a/n: to my guest reviewers: thank you so much for your kind and thoughtful assessments of the story thus far. they mean so much to me, and your encouragement motivates me to produce better work. i'm glad to hear that my characterization has been accurate thus far — it can be tough to nail these characters!


She resolves not to tell them this time.

Guarding her silence might facilitate finding the way out to this mess. The futility of having taken the time and care to tell them about her situation only to die once more not a mere day later isn't lost on her.

She stays still as death and squeezes her eyes shut even after Tifa calls her name. She needs time — she's not sure what for, but she needs time.

"That's weird. She stopped," she hears Tifa tell Barret fretfully. "It was like something was possessing her. Scary…"

"Can ya blame her? You try havin' sweet dreams after Cloud turns around and starts curbstomping you. This whole damn thing has been a nightmare."

Oh, Barret. You don't know the half of it.

They murmur amongst themselves for a few more minutes before the door creaks and shuts. The smell of dust and pine is starting to nauseate her.

Her head spins even with her eyes closed. Even after stowing away her abject horror at her third grisly death to be dealt with at another time, one question prevails and prods at her enough to make her scream. If what he had said is true, then why are they the only two trapped in time? Why him and not Cloud, or Tifa, or anyone else? She curls her fingers tightly around the sheets beneath her, pulling them taut, still feigning sleep. It's a cruel, injurious joke.

Returning to the City of the Ancients would paint a target directly on her body. Her muscles lock up at the memory; she can still taste blood on her tongue. He's waiting for her. She can envision him perched atop one of the abandoned abodes, admiring the way his blade catches the light, biding his time until she arrives and the cycle repeats once more. No, she can't go back there — but where else could she conjure the energy required to summon Holy?

Aerith stifles a gasp as a memory bursts to the surface, unbidden. She scrambles to sit up.

There's one place where she just might have a chance.


"What's wrong, Aerith? You look as though you've seen a ghost."

Before venturing outside toward the graveyard to be with the others, she had crammed her memories of previous iterations in the back of her consciousness until she was sufficiently convinced they'd have no bearing on her actions. Red XIII's alarmed gaze speaks to the success of her efforts, it seems.

"Do I? I feel like I've seen one," she jokes, laughing halfheartedly. "What happened at the temple kind of shook me."

He nods sagely. "That is certainly understandable."

Footsteps scratch against the dirt path, and both she and Red XIII turn to see a disoriented Cloud approaching them — with a slight limp, she notes with a pang of pity.

She can't help but smile, though she suspects it appears somewhat sad. "Good morning, sleepyhead."

"Yeah, morning," he mumbles. Not quite as receptive to her greeting as she had hoped, but then, at least he isn't projecting the verisimilitude of peachiness the way she is. Knowing him, he could very well still be half asleep, too.

Barret clears his throat with dramatic flair before bellowing, "All right, now that Sleeping Beauty's up, we can get started."

A sharp pain suddenly assails her temples — part of her rejects that this is happening, that she's here, that she's watching this with her own eyes, that she isn't gushing blood from a gaping wound in her sternum. In the periphery, she can see Cloud's eyebrows shoot up in acute concern. She brings her fingertips gingerly to her forehead and waves her other hand in a conciliatory gesture. "If you keep making that face, it's gonna get stuck like that."

Cloud's expression relaxes, the hard edge of anxiety softening into something resembling affection. She hops up on the fence adjacent to where Cid lies down and next to where Cloud stands.

"So what's our next move? Sephiroth's got the Black Materia and we got no clue where he's heading next," Barret says as he folds his arms across his chest — just as he did yesterday.

"Where do you think he's going, Cloud?" Tifa asks, leaning against the fence opposite to them.

The uncomfortable truth hangs thickly in the air, miasma in their lungs — perhaps more palpable to Aerith than the others. The sight of Cloud lifting his sword against her, eyes devoid of depth, hops along her synapses.

"I'm not sure," he admits, scratching the side of his face with a single finger. "I honestly don't really understand what's happening."

Well, at least he's honest.

