a/n - yes, another ff7 time travel fic, but this one has a twist that i hope not too many other stories have done (you'll have to read to figure out what it is :P). btw cloud's a girl, but that's just it, it ain't like your cliche genderbending! btw tifa is in this, too but i ran out of room :(
...
She had presented her with a choice that, given she was anybody else, Cloud would have agreed to without thinking.
What gave her pause was her hair—it was like his.
"What do you think?" she said, drawing closer, the void surrounding them nearly strangling the air out of Cloud's lungs. She didn't have a clue as to how or why they crossed each other's paths, and was now beginning to wonder if this woman actively sought her out. For what reason, she could only guess. "I know how many mistakes you have made over the years. Wouldn't you like a second chance?"
Cloud studied her expression for a moment. The woman was smiling at her, though something unreadable danced in her dark eyes. "I…want to think about it."
"Go ahead, I will be here."
Cloud turned around, trying to determine whether or not she was trustworthy. Strikingly, she understood a lot of her grievances, like they had known each other since forever. She didn't seem especially sinister, being draped only in a simple white gown that hid most of her body, minus her shins and hands. If it wasn't for her hair color Cloud would've thought of her as a normal woman.
Then she had an epiphany: what's there to lose?
If she could fix everything, then she wouldn't have to worry about the reality she lived in anymore. She'd still have her mother, the world wouldn't be a hellish wasteland, Zack wouldn't be gone, Sephiroth would be almost normal…
She took the risk. The payoff would be far greater.
"I'll do it." She stepped forward and held out her hand.
As the woman shook it, smiling, she said, "Excellent decision."
Before everything went dark, something writhed inside Cloud.
...
She was sixteen again. Not what she wanted, but she could deal with it.
Having a hand for a foot wasn't something she could deal with. She moved it a couple of times to ensure she wasn't hallucinating, watching as the fingers wiggled in accordance to her thoughts.
She tried moving a few steps. It hurt like hell, the rough soil scratching her palm while placed pressure burned the joints in her fingers. Would she really be able to do anything with something like this? She lingered on the issue for a moment, then broke her mind away from it. She had to fix everything. She couldn't let everything fall back into place. Hand-foot or not, she was going to do this.
She looked around at her surroundings—she was in the heart of Nibelheim, though she didn't know the date.
Mom used to have a calendar in the kitchen…
She limped over to her house and knocked on the door. Her mother greeted her, but Sephiroth, in her ugly orange dress and apron, stared at her.
No… A wave of violent, dizzying nausea washed over her, and she could feel her face flush. Weakness in her legs was felt as tremors in their muscles. What the hell is going on here?
"What's happened to you?" her mother said in a low voice, eyes wide, grabbing the collar of Cloud's shirt. As she pulled it toward her for inspection, Cloud could see it had dots decorating it, very much like a hospital gown. She didn't know where it came from, much less even realizing she was wearing it. Fear was beginning to gnaw on her mind. Something was very, very wrong. Sephiroth—no, her mother—tilted her head, and concern curved her mouth downward. "Where'd you come from? The hospital?"
"I'm not sick," Cloud said instinctively, almost jumping at the sound of her voice. It was hoarse and weak, and her throat screamed with rawness with every word. Even as she spoke, neither of them believed what she was saying. "I feel fine."
Her mother gasped, pointing to something she couldn't see near her collar bones. They protruded a lot more than she remembered. And was her skin always this pale? "You have…stitches? Cloud, what were you doing?"
"I do?" Still confused and disoriented, her legs started to buckle, but before she fell over, her mother yanked her inside and shut the door.
Cloud tried to pull away from her, yet her death grip was far stronger than any move she could've mustered. After she was laid down on the couch, her mother went over to the landline phone in the kitchen. Beeps intermingled audible button presses, then the phone clacked as she removed it from its holster.
"Mom, I feel fine—don't do this—I have to…" She sat up, the world spinning around her. Hanging her head in an effort to calm her queasiness, she watched, bewildered, as long, platinum blonde locks of hair cascaded down her chest. "What? I never—no, no, I feel fine…I have to leave, I need to do something—"
"I'm not letting you go outside like this. There's clearly something wrong with you, or somebody did something to you, I just don't know how—yes? What do you mean he's not available? Oh, for the love of—" she slammed the phone back into its place and marched over to where Cloud sat. "You're not going anywhere until you feel better."
"I feel fine."
