Disclaimer: FFVII is owned by Squenix no credit to this one, and of course there is no profit being made (beyond the reviews.)
I. Clouded Objectives
There wasn't a day that went by that the Chocobo haired hero with the azure sky eyes didn't regret what he had been forced to do. His best friends were both dead, one resting in a crater to the far north, and the other in the middle of nowhere where he had been ambushed. Now he was with the group called AVALANCHE that was stationed at an old friend's bar in lower Midgar. He wasn't surprised to learn Tifa was hosting the Shin-Ra rebels, in fact it probably might have been shocking if she wasn't after Nibelheim.
His idol and friend the great Shin-Ra General Sephiroth had totally lost it. He suddenly went from the proud man Cloud had known to a crazed madman like Dr. Hojo in the course of a day. Cloud felt ashamed of Sephiroth for more than one reason, the first town the man had destroyed was his own hometown. After turning his back on his friends the crazed phantom haired General had vowed to destroy the program and the men he had looked after in Shin-Ra's SOLDIER program.
During the destruction at Cloud's hometown he killed the person closest to Cloud, his mother and of course he had tried to kill Tifa. He had only been in the small mountain village for a day or so when it all started up. The General had briefly stopped at the old Shin-Ra mansion, in some cases that was where Cloud suspected he still was. Of course when the group had freed the Ex-Turk Vincent Valentine from a coffin under the mansion Cloud had seen nothing to confirm this theory.
Then there was the friendship of one Zachary Fair, SOLDIER 1st Class. Zack had been the General's friend for as long as Cloud had been at Shin-Ra, and it had always seemed strange to Cloud that Sephiroth had killed them first. Maybe it was just his imagination, but Sephiroth had always seemed a kinder person deep down. A bit fragile at times, but a being that was definitely worthy of both Cloud and Zack's friendship.
Cloud was happy to realize he was one of the very few in Sephiroth's inner circle of friends. Of course Zack had made the most influence on the General of all, he occasionally had gotten the man to smile, which was indeed difficult. Sephiroth was generally treated more like a statue of a great person than a great person when in the presence of others. He moved so gracefully and so undetected that even the 1st Class SOLDIERs had a problem sensing him.
After knowing the man beneath the carefully guarded exterior Cloud could tell something was wrong after he returned from the Shin-Ra mansion. Cloud had a feeling that Zack could tell too, but there was no way to ask him now if he had even said anything to their friend. Sephiroth was lost to them that night, or at least someone who looked and called himself Sephiroth.
Over many long and empty days AVALANCHE tracked down Sephiroth, he was following the Calamity Jenova's orders. Something about that seemed strange too, Sephiroth never followed orders that would kill 'his' men. Of course that meant he was hell bent on destroying the planet which Cloud and the others could not allow. The last known living Ancient was killed in the battle, but before that Zack was assassinated by Shin-Ra. The Turks had tried to save him, but it had been to late by the time they had arrived.
Only Cloud had lived through the chaos that had somehow taken every person he cared about from him. Every single person he had ever truly cared about was dead, and the one who's friendship he had valued the most had been filled at his hand. Not only had he been the one to kill Sephiroth, he had been forced to kill his crazed friend three times. Which was why he was even thinking about it right now…
He had killed his friend's clones twice at least, what he wanted to know was if the first Sephiroth he had finished off had even been the real one at all. Hojo was known to do crazy things to his subjects, it had given him a very feared presence at the Shin-Ra compound. Even Vincent had some sort of weird fear/hate relationship with the man, of course after learning the Hojo was the one who had made Vincent into what he was now… No one was going to doubt the possibility that Hojo had made far worse beings than the Sephiroth clones they had faced.
What Cloud wanted to know was if his friend, the Original Sephiroth had actually been switched with a clone at the Shin-Ra mansion. It had taken him years to finally make up his mind to do it, and he had no second thoughts on it. He wouldn't tell Tifa, she would tell him it was all nonsense and that Sephiroth was dead for good. He could just hear her words, "Cloud… just let it go. He's gone, and even if he was still here he'd be like all the other Sephiroths."
He trusted no one on this topic, only Vincent seemed capable of believing his current theory. So Cloud was ready now, he would have to ask the Gunner if he was up to going back to Shin-Ra mansion. The trick was he was going to have to find Vincent first…