They walk for hours through ceaseless grasslands. Midgar is a smoldering spiral of smoke in a yellowish sky, and jagged mountains frame the east. Junon is beyond those mountains and swamps, and ahead, somewhere, is the chocobo farm. Aggressive wildlife occasionally breaks up the dreary mood, but overall the group trudges forward in silence. Tifa keeps sending long mournful looks at the distant burning wreckage of the city.

At one point, Barret walks alongside Cloud. "So what's all that Mako feel like anyhow?" he asks. "Y'know, all that junk swimming in your eyes that they pump in one of you SOLDIERs."

Cloud considers the question. "Actually, I don't feel a thing. I don't really notice it unless I'm casting a materia."

"Why's that?" Tifa says, taking in the conversation to dispel the demise of Sector Seven.

"I guess it's because materia is condensed Mako," Cloud says. "The energies that prompt the reaction in the materia sync up with the Mako in my cells for a second, enhancing the results. It feels like a… a tightening sensation almost."

"Sounds awful," Barret says.

"What's your problem with Mako anyways?" Cloud asks in genuine curiosity. "Don't the Reactors bring plenty of clean power to everyone?"

Aside from the incident in the Nibel Reactor, which wasn't directly the cause of any Mako mishap, he's never heard anyone complain of Mako until he met Avalanche.

Barret laughs, loud and long. "Oh boy, you really brainwashed deep, huh?"

Cloud doesn't laugh. Tifa gives Barret a little shove.

"What Barret means to say," Tifa explains to Cloud with a curt glance at Barret, "is that Shinra only wants people to think it's clean power. The truth is that Mako energy is sourced directly from the lifeblood of the planet. Those Reactors pull it up from the earth and disperse it for our use, but it's never returned to the planet."

"And," Barret adds, "there's plenty a' research out there, squashed by Shinra whenever possible, saying that we're draining the planet bone dry! Without any way to replenish what we take, the planet will eventually die."

"Die?" Cloud repeats, thinking this an exaggeration. "Isn't it just a rock?"

At this, Aerith glances over. Her and Nanaki are edging into the conversation as well.

"No, you Shinra idiot!" Barret yells. "It ain't just a damn rock. An' we gotta protect it from that greedy company Shinra popping up their Reactors all over the place. How you think Shinra got so much wealth and control? It wasn't by handing out free and clean energy, that's for damn sure. Once they put in a Reactor, they control the area. Plain and simple."

"And the Reactors can be unstable and dangerous," Tifa continues. "Don't you remember the explosion at Gongaga? The Reactor destabilized and destroyed the entire town. It was all over the news a few years ago."

Cloud averts his gaze in discomfort. All those blank spots in his head rear up. A long dark nothingness.

But Tifa doesn't let up. "You must remember that. Right?" She's staring into him with concern and scrutiny.

"I…" he starts to say, but then Barret rescues him.

"What I really wanna know," Barret interrupts, "is what the hell you know about this Sephiroth guy. You worked with him in the past, and now we trailin' him like a pack of lunatics. I wanna know exactly what we gettin' ourselves into."

Cloud breathes out, not at all relieved because the attention remains firmly on him. Even Aerith and Nanaki are watching him now.

"Um. Where should I start?" Cloud asks, rubbing the back of his head.

"At the beginning, of course," Barret snorts.

Everyone becomes silent as they walk. It's clear Cloud will not escape telling this story. He takes a deep breath.

"The only place I can really start is on that day five years ago…"

He'd been assigned a mission with the General to check out the Nibel Reactor, around which reports of mutated monsters in the mountains had surfaced at the nearby town of Nibelheim.

Cloud pauses to exchange a look with Tifa. She says nothing, so he continues.

He never made the rank of SOLDIER, which he'd aspired to at the academy like all cadets, but as a low-ranking member of the military police, he was absolutely thrilled to be assigned detail for the great General Sephiroth. Along with a First-Class SOLDIER and a small escort squad, they arrived in Nibelheim. Tifa was, remarkably enough, assigned to be their local guide through the mountains, since the paths were notoriously rough.

At this, Tifa blushes. "We took a photo at the gate together…" she says. "I can't believe that was you under that helmet."

