Happy Friday! As always, I hope you all had a good and safe week, and thank you again for your favorites, follows, and reviews!
Before the chapter begins, I just want everyone to know that this chapter took me a full seven days to write, two full days to edit, and I ruined it all by completely changing the ending the day before publishing.
Enjoy :)
"Looks like we made it." Barret's voice echoed in the maintenance tunnel, loud and pleased. "And with nothin' but a few scratches an' bruises to show for it."
The lights flickered as Barret spoke, and Cloud blinked his eyes against it. Pipes rattled against the walls with every rumbling aftershock. Gritty clouds rained from the ceiling and choked the air that had already been saturated with mako, and a thin film of dust covered Barret's sunglasses as he glanced over the Avalanche team. The entire team, as they had reunited with Biggs and Wedge on the other side of the platform.
"All in all," he continued, "I'd call that a su -"
Without warning, another aftershock tore through the tunnel and caused Barret's statement to end with an abrupt, startled shout. Cloud threw his arms out in an attempt to steady himself as the tunnel swayed; a piece of concrete snapped off of the ceiling and cracked against the ground, and sparks scattered down from the broken light bulb above them.
Barret shot Jessie a dry look as the rumbling faded. "Think you've overdone it?" he asked.
"No way." Jessie dusted her hands against her pants, frowning. "I followed those instructions to the letter. My ingredients were exact. But... well..." She worried her lower lip. "Maybe the bomb triggered a reaction with the mako? But I didn't think that mako was very sensitive to heat..."
Biggs placed a hand on her shoulder and squeezed, gently. "Don't worry about that now. I'm sure your recipe was perfect."
"I just hope the city is still in one piece," Barret muttered.
"I'm sure it's fine." Wedge's gaze flicked between Barret and Jessie; Barret, who wore a dark expression, and Jessie who didn't meet his gaze. "Like, Jessie, you've always been really good at bombs and stuff, right? So like, I'm sure you got this one right too."
"But if something did go wrong," Biggs added, "and the bomb was a little stronger than you meant it to be, the Planet is what really matters. Right?" He smiled at Jessie, who hesitantly returned the expression... only for her grin to falter as another blast rattled the tunnel. Concrete walls cracked and groaned under the strain. Lights swayed above them.
And then it was over, just as quickly as it had come.
"I mean," Biggs continued, his tone cautious as he glanced around the tunnel, "this must have helped some."
Jessie glanced at the ceiling – at the long, fresh crack running through it. "After what we went through," she said, frowning, "I hope so."
"This is a good talk and all, but we should get going now." Wedge was watching the ceiling, particularly the crack running down its length, with an untrusting stare. "This place is going to come down any second."
"And I don't want to be here when it does," Biggs agreed.
"Right." Wedge glanced at the ceiling once more before turning down the tunnel, and into the dark gloom beyond. "Well, let's go. Sector Eight is this way."
"Lead the way," Barret ordered.
And Wedge did, and Cloud trailed the team as they continued to head deeper into the maintenance tunnel. He could hear the distant rumble of explosions. The crack of concrete and harsh metallic groan as support beams strained beneath their uneven, unbalanced weight. He tried not to think about it... but as the long night wore on, not thinking became easier and easier.
"Watch out for live wires," Wedge called from somewhere in front of him. "They're everywhere."
The lights flickered in a bright, uneven strobe as they walked, and had Cloud blinking against its overlapping visage as he flicked his gaze up. Sure enough, thick, black coils dangled from the cracked ceiling like vines. They snapped and crackled with electricity, and their irregular sparking lit up the crude graffiti on the wall in short flashes.
Biggs wrinkled his nose. "Ugh, the air in here reeks." He glanced at the thick pipes that snaked along the wall in accusation, as if they were to blame. Maybe they were. "Can't wait to get out of here."
"Into what?" Jessie deadpanned. "The crisp, fresh Midgar air?"
"Well... anything would be better than here!"
Cloud glanced at his hands. The leather gloves still slick from the dewey mako on the ladder rungs, and if he pinched his fingers together, he could feel them briefly stick together before he pulled them apart. The sight of it had him frowning. Don't think... think that's true, his mind finally churned out.
"I mean, man, what the hell is that?" Biggs continued, loudly sniffing. "I've never smelled anything so foul."
Jessie laughed. "That would be you."
"No way."
"Nah, Jessie's right," Wedge grinned. "It's definitely you, bro. You reek."
"Damn." Biggs's cheeks reddened as he dryly chuckled. "I gotta do something about that then. And soon."
Without warning, another explosion rippled through the tunnel. Cloud didn't even react, even as the rest of the team fought to maintain their balance as the ground shook and rolled beneath them. The ceiling loudly cracked again and another piece of concrete – this one massive in size - fell heavily onto the ground, knocking up a thick cloud of dust in the process.
"Ugh," Wedge groaned when the world stopped rolling around them. "I felt that one in my guts."
But Cloud hardly felt anything at all. The smoldering heat of adrenaline, which had previously burned so hot in his veins that it had been borderline painful, had faded into dim coals during their walk. The burning fear had chilled. The squirming anxiety in his chest had stilled, and it left him feeling strangely… numb. Empty. Cold.
"They just keep on comin'," Biggs muttered.
Barret harshly sighed. "Come on. We need'ta get outta this place... 'Ey, merc!" Cloud instinctively jerked his head up. "Keep up, understand?"
Cloud's brow furrowed as his mind wrapped around the question. "Yeah?"
Barret watched him for a moment longer, his expression unreadable, before huffing and turning away. "Good!" he loudly called. "So hurry the hell up!"
"I just don't understand how the explosion could have been so big," Jessie murmured, having been too deep in her head to have heard Barret and Cloud's brief conversation. She ducked beneath a thick concrete slab, hardly noticing it as she scowled at her feet. "Was it the mako density? The primary explosive? Or maybe... maybe the blasting agent was defective?"
