DIFFERING ORIGINS

DISCLAIMER: FF7 and its related franchises do not belong to me. This fic is made purely for personal purposes, and is not meant for commercial distribution.

WARNINGS: Gen, OOC, AU, lack of canon accuracy, un-beta-ed

WW

II.

The village of Honrei was as different from Nibelheim as possible. For one thing, it was set at sea level, next to a large ocean. For another, the climate was temperate and humid, with the rain a common companion. Thanks to the rain and the sun, the village had healthy ricefields to the left and a thick forest to the back, while small boats launched in the early morning to catch a variety of fish, molluscs, and even seaweed.

It took Cloud over three months to fully recover from that shocking ordeal in Nibelheim. His mother, generally a friendly and gregarious woman, had a severe and stern expression on her face at the very mention of their old home. She fussed over him ridiculously, insisting on the local doctor visiting as often as once a week to ensure that he was healing properly.

Thanks to Cloud's thick attire and the warmth within the caverns, Cloud was spared damaged limbs due to frostbite. The experience, however, did not leave Cloud completely unscathed, as he suffered severe Mako poisoning to the point that he had several fits during the two-week long transfer between Nibelheim and Honrei.

First, the Mako poisoning had affected his memory. Cloud now only had vague memories of Nibelheim and its people, and none at all of what happened on that fateful day. Second, the dangerous toxin had settled deeply in his throat, and it left Cloud with a damaged voicebox, his previous sweet and piping voice now a harsh and raspy whisper. He became much quieter than before, even with his mother, since he preferred not to speak. Last, the experience appeared to have numbed Cloud emotionally. Whereas before the boy wallowed in emotional extremes and was thin-skinned, this Cloud more often than not did not react. Few things now impacted him emotionally, and he was often seen with his eyes in the far horizon, as if hearing voices in the wind.

Oddly enough, in Honrei, the other children were often fascinated by him and the adults were sympathetic to the boy, even though he and his mother looked dramatically different from the dark-haired, dark-eyed and olive-skinned villagers.

"Cloud!"

The eight-year-old boy, pink-cheeked and glowing underneath the warm beach sun, turned. His face was expressionless, with large eyes reflecting the sparkling blue of the ocean. In his hands, he was clutching a basket of shellfish. While his mother worked as one of Honrei's seamstresses, making beautiful clothes to sell the tourists and villagers, Cloud had found work as one of the juvenile pearl-divers.

Pearl-diving was a treacherous but profitable job. One of Wutai's main exports was its gorgeous saltwater pearls, which were used in jewelry and beading. Even wealthy Shinra executives paid a month's salary for a rope of high-quality Wutai pearls.

Honrei had two areas thick with large oysters. They were protected by an array of reefs, making it difficult for those without the proper knowledge and training to safely find and harvest the oysters. Honrei was one of Wutai's prized pearl-villages, and it had some of the best Wutaian divers alive. Its wealth of pearls made it a tempting target, and the reason why Lord Godo had installed a shinobi base on the borders of the village. Black shadows flying across the night were common sightings in the village, and even during the day, uniformed shinobi made their random patrols, hidden behind a light armour and a face mask.

Six months after Cloud had woken up, his doctor had recommended regular dips in the ocean to help him reverse the muscle atrophy he suffered. Cloud had then discovered a skill and love for swimming. Soon, the boy was more frequently found in the sea, keeping companion with the schools of colourful fish darting in and out of the beautiful seascape. The other village kids, curious and wanting to connect with the strange ethereal boy that seemed more spirit than human, began to take him to their special places in the beach. They taught Cloud how to dig out seashells and string them into necklaces and bracelets. His mother, happier and more settled in Honrei than in Nibelheim, encouraged her son to bring her whatever he found. Many nights were spent carefully learning to drill holes into the shells and sew them onto the bags, shoes, and even belts hand-crafted by the other villagers.

In the two years since then, Cloud and his mother began to discover the other effects of successful recovery from Mako poisoning. His lungs had a much larger capacity than even the other divers, allowing him to stay underwater for incredible periods of time. His eyes were illuminated by Mako, making them glow in the dark, and he could see much farther and better than most. His other senses were also enhanced, from his hearing to his touch. His skin, pale to the point of translucency, never tanned and never burned, unlike his mother who frequently had to wear mass amounts of sunscreen and a large-brimmed hat. He remained much smaller than other boys his size, his limbs thin and frail-looking, even though Mako also left him with a surprising tensile strength in his body that was further honed by his deep diving.

