Chapter 34

The fight between man and beast was brutal, and bloody. Talons slashed through the air, a steel blade counteracting. The blows that each aggressor aimed were intended to kill, not to maim. The two went at each other with ferocious intent, each forgetting the other two men in their desire for victory.

Zack wrapped his arms caringly around the still shaking body of the blond. Cloud neither blinked nor defended himself against the body shoves and indirect pushes of the fighters. Zack knew he had to get the boy somewhere safe, but where? Looking forwards down the corridor, he reasoned that was the only way to go. The corridor behind him meant certain death, as even above the noise of the grunts and parries of Sephiroth and the thing that was Hojo, he could still hear the sounds of detonations going off. Heaving a big sigh, as if to ready himself for what he was about to do, Zack took hold of Cloud's limp hand and, raising an arm above his head for some semblance of protection, he ran, tugging the youth.

It was no easy feat getting past the general and the monster. Zack had to almost dance in time with their steps. One step closer to his goal, two steps back. Dodge to the left, jump to the right. Cloud didn't make it any easier, his slow dreamlike walk hindering where he should have been ducking and rolling. Zack was sorely tempted to smack the blonde's face, to see if that would bring him round, but he didn't have time. One of the beast's claws sailed mere centimetres away from his eyes as its hairy paw swung at Sephiroth and missed, almost hitting him instead. Pulling back abruptly, Zack saved his eyesight. "Fucking hell, Seph… do something about that thing!" he called out sharply.

"I'm… trying," the general bit back, his focus never wavering from his quarry. He had scored a few blows already, and the creature had been cut in several places, rich red blood oozing out of its flesh and matting in the coarse hairs on its body. But that had not seemed to slow it down. "Get Cloud out of here," Sephiroth directed.

"I'm… trying," Zack parroted. Suddenly, between the two fighters and one edge of the corridor, an opening appeared. Taking a chance, Zack hauled at Cloud and bore him through the empty space. On instinct, he dropped to the floor once he had made his move, taking Cloud down with him. And only just in time, for the sharp edge of Masamune sang above their heads for a split second, before embedding itself in the flanks of the professor's creation. Too close, Zack thought. But they had come through it, they were past the obstacle.

A loud thud caught Zack's attention. Sephiroth had been knocked off his feet, landing some yards away, with the beast slowly advancing on him, ready to continue. "What do you think you're doing?" Sephiroth yelled, his angry retort aimed at his friend. And when Zack gave an innocent look back, he added, "You bloody stupid fool, making such a rash move and distracting me. I could have taken both your heads off!"

"You want me to get him safe? This is the only way that is safe! What did you want me to do, nicely ask that bastard to stop for a moment so we could get past?"

Sephiroth did not have time to reply. Pushing himself back to his feet, his raining blows began again, and now that Zack and Cloud were more or less out of harm's way he could generate all his concentration on winning the fight.

Zack only felt a tiny bit guilty at leaving the general alone to cope with Hojo. He knew that Sephiroth was strong, far stronger than he himself was. Plus, Zack fully intended to go back once he had placed Cloud somewhere secure.

Leaving the melee behind him, Zack continued towing the docile boy behind him, dragging him further and further down the corridor, and farther and farther away from danger, and it was with some relief, and trepidation, to finally reach the end and find a final doorway. Testing the door handle, Zack was thankful to find it unlocked, and he pushed in through the entry quickly.

The room inside was quite large. Zack scanned everything in a moment, his professional eye taking in all the things that might be of importance, or of use, to him.

Arranged against two walls there was a large metal table, a few simple wooden chairs, and a huge white cabinet with a red cross painted on the double doors. And at the very far end of the room there was another doorway with a green neon sign that lit up the one word Zack wanted desperately to see; Exit. But for now it was only the chairs that interested him. Sitting Cloud down on one, he used the rope that he'd brought with him and tied the blond to the seat, to prevent him from wandering, then he ventured back outside the room again and turned to walk up the corridor. And caught his breath in his throat at the sight that greeted him.

"How is Cloud?"

