Chapter Three

Chapter Three

One Year Later, Six Years Older

Tifa knocked gently on the door to Zeno's room, shifting the bundle of blankets that was piled almost as high as her head in her arms from one side to the other as she waited for the boy hidden within to answer. Soon, the door creaked open and Tifa stepped forward, feeling with her feet to make sure that she didn't crash into anything.

"Zeno, you didn't mess up your room already, didn't you?" she asked, sliding forward and extending a foot to reach for Zeno's bed.

"Aunt Tifa…uh, look out." A quick, slender shadow moved in her peripheral vision, slipping in front of her with a slight breath of wind in its wake. There was a fumbling noise, followed by the shadow's next sentence. "Okay, you can go, now."

"I thought you just got in here," Tifa mumbled into the pile of blankets, moving forward once more.

"I did, Aunt. I just suddenly had the urge to work on something…"

"Ah. I see." Tifa's searching foot finally encountered the edge of Zeno's bed. She immediately knelt and dropped her pile of blankets onto it, sighing in relief as the layers of cotton left her face. She perked up at a noise behind her, turning around to see Cloud and Yuffie following, each carrying hampers full of various paraphernalia.

"Hi, Uncle Cloud," the shadow, now identified as a young, six-year-old boy, said. He brushed back his glossy black hair that was quite long for a child his age and looked up at his "uncle" with dark eyes. "Hi, Yuffie."

"Yo, kid," Yuffie grunted by means of greeting, depositing her load onto the floor. She let out a breath of air, lifting her brown bangs that were stuck to her forehead with sweat. "Okay, that's the last of it. Hey, kid, you sure have a lot of junk for a little one-year-old."

"Six," Zeno corrected her automatically. "I know how old I am."

Cloud laughed forcedly, the strained tone unnoticed by Zeno but picked up on by both Tifa and Yuffie. "You better get settled down here, kid. We have to go unpack in our rooms. We'll call you down when dinner's ready, okay?"

Zeno nodded. "All right, Uncle." He turned to his stack of crates, ready to unload. Cloud and the others left as quietly as they could, closing the door firmly and walking down the hallway to Cloud's new room.

"All I can say is, it's a good thing you guys finally decided to pick up residence in a different house," Yuffie grumbled in her usual, I-just-got-over-my-hangover attitude. "Mine was getting pretty damn crowded."

Cloud cast a silencing look at her. "Yuffie, in case you haven't noticed, there's something strange about Zeno."

"Oh, yeah? No way! I couldn't tell! I mean, he was only born a year ago and he currently looks like a six year old kid," Yuffie replied sarcastically. She threw her hands into the air, rolling her eyes along with that motion. "Jeez, you'd think that you assume I'm totally blind. Just because I drink occasionally doesn't mean a th—"

"Yuffie, we're on a different topic," Cloud reminded her impatiently. He rubbed the back of his neck uneasily, as if someone had just breathed on the fine hairs that ran over there. "Zeno isn't a regular kid. I love him as if he was my own son, but…the way he's growing just isn't normal. I don't know how to explain it, though."

Yuffie nodded, sobering. "I know. It's pretty unsettling, isn't it?"

"It's more than unsettling, it's eerie," Tifa put in, clasping her hands behind her back in an unconscious gesture. "He ages at an unusually fast pace—let's say about six years to one normal year for us—and his mind accelerates just as quickly; maybe a little quicker. At this rate, he'll be dead before Cloud is thirty!"

Cloud shook his head. "We can't think that way right now, Tifa. And right now, there's nothing that we can do. We'll just have to wait and see what happens…"

* * *

Three years later…

"Happy birthday!"

The lights flicked on, revealing a crowd of people surrounding a table that was bordered by cups, plates, napkins, and utensils. In the center of the table was a round cake covered with light green icing lit up by twenty-five candles whose flames flickered from the shouts of the people around it. Written on the cake in white icing were the words:

HAPPY BIRTHDAY

CLOUD-SAN!

