[The affectionate touch to Sephiroth's shoulder makes him bristle; it's been a long time since anyone's moved into his space in such a way. It feels alien to him-- uncomfortable, almost. He knows only violence anymore. But Angeal doesn't let the touch linger for too long, and Sephiroth takes that moment to fully turn back around and face the other man once more.
Some of Sephiroth's memories of that time are completely gone-- others are muddied at best. He knows he'd felt betrayed, but... a lot of those feelings stemmed from being left in the dark. Had either one of them simply asked him, they may have found him surprisingly receptive. They had transcended his loyalties to Shinra, and the more truths he uncovered, the closer he'd come to abandoning Shinra himself.]
...Honesty is a good place to start. Obscuring the truth from him -- [Not "me". He's decidedly separating himself from these other incarnations.] -- will only lead to isolation and resentment. However...
[A breath. Sephiroth closes his eyes. He can feel the inside of his skull start to itch, to scratch. Her voice is like rats gnawing at his sense of self.]
You should know... that there is another player in this game who will do everything in her power to stop you, to divert your efforts. One who will stop at nothing to subjugate him to her will-- to be her instrument of destruction. And it will not stop at him.
Any who bear her cells are in danger. [There's a flash of something dangerous in Sephiroth's eye just then-- the way he fixes his gaze upon Angeal with an unsettling pointedness.] That... includes you.
[As for how successful she'll be, Sephiroth can't say for certain. Cloud crumbled easily underneath him and Jenova both, but he was completely fragmented and hollow to begin with. Zack, however, seemed impervious to it. But then-- Angeal and Genesis are like him; they had been directly integrated with her cells before they were ever born. Would that grant them a semblance of control? Or would it make them more susceptible to it?]
Will you endure?
[Sephiroth -- in his cruelty, his pursuit of knowledge, his desire to know if this will be another fool's errand and their efforts will amount to nothing -- elects to find out.]
Let's see.
[He'll reach out for the Jenova cells within Angeal, and it won't be gentle or gradual at all, the way he attempts to assert his influence. If it works in any measure, Angeal will be met with a splitting headache and pain so sharp that even his bones will ache.
But... he hopes he's wrong-- hopes Angeal is stronger than that.]
no subject
Some of Sephiroth's memories of that time are completely gone-- others are muddied at best. He knows he'd felt betrayed, but... a lot of those feelings stemmed from being left in the dark. Had either one of them simply asked him, they may have found him surprisingly receptive. They had transcended his loyalties to Shinra, and the more truths he uncovered, the closer he'd come to abandoning Shinra himself.]
...Honesty is a good place to start. Obscuring the truth from him -- [Not "me". He's decidedly separating himself from these other incarnations.] -- will only lead to isolation and resentment. However...
[A breath. Sephiroth closes his eyes. He can feel the inside of his skull start to itch, to scratch. Her voice is like rats gnawing at his sense of self.]
You should know... that there is another player in this game who will do everything in her power to stop you, to divert your efforts. One who will stop at nothing to subjugate him to her will-- to be her instrument of destruction. And it will not stop at him.
Any who bear her cells are in danger. [There's a flash of something dangerous in Sephiroth's eye just then-- the way he fixes his gaze upon Angeal with an unsettling pointedness.] That... includes you.
[As for how successful she'll be, Sephiroth can't say for certain. Cloud crumbled easily underneath him and Jenova both, but he was completely fragmented and hollow to begin with. Zack, however, seemed impervious to it. But then-- Angeal and Genesis are like him; they had been directly integrated with her cells before they were ever born. Would that grant them a semblance of control? Or would it make them more susceptible to it?]
Will you endure?
[Sephiroth -- in his cruelty, his pursuit of knowledge, his desire to know if this will be another fool's errand and their efforts will amount to nothing -- elects to find out.]
Let's see.
[He'll reach out for the Jenova cells within Angeal, and it won't be gentle or gradual at all, the way he attempts to assert his influence. If it works in any measure, Angeal will be met with a splitting headache and pain so sharp that even his bones will ache.
But... he hopes he's wrong-- hopes Angeal is stronger than that.]