Final Fantasy-Last Stand
CHAPTER 1 - REMNANT OF TOMORROW
I think i want to be forgiven...more than anything/
''Cloud!'' The cries of excitement bounced from old pillar to new, their voices running together at the top of the crystal roof far above them. Cloud looked up at it, tried to squint through the ray's of intense sun shine, the brightest day he had ever seen. Or maybe the colours were merely strengthened when run through glass that checkered every tip of it's rainbow.
He felt his hand grabbed, impossibly small fingers just managing to curl around the width of his thumb and pinkie. He looked into the small child's eye's, a startling green he was not expecting, so large on his cherub face framed with curls of gold. He was a quiet boy, Cloud remembered his real name but would call him Hansel like everyone else. A name very fitting with the story of how he came to live with Cloud, one of many orphans who tried to follow the bread crumbs back home through a path destroyed by war.
A soft smile lightened Cloud from the inside out and the boy matched it, raising his arms as he was lifted and clutched against the black sponged jumper of Cloud's chest. He felt Hansel reach up through the spikes of white gold gathered on his head and beary his small fingers to the roots, something he seemed to do with everyone when being held, then used his other hand to stick his thumb into his mouth and curl around his nose. Cloud's hand, sprawled on his back from blade to blade so small was Hansel's body, made his way through the rest of the children dancing between the colours. Ribbons twirled behind some as they clutched fist fulls and raced, the quick tapping of little feet was as endless as the patter of rain and the laughter seemed to bubble up from their very soul's. It was beautiful to listen to, lost children smiling once again, truly happy at a new home it had taken Cloud months to build.
After the fighting had ended and the memories seemed to settle like dust around the city things had began to change. The people, no longer terrorised by the threat of a planet intent on reeking it's revenge had started to rise a new Shinra from the ashes of the old. Buildings slowly grew from ruins to the proud establishments they once were and the city was once again filled with the busy hustle of life. Everyone seemed to smile so much easier these day's as the relief hung like a living shawl just bellow the sky. Cloud, along with the help of all those who had fought beside him and sore first hand the sorry state the world had once been in had gathered at the crumbling remains of the church he had stayed in and turned it into something like a home. The skeleton of the church still resided but wholes were filled and extensions added until an orphanage with the beauty of a cathedral now stood before it's memory.
The children were always running down it's red carpeted halls, finger tips gliding along the massive frames of glass on every wall. Dozens of rooms littered every level and inside them each one was plastered with the touch of that child's happiness. Colourful sheet's on the bunk beds, bright pictures splashed with paint, cloths usually scattered amongst the furniture. Cloud was resigned to the fact that he was now these orphans guardians, hell he didn't really know how to be anything else besides the brooding delivery boy or the ex-soldier.
As he fought his way through the beaded curtain some of the children had made out of a jewelry kit found, into the living area that now consisted instead of broken pews and alters, yellow love seats and rainbow bean bags, he settled Hansel onto a cushion. The boy stretched forward and grabbed a discarded jigsaw puzzle, as was often his favored thing to do and began to tip the pieces out. Cloud watched him though his attention was more focused on the floor boards that creaked beneath his feet, underneath him sat the hollow spot. And underneath those boards he could still smell the fragrance of lily water, keeping the room sweet, a little pond flooding the forbidden basement bellow.
Cloud had not let them distory the original floor of the church, where the water from which the childen plagued by the Stigma had stepped into and been freed lay still around the tumbling pillars and debry. He wanted it there because the part of him that wanted to forget did not always agree with the part of him that wanted to remember. He hadn't been down there since they had rebuilt the church and the door to the bottom floor was always locked, the key making the dip of Cloud's chest hurt when it pressed into his skin.
Hansel appeared to sense the sudden change in atmosphere, blonde head dipping up to inspect the emotions on Cloud's face.
''They told me the battle was a hard one, they told me it nearly destroyed everything.''
''You were to young to remember,'' Cloud confirmed. Hansel nodded, latched onto Cloud's sleeve and pulled him down until the man sat on his knee's. He pushed a piece of the puzzle into Cloud's hand, it felt smooth one side and rough on the other.
''Have you ever tried to complete the puzzle when you can't see the picture on the pieces?'' Hansel questioned. Cloud shook his head, pale eye brows furrowed as he clutched the cardboard between his fingers.
''It's really hard and the other side always looks so dull compared to the side the pictures on.''
With that said Hansel released him and ignored him long enough for Cloud to realize he was done with him. He made his way past the play room where they had come from, noted the children trying to blow up a plastic pool that seemed big enough to fit them all in. He froze as he made to move forward but collided with something else, too soft for a wall and too tall for a child.
