3. The Ancient City

The next five years were lost to me. The only part of my consciousness that survived was the part that wanted revenge on you. Even when I did return I spent much of that time in a haze. I killed president Shinra – it seemed like a logical first step. I knew that you were in the Shinra building that night, and I freed you and your friends purposefully. I was waiting, hiding in the executive office when I saw you come in to investigate the dead president.

Seeing you again was like a defibulator's shock: I snapped back to life. Crouching in the darkness, watching you examine and recognize my sword, I wanted to fly to you. I'm not sure what I would have done. Part of me still wanted to capture and possess you, but another part understood that these longings in me were my destruction in the past. Jenova instructed me to kill you. She had control over most of my actions at that point, but when it came to you, because my memories of you were still so strong, the decisions were mine alone.

That day, as you know, I stayed where I was. I watched you with your new friends – vagabonds, the idiot I had sliced in Nibelheim among them. I smirked, watching her tremble in terror at the sight of my sword, and at the thought that I might be alive. There was also a large man with a gun who bumbled about foolishly – I couldn't imagine why you would bother to associate with him, but then, your motives were always a mystery to me. There was also a creature with some Ancient blood – I recognized his species as one that Hojo had studied and experimented on.

And then there was the Ancient. I was as absorbed by her presence at first sight as you had been. I sensed the connection between the two of you immediately. I won't deny that I was jealous, but I was also ravenous for revenge, and thrilled at the way you walked close to her, the way your actions seemed to suggest your subconscious need to protect her, your desire to touch her.

It reminded me of the way I had skirted your every move, the way I had watched you and wanted you.

You loved her – it became more and more obvious as I watched the two of you together. You thought you were chasing me, but it was all a game I had orchestrated. You may be surprised, but I enjoyed watching you fall in love. Mostly because I knew that when I discovered the right moment to take it away from you the deliverance would be so sweet, so perfect. But also because of the connection I felt with the girl. I was not an Ancient; I was aware of this at that point. But she and I were two sides of the same coin, one light and one dark, and I understood that early on. Also, she was Gast's daughter, and I had grown up under the tender care of he and her mother, Ifalna, until they fled from Shinra and left me with Hojo. She was like a sister I had never known about.

And killing her was my revenge on the surrogate parents who had abandoned me, as well as my revenge on you.

I planned it obsessively. Watching from nearby, I witnessed your first kiss, the first time you made love, the way you timidly began to hope for a future together. Of course I didn't actually see any of these things, but I sensed them in you. After you kissed her you were bouncy, felt invincible, feared nothing. After the two of you made love you were sincere and felt doomed, haunted her every step and begged her to abandon the quest because it was too dangerous. But she refused to give up. She had a blind optimism that I both eschewed and admired. I fell in love with her along with you; I loved her as a hunter loves his long sought after prey. She was too perfect, too beautiful for this world, much like yourself. Killing her would be an act of respect, I told myself.

Shallow as it sounds, I also enjoyed the dejection of the girl you had kissed in Nibelheim, the girl who had shattered the world we had built together. She was obviously still in love with you, and you didn't even give her attention enough to notice – I was giddy with her private tears, with her feelings of worthlessness, with the rejection she grappled with. I toyed with the idea of manipulating her into killing the Ancient, but decided I didn't want to deprive myself of that sweet thrust of the blade. Instead I chose to ignore her as you did.

We saw each other several times in those days before I summoned Meteor. It was difficult to speak to you – much of what I said was coming from the mind of Jenova, though admittedly I preached her destruction with glee. I sensed how angry you were with me, and I loved and hated your fury. I also sensed that you wanted to forgive me. You had worked it all out after my alleged death, found out about Hojo and Gast and how I had been created. Perhaps you even realized, very belatedly, why I flew off the handle. Perhaps you felt guilty, and that was the reason you sought me. All that mattered to me was that you still cared to seek me. It proved to me that you belonged to me, then and always.

