Part 4. Hail and farewell
Disclaimer: All recognizable characters and settings are property of Square Enix. No profit is being sought from the writing of this fanfiction, and no copyright infringement is intended.
I honestly have no idea how I managed to finish this while Theatrhythm Final Fantasy slowly sucks my life away.
In other, more exciting news, though, the wonderful, fantastic Poisonberries has graciously agreed to beta read this thing for me! Raucous cheers ensue! I've never found anyone willing to edit my chaptered stuff before, though, so I'm just causing trouble for her all day long with my lack of foresight.
Much thanks to anyone sticking this story out with me.
Cloud wondered who'd folded the scarf.
He was utter shit at laundry himself. He still remembered the week he spent wearing splotchy pink underwear in Basic because it was that or go without, and it had pissed down for days and days already, so that the training yards were soup. And when the cadets crawled on their bellies under yards and yards of barbed wire, they quickly figured out who could swim.
Things he couldn't see grew in the soup. They'd itched, worming past the fibres of his sweats, and Cloud had spent all five of his glorious minutes under scalding hot water scrubbing his skin red and raw.
Some jackass called Acosta had hung the pink things over the industrial size towel rack the third day. Cloud still had the pale glossy scar just above his hairline from the cut he'd gotten smashing his head into Acosta's teeth.
Cloud smoothed his palms over the starchy fabric covering his thighs. He'd taken his dress uniform to the cleaner above Sector 8 for it. The old man who ran it came from Mideel, and he always shouted when he talked because he was deaf in one ear, grinned his tobacco yellow grin, and panted when he strained to reach up and try to rub his knuckles into Cloud's head. It was better than having wrinkled pants, though.
The scarf, too, was brilliant white and folded so meticulously the edge cast a razor line of a shadow, and Cloud wondered again who it was that Lazard had hired to lay out the bodies. All things considered, they probably had a ton of experience.
Acosta had ended up with the bomb squad in the Regs, Cloud remembered. They'd worked one mission together, back when there were enough Thirds to send them along with all the recon squads as muscle, during which the man had carefully and deliberately ignored Cloud. He'd heard that Acosta had died about a month later. Unmarked landmine.
Cloud ran his eyes over the white fabric again. They stuttered at the patch under the chin where light didn't reach, and they moved on.
Cloud shifted his weight, and the metal rungs of the stool squeaked. He stretched out his legs, flexing his toes against the stiff material of his new boots. They gleamed of black polish under the fluorescent lighting. The heel creaked against the tiles.
He'd managed to burn the heavy rubber soles of his last pair into cinderblock slag, compressed to pencil thinness in places. He'd left an ashy black trail on the ceramic tile from the tarmac to the elevator doors before the bottle blonde receptionist had screeched at him.
There were six caskets. Five from the mission that ended the war, and one was some silly sap Cloud didn't know who'd gone for a piss in the wrong place.
Over his head, the long bulbs hummed their unbroken drone, leaving squeaky little scratches up and down his nerves.
He looked down at his feet. He could barely see a minute little hump in the boots, where his big toe was scratching at the tight leather. He nudged at it again, pressing up at the surface until a dull stab of pain ran its way up his shin.
They looked weird. Too shiny and too new.
He flexed again.
The drone was sinking into his skull. He opened his mouth wide, rolling his lower jaw out and up, feeling the hinges click by his ears. He snapped his teeth together. They buzzed.
Cloud let his eyes fall shut, and he hissed a slow breath. He leaned forward in the stool, balancing his elbows on his knees, and he looked up at Evans's still, blank face.
The Thirds were in the hall two floors down. There was a lot more room there. This room was a sterile box, white light bouncing off of white walls and white tiles, and in it, Cloud sat alone with the six Seconds —six boxes, listening to the rattle of his brain. They lay neatly, three by three, clean hands folded primly over their diaphragms in a way they'd probably never willingly adopt.
Cloud's eyes drifted over the silver braid edging the black lapels of the jacket and ambling over the flat face of the epaulettes. He stifled a snort. Evans hated the ceremonial uniform. Evans bitched endlessly when he had to deck himself out.
Evans thought that anything he couldn't lie on his back in, engine oil running down his arms and pooling in his armpits, under the bed of a machine was thoroughly useless, though.
Cloud leaned back, his spine popping in the quiet hum.
He looked at the scarf again, stark white against Evans's ink-coloured skin. He'd been there, helping the grunts carry the stretcher boards up the pebbled metal plank onto the ship. There'd been a stain under Evans's head, the blood dried black against the wood. It hadn't been big. Evans had probably already finished most of his bleeding out before they got to him.
The shredded edges of the gash stretching from one side of his throat to the other had probably been hell to sew up. The scarf wasn't tied, simply draped over his neck to make him presentable.
Probably.
Cloud wasn't about to pull it away to check.
The black of his slacks made the stupid thin white gloves sticking out of his pocket look even brighter. Cloud flattened his hands over his knees. The skin was chapped over every one of his knuckles, tiny flaps of dead skin crinkling like accordion folds. He rubbed a thumb over the back of his index finger, and the odd sensation of rippling ridges mixed with the pinpricks of pain from the damaged skin. Fuck, this was probably some kind of record.
