"I wasn't myself."
Cloud stands apart from the others beneath their collective solemn stare.
"No shit," Barret says first. He's been glaring since Cloud summoned the group to the bridge after a miraculous recovery from what should have been fatal Mako poisoning.
The co-pilots beside Cloud keep glancing up at him as he fidgets, arms crossed. There is silence except for the hum of the engines as the Highwind travels toward Midgar. Behind Cloud, the meteor hangs black and solid in its orange pool, contending with a hazy smear of sun.
"I… don't know what to say except that I'm sorry." It seems as good a place as any to start. Cloud catches Tifa's eyes and continues. "I'm sorry that you were all brought along on this journey for reasons even I didn't fully understand."
He's told them of the knowledge shared from Sephiroth, the truth about the meteor, his suspicions that Aerith remains in the north crater. He's laid it all out, yet none of them seem convinced of his intentions. He neglects to mention that Aerith carries Jenova cells. He doesn't want to alienate her, too, and Tifa doesn't bring it up. Unspoken confidentiality binds the two of them. It feels good to have at least one person trusting him.
"An' how we know you ain't gonna transform into a brainwashed super-soldier again?" Barret says. "I saw you in Mideel. You were marchin' around with those HKs. On Shinra's side."
Cloud had not told anyone about the Lifestream, not the gory details anyway. And there were plenty.
"As I've said," Cloud replies, "we don't need to worry about that anymore. I'm back to my old self."
And what does that even mean? He sees the thought cross everyone's expressions. Yuffie leans against a railing, ill with motion sickness. She's been staring at him nonstop.
"Can you shapeshift?" she asks.
Cloud almost laughs, then he realizes everyone is waiting for his response.
"No," he says, and he can't believe he has to say this. "No, I can't shapeshift."
"Are you sure?"
"Yes."
"Tentacles?"
"...What?"
"That monster had tentacles," Yuffie says. "Are you the same?"
The heat from their attention draws into his cheeks. He uncrosses his arms, holds them wide, then lets them drop.
"No," he reports. Yuffie does not seem satisfied.
"Can you die?" Barret wants to know. "Because that Jenova fucker seems pretty damn immortal to me."
Cloud exchanges a look with Tifa. "Yes," he says.
Cid exhales his cigarette and holds it between two fingers. His lance rocks from one palm to another.
"Well, I think we oughta be a helluva lot more concerned with what's goin' on out there—" he points to the meteor, "—than what's in here." He points at Cloud's head.
Nanaki purrs in agreement. Yuffie resumes her eerie stare from an increasingly wan complexion. Tifa grabs the opportunity to steer the conversation away from Cloud.
"We have to reach Aerith," she says. "If Aerith is still at the northern crater, she's in danger."
Barret argues that they can't trust Cloud's intuition, but Tifa won't betray the intimacy of how Cloud is connected to Aerith, and Cid lights another cigarette, telling everyone they are wasting precious damn time. Midgar is on the horizon, and the plan now is for that Mako cannon to blast a hole in the barrier around the north crater.
"The Sister Ray," Cloud corrects without meaning to. The official Shinra name sets it apart from other Mako cannon-type weapons.
Except the juice from the Reactors is going to attract a Weapon.
"We think," Barret specifies.
Cloud knows. He's seen the reports. He keeps quiet.
"So we defend the city," Cid says, very much the captain. "Crack open that barrier, and rescue our pal."
Yuffie sways. "Ugh, and get off this ship."
Nanaki swishes his tail, nodding along. Cloud finds their solidarity comforting. At least they can rally around Aerith, even if he remains the pariah. He doesn't require their acceptance. Only, perhaps, Tifa's.
Barret holds up his hand. "An' what about afterwards? We get Aerith, but that maniac Sephiroth still around somewhere, puppeteering his dead mother or whatever the hell is happenin' there. And Shinra can barely fight these Weapons."
Cloud bites his lip. Then he says quietly, uncertainly, "Aerith has a materia."
"What? So?"
"A white materia. A balance." Cloud chooses his words carefully because he does not fully understand what Aerith could have meant.
"Oh no," Barret says. "No, no. Nope. We ain't fuckin' around with any other strange materia. We done. The Black Materia caused all this, and I'm not touchin' anything else like it."
Cloud remembers pressing the sword to Barret's neck, reaching for the Black Materia, trembling and sweating. He sees that same memory crossing Barret's stern frown.
"No," Barret reiterates as if talking to a dog.
Cloud rolls his eyes. They'll understand. Soon, they'll all understand.
An alarm goes off near the captain's chair. Everyone's attention shifts from Cloud, much to his relief.
"Shit," Cid says. "We won't make it to Midgar first."
The plan was to restock munitions from the Shinra depot in Sector Five. Cid knows a guy. But Midgar is still a gleaming dot of metal and steam far across the plains, and something large is pinging on radar.
"A Weapon," Tifa says, eyes locked outside the windows.
In the ocean, a disturbance rises. It's larger than any other Weapons, bipedal, with sleek, translucent silver armor. Massive shoulder blades protrude atop an exoskeleton of rigid joints and ribs. The center glows a deep luminous red that matches the multiple eyes that run on either side of a thick, arachnid skull. Two arms terminate in claws, and a skirt of bony armor protects its legs.
Nobody speaks as the Weapon steps from the waters at the shores of the continent, dripping waves of white foam. It is unlike the aquatic Weapon at Junon or the burrowing Weapon at Mideel. Cloud leans against the windows, parsing the Shinra knowledge in his head for any known facts on this species, coming up short.
