Cloud wakes up from his dream of (with) Jenova. I guess you could say he wakes up in a mood. ;)
Cloud Strife
"Cloud, wake up."
He resisted the urge to say, "Five more minutes, Mom."
His mother, god rest her... Fifteen years dead, maybe more, (time had always had a way of running off while Cloud wasn't looking,) her bright, blond head long since ashes...
Cloud giggled. He was alive, at least. Alive, with every nerve cell awake, and for the first time in years, there was pleasure, even from the air on his skin and in his lungs.
"Cloud, are you okay?"
Aerith's voice. Ten years dead, maybe more, her pink dress probably seaweed-covered rags by now, her skin plucked away by little, glowing fish. Cloud thought that it must not be any fun at all to be dead. In fact, if he were really honest with himself, it must really just about suck to be dead. He thought about all the people he'd known who had died.
"Sucks to be you," he muttered.
"Cloud?"
Her breath stirred his hair. He could smell fear. It wasn't so bad.
What was bad, though, was lying around on the floor of an airship when he could be outside, seeing things, breathing, touching...Hell, maybe even flying, if she let him.
"Umm, Tifa said..."
Cloud was up and behind her before she even thought to finish her sentence. He heard her gasp as he wrapped one arm across her throat, and grabbed her wrist in his free hand. He jerked her arm back and she cried out (the voice was young, but the bones were so old,) so he put his hand over her mouth.
"Keep quiet, Reisei," he said. He took a moment to smell her hair. Not rosemary like Tifa's, but a lighter scent that was still gorgeous. He could waste all his free time smelling her hair, but why, when there was so much more to experience? He eased his hand away from her mouth.
"Cloud, you're hurting me!"
"Reisei, I can safely say that you have never known pain. Be quiet and you may never have to, okay?"
She nodded, clearly afraid that he would break her arm. He didn't want to, though. Not unless she tried to stop him, which she might decide to do. She could cast Sleep on him or some other status. Cloud wondered if it would actually have any effect on him; maybe not, but it was better to be safe, so that he wouldn't have to hurt anyone. Protection against that sort of thing, it was a must before he left.
Cloud was surprised that he was thinking so clearly and planning so carefully even with all the stimuli that was assaulting him. Reisei, Planet love her, was pressed up against him and shaking so hard her bones were nearly rattling. Her soft, white sleeve sent little sparks through his hand when he reached beneath the fabric. The skin of her arm was dry and deeply lined.
"Cloud, what are you...?"
"Shh," he told her. He knew what he was doing, but it was fun to let her wonder for a moment, because the fear was interesting and the shaking was good.
Finally, he found what he was looking for: a small, starchy and oddly metallic little piece of material under her sleeve. The ribbon he had never been allowed to use under Tifa's reign, which would prevent anyone from casting any kind of status on him.
"Thank you, Rei," Cloud said, as he took it from her. He felt its rough surface. It was lovely.
"Oh, Cloud."
"Don't 'Oh Cloud' me, young lady. I'm going out for a while. For once, for fucking once I am going out and I'm going to do what I want without anyone stopping me. I can feel things, Reisei. Do you understand?"
She took a shaky breath. When she spoke, her voice was what others might think of as wise and sad. Cloud finally understood how patronizing it was. "I understand that Jenova is controlling you."
Cloud gave her a shake, delighted by her little squeal of fear. "Jenova isn't controlling me, that's...that's the deal, Rei. She let me go."
"No, Cloud, she still has you, only she's not controlling you with pain anymore. I told you to step aside, Cloud."
"You told me to die."
"You wouldn't have died! You still don't have to! There's an answer, Cloud, something that will help you."
"You're always saying that," Cloud hissed in her ear, "and nothing ever has."
"But this time... An answer from the Pla..."
"That's enough out of you, little miss. Run along." He shoved her, and she fell to the floor in a heap of arthritic bones.
If Reisei got it together enough to look up, Cloud didn't see it. He was gone before she turned her head.
