A/N: Wow! So much interest on the first chapter. You've made me all excited to post more! This is chapter 2 of 3. I'll put chapter 3 up tomorrow. Just a short one today!
Enjoy!
When they reached Seventh Heaven Cloud offered his companion a seat and a drink. He accepted both and settled in to hear what Cloud had to tell him. He was just about to start his recount of those painful memories from years ago when Tifa peered around the corner of the stairwell.
"Everything alright Cloud?" she asked gently.
The blond nodded in reply, "but are you able to take the kids out for a while Tifa?" he asked gently, his eyes expressing as much thankful emotion as the blond could muster, he never had been one for emotions.
Tifa regarded him questioningly for a long moment before she nodded. "Of course, and I'll take them out the back way so we don't disturb you," the dark haired fighter then departed back up the stairs to ready the children.
"She seems nice," Kunsel said, all smiles over the top of his drink.
"That's Tifa… she and I grew up together, in Nibelheim."
"Nibelheim? So you lived there?" Kunsel sat forward now, his interest piqued.
"Yes… for a time… but it was rather different when Zack, Sephiroth and I went back there…"
From there Cloud recounted their inspection of the reactor, though he did not know exactly what transpired inside, as he'd been protecting Tifa outside. This led him to explain Sephiroth's odd behaviour and Zack's out-of-character temper.
"Sephiroth was locked in the mansion for easily a week before he came out… and when he came out… he burned Nibelheim to the ground."
Kunsel's expression became filled with disbelief, "No!"
But Cloud nodded the affirmative, "he burned down any building and cut down any person that got in his way," he then proceeded to tell of how he'd stayed behind to try and save any survivors from the fire while Zack had chased after Sephiroth, and how when he finally reached the reactor he'd found Zack semi-conscious on the stairs and Tifa lying heavily wounded not far away.
"I took Zack's sword and chased after Sephiroth… I caught him by surprise from behind, and thought I'd beaten him. So I went out to make sure Tifa was OK but while I was with her Sephiroth attacked again. I was badly injured… I don't remember to what extent, all I remember is I threw Sephiroth from the ledge into the reactor before I passed out," he paused there for a while, letting Kunsel soak in all this detail.
"So… Shinra must have covered up the whole incident… making it look like nothing had happened other than two of their SOLDIERs were killed fighting the monsters from the reactor…"
"Yes," Cloud replied, "they rebuilt Nibelheim and populated it with people who claimed they'd always lived there… so that no one would know it had been destroyed."
"Bastards," Kunsel hissed, his expression hateful, "what happened then?"
Cloud rubbed his forehead with his fingertips as he came to the hard part of his tale, the part he still hated to remember, "I don't remember much for quite some time… just snippets of Zack's face and things he said to me while we were travelling… I had Mako poisoning from all the experiments Shinra had been doing on us…" he sighed and paused for a moment to recollect his thoughts before he continued, "the first solid memory I have is of Zack shaking me before he stood and walked away, leaving me there on my own. I reached out to him, but I couldn't get my mouth to move, so he disappeared… I waited there for what must have been hours, clouds rolled in overhead and it began to rain. Finally, when I had the strength to at least pull myself from my hiding place, I went after Zack."
Cloud cast down his eyes sadly and Kunsel leaned in further, his expression somber, as if he knew what was coming up.
"The Shinra army had caught up with us… and Zack had gone to fight them while leaving me in safety… as I dragged myself out the first thing I noticed was that there were bodies and scattered weapons everywhere, there'd been a massive fight. I- I found Zack… heavily wounded and bleeding on the cliffs edge," Cloud stopped again, struggling to find the right words to end his miserable tale, "that's…. that's where I had to leave him Kunsel."
Silence reigned between the two men for a very long time, while Kunsel took in all he had just learned. Nearly 8 years now, of never knowing what had happened to his friend, living a half life, not knowing what to do with himself. Finally he found his voice enough to whisper, "so that's it then… Zack Fair really DID die at the hands of Shinra… like I always feared."
Much more inclined to expressing emotions, the ex-SOLDIER began to cry silently, the tears sliding down his face without any other signs.
"I can take you there Kunsel," Cloud eventually said, interrupting the silent grieving, "come with me…"
