herobox | but what if the sword kills the pen? // GENESIS HAS SOFT SKILLS AU

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but what if the sword kills the pen? // GENESIS HAS SOFT SKILLS AU

"Am I an human being...?"

Sephiroth asks and Genesis knows the answer. He has been waiting for this moment, repeating the words again and again, the truth he holds over his rival, his friend, his... But Sephiroth sounds raw and vulnerable in a way that makes his something between Genesis' ribs twist. He knows Sephiroth, he would dare to say he knows him better than anyone. Angeal didn't engage in petty rivalries, didn't share the spirit of challenge like they did. Angeal didn't burn for him as Genesis did, still does...

Standing there, waiting for his moment to interrupt, he remembers how the fire suddenly became poison and the jealousy still feels like bile on his throat, the same as the pulsing pain on his shoulder, growing impossible to ignore with each day. It was his own sword, and it could have been almost funny if it didn't become a tragedy so fast.

A tragedy indeed...

But there was more. So much more.

It wasn't always envy, or desperation. The desire of wanting to live knowing he was doomed in favor of the person he once idolized. He wants to claw the life out of Sephiroth and drink it all for himself. But it wasn't always like that and that glimpse, that flash of something broken and fearful in Sephiroth reminds Genesis that...

That everything he wanted, once, was to share an apple with him. The forbidden fruit. And those feelings only grew stronger once he was able to meet the real him. And now there he is, at his most vulnerable. Holding the salvation Genesis craves. It would be so easy to snatch that heart for himself.

'I could make you love me,' Genesis thinks. 'Need me, before I disappear."

It's just a couple of seconds after Sephiroth says those words, but Genesis' mind and heart work faster.

He flies into the scene, the scenario is all his. There's other way he can do this, and all eyes are on him.

"You're the one who gets to decide that, old friend."

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For twenty-four hours, Sephiroth's head has hurt. It began shortly after their arrival at Nibelheim, a tightening in his temples as he gazed out at the landscape at the Nidhogg Inn. Then, a minor headache in the morning, slightly twingeing when the bright rays of the early morning sun glanced into his eyes on the climb up the mountain. Then, a roaring, a pounding drowned out briefly by the roar of the waters of the Gunnthra River. He had two arms, to save two lives with, but only managed one. A fifty percent success rate - an absolute failure. A man was dead because of him.

Now - as they had entered the facility - as Sephiroth had approached the reactor core - as his eyes had landed on the name embossed over the door to what should be the reactor's heart - his head had begun to throb. His breath unsteady. Something was wrong here. Something was waiting here. Something was chewing on the inside of his skull. The pods - meant to condense mako into materia - were infested, alive, like so many spider eggs. Crawling. His skin is crawling.

(My mother's name was Jenova -)

Why is it that the pipes branching out from that door like veins and arteries from a heart seem to twitch and pulse when he catches them out of the corner of his eye? This isn't right. This isn't right. (His thoughts are racing.) He had thought - maybe talking to Zack would get his head on straight. Explaining things to Zack always made things seem a little clearer, just for a moment. But in this room, belonging to R&D's Hojo himself, the terrible calculus had begun to come together.

(Why was Hojo so secretive about Jenova? Why was Sephiroth reminded so often in his youth not to ask around about her? Why wouldn't he replace the picture Sephiroth had lost at Rhadore? Why couldn't Sephiroth meet her, not once, even in his adulthood, after achieving enough accomplishments of his own? Why was her name on the door to the heart of the first mako reactor ever built? Why was that mako being pumped into animals and twisting them into monsters? Why was that monster so anthropomorphically shaped?)

With numb lips, he had said, I always knew that I was different. That I... was special. The walls pulse in time with his heart, quivering in his chest. Does he hear whispers at the edge of his hearing? Are those shadows at the corners of his sight? Sephiroth can barely hear Zack, trying to get his attention, fussing at him - he shoves him away. He can't bear it right now, can't bear his questions, his pity.

(If animals pumped with mako become monsters, and humans overdosed with mako become monsters, and SOLDIER operators are dosed with mako, and Sephiroth is the first SOLDIER, and his mother's name is Jenova, and 'Jenova' is printed on the door to the mako reactor, then - then, - then!- )

(~~I'm not a cyborg!~~)

"Am I... a human being?" he whispers, staring at his shaking hands.

(The walls are closing in. The pipes seem to pulse. Pumping blood. In time with his heart. Maybe - he should approach the door. Maybe - it's time. (What time?) Maybe the time - has come. (His head throbs.))

And then - another voice.

