She's dreaming of smoke and fire. No, it isn't Nibelheim. She rarely dreams of home, and when she does, it's in nightmare snapshots of her father bleeding out atop metal grating. Here she's following someone through visceral soot that coats her mouth and stings her eyes, but she cannot get a good glimpse of them. They are always ahead in the smog.

Tifa startles awake to a silent cavern of luminescent materia crystals. The constant undulations craft an illusion of underwater solitude, but she is not alone. Her companions are asleep in adjacent grottos. After hours of traveling through progressively hotter tunnels hollowed by Mako depletion, the group decided to rest. Pushing forward to find Cloud and Aerith would do no favors if they reencountered Jenova. Or worse.

Jenova manipulated friend into foe, poisoning slow and steady with insidious results; what horrors could it evolve into next? Tifa hangs her head between crossed arms over her knees. She's sweating. Most of the group shed their winter clothes like a trail of breadcrumbs. But these tunnels are a labyrinth, and no matter which tactic the group employs for finding their way out, the Planet seems intent on swallowing them whole. Corridors change. Crystalline structures shift. Rocks crumble, and chasms diverge. The Lifestream only knows to consume and recreate. And this heat… Tifa wipes her forehead. It is cooking them alive.

She stands and stretches, not at all rested. The fire in her dreams pushes into the waking world and distorts her senses. Burnt char pervades the heady sweetness of Mako, dissipating in the wake of its phantom host. The budding materia lends an ethereal glow to the atmosphere, and nebulous shadows follow Tifa as she checks on the others.

Barret mumbles in his sleep next to Nanaki, who has his tail tucked to his nose. Yuffie sprawls in the consecutive chamber with Vincent leaning against the wall, upright, eyes open. Cid curls near his lance in the next alcove. Everyone has found their own sliver of space, and Vincent is on watch.

"Tifa," he regards. "Everything alright?"

Crimson eyes flutter to hers beneath dark locks.

"Just nightmares," she says.

Vincent nods as if this is certainly the place for nightmares. She wonders how anyone can sleep with the anxiety of what's ahead and what's behind.

"I-I'm going for a brief walk," she says. "To clear my head. I won't go far."

Vincent assesses in silence whether or not he should insist upon chaperoning. The dangers surrounding them are unknown, but he relaxes and gestures his understanding. She wants to be alone.

She tightens her gloves, though the motions provide no comfort. She steps into the main artery of vast rock and ice lit faintly by the omnipresent Lifestream, and her heart skips. Adrenaline flushes the fuzziness and brimstone away.

"Cloud?"

He's standing at the entrance to another cave that glitters in patches of blue materia. The twinkling is almost starlight.

"Tifa!" He runs to her and embraces.

The pair hug tight. She catches the insane rush of relief before it spills into tears down her cheeks. Her skin presses to his.

"You're okay!" she says, grasping both his hands. "What happened?"

He's not okay, but physical damage can heal. Scrapes cover his arms. He winces in her embrace. He's limping, and there's—

"Blood?" she asks. Splattered droplets dot the remnants of his armor. He, too, has lost his heavy outer clothing. "What happened? Tell me."

"I'm alright," he says, squeezing her gloves. "I fell a long way, but everything is fine."

She surveys, awaiting explanation.

Then he begins, "I found Aerith."

Tifa's heart sinks. His tone, the blood, the drained look on his face—it can mean only one thing.

"Oh, no…" Tifa squeaks out. She withdraws one hand to her chest.

"But it's not what you think," he says, holding her up. "Aerith is free now. She was suffering before. All that junk Hojo did to her… Her body couldn't sustain the Jenova cells. Not like mine."

Tifa finds him in her gaze. "Not like you," she repeats. "Of course she isn't like you."

The rebuke pushes Cloud back. He breaks their contact.

"There was nothing I could do. She was too far gone. Her mind was delusional. Her body was breaking down. This blood…" he says, dabbing at a speck of it. "She kept coughing it up, mixed with this sludge."

