I would first like to thank those of you who reviewed! I was really unsure
if I should write something like this, but the idea had been in my head for
a very long time. Actually, it's been there since I saw both characters in
the game.
I'm trying to put these chapters out as fast as possible, but my computer won't allow me to upload onto FFN and I have to wait to use the school computers. I keep telling myself only one more year before I never have to see the hellhole they call school.
Warnings: Yaoi, adult situations in the future, and the biggest warring of all, this is not Beta'd. Run for the hills.
Broken Masks: Chapter 2
"Cloud?" Yuffie asked, trying to decide if her eyes were deceiving her. "Is that really you?" Her eyes widened as she concluded it had to be the man they had been looking for. "Cloud!" She launched herself at the blonde, knocking them back onto the bed.
Cloud hissed in pain, but tried valiantly to conceal any discomfort. "Hello." He offered the young ninja before managing to slowly pull himself out from under her. He stood and became very self-conscious of his appearance. He crossed the room to pick up his discarded shirt, and slid it over his head. He was also struck with the natural defense of grabbing his cape. He refrained from adding it to his body, but had deliberated for a moment.
"Cloud?" His gaze moved to the other woman in the room. He had been aware of her presence from the moment she had entered. Hell, he didn't know why he was lying to himself. She had been one of the first things he had seen when he had escaped to the town.
"Hello." He gave his greeting to the woman the same as Yuffie, feeling that a neutral course of action would be best.
She moved forward in a blaze, intending to summarize his wound and heal it. As one soft hand reached out for his mid-section, he became alert of the situation and jumped back in surprise. He knew he had startled her, and as he breathed hard from the sudden panic, he offered her a small look of apology.
"I am fine." He stated, now intending on keeping his distance from them all.
"Nonsense." Cloud locked eyes with Leon for the second time and a sort of stand off was declared. Neither man moved, nor blinked. Cloud kept his trained eyes the brown haired man, unsure of the present situation. "I saw the blood, don't bother hiding it."
Leon looked his long time friend over and felt something stir in him. He was unsure, but just looking at the man, as hard as it might be, was bringing emotions back into his life. These were emotions he had fought hard to keep down into the very depths of his soul. He decided almost immediately that he didn't like these feelings, and he didn't want the man across from him to cause them.
"I said I was fine." Cloud hissed out, through partially closed teeth.
"Why didn't you come see us? What kept you away?" Yuffie asked. Cloud noted that the persistent girl had wrapped her arms around his waist and was giving him a soft hug, now aware of his injury. "Why are you here?" She was a blur of questions, and this made Cloud wonder how he could have ever forgotten hearing her sweet voice and playful actions.
Cloud wrapped one arm around the small girl. "I was coming to see you soon." He said. "As soon as I was healed."
Aerith frowned oddly, moving towards Cloud. She stepped loudly to alert him of her presence, and moved slowly not wanting to upset the current peace in the room. "I can heal you." She told him. "Why didn't you heal yourself?"
He stiffened but allowed the pink dressed woman to stand but a few inches away from him. "This wound will not heal." She disregarded his words and put both of her hands over his abdomen. Her eyes closed and she began a simple healing spell she had learned years ago.
"What?" She asked herself, realizing the spell was simply rebounding off of him and back to her. "I told you." He lifted his shirt to indicate the still spreading blood. "This type of wound must heal by nature."
"Where have you been?" Leon asked. He leaned on the wall, arms crossed in his signature pose. "You obviously have access to a gummi ship. So I would like to know why you did not seek out the only people of our world left."
Cloud sighed and moved to sit on the bed. "It's not that simple. There were things I had to do, things that had to be done before I could begin this new life." Yuffie and Aerith exchanged looks of concern at Cloud's statement.
"That doesn't explain why you didn't send word of your survival. Perhaps you don't care if we're alive, but we very much care for others." Leon shot towards Cloud without meeting the blonde's angry gaze.
There were a few moments of silence before Cloud spoke again. "It doesn't matter anyway." He waved his hand, indicating he wanted to leave the subject.