"You're the one who gets to decide that, old friend."

The walls stop closing. Sephiroth looks up. Standing perched on the stairs, farther up the walkway, is Genesis. His hair streaked with white, his skin sallow and flaking, his wing curled in towards his body, but his eyes still burning bright, as bright as his resolve.

(That's - that's right. Their intelligence said Genesis might be here. Sephiroth's thoughts wrench out of their spiral. Genesis is here, after all. The result of Project G. Hollander's project. A project...)

Sephiroth looks up at him, his lips pursed tight. He holds out his right hand in a halt gesture behind him. Just in case Zack got any ideas.

"Genesis," he says. Softly, warily. "What do you know?"

So the puppy is here, well, Genesis doesn't mind an audience and it seems Sephiroth has him on a leash. He wants to hear what Genesis has to say. It pleases him.

A simple question.

What does Genesis know? He is fully aware of his own condition, he hears the clock ticking with each step he takes. A monster. A bomb. He knows it was the same for Angeal, a best friend who became a brother by sharing the same miserable fate. But Angeal was weak, his honor too easy to wound. Genesis doesn't mind playing dirty if he can survive, if he can cheat fate.

He could break Sephiroth so easily now. An ugly part of him desires it, so they're joined by the same wound. Could he have him on his knees by weaponizing his cursed knowledge?

But... What's really the truth?

(Sephiroth memorized Loveless against his will, he would tease him about it, but he always played along. They stood awake until the sun rose, once on a mission, and Sephiroth listened to everything Genesis said. He looked lonely and Genesis wanted to swallow the stars from his eyes.)

There's other way to do this, indeed.

Sephiroth holds the answer, the life Genesis lacks now. But he must be careful. And wasn't the portrait of a woman, evidently human, hanging on the mansion? Didn't she hold the same look on her face, of stars about to fall?

"I know how I was conceived, and how that cursed me. I know you can help me, Sephiroth... I need you."

He lets the words float between them.

"And I know you seek the truth. Join me, lean me your strength and let's search for the truth together."

It has been nearly two years since Genesis deserted. One and a half years since Zack supposedly slew him at Modeoheim. Sephiroth had let him die in his mind, had buried his friend. Ironic. He had refused any mission that might result in his taking Genesis or Angeal's lives, but all it did was refuse him closure.

Now, monster or angel, Genesis had risen from the dead. Whether Zack's report was false (i.e. that Genesis had not perished at all), or true, makes no difference. He is here, standing perched above Sephiroth like a crow on a wire. (Didn't Genesis read him some poem about this? The bird spoke "Never more, never more," like a dark prophecy.) Genesis has been searching for a way to reverse his degradation. To put himself back together.

He must know.

(Sephiroth's blood pounds in his ears.)

He must know.

But before Sephiroth can respond, Zack leaps up behind him.

"Genesis!" he shouts, and draws Angeal's sword, runs forward several steps -

Sephiroth can't watch this. He can't watch Genesis die. He can't watch Zack die. He can't bear to draw on Genesis. He can't bear this. Not when he needs to know what this means, whether he is the same as the monsters being knit together in these tanks, whether one of these pods is Sephiroth's own cradle, whether all the pain he endured under Hojo was not training to make him stronger, but experiments to test his creation - whether Sephiroth was born or assembled -

On instinct, on impulse, Sephiroth reaches out as Zack dashes past him, to climb the stairs. His hand closes around the back of Zack's collar, and yanks him backwards with intense force. Zack did not, could not, have anticipated that Sephiroth would do this - all his weight is going forward - and Sephiroth redirects it easily, flinging him backwards, down the second set of stairs. Zack's head strikes the wall with a sound that would have been the death knell of a lesser man.

For a second, Sephiroth's heart freezes in his throat.

(Did he just - ?)

But Zack groans, a low weak sound, and slumps. Not dead. Not fully unconscious, but stunned. It will take him more than a few minutes to regain his senses.

(This is enormous. Sephiroth has injured his comrade. Has attacked a fellow SOLDIER First Class. His words to Zack - Depending on what happens, I may abandon Shinra - surge up in his mind. Depending on what happens - well, what has happened here? Has he discovered the truth? Did Hojo lie to him? Who - what - is Jenova? Is she held beyond that door? His head pounds, and an image starts to form in his mind - his mother, held captive beyond the door, wired to the mako reactor, her blood being drained into the machines, her eyes pleading, her mouth forming the words help me, come to my side, it's time, my son, my son, it's time - )

(Sephiroth's eyes dart around the room. His pupils dilate and close erratically.)

