Disclaimer: I don't own Final Fantasy or its characters

Disclaimer: I don't own Final Fantasy or its characters.

The Journey Begins

Cloud walked into his room at the motel and threw down his backpack. He was not in the greatest of moods thanks to his friends who seemed to him to not even care about him at all anymore. He always cared for them but it seemed that he had hurt them more than he had realized when he had left all those years ago.

He pulled his sword off of his back and leaned it against the wall where he could get to it with ease if he had need of it which he hoped that he didn't. He sat down on the edge of the bed and put his head in his hands. He missed his friends so much and yet it seemed to him that he would go on missing them because they seemed to have no need of him as a friend anymore.

He thought that he should be used to it. When he was in Soldier he had a very few friends and then that one friend had been killed. After that he had wandered around doing odd jobs and he became a mercenary. He had not hated the life but then he had joined Avalanche and had to become friends with it's members. That was what had changed him. The second that he had saved Jessie when she had her foot caught during that first mission.

Cloud laid back on the bed and threw an arm across his face. He wanted to believe that his friends were just mad but he wasn't so sure about that. They had been pretty sure that they didn't like him anymore for what he had done and at that moment Cloud didn't really care. He felt that if they wanted to be that way then he would say the children and then he would allow himself to be captured so that they wouldn't have to worry about him any longer. They could forget all about him.

Cloud closed his eyes then and felt that he needed to get some sleep. If he was going to go to where ever this place was he was going to need to leave early. As Cloud drifted off to sleep instead of his last thought being about Tifa like it had been for a very long time it was of death and what he would have to do in order to avoid her.

Cloud found himself standing on a cliff looking out over the ocean with the sun setting off in the distance painting everything a slight pink color. He shook his head and decided that this had to be a dream because he would never think of something like this on his own. His mind had to be playing with him.

He looked out over the ocean and saw that the setting sun was painted onto the shimmering ocean surface so that it looked as if he was looking into a mirror and he wasn't a part of the picture. Cloud shrugged his shoulders and stood up. He thought that Aeris would have liked the place but she was gone because he had been a failure. He hadn't been able to protect her just like Zack.

"That is alright Cloud. I was meant to die at that moment," Cloud heard a voice but he just couldn't believe who it belonged to.

Cloud slowly turned to look at the person whom the voice had come from. He turned and looked directly into the face of Aeris who smiled at him in welcome. "Cloud you couldn't have saved me or Zack for that matter. We had been chosen to die at those times. Sometimes the lifestream needs certain people to return to it. Don't feel bad Cloud," she said softly.

"No I don't believe that Aeris. I was there and I should have been able to save you. I just stood there and watched as he plunged his sword into your back. I will never be able to forget that. I should have saved you!" Cloud gritted out as he punched his hand into his other hand.

Aeris walked forward and placed her hand on Cloud's shoulder in comfort. She had been watching him for the last twenty years and she knew what their friends did not. She knew what had happened to him in those twenty years and she knew why he had left in the first place. She felt a great sadness for Cloud because she knew that he had left in order to save his friends and they didn't even know it.

"Cloud they will understand in time if you tell them. They don't mean what they said," Aeris said then in order to comfort him and bring him back from that dark place where he was slipping more and more often she had noticed. That dark place where he kept all of his memories that were painful. He seemed to feed off those pains and that was what seemed to be keeping him going anymore.

"Aeris I miss you. I think that I miss you more than the others because you would listen to what I needed to talk about. You never judged like some of my friends do. I just wish that you weren't gone Aeris," Cloud said as he slumped forward and sat down.

"Don't worry Cloud I am always with you. But I must tell you something. You must save the children but you mustn't get caught. You cannot let the enemy have you because of what they will use you for," Aeris said now in a voice that was as hard as stone.

"Why I don't care whether I live or die anymore. Life is just a place that you stop along the path that will lead you to enternity. " Once you have passed beyond life it will mean nothing to you anymore. I look forward to the day when I am bested in battle so that I am no longer on that world where there is nothing for me but pain," Cloud said in a voice so filled with pain that it brought tears to Aeris's eyes.

"Cloud you must live because life is the best thing that there is. It is in life that you learn to love and care. It is life that means something not death. Your life is all that you have Cloud. Cloud you need to love again," Aeris said as she placed an arm around his shoulders as she sat down next to him.

