This story is just writing it's self, I guess it's much easier when you
have a guideline to follow. Four reviews for one chapter that's more like
it, thank you to Water-Ice, blazingsamurai, Alysia-Chan and of course
Clorith.
Chapter 9 : A Small Encounter
Cloud awoke and slowly opened his eyes. It was light outside and for once he had slept heavily, not waking up every hour.
He looked down feeling something soft and light run against his chin. Aerith was half laid on top of him, her arm was wrapped loosely around his chest and her fingers lightly held on to his shirt. As she breathed in her bangs brushed up against Cloud's chin lightly, the rest of her chestnut hair was spread gently over the covers and his arm that held on to her shoulder.
'I should get up. I have work to do.'
He looked down again to Aerith's sleeping figure, she wrinkled her nose in her sleep as a few stray hairs tickled her cheek. Cloud brought his hand up and lifted the strands of hair away from her face and tucked them behind her ear. He smiled slightly looking at the soft delicate features on her face.
'It can wait.'
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Aerith lazily opened her eyes blinking a few times before fully realizing she was awake. Looking ahead she could see the window which was partly open, a cool breeze drifted in lifting the curtains slightly.
She smiled feeling Cloud's arm held protectively around her back, his hand cupped the tip of her shoulder.
There was no clock in the room so Aerith wasn't so sure how late it was, not like she wanted to get up anyway. Apart from the soft sound of Cloud's breathing everything was silent, she figured it must be quite late and everyone else had already left.
After a few minutes of just laying there she felt Cloud move around under the covers, he brought one of his hands up and rubbed his eyes.
Cloud looked down and he was met by a pair of green gems staring back at him. "How long have you been awake?"
"Not long." She smiled and leaned up to kiss him.
Cloud held his arms around her and pulled her up closer as he sat up, Aerith then put her legs over Cloud's so she was sat on his lap. "Did you sleep well."
"Mmhmm, you don't mind me staying right?"
Cloud cocked his head and grinned. "I don't want you to leave."
Aerith giggled and push herself up off of Cloud's chest. "Neither do I, but I guess if I don't get up soon I'm not going to get any of my work done today."
Sighing Cloud nodded and agreed with the flower girl, as much as he wanted to stay it was important that he did his rounds to search for Sephiroth. Plus he was supposed to meet Zack at daybreak.
"Your right, we have jobs to do."
Smiling Aerith leaned closer to him until her nose brushed against his. "Don't worry though, if your lucky I might not be able to sleep again tonight."
"I'll keep my fingers crossed."
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Zack tapped his foot on the floor impatiently as Cloud approached him in the street.
"Where have you been? It's nearly 12 o'clock."
Yawning Cloud just shrugged. "I slept in."
"Eh?" Zack crossed his arms a stared at the spiky haired Soldier. "Since when do you 'ever' sleep past eight?"
"It was a fluke."
"Uh huh, I take it a certain flower girl wouldn't have anything to do with this?"
"It's not what you think." Cloud tried to avoid eye contact with his older brother.
"Hmm, well I'm sure it's crossed your mind more than once hasn't it."
"Zack."
"Hey, hey I'm just teasing you." The black haired Soldier shrugged grinning as his younger brother fidgeted on the spot. "Come on, we've got things to do and places to be, I can torment you along the way."
Cloud stared evilly at Zack as he took the lead. "One of these days."
The two headed down the street and continued along through the darker areas of the city, yet one after the other as Zack crossed the destinations off of the list the two were realizing that this search was proving fruitless.
Sighing Zack ticked another destination off and slumped his shoulders. "I can't take this anymore, this whole city is boring."
Cloud crossed his arms feeling just as annoyed.
"I mean, at least in Midgar there were a fair few monsters to keep us busy. This is just pointless."
"Boring yes, pointless no." Cloud took this list off of Zack and looked for their next stop. "Sephiroth is here somewhere and we have to find him."
"Yeah, yeah, pain in the ass freak. So where next?"
Running his finger down the list the blond Soldier stopped at the bottom. "Last one, the end of the city's waterworks."
The waterworks was basically where the river that ran through the city left the city's borders. It was pretty much deserted only used by the homeless. The river ran along its brick laid course until it reached the south end of the city wall that was built to stop any monsters from entering. The only way through was to go underwater and through a sold steel gate built to only let water pass through it, it would take hours to break through.