"He's… um… okay. Is that…"

Sephiroth raised his right arm, displaying more fully the gory trophy that was clutched within his fingers. The blade in his left hand dripped with blood, red rivulets that swam down over the polished metal to drop from its tip to the floor, leaving a crimson trail in the man's wake. Zack found himself looking back along the corridor, following the blood splatters, but the body of the beast was nowhere in sight, unlike the severed head, which gaped with open jaws and exposed unseeing eyes in the grasp of the general.

"Rufus should find this amusing to work on," Sephiroth said casually, staring into the dead face for a moment before lowering his arm to his side. "Where's Cloud?"

"Ah, he's just inside here," Zack said, regaining his composure. Upon opening the door however, he muttered, "Oh shit." And he quickly ran back inside the room, Sephiroth right behind him.

Cloud had tipped the seat over as he suffered another fit, and he lay upon the floor, his whole body trembling and quaking. His blond head was thrashing side to side, and his eyes were now closed tight, his facial features contorted as if in immense pain. His fisted hands beat a bellow at his sides, and his heels drummed lower down. He shuddered. He jerked. But the most terrifying thing was the small mews of agony that came from his throat. Zack immediately untied the boy and threw himself over the thrashing body, trying to hold Cloud still so that he did not hurt himself. He straddled him and gripped his chin, lowering himself down to whisper in an ear, "Hey. Hey buddy. Come on, it's me. You know me. You're okay now, you're back with friends."

Sephiroth stood erect and tall, staring down as if impassionedly. But the fingers that held on to the head of Hojo clenched tighter. The general's mouth was just a simple thin line, but his green eyes flashed with intensity as he watched his second in command try desperately to placate the boy beneath him. He seemed to have some margin of success, because Cloud appeared to settle slightly, his whimpering cries abating a little, though his body continued to spasm intermittently.

"Help me get him up on to the table, so that I can check him more thoroughly," Zack said as he pushed himself upright.

Dumping the head like a discarded rotten cabbage, Sephiroth did as he was bid, easily picking Cloud up in his arms and carrying him by himself. Laying the boy down, he stood to one side to allow Zack access to him, but he kept one hand upon the youth, his thumb brushing softly against the skin of a forearm.

"Seph, go make yourself useful," Zack chided gently, nodding towards the large medicine cabinet. "See what you can find in there." With a blank stare, Sephiroth nodded curtly before releasing his hold and walking off.

"No, I'm sorry... Tifa… Please don't… Aeris… Help me… Mother…"

Zack had to strain hard to hear the words that Cloud was mumbling. The boy's head still twisted side to side, but less forcefully now, more as if he were suffering from a bad dream. But Zack knew whatever was going on inside the blonde's mind was more than just a nightmare. He had seen this type of behaviour before, in battle, when severely injured men had been rescued from the field. Their bodies were on the brink of shutting down and bringing death to them, and in a last bid to save themselves from the pain and the darkness their brains had taken over, easing them with memories of their past before they died.

"What is he doing?"

Blinking back the unbidden tears that had sprung to his eyes, Zack turned to look at Sephiroth. The man held a bottle in his hands. Morphine. Zack read the inscription on the bottle, and knew that the medicine would not be of any use. Cloud wasn't in any real physical pain. He didn't have a bullet wound, or a blade cut. His was mental suffering, brought on by whatever it was that Hojo had possibly injected. Cloud was fighting it by himself. And from the look of things, he was losing.

"I asked you a question."

Sighing, Zack answered his general. "He's trying to find strength from people in his life, to fight whatever it is going on inside him."

"I didn't hear him mention my name."

"That's because he's retreating further into his past. And you were not a part of that. But…"

"But?"

"If he goes back too far, we'll lose him. Forever."

"Well, he had better be brought back then, hadn't he," Sephiroth said solemnly. "Or else, I don't have a future."