"Oh Aeris I know that I must live long enough to save Yuffie's kids but then I no longer care. Love I will never feel again. I thought that I loved Tifa but I am not so sure now. I am thinking that I was liking the idea of loving her since I had known her since we were kids," Cloud said as he gazed at the sun.

"Don't worry Cloud you will find love I am sure of it. You are in need though of a friend right now and I will sit here with you until it is time for you to go back to the waking world," Aeris said.

"Thank you Aeris. I don't know how you can be here but I thank you just the same," Cloud said as he hugged her.

"I am here because dreams are when a live person is near death. I can enter your dreams sometimes Cloud and when I do I will try to impart knowledge to you," Aeris explained to him.

"Thank you Aeris for being here for me. I really do need a friend right now," Cloud said as he watched the sun and Aeris just sat there beside him with her arm across his shoulders.

* * * * *

"Yeah he is here in Costa Del Sol like we knew that he would be. Tell Joram that he is staying at the motel. He is room 13b so he should be fairly easy pickings. The fool I can't believe that he would actually come here," the man said to another next to him.

"I will be back shortly with reinforcements. We will have Cloud and then he will help with the ressurection of Spehiroth," the small man said as he ran off to do what the other had told him to do.

"You are a fool Cloud. You were always weak and I will crush you now. You will fight and fight well I am sure but you will lose and then you will be ours," The man said as he adjusted the guns on his hips.

The man looked to the window where the lights were still on but Cloud was asleep. He knew that they would have Cloud because the man had lost the will to live and he knew that Cloud would be easy pickings for the followers of the mighty Sephiroth. The man smiled as the anticipation of the capture boiled within him. He would enjoy seeing Cloud beaten.

* * * * *

Cloud opened his eyes and felt more rested than he could ever remember being. He decided that it was the dream. He would have liked to believe that Aeris had actually talked to him but he knew that it was impossible and so just dreaming about her had been enough to let him truly rest.

Cloud stood up and stretched and noticed that it was dark outside. He went to the window and looked out. He saw that there were lights on in many houses and down below Cloud heard children playing. He wondered if Marlene had ever been down there playing just like those children were or if Barret wouldn't have let her.

Cloud smiled at the thought of the talks that her and Barret would have to have had while she was growing up and becoming a woman. Cloud though that it would have been nice to have been there to hear some of those but he wasn't and that was when his smile vanished.

Cloud heard people talking down below him in the common room of the inn. He knew that many of them were off work and they were drinking and having a good time. Cloud wasn't one for drinking and even if he had been he would never have been able to get drunk. The Mako energy would prevent him from becoming intoxicated.

Cloud was ready to turn back from the window and head down to the common room when something caught his eye. He looked back out the window and over at t nearby house. As he looked he saw a shadow flit across the rooftop of the house heading towards the inn that he was staying at. Cloud didn't know if the man was a thief or what but Cloud wasn't willing to take any chances.

He ran over to his sword and looped the baldric over his shoulders so that the blade was slung across his back. He then made sure that his materia was in place just in case there was a real need of it's use though Cloud hoped that he didn't need it. He would destroy too many things if he had to use it in the inn.

Cloud hoped that he didn't have to fight whoever that was. He hoped that it was just some kids playing games or some such but Cloud had a feeling that the men were after something and that he wasn't supposed to have seen them at all.

Cloud went to the door to his room and yanked it open only to see that there were men filling the hallway. All had guns and were wearing uniforms that reminded Cloud of the Soldier uniforms. Cloud slammed his door shut and moved a chair over to it in order to slow the men down.

"Damn the men are after me. There is no way around it," Cloud cursed.

He went back to the window and looked out. He saw men filling up the street below him. There had been perhaps six men in the hall and down in the street there were maybe ten to twelve more. "Well I guess the best way to go is up," Cloud said to himself as he opened the window and climbed onto the sill.

He reached up above the window and felt for a handhold. When he found one he pulled himself out of the room and up. He placed his feet on the top of the window and reached up until he found another handhold. He continued until he was near the top. That was when he heard a shout down below him. Cloud looked down and saw a man's face looking up at him from out of his window.

"We know who you are Cloud Stryfe and we want you to surrender or your friends will die. The only way for you to save them is if you come with us quietly," The man yelled as Cloud continued to scale the side of the building.

Cloud yelled back down in a voice a bit strained from the effort of climbing the building and keeping himself from falling. "If you really had them you would have shown them to me by now. Either that or you are a bunch of amateurs. That and to be quite truthful you would know that they aren't my friends anymore so I don't especially care what happens to them." As he finished he pulled himself up onto the roof of the inn.