The two Soldiers walked along the artificial bank of the river until they reached the wall, the whole area around them had a dark, wet and miserable feeling to it. The hundred meter high wall cast a shadow over the entire area, light was only able to reach this part of the city for a few hours a day. Cloud continued along ignoring the stares from various strangers he passed, each looked like they could star in their own horror movie.
"So, that's it right?" Zack pulled out his list. "We're done, nothing here."
Cloud clenched his fists annoyed at the results of the search. "(Sigh) Yeah, we're done."
The two turned round to head back only to see the very one they were looking for stood not ten meters in front of them.
Sephiroth stood calmly with his arms crossed, the usual grin he wore on his face was present. His masamune was hooked onto his side pointing behind him, though Cloud felt no better at this, he knew that Sephiroth could unsheathe the weapon and attack by the time he himself could have his fingers around the handle of his own sword.
Zack brought his sword out from over his shoulder and snarled at the ex- general.
Sephiroth chuckled to himself and shook his head. "Don't even try it, if you have any intelligence at all you will take note of your companion."
Zack frowned puzzled and looked over at Cloud. The blond Soldier stood straight with his hands held open by his waist, his buster sword still sheathed on his back.
"Err Cloud, don't you think this would be a good time to, you know.. fight?"
"No."
"Eh?"
Sephiroth sighed already annoyed. "What your friend realizes is if I wanted to attack, I would have done it without you even knowing. I did not come here now to fight."
Cloud held back the burning desire to attack his target and instead used his energy to stay calm. "Your here for a reason I take."
The sliver haired warrior turned his attention to Cloud. "Correct, I've had enough waiting... It's nearly time, do you think you can survive it?"
"Time for what?"
Sighing he raised his black gloved hand and pointed to the abandoned building that over looked the water. "See for yourself." As he finished the light in front of his body shifted and before the eye could catch it he disappeared into the air.
Zack stared blankly for a few moments trying to understand what had just happened. "Survive it? What the hell is he talking about?"
Cloud walked ahead until he was stood where Sephiroth had appeared, he turned his head towards the building instructed. "One way to find out."
He cautiously approached the building, from the outside there didn't seem to be anything special about it. The walls were weathered and the doors and windows were either missing or smashed. Cloud was the first to enter, the lack of light outside was nothing compared to the inside. The floors creaked with each step and from every direction the smell of rotting wood filled his lungs.
Zack entered a few seconds later, his weapon already in hand. From the looks of it the building use to be a hotel, the room they occupied now seemed to be the reception though the stairs to the next floor were rotten and had collapsed that meant what ever was suppose to be here was probably in this room.
"It feels like this place could collapse any moment."
Cloud silently agreed and continued his search, the stale air in the room made it easy to sense any kind of movement.
"Any idea what were looking for?"
"I'm sure we'll know when we find it." He pushed a table over onto the floor to see behind it, as soon as the ancient wood hit the floor it broke and shattered into pieces. From beneath was a dark shadow, Cloud studied it closer realizing that it was larger and darker than any other shadow in the room. Without warning the shadow began to move around along the floor until it finally stopped in the middle of the room.
In this time Zack had also noticed the black area but things only got worse as the shadow began to grow in size not only in width but also in height. The two Soldiers ran to meet each other in front of the creature as it began to take shape, two large horns grew out of the front along with a pair of gleaming eyes. The creature grew and grew until its whole body took up half of the room.
The behemoth stamped it's foot on the floor shaking the room and knocking the two off of their feet, the walls them self cracked and crumbled under the force. Cloud jumped to his feet and drew his sword, he charged at the beast and jumped at its face slashing at its ugly stare. The creature pulled back feeling the pain and at the same point Zack ran in close and began to slash at it's legs.
The behemoth collapsed to its knees and roared in pain but the two Soldiers victory was cut short as it quickly recovered. The beast gathered its energy and charged forwards at the two.
Outside on the street next to the river the scene was peaceful and quiet, the only movement was the water running along. This was quickly changed as the wall to the front of the hotel exploded open and chunks of brick and wood were shot out along with two bodies.
