Warnings: puppet Cloud, canon-typical violence, disturbing imagery, (minor) character death

Cloud's knees buckled, white noise ringing in his ears until he couldn't hear himself think.

Shit. He was so close – Sephiroth was just ahead, he knew it. Cloud had tracked him all the way into the Northern Crater. The black-cloaked clones had fallen aside. Now there was nothing left between him Sephiroth, if Cloud could just force himself to move.

He wished he could blame it on Sephiroth's control again, but that wasn't it. Not this time. It was the tightening in his throat, the nauseous pit in his gut. After what had happened at the Temple of the Ancients, how he'd just handed over the Black Materia… Cloud was more afraid of himself than Sephiroth. Sephiroth was intimidating, but he was an enemy Cloud could face squarely in battle. This thing inside his own head was something he had no idea how to face.

He forced himself back up to his feet anyway, staggering closer despite the howling static in his mind. Every step he took along the path into the centre of the crater felt like a death knell.

Sephiroth was there. Standing motionless at the end of the rocky precipice, waiting for him. A single black-cloaked figure still stood behind him, in his shadow; it lilted on its feet, looking close to tipping over edge like the rest had done, but it stabilised as it seemed to sense Cloud's approach.

There was a cruel smile on Sephiroth's face. "Oh? So you came after all. Perhaps you're not quite a failure."

Cloud grit his teeth. "I'm here to take you down!"

Sephiroth didn't even take him seriously; that was the most infuriating thing. His smile grew derisive, and it made Cloud's blood boil. That smug asshole.

"Prove you're worth my time," Sephiroth said. He nodded, and the clone took a step forward in response to the unspoken command.

Cloud's grip tightened on his sword. It was patronising that Sephiroth would send such a pathetic excuse of an enemy up against him, as if the clones were any kind of worthy foe. At least maybe Cloud could put it out of its misery quickly, before it withered and collapsed like the others had done. That couldn't be a pleasant death.

As if he could read Cloud's expression, Sephiroth explained; "this is not an ordinary clone."

The clone in question pulled back the black hood it wore. Sephiroth was right—it wasn't like the other clones Cloud had seen, pale, fragments imitations of Sephiroth. It was…

Cloud stomach turned. It was him. The same face, the same hair; like looking in a mirror. It was only the eyes that were different. The eyes were like Sephiroth's. Mako green, with cat-slit pupils and the same arrogant stare.

He took an involuntary step back. "What… ugh. What kind of trick are you trying to pull now, Sephiroth?!" Cloud demanded.

Sephiroth smirked. "I already told you, back in Nibelheim. You are nothing but a puppet. A clone. A failure, admittedly. But your replacement seems much more agreeable."

"I'm not—I'm real, not some fucked up clone created in a lab!"

"And yet you see evidence otherwise right before you."

"Shut up." Cloud raised his sword aggressively, but Sephiroth only laughed.

"Let's see. Which of you is the better Cloud?" He raised his hand, gesturing for the clone to advance. It did so, a feral grin on its face. Seeing that expression on features so closely mirrored to Cloud's own was beyond unsettling.

"You have no idea how long I've been waiting to do this," it said.

Hearing it speak was even more unsettling – it had Cloud's voice, but laced with a festering bitterness that made the hairs on Cloud's arms stand on end. The clone sounded coherent, entirely unlike the mindless babbling of the others. It was sane. And it was staring Cloud down with a look of absolute abhorrence.

Did it think it was the real Cloud, and that Cloud himself was the clone? The failure? No—that couldn't be it. That wasn't it. Because if it was… doubts began to sink ice-cold talons into Cloud, tightening around his chest. If this clone was so convinced it was Cloud, how would Cloud know if he wasn't just another clone convinced of the same thing? What if Sephiroth was right?

The clone held its hand out expectantly to the side, never taking its eyes off Cloud. Sephiroth indulgently placed Masamune into the clone's waiting grip.

He was trusting the clone with Masamune?!

