The last chapter's note was getting too long, but I do want to acknowledge that my writing style has changed a lot since this story originally started, probably not too much of a surprise given how long its been. You'll note there are no more first-person thoughts for one. I've also actually gone back and done small touchups to all of the earlier chapters, in an effort to make the story fit together slightly better. Original readers don't need to worry, however, none of the changes impact the plot whatsoever. The largest change was actually going back and fixing Shera's name since I'd originally called her Shura for some reason. Now, on to the second to last chapter!

Chapter 9: Investigation

Cloud was frustrated. Just over a week had passed since the winter dance, and he felt like he was still no closer to figuring out what had happened with Aerith. Added on top of that, Christmas had just passed, and while it had been great to hang out with all of his friends, Aerith's absence had really dampened the mood of the party. It was now the final week of the year, and Cloud hoped to be able to resolve the situation in time for Aerith to be able to join the New Year's party that Elena was already preparing for.

Fortunately, Cloud did have one last lead to investigate. At the Christmas party, the conversation had shifted to the spike in violent crimes around the city, and it had reminded Cloud of the conversation he and Aerith had overheard between Cid and his wife all those weeks ago. As Cloud parked Fenrir in the lot outside of Shera's station, he gave a short prayer to the Ancients to aid him in his investigation.

After entering the building, Cloud made his way over to the reception desk and greeted the man sitting there. "Hello sir, sorry to bother you, but is Shera on duty today? I was hoping to speak with her if possible."

The man seemed initially surprised, but gave a small shrug before pointing out a door farther down the nearby hallway. "That's her office right there, but she's going to kick your ass if you walk in there and she doesn't know who you are."

Cloud nodded his thanks, before walking over and lightly knocking on the door. "Come in!" a voice he recognized called out. "Oh, you're one of Cid's students aren't you?" she remarked as Cloud entered the room. "Cloud, right? Please, take a seat, how can I help you?"

Cloud couldn't help but raise his eyebrows in shock. "I'm surprised you remember my name since we'd only met briefly once before," he replied, taking the offered seat.

"It's just part of the job," she responded with a twinkle in her eye. "Now, what can I do for you?"

"I was hoping to ask you about the recent spike in crime that you'd come to school to talk with Cid about," Cloud said, getting straight to the point and looking her directly in the eye.

Shera sat for a moment in silence, before slowly responding in a very serious voice, her earlier brevity completely gone. "I… see. May I ask why you're so interested, first?"

"Oh, it's just for an article in the school paper. It's been all over the nightly news so we thought it would be good to do our own research on it," Cloud smoothly lied.

This was the moment of truth; if Cid had told her about Cloud's suspension, then his white lie would immediately be revealed. As Shera sat there thinking about what he'd said, however, Cloud gave a small, internal, sigh of relief that her initial concern appeared to be fading.

"I suppose that should be okay, I'll have to quickly double-check with my superiors, of course, but I can't see any harm in an interview for a school paper," Shera eventually responded. "I obviously can't go into any of the details of our investigation, but we can likely go over the high-level elements. Please wait here, I'll be right back."

As Cloud waited for Shera to return, he couldn't help but feel guilty for lying to her, even though it was for a good cause. He'd thought about how to handle this ever since the idea had first come to him at the party, and every other option he'd been able to come up with had resulted in him just coming off as a crazy ex-boyfriend. Although, in retrospect, he couldn't help but wonder if it wasn't actually a slightly accurate description.

He was interrupted from his thoughts as Shera returned, closing the door behind her before sinking back down into her chair with a deep sigh. "Where to begin?" she mused out loud. "The cases are as varied as they are numerous. Initially, we hadn't even considered them to be related because of that."

"And what caused you to reconsider?" Cloud asked curiously.

"The primary thing any of the cases share in common is how little sense they make. A woman, who by all claims deeply loved her husband, murdered him on their thirtieth anniversary. A pizza restaurant owner, who'd just finished paying the mortgage on his property, suddenly burned it to the ground in the middle of dinner service. A doctor who'd been treating a patient for over a year, killed them the day after their recovery and release from the hospital."

Cloud felt a growing sense of exhilaration as Shera listed the cases. "So, you're saying they're all situations where people suddenly started behaving completely opposite to how they had before?"

"Yes, that's a good way to explain it," Shera replied, nodding.

"What did all of these people say about what they'd done afterward?" Cloud asked, trying not to let his excitement show.

"Well, that's where we get to the other similarity between the cases," Shera replied sorrowfully. "They're all dead."

"Wait, what?!" Cloud asked in shock, feeling like a bucket of ice water had suddenly been dumped on him.

