Monster
The cheering of the crowd, the hot wind whipping itself into his face, the subtle rush of adrenaline—these are the things that fill him as he makes his way toward the killing field. It's not a battlefield because this isn't going to be a battle. It will be a slaughter. It's been that way for some time. When he first entered the coliseum, he had to strive for his victories. That was a long time ago.
He's come a long way since then, now hailed as a virtual god of war. People gather from every corner of the world to see him fight. Persians mingled with Greeks, long-held hatred put aside to marvel at the spectacle of this man.
But he's not really a man anymore, not when they see him. He buries that part of him every time he steps over the threshold that separates spectator from participant. He can't afford to feel things like guilt and shame, human emotions that would hamper the killer Hades has promised. He is a machine. He is cold, methodical, inescapable, the perfect killer.
"You're the cream of the crop," they said. "You're the best and the brightest," they said. "SOLDIER won't take just anyone." The young, dumb, grinning boys had eaten the rhetoric up like a starving man would devour a scrap of food. They never stopped to consider that the honeyed words masked a poison. They never gave any thought to what they were giving up until it was already too late.
Cloud remembers looking into the mirror. He saw a weak, pale thing that shook like a man dying of cold. Blue eyes went bloodshot as hair thinned and nails cracked.
It finally occurred to him that he had seen this all before. It had been during a holiday, when he and some of the other recruits paid a visit to the red light district. Most had gone in search of cheap pleasure, assuming that was the mark of a man. Cloud had run away, deaf to jeers and implications that he was less than manly. He had seen something terrible
He had looked into the eyes of a disease-riddled junkie. He was looking into those eyes for the second time as he peered into the mirror.
The battle is over before it even really begins. Normal people can't even begin to comprehend what he's capable of. The sword—a slab of iron more than a real blade—tears them to pieces before they can realize how hopeless it all is. It's the last blessing they will ever enjoy.
Death was not glamorous. It was not the way to earn glory.
It was ugly and senseless. He knows this now, looking at the bodies stretched out languidly. They almost look like they're reclining, taking a rest after a long day of bloodshed. It's the little things that tip him off. A man is lying on a pile of something soft and wet; it's a wonderful pillow. Another man sits staring, staring, staring, staring because he doesn't have eyelids anymore. The SOLDIER, a scant four years his senior, wears a peaceful face. It's all that's left of him.
Hades' distaste rolls off of him like the stink of burning flesh. It's probably a side effect of having an inferno in place of a scalp.
"Something wrong, Cloudy?"
The name irritates him, but he lets it go. He's not in the mood. "No."
"That was a flash in the pan, and you know it." Hades moves to put an arm around his shoulder, to lead him around. Cloud resists every urge he has to flinch away. "These people," he gestures widely, always a fan of theatrics, "come to see the best killing money can buy. When you cut the competition like piggies twenty seconds into the fight, things get real dull real fast. They want their money's worth, you know?"
"What does it matter to you?" He shrugs out of Hades' grip. The Lord of the Underworld knows not to touch his wing, but he still hates it when anyone gets too close to it. "You don't need the money and you're not the type to care what anyone else thinks about you."
The divine corpse shakes his smoldering head. He's like a father muttering 'tsk, tsk' at his son's childishness.
It fills Cloud with a nameless rage.
How could he have done this? He was supposed to be a hero, the grand general who was the savior of the kingdom. He had overcome tremendous odds in the war with Wutai, the yellow menace. He had endured horrible torture when he was captured, only to weather their mistreatment and escape. He had returned to the kingdom a conquering hero. When the strange, black things began squirming their way across the border, the people looked to him for another miracle.
So why had it come to this? Why was General Sephiroth standing over the slain bodies of his friends and comrades? Why was Zack, the silly but helpful SOLDIER who got him out of Nibelheim, lying in a pool of his own blood at Sephiroth's feet? Why was Tifa slipping away from him, so deceptively warm in his hands?
It's on instinct that he hefts Zack's fallen sword, marches up the hill to where the ex-hero stands cackling and spewing some insane drivel, and runs him through. He feels an odd species of shame when realizes the thing that hurts most isn't his wounds or his outrage at seeing his friends harmed, but the betrayal. How could you do this to me? How could you make me love you like the father I never had and then turn on me like that?
