"The Face Inside Is Watching You", FF VII, Sephiroth/Kadaj Title: The Face Inside Is Watching You Author:jlsigman Rating: G Word count: 271 Prompt: Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children, Sephiroth/Kadaj: conditioning - 'You have no discipline' A/N: Title from Linken Park's “Papercut”.
“So what's gonna happen now?”
Kadaj clamped his jaw, preventing a scream of frustration that would have been directed at more than just Cloud. He could hear Mother, could feel Brother's presence so closely, but he didn't yet understand what he had to do to make them happy. “Mother will tell me,” he said, staring at the box in his hands.
“I guess a puppet wouldn't really know.”
Kadaj's thoughts flew apart in rage, drowning out everything else but the call of the stolen materia's power. Rage at Cloud for saying that, rage at himself for believing it. “Maybe I am a puppet,” he snarled, gathering the energy to blast his enemy into atoms, “But then again, so were you!”
He quickly realized that this was a different Cloud he was fighting. This one was not plagued by guilt and self-hatred, but had found the peace in himself to move ahead in life. Kadaj fought with reckless speed, determined to prove himself better to Cloud, to Mother, to himself.
...undisciplined...
It was the first real word he ever heard Sephiroth say. It haunted him now, after he mis-judged his leaping swing and watched his sword tumble through the open air as he hung on by his fingertips. Cloud towered above him, and the pitying look he turned down to him finally broke through the last barrier in his mind. He threw the canister with Mother in it, then leapt after it. He was not disgusted but the physical form, but lovingly clasped Her to his chest. “Let me show you MY reunion,” he sneered, and accepted Her dark gifts.