Cloud wasn't in the picture of course. He stood off to the side as Tifa excitedly asked for Sephiroth's photo, proof that their quiet country town had once been visited by the prestigious general.

Upon investigating the Reactor, it was found to be within normal operating parameters aside from one broken valve, an easy fix, but the pressure which broke it came from a strange additional area, housed behind the usual churning pool of Mako. Perhaps they were never meant to enter this room. Perhaps Shinra didn't realize Sephiroth would find or even care about these experiments, but in this adjunct section were rows of large industrial metal tubes that resembled coffins with a small viewing window. Piled flush against one another, there were over a dozen, all with some sort of Mako condensing system being pumped in.

Normally condensed Mako would become materia, and Shinra was manufacturing plenty of materia so this wasn't immediately unusual. Until Sephiroth looked inside. He laughed in disbelief, and Cloud stole a look, too, though immediately sprang back at the sight. Within each was the twisted form of a human being, altered to a hideous degree by the intensity of Mako condensation and saturation. This was far beyond what any normal SOLDIER would undergo.

The monsters in the mountains, it turned out, were actually these creatures, somehow released, perhaps purposefully, into the surrounding area. All part of some sick experimentation on stamina, longevity, exposure. Cloud remembers feeling like he was going to throw up.

Sephiroth was far more perturbed. He questioned his own origin, disgusted by these monstrosities cooked-up under Shinra's hood. He returned with Cloud and the First-Class SOLDIER to Nibelheim and locked himself in the old mansion in town.

Static fuzzes this memory into white. Cloud tries to see what exactly happens next. He catches a glimpse of the library. That's right…

Sephiroth barricaded himself for days, and when Cloud went to find him, he was met with a raving sleep-deprived madman amidst reams of Shinra documents. Sephiroth claimed Jenova was a Cetra, and that he himself was a manufactured science experiment created from Jenova's cells. He thought himself an Ancient, a true heir to the planet. He went on about finding the Promised Land. And then he did the unthinkable. Cloud tried to stop him (didn't he?).

Another flash of static.

When Cloud rushed outside after the General, the town was ablaze. Everyone was screaming and coughing. The sky was filled with black smoke. He tried to find his mother in the wreckage. Then he saw Sephiroth through the flames, smiling, turning away from the town and disappearing into the mountains.

Cloud pursued (he must have). More static, and suddenly he's in the Nibel Reactor.

By the time Cloud arrived, Tifa's father, who had run after Sephiroth in a fury, was dead. Masamune marks slashed his body. Tifa was there, bent over his corpse, sobbing with rage. She entered the adjunct room beyond the Mako pool.

Within that room was a massacre. Shira soldiers who'd been stationed in the town lay dead all around. The First-Class SOLDIER had been cut through. And Tifa…

Cloud stops for a second. Nobody needs to know this part. How scared he was by her condition.

Tifa was injured, but she was miraculously alive. Sephiroth had moved his attention to something further inside the Reactor, a high-security sealed door which now he destroyed. Cloud followed, and in that massive inner sanctum was a metal platform atop a snaking collection of tubes like a ladder, at the center of which was a steel structure securing a feminine motionless being. It was Jenova, an amalgamated body of discolored flesh and abnormal protrusions. It's head was covered by a metal contraption taking all sorts of readings that Cloud couldn't comprehend.

Sephiroth snapped open the containment chamber, wrenched off the metal crown, and cut off the thing's head. He called it his mother. He told her he would take the planet back for her. He laughed and laughed.

He pushed Cloud out of the way and walked out.

"...And that's it," Cloud says.

Barret hollers, caught up in the story, "What?! What do you mean? What happened to Sephiroth?"

"In terms of skill, I couldn't have killed him," Cloud says.

"But you told Tifa you did."

"Shinra told me I did, and I thought that was true until recently. I was gravely injured in the Reactor. The events could make sense, but I don't remember any of it clearly. I spent the next five years in a coma."

Tifa gasps. "Five years? You mean…"

"Yes," Cloud admits finally. "I've been… well, I just woke up. Sorta."

The entire group is silent.

Cloud goes on, "I don't remember much of anything, to be honest. I had extreme Mako poisoning, and lots of it is just a blur. Even my time before that day."

