Welcome to the first chapter of Tsudzukeru! I'm glad you guys decided to click on this and check it out! *bows in appreciation* I know there are a lot of time travel fics out there, but I have a feeling four different personalities sharing the same body would definitely put a spin on the idea. Anyways, Here's chapter one! Enjoy! :)

EDIT (11-7-15): This chapter has been revised and looked over. I have combed through and made changes to certain events, dialogue, and situations to better fit with the plot :) So for all you new readers, everything should flow nicer.

~1: Angel or Abomination?~

It was a gentle summer's night in the village of Nebelheim. The sun had sunk below the horizon hours ago, leaving the encroaching night hanging high in the sky. The waning moon smiled down at the earth below like a Cheshire cat. A few stars blinked and twinkled in the obsidian sky to aid the moon in giving further pale light. A light wind blew past to ruffle each blade of grass like a violent shiver. The sweet air caught the scent of the mountains to blend gently into a snowy and earthy fragrance, just the right atmosphere for a quaint village out in the boondocks.

Most of the cottage styled homes had their lights off and were already hunkered down for the night to get an early leap at tomorrow morning. A few scattered homes had one single yellow light on to further light the town square. One house near the edge of the square and further towards the mountains had more than just one light on, signaling that the individuals were not asleep yet.

A young mother chased an even younger child around the living room of the rather small, yet cozy, house. The child was laughing as he evaded the clutches of his mothers arms. He quickly scurried around a kitchen table located on the left side of the house and wedged himself into a tight corner that he knew his mother could not squeeze into.

"Alright, Cloud. That's enough horseplay, it's time for you to get some sleep." The mother spoke with a giggle.

The little boy peeked through the crack in his hidey-hole to shoot a playful grin at her. She had her long blonde hair pulled into a low ponytail that ended down the middle of her back. Her bright blue eyes twinkled in amusement as she looked down at her energetic son. She had rested her slender hands against her hips as a smirk tugged at the corners of her thin peachy lips. She was clothed in a simple orange dress with a plain white apron slung over it. She was void of any socks or shoes.

"You best get yourself out of there before I force you out!" She threatened in a loving manner.

"Nu-uh!" The child known as Cloud challenged as he brought his knees up to his chest to hug them tightly, as if doing this would keep his mother from reaching him.

The older blonde saw those same blonde lockes that equaled her own color shake with his head at his denial. She knew those bright blue eyes that mirrored her own were twinkling with amusement, even without having to see it for herself. He was almost like her carbon copy they looked so similar. However, the boy did possess his father's delightfully contagious smile and mouth shape, the rest was all her. The young one was clothed in a navy blue tee-shirt and black cotton shorts that were a size too big for him.

"Then I guess I'll have to send the claw after you!" She finalized, crouching down on to her hands and knees as she reached her right hand out.

She wiggled her fingers around as her hand snaked under the table and towards the corner that Cloud had wedged himself into. When the blonde saw his mother's hand coming towards him, he curled himself into a ball as tightly as he could. Maybe he could shrink back into the wall if he curled up enough? However, his mother's hand brushed across his left side and began to tickle him relentlessly. The soon to be eleven year old shrieked in laughter as he squirmed and flailed trying to escape the grasp of the tickling claw.

'I've got you now! Surrender!" His mother exclaimed with a bright laugh and a smile to match.

"n-No! Haha, q-quit it Momma!" Cloud squealed, trying to maintain his curled up shape to escape the tickling claw.

"Not until you admit your defeat and go to bed!" She exclaimed, tickling his side harder now so he would give in.

"I-Haa~! I'll never surrender! Ahaha, okay...Okay! I give u-ahahah~, I give up Momma!" The blonde exclaimed, finally admitting a complete and utter defeat.

She finally stopped tickling the boy and withdrew her hand from underneath the small round table. Cloud peeled himself away from the corner and crawled out from underneath the table. Immediately afterwards, he was scooped up into his mother's arms as she stood up to her full height.

"Momma! Put me down!" The child exclaimed with a smile as he tried to peel away from his mother's loving embrace.

"Why? Just because you're turning eleven tomorrow doesn't mean mommy can't stop holding her baby!" She countered, snuggling him even tighter.