Her mother narrowed her eyes. Cloud wouldn't be afraid if she didn't look like him. She was also still wondering how two completely different people spliced together, with none of his influence on her mind. Did she have J-cells in her?
"I feel fine. I really do."
She sighed, then reached over to feel her forehead. She retracted her hand almost instantly and her eyes grew to the size of dinner plates. "Cloud, you're—you're freezing cold! Aren't you numb? And you've—a hand for a foot?"
Cloud panicked, her heart now in her throat, and hid her hand-foot behind her normal one, saying, "No, no, everything's fine, everything's…"
She looked about to cry.
"Mom?"
"Oh, gods…" She buried her head in her hands, a few stifled sniffs escaping her before she could've suppressed them. "My poor baby girl…what's becoming of you?"
What's becoming…of me?
…What's becoming of this planet?
...
Turns out she had two weeks before it happened.
More bad news on top of bad news, as well the new anxiety from all the horrific melds of familiar people, places, things…She didn't know what transpired, though she suspected that that mystery woman had tampered with something. With what or how she did not know.
From what she saw of the rest of Nibelheim's residents and what little she saw of the outside world, multiple timelines were converging into one of absolute chaos. Some people were wiped from existence, while others were normal and intact, and still others were living as a grotesque mishmash of other individuals or versions of themselves. On top of that, a range seemed to exist for spliced people—from somewhat functioning members of society to incoherent messes of flesh and pain.
There were quite a few homes in Nibelheim where the interiors were being swallowed up by human tissues. Audible groans from within these shuddering masses suggested the vaguest form of awareness, and Cloud came to the conclusion that these masses were in fact once her neighbors, hideously transformed due to distortions in the space-time continuum. Staying too long in these houses meant that, given time, one would fuse with the moaning flesh walls, rendered just as mindlessly anguished as what had consumed their form.
Cloud also still couldn't understand what the woman had done to her. She was still mostly human-shaped, besides her hand-foot abomination, but like her mother, some version of Sephiroth was spliced into her—a version she must have never seen before, since there was none of that mind-control nonsense ruining her brain. At least, not yet.
But what troubled her the most was that creature she saw on the way back from the Nibel Reactor. She initially went to see if she could get in—she could—and get rid of Jenova, somehow. The plan was not well-thought out and she didn't know what she'd do if Jenova wasn't removable, or if she wasn't as brain dead as she seemed. Cloud, however, was desperate to do anything, everything, something to stop her life from unfolding once again.
When she went into the room Jenova was being kept in, the tank was empty. The glass wasn't broken and there weren't any other signs of disturbances surrounding the machinery. She was just gone.
Chills rose the hairs on Cloud's body. Was she wiped from the timeline?
That sounded wrong. A twist in her gut told her that some variant of Jenova must have been preserved somewhere—the problem now was where this Jenova existed.
She shuddered. The droning hum, emanating from every confusing tube and wire feeding into the room, made her head hurt, while the freezing musk made her dizzy. I've gotta go. I'm not going to figure it out by sitting in here.
On her way out she ensured that each door and lock were as close to their original positions as possible, so that she wouldn't get in trouble in case someone typically patrolled the area. As she stepped into the wilderness, she realized how ridiculously easy it was to get in. Too easy.
What's going on here? Cloud lowered her head and closed her eyes in contemplation. Something is seriously wrong. If only I knew what that something was…
She hadn't much time for herself before a horrible, dreadful series of howls pierced the mountain air. Multiple Nibel wolves were approaching and she had nothing to defend herself with. She started looking around to see if there was anything she could distract them with, but then remembered she could've gone back into the reactor to hide (berating herself for not realizing it sooner). While fumbling with the locks, crunches in the snow grew louder, closer. Strangely, it sounded as if only one creature was coming, despite the grotesque cacophony of multiple slobbering and panting beasts. The noises finally grew too loud to ignore and she glanced behind her, unable to resist the subsequent scream that escaped her mouth.
A monster large enough to bury her under its hulking shadow, its glossy, bulging blue eyes staring her down as its fat tongue sagged out of a corner of its drooling mouth, seated itself before her and growled like it was expecting something from her. Most upsetting was how its lower half gradually morphed into a fuzzy human torso riddled with many scars, eventually leading up to its throat where knots upon knots of flesh protruded into multiple slobbering canine mouths, the mouths' teeth having grown so wildly that they sharpened into blades of bone piercing the skin and gums surrounding them. It had a stretched human head, a grotesque mockery of a wolf's face, which was swaddled by a spiky, frazzled mane of black fur.