The cockpit of the Tempest was empty. Cloud looked around and took quick inventory. He could see them all outside through the window, but he knew they couldn't see him. A few Turks were down, Reeve was looking inspired and stern, and Tifa - poor Tifa! - was looking stressed as she chewed on her nails. Sephiroth was leaning on the hilt of his sword like the arrogant bastard that he was. Cloud looked at the Masamune. The brightness of it made his eyes water, and there was just a hint of pain as he looked at it; the first pain since his dream. He looked away from that hateful, loathsome blade.
Sephiroth had a weapon. Cloud needed one too, because one never knew when people were going to act up. One never knew when people would try to take away his liberty.
Suddenly Tifa turned away and started walking towards the airship. She was no frail, old lady. Tifa was formidable, and Cloud would hate to have to hurt her, because she deserved better. It was time to get the hell away.
The Turks were down, and apparently they had left the Tempest in a hurry, because there on the floor, right next to the seat, was Reno's nightstick. Cloud wasn't sure exactly how it worked, but he was sure he could figure it out. It would have to do. He made his way toward the door of the cockpit and slipped out. He had halfway expected to see Reisei waiting there for him, but she wasn't. She had probably gone to get Tifa, knowing that she couldn't do anything by herself. That gave Cloud a clear exit through the back hatch.
Grinning, he flicked the nightstick on. It whirred to life, and then made a high-pitched, squawking sound.
"Shh!" Cloud told it as he switched it back off.
For a moment, it had charged the air around him, making the hairs on his arms stand up. He tingled all over. He wanted to turn it on again later, but for now...
"Cloud?" Tifa's voice came from the side hatch.
"Tifa!" Reisei answered in a teary, panicked voice.
Time to go.
Cloud ran silently down the corridor, through the room where he'd (had the dream) been sleeping, past the bathroom, and towards the back exit.
"Reisei, what happened?" Tifa asked from the front of the Tempest. "Where's Cloud?"
"Cloud's gone," he whispered along with Reisei.
He eased the latch and pushed the door open. It creaked. It sounded loud to him, but he realized that his hearing had also been enhanced, so it was unlikely that Tifa had heard it, and nigh on impossible that Reisei had.
"What?"
"Tifa, it's not Cloud... I mean it is, it is Cloud, he's himself; Jenova is making him do things but he's doing them of his own free will."
"What are you talking about?" There was a pause. "What happened to your wrist?"
Another pause, and Cloud knew that Tifa was staring at the bruises on Reisei's wrist, not yet willing to believe that he had put them there. As if bruising were any kind of big deal. Oh, terrible, terrible Cloud, for leaving a bruise on someone! They had no idea what it felt like to have hot needles in every pore of your body, no idea what it felt like to eat food and taste dirt, to drink water and taste blood and still thirst, and certainly they had no idea what it was like to finally be free of that. They were selfish for wanting to hold him back. They lacked perspective.
They were blessed in that way and Cloud was glad for them, but only to a point. If (when) they tried to stop him, they would gain perspective very quickly, and they would have only themselves to blame.
"He went out the back," Tifa said, and immediately after, he heard her quick footsteps as she came down the corridor.
Cloud stepped out, hooked his hand on the ridge above the outside of the door, and pulled himself up. He felt lighter than he'd ever felt, and he easily swung his legs up to the side of the airship and gained his balance.
He was standing upright, looking straight ahead, and he could see the sky. It occurred to him that he was standing on the side of the airship. Apparently even gravity was his friend today. He took a tentative step, made contact, and didn't fall off.
It felt familiar. He wondered why he could remember walking up a vertical plane before.
In the end it didn't matter. The air smelled of metal, Mako, fire, and fear. Underneath it all were more human scents. They called to him. He was entitled to this, and no one seemed to realize that. He took a few more steps, and he was standing on top of the airship when Tifa finally got to the door. She looked out the back, but she was looking in the wrong direction. Looking for footprints, probably. Too bad for her that it was concrete, or she would have seen right away that he had never touched the ground.
He heard her sob once, briefly, and then stop. She would be strong again. Poor Tifa.
Cloud crouched down on top of the airship, knowing that he had enough time to leave while she went to tell the others that he was gone. While they all sat around and discussed it, (and he knew that might take a while,) he could get himself long gone.
Tifa, of course, would follow him. That might be to the good. He needed some time alone with her. He heard her close the door again. As he thought of her walking down the corridor, with her thick, rosemary scented hair swaying down her smooth back, Cloud smiled.