"We'll worry about it later," Biggs told her as he ducked underneath the same concrete slab. "I mean, your pharmacy contact could have just sold you the wrong chemical."
But Jessie was shaking her head even before Biggs had finished. "No, he didn't. I double checked – it was pure hydrogen peroxide, which is exactly what the recipe called for." She bit her lip. "Maybe... Did I do my calculations wrong?"
"Nah," Wedge said, glancing at her from over his shoulder. "I double checked them, remember?"
"And we can figure it out later!" Barret loudly told them. "For now, let's just focus on getting the hell out of here!"
Jessie sighed. "Fine. How much farther do we have to go, anyway?"
Wedge made a sound low in his throat. "Not far," he promised as they turned a corner, one lined with black and yellow caution tape. A door was just on the other side, one made of thick steel. It was also locked up tight the old fashioned way; with an actual, physical lock instead of security monitors, digital passcodes, ID verification, or other required credentials. All it needed was a plain key... one that they pointedly did not have.
"Oh, thank the gods," Jessie muttered as she moved to kneel knelt in front of the door. "Good thing I packed an extra bomb."
Barret frowned over her shoulder. "Uh, we sure planting another bomb is a good idea?"
"Relax, silly. It's a much smaller bomb." Jessie waved off his concern. "I only used a quarter of the ingredients that the main bomb used."
"The mako fumes in here won't set it off or nothin'?"
Jessie paused at that. "Well... it shouldn't."
"That ain't exactly comforting."
"I'm sure it'll be fine," Biggs said as he stood a good distance away. "I trust you, Jessie."
"Me too," said Wedge, who stood even further away than Biggs was.
Jessie scowled at the both of them. "Hah, hah." She placed the bomb, shaped as a small black box, against the doo before tapping away at its small screen. "All right," she murmured to herself before standing up, wiping some sweat from her brow. "Get back."
No one needed to be told twice. Not even Cloud, who had perked up considerably at the mere mention of another bomb. He joined the others behind some rubble as Jessie mouthed a countdown.
Precisely ten seconds later, a small explosion rang through the tunnel and the door was blasted off of its hinges. It clattered a good distance away, smoking and charred, its solid metal plating bent and dented.
Jessie hummed, clearly pleased. "That should do it."
Cloud coughed a bit on all of the smoke and dust in the air, and Biggs waved the gritty ash away as he crept forward, making sure that there was nothing else that could go off. Seeing nothing, he shot Jessie a smile and said, "You sure showed those doors."
She beamed at him. "Let that be a lesson for anything that stands in my way."
The door, now scrap metal, opened up into an alley on topside Sector Eight... and the first thing Cloud noticed was the flickering, scarlet firelight. Everywhere he looked was touched by that hellish red glow, and the flames danced on rooftops and climbed up walls, consuming everything in its path in raw, feral destruction. Smoke was belched into the air in thick clouds, clouds that had the his throat closing and bloodshot eyes smarting.
"Damn," Barret murmured.
Directly in front of the team was a building, half collapsed and falling apart. Broken bricks waterfalled down its face while its metal beams, originally part of the internal support of the original structure, had become deformed from the heat. Now it looked like a skeletal piece of artwork, twisted and broken and bent in all of the wrong ways, and made Cloud shiver to look at. He quickly tore his gaze away and his eyes followed the flames upward, over the ruined remained of Sector Eight's city, through the snowing ash, and eventually coming to rest on the hollowed-out Mako Reactor One itself. The reactor's roof had been blown out, and the torn, peeled metal now resembled something like a blooming rose.
But real roses were beautiful and soft and smelled sweet. This metal rose looked jagged, smelled of smoke and metal, and spewed thick green-tinged smoke to the dark sky above. Standing beneath its ruins, Cloud felt small. Small and fragile, even though it had been him who had set the bomb. Him who had started the countdown... and he thickly swallowed, unwilling to follow that train of thought any further.
Jessie's stood beside Cloud, her body stiff and rigid, her horrified expression highlighted in shifting red light. "No... No way," she murmured.
"Attention all citizens!" wailed a loudspeaker above them. Its harsh sound rose above the chaotic roaring of the city and grated against Cloud's delicate hearing, causing him to wince. "Attention all citizens! This is an alert from the Shinra Emergency Operations Center! Unidentified intruders have detonated a bomb inside of Mako Reactor One. Multiple explosions have been confirmed, as well as ongoing fires. In response, a disaster warning has been issued for Sectors One and Eight."
Biggs took a step towards the burning fire, and his boots crunched on displaced gravel and shattered glass. "This couldn't have been us," he said hoarsly. "Could it?"
While he spoke, the loudspeaker continued to wail, "Structures in the area are at high risk of collapse, rendering the entire sector hazardous. Repeat: Multiple explosions and ongoing fires have been reported in Sectors One and Eight, and in response, a disaster warning has been issued..."
"But what if it was?" Wedge said, and his voice was so quiet that the loudspeaker threatened to drown him out. His stricken gaze was pinned on the main road, where a raised highway had collapsed and had crushed everything beneath it. Cloud followed Wedge's gaze, and could make out smashed cars beneath the thick concrete, their metal hulls broken and leaking black oil. He saw crushed street signs and restaurant awnings. Cracked tables and chairs broken alongside street lights and welcome signs, which was all snaked through with electrical wires in a thick, convoluted tangle. The wires sparked against the ground, and in one section, had ignited runoff oil from a smashed car.
But other things had also been crushed by the highway, smaller thing that Cloud could not so easily identify. His enhanced vision was already focussing on a particularly odd shape, which looked like two lumpy rods with something large and flat at the ends. His lips twitched into a frown as his fragmented mind tossed and turned at the image, struggled to come up with some resemblance of understanding... but then it all snapped into place, so suddenly and so clearly that Cloud took a stumbling step backward. What had been two lumpy rods were now two long legs, oddly bent in places, obviously broken. The large end was a torso flattened beneath thick slabs of concrete. The other end were shoes, and Cloud could see in startling clarity how one of the shoes had become untied. How the shoelace now dangled down the side of the worn sneaker, limp and dirty, flecked with blood.
