Redemption

A Final Fantasy 7/ Lord of the Rings crossover

By: Lazeralk

Standard disclaimers apply.

Once again, ("blah") denotes things said in Sindarin. 'Blah' is the Advents and Cloud sharing thoughts.

Went back and added a few new scenes to the OMAKE! Check it out.

(*NEW*) Not really an update, I just fixed some errors and typos and added a few things to this chapter. Still working on the paths of the dead, which is a bit frustrating for me because I have to rely on movie cannon for the next chapter. See you next time! ~Laz

0o0o0

The sound of hooves striking the ground called the party to a halt and, like the well-trained cavalry that they were, the Rohirrim turned as one to face the approaching party, weapons drawn. The moonlight glinted off spearheads and in the dark and Cloud spared a glance for Merry as the small hobbit gulped audibly and drew his short sword.

"Halt! Who rides in Rohan?" called Èomer, his booming voice echoing over the hills.

They watched in tense silence, waiting for an attack, as the newcomers brought their horses to a halt and a single rider dismounted. His palm was very white in the dark as he strode forward. He halted a good distance away, but not so far that they would not hear him if he spoke.

"Rohan did you say? That is a glad word. We seek that land in haste from afar." He said, and though he addressed Éomer, his eyes were fixed off to the side of the Rohiric prince, where four sets of bright eyes glowed unnaturally back at him through the dark.

"You have found it." Said Éomer. "When you crossed the fords yonder, you entered it. This is the realm of Théoden the King. None ride here save by his leave. Who are you? And what is your haste?"

"Halbarad Dúnadan, Ranger of the North I am." Announced the man. "We seek Aragorn son of Arathorn, and we heard he was in Rohan."

"And you have found him also!" cried Aragorn happily as he threw his reins to Merry and ran forwards to embrace the man. "Halbarad! Of all joys this is the least expected!"

Spears were raised and swords put away on all sides. The company was merged and thirty new riders joined the Rohirrim. Cloud and the Advents kept as close to Elrohir and Elladan as they could, and ended up riding with Aragorn and the Dúnedain. They reunited kinsmen chatted happily as they rode, catching up on the time they'd been apart.

The company settled down once they reached the Hornburg, as they'd ridden clean through the night. Cloud sent a brush of wordless thought towards his brothers, and they all looked at him. He settled himself down on a broken piece of the wall and adjusted First Tsurugi more comfortably, knowing that they were coming to join him. Elrohir and Elladan also joined him and he briefly considered asking them to leave before he realized what a useless effort that would be. A question had been turning over and over in his mind for days and he'd finally become annoyed enough with his inability to answer it that he was willing to just ask. Kadaj watched him, mako bright eyes glowing against the dark of pre-dawn. Scowling in self-depreciation, he plucked up his legendary, and yet somehow absent, courage and opened his mouth.

"Do you…? I mean, you three are all technically… pieces of Sephiroth right? Clones? …Did you get his memories?" asked Cloud awkwardly, studiously not meeting any of their eyes.

"Aniue's memories? Why would you think that Ni-san? We are different than Aniue. Of course we don't have the same memories." Answered Kadaj in confusion, tilting his head adorably.

"How is that even possible? You can't have memories from two different people in one person's head. Wouldn't you go crazy or something?" said Yazoo, scowling into the fire.

"Don't you three share memories though?" asked Cloud, eyes flicking towards Yazoo and then darting away, a tight ache in his chest. Crazy was one way of putting it.

"Yes, but once that memory comes into my mind it becomes my memory."

"What if you have two memories of the same moment, one from your perspective and one from, say, Loz's perspective. Can you distinguish which is yours and which is Loz's?" pressed Cloud, the trio of green eyed SOLDIERS unaware of how much their answers would mean to him.

"Yes, Loz's memories have a totally different feel to them." Answered Yazoo, as if it should be obvious.

