Categories > Games > Final Fantasy 7
Ghosts and Demons
1 ReviewsGhost stories and legends don't arise from dust, they arise from men.
I was used to the ghost stories the Wutaian prisoners liked to tell. At first I'd wondered if they were some kind of code, but they seemed harmless enough. If they wanted to scare themselves silly, who was I to complain? I listened to one or two, decided they were gory but not dangerous, and left supervision to the other men.
"Sephiroth, sir, I wanted to see you about the prisoners." I'd been at the camp for weeks now, and anything to break up the monotony sounded interesting.
"What is it, Kirasu?"
"You asked to be informed if they started telling new or different stories. There's one I've heard twice this week which seems to be about a fighter in the Wutaian force right now. They say he's inhuman, and something about a sword. I had a hard time with it, but I think they said the sword turns people to dust. I don't know enough Wutaian to follow the stories, but he seems to be a hero to them."
I nodded and stood. "I should go listen; no one else will pick up the Wutaian. Dismissed." The sargeant hurried out of the makeshift office and after a minute I followed him. A sword that turned people to dust? Could they be talking about a sword like Masamune, that stole the life from an opponent and turned his blood to ash? This could be very interesting.
--
"You must be very careful with the sword I'm giving you, Sephiroth. It's different than the ones you are used to using," the Professor told me sharply. I was ten, still young enough to be in awe of the huge, shining blade I was being handed.
"They don't make swords like Masamune in the West." Hojo explained this to me as he gave me the sword. It was a miracle the sword existed at all, I realized, as the old man prattled on about the lengths of bribery and stealth required to order it and get it to Midgar without either the Wutaians or the Shinra knowing.
What the art does in addition to making a weapon, I was told, is make the life within the weapon independent unto itself instead of part of the lifestream. Hojo compared it to cutting off someone's arm and teaching the limb to function on its own, keeping the skills that person had.
Just as the lifestream takes the souls of the dead into itself, so do weapons created in this art absorb souls. However, because there is no connection to the lifestream, the soul is channeled through the weapon to the bearer.
I looked at the professor in surprise. "Yes, that means exactly what it implies, Sephiroth. A weak-willed man attempting to use a konken may find himself quickly overwhelmed by his opponent's mind. He could lose control of his own mind to the new entrant. This is why most people do not carry konken, and those who do often do not carry them for long."
Suddenly wary, I held the sword away from myself.
"Don't worry," the Professor said as he took it back. "You'll not be fighting with this sword for some time yet."
--
"Tell me about this swordsman," I asked the prisoners in Wutaian. Judging by the looks on their faces, they didn't expect any of their captors to speak their native tongue.
"Why should we?" one of the men demanded over the hurried whispers of his compatriots.
"Because I want to find him," I answered.
Another Wutaian held up his hand, and the prisoners quieted. "Once again, why should we?" he asked, more thoughtfully this time.
"Do you think he's a better swordsman than I am?" I pressed.
"I don't doubt it."
"Then you should want to see me challenge him. If you really think he's so amazing, tell me where to find him -- send me to die."
After a moment, the unofficial leader nodded. "The last men to see him were in the west, near the village of Nemai..."
--
"This is ridiculous, old man. I'm the best there is," I glared as I continued to hold the weighted sword in a ready position. I'd been here nearly two hours, just one in Professor Hojo's most recent string of exercises. I was fifteen now, on leave from SOLDIER for additional training, and tired of the way the Professor still treated me as though I were a naive child.
"You're very good," the Professor acknowledged, "Better than anyone else in your unit. Quite possibly the best in SOLDIER."
"Then why do I have to keep doing this shit?"
"Mind your language, Sephiroth. Just because you're in SOLDIER now doesn't mean you need to talk like one. You're doing this because you could be so much better. Now watch your posture and don't let your blade slip."
--
"So you're the mysterious swordsman I've heard so much about," I said, eyeing the man carefully. I'd set out immediately from the camp, much to the consternation of my commanding officer, and I knew that I was abusing the privileges that went along with the fact that the army needed me. I didn't care. I wanted a challenge.
My opponent's style of dress was traditional Wutaian, even old-fashioned. He looked far more like a picture-book illustration than a real person. His hair was pulled up into a topknot and his wooden sandals were splattered with mud.
"And you are the barbarians' demon," the Wutaian sneered. I found the man's Wutaian difficult to understand. It seemeed rooted in archaic speech patterns, and I'd never studied more than a few examples of old Wutaian poetry.
"I'm hardly a demon."
"I can feel the air twist around your inhuman blood, boy."
I frowned at the diminuative and paused for a long minute, considering. "My mother was an ancient. One of the 'ancestors' your myths go on about." It was not the sort of information I normally shared in a fight, but this was not an ordinary fight.
Something in the swordsman's energy felt as wrong to me as mine apparently did to him. I'd never been trained to sense such things, but I felt something like the energy I got from Masamune. It was as if...
"You use a soul blade." I said out loud.
"A konken? Yes, I do. Is that not why you sought me out?"