Zack's careful hands covered every inch of the boy who lay upon the metal table. He had stripped Cloud naked; the better to discover if any part of him was broken or damaged. But the only thing Zack found to explain Cloud's condition was the small puncture mark in an ankle, the skin around the tiny hole bruising slightly and giving away its position to the eye that was looking for it. Zack talked quietly to the blond the whole time he did his examination, noting that his voice seemed to calm him. But whenever Sephiroth spoke, Cloud became vexed once more, so Zack asked the general to keep silent, which he did grudgingly, taking a seat in the righted chair which he dragged beside the makeshift bed.

"At least we have no fear of being blasted in here," Sephiroth had said earlier as he'd examined the door they'd come through, and the walls either side. Zack had noted the strength of the inner room too, but he'd refrained from retorting that the professor would hardly fail to make his escape chamber bomb proof, knowing that detonations were going off all around. Instead he had focused upon Cloud. And now he heaved a deep sigh.

"What is it?" Sephiroth asked, his voice barely above a whisper, his body poised forward.

"I won't lie, Seph," Zack began, his brow furrowed with worry lines. "The only thing wrong with him is the crap that Hojo pumped in through his leg. It's poisoning him. It needs to be cleansed from his system. But, well…" He ran his fingers through his hair.

"Don't feed me scraps, Zack. I'm not a dog. Tell me. Tell me what needs to be done."

Turning to face his friend, Zack broke the bad news as gently as he could. "He needs a blood transfusion, Seph. And he needs it now. I don't think he'll live long enough for us to get him back to base and in to the medical lab. I'm so sorry."

Sephiroth darted out of his seat. For a split second, Zack thought he meant to huddle the boy up into his arms and make a mad dash for Shin-Ra's labs, but instead he raced over to the medical cabinet and began foraging around like a man possessed.

"Ahha!"

Zack watched as Sephiroth made his way back to the table, his hands full of medical apparatus. One gloved hand held some lengths of rubbery tubing, whilst his other hand held a large square box with dials and knobs on its front surface. He gazed at the items as the general thrust them upon him, turning them over in his own hands as Sephiroth hurried to the cabinet for more. "Seph, these instruments here are crude, basic at the very least," he argued as the man returned with his arms laden once again.

"Do I look as if that worries me?" Sephiroth answered, placing several items on the floor. "Or him?" He nodded towards Cloud. "Does he appear concerned either?" he asked as he retook his seat and began rolling up one sleeve.

The enormity of what Sephiroth intended to do suddenly struck Zack. "Your blood? You want to give him your blood?" he gawked, looking over towards the cabinet. "Isn't there something stored in there that we can use to flush his system? Or better yet, let's just get out of here, take him with us, and hope for the best."

"He won't make it, you said so yourself. Get to it, Zack."

With a resigned shrug, Zack did as he was told, apologising for any hurt caused when he gingerly inserted the intravenous drip into his friend's vein.

/\./\./\./\./\./\./\

"Barrett? Are you okay? Barrett?"

The big man sat up and shook his head, dislodging dirt and dust from his hair. "Wow, that was some trip!" he exclaimed loudly, banging at an ear as if to loosen more debris from within.

"So, you're not hurt?" asked Tifa, standing over him as he sat there upon the floor. She had been so scared, finding him led out cold, and she had felt so guilty for pleading with him to come with her and save Cloud. And they had been so close too, to obtaining her goal.

"Woman, I thought you said the one we was after was the tall, silver haired dude?"

"I thought it was. General Sephiroth. He's the one that took Cloud from me that night," Tifa explained, bending to help Barrett stand up when he began pushing himself to his feet. "I don't know who that other man is, but you could tell Cloud didn't want to be with him."

"So we have to go rescue the fool from him, now?" Barrett quizzed, pushing a finger up inside a nostril and cleaning his nose out. "Damn, but that mortar shit gets everywhere!" he complained. "Probably wrecked my lil beaut's delicate components." He left his nose alone to begin checking on his precious gun-arm.

