A/N: For anyone interested in moving to the new third path of this monster crossover story, Fates of Worlds—Dimensions, this is the last chapter you NEED to read in this path for FoWD to make sense without missing out on a lot of important data.

Host and Soul

Eden woke with a small groan as he gave his head a shake and struggled to open his eyes. He had no idea where he was, only that it was warm enough for him to be comfortable in just his suit, and apparently, he had weights around his wrists and ankles. When his eyes finally opened, it was to see a large, plain room which was only moderately lit by a single light in the middle of it—and there were bars separating the rear of the room from the door side, as well as another set of bars dividing the rear portion of the room in two. He was in the left of the two cages, and—Felicia was in the other!

Fuhito was going to try to Summon Zirconaide at Felicia's expense!

The woman, who had been sitting with her back against the wall and shackles with chains around her wrists and ankles, lifted her head to look at him. She looked just plain exhausted, but she managed to give him a ghost of a smile as she commented, "So you've finally woken up."

"What knocked me out?" he asked.

Felicia shook her head. "I don't know. You were out cold when he brought you in here. Also, he has the four shards of Zirconaide, and is just preparing what he needs to Summon it. He took all our weapons, armor, and Materia. This is pretty much the worst case scenario."

Making a face, Eden sat up and began taking stock of his own situation. He had the same kinds of shackles as Felicia did, and while they allowed some movement, they didn't allow a lot of it. Fuhito's major flaw, one Eden could heavily exploit, was in the fact that Fuhito didn't know Eden could freely use alchemy as long as there was no Reactor and he could put his hands together. The shackles were more than loose enough to let him clap, and touching the floor was easy, too. Actually, touching anything in the room was easy.

"It could be worse, believe me," the blond Turk told her dryly. "I'm more worried about the others, because the Ravens brought an avalanche down on them in order to snatch me."

Her eyes widened as she paled. "An avalanche? In this climate, that's as good as a death sentence!"

"...I don't know, but yeah, usually it would be. I won't write them off yet, but they're honestly in worse shape than we are, either way. The irony of your former group name and what he just did isn't lost on me, either," Eden told her, looking down at his hands.

After a pause, the woman sighed faintly. "Worse and worse. The Ravens, though...I know what you mean about chimeras now."

"Chimeras?" a familiar—and unwelcome—voice asked in cold curiosity. Both looked up to see Fuhito just stepping into the room. He finished entering and shut the door behind himself as he moved over to stand at the bars to Eden's cage. "I'm aware you have detailed knowledge of the arrays and how to use them, but I don't know the term 'chimeras'."

"The Ravens are a mix of an animal or a monster and a human. Mixing two things like that together using the arrays is called a chimera," Eden told him, willing to answer because the man was already doing it, even if he didn't have a name for it.

"I see," Fuhito blinked, then tipped his head to the side. "Your people—your village—they frequently do such things for you to be so aware of it."

"Not true," the blond Turk replied, pain flashing across his face as he remembered Nina. "There were people who did, a small number of them, and they were killed for the crime they committed by doing it. One of them was a man who did it to his wife and daughter, a daughter who once called me 'big brother', until she was made into that thing, and was in such a state of agony that she just sat there and let a man kill her. The thing you don't seem to get is that we can 'be aware of things' without actively doing them."

The Wutain's lips curled in a faint, smirking smile. "That's such a waste. If you had become angry, I'd have thought you were lying to me, though. It's a pity you didn't do more to develop those things. Well, I'm not here for that at the moment. I want to know how best to lay out the array to summon Zirconaide—thank you for bringing all the shards right to me, by the way—first and foremost. You will tell me, won't you, Turk?"

"Why in the world would I want to help you kill Felicia faster?" Eden asked in reply with a glare.

The smirk on Fuhito's face was frightening in that moment as he said, "Because you won't like the result of refusing."

"I don't like a lot of results of a lot of things," the Turk answered, feeling the hair on the back of his neck rise. "Doesn't mean I'm going to be so foolish as to destroy the world just to spare myself some pain in the moment."

Something black and shadowy rose off Fuhito's body and shot at Eden, spearing his right leg just above the knee—and making him cry out in agony as he felt both excruciating pain like burning and a sudden influx of knowledge in disjointed parts and with missing pieces. There were even tiny flashes of memories, small sparks so brief he almost missed them appearing, and he was never able to see one clearly enough for long enough to recognize anything.

What the Hell?