Cloud tore his gaze away, his heart stammering in his chest.
"What's done is done," Barret said. His deep voice mingled with the flames before rising above it; a phoenix, soaring above its own ashes. "It ain't pretty, but we can't stop now. Don't forget that this was just the first reactor."
Cloud's mind stumbled across Barret's words. Struggled to put their puzzle together, even though a part of him didn't want to. Didn't want to understand.
"And the planet won't be safe until we get the rest," Barret finished. Firelight was reflected within his sunglasses' dark lenses.
Biggs thickly swallowed before turning away from the burning buildings. "Yeah…" He clenched his hand into a fist, and the knuckles were white with strain. "We always knew that this was going to get messy."
Cloud's gaze shifted to the road – to the legs, crushed and bloodied, and to the strange shapes beside it. A hand. Fingers lightly curled against the concrete. Fingernails cracked and oozing.
Messy, his mind echoed.
"And this," Wedge continued, his voice tight, "is only the beginning."
Cloud closed his eyes.
"You gotta look at the bigger picture here." Barret turned towards the main road, until his back was facing them. Firelight lit up his silhouette in a hellish halo. "Nothing worth fighting for was ever won without sacrifice," he continued, and after a lengthy pause, he sighed before turning back to the rest of his team. "Though you may not be cryin' out, I know you're in pain, just like the Planet. But that's okay, 'cause I'm here for you. To help take the load off of your shoulders." He looked at each of them in turn. "Your fears… your concerns… your worries…" Barret finally flicked his gaze to Cloud, opened his mouth as if to say something, but then abruptly closed it again. "Whatever your problem," he continued, turning back to the original Avalanche, "I got you. Always."
Wedge haltingly smiled, while Biggs and Jessie shared a warm look. Jessie even glanced at Cloud, but he didn't notice – he was too busy looking at his feet, at his shoes, at the red flickering against the leather.
He still hadn't moved past the words, Messy. Beginning.
...Sacrifice.
"So." Biggs voice cut through the quiet. "What's the next move, boss?"
Barret grinned at that. "Easy! We gonna get our asses home."
Cloud opened his eyes then, and the mako within them burned bright and hot.
"So, we're gonna split up," Barret continued. "Meet at the Sector Eight station – we're gonna get on on the last train down to the Sector Seven slums. Meet in the last freight car. Now let's go."
"Yes, sir," Jessie replied and with that, she, Biggs, and Wedge began to run down the street, only to suddenly divide; Jessie moved towards the rooftops, while Biggs and Wedge took entirely different roads.
Cloud nearly made a move to follow, even if he wasn't entirely sure where he was going, when a sudden hand on his arm stopped him. Cloud instinctively shied away from the touch, only to realize that it was Barret that had grabbed him. Barret, who was now watching him with a hard, unreadable expression.
Cloud's lips twitched into a frown. "Let go," he asked. Demanded.
But Barret's gaze, and his grip, only tightened. "Listen, merc. I dunno what your problem is. I dunno what's going on in your head," he added, which had Cloud's frown deepening. "But you better make it to the train station, you hear? Tifa'll have my head if you don't make it."
It took Cloud a moment to realize what he was saying, but the moment it all pieces together in the correct order, he yanked his arm away. "I'll make it," he said. But when Barret didn't reply, only continued to stare with that strange look in his eyes, Cloud managed to add, "You don't... don't trust me?"
Barret scowled. "That's not what I ain't trusting," he said after a pause. "Jus' be there, understand? Follow the main road. The station is at th' end - you can't miss it."
Cloud turned away. "Fine."
"Fine," Barret mockingly echoed. "We'll see, SOLDIER-boy."
"I'll... be there."
Barret huffed. "You better," he said, and with that, Avalanche's leader turned and began to hurry down the road. He made a conscious effort to angle his body in such a way that he hid his enormous gun, but then disappeared down the closest alley.
Cloud, after a heartbeat, followed Barret's order and began to make his way down the main road. He followed the meandering path even as it snaked between burning cars, collapsing buildings, and crowds of people staring wide-eyed and slack jawed at the carnage. At his left a bakery burned, and the bread inside was charred and cracked red with heat. On his right was a jewelry shop, but its gold bracelets and silver necklaces had all begun to melt off of the mannequins. Liquid metal weeped down ceramic wrists and necks.
"This can't be happening," someone murmured as he passed.
Someone else asked, "Who would do such a thing?" while another asked the gods, both known and unknown, why this had happened, why such a thing had been allowed to occur.
But at some point, all of their individual voices had blended into one within Cloud's mind. Exhaustion permeated his entire being and he could no longer tell when one scream ended and other began, where one fire skipped to the next, and the main road continued to pass by as a smear of gray and red and black. A streetlight flickered above him before dying. The ground rumbled beneath his boots. A shop suddenly exploded at his side, and Cloud instinctively raised an arm against the blast only to gasp as glass shrapnel buried itself into his skin. The many stinging wounds remained bloodless for a moment, as if his body was too shocked to bleed, before scarlet suddenly swelled from the many cuts.
And the screaming continued all the while, a steady piercing drone that ricochetted inside Cloud's skull, and he pressed his hands against his ears as she shambled forward. He had heard screams like that before. The cries of people being burned alive, and they all sounded the same: Broken. Desperate. Piercing. The cries of people knowing that death was coming but unable to do anything about it, for fire didn't care who or what it burned. It was the great equalizer. In his hometown, the mayor had burned along with the old drunkard that sat in the street corner. The officer burned beside the baker. The inn keeper burned with the maid. They had all sounded the same - every single one.
Even his mother.
He gasped as the memory, which was less of an image and more of a physical ache. One that had him reaching for the front of his turtleneck, and his fingers knotted around the dusty fabric.
