Destined to be Together
FOUR
Four
years later…
Sephiroth, at six years
old, toddled into the laboratory where he spent much of his time, time that most
children his age would be spending outside, playing.
Midgar had been his home since he was less than a year
old, he could not remember the small mountain village where he was born.
All he did know was that he was Special.
He had no parents, Professor Hojo had told him that they had died just
after he was born and with no relations, he was property of Shinra.
That usually meant being raised by the nursery to later become schooled
in some field useful to the Shinra Corporation.
Not that Sephiroth knew any of this.
He had never seen the nursery. As
far as he knew, he was the only parentless child in the entire world, so he was
Professor Hojo’s “special assistant”.
Sometimes it was fun, like playing with the baby.
Other times it was not so fun, like getting shots of bright blue liquid,
but Sephiroth didn’t cry, he wasn’t allowed to, not in Hojo’s presence.
Infalna
sat in a large blue glass cylinder cage, crying silently.
Aeris, no longer a baby, but a small child of four slept in another one
on the other side of the room. Sephiroth
had gone to Infalna’s room, a small bedroom with a locked door just to say
hello through the door, but when he’d knocked for a few minutes, it was
evident that she wasn’t inside. That
meant she was in the lab, being questioned by Hojo.
Sephiroth looked around; Hojo was nowhere to be seen.
“Infalna… why do
you cry,” Sephiroth asked, placing his hand up to the glass.
Sniffling slightly,
Infalna whispered, “I cannot hold my daughter from here.”
Sephiroth glanced at
the sleeping girl, “Why are you in there, is something wrong with your
room?”
She shook her head,
“No darling, I made Hojo angry and he put me in here as a punishment.”
“You must have done
something really bad, to get a time out.”
The corner of her mouth
twitched into a smile, “You are so sweet, you know I love you.”
Sephiroth grinned, “I
love you too… and Aeris.” He
felt that it did not hurt his dead mommy if he loved Infalna, he figured that
she’d want him to be loved, and the best way to be loved seemed to be to love
someone back.
The young girl stirred
then got up, “Mommy? Mommy?”
“I’m here Aeris,
don’t cry, I’m over here.”
Aeris banged on the
door with tiny hands, “I want out, I wanna play, Seph!!
She put her hands on her hips and looked at him with a frustrated
expression, “Seph!! Open!!
Pleeese?”
She was too cute to not
obey her every request and Sephiroth did know how to open it, he must have
watched Hojo a million times, “I’m not sure I’m s’posed to…”
Her eyes began to tear
up, “But I want to play… am I in twuble?
Was I bad?”
“No darling, I
was,” Infalna said, her own eyes shining wet.
“No more being bad
mommy, I can’t play when you’re bad…” Aeris sighed heavily, but the
tears stopped flowing.
“That’s all right
Aeris,” Hojo said, coming off of the elevator, “I think your mother has
learned her lesson, she won’t insult me anymore, and I won’t confine you
both to cages.” He punched numbers
in on the keypad and Aeris’s door opened.
She ran out with a squeal and jumped into Sephiroth’s arms, “Seph!!
Can we play monsters?!”
Sephiroth smiled down
at her and nodded. She ran behind a
large box and began snarling. Sephiroth
paused to watch Hojo open Infalna’s cage.
He stepped in, leaning over her, whispering harshly.
She glared up at him, hatred plain on her face.
He hauled her to her feet, hissing, “Do you understand me?”
She jerked her arm away
from him, “Perfectly.”
She walked out and
stopped by Sephiroth, “Play Sephiroth, she’ll cry if you don’t, boys
aren’t supposed to make girls cry.” She
kissed his cheek gently and headed for her room.
Hojo walked around the
inside of the cage, picking up the food tray and a glass from the floor before
exiting the lab the way he’d come.
“But Professor Hojo
made her cry…” Sephiroth whispered.
“ROAR!” Aeris
squealed, tackling Sephiroth, “I’m a big scary monster and I gotcha!”
Four more years later…
Sephiroth had learned
that he wasn’t the only one without parents.
Once he was old enough, he began attending training classes to learn how
to fight. The only other person in
his class was a small, dark featured, quiet Wutai-an boy named Tseng, who was
eleven, a year older than Sephiroth. The
two became fast friends, often with Aeris tagging along on their time off from
class. The young girl grew quickly
and was pretty now instead of cute. Her
mother had the same angelic beauty and her depressed quiet manner never changed.
