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[supersoldier]

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[bravers]

[That's the awful thing about fighting Sephiroth, even in a friendly sparring session. Any variable, any mistake, any break from perfect form just simply isn't expected- or at least, not taken for what it was.

Instead of being taken as a mistake, it's taken as a deliberate movement, some form of deception that would lead into a feint, and a mistake of which would be his. Sephiroth hardly fought dirty, but exploiting someone wasn't anything of the sort.

So. The rare, fleeting moment isn't met with mercy. Nor is it met with a step back, or any opportunity to allow him to collect himself as he would offer anyone else in any sparring session otherwise.

As his swordarm is thrown wide- far wide- Cloud ducks underneath the thin, faintly vibrating, singing in a pitch barely audible, blade of the Masamune and brings the Beastlord upward, in an attempt to counter any feint that Sephiroth would so easily be able to twist his body into.

Except nothing comes.
He brings it down.

His sword lurches to a halt indeed, but it's not against steel. Or is it? The thing crunches into something metallic, sure. A shoulder pauldron? Had to be. He heard it crunch against the weight of the thing, heard it cave in as if it were nothing.

But...

It's against the living wall of a man just before him that it truly stops. he can hear the distinct sound of a blade cutting into muscle and sinew as the pauldron deflects it, but it's only really his body that forces it to stop.

Anyone else, and they'd likely be cleaved in two. Or not far from it, anyway. But this man? Even that much force, that much downward momentum is reduced to a surface wound. A nasty one, granted. Right into the chest- enough to slice open his overcoat, and to cause blood, but a far cry from Nibelheim.

...As is his reaction a far cry from back then.
Back then, he followed through. Now...

He stands, sword held stupidly in both hands, raised high again, above his head, as he stares at the wound. The blood blossoming, gushing, dripping, underneath the dull black of that torn coat. The skin that's opened, just as anyone else's skin would open- the torrents of blood filling the gaping slash, and pouring outward, dark and heavy and...

Something fills his mind. It's spontaneous, sudden.
The sword...

Once upon a time there were three brothers in a kingdom. The eldest of the three was the ruling king of the country. The king was very cruel and feared by everyone.

...
He drops the sword.
It's embedded in the ground behind him. And he moves forward.]

Shit-

[Is that all he can truly say?
His eyes are wide, wild, as his mind reels from both the blood, the fact he'd managed to injure him, and what just played in his mind.]

[supersoldier]

[His pauldron takes the hit first, blade piercing into the metal, well and truly leaving a dent. The overcoat is sliced clean through next, and soon he can feel the sharp sting of metal bite into skin and surface level muscle, can feel that very rare heat of pain rake across his chest, and the warm sensation of coppery-red flow from the wound.

It's unexpected. Startling. For anyone else it would be unbearable, but Sephiroth only finds himself rooted to the ground in the realization of what's happened; he had misstepped, miscalculated, because of the wings on his back throwing his balance off by the slightest degree, and paid for it. Injury is not utterly foreign to him -- when he was just a boy, new to the training and the handling of weapons, it had happened as part of the learning process -- but the years had ensured that such a thing was nigh impossible now.

A hand presses to his chest and blood ribbons between his fingers, proving him wrong, and it's more frustrating than alarming. To have faltered was of no fault of his own, not when he asked for these wings, but to have been so infallible and expected in his childhood years to be next to perfect, it’s like being upended, he can hear the tone of Hojo’s scolding in his head and he hates it-- he doesn't bite back the pain, or the disbelief, but only the agitation.]

These wings-

[He hisses low, dangerous, the rare instance of emotion peeking through the surface. But a deep disorientation suddenly filters through their Bond, and Sephiroth lifts his eyes to see a sword-less Cloud approaching.]

It's fine. Don't. [Spare his pride, won't you. Only Sephiroth would say that he's fine after a cut like that.]

[bravers]

[A few moments pass in staring and in wide-eyed disbelief.

When Sephiroth speaks, his mind is suddenly set alight- engulfed by so much more than that old story- some imagining that feels real.

What hits him in waves strong enough to knock that vaguely sentient sword's murmerings is Sephiroth's feeling. An image- Of a greying, stick thin man's callous disapproval. Of Sephiroth's own disorientation, his own disbelief, embarrassment- and most surprising of all, his own pain. Sephiroth could feel pain.

That...
That fact intermingles with Nibelheim in particular. The look in Sephiroth's eyes is almost identical to back then. The low, dangerous hiss of his voice.

It's no longer waves. It comes back in a torrent.
How dare you...

Fear grips him. The fear of back then, anyway. Perhaps Sephiroth can feel it too, the fear. The shock of seeing blood, of feeling his fingers, his knuckles, coated in it. It's the same fear as back then, but what's missing? Anger. The feeling of knowing the only option was to keep going. To-

He bites it back as much as he can.
This was different.

...

[He steps back, half-stumbling over the sword as he does.]

Doesn't look fine to me-

[...He's stopped bleeding? Already? He can see Sephiroth's hand. Gloved as ever, slippery with blood. But that torrent of it, it's-

It's stopped.]

....Uh.

[A few more seconds of silence follow. And he straightens himself.]

Sorry. That was cheap.