24. Sacrifice

"I hope the weather is calm as you sail up your heavenly stream

Suspended clear in the sky are the words that we sing in our dreams."

From Let There Be Love by Oasis

He should have been less surprised to see Cait Sith again, but he was. Cait Sith was waiting for them at the edge of the town, fidgeting nervously and jumping up the moment he saw them.

"Well?" The cat said, all squeaky voice and excited, nervous fleeting laughter. "I told you I'd come again, didn't I?"

Cid grunted something unintelligible. Cloud stared at Cait Sith for a while, trying to spot some kind of a difference, but couldn't find any. This disturbed him, for some reason.

"Let's just go find that girl," Barret said, with more energy than the thin gray day warranted.

"I did some scouting for you," Cait Sith chipped in. "Up ahead a little bit, there's this abandoned house – by the time we get there it'll be late, so…"

"So, no camping. Thank God for that." Yuffie said. "Well, c'mon, let's go!" She bounded ahead of them, snatching Cait Sith's body on the way. The cat left a screeching mark on the air. The rest of them looked at Cloud (some trying to steal a glance, some being obvious about it) before they all walked on too. They were wondering if he would really follow, Cloud realized. He was wondering the same thing.

But then, as if he'd heard someone call his name, he started walking; a simple reaction; nothing to it, nothing in front of him but the backs of their heads in their varying colors, the tree-shadows starting to obscure them. Cloud followed.

The house that Cait Sith had found for them was very old, falling down, standing half-fallen already in the middle of the forest like it had seen the forest grow. Yuffie asked what the hell it was, but no one had the answer. All in all, it was quite absurd; a strange house, a strange forest, and Cloud felt like he was still dreaming. True, it had always been hard to tell.

"It's a place to stay overnight," Vincent said, when Yuffie asked for the third time. She rolled his eyes. He paid her no more attention, glancing out instead to the darkening sky. The City of the Ancients.

The City was surrounded by a forest, but it wasn't just any forest. The trees did not have leaves; they were raw and bare, the thick branches as smooth as stones. Sure, it was winter – but Cloud suspected that no leaves ever grew on these trees, even in summer. They stood erect; shielded and watched the place, like silent knights, emitting a strange white glow in the dark. The light was faint but somehow forbidding.

Barret complained a little about the dingy mattress, but everybody was too tired not to fall asleep anyway; they had been walking all day. There were not enough mattresses for everyone. Cloud sat himself down leaning on a wall near the door, ignoring someone's half-hearted protests. The night fell into silence soon enough. The forest and the white glowing trees fell silent too. Cloud pretended to be asleep, but could not sleep. He was afraid of sleep. No, he was afraid of dreams.

The silence was too absolute.

No insects, no night animals sneaking around; no wind, no rustling of leaves, just a lot of emptiness, the night brim-full of it. Cloud kept remembering his vision (his dream, his hallucination) of Aerith disappearing into the white light. He was too anxious to sleep.

He finally opened his eyes to the silence. Held his breath, checked that everybody else was asleep. Soft snoring, rustle of clothes, squeak of mattresses, but not enough to drown the silence. Cloud stood up, as quietly as he could, and walked out of the house.

He had a strange fever; a desperation of sorts, gripping him tightly. He briefly wondered if this was Sephiroth again, but something felt different. He started walking without really knowing why. And then – clashes in his head, in his chest, the wind started blowing quite suddenly. No leaves, but the branches shook and howled.

Then he knew. He didn't know how long he stood there (not that long), but when he looked back everyone else was outside too. Maybe they hadn't been sleeping either, Cloud thought absently.

"Cloud?" Tifa said, a little fearfully. Cloud shook his head. He didn't know what he was denying.

"I feel it."

"You feel what?"

"Aerith is here," Cloud said, the feeling growing more certain by the second. He did not know what to say if anyone asked him how. "And Sephiroth too. I feel them both."

Nobody asked.

The feeling was as clear as that moment he had the Black Materia in his hand; a taste of hell, residue of black smoke, only now there was something else, too. There was a white light – it was the only way he could describe it – fighting it back for him. It was Aerith, he knew, fighting for him.

"So – are they near?" Cid asked, chewing down on an unlit cigarette. None of them had any sleep in their limbs. Cloud glanced at the swaying white branches behind him, feeling the distance with that odd sense he seemed to have developed.

"Very near. I can almost – touch it."

"What I don't understand is –" Cid started to say, but Vincent cut him off.

"Then we must hurry," he said, in his authoritative voice.

"Yeah," Cloud said, taking a wobbly step towards the clash; the white, the black, the painful tear in his chest. All this felt like a dream – maybe it was a dream? Maybe he had died five years ago when he should have. Something wouldn't let him go, though. Some vague recollection – some premonition – and Cloud couldn't even breathe, but still he took another step forward.

