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towerofanimus2014-04-08 10:54 pm
neverbeamemory) wrote in towerofanimus2014-04-08 10:54 pm
Entry tags:
Log 032 | Towards the end...
Characters: Sephiroth [Open]
Setting: Prompts below 1st-12th April
Format: Prose & Action prompts, can switch either way, if preferred.
Summary: Upon revival, Sephiroth quickly realizes that he has something other than his internal trauma to worry about. By the end of his first week back, the nightmares have started, but he still manages to convince himself finally to go for the altered collar fluid once more.
Warnings: Fallout from having his 'self' put through the barrier blender by Zo. Blood & surgical-based gore, borderline-insanity, and also Sephiroth is prone to violent outbursts (or he might outright ignore you) throughout.
#1:1st April - Dormitory 02-06 & Infirmary
All he could do, was lie there and remember.
First for the sleep paralysis and then for the total body numbness that plagued those who had already died numerous times during their tenancy within the Tower of Animus.
All successes, and their eventual failures played out in Sephiroth's mind as if stuck on repeat, digging into and turning within what was left of his sanity and then as if it wasn't enough he experienced the excruciating tearing, ripping and separation of that which made up his entire self as if in slow motion as Zo's barriers destroyed him. All of those fragments of memory which he kept so close to the centre of his ego, that made him who he had reconstructed himself to be, those lesser-important memories that he would sooner have forgotten, every single jarring experience that he'd been through since; torn to shreds as Zo harvested it all away like quickly pulling aged bandaids which removed too many layers of skin in the process. At the end, he had almost welcomed the oblivion that was sure to come; but it hadn't. The same old ceiling met his awakening eyes.
The recollection wasn't Sephiroth's only problem. As the numbness began to subside, an entirely more physical raw feeling came to light at his left forearm.
Once he turned his eyes to look, the sheet of his bed was already stained scarlet from the deep, bleeding rip in his Vessel which ran right up from wrist to elbow. The pain, Sephiroth could handle, though lacking much movement in his fingers made it difficult for him to rip up some of the bed sheet to use as a tourniquet before he might lose yet another Vessel through the blood loss alone; he wasn't healing on his own, this was an immediate concern. If only he could focus on what he was doing, rather than turning too much of his attention inwards, like a toxic drug drawn to what he had gone through. How far he had gone, and how far he had fallen.
The sparse drops of blood along the Hallways towards the Infirmary would give his presence there away later; half-propped, half-sat against the side of a guerney glaring at any worker unit that might dare to come close. Sephiroth was ambidextrous enough, but trying to stitch ones own weeping forearm back together with no surgical experience was no small feat on a good day. It wasn't a good day, he'd had shaking hands even before he had arrived in the Infirmary. His makeshift tourniquet kept slipping down a bicep that seemed to have a life of it's own with twitching, and he kept having to pull it up and tight again with his teeth. Bloody mess would be the operative word here.
#2: 7th - 12th April - Nightmares
Sephiroth had hardly spoken to anyone since he'd returned. There wasn't any need for explanations, yet some of the looks he might-be-but-probably-wasn't imagining surely demanded him for one. He ignored them. Too easily thoughts receded inside himself for hours, gripping at memories that he needed to cling to hardest to keep himself in any semblance of what he regarded as himself. Too easily they reverted to what had been his outcome. However he tried to swallow it like he had all of his bad experiences and eventually, by the start of the next week things seemed finally to be returning to normal. He felt the first sparks of pride over what he had managed to achieve.
But he was exhausted from not sleeping more than an hour at a time and sure enough the lethargy finally won out. He soon wished that it hadn't.