He's disappointed in a lot of things. He's disappointed in Hades for being another wolf in sheep's clothing. He took the young, frightened, wounded Cloud in when no one else would. He gave him a home, a purpose. It stung deeper than any of his old wounds when Hades, in a fit of rage when Cloud hadn't executed an opponent in the arena, told him he was just another tool.
He's disappointed in himself for being strung along by evil men. He worshipped so many false idols. He thought the scientists of the kingdom were great men for creating the SOLDIER program. Then he learned the mysterious mako was the heart of the world, the lifeblood of the planet. In wounding the planet to obtain it, they had turned his home of Radiant Garden into a beacon that drew the darkness in waves. He worshipped the great general, who proved to be just as murderous and soulless as the black tide of destruction that swept the Garden away. He worshipped his king, only to realize, in hindsight, he had been just another man. The Wutai War hadn't been a glorious crusade, but a vicious invasion.
He closes his eyes. None of that matters, not anymore. His past is dead.
But that's not entirely true.
He's been mad with agony and medication for so long that lucidity feels like insanity. It takes him a time beyond measure—seconds, minutes, hours?—to regain his senses. The lab is eerily quiet without the dull monotone doling out statistics and procedures. His body feels naked without being drenched in agony as his handlers poke and prod and dissect. The smell of something other than his own urine, feces, and fear makes him sick.
It takes him even longer to realize the wrongness is actually right. But that's a long time in coming.
All he knows now is that he's free. He's free of the men that spirited him away from the scene of the massacre after he impaled his idol with his friend's memento. They're all very still. He knows that stillness. Investigating their bodies—he wants to know how they died so he can savor it—is more traumatic than he would have expected. He's so drugged and numbed that murder doesn't really bother him. It's the method.
He's seen these wounds. He's suffered them. The wounds marring their bodies are identical to those inflicted by the biting length of the Masamune, the spoil of war that become an extension of Sephiroth's own body.
It's not the last time he will see the signs of Sephiroth's handiwork, long after he should have rotted away and passed into memory. Soon, the boogeyman returns to him, only now, he's a tall man with silver hair and a wicked sword. He can't sleep at night because he's afraid Sephiroth will kill him. He can't eat because he knows Sephiroth has poisoned his food. It is only natural that he arrives at a shockingly simple conclusion: If he hopes to live, Sephiroth must die. This time, it will be a lasting death.
So, this is Hercules?
Cloud can't bring himself to be impressed. He's strong and brave, but lacks that glamour. He doesn't strike Cloud as something out of another world, something that explains why he's a hero and why no one will ever be as good as him.
It's a childish sentiment that the machine grinds into dust. Hercules is a man, no matter what god's blood may flow through his veins. Cloud knows all about his exploits, whether it was killing the seemingly invincible Hydra or wrestling Hades' attack dog, Cerberus, into submission. More importantly, he knows that he killed his wife and children in a drunken rage. He knows that Hercules is prone to violent outbursts, little more than temper tantrums that turn murderous when he forgets his own strength.
No, he won't mourn this. He gave that up a long time ago.
Sobs wracked his body after a fresh kill. What good could come of such wanton slaughter? How was he helping anyone? Was this what he set out to be when he left the sleepy little village of his home?
He blinks the memory away. Why is he thinking about that now? That part of him died along time ago. It died because it was weak and this world doesn't forgive weakness. Might makes right. He will become the strongest person the world has ever known.
Yes, that's what all of this has been for. His sacrifices will not be in vain. The world will be a better place once he stands uncontested, able to best even Sephiroth. It's all a matter of bearing the losses until he can reach that summit. Hercules is just another necessary sacrifice.
He doesn't feel a thing when he draws his sword.
He dreams more than he would like. It's easier to be blank. It's simpler when all he has to do is shut down his brain and let his natural instincts take over. All he has to do is kill or be killed. It's not hard.
When he dreams, he thinks. He wakes up in the morning, covered with sweat or tears, depending on which phantom visited him.
When he sees Zack, he feels shame. Zack was a true hero, the type of person who defied orders and followed his own sense of righteousness in an effort to save as many lives as possible during the fall of Radiant Garden.