Sephiroth knew at his
mature age of ten that Hojo was not a good man, he was clever, and a very hard
worker, but he was a bad man. Sephiroth
couldn’t like a man that hurt the only people he loved in the world, but there
was nothing he could do about it. So
he trained hard, hoping that one day he could fight for their freedom and they
could be safe. Maybe Infalna could
pretend she was his mother, and they could move to some place where there were
no such things as laboratories, and where the sky was above them and not a plate
of metal. Sephiroth had first seen
the sky when he was eight, never had he seen anything so big, or so he thought,
then he saw the ocean, they both went on forever it seemed.
Sephiroth knocked on
the door of Infalna’s chamber. She
was no longer locked in, just checked in on randomly, “Come in, Sephiroth.”
The doorknob turned in
his hand and Aeris stood in the doorway, “I’ve been waiting for you!”
Sephiroth brushed past
her and went strait to Infalna, “How are you feeling?”
She smiled warmly,
“Much better than yesterday, Love, and you?”
Sephiroth was about to speak when Aeris
pushed him over, “You’re supposed to say ‘hello’ to me first, I met you at the door, it’s
polite.”
“More polite than
pushing someone when they are talking to your mother?”
Aeris seemed to ponder
this, “You started it, you were rude first!”
Sephiroth looked down
at the fierce expression on her face and smiled, “Yes, I am sorry, forgive
me?” He opened his arms for a hug.
Aeris’s face broke
into a grin and she ran into his arms, “I’m sorry too!”
Infalna enveloped them
both in a hug, “My wonderful little angels!”
Sephiroth looked
confused, “I thought only girls could be angels…”
“Well…” Infalna
reassured him, “you have at least one wing and half a halo, how’s that?”
“A one winged
angel?” Aeris giggled, “He’d fly funny.”
“All right you two go
on and play, I’m tired, I need a nap,” Infalna sat down on her narrow bed
and watched them go.
Tseng was walking along
through the barracks hallway, minding his own business when he was floored.
Sitting on his back was his attacker, Aeris, giggling down at him, “Hi,
Tseng! Me and Sephiroth have been
looking for you!”
Regaining his footing,
Tseng stood, lifting Aeris with him on his back, “Well, unfortunately for my
spine, you found me.”
“Come on Tseng, you
know you like her attention,” Sephiroth snickered.
“Tseng,” Aeris
squealed, gripping his shoulders for the piggyback ride, “put me down, I want
to talk to you, it’s portant!”
“You mean
important,” he corrected, setting her on the ground.
“So what!” Aeris
said, “I wanna ask you something… when I grow up big and get pretty like my
mommy, will you be my wife?”
“Huh?”
“I think she’s a
little confused,” Sephiroth told Tseng.
“And you too!!” she
squealed, “I want Seph to be my wife too!”
“You can’t marry me
and Sephiroth, Aeris,” Tseng explained, “just one of us.”
Sephiroth grinned,
“Yeah, you have to pick one, and only one.”
He was surprised to realize that if she picked Tseng, he’d be jealous.
Aeris’s face went
serious, looking from one to the other and back again.
After a few moments, she looked down and her shoulders lifted in a big
sigh.
“Well?” Sephiroth
said softly.
Tseng eyed his
competition.
Aeris looked up at them
again, “No one. If I can’t have
both, I don’t want one, I’d feel sad if I hurt the one I didn’t pick,
girls aren’t supposed to make boys cry neither.
I love you both too much for that.”
Tseng brightened, but
Sephiroth wasn’t fazed, “I love you too, Aeris.”
She jumped into his
arms and he lifted her above his head, impossible for most ten year olds, but
Sephiroth had been genetically strengthened by the shots that Hojo gave him.
Aeris squealed and giggled loudly as he spun her around.
“Showoff,” Tseng
grumbled.
Infalna sat near the
window, gazing out at nothing. Absolutely
nothing, there was nothing to see, just a desolate wasteland buried in filth and
hidden from the sky. It had been so
many years since she’d seen the sky. It
pained her that her daughter may never see it.
She had overheard Sephiroth’s description of it after his first seeing
it, Aeris had been inspired. A light
tapping on her window made her jump.
“Darry!?”
He grinned, gripping
her windowsill, “Didn’t think you’d remember me.”
“Come in!
How did you get here?”
“No time,” he
struggled, “I’m in the library, the 62nd floor, and I stand
outside Mayor Domino’s door and do absolutely nothing.
I’ve come to break you out.”
“Okay, now you are
definitely coming in here to talk to me.”
She helped him in the
window, glanced around to make sure no one had seen, and closed it.
He enveloped her in a
great hug, “Darlin’ what has been happening to you?”
Infalna sank into his
arms, feeling comforted for the first time in eight years, “What do you
mean?”
