"But, do you know, there's a damnable question involved in it?" Alyosha's father said. "If there's no ceiling there can be no hooks, and if there are no hooks it all breaks down, which is unlikely again, for then there would be none to drag me down to Hell, and if they don't drag me down what justice is there in the world? It would be necessary to invent them, those hooks, on purpose for me alone, for, if you only knew, Alyosha, what a blackguard I am."

"But there are no hooks there," said Alyosha, looking gently and seriously at his father.

"Yes, yes," his father replied. "Only the shadows of hooks."

-Excerpt from 'The Brothers Karamazov'

ONLY THE SHADOWS

Chapter 1

Aphelion

There was something wrong with the man's face, Cloud thought. No matter how he tried to focus on it, it always seemed to envelop itself half in the shadows. So he did his best to simply ignore the stranger.

The other man, however, did not extend him the same courtesy. He had been watching him intently for the better part of the evening from his corner seat at the back of the bar. Cloud knew it was only a matter of time before the stranger brought himself over to the counter where he was sitting to broker whatever topic was on his mind. There were always drunkards looking to pick a fight, and there was certainly no shortage of lunatics in the world. He just hoped this one wasn't the axe-crazy kind. Either of the two had a tendency to put an end to his drinking sessions, and get him kicked out of yet another watering hole for breaking something. He was not in the mood for it tonight. Not one bit.

"Another round," he said, as the barmaid walked past. "Leave the bottle."

The barmaid did as he asked, shaking her head and sighing as she walked away. Another lost cause looking for answers at the bottom of a glass, she must have figured. But she was wrong. There were no answers to be found. Only merciful inebriation.

He stuck to dry whiskey, for the most part, along with the occasional shot of gin or rum for variety's sake. Though the bartender had assured him it was "cask strength," it tasted like it was half water. Not that the other dives in town were much better. As long as the spirits had their intended effect, he didn't much mind how diluted they were. It would simply take him a little longer to dull his senses than usual, that was all.

He wasn't sure if it was to still the demons, or perhaps just to keep from remembering. If he could keep from remembering, he could keep from dreaming. And if he could keep from dreaming..

Lately, the same dream had accosted him one night after another, worse than the nocturnal horrors that usually visited him. A dream of her.

He had always imagined she would be somewhere far away, in some semblance of a perfect afterlife. A place where only everlasting joy would be found. A vast field of flowers, blooming underneath an impossibly bright sky. An unending, elysian field where she could find the peace she had sought in life. Some place like that.

What he beheld instead was very nearly the opposite. In his dream, she knelt at the bottom of a black pit, held in place by shackles made of shadows, being torn apart by hooks that were not hooks. And he watched helplessly, bound to a wall on the far side of the pit, as she was rent asunder, night after night, screaming for help.

For the past two years, he had walked the Earth, seeking her, and finding nothing. It was a foolish thing to think, that there could be some reprieve, some suspension of the laws of nature, just so the two of them to be together once more. Yet he could not but hope.

Though his friends had encouraged him to move on, some of them quietly and others explicitly, he knew he could not, and so, he sensed, could they. And they knew why, just as well as he did. When he had first met her, he realized that he had encountered something purer than he imagined could exist in the world. A spirit incapable of being bent or broken by the pitiless nature of the world around her. No matter what hardships she suffered, her kindness and lustre could not be diminished. And no matter how bad things got, she could always be counted on to brighten her friends' day, and to make things better.

And then, just as he had begun to take her comforting presence for granted, she was snatched away from him. Bitterness might be solipsistic and indulgent, he thought, but it was hardly the most irrational response he could have adopted. Idealism, on the other hand, seemed trite and naive in the face of the emptiness left in the wake of her demise. Hers was but one life, sacrificed on the altar of the greater good, and yet it seemed to him a pyrrhic victory. For two years, he had sought her and the fabled Promised Land of which she had spoken, but in the end, there was simply nothing to be found. And so, after long days of travel, weariness and obsession, his journey came to an end.