He'd washed everything he owned the night he got back. His apartment had a little bathtub, just big enough for him to sit in with his legs crammed up to his chin. He'd keyed himself in, stripped right there, and filled the room with steam. The water had turned red and brown and black as it ran through the heavy fabric. Then some kind of foamy residue had floated to the surface and clung to his boiled hands.
He'd drained the tub four times before the water stopped painting the porcelain red.
He'd stood under the spray after that, watching sludgy scum swirl down the drain and trying to remember how much blood an average human man possessed.
Cloud picked at a hangnail dangling out at the side of his finger, and it started to ooze. He sucked it into his mouth, and the sharp taste of metal spread itself across his tongue. Crimson beaded up over the rip again.
Cloud made a short noise in the back of his throat, and he dug a thumb into his palm, leaning forward and barring his arm over his knee to stop its fidgeting. Evans had always griped about that.
The Seconds occupied one of the mid-level floors in the Shinra tower, sharing two to a cramped suite. Evans's upright cherry wood piano still sat against the wall across from their squat little dining table, though the humidity of the Midgar summer had caused a few notes to go horribly flat in the time they'd been gone. Evans had tried to teach him for a while before giving Cloud up as a lost cause, incapable of relaxing his hands over the keys. He'd lasted longer than the instructor in Nibelheim, anyway.
There were a couple of cardboard boxes big enough to fit a man lying in the centre of their apartment. Cloud thought Evans's parents lived somewhere out near Junon. He'd have to check after he finished packing the stuff. Lazard had called him up to his office yesterday and made small talk while Cloud sipped at weak coffee. Then he'd told him that he'd get the apartment to himself for a while. They didn't need the space.
In Nibelheim, Cloud and the other kids had taken turns driving the rusted old truck that was wide enough to cover the whole mountain path down the road to the only general store for miles. They'd inched along, leaning on the tinny horn to give anyone walking on the road enough time to slide down into the wildflower fields alongside the raised dirt path. Evans had laughed until he pissed his pants, and then he'd put Cloud on a bike and taught him to make her purr under his hands.
Cloud looked up at Evans's face again before leaning over to press his forehead against his tangled fingers.
The door clicked behind him, and it swung open noiselessly. Cloud listened to the tap of boots over tile until they stopped somewhere to his right. He tilted his head up, and he blinked.
The neat row of medals pinned to Cloud's chest clinked when he sat up, and Robertsson's eyes dropped to the glittering bits of metal for a moment. The side of his mouth twisted up, and he nodded at Cloud.
"Strife."
"Want the chair?" Cloud said.
"No."
"It's uncomfortable as all shit."
Robertsson snorted softly. "Don't fuck up your ass before the parade today. You've gotta look good for the press."
Cloud clicked his tongue against the top of his mouth. "Noted," he said, scowling at his shiny boots.
"Hn." Robertsson made another almost smile, and he backed up a step to lean one of his shoulders against the wall.
Cloud turned back to the rows of caskets, listening to the hum of the lights. It sounded louder for some reason.
He hadn't seen Robertsson since Wutai. The Second had been with the other unit, one of the ones that came back alive. He'd seen the man briefly, passing by on a stretcher with blood trickling out of his ears and staring through the sky with unfocussed eyes, but Cloud had been given a thick, short Third with a hole through his chest by the medics. He'd pressed hard down on the wad of gauze, watching the fabric soak through and the man's eyes glaze. The gauze had squished under his hands, blood seeping through the gaps between his fingers, congealing into fuzzy clumps that clung to his palms after the medics had sent him off to carry more stretchers.
"You in the parade today, right?"
"No," Robertsson drawled, "I dress up in this zebrafish suit for shits and giggles."
Cloud made sure the Second was looking before he rolled his eyes.
There was a lot of lighting for such a small room. His shadows fanned out at his feet, quickly washing out and fading to invisible white on white. "I don't see why they're not making more of a fuss over the main unit," he said.
Robertsson grunted, folding his arms over his chest. "The General did everything. We got separated before the rest of us got ambushed by a bunch of deserters in Wutai combats mixed in with a Wutai heavy squad." He made a noise halfway between disgruntled and admiration. "Then the General came back and saved our asses." He paused. "The ones who had asses to save, still."
"The General did?" Cloud remembered the distant stare.
"He was out for the entire trip back after. Didn't they put you on duty on the officers' deck?"
"Sounded like a monumental waste of time at that point." He'd stood with his back to the wall beside Sephiroth's silent door for both of his six hours on shift and watched a rip in the carpet unravel under the feet of old men with shuttered eyes as they walked by.
"Lots of talk about traitors these days. The higher ups were probably antsy about protecting their investment. And you're pretty fucking set as the poster boy for company loyalty."
"Thanks," Cloud said drily.
Robertsson was quiet for a while, his eyes fixed on Evans's casket. Then he sighed, and the pinched look on his face smoothed out, along with the deep lines over his patchy eyebrows. "You send the best to guard a hero," he said, low but distinct.
Cloud was still watching Robertsson when the door thumped backward into its rubber stop and bounced.
"What are you doing here?" Kunsel stopped in the doorway, but he was looking at Robertsson.