Cloud's grip around his sword hilt tightened until his knuckles were white. Fuck. This clone must have been something if Sephiroth would just hand over his prized weapon to it like that.

Cloud didn't have time to think too deeply about it; he was almost grateful for that. The clone charged at him with a snarl twisting its lips, and Cloud had to throw the Buster Sword up into a defensive position to block the oncoming strike. There was enough force behind it that Cloud's feet skidded backwards from the impact, arms jarring.

"The hell is your problem?!" Cloud yelled back at it. He didn't like the clones, and he definitely didn't like this one, but it wasn't its fault it had been created. Cloud felt pity, mixed with suppressed revulsion maybe, but nothing like the unadulterated hatred the clone was levelling at him.

"You are," it hissed. "The failure. The embodiment of everything weak and pathetic about us."

However the clone had been created, it had just as much as enhancement as Cloud did. It wielded Masamune with not quite the same graceful ease as Sephiroth, but certainly with an equal power. It matched every attack Cloud threw at it, metal sparking and shrieking as their swords clashed. And it returned the offensive with three times the vitriol.

Cloud hadn't been expecting that much from the clone; he'd underestimated it. Stupid. It was his surprise that allowed him to be rapidly forced back into defence, struggling to get an opening to launch any attack of his own underneath the sheer barrage the clone threw at him.

Cloud grit his teeth. "At least I'm not a fake copy of myself working with Sephiroth! I made it into SOLDIER and—"

The clone let out a bitter scoff of a laugh. "You were never a SOLDIER and you know it. You're just too much of a coward to admit the truth to yourself."

Cloud was being forced dangerously close to the edge of the rocky outcrop, heels sending loose rock skittering over into the abyss below. He blocked Masamune and rolled out to the side to give himself more room to manoeuvre, buying himself a few moments more time.

"Same as fucking always," the clone continued, lips curled up and punctuating its words with vicious slashes of Sephiroth's sword. "You spend so much time in your imaginary little world because you're too weak to face reality."

The more the clone talked, the more unsettled it left Cloud feeling. It was a nauseous, icy pit in his stomach. He shouldn't listen; the clone was just like Sephiroth, just messing with him on purpose. Just trying to get to him. But it looked like Cloud and sounded like Cloud. Cloud felt like he was a teenager again, with that vicious, self-loathing voice in his head telling him how weak and worthless he was.

It had always been stronger than he wanted to admit.

And the worst of it was, he couldn't shake the feeling they were right. Sephiroth and the clone both. He'd denied it so hard at first, but—there were so many gaps in his memory. So much he couldn't piece together, memories he should have but didn't. He'd been in SOLDIER, but he couldn't remember anything about how he'd made it in.

Cloud narrowed his eyes. Their blades clashed, and Cloud brought his foot up and kicked the clone firmly in the stomach.

It didn't fucking matter. He needed to defeat the clone, and Sephiroth after him. That was the only important thing now.

The clone sneered at him. "Yeah, that's right, don't think about it. Keep running from your problems, see where it gets you."

"You don't know anything."

"I know everything. We're the same; I have your memories, your thoughts… why do think I hate you so much? It would be better for everyone if you were dead."

"Shut up!"

Cloud launched himself at the clone; it was a move born of anger, and sloppy for it. The clone knocked Cloud's sword aside and swung Masamune into the opening left in Cloud's defences. He immediately yanked the Buster back, but not quickly enough; Cloud blocked the worst of the blow, but Masamune's blade still bit inches deep into his side. Cloud choked on a pained gasp.

It would heal. It was a clean slash of a cut, deep, but it hadn't hit anything vital. He was a SOLDIER, he could handle far worse.

Only the pain was a distraction, slowing him enough for the clone to follow up with another attack, and Cloud was losing ground.

It was cruel, bitter irony when the clone pierced Cloud through with Masamune, a mirror of how Sephiroth had wounded Cloud in the Nibelheim reactor when the nightmare had all started.

