14. Beware of Forgetfulness

"Welcome to the Gold Saucer!"

The admission lady beamed, as Cloud approached. The gate was flashy, neon, overwhelmingly bright; but the park was inside a huge dome, which would be dimly lit. Night was forever in this park.

"Ooh, this is my first time in an amusement park!" Yuffie said, rubbing her palms together and eyes glinting with mischievous excitement.

Cloud frowned. "We're not –"

"Yeah, yeah, I know," Yuffie waved him off, rolling her eyes. "We're not here to play. We're looking for Sephiroth, yeah?"

"How do you want to do this?" Red XIII purred by his legs. He was half-hiding in the shadows like he usually did; despite his bright red fur and flickering drops of fire on his tail, he never attracted unwanted attention.

"I guess we have to ask around," Cloud said, wishing that there was a different way, something less crude. "Let's split up to cover more ground."

"I'm goin' alone. I need time to think," Barret said. He took a ticket from Cloud's hand, and disappeared through the busy crowd before they could say anything. The concurrence of people and bright lights hid him fast.

"Do you think he's okay?" Aerith said, looking towards his disappeared back.

"He'll be fine. He just needs some time," Tifa said, sounding like she wanted to convince herself. Cloud hoped she was right.

"I'm gonna go alone, too!" Yuffie said. "I – uh – also need time to think."

"You need –" Cloud fought the urge to sigh. "No. Someone's going with you to look after you."

"Hey!" Yuffie had her hands on her hips at that, indignant and fiery. "I'm not some kid that needs looking after!"

"Yeah? How old are you?" Cloud asked.

"I'm like – old!"

"How old?"

"Old."

She was stubborn, alright. Cloud narrowed his eyes, was about to say something when Tifa said, "I'll go with you, Yuffie."

She was smiling serenely, taking Yuffie's arm. Yuffie flinched; she opened her mouth as if to protest, but took in Tifa's placid look and gave up.

"Okay, fine – if you really want to –"

"I really do."

Then Tifa shot a look at Cloud that he didn't know how to interpret. But it felt like a promise, or a plea, and he nodded; be careful, or maybe, find Sephiroth.

"C'mon, Red!" Yuffie said, her cheers recovered, darting into the crowd in a second. Cloud didn't know why he'd bothered to pay for her ticket as well.

"Good luck," he told Tifa. Tifa laughed (scoffed) and jogged after Yuffie and Red XIII.

Which meant that –

"Looks like it's you and me," Aerith was smiling.

"Yeah," Cloud said, suddenly confused; there was a twin set of heartbeats over his own, a voice in his head, Aerith's eyes so green and wide, wide enough to get lost. "Looks like – uh, let's go."

The noise, the people, the lights, lost their individual meanings; they were one, and just a background.

"Let's," Aerith said, taking Cloud's arm like Tifa had done with Yuffie. Cloud felt confused; as much as the outside cacophony was merging and becoming one around them, he could feel each cell in his body, their replication. Heartbeats.

He stared at the light pink cotton candy a kid was holding, instead. Distractions.

"This feels like a date, doesn't it? Gosh, Cloud – you okay?"

"Yeah," Cloud had started to choke on nothing, but covered it up as a cough; thankfully. "Yeah, it's just – the people – I mean, the air's a little thick here."

Aerith laughed, like she knew something he didn't. "We had that deal, too," she said.

"Deal?"

"Mm-hm. You be my bodyguard, and –"

"Oh, yeah, that." Cloud said, feeling a little flustered. "But this is not really – you know, 'cause we're looking for Sephiroth."

"Yeah," Aerith smiled, her eyes folding up in half-moons. "So I guess I'll still owe you that one date? After all this is over."

Cloud nodded, for a lack of a better thing to do. "Let's think about that later," he said. He still had that odd twin-heartbeat, that half-hallucination (when was it going to stop?), and the air really was thick around here. There were lots of noises, too: laughter and talk and yelling among cheerful binging, beeping, crunching sounds. Music and machine-voices yelling Good luck! – Cloud felt his head throbbing, even though technically SOLDIERS didn't get headaches.

They were keeping a lookout for Sephiroth, which was getting more and more absurd. Sephiroth wouldn't be here – in the middle of all this – but there was this feeling he had, that kept him going despite reasons. If Aerith thought it weird, she didn't say anything.

Then someone was tapping him on the shoulder.