Gritting his teeth, Eden forced the pain under control, searching his mind for what the shadow could be. It wasn't one of the beings like 'Father', but the black hands which came from the Gate couldn't literally attack like that. At the same time, it was something which accessed the Gate, or had at one time accessed it, because it was transmitting and imprinting familiar knowledge in his mind. He was stymied. Over and over again, he asked himself what it was, trying to ignore the pain—which was just going on and on and on...

A flash of a child's drawing (he thought it could have been of a family) appeared long enough for him to grasp the general 'what', and a thought suddenly came to him about the Gate, Truth, and the 'prices' people had to pay to accomplish something.

It was possible that something Truth or the Gate had claimed became imbued with knowledge from the Gate, then Fuhito somehow got his hands on it (maybe with help from those two Wutain criminals?), and it attached to his body. It could even be someone's soul who had been sacrificed, rather than something like the insides of Teacher's body or the Bastard's eyes. How many times had a soul or a piece of a soul been corrupted by being present at the Gate or used in a transmutation? It could even have been floating around in that space for millennium.

How long was the fucking pain going to go on?

He'd have been in much worse shape if he wasn't so desensitized to pain from his auto-mail, but this was far from pleasant, and he was sure it was approaching ten minutes now, with that thing still stuck in his leg.

Vaguely, he heard Felicia shout at Fuhito, "Stop it! That's enough, he won't be able to answer you—even if he wanted to—if you cause too much pain!"

"He's nowhere near his threshold," Fuhito replied mildly.

Near it or not, the blond was still in a whole lot of pain, and he would have much preferred to end it. Suddenly, an array flashed into his mind, and he knew it was a long shot—he'd have to be quick to finish the process—but he could probably get Fuhito to help him with a way to save Felicia. He wasn't entirely sure what the result would be, but they were running out of time, and Fuhito was reckless enough to push ahead without his help—before anyone got there to help them. If there was any chance he could get Fuhito to actually use the array which had just shown itself in his mind, it would begin the process of merging and summoning Zirconaide, and with his ability to get free, he'd be able to activate the other half needed to properly finish the process.

A long shot he had to take now, not later.

But he also couldn't give in too soon, or Fuhito would be suspicious.

Gritting his teeth again, Eden felt his body start twitching, even against his will. That was a bad sign. He hissed, but gave no other sign of his pain, and vaguely heard the man give an impressed whistle. Well, Genesis and Shelke had gone through much worse pain than this with no end in sight and no actual way to stop it. He could wait, he had to wait. Not too long, just for the right time. He wasn't sure why, but he was pretty sure Fuhito would have to stop sooner or later—he'd have to wait at least until then.

It was a long wait which felt a lot longer than it actually was. Of course, pain was known to distort one's perception of time, too.

Finally, it stopped and the shadowy thing was pulled from his leg, letting him roll onto his side as he breathed hard and trembled. A glance at Fuhito showed him panting, meaning the thing took quite a bit of energy for him to use, especially to maintain for an extended time. Felicia looked pale and drawn, her face stony but her eyes full of fear and pain for him.

"So, are you ready to talk?" Fuhito asked after a few minutes, when he'd recovered from his own bout of exhaustion.

"Paper...and pen..." Eden muttered, deliberately allowing both Fuhito and Felicia to think he was only partially aware. His leg actually still hurt with a burning pain, but it was much lessened. In a way, the burning was probably a good thing—it should have sealed the wound and prevented infection.

"Eden, no!" Felicia gasped softly.

Fuhito chuckled and left. Soon after, he returned, opened the cage door, put the pen in the blond's hand, and put the paper under that same hand. He also used one finger to hold the paper down as Eden drew out the array which had appeared in his mind, the one which would look like it was doing what Fuhito wanted, from the perspective of a novice. When Eden finished and went limp, the Wutain left the cage, relocked the door, and left the room with a spring in his step.

Looking up slowly, he saw the woman looking down, sorrow shadowing her gaze and resignation emanating from her.

"Felicia," he said softly. She gave her head a shake, so he said, "I'm not so foolish I'd really give him the way to kill you faster, you know." He then drew in a sharp breath as his wound gave a sharp, painful pull. "Damn, that thing hurts, though..."

Her gaze lifted to his as she asked in confusion, "But that array...?"

"It will look to a novice like it's doing what he wants it to. It isn't. I can activate the other half. Without the other half, it'll rebound on him before it can complete its process," Eden explained. "I'm not entirely sure what a rebound will do to you, but it shouldn't kill or maim you. Right now, I'm going for a long shot, and I'm not completely certain what the final result will be, but I'm sure it won't include your death because that's a set of arrays meant for merging and restoration—to repair what was broken without harm to anything else. It takes a lot of elements Genesis and I have been working on to fix your issue, so it has a very good chance of working beneficially."

