Chapter Four
Dreams
by KalHe was in the nowhere.
In front of him, the demon,the dragon. All that is evil, dressed with clothes as dark as the night. In his hands, his long blade. Waiting for it´s nemesis. His ice blue eyes waiting, watching.
In the other hand, the knight,the savior, the hero.Saint John, Siegfried, Michael all in one. His mythical weapon in his hands. His sky blue eyes staring at the evil in front of him. The anger inside him growing with each second. He tastes it, he enjoys it.
The confrontation that has spawned many stories and myths since the humanity was born. In one side, the good, the hero. In the other, the evil, the villain. Kain and Abel, Thor and Loki, all legends about the same theme.
The good battling the evil.
Suddenly,the attack. He runs forward with all his strenght. His sword at his side clenched in his fists. He raises it over his head, and strikes. One, two, three... Fourteen times. Each blow has all his strenght in it, augmented by his fury. Each blow tears apart bone and flesh. Each blow bringing his enemy closer to Death´s embrace.
The demon feels it. It takes two steps backwards, covered in blood, his blood. He knows he is about to die.
Then, the eyes. Eyes that transform. His eyes cease to be those of a demon, and become those of a human being. A human being that is ashamed. A human being that is horrified at what he has done.
He says two words, almost too low to be heard.
"I´m... sorry..."
Then, he explodes, his essence transforming in red lights. The red lights come near him, enter his spiritual body and go out, now being green.
Everything has finished.
Then, a hand appears. A delicate, feminine hand, trying to reach him.
"It can´t be..."
He knows that hand.
"Aeris."
Is she reaching for him to come to where is she and they can be together? Or is she trying to get him back to the physical world? How easy would it be to grab that hand, that delicate hand, and escape from all the pain and the sadness he has lived. Or he could go back, and using what he learned, make himself the life he wanted to live, without being no one´s puppet, being the actor of his own drama, not someone´s else.
The choice is hard.
The time is running.
He extends his hand. He almost reaches hers.
"I am sorry."
Suddenly, he withdraws his hand. Then, the ligth tunnel again. He opens his eyes.
Cloud wakes up.
He seats in the couch he was sleeping on. The dream, the same goddamn dream. He had it every night, since that day (/or it was night?/) when they had saved the world. He has come to know what to expect. He confronts Sephiroth. He kills Sephiroth. He goes back. But there´s always something that bothers him.
Sephiroth didn´t try to avoid him.
He didn´t even try to defend himself.
It was as he was there, just waiting for Cloud to end all.
To make him pay for his sins?
/How can that be?/
He always had seen Sephiroth as a villain, as a scoundrel, someone who deserved all the hate he could direct towards him. But every night the same dream made him doubt.Was Sephiroth a villain or a victim? He knew that he had done the most evil things he had knew, but...
Those eyes.
Reflecting a great sadness, a great suffering, an even greater regret.
Cloud layed down again. It didn´t mattered how much he thought about it, there could not be an answer to his questions.
He does the only prudent thing.
He sleeps again.
He can´t escape.
It doesn´t matter where he runs, he can´t escape.
He turns back to confront the monsters. They halt before him.
The beast snarls with anticipation, the gigas pounds its fists on its chest, the maniac just rotates its head and spins its chainsaw. And the worst of them, the demon, just stands there, watching at him, with those evil red eyes, and showing its fangs in a wicked smile.
Then the ground collapses behind the beasts. A figure appears. He advances where Vincent is standing, the beasts opening the circle formed around Vincent to let it pass.
"Hojo." Vincent says, as tough with the hatred in his voice he could send him back to the hell he emerged from.
"My, my, are we having a bad day, aren´t we?"
Vincent leaps towards Hojo, hands extended. He tries to reach for his neck, but its quickly hold by the beasts. They make him kneel before Hojo.
"I guess you´re not very happy to see me." Hojo says, with a false hurt tone.
"I hate you! I could chop you in tiny pieces, feed them to the dogs, and still that wouldn´t be enough for what you did to me and Lucrecia!" Vincent spat.
"What I did? C´mon, Vinny, you and me know who the real culprit is." Hojo says, getting close to Vincent who is being hold by his arms by the beasts. Hojo kneels and grabs Vincent´s face with his right hand and forces him to see him at his eyes.
"If you hadn´t left Lucrecia alone, none of this would had happened. You could have killed me at the moment I suggested her to use our child for experiments with the Jenova cells. You then would had been able to escape with her and her baby to any place you wanted, far from me and the Shinra, to live as a happy family forever and ever." Hojo said in an acussing tone.
"I...I...wanted her to be happy..." Vincent said in a low voice.
"What´s that? You wanted her to be happy!? Then why you let her to be with me!? You knew I wasn´t good enough for her, that I would make her suffer!" Hojo screamed in Vincent´s face.
Vincent remained silent.
"You know, Vinny, I have this little theory. You wanted Lucrecia to suffer because she dumped you!" Hojo said getting up and extending his arms to the heavens, in a triunfal pose.
"That´s not true!" Vincent screamed.
"Of course it is! She prefered me over you. You knew I would make her suffer. And..." Hojo then pointed his finger to Vincent´s head. "Inside that little head you thought of the perfect revenge. She didn´t wanted to be with you, to be truly happy? Fine! Then you would let her suffer with me, making her think every day of her life what would had happened if she had chosed you. You washed your hands thinking that if she wanted to be with be, you didn´t mind. But every single moment you hoped for me to make her suffer as she made you when she rejected you!"
