"Cloud. Cloud! Get up! It's an emergency."

After shaking him a little more vigorously than Aerith intended, he finally begins to open his eyes. Her heart soars for a single hopeful moment when she realizes the possibility that he may just have gone through the same thing she did.

He mumbles something inaudible before rolling over lazily to his side.

She rolls her eyes despite herself. It figures that he'd wallow in despondency at a time like this. As much as her heart hurts for him, they don't have the emotional currency to afford self-pity right now. Aerith grabs his shoulders and turns him back so that he's facing her. He's closed his eyes again and she frowns, displeased.

"Cloud, please," she implores as she brings her fingers to his cheek.

That elicits her sought after response. He finally opens his eyes, fully, and manages to sit up.

"Ugh," he groans. "How long have I been asleep for?"

Her face falls with the realization that he's precisely the same as he was yesterday. She really is alone in this, isn't she?

"I'm not sure. I just woke up not that long ago and Tifa and Barret didn't tell me how long we've been here."

Possibly because the problems they had been mulling over were slightly more pressing. Aerith is wise enough to keep her mouth shut about that for the moment, though.

"How are you feeling?" she continues.

"I've been better." He rubs his bloodshot eyes and peers at her bruised legs before looking away in shame. "...I'm sorry."

She inhales deeply, stifling a sneeze at the rush of dust that enters her lungs. "Don't beat yourself up over it. You couldn't help it."

"That almost makes it worse."

Aerith sighs and sits next to him on the bed. Their knees touch as she places a reassuring hand on his bicep. The gesture is like drawing water from an empty well. Her reserves of compassion have run dry, and a small part of her had been hoping that she'd be the one licking her wounds as he consoled and comforted her.

Curiously, Cloud tenses under her touch and turns his head away from her, averting his gaze intently toward the candle in the corner of the room. The rejection aches than any of the bruises on her leg.

Get a hold of yourself, she chastises inwardly, attempting to banish that uncharacteristic pang of antipathy from her heart.

"What's wrong?" Aerith asks. She isn't sure if she actually wants to hear his answer.

He shifts around, as though he doesn't feel quite at home in his own body, and continues looking at everything in the room except for her.

"It feels like you're not supposed to be here. Don't take that the wrong way — it just feels like something is wrong." He shrugs. "I couldn't tell you why, though. It's just a feeling."

She worries her lip between her teeth. It's not as effortless to tell the truth as she anticipated. "Not to freak you out, but your feelings are right. I'm not supposed to be here."

Cloud narrows his eyes in suspicion, processing what she's implying, and the poor boy looks like he's about to give up and go back to bed. Aerith can't exactly blame him for that.

"What do you mean?" Confusion distorts his question, and it sounds more like an accusation than anything else.

"How about we go outside so I can tell the others too? They're waiting for us outside." She rubs her temples. "I have a feeling I'm going to get sick of telling this story."


When they venture outside into the balmy morning air, the other members of their party are strewn across the village cemetery in various positions: Cid, draped belly-up over the edge of the fence; Yuffie, leaning blasphemously against one of the tombstones; Red XIII, curled up forlornly by another.

"Looks like they decided to show up," Cid drawls as he hops off the fence to his feet.

Yuffie perks up, eyes twinkling at the promise of gossip, and stands straight. "Finally! The suspense's been killing me!"

"Suspense?" Aerith repeats dumbly. Did they already hear something about it? A flash of irritation crosses her features. They couldn't wait for her to explain such an inconceivable story herself?

"Tifa and Barret gave us the quick and dirty version, but I'd rather hear it from you, 'cuz...well, it sounds like something out of a TV show." She stretches her arms behind her back.

So they did say something. Their intentions were undoubtedly benevolent, but her cheeks burn in distress nonetheless. Cloud's bemused gaze dissects her as she hops up on the fence to sit and the other members of their group huddle closer around her.

"I won't make it too long...there's not much to say anyway. I woke up yesterday and left for the City of the Ancients when no one was paying attention. A caravan brought me to the village where you can find the Sleeping Forest." She smiles ruefully. "I had made it to the altar before Cloud and Tifa came...and then Cloud lifted his sword and — "

"Cloud?" Tifa interjects.

"Yes. Cloud. But it wasn't his fault," she adds hastily.

"Oh. I get it! He was doing the same thing he as when he gave Sephiroth the Black Materia!" Yuffie chirps. The other members of their group assent in their own ways — Vincent nods silently, Barret curses under his breath, Tifa's brow furrows together in reluctant acknowledgment of the truth.

