Final Fantasy - All Series Fan Fiction ❯ Path of Seduction ❯ Chapter Thirty ( Chapter 30 )

Disclaimer: Final Fantasy VII is the property of Square-Enix. No profit is sought from this work. Original characters and elements are my own.

 

Path of Seduction

Chapter Thirty

 

The beach was utterly deserted, just the way Yuffie liked it. If some of the advisors had their way, Wutai would have had a flourishing summer tourist trade, Costa del Sol jr., courtesy Shinra Inc. Yuffie thought it lucky that Godo wasn't interested in the seasonal trade just yet and most Wutanese preferred fresh water to salt.

 

For now she had the place to herself and that was a relief. It had been a disastrous morning after finally leaving her father a sputtering wreck over his dozen hypothetical grandchildren. Aeris had come back from wherever she had gone and was hogging the shower, getting the whole house steamed up and singing. Not that she was horrible but she was pretty oblivious to anything else.

 

Then Tifa had come looking for Cloud, which was all well and good until Yuffie had told her to go check the local cat house. Tifa looked about ready to fall over until Yuffie remembered what that expression meant in Continental and jumped to correct, no, she really did mean an actual house full of cats, the furry, four-legged variety.

 

Yuffie groaned again at the thought of the slip and buried her head in her hands. A light scuffing sound behind her caught her ears. It had the rhythm of walking and the reassuring heaviness of one who had no furtive business at hand. Yuffie turned. She toyed briefly with the idea of accosting the stranger but then she recognized the face that emerged over the hill and had to turn away. There seemed to be a strange warm front moving in.

 

Yuki spotted her immediately. “Hey!” he called out tamely, coming to a stop at her side.

 

“Hey,” Yuffie answered, absorbed in pretending to examine some grass stems, bending the green stalks into curves with her fingers.

 

“So, uh,” Yuki twisted his fingers behind his back but forced the rest of himself to be completely still. “I heard your father met with my mother.”

 

Yuffie glanced up. “Yeah, I heard your mom met with my dad.”

 

They both exhaled as one. Yuki settled himself down on the grass beside Yuffie. “So, what do you think will happen now?”

 

Yuffie shrugged. “Dunno. My dad kind of wanted to call the whole thing off, but that would be a mess.”

 

“Guess it would. It's not like anything was going to happen right away.” Yuki locked his arms around his knees. How many people, he wondered, had ever had this kind of conversation with girls they had only met properly just yesterday. And that wasn't even official in the formal sense of the term. He glanced back over his shoulder. He had taken the side route through the woods and only his teachers had known where he started from, but some habits were ingrained even at his young age. No one had followed him.

 

“Um,” he cleared his throat, “you came here alone?”

 

“Yeah,” Yuffie drawled and tried to shake the embedded pebbles and sand from the soles of her boots. Some things were really wedged in there. Yuki did not say anything for a while. Yuffie banged the heels of her boots and the ground and managed to knock out most of the pebbles.

 

The boy cleared his throat again. “Yuffie, if we do get married, will it... I mean do you think it'll be... okay?”

 

Yuffie shrugged and banged her heels some more. “I dunno. Can't say I thought about it much. It was just, you know, a done deal, no escape, why bother worrying kind of thing.” She glanced up. “What, you having second thoughts or something?”

 

“Not likely.” Yuki ducked his head to cover the smirk. “What exactly are you trying to do with your feet?”

 

“There's something stuck at the bottom,” Yuffie grunted, scraping her soles across the ground.

 

“Here, let me see.” Yuki plucked one of the sturdier grass stems and leaned over, stealing a glance up the length of leg as Yuffie angled to present the bottom of her shoe. “Okay, I got it.” He poked at what appeared to be a compacted nugget of sand wedged firmly into the sole. The grass stem bent twice as he prodded.

 

“You're doing it wrong!” Yuffie tried to take the stalk from him but he shoved her hand away.

 

“I almost had it that time.” He gripped the stalk at the bent weak point and poked again. The nugget came away, unfurling into something soft and membranous, utterly encrusted with sand.

