Not Like They Used To
a Kingdom Hearts/Final Fantasy fic by inky
Disclaimer: Kingdom Hearts belongs to Square Enix and Disney Interactive. Final Fantasy 7 and 8 belong to Square Enix. I am using their characters and situations without permission.
Warnings: game spoilers and language (what do you expect from Cid?)
Note: for Cys
Chapter 1: Time to Talk to the Goat
Phil had seen him fight, but now he insisted that Cloud go through hero training just "so I can see what you can do."
Right. Phil's training was useless, unless you needed to prepare for the day when power-hungry wooden barrels tried to take over the universe.
"Ready?" Phil asked. "You've got thirty seconds."
Twenty barrels were arranged across the stadium. All but two were set in a fairly straight line.
"Start counting," Cloud said. He waited until Phil turned the timer over and the first grains trickled to the other half of the glass, then stooped to tug at his boot.
"Hey, hey, kid. Better get going. Time's a-wasting."
Cloud silently counted out fifteen seconds while he fiddled with his boots. Then he transformed--another four seconds gone--and flew across the course, destroying eighteen barrels in one sweep and following through with a spin that sent the last two barrels crashing into the stadium walls.
He returned to Phil and stopped the timer before the last grain fell. He lowered his sword, letting its tip almost touch the little goat's belly.
"Don't make me play with any more barrels," he said.
Phil backed away from his sword. "I think I've got a place for you in the Hercules Cup. How about that?"
Cloud wasn't having much luck with the spectators. He considered trying to get a ride with some of the other combatants, but most of them were Heartless.
There was Hercules, but this was his world. He wasn't going anywhere. And there was that boy, Sora. He seemed friendly, and he looked at Cloud with something like awe in his eyes. The kid would probably be willing to help. But his companions--especially the duck--eyed Cloud with distrust. He didn't try. Besides, it was best to leave a kid like that alone. Cloud was no role model.
Days turned into weeks, and Cloud hid his impatience behind a stoic facade. Then, one day, he saw a strange man talking to Phil.
"Who's that?" he asked Hercules.
"Huh? Who?" The big guy was busy styling his hair. Cloud ought to introduce him to hair gel so he wouldn't fuss with it so often.
"The guy with all the belts," Cloud said, nodding in his direction.
Hercules glanced over. "Oh, that's Leon. He and his partner fight in the Pegasus Cup. He uses a Gunblade."
A Gunblade? "So he's not from around here?"
"No, but he fights here regularly." Hercules looked around. "Do you have a mirror? How do I look?"
Cloud suggested he use one of the trophies in the lobby for a mirror. He headed towards Phil and the stranger, but then, a familiar-looking girl joined them. He stopped.
It took a moment to place her. Khaki shorts and a crop top, black hair in a pixie cut and a gently-pointed chin, dark eyes just a little too big for her face... It was Yuffie Kisaragi, looking exactly like she had the last time Cloud had seen her. But that was impossible.
He'd spent most of the last nine years in the Underworld, where no one aged because--as Hades said--death was eternal. Cloud didn't think it was eternal so much as stagnant. Bodies didn't change in the Underworld, and for the most part, people didn't either.
Yuffie, though, she would have changed. She'd be a woman by now.
Still, he stared at the Yuffie-look-alike. She got into an agitated conversation with Phil, bending at the waist at one point so she could get right up in his face. Finally, she threw her hands up in disgust and stomped off.
The girl even acted like Yuffie. It was uncanny.
He approached the two men--well, the man and the satyr. "Is there a problem?" he asked.
"Women!" Phil spat. "I never should have let them into the Coliseum!"
"Is she a competitor?"
"She's my partner," the belted man said. He had a smoothly-healed scar across his brow. It seemed too pretty to be a battle wound. "She's a ninja."
Yuffie was a ninja, too--this was a little unnerving.
Phil hopped about at their feet. "I don't care if she's a ninja, she's too weak for the Hades Cup!"
"The what?" Cloud asked.