Cloud hit the ground on his back, gritting his teeth as the pain arrived. Before he could do anything at all he was covered with the shrapnel of the building, his chest throbbed in pain from when the beast rammed into him.
Zack crawled to his knees dizzy, the whole world felt like it was moving in slow motion. His head felt like it had been put on upside down and as soon as he managed to stand his face quickly met the floor once again.
The behemoth stood in the rubble of the building, once the front wall went the whole structure came crashing down around it. It began the walk forward towards the river, each step made Cloud's ears ring. Feeling like his head and his body were in two different places Cloud managed to crawl to his feet, he looked round to see his ally managing the same.
"Ideas?" Zack propped himself up with his sword.
Cloud nodded and tried to get his balance back. "Yeah go for its legs, make drop down again."
Zack looked ahead at the beast and griped his weapon tightly. "What ever you say." He ran straight on at the behemoth and began to slash madly at its front legs, the creature tried to kick away the annoyance but its incredible size made it too slow to hit the Soldier.
Cloud waited patiently for Zack to complete his task, the monster constantly tried to stamp on it's attacker but it failed to score a single hit speed as Zack executed his lightning fast maneuvers. Finally after cutting away layers of black shadow the behemoth's legs gave way and it dropped to the floor.
Already prepared Cloud sprinted ahead towards the monsters head, he could see that the black wounds on its legs were already healing. The Soldier jumped and ran up its foot on to the creatures back, the behemoth stood back up and tried to shake Cloud off by pushing off onto its hind legs.
As it came crashing back down Zack dived out of the way to avoid been crushed, he continued to stare as Cloud stabbed his sword into the monsters back to stop from been thrown off.
"You ok up there?"
"Fine." Cloud grunted as he gripped onto the creatures' black and purple back, after the monster tired he finally managed to stand on his feet without falling. Zack dived out the way once more as the behemoth decided to attack it's previous opponent. The monster charged at ahead and Zack raised his sword to parry the blow only to be sent flying across the street.
Cloud steadied himself trying not to fall. As the monster hit into Zack it stopped to look around and Cloud took his chance, he aimed his sword straight down at the beast's spine and jumped into the air. As he descended he thrust the swords tip deep through the dark black flesh, the buster sword ripped through the monster and Cloud carried on forcing his weapon in.
The behemoth collapsed onto the floor giving no resistance. A few moments later Zack stood aside the creature as Cloud jumped off, a huge grin appeared on the black haired Soldiers face as Cloud just stared coldly at the creature.
"Ha we won, dumbass... thing." Zack sheathed his sword and stood in triumph.
"I've never see any kind of monster like this."
"Yeah, well their one closer to been extinct already."
Cloud just nodded and continued look over the fallen monster. His eyes widened and he quickly jumped back as it began to move once more, the behemoth turned its head to look at them, it's eyes still glowing within its black features.
Zack's grin dropped and he followed Cloud's lead and retreated back away from the monster. Slowly the beast rose to its feet and let out a thunderous roar, the wounds on its legs and back had closed and disappeared.
Cloud sheathed his sword and ran back. "We have to go, it's obvious we're doing no damage to this thing."
Zack nodded and ran back along with Cloud, the behemoth immediately began to give chase as the two ran along the riverbank. The problem been that Cloud soon realized was that this street ended with the waterworks, it was a dead end. He glanced over his shoulder and saw the beast chasing after them, a hideous grin spread across its face.
The two Soldiers reached the end of the street and turned round drawing their weapons. The monster stopped chasing and stood in front of its prey, it could taste its victory already.
Cloud braced himself for the inevitable onslaught when a familiar figure appeared on top of the monster. The silver haired man drew his blade and made one effortless slash along the beasts back, the reaction was delayed by seconds as the monsters front half collapsed onto the ground and the other half fell backwards. The behemoth been cut in two in one fatal attack by the warrior died instantly, the black flesh began to evaporate into the air and before long the huge monster had disappeared into nothing.
Sephiroth descended gracefully onto the ground returning his masamune to his side. Out of breath Cloud could only watch as his enemy laughed at him and without a word disappearing as quickly as he had arrived.