"Mr. Strife?" a voice came from behind him.

While his mind was occupied with sundry thoughts, the stranger had finally gotten up and approached him. The tall man sat down next to him, offering a friendly smile. Cloud said nothing, and did his best to pretend he had not heard the man speak.

"I have a job for you," the stranger said.

"Good for you," Cloud replied. "Now piss off. I'm trying to get drunk."

"But hardly succeeding," the stranger said, catching his arm, pressing the glass back down to the counter. "Those cells of yours won't let you."

The stranger looked at him directly, offering another, more knowing smile. "Will they?" he asked.

Cloud looked up at the stranger. The man had his attention now.

Following Shinra's smear campaign against Avalanche and the group's branding by the authorities as a terrorist organization, most of his old comrades had done their best to lay low. In the wake of the calamities that nearly annihilated the world, they had spent several months on the authorities' most wanted list, before fading into obscurity once more. The world forgot them, as it did most things in due time.

Cloud, too, had done his share of laying low. Laying low was becoming, along with his newfound affinity for alcohol consumption, something of a specialty for him. The two endeavours, in combination, allowed him to keep the rest of the world at bay. But no matter how much he consumed, infernal lucidity continued to plague him. He could thank Hojo's ingenuity for that. Some time during the inception of the SOLDIER program, the professor had discovered the regenerative properties of Jenova cells, and begun to administer them to potential recruits, in addition to their mandatory Mako therapy. Many recruits had ended up dead or insane as a result, as the alien cells took over their bodies, but as long as it gave the survivors an edge in combat, those among Shinra's high command didn't much care how the results were achieved. The cells guarded their new hosts with great zeal, against all wounds and foreign agents, and that included warding off the deleterious effects of alcohol.

The sordid details of the SOLDIER project were among the sort of information that didn't go public, and he suspected that there was a great deal more to the story that would never be uncovered. This kind of historical manipulation was not new to him, either. Mere hours after the destruction of Nibelheim, Shinra's clean-up crews had arrived on the scene, removing all evidence of the incident, disavowing any knowledge of his and Zack's involvement, listing them both as KIA, along with the other casualties of the inferno. The rest of his exploits and those of his friends had been similarly distorted. As a result, few people knew the truth about Avalanche's activities, or anything of Cloud's past.

Yet despite all the misinformation circulating about Avalanche and himself, Cloud knew that there were a number of different ways for someone to unearth the truth about his past, few of them legal.

"How do you know that?" he asked. "Who are you?"

"Who I am is not important," the stranger said.

"You want to do business, I need a name," Cloud said.

"If you insist," the stranger said, offering yet another, all-too-friendly smile. "The name is Coleridge. That will do for our transaction."

"How do you know about.." Cloud began.

Coleridge held up his hand. "It is my business to know such things. But you need not worry," he said, sensing Cloud's apprehension. "It is also in my best interest, for the time being, not to tell."

Cloud looked at the man, wondering if he was making an attempt at blackmail. The stranger seemed genial enough, though he doubted that his convivial manner was anything more than an act. The man spoke with the voice of a practiced orator, deep, rich, beguiling... and yet his words were laced with a detached irony, twisting every word he spoke into a mocking tone, barely perceptible beneath his cordial diction. It struck him as the unctuous and feigned friendliness of someone who wanted something from someone else. Nevertheless, he decided that he would hear the man out. He could always turn down his offer once he was done talking.

"Let's hear it then, Mr. Coleridge," Cloud said. "And before you start," he added, "if you're looking for a mercenary, go somewhere else. I only do deliveries."

"Ah, but this is a delivery that I have in mind," Coleridge said. "A very special delivery, you might say."

Cloud picked up his glass again, eyeing the man with distrust, waiting for him to continue. Despite the alcohol's lack of effect, he resumed his drinking as Coleridge spoke.

"There's a village in the frozen north, near the impact crater.." Coleridge began.

"I know it," Cloud said.