 

“Ew! What is that?” Yuffie scrambled away a little. Yuki tried to see past the sand to figure out what was dangling so limply from the end of the stalk.

 

“Oh... no.” It dawned on them both at the same time.

 

“Oh shit!” Yuffie shrieked and leapt up from her seat, shaking herself off. “I stepped on a condom! Oh, nasty, nasty, gross! EW!”

 

Yuki felt his skin crawl just holding the stalk. He hadn't actually touched the item, but prophylactics lying out in the open for anyone to step on tended to be used and his hand was way too close for comfort. The thing might as well have been some kind of incendiary device. He set the stalk down gingerly and backed away. He could only hold it for so long. The creepy crawly inner itch finally overcame the last shred of dignity and he joined Yuffie in flailing down the beach.

 

“Ew, ick, ew, ew, yech!” Yuffie scuffed her boots hard in the surf. “Nasty! Gawd, I hope I don't catch anything!”

 

Yuki looked up from where he squatted, scrubbing his hands furiously in sea foam while trying to keep the rest of himself dry. “You? You had a whole freaking boot and a sock on. What did I have? Six skinny inches of wood!”

 

“Yeah,” Yuffie scoffed, “That'd be the cause of the whole mess in the first place. Watch what you're doing! You're splashing my leg!”

 

“Am not! Not on purpose, anyway.”

 

“Better not!” Yuffie stomped her boot down, sending up spray right onto Yuki's dry shirt.

 

Yuki reared back, gasping in shock. “I said I wasn't!” he yelled, plunging his hands back into the water to push a wave Yuffie's way. Yuffie shrieked and kicked more water at him. At some point she lost her footing on the shifting sand and they both tumbled into the shallow end of the ocean. They stared at each other, soaking wet, for a full five seconds.

 

Then it was war.

 

---------------------------

 

“Ah, shit.” Cid wagged his burnt hand, fingers singed from his latest attempt to light up. “Morning afters are hell.”

 

“Not so loud, dammit.” Barret sat on a low stone wall with his head in his good hand. “Besides, it's not morning anymore. Well, I don't think it is, anyway.”

 

Cid grunted and gave up trying to light his cigarette. “It was worth it though, wasn't it? Wish they'd send some of that stuff over our way. Wutai'd make a killing selling hooch like that overseas. Even took out a freaking SOLDIER. Look at 'im.”

 

“SOLDIER, nothing. Spike can't hold his ale, is all.” Barret looked over at the blond in question. Cloud was looking considerably out of it with his hands wrapped around something small as Tifa interrogated him. “Wonder where he went out to get drunk anyway. He wasn't with us.”

 

“Cloud,” Tifa was saying, “You know we can't take that with us.” There was a blank, confused look on Cloud's face that she didn't like one bit. In his hands he held a pretty little kitten, snowy white, with traces of silvery grey fur leading to black-tipped ears and tail. It had a piercing pair of green eyes and that wild half-scared kitten expression. It reared away when Tifa tried to get close, digging its claws into the knit of Cloud's shirt.

 

Cloud sighed. “I know. I just... like him for some reason.” The kitten mewled and pawed stubbornly at Cloud's chest.

 

“Cloud, are you feeling okay? You look a little pale.”

 

Cloud slumped a bit. “I wasn't feeling too hot this morning. Like, dizzy, but not really. It's like a headache that doesn't want to hurt.” He frowned, knowing it made no sense, but how else to describe that odd hollow sensation in his head. “Am I forgetting something?” he asked. “I've got this feeling that there's something I should remember, but I don't.”

 

Tifa swallowed. Where to start with this? Or how? “You know what, it's been a rough couple of days and everyone's tired. Maybe we could just rest a bit before rounding everyone up.”

 

“That sounds good,” Cloud said tamely and started walking.

 

“Cloud,” Tifa called, “you still have to put the kitten down.”

 

“Awww.”

 

---------------------------

 

The train was crowded but Sephiroth had a cocoon of space all to himself. Some things never changed. People hid their mouths behind woolly gloved fingers, whispering, and Sephiroth heard every word.

