"I don't know if I can do this."
"You save the world, and a conversation scares you?" Tifa teased lightly, attempting to divert Cloud's attention away from the task at hand long enough so that he would stop worrying about it. "They're people, just like anyone else. They'll understand."
Cloud shook his head, pacing the fringes of the small town, stopping every few steps to look through the undergrowth to the little house up back, barely visible through the thick vegetation. They'd been here before, years ago, on a mission to stop a mad man. He hadn't realised Sephiroth wasn't the only one not quite in his right mind. He remembered, vaguely, both Tifa and Aeris mentioning Zack, but their words seemed a million miles away, like the flower girl herself. It was almost another life, another time.
But it wasn't, and the piper finally demanded payment.
He'd found Zack's journal in the Shinra mansion, discarded casually in a cupboard he remembered watching Zack rifle through before he had brandished a SOLDIER uniform triumphantly at him. It had been hard, reading the life he had assimilated as his own, realising that perhaps he and Zack had not been so different after all and that was why, perhaps, he had found it so easy to take over the life he had left so suddenly and violently.
Zack's observations of people were detailed, humorous, and above all so glaringly accurate that even had he not known them, he would have sworn he did. More than once, he'd found himself lost in a gaggle of words, his fingers pressed softly to the paper as he stared, haunted, into nothingness. His friend lived on through his words, and he could hear his cocky, self-assured voice as he read.
I'd like to say that it was just another day in the life of SOLDIER, but unless you count helicopter crashes and cross-country hikes across freezing plains as uneventful, then it'd be a lie. I wish I'd had longer with Aerith, but one day, maybe, we can all go back to sitting in the lounge wishing for a bit of action.
At least someone managed to keep up with me (Tseng, I think, was hampered by the stick up his ass), guy called Cloud from a backwater town called Nibelheim…
He'd stopped reading then, just as he'd missed reams of pages when he'd found Zack's feelings for Aerith neatly jotted down, and found in return her love letters to him. Shinra, more specifically Tseng, had dutifully kept every single one, right down to the last he'd had tucked safely away inside his armour, close to his heart on the night he'd died. It was, quite simply, too painful to think about, both of them being together, and the pair of them cut down too young.
"Cloud?"
Tifa snapped her fingers in front of his face, and he nodded absently, his hand going automatically to the Buster Sword strapped to his back.
Wear, tear and rust.
Both Zack and Angeal would have killed them if they could see the state of disrepair he'd let it fall into, leaving it as he had to mark the spot where Zack had breathed his last. It had been fitting, at the time. Now, however, its place had to be here.
"Let's go."
Oooooooooooooooooooooooooo
"The infinite mystery,
The gift of the goddess is what the three men seek,
But their fates are scattered by war,
One becomes a hero, one wanders the land,
And the last is taken prisoner,
But the three are still bound by a solemn oath,
To seek the answer together, once again."
Smiling slightly, Genesis finished his recitation and regarded the two figures who had walked past him without a glance. He had their attention now. The woman he knew only by reputation, Tifa of the famous Avalanche. She was interesting without doubt, but the man he had come to see held his attention far more.
"Cloud Strife, it has been a long time, has it not?"
A moment of recognition came, and Cloud's eyes narrowed. He unlimbered the sword strapped across his back and stated, "What the hell are you doing here?"
"The same as you, a pilgrimage of sorts," Genesis said, tossing the Banora apple in his hand. Cloud's eyes strayed worriedly to the dilapidated house ahead, and Genesis laughed. "I am not bent on revenge. Zack's parents are quite safe from me." Staring at the sword for a moment, he noted its disgraceful condition. "Angeal would be most unhappy."
Irritation passed over Cloud's face. "It's none of your damned business."
"Who's this clown?" Tifa asked with a trace of disdain.
"I'll tell you later," Cloud said, relaxing his posture a bit, but never taking his eyes from Genesis. "I'm surprised you even remember me."
"You were rather unremarkable at the time," he smiled. "It took me some time to put things together. Who could have guessed at what you'd become?
"There is no hate, only joy,
For you are beloved by the goddess,
Hero of the dawn, Healer of worlds."
"Would you quit reciting that crap?" Cloud snapped.
"So few appreciate good literature nowadays," Genesis lamented. "Loveless is not the only work of art I admire." His lips pursed in thought. "I remember a story of a hero. He had a mentor. There was one particular, poignant moment when the hero was revealed for what he actually was. Merely a man who had done his best to uphold what his mentor had taught him."
"You're just weird," Cloud said. "What are you getting at?"
"You're an interesting one, Cloud Strife. You are the legacy of Zack Fair, and by extension Angeal. In a way, you are also the heir of Sephiroth; at least to the man he could have been. A shame he had to go mad," Genesis said with an ironic smile. "My question about you is this: are you a real hero? Or will you be revealed as the man who had only done his best to do as his mentor told him?"
Cloud set his posture into a more combat ready position. "You're welcome to come and find out."
Laughing softly, Genesis tossed the apple to Cloud, who caught it. "Another day, perhaps. We'll meet again, Cloud Strife." A single black wing extended from his back, and Genesis soared to the skies.
ooooooooooooooooooooooooo
"So … that was?" Tifa left the question hanging in the air, watching Cloud turn the apple over in his hand absently, his eyes trained to the skies.
"He's the reason," Cloud replied softly, "that we are where we are. Genesis."
"The Genesis? But I thought-"
"That he'd been killed in Wutai?" Cloud shook his head, tucking the apple away. "No. Shinra put the lie in place to keep the peace. Not that it worked," he added bitterly.
The information was left hanging uncomfortably in the air as they walked the mile or so into Gongaga, the only sound the crunch of vegetation underfoot until Tifa hazarded another question. "You said he was responsible for things being as they are. How?"
Cloud's hand, previously poised at the Fair's door, hesitated for a moment before it rapped out their arrival. "I think it's best if you find out with them."
A dark haired woman, tired and careworn, answered the door with an expectant face, the hope fading from her eyes upon seeing the blond man and his companion. "I remember you."
Cloud hesitated, his throat suddenly tight and his heart pounding in his chest as he choked the words out. "I remember your son."