A starless lake flashes in Tifa. Ribbons of slime slide through her fingers as she wades in darkness. She touches Cloud's chest. It's impossible he could be made of the same.

"I tried to help her," he continues. "But…"

Nothing more can be said. Regret chokes Tifa. She wishes she'd been closer to Aerith, asked more questions, spent more time together. She breathes against a tide of grief.

"How did you find us?" she asks, stifling the flood.

"Luck, I suppose. I don't know how, but we always keep finding each other."

She smiles at the thought despite tears now running freely. Aerith had been a bright spot in their adventure. Tifa was running from Shinra, dodging executions, fleeing a Midgar in ruins, while Aerith greeted each day as pure potential. No running, no retrospectives. Only the possibility of life and experience. It pangs Tifa to think those experiences can never be held again or reminisced.

"Jenova appeared right after that earthquake," Tifa says. "It split us apart on purpose."

"Oh," Cloud replies. "I…I blacked out, I think, when I hit the ground. I didn't know she was there."

She. There it is, the permanent division between them.

"We should go," Tifa says, releasing his hands to wipe her cheeks. "We must tell the others and leave."

Without Aerith. Into a dismal future, a barren fiery landscape.

"No."

The cold reply startles her. Too quick, too severe.

"What do you mean?"

"They won't survive," he says. "This place will soon flood with Mako during the ascension. Everyone will drown. Except…"

He grasps her hands again, pulls her close. The suddenness paralyzes her; the Mako in his eyes shimmers in gentle sync to the Lifestream.

"Except I can protect you," he whispers. "I can keep that promise he made to you years ago atop an old creaky water tower."

Alarm. She unpacks each syllable with unfolding horror in the dreary wash of lighting making his hair look white, his clothes black.

"Getting to the surface will take time they don't have," he says.

She keeps their eyes locked. "And what is this ascension?"

He pauses. Then, "Aerith wasn't the only one I found."

Pins march up her arms. "Sephiroth. Isn't it?"

"It is," Cloud says. "He's here, but there's no stopping it. The time has come. The time is now. That's what he said to me on the cargo ship. Don't you see? Everything was already in motion before we set foot in this crater."

"Then let's get out of here!" she hisses. "Get our friends and leave."

Cloud shakes his head. "No. I can't. He's given me a gift."

Her blood is ice, her head spiraling. "Stop it," she says. "You aren't yourself. He's done something to you."

"Yes, he's given me silence. There's a way to repress everything I hear from Jenova all the time. The whispering. The chattering. It's enough to drive anyone insane. That's what Sephiroth fell to. It wasn't a desire for death and destruction—it was a desire for peace. He wanted to silence Mother. That's why he took her head."

"Cloud, none of this sounds right."

"He thought if he gave her what she wanted—the Promised Land—then she'd finally let him rest. But we interrupted him. This MP…" he motions to his own body. "We were too arrogant to see his plan, too obsessed with our own pain."

He clutches Tifa. He smiles.

"I see it now, Tif. It isn't annihilation. It's a reset. Rebirth."

He doesn't say the final third word, but she hears it in her head, an echo of Hojo. Reunion.

"No," Tifa says. "No, you're wrong."

"It's so quiet, Tif." His gaze shifts upward. He inhales. "I've never felt this awake before in my life."

She should yell. She should shout for her friends and tear away and fight to reach the surface before it's too late.

"What is the ascension?" she asks again against the pounding her of heart. He's holding her too tight, and she's reeling. From Aerith. From this lunacy.

"The Planet senses the incoming meteor. The Black Materia spawned the Weapons in defense, and soon the Lifestream will well up, filling these caverns. Sephiroth will be at the center of it. He's spent years on the cusp of death, buried in these walls, siphoning ancient knowledge and growing stronger. With Mother's help, he can absorb that energy and become something more."

A madman. Tifa recalls the insomniac in the basement, a brittle man hungry for answers, now transforming into this. She slaps Cloud across the face.