"I came looking because the Wutaian prisoners said you were amazing."
"So you sought me out to prove your skill."
"No, I know I'm better than you," I replied, a hint of a smirk playing across my face. "I came to put you down so they'll lose their hope."
The swordsman shook his head. "Not one of the venerable ancestors could speak of destroying hope with a smile. I do not know your origin, but I will strike your down for that insult to them."
"Fine. But when I beat you, I'm taking your head back to your friends as a sign that you're dead."
"And when I win," the Wutaian answered, "I will bring you back to my people."
"Then come on," I said, holding my sword up to strike.
--
"You're too rash, Sephiroth. You need to pay more attention to your enemy in battle. You can't attack as if he isn't moving."
Twelve years old and fresh out of SOLDIER basic training, I sneered at the professor. "Why? You've told me how fast I am."
"Yes, you're fast. That doesn't make you omniscient. What if your opponent has already decided to move before you attack?"
"Then he'll be telegraphing. I'll know," I answered.
"Guard up," was Professor Hojo's response as he lifted his bamboo sword into position. I followed suit, adopting a stance more forward and less formal than the older man.
The Professor nodded slightly and for a minute we sized each other up. Then I darted in. He parried most of my sword-blows while I pressed my advantage, forcing him backwards. The Professor took up a defensive stance. I moved to exploit the weakness underneath it -- and found my target had moved while I pressed. I felt a sharp, snapping pain as the Professor's sword crashed between my shoulderblades.
"You overcommitted. You need more control."
--
He was fast, but so was I, and the fight was quick. Our swords crashed together, ringing through the clearing, as I tested the man. The Wutaian seemed to be holding back, studying my movements. I decided to end it before he had the opportunity to come to any conclusions.
When I saw an opening in the Wutaian's guard, I pressed it, only noting the man's smile when I had already committed to the action.
I heard the man whisper "yes, you will do" as Masamune dug into his stomach.
This was nothing I'd seen a sane man do before, and I'm sure my confusion was hanging obvious on my face. The Wutaian stood still as the blade cut him, smiling, as though this had been his plan to begin with.
I felt like someone was laughing at me as the body collapsed in the dust, wound gaping open, cold and dry as the lab. Then there was the familiar rush of death working its way from Masamune into my nerves, arcing up my arm.
I closed my eyes, letting my muscles shiver, and searched for the presence of the samurai in my mind. The unfamiliar collection of thoughts there felt very little like the man I had killed, however.
"What are you?" I asked.
"I am but a man, though one who has lived a very long time due to swords like ours."
"What do you mean?"
"You shouldn't trifle with things you don't understand, foreigner. Konken are Wutaian weapons. Did you take yours from some dying lord?"
"For a supposedly-enlightened Wutaian, you're very rude. Are you all such bastards underneath the facade?" I was struggling to put the pieces together, trying not to get distracted by anger. "You wanted me to kill you. Why?"
"I'm sure you've killed people before with that sword of yours," he said. "Have none of them ever fought you?"
"A few have, but they always break sooner or later." And then I understood what he was really asking. "You bet your life that your will is stronger than mine?"
"Any battle is a test of will for one's life. Some battles are simply more obvious than others."
--
My first real kill had been anticlimactic. My unit was in charge of distracting the locally stationed Wutaian army before the soldiers took the shore en masse. He didn't have time to think of worry.
The enemy was just a man, not much older than I was, not a fast enough draw to get out pistol or sword before Masamune left a gaping hole in his chest. There was just enough time for the look of fear to crystalize on his face before he collapsed. I felt Masamune shake in my hand and felt the creeping awareness of the lifestream icing its way up my arm.
"What happened?" I heard the voice quite clearly. It took me a minute, in the panic of the fight, to understand and remember what the Professor had told me. It was the dead man's voice.
"You died," I answered, aware I was speaking aloud but not particularly caring what the other soldiers thought of me. They already kept their distance. I wanted to stop and focus, but another soldier was rushing at me. This man too went down, and a second voice joined the first. I tried to ignore their questions, but there was no reprieve as I made his way through the camp, and the clamour of voices grew loud in my head.
Soon enough, the camp was empty of enemy life. I stood in the middle, the only soldier without a hint of blood on my uniform. I was screaming, dimly aware my fellow SOLDIERs were watching. This was nothing like I'd done in the lab, the Professor directing me to destroy specimens as a lesson in using the blade. Those had welcomed death, any death. These men fought and screamed long after their bodies collapsed into the dust, panicked as they realized what was going on, kicked and clawed at the inside of my mind.
I'd been told it would be like this, but being told meant nothing. I had to learn this fight on my own. One by one I beat the souls of Wutaian soldiers into submission in my mind, and it got easier as I went.
--
"Your body is mine," said the swordsman as I railed at him. "I wonder if I should begin by attacking your own camp..." He was beating me back into the depths of my own mind. I didn't like it this far down.
"No," I growled, mentally reaching for a foothold, a grip, any strength I could muster.
