifts his sword in a defensive position, but he can't see any way to avoid the flames short of getting above them somehow. But leaping now would just send him hurtling into them faster.

He has to do something. He refuses to accept defeat at the hands of his own Heartless.

The pillars' force only gets stronger the closer Cloud's dragged toward them, and eventually it knocks him off his feet. It's an instinct rather than a conscious thought when he reaches out with one hand in a desperate, last-ditch effort to shield himself...

...and the ground seems to fall out from under him as he drops down through a portal of dark energy with a surprised sound, simply vanishing. The darkness itself, though, does not vanish. It exerts a fell gravity of its own, and it spreads.

Sephiroth grunts in surprise as the portal opens and he falls in as well. "What have you done, Cloud?" he demands. "You're tapping into the darkness again? You always fall back on it in tight situations. Strange that you want to give me what you think I want!"

He spreads his wings as he falls. Where are they going to end up? And what's going to happen back in Hollow Bastion? He had seen the darkness spreading. They need to get back somehow. But first they have to get out of this....

At the other end of the portal, a monster growls and then roars. They're falling right into its domain.

"A lecture about the darkness? From you? Don't make me laugh." Cloud's disdain at the hypocrisy is real, but it's also covering a bit for how unsettled he is. He didn't even know he was capable of opening portals.

He has no idea what new mind game Sephiroth is playing with him now, but he can figure that out later. Right now, there are more pressing issues.

Like whatever is roaring at the end of this descent.

Cloud flips his sword around in his hands and shifts so that if whatever's down there happens to be standing just beneath the churning inkblot that is this portal, it's likely to get a very large and unpleasant sword-shaped wake-up call.

Sephiroth grunts. The majority of what he usually tells Cloud are things Cloud doesn't want to face, but he always tends to get blamed for whatever Cloud is doing, like falling into the darkness and making deals with underworld gods. Still, this is hardly the time to be arguing about it.

He is also preparing for a fight. Cloud's idea is a good one, for once, and he readies the Masamune likewise.

As the end of the portal nears, the monster is nearby but not directly under it. It roars at the portal and at them coming out of it. Then it blasts at them.

Sephiroth blocks the blast and retaliates with his energy orbs. He lands on the ground but soon is in the air again, slashing at the monster as it snaps at him. When it sees Cloud, it blasts at him too.

Cloud lands before the attack comes his way, so he rolls under it to get closer to the beast. Much as he'd like to take Sephiroth on while he's distracted by this thing, the monster won't discriminate. So: take it down first, then deal with the other monster here.

He strikes hard and fast, relentless, and the beast roars but seems hardly the worse for wear despite taking every hit. "What is this thing?" he says, pausing to sheath his blade in crackling lightning.

Edited 2024-09-24 22:45 (UTC)

"Some type of dragon or wyvern, it seems," Sephiroth says. "We must have fallen into its treasure horde."

Even his Heartless Angel attack isn't slowing it down. Now he's growing honestly concerned.

"We don't stand a chance. I'll just make a portal and we'll go out the way we came in."

But as he's starting to try to do that, the thing lunges again. He has no chance to concentrate. He blasts it back with his energy orbs and flies back over to Cloud. "Come on! We'll go in the sky and I'll make a portal where it hopefully can't reach in time." He reaches to grab for Cloud's arm.

((OOC: Maybe Cloud won't agree and Sephiroth is hurt/killed trying to save him when the monster attacks again during the argument?))

Various PSLs

Closed to Nimbuster

\o/ lmk if this works!

Looks fine! Nice juicy post!

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sorry for delay, work gets super crazy sometimes!

Totally understandable!