"No. No, that's not how this ends," she says, not caring about the hoarseness of her voice or the tears sliding to her chin. "That's never how this ends. You're supposed to fight Sephiroth. Hasn't that been your whole quest? To confront him and get vengeance for what he did to our town? To us?!"

The force of the slap pivots his head. Only his eyes move back to her. The rest of his body is rigid. He releases her.

"I can save you," he says, slowly facing her again. "We can still—"

A rumble breaks their conversation. Tifa looks all around. Patches of steam hiss from chasms in the ice, brilliant green. Vaporized Mako. Cloud touches her hand, and she jumps.

"I told you," he says over the tremors. "Let us help you."

She spins and runs for her friends. A clicking sound chases, distinct from the cracking of melting ice and the sloshing beneath her boots. She races, breathless, to Vincent and Yuffie and Cid. The three are awake, grabbing weapons and frantic.

"What's going on?" Yuffie yelps, securing her armor.

Vincent holsters his gun. "This isn't like before."

Nanaki and Barret enter from the other cave.

"Aw, hell, now what?!"

Tifa shakes her head. It's everything, too much. The group stands together while the walls branch spiderwebs, unsettling scores of materia. Pebbles rain in multicolor hell. There's no choice but to escape. Cid is the last to sprint clear as the tunnel turns to dust.

Thunderous bedlam escalates. The main cavern is a crash of stalactites and spewing Mako. Gaping holes of burning liquid split the ground, and through the smoky scene, Tifa squints.

"Where's Cloud?"

"He was here?" Barret answers.

Nanaki growls and bares his teeth. A form rises from the pit of Mako, bulbous and immense, incredible in dimension and scope. It is Jenova's spherical form, but with appendages growing from its base like two massive wings. A broad, muscular torso protrudes from the once feminine body. Tendrils of cartilage mimic human hair. The skin is shades of moss and iridescent cobalt, and ebony horns extend around a serene face of a man in repose. It is a brutal combination of Jenova and the General.

The caves shake, and rocks plunge into the pools of rising Mako. The extraordinary creature drips like a newborn. The gossamer ends of its wings dry and flutter in the heat. A radiant golden core in its belly hypnotizes through the thick Mako vapor.

Tifa's eyes are wide, mouth open in shock. Her vision tunnels black with only this amalgamation in her sights.

"Cloud!" someone shouts. Maybe Yuffie, or maybe Tifa herself.

Beneath this mutation of Sephiroth stands a single soldier, broadsword in hand but not in any aggressive stance. Cloud doesn't respond to their presence or Sephiroth's. His stare is blank, his posture neutral. He is a marionette awaiting the pull of strings. Then he looks at Tifa.

"It's too late now," he says without affect. "I'm sorry I brought you all here."

"We gotta stop that thing!" Barret yells, raising his gun at the monster. "Get away from it, and let's end this!"

Cloud won't move. He doesn't speak any longer. Barret opens fire. Bullets stream into marbled flesh and grotesque skull. Sludge sprays the air. The creature recoils, and Barret gives a victorious shout. Then the body corrects its equilibrium, and steam rises faster from the Mako pits, brewing a potent mist. Tifa coughs, losing sight of the others. The quakes lessen into vibrations, and above her, the monster's head peeks into view, fully repaired. The bullets did nothing.

Around her, the battle ensues. Yuffie stabs quick through the fog, leaping onto its core with a hefty swing of her shuriken. Cid launches his lance, and Nanaki pounces, claws out. She's lost Cloud in the miasma. He's no longer standing at the foot of Sephiroth's form. A ribbon of fear tightens through her. He could be anywhere.

Fire ignites from Nanaki's materia, blackening the rim of the creature's bizarre glistening core. A wing folds, and a shock of Ice responds, conjured without any materia catalyst. Sephiroth shoots the icicles onto Nanaki, who dodges three then takes a fourth in the ribs with a yelp. Blood gushes down his side.

The other wing stretches. Fire pops from its tips in a mirror of Nanaki's attack, levered at Yuffie. She springs back, dropping to the floor in a mad dash to extinguish her hair and clothes. Gunfire echoes, clear and steady, from Vincent at Tifa's side. His expression is stern and heavy as the firearm reloads then fires until the ammo clicks dry.

