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Legacy of the Lifestream	By : butabara Category: Final Fantasy VII > General Views: 2387 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 0
Disclaimer: I do not Own FFVII or its affiliates. I make no money from this execise in literary creativity.

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Power. Endless. Consuming. Raw. Dark and tainted and the purest she'd ever felt.

Sassi shuddered under the waves of omnipotence drowning her spirit. She'd feared it, at first; the feeling of something snapping inside her. Breaking away. Empty… Hollow… Alone… Free.

She was free! Oh, Gods, this was what she'd been missing. Nothing else existed anymore. No one. Just her, and her beautiful, glorious, sinister weapon. Pain vanished. Fear turned to ash. Only the anger remained; anger and vengeance and sweet, sweet justice. Her features curled into a snarl, the epiphany striking her as a lightning bolt would devour a towering oak.

Kill them all. Not just this feeble army of fearful monkeys, no: Everyone. No more pain. No more death. No more anything.

Harmony's voice fell over her like rough sand on torn skin and she growled. “Speak no more, Caoimhnoir.” She uttered in the ancient tongue, “Not to me.”

Sassi reveled in the agony on the woman's face, and the power she held over her. The Guardian would never stand above her again. She never should have in the first place. Such thoughts gave her swirling rage more substance, more focus. Everyone around her, they'd all worried so much about Harmony. They'd ignored her. Allowed this. Watched Harmony push her down and take her precious place.

No more!

And the ancient evil before her grinned, a malicious stretch full of sharp teeth and delight, and his body was instantly covered in swirling purples and blacks as energy gathered. The humans of this place whispered legends of this: Chaos, God of Death, capable of achieving global annihilation in a matter of minutes.

It was time to start over again.

Harmony choked and thrashed in the dirt at Sassi's Cetran command, pain blasting through her senses and she nearly bit her tongue clean off when she tried to call out to Sassi again. And again. Again. Each time she attempted to cry out for her charge, her teeth found their way to soft flesh and she tasted damnation in the blood in her mouth. Threads snapped consistently, now, each breath inhaled through Sassi's bared teeth gnawing away at the bond they shared.

Her back shrieked in agony, her legs limp and useless in the dirt and her hands pinned helplessly in place. Power danced behind her eyelids although still, as it was when Chaos first appeared, the sparks misfired in her soul. There was nothing she could do.

“Aerith!” She heard the desperate shout and tainted relief chilled her thoughts. Sephiroth was here. Thank the Gods… He could easily stand against Chaos, couldn't he?

But not as a Guardian against a Cetra. The voices echoed in her mind.

“I'm alright.” Aerith said, though her voice wavered on a sob. “But Vincent… and Harmony… and Chaos!”

In a breath, Sephiroth was on his knees beside his sister Guardian. His teeth grit and lips pulled into a snarl of pain when his hand wrapped around the hilt of Harmony's blade and he yanked, hissing viciously and dropping the angry weapon to the ground. His hands were blistered, skin peeling from the freezing touch.

And the moment Sephiroth's hand pressed to her back, Harmony knew what she had to do. The Lifestream was right – Sephiroth couldn't fight Sassi. The Guardian in him would not allow it… and because Sassi was controlling Chaos, Sephiroth couldn't fight him either.

It had to be her. Sassi was her charge. Sassi was doing this. She'd been broken and manipulated, but she had summoned the demon.

No. No, this was her fault. Her own. Harmony had known something dark was trying to take hold of her Cetra. She'd felt the eerie energy for months. A Guardian's purpose was to keep her Cetra safe, and happy. She couldn't... Sassi wasn't happy. Harmony had already failed her. She should have pushed. Should have done more. Should have been there, rather than getting so caught up in her own issues with Kadaj and trying to broaden her own power. She did this, in her negligence.

But, she knew how to fix it. It was an instinctive thing – knowledge blasting from an ancient place in her very blood. Her ancestors whispering to her, desperate and longing and warning, Harmony focused on the image the Lifestream conjured in her mind.

They were horrible creatures. Grotesque. Hollow. Violent. They were Cetra, fallen to darkness. Their skin was a sickening purple, hands gnarled and knotted, faces gaunt and eyes as empty as a black hole. The energy about them, even in her mind, made Harmony physically ill. So much anger, so much hatred and cruelty. Something that shouldn't exist in the Weave of Life at all. They were…

Gi. The Lifestream supplied. Cursed to exist in a world of their worst nightmares, and those nightmares manifest in the mortal creatures around them. They will never stop. Never die. Only a previously bonded Guardian can kill any specific Gi.

Previously? But… Doesn't the Guardian die when the bond breaks? Harmony thought, confusion and horror thrashing in her mind.

If you lose her to Gi you are cursed as well, Spirit. You will have lost her in the worst way you ever could, and you will live with that. Live, with the hollow void where the bond used to be. Live knowing you failed the most precious creature in your existence. But if you kill the Gi, you will be forgiven. You will both die, and this land is saved from such evil.

