Grandma Asako was in a similar state to Vincent, hair and clothing draggled with moisture, although Asako looked less like she'd swallowed a lemon. Tifa apparently had fewer qualms about the seven hundred year old regular human lady showing up the same way Vincent had, just placed an extra bowl on the table and told Asako tea would be ready shortly.

Asako settled herself directly in front of the hearth and sat as gradually as the settling of a glacier. Yuffie's nose wrinkled as she recognised the rising aroma.

"Leviathan's tongue?" she queried aloud, and Asako let out a gusty sigh, belatedly directed at the steam rising from her food.

"Your friend has some strange ideas."

Yuffie, more awake than she had been all day, tried not to eyeball Asako impatiently as she finished her food. Aeris entered, laughing with Cloud, and took a seat beside Yuffie. Cloud grabbed a bowl and received a kiss and a scrunch of his hair from Tifa on his way out of the room again. Tifa passed out mugs of tea and then sat opposite Aeris, with an expression Yuffie would have to come back to once Asako had answered to her satisfaction.

"What kind of ideas?" she prompted when Asako set her bowl aside, and the old woman snorted softly at her impatience.

"The kind where everything is his fault."

"Oh," said Yuffie. "That kind." In a room with Aeris and Tifa, she couldn't not roll her eyes, but instead of giggling Aeris looked troubled. Tifa's frown carved a darker pucker over her nose. Yuffie felt her stomach squirm. "What did I miss?"

"Vincent had been reading only about Da Chao, but I found some texts on Ashura that I thought might be more relevant," Aeris said, looking as if she were trying to remember if she'd left the oven on. "Her faces and different forms seemed like they may match better."

"Wait. Chaos might be Ashura," Yuffie repeated, "And you told Vincent?" She looked at the ceiling. She looked at her bowl. She looked at Asako, unable to articulate her frustration.

"I see you can guess what the boy did with that," said the old woman, flat with exasperation or exhaustion or both. Yuffie looked back to Aeris.

"Were you feeling nostalgic for his doom and gloom routine?" she asked, the lightest version of every furious admonishment rattling around in her head, at the same time Tifa hissed, "What were you thinking?"

Aeris seemed unperturbed by Tifa's sudden venom, but Asako clearly took it as her cue to leave. Yuffie hardly noticed the old woman's squeeze of her shoulder as she left the room, caught up in the unreal scene before her.

Had they always fought like this? Had she been too young to notice?

"It seemed to fit," Aeris said. "Why wouldn't I tell him?"

"Because Vincent might be older than any of us, but that doesn't make him any better emotionally," Tifa said. "Especially about his... Chaos."

"Yeah, telling him that his inner demon might have been the Wutaian goddess of all things good and holy was probably not, y'know, the smartest move," Yuffie added. "You know how he likes to think everything is his fault."

Aeris looked at Yuffie like she did not, in fact, know that, which was bullshit, because Vincent had always liked Aeris most, what right did she have to go forgetting something like that?

"I guess the Planet didn't send back everything," Yuffie said before she could stop herself, and then it was out there in front of them all and she couldn't take it back. But Aeris just looked contemplative.

"She's right, you know?" Tifa said, almost apologetically. "We shouldn't... expect so much of you."

We shouldn't rely on you, Yuffie translated, because you're dead.


Aeris thought for some time, frown growing more intense, but not really deepening. "Perhaps... someone should go after him."

Tifa glanced in Yuffie's direction. "Asako already spoke to him, but..."

Yuffie smiled, sweetly sarcastic, and slurped her tea extra loudly to drain her cup. "You think he needs to be annoyed to death? Leave it to me."

Tifa almost smiled. She waited until Yuffie had finished rifling through the refrigerator and trotted off down the hall before she turned back to Aeris, cupping her fingers over the back of Aeris' cold hand.

"I asked you back in Nibelheim to tell Cloud whatever was going on with you," she said. This, Aeris seemed to understand.

"You don't think I should any more."

"He still needs to know. I'm just not sure that you should tell him."

Aeris turned her palm upward and sandwiched Tifa's between both of hers.

"He won't fall apart again," Aeris said.

Tifa smiled, or tried to. "You always had such faith in him."

"We both did," said Aeris, and this smile was soft and sweet and human. "Just in very different situations."


