Chapter 2 - Nothing Shall Forestall My Return

Again, HTML. Sorrehz. T.T;



The training was finally paying off. The soldiers in Wutai were far inferior to the one assassin you had encountered on your mission with Genesis Rhapsodus - you shivered visibly as the name flitted across your mind - before you left Midgar, so you were having no difficulty taking care of them.
Swinging your sword around in an arc above your head, you decapitated the guard stood in front of you in complete silence. You were careful to catch the body before it hit the ground, stuffing it haphazardly under a bush before continuing on your journey through the woods.
You'd heard as soon as you reached Wutai that Genesis was nearby. New hadn't reached the mainland yet - news never did travel quickly away from the island which Wutai was on, being as no Wutaians ever really left - so the citizens weren't aware of it yet, but it seemed that the SOLDIER 1st class had decided to side with Wutai for a while. In a way you were angry at him for leaving ShinRa so easily, but in another, you could see his point; where peoples as protective the Wutaians were concerned, it was a good idea to make sure they weren't going to attack you on sight if you wanted to work near them.
You, of course, hadn't taken that precaution.
Something rustled in a bush nearby, and you halted suddenly, your breath catching in your throat. You couldn't hear voices, but it could easily be a very stealthy guard. Slowly and silently, you turned towards the noises and moved your sword in to a defensive position, ready to parry should an attack come.
All was silent for a few long moments, but then the rustling changed direction and headed away from you, back to the fortress that was Wutai. You let out the breath you'd been holding a little shakily and relaxed your posture. They were leaving . . . they hadn't seen you.
You took a while to regain your composure after that . . . well, you, at least, regarded it as a near miss. Every time an animal moved, you stilled, not breathing, body refusing to move until the 'danger' had passed.
You were glad when you finally reached the house of which you'd been told. It was a small affair, no bigger than one of the houses in the slums. Considering that it was constructed entirely of logs and leaves, you reflected, it was very well made. You skirted around the trees and slammed your back against the wood of the cottage, biting your tongue against the pain of the splinters that stabbed in to your back.
Shuffling around the edge of the building, you kept an eye on the woods, watching, even now, for the guards who a dark part of your mind told you were following. The other eye was watching the cottage, waiting for the door to come in to sight.
When it did, you got quite a shock; it was open, swinging on its hinges. Your grip on your sword tightened as you drew nearer and glanced around the edge of the gap, in to the dimly lit room.
On the far side of the room, a solitary oil lamp burned brightly from its perch on the windowsill. An upturned table took up most of the floor, what little space remained out of its reach covered in paperwork. You picked up the sheet nearest your feet and scanned over it before letting it flutter back to the floor. Nothing important on it, just area maps.
You took one more look around before leaving, slotting the door neatly in to its frame before you disappeared back in to the woods.

Banora . . .
That was where he was going. Or, at least, that was where he was going according to a Wutaian guard with a knife pressed close to his throat. You looked out of the window of the plane, watching the waves crashing against the shore of the mainland. You were sure that if you looked out of the other window you'd be able to see Midgar, so you kept your eyes firmly glued to the ocean. You didn't want to see that city again, not now, not since you couldn't go back.
SOLDIER were strict on deserters.
That's what you were, now. A deserter. SOLDIER just assumed that you'd followed your beloved Genesis. Even though that was true, you resented the fact that they didn't consider anything else first.
The pilot screeched something in Wutainese which you assumed meant you were landing soon. Your idea was confirmed when the plane banked steeply to the right and you were all but thrown out of your seat and on to the floor.
You hauled yourself to your feet and stumbled over to the door, swinging it open and relishing in the blast of wind that threatened to suck you out. You spared a thought for the soon-to-be bemused pilot before stepping over the edge of the plane and plummeting towards the ocean.

You were still massaging your bruised ribs when you rounded the edge of the canyon and came face to face with the factory. It was bigger than you'd expected.
