A/N: Yeeeup. Cloud was perfect for this one.
Disclaimer: Final Fantasy VII Characters and Places belong to Square Enix.
Ever since he was small, Cloud Strife wanted to be a hero.
His mother used to read him stories of knights protecting damsels in distress, and after each story he'd stay up late into the night playing out being the knight, protecting the damsel Tifa.
Of course, when she learned of these games she had laughed at him and called him weird.
As he grew older, he would start to protect things that couldn't protect themselves. Like the cat and her litter behind the pub. Or the smaller kids who only just wanted to play with the bigger kids as the bigger kids were their idols.
Yet those kids would throw rocks at him and call him stupid for interrupting their game, and that cat with her litter died in the winter due to the cold and starvation.
So he left Nibelheim to become a great hero and protect the people from their vicious enemies, whether that be the people from the far off country of Wutai, or from the terrorist group out to get ShinRa.
Yet the bigger, meaner recruits in the base would push him around, call him weak, pathetic, girlish. He'd be beaten, kicked when he was down, and even molested.
Then he was assigned on a mission with his best friend and his hero, Zack and Sephiroth. They would go to Nibelheim to look at the reactor and see what was causing all the monsters to attack the small town that he had grown up in, protecting them.
He couldn't even fight against the monsters, hiding in the dark as his stomach lurched from the after effects of the car sickness, feeling green and small.
Then Sephiroth went crazy and started to attack the people of the town, setting everything on fire and heading towards the reactor. Zack followed after him, and Cloud followed after Zack, knowing that Tifa had gone after his hero when he had killed her father in cold blood.
Yet he only made it to see Tifa bleeding on the ground, looking like a corpse, Zack flying out of the back room only to hit one of the pods that held the humanoid monsters, head thwacking against the metal, knocking him unconscious.
He attacked Sephiroth in revenge for his mother, for Tifa's father, for Tifa, for Zack, for the village, for everything.
He couldn't protect himself from being impaled and tossed like garbage into the metal wall, knocking him unconscious.
He was tested on, prodded and poked and stabbed and recorded for the scientist Hojo, who'd always given him bad vibes, who always stared after the recruits like they were lab rats.
He could only watch as Zack went through the same torment.
He could only listen as Zack spoke to the truck driver, talking about what they would do once they reached Midgar, City of Despair and Dreams.
He could only listen as his best friend was shot down for trying to save them both.
He watched as Tifa cried out in horror as he fell towards his doom to the underground below.
He met the one girl that he could protect, wearing pink and a smile and dirt under her nails.
He struggled against the voice whispering in his ear to give it to him give it to him give it to him.
He cried out internally as he watched his traitorous hand give the Black Materia to the corpse-like, quiet visage of Sephiroth.
He ran up to her on the altar, fighting with himself when he almost stabbed her; winning against himself in the end, feeling thankful that no danger was around them.
He watched in complete horror as the seven-foot blade sliced through her stomach, the man in leather and nightmares smiling behind her, looking accomplished as she fell forward in death, ribbon falling loose, White Materia falling to the earth below the water.
Ever since he was small, Cloud Strife wanted to be a hero.
And yet he always failed in protecting what he wanted to protect the most.