Her heart wrenched at the sight of an x-shaped scar on its right cheek. The world started to spin around her once more, and it seemed as though her muscles were paralyzed. She didn't want to believe it. She didn't want to believe the rest of what she was seeing ever since this madness began, but this was too much.
It watched her as she eventually crumpled to the ground on her knees, her breath becoming ragged as her eyes burned and her fists clenched.
Did I do this to him? Did I turn him into this monster? Is it my fault? It is, isn't it? It's my fault, my fault, my…
She looked up at it when it whined and pawed at the air in front of her, as if it was…concerned for her, like he would be.
She had to know. She needed to know if she had created another tragedy.
"Please tell me in any way you can," she croaked before fighting back another surge of misery. "Is that…is that really you, Zack?"
He perked up at the sound of his name, and he leapt forward a little, the monstrous mouths emerging from his throat crying gently.
She curled up into the fetal position and started bawling.
...
She was home when he returned. Another familiar face accompanied him, and like Zack, her body was mangled—not as badly as his, but she now needed a cane to walk. When she opened the front door and they came face to face, Cloud saw why—an extra pair of legs constantly tangled with her normal ones while her feet had been switched out for hands. The more upsetting details were obscured by a dirty, ratty pink nightgown that hung off her frail, strangely malnourished body.
Lucky that her mother had already gone to bed by the time she showed up.
Her discriminatory gaze shrank her. "A-Aerith? What are you doing…here?"
"What's happened to you?" She narrowed her eyes and stepped closer to inspect Cloud, though the latter tried to hide her figure with one of her arms. "Why are you in a hospital gown? Why is your hair long and grey?" When her line of sight traveled down to her feet, she gasped, reaching for the hand-foot before Cloud moved it away. "You…you're messed up like everyone else too, huh?"
"Yeah, but I want to know—why did you come here? How did you know about me even though—uh…"
Aerith motioned toward Zack, a pitying, hurt smile replacing her bewilderment from before. If the light hit her eyes right, multiple pupils in one eye could be seen dilating or constricting as she moved her head. It looked painful, like her multiple legs. Like what was going on with Zack's everything. Cloud began to feel sicker than usual.
"He told me about you in a…unique way." The other girl stared at her. "He uses gestures to communicate, you see. Ever since he's turned into this thing, he can't talk. Makes everything much more difficult…" Aerith glanced away momentarily, her brow furrowing and her lips curving downward like she was resisting something. Then, as quickly as her face soured, she resumed a neutral expression. "Over the past few days, I've been trying to figure out what's happened to the planet. It's scary how rapidly it changed!"
"The only thing I can understand is that the past, present, and future all meshed together into one giant mess, since I remember…dying, but I'm…still here, and younger too." Here she put a hand above her heart as her face darkened again. "I can't listen to the planet, either—it's incapable of speaking or it refuses to…" Closing her eyes, she became still for a moment, leaving Cloud to wonder if her time travelling had somehow killed their world. She realized, then, that Sephiroth was not the greatest threat to their lives.
She was, and she already succeeded inadvertently. The only thing left for them to do was to watch and wait out their demise. No escape.
And it was all because she thought she was going to fix everything.
When Aerith spoke up, her voice was rather grim. Perhaps the planet had finally spoken to her—and gave its final breath, most likely. "Do you have any ideas as to what's going on here? What caused all of this? I mean, I doubt you know much more than me, but—"
"I did it." The silence following her words told her everything.
"What?"
Her throat was incredibly dry—swallowing did nothing for it. Sweat beaded on her brow and her knees started to buckle. "I caused…everything, I started this whole disaster. It's my fault."
The two stared at her, and the only thing she wanted to do in that moment was to run past them, into the wilderness, into the vast expanse in the mountains where she could die alone like she rightfully deserved. She didn't want confrontation, she didn't want to see anything else from the consequences of her actions. She didn't want to see anything else of this new, short lived world she created. The end couldn't come fast enough. It might've been better for everyone if she was the only one who was wiped from existence. It might've been better if she never existed in the first place. She thought carelessly and recklessly, she knew she should've worried more about that woman's silvery hair, she should've left everything as it was, she was so unbelievably stupid and terrible and horrible—
She heard Aerith ask in a distant, horrified voice, "Why'd you do it, Cloud?"