"It's here," a mechanical voice speaks from the doorway.
Cloud spins to the threat. He knows that voice, despite the tinny distortions.
A hulking half-assembled HK unit steps onto the bridge, trailing wires like guts from its open chassis. The gun attached to one arm pivots without purpose, but the camera light is on. The conical featureless face is cracked.
Cloud's hand hovers at the empty space near his back. Two equal reactions fight for control before he determines this is a Shinra unit that he must destroy.
"You," he sneers. "You traitor."
Cait Sith. The voice can be none other. And he remembers the betrayal at the Gold Saucer. That thief stole their keystone and ruined his date night.
"Whoa, wait, wait," the HK unit buzzes. Rotors shift, and the head looks at Cloud. The unit backs up in an oddly human way.
Cloud isn't waiting. He's near enough to wrench those flimsy wires clean off when Cid intervenes.
"Hang on," Cid says. "He's not what you think."
Tifa steps in. "This is Reeve. He saved us."
"Reeve?" Cloud repeats. That name again. He struggles to reconcile his memories. Then he turns to Cait Sith inhabiting the HK body. "Director Reeve?"
The HK responds after a tick. "Yes."
Cloud doesn't want to let his anger dissipate. "You're the Shinra spy?"
A director at the highest level of the c-suite, right in their midst, posing as a damn fortune teller in an amusement park. Cloud can't hide his contempt.
"You betrayed us."
The camera light blinks. "So did you, if we're being technical."
It's scathing and unjust, and Cloud is about to punch a hole through that spider-cracked mirrored face, but Tifa stops him.
"No, wait," she says. "Reeve saved our lives. Mine and Barret's, in Junon!"
Cloud holds tense, his glare on Cait Sith. He knew about Tifa's scheduled execution. He'd received the alert about her escape that day, but he hadn't known her. Only an inkling of a forgotten intimacy plucked at him when he'd seen that she and Barret were missing from the gas chamber. He'd been sent to kill her, and shame now stymies his rage towards Cait. Reeve protected her when he could not.
"I see." Cloud relinquishes his stance to neutral.
"Also, don't even think about messin' up my work," Cid chimes in. "Took me a while to repair this unit so that Reeve could patch in. Isolating encrypted communications is iffy."
Cait Sith addresses Cloud. "I'd tell you how I don't agree with Shinra and why I'm here to help, but I have a feeling you wouldn't believe me. So I'll cut right to it."
Cloud looks away in obvious displeasure. He won't trust any director of Shinra.
"The Weapon approaches the city, and the Sister Ray is charging up," Reeve says through the HK. "I won't be able to help you resupply the Highwind. I'm going to evacuate the city."
There's a muffled sound, like Reeve speaking to someone off the intercom. Then he comes back.
"I'm sorry, my friends. Shinra can't spare the firepower. And Cloud…"
Stubbornness keeps Cloud looking away. He unwittingly finds himself watching the meteor.
"Cloud, they think you are dead."
Something tugs at him. Disloyalty? He shrugs it off and does not respond.
"I have to go," Reeve says, and there are noises of shuffling, muted shouts. "We'll fire the cannon at the crater, and hope that Weapon doesn't reach Midgar."
The speaker goes dead. The HK unit whirs to a halt. For a while, nobody speaks, watching the green steam rising all around the ring of Midgar. Cid pilots the Highwind at an angle to keep the Weapon in view. There's no mistake—the creature is coming towards the city, directly between the cannon and the north crater at the opposite ends of the sea.
"How does it know?" Yuffie asks.
"Could it be protecting the barrier?" Nanaki says.
And what would the barrier be protecting, Cloud wonders. The wound created by the Black Materia? The chaos that ensnared Aerith and left Cloud dead? Sephiroth, at the center of it all…
"Ah, who cares," Cid says. "It's a giant monster, and we gotta stop it!"
The Sister Ray accumulates energy from the surrounding Reactors through enormous tubes that pump bright and noxious through the city. The Weapon is out of the water, roaring as it smashes through the plains. From this angle, those shoulder blades are proportionally absurd and carry simmering energies visible through a slit in the carapace.
The Mako cannon fires. A beam of intense heat and blinding light sears across the land, impacting the Weapon. The shockwave rattles the Highwind, and after a brief freefall, the airship rights itself. Everyone takes a breath and looks. Smoke clears from the creature's chest.
No effect. Not a single char on that silver skin. The red eyes do not veer from their target.
"Nothing…?" Barret echoes everyone's sentiment. It doesn't seem possible. The Junon cannon with the power of six Reactors should blow anything apart (assuming the Seven and One Reactors remain offline).
Then the Weapon pauses. It stands firm and tall. The orb at the center of its chest spins and glows beneath the shell of its ribs. A brilliance shoots from its core. Solid energy slams into the city. Into the Shinra Tower. The shock obliterates the central spire of Midgar. The Tower explodes into concrete and liquefied metal. Glass. Ash.
Cloud feels it catch in his throat. The destruction scorches inside him. All that research, everything that Hojo carried and cataloged and carefully kept in that basement lab—all of it is gone in a flash. All of it crushed and ignited, torn and buried. He hears the others exclaiming, worried tones and whoops of joy and emotions that he can feel none of, because all his answers are gone. Hojo never kept copies of his work. Too paranoid of data leaks. Too egotistical to collaborate. Maybe there were data tapes somewhere in the archives, but that, too, would be in the inner labs. In those white, long hallways.