Cloud screamed, stumbling to one knee. His breath came in ragged gasps, barely able to focus through the sting of sweat and tears in his eyes. The sword had stabbed all the way through him, through the right side of his chest. There was blood in Cloud's mouth and on his lips as the choked and coughed; it had pierced a lung at the very least.

Sephiroth stepped forward, standing by the clone's side as they both loomed over Cloud, coldly, cruelly triumphant.

"As I suspected," Sephiroth said. He was the one who took Masamune's hilt and retrieved the sword, the sharp metal dragging through Cloud's flesh as Sephiroth drew the blade free. Cloud cried out.

He made a move to struggle back to his feet, but the clone kicked him in his injured side and Cloud toppled over again, breath hissing through his teeth. And the clone laughed.

Sephiroth smirked, amused. "Good work," he purred. Cloud's clone smiled at the praise, leaning closer to Sephiroth; Sephiroth lifted the clone's jaw and indulgently rewarded it with a deep, thorough kiss. The sort that left no room for misunderstanding the sort of relationship between them.

Cloud's stomach twisted, face heating. "Get off him, you sick bastard!"

Sephiroth let the kiss linger, but his eyes slid coolly to Cloud as he finally broke away. The clone was smirking. "Jealous?" it taunted.

"Get real! More like disgusted that you'd ever let a monster like Sephiroth—"

"What? Love me the way no one ever loved you?" The clone stepped closer, gaze lingering on Cloud's face for a long moment. It drew a fist back and punched Cloud across the jaw, sending him reeling. Cloud didn't even have time to process what had happened before the clone was on top of him, fingers wrapped violently around Cloud's throat. "You never deserved to be loved."

"Enough," Sephiroth said softly. He reached out to touch the clone, trailing fingertips down its spine. The clone shivered and stood, leaving Cloud gasping on the ground. Sephiroth leaned in, murmuring into the clone's ear; "shall we show him what he is missing out on?"

A growing smile spread across the clone's face. They worked in unison, Sephiroth retrieving the Buster Sword and piercing it deep into the rock as an anchor, while the clone took one of Cloud's own belts and bound his wrists in place around the sword.

It wouldn't be enough to keep Cloud down, but with his current injuries he would only hurt himself more trying to escape. A few minutes more, ten, fifteen maybe, and Cloud would have healed enough to snap the belt easily and take them both on again, but it would be foolish to try it now. The blood he coughed up with every movement was testament to that.

In any case, they didn't seem to have the intention of hurting him more. Not physically, anyway.

The clone was still watching Cloud, and it was utterly disturbing to see that corrupted mirror of him leaning willingly back into Sephiroth's touch as Sephiroth embraced it from behind. It only looked away when Sephiroth drew it back into another kiss, heated and wanting, and the clone responded needily.

Cloud wished he could drag his eyes away, but it was sickeningly mesmerising. The clone looked so much like him. Like it was him and Sephiroth, and it made Cloud's chest tighten to see it. Mostly from disgust; that was what Cloud told himself. He hated Sephiroth, and it was horrifying to see the bastard with his hands all over a clone of Cloud himself.

And maybe it ached a little more than it should, because in another world, another life, if things hadn't gone to shit as thoroughly as they had…

"Stop it," Cloud hissed. "I don't want to see this!"

Sephiroth's hand slid below the waistband of the clone's pants and it moaned deeply, hips rolling into Sephiroth's touch. Its arms reached up, wrapped around Sephiroth's neck and fingers tangled into Sephiroth's hair, only encouraging every touch.

The black cloak the clone wore was quickly the first to go, laid out on the ground so Sephiroth could lay the clone down on top of it.

Cloud could feel bile rising in his throat. Sephiroth laid Cloud's clone out like they were lovers; rough with passion, but not lacking care. And that hurt. Why did that hurt so much? Why did Cloud care?