"I am not a baby! I'm ten and three n' a half quarters!" Cloud argued as a small pout formed across his rather plump face.

"Oh, I'm sorry Mr. Ten and three and a half quarters, forgive me for not being so exact!" She mock apologized before placing a big raspberry against his neck.

Her child squealed and protested delightfully for her to stop. She just couldn't help giving her little one such a hard time. She just loved him so much and never wanted to stop holding and hugging him. She thought any mother must have felt that same feeling she had right now. The feeling of never wanting to let go.

"Okay, sweeatheart, time to go to bed." She said softly, toning down her playful voice to lul the child into more of a tranquil state.

"Okay." Cloud responded in just as much of a soothed tone as his mother's.

She lead him over to the queen sized bed they both shared so she could get him tucked in. Eventually she'd have to get another bed for her growing boy. But for now, they were good with what they had. They weren't exactly the most wealthy people in the village. In fact, they were probably the most poor residents in town.

After her husband died in duty, they had hit the poverty line hard. When he was alive he had been a commanding officer in Shin-Ra. He didn't make it to SOLDIER like he had aimed to do, but he had been fine with the position he was able to land. Every check he received was sent straight to his small family. Since he couldn't be with them as much as he wanted to be, he just sent his earnings over so they could keep on going. After all, she was just a young twenty-seven stay at home mother. Yes, twenty-seven with a soon to be eleven year old.

He had died when Cloud was only minor four years old. Since then, they had been living on next to nothing, barely able to pay for their own home with the crops she grew in the backyard to sell to the market. When droughts or blizzards struck, meals would always come few and far between. Some days, they'd have to go an entire day without eating, sometimes more. A diet like that did not do a growing boy any good. So the lithe child was rather underweight and malnourished.

The blonde woman pulled herself out of her revere as she approached the bed. She pulled back his side of the covers and gently eased her younger counterpart on to the puffy bed. His side of the bed was closer to the wall since he did not get up as many times in the night as his mother.

Cloud layed down and snuggled his back against the mattress as his mother pulled up the white sheet and deep navy blue quilt and pulled them up to his shoulders. She gently tucked the covers close to his body and kissed him on the forehead.

"Goodnight, baby." She said with a smile.

"G'night, Momma." Cloud responded with a grin of his own before turning over on his left side and closing his eyes.

The older blonde gently eased away from the bed and made her way to the front door. She shut off the main light and glanced back to her boy with a loving smile on her face. She decided to wait right by the front door like she did every night until he fell asleep. When she heard the softest of snores, she gently popped open the front door and slipped out into the ever late night. With that, she briskly began to make her way towards the red light district near the back of town.

When you're poor and lacking a decent number of crops, you do what you can for your family to ensure they have enough to eat.

So many visions flooded their way into Cloud's dreams. Things he didn't know, things he'd rather not want to see. Things that frightened him, things that made him want to cry. He saw himself being much older than he was now, looking more lean and tall, but frail and lithe as he was now. He saw himself struggling to make it through the cadet program in Shin-Ra. He soon was no longer seeing it, but was now living it.

It all just felt so real, like they were memories and not dreams. He failed the SOLDIER exams and physicals a countless number of times. He was bullied constantly and did his best to fake a smile at the end of the day. He felt the joy of finally making a friend for the first time, but shortly after, he felt the pain of loosing everything dear to him.

Nebelheim up in smoke, childhood hero slaughtering all those in his way and setting fire to any structure in the path of his madness. Stabbing his hero, being stabbed and gutted in return. Killing his hero, upholding a promise made long ago. Needles, Mako, a scientist and his best friend.

A haze. A green haze he could not see past. Could not speak, could barely blink. His best friend always there, that joy was there. Soon after, heartache followed. His best friend being brutally murdered by the company he worked for. Tears. So many tears.

Black haze for a moment. Nothing was happening. It was quiet and eerily still.

The visions started up again. Much older now with guilt and regret in his chest. Begging for salvation and forgiveness and never seeking its' approval. So many memories in this form: A grand adventure of self-discovery, inner strength and saving Gaia altogether along with the help of a few trusted companions he held dear in his heart. A disease. Mad and rampid with no cure. He had it, a boy he held dear had it. Silverettes, mother's legacy. Geostigma's getting worse, only a matter of time til it claims him. A cure, a Cetra, a light in the darkness.