Yuffie looked from Aerith to Cloud and sighed, wondering just what she was getting herself into. "Come on, Leon." He grabbed the man's arm. "We can go through the hotel." She pulled the man from the room, giving one last look to the occupants of the room.
As they walked the hallway of the hotel the silence between them became defined, an almost certain decision. "You got your wish." Leon said, after long pauses of silence. He held the door to the second district open for her.
She shrugged her shoulder. "I'm not so sure that was a good idea now. If I had known all of this was going to happen, I wouldn't have pushed looking for Cloud so much." Her feet shuffled on the floor lightly. "Cloud sure has changed." Leon, walking slightly behind her gave her a hard look.
"No, you've just been away from him too long. He's the same hard, self proclaimed warrior that's he's always been."
Yuffie smiled. "Hey, remember the time when you and-what was the boy's name?" Yuffie paused at the memory. "You and Solan snuck away the day after the fall equinox? And then Cloud and I snuck after you?" Leon listened with one open ear, while his eyes scanned the streets looking for heartless.
"Yes, I specifically asked the two of you not to come along, you, Cloud and Aerith were always crashing any fun I wanted to have." Leon said. "And if I remember correctly, I told the both of you to leave, and then both of you promptly fell in the river."
Leon frowned at first running the events through in his mind, and then smiling briefly at the way he remembered that day ending. He remembered specifically waking up that day, intent on spending the day with his new friend, Solan. They had decided to go exploring the cliffs by the ocean.
He and Solan had set out that day with only a slight delay from both of their mothers. They had traveled a few miles on the sandy path to the old wooden bridge that was suspended over the river that ran directly to the ocean. He and Solan had spent the morning hours exploring the caves, and the afternoon in the ocean. He remembered enjoying the day immensely, but feeling that it was lacking something.
But it was the event on their way back that made Leon cast his eyes downward. Halfway across the old bridge Cloud and Yuffie had appeared, just a few years separating each other and a few more between themselves and Leon. Both had demanded to be included in adventures and both had crossed the bridge.
Leon recalled the Solan had walked ahead, asking him to deal with the problem while he cleared something out ahead of them. He knew he had asked Cloud and Yuffie to go home a bit too harshly, and regretted it as he stalked off after his friend.
The sound to haunt his ears sounded just seconds later. The old bridge had decided that moment to give out, sending the two children on it scrambling to grab onto the one good side. Neither Cloud nor Yuffie had been able to get a good hold, and moments later both fell the long distance into the freezing water.
Leon remembered diving in after them, feeling anger at himself for two things. The first being he had yelled harshly at two of the people who meant the most to him. The two people that followed him around because they wanted to be with him, to be like him. And the second because he wanted to save one more then the other. His mind, no, his heart was picking one above the other and telling his brain to swim towards the more important one.
Yuffie had managed to throw herself upon the top of the bank on the right side of the river, while Cloud kicked hard in the water tying to stay afloat. He had reached Cloud in a few seconds, and had wrapped a protective arm around the spiky haired child. They floated for at least twenty minutes before they were dumped into the ocean and kicked towards shore.
Leon and Yuffie pushed the doors to the first district open and another weird thought struck him. He wondered where the protectiveness he had felt over the cute blonde had gone. Many years ago he had been willing to fight to the death to protect the much smaller boy. And true to his word he had gotten in many fights, but he valued each the same as the next.
"You're confused, aren't you?" Yuffie asked, drawing Leon out of his daze.
"What did you say?" Leon tapped his foot at the empty third district; he had been counting on a few heartless to vent his frustration.
"You're confused, aren't you?" She repeated, stopping the man from walking any further away from her.
He solved this problem by walking in a different direction. "I'm not confused, I know exactly what's happening." Yuffie shook her head, not pleased by Leon's answer.
But in reality, Leon did know the truth. He knew his soul inside and out, and was rediscovering his heart by and by. No, he wasn't confused anymore. He knew for a fact that the feeling of protectiveness and the willingness to do anything for the blonde wasn't gone. And if anything it was growing.
"And then I met Aladdin and we fought against Jafar, who used Genie to turn into a Genie!" Sora explained adamantly to Cid, the brunette waving his arms wildly. Sora had just returned from Agrabah and defeating a major power.