Robertsson sneered. "Next time you think you can tell me where to be, lemme know beforehand, so I can tell you to shove it up your ass and save you the trouble."
"Next time you think you can pawn off the shit floor on my squad during our training rotation—"
"Oi," Cloud interrupted. "Save the bedroom talk for later."
Kunsel's mouth twisted under his helmet, but he shrugged.
"You're not in ceremony dress," Cloud said, swivelling around on the stool, slouching and gripping the edge.
"Yeah," Kunsel said. "Just got back from a mission in the Mines. Couple of workers were complaining about an ark dragon infestation. I'm staying on base during this one."
"Bastard."
Kunsel chuckled shortly. He stepped into the room, slowing to a stop in front of the rows of boxes. He rested a hand on the varnished ridge edging around Evans, and Cloud saw the jump of tendons in his arm when his hand clenched.
"There's flowers in here," he said.
"Yeah."
"He'd whine bad about it."
Cloud dropped his neck back, squinting at the bright panels set into the ceiling. "Yeah."
He saw Kunsel turn around in the corner of his vision. "What about Travers?"
"You didn't hear?"
"The brass has been pretty closed mouthed about the whole thing." Kunsel pulled his shoulders in, his eyes flitting over the open caskets. He took a step toward the wreath leaning against the wall and touched the fat buds woven into it. Their heads bobbed under his fingers. "The guys who came back are saying that it was pretty bad, but most of the rumours are about the Fort Tamblin side of things."
Cloud gnawed on a split in his lip. "A good quarter of the bodies were never recovered. Just gone. Either they're prisoners of the military faction that's active outside of Godo's control and better off dead after a week, or..." He shrugged. "Lazard said the guys who were killed on the spot were the lucky ones."
Kunsel stuck his hands in his pockets. He nodded, but he didn't say anything.
"They're putting his name on the monument, though," Cloud said.
"Right. Good." Kunsel shot a quick look at Robertsson's motionless stance, and then he sighed. "Have you been here all this time?"
Cloud ignored the question, tipping his chin towards one of the caskets in the back row. "That's Janes," he said. "We ran a recon mission together and nearly got our dicks chewed off roasting a shit ton of weed things in the mountains in Wutai."
"Cloud."
"It sounds pretty fucked up, doesn't it?" He pulled up the side of his mouth, and he scoffed. "Dying on one mission after busting your balls to survive another one."
Kunsel kicked one of the legs of Cloud's stool, and it jolted and screeched a couple of inches over the floor.
Robertsson snorted.
The chair had spun a little as it moved, and Cloud had ended up half-facing the wall. He tilted his head over his shoulder without bothering to turn in the seat.
Kunsel scowled down at Cloud. "Lazard sent me to find you since you left your PHS in the training room again. He wants you to lead the drills," he said, sharply.
Cloud looked at the helmet's beak for a moment. He drummed his fingers against his hand. "Drills," he said flatly. "You mean the flashy footwork and gun waving they do during the parade? Keeps the kids and the tits screaming?"
"Yes," Kunsel said.
"Angeal's work." He almost choked on the name.
"Yes."
"Fuck that." Like someone had reached into his jaw and was trying to yank all the gory bits out through his mouth.
Kunsel growled in the back of his throat, but he didn't sound surprised. "Cloud, you're the only one who can do it. You've always walked the drills with Angeal, and after what happened in the war, the Thirds practically worship you. I swear they'd rather plough their asses with their rifle butts than fuck up in front of you."
Cloud narrowed his eyes. His hands slid down to grasp the edge of the stool between his legs, the stretch raising pleats of fabric along the seam. His nails were still tapping against the polished wood of his seat, the clops of noise doing nothing to drown out the empty refrigerator hum of the room. "What?" he said, carefully.
"Think about it." Kunsel jabbed a couple of knuckles in the hollow of his shoulder, and the ornaments dangling off of him jangled. "You razed Fort Tamblin to the ground. Singlehandedly. You didn't set the explosive units, but you went in alone, took out their commander, destroyed their anti-Soldier units, and you came back. Lazard's been dropping hints about promoting you since before he got back. Everyone's talking about it." Kunsel's voice lowered, grinding like gravel. "You'd know this if you bothered paying any attention to the living."
There was a banner hanging on the wall behind Cloud, inscribed with the word "Remembrance" in ShinRa's colours. The bright red of the text slashed across it, and Cloud had made sure to sit with it at his back. He wasn't sure about a lot of things. Why the Firsts had vanished, why he was sitting on his starched ass in this room when everyone else was in a box, why Kunsel wouldn't leave him the fuck alone; but he knew he couldn't look at ShinRa's logo right now, not when they were trying to get him to do Angeal's work, to replace Angeal like it didn't even matter. The dowel weighing the bottom edge of the fabric down was digging into his ribs, and he nudged the stool further away from the wall. It scraped over the tile with a noise like a couple of banshees mating. He shook his head, and he said, "That's complete horseshit. I did jack. I was just supposed to distract them while Angeal bombed the fort. It was dumbfuck luck that I ran into the commander."
"You say that like luck's a crime." Kunsel shrugged.
