By Kristen Gupton-Williams

As the airship flew toward the dimming sunset, Vincent was up on the deck of the ship looking over the side at the scenery passing below. After their talk earlier, Jaras had grown extremely exhausted and had retired to his cabin for a nap. Once alone, Vincent had taken up his natural perch near the rail needing to be free of the internal confines of the airships cramped passageways. For the moment, Vincent had his hair down and it blew back in the breeze away from his face. His ever-present red cloak had been terribly damage when Chaos had erupted from him during the sexual assault on Tifa and he stood in the cold air without it. His eyes would occasionally drift from the ground and clouds below them to his newly replaced hands. The sight of the two black metal appendages was by far more disturbing to him than the sight of his former brassy claw. At least though, if he got a pair of gloves to wear he would almost appear normal while clothed. Certainly Tifa wouldn’t want him to touch her with these. All he had wanted after all his time in the lab was to be able to hold Tifa in his arms again but now his arms were no longer his. How would she respond to the feel of his cold metallic body, he wondered. There too was the matter of his neutered anatomy. Had Tifa really thought anything about that? Whether or not he could keep her satisfied both physically and mentally now remained to be seen.

The door behind him opened and Vincent shook himself out of his self-pity and turned to look. Jaras was standing there behind him with two foil wrapped rations in his hands.

"Did you get any rest?" Vincent asked, moving away from the railing.

Jaras flashed a quick smile. "Yes, thanks. I was wondering if you were hungry?"

Vincent accepted one of the two rations from his son and sat down on the deck. "Actually, I’m starved. It’s been a long day."

"Yes it has." Jaras also got to the deck very near to Vincent.

They both tore the foil from their would be meals and ate the heavily preserved food contained within. It wasn’t particularly good, but luckily the two of them were hungry enough not to care very much. The small rations were quickly finished and they sat looking at one another.

Jaras knitted his brow. "I’ve been thinking, and I’m really sorry for the way I was acting earlier."

Vincent smiled in response. "Don’t worry about it. You’ve been through so much recently that you have every right to your feelings. Sometimes we need to vent like that; it helps get everything out onto the table. Notice how tired you got afterward?"

"Yeah." Jaras began to fidget with the foil wrapper from his dinner.

"Well that was the feeling of relief." Vincent hung his head. "I don’t want you to think that you ever need to hide your feelings from me, all right?"

Jaras tossed the small foil ball that he had made onto the deck. "Okay."

"You know that when you try and hide things that just causes you to feel worse. I learned that the hard way and I don’t want you going down the same path. Tseng and I do that far too much and you being my son seem to be inclined to do it as well. I guess it’s a familial flaw." Vincent ran a hand through his raven locks.

Jaras openly laughed. "I suppose all families have their less than desirable traits. But I want you to know something."

"What?" Vincent locked gazes with his son, finding his green eyes burning in the dim light.

"I would feel a whole hell of a lot worse if Hojo was my father than you. It would make my existence as Sephiroth down right unbearable." Jaras maintained eye contact despite his embarrassment. "I am grateful that you are my father."

Vincent raised his eyebrows, not having expected such a statement from the man before him. "You don’t know how much that means to me. I want you to understand that you were the result of my love for your mother, not some cold scientific experiment as would have been if Hojo had sired you."

"I know, and that is why I am grateful." Jaras allowed his gaze to wander. "At the very least, Sephiroth was created out of something other than evil and misguided ambition."

"I loved your mother very much." Vincent finally found himself able to speak of Lucretia without feeling tears in his eyes. "She was absolutely everything I had ever dreamed of but unfortunately she was married to Hojo. And even worse for me, despite the fact that she wasn’t happy with him, she felt enough of an obligation as to him as his wife to eventually turn away from the affair she and I were having. For better or worse that happened after you were conceived."

"For better or worse…" Jaras sighed, "that is an interesting way to put it."

"Right now, in this moment, I think it is obvious that it was for better." Vincent reached out and placed a hand on his son’s leg. "I will never let you down as a father again."

Jaras offered Vincent a smile. "And I will never let you down as a son again."

***

It wasn’t much later that they both agreed to call it a night and the made their way below deck to their cabins. After a brief goodnight, they shut the doors to their respective rooms.

Vincent, not wanting to see his altered body any more than possible just kicked off his boots and laid on the bed fully clothed. He pulled the comforter over himself and turned off the light.