Vincent paced the halls of Kisaragi House, bare feet whispering against the floor boards. He understood Cloud's reasoning, had known even before he approached the swordsman that he would not be permitted to speak with the Imbued in this state, but the answer still frustrated him. And with his agitation came others'. Galian paced, twitching at the slightest sound. The madman filled them all with furious energy. The Gigas climbed.

The roof of Kisaragi House was not the most practical location for weapon maintenance, but it was challenge enough to be a distraction. Unfortunate that he did it so regularly that it took no time at all.

Above him, the night was vast. Stars were clearer here than in Nibelheim; less light, and fewer clouds. His gaze traced constellations, followed the moon, but soon enough he found himself staring at the distant shadow of Da Chao, wishing... he knew not what. His mind was too disarrayed by the day's revelations to form coherent wants, except the want for enough time and solitude to form them.

Naturally, that was something he could not have.

He heard the scraping below the edge of the gutter, Yuffie's wiry hands and sneakered toes making more noise than they needed to; a courtesy rarely extended. He heard the soft exhalation as she leaned out to the eve, swung, and mantled the gutter.

She sat down beside him and lay back on her elbows. Stray locks grazed the tiles behind her, skimming the back of her arms.

"I don't have anything to say," she confessed after a moment. "I think you probably felt like you broke Ashura, but Asako said that was wrong. So now I guess you're not sure how to feel. That makes two of us, eff why eye."

Vincent closed his eyes. Galian, at least, was soothed with a packmate nearby. He supposed that meant that he was, also.

"I have no idea what to do with this knowledge," he said aloud. Yuffie nodded at the sky, heaved out a sigh bigger than he'd thought her small frame capable of, and lay back beside him, out of view.

"I brought you shells washed in fresh water," she said. "And broccoli, instead of jewel plums. Galian likes it better, and I don't think Ashura really minds."

It took Vincent a moment to recognise the traditional offerings to Ashura, and when he did, a chuckle puffed out of his lungs before he could stop it. It was a sad, strangled sound, but Yuffie understood a great many things she would do better not to recognise, and his pathetic unwilling laughter was one of them. She rolled toward him, twisted on one hip, and put her handful of shells on his chest, the floret of broccoli still cold and dewy from a refrigerator.

"I'm sure Ashura is grateful for your gift," said Vincent.

"She better be," said Yuffie, and pressed her knuckles into his upper arm in an exceedingly slow, gentle punch. "You want to tell me what the problem is?"

Vincent didn't answer.

"Because if Asako is right..." Yuffie prompted, her chin on one hand. Her eyes glittered from the shadow of her hair.

If Asako were right, he had no reason to fear summoning Chaos into the world. No reason, except the traumatic memory of an ill-trained child, and his own refusal to accept certain parts of himself.

Every child of Wutai knew that Ashura brought lessons, and the only way through those lessons was to learn and accept them.

Vincent shook shell fragments from the broccoli, and bit down on the floret. Over his crunching, he heard Yuffie's stifled laughter. He held up his bronze forearm as she reached over to dash the shells from his chest. She grasped the sharp claws fearlessly, and lay back down beside him.

Neither of them were, it seemed, practical.


Cloud paused in the doorway, eyes immediately wary, though he tried to deflect it with a grin. "What have you two been plotting?"

Tifa beckoned him closer, tugged him down to the table to sit with them both, and his expression sobered instantly. Warm, calloused fingers wrapped around hers. Her eyes stung as she squeezed back.

"There's something you need to understand," Aeris said. Cloud frowned across the table at her, but it was Tifa that spoke next.

"She isn't here forever, Cloud." She isn't really here at all.

Cloud blinked, blank and blue, her own personal error screen.

"The Planet sent what she could," said Aeris. "Mostly, that was me. But she can't keep me here. I have to go back to her, just like everything else does."

Cloud looked lost, gripped Tifa's hand tight enough to make her leathers squeak. "When?"

His voice sounded so small.

Tifa opened her mouth to reassure him, to tell him it was going to be okay, that they still had time. But Aeris stood suddenly, frowning and listening to something they couldn't hear, green eyes soft and distant.

"Soon," she said. "It's waking."


The news came through almost half an hour later.

Reeve heard first, then the Turks and Lana via company issued pagers as Neo-Shinra Workplace Health and Safety went to work confirming the safety of its employees. It wasn't much longer before emergency announcements began filtering in over Wutai's three radio stations, asking for anyone with friends or family in the greater Junon area to phone this number to register their loved ones.

