This was what I had originally planned when I wrote up Life of Whirlpool... Unfortunately, I am not the best in social or imaginative meetings. I won't lie, I am skeptical of this because I don't personally know how Cloud acted as a child. Sorry if he is OOC, but seriously, I have no idea. This is a Naruto x Final Fantasy VII crossover with a tint of Bleach.

Disclaimer: I don't own anything.

Cloud Strife is a strange child, that much the people of Nibelheim knew.

He wasn't born in Nibelheim, having moved in as a baby with his mother when his father died by reasons unknown. Generally quiet unless spoken to, children often bully him due to his quiet and maybe even shy nature. He wasn't physically strong, but he was fast and smarter than the children in Nibelheim. Those traits wouldn't condemn Cloud to get shunned, but the people of Nibelheim just got the feeling that there was something abnormal with Cloud.

To them, there was just something unnerving in those innocent, childish and intelligent blue eyes; it scared them.

It's in human nature to hate what they fear or cannot understand, therefore it wasn't surprising that humans began hating Cloud Strife for the simple reason that they were afraid of him.

Normally, just as any mother in her place would do, Lily Strife was sad that her son was isolated by the villagers, she had hoped for her little boy to make friends and have a happy childhood. On the other hand, Cloud didn't share such feelings. While he was touched by his mother's concern, he didn't want the company of people like those in Nibelheim; he was perfectly fine by his own even if it did get a little lonely — if there was an instance that he had felt alone, of course.

For some reason or another, even if he was bothered by the glares, a part of Cloud couldn't find it in himself to mind the glares and the blind hatred; it was as if he became numb to it. If anything, Cloud decided, he was glad that he felt this way, because something in him whispered that it would hurt a lot to be glared with such hatred for simply living in the little town.

He knew the villagers considered him a freak, and he couldn't help but guiltily agree with them sometimes.

No normal child brushes off hatred and scorn so easily.

No normal child was intelligent.

No normal child would get senses of deja vu.

No normal child would get nostalgic feelings when he did daily things.

No normal child would find tornados and other wind-related catastrophes beautiful.

No normal child would hear whispers of a voice in his mind.

Yes, Cloud Strife, child of 8, could hear a voice whispering things to him in occasions. At first, it had begun so lowly he brushed it off as the wind, then it escalated in levels until he finally realized that 'it' was a 'she'. He still couldn't decifer what the voice wanted to say, but he avoided responding as much as he could. Even he had limits to normality, and hearing voices in his head was not something to be taken lightly. Cloud had been creeped out and scared, and he dared not tell his mother or anyone in fear of getting shipped off to somewhere unpleasant; he had heard enough stories and gossips to know the possible outcome.

In a moment of childishness, Cloud had once freaked out and played with the idea of a ghost haunting him, but he quickly forgot that little plot after a few days; not because of the lack of it being realistic, but merely because he wasn't being harmed. Sure, it was a pathetic excuse but the voice didn't harm him, if anything, the voice always warned Cloud, in her own way, whenever some bullies decided to gang up on him.

One or two bullies he could handle, but taking on 5 to 10 children bigger than him put Cloud in disadvantage.

And even if he didn't answer to the voice's murmurs, Cloud was thankful for her help; that day, he had been targeted by one of the most . . . physical bullies, and it wouldn't do if he worried his mom to death when he returned home with bruises. Besides, Cloud wasn't one that sics their parent on other people; personally, he knew how fierce his mom could be, and the bullies wouldn't even last a second against her lashing when she was mad.

But returning to the matter, Cloud couldn't really match the voice to actual words since her voice was always fuzzy, but he got signs when she warned him of danger, and he could only wish that he could understand the signs of speaking.

A little part of Cloud was guilty for ignoring one of the people who actually help him, if the voice could even be counted as a person of course; but it was totally abnormal, and he was afraid of the voice.

Afraid of the unknown, of the unnatural, of what he couldn't understand; and Cloud desperately tried to not sink to the level of the people of Nibelheim.

Even if the voice had helped him with the bullies, Cloud couldn't trust the voice or himself for hearing things. He had once been tricked into friendship, and it wasn't pretty; what if the voice was the same? Or what if he imagined the voice? Cloud needed some sort of certainty that the voice was real, because once one got attached to something, it was difficult to let go; he had a lot of difficulties with a simple, brief, and fake friendship.

(1 year later)

Cloud knew this was stupid. He was stupid, Tifa was stupid, this whole act was stupid. And they were going to die.

Tifa's mother had died, and she got the idea that she would meet her again by crossing the Mt. Nibel. Personally, Cloud couldn't understand her logic or her pain, given that he didn't know how losing a parent felt, but he knew that what Tifa wanted to do was ridiculous. Where did Tifa get that idea? Her mother was buried nowhere near the Mt. Nibel; then again she might be believing the stories that are nothing but children's talk.

Once he had discovered what Tifa wanted to do, he had tried to talk her out of it, but she simply brushed him off and continued towards her goal; and thus Cloud found himself following Tifa. Cloud may be unaffected by the hatred and scorn constantly dealt to him by the inhabitants of Nibelheim, but that didn't mean he wanted someone to die when he knew he could stop it. Either way, Cloud resolved to think about that later, because he knew he would get in trouble for this.

