Tifa was awakened by the rhythmic vibration of her phone. For one wild moment, she hoped it was Cloud, before remembering where he was, and why, and how she'd been forcibly escorted out of the WRO headquarters for the second time. She fumbled for it on the desk by her bed, hearing Yuffie mutter in her sleep downstairs. She managed to flip it open before missing the call, which was fortunate, because there wasn't any number displaying.
"Can you talk?" said the voice on the other end. Reno. She hadn't expected news back so soon.
"How did you get this number?"
"This used to be my job, remember? I don't wanna be seen with you. Can you talk?"
"Yeah. Can we meet in person? I dunno if someone's listening."
"Sure, and bring the money."
"I'm sorry?" said Tifa, her voice tinged with suspicion.
"Things came up after you got kicked out. I used that to my advantage. I've got results."
"Already."
"Yeah. You better not back out on this shit now. Especially now that I've got this - well... just show up."
Tifa sighed heavily. "...When and where?"
"Six hours. How about the last place we all saw you guys? For old time's sake."
"...Understood. See you there." She closed the phone and set it back down on the table, unable to resist a glance over her shoulder.
"The last place they'd met" was probably Midgar. To be more accurate, it was the tunnels underneath Midgar, but those had long since collapsed in on themselves, killing everyone that had thought to take refuge on them.
Still, she would be entering the ruins. Tifa didn't intend to do so alone.
She jogged downstairs and crept into the back room, where she shook Yuffie awake.
"Reno called," she said in response to the indignant glare she got. "Wants to meet in person."
"Sounds like a trap," said Yuffie with a yawn. "You're going?"
"Yeah."
"And you want me to walk into a trap with you."
"That's the idea."
"...Yeah, alright."
Tifa took another deep breath before speaking the next part. "He says to bring the money."
"What - now? All of it?"
"That's what he says."
"I didn't think he'd be done this fast," said Yuffie. "I'm gonna have to stop to actually get that much. I don't usually carry thousands of gil around on me."
"Well, you'd better be quick about it," said Tifa. "We've got six hours, and I want to be there in five."
Tifa jogged back upstairs and began rummaging through her dresser. Eventually, she found what she was looking for: a set of old leather gloves, worn from many fights. She thought about looking for the brass knuckles too, but digging those out would take too long, and probably wouldn't help her if Reno decided to try and shoot her anyway. By the time she came back down, Yuffie was already ready to go, appearing unarmed apart from the large shuriken on her back, but Tifa knew better than to think that was the only weapon she had on her.
Between the two of them, Reno probably wouldn't be stupid enough to try anything. But still, you never knew.
One stop at an automated teller (in which Yuffie mysteriously managed to withdraw well over the twenty-five hundred gil daily limit and possibly well over thirty thousand gil as well) and five hours later, they found themselves waiting under a warped piece of sheet metal as a chilly breeze blew through the burnt out remains of Sector 5, making the whole city echo and groan for miles. Tifa shivered.
"You're early."
Tifa spun around to find Reno already approaching them from behind a chunk of concrete the size of a house, sporting a small, portable drink cooler and a nervous expression.
"So are you."
"Yeah, well... didn't wanna risk you guys ambushing me," said Reno. "You brought the money?"
"Right here," said Yuffie, patting the used shopping bag she was carrying. "Checked it for dye packs on the way over."
Tifa and Reno both gave her an odd look, but Tifa quickly turned her attention to the drink cooler. "...You brought beer?"
Reno shook his head. "Documents, and some other stuff. Cash first."
Tifa looked at Yuffie, who eventually nodded and handed over the bag. Reno peered in and prodded the contents experimentally.
"Damn. That - alright." Reno tied the handles together and pulled it over his arm, then set down the cooler inside their alcove. "After you guys were dragged out, Spikes lost his shit and tried to blow up the facility. Everyone was too busy making sure we were all still alive to pay much attention to anything, and that's when I swiped these."
He removed a small manilla folder containing a thin stack of papers from the cooler and handed it to Tifa, who began to look through them. Something stood out as unusual right away.
"...Most of these are old Shinra documents," she said, gesturing to the watermark stamped on a few of them. They looked to be in worse shape than the others, stained with mud and slightly singed in places.
Reno nodded. "The serial number means they got these from the science department in Midgar. Shinra's stuff on the Jenova Project."
Tifa flipped back to the front and began reading. She didn't understand most of it, but a certain familiar phrase caught her eye.
REUNION THEORY
One of Jenova's most fascinating properties is its capacity for regeneration. Inert and unbonded "cells" will, if permitted, merge back together into a single entity. The same behaviour can be observed on both a cellular and multicellular level. Organisms with infused genetic material will also attempt to merge, but will at minimum consciously or unconsciously congregate into the same spot. Jenova's proclivity for repairing itself is theorised to not just be a method of self-preservation, but potentially part of its reproductive cycle.
Tifa continued reading. There wasn't anything listed here that she didn't already know know - and a few things that she knew were wrong from firsthand experience. But then...
She found a hand-scribbled note that looked much more recent next to one of the paragraphs about wanderlust and fugue states and reported aural hallucinations, and flipped to the addendum it listed. These documents were from the WRO, and appeared to be some sort of staff notice.
The patient has confirmed a persistent pull towards Reunion, in excess of two years in duration following the eradication of geostigma. This is troubling, to say the least. If it is assumed Jenova has a measure of intelligence, it must therefore understand that the majority of its body is destroyed, save for the patient. If we assume this same intelligence is capable of grasping simple cause-and-effect, it must understand that there are no other instances of itself apart from the patient, and therefore nothing to initiate Reunion with. As expected, the patient has not experienced any particular strong pull towards any known location or entity, and yet Reunion still remains a compulsion nearing a biological imperative.
A lack of human-like intelligence is not a lack of intelligence altogether. Jenova believes there to be another part of itself in existence at an unknown location substantial enough to compel the patient to carry out the next phase of its life cycle following infection. Jenova could have the capacity to be incorrect, or perhaps said imperative is simply an involuntary fact of its biology. We may very well be wrong. But we cannot take the slightest chance that we may be right. We as a species would not survive a third encounter.
The patient is to remain in custody until the secondary host or hosts are discovered, until we can confirm the existence or nonexistence of any such entities, or until a method of eradicating Jenova's presence from any host is discovered. All staff coming into contact with the patient are to be screened for any unusual cellular activity, as well as undergo psychiatric evaluation, conducted by Dr. Grant. Under no circumstances is the patient to be allowed contact with any other living entity not in the preapproved list of medical staff until further notice.
LIST OF SUSPECTED HOSTS
*Lockhart, Tifa
**Age: 24
**DOB: 03 May 5737
**Height: 166 cm
**Weight: 72 kg
**Blood type: B - Rh (D) negative
**Method of contact: Subject has been in an intimate relationship with the patient for four years. Contamination also could have occurred in Nibelheim from 5738-5752 prior to Jenova's relocation to Midgar.
Infection status: NEGATIVE, PENDING REEVALUATION. Donated eggs tested and confirmed free of contamination. May request follow-up blood test in six months time.
*Price, Charles
**Age: 41
**DOB: 16 March 5720
**Height: 190 cm
**Weight: 85 kg
**Blood type: A - Rh (D) negative
**Method of contact: Subject was assaulted by the patient on 20 April 5760. Subject received small lacerations on the lower jaw and received damage to tooth enamel during the altercation (see photo: A #29-MO).
Infection status: NEGATIVE. Blood sample taken prior to patient's internment.
