Prologue.
Cloud Strife was smiling grimly. Feathers flew thick and fast as his buster sword cut through Sephiroth's wings again and again. "The times when you were stronger than me…" a white wing dropped away and dissolved into black smoke, blowing away into the endless depths of the lifesteam. "Are over!" Sephiroth's angelic form served only to infuriate Cloud further. He readjusted his grip on his sword's hilt.
The weapon was huge. A full one and half metres long, and a third of a metre wide. Its blade was chipped from use, and patches of rust were beginning to appear in places. Its weight made it impossible for almost everyone but Cloud and its former owner to wield… Cloud, in his more philosophical moments, thought of the sword as a bit of a metaphor of himself. This was possibly true, as he had these philosophical moments about as often as the sword did.
Sephiroth collapsed, his angelic persona fading away, leaving only one black wing jutting from his right shoulder. Other than the strange feathered wing, he looked exactly as Cloud remembered him during their ill-fated mission to Niebelhiem. Sephiroth's katana, the Masamune, fell away into the lifestream with splash, and the creature, as Cloud now thought of him, showed the first sign of fear that Cloud had ever seen in him.
It's over… Meteor will be destroyed. Sephiroth is finished. Cloud raised the buster sword above his head. He looked down at Sephiroth, hesitating. Sephiroth's face, framed by long silver hair, had regained its mask-like emotionless state. Something caught Cloud's eye. Without warning, a trio of yellow triangles had appeared surrounding his archenemy. Furiously, not wanting Sephiroth to get even a chance to recover, Cloud brought the buster sword down with all the force he could muster. A few inches of Sephiroth's neck, it halted with a crackle of purple and blue energy, and a deep crack tore through the metal, nearly halfway through the entire blade. Cloud was sent hurtling backwards into the lifestream by an unseen forth, before he could even let out a yell of surprise.
The blue and green of the lifestream was familiar to the stunned Cloud, and in a vaguely interested way he was sorry it would all end when Meteor hit. The swirling currents… the voices… fading… the itch of grass beneath him. Wait, grass?
Cloud sat up, his heart and head pounding almost synchronously. He was sitting in the middle of a small meadow, his battered sword next to him, stuck point first in the ground. The sun shone cheerfully in the sky, which was unmarred by the painful red glow of meteor. He smoothed his black clothing, his tough baggy pants and leather-reinforced shirt were both as undamaged as could be expected, and the metal band around his wrist was scratched, but still solid. However, the ring of materia that it had once held was gone, washed away by the lifestream most likely. He tried to rub down his unruly blond hair too, but it seemed determined to remain permanently spiky. Despite his massive headache, Cloud realized that he had rarely felt better. The air was perfect, clean and sweet, carrying the smell of earth and sweet grasses. And… for once… Cloud concentrated, confused. The mental shadow that was Sephiroth was gone completely. My only concern… Tifa… Barret… Are you alive?
"Excuse me," a voice said from behind Cloud, startling him. A boy, quite obviously younger than Cloud's 21 years, stood there. His blonde hair, protruding from underneath a green and very distinctively pointed cap, waved in the wind, and his forest green tunic seemed to suit the setting perfectly. A medium broadsword and a wooden shield were strapped to his back. His startlingly blue eyes matched Cloud's, and caused him to wonder if the stranger had been exposed to the same levels of Mako energy that he had. "Are you all right? You're obviously an adventurer! Do you need some food? Water? Anything?" Cloud had to exercise quite a bit of control not to smile.
"Water. Please." Cloud looked at the stranger. Despite radically different dress, the young man really did bear a similarity to him in terms of looks. "I am Cloud Strife."
"I'm Link." The boy sat down a couple of metres from Cloud and reached into a leather pouch, pulling out a glass bottle full of water and handing it to the other. "Nice to meet you."