melodiesoflife | #7 | Return from the Brink

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#7 | Return from the Brink

Characters: Sephiroth & OPEN (except 8th Feb: CLOSED to Jade Curtiss)
Where/When: 8th Feb - Republic of Esdham: A makeshift clinic, 9th Feb Onwards - Aqures Ixen: Hospital
Summary: Sephiroth's ordeal out towards the Desert of Roalie has left him battered, most notably with a leg which is now broken in two places. Even with potions and white magic available, the resources at Esdham are strained in the wake of the recovering effort after the attack by the Herans. Sephiroth is later transferred to Aqures Ixen Hospital where help befitting a Hero of Light is more readily available. Still, it's going to take time for him to get back on his feet.
Warnings: Cuts, bruises, broken limbs; as expected considering. Also he's lost a good few inches from the length of his hair but probably best not to talk about that.

EDIT: Added a #3) Here

#1) 8th Feb - Republic of Esdham: A makeshift clinic [Closed: Jade Curtiss]
Late on the 7th Feb, a rush of activity had ripped through one of the makeshift clinics set up to deal with the aftermath of the attack by the Heran Empire. Someone had been found, much further out than anticipated, by one of the preliminary patrols sent out towards the oasis, and even though the medical staff on hand had tried to keep their tones hushed on account of the late hour, the clinic was already over-capacity and so the urgent healing required by a Hero of Light couldn't be kept a secret.

The unmistakable sound of rain hitting the roof of the tent, or rather the absence of it's wetness hitting his face was what greeted Sephiroth as he came around. The afterglow of a Cure-spell receding it's color as the white-mage Tarutaru currently on shift lowered her hands and offered a kind smile in his direction before leaving just as he squinted eyes first and then chanced to open them. There was no more open-sky above him; so he hadn't dreamed that patrol after all. It had been difficult to tell, given the hallucinations -that dream a few nights ago, for example- that had to have signaled that his body were finally giving up on him.

As if it were waiting specifically for him to regain more consciousness first, the pain then all came crashing back. Sephiroth had gotten an elbow under his one side -the other were in a sling tight up against his chest- but the reeling nausea, centered in particular around that deep agony of bone moving like it shouldn't put him back down prone instantly. With stars across his vision no less. He blinked, registering details as he looked down over himself. There was a plaster cast up to his thigh, and also a supportive brace around his left leg and it were elevated just slightly by way of a few pillows beneath his ankle. He couldn't feel his toes as they poked out of the bottom. He swallowed a rising sick feeling that was stirred and -for the time being- drew his focus into the roof of the tent.

#2) 9th Feb Onwards - Aqures Ixen: Hospital [Open]
If there was something to say of the Aqurean government, they cared for their Heroes a lot. As soon as Sephiroth were out of the immediate hypothermic danger he'd been found in, arrangements had been made for his transportation to a better facility. A small airship had been arranged -no small feat considering the devastation to the airport that had been inflicted- and he'd been away.

Still, not much that Sephiroth could do with one arm still strapped in close to his chest and his leg throbbing away in it's heavy plaster cast and brace which was more often than not elevated into a position from which he couldn't miss it even if he wanted to. Talk about it being staged directly in his face. Hindsight really was 20/20, that leap had been a risk; but what was the alternative? To be killed anyway? Captured? Spencer had already informed him that some of the other Heroes had been taken. Sephiroth scowled heavily every time his thoughts were inevitably drawn that way; another failure to chip away at his pride.

His silver hair had been braided and was set down across one mostly-unblemished shoulder; it was noticeably shorter though. Having had to have had the singed ends cut away. Overall, Sephiroth sat mostly with the backrest up, alone in the ward they'd given him, in silence while the lesser injuries he had sustained; various cuts, bruises and burns, were gradually treated by potion, lotion or Cure-spells. Most often he could be found reading a book, slowly sipping at a glass of water, or reviewing some of the notes that he'd had Spencer bring him from his study area back at the house.