Her train of thought derailed. She couldn't speak, she couldn't even offer the most flimsy of excuses, she couldn't find anything to rectify her actions, in fact only turning around in response. She knew she'd be infuriated by her ignoring her, but she doubted that answering her would fix anything. Everything was too far gone.
Something within her—an illness that had been germinating within her ever since she arrived to this monstrous timeline was now churning, awakened with some sort of disgusting rage she had never felt before, and as her surroundings once again began to melt and warp into incoherently multicolored, mushy blobs, she leaned back and found herself unable to resist the tightening of her muscles. It was too late, and warm tears rolled down her cheeks while a hideously viscous, black fluid jetted from her mouth. There was too much of it.
Before she could understand what was happening to her, everything went dark.
...
The next time she came downstairs, her mother was speaking to someone outside the front doorway. Within earshot, she recognized the other voice—it was Tifa.
Tifa had been actively avoiding not only Cloud, but everyone else, too. She had lost her legs for whatever reason and was now wheelchair-bound, and one of her eyes had split into two, joined at the pupils and incapable of movement like her normal one. Something like a mangled, underdeveloped arm protruded from her back and hung itself over the wheelchair's back, like a gross little fleshy wing.
It wasn't a mystery as to why Tifa was isolating herself. However, whenever Cloud tried to reach out to her, she often retreated back into her own home and shut the door. Other times she'd wheel away from her, a perturbed expression on her face while Cloud could only guess as to why she seemed so especially bothered by her. Then she remembered.
She had Sephiroth's face.
Cloud tried to follow their conversation to understand why Tifa was now bothering with talking to other people. What she eventually heard from her mother made her freeze.
"Who's Sephiroth?"
Tifa's voice shook with shock. "Y-you never heard of him? Are you sure you've never seen him before? Maybe you just don't know his—"
"I don't think he's a real person, dear."
"What? How can that be? I've seen him—I've had to fight him! He's going to come here any day now and…and…" She didn't finish her sentence; Cloud heard the beginnings of her crying. Immediately her mother started to panic, trying to comfort her as she broke down.
"He's not going to hurt anyone. He doesn't exist, he can't hurt you if he's not real! My, are you sure your head is fine? If only there was still a doctor in these parts…"
If Sephiroth doesn't exist, then how can I…how can I look like this? How can Mom look like that? Cloud pulled away from her hiding spot on the staircase to ruminate. Her rumination was cut short when her mother inexplicably summoned her.
"Cloud, come down here! Someone wants to talk to you!"
Cloud obliged, though when they met, they only started conversing when the older woman moved back to the kitchen to prepare some sort of dinner. Like everything was normal.
"You're Cloud?" Tifa said incredulously, frowning. The redness of her eyes made them so much worse. "I thought you were some weird…I don't know—some freaky version of Sephiroth. Then again, I couldn't believe your mother was real for a good minute or so…But that's besides the point. Aerith told me everything."
Her stomach fell out of her, and the nausea came back. "Sh-she did?"
"I want to know…why did you do it, Cloud?"
She settled on the truth, as it was the only thing she could use. "I thought I could stop the incident from happening again."
"But you didn't and made everything worse. My dad's gone—and I don't know what happened to Barret or Marlene…or everyone else for that matter…" She hung her head, remaining silent for a while. Cloud thought she was about to cry, but she looked up again with a blank expression, something far deeper than disappointment, frustration, or anger in her eyes. "Who knows how many other people have been lost? Cloud, I just…you didn't intend for this to happen, I hope?"
"No. I mean, I should've been worried when that woman had hair like Sephiroth's…"
"Huh?"
"That's how I messed up the planet. Some woman appeared in my dreams—I think—and she offered me a chance to fix the timeline. It was a trap, I fell for it, and now everyone has to suffer for my mistake."
"Oh."
They didn't say anything to each other after that.
...
Her voice was cold, strange. Inhuman, even. It was like she was whispering right into her ear, far, far too close, and no matter how much she tried to push her away she kept coming back. She seemed to be enjoying Cloud's disgust.
I have to thank you for what you have done. I would not have succeeded if it was not for you and your ignorance.
What? Who…who are you? What are you doing here?
Her subsequent laughter was full of scorn. You have forgotten again, but that is not surprising. I have been with you since you…arrived at Midgar. If you could even call that an arrival, of course.