Every night his Dormitory would be disturbed almost without warning. Sephiroth would wake up from nightmares like he'd never imagined before. Always climaxing around the loss of himself; how Zo so easily ripped all that there was of him apart, how Ruana might eat those parts, how he had failed again and again. How his legacy was lost for good. He thought he only cried out in his dreams before being shocked awake but it wasn't so simple as all of that, and only got louder the longer it was before he woke up.
i) Dormitory Hallways
[He's decided not to return back to his Dormitory tonight. Despite the lethargy, the creeping exhaustion, even the lacking desire to hunt monsters so that he might on-the-off-chance sleep better, some habits die hard. Sephiroth patrols the Dormitory Hallways without even Masamune, or rather it's hollow-Glamour replica, manifested. His Fire Materia flickers where it is equipped to his right forearm with only a glimmer of his reset power. The caution that he usually holds around himself is seemingly non-existent; but it's not the arrogance in his strength against the monsters this time.]
ii) Infirmary - Fl 2
[No one hangs around the Infirmary at night time, this makes it a perfect time for Sephiroth to be able to draw the patience together to get the dressing around his left forearm removed, the literal rip through skin and tendons cleaned again and re-wrapped up. For a few hours on an evening Sephiroth will painstakingly do just that, except he doesn't accept any of the help from any worker nearby - determined to struggle on his own until it's done.]
iii) Graveyard - Fl 48
[Ganondorf Dragmire.
Sephiroth sits on the grass, with his back against the back of an adjacent headstone, facing the one representing one whom many would have called his leader. It hadn't been farther from the truth, but it's not that it matters now. He can't decide whether it's a good thing or not that the troll king hasn't been around for both his greatest triumph, and his greatest failure to date. His thoughts draw into the headstone as he stares unblinkingly forwards, running all of the plots they had enacted through his head; it certainly beat anything else he could think about in the silent dark. Maybe, just maybe there might be something he missed, some detail that he might be able now to focus on.]
iv) Lounge - Fl 81
[Closer to the first light of the morning, Sephiroth dozes in and out of consciousness with his legs curled into his chest in one of the larger armchairs. For the most part, when he his conscious enough he's glaring out of the fictitious window at the stars. When not, he forces himself out of slumber every time his head drops down; he doesn't want to sleep. Sleep will bring those memories back and it's also more dangerous on this floor than most due to the monsters.
Surely that threat will keep his consciousness from slipping- ]
#3: 9th April - Fl 5
It had been intended as a 'touch base' to a location that he had always frequented during his stay in the Tower. A place where he could sit and feel out the vast dead space that was Gaia and know it at it's basest; how utterly destroyed it was. To remind him what he had lost, and so keep him focused on the future.
Not so much this afternoon.
In a rage, Sephiroth had already overturned a few of the tables from within the other viewing stations and brought them all around his own monitor before setting it ablaze with a flash from his Materia. He stood around six feet away and glared into the monitor which refused to burn; it couldn't burn with his power only being over Glamour again but it didn't matter. The flames died down, he ignited them again, never letting his gaze leave that desolate wasteland forever portrayed there on the screen. He imagined it might be a tribute to the Nibelheim Incident, where he had first learned of the truth of his existence, and he let it hurt him all over again. It was a different pain, but a more comfortable one to the pain which his mind kept remembering. The fire burned against his eyes, made them water, but still he stood there observing.
#4: 12th April - Violet Collar check, Infirmary Fl 2
By the end of the week, there was at last one thing that Sephiroth was most certain about; He still needed to try.
Even if he doubted there was the time for him to transition back into real powers again, much less try to re-infect the Tower like he had, at the very least when the timer ran out he wouldn't be bound by at least a small part of the shackles that held him here. Perhaps his core alone would remember what to do when the power failed for good, he couldn't just give up on that chance. Zo wouldn't be there to rip him apart again, if the Tower failed. Call it the last chance that he was clinging to, that his nightmares still screamed at him was folly - Sephiroth could not allow himself to give up on himself.
And so he waited, in the waiting area of the Clinic, early after the collar check had been announced. Fully intent to indicate with his slip of paper, to the worker unit who would be on duty, that he was to have the altered collar fluid once more. He would be saying goodbye to even his Glamoured abilities again, for a while and perhaps for the last time, but at least the rip behind the dressing to his arm was finally starting to scar over.
Setting: Prompts below 1st-12th April
Format: Prose & Action prompts, can switch either way, if preferred.