He hadn't the heart to have Spencer send a message to let significant others know he'd been recovered safely, as such exchanges would only lead to what he considered to be unnecessary concern; even as it became obvious that he wouldn't be getting back on his feet nearly as quickly as he would have had he been mako-infused, or so 'special' as he had been before. That and he wasn't sure he could take the pity.

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Genesis shooed Talitha away before closing the door and walking over to the bed. While he wished he could waited for Sephiroth to healed, that dream and the memories it stirred did little to quell his own misgivings over the connections between the two worlds.

"It's me, old friend," he said quietly, taking a seat. The gifts of food were glanced at with a slight smile - he knew that Sephiroth was probably not going to touch them unless he could find a way to give them away.

"I felt that this would be a far better time to talk then when others might be still here."

In the gloom of the room, Sephiroth's somewhat lesser-now-than-before green slivers of eyes seemed a lot brighter than they really were. It had been several months since he'd been under the effects of any mako, and given how he was recovering from a condition in which his mortal energy levels were still lower than healthy, it probably went some way in explaining the lack of fire in his gaze.

He pulled an arm out of the sheets though and reached up for the light on the bed stand - though Genesis would probably be in a better position to reach it considering the switch was somewhat behind a small vase.

Sephiroth blinked a few more times, chasing hazy sleep away before answering.

"I wondered if you might be out of town."

"Me? No, I have too much to research and little chance to move outside the library," he replied, giving Sephiroth's hand a light tap before turning on the lamp himself.

He looked thinner in the light, his hair pulled back into a messy ponytail and shadows under his eyes that spoke a little about just how much time he spent with his research. That dream especially had him scrambling to look up names and try to figure out if there was something, anything that could give him a clue, and when he heard Sephiroth was back, well he then thought he had to speak up.

"I was wondering if you had a strange dream."

So instead of turning the light on himself, said arm was bent inwards and over Sephiroth's head some when Genesis moved to turn the light on. Drawing his hand down and briefly over his face, he shuffled somewhat under the sheets, pushing the backs of his shoulders into the pillows so that he wasn't lying as prone but a little more propped up. A sharp pain lanced it's way right through the core of the leg that was plastered up, schooling him against moving very much more with a hiss of a breath baited in response. The sling holding his leg up at a slight angle swayed some but soon came back to a stop.

"A strange dream?" Well, that was hardly the topic of conversation Sephiroth would expect to have been so urgent for Genesis to come in the dead of night like he had. Looking so -Sephiroth quickly noted- harried from what he could only assume was too many hours bent over a book. A steady breath was drawn in as his leg settled once more into the dull throbbing that it tended to have when he first woke up; though not without it's usual wave of nausea.

It was no surprise that a frown started to drop a moment later.

"What's this about, Genesis?"

"I don't know if it was from the crystals that tie us to this place or if it was from the enemy, but it was not something I can ignore," Genesis said, and then explained the dream. He didn't know if Sephiroth had the dream or not, but it felt like he could not just ignore it either. It was too much like something he had thought happened on their world - a group of people playing with something they thought they understood and trapping lives in their schemes. Genesis didn't like it and he was determined to find out any clue from the books deep within the Library.

He took a deep breath, rubbing his face with his hands, looking less like the haughty person he could be and more like someone that was human - human and failing at the edges. He took a deep breath and shook his head. "I want to give you time. I want to let you ask me when you feel more than ready to know, but I don't think we have time. I need to tell you about what happens in our future, and what happened to cause it in our past. I cannot lose you too."

For just a moment it looked obvious, as Genesis recounted it, that Sephiroth had indeed had a similar dream but that moment itself was fleeting. That particular spark of interest was blinked sternly out of his eyes as he continued to regard his friend as he continued. He had dismissed that dream as a product of his own exhaustive state at the time and as such a few of the details hadn't been retained through to consciousness - not surprising at all considering Sephiroth's personal ordeal before he'd been found by the Esdham patrol.

As much as he might well scold himself later for it though, Sephiroth could not help but to feel overly concerned for his once-comrade's well being. Genesis looked tired, and very much spread too thin. It was obvious he couldn't have been eating right, so wound up in his researches that immediately Sephiroth drew parallels within himself; hadn't he been equally obsessed in dispelling the red tape surrounding Project G? He was certain he had never looked as bad as Genesis did in this instance, though.