"Yes, they…" but whatever Shera was about to say was cut off as a siren suddenly went off in the station. "Damn it, not another!" she exclaimed, before grabbing a piece of paper and quickly writing something down. "Here, these are the addresses of the three incidents I mentioned earlier," she explained, standing up and walking over to Cloud before handing him the paper. "I got permission earlier for you to be able to interview some of the witnesses for your paper, but you have to promise me you'll be respectful and not push them."

"I promise," Cloud quickly confirmed, taking the paper as Shera released her grip on it at his response.

"Thanks, Cloud." And with that, she was out the door, shouting at other officers as they all rushed for their cars.

Cloud took a few moments to look over the addresses on the list while he waited for the chaos in the station to die down a bit. Once things seemed a bit quieter, he left Shera's office, gave a nod to the security guard on his way out, and then made his way to Fenrir to head to his first destination.

The closest address to the police station, and Cloud's first stop, was the pizza restaurant. As Cloud parked Fenrir, he realized that Shera hadn't been exaggerating; the building was a charred wreck. Two of the four walls were still partially standing, but the rest of the building was essentially gone.

Unsure of how best to proceed, given that the suspect was dead and there was clearly no one still working at the restaurant who he could question, Cloud decided to go door to door to see if he could learn anything about what had happened. Unfortunately, this proved largely futile as people weren't around, didn't bother to answer their doors, or else refused to answer a high school student's questions. After thirty minutes of rising frustration, Cloud gave up and went to lean against Fenrir, overlooking the restaurant as he tried to come up with a new plan.

"A damn shame, isn't it?" an old man's voice said, interrupting his thoughts. "Best pizza place for miles around lost in the blink of an eye."

"You were a regular then?" Cloud asked, turning around to find a white-haired old man clutching a cane on the sidewalk behind him.

"Indeed I was. In fact, I still remember my first meal at Jack's thirty years ago. Made sure to eat there at least once every other week too. Really was the best pizza…" the old man trailed off wistfully.

"Do you have any idea what happened?" Cloud prodded.

The old man shook his head sadly in response. "Not at all. I wasn't there that night, but my friend was, and told me it was the craziest thing he'd seen in his entire life. All of the diners had evacuated as soon as the smoke came billowing out of the kitchen. A short while later, they saw the staff dragging Jack physically out of his restaurant, while he was fighting to get back inside and screaming 'no' over and over. My friend said that he assumed that it was in denial, but then apparently Jack said 'No, let me go, I have to burn it all down.' Doesn't make a lick of sense."

"I thought I heard that he'd died, though?" Cloud asked in confusion.

"He did," the old man answered, nodding slowly. "Apparently had a horrible heart attack shortly after they got him outside. My friend said he'd never seen someone lose so much blood from their nose before…"

Cloud felt his eyebrows rising at this detail, making a quick mental note of the most interesting piece of information so far. "Thanks for your time sir, I don't want to take any more of it, but just know you've been an incredible help."

"Not a problem young man, good luck with whatever it is you're doing," the old man responded, before slowly walking off.

Cloud glanced at the list of addresses, before hopping on Fenrir and heading off to his next destination.

Cloud's next stop was Midgar's largest hospital. Fortunately for him, Shera had also included the doctor's name next to the address. Without it, he had no idea how he would have figured out where to go.

A short while later, Cloud found himself in an empty waiting room. A lone nurse poked her head out of a backroom as he walked in, a look of surprise on her face. "I'm sorry, are you lost? All patients should have been informed of their new doctor by now…"

"Oh, I'm not here for an appointment," Cloud explained. "I was hoping you'd be able to tell me a bit about what happened?"

The nurse shook her head firmly. "I'm afraid that's not something I can just talk about with anyone, especially not some stranger who just showed up."

"Please, anything at all could be helpful. Are there any small details that might not have seemed important that you could tell me?" Cloud begged.

The woman seemed a little surprised at how desperate Cloud sounded, thinking for a moment before hesitantly responding. "Well, I can't get into any details, but the thing that stood out to me as the most unusual was how much blood he lost from his nose. They already determined that wasn't what killed him, though, so I don't see how that could be any help, but I really can't say anything else."

"No, that's perfect, thank you so much for your time," Cloud replied, excited that a pattern was beginning to emerge. He said farewell to the nurse, before heading back to Fenrir and setting off for the last address on his list.

It was just an hour before dinner by the time Cloud reached his final destination, a small house in a middle-class residential district on the outskirts of the city. Given the circumstances of this case, Cloud hadn't been sure if anyone would even be at the house, but as he parked Fenrir on the street, he was relieved to see the lights on. He walked up to the door and rang the bell, only having to wait a few moments before a young woman answered, cracking the door open about a foot.

