By a Fraction of a Degree

A FFVII Fanfiction work by findthetiger129

Rated T for Violence and Language.

I do not own Final Fantasy VII, or any of the characters, trademarks or likenesses from Final Fantasy VII or its spin-offs That honor goes to Square-Enix.

SOLDIER 3rd Class Alistor and Mat are original characters.

Does Our Future Still Lead to a Smile? (Interlude)

Chapter 75, Seeking an End to Sorrow (Case of Aerith)

February 11th [ ν ] – εуλ 0009

A light breeze flowed through the yellow flowers as Aerith worked through them on her hands and knees, checking for weeds and the dampness of the soil. One of the most wonderful things about living in the Planet's southern hemisphere was how lush the seasons were around here. But on the other hand, the local weeds could be quite persistent if she wasn't mindful of them. Even so, she reveled in it. Being out here was truly wonderful, and her flowers seemed to love it just as much as she did. They bloomed vibrantly under the open skies and it made her heart soar.

Upon finishing with her task, she selected a few of the flowers to place in a basket and, dusting off the dirt from the green skirt and older yellow blouse she wore, she gathered it up along with her gardening tools and started up the path back to the lodge. Moving through the woods, she could hear the sounds of birds chirping around her, and she smiled. Since the Deepground Incident and the end of the reconstruction period, even though GUARDIAN had been doing their best to help however they could with the Stigma, there had also been some opportunity for things to slow down a little, and for people to do a little living of their own. Cloud and Tifa had moved in together over Seventh Heaven, and Zack and Kunsel were continuing to assist the world in their own ways. Zack had been investing a lot of their oil revenues into Rayleigh's research, though he had kept enough for them to help keep the lodge in order. Even so, in spite of the fact that many of those who had taken part in the mission to the Northern Crater were off doing other things, those who were around visited often, and the place still felt like a home. If anything, it reminded her of the first few months before the Zirconiaide incident, when they had first been remodeling the lodge.

The smell of Elmyra's cooking wafted through the back yard as she stepped out of the trees, and she continued onward, placing her tools in a storage shed Zack and Kunsel had just recently built onto the side of the lodge before walking up the steps to the back porch and through the door. Upon entering, she spotted the two SOLDIERs in the living room, talking to Freya. It seemed she'd just walked in as the lady Turk was getting to the end of a story about her time as a Turk, which had both the guys laughing. "…And poor Allen, he was trying so hard to carry that file box and balance that package from Scarlet on top of it so he wouldn't have to go back to see her again and see where he was going at the same time, but what's the first thing that happens after he carried it all the way up those twenty odd flights of stairs? He slams directly into Veld and all the papers go flying. We were all in the office at the time and we were so sure he was going to get a reprimand but instead, Veld just looked down at where he had fallen in a heap and told him he was never to take the stairs ever again, like he knew what had happened."

"He probably did," Kunsel commented.

"Probably," Freya agreed. "But that was about the time Al started lifting weights. Right Tanjuu?"

Aerith had placed her flower basket on the kitchen table, and that was when she noticed Tanjuu, Freya's partner, in a slick grey suit, a stark contrast to Freya's light blue summer blouse and jeans. The former gangster must be visiting on business from Veld. The other renegade was leaning against the far wall, cool and tough as ever. Aerith offered everyone a smile and Zack stood to join her. "So how are the flowers today?" he asked.

"They're doing great," she said, gesturing to the basket and its contents. "I was going to bring a few of them over to the clinic when I go to help Dr. Rayleigh."

Zack nodded. "We'll walk over that way with you after lunch, Kunsel and I have another monster job near this town west of Cosmo Canyon and the Gainsborough's being prepped for us."

Aerith rearranged the flowers in the basket before nodding in agreement. "All right." She knew Zack didn't have to go if he didn't want to, but helping people on the ground level was something he had always enjoyed. Now that GUARDIAN was no longer in the business of large-scale warfare, it had shrunken somewhat into a more specialized fighting force. It was true, they were more in the business of mercenary work, but for the most part, Zack had done his best to pull his organization out of politics once the WRO had been more firmly situated. He made sure to talk to Reeve all the time, and keep up to date on what the organization was doing, and their movements towards having the town try to form an interim government that he hoped would get that creep Mutton Kylegate out of power, but for the most part, he kept his business to assisting townships with monster troubles. There was the occasional Deepground holdout, but those had started to become more scarce. Kunsel was the one who had wryly dubbed it 'Zack's hero business.'