 

“... didn't know he used public transportation.”

 

“Last stop's a long way from home.”

 

“Wonder what happened to his minivan.”

 

“Heard one of his boys... right over the railing.”

 

Sephiroth felt the beginnings of a headache. The red sun set the western sky ablaze. The light glinted off the water right into his eyes. He resisted the urge to rub his forehead. Not with so many people watching.

 

“Next stop, Painkiller Junction,” the conductor called out. Sephiroth rose and made his way to the exit. The conductor took his ticket and waited while he fished in his pocket for change.

 

“Rough day?” the young man asked as coins continued to rattle. Sephiroth grunted in response. “Kids giving you a hard time?” the man continued.

 

Sephiroth snorted. “Just the one at the moment.” He would not have bothered answering ordinarily, but the man had a soothing kind of voice, friendly, open and familiar.

 

“Isn't that the way? There's always one troublemaker no matter what you do. Least that's what my mother used to say and I was an only child.” The conductor grinned and checked the change Sephiroth dumped into his palm. “I would have liked to find out for sure myself sometime,” the man mused as the General stepped down, “but hey, such is life, as they say.”

 

Sephiroth looked back at the young man and eyed the blue conductor's hat perched precariously on wild black spikes. “I named him after you,” he blurted out. “My troublemaker.” He thought he saw a brief spark of recognition in violet eyes, but the young man covered it with a grin.

 

“This is your stop, sir. Thank you for traveling the Fairline Express and have a safe trip!”

 

Sephiroth felt something jerk in his chest as he tripped over the gap and woke up on a futon.

 

“Welcome back, General,” Ayame said. Sephiroth blinked and propped himself up on his elbows to look around. It was pitch black outside and the lighting in the room was low, a mercy even to his enhanced eyes.

 

“You slept all day,” Ayame said, answering the obvious question. “Are you going to need a bucket?”

 

Sephiroth wondered what for, but then remembered through the fog and the pain crawling up the sides of his skull. “I'll be alright.” He frowned at the rasping sound of his voice. A cup was shoved into his hands.

 

“Drink,” Ayame said. “You should rehydrate.” She knelt calmly while Sephiroth sipped and refilled the cup from her water jar with a bamboo dipper when he passed the cup back for more. Sephiroth drank half the second cup and took a breath, staring down into the bottom.

 

“How much do you remember?” Ayame asked. She looked much more together than she had been that morning, hair neatly done up, grey and mauve kimono elegantly arrayed. Sephiroth remembered enough to know she had not looked like that in the morning. He rubbed at a slight swelling on his head.

 

“I think I bumped into a tree on the way here.” He frowned some more. He could not recall actually finding his way to the house and had no idea what he might have done when he got there. He frowned down into the cup and finished the rest of the water. “Did I say anything?”

 

“Nothing useful.” Ayame set the dipper down. “I wouldn't ordinarily recommend this to anyone, General, but perhaps you should have sake more often. You're a very happy drunk.”

 

Sephiroth sniffed and held his cup out again. “Out of consideration for my liver, I think I will decline.”He stared into the full cup and rolled it around in his hands, studying the glint of light on the gilt-edged maple leaf painted inside. “Could I trouble you for some tea.”

 

“More water first, and eat something too. I'll bring you dinner.” Ayame rose from one knee and bustled out the door before Sephiroth could think about being hungry. He looked around the room, getting a good feel for his surroundings. It was neat, as expected. A lone camellia blossom stood in a bamboo vase near the window. His coat, clean, oiled and gleaming, hung in one corner. Unthinking, Sephiroth put a hand to his hair and found it smooth and bramble-free. He took note of the dark blue yukata he was wearing. Ayame must have sponged and dressed him while he slept. There was something uncomfortable in that knowledge. He looked about for a distraction and found it in a book lying open and face down, not far from the futon.

 

He had made his way through four chapters by the time the screen door slid open again. He set the book down at light speed while Ayame knelt to pick up a laden tray. She entered carefully and set it down before Sephiroth.