Jaras entered his own room and stripped to his boxers. He walked into the small bathroom of the cabin and proceeded to carry out his nightly rituals. Once everything was done, he turned to leave but as he flipped off the bathroom’s light, he caught sight of himself in the bathroom mirror standing shirtless.

Upon seeing his own image, Jaras’s mind betrayed him again. He doubled over and held his head in his hands, feeling his heart rate quicken to an impossible rate and a sweat break upon his skin. With his entire body trembling he sank to his knees.

Jaras’s consciousness was disconnected from his body. He felt the weight of his sword in his right hand and he was staring upward into a black void. From above him someone appeared; someone that he instantly recognized as Cloud Strife. As Cloud alit on the ground before him, Jaras, now Sephiroth, felt an evil sneer upon his lips. His grip around the hilt of his sword tightened and he raised the weapon, ready to strike down the impudent teenager before him once and for all. As he lashed out with his Murasame Cloud brought up his own blade and diverted the blow within inches of his own body. Sephiroth looked on in amazement, disbelieving that the boy before him could ward off what should have been a deathblow.

At that moment, something changed within the Mako blue eyes of the young man before him. Sephiroth’s expression fell, being replaced with one of fear. He was presently staring his own death in the face and he knew it. An unknown power overtook Cloud and he slashed with his immense blade again and again, faster that Sephiroth ever could have hoped to dodge.

Sephiroth gasped in horror as the attack ended, feeling the dozens of lacerations on his body begin to bleed. The feeling of death overcoming what he had imagined to be an immortal body swallowed him.

Jaras let out a scream as the sensation of his past slaughter filled his body. He felt every wound and all the pain as though it were happening in the present.

Vincent heard the cry from his own room and he flew from the bed and into Jaras’s cabin. He found his son laying on the floor just outside the bathroom door. When Jaras had fallen from his knees to his side he had bashed his head against a small table and he was bleeding from a cut at his hairline.

Vincent stooped down being overcome with worry and gathered his son into his arms. He shook him trying to bring him back to reality. "Jaras?! Come on, Jaras?!"

Jaras’s eyes fluttered open as the flashback stared to fade but as he felt the sensation of blood running down his face the memory burned back. He was mired in the terror of his own death and he grappled at his father’s shirt, his eyes wide with fear. "Oh God, don’t let me die! Please, I don’t want to die! You are all trying to kill me!"

"Jaras!" Vincent continued to panic as the fear from his son leeched into him. "You’re okay! Come on, you’re not dying!"

Uncontrollable tears began to stream from Jaras’s eyes. His mind was desperately trying to regain hold of the present but it wasn’t happening quickly. "I don’t want to die… please help me…"

Vincent pulled Jaras closer, shaking him a little more vigorously. "Please Jaras, come on! No one is hurting you!"

Jaras continued to hyperventilate, his limbs flailing helplessly. "Cloud’s killing me… He’s killing me… You’re all killing me…"

The realization of exactly what was going on within his son’s mind hit Vincent like a ton of bricks. He stared down into Jaras’s frantic eyes and shouted. "Sephiroth! You are not dying! That is the past!"

Upon hearing his true name, Jaras managed to come to grips with reality. His terror abated and he recognized the man holding him. Vincent wasn’t there to harm him, he was there out of concern. He buried his face into his father’s chest and wept. "I’m Sephiroth… why am I Sephiroth?"

Vincent stroked his son’s hair and started to rock him. "You’re not Sephiroth, you’re Jaras, come on let it go."

After several minutes Jaras’s heart rate returned to normal. He slid away from his father and got up, rather unsteadily. He went back into the bathroom and turned on the light. The flow of blood from the injury he had sustained had stopped but his face was still streaked with drying blood. When he saw the reflection in the mirror of his crimson stained face the image of Sephiroth standing covered in blood washed through his mind again. Jaras leaned onto the sink and turned on the water, getting to the task of washing his face before the memory could overtake him again.

Vincent stood in the bathroom doorway watching as Jaras cleaned up. He too was clearly shaken from witnessing his son’s attack but was at least grateful that he had been there to help him through it.

Jaras finally dried his face and turned to face Vincent. There was obvious embarrassment in his expression as he started to speak. "I don’t want to be alone tonight."

Vincent couldn’t help but smile. "Are you asking to sleep in bed with Daddy?"

Jaras dropped his gaze to the floor but didn’t smile. He was far from finding his father’s comment humorous, and in fact was ready to take up the offer. "Can I?"

Vincent’s smile lessened a little but remained. "Sure."