Chapter 862 - 861: The Main Villain Wasn’t the Main Villain After All, Just One Among Many."

When a blinding wave of pure light burst from Sephiroth's body, everyone instinctively squeezed their eyes shut, completely unable to grasp what was happening. The brilliant flash raced outward in every direction at impossible speed, rapidly devouring the ruins of the astral realm. Sephira, hovering above the heap of debris, did not even think of covering her eyes—her gaze, filled with icy, seething rage, remained locked on the spot where Sephiroth had just stood.

Even though she had spent all that time inside a semi-conscious cocoon, her mind had clearly heard and felt absolutely everything. The bitter realization that her own thoughts and feelings had been shamelessly manipulated from within fanned her fury to new heights. But the most painful thing was admitting her own blindness: she had allowed herself to be toyed with, never even noticing how a foreign will had quietly replaced her own judgments.

Yet the moment the alien parasite separated from her shell, Sephira's consciousness was pierced by the pure, majestic voice of the Planet itself. She heard the very essence of existence—the truth about the universe, about the endless streams of the Lifestream, and about the interwoven threads of Fate.

In that boundless flood of information she saw how bright and peaceful her life could have been, and who she was meant to become, if the cursed outsider from another timeline had never shattered the established order. A moment later the radiant storm fully swallowed her as well, yet even as she dissolved into the ocean of light she continued to stare at Sephiroth with a hatred that never once subsided.

At that same moment Dean was walking at a leisurely yet springy pace toward the rest of the squad, carrying his Pokémon Tonberry Steve on his shoulders. Vaulting over the skeleton of a ruined wall, he abruptly froze in place upon noticing the gigantic wave of blinding light hurtling straight at him.

"What the fuck is happening this time? Why the hell do I always miss all the interesting shit? This is all your goddamn snacks, Steve! If you hadn't stopped for a snack, we might at least have been the first to find out what the hell is going on here!" Dean snapped irritably, spinning sharply toward Steve perched on his shoulder and jabbing a finger at the oncoming wall of light.

In response to the heated outburst Steve merely blinked his large round eyes, maintaining absolute, unshakable composure, as if the entire end of the world and the astral cataclysms simply weren't on his schedule for the day.

Watching Steve's stoic indifference, Dean suddenly realized with startling clarity all the pain and emotional torment Alex must have endured dealing with the trio of GIR, MIMI, and Stitch—three restless creatures who couldn't care less about any threat as long as there was fun and edible supplies around.

Snorting in irritation and waving a dismissive hand at his Pokémon, Dean had no time to add another word before the bright, blinding flash of light instantly swallowed both him and the unflappable Tonberry. In the next instant Dean was hit by that familiar, teeth-grinding sensation of his body being yanked through an invisible spatial gate.

Opening his eyes, he found himself floating inside a surreal corridor that looked exactly like the wildest science-fiction movies. Nebulae, distant star clusters, and surreal cosmic landscapes streaked past at breakneck speed. Yet instead of panic or fear, Dean felt only a deep, almost childlike satisfaction as another checkbox on his mental list—"see an interdimensional portal with my own eyes"—was finally ticked off.

Roughly the same thing was happening to every other member of the group as they hurtled through that endless cosmic tunnel toward who-knows-where. After a couple of moments of insane flight through the cosmic tunnel, a bright, blinding light appeared ahead, signaling the imminent exit. Seeing that light at the end, Dean smirked and shook his head as thoughts about what he was looking at flickered through his mind.

"Yeah, of course. Light at the end of the cosmic tunnel—how original. I've seen this a hundred times already," Dean muttered with a light chuckle, watching the rapidly flickering stars and the light at the very end.

Instinctively shielding his face with his palm against the eye-searing light, Dean suddenly felt solid, tangible sandy ground beneath him. Opening his eyes, the first thing he saw was a clear sky gradually tinting with the soft hues of the first rays of the rising sun. Squinting at the unfamiliar azure, Dean caught himself thinking the logical first thought: that he had finally been thrown back into the normal world. After admiring the morning landscape for a moment, he propped himself up on his elbows and looked around.

The first thing Dean saw was the giant concrete walls of Midgar clearly outlined in the distance, the enormous metal plate looming over the slums, and the spire of the Shinra headquarters.

