Sky Screams Into The Void - Blog Posts

໒⦂ 𝐀𝐒 𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐖𝐎𝐑𝐋𝐃 𝐂𝐀𝐕𝐄𝐒 𝐈𝐍.

synopsis. even when all is lost, withering or crumbling away into dust, the unwilling bond tugging them to one another, again and again, remains unyielding.

genre. angst

tw. violence, kinda manipulation but like- he’s right..

disclaimer. there were no suitable sefikura gifs so i made one myself. if you use it, don’t be an ass, credit.

sephiroth x cloud strife. ( could be seen as platonic too )

the blond’s shoulders shook with exhaustion, hands blistering beneath his worn out gloves as his breaths came out shallow — uneven. as though the very oxygen he breathed had been stripped from his lungs amidst the clashing of steel against steel.

meanwhile the man across from him, stood with an eerie, but predictable calm, bangs flowing in the frigid breeze as his fingers curled around the hilt of his blade, ready.

it was just like last time, and the time before that.. and the time before that. every fight was near identical; same beginning with an ending that was equally the same. the only thing different was the words exchanged.

cloud, however, had grown tired of repetition.

the buster sword, trembling in his grasp, finally sunk into the earth, or whatever remained of it, as the former SOLDIER held himself up with a shaky breath.

sephiroth, mildly confused, though it had not reached his features, lowered masamune to his side, curiosity flashing in his feline-like eyes. “giving up so soon.. cloud? that was the last thing i’d expected, certainly out of you.” came his quiet comment, a hum following. “are you reconsidering my offer, perhaps?”

his offer.. the blond remembered it clearly, it echoed continuously in his head, like a mantra, since it left his curled lips.

“cloud, lend me your strength..” the one winged angel had stated mere moments ago, outstretching his leather covered palm. “let us defy destiny.. together.”

on their previous encounters, the mercenary would have yelled before gathering himself for the end of the battle, once more to prove his nemesis wrong. but the fire in him, whatever continued to burn, at last, faded from dying embers to evaporating wisps of smoke. much like the ones that surrounded the horrifyingly beautiful swordsman standing inches away from him.

with all lost or on the verge of being lost, how was he expected to go on? to continue this life long war without end? a battle could be won and lost, but a war persisted and called for more battles without prevail.

such was this so-called destiny sephiroth wished for them to defy.

but the former infantryman was no fool. at least, he believed he wasn’t.

“i don’t.. need your comments, offers or pity, s-sephi.. roth..” cloud heaved out, shaking his head weakly, attempting to remove his weight from the broadsword he’d been leaning on. “let’s just f-finish this.. once and for all.”

except, even he knew it wouldn’t be once and for all. it never was.

the cherished and famed war hero of shinra always, always, no matter the circumstances, odds or how many times the buster sword was cleaved clean through him.. he never failed to return. like a cat with nine lives, he stayed true to those eyes of his.

cloud had lost nearly every person he held dear to his wounded heart — had almost all of them taken away from him while he simply stood by and watched. too late to have made even the slightest difference to prevent the cruel outcomes that befell his loved ones.

the only one that seemed to persist, despite it all.. was sephiroth, he realized.

whether as a taunt or a bitter reminder of his failures at ending him for good — maybe even both, the self proclaimed ruler of the planet came back time and time again to prove the mercenary wrong. regardless of how deep of a slash he’d put through him using his departed friend’s weapon.

sadly, it was the bitter reality cloud lived. who was to say his silver haired nemesis would not return a third time? perhaps even a fourth, fifth or sixth- maybe even a hundredth.

nonchalance seemed to flicker in those mako colored irises, lips curling into what could be perceived as a smirk, albeit feint. “i thought i would mention, as you seem more withdrawn than the previous battles we shared.” he stated lightly, drawing his hilt back into his signature stance. “i would not want to fight you if your heart was not wholly, and irrevocably in it, cloud.”

the spiky haired male narrowed his eyes, vision slightly blurred from his fatigue and confusion. “why.. should my condition matter to you? am i not allowed to be tired of whatever this is- of constantly having to reenact this fight??” he retaliated in a low hiss, wincing as he forced the weapon into a defensive hold.