Tifa looked up to see Yuffie reading over her shoulder.
"So they're just waiting this out," said Yuffie. "It's a greater good type thing. They think there's another."
"But there's not," objected Tifa. "I made sure of it. Cloud said he couldn't feel anyone."
"So then why is Jenova still bitching at him?" interjected Reno. "Don't get me wrong, he's fuckin' crazy, but he's unstable-crazy, not voices-crazy. If he says the voices in his head are telling him to burn his house down and kill everyone in it, shit, I believe him."
Tifa shot him a look. "Well, there's nothing else here. I don't know what else to say. If anyone would know, it'd be Cloud."
Reno shrugged. "That's for you to work out. That's not all I brought, anyway. You didn't think I brought this thing for fun, did you?" he said, nudging the drink cooler with his foot.
Yuffie leaned over it and made a face. "Oh, gross. What are we supposed to do with that?"
"Do with what?" asked Tifa, already regretting asking. She rolled up the papers and stuffed them into her jacket, then knelt to look into the cooler. There were two things in it. One of those things was ice. The other was several bags and vials of blood. They were only labelled by serial number, but it didn't take a genius to figure out whose it was.
Tifa looked up at Reno, who had his arms crossed looking smug. "You're welcome, by the way. They had three times that. I dunno if they'll notice it missing right away, though. Spike made a pretty big mess of things over there."
Tifa closed the cooler and slung the strap over her shoulder. "That's a fair question, though. What are we supposed to do with this?"
"Better you guys have it than them, right?" said Reno. "You fought Jenova, right? You musta had someone doing some kinda tech work for you. Give it them."
"Jessie isn't that kind of technician," said Tifa. "She works with computers."
"What about the other guy? The angry one."
"Cid's an aeronaut," said Yuffie.
"Well... shit. I mean, I can't take it back. Throw it out on your own time, I guess."
She rolled her eyes, but did not give the blood back. In a morbid sort of way, it was nice having it there. Like a lock of hair, but... fluids.
Tifa sighed. "Well... thanks. For... for your help."
Reno raised an eyebrow. "Damn. Never thought I'd live to see the day."
Yuffie cleared her throat. "C'mon, let's go. It's bad luck to stand around in a mass grave." She turned on her heels and began to walk back. Tifa heard Reno do the same behind her.
"So... who do you think it is?" asked Yuffie after several minutes of silence.
"...Who do I think what is?" replied Tifa, as though she didn't know.
"Could be anyone. Cloud's probably beat up a lot of folks. I saw him bite a guy once. Maybe that's -"
"There isn't anyone else," said Tifa firmly.
"How do you know?"
Tifa said nothing.
"Awful lot of blood they took," said Yuffie. "Do you think he's okay?"
"He sounded okay on the phone," said Tifa. "Didn't look beat up or anything. I don't think they took it all at once, either."
"...If they can't find anyone else infected," said Yuffie, staring at the cooler, "do you think they'd just kill him?"
Tifa shrugged. It was a possibility, and one she didn't really want to think about too hard at the moment.
"This isn't right," said Yuffie after a moment.
"Well, that's why we're -"
"No," said Yuffie. "Look around. We've been here."
Tifa looked around them and found they were approaching the bent piece of sheet metal and a large chunk of concrete.
She blinked. "...How did we get here? We've been walking in a straight line."
"Reno probably did something," said Yuffie. "Confusion spell or something. I don't get lost."
"Well..." Tifa turned around and pointed herself back towards Edge's skyline, "let's just keep a better eye on where we're going."
They continued walking in silence for another two minutes, until ahead of her she saw the same piece of bent sheet metal. Tifa turned to look at Yuffie, who was already getting her shuriken out.
"He did something. Had to have. I bet he wasn't satisfied with the money he got already. Thinks we have more."
"If we were hexed it would've worn off by now," said Tifa, though she too tensed, preparing for an ambush. "He isn't that... do you hear that?"
The wind around them wasn't much stronger than a gentle breeze, but the deep low sound of a howling gale was steadily growing louder.
"We need to get out of the open," said Tifa. Yuffie nodded and led her under the sheet metal into an old burnt out train compartment. As she ducked inside, she could have sworn that across the sky she she saw...
Well, she didn't know what she saw. But her eyes didn't want to focus on it, and Tifa was grateful for that, because she never wanted to look at it again.
"The fuck was that?" yelled Yuffie. Tifa shook her head, retreating further into the car, stumbling over something on the floor. "What -" It seemed softer than broken glass or steel piping.
Yuffie made a noise of revulsion, pointing at the thing Tifa had tripped over, prompting Tifa herself to look at what it was.
It was a corpse. A fresh one, from the look of things. Part of it looked as though they'd been torn apart by some sort of animal, gashes opened on the skin, its stomach torn with the contents spilling forth, though what organs were what was nearly impossible to discern given how badly ripped apart it all was. But everything above was simply... missing? No, it was all still here. Not all of the splatter surrounding the corpse was blood. There were bits of bone and skin and other unmentionable things mixed into the slurry. It was as though someone had run it through a food processor.
"Tifa... look."
Tifa forced herself to look where Yuffie was pointing, and saw the shredded remains of a plastic shopping bag and several bits of paper.
She gagged and grabbed Yuffie's hand, dragging them out of the train car. Whatever had gotten to Reno might very well still be there.
Something was moving around them. Shadows, perhaps, or reflections, but from what? They seemed even less solid than that, and Tifa couldn't manage to look at them for more than an instant, as though her brain didn't seem to want to see them at all. The reverberating howling sound was nearly deafening. There was a persistent scratching and tapping beneath it all. It had been sweltering earlier today, and yet Tifa could see her breath as fog in front of her.
The world seemed to warp in front of them, as something moved through it, like someone sneaking behind a projector screen. It froze for a moment, and then rushed towards them.
There was a loud bang as Yuffie let loose a blast of magic, ripping the earth from underneath them in a column of destruction. The distortion passed through it as though it wasn't even there.
"RUN!" yelled Tifa. Yuffie didn't need to be told twice, and was already sprinting past Tifa, grabbing her arm on the way. The thing, whatever it was, didn't seem to be hampered by the actual environment as it warped and rippled its way through whatever it was "behind" towards them.
Tifa gathered the magic she could feel pooling in the back of her head as her adrenaline kicked in, and released it in a crackle of gold light as the world seemed to slow around them. Haste - not a spell Tifa cared for at the best of times, because you had to wait for it to wear off to interact with anything not under its influence properly. She would deal with the headaches later, if she was still alive.
She'd been running with Yuffie for a few seconds (or maybe a few minutes) before she risked a look over her shoulder. The distortion didn't seem to be behind them anymore. In fact, it didn't seem to be anywhere. Had she imagined it?
Yuffie staggered to a halt in front of her, leaning on a parked truck. They'd made it back to Edge at some point. They were fairly well into the city, too. Perhaps she hadn't noticed in the panic.
"What the fuck," panted Yuffie, "what the fuck, what the fuck, what the fuck -"
"We've gotta tell Reeve," said Tifa, collapsing onto a nearby bench. "We've gotta -"
"Reeve's been fired, remember?" said Yuffie. "And we can't tell the WRO right now. Or the cops, or the feds, or anyone."
"Whatever that thing was, it smeared Reno over the floor like fucking peanut butter," snapped Tifa. "And it's still out there. We've gotta tell someone."
"And you're still a suspect in - in whatever it is they're looking for," Yuffie fired back. "How well do you think that's gonna go over, now that you're seeing... whatever that was?"