"Damn," Cid mutters, staring at the sky, "a dead end, huh?"

Tell them, a voice urges in the back of her mind.

Aerith looks down. A scant few blades of grass peek through a small fissure in the ground. I can't.

That's right, she can't. Telling them would strip her of her veil of secrecy. As much as she trusts them, there are things that only her heart is meant to know.

Demoralized, Yuffie delivers a swift kick to the earth, conjuring a cloud of dust that the desert breeze dutifully carries away. "Ugh, this is the worst! He's gonna cast that meteor spell or whatever and flatten us to pancakes."

"Um, Yuffie, someone is buried there," Tifa points out, eyebrows shooting up in distress.

Aerith swallows down an inappropriately timed giggle and twirls a strand of hair around her finger, still vacillating between keeping her mouth shut and speaking up.

"He left us with no clues. We would have to travel to individual locations and ask people in those areas if they've seen him...and then hope for the best," Vincent says with a tinge of resignation.

"I feel like there's something I should tell you guys."

All heads turn toward Aerith, no doubt due to her uncharacteristic sobriety in saying such a thing. She takes a shallow breath — all eight pairs of eyes on her again, waiting for answers she apparently cannot give. Just like before.

Cloud's furrowed brow and slight scowl don't escape her attention.

"Before my mom died, she gave me a piece of materia — the White Materia." She swings her legs back and forth, kicking her heels against the fencepost. "I always knew it had great power, but I had to keep it a secret, y'know?"

Tifa's eyes widen. "The White Materia? That means…"

She trails off, struggling to string the words together. Still, her thought rings clear and Aerith nods.

"I can use it to summon Holy, which will stop Meteor and anything else harming the Planet," she explains reluctantly. "But it's a powerful spell. I can't do it just anywhere."

Cloud, whose lips had been pursed up to this point, seems to finally find it in himself to say something. "So when you said that it was useless…"

You were lying to me.

"It wasn't a lie. I just didn't know," she says. A sheepish blush rises to her face — or is that just the heat of the desert sun? She'll go with the latter.

Vincent shakes his head. "Let's not get hung up on the specifics."

"Right. Anyway, there's a place that has enough of the Planet's power where I think I could summon it."

"And what is that place, Aerith?" Red XIII asks.

"Mideel," she says with a heavy sigh. There's no doubt that they're going to raise some kind of objection to trying to reach such a place with their paltry resources.

"That makes sense." Tifa brings a thoughtful finger to her lips. "That's where the Lifestream is closest to the surface."

"That's great 'n all, but how the hell do we get there? The Tiny Bronco can't make it past rough waters." Cid unceremoniously spits his worn cigarette onto the ground and fishes in his pocket for a fresh one.

"Our options are limited," Cloud concedes. "Is that really the only place, Aerith?"

It's not, but she isn't about to divulge that information with them. She wrings her hands and pouts. "If you can think of another place full of the Planet's power, I'm all ears."

The group slips into pensive silence as they mull their dilemma over. The tight coil of disquietude grows thinner deep in her stomach. Yuffie's gasp tugs her back down to reality.

"Hold on! Hey, Cid, lemme see the map for a sec." Yuffie extends her hand, signaling for Cid to comply.

He narrows his eyes skeptically and tosses the map — rolled up in all its frayed, weathered, and yellowed glory — in her direction. Yuffie unfurls and scans it. A sly, satisfied smile spreads across her lips.

"I got it! Come here, guys."

They all move to huddle around Yuffie, with the notable exception of Vincent, who stays right where he is against the fence in the back of the graveyard. Barret towers over them, casting a shadow over the map. The close proximity to the others makes Aerith acutely aware of them — Cid's tobacco-laden breath, the scent of cinnamon sugar shampoo drifting from Tifa's direction — in ways that she isn't sure she's comfortable with. Squinting, she can make out Yuffie's finger firmly planted on the shore distal to Mideel.

"Look, see? If we can come up right against the shore, we should be able to make it across to land if we use a grappling hook or something."

Barret scratches his beard. "Damn. That might just work."

