Chapter Fifteen – The Coast of the Sun

It was cramped in the hold of the Shinra ship, but AVALANCHE had certainly endured worse. Jail cells, tiny Midgar apartments… All were far less inviting than this stuffy cargo area. Their biggest fear was of someone coming in for supplies and discovering them. Hopefully, Rufus was keeping everyone so busy that no one would have time to even think of checking in the hold.

Tifa had nodded off against Red during the few hours of the crossing. Aerith was sitting in one corner, dozing. The others remained awake: Yuffie too hyper to sleep, Barrett not trusting himself to go to sleep, and Cloud simply not wanting to sleep. Cait Sith had powered down, and those remaining awake remained silent, each to their own thoughts.

Cloud was worried more than he would like to admit, even to himself. He was beginning to realize the depths of what was wrong with him. There was something blocking his memories, but he didn't know what or why. He couldn't fight against something whose nature he didn't understand. Then there was the question of Sephiroth. His big brother had killed many people, including the president of Shinra and someone important to Cloud whose identity he could not remember. He would have come to the conclusion that his brother was out of his mind, yet Sephiroth had stood over him in the Shinra building as he slept and had made a conscious decision to leave him alive. Cloud didn't even pretend to understand what Sephiroth might be thinking, but it bothered him that he couldn't at least tell if his brother was sane or not.

He glanced at Aerith, eyes closed, frowning slightly in her sleep. She had been bothered by something, the few days after they met Gabriel. She kept stealing glances and looking at him oddly, like she was puzzling out a problem. He looked up at the ceiling with a sigh, feeling the sharp jolt as the ship came into dock. He heard all of the personnel above begin to move about urgently. Rufus had wanted a parade, so all AVALANCHE had to do was wait until everyone was busy, and then slip off the ship. He stood, walking to Aerith and gently shaking her awake, before doing the same to Tifa.

"We're here."

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They waited a sufficient amount of time, to make sure no one would be around, and then cautiously made their way up to the deck. A dramatic parade was taking place on shore, celebrating the new president of Shinra's arrival in Costa del Sol. The entire resort town was in an uproar, providing the perfect cover. They managed to get into town and into an inn without being detected.

It was blessedly quiet in the inn, with most of the people who were there to enjoy a quiet vacation. AVALANCHE sat down at a table in the corner to discuss where they were going to go next.

"We should go to North Corel." Tifa was saying. "They can give us some help."

"Or would it be better to go straight to the Gold Saucer?" Red asked. "Surely, with so many people, someone would know something."

Barrett scowled at the mention of both of these places, saying angrily, "Or we could just go to fucking Nibelheim! I'm sure we'd find plenty of answers there!" Cloud and Tifa stared at him in stunned shock, before Tifa finally realized what he meant.

"Oh, Barrett, I'm sorry!" she exclaimed. "I didn't think…" Barrett frowned darkly, and the topic was abandoned for the moment. They sat in silence, listening to the sounds of the parade outside. It seemed that even if Shinra wasn't very well-loved, the people of Costa del Sol wanted any chance they could to have a party.

They had dinner in the inn, having eaten a meager lunch of whatever they had while on the ship. Afterwards, when the parade had died down, they decided that if they were in a resort town, they may as well enjoy it. They went to the beach, relaxing as if they had all the time in the world.

After a while, Cloud decided he would go for a walk by himself. Both Tifa and Aerith offered to go with him, but he declined, saying that he needed time to think. They backed off, allowing the blond his space.

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The night was cool and clear. Water lapped at the shore, the waves gentle and soothing. Cloud sat down on the beach and stared out at the moon, an enormous silver orb hanging in the sky. It almost reminded him of something, this night and this moon. He heard faint music somewhere in his mind, singing softly, …dust and gloom, there shall come the sun and moon…

He blinked, wondering where that had come from. It was accompanied by the now-familiar nightmarish image of Sephiroth's jade eyes, and a glimpse of eyes glowing so violet that they hurt to look at. But the familiar migraine was also beginning to kick in, and Cloud wanted to fight. He struggled against the pain, trying to see what lay beyond those eyes: a face, a voice, any clue would be fine. But instead of the voice he sought, he heard a different voice, angry and vengeful, Fear me, hate me, fight me, STRONGER!

