Final fantasy 7: Pure Heart
After his defeat of Sephiroth, Cloud found himself feeling lonely, ever since Aeris had passed away, Even though his friends were around him he still felt as lonely as can be. Although he would laugh at the jokes and even smile. But he still felt as if something was missing, there were times he found himself staring out into space, until a familure voice of one of his friends would bring him back.
"Are you alright Cloud?" a young girl about sixteen or so asked. He then smiled as he replied to her.
"Yeah, I'm ok." he then looked up at her as she was smiling at him.
"Well you seem as if you're thinking of something…..or someone?" she said as her smile went away.
"Well I was, I was thinking about…Aeris again." he said as he looked down. As Cloud had said that the whole gang looked at him as they looked sad because Aeris was a dear and beloved friend that they once knew.
"Oh, I'm sorry Cloud." she said going back to what she was going.
"Yuffie." Cloud said as he put his hand on her shoulder. "It's ok…right." he said as he tried to put a smile on his face, but made a lousy one instead.
"Cloud, you do know she's in a better place?" another girl had said. Cloud nodded once again and sighed deeply "Yes, I know." He then smiled again.
"Tifa?" Yuffie said as she looked up at the girl who was talking to Cloud.
"Yes?" Tifa had answered while looking at a deck of cards.
"Do you think she's in a better place?" Yuffie asked as it went silence again. Cloud looked at Yuffie and smiled
"Yes I do believe she is" He answered the question, and then left the room.
After a while Cloud and Barret, another good friend were in the park watching Red 13 run around as he was chasing rabbits."Get back here!" he yelled as he started to chase them again. Barret shook his head as he was watching the wolf like cat playing with the rabbits.
"If he's not fighting then he's chasing the rabbits" he said laughing at the cat that was jumping back and forth in the bushes. Cloud gave a smile, but found him self drifting back to the face he longed to see the most, That of Aeris, her smile made him feel warm inside, him thoughts brought him back to a moment that he saw her smile.
Barret watched him smiling but he wasn't smiling at the playfulness of Red13, but of something else. Barret then stopped smiling as he put one hand on Clouds shoulder.
"Hey?" Barret said as he broke Clouds concentration, who blinked and looked at Barret who was looking at him
"What?" he answered not thinking.
"Let me guess…were you thinking of Aeris?"
"No I was just thinking." he answered lying; he didn't need Barret telling him the same thing Tifa had told him again.
"What ever you say." Barret then continued to watch Red 13, He knew that Cloud was lying to him because of the smile he had.
Red 13 had stopped playing and walked over to where Barret and Cloud was. "Wow…I'm sleepy" he said looking at Cloud not paying attention to what he just said but however Barret was. They both looked at Cloud as if he lost it.
"Well we're going to go get something to eat. Wanta come?" Barret asked while he stood up.
"No, thanks." Cloud replied "I think I'll stay here and watch the sunset."
"Alright, well you know where we will be if you change your mind." He then walked off with Red13. Red then looked at Barret
"Do you think it was a good idea to leave him there by himself?" he asked.
"Yeah, it might help him think things out." they both walked off leavening Cloud behind.
Cloud got up and walked over to a hill and below it he could see a meadow. He then walked down to the meadow, as he did he saw a huge tree near it and it looked to have a good view of the sunset. "Well..." he said continuing to walk over to the tree. He sat down looking out "It's so beautiful….but not….as beautiful as you Aeris." he said to himself. He then started to have memories filling his mind and he also found himself falling asleep as well. Clouds burst into sparks as he feel deeper into the dreams then reappeared at the spot where he saw his other self trying to save aeris but didn't save her in time then he saw his other self holding Aeris in his arms crying because of what had happened. Sorrow had filled clouds head and heart once again making him break down in tears that fell down his cheeks landing on the dust filled ground below him. Then he closed his eyes once again and felt a warm touch on his face. He opened his eyes but saw no one, he soon found himself drifting back to sleep once again. Only to feel the warmth once again. He opened his eyes and saw a girl with green eyes looking right at him with a gentle smile written across her face. He knew right away who it was, it was Aeris who he longed to see, and He sat up quickly as he reached out to embrace her tightly. He could feel her warmth and the lovely smell of roses in her hair, she felt real so he believed it was. A tear had escaped from her eye, as she smiled, he could feel it fall on his shoulder wetting his shirt, he then looked at her as he let go and still had his hands on her shoulders.
"Don't be sad." she spoke. "I'm not completely gone if you keep me here." she touched his chest above his heart. Cloud looked at her and he also had a tear in his eye,
"I love you Aeris" he said as he hugged her again.
Aeris smiled and they both hugged for a while. When they stopped cloud stood up holding Aeris's hand.
"So, How did you get back?" he asked. Aeris tried to avoid the question and asked one in its place.
