Disclaimer: I don't own, not making any money, you won't get much if you sue me. Nothing actually, so don't bother.

/.../ - italics
//...// - thoughts
*...* - mindspeech/telepathy
- speech (duh)
----------------- - Scene change, flashback, dreaming (it's a multi-purpose stream of dashes)

Send all questions, comments, etc. to: asprosdracos@hotmail.com

This is eventual shounen-ai, but nothing concrete yet...flames because of pairing will be dealt with...harshly...actually, flame away, it's nice to have something to laugh at. Bigotry is amusing.


Xehorista Tora

By Asprosdracos

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Chapter Two

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I woke up in the dream the day
To the cold of the static
Put my cold feet on the floor.
Forgot about yesterday
Remembering I'm pretending to be who I'm not anymore.
A little taste of hypocrisy
And I'm left in the wake of the mistakes, slow to react
And even though you're so close to me
And you're still so distant
And I can't bring you back.

- With You by Linkin' Park, Hybrid Theory

-----------------

On occasion, colors are more than just rays of reflected light. To say the Lifestream was /green/ was to demean everything that is truly stood for. The color defined the Lifestream but something else /created/ it, a forged river flowing with the raw matter of souls.

Created with hope, hatred, despair, joy and love. A parcel of intangible emotions and abstract nouns. A presence that was beyond all that, beyond the color. Just standing at the edge, Zack could feel his soul reaching out, trying to join the call of the multitude.

He shivered, trying to pull his soul in, away from the pull, as impossible as it was for him to do so. He owed the stream of flowing green a lot, and thus he forced himself to stand here, despite the general disturbing nature of the Lifestream.

Besides, he'd be damned if he showed anyone that he was frightened of the unnatural pull of the stream, or perhaps the natural pull, so a part of him so integral that its outward appearance felt foreign. Feelings aside, he had to be here, to reassure the part of him that still didn't believe that this was real.

//I mean, sure, so the Lifestream brings back my soul, but spending Spikey back...there...//

It was, even now, not so much that he did not believe it but that he could not. For all that happened, there were still laws that existed in his mind, laws that did not want to be violated.

The dead coming back - sure, he was living proof of the power of the Lifestream and the power of Shinra science, just like two others-

//No - /one/ other, remember the note to self? The very important note to self that must be remembered at all times? The other one didn't happen, he's not /him/ anymore anyway.//

Zack wouldn't remember him. Couldn't remember him, remember the madness again. It was easier, far preferable to let his mind drift to a happier thought, a more welcome revived person.

She was in the room now, controlling - although she herself preferred communing, to which Zack had replied that as long as she got the spirits to do what they had to she could call it whatever she wanted - the Lifestream.

Pink was a surprising contrast to the green, but it defined her, the color shaping and understating her attributes. To Zack it seemed like their he could not picture her in anything else. True, logic demanded that she must have other clothing that she wore, the continuity of the SOLDIER garb was one thing, easily explained away with the multitude of identical uniforms, but how many articles of clothing, how many dresses of that exact shade and make could one person have?

No, logic asserted that the pink dress, the red vest were only the most recognizable articles of Aeris's clothing, and the others had faded away to dusky memory, not suiting her or not suiting the image that Zack held in his mind of her.

In more ways than one, logic was inferior to memory.

Her dress swung around her, the lower sections ruffling in the soul wind, gusts borne out on the ether in the air, emanations of the Lifestream. The rippling river of brown hair, as vibrant now as it was when he remembered her, the long braid a part of her too, as integral as the dress, the vest.

//The vest...I wonder, if when Spikey says she died, it was redder then...if blood would...//

Watching Aeris, being around her, so full of life, rebounding back from the realms of the green death better than any of them, taking it in stride and immediately finding a position in the effort, in the war.

Seeing her now, the green sweeping over her in wisps, tasting but not taking her living soul, it was hard to imagine that blood and steel would have dared to mar that red, that pink.



Even a first class SOLDIER can be startled, and Aeris had the most uncanny of habits to sneak up on people. Of all of the group only Vincent had yet to be caught unawares by the revived Ancient, and the day that Vincent was caught unawares by anyone was the day that Zack himself officially declared the world over and all rules of logic suspended.

Zack faith in logic may be failing, but to believe that someone could sneak up on that ex-turk - he wouldn't buy that.

He supposed, however, that he could celebrate such an event - should it occur - by going through an entire day without calling Cloud any of his nicknames like Spike, Spikey, Kid or any of the other assorted list.

