Painting love with Blood

Cloud’s head ached.

No. Correction. Cloud’s head felt as if a tap dancer decided to do an endless performance on his brain. A tap dancer in high heels, Cloud decided after another stab of pain went through his temples. Zack had dragged him round the whole of the building. He had been introduced to every janitor or coffee girl and through ought this he had be talking as if he not only did not need to breath but he needed to win a prize for the most chatter. Cloud had also been made acquainted with all the previous sites of Zack’s pranks. That included the time he apparently dumped a bucket of red dye over Lazard’s head. (Lazard being the man Cloud had met in office number 4) Cloud had learnt that the toilet on the first floor smelt because the ventilation was broken and never, ever to use the coffee machine next to the water fountain unless he wanted to get a mixture of coffee, hot chocolate and tea all in one drink. He had been told of peoples’ habits, how Chief Highwind was never happy without his tea, how the mascot Cait Sith was a robot toy cat built by the head Inspector Reeve and why you never upset Scarlet the head of weapons department. By the end of it all Cloud’s head was spinning and Zack still hadn’t stopped talking.

“And here is our joint office of looove, Spike. Any questions?” Zack had let go of his arm and had turned around to face him. When no answer was forthcoming he took Cloud’s arm again and dragged him into the office. Cloud later swore that he did not ‘eep’ as Zack dumped him in the chair behind the desk and proceeded to flop onto the couch.

“Well Spiky now that the grand tour is done all we have to is lounge around and wait till we either are set on for patrole or a case comes up. Personally I prefere patrole no matter how boring it is, dealing with homicide is never nice and fluffy bunnies.”

Cloud cocked his head and Zack was suddenly struck with the desire to fluff his hair; so he did with ruthless abandon. Cloud looked thoroughly ruffled once he had finished. “Hey, gerrof!” Cloud waved his arms as he tried to get Zack away, Zack was now holding him in a headlock and had restarted fluffing his hair. Cloud did not know what he had done to be put in this humiliating position, he had no doubt that he had insulted some god up there without knowing, why else would they have given him this loon for a partner. Not only was he obviously going to get killed by car crashes and feathers but he would die death by noogie as well.

“Woo, your hair is so soft, Spike, and no gel either,” he stopped attacking his hair to glance at him, “Your just like me, natural spikes. I guess us spiky hair dudes have to stick together then.”

“What is with you?” Cloud had managed to escape from the headlock and was now glaring at Zack, blue eyes flashing, lips set in an almost-pout. “I barley know you and yet your treating me like a pet dog”

Zack blinked and looked Cloud up and down once “Na, not a dog, your too snarky to be one. You’re a kitty Spike, a grumpy, snarky kitty that’s too cute for his own good.”

Cloud threw up his hands and groaned “Your intolerable, how did any of your other partners deal with you?” at this Zack grinned.

“Well at first I had a mentor Angeal, he called me puppy you know. He’s now in the training department, it seems that after he had finished dragging me through everything I needed to know he decided he liked teaching after all. I still don’t get why he called me Puppy though, I mean I’m not one am I Cloud? But anyway now I can be a mentor to Cloudy!”

“Don’t call me that!” Cloud would have stamped his foot if his had less maturity.

“I think this is the beginnings of a wonderful partnership my friend” Zack’s eyes twinkled and his mouth spread in an unholy grin.

“I’ll believe that when you stop looking like the Cheshire cat that not only got the cream but caught the mouse to go along with it as well,” Cloud said rolling his eyes as he started to rearrange the documents that littered his desk, all obviously belonging to Zack, he could already tell that the man was not the type to get paperwork done.


Sephiroth was bored and when Sephiroth was bored bad things happened. Unlike his past acquaintance Zachary Fair, Sephiroth did not indulge in tasteless pranks. Rather when he was bored he tended to excite his senses with either lustful pleasures or the enticing scent of the crimson liquid of life, blood. Sephiroth stood from his chair by the fire, setting his wineglass on the side-table and strode across the room to stand by the window.

‘Midgar; an ugly city full of uncouth individuals and ugly citizens that plague the streets. There is nothing here that could interest me for long. Even the ‘toys’ I acquire do not last long. Then again maybe I play with them too hard. They do scream when they break but none of them are beautiful enough for me to play gently with them. The only way they can become beautiful is by having their blood spilling from their skin. If only there was someone beautiful enough that I did not have to spill too much of it.’

“Vincent,” He drawled. “Has anything... interesting happened recently?” From the shadows stepped his loyal butler the man had and would again kill for him.

“No, my lord, not yet. However, it has come to my attention that ‘Jack’ has found a possible future victim,” Vincent was dressed in a classic butler style; Sephiroth always did like to do things the old fashioned ways.

“The one who fancies to be ‘the second ripper’ how frightfully distasteful surely there are those with more class than him?” Sephiroth raised an eyebrow half turning from the window to face his manservant.

“None since ‘the scientist’ self-destructed to avoid capture,” Vincent was holding a notebook and as he leafed through the pages he came to a stop, “however, there is a new policeman working for the homicide department, he has been partnered with Zackary Fair. He is from Niblihem goes by the name of Cloud Strife, I believe. Do you wish for his profile?”

Waving his hand dismissively Sephiroth stepped away from the window and picked up his wineglass, “No, I may meet him later when I go to visit our dear ‘ripper’s’ victim, I wish for his visage to be a surprise, let us hope it is a pleasant one or he may be sleeping in a pool of his own blood if I find him offensive.”

With that he stepped out of the room and into the bathroom, he wanted to refresh himself before he went to meet anyone new. So at the very least he would not be similar to the repulsive unwashed populace that scurried around like rats. He was a Valentine one of the highest born families there was, second only to Shinra.


She was a pretty pretty girl, with soft shiny brown hair and chubby cheeks. Her hair was done with a white ribbon. Such an innocent colour, so pretty pretty do dirty with red red blood. As the red red flowed down it stained her cute pink clothes. Her screams were so pretty pretty. Oh how he loved to stab his scalpel into her chest so many times. He loved how she cried and begged, tears falling from her big wide eyes. He laughed as he cut her open, stabbing no longer excited him enough. She had stopped struggling now and just sat and cried instead. That was no good, he wanted to hear her cute cute screams, he wanted to see her limbs contort in pain.

Oh yes he was hard now. Her pretty screams excited him so much. Laughing he dragged his zipper down cutting off her skirt and cupcake panties at the same time.

“Do you want this pretty? You scream so nice you must want it,” He let out another barking laugh and dropping his scalpel he grabbed the young girl’s hips. Gripping them tightly he thrust in quickly relishing the tightness of her underage body. She screamed in horror and pain, not understanding everything but knowing that it hurt.

Tears streaked down her cheeks like mocking parodies of crystals while her rapidly palling skin contrasted sharply to the crimson read blood that poured from every cut and slash he had made on her skin. To him the image was beautiful.

He laughed and came to completion quickly, his appreciation of the image she made fuelling his lust, before cutting her throat and watching the last of her lifeblood flow out of her to stain her hair and white ribbon. The ribbon was not white anymore; with all of her disgusting, pretty innocence it had turned dirty red from the ground and her blood. He had dirtied her. The thought made him laugh at the smog that enveloped the city. Midgar was a place for the lowest of low and he was in his element.

“Sleep well pretty pretty. May your dreams be filled with red blood pain and my face,” with that he zipped up his trousers once again and turned out of the ally that he had dragged the innocent girl into. He would escape, for now. What he did not realise is that he had left his scalpel, complete with fingerprints next to the girl along with his DNA. He would be caught due to his mistakes, but those mistakes would warn those that came after him.