You wandered up to the edge of the cliff and looked down over it, seeing a large number of ninjas scuttling around and carrying barrels of . . . something. You didn't want to know what. It only took seconds for you to find a back entrance and sneak down the cliff face and inside the building.
You found yourself standing on a steel staircase, in the back corner of the factory. Considering that it was so busy outside, you were amazed to find that there was nobody inside. The emptiness was eerie, almost surreal. A shiver passed down your spine, but you ignored it and hurried down the steps to the factory floor.
On the opposite side of the room you could see a small door, so you made your way towards it, pausing only to glance around the factory. There was nothing much inside; a few piles of crates, some weapons piled up in a corner and, for some obscure reason, a drinks machine.
On the other side of the door was a dark room. You stepped inside and screeched as you slid down the first few steps of a steep staircase. You clambered back up, shaking slightly, and ran your hands over the walls by the door in search of a light switch. You didn't find anything, and for a second you were tempted to go back to the town, but then you remembered; Genesis could be down here. Dispelling your fear, you felt your way down the steps.
A distinct empty feeling at the bottom of the staircase alerted you to the fact that you were in a room, now. You turned again searched for a light switch, this time finding one. You flicked it on, and a blue light filled the room, being emitted from an egg-shaped capsule at the back of the room.
Your steps were light as you wandered in, gasping when you saw the piles of SOLDIER members' files on the desks that stood against the walls. You flicked one open at random - Ricky Mitch, a young boy from Edge who'd graduated to SOLDIER along with you. He was supposed to be one of the people who'd gone MIA with Genesis . . .
You put the file back down and continued to look around the room. It was obvious that Genesis wasn't there, but it couldn't hurt to look around a bit, see what you could find.
"There's nothing that would interest you, ______."
You jumped at the voice, easily recognised, and span around so that you were facing its owner. You tried to speak, tried to yell, scream at him, but nothing came out. Shock was keeping you silent, and you were sure that Genesis was glad of it.
"You don't need to be scared, ______," He practically purred as he walked strode across the room to you, covering the distance far more quickly than you could.
"But . . . Genesis, you . . ."
An amused smile played across the redhead's lips. "Really," He laughed, "I'm not going to hurt you."
"Genesis . . ." You whispered, reaching a hand out to touch his face. Surprisingly, he allowed you to complete the motion. He even placed his hand over yours, guiding it along his jaw and down his neck, eventually letting it come to a halt over his heart.
"Tell me," He said quietly, "Do I feel normal to you?" You raised an eyebrow, questioning him. "Do I feel like . . ." He ground to a halt."
"Like..?" You prompted, pressing your hand harder against him so that you could feel his heart, pumping slowly.
"Like a monster?" He finished, his eyes meeting yours. You could see inside him through his eyes. You could see anger, more than anything, but there were flashes of other things. Depression. Worry. Even . . . fear.
"No," You answered honestly. You were sure he wasn't a monster, whatever that meant. No . . . he could never be anything other than perfect, and monstrosity wasn't perfection.
"Then what's this?" He asked forlornly, stepping away from you to stand in the middle of the room. Before you could ask him what he meant, his face contorted with pain and he collapsed on to one knee, his hands snaking up to grab at his left shoulder. You tried to move towards his but he held up a hand, telling you that he was okay, that you could stay where you were. That you should stay where you were.
You watched in horror as a black appendage slipped out of a tear in his coat's left shoulder, snaking its way in to the light between Genesis's fingers. It grew slowly larger, eventually showing itself for what it was; a wing, fashioned from black feathers.
Genesis rose slowly to his feet, his face still tight from the pain. You, however, weren't watching him. You were pulling the hair tie out of your hair. The black feather on it . . .
"Where did you get that?" Genesis narrowed his eyes dangerously, all hints of pain gone. Had he been faking it?