* * * * *

Tifa and the other couldn't believe what Cloud had just said. They had been down on the street in the shadows waiting. They had been on their way to see him and apologize when they had seen all the men start to head to the inn. They had slipped into the shadows and had followed at a discreet distance.

They had found out from listening that the men were after Cloud and that the men needed him alive for something but they had never said what they needed him for. The men wore the Soldier uniforms and Tifa wondered if they were trying to force Cloud back into the ranks of Soldier.

Tifa and the others had been really sorry about the way that had reacted to Cloud earlier but it had just been so long since they had seen him. Then to have one of them say what had been in all of their hearts had been too much for them to hold back. They had all felt that way about him but they really felt now that they had been wrong to feel that way.

Then Tifa and the others had heard what Cloud had said and it had crushed her as well as her friends. How could Cloud have said that they were no longer his friends. They had saved the world together and had sacrificed much for each other. She knew that they had been mean but she thought that Cloud could take it but it seemed that she was wrong.

Her and the others decided then not to help Cloud and to see if he could take care of close to a score of men without their help. In the old days even Cloud would have had trouble with them and Tifa didn't think that she should help a man who didn't care about her anymore.

* * * * *

Cloud stood on the roof and waited for the men to come to him. He knew that they would and he also knew that he was going to have to kill them. They thought that they could trick him into believing that they had his friends well they were mistaken about that. They couldn't catch his friends because they were too good at fighting and other such things.

Cloud pulled his sword from it's sheath and it hissed as the scabbard released the blade. The blade shimmered in the moonlight and the moonlight was reflected off the mirror-like surface of the blade. Cloud looked at his own reflection in the blade and shook his head. He had killed more than any person should ever have to even dream about and he was about to kill again.

Cloud saw the six men from the hallway come out onto the roof from the door that lead up to the roof. They looked at him standing there with his blade ready and the leader of them smiled. "You are a fool Cloud. You never bring a sword to a gun fight," the man said as he threw back his head and laughed.

Before any of the men could react though Cloud rushed forward and brought his sword down in a diagonal cut that cut one man from his shoulder down across to his hip. The man fell back dead as Cloud spun with his sword extended and eviscerated one man who was too close to the sword. The man fell back trying to hold in his entrails.

Cloud came back up half kneeling in his ready stance. The men were shocked and had failed to even get a shot off before two of their number had been killed. "Fire fire now!" The leader yelled.

The men opened fire and cloud spun away from the shots though he took one in his left shoulder and one in his thigh. He blocked some of the shots with his blade and then he turned back to the men and charged a second time. He came in low and cut the legs out from underneath one man and then brought his blade up in a slash that cut the throat of the man on the other side of Cloud.

The last man besides the leader opened fire on Cloud who took the shots and continued forward to the man. When he was close enough he swung the sword down and the man tried to parry with his rifle but the sword cut right through the rifle and into the man. The sword cut the man nearly in two and then Cloud swung back around to look at the leader who was backing up from Cloud with his hands in the air.

Cloud used his cure materia and healed himself of his wounds. As his wounds closed the bullets that had been embeded in his flesh fell to the ground. The man looked at him in utter fear. He had been told about Cloud but he hadn't believed any of it but now he did. The man kept backing up and didn't even notice the edge until his foot was halfway off the roof. He stopped then and looked at Cloud with fear in his eyes.

Cloud walked forward and the man stood his ground because he didn't want to fall to his death. "Please don't kill me Cloud," the man pleaded.

Cloud stalked forward his eyes blazing with fury. "Why did you guys want me. What am I to you."

"We were told that you would be the vessal for our lord when he returns. He shall need a body and that is what you are for," the man quickly said trying to please Cloud.

Cloud was taken aback by that. He didn't know what the man was talking about and as far as Cloud knew dead was dead. The man Cloud decided was babbling in order to save his own life. "Who sent you and tell me the truth," Cloud demanded as he continued his advance.

"We were sent by a man who wears a mask. We don't know his name all we know him by is the Prophet," the man blurted out only too happy to tell Cloud everything he knew.

Cloud was now on the man and he glared into the man's brown eyes with his own glowing blue eyes. The man was so scared that Cloud could feel him tremble in his hand. "You are the men who kidnapped Yuffie's children aren't you. Where are they tell me and you might live," Cloud shouted into the man's face as his anger started to boil to the surface.