"No," came the echo behind me, the voice resonant and lyrical. I knew it in an instant, the voice of the woman who'd sung for me all those years.
"You can't have him!" she roared.
"Demon!" snarled the suddenly worried Wutaian.
"Never seen anything like this before?" I asked with new confidence, hovering on the edge of losing myself to the woman and her voice. I welcomed her as my salvation, something I hadn't felt since she sung me to sleep the first months in the lab in Midgar, when I had cried for Gast and Ifalna to come back. Her energy flooded across the plain of my mind and into my consciousness, drowning me, flowing into me.
The Wutaian stared in abject horror now. I didn't know what he was seeing, if seeing was even the right word for what happened here, though I felt myself to be much larger than I had been a minute ago. I moved forward and reached for the Wutaian, who simply melted against what I could only dimly call "my body".
I realized then just how much better than me the swordsman was. He'd been testing my body and my focus when he fought me, seeing if I would be a good host. The thought was nearly as flattering as it was disturbing. I wasn't as sure of myself as I came off when I was fighting -- the Professor could not have taught me everything I needed to know.
Still, I knew skill when I saw it and this man was pure skill. An artist. And he'd thought me worthy. That had to be worth something.
"It might be," came his voice, still soft and somehow poetic. I froze, realizing he wasn't integrated and preparing for another mental fight.
"Calm yourself."
I stopped, but I wasn't going to relax on his say-so.
"I am not ready for oblivion yet."
I started to answer, but the rush of physical sensation pulled me back to my body. I heard babbling Wutaian and it took me a minute to translate. Again the word demon as they wondered if we'd killed each other. I was getting tired of that. I pushed myself up off the ground. I didn't remember collapsing, but my attention had been so focused, it didn't surprise me.
They ran.
I followed them back to Nemai and spent a week lurking outside the town, picking the rebels off as they emerged in small groups. I hadn't been able to completely integrate the swordsman yet, but I got used to his reactions occassionally filtering through my own. I let his instincts lead me in fighting and when I did, I could tell I was stronger than I had been before. I wondered if it was a trick I could repeat.
By the end of the week, the Wutaians were refusing to leave in groups of less than a dozen.
Satisfied that I could report their position and status to my superiors, and feeling more confident with my sword than ever, I turned back to the camp. I was nearly censured for disappearing, until they realized that the demon terrorizing Nemai was me. Suddenly it was congratulations, but I was used to that. The rule at Shinra was always that you were only as good as what you'd done lately.
Shortly afterward, I was given orders for leave from the front -- two weeks in Costa del Sol. Attached was a note that made it clear this leave was not for my own mental health. I was going to be meeting the Professor there for a "consultation".
I'll never understand what he saw in that place. It seemed too bright, bright enough to show off all the cracks in the facade. I prefer my illusions more convincing.
"Wouldn't it be more efficient if you just came out to Wutai to do this?" I asked as he finished up the usual round of shots and samples. I'd been doing this for so long that I had actually memorized the order I got all my shots in.
The Professor snorted to himself, offhandedly answering, "Oh, I'm sure that order for my death if I ever set foot in Wutai again is still in effect." He laughed, making me wonder what kind of joke this was.
"They're trying to kill all of us over there, remember? We're at war," I said as I tugged the empty IV needle out of my arm. What made his life more valuable than those of them men I had killed last week?
"Even if I wanted to commit suicide in that manner, Sephiroth, do you think the President would allow it?" The sarcastic tone bit.
I decided then that I wanted a piece of him, finally. I was better now than he'd trained me to be. I could do it.
"Spar once, old man?" I smirked.
He blinked at me, probably suspicious of anything that sounded friendly. I'd been at war with him for years now, after all. But he said yes anyway. Maybe he saw it as another chance to measure me.
I thought of the Wutaian swordsman. I'd finally found a variable the Professor couldn't anticipate.
He didn't have the old bamboo practice swords with him, of course, but in the closet of the Shinra vacation house he found a broom and mop with removable handles.
"A little longer than the old bokken, but you're used to Masamune's length anyway, aren't you?" It wasn't really a question and I didn't answer, only reached for the mop handle. I tested the feel of it in my hands. It would do for him.
The Professor raised the broom handle and saluted. I returned the gesture, feeling for the first time the value in the movement. Why hadn't he ever explained that to me? Why hadn't he explained the flow or the energy of fighting, the dance? Maybe he didn't know, or didn't think it was important. It seemed like the sort of thing he wouldn't care about.
He was, as always, waiting for me to advance. I obliged him.
I tried to remain calm, the way I'd always been taught, but this was the Professor and it was hard to disconnect.
"How did you get so fast, old man?" I asked, realizing for the first time how differently he moved from the other people I knew, the SOLDIERS and the Wutaian fighters.
"What do you mean?" he asked. I couldn't tell if he was leading me along or he really didn't know.
"I've fought hundreds of people. You don't move like a baseline human any more than I do."
He laughed. "I've been taking makou infusions since before you were born, Sephiroth."
