Chapter 10: Where is Cloud?
Vincent looks around and asks; "Hey, where is Cloud…?" Tifa looks up at Vincent before realizing she's got no idea.
"I thought he was right behind us," Said Tifa, "Just a second ago." Her mind works fast to think of what to do. "With Hojo out there, we need to find him. Cid can take care of Valeria back at the highwind." Vincent nods and takes Sephiroth's arm around him to help him out of the ruined city. Tifa and Red walk back in and continue their search for Cloud.
Together, Vincent and Sephiroth hobbled back to the Highwind, the sound of their panting made Cid wake up from his hammock on the deck. He grumbled as he rubbed his eyes sleepily.
"What the fuck? When did you two get so close?" Cid chuckles as he fumbles in his pockets for a cigarette.
Vincent sighs and told Cid everything what happened. Cid raises his eyebrow as he lit his cigarette up.
"That fucker! Sure, I'll take care of little dragon-boy here, you can go ahead and let me know when we should take off." Cid nods at Vincent. Vincent walks out quietly and disappears, as usual. Cid looks over Sephiroth as he nudges the sleeping man with his boot.
"Wake the fuck up! We need you!" Sephiroth gave a series of coughs, but his eyes remain closed. Cid sighs heavily and squats down to get his face closer to Sephiroth's ear.
"Wake…the…fuck…up! Come on!" Cid yells into Sephiroth's ear, to no effect.
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Tifa and Red continue their search for Cloud in the maze-like ancient city. Tifa sighs to herself, lately she just couldn't help thinking that Cloud has been hiding something from her. Her mind wanders as she calls out for her husband. Sephiroth's return really broke the peace they'd had ever since his clone was killed. Thinking back on it, Seph wasn't as cruel as she thought he'd be. She remembered stories she'd heard about Sephiroth; that he was very strict in Junon, and often abusive to the men under his command. She blinks and snap out of her thoughts as Red tensed up momentarily.
"Hey, I found Cloud's scent here." Red calls as he sniffs on the ground. Red leads her to a path leading all the way out of Ancient City and into a dense forest. Red stops as Tifa looks on, he shakes his head back and forth with his nose held high.
"I lost the scent here, but remember this place? This is a path to the Crater." Red says as he looks around at Tifa.
"Cloud's gone to the Crater? But why?" Tifa begins to ponder, staring up past the line of trees to the rim of the Crater in the distance. "Do you smell anything else, Red? Has Hojo been here?" Red shook his head.
"Nothing else along this path except the animals in the forest. I don't think they'd mind eating us."
"Oh, what can we do then? My husband is in there!" Red nodded in agreement.
"We'll need Valeria for this," Red suggests, "if he's conscious by now."
"Let me call Cid" Tifa says, picking up her phone.
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Cid sighs in frustration, pacing back and forth along the deck of the Highwind. He spits his old cigarette down off the side and searches his pockets for another.
"You know, that stuff will put you in an early grave, Aya." A voice says softly. Cid jumps in surprise, nearly dropping his newfound cigarette.
"And I'll put YOU in an early grave if you ever scare me like that again!" Cid laughs as his phone begins ringing in his pocket. He deftly slips his smoke into his left hand and takes a drag before answering.
"Yeah?"
"Did Seph wake up yet?" Tifa says softly.
"Yeah, he just woke up in few seconds ago and he fuckin' scared the shit out of me-" Sephiroth chuckles in background, "Shut the fuck up!" Tifa giggles a bit. She felt so happy but she didn't know why.
"We think Cloud's gone to the Crater," Says Tifa, "Red lost his scent at the edge of the forest."
"All right, we will head over and pick you punks up in a bit." Cid took another drag on his cigarette as he slipped the phone back into his pocket. He looks down at Sephiroth, still laying on the deck. "You all right to fly?" Sephiroth sits up slowly and nods.
"My chest hurts like hell, but I'll be fine." Cid nods as he climbs into the cockpit. The Highwind gained altitude quickly, rising over the ancient city toward the forest beyond.
"What happened?" Sephiroth says as the ship dips lower to the ground. Tifa bites her lower lip as she climbs aboard.
