Fic: Possession (Sephiroth, Cloud, Zack, PG-13)

[icedark_elf]

Title: Possession
Author: GW Katrina aka icedark_elf
Beta: forgottenlover, any mistakes are my own.
Fandom: Final Fantasy VII
Characters/Pairing: Sephiroth, Zack, Cloud, possibly implied past Sephiroth/Zack, if you squint and have read the fic it's based on.
Rating: PG-13
Wordcount: 1,867
A/N: This was inspired by forgottenlover's No True Illusion



Possession

In many ways, Sephiroth decided, Strife had done him a favor.

A painful, unintended favor. One he still planned on killing the boy for. Slowly and painfully, to help him understand how much it hurt to be flung into Mako and left for dead.

Only he wasn’t dead. Not then, not now.

Instead, Sephiroth had taken the opportunity for what it was and spent his time learning. In the Mako, he had lost track of his body, it was dying, and simply not important. While he may not have been the Cetra as he thought he had been, he did carry some of their genetics. Jenova had not created a virus, not like the Ancients thought she had. Oh, no, Jenova was a virus. Space-born, virulent, sentient.

She was everything they feared finding. And she found them.

The first to cross her path had become her host, and she wore the body skillfully, a Cetra who none of the locals knew, not after she had gotten done molding the features to her liking. They, like every other fool, thought a pleasing face and a kind word meant that the person had the same values, the same wants as they did.

Her infection spread, killing those she did not reside in, and she was pleased. They were a threat, ones who could contain her, could limit her if she let them. His mother had been foolish enough to let them. Then, many, many years later, she was found by humans, pathetic remnants of a race that was fast dying out. By greedy, power hungry men who wanted to use her.

Use her they did. For their troubles, they got him. Sephiroth. Their Silver General, the Demon of Wutai. Burner of Nibelheim, though only a few knew that.

He was more than they would ever be, and it was irritating to know what Hojo was attempting. He knew the man was trying to recreate him, to clone him. Pathetic failures were all he got, though the first was the closest to him in strength, furthest to him in looks. The fact that the first one, the strongest, was Strife, made him wonder about the boy. He did come from the area where Shinra had stored Mother, and her powers were strong there.

Had she attempted to make more children on her own, he wondered?

If so, in the end, she failed. Strife was the best of a pathetic lot. Just being the best of them did not make him worth anything.

The only reason he paid attention at all was Zack. His Zack. Traitor, possession, his. His to torment or heal, not Hojo’s. The only one Zack belonged to was Sephiroth himself, by right of the Jenova in his body and the blood they had spilt for each other. By betrayal and anger.

But Hojo was not permanently damaging Zack, so Sephiroth could ignore it for now.

He was not sure how long he had been in the Lifestream, having slipped there from the Mako chamber of the reactor. It seemed like he had just arrived, though he knew he had been here for several years. He was sure of it. The murmuring he could hear from those who bore Jenova, Zack the strongest, Strife joining in slowly, sang in the back of his mind. It was a constant, steady sound that was simply part of him. Like his mother, Sephiroth could feel those who carried her taint, they were his to control and command. His puppets and toys.

They sang to him and spoke of years, and so he believed them. He doubted much that Zack knew he still lived, and he doubted that Strife was even aware of anything, let alone something as subtle as the hum of Sephiroth’s control.

So he drifted and learned. The Lifestream was full of information, there for the taking. All he needed to do was filter through it. That was the reason it seemed he had been here for so little time. There was simply so much information to process that it would take decades to filter it all. Decades to go through it and take what he needed, then simply return to reclaim what was his.

Only, he found, he did not have the time he thought he had.

The escape had been obvious. Zack’s voice had weakened slightly and Sephiroth had investigated absently. No longer trapped in Mako himself, the Jenova cells Zack carried did not resonate as far. That was fine. He could easily follow if he chose to, which he did not. It was not as if Zack could outrun the Lifestream. It was everywhere, so Sephiroth was confidant he could always track Zack no matter where he went.

Especially as Zack seemed to have taken Strife with him, and Strife stood out even more than Zack did. Where Zack was the steady, always present heat of sunlight, Strife was a floodlight. Mostly likely from Hojo’s attempts, but it did not matter. He would always be able to track Strife, and so he would always be able to track Zack. That was all that mattered. Sephiroth did not have many things he could call his own. Zack, and by extension Strife, was one. The former was much more important than the latter, it was simply easier to track the latter.