Assessing the scale of the megacity preparing for a new day, Dean reluctantly admitted that from afar Midgar looked far more picturesque and pleasant than up close. Thoughtfully scratching his cheek with his nails, Dean finally confirmed that the astral dimension had completely collapsed, returning them all to reality, and that he himself had been dumped right on the wastelands beyond the city limits.

The realization that this insane chase with Sephiroth and the Black Whisperers was finally behind them brought a light, satisfied smile to Dean's face. But his smile immediately faltered and faded the moment he recalled Alex's ominous words that this whole mess had been only a light prelude, and that ahead of them lay a full-fledged and damnably long journey across the expanses of the entire planet Gaia.

Sighing heavily, Dean automatically patted his pockets in search of something comforting, but found only his standard set: a pack of headache pills, a pack of mint gum, a worn wallet, and a pair of heavy metal knuckle-dusters.

"Eh… Maybe I should take up smoking too? My body doesn't catch any disease anymore anyway, and at least I'd have something to occupy my hands with," Dean philosophically declared, pulling the precious pack of gum from his inner pocket.

"Hey! Is anyone alive out here?! Help, I'm about to literally turn inside out!" came Yuffie's strained, despair-filled voice from behind him, sounding as if her stomach had decided it urgently needed to return everything that was inside it.

Hearing Yuffie's muffled, intermittent voice begging for immediate help, Dean looked around. He immediately spotted Yuffie herself, heavily leaning against a huge boulder with an almost green face and convulsively covering her mouth with her palm, her whole appearance showing that one more second and her stomach really would stage a revolt.

Leisurely rising from the cool sand, Dean strode quickly toward Yuffie, already holding ready the only reliable remedy for motion sickness he had.

Coming closer, Dean silently held out the open pack of mint gum toward Yuffie. Staring at the pack of mint gum with a glazed look, Yuffie without further questions pulled out a piece and immediately popped it into her mouth.

The moment the pleasant, refreshing mint flavor filled her breath, Yuffie felt the burning nausea begin to recede little by little. Seeing that Yuffie was feeling better, Dean good-naturedly patted her on the back, smirking as he asked how the "Great Kunoichi of Wutai" had managed to so shamefully fall victim to a simple motion-sickness teleporter.

Continuing to help Yuffie recover, Dean carefully scanned the surroundings, assuming the others must have been thrown somewhere nearby. And indeed: he had barely finished the thought when rapid, staccato footsteps sounded from the opposite side of the boulder, and an agitated Tifa burst out in front of them.

"Dean, Yuffie! Thank God you're both okay," Tifa exhaled with deep relief, pressing a palm to her chest to ease the remaining wild tension.

"Hi, Tifa…" Yuffie drawled in a weak voice, slightly raising a hand in greeting.

"Yuffie, are you okay? What happened to you?" Tifa immediately stepped closer, anxiously examining Yuffie's pale face.

"She's fine, just hasn't gotten her brains together after that astral express. You'd better tell me: have you seen the others? Because so far out of our whole company it's only me, you, and this motion-sick restless one," Dean waved a light hand, looking around again in search of the rest of their group.

"No… I myself only just woke up and immediately went toward Yuffie's shout. I really hope the others are okay too," Tifa shook her head, gently stroking Yuffie's back.

"No need to look for us, we're already here! I even pulled Red out of a rock collapse on the way," Barret boomed loudly, proudly emerging from behind a ridge of boulders accompanied by Red walking unhurriedly beside him.

"Who pulled whom out, Barret? Don't go claiming other people's merits," Red XIII objected in a restrained tone, walking alongside and giving Barret an impassive look.

Hearing such a barb from Red, Barret walking beside him slightly stumbled over his own foot. But Barret's reaction was lightning-fast: he instantly put on the expression of a stern group leader and immediately pretended that Red's remark was complete nonsense not worth attention.

Red merely sighed heavily and preferred to remain silent, considering further argument a waste of time. Approaching Dean, Yuffie, and Tifa, Barret first of all concerned himself with the main question: what the hell had even happened and why had they all been thrown far beyond Midgar's high concrete walls?

In reply he received only collective shrugs and absolute incomprehension of what was going on. Realizing that a coherent answer to this existential question was not forthcoming, Barret heavily leaned his back against a massive boulder and asked where the hell Alex, Aerith, and Claudia were—because by logic they should have ended up somewhere nearby. The moment the big guy voiced that question, Tifa immediately suggested organizing a search right away.

