She would have known it was him even if he hadn't come to her with his residual self image. She would have sensed him out - his confusion, his loss, and the feeling that he wasn't where he was supposed to be.
He wasn't supposed to be there, hovering in the small border between the Planet and the Lifestream, but that didn't mean anything. The Lifestream wouldn't turn him away. It wasn't a sentient thing that would benevolently tell Cloud Strife to go back.
He approached quickly, and she sensed his weariness. Just a spirit, just his energy, no body to wash up in Mideel this time. If he entered, he wouldn't come back. How tempting the Lifestream must have been to him, the easeful, cool colors, the lulling voices. They called in their soft murmurs. They called to her, too, but she knew this realm of old. She frequented this border. She knew how to come back.
She caught him up in his wandering, caught him up as he drifted towards he Lifestream. Then he stopped, recognizing her.
I asked you if you wanted to live or if you wanted to die, she said, thinking in the voice she knew he would recognize. You told me you wanted to live. You promised me.
He lingered, pulled once more toward the Lifestream.
You're not done fighting. Are you going to live, or die?
His eyes - such as he remembered having - found her.
Are you going to live, or die?
Live, but...
His spirit voice was loud, as if he were trying to make certain he was heard.
Then, that's all I need to know. Follow.
He did.
Jenova
Hold me up baby for I may fall
Hold my dish-rag body tall
Our bodies melt together
We are one
Post crucifixion baby,
Post crucifixion and all undone.
Nick Cave; "Wild World"
Tifa clung to Barret, because Barret had known Cloud longer than anyone there apart from herself.
"This Planet is a bitch," Barret murmured into her hair.
Cid wanted to ask, "Now what?" but he didn't, for two reasons. The first reason was because he couldn't bring himself to speak. The second, because he knew it would be the wrong thing to say. And after all, he wouldn't have had time to ask the question anyway.
Cloud Strife was on his feet. "Tiresome wretch!" he shouted. "I was going to kill it anyway, but you've deprived me of my fun."
Cid felt lightheaded as he stared at Cloud, or, at the body that used to belong to Cloud. The blood streaks were gone from his face. His hair gleamed in the unnatural Mako glow from the sky. Cid had never before noticed how perfectly symmetrical he was. He could have been carved out of marble and brought to life. He looked like an angel. He looked like Sephiroth. It could have had to do with the fact that he was hovering above the ground instead of walking on it. Even Sephiroth looked at him in awe.
The air was quiet and dead as Cloud's eyes raked over all of them, settling finally on Vincent.
"It's her," Vincent said, his low voice falling flat in the still air.
"It's me," Jenova said in Cloud's voice. Then she held up Cloud's hand, palm out, in front of Vincent.
What looked like a mist of blood seemed to come from Vincent's chest, and Jenova swept it from the air into Cloud's hand. Vincent screamed once, and then fell to the ground, writhing. Cid, Reeve and Nanaki all ran to him. They all put themselves in Jenova's path to do this, but that scream had been rending, and there was nothing else to do. Now Vincent lay on the ground, blood coming from his mouth, blood staining his clothes, while Reeve made quick work of ripping the front of Vincent's shirt open. He meant to see the damage, to staunch a wound or help in any way. There was blood, but to everyone's surprise, there was no wound.
And Vincent was smiling.
Cid gave voice to the only thing that was in his head: "What the fuck?"
"She's gone," Vincent said. Then, with a laugh, he fell unconscious.
"He's alive," Reeve said, stern and practical. "We have to get him to safety..."
Before he could say another word, Cid had put his arms under Vincent and lifted him easily. He was surprised at how light he was, aside from the metal of his arm. That part of him was heavy.
Cid fled with Vincent, unwilling to admit that he was afraid to look over his shoulder, afraid to see Jenova giving chase with Cloud's body. He didn't hear Jenova behind him. More than likely, the arrogant spacebitch thought she had all the time in the world to kill them all, or maybe she wanted to start with someone else, or maybe she liked to watch the pathetic humans flee from her.
