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exsecutus
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infinition
"Arise, my darling,
my beautiful one, and come with me.
See! The winter is past;
The rains are over and gone.
Flowers appear on the earth;
The season of singing has come."
-Song of Solomon 2:10-12
"It's okay, Cloud," she says in a soothing tone. "I'll do it."
She takes the Lunar Harp from my shaking grasp, her hand lingering an extra moment on mine. It's funny how such a simple touch can communicate so many things. Peace, gentleness... love...
"Damn it all, Tifa," I say, and I think I'm crying. "Damn it all."
"Cloud...." she responds, looking somehow surprised. "You're crying. Cloud!"
"I'm okay," I lie. I'm lying to her again. This time I'm doing it for her, though... aren't I? "Go ahead and play it. I'm fine."
She looks a little doubtful, but she begins to play. You don't have to be a master magician to play the Lunar Harp. It almost plays itself; it wants to be played. The song is simple, not overly complex or haunting, doesn't sound like a person crying or screaming or laughing, doesn't sound mysterious at all. It ought to, I know. But there's a kind of wholeness to it-- that's what makes it unearthly. It's like Aeris. It's not what it should be, but in whatever blemish I perceive-in that, it reaches its godhood.
Tifa catches my hand and pulls slightly. "Come on, let's go." She swivels her head to look at me; time slows down as her hair shifts and then settles back down against her back, obscuring her face for a moment. Her eyes focus and she drops my hand.
"What's wrong, Cloud?"
"Nothing."
"I don't believe you."
"Tifa... please..."
My soul aches for her and for myself. Tifa's face reflects her confusion. God help us both, if there is a God. I wonder.
"What is it?"
"Forgive me. Forgive me."
In a spasmodic motion, I rear back and strike her across the face as hard as I can. Time slows down again. She crumples to the ground and her hair covers her face. She doesn't move, or time stops completely. I take one step back and then another, and then I run on through the open forest faster than I know I can.
Time... it is slowing down, and stopping, and speeding up. The flow of time changes constantly, but... it's always cruel... cruel. Like Aeris and me.
The sun is back, which means I'm almost there. I'm getting so close now. Tifa didn't try to follow me, at least I don't think she did... did I kill her?
I'm so close now. I'm so close. What am I going to do when I get there? Dammit, what am I going to do?!
Black hair.
Without thinking, the Ultima Weapon is out and I slash across the figure in front of me with all the fury inside me wasted on the current peace. I want to tell him to go to hell and I hate him and thousands of other things I have no words for, but all that comes out is a scream heavy with some dead emotion. I hear a yell of surprise, but my senses dull themselves and I can't tell whether the blade has hit anything. Bastard. I'll kill him. I will.
"Cloud! Whoa! Calm down! Still mad about that Materia thing, right? No, really."
Yuffie.
"Gawd! That was scary. You're really on edge about this Aeris thing! But I have to say you're getting slow. Lucky for me! Otherwise, I might have been..." her voice trails off. She giggles nervously. I would rather die than listen to her babble. I think it first, and then I realise it's true.
I sigh, in that way I always hear authority figures sighing. I can't stand myself anymore. "What are you doing here?" I'm acting so normal. It feels almost natural.
"Is it so hard to believe that Tifa told me you were coming here?"
"Yes."
"Well, she did! I mean, she didn't know she was, because I was spying and stuff." She pauses to laugh. "But that doesn't matter, because I still came to help you! I thought you, you know, needed your friends or something."
Friend?
"Get out of here."
"What?" She blinks stupidly. "But that was a mistake about the sword thing. You just have these great reflexes, and..."
"It doesn't matter, just get out of here, and get out now. I don't want anyone here right now."
"You still don't trust me?" She actually sounds serious now. Like she really means what she's saying. "I... I risked my life for the Planet. I didn't have to, you know. I know I made mistakes, we all did! But..."
She's not like Tifa. She didn't expect she would have to make this speech. Her voice grates on my ears.
"But I didn't have to do it! I could have just gone home... I could have stolen the Materia again.. but.. I mean... I didn't!"
This hate is welling up inside me. It's the hate I thought I gave to him... but I still have it. Why?
"I went with you... because I knew I could help save the Planet! Doesn't that mean anything to you?"
It should, shouldn't it? But instead I just hate her. I want... I want to kill her. God, no, stop it.
