Chapter 2 – Will

Would you tell her... I became a hero?

For the both of us...

Dilly-dally, shilly-shally... Isn't it time you did the forgiving?

... Flowers broke your fall...

Back then you could get away with scraped knees.

Have you ever been a bodyguard before?

All of these broken memories were flashing throughout Cloud's mind as he struggled to overcome Sephiroth's will. But it would be for nothing, as he was surrounded by only endless darkness. "I'm not strong enough this time..."

A sinister laugh responded to his voice, "I told you, I would never be a memory." It was Sephiroth.

"I'm not strong enough..." But the only response was again that sinister laugh.

Are sins ever forgiven?

I've never tried...

Never... Tried...

That was it. Vincent was Cloud's one remaining hope; Cloud knew Vincent would be strong enough to save him. He knew he did not have the strength to save himself, and that he would need his friends, his... Family, for this one.

The battle between Chaos and Ifrit had raged on for quite a while in The Forgotten City, but Chaos had finally subdued the summon and pushed it back into its Materia stone. He was now Vincent and was tending to the battle weakened Tifa. "Vincent, what's next?"

Vincent glanced at the unconscious Joel Arley and his gang. "Somehow, we have to keep them from hurting other people."

Upon this suggestion, Tifa proceeded to tie them up and bring them inside of the old Coral house. "That'll do, for now." She smiled, but then turned serious. "Vincent, something just occurred to me..."

"Hmmm?"

"Two years ago, Aerith cured Geostigma, and took the Jenova cells from people's bodies, including Cloud's. So, how could Sephiroth control and use Clouds body without Jenova cells inside of him?"

"I can only guess, but I'd assume that they hold a deep connection, or that Sephiroth's will is just that strong." He seemed to blank out for a second. "But, there's no way to be certain. We have to go."

"Right." The two had left and went back to Tifa's bar.

"I sense it. Here. It feels stronger than it did back at The Forgotten City."

"Cloud's things..."

"What?"

"He pulled a Materia stone out of a dream before. It was that Memory Materia, but I also had one when I woke up from a dream once. It was a Dream Materia. I used it and brought back some kind of curative Materia. Cloud took them to keep them safe."

"Take me to them." Vincent followed Tifa to Cloud's room in the bar and he opened a chest with Materia in it. "No good, this is all regular Materia."

"Wait..." Tifa walked over to the chest and exposed a hidden compartment in the lid, with two Materia stones fitted neatly in the foam. "There."

Vincent touched the stones and was suddenly overwhelmed by a powerful feeling. "Ugh... No doubt about it... These are Gaia's Tears." He then proceeded to absorb the Dream Materia, but was stopped by Tifa before he could absorb either of the Materia.

"Wait... Is there anything special about those Materia other than being Gaia's Tears?"

"They're very powerful Materia, and the knowledge contained within is... Amazing... I can sense it, even now..."

"Is there something special about it?"

"Yes, something unusually... Dark..."

"Dark?" Tifa tried to touch it, but she jerked her hand away. "But I've touched it before..."

"It wants me, and only me..."

"Huh? Materia can't think."

"These can... I don't know how..." Vincent's aura consumed the Materia into his body, and he instantly went rigid. "I don't know... Something's occurred to me... Knowledge. There's a dark, somehow familiar, will power inside of these Tears..."

"What are you talking about, Vincent?"

"An answer, for your question..."

"What question?"

"You asked me why Sephiroth was capable of taking Cloud's body without Jenova's cells..."

"I remember... Wait, do you know why?"

"If Cloud tried to use one of these Materia, then yes... I know why..." Vincent looked at the other one, picked it up, and rolled it around between his index finger and thumb. "I know... It's hard to explain... But somehow, Sephiroth has broken up his essence... His soul, and he sensed that the planet was making these Tears, and made sure that parts of his soul ended up inside of them. His hatred, malice, cruelty, coldness, everything, broken up between seven stones."

"What? And you're just going to keep collecting them?"

"I must, if we wish to stop Sephiroth."

"What do you mean?"

"His intentions do not include me. Listen, not only are parts of his consciousness contained within these stones, but also parts of his power. I believe he would try to find as many of the remaining stones as he possibly could, to become whole again. And then, he could resume his plans to become a god. But, listen..." Tifa had begun to interject.

