*final fantasy: fated*
*last*
by the Black Wyvern of Armorica.

        Sometimes you can feel a cold so intense that it burns as it freezes. 
Is it heat?  Is it frost?  Is it both?
        What you feel at that moment is a confusion of the senses, two wires of
instinct crossed for a fraction of a second, jolting a lie into your
brain.
        What do you think it would be like to feel this way forever?

***

        There's a coldness in this place, a radiant, destroying cold that seeps
in and through my flesh as though my body were dispersed into the air. 
I ache to move, but I think that my soul has left meI'm ice inside and
out, and I can't seem to care about much anymore.  Crystalline
structures surround me, slowly growing, building up the prison that
feeds me with its frigid strength and for now I am the bird in amber,
wings frozen in flight.
        I remember the place where I was before, before the earth drew me up
into the Scar and encased me in its blood.
        Souls washed across my skin in caressing eddies and warm, soft waves;
all around me flared the rushing vibrancy of infinite color and the
strange feeling that I was falling into an endless void, a void filled
with Everything instead of Nothing.  What I remember most was the
pulsing, magnetic heat of Life that rushed within those fluid
chromatics.  It reminded me of those rare days in the warm summer, when
they threw wide the heavy doors to the Outside and I felt the sun on my
pale cheeks; the temperature suffused the sky and wrapped itself
comfortingly around my unfamiliar body, relaxing the combative readiness
of my limbs until I longed to lie upon the tender grass of the fields
and sleep peacefully until the world died.  And as I felt that warmth in
the tempest of light, I wanted to surrender to it, so that it might
cradle me on the gentle vortices of space forever but then the
intervention came, and my mind flowed away into darkness.
        This place is ice-cold.  I have been here for one year, thirteen
months, twelve days, and sixteen hours-so says the beautiful voice that
comes to me from time to time, when it has the strength to do so.  Soon
it will be two years, if nothing changes and then it will have been five
complete turnings of the sun since I was cast from the world above into
the secret veins of the Planet, where I floated in midnight until I was
guided here by another hand, to my high temple where arctic storms break
against the glittering shell that feeds me with power.
        It's been a long time, but I spend it dreaming.
        Hundreds of thousands of miles away, I can sense the serpentine
uncoiling of the great mind-the slow psychic tendrils that cross over
the bitter ether, reaching out to me here in the freezing north.  I
grasp them eagerly, shifting not a molecule of my body.  Hunger is
beginning to command me again, and I fear that my spirit may be losing
the strength for survival.
        She wraps her immense presence around me, heating my soul with her
essence; I curl myself within the venomous flame and bask in the comfort
offered by the glory of the star-beast who touches me from so far away.
        ~Mother~, I murmur softly, ~show me my future.~
        I sense her smile, the unveiling of endless rows of dagger-edged teeth
in a distant stasis cell, buried in a far metropolis.  She washes a
vision into my mind-

        ~*~
        The world burns as an annihilating flame sweeps out from the grand
Scar.  All that exists flees before its power, from the unnatural
blood-red hue of its lashing claws.  The essence of my beloved creator
clings to the destroying plasma, riding the fury of the destruction with
unbreaking joy.  She sows herself in the seething, molten earth and her
power, which has slowly matured over thousands of years, now draws forth
new life from the corpse of the world.  The form of the Allmother,
beautiful and terrible in its strength, rises up above the chaos; now is
the hour when she completes the purpose set down for her millennia ago,
and the seed of her race is spread to another world, infesting and
controlling until all new Life is but a fragment of the great JENOVA.
        And while creation warps and transforms across the surface of the
earth, and angel crafted of pure light and vaster than a universe
spreads its wings across the Planetary core, reigning over the
half-dimensional realm of those who have died.  Waves of emerald force,
the manifested Life of all those beings erased by the Goddess, swirls
around the majestic form like a blazing hurricane, the energy melding
with it until the brilliance outshines a million suns-
        ~*~

        My heart thrills within me, beating faster with my conviction; now I
fly free on the ecstasy of the Final Dream.

        ~*~
        A full world of complex beings dies, and their souls are gathered in
the sheparding wings of the bright God beneath the earth; the
scrutinizing eyes of flaming green-blue range over their infinite
numbers, casting the inconsequential droplets into the heated furnace of
its own being and elevating the favored minds into the numinous ranks of
its servitors.  White fire sweeps across the pristine purity of the God
of all who live and die, the One who sits in endless judgement over the
flow of Death from a world that has found its end.  And as the souls of
the ones loved by God pass into and through the sacred Body, the
memories of every life flow into the mind of that infinite Force, and
thus does the Angel of Light and Darkness learn the joys and pains of
love, wonder, passion every wonderful and perfect emotion known to
existance, every glorious memory and thought and dream.
        ~*~

        My disembodied soul sighs with the pleasure of the sight before it; my
eyes devour every detail, locking them into my heart.  How could I have
forgotten this promise?

        ~*~
        Above, on the Planet's crust, whole orders of life are seared from
existance in minutes as the flames of blood burn on and on and the
spores of the holy mistress flourish and spread across the new world, a
reborn sphere ruled by the two Gods of the Ancient Race.
        ~*~

        My heart rests easily within me now, calmed by my mother's images and
the nurturing warmth of her presence.  My fear has been broken by my
devotion to her; my conviction is strengthened by her faith in me.  Yes,
I shall kill and conquer in her name, as once I killed and conquered in
slavery to Shinra, Inc.
        She coils gently around my psyche.  I lose myself now, remembering.
        Shinra.  I haven't thought about them for almost five years now-it
proves how disoriented I've been all this while.  Shinra, yes.  The
corporation that rules the human race, that buries its serpent face
beneath a mass of false names, that has risen up to make itself the God
of the earth.  
        But the great champions of the ancient gods were made angels; in my
defense of Shinra I was transformed into a grovelling dog.  I lived with
my desolation for years and years, suffering with the silent insanity
that they had made within me.

***

        Seven feet by eight feet, and nine feet high.  The dimensions of my
home.  There was not much to it-four walls of stainless steel, the floor
and ceiling also of the same.  I could see my blurred reflection six
times over.  During those hours designated as "night" (for I rarely saw
the sky, and the Midgar sky itself was perpetually black with smog), I
slept on a metal cot cast in a single piece, narrow and low to the
ground.  Home was where I became used to the cold.  Every surface seemed
made of ice there; I always shivered beneath the single thin blanket,
wrapping my long hair around my shoulders for warmth.  I fell asleep
looking at the micro-camera mounted high in the corner, there to the
left of the entrance, because I knew that the tiny lens was Hojo's eye-I
could never relax when I thought that he was watching me from somewhere
unknown.  In my younger days I thought that the monster never slept,
that his sight was everywhere at all hours, for I believed that eyes so
bright and hungry could never dim in sleep.
        I suppose that I understood the way they rationalized it all.  I could
see the line of the President's thought.  And the loyal science team
dutifully obeyed the orders of God, yet spun Its commands so as to own
me for their every whim.
        So it was that the door of my home was built of thick titanium plates
and locked with intricate technology from the outside.  I always looked
at the front of it when they removed me; I looked at my door and at the
long hallway that stretched endlessly to either side, lined with rows of
doors exactly the same as mine.  And some of them contained
twelve-legged insectoids whose chitin shells flowed with toxins, and
some of them contained child specimens abducted from the streets and
injected with nameless fluids, and some contained savage monstrosities
as intelligent as their creators, yet so swift and ferocious that they
could kill ten humans in half as many seconds.  I'd seen it happen,
once.  It was called "a triumph of bioengineering."
        My number was C/UM-01; it was stencilled on the armored portal, right
beneath the black-and-yellow hazard stripes and the bold legend,
"ALTERED LIFEFORM CONTAINMENT UNIT."  The cell to my left contained
Research Sample RC1-325, a beast which had never been fully described to
me; it was said that it could run at almost seventy miles per hour and
bore twelve poisonous tails.  Regrettably, it had to navigate by sonar
because the four heads had been stripped of all features except for
their gaping, sharp-fanged maws.  Originally, it had been a stray dog. 
The cell to my right contained Research Sample C/QM0-14, and had been
soundproofed in order to contain the creature's seven distinct voices,
which droned continually in an unknown tongue and had the ability to
hypnotize sentient beings.  This organism, an amorphous mass of
pale-blue jelly covered in eyes, had escaped five times in three years
before the directors ordered its chant contained.
        They would take me from my cell every morning, having explained that
they were able to do so only because I was the least dangerous of all
the Samples on their register.  It seemed that my military record-which
had on file the papers stating that I was personally responsible for
almost nine hundred deaths-meant little to them, despite the fact that I
had the highest registered kill count of any organism previously
engineered by Shinra's scientific division.  I'd researched that once,
back in the years before my curiosity had been taken from me.  But I
never would have brought up such a point.  I never would have spoken to
them at all, if I could have gotten away with it.  The sweetest sounds,
for me, were the squealing of the bolts as they were pulled back from
their mounts and the tortured groan of the great door as it opened. 
~Freedom, freedom, freedom!~  Even in the stagnant air of the
containment hallway, that thick miasma of chemical reek that never
covered the stink of alien fear, I longed for that scrap of light, I
loved even the sound of animalistic howls and the pounding of twisted
limbs on metal portals.  I would do anything to be free of that room,
that freezing hell packed with solid darkness, that cube of ice and the
dreams that came to me as I slept within it.  All the pain that they had
inflicted on my body returned to me in my mind, wounding me again in
that endless night.
        And so I killed for their promise of freedom.  But not for the
scientists-their liberation was often false, and my loyalty would never
belong to them, though my body would remain forever their plaything.  I
feared and hated those parasites, whose soulless experiments left
swift-healing scars on my defenseless flesh.  Already I bore the mark of
their claim-the symbol "I" engraved in heavy sable on the back of my
left shoulder.  I dreamed of killing them, but never dared to; it might
have angered the generals.
        Because I would fight and kill for the freedom that the military
offered to me, even though its span was so very brief and the night
would always come when they would order my return to the lab.  And,
filled with anguish, I would turn my back on the broad, endless heavens
and submit myself once more to that sterile warren of glass and steel
that hid voiceless pain and invisible corruption within its walls.
        Yet the fighting was all that I had, even though I was nothing but a
convenient superweapon to them.  And to escape those SCAVENGERS.
        Was there pleasure in the killing?  Perhaps.  But the greatest pleasure
was in the kindnesses that they unwittingly gave to me-actions of
protocol abhorred by common soldiers that I clung to as the few
suggestions of life in my body, the indications not only of my
individuality, but of my humanity.
        My Sample number was not good for public relations, they said, so they
gave me a name-Sephiroth, the Branches of the Tree of Life.  They saw my
shame as the researchers led me naked through their labyrinth of
hallways, so they clothed me in the uniform of a great officer, a leader
of the Mako-strengthened SOLDIER.  And they saw my inhuman potential, so
they trained me to kill.
        Masamune was a reject as well, I recall.  A weapon of incredible
experimental technology, crusted with custom-engineered Materia, gaining
its power from magic shaped by science.  High Command dismissed the
project, favoring the usual projectiles and mecha over more conventional
weaponry types.  The young genius who had invented it was killed mere
months later by random street violence, and no one mourned his loss; a
corporate card was sent to the widow.  But after my murderous skill was
realized, someone up above remembered the fantastical blade that was far
too massive and unwieldy to be used by a common fighter, and gave it to
me on a whim.  Prototype Armament RS-01, the first and last of its kind,
passed into my hands.  Two experiments together, two wondrous devices
locked away from all the world.  So I gave it a name as my masters had
given me mine, and called it after the sword of the noble warrior.
        For them and for their generosity, I trained in a frenzy and forced
myself to become immune to fatigue.  Never once did I ask for relief,
because I knew where it was that they would send me to rest.  Fear drove
me on when exhaustion would have killed me.
        No matter how much the people stormed in the streets, or the fighters
growled over the incompetence of their leaders, or the rebels swarmed
and fought over the blood of the Planet, I remained loyal.  Every fiber
of my devotion was bent towards my commanders; I never questioned them
because they let me see the sky.
        And they would say to me, ~Captain-Premier Sephiroth, put down the
rioters in Sector 7.~  I would gather my forces and strike as they
commanded, leading their corporate warriors myself and fighting with the
seven-foot blade that was a brother to my soul.
        They said that I was like a dark machine in battle, like a tiger with a
reaper's scythe.  My training flowed out of me, down the curving edge of
the silver viper in my hands, as I slashed apart rank upon rank and left
the unfortunates behind me to howl and screech as they flooded the
pavement with their blood.  Instinct penetrated my mind, mingled with
the practiced motions until I felt myself enclosed in a mystical rhythm-
        
