I winced and stepped over the puddle forming under my late opponent, a Nibel wolf. The fact that we're in Old Midgar doesn't seem to have deterred her pack. I'm not all that surprised; the monsters are everywhere now.

Everywhere.

Y'know, I always thought, perversely, that Vinnie would be the first of us to go. We don't really know how long he'll live, we've no idea what Hojo did to him...but I guess I thought he'd end it before any of the rest of us went.

I was wrong.

Cid was first, I don't know how he died but he did. I don't think I want to know, to be honest. At first we all thought it was the smoking, but that was before we found out what Sephiroth's legacy was. So it wasn't the smoking.

Barret went next. After Marlene...she went out into the hills one day and never returned. She was seven.

A week after we found Barret.

I never would have expected him to...but then, I didn't expect Reeve to either. Or Tifa. Well, maybe Tifa, after Cloud left.

I've got no idea where he is. I haven't heard from him in years; no one has. Red thinks he might be living in the City of the Ancients. Red is roaming too; has been ever since the Canyon died.

I don't really know what happened there. The Gi tribe got free, maybe. Whatever it was, it wiped out everything he lives to guard. I'm surprised that Red is still around, especially after the others began dying.

I still see Red, still come across him once every few years or so. Vincent too, occasionally. Someday soon, the three of us are going to get together and go see if Cloud really is living in the Forgotten City. If he is, then...I don't know. Maybe we'll join him. Maybe not. If he isn't, I guess we'll keep looking.

He might not recognise us, come to think of it. Well, Red's pretty hard to disguise and Vinnie's got no way to hide his claw, but I look a lot different. Seventeen- so many years later and I'll always be seventeen, the gift Sephiroth left us. The cursed blessing.

Jenova cells...

Not that Cloud or Red or Vincent needed them, mind you. No, what we received from Sephiroth was just enough to stop any aging. Cloud and Red had still been aging despite Hojo's tinkering, even if I'm not totally sure whether or not Vincent was.

Cid figured it out first, I think.

Cid died first, too.

I'm still seventeen, but I look different. I died my hair white and grew it longer. Oddly, it didn't occur to me until years later who that made me look like. I started wearing contacts, red ones.

Yes, I look like Sephiroth's bastard twin and Vincent's daughter. It stopped the reporters, though, and for that it was worth it.

"Miss Kisaragi, many of your old companions have died, most if not all by their own hands. How does that make you feel?"

Yeah, it was definitely worth it. Besides, brown wasn't enough of a change, red was too flashy, and I refuse to be blonde.

I refuse to give up, too.

Cid gave up. Barret gave up. Tifa and Reeve gave up. Cloud may or may not have given up.

I won't give up. I can't give up.

There's no good reason to give up.

There's no good reason to live, either, or at least that's what Vincent says.

I hit him.

I'll live. Even if Cloud is gone, even if Red and Vinnie leave me too, I'll live.

An eternity of your last moment isn't a great way to live, but it isn't the worst. And there's no good reason to give up that life. What if another Hojo is born, another Sephiroth created, another Meteor summoned? Isn't it better to have someone around that stopped the world's end the first time around? No reason to give up.

None at all...