Sephiroth points - at first towards Genesis, but then his finger slides to a point over his shoulder. The plaque. "The truth," he growls, "the truth is beyond that door, isn't it? My conception - my curse. You know, don't you?"

Genesis is ready to blast Zack away from what it's an important matter, when Sephiroth does it first. Did he just...?

For a second, Genesis is speechless. Does Sephiroth trust him? Even after everything? A part of him expected his old friend to refuse, to mock him, so Genesis could turn that rejection into poison and strike back. But Sephiroth is there, at some level willing to protect him against Shinra (because that's what Angeal's puppy is, in the end, a filthy Shinra lapdog.)

Something warm washes over his wounds, open for so long. He could to this, they could work together.

But then Sephiroth's demeanor changes and Genesis realizes a second thing. That monster, Jenova, it stands between them.

He moves towards Sephiroth, blocking the view, and extending his hand with a well known purple apple.

Sephiroth, young and so different from Shinra's propaganda, comes to his mind. A boy seeking for his mother. He used to have a necklace, he once told Genesis, but didn't say how he lost it. How was she, anyway? He asked, and Sephiroth shrugged. She looks like you, Genesis wants to tell that kid now, having seen the portrait on the mansion.

The truth could free him or condemn him and it's all on Genesis.

"That thing isn't your mother," he finally decides. "Come with me, let's search for her. I will tell you everything, but I need your help to survive."

He offers him the apple. The fruit of knowledge.

"My friend, do you fly away now? To a world that abhors you and I?

Truth is a burden, but it can free us. We can be more than this, we don't have to be chained to a script. Listen to me, Sephiroth!"

Genesis eclipses the door, stepping closer, breaking Sephiroth's line of sight to the name 'JENOVA' impressed over the door. Sephiroth blinks. He - he feels unsettled. Sometimes his thoughts are racing faster and sometimes slower. That image that had risen up in his mind so powerfully a moment ago now fades, almost fizzles, like a glitching hologram.

That thing isn't your mother.

It -

Ever since he was young, Hojo had told him his mother's name was Jenova. Though he hasn't possessed her picture for years, the image is burned into his mind: A woman in a white coat, turning towards the camera, her eyes soft and brown and kind, her hair pulled into a high ponytail. Surely a human woman. It wouldn't - it wouldn't make sense for a human woman to be ensconced within a mako reactor, not even by Hojo's unethical standards. And what would human blood have to do with monsters, anyway? Even Gillian's role in Project G had to do with the normal cycle of human birth; no one had imprisoned her in a reactor.

But the idea is so strong. He can almost hear her - the time has come, help me, free me, come to my side, my son - but, surely, surely she couldn't be imprisoned here with no other imprisoners, right? That thing isn't your mother - if Jenova is a name that signifies something else, and Hojo lied and told Sephiroth his mother was Jenova -

To hide her from him. Of course. It's so simple. So stupid. So that any research Sephiroth might be able to do would lead him in circles, lead him to - to what? A beast in a reactor core? A program? An AI? But it - his head throbs again, and that image rises up - his mother, crying - but what if she needs him, she needs him, she's calling him -

"Listen to me, Sephiroth!"

Genesis's voice cries out, cuts across his racing thoughts, dispels the image again, fizzling into static.

They could search for her together. Shinra... lied. Hojo lied. Genesis had discovered truths about himself that lay hidden - and now he is offering to help Sephiroth do the same. Depending on what happens... The lighting surrounding the reactor door frames Genesis like a halo of soft white light, rendering him angelic. He holds out a Banora White. His favorite prop.

Sephiroth... reaches his hand out. Touches the apple, but does not take it yet. His hand rests against it, his fingers brushing Genesis's own. "I..." he says, his voice faltering. "I need to know. I need to know the truth."

"I know."

Genesis answers with ease. He wanted to know too, desperately, the reason behind his torment. Even if the truth was a blade, it was better than living a lie. He is the only one who can understand Sephiroth, and Sephiroth is the only one who can understand him.

It's Genesis the one who drops the apple, the prop, the theater of it all to talk with honesty, taking Sephiroth's hand on his.

"Save me, and let me save you."

His mind is already working on a plan, he has to show him the picture in the manor, tell him about the J cells, but away from this cursed place. Just the two of them.

It feels like something shattering, but for good. He almost can see it playing before his eyes in a different way, the Genesis ruled by his wound speaking with venom and driving Sephiroth away from him.

No, he needs him. If he ends up perishing anyway, he wants Sephiroth to remember.

"Come with me, there's something I want to show you."