Nanaki clicks his tongue. "Hm. Fascinating."

Aerith stares off in deep thought. "Sephiroth is an Ancient?"

"I don't know if any of it is true," Cloud says. "It's just what Sephiroth believed. Or what I remembered."

Barret holds up his hand. "Wait, wait, wait. So you tellin' me that you don't actually know the guy? You jes' went on this one mission with him where he went crazy, and that's all we have to go on?"

"I know it isn't much," Cloud says. "But I'm the last person who saw him alive, and I need to understand what really happened. Why didn't he kill me?"

"Maybe he thought he did."

Cloud doesn't agree. "Sephiroth wouldn't have been that careless. If I got in his way, I should've been dead."

The puzzlement only grows between the group as they walk. The grasslands wave gently around them, and on the horizon a tiny dot of the chocobo farm appears though nobody acknowledges it.

"There's more…" Cloud exhales. "I think I know why Sephiroth may have returned."

He tells everyone of the thing in the basement, the headless remnant of Jenova that he unwittingly uncovered. Shinra's secret that they brought back from the Nibel Reactor. Sephiroth must've come back for it, Cloud rationalizes, for his "mother". And that trail of blood had to be the smear of Jenova's mutilated body ripped free from its tubes, all the way up to the president's suite.

"He stopped at the weapons storage," Cloud remembers the length of gore so clearly. "To get his masamune. Then he killed the President."

"But why?" Barret says, "Why kill the president of Shinra at all?"

"Payback perhaps? Sephiroth felt betrayed by his hidden lineage. I'm not sure," Cloud says.

"And then leave his weapon behind? Carry out a massive ancient species bleedin' all over the damn place? How'd he get out anyways? A lot of this don't make any sense. I'm goin', goin', gone." Barret makes a gesture like his brain's floated out his ear. "All I wanna do is make Shinra pay. That's what I'm here for."

Cloud admires his straightforward attitude. He wishes it could be that simple for him, too.

Nanaki flicks his tail and asks, "What of this Promised Land? Could this place where Sephiroth wants to go actually be a real place?"

Aerith assumes they want an answer from her, but she shakes her head. "I don't know. I'm just as lost as you all are."

The group approaches the farm. It's a single-storied quaint house surrounded by pens of fluffy feathered chocobos. The golden birds chirp and wark at the visitors, and a farm hand comes from behind the wooden stables. The area is well-groomed, and the chocobos are lively. The boy who approaches wears a wide-brimmed straw hat and chews a toothpick. He can't be more than fifteen years-old.

"Welcome, friends! You old folks lookin' to cross the marshes into the mountains?"

Cloud answers for the team, "Yeah, that's right."

"Lookin' to get into Junon, I reckon?"

"Yep…"

"Lookin' to—"

"Yes, a chocobo. We wanna buy a bunch. How much?" Cloud grumbles impatiently.

The boy whistles low. "Well, ain't that a pickle. We don't have any for sale!"

Cloud points at the livestock clearly prancing around the pens. "What about those?"

"Private stock for a client. Can't part with those. But I can sell you some Gysahl Greens if you wanna try baiting and catchin' your own?"

The exhaustion in Cloud's face is apparent. He doesn't want to catch chocobos. He doesn't want to bait any wild ones out in the grasses. He just wants to get to Junon.

Sensing Cloud's aggravation, Tifa steps in. "Is that our only option?" she asks. "Surely we can pay to rent your client's chocobos. We just need to get to the mountain pass. Aren't most chocobos trained to return to their stables anyways? We can let them free once we cross the marsh, and your client won't even know."

The farmhand considers this, chewing his toothpick slowly. "How do I know you won't get my birds hurt or killed? Them marshes are treacherous."

Cloud snaps, "This is life or death we're talking here. We need to get to Junon, and your farm is the only place around that can help us. Haven't you heard what happened in Midgar?"

The boy keeps his gaze on Tifa, but answers Cloud. "Nope. Ain't heard nothing of the big city. Don't care."

"It's a line of smoke on the horizon," Cloud responds. "How can you not care? We really need those chocobos, and fast."

Tifa tries once more. "Let's be reasonable," she says to the farmhand. "Our gil to rent your birds. They are trained to return home, right?"

