Chapter Seven: Cut Loose
Cloud dreamed.
In his dream, he was within Nibelheim, and it was burning. Yet the flames were frozen in place like on a postcard. Only he was inside the postcard and could move. Looking around, he saw Tifa with her back to him.
"What is this..." asked Cloud.
"So you're here," said Tifa. She stood before the flames.
"Tifa, is that you?" asked Cloud, reaching out to her.
Turning around, Cloud saw Tifa smiling widely. "I'm your childhood friend.
"We've known eachother for a long time, haven't we?"
"Yes," said Cloud.
Tifa reached out for him, and Cloud tried to reach her. Yet their hands were always apart, as though separated by a great distance. Soon, the flames disappeared, and they were close for no reason. They stood within a strange room with many vats sitting around. Within them were two figures, but when Cloud tried to make them out, things changed, and they were in a cave.
"Do you remember Genesis? The final battle with him in the cave?" asked Tifa, walking through them. "Or Lazard, how he was killed by a Shinra soldier when he couldn't move?
"Do you remember how you survived your battle with Sephiroth?
"Or how you got into SOLDIER?"
Cloud realized he didn't know, but he guessed this was part of the dream. So he moved forward to try and grasp her. "Tifa, are you alright?"
"I don't remember any of it," said Tifa before racing through him.
Turning around, Cloud saw Tifa racing up the slopes of Mount Nibel, now children. Reaching out for them as they faded away, he found himself in a white chamber—strange symbols of broken symbols.
And there was Sephiroth, clad in dark robes and reading, his silver hair falling around him. Tifa was to one side, but her eyes were wide and empty. There were many other statues around them.
"She persists," said Sephiroth. "She continues to cling to tales of tragic backstory and amnesia and justifications for her own inactions. She will learn these things are but distractions."
"Sephiroth," said Cloud, reaching for a sword, only to find it not there. "What are you doing here?"
"I should think that is obvious," said Sephiroth. "It is you, after all, who has brought us to this place within your mind. There your identity and thoughts, and abilities are formed.
"Take, for instance, a historical figure." Sephiroth raised a hand and turned a statue to life. Before Cloud, he saw a beautiful, red-haired woman in a dark jumpsuit. "This young woman could do anything. She was an environmental rights activist, an adrenaline junkie, and did great things. She traded favors with others, doing good deeds in exchange for doing more good deeds.
"She fell in love, went driving...
"And now she is dead."
The girl was blasted by fire and utterly obliterated with a final scream. Blood trickled over the flagstones like from a car wreck. Cloud's eyes widened, and he tensed.
"All this was gone," said Sephiroth. "Gone like an irrelevant dream, never again to be of any more significance. Amazing what can happen in a day or two.
"The ecological dream died, a new dream began.
"This woman was forgotten save by a few insignificant texts. A mere footnote in history that achieved nothing.
"Why?
"She could do anything, but she chose to do nothing. She did everything she was asked to do because it never occurred to her to do anything else. She was a puppet on the strings of others' desires. Her great achievement was that she broke the shackles on her superior husband by her death. She had the strength of a sort, but she gave up her will to fulfill other people's dreams.
"She could do anything, but she focused on nothing more than the immediate stream sense experience. She drifted for a time with no plan or agenda, and then she died.
"Are you a slave to the desires of those around you?"
Cloud found himself a child. "No."
"Oh?" asked Sephiroth. "How much of what is rightfully yours lies in the hands and power of others?"
"The money?" asked Cloud. "I can just ask for it back."
"Money?" asked Sephiroth. "Is that really all that is held from you?
"And how much of it is being spent even now?"
"Tifa wouldn't do that," said Cloud.
"How long have you known Tifa?" asked Sephiroth simply.
"Why do you care?" asked Cloud. "You're not even real. She helped me."
And then Sephiroth shot past him in a blur. He was now behind Cloud and held a card in one hand. Cloud turned and saw the card showed an image of himself, and it was Tifa who held the card. "And she will continue to help you.
"How much help must you have before you can stand on your own? If you do not assert yourself, you lose yourself.
"All it takes is a few strings."
And then Cloud felt his arms to one side. Looking up, he saw the red-haired woman holding it. "One for the arms, one for the legs, and one for your head.
"I'm not waking you up. Someone else can do it this time."
Cloud woke up to the vague sense of friends about him. Yet even as he did so, he was alone. He was lying in his bed, well, the bed he and Tifa shared. Sitting up, he dressed and heard voices as he did so. "Look, all I'm saying is that we might as well use the money. It's just sitting there, piling up." That was Barret.
Cloud grabbed the Buster Sword as Tifa spoke in turn.
"It belongs to Cloud," said Tifa.
"What is he gonna spend it on?" asked Barret. "The guy needs constant direction. He's not gonna be able to move out of this place any time soon. And we're going to be scrapping this hideout anyway.