"It's a hell of a risk is what it is. If we fail, we'll have wasted all that time we coulda spent lookin' for Sephiroth," Cid says.

"But we have to try." The determination in Cloud's voice prompts her to look in his direction directly across from her. "Following Sephiroth blindly isn't going get the Black Materia out of his hands, and it isn't going to stop Meteor."

"He's right. Even if it doesn't work out, we have to at least be able to say we tried," Tifa says, eyebrows furrowed together in an unsettling reflection of Cloud's conviction.

"Then we're off to Mideel. We should move out if we're good to go," declares Aerith. They're relying on her to project confidence, maintain the peace, just as she always has — even if she is growing further and further from that person as she sinks deeper into this enigma.

Barret motions for them to get moving as he gestures toward the village exit. He and Cid are at the front of the pack, with Red XIII and Tifa right behind them.

"That was surprisingly astute of you, Yuffie," she hears Vincent say as he moves to join them.

"Hey, what are you trying to say, pal?"

"Exactly what I said."

They bicker for a bit longer before settling into somewhat companionable silence as they move ahead of her. Yuffie sticks her tongue out at him when (she thinks) he isn't looking.

"You've been pretty quiet, Aerith."

Cloud sidles up next to her as they make their way down the dirt path. His arms hang limply at his side, as though he isn't quite sure what to do with himself.

"Yeah, I guess I just haven't had much to say."

"Are you...upset about what happened earlier?" he asks, tensing up.

Earlier? What happened earlier? Her breath hitches. Visions of pellucid beams of blue light, the iron tang of blood —

"N-No. I'm not, I promise," she says without thinking.

He looks down at his toes. "You don't have to lie to make me feel better."

She doesn't say anything, and a thick, suffocating silence envelops them as they walk side by side.

Once more, she strays from the path and plucks a sprig of rosemary from the dry bush situated right outside the village entrance. She tucks it inside her jacket pocket, next to her heart. It's one of the few facets of constancy that she can cling to.

She returns to the path, knowing he'll be right behind them — sooner rather than later.


"Wait, wait! Let me try one more time!"

"Damn it, woman! If you mess this up again I'm lettin' you go on purpose!"

Yuffie teeters precariously on the edge of Tiny Bronco's wing, reeling the fallen grappling hook back from the sea, while Cid grips the back of her halter top. The jagged rocks that line the shallows below would skewer her in an instant were she to tumble into the water. If there's one thing she's learned since they've arrived here, it's that Cid has exponentially more patience than she gave him credit for.

They've been docked here for close to an hour. Cloud and Tifa are starting to doze off, Red XIII and Vincent are talking about something or other, and Barret looks like he's about to intentionally capsize the entire aircraft. For her part, she can't deny that sleep is looking pretty good right now.

"Okay, here goes nothin'. I'm going to try to hook it around that left rock instead of the right one this time," Yuffie grumbles as she wipes the sweat from her forehead. Licking her lips, she swings the hook before tossing it over to the ledge with an impassioned grunt. Though Aerith can't quite tell from this angle, the hook appears to be comfortably nestled against the posterior side of the rock, forming a wide upwards arc from the airplane wing up to the ledge.

Cid's eyes go wide. "Gods alive, it actually stuck."

(Out of the corner of her eye, Aerith can see Barret nudging Cloud. "Nap time's over, Spike.")

"That's just the first part. Now we actually have to climb across."

"We? Try you, shortstack. I'm not climbing that thing until someone can hold onto the rope from the other side."

"Wow, what happened to chivalry? If I die, I'm definitely coming back to haunt you guys." Despite her protests, Yuffie swallows hard and grips the rope before wrapping herself around it. Cid lets go of her halter top and takes the end of the rope between both hands, pulling it taut.

"Be careful, Yuffie," Aerith says, abruptly aware of her own anxiety at the sight of her draped across the rope.

"Yeah, yeah. Just let me do my thing."

