A/N: This is the last part of the first definition for 'Cloud'. I'm thinking that the next few chapters will be for 'squall'. I'm graduating on the 20th, so don't expect an update until the end of March, beginning of April.

Main Entry: 1cloud

Pronunciation: \ˈklau̇d\

Function: noun

Usage: often attributive

Etymology: Middle English, rock, cloud, from Old English clūd; perhaps akin to Greek gloutos buttock

Date: 14th century

3:something that has a dark, lowering, or threatening aspect clouds of war a cloud of suspicion 4: something that obscures or blemishes a cloud of ambiguity 5: a dark or opaque vein or spot (as in marble or a precious stone)

In all the time that Cloud had been at Hollow Bastion, he had only recently been informed of the knowledge of inter-world travel. Cloud, upon being informed, was given a thorough rundown of all the worlds and what one could do on them and it was no surprise that The Coliseum piqued his interest the most. And when Cloud almost blew up the Gummi ship before takeoff, garnering pity even from the Moogles, he was dropped off wherever he wanted to go.

So when Leon got a call from Coliseum Security informing him he needed to come pick up one of his citizens before they destroy the Arena, the exSEED was intimately curious. No one he knew of was currently there.

"Something up?" Tifa chirped, plopping into the seat next to him. She looked to be drinking a milkshake of some kind.

"The Coliseum called," Leon informed her. "Said I needed to come get someone."

Tifa froze. Leon raised his eyebrow. She started swearing.

"That good?" he asked.

"I dropped Cloud off there this morning."

He contemplated what he knew of the denizens of the Coliseum and compared them to what he knew of Cloud. He pinched the bridge of his nose in an attempt to ward off a headache.

"Hyne dammit."

"I didn't know," the Coliseum bookie responded again. The woman was scary. Much more so than the one with green eyes that smiled all the time; with a face like that, who knew what she were planning? But this woman, dear Hades, was all soft curves and leather. LEATHER. Flowing hair, soft brown eyes; bruised and calloused knuckles from punching his guards two feet into the very solid quartz walls.

"I gave very, very specific instructions as to how far he was to go in the tournament," the woman, Tifa the man thought she introduced herself as, forced out with a smile on her face.

"With him being new on the circuit, we didn't expect him to get as far as he did; certainly not into the C4 Gold bracket," he defended himself.

Tifa sighed as she pinched her nose. "Where is he?"

The man gulped; terrified. The bars that protected him from those that placed bets were little more than toothpicks to the power this woman held. "L-last I knew he w-was still bat-tling the One Winged Angle."

He screamed and ducked under the counter when the woman shrieked her displeasure. When the dust settled, the bookie tentatively glanced over the counter. He wasn't completely shocked to see the metal bars in front of his window bent, twisted and broken. He was slightly surprised to see that the counter didn't really exist any more...neither did a good portion of the wall. This was why he hated working the last stall.

Tifa went back to the door to the stands to meet up with Leon. The stoic mercenary just gave her a blank look; probably had more to do with the thunderous expression on her own face. The crowd was particularly loud and vicious. Overhearing the bouncers, they were quite surprised that the crowd was still engaged with how long the single fight had been carrying on, from what Leon gathered.

"And?" He prompted when Tifa didn't say anything.

"He's apparently still fighting," came the terse reply.

This was going to be difficult. A deafening roar from the crowd, something about blood, filled the corridor and both fighter booked it past the bouncers-who were likewise glancing through the doors they were supposed to be guarding-and made for the railing that overlooked the arena.

Blood was liberally splattered about the arena, as were craters and scorch marks. Both combatants looked the worse for wear, and it was obvious to Tifa, as Leon was only gathering that there was a history between the two men, that this was going to take a few more hours to finish. If one of them didn't die first trying.

Knowing that if anyone entered the ring other than the listed combatants the match would be thrown and both fighters disqualified for that circuit, Tifa watched both Cloud and his opponent before launching into the air and punching both soundly in the side of the head.

Sephiroth merely flared his wing and caught himself. Cloud, however, went flying into the ground.

"Tifa! What in Ifrit's Fiendfire are you doing?" the blond demanded outraged.

"Taking you home, you vargdropi!" Tifa cursed.

Cloud looked surprised, not expecting to hear his language as most of Nibelheim had spurned the Old Language and the Nibel Language his mother had spoken like Common. He had a small vocabulary of the Old Language and could speak Nibel fluently, as he had been the last person to know it, or so he thought.

The buzzer for disqualification sounded.

If Cloud's glowing eyes could kill, Tifa, among many other people in and out of existence, would be very Dead. "I'm here, trying to earn munny, and you step in on my second day-second day-after they allowed me to fight after a stupid training programme I had to go through, and you get me disqualified?! þú ilt kýrdóttir, þú eldhúsfífl!"

The Old Language was a surprise to Tifa, but from what little she knew-most of which were swear and cuss words-the fighter became infuriated. It took one well placed punch to halt the coarse, rounded language as the concussion his body was valiantly trying to heal became more severe; blue eyes dilating before they rolled up inot his head and Cloud collapsed in unconsciousness.

Groans and whoops sounded in the stands as non sanctioned bets changed hands.

