Battle is a song... [Completed]

[estaunsinterius.livejournal.com]

Character(s): Sephiroth, Dragoon nobodies, anyone else who wants in on the fun
Content: Sephiroth gets into the swing of things, and lays waste to various and sundry Nobodies.
Setting: Near Joutenheim gate
Time: Late evening/early night
Warnings: Many, many, many dead Dragoon nobodies.


There is a certain cadence to a battle; amidst the blood, the gore, the death and the screams, one can find a tempo with which the fighting ebbs and flows. The greatest fighters tap into this flow, this song of battle, and let it carry them along.

The sky, with its smiley-faced sun, was definitely reddening toward dusk as the lone man strode down the street. His black attire set him apart from the citizenry of Paixao, as did his long, silver hair. Even moreso, his gait; his tread was fluid as water, with the same predatory grace all hunting cats share. Here was a man, it said, that you do not screw around with.

The irony of it was that, though he could fight, and very well indeed, Sephiroth much preferred not to. Despite his reputation as the greatest swordsman in all Gaia, despite his unrivalled prowess, he was at heart a peaceful man. He fought because he had to. To protect others, to protect himself, to protect the Company.

And yet, there was no Company here; no ShinRa to govern his actions. No master at arms to dole out assignments. Just people, flat and two-dimensional as they might be.

People who needed help.

Behind him, he felt more than saw the arrival of four more of the spear-wielding things. Things that did not bleed. Things whose speed and leaping ability seemed to rival his own.

A dozen had already fallen to his blade, the mighty Masamune, the blade only he could wield. These things, though; they left no corpses. Not even a sign that they had ever been there, but for the bloody corpses of their victims, impaled like sausages on toothpicks.

Sephiroth narrowed his eyes as he turned to face the new group of assailants. Someone, or something, was directing them; they had no brains of their own. Indeed, they had no internal organs whatsoever, he had discovered upon bisecting one from crown to crotch. Nothing but emptiness.

As before, they attacked on their own, without a plan. The first was dodged entirely; the second was split diagonally from hip to shoulder. The third was beheaded, and the fourth found itself in three seperate pieces as Sephiroth finished his deadly dance. Behind him, the first erupted into flame as one of the green gems in the pommel of Masamune glowed.

He swept Masamune clean (a fruitless gesture, as the creatures had no ichor with which to stain anything) and began walking once more.

As he walked, he mused on the nature of the creatures he had been fighting. They were... odd. Alive, yet not. They moved jerkily, like puppets, but there was no doubt that they could fight. He'd seen enough of polearm combat in the war against Wutai to know that much.

But perhaps now was not the best time to think about such things. Four more of the spear wielding creatures had appeared before him, in a loose diamond formation...

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[dark-turk.livejournal.com]

Days had passed since Vincent's meeting with Cloud and Aerith. Most of that time had been spent searching for the SOLDIER Zack but with no luck. There seemed to be no sign of him in Paixao. Other than that Vincent spent many hours sitting up at night trying to figure out a way to get Lucrecia's soul to wind up here in Paixao. That's the trck wasn't it? The dead were ending up here? He couldn't remember dying, but it was bound to happen one day. He kept thinking back to Lucrecia in that cave, shut out of the world.

And that picture of Lucrecia was in his mind when he bumped into something. Or atleast that's what he thought had happened at first. Looking down Vincent instantly understood what happened. Dead bodies lie all over the street, and it only took another second to notice the fight in front of him. Somehow he had gotten lost in thought and didn't notice what was going on. Dragon-looking things were killing and seeming to be having a great time doing it.

As a male was being lifted up into the air and about to be stabbed by the thing, Vincent had pulled out Cerberus and let three shot fly in quick succession. The first round hit it in the side making it drop the citizen. The next two bore holes through its head and sent it flying. With a quick reload Vincent started running to the next corner where he head a sword slicing through the air.

He turned the corner and stared almost less than 10 feet away from Sephiroth, almost dropping Cerberus. Valentine continued to just stare at Sephiroth as he was sliced through another one of those monsters.