"You saw it too! You can vouch for me."
"They'll just think I've been fucking Cloud too or something," said Yuffie. "They said they had the room bugged for a while. They know we've hung out in the same bed, at least. All of us have. We can't say anything. I mean, maybe Nanaki could, unless they think Nanaki's been - "
Tifa glowered at her. "So - what, we just do nothing?"
"Not nothing. You've got those papers, right?"
Tifa shrugged the portable cooler off her shoulder and put the papers back in it for safekeeping. "Yeah, I guess. And a bunch of blood. He could've stolen a card key, at least..."
It still didn't feel like anything. Maybe none of it ever would.
"Let's... let's get this stuff in a real freezer," said Tifa. "Look over the papers properly."
"You got a plan?" asked Yuffie.
"Not really. But maybe we can talk to someone who might."
"You've been quiet."
Aeris looked up from the QFT model she'd been working on (with "magic" as a contributing factor - god, none of this was ever getting published) at Angeal, who had been watching her over his own work apparently for some time.
"Just nervous, I guess," said Aeris. "There's been so many unaccounted for variables so far as it is. A lot could go wrong." That was one of the reasons she was worried, at least.
Angeal looked at her contemplatively. "Even so, it must be worth it, right? The chance to see another world..."
"I suppose so..."
"You 'suppose'?"
She shook her head. "It's... I've wanted this forever, but - well, look at how everything has gone so far. We made first contact and got our ambassador arrested. What's the next step in this kind of thing?"
"Spreading a disease to the indigenous population, usually," said Angeal dryly.
"Yes, that. I'm expecting that next."
"The sooner you get yourself in the sixth ring, the more we can reduce that risk," said Angeal.
"I'm worried about Cloud," said Aeris. "He's... not doing very well." Even saying that was probably too much.
"You'll be able to check up on him in person soon," said Angeal. "But I suggest you tell him you'll be gone for a while as soon as possible. The higher ups want results. If we keep getting them those results, we get funding to keep in contact with your friend."
Aeris blinked. "I'm a little surprised you care."
Angeal stared back at her, looking affronted. "Why in the world would you think that?"
She shrugged. Angeal set down the papers he'd been working on. "Aeris, do you know why I signed onto this project?"
"It was an honour for your country and it looked nice on your retainer?"
"You don't seem to think very highly of me. Can I ask why?"
"Look at what we're doing," she snapped. "Look at what we've caused. You don't think that -"
"Aeris, I joined this project to learn and discover for its own sake. That, in and of itself, is a goal worth working towards. Not so long ago, I believe you felt the same way."
"Yes, and instead we -"
"And we succeeded," he interrupted. "We've met someone from another world. We've learned from them, built connections with them. We've worked our entire lives for something like this."
Aeris shifted uncomfortably.
"Aeris, you spoke with an alien and he told you about birthday presents - a stupid meaningless gesture surrounding an arbitrary date, by anyone's measure with no reason to exist, and yet he told you about them." There was a smile in his voice now. "I couldn't be prouder. I only wish it was me."
"Does it mean anything if you're required to do it in the first place?" asked Aeris.
"I don't know," said Angeal. "What do you think?"
Aeris said nothing. She didn't like not knowing the answers to questions.
"...Speaking of which, I know you've been censoring your transcripts," said Angeal after another moment. "There's clearly parts missing. I'd like to know why."
"...Ethical reasons," said Aeris tiredly. "He's been giving me information that isn't really useful to the project. I don't need to publish every last detail of his life."
"Are you sure that's why?" he asked. Aeris rolled her eyes. She was being rhetorical-question'd-for-learning-purposes again. She thought she'd be done with that after finishing her education.
"I'm just making sure you don't get in too deep," said Angeal. "Once you're over there, there will be more people than Cloud involved in all this."
You don't know the half of it, thought Aeris, tiredly retrieving her pencil. She prodded at the paper, trying to remember what step of the process they'd been on.
"I also joined the project because of you," said Angeal after another moment of silence.
Aeris looked up at him, puzzled.
"I taught for years at Bonn," he said. "Twenty years."
"You left tenure for this?" asked Aeris.
Angeal nodded. "I thought it would be the sort of thing I would enjoy. It was something I knew about, and I decided, well... why not share that with someone. And when I finally landed that coveted position, it was all so... pointless." He sighed. "The higher you get into the field, the more everyone just takes it all for granted. Why even teach if no want really wants to learn?
"Math is a beautiful, complicated thing. You know this, I'm sure. It's the language of the universe - patterns everywhere, that you can find in stars and planets and our own DNA. Speaking the same language, using the same patterns. Knowing that every time you familiarise yourself with a pattern, discover another - you're unlocking the universe. Understanding something grand and huge and..."
There was an intense look in Angeal's eyes now, and while Aeris did not look away, she felt as though she were seeing something she was not meant to.
"I hadn't seen anyone want to really... to know that, in years. And then there was you - the paper you pushed, telling the world about the patterns you'd found, about how far you wanted to reach. It was the drive to discover, to learn, just because the world was worth learning and discovering about. I think you used to know that," he said. "I think you still know that. That's why I joined this project."
Aeris looked back down at the paper she'd been working on, then back up at Angeal, who was still steadily watching her.
"This may have gotten... a little out of hand, but it would be a great tragedy for you to lose the one thing making it all worth it in the first place."
"...I'll be sure to keep that in mind," said Aeris, after a moment.
After all, this was her project. It would be a shame to miss out on it all.
She picked her pencil back up, but instead Angeal held out his hand.
"I'll take over from here. Go talk to him. Anything we can learn is another thing we can use to keep this all from going sideways. Fair and Lazard will probably be finished prepping the room by the time you wake up."
It was Tseng that helped her into the tank and Cissnei that had her count down this time, rather than Lazard and Zack. She was distracted enough by the differences to not notice right away that she seemed to be falling for a lot longer than usual. Cloud (and there was only one of them this time, in whatever sort of strange shared hallucination this was) actually turned to look at her, and as she reached out to catch him, he seemed to melt into her skin. She recoiled in disgust, and rolled straight off the bed.
She sat up and began to rub her head, then paused when she felt something gritty in her hands. Dirt? Had she made it outside?
A quick look around confirmed she was still in the cell, but the walls and floor and ceiling were blackened and scorched. Her right arm felt sore, and this time it didn't seem to be her fault. A quick examination revealed it was badly burned, a large blister covering most of the back of her forearm.
Cloud seemed to be working with her this time as she sifted through her consciousness, actually managing to respond to her "hello" on his own in about ten minutes.
Didn't think you'd actually come back, he said, as he got to his feet using the wall to support himself. She... he... the legs that she was currently using felt sore from disuse.
Why's that?
Cloud said nothing, and went about getting a drink from the tap in his room. Every step he took seemed to be as though he were dragging his legs through a swamp.
Gonna try to get out soon, said Cloud.
Do you have a plan?
A little. Been hard to think. Mother is loud.
...Who?
He paused, blinking very slowly at the sink. Aeris caught a glimpse of herself in the mirror, and noticed his eyes looked fairly bloodshot. Jenova. She's loud.
He made it back over to the bed and lay back down on it with his back to the window, panting entirely too much for someone in his shape.
Been trying to wake up on my own, though. It's hard when it's this empty in here. There's a lot of stuff in the air now, too... head hurts sometimes.
They're cutting off your oxygen, Aeris realised with a burst of anger. They've -
That tracks, said Cloud, tittering slightly. Set a big fire in here earlier. Probably want to make it a little harder. He picked at a bit of fuzz on the mattress cover. Grew up in the mountains, though. Think I'm doing okay so far...
