Summary: With Sephiroth a mere memory once again, Cloud returns to Seventh Heaven to perform his job as delivery boy only to receive a job from some familiar shady characters. But, nothing is as it seems…
Seventh Heaven. A friendly bar that was run by a beautiful woman and doubled as the headquarters of the Strife Delivery Service. It also served as a home for two children; one of who was an orphan. Standing in a small town beside what was left of the bustling city of Midgar, it tried to make do with what little it had with hope that the world would get better with the help of a friend that they had lost.
Geostigma had ravaged that home. It infected men, women and children in the area, though the children were most vulnerable. It had been started by the Abomination, the dark star that the Heavens had sent down and created the malicious villain Sephiroth: Jenova.
This was the home that Cloud Strife had shunned.
This was the home that he had returned to after he abolished Sephiroth again.
This was where he found his forgiveness.
This was also where he found more suffering and adventure.
Night was settling in and Cloud rode his motorcycle, Fenrir, through the narrow streets of Edge back to Seventh Heaven from making a delivery just beyond the Wastelands that surrounded the dilapidated city. Though not many lights were on despite the late hour, people bustled around to live out the nightlife that once was.
Due to complications of his troubled past, he kept wearing the SOLDIER uniform of dark blue attire and keeping Fenrir well equipped with an assortment of large, broad blades. He knew how to reason with this quirk now; he took a wide variety of jobs that came his way and needed his skills more often than not.
The headlights of the motorcycle passed over the two children who stayed with him and the barkeep, Tifa. He watched with his stoic blue eyes as they ran over to him as he parked next to the bar.
"Cloud!" The girl, Marlene, was joyful and cheery as always whenever she saw him. "You're back! I was hoping you would come back."
Cloud nodded, a small smile pulling at his mouth as Fenrir powered down.
"You're going to stay longer this time, aren't you?" Denzel, the other orphan, asked him. Though still just a child, he understood what absolute obsession, hatred and isolation could do to a whole world, having been infected with Geostigma and following Kadaj, a spawn of Jenova, for a short time.
Cloud nodded and said, "Yes."
The two children smiled. It was rare for Cloud to return to Seventh Heaven for more than a day or two before heading out again on a delivery of sorts.
He got off his motorcycle and looked at them sternly. "Shouldn't you two be inside by now? It's late and I doubt Tifa wants you out here right now."
"Tifa's the one who told us to stay out here!" Marlene exclaimed. Her big brown eyes expressed annoyance and she shook her long braid. "She told us to come out here to play until you came back and met with some customers."
"Customers?" Cloud asked, confused. Normally, Tifa would tell them to return at a later time if he was out.
"We've been out here since after lunch," Denzel told him, his red hair dangling in his eyes.
Cloud glanced inside the bar. He could see Tifa and knew that she saw him come back by the way she was moving: quick and graceful with the glasses. He looked back at the two pairs of innocent faces.
"All right. I'll go inside and talk to them so you two can get back in." He ruffled Denzel's hair, making him laugh. "And once we're done, we'll talk about getting you a haircut."
"Speak for yourself, Cloud!" They both called after him as he went inside, referring to his distinguishing spiky, astonishingly blond hair. They often teased him when he returned about how it always stayed in its form, no matter what was done with it.
Tifa, busty as always with fierce battle skills but a truly kind and loyal soul, was busy serving customers at the bar when he came in. Dressed in her usual black outfit and Converse shoes, she waved and pointed to a partitioned section that was just put up when he caught her eye.
An awkward silence fell and noise rose in the bar as Cloud walked between the tables and passed by the patrons. His boots purposely made heavy footsteps as he approached and the thick cloth that wrapped around his left leg that doubled as a layer of protection kicked out with every step.
"You keep scaring people, yo."
Reno's shockingly red hair was the first thing Cloud noticed before he even heard him. On the other side of Reno, who was sitting sprawled in his seat and his shirt rumpled as always, was his partner, Rude. "You need to stop scaring the customers."
