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“Thought you’d be here.”
Sephiroth didn’t bother to glance towards Zack as the man approached, leaning his back and elbows on the railing Sephiroth stood in front of, gazing at the exhibit safely tucked behind it. Visiting hours were long since over and the only light in Shinra’s Cultural History Museum was the blue-green glow of the large mako crystal centrepiece. It reflected off their skin, tinting them with its captivating colour.
Taking his silence in a newly-practiced stride, Zack tiled his head back until he could also see the crystal. “You a fan?”
Sephiroth hummed. The crystal had been sitting here on its pedestal as long as Sephiroth had been within Shinra Tower’s walls, longer, even. Its occupant a silent sentinel to the flocks of tourists that flitted through day by day, gawking at the regal figure encased within. He’d been just as awed the first time he’d seen it, recognizing the fabled king from the stories professor Ghast had read to him as a child. Cloud Strife: the Once and Future King.
“Perhaps,” he murmured. His childhood fascination with tales of heroism and just knights defeating the monster to save the damsel had dulled with age and experience. Sephiroth had been called a hero almost his whole life, but he’d very quickly learned the truth.
Heroes didn’t exist. A hero was a title bestowed upon tools serving a selfish truth under a pretty lie.
Zack chuckled, tilting his head to grin at Sephiroth. “Perhaps? You know, Angeal told me I’d always be able to find you here when you were upset… and here we are.”
Sephiroth carefully suppressed any reaction to Angeal’s name. King Strife looked serene, his eyes closed and large sword held in front of him as if in ceremony, two vivid red orbs of materia slotted into the blade. Angeal had told him once, when they were much younger and he’d indeed found Sephiroth lingering here himself, that the Buster Sword had been modelled after King Strife’s iconic blade. ‘A design with a legacy of honour and righteousness’ he’d smiled.
“It’s quiet.”
The menace merely smiled, eyes kind and understanding as he turned around so he could also regard the king properly. “Can’t say I blame you, he’s a legend for a reason. So, hey is this like… a wax figure?”
Grateful for the change in topic, Sephiroth gestured to the small article plaque next to the display. “They claim this to be the true body of King Strife.”
Zack’s eyes went wide. “For real?! But aren’t those stories, just… stories?”
“Indeed, there is no proof otherwise. Nothing except this crystal,” he replied calmly.
Strife and his knights were an ideal, a collection of stories built to explain parts of their history that oral tradition had forgotten then sold as a truth. He was merely what the people had defined as a perfect and noble king to provide comfort during a time of unrest and there was no factual evidence to prove otherwise.
The ‘perfectly preserved corpse found encased in a crystal’ was simply a draw for tourism and a positive publicity campaign for Shinra.
The younger First leaned forward, trying to get a better look within the crystal. “So it is fake?”
Sephiroth nodded.
“Why bother to come, then?” Zack asked, voice light with genuine curiosity.
Turning back to the display, Sephiroth pondered the question. “I suppose…” that sometimes I forget what it’s like to be human. That being called a hero for slaughtering the weak and innocent makes me sick. That the people I care about always abandon me and maybe they’re right to. “I’m not immune to a good story,” he finished, quietly.
Zack tilted his head at him, as if trying to see his words from a different angle. Sephiroth spared him a glance before flicking his eyes back to the display, only to swallow a reflexive gasp.
Strife’s eyes were open… and they were looking right at him.
-0-
Cloud woke slowly. The world around him was blue-green and he was unable to move anything more than his eyes. He blinked them open and saw crystal surrounding him on all sides and beyond, two silhouettes, blurred from the refracting light within, but Cloud instantly recognized the presence of the larger figure—Sephiroth.
-0-
Zack, seeing something in his expression, followed his gaze. “Were his eyes always open?” He asked wearily.
Hairline fractures began to appear around the edges of the crystal and Sephiroth stepped back. “No,” he whispered, pulling the younger man back as well.
Stress built up within the crystal and the glow brightened. The cracks spread quickly and Sephiroth tugged a surprised Zack behind him just as the pressure became too much and the crystal exploded outward in pieces, pelting Sephiroth’s coat bouncing off his skin where it failed to cut. Almost at the same time, an alarm began to blare throughout the museum as the figure, now free, fell to the pedestal and took a knee, his sword laid out in front of him.
When the need is greatest, he shall return and rule again.
The king of legend slowly stood, his bowed head rising to meet Sephiroth’s eyes. He gracefully jumped to the floor just as security began to rush in, surrounding all three of them.
Sephiroth couldn’t help but think that… the Once and Future King was… rather small.