When he sees Aeris, he feels regret. He should have seen it all sooner. Nothing good could come of the SOLDIER Program and the people who oversaw it. She was just another experiment.
When he sees Tifa, he feels hope. Not so long ago, he could have loved her. He doesn't even know if she's dead or alive. He hopes harder than he's ever hated or mourned. He wants to see her again. He knows that he probably won't.
When he sees Sephiroth, there is no word for the emotions that overflow from within the reservoir of his mind. Malice, rage, and hate aren't even shadows of his feelings. Sephiroth is everything that is wrong with the world. He lied with every smile. He stole with every move. He killed with every stroke. He is evil given form.
That's why Hercules has to die. This is all for a greater good.
But it's so hard to see the good when Hercules is lying on his hands and knees, whooping like a fish out of water. There's nothing righteous in watching him struggle to wipe the blood out of his eyes. He wonders where the goodness is in the crowd's sudden hush, a deafening sound that screams "stop, please; let him go."
He's a hero. He slays monsters and saves people. The people need him.
Cloud hates the people. They're awful. They cheer for bloodshed. His life would have been forfeit long ago if he had lost. Hundreds and thousands faced an early death because the people turned their thumbs down and their noses up at the pitiful slaves and warriors. They don't deserve a man as good as Hercules.
They deserve retribution, a plague, a monster.
Hades smirked. "Something troubling your pretty little blond head?"
Cloud looked up from his sword. He had given up on sharpening it. It's too much trouble at this point. "I'm just thinking." Hades hovered over him. He had no intention of going anywhere. "How was my sword able to pierce that armor? It was enchanted."
"Took you long enough," the god snorted, puffing a pair of fireballs. "Your sword isn't any normal sword."
Cloud regarded him irritably. Of course it wasn't. It was Zack's sword. It was the most precious thing in his world. Hades plowed ahead.
"Think of all the opponents you've had. Most people, obviously, but you've scrapped with plenty of monsters, familiars, and even a few demons. Your sword is stained with more than just blood."
The gears began to turn. They carried Cloud away to a dangerous implication. "Are you saying the Buster Sword has taken on their essence?"
"There's hope for him yet!" The Undead Lord clapped his cobalt hands together in mock pride. But whatever amusement he got out of teasing Cloud was short-lived. A shade wandered its way over to its master with some pressing news. Then, all at once, Cloud was alone again.
So, his sword was a vampire now, was it? It drank freely and greedily. It bathed in hate, sorrow, envy, regret, and loneliness. It ran red with curses and spells ripped from the bodies of untold beasts. It ate the strength of its victims.
The sword sings for his blood. It's already had so much drink and it wants more. It has never tasted a god before. It wants that power.
Cloud ignores it. He ignores the begging of the crowd, Hades' stream of abuse heaped upon Hercules. The only thing he can hear is his own pulse. It's a heartbeat. It's the simplest thing. He likes simple. He doesn't like the complex world that wriggles away from the idea of good and evil. There are white lies, the lesser of many evils, Pyrrhic victories. There are so many things in the world that refuse to be black or white.
But his pulse whispers to him of an absolute. It has found a pure thing. It knows of something that proves his rule.
It urges him to look at a killer who betrays his past and his ideals. The blood reeks of misdeeds. The throbbing heart pulses in the midst of violence and malice and sadism.
He's looking into the mirror again. He sees the killer in the edge of his blade, a patch of clean, reflective surface on a length of sullied metal.
His laughter becomes the one sound in the world. It shocks the crowd into silence. It stuns Hercules so badly that he holds his breath. It fills Hades with a feeling he will never admit. He laughs because he has found the monster the people deserve.
He's not a machine. He's something so much worse. He's a hitman and a murderer. He didn't save anyone. Zack would be so ashamed. He doesn't even want to think of what Aeris and Tifa would have to say if they saw him now.
His body moves on instinct again. He doesn't have to think a thing as wall of metal crushes the life out of Hercules. The smell of death reaches his nostrils and he's home again. The coliseum melts away as Radiant Garden welcomes him back home.
It's just as he left it. It's ugly. It's brutal. It's caked in tears and gore. There's even a traitor and a murderer standing at the center of it all.
Cloud weeps like a newborn.