[AN: Well, it's about 12:07 here in England, which makes it technically Sunday, so here's a slightly earlier than usual update. We're getting close to the end, but we aren't there yet! Hang in there, everyone!]

Chapter Twelve

'Do you know any nice people? Y'know, normal everyday people, not power-crazed nutters trying to take over the universe?'

Cloud wasn't even sure how or where the fire started; it was just suddenly there, springing up from the buildings on the north side of the village and billowing out like an inflating balloon, seizing up one roof, and then the next and the next until every building in the village was decorated with twitching, hissing flames.

He gave up on knocking and kicked down doors to let the screaming families out, for all the good it would do them. His mother came out of their own home – the rooftop already eaten up with fire – with her arms full of coats they wouldn't need.

'Get out of the village!' Cloud bellowed at the few people who'd thus far managed to stumble from their homes, coughing and eyes watering from the smoke. He pointed to the southern exit. 'Get out and run into the mountains!'

They scrambled to obey him, and didn't see the fire materia that came hurling over their heads.

'Get down!' Cloud screamed. He grabbed his mother by the shoulders and practically tackled her to the ground, crouching half over her body in protection. His eyes were closed, but he felt the blast of the materia against his back, the rumble of the earth under the explosion and heard the screams of the villagers, who now had nowhere to escape to.

Only once he was certain it was finished did he glance up, and over his mother's shoulders he saw Sephiroth.

Every time he had looked Sephiroth in the eyes until now, it had been remarkable to Cloud how calm and reasonable he'd seemed. Now, he realised that his memories of Sephiroth's insanity were barely shadows of the reality. Everything had been stripped away: all of the layers of narcissism and logic and pride – and genuine, if subdued, care for the people around him… the man left behind was raw and hollow. His skin was as white as the ashes that flitted around him, and there were black bruises under his eyes that would never leave after today. The brightness of the fire had reduced his pupils to slits as thin and sharp as the sword in his hand, but his eyes were wide, as though he was half-blind and struggling to see.

Cloud stood up, pulling his mother with him, and gently pushed her behind him. It was only when he saw the blood on Masamune that he remembered he had no weapons.

'It's me, Sephiroth,' he said, even though the creature in front of him barely looked like Sephiroth anymore. He tore his helmet off so his face was visible. 'It's Cloud.'

Sephiroth flicked his wrist and took a swipe at his stomach, and Cloud jumped backwards, almost knocking his mother down in the process. Over his shoulder, Cloud cried,

'Run!'

It had only taken a second, but by the time he looked back, Sephiroth was inches from his face. He barely saw the pommel of Masamune before it connected with the side of his head. The fire disappeared, and so did the screaming, terrified voices of the villagers. As Cloud fell, he thought for a moment that everything was so black he must have been swallowed up in Sephiroth's coat.

'Hey?'

Cloud rolled his eyes open. He was sweating, and so hot it hurt. The light was too bright to make anything out; he could just about see the top of Zack's dark head. Were they in Costa del Sol again? Had he fallen asleep on the beach?

Things came a little more into focus, and Cloud realised that the light was orange, and there were dark patches that swam and throbbed around his eyes. Nibelheim… he was in Nibelheim… and…

'Seph… iroth…' he choked. His throat felt like it had been sandpapered. Zack put a hand on his shoulder, but then left him without saying anything else.

He could hear voices some way away. One was definitely Zangan, but it took him a moment to recognise Zack's voice when his tone was so sombre. He didn't want Zack to sound sombre; he wanted him to sound light-hearted and happy. He wanted Zack to come back and help him up to his feet, to dust him off and laugh about going back to Midgar to see Aerith soon.

What I wouldn't give for a white mage…

He had no materia on him, and no potions. His head felt like it had hole three inches wide in the side of it, which it probably did, he realised when he touched his temple and found blood.

If he'd felt sick before, he felt like hell now. The ground slid around under his boots as he rolled over and stood up. The feeling was not unlike trying to walk through the train in Midgar when it was still moving, except that all the things he could possibly have used to steady himself were on fire. He managed to balance nonetheless, and didn't even fall over when he had to lean over his knees to throw up. He realised that he hadn't eaten in almost a day, and discovered quickly that throwing up with nothing but bile and acid in your stomach is much worse than throwing up when it's full of food.

When his stomach settled enough, he stood and surveyed his once home village. The buildings had been burned down to black skeletons, and yet the fire hadn't given up yet. It was still burning, almost as strong as before: enough to make Cloud feel like he was breathing coal. There were grey lumps scattered across the ground, in various states of still looking human. Cloud didn't look at their faces.

'Reactor,' he muttered, voice as rough as a scab. He had to get to the reactor, before Sephiroth could get away with Jenova's head – or any of the rest of her. Tifa was there, in trouble, and so was Zack. Zack would last longer than her, but Sephiroth was still going to kill him when he could, and Cloud didn't mean to stand around and watch Nibelheim burn down while he did.