"Can't you trust me now? Haven't I earned it? I mean--"
"I wouldn't trust you to watch a sandwich for me if I had to go to the restroom," I suddenly screech. "I'll trust you to..." ...and I don't finish. I hit her across the face, not as hard as I hit Tifa, but hard enough to hurt, hard enough to knock her to her knees. She lifts her gaze with a nameless terror to reflect the hatred, the pain, in my own. I raise my sword high above my head, and she winces and folds her arm over her head, as if that would save her.
I swing the sword back above my head in preparation for the stroke that will cut Yuffie in two, and I hear a loud noise, and I see blood. My sword slips from my nerveless grasp and lands upright in the ground, sticking out by its point as if someone had planted it there. For a second or two I just stare at the blood, dripping swiftly into a tiny puddle on the frozen dirt, and then I realise it's coming from my hand, and then I suddenly become aware of an aweful pain. I look up, dumbfounded. Yuffie has risen to her feet and runs away, sobbing hysterically, and I watch her. My gaze travels further.
Vincent stands motionless in a straight line, his right arm at a perfect angle from his body, a wisp of listless smoke rising from the barrel of his gun. His calm red eyes meet mine. Yuffie almost tackles him as she attaches herself to him in her senseless way, I suppose, of showing gratitude. He doesn't even stumble, just gathers his balance and straightens again, placing an absent arm of whatever kind of comfort he understands around Yuffie. He never even takes his eyes off me.
"Do you want me to shoot you again?" he finally says, in his damnably even, eternally tranquil tone of voice. God, I want to rip out his voice box. I fall to my knees and cradle my mangled hand in my lap.
"Who do you think you are?" I say in a sort of unstable whine, the timbre characteristic to those on the verge of tears. On the verge of death... God, no! I don't want to die. I'm afraid.
"Tell me, Strife," he continues, somehow managing a step or two in my direction with Yuffie still wrapped around him. "Do you have any idea what you were just about to do?"
"N-no," I respond, staring at my useless hand. It hurts so much. It might never heal right. My fingers are all there but there's almost a hole through my palm and the bullet must still be in there and it hurts. I might never be able to use my sword again. There's too much blood, I'm sure there is. Maybe someone can use magic to heal my hand. Can magic do that-- repair actual physical damage, stop bleeding? I never tried it that way. Maybe somebody could have saved Aeris.
"Why were you going to kill her, Cloud?" someone says.
"What are you saying?!" I screech. This is worse-- this is worse-- "My God, do they think I was going to kill her? Do they think I wanted-- no! You-- you're different, you should know-- you should know I wasn't going to kill her. God, do you really think that? You think I was going to kill her? Do you? You can't! Please, I'm begging you-- I can't believe you think that-- do the rest of them think that? You don't really believe that, do you? Because..."
"Yuffie, Cloud," the voice answers. It's still Vincent. He's still here. "You were going to kill Yuffie."
"I-- oh-- well... I...." I can almost see her I can almost see the other side "Yuffie... I thought you meant.... why was I going to kill... Aeris... and..."
"I know what you thought. Go home, Yuffie."
"I was so scared... I thought-- I thought I was going to die. Please don't leave me alone." It's the first time she's spoken since she went to Vincent. I can hardly hear her, her voice is so muffled.
"You're not alone, Yuffie. Go home. It's okay." He sounds like a father talking to his daughter. More like an older brother when I think about it. How can his voice sound so gentle now? Is he sending Yuffie away so he can kill me?
"The world doesn't need you anymore, Cloud," he says to me when Yuffie's finally gone. "Not what you were six months ago, anyway. Can you understand that?"
I'm scared. I don't want to die. I don't want to go meet Aeris anymore. I want to go home.
"I don't really want to kill you, Cloud. But if that's the only thing that will put the demon inside you to rest, I'll do it. You are a soldier, Cloud; will you die for your Planet?"
I'll fall in love with Tifa and we'll get married, and if my hand heals I'll only play the piano, I won't kill things anymore. God, please. Are you listening? I mean it. I really promise. I don't want to die.
"I'm sorry, Cloud. I pray you find peace."
Click. He's going to shoot me. God, I'm promising you! Please!
"Vincent!"
I look up slowly from my hand. It's Tifa, and she's standing with the sun behind her. Damn the sun for following me. I squint. Maybe it's not beautiful Tifa-- this person's ugly-- there's an ugliness about her I never saw in anyone else. It might just be the sallow blue-red bruise on her face and the left eye swollen shut. She's ugly, but it's Tifa. That's not right... maybe it's not Tifa... Despair is something grotesque, isn't it? That's why this person is ugly right now. She's desperate. Aeris was never ugly because she didn't know how to despair. That must be it.
