One White Wing
Summary: Accidentally ending up back in time using the Lifestream, Sephiroth makes it his mission to find Jenova immediately. Since he crawled out of a reactor core, the first place he checked was Shinra Tower, flying through the 68th floor windows with his massive black wing.
What he found wasn't the body of Mother. He found himself, young, cowering, terrified, with a bloody wing out of his back. A white wing.
Inspired by This art by @Waldein_forest on Twitter.
Please enjoy!
…
Floating. Drifting. Resting along the tides of life, the blood of the planet. Building strength. Building again. No more failures. Not again. Fixing memories. Finding mistakes, all the way back to the beginning. Change it. Change it.
Change it.
* * *
Who could do something like this?
Why?
How?
The report left too many unanswered questions. The few answers it managed to give only worried everyone more. It went somewhere, it escaped, and it’s too strong to stop.
But the reactors were good. The energy they provided powered the entire city, upper plate, under plate, sector zero’s massive tower and all. Why would anyone attack one? Especially from the inside?
No one knew what it was.
Video footage of the attack was glitched, discolored, and distorted as what looked to be a human with long white hair and long dark clothes climbing out of the mako at the bottom of the reactor core, dripping in the modified green essence of The Planet. Any attempt at identification through enhancing the image in resulted in crippling corruption, destroying the recording beyond even basic recognition.
This creature, person, whatever it was, tore through every security measure in the core. Turrets, destroyed by long range magic, barely a bullet or beam fired at this unfathomable enemy. Sentinels, cut to pieces before they could even react to its falling limbs, left as nothing but cleanly cut scrap metal with sparks of failing batteries, hoping for a connection to finish the loop of crumbling energy. That was the most terrifying fact: all lasting damage was clean, all slices and slashes of the ineffable blade with perfect precision and accuracy. Utterly perfect, not a single wasted attack, always hitting its mark.
After decimating any attempt to take it down, only a single tilted camera remained to record the attacker, tilted and unseen. A massive black wing broke out of its back with ease before it shot into the air, a single flap leaving black feathers floating delicately down from the updraft. Only a few workers saw where this creature’s focus targeted after escaping. It flew straight for Shinra Tower.
That creature was Sephiroth, after his second failure to Cloud Strife. After his remnants failed. After they cured his virus. After The Planet began healing again.
It was wrong. Everything was wrong. The moment he pulled himself out of the Lifestream, his connection to Mother wavered, held together like a string of gelatin, easily mailable, easily folded, easily broken, easily torn apart. He needed her, before he lost the tie completely. He searched for her without question, and after discovering his current location, he flew to the first place they moved her body after he learned his truth.
Last time, they contained her body in the lab near the top floor. There’s no reason he couldn’t find her again by starting at the top. And the helicopter pad was all but an invitation to do so. The tower was still standing. Standing again. Midgar itself sustained and maintained its previous visage, all buildings perfect and all plates supported, no debris, no destruction, no pain. He didn’t even drop the sector seven plate, but he knew it happened. How was it all back? How was everything back in this city of despair?
He took a single look at the wreckage of his escape, a single, massive sign the only proof he needed.
There it stood, in white letters along the near collapsing wall, “01”. The first reactor Cloud and his meaningless friends destroyed, before they even knew he returned.
He’d figure out ‘when’ he was later, as soon as he had Mother safe and sound. He couldn’t reach her through Reunion. He needed to find her physically, but this time was far beyond his goal, far beyond the day after Meteor struck the planet. He did not change his trajectory. His best and closest bet still remained atop that tower, landing exactly in front of the window behind the president’s desk. Without hesitation, he slashed the glass to nothing in a single beam that sliced the chair clean in half.
To his disappointment, the sitting president had already been escorted out of the building, or at least the office itself from his little attack at the reactor, so no satisfactory blood spilled on the way to Mother. Inconvenient, but nothing more. As he traveled down the building, nothing he saw determined the current year. He vaguely recognized the reactor from Cloud’s memories. Most of his consciousness, due to his years floating in the Lifestream after Meteor failed, left his own memories all but incinerated, vaguely recognizable as what they were before dissipating to ash at too great a touch. Though it didn’t matter. Only Mother mattered.
For now, he lost context. But he’d get it back with Her at his side.
