Water, it was the only place suitable enough for a burial in the Forgotten City.
With blood on his clothes, torso, arms and face, he took her lifeless body to the...Water.
It occurred to him: he had her blood staining his skin. Yes, he could wash it off but the viscous liquid will forever haunt him in his tormented nightmares, let alone her pallid face.
He glimpsed at her immobile face all the while as he treaded towards the middle of the lake, her expression will never vanish from his memories; her long lashes closed over eyes that he will never see again until the end of time.
She looked so tranquil. Small, heart-shaped lips with their rosy pink colour were now a deathly blue and her blood...
Her blood did not cease from flowing through the hole in her abdomen. It poured through her hands that were still joined in prayer and into the blue water around them.
His lean arms trembled against her motionless form, a last look onto a face that would never smile again. A look upon that face which had shown him kindness, given him happiness, created wonder, made him laugh, no he would never see this face again.
Slowly and reluctantly, he lowered her into the cold water. Time stopped running for them, for him so that he could recollect all the memories he left behind along the path of destiny.
Her long chestnut hair flowed with grace when it entered the lake, altering into an ash-brown colour.
"Goodbye Aerith..."
Her body slipped from his grip and she became one with the water.
Cloud Strife's gaze never left her as she continued her journey towards the end of the lake, her hands releasing from their clasp by the heavy waves.
And her observer's hands flew to cover his face, to prevent tears from trickling down his eyes, but that did not prevent the river that had already formed inside his broken soul, a river that had no harbour for escape.
He heaved himself out of the water that was red with her blood; the colour cleaved a scar on his tortured conscience.
Aerith's dead form landed on the stony ground with a soft thump, the water consumed her laboriously so that two years from now, nothing would remain there but effervesced flesh and wasting, eroded bones.