Mount Nibel. The sky seemed to be leaning toward night, but then it was hard to tell here, where the air was muddy and a perennial haze of livid-gray ruled over everything.

Nibelheim was within the space of a thirty-minute hike, yet at this rate it would take all of an eternity to get there.

Red XIII was lying under the standing corpse of a deformed pine, paws folded in repose. Vincent had unsnapped his cape and begun to fieldstrip his rifle over it.

Cloud cast another forlorn glance at their PHS – no signal, same as the minute before. And the minute before that… and every other minute to pass within the last three hours.

He looked down at Cait Sith; he put the cat's grinning countenance upright and watched abjectly as it fell back into a lifeless slump.

"Still no word Reeve…"

"It would seem that way," Red noted unhappily. "And without him to record our findings, whatever truth we learn out here dies with us…

"Erm, figuratively speaking, that is."

"He could always control the toy from his mind," Vincent observed quietly. "To break contact like this, he'd have to be–"

"I know, I know... it's bad." Cloud leaned forward and sighed into his hands. "We'll give him another two hours. If he isn't back online by then, we plan our next move."

Red XIII did not disagree.

"Time to kill..." Vincent laid the Death Penalty over his knee and cocked back the charging handle. "Might as well make use of it then. Any final preparations?"

"Not really…"

"Hm." Vincent's seemed to shift from one inscrutable mood to another. "No mandatory search for our own special reason for fighting this time?"

Cloud wasn't sure if he liked where this conversation was going.

"My reason remains the same," he answered stiffly.

"Oh… well I found one."

"You did? What is it?"

"Mmm... I don't think so."

"Huh?"

"If you won't say what yours is, why should I?"

"I've told you before. My reason for fighting was– is a memory... and it's none of your concern."

"Then we'll leave it at that," Vincent ruled indifferently.

Cloud turned from the group and looked off into the bleak wasteland behind them. They'd come so far. Looking at the mountains' cruel peaks, he could almost measure on the horizon where Nibelheim fell.

Two hours.

He exhaled.

"You really want to know?

"I came to Midgar as a mercenary. Living from job to job, putting my life and others' on the line for a few lousy gil. I figured it was only a matter of time before I got killed, and I didn't really care."

He idly tapped a stone off the narrow mountain path with his foot.

"Sure enough, I hadn't been at it very long when I got blasted off a bridge, fifty something stories high. The fall should have killed me flat-out, no question. And still... for whatever reason, I woke up all the same."

He closed his eyes.

"More than anything, I remember how it felt to lie there, to be alive in that moment. The warmness. The stillness. The smell of plants. And the odds – of all the places I could have landed, of all the people in the city – that has to be more than chance, something like that's got to be destiny. It was like fate had pulled me from that reactor and given me better things to fight for, things I'd thought were gone forever, like flowers and… hope. And from there it only grew. The further we went, the more I believed this journey was ours... our time to make up for all the loss in the past and claim new happiness in the future…

"I was naive."

Cloud said nothing else. He stood there a while longer, contemplating the scene. At length he drew a cleansing breath and summoned himself back to his friends.

"So, Vincent… what's your reason?"

"Right..." He scratched his scalp and looked serious. "My reason for fighting is to one day find a reason."

Cloud's expression fell flat.

"Cheater…"

Red XIII, characteristically, was more interested in trying to understand: "Vincent, do you have an idea maybe of what your reason might be, when you do find it?"

"Hm..." He fingered his chin like a cellist tweaking a tuning-peg; his voice hummed with meditation from the pit of his collar. "I don't know. Something inspiring I guess. Whatever moves me, I don't care what it is."

"I'm pretty sure you have to care about something to be moved by it," said Red XIII.

"Caring... I tried that once."

"And were you moved?"

"Yeah. Worst moment of my life…"

.

.

.

A guy named Sal whistled an idle tune as he put in the last rivet joining the gatling gun to the wrist-template.

"All done, Mr. Wallace."

"Huh." Barret flexed his newly appended arm admiringly. "I don't s'pose you have any of my old shoes laying around in that armory of yours?"

"My navigator's about your size," Cid rasped warmly, entering the room. "I'm not above forcing him to work barefoot."

Tifa came in next, pushing Reeve in front of her on a wheelchair.

"You're lookin' better," Barret observed of the latter, now bundled up in a warm blanket and hooked up to an IV on casters.

"It's thanks to you I'm here at all," returned Reeve.

A soft and solemn shade touched Barret's features; he quickly looked the other way and shrugged his shoulders casually.

"Ah, well, you know how it is... Avalanche can't just leave one of its own behind, right?"

"One of..." Reeve lowered his head and smiled. "Yeah, right."

Pause.

"So, uh, any luck getting in touch with Cloud and the rest?"

"That's actually what we wanted to talk about," Tifa quietly chimed in, turning to Reeve.

"Mm, yes..." He bit his lip and nodded. "To put it in layman's terms, the scrambling signal back at that detention facility has got my mental controls all screwed up."

"You mean you can't reach 'em at all?"

"I'm working with some of Cid's crew to assemble a makeshift control station for Cait Sith using parts from my moogle and one of the ship's computers. But we don't know how long it will take, assuming we can get it to work at all…"

"Then that means we gotta hurry…"

"We're already on course for Nibelheim," said Cid.

Tifa nodded warily. " yeh, right... but we need to take Marlene somewhere safe first."

Barret expressed agreement.

"No problem, we'll be passing Rocket Town on the way. Only thing she'll have to worry about there is Shera coddling her to death."

"Thank you, Cid. I don't know what Cloud and the others are up against, but…" Tifa paused as if gripped by a terrifying premonition. "It could be dangerous just being near there right now…"

.

.

Darkness had fallen. Cloud, Vincent, and Red XIII were crouched in a ditch on the escarpment descending into the iron gates of Nibelheim.

"What the hell?"

"Something wrong?"

Cloud handed the binoculars to Vincent. "See for yourself."

The former Turk did a standard procedure scan of the area and soon spied a pair of armored men passing under a coal gas street lamp; the infrared visors glowing in their trioscopic helmets made them look like three-eyed demons.

"SOLDIER?"

"At one time, probably. A lot of cadets were out of a job after Shinra got de-fanged. Many of them turned mercenary to make ends meet. But why they'd be wearing the old uniforms is beyond me."

"Hm." Red XIII huddled low to the ground. "Perhaps they still entertain notions of the old empire."

"They or whoever is paying them," said Vincent.

"I can't say what these guys are doing here, but I'm guessing it has something to do with our arrival – and I can tell you right now there's gonna be a lot more than two of them."

"What do we now?" Red XIII asked somewhat apprehensively.

"We move in."

"Are you sure? We still don't know where Reeve is, and–"

"And it might be too late by the time we find out if we just sit here."

"Hmm. Indeed."

Just then, Cloud felt a cold metal claw perch on his shoulder.

Vincent looked to him with haunted eyes.

"That mansion… all the hellish memories it holds… are you ready to go back?"

Cloud became quiet. He lifted the buster sword over his head and locked it between his shoulder blades with a heavy click.

"Let's mosey."