My assignment actually became less interesting. Even more boring than the ride here. Now that we were at Cosmo Canyon, I had nothing to do at all. Hojo didn't want to even see me(he considered that bothersome for his work), which I didn't mind, but I didn't even have monsters to kill. I was supposed to quietly sit on my hands and wait. I wasn't good at waiting. I tried Cosmo Canyon's famous Cosmo Smoothie, and climbed up and down the ladders to the top of the cliffs twice. I wasn't supposed to leave the town either.

What was Tseng up to all this time?

He wasn't at the Inn, or the Buggy, but I found him lounging at the café, one of those smoothies on the table in front of him. He had his cell phone out, panning through the texts or something.

"Have you run out of ideas too?" I guessed, pulling up a chair to sit by him.

"I have my ways of occupying myself. The company keeps me very busy, even though they consider this mission my vacation."

"Why are we here, exactly? Do you know what Hojo's looking for?"

"That information is classified." He reiterated. "But I am aware that he is not looking for something. Just...studying." For a classified mission, he sure knew more than I did.

"What is there to study here? The monsters don't even come near the village, and it's too hot for many things to grow." He shook his head, slightly amused.

"You should take more of a look around, Hail. It doesn't sound like you've been here often."

I moved away from the chair, letting the legs skid loudly against the stone floor, and left the sour prat alone. I stormed out to the main square, and crossed my arms. No, Tseng, no monsters were near the village at all. You don't need to spend a week here to realize that. But, now that I was looking, I did see plants.

A few shrubs, with protruding stalks that were topped with pale yellow flowers. I stared at them for a few minutes, waiting casually to see if Hojo would appear to take notes.

"Yeah right." I muttered, feeling stupid. "Hojo did not come here to look at flowers."

I went back to my room at the Inn for the rest of the day. But I wasn't lazy like Tseng was. I buckled down and did about two hundred squats. Zack and I liked to compete at who could do the most. He usually won, but I didn't want him to get too far ahead of me. Even if it meant working out in a hot cave. I tried to think of the lack of things I had to do as relaxing. So for the second night, I went to sleep early.

It felt nice to sleep in. I only permitted just an extra hour, but that hour was bliss.

As I was heading down the stairs, I caught sight of a nimble animal dashing down from the stairs. A flame was lit on the tip of his tail, but he was not bothered at all by it. He kicked off the ledge of a stony overhang, and ran almost vertically along the Cliffside before leaping my way.

"Nanaki! Hi!" I waved, and the lion(the animal which I most closely related him to) landed at my side.

"Good morning, Hail. Did you sleep well?" I pulled a lock of blue hair behind my ear and nodded. Then I frowned.

"Yeah, I'm just a little bored now." I interpreted the tug of his lips as an amused expression. "What? No offense, but there's not much to do here."

"Really now? Do you see the large observatory on the top of this cliff?"

I followed his gaze, and craned my neck upwards. I had to shield my eyes with my hand, the sun was so high, but I could make out the black outline of a large building sitting on the highest peak. "Come there tonight. You will not be bored then." Then, Nanaki leapt right off the ledge and down the thirty foot drop. A small cloud of dust rose as he walked away. I bet he did that just to impress me.


I tread along the edge of town, practicing my one handed sword techniques. I stepped forward, then shuffled to the side. I swung my sword upwards, as if severing an arm, then preformed a quick dodge roll over the scalding hot sand, and stood with my sword pointed at my imaginary opponent's neck. I kept thinking about my sparring session with Zack, and how I fought so well with two blades. Maybe when I went back to Midgar, I could ask about that. Lots of SOLDIERs got their own kind of weapon when they found one that suited them. Like a short blade, or an extremely long katana. My face felt hotter than usual as I thought of a certain, handsome SOLDIER that had chosen his own weapon. It must have been the stupid, hot sun.

When the stupid, hot sun finally ducked away behind the mountains, I put my weapon away and headed upstairs to the large observatory. Did Nanaki plan to entertain me by stargazing? I was forced to climb up a vertical stairwell through the Inn, and another one to reach the building. When I stuck my head out of the last ladder shaft, my hair was blown to the side by a cold wind. From this height, the raging bonfire looked like a candle. No wonder it was so windy. I knocked my fist against the door, and an elderly man opened it for me without much of a wait.

"Uh, Nanaki invited me." I stuttered. For some reason, I'd been expecting the lion to welcome me inside. He nodded kindly.

"Yes, Hail. We have been expecting you." I smiled and followed him inside. The observatory seemed to double as a house for this old man, and by the looks of the second bed, covered in reddish fur, Nanaki's home as well. "Nanaki is already upstairs. Follow me." He carried himself slowly up another rope ladder(man, I was getting sick of those), and I patiently followed.

This time, the shaft opened up in a spacious room, covered with a metal dome. A massive looking glass scope protruded from one side of the dome, magnifying the numerous stars in its sight. Nanaki bounded over to me, his tail wagging energetically. Much like a puppy. So he wasn't a lion then.