The fallen hero returns, no longer a hero and harboring nothing but hate and madness. A one-winged angel, proclaimed a fallen God. Reuniting with his best friend for a moment in time, felt nice. Overcoming his fears and weakness and accepting fate. Finally achieving forgiveness and purged of his sins.

Encroaching blackness once more. Deafening silence again.

All of a sudden, this vision becomes vivid, forever burning into the back of his head.

Cracked ground splintered in every direction surrounds his line of sight. It was parched, dry and craving water that it would not receive. There was no longer any grass, no trees, not even the slightest form of vegetation. There was dust swirling near the bright tan ground below his feet. Slivers of green strands of lifestream circled into the air above where the sky was cracked and chipped like glass. Black was visible through the holes in the sky. Never ending obsidian.

He stood alone in this desolate field, every inch of mankind eradicated. Then why was he here? He was human, wasn't he?

...

Cloud Strife: The Alpha WEAPON, stood alone on the last patch of land that lay unclaimed by the end of Gaia. His dull Mako blue eyes scanned each crack in the sky, even lingering in the black where pieces of the sky had broken off and were sucked up into the never ending darkness that came about the end of the world.

He was garbed in brilliant clothes. A mask covered his upper face, shielding his eyes and nose to leave his mouth and jaw exposed. The mask resembled the plague doctors, a long beak being the most predominant feature. The mask was pure gold and adorned in pieces of silver, ruby, and emerald: Bits of the other weapons of Gaia themselves.

His hair was very long and pulled into a tight ponytail near the base of his neck. The ponytail easily reached down to the back of his knees. The lockes of hair not sealed into the silk red ribbon shot up in every direction like they usually did, but they seemed to be a bit more tamed and slicked back that usual.

He wore a solid black trench coat that traveled down to his ankles. It was completely undone save for one metal buckle near the collar of the coat that closed it up. The base of the trench coat was covered in more colorful bits of the other weapons and was streaked with gold lining at the ends of the fabric.

The sleeves of the coat were short and underneath them lay his arms covered in tattered bandages. Under those were thick crimson red scars and gashes. Even some thick stitches lay permanently etched into his skin. Black gloves covered his hands and swallowed his wrists, rusted gears click under blemished glass sitting on the top of the gloves.

He wore nothing underneath the trench coat save for loosely wrapped bandages near his stomach, yet tight at the chest. His white pants were loose as the waist hung lazily and a bit lower than where it should be resting. There were black leather straps on either side of each leg, an abundance of chains adorned into the straps. The white pants then tucked into some black leather mid-calf high boots. They were garnished in black straps and a thick zipper down the front lay half-way zipped up.

Out of his back rest a magnificent pair of massive wings. The span had to be larger than the well dressed and badly scarred blonde himself. They were ivory white with golden yellow on the tips of each abnormally large feather. The longest of the feathers draped across the dying ground, giving it elegance in its last moments.

Suddenly, he was face to face with Minerva herself. She was garnished in her large and intimidating armor. The blonde knew better than that. She might appear to be fearless, but deep inside he knew she was terrified of what was becoming of her precious world.

"You're out of options, Minerva." Cloud dryly spoke, his voice rough and brittle. It was as if he had been alive for eons yet did not look the part at all.

"I am aware." She spoke from behind her helm.

A rough breeze blew past the two, ruffling up their clothes and hair as silence washed over them. The whipping wind warped the natural shape of their attire, either conforming it to their body or letting it flow out behind the other.

"I have tried everything...Except one thing." The Goddess finally spoke, looking up to meet the blonde straight in his masked eyes.

"If it is anything like any of your other plans, I will assume it involves me." Cloud responded bitterly, almost wanting to turn his back on the one who had made him the living and undying weapon he was so many millennia ago.

Why did she keep asking and expecting so much out of him? She had chosen him to stop Sephiroth, chosen him to become Gaia's hero. When all seemed lost in the War of Shadows, she had turned him into a humanoid weapon and saved the rest of mankind. All seemed fine until he realized that being immortal was a terrible thing to suffer through. He had to watch everyone he loved grow and die. Had to witness the planet trying to end itself time after time, only to have him stop it every time.