        ~*~
        They said that I was like an angel filled with coursing thunder.
        ~*~

        My minimal dodges let machine-gun bullets pass me by mere
inches-nothing touched me because nothing could.  In my flight of
adrenaline, I saw everything in slow motion and I anticipated every
attack.  By the time the mob's ferocity failed them and they scattered
into the filthy streets, almost two hundred had been swept into my red
wake, the corpses lying twisted and quiet across the concrete.  The road
was a river of crimson and the dark stains of life dripped down into the
nighted sewers below.  I myself was slick with the fruit of my labors,
the blood running black over black leather, spraying in strings over
pale skin and matting the length of my moon-silver hair.  I looked
around me at the carnage that I had brought forth, and I felt exactly
the same as I had when it had begun.  Nothing.

        ~*~
        I don't understand it when people accuse me of being "cruel."  How can
you kill and feel nothing?  How can you be such a sick monster?  Who are
you to slaughter the people like cattle, like vermin who merely annoy
you?
        *And why are your eyes so cold, as cold as ice?*
        When you ask me these questions, I can't understand how you could be so
mistaken.  That isn't cruelty that you see.  It's the walls of my steel
cell, reflecting off the surface of my eyes.
        ~*~

        They stared out of the ash-smeared windows of sagging buildings,
horrified.  I stood in the midst of the two hundred bodies without a
scratch, and I looked back at them.  My forces regrouped, and we left
the field.  That was the end.
        Sometimes I wonder what the citizens are trying to accomplish with
their rebellions and sabotage.  When I was given permission to gain an
education, I read almost as much as I trained (after I had learned how),
and I studied theology, politics, psychology.  After that, I read a
series of books called -Shinra, Incorporated: Functional Analysis, 11th
Edition-, which described the company's various powers and areas of
influence in careful detail.  It was then that I saw the
supercorporation as the grand deity that it was-it held mastery over
nearly the entire planet, controlled every aspect of mortal life, had
the express power over death or salvation.  A god of technology run by
mortals, and in every town was a shrine to its glory a monolithic Mako
Reactor.
        The explanation of it was simple.  Shinra was God, and God had
commanded me to crush Its oppressors.  Did the brief frenzy of the mob
believe that it could stand up against the Hydra of a thousand heads,
against a soulless, immortal Force bearing infinite power and served by
a fanatic cabal that could count its blessings in its Gil?  Sometimes I
wonder at them.  They must have been expecting their failure-it was
never Man's place to challenge the strength of the Eternal.
        And, of course, I had long known the lesson that there are sufferings
that can never be escaped.  Pain that goes on and on, forever and
unceasing.
        Because the gods of old blessed their loyal warriors with peace, yet
all that I knew was endless torment.
        Did I not serve the celestial engine of my masters with all of my
will?  Did I not risk my life in every skirmish and move like Heaven's
lightning to smite all those who opposed their might?  Was I not wounded
a hundred times for their cause; did my blood not run over polluted
stone and fresh grass to further their glory?  Hundreds died by my
hands, and I never asked why.  Every plan I followed to the letter and
to the spirit, never wondering at the cause or purpose.  My dedication
was everything to me; my soul bowed in obedience within the terrible
shadow of the divine structure as I knelt before its grandeur, the first
acolyte to the master of the world.  But though the titanium doors were
opened in payment for the blood I spilled, the chains of poison remained
wrapped around me-Hojo's talons hovered overhead forever, and at his
whim I was dragged back into his clutches and broken as many times as he
pleased.  My unnatural flesh holds no trace of his cruelty.
        I gave my blood and suffering to them, asking for relief, and they
returned to me with blood and suffering tenfold.  Even when I wounded
the remnants of my pride, when I begged the generals on my knees to take
me from him, the leash of my slavery remained securely in the
Professor's hands.
        Soon, even the open sky of the far lands of my campaigns began to mock
me with its open warmth; I saw its beauty through a wall of dead ice. 
For a brief time, I could be captivated by the wondrous Outside, but
eventually the gates would close again and there would be nothing left
to me except cold and darkness and silence and unending anguish.  Such
was the payment I received for my unconditional service to God.

        I once read that self-mutilation is not an uncommon practice among lab
animals.  When a limb is riddled with machinery, or when nerve fibers
are surgically slashed so as to permanently numb part of the body, the
creature will no longer recognize that section as being of itself.  The
flesh, deadened by precise cuts or warped by probing technology, becomes
an endless irritation, a parasite, and madness grows from its constant
presence.  When I walked among the cages of my lesser brethren, I saw it
happen, and I understood.  I saw them as they slowly and methodically
rent their paws with their teeth, picking at the meat and bones and
joints with complete calm on their faces, for they knew that those
members were not their own.  They belonged to someone else, and they
were unable to feel and respond as they once had.  The animals could
rationalize all of this very well.  As a result, they attempted to gnaw
away these alien fragments in order to claim their bodies as wholly
theirs once more.
        Very few people know what is like to exist in a body that does not
belong to them at all, and I can claim the unfortunate honor of being
one of them.  From the time that I can first remember, my every cell has
been invaded by substances that they were never intended to contain. 
Every fragment of myself belongs to the men and women who altered me
beyond what I once was.  When I leave the city and look upon the things
of nature, I realize what I am when I think deeply during the velvet
hours of the night and the imagining of it fills me with such HORROR.
        When I walked among the cages of my lesser brethren, I saw it happen,
and I understood.
        Underneath the long leather gloves, my forearms are scored with jagged
scars.  The scientists who see them never mention them, and neither do
I.  When I think deeply during the velvet hours of the night, I see
myself for what I am, and my black-green blood flows down over my pale
fingers and drops onto the emerald green of the grass, the grass that
has grown over the earth for endless aeons of life.  It knows where it
belongs.
        I am owned by no order named by man.  The unbound sky looks down upon
me, and I am the first and the last of my kind, the first and last of a
species of one.
        And my blood drops down upon the grass because I will always be alone.