"Hades," the man explained, "wants to sponsor a special tournament. Philoctetes here doesn't think she's up to it." He frowned down at Phil.
"But Cloud--Cloud would be perfect," Phil said. "That's it! You guys are partners."
The man held his hand out to Cloud. "I'm Leon."
"I fight alone," Cloud said.
"Not anymore, you don't," Phil said. "Now, I'm busy, so beat it."
It wasn't bad fighting alongside Leon. They weren't partners and they didn't work in concert, but they didn't get in each other's way. It was hard to get information out of him, but before too long, Cloud learned that Leon's partner was Yuffie, a girl he'd been looking out for since she was seven.
It was too much of a coincidence, even if it was all wrong.
Leon told him that his world had been destroyed when he was a teenager. He'd ended up in a place called Traverse Town with two young girls who were also refugees from his planet. Like a big brother, he'd raised them, and now they were working to restore their world.
"We're getting close," he said. "A boy named Sora recently discovered what's left of our world."
"I know Sora," Cloud told him. "We've fought."
Leon nodded. "He's the Keyblade Master."
Cloud didn't care much about Keyblades, but just then, Yuffie entered the locker room. She circled around Cloud, eyeing him up and down. If she knew him, she wasn't letting on to it.
"So this is your new partner?"
"Hey, Yuffie, it's nice to met you," he said, watching her eyes. "I'm Cloud."
There wasn't even a flicker of recognition in her eyes.
"I guess you could do worse," she told Leon. "But come on, let's go. Aerith's missing us by now."
Aerith? His heart raced with a jolt of adrenaline.
"Aerith Gainsborough?"
Leon and Yuffie turned to him in surprise. "You know her?"
a Kingdom Hearts/Final Fantasy fic by inky
Disclaimer: Kingdom Hearts belongs to Square Enix and Disney Interactive. Final Fantasy 7 and 8 belong to Square Enix. I am using their characters and situations without permission.
Warnings: game spoilers and language (what do you expect from Cid?)
Note: for Cys
Chapter 1: Time to Talk to the Goat
There are many fates worse than being stranded on a desert planet.
You could begin to fall in love, only to be forced to watch the girl's murderer pin her like an entomologist's butterfly. You could wind up in a wheelchair as a mindless vegetable. Your world could shatter and dissolve into Darkness all around you.
Cloud snorted at his thoughts. Been there, done that.
It didn't matter that he'd gotten off easily after reneging on his deal with Hades. What mattered was continuing his search, and that meant catching a ride off this planet.
Olympus Coliseum was surrounded by nothing but shifting sand. He'd have to convince one of the spectators to give him a lift, and that meant staying visible in the tournament.
Cloud sighed. It was time to talk to the goat.
Phil had seen him fight, but now he insisted that Cloud go through hero training just "so I can see what you can do."
Right. Phil's training was useless, unless you needed to prepare for the day when power-hungry wooden barrels tried to take over the universe.
"Ready?" Phil asked. "You've got thirty seconds."
Twenty barrels were arranged across the stadium. All but two were set in a fairly straight line.
"Start counting," Cloud said. He waited until Phil turned the timer over and the first grains trickled to the other half of the glass, then stooped to tug at his boot.
"Hey, hey, kid. Better get going. Time's a-wasting."
Cloud silently counted out fifteen seconds while he fiddled with his boots. Then he transformed--another four seconds gone--and flew across the course, destroying eighteen barrels in one sweep and following through with a spin that sent the last two barrels crashing into the stadium walls.
He returned to Phil and stopped the timer before the last grain fell. He lowered his sword, letting its tip almost touch the little goat's belly.
"Don't make me play with any more barrels," he said.
Phil backed away from his sword. "I think I've got a place for you in the Hercules Cup. How about that?"
Cloud wasn't having much luck with the spectators. He considered trying to get a ride with some of the other combatants, but most of them were Heartless.