Goodbye, and…

And, and. Aerith couldn't finish that sentence. The light was so white and blinding that she had to close her eyes.

She felt it gently touching her cheeks, showering down on her hair like a million broken pieces of a pearl. It was quite beautiful, but then she had always known it would be. Her senses had grown sharp, crystal, cutting, and everything – every beat of a pulse of everything around her, the wind, the trees, the air, the silent thought – touched her so strongly that she almost stumbled.

In this moment that she knew she would die, she felt life coursing through her veins and into the air. She felt the Planet. It was a singular feeling, almost like euphoria, and she thought she could just – end it there, on a happy note, when she saw his face through the light.

His pale face almost ghostly in the reflected white glow of the forest, pale blue eyes wide and unblinking, looking up at her with something close to horror. She knew he felt it too, though he probably did not understand it for what it was. She imagined what she would look to him right now; high up on the altar, kneeling and praying, for the miracle that was the white light. The light enveloped the altar. A narrow staircase, only wide enough for a single person, led to the last piece of space she would –

But then he did not know that. Aerith wished she could tell him, but she could not. She had to watch him climb up the stairs towards her. His footsteps rang clearly in her ears and she felt his being – his spirit – float in a deep blue glow. The others had remained down, but she could feel their colors too. Yellow, ash brown, magenta, lime green – all so beautiful.

She must not lose, though. She closed her eyes and did not open them again, though she longed to see his face once more. That black force; madness; blood-red and twisted black in a swirl of chaos. Sephiroth. It was trying to get to Cloud, and she had to stop him. He was so strong, though – Sephiroth pushed with relentless viciousness. Black crashed into blue, and Aerith had to watch the waters spinning, rippling, the blue becoming darker and darker until it was almost black.

Cloud saw Aerith and he pulled out his sword.

Something was telling – whispering – yelling at him; he was familiar with this feeling, this feeling that was pure, desperate need. He had felt it before and had lost to it. The fire burned, moved his own hands away from his dull panic. Perhaps it was himself that was yelling? But before he could decide, the word was lifting without resistance. His muscles were fluid like water. Aerith had her eyes closed, praying, immobile. Run away, Cloud screamed, but his voice only came out as a pathetic half-sound, not loud enough to be heard. He tried to stop his arms from swinging forward (tried to point it backwards, so the sharp ends would face his chest), but it was like he'd forgotten how to move, to breathe, even, and all he could do was watch with wide eyes and wait for the unavoidable. He knew what would happen; he had lost before, he would lose again.

A loud noise that broke everything to pieces: the ground, the trees, the air. And the fire was burning, no, that wasn't a strong enough word, it was devouring his flesh and bones and muscles and eyes. Kill her, it said, hissed into his ears. The force; Hell; Sephiroth. His arms, both hands grabbing the sword tightly, was falling down in a perfect arc. He wondered what the others were doing, if Vincent couldn't just – shoot him now – Yuffie – throw the shuriken – He could see the trajectory of his sword, clear as a picture. It would end too late for Aerith. It would cut through her.

They were too late. The bullet, if it was coming, would not get here in time. He thought he was screaming, but no sound came out; in fact, it was deadly silent. Not the crisp sound of fire burning, though it was burning, the whispers had ceased, and he thought he had finally gone deaf.

Then Aerith opened her eyes.

Cloud, her mouth formed the word, a smile that was more sadness than joy, and Cloud felt the sounds rushing back at him at once. The others yelling at him from below, the howling wind, his own ragged breaths, her soft gasp.

But no whispers. No flesh-burning fire. Cloud threw his entire body aside, a last attempt, a single moment of clarity that he didn't let go. He didn't care if he threw himself off the altar and fell into the water. He didn't care if he broke his neck in the fall, he just needed to get away from Aerith. His shoulder connected with the floor; he let go of the sword, an electrifying pain, his whole body – muscles, nerves, blood – on fire. But that wasn't important now. Aerith was staring at him with that half-smile, Aerith who was alive, and that was the only thing that mattered.

The friction of his shoulder against the altar scraped his skin, burned it off, but he had stopped just short of being flung off over the railing. He'd lived – and she'd lived – his sword was falling, bleeding the air. He gathered himself together and found the courage to look at her, to raise his head.

And found her bleeding.

There was still a smile on her lips, quivering slightly, and he realized that he'd tuned out the sounds again. There was a lot of yelling, a lot of wind, no sound from Aerith. A strange metal tip was protruding from her chest, stopping right in front of her still-clasped hands. Aerith looked up, confused, met his eyes. A thin line of red trickled down from her mouth.

"No," he said, to no one in particular. He looked down at his hands, and was confused when he found them empty. His sword… but his sword was thrown over…

It wasn't his sword; it was much thinner, much longer, slicing the veins and muscles in just the right place, subtle and fatal. He knew whose blade that was.