While these notable effects deeply disturbed his mother, who often worried about her little boy, Cloud was quietly satisfied with the changes. Other than hazy visions of being surrounded by green and the faint echo of a million voices in chorus, he remembered little of his ordeal and what he remembered made him feel a soft welcome warmth that was similar to what he felt deep in the depths of the ocean. He may recall little of Nibelheim, but he did have unpleasant memories of loneliness, bullying, and even fighting with other children. Now, thanks to Mako, Cloud knew that he need not feel vulnerable or fearful any longer.

They also led to his eventual occupation as a pearl-diver. The other children had noted how well Cloud swam, his keen eyes picking out the best-formed shells, and his dextrousness in extracting prizes from the reefs. It caught the ears and eyes of the head of the Divers' Guild, Narukawa Iseo, who spoke with Cloud and his mother. His mother had not been happy, in fact she was frightened of the dangers, but Cloud, enchanted at the idea of hunting for treasures in the deep, had insisted.

A year was spent of intense training, practicing safe deep diving techniques, and learning how to properly harvest the large oysters while avoiding the killer denizens of the reefs. Cloud did excel as his village friends knew he would, and his small size made him ideal for going into the tiny nooks that the larger divers couldn't get into. Since pearl-divers kept a substantial percentage of the profits of their dives, by the time Cloud was eight, he and his mother had accumulated enough wealth that they would have qualified to live above-Plate in Midgar for years.

The boy calling him was one of his fellow pearl-divers, a ten-year-old named Ginta. Ginta's face was frantic, his eyes enormous in his deeply tanned face. Cloud frowned. "Somebody is caught in a reef hole by the pearl nest!" he yelled.

Cloud dropped the basket on the ground, and both boys began to run to the south beach of the village. There was already a crowd of people hovering by the diving area. The boys pushed their way through just in time to see Ginta's father, one of their better divers slip into the water, trailing an oxygen canister. Other divers were gathered in a circle closest to the waters' edge. Cloud and Ginta moved towards them, eavesdropping on their conversation.

"Stupid girl got herself caught in one of those reef shelves," reported Kino, a seventeen-year-old diver. The children didn't like him because he allowed his skill at pearl-diving to make him arrogant and nasty towards them. "She's getting too big to even think about being able to get into those spaces."

"Kino!" scolded an angry dive-master, Master Junpei. "You know the reason why she's been working harder the past few days!"

"Of course I know, but fat lot of good it does for her little brother if she dies trying to gain enough money to send him for that surgery in Wutai City!" retorted Kino, flushed.

Cloud realized that they were talking about Honma Maki, the new sixteen-year-old diver. She and her little brother had moved seven months ago from the pearling village of Itou. She was a decent diver, but more used to the calmer waters of Itou's pearl nests. Her brother, seven years old, had fallen from a chocobo three days ago and had a severe compound fracture in his left arm that was beyond the abilities and equipment of their local doctor. Unfortunately, rumour has it that the reason why Maki and her brother had left Itou was to leave their father who had drank all their pearl diving profits over the years.

"Cloud!" Master Junpei saw him. The older man, wrinkled from years beneath the strong sun and incredibly strong thanks to decades of deep diving, hesitated then gestured for him to come closer. Ginta tagged along, curious.

"You probably have heard," the old master began. "Maki was diving and she tried to harvest through a nook too small for her. She's now caught in the hole. We have divers trying to chip at the reefs, but it's hard for them to get to her since the area she's in is narrow. We need someone small to help get her out." He looked into Cloud's eyes. "Would you be willing to help?"

Cloud nodded. In little time, he was suited up, loaded with an oxygen tank and trailing a spare one. With one brief glimpse backwards, long enough to see his mother's large-brimmed hat, he fell backwards into the deep.

Familiarity with the pearl nests enabled him to find the others within moments. There were two other divers aside from Ginta's father, Tomo, and Cloud recognized them as Ponchi and Wen. They were using daggers to chip at the reef, which was normally prohibited as they negatively affected the pearl nests. Cloud swam towards them, and using hand signals, was directed into the narrow corridor leading to Maki.

