Short chapter, kinda rushed, even. Not my favorite. This is almost to the end! Only a few more chapters after this.
Mahalo everyone, for sticking with this fic.
ETA: An astute reviewer caught a glaring glitch at the end of this chapter, which I can attempt to remedy with a line or two; hopefully this edited version will work out better. Thank you, observant reader!
The Border
On one side was noise, hard shapes, rough textures, an unyielding world. On that side, her tired, withered body lay surrounded by stale air inside an airship. A ragged, bloody man had shaken her once in an attempt to rouse the body. He had been an almost infinitely small distraction, and only for a moment. Then he had faded into the rest of the hard shapes.
On the other side was cool green and vibrant white. The green was of energy; the white, of the essence of the human spirit.
She hovered on the border between the two worlds, waiting for him.
It wouldn't be long now.
Avalanche
It had all happened so fast, Reeve hadn't had time to prepare. Sephiroth had led them to Sector Five, and then Reeve had found himself in the front line, leading them to the arcade. As the group got closer, he could hear them checking their weapons and materia. No one had to be reminded to do these things; they were a grim battle habit. Tseng murmured a few words to Reno and Rude. Reeve didn't hear them all, but he caught Elena's name in it.
Then the arcade was in sight, and as soon as they were nearly upon it, the doors burst open. Scarlet had thrown them open, and she had just taken one frantic step out, when she shrieked and was jerked back inside, seemingly by her hair.
"Strife!" Sephiroth shouted.
The hand that had pulled Scarlet (and Reeve wasn't yet ready to admit that it was Cloud's,) must have released her, because her forward momentum spilled her onto the ground outside of the arcade.
Something that looked like it might have, at one time, been Cloud Strife, followed her out.
"Stop," Sephiroth said, and cast his status materia on Cloud.
Cloud nodded, without even looking to see who had interrupted him. "Stop," he repeated. "Nice one, but I have this..."
Sephiroth closed the distance with nauseating speed. Cloud didn't have the time to react or even to see who was attacking him, before he was knocked to the ground by the flat of the Masamune blade.
"What are you doing, cadet?" Sephiroth said.
A look of profound confusion crossed Cloud's face as he stared up at his General.
"I'm...I'm..."
"You're giving the enemy the advantage."
"Enemy?" Cloud repeated.
As Cloud lay on the ground, Scarlet got up, sobbing. She looked from Cloud to Sephiroth. "Oh, shit," she said.
Reeve broke from the small crowd and went to her. He held out his hand, and she took it without looking at him and let him help her stand.
"Get out of here, Scarlet," he said.
Then, she did look at him. She looked him right in the eyes. "Don't let yourself think I owe you, Reeve," she said. "I'm not finished with you."
"Scarlet, I had expected nothing less."
"You're learning," she said, and pulled her hand away from his. Then she turned and fled.
During Reeve's exchange with Scarlet, Tifa had come out of the arcade, followed by Elena. They both looked exhausted and shaken.
Cloud Strife had gotten himself to his feet. Sephiroth casually kept the Masamune at his side.
"Enemy?" Cloud said again. He looked at everyone in the group, one at a time, lingering noticeably on Vincent. "Enemies," he said, and, reaching behind him, grabbed something off the back of his belt.
"Hey, that's..." Reno began.
He never finished the thought, because Cloud had flicked the EMr on, and the squealing sound it made startled everyone but Sephiroth.
Sephiroth knocked the weapon out of Cloud's hand, reversed the Masamune in his hand and tried to hit Cloud with the handle. Cloud dodged and rolled in such a way that Tifa might have expected, but Sephiroth did not. These moves were not ShinRa training; they were the quick survival impulses given to him by Jenova. Cloud aimed the EMr, not at Sephiroth, but at Elena, and blasted her with it.
Elena fell to the ground, and the Turks were on their knees huddled around her the instant after.
Reeve, among them all, stood staring at Cloud for a moment before getting his ass into gear. In that moment, Cloud looked less than human. After registering this fact and shaking off his own shock, Reeve ran to see if Elena was all right. If she wasn't, then somehow, in some way or another, Cloud would answer to him for it, alien virus or no.
Reeve shoved Reno aside, his heart practically fluttering with nerves and adrenaline as he knelt beside Elena. Her eyes had rolled back, but she was breathing and moving. Rude had begun healing her. Reeve sat back on his heels and remembered to breathe. Elena had just opened her eyes, and Reeve was remarking to himself on how glad he was to see them, so his back was turned when Tifa shrieked.
Reeve, like everyone else, turned around at the sound of her cry to see Tifa standing between Sephiroth and Cloud. Sephiroth was on his feet, and Cloud was on the ground.
