Crisis Core: The Female SOLDIER

41

MURDERER!!

Sera snapped awake at the terror filled screams resounding in her mind, the scent of smoke reaching her nose and she shot up from the bed, rushing to look out the window only to gasp.

Fire.

The village... It was on fire.

Fear rose up to her chest. Grabbing her weapons, she shot out of the room and slammed the door next to her open, finding neither Zack nor Cloud inside. The fear grew and she ran down the steps out of the inn. She quickly glanced around. Where was everybody? Where was Zack? Cloud? Tifa? The villagers?!

Where were they?! Were they... dead?

"Sera!"

Sera whipped around at the voice to find Zack standing over Cloud who was on the ground. She rushed towards them. "What happened?!" Sera demanded, hovering her hands over him as she casted a cure spell.

"S-Sephiroth..." she heard Cloud mumble.

Her heart lurched to her throat. Sephiroth... He did this? It couldn't be! Sephiroth would never do this! She knew her mentor well enough to know that he would never condone such a thing. Just what had happened?

What had he found out back at the Manor? To cause him to do this?

Sera compiled everything together. The feeling of dread before the mission. The lifestream voices screaming at her about something that was sealed in the reactor. Sephiroth telling her about his mother, Jenova.

The revelation... that Jenova was a monster excavated from the ground 2000 years ago... And that Sephiroth was created from her cells... That Jenova was a monster...

"Jenova, the calamity that fell from the sky."

"Maybe, you could find your answers here. If you recognized this place then... you may be able to find the answers you're looking for, about who you are, and why you are here."

"Could it be... that I...was created the same way? Am I the same as these monsters?"

"CALAMITY SPAWN! STAY AWAY!"

"The spawn has awakened...'

"Sephiroth... You were the greatest monster created by the Jenova Project."

"Jenova Project S used the remains of countless failed experiments to create a perfect monster."

"Am I... a human being?"

"SEPHIROTH!"

Sera shot up at Zack's cry, and she whipped around to follow his gaze, and her eyes widened.

Before the path leading up to the mountain, Sephiroth stood surrounded by flames, holding his sword that she saw was stained and dripping with crimson.

Blood.

"I'm coming to get you..." Sephiroth muttered, looking to the ground, but Sera had a feeling he wasn't talking to them.

Then, with the flames continuing to surround him, he rose his head to meet their eyes, and Sera felt her blood freeze. His eyes, they were ice cold, and filled with enraged murder. He glared at the two of them before he turned away, and walked through the flames, the fires dancing around him but never touching his skin. Sephiroth... she had never seen those eyes from him before. She had seen looks of rage from all three of her mentors before, but nothing like this.

This... It was like he wanted to burn everything to the ground, killing everyone in sight, regardless of who it was. Friend and foe alike.

"How could you?" Zack growled from beside her as he looked back to the burning village. "Sephiroth, how could you...?"

"Why, Sephiroth...?" Sera asked her mentor. "Just what have you found? Just what did you discover... to make you do such a thing?"

Her body moving on its own, she felt herself step forward, about to chase after him when she felt Zack pull her back.

"No!" Zack stopped her before she could leave. "We can't leave the village like this! We need to get everyone out!"

Unable to think clearly, Sera could only nod as she followed Zack throughout the village, pulling survivors out from the burning rubble and Sera focused on healing the wounded while Zack and those miraculously unharmed tried to put out the fires.

Her mind was swirling with thoughts. Thoughts on what could have happened and what had forced Sephiroth's hand, but she tried to push them back as she tried to focus on casting cure spells over the wounded while Zack and the remaining survivors tried to douse the flames. She was itching to leave, to go after Sephiroth.

She wanted -no- she needed to know what had happened.

But these people before her came first.