Elena leapt at the rigging to get at her injured brother who struggled against no holds and no balance to loose himself from the sword with his good arm.

"Ah, no," Sephiroth spoke. "You little fleas will receive nothing so easily." Sephiroth stood atop the very peak of the rigging, balancing more on air than rope. He swung his sword downward, slicing off the rigging and once again vanished upon the wind.

There was a black blur and the other side of rigging was sliced before Elena landed in Rude’s arms, a brother dutiful, but barely swift enough.

"Penance shall be paid in both blood and fire!" they heard the half-creature yell, before appearing on the deck and beginning to swiftly slice his way through the stunned crew.

"Cid!" Shera yelled, grabbing the man back from the battle.

"Damnit, woman! Don’ ever hold me from battle!" he yelled. Especially not over me ship or the sea!"

"Cid, forgive me," she said softly.

"Fer what? I fergave that a long—"

She silenced him with her finger upon his lips.

"Forgive me Cid… the zombie is not as cold as a I thought. In fact, he is quite warm. But if both of us live beyond this… I want you to stoke the fire for me. And allow me to fight. It may be your ship, but tis my sea and my battle as well."

On the other ship, Black Valentine, though unfaltering, was swiftly being beaten back by the creature. His feet agily danced away from the squirming tendrils that eagerly reached for his ankles to crawl up the rest of his thin legs. More tendrils stood upright, reaching for his arms and face, the few that caught him—for all he thought of was slicing those deviating stalks to protect himself from their touch—quickly wrapped themselves around him and pulled him close to her dangling breasts and toothy teats.

Reno sprang up and ran across the deck, followed by Rude.

"No, I end that pawn’s life now!" Sephiroth yelled, slicing after Cloud, counted Cid as he charged at the boy.

Hands grabbed him around the face and he froze in step, feeling the flesh burn upon his.

He spun with the speed of a great storm, whirling upon his opponent and pulling back his sword. Skin upon skin reluctantly stayed, growing black and sending fire through bone.

"Mermaid…" Shera spoke, fire in her blue blind eyes.

"Siren!" he said, fire in his own eyes, upon his skin, on hers, coursing through them both. He threw the sword forward, earning something sharp but cool and gentle in comparison to the fire that died as her hands fell from his face.

"Both you biting wenches die!" he yelled, reaching back and grabbing Yuffie by the neck as another short blade met his back.

He swung the sword and flipped Yuffie over his shoulder, sending them both flying and then deep into the brine.

"I take the woman!" Elena yelled, her hand on the railing immediately and launching herself after the two.

"I take the runt," Barret said. "Tifa, watch yerself!"

"Damnit, I’m running outta ship and running outta people. Keep the magic ones aboard!" Cid yelled, countering Sephiroth as he threw his blade down upon Nanaki’s neck. "Tifa, git the dog!"

Tifa grabbed Red around the chest. Three limbs crushed and blood running over fur so thick the sources were hidden, as well as the brand he’d been given.

Reeve had run atop the deck again, rolling several barrels haphazardly onto it. He whistled and waved. "Aqui!"

"What’s he sayin’?" Barret yelled, ducking Sephiroth’s sword and pulling Cloud out of the way.

Reno screamed as he finally freed himself from his own weapon, crashing through ropes of torn rigging and landing on the deck. He coughed, spitting up blood thick with saliva. He heaved himself up with his free arm, boundless and unending with either fervor or blood. "He be calling for chaos! And I intend to answer such a call."

"Vincent!" Cloud yelled, seeing the man lose his footing under the creeping tendrils and fall on his back.

"Could… use help here, lad!" Cid hollered, forced back more and more from the force of Sephiroth’s sword.

Reno began climbing aboard his own ship.

Valentine’s golden hand disappeared under the tendrils and the Mermaid turned to Reeve, who was trying to lift the barrels of gunpowder. One of the lids had loosened, spilling the black powder upon ship and sea.

"A woman for a woman!" Reno yelled, grabbing one barrel. "You take Elena to the sea, we take your mother!"

