Prexistence: snores away

Millenia: good the sleeping pills worked perfectly. just like I planned yayyyyy now I can write this chapter!!! Since I have a much better talent at writing then the sleeping one.

yada yada do not own Final Fantasy 7 u know the drill

Chapter 4: Illusions

Cloud walked down the stairs of the City of the Ancients. Everything seemed so peaceful there, the water glistened from the light from the moon. As he ended his last step to the Holy city, he thought he saw someone in the far distance.

He walked a bit faster to reach where he had seen the illusion. There was nothing there. He put his right hand to his eyes and rubbed them. He then had entered the altar where he had lost one of his closes friends.

Cloud walked up to the altar and sat down on the step. He then heard another sound that came from behind him. He quickly turned around before it had a chance to escape his view again. His hands dropped to his side and his eyes widen.

In front of him was Aeris, smiling at him. He slowly got up and walked over to her. He finally got up the nerve to speak. "Aeris? Is that really you?" he said silently. She smiled at him and then finally answered. "It is great to see you again, Cloud. I hope you have been able to have a peaceful life." Cloud looked at her, his mouth open still in shock of seeing the Cetra girl in front of him, the one he gave so much of his time to see if she was still alive.

"Not really, since you've died, we've killed Sephiroth and stopped Meteor. But Tifa, Barrent, Cid, Reeve, and Yuffie have died." He lowered his head feeling still pain from the loss of his friends. Aries walked up to him and lifted his head so her eyes met his. "No, they haven't." She smiled and turned his head to the right, there he saw Barrent, Cid, and Reeve talking to each other. Yuffie practicing her ninja moves on just plan air. And last he saw Tifa.

He turned back to Aeris, but she had disappeared from where she once stood. Another thing he had just realized he was no longer in the City of the Ancients. He was back in Kalm. He walked over to Tifa. Tifa had just then noticed Cloud and started running to meet him. When they finally reached, each other Tifa gave him a long hug and a tear was rolling down both his and her eyes.

"Oh my god Tifa I missed you so much." He hugged her even tighter and kissed her forehead. Tifa didn't say anything but just hugged him.

They then parted the hug and looked at each other smiling. It was broken when Cloud heard a laugh from behind him. He turned to see what it was. Standing right behind him was a creature that had been in his nightmares for so long, Sephiroth.

Cloud then pulled out his sword and looked back at Tifa, but like Aeris she was also gone. He looked back at Sephiroth and then noticed something, he was back in Nibelheim when Sephiroth had burned down the town.

Sephiroth stood in the flames smiling at Cloud. "You are worthless, you thought you could destroy me. You will learn your lesson in due time. Your pathetic little friends are never coming back, and as for the other two, they are not going to be last much longer. Sephiroth started laughing.

Cloud tried to move from where he stood, but was frozen in his place. Sephiroth walked back into the flames laughing and finally saying. "You shall die with the rest of your friends and this miserable planet."

Dream Over

Cloud bolted up from his sleep. His eyes were wide and his body was full of sweat. All of them had taken camp after they had finally gotten through the Ancient Forest, which had more beasts in it than they all had remembered. Vincent raised his eyebrow when he saw Cloud wake up.

"It's about time you got up. Red found something on the side of a tree. It was a message." Cloud shook his head to finally get all his sleepiness out of him and got up. "Where is Red any way?" Cloud asked stretching his arms and legs. "He is by the tree trying to think of what might of written something on it."

Vincent headed off with Cloud right behind him. The walk to find Red was not long. They found their wolf-like friend sitting at a tree starring at it.

"Finally you're both here." Red got up to meet his friends. "Where's the message?" Was the first thing out of Cloud. "It is on this tree." Red went back to the tree he had been looking at for the past hour. Cloud followed him and looked at the tree. In blood it wrote:

What you seek is now gone . . .

You shall fail your mission . . .

there is nowhere else to run . . .

nowhere else to hide . . .

cause no matter where you go . . .

I shall find you and when I do . . .

you shall fall to me at the hand of my sword.

Reading the message made Cloud shudder. To be reading this message and from his dream, he thought the two of them might have been related.

"It's Chocobo blood." A light voice said. They all turned and looked around. Vincent then spotted the one who had spoken. It was a girl, she had blondish-white hair, her eyes were purple, she looked like she was around thirty years old and stood to be around five feet and five inches. She wore a necklace with a Ruby diamond on it.

Cloud confronted the girl, along with Red on his left and Vincent on his right. "Who are you?" He demanded holding the tip of his sword incase she attacked. "There are many names for me and I doubt you would remember them all, so you can just call me Aradia." She bowed. "Were you the one who had wrote this" Red growled, a mysterious girl showing up when there was practically no one on the planet was a bit suspicious.

"I would never harm anything as innocent as a tree. Other things and creatures maybe, but something defenseless never." She said calmly. "Then can you answer me this, how is it you're alive and everyone else is dead?" Vincent glared at the girl. "I could ask you the same question, but yet I already know all the answers to it." Aradia smiled innocently.

She started walking around them, once and then twice before stopping right in front of Vincent. "You, Vincent Valentine, the only reason you're alive is because you were experimented on a few years ago and now have a living demon inside of you. Part of you is human. The other part is the beast Chaos." Vincent starred at her in shock, she didn't answer the question he had asked, but one that Cloud, Red, and himself were searching for.

Another question came to his mind. 'How does she know my name if I have never met her. I don't remember Cloud or Red saying it anytime when she had arrived.'

Aradia saw the confusion in Vincent face. She then made her way to Red and bent down beside him. "And as for you young one, Nanaki of Cosmo Canyon. The reason you are still here is because you are a creature of the planet. If you haven't noticed that mostly anything that does not stand on two feet and talks is dead. You're alive because the planet did not wish to take you yet." She patted Red on his head.

Red had already known part of the answer to of why he is still alive.

Aradia's eyes then met Cloud's. From what she had said to Vincent and Red had made him scared. 'They are not all human that's why they are alive, then does that make me not human?' Cloud thought.

Aradia got up from where she was and made her way to Cloud. He could see a bit of anger in her eyes when she looked at him. "And as for you, Cloud Strife if you remember correctly in your memory you were injected with cells of an alien named Jenova. It's cells are still in your body." Something from what she said hit him. Jenova was dead.

"Wait a second, we killed Jenova every little last piece of her!" He shouted to her. She shook her head in a no response. "That creature still has some parts of it that are still alive." Aradia finally got to finish.

Vincent finally stepped in. "So when the hell are you going to tell us who the hell you are?" He had a bit of annoyance and half anger in his voice when he had said it.

"I am the spirit of this planet."

End of Chapter 4

Prexistence: wakes up what did I miss?

Millenia: the best chapter in this whole entire story!!!

Prexistence: eh I thought it was a bit eh. could of been better

Millenia: grrrrr IT IS NOT!!!!!!!!!!!!

Prexistence: yeah yeah, anyways thanks Nightcrawler03 for reviewing, Aradia is going to kinda help them, even though she could careless what happens to them. I will try and use Red's normal name more often.

Prexistence: And thank you Aerith2 for the wonderful review! I am happy that you like the story so far.

Millenia: and another thanks to RikuNghts. I am glad ur happy Vincent is back. i could never leave em out.

Millenia: this chapter was better than yours!!

Prexistence: NO it was not!!

A/N: mostly after this chapter the rating will probably go up for this story in later chapters. Also if you find this chapter boring i am sorry, i will try and revise it some time.