Buster

By: Strange and Intoxicating -rsa-

Notes: I found this lovely picture on Tumblr by an amazing artist named cloudvelundr and had to write something in response. It was going to be cracky, but the more I thought about it the more depressing the topic became. Seriously, there is nothing fun about this.

Disclaimer: I do not own Final Fantasy VII or anything involving the Compilation. I do find it weird that I still write this disclaimer, but it is something I have been doing for the last 10 years, so may as well keep going.

Angeal remembered.

He remembered his death with a stunning clarity, with the Buster sword passing from his hand and into Zack's outstretched one. He remembered the pain and then the bliss of peace.

And then came of realization that, as he faded, he could still feel Zack's grip against him. He tried to move, tried to wake himself from the nightmare and the uncertainty. He could hear, he could see, by Shiva he could even feel, but he could not move. It were as though the lifestream knew of his corruption and through his suffering only then would there be atonement.

There was pain, sometimes. It was like a phantom twinge as the blade swung through a monster or scraped against the ground sending up a spray of sparks. Angeal wasn't certain if it was pain or just the ghost of a memory. After all, how could a lost soul, stuck inside his honor and his dreams in metal, feel anything at all?

And yet he did. It was the worst as Zack parried against Sephiroth's Masamune. It was not in the comfort and amusement of the 49th floor virtual reality room. No, this was the screaming of his friend, his comrade, one of the only people on the planet that Angeal would ever consider family. And even as Sephiroth threw Angeal from Zack's hands to the ground in a harsh clatter, Angeal begged.

If metal could have wept, it would have. But instead it sang as Zack's little blond friend grabbed him and shoved him straight through Sephiroth. The tap of the metal against the glass made Angeal wish he could wince. The grunt, the feeling of blood against his entirety, the smell of sweat and musk and what Angeal could only describe as desperation was cloying. He wished he could choke.

His student lay bleeding with his friend, Sephiroth was dead, Genesis was gloating and Angeal could only stay motionless as Hojo took Zack and Cloud away. One of the scientists grabbed him by the pummel and pulled him along after them, each clattering step down through the reactor sending a buzz through him.

And then it was waiting. How long, Angeal wasn't sure. They propped him next to the glass cage where they chained Zack, and he watched every experiment and listened to every scream. Always one hand away, never able to react, never able to reach forward. He dreamed of Sephiroth and of the blood, and it mixed with Zack and Cloud.

The doctors could only hear two screams, but Angeal was sure there were three.

When Zack escaped, Angeal listened to Cloud's breathing as Zack told him stories of Gongaga and the beautiful canopy of stars and green. He wanted to show that sky to Aeris, the young girl Angeal only heard of. Yet, he could imagine her with a clarity he could only think came from the hours and hours of Zack talking to the corpse of his friend.

Genesis's blood was sweet, like apples, when Angeal bit into his flesh. Angeal wished he could mourn for his childhood friend, the one person other than Zack and Sephiroth who understood him. They understood him in ways that no other could, and he wondered bitterly as Zack dug his blade into Genesis's side, if Genesis would have swung his sword had he known that it was Angeal inside.

Flashes of color, of sky from blues to grays. Blood and smoke and screaming, then the rain. Zack, Zack was reaching out for a hand that Angeal could not understand, and he wished that he could go with him. He wanted to be forgiven, he wanted his freedom.

And again, he passed from one hand to another, the blood like a memory Angeal wished he could escape.

Cloud, Zack's friend, yanked him from one corner of Gaia to the other. But Cloud was broken, in a way Angeal could understand. They were both trapped, weren't they?

More than once Angeal wished for a mouth, wished for a way to grab Cloud by the shoulders and shake him. The proof of Zack's existence, the proof of his existence. Cloud could not remember Zack's soft smile, his strength and determination, his will to survive. Angeal wanted to hit him, wanted to remind Cloud of who he was and who Zack was, to disengage the fantasy from reality.

But Cloud only grabbed the Buster Sword tighter, and Angeal wished for death.

This was not his first plea.

Angeal remembered falling from the sky, strapped to Cloud. He remembered the impact and the soft flowers under him, and the shaky breath and cry of fear.

He knew who she was before he was able to see her. The flowers, the church, the soft chime of bells. This was Zack's girl, and this was more proof.

Angeal was a monster.

He deserved this unending hell.

Cloud, poor damaged Cloud, was barely able to hold himself together. Angeal did what he could; the sword, the techniques–he could not teach Cloud, but he hoped that Cloud would be able to understand the way the blade moved in time. Maybe he could try, maybe he could help save Cloud.

But he couldn't save her.

It was a failure, he was a failure. As Cloud pulled him up, Angeal screamed and screamed, he screamed into a void where no one could hear him. And as he swung down, Angeal did something he could not explain. He could not say what it was, or how it happened. Somewhere in his mind, Angeal was half convinced that it was a trick of his own mind's downward spiral into insanity, that it was the yells of his friends that stopped Cloud from driving him into Aeris's tender flesh.

But Angeal felt him shake, felt the power as he sang in Cloud's grip, and for a moment Angeal believed he had done it–he had helped. He had saved the Cetra girl, and maybe he would rest.

And then Sephiroth descended.

Water. So much water. If Angeal had lungs, he would have drowned. There was water and tears and sobbing.

Then numbness.