But she had barely finished speaking when Red sharply twitched his nose, catching a familiar, delicate floral scent in the morning air. Turning his head toward the source of the smell, he saw Aerith racing toward them, energetically waving her hand above her head. Confirming that Aerith was completely fine, Tifa exhaled in relief, as if another heavy stone had fallen from her heart.

"Hey, flower girl, looks like you're intact and unharmed too. And where's your permanent bodyguard?" Dean greeted with a sly smirk, lazily waving a hand at the approaching Aerith.

"No idea. I was just about to ask you the same thing. Has anyone seen Alex and Claudia? I've already looked around everywhere, but there's no trace of them," Aerith shook her head, sweeping a confused look over the whole company.

"I haven't run into them either. First I heard a noise, and then almost immediately came across Dean and Yuffie," Tifa slowly shook her head, pointing at Dean and the still-pale Yuffie, who in confirmation of her words weakly waved a hand, making it clear she hadn't crossed paths with any of the missing either.

"Don't even look at me, I've got no clue where that pair disappeared to. I was completely sure that out of the whole circus tent only me and this little freeloader got thrown outside the city," Dean grumbled, jabbing a finger toward Steve settled on his shoulder.

"I bet our boy and the SOLDIER girl just decided to get some privacy while we're freezing here waiting. Hey, Red, switch on your super-sniffer locators and find those lovebirds right now," Barret grinned, pushing his dark glasses up onto his forehead and shifting his gaze to Red.

"Barret, watch your mouth. In a situation like this they're clearly not in the mood for romance," Tifa rebuked him with a tired sigh, giving Barret a murderously dry look.

"All sorts of things happen in life… Fine, Red, quit stalling, start tracking," Barret shrugged carelessly, shifting his gaze back to Red.

"I'm not a watchdog," Red retorted with truly regal calm, demonstratively sitting on his hind legs and proudly lifting his muzzle.

"But you can track them, right?" Dean raised an eyebrow slightly, lowering his gaze to Red's impassive face.

"I can…" Red gave a short nod, confirming the words with a light flick of his fluffy tail.

"Well then why are we standing around wasting time? Get to work! And if you do a good job, I'll personally buy you the sweetest brain bone," Barret promised with a conspiratorial wink, cheerfully waving a finger right in front of the already irritated Red's nose.

Fixing his gaze on the finger dangling in front of his nose, Red took a deep breath, then with absolute composure sharply swung his body, striking the burning tip of his tail right across Barret's hand. Burned by the sudden heat, Barret hissed from the unexpected pain, throwing a fierce, irritation-filled look at his four-legged comrade. But Red didn't even deign to answer—fully concentrating, he began greedily inhaling the surrounding scents.

After all, picking out Alex's unique aroma among thousands of foreign impurities turned out to be not that difficult. And the reason was that from their very first meeting Red had been able to notice: Alex gave off a completely special, incomparable trail, unlike any other scent in this world. While Red was occupied with the search, the rest of the group patiently waited for results. Suddenly a sharp, rolling flap of wings sounded right above their heads.

Synchronously raising their heads, they all immediately saw a familiar silhouette that had landed on the top of the nearest boulder. Before them stood Sephira, behind whose back a solitary pure-white wing still proudly shone. Yet this time, instead of the usual icy mask and arrogance, there was a barely noticeable, serene smile, as if with her whole appearance she was showing that she had come here not for a fight, but for a peaceful conversation.

Sephira had barely opened her mouth when Tifa, Barret, Red, and the still pale-from-nausea Yuffie tensed in unison, instinctively taking combat stances. But in that same second Aerith resolutely stepped forward, spreading her arms and calling on everyone not to do anything stupid, explaining that Sephira was no longer an enemy.

"Aerith, do you seriously think this girl can just be trusted like that?" Tifa frowned suspiciously, cautiously pointing a finger at Sephira.

"If I had any intention of wiping you all out, I would have done it in the first few seconds, instead of standing here waiting for you to finish your little huddle," Sephira said in a calm tone, smoothly sliding down from the boulder onto the ground.

"Fine, let's drop all this unnecessary crap about who's good and who's bad now and get straight to the point. Since you've fluttered over to us on your angel wing yourself, maybe you'll deign to enlighten us where Alex and Claudia are right now?" Dean asked directly, wearily rubbing the bridge of his nose and staring Sephira dead in the eye.