        They dragged me out of the growth vat when I had reached the equivalent
of the human age of seventeen.  After that, it took only a couple of
years in their grasp for me to learn how to kill my own emotions.  My
first violent instinct was against my own mind.
        I remember that they woke me from my maturing daze with pain.  I was
still warm, my mind still floating in the fluids of the womblike tube
from which I had been removed.  A sleepteacher module, which had encased
my entire head for that year and a half and had educated me in the
mechanics of proper speech, was carefully unlocked and lifted away,
exposing my face to the shock of cool air and unleashing the moist flood
of my pale-silver mane.  Though somewhat alarmed, I still remained
serene, remembering the long peace.  And then the gloved hands arrainged
my body upon the shining steel and tied the straps across me, pinning
down every limb.  I opened my eyes for the first time and saw masked
faces inside isolation suits; I was aware of my surroundings for only a
second before the long, mechanical needles descended and stabbed deep
into my young flesh, jetting diluted Mako into my blood, bones, brains-
        The first time in my life that I was truly awake was because of the
pain.  The shock to my mind was so immense, that first time, that I was
blinded by the agony; my consciousness seemed to rip itself away from my
body and was only dimly aware of my thrashing convulsions and my
desperate screams.  My first words were torn out of me, and they formed
a plea for mercy.
        There is no pain greater than a cry for help that is met by pure
indifference.  Countless times I went beneath those venomous needles,
and I howled in powerless agony before I learned the silence of my
madness.  Words rushed out of me like the blood from my wounds; I said
anything that I thought might please them, anything at all, yet still
the black spines twisted inside my muscles and released their hateful
fluids into me.  At last, I wept green-tinged Mako tears and sobbed
aloud as liquid fire rushed through every cell, pouring molten steel
through my bones.  It seized my entrails in its razored jaws and sliced
them to shreds; it gave birth to spasming worms that ate my eyes from
the inside.  In my pain, I looked up at the ones who held my life in
their careless hands, and with my burning, flowing eyes I begged them
for release.  When I could no longer give voice to my anguish, I still
tried to tell them.
        
        ~*~
        Please, please, please, make it stop; I don't care how.  Drug me, kill
me, slash my nerves to pieces, I don't care, I don't care.
        Please.
        Why won't you listen to me?
        Please.
        Love me enough to set me free.
        
        *Why can't you hear me when I scream?*
        ~*~

        It hurt me more than the needles, more than the Planetary poison in my
veins, more than the icy metal beneath me.  It was the look in their
eyes when they watched me suffer, for there was NOTHING there.  Behind
the masks, they observed me dispassionately, but I could see through
their eyes.  They knew the incredible pain that I felt, but they didn't
care at all what agonies they inflicted on me because what I felt didn't
matter.
        When I realized this, in the midst of that horrific first treatment, my
horror and my confusion were so great that I mercifully fell
unconscious.
        Tears and pleading beneath great pain are the unlocking of the soul
before another.  They display a pure weakness in the psyche of the
victim, for they declare outright: ~My strength alone cannot support me;
I beg you to lend me your own.  Your choice controls my fate, and you
hold my failing life in your hands.~  In a way, it becomes an offering
of the self, for it is a glimpse of the hidden, naked soul. 
Indifference in the face of such exposure is worse even than mockery,
for mockery at least acknowledges the presence of the need.
        A little over two years later, they left me by myself in an office as
they went to remedy a breach of security.  My curiosity overcame me, and
as I warily picked through the folders and papers on a large metal desk,
I found one of my own files, marked with my number; as I opened it, I
realized that it was the record of those initial injections.  There was
only one paper there, covered entirely in neatly-typed measurements and
other scientific observations.  My eye was drawn to the final block-the
large, empty box marked "Comments."  Within that space was typed a
single line of text:

        ~Subject gave indications of discomfort during treatment.~

        After that day, I never showed my pain to them again.

***

        She feels my suffering, and softly she comforts me with her vast,
slithering warmth.  She, a creature from the Great Outside, who had
entered this cold, malformed world to purify it with herself and who
bore within her body the flames from the stars themselves.  I know that
my blood runs as her own, filled with fragments of exploded galaxies but
why, then, am I so COLD?  I radiate no heat; no one cowers before the
feverish fire of my soul.
        But soon they shall.
        When the blazing angel beneath the earth and I are made one vision, I
will never feel the cold again.  One day, I shall never want for
warmth.  I will stand in glory by my own power, ruling beside the
predatory Goddess of Eternity, and my strength will wipe all legends
from the world.  One day, I will be truly free.

        I remember the day when I tried to release my mother from the grasp of
Hojo, the day when Nibelheim burned, when Zack fell before Masamune's
single fang and Cloud struck me down and cast me into the depths of the
earth from within the dark Reactor's tower.  I remember how my mind and
her pain locked together into one consciousness, forming an immense
power greater than either half alone.  I remember also my rage as I saw
her withered shape suspended in the acidic preservative that stripped
layers of ragged skin from her body even as I watched.  She was a mass
of twisted, mummified limbs and necrotic flesh, pierced all over by
invasive tubing and that body was surmounted by the Ancient artifact,
the smooth and stylized death-mask that her own people had bolted to her
bones, encasing her head in an unknown metal harder than diamonds and
binding her mind within her failing form.
        At such close proximity, our blazing souls melted and focused into a
single force, giving me the sudden strength that I needed to destroy all
in my path.  In that high of infinite power, my past human concerns were
burned to char; I broke the body of my protegee with its explosive fury
and flung his battered shell from my mother's chamber.  But my newfound
pride and overconfidence offered Cloud the means to pierce my body
through, to catch me with my own sword and hurl me from the heights.  I
curled inside the flaring color as the death-mask spun upwards on the
currents above me, spinning around and around.
        Cloud.  Cloud.  I remember you and sometimes I can taste you in my
mind.  I know that you're out there.  I know where you are little
brother.

***

        Can you imagine how it felt, that revelation that came to me beneath
the mansion?
        For all the years of my life, I had felt so hollow because my very
nature had forbidden me to belong.  I strove in vain to relate to the
others around me; I wanted to be accepted as one of their own and meld
seamlessly with their tides and rushing crowds.  I dreamed of the
security, of being surrounded by the comforting masses of humanity.  I
wanted to feel thousands of lives flow around me like an ageless wave.
        To gain my ends, I struggled and studied with every atom of my mind.  I
stalked the fighters under my command and watched their interactions,
learning how to respond and carry myself as they did.  Thousands of
pages that contained every kind of text and treatise on psychology
passed before my eyes as I tried to understand their actions.  Thousands
more of history, politics, biology, and philosophy came and went as well
as I tried to understand their motivations.  Nights upon nights I spent
staring at the walls around me in endless circular thought, but always
the answer eluded me, and in my frustration over my ceaseless failure to
comprehend, the coldness of my heart gradually came to mirror the ice
that shone in my eyes.  Bitterness ate at my soul, and I became fierce
in my lonliness.
        For all of my life among them, watching them, I nurtured a secret dream
that I might one day be truly human.  I believed that I had once been as
they were-cruel science had warped me into the shape that I now wore. 
Could I not learn to become like them once again?
        But then I saw the Jenova Reactor, and the offspring that grew within
it, and my thoughts were cast into such a frenzy of terror that I ripped
apart the library in my search for the truth.  And I found and I found.
        I was not human.  I had never been.
        Oh, and how I laughed then.  How I laughed and laughed as the pieces
fell together in my mind and everything became crystal-clear.  I mocked
my own poor ignorance with that laughter, mocked the thought that one
such as I had labored to become a creature inferior to me, a creature to
whom I had ~no relationship at all.~
        A creature who had betrayed the gentle rule                                                                                                                            
of my ancestors, who had burned their cities and slaughtered their
children, breaking forth like a hell-born plague to rampage and devour
across the once-pure world.  A race of TRAITORS.
        In the glory of that knowledge, I took revenge on them with my
purifying flame.  I took revenge on ALL of them.  Their every secret was
now known to me, everything that they had kept from me as they tried to
chain the strength of the Cetra that raged within my perfected form. 
And as always, I felt no remorse as I brought death to all that breathed
in that place, spraying the ash-blackened streets with red as my brother
sword drank deep of their worthless lives.  Around me, their flimsy
constructions burned and crumbled, as all human endeavors will crumble
before me when I rise again.
        On that day, I released myself from their lies and cast their
scavenging breed from my sight.  Upon the scorched timbers of their
dying lair, I swore that I would never hold love for their species
again, that I would wipe away their stain from the Planet's face and
make the earth whole beneath my rule.
        Across the jagged pathways of the Nibel Mountains I flew, and I tasted
the winds as the earth-blood rushed through my veins.  One other of my
kind still lived, bound in hateful captivity to THEM-one other who was
closer to me than all life on this lonely sphere.  With her power, I
focused my mind on the gates of her prison and the foot-thick portals
slid aside and let me pass between them.  But with my own strength I
ripped away the pinions of the iron seraph that kept her from me,
hurling it to the ground between us to seal our wordless pact.
        A one-winged angel held back the death and rebirth of our world.  Now,
a one-winged angel shall bring about the flames of its destruction.

        Though conquered, I am unbowed.  Here in my crystal prison I wait,
silent as the hawk in amber, wings poised for the call to come and
strike down my prey.  Now I am eager for the blood, eager for the
million deaths of my tormentors and still I dream of the souls that I
will cherish after the end, for they will teach me the wonders of their
lives.
        Freedom comes with knowledge and blood and pain.  I have passed through
the crucible, I have been reforged by my suffering and now, at last, I
am MY OWN.

