CHAPTER FOUR
Darkness.
A suffocating void, dreamless and motionless. Not a sound, not a single patch of light, not an uttered breath nor a solemn whisper. Not a single instance of life.
Except for one thing: pain.
It was everywhere, and Cloud Strife swam through it unabided and defenseless. Numbness had usurped his body, and he only drifted. Drifted in suspension. Hanging over nothing. His eyes bloodshot, closed, murky-- death closing them ever so gently. The pupils strained to turn left and right to try in vain to focus on anything that might trigger hope to the brain, but they failed. His breathing slowed dramatically to the point where it seemed a lifetime between each exhalement.
He drifted on, submerged in the bloodless, colorless void.
Something happened then, something jolted into his body and awoke his senses. He became aware of a soothing liquid pouring into his veins, trickling up and down his left arm, racing with terrific speed throughout his bloodstream. An unusual and peculiar drug was quenching his body, and his breathing started to escalate; his heart which had momentarily seemed to cease its rhythm began thumping with a vengeance. A faint lightness appeared to his vision, and his fingers felt cool earth beneath him. He found that he lying on his back, and something had a hold of him around his neck. His eyes then detected a dark, unrecognizable shape against the brightening atmosphere, and he strained them to try to see what it was.
The liquid had thoroughly travelled throughout his body, and he felt rejuvination in his muscles and tendons. The numbness died from its grasps on his arms, and he moved his right arm in front of his face, taking note of a faint golden color on them.
Suddenly, a familiar high voice broke the silence. "Cloud, are you alright?"
What was that voice? he wondered. He brought his arm down and looked at the shape. His eyes caught the pink flashes of color, a hint of red surrounding the pink, and a long trail of brown color from the top of the figure braided all the way down to the floor.
"Aeris," he said softly.
Not ten minutes ago was she kneeling over her flower bed tending the precious roses with utmost care when the world suddenly went apocalyptic and Cloud Strife came crashing down through the roof of her church. The two dozen flowers he had squashed from his fall were dead and ugly now, but that did not concern her for the moment. She had immediately cried out in terror when she had saw him land with a sickening plop on the bed. He wasn't dead...but he looked it.
His head had been pure red, from where he had crashed headfirst in the wooden roof. Wood fragments were embedded in his skull, and she could see a part of the bone protruding amongst the flesh. She thought he might have been blinded, because both eyes had been covered in blood and a large gash lay just below his right eye. The long trails of blood had oozed down his throat and had seeped into his clothes. His shirt was torn and burnt, his skin underneath had been raw and scraped with thousands of cuts, all open. Both of his arms were bloody, and one of them had a gaping hole in it. He looked like he had walked through Hell itself.
Instinctively, she pulled out the same bottle she had used on him at Sector One and quickly administered the medicine. She saw that he was still miraculously alive; though, she found that extremely hard to believe. When he had fallen through the roof, he had made impact headfirst. The force of the roof shredding around him turned his body around in a circle. He had then hit and ricocheted off a metal pipe and then bounced off the second floor staircase before slamming hard on his back in the small bed of roses on the floor of the church.
While she was giving him the cure, the only sign of life she had noticed from him was a slow, struggling rise of his chest. His mouth moved ever so slightly to try to form a sound, but none came.
She had blocked out everything around her and had become totally consumed in healing and reviving this poor man who had given her extra money for just one flower. When she saw he was coming back, she had then recognized a small trail of a tear near her lip. She declined on wiping it away and instead allowed more to trickle down her pretty face. He now saw the church, the flower bed, and Aeris. He worked his fingers around, pumping the blood back into them, and rubbed his eyes. He then looked into Aeris's beautiful face and saw the long lines of tears slowly working their way down her cheek to her neck. He brought his hand to her cheek and wiped the lines away.
She smiled and held his hand in a soft squeeze. "I thought you were dead," she said softly. "Your head was a ripe avocado."
With his free hand, he rubbed his face where it had previously bled profusely. "That was like magic. How did you do that?"
She laughed. "You answered that."