"I killed the man in front of his wife."
Artificial light reflected off of Kunsel's helmet. When he slanted his head, the dome cast muddy shadows under the shield that made the shell black and obscured his face. There was some kind of protective coating over it that gave it an oily sheen, a bloated iridescent bubble. Cloud had asked the Second once why he constantly wore the helmet. Kunsel had laughed, and he'd said something that had left a vaguely satisfied feeling in Cloud's mouth until he'd tried to remember what Kunsel said and came up blank.
Cloud leaned back, and he dropped his head against the wall behind him so he couldn't see Kunsel, something resentful simmering inside of him.
The helmet lifted and turned to him. "I thought you wanted to be a hero."
Pain shot up his arm and into his chest, like someone had grabbed all the nerves and squeezed. Cloud winced, and he brought his other hand up to scrub at his boiling eyeballs. For a second, he envisioned them popping open like water balloons and gushing chunky gook down his cheeks. The image made him snicker.
Air whistled in his nostrils when he pressed his mouth shut, and he pulled up a shoulder. "What kind of a hero can't save anyone?"
Kunsel snarled, and his hands clenched like he was thinking of putting his fist through something. "God-fucking-dammit, Cloud. Would you pull your head out of your ass?"
"Strife." Robertsson's voice was quiet. He tilted his head from where he slouched, scar-twisted eye hard and fixed, and he waited until Cloud glowered at him. "There's no one else," he said.
After a moment, Cloud looked down at where his knuckles were white against the dark grain of the stool. He hissed a breath through gritted teeth.
He felt Kunsel's stare, and then the Second sighed. "Are you going to be alright?" he said.
There was a hollow in his chest, cavernous and echoing with the weak treble of his pulse. His vision juddered, tunnelling like the light was coming from a distance, and Cloud was blindsided by the rage that swelled in his gut. Anger at Kunsel for nagging, anger at his eyes for not cooperating. He squeezed them shut, smothering the dizziness.
Cloud tried to smile, but the muscles in his cheek stiffened and pulled it lopsided. Probably looked like shit. He gave up.
"Ask me again later," he said.
He wakes up alone.
He doesn't remember being alone. The quiet and the damp settle against his skin, hot and cold playing with his nerves. It feels like a blister, his skin. Tight and shiny, stretched out over fluids that slosh around inside him when he moves. It's familiar. He used to try to slam his hands against the tank, when he could still get angry, and the green around him would slosh like that.
He tips onto his side, the mattress sinking reproachfully under him, and he taps around with his feet until they touch the ground. It's wood, varnished. Sticky under his bare feet.
Slosh slosh.
He stands.
His head doesn't hurt this time. Just sloshes. He touches his neck to see if it's still attached.
There's something moving in the corner of his vision, little jerks and jumps.
The grainy green in his eyes swims around like little darting motes, dancing around the shapes in the room. He tries to follow one that corkscrews around and around, but it slides further and further out of his line of sight as his eyes move, and they start to burn and thump. He blinks.
His feet scrape over the floorboards when he moves, and stinging pinpricks nip at his legs.
There's a mirror. He recognizes it, glass smoothed over yellowed metallic backing. He reaches out with his hand as he approaches it, and his fingertips bend backward when they stop against the glass. He pushes.
The pain registers dully, like there's cotton stuffing him, muffling his touch.
He wonders how well sloshing fluids conduct sensation.
It's a mirror. He recognizes it because the cold room had been lined with them, reflections glaring down at the flat metal table sitting in the centre of the floor.
There's only one mirror. His fingers are sliding, smudging it.
He looks at the face watching him. He frowns, his mouth turning slowly down as the fluff-stuffed signals creep up his spinal cord.
The eyes are familiar, rimmed with blue, dark blue in the decrepit light that seeps into the room. The pupils are wide, tufts of livid green rebounding off the edges of the black like aborted attempts at escape.
His fingers drag down the glass, tracing the lines of the nose that's too thin and the chin that's too sharp. They're wrong.
Greasy yellow hair droops onto the forehead, bobbing when his head moves sharply like on springboards.
Wrong.
The face looks back at him, wrong mouth creaking open in the wrong shape, wrong cheeks hollowing as the voice rasps in the wrong throat.
He squeezes his eyes closed against the face that isn't his, and the thunder of glass shattering claws past the muffled lather coating the inside of his skin.
Glitter speckles the red of his fist, and hot prickles slip down his knuckles, contouring his wrist and sliding down his arm. They tap as they hit the wood under his feet, thudding like mallets against his eardrums and setting them shaking in billowing waves.
Dimly, he hears the thumps of footsteps outside the door.
Screwed up sheets, mottled green from mako sweat, hang off the bed. They crumple under his tread, and then air is rushing past his ears as he falls.
He splashes.
The joints in Cloud's neck twitched at an overly enthusiastic slam of cymbals.
The band was marching right behind the Soldiers, horns blaring loud enough to be heard over the solid wall of sound coming from the people lining the sides of the street. Balloons of various colours rose over their heads, whipping back and forth under the biting wind that drove cold slivers under his nails.
When a cluster spun up and tumbled into the sky, tangled string fluttering from it like streamers, he followed it with his eyes. It dotted the grey clouds with bright specks of colour.