“I will not!” Harmony shrieked aloud. Sephiroth rolled her to her back, gazing at her like she'd suddenly sprouted horns.

“What is the matter with you?” He hissed, glancing from her to Chaos and back again. “This isn't the time for musing!”

“I know what to do.” She gasped out through the pain – pain that was rapidly easing, replaced with a damning numbness that Harmony understood all too well.

“What are you talking about?” Sephiroth asked. Harmony's gaze was still far away, so he shook her until he was sure he could hear her teeth rattling.

“Do you trust me?” Harmony whispered. Sephiroth froze. That question more often than not meant that someone was going to do something stupid. When he didn't answer, she sobbed and fisted his leather, yanking his attention solely to her and staring him down with terrified – but determined – green eyes. “Do you trust me, Sephiroth?!” She asked again.

“Yes.” He whispered. “Of course.”

“Sassi needs something big to pull her out of this,” Harmony coughed, and Sephiroth despaired as a splatter of blood exploded from her lips. He quickly gestured to Aerith, pleading wordlessly for the cure materia he knew she had in her wrist.

“Don't talk right now.” He growled to Harmony. “We have to get you back on your feet, so that we can stop Chaos.”

Harmony flopped her arm and smacked his hand away when he reached for Aerith. “No!” She screamed with more strength than even she thought she had. “No, you don't understand! Sassi needs intense emotional trauma. Something to force her to focus. Make her remember!”

“And how the Hell are we going to do that?” Sephiroth shouted back, and then he nearly dropped Harmony back to the dirt in his shock, icy cold understanding washing over him with her next words.

“Kill me. It will work. I know it will.”

Sephiroth sat stone still, eyes wide and features twisted in anguish and fury. “You can't possibly believe that I would-”

“We don't have time!” Harmony sobbed and scrambled at his shoulders. “The bond is breaking! If it snaps, it's too late! Quick and clean, get it done!”

Harmony's heart was thundering violently, working against her in her fear as internal injuries bled out even faster. Sassi's precarious position was what worried her most, of course, but there was something else. She could feel three more hearts closing in on them, and one of them was Kadaj. And he needed to not see it. He wouldn't care why. He'd go after Sephiroth, and Sephiroth would be forced to kill him, too.

“Harmony, I-...” Sephiroth choked out, and Harmony's eyes misted over when she realized how close to tears the Great Dread General was. She understood the hesitation. Appreciated the affection.

“Please.” She rasped out. “Before it's too late. I would do it for you, if it was Aerith. Only one other person in the world knows what it means to be this. To protect and love our Cetra this way. I can't protect her on my own anymore, Sephiroth.” She sobbed and dropped her head to his clavicle. “Help me. Please, help me.”

Sephiroth said nothing for what felt like eons, though Harmony knew it was barely a second. He wrapped his arm around her shoulders, free hand sliding free a dagger from his boot. He placed the lethal point to her chest, directly above her fluttering heart.

“You are the bravest woman I have ever known, and I am proud to have served with you.” He said, a tremble in his voice.

“Thank you.” Harmony whispered, “Take care of them – Sassi, Kadaj, Kiku… all of them.”

“I promise.” Sephiroth swore, and then he pushed.

!@#$%^&*()

“The power is coming from this way!” Yuffie called out to Kadaj. He was hot on her tail, only behind her because he'd slowed his pace to pick off a few straggling GR soldiers. “There's something going on.” She added as she slowed to match his pace. “Even the air feels… Unsettled. Doesn't it feel weird to you?”

Kadaj nodded slowly. “Yeah. I've had a bad feeling since we left the others.”

Yuffie suddenly pulled up on her reins, eyes wide and jaw hanging open as she stared ahead. “What is that?!” She gasped. Kadaj shot his gaze forward and felt his blood run cold. Gods, he knew something was wrong!

Bright, elecrtic purple light shone through the trees, splashed with dark red and writhing black. He didn't know what it was, but it couldn't have been anything good; not when the very air around them felt heavy with the dark energy, not when the closer they ventured to that violent light, the harder and harder it became to breathe. Then, finally, they broke through the treeline, and Kadaj couldn't breathe at all.

“W-what?” He rasped, his voice pitched and pleading. That wasn't… It couldn't be… But it was. He didn't even notice the others, not at first. Not Sassi, not his brothers, not Vincent. Harmony. Harmony held against Sephiroth's torso, the general's dagger protruding from her chest. Her eyes were half-closed, glazed over in the stare of death that was so horrifyingly obvious. Her body hung limp, blood pooled at the corners of her mouth and staining the cream-colored tunic she wore. Dead. Harmony was dead.

“Kadaj, it isn't what it looks like!” Aerith tried to stop him when he dove from his borrowed chocobo and rushed toward Sephiroth. “Please, you have to listen!”