Felicia was silent for a minute before she asked, "Does that mean you never actually lost your mental faculties from the pain—you just tricked him into thinking you had?"

"Yeah," he agreed in mild amusement, closing his eyes to rest while they waited for Fuhito to get back.

"...How? The kind of pain he was causing you..."

"I have a high pain tolerance threshold thanks to my auto-mail. That actually began to approach the limit of what the outfitting caused me, only because it went on so long, not because it was so painful in itself. Don't worry so much about me, or about yourself. I'm not just going to sacrifice you, or anyone, if I can help it. He just needed to believe he'd gotten to me so he'd use the array I gave him without questioning it."

Her eyes closed as she ducked her head and quietly told him, "I hope it won't take you too long to recover from that wound, though. Your only benefit is that it isn't bleeding. I could smell hints of burning flesh, like cauterizing."

"Yeah, felt like that, too. By the way—you really look tired."

"He forced me to fight his Ravens until I was too exhausted to fight him. He's been keeping me awake since then—probably almost three days between then and now, on the way here and since I've been here."

"Hmmm. That's no good. Could you sleep now?"

"Maybe, but with what he's preparing to do, I'm not sure I want to try."

There was a moment of silence, then Eden asked with a faint grin, "Is it still April first?"

"Yes," she replied, sounding puzzled.

"Back home, April first was also known as 'April Fool's Day'. Looks like the joke's going to be on him. (1) And Felicia, sleeping is probably your best option so he thinks you've completely given up."

The woman gave a faint chuckle, then a small sigh as she muttered, "I really am tired..." Silence fell, and shortly after, her breathing evened out in sleep.

Fuhito returned shortly after that, gave a snort at what he thought were his two sleeping captives, and began working on laying out the array Eden had given him. It took him almost an hour to finish, then he left again, only to return shortly thereafter. He moved Felicia soon after his second return, and Eden stirred and sat up to watch Fuhito lay her in the middle of the array, his expression completely blank. Fuhito then made the mistake of putting his back to Eden as he crouched to activate the array, which had the four shards of Zirconaide clustered around the woman's body.

With Fuhito's back turned, Eden had the time to alchemically sever all four chains binding him and was already at the cage bars, dissolving two of them into powder so he could slip out of the cage, as the man activated the array. His leg hurt like Hell, but he put that out of his mind so he could jump into the middle of the active array with Felicia (who was stirring at the energy flow), put his hands together, and put them down on her. He vaguely saw Fuhito gasp in shock, but as soon as he activated the second half of the array, the room (their vision, rather) turned white.

Felicia screamed once, more like a sound of shock than of pain, then seemed to dissolve out from under his hands, and the sound of bending, tearing, and snapping metal and rock came to him. The light began to clear as cold dropped around him, and he quickly looked up—to see a being which resembled Felicia, and not. Her hair had flared out into curved, wing-like forms with three distinct 'feathers', growing much longer than it had been, there were some streaks of brown and silver running over her skin, and she had gained bladed spikes in several places on her body. Two protruded from her shoulder blades, pointed downward, six which also pointed downward had formed a skirt of blades around her legs, anchored to a brown, belt-like device at her waist, and two more linked to her hands, similar to lances. Her eyes also glowed sliver.

Despite those changes to her, she was still obviously Felicia, and was even about the same size she had always been, with the same clothes she had been wearing, and even the same coloring for the most part. She blinked, then looked down at herself, then at Eden—and finally, at Fuhito.

"What just happened?" the Wutain gasped, then gave his head a shake as he laughed. "Well, what are you waiting for, Zirconaide? Go destroy the world, as you've been wanting to for so long!"

"I do not serve you," the being replied, its voice similar to those of the Summons. Her gaze moved back to Eden as she added, "You have upheld your promise, Ancient Sentinel. This was—an unexpected method for such to occur, yet it has succeeded in both tasks you wished to accomplish—to restore me and to save me. This I say because I am both Zirconaide and the woman Felicia, much as Chaos is also his host." There was a pause and a nod. "Find shelter, Ancient Sentinel, before the cold becomes harmful to you. I have yet a task to fulfill."

A moment later, there was a bright flash of light, then he somehow felt like he was completely alone. When his eyes cleared, Felicia was gone—and so was Fuhito, the only evidence that he had ever been there being the pyreflies floating around and the odd, shadow substance left behind. At the shadow's feet were his Materia, bracers, and weapons—Fuhito had apparently had them on him. He stared at the shadow for several long moments, still trying to work out what it was, but then he reached out to brush his fingers over it cautiously.