"Genesis. I-" Cannot lose you too. Had something happened to Angeal? This was the first thought that snapped to the forefront of everything. Sephiroth blinked a few times, shrugged against the pillows as if he might be able to make himself more able to focus on exactly what was in front of him and put his own troubles back where they belonged -out of the way from interfering with his logic.

It felt like this were a scene from a nightmare he might have had, and an odd sense of deja vu was not too far behind. Sephiroth was struck by

"-I'm not sure that I understand you. You look tired-"

Time would make Sephiroth look like him - after all, it was the combined sins of too much research and not enough of everything that had made Sephiroth the wreck of a man in that hidden lab of Hojo's. Genesis had thought that he was going to push the other man into seeing the truth, but instead, he knew now he should have stayed and should have made sure that Sephiroth would not lose himself. Then again, was he so sure it was that alone that made him fall, or had there been other factors he was not certain of?

"I've been pushing myself far too hard," he replied, shrugging as he sat back and took a deep breath. "Angeal is in Stasis, as is Genny, and you know what it's like for me to attempt to cook."

He can cook. The problem was that he tended towards spending all day trying to get a sliced carrot perfect instead of just letting the pieces fall as they would.

"I am talking about the future of the Planet, and of you. I think I need to tell you what happens before something on this planet pushes you the same way."

As with everything Sephiroth, it would be too simple to have been only that one factor alone. He was all together too complicated of a man for that one final push to have done very much if there hadn't been a weight of other things behind it. Things that Sephiroth, would never let on to Genesis, much less anybody else.

In an instant, he forgot completely about his own state of being at the mention of the other two SOLDIER having passed into an indefinite crystal stasis - pushing his hands into the mattress on either side of himself as if he would shake it all off instantly and raise himself up. He regretted that only a split-second later as a hot lance of renewed pain twisted itself inside the damage to his leg. Sephiroth chewed on the inside corner of his mouth and tried to will his racing pulse to slow down again.

It didn't help the deja vu, that sort of otherworldly feeling he was getting from Genesis as he continued. Sephiroth's anger spiked as a result of the entire situation and he blinked hot dots out of his vision, taking a few deep breaths to calm himself down and try to think logically.

"So you think now is the time to bring it up. Haven't we already discussed that it doesn't matter?"

"It doesn't matter right now, however, it may matter if things go wrong," Genesis replied and leaned forward. "I know logically that the future is not set here and yet I know that the future could be echoed here."

He had his theories and some of them might not be right. They might be different or he may be missing pieces of the information or he could be chasing a tale in the wrong direction. But what he did know and what this place may give them, those things were just too close, especially with the dream. That woman was toying with Crystals. She had been toying with people. Who can say that she also was like Hojo in that she was using a piece of the Calamity in her actions.

What if the Black Crystals were actually Crystals infected with the Calamity?

If that was the case, then the night of the 13 Moogles made sense. It made sense that out of the three of them, they would prove to be the strongest of the monsters that the others had to face. After all, it was the Calamity's cells that were a part of them. There was nothing he could do except be gentle in trying to explain a small piece of the puzzle to Sephiroth.

"Do you know why I had attacked ShinRa? Do you know why I went after Hojo?"

It May matter, If things go wrong. Genesis were leaving it incredibly unanimous, and besides, it led to the plain question of How Genesis could really know for sure. All this was simply supposition, overlaying how he knew things developed on Gaia over a could-be entirely unrelated set of circumstances in Crystallis. Never mind the glaring similarities that they both knew existed.

The others- they had spoken of him as if he'd committed a great crime. As if he were the very monster that the Genesis of his time had used, in himself, as an excuse to defect from ShinRa and get so many others to join him as well. Too easily thoughts were drawn back to that day in the plaza, to that night in the clearing; Sephiroth's frown sunk ever deeper between his eyebrows. Having these memories bug at him in the present company wouldn't do, especially in the case of the latter that he had spent a good few months burying away within himself as if he could forget that it had ever happened. He shook his head, unable to shift the tightening knot in his stomach even as he attempted to sit more comfortably and so lessen the growing tension across the top of his shoulders.

