Chapter 24: Gast And Ifalna

Once they were back out of the water, shivering in the cold and in their own misery, they seemed to have lost their will to push forward. Cloud could feel it looking around at them. They were lost, shocked by the death of one of their own. Every day of this journey they'd all joined in, every moment of it they faced danger and knew the time might come when one or more of them would pass. Yet, the suddenness with which Aerith had been stolen from them and the pure evil of Sephiroth seemed to shut them down. They stood together but apart, shoulders slumped and eyes locked firmly on their feet.

Because of me, Cloud thought.

"Everyone, listen to me," he called out, perhaps a little too loudly. "I'm Cloud, ex-Soldier, born in Nibelheim. I came to settle the score with Sephiroth. It was my choice to pursue him. At least, I thought it was."

"Cloud?" Tifa asked.

"I'll be honest," he pressed on. "I'm afraid of myself. There's a part of me that I don't understand. That part that made me give the black materia to Sephiroth. That part made me strike out at one of my friends." He turned away from them, to avoid their eyes. "If I hadn't been stopped, it might have been me that cut Aerith down. There's something inside of me. Something I can't explain. Something that is me, but not really me. That's why I had thought it'd be better if I quit this journey altogether, before I did something terrible."

"You're not coming with us?" Barret asked.

"No, I am," Cloud said firmly. "Sephiroth destroyed my home five years ago, killed Aerith today, and is now trying to destroy the planet. I'll never forgive him for what he's done. I have to go on." He turned back to the others then, so that they could see the determination he hoped was plain in his eyes. "Given what we all just went through, knowing what we all now know, I have to ask you all something. I have to ask you again if you really want to follow me. I think this is something I'm supposed to do, but I also think that I can't do it without all of you. I want to do good and make up for what's happened, but I need your help. I need you to save me from doing something terrible."

There was a brief moment of silence before Cid stepped forward.

"You damned idiot," he smirked. "We were always coming with you."

"That's right," Tifa said, wiping at her eyes. "This is our journey, too."

"And I'll be damned if I let you save the planet on your own," Barret nodded.

"I can't go back to my people without doing everything possible to protect the planet," Nanaki mewed.

"And Sephiroth has to pay for taking Aerith from us," Yuffie said, more seriously than Cloud had ever seen her speak.

"We all have sins for which we must atone," Vincent said darkly, something beastly in his eyes. "We come with you."

Cloud looked at them all, saw the resolve upon their faces, and nodded. "I don't know what Aerith had planned to do to save the planet from meteor. I guess now we'll never know. But we still have a chance. We have to get that black materia back before Sephiroth uses it."

"Great," Barret growled. "So where are we going next?"

"North," Cloud said. "Sephiroth said he's heading north. There's a small town he's passing through on his way."

"How do you know all this?" Tifa asked, biting her lip.

"I…" Cloud started. "I don't know how to explain it. I can just feel it inside me, where he's going."

The others gave him a funny look, but didn't ask for further explanation. They left immediately, saying goodbye to the City of the Ancients and Aerith's final resting place.

(BREAK)

They headed north. Fortunately, because of the mountains nearby and the harshness of the cold around them, there was little option in how to continue. A single path had been cut into the snow, clear as it snaked through icey peaks and through the occasional cave. When they finally reached something of a flatland, caked in deep crunchy snow, they could only proceed further north.

And just as twin mountain ranges on either side of them began to narrow and close in, and just as Cloud was beginning to fear that they were heading towards nothing, they saw smoke rising in the distance. Soon after, as the sun began its descent, they saw the soft glow of habitation and made straight for it. A small handpainted wooden sign punctuated their arrival at the tiny little village of Winter.

Charming shops formed a circle, as though the very structures themselves were huddling together for warmth. Yet, despite the chilly surroundings, the snow-covered paths around the shops were filled with people. Some were adults making snowmen with their children. Others had sleds or skis or snowboards and were slipping their way slowly down hills. Others were simply standing around and talking, the same way folks in Midgar or Gongaga did, except they were wrapped in fur-lined parkas.

"Can we please get out of this damned cold?" Cid growled.

Cloud turned and seemed to notice for the first time how poorly most of them were dressed for this kind of weather. Cid was okay in his pilot's jumpsuit and his Soldier uniform was built for all climates. Vincent was wrapped up in his cloak and didn't seem to be shivering too much. Even Nanaki didn't seem terribly uncomfortable within his thick coat of fur. But Barret and the girls were clearly cold, the former in his torn military fatigues and the women mostly in shorts and light shirts. Tifa looked particularly uncomfortable in her short black skirt and white tanktop. They'd managed to keep warm during the trip through a liberal use of fire materia, but if they wanted to continue up north they were going to need some gear.

