#sephirothweek2025

Steam rose from the bowls like ghostly ribbons, fragrant with roasted pumpkin and faint traces of nutmeg. Once an empty shell of white walls and metal trim, the apartment had softened.

Warm light washed over red and black abstract paintings, a blanket draped over the back of a gray couch, and fake ivy curling across a bookshelf. The hum of the city below filtered through the window glass, but in here, it was quiet.

Sephiroth sat rigid in his chair, posture perfect as always. The spoon in his hand hovered midair, a still extension of his composure. He was dressed in his usual black: high boots polished to a dull sheen, trousers creased, long coat unbuckled to reveal the crossed leather suspenders over his chest. The silver pauldrons caught the firelight, throwing muted gold along the floorboards.

The fire crackled low in the hearth.

Bianca lay sprawled on the rug before it, propped on her elbows. Her dark hair spilled around her shoulders, the white ribbon in her ponytail catching a flicker of orange light. Indigo eyes, feline and bright, reflected the warmth like gemstones.

Her skirt shifted as she moved. Pleated black fabric brushed her thighs, paired with miss-matched socks and the faint leather gleam of her Shinra belly guard. The red turtleneck hugged her frame. Her sleeves pushed to her elbows, as she refused to go sleeveless like other peers.

A wing feather drifted loose from her folded wings and landed near Sephiroth’s boot. He didn’t move to brush it away.

“You’re staring again,” Bianca murmured, voice smooth as wine.

“I am observing,” he corrected, though his tone betrayed a sliver of embarrassment.

She smiled faintly, drawing her spoon through her soup. “Same thing.”

Sephiroth finally took a measured bite. The soup was smooth: silken pumpkin, subtle salt, and something faintly sweet. He didn’t admit to liking it or why he liked it, though Bianca already knew. She always knew. Bianca had been with him after everything: Rosen, Glenn and the others chosen to save a dog over him, and Alissa.

The faint glow of the Red Thread pulsed between their wrists. It shimmered where it touched his flesh and her pale skin, a heartbeat made visible between them.

Bianca blew on her spoon and said softly, “You know, when I first got here, this place felt like a waiting room for ghosts.”

He looked around at the small signs of her—her drawings sprawled on the floor before her, the feathered charm dangling from the window latch, and her boots kicked aside near the door. “It is less sterile now.”

She grinned at the understatement. “You mean I cluttered it.”

“You humanized it.”

“Hmm,” she hummed, pleased, as she rested her chin on her hand. “I’ll take that as a compliment.”

The fire shifted, popping sharply. He glanced toward it, instinctively evaluating the burn pattern, and the way the heat moved across the room. Old habits of control and vigilance lingered like ghosts in his mind. Bianca’s bright, unpredictable presence cut through that.

She wasn’t chaos in the way Shinra had described her. She was life. Messy, brilliant, uncontainable.

Her indigo and charcoal-colored wings rustled faintly as she stretched them, catching a current of warm air from the fire. The feathers shimmered where the light hit. Indigo deepened to black, edged in soft violet. Sephiroth found his gaze drawn to them before he forced it back to his soup.

Bianca noticed anyway. “You can touch them, you know,” she said quietly. "You don't have to just feel them when you preen me."

His jaw tightened. “You know I—”

“—don’t like touch. Yes. But I didn’t say I’d touch you. I said you could touch them.”

He hesitated. The thread between them pulsed faintly. Affection mingled with restraint. Her offer wasn’t casual. She knew his boundaries better than anyone; he, hers. Carefully, he set down his spoon and reached toward her.

His fingertips brushed the outer edge of a feather. Silken. Warm. A faint hum rippled beneath, like energy sleeping under her skin. He withdrew quickly, as if afraid to mar the softness.

He looked at her then, truly looked, as he did when he agreed to the farce of their marriage: her dark lashes, the glint of her fangs when she spoke, and the fire painting gold across the planes of her face. For all her strength, she was soft tonight. Unarmed. Vulnerable. Beautiful.

The thread brightened, a flush of red light between them before settling again.

Bianca sighed and leaned back on her palms. “You’re thinking too much again.”

“I often do.”

“That’s not an excuse,” she said, as she tilted her head toward him. “What are you thinking?”

He considered lying. Then didn’t. “That this—” his gaze flicked around the room, to the bowls, the couch, the feather by his boot “—still feels unnatural to me. Despite that we have been together since we were children.”

Her brows lifted, but she didn’t look hurt.

That was the thing with Bianca, he thought. She hid her feelings and pain beneath her chaotic nature, a way to cope from the horrors of their youth. A bright smile to explain why the closet of her apartment felt safer and like the tiny room they with no windows Hojo forced them to stay in on the R&D floor. How sweat lined her brow when he would take her to the infirmary. A trembling hand gripping her tachi when she thought danger was looming. The request to be held when the Abyss and nightmares closed in and she snuck into his room and bed.

“Unnatural, how?” Bianca asked.

“I was trained to exist in purpose. In function. Routine. Rest is foreign.”

Bianca dipped her spoon back into the soup, and her wings folded tight. “You deserve foreign things sometimes.”

He didn’t answer, but she caught the faint flicker of discomfort through their bond. A soft tug of emotion: a tension she’d learned not to press too hard.

Instead, she said lightly, “Pumpkin’s supposed to ground you. Zack told me that once. Said it keeps people from floating off the Planet.”

Sephiroth almost smiled. Almost. “Zack’s understanding of metaphysics is imaginative.”

“That’s what makes him right half the time,” she said, taking another spoonful. “You need grounding too. Don’t pretend you don’t.”

He looked at his untouched bowl, then at the faint red glow circling her wrist. “You believe that’s what you are for me.”

Bianca met his eyes, unwavering. “No. I believe that’s what we are for each other.”

The thread shimmered again, wrapping softly around their wrists, looping once into several heart-shapes as though it approved.

For a while, they ate in silence. The kind that didn’t need to be filled.

Firelight flickered across Sephiroth’s hair, the silvery-grey catching every movement. Bianca watched him, not with worship or fear, but a quiet recognition that came from years of shared survival.

She had seen him at his calmest, and most brutal, his silence, his grief, and his storms. Tonight, she saw neither. Just a man trying to relearn peace in the only way he could.

When she finished, Bianca set her bowl aside and leaned closer to the fire.

“It’s so strange,” she murmured, voice barely above the crackle of flame. “All those years under Hojo, the loss of our children, my blood harvested, I thought warmth like this didn’t exist. That I was just a number. Just N01. And now it’s just here.”

His heart clenched when she mentioned their many miscarriages. Hojo had authorized the breeding project to forge a new kind of being: one that held his cells and her angelic heritage. It would seem that it was harder to produce Nephilim than the Professor thought.

Sephiroth rested a gloved hand on his knee, watching her profile. “You made it home.”

She turned, caught by surprise. “You think so?”

“Yes,” he said simply. “You changed the temperature of this place.”

Her laugh was quiet and genuine. “That might be the most poetic way you’ve ever said I made a mess.”

A faint huff escaped him: his version of amusement. “Possibly.”

She shifted closer, careful not to touch him directly. The thread compensated for it anyway, tightening faintly, and drawing their energies nearer.

He could feel her presence even without contact: her steady heartbeat, the warmth radiating through her wings, and the faint scent of cinnamon and ozone—the scent after a storm—she always carried.

“Do you ever regret it?” she asked suddenly. “All of it. The way we ended up here instead of somewhere else?”

He didn’t need to ask what she meant. Fate had never been kind to them. Memories flashed within his mind: him holding her organs in after her first vivisection when he was thirteen. After the scientists dumped her into their room, he had laid beside her that night with the ratty blanket beneath her. Sephiroth thought she was going to die, but to his amazement, her skin started to stitch itself together. Was that when she became irreplaceable to him?

“No,” he said after a long pause. “I do not regret the path.”

Bianca swallowed, her eyes glistening with something that wasn’t sadness, not quite. “You always say things like that right when I’m trying not to cry.”

“I wasn’t aware that was a risk.”

“Liar,” she whispered, smiling.

He inclined his head, conceding.

The fire dimmed to embers. Sephiroth reached forward with a long iron poker, nudging a log into place with meticulous precision. Sparks leapt up briefly, racing in a line along the cracked, smoking wood.

Bianca drew her knees to her chest, resting her chin atop them. “You don’t have to hold yourself like that all the time, you know.”

He glanced down at her. “Like what?”

“Like you’re in armor, even without it.”

He didn’t respond. He didn’t know how to. But he knew she didn’t expect him to.

Instead, she reached out slowly, letting her hand hover near his on the armrest. Not touching. Just there. The thread shimmered brighter, again.

He felt the warmth through it.

For a long while, neither of them moved. The hum of the fire, the faint city wind, the quiet between heartbeats whispered around them. It all folded into something almost sacred. Almost comforting. Almost—

Bianca broke the silence first. “You’re going to let me braid your hair again tomorrow, right?”

A quiet exhale that might’ve been a sigh. “If it pleases you.”

“It does,” she said, and leaned back, satisfied.

Sephiroth picked up his spoon again. The soup had gone lukewarm, but he finished it anyway. He didn’t particularly care for rituals of comfort, but this one. This felt different. The soup reminded him of them and, after them, her.

As the last of the fire settled into a dull orange glow, Sephiroth’s gaze drifted toward Bianca once more. She had shifted onto her side, eyes half-lidded, the faintest chirp vibrating in her throat: a sound of contentment she made only when she felt safe.

