Since he woke up from Hojo's 'treatments,' Cloud can hear music.

No one else seems to know.

Some, he knows, are wish and memory transmuted into melody, like the slow piano arpeggio that describes Tifa's soft approach and long rippling hair; or the brassy echo of the Shinra space program commercials that played every day in his childhood, that he hears again whenever he talks to Cid.

But others, tunes he has never heard before, he thinks are the voice of Jenova, resonating somewhere on the subcellular level - alien, ruthlessly mathematical progressions, datawaves that his mind translates into music. Sometimes he thinks he catches whispered words on the fringes of the droning chorus, promises, seductions, prophecies. Laments. Vindications.

Over and over, the name of her 'son.'

The worst was after Aerith …died (let her die), when the melodies in his mind overpowered everything else – he could swear, without knowing why, that Jenova was actually keening some weird lament, honouring the last of her ancient enemy. High and wordless, sweet and old.

He fought like he had never fought before, just to drown out the notes with the ring of steel and the spatter of blood.