"You attacked ShinRa-" Boy, had his thoughts a stretch to go back to retrieve that; it had been over half a year, surely. Those moments before the building had apparently collapsed around him and he had then woken up here. Still, immediately Sephiroth was suspect as to where Genesis might go with this, but at the same time intensely curious. It was very much a case of the fact that he knew he had a right to know, with regard to the future- but was it right for him to know?

"-while my back was turned." Betrayal was quick to sting again as Sephiroth set his jaw and then flicked his eyes back up to Genesis, looking over the other man cautiously. He took a breath then, reminded himself that this Genesis were older, a product of a tumultuous future if all sources were correct.

"Not that I cared, but I can easily imagine it was something to do with Hollander."

"Yes, I did," he said, flicking that aside like it didn't matter. It didn't in his mind, but he had thought that Sephiroth would understand. That he would realize that Genesis did not want to fight his friend on an all too real battlefield. It was one thing to duel in the simulators, another to face off in the real world. Didn't he understand that.

"You were a friend and I did not want to attack you." Genesis looked at him and then his lips curved in a self-mockery at the words. He really was an idiot during that time. "Hollander did point me that way, however, he also did not realize I could read his scrawl upside down."

Genesis looked down at his hands, spreading them out and then delicately plucked the gloves off. Gloves might have protected them from some of the mishaps of swordsmanship, but there were still callouses and healed cuts, the slight enlarged knuckles from spending time holding weapons a certain way, the way the tendons flexed under skin.

"It was because of the experiments, not just of the mako infusions we three all shared in, but more. Did you know that both Hollander and Hojo made use of Calamity cells in trying to create a perfect SOLDIER?"

They had faced off in the bowels of Mako Reactor 5, and it had been Genesis that had held Sephiroth at sword point. At least until they were left alone, and when Rapier was lowered Sephiroth still hadn't struck at Genesis even though there had been ample opportunity- something that Sephiroth had later convinced himself that has all been a part of Genesis' plan. To get him drawn out of Headquarters, out of the way.

Still, Genesis' words reflected entirely what had been Sephiroth's whole intention for suddenly changing tactic where he had furiously refused any prior involvement since Fort Tamblin. The Company had issued an execution, and the Company always got what it wanted. Sephiroth therefore had to take matters into his own hands to attempt to avoid the worst-case scenario. Putting his own flawless reputation on the line at the same time.

He continued to watch his once-comrade as he peeled gloves off, his hands a patchwork of the work they had been trained into. Sephiroth himself bore no such blemishes, or at least he hadn't before arriving to Crystallis and losing the benefits of a life of mako infusion. The fingers of his bound-in left hand twitched a little while he thought about that. Rising his attention to Genesis' face once more, the curiosity within Sephiroth's expression twisted a little more.

"You mean, with regard to Project G?"

"Project G... and Project S."

He looked down at his hands, his fingers twisting the leather glovers, showing a touch of the emotion he was keeping from his voice. Two projects by two different men. Two different approaches and both of them ending in ruins. The only difference was that while Hollander ended up destroyed, it took a very long time for Hojo to fall and even then, he was still around. A taint, a feeling, something inside the stream just like what remained of his former friend Sephiroth.

"Hollander's Project G started first. He infused a woman with cells from the Calamity and then used those cells first on me, and later those cells became a part of Angeal. Hojo saw that the results were not as powerful as they were hoping, so he started Project S."

He met Sephiroth's gaze, willing him to understand the truth, to just this once realize that he meant every word.

"He injected the cells directly into you while you were still in the womb. We three could all claim the Calamity as our mother more than anyone else, but you are closest."

Project...S

All the while that Genesis kept his gaze at his hands, Sephiroth's intense glare might have bored a hole his once-comrade's forehead. Daring him to look up into his eyes as if through those lighter hues Sephiroth might yet be able to tell if he were telling the truth. He had to be lying, either that or whatever source he'd heard it from was flawed; there was no such thing as Project S -presuming that meant "Sephiroth"- at least not in the context Genesis were referring to. He had known, all of his life that he were special...there could well have been a Project given his name, but it wasn't like that. It couldn't be like that.