It caught him off guard every time.

He didn’t move closer. He didn’t speak. But in his chest, something unfamiliar loosened: a quiet acceptance that this, too, was strength. The Red Thread glowed one last time faint and steady, like the pulse of a sleeping heart.

@themaradwrites @craftyhal @kitcatling @prehistoric-creatures @creativechaosqueen

@chickensarentcheap @inkandimpressions @arrthurpendragon @projecthypocrisy @beyondnibelheim

The Shinra Building slept uneasily.

Metal groaned somewhere above, the sound carrying down seventy floors of glass and steel like the breath of a restless beast. A low hum threaded through the air: the steady thrum of mako conduits deep within the walls, alive and pulsing, a heartbeat for the empire that fed upon it. Sephiroth stood in the dim corridor of the executive wing, as he always did. His silhouette tall against the faint green glow that seeped through the vents.

The building was on lockdown. Red warning lights burned intermittently along the walls, flickering like slow, uncertain flames.

Somewhere beyond, alarms muttered in soft tones: restrained, almost polite. The intruder was still contained in the lower levels, yet the tension in the air coiled tight, like the instant before lightning strikes.

His hand wrapped around the hilt of the Masamune. The steel was cold, yet comforting; a promise of control amid chaos. He listened. His breath slow as he closed his eyes for a moment.

The vibrations in the floor, the subtle flicker in the power grid, even the change in the air pressure. All of it spoke to him. But beneath those physical currents was another, more intimate pulse: the Red String of Fate.

It tugged warmly and faintly against his wrist. Its presence was something that he grew familiar with long ago, as it had always been there.

Bianca.

Her presence shimmered against the edge of his awareness like candlelight through fog. Her emotions were muted but tangible: fatigue, discomfort, and the steady rhythm of her breath strained by something unspoken. The tug deepened: a whisper that felt less like pain and more like the body’s plea for gentleness.

He frowned slightly.

She was strong: stronger than any humans and many gods. Yet through their bond, something fragile pressed through tonight. The Red Thread pulsed once, tightening, and Sephiroth turned sharply. His long coat whispered behind him as he moved and searched for his wayward wife. They had married the previous week in a ceremony that was for Shinra and not themselves.

He found her two corridors down, in one of the narrow auxiliary passageways used by high-ranking SOLDIERs. The lights here flickered faintly, as green merging with sterile white.

Bianca stood braced against the wall, one hand resting just below her ribs, and her other pressed to the cool metal panel beside her.

Her wings folded close and shivered faintly with each breath.

She wore her crimson turtleneck, the Shinra insignia glinting faintly beneath the harsh lights, her brown suspenders strapped horizontally across her torso. She did not wear them like he did, crossed over his chest.

Her skirt brushed her thighs with each slow movement, and the black leather of her boots gleamed faintly with reflected emergency light. Strands of her dark hair had escaped their ribbon, curling damply against her cheek.

When she looked up, her indigo eyes met his. Her pupils narrowed to slits, as he stood there: tall and imposing amidst the pulsing green light.

“I’ll be fine,” she murmured softly, her voice steady but tired. “Just . . .tired.”

Sephiroth’s gaze traced her face: the pallor beneath her makeup, the faint tremor in her hand. There was a sheen of sweat at her temple. She bit her lower lip unconsciously, a nervous habit he recognized, and his chest tightened in response to it.

More than tiredness, he thought.

He stepped closer, the soles of his boots silent against the floor. “You are pale,” he observed, tone even but weighted. "Again."

She exhaled, a shaky little laugh. “Long day.”

The faintest flicker of nausea rippled through their bond, brushing against his chest like static. It wasn’t sharp enough to incapacitate her, but it was there.

Beneath it, something warmer, heavier: a subtle ache low in her body that translated through the thread as a pressure against his ribs. He masked the flicker of concern, shifting slightly to position himself between her and the end of the corridor.

The smell of disinfectant hung heavy in the air, mixing with the bitter aroma of brewed coffee wafting from an open office down the hall.

Bianca wrinkled her nose. The motion so small that most would have missed it. But Sephiroth noticed. He always noticed. Her wings twitched once, feathers rustling, and her expression pinched as though the scent itself scraped across her nerves.

“You dislike the smell,” he said quietly.

Her lips twitched. “You could say that.”

The Red Thread pulsed faintly in agreement. Warmth bloomed where it touched his skin.

A low tone interrupted them: an alert chiming in Sephiroth’s earpiece.

“Containment breach detected,” the robotic voice announced. “Specimen. Unidentified. Sector sixty-seven. All personnel to designated lockdown zones.”

Bianca’s breath hitched. The faint glow of the alarm light bled over her face, tinting her features scarlet. Sephiroth turned his head toward the direction of the alert. His mind already calculating distance and response, yet that tug from the thread persisted: a faint pulse of distress from her side.

“Stay behind me,” he said, not a command but a quiet certainty.

She arched a brow. “You know I don’t—”

“Bianca.” His tone softened just enough to silence her.

For a moment, she looked as though she might argue. Then she pressed her lips together and nodded once, shifting closer. The warmth of her aura brushed faintly against his, a quiet shimmer of celestial and infernal energies intertwined. He could feel the tremor in her frame—subtle but there—her breath quickening slightly as they moved toward the elevator access.

The freight lift to Hojo’s laboratory creaked open when Sephiroth keyed in the override. The metallic scent grew stronger as they descended, mingled with the hum of mako tanks and ozone. Bianca’s expression tightened. She pressed her knuckles briefly against her mouth as though steadying herself but concealing the small, gagging sounds she made.

When the lift stopped, a dense silence met them.

Floor 66. Hojo’s laboratory.

The lights flickered overhead, casting long, shifting shadows over the glass containment pods lining the corridor. Each held its own quiet horror: shapes that had once been animals, now suspended in pale fluid. Wires threaded through translucent skin. The smell of sterilization fluid and burnt ozone was thick enough to taste.

Bianca’s breath came shallow. “Something’s wrong,” she whispered.

Sephiroth didn’t need to be told. He could feel it. The air was alive with an unfamiliar vibration, a frequency that made the mako conduits tremble. Somewhere down the hall, a metallic crash echoed. It was followed by a low, wet growl that didn’t belong to anything human.

When it came into view, even Sephiroth paused.

The creature was a grotesque fusion of flesh and shadow: humanoid only in the vaguest outline. Its body shimmered with iridescent veins of glowing, emerald mako and something darker. Black fluid seeped from cracks in its hide and puddled onto the floor.

Multiple eyes blinked across its shoulders and back: some glowing blue, others red, each focused on a different direction. Never blinking. From its spine unfurled a pair of fetid wings. They were not feathered like Bianca's but slick with residue. Each movement accompanied by a stench like burning chemicals.

The scent hit Bianca first. She inhaled sharply. Her own wings twitched, as she almost backed away.

"Stay close," Sephiroth ordered.

"That thing,” she whispered, as her voice cracked like thunder breaking the calm. “It carries the same blood. Mine. But mixed with something else.”

The creature’s head snapped toward them, and it howled.

The sound tore through the corridor like a blade through glass: raw, metallic, resonant enough to make the mako conduits shudder and pause. The vibration crawled down Sephiroth’s spine, a low buzz blooming behind his temples.

His enhanced senses reeled under the assault. Even the Masamune’s metal hummed faintly, sympathetic to the frequency. Bianca flinched. She folded slightly. Her hand pressed to her abdomen as the howl raked through the air again. Higher, shriller, wrong.

Sephiroth caught her before she could stumble. His arm circled her waist with the ease of instinct. Her breath trembled against his chest for a heartbeat before he spoke, calmly, steady, and a still point in the chaos. “I’ve got you.”

The Red String burned faintly around his wrist, carrying the pulse of her distress through him. Then he released her with deliberate precision, stepping forward as the lights flickered overhead. His voice dropped into command-channel calm.

“All lower-ranked SOLDIER units failed containment,” he said into the comm. “I, Sephiroth, am engaging.”

The howl came again closer this time, shattering glass along the corridor. Sephiroth raised his blade, the Masamune gleaming with reflected mako light near the left side of his face and shoulder.

“Stay back,” he told Bianca. “It reacts to movement.”

Then he moved: fluid, lethal, a whisper of silver and shadow. The creature lunged. Claws dripped with black ichor. Its fetid wings battered the air. Each step it took reverberated through the metal flooring. Its eyes pulsed like dying stars. Each resembled Bianca and his eyes.

Sephiroth met it head-on.

He blurred forward in a flash of motion, striking quickly. Eight slashes fell in rapid succession. Each so fast that the very air itself seemed to tear.

The creature shrieked and howled at once. Its cry rose into a psychic pitch that sent sparks across the walls and static through Sephiroth’s mind. For a heartbeat his vision fractured. The world reduced to pulsing color, and Bianca’s aura a faint glimmer in the haze. He forced focus through sheer will, driving a booted heel into the floor to anchor himself.

“Enough.”

His palm turned upward. A circle of red materia flared at his belt. Heat rippled through the air as a fireball hovered over his palm, growing in strength and size. The fire burst forth in a precise, searing arc, engulfing the creature in a tide of molten light.

It screamed: a sound that shifted instantly back into that same, bone-shaking howl. Its flesh slouched off, blackening and charring like burnt chicken skin. The burnt stench wafted between the creature and them.