I shuddered, given the involuntary mental image of a younger Professor in the SOLDIER line-up, realizing even as I did that it probably wouldn't have been like that. He pressed the advantage and it took me a minute to recover, but I pushed him back easily.
"Why?"
"How else was I supposed to keep up with you?"
I had the Professor pushed up against the wall now, and I was ready to pin him when he pulled his weapon around in a way that would never work with a sword. When I stepped back, he centered his grip on the broom and I recognized the guard form he was using.
--
"Professor! Professor! I wanna learn!"
"It's not proper for a girl to wield a sword, Aeris."
"But please?"
"Why can't she learn?" I interrupted, looking up from my practice. I was thirteen now and getting ready to enroll in SOLDIER.
"I just told her, it's not proper," Hojo sounded slightly exasperated, and normally I would have let it go, but I was curious.
"Girls can't defend themselves?"
He sighed. "There are weapons appropriate for women, small things like stars and fans. Priestesses usually learn to fight with a staff to defend the temple, and it's common among the lower classes because sticks are easier to come by than swords."
"I wanna fight with a stick! Can I?" Aeris asked, jumping up and down.
The Professor hesitated, looking at me. "If Sephiroth can continue practicing his form for an hour without my attention, I suppose I can give you an introduction."
"I can do it!" I answered, quickly starting in on the form I was supposed to be practising. After a few movements, I stopped and looked at the Professor.
"Maybe I should learn staff too? It might be useful some time."
"No," he snapped back, too quickly. "The staff is only for people who cannot use a sword. It's bad enough SOLDIER's going to require you to learn to use a gun. Yours is a purer weapon. Enjoy it."
I smiled at that and went back to my form as the Professor disappeared and returned with a worn wooden walking stick and a piece of thin metal piping about Aeris's height.
"You hold the staff like this," he began, not guessing that both of us were hanging on his every word.
--
After all the lectures on the purity of the sword, what does he fall back on in a fight? Staff fighting. It said something about him worth sneering at, but I didn't want to drop my concentration just to find an insult.
He was grinning now. Did he think he'd put one over on me, holding out for all these years? He pushed me back as I tried to recover, struggling to get enough range to use my weapon. I butted him in the stomach with the 'handle' of my wooden sword and wished for Masamune.
'You can't depend on a weapon,' came the whisper in my head.
"I don't care!" I shouted. It was only when Hojo stepped back that I realized it had been out loud.
I ignored the awkward moment and pressed harder. I felt my control slipping as I just kept swinging at him, harder, faster, letting every bitterness I'd hever held come to the surface and take a swing. Very bad fighting form, very good therapy.
I was fourteen again, getting bawled out by the Professor in front of my SOLDIER basic squad.
I was sixteen and he was pulling me out of classes at the university because he didn't like what they were teaching me.
I was eighteen, being sent to fight in the fiercest wave of the war so far, and he still refused to tell me more about my parents than my mother's name.
I was standing over him, easy considering how short he was, and finally broke through his blocks and snapped my wooden sword into his side. He stepped back, turning away, and I continued straight into another blow, flat across his back. He fell to the floor. I hit him again.
He rolled over and I realized he was smiling again. Disgusting old man.
I aimed for the grin. He rolled aside at the last minute, but my sword caught his glasses and crushed the lens against the floor. He was standing then, laughing, looking at me just as clearly.
"Beautiful, Sephiroth. Beautiful."
"This is what you wanted?" The adrenaline crashed out of me, draining into the Planet or the air.
"I've never seen you fight like that."
"I've never fought like that. It's everything you taught me not to do!" I was trying to keep the confusion out of my voice, concentrate on anger.
"I know. You should, ninety-nine percent of the time. But what you do when you break is the purest form of fighting." There was still laughter in his voice, even as he held his side and wheezed in obvious pain.
Sick.
I wasn't going to deal with this anymore. I stormed out, slamming the door behind me. On the other side of the door, I stopped to calm down.
I could still hear him laughing, though after a minute it trailed off into a coughing fit. Then the Professor muttered something.
I must not have heard it right.
It sounded like, "I'm proud of you." I hadn't heard that from him since I was ten. It couldn't have been.
I dropped the mop handle and ran, hating myself for my cowardice as I did.
When I got back to Wutai, I asked to be sent into the field again right away. Surely they could find someone else who spoke enough Wutaian to monitor the POWs. They told me no, but the next day the commanding officer called me in and instructed me to pick my own unit of first-classes. I would be going out. They gave me a list of coordinates.
I wondered why he'd changed his mind. Then I noticed the Shinra telegraph lying on his desk.
HE'S READY. --HOJO
The man was still controlling my life. I tried to tell myself that it didn't matter as long as I got what I wanted, but I wasn't really convinced.
I took with me the six first-class SOLDIERS who were least likely to ask questions and started for the first location on my list.
This was when the legend of the Shinra's demon spread like fire. We cleared out the strongholds and secret bases in less than a month. I burned the city of Nemai to the ground.
It wasn't enough. I kept going.