Cloud walked over to one of the parents building a snowman and tapped him on the shoulder. "Which of the shops has gear for traveling north?"

"You're going north?" the man said, wrinkling his nose. "Why? Not cold enough for you here?"

"We're seeing the sights," Cloud said evenly.

The man looked at the group skeptically but shrugged and pointed to a shop in the distance. "You can get supplies there. They've got everything from clothes and climbing equipment to skis and snowboards, which you'll need if you want to head north from here."

"We have to snowboard?"

The man nodded. "There's a bit of a valley directly north of town, which will take you to the Gaea Cliffs. There's a lodge there for climbers, but it's going to take you at least four hours to get there. The only thing north of them is the Great Glacier."

Cloud thanked him and they made for the shop. The people working there were busy assisting a surprising number of customers, clearly tourists from other parts of the world. Most were buying snowboards or skis, or else hunkering down at a nearby bar and talking with one another or staring up at a glowing television screen. Cloud decided that Winter was very much like Costa Del Sol. A resort town, it had a rather pleasant atmosphere that seemed a tad too forced.

Tifa dug into their remaining gil to get them each outfitted with snowpants, parkas, boots, and boards. A young man offered to give them lessons, but Cloud declined. They didn't have the time.

"Yeah, well, just be careful," the young man said. "Warm clothes or not, you're going to get cold out there. The suns at its highpoint right now, so if you're going to go…"

They took his advice and headed outside.

"Everyone ready?" Cloud asked them.

To his surprise, Vincent stepped forward and pointed to a small building near the town's exit. "We should stop there before we leave?"

"Why?" Cloud asked.

"Because," Vincent said darkly. "That was Professor Gast's home."

"The Shinra scientist Hojo is always rambling about?" Tifa frowned.

Vincent nodded. "I visited him here several times. He had a laboratory in that place as well."

Cloud didn't need to hear any more. He strode off towards the building, the others following close behind.

A knock at the door didn't produce anyone, so he walked on in. The interior was such a stark contrast to everything else they'd seen in Winter that he nearly laughed. There were machines everywhere. Computers rested on a table along the wall, an unidentifiable hulking machine sat next to them, and a bank of monitors finished the equipment off. On top of that were the cameras jutting down from the ceiling, an enormous set of bookshelves filled with spiral notebooks, and an ancient looking tome resting on one table.

The most surprising thing was that it was all on. He could tell from the blinking lights on the computers, the standby red glow on the displays, and the automated swivel in the cameras upon their entrance. Why would the people of this town keep everything on? Did they hold Gast in some kind of regard here?

"There's stairs," Barret said, pointing.

The downstairs revealed a normal looking home, with a large bed, a kitchen, and an area to relax. A small empty crib rested to one side.

"Did Gast have a family?" Cloud asked Vincent.

But the dark man just frowned deeply and stared at the crib.

They went back up to the top floor and began poking around. Tifa was thumbing through the notebooks on the shelves and revealed that Gast had apparently written thousands of words of research on the Ancients and the planet. Cid was poking around the computers, muttering to himself. The rest of them just looked around to see if they could find anything of interest.

"There's video," Cid finally said from the computer. "Four of them, actually. It says they're research videos."

"Play them," Cloud said. "In order."

"I'll put them on the monitors," Cid nodded. "First up is marked The Original Crisis."

He tapped away at the keyboard. The monitors blinked momentarily and then showed an image of the same room they were now in. The lighting was a bit darker, focused on the center of the room where a middle-aged man in a white labcoat was working at the computer. A beautiful woman in a long flowing red dress stood nearby. The camera panned up and down for a moment before settling to focus on the woman.

"Okay," Professor Gast said as he stood. "The camera is ready, Ifalna. If you could please tell us about the Cetra?"

The woman, looking nervously up at the camera, put her hands behind her back. "Two thousand years ago, our ancestors, the Cetra, began to hear the cries of the planet. The first to discover the wound were the Cetra that lived at the Knowlespole."

"Ifalna," Professor Gast interrupted. "Where is the land called the Knowlespole?"

"Here," Ifalna said, pointing towards the door. "Knowlespole refers to this area. The Cetra here were the first to perform a planet reading."

"And what does a planet reading entail, exactly?"

She looked down at her feet. "I'm not sure quite how to explain it. It's like having a conversation with the planet. The planet told the Cetra here that something had fallen from the sky and caused a wound. Thousands of Cetra came together then, trying to heal the planet. But it took many, many years."

Gast nodded. "And do the Cetra have a special ability to heal the planet?"

She shook her head. "No, it isn't like that at all. The life force of all living things becomes the planet's energy, which is what can heal a planetary wound. The Cetra tried desperately to cultivate the land in a way that would free up as much of that energy as possible."