As Aerith and her escort reached the end of the path leading into Widblain, she felt Zack reach out and take her hand affectionately. It still amazed her just how much the little fishing village had grown in the last few months. First from the incoming troops during the war with Shinra, and then with the refugees and Stigma patients hoping against hope that they'd gotten closer to finding a cure. She could see Seventh Heaven, down the dusty street, about halfway between them and the town square. It didn't look like Cloud was home though. The garage he had built for Fenrir seemed to be locked. She could see Tifa's silhouette working inside though. They were at the door when Zack spoke. "I'll see you when we get back. With any luck, we'll be home in time to walk you back tomorrow afternoon."

Aerith smiled. "Be careful you two."

Zack planted a small kiss on her forehead. "Of course we will. You too. I know what you're doing is important, but Geostigma isn't anything to play with."

"I'm a big girl. I can handle myself," Aerith teased in mock reproach.

Zack nodded. "I know." Aerith noticed that Kunsel had discreetly taken a couple of steps towards the airship dock where the Gainsborough sat at the ready as Zack leaned in and whispered a farewell "I love you."

They exchanged their goodbyes and Aerith waited at the doorstep for a few moments, giving the guys a final wave before adjusting the flower basket on her arm and pushing open the door to Rayleigh's clinic. It was essentially hers now, seeing as she was one of the leading experts on the Stigma. They had yet to come up with a fully functioning cure yet, but the Doctor had absolutely refused to give up, and Aerith didn't intend to either. She walked past the receptionist who gave her a nod of welcome and pushed past the door into the now familiar hallway. She passed the door leading to one of the inner waiting areas and heard the sound of a boy laughing. She stopped and opened the door into a common area that was set up with a couch and several chairs. On the couch, sat Alistor, the SOLDIER Barret had escorted to Widblain from Rocket Town during the war, and the boy, Mat, was sitting at his feet, a comic book in his hands.

"Well you seem happy today," Aerith commented, walking into the room. She had been planning to come in here anyway after speaking to Rayleigh but it wouldn't matter if she switched those two events.

"Al found this for me at the book store, it's really cool!" the boy answered, holding up the comic book for her to see. It was just recently published. A story about a super-hero of some kind.

"It does look really interesting," she said, approvingly before walking over to a cabinet and retrieving a small flower vase. "Maybe when Denzel comes in later you can show it to him. He'll probably like it a lot." After going through a door into a utility room and filling it with water from the sink, she returned and placed the vase on one of the tables next to the couch, arranging a few of the flowers.

"Denzel's coming today?" Mat asked, his face lighting up. In spite of being slightly younger, the two of them had become fast friends since Cloud had brought Denzel back from Midgar, in hopes that Rayleigh would be able to help him. "Great!" the boy said. "Maybe we can play with those action figures Cissnei brought from Junon."

The two of them had been staying in a small house near the clinic since the end of the war. At first, there had been some debate as to what should be done with Alistor, since as an enemy combatant the assumption should have been that he would pose something of a threat, but the SOLDIER hadn't done anything except keep an eye on Mat, and once he'd openly volunteered to help Rayleigh with her research on the Stigma, Zack had made the judgment call that he was all right. The village had grumbled, and then they'd gone on with their lives, but since then, the man had turned out to be a very helpful asset, occasionally offering advice to other Stigma victims about how to keep their spirits up and helping around the clinic when Rayleigh needed an extra pair of hands. It was about that time that she noticed the fresh bandage peeking out from under the man's sleeveless shirt. "More samples today?" she asked.

Alistor nodded. "Blood and a couple of other things."

Aerith nodded. "Well you two, I need to go see Rayleigh, so I'll talk to you later, all right?"

"Okay Miss Aerith," Mat said. She smiled and walked out the door, another vase in her hands. She listened to the gentle hum of the Planet under her feet as she walked. There was something… a little more tense about it she supposed, but otherwise it didn't seem too terribly out of the ordinary. The echoes of pain from far to the north had always been there, as were the healthier veins of the Lifestream near Banora, but for the most part, she normally just felt the planet moving along as it always did. Nowadays though… through the intangible threads of thoughts and feelings she could occasionally hear, was there… a greater since of urgency? She couldn't be sure, but it worried her. After pausing to place the vase in the treatment room, she walked to the back where the doctor's office was located and knocked on the door. It was only afterward that she heard Reeve's voice saying "Is someone there?"