"Did you go to the other worlds?" Cid asked, actually interested in the worlds he wouldn't dare visit. "Are they filled with heartless too?"
Sora rested his hands behind his head and shook his head. "Naw, I needed to come back and restock in the stores, plus, I wanted to talk to Leon about a few things. I think I might know who's behind all of the heartless, and who's controlling them."
Cid immediately became serious. "Gal by the name of Maleficent?" Cid asked in a low voice.
"How'd you know?" Sora asked suspiciously. "I heard Jafar and someone named Maleficent talking, they're working on something big." Sora shook his head, eyes going to the night sky about the town. He watched with sadness as another star went out, another light gone from the world. "I need to speak with Leon, would you happen to know where I can find him?"
Cid was hesitant. "Some things have been going down in the past weeks since you've been here." He told Sora. "Yesterday a fella from my world, Leon's world showed up. I don't know what happened, cause I'm just the old guy and no one keeps me in on things, but far as I can tell he and Leon aren't getting along too well."
"Wow." Fidgeted as he often did. "Can I meet this guy, I bet he'll have lots of cool things to talk about."
Cid frowned. "Don't you already known Cloud?"
Sora's eyes widened in surprise. "Sure I know him, I met him at the coliseum. I fought against him too, he told me he was looking for his light." Sora's voice fell a bit. "I told him I was looking for my light too, but I hadn't found him yet." Sora sighed deeply. "Did Cloud find what he was looking for yet?" Sora asked hopeful.
Cid shrugged. "I wouldn't know. You should go check with Leon; he's more then likely in the underground passageway. Just be careful, and don't mention Cloud to him."
Sora thanked him before running off towards the second district doors. "You should go check out some of the worlds!" He called back. "I've got some of them cleaned out of the heartless, just a few left and right!"
Cid shook his head, amused at the energetic boy. And very concerned that they were placing their future into the hands of someone that was on a wild goose chase to find the boy he loved, not stop the darkness that was threatening to overtake everything.
~*~
"Squall."
"I have asked you repetitively not to use that name." Leon ignored the shorter, younger man standing a small distance away from him.
"It is your name." Cloud stated, speaking alone with the man for the first time in a very long time. "Normally, one addresses the other by a name given to them at birth."
Leon growled under his breath, once again urging himself not to attack the man. "Cheeky as ever." Leon acknowledged, swinging his Gun blade again. "So I'll ask you again, why have you gone through all the trouble to find this place and speak with me?"
"I came to speak with you because we have not seen each other for a very long time. I assumed that I would be welcomed as your friend, someone you once trusted. We grew up together, and you are all I have left. And by the way, Cid told me where you were."
Leon took a seat on the strangely warm stone floor and shot Cloud a skeptical look. "And I've known you since you were born, so tell me the real reason you've tracked me down."
"Like I said, you're all I have left." The tone of the younger man's voice caused Leon to look towards him. Cloud, back pressed to the wall gazed at Leon with deep eyes. His shirt had once again been removed and the old, bloody gauze replaced with clean white ones.
"What do you mean?" Leon asked cautiously.
Cloud chuckled to himself. "You're the only one I can remember." Leon was on his feet moments later, crossing the distance between them and dropping himself next to Cloud. Cloud continued. "I have very few memories left. I can't remember where I was born, who my friends are, and how we lost our world."
Leon leaned his back onto the wall, his perspective changing greatly. "But you remember me, and you remembered Yuffie, and Aerith." He paused. "I know you remember Aerith."
Cloud shook his head. "I have small fragments of memories, and even then they are very confusing. While I can remember select things about you, I have only quick images of Yuffie, and practically nonexistent knowledge of Aerith. I remember waking in the coliseum a long time ago, Hercules asking me who I was, and where I came from." Cloud spoke in the same low voice he always had, but Leon noticed the tone had changed just slightly. If he wasn't mistaken, this new voice was retaining some of its innocence from their childhood. Before all the fighting and blood had begun.
"It took me a full week to remember my name." Cloud turned the short distance to look Leon in the eyes. "And another to remember anything about you. I came here looking for answers, I have been on a quest for answers for a very long time."