Vincent lowered his head. He mumbled something.
"What? What is that again? Speak louder, I cannot hear you."
"...it´s not my fault."
"Of course it is! You can deny it all day long, during all the days of your life, but you and me know the truth Vinny. You hated Lucrecia for dumping you. That´s okay, because, you see, we only hate those that we love."
"I didn´t hate her! I loved her more than my life!"
Hojo ignored Vincent. He turned around and began to talk again.
"And, when you got the punishment you deserved for your sins, you thought that everything was my fault.You denied being the responsible of all. You still try to deny your responsibility as the one who did it all. Well, I have you news. It´s time you pay for all of that."
With a sign from Hojo the monsters began to attack Vincent, breaking his bones, tearing his flesh.
Vincent screams.
He woke up.
He was sweating a cold sweat. His eyes opened widely.
It was just a nightmare.
He tries to sleep again, laying in the floor of the room he is sharing with Cloud in Cid´s house. He closes his eyes, trying to forget the nightmare. But Hojo´s words still echoed inside him hurting him, making him feel more pain than ever in his life.
It was late in the afternoon at Junon. The sun gleamed over the cars on the filled streets. A car was parked outside a gray imposing building. At the top of it´s fifty floors of height, could be readed the words "Rexcon". In the last floor, a man opened a door to a rather large office. Inside there was an oak desk, beatifully decorated with many intricate patterns in it´s surface. Behind it was a black swivel chair, turned to a window. A voice emanated from behind it.
"Report, Marley."
Jacob then proceeded to describe with details the results of his visits to Nibelheim and Rocket Town. About the negatives given to him by "Misters Strife, Valentine and Highwind" as he called them.
A cloud of smoke then appeared from behind of the chair.
"Well, it´s a shame. I guess Plan A didn´t work out, so we´ll have to go ahead with Plan B. Assemble a team of twenty... No, thirty of our men, give them non-lethal weapons and make sure they´re ready to take off this night. I have received some reports of my spies at Rocket Town, and it seems they are all at Highwind´s house. That´s more than convenient for our plans, we can have them all at the same place."
"Yes, sir."
"And Marley..."
"Yes, sir?"
"I want you to go with them, and command this operation. Don´t fail to me, you know well what happens to those who dissapoint me."
If Jacob wasn´t good at controlling his emotions, his knees would be shaking, and he would be covered in sweat.
"Yes, sir... I won´t let you down."
"I hope so, for your own sake. You´re dismissed."
Jacob was trembling when he shut the door when he exited the office.
Tifa sighed. The last client had walked outside the bar hours ago, but she was still busy. She put the chairs with their legs upwards on the last table, and turned off the lights. She closed the bar, and headed to her house,just across the street, on the other side of the well. She was exhausted. Now more than ever she wanted Cloud to comfort her. She missed him altough he wasn´t been away more than a day.
She had a strange feeling. A feeling that had appeared months ago, growing with each day. Something was not right. Cloud was hiding something. She felt it.
What could it be? What was that Cloud could not tell her? Why didn´t he trust her? She had used to think that, after all what they had been through, they could tell each other anything. She knew that, after what they had experienced at the Lifestream, he knew that he could trust her with anything he had in his mind.
But she didn´t know what hurted her more: Cloud not trusting her, or he thinking that she wouldn´t understand.
She entered her house, and closed the door. She went upstairs to her room and changed her clothes for a red-colored pijama that Cloud had given her in her birthday. She went to sleep, hoping that evrything would be okay when Cloud got back from his trip.
"Reno, come on! That´s enough for today!"
"Elena, It´s my money, and I will decide when enough it´s enough. And beside´s it´s time for that nine to come out!" Reno said as he threw the dice to the table in front of him.
"Seven." said the croupier. He took the big pile of chips in front of Reno as he sank his head on his hands.
"See, I..." Reno glared at her, convincing her to keep her mouth shut.
Rude then walked through the door.
"Hey, Rude, how´s going?" Elena said.
"Someone contacted us. It seems he wants to use us for a job." He said.
Reno quickly lifted his head.
"Yeah? What is it about?" he asked.
"He says he would only tell us in person. We must go to Junon to receive the orders."
"He? Who´s he?" Elena asked.
"Elena, don´t be so weak. A Turk doesn´t ask questions. But, just for curiosity, who´s our employer?" Reno asked.
"Reeve."
"Reeve? What does he wants us for?"
"I dunno, but he says he will pay us well. Do we accept?"
"Of course! Elena, pack our bags. We are going to Junon!"
"I´m not your mom Reno. You can pack your bags yourself!"
Elena then left before Reno could say anything.
"What happens to her? Well, anyway, we gotta go. We are going to Junon!"
The fourth chapter, and finally the Turks appear! And what´s with those "dreams"? Well, I used a little simbolism in Cloud´s dream, something I took out from the "Final Fantasy VII Mythologies" by John Brittenham. And before you say that Sephiroth indeed attacks you at the final battle, it´s a weak attack, like trying to provoke you into attacking him.
And in Vincent´s dream, I want to plant a question: Did Vincent hated Lucrecia because she rejected him? Before any Vincent fans flame me about how much Vincent loved Lucrecia, I want to say that I´m also a Vincent fan. I just want to explore his past from a different viewpoint.
Who´s the guy behind the black chair? Why Reeve wants to hire the Turks? Those questions, and more, will be answered in the next chapter.