No attempt at security succeeded. Lockdown doors cleanly opened. Monsters, machines, and personnel all met the same fate as the reactor as he continued through to the lab, carving through the building like warm butter. Unstoppable, in their eyes. Good, because at the very least, the personnel were smart enough to run with their lives intact.
He entered the lab.
And she wasn’t in the pod. There was no pod.
Was she in Nibelheim?
Then what the hell was he feeling? Because the moment he entered the lab, he felt something. Too unclear. Indecipherable over the alarms and pulsing red lights. At very least, if it connected to Reunion in any way, he could use it as a compass to find her. Or he’d make it one. Whatever it took.
He pulled that connecting cord as he followed it to the back hallways near the examination rooms, all machines still pristine and primed for human experimentation. Without a thought, he broke the lock to the door only to prevent damaging whatever was inside, at least for now, and opened it.
Yet instead of the body he craved to see again, he saw a child, six or seven years old, shaking and trembling with a beginner’s short sword in its left hand. It tried to hide its fear and pain with an attempt at a threatening gaze. But its sky blue, snake-like eyes glowed with terror, its silver hair and pale gray medical gown stained with splashes of blood.
No matter how many memories he threw away, he couldn’t forget that boy.
Despite the sudden realization of who this child was, the only detail that claimed his attention was the bloody wing out of its back. Quivering. Wet. Bloody.
White.
* * *
The little boy couldn’t stop trembling, no matter how hard he tried to will himself calm, no matter how much training he had. The alarms, the lights, the destruction, …the wing. Whatever was coming or going was too strong for him. He had no idea what to do, but if this thing found him, he needed to escape. He heard it tearing through the lab. It was coming closer.
The door was locked. He wasn’t strong enough to break it open. Not right now. The sword on his wall, the training sword for adults, reflected the red lights with the only hope he had of defending himself. He struggled to wield it as he backed against the farthest corner from the door, the newly born wing stinging in protest at any and all physical contact.
It hurt. It hurt so much. It drained everything he had when it broke its own opening through his skin, while he screamed and stomped and banged with everything he had to make it stop.
Minutes old, completely fresh, and with this attack, the lab technicians didn’t test it. They didn’t find him. They didn’t help him.
Did they abandon him to whatever monster this was?
Was this a new test?
Or was he really going to die here?
He didn’t even hear Hojo anywhere nearby. Hojo would jump at the chance to test something new on him. Of course he didn’t want a new test, but with every shred of his body he did not want to be alone with whatever this attacker was.
He shook his head to regain his important thoughts, his focus. He needed to be ready for a fight. He needed to destroy whatever was about to attack.
He swore he saw the single blade slash through the lock he couldn’t break in a single instant before it opened.
He almost jumped to attack, but it hurt too much. His wing. His wing. This wing. It pulsed so much pain through him. He couldn’t strike first.
Then he saw the attacker, and everything changed.
A tall man, with a black wing, silver hair, and eyes just like his own, like looking in a distorted mirror.
Like looking at… Did… did someone finally…?
“...I’m you, from the future,” His deep voice rumbled under the alarms, after a few seconds of observation. “And we’re leaving right now.”
…what?
He assumed this man was his father. That at least made some sense, some family finally coming to save him. But, himself? How much less likely could it get? This had to be a test. Another experiment.
One he had absolutely no idea what the outcome should be.
“Don’t give me that look,” the man spat.
He guessed he showed more confusion than he thought.
“Do you really want to stay here?”
Well… this was the only thing he ever knew.
That didn’t mean he liked it. But he wasn’t stupid either.
“...Tell me something no one else knows…” He struggled, nearly stuttering over his words.
The man before him blinked once. “...No matter what you are told, you crave a mother with everything you have.”
No truer words cursed him beyond that moment. It was real. He was real. That was the feeling he never identified, but always hoped for.
“...okay…”
A small part of him believed the odd tale because of their similarities. Hair. Eyes. Left handed. Those were the only three things he could confirm. Every other detail was too different, too aged for a little boy to recognize.
He still didn’t want to put his sword down, but the weight of a single sheet of paper could push it to the floor in his current state.
Sephiroth, the older one, held out a single hand in silence, staying exactly where he was in the doorway, while the young one hesitated, taking extremely timid, careful steps. But the moment the child placed a hand in his, he scooped him up instantly.
“This will be quick,” was the only explanation the older one gave as he swiftly carried the boy out of the lab, smoothly traveling as if none of the security measures were in place.