Between the Turks and various AVALANCHE members, they put together a fairly clear picture of events: either one monstrous earthquake had hit just off the Junon coast, or a dozen merely catastrophic quakes had erupted in a daisy chain around it. Images of the destruction began appearing as television channels cut to emergency footage, even the best-funded camera crews unable to pick out more than a couple recognisable landmarks, despite the bright mid-morning sunlight.

"Fatalities are already estimated in the tens of thousands," Reeve told them, voice cracking. Tifa had brought him three coffees and he hadn't drunk more than a sip of any of them, could hardly keep himself upright in his chair with the weight of it. "It's only the first few hours, it's only... the quakes were so close to the surface..."

"God damned Imbued," said Barret, too furious even to thump anything. "Can't be nothin' else."

Aeris and Feather concurred. Gorov, when she was at last consulted, spat in frustration at being ignored by her guards, but agreed that the Imbued were the only possibility.

"Titan," she said immediately. "By now he assumes I can't or won't return. He'll need time to recover, but how long I can't say."

"You damn well knew he'd do this," Reno snarled. "Why the hell should we trust a word you say?"

"We can't wait."

Tifa flexed her fingers, eyes locked on the Imbued in their midst. "There's nothing we can do if she's lying. But there can't be another attack like this one." She leaned over the table, knuckles pressed into its surface, wrists straight, triceps tingling. "We need a location, and a plan."

Around her, AVALANCHE drew itself up, pulled itself together. She felt her eyes burn with sympathy as, one by one, they looked to Cloud, their leader. She stared at Aeris, helpless, knowing their timing could not have been worse.

Cloud's hands curled into fists on the tabletop. He closed his eyes, and she breathed with him, deep and steadying.

"Aeris. Cid. Work with Gorov on location and transport."

Tifa exhaled, and waited for her love to call her name.


The council chamber had been split in two, Reeve and Elena down one end, Yuffie and her advisors at the other.

Yuffie had one hand on the papers spread across the table and the other playing over her jaw as she thought. Roko and Haru sat by her side, suggesting options and following up with distant representatives as they set typhoon protocols in motion, with a twist: Titan would start with Shinra strongholds, Gorov told them, but he would come after population centres next. With his abilities, she assured them, he would not only attack the cities themselves, but wherever he sensed large numbers of evacuees moving over the earth.

Yuffie had explored every inch of her island, and even she was running out of ideas for where to send her people. The coastal villages were headed for deep water; the inland communities to high, clear ground. Wutai herself was the biggest problem; in typhoon they could find refuge on Da Chao or on the barrier mountains to the southwest, but an earthquake was a bigger problem, especially when it wasn't constrained to fault lines.

"If we send troops as a decoy..."

"If I leave you with Barrier materia..."

"If we bring the mussel boats inland..."

Too many ifs, too many options; she couldn't see a single one that would work to keep her people safe without doubt; she couldn't stop thinking about the materia and equipment she'd be taking into the Titan's lair and how much more use they would be to Wutai...

"Myto?"

Yuffie looked up, belatedly unclenching her fingers from the hair at the front of her head. Katsura bobbed the briefest bow propriety allowed her and laid another handful of papers on the table before her. "Lord Shirakawa has reached the southern province and has begun distributing supplies. He sends this list that can be rerouted north to Ebrana if necessary. Myto, there is also an offer from the marina to supply our people with the stock that would be left on land to rot..."

"Three times the price it should be, I'm sure," Haru said. She extended a hand. "I'll haggle and let you know the final price, Myto?"

Yuffie nodded to Haru, redirected her gaze to Katsura. "Ebrana may not require the supplies, they had great harvests this year, but if they can route to Holm..."

"To make up for the granaries? Yes, Myto," Katsura said, and bowed with renewed energy before vanishing from the room.

Roko leaned forward to tap her finger on the map of the greater Wutai area, over the medical campus southeast of the city. "Now, to the matter of our medical supplies..."

"Kid."

Yuffie looked up again, blinking, as Cid leaned around the door frame and floated a paper plane in her direction. She clawed her hands around it, careful not to crush.

"You're all packed and ready to load, as long as you're happy with the contents."

She unfolded the plane and skimmed the contents, nodding as she went. "You're a pal, Cid."