Jenova held Cloud's hands up in the direction of the black-cloaked clones and retrieved the cells from them in the same way she had done with Vincent. The clones fell, raving and moaning, to the street.
"Let's do this," Tifa said. There was no anger in her voice, no pain, and no tears. She sounded calm and resolute.
"Jesus, Tifa..." Cid began, as he hastily put Vincent on the ground, trying to shelter him behind a pile of rubble. He came back into the street, meaning to stop Tifa from confronting Jenova, but he found himself staring at Cloud - No, no, at Jenova - instead, and unable to look away.
"Yes, let's," Jenova answered in Cloud's voice, looking, through his eyes, at Tifa. "I'd love for you to try to punch me to death with your small, human hands." The hand stroked the side of Cloud's face, smooth as polished rock. "See if you can mar this perfect jaw," Jenova said. "Humans are ugly by my standard, but I've grown used to your standards. This is a good face, isn't it?" She leaned Cloud's body towards Tifa, intimately close. Tifa didn't back away.
Three more clones had shown up, and, without looking away from Tifa, Jenova retrieved her cells from them as well. She was completing herself a little at a time.
"It's a good body by your standards, too, isn't it, Tifa Lockheart?" Jenova went on as if nothing had happened. "How long I've watched you look at it, with your base, human desire. And how his eyes have looked at you." A seductive smile curved Cloud's lips, showed his white teeth. "I meant for him to mate with you, really I did, but only when I was ready to pass my cells onto another host: you, Tifa Lockheart. Insurance, you might call it. You might even have enjoyed the transfer; it would have given you Cloud in the way you wanted him.
"But I have had him all these years Tifa Lockheart. I know every scar, every muscle, every cell. I've had Cloud Strife in ways you can never imagine, but you never were able to have your moments with him, were you, Tifa Lockheart? Those fleeting, wasted moments of joining that you humans make so much of. As meaningless as any other touch, like you kicking and slapping out your frustration with sparring partners. Meaningless, like when I would allow him a moment to touch your hair as you walked by him."
Cloud's hand reached out and took a lock of Tifa's hair. Tifa stared bitterly at Jenova, refusing to dignify anything she had said with a response. Cid watched Cloud's hand as it touched Tifa, and he was repulsed. Everything in him wanted to get the creature away from her, and he found himself running to pull Tifa away.
He needn't have. Reeve was closer.
"Get off her," Reeve said through clenched teeth, as he slapped Cloud's hand away from Tifa.
Barely looking at the insignificant human who had touched Cloud's body, Jenova used the same hand to swat Reeve down to the ground. Reeve fell face down onto an already bloody patch of pavement. Without looking, Jenova swept Cloud's hand down, picked up a piece of debris from the ground - a piece of metal, Cid saw - and impaled Reeve with it, pinioning him to the ground.
Everyone seemed to scream "NO!" at once, but Cid and Elena were the first ones at his side.
"Oh, was he important?" Jenova said in a lilting voice, a voice that was still Cloud Strife's. "I should perhaps finish him off for you, then."
Cid looked up, ready to fend her off as Elena tried to assess the damage - pretty goddamned bad, it looked like - to see Cloud's body stop advancing suddenly. The blade of the Masamune jutted out from Cloud's ribs.
"I've wanted to do that for so long," Sephiroth said. Behind Jenova, he pulled the sword free. No blood came from the wound in Cloud's chest.
Jenova turned around to face Sephiroth. "Did you think that was where my heart was?" she asked. "Human, I no longer need Cloud Strife's heart, or his blood, or even his body. My heart is wherever I want it to be in my body. You can take all the time you like trying to guess, but I'll be bored if we do that." Cloud's body leaned forward again. He suddenly seemed taller, for Sephiroth now had to look up to see into the eyes Jenova had inhabited. Jenova looked at him curiously. "I used you, too," she said to Sephiroth, as if it had just dawned on her. "And you were fairly strong back then. But now, you're without me. Now you're only you. Pathetic human. Clone."
"Words, Jenova? These are your weapons?" Sephiroth shrugged fluidly, flexed his hand casually on the hilt of his sword. "Long ago, you were a force. Now your only recourse is schoolyard sniping?"