Through the swirling vapor, Sephiroth strikes. A wing slices at Tifa's shoulder, not feathers at all, but blades of chitinous fiber, thin and sharp. Red drips down her arm as she lands from an evasion. She flies into a powerful kick, snapping a barb or two off the ends, but a resounding counter of gravity slams her down. The energies originate from the body of Sephiroth, whose peaceful expression still betrays no knowledge of the party's interference. The Gravity spell stuns her, but the wing withdraws to its new target. Cid buries his lance in its companion, and Lightning counters down its shaft. He cries out, hands trapped, while electricity fries his hair and jitters his teeth. Yuffie cuts the spell short with a throw of her shuriken.

Barret circles, aim held at Sephiroth's head, but the central core keeps replenishing any damage. He moves bullets to its chest, its base, hell, right onto the core itself, to no effect. Then his bullets hit steel.

"Cloud!" Barret shouts. "What the hell, man? Whose side you on?"

The blonde gives no response. He's pale and stares from dark eye sockets. The sword remains in defense.

"Get out the damn way!"

Cloud does not. Barret fires again, but Cloud is too fast, ricocheting bullets to the ceiling. The body of Sephiroth exhales a puff of gas, luminous bright in the roaring undercurrent of the Lifestream below. The dispersion barrels over the swordsman to no effect and encompasses Barret.

He retches and backpedals. Poison! Streaming into his veins, it binds and stings his muscles. He can no longer hold the gun-arm up. He drops to his knees, gagging. Then each breath becomes slow. The world is heavy, difficult to sense.

"Wh-what the…?" An induced exhaustion makes every movement hard. Slow. Painful.

A crushing weight of gravity bears down, cast from the towering hellish body of Jenova and Sephiroth. His palm hits rock. His throat burns. He grits his teeth.

Yuffie watches Barret fall, but Cloud is already out of sight. She isn't sure what happened between the two, and the encroaching poison pushes her away. She absolutely, positively does not want to get near that thing.

She finds the red summon materia and focuses on it, calling upon her province's guardian deity. Leviathan, she entreats, drawing energies from her crystal. The sea serpent from beyond hears her plea. The air humidifies.

Then someone grabs her wrist. Yuffie's eyes snap open.

Cloud holds her fist with the summon materia, and he's overtaking her utilization. The materia bows to his focused intent of submission, withdrawal. He's more skilled at materia use, and Shinra chemistry gives him that cellular advantage. Yuffie tries to pull away.

"What are you doing?!" she says.

"You'll only make things worse," Cloud replies. And he sounds like himself, not a creepy puppet of Jenova or whatever the hell Barret thinks. It confuses her combativeness.

"Gotta stop him," she says, still pulling, but Cloud has her wrist tight. The materia responds to him, not her, diminishing into its dormant state. "C'mon, Cloud, you know Sephiroth is the bad guy!"

"Maybe so." He lets the materia drop. The summoning attempt leaves the orb exhausted. Leviathan has fled its interests elsewhere. "Or maybe we've been wrong all along."

Then he vanishes, sword in hand, tackling the next threat. Yuffie stands in the fog, shaking, heart racing. Sweat beads beneath her headband. The red orb remains dark.

"Weirdo," she murmurs. Then a yell catches her attention.

Cid and Tifa are coordinating attacks on the wings, while the fiery glow of Nanaki's tail dashes to the core and body, claws ripping for weaknesses. There's no sign of Cloud, so Yuffie joins them, lending her lethal blades to the mix.

The miasma blurs around Vincent. He cannot believe this is what's become of Jenova's body. The divisive element of Shinra's brilliant scientists, the crux of the schism in Gast's work, and the ultimate reason he lost Lucrecia… This was once floating organs, harmless, in a tube. Vincent had never really understood its sentience. It consumed Lucrecia's devotion and produced Sephiroth. And now it's become this.