"I can actually use the stuff for something worthwhile."
"Barret, I'm holding this for him," said Tifa.
As though she were his Mother.
As though Barret were some authority figure who could take his cash. She ought to have woken him up, so he'd been consulted. Just having this conversation was going behind his back.
She didn't trust him. Either to look after himself or not at all.
"Yes, but where is he going to spend it?" asked Biggs. "He hasn't so far spent it on anything. It's just piling up. And if he tries to spend that kind of cash, it'll draw the heat down on us." They'd been hunting a lot of monsters lately, after all. "Think about what we could do with that cash. You're practically his caretaker anyway."
Cloud had enough.
He walked down the steps and halted. "And here's the caretaken, Barret."
Barret stepped back at a pace. "Uh..."
"Cloud, I... I wasn't going to-" began Tifa.
"Give me my money. Now," said Cloud, trying and failing to keep the anger out of his town. "Or we're going to have a problem."
"Barret..." said Tifa. "Get the cash, now."
Barret quickly went to the pinball machine and lowered it down. Coming back, he brought a case filled with a box. "Here.
"I was saving that for Marlene's schooling. I wanted to build a school back at the new settlement."
"I don't care why you wanted it, Barret," said Cloud, opening the box and counting it. "You didn't ask. It's my money to do with as I want, and no matter how good a cause you have, you don't have the right to rob me blind!
"And you, Tifa, why didn't you wake me up? You start this kind of negotiation without me?!"
Biggs reached for a pistol, Cloud's hand went to his sword, and Tifa took a stand with Cloud.
"Take my half, Cloud. Just please..." began Tifa.
"I don't want your half, Tifa," said Cloud. "I...
"I can't trust these people."
The doors opened, and Jessie walked into the bar, holding some groceries. Then immediately stepped between them. "What's going on?"
"Jessie, could you step to one side, please?" asked Biggs.
"What happened?" asked Jessie. "Why does Biggs have a hand on his gun?"
"Everybody calm down," said Tifa.
"Why do we need to calm down?" asked Jessie saw her, then looked up. Marlene was to one side, looking on in interest. Jessie looked to Barret and raised an eyebrow.
"Barret here just tried to rob me blind," said Cloud.
"What are you talking about?" asked Jessie. "You mean the money you've been saving up with Tifa. What the hell, Barret?"
"Our cash is all basically communal anyway," said Barret. "Everybody else has pooled resources; why not him?"
"Cloud isn't a formal part of Avalanche," said Jessie, looking to Marlene. Why?
"There's no getting off this train we're on!" said Barret. "We're gonna have to keep going until Shinra is shut down, or we're all dead!
"The second we go off our own, our assess are gonna get picked up by the police?!"
Jessie looked at him. Why?
"Bring em on; I'd prefer a straight fight to all this sneaking around!" said Cloud.
"Okay, hold on," said Wedge, coming in behind her. "Hold on.
"We're got an operation all planned out; we were going to ditch this place anyway. So, let's just give Cloud the saving we put up and do it. We blow the reactors, grab the pack, and get the hell out.
"That's our best way of escaping Midgar anyway.
"We get out, we split into groups and go our own way."
Jessie looked to Wedge, then Biggs, then Barret, and Cloud. What was she thinking? What was the connection that derived from Marlene.
Oh. Cloud looked to Jessie, and he realized she knew too.
"To hell with you," said Cloud. "I'm out."
"The money-" said Tifa.
"I don't give a damn about the money!" said Cloud. "I'm not some goddamn retard who you can manipulate like a puppet on strings! I've made as much profit as I need and done more than I bargained for in this trip. I don't want your money, and I don't care how rich you are.
"Goodbye."
"Hold on, please, just a minute," said Tifa. "Could you guys give us some time alone, please?"
"Fine," said Barret. "Soldier boy, and you can work out your differences." And he and the others descended.
Jessie halted and put down the groceries. "Cloud, I want to talk to you outside in a minute. If you uh... decide to stay."
Jessie walked out.
Cloud paused and looked back to Tifa. She looked really worried, but also sad. "You're leaving then."
"That's right, yeah," said Cloud.
"Cloud, wait, please join us," said Tifa. "The planet is dying."
"So why don't Barret and his buddies do something about it?" asked Cloud in disgust. "I don't trust them." And he turned to walk out.
"Are you really just going to walk out on your childhood friend?" asked Tifa.
"I've already gotten you a lot of money, done Barret's job, and nearly been robbed," said Cloud. "I think I've more than repaid you at this point."
"But Cloud," said Tifa. "I'm in a real bind here."
"You got yourself into it," said Cloud. "And you knew full well what was going to happen. You must have. Even if you wiped out Shinra's reactors, the slums would die.
"This bar you set up was dead from the start the moment you decided to harbor Avalanche."
