Can We Start Over?

In the End

Seph's POV

It was so cold and dark I couldn't even move. As I had thought, he must've ended it like he said he would. Just as I hoped, he really did put an end to the Planet's suffering...

Hope?

I did really 'hope' he would stop me. Maybe I did, but I'm not sure. I always gave him reason to hate me, to despise me, to wish I never existed, to wish he never looked up to me. If that's what I wanted, for him to think I was in the wrong, that no one but him could stop me. Then I guess I did an excellent job at it. He hated me to the very core of his being and, for five years, held on to that hatred.

But why him? Why did it have to be him that had to stop me? Why did it have to be Cloud Strife?

As soon as my mind wandered to Cloud, I finally opened my eyes again, only to be met with a vast system of infinite flowing energy. I knew what this place was. It was the lifestream. The very lifeblood of the Planet I sought to overrun, the very same place where the final battle between us decided the fate of the Planet. I was confused as to why I was here again; when Cloud struck me down here, I thought the lifestream would have destroyed me to ensure I would never exist again. So why was I back here? Did the Planet bring me back? If that was true, then why? I hated the Planet enough to want to destroy it. If it knew that much it wouldn't even want to bring me back, not without a good reason.

I later regained control of my body and was able to move around in the stream, and as I started to walk forward, there was something at a short distance that caught my eye. I continued to walk toward it became visible enough for me to see it. It was my sword, the Masamune, and it was sitting there waiting for me to take it. But I guess now I could say taking up that sword again was a mistake on my part. The second I grabbed it, it brought me......there. The place I burned down years ago just so I could see her. Was this some sort of memory projection? It couldn't just be an illusion; it felt more real than that. I felt the heat of the flames then engulfed Nibelheim, the cries of the innocent that perished, and a voice filled with anger that stood out to me. The voice that continued to call out to me was none other than Zack Fair, standing a few feet away, my back facing him.

Catching myself conscious of his voice, I snapped out of my mild daze and quickly turned to face him. I don't know why I wanted to see his face, but I did despite my knowing this all wasn't even real. But as I turned to reach out to Zack, my finger met contact with glass, and it took me a second to realize where I was. I was suddenly inside Nibelheim's Mako Reactor, where my mother was, and wouldn't you know it, I was standing face to face with her again.

I see what this is now, scoffed to myself. The lifestream was behind this, projecting my memories to me, possibly to make me feel guilty for what I did oh-so-long ago. Well, of course, it wasn't really working, not until I felt a deafening pain that shot through my back and stomach. As my vision started to blur, the glass of my mother's containment chamber cracked. I remember this feeling of pain, this feeling of near death, and that feeling of guilt crept in as I heard him speak.

"WHY!? Why did you do this!?" He shouted with rage, "Why would you kill everyone in town!? I looked up to you!- Heck, I even LOVED you! You were nowhere near a monster! So WHY did you kill them?- And hurt Tifa?!"

The young MP cadet kept yelling until he pulled the buster sword out from my back. I stumbled and leaned my body against the containment chamber to support myself, but my legs gave way and fell heavily on the grated floor. I lay on the ground, nearly lifeless and bleeding from my gut. My site was blurring again, and I couldn't stay awake, and I could faintly hear the whimpering of held-back crying coming from the cadet. That's when the guilty feeling got worse, I knew who he was, and I realized what I had done was devastating for him.

And as he walked away, I reached out to him as if I was trying to get his attention, and I managed to utter a few words that I had wanted to say for so long:

"Cloud............... I'm...-sorry........"

That was enough to make him stop and turn his head to face me again. Then suddenly, a green flash of light blinded me for a few seconds until my vision cleared again. And the next thing I knew, the pain was gone.