He looked at her. "You said that little green bottle of yours was called...Cur-Curaga..I think. What is that?"
"Oh, Curaga's one of the best aids for curing severe symptons like what you just experienced. It's basically a medicine that is very potent-- if that is the correct word. Very rare, too. I..doubt you could find these bottles at the local corner store."
Cloud looked into her eyes, which were bright green and glowing. "Well, I don't think I can thank you enough for your hospitality, Aeris. You have truly done an incredible thing for me."
She blushed and responded, "Oh, that was just quick thinking and timing for me. But.. it was quick thinking and timing that saved your life. You're extremely lucky, Cloud."
He smiled, and then felt something poking him in the back. He looked down to see a gnarled remnant of a flower stem. "I wish I could say the same for your flower here, I-- whoa." When he had gazed at the flower, he had taken notice of the rather large garden the flower had come from. It was a blooming garden right in the middle of the church, stretching itself from the front row pews all the way to the preist's podium on the far side-- a wide array of yellow and orange gems. "Wow. I've never seen these in this city before. How do you manage this?"
"If one puts his or her mind to it, he or she can accomplish anything."
He thought about that and figured that that could be useful to him in the future. He got up and felt the muscles cracking in his back. Fully erect, he rubbed his neck withn his hand and took in the full view of the church.
It was dilapidated and stale-looking, but at the same time beautiful. It had only one large room with the entrance doors to the south-- which contained paintings of angels on them-- and an open doorway leading to a staircase in the northern side. The staircase led to the second floor that was wooden. This floor had seen better days, for a large chunk of its floor was in pieces. Down below in the vast room, the most obvious feature was the flower bed; but as Cloud scanned the area, he saw about a dozen pews lined up in two columns to the south. Most were pulpy and rotting, but nevertheless evoked a sense of passion to the room, giving it a haunting feeling. Over by the preist's podium was a wall etched in murals of angels and prophets.
Light crept in from the stained-glass windows located on all four walls, instilling a heavenly atmosphere. As he walked on the tiled floor, he noticed a shaft of light coming from above, and he looked up to see the gaping hole in the roof-- where, he figured, he had fallen.
"This church is beautiful, Aeris. Do you come here often?"
She placed her hands behind her back and walked up to him. "Everyday. Every chance I get I come here and tend to my flowers."
"Everyday, huh? All your life?"
She hesitated. "Most of it."
He turned and watched her as she kneeled over to her garden and lightly caressed the petals of her flowers. She then stopped and thought of something. "Cloud, you fell from above. That means that you were on that reactor then, huh?"
"I was." He began to have an uneasy feeling. The thought of revealing to her his membership in a well-known terrorist group was not at all flattering.
"What were you doing up there?" She looked at him with curiousity, her eyes studying his face, studying every feature.
"Ever heard of AVALANCHE?"
To his surprise, she smiled. "That's a very honorable job."
"Honorable? What're you talking about? The destruction of that reactor could have wiped out this whole Sector. Wiped out every man, woman, and child breathing in this area. I mean, sure we're ridding the Sectors of ShinRa's control; but we're not exactly the good guys here."
"That's where you're wrong. On two accounts. You see, you guys are an icon to the younger generations around here. I mean, they absolutely adore you people for your work and bravery. The parents, they too commemorate you for your actions.
"You see, what you probably hear on the news, AVALANCHE's actions are disturbing the populace, tearing homes apart, and turning everybody off-- do you hear that?"
"Yeah, all the time. Can't turn on the television without seeing that."
"It's manipulation. ShinRa's trying to win the slum population over to better make himself appealing for other metropolises. On the outside he succeeds, because he has power; but, on the inside, the side with more meaning, he fails. Fails miserably. Cloud, you and all your followers, you all are the life and breath of these people. They love you, they adore you. If something were to happen to your group, my gosh, there would be a massive riot against ShinRa Corporations."
He looked at her in disbelief. "A riot? Come on, we're not that special for that to happen."
A serious expression crept on her face that made him believe. "Want to bet? These people love you, Cloud. I'm surprised you don't realize that."