The station… His mind fumbled for the words. Is the… station... close?
Above him was the thick bridge of the overhead railroad. Concrete spires lifted to suspend the bridge over the main road, and it was wide – wide enough to accommodate Midgar's vast railway. Seeing it made him relax, if only slightly. He quickened his stumbling pace. He had to get on the last train, had to make it to the last freight car, because everyone else would be there waiting for him. And then they could all go home.
The thought of home propelled him further, even though he didn't fully remember what it meant anymore. Even though the line between Nibelheim and Tifa's apartment had become blurred, though he didn't remember when that had happened, or why.
But then something loudly cracked above him.
Cloud's gaze lifted, the mako in his eyes flaring bright, just as the railroad above him fractured and shattered. He instinctively threw himself backward as the huge slabs of concrete and metal slammed against the ground, sending both dust and fragmented concrete spiraling in all directions. He heard screams. The crunch of bones. The splatter of blood against asphalt, and when the worst of the sounds had faded, Cloud forced himself to lift his head and look. To take in what had just happened. To understand.
The railroad bridge that had passed over the main road had collapsed, and had crushed anything or anyone that had been unlucky enough to be beneath it. The resulting mountain of rubble was impassable, which meant one thing:
He couldn't use the main road to get to the station.
Cloud grimaced. There must be… another way? He slowly turned towards the empty shops lining the road, blinking away the dust and smoke. But where? His eyes skipped across the horrified faces around him and flicked from alley to alley, shop to shop. Where? he thought again as he lifted his head.
Only for his eyes to suddenly go wide.
My… My bedroom window? he thought, and then he was blinking, trying to chase the stubborn image away. That was impossible. He knew that was impossible, and crazy, and unbelievable, and yet the top left window on the second floor remained the same. If he focussed, he could see where the window frame had cracked from when he had tried to do a flip on his bed and missed. He saw the familiar stain of water and dirt from an old planter. Saw the blinds, open, and the familiar SOLDIER posters hanging against the wall.
His throat tightened as he shifted his gaze, and his house flickered into focus. All of it. He recognized the flowers growing in the front yard, the small path leading up to his front door, the dark timber framing set against the house's off-white paint. He also recognized the way it burned. How the flames left black char when they licked the sides of the house. The way the smoke had tasted like stone and straw.
Cloud's breath caught. N – No. He shook his head in absolute rejection, trying to rid himself of the image. This... I'm freaking out again, he decided. This isn't real. It's not -
Something loudly cracked behind him and he spun, wide-eyed. But his eyes widened further when he saw the water tower - the same water tower that he and Tifa had sat on so long ago and made their promise. But instead of stars smearing the sky above it, there was a thick layer of black smoke. The windsock's white fabric was slowly burning, its edges hot and red, and the water barrel spit out white steam as the water within it boiled down to nothing. The towers spindly legs cracked then, and Cloud watched in horror as the entire structure groaned and toppled over. White sparks sailed into the air, and he took a step backward, his chest heaving and gasping breaths harsh and raw.
I'm hallucinating, he knew. His hands lifted to the sides of his head and his fingers tangled in his hair. This isn't happening. I'm... I'm on the streets of Midgar, Sector Eight, heading to the train station, and -
And then he saw a flash of silver.
It had been so quick that he had almost missed it; that long, silver hair, the glinting katana, the pearly shoulder guards, wide and polished to the point that it mirrored the wild flames around them.
But Cloud hadn't missed it, and his mounting panic slid into something harder. Something colder.
Sephiroth.
He reached behind him, and his hand gripped around the hard hilt of his gunblade.
This is his fault.
The white-haired General glanced once over his shoulder, smirked, and ducked into an alleyway. Cloud's pulse fluttered.
He did this.
And Cloud began to follow. His boots crunched against the gravel as he ran forward, gunblade held at his side. Green sparked in his vision. The scenery overlapped as his memories and reality fought for his attention, but his gaze did not drift from the man before him, did not waver from the silver hair, that infamous katana, while his mind somersaulted. Somersaulted because Sephiroth was here, a fact that his limping mind struggled to grapple with, and that meant, by some skipping logic, that Cloud had failed that day in Nibelheim's reactor.
He needed to correct that.
No; not needed. Needed was too gentle of a word because Cloud had to correct it. Sephiroth didn't just need to die, he had to die.
And Cloud was going to be the one to do it.
His expression darkened as he turned into an alleyway, his panting breaths grating against his already raw throat. Wood crackled and spit white sparks as the homes crumpled, cracked, broke down. He coughed on smoke.
"This way," came a deep voice before him.
Cloud grit his teeth and forced his legs to hurry, forced his sluggish body to move, forced himself to continue walking even as everything was growing foggy around him. Blurry. The line between houses was becoming indistinct until he wasn't sure where one began and another ended, where one rooftop stopped and another one sloped upward, their tiles popping from the heat. Sweat beaded on Cloud's brow. Trickled down the back of his neck, soaked into his sleeveless vest. He turned another corner, gasping…
… only to go deathly still, because there Sephiroth was. He stood as silent and still as death, like a wraith, every bit as arrogant and cocky as Cloud had remembered him. Sephiroth's slitted eyes were tinted red from the firelight, and Cloud could see the smile within them as Sephiroth extended his gloved hand.
Cloud stared at that hand as if he was seeing it for the first time. "I killed you," he finally managed to say, and the words were like ash on his tongue. "You're… You're dead."
"Oh?" Sephiroth's smile became sharp – nearly as sharp as the blade he wielded. "Am I?"
"I killed you," Cloud said again. "With my..." His gaze dropped to his hands, and their leather was slick and dark. "With my own..."
"You need not remind me," Sephiroth cut in, and then his gaze became soft. Almost wistful. "After all, it was the crowning moment of our time together. But that was then... and this is now." A pause, then: "I have a favor to ask of you."
Cloud blinked sweat out of his eyes. "F – favor?" he gasped.