"Do you want to go to the meadow and pick flowers?" she asked him while getting up, as well as grabbing her basket that had been sitting next to her.
"Umm…ok I guess we can, but how did you come back?" he kept asking her as they both walked to the meadow, after a while he stopped asking and they both spent the rest of the day there picking flowers. Aeris had stopped and looked up as she drooped the basket and you could see that she was fading away, However Cloud wasn't paying attion, but then he looked over at Aeris who was crying
"Aeris, what's the matter?" he asked worried
"This…is only temporary." she said.
"What?…what do you mean?" Cloud asked as he watched her confused at what was happing. Aeris looked up with tears in her eyes,
"I'm only a dream…" she said then she broke down. "I'm sorry cloud…if only I was real…I don't want you to feel sorry for me anymore."
"I don't want you to go Aeris." he said as she looked back into his eyes.
"I wish I could but I can't." she lifted up her hands and you could see right through her as if she were a ghost. "I'm sorry".
Cloud couldn't say anything he was shock to hear those words and to watch the one person he loved so much slow fading before his eyes
"To tell you the truth…I should be sorry." he said while looking down ashamed at the actions that caused him to not reach her in time. Aeris knew what he was talking about.
"It wasn't your fault" she said bringing out the white Materia that glowed a soft white and felt warm as she placed it in his hand. "Keep this…it may come in use." she said walking away from him.
"WAIT!" he yelled after her as he chased her down but he couldn't reach her it was like he was going back "AERIS NO!" he fell to his knees as he closed his eyes and opened them once again to see Tifa in front of him looking concerned.
"Are you alright Cloud?' she asked him
"Yeah…I was" he said in a low voice then opened his left hand the Materia that Aeris had given him was still there. "What?…it was real?" he asked himself,he then got up on his feet and then he looked up in the night sky. His eye caught a feather slowly drifting downwards toward him, he held out his hand and it softly landed on his palm "Aeris" he said in a low voice. Tifa smiled as she saw the feather
"She's ok I think she would tell you that i mean that was who you were thinking about again." she said smiling again. Then Cloud turned around
"You think so?" he asked as he walked up the hill. Tifa was confused and then followed him up the hill.
"What are you going to do now?" she asked as she stopped next to him as he looked out over the rippling water before him.
"We're going to find the silver blue Materia." he answered.
Tifa looked at him again surprised by this remark that came from him.
"Oh my god, no ones ever found that, that's like impossible.I mean after all it is the Great Life Auga " she said to him.
"But for her sake…I want her back" he said as he walked away from Tifa.
A day or two had pasted by and Cloud still wasn't ready to go, he was still reading books in the library. He read every single book about the Materia that he could find, but nothing was helping. Some people said it was just a myth and others like the Ancients said that it was real. But there was still no hope he was just about to give it up because he hadn't been eating nor has he been sleeping. Tifa and the rest were trying to get him to sleep and they brought food up to him but he had not touched it, he stayed quit for a long time trying to sort things out in his mind, this was getting to be a challenge that he was not about to give up on. Tifa walked over to the same table he was sitting at with the stacks of books that he had been reading. She moved a small pile aside and opened the one she had in her hand. She turned pages as she read which caught Clouds eye.
"What do you have there?" he asked as he watched her turn another page.
"Just a book I found stuck in the corner." She answered not looking up from the page she was concentrating on. He reached over and took the book away from her in mid sentence. "Hey I was reading that." She stated as he opened the book and started to read it himself. A smile grew across his face.
"Tifa, I love you." He replied getting up and walked away from the table. Tifa blushed at this and glanced around.
"Does that mean you'll be taking me out for dinner now?" She spoke as he rushed out of the room. Cloud didn't hear the remark as he found Barret who was sitting out side watching Red 13 again and laughing when the rabbit got away.
"Barret?" he called as he rushed up to him almost tripping on the rabbit as it ran hard to get away from Red 13. "I found it." He stated. "I found where the Life Auga is located."
"That's great." Barret spoke as he stood up. He wasn't about to say anything else that would make Cloud go back silent again. "So where does it say is it?" he asked as Cloud thumbed threw the pages looking for the right one.
"It says it is located at mount Karu." He replied. "It's a two days journey from here, but if we leave now we could be there in less than that."
"Hang on, if its two days, then let's wait until morning that way we can all have time to rest up." He told him, Cloud shook his head.
"But if we leave now we can miss the heat of the day." He protested.
"Look I'm all for finding this but I need sleep or I get cranky." He smiled. Red 13 nodded.
"And does he get cranky, he's worse then me." He joked.
"Then I'll go by myself." Cloud said as he started to turn. Barrett stopped him by grabbing his arm.
"Let's not get hasty my friend; we will go in the morning, early okay?"