"You do?" Coleridge replied. "Excellent. That will make things easier."

Cloud looked over at Coleridge again, still unable to properly discern his face from the shadows. He got the feeling that this was not news to him.

"What about it?" he asked.

"I need you to deliver something there," Coleridge said.

"And what would I be delivering?" Cloud asked.

Coleridge produced a small, thin envelope and placed it on the counter.

"Is that all?" Cloud asked. "Why don't you just use a mailbox?"

"The item to be delivered is... singular. I would rather keep its conveyance from prying eyes," Coleridge said. "I'm sure you understand the need for discretion."

Cloud said nothing. He finished his drink and poured himself another.

"What do you say?" Coleridge asked.

Cloud sighed. He realized that the stranger wasn't going away without an answer. "Fifty thousand," he said. "Half now, the other half when the job's done."

"Agreed," Coleridge replied, without a moment's hesitation.

Cloud paused, lowering his glass back onto the counter. He was getting worried now. Fifty thousand, he knew, was an unreasonably high sum, even for such a long-distance delivery, and Coleridge must have known as much. Yet the stranger had accepted right away, without even making any attempt to haggle with him. Something was not right.

"I changed my mind," Cloud said. "A hundred thousand."

"Very well," Coleridge said, undeterred by the high price.

The celerity with which Coleridge agreed to the new sum was troubling. "He must really want this letter delivered," Cloud thought. "Either that, or there's something else going on."

Coleridge seemed to take his silence for assent. "I take it we have a deal, then?" he asked.

"If your money's good," Cloud replied.

He watched as Coleridge produced another envelope, placing it on the counter between them. "The first half," he said. Cloud opened the envelope, checking its contents. The money was good, which did little to ease his worries. But he knew he could not afford to turn down the job. A hundred thousand was a windfall, and the money was much needed at the orphanage. Sighing again, he decided to accept the offer, going against every instinct that told him otherwise.

"Then we have a deal," Coleridge said.

The two of them shook hands. Then Coleridge got up and walked out of the bar. Cloud remained seated for a moment, examining the envelope he was to deliver, while he finished his drink. What little semblance of honour he had left in him kept him from tearing it open right there and then to examine its contents. A deal was a deal. And he would see his end of the bargain through, no matter what.

Unbeknownst to him, another figure had been watching their exchange from the shadows.

"Don't take the bait," the figure said. "Don't take the bait. Come on, Spikes, don't take the bait.."

The figure watched with dismay as Cloud and the stranger shook hands.

"Damn it, he took the bait," Zack said. "Looks like it's time for plan B. Neith, meet me outside the city in five."

The cool night air brushed against his skin as he drove back to the outskirts of the city. There was little traffic to speak of in this sector, and even less so as he passed from the neon-lit streets of the inner city to its ramshackle borders. For the most part, he had the road all to himself, something that he enjoyed. Driving down the abandoned outer city at night was always strangely calming, even relaxing, to him.

It was a little after midnight when he pulled into the parking lot next to Seventh Heaven. Ever since the end of their war with Shinra and Sephiroth, their new abode served dual roles as part speakeasy, part orphanage. Not the greatest of combinations, but they did what they had to in order to make ends meet. The crisis had left innumerable children without parents, and they had taken it upon themselves to look after them.

He could see a light still shining through the windows of the lower level. Inside, there was Tifa, waiting for him at the bar, as she always did. He had hoped that he would find her asleep, but she still insisted on worrying about him, and waiting for him to come home.

"Hey," she greeted him.

"Hey," he replied, setting his gear aside.

He did his best not to meet her gaze as she walked up to him. He couldn't bear to. The way she still looked at him, half forlorn and half hopeful. He wished that things could be simple. That he could just make her happy. But there was still something that stood in the way, and they both knew what it was, though they rarely spoke of it. His childhood friend had suffered and sacrificed as much as any of them, and she deserved to be happy. But as much as he wanted to make her happy, he couldn't, and he hated himself for it. Yet, she still stood by him, hoping that some day things would change.