He sighed then, having completely forgotten the presence of the Ancient as soon as the topic strayed to Vincent and the end of all existence, which in his mind were fairly weighty matters, and well worth forgetting the presence of Aeris over.

Aeris Gainsborough did not like being ignored. However, Aeris also was, all things considered, one of the more easy going people to grace the surface of the Planet, so it was no fault of hers that the Princess Guard managed to slip out of her expert grasp and land rather heavily on Zack's foot, resulting in the subsequent return to reality of one dark-maned SOLDIER.

Aeris! Did you have to do that?

A small smile, the closest the Ancient ever got to a smirk. Zack, you're thinking too much again.

I'm thinking too much so you hit me in the foot?!

A laugh now, a compliment to the smile. Some part of Zack rejoiced, it was so good to see her laugh, just to see her. There had been a time, years ago, when he would have given anything to see her smile.

It was the only way to get your attention, and besides, it was an accident.

Accident. Sure. You're almost as bad as Spike is at lying to me, you know that?

Would I lie to you? At this, Zack almost burst out laughing, Aeris somewhat exuberant nature misplaced but much appreciated.

And very much missed. He had missed the sounds of laughter, of her laughter, innocent and carefree. A surprising contrast, that anything could be carefree in this world, in this place and this time.

A time where Spike was forced to be something that would drive others insane, forced to do things that would destroy the souls of others.

Sometimes he wondered if it hadn't happened already, if Cloud was nothing more than an actor, going through the motions that he knew everyone expected of him. Sometimes, when Zack was alone and no one could pull him out of the dark shadows of wondering, he worried that Cloud's soul was drifting somewhere ripped and crushed by the weight of the impossible burden he carried.

You're worrying about him, aren't you Zack?

His laughter had stopped and it was obvious enough for Aeris to tell that he wasn't taking part in the jovial interlude anymore.

Stop it. The power of the memory holds. The collective will and mind will keep him there, long enough.

How? How do you know it's long enough?

//It might not be, not be long enough, or short enough, to keep him...them...God I don't want Spike to come back to this place after seeing /him/ whole...//

It had been his worry from the beginning, that after seeing Sephiroth there, in that time, Cloud wouldn't be able to handle coming back to the Sephiroth that existed in this time, to the memory or the actuality of him.

Everything had changed, and yet everything had remained exactly the same. He couldn't stand it, he didn't know how Cloud could, when he had lost so much and was still expected to do so much more.

Stop it.

Aeris's arms wrapped around Zack then, one hand reaching up to the mass of black hair, the Princess Guard still held loosely in the other.

Just stop it Zack. He'll be fine. He's stronger that way than you think...and he needs this. The Lifestream knows what it's doing.

A pause then, as the Princess Guard rose slightly to tap the back of Zack's head.

And if you don't stop worrying, it won't be an accident this time.

A laugh then, more forced now then before.

Yes Ma'am.

-------------

Zack almost retched at the overbearing wrongness of the creature that rose out of the earth, cracking and breaking the concrete of the courtyard. In the hazy mist of the rain, it appeared to acquire a harshness that set it apart from the world of blurred edges.

Like reality, or perhaps just the harsh edge of a sword...Zack couldn't decide which. Everything about the beast appeared one moment impressed forever upon his memory and the next instant only a waking dream.

It was something he knew he would remember, just as it was something he knew he was already trying to forget.

There was no distinction, but the horrifying wrongness permeated both the reality and the illusion as he backed up away from the beast, finding himself with Sephiroth and the blond stranger, their battle forgotten.

More than willing to divert his attention from the demon before them, he glanced over at the two men. Sephiroth shook his head slightly, as if the presence had unnerved him as well, but he appeared as baffled by the monster as Zack. But the man...

...the man had such eyes, filled with such hate, a terrible recognition and a cascade of other emotions too many, a multitude to great to recognize the individual feelings, but all centered on the beast and at the same time on himself. He moved his head slightly, and brought one hand up to his temple in a movement that had the sadness and fluidity of something done too many times before.

That won't work. Not this time.

Zack almost jumped at the sound of the man's voice, so soft spoken for someone who had barged into the courtyard and almost decimated a troop of Seconds.

//Decimated...except that he fought to take down, and none of them were even seriously injured, let alone dead...//



The man's voice again, the name he said carrying with it a great power and connection in the things /unsaid/ within it, the spaces between the lines.

