The group had reached Nibelheim just as the rain had stopped. The red tiled rooftops of houses were covered in a cold white light from the dull sky. Sephiroth walked to the town entrance, with his crew not far behind. Two white picket fences were to his sides, next to old brown barrels. A rusted pick-up truck was to his right. Zack, Cloud and the other ShinRa MP stopped a few yard behind Sephiroth. Cloud jolted realising what he had forgotten. He ran back to the parked ShinRa truck, grabbed his helmet from the compartment and put it on, before running over to his comrades again. Sephiroth turned and spoke to Cloud as he walked back over.
"How does it feel? It's your first time back to your hometown in a long time, right?" He paused and thought to himself.
"So how does it feel? I wouldn't know because I don't have a hometown..."
"Ummm...How 'bout your parents?" questioned the uniformed Cloud. Sephiroth looked at the floor and put a hand on his chin.
"My mother is Jenova. She died right after she gave birth to me. My father..." He stopped and still facing the floor began to shake his shoulders silently chuckling at something. He suddenly snapped out of his strange laughter and became deadly serious once again.
"What does it matter? All right, let's go." Sephiroth turned his back to the men, awaiting Zack to follow him into the town.
"Psst..." The unnamed MP whispered. "You keep wandering around here and you'll get into trouble."
"It's so boring, being on watch." Cloud told the MP and Zack.
"You want to do what we always do?" asked Zack, always ready to relieve boredom. "Shall we practice?"
"Practice...Oh, you mean practice my pose. Does someone in SOLDIER always have to be careful about what other people think? ...How did it go?" Cloud stood in a heroic pose, his chest out and his feet in a combat-ready position.
"Was it like this?"
"Good job!" Zack told him with a smile. Cloud relaxed.
Zack began walking over to Sephiroth towards the town.
"The Mako smell is pretty bad here." Remarked Sephiroth as Zack walked past.
The foursome entered the yellow-soiled town centre. A large water tower with a fan sticking out the side stood on wooden stilts in the middle of the town courtyard, this was referred to as the 'well' to the people that lived here. The town was mainly made up of white two storey houses, with wooden beams across and red tiled rooftops, with different sized metal chimneys. Behind a row of houses was a large manor, shadowed by trees. Older than the rest of the buildings, it was surrounded by a wall and had a large gate in front of it. It looked like it had been empty for some time. To the right of the abandoned mansion was the path leading up to the nearby Mt. Nibel.
An inn was the nearest building to the ShinRa men, it was wider than the rest of the buildings. Sephiroth stopped outside of the inn.
"We leave for the reactor at dawn. Make sure you get to sleep early. All that we need is one lookout, so you others, get some rest." He pushed the door to the inn open and then turned to the men. "Oh, that's right...You may visit your family and friends." He walked inside.
Zack sighed, and took in his surroundings. Cloud looked around nervously. The other MP shrugged and walked into the inn.
"I'm going to go look for someone." Cloud told Zack.
"Alright." acknowledged Zack. "I'll see you later." He walked into the inn.
Cloud looked around his hometown. He noticed there wasn't many people about and pondered whether it was because of the monsters, or because of the soldiers. He turned and faced the water tower. He closed his eyes and took himself back two years. He remembered that night under the stars when the girl he'd had a crush on his whole life: Tifa Lockhart talked to him the first time. He remembered a promise that he made to her. He remembered how he told her he was leaving town to join SOLDIER. Cloud brought himself back to reality and hung his head in shame, thinking about how he had never made it into SOLDIER and couldn't get further than the rank of a ShinRa MP. He thought about what he realised when he left his helmet in the truck. He couldn't let anyone here know about his failure. But Cloud knew that he had to see Tifa, one way or another.
Meanwhile, Zack entered the Nibelheim Inn. A bald old man stood behind a counter opposite the doorway, a flight of stairs was to the left of the counter. A more interesting figure stood to the side of the counter, a well built but aged man, with long grey hair in a small ponytail and with a bushy beard to match.
Zack walked across the wooden floorboards, dully gleaming in the light from the lantern on the counter. The inn keeper looked up.
"What do you need?" He asked.
"Where's Sephiroth?" Responded Zack.