The next time I passed through Shinra's field HQ with my team, even the MPs and lower-class SOLDIERS had picked up the nickname, but they said it with reverence.
Demon. Fine. I could handle that.
Anything but human.
"Sephiroth, sir, I wanted to see you about the prisoners." I'd been at the camp for weeks now, and anything to break up the monotony sounded interesting.
"What is it, Kirasu?"
"You asked to be informed if they started telling new or different stories. There's one I've heard twice this week which seems to be about a fighter in the Wutaian force right now. They say he's inhuman, and something about a sword. I had a hard time with it, but I think they said the sword turns people to dust. I don't know enough Wutaian to follow the stories, but he seems to be a hero to them."
I nodded and stood. "I should go listen; no one else will pick up the Wutaian. Dismissed." The sargeant hurried out of the makeshift office and after a minute I followed him. A sword that turned people to dust? Could they be talking about a sword like Masamune, that stole the life from an opponent and turned his blood to ash? This could be very interesting.
--
"You must be very careful with the sword I'm giving you, Sephiroth. It's different than the ones you are used to using," the Professor told me sharply. I was ten, still young enough to be in awe of the huge, shining blade I was being handed.
"They don't make swords like Masamune in the West." Hojo explained this to me as he gave me the sword. It was a miracle the sword existed at all, I realized, as the old man prattled on about the lengths of bribery and stealth required to order it and get it to Midgar without either the Wutaians or the Shinra knowing.
What the art does in addition to making a weapon, I was told, is make the life within the weapon independent unto itself instead of part of the lifestream. Hojo compared it to cutting off someone's arm and teaching the limb to function on its own, keeping the skills that person had.
Just as the lifestream takes the souls of the dead into itself, so do weapons created in this art absorb souls. However, because there is no connection to the lifestream, the soul is channeled through the weapon to the bearer.
I looked at the professor in surprise. "Yes, that means exactly what it implies, Sephiroth. A weak-willed man attempting to use a konken may find himself quickly overwhelmed by his opponent's mind. He could lose control of his own mind to the new entrant. This is why most people do not carry konken, and those who do often do not carry them for long."
Suddenly wary, I held the sword away from myself.
"Don't worry," the Professor said as he took it back. "You'll not be fighting with this sword for some time yet."
--
"Tell me about this swordsman," I asked the prisoners in Wutaian. Judging by the looks on their faces, they didn't expect any of their captors to speak their native tongue.
"Why should we?" one of the men demanded over the hurried whispers of his compatriots.
"Because I want to find him," I answered.
Another Wutaian held up his hand, and the prisoners quieted. "Once again, why should we?" he asked, more thoughtfully this time.
"Do you think he's a better swordsman than I am?" I pressed.
"I don't doubt it."
"Then you should want to see me challenge him. If you really think he's so amazing, tell me where to find him -- send me to die."
After a moment, the unofficial leader nodded. "The last men to see him were in the west, near the village of Nemai..."
--
"This is ridiculous, old man. I'm the best there is," I glared as I continued to hold the weighted sword in a ready position. I'd been here nearly two hours, just one in Professor Hojo's most recent string of exercises. I was fifteen now, on leave from SOLDIER for additional training, and tired of the way the Professor still treated me as though I were a naive child.
"You're very good," the Professor acknowledged, "Better than anyone else in your unit. Quite possibly the best in SOLDIER."
"Then why do I have to keep doing this shit?"
"Mind your language, Sephiroth. Just because you're in SOLDIER now doesn't mean you need to talk like one. You're doing this because you could be so much better. Now watch your posture and don't let your blade slip."
--
"So you're the mysterious swordsman I've heard so much about," I said, eyeing the man carefully. I'd set out immediately from the camp, much to the consternation of my commanding officer, and I knew that I was abusing the privileges that went along with the fact that the army needed me. I didn't care. I wanted a challenge.
My opponent's style of dress was traditional Wutaian, even old-fashioned. He looked far more like a picture-book illustration than a real person. His hair was pulled up into a topknot and his wooden sandals were splattered with mud.
"And you are the barbarians' demon," the Wutaian sneered. I found the man's Wutaian difficult to understand. It seemeed rooted in archaic speech patterns, and I'd never studied more than a few examples of old Wutaian poetry.
"I'm hardly a demon."
"I can feel the air twist around your inhuman blood, boy."
I frowned at the diminuative and paused for a long minute, considering. "My mother was an ancient. One of the 'ancestors' your myths go on about." It was not the sort of information I normally shared in a fight, but this was not an ordinary fight.
Something in the swordsman's energy felt as wrong to me as mine apparently did to him. I'd never been trained to sense such things, but I felt something like the energy I got from Masamune. It was as if...
"You use a soul blade." I said out loud.
"A konken? Yes, I do. Is that not why you sought me out?"
"I came looking because the Wutaian prisoners said you were amazing."
"So you sought me out to prove your skill."
"No, I know I'm better than you," I replied, a hint of a smirk playing across my face. "I came to put you down so they'll lose their hope."