So he did, absently, not really paying attention as they fled the labs, as if they thought they might be able to escape for good. Shinra owned the world, and Hojo owned Shinra with tales of Promised Lands that didn’t exist.

Then, Zack, in a way, did find a way out.

It was quick and bright, a flare of life seconds before it flickered and went out.

That...was not allowed. It simply wasn’t allowed.

Growling, Sephiroth simply moved from the place where he was to where the bright light that was Strife was. It took less time to do it than to think it, and he grabbed. He almost lost the feel of Zack, so close to the overwhelming brilliance of Strife, but he didn’t. He was Sephiroth, that was Zack, and Sephiroth and Zack were irrevocably tied together. Zack had been Sephiroth’s friend, his first, and his betrayer. They had spilt their blood for each other, and spilled each others blood, in spar and in earnest.

Zack was his.

He would not let the man escape him that easily.

It was delicate work, collecting the man, not letting any slip away into the Lifestream as it wanted. Hungrily, the Lifestream tried to pluck it away from him, pluck Zack away from him, to let the man’s memories and life fade back into the whole, and return to where it would be one with everything.

Sephiroth was not going to let it. It could not have his Zack. The Planet could not have his Zack. The man belonged to him, and Sephiroth was not yet willing to give up that ownership.

The body that had been Zack’s wasn’t fit to hold him. It was broken, no longer bleeding, already growing cold. If Sephiroth tried to put him there, Zack would simply escape it again.

Zack’s body was of no use, but there was another right there that was perfect.

Taking Zack, the glowing, still Jenova touched light that was his person, Sephiroth pushed at Strife, trying to force him out so he could put Zack in. He had expected it to be easy, the boy seemed so fragile.

But he had forgotten that Strife had nearly killed Sephiroth before, that made him a force to be reckoned with. Four years under Hojo’s brutal mercy had tempered the core that had let the quiet, unassuming, unenhanced human kill the greatest fighter in Shinra’s military, if not the world. The child of Jenova herself.

Four years of trying to remake Strife as Sephiroth reborn had made him far sturdier than Sephiroth had expected, and he paused for a moment, trying to figure out what to do. The effort he would need to rip the boy from the body would render the body unusable. Not what he needed.

But while the four years had strengthened Strife’s core, it had burned away much of the rest of him. There was space there, if Sephiroth chose to use it.

He did.

Taking Zack, who still struggled for freedom in his grasp, he fitted the man into the spaces left by the labs. Lost memories, denied things. All of them, places where he could place Zack. So he did, and it seemed like forever passed as he carefully tangled the pair in a way that Zack would not escape. It would not do for Sephiroth to do all this work, only to have Zack slip free the moment he let go.

Finally, things clicked, and the feel of them mingled in Sephiroth’s mind. He did not know if he liked that, but they were both his, so it would do for now. It would have to.

Now, to get Strife to take them somewhere safe.

It was not hard to take the strings that tied Strife to him, the strings that made him Sephiroth’s puppet, though he did not know it yet, and to pull them. Survive, he murmured to the boy. Stand up, and go. Go to Midgar, avoid Shinra. Live till I collect you. Protect him. That is your purpose. Protect.

He ignored it as, on some sort of autopilot, the one made of two stripped the body, then staggered for Midgar.

They had damaged it badly, the troops who had shot Zack.

Sephiroth would have to deal with them later.

Now, he reached for Mother.

Though her, he passed on a message to Hojo. It was delivered in pain and agony, simply because he did not like the man.

He showed where Zack had fallen, the blood and the location. Along with it, was a simple set of orders. Collect him. Repair the body. Make it capable of holding life again.

How, he didn’t care. For all he cared, the man could try his mad cloning project again. Sephiroth had more important things on his mind.

His plans were about to be moved up. He was going to collect Zack again, and it was better done sooner than later. He wanted his Zack back, not some mixed thing. So he would simply have to set things into motion now, instead of later.

Blocking out the brightness that was Strife, he focused on the next one. That was the most complete clone, lacking the will to actually live, but the body was alive and fit.

It would serve him well for now. At least until he would be able to return to his own body, which was far north. If he did this right, he would have Strife be the one who would set that into motion. It would be a delightful touch, and keep his possessions near him.

Sephiroth was a patient man, but, as he settled into the form and made it open its eyes for the first time, he couldn’t help but smirk.

Finally, things were moving again.