Author's Note: This is just a snippet I wrote after defeating Final Fantasy 7 last night (finally!) And I feel kinda dumb, because I CRIED at the end, and there was no reason to CRY at all! Except for the fact that it was just incredibly powerful and moving, and the little video clip at the end was just cool, but still sad. Why, I have NO idea. Maybe I was just being emotional. Anyway, this could be a one-shot, or I can extend it into a full-length written adaptation of Final Fantasy VII, if I could find a written script. If I do that, then I also have the epilogue written, which is chapter two here. But if anyone can get me the script, then I'll fill in the blank (that's a heck of a blank). But until then, enjoy!

Staring Into the Sun

A Final Fantasy VII Snippet by Kyheena

From the distance, it looked like a mountain, and a mountain it could have been, except on closer inspection, it was in actuality the remains of what was once the greatest feat of man-made technology in the world.

Now the grand city lay in rusted ruins, overgrown with the Planet's wild vegetation that covered the corroded medal in a mask that effectively hid the truth of what it once had been. Behind the collapsed walls, the metropolis that had once been bustling with broken lives now stood abandoned and forgotten, a monument of what humanity was, a long, long time ago. All and all, it was a sad sight of the dismal end of a great human civilization, a long-ago eminent city that time forgot, and hardly a sight worth seeing. However, if you were to make a trip to those ruins that marked where mighty Midgar rose from the dejected earth, for whatever reason, there was one monument that stood that was the last memory of a cataclysmic event that had occurred almost half a century before.

Before the broken gates stood nine figures that were normally alone, poised like guardians of the overgrown metropolitan marvel. Nine statues stood on their moss-covered pedestals, looking out towards the west, into the golden horizon, stained red and orange by the setting sun. They may have been alone most of the time, but there was not a man, woman or child on the Planet who did not know their names, as they were the saviors of the planet. Had it not been for them, then the Planet would have died, five hundred year ago.

A light wind was blowing from the east, rippling through the long, flowering grass and ruffling the graying-red fur of the creature that sat before the nine statues, looking up at them with a sense of awe and respect in his one good, yellow eye. Awe and respect, but there was something else there, too. Sadness, nostalgia, the type of look he got when he wished that he could see them all again, one last time. This was not the sight where they were laid to rest, just a memorial to their triumph over evil and restoring peace and order to the Planet. If he was younger, then he would brave the wild passages of the world to find their true places of rest, but now, time was finally catching up with him. When he was younger, he knew that there would be a day that they would part ways since their species were so very different, but mentally preparing himself did nothing in the fact that he had, in what seemed like a very short time, lost his dearest friends to the timely fate of an exhausted human lifespan.

Even now, after all these years, he still missed them.

"Gran'pa!" A small, childish cry behind him made Nanaki turn, his old neck stiff after staring at the monuments for what was probably hours, and smiled at the sight of three energetic balls of fire-red fur come bounding up to him from the grass. His youngest grandcub tripped over his own pawns as he came skidding to a halt besides his grandfather's much larger, shaggier form. Even with his puppy-like features, the cub's wide yellow eyes showed emotions of hurt, and had he been human, they probably would have been tearing. "Nani and Luca are being mean to me! They say that I'm too small to play with them!"

"Oh really?" Nanaki said, cocking his head to one side, the many beads and feathers of his extensive headdress clicking together. "Now why's that?"

"He's not big enough to play with us, Gran'pa!" One of the older cubs huffed as he appeared from the tall grass, trying to defend himself in why his younger brother couldn't play with them, their sister not too far behind. "He still has his milk teeth! He would just get hurt!"

"I can beat you two up any day!" The youngest, Mamou, squealed, stamping his front paws. "Besides, I don't need you jerks anyway! I can take care of myself!"

