A/N: Because life has a way of coming full circle…
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Chapter 14 – The Past Present
Rude is standing alone at the entrance to ShinRa Headquarters when Elena pulls the van to a screeching halt at the curb line. Barely putting the vehicle in park first, she shoves open the door and hops out into the street with a million questions struggling for dominance on her lips. The one that wins is: "Where's Tseng and Reno?"
Rude shifts his weight, his body belaying the tension the dark sunglasses hide in his eyes. "Sector Seven." His deep voice is almost swallowed up in the sounds of children pouring out of the backs of the two HHI vans.
"What are they doing there?"
"That's where the SOLDIERS are entering the main city." Rude raises his eyebrows above the tops of his sunglasses and nods toward the children behind Elena. "What are they supposed to do?"
She ignores his question, still caught on the word 'SOLDIERS'. "You mean the two of them are trying to fend off a whole army by themselves?!" The panic drives her heart and fills her voice.
"No… Cloud and Tifa are there."
"Great!" Elena throws her hands in the air and rolls her eyes. "We're going after them then." She's turning to start giving orders to the chaotic contingent behind her when Rude's hand on her shoulder stops her.
"You can't. Our orders are to stay here and protect ShinRa."
Something in Elena snaps. She can't really say what it is, but when she looks back at Rude she isn't the rookie Turk that loves to follow orders. Reaching up, she grabs Rude's sunglasses and pulls them off his face so she can see the eyes he loves to hide. There is the quick flash of fear, an expression like he has suddenly been caught naked, before he controls it with cool professionalism. "Rude," she says, "They're our partners."
Crinkling his brow in confusion, he says, "But Rufus is our boss."
Behind Rude the giant structure of the new ShinRa tower reaches toward the night. She looks up, follows the straight lines that angle toward each other in distant perspective. She thinks of the man on the top floor, so far away, just a distant spot among the stars. No, not among the stars. Below them. Just like she is below them. Just like everyone is below them. She doesn't know that man. She never has. Maybe there is no real man to know. She knows Tseng. She knows Reno. Shaking her head slowly, she asks, "What does that mean?"
Tseng is alive because of ShinRa. Denzel's parents are dead because of ShinRa. The world was once supported by ShinRa. The world was almost destroyed by ShinRa. What does it all mean?
"It means we follow orders." Rude's voice is soft, both in volume and tone.
Her eyes fall back down the walls of the ShinRa tower to find his. "I'm not sure anymore. I've never been sure of anything, and that's why… Rude, I've never made a single decision for myself. I joined ShinRa because my sister joined ShinRa." Her mind feels smothered by a web of ideas she has no idea how to sort. "All I know is that I'm a Turk."
"A Turk is a ShinRa bodyguard."
"No… I know this will sound silly, but to me, the Turks are a family. I've got to help them, Rude!" She hands back his sunglasses and turns away to make the necessary arrangements with Ren, but behind her she hears Rude's voice clearly.
"I'll come too."
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He is a blade of grass slicing through the wind with a slight rustling of purple fabric and navy blue, the uniform of a hero, of a warrior—"Is this mine? If it fits it must be, but who am I?"
He is the predator that slices the night with glowing eyes and a spiked mane. Pausing to choose the right moment, to wait for his opponent to shift his weight, concrete creaking a signal to hyper-sensitive ears. Just a moment—and now! Tendons contract with whip-snap speed and he is catapulting through the air toward the blanket of inky haze—"Mom? What happened to the stars?" "They are sleeping tonight, little one, but tomorrow they'll be back again."
He is a meteor shooting toward the ground, a sword of light that must have robbed the galaxies leading his way. A twist of his wrists and the sword is now two, twin blades aimed at a set of shoulders. The head tips backward. He focuses on the solid lines of a square jaw and the red line along one cheek.
A SOLDIER doesn't fear. Don't you get it Cloud? There just isn't time.
The opponent lifts his own blade of captured light, kissing the twin blades with a force that stops time. Rigid muscles keep him suspended in the space above, holding time captive until the moments spring free and fast-forward through a series of flips and jabs and swipes and dodges and parries.
He is an avalanche sliding across the ground, but he longs to fly and be graceful again, so next he is a bird taking flight. And next a drop of icy rain. And next a puddle rolling across the ground.
"Stop Cloud!"
He twists his body around to halt the momentum of his last flying attack and his feet hit hard pavement and he almost falls.
He is a man.
"Stop it now!"
His sword is held up to guard against his opponent, but the SOLDIER crouches low with his own weapon outstretched and does nothing more.