Cid took the moment that Jenova seemed to be focused on Sephiroth to try to tend to Reeve. Elena was still kneeling beside him, and her grim, determined face was streaked with tears. As she looked down at Reeve, she murmured what sounded like, "I'm so sorry."
Reeve had turned his face to the side; blood ran from his mouth. Cid moved the dark hair away from Reeve's face and saw that he seemed to be smiling; an ironic, bitter smile. He also saw that Reeve was fading fast. If he could pull the metal spike free, then find a way to staunch the flow of blood while someone cast their strongest Cure, there was a chance of keeping him alive. Cid just wasn't certain if it would be enough, but it was a start, and the only thing he could think of.
"Damnit, Reeve, I guess you're a good guy," Cid whispered to him. "Weird as hell - I never got you - but you kinda helped us here and there."
Reeve laughed weakly, and it brought more blood from his mouth. "Cid," he began, but didn't have the strength to finish.
"So, okay, what I'm gonna do is pull this thing outta you..."
"Cid, wait," Elena whispered.
Cid looked up, and Elena signaled slyly with her eyes toward Sephiroth. Over Cloud Strife's shoulder, Cid saw Sephiroth shake his head the smallest fraction, while still keeping eye contact with Jenova. Wait for my signal, Sephiroth was trying to tell them. He kept talking to Jenova, but Cid wasn't interested in what he was saying just then. It was buying them a few moments. Cid looked back at Elena, and realized something very startling: she was trusting Sephiroth.
"Damn," Cid muttered. He looked all around him, and saw Nanaki standing by the rubble where Vincent lay; Tifa and Barret stood together with Yuffie behind them; Reno, Rude and Tseng were in a small group, with Reno crouching on the ground as if ready to spring into action. Cid wasn't surprised to see that Reno was once again holding that nightstick of his. The thing that struck him most about what he saw was how perfectly motionless everyone was. No one wanted to distract Jenova from Sephiroth.
Sephiroth was, Cid realized, using himself as bait, at least for the moment.
"...then you have miscalculated your chances, human," Jenova was saying to Sephiroth.
Without warning, she struck. At first, Cid couldn't see exactly what had happened, but it looked as if Cloud's hand had just taken a swing at Sephiroth, and that seemed odd to him. But when Sephiroth deflected the strike with the blade of his sword, it rang out like metal against stone.
"Don't you remember the things I allowed you to do with your body?" Jenova asked Sephiroth.
"Yes, I remember the mutations now that I've seen you," Sephiroth answered conversationally.
She struck again, and Sephiroth parried again. Cid had forgotten how damned fast Sephiroth was.
"They weren't mutations to you back then, clone. They were privileges."
Without answering in words, Sephiroth struck, his sword once again glancing off the arm that Jenova had apparently turned into some sort of armor.
Jenova was laughing, but the sound was cut off by a gunshot. It was followed by a squealing, whirring sound like grating feedback. Rude and Reno had stepped up behind Sephiroth, and Reno had turned the EMr on.
Jenova laughed as Rude's bullet went through Cloud's body.
Tifa and Barret stepped up to join, but Rude waved them back: "Wait till we're dead and then take over," was what the gesture said, and Tifa and Barret understood it.
All of Avalanche had understood it, ten years ago when facing down Sephiroth.
By that reasoning, Cid thought, it might have been better to wait until everyone else was dead or unable to fight, and Jenova was tired out, and then use Sephiroth to fight her. Yet, any way he looked at it, it seemed pointless. Jenova wouldn't get tired. Not this time. She'd had a long, refreshing sleep, and she was nearly complete again. It was useless to try to kill her before she retrieved all of her cells - this, Cid now understood, had been their mistake the first time they'd battled her - but once she had retrieved them all, he didn't think they could kill her.
In despair, Cid watched as Jenova struck at Sephiroth, and this time, she didn't miss. She raked him right down the front and halfway down his sword arm, and Cid felt a moment of hateful, vengeful joy at seeing Sephiroth caught unaware like that. He couldn't help it, he guessed. Old feelings died hard. Though it did seem unlike Sephiroth to be caught off guard.