Don't listen to her. The voices...rarely tell the truth. If ever. And you don't want what they're promising.

Neither of the two men had time to react to that, as he had drawn his sword and was moving forward with the slow gait of the future, the pace of time. Sephiroth stared after him, his head bowed slightly, the sliver hair hiding him from view, hiding the puzzlement in his eyes - not because the words of the stranger hadn't made sense, but because they had.

Everything the man said made perfect sense, matched up with the unknown rise of clamorous voices inside his skull on the monster's arrival. Voices promising power and love and everything he could ever want.

He mistrusted them if only because of everything that they were promising. Everything for nothing wasn't something that occurred, and the conditions of the deal were as of now unspecified.

Still, it was as strange as everything else that had happened so far that the man knew of the voices.

Voices crying out his mother's name.

-------------

There was always something about Jenova that compelled Cloud.

It appeared to him that he was drawn to her, perhaps because of the large number of her cells that he contained. He knew that it wasn't just him, that all of those who shared her soul were connected in some way - it was how Aeris thought Jenova was able to come back to the memory of the past, or perhaps the past itself - and it was only logical that he would be pulled as well.

It was almost fate, brought together over distance immeasurable to this time and place that no longer existed.

At the moment; however, there were two certainties that Cloud knew.

The first was that he really hated fate.

The second was that this was, by far, the ugliest form of Jenova that he had ever seen.

It was had to focus on her, so different, a sharpness apart, only details remembered, the general picture lost the moment Cloud took his eyes off of her. Perhaps it was that hazy memory that made her more revolting - the lack of a clear image in the mind, the lack of reassurance, imagination constructing what memory immediately forgot.

There was the darkness of her, the misshapen hole where the rain should have been, the oversized arms, the glint of dull light off of sharp organics, a riot of blades from the mangling void, lining the arms and the mess of long, looping limbs that created the lower body.

Jenova did not move but she surged, the mass quivering as each supported a fraction of her weight, ready to take the burden of its brothers should they need to rise and strike at any foolish enough to attack. Any insane enough to attack such an imposing beast.

Cloud sighed then as that thought made its way into his head.

//It's so hard to be the insane one.//

And as the beast surged forward, the courtyard just big enough to fight in, and there was no time to think, to speak, only to hope that Zack and the others had gotten out of the way in time, to hope that no one would interfere in what could only be his fight.

And then, there was no time to hope as Jenova was upon him.

Swung himself to the side, not expecting the swift outpouring rush of tentacles and blades and things he cared not to think about. Avoided them, letting instinct take over, the feel of wrongness displacing air and rain alerting him to where the next strike of wrong would occur, allowing him to flip away from it, away from danger, away.

It was a dance, an aerial ballet. All the potency and power was there, amazing in the execution and the hindrance of the sword not being a hindrance at all to the man. Cloud knew what it must appear to the others, the almost otherworldly sense that guided him out of the reach of the twisting blades and failing mass of Jenova.

It was almost unconscious, the twist there, turn here, righting himself to bring the Ultima Weapon out of its sheath in time to destroy several flailing limbs that he knew he wouldn't be able to dodge. He landed softly, the beast before him howling slightly in pain, the constant burden of the sword acknowledged and ignored.

Give it up.

It was always surprising to Cloud how he could make himself heard when he wanted to be, without raising his voice at all. He had never understood how menace carried along currents of sweat and fear until he had experienced both sides of it.

It was far different, to be the tormentor instead of the tormented, the hunter instead of the prey, to rip something apart without feeling himself shatter.

Do you really think you have a chance?

Words, useless words. Cloud had never really placed much stock in words, never held faith in something he had never been good at. Sometimes, though, they had their purposes.

Especially in cases when they happened to be the truth.

It had been years since what he had thought to be the final confrontation with Jenova in the crater, but time hadn't blurred the memory of the fight. He had defeated her then, admittedly with the help of Nanaki and Tifa, and from what he could tell this version was nothing in comparison to the one of the past.

You don't belong here. You don't have a chance of accomplishing what you want here. You never did.

For the first time since the beast's appearance Cloud felt something more than just her presence in his mind. The anger was hot and thick, pulsating in his mind. This incarnation couldn't speak through the link - or perhaps simply chose not to - but the raw hatred filling his head was more than enough.