"I . . ." You struggled to remember for a second before it finally clicked. "I found it on the stage, after that talk you gave the SOLDIERs."
Genesis 'hnn'd and turned his back on you, flexing the wing experimentally before folding it back up, allowing it to disappear in to his shoulder. You watched his walk; he seemed more purposeful now, his steps longer, faster, sharper.
"What have you done?" You pondered aloud.
"I have become a monster," Genesis said quietly, turning to face you once more. "I'll be in Midgar in a few days," He added as an afterthought. "If you can bear to be back there, it would be nice to see you again."
With that he was gone, taking the steps two at a time until he was out of sight, back in the warehouse. You sighed sadly and followed him, ready to make your way to Midgar. There was no way you'd miss another chance to speak to Genesis.

It was good that you'd managed to dodge around the creatures, and even better that they were mostly on the lower plate. Now that you'd reached the upper plate, and the ShinRa building, you were pretty much safe.
You shook the rain out of your hair as you stepped in to the staircase. You only glanced up once before mentally cursing yourself for choosing the back entrance - you couldn't even see the ceiling from here. With a resigned sigh, you started climbing, dreading the ache you were sure to feel in your legs once you reached the top.

"Here."
You smiled as a heavy leather coat was placed over your head, shielding you from the rain. Despite the miserable weather, you were happy; the view from the top of the ShinRa building was amazing and, even better, you were with Genesis.
"You'll be cold," You said, not meaning anything by it. You were disappointed when it seemed that he'd taken the comment seriously, as he lifted the edge of the coat up. He didn't take it off of you, however. Instead, he slipped under it with you, pulling you closer to him so that both of you could fit underneath.
"Not any more," He said quietly, giving your shoulder a squeeze.
You didn't say anything for a long time after that, content merely to watch the creatures running wild below. You chose to turn your head when someone was attacked, keeping the illusion of peace and beauty intact. Nothing should be allowed to spoil what felt like one of your last moments with Genesis.
"Genesis," You said quietly, pulling your eyes away from the city in front of you to look at the ex-SOLDIER's face.
"______," He replied, catching your eye from a moment before looking back towards the creatures below.
"Why did you desert?"
Genesis's grip on your shoulder tightened and you immediately regretted asking your questions. His grip relaxed, but he didn't say anything - a reaction which you considered very good, being as his temper was quickly becoming short.
"Sorry . . ." You whispered to him. The redhead ignored you, even when you slipped out from under the coat and in to the rain. He only spoke when the click of the door shutting echoed across the roof.
"Don't be."

You were panting hard when you reached Gongaga village, since it had been a long run. The damn helicopter had decided that dropping you off two miles away from the village was a good idea, especially since your stamina was terrible. Then again, maybe he wasn't being malicious. Maybe he was just scared . . .
You leaned against a tree and linked your hands behind your head, and immediately your breathing became lighter. You allowed your eyes to drift towards the sky, across which you saw a figure fly. For a second your heart skipped a beat, but then you saw the silver of the wing and your hopes were shattered - not Genesis. That Angeal guy . . .
Genesis hadn't said much about him. In fact, you were surprised that Genesis had mentioned him at all in the short amount of time that you’d had together on the roof of the ShinRa building. Maybe he thought it was important or something.
He'd said that they'd been friends, he, Sephiroth and Angeal. The three pillars of SOLDIER, inseparable and unstoppable. He mentioned in passing the similarity between the three of them and the characters of LOVELESS, and it was then that you saw how deep his obsession with the poem ran. Sure, you'd had your fair share of obsessions over the years, be it with a book or a celebrity, but nothing had ever been as important to you as LOVELESS was to Genesis Rhapsodus. It was like he lived, even breathed the words, and his constant quoting only strengthened your argument.
For a minute you entertained the thought of telling Genesis that you thought he was obsessed, imagining the indignant look on his face as he vehemently denied. You snickered quietly at the thought and pushed yourself away from the tree on which you were leant and continued following the path to Gongaga.