The enormous bass drum thumped, sending tremors buzzing through his shoulders. It beat steadily, running an uncomfortable heat through his chest when it overpowered the sound of his pulse, the rhythms out of sync. He ground his teeth together, snapping his arm up. The ceremonial sabre that Heidegger had handed him managed a weak gleam under the muted sky. He tucked his elbow in tight again, and he heard the echoing clack of two dozen rifles being shouldered simultaneously behind him.
The drum thumped again, and he moved into the next form, vibrations rising up from his soles.
Winter in Midgar sent serrated gales of pressure scathing over his skin. It was almost worse than the bone-deep chill of Nibelheim freeze. It didn't snow in Midgar, not like the dead white banks that amassed alongside the narrow roads back home. It tried, wispy flurries drifting out of the sky, but the heat of several million living people and gushing exhaust pipes quickly turned it to runny sleet that froze overnight and coated everything with a thin sheet of ice. Street lights started snapping after the first couple of falls, and Cloud remembered the permanent scowl on the Director of Urban Planning's face.
In Nibelheim, fat clumps of snow twirled in the sky, thick cover and thick clouds stealing away the sound. Isolated pockets of warmth huddled until spring, muffled in silence. His mother sang a lot more during the winter.
Boots stamped against the asphalt in near perfect time, two steps to each accompanying pound of the drum.
Cloud ran his eyes over the faces crowding the street. MPs lined the route at intervals, spines stiff and straight. A little boy with bright red hair sat on the shoulders of his father, and he raised both of his mitten-swathed hands into the air and waved furiously. Cloud met the kid's eyes and added an extra spinning flourish of the sword before clicking along into the next form. He might get chewed out for it later, but for now, the kid's shrieking laughter followed him as the procession moved.
He flexed his wrist again, concentrating on keeping the grimace off his face. The ceremonial sabre had glittery bits all over the hilt. The gilded scabbard was buckled to his belt, the unfamiliar shape slapping against his leg as he marched. The thing was disgustingly light, the flimsy blade nearly bowing at his movements. The Soldier insignia was stamped into the base, and the words "Honour and Valour" were etched along the dull edge. The words didn't lend any added weight to the weapon. It sparkled at him again, and he wondered who had thought that it was representative of Soldier. A big bat with nails in it would have been preferable.
The parade snaked around a turn in an intersection barricaded with virulent yellow stripes, and the tail end swung into Cloud's line of sight for a minute. Over the tuba player's crimson face and brassy bell, Cloud caught a glimpse of the fluted hood of the state car. Decked with wreaths and its top folded down, it looked more like a fat, stagnant carriage, and he saw Heidegger beaming as he balanced in the seat, waving both arms over his head. Strips of medals swayed on his sash, slowly tangling as they tipped on and off his paunch. The Vice President sat across from him, leaning his chin on a palm as he raised his other hand to the spectators.
Cloud had been on the receiving end of Heidegger's grin on several occasions. It had been during performance reviews, with Angeal watching with half a smile while Cloud got the heavy hand on his shoulder and the blank geniality of the truly uninterested.
Heidegger swayed as the car trundled over a sewer grate, and the convoy slipped out of sight.
A warehouse loomed on the side of the road, shadows showing under the fresh coat of grey paint that nearly covered the graffiti. A stray cat sat on the corner of the roof, an enormous ginger tom that flattened its scarred ears against its head as it yawned. Its eyes blinked shut at a blast of freezing air that made the sabre whine in Cloud's hand, and a couple of kids in the crowd shrieked.
The General's coat streamed like a pennant.
Cloud had heard that the General drove like an asshole and would kick Thirds off of missions for being irritating, but he'd never seen Sephiroth ride the fancy car during parades. Not that Heidegger and Rufus Shinra would have made for pleasant company. The General always walked at the head, his sheathed sword held at his side, setting the standard pace as people waved and gestured at his back.
The wind ripped at Sephiroth's hair, and the banner bearers a few steps behind him rocked and leaned as the fabric caught and billowed.
The flap of cloth snapped over the thump of the bass, and the wind funnelling into his ears muffled every other sound into a fuzzy mess of noise. The cat probably yowled before it streaked across the street, an orange blur that darted past rows of boots tipped with dust over careful shine.
Cloud's hand clenched around the too-light weapon, and he looked upwards to the roof of the warehouse, where a man in a ratty shirt that hang to his knees opened his mouth in his rage-twisted face to shout words that could not be heard. He flung his fist into the air, his head jerking wildly around and focussing on the state car. He raised his other hand, and the black of the pistol he clutched sucked at the meager light.
The band pounded along in its heartbeat thud.
There was a busker up the street, perched on the corner of the sidewalk and juggling a ring of brightly coloured balls. His hands shifted, swinging the trajectory of the balls into a double loop, and a girl's shrill laughter crested for a second before sinking back into the roar of noise.
The gunman jolted, a foot twisting as he sagged and fell.
The back of the dark suit straightened, creases falling out of the fabric as the wind snatched at it, and the Turk raised a PHS to his mouth.
