[Those familiar with Japan will likely recognize the setting to this dream. It's the Ebisu mall. It's rather innocent for the moment, with people going about their business in the place or just mingling among themselves visiting with each other.

There's one thing off though if a person decides to have a closer look at that crowd. They have no faces really to speak of, just a suggestion of one, eyes, nose and an opening that serves for a mouth. It's an almost literal living representation of the term "nameless, faceless crowds"... though there is one person in this place who looks to all appearances completely normal and human. Perhaps he looks like someone you hold dear, or maybe he just feels like someone you cherish. Or perhaps he's just a nameless young man caught napping on the bench in this busy mail.

Either way, he seems to be stirring now, as if your presence has alerted him to someone else being with him now, having entered within this dream of his. Fuuma opens his eyes and a friendly smile graces his face, making him look harmless and much like the normal young man he appears to be.]

Hello.

[There's nothing here.

Nothing. No sound, no shapes, no movement. A void. Were it not for how frighteningly aware you are of a lack of substance is in this place, it would be easy to believe that you weren't dreaming at all.

Until enough time passes, and the darkness begins to close in.

It's not the sort of darkness associated with emptiness - it's a real thing, where before there had been nothing at all. The kind of darkness that grows and expands, covering, choking all that stands in it's way. Except nothing is there. Nothing but you, of course. No matter how much you run, or try to push it aside, there is no end to it. No light.

But the darkness does recede, eventually. There is no more feeling of being covered, or surrounded, though there is still nothing to illuminate the world around you. Instead the darkness is a force that lingers, surrounds this place, but those who are wise will realize that it's far from benign. It holds back power that can only spell destruction.

It, or him.

Because there is a boy there, among other things. A boy with glowing yellow eyes, who seems to belong in this darkness. Who may even be part of it, or at least know what it hides.

The are sounds, now, too, to fill the void, somewhere off in the distance. The sound of blades, clashing during a fight. The sound of the wind blowing over a vast wasteland.

The even fainter sound of waves.

And the sound of a voice as the boy finally speaks, because he knows that he isn't alone.]

You should leave.

[It's a threat, one that he sounds all too happy to back up.]

You find yourself standing beneath a dark, clouded sky, with a great tower rising before you. A forbidding sight, so at first it's easy to overlook one aspect of the scene that seems somehow out of place.

Yet if one is observant, one may notice that there's a long, unbound skein of silver hanging down one side of the building, from an open window that's quite high up (the 67th Floor, to be precise). In that high chamber, Sephiroth sits waiting, thoughtful and even a little wistful. He isn't supposed to let his hair down without being ordered to do so, but he tires of his seclusion here, and of following orders.

The doors and lower windows of the tower cannot be entered, sealed by some force, and guarded. There appears to be no viable way to enter, other than that strange, pale, silver fall of hair.

So, do you climb it?

[[OOC: The tale of Sephpunzel. Relevant image. If you'd like to be already in the story or play some character other than the rope-climber, be my guest!

You can also request child Sephiroth (pinnaculum) instead of adult Sephiroth, but I'll default to adult if not specified otherwise.]]