Yuffie shimmies horizontally along the rope at an excruciatingly slow pace, yelping and yelling when the rope oscillates. With one last burst of willpower, she climbs up the last stretch against the cliff. She sinks her fingernails into the earth and throws herself up onto the ledge and stumbles to her feet.

"Ha! Take that!" She pumps her fists into the air in triumph.

"I wouldn't get excited yet if I were you. If we die, yer on your own."

Yuffie plucks the grappling hook and pulls against the rope, creating a tighter connection between the plane and the ledge. One by one, they make their way along the cable and up onto the island, with the exception of Red, who leaps up there with surprising ease.

"Woohoo! We made it!" Yuffie stretches her arms behind her back and flashes a toothy grin. "I gotta be honest. I was the one who suggested it, but I didn't really think it was gonna work."

"Shit," Cid rasps between pants. "I can't say I thought it was gonna work either. Thought we were about to be shark meat for a second…"

Aerith vaguely suspects that Yuffie has some ulterior motivations when she suggested this course of action.

"I can see what people mean when they talk about your life flashing before your eyes," Cloud admits with a sheepish blush staining his cheeks.

Red XIII's nostrils flare as he inhales the scent drifting from east. "Let's not delay. Mideel should only be a couple hours away on foot."

They traverse across the grassy plains and dense forestry of the southern island and they arrive far sooner than even she anticipated. Aerith oscillates between a sense of glittering optimism and singeing pessimism when they finally cross the threshold into Mideel. The thick air, saturated with steam, fills her parched lungs. Tendrils of mist drift and undulate above them, climbing into the sky and merging with the clouds.

She looks around, drinking in the sight of the modest huts comprised of bamboo and wood, the people milling about, fanning themselves amidst the humidity. There's something beautiful in its simplicity. Could this really have been the locus of so much bloodshed?

The rest of their party run off to get settled, she assumes. It's been a good six hours since they last took a break, and the dull edge of fatigue is beginning to press into her. Cloud and Tifa, who had been chatting about something or other upon their entry, cease their conversation and look expectantly at Aerith.

"Now that we're, I'm leaving the rest up to you," Cloud tells her. "You have a better handle on all this than I do."

Yeah, I wish. Aerith suppresses that particularly sour thought.

"I'm going to go find a place where the Lifestream is at the surface," she says. "Where will you all be?"

"We'll be asking around to see if anyone here has seen or heard of Sephiroth, but we'll mostly be waiting for you."

"No pressure though, right?" she says with a kittenish wink. "Will you come with me, Tifa?"

Clearly somewhat shocked that Aerith would ask her specifically, her eyebrows shoot up and she immediately sputters, "Of course!"

Aerith blinks. She had half-expected Tifa's first reaction to be skeptical, or at least curious. Not immediate acquiescence. She grins, feeling inexplicably awkward and nearly missing Cloud's similarly perplexed expression.

"Well, there's no time like the present!" she chirps, and for the first time in quite a while, her enthusiasm is authentic.

Cloud steals one lingering glance at them as they head north towards the woods before he stalks off to join the rest of their party. Tifa stretches her arms behind her back as they move further away from the town's bustle and deeper into the dense greenery bordering the settlement.

"Any particular reason you asked me to come along instead of Cloud?" Tifa finally asks.

It feels like a trick question. Is the answer not obvious? Aerith quirks her head and answers, "I think Cloud needs some space."

Tifa frowns. "You're right. But wouldn't you rather just go alone then?"

"Nah, it's kind of a private thing, but I'd feel better with another pair of eyes given...well, you know."

"That makes sense. I haven't done the whole prayer thing since I was a kid, honestly, so I guess it's a little foreign to me."

"Why's that?"

She averts her angry gaze toward the treetops. "The only way to change anything is with my own hands."

The frenetic fury that Tifa typically tames so well rears its face. Aerith reaches for her hand and squeezes tightly. "We make a great team, then. You use your hands, I use my heart."

"Ugh, that's so cheesy, Aerith." The corners of her eyes crinkle with a genuine smile despite her protest. To Aerith's surprise, Tifa doesn't pull her hand away. They walk along the path and weave through the trees when they come upon a clearing where small ravine, glowing malachite green, cuts through the forest.

