Aerith searches for him, sifting like fingers through soot in the dreamscape that's bound them before. This place is directionless, endless. Bright white fog surrounds her so dense that she cannot see her own body. Mist curls in her movements.
Her feet touch something wet and thick. She stands at a shoreline upon which ebbs a strange dark liquid. Its inky surface shimmers with an iridescence that distorts her reflection in scattered rings. He's here, fragments of him, somewhere, though it's difficult to sense.
She enters the pool of sludge. There is no temperature change, only substance solidifying, mist transforming. It glides over her skin, over each follicle of hair, soaks her dress onto her thighs. Her hair drifts against gravity. A starburst of cosmos bleeds the sky apart. She is not on this earth.
A scream echoes far off, then a cacophony of inhuman voices responds. None of it she can make sense of.
"Cloud?" Her word is faint and fragile, tossed against a tempest.
Then, silence.
A conical structure in a white forest shudders into view like static. A serene lake reflects its pointed spire, and black atmosphere bounds the perimeter. The view shifts so she is looking up at this place from underwater. She cracks the surface of the lake, emerging from the sludge, feeling it drip off her hair. Puddles accumulate near her feet as she steps onto the smooth stones of the shore.
It's very cold.
"Cloud?" she tries again, expecting her voice to echo in the emptiness, but it does not. The sound stifles short, as though in a vacuum.
He appears behind her, flickering into existence in the lake. But he's covered in ooze. It pours from his mouth, drenching the First-Class colors of his uniform.
"Oh, Aerith." Cloud speaks subdued without noticing the sludge crawling over him, cementing him to the lake.
"Are you alright?" she asks. "Where are you?"
The question confuses him. "I am here."
"No, where are you in the waking world?"
"Is this not awake?"
She's never heard him talk like this before. It's a shadow of his usual tone. She tries to touch him, but her arms are unresponsive. Something invisible is restraining her.
"I heard him, Aerith."
His strange gaze chills her. "Who?"
"Sephiroth. When I gave him the Black Materia, I shared his thoughts."
Darkness drips out of him, fracturing the stillness of the waters. It sparks fear in her, though she doesn't understand why.
She pulls her eyes back to his. "Wh-what did Sephiroth say?"
Cloud looks upward. She follows his sightline, but there is nothing above. She hears a tapping, very distant. Growing closer.
"We won't be so alone," Cloud says. "You and I."
"That's right," Aerith tries to follow. "We won't be alone because the Planet will heal. Life will replenish."
He chuckles. "Oh, no. He has no intention of letting you use the White Materia."
But that isn't at all what she sensed through Zack and his understanding.
"The White Materia is the balance..." she says, though it no longer sounds convincing. It isn't enough to combat the presence filling the space, unseen, around him.
"Come here," he says.
Water tugs at her hemline, inviting her in. She swallows apprehension and wades over to Cloud. She presses her hands onto his cheeks, wiping away the sludge, but beneath, his skin is mottled and bruised. He isn't reacting to her touch.
"Where are you?" she repeats, desperate to find him—the real him—in this mess. "Describe where you are."
"You won't find me," it says.
"Tell me!"
When his eyes go to hers, the pale blue has shaded green. The Mako rims around his irises are brighter.
"You think that's a meteor?" he whispers.
Then he grabs her hair. A shock of electricity rivets her into overload. Panic escalates, then shuts down. The spired structure, the lake, all vanish.
A cold mist pervades, and her eyelids open heavy. Cloud is gone.
She's in the north crater, awake and cognizant that time has passed, yet it's unclear how much. That wasn't a dream, she's sure of it. She'd been unable to reach Cloud and found that thing instead. Unless that's what's become of Cloud.
"You did the right thing," Zack says, startling her. He's next to her, caressing her hands.
They lie curled in a pocket of warmth canopied by the Lifestream. It flows around them beneath the ice, the heartbeat of the Planet. She feels it mirrored in the beating of Zack's chest. It intoxicates her—this place, him. Vibrant and alive.
"He was the only one who could deliver the Black Materia."
Yes, she knows Zack is right. Her ancestors whisper it around them. Only a Cetra could open the ancient temple, and only Jenova cells could retrieve the Black Materia. This is why she and Cloud had to align. One person cannot be the harbinger of both.