He breathes out. Any facts on Jenova, the mysteries of what exactly had been done to him, are a pile of smoking, crumbling wreckage. The Shinra logo shatters atop the scaffolding of the Mako cannon. It's a miracle the entire radial structure didn't collapse. The Tower…
He's aware of the Highwind turning, tossed off-course. The meteor is grinning, calling. And Hojo's work is dust. No, he shakes off the despair. The labs are belowground. That research could still be intact. As long as the Weapon does not attack again. Another hit like that could sear straight into the ground and abolish anything.
"—never seen anything like it!" Tifa is saying. She's grasping Cloud's arm.
"What does Shinra know 'bout this one?" Barret is demanding.
Cid is fighting to steady the ship. But Cloud is trapped in that moment, watching the Tower collapse. Watching the truth of his origins disappear in a pillar of soot.
Ah, but doesn't he already know the truth, a sinister voice insists inwardly. Not human.
Tifa is looking at him. More human than you realize, she'd said.
Then time accelerates. He's back in the present, apart from the ruins and the floating city.
"We have to do something," she's telling him.
"We don't have any weapons," Cid responds. "We're dry from Mideel!"
There's chaos and panic, but Cloud is calm. He feels balanced because he knows what to do.
"No weapons at all?" he asks Cid. "What about a broadsword?"
Cid side-eyes him like he's crazy. Barret grunts, "You thinkin' about fighting that thing on the ground?"
Cloud doesn't see a choice. The Sister Ray did nothing, and Midgar can't take another hit. There's no time to resupply the Highwind.
"I've fought worse," Cloud says, not sure if that's the truth.
"This ain't no scorpion sentinels or Airbuster unit," Barret says. "One of them things destroyed Junon in a heartbeat."
"And this one will destroy Midgar if we don't do something," Cloud says, walking away. There must be an armory onboard.
He stalks through the corridors below deck until he finds the small arms cache. There is a broadsword, and he finds his gauntlets as well, complete with the materia Shinra had given him for Mideel: Poison, Gravity, and his Destruct. He wishes he hadn't lost his other sword with its Ice materia. No matter. He picks up the hefty standard-issue blade. The weight is imperfect, but he swings the sheath onto his back anyways and heads to the cargo bay.
"Get lower," he instructs through the intercom. "I'll jump out."
"Like hell," Tifa replies. She stands behind him, gloves on. "Not without me."
He'd argue, but there's no sense. Her smile reduces him to total compliance.
"This one is unknown," he relays of the Weapon. "Not in Shinra's database. I don't know what to expect."
"We just have to slow it down," she says, taking position next to him near the bay doors. Cid yells that they are crazy through the intercom, but the Highwind descends.
"Expose a weakness," Cloud agrees. There must be a reason the Mako cannon had no impact.
A gun clicks behind them.
"You serious, spike?" Barret says. His newly engineered gun-arm shines. "This some bullshit, but you know I ain't about to let Tifa go off with yo' crazy ass alone."
Nanaki appears next to him. "Nor I. We're in this fight together. To save the city."
A shade of camaraderie fills Cloud. Cid arrives with his lance and zips up his jacket. He takes a final drag of his cigarette and sighs. "Can't believe I'm doin' this."
Yuffie leans in a second later. "I want off this ship," she says, tucking her shuriken onto her back. "And if that means fighting some stupid giant Weapon, then let's do this. You'll need my help."
He will. He does. He tries not to smile because he knows they aren't doing it for him. That cannon needs to fire on the crater in order to break the barrier, and the Weapon is currently in the way. They're doing this for Aerith and for Midgar.
"Right," he says with a nod.
The Highwind lowers, and the co-pilots report the Weapon is moving again. Cloud punches the controls to the bay doors and Mako-scented wind blasts in. A sensation like mild electricity crisps the air. Cloud sees Tifa focusing, fists raised, as the grasslands come up in waves of green. He's fought monstrosities ten times his size at Shinra, and this should be no different.
Yet when he drops onto the ground, the scope of the animal astonishes. It towers into a nauseating sky, ignoring their pitiful arrival. The center of its core illuminates again. Cloud charges.
The broadsword is familiar and carries a host of memories from the patchwork that Tifa stitched. His time before the Shinra Tower, awakening into screams of agony beneath needles and machinery and then standing beside the Professor as a cold, calm bodyguard, surge upwards as the sword slices towards the oversized clawed foot. The steel bounces off, and Cloud remembers returning to Nibelheim with Hojo. The gardener at the Shinra Mansion was afraid of him, though the specifics aren't clear. Cloud had been…
A stamping claw shoots dust, and Cloud narrowly avoids the trample. He rolls aside, taking note of the unmarred skin of the Weapon. No, this isn't skin. It's armor.
He'd been training in the Shinra Tower, cutting down techno-weapons and biological horrors that ran from Hojo's labs. Mako-pumped terrors that reminded him of…
The Weapon lifts its leg, kicking mounds of dirt and grass. Cloud slashes in three precise arcs, taking the momentum into a fourth, yet each strike does nothing. The Weapon swipes, effortless as though Cloud were a nuisance, and smacks Cloud's forearms as he blocks. The chitinous skin is sharp as diamonds, cutting ribbons as it throws Cloud aside. He lands in the dirt, grasping the sword.
He lands in Midgar's Sector Three, hunting terrorists. He corners someone in an alley, and they are trembling. Begging. He feels nothing when the sword splatters blood onto graffitied brick. He feels nothing when he washes the grime from his boots later, caked in red.
