Blasphemy

.o.

He should have been dead three years ago.

Mind you, so should she, he thought, casting his glance across the street to where she was sweeping off the porch of her dojo. She shouldn't have lived past her sixteenth birthday; brilliant eyes and blooming girl-child that she had been then, bleeding at the maddened hands that were not quite his own.

But she had, and she'd even learned to smile again; not the brittle savior's grin that he'd seen three years ago, but a warm quirk that, if he'd been another man, he'd have called happy. He wasn't, so he remained at the small café table and wondered how she'd learned it.

He hadn't been looking for her… no… but when he woke, clothes and armor ragged and mind haunted, it was her face and not the Ancient's that caught at the edges of his sight. Sweeping newly-shorn silver hair from his eyes, he continued to watch her over the edges of the newspaper he held, grimacing as a thought struck him.

Was he obsessed with her?

… No.

He dismissed that thought with a decisive shake of his head, turning his attention back to the paper he clutched. Whatever it was that kept his eye on her was subtler than that; he didn't want her, beautiful girl though she was. He was a monster that she'd conquered; banished to the realm of nightmares and the shadows at the back of her closet, and he knew it.

It was better that way.

He didn't want her forgiveness, either. Pity was for the weak, and though he was many things, he was not about to kneel to this woman. She'd never knelt for him, and she had his grudgingrespect if only for the fact that her soul had resisted his blade as no other had.

Chancing another cool glance over his paper, wincing slightly at the inanely happy tune she whistled, he sighed. Such a child, still… and yet he found it more difficult to turn from the warmth she exuded. Another man would have risen from the table, perhaps taken her hands in his, and claimed a little of her brilliance for his own.

Yet he stayed still. It conjured no small amount of contempt and disgust in his mind as he did, but it was enough to watch her, to witness that she'd remembered how to smile.

Green eyes narrowed, but not in anger this time. "Why do you intrigue me so, Tifa Lockheart?"

.o.

…finis…

.o.

Disclaimer: Nope, they still don't belong to me. As an aside, this ficlet isn't compatible with AC, and whatever AC will bring.

Sabe's Scribbles: Written as a half-hour writing challenge; the quote "Why do you intrigue me so?" is compliments of Solain Rhyo. I… was curious. And it actually turned out all right… Even so, the fic is called 'blasphemy' because it is… somewhere, canon Sephiroth is sharpening a blade with my name on it.