Paper Angel 2/4, Final Fantasy VII (Sephiroth and Zack)
Title: Paper Angel, 2/4 Author:dogmatix Rating: PG Warnings: Zack being not-Zack Word count: short-ish Prompt: Final Fantasy VII: Crisis Core, Zack and Sephiroth: role switch - Zack as the bad guy, Sephiroth as the good guy. Summary: In the absence of Her Son, he will do. A/N: @_@ I'm having the worst time just sitting down and typing this, and also I haven't finished CC yet, dangit. So, a work in four short parts.
Sephiroth ran through the burning village of Nibelheim, sick horror turning his stomach as screams and and the hungry crackle of flames slipped past him. It was like Wutai all over again.
Only this time, it wasn't he that had spread the blaze, but Zack Fair. Zack, who had never had the stomach for true war. Until now.
Close on his heels ran Strife, falling back now but stubbornly keeping on. He could see what had attracted Fair to the young trooper - under the stammering and the awe was a core of pure bloody-minded stubbornness that not all the training in the world could give you.
Still, Sephiroth wasn't a SOLDIER for nothing, and soon he was outdistancing the boy, unable to afford the delay as he made all haste for the reactor. He didn't know how or why, but he could feel that Fair was there. If the man managed to overload the reactor, fire would be the least of the remaining villagers' worries.
Pounding up the mountainside, he didn't stop for a crying girl holding her father. If he hurried, the child might live to see the sun rise. Masamune was a tingle in his left hand, the summons balancing on the knife-edged instant before materialization.
"Zack!" He called out, as he skidded to a stop deep inside the heart of the reactor, mako a sickly green lake below them. The acrid stench stopped his nose and made his eyes want to water, but he ignored it with the ease of long practice. Of more importance was the SOLDIER staring up in awe at the dead torso of a woman floating in a tank with crystalized mako closing like fangs around her. "What have you done?"
Fair turned then, and at once Sephiroth knew. He'd seen that too-bright look before, and Fair's smile was twisted and distorted. "Done? We have cleansed this place for you. No-one will harm you here."
So, this was his punishment for sending the young SOLDIER to kill Sephiroth's friend.
"You killed an entire village, Zack." Sephiroth had to try, had to see if anything could reach him.
"They would have feared you, like all the other humans. Feared, hated, killed. Don't you see?" The frenzied gleam in mad eyes grew brighter. "You're better than them, so much better. We're only protecting you.
"No, you're not."
"You don't understand," Fair said pityingly, "but you will soon."
Damn it to the hells, Fair was too far gone. This was getting them nowhere.
"I can't let you do this." Masamune leapt to his hand.
Fair regarded him with bemused disbelief. "Oh?"
"I'm sorry. You deserve better than this." Sephiroth's chest ached for the man he could have called friend. And launched himself at the other SOLDIER, Masamune cutting a silver arc through the air. Angeal's Buster Sword met the delicate-looking blade, turned it with contemptuous ease.
Shocked, Sephiroth barely managed to recover in time to avoid being ripped apart by the massive blade. Fair was stronger than he should have been. Much stronger.
The battle started in earnest, the two of them taking to the vents and tubes bridging the lake of mako at random, the legacy of decades of emergency fixes.
Sephiroth heard a gasp from below, knew the trooper had arrived. Still, he didn't allow that to distract him from the deadly dance of steel as a shower of sparks flew yet again where the two blades met. They were evenly matched, Fair augmented by whatever insanity was ruling his mind. It was almost like fighting Genesis again, and his heart roared in his ears as the Masamune darted out again and again, finding it's mark sometimes, but never enough for a decisive stroke.
The headache that had been building since he'd landed in Nibelheim spiked without warning, an overwhelming wash of presence flowing over him with thoughts of Mother and Reunion. His blade faltered under the onslaught, and Angeal's sword tore through this stomach, biting through the wide belt like it was nothing.
Everything stopped. Masamune fell from nerveless fingers, clattering down to the walkway below.
Sephiroth felt it at a distance, withdrawing into himself to escape the scrabbling, insidious fingers of madness filling his mind. He would die, but he would die as himself.
He felt himself falling, stopped abruptly by cold metal.
"Seph... Sephiroth?" He heard, as from a great distance.
Metal scraping metal made Sephiroth's eyes flutter open. Fair stood over him, bloodied sword hanging limply at his side. But he was not looking at Sephiroth. Rather, he was half-turned to look at Strife, who held the Masamune in trembling hands. Obviously the boy had had some idea of completing Sephiroth's task, but in the face of an enemy who was also his dearest friend, could not continue.
"Zack," the boy almost sobbed.
Fair looked dazed as he turned to face Sephiroth again. And stepped over him.
Working up to a run, Sephiroth watched the SOLDIER 1st bring the massive Buster Sword around to slice through the entire mako-tube where the blue corpse floated. Mako and glass spilled out from the broken tube, the corpse's head separating from the rest of it.
Sephiroth thought he saw Fair pick up the head. Thought he heard Fair mutter something - "I'll protect him. I'll protect him from you, bitch."
Surely he must have imagined Strife collapsing next to him like a puppet with its strings cut. The world dissolved to black, and so he didn't see the Turks gathered around him, didn't hear Hojo's snide remarks.