"Tch… Fine, to hell with ceremonies. But if you try any kind of trick, I'll personally take that famous head of yours off. That feathered bastard who looks exactly like you has already dumped too much shit on us, so no stupid moves," Barret growled, transforming his cybernetic arm into a heavy machine gun with a menacing metallic clang and aiming the barrels straight at Sephira's chest.

Seeing the level of dangerous hostility directed at her, Sephira did not try to justify herself and merely nodded silently. She herself remembered all too well the madness she had managed to commit under Sephiroth's careful control, and the innocent lives that had been cut short because of her. Her gaze involuntarily slid across Tifa's face, who was looking back at her with a heavy stare in which old anger, fear, and unshed pain were mixed in equal measure.

In Sephira's memory the dark shadows of Nibelheim instantly came alive—when on that fateful day she had killed Tifa's father with her own hands, and how afterward the blade of a katana had pierced her through. Realizing that any words of apology would now sound like a pathetic mockery, Sephira decided to keep the speeches to herself and go straight to the main reason for her appearance.

At the same time Alex was in a completely different dimension. Around him stretched boundless nebulae shimmering in every conceivable shade and deep seas of stars, forming a truly mesmerizing cosmic picture.

He himself sat with an extremely lazy expression on a floating meteorite fragment, immersed in deep thought. Resting his cheek on a bent fist, Alex brought a thin cigar to his lips and slowly exhaled a stream of gray smoke through his nose.

Tapping a finger on his knee, he thoughtfully examined a distant star cluster in the depths of the cosmic abyss. Taking another drag and sighing heavily, Alex finally understood exactly where he had been carried.

He felt no thrill or delight—only a dull, sticky boredom. The main problem was that all the surrounding magnificence was merely a pathetic mental illusion, and not a real layer of the known universe at all.

"Eh… I'm sitting here thinking, did that salty idiot seriously try to lock me up? Or did he just decide to give me a free tour of the scenic views of this universe?" Alex drawled lazily, continuing to leisurely smoke the thin cigar and looking at the bright nebula ahead.

"Lock up…" Zhang Ya's quiet voice sounded right from Alex's shadow, while her cool fingers barely perceptibly slid along his back.

"Well, if this is a trap, then he did a pretty shitty job of it… Fine, I'll take this thing apart, and then I'll go and rip his balls off for such disrespect of my personal time," Alex replied with another heavy sigh, feeling the familiar icy cold of Zhang Ya's soft fingers on his back.

"Not worried…" Zhang Ya's quiet whisper sounded again from Alex's shadow as her fingers gently slid along his neck.

"She'll handle it, I know what she's capable of, and I believe in her abilities one hundred percent. It's just that something else bothers me more. I'm forming perfectly justified suspicions that this salty moron has some very dirty plans specifically for my Claudia," Alex said, slightly narrowing his eyes at the multicolored nebula and carelessly flicking ash into the airless space.

Zhang Ya did not honor him with words—instead she merely yanked a little harder and quite noticeably on the hair at the back of Alex's head, quite eloquently expressing her opinion of his reasoning.

Feeling that unambiguous prick of jealousy, Alex quietly laughed, glad that at least this time his ghostly wife had refrained from the usual attempts to strangle him with his own strands. Keeping a relaxed smile on his face, Alex again brought the thin cigar to his lips, thoughtfully gazing into the endless blackness and trying to calculate Sephiroth's moves.

Why had the stubborn feathered bastard dragged Claudia along with him? The first thought that came to mind was the banal idea that Sephiroth was still panically afraid of Claudia, considering her his main threat. But Alex immediately discarded that theory, because after all in the original canonical timeline this same Sephiroth had managed not only to win, but also to successfully summon a giant meteor to the planet.

From those memories heavy, darkness-radiating impulses instantly flared in his head, and inside him blazed a furious desire to slowly, methodically dismember Sephiroth into pieces, and dump whatever was left into the Red City to be torn apart by the local inhabitants, who would be glad of a new toy.

Quietly snorting, Alex shook his head, driving away the bloodthirsty fantasies. He knew perfectly well that in the worst case he could always roll back all the destroyed timelines when the Jenova problem was finally closed.

Besides, he already had a cozy little spot in mind where he could calmly work on restoring broken realities and put everything back in its rightful place. Taking a deep drag and exhaling a dense ring of gray smoke, Alex threw his head back, squinting at the distant nebulae.