No, said a voice in his head, awfully reminiscent of the voice of Jenova. You have to keep Zack alive until Shinra can kill him outside Midgar.

He snatched up his helmet – for God's sake, why had he taken it off? – and staggered forwards. This wasn't going to end the way he thought it was. He was going to get there in time to save Zack and Tifa from Sephiroth, and to save Sephiroth from Jenova, and then they were all going to go to Midgar together to tear Hojo's limbs off for ever thinking that the Jenova Project was a good idea in the first place.

It was the most painful walk he had ever done. Last time, it had been his fury at Sephiroth that had driven him all the way to the reactor. This time, if he was angry at all, it was at himself. He'd fucked up. He was supposed to change this before now, and he hadn't done it, and now everyone in Nibelheim – his own mother – were taking the punishment for his incompetence.

He'd hoped to catch up with Tifa or Zack, on his way there, but it seemed he'd been unconscious too long. When he got to the reactor, the doors were unlocked, and Tifa's father was dead inside. Cloud wished that he could let himself believe it was the man's own stupidity that had gotten him killed.

He stepped over the body and into the reactor's core.

The room was already beaten up. The lines of pods were dented and scratched, and the stairs intersecting them were scuffed. Tifa was gasping at their base. She was only lucky, considering her fall down the stairs, that her back hadn't been broken. Lucky. Yes. Further up, he could see the edge of Zack's body, smashed into one of the pods.

The doorway marked JENOVA was open.

'Tifa,' he said, hurrying up to her. She looked up at him blearily, without recognition and, against his better judgement considering how close Sephiroth was, he removed his helmet for her. Despite her obvious pain, she smiled.

'Cloud,' she muttered. 'I knew you'd come… you promised.'

'I know,' he said, taking her hand when she lifted it to him. 'I'm here.'

She shouldn't have tried to fight Sephiroth on her own. Tifa had always had too much confidence. Then again, he'd never had enough, so he supposed it balanced out.

'Cloud?'

Zack was awake, and he somehow sounded even worse than Cloud. That was probably the effect of getting your arse kicked by the greatest SOLDIER who ever lived.

Cloud squeezed Tifa's hand and then let it go so that he could pick her up and tuck her out of the way. Her head lolled back as he lifted her. Zack had come to, and she had passed out.

Tifa as much out of harm's way as he could put her for now, Cloud hurried up to Zack.

'Cloud,' Zack smiled to see him, but the expression faded quickly. 'You were right.'

Cloud couldn't think of anything worth saying to that. Zack raised a shaking hand, in much the same way as Tifa had, but he wasn't looking for comfort. He gestured out behind Cloud, towards the Buster Sword that lay at the top of the stairs, and said,

'Finish Sephiroth off.'

Cloud nodded tightly, and made his way up the stairs. He knelt and grabbed the Buster Sword, and this time actually managed to lift it, although it weighed so heavily on his arms it was all he could do not to drag the tip along the ground.

'Hey,' Zack said. 'Don't hurt yourself this time.'

'I won't,' Cloud tried to reply, but he couldn't actually force the sounds out hard enough to make words. Thoughts of six-foot-long katanas and how much they hurt when speared through the human body filled his mind.

He'd like to think that it wasn't going to happen this time, but he was all out of hope for changing a damn thing now.

He barely took a breath as he crept into the Jenova Room. He could hear Sephiroth talking to his 'mother', but he blocked out the meaning of the words. That didn't matter anymore. Let Sephiroth go insane, for all he cared. It had all happened before.

He made it up the walkway; got right up behind his enemy. Sephiroth was so distracted, staring at the vacant, blue-hued face of his adoptive mother, forehead pressed against the glass to be close to her, that he didn't even notice as Cloud hefted the Buster Sword up and stabbed forward.

He noticed when the blade cleaved a hole in his ribcage, slicing far enough through the bones and organs of the greatest SOLDIER alive to crack the glass of Jenova's tank. Sephiroth's upper body heaved for a moment, and he made a small hrk noise of distress, but that was all. Either he was so far gone he didn't care about pain anymore, or he just couldn't feel it at all.

Cloud's arms shook as he battled with the limitations of his own body to keep the sword up, although having the blade wedged inside Sephiroth's torso was helping.

He heaved the sword out and took several careful steps back. Enough to be out of Masamune's reach. Getting out of Sephiroth's way didn't seem to be a problem, however; without the Buster Sword pinning him to the glass tank, the SOLDIER's legs folded in under him and he collapsed on the floor. Cloud let his sword drop so that the tip rested on the ground for a moment. Between the exhaustion, the head wound and the smoke inhalation, he was going to collapse himself before long. He wasn't going to leave this room, though. He'd made that mistake last time. Tonight, he intended to destroy Sephiroth before he got his hands on Jenova.

In that vein, he hefted the Buster Sword up once more, charged forward, and heaved all of the strength of and weight in his body behind a swing at Sephiroth's head.