***

        "Behold, I am coming soon.  I bring with me the recompense I will give
to each according to his deeds.  I am the Alpha and the Omega, the first
and the last, the beginning and the end."
--Revelations 22:12-3  

***

***

***

***

*in this time: gene isotope destruction*

        My essence drops four thousand feet from my silent chrysalis and buries
itself in the Lifestream once again.  I am filled with my purpose, and I
push away my inner cry for self-preservation as I blaze through the deep
arteries of the world, rushing closer and closer to the fate of my lone
soul.  The time is now, and she will not be denied.  I will sacrifice my
individuality for our shared dream.
        Two years in the distant north.  Exactly two years.  And all the while,
she had been insinuating her desires as I tried not to hear them; the
thought of losing all that I had gained froze my blood.
        ~Give yourself into my brood, my child,~ she whispered into my
thoughts, so many months ago.  ~Surrender your consciousness into the
pool of minds that I hold.  Remember the power that we held
together only with that strength can we create the Vision.  Join me and
be forever mine, and I will give you that for which you hunger.~
        I've resisted for so long, but now I have no choice.  Her presence has
been silenced by her slow death, and I can no longer feel her; if she
fails, then I will remain here for the rest of forever, frozen and
undiscovered.  There is no way but this one.
        I lurk stealthily among the rusting uptake pipes beneath Mako Reactor
Four, sending out my mind to search for a passage.  My disembodied soul
hovers for a second near a small crack in the steel before wriggling
through, falling two hundred feet to the diseased earth in a single drop
of brilliant emerald fluid.
        Formless, I hover above a wide pool of leakage and survey my
surroundings, though I have little to fear as far as human
intervention-the slum areas beneath the Reactors were long ago abandoned
due to the toxic drippings from the ill-maintained pipes, which permeate
the air and form a low-altitude venomous smog.  Satisfied, I concentrate
now on re-creating my physical shape, still sensing Mother's fading
psychic mark.  Time is of the essence.
        The air around me solidifies as I drain energy from the Mako-soaked
dirt and air, drawing it into myself and fueling my power.  In a snap of
displaced atmosphere, I manifest in full, appearing exactly as I did
five years ago.  My pale-silver hair cascades across burning green-blue
eyes and white skin, over the ivory metal on my shoulders and the black
leather of my long coat.  It flows over the three-foot length of
Masamune's scabbard, which hangs from the overlapping curves of my
armor.  The mane covers my back until it reaches the middle of my
thighs, where it ends in a final brushing of silken strands.  Beneath
the outer folds of my uniform, two straps of brown leather cross my bare
breast, internally supporting both blade and plates.  Sable thighboots
conceal tight pants of simple cloth; the steel-reinforced leather bands
used to secure them serve to hold my sidearms-a shortsword sheathed on
the outside of either leg, and two small daggers sheathed on the
inside.  I scrutinize my hands and their long leather gloves, which
cover both sleeves and flesh to the elbow.  
        Yes.  My soul has solidified itself.
        Without hesitation, I race into the shadow-strewn alleys of the dead
city, running inside the night; the shadows cover me as I cross the
great distance between myself and those who were once my masters.

        I'm so close to her now that I can hear the subtle rhythms of her
breath and taste the dying spark of her mind.  So weak.  I drop my
mental hold on the major security systems, conserving my strength for
her revival; around me, the bland light of the elevator pierces the
encompassing panes of glass, brightening this tiny space like a firefly
against the dark mountain of Headquarters.  Even after a brief handful
of seconds, I can sense the electric synapses of the silent alarms as
they reach the outposts, rousing the late-night guards from their
complacency.  And despite their technological weapons, I could rip them
apart with my bare hands, so great is my power, so great is my HATRED-
        But time does not wait for artful death.  My index finger snaps loose
the leather restraint and I draw Masamune into the dim light.
        The sword's hilt is slightly over two feet long and glitters as black
as obsidan; every available spot on the pommel, guard, and crosspiece is
studded with spring-locked claws that grip perfectly-round Materia of
all colors, every one Mastered from the energies of my past campaigns. 
As the blade slides free, it resembles a slender column of near-solid
mercury, the liquid surface rippling from its sudden motion.  In an
eyeblink, the loose metal solidifies into razored steel while long,
shining streams and droplets leap forth from the scabbard's mouth,
connecting and congealing upon each other until the full seven feet
shine beneath the dim neon, pure and perfect as a star.  The process
completes itself in two, perhaps three, seconds.
        Beneath my feet, the engines slow, locking against the tracks as the
doors open on the last unclassified floor.  Lifting my sword, I hold my
beginning stance for only a heartbeat before leaping into the massed
ranks that stand against me.
        Masamune lies buried deep within the earth, caught in the Lifestream
near the world's heart, yet the psychic edge that I have formed cuts as
deeply as the physical-whole floors are cleared in a matter of minutes,
all human resistance parting before me in a rushing wave of arterial
crimson.  With lightning slashes of my mind, the laser force fields that
keep me from her fade into hissing static.

        ~*~
        Now I fly to heaven on the wings of Death-
        ~*~

        But then I see the Other.
        At the sight of me, she flinches back against the open doors of the
elevator; in the sudden hush that fills the empty room, the leaves of
the potted palm by her side drip thick blood onto the marble tiles, and
the soft pattering sound reminds me of distant rain.  In a brief glance,
I catch the image of her delicate face, her long and unkempt red-gold
hair, her nondescript street clothes.  But hovering around her body is
an aura that no common human could possess.
        Spectral shapes swarm across a miniature sun of mistlike spirit-flame,
opening, extending, folding inward, and crossing one over another in
endless layers of indistinct motion.  Everything blurs into a coiling
haze of white.  Vast wings thrash outwards at incredible speeds, slicing
through walls like flailing ghosts; their immense numbers hide subtler
limbs that shuffle close to the body, a nest of dim and deadly insectoidarms tipped with curving blades.  And all around this vision of chaos
orbit the burning, near-transparent eyes that fly free in the air with
fanged mouths as pupils.
        The girl herself appears transfixed with fear; I see now that she is
accompanied by an oddly-styled domestic AI and an immature -ignis
sapiens- specimen.  No threats whatsoever on the physical plane-in fact,
these three would have been dead seconds ago, had the human's numina not
given me pause.
        ~Mother, what IS this?~
        I feel her weak stirring close by as she loosely grasps my thoughts. 
There is a murky cascade of confused images-
        The doors slide shut.
        "Stop right there!  Stop or I'll shoot!"
        I turn to face the attack, irritated at the intrusion.  The kill is
satisfyingly swift, but then I hear the elevator as it lurches into
motion.  I follow the sound of its rising with my eyes, and a flare of
shining feathers and snow-bright fires returns to my mind.
        Suddenly, I sense Jenova's fear and just as suddenly, she retreats from
me and covers it with blankness.  Only a mere flicker of emotion, but
enough to stab my heart with ice.  Fear?  Fear-from HER?  What could be
so powerful?  But when I rescue her from her torments, then our
combined might will be unstoppable, a force stronger than death.
        Won't it?
        Again I turn to her, fierce with concern.  ~Tell me what I saw. 
Please, tell me what that THING was.~
        Random psychic flashes skitter across my mind before her voice
solidifies into fragments of speech.  ~They the others strategy made,
emerges, they go where.~
        ~Where?,~ I demand of her, looking for sense among the disjointed
words.  She directs my sight.  "They were in that elevator?" I ask in
disbelief.  I speak aloud to the air and the dead.  "Those are the ones
that will be of use to our plan?"  How can I believe that?  Her fear
rose at the sight of the one with the living aura; how can she make such
a creature our pawn?  My doubt registers with her, and she shows me a
jumbled flash of the path that she has laid out for them-

        ~*~
        A great beast with the head of a dragon circles endlessly through the
alleys surrounding the Headquarters, breathing out the plague.  It holds
a storm upon its tail and the stone cracks in terror beneath its silent
claws.  Slender tentacles slither from its flesh, rising and falling in
a rhythmic wave, pale and deadly as poison.
        And it waits.  And it waits for the ones who will come to be hunted.
        ~*~

        The vision shakes me, and I bow my head in obedience.  "Very well. 
They have fallen right into our trap."
        I pause to reorient my direction and then continue on, passing through
the blood and the fury as I approach the fulfillment of my destiny.

        Time dialates, minutes dropping slowly into the sea of hours, because
now the time is here.
        A vast hemisphere of bolted steel, crawling with complex pipes and
wires, crouches darkly upon the grime-coated floor.  I bisect a final
technician, slashing from the right hip to the left shoulder; as I walk
up to the huge vacuum-locked portal, red animal blood flows silently
beneath my heavy bootsoles.  The legend is painted in an arch above the
door: JENOVA.  
Mother.
I love her, but I fear her.  My instincts scream for me to escape, to
keep my consciousness as my own, but my mind and heart know that there
can be no refusal now-if I would grasp eternity in my hands and save my
Goddess from death, I must sacrifice myself on this alter where I now
stand.
I bite my lip and place my hands on the doorframe, opening up my
thoughts and gathering myself for the offering.  In the crystal, far in
the north, I can feel the living heart pounding furiously against my
ribs.  Her mind swells out to meet mine, welcoming it with a tender
embrace; I can feel the lesser beings attached to it now, the minor
creatures drawn into her power by genetic infusion.  Soon, my mind will
be within hers as well, drowning in the swirl of a hundred
intelligences.
Now is the time.
As it happened in the Jenova Reactor, so it happens now-we flow together
through the boundaries and meld into one being as streams of psychic
force arc between us, striving to draw the two halves into one.  I feel
her weakness and open the floodgates of the power that I have so
carefully hoarded for so many years; she absorbs every pulse of life and
rises into new strength, shattering the stasis mechanism with one
thought.  I am frozen in my place as sparks and steam fly into the thick
air, obscuring the scene from view.  The sound of shredding metal
signals her release as she borrows my might and rips open her prison,
and from inside her mind I can feel her endless exultation.  Girders and
scraps of broken steel rain down upon me and through me as my body fades
away and she draws my mind into hers, sealing it into herself.  I open
my eyes for one last time and I see her before me, trailing her mangled
limbs, her faceless jaws and intricate horn crests riding atop a
writhing, amorphous body.  Suddenly the appendages shrink into
themselves and the torso folds inwards, its colors darkening as a wave
of whitish tendrils descends downwards and across the back.  I watch in
awe even as my own substance dissolves into the air; I watch as
Masamune's hilt extends above her left shoulder, as a leather coat
spreads across her pale flesh, as green-blue eyes open beneath a wash of
silver hair.
She smiles quietly at me, amidst the flames and the mist, before I lose
myself within the vastness of her mind.