The swordsman shook his head. "Not one of the venerable ancestors could speak of destroying hope with a smile. I do not know your origin, but I will strike your down for that insult to them."
"Fine. But when I beat you, I'm taking your head back to your friends as a sign that you're dead."
"And when I win," the Wutaian answered, "I will bring you back to my people."
"Then come on," I said, holding my sword up to strike.
--
"You're too rash, Sephiroth. You need to pay more attention to your enemy in battle. You can't attack as if he isn't moving."
Twelve years old and fresh out of SOLDIER basic training, I sneered at the professor. "Why? You've told me how fast I am."
"Yes, you're fast. That doesn't make you omniscient. What if your opponent has already decided to move before you attack?"
"Then he'll be telegraphing. I'll know," I answered.
"Guard up," was Professor Hojo's response as he lifted his bamboo sword into position. I followed suit, adopting a stance more forward and less formal than the older man.
The Professor nodded slightly and for a minute we sized each other up. Then I darted in. He parried most of my sword-blows while I pressed my advantage, forcing him backwards. The Professor took up a defensive stance. I moved to exploit the weakness underneath it -- and found my target had moved while I pressed. I felt a sharp, snapping pain as the Professor's sword crashed between my shoulderblades.
"You overcommitted. You need more control."
--
He was fast, but so was I, and the fight was quick. Our swords crashed together, ringing through the clearing, as I tested the man. The Wutaian seemed to be holding back, studying my movements. I decided to end it before he had the opportunity to come to any conclusions.
When I saw an opening in the Wutaian's guard, I pressed it, only noting the man's smile when I had already committed to the action.
I heard the man whisper "yes, you will do" as Masamune dug into his stomach.
This was nothing I'd seen a sane man do before, and I'm sure my confusion was hanging obvious on my face. The Wutaian stood still as the blade cut him, smiling, as though this had been his plan to begin with.
I felt like someone was laughing at me as the body collapsed in the dust, wound gaping open, cold and dry as the lab. Then there was the familiar rush of death working its way from Masamune into my nerves, arcing up my arm.
I closed my eyes, letting my muscles shiver, and searched for the presence of the samurai in my mind. The unfamiliar collection of thoughts there felt very little like the man I had killed, however.
"What are you?" I asked.
"I am but a man, though one who has lived a very long time due to swords like ours."
"What do you mean?"
"You shouldn't trifle with things you don't understand, foreigner. Konken are Wutaian weapons. Did you take yours from some dying lord?"
"For a supposedly-enlightened Wutaian, you're very rude. Are you all such bastards underneath the facade?" I was struggling to put the pieces together, trying not to get distracted by anger. "You wanted me to kill you. Why?"
"I'm sure you've killed people before with that sword of yours," he said. "Have none of them ever fought you?"
"A few have, but they always break sooner or later." And then I understood what he was really asking. "You bet your life that your will is stronger than mine?"
"Any battle is a test of will for one's life. Some battles are simply more obvious than others."
--
My first real kill had been anticlimactic. My unit was in charge of distracting the locally stationed Wutaian army before the soldiers took the shore en masse. He didn't have time to think of worry.
The enemy was just a man, not much older than I was, not a fast enough draw to get out pistol or sword before Masamune left a gaping hole in his chest. There was just enough time for the look of fear to crystalize on his face before he collapsed. I felt Masamune shake in my hand and felt the creeping awareness of the lifestream icing its way up my arm.
"What happened?" I heard the voice quite clearly. It took me a minute, in the panic of the fight, to understand and remember what the Professor had told me. It was the dead man's voice.
"You died," I answered, aware I was speaking aloud but not particularly caring what the other soldiers thought of me. They already kept their distance. I wanted to stop and focus, but another soldier was rushing at me. This man too went down, and a second voice joined the first. I tried to ignore their questions, but there was no reprieve as I made his way through the camp, and the clamour of voices grew loud in my head.
Soon enough, the camp was empty of enemy life. I stood in the middle, the only soldier without a hint of blood on my uniform. I was screaming, dimly aware my fellow SOLDIERs were watching. This was nothing like I'd done in the lab, the Professor directing me to destroy specimens as a lesson in using the blade. Those had welcomed death, any death. These men fought and screamed long after their bodies collapsed into the dust, panicked as they realized what was going on, kicked and clawed at the inside of my mind.
I'd been told it would be like this, but being told meant nothing. I had to learn this fight on my own. One by one I beat the souls of Wutaian soldiers into submission in my mind, and it got easier as I went.
--
"Your body is mine," said the swordsman as I railed at him. "I wonder if I should begin by attacking your own camp..." He was beating me back into the depths of my own mind. I didn't like it this far down.
"No," I growled, mentally reaching for a foothold, a grip, any strength I could muster.
"No," came the echo behind me, the voice resonant and lyrical. I knew it in an instant, the voice of the woman who'd sung for me all those years.
"You can't have him!" she roared.
"Demon!" snarled the suddenly worried Wutaian.