"But..." Tifa halted. "You've forgotten the promise, haven't you?"
"What promise, what are you talking about?" asked Cloud, looking back.
Tifa was shifting, looking down. "I mean, don't you remember? On the water tower? In Nibelheim beneath the stars? I remember you asked me to come out there and told me you were leaving to join SOLDIER."
"You're making that up," said Cloud flatly.
"No, I remember you told me that you wanted to be like Sephiroth," said Tifa. "And I said that you'd be in the papers if you got there. And you said you'd try."
"This doesn't sound so credible," said Cloud.
"And then I said that if I were ever in a bind, maybe you could come to save me," said Tifa.
"You're overplaying it," said Cloud.
"And then a huge shooting star raced out over the sky," said Tifa.
"You overplayed," said Cloud. "I'm leaving."
"Cloud!" said Tifa. "I'm telling the truth, please! Why don't you believe me?!"
"Because I don't like being lied to or used," said Cloud. "Everybody is treating me with kid gloves. Like I'm sort of child. Yes, I was incapacitated and could barely think for a bit, but a little respect would be nice."
"Cloud," said Tifa. "Barret just up and suggested it without any warning. Then Biggs and Wedge started listening. If I'd gone up to wake you, they might have taken it."
"Some friends you've got here, Tifa," said Cloud. "You babysit Barret's kid, wager your whole bar on his schemes. And what do you get out of this?
"Why are you wagering your livelihood on a terrorist scheme-"
"Because I'm alone, okay!" said Tifa. "I'm always alone! Everybody I grew up with is dead except you. Master Zangan is dead! My Father is dead! My Mother is dead!" She was crying now. "Everyone except you!
"For years, I clung to the fantasy of that promise! Then the memory of that fantasy and now nothing! Shinra took that from me too! I am a self-made woman who has built a bar up from nothing with my own hands! No one dares cause problems for me, and it's all because of my own power!
"I look on this place and feel nothing!" And she brought a fist down to smash the table, falling to her knees. "I remember nothing but flames consuming my hometown, my Father's corpse, and endless misery trying to survive another day.
"All of that... and you. You are the only thing I have that isn't in ashes...
"Don't leave me."
"...Just come with me then," said Cloud. "There's nothing for you here. Just fading trees and death. If this place makes you miserable, then leave. We can go somewhere else."
Tifa nodded and stood up. "Right, I'll go tell Barret-"
"Not yet," said Cloud. "There's something we need to speak to Jessie about."
"What do you mean?" asked Tifa.
"Follow me," said Cloud.
They went outside to one of the chairs and sat down. Jessie was across from them, hands clasped and gun on the table. Silence reigned.
"What... what exactly is going on here?" asked Tifa.
"Barret is going to snitch," said Jessie. "Cloud and I both saw it."
"What do you mean?" asked Tifa. "Why would he do that?"
"Everything is in place," said Jessie. "First, he has a blatant weak point. Marlene is a disaster waiting to happen. All Shinra has to do to leverage him is take her hostage."
"Yeah," said Tifa. "But it would probably work on you or me-"
"It wouldn't work on me," said Jessie. "I like the kid, but I'd let her die to take out another Mako Reactor. The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few.
"Wedge and Biggs, I don't know."
"That was never a problem before," said Tifa.
"Yes," said Cloud. "But you were in the 7th Heaven before. The operations that Wedge is planning require all hands on deck. Barret is a disaster waiting to happen."
"But Cloud," said Tifa. "This whole crusade was Barret's idea, to begin with."
"He's looking to retire," said Jessie. "Why would he take that money? Nobody is coming back from this expedition. We all knew that signing on.
"But he's got Marlene; he's got the most to lose out of us. We all have nothing to lose in this.
"I used to think Barret was a true believer who was willing to die for the cause. But he's getting sick of it. If we hit a few more Mako Reactors and live, all of us are going to be feeling the drain. It won't be fun anymore; it won't be sexy; we won't feel like big damn heroes.
"At that point, the group is going to be fraying at the edges, and the weakest link will give.
"Barret is going to backstab us, sooner or later, so he can live a quiet life with Marlene. We've got to take care of this now or scrap the operation completely."
Cloud considered it.
"Are you going to kill him?" asked Tifa.
"This is the business you've chosen, Tifa," said Cloud. "You see why I wanted out."
"What about Marlene?" asked Tifa. "She's a disaster waiting to happen too. Are you gonna kill her?"
"...We can put her in foster care," said Jessie.
"No, we can't," said Cloud. "It doesn't work that way. Marlene has seen our entire operation, and she could be used as leverage for Tifa and me. Either both of them live, or both of them die.
"There's no middle ground."
"So, what do you suggest?" asked Jessie.
Cloud paused. "...Kick Barret out of the club. Send him and Marlene somewhere else where they can start a new life. We can give him some money to get him started to patch over hard feelings."