The farm boy slowly nods.

"And you do need our gil, right?"

Again, the boy nods.

"Then I think we have an agreement," Tifa states. She produces a pocketful of gil, counting out more than enough for four birds. "Nanaki will ride with me," she says to the team.

"Couldn't fathom how I would manage riding a chocobo otherwise, miss," Nanaki replies.

The boy continues staring at her, taking in the sight of her large breasts in that tight-fitting white top. Cloud wants to tell the kid to keep his eyes up, but then again maybe this is part of the tactic to win his favor. He watches as Tifa finishes counting out the cash.

"There," she says, handing it over. "With extra to cover damages, just in case."

The boy finally looks into the pile of cash in his hands, and a wide smile breaches his sullen face. He calls out an even younger girl from the house. He eagerly hands her the money, and she disappears inside.

"Can't argue with this much money," the boy says. "Me and my sis thank you kindly."

He whistles sharp at the birds and gathers up four of the shiniest stock.

After saddles are secured and the return gesture is practiced, the chocobos are prepared for their journey across the marshes. With their swift steps, traversing the muddy terrain will be a cinch. Cloud can't thank Tifa enough. She brushes it off, attributing her negotiating skills to her years as a bartender.

Everyone mounts their chocobos and heads off. After about ten paces, Barret begins to wobble.

"H-Hey," he calls to Cloud. "I ain't never ride one of these things before." His chocobo begins walking in circles as he pulls the reins this way and that. "You two country hicks seem fine enough!"

It's true; Tifa and Cloud have no trouble with their birds, even though Cloud's never been on one before. But the creature is sweet and warks happily at Cloud. Aerith files alongside Barret.

"I've been raised in the city, and I'm doing fine," she says. "Just need to relax. The chocobo can sense your panic. Ease up on the reins. There you go."

With her coaxing, Barret's chocobo calms down and eventually follows the others. Aerith stays closeby, soothing the animal as Barret eases into trotting. Nanaki sits behind Tifa on hers, precariously balanced, leaning against her back. Tifa is the only one between them who has ridden a chocobo before. Cloud might have as a child or maybe at the academy because it comes so natural, but he can't say for certain.

At last, everyone is in order and they proceed across the marshes. The chocobos pick up speed, easily covering a distance which would have otherwise taken many hours on foot. The marshes are thick sludge and shaded with tall drooping branches from gnarled old trees. Swaths of moss blanket the limbs and trunks, creating a canopy of green that blots out the bright afternoon sun. The air becomes sticky and buzzing with insects. Frogs croak and plop in the stagnant waters alongside long slithering creatures.

But the chocobos are lithe and navigate the swamps without difficulty. Cloud finally feels like they are making progress, inching closer to Junon.

The swamps terminate at the mountain ridgeline, and the murky waters recede into dry chunky land, pebbled with rocks. The mountains soar above them, and the only way through is the mineshaft cut into the stone. They walk along until they find the entry.

"Well," Aerith says, dismounting her chocobo. "I guess this is it."

There's no turning back once the chocobos return. The marshes are too perilous.

Cloud is ready to go on. He gestures to his steed to return home. It warks and nudges him playfully. He tries again and this time it understands. With an oddly sad look at him, it departs. Tifa and Barret do the same. Aerith hesitates, then dismisses hers as well. The five stand alone at the base of the mountains. The gaping darkness of the mythril mines lays ahead.

Above them, three black Shinra helicopters cross the sky towards Junon. The sight pushes Cloud forward. He enters first, hearing the others slowly follow.

He expects the mines to be dark, but as he descends he finds a startling amount of fluorescent materials in the rock, arcing in patterns like mold. It gives off a faint green glow, just enough to illuminate the way as the carved corridors go completely underground. Shafts of natural light peek in through tiny holes in the ceiling, letting in breezes of mountain air.

The caverns open into wide spaces of dripping stalactites under the eerie greenish hues of fluorescence. The sound of running water echoes from pitch-black chasms.

"Watch your step…" Tifa warns, narrowly missing a crumbling ledge on her way behind Cloud.