"He's upstairs."
"Hmm. Give me a room."
"It's all reserved for you ShinRa people, so I don't mind."
Zack nodded. "How is the town?"
"A lot of monsters have been appearing in the last 12 months. Other than that, there's not much change. Nothing much happens in a little town like this. It was all right when they were building the reactor...While they were still building it. But once it was completed, it's been bad. Within a few years, all the trees on the mountain withered away. I don't know if the reactor was good or bad. I mean it's easy to say it was a bad idea now, but what can you do about it? Anyhow, we've got to get rid of the monsters. Then we'll be able to relax a bit..."
The man beside the counter looked up at Zack. He wore a brown leather jacket, had baggy light grey trousers and most notably wore a large scarlet cape.
"Hmmm... Is ShinRa here to get rid of the monsters?" He asked the SOLDIER.
Zack struck his usual SOLDIER pose, chest out, left foot forward. "And who are you?"
"I am Zangan." He said proudly. "I travel around the world teaching children Martial Arts." The mysterious man crouched and then sprung up jumping right over Zack's head and landing behind him. "I have 128 students all over the world! In this town, a girl named Tifa is my student." He boasted to Zack's back. Zack thought to himself.
"Didn't Cloud mention something about a 'Tifa'...?" He muttered before turning around to face Zangan. "Did you say Tifa?"
"Tifa has good sense. She'll be a powerful fighter." Zangan leaped back over Zack's head. "I want to see some ShinRa techniques. And if you see anything you can use, you might want to incorporate some of my techniques. Well, good luck."
Zack nodded and began backing away, he turned and started climbing the red carpeted stairs.
Cloud stepped out of Tifa's house. She wasn't in. He walked over to the house next door. The house that he used to live in. Cloud stopped at the door, his mother was the only person he felt like he could trust right now, the only person who could know about him not getting into SOLDIER. Cloud pushed the door open. He walked in and looked around. The floorboards gleamed and the house looked very clean. Two made beds were to the right of the entrance, across from them was a kitchen area. The bungalow was littered with decorative vases and picture frames.
Cloud cleared his throat. "Uh?"
"Yes?" A woman wearing an orange dress with a white apron on walked around the corner. She had blonde hair, tied into a ponytail at the back, spiked up at the front, like Cloud's. The woman had a glow to her, a vibrant energy. She looked at the ShinRa MP. Even with his helmet on, she recognised him.
"Cloud? Welcome home, Cloud!"
"Hi, mom..."
Zack walked through the top floor of the inn. Sephiroth stood there in a hallway, still as a statue, staring out of the window deep in thought. Zack leant in trying to see what the silver haired warrior was looking at.
"What are you looking at?"
"...This scenery...I feel like I know this place..." Sephiroth told him.
"Hmm." Zack leaned away and walked through the nearby doorway, leaving Sephiroth to his thoughts.
Cloud sat on the steps leading up to his kitchen, his helmet sat next to him. His mother stood staring at him.
"Come, come... Let me take a look at you! Hmmm...You look so handsome." So is this a SOLDIER uniform?"
"No, Mom, I..."
Zack looked around the room they were going to stay in, it had a serene atmosphere. The ShinRa MP was examining the three beds across from him.
"We're short one bed..."
"Hmm. I'm sure Cloud could stay with his family here. We'll be okay."
Cloud was resting, sprawled across his bed.
"My how you've grown. I'll bet the girls never leave you alone." Said Cloud's mother.
"Not really."
"...I'm worried about you. There are a lot of temptations in the city. I'd feel better if you just settled down with a nice girlfriend."
"I'm all right."
"You should have... an older girlfriend, one that'll take care of you. I think that would be best for you." She suggested.
"I'm not interested."
Despite acting as if she was annoying him with constant questions, Cloud was glad to be home and glad to see his mother again, he hid his smile.
Back in the inn, Sephiroth turned to Zack.
"...We have an early start tomorrow. You should get some sleep soon."
"Yeah, let's get some sleep." Zack agreed. He began to walk away to his bed. When Sephiroth spoke again.
"I've hired a Guide to the Mako reactor. I've heard she's young...I hope we can count on her..."