Cloud laughed ruefully as he stared down at the candle-covered cake top, scratching the back of his head in a common gesture of speechlessness. "My God, you people have a way of making a guy feel old," he admitted as Tifa sidled over to him, slipping a paper crown on a lopsided tilt over the spikes from his hair.

"Hurry up and make a birthday wish, Cloud," Tifa advised, laughing at how silly Cloud looked with that crown on his head. The offending article, crafted by an expert origami creator, was made of shiny golden paper and, with the tilt added to it, made Cloud look like a drunken angel of some sort with a halo that had fallen off of its perch. "You're probably going to have to take some really deep breaths for this one!"

"Look who's talking," Cloud jabbed back. "In a year, this is going to be you, Tifa. Enjoy it while you can, because I'm going to be the one laughing at you when it's your turn!"

"Oh, but I am," Tifa replied innocently, spoiling the effect by pulling a moue at him.

"Well, I'm not," Yuffie groused. "What a lousy party! There aren't any decent drinks around here!"

"I think that it's fair for you to remain sober for Cloud's birthday," Tifa returned evenly. "Consider it your birthday gift to him."

"Oh, hey, really?" Yuffie perked up visibly. "In that case, I don't have to worry, 'cause I don't have a present for him anyway!"

Now it was Cloud's turn to make a face, sticking his tongue out in an uncharacteristically youthful gesture. "Figures," he mock-growled at her. "I should have known that you, of all people, would give me such a touching gift!"

"Hey, at least I actually gave you something," Yuffie shot back huffily as the other party members laughed at her pouting expression.

"Right. Something. Thanks," Cloud muttered.

"Hey, where's Zeno?" Tifa cut in, dissuading any more argument from the irate ninja.

"Oh, the kid's probably hanging around the stream again," Yuffie said with a dismissive wave of her hand. "Hurry up and cut the darned cake already. I'm starving, there's nothing to drink here, and the party's going do-o-o-o-own!"

"Here, Cloud," Tifa whispered into Cloud's ear, ignoring the spike of hair that tickled at her upper lip. She thrust the cutting knife into his hand, earning a yelp of surprise as the knife's edge sliced the palm of his glove open, luckily without drawing any blood. "I'll go get Zeno." She turned and disappeared out of the door before Cloud or anyone else could say anything.

* * *

Running through the middle of Wutai was a freshwater stream, which was lucky for the town's inhabitants since they lived nearby the ocean and freshwater was usually hard to come by in an area like the one Wutai sat in. Connecting sections of Wutai were short walkways and red, arching bridges that branched over the lazily shifting waters of the stream. On hot days, children often sat on the bridges and paths, dangling their feet into the water and teasing the mottled koi fish that often came up to nibble at their toes. It was said by the seniors of Wutai that the precious waters could reveal the true inner spirit of the person who looked upon their reflection in the glass-like surface. Most often, teenagers emerging into the unsteady years of life would peer into the stream to see if what the elders said was true and to possibly glimpse a vision of their future.

Every citizen of Wutai was off celebrating the twenty-fifth birthday of their most honored member, the man who had saved the Planet from destruction. As such, the town was currently practically empty save for one figure that sat on a graceful red bridge's curve, staring hypnotically into the water.

Tifa spied him immediately and walked over, keeping her eyes fixed on his back. She reached him and sat down next to him, tucking her long, loosely tied brown hair over her shoulder.

"Zeno?" she asked, reaching out with a hand to tentatively touch the person's shoulder.

Zeno raised his face from the water and tilted it towards Tifa. In ways that had become increasingly more obvious as Zeno grew rapidly over the four short years he had been alive, he resembled some figure from the past whom no one except for Cloud could put a finger on and remember. Cloud, however, chose to ignore this and kept it a secret, even when Tifa asked him if he knew who it was. His face was unusually pale and aristocratic, finely boned and almost delicate in structure. Hair that was as dark as the true shade of midnight cascaded over his shoulders, touching the bridge even when he straightened up in his sitting position. A pair of long bangs constantly fell in his face, a distraction that most would find annoying but Zeno ignored. The only things that kept Zeno from being mistaken for a girl were his unmistakably masculine build and his piercing, predator-like pure black eyes that were so deep in shade and intensity that people often found themselves drowning in them. Once he had those unsettling orbs focused on someone, it was not unusual for that target to leave the room. If they had actually dared to meet the gaze of this proud, serious stranger, they would have had to find a seat to support their weakening legs at the very least. It also was not very unusual for a weak-spirited being to faint from sheer terror and awe.