He again ran through Sephiroth's grandiose plan in his mind—how with the power of the Harbinger of Fate he was trying to awaken Jenova's sleeping shell. And from the absurdity of that idea Alex could not hold back a rolling laugh that drowned out the cosmic silence.

"The little idiot seriously decided to wake up his voracious mommy… Lord, how hilarious that is. I wonder if this salty idiot even imagines what kind of creature he's playing Russian roulette with? Does he even know from which multiversal cesspool that thing was once kicked out?" Alex said, barely wiping the tears that had come from the long laughter, savoring how stupid Sephiroth really was.

Continuing to chuckle quietly, Alex slightly stretched his stiff neck and decided as an experiment to check what exactly Claudia was doing right now and what "exclusive" offer the overplaying Sephiroth was trying to make her.

Slightly closing his eyes, Alex allowed his pupils to flare with a deep, mystical purple light. His gaze easily pierced the dense fabric of this illusory space, heading to where Claudia's familiar energy trail distinctly pulsed.

Only a second passed, and already in the next moment the familiar picture appeared before Alex of how Claudia, as always composed, with an impenetrably cold mask on her face, stood opposite Sephiroth. Tilting his head to the side, Alex listened to their conversation.

But the moment he made out Sephiroth's first words, Alex's facial features instantly distorted, and the soft gleam in his eyes went out forever. Instantly Alex's face was covered by a thick, impenetrable darkness through which empty, lifeless eyes and a smile stretched to the ears, full of rows of razor-sharp teeth, flickered horribly.

With a vicious grinding of teeth Alex clenched his fingers so hard that the thin cigar in his hand turned to dust. Slowly rising from the floating fragment, Alex fixed a heavy, deathly gaze on the image of Sephiroth, then sharply thrust his palm forward and clenched it into a fist.

In that same second the entire surrounding space went deep, ugly cracks, tearing apart with a terrible crash. With a sharp downward motion of his hand Alex finally erased the false dimension into dust and with a grim, promising-nothing-good smirk stepped straight into the gaping spatial rift.

In Alex's head only one dominant thought pulsed: that it was finally time to clearly explain to this overreaching mongrel its true place, since it had presumed to bare its teeth and reach for the one who belonged exclusively to him. The moment Alex crossed the threshold of the rift, the passage behind his back instantly collapsed, erasing the slightest traces of his presence.

A moment before that rupture Claudia really was standing face to face with Sephiroth on the Edge of Creation. Around them stretched the exact same cosmic haze of myriads of distant stars and multicolored nebulae.

Noticing Sephiroth standing a few steps away, Claudia instinctively flung her hand behind her back, wanting to grab the hilt of the Buster Sword. But before Claudia could draw the Buster Sword from behind her back, Sephiroth slid forward with unnatural grace and backhanded intercepted her wrist, preventing her from unsheathing the blade.

"And now be careful… Everything that awaits us ahead… Doesn't even exist yet, actually," Sephiroth said in a calm tone, looking down at Claudia with a soft, almost tender smile.

"Take your hand off," Claudia demanded in an icy voice, sharply yanking her hand from Sephiroth's grip and instantly leaping a couple of steps back.

"Our world will become part of all this… One day. But I will not vanish into nothingness. And I will not allow you to dissolve… I will become something far greater. I will become what I was originally destined to become," Sephiroth continued, ignoring Claudia's hostility, slowly raising his gaze to the shimmering nebula in the distance.

"What is this damned place?" Claudia frowned, tightly gripping the hilt of the Buster Sword, sensing that behind Sephiroth's beautiful metaphors lay a completely different meaning.

"This is the Edge of Creation…" Sephiroth answered impassively, smoothly turning to face Claudia and looking straight into her eyes.

"Why did you drag me here?" Claudia tensed even more, ready at any moment to deflect Sephiroth's attack.

"Claudia… I need your power. I need you. Let's challenge this cursed fate… Together. Among all the others only you are truly special. Only you are worthy to stand at the summit beside me," Sephiroth spoke in a soft voice, taking a step toward her and extending an open palm to Claudia.

"Never! I'll stop you no matter what it costs me!" Claudia flung fiercely, sharply drawing the Buster Sword from behind her back and pointing the tip straight at Sephiroth's chest.