The little boy didn’t know what to do. No one ever held him like this, even though this was just to blaze through the last of security to the nearest window, just to get him out of the way. It wasn’t caring, but it wasn’t harmful either. The moment they took flight, he even dropped his sword to cling tightly to his savior, praying he wouldn’t be dropped. Praying this wasn’t completely a dream as he hid his face from the remains of shattered glass and rapid wind, his eyes shut, his bangs protecting his face as the black winged flew flew like a comet out of the city.
He didn’t open them again until he was on solid ground.
* * *
Sephiroth should have flown farther. He meant to. He tried to. But he knew from the moment he crawled out of the Lifestream something was wrong. And the boy only proved it.
Jenova here wasn’t the same as she was in his time.
The two of them landed in the planes beyond Kalm, only so he could focus on what was happening to him rather than a simple break like his young self assumed.
He was weaker. A few hours of flying with this wing should be enough to reach the southern tip of the continent. But they were far too north. Maybe about 12 hours by car away from Midgar. What was happening to him? Why was he…
…degrading…?
No.
No that couldn't be it.
Unless the Mother of this boy…
The differences between the two…
Their wings…
Sephiroth forced his string of Reunion through the malformed connection to this world’s source. He felt one answer. One explanation. One instinctive feeling. That he converted to four simple words.
I want my baby.
The boy didn’t notice the drop in his posture at the simple command.
His gaze followed whatever the boy was looking at, the sky and the empty planes, in more silent thought. He failed. He truly failed this time, and his one opportunity to strangle a success out of this asinine situation was to carry the boy to Nibelhiem, and show him the truth.
Yet for the first time in his life, Sephiroth hoped he had enough time left to do it. He was rotting from the inside out, and quickly, due to his incompatibility with this time’s Mother. He had no time to spare, but the boy was utterly entranced by the simple sight of the sky and the land.
The young Sephiroth let go of his counterpart’s hand slowly as he stared in awe. The sky. The sun. The world. He never saw it like this. He never saw it so big. On the lucky days they brought him out of the lab, nothing compared to this. The way the light fell in delicate rays, chopped by the perfectly sculpted, puffy clouds to the uneven land of green grass of rolling hills radiated inside him. Small gusts of wind swept through his hair, and his wing. This is what he wanted. This. The world. This was what he dreamed of.
What the little boy didn’t know, was that the direction of the falling sun, the direction he was facing, was exactly where Mother’s body remained.
A simple compass.
“Let’s go,” The black wing one spoke calmly, swallowing his own apprehension.
The little boy nodded slowly, shaking his head to rid himself of the distraction and holding his arms up to be lifted easily. He chose to trust his future self, purely for allowing him to see such an amazing sight.
Afterall, why wouldn't he trust himself?
* * *
They didn’t make it to Nibelhiem.
They were so close. Only a few hours by car away.
“No!” The boy shouted in fear as his older self fell to the ground upon landing, both of their wings trembling. But the boy’s trembling was only a window to his emotions, while the adult’s was painful, weak, and corroding.
“No, please,” The child tried to lift the adult back to his knees. “You said it’s not much farther. We can make it!”
Sephiroth shook his head, a few small coughs bubbling through his weakened body. His wing was still perfectly black, but his skin was nearly gray. The shine from his silver hair dusted away, leaving nothing but a long white of fading life. Be it The Planet, this time’s Jenova, time itself, or a combination of all three, he was dying. He knew he used the last of his perseverance, unable to keep battling his failing body. “Go to the village…” His voice left his throat, raspy like sandpaper, nearly unrecognizable compared to his smooth, commanding one from before. “Find Her… Go to the reactor…”
“Please don’t go!” He begged in denial. “Come with me! Please! Please don’t leave me alone again…” Tears fell down his cheeks in sudden rivers as he tried, tried, to find the wound, the cause of this.
“Find… her…” His last words. His final request to himself.
“Find who?!” The boy shouted between labored breaths.
He never explained, his focus captured on pushing his body to Nibelhiem rather than explanation. But no time remained. No cell. No remaining lifeforce in his being. With a strangled exhale, Sephiroth’s head fell. His body faded to dust as black as his wing, wisping away like the simplest spell of wind materia, quickly and silently rejected by the planet to drift along its surface along the breeze, and never enter the Lifestream again.