"Leave Sevi alone!"
The man called Cloud turns to regard a young boy. It takes a moment for the image of scruffy brown hair and bright blue eyes to penetrate the jumble of his thoughts, but when it does, there is a crystal of clarity and he shouts, "Denzel!"
Denzel steps forward. He has combat pants and boots on, a vest over his black turtleneck and a glowing sword in his hand. Glowing with the power of mako, just like Cloud's, just like the sword of the one called Sevi. Only it isn't just Denzel's sword that glows. His whole body shines with an eerie palor.
"Stop Cloud!" Denzel centers his sword in front of himself in a ready stance strangely similar to Cloud's. "Stop it now!"
Cloud looks back at the SOLDIER before him. He knows that if he can defeat this person named Sevi, he can save his son.
And so, he vows, he will never stop.
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Back pressed against the far side of the van, Acadia listens to the symphony of voices weaving in and out of each other on the other side. She catches only wisps of what they are saying, the heavy metal of the van segregating her from them.
"It may seem an impossible task, but we must do it."
"Us against the SOLDIERs?"
"How are we supposed to win?"
"Can't—."
"Too strong—."
"Just kids—."
"Together—we have a plan—use tranquilizers—hide—ambush—shoot from the rooftops—."
"It's a good idea!"
"Do you think it will work?"
"Maybe—."
"Listen—time for heroes—back then—back then there was no one to save Sector Seven—must protect Midgar—."
"Together—fight—together…"
Acadia hears enough to understand not just their intent, but their emotions. Still, she doesn't feel them. So she waits through the sounds of the kids cheering, through the clanking of weapons being passed out, through another of Ren's elaborate speeches as she stares at the lack of contrast between her cobalt-black combat boots and the gray pavement.
Then there is a cacophony of footsteps dispersed like the sounds of children playing rather than ordered into the disciplined lines of an army formation. Then, the fading of noise to silence. Then, she is alone.
And finally, she moves, taking a deep breath of the caustic city air that reminds her of kicking cans around in the street with her neighbors when she was a kid. Only not quite, because now the air is so much cleaner than it was then. It is somehow less substantial and it always feels like she is about to suffocate.
Past the rows of patched-together houses Acadia runs, glancing at the families that are slowly pooling out into the street to glean any information they can from their neighbors about the "rumored battle" going on only blocks away. She wonders how they have no idea what is happening around them, how they live so sheltered and isolated. Hadn't they learned anything from the tragedies of the past? She's sworn never to be caught by surprise again.
And that's why she's not going to wait for the SOLDIERs to come to her. The timing of Denzel going missing is just too coincidental. He has to be linked somehow. She's going to find out for sure.
But there's something else she needs to find out. Something she won't allow herself to name.
It's not hard to find Sector Seven. She'd be able to find it from anywhere in Midgar without concentrating. Her feet bring her there almost subconsciously, and their pace doesn't slow until she hears the first sounds of a battle. It's an explosion maybe a block away.
Her breath quickens, and it surprises her. Am I afraid? she scolds herself. But that isn't it. She's been fighting since the day she was born. This feeling is something different than simple fear.
It is anger. It is hate. It is resentment.
Beyond the corner of the next building, she will find SOLDIERs. That's the reason she feels the way she does. Teeth clenched, muscles tight, she pats the syringe in her pocket she slipped from the weapons stores in the truck. Then she pulls out two knives from sheaths hidden inside her combat boots. Not a single one of those SOLDIERs will touch her with their murderous, selfish hands. She'd rather face death.
Then she turns the very last corner to the battle—and freezes as she stands looking through a warped glass at the past.
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Cloud isn't sure how long this can continue. They are wearing each other down, bit by bit, slice and bruise and fracture… His body is slowing, imperceptible to anyone else, blaringly obvious to him. It feels like he is moving through heavy clouds, his limbs held back and his mind somewhere far away. He's been repeating the words, "Don't stop," over and over in his mind and he goes through stages of remembering why and having moments of confusion where he feels he is in someone else's body.
The SOLDIER flips off the side of a building, sword aimed at Cloud's chest, and Cloud barely drops down, sliding under the swing of the blade. He grabs the SOLDIERs ankles as he tumbles above him. They both crash to the ground and it is a race to see who will be standing first.
The SOLDIER wins and is already attacking again when Cloud regains his footing. Cloud blocks with his sword, driven back to block again. He is on the defensive. This is the first step to losing a battle.