"Get ready," Elena whispered, and at first Cid thought she was talking to him. Looking at her, he saw that she was talking to Reeve as she gently smoothed his hair. Reeve didn't respond.
Sephiroth nodded to Cid, confusing him beyond all belief for a moment. Then Sephiroth took a step back, as Rude and Reno moved together to stand in front of him, and raised his arms to the sky. Cid felt the pull of warm air all around him, felt it all moving towards Sephiroth as if he were gathering it into himself. All at once, Cid understood.
He looked up at Elena. She nodded, and placed her hand gently on the back of Reeve's head. "Go," she said to Cid.
Cid wrapped his hands around the end of the metal spike, placed his knee none too gently on Reeve's back, and pulled swift and hard. He hoped, fleetingly, that his decision to trust Vincent's judgment of Sephiroth had been the right one.
It began to rain.
Scarlet
Scarlet stumbled, fell, and decided to stay on the ground for a few quiet moments. It certainly beat this running frantically shit she had been doing for the last few hours. Or maybe it was minutes. She couldn't quite tell. There were so many things of which she was no longer certain. One thing had eclipsed all: She had seen Jenova. Of that, she was sure.
Jenova had looked like Cloud Strife, and Scarlet had no coherent idea why that was. But Cloud Strife was dead. Tifa Lockheart, of all people, had killed him, and Jenova had taken his place.
Scarlet had watched until the moment when the body had risen from the dead. She had watched the body stand, watched it turn, and for a moment she had seen its eyes. They were flat and ageless.
Cloud Strife had spent an hour of his life terrorizing her and threatening her life, and she had been terrorized. She had feared for her life, she had feared pain, she had even feared the unrelenting sick feeling she'd had as she shared space with the raving, bleeding thing he had become. But all that while, she'd still had her wits, her guts, her will.
At the glance of Jenova's eyes, all of that had melted away, and Scarlet had found herself rigid with horror, unable to move from the spot behind a pile of rubble where she'd been crouching to see what came next. For the first time since she'd laid eyes on him, Scarlet felt pity for Cloud Strife. And pity was exactly what it was: she wasn't necessarily sorry for his bad fortune and she certainly didn't feel guilty for it, but she did pity, for a moment, this sad, dead creature.
And then she had broken the spell of her terror and run. And she had kept on running until her feet didn't feel the ground anymore and her legs tangled with each other.
Her breaths came ragged and loud for a few moments. She hugged the ground and willed herself to calm down, to catch her breath. There was a cramp in her side that prevented her from filling her lungs the way she needed to, but she knew that would pass. After another few minutes, she rolled over and looked at the sky. It was glowing faintly, Mako green. Scarlet understood that she was responsible for the release of the toxin from the cloning lab, but again, she felt no guilt. The cloning lab shouldn't have been operating in the first place. More importantly, its destruction was worth this sacrifice of this pathetic town and its low-minded occupants.
Painfully, Scarlet sat up. She looked around, trying to discern where she was. Before she even recognized the street or any of the buildings, she smelled fuel. It was the fuel of an airship. Then she saw where she was, and she remembered it.
The Tempest. She could remember walking through the adjacent alley to get away from Reeve and his silly heroics. The Tempest was on the field on the other side of these buildings, and it was empty. Jenova and the others were far behind her. Scarlet made her way towards the airship.
She couldn't fly the Tempest, and she would have to wait for Heidegger, if he was still alive, to get her out of Midgar, but she could have a look around. Reeve was bound to have left something of importance there, something she could use against him.
He made it so easy for her sometimes.
Cid Highwind
Bodies of Jenova injected clones lay scattered around the pavement, most of them in tattered, black cloaks. These were the ones leftover from the Jenova project more than twenty years ago, babbling, half-sentient beings that couldn't even be called human anymore, if they ever had been.
Cid wondered if some of them had, in fact, been human before Hojo injected them with Jenova. If some of them had been like Cloud.