Aeris, who hadn't been deprived of oxygen for several hours prior and was noticing the contrast more or less immediately, begged to differ. You need to get out of here.
Yeah. Been thinkin' about the door.
Think you could blow it up?
Yeah. Would blow me up too, though. Could do it. Maybe I'd go to sleep. Go outside the cell when I'm asleep, then when I'm awake, I'll wake up, and be outside where I went when I was asleep.
The oxygen deprivation was clearly getting to both of them, because Aeris could have sworn that made sense to her for a split second. She would have asked Cloud to clarify, but suddenly her vision swam, and she realised Cloud had passed out.
She forced herself to sit up, uncertain of what she was allowed to do in someone else's body while they were unconscious. She stared at their arm for a moment, and then pinched it hard.
He didn't rouse right away, but he seemed to have noticed something, so she pinched him again for good measure.
I don't think you should be falling asleep right now, said Aeris.
Yeah. Don't got a lot of brain cells to work with in the first place anymore. Didn't you hear? He tittered again. Aeris found herself believing it to be extremely funny. The effect was unnerving.
The door. You were talking about the door.
Yeah. Big vault type door. Electronic lock.
Do you know the code?
No. The panel is on the other side. Can't see it.
Are there card keys you can steal?
Dunno. Jessie would know how to fake a card key. I miss Jessie...
Cloud froze. There was something - I wanted to think...
About card keys?
No, about Jessie. She's important.
Aeris waited for him to think of what the something was, and realised that they had passed out again at some point. Her time was limited in more ways than one.
Cloud, I came here to tell you I won't be visiting you again.
...What?
I have to leave for a while.
What did I do?
You didn't do anything. I have to -
It's like Jessie. I'm a shit boyfriend.
I - well, that's not really -
She's really nice. I shoulda been nicer. She brings me old stuff to take apart...
Cloud, listen to me. I have to go so I can come here myself soon. You won't hear from me for about a week.
Oh... can you visit Jessie for me? And Barret, I didn't get to talk to him any...
Which one is Barret?
Big metal arm gun gun arm gun... it's really complicated. Arm and a gun. Can't do computer things, though. That's what Jessie does. And Reeve. She brings me old machines, though... She writes words into 'em sometimes, too. Machines, not paper...
He was a goner like this. She thought about making an excuse to postpone her visit for just a little while longer, but it would be hard to explain to anyone - even Zack, who was sort of in on what she was doing. She needed to come here in person, for Cloud's sake and the project's. But leaving him in this state...
Oh, said Cloud.
Oh, what? said Aeris, dreading his answer already.
I bet I could open that door. I bet I could do it.
How do you figure?
Repurposed room in a hurry. Electric Shinra Power Code Lock Company. Magnet. Really strong one... sweepers.
What?
Maintenance panel. Big metal coil… magnetic. Did the same thing with an old sweeper in the bar when you visited.
...You're telling me some big expensive vault door is just gonna cave to some magnet? Surely there would be something computerised in place to stop that… then Aeris realised she wasn't sure if she'd actually seen a modern PC since coming here, or even so much as a smartphone. Maybe there wasn't.
Not just any magnet. Need a powerful one. Left mine at home… could you get it for me?
In about a week, maybe, said Aeris. But you know, once I leave, I won't be able to come back and visit you until then.
...Maybe let's just talk for a while, then.
What about?
...What's it like when you do this? asked Cloud. What am I like to you?
I'm not really sure what you mean. It's a little like falling asleep. Then I dream about being nowhere for a little bit, and then I'm you.
Do you like being me?
Aeris hesitated. The question made her uncomfortable for a number of reasons.
Well... you're, ah... you're easy enough to move around in, I suppose.
That's why they do it. They like being me.
Everything was swimming. There was something deeply unsettling about this whole conversation, but the oxygen deprivation was making it hard to fix her thoughts on exactly what.
Who's they?
Jenova and Sephiroth. I was good to use.
I mean - I'm not - I'm not really you. You know that, right? Just using a set of electrical signals you've got kicking around your head.
Who are the others?
...What -
When you come here, there are others watching me. Are they your friends?
...Who?
They're watching me when you show up. They want in, too.
Something still wasn't right, but this time it was a bit more obvious as to why.
...What do they look like? asked Aeris.
Don't know. Can't look at them. Deep places...
Do you feel like you're floating off somewhere? Does anything try to grab you? She could feel her breath quickening, though whether it was a response to the thin air or not, she wasn't sure.
Little bit, said Cloud. Like right now. No others, though. Just feels nice. Mother's always touching.
Cloud?
I'm glad you like being me. If anyone else needs to be me, I'm glad it's you.
Aeris would have objected, but their vision had blurred too much, and she realised, as she felt herself slowly sinking through the empty place, that they had passed out again.
She quickly made note of the hallucinations that apparently he had also been experiencing and requested the signal be cut off. She was pulled out of the tank, leaning heavily on Zack and Lazard, the latter of whom was already hovering over her anxiously to check for signs of brain damage from oxygen deprivation. It was physically impossible, but at this point it didn't hurt to be safe, she supposed.
"You were right," she said to Angeal. "We've gotta hurry."
Mother was here.
"Here" was a bit of a nebulous concept at present. He didn't feel as though he was in any particular place. He went nowhere, where Mother was everywhere. Inside him, singing in his blood, and outside him, curling around and into him as he fell deeper and deeper, and everywhere there was to possibly be. Mother had always been here.
He could see Her now, in all Her glory, and She called to him, urging him towards Her. His body was useless to Her now, slowly failing and no longer able to spread. She was calling him back. He obligingly opened himself to Her, ready at last to be whole. Ready for Reunion.
Something caught and tugged that wasn't him or Mother. There were Other Things, weren't there? Ones outside and away from Mother. Small things. Vessels. Ways in and out, to grow and to hide and to one day leave the way She had found the vessels in the first place.
Cloud wasn't part of Mother. Not yet. He wanted to be, but there was something he was forgetting. It was important.
He tried to shut himself away from Mother, forgetting that She already was him. She bit into him more deeply, trying to make him stay. It was agony to pull away, and he knew it would be more agonising still to continue to be apart. One day he would come back to Her. But he had to go. He had to leave. He needed to leave here. He needed out -
Cloud opened his eyes and found himself lying on his cot in the cell. Mother still hummed all around him, far louder than She had ever been before, so he knew he couldn't really be here. None of it felt properly real, the way he figured most humans must feel. He knew he was still just a part of Mother, even here.
He had been thinking about something important. Springs? Perhaps. Solenoids. He'd been thinking about solenoids, and magnets, and...
The door. He was trapped here, wasn't he? Mother needed to be - no, he needed out. Mother needed him to get out. Mother needed him back in. He needed out. He needed a magnet to open the door. The one in the speaker would be far too weak. What else in here could be used as a magnet that they wouldn't immediately confiscate?
The head of the tap and his showerhead were made of metal. But even if they didn't gas him for ripping it out of the wall again, he didn't really have anything to magnetise it with.
The gas... it had been a while since he had taken a breath, hadn't it? He must still be asleep after all.
The minute he thought about it, he realised how starved for air his lungs were. He took a deep breath and felt his thoughts begin to blur. He rolled over on the bed to face the wall and dug his nails into his arm. He had to stay him. Aeris wasn't coming back, and he didn't know if he'd wake up again, and if he was out for too long they might have a chance to hide the window again, or move it, or install cameras.