"Come in!" she heard the doctor call. Pushing the door open, she eased inside and saw that Reeve was indeed standing inside with his mother seated in a chair next to him.

Rayleigh looked up from her desk. "Ah, there you are. You brought flowers?" Aerith nodded and placed the basket on the desk. "I think if we put a few over on the window sill there, it'll look a lot nicer in here."

Ruvie looked up at her with a gentle, but tired smile. She hadn't quite believed it when Reeve had told her about the flowers, but the older woman had quickly taken a liking to Aerith's garden by the hot spring, and sometimes walked out to visit from the small house where Reeve had set her up in the village. Aerith returned the gesture and then turned her attention back to the doctor. "Has there been any results?" she asked.

Rayleigh shook her head. "I'm afraid not. You can see for yourself, if you like."

Aerith nodded and walked out the hall towards a small office that Rayleigh had set up for their work, but as she walked out of Rayleigh's door, she heard Reeve ask Rayleigh "How is it doctor?"

"The good news is that with the care regimen we have adopted, Ruvie's case hasn't advanced very much. I'd say the envrions around here have done a world of good in that regard, but…" Aerith paused just before she went out of earshot. "The truth is until we have a cure…"

"It's all right," Ruvie cut in.

"No it isn't," Reeve said insistently. "There are so many people counting on us. We can't let this sit."

"That isn't what I mean dear," Ruvie said. "What I mean is I've already lived a long life, I can't be holding you back…"

"But you aren't," Rayleigh insisted. "Everything that we do here will bring us one step closer to finding a cure. Don't lose hope. If you do, the Stigma will definitely spread…"

Aerith's hand balled into a fist at her side as she stepped up her pace. The doctor was right, they couldn't lose hope now. Walking to the other office door, she pushed it open and walked in. On the other side of the door, she could see a number of microscopes, tanks, beakers, and test tubes situated around the room. In her youth, deep down at the back of her mind, she hadn't been able to help but have a fear of such things. They meant pain. They meant Hojo. They meant barely remembered images of horrors best left in the past.

She understood their use, for it was Rayleigh's work that had allowed Zack and Cloud to understand what had happened to them, and even she had to admit such places did create some incredible miracles, but even now, she didn't quite like laboratories. This was different however. Over the last few days, they'd been looking into limit channeling. Before that, Rayleigh's research had been strictly kept to the medical side of things, but that was before the accident that had happened about a week ago.

Denzel and Mat had been playing near the lodge near some rocks that had been eroded out of an embankment during a storm. Aerith had been watching them at the time, but hadn't been able to move in time to prevent Mat from getting a nasty cut from a fall. In a flash, she had channeled her Healing Wind limit, and it had worked, but Rayleigh had noticed a small change in the way the Stigma infection sites on his body had reacted to her limit. They hadn't closed or even improved per se, but the flesh around Mat's wound sites had seemed slightly less inflamed. Curious as to the cause of this phenomenon, they had been attempting to trigger the limit as well as the one she called Pulse of Life which was much more powerful on several samples both of Lifestream and infected patients and then taking samples to see if any change had occurred. Sadly, it hadn't seemed to do much more than what they had already observed, but it was better than nothing, right?

She walked over to the samples in Petri dishes that Rayleigh had set out for her to look at on the counter, along with a series of notes. At first they had been hard for her to understand, since she herself wasn't a scientist, but under the doctor's tutelage, some of them had begun to make sense.

The attempt to use her limit break to purify the Lifestream sample and the mako sample had both been total failures. There was no question of that. The tissue samples had shown little to no definitive improvement, though there did seem to be a lower occurrence of infected tissue around the abscesses that Geostigma inflicted in the samples from victims she had subjected to her Pulse of Life limit. That was both promising and not so promising. At the very least, it meant they might be on to something.

Rayleigh had also put out a call to everyone they knew of who had healing limits to see if similar results could occur when they were used, and next to the dishes whose samples that had been exposed to her own limit, she saw a similar set of petri dishes which Rayleigh had labeled for herself. Odd. Aerith hadn't been aware of what the doctor's limit breaks could do, but if they could heal, then perhaps it was worth pursuing. She was about to go back to the doctor's office when something in the small vial of Lifestream from her own sample set caught her attention. It seemed to be glowing slightly. Curious, she returned to it and after reaching for a glove and putting it on (she had been around long enough to at least know the importance of avoiding adding contaminants into the samples) she reached out and lifted the small vial with curiosity.