Barret fires, but the bullets ricochet off. Cid spears the lance into an ankle joint. Its mythril tip comes away bent. Nanaki conjures a stream of fire from his materia.
Fire lights the scene of a village, somewhere in the countryside. Cloud stands with a squad of MPs. Shinra's interests, he hears someone saying, aren't to be negotiated. People kneel, defenseless, while buildings disintegrate and the heat of the flames licks black sky. Cloud sweats beneath the First-Class Uniform, and his skin itches. Something crawls at the back of his neck.
"Materia!" Tifa shouts. A crackle of Lightning jolts from her gloves as she draws on its materia. "Physical attacks don't work!"
Physical pain is the way to get someone talking, a Shinra coworker in a black suit says. His face is blurry, but his words are clear. Cloud lays on a freezing slab in a dark basement. A machine hums over him while Hojo talks, murmuring about failures. He needs proof. Cloud fades in and out while his arm is on fire.
Ashes sprinkle the air, and the Nibel Reactor is ahead. Through these mountains. Through these woods. He'd never felt so much rage. His mother is dead.
Tentacles twitch in a tube in a white, featureless room. A container of blue fluid holds a bloated body beneath harsh buzzing lights. Amputated limbs reach for him. Come home. To Mother.
Cloud finds his throat sore. Has he been shouting? No, Hojo says, filling a vial with something black. Something viscous. No.
The sword strikes the Weapon one last time, and there is no damage. Tifa is right. Nanaki sends another spiral of flames at the Weapon, but the team's meager materia won't be enough. He tries his Poison materia. The Mako inside him lurches and syncs, synchronizing with the energies of the Planet. Poison slithers against the diamond-rough carapace. It seeps into the Weapon, which shudders and halts its pace. Finally, it considers this swarm of gnats at its feet.
This mountain of memories continues to crush. Cloud's done horrible things. Horrible things were done to him. In the flow of battle, these things return to him like embers in wind. He senses his own disconnection. Can the others sense it, too?
They stay apart from him in the tide of attacks and defense. The synergy of their previous battles together is gone. They keep alongside one another, shouting and coordinating and engaging. And Cloud is separate. They avoid him. He is…
Inhuman, Rufus Shinra says, and it's a question. A fear. He tells Cloud to find the terrorists. Kill them. Cloud would obey.
A memory saved Tifa. A little boy sat atop a well one starry night, and somehow Jenova clung to that because it was important. It was worth copying in all that muck and mess of death. Or maybe it was a mistake. Cloud hesitated when he saw her in Junon. He was told her name, but her eyes jogged that memory. That flicker of light, too quick for him to hold. He didn't want to let go in Mideel. He wrapped her up and begged her not to go because he knew she was…important.
A claw slams the earth, spewing soil and vegetation onto him. The broadsword defends on muscle memory. Cid and Yuffie organize a multipoint attack of shuriken and lance after materia exhausts. Cloud's Gravity has no effect. It's a Shinra-manufactured formula meant to drain an enemy's stamina proportional to their overall health, which may mean nothing to a foe of this size. He's at a loss. He must keep these memories down. How do others live with such liveliness in their heads? He's never known such noise before. He concentrates on that faint tapping, a sound he's always heard.
The group is wearing down. Bruises and scrapes become sprains and wounds.
A jet of hot energy shoots overhead. The Sister Ray has fired again. Mako singes the air, and Cloud feels it skitter over his flesh. Into his flesh, and lungs and eyes. No. He presses his eyes shut. No. It bleeds down his face. He forces it away.
The party scatters from the heat of the Ray. The Weapon screeches and thrashes, and it comes away unscathed again.
"No…" Tifa says.
Yuffie holds something up. She seems uncertain and cautious. The shuriken is away.
"Get behind me!" she yells.
The Weapon's chest curdles deep crimson, accumulating energy into its devastating attack.
"Can't let it fire on the city!" Barret says, though there doesn't seem any way to stop it.
Cloud notices the marble in Yuffie's hand shining bright red. Her eyes close as she concentrates on its energies. Her connection is swift and true. He's never seen a summoning materia used outside of Shinra before. He'd thought they were all confiscated during the war.
He flies over to Yuffie, huddling with the others, though he notices the distance still between him and them. Only perhaps Tifa stays near.
A sudden rainstorm of clouds appears. A serpentine dragon pops into existence, large and horned with fins like wings. It takes up the sky, curling with malevolence, this mighty leviathan. The patron deity of Wutai, Cloud realizes. Thought to be long lost or sleeping. The group is breathless. This dragon is almost the size of the Weapon. It snaps its sharp snout and raises its graceful neck. A wall of water appears, rising from the oceans and cascading towards the Weapon.
Yuffie holds strong, materia radiant in her hands. She clenches her jaw while water sprays her dark hair. Wind rips the ends of her bandana. Cloud holds onto Tifa and Barret. Cid plunges his lance in the ground and grips tight. Nanaki digs claws into the earth. Everyone braces.
A bubble of protective air manifests around Yuffie and her team as the tide wave crashes. The immensity of the current pulls rocks and trees and grasses up with ease, and the Weapon staggers. The waves topple the height of its shoulders. There's a moment where all is underwater. Cloud holds his breath on instinct though the water doesn't touch them. These summons are not well understood by Shinra because they are so rare, but their powers are legendary.
The waters recede, and the Weapon falls, swept aside. The leviathan is gone, but the grasslands are soaked and battle-torn. The ruby in Yuffie's hands goes dark. She leans on her knees to catch her breath.
