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sephirthoughts · 7 days ago

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The Ghost of Shinra Manor

Chapter 2 of this

summary: It's been two years since the events of Dirge of Cerberus. Cloud visits his hometown, and investigates a rumor of a ghost, haunting Shinra Manor. If you're surprised by who it turns out to be, you are beyond my power to save, comrade.

tags: g-g-g-ghosts!!! sefikura, sephiroth x cloud, sane!sephiroth (sort of), post advent children, post dirge of cerberus, canon timeline, delusions, intermitten amnesia, low drama, enemies to…whatever the hell they have going on

warnings: references to death, PTSD, child abuse, etc. all of hojo's greatest hits, mention of animal death in the context of ethical subsistence hunting/fishing, canon-typical violence, technical nudity but i didn't describe anything so you'd have to imagine it yourself which is not on me, pervert

rating: teen and up [BE ADVISED: THIS RATING WILL CHANGE]

Part 2: Resurrection

“You!” Cloud roared, lunging forward at lightning speed, to strike a killing blow.

The arc of blue light, from his broad, silver blade passed harmlessly through the spectral neck and cut a long, deep gash in the stone wall, behind it.

The ghost curled up in terror, hugging its head. “Please! Please, don’t!”

“Drop the fucking bullshit, Sephiroth!” Cloud said, readying another strike. “What kind of game are you playing, this time!”

“You…know my name?”

“Fuck you!”

The next arc fanned out vertically, from floor to ceiling, cutting a deep furrow in both, and slammed into the wall, intersecting with the first gash, to make a shape like a crucifix. Dust and bits of masonry rained down around them.

The ghost had thrown up an arm to shield himself from the strike, not that it mattered. His body was even more transparent, now, but that was all. He was otherwise unharmed.

Cloud, on the other hand, hadn’t fared as well. His face was ash grey and slick with cold sweat. The massive sword clattered loudly onto the floor, as he fell to his hands and knees, and coughed up a mouthful of blood. The pain in his chest had turned to piercing agony, that split his ribcage and ripped the breath from his lungs.

“You’re hurt,” said the raspy and ethereal, but increasingly familiar voice.

“Shut...the fuck up,” Cloud panted, blood and drool running from between his lips, to spatter the stone floor with crimson.

The ghost kept its mouth obediently shut and only watched, with a look of anxiety, as he picked up the sword and used it to push himself to his feet.

Wiping his mouth with the back of his gloved hand, Cloud raised his sword again, pointing the blade at the ghost. “What’s happening? What did you do to me!”

“N—nothing. I don’t—wait, stop!”

Cloud swung the sword again, cutting diagonally, with the same result as before. The arc of light passed through the ghost, and bisected the wall again. More dust and larger chunks of masonry crashed down from the ceiling, as Cloud fell to his knees and spit out another mouthful of blood, shaking and gasping for breath.

“You have to stop,” the ghost pleaded, in an indistinct and distorted voice, like a radio frequency cutting in and out. “You’re hurting yourself.”

Cloud struggled doggedly to his feet, again, leaning on the sword for support, as he glared down at the ghost. Something was seriously off, here.

If Sephiroth had managed to resurrect himself, yet again, what would he be doing in the Shinra Manor basement, stark naked and barely corporeal? Shouldn’t he be concocting evil schemes to destroy the world, and popping over to make sure Cloud knew about it, every ten minutes?

Speaking of which, he didn’t seem to recognize Cloud, at all. That could be a deception, but he’d never done anything like that. To be perfectly honest, Cloud found the idea of Sephiroth intentionally putting on this kind of humiliating display, even as a manipulation tactic, almost unthinkable.

“Are you really Sephiroth?” he asked, at last.

The ghost nodded faintly.

“Why are you here? How did you come back?”

“Professor Gast, brought me,” the ghost faltered, apparently confused by the question. “Did the other professor send you?”

“The other professor?”

“Hojo. He sends people, to…” he hesitated and lowered his head. “To train me.”

Cloud frowned. He remembered Aerith telling him, once, that ghosts don’t know they’re dead. They haunt a place they have an emotional attachment to, confused and disoriented, reliving scenes from their lives, while they gradually lose more and more of their memory, and go completely insane.