At first nothing happened. But then, she suddenly felt the presence of someone terribly familiar and nearly dropped the vial. A flash of a familiar cruel smile on a man who stood in front of her and tried to take two of her best friends away from her and destroy the very planet on which she stood. Laughter echoed through her thoughts. It was all she could do to set the glass container back onto its stand before allowing herself to drop to the floor. At that moment, Rayleigh hurried into the room. "Aerith, are you all right?" she asked.

The Cetra looked up at her, her eyes wide with worry. "It can't be…" she murmured, pulling herself to her feet. "I think… I saw Sephiroth just now." She listened hard for the Planet's pulse, trying to find out where this feeling had come from, but for the moment, the area around her had gone deathly silent, as though frozen in terror.

March 7th [ ν ] – εуλ 0009

Aerith stood at the guardrail on the Gainsborough's upper deck as it pulled into position over the ledge where, over a year ago, the Highwind had anchored to launch a rescue expedition into the Northern Crater. Zack had certainly taken her seriously when she'd told him what she'd seen in that vial of infected Lifestream, but due to everyone having been very busy over the following weeks, it was only now that they had come up to the Crater to follow up on it.

Zack stood next to her while Kunsel conferred with Doctor Rayleigh, Freya, and a few researchers from Cosmo Canyon a few feet away. When he spoke, his tone was definitely worried. "Are you sure you'll be all right for this?" he asked.

"I'll be fine," she said. "I know you'll be needed down in the crater, and I'll have Cissnei right here, along with Rayleigh if anything happens."

"Still, if what you saw back there was real… I guess I just don't like the idea of you running into him alone."

"I don't either," Aerith said, "But if there's a chance we can find a cure from this, we have to try, right?"

"I know," Zack said, finally relenting. They had already had this argument so many times. But it was all right. It was only because he cared.

"Zack? We've got the climbing gear prepped," Freya called over to them. "Are you all set?"

The ex-SOLDIER nodded as he walked over. "Yeah, let's get moving. The sooner we can get this over with the better." With that, they began the process of lowering the equipment down to the snow-covered glacier surrounding the crater itself, and before too long, Aerith was watching Kunsel, Zack, and the lady Turk walking off into the distance, towards the hole through which they had rappelled into the caves below. They were accompanied by a couple of other explorers too. A detective by the name of Evan Townsend had recently contacted the WRO for information on the whereabouts of a SOLDIER whom, according to existing records, had been in Nibelheim up until they had taken control of the area. At that point the man had fled with many of the other actor/inhabitants of the place, to settle in Costa Del Sol. That detail had led Mr. Townsend to a lead on the whereabouts of his mother, for which, he had contacted GUARDIAN, hoping to take part in this expedition to learn more. The man, along with a young female friend of his, were headed down into the snows after the renegade Turk and the two SOLDIERs, leaving the rest of the party alone at the summit of the glacier.

Now standing with a heavy, fur-lined cloak wrapped around her, Aerith walked about the area for a moment as the others watched, trying to get a bead on the best place for what she was planning. She too had a part in this expedition. As Doctor Rayleigh prepared to take a series of notes on what the results of this experiment would be, Cissnei watched with curiosity while she felt around with her sense for the place where the Planet's cries were the loudest and most painful. There were veins of Lifestream flowing all through this area for miles. Finding a place to call on it shouldn't be too difficult… There.

She planted the staff she had been carrying since the Temple of the Ancients into the snow with a decisive motion. "I think this will do," she said to the others.

"All right then," Rayleigh said, coming closer, a clipboard under one arm and an odd piece of equipment in the other. She knew it to be a device built to track the purity of Lifestream in the surrounding area. "Zack made me promise if the level of infected Lifestream in the area became too high, we would pull you out immediately."