The Black Materia, she's learned, is a bond between Jenova and the Planet. When Jenova crashed eons ago, it saw how the Planet suffered. Overcrowding, war, depletion. Jenova brought relief by introducing its cells into the Lifestream. The results crystallized as rejected foreign matter, and this became the Black Materia. A spawn of Jenova once used it to summon a meteor. Even though this process destroyed the Black Materia, the meteor's impact created one anew. This is the cycle, Jenova's gift to the Planet, ensuring countless renewals.
And Aerith's materia is the balance, created by the Planet to replenish the damage caused by meteor. Only a Cetra can call upon Holy, the true spirit center of the Planet. Sephiroth needs her for this purpose, Zack had said.
Though, hadn't Cloud warned her otherwise? It's difficult to recall, exactly, as that odd dream is already slipping away.
Cloud had been right about the Jenova cells, though. He'd tried to warn her in the temple that Hojo infused them both with the cells. She hadn't wanted to believe him then. Zack's reappearance had thrown everything into disarray, and she did not want to accept anything aside from what her eyes could see.
But she's learned since then. Jenova exists within her. But, like Sephiroth, she is a child of a greater calling. She believes this as it strums through her.
"He's lost," she says of Cloud. "I can't find him."
"Do we need to? I'm sure he can take care of himself."
Zack peers at her with a smile. His violet eyes settle and excite her in equal measure. He always had a knack for soothing her anxiety. With him, everything seems okay.
That's why it kills to admit he is dead.
Oh, it had been convincing how he said he survived Nibelheim. The small amount of Jenova cells infused into all SOLDIERs gave him the strength to exist beyond the confines of his body. The Lifestream could not accept his body or spirit, and he lay discarded in the Nibel Mountains, trapped between worlds until he heard Aerith's voice.
"You called to me, across the stars," he'd said. It sounded romantic at the time.
This was why she could never hear him in the voices of the Lifestream. He'd never been permitted into the afterlife, like Sephiroth. And the General sought him through the Jenova cells, gave him purpose, had him journey to find the Black Materia so they could reset the Planet and find peace.
Yes, it was a lovely story, and Aerith had gulped up every last word when he first spoke them because he was here. He was back. She wants him next to her, alive, touching her. She wants this more than anything. But here, at the cusp of the Planet's deepest wound, she sees the truth.
No, please, she begs. She can't admit it. She squeezes his hand.
This is the body of Jenova. The headless mother of Shinra's darkest endeavors. This is what they've been following across the globe as it masqueraded in a form pulled from the minds of whomever Jenova bonded with. That is why Zack feels so complete; he's comprised of memories from Sephiroth, her, and Cloud.
"Cloud," Zack says, "isn't like us. He is already whole."
A perfect simulacrum. Independent cell proliferation. A miracle.
"That is why the temple chose him as the carrier for the Black Materia, instead of me."
Me, it says. Aerith represses that crawling feeling in her gut. It isn't him. Her lover is dead.
"Sephiroth gains strength," Zack says. "With each passing second."
And then what? She'd been led to believe her White Materia is key to the aftermath of the Black, but so far, she's been held, drugged, under Zack's care.
As if sensing her dismay, he kisses her forehead. If she closes her eyes, she can pretend.
Then the image of Cloud in the black lake pulses in her head. His mouth moves, but she can hear no sound.
"We can become whole, too," Zack says. "Don't you want that?"
Yes. She interlaces her fingers with his. She wants to become whole. His words are sedation. The cries of the Planet rise around her. She thinks of the White Materia in her hair ribbon. The milky orb was her mother's, and the energies of this place have fortified it. For the first time, she's able to sense something within. A faint tremble. She focuses on it.
Zack rests his hand over hers. He smells so good.
"I know you aren't real," she says, opening her eyes.
"But you want me to be."
Tears sting her skull. "Yes."
"Then, I am."