The psychic frequency slammed into him again and was sharper this time, buzzing like hornets under his skull. He gritted his teeth, pushing through the distortion. He’d endured worse in the mako chambers and Professor Hojo during training. He would not falter now.

Behind him, he felt Bianca’s aura flicker with nausea. Her breath caught audibly. He adjusted his stance instinctively to shield her from the worst of the reverberations, angling his blade to reflect the blast of heat and sound. His hair whipped around his face and against his back and shoulders, as the Masamune bent the sound around them.

The creature lurched forward. Its half-melted wings flapped weakly, and its body dripped with smoldering residue. Sephiroth moved again. Smooth and as quick as an exhale: one clean arc of motion. Silver sliced through the vibrating dark. The blade cleaved deep, meeting flesh, muscle, and bone, cutting through core and shadow alike.

Its final howl was deafening: an unholy wail that rolled through the floor and up the walls, making every glass cylinder shiver.

Bianca’s wings flared reflexively. Her feathers rattled, as her hand pressed hard to her lower ribs as if steadying herself against the invisible pressure.

Then the sound broke.

The creature collapsed in on itself. Black fluid hissed as it met the floor. The lights overhead steadied. The psychic buzz faded from Sephiroth’s mind, leaving only the quiet hum of mako and the faint rasp of Bianca’s uneven breathing behind him.

Through the Red Thread, he felt it again. Her nausea sharpened, and her pulse uneven: a illness he had felt since Angeal's Day of Remembrance a month ago.

He forced his movements to remain precise despite the awareness clawing at his focus. He ended the monster with one clean strike now. The blade tore through core. The body split with a wet, final sound before collapsing in a heap of hissing flesh.

For a long moment, the only sound was the distant hum of the mako tanks. Then the sirens dimmed. The air, though still thick with iron and ozone, began to settle, as its body started to fade out into tiny motes of green light.

Sephiroth turned.

Bianca stood against the wall. One hand pressed to her chest, and the other resting low on her abdomen. Her wings trembled faintly, feathers ruffled. Her eyes found his: dazed but aware.

“It’s over,” he said quietly, as he dismissed the Masamune. The blade slowly disappeared when purple mist moved along its form.

She nodded, but her response was delayed.

“That. . .thing. . . ” She swallowed hard, as the color drained from her cheeks. “It was part of Project N, wasn’t it? Part of us.”

He didn’t answer.

Her body swayed slightly, and before thought could intervene, he was beside her again. One arm steadied her by the shoulders. She tensed briefly, then exhaled, and leaned into the contact just enough for him to feel the minute tremor running through her frame.

“I’m fine,” she murmured again, but her voice had softened, unraveling at the edges.

“You are not,” he said simply.

Her lips parted to argue, then closed. Instead, she let him guide her away from the laboratory, through the silent hallways and up the freight lift toward the quieter executive floors.

Each level they descended seemed to leach a little of the tension from her body, though he could still feel the strain humming faintly through their connection: an ache, a fatigue that refused to fade.

When they stepped into one of the smaller rest quarters near the 59th floor, the sudden stillness enveloped them. The room was modest by Shinra’s standards: a small couch, a table, and soft light filtering through glass panels.

Outside, the city shimmered beneath a dark sky. Midgar's reactors glowed faintly with emerald light, a beacon against the night.

Bianca sank onto the couch, exhaling. Her wings folded tightly around her. The feathers dimmed to a dusky hue.

Sephiroth remained standing for a moment. After a pause that might have been hesitation, he knelt before her.

Her hands were clasped together in her lap. Her knuckles were pale. He reached out, the leather of his gloves creaked faintly as his fingers brushed her wrist. The Red Thread glowed faintly between them beneath his glove and around her flesh, warmth radiating in the space where string met skin.

“You are trembling,” he said quietly: a bit too quiet.

“I’m tired.” Her tone was soft, but something beneath it carried a note of vulnerability she rarely allowed anyone to hear. These were moments only Sephiroth witnessed.

“It’s been a long day, and my body’s just—”

She stopped, grimacing faintly as another wave of discomfort rippled through her. Her hand shifted instinctively toward her lower abdomen. “It’s nothing serious.”

Through the bond, he felt it again: not pain, exactly, but heaviness. It was a quiet, deep strain that seemed to draw energy from her very bones.

He studied her face: the faint shadows beneath her eyes, the pallor at her lips, and the way her breathing caught just slightly after each exhale. He had seen her after illnesses, after torture, but he had never seen her like this.

“You have overexerted yourself,” he said.

Bianca smiled faintly, the curve of it weary but sincere. “You sound like Zack.”

He didn’t return the smile. “Zack does not carry command authority quite like I do.”

That earned a soft chuckle from her, but it quickly faded as she leaned back, eyes closing. A lock of her black-and-indigo hair fell forward. He reached without thinking, brushing it aside with the backs of his fingers. Her scent lingered faintly in the air—something like pumpkin spice—threading with the faint chemical sweetness of mako.

Her breathing evened out gradually, but he could still sense the discomfort underneath. Through the Red String, it pressed against him like a low hum. He found himself matching her slow and delibrate rhythm, until the pulse of the thread steadied.

Minutes passed in silence. The only sound was the faint whir of the building’s systems and the occasional creak of the wind against the windows.

When she finally spoke, her voice was soft, almost drowsy. “You shouldn’t worry so much.”

“I do not,” he said automatically.

Her lips curved again, just barely. “Liar.”

He said nothing.

She opened her eyes then, and their indigo depths reflected the faint green light filtering from the city below.

“You always try to carry everything alone,” she whispered. “Even me.”

He met her gaze, expression unreadable. “You are not a burden.”

Her fingers brushed against his, the contact feather-light. “Then stop treating me like glass.”

He did not withdraw.

“You are not glass,” he said quietly, “but you are breakable.”

The words hung between them. It was just the unadorned truth. Bianca looked at him for a long time, something unreadable flickering behind her tired eyes. Then she leaned forward, resting her forehead briefly against his shoulder. It was a gesture so small, so tentative, that he might have missed it had he not felt the surge through the Red Thread: the warmth, the ache, the quiet gratitude.

His hand lifted slightly, hovering just above her back. Then he allowed it to rest there, a careful weight, steady and grounding. Her wings relaxed beneath his palm, as the feathers rustled softly.

Outside, another storm began to gather over Midgar. It seemed to rain wherever Bianca was. Distant thunder rolled across the skyline, the scent of ozone filtering in through the vents. Bianca’s breathing deepened, and her body finally loosened the last of its tension.

Sephiroth watched her in silence. Her pallor remained, and the faint sheen of exhaustion clung to her, but there was a softness in her expression now: a quiet peace that made something in his chest ease. The Red String pulsed once more. Slow and certain.

Even when she had morning sickness and weakness from their previous failed pregnancies, Sephiroth did not understand what had unsettled her body tonight. Whether it was stress, exhaustion, or something quieter and deeper blooming remained unseen. But he knew one thing. Whatever it was, he would not allow it to break her.

His gaze lingered on her profile, as the faint color returned to her cheeks and the way her lashes trembled. She drifted near sleep. For a moment, the chaos of Shinra and the horrors of Hojo’s work faded to insignificance. There was only this room, the quiet surrounding them, and the heartbeat tethered to his own.

When she stirred, murmuring something too soft to catch, he whispered the same words he had spoken in the lab, softer this time, meant only for her, as he had grown much softer this last month. “I’ve got you.”

The Red Thread glowed faintly in reply.

And though he would never name what he felt—not yet but soon—the warmth that lingered in his chest as the storm gathered outside was proof enough that it was real.

Whatever this was, he thought as he watched her hand unconsciously press to her abdomen, her lips parted in a sigh of relief.

Whatever this is, he continued his thought, I will not let it break her. Not now. Not ever.

@themaradwrites @craftyhal @kitcatling @prehistoric-creatures @creativechaosqueen

@chickensarentcheap @inkandimpressions @arrthurpendragon @projecthypocrisy @beyondnibelheim

Light seeped slowly into the Shinra Building, gilding the lobby’s marble floors with a pale reflection of sunrise. The dawn light poured through the glass façade, cutting through the last of the night’s shadow, turning the white marble into gold. The chandeliers above, hanging three stories high, flickered to life in intervals: a soft hum of electricity preceding the warm glow of light cascading across banners embroidered with Shinra’s insignia.

The air smelled faintly of steel polish, sterilized air filters, and the distant bitterness of brewing coffee, a sterile peace before the day’s orders began. The polished floor reflected the slow movement of troopers and staff trickling in, their footsteps echoing like metronomes in the cavernous quiet.

Sephiroth stood near the reception desk, posture flawless as always. His hands were clasped neatly behind his back, shoulders squared beneath his long black coat. Today, he had left the apartment without his pauldrons, as thoughts pressed down upon him. This was not like him.

His coat whispered faintly when he shifted, the smooth weight of the leather tracing his form in disciplined stillness. The faint scent of ozone followed him: sharp and clean, like the promise of a coming storm.

His cyan eyes were cool and unblinking, scanning the lobby without truly seeing it, as though his attention was elsewhere and was drawn by the thin, unseen thread that connected him to the woman sitting a few feet away.

