When they leave the tent, the sky at the top of the glacier shaft is dark. Ice closes in all around.
They leave camp with only the essentials—clothes, bedroll, food, weapons.
By night the mountain is eerily silent. There are no trees to billow, no animals to stir. A faint whistling of wind comes from nowhere and everywhere, but even that is just a whisper heard through a wall. The sound of their clothes brushing, their feet crushing rocks, the air leaving their lips, it's all cacophonous in this place.
Just getting out of camp without waking Gloria was nothing short of a miracle in Zack's opinion.
He's got his sword on his back for the first time in a while. He finally understands, many years too late, why Angeal was so hesitant to use it. The weight feels heavier as he walks closer towards a Sephiroth who Cloud insists is whole and alive. He doesn't want to murder another friend tonight.
Distressingly, Cloud doesn't feel heavy at all. With every minute he leans on Zack less, his steps confident and his voice growing stronger.
The tunnel splits and winds, twisting and intersecting in a maze of paths that Cloud navigates without a flicker of doubt. Left, right, center, right, down a path Zack hadn't even seen. He leads with a focused, almost dazed expression, and that only makes Zack more nervous.
Their path becomes tighter and darker as the travel, the ice walls warping and refracting their reflections into terrifying shadows. At several points, Zack whips his head around—certain that he'd seen Sephiroth's face in the glacier—only to find himself looking back.
Suppressing a shiver, he slips through one last crevice.
Fresh air greets him on the other side.
"Woah," Cloud says. Zack follows his gaze, up the walls of ice and rock. Brilliant green and purple waves pass over the night scale, a curtain of light amid an endless span of stars.
The crater looms large around them, lit a ghostly green by massive fissures in the ground. One of them cracks the dry rock near their feet. Zack looks down. And down, and down. It's a mass of roiling, coiling green, endless and infinite, an ocean under the ground.
Cloud grabs him, sudden and tight, and only then does Zack notice that he's taken two steps towards it, that he's been swaying unsteadily on the edge.
When Cloud speaks, his voice is just one of many, a single note in a chorus beneath their feet.
"Guess you can cross that off your bucket list," he says.
Zack stares blankly.
Cloud works his jaw uncomfortably and looks away. "I'm not Aerith, but I hope I count as someone special."
"Oh," Zack says, recalling with a jolt. It was so long ago that it feels more like a dream than a memory.
The gold sunset, the bar in Junon and Cloud still woozy from motion sickness. He was still manic from the fight, memories of Modeoheim rubbing him raw, and all he had wanted was to lose himself in a bottle.
He asked Cloud what he wanted to do before he died, and he said that sounded morbid.
"Me?" Zack had said. "I want to see the Northern Crater. I want to take someone special and find that spot where you can see right down to the Planet's core."
He covers Cloud's hand on his shoulder and squeezes. "Of course you're special, you dope. How many times do I have to say it?"
"Too many." Cloud's lip quirks. His face is pink, though that's probably from the wind.
They get back to walking, drawn toward the center of the Crater by a strange blue light.
"Do you see that?" Cloud points.
High above, tangled in the vines, there's a crystal woven in. It's not clear like ice or blue like the glacier, but a milky, pearlescent white. There's something inside it, muddying the center.
They walk closer together, straining for a better look.
"It almost looks like a big materia. Do you think—"
His partner stiffens beside him. Zack trails off.
"Cloud?"
"It's… him."
Energy bursts out of him like fragments of a dropped vase, more powerful than Zack's ever felt. It shreds and undulates through him almost painfully, and when he looks into Cloud's eyes the centers elongate into cat-like slits.
His partner doubles over, groaning. "Get back, get back!"
Zack grips his shoulders and Cloud pushes him away. Mako blue eyes become toxic green, and then Cloud isn't Cloud anymore.
His skin ripples like a disturbed pond, his body shuddering and crunching as bones reshape themselves and a new appendage juts out from his back. It grows in the space of seconds, stretching the skin into a sickening point and then piercing through, extending.
The body screams as a great black wing fans out from it, at first trapped under clothing but then quickly tearing through. Another undulation of energy explodes outward, and when he straightens, the man Zack sees is a nightmare reborn.
"S-Se—" He stumbles backward, his hand coming to the Buster's grip even as his mind refuses to believe it. He reaches out mentally or any hint of Cloud's spirit, and feels nothing. A big, hollow nothing.
"Zack Fair."
