Note: For those unaware, Imouto little sister
Chapter 2: Calling
Cloud collapsed face down onto the couch with a dull thud.
He was exhausted. Zeth had been in one of his stubborn moods tonight; one of those even Tifa couldn't seem to talk him out of. It was close to midnight and the boy had only just gone to sleep, finally loosing the battle for consciousness.
Cloud had almost considered using one of the Sleep Materia he had amongst his collection.
"You awake?", a voice asked as a pair of hands began massaging his back gently.
"No", came his muffled reply.
"Really", Tifa said and he didn't need to roll over to see her smile, "You're talking".
"Don't let that fool you", he responded, his own grin hidden by the material of the couch.
She slapped his back lightly for the wise crack and went back to her ministrations, loosing up muscles made tense by long hours driving and training, and a troublesome son.
"Hard day?"
"Not really", he shrugged without rolling over, feeling various knots and aches dissolve under her touch, "Denzel's getting better though".
The massage stopped for a second before continuing.
Years ago, before his marriage, Cloud wouldn't have noticed it, or if he did he would have been clueless as to its meaning. Now he was older and wiser in the ways of women… well, those of his wife at least.
"He seemed distracted today", he commented, given his spouse the opening she was probably waiting for.
"So was Marlene", she moved from his shoulders down to his lower back, "They had a… disagreement".
"What kind? Or should I say, from how far away could it be heard?", that earned him another playful cuff.
"Nothing major, he was swinging that sword you gave him around the living room in their apartment".
"He has to practice somewhere", Cloud winced as she pushed down a little harder than necessary.
"I know, but he knocked over a few things, and besides, a house isn't for swords", she said and Cloud grinned to himself, he'd heard that plenty of times.
"You want me to talk to him?"
"…No, let Marlene do it"
Cloud chuckled.
"What?", she asked suspiciously, levering him around onto his back and sitting next to him.
"I just don't know if I should leave him to face the apprentice of the mighty Tifa's tongue all by himself", he caught the blow before it landed, pulling her down and wrapping his arms around her waist to pin her in place.
She blew a strand of hair out of her face and rolled her eyes at him.
They lay there for a few minutes in silence, comfortable and secure in each other's presence.
"Everything's moving on and changing, isn't it", she said quietly, "Denzel and Marlene have moved out, we haven't heard from anyone but Barret in years, and that was to tell us that Cid and Shera finally got married. Reeve's off with whatever Rufus and Neo-Shinra are doing on the west continent, Reno and the Turks with them. Nanaki is still in Cosmo Canyon and no one knows were Yuffie or Vincent might be… and we're here, married with a little boy who seems more grown up each time I look at him".
Cloud's thoughts from earlier that day surfaced, but he shoved them aside.
"Yeah, we all did our bit, so now it's time for us to relax", he said, sleepily, unconsciously hugging her tighter, "Everything changes".
They dozed off in each other's arms, a serene peace filtering through the silent abode, the last for many nights ahead.
The night guardsman of Midgar yawned and shifted in his seat, stamping his feet against the cold and wrapping his hands more firmly around the steaming coffee mug he held.
Another dead night, not so much as a delivery to break the monotony. It was nights like this he really hated, when there was nothing to do but stare out across the endless plains and wonder if there was something staring back.
He shuddered and turned away from the open window of the guardhouse, kicking up the heater another notch.
He sighed and leaned back in his seat. Perfect, finally a bit of warmth.
Thunk.
He looked down at the crimson stained steel protruding from his chest. Curiously he felt no pain; the blade must have severed his spinal cord when it passed through.
He looked with child-like fascination at the delicate patterns made on the floor by his blood and the coffee that had escaped when he dropped his mug.
There was a strange lurching sensation and wet slurping noise, and then he felt no more.
The wielder of the double-edged blade smiled as his head bounced lightly on the floor before rolling to a stop.
She bent and wiped the gore from her sword on his age worn uniform and vaulted back out of the open observation window she had entered through.
The sky was split by lightening and the silent broken by a peel of thunder and the crash of a thousand raindrops striking metal roofs.
In that flash, illuminated for a split second, was a mane of silver hair, and thick black coat…and the dark outlines of hundreds of armed men and women.
Zeth woke with a stifled scream as the first flash of lightening lit up his small room. He huddled instinctively deeper under his blankets and shivered. The warmth he sort from the thick covers could only warm him externally. Inside he still felt cold.
He'd had the same dream as the previous night.
A tall man garbed in liquid shadow, silver hair spilling down his back and out of sight, had stood before him, with a smile that was a travesty to its cause and piercing blue/green snake like eyes.