The beaten Soldier sat down on the floor and tried to understand what just happened. Next to him Zack laid down and grinned pulling out the list and ticking the last place off. "So, shall we take a lunch break?"
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Chapter 9 : A Small Encounter
Cloud awoke and slowly opened his eyes. It was light outside and for once he had slept heavily, not waking up every hour.
He looked down feeling something soft and light run against his chin. Aerith was half laid on top of him, her arm was wrapped loosely around his chest and her fingers lightly held on to his shirt. As she breathed in her bangs brushed up against Cloud's chin lightly, the rest of her chestnut hair was spread gently over the covers and his arm that held on to her shoulder.
'I should get up. I have work to do.'
He looked down again to Aerith's sleeping figure, she wrinkled her nose in her sleep as a few stray hairs tickled her cheek. Cloud brought his hand up and lifted the strands of hair away from her face and tucked them behind her ear. He smiled slightly looking at the soft delicate features on her face.
'It can wait.'
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Aerith lazily opened her eyes blinking a few times before fully realizing she was awake. Looking ahead she could see the window which was partly open, a cool breeze drifted in lifting the curtains slightly.
She smiled feeling Cloud's arm held protectively around her back, his hand cupped the tip of her shoulder.
There was no clock in the room so Aerith wasn't so sure how late it was, not like she wanted to get up anyway. Apart from the soft sound of Cloud's breathing everything was silent, she figured it must be quite late and everyone else had already left.
After a few minutes of just laying there she felt Cloud move around under the covers, he brought one of his hands up and rubbed his eyes.
Cloud looked down and he was met by a pair of green gems staring back at him. "How long have you been awake?"
"Not long." She smiled and leaned up to kiss him.
Cloud held his arms around her and pulled her up closer as he sat up, Aerith then put her legs over Cloud's so she was sat on his lap. "Did you sleep well."
"Mmhmm, you don't mind me staying right?"
Cloud cocked his head and grinned. "I don't want you to leave."
Aerith giggled and push herself up off of Cloud's chest. "Neither do I, but I guess if I don't get up soon I'm not going to get any of my work done today."
Sighing Cloud nodded and agreed with the flower girl, as much as he wanted to stay it was important that he did his rounds to search for Sephiroth. Plus he was supposed to meet Zack at daybreak.
"Your right, we have jobs to do."
Smiling Aerith leaned closer to him until her nose brushed against his. "Don't worry though, if your lucky I might not be able to sleep again tonight."
"I'll keep my fingers crossed."
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Zack tapped his foot on the floor impatiently as Cloud approached him in the street.
"Where have you been? It's nearly 12 o'clock."
Yawning Cloud just shrugged. "I slept in."
"Eh?" Zack crossed his arms a stared at the spiky haired Soldier. "Since when do you 'ever' sleep past eight?"
"It was a fluke."
"Uh huh, I take it a certain flower girl wouldn't have anything to do with this?"
"It's not what you think." Cloud tried to avoid eye contact with his older brother.
"Hmm, well I'm sure it's crossed your mind more than once hasn't it."
"Zack."
"Hey, hey I'm just teasing you." The black haired Soldier shrugged grinning as his younger brother fidgeted on the spot. "Come on, we've got things to do and places to be, I can torment you along the way."
Cloud stared evilly at Zack as he took the lead. "One of these days."
The two headed down the street and continued along through the darker areas of the city, yet one after the other as Zack crossed the destinations off of the list the two were realizing that this search was proving fruitless.
Sighing Zack ticked another destination off and slumped his shoulders. "I can't take this anymore, this whole city is boring."
Cloud crossed his arms feeling just as annoyed.
"I mean, at least in Midgar there were a fair few monsters to keep us busy. This is just pointless."
"Boring yes, pointless no." Cloud took this list off of Zack and looked for their next stop. "Sephiroth is here somewhere and we have to find him."
"Yeah, yeah, pain in the ass freak. So where next?"
Running his finger down the list the blond Soldier stopped at the bottom. "Last one, the end of the city's waterworks."
The waterworks was basically where the river that ran through the city left the city's borders. It was pretty much deserted only used by the homeless. The river ran along its brick laid course until it reached the south end of the city wall that was built to stop any monsters from entering. The only way through was to go underwater and through a sold steel gate built to only let water pass through it, it would take hours to break through.