Nanaki knew that it would be in their parent's best interests if he broke up this fight now, but instead he only laughed, catching all three of the cubs by surprise. Mamou quickly forgot his anger and looked up at the older male curiously, and maybe a bit hurt, thinking that he was laughing at him. "What's so funny, Gran'pa?"

"Nothing." Nanaki said, shaking his head. "You just remind me of someone I knew once, a long time ago. And believe me, Mamou, you don't want to be like him. At least, not in the beginning, when I first met him."

"Ooh! Was it one of them, Gran'pa?" Luca squealed, bounding past them and up to the central statue, placing one paw on the worn-down marble pedestal. "It was, wasn't it?"

"You mean you knew them, Gran'pa?" Mamou asked. Nani and Luca were a bit older than him, and therefore had been to the memorial before, but this was Mamou's first trip. Up until now, he had not even taken an interest in the figures that loomed over him. "The ones who saved the world a long time ago? You met them when they fought Sephy-rath?"

Nani rolled his eyes. "Sephi-roth, fuzz brains!" Mamou pouted, but Nanaki only laughed again.

"I more than just met them, Mamou. I was one of them." He nodded to the statue of a crouching animal, something that looked like a cross between a lion and a wolf, wearing feathers and beads in his mane. Mamou's eyes widened to an extent that they looked like they were going to pop out of his head as Nanaki rose, ignoring the pain in his joints as best as he could as he approached the statue, clearing away the moss with one large paw until words came into view.

"But it doesn't say its you!" Luca complained. "It says, 'Red XIII'!"

"Yes, it does, but back then, it was what everybody knew me as. Back when I first met Cloud, Tifa, Barret, and the whole group that braves to take on Sephiroth alone, with a single airship and a couple of handfuls of Materia. I was there, children, from almost the very beginning to the very end, and not a day's that's gone by since the Meteor was destroyed that I have not thought about one of them."

"Wow!" All three cubs echoed each other. Even though this was old news to Luca and Nani, they always reacted as if it was the first time they had heard it. But it was Mamou that asked the question that Nanaki had been expecting to hear for a long time.

"Tell us the story, Gran'pa!"

Nanaki's one good eye widened at the request. "That's quite a tall demand, little one, and it's a long story, as well. Your parents will skin me alive if we're not back by sundown. Why don't we save it for another day?"

"No, now!" Luca exclaimed. "Here's the best place! I'm sure they would want to hear the story again!" Her eyes flashed up to the statues above them.

Nanaki looked back up at the statues, and studied them for a long moment, taking in every aspect of their detail as he never had before. The statues were so lifelike, so precisely similar, that it was like meeting them for the first time all over again. Even when they were made of stone, Cloud's eyes radiated the same passion that almost seemed to be glowing with Mako, as they did until his last days. Tifa displayed her well-carried strength underneath a gorgeous feminine figure, and Aeris was, as always, beautiful, innocent, and made him feel warm just by looking at her. There was Barret, strong and determined, always working what he saw was good, and Cid in hand with his trusty spear, complete with cigarette. The much younger version of himself was crouched, poised and ready to strike next to the ever smiling and joyous Cait Sith, whose courage and devotion turned out to be more reliable than his skills at fortune telling. Yuffie stood grinning down at them in her mischievous way, complete with Materia in hand, and even when cast in stone, Vincent maintained a sense of dignity and a dark presence around him that challenged the courage of even the bravest men. Once again, Nanaki's expression became sad as his heart was weighed down heavily by his longing to see them, to speak to them again. It was a heart ache almost too great to bare, but then he took his grandcub's words into account.

"All right. Sit down, children, and I will tell you the story. The story of a courageous SOLDIER and the force called AVALANCHE, of Materia and magic, love and corruption. It's a tale of betrayals, lies, and insanity, of a man twisted by his own warped thought and enough power to bring the Planet to its deathbed. But also, more importantly, it is a story about friendship, trust, dedication, and the love for life."

Luca was right. They would like to hear their own story again.

As tragic and painful as it was, it was still their story.