"And here," Gast went on. "This far north, the snow never melts. Even in the warmer months, precipitation falls constantly. Is that because the planet's energy is still gathering here to heal its injury?"

"Yes," Ifalna said, lowering her head. "The energy needed here was so concentrated that it withered the land. The planet tried to tell us to leave this place, but…well…"

"Do you want to take a break?"

"I'm alright," she said. "The Cetra here were reluctant to leave. As they prepared to part with the land they loved, that's when it appeared. It looked like one of us. It claimed to share our past."

"Who is the person that appeared at the North Cave?" Gast asked hurriedly.

"It was the one that injured the planet," Ifalna said sadly. "We've sinced referred to it as the calamity from the sky." She lowered her face into her hands and wept openly. "It approached us as a friend, deceived us, and then it infected them. The Cetra were attacked by a virus and went mad, transforming into monstrous beings with no thought or concern for anything around them." She sank to the floor, face still buried. "And the calamity from the sky moved, going from one Cetra settlement to another, deceiving them all and infecting them with this same virus. Why? It's the question that still haunts us. Why would it do this to us?"

And she collapsed further onto the floor, weeping openly with grief.

Gast rushed to her side. "That's enough for today, Ifalna. We'll continue another time."

And the screen went dark.

"My god," Tifa said quietly. "The calamity from the sky…"

"Jenova," Cloud said. "Aerith said Sephiroth wasn't an Ancient. This must be what she meant."

"But what was this virus?" Cid asked.

Cloud shook his head. "I don't know. What's the next video?"

Cid looked back at the screen. "It's titled What Is Weapon."

"Let's take a look."

As before, the screen winked for a moment before coming into focus. The image showed the same room again. Professor Gast was once more sitting at the console and typing at the keyboard. Ifalna, meanwhile, was seated on a chair in the center of the room. Cloud guessed it was a precaution in case she collapsed again.

Gast got up and addressed her. "Ifalna, I have come across some very old texts referring to a being called Weapon. Can you offer any insight into such a creature?"

She nodded. "The one that you all mistook for a Cetra was named Jenova. It was the calamity from the sky. The planet knew it had to destroy it. As long as Jenova existed, the planet would never be able to fully heal itself."

"So," Gast said. "Weapon was a creation of the planet itself? A being designed solely to protect the planet?"

"Yes," Ifalna said. "But there is no record that it was ever used. A small band of surviving Cetra joined together and defeated Jenova, confining it so that its evil could no longer be done. The planet had produced Weapon, but it was no longer necessary to use it."

"And what exactly is Weapon?"

She shook her head. "A terrible thing. A monster that cannot be described."

"And this terrible monster no longer exists?"

"It exists," Ifalna insisted. "Weapon is a being that cannot simply vanish. It remains dormant somewhere within the planet, ready to act if the planet is once again threatened. As long as Jenova survives, Weapon will exist."

"Then where is it?"

She turned away, facing north. "I…I don't know. I can't hear the voice of the planet the way I used to. Everything is changing."

Gast shook his head. "I think that's enough for today, Ifalna."

"Weapon," Cloud said softly.

"Do you think it really exists?" Yuffie asked aloud.

"This Ifalna seemed to think so," Cid shrugged. "Whoever she is."

Cloud looked to Tifa and Barret and saw the same recognition on their faces. There was no point to hiding it from the others. "She was an Ancient," he said. "Aerith's mother."

There was a moment of silence.

"You're kidding me," Cid said.

"No," Tifa said. "It's true. We've heard Hojo mention it a few times, talking about her mother back when Aerith was still alive. He called her Ifalna."

"Huh," Cid said. "Well I guess that makes the next two video titles self-explanatory."

Cloud looked up. "What are you talking about?"

"The first one," Cid said, pointing at the computer screen. "Is labeled Daughter's Record: 10th Day After Birth. And the other one is twenty days."

"Play them," Cloud said tersely.

The screen winked again, but no image came up on the monitor. They heard a shuffling noise, followed by Ifalna's voice.

"What are you doing, Professor?"

They heard Gast laugh. "I told you you don't have to call me that any more."

"What then?"

Another laugh. "Honey would be nice. Or dear. Darling."

This time it was Ifalna who laughed. "Okay. What are you doing, darling?"

"I'm trying to get the video camera working. I've got the audio up, but not the image."

"Video? Is there still something you want me to record about the Cetra?"

"No, no. I want to record our beautiful daughter. When she's sleeping like this, her face looks like an angel."

"We still have to give her a name, you know. We can take the video later."

"I've already decided," the heard Gast laugh. "She should be called Aerith."

