"Sephiroth…!" Cloud said. "Him! I remember now! I remember who torched the Shinra fleet!"
"Why’s that got ye riled?" Barret asked, shaking him.
"I can’t remember the rest… how I… my wound…he gave it to me, but I can’t remember… No one died in the blast or the fire, Barret. They were all dead by his hands before."
"We will be too if you don’t help. Get ready!"
"No time!" Tifa yelled. "No wind in the sails, no way out!"
"If we can’t run, then we fight!" Barret said, pulling two cutlasses from his belt. "Who ain’t armed! Sound off!"
"I’m armed!" Yuffie yelled poking her head from the crow’s nest, an all too happy grin on her face and throwing daggers in her hands.
"Where’d you get those?" Cid yelled.
Tifa pulled a knife and pistol from under her skirts and Cloud wondered why he hadn’t seen them before. "Shera, get to the kitchen and get your knives!"
"I cannot fight!" Shera complained.
"You had better learn fast or your heads agonna come off!"
Shera ran, though she doubted she’d be able to use them against anything more than a large squirming fish.
"Aeris, hide!" Cid ordered, pulling her away from the steering wheel and practically carrying her inside.
She squirmed and reached for the wheel, but he was too big and too strong.
Yuffie peered over the edge of the crow’s nest to the wheel Aeris wished not to leave.
"How’s he do that?" Barret asked. The ship was not only visible to the naked eye now, but so close one could easily discern the silver sails and black flags. "There’s no wind!"
"You!" Cid yelled at Cloud, throwing a spare machete at him. Cloud caught it, but hardly as deftly as Yuffie would.
Cid had his own homemade spear in his hands, decorated with shark and human teeth.
"Lord knows where the other went," Cid said.
"I have it!" Yuffie yelled.
"I’ll throw ya overboard fer stealin’ from me ya waggish whelp!" Cid yelled.
"No time!" Barret yelled. "We be boarded soon!"
"Tifa!" Shera yelled, coming back. Her apron was full of knives of every kind. "What now?"
"Wait and hope you it won’t come to that," Tifa said. "If it does, aim for what be important and remember which end you stab with."
"Huh?" Yuffie whispered to herself as the others watched the ship approach, studying everything about it.
The ship had no wheel, and no crew save for the lone man at the bow, waiting for the tips to touch. The sails were bowed and full, though there was hardly enough wind to create a noticeable wave anywhere else.
"Wind… Cloud whispered. "That’s how… that’s how he did it. He didn’t light the fleet on fire. The cannon…" Cloud feel to his knees and dropped the machete. He put a hand over his mouth, fearing he’d retch all over the deck.
"You had best swallow that," he heard, as a black and polished shoe, decorated with a tiny double bow stepped into view.
Swallowing the bile obediently, Cloud looked up.
"Ya killed us all, boy!" he heard Cid yell.
He may have heard the screaming, but it did not register. All he could do was look up and behold the familiar black clad man.
"Do I know you?" Sephiroth asked Cloud, who struggled to hold himself up.
The words rang in Cloud’s head as images flickered in front of his face… fire… blood… Sephiroth… so many images, all skewed… a kiss… something black… something… no, that black thing was not Sephiroth. What was it? Why could he not remember?
"Leave my head alone!" Cloud screamed, holding it as if he thought his skull would shatter.
"What nonsense is this?" Sephiroth asked. "You have water on your brain."
Cloud wasn’t watching as Barret and Cid prepared to rush and Yuffie was paying attention again.
"I should end your suffering right now!" Sephiroth said, drawing his sword.
Barret and Cid ran forward.
Cloud screamed. All he could see were images with no boundaries, no outlines, and no definitions. They were lost to him as to what he was seeing, why he was seeing them. Hair…fire…blood… lips…
Shera screamed, Tifa fell backwards, managing to aim her pistol, though slightly. Barret and Cid were thrown backwards in a blast as Sephiroth spread his arms.
Cloud fainted, a wound, identical to the one Tifa and Aeris had worried about before bled through bandages and stained his shirt once again.
Sephiroth dropped his sword and grabbed his arm where the bullet had ripped through.
There was no blood, but he looked to be in pain.
Shera scrambled away, seeing Cid unconscious and bleeding from the head, having smashed it on the railing, which was now broken. His spear had been flung across the ship and Shera grabbed it before disappearing into the cabins.
Barret’s arm was caught in the railing on the other side and Tifa was trying to help him.
Sephiroth laughed and stepped over Cloud, only to be hit from above as Yuffie jumped from the crow’s nest and tackled him.