"I'll kill you myself!" Tifa shouted at Sephiroth, her arms spread wide in protection and defiance. "Don't touch him again, don't you dare!"
Sephiroth sighed, which was not quite the reaction anyone else would have had to her wrath. Wordlessly, he pointed the blade of the Masamune away from him, to the side. Tifa at first refused to look where he indicated.
Reeve looked. At first glance, he wasn't certain what he was seeing. It was a shapeless, black mass. It moved in a lurching, humanoid way, and suddenly Reeve knew. It was somewhere between a someone and a something, and it had just taken a step. It was wearing a black cape.
"Reunion," Reeve whispered to no one but himself.
Vincent Valentine walked to stand behind Sephiroth. "Tifa, look," he said.
Tifa did look at the creature. Then she looked back at Sephiroth, then Vincent. "A clone," she said. The challenge of, "So what?" was in her voice.
"A clone with Jenova cells," Sephiroth said. He turned to Vincent. "Am I correct in my assumption?"
Vincent nodded.
To their left, two more black-clad clones came from the alley. They shuffled along, moaning and muttering in their half-language.
"I'm going to take the time that Strife is unconscious to be completely honest with you, Miss Lockheart," Sephiroth said. He glanced over his shoulder at everyone else in the group. "If I'm wrong, anyone here must correct me. Jenova plans a reunion inside of Cloud Strife. She'll take the cells out of the clones that make their way here, and she'll take the cells out of Vincent Valentine; she'll take them into Cloud's body. She won't use her real form, because the transformation will leave her vulnerable and she knows you won't hesitate to kill her in that moment of vulnerability. She will use this body," Sephiroth said, indicating Cloud with another tilt of his sword, "because then you will hesitate. You will hesitate, and Jenova will use Cloud Strife's hands to kill you, Miss Lockheart, and everyone here. Cloud will go insane, if he isn't already, as he watches it helplessly from his mind. Then Jenova will mutate his body, which will not be pleasant for him, and believe me when I tell you that she will make certain that he feels everything she does. Then she will move on, killing as she goes along.
"She may or may not kill Cloud, at least not right away. She may decide to keep him around as her plaything. This I can discuss with you in detail - great personal detail, if you understand me - if you really would like to know what it's like, but I don't think we have the time right now."
Tifa was crying, and she lowered her arms, but didn't stand down. She looked over Sephiroth's shoulder to Vincent.
Vincent stepped between them, put his hand on Tifa's shoulder. "Jenova is going to use Cloud's body no matter what," he said. "I'm...privy to this knowledge. What Sephiroth is saying, Tifa, is that you can spare Cloud going through this."
"And save time, you bunch of dicks," Cid spoke up in a broken voice. "Spare Cloud the horror and save loads of precious time into the deal." Reeve saw that Cid was crying, too.
Sephiroth sighed once more, and drew his hand down over his face tiredly, a gesture so remarkably like one Reeve had seen Cloud make countless times that it seemed to cut his heart. And it scared him. If Sephiroth was weary, things looked bad for the Planet as well as for Cloud and everyone else.
"You're trying to trick me," Tifa said through her tears, though by then it was obvious that even she didn't believe that.
"Miss Lockheart, I'm trying to give you options." Sephiroth's voice was impatient, but reasonable. "It's the only thing I can give you."
At this phrase, all of the fight finally went out of Tifa Lockheart. She was, for the first time in her life, defeated. Weeping, she went to her knees beside Cloud. "If you could tell me what you want," she said to him. "If you could tell me, I would do it."
Cloud never answered her.
Finally, she looked up at Sephiroth again. "Not with that thing," she said, pointing at the Masamune.
Sephiroth nodded. Then, in a strange moment of what looked like compassion, he knelt down with Tifa. "Miss Lockheart," he said, with such unaccustomed kindness that Reeve almost choked.
"Don't you dare tell me some shit like 'You're doing the right thing,' like I'm having a favorite pet put down or..."
"I wasn't going to," Sephiroth said. "I don't know what the right thing is, I only know what Jenova plans. What I do want to say, though..." He stopped, looked around at everyone else, deciding to address them as well. "Reisei had figured on this," he said. "I don't think I'm too far off when I say that there is some of the Ancient in her. I think it's possible that she could somehow...could somehow..."
Strange as it seemed, Sephiroth was at a loss for words.
"Christ, goddamnit, let's do this if we're going to!" Cid roared. "Do it quick, bastard!"
It was Vincent who stepped up. He held his hand out, offering a materia orb to Tifa. It was Death. Tifa took it, as Vincent kneeled down and removed the ribbon from Cloud's armor. He did this respectfully enough, but quickly; with Jenova's urging, Cloud could, and likely would, wake up any second. Then Sephiroth stood up, and he and Vincent stepped away.
Reeve, and everyone else, looked away.
