A/N: I hope you guys are happy. I made myself cry a little writing this lol. But it had to be done for some reason, maybe? Major character death, but don't worry, it's not permanent. Also strong background CloudxTifa. That one scene in Advent children shows a lot about cloud's character, and I think on it every so often. So why not explore Strife's characterization a little?
Was he careless, he wonders, as he feels his soul begin to drift from his body, or was this just how things were meant to be?
It had started with Shinra. Rufus Shinra, to be precise. He should have known what kind of danger followed that man. But Cloud Strife, gentle-hearted warrior that he was, had been doing his best to move on from the past.
DEEPGROUND, an organization that had tried to end the world, hadn't been entirely alone. Buried underground, they'd been relying on an outside source for supplies. A former intern of Scarlet, apparently. A Weapons developer who'd held a grudge against those who'd ended his career, and the life of his 'beloved' employer. And another, the female who'd been close to being promoted to the head of the Science department of the Shinra organization. A woman who'd idolized Hojo and wanted to follow in his footsteps. At least, before it all came crashing down...
Rufus had given him a location. An address. A bunker where they might have been hiding. Cloud, having dealt with many such things before, had not thought much about assaulting it. Get in, attack as needed, get out. He let his allies know what he was doing and raced off, intent on getting to the pair before they realized they'd had a leak.
It turns out, the leak was on purpose. It was a trap.
Cloud is dying. There's no two ways about it. His focus is fading as his limp body can do little more than stare at the drip, drip, drip of his blood as it falls through a grate and into a chasm of metal and pipes below. Only, if only, this was due to all the tranquilizers they'd hit him with.
"Tougher than I thought. But no match for my intelligence," he hears someone boast. Her. The female scientist.
"I thought you wanted him alive?" Someone else grumbles. Rough, male, reckless. Evil.
"I did. But there's only so many times I can get what I want. Especially when he can fight the way he does. Don't worry, I've accounted for it. We'll shove the corpse into a mako tank. That'll keep it fresh long enough for me to get some proper tissue samples."
He's not even dead yet, and they're discussing what to do with his body. Not dead yet... But, well. He's not going to be in this world for much longer. He can tell. And, strangely, he's at peace with it.
"It'll make transport a bit easier, I suppose. Much easier to deal with a tank than something that'll want to wriggle-oi? Who's that?"
Voices. So many different voices. At the end of it all, he hears voices. Some belong to his attackers. But some, he realizes, are rather unexpected...
"Brother...?"
"Hey, I thought you said that specimen you revived wasn't going to be awake yet?"
"A minor miscalculation-!"
Boots on metal. The echoing of footsteps on the grate. It's all fading, all going dark. He tries to look up at the world, but all the colours are fading. "Brother!" he hears again. It's... Kadaj? Loz? Yazoo...? Three silver-haired young men are staring at him from across the open room, and even though he knows he should be shocked, worried at this turn of events, well... There's nothing he can do now. It's out of his hands, and that in itself is oddly relieving. The three gaze at him, uncomprehending, but he's too tired, too exhausted, to address them. Too close to death to move. But curiosity, if nothing else, seems to be helping him keep one last, stubborn hold on the world of the living.
"All three? Your miscalculations are a little worse than 'minor'!" says the first male. The weapons intern.
"You three! Back in the room, or else!"
Or else? Or else what? Cloud knows they don't have much to fight with, any more. Even if he knows he's dying, he knows he didn't die easy. His cheek falls to the ground. He's no longer able to hold his head up.
"Brother? Are you alright?"
"This isn't right. Sephiroth is supposed to hurt him, not these guys. Right?" Loz is glancing around the room, confused. More than a little shocked. The situation is wrong to him, wrong wrong wrong.
"Brother? Don't make me laugh. Just because he has 'S' cells doesn't make him your relative. You should be glad, even! When we extract his genetic data, we might even be able to bring your brother back."
"With, of course, a few... upgrades..."
The DEEPGROUND mind chips, Cloud thinks. Sephiroth, but under the control of people who have little enough morals that shoving an explosive piece of computer tech in someone's head, that forced obedience, was just as good, if not better, than any other kind of loyalty you could get. The fools. That would never hold Sephiroth for long.
"Back to your revival pods. You'll get your upgrades when we're ready." It's the scientist again, but her voice is nervous. Strained. Something has gone against plan, and Cloud has a sneaking suspicion the Remnants don't have their control chips yet. He's actually a little glad for them. No one deserves that.
Drip... drip... the drops of blood are slower now. Maybe he's healing, after all. Or maybe... No. There's no maybe.
Cloud hears clashing, shouts, metal on metal and metal on flesh. Screaming, yelling. The Remnants are fighting. It's no longer his concern though. Nothing is really his concern any more. The battle is over quickly, and he feels himself rolled to his side. From there he can finally, properly, see the three remnants as they look down at him.