 

Standard Wutai fare, he noted, looking it over. Lots of rice, pickles and fish, even some soup, though Ayame knew he did not really care for the stuff. He did not feel hungry but he could not say that he didn't either. He picked up the chopsticks and dutifully began to eat.

 

Ayame turned up the heater she kept in the room, boiling water for tea. Not even a word of thanks from the man. Clearly he had been off living by himself too long. He would need to be whipped back into shape if he planned to live like normal people, with a house and a family. Ayame thanks the powers above that it wasn't her job anymore.

 

After the first tentative bite, Sephiroth ate hungrily, wolfing down his meal with the desperate gusto of a soldier in a war zone. He barely gave the flavors time to register, but the memory of it all came flooding back with each bite. He had always hated that odd seaweed thing, but it was already down the hatch and the plum on top of the rice was compensation enough. The fish was underdone and the soup was as bad as he remembered but that did not matter because suddenly his long dormant stomach was begging for more.

 

“How's your rice?” Ayame asked.

 

“Crunchy,” Sephiroth answered with his mouth full, and it was true. That did not stop him from shoveling more into his mouth.

 

Ayame huffed. “Well, I can't get everything right straight off the bat.”

 

Sephiroth raised one eyebrow over the rice bowl. “You cooked?”

 

“I'm learning,” Ayame said, nodding. “What do you think?”

 

“It's edible.” Sephiroth set the rice bowl down and went after the soup again. Definitely too salty.

 

“Is that all?” Ayame asked coolly.

 

Sephiroth shrugged. “It would have been cooked through if I'd done it.”

 

“Cooked and then some.” Ayame splashed hot water into a tea bowl. “You were always burning things.”

 

Sephiroth set the soup down and stared intently as Ayame whisked the tea. How much had she heard, exactly? She passed him the cup, unconcerned. Sephiroth sipped slowly and the silence between them spun out. Outside, far away, a cicada chirped. Sephiroth set the cup down and belatedly bowed, awkward for still being half in bed. Ayame bowed in return but said nothing, looking away to take care of the dishes. Sephiroth found himself idly tracking the passage of an ant.

 

“Your eyes are still red, General. Rest some more,” Ayame said, turned partly away to continue her book. Sephiroth lowered himself till his head touch the bedding again and tried to sleep. The recent sensation onslaught, the food, the drink, the sex, seemed to be taking a toll. He rolled onto his side, facing out the window to shade his eyes from the lamp. Behind him he heard Ayame muttering over a lost page.

 

He lay still, listening. Pages fluttered at the woman's touch. Her breath sharpened at strange intervals. Outside, somewhere to the east, the lone cicada out far past its bedtime fluttered between the trees, doing what any short-lived life form would. It would batter itself against the twigs all night searching for a mate and not find one at this hour, fool thing. It would probably injure itself and be dead by morning. Sephiroth closed his eyes.

 

He heard the branches creak in the low wind. The garden stream rippled over the rocks. Crickets joined the cicada and were more successful in their ventures. Fireflies sparked in blinking clusters outside the window, moving blurs of pinpoint light even behind closed eyelids. Sephiroth grunted and sat up again.

 

“I should go,” he said.

 

“Go where?” Ayame did not even lift her head from her book.

 

“Various places.” Sephiroth stretched and worked a kink out of his neck. “I have a lot of preparation to do if I'm to keep her comfortable and happy.”

 

“Ah, so you're ring-shopping, then.” Ayame tilted her head and him. Sephiroth rolled his eyes.

 

“I was thinking of something more practical, like a house. I don't get all my romantic notions from bodice-rippers.”

 

Ayame slapped her book shut, startled. “You sneaky bastard, you lost my page!”

 

“You left the thing lying right there out in the open.” Sephiroth shrugged. “I was bored.”

 

Ayame crossed her arms and gave him a look. “Bored enough to read the whole thing.”

 

“Don't be ridiculous. That thing must be two hundred pages long and you were only gone a few minutes. Even I don't read that fast.”

 

“So how do you know what's in it?” Ayame had a look on her face that he knew well. She thought she had him pinned. He'd show her.