“You killed her!” Kadaj shrieked, shoving past Aerith and sending a lance of pain through Sephiroth as the remnant became a direct threat to the Cetra. Sephiroth's sword raised just in time to block a swing of the souba, and the older man despaired at the pain and betrayal glowing behind eyes so like his own.

“I'm sorry.” He uttered, ducking under another swipe. “She… She begged me to. It was the only way!” He cursed and dove to the side, swiping the masamune in an arc that would have taken a slower opponent's arm off. Kadaj blocked it and struck again, mindless.

“You killed her… You killed her!” He rasped over and over, until there was no breath left in his body to speak the damning truth. He drove Sephiroth back, slashed and struck and stabbed until his arm went numb, and then there were hands grasping his wrist and tearing his blade away, and thick, muscular arms wrapped tightly around his.

Yazoo couldn't hear what Harmony and Sephiroth were saying. He could barely move through the pain and despair the demon before them exuded. He knew it was bad, knew deep in his bones that something was coming that none of them would ever come back from, and his rage and terror caught in his throat when Sephiroth positioned his dagger. He tried to scream, tried to move, tried to do anything that would stop this… Why?! What was Sephiroth doing?! Why did he do it?!

At the shock and the anguish, the power holding him in place shattered and he raced forward. Aerith's sobbed insistence rang in his mind like a nuclear explosion but he knew, he knew that there would be no talking Kadaj down from this one. Loz's arms trapped their youngest brother's to his sides the moment Yazoo ripped the souba away, and it was a testament to Kadaj's horror that the small man was nearly able to break free.

Gods, everything had happened so fast. From Chaos' appearance to Harmony's sacrifice, it felt like barely five minutes had passed. His head was swimming in confusion and anger, his cheeks were wet and hot with tears, and he wasn't the only one.

Loz sobbed openly, arms locked around Kadaj and feet braced roughly in the dirt. His whole world was crashing down! Sassi… Sassi was just gone. There wasn't a trace of his most precious person anywhere in her face. The things she'd said, the hate in her eyes… That wasn't Sassi! And then there was Chaos, protected in his sphere of demise as he prepared to raze this world to the ground. His family. His friends. His children. Everyone would fall.

And Harmony. What the hell?! They'd lost Harmony! He'd lost a sister… His brother had lost the love of his life. And now, if they couldn't stop him, they'd lose Kadaj next and even Loz knew that Sephiroth wouldn't have a choice.

He'd never been truly angry with Sassi before. He'd certainly never raised a hand against her; he'd never even considered it. He wasn't even sure if he was angry at the Cetra, as much as desperately afraid. He snarled and all but threw Kadaj at Sephiroth, the older man scrambling to pin his screeching and sobbing form to the mud, and then Loz was swooping low. He gathered Harmony's body, cradled her close, sobbed into her hair as he took labored steps toward his own lover.

Her eyes were empty when he met them, dark and furious and powerful – it hurt to look her in the eye, but he stubbornly held her gaze. He shifted his grip, lashed out and fisted his fingers in long, red hair and hauled her snarling face barely a breath away from Harmony's death-stare.

“Look at this!” He roared. “Look at her, Sassi!”

Sassi had felt the soul-shattering snap as a part of her soul ripped away. Images and voices blasted through her mind like an atomic bomb, and she wondered in confusion and awe at the oblivion that met her when her spirit instinctively reached out.

There was nothing there. Nothing. Harmony… She couldn't feel her, anymore. Why?

Does it matter? That dark voice she'd come to know whispered. She did nothing but hold you back. Now, you're free.

Yes, yes, she'd wanted that, right? Freedom, and power. And it was all hers, now. The power to obliterate everything that threatened the peace and love she'd so coveted was at her fingertips.

But she could hear it. Someone screaming. The scent of despair blanketing the area. Tears, pain, sorrow. You killed her!

...Who? And why did it matter?

A flash of bright green. Eyes? Yes. Shimmering with warmth and love and devotion that no other creature could hold for anything in creation. Fierce loyalty. Perfect love, and perfect trust. A bond that no one could touch, but something had.

And then a hand in her hair. Sassi snarled and fought, pulled against the grip and hissed at the words spoken in a familiar but forgotten voice.

Green. Glazed and lifeless. Pale skin paler yet; ashen. Red, dripping from a hole in her chest.

Harmony.

Walls erupted, shattered the weave of demonic power seducing her own. Lightning arced through the sky and to the ground; trees burst into flame and the very earth split through the darkened clearing. A piercing wail of denial left her lips before anything else, and Loz stumbled when Sassi's body slammed into his and crushed the Guardian between them.

“No. No. Oh, God.” Sassi was sobbing, her breath wheezing through a tight throat and hands shaking as she cupped a lifeless face. “No! Hari wake up! Wake up, please!”

Sinister laughter sang through the clearing, light flashing brightly once more. Chaos emerged from the light, the sparse grass beneath his feet withering away at the pulsing aura shimmering in heat waves around him.

“Be careful what you wish for, Cetra.” He purred. “You might just get it.”
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Legacy of the Lifestream