Once a battle turns like this, there is only one way to win. Do something extreme, make a sacrifice, take a gamble. Accept a small injury to incur a fatal one.
Only once does he glance at the boy standing off to the side, anger and fear mixed into the blue of those young eyes. The boy's desperate screams to stop fighting counter the voice in Cloud's head. The contradiction is puzzling, so he stops listening to the outside screams and lets his own mental voice rule him.
Then he crouches down and launches himself forward for a kamikaze-style attack.
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It is strange, but he isn't so different than Acadia remembers. Somehow she expected him to look foreign to her if they ever crossed paths. Perhaps that is because she was so sure he was dead, and the idea of death had mutated his image in her mind to project an old feeble man. But the SOLDIER fighting Cloud Strife so coldly, with such precise calculation and raw power, is far from feeble. The scar on his cheek is a little darker maybe, but his features are still immovably rock-hard, and his muscled arms still look like they can hold her as tight as they once did.
Once. So long ago. A lot has changed since then. Her mother and her sister are dead. Her home was destroyed.
And now it is just she and him. She has had dark and secret dreams of this moment, kept hidden away from even coherent thought—dreams shaped by impulses and emotion, not logic or thought or the laws of reality. But now they are here, in reality, and still she doesn't hesitate.
Cloud's stance changes. He pulls his sword back and the muscles in his back tighten, visible under his torn shirt. The ridges of sinew and flesh tell her that he is about to do something drastic. She catches the expression on his face. Serious. Determined. It is the face of a man about to put everything on the line. She knows that look.
There isn't much time. Cloud may end it in the next attack. Sevi is raising his sword to strike again, but from where he is he cannot see what Cloud is about to do. Or maybe he can and doesn't care. Sevi moves forward, swinging his sword. But instead of blocking, Cloud charges…
And Acadia is already in motion, throwing the knives in each of her hands when she is still ten meters away. The blades strike their targets, the bodies of the colliding men twisting at the last moment before impact. They stumble off-course like sheets of metal slammed by a gust of wind.
Sevi falls to his knees. By the time Acadia reaches him, a second knife is in her hand. There is a moment when she almost lunges toward him, but her limbs feel rusted and the moment is gone before she can act. So she stands there, knife held at his throat, but with a gap of time and space between them. He holds his bleeding arm, the fingers of his good hand splayed about the handle sticking out of his bicep. It seems forever before his eyes finally lift from the blood to face her, and when they do, she has no idea what emotion she is seeing in them.
Cloud pants behind her. It's an opportunity for escape, to look away from this man that makes her feel vulnerable and childish. Acadia glances at Cloud, who is also clutching his arm where her other knife is embedded. "Take care of Denzel," she says.
Then she turns back to the Sevi, using her gaze to cover his uniform in disdain. She's avoiding his eyes because she doesn't want to see the stranger in them, but even more, because she is afraid that she will find something familiar instead. "You know," she starts slowly, "My mother always told me to carry two knives. One for you and one for anyone trying to hurt you." Her voice is raspy and low, more raw than she expects. It makes her feel weak so she forces herself to look up at Sevi's face again. To notice new wrinkles and remember old ones. To find the person she once knew in this man's eyes. To hate that person freely.
Sevi smiles. The expression is sarcastic, but underneath it are other things. She won't name those things. She won't acknowledge those things. He speaks, and his voice is like a blunt sword. "Your mother would say something like that. But she didn't teach you very good aim, did she? You've missed my heart."
"I got you exactly where I meant to. Your sword arm." Anger drives her. She grabs the knife sticking out of Sevi's arm, twisting it as she pulls a syringe from her pocket and stabs him with the needle in the chest. He gasps, blinks once, then slips to the floor, eyes closed before his body slams into the concrete.
A long, shaky breath slips through her lips, the words "Good night, father," underneath it. For the space of a heartbeat, she feels numb and weightless. Then she kneels beside the man her mother taught her to both hate and love.
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Janna always had a way of looking at him like he was to blame for everything wrong in their world, and their world had a lot wrong with it. It was probably the close set of her eyes that were to blame. She always seemed like she was working so hard to focus on him, and that made her stare even more intense.
He shakes his head and throws up his hands. "You know, I didn't really expect you to understand."
His wife's response is scathingly sharp. "It's hard t' understand a man that don't make no sense. Did ya just have a fam'ly for kicks? Ya think we wouldn't mind? Maybe you figure a slum woman wouldn't mind a dirty thing like that? Huh?"