"That's risky," said Jessie.
"As long as he gets out, we'll be fine," said Cloud. "We're all gonna die anyway, and we're not the main characters in the sequel. Let's let our glorious hero get out early while we finish the job."
"I guess," said Jessie. "Alright, you two lovebirds go hunt monsters. I'm going to talk things out with the others. Biggs and Wedge will see things our way. I've been closer to them anyway."
It was bitter.
But it had to be done.
And so it was that a plan was put together, and Cloud sat in the Avalanche basement, looking over maps and charts. All of the others were here too, and eventually, the trapdoor lowered. Barret moved in, raising an eyebrow. "What is going on here, guys?"
"Barret, sit down, please," said Jessie. "We need to talk."
"What is this an intervention?" asked Barret. "We ought to be preparing to fight the Shinra."
"Yes, it is," said Jessie. "And the alternative involves a blood-spattered wall, so you'd better pay attention."
"Uh, okay," said Barret, sitting down with chills.
"Marlene, why don't you start us out," said Jessie, adjusting a gun without a cartridge.
"Daddy, ever since you went out to fight the bad guys, you've been gone all the time," said Marlene as Jessie took the gun. "We never play together. I like Uncle Cloud and Tifa, but they aren't you."
Barret opened his mouth, but Jessie fit the cartridge into her gun. "Good.
"Now, Tifa, you go next."
Tifa shifted. "Barret, when you first came to the 7th Heaven, your plans to take down Shinra were a godsend. They provided me with real hope for the first time in years.
"The hope of revenge, maybe, but it helped me through a really dark time until Cloud came.
"However, your behavior has become a major problem for me. There was nearly an armed gun battle in my bar because you tried to steal Cloud's money. You could have just asked him for it, and if you'd done that, he might have given it to you.
"Instead, I nearly lost him, and you nearly lost both of us."
"Now, Tifa, Marlene, could you please take a trip up that soundproofed elevator up into the 7th Heaven," said Jessie, turning off the safety. "An organization that is hosting a group of ruthless terrorists."
Out Tifa and Marlene went, and Barret shifted as he saw everyone around. "Jessie-"
Jessie raised the gun and pulled the trigger. It clicked, and she smiled. "Okay, Barret, you're a good leader, and you're a good person. But you're not a killer, even if you'd like to be one. This operation was brilliant, and it did a lot of damage—a lot more than the Genesis army did.
"But you aren't loyal to the cause. You aren't one of the true believers."
"I am-" began Barret.
"If someone kidnapped Marlene, would you do what they said?" asked Jessie.
"I mean..." Barret halted. "For the moment until I could rescue her-"
"It doesn't work that way," said Biggs." "What if you're in operation and someone tells you to kill us in a split second. You've got too much to lose."
"Biggs..." said Barret.
"We're here to die, Barret," said Wedge. "That's why we came to this place. We have nothing left, and we want to go out fighting instead of on our knees. You dragging Marlene along for the ride is endangering her and slowing us down.
"You can be Marlene's father, or you can be a dead man seeking revenge on those who killed him."
"Wedge..." said Barret.
"I don't want to die," said Wedge. "But I'm willing to lay down my life for what is happening. For what you rallied us to do.
"But I don't want Marlene to get dragged down into it. She's in danger as long as we have here with us. But sending her to foster care won't work either; Shinra might find her. And even if they don't, I grew up in foster care.
"It's horrible.
"She deserves better.
"You deserve better."
"Cloud," said Jessie.
"Last stands and final battles make for very good stories," said Cloud to one side. He took a case and put it at his feet. "But they won't do anyone a lick of good if no one hears what really happened. Someone needs to escape and tell everyone what really happened here. Otherwise, all we'll be remembered for is a bunch of psychopaths blowing stuff up for fun.
"We can't be that.
"But you can.
"You need to live so their lives will have meaning. In that case, is what you'll need to get started again."
"You never cared about the cause before," said Barret.
"I don't," said Cloud. "But everything I have is in this room. My memory is a haze of half-truths, and all the records are gone. Whatever I was before, it doesn't matter.
"I'm a dead man trying to go home, Barret.
"You are a live one who needs to find one.
"Take this money, take Marlene, get on the train out of here, and live a good, quiet life."
"I can't take your money-" said Barret.
"That's a loan," said Cloud. "Pay it back to other people."
Barret gulped. "I'm guessing I don't have any choice."
"We discussed all possible options other than this one," said Jessie. "You don't want to know. It's better for us all if you cut loose while you can."
Barret nodded. "...Thanks.
"Jessie, Cloud, take care of them."
"I will," said Jessie and Cloud.
But Jessie's tone was different.
She smiled, looking very, very sexy. "Now, let's figure out a new plan. One that might actually work."