It wasn't difficult to realize that Cloud Strife was gone, even though his body was fighting an easily-won battle against Sephiroth. (Cid berated himself for ever thinking that Jenova could be beaten. That sort of hope had been useless.) Any satisfaction Cid had once had at seeing Sephiroth lose to anyone had long since passed. Now it was just sickening to watch someone of such grace and power, no matter who he was, be tossed aside like a rag doll.
Jenova, still using the body of Cloud Strife, hovered over to where Sephiroth lay on the pavement. The Masamune had clattered to the ground a few feet away from him. She grabbed a handful of blood-matted, silver hair and jerked him to his knees. Sephiroth opened his expressionless eyes and met her gaze easily, calmly.
"Are you through?" she asked.
Moving with astonishing dexterity and speed, Sephiroth hooked the hilt of his sword with his foot and dragged it to where he could reach it. In reply to Jenova's question, he thrust the sword backwards under his arm, impaling the creature once more.
Laughing, Jenova grabbed the blade coming out of her back and pulled it all the way through. The skin, muscle and bones of what used to be Cloud's body simply melted back into place as if nothing had ever pierced it.
Sephiroth took that moment to get up. He and Jenova stared at each other levelly for a moment.
Jenova was unharmed, and, Cid guessed, almost complete. There didn't seem to be anymore clones showing up. She must have only been missing a few of her own distributed cells, and soon she would have all of them back. By then, Cid figured, she would be completely unstoppable. Sephiroth hadn't struck any vital blows yet and his time was running out.
And yet he still stood facing her, looking confident and impassive, like any soldier on any mission. Blood ran from both corners of his mouth, and freely from an open wound in his shoulder. He would probably cast the Great Gospel again soon, and then once again everyone in the group would have a try at cornering Jenova and possibly striking her. Each time they tried to do such a thing after the effects of the last limit break had worn off, Sephiroth had waved them all back with his sword. He, too, knew how useless it was to fight her without the effects of the Great Gospel. If she struck again, he might hit his limit. Or, more likely, she might take him out.
Cid glanced around at the group to see if anyone else saw what he saw. Elena was still frantically healing Reeve whenever she could, but her energy was waning. The Great Gospel had saved Reeve's life, and she was trying to hold onto it for him. Tseng, Rude and Reno had to support her. They watched the battle carefully and stayed quiet, knowing that Jenova was more concerned with the annoying human clone than she was with them at the moment. Vincent was still unconscious, with both Nanaki and Yuffie standing close to him, waiting for signs that he was with them again. Cid could only wonder what he would feel when he woke. If he woke.
But it was in the faces of Tifa and Barret that Cid saw the recognition of futility that he felt. He could see by Tifa's flexing hands that she wanted to fight. Barret had his arm firmly around her shoulder. Cid didn't doubt that Barret would knock her out before he let her go up against this monster alone, without the protection of Sephiroth's limit break on her.
Sephiroth's limit break. The idea appalled him, and yet there was the man, fighting their battle. Why? Contrition? Cid doubted it. Duty? It was possible. Because he had nothing better to do? No other reason on the Planet? That was the option that Cid chose to believe.
"Take your sword, human clone," Jenova said, as she held the Masamune out to Sephiroth, hilt first. When she saw that Sephiroth wasn't inclined to move, she said, "I'm offering you your fallen weapon. It's the honorable thing to do, isn't it? I'm only guessing. I don't know much about honor. But then, do you?"
Sephiroth didn't move. Cid wished like hell he would just take the damned stupid sword (a wish he would have never in all the ages of the Planet thought he'd make,) but then he had to wonder if he would take the sword if he were in Sephiroth's place. And rely on the mercy of this...thing? No, never. He had to admit that Sephiroth was doing exactly what he himself would have done.
Jenova grew impatient with his silence, and she finally cracked him across the jaw with the hilt of the sword. As Cid had guessed, Sephiroth was too stunned to cast anything at all, let alone his limit break. He fell like a broken toy and was still. It looked completely wrong.
"Goddamn you, stop!" Reeve yelled, struggling sit up. The Turks tried to hold him back, to shush him, anything to keep him from calling attention to himself. They knew, as well as he did, that another attack would end Reeve's life for good. But Reeve wouldn't be shushed.