He stared at a mural of an angel, a million thoughts racing through his mind. "Even if there were a revolt in our name, SOLDIER and the Turks would wipe them all out in the blink of an eye."
She shook her head. "That doesn't matter. It would still look bad for ShinRa, and higher matters would start to take control."
He thought about that and remembered the last things President ShinRa told him. He wondered if the third time AVALANCHE tried to pull something off and failed whether or not a revolt happened amongst the people of the slums.
"That may be true," he said, "but situations could change if any more reactors blow, causing them to crash down to the slums below. Speaking of which, how come this Sector is still intact. Why didn't the reactor wipe out this Sector?"
She looked at him funny. "Don't you know your own city well?"
He scratched his head.
"Most of the sectors are built above the city, while some are delved deep in radioactive pools, therefore having no effect on the city. The ones that have an effect on the city like Sector Five and Seven are supported by pillars. The pillars are strong enough to hold up these massive reactors, even if they blow up. The explosions don't even weaken them, and the slums below stay free and unaffected. Weren't you briefed on that?"
"Apparantly not, but how do you know so much about that?"
She opened her mouth but shut it quickly. Her behavior changed suddenly, and she knelt back down to her flowers and started crawling all over the garden tending them with unneeded care.
"Aeris?"
"That is not important right now." She stopped inspecting her flowers and looked at him, a small smile forming on one side of her face. The look gave her a beautiful aspect to herself that made Cloud smile back. "Let's talk about something else," she said softly.
He knelt down beside her and asked, "What about?"
Her smile grew and her emerald eyes glowed brightly again. "Um...how about we talk about each other."
He laughed and suggested, "Anything personal...or just out of the ordinary."
"Ooh, out of the ordinary," (she looked at him longingly then) "for now."
"For now, huh. Okay. Uh, before I joined AVALANCHE I was in SOLDIER."
"I knew it."
"How?"
"Your eyes glow yellowish-colored. They're still pretty, but they glow that color."
He looked at her and replied, "Mako energy. Every soldier has them. Permanent, but as long as they're still pretty."
She smiled big and asked, "Were you in the war?"
"Captain. Hard times, those were."
"Well, that's another honorable trait about you. You're a jack-of-all-trades, you know that?"
"A jack-of-all-trades, huh? Never saw that one coming."
She laughed, then glanced over to one of the windows. A dark shape walked past the window. When she recognized what it was her smile quickly turned into a frightened expression.
"What's wrong? Something out there?"
She put her hands on his shoulders then and looked at him closely. "Listen to me, Cloud," her voice was full of uneasiness and her eyes lost the glowing color, "please, you've got to get me out of here. That man out there, he's trying to get me. Not to kill me, but to take me to ShinRa. I can't tell you why now. Later, but please, Cloud, please get me out of here. Be my bodyguard. I'll do anything for you, anything. Just please get me out of here."
"Alright, alright," he answered her in a soothing voice, "don't be frightened or worried. Whoever this punk is, I won't let him get you, you hear me? If you want to do something for me in return, that'll be up to you. For now, though, rest assured. I got this under control."
She brought back her beautiful smile and kissed him on the cheek. At the point a loud banging noise sounded at the church's door. The church doors echoed their continous blows as whoever was outside the building strained himself to open the mechanism. Finally the banging stopped, and silence lingered. Faintly, Cloud heard an object being placed by the foot of the door, and simultaneously a loud ticking noise.
A few seconds later, the object turned out to be a bomb as it blew the church door into infinity. The surrounding walls caved inward when the door flew in pieces off its hinges. The fragments of the door spewed all over the pews and the adjacent aisle, and some cracked the nearby windows and scraped a jagged path into the stained-glass frame.
Light flooded through the now gaping hole in the church wall. Intense light. Suddenly, a tall dark form invaded the light and looked into the church. He had a thin object in his right hand that stretched to the floor. Hints of glowing gems shone in the thin object.