Barret wastes no time. He charges, gun blazing. Cid follows with lance poised. The Weapon struggles on its side, ribs exposed.
Tifa bends to Yuffie, helping her up. "You didn't say you had a summon materia on you!"
Yuffie smirks. "I didn't. Until Wutai." She pockets the tiny treasure.
"The real artifact in the bunker," Tifa understands.
Yuffie nods. The secret hidden from Shinra was never a musty old helicopter but a powerful materia. Godo risked death to protect this.
Across the fields, the Mako cannon is charging again. Barret cheers and empties clip after clip into the Weapon while Cid and Nanaki stab and tear into the bony chest plate.
Then the Weapon pushes up. The multitude of eyes shift to the city once more.
"Summon it again!" Barret yells.
Can't, Yuffie replies. She holds up the orb as proof. Its luster is exhausted.
"It did its job," Cid calls, "This thing is toast!"
Indeed, the rock-hard carapace is taking hits. Slices are penetrating. Cracks are forming. The immunity to physical attacks is gone. But so are their options for materia.
"We gotta keep it occupied," Yuffie says, bouncing with a throw of her shuriken.
She's right. The central chamber of its chest grows hot and bright. It's preparing another firing sequence at Midgar, and this time it will surely hit the cannon. The Tower is a pit of rubble, and the Sister Ray is destabilizing on melting struts.
The ribs of the Weapon restructure and split. It forms four rows from five. Then three. It cracks and spreads silver ichor as the bones reassemble into two thick shafts protecting the interior bulb.
"Whas' it doin'?" Barret frowns.
If Cloud didn't know any better, he'd swear it was counting down to something. But Weapons can't count, and what would happen when it reaches zero?
He doesn't intend to find out. He grits his teeth and flies into action. The blade is an extension of willpower and form. Speed blurs anything aside from his target. The Weapon bleeds and howls, and the chamber in its chest grows brighter. Brighter. The ribs crack into one. It's about to burst open. The heat builds, and Cloud has to back off to keep the searing pain away.
Everyone jumps as the Sister Ray fires. The final rib splits and the Weapon unleashes its attack. The Midgar beam strikes first. It annihilates the weakened monster. Bits of carapace blow from eviscerated flesh. The Weapon bellows and falls into decimated pieces. Cloud and the others rush out of the way as parts of its body tumble down, crushing the landscape. He shields Yuffie and himself from a fallen shoulder blade with the broadsword, barely able to withstand the pressure of the dead weight.
Silver blood covers everyone, and shards of shattered Weapon-skin cut flecks of red across faces and forearms. Barret coughs, holding Tifa close. The Sister Ray split the Weapon into two messy piles of goo and puddles of innards. Silvery sinews coat Cloud and Yuffie.
"Yuk!" She pulls strings from her hair and gags.
In the aftermath, the quiet is unsettling.
"Everyone okay?" Tifa shouts.
Cid and Nanaki are beneath a section of ribcage exoskeleton. Cloud pries them loose, and the entire group sits in the wreckage of the monstrous beast. Cid lights up a cigarette.
"Damn," he says into the wind.
Injuries abound in some capacity. Except for Cloud, of course. He feels their silent acknowledgment of his condition, their mutual wariness. He is still the outsider.
"We have to go back to Midgar," Tifa says. "Help the survivors."
"The cave may be open now," Nanaki says. "We could go to Aerith."
Cloud would prefer the latter, but a compulsion overtakes him. The Shinra Tower is in Midgar. The research, buried… He needs to see it, because in his head Hojo files away documents and recordings underground, and Cloud sees his name atop each one. He sees the letters over that doorway in the frigid halls of the sterile lower wing. He hears the tapping that draws nearer, the fingernails the brush gentle up his spine. That denial of the truth remains if there's even a sliver of chance that Hojo was wrong. Cloud needs to know.
"We go to Midgar," he tells everyone.
"Aw hell," Barret says. "I ain't upset. I jes' don't wanna help Shinra out anymore 'n we have to."
"Reeve could be there," Tifa says. "And innocent civilians."
Cid squints at the sky. "Shit, I'm just shocked we had a damn summon with us all along." He points at Yuffie. "Good for you, Yuf."
Yuffie squirms and smiles, materia hidden away in her sleeve.
The trip on the Highwind is short. The ruins of the Tower smolder sheets of jet smoke into a bleary sky, and the dismal sprawlings of Sector Seven remain a candid reminder of Shinra's cruelty. Seeing it from above sends shudders through Tifa. Cloud wants to console her, but her rigidity demands no disturbance. It is a somber loneliness to which he cannot relate.
Cid lands the Highwind outside of Sector Eight. The damage is staggering. Midgar is a maze of panic and chaos, sirens and traffic. People flock in the streets, their workday disturbed, trying to find a means home when the transit system is shut down. Train stations overflow with helpless commuters and conductors. The Sister Ray overloaded all Reactors, and the entire city is experiencing rolling blackouts. At the center of it all, in a gaping column of smoke, is the absence of the Shinra Tower. Television news channels are dark. There's no word from the President. He could be dead.
Fallout from the central wreckage rolled through each Sector like a lethal wind, slamming cars against buildings and leaving chunks of concrete and rebar. The Sister Ray lays dislodged, steaming from its final shot. The collapse of the Tower weakened the scaffolding, and now the cannon hangs by loose wrappings of wires and overcompressed struts.