The mattress creaked as he turned, and he frowned. He shifted his weight again. Springs. There were springs in the mattress. Maybe steel or copper?
He needed metal from somewhere else, that they wouldn't immediately take away. Maybe the mattress had some larger pieces in it? Maybe not. Even if it did, he didn't have anything he could cut them off with. The only other metal he had on him were his earrings, which weren't big enough anyway, and...
Well.
He had his materials at least.
He risked another few seconds steeling himself for what needed to be done. You've had worse. You'll be fine. You've had way worse. You've had worse. It's fine. It's... fuck it.
He slowly curled up further in on himself with his back to the window where he knew they were watching from, and pulled his arms in until his hand was touching the mattress. He carefully began to force his fingers against the fabric until he'd worked a small hole into it, which he then began to widen. It was slow work - any sudden movements from him just tearing the cloth open would have them switching on the gas in a second, and he couldn't really exert himself too much with how little oxygen there was in the air. He was surprised he'd lasted as long as he had, and figured he owed much of his progress so far to Mother.
Once he'd opened up a small enough hole, he slowly began to insert is hand into it, probing for something firm. He found it almost immediately - now it was just a matter of getting a big enough piece of coil out without anyone noticing. He pinched a bit of coil between his fingers and gradually began to bend it back and forth. He'd already spent half an hour picking at the mattress, but he couldn't afford to rush things. He couldn't afford to wait. He couldn't spend another minute here in this cell, slowly losing himself to four white walls again.
The coil took longer to free up. Cloud had to admit to himself eventually that he was probably stalling a little on purpose, because as much as he'd had worse, he definitely wasn't looking forward to the next part.
It wasn't very good metal, he knew, and was specifically created for him to not be able to do the thing he was going to do with it. He'd have to dump a lot of magic into the whole mess for it to work in the first place. But still... this was the only shot he had.
So it was with only another second of hesitation that Cloud snaked his improvised weapon - a jagged bit of broken bed coil - up to his previously-broken collarbone and dug it into his own flesh.
He managed not to scream. He really had had worse. Still, this was nothing compared to the next part.
He parted skin, and then fat, and then muscle, and then he felt what he'd been looking for: the metal plate they'd screwed into his bones to keep them in place. He must have been bleeding all over the bed by now. They would notice soon, blind spot or not. He had only seconds.
He really wished he had a better idea than this. He probably should've asked Aeris or something.
Cloud managed to get a grip on the tip of long metal plate still screwed into his collarbone and yanked.
They would have heard him scream that time, and if they hadn't, they would have heard the crunching noise of his bones cracking as the screws ripped free. All due credit to the truck (and Hojo, he supposed begrudgingly), the metal yielded before his own body did, for the most part. He took a deep breath, held it, and tumbled out of bed, stumbling towards the door.
He wound the wire around the plate, grasping either end of the wire sticking out from his hand, and began to channel a lightning spell into it, frantically rubbing it against where he thought the other (probably significantly less bloody) magnetic coil in the door might also be. He couldn't hold his breath for very long - the pain in his shoulder was excruciating, and the amount of magic he was pouring into his improvised electromagnet in an attempt to magnetise a piece of surgical steel was making his head swim, and the wires were heating up, burning his hand badly, and gods knew what they'd do to him after this failed, probably operate on him to make sure he didn't have anymore metal left anywhere in his body -
A soft click echoed from the door. Cloud threw his weight into it, and it swung forward.
He barely had time to register the sweetness of the fresh air he was breathing before he heard the sound of an alarm being tripped, now deafeningly loud with the door no longer muffling it, and the sound of a firearm being cocked.
Cloud lunged in the direction of the noise, and heard something crunch as the unfortunate man he'd pinned impacted against the wall. He whipped around and took stock of the room he was in.
There was a desk in front of his observation window, with a telephone and a microphone sitting on it. There was an older man, perhaps in his sixties, sitting in front of it that was gaping at him in disbelief. Cloud rounded on him and lifted him up by the neck, his face twisted into a snarl from pain and fury. This, he could do. For the first time in who knew how long, he felt awake.
"Which way's the exit?" he spat.
"Hallway - two lefts -" the man choked out. Even like this, he did in fact have a very nice voice.
"Liar," said Cloud, pulling him closer. Truth be told, he had no idea if the man was lying, but if he was, this would probably be the point he found out.
"No - I don't know past - third..."
Cloud reluctantly loosened his grip on the man's throat and lowered him to the floor, though another part of him wanted to see him continue to gasp for air like he'd been doing for two weeks.
"Where are they keeping my sword?" he pressed.
"I don't know. Somewhere on the first floor. Maybe in the back," said the man. "Mr. Strife, you're making a mistake. We really are here to help you -"
"Save it," he growled, beginning to tighten his grip again.
"You can't kill me," said the man quickly. "You can't kill anyone here."
"Yeah I can. I won't if I don't have to, but..."
"You can't," said the man again. "Wanted murderers can't go home to their families. Not the way you want to. I was hired to rehabilitate you. I can't do that if you're locked up for good, or in a chemically-induced coma."
Cloud seethed at the man. A part of him - a very large, dominant, hungry part of him, the part that was howling in his ears, pushing him onwards, wanted to hurt the man very badly, the way he had been hurt.
But unlike the men from Shinra, there wasn't exactly any room to deny his involvement in this mess. Cloud really did hate it when people he didn't like were right about things.
"Thanks for the tip," said Cloud, before forcing his head into a wall and letting go, watching as he crumpled to the ground, unconscious.
He could already hear footsteps down the hall rapidly approaching him. He cast a quick healing spell on his shoulder - not enough to seal the wound completely, like anyone that was actually good at this sort of thing should have been able to do, but enough to allow him some mobility again for the fight to come.
He tensed, listening to the movement outside. Fifty, maybe? He could handle fifty.
He couldn't stay here. He needed to get his sword and get out. It was probably in a closet somewhere. He could try to sniff it out, but it might not still be carrying his scent after this long. He should have asked for directions.
The noise outside the door snapped him out of his train of thought. Time to go.
Cloud smashed through the metal door and barrelled into the wall of guards, sending two flying. He didn't look back as the sound of gunfire erupted behind him, already streaking down the hallway and around the corner. He skidded to a halt at the first left. He needed to hide somewhere. It would have been easy enough to just kill everyone. With that not being an option, it was only a matter of time before someone got enough tranquiliser darts into him while he was wandering around the facility aimlessly, looking for the Fusion Swords.
He slowed to a jog, realising he'd probably passed several potential second lefts he could have taken, and looked up at the ceiling. Cameras. The building was probably full of them. It'd be harder to hide with them everywhere.
This was the kind of problem solving he could deal with. Find something, break it, move on.
It was with an immense amount of satisfaction that he blasted a hole in the ceiling above him, the iridescent blue flames crackling chaotically through the hallway with a high-pitched sound that made his teeth buzz before sputtering out just as quickly, the wave he'd unleashed shapeless and unfocused with no blade to channel the magic through. He hopped up through the new entrance he'd made, readying another wave as bits of drywall rained down onto the floor below him. The WRO probably didn't have as many floors as the Shinra tower.
Five floors later had him seeing stars briefly. He wasn't used to casting innate magic with no conduit but his own arm. He'd lost a lot of blood, had been drugged for weeks, partially suffocated until minutes ago, and hadn't done any serious casting in years. Jenova was still seeping into his thoughts at every turn, and it was all he could do to remember that he was Cloud, that he wasn't safe here, and that he couldn't afford to slip under again.