“i never stated you were not allowed to feel burnt out from our repetitive battles.” the older spoke up softly, a contrasting gentleness to his cold blooded nature — the one that was seared into him. “in fact, i have given you a way out of this fate that we share, where our reunions end with our blades locked.” he added shortly after, chuckling quietly, albeit devoid of humor. “it is often always you, cloud, who turns to fighting, anyway, is it not?”

the boy in question felt his heart in his throat, pupils dilating just slightly before he gritted his teeth. he would not dare fall for the words he spoke again — would not allow himself to see sephiroth as anything short of a villain. it was just so like him to say, anyway, twisting his actions to make him feel remorse.

tightening his grasp on the broadsword he held, cloud took a staggered step towards the taller. “don’t you dare give me that shit, you have ruined everything for me!” he shouted back, a bubbling rage surfacing in him the more he eyed the man across from him. “you’re insane to think i would believe a word you say! i know better than to trust someone who wouldn’t think twice about destroying and redesigning me into his own fucked up image!”

how could he not do that? all the things sephiroth said and expressed — it had all amounted to harnessing the sorrow, agony, hatred.. and that burning rage born from the town — his home, that had been scorched to ash and rebuilt as though it had never happened.

all for the purpose of pushing cloud to the very edge of despair, to pull him in deeper into the cold, dark waters. far away from the surface- from any source of warmth or light that wasn’t the flames on that fateful evening.. and into his everything.

a solemn smile seemed to replace the faltering smirk sephiroth sported as he let out another hum. “i am many things, cloud, but a liar.. is not one of them.” he answered lowly, eyes darkening. “you were rejected from SOLDIER five years ago due to sensitivity to mako. you were weak, incompetent and would have likely died on the field, had you been enlisted as you were.”

the younger of the two seemed to blink as he gripped his claymore tighter, glowering at the male he once idolized. if only that boy knew what his hero would become. “s-stop talking.” it came out stuttered, quieter, than he wished for it to. “you don’t know anything about me.”

“oh but i do, cloud.” he continued, anyway, stalking towards him. “i know everything there is to know. the things you cannot remember, the things you choose not to remember.. even things you do not know about yourself.” the teal eyed male went on, returning his sword to his side. “your strength now is more than it was that day in nibelheim. five years soaking in mako, injected with my cells has made you my equal.” he muttered, watching as the sapphire eyed mercenary trembled not in fear.. but in a nurtured, channeled fury.

it pleased sephiroth greatly, like an artist gazing upon his greatest work, as he appeared behind the blond mercenary, faster than any lightning materia could strike.

while the last of the strife family was still processing his position, the long haired male leaned in closely, curling his lips in a mild amusement. “my will and every desire, as well as my aspirations.. they run through your veins and call out to me- yearn to be one with me. you cannot resist the pull of the reunion, that undeniable need to find the one that tugs your strings.” he whispered into his ear, silver locks spilling over his battered shoulder armor. “what would you be without me, if not a weak, dejected infantryman with crushed dreams in becoming a SOLDIER?”

cloud stood there, frozen in his place despite the mixture of feelings he felt and had planned to pour into every slash he would deliver this time on his adversary.

what would he have been, truly, if not for sephiroth? if not for the horrors he had been through to get to this point?

his head lowered in shame, breaths coming out uneven at the realization as the buster sword dropped from his grasp. “i-i’m not.. i refuse to be any of what you say..”

“oh, but you were, cloud. no matter how many ways you paint the story in your head, however narrative you use to retell it.. your origins are embedded in you, unchanging.. as are my own.” the swordsman clad in leather spoke, placing a hand on his bare, quivering shoulder. “fret not, cloud, for you have gained strength in your suffering, have you not?” he mused out, feeling the other tense beneath his touch.

he had grown and gotten more powerful, yes..

“but i lost everything.” he whispered in a voice so broken from it all, unlike the harsh one that he’d been using as he felt his eyes gloss over with tears; ones that dared not leak in his wake.

