fic: anathema (ffvii/kh)

[jukeboxhound_backup]

Anathema
[2/?]
(for  icedark_elf  's mercverse)

 

 

 

 

Anathema

[2/?]

Hades’ Phoenix

 

Cloud watched as Ansem fiddled with something on the other table.  Because he sat in a low chair with the back slightly reclined, he couldn’t see what the other man was doing, but the aches in his body reminded him that it wasn’t like he wouldn’t find out in a moment anyway.  The man still hadn’t told him what he was after—well, maybe he had, but Cloud had no bloody clue what ‘darkness’ had to do with anything and so Ansem’s self-satisfying monologues hadn’t been very enlightening.

 

At first he’d wondered if perhaps a forgotten relative of Sephiroth had kidnapped him and Zack, but it didn’t take long to realize that silver hair was the only commonality between them.

 

“Not many people know my name of ‘Strife,’” Cloud said idly, hiding a wince as another frisson of pain ran up his spine.  At least everything so far had been purely physical, and the blond had gotten used to torture a long time ago; being a ShinRa, and an immortal, required it.

 

“Indeed,” Ansem replied unhelpfully without looking at him, “but I make it a point to know everything about my subjects.”

 

“Somehow, you never struck me as the type to have much interest in human relations.”

 

Ansem’s laugh was low and dark, like velvet, reminding Cloud of Chaos.  The thought of the twins made him smile ruefully, thinking that they must be driving Sephiroth up the wall by now.

 

“On the contrary,” said the self-proclaimed scientist.  In his hands was yet another syringe (Cloud was seriously going to develop a complex about needles when they got out of here, he just knew it) and was full of a substance that glowed a brilliant green.  For some strange reason it looked remarkably familiar, as though he’d seen it a million times in his dreams but never in waking reality.  “It is the human condition that I am most interested in.  What do you believe is the most powerful aspect of humanity?”

 

Knowing he was going to be told the answer whether he wanted to hear it or not, Cloud just raised a sardonic brow.  It only made Ansem’s golden eyes glitter with condescending amusement as he stepped closer to Cloud and leaned over him, bringing their faces centimeters apart.

 

“There is the physical,” he purred, running a light hand down the blond’s bared chest, but the smaller man just blinked up at him lazily, never giving away how much his skin crawled at the touch.  “Our sense of touch reaches something primal in us like nothing else.  We react to it without thought, whether it’s the edge of a sword…or the touch from a lover.”

 

The scientist was physically attractive, Cloud had to give him that, but the whole kidnapping-and-torturing thing rather ruined the enjoyment that might have come from a one-night stand.  Besides, he’d seen a fair number of lovely people in his lifetime, and had grown out of any seductive awe that might have swayed a mere mortal.

 

“Then there is the mind.”  The unwanted hand slid slowly up his throat and across the smoothness of his cheek, brushing pale eyelashes and brows.  “The source of our ability to reason, perhaps the only thing that might truly separate us from animals, and the source of magic.  The greater the mind, the greater control of both self and spells, but the more distant one becomes from their body.”

 

“Are you going somewhere with this, or are you just going to molest me?” Cloud asked mildly, thinking that he’d spent far too much with Zack as the words came out of his mouth.

 

There was a flash of irritation in the scientist’s eyes, but the moment of anger passed back into his usual strange, predatory calm.  His hand once more went to the narrow chest and pressed purposefully over the upper left, just to the side of the sternum.

 

“But the heart, Lord Strife…the heart is the intermediary between the two extremes.  Someone may live a lifetime with a broken body, but he won’t last long after the heart has withered; those who ignore their heart in favor of so-called reason will one day relapse and lose themselves to madness.  It can make a man into a god of war or a mage’s spells reverberate through the heavens.”

 

Maybe that was all true, to some extent, but Cloud didn’t think it needed to sound quite so dramatic.  Sephiroth—easily the most philosophical of the pack—would have a coronary at this man’s pomposity.  The kidnapping-and-torture issue wouldn’t help much either.

 

“And what does this all have to do with Zack and myself?”

 

But Ansem didn’t reply, just gave him a languorous smile that made Cloud’s skin feel vaguely dirty, and lifted the syringe.

 

“Riku,” he called sharply, and after a few seconds a tall, thin boy appeared at the scientist’s side.  Cloud couldn’t help blinking in surprise; if he didn’t know better, he’d say he was staring at a teenaged Sephiroth.

 

“This is my student, Riku.”  From the way Ansem’s hand wrapped possessively around the back of the boy’s neck and the boy’s carefully blank expression, Cloud had a feeling that Riku was more than just a ‘student.’  “Riku, this is Lord Cloud Strife, nee ShinRa.”

 

Something dark had flickered through brilliant green eyes at the sound of Cloud’s name, but when the hand at his neck tightened warningly, the boy managed to keep his sneer to a minimum.  “A pleasure.”

 

The kid even had Sephiroth’s sense of dry sarcasm.