Not even Red XIII or Vincent lived as long as he did. They died centuries ago. Gaia was old and crumbling and now there was nothing they could do to fix it this time. Honestly, Gaia had been alive for six eons. Eons were at least a billion years old at that. It was time for this planet to die in Cloud's opinion.

"I am sorry, Cloud-"

"I lost that name when I lost my humanity." The blonde snapped, taking a step forward towards the Goddess.

Cloud had lost his name after he became a weapon. His old existence had been replaced and forgotten. Only he, his closest friends, and the Goddess herself knew of his old name and life. After he became what he was, he was only known as Alpha. Ever since then, he despised hearing his old name. It was just a cruel reminder of the life he so desperately missed.

"I apologize." She said again, slightly lowering her helmed head.

"Fine. Tell me this 'plan'." The humanoid weapon stated, crossing his arms over his bandaged chest.

"The world is in the sorry state it's in because of what happened that fateful day in Nebelheim. I feel that if that event were to never occur then the course of destruction this world is on would cease." Minerva theorized, gesturing to the barren land spread before them.

A few more cracks resonated through the sky as a few more pieces chipped away and shattered into the black void behind it. A faint howling of wind was heard as the speed began to pick up, further ruffling their clothes.

"And just how do you propose we go about solving this?" The weapon formerly known as Cloud asked impatiently, wanting to hurry up and get to the part about how she was going to use him again to save herself and the sorry world she made the mistake of birthing him into.

"I have just enough power left in me to reverse the current damage, but in order to do so, the same events that lead to this current moment must occur again." She explained bluntly.

"So you mean every event that happened when I was still human must happen once more?" He questioned bitterly.

"Yes. And for every time the course is not altered, the world will stop and reset every millennia."

"So you mean we are just basically rewinding a damn VHS tape." Former Cloud grumbled as his right hand shot up to his forehead and raked through his thick blonde hair.

"I suppose your analogy best fits my proposal." Minerva responded with a faint nod of her helmed head.

"Minerva. I am tired. I do not want to go back and try to stop those horrible events and memories again. I may be weapon, but I do not possess the willpower and stamina I once did. Frankly, I just want to lay down and die." The Alpha weapon mumbled as he slowly removed his hand from his hair, looking at it as he brought it down to eye level as he spoke.

"This is why I am going to free you of remembering any of those events. I will take your tired memories away so you may start fresh without weary or burden. You will still remain my Alpha, but you will most certainly not remember it." Minerva propositioned.

The blonde looked at her hard. Even through the slits in the mask and the faint distance between them, she could see the fiery Mako blue glow of his eyes blaring embers into her own eyes.

"I am tired of being a tool. If I somehow manage to set free this accursed chain of events, I wish to be released from my title of undying weapon. It's... Very lonely after everyone you know and love has died." He admitted softly, looking down at the parched earth below his feet after speaking.

Minerva visibly flinched upon hearing her beloved Alpha's request. Her utmost savior and favorite weapon wishing to be no more? Actually wishing to revert back to a human? She would have never dreamed he could proposition something like this! She thought just taking away his old memories would have pleased him enough. He would no longer be tired as he stated, and she most certainly would no longer use him as she has been doing if he were to succeed!

But because he was her most beloved weapon, she figured it would be best to grant his wish. It was probably the least she could have done for giving him a fate he did not wish or yearn for. She forced him to become what was standing before her now without his consent, just to save the world for another few pitiful millennia more.

"Alright. I accept your proposal, you will no longer be tied to me if you succeed." Minerva finalized, almost wanting to take it back as soon as it left her mouth.

Then for the first time in eons, she saw him smile a true smile. It was a smile that was free from worry, free from burden and pain. It was carefree. She would have never thought she'd see him ever smile like that again. The proposal almost seemed worth it just for that brief moment in time.

The howling picked up even more, becoming more of a loud roar. The wind was being sucked right into the obsidian void. It was becoming more of a black hole than anything. Eventually, this last piece of land and all the lifestream would be gone. She knew she had to act fast.

