Boco stopped short. He knew what lurked in the thick grass, every chocobo did. The Midgar Zolom... A fierce giant snake which would easily make a meal out of a chocobo and it's rider. Cloud watched the ground and beckoned Boco to go across carefully. So Boco did. There was no sign of the Zolom yet. Boco seemed to be relieved. Then, halfway through, the enormous snake dug out of the ground in front of them and attacked.
Cloud jumped off of Boco and drew his sword, a huge and powerful blade called Apocalypse. The snake stared at Cloud. Cloud stared back. Cloud lunged at the snake before it had a chance to attack, and dug his blade deep into the snake's body, then he jumped upward, taking his sword with him, slashing through the snake. The snake fell to the ground, covered in blood, cut from his face down. Cloud walked over to the snake, and to make sure he had finished the job, he sliced the head off of the giant snake.
Cloud returned to Boco and jumped on his back. Boco looked nervously at the dead snake as he walked by it, almost as if he expected it to spring back to life and eat them both. But it didn't. And the next stop was the Mythril Cave. Cloud got off of Boco and led him on foot from there. The ledges of the cave were dangerous, especially from the view on a chocobo's back. They walked into the cave, Cloud held onto Boco by a rope connected to a collar on his neck.
The monsters in the cave were not about to attack Cloud. They all ran when they saw this strange yellow feathered creature and the human who controlled it. Cloud got to the other end of the cave no problem. He headed out of the cave and jumped back onto Boco's back, and Boco continued from there.
Junon wasn't far from there, it would only take a few days on Boco. Cloud didn't sleep at all during those few days. He hadn't slept since they left the ranch. His mind was set. He had to visit the Forgotten City again. If only to remember what had happened. How it was his fault that she was dead. His fault Sephiroth killed her, and his fault for everything else that happened afterwards.
A few days later, they arrived at Junon. The Shinra soldiers that controlled the port town had turned into sailors and ran the ships for the public, now that Shinra was gone. Cloud rode Boco into town, as the villagers in the lower town stared in awe at this visitor, riding proudly atop a chocobo. Cloud bought himself a ticket, and had Boco put in the storage room. The ship departed the next day, so Cloud had an entire day to wait.
He decided now would be as good a time as any to rest. He left Boco with the ship, since Boco was more than willing to rest after walking for days on end, and went to the Inn. He payed for the night and walked up to his room. He laid back onto the pillow and thought for a while about what had happened in the past few months, how the world had almost ended, and how he had helped save the world from a huge Meteor that would have collided with their small planet, and most definately wiped it out completely.
He fell asleep to that thought, and dreamed the whole journey he and his friends had taken, up to the point when Aeris was killed, at which point he woke up to someone prodding his side. He looked up and saw Tifa standing over him, her arms folded over her stomach, her face showed definate anger at Cloud. "Cloud, what is with you?" Tifa looked down at him. Cloud sat up. "Nothing's with me. Boco is in the ship already, resting. Tifa shook her head, "Still a smartass, I see. Why are you going back there?"
"Oh, so I need to explain myself now?" Cloud looked at Tifa, half awake, half not caring. "Cloud, you know I worry about you. You spend all your time thinking about her and -- " Cloud interrupted her with, "It's my fault she's dead, Tifa. The least I could do is go pay my respects."
"You don't need to be so obsessed with it though. You hardly ever talk to me anymore, you know." Tifa was obviously getting into a topic Cloud did not want to put up with right now, but he had no choice but to respond. "I don't know, Tifa. OK? I don't know. Now if you'll excuse me, I'm going back to sleep." He laid his head back onto the pillow and closed his eyes.
Tifa hit him in the face with a couch pillow that was on the floor. "Cloud, I did not just travel halfway across the world just to have you ignore me." Cloud opened his eyes slowly. "Well, I didn't ask you to follow me, did I?" Tifa let out an angry sigh and walked away, out of the room, out of Junon, into her buggy, and started to drive away.
"Hmph, men..." She thought as she drove away.
--End of Chapter 3--