A Note- I swore not to do any author's notes, but I'm going to broke my rule just this once. This is a reprint of a fic I started about five years ago because I needed something to post on my now defunct website, the Shinra HQ and because I was feeling kind of depressed at the time. After time, I saw the fic was rife with the various problems that just irk authors to death and took it off , with the idea that if I wasn't proud of it, it wasn't worth posting anymore. That was about a year or so ago.

Over the summer, however, I was bored while on a vacation, and with my new computer (an iBook, if anyone cares. Its name is Freddie and I love it.) I took the old HTML documents I saved from the website, posted it into one big document and basically redid everything I hated. A lot of it is the same, but spelling errors, inconsistencies, certain anachronisms fixed and author's notes taken out. One characters back-story has been slightly revised. The mass amount of ellipses has also been minimized. I hope you enjoy the final product. I will add all that I have typed thus far and may add more to the story at some point in the future. As always, Final Fantasy belongs to Squaresoft (or possibly now, Square Enix). The originals characters are my own, kinda sorta. They took on their own lives and now resent me for abandoning them for so long. Enough rambling.

Part 1: Separated Paths

Chapter 1

Midgar had burned. It was no more than an empty shell, tossed aside by Meteor.

Beautiful...

Corpses lined the roads. All caught unaware.

Had we really expected this?

The school... The Shinra Headquarters... all prominent structures and people, reduced to ashes among the rubble.

No. Through all the chaos, they really expected Shinra Incorporated would save their souls.

He was not God.

Maybe for a time he had thought he was, but no longer did. He realized how fleeting time was in that last moment. But for him, a man on his dying breaths, time had blurred together, without meaning in his twisted reality.

Meteor had finally fallen. It must have jolted him into a few moments of consciousness before his end.

Worthless...

He crawled, unable to do otherwise to the edge of his once beautiful office. Edge? There had once been a large picture window there, featuring a fantastic view of Midgar. It had been the last thing he'd seen.

He must be dead, but the pain had not been alleviated. He longed for its coming, and end to his existence. There was nothing else to look for. All he wanted was release.

Down in the street, seventy floors below, a young woman wept, her dog dead in her arms. Now he had seen, and he knew.

It’s too late. You’ve already been forsaken.

She screamed; her wail of agony met him all the way up there. She flicked out a switchblade and positioned it above her chest, preparing to drive it into her heart. He braced himself for it, the moment before death, the look of terror in one's eyes as they realized their life was over.

The knife clattered down onto the crumpled cement as she threw back her head...and laughed. It was a mirthless sound, maniacal. She was not a child, would never be one again. Was he able to see this from his lofty height above or was it some delusion he was seeing in his final moments?

"This is great!" She screamed hysterically. "It's beautiful! All hope is gone! This is wonderful!" She laughed again, insanely. "I was such a fool! Dead, they all died! Now I see! Death is beauty! I was a fool to think there could be anything else for me!"

Yes...It mirrored his own soul. He was a sick, sick man to view this suffering of another human being with such utter detachment. But it had become so clear. This death, this destruction...

It's my fault.

"It's beautiful! And so funny too!" She conversed between the ashes, the dead. "It's laughable! God said 'let there be death', and then there was! We all thought we were playing God, but no! It's crazy! You're all dead, and I'm still here!"

Dead? Him?

I'm not dead! Don't put me with the rest of them! I'm not dead!

"I'm...not...dead..."

She couldn't hear him, seventy floors below, only turned around, the dog still resting in her arms like it was just sleeping.

"No!"

Don't put me with the others! I'm still here!

She walked on, ignoring his screaming thoughts, still laughing darkly. There was no way...

"We are..."

He collapsed, unable to carry on any further.

I can't be dead! I'm Rufus Shinra!

"Forsaken..."