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Silver Demons
by SkyFire (![[info]](http://www.insanejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif)
rabid_plotbunny)
Previous chapters: 1 | 2 | 3-4
Warnings: Eventual Sess/Seph (shonen-ai or yaoi, I haven't decided. We'll see when we get there. ^_^)
Disclaimer: I don't own FFVII or InuYasha and no money is being made.
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Chapter 5
Sephiroth knew that he was fast. He took pride in the fact that no one had ever outdone him in a test of speed since those SOLDIER-Firsts back when he was six. Genesis and Angeal might come close if they tried, but he remained confident in his ability to leave them in the dust should he put his mind to it. Certainly no normal human or animal stood a chance even on his worst day, nor did any of the Mako-spawned monsters he'd ever encountered.
Which made it all the more confounding and irritating when he found himself actively having to focus to stay out of the way of all those claws.
Granted, their number had something to do with it - there were more of them than he had first thought - as did the fact that the camp he'd seen as desirably defensible now left him with no option to retreat and was quickly turning into a trap. But though some of his assailants were no faster than a fleet-footed human or animal and thus beyond comparison to him, others were proving themselves to be faster by a disturbing amount. It was those he found himself having to watch out for.
The slower monsters were similar enough to those he was used to that he cut them down almost effortlessly with ruthless precision and if it had been only them it would all have been over quite quickly.
But it wasn't just them.
Those monsters with the almost-human looks were different. Faster than their lesser companions, they were also for the most part smarter. Put together, those characteristics saw to it that not only was it no longer an easy fight, it was also one he found himself having to work for. Enough of them were proving to be almost or just as fast as he was and their numbers gave them a marked advantage. He found himself being forced to give ground, slowly being pushed back as he had not been in years.
But there wasn't really anywhere he could go, the bulk of that once-reassuring tree behind him effectively blocking his escape even as it ensured that they could not surround him.
Sephiroth slashed again at the enemies on his left, more body parts falling to the ground as the Masamune sliced through them, the razor edge not even hesitating as it slid through flesh and bone. He grunted half in pain and half in annoyance as one foe took the opportunity to send sharp claws slicing through the thick leather of his coat to draw thin lines of blood down his momentarily-exposed right side. He pivoted, brought his blade across in a sweeping blow that added yet more parts to the already gory ground around him, only to recieve a similar blow from the other side.
He could still hear them all around, curses mixed with snarls and growls as they threw themselves at him. He was starting to doubt his first impressions of them. He'd thought that some were smarter, and granted their partially successful tag-team efforts proved that some were, but if they were as smart as he'd thought them to be, why hadn't they pulled back to regroup once it became obvious that he wasn't going to fall by their current approach? That for it to work, or to have a chance of working, anyway, they would have to surround him completely and that as long as that tree was at his back that could not happen? If he was in their place, he'd have pulled back his forces and waited until his target had moved away from that protection.
Then a chorus of gutteral roars followed by an almost-eerie crackling and tearing sounded from behind him. Blade still a mere blur in its dance of death, he looked back over his shoulder just in time to see three of the larger monsters wrench the tree from the ground, roots and all, and hurl it away. Its bulk was lost to the night almost instantly, though the loud crackling and final boom marked its flight.
Before it even struck earth, those monsters that had been lurking about waiting for an opportunity to attack charged his newly-exposed back.
Sephiroth glared. If he'd had his Materia, it wouldn't have mattered. Then again, if he'd had his Materia, he'd have simply fried them all and not needed to fight at all. What he wouldn't give for a good Quake right about then...
But his Materia was dead and he was fighting, and he was about to be surrounded.
He'd had enough; it was time to get serious. He could only hope that his own inherent abilities and those in his sword remained unchanged. A small shift of concentration and half-formed fears were laid to rest as he felt himself lift up off the ground, at first slowly to make sure it was stable, then a quick rise to hover in mid-air maybe twenty feet above the mass of cursing, growling monsters. A wide swing of the Masamune and another breathed sigh of relief as familiar arcs of blue power exploded outwards from it, slicing effortlessly into the crowd, felling dozens in a single sweep. Another blow, decimating their numbers, then a flicker of movement seen out of the corner of one eye had him zipping to the side with the realization that he was no longer the only one who had taken to the air.
The monster before him had blue skin, its face marked with blood-red stripes. It was clothed in clothes and armor that only reinforced Sephiroth's impression that he'd somehow ended up in Wutai; certainly no other country he knew of wore styles like that. Its eyes gleamed red, fangs glinting as it grinned, and were those antennae? Then again, compared to some of the mutations he'd seen over the years, what was a few antennae?
"Nice sword," the blue-skinned one all but purred, "give it to me."
Sephiroth glared, blue-green eyes narrowed to mere slits in annoyance at the other man's tone. He sent another sweep of power down at the monsters below. Those left alive decided that they'd had enough for the time being and fled back into the woods. "This sword answers only to me. If you try to take it, I will cut you down."