"Cloud disappeared, we went to search for him and couldn't find him anywhere in the city. Red found his scent and followed it up to the path leading into the forest. But, it ended right there. Red and I think he headed for the Crater on path. We've got to get there to pick up Cloud, for whatever reason he went in." Tifa explains.
Sephiroth leans his back against a railing and folds his arms across his chest.
"You MUST watch out for him since he has Jenova's cells within him." He remembers Aeris's words; "He can be controlled anytime by Jenova's cells. If he turns out like this, you must throw your holy blood on him. That's the only thing that can kill the Jenova cells inside of him."
Sephiroth took a deep sigh as the Crater came into view. It was getting harder and harder to know what to do anymore.
"I've got to do this. Cloud acted strangely and disappeared from us. I…I've got to fight him and throw my blood on him. I don't want Tifa to see us like this, the others would never understand it all." Sephiroth's thoughts swirl with confusion. Cid deftly pilots the Highwind to a small clearing along the side of the cliff. Sephiroth looks over the edge, into the pit hundred of feet below, where the crater was filled with lifestream. He sighs heavily again, remembering that his Masamune may still be down there. He needs to get it to protect himself and his friends.
Tifa walks up to Sephiroth and clears her throat. Sephiroth keeps staring into the crater, seemingly unaware of anything but his thoughts. His eyes close and his hand tightens on the handrail.
"…Valeria? Are you all right?" Tifa lays her hand on Sephiroth's back. Sephiroth snaps out of his reverie and opens his eyes again to look up at Tifa slowly.
"Oh, I'm sorry…" he mutters, clearing his throat, "Yes, I'm all right. I was just thinking that's all." Sephiroth says as he tries to do his best to smile at Tifa. Cid walks in as he sees Sephiroth and Tifa leaning on the railing.
"Hey punks! Let's go down there and kick their fuckin' asses!" Cid chuckles as he pats Sephiroth's back. Tifa giggles as Sephiroth smirks at Cid.
"Yeah… let's go." Sephiroth says, dropping a ladder down to the ground.
"Someone lead the way, this is the first time I've been here." Sephiroth says, looking at Tifa. Tifa smiles and nods at him. The group begins to slowly climb down the rock wall into the Crater. Eventually the wall flattens out until the team is back to walking along a rocky path. As they draw closer to the lifestream below, the path clearly splits toward different areas of the crater. Cid walks up on left path and looks back at Sephiroth's team.
"Hey Red, can you sniff out which way Cloud went through here?" Red slowly went over the ground with his nose, first the left path, then the right one.
"I can't smell him at all out here, think we passed him?" Red's ears perked up as he looked back at Cid.
"No, Cloud was missing a long time before we discovered gone, he's well past here by now." Said Vincent, looking uncomfortably hot in his dark cloak.
"We've gotta split for this fork to look for him. I'll take this left path. Who else's gonna join me?" Cid says as he looks at Sephiroth.
"I'll go with Cid." Vincent says in quietly voice, stepping past him and down the pathway below. Red tosses his mane and follows Vincent, pausing to look back.
"I'll go with them since Valeria can smell a scent." Red says. Tifa nods and walks with Sephiroth onto the right path.
"See you punks at the bottom!" Cid yells out, leaving Sephiroth and Tifa all alone.
"Well, I'll be right behind you, Tifa." Sephiroth says as he looks at Tifa, who nods. They step off down the right path, the rocky soil making each step treacherous.
"Wow, this place is really messed up after that Crater explosion 3 years ago." Tifa says as she walks by ruined rocks lying on the ground. Sephiroth looks around and sniffs into the air to see if he could get a whiff of Cloud's odor.
"We've gone a long way down here, isn't this place supposed to get really warm as we go deeper?" Sephiroth ponders as he walks along with Tifa.
"Actually, the core of the planet is the Lifestream. It doesn't need to get hot as we go deeper; the river at the bottom is like a scar on the planet." Tifa explains while struggling to keep her balance on the rocky path.
"I see," Said Sephiroth as they continue their trek along the path.
"We're here, the Lifestream is just over that ridge." Tifa couldn't believe that Lifestream is still here even since the Crater blew up. She thought the planet would have healed this by now.