A great deal of that anger, he suspected, came from the shared knowledge that he was right. Jenova knew, as he did, that she didn't have a chance; that he was just too strong for her to hope to win against.

//But she had to know this...//

An unanswerable question, how a beast that was in his head could not know that he was fully capable of beating her. He knew that Jenova hated that, not being able to defeat him, one of her creations, Hojo's creations. He knew she hated having one of her progeny posses full liberty, independence from the womb.

Even though this was the past, Jenova was still from his time, and nothing would have changed. Even if she truly was from the past, Cloud couldn't imagine Jenova ever being different from the sinuous threats and promises in his head, an unchanging voice.

No different, even though this was the past.

//It's the past...by the planet, it's the past...//

An obvious statement with weighty implications. He had avoided revealing himself until now to avoid recognition. To avoid changing the past, causing a change he couldn't possibly predict.

He hadn't realized, until now, that Jenova would have no such restrictions.

Jenova's attack surged forward once again, and Cloud moved to intercept and stop what he had just realized would occur.

-------------

Cloud knew that if Zack knew he was here he'd be in more trouble with the black-haired SOLDIER than he had ever been.

Most of said trouble would stem from the fact that Zack would invariably tell Sephiroth, and when Seph found out that he was placing himself in this type of danger he'd never hear the end of it from the silver-haired Commander.

All the same, Cloud had to be here.

There was something that drew him to the man who had shown up, out of nowhere, out of the rain. A feeling, a connection, a tenuous almost longing.

He had to be here, to figure that out. He didn't understand it, and for the most part he understood his emotions. Oh, to be sure they were complex, but in the normal way of adolescence. Everything that appeared so tangled and conflicting Zack had always been able to figure out for him. That was, perhaps, what set this apart. It wasn't something he felt Zack would understand; it was a lonely feeling in that sense, it's solitude stemming from his incomprehension of it.

Cloud, his head full of thoughts that did not concern the terrain whatsoever, stumbled on a piece of torn up concrete and almost tripped. The battle between the blond man and the...the...thing in the courtyard had torn up the surrounding area pretty badly, and the footing was precarious. He winced at the sound the shifting rubble made and hoped that no one - or no thing - had heard it.

Having either the humans or the beast detect him was not something he wanted to happen.

//Okay Strife, time to use being a runt to your benefit!//

With that thought in mind, Cloud cautiously placed his weight and got down on his knees, shrouding most of himself behind the accumulated debris. He had a clear view of the courtyard from here, and although the rain muffled any sound that might have come, he could still marvel at the skill of the blond man, the power with which he wielded that massive blade. The sword was something in of itself incredible, a blade of equal size to Zack's Buster sword.

The strength that the man must have, to be able to use that blade, the power...Cloud wished that he could be that strong, instead of the second-rate trainee he knew he was now.

The man had stopped, but Cloud couldn't hear the words between them, could only see the tense stillness between the beast and the man. And for one frozen moment the rain stopped and hung in place, a moment broken as the beast lunged at him.

Cloud didn't have time to think or react, couldn't think or react, the useless drills taught to create battle reflexes, automatic combat reactions failing him then as he saw death approaching, a sharp blade attached to a whip like appendage.

Watching the light shimmer off the point of the blade, Cloud wondered if it would hurt much, if it would hurt to feel it pierce his body, his heart, if it would hurt to be pinned by that blade, dying.

He prepared for that pain, waiting for the moment as the stranger leapt between the two of them, his sword deflecting the organic weapon, the blade glancing off his sword to nick his shoulder, a dark stain immediately growing in the cloth around the cut.

Are you all right?

Cloud started at that - surely he should be asking that question - but the stranger held his gaze evenly, his wound disregarded.

Get behind me.

Cloud scrambled to obey, he'd only heard such authority from Sephiroth before, and it left no room for debate. The man raised his sword and placed it and himself between him and the beast.



Cloud cringed to hear the hesitant sound of his own voice, aware of how weak it must have sounded to the blond man.

I'm going to charge Je-the monster. When I do, I want you to run over to Sephiroth and Zack and stay with them, understand?

The man's voice was low, barely reaching his own ears. Yes, sir.

Good. Go now. Now!

Cloud cringed at the command in the imperative, but dashed over to where he could see Seph and Zack, worry etched in both of their faces. Stumbling and running, trying to get as much speed as possible, Cloud could still see the blur of the other man out of the corner of his eye as he attacked the monster, his sword splintering the air with fragments of reflected light.