"In what way?" pushed Cloud, blue eyes boring into the middle child. An eavesdropping Elladan and Elrohir quietly shifted themselves into more comfortable positions next to the quartet of SOLDIERS, thoroughly intrigued and a little afraid to interrupt. Yazoo's eyes narrowed in a way that said he was going to be difficult. Kadaj leaned forward and smiled at his sardonic brother in a way that said he'd better knock it off before he turned to Cloud and answered.

"A memory is more than just a picture. It's a combination of image, sounds, smells, and feelings. When Loz gives me a memory, I see it through the veil of his unique perspective. I get more than just the situation, I get how he felt about it, what details his mind picked out as noteworthy, what smells were the most interesting. Maybe I would have noticed different things, different smells, or colors or whatever. I can tell it's not mine. Like…say you and I painted the exact same thing. The subject is the same I mean. You'd be able to tell which painting was your and which was mine right? Because when you look at something you see it just slightly differently than I do. From those differences you can tell the memories apart."

"Are you having trouble sorting out our shared memories Ni-san?" asked Loz. It didn't occur to Cloud that Loz's voice sounded a bit strained, or that Yazoo was studiously ignoring him and almost glaring at Loz.

"No, not our memories." Said Cloud quietly, shifting uncomfortably. Not willingly shared memories anyway.

"Zack's." guessed Kadaj, thinking back to the time when he taught Cloud how to summon the Lurkers. Cloud nodded tersely, the muscles in his neck and arms taunt with nerves.

"Zack was your friend from SOLDIER who helped you get adjusted when you were training right?" asked Loz, blinking owlishly in confusion.

"Yeah."

"How did you end up with his memories?" asked Kadaj, something like bitter jealously coiling through his voice like a serpent poised to strike. Cloud was silent for a moment, the frown on his face betraying his inner conflict. He kept his eyes averted, not sure if he'd have the courage to say what he was thinking if he had to look into anyone's eyes.

"He gave them to me, just before he died. Aerith says I've got a small piece of his soul, and that's why he can't fully integrate with the Lifestream and go on to be reborn. As long as I'm still alive, Zack's spirit is stuck in the Promised Land with Aerith. Not that he minds."

"How though? He was your friend, not your brother." Said Yazoo, losing some of his now customary hostility to curiosity. Kadaj turned his face into the night to hide his snarl. Cloud bit his lip and silently yelled at himself to stop being such a coward. He'd already come to the conclusion that if this…family…thing… was going to go anywhere, he had to actually talk to them. He'd gotten such a good reaction from them when he'd told them a little about his childhood in Lothlorien and it made him want to try again. Still, he hesitated. This was…entirely different from being picked on as a kid in Nibelheim. The twins shifted as unobtrusively as they could, focusing on not drawing attention to themselves as they listened to what had to be the most important conversation their young charges could have so far.

'Aerith…' he called, just a whisper of a plea. He wasn't even sure what he was asking her for.

'I'm here.' She answered, the soothing scent of her flowers rising up around him comfortingly. He took a deep breath, savoring the fragrance, and then let it out. He could do this. He had to.

"Hojo. He was trying to make us both clones. He injected us with some chemical cocktail that made our minds more…open I guess. Combine that with all the physical modifications and the DNA transplants and all the mako…well, it wasn't very pretty at the end. I was getting Zack's memories and…his memories. It got to the point where I didn't even know who I was anymore."

"I felt like that too. When Jenova opened me up to Aniue, I couldn't tell where I stopped and he began. It was really scary." Admitted Kadaj, a self-depreciating smile on his face as he stared down at his wrung hands, his jealously of Zack momentarily forgotten. The twins frowned in confusion, not quite following.

"We couldn't feel you then. It was like he swallowed you up, and you weren't there anymore. I was so afraid you'd never come back." Said Loz with a quiet sob, tears dripping slowly down his face as he scooted over to his smallest brother and hugged him tightly.

"Don't cry Loz. I came back. Ni-san brought me back. Don't cry." Whispered Kadaj, rocking the bigger man gently and petting his hair in a sort of futilely helpless gesture. Loz just clung to him, tears making tracks down his face with abandon. Yazoo sighed and shifted so that he was pressed against the burly man's side in a silent gesture of support.

