Yazoo sighed, staring out of the cave into the pounding rain. He turned slightly to look back at the others. Kadaj was sitting meditatively in the pose they had long ago learned meant 'Do Not Disturb' – he was talking to Mother. Loz was nowhere to be seen.

The fighter and the philosopher.

And what was he? The whore. Feeling the pain rise up in his throat again, Yazoo slipped silently from the cave. He could feel the rain soak his silver hair, pouring, warm down his alabaster cheeks, running in rivulets off the black leather clothing him from head to toe.

He walked aimlessly around the empty edifices of ancient stone. Forgotten. Just like him. They remembered Loz – the strength, brute force and spiky hair. They remembered Kadaj – the young man who glowed with strange power and planned. Then him. Beauty, simply beauty. The remnant of a God.

He was empty, purposeless. He had tried to be of use in the fights, his trusty gun would claim as many opponents as his brothers did. But he was not a marksman. They used him, used his body to seduce their way into places otherwise barred, to kill when necessary. He was nothing better than that. A whore.

What if he never went back? The plan would fail. They needed the three of them to bring back the mighty Sephiroth. He was just there to become part of someone else. He was less than nothing.

He closed his eyes, letting the rain pour over him. He raised his hands slightly, turning them palm up to the sky, trying in his mind to talk to Mother. It was not his right, not his province, but maybe she would hear her failed, worthless son's desperate plea for a last relief. Maybe she would allow him to die, have mercy on him. Of course, there was no reply. It was only Kadaj that had that greatest privilege of being permitted to communicate with their mother.

He wanted to scream. The pain tore from his throat before he sharply cut it off with a great effort of self-will. He turned slightly, hot tears of shame at his weakness burning down his cheeks as he listened to the echo of his agony among the unforgiving stones.

Kadaj did not look up, lost in ethereal communication with the all-powerful being who had offered them everything – the world would be theirs and she would love them.

Loz, however, looked up at the cry on the edge of hearing. He strode towards the entrance of the cave.
"I'm going out..." he called as his leather coat flapped around him, shadowing his exit. He knew Kadaj couldn't hear him, but at least he had said. He felt better for saying.

He paused when outside of the cave, unable to tell which direction the cry had come from, where Yazoo had gone. He thought for a moment, deciding to follow his instinct. He turned and strode off along the trail twisting among the broken slabs of rock in this desolate landscape.

Yazoo was hiding now, tucked into a cleft behind a towering pillar of rock, not trying to escape the elements pounding his fragile body, just to hide from the rest of the world.

Loz wheeled round the corner, gun half up, on his guard as he searched for his missing brother. Yazoo looked up as his brother's boots crunched on the gravelled fragments of once-mighty constructions. Their eyes met, Loz's full of questions, Yazoo's with no answers, only pain. Loz frowned slightly and walked over.

"You left brother. You were missed."

His voice was calm and even, his words betraying nothing. Stating a fact and pairing it with an open-ended statement, not specifying who had missed him, dropping no hints as to why.

Yazoo's pretty face was as hard as the stone surrounding them. He gave no answer and Loz had not specifically asked him a question. He would give nothing away.

Loz moved closer, reaching up to cup his brother's cheek, stroking a leather-clad thumb along his cheekbone, wiping away what he assumed to be rain but which looked strangely like tears. Yazoo's eyes closed, lashes covered in crystalline drops fluttering and fanning the air.
"Why did you leave, brother?" Loz asked, voice quieter now, but still even. Yazoo turned his face away.

"I merely wanted to explore the area... a brief reconnaissance."

Loz said nothing. Undoubtedly Kadaj would have made some snide remark about his elder brother's failure at such things, that Loz was better suited. Himself, however, Loz knew that Yazoo liked doing things like that, liked getting out, away from them for reasons of his own. Loz had not enquired, had thought he would never have the desire to know, but now he sensed it was important, that it was, perhaps, what had driven his brother out into the embrace of the rain.
"No-one would creep up in this weather brother." He said, a smile in his voice, trying to lighten the tone, to reassure him. But Yazoo turned further from him. Loz was laughing at him. He had been trying to make up a realistic excuse but he made a feeble one, a rookie mistake. He sounded so stupid. Loz frowned at his brother's reaction, confused.
"Perhaps. But it is as well to be sure." Yazoo's voice was hard, brittle.

Loz sensed a way to make amends and smiled.

"Indeed. A good idea, brother."

Yazoo turned to him, blinking in shock. A compliment? Loz's face showed no sign of playing games, there was no joke sparkling in his eyes. He frowned slightly.

"...Thank you..." Loz smiled.

Over their heads a jagged fork of lightening flashed, splitting the sky. Neither of them jumped but their reactions were equally different. Yazoo stared at the sky, seemingly not feeling the hammering rain as the thunder crashed around them. Loz, on the other hand, looked around for something that would offer slight shelter – they would not go back to the cave yet, not in this weather. He spotted a small group of rocks huddling under an overhang and dragged his brother towards them.

They shivered slightly as they emerged from the rain into the humid air trapped among the rocks by the storm. Loz smiled, sitting down and leaning against a boulder. Yazoo stood awkwardly over him, looking nervous, wrong-footed. Suddenly he spoke.

"Why did you come looking for me?" he demanded.

"Why did you leave?" Loz asked quietly in return. Yazoo was thrown by that and blinked. After a moment he turned away slightly and spat out the real question.

"Why do you care?"

In an instant Loz was up and over to him, arms wrapping around his waist from behind.

"Why wouldn't I Yazoo? You're my brother."

Yazoo shook slightly, but when he spoke, his voice was still calm, still steady. He would not give in to his weakness again. Not in front of his brother. He would not compound the fault.

"Why would you want to be? I am nothing."

Loz frowned slightly, confused. They were all remnants, they had never been anything else. Why did it suddenly matter?

"We all are. But all we have is each other."

"No Loz, you don't understand." The tremor had finally invaded his voice now. "You are strong, a fighter, Kadaj is brilliant, the master. I am nothing. I am beauty, so superficial. I want to be real, I want to have substance. All the time our opponents remember you, they remember Kadaj. I am the 'girl' standing on the sidelines. I know none of us are destined for greatness. We belong to Mother, our bodies are to bring our older brother back. Even so, people will hail Kadaj as the saviour, they will hail you as his champion. I will be remembered like a third wheel. I want to be remembered for something separate than the great deed we will perform together."

Loz understood "... they will remember us together Yazoo..." he whispered, turning his brother in his arms and raising the hands he had grasped when he had wrapped his arms around him the first time to his lips, kissing them. "Together we can be more than nothing. Together we can be almost real."

Yazoo's eyes opened and his lips parted slightly in surprise. He stepped into his brother's embrace, resting against him as his failure faded away.