Tifa and Elena
Sephiroth had the unbelievable nerve to be staring at her like an annoyed parent stares at his child before throwing his hands in the air and relenting. She wanted to rip his face to shreds. She didn't want to fight with him, or even punch him or bludgeon him; she just wanted to scratch his face off with her nails.
"It's not wise for you to go after him alone, Miss Lockheart, or for anyone to. I don't need to remind everyone that those people under Jenova's influence may attack their allies. Nor do I like to remind everyone, for that matter."
"You're not coming with me," Tifa said, disgusted with herself for sounding so shaky.
He bowed his head again, but not without the same patronizing look he had been giving her since she said she was going after Cloud.
"Tifa," Reeve said. He sounded hesitant, and by god, Tifa was sick of everyone tiptoeing around her as if she were some kind of unreasonable, weak child.
"What?"
"I still don't think you should go alone," Reeve said.
"For Pete's sake," Tifa huffed. "It's Cloud, Reeve. Cloud! As if I haven't been with him all these years!"
"Yeah, but it's not just Cloud," Reeve said. "What if all of a sudden Jenova makes her grand entrance, Tifa, and it's just you? Huh? Jesus, I'm not asking you to take Sephiroth with you, I'm just saying not to go alone! At least let me go with you."
"No," Tifa said.
"No!" Elena said at the same time.
Tifa and Elena glanced at each other.
"Reeve," Elena said, "we already decided this. You're not going on the front line, okay?"
Tifa had thought she couldn't possibly be more annoyed with these people, but seeing Elena give orders like a field commander - like her field commander - was too much. "Reeve," she said, "I need you to stay back and guard the Turks, in case they try something."
"Tifa, get over it," Reeve said.
She blinked, feeling very much as if he had had slapped her. Had Reeve just not only undermined her in front of the Turks, but taken their side? It was too much to bear, and she felt her hand clench at her side. "What?" she said.
"The Turks are the least of our threats," Reeve said. "And you know it."
"Thanks, Reeve," Elena said, "but I prefer to think that we're not a threat at all. We did come along to help."
"Jesus Christ," Reeve muttered, finally exasperated.
"I don't need your help, first of all," Tifa said, "and second of all, how dare you..." She was stopped by Reeve putting his hands on her shoulders.
"Tifa, please," he said. He let his forehead drop to rest against hers. She was startled at this odd display of intimacy, and she knew it probably looked inappropriate, but she sensed that he didn't mean anything by it other than the fact that he was exhausted and appealing to her. Of anything he could have done, this surprised her to attention. "Tifa, we're at war now. It's not, at this moment, a war against ShinRa, or the Turks, or even, god help me, against Sephiroth."
She opened her mouth to speak - wildly from her emotions, she knew, but couldn't help it.
"And no," Reeve said, before she could say it, "not against Cloud, either." He turned away, tiredly rubbing the back of his head, and addressed everyone again. "It's like this: for right now, it's just us. If Barret or Nanaki or Cid were here, one or two of them could go with Tifa to find Cloud. I think waiting for him to just come back is out of the question, am I right?"
Tifa nodded numbly, aware of what he was getting at, but not yet ready to consider it.
"So we have to split into teams; that's what Cloud would do. Well, obviously I'm not permitted to leave." He cast a wry glance at Elena, who gave him a weak smile in return. "I don't think Rei is in any good condition to go along. Tifa, that leaves Elena or Rude."
"Oh, Jesus," Tifa said.
Elena stood up from where she had been kneeling by Reno. "Okay, look," she said. "Miss Lockheart, I don't know what it is you think we're going to do to you, but the idea that any of us are going to hurt you is ridiculous. You must know that. We don't work for Scarlet; you must be clever enough to realize that. And we sure as hell don't work for Jenova."
"Yeah, and what about Cloud?" Tifa said. "Say we go out and find him. What are you going to do? You can't tell me you're going to go and give him a big hug, Elena. How do I know you're not going to try something?"
"He'd swat me down like a fly and you know it. What, you think Cloud can't defend himself against big, tough Elena?"
Sephiroth cleared his throat. Tifa surprised herself by turning to him and snapping, "What!"