When you reached the village, it was in chaos. The people were running from house to house, screaming and crying. You grabbed one to ask what was going on, but she only sobbed louder and cast a terrified look at the path leading to the edge of the town. Deciding that a look like that could mean nothing good, you released the woman (who promptly collapsed on to the floor, earning you some curses) and sprinted down the path.
Even when you were in the town, you could tell that Genesis was this way. The feather in your hair could tell. It was like it reacted with his very existence, picking you up when he was nearby, giving you that extra burst of strength you needed to reach him. In a way, you found it sweet, but ultimately it was sinister.
You watched black feathers similar to yours floating down the path, carried by the wind, and you were sure that Genesis was waiting for you at the cliffs. Sure enough, as you skidded to a halt on the top of the cliff you spied Genesis, hovering in the air some hundred meters away.
"Genesis!" You yelled, raising your voice to be heard over the wind, which was picking up now. Subconsciously, you were impressed that Genesis was managing to stay so still with the gusts buffeting him around so much.
Even over the distance between you two, you could see a smile grace his perfect lips. You returned the smile as he swooped towards you, although it faltered slightly when you saw his hair. It was peppered with streaks of silver - you refused to call it grey - and it looked lifeless, not the gorgeous red locks they had been when you first saw him.
"Shocked?" He asked with a sad smile as he landed gracefully, folding his wing behind him but not withdrawing it completely.
"I . . ." You didn't know what to say. Instead, you inspected his hair more closely, although your eyes eventually settled on his coat, which itself was greying, deteriorating.
"I know," He said simply as he walked towards you, placing a finger under your chin and pulling your face up to look at his.
"Can I..?" You asked, looking at his hair. He nodded sharply and you reached slowly towards him, burying your fingers in his hair. It felt like straw, now, dead, limp and lifeless. You twisted a few strands of it absent-mindedly between your fingers, again looking at his coat. It seemed that the damage it bore was from over-use more than anything else, so it wasn't as unsettling as his hair.
"Strange, isn't it?" He gestured to his head, his shoulders, the strange colourlessness that covered them both.
You nodded, pulling your hands out of his hair and using them to tug him closer to you, close enough for you to embrace him warmly. He in turn placed his arms around you, his coat almost completely covering you, your form small compared to his.
"I might not be alive for much longer."
The sincerity of Genesis's words shocked you, so much that you pulled away a little in order to get a good look at his face. It was almost free of emotion, but you were sure that you could see a tinge of sadness in his eyes.
You sighed, the gesture sounding as sad as his voice, and brushed your lips against the redhead's, oh-so-slowly. "You were always so positive," You whispered to him before nuzzling your face against his neck.
"I try to be, but I can't bring myself to lie to you, ______," He said, his voice nearly as quiet as yours.
Despite the sadness of the situation, you cracked a smile at that. "I really do love you, Genesis," You said, barely loud enough for him to hear it.
"And I think that I love you," He replied, his voice far stronger than yours. "Banora next," He told you as he stepped back, breaking your hold on him. "I'm quite impressed that you managed to find me here, though."
"I have my sources," You shouted, forced to raise your voice since Genesis had leapt in to the air, his one wing extended. A few more feathers floated down to land on the ground beside you, and you noticed that he was losing more every time you met him before he was gone.
You mock-saluted at the space where he had been, muttering, 'Sir!' before you left, mind already set on finding someone in this godforsaken village capable of telling you where you could hire a plane.

As you sat in the Gongaga inn the next morning, you thought about Genesis.
Silver hair . . .
What was happening to him? He said he was going to die soon . . . did that have anything to do with it? And the wing . . . was that related?
You thought up some theories in your mind, although none fitted but one. You decided to believe that he'd wanted the wing, since he'd wanted to fly, but it'd backfired on him and began sapping his energy away - hence the lack of colour.