Summary: Upon revival, Sephiroth quickly realizes that he has something other than his internal trauma to worry about. By the end of his first week back, the nightmares have started, but he still manages to convince himself finally to go for the altered collar fluid once more.
Warnings: Fallout from having his 'self' put through the barrier blender by Zo. Blood & surgical-based gore, borderline-insanity, and also Sephiroth is prone to violent outbursts (or he might outright ignore you) throughout.
#1:1st April - Dormitory 02-06 & Infirmary
All he could do, was lie there and remember.
First for the sleep paralysis and then for the total body numbness that plagued those who had already died numerous times during their tenancy within the Tower of Animus.
All successes, and their eventual failures played out in Sephiroth's mind as if stuck on repeat, digging into and turning within what was left of his sanity and then as if it wasn't enough he experienced the excruciating tearing, ripping and separation of that which made up his entire self as if in slow motion as Zo's barriers destroyed him. All of those fragments of memory which he kept so close to the centre of his ego, that made him who he had reconstructed himself to be, those lesser-important memories that he would sooner have forgotten, every single jarring experience that he'd been through since; torn to shreds as Zo harvested it all away like quickly pulling aged bandaids which removed too many layers of skin in the process. At the end, he had almost welcomed the oblivion that was sure to come; but it hadn't. The same old ceiling met his awakening eyes.
The recollection wasn't Sephiroth's only problem. As the numbness began to subside, an entirely more physical raw feeling came to light at his left forearm.
Once he turned his eyes to look, the sheet of his bed was already stained scarlet from the deep, bleeding rip in his Vessel which ran right up from wrist to elbow. The pain, Sephiroth could handle, though lacking much movement in his fingers made it difficult for him to rip up some of the bed sheet to use as a tourniquet before he might lose yet another Vessel through the blood loss alone; he wasn't healing on his own, this was an immediate concern. If only he could focus on what he was doing, rather than turning too much of his attention inwards, like a toxic drug drawn to what he had gone through. How far he had gone, and how far he had fallen.
The sparse drops of blood along the Hallways towards the Infirmary would give his presence there away later; half-propped, half-sat against the side of a guerney glaring at any worker unit that might dare to come close. Sephiroth was ambidextrous enough, but trying to stitch ones own weeping forearm back together with no surgical experience was no small feat on a good day. It wasn't a good day, he'd had shaking hands even before he had arrived in the Infirmary. His makeshift tourniquet kept slipping down a bicep that seemed to have a life of it's own with twitching, and he kept having to pull it up and tight again with his teeth. Bloody mess would be the operative word here.
#2: 7th - 12th April - Nightmares
Sephiroth had hardly spoken to anyone since he'd returned. There wasn't any need for explanations, yet some of the looks he might-be-but-probably-wasn't imagining surely demanded him for one. He ignored them. Too easily thoughts receded inside himself for hours, gripping at memories that he needed to cling to hardest to keep himself in any semblance of what he regarded as himself. Too easily they reverted to what had been his outcome. However he tried to swallow it like he had all of his bad experiences and eventually, by the start of the next week things seemed finally to be returning to normal. He felt the first sparks of pride over what he had managed to achieve.
But he was exhausted from not sleeping more than an hour at a time and sure enough the lethargy finally won out. He soon wished that it hadn't.
Every night his Dormitory would be disturbed almost without warning. Sephiroth would wake up from nightmares like he'd never imagined before. Always climaxing around the loss of himself; how Zo so easily ripped all that there was of him apart, how Ruana might eat those parts, how he had failed again and again. How his legacy was lost for good. He thought he only cried out in his dreams before being shocked awake but it wasn't so simple as all of that, and only got louder the longer it was before he woke up.
i) Dormitory Hallways
[He's decided not to return back to his Dormitory tonight. Despite the lethargy, the creeping exhaustion, even the lacking desire to hunt monsters so that he might on-the-off-chance sleep better, some habits die hard. Sephiroth patrols the Dormitory Hallways without even Masamune, or rather it's hollow-Glamour replica, manifested. His Fire Materia flickers where it is equipped to his right forearm with only a glimmer of his reset power. The caution that he usually holds around himself is seemingly non-existent; but it's not the arrogance in his strength against the monsters this time.]