He had stooped down before the terrified young boy and whispered only one sentence.
"I have found you"The dark haired boy spasmed in fear, his normally calm blue eyes as wide as the could go as he furtively scanned every shadow for any sign of the man from his dreams.
Come to meZeth froze. He slowly craned his head around, but could see nowhere, and no one the voice could have come from. Was it the dark man? Was he in his head!
Come to me little brother, don't be afraidThat wasn't the voice of the dark man; it was too high, female, kind and soft.
W-who are you?, he thought, feeling vaguely ridiculous for talking to a voice in his head.
I want to meet you
Why?
…You're a very special little boy… Zeth
Zeth jerk upright, how could she know his name? He felt afraid again, but couldn't explain why, huddling tighter into his 'bunker'.
Shhhh, her voice came again, soft and soothing, Don't be afraid little one.
Zeth felt his fears subside under her mental reassurances, the way they would when his mother would hold him.
Won't you come and meet us Zeth?The boy suddenly had a flash of a pretty woman's face, marred by sadness, and a longing for… something.
Us?
Yes Zeth, your family
Zeth was confused, his family was right here wasn't it? Mother and Father. Marlene, even Denzel he reluctantly added.
We all want to see you Zeth, the voice was pleading now, and the young boy felt sorry for the speaker. She sounded so lonely.
…Alright… Where are you?
In his mind he could see her smile, and couldn't help but feel a little shy, like he did when Marlene smiled.
Just go where your heart tells you little brother, it will lead you to us.
The dark haired boy nodded as if she were in the room to see him and pushed the covers aside. Clambering out of his bed he went over to the draw that held his clothes, quickly pulling a faded, grey, sleeveless sweatshirt with a hood over his blue long sleeved pyjama top and donning his boots.
He lifted the hood up as he left the room stealthily, not understanding why, but knowing that he needed to be quiet, or he would never meet the sad, pretty lady.
He winced each time one of the stairs creaked and sighed with relief when he reached the bottom.
His breath seemed deafeningly loud as he clicked open the locks that separated the house from the bar and slipped through the door.
The bar itself was dark and quiet, almost sinister lit only by the occasional flash of lightning.
Zeth paused by the door, feeling indecisive has his small hand closed around the handle. Did this make any sense? Going out in the middle of a storm at the behest of a voice in his head?
Zeth?He cast one final glance before opening the door, squinting against the pouring rain that lashed in, soaking him as he stepped outside and carrying its icy chill through the protective layers.
He closed his eyes, centring on the tugging sensation he could feel at the back of his mind.
I'm comingCloud struggled against unseen shackles. He was restrained in a place devoid of light or sound or touch.
Although he felt nothing, his prison was as cold as ice and his body trembled ineffectually against the fridged touch of the air.
"Hey!", he shouted, listening as his voice echoed throughout the cavernous void unheeded, "Hey! What's going on here!"
"I brought you here…Cloud".
Cloud's blood froze in his veins. That voice, it couldn't be, not again.
The shadows seemed to ripple and undulate, and a face formed in the black. A pale face with cruel snake like eyes that seemed to glow with their own inner light.
A face framed by long silver hair.
"No…No I destroyed you for good!"
The room was filled by a bass rumble, an amused and malicious laughter.
"You cannot destroy one such as I…Cloud", Sephiroth said, wrenching a shoulder free of the darkness, which seemed to adhere to him like tar, "You trapped me for a time, but nothing more".
Cloud glared defiantly at his foe.
"You took everything from me in the end…Now I will take something from you…Cloud".
Cloud's vision blurred, he felt cold and wet, his inadequate clothes clinging to his skin as he tried to shield the rain from his eyes with small hands.
Small hands?… Zeth!His vision returned and he was once more alone in the void with Sephiroth.
"Bastard! Leave him alone! He's not part of your Reunion!", Cloud flailed violently against his unseen bonds, feeling them weaken slightly.
Sephiroth raised an eyebrow and gave a chilling smile, "Who said anything about Reunion…Cloud".
Cloud woke with a yell of rage, throwing Tifa clear of his body as he sat up.
His wife, a naturally light sleeper, was awake in seconds, just soon enough to stop herself from impacting with the small coffee table next to the couch.
Cloud's eyes darted around the room manically, half expecting to see Sephiroth's head smiling at him from the flickering shadows.
The din of the rain and the storm was drowned out by the pounding of his own blood in his ears.
"Cloud?", Tifa asked, approaching him cautiously, wondering what had woken him so violently, "What's wrong?"