He pulled himself up through the last hole and saw his quarry several metres away. The fuse box and the backup generator. It had gotten colder since he'd last been outside, and a stiff breeze cooled the blood soaked into his scrubs, making him shiver. Was summer ending soon? Another thing he'd lost because of all this: the bright sun, the heavy storms, the way the rooms were always just a little too warm, reminding him how close the outdoors really were.
He kept his distance from them, even as he called forth a lightning spell. A real one, not the little jolts he and Jessie and Reeve sometimes used for their work. He couldn't build this much energy long, being this high up and the most electrically charged thing present, apart from the generator, and he'd learned from experience that a cloudless day did not necessarily mean safety.
All magic (except for summoning) lay on a spectrum between precision and control, and nowhere was Black magic more exemplified than lightning. Lack of control of a lightning spell could have him dead in an instant by his own hand, or rendered useless as the electricity arced off into another target altogether. It was a raw force of nature that now began to bead at his fingertips, and by now Cloud had mastered guiding it, shaping it, and bending it to his own will. He raised a hand, keeping his arm relaxed, to serve as a conduit, and then he opened the floodgates, allowing his own magic and the lightning's own inclination toward the path of least resistance to carry it towards the metal cylinder he'd come all this way to reach, scorching the air around him with an audible buzzing noise.
The generator exploded in a shower of sparks and metal shrapnel, deafening him even as the electricity continued to pour into the fuse box, blowing it into bits as well . He'd unloaded that sort of charge into adult behemoths before, and so it was probably a bit overkill to destroy the fuse box completely. They were lucky he was stopping there.
He hopped back down through the hole and into a now darkened hallway. Now he had a bit more time, at least. The cameras would probably be down now, and the hallways were pitch black, at least for most people. As everyone here seemed to know, Cloud wasn't most people.
He crept through the halls silently, looking for a stairwell to the lower floors with the tiny speck of light he'd created in his palm, no bigger than the head of a pin but just big enough for him to see by. Perfectly controlled. Steady for hours. Ma always said he made the best lights -
He drew a sharp gasp as the light flickered and went out. His thoughts jumbled into another indistinct mess again. Mother sang loudly in the dark.
He shook his head and continued walking. Had to stay here. Needed to be here.
The hallways were strangely empty. Perhaps they figured he'd already jumped off the roof and had made a run for it. They'd have definitely heard the explosion he'd created... perhaps they were investigating that.
He turned another corner and into the path of another pair of guards. He turned on his heel and sprinted the other direction down the hall. He could hear them plodding along behind him in the dark as a wave of cold washed over him. However fast they were, he was faster, and he risked a look over his shoulder as he heard the sound cut off behind him. Had they stopped?
Cloud turned around fully at the sight that greeted him instead and frowned. There were no guards behind him. And no hallway, for that matter. Nothing but an unmarked wall with a framed photo of a lake on it, which was rocking slightly as though it had been disturbed by something.
He stopped running. Even smashing through the plaster, he would have felt something. Perhaps he'd gotten turned around in the dark? But it wasn't even really that dark in here, at least not for him. He tapped the wall experimentally, wondering if it was perhaps a hologram, and was met with a solid surface.
He turned and left the wall to find another stairwell. He could think about it later. He needed to get his sword and get out.
The more stairs he went down, the more he could hear something moving. Smelled human. Really, so did everything in Edge, but there were a lot of them there in person. He ran another weak healing spell through his shoulder, just in case, and went down the last flight of stairs.
The minute he opened the door to the ground floor, a blinding sense of agony flooded his body and he felt his muscles lock up. He fell to the ground, dimly registering the drawn taser pointed at him, before another fired, and another.
He lay there, twitching and in pain, as he saw what must have been perhaps every officer in Edge clustered around him, between him and the back office. Of course, they must have known he'd go back for his sword. He was an idiot. He should have left it.
He screamed as another set of darts sank into his skin, spreading another fifty thousand volts throughout his body. Someone approached him out of the corner of his eye with a set of handcuffs. He couldn't go back. Not like this. The conversation they'd cut short would be the last time he'd ever get to speak to his family. He'd never wake up again. The pain was making it hard to focus, and now Mother was seeping into his thoughts as the eyes loomed around him, the world fading at the edges. Mother would take him before these people ever got the chance. He frantically pulled away, from the cops, from Mother, from everything trying to rip him to pieces as Mother tugged as hard as She could, the depth looming all around him, and he dug his fingers into the tile beneath him as it crunched in his grip, squeezing his eyes shut, things reaching, pulling, tugging, and he pulled away, because he couldn't go, not like this -
Nobody touched him. Five seconds passed. Mother - Jenova was still buzzing beneath his thoughts, but She was... outside him, somehow. Nobody put their hands on him and dragged him away to a cell. Puzzled, Cloud opened his eyes.
The guards were gone, as were the darts from the tasers that had been embedded in his skin. He was in too much pain to move just yet, but the more he looked, the more he was certain he wasn't hallucinating. There was just nobody here.
He uneasily pushed himself into a sitting position. He couldn't hear anyone in the floors above him. The lights were back on, and presumably the cameras with them, but nobody was rushing to his position.
He slowly got to his feet. He could see a door leading to the receptionist counter, and a door leading to a room behind it. The first door was unlocked, but the second door wasn't, so he simply put his hand through the wood and opened it from the other side. Nobody came running to stop him.
He found his sword and harness propped up against a set of lockers, and found his boots and wallet in one of them. He was tempted to take his cell phone as well, but any sort of tracking device they'd put in it would be a lot harder to find than ones they could have put on his non-electronic belongings. He couldn't find his clothes. At least he finally had something covering his feet. Shoes were another thing he'd missed, and at least he still had these scrubs. As always, clothes were a privilege, not a right. And certainly not a given.
He felt himself relax as he tightened the last buckle on his harness and slipped his sword into it. Safe. He was safe now. There was nothing left in the world that could hurt him now that he couldn't hurt back first. Nobody stopped him as he walked out the front door, either. The cool night air caressed his face, the buzz of insects in the late summer air welcoming him back into the world, as it had four and a half years ago.
He sprinted away from the facility, trying to keep out of the open. It wasn't until ten minutes later that he began to see other people, though nearly everyone was indoors. He spotted a couple cops at a distance as well, and shrank back into the shadows of the alleyways. There were a lot of them out this time. He'd need to keep out of sight until...
Until what? If they were competent enough to try and cut him off downstairs, they'd almost definitely stationed a post outside Seventh Heaven by now. And even if they hadn't, it was only a matter of time before they looked for him there.
Where could he go? Everyone in his family would be watched. They'd probably put a bounty on his head, and he didn't have any glasses - the minute anyone saw his freak eyes, they'd know who he was.
What had he even escaped for in the first place? He would never be able to see his family again. He was never -
"What are you doing here?"
He hadn't been paying attention, and now he had walked directly into a group of children occupying one of the alleyways of Edge. One of them, a boy of perhaps ten years old, had a knife, and was pointing it at him with a sour look on his face. His other hand appeared to be missing - melted off nearly to the elbow. Cloud sighed heavily. They probably weren't a threat to him, but he was tired, and his shoulder hurt, and now that the adrenaline was wearing off there were a lot of drugs still in his system. Things would get messy far too quickly.
"...Just passing through. You were here first. I can go another way if it's closed here."
He was being stared at. It could have been because of his blood-drenched shirt, or his eyes. Probably both.