ii) Infirmary - Fl 2
[No one hangs around the Infirmary at night time, this makes it a perfect time for Sephiroth to be able to draw the patience together to get the dressing around his left forearm removed, the literal rip through skin and tendons cleaned again and re-wrapped up. For a few hours on an evening Sephiroth will painstakingly do just that, except he doesn't accept any of the help from any worker nearby - determined to struggle on his own until it's done.]
iii) Graveyard - Fl 48
[Ganondorf Dragmire.
Sephiroth sits on the grass, with his back against the back of an adjacent headstone, facing the one representing one whom many would have called his leader. It hadn't been farther from the truth, but it's not that it matters now. He can't decide whether it's a good thing or not that the troll king hasn't been around for both his greatest triumph, and his greatest failure to date. His thoughts draw into the headstone as he stares unblinkingly forwards, running all of the plots they had enacted through his head; it certainly beat anything else he could think about in the silent dark. Maybe, just maybe there might be something he missed, some detail that he might be able now to focus on.]
iv) Lounge - Fl 81
[Closer to the first light of the morning, Sephiroth dozes in and out of consciousness with his legs curled into his chest in one of the larger armchairs. For the most part, when he his conscious enough he's glaring out of the fictitious window at the stars. When not, he forces himself out of slumber every time his head drops down; he doesn't want to sleep. Sleep will bring those memories back and it's also more dangerous on this floor than most due to the monsters.
Surely that threat will keep his consciousness from slipping- ]
#3: 9th April - Fl 5
It had been intended as a 'touch base' to a location that he had always frequented during his stay in the Tower. A place where he could sit and feel out the vast dead space that was Gaia and know it at it's basest; how utterly destroyed it was. To remind him what he had lost, and so keep him focused on the future.
Not so much this afternoon.
In a rage, Sephiroth had already overturned a few of the tables from within the other viewing stations and brought them all around his own monitor before setting it ablaze with a flash from his Materia. He stood around six feet away and glared into the monitor which refused to burn; it couldn't burn with his power only being over Glamour again but it didn't matter. The flames died down, he ignited them again, never letting his gaze leave that desolate wasteland forever portrayed there on the screen. He imagined it might be a tribute to the Nibelheim Incident, where he had first learned of the truth of his existence, and he let it hurt him all over again. It was a different pain, but a more comfortable one to the pain which his mind kept remembering. The fire burned against his eyes, made them water, but still he stood there observing.
#4: 12th April - Violet Collar check, Infirmary Fl 2
By the end of the week, there was at last one thing that Sephiroth was most certain about; He still needed to try.
Even if he doubted there was the time for him to transition back into real powers again, much less try to re-infect the Tower like he had, at the very least when the timer ran out he wouldn't be bound by at least a small part of the shackles that held him here. Perhaps his core alone would remember what to do when the power failed for good, he couldn't just give up on that chance. Zo wouldn't be there to rip him apart again, if the Tower failed. Call it the last chance that he was clinging to, that his nightmares still screamed at him was folly - Sephiroth could not allow himself to give up on himself.
And so he waited, in the waiting area of the Clinic, early after the collar check had been announced. Fully intent to indicate with his slip of paper, to the worker unit who would be on duty, that he was to have the altered collar fluid once more. He would be saying goodbye to even his Glamoured abilities again, for a while and perhaps for the last time, but at least the rip behind the dressing to his arm was finally starting to scar over.
no subject
The voice he heard was blurred around the edges of his perception, flashed a stolen memory to the foreground of the space behind his eyes and sounded entirely like perhaps he had half-dreamed it.
'Hey, are you doing OK?' No, that was the wrong space and time, that world was dead.