"The last thing I remember is this horrible pain. You can't imagine it if you haven't felt it," Aerith continues, shaking her head. "I knew I was dying. You just know when it's happening. And when I woke up today, it was the same thing all over again."

"Well? Was it Cloud?" Tifa asks, staring at the ground as she draws lines in the dirt with the toe of her boot.

"No. I'm sure you can guess who it was." Aerith's voice doesn't come out quite as lighthearted as she intended, a fact reflected by the party members' sullen faces.

Pensive silence, thick with tension, falls over the group like the shadow of an impending storm. That's fair; it's a lot to take in, but Aerith starting to feel painfully awkward. She focuses on a lonely tumbleweed riding on the breeze across town while she waits for them to say something — anything.

"Sounds like bullshit, if ya ask me," Cid grumbles at long last.

Yuffie rolls her eyes. "Yeah, because some silver-haired freak going around saying this alien thing is his mom is totally believable?"

"Even if it's true, and I'm assumin' that it is, why is it happening? What can we even do about it?" Barret bangs his fist against one of the headstones, his face contorting with the looming despair of powerlessness. "We've already got so much to worry about!"

"...Aerith."

Vincent's soft, sonorous voice cuts through the fracas of Cid and Yuffie's banter and Barret's rant. Never one to volunteer his opinion, he commands their silence by speaking up. Aerith turns to look at him, preemptively flinching at what he might say. His eyes flickering, his arms folded across his chest — he is the last person she had expected to lend her his support, though she struggles to pinpoint why she believed as much.

"I don't see you as the type to make up tall tales." He shrugs and looks toward the skies. "I believe you. Bizarre things are happening all around us. We don't know if this is Sephiroth's doing or something else, but we'll find out."

The group grows quiet once more, mulling over his words. She exhales shakily. How could they accept her story when she can hardly accept it herself?

"Tch. Vincent's right, I guess — everything about this whole deal's been weird from the start. I've got no damn reason to doubt ya," Cid concedes with a grimace.

"What shall our next move be, then?" Red XIII asks.

Aerith twists the ends of her braid, concentrating on the individual strands of hair and the way they shine in the rising noon sun. It's far easier to preoccupy herself with trivial things than to confront the eight pairs of pondering eyes, staring at her, waiting for her to give them direction. All the conviction in the world doesn't make her a born leader.

"I still need to go to the City of the Ancients. It's only a matter of time before Sephiroth casts Meteor, and only Holy can stop it," she says quietly, ceasing her ministrations and folding her hands in her lap.

To her surprise, Red XIII scowls, crestfallen. "There's nowhere else you can go to summon it?"

She shakes her head. "If there were, I'd go there instead."

Aerith swallows, suddenly aware of the lump that's abruptly formed in her throat. A dull throb pounds against her temple. The truth is just as tenebrous to her as it is to everyone else here, but the task of bringing everyone to light has fallen squarely on her shoulders. It's utterly unfair. Stubborn tears pool in her eyes, and she refuses to wipe at them. When Tifa places her hand on her back, she lifts her head, prompting a tear to course down her cheek before falling onto the back of her hand.

"We'll go to the Forgotten City as a group. You'll be fine with us there," Tifa assures.

"We won't let that son of a bitch get his way." Barret folds his arms, pleased with his own conviction.

Aerith can't help but weep now — for entirely different reasons.


They depart from Gongaga with no further delay. The majority of their party would stay behind in Bone Village while she, Tifa, and Cloud ventured into the looming ruins of the Forgotten City.

("Having all of us in one place is just what that bastard wants," Barret had declared.)

The arid summer air chaps her lips and scratches her throat. Seasons had been abstract concepts in the microcosm of Midgar, but she feels them acutely now as she wipes the thin layer of sweat from her temple. Sparse patches of green stand defiantly on the dry, cracking earth as they tread the path leading out of the village. The nearby reactor has sucked the life out of the soil and sky, but some things will always cling to life, she supposes.

Without thinking, Aerith wanders off the trail toward one of the dense, fragrant bushes and inspects it, running her fingers along the rough sprigs. Rosemary. It has the arboreal smell of pine and a hint of something sour. The scent is familiar, perhaps too much — it grips her memories, unpleasant ones, and yanks them to the surface of her consciousness. She winces. She had very deliberately buried those memories. Yet, an inexplicable force compels her to pluck one of the sprigs from the bush. She tucks it into her jacket pocket, near her heart.

She hurries back to catch up with the rest of the group and sidles up between Cloud and Barret.