Tifa hoisted Cloud onto her shoulders before leaping back into the stands towards Leon.

Sephiroth was nowhere to be seen.

When Cloud woke up a few hours later in his room, everyone in Hollow Bastion knew. The rage filled yell followed by swearing and that weird language again was a blatant giveaway. There was a thump, more swearing, and Leon sighed as he made tea and pulled out some food Aerith said to reheat when Cloud woke up. By the time the blond fighter had managed to drag himself out his room and to the kitchen, Tifa and Aeith-surprisingly-had refused to heal what they had deemed 'minor injuries'; only setting the worst of broken bones and lightly wrapping them in bandages, Leon had his food ready.

"Tea or coffee?" Leon blandly asked. How he wished that hyperactive ninja was here for Cloud to chase around and hopefully kill. She was getting worse than the starlings and just as annoying.

" Hvarfar hleypr siálfr yður," Cloud muttered with venom.

Leon only raised an eyebrow. "Whatever it is, sounds like fun. Tea or Coffee?"

Cloud growled some more of that language, and something more gutteral, before grinding out, "tea," with an accent. Leon only nodded and gave Cloud the means with which to make a cup. The bastard wasn't going to get him doing domestics; he already did way too much of that as it was.

The exSEED watched as Cloud made the most violent actions possible as he made tea. As tea, and its preparations, were supposed to be a calming art, this particular show of violence made the process much more interesting. As did the continuous chain of oaths and curses that only stopped about halfway through the beverage.

"Why?"

Leon, who had been off somewhere in daydreams of hacking tea plants with his gunblade, blinked at the still furious, but no longer vehemently murderous, glowing blue eyes.

"Come again?"

"Why wasn't I told Sephiroth was here?" Cloud bit out.

"I didn't know that it was important," Leon said blandly.

That wasn't the right thing to say as Cloud's wing snapped into existence, blue eyes glowing brighter-and were they tinged green?-as Cloud spun around and punched the wall. Leon ducked to avoid a piece of sheetrock to the head. By the time the dust cleared, Cloud was nowhere to be seen. Aerith and Tifa chose that moment to return from their shopping escapade, stepping inside Merlin's to find they had a new means of entry into the living room from the kitchen.

"I see we have a new door," Tifa said dryly as Aerith took the bags into the rooms they needed to go.

"He didn't take it well," Leon replied, coughing a bit from the dust.

After dinner that night, Leon went to make his rounds about the Bastion. There was always a monster or two that decided to attack the town; he didn't know if it was a dare or desperation. Not too far into his rounds, Leon came upon a...mutilated...body. The monster was quite dead. Very dead, if he was guessing the type right and looking about at all the pieces.

Cloud was very upset.

Continuing on his round, morbidly curious now, Leon kept running into more bodies in various stages of mutilation. More often than not they were dismembered and very dead from a large blade with brute force behind it; Cloud's MO. He was wondering how the blood and visceral would look about the next corpse-it was almost artful in its spattering-when his instincts flared as a body appeared behind him. Something pushed him out of the way as first a snarl then a roar echoed through the night. Cloud's gauntlet blocked a powerful swipe from the wolf-like creature while teeth were locked with his sword. The two pushed against each other before breaking apart. The wolf feinted left, Cloud jumped at the lunge it made from the right; his sword coming down in the middle of its back.

Leon was surprised when the creature lunged again and only got a deep wound down its left haunch instead of cleaved in two. Watching the fight, Leon lifted his Gunblade; waiting for an opening. It came when a second wolf-creature lunged out of the darkness; temporarily distracting Cloud. As Cloud cleaved that monster neatly in half, his first opponent took a limping leap at him; mouth open and aiming for the blond's throat.

The sound of the report from the Gunblade cut the air like thunder.

The monster gave a vague yelp as it was neatly killed; bullet to the brain.

Leon was suddenly prey to glowing blue eyes. He waited, Gunblade still up, to see if Cloud was still caught up in the fight or not; wondering if he'd be the next target for the exSOLDIER's wrath. It was as if Leon blinked and Cloud was in front of him, in his very personal space, examining only the crazy man knew what. Leon in turn noticed that, while Cloud's eyes glowed the colour of a clear summer sky, there were some flecks of gold and purple near the pupil and a slight, vague ring of green flecks around the outside; not the acid green they had been earlier when he had decided to redecorate.

Leon blinked again and Cloud was gone with a whisper of cloth. It was only when the blond's hunting presence was gone that the exSEED realized that his breathing was a bit faster than normal and his heart was racing.

Cloud had made him nervous, and Leon wasn't sure if that was a good thing.

A/N: Most people use German as the given language of Nibelheim. With the way language evolves, and the way the whole story is very Norse influenced, I figured the language base was probably Old Norse (Old Language) to Norse (Old Nibel) that evolved to German (Nibel) and then English as the 'Common' language spoken by Shin-Ra controlled land. The word Tifa calls Cloud can be translated to either "vagabond" or "offspring of a wolf". Cloud calls Tifa the "daughter of a cow" and a "good for nothing". In Norse, and it's archaic counterpart Old Norse, it was very insulting to be called the son or daughter of an animal of anykind. He tells Leon to "go f0_0 yourself".

Posted 3March2013