"Never seen anything like this before?" I asked with new confidence, hovering on the edge of losing myself to the woman and her voice. I welcomed her as my salvation, something I hadn't felt since she sung me to sleep the first months in the lab in Midgar, when I had cried for Gast and Ifalna to come back. Her energy flooded across the plain of my mind and into my consciousness, drowning me, flowing into me.
The Wutaian stared in abject horror now. I didn't know what he was seeing, if seeing was even the right word for what happened here, though I felt myself to be much larger than I had been a minute ago. I moved forward and reached for the Wutaian, who simply melted against what I could only dimly call "my body".
I realized then just how much better than me the swordsman was. He'd been testing my body and my focus when he fought me, seeing if I would be a good host. The thought was nearly as flattering as it was disturbing. I wasn't as sure of myself as I came off when I was fighting -- the Professor could not have taught me everything I needed to know.
Still, I knew skill when I saw it and this man was pure skill. An artist. And he'd thought me worthy. That had to be worth something.
"It might be," came his voice, still soft and somehow poetic. I froze, realizing he wasn't integrated and preparing for another mental fight.
"Calm yourself."
I stopped, but I wasn't going to relax on his say-so.
"I am not ready for oblivion yet."
I started to answer, but the rush of physical sensation pulled me back to my body. I heard babbling Wutaian and it took me a minute to translate. Again the word demon as they wondered if we'd killed each other. I was getting tired of that. I pushed myself up off the ground. I didn't remember collapsing, but my attention had been so focused, it didn't surprise me.
They ran.
I followed them back to Nemai and spent a week lurking outside the town, picking the rebels off as they emerged in small groups. I hadn't been able to completely integrate the swordsman yet, but I got used to his reactions occassionally filtering through my own. I let his instincts lead me in fighting and when I did, I could tell I was stronger than I had been before. I wondered if it was a trick I could repeat.
By the end of the week, the Wutaians were refusing to leave in groups of less than a dozen.
Satisfied that I could report their position and status to my superiors, and feeling more confident with my sword than ever, I turned back to the camp. I was nearly censured for disappearing, until they realized that the demon terrorizing Nemai was me. Suddenly it was congratulations, but I was used to that. The rule at Shinra was always that you were only as good as what you'd done lately.
Shortly afterward, I was given orders for leave from the front -- two weeks in Costa del Sol. Attached was a note that made it clear this leave was not for my own mental health. I was going to be meeting the Professor there for a "consultation".
I'll never understand what he saw in that place. It seemed too bright, bright enough to show off all the cracks in the facade. I prefer my illusions more convincing.
"Wouldn't it be more efficient if you just came out to Wutai to do this?" I asked as he finished up the usual round of shots and samples. I'd been doing this for so long that I had actually memorized the order I got all my shots in.
The Professor snorted to himself, offhandedly answering, "Oh, I'm sure that order for my death if I ever set foot in Wutai again is still in effect." He laughed, making me wonder what kind of joke this was.
"They're trying to kill all of us over there, remember? We're at war," I said as I tugged the empty IV needle out of my arm. What made his life more valuable than those of them men I had killed last week?
"Even if I wanted to commit suicide in that manner, Sephiroth, do you think the President would allow it?" The sarcastic tone bit.
I decided then that I wanted a piece of him, finally. I was better now than he'd trained me to be. I could do it.
"Spar once, old man?" I smirked.
He blinked at me, probably suspicious of anything that sounded friendly. I'd been at war with him for years now, after all. But he said yes anyway. Maybe he saw it as another chance to measure me.
I thought of the Wutaian swordsman. I'd finally found a variable the Professor couldn't anticipate.
He didn't have the old bamboo practice swords with him, of course, but in the closet of the Shinra vacation house he found a broom and mop with removable handles.
"A little longer than the old bokken, but you're used to Masamune's length anyway, aren't you?" It wasn't really a question and I didn't answer, only reached for the mop handle. I tested the feel of it in my hands. It would do for him.
The Professor raised the broom handle and saluted. I returned the gesture, feeling for the first time the value in the movement. Why hadn't he ever explained that to me? Why hadn't he explained the flow or the energy of fighting, the dance? Maybe he didn't know, or didn't think it was important. It seemed like the sort of thing he wouldn't care about.
He was, as always, waiting for me to advance. I obliged him.
I tried to remain calm, the way I'd always been taught, but this was the Professor and it was hard to disconnect.
"How did you get so fast, old man?" I asked, realizing for the first time how differently he moved from the other people I knew, the SOLDIERS and the Wutaian fighters.
"What do you mean?" he asked. I couldn't tell if he was leading me along or he really didn't know.
"I've fought hundreds of people. You don't move like a baseline human any more than I do."
He laughed. "I've been taking makou infusions since before you were born, Sephiroth."
I shuddered, given the involuntary mental image of a younger Professor in the SOLDIER line-up, realizing even as I did that it probably wouldn't have been like that. He pressed the advantage and it took me a minute to recover, but I pushed him back easily.
