"What's going on?" Aerith asks, tugging his arm to a halt. "Why did you rescue us?"
They are in Sector Six. Nightlife brims from overflowing bars and bright neon signs. Aerith's startled green eyes are locked on his.
"You should go home," Cloud tells her.
She's blissfully ignorant of the executions, the lockdown, the thing in the basement crawling from its confinement in a smear of dark viscous blood. He cannot bring her into this now. The inner lab was her sanctuary from these horrors.
He begins to walk away. The lion-like creature trots alongside him, fiery tail darting.
"You rescued us," it speaks in a calm voice, "yet you work for Shinra."
Cloud realizes he needs to ditch his uniform.
"I can't go home," Aerith calls to him. "The Turks kidnapped me from there, and if I go back I risk my mother's safety."
He pauses. She's right. Midgar will be crawling with MPs soon, and the Turks will no doubt scour each Sector.
"I thought you were supposed to guard me." Her voice is pleading. "Even if you don't work for Shinra anymore, you can still keep me safe, right?"
He goes back to her and keeps his voice low.
"Sector Seven," he says. "Beneath the plate. I have a friend there. That's where I'm heading. Perhaps she can help you get out of the city. Or give you a place to lay low."
The furry companion speaks up, "But why did you betray Shinra?"
It's far too much to explain. Cloud settles on the simplest reason.
"Because two people I thought were dead have come back into my life, and I need to know how."
"And we just happened to be on your way out the door?" Aerith asks.
"Actually, yes."
"Well," the red creature says, "I am thankful for your assistance, Cloud. My name is Nanaki, and I would like to accompany you to Sector Seven as well. My home is quite far from here, and I have no wish to end up back in Shinra's clutches."
Cloud notices the tattooed number on the beast's shoulder. XIII. Number thirteen. He wonders when Hojo began numbering his work.
"Okay," Cloud agrees. "Then let's get a move on."
Reaching the lower slums from above the plate is difficult without mass transit. But since Shinra operates all trains, buses, and taxis, there would no doubt be security sweeps. So they walk through the Sector. MPs are already out in full riot gear, radios crackling.
It takes a while, but the three manage to sneak past every patrol, avoiding confrontations.
When they reach the border to Seven, however, they can go no further. It's completely sealed off and swarming with massive mechanical Shinra weaponry, guns mounted at the ready.
"The other Sector Seven borders are probably the same," Aerith whispers. "We'll have to go beneath the plate and cross underneath."
She knows her way around quite well, much to Cloud's relief because he's never had to navigate into the slums by foot. She leads them through the urban labyrinth, down a web of patchworked paths, finally depositing them into the thick of the Sector Six slums.
The air smells different here, burnt with Mako. He tastes it in the back of his throat. And the sky is a starscape of artificial lights lodged in metal. It's unsettling, this floating city above. The residents all live in extreme poverty. Shacks cluster around disheveled frameworks of buildings. Fires for cooking or warmth burn in open pits. The night here is muted and barren.
They travel in silence along the rocky jumble of a collapsed highway, which Aerith says will lead them to the gateway of the next Sector. Cloud thinks of his conversation with her from earlier in her holding pen. She'd brought up Sephiroth then. The interconnection of events from the last few days all branch back to Nibelheim. He doesn't believe in fate, and yet…
"What did the professor want with you?" Cloud asks Nanaki, suspecting that he too is part of this bizarre convergence.
"Longevity," Nanaki says. "Hojo thought to extend his studies of Aerith's bloodline by cross-breeding us."
Cloud nearly chokes. "Cross-breeding? You mean…?"
"Of course I am not some animal driven by base instincts," Nanaki states in indignation. "Neither is she. The professor is simply a madman."
Aerith chuckles as she climbs an outcrop of broken asphalt.
"Ah yes, my precious bloodline," she says with sarcasm.
"Your link to Sephiroth," Cloud treads carefully.
Aerith shrugs. "The professor seemed to think so. The Ancients. Or something."
She is dismissive of the subject, and Cloud decides to let it rest. The crumbling concrete and exposed rebar is treacherous enough to require his full concentration. A string of forgotten street lamps sizzling with intermittent power is the only light source guiding them.
As they travel, gigantic mutated insects and rabid animals pounce at them from the shadows. Mako-altered, he can tell. Aerith mentions the slums being full of these types of creatures due to waste from the Reactors leaking below the plates. The monsters are easy to dispatch, and Nanaki and Aerith hold their ground well.