"Baa, baa, black sheep. Brother. It's not like you to stay down so long." Kadaj sneers down at him, a cruel grin.
"Come on then. Get up. We've got plans, brother," Yazoo taunts.
Ah, plans. That's so good, that they know what they want to do with their lives. In the end, they were a bit like lost children, weren't they? Lost and scared. Cloud can't see the Remnants any more, not really. He sees through them. The world is going gray, going dark, for one last time. It's such... peace.
"Brother...?" Confusion. Confusion in their voices.
"Brother. We can't hear Mother. We can't hear Sephiroth. And you're going to help us find them!"
Sound dies out. His eyelids flutter.
Kadaj leans down, his grin frozen on his face. His eyes wide in... is that... fear? "Brother?" His eyes lock with Cloud's.
Cloud smiles at him, gentle. Serene. At peace.
Zack smiles back. "Looks like it's finally time, huh?"
The world, once fading to gray, is finally black. All black, all darkness, unending. But it's not a frightening darkness. Far from it. Perhaps it's like a mother's womb, warm and silent, or being wrapped in a blanket in comfortable slumber. There's just him, and Zack, who has a devil-may-care grin and is leaning towards him a little. Cloud sighs happily. "Hey."
"Hey. Been a while, little buddy," Zack, a friend lost long ago, chortles and bounces on the balls of his feet, bobbing from side to side a little. "Is it a little macabre if I say I'm glad to see you?"
It isn't. Cloud reaches out, and the two embrace. Zack, the man who'd saved his life, who had given up his own for the barest breath of a chance that Cloud might live... the Remnants might have called Cloud their brother because of his blood, but Zack was the one who'd truly the earned the title. Brothers in arms. Cloud is swept off his feet and whirled around. "Dangit, Zack!" Cloud laughs.
"Cloud Cloud Cloud Cloud! Oh man, I missed ya buddy!" Zack is whooping it up and Cloud, ever the stoic and quiet one, is all too happy to let himself go. He lets everything go, in fact. He can feel his soul drift away, he can feel that the edges of it, once contained by a body, is now free, free as a gust of wind, and it's so, so exhilarating. It's such a relief. "Dangit, you took long enough. I mean, I'm happy you didn't rush, don't get me wrong. But Angeal has been absolutely up one side and down another of me! I thought he was this super serious guy but whoa man, he's been wanting to see you so much! Never knew someone could be so politely impatient, but there ya go!" Zack laughs.
"Angeal?" Cloud asks, blinking, smiling, "who is Angeal?"
"Only the bestest mentor ever, duh!" Zack grins, finally dropping Cloud and ruffling his hand through Cloud's hair, "The Buster Sword was his, did'ja know? Probably didn't! He was all 'use brings about wear, tear, and rust', and oh my lord he was such a priss over that thing," Zack replies, exaggerating his voice and gestures in a friendly mockery of his friend and mentor. "He was totally trying very hard not to be pissed at you when you left Buster on the cliff there to rust, ya know. I mean, he respected that you were marking my grave and all, but... But! You went and shined her up good, back in the church, so he's chill now."
Zack keeps rambling, smiling as he chitters and starts to lead Cloud away. "He's been really curious about the kid I named my living legacy. I was his, you know? That didn't last long though, now did it? Never was good at taking my jobs seriously, pfft." Zack waves it off, "He was watching over us both, you know! Says he totally would have taken you under his wing too, back then. At least, he would have, if not for that crazy mental mess from the Jenova cells. Oh yeah. Didja know Seph wasn't the only one born with Jenova cells? Hoo boy, have I got some gossip for YOU when we get 'There'!"
"Jenova cells?" Cloud asks, curious. He's so, so glad to see one of his friends again. He can't wait to see more. And his mother, too... he'll be 'There' soon. He can sense it so clearly, now.
That's when he feels it. Like cat's claws latching into his soul. Trying to drag him back by the tiniest, thinnest threads of his spirit, still leaving his body. Cloud looks backwards, more than a little surprised. He realizes that he's not quite gone, that there's still the barest echoes of pain and confinement that come with having a body. Of a harsh, unyielding solidity.
"Oh..." Cloud says, a little crestfallen. "I think someone still needs me, back there."
"No they don't," Zack says. He wanders back to Cloud, frowning, his voice stern. "They really don't. Want you? Yes, very likely. Need you? No. No, they absolutely do not."
Cloud can feel the claws, trying to grasp his spirit. Thin, sharp, determined. But it's like trying to capture air, or store water in a sieve. The claws don't have a hold, won't have a grip at all, if he doesn't reach back and grasp them in return.
"Tifa. She... She'll need me. She's pregnant..."
