Chapter 36: Return to Nibelheim
As Cloud drove the buggy car away from the boundaries of Cosmo Canyon and its cliffs/canyons and heading across another river and the green plains further north towards the distant dark mountains with his friends/companions near him, Cloud, Angelina and Tifa look ahead of them through the buggy's windshield and they immediately recognized the jagged-looking dark mountains which is slowly getting nearer. Same goes for Laina. The image of the jagged-looking dark mountains of which stood in the center of the continent very near to their hometown of Nibelheim was branded into each of Cloud, Angelina and Tifa's memories as a picture that will never fade.
Cloud drove the buggy car straight toward the small town of Nibelheim which stood at the silent entrance of , stopped the buggy car near the entrance and turned off the engine and everyone soon got off the buggy car and the wagon, with Laina stopping Celeste next to the buggy car, got off, turned and helped Aeris down from Celeste then she tie Celeste reins on the right side of the buggy can window again (not so tightly so that Celeste will go free later on).
"I hoped that Cloud, Angelina and Tifa won't overreact too much when they saw how the town has been rebuilt back to the way it was by Shinra company after Sephiroth destroyed and burned it down." thought Laina sadly/worriedly to herself.
Unfortunately, her thought was proven wrong when she and the others left the buggy car and Celeste at the entrance of (since they couldn't bring the buggy car and the Chocobo into the town) to follow behind Cloud, Angelina and Tifa, whose minds and hearts were focused solely and beating in anxiety on their hometown which they're now approaching and as they finally arrived within the town of Nibelheim (and started to have strong, uneasy feelings inside them), expecting to see the blacken, ruined and decayed remnants of the town, they got the opposite of it instead. There were no burnt down houses and inn left to blacken, ruined and decayed by themselves, instead there were many intact/neatly built houses which is positioned exactly as Cloud, Angelina and Tifa remembered them. The entire resemblance was uncanny. Everything was as it use to be and completely untouched, from the tall wooden structure standing in the middle of the town, holding the huge water well at the top of it down to the town's houses and its street which is quite quiet/dusty and looked like a ghost town. Only that it's more of a ghost town because the place shouldn't have been standing intact.
"This is impossible!" exclaimed Angelina as she glance around the place in disbelief.
"What-!" exclaimed Tifa in disbelief as she too, glance around the place like Angelina did and almost choked when she saw the familiar sight of her two-storey house in between Cloud and Angelina's two-storey houses- or what had once been her and their houses 5 years ago. "This was all supposed to be burnt down, right?" Tifa asked both Cloud and Angelina as she turned to glance at them, wanting to confirm with them both.
Both Cloud and Angelina glance away from their houses to glance at her and nodded grimly and slowly. "… Yeah, Angie and I thought so." said Cloud.
"Then why…?" said Tifa. "Not just both you and Angie's houses but my house is still there too…"
Barret and the others who were with them were also surprised to see that the entire town was intact, unlike the story which both Cloud and Angelina told them all (except Cait Sith, Nina and Carter) a few days ago back in an inn in the town of Kalm about Sephiroth who had suddenly gone senile and destroyed the entire town. And yet here it was, completely intact. Both Barret and Red XIII then turned their heads to glance at both Cloud and Angelina with accusations in their eyes and faces.
"Didn't you two told us that Sephiroth burnt and destroyed the whole town?" said Barret accusingly at both Cloud and Angelina.
"Yes, we did! And it's true!" replied Angelina fiercely.
"But look around the place, you two." said Red XIII. "The entire town is intact. Have you two been lying to us to get our sympathies?"
"No! We're not lying to you all!" replied Cloud just as fiercely as Angelina while he shakes his head and remember the memories of his, Angelina and Tifa's burning hometown. "We remember… the intense, burning heat of the flames… the screaming of the people as they die or lose their homes and loved ones by Sephiroth's hands…"
"Both Cloud and Angelina are telling the truth, Barret, Red XIII." said Laina as she glance at Barret, Red XIII and the others. "They're not the only ones who had gone through the terrible ordeal which Sephiroth had done 5 years ago. Both Tifa and I were here with them and we experience the whole thing too."