Midgar? Cloud tried to remember, and a series of unsettling images emerged from her subconscious, until one brought waves of sickness upon her, like it did the first time she witnessed it—Jenova's headless body. Wait—you're not—
I am. You really thought it would be that easy to get rid of me? I live as long as some of my cells continue to exist. And you, Cloud…You are host to all of my remaining ones. I figured that, after all you have done to end me—and dare I say, nearly accomplishing your goal—you would be useful for what I want. A complete annihilation of the universe.
Since you are my agent, I no longer need to exist in any physical form. That is why you saw an empty tank back in the reactor.
But why me? Why not Sephiroth? And why destroy the universe? What's the point of mindless destruction?
I thought about raising my son from the dead, though that was also when I realized that you were still alive. If he came back, you would simply destroy him again, and every other time I brought him back. He was strong, but you are stronger. More useful. Still, I could not resist blending your original form with his. The only reason he was not truly present was because his mind is dead. He is gone, but I am free to use his physical likeness at any time I desire. And since you are host to my cells, why not have some last bit of shapeshifting fun before I lose you completely? The same goes for your stitches, they were from the time you were Hojo's guinea pig—more delightful fun! And…your mother was a happy accident.
Oh, and for your second question? It is simple, really. I am sick of everything. I have been sick of everything for a very long time, longer than any of your pathetic lot could ever comprehend.
An uneasy stillness settled over the two of them. Cloud could only guess as to what she was thinking, even contemplating if she was any different at some point of her life—if she wasn't just some cosmic abomination—but then she started speaking again.
Never mind that—I can sense your curiosity and I am not interested in addressing it. After all, you do not have much longer to live. This timeline I created…this beautiful, wonderful timeline I created, is far too unstable to continuously flow in the space-time continuum. When you wake up, I suggest you say goodbye to whatever is left of your cohorts. You will not ever see them again.
I suppose that when you are destroyed, I will be gone as well.
That is the only thing I could have hoped for from all I have done.
Somehow, Cloud could feel her smile.
...
It was the day of the incident. Zack had returned with Aerith once more, and as Cloud tried to converse with him, Aerith did the same with Tifa. Whenever they looked at each other, they all went quiet.
Crimson red stained the sky, and few wisps of black smoke scattered across it. More and more people had been disappearing or mutating into illogical, screaming piles of greasy flesh. The same went for architecture, as houses faded from existence and spliced into each other or their surrounding environments. Geography often wasn't consistent from the previous day to the next. Most functional people were no longer leaving their houses, as they, too, sensed the end was nearing. Jenova was right—the timeline's instability was accelerating, and it wouldn't be much longer before everything they knew would be eradicated entirely.
Cloud studied the black sun in the sea of red looming above them. She remembered when Sephiroth summoned Meteor, though there was no Sephiroth to blame this time around.
With a glimpse at her hands and another twist in her gut, she turned around and addressed the others. They watched her quite intensely.
"I just wanted to tell you something before…before, you know," Cloud said in a choked voice, struggling to sound thoughtful. A lump swelled in her throat, her vision beginning to cloud. When she blinked to clear her sight, she noticed they weren't much better off. "I know what I've done is beyond wrong. I don't think I'm much better than Sephiroth at this point. And I don't think you'll forgive me for what I've ruined. I understand why—it's rude to expect forgiveness from you, and I expect you won't accept my apology. That's fine, too.
"I just want to say that I'm sorry. It's too late to fix anything at this point, but I'm sorry." She flashed a forced, aching smile. "The end of all we've known is not what you deserve. If there was a way for only me to be wiped from existence, I'd find it. I'd do it.
"I deserve it." She stood up, gawking at Zack's repulsive form for one last time before she looked to Aerith and Tifa. "I hope you don't mind when I go back home. I want to see my mother again."
Silence lingered in the air. Yet, there was no anger. Just lots and lots of pain. And before they faded completely from earshot as Cloud went home, she could hear both girls calling out, "We'll miss you, Cloud!" Zack's howl was anguished.
Cloud never came back.
...
"W-what's the matter, Cloud? What's upsetting you?"
It was almost impossible to speak through her tears. She embraced her harder, and her mother did the same. "I'm sorry, Mom. I'm so sorry for everything I've done, to you and to everyone."
"I, uh, I don't understand—"
"That's fine. You don't need to understand. I just want to be with you."
Not a word came out as they continued to embrace, and her warmth would be the last thing she ever felt.