Incident 25: Excuses
Cloud Strife had not lived an easy life. Though there was a time when he feared he would be an ordinary country boy forever, lately there were times when he wished he had remained a simple country boy. The illusionary Soldier First Class turned delivery boy, had seen many shocking things in his life. He saw a legendary hero become insane and burn down his home town, he watched as his long time crush endured hardship and got tangled up in his confusion, and he witnessed many dear friends pass on to the life stream.
All of those things were surprising and unnerving, many of those events even being classified as traumatic. But it all fell short of the pure shock that Cloud was feeling right now. He was in fact less surprised when he admitted he was the master of his own illusionary world in comparison to what he was seeing now.
"Ru... Rufus..." The name was pushed out with more effort that it should require. "Shinra..." Cloud's mako glowing eyes were wide, his jaw hanging open after uttering those two words. Did his eyes deceive him? Was this all a dream? Or could it be that Rufus was indeed the father, adoptive Cloud assumed, of three little boys who looked too much like Kadaj, Yazoo and Loz?
The three little boys looked at their big brother then back at their father. Finally, Kadaj, the leader for whom Yazoo and Loz were waiting to make a choice, nodded and went back to Rufus followed by his brothers. Cloud continued to stare, taking a moment to rub his eyes and shake his head, still having some difficulty believing that this wasn't a dream. Then, after the obligatory father and sons hug, Rufus glared at Cloud and at the Turks, before walking off with the remnants towards the helicopter. Tseng, Elena, Reno and Rude followed the young president turned unwilling father, leaving Cloud without a much needed explanation.
"Wait!" Cloud called after the group. "What's this about? Are those really the remnants of Sephiroth?" At this point he gripped his sword, "if so then..."
Elena looked at Cloud disapprovingly, "could you really? They're just children."
"But they're dangerous..." and yet so small that Cloud could hardly see them as a threat and had to convince himself they were, though they were indeed far more deadly than he imagined. "I don't know what you're up to, but I won't allow it."
"Alright, enough jokes," Rufus decided it was time to interfere. "Just because they look like the remnants doesn't mean they are."
"But they mentioned Sephiroth," Cloud argued.
"It's from that children's book," Rufus tried to explain.
Cloud had seen the aforementioned book back in Nibelheim years ago, when Sephiroth was still a legendary hero. It was one of those 'be good' educational books with pictures of 'big brother Sephiroth', the hero whom so many people admired. "That's not even being printed anymore, is it?" Cloud doubted they had Sephiroth's permission to print it in the first place anyway.
"I have a copy," Rufus replied. The remnants remained oblivious as to what was happening, assuming they should just ignore the grown up talk they didn't understand. Then Rufus made a shocking revelation, which was obviously a lie, but still made him shudder. "They are my children... they just look like their mother that's all."
End of Incident 25
Disclaimer, I don't own Final Fantasy VII.