Zack Fair sat sprawled across from him, bright-eyed and far less formal. He was halfway through a breakfast sandwich—triple meat and egg—that seemed almost comically large for even his appetite. The younger SOLDIER’s black hair caught the light in wild spikes, his uniform crisp but the turtleneck rumbled just before his brown, leather belly guard with Shinra's logo engraved upon it. He swung one leg idly as he ate, cheerful despite the hour, the mako in his eyes glinting with good humor.

Between them, Bianca perched on a low sofa, cross-legged, a paper cup of coffee held delicately between her hands. A small napkin rested in her lap with a single donut. It was barely touched with some of its powdered sugar dusting her fingertips.

She looked delicate this morning, he thought. Too delicate. Her wings were folded tightly against her back, a tale-tell sign she didn't feel good. The indigo and black feathers overlapped with meticulous precision, as though she feared a single tremor might cause her to unravel.

Her waist-length black hair, streaked with indigo, flowed down her back. Half of the locks were tied high with a white ribbon that had loosened over the course of the early morning. A few tendrils framed her face, clinging to her pale cheeks. Her indigo eyes shimmered faintly beneath the overhead lights. Feline pupils, like Sephiroth's, narrowed at the brightness. A faint shimmer of exhaustion clung to her like a veil. Even her lips, usually quick to smirk, seemed dulled.

Zack grinned around another mouthful. “You’re eating like a bird, B. You need real breakfast if you’re joining drills.”

Bianca smiled faintly, her tone soft and teasing. “Don’t mock the donut, Fair. It’s all that stands between me and insurrection.”

The sound of her voice was light, but Sephiroth could hear the faint rasp beneath it.

Zack laughed, the sound echoing faintly across the empty space. But Sephiroth’s attention didn’t waver from her. He could feel her unease as a subtle tremor beneath his own skin: the thread between them whispering something unspoken. She hadn’t touched the donut again. Since the memorial that SOLDIER held for Shinra a month ago, she ate tiny amounts, but he couldn't blame her. He was doing the exact same thing: not eating.

Her hands, slender and pale, trembled slightly around the cup.

A flicker of sharp and unsteady nausea moved through her aura. Through the red thread that bound them, the sensation reached him like a ghost pain. His stomach tightening, balance momentarily off-kilter.

The nausea came on in waves: uneven, foreign, yet piercingly real. It wasn’t his body that rebelled, but it felt as though it were: a tightening deep in his abdomen that rolled upward into his chest, disorienting in its suddenness. The sterile air of the lobby turned metallic on his tongue, tinged with the faint bitterness of coffee and steel polish.

For a man trained to suppress every flicker of discomfort, the intrusion was startling, no matter how many times he experienced it. It was an echo of Bianca’s imbalance bleeding through the thread that tied them. The world tilted for half a heartbeat, vision sharpening too much, too fast, as if light itself pressed against his nerves.

The sensation didn’t fade so much as it settled, as an unwelcome pulse pushed beneath his ribs, steady and wrong. His muscles tightened instinctively, an old reflex from years of mastering his own body under pressure. Yet this wasn’t fatigue or hunger or the aftermath of combat. It was hers.

He could feel it in the rhythm of her breath, in the tremor of her fingers around the cup. The thread between them thrummed like a struck chord, vibrating with her unease. It was intimate in a way that unsettled him. Her weakness written into his own flesh, and his composure tested by something he could neither fight nor command.

He swallowed and shifted fractionally closer, lowering his gaze to study her.

“You’re pale,” he said quietly. “Cold?”

“A little,” she murmured, voice soft, frayed at the edges. She tried to smile, but it faltered. “It’s just the temperature they keep the building. It's like an icebox.”

He straightened slightly, schooling his expression. Concern warred with discipline, but training won out. “You should have eaten more than that.”

Her lips curved with a spark of mischief, though it didn’t reach her grief-tinged eyes. “Commanding tone, Sephiroth. Careful. People might think you care.”

His response came without hesitation. Steady and quiet. “I do.”

Zack interjected, "And he has positives emotions, ladies and gentlemen."

At Sephiroth's narrowed stare and thin, pressed lips, Zack apologized quickly and placed both of his hands together, contritely, which even had Sephiroth stifle a laugh.

She blinked, as if caught off guard by Sephiroth's earlier bluntness. Then a quick, fragile, brittle laugh escaped her. She rose, pressing a hand to her abdomen as if to steady herself. “I’ll be fine. VR room calls.”

She took one step forward and swayed.

The paper cup slipped from her hand, shattering the calm of the lobby as it hit the marble floor. Coffee splattered across the pristine surface. A dark bloom spread against the pale stone. Sephiroth caught her before she hit the ground. One arm braced behind her back, the other gripping her forearm firmly. Her skin was icy, and her pulse racing. He swallowed thickly as again the nausea hit him.

Through the thread, her panic struck him like a second heartbeat in his own chest. The red string around their wrists flared in the corner of his vision, burning crimson.

Zack was already there, sandwich forgotten.

“Got her,” he said quickly, steadying her other arm. “Easy, easy. Hey, B, breathe.”

Bianca tried to protest, shaking her head weakly. “It’s fine. Just dizzy—”

“It is not fine.” Sephiroth’s voice had gone low: too calm, too controlled to mask the fear that laced it.

Together, they guided her through the lobby, the space stretching endlessly before them. The hum of Shinra’s machinery echoed faintly through the floors. Troopers and clerks turned discreetly away, pretending not to watch as the Hero of Wutai and a First Class escorted the Angel of Shinra toward the private elevators. Whispers followed them. There would be talk tomorrow. The gossip wheel always turned.

When the doors slid shut and after Zack told Sephiroth to call him the moment she was feeling better, the sound of the world outside fell away, leaving both Bianca and Sephiroth alone. The elevator ascendedin silence, the faint vibration of its motion underscored by Bianca’s shallow breathing.

Sephiroth’s hand remained firm on her shoulder, feeling the trembling beneath the layers of her uniform.

When the doors opened, the air shifted. Their apartment was warm where the world outside was cold. It bore the marks of two people who had carved something human out of steel: a soft rug spread over metal floors, plants thriving in the window light, a faint citrus-sage scent from one of Bianca’s handmade charms burning low in a dish. This was ALL her doing, transforming the sterile space into something that looked like life.

Her extra set of boots sat by the door, neatly lined beside his. A half-finished sketch lay across the coffee table, beside a mug of paintbrushes and a feather tucked into the rim.

He guided her to the couch, where she sank weakly into the cushions, wings trembling.

“Stay still,” he said, unfastening his coat and settling it around her shoulders.

The heavy leather dwarfed her, swallowing her frame until she looked impossibly small. She gave a weak, tired chuckle. “You’re too serious sometimes.”

He knelt beside her, eyes fixed on her trembling hands. “You’re unwell.”

“Maybe I’m catching something.” Her voice wavered between humor and fatigue. Her eyes, glassy with exhaustion, flickered toward him but didn’t quite focus. “I haven’t been able to hold anything down. So, I don’t eat.”

"You need to eat." Hypocrite.

Through the red thread, her confusion rippled into him. Beneath it, something deeper—an undercurrent that felt both strange and alive—shifted within her aura. He couldn’t name it, but since last week, it was growing.

Outside, the hum of Midgar traffic began to build: a reminder of a world that never stopped moving. Inside, everything felt suspended.

Bianca pressed her hand to her stomach, voice barely a whisper. "Something’s changing. I can feel it.”

For a heartbeat, Sephiroth didn’t breathe. The light from the window traced the curve of her cheek, making her look fragile in a way that unsettled him. His gaze flicked instinctively to her hand, the small tremor in her fingers, the way she seemed to fold in on herself as though something inside her had shifted, and the body she trusted no longer felt like her own.

The faint sound of the city beyond the glass—airships, engines, the pulse of Shinra’s empire—seemed to fade into a low hum. In its place, he felt the pull of memory: sharp as a blade and just as merciless.

Genesis’s disappearance still carved through him like an unhealed scar. Sephiroth remembered the day Shinra declared Genesis and Angeal “killed in action.” Bianca had bitterly said the phrasing had been clinical, detached. It was as if they thought loss could be archived and filed away, but it rotted someone from the inside out.

He could still hear the contempt in his friend’s voice that last time they crossed blades in the Shinra Building, Would you be the hero?, spoken not in hatred, but in disbelief. That damn poem his friend was always quoting, that had started to define Genesis's life.

Then, he remembered, the accusation that Sephiroth was complacent in the breeding program which tied him to Bianca, which to this day he reverently denied. He was only protecting her from Hojo. No one understood that it was Sephiroth who held in her organs when the scientists had dumped Bianca in their shared room when he was thirteen, how he slept by her on the floor that night, with his hands pressed against the wound until her flesh started to stitch itself together, again.

And then there was Angeal, whose honor had been the last steady thing in their crumbling circle, gone now too. His death passed down to Sephiroth through a single report, stripped of everything human, before the funeral a few weeks later and the memorial almost a year after his death. His old friend had been reduced to a slogan, to a motto. Bianca had protested that, too.

He felt the absence of both men as though part of his own structure had collapsed. Genesis had been ambition set aflame; Angeal, restraint given form. Without them, there was only the hollow quiet of expectation and the echo of orders, and Bianca.

But above all, the ever-present eye of Hojo who always watching through the cameras. Bianca had said Hojo was always calculating, as if their grief were just another variable to measure. Sephiroth could feel it even now: the low buzz of surveillance in the corners of their private quarters and the faint click of hidden lenses adjusting their focus. The man’s gaze lingered like a parasite on the back of his neck. Angeal's words came back to him, 'Protect her, Sephiroth', as if he hadn't his entire life. Her life meant everything to him.