She's being completely unreasonable, and he wants to pull out his hair. He says, "I grew up here, same as you. Only difference is I actually plan to do something about it. I won't die here, Janna. I won't die on these dirty underworld floors covered in feces and rats. I won't die a nobody."
She laughs once, then turns her back on him to place her hands on the thin metal countertop. The tin pops as it dents under her weight. Staring at the chipped paint on the wall, she says, "That's fine, Sevi. You go bam-bam up there in someone else's world. I ain't gonna search for your dead self."
"I wouldn't ask you to."
Her fists are clenched when she spins back around. There is murder in her expression.
"But I ain't—I'm not—going to die," he adds firmly.
"Look at ya, so ashamed of who ya are, ya can't even speak. Ya talk like sum upworlda uppy up. Don't ya look down on me, ya bastard. You born down here too. We the same, but at least I know who I am. You? Ha! You got ya head glued to the ass o' the upper plate."
He has to fight the urge to walk across the small kitchen and hit her. There are dirty plates left over from dinner on their small table and he thinks about how easy it would be to pick one up and---NO. He's better than that. He has to be. There's a world beyond the one he was born in, a world of opportunity. He doesn't have to be a poverty-ridden man from the Sector Seven slums. He can be someone else. He's not sure who yet, but he'll find out. In the army, he'll find out. "I'll send you money."
"So now ya gonna try an' pay us off, huh?" She plants her hands on her narrow hips and shifts her weight to one leg. She tosses her long black hair over her shoulder and lifts her chin. "Ya can't pay enough t' deserve us."
"Would you just open your dense head for one moment and listen to me!" His voice breaks through the calm veneer he had painted over it, rising in tone. "I ain't leavin' ya cuz I don't care!" The accent in his words stops him. It hurts to hear. Another chain to bind him to the lower plate. If he's going to survive topside, he has to play the part. It's the only way to be treated as a man and not as something else. More quietly, and very deliberately, he speaks again, "I'm leaving because I care."
She's laughing in uncontrollable waves. She holds her sides and bends over. "You so screwed up. Ya ain't been right in the head since you gone and got that scar."
He remembers walking to the upper plate for the first time, remembers the guards stopping him and asking what his business was. He told them some lie about visiting a dying relative and they gave him 12 hours before he had to return to the lower plate. After that, he would be a fugitive and he would be shot on site. Three blocks. That was as far as he made it. Three blocks and a gang of teenagers pulled him in between two buildings and carved an "S" on his cheek with a knife. S for slummer. S for scum. S for sub-human. "No," he says. "The day I got this scar was the day I finally became right in the head." He touches the raised skin on his cheek, the ridges sharp under his fingers.
"That scar marks ya. Ya ain't gonna fool no one."
He drops his hand suddenly, and catches her eyes with an intense glare. "Then I'll make them see past it."
"An' whadda 'bout us? You got two daughters ya jus' gonna up and leave."
"I'll send money."
She clicks her tongue derisively.
"One day Cadie and Annie will be able to look up at me and be proud. They'll forgive me then."
"An' me?" For the first time there is something other than anger in her eyes. The other emotion isn't any softer, but it is much more sincere.
He speaks gently, with more tenderness than he's shown her in a year. "You're much more stubborn. More stubborn even than Cadie can be during her worst tantrum. You'll be much harder. But I'll always hope."
He left then. After he said goodbye to his two girls, he walked out of the lower plate slums into the sunset of the Sector Seven upworld. He would never return, and he would never see Janna and Annie again.
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Cloud pulls the long knife from his arm, blood flowing over his skin like water. Denzel. The girl told him to take care of Denzel. She is bent over the SOLDIER now. Cloud cocks his head toward the boy standing off to the side—so familiar… does he know him? He's forgotten again.
The boy is staring at him with wavering eyes, the light of the moon reflecting their sleek wetness. It reminds him of fireflies. Fireflies. This boy. He caught fireflies with this boy once. It was under a moon like this, the cool autumn air quiet except for his laughter and their footsteps against wild, uncut grass.
That was important. This boy is important. Cloud has lost the boy's name again; rigid titles and concrete words have become too much for his abstract, associative mind. But he can feel emotion. He can still feel emotion. And the emotion is like a purple flower growing beside the road that cannot be crushed.
The sword in the boy's hands is shaking like the light in his eyes as he holds in out in front of him, pointed at Cloud's chest. "Why?" he screams. The voice is a raw and open wound. Cloud touches his arm and winces. There is blood on his fingers, on his clothes, on the floor… he feels lightheaded. The boy continues: "If you're supposed to be such a hero, why didn't you save them? Why didn't you stop it?"