He shrugged. "Jenova's helping him. He's probably moving quickly. How far do you think he's gotten while you are all sniping at each other about the past?"
"You have a hell of a nerve," Tifa said. "How dare you talk about Cloud, and how dare you even bring up the past?"
"Miss Lockheart, what you think of me has nothing to do with it. If you don't want to go find Cloud, I'm willing to go."
Tifa was at a loss. Suddenly she felt everyone watching her and waiting for her decision. She realized then, that although everyone seemed to have a suggestion, no one was making the decision for her. They were all waiting for her word to move.
And Cloud was getting farther away.
If in the past she had ever imagined herself having to work with one of the Turks, in theory, she might have chosen Rude. Now that she was faced with the situation, she found his distance disconcerting.
"Elena, do you have your weapon?" she asked.
"No, Ma'am, I do not. You relieved me of it back at Cosmo Canyon."
"Right. It's on the airship, then."
"I have another gun on the Tempest, if you want one," Reeve said. "And just a bit of ice materia."
"Ice doesn't affect Cloud," Tifa said, and then she immediately covered her mouth with both hands, as if to blank out what she had just said.
She saw Reeve's look of dismay, and a kind of pity for her that knotted her stomach.
"Tifa," he said, "it's not really Cloud."
"But that's the problem," Reisei said from below the hatch. Tifa had forgotten that she'd even been standing there. "It is Cloud right now."
Before anyone could answer that, Tifa decided that it was better to head out and to actually do something than it was to stand around with everyone watching her, waiting for her words, and worrying. She could feel the weight of their worries and she wondered if this is what Cloud sometimes felt.
"Reeve," she said, "please go and get Elena's gun off the Highwind. And a PHS, if you have one."
The air was so dusty that the only indication that it was late afternoon was the grey sky going a darker grey. Soon it would be dusk, and Tifa didn't even know where to begin. She knew that Cloud had gone out the back hatch of the Tempest. But she also knew that that didn't mean he had kept going in the same direction.
"We have no footprints to follow," Elena said.
"Yeah, I realize that," Tifa snapped.
Elena gave her an impatient look. "So we'll have to try to follow something else. You know Cloud better than anyone. He spent some time in Midgar; where might he want to go?"
"Sector Five...Sector Seven maybe."
"Well, they're both in the same direction. Let's just walk and see what we see."
Tifa nodded, deciding not to answer. She couldn't figure out where Cloud might go if he were...under duress, she supposed. Sector Five was where Aerith had lived, where the church was. Would he go there for comfort? Or would he go to where Tifa's Seventh Heaven bar used to be?
Not that it mattered. It was all in the past, and the only reason it was worth thinking about now was because she needed to find Cloud.
"Miss Lockheart, may I ask you a question?"
"Uhh, sure."
"The woman who travels with you...Reisei?"
Tifa felt her stomach lurch with warning; she knew she must not give out too much information. "Yeah?"
"Is she an Ancient?"
Tifa shrugged and tried to seem casual. "Something like that, I guess."
Elena accepted this dismissal, but she was still curious. "She looks familiar." A pause during which Tifa knew what was coming next. "She reminds me of Aerith."
"Don't talk about her after what you guys put her through."
Elena didn't answer, and Tifa almost wished she had. She would prefer an arguement to this quiet deference. They walked on in silence for a few minutes more. Out of the corner of her eye, Tifa could see Elena scanning the ground around her for footprints in the dust, and the crumbling city walls for clues. When Elena stopped to look at a graffitto on the side of an empty building, Tifa followed her with her eyes and tried to discern what she was looking at. From what she could see, it looked like a crudely drawn outline of the human body, with another, smaller and incomplete one behind it. It might have been drawn in blood, but it was hard to tell.
"Find something?" Tifa asked. She hated to ask Elena anything, but somehow felt it was important.
"Well...yes, but maybe not what we're looking for." She turned away from the drawing and faced Tifa. "That looks a little like the icon for cloning. I - well, we, really - saw something like that on...on some folders for cloning research. Hojo used it a lot." She looked slightly ill when she said his name. "It's weird that anyone around here would know it, and weirder that they would draw it. If that's really what it's supposed to be. I mean, anyone who wasn't in ShinRa wouldn't know it."