His jaw tightened. “Grief can do that,” he said at last, his tone a study in control.

It was easier to name it grief than to consider that something unknown was happening to her. Not degradation. Hojo had said that her cells could somewhat stabilize even human's exposure to the foreign cells inside Angeal, Genesis, and Sephiroth briefly, but what if something beyond his reach and ability to fix ailed her? He couldn't lose her, too. His heart clenched tightly.

Bianca’s eyes lifted to his, and the denial broke in her gaze before it ever reached her voice. The tears came soundlessly, falling onto her lap like fragments of light. She wiped at them fiercely with the back of her hand, the motion almost angry, as if to reclaim what little composure she had left.

“It doesn’t feel like grief,” she whispered, and the crack in her voice made something in him twist. "It feels like I am dying."

Sephiroth wanted to reach for her. He always did when her mask slipped, but the memory of the cameras held him back. Every touch, every flicker of concern, might be studied, dissected, used. Used against her and him. Protect her, Sephiroth.

So, he stayed still, and the space between them filled with the sound of her quiet breathing, the faint rustle of her feathers as her wings trembled.

Outside, Midgar’s heart kept beating: mechanical, relentless, utterly indifferent.

And Sephiroth, who could command armies and fell fiends with one blow, could only sit there. He was helpless before something he could neither fight nor understand, as the woman he could not lose whispered that she was changing and was coming undone, and he feared she was right.

This fragile, trembling vulnerability before him? He could not fight it, as he had dragons, behemoths, and abominations. He could only watch. Only curse their upbringing.

The red thread pulsed again, then dimmed, exhausted.

She tried to stand, saying that she felt fine and murmuring about returning to training, but her legs gave out before she’d taken a step.

He caught her easily, but this time, unlike in the lobby, she went still in his arms. Her breath came shallow, her body limp.

He lowered her to the couch, as his heart pounded behind his ribcage. “Bianca.”

No answer: only the faint rise and fall of her chest. Damn Shinra. He was shocked at the thought, but he pushed it away. For now.

Sephiroth gathered her into his arms, holding her close. Her wings folded around her body instinctively. The soft feathers brushed his cheek. The scent of her clung to the air around them.

He rose and carried her to the bedroom. Her mismatched socks peeked from beneath the hem of his coat. The domestic absurdity of it made his throat tighten.

Hours passed. When she stirred, she was cocooned in blankets with his coat still wrapped around her shoulders. Her indigo eyes fluttered open, unfocused at first, and then softened when they met his.

“You fainted,” he said simply.

Her lips curved faintly. “Not my most heroic moment.”

He sat beside her. Papers were scattered across the nightstand: mission reports and status logs. He’d been reading them aloud in a low, even tone to anchor himself while she slept.

“Couldn’t sleep,” he admitted when she noticed. “Reading steadies the mind.”

Her smile was small, tired. “You worry too much.”

He didn’t answer. Instead, he adjusted the coat around her shoulders and brushed a lock of hair from her face. His touch was slow and deliberate. Almost reverent.

“I like when you do that,” she murmured, half-asleep.

His hand lingered a moment longer before retreating. “You haven’t been eating.”

“I can’t keep anything down,” she confessed softly. “Even the smell of coffee turns me.”

He frowned, eyes narrowing slightly. “You should have said something.”

Then, he chastised himself. He had known about the nausea through the thread, but he was too deep within his own grief to say something.

“You’d have told me to rest. And then you’d worry.”

“I already am.”

Her laugh was faint but real. “You’re not supposed to admit that, Seph.”

He met her gaze. “Then I’ll deny it later.”

She sank back into the pillows. Exhaustion softened her face.

“We’re both coming apart,” she whispered. “You just hide it better.”

He didn’t argue. The leash of Shinra had frayed them both, though his mask of composure held. Around them, the apartment breathed quietly. The hum of the city muted beyond the window, the faint clink of rain beginning against the glass.

She stirred again, murmuring, “It smells like rain.”

He looked at her, watching the fragile peace return to her face.

“Rest, Bia,” he said softly.

Her eyes closed. Her thick lashes brushed her cheeks. The red thread between them glowed faintly. Warm. Alive. He felt its pulse echo against his own chest.

He sat beside her for a long time, as he read in silence. The quiet broken only by the sound of turning pages and the rhythm of her breathing. Between the lines of tactical reports, he found something steady. Something human. Something worthy of healing for.

Reaching over to the sandwich he had fixed earlier, he took a bite before putting it back down upon the plate. In that moment, Sephiroth had made a choice. To live. To thrive. To protect her. To pick up her broken pieces and stitch her back together, as he often did when they were children, clinging to each other in that windowless room with just a thin, ratty blanket shared between them in the labs.

She slept. Her wings folded softly against her back, as she shifted upon her side. The storm in her body eased. Her hands slipped beneath the blanket and cradled her belly. He reached over and adjusted the comforter to cover her shoulder once again.

The thread pulsed once more. Not as a chain, but as proof that, even in the cold heart of the machine, something gentle still endured. And for that fragile heartbeat, it was enough and worthy to protect.

@themaradwrites @craftyhal @kitcatling @prehistoric-creatures @creativechaosqueen

@chickensarentcheap @inkandimpressions @arrthurpendragon @projecthypocrisy @beyondnibelheim

The lights of Sector Five's evening spilled across the street like diluted amber, reflecting on the glinting hoods of Shinra transport and civilian vehicles. Inside Mama Leone’s Café, time seemed to pause: a relic sealed behind a door that still jingled with a tiny brass bell.

Linoleum floors gleamed pale green under soft fluorescents. The faint hum of a jukebox filled the empty air with a slow, dreamy tune from an era no one remembered.

Sephiroth had chosen the booth in the far corner: half for privacy, half because he could see every entrance from there. Bianca slid into the seat opposite him.

Her wings folded close in neat precision. Her red SOLDIER turtleneck clung to her shoulders, the color vivid against her porcelain skin. A single indigo strand of hair escaped the white ribbon binding her ponytail, curling over her cheek.

She had skipped another meal. He had noticed the subtle tremor in her hand when she reached for her water after drills. The faint haze in her eyes that always came from low blood sugar, a sign that he had been read many times with her. When he suggested dinner under the excuse of monitoring SOLDIER morale, she’d smiled—too knowingly—and agreed.

Now, she traced invisible patterns on the table with a long nail, the faint metallic click against the surface in time with the jukebox.

“You didn’t have to drag me here, you know,” she murmured, her lips curving into one of the softest smiles he had seen from her. “You could’ve just told me to eat something.”

Sephiroth leaned back. The black coat shifted like a ripple of night. The silver pauldrons caught the low light, and a single thread of his long hair slipped forward, bright as molten glass against the darkness of his attire. “And you would have listened?”

Bianca grinned, showing the faint glint of fangs between her plush, candy-colored lips. “Probably not.”

The corners of his mouth twitched. That, too, was predictable.

Mama Leone herself waddled out from the kitchen: a round, gray-haired woman with flour on her apron and years in her eyes and the wrinkles around them.

“Ah, look who’s come back,” she said, smiling warmly. “The pretty couple. Haven’t seen you two in months. Read the shy SOLDIER boy finally got over his shyness and proposed to his pretty little angel.”

Bianca’s eyebrows shot up. Sephiroth’s hand froze mid-motion with the menu.

Bianca answered before he could. “We, uh, yes, that happened.” Her tone was playful, almost sweet like cream. “He’s very traditional. You know, papers and all that.”

The other woman chuckled. “I knew it! Told my sister, ‘Those two. They’ve got that look. Like they belong together.’ Been watching you two dance around each other for years.” She waved her order pad. “Now, what’ll it be tonight? Same as always?”

Sephiroth gave a small nod. “For her. Cheeseburger with extra bacon, no onions, tomato and lettuce. Mayo. Fries with gravy. And a strawberry malt milkshake.”

Bianca blinked. “You remembered that?”

“I remember many things.” His tone was quiet, nearly impersonal, but his gaze lingered briefly on the curve of her lips.

Under the table, the Red Thread stirred. A faint shimmer, like heat rising off sand, pulsed between their wrists. Its light caught the edge of her thigh-high boots, gleamed once, and then settled.

Bianca leaned her chin on her hand. “Do you also remember that I hate blue food and always steal your fries?”

His gaze softened. “I’ve endured worse.”

“Such devotion,” she teased. “How romantic.”

He exhaled, almost a sigh, though it carried the faintest echo of a laugh.

When the plates arrived, the café smelled of melted cheese and grilled bread. The gravy steamed in soft curls, as she poured it over the fries. She immediately stabbed a clump of fries with her fork, humming her approval before eating.

She ate with a hunger she’d deny later, as if every bite reminded her body of something forgotten.

Sephiroth didn’t touch his own plate for a moment. He just watched how she bit her lower lip when thinking, how the end of the white ribbon at her nape trembled with each small movement of her wings. When she finally noticed his stillness, she paused mid-bite.

“What?” Bianca asked.

“You’re underweight again,” he said, matter of fact but quieter than usual.

Bianca rolled her eyes, but gently. “You sound like that new 2nd Class from Gongaga.”

“I doubt he takes your health as seriously.”

“Mm, depends on the day.” She smirked. “He’s started telling jokes during drills, you know. Absolutely terrible ones. Said the other day, ‘What do you call a chocobo with no feathers?’”

