Faded Dreams, Falling Like Rain

A Final Fantasy VII Fan Fiction by Sarah Digna Yudlowitz

Dream . . .

Dream of death . . .

Dream of moonlight . . .

Legal Disclaimer: Final Fantasy VII and all of its characters belong to the company of Squaresoft. I do not claim these characters or the concept of the game for my own. This work is not to be distributed, sold, or posted anywhere without the consent of its author. Comments and encouragements are always welcomed, as they are a part of the enjoyment of writing Fan fiction. Please take this into consideration while you read the following fiction.



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Brief summary: With the death of Sephiroth, something in Cloud dies, almost bringing him to the brink of a madman. Vincent attempts to console him, telling him that he and Cloud are very much alike in the respect that they mourn for the shell of a man that died not at the hands of Cloud, but back in Nibelheim when lies penetrated him. He was a man who was supposed to be the perfect soldier . . .





Chapter Three





Zack smiled crookedly and tossed a few bread crumbs into the air at the sea gulls that swooped over the boat, which had just departed from the Junon Harbor area. There was a small dock by the town of Kalm where the earnest boat was headed. Above the bow, a few gulls fought for a place upon the bar. Zack looked on in morbid fascination, as if a child, hardly noticing as Sephiroth (who was accompanied by two SOLDIER members, as was regular) approached him, his arms crossed over his chest. The man cleared his throat, forcing Zack to turn, startled by his sudden appearance. He had not seen the man since the docked ship had been loaned to them by the captain, a man named Zahv Clove, who stood at the front of the vessel encased within something that resembled the cockpit of a plane. The silver-haired man stared narrowly at Zack and then relieved his gaze upon him by looking up to the sky, clear and beautiful. Stars, beautiful frozen imprints of time upon the vast universe, almost seemed to hold the facets that some treasures did, twinkling in the hearts of lost men who were caught by the imprint of the universe in their deeds, memories holding them bound to the sky.

Zack contemplated the sad look that had formed on Sephiroth's face. One of the guards scrambled to the edge of the boat and Zack felt it slowly rock under his feet, the engine just starting up. The SOLDIER guard, feeling the moon's enchanting force over them, and the swaying edginess of the vessel, couldn't help but succumb to a stomach that churned as if it were handling thick spans of butter, rather than the half-digested acidic remains of a slight meal. Zack smiled and patted the kid's head sympathetically, a shocking spurt of blond hair the color of the sun itself poking out of the uniform's helmet.



"We're departing for Kalm now, on our way back to Midgar. I don't understand why the president is sending us out on these pointless trips for power plant potential," Zack muttered. " . . . I suppose the fat bat just wants to still feel powerful, even though Shinra incorporated means fear itself on the streets of Midgar's slums." The quiet words soon died in the engine's soft humming as it floated away, the hopelessly sick guard hanging of the edge, his face flushed as he emptied what remained in his stomach until all that did remain to be emptied was bile, and he gagged back on it. Zack refused to think of how young these SOLDIER recruits were getting, but after all, he wasn't so old in this business either. Being led by Sephiroth certainly reminded Zack of how long one could remain in something that seemed so . . . futile. SOLDIER was the purpose for protecting Shinra's company and the interests it wished to keep. Zack knew that those interests were based souly on power. Those motives had produced Makou, and with that, everything else died, including the peace the Planet once had .



"Hmmph," Sephiroth harumphed. "You still don't know anything about Shinra, do you, Zack?" Sephiroth asked, breaking his hold from the heavens to stare levelly at the man whose height was helped greatly by the spiky lengths of raven hair that rested a few inches above his head. Zack blinked a few times, alarmed by Sephiroth's simple statement. The guard at his side stared at his feet as if scrutinizing them closely, and then looked up as another gull swooped about the bow and rested on a crate that was near to him. "You see, I have studied Shinra's motives ever since Professor Gast died, leaving me completely vulnerable to Hojo's experiments," Sephiroth said, his voice growing more vindictive when he came to Hojo's name. Zack was further alarmed that the man had just spoke something that was part of his past. So, it seemed even when appearing completely loyal to the company that he had grown up around, Sephiroth, the perfect sentinel, could be vengeful. There were rumors that Sephiroth was a broken man formed by Shinra. Not many knew of the experiments that went on behind Shinra's locked doors, and it seemed that the majority didn't really care either way. They were perfectly happy being in inorant bliss.



Zack waited for Sephiroth to continue, but he never did. He simply hardened his resolve and left, joining the captain as he steered toward the murky waters that surrounded Midgar. Zack watched as the guard wh had never left Sephiroth side leave after him.