"Fine, then go to bed now so we can get up." He stated then turned to leave the courtyard heading back inside. He headed to his room where he plopped himself onto his bed and stared up at the ceiling, his mind filled with the thought of possibly getting Aeris back, soon he fell to sleep and had a wonderful dream of her once again. Only to have to cut short by the sudden shake he received from Barret.
"If you ready to leave then we need to go now." He told him. Cloud felt as thought he had just fallen to sleep and weight of it was bearing down on his shoulders as he forced himself to get out of bed. He grabbed what he needed for the trip and headed out of the room to see all of his friends waiting for him sharing a small meal of warm porage and bread. Tifa smile as she moved over on the bench seat she was sitting to allow him to sit down next to her. But he just reached over grabbing the loaf of bread and tearing off a piece before tossing it back down to the table.
"We need to go." He told them as he turned to leave the room. With the others scrambling around grabbing their belongs and running after him.
Everyone finally caught up with Cloud who had been ahead of them for an hour.
"So Cloud where are we going again?" Yuffie asked because she really didn't know.
"We're going to Mt.Karu." he answered
"But why are we going there?" she asked another dumb question again. Cloud looked to be getting frustrated from hearing the 16 year old talk.
"Well we're going there because I need to get some thing." he told her while walking faster ahead.
"What's the matter with him Tifa?" another question popped out of her mouth.
Tifa didn't answer her and they all continued to walk towards Mt. Karu. The night went by as the stopped for a rest they told a few jokes and even shared some stories.
"Well everyone lets get some rest and we will head out tomorrow" Cloud said as he sat down on a rock watching to make sure nothing would sneak up on them at night. As he was watching everyone was sound asleep but one. Tifa had gotten up and walked over to the rock that Cloud was sitting on and put a blanket on him, "Its cold out." she told him as she sat next to him "Get some sleep, I'll watch everyone tonight" she said in a genital way. Cloud had looked at her and shook his head no.
"I don't need to sleep, you need the rest Tifa." he said knocking the blanket off his shoulders.
The next day everyone was up early, what Cloud had wanted, and now they continue their journey to the mountain. After that day they finally got there. They had set camp out at the bottom of the mountain and Cloud said they will go up in the morning and get what they finally came for.
"Rise and Shine Tifa." Red 13 said as he stretched out his paws and tail.
"Where's Cloud?" Tifa had asked Red to see if he knew.
"Well all I know is that Cloud and berrit went up" he answered her.
"But why did they leave with out use?" she asked another question
"All I know is he went up with Barret and they will be down later on, But however he did say we can go up when we are ready but he suggested use to stay" he answered her again
Tifa looked up at the huge greenish mountain. While putting her stuff away.
Meanwhile up in the mountain Cloud and Barret are high up. They have been on this mountain for like 5 hours so far. Finally Barret started to talk to Cloud.
"So what are you going to do if this doesn't work?" he asked not trying to give his hopes up.
"Well I'm not sure, I just hope it does that's all" he answered as they reach the first door on the mountain.
"Yah this is it." Cloud said while looking a Barret. They both walked into the shrine or temple of the Materia. They both decided it would be a good idea to split up to find it.
"Good lucky man." Barret said with a smile and he put out his hand to shack clouds hand for good luck.
"Yeah you too." Cloud and him shock hands and went their seprit ways.
Cloud went to the left as to look for the matira. The place he was in seemed to be dead and nothing alive but only a few monsters but he only encountered two. However Barret had encountered 5. After they had been fighting they came upon each other again they both had found the Life Arua at the same time.
"We found it." Cloud had said with a smile.
"Yeah…so know what?" Barret asked Cloud whose getting ready to pick it up "Wait don-"it was too late Cloud had touched the Materia and you start to hear a sound coming from a corner. "What's that?" Cloud asked as he saw a Huge Demon named Zellthose protector of the Materia.
"You shall punish mortals for touching the power of life." He yelled out at Cloud.
"Sorry" Barret said and then both cloud and he ran out of the temple and down the mountain less then 5 hours it took them like 3 to come down. On their way they see the rest of the guys "Lets Get out of here" Cloud had yelled at them and everyone had followed cloud.
After it got safe everyone had stopped and rested.
"I'm so tiered" Red 13 said as he panted
"Well we need to get a move on the city of the Ancients are a few miles away" Cloud said while walking on
Everyone had finally made it to where Aeris had been rested in Peace. Cloud had gone in first before everyone else did. HE studded by the grave and took out the Materia's, the white and the silver blue one. He then placed them in the water as they both collided you then see a huge light which could blind you. After they saw the light nothing had happened all they saw was the lake and stuff flying down on them. Everyone had turned away they knew that it might not have worked but it was worth a shot. As Cloud was still looking he had one tear that had fallen into the lake, he then turned away and started to walk off but then he hered a voice in the back of his head and then before you knew it Aeris was there and she was alive. Forever
The End