"...He's Shinra," said the boy. "It's Shinra's fault everything is like this."
"No, I'm not - I just -"
"Is that why all the cops are out tonight? They're looking for a Shinra murderer," said a second boy. "We oughta tell them you're here. That explosion earlier - that was you, wasn't it?"
"Wait," said a third voice. Cloud turned his head a bit to see a girl approaching him from the crowd that had formed behind him. "I think I know this guy."
A hand grabbed his left arm, holding it up for the crowd to inspect before he defensively jerked away.
"So you do have mako eyes. I always was a little curious, you know?"
Cloud blinked, actually looking at the girl's face now. "Aya?"
Aya crossed her arms. "You were really rude, you know. Just running off like that."
"He went into the rain," said the first boy, lowering the knife and approaching him to take a closer look at his arm. "Yours was higher up, looks like," he noted.
"What's with the sword?" said the second boy. "Aya, how do you know him?"
"Guys, this is Rabbit Guy," said Aya, as though this were obvious. A chorus of understanding "ohh"s went through the crowd, and a few more went a bit closer to have a better look at him, or his bloodied shoulder, or his eyes. He didn't mind it as much - it seemed to be out of curiosity more than contempt or fear.
...He did mind a little.
"Can you, er...?" Cloud shuffled backwards uncomfortably. The children pulled back, but the second boy spoke up.
"Thanks for the meat," he said. "I figured you died of the stigma ages ago."
"...Don't mention it," said Cloud. Truth be told, he'd assumed the same of the kids he'd been feeding. He knew this definitely wasn't all of them.
"My name's Marco," said the second boy. Then he pointed to the first boy that had been missing a hand. "That's Reuv."
"I always figured you were made up," said Reuv. "Adults didn't get the stigma, I thought."
Cloud shrugged. "Most of 'em can't."
"Why are you bleeding?" asked another kid further back in the crowd.
"I..." Cloud was suddenly reminded of what was going on just outside the alleys and why he was standing here getting chills from blood loss.
"I need somewhere to hide for a few hours," said Cloud. "I'm -"
"Geez, did you kill someone?" asked Aya.
"No, this is mine," he said, gesturing to the blood. "I... I got stabbed."
"Can I see?"
"Who stabbed you?"
"Does it hurt?"
"I got stabbed once in the leg!"
"Is the knife still in it?"
Cloud knelt and pulled his shirt down off his shoulder to allow them to look. It was already healing shut well enough, but if he didn't clean it off properly soon enough it could wind up infected.
The passing sound of a car had him suddenly jerking back away from the crowd and crouching behind a dumpster, barely daring to breathe.
"I'm kind of in a hurry," said Cloud, when it had passed. "Sorry. Do any of you have any friends that might have medical supplies?"
"Yeah, but it's across the city by the ruins," said Reuv. "That's a really long way to walk. Oh! But we could take you to one of our suppliers."
"'Suppliers'?"
"Yeah," said Marco. "Nice people willing to help out. I dunno how she'd feel about the mako eyes, but she's your best bet right now."
Cloud mulled it over as another car rumbled past their location. He could get turned in if she already knew he was wanted, but staying here or going back to Seventh Heaven would get him caught anyway."Lead the way," he said eventually.
Cloud had been a little apprehensive about allowing children to lead him anywhere. As it turned out, though, most of the kids were former slum-dwellers. Staying hidden to avoid monsters and worse would have been second nature to any of them from a young age. They seemed to know the city better than he did, at any rate.
He noticed Aya staring at him as they walked. He turned to look at her. "What?"
"Your eyes. You were with Shinra"
Cloud sighed heavily. "...Yeah. I was, kind of."
Aya frowned. "Everybody says it's Shinra's fault the world is like this. For making the Planet angry, I mean."
Cloud nodded tiredly. "They're not wrong. Shinra did a lot of terrible things."
"Why did you join them, then? You don't seem stupid. Or bad."
Cloud didn't answer right away. It was difficult to get himself to actually focus on the question. He didn't know where he was going. He didn't know what he would do when he got there. He didn't know where he would go afterwards. It felt strange, knowing Aya was the last familiar face he'd see for a while. She continued looking up at him expectantly.
"...I thought it was the right thing to do," said Cloud. "And I thought I could impress people by showing everyone how great I was, doing this thing that we all thought was so great. Everyone did, back then. Or at least... maybe I did. Like I said, I do a lot of stupid stuff." He shrugged. He could feel a lot of eyes on him now, and internally he wilted a bit. Just one more companionship bridge he'd been forced to burn tonight.
"We thought we were making people safer. It wasn't until it was too late that I realised I wasn't making anything better at all. But then I was a part of Shinra. And that's all Shinra lets you be." He looked down at the scrubs he was wearing, from when they'd taken his clothes. "Doesn't matter if you realise it's wrong. Doesn't matter if you stop. Doesn't even matter if you leave. You'll always be the person who that happened to, and who did those things."
It wasn't fair.
"Well... you act more like Rabbit Guy," said Aya after a long moment.
"Sure doesn't feel like it," said Cloud.
"How would you know?" she replied.
Cloud shook his head. Going into how he was afraid all the time wasn't something he wanted to talk about with these people. He walked in silence for several more moments, keeping his face lowered.
"I like the colour," one of the other girls - younger, perhaps around Marlene's age - said, peering inquisitively at his eyes. "It's pretty. And I like lizards, too."
"...Thanks," said Cloud, not certain how to respond. He'd always thought it'd be neat to have mako eyes when he was younger. Another stupid opinion that drew him to Soldier.
"We're here," said Marco, pointing to the end of an alley. "It's 403. Just go really quick. We can try going across town if she sells you out."
The number sounded familiar for some reason. Cloud nodded. "Thank you for all of this," he said. As usual, it sounded lame and inadequate. "If you ever need anything... I mean, I'm good at fixing stuff, maybe I can..." he shuffled nervously. "Thank you."
"Good luck!" said Aya, flashing him a thumbs up. Cloud gave her one in return, then crept out of the alleyway and back onto the streets, making a beeline for the cluster of houses. With a small jolt, he realised he recognised where he was.
He approached the door of the house and knocked on it, swallowing nervously. He already knew she'd turn him in. This was more trouble than it was worth for her to put up with. Maybe he should just -
"Good god, you vanish for a month and you still haven't gotten a..."
Ms. Suk trailed off in shock, staring at Cloud, who was too exhausted to come up with any sort of story. The blood on his shirt seemed to have dried, mostly.
"I - I need help," he said. "Reuv said you could - I need to -"
"Clearly," said Ms. Suk, and dragged him inside, slamming the door shut. "Your shirt's a mess. Come with me, I'll get a towel. Make an old woman like me manage the stairs at this time of night..."
"I can -"
"Don't you go tracking blood all over my house," she said sharply, leading him up the stairs. "There's a bed in the guest room. Go there and stay put."
Cloud shuffled down the hallway until he found a room that seemed less used than the others and gingerly lay down on the bed.
He felt something in his shoulders unknot as he relaxed into the comforter. The blankets were thick and warm and a deep red colour, decorated with pictures of bright pink flowers, and his head sank into the pillows behind him, but the best part was the smell - it smelled like... anything. It smelled like Ms. Suk, and old cooking projects and remnants of perfume and laundry detergent and an unfamiliar person that wasn't Ms. Suk and a little bit like cigarette smoke. After weeks of seeing white and smelling nothing, it was the best bed Cloud had ever laid in in his life. It was all he could do not to fall asleep right then and there.