The silence and luminescence grants an ethereal quality to their voyage, though the low visibility keeps them moving slow. Too slow for Cloud. He can easily navigate ahead without the others, but he keeps a steady pace so they can keep up.

"Yo, Cloud," Barret calls from the rear of the single file, "Whatchu plannin' on doing if we actually do find this Sephiroth guy?"

Cloud's thought about this quite a lot lately.

"He murdered scores of innocent people that day, destroyed my hometown, and betrayed Shinra's trust." My trust, he wants to specify, but that sounds too pathetic. "If he isn't dead, then he ought to be."

"Hm, so you plannin' to kill him? I thought you said he was unmatched in skill."

"I somehow survived before, and if nothing else, my years with Shinra have given me an advantage." The cell therapy, however morbidly unethical, has granted him an excess of strength. Perhaps even on par with Sephiroth now.

"So you bringin' us along on a suicide mission."

"Hey, none of you have to come with me. This is a...personal fight," Cloud contends. "You're free to go wherever you want."

"Not with Shinra lookin' to have us dead. I, at least, wanna get across the ocean. Maybe we can wreck some shit up for Shinra in Junon. That's their military base, right?"

Cloud confirms. He must've spent time there as a cadet. Isn't that where the academy was? It's no use trying to remember. But he does know Junon remains the hub of military activity, with its massive Mako-powered cannon aimed over the sea. Even if the war with Wutai is over, the display of Shinra's power remains quite impressive.

Barret says nothing more as the caverns taper into narrow confines of dimly glowing green. The rushing of water diminishes behind them. It's very dark except for the shine of Nanaki's tail, though it doesn't offer much light at his mid-group position.

Fingers graze his forearm. It's Aerith next to him in the luminescent pallor. He can hear the others behind, vague forms stepping in the darkness.

"I've been meaning to ask you…" she says quietly, close alongside him as they navigate forward. "The First-Class SOLDIER who was with you…"

Her eyes are full of longing and fear. Cloud remembers she told him once, way back at the labs, that her boyfriend was First-Class, killed in action.

"Oh," Cloud says, realizing she is steeling herself for the worst news possible. "Yeah, his name was…"

A flash of static fills his head. Then it's gone. Aerith is gazing into him, clutching his forearm though her nails now dig into him.

"His name was Zack."

And he sees it hit her hard. She stops, releases his arm and holds one hand against her chest, right over her heart. A breath kicks out of her like she's been physically hit. Her other hand covers her mouth, biting back a sob.

"I'm sorry, I just…" She wipes tears away with her palm. "I knew he was gone. This isn't a shock. But I just… didn't know how."

He's only glad she hadn't been there to see Zack's body, sliced apart like nothing. A crumpled husk in violet and blotting red.

Aerith eases onward, and Cloud continues next to her. She's already recovered, blinking rapidly, though the biofluorescence throws deep haunting shadows beneath her eyes. He can't believe the coincidence of this link to her, and her link to Nibelheim.

"I want Sephiroth dead, too…" she whispers.

Cloud doesn't know what to say to this, it sounds so unnatural coming from her usually cheerful demeanor, so he says nothing. Eventually the caverns open up again, and the slight incline in the rocky path means they are coming up to the other side of the mountains.

At last, the expanse of grasslands opens up, relieving them from the dark and dreary underworld of the mines. It takes Cloud several seconds for his eyes to adjust to the bright blue skies. The others exit happily, Nanaki sucking in a deep breath of fresh air and Tifa stretching tall. Barret pulls out a pair of sunglasses from his pocket. They are covered in soot from Midgar, so he wipes them clean and then after a sour examination puts them away again. The destruction is too fresh for such a reminder.

"Alright, so all we have to do is get through these plains, and Junon should be at the shore," Cloud says, hoping he's correct. Barret seems to know the way best, so he offers to let Barret lead instead.

Another black Shinra helicopter whisks by overhead.

Barret watches until it's just a dot in the sky.

"You know," he says to Cloud, "Junon is going to be crawling with Shinra. You sure this is a good idea? To go straight into the hornet's nest?"

"Like I said," Cloud reiterates, "You don't have to come. I'm looking for Sephiroth, and Shinra believes he's in Junon. That's good enough for me."