Aerith, in particular, is adept with a metal rod she's found in the rubble and incapacitates enemies without breaking a sweat. Nanaki tears apart limbs and crushes bone and carapace with his mighty jaws. Cloud's intrigue with Aerith escalates as fights alongside her.
"I don't think you need a bodyguard," he remarks.
She winks. "But don't you enjoy doing the job?"
He does, despite everything. Her company is pleasant, a respite from the adrenaline-soaked escape from the Tower.
They crawl through the last of the rubble and emerge onto the outskirts of Sector Six. An old rotting playground stands beneath the floodlights of a massive metal gate, several stories high and solid across the entire length of the wall demarcating the sectors. It's sealed shut.
"Oh, no!" Aerith says. "I've never seen it closed before. I didn't think this gate was even operational."
Cloud runs a hand through his hair, assessing the obstacle. The sheer scale of it is impassable. Aerith leans against a rusted geometric jungle gym and lets out a deep sigh.
"Perhaps it will be open in the morning," Nanaki says. He sits and licks a paw. "We should find a place to rest."
"Yeah," Aerith agrees. "I've never been out here this late, so maybe the gates are just on an automatic timer."
"Or maybe," Cloud says, "Shinra has already locked down the Sector."
All three sit in silence. Cloud struggles to formulate next steps. He needs to reach Tifa, and his only link to her is this bar in Sector Seven. Through the chaos of their parting, he hadn't thought to ask if she had a PHS, although anyone flying under the radar, like her team is, might not carry such devices.
He doesn't even know for sure if Tifa and Barret got back to Seven safely. He starts to pace.
"There's nothing we can do tonight," Aerith says to him, stretching back across the bars of the jungle gym. "We've been running for hours."
Cloud doesn't want to give up, but he notices how pale Aerith looks, how out of breath she is. She's exhausted, and she keeps scratching at something below the neckline of her dress.
"You okay?" he asks, going over to her.
"Yeah, just something been bothering me…"
She takes off her jacket and pulls down the fabric near her clavicle to reveal puffy raised skin around a red incision mark. A small plastic tube, sealed with a cap, protrudes from the hole.
"Ugh," she says. "What is this?"
Cloud examines it, and a wave of nausea hits him.
A memory he's never seen before surfaces hard. He's somewhere dark and musty, screaming though he can't move. His body is numb. A dozen small clear tubes extend from his chest like a forest. Intense panic and fear grip him in primordial frenzy. He sees his reflection in the professor's circular lenses as drips of horrid dark liquid are connected to his body. The ceiling is brick and wood. Old and decaying.
"—think it's from that awful machine," Aerith is saying.
He returns to Sector Six. His pulse is beating fast.
"What did the professor do to you?" he asks, keeping his voice steady. The port in her chest is for medical intravenous treatments.
She tenderly pulls the tiny tube from her body, gasping in pain. It's long and clotted. She tosses it aside in disgust.
"I don't know," she says. "I was put to sleep when it began. Just a searing hot liquid going into my skin."
"Black?"
"What?"
"The liquid. The heat you felt."
She thinks. "Yes, it was like a sludge."
The transfusion he'd received was the same. He tries to keep his alarm in check. There's no way to be certain, so no use frightening her.
He utilizes the Restore socketed in his weapon. A swirl of bright green motes illuminates the space between them, flowing from him onto her. It surrounds her wound, leaving behind fresh pink skin. He charges it with one more task, directing the healing energies onto his own shoulder, feeling muscle reconnect, flesh sealing. He's lucky the bullet missed bone. That fight felt like so long ago.
The materia dims, exhausted for now.
He notices Aerith staring at him.
"What?" he asks.
"Nothing. It's just…" A flash of sadness comes and goes. She tries to smile. "Been a while since I saw a SOLDIER use materia. That's all."
He's not a SOLDIER, but it doesn't feel important to correct her. She is lost in thought.
"You know, you remind me of him," she says. "I guess it's your mannerisms."
She gives a sad little laugh and shakes her head. They both fall to silence.
Cloud suddenly remembers something. "Oh," he says. "Here. Before I forget."
He holds out the pale milky materia from his pocket. Using the Restore had reminded him of it.
"This slipped from your hair ribbon at the Tower," he tells her, palm out. "It's yours."
Relief exudes from her all at once. She snatches it away.