The Planet's power hums and whispers in her ear, sending chills down her spine — not unlike what she felt when she attempted to pray at the City of the Ancients. Yet, she can't make out the words her ancestors are saying, their voices distant and murky. That's understandable, she supposes; their voices were loudest when she was nestled within their former home. This place is far from that home.

Aerith extricates her fingers from Tifa's and runs up to the creek. A tiny but forceful wave of the Lifestream brushes up against the ravine's edge, sending drops flying and splashing onto Aerith's dress. She turns her head to face Tifa, whose eyes reflect the ethereal phosphorescence of the ravine as she stares, entranced.

"This might take a while," Aerith says, folding her hands in front of her.

Snapping out of her reverie, Tifa turns to her and nods. She leans against a tree towards the opening of the clearing, crossing her legs and folding her arms. "Don't rush it. You do what you need to do, okay?"

Aerith swallows and stoops down, brushing her fingers against the damp blades of grass. She rolls her dress up to her thighs as she kneels before the Lifestream. She closes her eyes and inhales deeply, drinking in the scent of clean, crisp air, before joining her hands and lowering her head.

Let this be it. Let this be the end.

She banishes the image of silver and cold steel from her mind.

A fat drop of water lands on the bridge of her nose. Another one lands on her fingertip, another on her clavicle. Light rain begins to gently shower down from the heavens, soaking her ribbon and dress, drenching the earth. She keeps her hands clasped in uneasy prayer.

The Planet whispers, a sound so faint that she wonders if she's a mere figment of her imagination.

This is our only chance, she pleads. When no reply comes her way, her heart sinks down to her toes.

This is distinct from the first time she attempted to summon Holy. Thinking back to it, it was her only successful attempt. That time, she had felt something surreal and omnipotent take root inside her very soul, the shoots growing through the cracks in her heart and blooming into beautiful, devastating power. She feels nothing comparable to that now; only that the seeds of that power have died before they could ever sprout.

The rain recedes just as quickly as it arrived.

She rises hesitantly to her feet and brushes the dirt off her knees, the heady scent of ozone and petrichor still lingering in the air. The Lifestream laps gently at the edge of the gorge.

Tifa's glossy lips purse together and she brushes her hand against Aerith's forearm — an unspoken question in her fingertips.

Aerith turns to look her in the eye. "What did the materia look like?"

"It glowed for a minute, but the light was flickering. Then it just...stopped," she mutters, not meeting Aerith's gaze. The disappointment in her voice is a needle through Aerith's chest.

The initial confusion begins to fade, yielding to a burgeoning sense of bashfulness at her failure. Aerith lifts a hand to her face; despite the constellation of cool raindrops lingering on her skin, her cheeks feel hot to the touch.

"Don't beat yourself up. You worked hard!" Tifa flashes a smile so scintillating that it should be enough to decimate the shadows roiling in Aerith's mind. It should be enough. Should.

"It just doesn't make sense, though!" Aerith snaps, a surge of aggression and helplessness flowing through her heart before evaporating. She drops her shoulders and sighs. "Sorry, it's just that last time it — "

"Last time?"

Aerith's heart skips a beat. It's a genuine, fair question, but she can't clarify without revealing herself.

"Sorry, I was just thinking back to a dream I had."

Disbelief is written all over Tifa's face, but she tentatively accepts the explanation and continues walking with her toward town. A vortex of mysteries swirls around her like wisps of mist, murmuring questions in her ear that she cannot answer.

When they regroup at the village's inn to rest, Aerith dodges the group's questions, leaving Tifa to explain, and slips into a slumber devoid of dreams as soon as her head hits the pillow.


She awakes in the middle of the night, when all the others have already duly passed out. Yuffie's unrelenting snore grates and grinds against her eardrums; she firmly presses her pillow over head and ears to stifle the sound so she can hear her own thoughts.

Her last hope is to intercept him and pry the Black Materia from his possession. The chances of successfully accomplishing such a thing are laughably low, but she can't die again without being able to say that she tried. The recollection of Tifa's words brings a brief smile to her lips.