So, what the hell was this? Was Sephiroth really a ghost? Had he been condemned to haunt Shinra Manor, in torment and misery, till his mind collapsed? Because he fucking deserved it.

“Sephiroth,” he said sharply. Sephiroth jolted and curled up, trembling all over. “Sephiroth. Look at me.”

After a long pause, the silver head slowly came up, and those otherworldly eyes peered out, through the stringy, disheveled hair. His face was gaunt and his eyes had dark circles under them. His perfect lips were pale and cracked. Gone was every trace of pride and entitlement, and bloodthirsty madness. All Cloud saw in those hollow eyes was fear, confusion, and pain.

“I’m so tired,” he said weakly, but he wasn’t talking to Cloud. He was looking straight through him, addressing someone who wasn’t there. “Please, don’t hurt me, anymore. Please…”

Pain shot through Cloud’s chest, again. Different than before. This time, his heart ached with an inexplicable pang of pity for the fallen angel, lying in ruin, at his feet. This pathetic creature, that had been a hero, a god, the most powerful monster on the planet…now nothing but a hollow specter.

Sephiroth had covered his head again, and continued whimpering. His snow-white body was even more diaphanous, now, like a specter made of silk gauze—especially his hands and bare feet.

It occurred to Cloud that he’d never seen Sephiroth’s bare hands or feet, before. Or other parts of his body, for that matter. Without thinking, he took out his black, all-weather cloak and hung it around the wraithlike shoulders.

Sephiroth’s whimpering went quiet. His trembling stilled. The white hand that reached out, to pull the garment tighter around him, appeared more solid than it had, only a second before.

Cloud didn’t notice any of it. He was deep in thought, debating with himself, about what to do.

One way or another, he had to get to the bottom of why this son of a bitch was back, and in this state. He couldn’t put other lives at risk, by leaving him unsupervised, in the meantime, but he’d be damned if he hung around this fucking miserable place, while he was figuring out how to kill him for good. He sighed and shook his head. He’d just have to take him prisoner.

“Sephiroth,” he said, turning back to the huddled lump of cloak. “Can you walk?”

Sephiroth blinked slowly, then his eyes finally seemed to focus on Cloud’s face. “Walk?”

“Yes. Walk. We have to get out of here. Get up.”

Sephiroth just stared blankly at him, so Cloud grabbed his wrists and hauled him to his feet. He was startled to find that the man weighed practically nothing. Despite his outsized height and visible muscle mass, it was like pulling up a small child.

And in fact, Cloud suddenly found himself looking down into the face of a child, of no more than eight or nine. A pale and hollow-cheeked little boy, with Sephiroth’s cat eyes and silver hair, only just barely chin length. Cloud’s cloak, now much too big, covered his little body like a tent, and trailed all over the floor. Cloud leapt back, with an alarmed exclamation, but the boy had got hold of his wrist.

“Please, don’t leave me,” he said, as tears started in his huge, blue-green eyes. “I’ll be good, I promise! Please don’t let them hurt me!”

“What the fuck is going on? Why are you like this, now?” Cloud demanded, as he tried to shake the boy off (to no avail; despite his small size, his grip was like a steel clamp).

“Please, you have to help me! They’re coming!”

Cloud heard a noise and whipped around, to see that the room had changed completely. It was still one of these stone-walled basement labs, but it was well-lit and filled with glowing green mako tanks, medical equipment, and a big, steel exam table, in the center.

He reeled, as reality spun sideways. It was that room. The room where they’d kept him and tortured him for all those years. The noise had been the door banging open, to admit two scientists in white coats, followed by a few lab techs, and a bunch of troopers, with assault rifles. One of them seemed to be carrying a heavy sledgehamer.

“Subject S is prone to tantrums. That fool Gast turned him into a spoiled brat, but we will correct his behavior, eventually,” Hojo’s grating, nasal voice said. “For now, if he’s uncooperative, he can be strapped down or sedated.”

Cloud staggered back a few steps and sat down hard against a mako tank, clutching his stomach, like he’d been shot. His face was grey and he’d broken into a cold sweat. The boy was sobbing and yanking his arm, trying to pull him back to his feet, when the troopers grabbed him.

“No! No!” he screamed, clinging desperately to Cloud. “Don’t let them hurt me! Help me! Help me!”