It fitted, but it still seemed a little off . . .
Someone knocked on the door and called something out to you, although you couldn't hear what it was. You swung you legs up, over the edge of the bed, and made your way over to the door.
When you opened it, a short woman babbled something incomprehensible and dragged you off downstairs. It was then that you realised how impressive it was, that she wasn't scared now. They'd all seemed terrified yesterday, so to get over it so quickly was abnormal at best.
You looked around and found that you were being led out of the inn and in to someone's back garden. Seated on a short wooden bench was a middle-aged man, balding slightly. You almost laughed when you saw the pair of flying goggles perched comically on the top of his head.

You tried to speak, but nothing came out. All you could do was stare at the body of Genesis Rhapsodus, leaning against a chair under the Banora White tree. His hair had returned to its normal vibrant red, and his coat was free of damage, but there was nothing else good about this scene.
You shuffled over to him and sat awkwardly beside his body. With a gulp, you picked up his hand and pressed your fingers against his pulse, praying that you'd feel something. But . . . nothing.
You screamed quietly when the hand you were holding tightened around yours. "Shh," Genesis whispered weakly, his eyes still closed.
"You're alive?" You asked him as you placed his hand gently on his lap.
He smiled at you, a more genuine smile than any you'd seen in a long time. "They couldn't kill me that easily, ______."
You grinned childishly and sat a little closer to him, close enough to lean forwards and rest your head on his chest. "What happens now?"
Genesis shook his head slowly. "I don't know. I suppose I wait here for something to happen . . ."
"You can come with me!" You said, a little too quickly.
"No," He argued, "I feel like I'm destined for something else." Your face fell, but not as much as your heart. You were careful to hide it at least a little bit, though. "I'm sorry, ______." He added.
"It's okay."
Genesis managed to find the strength to hug you, although you noticed when his arms were resting around you that they were resting, and not just holding. He needed you there to support him. You moved a little closer to him and lifted your head up to look him in the eyes. His were open now, and you noticed that the mako glow was just that little bit stronger, enough now to light up the shadows around the blue orbs.
"You're going to be okay . . . aren't you?" You asked after a while. Genesis moved his head back to look at the sky, and as he did so the feather blew out of your hair and fluttered down to rest over Genesis's heart. He smiled slightly and closed his eyes, tilting his head back so his face was pointing towards the vast expanse of sky above.
"Even though the morrow is barren of promises, nothing shall forestall my return," He stated, and you were pretty sure that, yet again, he was quoting from LOVELESS.
"I'll take that as a yes," You laughed, and he began to laugh too, but his joy was cut short when he doubled up, coughing loudly and dislodging you from your perch on his chest.
"Genesis?!" You gasped as you hit the floor. Immediately, you were kneeling beside the redhead and patting his back, whispering words of comfort. The hacking and wheezing gradually slowed until the only remnant of his coughing fit was his deep breathing.
Carefully, already sure that he was out cold, you lifted Genesis's body up and leaned it back against the chair. His head fell to the side when you let go of him, so you lifted it up again, giving him one more loving gaze before resting his head against the seat of the chair. You planted one last gentle kiss on his forehead before you stood up and backed away from the chair and in to the bushes that surrounded the last dumbapple tree of Banora.
You were sure to cover yourself with leaves before relaxing to watch events unfold. You wouldn't have been so careful, but as soon as you'd let go of Genesis you'd been sure you heard helicopter blades nearby and there was only one company that that chopper could belong to; ShinRa.
The distant buzzing became slowly louder, and within minutes a black army helicopter was rising up over the horizon. Its blades were only just blurred, and from that you could deduce that it was going to land near by. As of yet, you couldn't see the ShinRa logo on it, but you were sure that you'd see it in seconds.