"Sephiroth?!" he asked aloud, unable to hold it in. He finally thought things out and leveled his gun with Sephiroth's head, staring him down the triple-barrel.

[estaunsinterius.livejournal.com]

Sephiroth did not immediately turn to face the source of the voice; the fourth and final of the new group of dragoons was bearing down on him, its spear levelled for the kill. As he parried its lunge and used the momentum to spin through a cleaving overhead chop, Sephiroth caught a glimpse of the person accosting him.

As he seemed to be aiming a gun at him, Sephiroth decided he required further attention. Turning to face the man, he got a better look; the results of that look rubbed at something in the back of his mind, something not quite ready to surface right that moment.

"Do I know you?" he asked, nonchalantly swiping the blade of his sword clean on his coat. "You can lower the gun, by the way; unless you intend to use it, that is, in which case I'm afraid things are going to get very painful for one of us very quickly."

[dark-turk.livejournal.com]

Vincent almost wanted to pull the trigger, and end Sephiroth's life right there. His better instincts told him to shoot the SOLDIER then figure everything out later. He could tell even Chaos wanted Sephiroth dead. But something else stopped him. A pulse went through his body, and he lowered the weapon. Vincent could feel Lucrecia there with him, lowering the gun for him. He was probably just going crazy, but that was what he believed had happened.

"I know you," Vincent said to Sephiroth, gripping his gun tighter. At that minute Vincent raised his gun back up and shot.

A new group of Dragoons had moved in and was circling the two. One jumped down from the top of the building next to the two, but Vincent dodged the lance and caught the monster's face in his claw. With the downward momentum from the Dragoon falling, Vincent slammed it into the ground, digging the Dragoon into the paved road.

"This is troublesome..." he muttered to himself. As he shot back at the incoming enemies Vincent was sure to keep Sephiroth in front of him, keeping an eye on him at all times.

[estaunsinterius.livejournal.com]

Sephiroth raised a brow at the man as he lowered his gun and said he knew him, then raised it again to fire - but not pointed at him. Yet another group of nobodies had arrived, and these were definitely acting under orders to kill. Their level of aggression was markedly higher than the dozen or so he had already tallied up, and they moved faster.

While Vincent kept Sephiroth ahead of him, wary of the person who had done so much evil to his knowledge, Sephiroth did not bother doing the same in return. He did, however, try to drag forward that little tidbit of mental noise that was tickling irksomely at the back of his mind.

Masamune clove the head of one of the dragon-like beasts from crown to throat, and as he jerked it out to the side, it came to him. He'd seen pictures of this man before, in Hojo's notes. But... according to those same notes, he was dead.

A most perplexing problem.

But, as he seemed at least for the moment to be on Sephiroth's side, he thought no more of it. There were people to save, right now...

[dark-turk.livejournal.com]

Sephrioth saving people would be a very odd idea to Vincent. Of course, just the fact that Sephiroth wasn't killing him or sending these monsters to attack Vincent was already perplexing enough.

Another one of the dragoons tried to sneak up on Vincent, but the Ex-Turk roundhouse kicked it sending it flying into a group of them. To finish them off as they tried to get up Vincent called on Thunder to shock the group into oblivion.

Just behind the destroyed group was a small crowd of citizens cowering against a wall as a few Dragoons closed in on them.

"We have to help them!" he said, running toward the people.

[estaunsinterius.livejournal.com]

Sephiroth took a moment to admire Vincent's spellwork, but only a moment. The group of dragoons he had pointed out in the next moment brought Sephiroth out of his admittedly minor reverie.

The people the nobodies had cornered most definitely were not enjoying their predicament; as he watched, one of the creatures raised its spear, preparing to skewer one of them.

In the next instant, Sephiroth was beside it, Masamune flashing upward and severing the spear (along with the creature's left hand). With the momentum from that slash, he swept his blade around in a wide parabolic arc, at neck level with the beast and its closest companion.

In the next moment, they were gone completely, heads severed and bodies dissolved.

[dark-turk.livejournal.com]

This Paixao. Every minute Vincent was finding himself question it. Why would Sephiroth have helped them? It didn't make any sense. Nothing here made sense.