"Thank you! Oh, Cloud, I thought I had lost this!"
She whisks it into her ribbon, securing the materia within her thick bundle of hair and tying the bow several times tightly.
"What's it do?" he asks, because he hadn't been able to coax any sort of reaction from it.
She gives him a funny grin. "It does nothing!"
"Nothing?" he repeats in disbelief. "Maybe you just don't know how to use it. All materia does something."
"Mmm, not this one."
He chuckles. Her mystery is compelling. He welcomes the levity in her smile.
"Alright, let's get going," she says and stands. "Lucky for us, we are right near the only part of Midgar where Shinra doesn't have any jurisdiction." She points at the ambient lights on the horizon opposite the gate. "Wall Market!"
Cloud stares blankly. She raises an eyebrow, curious as to how he could be a SOLDIER who's never heard of Wall Market. He shrugs and allows her to explain, for Nanaki's benefit as well.
Wall Market is a glittering glamorous district of shopping, debauchery, and illicit games run by a notorious gangster named Don Corneo. The Market is famous for its red-light district and dangerous clientele. The Don in particular is known for his harem of women and gaudy palace.
"Rumor has it that he gets his money trafficking sex workers," she whispers.
"Sounds like a place we should avoid," Cloud says.
"No, it's the perfect place to lay low!" she counters. "It's the lowest of the low part of town where nobody asks questions and where Shinra can't just march in and demand IDs. I wouldn't go there alone, of course, but with you I'm sure to be safe."
Cloud looks at Nanaki for a second opinion.
"I trust her," is all the gentle voice purrs.
Cloud crosses his arms. "Okay, fine. Let's just get a room and keep out of sight. Avoid any weirdos."
Aerith walks ahead into the lights with Cloud and Nanaki close behind.
Wall Market appears over the next curve of rubble, a towering golden palace beset by a sprawling district of ramshackle structures, billboards, and neon. The scent of a dozen different cuisines steams the maze of streets. Cloud can't understand how anyone could find their way around this place as they walk through.
"Overwhelming," Nanaki states. "I can barely smell my own nose in all this nonsense. And the sounds... !"
Cloud can't really hear him over the crowds. He's looking intently for an inn. They pass a materia shop, a pharmacy, a gym. Aerith insists they grab food from one of the many street vendors.
"I'm famished," she says, stopping in front of a hot noodle stand. "Aren't you?"
He is, now that he thinks about it. He can't recall the last time he ate. Or slept. They order meals and sit at the corner of the bar along the vendor's stand in the open-air. Nanaki politely declines the noodles, but laps up the beef stew. The food is delicious, and as he sits alongside Aerith, Cloud finally begins to relax. Morning would come and their journey would continue, but it feels good to pause just for a second. She slurps her noodles and laughs.
People mill by in the congested streets. The trio thankfully aren't getting a lot of attention, but Cloud feels an occasional stare at his uniform. The First-Class colors are probably not seen much around these parts.
"I need to get out of these clothes," he says.
She pauses mid-bite, blushes. He stumbles over his next words, realizing how that sounded.
"I mean, we should change. Out of these clothes and into something else. Because Shinra will post descriptions of us in the media, if they haven't already. So we should get rid of any obvious means of identification."
As he rambles, she giggles then apologizes. "You're right, you're right. It's just cute how nervous you got," she says, finishing up her meal. "Like you've never told a girl you wanna lose your clothes before."
But of course, he's sixteen in his head. He should be twenty-one but he's lost all that time. He plays it cool, hoping she won't notice his embarrassment. He's just glad Tifa isn't here to see this.
"I'm just tired. Let's find a place to crash," he says, and he thinks he sees Nanaki smirk.
They continue on through Wall Market, past a questionable massage parlour and a very popular strip club, before scoping out a motel. It's sleazy and charges by the hour, but the attendant doesn't ask any questions, although his eyes linger on Aerith's body a little too long for Cloud's comfort.
Cloud slams down the requisite gil and glares at the man behind the counter before grabbing the room key.
"No pets," the man hollers, pointing at Nanaki.
"He's not a pet," Cloud replies, walking away.
The attendant gives up the meager protest as Nanaki marches past with a throaty growl.
They find their room on the second-floor. Aerith plops down on the creaky single bed, and Cloud locks the door. Nanaki curls onto the floor. The walls are paper-thin. Next door a couple is having very loud sex, and above them an argument is raging.
"Charming," Aerith relays.