The woodwinds launched through a short, trilling run, and Cloud looked forward, where the banner bearers shot confused frowns to their sides as their steps slowed and the banners folded. The procession paused, and the band stuttered briefly, a long dominant chord grinding with beats of dissonance and hanging in the air.
Past the banners, Cloud saw Sephiroth turned in profile, a gleam of steel under his gloved hand, where it clasped the mouth of the Masamune's scabbard. He shifted, and mako green eyes met Cloud's.
A tap of his thumb, and the sword slid sharply into its sheath, a moment before Sephiroth pivoted. The banner bearers snapped into step, their ragged lines quickly smoothing like the echo of a wave. Cloud stepped forward, sabre raised and holding form until the band moved, falling into the resolution.
He marched, the sound of the bass a fluttering pulse in his throat.
Thump. Step. Thump.
The spectators laughed.
The propeller engine roared at his back, and its heat seeped through the metal siding and thin cushion to sink into his skin. His muscles made little jerky, clawing twitches as they fought to relax and protested in his shoulders. Cloud sighed, tipping his head back to lean it against the airship's curved wall, but the vibrations lifted his skull up and bumped it back down against the wall incessantly in dull clacks, and he planted his palms on the bench to lever himself up again.
He poked at the back of his teeth with his tongue, feeling them buzz. The sensation brought to mind tiny bubbles squeezing and popping against the roof of his mouth.
The parade had ended at ShinRa's private air base, hemmed in by tall gates studded with iron spikes on all sides.
Heidegger had begun bellowing before the state car had crept to a halt, and MPs scrambled to collect in formation. Then he'd spotted Cloud, and he'd begun stalking toward the Soldiers, his wide face black with thunder. Heidegger'd barely gotten within earshot before the General's voice had barked "Strife! Stand for report!" from behind Cloud, and Heidegger had stopped, scowled, and veered off when Lazard had cut smoothly into his path.
Cloud had stood at ramrod attention while Lazard's mouth made a little twitch, and he'd said, "This is me dressing you down, Soldier. Act contrite."
Cloud looked down at his hands, the joint groaning as he clenched and released his fist. He'd finally handed off the gilt sabre after the ceremony, but as worthless as it was, it'd been better than nothing. His bare back prickled at him, too light and too warm, and he leaned over, pressing his forearms against his knees. He sucked in a breath through slotted teeth, saliva running into the sides of his cheeks as the slow churn of his stomach rolled when the airship hit a patch of turbulence and shuddered.
"Strife? You okay?"
The bench creaked under new weight.
Cloud tipped his head. Jordon smiled thinly back at him, his helmet sitting in his lap and his ashy blond hair limp with sweat.
"Airsick?"
Cloud grimaced, and he made a sound halfway between a grunt and a moan.
"Need anything?"
Cloud flapped his fingers. "Quit chicken-shitting. I'm fine. Just don't be surprised if I decide to jump off and take my chances with the ground not killing me before I dent it."
Jordon snickered, and he leaned back, lacing his hands over his helmet and looking up at the bolted ceiling. "The General did a good speech," he said, after a while.
"Yeah?" Cloud said.
The caskets had already been lined up in neat rows, suspended over freshly hollowed earth, when they'd gotten there. There was no room in Midgar, but the company owned more land than Cloud had been able to imagine before leaving home. The airship had taken them southwest, to the other side of the mountains that hid the Mythril Mines. On land cut flat and seeded with manicured grass, flat blocks dotted the ground, small plaques set into the weathered stone. There weren't a lot of them. More open holes than closed. Cloud had never been to the Soldiers' cemetery before. A grey slab veined with dull pink and black crystal stood at the base of the mountain. The new names were already on it.
Cloud had stood still, cold digging into his fingers and his clothes as the wind gusted and scattered the pine needles that had been dropped to the ground, rolling them with little rattling noises.
There had been speeches, he was vaguely aware. And all he'd been able to focus on was the fact that Angeal would normally be standing up there. Maybe with Lazard. Maybe with Sephiroth. But Angeal left.
Rufus had used the word "honour" three times in one breath, and Cloud had stopped listening, if only to stop thinking about the lump of molten metal heat building up in his throat because of that word. He'd stared at the white slabs piled on the side, near a gleaming iron fence, and he'd wondered if they'd been made with the plaques embedded in them, and the crew placing them over the graves would be left with a macabre game of matching the mound to the name. They'd probably been piled in a predetermined order, and if someone got mixed up and put into the wrong hole in the ground, he'd end up labelled as someone else forever, or at least until the wind eroded all of the names away and it didn't matter anymore.
He hadn't heard what Sephiroth said, either, but he remembered the quiet, even sound of the man's voice.
"He really meant it. You could tell," Jordon said.
Cloud looked at the Third. "Yeah," he said, nodding.
He'd waited while the caskets were closed, and he'd watched as they were lowered into the ground, clattering and groaning with each turn of the crank. He'd stayed for a while, after Rufus had tossed a handful of dirt onto one of the caskets and been ushered off, flanked by tense Turks.
The box that held Evans's body creaked and settled, clods of dirt starting to cave inward and scatter over the smooth wood.