"Aerith," they heard Ifalna say, as though she were testing the name out, seeing how it came off her tongue. "Aerith. It's a good name."

They heard footsteps.

"Ifalna, what are you doing?"

"Wrapping my arms around the man I love," she said softly. "Now turn that video off for a moment."

And the screen went dark.

"Aerith was the child of Gast and Ifalna," Tifa said aloud. "And she was born up here in the north continent."

"Play the next one," Cloud said.

This timet here was an image, the same room again. Gast was once again working at the console, still dressed in his lab coat. Ifalna walked onto the screen and looked up briefly at the camera.

"Video again? You just got through taping!"

"This isn't for work," Gast said, turning toward her. "I want to capture our daughter's childhood on tape."

"If you keep doting on her this way, she won't grow up to be strong," Ifalna said severely. But she was smiling. "Aerith is different from other children. I wonder what dangers await her."

Gast stood up. "Don't you worry about that. I'll protect you and Aerith no matter what. You two are my only treasures. I'll never let you go."

Ifalna smiled again, stepping close to him. She reached out and wrapped her arms around his waist, pulling herself close. "If I hadn't met you, I don't know what my life would mean." And then she got up on her toes, leaning against him, falling into him, just as Aerith had done to Cloud back at the Gold Saucer, and she made to kiss him.

But she pulled away as a sharp knock was heard from the screen. Both she and Gast turned to look at the door.

"Who could that be?" Gast frowned. "I'll send them away."

"Yes," Ifalna said. "Hurry."

Gast walked to the door and opened it. A pillow of snow blew into the room, dusting Gast in white powder. He stepped back in shock. "You!"

And as Gast backed away, two Shinra soldiers marched into the room followed by a slumping young man in a scientist's coat, with long black hair tied back in a ponytail.

Hojo.

"Ah, Ifalna," Hojo grinned slyly. "Or should I say Cetra? I've been searching for you. And you too, Professor Gast."

Gast walked over to stand in front of Ifalna, his arms spread wide in a protective posture. "How did you know?"

"Oh, it took a great deal of work," Hojo laughed. "I had to turn over a great many stones to find you. Two years, but it was worth it. I finally have a new sample."

"New sample?" Gast frowned.

"Did you think we wouldn't know about the child?" Hojo laughed.

"Aerith!"

Hojo laughed again. "What a wonderful little name. As you're a scientist of Shinra, and Ifalna was supposed to be in our possession, your daughter's life is forfeit to the company."

Gast's face screwed up with anger. "Then I sever all ties with the company!" he shouted angrily. "Now you can turn around and get the hell out of my house."

Ifalna stepped forward, moving to kneel a few feet from Hojo. "Please, Aerith has nothing to do with any of this. When you went searching for us, it was me you wanted."

Hojo looked down at her with a blank stare. "The experiment has changed. I need all three of you now." He turned to face Gast. "Don't you understand? We can change the future of the planet. How could you not want to be a part of that?"

"You're not taking my family!" Gast roared.

Hojo shook his head. "I do hope you won't put up a fight. You're outnumbered and outgunned. And I would hate for any harm to come to my precious samples." He nodded to the guards. "Shoot the cameras and take them into custody."

The guards lifted their rifles and fired. The image shook with the impact and went blank, but there was still audio. They heard a scuffling, several screams. They heard Professor Gast telling Ifalna to take Aerith and run. They heard Hojo shouting out orders. And they heard a gunshot, followed by a woman's grief soaked wail.

"The Ancients," they heard Hojo mumbling. "Weapon? Jenova? Ah, Gast, you've hidden much from me. But now that you're gone, your knowledge is mine. And once we've caught your woman and her child, we'll do great things with your work."

And the playback ended.

"They escaped?" Cid asked.

"No," Cloud shook his head. "Hojo caught them and brought them to Midgar. He experimented on Ifalna and Aerith before they escaped. By the time they made it down to the slums, Ifalna was dying from whatever Hojo was doing to her. Apparently it wasn't quite so bad for Aerith."

"And she evaded the Turks after that," Barret nodded. "The poor girl had a hell of a childhood."

Tifa wiped a tear away from her eye. "It must have been hard for her."

"She was strong," Yuffie said defiantly. "Just as her mother wanted her to be."

They stood in silence for a moment, each of them remembering their friend. This new information didn't really change much, but the context of Aerith's childhood made her memory all the more powerful.

Did we really only say goodbye to her yesterday, he thought.

"We're losing daylight," Barret said into the silence. "If we're going to keep going, we should probably leave."

"Right," Cloud nodded. "Let's get moving."

And they filed back out of Professor Gast's home, the place where he stayed with Ifalna, the place where Aerith was born, and back out amongst the people of Winter.

And then Shinra arrived.