"Why were you competing against Sora at the tournament?" Leon asked, becoming more intrigued with his friend by the moment.
"A job." He remarked quickly, declaring he didn't wish to discuss that any longer. "But I've seen now I can't stay here."
"What?" Leon asked in surprise. "There is a place for you here. It might be a little cramped at first but I'm sure we can make it work. And it would be great to have someone to go patrolling with. And we could help you remember." Though he paid no attention to it, Leon couldn't help but hear the nagging voice in the back of his head asking him why he was making such and effort to keep the blonde man here. And if he looked deep enough, he probably been able to determine it was not originating from his mind, but his heart.
"It would be nice to stay for a while, perhaps learn a few things about myself I have forgotten. But it is something I simply cannot do. To stay would be placing you, Yuffie, Aerith, and this town into danger. I just can't stay."
"Why?" Leon questioned. "What could happen by you staying?"
Cloud climbed to his feet. "Nothing, I just can't stay." The blonde walked towards the bottom entrance to Merlin's house. "I'll be gone by the morning."
"Wait!" Leon called, forcing Cloud to stop. "You can't go, after we just found you!" Cloud ignored the man, and continued walking towards the steps. "What about Aerith?" Leon struck a nerve in Cloud, and caused him to look back.
Leon suddenly felt like a child underneath Cloud's piercing blue eyes, the eyes that had haunted him for so long. "I don't know about the past, but I'll assure you right now I can see her as nothing but a friend."
"And tell my why you can't love her, as much as she loves you!" He demanded, taking steps towards Cloud. "She's spent this entire time looking for you because she loves you more then life!"
Cloud sighed deeply, a sympathetic look on his features. "She is beautiful, and a wonderful, caring person. In any other instance I could find myself falling in love with her in a second. But I cannot love her because," He paused. "Because my heart belongs to another."
"What woman!" Leon demanded, he had stalked forward to stand inches from the man, towering over him as best he could with a menacing look. "What woman could you love more then Aerith?!" He demanded once again to know.
Cloud smiled, that same smile that developed right before he landed a critical blow in battle. "Who said it was a woman." And with a quick turn he was gone.
I'm trying to put these chapters out as fast as possible, but my computer won't allow me to upload onto FFN and I have to wait to use the school computers. I keep telling myself only one more year before I never have to see the hellhole they call school.
Warnings: Yaoi, adult situations in the future, and the biggest warring of all, this is not Beta'd. Run for the hills.
Broken Masks: Chapter 2
"Cloud?" Yuffie asked, trying to decide if her eyes were deceiving her. "Is that really you?" Her eyes widened as she concluded it had to be the man they had been looking for. "Cloud!" She launched herself at the blonde, knocking them back onto the bed.
Cloud hissed in pain, but tried valiantly to conceal any discomfort. "Hello." He offered the young ninja before managing to slowly pull himself out from under her. He stood and became very self-conscious of his appearance. He crossed the room to pick up his discarded shirt, and slid it over his head. He was also struck with the natural defense of grabbing his cape. He refrained from adding it to his body, but had deliberated for a moment.
"Cloud?" His gaze moved to the other woman in the room. He had been aware of her presence from the moment she had entered. Hell, he didn't know why he was lying to himself. She had been one of the first things he had seen when he had escaped to the town.
"Hello." He gave his greeting to the woman the same as Yuffie, feeling that a neutral course of action would be best.
She moved forward in a blaze, intending to summarize his wound and heal it. As one soft hand reached out for his mid-section, he became alert of the situation and jumped back in surprise. He knew he had startled her, and as he breathed hard from the sudden panic, he offered her a small look of apology.
"I am fine." He stated, now intending on keeping his distance from them all.
"Nonsense." Cloud locked eyes with Leon for the second time and a sort of stand off was declared. Neither man moved, nor blinked. Cloud kept his trained eyes the brown haired man, unsure of the present situation. "I saw the blood, don't bother hiding it."
Leon looked his long time friend over and felt something stir in him. He was unsure, but just looking at the man, as hard as it might be, was bringing emotions back into his life. These were emotions he had fought hard to keep down into the very depths of his soul. He decided almost immediately that he didn't like these feelings, and he didn't want the man across from him to cause them.
