THE ZODIAC BRAVE ALLIANCE
^ _ ` a b c d e f g h i

Chapter 20: Dark Masks, Dark Pasts, and the Thunder Shard

The movements were a solid black blur, very swift, and only Urd, Strife, and Tempest were able to detect them.

“Who?” Pharda asked, looking around. “The Thunder Shard!!”

A black ninja lithely performed a handplant on a pipeline, swinging herself upwards and through the electric fields as if they weren’t even there.

“That girl ninja! I knew she couldn’t be trusted!” Urd shouted, and quickly dove through the pipelines after her.

“I know where she’s headed, quickly, follow me!” Strife ordered.

As the group weaved in and out of passageways deep within the old reactor, they noted that Strife indeed knew where he was going, and eventually they slid down a large transport tube, and ended up on the surface.

Strife signaled that everyone crouch down and wait near the entrance quietly.

Just as he had said, the ninja was on her way out of the metallic cavern, and moving quickly.

“Now!!!” Strife yelled, and everyone jumped out of their hiding area, and thought they had cornered the young ninja.

They were dangerously wrong.

She quickly performed a back-flip and kicked Pharda square in the teeth.

“Urch!” He yelped, surprised that she would do such a thing to him.

Then she quickly leapt over everyone’s heads and was neatly making a break for the edge of the floating island.

“She’s going to jump!!!” Pharda yelled.

“Is she crazy?! We’re at least a hundred miles up!!” Rose said in shock.

As everyone watched in horror, the female ninja leapt over the side of the floating island…only to soar upwards on a draft of wind.

“Huh?!” Fenris said, “I thought I was the only one who could fly!!”

“She isn’t--,” Strife interrupted, “Flaps in her clothing allow her to glide.”

“So what do we do now!!” Pharda said in the uproar.

“We get back in the ship and follow her,” Strife said, “She must have a reason for stealing the shard, and I want to find out what.”

“I’ll see if I can catch up with her…,” Fenris said, and took off immediately.

As the rest rushed toward the ship, it appeared that the mist surrounding the island was slowly fading. Then they noticed a feint rumbling, that began to get louder.

Then the ground started to shake.

“Wh-wh-what’s ha-ha-ppening!!” Urd yelped between shakes.

“Earthquake!?” Andomiel asked.

“No! Without the shard, the island’s going to collapse!! We have to get out of here!!” Pharda yelled over the roar.

The group managed to rush onto the ship, while Cid managed to yell over the noise, “First I thought you were causing such a ruckus down there and didn’t think anything of it, but when the ground started to shake…what the heck’s going on?!”

“No time to explain, just throw the airship in gear and take off!!” Andomiel barked.

“Don’t have to tell me twice!!” Cid immediately jumped into action, and the fan motors of the massive airship revved to life.

As the ship pulled its way off the island, it was visibly obvious that the island was going to fall to the ground. And in pieces no less.

“Well…at least it’ll fall into the sea…and not on any villages…,” Rose breathed.

Meanwhile, out in the sky, Fenris was in hot pursuit of the free-falling Ninja.

“Hmph! Think you’re fast? Well, not quite fast enough!” and with that Fenris folded his wings into a soaring dive after her.

Almost on instinct she dove even faster in an insane dive towards the ground. And as Fenris managed to catch up to her, a faint whistling swished by his ears. Before he even noticed, a thin cut was bleeding from his cheek.

She had expertly spun in a mid-air arc and cut him with her lengthy katana.

“Unreal!!” He said, marveling her speed in the attack.

“You would be wise never to approach me again, hatchling!!” the ninja retorted.

Fenris absorbed the blunt insult of him being a hatchling….after all he was over 15 years old in human years, of course in dragon years he was only 3, but at this point, it wasn’t worth talking about.

“…..” he glared at her expert swan dive towards the earth, as he struggled to keep up with her movement. And then, at a moment of weakness, she had spread into her glide again.

He threw his spear, puncturing her wing.

“…” She stared silently at the wall of the airship, hands bound tightly behind her back.

“What were you doing, stealing the thunder shard!” Pharda interrogated her.

“……..” her stare seemed not only to pierce him, but stare right through him.

Andomiel paced up and down the deck impatiently, “At first we thought you were helping us, but then when you made off with the stone….now we have no idea what to think of you?”

Pharda forced himself not to backhand this very adamant ninja woman. But instead decided to glare into her as equally forceful. Pressing his face as close to hers that someone would think they would kiss.

“Why…?”

“She can’t answer...because she has been ordered not to do so.”

Strife stepped down into the lower deck where the ninja was held, his voice the calm in this verbal storm.

“Strife, what do you mean?” Andomiel asked, as puzzled as ever.

“As a ninja, she is bound by her master, and bound by her sword.”

“By her…sword…?” Pharda said, thoughtfully.

“As Fenris incapacitated you, I recognized the sword you carry. It is the Masamune, isn’t it?”

Through the mask it was obvious that her eyes perked up at the word, but she said nothing.

“Hm...you don’t have to answer to that, because I know it belonged to him, didn’t it?”

Her eyes widened in surprise, as did a few others in the room.

“Who?” Pharda asked incredulously.