"Great Gaia! Hear me now! Your Goddess summons forth your last reserves of strength!-" She began, holding her staff up into the air as bright green light swarmed around it like moths to flame.

"As your creator and Goddess, I command you to start anew four eons ago! From there you will loop for a millennium! If no changes are present, you wil restart once again!" She added on, beginning to swirl the staff in a clockwise motion in the air.

Streams of the green substance stopped in their tracks for a moment, then shot towards the staff with such rapid speed that a normal human wouldn't even have time to see it without blinking. Alpha weapon watched as the howling roar shifted from the void and come from the staff instead, sounding like a screech by this point.

"You shall free my beloved weapon of his down-trodden memories and renew him as he was in his prime! Heed me now and revert!" She finished, holding her staff high into the air as the rest of the lifestream entered the staff.

For a brief moment, it was silent. Then the lifestream shot out with a mighty roar in every direction it could fly. It looked more like an Ultima spell had been cast instead from just the sheer intensity of it alone. White light then engulfed the blonde and his memories blissfully faded away.

Well...That's how it was supposed to work.

Cloud soon found himself standing before Minerva for the third time in the same patch of land with the same damn scenery. Alpha could have sworn there was fire burning through his veins instead of blood. Not only had he failed three times now, he had to sit through years and years of watching everyone leave him again. Once was enough, but three? Not only that, but as soon as he made it to where he was standing now, all of his past memories caught up with him. All three times, all the memories, the pain and regret came back. He was about ready to snap Minerva's neck.

"Listen, my beloved. I know you are upset, but-"

"No fuckin' shit, Minerva!" Former Cloud spat, his patience entirely gone by this point.

"Please allow me to explain!" She pleaded before he could insult her any more.

The weapon bit his tongue as he turned his head away from her. Thankfully, she was glad for his plague mask right now. She didn't have to see those angry and disapproving eyes on her. His silence confirmed that she was allowed a chance to explain, so she seized it while she could.

"I have made a mistake in allowing you to forget your past memories. It seems without the prior knowledge of the future, you cannot properly avert the calamities that follow. Therefore I must sent you back once more." She explained.

"No. I am not going back for a fourth time. Not only am I tired, I am exhausted, hurting, and laden with guilt and regret for letting everyone down a third time. This world is no longer worth saving and I am certainly in no decent mental condition to be its savior once more." The blonde growled out, crossing his arms over his chest as he reigned in his anger as much as he could. Even his wings seemed to shudder in his hatred.

"I understand your distress, but I feel that the knowledge you have obtained these past three lifetimes will greatly aid you for this time. If I allow your memories to stay, you will most certainly succeed." Minerva encouraged in a desperate manner.

"My answer is still no. I would rather live in an endless void than see everyone I love die again while I am powerless to stop it, no matter how many do-over's I get." The weapon reinforced heavily, still keeping the blazing eye contact with the Goddess he despised with a fiery passion.

"May this be the final offer then. Even if you do or do not succeed, I will free you from the title of Alpha weapon for good. I will allow you the humanly death you have been praying for." She decided. This was the only way she would get one last chance. This was it, the final stand.

"...You have yourself a deal then, Minerva. I have one addition though." He bargained, turning to fully face her now.

He put his right hand to the mask covering his face and removed it. Thick blonde bangs fell to frame his young looking face. Yet it was covered in stitches and scars. His eyes were still that fiery Mako blue, but they had a glaze over them as if he was blind. His eyes were his most aged looking feature of his entire being.

"I want to be sent back in time further than a measly month before the mission. Send my conscience back to my eleven year old body. I have a feeling if I start like that, things might just work out this time." He said bluntly.

"A mere child? Why not when you first arrived in Shin-Ra at your proper age?" Minerva questioned as her own eyes actually widened from behind her helm.

"I will have my strength, knowledge, weapon powers, and wings with me. I have a feeling if I start off so young, I can make quite the ruckus in Shin-Ra. After all, Sephiroth made First class by the time he was thirteen. Besides, not only can I destroy the Nebelhiem files with ease and without suspicion, but I can also tug on some heartstrings belonging to a certain General as a mere child." The Alpha weapon explained as he tossed his mask up into the air to catch it and repeat the process.