"Our beloved Planet is dying. Slowly. Silently. Painfully," Sephiroth enunciated. "Can you bear to see the Planet suffer? Can you… Cloud?"
Firelight danced in Sephiroth's eyes, and danced almost as violently as the madness that boiled within their harsh green mako, and he pinned Cloud beneath that stare. Pinned him down like he was nothing, until Cloud couldn't even bring himself to move -
- and then the world shifted around him, and he was sprawled out on the dirt, wounded, weak, and hurting.
"Mom..." He gasped as he stretched one hand towards his home, even as willed his body to move, to get up. But all he could do was splay his fingers against the blooming fire that was consuming their house. He could hear her voice, buried somewhere between the roaring flames and the blood pounding in his ears. Could hear her begging Sephiroth to not kill her boy and to kill her instead, if such a thing had to be done.
And then, as if from a great distance, Cloud heard someone else speaking. The voice rang clear despite the world burning down around him. "If the Planet was to be lost," the voice said, "then so many things would be lost as well..."
Cloud grit his teeth until he tasted copper, and he buried his fingers into the dirt. Forced his arms to pull his limp, weak, useless body forward. "Mom…"
"… even your hometown, which burns so bright..."
A glass shattered from somewhere in the house, and Cloud could hear his Mom scream, scream like he had never heard her scream before. It filled him with fear potent enough to lift his head, and in that moment, he would have given anything to switch places with her. Anything.
"Mom…!"
"… the sound of her voice," the voice continued, "begging me to spare you..."
Cloud heard his mother scream once more, and then her voice went silent. Even the fire itself seemed to have gone still; the flames froze midair, the roaring faded from Cloud's head, until the only thing that remained was the wet squelch of metal as it pierced through a warm body...
"… the shiver of her flesh yielding to cold steel..."
...and Cloud's hand dropped to the ground, limp, as reality of the situation slammed into him. Helpless, he vomited into the dirt-
- and Cloud gagged as his stomach twisted, and he almost wasn't able to stop from being sick right then and there.
"That which binds us together would be no more," Sephiroth continued, as if Cloud hadn't just witnessed the man murder his mother in cold blood. "And I would loathe to live in such a world… which is why I must ask you this favor."
Cloud's lips formed a hard, tight line as he glanced back to Sephiroth. Images of his burning house continued to dance behind his eyes. He still felt its heat against his face.
"Don't worry." Sephiroth's pale lips twisted into a smile when he saw Cloud's expression. "It's a simple thing."
"Sim..." Cloud winced as pain slit through his temple, and he drew a ragged breath. At some point he had lifted a hand to his head, but he did not remember raising it. "Sim...ple?"
Sephiroth's smile widened. "Very simple," he promised. "Because what I want you to do is run, Cloud." Cloud blinked, confused, as firelight danced behind the mad General. "Run away, as far and as fast as you possibly can. You need to live. Live like your mother wasn't able to," he added with a smirk.
Cloud's eyes widened a fraction. Like… Like Mom wasn't…
Then, all at once, he understood what Sephiroth was saying.
The world shifted into shades of green even as feral scream ripped out of his throat. Before his mind could process what his body was doing, he threw himself forward, his blade arched behind him in a wild, careless swing. He could have used the gun, but he didn't want to. The savage, brutal side of him wanted exact revenge. The perfect justice. Just as his mother had been cut down, as Zack had been sacrificed by Sephiroth's katana, as he himself had been run through, Cloud wanted to do the same thing in return. He wanted Sephiroth's blood to stain his blade and sing against its metal. He wanted the ground to be splattered with Sephiroth's blood, just like his had been, and like Zack's, and his Mom's, and Tifa's, and everybody else that he had ever cared about.
And yet, just as Cloud slammed his gunblade into the ground, Sephiroth had simply... vanished. Vanished like smoke. Like ash. Like fog, until there was nothing broken beneath Cloud's blade but old boxes and cracked concrete.
Cloud's eyes went wide then, uncomprehending, and he jerked his head back and forth, chest heaving, blood pounding in his veins in an erratic drumroll. Where? his mind demanded, over and over again, even as his eyes flicked deeper into the alley. Where? He looked behind him next, expecting to see the water tower, instead seeing the destroyed railroad bridge – Where? - before turning back to the ruined boxes in front of him, his blade cleaved straight through the half-rotted wood. His gaze narrowed, breath whistling between his clenched teeth.
"Where?" he hissed.
And then, all at once, he knew:
Sephiroth was gone.
In fact...
Sephiroth had probably never been there to begin with.
The realization had Cloud inhaling a sharp, withering breath. It wasn't… wasn't even real, he realized as he placed a hand against his temple. His skin was hot even through the leather glove. None... None of it was real. Seeing his house burning down, seeing Sephiroth walk into the alley, seeing - and hearing - his Mom's death all over again…
He closed his eyes, and an icy tear slipped down his cheek.
None of it was real, he knew.
It was all fake.
Cloud nearly laughed then. Laughed at the sheer ridiculousness of it, at the absolute horror, at the unfairness of it all, because he didn't know what else he could possible do. His head was broken. Broken like nothing had been broken before, and was probably completely unfixable. He was going mad. Losing his damn mind, if it wasn't long gone already.
Maybe… Maybe that's what I was… in the hospital for, before Tifa... found me, his mind stammered out even as he grinned, humorless and bitter. Maybe I went… went crazy.
He inhaled another shaky breath, and the taste of mako was sharp against his tongue. Despite its bitter, metallic taste making him want to vomit, it reminded him where he was. What he still needed to do.
Train station, he reminded himself. Last freight car.
Home.