"I said I was fine." Cloud hissed out, through partially closed teeth.
"Why didn't you come see us? What kept you away?" Yuffie asked. Cloud noted that the persistent girl had wrapped her arms around his waist and was giving him a soft hug, now aware of his injury. "Why are you here?" She was a blur of questions, and this made Cloud wonder how he could have ever forgotten hearing her sweet voice and playful actions.
Cloud wrapped one arm around the small girl. "I was coming to see you soon." He said. "As soon as I was healed."
Aerith frowned oddly, moving towards Cloud. She stepped loudly to alert him of her presence, and moved slowly not wanting to upset the current peace in the room. "I can heal you." She told him. "Why didn't you heal yourself?"
He stiffened but allowed the pink dressed woman to stand but a few inches away from him. "This wound will not heal." She disregarded his words and put both of her hands over his abdomen. Her eyes closed and she began a simple healing spell she had learned years ago.
"What?" She asked herself, realizing the spell was simply rebounding off of him and back to her. "I told you." He lifted his shirt to indicate the still spreading blood. "This type of wound must heal by nature."
"Where have you been?" Leon asked. He leaned on the wall, arms crossed in his signature pose. "You obviously have access to a gummi ship. So I would like to know why you did not seek out the only people of our world left."
Cloud sighed and moved to sit on the bed. "It's not that simple. There were things I had to do, things that had to be done before I could begin this new life." Yuffie and Aerith exchanged looks of concern at Cloud's statement.
"That doesn't explain why you didn't send word of your survival. Perhaps you don't care if we're alive, but we very much care for others." Leon shot towards Cloud without meeting the blonde's angry gaze.
There were a few moments of silence before Cloud spoke again. "It doesn't matter anyway." He waved his hand, indicating he wanted to leave the subject.
Yuffie looked from Aerith to Cloud and sighed, wondering just what she was getting herself into. "Come on, Leon." He grabbed the man's arm. "We can go through the hotel." She pulled the man from the room, giving one last look to the occupants of the room.
As they walked the hallway of the hotel the silence between them became defined, an almost certain decision. "You got your wish." Leon said, after long pauses of silence. He held the door to the second district open for her.
She shrugged her shoulder. "I'm not so sure that was a good idea now. If I had known all of this was going to happen, I wouldn't have pushed looking for Cloud so much." Her feet shuffled on the floor lightly. "Cloud sure has changed." Leon, walking slightly behind her gave her a hard look.
"No, you've just been away from him too long. He's the same hard, self proclaimed warrior that's he's always been."
Yuffie smiled. "Hey, remember the time when you and-what was the boy's name?" Yuffie paused at the memory. "You and Solan snuck away the day after the fall equinox? And then Cloud and I snuck after you?" Leon listened with one open ear, while his eyes scanned the streets looking for heartless.
"Yes, I specifically asked the two of you not to come along, you, Cloud and Aerith were always crashing any fun I wanted to have." Leon said. "And if I remember correctly, I told the both of you to leave, and then both of you promptly fell in the river."
Leon frowned at first running the events through in his mind, and then smiling briefly at the way he remembered that day ending. He remembered specifically waking up that day, intent on spending the day with his new friend, Solan. They had decided to go exploring the cliffs by the ocean.
He and Solan had set out that day with only a slight delay from both of their mothers. They had traveled a few miles on the sandy path to the old wooden bridge that was suspended over the river that ran directly to the ocean. He and Solan had spent the morning hours exploring the caves, and the afternoon in the ocean. He remembered enjoying the day immensely, but feeling that it was lacking something.
But it was the event on their way back that made Leon cast his eyes downward. Halfway across the old bridge Cloud and Yuffie had appeared, just a few years separating each other and a few more between themselves and Leon. Both had demanded to be included in adventures and both had crossed the bridge.
Leon recalled the Solan had walked ahead, asking him to deal with the problem while he cleared something out ahead of them. He knew he had asked Cloud and Yuffie to go home a bit too harshly, and regretted it as he stalked off after his friend.