Can she reach him remotely? She's never attempted as much. Sharing her visions with Cloud was simple enough, but she had the benefit of physical contact.

He acts as though he has exiled her existence and her memory from his soul. She wonders how much of that is true.

Aerith closes her eyes and tilts her head back, withdrawing and gathering herself. He let her in once, long ago. That connection must surely still exist in some capacity.

She searches deep inside her for that long lost tether, diving into herself and rummaging through the fathoms of her soul, before extending an experimental sliver of consciousness his way. She hits a leaden wall at first and gasps — the wall pushes back against her, and the mental sensation of being knocked back syncs with her physical body and she recoils. But she can't stop here; his walls are not impenetrable. She can slip in somewhere.

Aerith retracts the wisps of her psyche and retreats from his mental stronghold, waiting a beat. She imagines one tendril reaching toward him, the deepest part of him, feeling for some crack in the otherwise ironclad fortress surrounding his soul. At long last, she establishes a link between them and sinks into the murky fathoms of his consciousness as hers begins to recede. The tenuous connection renders his thoughts and emotions vague, unclear — an out-of-focus snapshot of a mind that she was never certain she wanted to understand.

Unanticipated, a scalding sensation bubbles and brews in her chest until it boils over. Rage floods her heart, so ardent and absolute that it leaves her gasping and gulping for air and prompts her to seek purchase against the bed beneath her. Rage potent enough to raze and scorch the earth. Rage so alien to her that she can scarcely comprehend what she's feeling. It leaves room for nothing and no one else.

Despite the furnace of fury burning within her, she has a destination in mind. It's still warm, but she's approaching somewhere cold. Grassy hills that curve up into a barren tundra.

She opens her eyes. He's heading north.


What makes me do these things alone? Aerith thinks miserably as she hitches ride after ride to travel to the other end of the planet. At the same time, the thought of her companions being party to any more revelations about her past than they already have been is enough to make her stomach churn. Her plan's minuscule chances of success would drop firmly down to zero if anyone else joined her, anyway.

She had stolen away in the middle of the night. That was over a day ago.

She bats her lashes and weaves saccharine words together to convince her current caravan driver, a slender merchant woman, to sell her a dense coat lined with faux fur and a pair of boots. Donned appropriately, she thanks the merchant and hops off the caravan at the foot of the snowcaps.

The valley looms over her, a desolate and silent cradle. The creaking of the caravan's wheels fades away behind her as she raises her head to take in the sight of the steep incline.

What choice does she have at this point?

As Aerith trudges up the slope, gentle snowflakes sprinkle down from the sky and dot her face. The thin, dry air burns her face. She's beginning to regret passing up the opportunity to beguile a pair of snow goggles off the merchant woman. Some mittens would have been nice. She breathes over her tingling fingers and rubs them together vigorously.

There's no sign of him anywhere in this white wasteland. Sure, she knew that this was his destination, but maybe this decision to come here in pursuit was an inane impulse; she has no way of finding him or even surmising as to where he could be.

So she wanders and meanders and walks in circles until her hands and face have lost all feeling and her knees knock together, searching for a wisp of black in as the sun sinks into the horizon.

Aerith squints, resisting gravity's nigh irresistible pull toward the ground, and sees a figure near the top of the slope. Jolted awake, she darts upward, panting and searching for confirmation that it's what she's been searching for. A black cape flutters close to the ground, contrasting with the snow, and she can see flecks of silver when she finally catches up to him.

"I've f-found you."

The sunset peers over the mountaintops beside them, dyeing the world in orange hues and blue shadows. He stops in his tracks. Fingers curled around Masamune, he stands still, his back facing her.

"Interesting. And how did you know that I was on the northern continent?" he asks, voice dripping with condescending curiosity.

"Just a hunch."

She can't see his expression but she can already imagine that her sardonicism has failed to amuse him. He's right in front of her in a flash, his face in uncomfortable proximity as he grips the collar of her coat and jerks her toward him.

