When it rains, he instinctively steps into the water, hoping that it will wash him clean. He does not know where this habit comes from, but this doesn't worry him anymore. It is merely another fact of his life. There will always be a little touch of the eccentric to his actions that even he may not comprehend, because of what has been done to him; the most notable of which is his aversion to mirrors.
Or perhaps it is not the mirror but his reflection itself that startles him, day after endless day. The mako-tinged eyes that frighten him a little, no matter how many times he sees them-the blonde hair he doesn't quite recognize.
He realizes why this is, of course. To someone not quite sure of themselves in the first place, exposure to pure mako-which is pretty much the dead souls of ages past-is a death sentence in itself. All of those thoughts that aren't his, all of these reactions are merely the footprints of some dead guy that got shot through his mind during the treatment. They're all just footprints, some large and some small. The actions merely correspond.
Like when he eats near an entire pizza by himself. He realizes that normally, he hates tomato sauce, but this isn't him eating anymore. Or when he nearly cuts that annoying ninja in half. He doesn't really mind her antics-a lot of the time, he enjoys them-but he's not entirely in control. Or, in a much more complicated way, how he loves the Cetra. It feels as if someone is getting butterflies for him when she's around, magnifying the feelings he already has. It makes things endlessly complicated.
But worse than that is the fact that that masamune wielding bastard knows exactly what's going on and can manipulate those voices, those prints in his head, tell them what to do, control their every movement. It's hindering his journey and endangering his friends-it's killing them, but he doesn't know what to do.
He wants to wash the prints away and find who he is again-but something tells him that it's going to take a very long time.
A/N Gawd, Cloud's got more baggage than an airport. And I'm sorry that yufie's thought in the last chapter are hard to read, but apparently brackets aren't supported...anyway, keep reading, and please review! Next Chapter-Nanaki!