Gritting his teeth, Cloud peeled himself off the wall and began the slow process of walking out of the alley he had found himself in. It was slow going. He jumped at every shadow. Flinched at every crack and groan and pop. Glanced around every wall, but eventually he made it back onto the main road, and wasn't entirely sure how he managed to get passed the collapsed railroad bridge. All he knew was that, at some point, he had reached some sort of plaza. It was quieter here. Almost peaceful, which struck him as strange. Not even the air tasted and smelled so potently of mako, and he didn't wince every time he took a breath. It cleared some of the fog in his mind. Calmed his raw, sparking nerves, as fragile and delicate as they were.
And then he heard someone calling his name.
Aerith was convinced that the Planet was trying to kill her.
It had called her to upper Sector Eight – a proper calling, complete with the strange tugging sensation and odd dreams – and then she had arrived, only to witness Mako Reactor One explode above her. Thankfully the buildings around her had been tall enough to block out most of the emerald explosion, but it hadn't stopped the smoke and ash raining down on her. At least she had been far enough away to be safe from the falling, flaming debris.
But not everyone had... and as she stood on the street corner, a bit shell-shocked and stunned, she would occasionally feel a strange pinch in her chest as someone died. It felt a bit like her lungs had been snagged on a thorn for a moment before pulling themselves free, though it didn't hurt. Not really. But each prick dug at her, each one hitting a little deeper, and she clasped her hands tightly over her chest.
Why? she wondered. No; not wondered. Asked. Why did you call me here?
No answer was forthcoming, as expected, and she had almost turned around right then and there – this was obviously the 'something big' the Planet had wanted her to see – but strangely, her feet had remained rooted in place. That tugging sensation had returned, demanding that she stay. That she watched.
And so Aerith did. She stood on the plaza corner like a statue, her flower basket hanging heavily against the crook of her elbow, wondering what the hell she was going to do now.
And then she saw Cloud.
Or at least, she was mostly certain it was Cloud. She had only seen Zack's friend for a moment at the hospital after all, and the man stumbling before her looked somewhat different. To begin with, he was armed, and a long gunblade rested between his shoulder blades. His cheeks had also been blackened by soot while a particularly nasty cut ran along one of them, and his black clothes - which hung almost loosely on his frame - were dusted with a faint layer of ash. But more so, his expression was harder. The mako in his eyes burned colder.
But the more she watched him, the more she noticed the similarities. Cloud was just as thin as the last time she had seen him at the hospital. He wore the same determined look as he had back then, though perhaps not quite as panicked and raw, and like before, he seemed to carry some sort of weight with him. Something that she couldn't quite make out, even with her special talents. That worried her.
What worried her the most, however, was the gunblade he had equipped. She had gone cold at the sight of it, and now she couldn't tear her gaze away.
Why would he need that here? she wondered, even as her eyes widened in realization. Unless… She flicked her gaze over him to Mako Reactor One, which continued to burn in the distance, its top peeling and jagged. According to Shinra's emergency announcement, unidentified persons had broken into the reactor and had blown it up. That the persons were dangerous and armed - and right now Cloud was armed, and covered in ash, and was moving away from the reactor.
It wasn't difficult to put two and two together, and she felt as if she had swallowed ice water.
Oh, Cloud...
Her lips parted as she began to call Cloud's name, but then she was surprised to see that he was already looking at her.
But he looked… well, he looked terrified. His eyes had gone wide and his breathing was uneven, just gasping breaths, as he took a few stumbling steps backwards.
Aerith's chest squeezed. "Cloud?" she murmured, taking a step forward. "Cloud, are you -"
"Go away," Cloud suddenly whispered.
Aerith went still, stunned by his words, only to realize that Cloud wasn't talking to her. Not really. His gaze was pinned on something beside her, but when she glanced that way, she didn't see anything there. Only cobblestones and an old cigarette butt. But something had clearly terrified Cloud. His breath trembled between his lips as he took another step backwards, wide-eyed and horrified. His hand flew to his temple as if he was in pain.
"Cloud?" Aerith tried again, only for Cloud to wince and murmur, "Sephiroth."
Aerith's eyes went wide. Sephiroth? She knew that name - knew it well, in fact - and her worry only mounted. She took another step towards Cloud, who still hadn't seemed to notice her. "Cloud, everything is okay," she said, trying to sound soft and unassuming, even as her mind spiraled. Was he hallucinating? Was this a side effect of mako poisoning?
"Cloud," she said again as Cloud continued to stare at something only he could see, "everything is okay. Nobody is there."
But Cloud hadn't seemed to have heard her. His chest only heaved with every raw, gasping breath, and he took another staggering step away from her... only for his eyes to suddenly narrow. He blinked, as if confused, before realization sparked in his eyes.
"Cloud?" She bent over to look directly into his eyes, which had drifted to the ground. To her surprised, he glanced at her, and she quietly smiled in return. He had pretty eyes. They had been blue at one point, but now their natural color had been swallowed by the foreign green mako, which burned far brighter than Aerith had thought possible. His mako poisoning was a severe case indeed.
"Hey..." she murmured, trying to catch his gaze. "Are you okay?"
Cloud stared at her a moment, not understanding, before wincing slightly. He drew away from her. "How... How do you know my... my name?"
Aerith tried not to pay any notice to his halting, stuttering way of speech. "We met before, but only for a moment," she told him, and offered a small, warm smile. She had hoped the smile would relax him, but the tension never left his shoulders, and he remained just as rigid. She tried not to get discouraged by it. "I'm a friend of Zack's."
That seemed to get Cloud's attention, and his eyes widened a fraction. "Z - Zack?"
"Yes," she promised. "Zack. He's looking for you... did you know that?"
Cloud's lips twitched into a frown. "Zack's... looking?"
"Yes, right now." Aerith's eyes flicked across Cloud's face, searching for any sort of recognition or awareness, but his suddenly stoney expression betrayed nothing. "I can take you to him, if you'd like?"
"Take me...?"
"Yes, take you to see him." Aerith smiled again, even as concern wormed its way into her heart. "Would you like that?"
Cloud's nose scrunched, as if in thought, before the mako in his gaze brightened. Burned so hot that their sharp green practically swallowed the natural blue, and his next words chilled her.