Aerith nodded, and as Cissnei took up a guard position nearby, she closed her eyes and concentrated, even as she could feel snow begin to fall around her. This wasn't the same as trying to connect with someone else, but it was the same basic principle, utilized to connect with the Lifestream itself. Focusing on her own inner space, she called on her own energies, centering her consciousness…

As she opened her eyes to the now familiar field of flowers, she almost immediately noticed that something about the place was different. Looking around, as the light breeze blew through the area, she spotted the familiar pond off in the distance, but upon coming closer, she noticed the area dim somewhat to a comfortable twilight. There was nothing dangerous about it. In fact, it felt just as much a part of herself as any other portion of this place, but she found herself a bit surprised to see what seemed like a collection of green fireflies hovering over the pond that hadn't been there before. Curiously, she came closer. They were really pretty things, she thought. Though oddly enough, they seemed to have a touch of the Lifestream itself in them, if she didn't know better.

As she approached, they seemed to coalesce into a thicker cloud, but otherwise didn't seem to react. She didn't mind. After taking a moment to puzzle over this new development, she turned her attention to the dirt road that led out of this place, noticing that this time, it held more evidence of a rocky path, eventually becoming covered in snow. There was no sense dallying around here, so she started along the path, eyes alert for any signs of danger. She didn't notice until a short time after she had started walking, but it seemed a lone firefly had followed after her. She didn't mind the company though, even if it was only another part of herself.

She continued further up the darkened path until she reached the snow, her boots crunching underneath her. Looking around, she could now tell she was getting closer towards the greater flow of the Lifestream, she could feel its pulse, the currents ebbing and flowing deep in the ground below her physical body, as she saw it manifest in front of her in her dreamscape as a vast flowing green river, rolling across the path she now followed, threatening to swallow anyone who went too far in. The information contained within it was immense and mostly unintelligible, almost drowned out by the painful wails in response to the injury Jenova had wrought at the place where she stood in reality. When she reached the river with its energies flowing through the snow covered rocks, the firefly hovered, seemingly uncertain nearby. Aerith mentally pushed it back, before getting down on her knees to examine the flowing substance before her.

In her mind's eye she could see it was definitely tainted. Her own energies were the only thing that was keeping it from corrupting her inner space. Working to shield herself, she finally reached out, dipping a single finger into the current. Ripples and eddies formed around her hand and the echoes became louder. She tried to interpret them in such a way that she might be able to understand, but there was no coherence here. Just pain…

A flash, brighter than the most powerful Bolt spell she'd ever seen crossed her vision, and then the riverbank faded. Instead she stood in the depths of the crater, where they had found Cloud facing down Sephiroth, and where that monster had tried to take both him and Zack away from her. The man in question stood across from her, the Masamune drawn threateningly. "You certainly are brazen little one, to come to me by yourself."

"Sephiroth," she whispered. She suddenly noticed the little firefly had taken shelter under her cloak. Squaring her shoulders and glaring in the man's direction as she held the Princess Guard defensively in front of her, she demanded "Is the Stigma your doing?!"

He chuckled, his voice echoing with malevolence. "And what if it is? You'll never stop me."

"Aerith?" A voice echoed through her consciousness, "Corruption levels are rising, is everything all right?"

Aerith didn't answer, but instead watched the man in front of her carefully. "What are you planning?"

"It doesn't matter," Sephiroth said. "These fireworks are not yours to spoil, and it's already too late."

The center of the crater dissolved into a dark tunnel, and she distinctly heard the sound of something bubbling nearby. "Hey Zack, do you see anything over there?" Kunsel's voice echoed off the walls as a flashlight beam reflected through various mako crystals.

"Not really," barely a few feet away from where she stood, she could see her husband, searching near a pool of what looked to be water. "Hey Freya, is that device Rayleigh gave you doing anything?"

"Yeah," came the reply from the lady Turk's darkened silhouette across the room. "Corruption readings are off the charts."

"I have a bad feeling about this," Kunsel muttered.

Sephiroth smiled in anticipation across the scene, invisible to the three people who stood between them as Aerith watched, nearly transfixed. It was then that it happened. The pool of water near Zack's feet suddenly began to ripple with greater intensity, and Aerith had a terrible feeling wash over her. "Zack!" she cried, "Get away! Run!"

"He can't hear you, Ancient," Sephiroth said.

She didn't care. That was when Freya spotted it. "What's that?!"

Almost as if that was the signal, the water welled up in a wave and Zack finally saw it racing for the dark silhouette of Mr. Townsend. "Get out of here!" he called to the others, already in the process of casting a Wall spell even as he was literally throwing the other man ahead of him, though she wasn't sure if he could get away from the black water in time.