"Stand there, Hail." He directed, to a three foot wide, metal disk on the floor. I stepped onto the platform, and Nanaki sat close beside my legs, making sure that he was entirely on it as well. Then, there was a weak tremor, and the platform rose into the center of the dome. I lost my balance slightly, and dropped my hand onto the lion's head for support. He shook me off as I straightened up again. The lights in the room faded, and I had I feeling that we were doing more than looking at stars.

The room illuminated once more, but not from regular lights. It took me a moment to realize what image I was looking at. Not just an image, actually. The stars flew past my face as we sped through the galaxy, blowing my hair back with a cosmic wind. This hologram was taking right through space. A blinding, blue comet streaked past my face, making my cheeks tingle with the cold. It was just like the Simulation Room at headquarters, in the way that it affected your senses. But this observatory did it without hologram visors.

We approached a spiraling mass of stars, swirling together to form our own galaxy. Then, we dove headfirst into the glowing mass, and I actually put my hands up to shield my face. My hair was blown back as if there was a windstorm, then fell back into place. It was no longer cold, but warm. I opened my eyes to see a large, blue and green sphere. Around that sphere, weaved a turquoise light. It appeared to be made up of thousands of fine, glowing threads. It pulsed and weaved around the planet as if it were alive. It was alive.

"Gaia…" I breathed. "The Lifestream."

"Yes it is…Now watch." The colors disappeared from its surface to make it solid gray, though the Lifestream remained. The glowing threads punctured into the sphere, and the rough figure of a man rose from the gray surface.

"The Lifestream is a pure form of life energy that circles our planet like a current. It is what gives us life. And when a person dies, that energy is returned to the planet." The figure of a man slumped down, and leveled out with the planet again, as if it had never been there. Then, the planet spun around almost half way, showing a flat, empty space on the planet's surface.

"Then, that same energy is given to something else, maybe all the way across the world." The surface lit up slightly, and a sprout rose up, and quickly turned into a tree. "And so on…This cycle is endless, and continuous. As long as nothing takes from the Planet's life, this process will go on forever." Then, the Lifestream pulsed outward, and the hologram was gone.

I felt faint. The platform lowered, and I dropped to the ground while it still had a few feet to go. I leaned against the wall and steadied my breathing.

"Hail? Are you all right?" Nanaki asked, sniffing me.

"Yeah…maybe it's just because I haven't eaten in a while…"

"Well, why don't you stay for dinner then?" The old man asked, as he lowered himself to the ground beside us. I was so sick of those Cosmo Smoothies.

"I would love to."


After dinner, as Nanaki led the way back downstairs to the Inn, the old man(who Nanaki called 'grandpa') waved for me to wait for him. As I approached him again, he seemed much more pensive, and less welcoming as he had a few minutes ago. Before I could thank him again for dinner, he spoke.

"You have not told him that you are in SOLDIER?" The man inquired. The question instantly bothered me.

"What does it matter? Besides, I thought it was obvious- the eyes and everything." I pointed at my radiant eyes as I spoke, trying feebly to lighten the mood.

"Nanaki is just a pup, though he speaks like someone far beyond his years. He has yet to see a SOLDIER, but he knows what they are capable of." He spoke sincerely, but his tone of voice didn't distract me from what he was hinting at.

"Yeah. Like saving lives." I grumbled.

"And taking them away." The man smiled sadly. "You do not seem like the ones I have met before. But Nanaki does not know the difference yet. Hail, before you leave here, I wish for you to tell him who you are. He will have the time to think about it while you are away." He was pretty much saying how Nanaki would hate me after I told him I worked for ShinRa. And that ShinRa was evil. I didn't stomp my foot, but I still snapped.

"Why does everyone hate ShinRa now!" With that, I stormed out of the room, and down the ladders connecting them. I dropped from the rope, falling a few feet since I didn't want to step down every single one. I landed roughly, and bumped my nose against the rocky wall. "Damn it!" My voice echoed up the tunnel, right back into the observatory.

"Hail? Are you hurt?" Nanaki bounded over to me, and slid out of the ladder shaft and back into the open space of the inn.

"N-No…Sorry." I hissed, and pulled my hand away from my face. No blood, just an ugly scratch.

"Did you find the observatory interesting? Grandpa likes to show that to travelers. I never get bored of witnessing it."

"Yeah. The holograms were cool." I hated that observatory. "I'm going to go to bed early tonight. Tomorrow is my last day here, so I want to get some sleep." Nanaki obviously knew that I was upset, and that I wasn't saying everything, but he kindly played along.

"Yes. You should rest. Good night." He padded away, his paws making hardly any noise.

Though I said I was going to bed early, it was well past midnight before I finally fell asleep. I tried to think of why that old man had shown me that hologram. How when one life ended, that same energy went back into the planet, and provided life for something else. How did that connect to ShinRa? Why would Nanaki hate me for it?

Did Nanaki have the right to hate me?