For a second it seemed like the Dragoons were gone. Vincent knew that something was controlling them. Had to. He didn't know why but he was convinced that they weren't acting independently.

"Sephiroth..." he muttered to himself, reloading the Cerebus in a flash. "Why are you helping?" Vincent asked the silver haired man, his red eyes staring down Sephiroth's.

It was too bad Cloud wasn't there. Already he thought Cloud would want to destroy Kadaj, but with Sephiroth it was a shame Cloud wasn't there to finish both sons of Jenova off.

[estaunsinterius.livejournal.com]

Had Cloud been there, it was most likely Sephiroth would have laughed in his face then patted him on the shoulder, provided the spiky-haired man did not attack him first.

While it was true that Sephiroth was... -different-, he certainly wasn't the type of person to slaughter innocents, or through inaction allow others to do the same.

Not yet, anyway.

With a bit of a wry smile, he turned toward his erstwhile foe-turned-partner. "Rethought your decision to shoot me yet? I rather hope so. You're too good a fighter to kill out of hand like that."

[dark-turk.livejournal.com]

"You don't know who I am, do you Sephiroth?" Vincent asked straightout. His eyes only left the silver-haired man for a second to look for more enemies.

"There's no reason for me to kill you at this moment," was all Vincent said, leaning over to help a man to his feet; he was shaken and shocked, but all right. Vincent sent the man on his way, but he didn't seem at all interested or even scared at the events. It just went to show that nothing here made sense.

"Do you know what those were?" he finally asked, throwing his cloak out with one arm as he turned back to Sephiroth. "Why did they attack us?"

[estaunsinterius.livejournal.com]

Sephiroth shrugged a fraction of an inch, rolling his shoulders to work out a kink. "I have an idea, but I'm not certain of it. As to what these things are and why they attacked, I haven't the slightest. Though it's fairly obvious there is some high level magic at work here. Those... -things- were not living. They were puppets. And puppets usually have masters."

Now that they were, for the moment, out of danger, Sephiroth took some time to look himself over. His coat was somewhat the worse for wear, holed here and there by the creatures' spears, but he was personally unharmed except for a scratch on his upper arm.

Raising his left arm, he focused on one of the green gemstones set in his bracer. A faint glow formed over the cut (and the holes in his coat); after a few seconds, they had gone.

[dark-turk.livejournal.com]

Vincent seemed to have away unscathed. Odd, how would the great destoryer of worlds get injured by these enemies. Then again, Vincent was fighting range and Sephiroth close combat. As he inspected Sephiroth he could tell how much different this version was. The same with Cloud. How was any of this even possible? His mind drifted back to that thought for the millionth time.

"So where do you think they're veing controlled from?" Vincent asked Sephiroth still on the edge on whether to trust the SOLDIER.

[estaunsinterius.livejournal.com]

Sephiroth shook his head, lowering his arm. "I'm not certain. This puppetmaster, wherever he or she may be, is quite good at concealing their location."

Rolling his shoulders, he looked up and down the street. For the time being, there did not seem to be any more of the strange white creatures popping out of nowhere, and the people had gone. "Perhaps we should go elsewhere, or at least start searching. I've a feeling that we're not out of danger yet."

[dark-turk.livejournal.com]

"Hmm..." Vincent stared around him, searching for any sign of the puppetmaster. After a while he didn't notice anything he returned Cerberus to its holster.

"Let me check the network," he said, pulling out his journal from his pocket. And there it was. Lucrecia Cresent was in Paixao. He almost dropped the journal from his hands after reading that post. How could she be here?!

He looked over at Sephiroth, thinking for only a moment.

"I have to go meet someone. Can you take care of yourself?" he asked. Of crouse Sephiroth could. But was it safe for everyone else to leave him alone? He dared not take Sephiroth with him to find Lucrecia. He wanted to see her alone. In the end he decided it was best to leave Sephiroth behind.

Without waiting for an answer, Vincent jumped off to the nearest building, landing on the roof. He started running in the direction he knew Lucrecia was in, leaving Sephiroth behind.