Tifa and Barret help clear rubble from the streets, and Cid and Yuffie pull people from crumbling buildings. Scarce MPs seem fragile and overwhelmed. The usual forces of Shinra are gone, and nobody is answering their radios. Nanaki balances atop debris, triangulating trapped civilians. Cloud can't stop staring at the Tower.
Without a word, he heads off. No one notices his departure in the mayhem. Sirens and shouting overlay the cityscape, and he keeps walking past increasing signs of destruction into the heart of the nightmare. Storm clouds accumulate overhead, perhaps lingering from Yuffie's leviathan, and the afternoon sun fades. Intermittent lights fizzle in the Sectors, and as he approaches Sector Zero, rain begins to fall. Screeching metal far off foretells sections of plate collapsing, but that's very distant to him. White thick ash covers everything this close to the epicenter. Survivors roam hopeless, dazed, calling out for people they will never see again.
The wreckage impacted several city blocks outside the usual perimeter of the Tower. The rain falls heavy as Cloud climbs through. Unstable slabs shift and crumble, and heat spills from smoldering flames below. At this angle, the Sister Ray appears as a tertiary limb, sawed-off and seeping Mako in putrid green. The smell overpowers the other burning chemicals and coats his tongue.
He isn't sure how much time goes by. Rain drenches his clothes and hair, and his muscles hurt from digging through loads of metal, glass, and burnt papers. Damaged office chairs. A smashed coffee pot. The Shinra logo printed cleanly on each one.
The lobby remains intact with two columns of the entryway standing in stark defiance, headless of its usual seventy stories of weight, the last vestige of Shinra prestige. Cloud crawls around crushed military vehicles, past a grasping claw of an inert scorpion sentinel and tons of melted steel.
He stands at the precipice of the former lobby, now littered with broken glass and very dark. He knows this place well enough to find the stairwell, but of course, the descending steps are inaccessible.
No matter. He starts to dig. The underground labs are thirty, maybe forty feet down. This is madness, but he must search. Maybe the labs are reinforced. Maybe once he gets through this layer, he'll find those clean white walls untouched aside from a settling of dust.
Hours go by. The rain numbs his skin as it leaks through the Tower. Sirens continue through darkness and spastic lighting. Evening eclipses the sky. He's abandoned the stairwell for another area of the central lobby which caved in. But every egress is met with impacted concrete. Outside the lobby, there is nothing. Inside, there is soggy paper, dim electronics, and the steady drip of water.
It can't be gone. He looks upwards at the open ceiling slashed with clinging wires. Beyond is the void of night sky and the dark shape of the meteor, burning closer. It pumps in his veins, hypnotizing. Nothing is here. No one. He keeps digging.
He doesn't get far this time. A click halts him. Someone levels a gun to the back of his head.
"Cloud…" a familiar low voice utters. "Are you…you?"
It's Vincent. The world focuses, and Cloud is back in Midgar. He curses himself for this lack of awareness. Anyone else could've…
He turns, hands raised. Water drips down his face.
"I'm not with Shinra," Cloud says. "Nobody is anymore."
Vincent does not lower the gun. "They said you were dead." Those crimson eyes narrow.
"Do you plan to make that a fact?"
Vincent contemplates, assessing, then his arm relaxes. The gold claw, however, does not.
"What are you doing here?" Vincent asks, holstering the weapon.
Cloud looks at the mud on his gloves, the streaks of grime and ash on his forearms.
"I thought I could find something."
A moment passes. Water dribbles to cracked tile in the darkened lobby.
Then, Vincent says, "Hojo is dead."
The news hits Cloud, and he wavers. He takes a step back.
"Oh," he says, looking away. "Oh…"
Vincent rustles his cloak, settling his gaze firm on Cloud.
Cloud swallows. Midgar is far away, far above as he searches through dimly lit hallways, punches keycards through locked doors, and descends. A heartbeat carries him down that spotless containment wing, down to the sealed doorway with those letters marked on top. To isolated computer terminals with offline archives. To tape recorders locked in cabinets, playing Hojo's voice recounting eighth transfusion trials, divulging what—exactly—he did to Cloud. All that truth… Cloud looks down at the patterned flooring stamped with faded gold logos. It's all gone.
He tries to pull himself back.
"I'm here with Cid and the others," Cloud says, forcing his voice steady. "The Highwind is outside Sector Eight. We should…meet up with them."
He rolls his shoulder, done with this place.
"There's nothing here," he says though he's screaming inside.
Vincent nods, appears relieved. "What happened to you?"
Cloud isn't sure what to say. There's too much, too little. Nothing seems sufficient.
"I'm okay now," he decides. "There was a part of me Shinra thought they could bury and control. But Tifa… She was able to find it and bring me back. I don't need to worry about it anymore."
Instead, that scene in the Nibel Reactor plays nonstop, followed by searing needles and alien fingers searching, mapping his insides. His stomach turns. He needs to learn how to keep all this fresh noise at bay.
"I-I'm fine," he insists. "And you…"
He realizes it now. There can be no other reason for Vincent's presence in Midgar, and the vendetta had been clear from the start.
"You killed Hojo."
"It had to be done," Vincent replies. "There was no other path for him."
True enough. The blood on Hojo's hands could never contend with any amount spilled from his slaughter. Cloud understands this, but the bitter loss of knowledge tugs painfully.
The pair walk away from the wreckage through sheets of rain that soon obscure the rising smoke. The city chugs on with alarms blaring and hospitals overrun. Steam climbs from each fizzling Reactor at uneasy intervals, and large sections of the plate creak and groan. Evacuation is underway as Cloud and Vincent meander through a decimated Sector Eight, stopping to aid whenever they can. It takes a while to get through the throngs of traffic, but at last, the long dark plains await.