..though at what cost?

sephiroth seemed to hum at the crack in whatever stability remained in cloud’s tone, smoothing a hand over his arm, soothingly. “that is the price of strength, cloud. do you think i became the way i am by design?”

other than the propaganda that painted his old role model and the version he came to know now, the spiky haired merc.. knew near nothing of him.

the taller took his silence as a sign to proceed, placing the back of the other’s hand into his palm. “my childhood was spent in a laboratory. those who raised me, the researchers of shinra.. were not pleased with how i was born- what i was born with. they wished for more, to construct and remodel me into that which i am today.” he explained, feeling the blond go completely still.

a mere breath away from his ear, sephiroth parted his lips again to finish. “the famed war hero which you idolized in your youth.. was in reality, a perfectly crafted monster all along, dressed under the guise of an angelic-like grace.”

the one winged angel.

cloud knew shinra wasn’t anything short of sick, having experimented on him as well as many others.. but to this extent?

“unlike you, however, i did not wish for this strength or for anything that was injected, slipped, disciplined or instilled into me.” he finished calmly, no longer fazed by what shattered him, so long ago now. “i did not ask for this destiny, either.. to have to die at your hands repeatedly and be rejected each time by the lifestream. but alas, i have been chosen for this, and to guide you, cloud, as my other half, whenever you lose your way.” the silver haired male finished, raising his free hand to wipe his fresh tears. “so whenever you lose your reason and purpose, i will always be here to gift you a new one. weep not, cloud, for this dynamic is what binds us together.”

he was sure he’d heard something like that somewhere before, and not long ago.

“that which binds us together would be no more.” cloud recalled hearing him say, after the detonation of mako reactor one, amidst the fiery destruction, and his fragile state of mind. “and i would be loath to live in such a world.”

sephiroth had said that about the planet’s annihilation — a result of shinra’s carelessness and abuse of mako as an energy source.

his intentions were in regards to saving the world, but his methods — his vision.. it was flawed- fogged by his resentment for what everyone had done to him.

the self proclaimed first class SOLDIER wondered, would he, too, have reached that point — sephiroth’s point — had he not directed his drive and deplorable feelings into putting an end to him?

his head lowered in shame as he felt his breath catch in his throat. “if i knew strength would mean hurting — bringing death to everyone around me, then i would have never wanted it to begin with.” cloud willed himself to answer, flashes of his most cherished ones appearing in his mind. his mother, zack.. the late avalanche members..

he couldn’t keep doing this. his promise to tifa could barely be kept as it was. how could he be certain she would not be next? or even aerith, now?

sephiroth brought his chin to his shoulder, closing whatever proximity remained between their bodies as he lifted his chin up with his thumb. “it is not too late, cloud, to defy the destiny that has been written out against our will and knowing.” he encouraged in a gentle tone, resting his thumb so close to the corner of the merc’s bottom lip. “your beloved friends could be safe, the suffering would cease and we would stop our never ending fights. all you have to do, is lend your strength to me.. as the only one on this caving world who has endured similar suffering to your own and understands it best.”

ocean hues flashed like those of a deer in headlights, an involuntary shiver dancing down his spine.

to give into sephiroth..? the one thing he had been avoiding, suppressing himself- that part of him from doing.

and yet..

“what.. would i have to do?” cloud asked before he could stop himself from his curiosity, to which the former hero smiled.

“don’t worry, it’s a simple thing.” he assured, stepping around the other to be at his side as he slid his hand into his before gazing up at the sky. “you have gone against me time and time again, to which the cycle of us fighting has reiterated.” the one winged angel stated, trailing his slitted eyes down to the spiky haired hero beside him. “that leaves us with one method not yet attempted.”

partnership.

“what will it be,” sephiroth asked, squeezing his hand. “cloud?”

the former SOLDIER- no, infantryman, gazed down upon their intertwined hands, which he somehow did not reject as he let his words sink.

what would it be, indeed..

his lips pulled tightly together, and finally, he lifted his eyes to meet those of his greatest foe- who waited patiently, calmly, for his response.

one thing was for certain, cloud wouldn’t be able to stop himself from whatever left his lips in that moment.

cloud could only hope the right choice spilled passed his tainted appendages.

notes. the way i die off and come back to write the most fucked up shit ever.. anyways they have had me on a bad chokehold for DAYS. literally i am not ok. who let square make them this fucked up.. regardless, this is different from what i post- i don’t typically do ship writing any longer, so i hope it was decent!

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