We mount the stairs with dark streaks smearing from our feet, dragged
from the streams of blood that we left soaking into the peach-colored
carpet down below.  The topmost floor is darker than the rest, surrounded by high plate-glass windows that reveal what few stars can be seen through Midgar's polluted night.  White light shines like a beacon from the huge desk that sits upon a stone dias, not far from us and in those beams, we see the greatest of our prey, the one whose death will be savored with infinite pleasure, for he was the source of our pain.  We reach out our hand and quickly rip a small circuit box from the wall, leaving it hanging from its settings by frayed wires; at the sound, the target looks up in alarm and scans the darkness, then slowly reaches beneath his desk, his fingers hovering over the button set beneath it.
"Who's there?"
We can't keep from smiling as we relax our impeccable stealth and
advance into the light, our footsteps knocking rhythmically against the
marble floor.  He gasps as we reveal ourself, and we can hear his hand
trembling as he presses the red switch over and over.
"Sephiroth?"
"Not quite.  Is the evening going well, Mr. President?" 
Sephiroth-half's voice flows out of our throat in mellow cadences, his
mastery of High Midgar speech carrying the subtle weight of our
purpose.  We walk up to the desk and survey the wide assortment of
screens and panels that adorn it, every picture showing pastorale scenes
of regular office activity.  Reaching forward, we casually support our
weight with our fingertips as we watch the overlord sink back into his
chair, trying to compose himself.
"How did you get past Security?"
A shrug.  "Different ways."  We lean back and stand straight once more,
our fingers leaving streaks of rust-colored slime on the pristine steel
of his desk.  His eyes widen as he looks up; we give a condescending
smile and indicate the screens.  "By the way, it seems that your
surveillance feed has frozen.  May I?"
His eyes glaze as our psychic locks release themselves and the cameras
fall out of their loop, recording the truth.  Every glass face shows our
art, bodies and blood flung across every view.  Softly, we laugh as the
stasis cell flashes up, a giant hole gaping in place of the door.
Fear transfixes him as we extend our left hand.  "The Promised Land is
that what you want?  You're looking for a dream far beyond the scope of
your inferior breed.  But then, one can't expect dogs to understand the
mind of God," we whisper mockingly to him; he watches as we transform
leather and skin into its true state, frozen as he realizes everything
and knows that every way out has been closed off.
Revelations hold such irony.  They liberate.  They also kill.
We draw our blade, which, unlike the original, simply grows from the
hilt as mutating chitin hardens into the seven-foot prototype, becoming
as bright and sharp as steel.  Before he can even scream, the
confrontation is over-a thrust from our twin minds sends us fifteen feet
into the air, and the deadly point strikes in a move of surgical
precision that cleanly splits his black heart and continues down through
the metal desk, finishing six inches deep in the marble platform.  Our
feet settle to the ground beside him, and we take in the scene with deep
satisfaction.  Five seconds later, we leap from the concrete balcony
outside, ascending into the night on a sudden swell of thought.

        The sun sets in a cloud of vaporous red, its light breaking across our
left shoulder as we gaze over the humid expanses of the great marsh. 
Behind us opens the jagged mouth of the Mythril Caves; at our side hangs
the shattered, gutted corpse of a huge Midgar Zolom, which drips
venomous blood down the length of the pointed tree trunk upon which it
is impaled.  We crouch near the organic Masamune that we have lain
unsheathed and stained across the grass.  Silent and motionless, we set
our eyes towards the north as we speak amongst ourself.
        ~Your creature lost their trail,~ Sephiroth-half notes quietly.
        ~My creature shows careful discretion,~ Jenova-half replies.  ~It will
complete its mission in its own time.~  Sephiroth-half remembers the
twisted shadow-form of his mother's servant and gently pries into her
mind, curious about the beast but he is suddely halted by a wall of calm
nothingness, a mental partition that cuts off a section of Jenova-half's
thoughts from his scrutiny.  Suspicion sparked by her apparent distrust,
he sends a questioning impulse out to her, which she ignores in profound
silence.  Sephiroth-half coils back, his powerful mind now heavy with
darkness.
        In an outward reflection of the altercation, our body shifts its weight
uneasily, hunching its shoulders over itself as it broods in the
twilight.
        Observing his reaction, Jenova-half relents slightly and states, ~It
was a being that I altered some time ago.  It has many powers and
manipulates the humans in my stead, following my commands.  For now, it
draws together my lesser spawn, so that their deaths may feed my
strength for our rising.~  Sephiroth-half accepts this without comment,
turning it over within himself.
        For some time, we sit there without conversation.  The sun drains its
light down below the far horizon and the blood of the great serpent
begins to crust in oily streams across the wood of the tree.  Night
conquers the sky above, advancing with its brilliant stars;
Sephiroth-half watches the flow of the constellations and remembers the
white-winged aura of the human girl.
        ~Mother.  Tell me what it was.~
        Jenova-half bristles, giving a psychic hiss as his demand strikes her. 
Our body sways unsteadily, then falls and curls itself inward,
temporarily dormant as our mind clouds in chaos.  Sephiroth-half quickly
surrounds her with his thoughts, blocking her escape; finally, she
throws his bindings from her consciousness with a savage mental shake. 
She knows that his rash command comes only from his desire to protect
them both, yet still she remains sullen as she gathers herself.
        ~Mother,~ Sephiroth-half continues.  ~We both saw it.  We both fear
it.  Now tell me how we can destroy it.~
        Jenova-half stills him with a swift restraining impulse.  Dismissing
his speech, she answers him by summoning up a great vision-

        ~*~
        Against the pure and lightless vacuum of space, the monster can be seen
with terrifying clarity as it spins with furious, random speed upon its
hundred wings.  Those vast pinions, set at every angle across the vagely
spherical body, thrash the voids with their ordered rows of long, white
feathers those pale, smooth feathers whose edges are made of bladed
diamonds.  From within the whirling cloud of flight, copper-bright fires
sometimes spray forth; against the sharp-edged down lie the folded bone
scythes, the killing claws whose immense swiftness is greater even than
that of the wings, and which spring forth only to rend and tear and
murder.  All around swirl the elliptical paths of the disembodied eyes,
the large, brazen orbs whose catlike pupils dialate to flash their rows
of vicious fangs.  The monster bears an instinct that fills its mind
completely but the mind is one of vast and alien intelligence, one that
might imagine infinitely convoluted schemes for the sake of gaining that
single, all-important goal.
        For this is not even a true member of its kind.  Rather, it is only a
larva, an immature hatchling still seeking the substance by which it may
advance into its next life. And so it wanders among all the deep
vortices of space, searching for the ones which its rare breed hunts
almost exclusively.  The destroying blades hover within the solar winds,
waiting to bring forth death.
        For this is not a creature of physical form.  Existing completely on
the plane of thought, it can be perceived only by the ones whose altered
eyes see the cascades of the ether.  Its unliving body has no need for
mortal meat-instead, its flames and razored eyes devour the abstract
substance of the mind and suck dry the perfection of the soul-
        And that which it desires is the essence of the star-beast Jenova.
        ~*~

        Sephiroth-half starts up in alarm at the revelation; Jenova-half
silences him and the view shifts again.

        ~*~
        A Mother Orb, a beast as huge as a planet that orbits a red star in a
far galaxy, hangs motionless in the cosmic night.  Its leathery, knotted
skin is the black-brown of ancient bronze and is strewn with tentacles,
crests, and dark eyes, all as vast as mountain chains.  Suddenly, the
surface spasms, and a dozen tiny gestation pods rocket through the
dilapidated atmosphere and soar off into the black currents.
        Millions of years later, one of these child bodies plunges into a new
spiral of stars, far from the place of its birth; its mature and active
mind scans the spinning planets as it hunts for indications of life. 
THERE.
        The blue planet spreads out below, with its familiar continants,
deserts, and forests.  Mental commands twist the flight of the shell
towards its goal-
        But then the ether bends with the sound of snapping and rustling, a
sound which brings instinctive terror to the traveller.  A split second
later, the parasite descends from the stars, every wing folded back in a
predatory dive, every skeletal edge exposed and reaching for its
quarry.  Jenova screams and writhes in the agony of the attack, then
counterstrikes with her own thoughts.
        They enter the atomsphere and the sky burns like the sun; the energies
from the warring creatures bleed off into the air as flames and
lightning coruscate around them.  Two seconds before impact, the
parasite howls in shock as it realizes that this planet is SENTIENT,
that its gravity draws both mental and physical life-
        Contact.
        The unleashed powers of the duel rip away the crust of rock, driving
hunter and prey down into the depths of the earth, into the heart of the
world.  Frantically, Jenova shields herself against the psychic backlash
of the great and sleeping mind, but her enemy, with its ethereal nature,
is not so fortunate.  She revels in the sound of its anguished
screeching as the sphere explodes with radiant waves of pain.
        Deep within the pit of broken rock, where green soul-blood washes
through the deep wound caused by their fall, Jenova pulls herself from
the mutilated remains of her protective vessel.  Her body weak and her
mind scarred, she carefully scans the dark crevices and finds the
motionless signature of her opponent.  Satisfied, she crawls upwards
through a mile of crushed tunnels until she finds a place where she may
rest and gather her strength for her emergence among the glorious
Ancient race.
        ~*~