He raised an eyebrow. “I’m almost afraid to ask.”

“Dinner,” she deadpanned and burst into laughter.

It startled him. Not the sound itself. He had heard her laugh before, but the ease of it. Months had passed since it had sounded so unguarded, like sunlight breaking through the cracks. Against his better judgment, his own lips curved.

The Red Thread flared faintly again. His pulse answered her pulse.

They talked about small things then: the smell of rain over Midgar and the sound of it hitting the Plate, a piece of music she’d been learning on the old piano in their apartment, and the antics of her fellow 2nd Class comrades trying to impress her with sword tricks. The world outside—missions, Shinra, and the weight of their upcoming nuptials—faded to something almost ordinary.

When Mama Leone returned to check on them, she clucked her tongue at the half-empty milkshake glasses.

“You two are perfect together,” she said. “You remind me of my husband and me, when we were your age. Always sneaking glances and pretending it’s business.”

Bianca’s face warmed. Sephiroth caught the faint flush rising in her cheeks.

“Thank you, Mama Leone,” Bianca said softly.

The woman winked and went back behind the counter, humming along with the jukebox.

For a long time, neither of them spoke. The hum of the lights filled the pause. Outside, thunder grumbled somewhere above the upper plate.

“Do you ever think about what it’d be like,” she asked quietly, as she tapped a rhythm against her cup, “if none of this had been Shinra’s doing? If we’d met like normal people do? If I were a not an angel and you were not . . . the Demon of Wutai?”

Sephiroth’s eyes flicked toward her: sharp, luminous cyan beneath his lush, black lashes. “Normal is a construct, Bianca.”

“Mm. You’d still hate small talk, I think.” She smiled faintly. “But you might have liked the idea of choosing someone, instead of being told.”

He considered that. “I did choose.”

Her gaze softened at that, and for a heartbeat, her wings unfurled just slightly: an involuntary gesture. Her feathers glinted indigo and black under the fluorescent light. The Red Thread tightened, a slow pulse that beat in sync with his own heart.

Bianca leaned forward, resting her forearms on the table. “You know, if you keep saying things like that in public, people will think you’re sentimental.”

“Then perhaps I’ll have to maintain the illusion,” he said.

“Such a dangerous mission, Mr. 1st Class.” Her grin widened. “I’ll help you keep up appearances.”

He looked down at the thread between them. Its faint glow brushed the edge of his glove. “You already do.”

She bit her lip again, a habit he had catalogued long ago from their time on the R&D floor and labs, and looked out the window. The jukebox changed songs, a soft trumpet and a deep, masculine voice crooning a melody from another century.

Bianca sighed, tracing her fingertip through a ring of condensation on the table from the evening's chilly air. “It’s nice,” she murmured. “Just being here. No mission. No paperwork. Just this.”

Sephiroth followed her gaze, then reached across the table. His hand stopped just shy of hers: an old habit, the ingrained caution. She noticed. Of course she did. Without ceremony, she slid her fingers forward until they brushed his.

Her hand was warm. The Red Thread flared between their wrists, its heart-shaped pattern around their wrists glowing steady and strong.

“You’re allowed to touch me, you know,” she whispered, smiling without looking up.

He let out a slow breath, gathering strength. The air heavy and thick with the scent of malt, beef, and grease. Then he turned his hand palm-up, letting her fingers rest there fully.

The warmth between them deepened and became as steady as the heartbeat that pulsed through that fragile, unbreakable thread.

Outside, above the Plate, the storm grew louder. Inside, the world held its breath. Bianca leaned closer, lowering her voice. “You think Mama Leone’s watching?”

“She watches everything.”

“So, we should at least pretend to be in love,” she said, teasing, but her thumb brushed his hand, tender as prayer. She never pushed past his comfort level.

Sephiroth’s gaze held hers. For once, he didn’t correct her.

The jukebox crooned its last note. And under the small, flickering light of Mama Leone’s, the Angel of Shinra and the Silver SOLDIER sat in a silence that felt almost like peace. Two souls bound by thread through every world in the Lifestream were caught between duty and something gentler that neither dared to name.

When they rose to leave, Mama Leone called from behind the counter, “You two come back soon, you hear? Love’s good for morale!”

Bianca laughed: the sound warming a part of him that he didn't understand. Her wings rustled softly. “We’ll try, Mama Leone!”

Outside, under the awning, the Red Thread shimmered, glowing faintly where it looped between them, unbroken.

And though Sephiroth would never say it aloud, he thought perhaps Mama Leone was right. Love, in all its inconvenient forms, was excellent for morale.

@themaradwrites @craftyhal @kitcatling @prehistoric-creatures @creativechaosqueen

@chickensarentcheap @inkandimpressions @arrthurpendragon @projecthypocrisy @beyondnibelheim

The Shinra Headquarters library was a cathedral of silence. Fluorescent light pooled coldly across the endless rows of metal shelving. Dust motes hung in the artificial glow, suspended in air too filtered to feel alive. The hum of the ventilation system filled the gaps between pages turning, the faint rustle of old paper and worn gloves.

Genesis Rhapsodos leaned over a long oak table buried beneath towers of aging mission reports. His right shoulder was still stiff from the still-healing wound beneath his uniform.

A dull ache radiated through his upper arm where Angeal’s sword had torn him in the Combat VR arena. The medics had sealed the surface wound, but the degradation inside him—the slow rot of his genetic makeup—awakened and lingered like a curse. It was spreading. He could feel it, seeping through his veins. The ache wasn’t only from the injury.

He adjusted the collar of his long red coat. Its weight sat heavy across his shoulders, and, then, he glanced toward the other end of the table where Angeal sat.

The other man’s dark hair was slicked back, head bent over a stack of yellowed papers. Short strands fell and brushed his forehead. His SOLDIER uniform was pressed and immaculate even this late at night, the gleam of his dark pauldron catching the light as he shifted. He worked methodically. His large hands sorted each file with a kind of reverent care.

Genesis smirked faintly at the sight. Of course, Angeal would take archive duty as seriously as battle. They’d, along with Sephiroth, been assigned to assist in cataloguing seven-year-old mission records: something about reviewing incident patterns for the Director’s report. Bureaucratic punishment for destroying the 2nd Class’s Training Room disguised as trust.

He dragged a finger across the faded lettering of an old folder. “How quaint,” he murmured. “We’re relics sorting relics.”

Angeal huffed a quiet laugh. “You said you wanted an easy night.”

“Easy,” Genesis echoed, lips curling. “That was before I realized paper cuts hurt more than swords.”

Angeal’s glance was fond, the kind that softened his usual stoicism. “Then wear gloves.”

Genesis was about to answer—something flippant, always flippant—when his gaze caught on a file unlike the others. It was newer, the paper crisp, the seal still faintly glossy with Shinra’s blue insignia. The label read: Sub Project R—Project Nephilim. Beneath that, in fine print: Restricted—R&D Internal Access Only.

He froze. “Angeal,” he said quietly.

The other man looked up, following his line of sight. “What is it?”

Genesis pulled the file closer. The folder creaked open. Inside were dense scientific reports, handwritten annotations, and a handful of black-and-white photographs blurred by motion. One had been stamped: N01—Subject: Bianca Moore.

The words hit like a blade sliding between ribs.

He began to read aloud, his voice lowering as his eyes darted across the text. “Project Nephilim. Controlled reproduction trial under Shinra’s Genetic Advancement Initiative overseen by Professor Hojo.”

His mouth twisted around the next line. “Participants: Subject N01—Bianca Moore. Subject S01—Sephiroth.”

Angeal straightened. The color drained from his face.

Genesis turned the page. His pulse thrummed in his ears as the language grew colder, more mechanical. “Objective: to evaluate genetic viability of offspring derived from N01 and S01 pairing. Potential for ‘divine enhancement exceeding standard SOLDIER capability’.”

The next paragraph blurred, the words refusing to settle. His hand tightened until the edge of the file cut into his palm.

“Records indicate six miscarriages," he continued, "three stillbirths. Conception to occur naturally as per participant agreement. . .”

He stopped breathing for a moment. His gaze dragged down the rest of the page. The final entry burned itself into him:

The final subject survived six minutes. Infant emitted sound frequency causing auditory hemorrhage in five attending personnel. Eyes ruptured. Death followed without physical contact. Subject expired calling for maternal entity ‘N01.’

Genesis’s voice trembled as he read it. The sterile words struck something feral in him. “This—this was a few months ago. That lines up with her deployment to Mideel.”

Angeal’s throat worked. “You think. . .they hid this?”

“These are sealed files, Angeal. Newer than the rest.” Genesis’s jaw clenched. “This wasn’t some old mission report. This is an atrocity dressed in paperwork.”

Footsteps echoed from the far end of the library: measured, deliberate. They both knew who it was by the steps.

Sephiroth appeared between the rows of shelves: tall and composed as ever. His silver hair caught the light like a blade’s edge, falling straight to the back of his knees. The black coat he wore shimmered faintly where materia was socketed into his belt. His pauldrons gleamed like frost.

He approached with his usual grace: unhurried and completely unaware of the storm waiting at the table.

“Genesis. Angeal.” His voice was smooth, warm, but professional. “I was told you’d started on the northern archives.”

Genesis didn’t look up. His hand remained on the open file. “We did. And found something you might recall.” He turned the folder so the bold letters—Project Nephilim—faced him.