"Uh huh," Tifa said. "How much do you know about Hojo?" She didn't know where the question came from, but suddenly it felt relevant. The look on Elena's face when she had mentioned him had suggested she'd known something of him, and also it had suggested that she hadn't approved of him. For all her mistrust of the Turks, she had never wondered how they felt about anything.
"I know he was a sick bastard."
"Everyone with a brain knows that. Did you meet him?"
"I met him. I guess it was after I replaced Reno and had to go for Mako treatments. I was terrified, because, you know. Of what he had done to Reno and Tseng."
She'd said this last bit so quietly that Tifa almost didn't hear it. When she figured out what Elena had said, it intrigued her. Still, she feigned disintrest. It was probably going to be some sort of ploy or outright lie, but she asked anyway. "What did he do?"
"Miss Lockheart, you really don't want to talk about this."
"Don't tell me what I do and don't want to talk about." Aside from the fact that this steered the conversation away from Reisei, Tifa was now both defiant and curious.
Elena looked at her steadily. "Fine," she said. "Okay, fine. Not that it changes anything, of course, but I'll tell you anyway. Hojo spiked Reno and Tseng full of Confuse materia intraveinously the night they destroyed the support pillar under the plate. I didn't replace Reno because Cloud had cut him up: Reno's blood was so full of Mako that he healed right up. I replaced him because he was in psych." She waited only briefly for a reaction, then she shrugged. "No big deal, Reno was doing his job. He just had some 'help' from Hojo in terms of decision making."
Tifa stared, open-mouthed. "That's bullshit."
Elena shrugged again. "Okay." She turned away and continued walking. "Let's try to find Cloud."
Tifa grabbed her by the arm to stop her. Elena reached for her gun, but stopped herself before she took it out of her belt. Tifa pointedly ignored this gesture. "Don't stand there and tell me that Reno's not responsible for for the destruction of Sector Seven, and that you're all not responsible for this mess."
"We are responsible for this," Elena said. "And that had nothing to do with being under any kind of status materia. Scarlet walked us into this like puppies on leashes and we didn't even know where we were or who was leading us. She's behind it, but we did it, because we were stupid and greedy and unprofessional. And Reno and Tseng are responsible for blowing up the pillar, too. But when Cloud Strife freaks out and tries to kill people, then clearly he isn't responsible. Am I right?"
"This has nothing to do with Cloud."
"No, of course not," Elena said bitterly. "We're just looking for him to make sure he doesn't fall and hurt himself."
"Elena, Jenova is inside of him! Don't you get that?"
Elena looked steadily at Tifa, and seemed to gather her resolve. With a sick feeling, Tifa knew what was coming. Worse, she knew the other woman would be right when she said that Jenova had been inside of Sephiroth, too.
Elena never said it.
Tifa felt suddenly exhausted. She realized it wouldn't help to stand around sniping with the Turk for the rest of the day. She closed her eyes briefly, and felt some of her anger melt away. She tried guiltily to call it back to her. Her honor and loyalty were weaved through her hatred of the Turks: how could she forgive them and still remain loyal to the Planet and to her friends? Cloud, Vincent, Reeve and Cid had all been in ShinRa as well, but they had gotten out before Sephiroth's attack and Meteor. They hadn't stayed in ShinRa when it got really bad.
Although, she now let herself wonder what would have become of Cloud if his friend Zack hadn't literally dragged him out of ShinRa. How much longer, she wondered, would it have been before Cloud was erased in that tank of Mako, and another ShinRa killing machine had replaced him?
"Forget it," Elena said. "Let's go."
"Yeah," Tifa said, and let her tired feet take her along.
A few more steps later, she found herself talking again. "Tell me about him, then," she said. At first she wasn't entirely sure who she meant. But at the back of her mind, she now saw Reno in the same place Zack had taken Cloud from. "Reno, I mean," she said. "Because here you are spouting all this stuff, so...and we've got some time. You might as well tell me."
"It doesn't matter. We're all different people now in different situations."
"If you don't mind, it matters to me. Reno and ShinRa destroyed so much of my life. If there are reasons, I'd like to know what they are."