"Y…Yes we d… did. We took them. We took them to a small island in the middle of nowhere. It is an island with moutains and ice on one side with a small jungle on the other side of the island. I think that it was created by some scientists," The man bubbled out.

So this man was a member of the Sephiroth fan club Cloud thought. Cloud knew that men like him were too dangerous to let live. If he did the man would just convert others to his way of thinking and so he knew what he had to do. Cloud put his face just inches away from the man's and hissed, "You will pay for the crimes that you have committed against my friends. For taking the children you must die!" Cloud then shoved the man from the rooftop and watched as he hit the ground and crushed a man who wasn't watching beneath him. They were both laying unmoving and Cloud knew that they were both dead.

The men looked up at Cloud who backed away from the edge so that he wouldn't get shot. He heard the men cursing and yelling at him but he didn't pay them any mind. He was thinking of a way to get free. He thought that the best way to go was straight down. He would survive the fall because he was an enhanced human so he didn't really fear that. He knew that the best thing to do was what was unexpected so he ran for the edge of the roof and jumped.

The men were too surprised to do anything as he fell to the ground. Cloud was falling right into the center of them and as he neared them he brought his sword down in a slash that cut one man completely in two. He hit the ground and rolled forward knocking the feet out from under two other men. While they were all on the ground Cloud grabbed one man and broke his neck and the other he stabbed through the chest with his blade. He then came up to his feet and charged the remaining men who were still trying to recover from what he had done.

He cut left and right and men fell to his blade which was red with blood. The men were too scared to even fight back because when they looked at him all they saw was their own death. Cloud charged and a man swung the butt of his gun for Cloud's head but Cloud ducked and sliced the man across the leg and as the man fell Cloud finished him off with a stab to the chest.

That left only four and they all turned to run. Cloud wasn't ready to let them get away and so he cast a fire spell and they all fell to the ground to try to put out the flames that covered their bodies. Cloud ran over to them and stabbed each in the back in order to end their pain quickly. He then stood there with his sword extended and blood soaking him and his blade. As he stood there the blood dripped slowly from his blade to the ground.

He had killed all the men and he still felt the same as he always did. He knew that was not a good sign for when one becomes accustomed to killing then you are not really a person at all anymore. He looked around at the destruction that he had wrought and closed his eyes. He stood there for a second and then sheathed his sword.

"Cloud how could you kill those men when they were helpless like that," he heard Tifa say from behind him. She sounded shocked and angry at the same time. Cloud slowly turned to look at her and saw that all of his old friends were there.

"I killed them because they deserved it Tifa. There was no other way around it. I won't let men like that live if they will try to take Marlene or anyone else who means anything to me Cloud said in a voice that lacked any emotion.

"Cloud you have changed in your time away. You would never have done that in the old days," Vincent said.

"That is what you believe. I kill people. That is what I do. I am a man who brings death to anyone who crosses me," Cloud said matter of factly.

Tifa had noticed that he had called them people and not his friends even when they were standing there right in front of him. She was hurt by that but didn't let it show. "Cloud we came here to tell you that we are sorry for the way that we acted earlier. We were just angry about what had happened to Yuffie's children and had almost happened to Marlene. We didn't mean to take it out on you."

"No you are wrong about that Tifa. You did mean to take it out on me or you wouldn't have said those things to me," Cloud said with hurt in his voice. He turned and looked at Yuffie then. "I said that I would get your children back and I will. I will not accept your apology because you don't mean it. You just felt bad and you felt that if you said you were sorry then it would erase the dirty feeling. Well you can keep it because once I have your children back I will leave again. Don't worry you won't have me around so you will not be driven to bouts of anger that lead you to say things that you will later regret!" Cloud finished by yelling at his old friends.

They were all stunned by Cloud. They hadn't thought that he wouldn't accept their apology. It was at that moment that they realized how much they had hurt him by what they had done. They really felt bad and they could tell that Cloud no longer cared about what they felt and Tifa honestly couldn't blame him. They hadn't even thought to ask him why he had truly left or why he had come back. They hadn't thought to be friends to him.

She watched as Cloud turned his back on them and walked away. He didn't look over his shoulder as he walked from the city. He didn't need to look back. He knew that they wouldn't care that he had left and that was alright by him because he was used to being alone now. He had his sword and that was the only companion that he really needed.