"You bastard, what the hell did you do? Where's Cloud?"
"You're looking at him." Sephiroth stares raptly at the tips of his fingers as he rubs them together. "Or rather, a fabrication crafted from his flesh. Surely I don't need to explain the nature of Jenova copies to you."
"So that's it. That's what all this is about. Copies, immortality, playing god with people's lives—" Zack draws his sword whip-quick.
Sephiroth grunts, his eyes shutting suddenly as he holds up an open palm.
"Remain calm. Harm to this body is harm to Cloud. We must avoid battle at all costs."
"You're back from the dead and you expect me to be calm?."
"We don't have time for this. I cannot resist Jenova for long."
"And Cloud?"
"Will return, provided there is a body for him to return to."
Fear and rage beat along with Zack's heart, but the threat hits him square in the chest.
Sephiroth could be lying, of course, but the chance that he isn't is too great to risk.
Besides, this is what they came here for, isn't it? To hear whatever it is Sephiroth is driving Cloud mad to say.
Goosebumps rise on his arms, but he slots his sword back between his shoulder blades.
"Fine. Talk."
"Zack?!" Cloud yells. Predictably, the Void offers no response.
Since his first exposure in the labs, he's become more accustomed to traversing the featureless white space. He has well-worn pathways between his mind, his body, the material plane, and Zack.
But much like a forest or a crowded city, the Void reclaims its sinister edge whenever he's drawn away from the familiar streets. This view offers nothing to navigate by, and no matter how he extends his senses he can't seem to find Zack.
Anxiety burrows in his center as he turns a slow circle, taking in all of the Nothing. Phantom memories of weightless stasis and mako filling his lungs make it difficult to think straight.
Out of nowhere, far away, his fear finds a like note in another soul. They resonate, and a noise like a gong cuts through the emptiness.
Cloud runs toward it, his footsteps pattering like he's splashing through puddles. Buildings appear, smearing past him in blurry afterimages like he's looked directly into the sun. Rain batters the cobbled street and tile rooftops of Wutai.
"Angeal!" Someone yells. Male, ringing, a little high pitched.
Cloud slows, and they scream it again. Details fill in as he looks more closely. Far off explosions, buildings on fire, the noxious, overwhelming scent of gunpowder.
"Genesis, get a hold of yourself," Sephiroth snaps. "They can't have gone far."
He says that, but it's not the yelling man who drew Cloud here. Worry and disorientation coil around Sephiroth's neck like twin chains. His eyes flick rapidly between a barricaded alleyway and a street overrun by gunfire.
He chooses the alley seemingly at random, striding down it with every appearance of confidence. The other man—Genesis—follows at a short distance.
Cloud hesitates, scanning the strange writing on a large sign nearby.
This could only be a memory, but he's never encountered one by accident before. To see a memory from Zack, he has to be invited. He has to be at least partially inside of the other man's head.
The figures of Sephiroth and Genesis become silhouettes between the buildings. If he doesn't follow he'll likely fall out of the memory. The recollection of the street can't be shown if Sephiroth was no longer there to see it.
Before he can decide if that would be a good idea or not, a sudden bird call startles him from behind. Spinning around, he sees a crow bury its beak into the gaping stomach of a fresh corpse.
It tears a bite from its flesh and swallows. Then, with a satisfied click of its bloody beak, it beats its wings and takes flight. Without a second thought, Cloud chases it.
Details fall away from the scenery as he narrows his focus on the retreating bird, at first becoming vague shapes and muffled sound, and then fading to white entirely.
The crow flies fast, too fast for him to follow, but he pushes hard off of his legs and runs with everything he has.
"Wait," he yells, but the bird doesn't seem to hear. It swoops and soars, and then dives right into the ground with a wet, dewy drop. Cloud reaches the spot and falls, down, down through the ground.
Fluorescent lights flicker on a steel tile ceiling. Cloud crashes soundlessly into a hospital bed.
He opens his mouth, but the crow caws before he can utter a word. Its clawed feet wrap tightly around the metal railing of the bed and its feathers shine white and iridescent green under the harsh overheads.
Hojo's voice pries through the cracked door to the hall. Cloud freezes. The crow stares at him.
Another, deeper voice cuts the professor off.
"Sephiroth is not receiving visitors at this time, sir," it says crisply. "If you would like to know his condition and prognosis, I can have files sent to your assistant."