        Sephiroth-half is utterly still, his thoughts filled with swirling
concepts.  Jenova-half quietly embraces him, restoring their dual
harmony.  Our body cautiously opens its shining Mako eyes and looks up
at the almost-full moon.
        Sephiroth-half whispers, ~How did it survive?~
        It feeds on minds, the other replies.  ~I am nearly certain that it
must have spent all those thousands of years near the Planet's heart,
filtering bits of dormant intelligence from the Lifestream to restore
itself.~
        ~It fed on Mako?~
        ~There is no other explanation.  And after so long, it has most likely
devoured extensive amounts of knowledge from the Planet, perhaps even
gaining some degree of control over various forms of Mako energy.  But
the beast is still quite weak, and is therefore not so great a threat
for now.  It has taken a human host because it realizes that the
physical world will be our primary battlefield, since its powers are not
so great here as they were Outside.~
        ~Then it will come for us when it has recovered fully.~
        ~Perhaps.  It has linked itself to the host in desperation.  As a
result, it cannot move far from her while she lives, which will severely
check its destructive potential.  After a while, it will take enough
thoughts from those around it to begin a slower evolution to its next
form, during which it will be able to affect the physical world with its
destructive forces. ~
        ~Then it will eat her soul to control her body for its own purposes.~
        ~If she has an extremely strong will, it may consent to subtly direct
her, or if her goals are the same as its own, then it might take a
similarly lesser role.  But the chances of such things becoming factors
are extremely slim.  There is no doubt that it has a plan by now, and it
will not tolerate its host's attempts at control.  When it reaches the
peak of its strength, it might even try to kill her.~
        ~Can it escape from the Planet's psychic gravity after it breaks free?~
        Jenova-half laughs darkly.  ~First it will find and kill us both, and
burn everything nearby down to the bare rock with its aura.  After
that no one can tell.  There has never been a case of such a creature
possessing a planet before, but most likely that is what will happen. 
The mental pull of this world is amazingly strong, though it will
probably become less so after the parasite absorbs every scrap of
intelligence in the Lifestream.~
        ~There must be some way to-~
        ~Forget about the Other for now.  It will be some time before it even
becomes strong enough to start fighting over the host body.  We have
time on that front.  For now, we must locate the artifacts that we
require for the plan, then destroy the last of my enemies before she
awakens the Planet against us.~
        ~Tell me.~
        Jenova-half gives a smiling thought as she creates a third vision for
her son a picture of a quiet girl in a pink dress, her long, brown braid
trailing down her back, her hands full of flowers.
        The moon is a half-closed eye overhead, floating silently along its
starry pathway.  We crouch near the organic Masamune that lies at our
feet; blood crusts upon its shining steel, and blood crusts upon the
soft blades of the green and unending grass.  At our side, the reeking,
gutted corpse of the Midgar Zolom attracts a swarm of night-feeding
flies, and scuttling, multi-legged scavengers crawl forth to taste the
venomous blood upon the  tree.  The moon and the stars reflect
themselves serenely in the serpent's glassy eyes, and the light from the
heavens falls gently across the scales made dark by drying fluids.
        The renegade Cetra will die by our hands.

***

        "Veni veni venias, ne me mori facias
                (Haryuu no hanekata)
        Veni veni venias, ne me mori facias
                (Haryuu no hanekata)
        Veni veni venias, ne me mori facias
                (Haryuu no hanekata)
        Veni veni venias, ne me mori facias
                (Haryuu no hanekata)"
                        --Nobuo Uematsu, "Katayoku no Tenchi"

        [Come, come, o come, do not let me die]
        [The winged one of the lower reaches]

***

***

***

***

*final addendum: cerberus defiled, ourobouros unwound*

        The ragged tendrils ripped into his flesh, coiling up through the meat
of his forearms, slithering beneath his fur and through his bones until
they buried themselves deep in every organ.  He opened his mouth to
scream, but the wriggling feeders in his brain choked off the action
before it could begin.  And then he saw the ultimate horror-two slimy
limbs arched out of his own throat, and their hook-tipped lengths
hovered briefly near his face before descending into his eyes.

***

        It was the darkest and foulest of the slums of Midgar, wreathed in an
eternal crawling fog of vaporized Mako and comprised primarily of the
rotting wrecks of condemned warehouses and factories.  The sagging brick
walls were stained black from the char of a thousand desperate fires,
and the disease-ridden citizens huddled against one another within the
brooding structures.  Their eyes could be seen peering from the
shattered windows in the light of burning refuse, while down below
scrawny children darted across the rusting hulks of ancient machinery,
their rawboned bodies clothed in dark rags, their stares bright and
watchful.  Here in Sector One, the homeless masses crowded within the
listing complexes, desperate for shelter against the toxic rains that
fell nearly every day from the underground cloudcover, bathing the
gutters in unnatural green light.  Though many died from the occasinal
collapse of a giant building, many more fell to the great host of
plagues that spread swiftly through the close-packed quarters, and many
children were lost to hideous birth defects.  Every summer, at least a
hundred were claimed by the red fevers, and in certain areas the air was
so deadly that half of all births were stillborn or warped into
mindless, mutant animals.
        Yet there was infinite hope among those who dwelled in here, for they
felt peace and serenity beneath the promise that protected their souls. 
The children smiled even as their living flesh decayed and swelled with
tumors; the women sang sweet songs as their bony hands picked through
mounds of garbage in search of food or scraps of cloth.  Even when the
warm seasons came and the pestilential dead collapsed one atop the other
in the oily streets and spilled their putrescence over the buckling
asphalt, the ragged populace still held joyful processions in the
winding alleys as they buried the corpses in chaotic mass graves.  For
every soul buried beneath the radioactive soil, a chunk of rubble was
placed atop the mound, marked only with the crudely-sketched sign of the
blue flame.
        In the dark center of Sector One, there was a huge three-story
warehouse whose walls of chipped brick were stained sable, as the others
were, with venomous fumes and seepage.  Large banners, each twenty feet
long, flanked the heavy iron doors that served as the sole entrance;
their folds flew stiffly in the death-ridden breezes of that place, for
they were dyed deep crimson with the lifeblood of willing human
victims.  Upon these great expanses of quilted rags was painted the
emblem of the one who ruled within-a powerful beast, half a hyena and
half a panther, bearing a pelt of bright gold.  It was curled in upon
itself, circling on the field of red as a spiked mane flew back from its
neck and shoulders.  A long, serpentine tail arched over its head,
tipped with a fierce spray of blue flame.
        This place was the heart of the people's peace and happiness.  This was
the first temple of Yellow Hyena Clan.

***

        Break Valley Clan was thought to be the last living tribe of Fireteeth
in the world.  Their numbers were very few-at that time, there were only
two mated pairs and three children, no more.  The northern climate was
harsh, yet they had chosen to remain upon their land and defend it, as
their forefathers had sworn to the humans who had built the temple.
        But the humans had forgotten their own promises as the centuries passed
and gradually the stream of their pilgrims dried to nothing and they
offered no more prayers for the strength of the Planet.  The narrow
paths from the lowlands to the jagged bowl of Break Valley had gone
untrodden for whole generations, and finally the magnificent shrine had
crumbled into ruins.  The Fireteeth, who loyally treasured their vows,
mourned quietly and gave their chants alone.  Far above them loomed the
ominous bulk of the Scar, which would now heal all the more slowly
without the conjoint rites of mankind's earth-priests and the faith of
their flocks.
        The Scar, a massive wound in the flesh of the world, caused by the fall
of the Dark Spirit of the Plague, who had come to the earth from beyond
the dome of Heaven.  The clan's legends still told of how the earth
itself had screamed in agony on that day and poured forth its flaming
blood; only the song of the Three Warriors, who represented the three
sentient races of the Planet, could breathe life back into the dying
land.  They are still there, in the center of the world, singing.