Cloud just stared, dazed and helpless, as they dragged him away. The boy howled and thrashed, but he was no match for all the big men, who threw away the cloak and held him down, strapping his arms and legs to the steel table. The same table Cloud had been strapped to, over and over again.

The boy’s wailing cut off in a muffled gurgling sound, as the lab techs shoved a bite-gag in his mouth, and buckled it tightly around his head. Another placed an IV needle in his arm, hooked up to a bag of clear fluid. Others stuck monitor leads all over his body.

Hojo was tapping a syringe, full of green sludge. “Of course, the subject must be kept conscious, for pain threshold assessment. I find that a solution of mako and epinephrine, in a glucose matrix, will keep him passably alert through most tests.”

The other lab-coated scientist observed and took notes, as he injected the eerily glowing liquid into the I.V. bag. The boy was still looking pleadingly at Cloud, tears streaming from his eyes, as they turned that radioactive mako-green.

“Trooper, if you will,” Hojo said.

The burly trooper who was lugging that sledgehammer, approached and stood at the foot of the exam table. Not a single person in the room objected, or even flinched, as he raised it above his head.

It came down on the boy’s shin, with a sickening crack. The boy thrashed and struggled, screaming into the gag, foaming at the mouth, while the heart monitor and other equipment went crazy, sounding a cacophony of alarms.

“As you can see, the subject has not lost consciousness. Ideal for self-reporting pain levels, as his healing factor is assessed, as well,” Hojo remarked blandly, as if he were teaching a class. “Trooper. The other leg.”

The man hoisted the hammer again.

“No… No! NO!!”

Dashing away the tears that had blurred his vision, Cloud leapt to his feet and charged, swinging his sword in a deadly arc, to cleave the trooper’s head in two. The blue light split the man cleanly down the center, as well as the exam table and even the lab itself.

The entire scene whirled away and dissipated, like fog in a gust of wind.

Cloud blinked around in the suddenly much darker room. Everything was back to the way it had been, before, with his sword embedded upright in the floor, and the huge slashes he’d made, in the wall, floor, and ceiling.

The boy was huddled on the rubble-strewn floor, approximately where he had been strapped to the table, trembling and whimpering. Cloud picked up the cloak and wrapped it back around his naked body, then took the weeping child in his arms.

“It’s ok. It’s ok, now. I’ve got you,” he said hoarsely, as his own tears wetted the silver hair.

“What if they come back,” the boy sobbed. “They’ll take me away!”

“I won’t let them. I won’t let them hurt us, ever again.”

He sniffled, looking timidly up at Cloud. “They hurt you, too?”

“Yeah. But they’re all dead, now. They can’t hurt anyone, anymore.”

Cloud began to smooth the matted hair back from his forehead, then his hand froze. As if he’d only just realized what he was doing, he jerked away and stood abruptly, staring down at the ghost, which had resumed its adult form.

This was Sephiroth, the man who murdered his mother and his friend. But his emotions were in utter chaos, at the moment, because Sephiroth was also that little boy in the lab, terrified and desperate and in pain. Just like Cloud had been, when he was held captive in this place.

How much of that had been real, though? Had Sephiroth really been tortured, as a child, in that same room, on that very same table? He knelt down again and lifted the hem of the cloak, but the leg that had been horrifically broken, a moment ago, was intact, without so much as a bruise.

“It only hurts while I’m remembering,” Sephiroth said.

Cloud frowned. “What?”

“You were checking to see if my leg is broken, right? It only hurts while I’m remembering.”

“That thing that happened, was it real?”

He nodded. “Only, you weren’t there, before. But I’m glad you were, this time. You woke me up, before they hurt me more.”

“What usually happens?”

“They break both my legs, then my arms. The professor asks me questions to test how lucid I am. Then they put me in a mako tank to recover. I wake up from it, after that.”

Cloud could think of no way to respond to such a matter-of-fact recounting of hideous abuse, so he moved on. “How did you take me into the memory, with you?”

Sephiroth’s brow knit, in confusion. “I don’t know. I don’t know why any of this is happening.”

“Nevermind, just—don’t start crying again.”

The man dutifully blinked back his impending tears, like a chastised child. Now that Cloud thought about it, he lookedlike his adult self, but he was talking and behaving in an oddly childish manner, and didn’t seem to remember Cloud. Maybe he only appeared grown up, and had mentally regressed?

