You´ve come back to mock me again, Sephiroth. I am ... not surprised. Is this your vengeance then, to stand and watch me die? Not even a swift death, but my lifeblood spilling over my hands and my mind stumbling helpless toward the dark.
You hate as implacably as you loved. Deny it? You forced me to go and hated me for leaving, Sephiroth. And hated what I chose to take your place - but she never could, and you knew it, and mocked me for it. My little flower girl -not a replacement for you at all, sweet and charming and innocent until I came along. She was not you, could never be like you, but she had certain charms you did not. Obedience being the chief among them. It was always a battle with you, victory as sharp-bitter-sweet as the kill. Weak? No, Aeris is not weak, strong like her flowers, always seeking the sun and growing again from the root.
The stench of my blood overwhelms the shut-up smell of this place and the sharp stink of the creatures here. Where is Elena? Not so long to the copter to report and return. No, you would not know her - only a child when you died, if you did die, and too young to really remember the war at all. Rufus - you would not remember Rufus, Shinra´s golden boy, you met once at some hideous function - Rufus looks at her and sees only generous curves and bronze-gold beauty, and he thinks I am ... foolish. Rufus has never seen her fight, swift strong deadly like a striking falcon, or tested her enough to see the blade-steel beneath the smile. Reno has - earned his respect, my Elena, disarming him and striking him with his own stick. Not that Reno will ever admit it.
My Elena? When did I first think of her as mine? Somewhere in those long hours of training, and Rude could have taught her as well as I did, no need for me to teach her personally. Watching her fight, showing reserves of strength you would not suspect as fragile as she seems, as comfortable in her own skin as a cat; no wonder, I suppose, that Reeve wanted her. Yes, the urban engineer ... stubborn pedantic short-sighted Reeve ... finally noticed something beyond his blueprints and his reactors. I wonder how long it took him to realize he wanted her, how much longer to draw up enough courage to have her; shewill not say, protects him with her silence even to me, and the others never guessed that there was ever anything between them. She was wasted on him, my Elena, too strong and skilled for someone no one would ever bother to kill. Again. I called her mine again. She is mine. Or would have been mine. As Aeris was mine. Oh, she liked your pet well enough - oh, you did not know that, did you, rage flaring in those Mako eyes at the thought - but she was mine, broken to my will. A broken flower can only rot, the root send up a new stem and a new flower; but a broken blade still cuts, can still be reforged.
And a good blade broken is a blade wasted. Never the same twice, no matter the skill of the smith. Break Elena, reforge her into the perfect spy or the perfect assassin, and ... I would not want her. All of interest in her would die. Teach her obedience ... oh, yes. Elena obedient in my bed ... it would be a most pleasant thought, Sephiroth, if I was not bleeding to death.
Oh, now you are angry. Over your pet? Or that I desire a woman, that I talk about her instead of you. Oh, you are still jealous. Your pet could not give you what I could, hard-fought battle won in losing and lost in winning, loss and victory both cutting to the quick. Which of us won, Sephiroth? What was victory and what was loss?
Why are you laughing, Sephiroth? What about Elena? Tseng the great Turk obsessing over a girl half his age? Oh, you are amused. Where is Elena? Have you left her to bleed to death somewhere in this godsforsaken Temple? Tell me, Sephiroth!
Now you leave me, Sephiroth, laughter ringing in my ears. Is this the final shape of your revenge, destroying everyone I desire?