Cloud glared at them both and pointed to the bottle of hard liquor on the table. "You need to stop drinking before either of you do something you regret later."
"Now, now, Cloud." A voice came from under a white cloth that draped over a man in the wheelchair that sat right across from where Cloud was standing. "We're all civilized here."
"Rufus?" Cloud stared at the man, shocked. This was the last place he had expected to see him.
He chuckled, never revealing his face. "It's nice to see you again, ex-SOLDIER Cloud. Since the Geostigma is destroyed, I must believe that the previous problem has been neutralized and I must congratulate you on staying so well-tuned with your skills."
"Whatever you want, I don't want to hear it," Cloud said brusquely.
"Please, listen…"
"You're Shinra."
"Cloud, we're just asking you…"
"I'm not interested."
"The Mako…"
"I'm going to have to ask you to leave."
Cloud stood his ground and stared down at the seemingly crippled man in front of him who was once the head of Shinra Energy, the corporation who refined the use of the Lifestream to make the lives of humans more convenient. Also using Mako reactors and Jenova's cells, they enhanced the abilities and strengths of those willing to work under them as SOLDIERS.
They were the ones who created Sephiroth.
"Ever vigilant," sighed Rufus. "You know Shinra has a huge debt to pay to this world and you helped us enormously. As an ex-SOLDIER and AVALANCHE rebel, you must understand the need to redeem yourself."
This made Cloud pause. "Redeem yourself?"
"Or, to put it more simply, to be forgiven by others. I want some of the world to forgive Shinra for what we did, Cloud. That is why I came to you."
"I'm a delivery boy, Rufus. I'm not a warrior anymore."
"Why don't you listen, yo?" Reno spoke up with a shot of the golden liquor in his hand. "We want you to make one for us. A delivery. We know that you do the most fucked-up deliveries out there that most wouldn't even dream of even considering."
Cloud let a small scoff escape him. Rufus took that as a gesture of assent.
"What we need done is complicated and dangerous." His hand, free of all traces of Geostigma, motioned out the window to the world. "There are lives at stake here that are in very real danger. You know this for a fact that you are usually the only one who can do jobs that fit the description."
"Yeah," he said with heavy sarcasm, "like last time?"
Rude cleared his throat as Reno nonchalantly looked over his shoulder outside. The whole ordeal surrounding Kadaj and his gang as well as the second appearance of Sephiroth nearly took all of their lives. The Turks had actually helped Cloud and his gang in several different occasions but had failed to fully prevent Cloud from getting shot and brought back with the power of the Last Cetra.
"Please, Cloud," Rufus pleaded. He heaved a long sigh and the cloth around him billowed slightly. "Shinra has nothing to do with this. People are dying because of me right now and I am willing to everything in my power to help undo the damage I've caused. I need you to take this job."
The need to be forgiven. Cloud knew this desire very well and was still struggling with it. Danger would always surround him and he could just as easily see this as another job as to refuse it because they're Shinra. He looked at the three of them with intense seriousness that frightened most people.
"Fine. Where do I pick it up?"
A/N: Obviously, this takes place after Advent Children but before Dirge of Cerberus, which I am very much looking forward to playing.
This is just a little idea that I've been throwing around a bit for the past little while so I'm more or less making it up as I go along. But don't worry! I'll make sure to keep as close as possible with the FFVII world and even with each character's Limit Breaks. But if anybody notices any plot holes (since it's kind of late when I'm writing this), it's much appreciated for reviews!
If I continue this, I plan on having the rest of the FFVII gang show up at one time or another. How big each role is, I have no idea.
Also, my mindset for this is the Japanese format so expect this to have a bit more prose than you'd expect. (The dubbed version was tampered with a bit from the original and the lines they gave to Yazoo and Loz just killed it for me.)
Ja ne!