He yelled, as his vision went white and his left shoulder-blade burned. His friends heard and came running as something formed on the beach before them. The monster stood before them, a sickening shade of green, looking like nothing they had ever seen before. It let out a screech, and Cloud stood, helped by Barrett and a very worried Tifa.

"Jenova-BIRTH…" He wasn't sure where the name had come from; probably just another product of the vengeful voices in his head, but it didn't matter now. They readied themselves to fight as the thing advanced.

Cloud fitted one of the materia they had bought in Kalm into the pommel of his sword. He called upon the fire magic, sending the full might of Fira into the thing's face. Tifa stood back, quietly chanting the spell for Thundara, as Barrett raised his gun arm and unleashed a hail of bullets into it.

Before Tifa could finish the complicated incantation, the thing knocked her backwards with a tentacle, cutting off the spell and leaving a gash across the girl's stomach. Aerith hurried to her side, calling on Cure and focusing the magic. Tifa stood, thanking Aerith before running back to rejoin the fight. She came at it from the left, as Barrett continued to fire dead-on into it. Yuffie, who had been stunned by the size of the monster, hurled her shruiken, cutting off a tentacle as Red chewed another one off. He spat onto the ground afterwards, commenting, "That thing does not taste good at all."

Cloud charged in from the side, attacking furiously and powering up to break through his level one Limit. He invoked the Blade Beam, attacking Jenova-BIRTH with the pure slice of energy.

It roared furiously, but was nearly ripped in two by the force of the Limit Break. It crumpled to the ground, falling apart until all that remained was a single shriveled tentacle.

"What the hell was that thing?" Barrett demanded. Cloud took a deep breath before responding.

"Jenova-BIRTH, I think."

"But what the hell is a Jenova?"

"It's… I don't know." Cloud whispered. "But it feels important, somehow."

Aerith blinked in surprise to hear Cloud's words. She hadn't expected Jenova to allow Cloud to know she existed. Gabriel had said that she would stop at nothing to keep him from knowing who he was, whoever he was…

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They had gone back to the inn, shaken after the fight with the bizarre creature, and dispersed to their own rooms. Tifa and Yuffie had gone to sleep, but Aerith remained awake, sitting on her bed and looking out at the luminous city around them. It was so much prettier than Midgar or Junon, and yet was nearly as bad.

The Cetra closed her eyes, calling out quietly to the Planet, asking it what it could tell her about Jenova. It sent her wave after wave of ideas and images, showing her the Calamity and what it had done to her people of old. It came in a meteor from the sky, emerging onto the Planet. It was as a virus to the Cetra, and set about to destroy them and take the Planet for its' own. Eventually, a few brave Cetra had managed to seal it away, preserving the few of their people who were left. Aerith reeled from the magnitude of the visions, although it still did not explain how Shinra had come to possess Jenova cells. She sighed, curling up in bed underneath her blankets, wondering what more she could do. She couldn't fight what she didn't understand, and at the moment, she didn't understand what Cloud was or why Jenova was so desperate to keep him from discovering this secret. Only time would tell, but they might not have that much time to spare.

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I want to tell everybody right now: I am SO SORRY that I haven't updated in so long. Specifically, Jill, if you still can find it in yourself to care, I apologize deeply for my lapse. That fight scene took forever, since I suck at fight scenes. Hehe...

So, Jenova-BIRTH and stuff... I guess they're off to the Gold Saucer next. Or North Corel. One or the other. On a completely random side note, I was looking up Crisis Core on Wikipedia, and Genesis' last name is Rhapsodos. How cool is that?!?

Luv, and a million more apologies,
Li