"You're back early," she said. In truth, it was becoming quite late in the evening. But for him, anything before three in the morning was considered 'early'.

"Got a job," he said, heading for the back room.

"How much?" Tifa asked.

"Fifty," Cloud said, picking out some warm clothes for the journey.

"Fifty?" Tifa asked. "That's kind of low, isn't it?"

"Thousand," Cloud finished. "More when the job's done."

Tifa swallowed hard, but said nothing. She knew as well as he did that a hundred thousand was more than both of them could make in a year. Holding the orphanage together was strenuous at the best of times, and lately it seemed that they were falling upon hard ones, with debts slowly piling up. Heating and electricity were far more expensive than they had been back in the days of Mako reactors, and the state of disrepair that the place was always in didn't help. As soon as they repaired one part of the building, another seemed to fall apart, because there was never enough to go around to finish the task. But this job meant that they wouldn't have to worry about such things for a while. Cloud knew that this Coleridge character was likely as crooked as they came, but as long as it was just a delivery..

"Get the kids something nice, okay?" he said, handing Tifa the money. He had little intention of keeping any of it for himself. He had as much as he needed for travelling, and he knew the money would be safer in her hands.

She nodded, accepting the envelope. "Are you going far?" she asked.

"Up north," he said. "Icicle Village. Won't be back for a few weeks."

"You're leaving tonight?" she asked.

"The sooner I leave, the sooner the job's done, right?" he replied.

"Will you be okay by yourself?" she asked.

"I'll be fine," he said, heading for the door "Don't worry."

She stopped him for a second, pulling him into a tight hug. "Be safe," she said.

He returned the embrace, holding on to her for a moment, not quite ready to say goodbye.

Then he let go and walked out the door.

He had contemplated visiting the lost city of the ancients along the way, but he wanted to get the delivery out of the way first. There would be plenty of time to visit Aerith's grave later, and indulge in mourning.

It wasn't like she was going anywhere.

When he came to the village, he found it deserted. It looked as though it had been for a long time. Old, rusted vehicles sat in their parking spaces, gathering snow and ice, barely discernible from the other mounds of snow. Creaky, wooden doors and shutters banged against their frames as the wind picked up from time to time. Somewhere in the distance, a lone wolf let out a long, lugubrious howl, echoing through the winter night.

The calamities visited upon the world had simply proven too much for the inhabitants of the old village, and so they had abandoned it, leaving it a town fit only for ghosts to inhabit. However, there was one house in which a light could be seen through the window. Cloud recognized it. Professor Gast's old home.

Venturing inside, he found the house as deserted as the rest of the village, though the interior seemed to be in better condition than those of the other buildings. The cellar door had been flung open, he noticed, and there was a light on downstairs.

He walked down the brittle stairs, watching for any signs of life. The basement was filled with old machinery and lab equipment, some of which was still in use, by the look of it. There was little else to be seen, other than a musty operating table and a small lantern hanging over it from the ceiling.

"Ah, you're here," a familiar voice came. "Good."

Cloud turned around, his hand reaching instinctively for the hilt of his sword.

"Coleridge?" he said, as the figure emerged from the shadows.

"In the flesh," Coleridge said, stepping out into the light.

"What's going on here?" Cloud asked. "You didn't hire me just to deliver a letter to yourself."

"I never said it was a letter you were delivering," Coleridge replied, smiling.

Cloud bristled, ignoring his employer's cryptic reply. "Here's your damn letter," he said, throwing the envelope down on the ground between them. "Now, where's my money?"

"I will hand it to you presently," Coleridge said. "There is, however, something you should see first."

Coleridge walked over to the opposite end of the room, sweeping aside a curtain concealing another, smaller room. The room contained a stone slab in the centre, upon which a heavy shroud of plastic had been laid. The shape underneath the shroud looked vaguely human. Cloud followed Coleridge inside the room, keeping his eyes on the older man the whole time, watching for any sudden moves or strange behaviour.