The intruder entered the church and stopped just inside the building. Cloud could barely make out his profile, but he began to have a suspicion. The object was most obviously a cane, a gem-encrusted cane at that. The man was tall, had fiery red hair, and wore a dark suit. Suddenly, the stillness and peacefulness of the church was broken by the man's voice, "Cloud Strife," ( he began walking towards Cloud, his cane echoing on the tile and glinting a crystal color) "fancy meeting you again."
He walked all the way down the aisle and stopped at the last pew, a yard away from Cloud, a devilish grin on his face. "I see you found the Ancient, or to your better terms, the girl I'm trying to get."
"Reno, you son of a bitch," Cloud snarled and brandished his four-foot metal blade.
The Turk laughed a cruel, hearty laugh and ran a golden hand through his red hair. He was wearing a dark blue pinstripe suit that contrasted the bright shock of hair on his head. Shiny brown leather shoes peeked out from under his pants. "Ah, pulling out your blade on me, I see how it is."
"What do you want, Reno?"
"Heh, isn't it obvious? The Ancient is needed at once. ShinRa highly demands it. I don't know what he's planning to do with her-- something wicked, I bet."
"And you're the delivery boy."
"Mm..you could say that."
"I could say a lot of things right now."
Reno smiled and laid his crystal cane atop his right shoulder. "Yeah, but you wouldn't, couldn't, mind you. I'm too damn important for your childish complaints."
"You're not important at all. You're just ShinRa's lackey hired to do his dirty work while he reaps all the benefits. Well, hear me out. You take one more step towards this innocent girl and I'm going to shove this blade up your ass."
The smile faded away for a moment, then returned maliciously again. "ShinRa's lackey, huh? That sounds kind of interesting."
"Well, it's what you are. There's no better word to describe you."
"How about persistent?" He took a step towards Aeris.
"How about stupid?" Cloud's sword flashed with lightning speed in the air, but at the same time something happened to Reno's cane. Right as Cloud raised his sword, Reno twirled his cane in a big arc and a transformation occurred. The jeweled top elongated and formed a brass handle, while the crystal body of the cane expanded and formed a sharp point at the bottom. The shininess of the weapon now gleamed intensely bright inside the dusky church, like a bright star on a black, cloudless night. This all happened in a few seconds, and right as Cloud prepared to decapitate Reno, the latter's crystal sword made contact with the Buster Sword.
The loud echo of the impact of the two swords remained in the church surrounding them as the two men stared coldly into each other's face. The Crystal Sword reflected brightly in Cloud's metal weapon, and the brightness of the sword was causing him to strain his eyes to see Reno's smiling face. The owner of the crystal sword laughed and said, "That's not an interesting word."
With that, Reno somersaulted in the air backwards and landed beside a pew. With his sword, he picked up a broken-off portion of it and flung the missle at Cloud's face. Cloud deflected the blow, recoiled, and swung his sword at Reno's face. The latter simply tilted his head back, letting the blade miss his face by his inches. His foot, meanwhile, propelled Cloud backward on impact of the stomach. Cloud's back scraped up against a jagged corner of a pew's seat, and a thin trail of blood ran down his back.
Seconds later, the crystal sword slashed at the pew, and Cloud dived to the floor to miss the crash of the sword and the flying debris of the furniture. Reno then grabbed Cloud's tattered shirt, spat in his face, and flung him down the aisle. Cloud's chin smacked the tile, and he skidded across it, his sword travelling to the back of the church. Reno spun his sword in a few arcs, shouted a death yell, and somersaulted into the air with the sharp point of his blade aimed downwards.
With quick thinking, Cloud grabbed a torn-off seat with his feet and propped the back end over his body. The crystal sword jammed its length into the strong material of the seat and barely made its way through to Cloud's body-- he could see the gleaming edge just a tad bit above his naval. A split second after that, Cloud yelled out and twisted the seat sharply to the left. Reno's body which had previously hung in an odd position-- he had suspended upside-down in mid-air with his hand still clutching the sword as it was inserted into the chair-- now jackknived sharply to the left, and his head crashed into a pew, a trail of blood spraying into the air.