***

        High upon the third floor of the temple, amidst the perpetual damp and
the vermin-infested shadows, Ioviano crossed his heavy paws over the
cold surface of the concrete dias, gazing down upon the supplicant with
his gentle blue eyes.  There was a quiet shuffling from the edges of the
banner-draped hall, where hunched figures in layers of dark cloaks
murmured amongst themselves as they looked on.
        The man crouched before the high shelf of stone, his perfect stillness
betraying no fear or anxiety.  Such was expected from the greatest
servants of the Goddess, for the golden Prophet and the ancient deity
that he served had chosen to lay their blessings upon those who existed
in despair or pain or need.  The heart of the Eternal was laid open to
the children of the earth, and now all who sought rest from their
anguish were welcomed into the sacred presence; the promise had been
spoken and would soon be kept.  When the world collapsed upon itself in
fire and blood, torn apart by warring forces of evil, then the flames of
purity would sweep the life from the world and tear the sleeping souls
from their graves; through the gateways of destruction, the faithful
would be gathered from their misery and their spirits would be fused
with the brilliant essence of the Goddess Herself.  This dream was held
close to the heart of all the enlightened ones around the world, who
eagerly spread the Prophet's word to even the smallest towns and had
established lesser temples everywhere possible.  Soon, this one who now
knelt in the darkness would be sent out with a message as the others
before him had been, but unlike the preachers of light, he would be
ordered to bring the news of the coming End to worshippers all over
creation.
        Ioviano could seen nothing of the messenger except the great swaths of
tattered black wrappings that obscured every inch of his form.  All
those who walked the secret hallways of the sanctuary were clothed in
the same manner-their faces shrouded by heavy cowls, their hands moving
only within the folds of their dark cloaks, thei robes dragging upon the
stones so as to hide even their shoes from view.  Such concealment was
by the express order of the Prophet himself, who taught that the mortal
forms of Man must remain hidden from the sight of the Goddess within the
walls of her sacred temple, lest the sight of human sin offend Her eyes.
        Besides that, of course, the thick robes served to hide the fact that
certain acolytes of the Prophet were not completely human.
        Ioviano sighed inwardly as he opened his white-fanged maw and murmured
softly in the speech of Low Midgar.  "Speak, my angel."
        "My lord Prophet," the young one said softly, "our agents have seen the
ones that you wanted us to find."
        "Where?"
        "They were seen approaching the Shinra Headquarters, master."
        "Excellent."  The holy emissary shook his stiff, black mane,
remembering the commands of his mistress.  There was a while yet, since
they would have to neutralize security.  "My servant, show me your
face."
        Awed by the indulgence, the supplicant dropped his hood onto his
shoulders, revealing a young male, perhaps nineteen years old.  Tangled
hair of rusty red brushed at his ears and the nape of his neck, and the
hollows of his large, brown eyes were lined with subtle marks of grief. 
The Prophet rose to his four paws and scrutinized the one below him. 
"Johnathan Dane, formerly of Sector Seven?"
        He could feel the messenger's pride over the fact that his master knew
his name.  "Yes, lord."
        Ioviano's eyes were the soft, warm blue of a pure spring sky.  Tender
sorrow now rose up to fill them, and they radiated gentle comfort.  "My
child, I am truly sorry for your parents."  Johnathan's gaze dropped to
the floor as tears began to hover on his dark lashes.  ~The source of
his pain.~  "The masters of evil increase their might by feeding on the
suffering of those beneath them.  But we shall prevail, for the End of
Time comes and our Goddess will soon summon us to her side.  Our faith
will give us peace, our peace will give us strength, our strength will
give us power beyond hollow material control.  Your faith will set you
free, beloved."  The worshipper looked up once more and smiled through
his tears.  "I am pleased that you chose to join us.  Tell me,
Johnathan, do you love our Mother more than this cruel life?"
        "Yes, much more, master," said the young one, his eyes bright with the
fervor of fanaticism.
        "Then I shall trust you with a mission of deepest importance.  I am
sending you out to inform the ten Shrines Major that the Goddess is now
embodied."  Johnathan's face was a positive blaze of joy.  "However, She
travels with stealth.  She has secret plans that She must see to before
She can reveal herself to the world."
        "No one else will know, master."
        "My faith is on you.  I shall give you two of my servants to be your
guides and advisors."  The powerful, whiplike tail snapped to the left
and the right, indicating two shrouded creatures who immediately came
forward and positioned themselves behind the emissary.  "Come and
receive my blessing."
        Johnathan stood and Ioviano approached the edge of the platform.  The
clansman closed his eyes and bowed his head; the Prophet's tongue,
gnarled and leathery with patchy brown flesh, emerged from between those
perfect white fangs and briefly brushed over the human's brow.
        His gaze bright with hope, Johnathan Dane drew his hood back over his
face and left the holy presence, his escort following a short distance
behind.
        The Prophet gritted his sharp teeth harshly and turned to the robed
shadows that flocked near the walls, barking, "Secure the room!"  A
cluster of fluttering shapes broke loose from the darkness and hastily
barred the heavy double doors.
        Ioviano spat in disgust; his saliva smeared across the stone to one
side, twitched once or twice, and then lay still.  He leaped from the
dias with a snarl and the concrete cracked beneath the impact of his
feet.  "Humans," he growled, pacing the chamber fiercely and slashing
the air with his tail, "they taste like the garbage that bred them."

***

        The eldest of the clan's offspring was the greatest warrior in three
generations.  The power of his striking flame was such that he could
shatter full packs of Pale Wolves  while fighting alone, and he was an
instinctive master of the ancient art called the Wheel of Souls, the
rhythmic dance whose aerial spins and whip-swift twists add strength and
unpredictability to the raw force of the fighter.  In a deep crevice of
stone, high upon the forbidding flanks of the Scar, he had found a
large, green crystal with which he summoned raging spirits of fire to
drive his enemies before him.  He bound this treasure to his throat with
a rope of twisted grasses.
        The young hero was three hundred and fifty-two years old at that time. 
His fur was a blazing copper-red, and his neck and shoulders bore a
spiked mane of blackish crimson.  All across his flanks, and around his
limbs, neck, and tail, were the intricate war-scars of the clan-thorny
cuts ritually carved into the flesh of an honored one to celebrate his
legendary battles, and filled with the ashes of a mountain flower that
made the wounds heal jet-black.
        This eldest scion had a younger brother named Tatanka , who was only
one hundred and twenty-four years old.  Although he fought bravely to
defend the tribal lairs, he was more renowned for his visionary
abilities, which allowed him to speak with the spirits and receive
dreams of the future.  In appearance, he was much like his sibling, save
for his soft, youthful mane and quiet eyes.
        The second pair of elders had a daughter of two hundred and ten years,
a fierce war-maiden named Mimiteh , whose courage was like the fury of a
northern storm.  When the Pale Wolves or the Spider-Snakes  gathered to
strike against the valley, she spread death amongst their ranks with a
power that equalled the clan's noble hero, but she chose to study the
wisdom of rituals and tale-songs rather than satisfy herself with the
glory of combat.  Her pelt was darkest scarlet and bore many war-scars,
and her mane was the color of fresh heart's blood.

***

        "So Jenova rises again," the Prophet whispered softly to himself as
strode over the damp concrete of his audience hall.  The black-wrapped
creatures shrank back from him as he passed; finally, he stopped in
front of one unfortunate and peered up into its hood.  "How's it feel to
be fated for a sickeningly unattractive death, eh?"  He leaned back onto
his haunches, lifting his taloned forepaws up to the cowering creature's
shoulders.  "Not a clue, right?"  One dextrous paw tore the hood from
the malformed skull while the other shredded the front of the robes,
revealing the occupant entire.  A tangled flow of silver hair straggled
from one side of its swollen cranium, covering a half-blind, green-blue
eye; the other side of its face was a sagging nest of shrivelled
tentacles that twitched weakly in the sudden light.  The rest of its
body was painfully emaciated and covered with flaking scales and
calcifying pustules, with two sets of long-clawed, vestigial arms held
close to its ribs.  Ioviano cocked his head.  "Number Fifty-Nine?  Is
that you?"  He chuckled.  "I'd forgotten what you looked like."
        With a roar, the Prophet launched himself at a huddled swarm of
mutants, his flame crystal exploding into a bright blue inferno. 
Shrieking and gibbering, they scattered in terror as he landed in their
midst, his bright fangs bared in a deadly smile.  "You pathetic shits,"
he hissed, "I couldn't scrape together a whole brain between the thirty
of you."   Throwing back his head, he laughed in mockery as curving
claws scored the rock beneath him, and the malformed creatures looked on
with endless pairs of green-blue eyes, fearing him.
        Ioviano lunged at Fifty-Nine, who squealed and tried to climb the
crumbling walls with its gaunt fingers.  The single frightened eye
stared down the beast's cavernous throat-a view from which all living
creatures recoiled in terror, for at the very back of his mouth could be
seen the beginnings of the corruption that infested his entire body.
        "You don't know a thing, do you?" the Prophet sneered.  "You don't know
that you're going to be herded to your deaths like cattle?"  He leaned
in closer to the blank, spasming face.  "The mistress is going to kill
you and take back the essence that they stole from her to make your
useless body and you can't understand a damn thing I say, can you?"  One
broad paw lifted for a strike.
        Fifty-Nine curled up on the floor, a ball of bones and papery skin. 
"Re...un...ion...," it said softly, still looking up at its mother's
servant.  Ioviano paused, then turned and stormed towards the doorway,
tail lashing.
        "Reunion, huh?  That's what she's telling you?"  He laughed quietly,
his mockery now aimed at himself.  "Reunion.  One big, happy family." 
His toxic crystal whipped over his left shoulder and smashed the iron
doors to pieces.  He walked over them and left his temple in silence.
        In the audience hall, Fifty-Nine's brethren covered its shivering body
with rags torn from their own cloaks.  It wept silently among their
comforting numbers, the mindless, beautiful eye fixed eternally on the
darkness.