"...Alright, I can make that happen. However I must warn you, the process of transferring all of your memories and former lives into a body that young and fragile will cause an immense amount of pain. You should be able to handle it though. With that said, here we go." Minerva stated before starting up the reversal process again.

Hopefully the fourth time would be the charm.

Claudia did not know what was wrong. She had been in the middle of making breakfast just like any other morning. She had looked behind her to see her little newly turned eleven year old sleeping soundly. Watching the way he slept always brought a smile to her face. But this morning was anything but normal.

Cloud started screaming and thrashing in his sleep. Immediately she was by his side, watching in horror as he convulsed as if he was going through the motions of a seizure. She wanted to reach out and comfort him, but that wouldn't seem like that safest course of action due to his wild flailing. When she thought she was at the height of her worry, it increased tenfold.

White wings with golden tips burst out of his back, ripping fresh holes in his shirt. Claudia's eyes nearly bugged, especially noting that there was no blood or sign of injury. Those wings just appeared. Not only that, but they were obscenely massive for his size. They had to be about a good three feet bigger than him. The left wing was draped off the side of the bed and was twitching against the wood floor below as the boy continued to seize and thrash.

Then scars began to form across his body. There was one above his left eyebrow, then smaller and thinner ones splotched across his arms. They resembled little nicks as if he had been cut by a blade. She was terrified. She figured she was dreaming, but couldn't recall going to bed. Wings just don't appear out of nowhere, nor do scars and cuts. She had to have been hallucinating.

She didn't know what was going on or what she could do. She couldn't think straight, couldn't function right. With her doubt, confusion, and ever growing denial that this wasn't real, she only stood with a gaping mouth as she watched her child thrash about.

For the seizing blonde, the rush of illusions from his dream was nearly unbearable. All this visions suddenly becoming memories as they burned into the back of his head. All of the familiar faces from his past lives flashing before his closed eyes. His knowledge of the future. But something seemed...Very wrong. He felt more than one presence in his head.

'you've got to be kidding me.' an older but wispy voice grumbled.

'I do believe Minerva made a fatal mistake when sending my memories back...' Alpha Weapon sighed.

'Your memories?'

'Not only did she send back my prior lives' memories back, she sent back their personalities as separate entities as if I had been three separate people...'

'Hold on...This is confusing. You mean we're all the same person, but we're also not at the same time?'A feeble and young sounding voice peeped.

'That would be correct. She separated the memories of me as a cadet, a hero, and myself and threw us together into my child body. I have a feeling that the mind of when I was a child is separate as well...'

'w-Who are you people?' His inner child asked.

'My theory was correct.'

'Our theory technically speaking?'

'Wait, I thought we were separate people?'

'I feel I have made a great mistake...' One last voice chimed. This voice was feminine from all the others and the young confused child almost thought it was his own mother.

'I could have told you this.'

'Somehow, when I sent your memories back, you all became separate from the other. You are the same person, yes. You are just broken pieces that were once a whole.'

'Minerva, pray tell how you are going to solve this problem. We cannot all jump in at once. We will cause too much strain on myself... We will cause too much strain on the child.' Alpha said, only to correct himself.

'I should have enough strength to allow separate windows. When a certain situation calls for a certain personality, that one will take over.'

"Wait, these voices are me?" The child asked feebly, unsure if any of the voices were even listening to him.

'So we're taking turns being ourselves?'

'Yes.'

'Wait! What about situations like right now? How are we going to separate ourselves from... Well, ourselves? We're all Cloud!'

'I decree we go by titles rather than names. Since I am Alpha weapon, I shall make my title be known as Alpha. We shall continue down with the ranks. This will make my second life possess the Beta title. My third life will claim the rank of Gamma. For the child, he will retain our original name.' Alpha decided.

'Sounds good." Beta agreed.

"Nobody answered me!" Cloud exclaimed to the voices in his head while he remained unaware of his body's actions as he slumbered.

"We are you. There isn't really any better way to explain that I guess." Gamma responded to the feeble voice that barely sounded like his own.

"Why are you here? Why now?" Cloud asked desperately, hoping to understand why there were three different versions of himself all living in his head.