Without a word, Coleridge removed the shroud, revealing the rotting corpse underneath. Cloud drew back, recognizing the figure on the slab.

Sephiroth.

"What the hell is this?" Cloud asked. He held his hand up against his face to ward off the stench of decaying flesh.

"What it appears to be," Coleridge said. "Don't tell me you don't recognize your own handiwork."

The general's remains were barely recognizable. The body was severely putrefied, its eyes sunk into their recesses, the flesh torn and cut, as though savaged by wild animals. Death had not been kind to his old nemesis.

"I didn't do this," Cloud said, shaking his head. He watched Sephiroth's remains warily, as though expecting them to suddenly spring to life once more.

"You need not worry," Coleridge said. "I assure you he is quite inert."

Cloud clenched his fists, furious at the man for his deception. He knew from the start that Coleridge could hardly be on the level, but he was in no mood his for macabre games. "Okay," he said. "Here's what's going to happen next. You're going to hand me the rest of my payment, say goodbye, and leave. Then I do the same, and we never see each other again. Clear?"

"Naturally," Coleridge said, not distressed in the least by the threatening tone in Cloud's voice. "I will impart you with your promised reward shortly. But I'm afraid there is one final matter to be taken care of, first."

"And that is..?" Cloud asked.

"A question," Coleridge said. "Permit me a moment more of your time, and then I promise we shall meet no more."

Cloud watched as Coleridge circled the stone slab. Under normal circumstances, he would have walked out by now, but there was something holding him in place. The older man traced the outline of Sephiroth's corpse, shaking his head. "The body. Such a fragile vessel, don't you agree?" he said, looking up at Cloud.

"But the soul..." he continued. "Ah, such a thing is not so easily destroyed, is it? I said your old friend here is inert, but he is far from gone."

Coleridge stopped, looking directly into Cloud's eyes. "In fact, he's here with us right now," he said. "He's close."

"What?" Cloud said, taking a step back. He felt a profound sense of unease as Coleridge spoke.

"Can you feel it?" Coleridge asked. "His presence?"

Cloud took another step back. It was getting harder for him to breathe, and his heart was beginning to beat more and more rapidly. He felt drowsy, as though all the drinks he had consumed in the past two years were finally catching up with him. The world around him grew hazy, and he thought he could see someone else standing in the shadows behind Coleridge.

He watched Coleridge as he crossed the room again. There was something in his hand. A stone scepter, in the shape of a coiled serpent, the runes inlaid in its grooves lighting up as the old man spoke. He tried to move away, but Coleridge's gaze held him transfixed.

"He is to walk the Earth again," Coleridge said, tracing his fingers across the length of Sephiroth's corpse. "But for that to happen, we will require a new vessel. A new body."

"Yours," he said, looking at Cloud. This time, there was no pretense of mirth in his smile.

Cloud stumbled backwards, knocking over bottles and beakers as he fell to the ground. He felt weak, as though something were draining him of all his vigour.

"Ah, yes," Coleridge said, producing a small envelope from his coat. "I almost forgot. The last half of your payment."

He threw the envelope at Cloud's feet. "Not that you'll be needing it where you're going," he added.

Cloud forced himself back up to his feet, drawing the knife he kept concealed underneath his long sleeve. He darted at Coleridge, aiming for his neck, but Coleridge anticipated the move, catching his arm, pressing down on him with more strength than his frail body should have been capable of mustering.

Coleridge forced the knife out of his hand, then knocked him to the ground with his scepter. As he fell to the floor again, Cloud caught a glimpse of the real Coleridge, the true face behind the masquerade. Not a man, or a monster. A shadow. His assailant was composed of nothing more than black vapours; a smouldering, shifting fog, assuming the shape of a human being. The moment of lucidity quickly passed, and he beheld once again only the veneer of his new nemesis.

He tried to stand up again, but the pressure bearing down upon him now was unimaginable. He felt as though his soul were being wrenched out of his body.

"What... are you?" he gasped, struggling to breathe.