"Stop it! Please!" Tifa's crying now. "Vincent, don't kill him!"
"Sorry," he says flatly, leaving his gun trained on me. He doesn't sound sorry. He was going to kill me. I was going to die. I just think about that for a while.
"What are you doing?" she implores him, her voice lilting, breathy, full of every kind of sadness and fear. "You were going to kill Cloud!" She runs until she's right between us. It's like she can't decide which of us she should go to, which of us needs rebuke or kindness most.
"Justice, Tifa," he says, but he lowers his gun.
"Why?" she begs again. "Please... don't kill Cloud."
"He's the one who did that to you. He tried to kill Yuffie. If his hand were whole, he would kill me."
"It's true," I say quietly, because it is. I don't think either of them hears me.
"Mercy," she sobs, falling to her knees. "Please, don't hurt him."
I sneak a look at Vincent's face. He's looking at Tifa, measuring her, finding the secret. Same thing he did to me. "Don't do that to Tifa," I stammer. "St-stop it. You'll hurt her. Stop." It will hurt her, won't it? Don't you have to tear something apart to find out its truth? Does Vincent know another way?
They both turn their gazes on me, Tifa's golden-brown eyes warm with pathos, overflowing with her love and despair, and Vincent's-- how can eyes like fire be so cold, so dead?
"You still believe in him," Vincent says, not quietly or loudly, not smugly, just... like it's true. Is he talking to me? Whom do I believe in?
"Yes... I do." Tifa. If he's talking to her then he must have meant me. Tifa believes in me. "I do. God forgive me, I do." She clasps her hands and looks at the ground, tears falling from her repulsive despairing eyes.
He shrugs minutely and something like a smile paints his face for half a second. "In that case," he says, holstering his gun, "and since this is your world, do what you will. There's nothing I can do anymore." He holds up a hand and Tifa's lips tremble. "Don't thank me. Whatever you do, never thank me for this. You should know more than anyone that I've just condemned you to the only thing worse than death."
"You won't regret it," she whispers, facing the ground, hands folded, shoulders hunched.
"Yes," he says mildly, "I will."
I rise tremulously to my feet, straightening slowly, pulled upward by an invisible wire that rakes through my whole body. "I... have to go meet Aeris," I whisper. My hand's dripping blood and it hurts, but I ignore it because the throbbing in my heart hurts much more. "Please... let me go meet her."
Vincent glances at me. He doesn't say anything. Tifa just stares. There's not a name for the emotion I see written so blatantly on her face-- it's-- not entirely like disbelief, it's like-- begging, or-- well, it's just like despair-- but despair is ugly and suddenly she looks more beautiful than ever.
"Cloud," she says, her voice almost giving out. "Cloud, Aeris is dead. Cloud! What are you going to do?"
I'm almost at the edge of the water. I-- I want to go down and see her. "Tifa... Aeris is down there... waiting for me. Please just let me go meet her."
"Cloud, she's dead! Her body's down there, yes, but her spirit's gone, Cloud. She returned to the planet. She's not waiting for you. Aeris doesn't want you to die. Cloud!! Her body's decayed, Cloud. Fish are eating her. Don't, Cloud, please!!"
"No, the water's cold," I answer fearfully. "It's preserving her. There aren't fish in that part of the water. Fish wouldn't eat Aeris." I shake my head and take a step backwards.
"Cloud, you'll die! Cloud!" She never got back up, she just reached after me, her voice getting shriller and shriller until she's screaming, tears flowing down her bruised face making it red and puffy and she's never looked more beautiful. She collapses onto her face in the dirt and I can hear her manic shrieking sobs tearing through her body and making the Planet accept her grief. Vincent is standing motionless. He hasn't moved a step and he's watching me. Bastard. I'll-- I'll kill him. No... God, did you keep... your promise? I'm not dead... so does that mean... I should go back? I'll fall in love with Tifa and...
The invisible wire rips my heart out. I turn around and dive into the ice cold water and swim down, down, until blood is flowing from my ears and clouding the water, closer to Aeris, closer to life and death and the thin line of God's pain that separates them. The last thing I think before the water pulls me into its embrace, what it did to Aeris, what it would have done even if Sephiroth had never been born-- I feel it-- that it was me. All along...
Aeris is dead...
But I still have the dreams.
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