By the time Genesis did meet his eyes, he might well be able to see the impenetrable wall behind those pale green slitted hues. Typical Sephiroth, though it was a sure indicator of how vulnerable he was feeling in general; for Genesis to attempt to spring something like this on him now was questionable indeed. Quickly, as he continued rabidly to inspect the face turned back up at him, Sephiroth was immediately reminded of the difficulties Genesis must be facing in Crystallis now. Alone and with only Sephiroth left who really knew him.

Stubbornly he blinked a few grades of his stubbornness away and tried to make his expression softer. He didn't succeed very far though, the words that Genesis had voiced might as well have been laced with poison for as bitter as they automatically made him feel. The worst part of it all, there was no way for them to tell, one way or the other. The technology and the evidence of the various projects too were left in a World they had been torn from. As such the unsettling feeling that Genesis were speaking the truth added to the twisting nausea in Sephiroth's gut.

"You go too far, Genesis." But in truth, it was easy to tell that the Silver Warrior's thoughts were racing. The few facts that he knew about the origins of his own existence were stirred and for a long silence Genesis might have thought that some outcomes might prove to be inevitable. It had been a very long time since he had thought about his Mother.

"And you never go far enough," Genesis replied, biting off the words as his eyes narrowed. Oh he recognized the look on his face, the narrowed way he held his gaze. Sephiroth had decided to ignore one fact to go after something he felt was just another dig at him. Genesis just wanted to scream, shaking his former friend and let him know that he was wrong.

How could anyone grow up inside of a lab and not accept that they were just another experiment? That all of SOLDIER, for everything they were told, was nothing more than test subjects in the mind of scientists and administrators who were only looking towards their own greed. If he could get his hands on the files, he would probably flung them at Sephiroth, even though he knew that those files were what pushed him over the edge.

Because they were still altered to make him fall.

"Hojo did not get his place because he perfected mako infusion. That was something they already could do. He got his position because of you, because Gast saw what they had thought was a Cetra was actually Heaven's Dark Harbinger and ran to keep from being eaten by it. Hojo allowed it to eat at him, and he infected others with it, though none as great as you. We are the Calanmity's get even if it's through science and not through biology."

Both of his eyebrows raised at Genesis' quick retort back at him. So much for him having been older and therefore wiser as a result, it was exactly the kind of comment that Sephiroth would have expected from him before. Had probably experienced more than a fair few times in the past as well, when they had their disagreements which were never so long or far between.

The difference this time, there was no Angeal anymore, to temper either of their alpha-personalities when they came to butt heads against each other.

That stern reluctance, that stubborn wall that had formed only became both taller and thicker as Genesis still insisted on spouting the madness that he would have Sephiroth believe. He dropped his gaze from Genesis' face and looked away across the room. If he had been able to, he would have folded his arms- but the sling holding one of them prevented the gesture. For sure he had grown up within the Science Department but that was only for his own health. Sephiroth's childhood had been no smooth ordeal, peppered with complications that required that he'd needed specialist care - but of course Genesis didn't know much of that and Sephiroth wasn't about to share. How Genesis mentioned of Gast, only added to the ignorance his friend had.

"I'm well aware of how that vulture stepped in as soon as he saw an opportunity to advance his own reputation as a scientist. But it's none of my business, nor should it be yours. Hollander is just sore that he lost the race.

"It surprises me that you would believe anything that he told you."

Because clearly, to Sephiroth at least, this was the man that Genesis must have heard the story from. Who else? But the man that had such a grudge that he would use it to destroy everything that Sephiroth held dear and important. Sephiroth kept his gaze adamantly away from Genesis, and steadily exhaled in the meantime. His anger was spiked, he was tense, and needed to calm down.

"Do you really think that all I know comes from the wandering ridiculousness of that man?"

Genesis' voice went from sharp, acid-laced tones to something far more normal as he caught his temper and soothed it down. He still had those moments when his nature got the best of him, but he was getting far better at controlling it instead of letting go rampant. Yes, there was going to be backsliding, but he would always try to catch it and control it after.