The boy he left behind didn’t know any of it. His white wing dissipated in the same wind as the man he begged to stay.
“Find who?!” He yelled one last time to the nothing that remained, sobbing into his own hands. He didn’t know where he was, and now he was completely alone. What could he do? What should he do? The man that saved him gave him a message. He needed to go, stumbling in the vague direction of the town. He needed to get there, because that was the last request from himself.
* * *
Sephiroth, a small, tiny, but not fragile child, made it to the small mountain village after so many hours. The townsfolk gave him weird looks, staring and pointing and whispering about him to each other. He didn’t like it, but he needed to keep going. He didn’t know where the reactor was, but it clearly wasn’t in the town. He kept walking towards the path past the large gated house, until he was stopped.
Little did the dark haired man or the little boy know, but that simple decision protected him from the fate of his future self.
“Hey there, little buddy,” The man spoke kindly, cautiously, with a small wave as he slowly stepped into view. “Where are you going?”
“The reactor,” He spoke softly, still moving forward, eyes still forward.
“Uh, no you’re not.” He put a hand on Sephiroth’s shoulder. “The mountains are way too dangerous for a boy your age. Where are your parents?”
That stopped him. He looked down. “I don’t know... But I need to go to the reactor. That’s what he said…”
The man only saw a lost boy separated from his parents, not the truth of what this odd child was. “It’s alright…” He spoke sympathetically before stating, “but the reactor isn’t safe. Come on, I’ll get you some food. How does that sound?”
The dark haired man coaxed him into the local inn for a warm meal, the promise of food ringing through the boy’s stomach with a loud growl. He ate so much so quickly, like he never tasted anything so good in his life. The boy, after finally giving them his name, kept repeating that he needed to go to the reactor, and that no one would believe why.
It took a lot of coaxing, and a lot of days at the inn, before a dark haired woman with red eyes offered to bring him on her way to work.
What they found was horrible. Monsters made from mako energy, kept in pods at the back of the reactor. Sephiroth didn’t understand why his future self told him to see this. Simply, no one knew his mother’s name was carved in the marque above the sealed door. He had no idea, and he just shook his head to try to make the weird headaches go away.
Beyond that, they made no discoveries.
Sephiroth lived at the inn for a few more weeks, the entire village learning about him and his terrifying past. They quickly learned of his power, his strength, his skill with materia. He didn’t want to fight, but he knew how. He showed them what he could do because that’s all the board ever wanted from him. The village children and teenagers swarmed him at first, asking myriad questions that made him cringe and hide. After a few ‘talking to’s, they carefully approached him one at a time.
Slowly, very slowly, he started making friends.
By the time Shinra finally located him through the security footage of the reactor, the village protected him, hiding him as necessary and denying his existence entirely. The company would sooner burn the place to the ground before attempting to negotiate with these backwater people, but Professor Hojo stopped them.
If Sephiroth was truly in the village, and they risked or gods forbid succeeded in killing him due to barbaric solutions, then he would sooner burn the entire science division to the ground. This was his project, and they would not harm him without his say. During the attack on Reactor 01, Hojo believed the creature to be somehow connected to Jenova, by the appearance and power alone. He took that risk before, and the only solace he had in this hillbilly town was the knowledge they absolutely kept his son alive.
Shinra soon considered negotiations a lost cause, and focused its efforts of the SOLDIER program into Project G.
Sephiroth grew up in the village happily, despite his natural abilities and differences. At ten years old, he aided in monster regulation, learning to kill creatures for the sake of the town. But he learned from the support of true mentors rather than survival instincts. He was so happy.
When he turned thirteen, some Wutaians asked the village for aid against the war with Shinra. They understood completely that their great ask may not be met, but they traveled to prove their devotion to their country.
Their devotion to protect.
Sephiroth, with no idea of what war was truly like, stepped forward. And after victory, the country hailed him as the Angel of Wutai. A far cry of what he once was. A far cry from the black wing of the future.
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Thanks for reading!
Author’s note: Finally starting to get through some of these. This fic certainly changed a lot from when I initially asked for permission from the artist, but I believe this version fits the personality and motivation of, well… Sephiroth and Sephiroth, more. I genuinely apologize for the angst on this one, but I wanted at least one final scene of interaction before filling in the time gap. I hope you enjoyed it!
Thanks for reading!