"Missing your flowers in Midgar?" Cloud asks.

Aerith hopes her smile is sincere enough. "You could say that."

She keeps quiet on the rest of the trek to Bone Village. All of this feels wrong. Terribly, irreparably wrong. She hadn't considered an alternative plan. She should be grateful for a second chance, the opportunity to amend the downfall caused by her haughtiness. Instead, questions consume her thoughts. Why has time bent and shifted and gone recursive? Why is she the only one who experienced it, where the others are exempt? Why did she wake up when she did? How can she be so confident that it wasn't a dream as the other suggested?

It would've been much simpler to stay dead, she thinks morosely.


Aerith churns her musings and curiosities over and over in her head until her mind goes numb. When they reach their destination, it takes significant effort to coax herself back down to earth and back into the realm of rational thought.

They weave their way around the excavators and tattered tents scattered throughout Bone Village and climb the ladder leading to the Sleeping Forest. She turns to face the members staying behind. Gazing into their optimistic expressions is more than she can bear.

"Thank you for trusting me."

Red XIII nods. "We'll be right here waiting."

"Aw, no fair! I wanna see the Forgotten City!" Yuffie whines, kicking the dirt petulantly.

"Quit your bitchin'! It's givin' me a headache!" Cid punctuates his censure with a deep, extended drag of his stubby cigarette.

Cloud and Tifa turn to her expectantly.

"Lead the way," Tifa says, gesturing toward the forest entrance.

Aerith wears her newfound role as leader like a suit of armor meant for someone far larger than her; its heft tethers her heart to her stomach.

The trio travels in silence, crossing through the clearing bordered by boundless trees until they reach the bouldered bluffs. After fending off petty adversaries, they scale the cliffs and reach the top of the plateau leading into the City of the Ancients. The rotting metropolis looms over them with petrifying austerity; the haunted, winding roads and density of dead branches at the center inspire a hundred different kinds of dread in her.

"Hey, you okay?"

Cloud's concerned voice rouses her from her trance.

"Yes, I'm okay. I'm feeling a little emotional, that's all," she admits, pressing her shaking hands to her sides. "Let's keep going."

Tifa turns to Cloud and gnaws on a nail. "Doesn't it feel like we're intruding?"

Aerith has the acumen to hold her tongue. As much as every part of her acknowledges that she can no longer act alone — as better as it is to have her friends by her side — the sense that they are intruders proves difficult for her to shake.

After braving the chill and travailing across the limestone and gravel paths, passing the dilapidated homes that once housed her people, they exit the antechamber — a former abode — leading to the sanctum. A familiar light shines down from the heavens, bathing them all in blue. The faint scent of saltwater permeates the stale air. Cloud takes a step forward, casting his eyes toward the altar above, pupils contracting with the pain of a false memory.

"Well...we're here," he says. His saturnine countenance doesn't serve to inspire much confidence.

"I'll stay down here so I can call for the others if we need to. Go up there and give it what you've got," Tifa urges, though it sounds half-hearted to Aerith's ears.

The weight of her previous fates anchors her to the earth. She doesn't realize that tremors rack her entire body until a hand touches her back. Her heart leaps into her throat and she flinches; her muscles tense with the memory of her demise.

"Don't worry. I'm right here. I'm your bodyguard, remember?" Cloud assures softly, gripping her shoulder. His smile, though slight and uneasy, so perfectly channels Zack's that she can nearly see his face right before her eyes. Despite Cloud's noble intentions, she feels no braver than she did before.

Aerith nods and they ascend the bone and shell staircase. He trails behind her with his hand resting vigilantly on the hilt of his sword. When they reach the apex, she takes a hesitant step forward and rests her hand on the railing. A phantom pain blooms in her chest, writhing at the memory of what occurred here a mere day ago. She grips her arms and runs her fingers over the raised bumps on her skin.

"I don't know how long this will take. If we can just keep him at bay until I'm done…" Aerith says, trying to mask her anxiety and pass it off as peace.

Cloud shouldn't be here for more reasons than she can count, but she needs him here. I need him here. She chants this mantra in her head to force herself to accept his presence. Any attempts to summon Holy will be fruitless so long as she harbors this debilitating doubt inside her.

Her myriad fears swirl inside her mind like puffs of poison.

She holds her breath and descends to her knees.

"Just concentrate on doing what you need to do and I'll take care of the rest. I won't let Sephiroth pull the strings again," Cloud declares with a determined nod.