"Nothing you say will change anything," Sephiroth said. "This is just one more step towards cementing my revenge." With that, he swept forward, sword drawn and Aerith had the impression that he was held aloft by a single black wing as he flew across the room, straight through the images of her husband and friends. She never would have been able to block, but seeing this, she felt a powerful energy channel deep within herself like a limit break, and its power enveloped her in a torrent of cool water, washing everything away…

She dropped to the ground, and Cissnei moved forward to check on her, but before the renegade Turk could ask her anything, she cried out "Zack! He's in trouble! We need to find him!"

"Are you sure?" Rayleigh asked.

Aerith was adamant as she pulled herself up. "There's no time!" she said, and was already hurrying down the slope towards the hole into the caves, even as Cissnei tried to stop her.

A few hours later, Aerith was sitting in the cabin she and Zack shared while her husband rested on their bunk nearby. He had definitely been exposed to the water, but they hadn't been able to figure out whether or not he'd been infected. There was so much she didn't know. Had that really been Sephiroth? Or just a shadow? She could make a few educated guesses, certainly, but without a clear idea what was going on, she had nothing definitive. There had been something that had come of this though. According to the doctor, they had felt the limit channel, and then the snow around them had briefly become rain. It wasn't an answer, but… could it be another step in the right direction?

She hated the term 'experiment', but in this case, perhaps they could do a few more of them and see what they could find. She tried not to think too much about how similar that sounded to Hojo's line of thinking. This wasn't for science or cruelty or anything else that Hojo might quest for. This was to help people.

She watched Zack sleep nearby, worn out after the party's sprint back towards their entry point. Sephiroth had definitely targeted him, she was sure. But just what was he planning? And when whatever it was seemed to be happening within the Lifestream itself, could they stop it this time? It was a question for which she didn't have an answer.

(The Case of…?: Fragmented File #5)

March 8th [ ν ] – εуλ 0009

A short time after midnight, a man in dark leather clothes walked through the caves at the Northern Crater to a pool filled with dark water and waited patiently. Sephiroth had bid him to wait much further in for the better part of the day, but now, something had called him here. Mother perhaps? What he did know was that one of their big brothers had come to pay them a visit.

The double bladed katana shone in the twilight that filtered down through one of the many holes above, reflecting onto a head of shoulder-length silver hair as the man waited. He hoped it wouldn't be for too much longer. His younger brothers had been sleeping long enough.

Finally, after about half an hour, the water began to ripple again, this time with the sources at two points. After the passing of a few more moments, the ripples became more persistent, until at last, two figures slowly rose out of the water's depths, until the first man could make out the features of the other two. One was short with long hair the color of his own while the other was rather big and brawny with incredibly short hair of the same shade. After a moment, the two of them blinked. "Kadaj?" one of them asked.

"Yes," the first man replied.

As the two newcomers stepped from the water, it flowed around them like Lifestream, until leather clothes covered their skin, and they were both outfitted with a specialized weapon. Once they were ready, Kadaj nodded approvingly before gesturing that they follow him out of the caves. "Yazoo. Loz. Let's go."

Two more chapters to go before Part IV begins. I hope we're excited! I know I certainly am.

In the meantime, in case anyone wonders, even though they haven't gotten any speaking roles, I've pulled a couple more characters from obscure sources.

Mutton Kylegate, whom I forgot to comment on last time was a self-appointed town boss who kept Rufus prisoner for a time during the original Case of Shinra. It's a shame he actually ended up being Mayor of Edge, but that's just the way things went this time. Kilmister whom I also forgot to mention, was also a Shinra scientist who featured in CoS. Turns out, he was supposed to be the one to rescue Rufus from Mutton Kylegate, and then tried to blackmail him into providing him funding for a cure. On top of that, he ended up being murdered by one of his own patients. In the interest of not getting too sidetracked, let's just say that happens about a week from now and call it a day.

As to Evan Townsend, he and his unnamed friend, who by the way is actually named Kyrie Canaan, were protagonists from the as of yet untranslated "Turks Lateral Biography: The Kids are All Right." In the original timeline, they came to Icicle Inn and the Northern Crater to find Evan's mother Annette Townsend, who was an employee in Nibelheim up until a short time later and had left there to follow a few of the Sephiroth Clones (some of the ones that were unaccounted for I suppose). In the original timeline, they would have found Annette's body along with some of these unidentified clones in a cave under the crater along with a piece of Jenova. Let's hope that thing remains unfound, shall we?

That's it from me for now. See ya next week!