The sound to haunt his ears sounded just seconds later. The old bridge had decided that moment to give out, sending the two children on it scrambling to grab onto the one good side. Neither Cloud nor Yuffie had been able to get a good hold, and moments later both fell the long distance into the freezing water.
Leon remembered diving in after them, feeling anger at himself for two things. The first being he had yelled harshly at two of the people who meant the most to him. The two people that followed him around because they wanted to be with him, to be like him. And the second because he wanted to save one more then the other. His mind, no, his heart was picking one above the other and telling his brain to swim towards the more important one.
Yuffie had managed to throw herself upon the top of the bank on the right side of the river, while Cloud kicked hard in the water tying to stay afloat. He had reached Cloud in a few seconds, and had wrapped a protective arm around the spiky haired child. They floated for at least twenty minutes before they were dumped into the ocean and kicked towards shore.
Leon and Yuffie pushed the doors to the first district open and another weird thought struck him. He wondered where the protectiveness he had felt over the cute blonde had gone. Many years ago he had been willing to fight to the death to protect the much smaller boy. And true to his word he had gotten in many fights, but he valued each the same as the next.
"You're confused, aren't you?" Yuffie asked, drawing Leon out of his daze.
"What did you say?" Leon tapped his foot at the empty third district; he had been counting on a few heartless to vent his frustration.
"You're confused, aren't you?" She repeated, stopping the man from walking any further away from her.
He solved this problem by walking in a different direction. "I'm not confused, I know exactly what's happening." Yuffie shook her head, not pleased by Leon's answer.
But in reality, Leon did know the truth. He knew his soul inside and out, and was rediscovering his heart by and by. No, he wasn't confused anymore. He knew for a fact that the feeling of protectiveness and the willingness to do anything for the blonde wasn't gone. And if anything it was growing.
"And then I met Aladdin and we fought against Jafar, who used Genie to turn into a Genie!" Sora explained adamantly to Cid, the brunette waving his arms wildly. Sora had just returned from Agrabah and defeating a major power.
"Did you go to the other worlds?" Cid asked, actually interested in the worlds he wouldn't dare visit. "Are they filled with heartless too?"
Sora rested his hands behind his head and shook his head. "Naw, I needed to come back and restock in the stores, plus, I wanted to talk to Leon about a few things. I think I might know who's behind all of the heartless, and who's controlling them."
Cid immediately became serious. "Gal by the name of Maleficent?" Cid asked in a low voice.
"How'd you know?" Sora asked suspiciously. "I heard Jafar and someone named Maleficent talking, they're working on something big." Sora shook his head, eyes going to the night sky about the town. He watched with sadness as another star went out, another light gone from the world. "I need to speak with Leon, would you happen to know where I can find him?"
Cid was hesitant. "Some things have been going down in the past weeks since you've been here." He told Sora. "Yesterday a fella from my world, Leon's world showed up. I don't know what happened, cause I'm just the old guy and no one keeps me in on things, but far as I can tell he and Leon aren't getting along too well."
"Wow." Fidgeted as he often did. "Can I meet this guy, I bet he'll have lots of cool things to talk about."
Cid frowned. "Don't you already known Cloud?"
Sora's eyes widened in surprise. "Sure I know him, I met him at the coliseum. I fought against him too, he told me he was looking for his light." Sora's voice fell a bit. "I told him I was looking for my light too, but I hadn't found him yet." Sora sighed deeply. "Did Cloud find what he was looking for yet?" Sora asked hopeful.
Cid shrugged. "I wouldn't know. You should go check with Leon; he's more then likely in the underground passageway. Just be careful, and don't mention Cloud to him."
Sora thanked him before running off towards the second district doors. "You should go check out some of the worlds!" He called back. "I've got some of them cleaned out of the heartless, just a few left and right!"
Cid shook his head, amused at the energetic boy. And very concerned that they were placing their future into the hands of someone that was on a wild goose chase to find the boy he loved, not stop the darkness that was threatening to overtake everything.
~*~
"Squall."
"I have asked you repetitively not to use that name." Leon ignored the shorter, younger man standing a small distance away from him.