Who didn't he save? Cloud doesn't know. He looks over to the fallen body of his opponent and the girl bend over him.
"No!" the boy yells. "Not Sevi. Them! I'm talking about them!" A strangled noise gurgles up through the boy's throat and he charges forward, the word "Why?" ringing through the air, absorbed by the sound of their swords meeting.
They are close, their swords crossed between them. Cloud can feel the hot breath of the boy, can see the sweat beaded on the boy's forehead that also drenches his shaggy hair. And then, suddenly, there is a name. "Denzel," he says, knowing it fits. But he is still missing so much and he is so confused. He knows they shouldn't be fighting. Why are they fighting? "Denzel… I don't know what I did wrong. I don't remember… I'm sorry."
Denzel jumps back, breaking the stalemate. "How can you not remember? How can you not remember how they all died?!" His shrieking terminates in the choked whisper of his last word.
"I'm sorry. I don't mean to upset you…" He holds up a hand in a gesture of peace.
"Stop it! Stop pretending like you care!"
Cloud blinks, confused. "I do care."
Tears slip past the boundary of Denzel's eyelashes as he shakes his head, voice suddenly low and dangerously calm. "No. No you don't. You can't. You don't even know me. I'm a freak, Cloud, and you don't even know." He lifts his sword then, running the blade against his opposite palm, a line of red following the gray steel. When he's done, he holds up the wound and whispers, "Look."
Cloud looks. A greenish aura seems to engulf Denzel's hand and then the red is fading until the wound is completely gone.
Healed. He's completely healed. Instinctively, Cloud knows it's the mako. "You're not a freak." He tries to take a step forward, thinking of ways to disarm the boy before he does more damage to himself, but his sword arm is bathed in blood and his skin is beginning to prickle. Instead of stepping forward, he falls to one knee, muscles trembling.
He's losing himself.
"That's the price of power. It's all a question of how far you'll go. So Cloud, how far will you go?"
He has no regrets.
"Cloud? Cloud! Don't you dare! Don't you dare leave me too!"
Cloud watches the boy run toward him in slow motion. He drops his sword against the hard concrete as the boy does the same so he can fall against his chest. It's getting harder to piece together what's happening, sound and sights not quite synching together. But it doesn't really matter much, because there's a kind of peacefulness here. He imagines a ragged teddy bear—a childhood toy?—a gift for a friend?—maybe it wasn't a bear at all—as he holds the sobbing boy in his arms.
"Please don't go, Cloud."
"Okay."
"Why? I don't understand why." The boy's streaked face turns upwards, blue eyes almost violet. Violet. Like flowers by the roadside. Resilient. Strong. He picked one once, for someone he loves.
"I remember—everything they did—all the tests, the experiments—she told me I was special, my mom, she—." He chokes on his words and shivers instead of speaking.
Cloud looks up at the starlit sky, made hazy by the lights of Midgar. When he was a child, his mom showed him the stars and told him that each one represented a dream. "Dream like the stars, Cloud. Always have more dreams than you can count." Yes. That's it. "Special," Cloud repeats, stroking Denzel's back with a trembling hand.
The boy tenses. "What does that mean? I wasn't special enough to keep them alive. What am I supposed to do? They're not coming back, and… what am I supposed to do?"
Cloud's mother is smiling at him through the tangles of his life. "Just live. Have more dreams than you can count." He's not sure who is speaking, him or his mother. The world spins. Like a top. A top he can't stop. Cloud smiles. What a funny rhyme.
"Cloud? Can you hear me, Cloud?"
Of course he can. He's not deaf.
"Answer me, Cloud!"
Okay.
"Cloud? Please don't leave me. I'm sorry. I'm sorry Cloud. I wouldn't have really hurt you, I promise."
It's so hard to try to figure out the bright lights and the ambiguous words and the temperature of the air—all these details flooding in with nowhere to go. Too much. It's overwhelming and there's only one choice left. Everything is done now. Cloud smiles and uses his last audible words to say, "Let go."
There is a tingling enveloping him, electrifying him, but there is no pain. He feels as if he might be just a ray of light, zipping through the universe. Is he still a man? He can't find his fingers and toes. "Peak-a-boo," his memories say.
But then he is wandering through the slums, and he's not sure how he got here but he knows he's walked this same path a million times before. There's the door of the dilapidated church, windows shattered and holes in the walls. It looks about to collapse, but he knows it won't. He fell through the ceiling once, and it didn't collapse then.