The machete met with his shoulder as his hand met with her throat. He unwrapped her flailing body from him, earning knives thrown at his and a sharp kick in the ribs. He ignored it all the threw the young girl at the steering wheel, taking off the top half and sending her flying over the railing. He failed to notice the sparkle close to her hand was not from a knife, all of them had been used on him.
Sephiroth brushed her knives off his coat. None of his wounds bled, not even the machete cut, with had halfway taken off his sleeve. He picked up his sword and bowed his head and closed his eyes, making Tifa pause in wonderment. Something hit the mast and it came crashing down on her and her captain.
Ignoring Tifa’s screams and the crash, Sephirtoh stalked over to Cid, who was waking up.
As Cid lifted his head, Spehiroth’s boot met forcefully with his back. He grabbed the man’s arm and twisted it until Cid let out a cry.
"Where is she? You harbor the one I seek and you know it. I don’t think you could ever forget me, thus you know perfectly of whom I speak."
The only response was Cid gritting his teeth against the pain.
"I am not only to twist this until it breaks, man. I shall twist it off until I rip it off the stub! Where is she—"
Sephiroth let go of Cid’s arm, his foot still painfully on the man’s back, as he met oddly with a poorly, though adamantly aimed spear head.
"I be not the one you seek, but you take me anyways!" Shera proclaimed, pulling out a kitchen knife.
"Gladly," Sephiroth said, grabbing the handle of the spear.
Smartly, Shera let go and backed away, ready to aim the knife.
Sephiroth tossed the spear behind him.
"I grow tired of wenches being in my way!" he yelled and ran for her with his sword straight out.
She tried to aim the knife in spite of her fear. She closed her eyes; she held the knife in her sporadically shaking hand. She prayed.
She prayed wrong.
She opened her eyes, but darkness was taking over.
Sephiroth had speared her though the stomach, right through her hand as well. The knife was less than an inch too short.
Cid passed out before he could hear Sephiroth dump Shera into the water.
Seeing no one else to fight him, he stalked down into the hull to search the cabins and hold.
……………………………………………………………………………………………
Sephiroth slashed through door after door, finding nothing but empty cabins, unmade beds and dirt laundry.
There was nothing in the cabins. The kitchen was empty. He stalked down to the hold, the last place she could hide without him needing to tear the ship apart.
"I know you be here, little trinket," he whispered, then stopped in his tracks as he heard a noise. "What have you now?" he asked, continuing and opening the door to the hold.
He backed away as he opened the door, dodging something large and loud, the source of the sound, as it shot out the door.
"Rats on this ship seem to be a problem," Sephiroth said, chuckling. "Or do I feed another to the fish?"
"I be no rat," Nanaki said.
"And I be not one to care," Sephiroth said, stepping in the doorway and closing the door.
Nanaki frantically scratched and butted at the door, but the no avail. The only way in or out was with opposable thumbs.
"Ah, there you are," Sephiroth said, spying a spill of pink skirts from behind some barrels. He quickly walked the few meters between himself and the ilk and slashed, destroying a barrel in the process. "What?" he asked, looking in shock at an empty pink dress, destroyed and hanging on his sword.
He heard a faint click at the door and turned, spying his prey in her underwear, one hand on the half open door.
"Too late!" he yelled, and she and the door were knocked to the floor in a blast of wind.
After overcoming the initial shock, she tried to move, only to find her good arm broken and Sephiroth had crossed the room already.
By the time she had turned her head to look at him, his sword was descending on her, and soon took it clean off her neck.
Nanaki, also hit by the blast came barreling down, only to have his jaw meet with Sephiroth’s boot, knocking him unconscious against he wall.
…………………………………………………………………………………………..
Cid was the only one conscious, but his back ached too much for him to get up before he knew Sephiroth was gone.
He had awoken to screaming. Someone was down in the hold, screaming.
Aeris was lost. His cousin was dead.
"It lied! My mother lied! Where in the nine hells can it be?" he heard Sephiroth scream as he ascended the stairs. "Lies! Lies! All lies! But she had it! She had it—" he continued screaming as he raced down the ship, stopping as he nearly ripped on Cloud.
The captain bent down and picked up the unconscious boy, ripping open his shirt. A long gash bled between black thread that held the wound closed.
"Why? Why can’t I remember you?" he yelled at Cloud, then tossed him overboard in frustration and left.
Cid shifted his head, daring to get a better look at Sephiroth as he boarded his ship. What looked like squid ink covered all of his wounds.
Unable to get up, Cid crawled over to the wheel, the remaining half of it. He turned din the direction Yuffie had been distracted towards earlier and turned the wheel to lead the ship that way.
Then his face met with the deck and he took a long nap.