I surprised you in the Temple of the Ancients, when both you and she thought you were so close to rescuing the planet, to saving humankind from me and being free to begin your lives together. But you were so very, very far, and I sensed that the time to end her life, and yours by default, was near.

You had the Black Materia, and Jenova wanted and needed it. Through me she manipulated you into handing it to me. I added the details myself.

"There, Cloud," I cooed softly, as you placed the heavy orb in my hands. "Good boy," I said, smirking, condescending. I stroked your palm. I longed to touch your face – so beautifully pained as you tried in vain to resist my control – but Jenova was impatient to get away with the Materia, and I was her tool. I sped away, watched the Ancient reach for you as I went. Of course she forgave you. She forgave you everything. That was her nature; that was why you needed her. That was why I took her away.

We spent time together, that day I killed her, when we were both waiting for you to arrive so the show could begin. We didn't speak, but she sensed me there; I could feel her silent alarm and her steady resolve. She knelt on the altar, put her hands together, and summoned in the manner of the Ancients, something only she remembered how to do.

Jenova was screaming at me to kill her as I watched – I was blinded by red flashes of my mother's fury. But I used every bit of strength in me to fight her will, to stave it off, to wait until you arrived and found her safe, until you thought everything was alright – then I would lower the blade.

I watched you descending the crystal staircase. You didn't even hurray, allowing her time to do what she had to do. You watched her with incredible reverence, with a look that you had once reserved for me. I understood that you loved her in much the same way that you had loved me, and that you knew now that you had made a mistake with the Nibelheim strumpet. You were made only to love the two brightest stars in the universe, and you would never love again. I knew that when I took her from you.

Just before you could reach her, just when she had stood to grasp your hand, that's when I swept down. The sword pierced through her back as if it was meant to be there; the cut was even and clean, almost silent. The three of us stood on the altar for a moment, all too stunned to move or speak. When I pulled my sword from her back your cries began.

Since the mako you dropped me into let Jenova crawl entirely into my skull I had never faltered. I had remembered parts of myself as a human, I had held onto bits of free will like that which allowed me to wait until you had arrived to kill the Ancient. Jenova still held me fast, though – she made me believe her doctrine and I never doubted that what I was doing in her service was right.

But when I killed the girl you loved I almost wondered if my perfect moment of revenge had been wrong, if my satisfaction wasn't worth your pain.

That was the nature of the way you mourned for her. The surrendering madness of your cries was such that for a moment I thought the sword had pierced your abdomen, too. Of course, in a greater sense, it had.

You cradled her, spoke to her. She was already gone. You seemed to have forgotten that I stood over you, and I watched you, enjoying somewhat the pain we had caused each other that had come full circle, but also pitying you. You were only a human; without me and without the Ancient you would always be nothing, and lost. I had a mind to take you with me when I left, your screams ringing in my ears, but Jenova would not have it, and my better judgment agreed with her. I was starting to realize that in my revenge I was infusing you with the kind of rage you could use to overcome me, someday.

"All that is left is to go North."

But I stayed with you a little longer. You didn't know, of course – you wouldn't have known even if I had stood in front of your face. You were gone. I had destroyed you – you were now a shell, like me – still alive, but hollow and cold. I rejoiced. I felt connected to you again. I invaded your dreams, taunted you in your sleep. But even there you were listless, vacant.

And that is how I remember you. Since then I have been busy. I am losing the battle with Jenova for control of my body. I am beginning to know that I won't be around at all much longer. You could kill me today, or I could be absorbed completely into her will. Neither is of any consequence anymore. I am glad to be spending the last hours of my conscious life with you, even as you approach me with your weapon drawn.

So come. We are equals now. We have wrecked each other. If it was up to me I would not resist you as I could, but my mother will vanquish you if she can. If not, Meteor approaches. She is incredibly efficient when it comes to destroying worlds. She has been doing it for millions of years, after all.

Either way, we will be together in the Lifestream.

A/N: The final installment will be up soon!