"Hm.." He answered it, clinging onto the disgruntled noise from himself as it hauled his consciousness in the direction of the bearer of the question. Sephiroth tipped his head to one side against the inside back of the chair and peered, heavy-lidded, around his legs which he moved both to the side more so that he could easier see her. The violet of his collar was the most colorful thing about him, all pale greys and greasy silver almost as if the shade itself were draining the hue out of his usually moreso-vibrant green eyes.
Arturia. He blinked slowly, as if dismissing the image of her from the dream he still half suspected he was caught in. When that didn't work he closed and scrunched his eyes a fraction tighter to then try again; then resolved that it if was the Tower trying to play more tricks with him there wasn't much he could do about it. His mouth curled into what would have been a scowl if he'd have had any of the energy or will to form one convincingly, it was more of a tired grimace which didn't hold on his face for long before dropping away.
"...what a loaded question. You know that nothing is 'all right'."
If the entire way he was sunk into the armchair didn't give away his demeanor well enough, the roughened tone he spoke with would do it.
no subject
She approached him then, unafraid and unconcerned given his lethargy and how dressed down he was. He was not a threat and what she knew of the man he would not go around like this without a reason to. What warrior would unless they were truly exhausted down to their soul? Even she, when the Tower had broken her down to her worst and she'd temporarily wiped her own memory, had taken precaution upon precaution against being caught off guard.
"Are you trying to rest or stay awake?"
no subject
As such, Sephiroth only heard the last part of Arturia's question.
"Stay awake? Hm." He stopped his head from falling down once more and blinked a couple of more times in the direction of the other warrior. As that was what she was, after all, and it wasn't ever more obvious to him now than in this moment when he was so unequipped.
no subject
"....I can guard you if you wish to rest," she offered, because it wouldn't be right to leave him here if he needed to rest. She might've been able to drag him around when she saved him down in the labyrinth, but to the elevator and to his rooms was another matter entirely. For one, she didn't have the adrenaline or her full strength just yet. For another, she didn't think he'd take kindly to being dragged when it wasn't a life or death situation.
no subject
Sephiroth swallowed a dry lump that was starting to take over the inside of his mouth.
"-take me."
He succeeded at least in sitting more upright, however for a moment the room tilted with the heaviness of the sleep that needed to come but he wouldn't let it. Sephiroth rolled his silver head around against the back of the chair, from side to side, to stubbornly shake off the rest of this feeling.
"You always guard me-" Between the dry, huskier sound that was his voice and the lethargy defining it that sounded like half of a question. Indeed, he did remember that Arturia had saved his life and then guarded him for the days after Jason's death as well.
no subject
"Rest. It would not be right for anyone to hurt you now, like this. I will make sure no one takes you." Except the Administrators, but Arturia knew now they could simply take them without anyone knowing. She could blink and either Sephiroth or she could be elsewhere at their mercy.
But from the others trapped within the confines of this Tower? She could protect him from them.
no subject
He had come so far with that, and now to have fallen not only so very far but to have shattered some on impact with the ground.
Eyes closed. He breathed heavy for a few and then forced his eyes back open again. In that time, which seemed like an eternity, Arturia had moved into a seat that -he was sure- hadn't been that near to him a moment ago. Sephiroth studied her face within hardly-open slits of eyes.
"You don't understand." He managed to mutter, then dropped his legs finally off the end of the chair. The only problem was that the movement then reclined him even further into the armchair, so stubbornly Sephiroth propped elbows against the arms of the chair to pull himself more upright again. "I don't want to sleep. That's why I came to this-"
Sephiroth grunted back a yawn, managing to crush it mostly in his throat. "-this floor."
If he was concerned about what other residents of the Tower might do to him after his little stunt, Sephiroth wasn't showing it. He was much too concerned with trying to bury his own personal trauma in regards to it.
Sorry for the shortness.
no worries, sometimes shorter is better!
He blinked a few more times, fighting the urge to pass out and kept his gaze on Arturia as a way to root himself into wakefulness. He doesn't have any reason to share anything of himself to her, but maybe, just maybe he'd started to reach the end of his stubborn closed-off temperament. More likely, he was too exhausted to put up much of a fight in that regard in this instance.