Sephiroth was on his feet and turned around faster than Cloud could see, swiping Masamune to block the attack. The thin blade was somehow sturdy enough to parry an attack from the much larger Buster Sword – and then Sephiroth's other hand came up and punched him in the solar plexus.

The air escaped Cloud's chest so hard it almost hurt more than slamming into the wall on the other side of the room. The Buster Sword crashed somewhere out of his immediate reach – which actually wasn't that far away, because it was all Cloud could do now to remember how breathing worked.

There was a banging sound across the room, which meant that Sephiroth was trying to break Jenova's tank open, but Cloud couldn't get up to stop him because he couldn't feel any of his limbs. The only thing he could feel was how agonisingly empty his lungs were, and how broken his ribs were, and how likely it was that he was about to die right here, in the past, and never get to see Tifa or Zack or Aerith or anyone else ever again.

He managed to clench his fists, sipping tiny breaths of air, and then shift his arms as he swallowed down bigger and bigger puffs, and he was starting to feel like he might actually be able to get up on his feet again sometime in the near future when he opened his eyes and saw Sephiroth standing right in front of him, Jenova's head in one hand and Masamune in the other.

He hadn't even heard the tank smash, but it must have, because it was broken into jagged shards behind Sephiroth, and Jenova's upper body was drenched in blue blood from her beloved son hacking her head off. Sephiroth was dripping with blood, too: blue and red. His shoulders were hunched and his breathing choked, and it occurred to Cloud that he could still feel pain after all, just before it occurred to him what Sephiroth was about to do next.

'Fuck—'

He rolled aside as Sephiroth stabbed, just avoiding the end of Masamune. He wobbled to his feet faster than he thought he should, considering how difficult he was still finding it to suck air down his throat, but Sephiroth was probably finding it harder and he could still fight better than Cloud.

Sephiroth didn't move for a moment, and for that moment Cloud actually looked him full in the face. For all that this man looked, at best, like only the ghost of Sephiroth, Cloud's tongue tasted suddenly bitter at the knowledge that he had cleaved that hole in his friend's stomach. Without a sword in them, his hands began to tremble.

'It was different this time,' he said. Sephiroth's wounds must have been hindering him more than Cloud had thought, because he wasn't taking the opportunity to attack. He actually took a tremulous step back.

'Why would you do this?' Cloud cried, opening his arms to gesture to everything: the blood on the walls, the smashed glass; the distant, burning remains of Nibelheim. 'You weren't alone this time; it wasn't just you with her screaming in your head. You had us!'

Sephiroth jerked and Cloud flinched, but there was no attack. His voice rose in volume, and he could barely control what he was saying anymore. All he wanted to do was scream, and tear everything away. He wanted to go back to Costa del Sol, and the Gold Saucer, and to do everything that he had been doing for the last two years with Zack and Sephiroth, without spending every waking moment planning what he had to do next to prevent this disaster, and every sleeping moment having nightmares about it.

'You had Zack! And Aerith! You had—' his voice cracked, '—me.'

His eyes were watering and he brushed the tears away fiercely, because if he started crying now he wouldn't be able to see Sephiroth properly to keep fighting him. But even Sephiroth was looking weary now, arms sagging and head lowering. His fingers were loosening in Jenova's hair.

'I was supposed to change everything; I was supposed to save you from this. All of this.' Cloud just let the next tears come, because Sephiroth was about to fall down anyway. 'It was supposed to be different this time. I'm so sorry.'

He pressed a hand against his eyes, more to ease the pain in his head than to wipe the tears away, and then Sephiroth lunged and stabbed Masaume into his stomach.

'Ugh!'

Cloud now understood why Sephiroth hadn't screamed. You just couldn't; everything hurt too much to scream.

'Don't… test me,' Sephiroth growled, and Cloud thought,

I don't need to. I know what happens next.

Sephiroth shifted his shoulder and managed to turn Masamune so that Cloud was lifted right off of the ground. The already unbearable pain somehow became worse, sending flashes of white into Cloud's vision and spikes of hurt right up through his spine and into his shoulders and chest, because his whole body was balanced on that one tiny, torn open spot in his torso.

For the first time in this fight, Cloud had true conviction, if only to end this torturous feeling. He raised his quivering arms and grasped the blade with both hands. The edge bit into his fingers but he really didn't care because it was nothing compared to the pain spearing through the rest of his body, so he tightened them enough that they wouldn't slip on the blood and drew himself slowly downwards, howling as he did it out of rage as much as agony.

Sephiroth spent a moment too long staring in shock: by the time he was ready to react, Cloud's feet were on the floor and he was twisting his body – and the sword with it – and Sephiroth was thrown from his own feet and down into the depths of the reactor core.

Into the Lifestream.

Cloud's vision was blurring and his knees were starting to buckle. His fingers fumbled on the sword and somehow managed to draw it out of his body, leaving a bleeding hole behind. He stuffed his fist against it to keep some of the blood in, and tried to make his way out of the Jenova Room, back towards Zack and Tifa. He could still get Zack out of here now. He could still change one life…

He fell backwards and everything went white.