So many contradictions live within her. Jenova is the Planet's savior. Jenova is the Planet's destruction. The Black Materia is a cleanse and rebirth. The White Materia only exists to repair what Jenova takes away. Sephiroth is a victim, held in purgatory for being born aligned with Jenova. Sephiroth is an antagonist, seeking the annihilation of life, manipulation of the Lifestream. Retribution or reunion. Aerith doesn't know. Each second blurs her mind one way or the other. Zack is dead. Zack is alive. His touch leaves her thoughts fuzzy.
"Would it be better to see my true form?" he asks, reading her uncertainty.
Zack is a panacea. Zack is poison.
Poison. It leaks into her, striving to get deeper into her veins, her body. Like ink spreading in water. Polluting. Turning.
She isn't herself anymore. She hasn't been since the temple.
Cloud stands in a pool of ooze, dripping with prismatic darkness.
Help me, he says without speaking. Help.
"Your true form?" Aerith asks. Her voice sounds small and feeble. She's losing her strength. Zack is taking it from her.
The purple Mako-filled irises shift into green. The thick black hair she loves so much becomes long and silver. It winds past a dark Shinra uniform, a rank she's never seen. A sudden paralysis overcomes her.
Her hand is still holding his, with the White Materia between them. When did she take it out?
Her heart catches. Sephiroth is next to her, a man she's only seen in pictures. He's taller than Zack, shoulders broader. Enhanced muscles wrap around a slender frame. Fear and hatred squirm for dominance in her, yet he soothes like hypnosis.
"Don't you see I'm the one in control here?" Sephiroth asks.
His voice shocks her because she's heard it before, against the cries of the Planet. A resounding forceful denial of his intrusion. He speaks mild, soft. He isn't a raging lunatic.
"I've had a long time to think," he tells her, and she realizes she can no longer move her body. He slides his palm over the White Materia, then picks it up from her. "I've had years to consider and plan. To work with the monstrosity I was born with. To meld it to my will and make myself stronger because of it."
The edge of his voice cuts harder, developing the tone of a commander. She feels a whim of panic as he examines the White Materia in the glow of the Lifestream. Then he drops it into her palm. It's ice cold.
She tries to speak. "Where is Cloud?" she says, but it isn't more than a mumble. There's static hissing, drowning out everything except for Sephiroth's voice.
"Hm. Cloud," the General repeats. "He is going to be trouble. I think he's learning too much."
This is the man who murdered her lover, but something inside her doesn't respond to the desire for anger or vengeance. She's held in a state of ambivalence.
"I've become more than human," he continues. "I've syncopated with Jenova. I can manipulate her now. She is not a logical creature like you and me."
He turns his head to look at her.
"Shall I show you this power, too?"
"No," she says, though perhaps she means yes.
He smirks. "You and I are true descendants of the union between sky and stars. You and I can change the cycle."
Reset the patterns, she thinks though it isn't her thought at all.
"Please don't show me Zack again," she says. It's too painful.
Sephiroth nods. "Of course." He stands and opens his arms upward. "It won't be much longer now. My corporeal body is accumulating an infusion of resources here. With the meteor descending, the Lifestream spouts to the surface. You can feel it around us, energizing us."
Yes, she can. She finds herself agreeing, rapt by his statements. His presence is electricity, and she understands how he could have led an army.
"Our time has come," he says, leveling that piercing green gaze onto hers. "I will leave you with Mother. There is much I need to prepare for the ascension."
Then he is gone. The form of Sephiroth reduces into the tendrilled torso of a writhing alien monster. Jenova's true appearance. Yet she is changed from last Aerith saw on the cargo ship. She retains a spherical shape, but not for long. Already the form is becoming human.
Cloud looks over at her. "Is this better?"
Her heart and stomach sink. It is, and somewhere in the back of her mind she remembers being concerned for Cloud. Why was that? She can't recall. It must not be important. Cloud can take care of himself, Zack had said. Mother had said.
Aerith clutches the White Materia, focusing on the newfound energies within. It's immaculate, all these sensations pouring from the walls around her. She meditates, lost in the abyss that opens in the palms of her hands. Deep down in the earth is a slumbering essence. She reaches for it through the divine. Her eyes close. She drifts.
More than human, Sephiroth had said. She's never been human to start with. And this is her destiny. A slow, methodical pull to which nobody outside these caves shall interfere.