"Zack's dead," he stated matter-of-factly, and then shook his head, violent and hopeless. Ash rained from his pale hair. "Dead. I... I saw him... He's dead," he finished simply. "I saw."
"No Cloud, that's not true." Desperation tightened her throat as she reached towards him, but he shrank back, as if her touch had the power to burn. It broke her heart. "Zack's alive, I promise. I swear on the Planet that Zack is alive," she said instead, "and he's looking for you right now." She bit her lip, not wanting to overwhelm Cloud - he obviously wasn't in the clearest frames of mind - but she needed him to understand.
No - not needed. Cloud had to understand.
"Cloud," she continued, even as Cloud stared blankly at her, "Zack is worried about you. When you left the hospital -" he flinched, to her surprise, "- he was beside himself. He thought he failed you, that he didn't protect you. He still does, Cloud. Even now. He hasn't stopped searching for you, not once, since you left."
Cloud breath shuddered between them, and he said nothing.
"Please, Cloud," Aerith begged. She placed a hand on his arm, as gently as possibly as it was peppered with burns and cuts, but he didn't move away. Didn't even acknowledge her touch, which bolstered Aerith a bit. Maybe... Maybe he was listening to her. Maybe her words were beginning to have an effect. "Let me... Let me help you. Let me take you to Zack. Okay?"
Cloud blinked. "But I..." His voice trailed off, but Aerith patiently waited for him to continue. For his mako-poisoned mind to piece together what it wanted to say, one syllable at a time. "But I... I need to go to..."
"Need to go to?" Aerith prompted, as Cloud had suddenly gone still.
"Need to... go to the... the station," Cloud finally managed, as if he was prying each word out of concrete. He thickly swallowed. "Have to meet... meet them. So we can go... go home."
Aerith bit her lip. "People?" she repeated. And when Cloud nodded, she added, "Cloud, did these people... blow up the reactor?"
Cloud bit his lip, and then to Aerith's dread, nodded.
Oh, no. Aerith kept her expression blank, in order to hide her mounting unease, even as her chest squeezed with worry. If Cloud was involved with the reactor's bombing, then he was in a dangerous situation. Shinra would be looking for him. And wasn't that Zack's worst fear - that Shinra would find him and Cloud, and take them back to the labs?
And hadn't she promised that she wouldn't let that happen? That she would do her part to protect them both?"
"Cloud, are these people your friends?" she asked him.
He shook his head.
"But did you help them blow up the reactor?"
Cloud blinked at her, then dropped her gaze. "I..."
"Oh, Cloud..." She lifted her hand until her palm rested against his cheek - his non-injured one - and she gently pulled his attention back to her, until his gaze met hers. "Cloud, it's all right. It's okay. I won't hurt you, I promise."
Cloud pressed his lips together in a tight, white line.
"Did they force you?" Aerith continued, her worried gaze searching his expression. "Did they make you help them?"
Cloud was silent as he mulled over the question, and then he shrugged - a small, helpless sort of gesture. "I... I made a promise," he finally murmured. "To... To help."
Something within Aerith hardened. Not at Cloud, not even close, but at whoever had used him like this. Gods, it made her sick to her stomach just thinking about it. Who would consider doing such a thing? And besides, hadn't he gone to be with his friend? She knew that he had... so why had things turned out this way?
"Cloud." Cloud glanced back to her, uncertain and unsure, and she offered him another reassuring smile. None of her internal anger made it to her expression. "How about we go see Zack? He can help you out, I promise, and we can bandage you up too. How does that sound?"
Cloud shakily inhaled. "But... But, Tifa, and I... I promised to..."
"Your friends," she said, the word icy on her tongue, "won't be upset with you, I promise."
"But..."
"Besides, it's dangerous that way," Aerith continued. "Public Security forces are everywhere right now. You don't want them to see you, right?"
"No."
"And what if they catch you on the way? Then you won't be able to meet anyone, your friends or Zack. And you wouldn't want that, right?"
Cloud shook his head in response.
"Then it'll be safer with me." Aerith smiled again at him, and she could feel him relax beneath her hand. Felt his thin muscles losing some of their tension. "And with Zack, too. How about we go see him, okay?"
"B - But..."
"And then we can visit your friends, later," Aerith promised. "But how about we go see Zack first? He'll be happy to see you," she added at his indecision.
"And he's..." Cloud thickly swallowed. "He's not... not dead?"
Aerith looped her hand in his, if only to make sure he didn't disappear beneath her nose. "He's very much alive, I promise," she grinned.
"But I... I saw him -"
But before Cloud could even finish his sentence, a small squad of Security Officers ran towards them. The three red lights on their helmet wavered as they steadied their guns.
Shit, Aerith thought, grimacing. This was undoubtedly the worst possible timing.
"Hey, you!" the lead infantryman shouted at Cloud. "Put the sword on the ground!"
"Wait!" Aerith jumped between Cloud and the guns trained on his chest, much to his shock - and her own. Some of her flowers spilled out of her basket. "He's - He's my bodyguard, and doesn't have anything to do with the bombing!"
"Miss, he matches the description of the perpetrator," the infantryman shot back. "Please move away from him - he's dangerous!"
"Please," murmured Cloud, who was standing rigid behind her. "You need... need to leave. Not... Not safe."
But Aerith shook her head at him. "Cloud, if you think that I'm just going to leave you -"
"Miss, please return to your home," the guard continued, "or we will have no choice but to take you in as well!"
"Please," Cloud whispered again. He reached over his shoulder for his gunblade, which had all of the Security Guards flinching and leveling their guns at him. Aerith sharply inhaled, unable to stop her breath from catching with fear, as he continued, "It's... It's not safe with... with me."
But Aerith's grip only tightened on his hand. "So?" she said, and shot him a brief smile, one that had him blinking. "I made a promise, and I intend to keep it."
He frowned at that. "A promise?"