Engaging her right now certainly seemed the better option to letting those nightmares take him.
no subject
Something he surely already knew, but with how exhausted he seemed, she did not think he would be at his best mentally.
"That said, yes. This is a nice floor for watching outside. It has the best view of any of them."
no subject
Heavy eyes followed his heavily bandaged left forearm as it was raised to show Arturia, before dragging his gaze back across to her again. "-now I'm supposed to consider it lucky to be put back together correctly, at all."
"As for this floor, you know that it does not reflect the reality of outside." His tired tone only enhanced the deadpan nature of his tone, though he seemed for the moment to be less likely to fall asleep. Until the next wave of lethargy would come, perhaps. This was the floor on which Sephiroth had been on when the Glamour had first failed; he'd punched into the metal wall that had been a window enough times to have broken his hand.
no subject
But what did he mean by 'with each death'? Surely he knew each time they died here they were brought closer to oblivion, their souls falling apart as they were brought back to life. Did he not get that? Or worse: what if Ruana decided to swallow down someone's soul instead of bringing them back? Death was now even riskier than before with her bringing them back to life.
"Yes, you are. Because our only other options are oblivion or being consumed."
no subject
How bitter it felt now, to be the one without his real powers once more when he was a large part of the reason that others' enjoyed such luxury. If the countdown were to mean the end of his existence, he would never again feel such power as he had when he had shed his Vessel - Sephiroth couldn't even bring himself to accept that it was worth it, as the victim of such nightmares that had plagued him since.
As for the consequences of recurring deaths, and souls falling apart as a result, Sephiroth had never learned. Much less inquired with anyone in the aftermath of his multiple deaths in the Tower. He knew only that each time he pushed at the cage he was contained in and that he had developed an increased numbness each time - hardly something to be concerned with when the freedom he had worked towards would have canceled out all detriment. The freedom he had grasped tightly only to have it ripped apart from inside him by Zo. After Arturia's comment, it was these thoughts which made Sephiroth visibly shiver; he folded his arms once more into his abdomen to try to hide it and swallowed again that sickly feeling of utter failure, his vision slipping out of focus for that moment.
"Oblivion on all sides, no matter which way to turn."
He muttered more to himself than to Arturia directly, he didn't even want to think about Ruana even touching his core in the way she had undoubtedly. She wasn't worthy of Mother's power, not a fraction of it.
no subject
That was what this boiled down to. If they did not stop Ruana, if they did not stop the countdown, then who knows what the woman might do? She would not stop at simply taking energy from those trapped on their dead worlds. If the Tower were repowered, she would no doubt begin this process all over again. For all they knew, this was not the first time Ruana had done so. How many Zeldas had been here over the centuries? How many Johns and Xions and Enochs and Shirous and Rins? How many Ganondorfs and Richtofens and Yukikos?
"Oblivion or not, I thought you, given all you have done during your tenure here, would not give up on fighting for yourself."
no subject
Sephiroth's eyes felt heavier again as he regarded Arturia, and when she split into two in his dazed vision he blinked heavily to make her as one again. All this talk of the aid of others, of others' souls that he did not care for, he would have sneered at it had he the energy to do so.
"-I don't want to meet Oblivion at all. I can't allow it, not after everything. My Legacy has to carry on."
He rolled his head again along the back of the chair whilst looking away from Arturia once more. His tone, where he had always been so carefully guarded in what he revealed of himself beforehand, was clearly laced with his own sense of self-importance. There was little point now, pretending to cooperate, tolerating those which he shouldn't ever have. However mumbled some of the words came out, Sephiroth still continued
"But it can't, it's over. Only I had been fooling myself into thinking that it could keep going. That I could make it." He curled his legs up onto the armchair once more, into his chest almost in a protective position, as if to dispel her words that tore at his core like a clawed vice. Like that boy had done. "Even when there is nothing left to fight for."
"Fight for myself, you say. Is all I've ever done and it's not been enough."