Ms. Suk returned to the spare room, drawing the curtains shut, then set down a bottle of rubbing alcohol and a handful of cotton balls and gauze on the bedside table. Cloud hesitated to remove his shirt.
"Really, now. You think I'd have no problem with repeatedly inviting a Soldier back into my home, but I'm going to be scared off by whatever you've got under there."
"I dunno, it's..." Cloud blinked. "You - wait, it doesn't bother - you -"
"Knew?" she tutted. "After spending two months talking to you, and the only think you've bothered hiding those eyes of yours behind was a pair of sunglasses that you refused to take off? And here I thought you were bright. 'Medical condition'. Pah! The shirt, dear."
Cloud sat there for a moment as his vision blurred slightly. He rubbed the moisture off on his sleeve and pulled his shirt off with some difficulty.
He was so tired.
He felt Ms. Suk staring at the tapestry of scars covering nearly every inch of skin. Some stab wounds. Some burns. Some from gunshots. The large one, covering a good portion of his chest and left arm, from the stigma.
Most, he knew, from various surgeries.
She said nothing, merely shaking her head silently and proceeding to dab at the gash on his shoulder with an alcohol-soaked cotton ball. Cloud didn't react. He'd had worse.
"...I can't stay here," he said. "They'll come find me. Run more tests. I have to go."
"Anywhere you'd planned to reach?" she said.
"Just... away, I guess. I don't know." He rubbed a bit more at his eyes, which wouldn't stop leaking. "I didn't really think it out this far."
"May I ask what it is you did in the first place?" inquired Ms. Suk as she began to apply a strip of gauze.
"They think I'm crazy. And sick. They - they want to cure me, I think. But they can't, and they'll just lock me up again, and - "
"If you're ill, you really should let them -"
"No," said Cloud, then inwardly cringed as he heard his voice crack. "No. I can't go back. I can't go back to that. I - I have to go. I can't go back. Not again. Never again."
Ms. Suk tied off the gauze and pursed her lips. "Well, at the very least get your head right before you make up your mind. I'll get us dinner."
Cloud clutched his left wrist to himself, gently stroking it as Ms. Suk left the room and busied herself in the kitchen downstairs. You're safe here, that spot reminded him, and everything will work out one day, and you're wanted.
She brought back up some sort of spicy soup with little dumplings in it, as well as tea. She spoke to him the whole time he ate about how she'd made it - really, you could throw just about anything into a pot and make good soup. Cloud didn't really understand a lot of the terms she used, but he listened to every word. The soup was warm, the blankets were soft, the tea was calming and familiar. Yuffie had made him tea like this once. Three years ago, when he'd stayed with her in Wutai.
"I wasn't in Soldier," he said after a moment, "if that's why you're helping me."
Ms. Suk looked up over her own soup at him appraisingly.
"Why do you like Shinra?" he finally asked. "You're from Wutai. I don't... I don't get it."
"Quite a lot of things improved under them," said Ms. Suk. "I was alive in the days before mako energy, before commercialised healing, or artificial materia, before any of that sort of thing. You can't imagine how it was before that, I'm sure - it really did make life much easier for everyone. Wutai forfeited its chance to enter the new society they created as equals because of its pride, but in the end, things improved for everyone, wouldn't you say so?"
Cloud thought of the villages he'd been ordered to raze, and the crowds of slum-dwellers he'd fired into, and the language he'd grown up with that he barely even remembered anymore, and the needles in the dark. He regretted asking already, and merely shrugged.
"Shinra did this to me," was all he said. Ms. Suk did not reply.
She cleared their bowls away after he'd finished eating, but left a glass of water. She said something else to him as she left the room. He might've said something back. It was all buried under a layer of tea and warmth and blanket now.
He awoke either a few hours or an entire day later. It was still night out. The blanket on top of him was warm and quite heavy, and he was tempted to let himself fall back asleep before remembering that he was here on borrowed time. He reluctantly crawled back out from under the covers, feeling his foot nudge against something as he did.
There was a worn-looking bag sitting on the end of the bed, along with a folded set of clothes and an old sleeping bag tied next to it. Opening the bag revealed another set of clothes, a saucepan, a small box containing a sewing needle and some thread, and a reusable water bottle.
He changed into the clothes provided, though he kept the scrub pants in case he needed the fabric for something. They smelled like whoever's room this was, and they felt a bit big on him; but they were warm and dry, and the pants were made of the sort of the light, sturdy fabric he'd usually worn for work. Feeling a little greedy as usual, he slipped the pack and the sleeping bag on over his shoulder after buckling on his sword and harness, and crept downstairs to look for Ms. Suk.
She was sitting at the kitchen table with a cup of coffee, reading a book, and did not look up right away when he walked in.
"Shouldn't you be on your way?" she said bluntly. "No telling what could happen if they find out you're here."
"Yeah, but... I mean..." He swallowed. "I'm sorry I cancelled my last appointment with you. I..."
"What, is that all? Well, if you want to apologise to me for the inconvenience, you can leave before you get me arrested. And take those clothes with you," she said brusquely. "Like I need anymore clutter around this place. Shame they don't fit - you really should eat more, you know. Boys your age just burn it right off. I miss being able to do that, sixty years ago..."
Cloud was at a loss for words. "I -" He dug into his pockets, opening his wallet, and offered her the eighty gil he still had in it. It wasn't much, but -
She smacked his hand away sharply. "Do I look like a charity case to you? After everything I've done, you still have the gall to insult me."
Ms. Suk stood up and folded her newspaper, heading past her living room and to the back door of her house. "Prove you've still got a working head on your shoulders. You won't have much time. Get going."
"...Why are you doing this?" he said quietly.
Ms. Suk yanked his head down and planted a kiss on top of his head, then forced his shoulders back and straightened his collar. "You're a good boy, Cloud. Try and keep out of trouble, will you? Might be a bit late for that, though."
Cloud swallowed the hot lump in his throat and nodded. "S - see you soon, then," he said, even though he didn't really understand any of it.
He forced his arms around her anyway, though. It was the least he could do. He received a firm squeeze in return. "Here's hoping. Da-chao be with you."
"You too," he said softly. He took a deep breath, and then let himself out the back door, hearing it slowly creak closed behind him with a note of finality.
He still kept to the back alleys as he made his way out of the city, leaping from catwalks to rooftops back into the alleys as soon as he began noticing the helicopters swarming around some of the taller buildings. As long as he kept out of sight, there wasn't anyone that could keep up with him on foot if he really got going. Still, every soft tap the heels of his boots made as he nimbly vaulted from building to building had his heart hammering in his chest, certain that someone had heard. He thought about going back for Fenrir, then realised that it was at Seventh Heaven, which was already a non-option, and a pang went through him at the thought of leaving it behind. It was probably better this way.
At last, he reached the outskirts of the city, keeping out of sight under the remains of partially constructed overpasses, intended to one day connect whatever other cities might be build nearby. Until then, though, the only thing that awaited anyone leaving Edge was the Wastes - miles upon miles of barren land surrounding Midgar. A scar cut deep into the Planet itself. A reminder of what this place once was, and to an extent, what it would always be.
The terrain went on as far as the eye could see. There was an end to it, of course. Somewhere further out there. The sky was huge and empty. The wind tugged at his ill-fitting clothes, emphasising how much room there was in them that he wasn't filling. He felt painfully small.
It was into that vast, vacant cavity left in the world that Cloud forced himself to take the first step into, and then the second, and then another, and another, his body mechanically carrying him further and further away from his family, away from his life, away from Edge.
Alone.