Aerith forcefully dismantles her mental walls and allows his words to comfort her. She closes her eyes and brings her hands together in prayer as the tendrils of her consciousness reaching toward the nebulous spirit of the Planet. Time once again ebbs and flows as the ocean does, and Cloud's presence — her past, her present, her future, and all possibilities that sleep between the three — fade into the background, forgotten.

Yes, time stretches on — until the sound of Cloud's breath hitching in his lungs awakens a primal fear and ceases her prayers, and her eyes fly open at the din of metal clashing against metal reverberating in her ears.

Aerith scrambles to her feet and backs up against the railing. He's here. She grips the railing until her knuckles go pale. The quicksilver hue of Sephiroth's hair goes blurry as he darts around, too quickly for her eyes to keep up. Cloud matches his pace with an unsustainable amount of labor; inevitably, with one last burst of force, Sephiroth overpowers him and knocks him back into the railing wall opposite to her.

"If you weren't so useful, I'd kill you too," he remarks, heaving a bored sigh. "If you aren't going to do the one thing you were designed to do, keep back."

Cloud rises to his feet. He braces himself and pivots to charge forward; Sephiroth holds one hand out to his side and halts him. His limbs go leaden. He reaches toward Aerith, his fingertips seeking hers, and the gelid grip of déjà vu grasps her tightly, freezing her in place.

"Fight him, Aerith!" he shouts. He grits his teeth and struggles against the invisible restraints, but it proves too much. He falls to his knees.

Her gaze snaps back to Sephiroth. He tilts his head and regards her — not unlike a predator studying the habits of its prey.

"Well? Are you going to fight?" he sneers.

Does Cloud truly believe that she could even begin to stand up to someone of Sephiroth's caliber? It would be a farce.

Yes, it's nothing more than a farce, but Aerith's fierce will to live hijacks the fearful part of her, impelling her to draw her staff from its resting place on her hip. She extends it and takes an instinctive, defensive step backward.

"You always did manage to surprise me," Sephiroth comments, shaking his head. He lifts Masamune and lunges at her.

Aerith blocks his blade with her staff and attempts to push back against him. Her arms tremble with the force of her effort. He withdraws and moves to target her stomach. She's swift enough to parry the move once again, but just barely. An insidious sensation that she's about to meet the same end as she did before seizes her. Battling on such sacred ground hurts her heart, as does the idea that she may have squandered her solitary chance to make things right.

Those thoughts give her pause for an evanescent moment. Her grip on her staff loosens. It's more than enough opportunity for him to overpower her. He increases his force and the staff flies out of her hands, hurling through the air before falling into the pools below with a splash.

Sephiroth wastes no time. The amused glint in his eye is gone. He draws his sword back before thrusting it upward through her chest, impaling her — just as effortlessly as he did the first time around.

Her legs fold instantly and she crashes onto the sanctuary floor, pressing her hand gently against her torso even as blood gushes from the gaping wound. Defeated once more, even with the gift of prescience. The hope and promise she had dared to allow herself dissipate in a moment. The corners of her eyes feel wet and full. At least she struggled valiantly, she likes to think.

He takes a step toward her. Her strength seeps out of her in vast crimson pools. Aerith can't bring herself to look up at him and match his contemptuous gaze.

"I'll kill you again. I'll kill you a thousand times in a thousand different ways if that's what it takes," Sephiroth says nonchalantly with a dismissive wave. He doesn't even entertain the thought that she could swim against the tides of his wrath. She grits her teeth, seething silently. Another part of her, desperate and drowning, despairs at how readily he tossed his own memories to the wind while she continues to clasp hers close to her heart. How could he forget?

Again?

"What — " (in between rapid breaths and desperate gasps, she tastes salt and metal and bile on her tongue) " — what are you saying?"

Before he can answer, she coughs violently, the sound wet and gurgly and repulsive to her senses. Blood fluctuates in her throat and leaks from her nose. A metallic tang wafts through the air. She sputters, and droplets of red splatter against the sanctum floor and the toe of his boot.

He stoops down until he's nearly level with her. His eyes are the opposite of Cloud's; nothing exists behind their glow but a small, smoldering ember of anger. He smirks and extends a hand toward her. For an agonizing moment, she's terrified that he's going to deliver the final blow and rip her heart out of her chest with his bare hand, or strangle her, or claw her throat out, or slaughter her in some unforeseen gory fashion. The sight of her Cetran blood spilling forth into the waters below would no doubt please him. Her stomach churns.

Instead, he takes her chin between two gloved, frigid fingers.

"The Cetra thinks she's exceptional." His hold tightens. "You're not the only one doing this all over again."