"We have come here to stop a chain of events from destroying Gaia as we know it. Combining out memories will give us knowledge of why the world began to crumble. You will help us carry this out so the world can be saved before it repeats itself for a fourth time."

"Sephiroth started the whole mess in my time. From what you saw in your dreams, you know he was responsible for burning this place to the ground." Gamma spoke.

'Honestly, Hojo was mainly behind it all. He set the stage for what followed after Gamma's time and into mine.' Beta added in.

'It was all of those events in the end that brought about what followed afterwards. The Shadow War followed after ten years of peace, then I was changed into a humanoid Weapon to end it.' Alpha finished.

"You mean all those visions I saw in my dreams are my memories?" Cloud asked the voices that knew just about everything. But if this was the case, that means his eleven year old self knew everything and everyone that they did.

'That is correct.'

"Now that everything has been discussed, I will create the separate windows and allow the child to awake." Minerva cut in from the silence.

All of a sudden, the voices disappeared without a trace and Cloud could actually have a few thoughts to himself once more. It only remained dark and quiet for a few moments before he heard his mother's uneven gasps reaching him. She sounded garbled and fuzzy, like he was hearing her underwater. Not liking that garbled sound that caused him to panic and worry about his mother, he fought away the darkness as quickly as he could to reach her.

The blonde shot up in the bed panting and sweating profusely. His breaths were raspy and shallow as if he had been suffocating rather than sleeping. He was gripping the blue quilt in his hands so tightly that his small knuckles were beginning to turn white.

"Cloud!" His mother cried with desperation as her arms flung around him tightly, nearly crushing him in the process.

"Momma?" He asked with hardly a voice.

Claudia's worried blue eyes scanned every possible inch of her son as she could, even going as far as using her right hand to turn his face to the left and right to do a thorough check. When he seemed to be physically fine -minus the scars that just appeared out of nowhere and seemed to stick- he was pulled back into her loving arms as she breathed a heavy sigh of relief.

"Goodness, baby! You scared mommy half to death!" She cried as she nuzzled her face into the crook of his neck, half of her still wondering where those strange wings had gone.

One moment they were there, then they just vanished. She had never seen anything more strange or bizarre than that. She did another double-check over him, turning his face this way or that, lifting his shirt up to check his back and run her fingers over the flesh before checking over those strange scars before repeating the process. This caused the blonde to groan softly as his face tugged down into a scowling pout.

"Mom! Cut it out, I'm okay!" He protested as he pulled his face away from her hands.

"It doesn't look like it to me. Where did these scars come from? And for Gaia's sake I saw wings come out of your back!" She protested with worried eyes and a shaky voice.

"I... Don't know. But I promise, I really am okay. I feel fine n' everything." He honestly responded as he looked at his arms then back to his mother.

He could tell from the look in her eyes that she still wasn't one-hundred percent sure that he was truly fine. But her silence on the matter told the child that she was going to drop it for now. Knowing his mother, she'd rehash this matter later. She checked over him one last time, much to Cloud's dismay as he tried to fight out of her probing fingers again.

"Alright then..." She mumbled to herself, taking in a deep breath after her mutter.

When she exhaled, she made sure most of her worry wiped right off her face before replacing it with something more relaxed. She was still worried and more scared than anything over the events a minor ten minutes ago, but for now she would take this time to sort through all of these occurrences in her head before re-asking and checking her son out later. She let a small smile grace the corners of her lips before speaking again.

"Well, bad dreams and weird things aside, I think it's time we liven up this atmosphere. Happy Birthday, Cloudy!" His mother exclaimed with a tight hug.

"Thanks, Momma." The blonde responded with a smile.

Although from the back of his head he could have sworn he heard the other three voices whispering to him, telling him to not forget what had to be done.

A/N: Holy moly rolly-polly! We've finally reached the end of chapter one! What a long ride! Anyhow, I hope you guys enjoyed the start and I hope you'll fave and follow to see what's in store next! I know the time-travel thing is pretty popular to do and there are a lot of other ones out there, but I honestly hope you guys will like this!

So leave me some feedback to let me know what you thought and think of this story and the twisty-turnsie I put on it :)

Until the next chappie my fair readers!
~Zimithrus1