Whatever the case, there was nothing but baseless speculation to go on, at the moment, so he decided to table the issue, and deal with the situation as it evolved.

For now, the plan hadn’t changed. He still had to keep Sephiroth under strict supervision, while he figured things out. If he really had regressed to childhood, that might actually work to Cloud’s advantage. A young, frightened Sephiroth had to be easier to deal with, than a fully matured, homicidal-lunatic Sephiroth. Right?

“We’re getting out of here,” he said, decisively. “Can you walk?”

Sephiroth nodded and staggered to his feet.

Cloud pulled his sword out of the stone floor, where it was embedded several inches deep, and slapped it onto its holster.

“Wait,” Sephiroth said, as Cloud made to exit the room. “You didn’t tell me your name.”

Cloud glanced back at him. “It’s Cloud.”

Sephiroth smiled, and despite his ghastly and bedraggled appearance, somehow managed to look like heaven’s gentlest angel. “Nice to meet you, Cloud.”

“Right,” Cloud snorted. “Let’s move.”

There was still no sign of monster activity, in the basement, and aside from the long and tedious climb up the ladder, they made it to the upper floor, without incident. The moment they stepped out of the room into the hallway, Sephiroth grabbed Cloud’s arm, with an icy-cold hand, to stop him.

“Be cautious,” he whispered. “The doors are all broken. The monsters must’ve got out.”

It hadn’t occurred to Cloud that it might’ve been Sephiroth, who had shut the fiends up in those rooms. He shook his hand off and moved away a step. “I broke the doors down and killed all the monsters. It was you, that trapped them in there? Why?”

“I’m not afraid of them. It's only that they’re always shrieking and throwing things at me. I watched them and learned that they can’t go through solid things, so I tricked them into chasing me into the rooms. All I had to do was hide behind the door, then slip out and shut them in.”

“Why didn’t you just kill them?”

Sephiroth lowered his eyes, almost looking ashamed. “I don’t…like killing things. When the professor locks me in the training room with monsters, I have to kill them, or I won't be allowed to come out. But I don’t like it.”

“What kind of monsters?”

“Experiments he wants to dispose of. Mostly mid-sized ones, like hellhounds, blood tastes, or makonoids. One time…there was a behemoth. But I was allowed to have a weapon for that fight, or it probably would’ve killed me.”

“You weren’t allowed have a weapon, when you fought the other monsters?”

“Only my brain and my bare hands.”

“What kind of sick shit is that?”

“The professor says it will teach me to be resourceful, and think on my feet.”

Cloud was too disgusted by that very Hojo-like reasoning to reply, and he wouldn’t know what to say, anyway. He just turned and hopped down off the landing, into the foyer. Sephiroth stepped into the air and vanished, reappearing beside him.

Cloud scowled. “How’d you take the cloak with you, when you did that?”

The man didn’t seem to hear him. He was gazing up at the half-collapsed ceiling, looking beleaguered. “What happened to the manor? When did it become like this?”

Cloud ignored him, in turn, and continued out the front door. When Sephiroth came to the doorway, however, he stopped dead in his tracks. His eyes went hazy and unfocused, and for a long moment, he stood gazing off into the middle-distance.

“What are you doing? Come on,” Cloud prompted, impatiently.

Sephiroth didn’t answer. He only lowered his head, looking despondent, not acknowledging or making eye contact with him. As if he couldn’t see or hear him, at all.

“For fuck’s sake.” Cloud went back, grabbed his wrist, and dragged him out the door. That seemed to snap him back out of whatever fugue he’d fallen into, just now.

“Cloud,” he said, with a relieved smile.

Cloud’s jaw muscles twitched, to hear that voice speak his name, in that tone. But he had a theory as to why Sephiroth had been unable to pass through the door. “No more screwing around. Stop worrying about what you see, and just follow me.”

Outside, tiny, granular flakes of snow were being driven sideways in a dry, icy-cold wind. Sephiroth wrapped the cloak more securely around his naked body, so it wouldn't be blown open. He didn’t look around or ask any more questions, though. He just kept his head down and followed, as Cloud led him through the overgrown garden, toward the rusty gates.

A little way down the dirt road, Cloud turned to cut through the woods, following his own trail homeward. He was as surefooted as a mountain goat, even on this rough, uneven terrain, in the darkness of the forest, but Sephiroth stumbled repeatedly.