“The girl I saw last
was young, vibrant, energetic, full of emotion; Special… the woman I see
before me is tired, sad, hurt, and lonely. Tell
me. Has that bastard animal butcher
been hurting you?”
“No, not like that,
just the same questions, blood tests, constant badgering.
He won’t stop. I even know
what he has planned. He has
genetically altered a little boy, the sweetest, strongest boy ever with alien
genes, a horrible alien that murdered my people.
He is two years older than Aeris; Hojo plans to mate them when she’s
old enough. Like animals, he wants
to create the perfect being that has no human weaknesses, Cetra blood, and a way
into the Promised Land. Then he’ll
kill me.”
Darry’s fists
clenched and his face was grim, “I knew he was doing something terrible, you
don’t know the worry that I’ve been going through since you two
disappeared.”
“Jonathan… he—” Infalna broke down in silent tears, remembering
the last time she saw him.
“I know,” Darry
said softly, “we gave him a proper burial, like every decent man deserves, the
whole village went, he was well loved, everyone asked after you.
They pooled together money, but it didn’t get me far.
Eight years. I tracked Hojo
to Neibelheim. That place was not
very cooperative to talking about Shinra; I finally made it here and could not
get into the building. I’ve lived
here; watching, working, and then finally, I got a job inside the building and
worked my way up to Domino’s guard.”
Infalna looked at him
incredulously, “You didn’t climb up five stories outside there, did you?”
“No,” Darry
laughed, “I stole Domino’s keycard and had a copy made.
Right now he’s out to lunch, so I came up four flights then crawled up
to your window, only one story.”
“Thank you Darry, not
just coming to my rescue, but for everything, Jonathan would have loved to know
that everyone in town cared so much,” Infalna’s eyes watered.
“Alright, down to
business, is there any way that you can get yourself out of being checked in on
at random?”
“The only time I’m
never checked on is when I’m in the cage in the lab, the locks are keypads, on
the outside, no chance of me picking the lock,” Infalna explained.
“Wait, I just got an idea…”
The three kids walked
into Infalna’s room to find her rushing around, laughing to herself every now
and then, gazing out the window, and then rushing around some more.
“Mommy?” Aeris
stepped in timidly.
“Aeris!
Sephiroth, I need to speak with you alone, Aeris, go show Tseng that
picture that Hojo let you put up on the announcement board, the one of you
sliding down a rainbow.”
“Oh yeah!” Aeris
squealed, “Come on Tseng, I wantcha to see it.”
She grabbed his hand and dragged him off.
“What do you need,”
Sephiroth asked curiously, she was never this happy, she’d told him about
Professor Gast, he was sorry he would never learn from him.
“I need your help,
Love. I have a friend that can get
us out, me and Aeris, I want to take you with me as well, is that okay with
you?”
Sephiroth’s eyes felt
wet as he took in all she said. He
leaned into her and hugged her tightly, “Tell me what I need to do.”
Hojo had Sephiroth
sitting on an examining table wearing only his pants, giving him his weekly
physical checkup, “Have you been training hard Sephiroth, your instructors say
you could be head of Soldier before your 18th birthday.”
Sephiroth flexed his
biceps, large for a ten year old, but everyone said he’d grow into them, “I
train as hard as I can, but I never seem to break a sweat until they bring in
the extra guards to spar with me. I
prefer more that three.”
“Perfect, perfect,”
Hojo said gleefully.
Infalna stepped into
the room as Sephiroth was getting his blood pressure checked.
“Good morning,
Infalna,” Hojo said, “what’s the matter, no insults today?”
“Well, if you insist,
you are the most hideous creature I’ve ever seen,” Infalna snapped, “I say
creature because you are too rabid to be human, your breathe like rancid garbage
and your personality as dull as a spoon. How
you even got a job is beyond me, anyone within ten feet of you feels as if they
are about to die just from looking at you.”
Sephiroth smiled behind
Hojo’s back, taking off the pressure gauge.
“Well, I see you’re
feeling up in your spirits” Hojo sneered, “you haven’t been that creative
in years. Then again, I think you
were just trying to avoid the cages.”
“Like that scares me
anymore,” she said, strolling over to the cylinder, rapping her knuckles on
the unbreakable glass.
“You must have
forgotten what it was like in there, all alone, able to see but not touch your
sweet child… one meal a day, no bed.”
Infalna gave a slight
shiver.
“Ah, you do remember.
Then you’ll do good to remember your place Cetra, or you’ll be
reminded,” Hojo warned.
Infalna’s eyes blazed
with fury, “MY NAME IS NOT CETRA!! I
am Mrs. Infalna Gast, wife to the late Jonathan Gast, one of the best men to
ever be on this planet that you seek to destroy.
