Action--Unconscious Sephiroth; does not require a reply
“So we meet again.”
The sleeping body of Sephiroth, eyes closed, viewed through a filter of liquid and glass, replied with silence. For a moment, Rufus merely watched him (perhaps, he thought not-quite-consciously, it was the feeling that somehow the man might suddenly wake up and break out of his present confinement that momentarily prevented him from any further action). The man in the tube was still and, for all appearances, completely oblivious to anything going on around him. Rufus let out a breath he hadn’t known he had been holding.
“I trust you’re comfortable in there,” he commented lightly, the corner of his lips turning up at the irony of the statement. For what it mattered, Rufus suspected ‘comfortable’ was far from an adequate description of the other’s present state, but that was also far from the only irony. Here was the President of ShinRa, exchanging pleasantries with a man who could not even hear the words being tossed in his direction, let alone respond to them. And yet, that simple greeting was nowhere near the last of what this visitor had to say. Which was not to assume that he knew precisely what it was he wished to say, nor that any were things he would chance were the man conscious, or were there others around to hear. But truly the last thing on Rufus’ mind was whether or not Sephiroth was comfortable. He marveled briefly at how few times he had ever interacted with this man face to face (their meeting now, perhaps, still not quite included in that category) and yet how much of his life had wound up revolving around him.
Revolving around the destruction he caused.
“How does it feel to be so vulnerable?” Rufus inquired of the body in the tube, a man who Rufus was clearly no match for when he was awake and unrestrained, but now... “How does it feel,” a brief motion, a hint of a smile, and Rufus’ hand was on his gun, the barrel pointed toward the curved wall of glass, “that I could put a bullet through your head right this very instant, and you wouldn’t even notice?” He stood still a moment, his finger yearningly on the trigger, almost as if awaiting some response. When silence remained, he let out a quiet ‘heh.’
“I should and just be done with you.” He brushed a hand through his hair, then returned gun to its holster. “But things are never quite so simple.” He regarded the unresponsive face with a sudden measure of curiosity.
“How many lives do you have?” he wondered aloud. A question surely unanswerable even were the man conscious, though Rufus would be interested in knowing. How many times had this plague returned despite all odds against it? By this time, he’d begun to lose track. But in the end that was almost as meaningless to consider as the bullet not to be lodged in the other man’s brain. With any luck at all, this would be the end of it.
“I suspect I myself have been granted at least three,” he mused briefly. One that might have ended in the rubble of his inherited empire, another that might have fallen to a mysterious disease. What would be this one’s fate? He seemed to be using up his lucky breaks rather quickly. Then again, the universe seemed to be giving out extra lives for free, these days. A moment passed in silence as Rufus paced back and forth, lost in thought, until he spoke again.
“I suppose, for one thing, I could thank you. It’s your fault I ever became President in the first place.” He ceased his motion, again addressing the tube head-on.
“You could have stopped there, you know.” His spoke with a voice that carried a hardened edge at the fringe of its softness. “If you’d taken nothing from me but my father, you may well have had my praise.” At that any hint of pleasantness in his tone or his expression faded. “But you didn’t know when to stop.” He paused, glaring at the man behind the glass, who remained entirely unaffected.
“You still don’t know when to stop. No matter how many times we get rid of you, you still keep coming back for more, wreaking havoc, tormenting my Turks... It’s never enough, is it? Even after...” His fist clenched.
“You, your stupid Meteor... Because of you my life fell apart, the office I stood in, the building that held it, the company it represented, but that clearly wasn’t enough. No, I imagine you never even noticed any of that, because you were too damn busy destroying Midgar.” He leaned in close enough to the panel of glass that his breath left a thin white layer of condensation.
“You took that from me, you bastard. You took my company, you took the life I knew, and you took my city. Midgar...” At the last word his eyes briefly lidded and his voice dropped to barely a whisper. Then his eyes snapped back to the other man’s face and his volume returned.
“It was mine and you destroyed it!” He slammed his fist against a metal bar--the nearest surface that wasn’t glass--with a resounding clang, “Give it back, damn you!”
A long moment passed as he sneered at the frustratingly serene-looking face of the man behind the glass, before he finally moved back away, uttering a quiet, dark chuckle.
“But that’s not in your little bag of magic tricks, is it?” Even as impressive a list of tricks as that was, it was clear that putting things back the way they had been was not among them. “You only know how to destroy. But you know what?” His lips quirked ever so slightly. “That’s a difference between us, you and I. The world doesn’t want me any more than it wants you, but at least I’m trying.” His eyes once again focused on the man in the tube, staring daggers into that frustrating face.
“And you will not get in my way, not again. If all else fails, I will find a way to kill you, once and for all.” He paused, and his voice once again picked up that edge of dangerous softness.
“But you can just stay in there for now. You were comfortable, weren’t you?” A brief little chuckle punctuated the joke. “And most of all, it’s quite safe.” He turned and made his way to the door, pausing only briefly to make one muttered addendum to his last statement.
“I meant for the rest of us.”