"And if there are no visitors, then why exactly are you allowed?" Hojo snaps.
"I am providing protection to a valuable Shinra asset per Director Veld's orders. You're welcome to issue an official complaint with him, if you wish."
The professor storms off down the hall, and a black haired Turk in his twenties closes the door behind him.
"No rest for the wicked," he says with a mild smirk. He sits in the chair beside the bed and crosses one leg over the other.
"Even if I died, they'd find work for my corpse," Sephiroth murmurs, through Cloud's mouth. Startled by the feeling, he tears out of bed so fast that he trips and has to spin his arms to stay standing.
The crow cries, fast and lilting like it's laughing. The Sephiroth on the bed is pale, young, shrouded in white. White hair, white bandages, white sheets.
The Turk looks like a devil by comparison, every inch of him black except his skin. He leans coolly on his elbow and rests his head in a leather-gloved hand.
"I won't allow him entry, you have my word."
"And why would I trust the word of a Turk?" Sephiroth asks. His voice hasn't dropped yet, but it has no hint of innocence. It cuts through the air with a honed edge of suspicion.
"Not all power is overt. However the management structure appears, we Turks have ways of acting according to our own discretion."
"That's a funny way of saying 'Trust me.'"
The Turk sighs, his pinky flicking under his chin in a nervous tick. His smirk widens, sharpens, like he's pleasantly surprised.
"Because that isn't what I'm saying."
"Then what are you saying?" Sephiroth demands.
"You're a smart kid, I'm sure you can figure it out." The Turk slides low in his chair as if taking his own advice, all the way down until his ponytail abuts the backrest.
If there was any doubt that they were in Shinra medical, the whirring of a security camera in the corner would have confirmed it. Cloud's hackles raise at the sound, the feeling of being watched. The ruffles its feathers on the bedside, and stretches out its wings.
"Where are you taking me?" Cloud bristles. "Where is my body?"
The bird takes flight again. First in a small loop of the room, and then directly through the cinderblock wall.
Cursing, Cloud runs to the nearby window and throws open the pane. A wide sidewalk spans out underneath, dotted with flowering magnolias and little, crawling specs which must be people.
He doesn't allow himself to hesitate. A questionable guide is better than being alone in the Void. Setting his feet on the sil, he ducks under the window frame and braces himself against the exterior of the building.
Wind and sun assault him from all sides, and he looks within them for white, for a spectrum of ten billion colors surrounding a single pinprick of black feathers.
He sets one foot over the edge, and then the other, and runs on a platform of nothing.
Images and feelings froth around him like sea foam. Laughter, laboratories, training in the combat sim. Pain, joy, love, lazy mornings. Despair. Deep, relentless, suffering. All the component parts necessary to construct an enduring identity, contained and preserved in a concentrated pearl.
The perimeter is near, he can feel it now. A thick, gelatinous skin that he can pass through if he wants to. He gets closer and closer as he sprints into the sun.
"What do you want from me?" he yells. This must be Sephiroth, his mind, his enduring personhood, but why would he bring Cloud here? Of all the SOLDIERs and monsters that Hojo's created, why him? Why now?
The crow has no answer. It only seems to bat its wings and cry.
The barrier comes upon him before he's ready, before he properly realizes how close he is. One moment it's in the distance, and the next he's going through it, his spirit slowing and stretching and seeming to separate into four identical layers.
Time expands within that space, his own voice yelling bloody murder in his ears. He thinks of his body, the mind cottage, Zack's wide, beautiful eyes looking up at the glacier, and then all of it snaps suddenly back. The images burst, the sound rewinds, the copies of his copies fuse back into one.
And then he falls. Fast, thrilling, disorienting. Tumbling head over food, he searches for a focal point and finds a sturdy, stone chimney stack. The house, the wheat field, his mind . Home.
He blinks, reaching out, and everything stops. Warm, wet dirt squishes between his fingers, a feeling he will always associate with victory, freedom, and relief.
He presses his forehead into the ground for good measure. The air smells like ash and wheat.
Opening his eyes, he sees the cottage first. It's still standing, but the field is in flames.
The rickety fence around the garden has been torn to shreds, and the training dummies he made for Zack have been uprooted and tossed aside.
In the center stands a monster, larger than the house and writhing restlessly. It towers over the field, tearing up plants and fence posts with massive twin tentacles, its fanged and skeletal head frequently letting out menacing shrieks. When it does, the flames engorge as if feeding upon its rage.