This place makes Cloud uncomfortable. He pulls the shades, doing little to keep out the exterior lights, and leans against the door.
"You try to sleep. I'll keep watch," he says.
Nanaki nods. "I'll take the second shift. Wake me in three hours."
Aerith yawns and rolls her jacket up beneath her head like a pillow, not daring to disturb the actual sheets. The couple next door climax in a raucous knocking on the walls before at last falling quiet. Aerith tosses and turns, but eventually she falls asleep. Nanaki's tail dims, resting just below his nose.
Cloud sits with his knees to his chest, his sword in arm's reach. He hears a fistfight in the hallway, a different couple fucking a few doors down, a dog howling somewhere, but no sign of Shinra nor crackle of police radios.
Suddenly, Aerith shrieks. She jolts straight out of bed, eyes streaming. Terror overtakes her.
Cloud is at her side.
"What, what?" he asks. "Are you okay? What's happened?"
Her cries do not lessen. Her gaze doesn't recognize him. She buries into his arms, sobbing. Nanaki is up, watching with concern and caution.
"Aerith?" Cloud says her name and it somehow brings her back.
Her hysteria stops. The tears freeze on her cheeks. She pushes away from him in sudden confusion.
"You were having a nightmare?" he wonders at her disorientation.
She blinks and wipes the tears away.
"I-I don't know. How silly of me to… to rush into your…." She laughs, but there's a nervous edge to it. "I didn't mean to. I'm perfectly alright. Just a dream, I guess."
But she doesn't look alright. She's shaking. He sits with her on the bed.
"Okay," he says. "No problem. Just relax. Get some rest."
She catches her breath and curls up on the bed.
"What was it about?" he asks. "The dream."
She remembers whatever it was, he can see that in her face, but she shakes her head.
"I don't know," she tells him, though whatever it was terrifies her. "Will you stay right here until I fall asleep?"
He nods. She rests one hand on his and closes her eyes. For a second, he swears he feels another heartbeat atop his own, sloshing around. Out of sync. Unnatural. Unwanted. Then it's gone. He must be tired. Exhausted.
The next thing he knows he's waking to his PHS buzzing in his pocket. He's lying on the bed alongside Aerith, one arm draped over her. She's resting in peaceful slumber.
He pulls the phone from his pocket. It's an emergency alert from Shinra to all employees. Evidently his number is still on the listserv. Half-asleep, he reads the message.
Evacuate Sector Seven immediately. Operation Neo-Gravity is in effect.
It's like a splash of ice water. He bolts up, rousing Aerith and Nanaki.
"Get up," he tells them. Adrenaline has him in its grasp. "We have to go."
Nanaki stretches and shakes sleep from his bones. Aerith rubs her eyes.
"Why? What's happened?" She looks outside. "It's still night. The gate will be closed."
Cloud doesn't care.
"We can't wait until morning," he says. "We have to find another way into Sector Seven. And we have to do it now."
"Why? Tell me what's happened," Aerith says.
Cloud can scarcely keep his voice even. He can't believe Shinra would actually resort to such extremes.
"The plate," he says. "Shinra is going to drop the plate on Sector Seven."
Aerith is speechless for several seconds. Nanaki wrinkles his whiskers.
She finds her voice, matching Cloud's frantic tone.
"Won't that… kill everyone both on top and below? Why would they—?"
Cloud's phone rings. He doesn't recognize the number. Aerith and Nanaki are tethered to the tension that plagues him. They stare at him as he answers.
He says nothing into the receiver.
Heidegger cackles on the other end.
"Well, looks like you're in for a real treat," the Shinra executive snarls.
Cloud listens as a sound clicks, a recording plays over the line, thin and grainy. It's Tifa's voice. "Sector Seven," she's saying, and he remembers this conversation. "Below the plate. There's a bar called Seventh Heaven."
The recording plays back once then twice. Heidegger continues to laugh. Cloud has gone numb. He's powerless. It's his fault Shinra knows where Tifa and Barret have gone.
"You see?" Heidegger comes back on. "Your little escape plan was for nothing. We know where the terrorists are. And we're taking them out once and for all. No more cameras. No more media parades. Just cold, swift death."
Cloud hangs up. He looks at Aerith.
"There must be another way into Sector Seven. We must find it."
The conviction and desperation in his voice is enough to twist her heart. Someone he deeply cares for is in danger, and she won't let him face that alone.