He doesn't look like Amé at all, Tifa thought fleetingly. Just the hair, and nothing more. The child always did have such beautiful hair…

Once more, Tifa was drawn to the past for a brief moment, a past that was buried in the back of her mind. She remembered and wondered again at how a child of four could look, act, and think like a twenty-four-year-old—the same age as herself.

"Aunt Tifa?" Zeno questioned in a smooth, velvety voice anyone would kill to have. All of this plus his "bishonen," or "pretty boy"—as the people of Wutai called it—looks packaged into one was almost too much for the young girls of Wutai to bear, never mind the fact that he had been an infant four years ago. They were constantly throwing themselves at him, and probably would do so literally if his penetrating eyes and cold aura didn't persuade them otherwise.

"Zeno, is something wrong?" Tifa asked quietly. "The others are waiting for your arrival."

Zeno snorted softly, half to himself, turning his eyes back towards the shimmering water below his swinging feet. "I don't know. I'm not really in the mood to have those girls giggle at me right now."

Tifa laughed. "I don't blame you," she chuckled. "Of course, were you not my nephew, I'd probably be joining them as well."

Zeno gave her a slightly surprised look with one black eyebrow arching over an emerald eye. "Aunt Tifa!" He responded reproachfully.

Tifa laughed again at his look, elegantly crossing one leg over the other as they hung over the edge of the bridge. "I don't suppose you've looked in the mirror lately, kid," she teased, using Cloud's nickname for Zeno.

Zeno's mouth twitched for an instant before he reverted back to his serious, contemplating self. "I don't know, Aunt Tifa. I just don't feel like I belong here. I feel like…someone, somewhere, is calling me to them, and I have to heed their call someday."

Tifa stopped laughing and stared seriously at Zeno's profile. "Really?"

Zeno nodded in confirmation. "I don't suppose you think it's not that silly?"

Tifa shook her head slowly. "No, Zeno. I think Cloud felt like that at one point in his life. He always, always felt like he didn't belong in his hometown—Nibelheim—even though his only family, his mother, was there. So…he left to join the elite military group, SOLDIER, when he was about fourteen or so."

I can still remember that night, Tifa thought to herself. That night on Nibelheim's well…and his promise to me…

"…Whenever I'm in trouble…my hero will come and rescue me…"

"…All right. I promise…I'll come…"

Oh, Cloud, you've kept your promise…but I wish it could go into something more…

"Maybe that's what I need to do," Zeno muttered, interrupting Tifa's thoughts. She glanced up at him in surprise to see if he was joking, but his face was perfectly straight and serious. "Maybe I need to go join a fight somewhere…"

"Zeno, don't talk like that!" Tifa grabbed Zeno's hand frantically. "You…you're the last memory of your mother that Cloud…that we have. If you left…I don't know what Cloud or I would do. I mean…" she swallowed. "Just don't leave us, Zeno. We all love you very much, even Yuffie. Don't ever leave us alone."

Startled by Tifa's sudden display of emotion, Zeno stared down at her before nodding slowly. "All right. I promise…"

* * *

Tifa left soon after Zeno had made his promise and his second promise to join the party soon. He ran a hand through his hair from scalp to tip, unconsciously undoing any tangles his hand-comb found. Finally, he stopped and rested his chin in the palm of one hand and his elbows on his thighs, staring at the reflection of himself in the water.

He had stopped growing.