Sephiroth stopped mid-step. His expression didn’t shift, but the air around him did.

Angeal stood. He instinctively stepped between them. “Sephiroth, we were just—”

Genesis’s tone sliced through him. “Don’t you dare temper this.” He rose slowly. The red of his coat caught the sterile light. His blue eyes were fever-bright. “You told us you loved each other. That, despite the PR angle, the marriage was real.”

Sephiroth’s gaze lowered to the papers. Silence pressed thick as fog.

Angeal looked from one to the other.

"Project Nephilim." Genesis’s laugh came out raw. “Sub Project R—Replicant. Shinra’s little breeding experiment. They made a spectacle of their marriage to make it look holy, to make it seem like the Heavens blessed the company. To make SOLDIERs look human. But this,” he jabbed at the page, “was Hojo’s pet project.”

He read the line again, words turning venomous in his mouth." ‘Conception must occur naturally as per agreement.’ Naturally.” His voice broke on the word. “Do you know what that means, Sephiroth?”

Sephiroth didn’t move. His cyan eyes dimmed beneath the light.

“Answer me!”

The echo shivered through the room, as he jerked upright. Papers fluttered from the table edge.

Angeal’s hand closed gently on Genesis’s uninjured shoulder, steadying him. “Genesis. You’re bleeding.”

He looked down. His shoulder wound had reopened. A thin red line stained the fabric beneath his pauldron. He didn’t care. The pain grounded him, even as his mind unraveled.

Sephiroth finally spoke. His voice was quieter than Genesis expected. “It was the only way to keep Hojo from continuing his experiments on her. I had seen what he did to her. What he planned. Since she was a child. Since she was a toddler.”

Genesis stared at him, hollow. “So you joined him.”

“I joined to protect her.” Sephiroth’s tone didn’t rise. “There was no protection outside his reach. If I refused, she would have been reduced to nothing but a specimen again.”

Genesis’s hands shook. “And the babies?”

"They were his obsession." Sephiroth’s jaw tightened. “Not mine.”

Angeal’s quiet and stricken voice rang out. “You could have told us.”

“I couldn’t.”

Genesis’s vision swam with fury and something like grief. “You think this is noble? You think bedding a woman who’s been owned by Shinra since she was a child is protection? She is a part of our family.”

Sephiroth’s silence was answer enough.

“Even if she signed their documents,” Genesis whispered, bitterly, “even if she agreed, that’s not consent.”

The words hung there, an indictment and a plea both.

Angeal’s face was pale. The muscles in his jaw worked as he stared at the file. “There’s no honor in this,” he said at last. “Not from Shinra, and not from us.”

Sephiroth’s hands flexed at his sides. Leather creaked softly. “You think I don’t know that?”

Genesis’s fury dimmed into something colder. Pity, perhaps. Disgust more than hatred. “I expected better from a hero,” he said, voice rough. “From the man we followed into fire. From a man that is a hero to children.”

He closed the file with a sharp, resonant crack. The sound carried down the aisles like a gunshot.

For a heartbeat, no one moved.

Then Genesis turned, gathering his coat around him. The crimson fabric flared as he brushed past Sephiroth without a word. The smell of leather followed him.

Angeal didn’t stop him. He only watched, his eyes full of something that might have been mourning. Mourning for his lover. Mourning for his friend. Mourning for his sister.

When the echo of Genesis’s boots finally faded, the library felt emptier than before.

Sephiroth remained where he was, eyes on the closed file. The stamped designation—N01—stared back at him in neat black ink. Bianca’s Experiment name. Her number.

His gloved hand hovered over it for a moment, then fell away. Somewhere deep inside, a hairline fracture widened. He was tired. So tired.

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The memorial, a Shinra-staged remembrance held two months before the actual anniversary of Angeal Hewley's death, smelled of dirt and burnt wax. Even the air seemed processed: filtered, flattened, and stripped of whatever warmth once clung to the man they were supposed to be honoring. Shinra had a formal funeral the week after: clean, immediate, intended to close the record. This was different: the public observance one year on, polished to a sheen.

The Shinra emblem gleamed behind the podium, its metal face catching the white floodlights. Rows of chairs filled the courtyard, occupied by neat lines of uniforms, medals flashing like artificial constellations in the afternoon light. A large screen displayed Angeal Hewley’s image: standing tall, chin lifted with that quiet with unyielding steadiness he carried like a second weapon.

It should have been comfort. It wasn’t.

Bianca stood just outside the perimeter of ceremony protocol. Her body was taut as wire. Her gloved hands hung at her sides, and her jaw worked once before stilling again. Her face was carved from refusal. Every line of her expression controlled, except for the slight tremor where her lips pressed together. Rage had its own gravity. It bent the air around her.

Beside her, Sephiroth’s composure held with military precision, but it was the kind of restraint that cost. His shoulders were straight, his expression unreadable, and his silver hair fell in immaculate lines over his pauldrons and down his back. Yet a faint tremor touched the edge of one gloved hand where it rested against his thigh.

The speaker at the podium—a Shinra officer whose name neither of them bothered to retain—was extolling honor. Honor in service. Honor in sacrifice. Honor in legacy.

The word hit Sephiroth like a blade turned backward.

He remembered a night far removed from this cold geometry and his other friend's desertion. A night in their kitchen, when Bianca had been pale and hollow-eyed after their first loss. He’d stood uselessly beside her, silent, while Angeal had arrived with a pot of soup that steamed in the winter chill.

Angeal hadn’t said honor then. He did not talk of dreams. He hadn’t said anything at all. Just set it on the table and told her quietly that food wouldn’t fix grief but might keep her from disappearing with it. That glaring at the soup wouldn’t help.

That was Angeal: simple, practical kindness, steady where words failed. Now Shinra had reduced that man to a slogan.

Bianca’s breath hitched beside him. Her eyes were on the Buster Sword mounted in front of the stage, only now it would be Zack Fair’s. Its massive blade reflected the light too cleanly, the surface scrubbed of every human trace. Of Angeal.

The crowd murmured reverently when the officer mentioned its “symbol of dreams and honor.” Bianca made a sound: small, sharp, broken halfway between a laugh and a sob. It caught even her off guard, as well as him.

Heads turned. She didn’t care. He felt that much. A program pamphlet slipped from her hand and fluttered to the ground. She didn’t stoop to pick it up.

Sephiroth’s control strained. He felt her fury through the thread between them, hot and raw, coiling against his ribs. His throat felt tight. The applause that followed the officer’s closing words was too loud, too hollow.

He didn’t clap. Neither did she.

When it ended, Shinra personnel swarmed to shake hands, exchange condolences, take photographs beside the blade that no one here had earned the right to touch, except Zack Fair. Angeal had passed it down to the boy.

Bianca turned on her heel and walked away before anyone could stop her. Sephiroth followed after a moment. The long black hem of his coat whispering against the marble and creaked against him. He couldn’t face her now, even though he could feel her breaking apart.

Their apartment was quiet when he returned hours later. The blinds were half-drawn, evening light bleeding through them in amber lines. She didn't open them, as she usually did when she returned to the apartment. The smell of sweat lingered faintly from the home gym down the hall. He placed his coat on the rack beside hers. The air was heavier here, still laced with her perfume: cucumber and melon to remind him that it was summer.

He could hear it then. A rhythmic thudding. Dull, uneven. A heartbeat out of sync.

He didn’t need to see to know she hadn’t used gloves. He felt it: an echo through the bond that stitched them together tighter than any thread of fate. Each impact reverberated in his own palms, raw and splitting, the ghost of her knuckles tearing against the heavy leather.

It wasn’t only the physical pain that bled through. It was the grief beneath it. It hummed inside his ribs, rising like static. The grief was so sharp it scalded him. Her rage became his pulse. Her sorrow became breath he couldn’t take. Every strike against the bag was a wordless confession he already knew how to read.

He moved slowly through the apartment. The air felt thick, heavy with the scent of sweat, leather, and something faintly fruity. The remnants of her perfume clung to the walls.

The place no longer looked like a SOLDIER's quarters or a hero’s retreat. It looked lived in. A defiant warmth in every imperfection. The colors too raw, too emotional for Shinra’s taste. All of it: hers. Her rebellion against the cold, sterile perfection that had once defined their existence.

Now, all of it felt hollow. As if her spirit, so fierce and bright, was beating itself to death in the next room. He could feel it radiating through the floorboards, the way she struck the bag with everything that was left of her. The way the grief came in waves so strong they knocked against his chest like a physical blow.

His fingers flexed unconsciously. Phantom pain licked at his knuckles. He imagined the thin skin across her hands splitting, the faint tremor between hits, and his own breath faltered.

The sound came again: flesh against leather. Harder this time. A low exhale between strikes, raw with something that bordered on a sob. She was going to cry.

He paused outside the gym doorway. The air vibrated with her anguish, and his own heart mirrored it. Each beat threatened to fracture under the weight of what they’d both lost. He could feel her grief as if it were his own, because, in truth, it was.

Bianca knelt before the punching bag, breath heaving. Her black hair, loosened from its ribbon, fell around her shoulders in disordered waves. Strands clung to her face. The red SOLDIER turtleneck she wore was darkened with sweat at the collar. Her pleated skirt hung unevenly, and her boots unlaced. Her hands—bare, bruised, bloodied—rested against her knees. The air smelled of iron and salt.