"What happened exactly? How did you end up with Hojo?" asked Yazoo, a hand on Loz's back.

"I think the TURKS picked us up. Yeah. Sephiroth stabbed me through the stomach, and then I pushed him into the reactor. Nibelheim was burning. I made it down the mountain and then I think I passed out. When I woke up Zack and I were strapped to tables in the lab underneath the old Shin-Ra mansion in Nibelheim. We spent five years there." Said Cloud, ignoring the mildly alarmed and questioning looks he was getting from the twins. Yazoo was stiff at Loz's side, looking anywhere but Cloud. Loz shifted uncomfortably and sent a glance at Yazoo. Cloud didn't notice, but Kadaj sent a hint of a question through their bond.

'Later.' Yazoo whispered back.

"You got out." Prompted Kadaj, idly stroking Loz's hair to quiet him and silently telling Yazoo he'd hold him to it.

"Yeah. Zack got us out. I remember floating in the mako tank, then Zack shattering the glass around me. He dragged me out. I was pretty useless at that point." He didn't dare say anything about the drugs and the tests and the knives and the blood. He didn't dare mention the horrible ripping sensation of foreign memories tearing his mind to pieces as they tried to take over, or Sephiroth's cruel laughter as he mocked him through the Jenova cells they shared.

"Being submerged in mako will do that. I remember the showers we had to go through. It burns like acid all over, but the nerve endings don't die from it so it just keeps hurting and hurting…" said Kadaj, his fingers now clenched tightly in Loz's hair as he relived a little of his childhood. Cloud shuddered too, he's had his fair share of mako showers. The silence seemed to creep over them like a heavy awkward thing then. Even the twins were quiet, heads bowed as they considered all the strange new things they'd learned of their charges.

Yazoo started at his hands, clasped tightly in front of him, elbows on his knees as he leaned forward. His hair shrouded his face, hiding him from the world as he gently brushed Cloud's mind with his own, seeking the flashes of memory that sometimes bubbled up in the moody blonde when he wasn't concentrating. They were there, parading across his mind in full Technicolor glory. Yazoo pulled back immediately, rubbing his wrists where he could still feel the burn of phantom leather straps like brands on his flesh, the ice cold of stainless steel under the bare skin of his back, and the sharp edge of a scalpel deep inside his chest. His own memories of similar experiences rose to the forefront of his mind and he shuddered in revulsion.

He raised his head and caught Cloud's eyes, burning like stars in the dark. The memory of the scent of Aerith's flowers drifted along the link from the bright glade in Cloud's mind and washed away the tortured fragments of Yazoo's thoughts. The phantom sensations of being back in the labs faded away. Yazoo dipped his head once in acknowledgement and then looked away.

0o0o0

Aragorn was holding a quiet conference with the King, and Cloud shifted restlessly against his seat in the hall of the Hornburg.

'Something is going to change.' He whispered, not sure to whom he was speaking.

'I feel it too Ni-san. What will we do?' answered Kadaj. Loz glanced at him and then went back to his silent conversation with Yazoo.

"Cloud?" asked Elrohir, suddenly appearing at the blonde's side. The elf was dressed and armed, a cloak over his shoulders and a grim expression on his face.

"Estel will ask for those who would join him to ride with him immediately. Elladan and I are going, and as you are and your brothers are in our charge, we ask that you also accompany him."

Cloud blinked and then cast his eyes towards Aragorn, who was speaking to Legolas and Gimli. Suddenly, the ranger stood and drew his sword.

"Come! To the Stone of Erech! I seek the Paths of the Dead! Come with me who will!" he cried.