"I can't think of reasons, Miss Lockheart, and I don't know what to tell you about Reno. Do you want me to say that he's some tragic, tortured soul who cries everyday because he destroyed Midgar? I won't say it. Even if it were the case, it's not for me to say."
"Jesus, does he even feel remorse?" Tifa didn't know why she suddenly needed to know the answer to this. She'd gotten by for years telling herself that none of them had felt anything.
Elena turned to her again, exasperated. "What do you think?"
"I don't know what I think," Tifa said. "But you have a lot of nerve being defensive."
"Let's just say then that I have a lot of nerve, and leave it at that. We have a job to do."
"You're giving me orders, now?"
"Tifa, let it go!" Elena said. "Get over it!"
Tifa stared levelly at her. "The way you got over us leaving Tseng?"
It was Elena's turn to be nonplussed, although Tifa couldn't imagine that the other woman hadn't seen that coming.
"I am over it," she said, as she looked back at the drawing. "We have a job to do and I'm here to do it. Right now there's nothing else."
Tifa was silent as Elena traced her finger over the crude sketch.
Zangan would be so disappointed, she thought suddenly. She hadn't thought of her martial arts teacher once through this entire ordeal, and was annoyed that her subconscious was kicking her in the head over him now. She supposed that Zangan would be disappointed, because she was letting her emotions drain her.
"How do you expect to win, Tifa? Behaving like a child, releasing all of your energy in hateful words instead of through your fists? Don't fight out of anger," he whispered in her mind. "And don't slap away the hand that's offering help."
Tifa took a slow, deep breath and released it, centering herself on her task. Elena was occupied for the moment, but suddenly Tifa wasn't afraid that the other woman would attack her if she closed her eyes. She did so. All at once, her senses opened up, and she realized that she would know with her eyes closed if anyone was about to attack her. And there was no shame in having forgotten this practice, either. She was simply grateful that her mind was clear again.
She listened with her whole body. Everything was sharp and clear to her, from the wind whistling through holes in buildings to the sound of Elena's shoes scuffing the dusty pavement. To her right, from the inside of a building, she heard more interesting sounds, human sounds.
"Miss Lockheart...?"
"Shh," Tifa said, on a peaceful exhale. She was certain she had just heard a soft cry. It sounded like a woman.
"I hate to interrupt, but I think something happened here."
Tifa opened her eyes. For the first time since setting out, she was seeing things the way she was supposed to see them. Footprints in the dust. Patterns of blood splatter on the ground where the cement had collapsed, and leading from it was a trail of blood. Someone had clearly dragged himself away from this place. A piece of metal lay on the ground by the shattered sidewalk, also bloodied.
Elena was pointing to a different patch of blood. This one had obviously come from a body that had been dragged. She could see the outline, and the marks left by the heels of the body. It led off to Reeve's arcade.
"Someone needs help," Tifa said softly.
"But what about..."
"It will all fall together."
Elena glanced away, then back to Tifa. "I like the holistic approach and all," she said, "but I don't know if we should be trusting karma to lead us to Cloud."
Tifa shook her head. "It's not karma. You were right the first time when you called it holistic: it is connected. Someone needs help in there. I think it has something to do with Cloud."
"How...?"
"I don't know. But the least we could do is ask someone if they've seen him."
Elena gave her the barest hint of a smile. "That I can understand."
Together they walked towards the ruined arcade.
Cloud Strife
Cloud knew approaching human consciousness with all of his senses but sight. It was coming from the lobby of a ruined inn that he had just passed. He hadn't seen her yet, but he knew she was female, filthy, and desperate. He stopped walking, eager for human contact and curious about what she was doing in an alley in the otherwise deserted Sector Five.
"Hey, soldier," she said. She most likely didn't know if he'd been in SOLDIER or not; the greeting was a common one from a certain type of woman in Midgar. "Hey soldier, you from around here?"
Cloud turned around to see her. She was young.
"How'd you like to waste some t -" She drew her breath in quickly and took a step back.
Cloud guessed that his eyes must have been just about on fire. "Don't like the enhanced look?" he asked.
Without another word, she turned and ran back into the inn. He could smell her overpowering fear as she retreated. Something in him, of which he'd never been aware before, wanted to chase her, to follow the scent and bear it to the ground. He felt the adrenaline in his blood, and his muscles tensed up for the run.