''Tiffa,'' Cloud reached out and steadied her arms where the tray's of drinks balanced there seemed to totter before becoming still again. The girl really was beautiful when her pale skin was flushed from running around after dozens of children and her deep brown hair danced free around her shoulders. Instead of her usual black attire she wore a long dress patterned with flowers.
''Cloud,' she beamed,'how have you been?''
Cloud couldn't help but laugh,''we sore each other just this morning so i don't think much different from then.''
Tiffa laughed too, seeming to do the impossible as she piled the two tray's onto both arms and pushed a few stray hairs from her eyes. ''It seems like day's since this morning, i've been so busy with everything. I know i said i'd help you out Cloud but you really could do more than wondering from room to room all day and playing with the children.''
''Someone need's to keep them entertained,'' Cloud replied.
''And someone needs to feed them.''
''You go,' Cloud slipped a tray from Tiffa's arms and cradled it on his own,' you need to be at the bar.''
''I know,' she sighed,'but with Marlene worried over Densil i've been too tiered to open it.''
''Densil?''
''He's been having nightmares, nearly every night.''
Cloud faltered, his own blue eye's un-focusing as he ran over his own tormented dreams. Tiffa recognised the beginning of one of his many brooding moments and laughed light enough to expel the tension.
''After everything he's seen Cloud don't you think he's going to have nightmares?''
''I guess,'' Cloud muttered, now somewhere distant. He felt Tiffa's hand on his shoulder and heard her words, as faded as the light coming through the window as she disappeared down the hall.
''All of us have nightmares Cloud, even the bad guys.''
Plenty of things broke. You could brake a vase, a curfew, a law, break the ice, the seal on a bottle. You could break a snail's shell, bones and rhythm. Kadaj made a list of all these things in his head as he fell.
In fragments he wondered, wondered where the soft threads of the after life had gone from it's grasp around his soul, wondered who was letting him fall like this, endlessly through a darkness that felt familiar with it's torture. Made a list as long as the breath in his lungs of all the things he had done to deem this punishment fair. To all those he had killed and taken from, this would seem just.
And as he dared to open his eyes, the moment he realized he had eye's again he felt his body plummet into something hard and solid. Something that broke his fall before giving way with a sharp crack and clatter. Then a small drop again, nothing like the endless decent he had just traveled and then a splash. Water can brake, Floor's can brake. A touchable tide took over at last but before the sight he'd newly required could fade completely Kadaj focused his vision. Everything moved like the black waves of a dream, a sea shadowed by bottomless nightmares. And just as Kidaj surrendered himself to this new, deadlier Life Stream he realized hearts could break too.
When Cloud heared the screams of a dozen children break out all at once by now he was so used to peace he thought of a big black spider in the bath tub, toast left in the toaster so long it had burst into flames (again), he thought at worst of one of the children having fallen over and cracked their head open or something as equally traumatizing.
So as he lifted himself from the crouched position he had taken up in order to get a closer look at the hole in the garden wall, a hole made by one of the children who had consequently figured out how to make small explosives with the chemicals under the kitchen sink, he did not expect little blonde Hansel to come careening right into him. Cloud had never seen the child stand on his own two feet for more than five minutes, let alone run. And the boy looked whiter than usual, pale with fear as he burrowed his head deeper into Cloud's legs.
''I heared screams?'' Cloud lifted his eye's to stare in through the back door of the orphanage, scanning for smoke or flooding. The building looked fine so what was going on?
''An angel fell through the ceiling,'' a muffled reply came from the squirming child. Cloud, believing he had heard wrong lifted Hansel from underneath the arms until he was hovering in the air, face to face.
''I'm sorry i didn't catch that,'' the natural soft tones of Cloud's voice soothed the boy enough to calm him into talking. Though he seemed reluctant, staring straight into Cloud's eye's for a few minutes as if weighing up the idea of sharing his secret.
''An angel fell through the ceiling then went though the floor, my puzzle fell down the whole. I didn't know there was water down there.''
Cloud froze, his grip on the small boy weakening enough until he had lowered Hansel to the ground. The small child began twirling a curl of gold hair around his finger before staring up at his carers stricken face.
''Cloud, can angel's drown?''
And Cloud was running, up the garden steps warmed by a lazy sun and through the wide kitchen where his feet echoed of the tiles. He wasn't quit sure what Hansel had meant but assuming he had mistaken an angel for a person who had fallen through the floor he could imagine the scene. One of the orphans thundering around in their room, the floorboards giving way, maybe even booby trapped by one of the more mischievous kids and said child falling straight through the ceiling, into the lounge with enough force to keep falling straight through to the ruin bellow.