The blond warrior didn't answer, he flew from the living room, taking the steps up to the second floor three at a time, skidding to a halt and using the doorframe of Zeth's room to arrest his forward momentum.
His gaze fell on the bed and his heart nearly stopped.
Gone.
Zeth was gone, Sephiroth had taken his son, somehow reaching from beyond the grave yet again and tearing into the heart of Cloud's new life.
Cloud strode purposefully across the hall to the room he shared with Tifa, kicking the door physically off its hinges when the old handle chose the wrong moment to be awkward.
Three strides later he was armed, he hesitated for a moment, looking at the chest of Materia just visible under his bed.
He crouched and slid the chest out, opening it and digging through the pile of glass like orbs inside for the one he sort, clasping each one briefly and concentrating on the images he could pull from the Planet's Meta-consciousness through it.
No, no, no…Yes!He pressed the orb against his skin, willing it to sink through the skin and become a part of him.
"Cloud?", came a scared voice from the door, "Cloud, what's going on, where is Zeth?".
Cloud stood, torn. Part of him wanted to go comfort his distressed wife, while another was telling him there was no time.
He deliberated, uncomfortably aware that every second delayed was a second that Zeth got further away from them.
He crossed the distance to Tifa and took her shoulders gently.
"Zeth is gone", he said, cursing the return of his blunt nature in emergencies as he felt her stiffen beneath his gloved fingers, "I'm going to bring him back".
He felt his heart being crushed in a vise as he brushed Tifa aside. She was to numb with shock to respond and he could see her slowly sinking to her knees out of the corner of his eyes.
Damn you Sephiroth, when I find you I'll make sure you never come back again.
He reached the bar and paused by the open front door, scanning the street left and right, unaffected by the rain lashing at him, sticking his usually spiked hair to his face.
Calling on the power he had absorbed, Cloud watched as the world slowed, each individual raindrop suddenly visible in detail as he stepped out into almost frozen storm.
Water droplets fractured like delicate crystal around him as he walked through them.
Left or right?
He glanced down, hoping for a clue but finding none.
Left or right?
Cloud randomly chose a direction and began to run, he could only hope he wasn't too late.
She was there. Just like he had pictured her in his dream.
Dressed in a sleeveless long black coat over a deep red, almost purple bodysuit that clung like a second skin, her long silver hair billowing in the wind, she smiled at Zeth with that beautiful smile.
The only thing that seemed to contradict the image to the young boy, was the double-edged broadsword that hung casually from one hip.
"You came", she said, the happiness in her voice distracting him from the instrument of death at her waist.
She was standing under the minimal protection afforded by the concrete overhang formed by the hole in the wall installed for the gate and guardhouse.
Zeth didn't know how to answer, so he just nodded mutely.
She smiled again, opening her arms toward him as if to embrace him across all that distance.
"Are you coming with us Zeth?"
The dark haired boy pushed rain slicked hair out of his eyes. Again he found himself at a loss for words. He wanted to, he couldn't explain it but he did. He wanted her to be happy, even though he'd never seen her before tonight.
There was a whisper, the sound of steel on leather and Zeth let out an involuntary shriek as a dark figure somersaulted down before him, landing with a splash, a bolt of lightning giving Zeth a perfect view of his burgundy bodysuit and the wicked looking double bladed katana he wielded.
His back was to Zeth as the pretty woman's face went from happy to angry with terrifying ease, her features twisted with contempt.
"Oni-chan", she said, mock bowing, the sarcasm clear in her inflection, "This doesn't concern you"
"Is that any way to talk to your elders imouto?", the new man said with a slight snort of laughter.
Little sister?, Zeth thought confused, staring up at the newcomer, why had he called her that, he sounded younger than her.
Zeth peered closer at the man, noticing for the first time his shoulder length silver hair.
Just like hers…There was another rasp of steel on leather as the silver haired woman drew her own weapon, clasping it delicately with both hands and setting her feet shoulder width apart like Denzel and his father would when training.
The newcomer left his blade hanging at his side one handed.
"Get out of my way brother", she growled, her voice low and dangerous. Zeth was beginning to rethink having come out here in the first place.
"I can't let you do that Kikuyu, you know that", he said with a shake of his head, cocking his head to the side languidly, "Besides, I can tell you now, Reunion won't solve anything".
A small smile spread across her face, but there was nothing pretty about it, "Who said anything about Reunion?".
The man seemed shocked by that, but before he could answer the shadows seemed to come alive.