And with that, he shut the door behind him.
The sleeping body of Sephiroth, eyes closed, viewed through a filter of liquid and glass, replied with silence. For a moment, Rufus merely watched him (perhaps, he thought not-quite-consciously, it was the feeling that somehow the man might suddenly wake up and break out of his present confinement that momentarily prevented him from any further action). The man in the tube was still and, for all appearances, completely oblivious to anything going on around him. Rufus let out a breath he hadn’t known he had been holding.
“I trust you’re comfortable in there,” he commented lightly, the corner of his lips turning up at the irony of the statement. For what it mattered, Rufus suspected ‘comfortable’ was far from an adequate description of the other’s present state, but that was also far from the only irony. Here was the President of ShinRa, exchanging pleasantries with a man who could not even hear the words being tossed in his direction, let alone respond to them. And yet, that simple greeting was nowhere near the last of what this visitor had to say. Which was not to assume that he knew precisely what it was he wished to say, nor that any were things he would chance were the man conscious, or were there others around to hear. But truly the last thing on Rufus’ mind was whether or not Sephiroth was comfortable. He marveled briefly at how few times he had ever interacted with this man face to face (their meeting now, perhaps, still not quite included in that category) and yet how much of his life had wound up revolving around him.
Revolving around the destruction he caused.
“How does it feel to be so vulnerable?” Rufus inquired of the body in the tube, a man who Rufus was clearly no match for when he was awake and unrestrained, but now... “How does it feel,” a brief motion, a hint of a smile, and Rufus’ hand was on his gun, the barrel pointed toward the curved wall of glass, “that I could put a bullet through your head right this very instant, and you wouldn’t even notice?” He stood still a moment, his finger yearningly on the trigger, almost as if awaiting some response. When silence remained, he let out a quiet ‘heh.’
“I should and just be done with you.” He brushed a hand through his hair, then returned gun to its holster. “But things are never quite so simple.” He regarded the unresponsive face with a sudden measure of curiosity.
“How many lives do you have?” he wondered aloud. A question surely unanswerable even were the man conscious, though Rufus would be interested in knowing. How many times had this plague returned despite all odds against it? By this time, he’d begun to lose track. But in the end that was almost as meaningless to consider as the bullet not to be lodged in the other man’s brain. With any luck at all, this would be the end of it.
“I suspect I myself have been granted at least three,” he mused briefly. One that might have ended in the rubble of his inherited empire, another that might have fallen to a mysterious disease. What would be this one’s fate? He seemed to be using up his lucky breaks rather quickly. Then again, the universe seemed to be giving out extra lives for free, these days. A moment passed in silence as Rufus paced back and forth, lost in thought, until he spoke again.
“I suppose, for one thing, I could thank you. It’s your fault I ever became President in the first place.” He ceased his motion, again addressing the tube head-on.
“You could have stopped there, you know.” His spoke with a voice that carried a hardened edge at the fringe of its softness. “If you’d taken nothing from me but my father, you may well have had my praise.” At that any hint of pleasantness in his tone or his expression faded. “But you didn’t know when to stop.” He paused, glaring at the man behind the glass, who remained entirely unaffected.
“You still don’t know when to stop. No matter how many times we get rid of you, you still keep coming back for more, wreaking havoc, tormenting my Turks... It’s never enough, is it? Even after...” His fist clenched.
“You, your stupid Meteor... Because of you my life fell apart, the office I stood in, the building that held it, the company it represented, but that clearly wasn’t enough. No, I imagine you never even noticed any of that, because you were too damn busy destroying Midgar.” He leaned in close enough to the panel of glass that his breath left a thin white layer of condensation.
“You took that from me, you bastard. You took my company, you took the life I knew, and you took my city. Midgar...” At the last word his eyes briefly lidded and his voice dropped to barely a whisper. Then his eyes snapped back to the other man’s face and his volume returned.
“It was mine and you destroyed it!” He slammed his fist against a metal bar--the nearest surface that wasn’t glass--with a resounding clang, “Give it back, damn you!”
A long moment passed as he sneered at the frustratingly serene-looking face of the man behind the glass, before he finally moved back away, uttering a quiet, dark chuckle.
“But that’s not in your little bag of magic tricks, is it?” Even as impressive a list of tricks as that was, it was clear that putting things back the way they had been was not among them. “You only know how to destroy. But you know what?” His lips quirked ever so slightly. “That’s a difference between us, you and I. The world doesn’t want me any more than it wants you, but at least I’m trying.” His eyes once again focused on the man in the tube, staring daggers into that frustrating face.
“And you will not get in my way, not again. If all else fails, I will find a way to kill you, once and for all.” He paused, and his voice once again picked up that edge of dangerous softness.
“But you can just stay in there for now. You were comfortable, weren’t you?” A brief little chuckle punctuated the joke. “And most of all, it’s quite safe.” He turned and made his way to the door, pausing only briefly to make one muttered addendum to his last statement.
“I meant for the rest of us.”
And with that, he shut the door behind him.