Of course the others wouldn't notice it yet; by their calculations, he was exactly twenty-four right now and would age another six years within the next year of their life. What they didn't know and what he had noticed was that he had just suddenly stopped growing and aging as soon as he had hit twenty-four. His mind, sharp and in its prime, absorbed information much like how a sponge did water and his physical appearance remained as a twenty-four-year-old. But he knew, subconsciously, that he wasn't going to get any older externally, internally, emotionally, and so on, with the exception of his thoughts that would age as they learned more about this strange new world.

So what happens to me then? He thought reflectively, absently picking up a pebble that sat nearby him. Do I just stay the way I am forever or do I just drop dead when I'm seventy? What happens?

Zeno dropped the pebble into the silvery water and watched as a school of koi, fat and greedy from the free feeding they received from children and adults alike, swarmed at the ripple that had been created. To their simple minds, that ripple always meant food. This time, however, no matter how hard they searched, there was no tasty morsel to fight over—only the tiny pebbles and whatnot studding the floor of their underwater home. Disconcerted, the koi all swam away, looks of frank confusion and disappointment clouding their bright black eyes.

What am I doing? Zeno wondered, dropping his hands to his lap. Why do I just wait here? Am I, too, waiting for some crumb to drop to me, some little bit of food that will supply for my hunger for knowledge? What happens?

Staring intently into the water surface at the sulking koi browsing below, Zeno skimmed over his own reflection numerous times before he saw something that hadn't been there before. His deep black eyes widening in surprise, he leaned forward and stared at his reflection.

Hovering above his head was the faint outline of a beautiful young girl a few years his junior. Her hair was a long, chestnut brown braided back away from her angelic face. Tendrils of escaped hair with two predominant bangs curled around large, innocent emerald eyes, almost like his own except they were slightly lighter in color and held a look of permanent amusement in them. Amusement, it seemed, that was expressed at the world in general and not directed at one single person. She smiled down at him, the heartbreaking smile of a child. Surprised, Zeno twisted his waist around so quickly that his long hair went flying around his head.

The area behind him was completely empty.

There was no sign of the angel he had just seen in the stream. Zeno scanned the whole town of Wutai, straining his eyes to see where the girl had disappeared to, but it was just that—she had disappeared. Vanished completely as if he had been simply hallucinating.

Confused, Zeno turned back to the stream. Almost instantly, his hair was lifted once more as if by a wind—except that there was none. Involuntarily, Zeno glanced back into the stream and saw his reflection once more, except for the fact that it had changed.

Half of him was the normal Zeno that had always been reflected at him, but the other half was different—changed in ways both obvious and otherwise. A huge white wing arched over his normal side, but his other, different side bore a leathery bat-like wing with hooks and barbs at each tip and joint. The bat-winged side's eye was an intense emerald green and was narrowed with anger, his face twisted with hate and pure rage. As if that wasn't enough, that side's portion of hair was a pure, molten platinum silver, as if someone had melted the ore down and poured the whole thing while it was still burning hot over half of his hair.

Just barely visible behind this horrifying visage was an eye, much like the eye of the twisted, hate-filled him, but belonging to a different being. He couldn't even make out what color its iris was, but Zeno could still easily get the vengeful message the eye glared to him.

And then, out of nowhere, came a hissing, dry whisper slithering through his mind like a snake rustling through fallen autumn leaves.

My son…

Zeno let out a short, cut-off yelp of horror and surprise, scrambling to his feet and almost falling over the opposite side of the bridge in an attempt to escape the mirage in the water. He leaned against the railing, breathing heavily and staring wide-eyed at the place he had occupied moments before.

The voice was gone.

Summoning up the rest of his courage and restoring his distant aura, Zeno crept back to the place and peered over the edge of the bridge, half-afraid as to what he would find in the water.

All he saw was his own reflection, both dark black eyes wide and scared, face even paler than normal and lips clenched together. Zeno stared down at himself, collapsing with relief. A brave, young koi leaped out of the water, breaking through his reflection and flashing its golden-speckled body in the fading sun before disappearing back underwater. Zeno watched as his reflection flew apart and then slowly reformed, wavering in the ripples the fish had left behind.

What was that? Zeno wondered, slowly standing and heading in the direction of Cloud's birthday party.

Was that…my answer?

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