Strife turned his back on the others and began to walk up the steps, red cloak sweeping behind him. He began his ascent slowly to the outer deck of the airship.

Andomiel shrugged.

Pharda looked on, and said, “I’m going to find out what he meant by that…”

As Pharda marched up the steps after Strife, he couldn’t help but feel a bit uneasy about the whole situation at the Mako Plant on the floating island. Strife, being secret to everyone except himself, was of course natural, at least for the others. But keeping even more secrets, especially from him, was out of Strife’s character. So he decided to investigate.

He saw Strife leaning with his palms on the bow of the ship, his crimson cloak flying raggedly in the breeze. Making him seem to appear as an unearthly apparition poised like a statue, as if he were apart of the ship itself.

Standing next to Strife, he carefully chose his words, as he could see the haggard expression in Strife’s eyes, making him seem older, more ancient than first imagined.

“Strife,” he cleared his throat uneasily, “….”

“...Yes...”

“…Er, do you know that Ninja? If you have business with her it’s none of mine, but I was wondering why you mentioned the Masamune just then?”

Strife stiffened for a moment, then uneasily turned. A poor attempt at changing the subject he stated, “The wind is rather cold today.” Then he shook his head and looked away, “I once knew the man who owned that sword, he was one of my closest friends...and also one of my worst enemies...”

“Who was he?” Pharda asked in careful tones.

“His name was,” and it seemed Strife was thinking on the memories of the name before he said it, “Sephiroth.”

“Sephiroth? THE Sephiroth? I’d read of his exploits during the Great War of Wutai, hundreds of years ago…”

“Yes, that was him, Aeris mentioned he was also a Zodiac Brave along with us.”

“But you mentioned he was also an enemy, what did you mean by that?”

“He came from a time that wasn’t supposed to happen, at least along the timeline as Altima set it. In that timeline, he discovered he was the result of genetic manipulation using Mako and J.E.N.O.V.A. cells…as was I, but his was out of birth, I was only injected with them. I suppose the J.E.N.O.V.A. cells slowed aging, making him seem younger than he was to me when I first met him…before I was cursed with the cells. When he found out he was the product of science and cloning...he went insane, and destroyed the entire village of Nibelheim, my home town. He went looking for his ‘mother’ and ended up on a rampage resulting in a near destruction of the planet, and almost became a god.”

“He…did that? But the records said he was a hero…and you yourself said he was a Zodiac Brave?”

“And I wouldn’t be closer to the truth, the fact is, using the Zodiac Stones, we pulled him out of his timeline, his TRUE timeline, the one I experienced first hand, the nightmare timeline. He wasn’t the only one who was pulled out of those dark chain of events either. Aeris, now my dear beloved wife, was once killed in front of my eyes...and he was the one, in his madness, that had killed her...”

“It…it must have been hard for you to live life with the knowledge that all your work, saving the planet, fighting the man who killed the one you loved….and for both of them to come back to you, when they both were gone.”

“It was, and when I found out he wasn’t the Sephiroth I had faced, the one that killed Aeris, I can say it was very hard.”

“What’s the connection? How come this ninja has his sword…?”

“That’s still unknown to me, but by the way she reacted when I recognized the sword, he had apparently given it to her, or she had obtained it by some unknown means...frankly...I don’t know if he’s alive or dead anymore...it was so long ago when we last met, he had just married Agrias...but he has the same curse as me...”

“He can’t age either…?”

At this question Strife turned away, then said, “I was lucky to fall in love with a near immortal like Aeris, but he...” he looked over the bow of the ship into the fog and darkness, “she was just human--normal.”

Pharda looked on in odd fascination at Strife’s brooding, he was picturesque of his own namesake…a life full of strife and seemingly loneliness and despondency.

“I pitied him and the life he was dealt...to be born with Jenova cells injected into his DNA, not even given a chance at a normal life...And to think when I was a boy I wanted to be just like him…”

But then Strife seemed to transform right before Pharda’s eyes…gone was the sadness and regret…in its place was determination and a strength Pharda respected.

“We have the Thunder shard, taken back from the ninja, and so we can seek out the other shrines. Come.”

Pharda followed suit and they walked up to the upper deck, where Cid was piloting the ship.

“Hey, did ya get any info outta her?” he asked.

“None was needed, we found the shard she stole, and now we can use both the Thunder Shard and the Light Shard to lead us to the other shrines.”

“What do ya plan ta do with her?”

“She may be useful.” Strife commented, “But in the meantime, round up the rest of the Braves, they need to know our plans, Pharda.”

As Pharda called the rest to the top deck, they had dismayed and puzzled looks on their faces.

“What’s wrong guys?” he asked.

“We tried our best, Pharda, she just wouldn’t crack.” Andomiel said with frustration, “All we got out of her was the Shard and the name of her Katana, that’s it.”

“Isn’t that all we need?” Pharda shrugged, “We have the Light shard, and the Thunder shard, now we can obtain the rest…”

“Well, yeah, but—,”

“Pharda’s right,” Rose snapped, “we can’t mope because one little thief betrayed us, we have a world to save!”

On to Chapter 21 >>>>

Back to Chapter Index >>>>