A waning whimper stops him three steps from the door and he cocks his head to the sound. Again, it comes again. He follows it to the body of a small boy, propped up against a pile of debris at the church's side. The boy's mouth opens to cry again and big, blue, glazed eyes look up at him, lost and wandering.
Cloud reaches out to him, but touches the flesh of a woman instead of a boy. Her touch warms him immediately, makes him feel full and whole. Tifa. They are standing outside a closed door—Marlene and Denzel's room, facing each other, his hand on her shoulder. "Shh…" he says. He glances conspiratorially toward the door. "They're arguing about something…"
"Cloud! I'm not going to listen in on them!"
He shifts his weight. The floor squeals. He freezes. "Why not?" he whispers finally, when the continued rhythm of Marlene and Denzel's voices assures him that they haven't heard him.
"Because it's not right Cloud!" She raises a challenging eyebrow.
He sighs, and rolls his eyes, muttering "Spoil-sport" before opening the door and leading the way into the room. "Okay kids, time for bed," he says as he steps inside, Tifa punching him playfully in the back as she follows.
"Cloud? What will happen when you and Tifa get married?" The question is out of Marlene's mouth like an explosion. It's obvious this is what they were arguing about.
Cloud glances at Tifa, trying to keep the expression on his face G-rated. Her eyes chide his silently for the things she must know he is thinking as she plays with the engagement ring on her finger. When she looks away blushing, he can't help but feel victorious.
"Yeah, are you gonna be doing all that yucky kissing stuff all the time?" Denzel is saying.
"They already do that Denzel! Besides, I think it's sweet. Right, Tifa?"
Amusement plays at the corners of Tifa's mouth. "Yes Marlene, it's very sweet." Her eyes touch Cloud's again and he feels his heart jump. He smiles too.
"I guess we'll finally be a real family," Cloud says. "Well, sorta… Barrett's still your dad."
Marlene scrunches her nose. "Then what are we now if we're not a family yet?"
"That's a good point, Marlene. We're a family now too. Cloud and I will just be… closer… so we can take care of the two of you better."
Marlene giggles. "You know what that means, right Denzel?" She slides her mischievous gaze toward the boy.
He blinks, as if woken from a dream. "Huh? …sorry…"
"Denzel!" she admonishes.
He looks suddenly at Cloud and Tifa. "Hey… that means we'll be together forever, right? You won't leave…"
For Cloud, it's as if the atmosphere in the room has suddenly doubled in density. That fear he sees in Denzel's expression, hears in his words… he's felt it before. When Zack left. When Aeris left. "No Denzel, we're not going to leave." What else can he really say? He would protect this boy with his life. He glances around the room. He would protect any one of them with his life.
"How far will you go, Cloud?"
"What?" Cloud blinks and suddenly he's not at the Seventh Heaven with Tifa and the kids. He's in a grassy field, the sky dark with the wearing out of the day and a gentle wind throwing strands of hair across his eyes. In front of him, Zack is standing with his hands on his hips, head tilted back to look at the cloud-embellished sky, eyes squinted like he's trying to see something far away.
"There was this riddle she told me once at sunset." He starts slowly, and Cloud isn't sure if Zack is talking to him or the first stars that are barely visible above. "How did it go… I'm thinking of something that everyone is born with but not everyone gets to keep. Some people have more than one and some people make new ones but it can't be made alone. And those that realize its value will protect it to the death… Yeah, that was it." He pauses, and with flat tones finally says, "She died the next day."
Cloud tries to wait for what he thinks must be the appropriate, respectful time in a situation like this before asking, "What's the answer?"
"I haven't a clue."
But as the sky and the grass and even Zack fade to black, and as he feels his own body floating away—far beyond even where the stars dare to venture—it comes to him. The answer to the riddle.
He says it to the nothingness with lips he isn't sure he still possesses and feels a sort of satisfaction with things.
"The answer is family."
Then Cloud Strife ceases to exist.
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A/N: Okay, so it's been like five billion years since I posted a chapter for this story. You all have every right to be very, very annoyed with me. Life just got really busy for a while.
Anyway, I'm back to working on this. We're really only about three chapters from the finish. There's one more action bit left in the next chapter though, so stay tuned. It isn't over yet!
Thanks to all of you who have reviewed in the past and thanks for continuing to read. I truly appreciate any feedback.
Also thanks to the Genesis Awards for short-listing this story in the Action category. Whether this story wins or not, it's still an honor.
Until next time, happy reading all!