And then he was there, safe in the heavy comfort of Seph's hands on his shoulders, Zack's voice asking over and over again if he was alright, if he was dropped on his head as a child to do something so stupid...

Cloud didn't hear them. He continued to look at the man, fighting, flying through the air as if both he and the sword were weightless. It was poetry in a pure form, beauty in the lines of battle, the not quite crimson arcs of blood from the monster, the flashes of light from the many blades and the sword.

And a glow, growing steadily more intense, radiating out from the sword in green waves. Cloud didn't recognize it, but from the way that Sephiroth's hand tightened on his shoulder, he knew that the older man did.

Cloud didn't understand the destructive connotations of the glow, only understood the beauty as it encompassed the man and the monster, solidifying as the man landed solidly and sheathed his sword. Bringing his hands together, he shouted out a word that Cloud did not hear or understand, and all the world was engulfed in green and white.

------------

The glow from the Ultima spell did not fade.

Sephiroth had felt Zack put up shields to deflect the blow that they both knew was coming. It helped in keeping out debris and assorted liquids that would have been fairly hard to get out of a uniform. The damage from the spell had been fairly concentrated on the monster, and it showed din the result.

There was not anything left to speak of, only a man stained in colors that blood normally did not come in, chest rising and falling at a rate slightly faster than normal. He stood on top of something that, had Sephiroth not seen the battle, he would have assumed was a dragon that had the Gelnika crash land on it. As used to the gore of battle as he was, Sephiroth still tried to not let his mind linger on what exactly /that/ used to be.

And still, the glow from the Ultima spell did not fade.

Cloud, stay here. Zack, with me. Let's introduce ourselves. Don't draw your weapon, but be prepared to.

Zack complied immediately, although he had already been on alert as soon as the stranger began his attack. Cloud, worry evident in his eyes, still had too much of the Shinra regime drilled into him to question his commander.

As they walked up to the man, noises that Sephiroth had /not/ wanted to hear today drifting up from various parts that they were forced to step on, the glow only seemed to increase, the green rising out in concentric emanations from the stranger.

The man had turned to face them, the rain slick hair having escaped the rough ponytail it was gathered in and falling freely down in front of his face, obscuring his eyes.

The glow from his eyes was still immediately apparent.

You're from SOLDIER.

It was not a question.

No, I'm not. There was a sadness to the man's voice, a sense of a tied down longing. He wouldn't meet Sephiroth's eyes, or Zack's.

I'm not...I wasn't in SOLDIER...You should leave. Now.

Sephiroth did not take orders from people well, even though this man had proven himself in battle and saved Cloud.

We're not going anywhere until you tell us who you are and why you were in SOLDIER but weren't.

The reply was quicker this time, a note of urgency easily read in it.

There isn't a lot of time, you should just go, now, before...Damn it! Just go or I'll make you!

Both Sephiroth and Zack started at that, the action seemed immediately out of character for the man, an action of desperation, something he would not normally do.

Any reply Sephiroth might have had to the last remark was cut off as the glow from the Ultima spell rose past the knee level it was previously at. The green rose out of the earth, surrounded them in the color.

Too late, Sephiroth realized that this couldn't possibly be a residual effect of an Ultima. The glow had already surrounded the three of them, a clogging force that clung and hurt but at the same time was a normal as the mako he could remember faintly along the edges of things he tried to forget.

The reference to mako brought with it an onslaught of memories that normally struck the Commander in his quieter moments, when there was no one around to be hurt by the hatred they created. Now it didn't matter, as he couldn't move in the mist anyway.

He couldn't move or attack it as it surrounded him, invaded him. He couldn't do anything as it accepted him and he welcomed the oncoming darkness as an escape from his own weakness and his own memories.

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Author's Notes

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1. I hope the time travel/collective memory/thingy/major plot device makes more sense now.

2. As an aside, the amount of free time I have is so nonexistent it's pathetic. I try to write when I can, although this will get done, probably because I'm having too much fun with it, and one of my friends who reads this told me that if I cease to write, I will cease to live. O.o

3. I suppose I could title this In which Cloud kicks ass and takes names and Seph and Zack ogle without doing anything of importance. Oh well, I thinks it's a big enough shock effect if some random guy beats up some random monster and some random voices start yelling in Seph's head.

4. As another aside, Aeris came out spunky because I always thought she was a quietly spunky kind of character. And her and Zack are just fun together.