It should have been simple. If Tifa went too far he would try to convince her to come back, least they entirely cross into forbidden lands; it was plain and simple. Nothing difficult, nothing life-threatening.

Too bad that the bridge collapsed, and as soon as he noticed the signs, in his panic, Cloud sprinted as fast as could; and by some miracle he managed to grab her hand, but that didn't mean they were saved from falling.

Tifa was crying, Cloud was panicked and near hysterics, they were both afraid and it only worsened when they failed to grab anything to anchor themselves.

And amidst his screaming and Tifa's crying, Cloud heard the voice calling out to him frantically. He understood that the voice wanted to help, wanted to help them live, wanted and could help them survive this seemingly impossible death; and for the first time since he was aware of the voice, Cloud had answered her calls with pleads of saving them, and he let go.

He let her . . . overtake him, because there was no other choice. It was either take a chance with a voice he knew could be fake or fall to his death, and Cloud didn't want to die there.

Cloud didn't remember much after pleading the voice to save them, but he remembered the voice answering back in words he actually understood and his vision flashing white and green. He remember loosing feeling of his body, remember the tone of the voice, remember flashes of green and yellow, and he remembered pretty blue eyes staring at him; then, next thing he knew, he found himself on the other side of the Mt. Nibel with an unconscious Tifa beside him. They were alive, they were safe and they had been saved; Cloud found it hard to process.

Even as a child, Cloud realized there was no way he could have reached the other side. They had been in the middle of the way when the bridge snapped, therefore it was obvious that there was no way they could jump to the other end. And he couldn't remember remotely grabbing anything, or doing something that helped them survive; it was impossible for a child like him or Tifa to do so — It was impossible for anyone to have survived that fall by any normal means.

And last time he checked, Cloud knew that the voice in his head wasn't normal.

In the end, the people of Nibelheim had found out about their plight, but they took it the wrong way. They blamed Cloud for the accident, for harming their precious princess, for seemingly initiating these actions, and it was later that Cloud discovered that Tifa was severely injured and most likely to be unconscious for a few weeks.

In that aspect, Cloud couldn't find it in himself to blame the voice for not avoiding Tifa's injury. They had been near death, and the voice had warned him previously about the dangers that came with everything, and he only let her help him when the bridge fell, thus it wasn't too difficult for Cloud to understand that Tifa could have injured herself before the voice saved them by unknown means; or how Tifa could have injured herself while the voice saved them, it wasn't too unbelievable considering it was practically impossible to have survive that accident in Cloud's mind.

It should have been impossible for children like them to survive, period, so it was surprising that they were injured instead of dead; he couldn't fault the voice for that, because like any other kid or young person, Cloud preferred injuries over death, and if anything, the voice saved them.

What bothered Cloud wasn't the incident with the bridge or Tifa, but that he couldn't hear the voice anymore. It was unsettling, and then Cloud realized, in a childish way, that he had depended too much on the voice's existence, had taken the voice for granted and now he wished for nothing more than the voice to come back. It was terrifying, because now he knew how loneliness felt like, he received the full brunt of the scorn because there was no voice to distract him, no voice to accompany him amidst Nibelheim's scorn and hatred, no voice to talk to him, and no voice to make all the loneliness go away.

It was as if the voice had vanished, he couldn't even hear distracted murmurs in his mind.

Then, Cloud was hit with the idea that the voice left, and something in him found the idea more painful and terrifying than the scorn and hatred of the people of Nibelheim.

Cloud had once read in a book that said "You never know what you have until it's gone", and Cloud agreed. He found himself regretting ignoring the voice. Aside from his mother and occasional foreigners, no one had ever talked to Cloud in a friendly way, or in a way that indicated they wanted to genuinely be friends.

One could only imagine the immense relief and joy Cloud felt when the voice returned 3 weeks after the incident.

~You finally answer. . . After all this years, I began to think you couldn't hear me.~

'...I'm sorry, for ignoring you all this time, I . . . I was—'

~Afraid. I know. I admit it was a tactless of me to talk to you so early on.~

Surprisingly, it was just a matter of thinking to talk with the voice. At first, it wasn't easy and awkward, having to think and do actions at the same time. But eventually, he learned how to do it, until talking to her and doing other things came naturally..

~My name is ******.~

'I'm sorry, could you repeat that?'

~Tch! Figures it was too early despite being able to hear me . . .~

'What do you mean by that?'

~You can't hear my name. You will understand when you are older.~

'Then what do I call you?'

~For now, you can call me — ~

Years later, Cloud would reflect on the time this accident occurred and tell his companion for life, Uzumaki Soraya, that he wasn't sure if everything had gone downhill. Because while Tifa was injured and the inhabitants of Nibelheim hated him more, he had shaken off his pig-headness and answered her lonely calls.

Yes, it's horrible, I know, but I just got the urge to write something like this when I watched the Zanpakuto Rebellion Arc. Sorry for any mistakes, but I don't know the actual scene of Tifa injuring herself in that accident, therefore I am making this up based on the information I find in wiki. Also, Cloud and Soraya were saved when Soraya possessed the former for a moment, and she couldn't save them physically due to Cloud's body, so that left 'magical' means. Considering that, I found it possible for Tifa to get injured because there is simply no security for a side-kick in being tossed around in the air. Cloud may be completely safe since Soraya is possessing his body, but Tifa? Not so much.