 

“Because,” he declared, gesticulating wildly, eyes aglow, “that's the kind of nonsense in all of them!”

 

“Oh,” Ayame covered her mouth. “So you've read all of them, then.”

 

“I- wait, what?” Sephiroth cocked his head. “What did I say?”

 

The woman smirked at him. “Only that you know what's to be found in the average romance novel.”

 

Sephiroth turned slightly pink. “I'm not speaking from personal experience,” he said into his shoulder. “Not much, anyway.”

 

“I see,” Ayame said, and Sephiroth had the sinking feeling that she really did.

 

“I got curious once,” he mumbled by way of explanation.

 

“Just once?” Then Ayame had mercy on him. “You should stop there, General, before you dig yourself in any deeper.”

 

Sephiroth sighed and turned away. It was true. As a younger man he had been terribly unaccustomed to many things other people considered normal. He had wondered and blundered and finally began doing his own research. His brief and extremely secret foray into tawdry romance novels had hardly helped. The prose was generally awful and the man on the cover often bore a strange resemblance to what Sephiroth saw in the mirror every morning. He soon gave the things up.

 

He had sampled theater and poetry, film, ancient epics and even fairy tales, gaining little in the way of real understanding, though he became well-versed enough to leave a favorable impression in higher circles. It seemed, where this was concerned, there was no teacher like experience, and he was certainly getting that now.

 

A cool gust came through the window and Sephiroth turned his face into it. There really were a lot of fireflies out tonight, lighting up the trees in flashes of phosphorescent green. It was exactly the kind of thing lovers, real and imagined, might stop to marvel at, gazing up at the night sky like moony-eyed fools.

 

“You're a fine one to talk,” the voice drawled, jumping into the silence. “Who was it that tripped down a mountain because he was so overcome by that fuzzy feeling in his tummy that he didn't bother to look where he was going? I mean, I've heard of falling in love, Seph, but that takes the cake.” Sephiroth sighed but couldn't find it in him to tell the voice to buzz off.

 

“What's the matter, Seph?” Of course he would pick up on it, being in Sephiroth's head and all. “You sick or something? Besides the lovesickness, I mean. Normally you'd be howling at me to leave you alone.”

 

Sephiroth shrugged a little and hoped Ayame did not find him too strange for moving that way at apparently nothing. “I don't mind you right now.”

 

“Awww, Seph, you do care!” The voice bounced in his head. “When you've got nowhere to go and nothing to do and no chance of getting laid, you actually have time for me! I'm feeling the love!”

 

Sephiroth huffed and crossed his arms. “If you're going to be sarcastic about it...”

 

“I wasn't.” His guest was somber now. “I know it's the best I could hope for from you, you old stiff.”

 

Sephiroth made a sound. Ayame inclined her head in his direction to listen for anything more but never took her eyes from the page.

 

“So whatcha doing, Sephiroth? Gazing up at the stars?”

 

“And the fireflies, apparently.”

 

“Oh. That a problem?”

 

“I'm not sure.” Sephiroth sat up straighter in bed and turned to face the window fully. “It seems like such a trite thing to do. This whole business does. Why don't I mind more?”

 

“Why should you? You're happy, aren't you?”

 

Sephiroth sighed, “Yes, but it's so... I don't know.”

 

“What, romantic?”

 

“Cheesy. Clichéd.”

 

The voice began a conspiratorial chuckle. “I think I know what's got you. You're a freak!”

 

“What!”

 

“Hang on, now, hear me out. You're a freak, Seph, and on some level, you like it that way.”

 

“What?” It was a little softer this time.

 

“I'm serious. I wouldn't lie to you. You're different, Seph, you've always known it, and even though you sometimes wish you understood people better, it's not that big a problem for you.”

 

“I suppose.”

 

“For real, Seph. Sure, sometimes I've seen when you did feel a little alone and left out and downright confused by other people, but most of the time it doesn't bother you, you're just curious. You like to pretend you're all alone but you used to get plenty of invites. And offers.”

 

“Your point?”