He'd heard of it before, in books and stuff, but the burial ritual wasn't practiced in Nibelheim, where the ground above a certain altitude was too frozen to dig into without some multi-ton machinery, and the ground that could be dug up was so scarce amongst the bedrock that the few people who could convince food plants to grow in it weren't able to give it up to stick dead bodies into it.
People in Nibelheim were cremated, as far back as anyone could remember. The blind old man who sat in the bench in front of the inn every day had said that there'd been a huge mausoleum where Shinra mansion was, but it had been lost along with most of the town when the top of Mt. Nibel had blown in a spray of hot ash over a century ago. The new urns were kept in an official looking room with walls covered with threadbare velvet in the Mayor's cellar, now.
Some of the kids had dared Cloud to go in at night once, and the Mayor's daughter had scared the shit out of him when she'd heard, and decided to pop up amongst the sombre-looking urns and scold him.
One of the workers, a huge civilian with a beard that covered half his face and a shovel the size of half his torso, had hesitated when he'd reached Evans's grave, and he'd glanced over to Cloud.
"Wanna throw something in, lad? Before I cover it," he'd said, his voice a rumble under the howl of the wind.
Cloud remembered staring up at the man. "Throw what in?"
The man had shrugged. "Something with sent'mental value for your friend here? I dunno. I figured you were waiting to say goodbye."
Cloud had ended up pulling off one of the silver cuff-links on his dress uniform, and the civilian had looked at it strangely.
"That symbolic, or something?"
"No, but I'll remember him by it, anyway."
The old man had shrugged again, and he hadn't said anything else when he stuck the shovel into the mound of dirt at the side of the grave. Cloud had watched, and the gleam of metal vanished quickly under black soil.
The man grunted while he worked, and as shovelfuls of dirt thumped onto hollow wood, he'd cleared his throat. He hadn't looked back at Cloud, but he'd said, a bit awkwardly, "You know, boy, it helps to have a good cry. Even grown men twice your size do it."
Cloud hadn't known what to say to that one. A blast of wind had sent needles and clumps of topsoil clattering over the clean lawn as he watched the old man's dirt-smeared shirt flap while he shovelled.
That had been about when the clouds ripped open and slurry mixed in with hail splattered and hammered at the stones. The civilian had cussed loudly, and he'd bellowed to the other workers to get the graves stamped down before freezing water soaked through the loose soil and rotted the caskets away. Cloud had flinched at the sting of the ice pellets hitting his shoulders, but it was already lightening as the wind died. He'd looked up, squinting his eyes at the pale grey of the sky, and he'd watched the fat, sticky clusters of white snow spiral gently downwards.
A couple hit the back of his hand, and he saw the rippled edges of snowflakes stuck to each other for a second before they collapsed inward and melted into a bulbous droplet and slid off his wrist.
It had been strange, the way he couldn't really feel it against the surface of his skin. He'd stared down at it, a thin strip of numb crossing more numb. The empty splats of dirt hitting wood were becoming fainter, sharper. Peals of a bell tolling. Cloud had stood still, counting the rings as they folded themselves around him.
Someone had thumped him on the back of his head then, and he'd flinched. He'd turned to see a Turk smiling at him, pulling back the half-shut umbrella. "Come on, Soldier boy," she'd said, tilting her chin to where the airship stood waiting, propeller blades beginning a slow spin. "Don't get left behind."
She hadn't waited for an answer.
"Why'd you hang around for so long after the ceremony?"
Cloud blinked, pulling his eyes away from the whips of white whirling past the small porthole over his head. "Huh?"
"You were late coming on board. Almost got left behind," Jordon said, patting the fleshy part of his hand over his helmet absently.
Cloud thought about the old man for a moment, and then he shook his head and hummed in his throat. "Just curious, I guess. I've never seen anyone get buried before. I didn't know you've got special equipment for it."
Jordon raised his eyebrows. "What, never?"
Cloud shrugged. "We cremate people back home."
"Oh."
Cloud leaned back to look out the fogged glass again. He snorted softly. "My mother always thought that was boring. She always said when she died, she wanted to be put onto a huge ass pyre on a raft and burn her fucking way out of there on the river."
"No offense, but that's fucked up."
Cloud snorted again. "She's always been like that." Something glittered in this corner of his eye, and he slanted his head. He frowned. "You've got a sparrow or some shit in your ear."
Jordon scowled at him. "Fuck off, it's an eagle, you douchebag." He paused, glancing around. "I mean, you douchebag, sir."
Cloud rolled his eyes, and the Third seemed to relax. He waved a hand. "Lots of Soldiers get their ears pierced. It's not against regulations if it's too small to get grabbed, and we can't get tattoos, you know. The mako burns the ink right out."
"Really?"
Jordon looked at him for a minute. "I can give you the address of the guy I went to. He does work for Soldiers all the time, and he's pretty damn good at it. You'd probably look good with a stud."
"Oh." Cloud looked at the little bird again. "Thanks."
"No, it's—" Jordon cut off in mid-flap, and he clenched his hand into a fist as he dropped it to his lap. His face twisted, and he looked down at his tense hand. "Evans died saving me."
The airship droned through the snow, and the vibrations rose through the floor and up through Cloud's boots. "Oh," he said again.