        Ioviano was eight feet from nose to haunches, and his long, supple tail
was of the same length.  His body was a mass of golden-furred muscle
tempered with amazing dexterity and supernatural endurance, filled with
the incredible power of his alien creator. Along his flanks and around
his neck and limbs were traced jet-black scar tattoos of abstract,
thornlike shapes.  He wore those marks with veiled pride, as he did the
four snowfane feathers which were woven into the mane behind his ears. 
Other scars were scattered over his forearms-shining, blackish pits of a
round or ovoid shape, randomly piercing the lush hair.
        Jenova, the mistress.
He was running now, approaching the Headquarters with the speed of a
raging wind, ready to destroy her enemies and maim the flesh of the
Other from the stars.  His form was that of a mangy, black street dog,
one of his favored disguises.
Jenova.  Thirty years ago, she had recreated his body in her image,
sending her cosmic plague into him to force his servitude.  But in her
weakness, she had underestimated his ferocious will, his tenacious
desire for life, and so he had dragged himself away from her grave of
endless millennia with his mind perfectly intact, but with his heart
fully and completely beneath her command.  The irrational love that she
had placed within his breast made him her undying slave, though his
thoughts were always his own and despaired over the loss of his soul.
As he ran, he thought about the masses of twisted creatures whom the
Shrines Major would gather together for the mistress to devour.  The
bastard scientific spawn of the Goddess.
~I am no better than they.  I am no better than they.  I am no better
than they.~
At the End of Time, Jenova would devour his essence as she would theirs.
Of course, there were benefits.  There were always benefits for working
for the Darkness; temporary ones, at least.  Regeneration, although a
minor ability, was undoubtedly the most useful; it stemmed from his
extraterrestrial anatomy, which had destroyed his mortal organs and
replaced them with bodily systems that were incomprehensible to earthly
thought.  He had five hearts now, and four strange creatures that served
as lungs.  There was a time, early in his servitude, when a frenzied
citizen had slashed him open with a meathook, then looked on in horror
as the crazed tangle of diseased growths fell out onto the ground, along
with the wriggling, scuttling shapes of the insectoid feeders that
crawled away into the gutters or began to knit up his rent flesh with
incredible speed.
The mistress' otherworldly pestilence had overwhelmed all organic parts
of his body indiscriminately; as a result, the grass rope that he had
worn around his neck to hold his Materia had been converted into part of
his being, despite the fact that it still vaguely resembled braided
plant fibers.  His stone was large, but rough and jagged.  Despite its
appearance, it was indeed Mastered, but a side effect of his increased
mental power allowed him to channel his mystical strength through it and
cast spells far stronger than the humans' "Fire 3"--spells that the
inferior race had no knowledge of.  On the downside, his strong
connection to the Fire energies rendered him unable to make use of any
other form of sorcery.
Ioviano sat down upon a curb near the Shinra building and scratched
behind his scruffy, drooping ear.  Fate hung over him as he nosed
beneath some forlorn scraps of paper; his mind chafed beneath the
knowledge that the End was near, that the Mother had been freed, that
soon he would be called back to the freezing north and sacrificed to
feed the destruction of the world.
The dim stars circled overhead, indistinct through the swirling masses
of smog.  Stars like the spark of life.
He had turned around and taken his true form even before the crowbar
fell, and found himself staring down a grimy indigent, whose hungry eyes
showed that he had been hunting for meat.  The Prophet's eyes locked
against the human's and the electrifying pulse of his mind immediately
overrode all thought in the lesser creature's mind.  The bloodshot orbs
that faced him suddenly softened with the devotion of love.  Ioviano
smiled darkly.  The final ironic gift from his mistress-the ability to
create the same willing slavery in lesser beasts as the Goddess had
placed upon her servant.  He chuckled harshly.
"Feel the love?" he smirked, then snapped blue fire from his tail and
executed a standing backflip.  The initial striking of the burning
crystal shattered every one of the victim's ribs and scorched the
surrounding meat into ash; the subsequent connection with a nearby brick
wall crushed the spine, shoulders, and cranium into paste.  A smear of
blood marked the bricks, and there were no witnesses but the small,
black dog who walked slowly down the wide street.

***

        As time went by, the heart of the great warrior turned itself towards
the light of that beautiful female, and he was filled with love.  He
courted her with grace and kindness, with gentle words and praise; he
sought victory in the deadliest battles so that he might lay his glory
at her feet.  But she was cold to his attentions and instead preferred
her solitude and meditation instead of his presence, and there was
nothing that he could do to attract her notice.
        Soon his soul became filled with pain and anger, and he wandered alone
in the snowy wastelands, brooding for decades over the failure of his
adoration.  At last, his frustrations broke loose and he confronted her
before the tribe, swearing that he would find and kill the Dark Spirit
of the Plague itself, for she could not refuse love from a heart so
strong that the most evil of legends fell before it.
        Having taken his oath, he immediately set his feet upon the ancient
trail and left Break Valley, journeying down to the vast and trackless
arctic plains.  For many decades more, he wandered the continent and
sought his prey in every part of it, speaking with strange beasts and
following the paths of ageless tales.  But when despair had begun to
grip him and he feared that the Spirit was indeed a mere legend, he
heard the words of a dying Pale Wolf song-dancer, who had collapsed from
exhaustion after running in terror for three days.
        There were humans digging into the side of the Scar, and in their
burrowing they had unearthed the grave of Mother Death herself.

***

        Ioviano stood on the smooth pavement of the highway, watching his prey
speed off into the distance.  The Mother had told him that he should
sacrifice this opportunity for the sake of remaining hidden, and so he
let them go.
        Sephiroth.  An interesting addition.
        Skulking back down into the close shadows of the alleys, he snarled as
he thought carefully.  Jealousy was his first feeling, which he felt was
quite understandable, since he had been Jenova's loyal pet for three
full decades and had built her an empire of willing victims. 
This human-creature that she favored over him had indeed destroyed her
prison with his offering of power, but Yellow Hyena Clan was an offering
of the entire world, a perfectly-balanced construct that would deliver
true godhood upon her and secure the fall of the Planet for her desires.
        Sephiroth would rule at her side, whereas he himself would be gutted
for his genes and left to die in the nameless caverns of ice.
        Ioviano hissed and spat in rage, shielding his every traitorous thought
from his mistress as he began to pace once more over the stained
pavement.
        Jenova could destroy him with a concentrated thought, for every cell
and organ in his body belonged to her.  It was only the power of his
will that kept the searching tendrils from his mind, that gave him his
own thoughts and allowed him command over his pestilence.  From this, he
was able to summon forth the flesh hooks from his skin and throat and
bones, and send them out to destroy the enemy with their mortal venoms
and barbed edges.  The Mother had told him often enough that his
intelligence and control had made him the most valuable of her agents,
but her Prophet knew the truth.
        Jenova feared his strength.  He had known that ever since the night of
his creation, when she had drawn back in shock at his resistance against
her disease.
        He had the means and the influence to destroy her, but again the way
was blocked-his mind was still linked to hers, and if she fell, every
synapse in his body would go dead.  Besides that, the emotions that she
controlled filled him with horror at the thought of harming her; love
was the only thing that she would let him feel.
        ~I love you.  I hate you.  You betray my devotion, but my heart betrays
itself.~
        He felt a wriggling in his mind, as though from HER.  And then the
solution presented itself.  His eyes widened as plans immediately began
to crystallize around it, cold and perfect as the moon.  A way was
opened now the way to save Jenova, to take the place that he deserved
above his rival, to etch his name in the ashes of dead legends.
        Kill Sephiroth.  Become God.

***

        For three days, the lone warrior ran along the tracks left by the dead
song-dancer until, at last, he reached the rocky slopes of the Scar.  A
cluster of tents lay at its foot, only a short distance from the huge
trench that contained the breaker of the world.  In silence, he
approached in the deep shadows of the night, and in silence he killed
the dozing guards who sat near his prize.
        The Spirit lay there, still half-buried by rubble.  It body was a
shrivelled, mummified length of leathery meat, and its head was covered
by an intricate death-mask crafted of shining grey metal.  It remained
motionless.
        Cautiously, the hero called out his challenge, his bright flame dancing
as he prepared for the battle, but he received no response.
        ~Is the monster already dead?~
        He approached carefully, setting his forepaws down upon the cracked
stones that lined the hole.  Then he sensed sudden motion, and he
realized that he had fatally underestimated his opponent.

        The next morning, Tatanka crouched in the snow beyond his home and
screamed aloud at the dawn.  At last he told the elders that the
ancestors had given him a dream in which a vast Darkness had risen up
out of the earth and eaten his brother whole, and had offered his spirit
to the reflection of a black mirror.  The corpse still walked upon the
earth, animated by the force of Death alone.
        In his grief, the seer tore out his left eye with his own claws.

        The warrior closed his eyes against the night, denied himself the
vision.  His final thought entered his head as he felt them.
        ~Mimiteh, at least you will never see my failure.  I love you.~

***

        Ioviano raced across the broad fields beyond the Mythril Mountains, the
wind burning his flanks.  Now he would travel to Junon, where he would
receive his orders and sink back into the shadows for the subtle mission
that she had crafted for him.
        The time would come, and he would wait.

***

        The ragged tendrils ripped into his flesh, coiling up through the meat
of his forearms, slithering beneath his fur and through his bones until
they buried themselves deep in every organ.  He opened his mouth to
scream, but the wriggling feeders in his brain choked off the action
before it could begin.  And then he saw the ultimate terror-two slimy
limbs arched out of his own throat, and their hook-tipped lengths
hovered briefly near his face before descending into his eyes.

***

        "And the fourth angel sounded the trumpet, and the third part of the
sun was smitten, and the third part of the moon, and the third part of
the stars, that the third part of them might be darkened, and the day
for the third part of it might not shine, and the night likewise."
                --Revelations 8:12

***

***

***

***

        ~*~
        I fear no pain; terror crumbles beneath the fire of my soul.  My
strength will grow until I am beyond the reach of every enemy, until
every will shatters in my sight.  My time is now.  I will define power,
and the Planet will crack and bow to me as I desire, when all life
exists within me and through me.
        My time is now.  My greatest generals will play the war of survival; I
have decreed that he who outlives his rival will rule the flow of Life
by my side.  I will become him, and together we shall forge the new
world.
        Now the End has come.
        I am the Truth.  I am the Finality.  I am the Last.
        I am JENOVA.
        ~*~

***

        "...and behold, a pale horse, and he who was sitting on it-his name is
Death, and hell was following him.  And there was given him power over
the four parts of the earth, to kill with the sword, with famine, and
with death, and with the beasts of the earth."
                --Revelations 6:8




AUTHOR'S NOTES: 

Firstly, I want to apologize to everyone about how late this is.  Please
be assured that I'm mortified by my own behavior.

Second, this piece was designed primarily to increase backstory and
character development, which is why the plot did not actually advance in
a fashion generally recognized as such.

Some definitions-
Ioviano: "yellow hawk" (Cheyenne)
Tatanka: "black buffalo" (Sioux)
Mimiteh: "new moon" (Omaha)
Pale Wolves: Fireteeth term for Bandersnatches.
Spider-Snakes: Fireteeth term for Frozen Nails.

Clarifications-
Most likely, Nanaki is a low-level user of the Wheel of Souls.
Sephiroth's Sample number means "Classified/UberMensch-01"

Sephiroth himself edited this piece, but he didn't like it either.