"Like I said, Cloudie boy," Zack starts, "Want you? Yes. Need you? No. First of all, congrats, you sly dog you," he teases, booping Cloud on the nose. Cloud blinks, a little bewildered. "She'll want you very, very much, and having you there would make things much, much easier on her, I think. At least at first. But you know she's a tough gal. She wants you, but she certainly doesn't need you. You and I both know how tough that chick is. Like hot damn. You scored with her, bro. Anyways, even if she's not super tough, 'cause she'll be missing you, she's got the rest of AVALANCHE at her back. Can you imagine big ole' Nanaki playin' with your kid? Big old softie pussy cat, that one. Or maybe it'll be kids? I don't know, she could have twins. Ooh, what about Vincent! Do you really think Tifa or your kid will have any problems with granpappy Vincent on the case? Dude could handle CHAOS, I bet you baby sitting will be no problem!"
Cloud could imagine it. He'd miss them, and they'd miss him. But they wouldn't be in any danger. "But... what if I want to see them? My baby?"
"If you think you won't get to see your kiddo, you've got another thing coming. I'd drag you to watch over the little tyke myself, if I had to. Not that either of us has a choice in that! Aerith has been crooning for weeks. Still won't tell me the gender though, that brat. Girlfriends are the bane of our existence, amiright?" Zack pats his shoulder, grinning and rambling. Cloud grins back, because he knows he has no regrets. He knows he'll get to see his friends grow and watch over them.
The claws are desperate. Reaching. But there's nothing to reach for.
"Brother!"
"This isn't right! This isn't right!"
"Brother!"
Cloud looks back again, tilting his head as he considers the soft, fading echoes of the world he's leaving behind.. "They... maybe they do need me...? They sound so..."
"No they don't. Nobody needs you there any more. And the afterlife? It's kinda of awesome, if I do say so myself." Cloud looks at Zack, and Zack is still smiling. But it's resigned. He knows. "You can be selfish sometimes you know, Cloud. You're allowed to say, 'you know what? I'm doing this for me!' And then just... Go. Y'know?"
Cloud knows. "I've missed you, Zack."
"You too, buddy," Zack replies. He reaches out and grabs Cloud again, embracing him with all his strength. "Don't rush back. But don't take too long, y'know?"
He does know.
Cloud's senses are still dull. Everything comes to him as if through fog, muffled and indistinct. Something is being pressed to his chest firmly, fingers digging in. There's a Remnant shouting at him.
"Wake up! We can't hear them! We can't hear you! Wake up! This isn't how it's supposed to go!" It's Kadaj. He's terrified, confused. He's shrieking. "I never got to ask you why you did it, damnit! Why you did that, at the end!"
Why he did that... why he did what...?
Was it... when he embraced Kadaj when the Remnant himself was dying the first time? Held him so that he wasn't alone?
Through the fog of gray and muted reality, Cloud can see Loz and Yazoo in the background. Yazoo keeps shaking his head, watching everything go down. He can't comprehend it. Seeing Cloud dead to anyone other than Sephiroth. Seeing him dead, but not at their own hands. Was it really so wrong, to them? That Cloud could die like a normal person? Could perish at the hands of someone other than themselves? Loz, too, is shaking, but it's all over. His eyes are wide in terror, tear tracks down his face. Perhaps this has been a reminder to them of how fragile mortality really is. How delicate and precious life is.
There's nothing holding him here, Cloud realizes. He could change his mind and Go Back. The phoenix down Kadaj holds to his heart is as dull and lifeless as he is. There's no more drip, drip, drip of blood. It's all but gone.
Cloud realizes, belatedly, that for all he's seeing, he still hasn't taken a breath yet. His lungs are cold and dead, in every meaning of the phrase. It's his choice. To draw in air? Or to leave this world for good.
"Brother. We need you," Kadaj begs. Actually begs. Maybe because they need S cells to revive Sephiroth, and they can't get living cells from a corpse. Maybe because they're lost, alone children whose mother and true older brother they can no longer hear. Because those that guided them previously are dead. Dead and gone. They don't need him. They don't need Cloud. They really don't. But for some odd, odd reason, they want him. They want him alive.
It's so bizarre. The Remnants, trying to save his life.
They don't need him. But they think they do. They think they need someone to guide them, or to use to gain power, or to be their family in a world that has suddenly shown them that the great, untouchable, larger than life figures they know, are just as susceptible to chance and circumstance and death as everyone else. Kadaj came back from death, somehow. Maybe because of that, he hadn't learned to respect it. But it's different, so different, watching death from the other end. If Cloud leaves, it could be a lesson. A powerful, unforgettable, tragic lesson. Maybe they'd learn to respect life a little more, rather than try to take it so haphazardly. Maybe they'd already learned this.
They don't need him. He could be selfish. He could finally find peace. They want him, but they don't need him.
They don't need him.
And yet, he breathes.