It's there, within the crackling embers and licking tongues of fire that he sees the real Sephiroth—not a memory or a phantom, but a real spiritual presence.
He stands tall and strong, exactly as Cloud remembers him. Black coat, white mane, Masamune in hand.
The creature reels back one tentacle to attack him, and Sephiroth resists the blow without so much as crouching. He bats it away with the sword, but the force makes even him stoop and strain.
"Sephiroth!" Cloud yells. The man turns only his head, knocking aside follow-up blows without even looking.
His face holds none of the cockiness or dark mirth that haunts Cloud's dreams. It is strained, severe, imploring.
"Help me," he says.
Cloud's mouth hangs open, overwhelmed by the weight of his stare, by emotions he can't explain. Fear and anger are old friends, the desire to subject him to all the pain that he's caused, but beside there are anxiety, admiration, eagerness, and disbelief.
It shocks him into stillness, the sheer incompatibility of his feelings, and when he looks to the sky to try and parse them he sees Zack's upside-down face.
"Cloud, now," Sephiroth orders, and there's no mistaking it for anything else. This is the war hero, the General, telling him to move. His legs stand before he's consciously told them to, his posture snapping into almost-forgotten military straightness.
The monster screams, and a black pool opens under Sephiroth's feet. At least a dozen others swallow up the landscape, and black, poisonous rain burns welts into their skin.
"What is that thing?" Cloud yells, running ungracefully around inky black pits.
The left tentacle rises and swings, and Sephiroth can't dodge without jumping into one of the pits. The blow collides solidly into his torso and sends him crashing through the remains of the garden fence.
With another ungodly roar, the monster summons tentacles out of the pools. Cloud stares, unsure what to do. High above, perplexed, Zack's face falls in a look of abject horror.
"Meteor?" he sputters. "As in… the thing that killed all the Ancients?"
Sephiroth grunts, pushing himself up and narrowly sidestepping an overhead whip of the tentacle. It hits the ground with such force that the whole area shakes, the soil rolling and exploding outward from a deep ditch that the impact created.
Shifting soil tweaks Sephiroth's already unsteady feet and sends him back to the ground, this time unable to avoid the violence of the monster's attacks.
Cloud discards his doubts in that moment, smothering every emotion except rage.
This man killed hundreds in a blind rage, he burned an entire village to the ground, but pinned and battered with a monster constricting his limbs he just looks like a man. A man who needs help.
Darting forward, Cloud growls, imagining the sword that he made for Zack the very first time he invited him into his mind.
Zack told him what it symbolized once, on a sleepy, timeless day many months into their stasis. It was a blade meant to uphold honor, a blade crafted to protect those in need.
"A hero doesn't get to decide who's worthy," Zack had said, sprawled out on a checkered picnic blanket and chewing on a stem of wheat. He'd laid his cheek on the blanket, looking right at him with unusual seriousness, a little somber, voice tinged with conviction. "If someone needs you, you help 'em. Simple as that."
Cloud jumps onto a crooked fencepost and feels a heavy weight materialize in his hand. Gripping the smooth leather, he pulls the Buster Sword over his head and leaps.
"Jenova?" the sky Zack whispers, above, below, emanating through everything.
Yelling out a battle cry, Cloud brings the sword down as hard as he can, swinging fiercely towards the monster's ghastly face and gray, pustule-ridden skin.
The blade bounces off.
He doesn't get a chance at a second hit. Three tentacles fly towards him, and he can't escape all of them at once.
Pressure coils around his ankle, and the next thing he knows he's being dangled ten meters above the ground. He kicks and screams, swiping wildly with his blade, but it's too heavy and awkward from his position.
A second tentacle squeezes his wrist, tighter and tighter until he lets go, and the Buster Sword thumps uselessly on the ground.
His partner is right side up now, the charred ground hanging overhead. Helpless, Cloud calls out, but Zack doesn't appear to register it. He's too busy backing away, his hands raised in surrender over his head.
"Seph, you can hold her back. Don't give up."
The body moves closer, and Zack's back meets a wall of rock. Just for a moment, a blink, his composure slips and naked distress beams out from his eyes.
One more step from the body, and he draws his sword, his mouth set in a hard line.
"Sephiroth, please, I can't fight you like this—"
A long, curved blade comes into view, scratching and rattling along the Buster Sword's edge.
Cloud watches in horror as his body reels back and swings.