Cloud thumbed the nub sitting against his left ear, and it gave a dull twinge of protest. It had taken a bit of time to first find a smith to melt down the other silver cufflink and shape it into a pointed stud, and the man had grumbled about fancy-ass Soldiers even after Cloud had told him to keep all the excess silver on top of payment. It had turned out well, at least.
Cloud dropped his hand, slapping it down onto the rail with a tinny clang. He rotated his shoulders, arching to stretch out his back with a grimace.
Cold knifed into his skin, the wind scraping its claws over his cheeks, and he inhaled deeply because the speed of the moving air created a little gap of low pressure in front of his body where it was a bit harder to breathe. The Shinra building had been designed to sway a little with the wind—less brittle that way, Kunsel had tried to explain—and he thought he could hear it groan under his feet. It was something he did, whenever every-fucking-thing he was supposed to be able to deal with coated the inside of his mouth with bile and was trying its hardest to suffocate him. He found somewhere high. And...
Angeal had never found him up here, not since Cloud had discovered the dingy little door at the top of the maintenance staircase more than two years ago. There was no lingering trace of the First up here, not like—
Midgar stretched in front of him, in that quiet place when the people who worked the night were just falling asleep in whatever beds they'd found themselves in, and the people who worked the day hadn't gotten their first humanizing cup of coffee yet.
The Soldiers had been on leave for the rest of the day after the parade and funeral. Cloud had tossed for a few hours around in his bed that felt like it sank too much under his spine and smelled like whatever sharp, cheap soap he was buying these days before giving up. His key card didn't give him access to some of the higher floors, but it did let him up onto the roof.
Some security lapse, probably, but after the stale air getting pumped out of the heater set into his wall, he wasn't complaining.
Not that the air was much better outside. Glass and metal, dull in the grey of pre-dawn, stood like shorter, silent sentinels, flanking the Shinra building. He could see the edge of the plate from here, a blocky fence fringing its circumference except for where a few construction rigs sat silently beside the unfinished, gnawed-looking boundary of sector eight.
There was a hoot, mako-tinted steam spewing from the smokestack on top of the monorail that ran between the plate and below on an automated schedule. He could hear the clacking die away as the engine pulled away from the station and started its spiralling descent.
Cloud swung around at the scrape of the door opening behind him, and Robertsson stopped in the open doorway, a hand on the knob and a decently surprised look on his face. Then he sniffed, and he slunk forward to lean his elbows on the rail beside Cloud.
"Couldn't sleep either?" Cloud said.
Robertsson clucked his tongue against the roof of his mouth like he was irritated. "Sound's different. I hear trucks go past outside and the whole fucking building seems to shake under me. None of those loud chirpy things, either."
"What, birds? We've got them."
"I don't mean those turds on wings. Pigeons, or whatever. They don't chirp. We didn't get a lot of those under the plate, anyway. Probably knew we'd eat them."
Cloud hung his head further over the guardrail. A couple of MPs passed each other, little black and blue specks on the ground, nodding in recognition as they continued their patrols.
"You saw that assassin on the parade route, yeah?" Cloud said, tracking one of the MPs with his eyes.
"Yeah."
The MP slowed as he rounded the corner of the building, a hand darting down to the seat of his pants and yanking as if to unstick a wedgie. Cloud watched until the man was out of his line of sight. "Wonder who he was working for."
Robertsson made an impatient croaking sound in his throat. "Take your pick. Wutai remnant, local nutjob... I heard that there's a big terrorist group that the Turks are keeping hushed up."
Cloud's mouth twitched. "How'd you hear about it, then?"
Robertsson screwed up his face like he'd smelled something foul. "From that buddy of yours that always knows this shit somehow."
"Kunsel's a good friend," Cloud said.
Robertsson didn't say anything for a while, and then he shrugged a shoulder. "I know."
Cloud stared down at the motionless street below. The streetlight was flickering, strobing the ground just at the curb and making Cloud's eyes water. He heard Robertsson's fingers click as they tapped against the rail with no pattern that he could discern.
The Second tched. "Sound's fucking weird," Robertsson said.
Cloud hummed, half a sigh. "It's still home, though, right?"
Robertsson grunted.
Ahead, the sun was rising. Wutai had had some brilliantly coloured skies. The Midgar sun burned boiled-egg yellow, the smog on the horizon fuzzing its outline and making the atmosphere look like it'd caught fire. It radiated weakly, its heat like a damp touch on Cloud's skin, and watery shadows stretched out at the bases of the skyscrapers.
Cloud started laughing first. It was just jerks of his shoulders to start, his breath puffing out through his nose and pluming in the cold air, but then he nearly clocked himself on the chin on the rail, so he stood up, holding the bar with both hands and locking his elbows when he leaned over. His diaphragm shook painfully, and he sucked in quick greedy breaths around the irregular chortles that forced past his lips and disrupted his breathing. Robertsson's laughter sounded like hoarse barks beside him, half-muffled by his folded arms.
"Fuck, we're pathetic," Cloud forced out, fresh snorts breaking out through the words.
"Speak for yourself," Robertsson said, but there was a grin on his face as he huffed at the air.
Looking out over the lethargic city, they continued laughing.
TBC