Several times, he managed to fall into brambles, and every time he did, his long hair got tangled in the thorny branches, so Cloud had to pull him out again, and untangle him. Finally, he lost patience, picked him up, and slung him over his shoulder like a sack of rice.

“This is…humiliating,” Sephiroth said dejectedly, but he made no attempt to free himself.

For the rest of the two-mile walk, neither said anything. Sephiroth just hung there, over Cloud’s shoulder, letting his long, silver hair trail in the dirt.

It was a bit unsettling, because his body was cold, but the upside of the ghost business was, he was light as a feather. Even un-augmented, Cloud could’ve carried him easily. As a result, they made excellent time.

“Where are we?” Sephiroth asked, peering sluggishly about, when Cloud set him down, outside the cabin.

“My place.” Cloud unlocked and opened the door. “Go on.”

The six-foot seven-inch tall man had to stoop a little, to pass through the low doorway. Cloud shut the door behind them and switched on the electric lights, but Sephiroth flinched, throwing an arm up to shield his eyes, as if they were unbearably bright. Cloud sighed and turned them back off, lighting the gas lantern on the table, instead.

“Better?” he inquired sarcastically.

“Yes, thank you,” Sephiroth answered, in earnest. “This is your home?”

“No. It’s a hunting cabin. You’re covered in dirt and shit, from falling into every fucking briar patch in the Nibel region. You bathe first.”

So saying, Cloud opened the linen cabinet and tossed him a towel. It struck him in the chest and fell to the floor. He blinked down at it, then up at Cloud, who crossed his arms impatiently. Looking sheepish, Sephiroth bent down and picked up the towel.

“Shower’s in there,” Cloud said, jerking his chin at the bathroom door. “Doubt I have any clothes that’ll fit you, but I’ll try to dig something up.”

Sephiroth’s hand, which had picked up the towel, just fine, passed directly through the bathroom doorknob, several times, before he managed to grasp and turn it.

Cloud felt a headache coming on. This was going to be a lot more like taking care of a kid than he’d bargained for, which was exactly what he came up here to avoid.

After his semi-spectral charge had vanished into the bathroom, he busied himself with building a fire, then rummaged around in the cabinet, till he found some baggy sweatpants, with the elastic waistband worn out, and an old t-shirt, that was a few sizes too big for him.

Good enough. That was as much as Sephiroth should expect from him, as far as clothing. He was not a guest, he was a prisoner. Also, Cloud would be damned if he was giving the giant bastard any of his underwear to stretch out.

At that point, it occurred to him that he still hadn’t heard the shower running. The bathroom door was open, so he went over and peered in.

As he had suspected, Sephiroth was not bathing. He was curled up in the bathtub, apparently fast asleep, still wrapped up in Cloud’s cloak. His white face was smudged with dirt, and his silver hair was hanging over the side of the tub, onto the floor, with bits of brambles and dry leaves clinging to it.

He looked so ridiculously pitiful, that Cloud was tempted to laugh. He briefly debated just leaving him like that, but that would mean he’d have to forgo his own shower, and he wasn’t about to make that sacrifice, for this asshole.

“Sephiroth,” he said loudly. “What are you doing?”

The man jolted awake. “C—Cloud. I had trouble, turning on the water. I must’ve…fallen asleep.”

“How is your hair corporeal enough to collect dirt and leaves, but your hand can’t turn a shower knob?” Cloud groused, as he set the sweatpants and shirt on the closed lid of the toilet.

“I don’t know,” Sephiroth answered dismally. “I don’t know why I’m like this.”

Cloud pointed at the clothes. “Those are for you. Give me my cloak. I’ll turn the water on.”

Sephiroth seemed reluctant to give up the cloak, whether from modesty, or some other reason, but he shrugged it off and dutifully handed it over. Despite his semi-prurient curiosity, Cloud kept his eyes studiously above the neck, not even peeking at Sephiroth's naked body, while he turned the knob for the shower, to the middle setting. The water didn’t heat instantly, however, and came out ice-cold. Sephiroth had no reaction whatsoever, to being suddenly doused in frigid water.

“Don’t worry, it heats up fast,” Cloud explained, anyway. “When you’re done, go dry your hair by the fire. Nights get cold, up here. It’s not healthy to leave it wet.”

