I wish I was the owner of Final Fantasy VII. Because there would be more games and at least two more movies.
I always believed that no story of FF7 could be said without everyone involved. It's their point of view that makes it all come together. So whenever you see a line across the page, it means that the point of view is changing. May get confusing.
Please read, enjoy, weep, laugh, and review if you have the time.
We can't all be heroes.
Many tried. And many were destroyed. I've seen how one can struggle so hard to be a good example and to inspire that, in the end, you transform into the very creatures you're trying to battle.
I was no better. A monster lurked within my mind, sharing my thoughts. It considered all life beneath it, as so much refuse. I was the shell. It was the heart. We were chaos. This isn't my story, it's one of those whose lives were affected from our actions. If you listen, and take a lesson from what they have to say, maybe you will be spared…
Final Fantasy VII
Final Crossing"You have one new message."
"Cloud, I want to remind you that Barret wants you to swing by and pick up a package. He says it's not important, so if it's out of your way, he says not to bother. Also, Marlene and I want to know when you're coming home. Tifa said you'll be home late, but will we see you before we go to bed? Okay, that's all…Bye!"
"You have no more new mess-"
The cell phone gently claps shut. Cloud pockets the tiny device, reminiscing about how a few years back they had that large PHS. It was so big, someone always needed to stay behind so that it wouldn't get broken in a fight. Those were…different times.
Fernir roared to life as the young man spun around on the road. Barret's was only half an hour down a road he passed a few minutes ago. He didn't care if the detour took an hour or so, he could take the time to think. A lot has happened since…since…
Beep-bip-beep. Beep-bip-beep.
Out came the cell phone.
"Hello?"
"Aren't you supoosed to say 'Strife's delivery service. You name it we deliver it'? Because I have an entire cargo of missiles that need to be brought to Junon by this afternoon. How much can you're bike carry."
"What's up Reeves?"
"…Are you ok?"
"Of course. Why wouldn't I be?"
"Not to go Cait Sith on you, but ya sound a wee bit lifeless than usual, pup!"
"Pup?"
"Answer the question."
"…I…want to propose to Tifa."
"Hey, that's great!"
"…"
"What's wrong? Come on Cloud, whatever you want to tell me will stay just between us."
"Reeves…I'm dying."
"It could be a number of things. The infusion of the Jenova cell was still experimental. I mean, he is the only one who has lived the longest of all the…umm…tests."
Vincent Valentine paced around the room, having remained completely silent the whole time Reeves spoke. They had taken a blood sample for Cloud after he had given them the bad news. Of all the ways to die, after saving the planet from Sephiroth, the geostigma, Kadaj, and a near fatal shot in the back, to now die because of cellular breakdown…
"Maybe if we run some tests with the cures we were developing in light of the Stigma we might see in any can be used to prolong…"
The WRO leader caught the sudden stillness of his silent companion, understanding it's meaning. "That bad of an idea, huh?"
"It would be better not to give them any false hopes." Was the plain statement.
"Some is better than none, Vince. I know you have had a lot of tragedy in your life, but don't let that affect you to the point that you cannot at least try to comfort others and fight to save them."
Reeves never got a reply from his friend. Valentine remained silent as the tests progressed. Hours ticked by, and still, they could get no positive result. The more he failed, the more frustrated Reeves got. He was the head of the World Restoration Organization, commited to help people. Couldn't he hep his own friend? Was Cloud's death so sealed a fate, not even love could divert it? And what about Tifa and the kids? They just got him back in their lives! They can't just lose him!
A hand was placed on the weary man's shoulder. Vincent, for all his coldness, was still human.
"Get some rest." He told/ordered Reeves.
"I'll get some people to work on this…"
"You know as well as I that there isn't anyone who can expertise in this. I'll take a look. I'll even call Shelke, she'll be more useful than either of us."
"You'll do that?"
"Of course."
Shelke was, in a way, the last person to have any knowledge about genetic manipulation. In her time that she has been with them, she has devoted countless days studying about the past to catch up with the world.
"Well…" her voice was strained with fatigue. "I can say this much. This isn't cellular breakdown."