One of them, a man with hate-warped features clothed entirely in ragged black clothes reached out to grab Zeth… and fell back with strangled cry as the newcomer's sword tore his throat out so fast Zeth wasn't sure he had even moved, only the corpse twitching in its death throes beside him offered any conformation that anything had happened.
Zeth scrambled back from the rapidly expanding pool of crimson fluid, looking around as more and more shadows seemed to pour from every available space, trying to overcome the silver haired man with shear numbers.
Zeth caught him throwing a smirk at the woman who had called him here as he lazyily sidestepped a lunge, decapitating the broad shouldered man who had attempted to take him down with deadly grace and a flick of the wrist.
He drove his duel blades through the chest of a black clad woman, snapping out a high kick that hit the throat of another attacker with a sickening pop of cartilage before whipping his weapon free and slashing savagely across the chest of another.
Less than a minute had passed and there were over twenty dead bodies piled around him.
He wove the blade through a tight infinity loop and returned it to its ready position at his side.
Thunder broke the sudden silence as the silver haired woman stared at the bodies of the fallen with a mix of sorrow and anger.
After a moment the swordsman looked around as if confused by the carnage, "Why… why do they not…".
"This is the curse this world has put on our kind brother, we can never return to the lifestream", her voice was laced with bitterness, "Though their bodies are dead, their souls remained trapped within the rotting husks…Do you still think I should be stopped oni-chan?"
The rain beat down restlessly as the two siblings stared each other down. Eventually it was the elder of the two that broke gaze.
"Yes", he whispered, forcing himself to meet her eyes again, "We shouldn't be here".
"…I'm sorry you feel like that…"
He watched as she resumed her stance, blade point aimed at his heart.
On some unspoken signal she moved, blurring across the distance with rapid footfalls, swinging her blade around in a powerful arc.
The swordsman inverted his blade rapidly, laying it parallel to his arm in time to catch her assault and force it wide.
He whipped his fist around, smashing it into the side of her face and sending her reeling into a nearby house.
She shook her head to clear it and kicked off the wall, pushing herself back toward him, the air ringing with the clash of steel on steel they exchanged a flurry of blows.
A high cut to the head was parried and a return thrust to the stomach danced around with a low swipe that had to leap above.
The swordsman came back down with a vicious swipe that forced his opponent to throw herself clear rolling and hastily flicking rain soaked hair out of her face as the force of his attack cracked the concrete inducing a minor tsunami of rain water.
She came in again, connecting with and elbow to the face as he blocked a swipe at his mid-section. Capitalising on her success she delivered a savage roundhouse kick that grounded her opponent, ducking and lashing out with her blade, managing a shallow gash across his leg before her previous attack forced him out of her range.
The silver haired man showed no signs he had received even a superficial wound, powering back in as soon as he recovered with an overhead blow that drove her to her knees when she tried to pit her own raw strength against his and finding out the hard way that he was far stronger than he appeared.
Angling her blade above her head she was able to deflect his next blow, rearing back her blade to drive it through his stomach.
Inches away from his vulnerable abdomen, his sword came back across, catching her own between its twin blades and wrenching it free of her grasp, sending it clattering to the ground out of her reach.
He held his weapon beneath her chin, tilting it up so that their gazes met, blue/green to blue/green.
"I'm sorry", he said; surprising her how genuine his sadness appeared.
Her eyes sort out Zeth's and she smiled apologetically at the scared looking young boy, mouthing a farewell and closed her eyes.
"No!"
"No!"
Cloud's head snapped around, he recognised that voice. Zeth!
He had long since spent the energy inherent in all humans to utilize magic, and the rain hammered down at it's normal pace, threatening to blind him with his own blond tresses.
Now his feet were given wing by something far more powerful than magic. A father's concern for his child.
As he drew closer to where he believed to be the source of the shout, he felt his worry intensifying. He was drawing closer to the gates with every step, had Sephiroth taken Zeth that far already.
Cloud drew on reserves he hadn't known he possessed, willing himself to cross the distance faster, hand snaking behind his back to draw the waiting weapon.
He rounded the final corner, and was brought up short by what he saw.
Zeth was standing before a fallen woman, his arms outstretched and his young eyes screwed tight.
Standing above them, twin bladed katana drawn back for one final sweeping blow, short silver hair clinging like a skull cap to his head, was a man Cloud recognised instantly.
Kadaj
---Author Notes---
No Cloud, don't do it! Anyone thinking something along those lines? Hehehe, keep tuned to see what happens next. Oh and please remember to R and R, it is kind of vital to the continuation of this fic.