She wasn’t moving anymore. Just shaking. Wings trembled behind her.

He wanted to speak, but the words caught. So instead, he leaned against the doorframe and watched her breathe.

Angeal’s voice came unbidden to his mind again. Take care of her, Sephiroth. The last time he’d said it had been half in jest, half in worry. Sephiroth hadn’t answered then either.

He crossed the room quietly, his boots soundless against the padded floor. The punching bag swayed once. The echo of her earlier fury still lingering in its motion. He crouched beside her.

Her head lifted slightly. Her eyes were red-rimmed, pupils narrow slits against the indigo.

“I told myself I wouldn’t cry,” she whispered, voice hoarse. “Not where they could see. Where he could catalogue the pain.”

He said nothing.

“I thought if I just stayed angry, it would be easier.” Her blood had smeared across the floor where her knuckles had met it. She stared at her hands as though they belonged to someone else. "I don't want to feel like a human anymore. Not for this."

Sephiroth reached for her wrist. She didn’t flinch, but he hesitated anyway, his fingers hovering before they touched her skin. The thread between them pulsed. Soft. Warm. alive.

Her voice cracked. “They made him into a speech, Sephiroth. A—motto. That wasn’t Angeal.”

He tightened his grip gently before he relaxed his hand. “No,” he said quietly. “It wasn’t.”

Silence stretched between them, fragile but real. He should have offered comfort, something human and right. But words felt false in this room, among the echoes of fists and grief.

When his hand finally moved to her knuckles, she tried to pull away, ashamed of the blood, but he held fast. He turned with her hand still in his and retrieved a towel from the nearby bench with free one. Afterwards, he began wiping the crimson away with care that startled even him: something he had always showed since they were children. His touch was deliberate. Almost ceremonial. Almost—

“I can handle it,” she said softly, though she didn’t resist.

“I know.” His voice wavered on the edge of something he couldn’t name.

Her dark gaze flicked up to him. “You’re shaking.”

He hadn’t realized it until she said it. His fingers trembled as he worked. The towel fell once. He stared at his hand as if it had betrayed him.

The control he’d maintained all day fractured then. Quiet and unstoppable. He set the towel down, pressing his palm against his eyes.

A small sound escaped him, low, raw, and nothing like the composed legend the world knew. His shoulders tightened, as his breath caught hard in his throat. His Adam's apple bobbed up and down.

Bianca didn’t move at first. Then she reached up and touched the front of his coat near where his suspenders crossed over his chest, where his heart lurked beneath.

That was all it took. The sob tore through him before he could stop it: brief, terrible, and truer than anything he’d allowed himself in years. His breath hitched, twice, and for a moment, the War Hero Sephiroth was just a man who had lost a friend. His hair hung in his face, concealing him from the world but not from Bianca.

When it passed, he drew a steadying breath and lowered his hands. His eyes were rimmed faintly red, and his composure fractured but not gone.

Bianca’s fingers trailed from his chest to the locket that rested against it. The chain was still warm from his skin. Her thumb brushed it lightly.

“You kept it close,” she murmured.

“I couldn’t discard it,” he replied. His voice had regained its steadiness, but the edge of grief remained. Raw as exposed steel.

She looked down at the floor, at her bloodied hands now half-clean. “He deserved more than what they gave him.”

“He did.”

Her laugh was short. Bitter. “Honor. They said it like it was supposed to fix everything.”

Sephiroth didn’t answer. Words like honor and duty had built their cages.

He rose, extended a hand toward her. She hesitated before taking it.

When she stood, her wings unfurled slightly. Black feathers glinted indigo where the low light caught them. One brushed against his arm, soft and unintentional.

They didn’t speak again as they left the gym.

The apartment had dimmed further. The last traces of daylight thinned to gray. The hum of the city beyond the glass was faint, like the planet breathing in its sleep.

Bianca sank onto the couch, pulling her knees up beneath her. Sephiroth sat beside her with the locket still in his hand. He unlatched it, revealing the sketches within: Jenova’s face on one side, Bianca’s on the other.

She leaned closer, her temple nearly brushing his shoulder.

“Yes.”

Her fingers grazed the image. “I remember drawing that. You complained I made your mother too kind-looking.”

He exhaled, a sound that might have been a laugh if it weren’t so hollow. “Perhaps you were right.”

For a long time, they didn’t move.

Her head drifted against his shoulder, and he let it stay there. His hand rested on the worn sleeve of Angeal’s SOLDIER-issued coat draped over the armrest beside them: a silent relic of something neither of them could bear to store away. He had lent it to Bianca when she said she was cold, as they were out on the town. Angeal had left his coat at their apartment, never bothered to retrieve it, and it had become, somehow, theirs to keep. That was before the defections, before Modeoheim, before—

Bianca’s gaze followed his motion. “You kept it.”

“I couldn’t bring myself to discard it.”

“Neither could I,” she admitted, voice faint. “He-he was the one who stayed when everything else fell apart. He-He came back, Sephiroth.”

The thread around their wrists glowed faintly, pulsing in sync with their heartbeats.

"He came back." Her voice dropped. “He made soup when no one else knew what to do.”

Sephiroth closed the locket and let it rest between them. The thread wrapped around their wrists was warm now, and the faint hum of their shared pulse resonating through it.

When she finally turned toward him, her eyes were wet again. Her thick, dark lashes clumped with tears sparkling upon them like stars in the night sky. “We keep losing the good ones. Gen-”

He didn’t tell her they’d survive it. He didn’t lie. He could sense something was coming. He was tired. So, tired.

Instead, he lifted a hand and brushed the back of his hand along her cheek and jawline, catching tears before they could fall. His hand lingered there, tentatively. When she leaned into it, his breath faltered.

The space between them collapsed with quiet inevitability.

Her palm found the open edge of his coat, her fingers curling around the fabric. He felt the heat of her skin through the thin barrier, and something in him eased: not desire, not yet, but the ache of being seen, held, understood.

Their foreheads touched in a soft collision. Neither spoke.

The world outside—the hum of Shinra’s empire and the endless duties and expectations—fell away. What remained were small things: the weight of the locket against his chest, the faint tremor in her breath, and the warmth of her blood drying on his fingers.

She whispered his name once. It was barely audible. He answered not with words but with his hand sliding to the back of her neck, as he drew her close.

Their lips didn’t meet at first. Just rested near each other. Their breaths mingled. The silence between them was the language they shared best.

Bianca’s hand moved to his chest. Her fingertips found the steady rhythm beneath. His pulse matched hers. When they finally leaned into each other fully, it wasn’t in desperation but surrender.

He felt the warmth of her tears against his skin and the faint catch of her breath. His own eyes closed. The tremor in his hands stilled.

They stayed like that until the lamps dimmed to nothing. When he finally spoke, his voice was barely more than a breath.

“He would have told us to eat,” he said.

The words landed softly, but the sound of them broke her composure. Her shoulders quivered. A faint, choked sound slipped from her throat: half laugh, half sob. She turned toward him. Her eyes were still wet, and the fine tremor in her lips betrayed the weight she’d been carrying alone. Sweat beaded along her temple, dripping down and mingled with tears as they traced uneven lines down her face.

He didn’t think. He reached out. His hand found her wrist. The pulse fluttered there fast and fragile. Then her shoulder. Then the hollow of her neck. She didn’t pull away. She leaned in. Her breath fanned his jaw, sending a hot shiver down into his loins. The distance between them vanished.

Her mouth met his. Salt. Heat. The kiss wasn’t gentle. It was an unraveling. The force of it knocked reason aside, leaving only instinct, grief, and the urgent need to feel something other than loss. They stood together. His fingers brushed her jaw, then slipped to the back of her neck and head. The strands of her hair damp tangled beneath his palm. She pushed harder, and his back met the wall with a dull thud that echoed through the apartment.

The world blurred around them. A picture frame clattered to the floor as they stumbled down the narrow hall. His pants caught against the doorframe. She grabbed at it, then at him, and pulled him closer each time, as if distance itself were unbearable. Her breath broke against his throat, and he answered it with quiet, restrained sound: half anguish, half need, half moan, half groan.

They found the bedroom by instinct. The bed was unmade, as they didn't have the energy to make the bed that morning. Black satin sheets twisted. When they fell against it, it wasn’t graceful. Blankets tangled around their legs. The mattress creaked in protest. Her fingers fisted against the leather of his suspenders, dragging him down until the space between them disappeared entirely.

For a moment, there was nothing but warmth and breath. His hand traced her back, slowly and reverently, feeling every shiver that ran through her. She pressed her forehead to his, and he felt her tears on his skin. Hot and real.

The grief didn’t fade, but it changed texture, melting into something that pulsed with life. Clothes pealed off and tossed onto the floor, as tears continued to fall. Every heartbeat, every gasp, and every thrust into her felt like defiance against the void that had taken their friend.

When his lips found hers again, the world stilled. The rhythm between them grew steady with something unspoken and primal. It wasn’t hunger. It was need, the desperate, aching kind that builds from the same place as love. The blankets muffled their movement, but not the headboard banging into the wall. The air thickened with heat and something tender that neither of them could name.

Somewhere between the press of her lips and the rough arch of his hips, something within him broke open and filled her with hot, sticky seed.

The grief they carried didn’t vanish. It folded in on itself, reshaped, and softened by touch and breath. In that moment, it became something else entirely. It carried the faint, impossible promise of new life stirring in the dark. Death begot life.

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