The two Soldiers walked along the artificial bank of the river until they reached the wall, the whole area around them had a dark, wet and miserable feeling to it. The hundred meter high wall cast a shadow over the entire area, light was only able to reach this part of the city for a few hours a day. Cloud continued along ignoring the stares from various strangers he passed, each looked like they could star in their own horror movie.
"So, that's it right?" Zack pulled out his list. "We're done, nothing here."
Cloud clenched his fists annoyed at the results of the search. "(Sigh) Yeah, we're done."
The two turned round to head back only to see the very one they were looking for stood not ten meters in front of them.
Sephiroth stood calmly with his arms crossed, the usual grin he wore on his face was present. His masamune was hooked onto his side pointing behind him, though Cloud felt no better at this, he knew that Sephiroth could unsheathe the weapon and attack by the time he himself could have his fingers around the handle of his own sword.
Zack brought his sword out from over his shoulder and snarled at the ex- general.
Sephiroth chuckled to himself and shook his head. "Don't even try it, if you have any intelligence at all you will take note of your companion."
Zack frowned puzzled and looked over at Cloud. The blond Soldier stood straight with his hands held open by his waist, his buster sword still sheathed on his back.
"Err Cloud, don't you think this would be a good time to, you know.. fight?"
"No."
"Eh?"
Sephiroth sighed already annoyed. "What your friend realizes is if I wanted to attack, I would have done it without you even knowing. I did not come here now to fight."
Cloud held back the burning desire to attack his target and instead used his energy to stay calm. "Your here for a reason I take."
The sliver haired warrior turned his attention to Cloud. "Correct, I've had enough waiting... It's nearly time, do you think you can survive it?"
"Time for what?"
Sighing he raised his black gloved hand and pointed to the abandoned building that over looked the water. "See for yourself." As he finished the light in front of his body shifted and before the eye could catch it he disappeared into the air.
Zack stared blankly for a few moments trying to understand what had just happened. "Survive it? What the hell is he talking about?"
Cloud walked ahead until he was stood where Sephiroth had appeared, he turned his head towards the building instructed. "One way to find out."
He cautiously approached the building, from the outside there didn't seem to be anything special about it. The walls were weathered and the doors and windows were either missing or smashed. Cloud was the first to enter, the lack of light outside was nothing compared to the inside. The floors creaked with each step and from every direction the smell of rotting wood filled his lungs.
Zack entered a few seconds later, his weapon already in hand. From the looks of it the building use to be a hotel, the room they occupied now seemed to be the reception though the stairs to the next floor were rotten and had collapsed that meant what ever was suppose to be here was probably in this room.
"It feels like this place could collapse any moment."
Cloud silently agreed and continued his search, the stale air in the room made it easy to sense any kind of movement.
"Any idea what were looking for?"
"I'm sure we'll know when we find it." He pushed a table over onto the floor to see behind it, as soon as the ancient wood hit the floor it broke and shattered into pieces. From beneath was a dark shadow, Cloud studied it closer realizing that it was larger and darker than any other shadow in the room. Without warning the shadow began to move around along the floor until it finally stopped in the middle of the room.
In this time Zack had also noticed the black area but things only got worse as the shadow began to grow in size not only in width but also in height. The two Soldiers ran to meet each other in front of the creature as it began to take shape, two large horns grew out of the front along with a pair of gleaming eyes. The creature grew and grew until its whole body took up half of the room.
The behemoth stamped it's foot on the floor shaking the room and knocking the two off of their feet, the walls them self cracked and crumbled under the force. Cloud jumped to his feet and drew his sword, he charged at the beast and jumped at its face slashing at its ugly stare. The creature pulled back feeling the pain and at the same point Zack ran in close and began to slash at it's legs.
The behemoth collapsed to its knees and roared in pain but the two Soldiers victory was cut short as it quickly recovered. The beast gathered its energy and charged forwards at the two.
Outside on the street next to the river the scene was peaceful and quiet, the only movement was the water running along. This was quickly changed as the wall to the front of the hotel exploded open and chunks of brick and wood were shot out along with two bodies.
Cloud hit the ground on his back, gritting his teeth as the pain arrived. Before he could do anything at all he was covered with the shrapnel of the building, his chest throbbed in pain from when the beast rammed into him.