"Don't worry. Soon the girl will become a part of the Planet's energy," a voice said, over and inside his head. Cloud didn't need to look up to see who it was. He wondered how the world had gotten so quiet again, his deep, mellifluous voice the only thing that existed. He realized that his hands were all soaked in sticky red. He was trying to stop the bleeding but it was futile, because it wasn't, in fact, bleeding anymore. She was already dead.

"All that is left is to go North," said the voice. The thing. Hell. "The Promised Land waits for me, over the snowy fields."

Cloud felt like he was going to cry and laugh and get sick at the same time; it was very confusing, how Sephiroth's voice was perfectly conversational, how he was holding her so very tight (probably bruising her arms) and how everywhere it was just red. Metallic.

"Shut up," he managed, through painful gasps. He didn't know when he had stood up, but he was staring at Sephiroth's face now; a calm mask, with a hint of ironical amusement.

If you could tell the exact moment, he suddenly thought, an alien voice ringing inside his head. The exact moment that you went mad. What would it be?

Someone had asked this, a long time ago; Cloud wasn't sure who. Didn't matter, though, because the answer was now. And probably every time. Every time –

"What did you say?" Sephiroth asked, amused. "My, are you sad, Cloud? You're crying."

Acid. Rain. Screams of agony inside his head, death sitting in the corner and refusing to meet his eyes.

Sephiroth continued. "Stop acting, Cloud. You can't really be sad. You're just a puppet."

He laughed. Gathered up his long cloak, picked up his sword (drenched in her blood), and was gone. Cloud blinked, thought he should have answered, but didn't know how.

Something hit him hard. Some realization. Barret's hand. Screaming, crying, cursing, something made him fall to his knees and when he looked up, he was staring at Aerith's open eyes, the shimmering green reflecting all the dead. Yuffie suddenly appeared – or so it seemed – beside him, crawled on her knees towards Aerith and closed her eyes for her. Got blood on her pale arms. She was crying.

Cloud lifted her, some time later, and carried her to the lake. They had done their best to clean the blood off of her. He stood in the shallow bank, and let her go. The water glimmered in pure white, reflecting the glowing trees surrounding it. It was not normal water; they all watched mutely as the water seemed to claim her body for itself, the swirling brown hair.

The air was considerably heavier when they arrived again at the derelict house where they'd slept earlier. The sun was rising, but the air was still blue. Cloud thought it might cut, the air, how cold and shrill it was.

They were all very quiet; robbed of words. Cloud hesitated a little before he spoke, but he had to say something. He drew up a breath, white fog forming in the air in front of his mouth.

"Hey, I have something to say."

Their heads all turned; tired, eyes swollen, disbelieving and angry. Cloud hesitated again. Their faces all looked alien, shrouded in the blue dawn.

"You know what happened up there," he said, and shook his head at Tifa who was about to interrupt. "I thought I came here to settle things with Sephiroth, under my… Under some illusion of free will."

"But you didn't kill her, lad," Cid said, puffing out smoke that covered his face. "He did."

"Yes, Cloud, you fought it off. We all saw it," quipped Cait Sith, his attempt at cheerfulness falling dead and flat and almost eerie.

"But I almost didn't," Cloud said, taking another gulp of breath. "There's something in me – a part of me – that I don't understand, that somehow Sephiroth seems to be controlling. Something inside me," he considered, and amended, "Someone inside me that isn't really me."

They were all silent, watching intently. Now for the difficult part.

"So maybe it's wise I quit this journey, but… but I'm going. And I'm asking you to…"

"We'll come with you," Yuffie said, nodding firmly. She was crouched beside Nanaki, who purred in agreement.

"Is that what you were going to ask?" Tifa said, smiling a little. There were dark circles under her eyes, but the dim blue light of the dawn made them look like ceremonial paint, almost, something sacred.

"'Cause ye didn't really need to," Barret said, grumbling. "Thought we settled this already at Gongaga?"

"So what's the plan, fearless leader?" Yuffie said, smiling wide.

Cloud paused, looked at their faces, couldn't find what he was looking for. Finally he nodded, feeling pathetic and overwhelmed and also desperately relieved.

"Aerith was trying to do something with the white light," he said slowly, his breath making puffs of white in the air. "But we don't know what it is. Guess we'll never know."

"So what? What do we do?" Cid asked.

"I think there's only one thing we can do," Cloud said, what he'd been thinking for hours. "We go after Sephiroth. We stop him before he uses the Black Materia."

"You mean kill him?" Barret said, growling dangerously.

"Which way?" Vincent asked.

"North," Cloud said, remembering what Sephiroth had said. "Over a snowy field."

The sun was beginning to rise; the dawn wasn't so blue anymore, but a paler shade of gray. Cloud led the way and they all followed him, the absence heavy and silent, but they walked on.