Barret narrows his eyes. "Hmm, well, I think we should split up. Walkin' across these plains in a big group will be pretty obvious to anyone from above." Without waiting for a response, he says, "Cloud, you're with me."

Tifa nods in agreement. "I know the route. I can lead Aerith and Nanaki. We can remain under the radar as long as possible."

Cloud wants to protest, but the idea does make sense, even if he'd prefer not to be alone with Barret. Aerith and Tifa stand together, off to one side, ready to go off on their own with Nanaki.

"Good," Barret assesses. "We take different paths. Meet up inside the city walls. Call if you run into trouble."

And with that, the groups are set and done. Barret trudges onward, and Cloud is inclined to follow. Barret is accustomed to being the leader, and Cloud doesn't feel like arguing over who should decide when they split up or not. He glances back at Tifa, Aerith, and Nanaki disappearing beyond a rolling hill. Their boots break fresh tracks across the grasses.

He follows Barret in silence, wondering what exactly awaits in Junon. It's a big city, and it will be hard to find Sephiroth, especially while avoiding Shinra. It would be easier if he was doing this alone. Maybe.

The plains give way to sparse woodlands. Birds chirp, and shafts of sunlight break through the swaying colorful leaves. Sticks and brittle foliage crunch underfoot. Cloud keeps thinking he sees something. Someone following, but each time he stops and looks, there is nothing amiss. Barret doesn't seem to notice. Must be paranoia, he shakes it off. Even if Shinra did discover them, it's nothing he couldn't handle. Even the Turks didn't seem all that lethal when he actually fought one of them. If that thing hadn't interfered—

"Awright, man," Barret's sudden voice startles Cloud. Barret looks straight ahead, but his tone is strained, like he's been wanting to say this for a while. "I don't know shit about you. And as far as I'm concerned, you still not exactly trustworthy, what with that mixed-up story in yo' head and how you so easily turned on Shinra, tryin' to help us when the first time we met you nearly killed me…"

He pauses, expecting Cloud to react. Cloud keeps quiet, sensing this is the real purpose Barret wanted to split up.

"An' you got your eye on Tifa, I can see that much. It's obvious."

At this, Cloud does open his mouth to speak, but Barret trucks on.

"She gets a lot of guys buzzin' around her, and I know she can take care of herself. But she got a soft spot for you. I can see that. She vulnerable from all this shit in her past. And if you take advantage of that…"

"You think I would seriously—?"

"I don't know, man. I don't know. I'm just sayin' don't you dare hurt her." His eyes are locked forward, teeth gritting. He's worked with Tifa a long time, longer than Cloud could claim any sort of similar bond with her, and the protective attitude makes sense.

But Cloud still wants to ask, "She's not… I mean, your girlfriend or anything, right?"

Barret chuckles. "Nah, man. She sweet, but it ain't like that. We had our moments in the past, but the work we do… can't get emotions involved. Can't fuck up because someone you love it on the line."

He gives Cloud a long cold look.

"You get what I'm sayin', spike?"

Cloud isn't so sure. Then a sound snaps behind them. A twig. He spins around. There's nobody there.

"Did you hear…?" he starts to ask, but a shape spirals through the air over them.

A young woman lands squarely in front of their path. In her hands is a massive shuriken, heavy and lethal, glinting in the late afternoon sun. A bandana holds back short dark hair. She's Wutain, and clad in a cropped sleeveless green sweater and beige shorts. Her left arm is poised in front, protected by a long sleeve of armor.

"Surrender your money!" she proclaims.

Barret and Cloud pause in their tracks, neither certain what to make of this intruder.

"Ahem! Your cash, gentlemen. And your materia, Mr. Giant Sword. I can see it shimmering through that flimsy sheathe."

She can't be more than sixteen. Barret laughs.

"Who the fuck are you?" he asks in mild intrigue.

"You're the one who's been following us," Cloud says, knowing, at last, that he isn't going crazy and seeing things.

"That's right!" the mysterious woman replies. "And now that you're alone, I'll be taking all your goods."

"Get lost, kid," Barret says, and he starts to walk around her. She quickly sidesteps to block his path.

"Don't trifle with a ninja," she warns, shaking her weapon menacingly.

"A ninja?" Barret hoots. "Now I've seen everything."