He was ten times the scientist you are and—” she glanced down at his
pants, “—at least twice the man you are.”
Hojo’s eyes narrowed,
“Sephiroth, I am finished with you, you are dismissed.”
Sephiroth hesitated,
not wanting to leave her with him. Hojo
noticed and whirled around, “I said GO!”
Sephiroth ran from the room and Hojo turned
back to Infalna, backing her up against the glass cage, “You brought up a
rather interesting idea, Cetra.
I think it’s about time you found out exactly how much of a man I am,
and then we’ll see how often you think of Gast.”
Infalna’s eyes
widened what had she gotten herself into? “No,
please…”
Aeris burst through the
door at that moment, “Mommy, guess what I—”
She stopped when she
saw her mother’s scared face.
Hojo took his eyes away
from Infalna for a second and she slapped him across the face.
He reeled around, her handprint on his face and grabbed her by the hair,
“You will not do that ever again.”
He dragged her into the
cage and closed the door.
“Mommy?” Aeris
began to cry. Hojo grabbed the 8
year old girl and carried her, kicking and screaming into the other cylinder.
“You’re going to
stay in there till your mother learns respect for the man that wishes to
preserve your race,” Hojo’s face was red from anger and the slap.
Aeris screamed, tears
pouring down her face.
“Never,” Infalna
screamed over her daughter, “I’ll never respect the man that had my husband
murdered.
“Enjoy tonight,”
Hojo said, getting into the elevator, “tomorrow I’ll move Aeris to my other
lab and you can stay here forever.”
“No!” Infalna
yelled, pounding the cage door, though it was futile.
He laughed as the elevator descended.
Aeris was crying so
hard that she could only breathe between choked sobs.
“Aeris, quiet now,
just go to sleep, when you wake up, everything will be right.”
Aeris did as she was
told, lying down, tears still streaming down her face, sniffling till sleep
overcame her. Infalna sat down,
finally feeling the pain that overwhelmed her head, “Ow.”
Shortly after
“Oh!
I was afraid you would get caught in the halls,” Infalna said,
standing, “Time moves so slowly, locked in a cage.”
“Well, not
anymore,” Sephiroth said, punching in the code for the door.
It opened and Infalna
stepped out to hug him, “You are so brave.”
Sephiroth walked over
to open Aeris’s when the elevator began to move.
Infalna darted back into her cage, lying down and Sephiroth darted behind
Hojo’s desk. The elevator opened
and the man that stepped out was far too large to be Hojo, “Hello?
Infalna?”
“Darry!” she said,
pushing the cage door back open, “We’ve got to be quick.”
Sephiroth unlocked
Aeris’s cage and picked up the sleeping child, “Yes, let’s go.”
The odd little group
decided to avoid halls and guards so they took the stairs, there were rarely
people on the stairs, with 60+ floors, everyone took the elevators.
Aeris woke up around
floor 32, “Where are we going?”
Sephiroth shifted her
in his arms and set her on her feet, “We’re leaving, forever; we’re going
to be a family.”
Infalna smiled, he was
still so good and loving, perhaps JENOVA hadn’t meant for him to be her
weapon.
Sephiroth stretched his
arms, Aeris wasn’t heavy at all, carrying her was always too easy, but keeping
his arms in the same position had stiffened the muscles, “You going to walk
for a little while?”
Aeris nodded, “I’m
a big girl!”
Six
flights of stairs later…
“I’m tired… can
we stop for a break?”
Sephiroth picked her up
easily without breaking his stride, “Sorry, guess I’ll just have to carry
you.”
“Well… I’m still
a big girl,” she muttered, curling up in his arms and dozing off.
Darry asked only once
if Sephiroth needed a break from carrying the girl that was almost as big as he
was. A simple ‘no thank you’ was
all Darry needed. There was
something odd about that young boy, Infalna had mentioned genetic altering.
Darry shrugged, as long as the boy didn’t shift into a hideous monster
and try to kill them all, he didn’t mind a ten year old that could probably
bench a truck.
The stairs led out a
side door on the ground, only yards away from Shinra HQ’s front door.
Two night guards stood talking off to the side.
“How are we getting
past them,” Infalna whispered.
“I could kill
them,” Sephiroth muttered back.
“Have you ever killed
anyone before?” Darry asked.
“No, but I know at
least twenty different ways to kill a man silently without my sword.”
“No,” Infalna said,
shaking her head, “I will not have you kill anyone, not even for our freedom.
You should fight to defend yourself, but never just to kill.”