 

“You turned most of them down flat, didn't you? You wanted to know, but you didn't feel that compelled to join in.” The voice poked at some old memory, shaking the threads of emotion tied to it. “You like yourself the way you are. Which is grand, but you're still a little weird to the rest of us.”

 

Sephiroth frowned, his lower lip forming the Not-A-Pout it sometimes did when he was thinking about something. It was true, as a General beset with obligation and duty, he had appreciated the space his innate strangeness afforded him. In Shinra, he had created a comfortable bubble around himself, interacting only when necessary, in the prescribed manner, close, after his own fashion, only to those he could stand. He drove all others off with his strange eyes, his cold manner, his reputation, his icy disinterest. And in those rare moments when he found himself wishing for a wider life, wondering what others had that filled the strange emptiness inside, he found ways to keep himself occupied. Ways like thumbing through terrible novels full of lovers plighting their troth beneath the stars. Sephiroth snorted.

 

“Heh,” the voice noted, triumphant. “I'm right, aren't I?” Seph's only response was a low grumble. “Yep, I'm right. Big, bad General Sephiroth is turning into a normie and he doesn't like it.”

 

“I feel...” Sephiroth could not voice the concern easily, even in his head. “I'm becoming a different person.”

 

“That's relationships for you, Seph. Everyone you meet leaves their impression on you, and you leave yours in return.”

 

Sephiroth rolled his eyes. “I usually make my impressions with several feet of steel.”

 

“Yeah,” the voice drawled, “that always was your problem, wasn't it?”

 

“But can it really be normal, then, to change for someone else?” Sephiroth's frown deepened. He had no other word for that but 'weak'.

 

“Kind of.” Sephiroth could almost see the other frown. “It's like, when someone really matters to you, when you want them to be happy, you try to be better for them. More considerate, maybe. Stronger.”

 

“Stronger?”

 

“Yeah, sort of. I'm not really sure, exactly. Like for her,” no doubt about who there, “I'd be willing to rein myself in to keep her smiling, if she didn't like what I did. Not that she'd ever ask me to. It's weird but that's kind of why I'd do it for her. ”

 

Ah, self-control. Sephiroth did understand. Freely chosen. Perhaps this was not as bad as he had thought. He allowed himself a little smile. “It's the frilly curtains part that really has me worried.”

 

“Heh, can't help you there, bud. Relationships are built on compromise but sometimes you just gotta let the women have their way.” Sephiroth could almost feel the voice sharing a wry smile with him. “So... what did you do with all the romance books?”

 

Sephiroth had to smirk at that. “There weren't that many. I donated them to someone who was sure to appreciate such things. Anonymously, of course.”

 

“Really? Who- wait, a second... Oooh, you mean...” The voice gave in to fits of laughter. “Seph, I heard he stabbed holes in the covers where your face was!”

 

Sephiroth shrugged. “I know. He made a point of leaving them where I could see. Not that it really was my face anyway.”

 

“I guess. By the way, you know you have a flower in your hair?”

 

“It's still there?” Sephiroth put a hand to his head and found the grass stalk with its tiny flowers still secured behind his ear. “She put it there this morning.”

 

“Dum dum da-dum!” the voice was singing now, a tune even Sephiroth had to know. “Dum dum da-dum.”

 

“Oh, knock it off,” Sephiroth mentally batted at the presence. “Or at least sing the words! And I'm not the bride.”

 

“But with hair like yours, you wouldn't even need to spring for a veil!”

 

“Hush, you!”

 

“Is everything alright, General?” Ayame turned away from her book. “You're clearing your throat a fair bit. Are you coming down with something?”

 

Sephiroth snapped back to the outer world. “No, I'm fine.”

 

“Then I can finish my book in peace?”

 

Sephiroth spun around on the futon. “Why do you read that unrealistic tripe, anyway? A woman of your intelligence?”

 

Ayame stretched across the distance and smacked him upside the head with her fan. Lightly, though, and Sephiroth took it without protest. “Flattery won't work, General. I have my reasons.”

 

“Good ones?” Sephiroth smirked, courting another smack on the head. Ayame looked back and forth from him to the fan in her hand and decided against it.

