Disclaimer: You already know

Chap 4

After a few days travel, the group finally arrived at the mountain town of Nibelhium. As they entered, the town was eerily quiet, which surprisingly was quite normal to them. The group headed for the Shina mansion, expecting the same dark creepy place. But to their surprise, the place was lit up, not brightly but enough to give it a more comfortable atmosphere. The place was clean and tidy, unlike before. It seemed similar to the haunted hotel in the Gold Saucer.  Everyone looked at Vincent.

"I had a lot of time on my hands. It has been a year after all. Make yourself comfortable."

Vincent disappeared into one of the rooms while everyone sat down.

Barret commented, "Wow. He really did a number on this place. Hardly recognized it."

"You said it." Cid lit up a cigarette, "This place used to be a regular haunted house. Now this place looks like it could be in business."

"I appreciate the compliment, but could you not smoke in here."

Vincent returned with several cups of tea. He sat it down on the coffee table before sitting down himself. Everyone grabbed a cup and took a drink.

"Heh, this is good." Tifa commented.

"Thank you. It's an old recipe." He then looked upstairs, "We should get some rest so we can leave early tomorrow." He began taking the cups after they finished with them and Barret yawned. "Yeah, the sooner, the better."

Red XIII saw Vincent take Tifa's cup and Tifa's smile. He also noticed that Cloud was eyeing the two of them. Red moved toward the stairs, but stopped briefly in front of Cloud and whispered.

"They look kind of cute together, don't you think?"

Cloud didn't respond.

The next day, everyone arose and packed early. They then began their trek across the dangerous Mt. Nibel. They had to be very cautious, for two reasons. One, the sharp ridges of the mountain made it nearly impossible to travel though without a guide. Fortunately, Tifa was the expert in that area. The second was the monsters Vincent had warned them about. They kept on alert as they travel, but no signs of the creatures appeared, aside from the usual monster that showed up. They were dispatched quickly and they were almost at the reactor.

Vincent shook his head, "Something is wrong."

Cid turned to him, "You think so?"

Tifa agreed, "Yeah, getting up was too easy."

Barret called out, "Well, it's too late to turn back now."

Cloud nodded, "Yeah. Let's keep going."

With that, the group made it to the top. There awaiting them was the Nibelhium reactor. The place that started their first adventure and unknown to them, their next. Cloud stood in front of the cylinder shaped building.

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This place is just full of bad memories. He looked over to Tifa and found that she was also looking at him.

"What?"

"Aren't you going to tell me to wait outside, Cloud?" she smiled.

Cloud smiled back, "Heh, not this time. Let's go."

With that, everyone walked in. Amazingly, all of the reactors functions were still moving despite its outward appearance.

"So where do we start?" Cid asked.

Barret looked around, "We should start with the engineering room first, then we could..."

"No."

That came from Vincent, "The Jenova chamber. We should start there."

"What?"

"He's right. We should shut down that area before anything else." That was Cloud who spoke.

They looked at him briefly, wondering if he was alright with this. In truth, he wasn't sure, but he needed to do this, needed to face his demons. So he led them into the lower chamber, using the pole to slide down to the lower level. The smell of blood could faintly be detected in the air as they walked in the chamber room. It was as Cloud remembered it, the egg-shaped pods that rowed upward along the stairs in the center and the sealed door with the word JENOVA inscribed in it. Cloud remembered this place well.

Flashback...

Sephiroth had just ended his fight with Zack and cast him out of Jenova's chamber. Sephiroth had turned around to face his 'mother' once again when a figure appeared behind him. He turned around just to see a Shinra guard stab him with Zack's sword.

"My family....give me back my family!"

Sephiroth slumped over and fell and the guard moved away from him, shaking slightly before removing his helmet, revealing himself to be Cloud. Cloud left the Jenova chamber and knelt down in front of an injured Tifa. Then from above, Sephiroth stumbled out, carrying a canister with a pod inside it. He failed to see Cloud as he walked out. On one of the pods, Zack gaggled out.

"Cloud. Kill...Sephiroth."

Cloud looked back at Tifa and then ran after Sephiroth. He found him in the core of the reactor.

"Sephiroth!"

Cloud ran at Sephiroth and Sephiroth swiftly reversed his sword and ran it through Cloud.

"Don't...press...your luck."

He then lifted the sword up, with Cloud on the other end, impaling him. But suddenly Cloud began to struggle and grab hold off the blade. He then managed to lower himself back onto the ground. Sephiroth was astonished

"This can't be..."

Then in one fluid motion, Cloud raised the sword up, with Sephiroth in the air this time. He then flung the sword, along with its master into the core. Sephiroth screamed as he fell into the Mako core. Then Cloud fell and blacked out...

Present...

"Look there."

Red XIII pointed up to one of the chambers. At first, no one noticed anything about it, it was just a old de-activated Mako pod, except for one thing...

This one was still on. The group began to walk toward the flight of stairs when a loud roar sounded throughout the room. Everyone turned around and they saw the ground splitting open.

"What is that?"

A long tentacle grew out and opened up like a flower. A body and head reared out of it and the body split out numerous tentacles that waved carelessly in the air. But it was the creatures head that got their attention. Despite its hideous form, its features were female, a woman. A familiar looking woman.

No. It can't be....her.

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