Tifa glance at Laina then at Barret and the others and slowly nodded. But still Barret and the others were unconvinced by Laina's words and Tifa's nod and they all glance briefly at each other then at both Cloud and Angelina again, unsure of what to think.
"Look, why don't we ask around the town." suggested Kunsel. "Maybe the people who live here can tell us something about the town."
Cloud, Angelina, Laina, Tifa and the others all nodded in agreement at Kunsel's suggestion and they all split up and head off toward different houses to ask some questions and find out the truth of the town. Both Cloud and Angelina head toward the inn, Tifa went toward her house with Barret and Aeris following behind her, both Laina and Kunsel decided to walk up the stairs to head toward the old Shinra mansion while the others went toward the other houses in the town.
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Once Cloud and Angelina walked through the inn's entrance into the inn, they looked around and saw that every detail of the interior of the inn was exactly as they both remember in their memories. They dismissed the memories away and approach the young innkeeper who's standing behind the desk and is now staring at them with an earnest look on his face.
"Hi, welcome." the innkeeper greeted them in a cheerful voice. "Would you two want to stay in this inn?"
"No, we don't." said Angelina. "We have some questions that we wanted to ask you."
"Oh? Some questions you wanted to ask me?" said the innkeeper. "What is it?"
"What's your story?" Cloud asked the innkeeper with a faint hostility in his voice. "This town was supposed to have been burnt down 5 years ago. Why is the town back to the way it was before it got burnt down? What the hell is going on?"
The cheerful smile on the innkeeper's face immediately disappeared when he heard Cloud's questions and he turned to look away from both Cloud and Angelina for a few seconds then turned back to look at them. "Sir, don't say such awful things." said the innkeeper. "I was born and raised here in this town. What you just say never happened."
"I don't believe you. You're lying to us." said Angelina sternly at the innkeeper, annoyed at him for daring to pose as a resident of Nibelheim when both her and Cloud knew that he wasn't one.
"EXCUSE ME, girl…" said the innkeeper as he narrowed his eyes at Angelina. "That's quite rude of you for saying that… If you're going to continue talking that rudely to me, I'm going to have to ask you and your friend to leave."
The innkeeper then ceased his talking and turned to look away from them again, refused to look at them both. Angelina glared angrily at the innkeeper and was about to say more to him when both she and Cloud heard a small banging sound coming from a wooden door leading into a storeroom next to the innkeeper. Both Cloud and Angelina then turned to their left and walked toward the storeroom next to the innkeeper (who's still not looking at them), opened the wooden door to peered inside and their eyes widened a little at what they both saw.
Inside the storeroom stood a strange and lone man (or what both Cloud and Angelina presumed to be a man) near a pile of wooden crates, who's wearing a long black cape around him which heavily covered his features and body, rendering both Cloud and Angelina unable to see what he looks like and making him a kind of shadow hiding away in a corner. The strange man's body was trembling slightly and he's murmuring some words softly under his breath. Both Cloud and Angelina opened the wooden door widen, went into the storeroom and slowly approach the strange man, who's bend over like he's crippled and they noticed that he's clutching the ends of his black cape close to his body, as though trying to keep his body warm.
Some kind of instinct inside Cloud urged him to examined the strange man further and his left hand slowly reached out toward the strange man black right sleeve and he pulled it up so both he and Angelina could see the man's right upper arm while the strange man continue his inaudible murmuring. His right arm is very pale and on it there's a simple black number 6 tattoo branded onto it.
"Cloud, did you see what I see?" asked Angelina.
"Yeah, Angie. I did." replied Cloud. "He has a tattoo number 6. Hmmm, he has something…" Cloud's hand let go of the man's sleeve, reached into the man's right pocket and he pull out an item named "Luck Source" from it. After Cloud put the item into his own pocket, they suddenly heard the strange man's voice got a little louder and they were able to hear some of the words he's murmuring about.