The woman charges, tossing the shuriken with measured precision. Cloud shoves Barret out of the way just in time to avoid the strike. Already his sword is out, and he watches the shuriken somehow spin back towards its owner, returning like a boomerang right into the young woman's hands. She cartwheels backwards to gain distance, then throws the spiraling blades again, this time at Cloud. Barret stands to one side, gun-arm raised but not taking any shots. It's confusing, this sudden assault.

Cloud dodges the shuriken, watching it once again return. The third time she throws it, he blocks with his weapon. The steel clashes, and her weapon falls to the forest floor, loss of momentum unable to send it spiraling back to her. She jolts for it, but Cloud's boot is sturdy at the center of the crossed blades. And he is much stronger than she is.

"What are you doing out here?" he asks, cautiously holding his sword yet not prepared to use it.

The girl is on all fours, one hand on her weapon, eyes looking up at Cloud. Then her glance darts to Barret. She grins.

"Your gil, like I said," she states, tugging at her shuriken.

"We ain't got no time for this, Cloud," Barret says. "Les' just go."

"Why've you really been following us?" Cloud keeps inquiring of her. "Are you working for Shinra?"

She spits and says something in Wutain. Cloud doesn't understand the word, but he can tell it's a vicious curse.

"Okay," Barret says to Cloud, "So she isn't with Shinra."

"You better go," Cloud tells her, releasing his foot from her weapon. She scoops it up and immediately puts distance between them.

"C'mon," she taunts, twirling her weapon. "Let's go again. One more time!"

Cloud sighs. "Not interested."

He pushes past her. Barret follows.

"Hey!" she shouts. "You spikey-headed jerk, don't you turn your back on me!"

Cloud and Barret keep walking. This woman is obviously out of her mind.

"Oh, I get it," she says, one hand on her hip. "You're scared of me. You're running away."

Barret mutters under his breath, "What is with this chick? You sure she been followin' us?"

Cloud shrugs. Her motivation feels opaque.

"Yep, that's right," she continues loudly, marching behind them. "You're scared."

"...Petrified," Cloud replies, rolling his eyes.

"Just as I thought," she says definitively. "Well, good luck to you guys, wandering around in these woods. I bet you don't even know where you're going."

"Don't engage…" Barret mumbles. This entire encounter makes Cloud uneasy. He's suspicious of her, yet it's strange how he feels she's more of a peer than anyone else he's met so far.

"Fine, then don't ask for my help," she huffs, finally ceasing in her tracks. "You'll be sorry!"

Cloud and Barret keep going without looking back. The young woman calls after them once or twice more, then falls silent. Cloud glances through the trees, but she's gone. The woods are once more undisturbed save for the wildlife and the fluttering of leaves. A brief wind rustles his hair.

"Damn, that was weird," Barret exhales once it's clear the mysterious ninja has gone. "Who do you think she was?"

But Cloud is noticing something odd. His pockets are...lighter. He checks his gil.

"You've got to be kidding me…" He can scarcely believe it.

"What?" Barret asks.

Cloud can't comprehend how it happened. The woman didn't even come near him, or so he thought. It's incredible that with all his training, all his heightened senses, he'd let his guard down. She seemed so harmless, so innocent. That was part of the act.

"My gil…" He's almost ashamed to admit it. "She stole two hundred from me."

Barret looks like he's about to laugh, but then he considers what it means. "Huh. She's good."

Cloud brushes it off. "Let's just get outta these woods. Junon can't be much farther."

Barret lets out a low chortle and shakes his head. "Things just keep gettin' more interesting around you."

Interesting may not be the best word. Complicated, maybe. He's just glad Tifa wasn't here to see this.

The day wanes, and they exit the forest without further interruption. The plains stretch into a cobalt sea, with Junon a glistening copper point between them. Cloud focuses on the city, on Sephiroth. This single goal has filled him with overwhelming purpose. Despite what he told Barret earlier and the shared pain he feels with Tifa, he isn't sure what he will do if he actually sees Sephiroth again. There's a guilty reverence twisting in his head, a fascination he can't quite place. And the closer they get to Junon, the stronger he feels that the General absolutely is not dead, and that he is drawing nearer to a point of no return.