"It is your name." Cloud stated, speaking alone with the man for the first time in a very long time. "Normally, one addresses the other by a name given to them at birth."
Leon growled under his breath, once again urging himself not to attack the man. "Cheeky as ever." Leon acknowledged, swinging his Gun blade again. "So I'll ask you again, why have you gone through all the trouble to find this place and speak with me?"
"I came to speak with you because we have not seen each other for a very long time. I assumed that I would be welcomed as your friend, someone you once trusted. We grew up together, and you are all I have left. And by the way, Cid told me where you were."
Leon took a seat on the strangely warm stone floor and shot Cloud a skeptical look. "And I've known you since you were born, so tell me the real reason you've tracked me down."
"Like I said, you're all I have left." The tone of the younger man's voice caused Leon to look towards him. Cloud, back pressed to the wall gazed at Leon with deep eyes. His shirt had once again been removed and the old, bloody gauze replaced with clean white ones.
"What do you mean?" Leon asked cautiously.
Cloud chuckled to himself. "You're the only one I can remember." Leon was on his feet moments later, crossing the distance between them and dropping himself next to Cloud. Cloud continued. "I have very few memories left. I can't remember where I was born, who my friends are, and how we lost our world."
Leon leaned his back onto the wall, his perspective changing greatly. "But you remember me, and you remembered Yuffie, and Aerith." He paused. "I know you remember Aerith."
Cloud shook his head. "I have small fragments of memories, and even then they are very confusing. While I can remember select things about you, I have only quick images of Yuffie, and practically nonexistent knowledge of Aerith. I remember waking in the coliseum a long time ago, Hercules asking me who I was, and where I came from." Cloud spoke in the same low voice he always had, but Leon noticed the tone had changed just slightly. If he wasn't mistaken, this new voice was retaining some of its innocence from their childhood. Before all the fighting and blood had begun.
"It took me a full week to remember my name." Cloud turned the short distance to look Leon in the eyes. "And another to remember anything about you. I came here looking for answers, I have been on a quest for answers for a very long time."
"Why were you competing against Sora at the tournament?" Leon asked, becoming more intrigued with his friend by the moment.
"A job." He remarked quickly, declaring he didn't wish to discuss that any longer. "But I've seen now I can't stay here."
"What?" Leon asked in surprise. "There is a place for you here. It might be a little cramped at first but I'm sure we can make it work. And it would be great to have someone to go patrolling with. And we could help you remember." Though he paid no attention to it, Leon couldn't help but hear the nagging voice in the back of his head asking him why he was making such and effort to keep the blonde man here. And if he looked deep enough, he probably been able to determine it was not originating from his mind, but his heart.
"It would be nice to stay for a while, perhaps learn a few things about myself I have forgotten. But it is something I simply cannot do. To stay would be placing you, Yuffie, Aerith, and this town into danger. I just can't stay."
"Why?" Leon questioned. "What could happen by you staying?"
Cloud climbed to his feet. "Nothing, I just can't stay." The blonde walked towards the bottom entrance to Merlin's house. "I'll be gone by the morning."
"Wait!" Leon called, forcing Cloud to stop. "You can't go, after we just found you!" Cloud ignored the man, and continued walking towards the steps. "What about Aerith?" Leon struck a nerve in Cloud, and caused him to look back.
Leon suddenly felt like a child underneath Cloud's piercing blue eyes, the eyes that had haunted him for so long. "I don't know about the past, but I'll assure you right now I can see her as nothing but a friend."
"And tell my why you can't love her, as much as she loves you!" He demanded, taking steps towards Cloud. "She's spent this entire time looking for you because she loves you more then life!"
Cloud sighed deeply, a sympathetic look on his features. "She is beautiful, and a wonderful, caring person. In any other instance I could find myself falling in love with her in a second. But I cannot love her because," He paused. "Because my heart belongs to another."
"What woman!" Leon demanded, he had stalked forward to stand inches from the man, towering over him as best he could with a menacing look. "What woman could you love more then Aerith?!" He demanded once again to know.
Cloud smiled, that same smile that developed right before he landed a critical blow in battle. "Who said it was a woman." And with a quick turn he was gone.