Genesis lets the apple tumble from between their fingers - clasps Sephiroth's hand in his, unburdened. He says the words that Sephiroth - had always wanted to say, in his heart, to that mother he would never meet. Save me. And let me save you. Because that was what it was, to need others. Sephiroth, whose youth had been spent in a bright, clean facility, honing his body into a weapon - who was punished when he cried, and punished when he laughed, and most of all, punished when he needed - in this moment, he needed someone, and was needed by him.

(That feeling in his heart, that sometimes rose up when they would spar, is rising again, the one he always crushed back down. That unnameable, unspeakable feeling.)

Suddenly, the walls aren't closing in. Suddenly, the pipes are again inert objects. It is as though a clear, bright wind had rushed through, blown the shadows away. Depending on what happens...

Without turning his head, or looking away from Genesis, or pulling his hand away, Sephiroth speaks. "SOLDIER First Class Zack Fair," he says, pitching his voice so that it can be heard.

Behind him, he hears Zack say faintly, softly, "Don't..."

(He doesn't look at him. He knows he might lose his nerve if he did. Another cowardly burden Sephiroth has unloaded onto Angeal's protege. Zack didn't want to slay Angeal. He didn't want to kill Genesis. He doesn't want to have to fight Sephiroth in the future. All of the men who went before him, peeling away - for a moment, Sephiroth thinks he should bring Zack with them, bleed Shinra of its entire force. But - the infantryman and the young woman wait outside. Someone has to remain to escort them back down the dangerous mountain path.)

"I hereby resign my commission in the Shinra Armed Forces. I retain no rank. I dishonorably discharge myself, on suspicion of collusion with the traitor Genesis Rhapsodos." His eyes do not leave Genesis's face as he speaks. He wants to see him. "You are now the ranking SOLDIER operative on this mission. The reactor has been serviced."

"Sephiroth..."

Genesis whispers his name like a plea, like a secret but never a lie. Sephiroth did it, he deserted. Shinra is the only thing he has ever know, and Genesis is taking him away from it. He suddenly feels both possessive and protective. Angeal wouldn't join him, wouldn't listen, and he died before it was due because of him. Sephiroth is both untouchable and made of glass.

But he is Genesis'

Their hands are still joined and his expression softens, it looks like relief. It makes Genesis look younger, better even with the degradation. His wing flutters and above them black wings softly fall.

"Let's go, my friend. Let's get out of this cursed place."

His face softens, and for a moment, the old Genesis, from before the accident, shines out. Sephiroth's heart leaps again. Maybe he could be saved. Maybe the two of them can do it. Maybe Sephiroth's cells really could help him - maybe that injustice two years ago, when he was barred from donating blood, was another of Hojo's little atrocities.

But wing or no wing, Genesis can't very well fly them directly out of a sealed room in the heart of a mountain. In fact, it's hard to say if Genesis could fly them anywhere at all - with his degradation, did he even have the strength to bear the two of them (with Sephiroth's size and weight) anywhere? On one wing?

Sephiroth squeezes Genesis's hand. "Let's leave," he agrees, and turns, one hand still in Genesis's, holding hands as though they were children. (As though they were...)

Zack Fair stands in the doorway to the outside.

Sephiroth pauses. He wasn't sure whether Zack would have regained the ability to stand at this point, after a head injury like that. Perhaps his skull is thicker than the average SOLDIER. He watches the man carefully, warily. Zack...

Zack...

...replaces his sword at his back, and holds his hands up, in a soothing gesture, as though talking down a flighty chocobo. "Alright," he says, "I get it."

He gets it?

And then, of all things, Zack exaggeratedly winks. "I get it. You're pretending to join Genesis to get him to let his guard down, and then we'll arrest him. Good thinking, Sephiroth!"

Sephiroth opens his mouth, he thinks to correct the man, but the strangeness and audacity of this interaction stuns him into silence, leaving his mouth open like some slack-jawed idiot.

Zack glances at a point over Sephiroth's shoulder, possibly making eye contact with Genesis, and then continues: "It's a good thing he agreed to come quietly, so we can keep Cloud and Tifa safe on our way back down Mt. Nibel, too. Especially since I'm still a little dizzy. I might be so dizzy that I'd have to lie down immediately after we get back to town, so it would be up to the ranking officer on this mission to take him formally into custody." He gives a smile, one that is calculated to look innocent but shows too many teeth. "You didn't say anything that would change that about a minute ago, did you? Because I didn't hear anything."

It is in this moment that Sephiroth realizes how Angeal came to be so enamored of this kid.

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