The Highwind is a sole beacon in the storm, lights on and sturdy against the wind. Nanaki and Cid stand outside with a man in a suit holding a large black umbrella. The three turn as Cloud and Vincent approach. From the cargo bay, Yuffie pops her head out and hollers a hello.
Vincent explains his brief hiatus while Tifa and Barret stand in the open bay, shielded from the rain. Tifa's eyes sparkle with joy at the news of Hojo's death while Barret lets out a definitive stomp of approval.
Cloud keeps his eye on the newcomer in the suit.
"Reeve," the man introduces with an extended hand. Cloud does not shake it. The man sighs. "I'm your eyes and ears on the ground. I can keep you informed of the recovery, and anything that's left of Shinra."
Cid motions to the Highwind. "Use the HK for communications. I plan to work a bit more on the unit to give you some mobility."
"That would be great, Cid. Thanks. In the meantime," Reeve exhales, "I have a city to rebuild. Good luck at the crater."
So the barrier must be down. The others file aboard to escape the rainstorm, but Cloud stays at the director's side. When the last of his friends depart, he pulls Reeve towards him.
"Did you know?" Cloud asks, low and biting.
Rain bounces off the umbrella onto Cloud's back. Distant sirens continue from the Sectors.
"Know?" the director responds. He glances down at Cloud's muddy glove gripping tight at the expensive jacket sleeve.
"My file," Cloud says. "Had you read it? Did you know what I was when we met?"
Mako-eyes always unsettled Reeve, and he sees a peel of madness there now. It's hard not to think about the rumors that all SOLDIERs eventually go insane from the poison. Though, in Cloud's case…
"No," Reeve says. "Hojo's department was kept under strict confidentiality. I was too busy running the Reactors, managing urban development."
Cloud doesn't let him go.
"I didn't know," Reeve states again.
The rain patters against the umbrella. Wind tears at its edges, threatening upheaval. Reeve frowns.
"You should go to your friends. They worry about you."
Reeve wrenches his arm from Cloud and departs. Rain twists sideways in the storm as he disappears into Midgar. Cloud finds that pit returning to his stomach. All knowledge, lost. Hojo's files were never shared.
There's nothing else to do but sit in the Highwind's ready room and listen to the plan that someone else agreed upon in his absence. Nobody asks where Cloud had been. The dire task of assisting in Midgar leaves everyone exhausted.
The next step is returning to Kalm, visiting Marlene and Elmyra. Barret insists since they are local and Shinra is no longer on their tail. It could be the last time he sees her, he says. Nobody wants to agree, but the prospect of finding Aerith in the northern crater feels grim. The meteor oppresses, and Weapons could still spring up.
"A break," Yuffie frames it. "A breather."
Nobody's quitting. That's right. Just a pause. Can't go far, especially in this storm, so they'll make a pit stop in Kalm overnight. Barret phones Elmyra, and she's delighted for the company. She insists everyone come, though her voice is strained when she asks, again, about Aerith. We'll find her, Barret assures. Marlene squeals in the background when she hears Barret's voice.
Cloud is in no mood for reunions and kinship. When the ship lands near Kalm and the crew elects to spend the night in comfy hotel beds instead of military cots, Cloud remains behind. His mind is stuck in the rubble of Sector Zero, in the swirling ice maze of the northern crater, and the airship is a quiet, familiar place where he doesn't have to be on guard.
He lays in his private cabin, listening to the storm outside. The meteor presses into his thoughts and carries a subtle second heartbeat inside his own. Eventually, he sleeps, but it is restless and filled with strange dreams. Ribbons of cosmos ensnare his arms and neck. Tendrils climb down his throat.
"Cloud?"
The door is ajar, and there's a light on in the hall. Tifa stands in silhouette.
"Oh." He sits up in the cot. "What time is it?"
Pillows and blanket are on the floor, though he doesn't recall throwing them down. He scoops them up.
"It's late," she says, stepping into his cabin. "But I couldn't sleep. I walked over from Kalm. Isn't it weird being on this ship alone?"
Yes. No. He hadn't really thought of it.
She sits next to him.
"You came back to check on me," he assumes. "Well, don't worry. I can't exactly fly this thing to the north crater myself."
She chuckles and brushes hair from her face.
"How is Elmyra and Marlene?" he asks.
In better spirits than anyone hoped, she says. Elmyra is a strong, brave woman, concerned for Aerith but confident in her daughter's ability to survive. Marlene was ecstatic to see her papa again. Barret gave her Dyne's amulet and explained how the locket belonged to her birth mother. It was a sweet moment.
Cloud nods. Tomorrow leans heavy, yet Tifa sits with a smile. As if the world isn't ending around them.
"What are you thinking about?" she asks, leaning in close.
Sephiroth. Aerith. The Black Materia and Jenova. The crater. The impending calamity.
"Nothing," he says. "Everything."
"This could be the last time we spend together." And her voice shifts softer. She runs a hand over his shoulder. "The north crater could be it, couldn't it?"
He sighs. It is possible. He has no idea what to expect.
She kisses his cheek, then his lips. He acquiesces to her, allowing her to hold him. It's comforting and stimulating. Whatever fear she harbors in her body is undetectable. Her hands trace designs of desire down his spine, and blood flow accelerates. A human response, he realizes, to another human body. It defies the logic that he is not of this earth, that he is an error of alien replication.
Not human. So human.