You were tempted, for a second, to run out of your hiding place and grab the man - the man you loved - ready to carry him away, running from the helicopter until you found shelter. You could change your names, settle down, live a peaceful life. You could see in your mind's eye what your children would look like; there were two, not twins. One was a teenage girl, about fifteen, tall and slim like her father, but with your mother's chestnut brown hair. The other was a young boy that you were carrying on your hip, who'd inherited his father's auburn locks. Both were smiling and laughing, much like you and Genesis.
You snapped out of the vision just in time to see the door of the chopper opening and two SOLDIERs jumping out. Since you were too far away to hear their voices, you spared a glance at the side of the helicopter. The ShinRa logo was emblazoned on the side, the red a stark contrast to the black of the metal.
One of the men lifted Genesis up on to his shoulder, an impressive show of strength in anyone's book. That one was a young man, maybe only a couple of years younger than you and Genesis. The other fell in to step with the one carrying Genesis as they wandered back to the chopper, not saying anything. When they reached the doors, a figure in blue lycra reached down to take Genesis, hauling him easily in to the darkness of the helicopter. The silver-haired man said something to his companion, who replied loudly. Over the slow rotating of the blades, you thought you picked up the work 'brother' before the two climbed in to the body of the chopper.
The door slipped shut and the blades picked up again, the wind they created almost blowing your cover away. The craft lifted up off of the ground and turned around, and it was only then that you saw the other logo.
This one was electric blue, the shape similar to that of the ShinRa logo but the text different. This one read 'Deepground', and although it had to be something to do with ShinRa, seeing as it was written on ShinRa machinery, you'd never heard of it before.
You tried and failed to commit the logo to memory before the helicopter flew across the horizon, taking the man of your dreams, the perfection that was Genesis Rhapsodus, with it.
You scrambled out of the bushes and brushed a few stray leaves off of your clothes as you jogged up the hill, only to sit on the chair that Genesis had abandoned and bury your face in your hands.
He was gone . . .
A few stray tears trickled down your face and dripped to the floor, forming a damp puddle under the chair.
"Genesis . . ." You whispered. "Genesis." Louder, this time. "GENESIS!" You shouted it the last time, jumping to your feet and stamping on the ground. It didn't matter to you how much you looked like a little kid throwing a temper tantrum - he was gone and you'd never see him again. You swung your fist in to the Banora White tree, hearing a bone or two splinter but not feeling it, your anger, your depression numbing the pain.
"GENESIS!" You screamed again, hoping, wishing that he could hear you, praying that you'd see him again.
You sat back down on the chair, the tears flowing freely now. As you turned your face to the ground, something caught your eye. The lone feather that had blown out of your hair was lying on the edge of the chasm that had once housed the factory, ready and waiting to be blown over the edge. You gasped and scrambled to the edge, plucking the feather from the edge of the cliff and clutching it tightly as you walked back to the chair.
A thought had passed through your mind as soon as you'd seen the feather; it reacts to him. Maybe, with that feather, you could find him.
It was a nice thought. Although nice didn't seem like quite the word, your mind was too hazy to think of anything else - too much had happened too fast.
Absent-mindedly, you pulled the tie from your hair and tucked the feather back in to it, checking that it was secure before tying your hair in to a loose bun.
Deepground . . .
You grabbed your phone from your back pocket and sent a few emails, a split-second decision making you utilise the contacts you'd picked up during the last few weeks. You sent them all the same email;
Deepground. Possible sub-section of ShinRa. Blue logo. SOLDIER uniforms. Research. Will give reward for good info.
You clicked your phone shut and knocked the chair over, more in a symbolic manner than for anything else. You took a glance over the edge of the cliffs and decided that there was nothing worth seeing down there, so you turned on your heel and began the hike to the nearest town, wherever that would turn out to be.
"Don't worry, Genesis," You said to the tree, "I'll find you. Don't worry about that."
And then, sooner than you had expected, your phone buzzed in your pocket. You jumped slightly and pulled it out, only just managing to skim over the first message before another reached your inbox.
Time to start paying up.

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