"That's exactly why I like you so much… That's exactly why you're special. But if you keep being stubborn, I'll break your will by force. And then you'll become mine forever," Sephiroth spoke with a cold smirk on his lips, while his hand continued to reach toward Claudia.

"Pathetic mongrel… What insolent creature even allowed you to think you can extend your dirty hands toward the one who belongs to me?" Alex's blood-chilling voice, full of inhuman malice, rang out, echoing across the entire silent space.

The moment Alex's voice faded into the cosmic void, the space right next to Sephiroth's outstretched hand was covered with a network of deep cracks. In the next instant, with the deafening ring of shattering glass, a man's hand in a white glove thrust out of the rift, on the back of which a clear red pentagram blazed brightly.

Sephiroth didn't even have time to blink or recoil before the hand that appeared from nowhere clamped onto his wrist in an iron grip. In that same moment a disgusting crunch of crushed bones and wet tearing flesh resounded across the silent Edge of Creation.

Watching the scene, Claudia instantly recognized Alex's familiar gloves, which he never parted with for a second. And in the next moment her eyes beheld the horrific picture of how Sephiroth's hand under monstrous pressure simply burst, scattering in all directions bloody shreds of flesh and white bone fragments.

Having lost his hand, Sephiroth exhaled constrictedly and convulsively leapt back. Pressing the bloody stump to his chest, he fixed a gaze full of shock and icy horror on the hand sticking out of the rift.

With a disgusted expression shaking the foreign blood from his glove, Alex fully emerged from the spatial crack. He looked at Sephiroth with open contempt—like a walking sack inside which a future corpse was already packed.

The moment Sephiroth met that lifeless, deathly gaze of Alex's, something inside him painfully jolted and fluttered. Where did this sticky, primordial fear of a simple look come from? Sephiroth simply could not understand how a being like himself was even capable of feeling horror.

Coldly snorting, Sephiroth sharply jerked the stump of his arm—and in that same second the damaged flesh and bones restored themselves at a terrifying speed, as if there had never been any injury. Smirking mockingly at the trick, Alex lazily fished a small white sphere from his pocket and carelessly tossed it straight into Sephiroth's face. On reflex Sephiroth instinctively caught the flying object.

But the moment the sphere touched his fingers, a sharp, ominous hissing sound rang out as the shell of the little ball burst, instantly spewing a dense cloud of acrid pale-yellow fog that densely enveloped Sephiroth's body from all sides. Keeping a wide, carefree smile on his lips, Alex completely ignored the fog-shrouded Sephiroth, turned to Claudia, and unhurriedly walked toward her.

"Hi-hi. Hope you didn't die of boredom here without me?" Alex cooed softly, smiling, coming right up to Claudia and slyly looking into her eyes.

"Not really… Where the hell have you been?" Claudia rolled her eyes, sighing wearily, and carelessly pushed Alex's face away with her palm.

"Oh, you know, they tried to lock me in a pretty illusory box. But you know me—I've long been used to apartments like that. In the end…" Alex began in a carefree, lulling tone, lazily lighting a new thin cigar.

"I got it. It's a long story. Better explain what exactly you threw at Sephiroth," Claudia waved a hand, interrupting him, and immediately nodded toward the pale-yellow smoke screen.

"Ah, that thing? Just… A little but extremely heartfelt surprise especially for our salty boy," Alex said with a sly squint, although in the depths of his purple eyes a terrifying, bottomless emptiness still froze.

Hearing Alex's mysterious words, Claudia glanced at him with slight suspicion, noticing that same terrifying, lifeless gleam in the depths of his purple eyes. Shifting her gaze back to the swirling pale-yellow cloud, she completely failed to understand what exact catch was hidden behind that haze.

Alex himself had no intention of going into details. The gas he had released was capable of wiping out the population of an entire megacity in a matter of hours, leaving the survivors not a single chance of rescue.

Standing right in the epicenter of the fog, Sephiroth narrowed his eyes suspiciously, deciding it was only a cheap trick, and carelessly took a deep breath. Dispelling the remaining haze with a sharp wave of his hand, he fixed a furious gaze on Alex, expecting some underhanded move from him.

Coldly snorting, Sephiroth tried to raise his katana, but the moment he merely stirred, a wave of searing agony exploded inside his "perfect" body. In the next instant thick blood gushed in a fountain from his mouth, nose, and shock-widened eyes, and he himself collapsed onto one knee, convulsively clutching his chest with his fingers.