Intrigued, Vincent leaned in close behind the young woman, the screen before them pouring with figures and numbers that meant little to the ex-turk. "Then what is it? We can quite easily see the blood cells disintegrating."
"Who called who to study this?" The girl remarked, a smirk on her lips. Shelke then tapped the screen were the picture of a blood cell was. "As much as it does appear that it's dissolving, the cell is, in fact, transforming."
The only thing that gave Vincent away was the way his eyes suddenly took on a deadly hue. "Into what?"
The answer was soft, hesitant. "I don't know…"
"Is there one in particular you want?"
She always talked about that night we spent watching the stars.
"A ring with a twilight feel."
"I beg your pardon?"
Maybe a year before it happens. She'll be happy during that time…won't she?
"She likes stars."
I'll make sure she's happy.
"Ah, I see. Well, we have one here with a moon pearl."
"No…I really want a diamond."
She deserves the best. I have delayed this for far too long.
"How about this one? It was a moon engrave on one side of the 'star'. It's simple enough."
Perfect.
"Perfect."
"Dang it, you don't say." Cid gruffed into his cell. An unlit cigarette between his lips, the old pilot grinned as he heard the good news from a first hand source. "Yuffie, listen, my other ear still hasn't recovered from your last outburst. Can ya keep this one under an hour?"
An hour and a half later, the baby started crying.
"Ah, crud, the kid's up! No I can't wait, Shera went to inspect the new rocket and she won't be back until-"
"Honey, I'm home!" The beautiful scientist announced. "It went much faster today than I thought."
"No, that's just the TV. Later Yuffs." Cid hung up before the protested could be registered. "Hello darlin'!"
"Cid, the baby is crying. Why didn't you get him?"
"I was trying an escape for that very reason. Yuffie wouldn't, you know, shut up."
"But it's a cell phone. You can talk to her and change little Cid's diaper at the same time."
"Listen. When I'm handling poop and Yuffie at the same time, I can't tell them apart."
Shera was patting their son's back, calming him down as Cid prepared some tea for her. "So why did she call?"
"Somethin' about the end of the world."
"Cid…"
"She's wanted by the freak patrol and ashed if she can hide here."
"Cid."
"Got drunk, wanted to call V, but got our numbers mixed up."
"Cid!"
"Cloud and Tifa are engaged to be married!"
"Oh honey, that's so sweet! I'm so happy for them! Let's call them right now and congratulate them."
"You do it. I just spent the past quarter century talking to the goddess of speech. I never want to see another phone again."
"Very well." She gave the baby to her husband, pulling out the unlit cigarette out of his mouth smiling sweetly. "I checked, and he needs to be changed."
"Oh, crap!"
"Daddy?"
"Yeah, darlin'?" Barret asked, adjusting his bow tie, his little watching him as he got ready for the ceremony. It was a big day. Cloud was nervous, and he had asked the leader of Avalanche to be his best man.
"Are you going to get married again?"
Innocence. It was the only thing that kept him fighting for a better world. "I don't think so, darlin'."
"Why not?"
"I miss momma too much."
"Like the way we miss Areis?"
"…Yes."
"But, daddy, don't you get lonely?"
Suddenly, the bowtie looked very crooked. "Sometimes, but I have you. And trust me, that keeps happier than any woman ever could. Ya see, love is the strongest feelin' there is."
"Cloud and Tifa are going to be happy for a long time, aren't they?"
"…As long as they are together." Vincent had to be wrong. There was no way…
"Dad."
"Yeah, Marlene."
"You're crying."
"…Yeah…I am…"
"It's been eight months, Vincent. I have never been so happy."
The two men whose deepest connection was the fact that they were both guinea pigs for a maniac forged a strange kinship that they alone could understand stood on a nearby edge, looking out at the ruined city of Midgar. Cloud was speaking without purpose, almost like a confession, as though being at peace all this time had been a sin.
"We wanted to go for a honeymoon, but Tifa can't close the bar without losing a lot of people to her competitors. And I'm in not much better shape."
The wind picked up, kicking up sand and dust. Cloud continued on, his voice even, tired, and aged. "She noticed…something not too long after. I would come home exhausted, as though I had been fighting for hours on end. I just excused it for the longest. But you know Tifa, she can read me like a book."