Cloud nodded at Elrohir and then he and the Advents rose as one and found their horses. Aragorn had already leapt into the saddle of his own mount and with that they were off, riding fast towards Edoras, where they would spend the following night. They rode hard throughout the day, swiftly across the flat plains of Rohan until at last they reached the city. Éowyn greeted them warmly once they came upon the Meduseld and hurried to get them food and lodgings. The party was large enough that they camped just outside the Meduseld and as they settled around their fires to eat, Aragorn conferred quietly with the twins. Cloud noticed that the three of them cast glances in his direction and felt the familiar twinge of nerves beginning to itch between his shoulder blades.

"So Cloud, we have all been wildly curious about your sword." Said Elladan as he broke away from Aragorn and approached him. Elrohir hummed his agreement as they took seats on either side of Cloud.

"What's this? The mysterious sword-in-pieces is to be explained? This I must hear." Declared Aragorn loudly, bringing with him half the encampment it seemed. Cloud looked around with a mild sort of horror as the people around him swelled and pressed closer. He glared first at Elrohir, then Elladan and finally Aragorn, not sure which one of them was to blame for this, but knowing that one of them must be at fault. Legolas, Gimli and several Dúnedain were all regarding him with hopeful, curious eyes.

"I-"he began; his faintly panicked face saying without words that he was about to refuse them all and then probably stalk off into the trees to get his viciously guarded personal space back.

"I want to hear too Ni-san!" exclaimed Kadaj, his eyes impossibly huge as he looked up his beloved brother adorningly. 'Please?'

Cloud glared at him, then huffed quietly in defeat. If he was going to be forced to talk about something, weapons were a safe enough topic and one that he was secretly very passionate about, particularly concerning his own precious masterpiece of a blade. He drew the massive, fully assembled First Tsurugi off his back and then began to break it into its pieces with military efficiency. He then set all six blades into the ground, point down in a line where everyone gathered could see them.

"This is First Ken. The base." He said as he drew the largest of the pieces out and held it parallel to the ground at about chest height. Then he flicked his wrist and the blade opened somehow to show a hollow center, filled only with a complicated lattice of thin metal and gears.

"If I'm only using First Ken, then I fight with it open." Then he flicked it again and the blade slid shut. First Ken went point down into the dirt. A slightly smaller sword whose handle was built into the blade along one side came to Cloud's hand next.

"This is Sidewinder. The second piece. First Ken and Sidewinder are the only two pieces that are unique. If you look here, you can see that Sidewinder is hollow. The metal was folded so that when I combine it with First Ken, it fits over the blade on both sides." Cloud then turned the sword in his hand to show that the blade was indeed hollow. His audience was fascinated to a one. Cloud reached out for First Ken and then snapped Sidewinder into place over the right side. The combined sword went back into the ground. Cloud then picked up two thinner blades with serrated teeth on one side and a smooth blade on the other.

"These two blades are mirror images of each other. They form the back bone of the main sword and attach to both First Ken and to Sidewinder. They are called Ryuu and Ookami. Dragon and Wolf. " Cloud then set one of the twin swords into the ground and lifted the combined First Ken and Sidewinder. The blade in his hand, Ryuu, was then attached, the base of the hilt resting against the guard on First Ken. Ookami then mirrored its twin on the other side. The whole thing went back into the ground.

"These two are also mirror images of each other. The hilts fold inwards when attached to the main blade." Said Cloud, one of the two much smaller blades in his hands. He demonstrated how the hilt folded up and locked and then was released again.

"They are called Tsume and Kiba, Claw and Fang. They can be ejected from the main blade in a pinch." Cloud then attached both dagger-like short swords to the main blade and demonstrated how they could be launched from the body of the sword with the flick of a tiny locking mechanism set into the gear-like guards of both Tsume and Kiba. The hilts folded outwards and locked in mid-air in a matter of seconds. Cloud deftly caught them, folded them back up and then connected them the base of First Ken. He presented the finished product to his enraptured audience, all blooded warriors and appreciative of fine weapons.

"The completed blade is called First Tsurugi."

"How much does it weigh?" asked a Dunadan, stepping forward slightly. Cloud planted the sword in the ground and stepped back, arching an eyebrow. The man fit his hands around the hilt and heaved with all his strength, but First Tsurugi didn't budge.