Cloud kicked off the seat, flipped into the air, and ran to grab his sword. As soon as he grabbed it, Aeris gave a cry and Cloud turned to see a somersaulting Reno-- his eyes now flashing an angry hellfire shine-- sailing towards him. Before he could react, Reno's body straightened up and he slammed into Cloud. Reno threw him against the wall, leaving a crack in the wall and a splatter of blood from Cloud's open wound. He then plunged his sword at Cloud, but struck wall instead. The Buster Sword was too big to fight in their cramped position, so he dropped it and lunged out an iron fist at Reno. Reno caught it and twisted it, and Cloud let out a yell. The former then backhanded Cloud savagely, breaking a tooth. Reno then grabbed Cloud's shirt, raised him up high in the air-- here Cloud was amazed at the surprising unhumanlike strength of his opponent-- and then slammed him facefirst onto the tile.
Stars twinkled in his vision, and blood poured out of nose. He tried to prop himself up on his elbows, but this made him nauseous and he coughed up blood through his mouth. He lay in a patch of sunlight from a nearby window, and he felt vaguely the warmness of the sun on his back-- or was that his own blood from the three open scrape wounds?
Reno stepped into the light, a smirk on his face. "I've heard stories about you, stories about your time in SOLDIER. They say you are fast. That you can dodge bullets and dismember bodies in the blink of an eye. Hm. Well, you're not too fast for me."
Cloud felt his sword by his foot. He didn't think he had the energy left to get it, but he figured that would be useless anyway; Reno's sword would plunge into his skull and that would be that. Nice bodyguard job, he thought to himself.
Something then struck his mind at that moment. "What are you? During that clash, you were doing things I've never seen any person do before."
Reno smiled. "Now that's interesting, isn't it? What do you care about it, anyway?" He didn't seem to notice Cloud's sword at all. He, instead, turned his attention to the Ancient. "Boy, she is beautiful, isn't she? Hojo is going to have a fun time with her."
"Hojo?"
"Oh, yes, a fun time indeed."
Something about that statement made Cloud angry, and as he worked both feet around the handle of his sword, one on top and one on the bottom he thought about that more and more. Finally, Reno returned to smile at Cloud's position; but the smile faded quickly away.
The Buster Sword, with all its massive bulk, sliced the air like a blow on a whistle and sliced through both of Reno's knees. Blood splashed the floor, the walls, and Cloud's face in huge gashes. The owner of the Buster Sword then, with all his strength heaved himself up and punched Reno in the face. He crashed through the window, still clutching his crystal sword. As the glass cut his back into ribbons and sliced his neck and skull apart, Reno continued to stare coldly at Cloud's face, leaving the latter somewhat taken aback. The body landed on the grass admist a pool of blood and broken glass. Cloud panted and took each of his breaths with slow rhythm. The body of the Turk did not move. For a long moment, Cloud continued to stare at Reno's bloodstained pinstripe-clad body. He had known this guy for a long time. The army had been fond of Reno and his group, and they graciously congratulated them and praised them whenever a Turk appeared. The killing of this man did not leave him very satisfactory of his actions-- then again, killing wasn't his number one thing to do in life anyway. Cloud felt actually somewhat pained himself for the death of this man, and that took a lot of compassion-- considering Reno's background.
A soft, cold hand touched his shoulder, and he jumped. Aeris looked at him in awe and admiration. Her eyes were pure green, glowing like the crystal sword had glowed, with a radiance that was heavenly in itself. "You were amazing back there. I've never seen anybody do what you just did." She wrapped her arms around him and brought his body close to hers. The action began to have an affect on him again.
"I told you I'd protect you, didn't I?"
"And I believed you." She then pulled herself out of their embrace. "There might be more of them coming. My house is just down the road, secluded from the street. Can you take me to it, please?'"
He reached behind her neck and stroked her hair. "Of course I will, Aeris. You know I will."
A different smile appeared on her face. One that seemed to Cloud, a smile of love. He shrugged that idea off and followed her out the church door.