There was Hercules, but this was his world. He wasn't going anywhere. And there was that boy, Sora. He seemed friendly, and he looked at Cloud with something like awe in his eyes. The kid would probably be willing to help. But his companions--especially the duck--eyed Cloud with distrust. He didn't try. Besides, it was best to leave a kid like that alone. Cloud was no role model.
Days turned into weeks, and Cloud hid his impatience behind a stoic facade. Then, one day, he saw a strange man talking to Phil.
"Who's that?" he asked Hercules.
"Huh? Who?" The big guy was busy styling his hair. Cloud ought to introduce him to hair gel so he wouldn't fuss with it so often.
"The guy with all the belts," Cloud said, nodding in his direction.
Hercules glanced over. "Oh, that's Leon. He and his partner fight in the Pegasus Cup. He uses a Gunblade."
A Gunblade? "So he's not from around here?"
"No, but he fights here regularly." Hercules looked around. "Do you have a mirror? How do I look?"
Cloud suggested he use one of the trophies in the lobby for a mirror. He headed towards Phil and the stranger, but then, a familiar-looking girl joined them. He stopped.
It took a moment to place her. Khaki shorts and a crop top, black hair in a pixie cut and a gently-pointed chin, dark eyes just a little too big for her face... It was Yuffie Kisaragi, looking exactly like she had the last time Cloud had seen her. But that was impossible.
He'd spent most of the last nine years in the Underworld, where no one aged because--as Hades said--death was eternal. Cloud didn't think it was eternal so much as stagnant. Bodies didn't change in the Underworld, and for the most part, people didn't either.
Yuffie, though, she would have changed. She'd be a woman by now.
Still, he stared at the Yuffie-look-alike. She got into an agitated conversation with Phil, bending at the waist at one point so she could get right up in his face. Finally, she threw her hands up in disgust and stomped off.
The girl even acted like Yuffie. It was uncanny.
He approached the two men--well, the man and the satyr. "Is there a problem?" he asked.
"Women!" Phil spat. "I never should have let them into the Coliseum!"
"Is she a competitor?"
"She's my partner," the belted man said. He had a smoothly-healed scar across his brow. It seemed too pretty to be a battle wound. "She's a ninja."
Yuffie was a ninja, too--this was a little unnerving.
Phil hopped about at their feet. "I don't care if she's a ninja, she's too weak for the Hades Cup!"
"The what?" Cloud asked.
"Hades," the man explained, "wants to sponsor a special tournament. Philoctetes here doesn't think she's up to it." He frowned down at Phil.
"But Cloud--Cloud would be perfect," Phil said. "That's it! You guys are partners."
The man held his hand out to Cloud. "I'm Leon."
"I fight alone," Cloud said.
"Not anymore, you don't," Phil said. "Now, I'm busy, so beat it."
It wasn't bad fighting alongside Leon. They weren't partners and they didn't work in concert, but they didn't get in each other's way. It was hard to get information out of him, but before too long, Cloud learned that Leon's partner was Yuffie, a girl he'd been looking out for since she was seven.
It was too much of a coincidence, even if it was all wrong.
Leon told him that his world had been destroyed when he was a teenager. He'd ended up in a place called Traverse Town with two young girls who were also refugees from his planet. Like a big brother, he'd raised them, and now they were working to restore their world.
"We're getting close," he said. "A boy named Sora recently discovered what's left of our world."
"I know Sora," Cloud told him. "We've fought."
Leon nodded. "He's the Keyblade Master."
Cloud didn't care much about Keyblades, but just then, Yuffie entered the locker room. She circled around Cloud, eyeing him up and down. If she knew him, she wasn't letting on to it.
"So this is your new partner?"
"Hey, Yuffie, it's nice to met you," he said, watching her eyes. "I'm Cloud."
There wasn't even a flicker of recognition in her eyes.
"I guess you could do worse," she told Leon. "But come on, let's go. Aerith's missing us by now."
Aerith? His heart raced with a jolt of adrenaline.
"Aerith Gainsborough?"
Leon and Yuffie turned to him in surprise. "You know her?"