"Why?"
"How else was I supposed to keep up with you?"
I had the Professor pushed up against the wall now, and I was ready to pin him when he pulled his weapon around in a way that would never work with a sword. When I stepped back, he centered his grip on the broom and I recognized the guard form he was using.
--
"Professor! Professor! I wanna learn!"
"It's not proper for a girl to wield a sword, Aeris."
"But please?"
"Why can't she learn?" I interrupted, looking up from my practice. I was thirteen now and getting ready to enroll in SOLDIER.
"I just told her, it's not proper," Hojo sounded slightly exasperated, and normally I would have let it go, but I was curious.
"Girls can't defend themselves?"
He sighed. "There are weapons appropriate for women, small things like stars and fans. Priestesses usually learn to fight with a staff to defend the temple, and it's common among the lower classes because sticks are easier to come by than swords."
"I wanna fight with a stick! Can I?" Aeris asked, jumping up and down.
The Professor hesitated, looking at me. "If Sephiroth can continue practicing his form for an hour without my attention, I suppose I can give you an introduction."
"I can do it!" I answered, quickly starting in on the form I was supposed to be practising. After a few movements, I stopped and looked at the Professor.
"Maybe I should learn staff too? It might be useful some time."
"No," he snapped back, too quickly. "The staff is only for people who cannot use a sword. It's bad enough SOLDIER's going to require you to learn to use a gun. Yours is a purer weapon. Enjoy it."
I smiled at that and went back to my form as the Professor disappeared and returned with a worn wooden walking stick and a piece of thin metal piping about Aeris's height.
"You hold the staff like this," he began, not guessing that both of us were hanging on his every word.
--
After all the lectures on the purity of the sword, what does he fall back on in a fight? Staff fighting. It said something about him worth sneering at, but I didn't want to drop my concentration just to find an insult.
He was grinning now. Did he think he'd put one over on me, holding out for all these years? He pushed me back as I tried to recover, struggling to get enough range to use my weapon. I butted him in the stomach with the 'handle' of my wooden sword and wished for Masamune.
'You can't depend on a weapon,' came the whisper in my head.
"I don't care!" I shouted. It was only when Hojo stepped back that I realized it had been out loud.
I ignored the awkward moment and pressed harder. I felt my control slipping as I just kept swinging at him, harder, faster, letting every bitterness I'd hever held come to the surface and take a swing. Very bad fighting form, very good therapy.
I was fourteen again, getting bawled out by the Professor in front of my SOLDIER basic squad.
I was sixteen and he was pulling me out of classes at the university because he didn't like what they were teaching me.
I was eighteen, being sent to fight in the fiercest wave of the war so far, and he still refused to tell me more about my parents than my mother's name.
I was standing over him, easy considering how short he was, and finally broke through his blocks and snapped my wooden sword into his side. He stepped back, turning away, and I continued straight into another blow, flat across his back. He fell to the floor. I hit him again.
He rolled over and I realized he was smiling again. Disgusting old man.
I aimed for the grin. He rolled aside at the last minute, but my sword caught his glasses and crushed the lens against the floor. He was standing then, laughing, looking at me just as clearly.
"Beautiful, Sephiroth. Beautiful."
"This is what you wanted?" The adrenaline crashed out of me, draining into the Planet or the air.
"I've never seen you fight like that."
"I've never fought like that. It's everything you taught me not to do!" I was trying to keep the confusion out of my voice, concentrate on anger.
"I know. You should, ninety-nine percent of the time. But what you do when you break is the purest form of fighting." There was still laughter in his voice, even as he held his side and wheezed in obvious pain.
Sick.
I wasn't going to deal with this anymore. I stormed out, slamming the door behind me. On the other side of the door, I stopped to calm down.
I could still hear him laughing, though after a minute it trailed off into a coughing fit. Then the Professor muttered something.
I must not have heard it right.
It sounded like, "I'm proud of you." I hadn't heard that from him since I was ten. It couldn't have been.
I dropped the mop handle and ran, hating myself for my cowardice as I did.
When I got back to Wutai, I asked to be sent into the field again right away. Surely they could find someone else who spoke enough Wutaian to monitor the POWs. They told me no, but the next day the commanding officer called me in and instructed me to pick my own unit of first-classes. I would be going out. They gave me a list of coordinates.
I wondered why he'd changed his mind. Then I noticed the Shinra telegraph lying on his desk.
HE'S READY. --HOJO
The man was still controlling my life. I tried to tell myself that it didn't matter as long as I got what I wanted, but I wasn't really convinced.
I took with me the six first-class SOLDIERS who were least likely to ask questions and started for the first location on my list.
This was when the legend of the Shinra's demon spread like fire. We cleared out the strongholds and secret bases in less than a month. I burned the city of Nemai to the ground.
It wasn't enough. I kept going.
The next time I passed through Shinra's field HQ with my team, even the MPs and lower-class SOLDIERS had picked up the nickname, but they said it with reverence.
Demon. Fine. I could handle that.
Anything but human.
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