He fires round after round, blinded by the sudden welling of pain and grief. Is it right to kill the child of the woman he loves? No, this isn't the child she bore. Not anymore.

"Stop."

Vincent turns in the haze, lost in his memories. Cloud is beside him.

"Sephiroth isn't our enemy," Cloud says, stepping closer. "Shinra is. You and me and Sephiroth—we were all created by Hojo. We're victims of his work."

"And Hojo is dead." Vincent pauses because Cloud is in his way. The gunman motions at the hulking mass of wings and horns, sparking and searing and crushing the others in the mists. "He is a product of Shinra. He cannot be allowed to live."

"Can you?" Cloud says. He shifts to maintain his protective stance. "Can I?"

Vincent does not reply because the form of Sephiroth is changing. The barrage of attacks from all angles has outridden the monster's healing propensity. Or so it seems. The baffling fusion of Jenova and Sephiroth staggers, and one wing hangs immobile. Cloud bolts towards it, leaving Vincent to his lingering despair.

The simmering Mako boils into a heavy vapor, and the Lifestream shifts with hues of violet. An explosion of energy hits. The party collapses beneath rays of intense cosmic light.

And in the wake of that decimation, Sephiroth emerges. Curtains of purple fog revolve in slow spellbinding motions. The disjointed body of Jenova is no more. Instead, the spherical base and core have split into three sets of unfolding angelic wings. The torso is now pale humanoid skin, and the head is the perfectly constructed face of the General, eyes open and emanating of emerald Mako. Silver hair floats near an arc of energy above his crown, blazing like the sun. Gold and white bathe the caverns, harsh and blinding.

The group is prostrate at this ascending form. Sephiroth is immaculate except for the crude unfinished mutation of his right arm. A single black wing, razor-sharp and curved in bone, juts from one shoulder.

Tifa's breath evacuates. Her stomach coils. Every ounce of muscle pounds alarm and dread, and dismal fatigue presses down. Her companions are equally floored by the single attack. An ascension, Cloud had said. The wings, the flare of light, the energy churning above like a portal to celestial heights lend credibility to the description. Any trace of Jenova is gone. Sephiroth has consumed her.

"Hmph," a slight chuckle rouses from Sephiroth. He surveys the pitiful team, and his wings flap, drifting the Mako-tinged steam into whorls. "It's over. Everything…everyone…"

Barret gets to his feet first. Then Cid. Nanaki favors one side while Yuffie helps Vincent up. Tifa wavers, tasting blood. The world is surreal, spinning. Cloud is in front of Sephiroth, facing them, sword inert.

"The time is now," Sephiroth booms. "Everything will begin again…with me."

She's delusional. An unseen chorus of voices swells chaotic from the Lifestream. She spits blood and calls out to Cloud.

"Please!" she says, but her next words never come.

Sephiroth flicks his dark singular wing, and Cloud drops unconscious. Yuffie gasps and Tifa's chest constricts. Sephiroth laughs.

"We don't need him anymore. For I am the birth of a god."

He lifts his arm, and the Lifestream responds in undulating flows. The General breathes out, enjoying a rapture only he can sense. All Tifa feels is pain, panic. She's crawling towards Cloud in the fog. The others are regaining strength. Her heartbeat pounds in her head.

Vincent fires. An invisible barrier erects around Sephiroth and halts the bullet in its trajectory.

"Harmless," Sephiroth mutters. The bullet falls, futile in its undertaking.

Cid attempts a leap, spear poised, but Sephiroth sweeps him aside with one effortless wing. Barret readies a shot, unsteady with residual vertigo, and Nanaki limps towards Cloud.

A flare of darkness culminates at the tip of Sephiroth's wing and jets into Vincent. Shadows engulf the gunman. A second attack doused in starlight crests onto Yuffie, and she screams in terror. She cannot see, she says. She cannot feel. The ninja crumples to paralysis.

Tifa is almost at Cloud.

Boulders break apart at Sephiroth's command. He smirks and sends them flying into Barret. Reflexes aren't enough. Bones break. Ribs puncture lungs. Organs squish beneath impossible weight.