"I don't think it was a suspicion, or even a premonition." His voice, low and threatening, makes the hairs on her neck stand erect. He yanks her closer, close enough that she is vaguely aware of his warm breath on her numb cheek. This is her chance. "I felt you reaching for me."

Emboldened, she meets his inimical gaze. "And you l-let me in."

"That was for a reason." He releases her and swiftly backs away, as though she were a uniquely poisonous plant. She grimaces at the lost opportunity. "You've used the White Materia."

"I tr-tried, but even being near the Lifestream didn't work," she stammers, wrapping her arms around herself. She can't stop shivering even with the fur lining of the coat. "I can't do it anywhere other than the F-Forgotten City."

She thinks she sees a fleeting flash of pity cross his cold countenance but decides she must have been imagining it. Seeing what she wants to see, as usual.

"Why did you come alone? Surely you must have known that you'd stand no chance."

Aerith hugs herself tightly, trying to match his detached gaze with her own brand of indifference.

"There's no way I can get you to reconsider what you're doing." It's somewhere between a statement and a question.

He brings a hand to his head and laughs, a sharp and jaunty sound that curdles her blood. A bizarre sense of déjà entendu slithers along her back and whispers in her ear — the sound is at once familiar and foreign.

"Some things never change," he finally utters after his brief fit of mirth.

She swallows hard, cursing herself for what she's about to attempt.

"You can't tell me that this is what you really want. Why — "

He holds up his hand to halt her.

"Don't say anything else. I know why you came." He smirks. "You were always a good liar, Aerith. It wasn't like you to be so forthcoming with your plans."

The color drains from her face. After that arresting moment of shock fades, she immediately curses herself for not foreseeing this. In her haphazard attempt to breach the safeguards of his mind, she neglected to fortify her own defenses. The communication was bilateral. He's one step ahead of everyone and always has been — even when he used that edge for far more benevolent purposes.

"I see. You've forgotten," she laments, somewhere between fury and mourning, "about everything."

He turns his head to regard the snow-clad slopes beneath them.

"You're mistaken. I recall everything perfectly well. Just because I remember, however, does not mean any of it matters to me." His voice strains as he speaks and his fingers twitch, so slightly as to be nearly imperceptible.

The admission shouldn't sting as much as it does, even if a minute, optimistic part of her doubts how true it is. Aerith bites her numb lip hard enough to draw blood (it's becoming a familiar taste) in a bid to maintain her crumbling composure.

He squares his shoulders and turns once more. Violent intent flashes in his glowing eyes as he stalks toward her, sword in hand. She takes a step back; he takes a step forward. The crunch of their footsteps drifts and echoes throughout the silent valley. The Planet's tears and tremors surge through her.

She braces herself. She can fight or run, and the former's outcomes left something to be desired.

Aerith turns on her heel and fights against the traction of the snow to dart up the slope. Her heartbeat pounds frantically in her ears as she trips and attempts to scale the rest of the incline on all fours. She stifles a terribly timed sob — Please, not again, I can't do it again

A hand grabs and grips her bicep, attempting to lift her up and turn her around. Fueled by spite, she resists.

"Just stop! I don't want to look at you," she chokes out between her weeping, gripping at the snow in a futile attempt to seek purchase. As though that will change anything — as though she even possesses the power to change anything.

Sephiroth freezes behind her. The agonizing seconds of silence dangle her fate in front of her, taunting her.

"You must understand," he says quietly, "that this has nothing to do with you."

This moment of calm clarity disarms her. He plunges his sword into her once more, and no amount of prescience can prepare her for the searing sensation of cold steel. She tumbles face first into the snow. She's never been one to resign herself to her fate, but then her fate never appeared so clear as it does now. The lingering tears on her eyelashes turn to frost.

"I'll be taking this," he says as he plucks the White Materia from her ribbon. His digits linger on her hair just a moment longer than they should, a fact that offends her even as she straddles the line between two worlds. The crunch of footsteps resounds in the air once more — close and loud at first, fading gradually, then morphing into a distant, familiar dream.