"If I were able to obtain all of the stones, I would have all of his power, and I could stop him. Not only that, but I would have some of the planet's power, as well." If there were ever anyone Tifa would never doubt, it was Vincent. He was always so sure of what he was doing, and questioning his intentions seemed like a bad idea.

"I... Okay, I'll help..." But before she could continue, Vincent grunted and dropped to the ground. "What's wrong?"

"Now I know... How Cloud felt... During these moments..." Tifa's look was a puzzled one, so Vincent grabbed her arm so that she could share in what was happening.

And then she heard it, the voice, it was Sephiroth. "So, you've found some of the parts of me that I need to return to my full strength. Very good, please do return them to me as soon as possible. I'll be waiting at the Northern Cave."

And another voice, Cloud's. "Vincent, you can't!"

"Shut up, traitor." And then the feeling and voices vanished.

Vincent was able to recover himself and he peered deeply into Tifa's dark eyes. "Cloud's still there. That's good. But we also don't have much time. I could hear the Lifestream around Sephiroth, I think he's trying to absorb it to regain some power. He may come after us if we don't find the rest of the Tears."

Tifa nodded and walked out of the bar with Vincent. The sunless sky reminded them of how long they'd been there. Both looked down the street and saw a vehicle neither of them wished to see. It was the Arley & Marcel co. van, but someone new was standing outside of it. He was dressed similarly to Joel, but he had spiky black hair and was clearly brooding, not to be disturbed. He opened one eye that darted toward the two of them.

"Been waiting on you two. Name's Davien Marcel." He nudged himself away from leaning on the driver's side door and stood in the middle of the street under a street light, arms crossed, staring at Vincent and Tifa. "Seems you gave my business associates quite a beating. And, as you know, a corporation cannot simply let something of the sort slide. I'll have to return the favor."

Vincent was calm, but it didn't seem to be lasting when he spoke, "We don't have time to deal with a bunch of idiots."

"A bunch? Oh, but I'm just one little guy. And you don't become a CEO by being an idiot, I hope you know. You become an employee." He chuckled and threw off his white trench coat, which seemed to be the trademark of their company. Underneath, he wore a belt with two blades crisscrossed in their sheaths on the back. He smoothly drew them both, ready for a fight.

Vincent simply shook his head, drew his gun, and shot both of the blades out of Davien's hands. The man simply chuckled and held up his hands in an "I don't know" sort of expression. He turned around, stared at the sky, but quickly flipped back around and shot lightning from his hands at Vincent.

A red aura surrounding the dark hero saved him from any damage, and he had soon disappeared, only to be right behind Davien and clawing him in the back, leaving bloody tears in his flesh. The big shot simply laughed and stretched out his hands, calling his blades back by sheer will power alone. He twirled them simultaneously and swung at Vincent, only to be blocked by the golden gauntlet he was wearing.

When he was able to catch a break long enough to talk, Vincent called out to Tifa to get to Cid and continued fighting. Vincent easily blocked Davien's blades, but now that he had them, Davien was able to say the same about Vincent's claw. After a few minutes of swinging and blocking, Vincent had put the CEO into a position where his gun was between the man's eyes.

Fearing for his life, Davien dropped his blades in time for the Shera to appear in the skies above. Vincent's aura snaked out and caused Davien's blades to float in the air, then it caused them to fly far away, into some back alleyway. "Come on. You're coming with us." Vincent grabbed the shaken up man, flew up into the air and landed inside the docking bay of the airship. "Follow me."

After going through some corridors, they were on the bridge, and Cid was furious. "What... Why'd ye have ter go and bring someone like that on my ship fer?! All bloody... What a damn mess..."

Tifa placed her hand on Cid's arm and smiled at him. "I'll talk to him."

"Yeah, whatever..." The pilot then went back to flying his ship without another word.

Tifa was on the couch beside Vincent and as far away from Davien as possible. "Why is he here, Vincent?"

"Better where we can keep an eye on him." Vincent looked through the windowed floor but saw nothing but dark gray clouds underneath. "It's late. Get some sleep. I don't even know where we're going, yet. I haven't been concentrating enough to sense them..."

Davien showed signs that he knew what they were talking about. "So... You're going to stop Sephiroth, huh? Yeah, that's where Joel and I don't exactly see eye to eye. He thinks the monster's some kind of hero. I think he's, well, a monster... Yeah, he might lead us to some kind of Mako rich land, but he'll just kill us there. Even if he doesn't, then what? None of us knows anything about building Mako Reactors..."