"Just let the boys know if anything's missing," he said. "Wheels up in four hours, kid."

Yuffie refolded the plane, tucked it into her shirt, and wondered when it was that she'd ceased to be annoyed by the nickname.

Probably around the time she started hating the new one.

"Myto..."


"Shimusou."

Vincent opened his eyes and glared. Gorov looked more tired than he had previously seen her, but otherwise unimpressed.

"You are closer, but you do not yet strive as you could. What will it take to move you, if the end of your world is not enough?"

Vincent, who had thought that he had been striving, felt a flare of irritation. "Perhaps instruction over vague criticism," he suggested acerbically, and Gorov shook her head, sinking into a crouch.

"I told you all," she said, and he wondered at the blood vessels showing in her eyes, at the crease of tension in her brow. "How I summon is not how you summon. It is a basic lesson, Shimusou, one of our first. I do not understand why it is proving so difficult for you when once..."

"When once I destroyed half my village, and was shipped away to the Shinra to forget I had ever had a homeland?" Vincent finished, annoyance and the bubbling of Chaos or Ashura in the back of his mind freeing his tongue. "Even if I do understand what is required of me, I cannot force myself to relinquish control."

Gorov frowned, golden eyes thoughtful. "Perhaps that is the problem," she said after a moment. "You put up walls against Ashura, and only draw upon her when overwhelmed, when as a child, you welcomed her."

Vincent swallowed against bile. "I cannot imagine welcoming such a thing."

Gorov eyed him carefully. "Perhaps I could show you," she suggested, and began to work one hand free of her glove. "I was young, and my memories may not be perfectly clear, but I was there that day. With the dragon's help, I could show it to you."

Vincent was shaking his head before she had finished the suggestion. "How could I possibly trust your motives?"

Gorov snorted, and laid her glove flat against one thigh. "If I recall, Shimusou, when last I attempted to ensnare you, Lady Ashura knocked me out flat. The dragon cannot compete against the allmother."

She held out her ungloved hand.

Against the snarling and hackles in his head, Vincent removed his own glove, and took it.

Gorov's hand was rough, tiny shards of what must be materia crystal pricking against the sides of his fingers. It was as small and slender as Yuffie's in his own.

"Focus," Gorov admonished, articulating crisply. Her eyes flared wide, and he felt himself unable to look away.

Ready?

The word floated in his mind. Doubt rose.

No time. We begin.

Something struck him from the side, his balance tipped, and the world fell away. A rushing in his ears became a roar and then split apart into voices, laughter, drums.

It was early evening, and the last of the sun's light still streaked the clouds near the horizon. It would be a clear night, when the wind off the sea reached the mountains, and they were glad to be in the city, warm with smells and songs and family, instead of in the mountain temple they now called home.

Their sister tugged at their arm, pointing gleefully, but they were listening to the quieting of the music and the beginning of the lord and lady's speech, and they prised Chekhov's small fingers away. Disappointment welled in her enormous brown eyes until they pointed back to their parents and reminded her to start climbing their father if she wanted a good view of the dancing.

They dashed through the crowd toward the stage, toward their teacher, and past himself/Shimusou, still clinging to his parents, being ruffled by his father and straightened by his mother. They adjusted their own robes and made sure their pins were set tightly in their hair.

They stood behind their teacher and began to stretch to give the fizzing mixture of excitement and nerves somewhere to go besides up. He/Shimusou jogged up to join them, fierce pride shining in his eyes, so inflated with it he looked like he might burst like a carnival balloon. They kicked his ankle, moved into a crouch to stretch their legs, and he dropped down beside them conscientiously, loose robes brushing the sand at the edge of the cleared stage.

As the lord and lady's speech came to an end, their teacher stilled both them and him/Shimusou, and stepped forward to begin the ceremony.

They stepped to the right, and Shimsou stepped to the left, until they were five long paces from their teacher and each other.

The crowd hushed, watching.

They stepped forward first, toes sweeping in the sand, arms spreading and lifting in the familiar motions. The dance for the dragon was fast, fierce, rare moments of grace and stillness in a dervish of limbs; their magic sparked and they held it in their throat, and held, and held, until at the final pose it burst from their lips in a stream of green fire, directed harmlessly away into the night sky. The crowd screamed its appreciation. They sought out their parents' proud, glowing faces, and the wide-mouthed awe of Chekhov, beloved little sister, and then sank to kneel on the sand, turning their face and curling their arms toward Shimusou, who sprang to his feet.