"That's right," she said. "A promise."
Cloud opened his mouth to reply, but all of a sudden, one of the Security Guards suddenly slammed onto the ground with a strangled grunt. His helmet spun dizzyingly across the cobblestones.
Aerith's eyes flew wide as she watched it skid past her feet. What the...
Beside her, Cloud had visibly paled and had gone still - impossibly so, until he was more statue than man. His eyes burned hot, hot enough to burn, and his voice was haunted as he whispered:
"Zack."
When Zack had turned the corner and entered the Loveless plaza, he thought that his heart was going to stop beating. Just go silent in his chest, because not only was Aerith and Cloud standing there - Cloud, which had his mind reeling - but a small Public Security squad was training their guns on them. Guns. The same guns that they had pointed at him back on the Midgar cliffs, the same guns that had just about ended his life.
More so, Aerith was clearly terrified though she did her best to hide it, and Cloud... Cloud was obviously injured. Injured and dazed and disoriented. His vision was glassy, his eyes seemed unfocussed, and wounds peppered his body. Yet, despite all of that, he was reaching over his shoulder for a sword. A sword that he had no business wielding in his condition.
And then, when the infantrymen flinched and trained their guns on the two of them...
Something in Zack had snapped. Snapped and broke and splintered into ragged shards, shards that tore through his mind and lungs and veins. His blood pounded in his ears, a steady roar that drowned out shrill voices of the infantry guards as they barked their orders, and his vision shifted into startling shades of green as it focused. Focused into crystalline clarity.
Before Zack had been Hojo's twisted science experiment, he had been a SOLDIER.
A SOLDIER: First Class.
A SOLDIER that had single handedly ripped apart Hojo's Nibelheim lab, crossed two monster-infested continents on foot while caring for Cloud, and then defeated an entire platoon of infantrymen that had been assigned purely to kill him.
They had, obviously, failed.
They regretted that now.
Zack was a dark blur against the ground, a shadow that - despite lacking his Buster Sword - was no less lethal. When the first infatryman turned, all he had seen were two glowing green eyes before his entire world suddenly went black. He hadn't even had enough time to scream in pain.
The second guard had a little more time, and had yelled a warning before his gun was knocked out of his hands and a fist connected with his sternum. The flat bone cracked. Ribs disconnected, and the man's lips were dyed red as he coughed. But then a second blow landed on the back of his neck, and he slammed onto the ground, boneless. If he was unconscious already, he certainly wished that he was.
"Fuck!" one of the infantrymen screamed, lifting his gun, only to receive a swift kick in the gut. His breath whooshed out of his lungs in a single, choppy gasp, and he fell heavily to his knees, his arms wrapped around his middle.
And in the corner of Zack's hyper-focused, mako-induced adrenaline rush, he saw movement in the corner of his eyes. Heard the distant, dull sound of a helicopter's blades.
"Zack."
The sound of his name was jarring. Shockingly so, and his body visibly tensed even as he turned to Cloud. Cloud, who was watching him with equal parts horror and disbelief.
But he was watching him. Actually seeing him, which was such a vast improvement from the past four years that it had Zack grinning, even if he felt a bit like he was about to cry. Because Cloud was awake. Awake and alert and coherent, even if he was a bit out of it at the moment.
"Is it..." Cloud's voice was halting. Quiet. Tight. "Is it really... really you?"
One of the remaining infantryman lifted their gun, meaning to put a bullet in Zack's leg, but Zack reached down as quick as lightning and threw a rock at the man's head. It pinged off of the helmet hard enough to dent the metal, and he dropped harmlessly to the ground.
"Yeah, Spikey." Having dispatched all of the guards, Zack was able to turn his full attention back to Cloud. He grinned. "Of course I am."
Cloud thickly swallowed. "You're... you're real?"
Zack went cold at that, but thankfully Aerith spared him from replying. "Yes, he's real," she said gently. Her grip tightened on Cloud's hand. "I promised, didn't I? He's alive."
Which had Zack's mind somersaulting. Cloud thought I was dead?
"I'm not... not seeing things?" Cloud continued, now turning to Aerith. "Not... Not again?"
"Nope," Aerith grinned.
Zack shakily exhaled, not liking where this conversation was going. "Spikey -" he began, reaching for the smaller man, but the harsh whir of helicopter blades cut him off. His head jerked to the sky. "Shit," he muttered as a spotlight wavered through nearby roads. "We need to go."
"I may know a way," Aerith offered.
Of course she does, Zack thought, and nodded. "Let's hurry then," he told her before shifting his gaze to Cloud. His lips curved in a tentative smile. "Ready to go, Spikey?"
Cloud's head jerked to him, wide-eyed, and he didn't respond.
But Zack was used to Cloud being unresponsive. "Yeah, me too," he muttered, and placed a hand against his back to guide him down the road. The touch was more habit than anything else, but Cloud responded to it, his strides shifting to match with Zack's even as he stared blankly at the ground.
What the hell happened? Zack frowned at Cloud; his cuts, the burns, the bruises. The sword, and he glanced at Aerith with questions burning in his eyes.
But Aerith only met his gaze and shook her head. Later, she was telling him. Later.
After a pause, Zack nodded - later was something he could do. "Let's hurry," he murmured, mostly for Cloud's benefit. Cloud shivered beneath his hand.
Meanwhile, the city burned around them.
So I made some pretty drastic changes to the ending (for example, Cloud and Zack were never meant to meet so soon...) and basically ended up derailing everything I had planned for like... the next twenty chapters. RIP my life, but I like this version a little better. This draft definitely feels the most natural out of all of them, but I'll be taking a one week break to figure out where the story is going now and make some new chapter outlines. When we meet next, hopefully the story will be even better than my original drafts :)
So on that note, the next chapter will update on July 31st. Until then, stay well and stay safe, and I wish you all the best :)
By the way, visit my profile if you want to learn more about my original book series! Genres are Fantasy and LitRPG :)
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