Vincent made mental notes of what Davien said, but didn't comment on it. Instead, he laid on the couch and looked out the glass dome into the night sky. The lights had been turned down to nothing but what the computer monitors emitted, so it was pretty easy to see the stars. Vincent remembered a story about where the Cetra had come from...

The tale was that they'd gone on some kind of a journey across the stars, from their home world that they called Spira. They landed on Gaia and had ever since lived in harmony with the planet's residents, until they died. Not much of the tale existed beyond that. There were versions with the Farplane, the Fayth, the Aeons, the Great Sending, things no one really understood except for the Cetra themselves. They guarded these secrets closely until they were all wiped out.

Of course, with people like Professor Hojo around, the part about them living in harmony was all a lie... He'd conducted horrid experiments on the specimens he could obtain, and this led to Sephiroth's existence and insanity. Of course, Sephiroth wasn't really a Cetra, but at the time of his inception in his mother, Lucrecia's, womb, the one from which his cells (and unique properties) came was considered to be one. Jenova, a calamity from the stars...

For the first time in years, Vincent was somehow able to succumb to sleep. A sudden realization woke him and he rushed over to Cid. "I know where we need to go."

"Good, 'cause I need to lay down. I've been flyin' all night... Oh, an' yer guest hasn't moved at all."

"Well, I'll tell your replacement where we need to go."

"All right, it's only fitting that she fly the ship I named after her." He smirked and ran off to his cabin as a beautiful woman came to take his place.

"Shera?"

"Yes, Vincent?" She sort of reminded him of Lucrecia, she had the same air about her, one might say.

"We need to go... To the Waterfall Cave." Shera nodded and Vincent knew he was free to find Tifa's cabin and wake her. He shook her shoulder and she shot up like a lightning bolt, sweating and looking worried. "You're okay, calm down. You look as if... As if you've been fighting all night."

"A dream..."

"About?"

"Cloud died, Sephiroth turned the planet into a twisted wasteland. You know, the usual."

"The usual? Have you had this one a lot, lately?" She didn't respond, and Vincent didn't want to press the issue. The two of them left her cabin and were back on the bridge. Tifa saw Shera, but didn't do anything but wave at her with a timid smile on her face. She was still shaken from her dream.

"Yes, but it's nothing to worry about," She heaved a great sigh and looked into Vincent's eyes for a few seconds before continuing, "I'm pretty sure you didn't have to wake me up, just to let me know where we're going. Am I right?"

"Yes... You recall the theory I had about Sephiroth controlling Cloud?" He went on as she nodded, "I've thought about it, and I was only partially correct. Yes, now it seems so stupid that I couldn't have realized it before. This is powerful, old magic, if you want to call it that, which Sephiroth is using...

"You, indeed, remember Cloud falling into the Lifestream and washing up in Mideel? This was no accident, as it seemed at the time... In fact, the planet was relying heavily on this in its efforts to dispose of Sephiroth. As far as I can tell, Sephiroth had discovered the planet's intent to create the Tears, and had deposited a little bit of his will, in Mako form, inside of each of the Tears.

"As the Materia grew, so did Sephiroth's will inside of the stones, feeding little by little off of the knowledge that it was so freely being given. Also, the planet had decided that Cloud would become a living Gaia's Tear, and Sephiroth took this time to deposit a little of his will safely into Cloud's body, as well as the Tears. No, it is not necessary for me to absorb anything inside of Cloud in order to complete my transformation.

"No, Cloud merely acts as a safe guard, and was chosen for his immense physical strength and combat ability. You see, the second Cloud dies, the Gaia's Tears will also cease to exist, unless, of course, I or Sephiroth have absorbed them. When Cloud contracted Geostigma, the part of Sephiroth inside him reacted to this, and saved a few Jenova cells, encasing them inside of a pocket of Mako within Cloud's body." He paused a second to think.

"I think what happened in the Shinra Manor was that Joel Arley sent some sort of a signal at him, something that caused the essence of Sephiroth and Jenova cells inside of Cloud's body to react and rapidly grow and multiply. The rapidly multiplying Jenova cells transformed Cloud's body, while Sephiroth's will took control of Cloud's much, much weaker will."

Tifa shook her head, looking through the glass floor at the clouds passing underneath. They were speeding by at high speeds, blurring into the colors of what little light was able to pass through their dense composition. "This is complicated."

"I know." Vincent gasped and looked at the tiny bit of land that he could see through the clouds. "We're here."