 

“’When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child,’” the scientist mused aloud in the tone of someone quoting.  “When I became an adult, I put an end to childish ways.  For now we see only’—“

 

“’Through a glass, darkly, but then we will see face to face,’” Cloud finished smoothly.  “Now I know only in part; then I will know fully, even as I have fully known.  And now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; and the greatest of these is love.’  Isn’t it interesting that we read the same texts, and yet you don’t see me being a sadistic son of a bitch?  So cut the pseudo-intellectual bullshit already.”

 

Another flash of irritation, of subtle madness.  “My ‘sadism,’ as you so erroneously call it, at least serves a higher purpose.  What do you call yourself when you sell your morality to the highest bidder?”

 

Cloud laughed lowly.  “I’ve never sold my morality, Ansem, and my blade is discerning about those it serves.”

 

Golden eyes scrutinized him carefully, and Cloud continued, “’And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but do not have love…I am nothing.’”

 

There was a long silence in the laboratory while Ansem and Cloud stared wordlessly at one another.

 

“Riku, hold this in his mouth,” the golden-eyed man said suddenly. “We wouldn’t want him biting through his tongue, would we?”

 

Riku looked like he’d rather Cloud bit his tongue clean off and choked on it, but he silently took the strip of sterilized gauze and stood behind the odd, dentist-like chair that Cloud was strapped into, forcing the cloth between his teeth like a gag.

 

“Most humans would die with this much mako introduced to their veins,” Ansem murmured thoughtfully, putting a hand around the wrist strapped to the chair’s armrest, “but you’re not, are you?”

 

Cloud’s eyes had widened unconsciously.

 

Mako?

 

He thought of the many times he’d died and his soul had lingered, trapped in the halfway plane between life and death while his physical body knitted itself back together, unable to live but feeling the rejection of the Lifestream—the deep-seated revulsion that the Planet held for someone as unnatural as he was—

 

…Fuck, this is going to hurt.

 

xxx

 

“Googolplex bottles of beer on the wall, googolplex bottles of beer!  Take one down, pass it around, googolplex bottles of beer—!”

 

“How long until he gets tired, do you think?” Zexion mused idly, tapping his fingers on his elbow.

 

Towering beside him, Lexaeus just shrugged.  Axel, however, laughed and rapped lightly on the one-way mirror in front of them.  “Until he gets a rise out of one us or finds something he thinks will be even more annoying.  Personally, my money’s on Vexen breaking first.”

 

The small observation room was as white and sterile as one might expect of an experimental laboratory, with one wall taken up by a reflective window that allowed the three men to look in, but kept Zack from seeing them in return.  Being strapped down by all four limbs and one leather restraint over his torso didn’t seem to dampen his singing spirit in the least.

 

“It’s a small world after all—!“

 

All three observers cringed, but didn’t bother hiding their amusement when a tall blond stalked furiously into the small room, an eye twitching and lab coat billowing dramatically.

 

“It’s a world of laughter, a world of tears—!“

 

Without a word, Vexen withdrew a syringe and unceremoniously jabbed it into the brunet’s arm, smirking viciously when the man fell unconscious almost immediately.

 

Axel whistled in admiration of the newest specimen.  “Damn, Vexen only brings out the good shit when he’s really pissed.”

 

Zexion chuckled softly.

 

xxx

 

Wall Market was the sort of place that only ever seemed to reaffirm Sephiroth’s general misanthropy towards humankind, and to some degree Vincent shared this opinion.  Whores, dealers, thieves, criminals, beggars, and all the dregs of all species tended to gravitate here like filth in an oil well.

 

Which meant, naturally, that Chaos and Zack were forever trying to manipulate the others into going and satisfying their baser instincts.

 

Eyes followed him as Sephiroth swept down the garbage-littered street, filled with calculation at his obviously fine clothes or lust at his silver hair and exotic features, but he ignored them with aloof disdain.  He was no mere aristocrat come down here for some guilty pleasure, and his target lay at the far end of the street and down several alleys.

 

Because Wall Market tended to be a refuge for all the outcasts of normal society, it had grown into its own colorful, if dark, culture.  There was even a small Wutaian population, hidden away behind the bars and brothels, and his knowledge that Cloud often got his genuine Wutaian tea in there made it the most logical starting point.  Somewhere above and in front of him, he could sense Vincent and Chaos flitting through the shadows of the decrepit buildings as his backup should things turn…sour.

 

Stepping into the Wutaian circle was like ducking into another world.  Intricate woodwork and finely-dyed textiles greeted him in the glow of paper lanterns, a far cry from the rags and fluorescent glare of the rest of the Market, but the people here were just as distrustful and tough as their counterparts.  Not deigning to look left or right, Sephiroth quickly found the teashop and strode inside as though it were his own business.

 

“I’m looking for someone,” he said before the shopkeeper could open his mouth.  The mage could almost see Zack shaking his head at him, muttering, A bit more honey than vinegar, Seph, and people’ll be putty in your hands.

 

The shopkeeper eyed him warily, his hand hovering none-too-discretely over a rifle behind his counter.  “Yeah?  Information ain’t like tea, y’know.”