"A man whose time has come," the shape that was Coleridge replied, moving in closer. "Yours, I'm afraid, just ran out."

To his horror, he watched as the putrefied body behind them rose from the stone slab, writhing unnaturally as it moved, the pendulous skin of its malformed face peeling further apart as it neared them. The rotting cadaver watched him with its eyeless gaze as Coleridge moved in closer.

"Goodbye, Mr. Strife," Coleridge said, raising the stone scepter above his head. "It's been a pleasure doing business with you."

The final blow came, and with it, his soul was dislodged from his body. He sank into the ground, wherein he was struck by a deluge of delusional dreams. As he descended into the marrow of the Earth, the realms of the underground unfolded before his eyes. He could see the hooks. The shadows. The unending corridors of fire. Ashen coffins, altars of sacrifice and oceans of blood. The stone sarcophaguses, pulsating from the conflagration within. The torrential screaming of untold lost souls..

And then he plunged further still, into a deeper hell than he ever imagined could exist.

Clarity returned to him, as his descent came to a close, after untold centuries of deranged dreaming. The torpor that had enveloped his frame gradually faded, allowing him movement once more. He struggled to move onto his side, then sat up, his head clearing, as though he were waking from a deep sleep.

He blinked a few times, letting his surroundings come into focus. Though he had traversed most of the known world, the landscape around him was one he did not recognize. As his senses returned to him, he realized that it could not be any place on the surface of the Earth. He was in what appeared to be a giant catacomb, deep underground, atop a bridge, underneath which a waterfall cascaded. Only the waters seemed to be slowly seeping backwards, not forward. Next to him, he saw several shattered stone gargoyles. Or rather, stone gargoyles that seemed to be in the process of shattering, but never quite finishing, their fragments hanging suspended in the air, as though frozen in time. The whole place seemed to exist outside of time and the notions of causality that he'd known in life, with everything arrested in motion, trapped in limbo. It wasn't what he'd expected of the afterlife, but where else could he be?

"Wake up, Spikes," a familiar voice came.

Looking up, he saw someone approaching him. "Zack?" Cloud said, as the man's face came into focus.

"Long time, no see, kiddo," Zack said, grinning at him. "How's death treating you?"

"...I'm dead?" Cloud asked. It seemed a stupid question, but he had to ask it.

"Well... yes," Zack said. "And no. It's complicated."

He offered his hand, helping Cloud back to his feet. "Come on," he said. "I'll fill you in on the way."

"What's going on, exactly?" Cloud asked.

"Where do I start?" Zack said. "We've got troubles like you wouldn't believe."

"Trust me, Zack," Cloud said, taking in their otherworldly surroundings. "If ever I was in a believing mood, it's today."

[A few days later]

Coleridge and Sephiroth walked through the streets of New Midgar, blending into the crowd. None could not see past their deception, and few would take notice of them even if they could.

"How does it feel to be among the living once more?" Coleridge asked.

"This body is... adequate. It will do, for now," Sephiroth replied, studying the right hand of his new body, closing it into a fist, then opening it again, as though testing it. He couldn't help but smile. Suborning the body of his old nemesis seemed a nice, neat way of taking revenge. Two birds with one stone. "But you promised you would restore me to full power," he said, looking at Coleridge.

"All in due time," Coleridge replied. "I have a few things I need to take care of, first. In the meantime, why don't you go and introduce yourself to the family?"

With that, Coleridge departed, leaving Sephiroth standing alone outside the Seventh Heaven. He waited a moment, looking the place over, before stepping through the door.

"You're back," Tifa said, coming down the stairs to meet him. Another smile crept up on his lips.

"Yes," Sephiroth thought. "Yes, I am."

Author's Notes

I'm juggling a variety of story ideas at the moment, as well as working on updates for the stories that I've already got out. This one's still largely an acorn of an idea, but I thought I'd put it forward. You guys let me know if you think it's worth pursuing further. Cheers, and thanks for reading.