Tifa looked around at the mess and destruction. All about them lay broken walls and ceilings, smashed glass and tattered wires. A small shaft of light came to them from a hole a little way ahead, from another corridor obviously, its doorway partly obscured by rubble. It was the only way they could go, and they would have to dig the entryway free with their hands. She and Barrett had been lucky to escape with minor cuts and scratches, she supposed. Things could have turned out so very much different. She wanted more than anything to continue on with the quest to save her… What exactly is he to me? she silently asked, beginning to tremble with after battle nerves. A friend, if nothing more, she answered herself as she began to briskly rub at her bare arms. "Yes, we still have to rescue him," she told Barrett confidently. "But first, we have to save ourselves."

/\./\./\./\./\./\./\

A soft groan, and Cloud tried frailly to push himself into a sitting position.

"Ohh no, no you don't!" Zack was immediately on him, pushing the boy back down flat again. Cloud didn't resist, and he didn't attempt another try either.

Sephiroth lifted his head. "How is he?" he asked, his voice weary.

In the process of prising up the blonde's eyelids, and taking his pulse, Zack paused to regard the general. "Possibly feeling a lot better at the moment than you," he said, his own voice hard to show how he felt about the folly his friend had had him perform. "How much blood do you think you gave?" he questioned, concerned.

"Not enough," Sephiroth answered. "He still needs more."

"You had to go and overdo yourself, didn't you?"

"Don't I always? And besides, it worked, didn't it?" Sephiroth answered back, inhaling deeply and allowing his tense shoulders to slump, wincing when Zack all but tore the drip from him. "I'll allow you that one, for my rashness," he said, looking down at his arm.

Pushing a cotton pad against the small drop of blood that seeped through the general's broken skin, Zack found himself feeling contrite. "It was stupid, Seph. Stupid," he said, though his tone was more apologetic now.

"But necessary."

Zack had no choice but to nod his head. In his opinion, there had been no doubt about the severity of the boy's condition, and Sephiroth's sacrifice of a few pints of blood appeared to have brought him back from the brink of certain death. As Zack removed the drip from Cloud, he wondered if the blond would appreciate the general's gallant gesture, or if he would choose to see it as yet another form of dominance over him. He sincerely hoped it was the former.

On slightly shaky feet, Sephiroth stood up and stared down at his lover. He placed a hand against the boy's cheek, rubbing softly with the backs of his fingers, though it took all his composure not to raise that hand and smack the boy's face for daring to worry him so much. "He's not responding to my touch," he complained.

"Just give your gift some time to work its magic," Zack chided gently as he began to take all the apparatus back to the cabinet. "Your blood is more potent than any shit from some lab. He's lucky you offered it."

"Yes, I don't normally give it out freely," Sephiroth gibed.

"You don't give it out at all, you're a stone!" Zack retorted back playfully. Which just goes to show how much you care for him, he thought silently to himself, staring at the tall man who gazed at the one laying so still.

Uncaring of Zack being in such close proximity, Sephiroth bent his head to Cloud's and placed his lips upon the boy's mouth, his tongue pushing against the flesh that remained closed to him. The hand that had been placed upon a cheek now moved downwards, and the general's fingers closed over Cloud's flaccid cock, teasing it to life.

In the process of trying to find somewhere to dump the used drips, Zack stopped in his tracks when he saw what was going on. His first instinct was to protest, and he had opened his mouth to shout out the words but…

"Get off me, you bastard."

With balled fists, Cloud was weakly batting at Sephiroth. Zack took a step towards the table, but stopped when Sephiroth turned to face him.

"He's back," the general said with a grin.

Zack had never seen a grin so smug. It was saying, I did it, and he felt any protestations dying in his throat, more so once he noticed that the blond was sporting an erection. Any other person would have gone through Death's door by now, he knew. And yet there he was, not only alive and punching, but ready for sex too. Zack marvelled at the miracle of it, and realised that they were meant for one another, even if the pair of them resisted the magnet that kept pulling them together. "O… kay. I think you two need a little alone time," he said, forgetting all about tidying up. "I'm gonna go take a look through the exit, see where it goes, etcetera, etcetera."

"Take your time," Sephiroth called after him. "I will be."

Of that, Zack had no doubt.

/\./\./\./\./\./\./\

Author's Note; Jean, thank you so much for taking the time to leave a review. I know you've been poorly lately, so I hope this penultimate chapter brings a smile to your face.