Vincent looked at his friend. Yes, he could see it now. The paleness of his hair, the lack of colour of his skin. He couldn't remember the last time Cloud looked a shade other than ashen. It couldn't be denied.
"I started to feel…different. I got stronger, more focused. I would lose my temper at a whim, would entertain these…these…thoughts of death and destruction. Tifa would suddenly pull away in a middle of a kiss, saying that I felt like someone else. Can you believe that? She could read into things as simple as that."
He turned to his friend, staring him in the eye. "I have dreams of steel and blood, of fire and death, Vincent. I see blacks feathers swirling around me in a storm of pain and fear. I can't sleep for fear of scaring the kids if I wake up screaming. And I hear him laughing. Help me Vincent, I hear his voice every time I close my eyes."
No words can comfort the dead, or the dying. Only truth can be told. "Jenova isn't killing you, Cloud. It's consuming you. He won't remain a memory for he is as much a part of you as the lifestream is of the planet. We can't stop it."
Cloud's eyes squeezed shut, tears rolling down his face. The will to fight seeped out with them. He has always been afraid to lose everything, and now he will. Sitting down, Cloud made no effort to hide his pain. He hasn't cried for years. He didn't cry when his mother died, not when he though Tifa was going to die after she was wounded, not when Zack got killed protecting him, not even when…she passed away.
The sound of a cocking gun was louder than any other sound in the world. Vincent held it up, ready and willing. Once would be enough.
"There will be no pain."
"What will you tell Tifa?"
"There was an accident."
"Not good enough."
The gun went off.
Vincent looked down at Cloud. He didn't move for the longest, Cerberus still poised. The wind seemed to die until all was silent.
"Please, forgive me."
"I couldn't do it." Valentine explained to the young woman sitting just opposite from him. "I lost someone I loved before, so how could I send someone else so close to me into oblivion?"
"What happened to him?"
"He left us, fighting his curse alone. After all the talk he heard of fighting together as friends, as family, in the end the fight was his alone."
"Did he win?"
"In a way…" Red eyes overlooking the horizon, Vincent watched the sun rest over the ocean, finally being able to feel a fraction of peace that had been denied him for decades. "He returned, having subdued the beast in the deepest corners of his mind. But sometimes, late at night, when he was alone and in his own thoughts, a smile crossed his lips that wasn't his."
"Were they happy?"
"For years. Tifa gave birth to three children, all perfectly healthy. And no wonder, for Reeves and I discovered traces of cells that didn't belong to Cloud or her. She told me once that she never dreamed of being this content in life. But that didn't mean their marriage was perfect. Cloud was still Cloud, after all."
"What about the others?"
"Cid and Shera had six children in all. It changed him deeply. He gave up smoking and swearing, learning to be more humane in his demeanour, somewhat. Barret did remarry, but years after his daughter married her best friend. Reeves became president of the new Restored Shinra Company, and built New Midgar. Red XIII discovered that he wasn't the last of his kind, and I think he might have found someone he likes. Yuffie married and became mother to a clan of children as crazy as she was. At their wedding, Cid treated it more like a funeral for the husband. Shelke became the leading scientist on the planet, spending an awful amount of time in her research laboratories. Eventually, she married Barret."
"Really? They seem like the last people to get together." The woman said in a surprised tone.
"Barret, when Marlene had children, wanted his gunarm removed. It was Shelke who designed his new arm. It took several months, and they got real close during that time."
Leaning in close, the young woman kissed the dark-haired man gently on the lips. "And what of Valentine?"
Vincent smiled at Lucretcia, looking more human than ever before. "He discovered that someone he had believed to be lost forever was, in reality, simply waiting for him. And he told her about his adventures and the people who taught him how to live again."
Sighing, the girl who had been encased in crystal for over a century took a moment to breath in the breeze that flowed over the ocean, happy to finally be free. "I wish I had met them. They sounded like extraordinary people."
"I wish you had met them too. Only me and Red XIII are left." A single tear rolled down his cheek, but he didn't wipe it away. It was too precious.
They were all very precious.
This is my rendition of how it all comes to an end. Thank you for reading.