Tifa thinks she cries out. She thinks she feels her heart curdle into a mess. Barret is motionless. No spouting of obscenities or cries of vengeance. Blood oozes around the edges of the boulder that compounds his body. His head is smashed, facedown.

"Tifa…" Nanaki says in a hoarse voice. He nudges Cloud with his nose.

Above them, Sephiroth floats in a flow of cosmic and organic energies. Twilight ripples from the sun at his head, striking Vincent and Yuffie and Cid with paralyzing electricity and heat. He does not notice Tifa at Cloud's side, resting her hand on the soldier's neck. He doesn't see the tremors in her fingertips searching. No pulse.

Nanaki shakes his head, whimpering.

Cloud is dead.

Denial resounds inside her. Cloud is dead. His skin is cold. He has no breath. His veins do not flow. Sephiroth killed him with barely a gesture. Jenova can revive him, she insists. It can bring him back like it always had. But there is no revivification. Only a corpse, growing colder.

Sephiroth glances to her and Nanaki.

No, it cannot end like this. Tifa chokes tears and anger. Her blood steels, and she's in that Reactor again. She gets up on a throbbing ankle. Broken, no doubt. Her elbow hurts. Bone twists in her arm at the wrong angle. Sephiroth's expression is egotistical, maniacal. He's already won.

Another wave of raw energy cracks through the cavern. Disorientation woozes and sways. Her stomach lurches, and she can no longer speak. Her body is slow and distant, and everything is far. She clenches her fists. Blood flows over swollen knuckles and squishes in her gloves. She heads towards Sephiroth.

The black wing strikes, cutting Nanaki in two, and his howl truncates. The fiery tail snuffs out. Tifa is deaf to the carnage, disobedient to her body's protests. Vincent is ahead of her in the mist. He is a demon, fighting this angel, with large leathery wings and vicious claws flashing beneath shadow flares and sunbursts. She staggers, embracing the heat in her heart and lungs, the burnt remains of the fatherless daughter left in Nibelheim.

She never makes it to Sephiroth. The barrier shimmers, and he rises into the air. An acrid taste fills Tifa's mouth. He looks down at her, untouchable. A true angel ascending. Cloud once stood in a tumble of ancient materia and loosened roots beneath the encased body of Sephiroth long ago. Too long and far for Tifa to remember clearly. He, too, was an angel then. Everything burns. He's dead now.

All around her is death. Her friends, her family.

Sephiroth settles his attention on her. The caverns open into a void of space, vast and dark and penetrating. Starless skies emancipate her loneliness into a feeling like sublime. She's caught in its endlessness, its loop.

A point of light illuminates, distant, then growing closer. It streaks white across the emptiness, burning and solidifying into heat and chemicals. Ozone stings her throat. Her knees buckle, and the wet leather of her gloves press into her palms. The force of this uncanny attack roars into her, silhouetting the winged body of Sephiroth, the single human arm outstretched, the radial orb at his head. And his hair billowing without any breeze.

It is a star, exploding in wondrous splendor of vivid colors and cacophonous sounds, right in front of her. She is witness to a miracle. Her fingertips graze Cloud's. She's near him somehow, on her knees, facing the end. She can no longer see Sephiroth, only the blinding, piercing light.

The heat melts her eyes into wax, her skin into cooked liquid. She's dimly aware of the smell of meat, of gore. Blood evaporates. The star has gone supernova. Sephiroth brings the ultimate death and birth. She wants to scream, but there is nothing to breathe. Then he turns to her. A decaying MP smiles in a dingy Nibelheim basement. She hears that clicking sound again.

Death comes. It only seems fair that she must join everyone she loves, everyone she misses. Her mother. Her father. Jessie. Wedge. Biggs. Barret. …Cloud. The names race, countless more. Everyone is dead. Everyone except Sephiroth, the god. The final survivor.

This is the unholy coming of an apocalypse, the first decree of the one-winged angel. She feels nothing more after that.