Don't, he thought. No point.
There was no point in chasing the girl; after all, what would he gain? What would he do with her? He couldn't think of a thing to do. Couldn't think of a thing.
Couldn't think.
Should think. Should think about...
Static-white flash of her energy, and for a moment, he fought it.
Think about her heart. You've seen it.
Another flare of her energy, and the random thought was wiped from his brain.
Cloud walked on.
He was quickly becoming bored. Everything around him was dead or dying, and he wondered if he shouldn't have stayed with Tifa after all. But that wouldn't have worked, either. He needed some time with her, but he needed to be alone with her. Everyone else would just get in the way. They would try to stop him.
Stop me from doing what?
What do I want with Tifa? What do I...
Another burst of static-white in his head cut the question short.
He had to be alone with Tifa. He knew she would follow him.
Cloud walked on, absorbing every assault of the senses that the deserted city offered him.
The smells of decay and dried blood rose up from the ground. They mingled with the Mako into the air to become a nauseatingly familiar smell.
The lab...
I don't like this.
Another white flare.
Cloud opened his eyes. The air was sweet, and from somewhere close he could smell flowers. There were flowers in Midgar, like there should have been. This made Cloud very happy. It would be a good place to stay, a healthy place to stay, to breed, to pass on his DNA.
Yes, that was it. A good place to settle down and raise children.
Overhead, the sky was blue. Cloud laughed, and, staring up at the sky, kept walking.
He looked down when he stepped on something bulky and yielding.
The shape of it was obscured; Cloud couldn't decide what it was. A tree stump maybe...except that it had been soft when he stepped on it. A springy, grass covered hill? But the shape was dark, not green like soft grass.
Another flare in his brain made him jerk backwards, and he blinked and opened his eyes.
He was staring down at Hojo. Hojo had was covered in blood and had a hole in his forehead. Obviously he was dead.
Now this, of all things, was what he wanted to see. It was a good vision, it fit in with what he knew to be true: Hojo was dead and couldn't bother him anymore.
And at the same time it was unsatisfying, because there was nothing further that Cloud could do. Was he just expected to confirm once again that Hojo was dead and then move on? Hardly fair, considering all of the things Hojo had done to him.
Static burst of white, and a buzz of confusion. Things were changing inside his head.
"Where...where..." Cloud said, though he didn't know if anyone was around to hear him.
The noise cleared from his head and Cloud looked down again. Hojo was staring blankly up at him. He nudged the body with his foot.
"Numberless," it said.
Cloud leapt back, because he had been certain that the body was dead. He hadn't seen the lips move. And there was that hole in Hojo's head to consider.
"Failure," it said, and again the lips didn't move.
Or at least it seemed as if they hadn't. When he really thought about it, he could sort of remember them having moved. He was sure that Hojo's lips had moved when he'd spoken that last (hateful, so hateful) word.
"Say that again," Cloud said.
A moment passed, and nothing happened. Then: "Failed experiment."
He had heard it and seen it that time. And Hojo's stare was no longer blank; it was focussed on his failed experiment. Cloud felt glorious anger seethe up through his veins and nerves. It filled his heart, made his palms tingle and his mouth dry. He felt the hair on his arms standing up.
"Aren't you going to beg me for a number?" Hojo asked.
Cloud smiled. For the first time in his life, he was in control of Hojo. He couldn't believe his luck, having literally stumbled over the scientist and now having him at his mercy.
Your what? he asked himself, giggling at the idea.
"Hojo," Cloud said, "my mother, Planet rest her, used to tell me to treat people the way they treated me."
The doctor remained silent, only staring at Cloud. There now seemed to be fear in his eyes.
Cloud took the doctor by the wrist. "Come with me, Hojo. I need to straighten a few things out with you."
The doctor didn't oblige, but Cloud hadn't expected him to. Hojo was a slight person, and Cloud was feeling strong as it was. He dragged the doctor along behind him as he walked towards a building. It looked like a kind of amusement park on the outside, but Cloud was sure it wasn't. He knew he would find the lab on the inside.
There were a few noises coming from that building, but Cloud wasn't too concerned about them just then. His ears were filled with the satisfying sound of Hojo's body dragging along behind him.