" . . . I'm not doing a very good job," the guard that hung off of the boat said wearily,becoming less flushed as the air sailed through his ruffled hair and over his hot cheeks, which began to fade to a light pink rather than a sickly red. Zack sighed and patted the kid on his head again, taking the helmet from him and setting it on the crate the sea gull had landed on. It cocked its head at Zack, rolling an eye up at him and spread its wings as if it were proclaiming the crate its territory, then began to peck at the helmet, searching for little morsels.





"What's your name, kid?" Zack asked as he fed a bit of bologna from his half eaten sandwhich, which he had not eaten himself. He simply didn't feel very hungry and gave it to the sea gulls who always lounged about when boats were departing.





" . . .Erm, Strife. Cloud Strife," the guard said, hugging the railing as if for protection. Watchng the waves didn't seem to be doing any good for his stomach so he looked up at the stars and silently looked for all of the constellations he knew about. Cloud frowned, remembering he had been looking up at the stars with Tifa Lockheart when he had last been at his hometown, Nibelheim.





"Mine's Zack," the man grinned, extending a hand to the slight fellow. "Nice ta meetcha," he added. Cloud shook his hand with little heart and returned to the stars.





"Not very social, are you?" Zack asked, laughing a little. Cloud blinked, not bothering to look back at the man. "Reminds me of Sephiroth. That man never talks about anything but the damn Shinra. I guess he's just that devoted to his work, huh?"





"Sephiroth . . . told me there was no reason for the president to send us to Junon," Cloud muttered.





"Huh?" Zack asked, confused. "He told you that?"





"Well . . . he was talking to himself, I suppose . . ." Cloud said. "There was no potential Makou Power Plant here. He said the only thing that hindered the production of it was the shipments that are stored in the Sister Ray canon."



"Well, I'll be damned," Zack blinked in amazement. "You always sneak up on people like that?"





"No. I suppose Sephiroth didn't care if anyone was eavesdropping. He does have honed senses, after all."





"What else did he say?" Zack asked. The boy shook his head, timidly placing it between his hands.





"He . . . said something about a person there who had a great abundance of makou in their blood."



*****







"Cloud," a distant voice said, begging the boy to awaken. The boy drifted in hazy feelings, only having that voice to reassure him that maybe he wasn't dead after all. Everything was becoming a blur, but his memories kept swimming back to him. Everything that had ever been confused with finding himself in Zack's life had been rapidly coming back to him, cleared up. He had struggled to keep himself going when a glimpse of what he really was was given to him by a man wrought by Jenova's lies. Now, without Sephiroth holding a block over everything that didn't fit into the puzzle that was his mind, Cloud could think, but the same hazy unknowingness swirled around in his mind, and gripped his heart so tight that he couldn't feel anything but pain. "Cloud!" He was shaken now, but the fuzzy light inside his head refused to go away and he could feel himself literally shaking so hard to he feared he was hurting Vincent, who stood on the other side of the wall Cloud's mind refused to relent.





Won't you let someone in? Cloud whispered within his mind.





Like who? The Ancient, the last of her kind? She's dead now, gone forever with any peace this Planet ever had.





That's not my fault! Cloud screamed, but it only echoed in his mind, a distant whisper.





You could have stopped it.





Cloud? Cloud, are you there? Two bright green eyes opened in his mind's eye illuminated by a blinding light he associated with the Lifestream. The rest formed, a perfect image of an innocent woman who had tried to purify the Planet. With her arms outstretched, she beckoned him to something he had yet to know of. Her chestnut waves of long braided hair, from when he remembered it, now cascaded down her slender back and her features from beyond there were blurred. Open your eyes, Cloud. Let these lies die in the voice of the Planet. Aerith's form died away, along with the blinding light that surrounded her. Carefully obeying her, he was surrounded by a multitude of sounds, and above it all, the Plabnet's healing cries.





"Are you all right?" Vincent asked, his crimson eyes shadowed by worry. The man had his flesh hand upon Cloud's shoulder, the other at his side. He was kneeling by Cloud's chair where he knew he had fainted from the flooding memories. Cloud smiled and gave Vincent a quick friendly hug.





"I will be," he said. Vincent stood and looked at Cloud oddly, a wry smile quirking at his lips.





"That is good to hear," he said, then recognized the expression of determination on Cloud's face, questioning it a bit with his eyes.





"I need to find someone," Cloud said, "who holds a strange familiarity in my memories . . . and I don't know why."