Zack crawled to his knees dizzy, the whole world felt like it was moving in slow motion. His head felt like it had been put on upside down and as soon as he managed to stand his face quickly met the floor once again.
The behemoth stood in the rubble of the building, once the front wall went the whole structure came crashing down around it. It began the walk forward towards the river, each step made Cloud's ears ring. Feeling like his head and his body were in two different places Cloud managed to crawl to his feet, he looked round to see his ally managing the same.
"Ideas?" Zack propped himself up with his sword.
Cloud nodded and tried to get his balance back. "Yeah go for its legs, make drop down again."
Zack looked ahead at the beast and griped his weapon tightly. "What ever you say." He ran straight on at the behemoth and began to slash madly at its front legs, the creature tried to kick away the annoyance but its incredible size made it too slow to hit the Soldier.
Cloud waited patiently for Zack to complete his task, the monster constantly tried to stamp on it's attacker but it failed to score a single hit speed as Zack executed his lightning fast maneuvers. Finally after cutting away layers of black shadow the behemoth's legs gave way and it dropped to the floor.
Already prepared Cloud sprinted ahead towards the monsters head, he could see that the black wounds on its legs were already healing. The Soldier jumped and ran up its foot on to the creatures back, the behemoth stood back up and tried to shake Cloud off by pushing off onto its hind legs.
As it came crashing back down Zack dived out of the way to avoid been crushed, he continued to stare as Cloud stabbed his sword into the monsters back to stop from been thrown off.
"You ok up there?"
"Fine." Cloud grunted as he gripped onto the creatures' black and purple back, after the monster tired he finally managed to stand on his feet without falling. Zack dived out the way once more as the behemoth decided to attack it's previous opponent. The monster charged at ahead and Zack raised his sword to parry the blow only to be sent flying across the street.
Cloud steadied himself trying not to fall. As the monster hit into Zack it stopped to look around and Cloud took his chance, he aimed his sword straight down at the beast's spine and jumped into the air. As he descended he thrust the swords tip deep through the dark black flesh, the buster sword ripped through the monster and Cloud carried on forcing his weapon in.
The behemoth collapsed onto the floor giving no resistance. A few moments later Zack stood aside the creature as Cloud jumped off, a huge grin appeared on the black haired Soldiers face as Cloud just stared coldly at the creature.
"Ha we won, dumbass... thing." Zack sheathed his sword and stood in triumph.
"I've never see any kind of monster like this."
"Yeah, well their one closer to been extinct already."
Cloud just nodded and continued look over the fallen monster. His eyes widened and he quickly jumped back as it began to move once more, the behemoth turned its head to look at them, it's eyes still glowing within its black features.
Zack's grin dropped and he followed Cloud's lead and retreated back away from the monster. Slowly the beast rose to its feet and let out a thunderous roar, the wounds on its legs and back had closed and disappeared.
Cloud sheathed his sword and ran back. "We have to go, it's obvious we're doing no damage to this thing."
Zack nodded and ran back along with Cloud, the behemoth immediately began to give chase as the two ran along the riverbank. The problem been that Cloud soon realized was that this street ended with the waterworks, it was a dead end. He glanced over his shoulder and saw the beast chasing after them, a hideous grin spread across its face.
The two Soldiers reached the end of the street and turned round drawing their weapons. The monster stopped chasing and stood in front of its prey, it could taste its victory already.
Cloud braced himself for the inevitable onslaught when a familiar figure appeared on top of the monster. The silver haired man drew his blade and made one effortless slash along the beasts back, the reaction was delayed by seconds as the monsters front half collapsed onto the ground and the other half fell backwards. The behemoth been cut in two in one fatal attack by the warrior died instantly, the black flesh began to evaporate into the air and before long the huge monster had disappeared into nothing.
Sephiroth descended gracefully onto the ground returning his masamune to his side. Out of breath Cloud could only watch as his enemy laughed at him and without a word disappearing as quickly as he had arrived.
The beaten Soldier sat down on the floor and tried to understand what just happened. Next to him Zack laid down and grinned pulling out the list and ticking the last place off. "So, shall we take a lunch break?"
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