Choking on his own blood, Sephiroth felt with horror how something alien, terrifying, and invisible was rapidly spreading through his vessels, literally devouring him from within.

Seeing the formidable Sephiroth being wracked with blood, Claudia instinctively frowned and took a couple of steps back, sensing with her spinal cord the deadly aura of that poison. Alex, on the contrary, clapped his hands with childlike delight, sincerely rejoicing at the success of his little experiment.

"What… What did you do to me?" Sephiroth rasped, spitting out another portion of scarlet foam and burning Alex with a look of hatred.

"Well, since you're so insanely curious, I'll be so kind as to lift the veil of secrecy a little. You see, I have one charming pet named Hunger. An incredibly dangerous creature. And that's because its body constantly exudes a special gas saturated with unique, insanely aggressive carnivorous bacteria. They're so voracious that they can devour an adult man to the bones in just a couple of minutes. Congratulations, now they live inside you," Alex sang in a cheerful, mocking tone, unhurriedly pacing back and forth in front of the writhing enemy.

"Unthinkable…" Sephiroth rasped, spitting a clot of blood right under his feet and boring into Alex with a cold stare.

"Well, practice shows otherwise… But unfortunately our time limit for today is exhausted, and I probably won't have time to enjoy the moment when your body finally turns into a puddle of stinking sludge. So let's wrap this up," Alex threw with a dazzling smirk, simultaneously putting an arm around Claudia's waist and deftly slipping his free hand into the belt pouch on her back.

"Hands off…" Claudia hissed with cold irritation, sharply intercepting Alex's wrist and pushing the palm farther from her hips.

"I'm just reclaiming what's mine… And now hold on tighter, we're getting out of here," Alex rolled his eyes, pulling Claudia closer to himself and triumphantly clamping the brightly glowing Red Materia in his fingers.

"This isn't over yet… You won't be able to stop us… Our name is Legion, for we are many," Sephiroth growled, choking on blood and convulsively stretching his bloody hand toward Alex.

"Thanks for the valuable information, I'll keep in mind that you have a whole company of such pompous dummies… And now… Answer my call, King of the Nine Worlds! Paint this world the bloody color of sunset! Flash in the darkness, red-hot blade of absolute void… Strike my enemies, Odin!" Alex proclaimed with a wide, mad smile, raising the heated Red Materia high above his head.

Alex's voice rolled with a booming echo across the collapsing space, and immediately after came the deafening ring of cracking glass, as if the sky itself had shattered into millions of shards. Frowning at the terrible words of the defeated Sephiroth, Claudia instantly shook off the stupor when right above them the heavenly firmament bent under the weight of monstrous energy.

Throwing her head back, she saw a gigantic, primordial-horror-inspiring silhouette in heavy purple armor. Seated in the haze of an astral storm, this colossus gripped a colossal spear in his hands, along which blue lightning discharges ran like ominous snakes.

Instinctively understanding exactly what madness Alex was committing, Claudia wrapped her arms tighter around his neck, trusting him and preparing for any outcome. With difficulty lifting his head from a pool of his own blood, Sephiroth fixed a mad, rage-distorted gaze on Odin.

The King of the Nine Worlds looked down on him with absolute, freezing contempt—like a worthless parasite deserving only immediate destruction. Slowly and inexorably raising the giant spear above his head, Odin brought its crushing mass down straight onto Sephiroth's position.

Letting out a wild scream full of desperate denial and unwillingness to accept such an end, Sephiroth froze under the falling punishing shadow. And before the tip of the spear could split the platform into atoms, Alex scooped Claudia up into his arms and with a wide, dazzling smirk stepped forward, plunging together with her into the ringing, bottomless void.

To be continued...

(So, I pulled another trick out of my ass—er, I mean, my magic hat. Turns out Alex wasn't about to let anyone walk away alive if they dared lay their filthy paws on the girl he's got feelings for. Even I was floored when Sephiroth launched into that melodramatic speech to Claudia—he was practically hitting on her! My own twisted psyche never ceases to surprise me. And then Odin's mother showed up—talk about a grand finale! Just like Lucifer asked for: with style and flair. Hehehe. Anyway, I won't ramble on—I'm way too hungry for that. Peace, love, and—hey, villain—turns out you were just another face in the crowd.)

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