Without looking at him again, he left the bathroom, shutting the door behind him. Then he thought the better of that, and reopened it, halfway.

Some time later, he heard the water shut off, so he guessed Sephiroth had figured out the knob, after all. When the man emerged, Cloud was stirring a pot of canned chicken-noodle soup, on the stove. He turned around, to say something, and failed to suppress a snort of laughter.

That t-shirt was shrink-wrapped to his torso, and the faded Gold Saucer logo was stretched and distorted, across his massive chest. The hem just barely reached his belly-button, and would expose his whole abdomen, if he raised his arms. The sweatpants, which were long and baggy on Cloud, fit Sephiroth like a pair of calf-length joggers, except they were visibly too loose at the waist, and hung about his hips, with the drawstring cinched, to keep them from falling off.

“Wow,” Cloud said, eyeing him up and down. “You look…really stupid.”

Sephiroth only lowered his eyes and tugged self-consciously at the hem of the shirt, which annoyed Cloud more than if he’d had something snappy to say back.

“Your hair’s dripping all over the floor,” he scolded. “Go sit by the fire, till it’s dry.”

Going obediently to the fireplace, Sephiroth sat cross-legged on the woven rug. Cloud ostensibly returned his attention to stirring the soup, but he kept turning, to steal glances at the man. He couldn’t help it.

His erstwhile greatest enemy, who he had personally killed on multiple occasions, was sitting on his rug, wearing his old clothes, and carefully rubbing his long, silver hair with a pink-striped towel. It was a bizarre situation, to say the least.

When the soup began to bubble, Cloud ladled some into an enameled tin bowl, stuck a camp spoon in it, and set it on the floor, in front of Sephiroth. “Eat. I’m going to shower.”

There were little bits of leaves in the bottom of the bathtub, because of course there were. Cloud was feeling petty, and added it to his list of grievances against his captive. Then he turned the water on steaming hot, and stood gratefully under it, letting the cold and stiffness melt from his muscles, while he considered what to do next.

He really wanted to just kill this bastard, but it’s not like he hadn’t tried that. Until he figured out why his attacks had backlashed on him, he had to be more careful. His body was still sore all over, from the internal injuries, and he had no intention of handicapping his combat efficiency, with Sephiroth around.

The most logical option would be to turn him over to the authorities, except that with Shinra gone, there weren’t really any authorities to turn him over to. Aside from the WRO, that is, and Cloud wouldn’t get them involved unless he had no other choice.

His captive seemed to be docile and disoriented at the moment, but this was Sephiroth. He was a nuclear bomb on a hair-trigger, that could become extremely dangerous, at any moment. Cloud didn’t want to put any more innocent people in harm’s way.

No, he decided. He would handle Sephiroth, himself. He knew very well that he was the link that kept the prick coming back, so it was only right that he should be the one to deal with him, when he did. It was his responsibility.

He would have preferred to do it that way, all along, it’s just that every time the man appeared, he made a huge fucking scene, so everyone else got involved. This time, no one knew he was back, but Cloud. If he could figure out how to get rid of him, on his own, all the better.

If worse came to worst, they could die together, and finally put an end to this cycle of madness, he thought grimly.

When he came out of the bathroom, after his lengthy shower, in his properly sized black t-shirt and sweatpants, Sephiroth was curled up on the rug, fast asleep again. Like a big dog.

The bowl of soup was sitting exactly where Cloud left it, untouched and long gone cold. He took it back to the stove and dumped it in the pot, to reheat it, then sat at his camp table and ate the whole pot of soup himself, with some bread and farmer’s cheese, he’d bought in town. If Sephiroth didn’t want to eat, it wasn’t his problem. He wasn’t going to force his own food on this prick.

When he was done, he washed the dishes, brushed his teeth, and piled more wood on the fire. With the gas lantern switched off, the place was illuminated only by the orange-gold glow from the fireplace, Cloud noted, with an eerie chill, that the clothing Sephiroth was wearing cast a shadow, across the floor, but his body did not.

He began to climb into bed, then hesitated. It’d freeze, tonight, if it didn’t straight-up storm, and the cabin would be cold, after the fire died down. Especially on the floor.