What he felt was a soul which was shattered and in agony, a soul which reminded him of a child—a child like Nina.

Tears filled Eden's eyes as he whispered to the shadowed soul, "I can only save you by dissolving you."

He felt a response of pleading for an ending, a feeling so abstract that the only reason he knew it for what it was—was because he now realized there were limits people had to what they could take, and that they had a right to request death. Because Zirconaide/Felicia had left the shadow unharmed, he knew that soul wasn't evil, so it fell to him to repair the damage it had suffered. He thought first of using it as a catalyst to repair his leg, then gave his head a shake and collected his gear and Materia to return them to his person while he thought of another way to help it. One of the Materia was Cleanse, causing him to recall the arrays for Purify which Genesis had used on him.

It could work, couldn't it?

He held his hand forward as he imprinted the arrays in his mind which activated Purify, and they formed around his wrist as he sent the emotionally cleansing energy into the shadowed soul. From within it, light sparked and began to reach out tendrils to the outer edges of the soul, until the entire dark essence had turned to light. The cast ended, so Eden lowered his hand and watched as the soul began breaking apart into pyreflies, released back to Minerva and the Lifestream, where it would be able to finish healing. He wasn't aware of the tears running down his cheeks.

Then, there was some sort of pulling sensation and everything went dark.

FoW

In Midgar, Tseng stood facing the President from across his desk as the man studied him, one finger tapping on the arm of his chair. Since the Turk had entered the room and asked what he could do for the man, President Shinra had been just looking at him like that. It was eerie on more than one level, but he showed nothing to the older man, as showing his discomfort would give the man too much control of the situation. He quickly ran through a check-list of all the things they had done or were doing, knowing by doing so that there were at least two things the President could have found out about, but that left the question of what the man wanted with him.

"Heidegger and Hojo both betrayed me, and they had both been my strongest supporters," the President commented suddenly.

"Yes, Sir," Tseng agreed. "With all due respect, however, Heidegger was heavily influenced by mind-altering drugs and Hojo's sanity has been suspect since Jenova was found."

"Of course," the blond man agreed. "Scarlet, also a strong supporter of mine, was murdered by a man your Turks had been sent to Corel to find."

"Fuhito has proven far more problematic than we anticipated, and even escaped from Crescent Unit—they don't let go of their prey easily," the Wutain Turk filled in. "We have put into place a sting to deal with him, which is actively in progress at this moment."

The President snorted at the words. "Hojo's monsters killed Hollander and Palmer, the last of my supporters."

"We had absolutely no control over them, though—as I noted in my report—Hojo deliberately released them in the Labs with the intent to kill everyone there."

"Tseng, of the original company executives, who is left?"

"...Only Reeve Tuesti."

"Only. Only a man who wants nothing more than to develop everything which has no use or value. He doesn't support me, he'll support anyone who lets him tinker, and him giving that toy cat of his to Rufus tells me he's more likely to support my son than me, even while I'm still in power."

"I wouldn't know, but my impression of him is only that he doesn't like to create arguments for any reason."

"That's true. However, Rufus is putting a huge amount of funds into the Slums lately. I know very well you know he's doing it. One of the things he's funding is a factory run by Gaia's Refuge, who are most closely attached to him, Reeve, you, and Lazard, and they're producing an independent power supply."

"While I'm aware of Rufus funding them and the factory, I don't know what the factory produces. Perhaps Eden knows?"

The President suddenly surged to his feet and slammed his hands down on the desk as he yelled, "Damned it, Tseng, why is the entire Hades-forsaken world acting against me? Why are you all unanimously trying to take my power away from me?"

Tseng blinked, but the man yanked open a drawer and pulled out a remote with only three buttons on it, the most prominent a large, red one in the middle.

He pushed the button before Tseng could move, then smirked and said, "Fine, if you want to take the world away from me, you can have it—as you burn in Ifrit's Hellfire!"

The Wutain blinked, then turned to stare towards the window as he heard explosions and a strange, metallic shattering sound. A moment later, he ran to the window—and stared in horror at what he saw.

Below him, the entire Upper Plate was shaking and beginning to collapse. He could do absolutely nothing to stop it. In the distance to the east, he saw a spark of red light and realized with a sense of horror that Kalm had also just gone up in flames. Had the President wired the entire world to explode?

Tseng felt numb at the realization of what they had missed.

He had no further time to ponder the situation as he felt a pulling sensation and his vision went dark.