"I can't watch this anymore!" Reeve went on. "I can't watch you torture...anyone like this!"
Jenova twisted Cloud's features into a cruel smirk as she looked at Reeve, who looked so small compared to this being that now seemed so much larger than Cloud had ever been. "I thought I finished you," she said. "But then, you all look alike to me." The hand extended again, in the same claw-like gesture she had made before her first strike on Sephiroth. Reeve saw it, but he didn't stop or try to move away.
"Hey, Spacebitch!" Cid called. He whistled obnoxiously and waved the Venus Gospel in the air. "Hey, virus, over here! Lemme ask you something." He saw he had Jenova's attention, so he asked the one thing he actually did want to know. "You almost done transforming yet? I mean, you've got all these dead clones here, I'd'a thought by now you'd have all your cells. How many more before you're done baking? I wanna go have a cigarette and you're holding me up."
The truth was, Cid knew she was close, he only wondered where the last few stragglers were, the handful of poor bastards who had her cells somewhere in their bodies, sleeping or reproducing like a cancer.
Jenova took a step towards him.
"You're right, Cid Highwind," she said. "There are actually two more poor bastards, or maybe even three, but I wanted to wait until this human clone with the longsword was out of the way before I did it. He's such a pest, sticking that sword of his here and there."
"Yeah, well then where..."
Quick as a striking snake, before Cid could finish his thought, she thrust out one hand again, this time in the direction of the Turks. Cid didn't have time to wonder what in the hell she was doing. Reno opened his mouth, perhaps to scream, Cid would never know. No sound came out. Reno's hand went to his chest and he looked down, open-mouthed and ghost-white, at the blood what was suddenly running down his shirt. Jenova made a grabbing gesture, and Reno's back arched as if his spine would snap. Rude caught him before he fell.
"What the fuck!" Rude shouted. "Reno! Christ! You never told anyone..."
...two more poor bastards...
Cid choked on his next breath. She had answered as if she'd read his thoughts.
"Reno didn't tell anyone 'cause he didn't know," Cid said, mostly to himself.
"Of course," Jenova answered, as she turned to face him.
In his blurred vision, he saw everyone's confused, terrified faces as they watched what was happening to Reno. Everyone looked surprised, but not as surprised as Cid was.
"Fucking ShinRa," he muttered, and then Jenova held her hand out to him. He closed his eyes because he didn't want to know when she was going to do it.
The next moment, he did know, and he wasn't quietly shocked about it like Reno had been. He screamed like she had ripped his heart out, and indeed, that's what it felt like, or as close as Cid could imagine. He screamed and he felt himself falling, clutching at his chest the way the others had done, cursing ShinRa, sneaky bastard ShinRa, the entire corporation. He heard Tifa call his name, and then he hit the ground.
He was able to open his eyes a crack, and was surprised that Tifa wasn't hovering over him, concerned. Goddamnit, he was dying here, he was writhing on the frigging ground; everyone had gone running to Vincent and Reno when they had done the same thing!
But everyone was strangely quiet. Too quiet all of a sudden, considering what had just happened. She must be transforming into something else, Cid thought. It was the only thing he could think of that would take the attention away from him.
He was dying, probably, but he had to see what happened in his last few moments. He was helpless with his eyes closed. Well, he was helpless anyway, but he felt more helpless with his eyes closed, and he still didn't want to miss anything. He didn't want to go out closing his eyes against the horror, like a little kid.
He saw Tifa first. Her face was set in a kind of hysterical grimace, and she was biting on the knuckles of her right hand. She wasn't looking at Jenova, as Cid had thought she would be.
Cid was so tired, his eyes wanted to close, but he forced them open and he followed Tifa's line of vision. Had he been standing, he might have fallen back down just then.
Shit, Cid thought, finally unable to resist the pull of unconsciousness. I guess I'm already dead.
Because there was no other reason for him to have seen Cloud Strife standing on the sidewalk, wearing Sephiroth's coat and staring blankly into the eyes of the creature who had taken over his body.