"Impossible! How do you wield such a thing?" he asked in astonishment as he eased back from the weapon, shaking his shoulders out. Cloud's expression didn't change, but he stood a little straighter, a swell of pride drawing his shoulders back.

'May I?' whispered Kadaj, turning glowing cat green eyes on his brother's famous weapon. First Tsurugi was just as well known as Masamune on Gaia, and Kadaj's fingers had been itching to try it since he'd first seen the blades glinting from their custom harnesses built into the body of Fenrir. Cloud gave a barely perceptible nod and watched with just a little tension as Kadaj lifted First Tsurugi from the ground. The Dunadan who'd tried before him, broad-shouldered and tall like all the Dúnedain, gaped incredulously at the petite, slender youth who was easily holding a blade that must have weighed more than he did.

"How does your speed not suffer for this?" asked Kadaj as he swung the massive blade a few times to test the weight of it.

"Lots of practice, and lots of mako." He replied. And whatever in Ifrit's hells Hojo did to me, he added silently, careful to keep that particular thought away from his brothers. His hands flexed uselessly as his sides, palms beginning to sweat just a little.

Kadaj eyed him suspiciously for a moment before he reverently returned the blade to its rightful owner, the flat resting on his open palms. Cloud accepted the blade with just as much ceremony, and the tension left his shoulders. It wasn't that he didn't trust Kadaj, but old habits were hard to change. Giving up his weapons to anyone who looked that much like Sephiroth while he just stood there, unarmed, was enough to make his instincts scream.

"Thank you Ni-san." Said Kadaj sweetly, giving his brother his best puppy dog eyes and inching towards him. Cloud huffed, but allowed the smaller man closer, having seen the slow approach for what it was. He reached out a hand and cautiously patted the shining silver hair quickly before he set First Tsurugi down and settled himself for sleep. Kadaj beamed joyfully. The company dispersed back to their seats, talking quietly. Cloud did his best to ignore them. Elladan and Elrohir shared a triumphant smile with Aragorn, who nodded back at them. Cloud ignored them too, focusing on the crackling of their small fire to lull himself to sleep.

They would depart at first light and the Grey Company, which now seemed to include four SOLDIERS, three elves and a dwarf, settled down to sleep as much as they could. Tomorrow, they would face the Paths of the Dead.

0o0o0

Before anyone asks, I pretty much made up the names of all the swords except First Ken and First Tsurugi (which funnily enough, mean the same thing: First Sword, and can even be written with the same kanji 剣.) We never said Cloud was all that creative. Other than the names of the swords, everything else, the shapes and configurations, should be accurate. There is a link to a diagram of First Tsurugi broken down into its pieces and how they all fit together on my profile page.

To the several people who said something about Cloud's age being different: I got a bunch of reviews claiming that Cloud is different ages than what I laid out in my notes, and most of them don't agree. All I can say is that for the purposes of this story it doesn't really matter exactly how old he is. As long as you can see him in your mind's eye as the same age as he is in Advent Children, that's good. I want my stories to be correct according to cannon as much as my plot will allow, but that isn't the most important aspect of the story. Just roll with it and call it AU.

To the person who sent me the link to YouTube: I totally watched On The Way to a Smile. It's neat! Thanks for sharing it with me. Unfortunately, I'm too deep into this story to include the new information from it. It directly contradicts my back-story for the Advents (clones of Seph raised in secret in the labs under Midgar), so I won't be using it.

To the people who asked about Cloud being a WEAPON: I'm sort of winging this one. I'm not sure if I'll have Cloud becoming a WEAPON after all the others WEAPONS are destroyed or after the first time he kills Sephiroth. I'm thinking that from Gaia's POV, anything that can get rid of Jenova is worthy of WEAPON status, dragon or not.

To the person who asked about Cloud cooking for the Advents: he hasn't forgotten, but they're in the middle of a war. Give it some time.