Chapter Text
Genesis lingered at the iron gate, shoulder blazing from Angeal’s shattered blade in the training hall. Copper stung his tongue and he welcomed the ache… it reminded him he was alive. With a quiet groan he pushed the gate open and stepped into the overgrown courtyard. Vines wound around broken fountains, and marble statues lay half buried in weeds. Dusk pooled in shattered windows, and every footstep promised secrets.
Inside the foyer the air was stale. Pale candlelight flickered over yellowed documents stamped Shinra. Genesis crouched, swept them into his coat, and felt his pulse spike at phrases like secret life energy tests and restricted access. He rose, eyes drifting across peeling wallpaper and shards of broken chandeliers. Every fragment whispered ambition gone wrong.
He moved down the corridor, portraits in tarnished frames staring like sentinels of power long past. Heavy doors barred his path. He drew a small Mako charged blade and slit the lock. The doors swung open to reveal a vaulted conservatory choked by vines and broken glass. Green light filtered through stained panes as dust motes drifted like embers. At the center, a hatch in the earth glowed blue.
He limped forward, shoulder throbbing with each step. Numbers from stolen intel… 4 8 3 1 9 7… danced in his mind as he punched them into the panel. The hatch shuddered and lifted, revealing a spiral staircase slick with dew and faint Mako residue. Rapier hummed in his hand, its red blade promising answers.
Down in darkness, drips echoed and metal groaned. At the bottom, a massive vault door loomed. Genesis pressed his hand to the steel…pain flared sharp, then dulled… before he ground his teeth and turned the wheel. The door swung open on a humming chamber lined with glass cylinders. Pale forms floated in glowing fluid. Labels read Project Sample A one, A two, A three.
A click behind him made him spin, Rapier raised. Sephiroth emerged, silver hair haloed in soft light, Masamune resting at his side. His pale eyes met Genesis’s without question.
“This area is off limits” he said evenly.
Genesis let his blade drop. “I have my own orders.”
Sephiroth’s lip curved in a faint swagger as he drew Masamune, steel singing on arrival. “Then prove your purpose.”
Blood rippled through Genesis’s veins. He dipped Rapier’s edge in the ignite glow and lunged. Steel rang as sparks flew between red metal and silver, each clash hammering his shoulder and sharpening his focus. He pressed in, seeking a weakness, but Sephiroth’s counter was flawless, sending him stumbling into a rack of glass vials. One cracked under his weight and hissed as fluid met metal. Genesis froze, mind racing as the world narrowed to that single shattered cylinder and the pulsing life within.
He recovered, moving slower this time, every motion a battle against his body. Rapier bit into Sephiroth’s armor and sparks flared bright until at last their eyes locked… warrior to warrior, rival to rival, prey to predator.
Sephiroth lowered Masamune with deliberate ease and extended a hand. Genesis stared, chest heaving, then dropped Rapier’s point and pressed his palm to Sephiroth’s. Strength roared through his arm, pain receded, and Sephiroth hauled him upright. Their breaths mingled, hot, ragged, shared.
A stray lock of hair fell across Genesis’s face and Sephiroth brushed it aside, cool fingers against heated skin. No words were needed. Moonlight pooled at their feet through the open vault door.
They climbed the spiral stairs side by side. Above them, broken glass fluttered down like pale petals. Outside, night air wrapped around Genesis’s burning shoulder. He inhaled deep, tasting freedom.
He’d come hunting answers…why his shoulder wouldn’t heal, why he felt angry, unsteady, weak…and found instead a bond forged in steel, pain, and shared defiance. The perfect soldier walked beside the injured warrior, neither speaking nor needing to. In that cracked chamber something had shifted forever.