The surface of the water broke, but it was only Barret, holding Yuffie whose mouth shed more water than air and was still as he held her. "She beats!"

"Hey!" Reno yelled as Reeve ran into the lower decks of the ship.

Another pair surfaced. Elena clung to the ship to adjust the woman in her arms. The blessing she carried was only half of the pirate’s desire.

"Elena!" Reno yelled, throwing the barrel awkwardly to the other ship. It missed the Mermaid, who had seen her new target. "We kill the erotic lizard anyway!" he yelled, as he and Rude threw the last of the barrels.

The tendrils turned in one ugly single motion. They aimed for the raven and the creature pulled its way towards the metal beam.

By now Barret was struggling to climb aboard the ship to join the fray.

Elena stayed in the water, waiting for the knowledge of if her father had truly passed on.

The mermaid halted and shrieked, sending all but her child to their knees as it pierced through their ears to their minds. Barret fell from his scaling from the pain of the sound. A curved flash shone over the Mermaid, leaving a once gleaming blade stabbing right through its ugly tendrils. A long line of black blood dribbled down a long slit where the curve once was.

The blade moved again, slashing at tendrils and green flesh, slicing a way threw them as a gloved hand poked from the mass of blood and disgusting green.

"Swing that blade over ‘ere so I kin servive ta kill ya!" Cid yelled, taking a long gash from Sephiroth.

Black Valentine crawled through the mass of tendrils, slicing fervently at each one. Yet the creature began to move, now accustomed to such damage. Such gashed hurt it no at the flesh, and the tendrils grew back in greater force.

"Such a sight would leave a brave man’s pants flat for all time!" Vincent yelled, rolling away before more tendrils overtook him.

"Where in all hells have you been?" Reno yelled at Reeve, who had returned. "Fire?"

"If hell be where such a thing came from, perhaps such flames would work to send it back!" Valentine exclaimed, crawling onto the raven. Safe there from the tendrils, he slumped to catch his breath.

"You shall pay!" Sephiroth yelled. "First, no more women!" He vanished, long enough for a great blast of wind to send down the mast of the ship. Though made of stars, it held no strength against the half-creature’s power and was sent falling on top of Tifa. She screamed, and it was cut short, leaving the ship quiet as the wind died and Sephiroth stood upon the raven, all watching as the sails floated down, like settling gulls.

"Quemadero!" Reeve yelled, breaking the somber silence with his own incoherent language and launching the fire Reno had spoken of. The bottle topped with a burning rag—such an invention Reno was eager to learn the finer points of, given his survival—flew towards the creature and Reeve tossed Rude a familiar box.

The bottle smashed against the deck and the Mermaid screamed as the oil splattered turned to hungry flames.

"Silence that bitch!" Valentine yelled, standing now.

"She be my mother!" Sephiroth yelled.

"You’d have my sympathies, were you not after my life," Valentine said.

Sephiroth spun towards the dead man, and Cloud leapt for his turned back.

"Oh, Lord I thank thee!" Elena said, holding the ship for balance and pressing her lips and tongue to those of the woman she held. She gave a happy smile to the cook and quickly shot up the side of the boat.

The flames ate at the oil, then spread to the wood of the ship, and soon to the spilled gunpowder and the barrel’s that held much more for it’s gluttonous appetite.

Cloud sped at Sephiroth, who turned his sword around and stabbed the youth, never once touched by any blade.

"Damn you!" Cid yelled, letting his spear fly at Sephiroth’s head. "Off me ship an’ offa me sea!"

A blast, like the sunset up close, blinding, a full of fire and thrust shook the raven and devoured the ship as once again fire hit the powder stores and it was the end for the Shinra fleet. Reeve and the two Turk-blooded men took to the water to escape the blast.

Valentine stood his ground as the pall lifted from the ship, the mermaid’s screams mixed with the roar of flames and the heat threatening to catch his long hair as parks flew at him, angry at such taunting of prey so near an yet so fire.