Sephiroth nodded,
“Whatever you say Infalna, I didn’t even think to bring my sword.”
“That’s because you
are not a killer, you don’t jump at shadows and see the world as a dangerous
place like Hojo.”
Darry crept forward
slowly, “I’m going to go distract them, and then you guys sneak away.”
Before anyone could
argue, he’d gotten to his feet and stepped from the shadows.
“Hey fella’s gotta
light?”
“What are you doing
around here at this time of night?”
“Nothin, I work here
you know, Mayor Domino’s office, in the library.”
The guards looked at
each other and laughed, “That idiot! He
has a bodyguard! What from, the dust
mites, no one even goes to the library anymore, except Professor Hojo.”
“Don’t even get me
started on that crackpot,” muttered the other guard.
“I know,” Darry
laughed, “Creepy isn’t he?”
“Yeah, you know what;
he doesn’t even go home anymore, not until really late on weekends.
Nights like this he just sleeps up there somewhere in his office.”
Darry’s ears perked
up, “He doesn’t?”
“Naw, it’s like his
job is his life or something.”
An alarm sounded behind
the guards and the whole building began to flash with lights and a horrible
sound.
“What the hell?
A breach in security? Damn!”
“Guess I better go,
you guys have work to do,” Darry said, backing away.
“Yeah, see ya, pal.
Come one, let’s see what this crap is about.”
Darry turned and began
walking away calmly, running always aroused suspicions.
“My experiments have
escaped, they are out of the building already,” Hojo’s angry voice carried
after Darry and he began walking faster.
“Who is that?
Domino’s guard? What’s he
doing here at this time of night? Hey,
come here a minute!”
He turned slightly to
see Hojo and an army of guards running towards him, “Shit!”
Darry took off running
but he didn’t get far before Hojo screamed, “Shoot him!”
Darry felt fire along
the back of his legs and he fell, the fire spreading up his back before nothing.
Infalna’s ears
pricked at the sound of gunfire, “Darry!”
“Come on, they’re
coming for us,” Sephiroth yelled, tugging at her hand.
Aeris had woken up and
was walking on her own, “Mommy?”
“Run Aeris!”
Sephiroth was leading;
Infalna hadn’t left the Shinra building since she’d gotten there.
“The train station is
this way!”
“There they are!”
“Mommy!”
Infalna picked up her
daughter and ran with all her might, but she was still falling behind Sephiroth
and the soldiers were catching up.
“Sephiroth!”
He turned, “Come on,
it’s just around this corner!”
Infalna caught up to
him, exhausted, “I can’t run anymore, take Aeris, go, get away!”
“No,” Sephiroth
said, shaking his head, “You go; he’ll kill you if we go, but he won’t
kill me if you go.”
Infalna’s eyes
watered, “Remember that I love you.”
“Me too!
I love you too!” Aeris cried.
“Go!” Sephiroth
yelled, pushing them toward the station.
The soldier army
stopped before they reached Sephiroth, what do you do when a ten year old boy
stands between you and your goal?
“What are you waiting
for?” Hojo said, catching up, “He’s unarmed, go get the girl!”
A few tentative
soldiers edged forward and one raised his gun to butt Sephiroth in the head.
Sephiroth saw it,
grabbed the gun and rammed it back into the face of the soldier.
Two more came at him and he wielded the gun like a bat, knocking them
down.
One of the fallen men
had a sword on his waist which Sephiroth picked up.
Not as good as his chosen weapon, but at least it wasn’t a gun.
Guns had always seemed so cowardly, not enough personal danger, just
stand back and kill.
“No machine guns, I
don’t want him pulp, just get him out of the way,” Hojo yelled.
One of the front
soldiers pulled out a handgun and shot Sephiroth in the leg.
The boy cried out and fell over; a bunch of soldiers ran past him after
Infalna and Aeris.
“Don’t you know,
Boy,” the soldier that shot him laughed, standing over him, “that those who
live by the sword get shot by those who don’t?”
Sephiroth shifted to
his knees which hurt the bullet wound on his right calf, “No, don’t you know
that I’m going to be the head of soldier before I’m eighteen and you’re
going to be retired because of medical reasons.”
He hefted the sword and
swung it, splicing the man’s leg off at the knee, the blade sticking in the
bone of the other leg.
At the station Infalna
was waiting impatiently for the train to arrive, she could hear it, but it had
yet to pull into the station.
When it finally arrived
she pushed Aeris through the doors as she heard a cry from far behind her,
“Shoot her!”
A single shot went into
her lower back and she fell forward into the train.
“Mommy!”
The doors closed and the train left the station
before the soldiers could get to the platform, “Damnit!”