"Can I help you?" she asked hesitantly.

"I'm sorry to bother you so late, I was given this address as a location for a report I'm writing on some of the unusual events happening around the city. Would you be willing to answer a few questions?"

The woman recoiled slightly, her face falling upon hearing the question. "I'm sorry, but I don't want to talk about what happened to mom anymore. I've already told the police everything I know," she answered, moving to close the door.

"I'm terribly sorry, just one question then, please," Cloud begged. "It might help me prevent what happened to your mother from happening to anyone else."

The woman swallowed deeply before slowly nodding her head in response.

"Do you remember if your mom's nose looked like it had been bleeding?" Cloud asked.

The woman's head jerked up to look directly at him, and by her facial expression, Cloud could already tell what the answer was. "H-how did you know? The cops wrote it off as a sign of self-defense from dad, but… are you saying it was something else?"

"I'm sorry, I don't really know yet, but it does help to know that. Thanks for your time and sorry again for your loss."

The woman nodded, clearly fighting back tears, and closed the door softly behind him as Cloud headed back to Fenrir. As eager as he was to talk with Bugenhagen about what he'd learned, the school had already closed by this time, and Cloud had no idea where the teacher lived. Reluctantly, he headed home, determined to meet with the old man first thing the next morning.

Cloud burst into Bugenhagen's office early the next day, excited to tell him everything he'd learned, and hopeful it would lead to further explanation of what had happened to Aerith. Unfortunately, the first thing he noticed on entering the room was that it was empty.

"I thought you'd been suspended," a voice said from above Cloud, causing him to jump backwards in surprise. As he looked up to find the source of the voice, a large red shape leapt off a shelf over the door and landed agilely in front of him.

"Thanks for nearly giving me a heart attack, Red," Cloud responded, shaking his head ruefully. "I am still suspended, thanks for reminding me. I asked Barret if it was okay for me to come on campus to talk with Bugenhagen, and he gave his permission as long as I didn't interfere with any of the tests everyone is taking. Do you know where he is?"

"Overseeing the start of one of those tests you mentioned," Red replied. "He should be back soon though. Today isn't a Materia test, so there's no need for him to oversee the whole thing."

Hearing this, Cloud sat down to wait. "I can't believe this school holds tests after Christmas, basically everything here is completely different from any other school I've gone to," he mused aloud.

Red chuckled softly at this. "Given the normal schedule of only three days of class a week, the students have never really complained. Plus, for these tests, it's only a few hours a day anyway. I can't imagine what missing them is going to do to your grades though," he finished, looking at Cloud from the corner of his eye.

Cloud paled slightly at this and swallowed deeply, realizing that in his focus on the investigation, he'd completely forgotten he wasn't missing just classes. A few moments of silence passed, before the door to the room opened, and Bugenhagen bustled inside.

"And what's happened with you then young man?" he asked as he passed Cloud, and settled down in the chair behind his desk. "You look like you've swallowed a lime."

"Just realizing what I'm missing out on," Cloud muttered before shaking his head to clear it. "That's not what I'm here for though. Yesterday, I was out looking into several of the incidents that have happened around the city, and found some interesting connections between them that I wanted to run by you."

"Oh?" Bugenhagen asked with interest, leaning forward in his chair slightly.

"In all three cases, the suspects were clearly acting in a manner completely opposite to how they normally would have. Not only that, all of them had signs of a nosebleed before they died."

Bugenhagen settled back in his chair as Cloud finished, stroking his beard thoughtfully. "Very interesting indeed."

Several moments of silence passed before Cloud softly cleared his throat. "Do… you think it's related then?" he asked.

"Well, I can't rule out the possibility that you're seeing a pattern you wanted to find, but yes, I would agree that Miss Gainsborough certainly has been acting quite backward."

"She had a nosebleed after she slapped me at the dance as well," Cloud pointed out. "Do you think it's a side effect of whatever was done to them?"

"The nosebleeds are certainly the most interesting part of what you've found," the old man remarked. "Combined with the behavioral oddities, it would lead me to believe that it's some form of spell that's impacting the brain. Whether the nosebleeds are a side effect, or a direct result of the person attempting to resist this change is unclear, however."

"So, based on that, do you think Sephiroth is responsible for what's happening in the city, or for the change in Aerith?" Cloud asked.