A snarl escaped thin, dark-blue lips. Red eyes narrowed with rage, and one clawed hand raised the giant sickle he used for a weapon. "You dare threaten me, the great Hanachimaru? Die!"
Sephiroth felt whatever respect he'd maintained for the other being flee in disgust at the other's head-on, infuriated charge. He waited for him to get close, then zipped to the side and cut him and his weapon in half with a single almost-bored swing.
Well, that was a bit anticlimatic, Sephiroth thought. How disappointing.
A look around the gore-littered clearing let him know that it would be best to get out of the area before any more monsters decided to show up, drawn there by the scent of that much carnage. He would need to find somewhere else to stop to rest and see to his wounds; while he was pleased to note that his stab wound had held together throughout the fight, the light pull from his new claw-scrapes irritated him - more from the fact that they existed than from any mentionable amount of pain. Still, they would have to be cleaned, even if the scrapes themselves would be mostly healed by the time he found a source of water.
Or perhaps not. There was the road, after all, and those few groups he'd watched that day hinted that there was a village not too far away. Even if this was Wutai and he wasn't, as a general rule, very well-liked there, they would have to respect him as Shinra's SOLDIER-General and give him the aid he requested.
Perhaps, if he was lucky, the village would have a temple where he could ask for help; by their own teachings, the priests would not turn him away simply because of who he was, were bound to offer what help they could. He'd always gotten along well enough with them, and it would save him the aggravation of trying to get the same aid from one of the villagers.
That decided, he flew over to the road then let himself float gently down to it and started walking.
-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-
Chapter 6
When the village finally came into sight, spread out before him as he rounded a bend in the road, he had the sinking feeling that his plan, such as it was, was going to need some adjustment, if not a complete overhaul.
He'd known going into it that it would likely be a small village, but this effectively redesigned his mental concept of 'a small Wutainese village'; while it covered a large enough area, most of it consisted of sprawling rice paddies and the houses were only loosely gathered into something that could vaguely be called a village. He could see people moving around it and their style of dress reinforced his belief that it must be a poor Wutainese town, but it lacked the colors he'd come to associate with that country. Back when he'd led the armies in Shinra's conquest of Wutai, he'd seen more than his fair share of traditional Wutainese buildings and all of them were quite colorful by his standards. This village had none of that; simple huts of what from that distance appeared to be rough wood planks and timbers, missing any trace of the deep, rich reds and blues that, for him, characterized that country.
Another thing that caught his attention was the complete lack of any kind of communications tower. For that matter, there were no power or phone lines that he could see. That didn't worry him as much; he knew that more than one village considered the lines an eyesore and so had buried them, leaving only the occasional access hub where new lines could be connected if there was need. He knew that there had to be lines somewhere; how else could they use their TVs, their phones, their computers? While the older generations may have scorned those devices, the younger most assuredly did not. Perhaps he would be able to get use of a phone for a few minutes so he could call in for a pick-up, if the owner of said phone would accept Shinra gil. He wouldn't be surprised if they didn't, even if new Shinra law required them to do so.
A barely noticeable shrug, then he started walking again. There was only one way to get answers to his questions.
By the time he arrived in what passed for the town proper, he'd come to the conclusion that not only had his original conclusions been way off, but his more recent ones would have to be re-thought as well; while he still couldn't help but think of them as Wutainese, things were quickly adding up against that assumption. What they were adding up to... that was a good question.
Before he even entered the village itself, he could smell the distinctive smell of the clean woodsmoke that rose from every house. Not just a few hold-out traditionalists; all of them. Another point of note was that he couldn't see any electronics, nor hear their distinctive hum. The children who were not working alongside the adults had no handheld games or music players. He could hear no TVs from inside the houses. Houses? From up close it was more like 'huts'; if any of them had more than a single room, he'd be amazed.
One thing that didn't surprise him, however, was the villagers' reactions to his approach. Well, that wasn't entirely true. While he had more than half-expected the cries of 'Demon!', the fact that they abandoned whatever they had been doing in favor of fleeing was new. When he'd been greeted by those cries before, they had usually been accompanied by angry, white-knuckled grips on their tools and glares that promised pain should he drop his guard. They had never run.
Until now.
What had changed? Had word of what had happened at Nibelheim, what he'd done while under Jenova's influence, preceded him? But how? He still couldn't detect any communications equipment.
Hopefully, he could get answers to his many questions at the temple. If there was one; he couldn't see any structure that, to him, screamed 'temple'. A shrine, then?
Oh, there.
A villager was running towards him, followed by a group of men in familiar robes; monks. The villager skidded to a halt as soon as he saw that he'd been spotted, then pointed in his direction before taking the opportunity to make a break for it.
Sephiroth barely held back the urge to roll his eyes. What was wrong with these people? Did they think he was going to eat them? Had his reputation grown that badly out of shape in Wutai?
No matter. The monks were hurrying in his direction. He stopped walking and waited for them. Finally, he would get some solid answers.
Now he was getting somewhere.
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