His first steps were slow and not smooth, but she saw his confidence grow as he put aside the crowd and focused on the movements, the balance, sinking into Ashura-Under-the-Earth and then speeding faster and faster as her three faces fought for dominance, dancing first in one direction, then in another, fans flicking. They could see the fierce pride in his face, baby teeth grit in a grin of pure delight as the dance built and his magic built with it until even they could feel it throbbing across the night. Shimusou went into the final movement, turning, circling, arms tumbling over each other as the tumult rose.

The wind stirred, the sand around them lifted. They inhaled quickly, the beginnings of fear stirring at the sizzling of the air.

Shimusou spun and spun and locked in place, arms lifting, and they caught the briefest glimpse of his face before white hot light eclipsed it all and he toppled from his chair, claw biting into the floorboards as he struggled to regain his bearings.

Gorov's breathing rasped loud in his ears and he realised she was trying to tug her hand free. The bite of jagged crystal against his palm made him hiss. He struggled upright again, wrenching the tips of the gauntlet from the floor. "That is what you remember?" It was not much like his nightmare, but the demons... Ashura... he had lied to himself before.

"I was closest," Gorov said. "I didn't wake until after the fires had been put out. The sand turned to glass, and you cut your feet, but there was not much actual damage done. The real problem was the Shinra in the crowd." She coughed, grimaced, and wiped at her mouth. Her hand, or her face, came away bloody. "They were very interested in us both, after that."

"I'm sure," said Vincent. The demons were quiet. He felt disoriented, and faintly ill.

"Don't," Gorov said. She tugged her glove back on, and licked at her bleeding lip. "I was the one fool enough to go with them by choice. By all accounts, you had to be tricked into it."

"Thin comfort," Vincent told her, but he offered her a hand when he regained his feet.


There were not many places in Wutai where the Lifestream ran close to the surface. There were even fewer where the environment had been left untouched in the country's struggle to strengthen itself with materia after the war.

Aeris settled for climbing over the short fence in a temple courtyard and settling herself against the enormous, ancient tree that grew there. Even if she couldn't reach the Planet on her own, if she followed the roots deep enough, she would find the Planet's song.

Sephiroth stopped outside the fence, hands loose at his sides, and adopted the relaxed, upright pose of the waiting soldier that Zack had never mastered.

"It's going to be boring," she warned him, working off one boot. "Just make sure you wake me if it takes more than two hours. Cid gets grumpy if his flight plans get disturbed."

"I would think that the insights of a Cetra would be worth waiting for," Sephiroth observed.

Aeris shrugged. "We'll see."

She closed her eyes and sank down into her flesh, into her bones. Into the living, breathing wood along her back. She followed the leaching of water and nutrient, into the warm topsoil and through the colder subsoil and regolith and into the empty, echoing pressure of the bedrock, like the distance between planets.

She reached and strove and there, deeper still, she could just reach—

The flood of voices hit her like a sudden rush of water, but she knew this wave. She sidled and wended her way through the voices, sifting, sampling, and beneath the noise the subharmonic of the Planet filled her, surrounded her, joined with her and welcomed her home.

She asked how, and a hundred voices answered, and the knowledge was underneath her ribs and clenched between her teeth, and—

There was a warm hand on her shoulder. She opened her eyes and ducked forward to hide in Sephiroth's shadow as her mind and eyes adjusted to surface again.

"All right?" Sephiroth removed his hand, but didn't withdraw, clearly aware of her disorientation. She nodded, swallowing a few times to wet her mouth enough to answer.

"I think I understand," she rasped. Sephiroth stood, and offered her a hand.

"I'm no closer to summoning, if you have suggestions."

Aeris pulled herself up and wriggled her toes in the dirt. She picked up a boot in each hand and high-kneed it back over the fence again. "I don't think you'll have to," she said, and it tasted like truth.

Sephiroth waited. She tied her bootlaces together and slung the pair over a shoulder as she picked and chose her words.

"I never really told you, when the Planet brought you back," she said. "But you guessed, didn't you?"

Sephiroth's expression didn't shift, but a faint, regretful smile came into his eyes. "I've died and almost-died enough to see it coming."

"Don't think of it as dying," Aeris said. She put her arm through his companionably, and they started across the temple grounds. "Think of it as finally coming home."