 

“My reasons, General,” she said, lightly stroking the fan's bamboo spokes, “and that makes them more than good enough.”

 

“Anything you can share?” Curiosity struck again.

 

“It'll kill you one of these days, cat-eyed boy!”

 

“I told you to hush it!”

 

Ayame sighed. “Are you always a soldier, General, every minute of every day, or do you ever find yourself wading through a stream with an empty bottle in one hand?”

 

Sephiroth looked askance. “Point taken,” he said, hoping Ayame never found out about the secret stash of Homemaker's Journal magazines he'd had back in the day. But there had to be more to it than a break from the grind.

 

“And when you were curious, General, did you happen to take note of how these stories end?”

 

“What was there to note? They were formulaic and all the same after a point. The couple declares undying devotion and live happily ever after. Oh.”

 

“Exactly.”

 

Sephiroth took in the sight of the woman approaching indeterminate middling-years with a girl's romantic fancy. “So the fantasy serves its purpose.”

 

“It does.” She opened the fan gently and stared at the verse and picture painted on it, pine trees, two, one close, one distant and small.

 

“Ayame,” Sephiroth began, not unkindly, “did you never stop pining for that great lost love? Could you?”

 

“Hm.” Ayame glanced up. “I've had plenty of opportunity over the years to recover from that initial girlish foolishness. It just never seemed to work out.” She turned the fan over in her hand, studying front and back. “The war played a part, I think. It had a very special knack for separating my patrons' necks from their heads.”

 

Sephiroth felt a twinge in his chest. “I'm sorry.”

 

“It's not your fault, General. War is what it is and a geisha's life is limiting even without that.” She sighed, brushing her fingers across the edge of fan. The initial faded green shade may have turned even more grey over the years, but perhaps that only made it closer to the color Ayame had wanted in the first place.

 

“You should get a new fan, Ayame,” Sephiroth cut in on her thoughts. “That one's seen better days.”

 

“I suppose it has, but I couldn't bear to part with it.” Ayame closed it carefully and tucked it into her kimono. “It's like a very dear friend.”

 

Sephiroth could understand that. He sometimes felt that the Masamune was his closest thing to kin, an extension of himself, one that understood him completely. Fortunately the object of his sentiment was more hardy than a fan.

 

“I should go,” he said and made to rise.

 

“You can take a shower before you leave,” Ayame offered, flicking one page.

 

“I don't think that's necessary,” Sephiroth replied.

 

Ayame gave him that look he knew so well. “I'm serious, General. Take a shower, or a bath. You're still oozing the scent of sake out your pores.”

 

Sephiroth gave himself a discreet whiff. “Oh. Alright.”

 

“And you might want to do something about that too.” Ayame indicated with a glance. Sephiroth looked down at himself.

 

“What? I don't see anything.” Lucky thing too.

 

Ayame rolled her eyes. “Above the belt, General. On your chest.”

 

Sephiroth had to drop his chin to his collar bone to see. On the left pectoral, close to the center of his chest, he sported an impressive mass of love bites, red, narrowed and linked to form an 'A'.

 

“What the-!”

 

“She's a possessive little thing, I see.” Ayame laughed.

 

Sephiroth covered the mark with both hands and sputtered. “How could she- this is awful!”

 

“Relax, General, it's not as if it's on your neck or somewhere everyone can see it.” Ayame ignored the man's withering stare.

 

“Uh-oh, look who wishes he had a shirt now.”

 

“Can it, you!”

 

“Or a vest, even. Or maybe a nice bustier.”

 

“See, now you're just being ridiculous.”

 

*********************

 

A.N.: I know this has been an unprecedented wait between updates. This fic takes a lot out of me for reasons I don't know and being kept busy with life issues really does sap the energy. Moving, new job, bills etc. This chapter was never far from my mind, written in short bursts on scraps as I could manage in between everything else. I did get several chances to do a chapter twenty-four of my own though. ;) Thank you all for waiting and special thanks to picaxb0o for the heartfelt, encouraging poke in this direction!