Drifting in the lifestream, Angeal could only see the fuzzy memories of his childhood with Genesis, his mother, his father. Sephiroth's face flashed in his mind, and then the gaping wound in his friend's arm… the blistered flesh of his own hands and skin, the fear as he realized deep in his belly that there was something wrong.

Green eyes staring impassively. This was not the Sephiroth Angeal knew, but it was what Sephiroth was, now.

They were both monsters.

Cloud took weeks to recover. The entire planet was bathed in the red light of the falling star, but Angeal could only hear the whisper of the planet through metal and monster and gore. The Northern Crater called to him, and it whispered something of power and corruption and perhaps even the freedom he needed.

And there, surrounded by Holy and Hell and Lifesteam, Angeal again felt the bite of Sephiroth's Masamune. He felt the hiss and clang and the scream of blade against blade, magic against magic, and the unending storm of Sephiroth's madness. A god, he thought himself… But Angeal knew better. Six years of being chained in his honor and failure had taught Angeal that there were no gods and fate was cruel.

Angeal had been working on a move before his desertion. Zack had seen bits and pieces of it, but only one person ever saw it in its first stages. The move, a fourteen slash move with a final deathblow, was something he perfected in the labs when the screaming became too much. Zack had created his own, an eight slash limit, but this…

Cloud gripped him tight as Sephiroth watched in horror. Angeal knew at that moment as Sephiroth stood stock-still, jaw slack and eyes wide that something in Sephiroth's shattered psyche realized what was happening and what Angeal had become. The first fourteen blows came faster and faster until Cloud and Angeal jumped above into the oblivion and Sephiroth's eyes flashed gray.

Angeal wished he could have stopped Cloud for that one moment, but he came down against Sephiroth's chest and the bubble of blood popped and rushed forward like a river. Angeal dripped and squelched inside of his friend. He could hear the sound of his metal scraping against spine, and the uneven and shattered breath as Sephiroth drowned in his own blood. Sephiroth grabbed for him, and for that one moment Angeal felt like he was human again and he was fumbling for his friend's hand… He needed to give Sephiroth that.

Angeal had failed him.

He failed everyone.

After the battle, Cloud would not touch him. The blood was still engraved into the crevices of the hilt, in the nicks that had worn into his sides. Angeal needed to be cleaned, needed to have his friend's blood washed off, needed the heaven to open up and swallow him whole, to save him.

And then Cloud planted him in the earth still saturated with Zack's blood and essence, and Angeal considered it over.

There was only so much he could take…

There was a breaking point.

That was the point Angeal could admit that something in him truly died. The torture of watching over the hill outlooking Midgar, over the shambles of what once was. The hours and days and years passed in a blur only accentuated by Cloud's presence. There were no other visitors.

In life, Angeal had been careful to not use the Buster Sword, wanting to protect it from wear and tear. It was his honor and it needed to be perfect. Yet, as the barren desert kissed his blade, Angeal would have given anything to be used again, to protect those he loved.

To those he failed.

And then the rain came.

He wasn't sure what happened, nor why. It was only after the most recent incident with the three silver-haired men that made Angeal think of Sephiroth in his twisted glory, and Cloud apologizing.

Cloud was always apologizing. Yet, didn't he know that the true person who needed to apologize was Angeal?

But, the rain. The cool rain, the whisper of something against his metal that made Angeal remember peace.

Sephiroth.

"I am sorry I kept you waiting. It was unfair of me."

There was something in that voice that Angeal knew was not the Sephiroth of Nibelheim, not the Sephiroth of the City of the Ancients, not even the Sephiroth of the Northern Crater before Omnislash.

No, this was the Sephiroth Angeal remembered from SOLDIER. This was the Sephiroth who grew from the sheltered and heartless General to the man Angeal trusted with his life. The friend he had laughed with, who had been the person to grab him by the shoulders and reminded him of honor after Genesis disappeared.

And here he was. He wasn't wearing his tell-tale leather coat and pauldrons, but rather the soft, forest green sweater with the sleeves rolled up that Angeal bought for him for his first mock birthday. His hair was tied back with a bit of cord, like Sephiroth always did when it was his day off, and he seemed to be…

At peace.

There was no blood or gore, and Angeal wished that he could hug his friend close, to remember what it was like to have a body.

"She will be on her way… She will grant you peace, just as she has done for me."

A moment of worry hit Angeal where he believed his stomach would have been located, but Sephiroth's eyes were silver. It was not JENOVA.

He even gently reached forward to rest his hand on Angeal's hilt.

"Genesis… he is not ready, not yet. But the girl has promised his freedom. He has not yet atoned… But he will."

Angeal felt the rain splash against his gritty, blemished and rusting metal, and Sephiroth reached out to wipe it away. The man's hands were shaking, and Angeal wished he could grab his friend to steady them.

They waited in the rain, for how long Angeal was not sure. The clouds parted and the soft blue of the sky juxtaposed against the craggy ground, and then he heard the chime of a bell laugh and a snicker he had grown so fond of over the years of teaching.

Aeris and Zack looked beautiful in death. Perhaps it was their spirits mingling with one another, never too far from one another's grasp. Angeal believed it to be the way they smiled and the way the sun on her hair and the wind caressed his face as they came forward.

And as he felt their hands on him, pulling him from the metal and the blood and the rust of his failures, Angeal remembered peace.

He remembered peace.

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