Gods, the picture they made; Sephiroth's silver hair falling over his shoulder like a waterfall as he arched over the clone Cloud, the clone parting its knees and letting Sephiroth's hips settle between them, holding Sephiroth close with arms wrapped around his shoulders. They looked so good together. Sephiroth and Cloud would have looked so good together.

Sephiroth didn't bother undressing himself. The clone's boots and trousers were the only things to come off completely; its top Sephiroth only pushed up enough to tease the clone's nipples until it squirmed and moaned. Or maybe the moan was because of the slicked fingers Sephiroth was working inside of the clone while he tormented its chest with teeth and tongue.

Cloud shifted uncomfortably. This was so wrong. He couldn't help but watch, and he couldn't help but to imagine himself in the clone's place; how could he not when the damn thing looked exactly like him? Sounded like him when it cried out in pleasure. And it was Cloud's name that Sephiroth breathed as he penetrated the clone.

Cloud was turned on, and he hated it.

The clone arched and writhed beneath Sephiroth, face contorted in bliss as Sephiroth fucked it, enjoying every moment. It didn't give a shit about Cloud anymore; why would it? As far as it was concerned, Cloud was the fake, the failure, the embarrassment that shouldn't even exist. And it was the one who fought beside Sephiroth, who loved Sephiroth. It had everything Cloud's teenage fantasies had dreamed of.

They kissed as they fucked, the clone's ankles locked behind the small of Sephiroth's back. In the moments they broke apart, the clone smiled up at Sephiroth with an expression that was equal parts confidence, enjoyment, and a sickening degree of absolute trust.

Cloud gave a low, quiet moan. He didn't want to get off on this, he didn't want to see how good they were together, but he didn't have a damn choice. The taboo, the knowledge of how wrong and sickening it was only made it hotter.

He shifted, trying to relieve some of the tension, to get some friction where he needed it. It didn't help.

His clone cried out Sephiroth's name, trembling with pleasure as it came. And Sephiroth wasn't far behind.

They rested their foreheads together, breaths mingling as they panted in the aftermath, slowly coming down from their highs. Sephiroth gradually pulled out of the clone and reorganised his uniform until he looked as presentable and unruffled as ever.

"Sephiroth," the clone murmured happily, pulling the man down for another kiss.

Sephiroth indulged it, kissing the clone thorough. He took its face tenderly between his hand and snapped the clone's neck.

Cloud jerked against his bonds, eyes going wide. "What the fuck?!" he yelled before even thinking about it. The clone – gods, but it looked so much like Cloud – was suddenly still and cold, all the life torn from it in a single cruel gesture.

Sephiroth rolled its prone, used body up in the cloak and kicked it from the edge of the precipice, to join all the other nameless clones that had fallen before it.

"You—" there were no words to encompass how utterly horrified Cloud was, how utterly fucked up the whole scenario had turned out. As if it hadn't been fucked up to start with. "You heartless monster."

"Did you not want the clone, the 'fake you', dead?"

Cloud hesitated. He had, but— "Not like that."

"It was a quick and painless death."

"He trusted you!" From the look on the clone's face, it had truly loved Sephiroth too.

Sephiroth was right, Cloud had wanted the clone dead; the way the clone had acted towards Cloud only proved it was a violent, cruel parody of himself. An abomination. So why was he having to blink back tears?

Maybe he was just on edge from the sheer level of hatred searing through his veins. After all, he'd trusted Sephiroth once too.

Cloud couldn't focus on anything; he felt sick with it, too much rushing through his head until everything blurred into white-hot static and left him wanting to scream. Just stop, stop everything, but most of all stop feeling.

He barely noticed as Sephiroth pulled the Buster Sword free, slicing through the belt keeping Cloud's wrists bound and freeing him. He scrambled to his feet on instinct, but only stood there, swaying, as Sephiroth handed the Buster back to him. Eyes wide and flooded mako green, Cloud stared back at Sephiroth with utter loathing.

"Bring me the Black Materia," Sephiroth commanded.

He hated himself just as much for knowing he would obey.