"It's been over ten years, fifteen to some people. ShinRa returned to its more humble roots, Hojo and Hollander are no more save as echoes in the Lifestream, we are only notes in files still being found by the heirs of the Planet, if not legends. Do you really think that I would not seek out what I could and actually read it?

"Do not think that I would say these things if I didn't know what was truly happening. I know why Gast fled, I know who he was trying to protect from ShinRa's greed. I even know of Deepground and what Hojo was trying for there, and even what the Turk Valentine was woken to. It is you that is being stubborn of what is because you are still smarting over a betrayal that's in your mind only."

To Sephiroth, it didn't matter that Genesis were ten, or even fifteen years ahead of him in the timeline, all of it boiled down to just one man and that man was Hollander. The man who had managed to take not only Genesis but Angeal as well and turn them both against the Company who wronged him, taking them from friends and trying to make them as enemies in some -he told himself numerous times- pathetic attempt to prove his science was better tha Hojo's.

As soon as those surprisingly-still-raw feelings were touched upon they expanded within Sephiroth's mind like an allergic rash. A large knot were already forming in the depths of his dry throat almost as if he were choking on it and Sephiroth didn't dare to raise his gaze to Genesis as he continued with his explanations. He'd refused to be brought to feeling upset about it at the time, boxed it away and abstained from any involvement with ShinRa's activities to do with either of them- and now for Genesis to call it a betrayal that was only in his mind....how much further did this man who was once his friend want to twist in that barbed dagger?

A deep frown was set between the longer silver bangs as Sephiroth maintained his attention away from Genesis. As if ignoring he were there might make him go away. As if it were a nightmare and he'd wake up in a moment; the cold sweat were already there for sure.

"Give me one good reason to believe you." Sephiroth's reply sounded perhaps more vemon-laced than Genesis were ever used to hearing him speak before, with one notable occasion in their history which had yet to come to pass. The difference this time was that underneath, Sephiroth's flawless logical mind were quickly connecting the dots across both World's, yet at the same time demanding the evidence be presented to support it.

"I have none," he said and sighed, shaking his head. "None save the fact that to a lot of people from our world, you are not a hero but a monster. That crystallized girl one of many who simply got in your way."

There was so much more that he could say, about the Reunion, about the tests and the cloning process Hojo attempted, about the pieces of him that formed from his will, but Genesis decided against it. There was no proof, and he knew that Sephiroth was not even going to listen to him now. His mind was too set in its own way and it would probably only be shaken if he was given the files directly from Hojo's hands, or what he suppose were Hojo's hands. None of which would help him in trying to make Sephiroth understand that he did not want to trigger that decent into madness.

He was tired of losing his friends because of forces outside of his control.

"Calamity cells caused my instability, making the cells eat themselves instead of heal like they were suppose to. They gave me the ability to assimilate mako-infused people and thus turning them into weaker clones, though such a process in turn weakened my body. Angeal did not have that instability, but it still caused him to question his own morality as his cells took control of others. In you, the Calamity retains that ability and more. You have yet to awaken to the knowledge, and the gods help us when you do."

Genesis' comment only made Sephiroth's scowl grow even further, curling his top lip up and deepening his frown. He didn't need to be reminded of the vicious words that had been spat out at him on that day in the main square over a crystallized girl he didn't even know. Considering all that had happened since his own arrival to Crystallis, it was quite enough for Sephiroth to deal with his own concerns regarding his state of being, within his own mind without having so many others also make it their business to exacerbate those same concerns.

He'd likely never forget how he had felt towards the Calamity that one time in the clearing when he'd been made to think differently, apparently under the control of some mystical black crystal. It was easy to make the connection between that and what Genesis were now trying to get him to understand and he didn't like that at all.

A few heavy moments passed and Sephiroth then let a further long drawn out breath out and down himself as he carefully leaned himself back against the pillows. A light headache were already starting to form behind his eyes -no surprise really, considering- and on it's heels came a renewed rush of the exhaustion that had sent him to sleep in the first place.

"I think that you should go. I need to rest."

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#7 | Return from the Brink

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