Sephiroth was his prisoner and probably didn't feel the cold much, anyway, but all captives were entitled to be treated with basic human decency. Even the delusional ghosts of psychotic mass-murderers.

Ugh. Stupid conscience. Grumbling inwardly, Cloud went and pulled another wool blanket from the cedar trunk, which he laid over Sephiroth. There. That was all he was obligated to do.

Annoyed with himself for his softness, he climbed in under his own blankets, and prepared himself for a long night. He was never able to sleep with another person in the room, and this particular person was Sephiroth, the very cause of much of his persistent insomnia. He kind of wished he’d brought a book.

That was his last coherent thought, however, because he was fast asleep, almost the moment his head hit the pillow.

A little while after Cloud had drifted off, and his breathing became soft and regular, a pair of big, pale-blue eyes, with catlike pupils, opened and fixed their gaze on his sleeping face. They remained fixed on him, unblinking, for the next six hours and fourteen minutes.

When the young man began to stir, the eyes closed, a beat before his opened—just in time for him to miss it, entirely.

THE AUTHOR HAS SOMETHING TO SAY

cloud: fuck this bastard he deserves whatever hell he gets

cloud: welp, time to get him a hot shower and cook him dinner

5 notes · View notes

kizzer55555 · 6 months ago

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Core Gems

So when a ghost becomes injured, they have a last ditch defense where they retreat into their core. And I mean, injured badly where their body is rip apart to the point they can’t hold a solid form anymore. And they basically go into a hibernation state until they are strong enough to form again.

Ellie, Danny, and Dan are all injured in a final battle against the GIW. The organization was destroyed and the ghosts were safe but the halfas ended up being so injured that they reverted to core form and then went to sleep for a bit. When they woke up, they were still weak but at least recovered enough to gain consciousness. And realize…they are in some kind of auction…in the middle of a heist. It appeared that two furries (one in a bat costume and one in a cat costume) were ducking it out. And they…they were a necklace. All three of them had been turned into a necklace with their cores as gems accompanied by sapphires, pearls, and opals. And frankly gorgeous craftsmanship as the metal was crafted around their cores as if to cradle them and the other gems.

Unfortunately, they were too weak to take a form properly, they could still feel the strain on their bodies. But at least they could still communicate through their auras. Then the cat lady punched a hole in the glass container surrounding them and grabbed their necklace.

However, the bat grabbed the other end and it resulted in a sort of tug-a-war. Meanwhile, Danny, Ellie, and Dan were having a back and form commentary on the situation and what they should do. Completely unheard by the other party.

In the corner of their eye, the three halfas finally noticed a third contender. Some kind of clown who was…hold on…holding a gun?! And it was pointed straight at the two fighting furies who had yet to notice him. The ghosts’ protective instincts went into overdrive and they frantically tried to shout, yell, move. Just do something to warn the two but their cries fell on deaf ears. All they succeeded in doing was faintly glow which immediatly caught the attention of the fighting duo. The two turned to look at the strange necklace but right at that moment, the clown fired and a gunshot rang throughout the auction room. Having no other options, Danny and the others poured every ounce of ectoplasm they had to try and phaseshift, making the two furries intangible as the bullets passed right through them, but in their shock, the two jumped away in opposite directions and accidentally ripped the necklace apart. Gems and pearls went flying and the three cores bounced along the ground.

Luckily, the two finally noticed the clown and went to deal with him and his minions who had appeared. Seemingly putting their fight on hold and forming a temporary truce. The three halfas could only watch as the battle finally wound down, ending with the cops barging into the place and arresting the clown and his grunts, the cat managing to escape with half the scattered gems and pearls from the broken necklace along with a few other jewelry pieces (none of their cores though) and the bat leaving through a skylight.

The auction continued and in the end, despite being broken, their necklace seemed to have caught someone’s interest. A man named Bruce Wayne bought up every piece of the shattered jewelry wear. The auctioneers appeared relived that the item managed to sell in the end and gratefully gave it to him.

Bruce had no idea what happened at the auction, but he could have sworn that some of the gems faintly glowed right before he and Selina were shot. If the necklace was some sort of magical item, then he needed to understand exactly what has been brought to Gotham. It was unfortunate that Selena had taken some parts of the necklace but he utilized his vast wealth to make sure all the other parts ended in his possession. Now he would take them back to the mansion for examination.