"No," Bugenhagen immediately scoffed derisively. "Sephiroth is a swordsman, like you, he doesn't have the skill to come up with a spell like this. If he did do anything, then it had to have been with help from his parents. The signs do line up uncomfortably close to the research I mentioned before."

"Thanks, I know what to look into next, then," Cloud stated as he got to his feet and moved to the door.

"Don't do anything stupid!" Bugenhagen called after him as he left.

It only took Cloud a single day to track down, and follow, Hojo to a poorer section of the city than a man of his status would normally enter. He watched from around a corner as the older man furtively glanced around, before abruptly turning into an alley. Cloud waited a few seconds, before quickly rushing over and glancing in. He saw Hojo at the far end, standing over a body shaped pile of blankets, one hand reaching into a deep pocket on his lab coat.

"Sure is a strange place for a research scientist to be hanging out, wouldn't you say sir?" Cloud asked casually as he walked around the corner, a hand resting on the hilt of his sword.

Hojo whirled around at his voice, his hand jerking out of the pocket as if something inside had bitten it, and Cloud thought he was able to make out the spherical shape of a Materia. "W-what are you doing here?" Hojo snarled, his eyes widening in surprise.

"Oh, I just have a few questions about your latest research project," Cloud replied, settling into a stance that would allow him to easily respond to any action Hojo decided to take. "Your old colleague Bugenhagen has told me so much about you."

"Bugenhagen," Hojo said the name like a curse and spat on the ground at his feet. "That senile old fool has no idea what real research is!"

At his loud exclamation, the bundle at his feet shifted, and a woman's head poked out of the blankets. She glanced up at the man in the lab coat above her, her eyes growing wide with fear, before looking over and seeing Cloud with his hand on his sword. The tension in the air was palpable, and she lashed out with one of her legs, catching Hojo off guard, as her foot connected with the back of his knee. As the older man fell to the ground with a curse, she darted to her legs and frantically looked for a way out that didn't involve getting closer to Cloud. Her eyes widened in surprise, however, as he moved out of the way and removed his hand from his sword, giving a small jerk of his head over his shoulder. The woman didn't think twice and darted past him, running away as fast as she could.

"Not used to them fighting back are you?" Cloud taunted as he stepped closer to Hojo, moving back to block the only escape. "Why don't you tell me more about this research of yours in your own words? What were you planning to do to that woman?"

"I don't know what you're talking about, I saw a body and went to make sure the person was okay," Hojo snapped. He tried to stand back up, but winced in pain and dropped back down to a kneeling position.

"We both know that's a lie, and I really don't have time to play games with you. Tell me what I want to know, or I'll make sure you never walk again," Cloud threatened.

Hojo visibly blanched at the threat of violence and took several deep breaths to try and steady himself. "What do you want to know? I'll answer your questions if I can, I swear."

"Your son did something to a girl named Aerith, presumably the same thing you were about to do to that homeless woman. I want to know what the hell it was, and how to undo it."

Cloud wasn't sure how it was possible, but Hojo somehow managed to grow even whiter after he heard Cloud's demand. "I… I can't tell you that!" he stammered. "My son would never forgive me if I told you how to reverse that spell!"

"Sephiroth is the last person you need to be worrying about right now," Cloud growled, stepping closer and glaring down at the quivering old man. "If you don't tell me, I'll make you regret it for the rest of your sorry life," he bluffed.

"F-fine, I'll tell you! P-please, just don't kill me!" Hojo begged desperately. "The spell…"

It happened too quickly for Cloud to react. One moment he was standing there over Hojo, the old man kneeling on the ground in front of him, the next he heard the sound of a cloak flapping in the wind, as Sephiroth fell from the roof above and impaled his father through the stomach from behind. Hojo's eyes shot open, and his mouth widened, but the only noise he made was a sharp intake of breath as his arms fell limply at his side, and he slumped forward over the blade.

Sephiroth looked up from his father's body below him, and met Cloud's eyes, his lips forming into a soft smirk as he slowly pulled the long blade out. As Hojo's dead body hit the ground, Cloud noticed a red Materia roll out of his pocket, but his attention immediately zeroed in on the white-haired devil.

"Sephiroth!" Cloud screamed, drawing the Buster Sword.

End Note: This chapter was honestly one of the hardest ones I've had to write for this entire story. A lot of my initial plans had all of this taking place over a much longer time frame, so I had to come up with some way to condense it all down in a way that still made sense. Same as with this chapter, the next one will be up in a week. On the plus side, the next chapter is the last, so that means this is literally the last week you will ever have to wait to read the next chapter of this story. As always, I really do love to hear your thoughts, so please leave a review if you feel so inclined.

Final Chapter: New Year