He kisses her deep and shifts her beneath him. The cot is hard and unyielding. He wants to touch her skin without the drift of Jenova. He wants to fill his senses with her and blot out the meteor in the sky.
She pulls off her top, and he stops. A thick raised scar mars her torso, cutting beneath her bra. It's a slash from the same weapon that ended his life. Or, began his life.
She touches his chest.
"You have the same," she says, and it sends shivers through him.
They are alike. Wounded and survivors and alone. Without living relatives. Without a home to return to. She runs fingers beneath his shirt, touching the scars dotting his flesh. All those needles. The massive scab of Sephiroth's blade. The crackled web of burnt skin from the Nibelheim fires. This body is a living map of the MP's pain and death. And he is what remains.
"Alive," she says as if to break him from a spell. "We're both alive. That's what matters."
And all we have is each other, he wants to say, in this moment. This moment which may never come again because tomorrow might bring death, to his friends and to her. He could be immune to that future.
"Aren't you afraid?" he asks. Of me, of the future, of this—but he doesn't get a chance to say more.
She pulls him atop her, hands in his hair, tracing his shoulders, his jawline. He follows her, lost, drowned in the intensity she's brought.
He doesn't know if he's ever made love to anyone. There's no recollection in this body, but that deficiency bears no hesitations. Tifa is right that this could be the end. It's hot in the cabin. The pillows and blanket are back on the floor as he finds himself buried within her. His lips are down her neck, her breasts. He kisses the sealed wound that's bound them both. His body is fire and sweat and silence. Yes, the second heartbeat is gone. Only Tifa's blood aligns with his.
Her sounds compel him. He would do anything for her, and he thinks, finally, that this is what love means and is. A physical compulsion, a mental devotion. Sacrifice and pain and sensations beyond anything he can categorize.
It all happens fast, yet each second is slow. Time draws breathless and intimate. Her fingernails claw into his forearms. Her entire body is muscle and bruises. All of their stories are between them in this physical act, a culmination of all he's wanted (he can admit now) since seeing her again in Sector Five.
He does love her. This is what it feels like.
Everything rushes, and he has no idea how loud they are or who could be around to care. Nothing matters. He holds her and obeys. He doesn't stop until she relaxes her grip. He has no idea what he's doing or whether any of it is satisfactory to her, but she smiles up at him with sweaty, reddened cheeks once the rush ends. He's perched with one leg on the floor, the other curled over her open thigh. She starts to laugh, but it's a pleasant release, a joyful giggle.
His head swims, and his heart pounds. He shifts his weight and lays beside her, keeping his head near her neck to kiss her throat. Her skin is soft, warm. She smells so damn good, like a trace of orange blossoms, an open field of clean air. No Mako. No decay or tendrils or chemicals in tubes. Nothing.
Time is passing, he's aware, but it may as well be forever with her. Drowsiness creeps into the absence of adrenaline and lust. He has a hand over her heart. Human, beating beneath her bones. In sync with his.
The wind kicks streams of rain in syncopated sheets against the window. It's pitch-black outside. She toys with his hair in one hand, twirling strands.
"I hope that was okay," he says, though he's sure she'd have stopped him if it wasn't.
She lets out a content sigh and kisses his forehead. "Yes. I mean, I wasn't expecting…"
He sees she's blushing again, which seems silly given what they just did.
"Are you embarrassed?"
"No, not at all. I thought you might not want…"
But that's ludicrous. He tells her so by kissing her more. He brings her hand to his lips, grazes each finger, each calloused knuckle.
"This is all we have," she says, and the postcoital buoyancy has left her voice. "We may die. I may lose you again."
"You shouldn't come to the north crater," Cloud says. "None of you should. Whatever awaits there is—"
"Part of you," Tifa finishes. "I know, and that's why we have to stay together. Sephiroth must be stopped. Aerith must be found. Yet whatever Jenova can do… Aren't you afraid of losing yourself again?"
More than you know, he thinks. But he says, "Not really. I have the memories that Shinra kept separated from me." The knowledge that burns and cuts and screams in the dark.
She curls against him on the cot. They barely fit the width together, his arm around her.
"Let's just stay like this for a little while longer. I don't want to think about tomorrow yet," she says.
They settle into comfortable silence. The rain pelts the windows, and the airship ventilation whirs, but he focuses on the gentleness of her breath, the warmth of her body. He wants to exist in this blurry timeless space with her, disconnected from responsibility.
Tifa falls asleep, shifting onto her side, and Cloud lays awake, holding onto the sensation of her, willing time to stop. But the memories of his work with Shinra form out of shadows, and the meteor burns nearer in his head, beckoning. Not human, he hears it echo. He buries his face in her hair. She's somehow seen beyond that; why can't he?
When he does sleep, he doesn't dream. He awakes to a faint violet sky and a terrible ache in his chest. Heat surrounds the scar tissue of the stab wound from Sephiroth as though it were fresh. For a second, he thinks he sees someone else in the room with them. A figure standing in the corner.
But when he startles fully awake, the mirage is gone, and he's left apologizing to a blinking half-asleep Tifa. It's too early to expect anyone back yet, she says, but Cloud can't rest anymore. Tifa sleeps on while he opts to brew coffee in the mess hall.
The storm has left a trail of swollen amber clouds at dawn, and through every window, the meteor looms. Cloud looks away, refusing to let it find him. He's still connected to Tifa and to that warm, safe space at her side. Let it find him later outside this calm contentment he's salvaged. Let him exist in her embrace for now, even as it dissipates.