"Urrr…rrrrrr…rrrrgh…" mumbled the strange man. "must…go…to…Re…uni…on…"
"Must go to Reunion?" thought Angelina to herself in confusion. "What is this strange guy talking about?"
The strange man's voice then went quiet again and he went back to his almost silent mumbling. Both Cloud and Angelina then turned and leave the black cape, strange man to his mumbling alone inside the storeroom, closed the wooden door behind them, leave the inn and its innkeeper and they saw Tifa, Barret and the others waiting near the tall wooden structure for them both (except for both Laina and Kunsel). Once Tifa, Barret and the others saw them both coming out of the inn and joined up with them, they immediately told both Cloud and Angelina about what each of them saw and heard inside each the various houses.
"So, all of you are saying that you all saw at least 1 or 2 of the black cape guys inside the houses, mumbling barely coherent words like "Reunion" and "Sephiroth" and had black-coloured number tattoos branded on their arms?" said Angelina with a frown look on her face while Cloud narrowed his eyes when he heard the word "Sephiroth".
"Yes, that's right, Angie." replied Tifa.
"What is really going on here?" asked Aeris worriedly. "Everyone in this town is acting strange!"
"Not only that, it's like they don't care about these black cape guys who's mumbling barely coherent words to themselves inside each of the houses." said Selwyn, crossing his arms.
"Something is very wrong here." said Yuffie, agreeing with both Aeris and Selwyn. "This town and its people has gone cuckoo or something, can't we just leave and move on already?"
"No, we can't leave yet, Yuffie." said Cloud with a shake of his head and Yuffie groaned. "Not until we know what's actually going on in this town. None of this is right, this town and its people should not be here."
"I don't think that the sane people who live here now will tell us anything." said Red XIII as he glance at Cloud. "It's clear on their faces that they do know something but doesn't want to tell us about it."
"Hey, where's Laina and Kunsel, everyone?" asked Angelina as she glance at the others.
"Beats me." said Barret, shrugging his shoulders.
"They must still be at the Shinra mansion." said Tifa. "Why don't we all go over there now?"
Cloud, Angelina and the others nodded at Tifa's suggestion and they turned and walked away from the tall wooden structure, past the item shop next to the inn, up the stairs and toward the Shinra mansion where Laina and Kunsel were.
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While Cloud and the others were busy checking the town out and asking the people about why the town is still intact after it got burned down, both Laina and Kunsel went up the stairs, walk down the dirt path to approach the iron gate of the Shinra mansion (here Laina remember as the place where Zack propose marriage to her which she agree to which make him very happy and then they had their first kiss… and also where Sephiroth found out the terrible secret about himself in the underground laboratory under the Shinra mansion and gone off the deep end). As both Laina and Kunsel approach and stopped near the iron gate of the Shinra mansion, they noticed two, black cape men who's also standing near the gate just like them, facing the mansion within through the gate and wailing mournfully in their high-pitched voices (and for some reason, Laina felt like there's something or someone calling for her within the mansion).
"Wooooo…ooow… He's…calling… Sephiroth… is…calling…" wailed the first black cape man in a twisted and uncontrolled voice.
"The… Great… Sephiroth…is… near…" wailed the second black cape man. "Inside…inside…the mansion…Urrrrrrrrgh…the great…Sephiroth…"
Both Laina and Kunsel gasped when they heard what the two black cape men just said and they exchange glances with each other. Soon after the both of them were joined up by Cloud and the others who's done in checking out the town and it's people, told them both about what they all heard and found out from the other black cape men who were scattered around the town inside the houses. Laina and Kunsel then told Cloud and the others what they both heard from the two black cape men said near them next to the gate after Cloud and the others done telling them both what they heard and Cloud, Angelina and Tifa exchange glance with each other before the 3 of them quickly open the gate and ran through it toward the mansion, away from the others. Laina, Kunsel and the others turned and wasted no time in following after the 3 of them toward the mansion as well.