He tried to remember who lived in the room above the play area, a little girl wasn't it. He imagined her thrashing around, terrified in the pitch black rain water, left there as a serious hazard all because Cloud couldn't get over his memories.
He burst into the colourful expanse of the room, could tell where the hole was by the flock orphans gathered around the splintered floor, given way to a depthless drop.
''Get back,'' He panted, pulling them away from the edge of broken wood before leaning into the darkness.
''Are you ok, are you hurt?'' He yelled, listening to his own voice echo back. The panic curled, cold and tight at the base of his spine when the only reply he reseved was the gentle lapping of rippling water.
Turning on his feet and tearing the chain from around his throat so the key to the basement could slide into his palm he glanced at the children.
''Did you see who fell in?' they shook their heads, wide eye's un-able to un-latch themselfs from the gaping hole,'ok, stay here and don't go near the drop. I'm gonna find out who's down there.''
Without breaking his pace Cloud snatched up a stray torch from behind a bean bag and darted back into the garden once more. He ran around the side of the house, coming to a grey door in the side of the wall partly hidden by the mass of a rose bush left to grow wild. Ignoring the thorns that dug into the muscle of his bare arms Cloud pushed the key into the door, bolting into the darkness once it swung open. He pulled a cord to light his descent down the concrete steps, a light that faded into a dim outline once he came into the clearing of the original church. The torches light barely penitrated the darkness
His boots had already hit water, seeping into the rubber of his shouls and Cloud took a second to pause as memories swarmed at his sences. He couldn't hear anyone struggling to stay afloat which was eather bad or good. Depending weather the person had dropped into the deepest part of where the small pool collected and been to injured to keep afloat or if they had landed and managed to claw their way into the shallows.
Cloud could barely see as he waded forward, only the odd outline of broken shards where windows once were and the end of a drowning bench. He waded up to his knee's, black combats sticking un-comfortably close to his legs. Cloud edged in further to his chest, tasting the dampness of un-stired air and the fresh scent of his own fear.
''Hello, is anyone there. Are you badly injured, make any sound you can if you can't talk,'' he yelled into the darkness, pausing to wait for any sign of life. When nothing but silences greeted him back Cloud turned to wade to where the first row of seats once were, noticing a circle of light reflecting against the water from where the jagged floor boards had given in. He looked up above and sighed as a dozen young faces, bright with excitement peaked around the whole.
''I told you guys to stay away from the edge,'' Cloud frowned, skaing his head when a throng of voices came down at him, all passing the blame onto the other.
''Charlotte said we should watch in case you needed our help.''
''Hansel asked if i could try and spot his puzzle down there.''
''Marien told me to do it.''
''Ok, ok just get back. If the floor boards give way now your all going to get wet-''
Cloud noticed the atmosphere change and the eager faces of the orphans shift from eyeing him to staring, awe struck at the water in front of him. The silence was eerie as Cloud looked down...and felt all the rules he had gathered about life drift away on the black waves around him.
He could see the beginning of skin as white as rice paper rise towards him, alien in it's beauty yet terrifying in the stillness of it's arrival. Eye's shut, skin swelling with water absorption, a dead facade on a ghost. He was a ghost. Cloud had watched him die, watched the Life Stream carry him away.
Without realizing he had began to move or knowing how to stop himself once he was aware of his arms reaching down, Cloud lifted the dead weight into his arms and pulled him out the water. If he was a ghost then why was he now cradling the lifeless body of Kidaj, Sethirophs remnant, so very real and solid against his thundering chest.
Cloud's thoughts stumbled over themselves as each passing minute seemed to prove the authenticity of the situation. From the way the water ran of Kidaj's lilly white skin as if his whole body were crying river's to the soaked silk of silver hair plastered to the side of Cloud's forearm. No dream could be etched this deep with detail and no memory of his would ever manifest itself into this.
Taking a breath he almost choked over Cloud tried to ignore the feel of too many eye's recording his every move and slowly lowered his head down to Kidaj's chest. He only paused for a second, to recognise the feeling of utter bewilderment that came with miracles before pressing his ear to the naked chest of his former enemy. Inside of him had been Sephiroth, inside of him was a heart beat strong and damp as a rabbit's and Cloud reeled back on a gasp.
Last time he had craddled this body to him, felt every curve and pulse was just before the planet's essence had wraped Kidaj in it's shore and carried him into it's heart, so selfishly, so selflessly. Now Cloud held the naked, whippet build of Kidaj as he had been reborn. And just like a new born he parted lips that were almost tinted blue with the ice of the water and wailed a sound of true dispair. A sound of the broken.