 

Of course.  Sephiroth dumped a handful of gil on the counter.  “Two people, both male.  One approximately your size with blond hair and blue eyes, the other taller with black hair and a loud manner.”

 

“Aye, I might’ve seen them,” the grizzled old man said vaguely as he swiped the coins into a gnarled hand.  “Don’t get many gaijin in this place.”

 

“Where did they go?”

 

“Sorry, boy, but I’m getting old and my mind’s going,” leered the shopkeeper, and Sephiroth unhesitatingly passed over more coins.  “Good thing I’ve been keeping up with the meds, yeah?  The blond one bought a parcel of my best product, but some men in black cloaks jumped them just outside.”

 

“Do you know who they were or where they were going?”

 

“Ah, no amount of coin could make me remember that,” growled the shopkeeper.  “Seen them before, but you don’t ask no questions around here and you live a little longer.  People tend to go missing around them, if you know what I mean.”

 

“Yes.  Thank you.”  Sephiroth gave him another few gil—it never hurt to keep an informant well oiled, so to speak—and stepped back outside.  He glanced subtly to either side, saw that people were carefully paying him no attention, and quickly leapt to the top of the nearest building with the aid of a wind spell.

 

“Mages and their tricks,” purred a smoky voice in his ear, but Sephiroth just gave Chaos a bland look.

 

“Cloud and Zack were here, according to the tea-seller,” he told the twins.  Vincent listened with all the sharp attention of an assassin, and even Chaos went still at his brother’s side.  “But apparently they were attacked by men in dark cloaks outside and taken.  The old man claimed not to know who they were or where they were going.”

 

“Assassins?” Chaos mused, but Vincent shook his head.

 

“Unlikely, unless they were amateurs eager for fame.  A true professional wouldn’t have attacked in plain sight, and neither would try to take them alive.”

 

“More kidnappers?” Chaos groaned, but Sephiroth shook his head this time.

 

“It’s been almost a week.  If they wanted a ransom, we would’ve gotten the demands already.”

 

“Not if they’re trying to make us sweat,” Vincent pointed out.  “Make us worry.”

 

“No one’s dared try it since the last time,” Chaos grinned toothily, remembering with fondness the rather bloody entertainment when someone thought the ShinRa immortal would make a great hostage.

 

“If they’re not dead and not hostages, what use would Cloud and Zack be?” Vincent asked.  “They’re not liable to break under torture, and even if they managed to brainwash them, Cloud is still very well-known.  It would arouse suspicion if his behavior or alliances were to change.”

 

“There are the brothels.”

 

“You think a mere pimp like Don Corneo could cage those two?” Chaos snarled at Sephiroth.  “They’d kill anyone that tried to mount them without permission.”

 

True enough, but the demonic twins seemed to forget that for Cloud’s immortality and Zack’s vivacity, both still had weaknesses.  Like each other, although the mage didn’t believe either was foolish enough to fall for that kind of manipulation.  Still.  It was a possibility.

 

Unless…well, Turks had never been known to wear anything but their distinctive business suits, but ShinRa was hardly above hiring others to do the dirty work they truly didn’t want connected back to the royal family.  Over the years ShinRa had learned to treat Cloud as a distant uncle, someone to be humored but carefully watched; perhaps it was a preemptive maneuver in taking out their ‘black sheep’?  But then why take Zack as well, not simply kill him and make it look like a fight gone wrong in Wall Market?

 

“I’ve already tried all the location spells I know,” Sephiroth told them absently, still running through different possibilities, “which leads me to believe that their captors have at least one powerful mage with them.  When we return home, I will search through my books for something else that may help.”

 

“Chaos and I will remain here and see if we can’t find anything more,” Vincent replied decisively, reminding Sephiroth why he allowed this man to share his bed; their mutual ability to understand what needed to be done without the interference of personal wishes made him feel a little more human.

 

“You take the stuffy old fuckers in their gilded towers,” Chaos snarled happily, referring to those that fancied themselves powerful in this underworld.  “I’ll handle the filth.”

 

Sephiroth shared the demon’s dark smile, recognizing that need for blood.  Vincent was more careful in controlling that bloodlust, but Chaos reveled in it, and that danger was a delicious challenge to the mage’s own nature.

 

“Return to the apartment by tomorrow dawn.  Prepare to hunt.”

 

The quotation in here comes from 1 Corinthians 13; it essentially refers to the idea that knowledge means nothing without love *pokes Ansem*, and that humanity perceives the world in a flawed way.  Um, basically.  I'm sorry, but it really did make me think of Ansem. [/dorkiness]

Comments

[chofi.livejournal.com]

I don't know who to feel sorry for the most: Cloud, for listening to Ansem pontificate; Riku, for being the Creepy Kid; Zack, for getting doped up; or the Organization, for being forced to listen to "It's a Small World."

[jukeboxhound.livejournal.com]

I vote Cloud, because really, listening to people go off like that? Irritating as hell. Which is why I amuse myself in making fun of Ansem.