"My Masamune is down there right?…I can't get it through that Lifestream stuff." Sephiroth frowns as Tifa peers down over the edge.
"I went into Lifestream with Cloud once, It wasn't painful, just... I couldn't take a full breath. But the Lifestream brought us back to surface again, it knew we weren't dead. Maybe you could swim down there and grab your masamune. Lifestream might throw you out since you're not dead." Tifa replies. Sephiroth stands behind Tifa and sighs heavily.
"Well, well, well!" a voice rings out and echoes across the rocks around them. Sephiroth spins around to see something out there. Tifa jumped back from the ledge quickly and held tightly to Sephiroth's arm.
"I'm glad that you're here, Sephiroth. Guess we both like being...right! Ha, ha, ha…." The voice echoes again. Sephiroth growls as he steps forward to protect Tifa behind him. A figure leaps down from a ridge above and dissolves into the shadows. Sephiroth's eyes squint into the darkness, darting back and forth to see something. Tifa's hand tightens on Sephiroth's arm as she is scared and doesn't know what to do.
A shadow suddenly jumps toward Tifa, pushing her away from Sephiroth. Sephiroth spins around quickly in time to see Tifa and fall back over the edge of the ridge. He dove toward Tifa and grabbed at her as she fell, catching her hand and pulling her back toward the rocky wall. Their attacker turns around and kicks Sephiroth's arm away from Tifa. The shadowy figure grab's Sephiroth's neck and it pushes him against a nearby rock-wall.
Sephiroth looks down at the person strangling him and tries to see their face, before the choking takes its toll and his vision fades into darkness. Tifa had just climbed back onto the plateau in time to see Sephiroth being choked. She yells as she dashes toward the dark outline. Their attacker spins around in time to see Tifa's foot slam into his head, knocking it against the rock-wall. Both Sephiroth and the now-unconscious attacker crumpled into a heap on the path's floor.
"Valeria! Are you all right!" Tifa pulls his body away from the other and struggles to wake him up. Sephiroth begins to choke and gasps for air as he slowly wakes up.
"How many more times am I going to be knocked out today?" Sephiroth croaked, wincing from the pain in his throat. Tifa looks over at the unconscious figure laying on the ground. She walks over and pulls down a cloak's hood to reveal spiky blond hair.
"Cloud!" Tifa screams in shock. Sephiroth's turned his head slowly, a deep bruise forming on his neck.
"He can't be Cloud! Cloud isn't strong enough to choke me and lift me like that." Tifa starts crying suddenly.
"Why would he do this? What's wrong with him, Valeria!" Sephiroth shakily got to his feet and looked down at Cloud's face; a thin trickle of blood had pooled under his head where it had been cut open from the sharp rock-wall. As Sephiroth watched, the blood turned from a dark crimson, to a glowing blue.
"Oh, this is not good…" Sephiroth mutters under his breathe. Tifa must have heard him, her sobs grew louder. Sephiroth looks up from Cloud's face to see Tifa crying all alone. He felt bad that she had to be involved in all this; she loves Cloud so much. After kicking him, and how he tried to kill her, she must be shattered. He sighs before being flung backwards toward the lifestream by Cloud's unknown magic. Sephiroth ducked quickly, barely holding onto the edge of the cliff. Tifa spins around and saw Sephiroth struggling to hang on.
"Valeria! No!" Tifa cries out. Cloud laughs with an unearthly voice as he gets to his feet and saunters over to the cliff's edge.
"Well! This is perfect! Once you fall into the Lifestream, you'll never come back to trouble us again!" Cloud's laughter echoes throughout the big hole. Sephiroth grunts and looks up at Cloud while he tries to hold as he could.
"Cloud, listen! Jenova is inside you, you've got to fight it off!" Sephiroth yelled, his hand was struggling to keep its grip on the ledge. Cloud grins evilly down at Sephiroth and steps on his hand. Tifa yells again while she runs toward Cloud. Cloud's head whips around and eyed Tifa.
"Not again you don't!" He laughed as she was flung backwards by an unseen force. "Now, die Sephiroth!" Cloud chuckles as his eyes begin to glow silver. Sephiroth's hand starts to loosen under Cloud's heavy boot…
...To be continued. Chapter 11 coming up!