Maki was trapped at the end of the corridor, surrounded by thick corals. Her long black hair had come loose during her dive and was caught tightly among the jagged surfaces. Her eyes were enormous, reflecting her terror, even as her hands steadily tried to saw through her hair using their regulation daggers. Unfortunately, the narrowness of the corridor made it difficult for her to reach behind herself. Cloud's eyes widened at the stream of blood spreading from behind her head. It was apparent that she had somehow injured herself.

Cloud handed her the spare tank and waited until she had resettled before taking out his dagger. Swimming until he was on top of her, he began the sawing motions. Seeing as he could see what he was cutting and with his unnatural Mako-given strength, it took Cloud only a few moments before he was able to free Maki completely. The girl, now with hair only inches from her scalp, nodded at his signs and followed him cautiously back out of the corridor.

They found themselves at the sight of a nightmare.

Blood in the water.

Cloud had known that they only had moments, but he had hoped that they would be out of the water before the predators came.

They were too late.

Tomo, Ponchi, and Wen were circling warily as three sea serpents came towards them. All divers knew them as venomous and difficult to kill. The only advantage was the fact that these serpents were blind.

All three heads snapped in Maki and Cloud's direction, and all three rushed forward. The divers scattered.

Cloud armed with a dagger caught the first one right in the throat as it dove at him, mouth wide open. He let go just in time to avoid the second's snapping jaws. Then Tomo and Ponchi were by him, daggers flashing as they sunk them into the serpent's thin hide. Both beasts flailed in their death throes.

The third snuck in between the other two. Cloud tried to swim away but it was faster than him. He was inches from that wildly snapping mouth when the snake jerked backwards. Tomo had pulled at the serpent's tail. It reared and struck towards him, a streak of lightning in the water.

The older man tried to dart away, but the other serpents were still thrashing behind him and he couldn't move away fast enough. The serpent's jaws caught his leg, and he convulsed in pain. Cloud, eyes wide in horror and fury, grabbed one of the protruding branches of coral and snapped it off. With hands clenched around the coral, he swam on top of the beast and stabbed down in fury right at the base of the serpent's neck. Its mouth opened in shock and Cloud darted forward to drag Tomo away. The rest of them, including Maki, made their furious way towards the surface, trying to outrace the other monsters that were starting to show up.

They surfaced, Wen and Ponchi dragging Tomo between them. The village doctor was already there, his medical kit at his feet. Within moments, they had Tomo lying on the beach and he was already starting to inject something into the unconscious man's arm. Ginta, who had become as white as bone at the sight of his father, sat next to Tomo, clutching his father's hand tightly. He didn't acknowledge Cloud.

Cloud, on the other hand, was dragged into a frantic embrace by his sobbing mother. He stood there, his mother kneeling in front of him, and he stared at Tomo and Ginta. His hands dripped blood on the sand.

When Ginta found him that night, he was sitting in the beach with a plate of uneaten shellfish beside him. "Hey," the boy greeted him.

Cloud looked at him.

Ginta, used to Cloud's strangeness, looked down and took a deep breath. "I'm not mad, you know. I-I was just scared…about my dad."

"How is he?" Cloud asked.

"The doc said he's going to be fine. Luckily, he had some antidote so they caught the poison in time. He's not going to be able to dive for a month at least though," Ginta said glumly. It was hard for pearl divers to stop diving, even temporarily. "What about you? I heard you got injured."

Cloud looked down at his bandaged hands. His mother had disinfected and treated his coral-damaged hands while scolding him for his foolhardiness. "It's fine." He looked back at the ocean.

Both sat quietly for the next few moments.

"I'm going to Wutai City," Cloud announced. Ginta gaped. "My mom wants me to take a break from pearl diving. She doesn't like knowing that we could have all died down there today. She says I'm only eight and I shouldn't have to work like this."

"That's crazy! You're one of our best divers! From what I heard, you also killed two of those serpents!" The boy hesitated. "Are-are you scared? After what happened?"

The question didn't offend Cloud as it would have any other eight-year-old. He thought about it.

He had been scared, back there in the deep, the water going from a deep shade of blue to a smoky red from the bloodspray. He had been shocked into fright by the sudden lunging of that first sea serpent. He had been desperate for flight when the other nipped at his heels.

He had been terrified to realize that Ginta's father was about to die in front of him and he could do nothing.

"I am going to Wutai City," he said softly, "and I'm going to learn to be shinobi."

WW