Yet the rocking still managed to catch the captain of-guard. Spehiroth, more complacent despite the blast than Valentine, righted his sword and threw it, just as he reached behind and caught Cid’s spear, never once coming close to shedding any of his black blood.

Valentine made no noise as the sword struck through his chest.

Sephiroth lowered the spear by his side and strode over to the captain, seeing that which he’d never beheld before, not even with those who shared his curse.

"I missed," he whispered to Valentine, stuck to the mast that once held the great raven, and the glowing air beyond. "I never miss!" Spehiroth rose the spear and waited for Valentine to lift his head and see the blade, now clean and glowing with the light of the flames. "From hell’s heart, I stab at thee!"

"By all hells!" Cid spoke, taking Shera from Elena in his arms, watching as Spehiroth drove the spear straight through Valentine’s chest, again and again, growing angrier with each stroke.

Sephiroth froze, nearly dropping the spear as he saw the hole he’d carved into the pirate.

A void, holding no bone, no flesh, and no blood to be seen had been gouged just under Valentine’s collarbone, and yet, the captain looked Spehiroth right in the eyes and managed to smile.

"I am hell’s heart," the pirate spoke, a gilt hand gliding along the sword to the hilt and tearing if from himself and the mast. "You merely be its wrath. And it’s smell."

He threw himself at Spehiroth against the sword and the half-creature barely managed to block.

"Damn you!" Spehiroth cursed.

"Done already! Valentine shouted striking with the sword with all his might once again.

"Curse you!" Spehiroth yelled, blocking again.

Pieces began to give way in the burning ship. The mast rocked and threatened to end it’s long stand while the ship groaned its death rattle.

"Done. Many times over.

"I’ll take your life!" Sephiroth yelled, pushing the sword away and Valentine back several paces towards the fire on the rocking raven.

Once again hands grabbed him around the face and he finally felt flames that could truly burn him.

He was thrown off balance and on his knees as his captor tired to take off his head with the force of them turning his face to them.

"Done as well."

"Lord, I hate thee for this!" Elena cursed before pressing her lips angrily to Sephiroth’s.

A blinding flash burst from the two and they were both thrown back, brighter and greater than that which had taken the ship. Elena stalked back and held her throat; Sephiroth held his head in pain, thrusting it back, as forced there by an unseen hand.

The last of the ship gave way and Valentine found his feet on nothing balanced. He was cast into the sea and the mast and one end of the raven hit as well.

"Damned be it all!" Cid shouted. "If ya kin use yer legs, help me lift this! He shouted, heaving at the end of the raven still lodged in his glittering ship before the weight pulled them all into the sea to meet the same fate as the man who had laid Valentine to rest in a coffin in purgatory upon earth.

Those who could help did so. Those climbing aboard stopped to watch, and wait.

Streaks of black, charred like coal or dried ink, shot across Sephiroth’s face. Cracks like that in ice, like shattered glass, they gathered and formed and soon there were so many cracks he was nothing but black coal. His hair caught fire from nowhere near the small and pathetic remains of the Shinra ship. He reached with out one hand, seeking out the one who’d given him such pain, only to find air. The skin peeled back like paper from his nails, curling at the edges. The black skin began to wither, burning from inside. Flakes flew off in the wind. The hand fell, dead by his side and then dead and severed upon the ship, nothing but ash to hold it on. The ash shed and withered still more, revealing bleached bone that glowed wit heat but soon met an end to its heat as Cid’s boot stomped it out of them.

Elena held her throat. Fire shot through her body, but inside all she felt was ice. Unmoving ice within her throat, and no air. She stumbled another step, reaching out as Shera once had. Her eyes began to drown in blue. Blue as the sky had once been, blue like a calm, calm sea made purely for painting, and never showing r even knowing the truth of the waves and wind and spray. Then, her eyes, blank and blue and pristine, were shot with black. Her pupils, large and round and devouring all blue like the famed Charybdis, saw nothing. Nothing in front of her as the flames died away and the ice melted and she fell to the deck.

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