"Hey, boy," said a booming voice right in his ear, before Cloud had even turned around. Aerith had been coming back from asking a cotton-candy man about Sephiroth, so she saw it – him – first.

"Boy?" Cloud muttered, as he turned around. It was a man, the weirdest man he'd ever seen (including Don Corneo, which was saying something); he looked like he was wearing a piece of quilt – just a lot of cloths sewn together for no particular purpose. The colors didn't match, nor did the materials. Cotton, silk, chiffon, velvet –

"How is it, you having fun?" The man grinned. His voice boomed like Barret's.

"Sure," Cloud said, suspicious. Aerith had come to stand by him, looking at the man with fascination like she was seeing aliens.

"Now, I been watching you, and I know that ain't true!" The man said, gleeful. Cloud thought he would have goosebumps by now, if his skin wasn't Mako-enhanced.

"You – you've been watching us?"

"Nothing personal," the man waved his hands in front of his face. Cloud didn't know what that was supposed to be – an appeasement? Assurance? "But I seen you askin' around a lot bout somethin'… and not having real fun! And you don't wanna disappoint the lady friend there, eh?" He winked – or tried to. Aerith laughed; she was kind that way.

"Who are you? What do you care?" Cloud asked. He almost had to yell, to be heard over all the noise.

"Me?" The man brightened, like he was just waiting for Cloud to ask this question. "I'm the owner of the Gold Saucer."

Cloud suddenly did not trust the dome and the machines around him anymore. "You're the owner?"

"Yeah, one and only! The name's Dio, but you can just call me Dio."

"You just said your name was Dio."

"Yes?" Dio looked honestly puzzled; Cloud gave up, and Aerith bit her lips not to burst out laughing. Dio gave him a dazzling grin nonetheless.

"So, boy –" Cloud wished he would stop calling him that. " – What were you askin' around for, anyway?"

Cloud and Aerith looked at each other. Cloud shrugged; they might as well ask him, too.

"Sir, have you seen a weird man around here lately?" Aerith asked, smiling sweetly. "Long silver hair, black cloak –"

"Oh, hey!" Dio said, suddenly. "I knew it! You guys in the same band or something?"

"What?" Cloud stopped cold. Dio, of all people – but that feeling was growing stronger, a malicious whisper at the back of his skull. Taunting, almost, but he couldn't make out the exact words.

"You know what a Black Materia is?" Dio said.

"Black Materia?" Cloud looked at Aerith, and knew that they were both thinking the same thing; Aerith's White Materia, the one she kept in her jacket pocket. Materia usually didn't come in one color; he'd thought Aerith's was odd, because it was all white, and now Dio was asking about a Black one.

"Why do you ask?" He said, cautiously, searching for something in Dio's plain, hearty face.

"Well, this other boy you mentioned – he came looking for Black Materia, that's all. I thought you might know what it was, since I didn't."

"Why did he ask you?" Aerith asked. Her voice was neutral and pleasant, but Cloud knew that there was tension in it that wasn't there before. White Materia – Black Materia – it was adding up to something in his head, he just didn't know what that was.

"I dunno," Dio shrugged. "Guess he recognized me as the owner?"

"Are you sure he had – long silver hair and a black cloak?" Cloud asked.

"Absolutely! The longest hair I've ever seen on a man, I tell ya. And… a tattoo on his hand."

"A tattoo? On his hand?" Cloud blinked.

"Cloud?" Aerith asked. "Does he –"

Cloud tried to remember; he'd never seen a tattoo on Sephiroth's hand, but then he couldn't remember seeing his hand at all. All he could remember were those black leather gloves that he'd always had on. Always.

"What… what did it look like? The tattoo, I mean," Cloud asked.

"Well, it might not of been a tattoo. Maybe he drew it with a sharpie. But it was just a black line, straight, letter I or maybe L. It's just – it was so black, y'know?"

A black line – that reminded him of –

"Could it have been a number?" He heard himself ask. "Number One." Of all the questions, he didn't know why he'd asked this, or why he suddenly thought of that man in the sewer, with a tattooed number two on his forehead.

"Huh. Yeah, that'd work too." Dio nodded to himself.

"Where did he go?" Aerith asked. Dio shrugged, the manic grin returning to his face.

"Oh, I have no idea."

"When was this, though?"

"Just moments ago."

"So he could still be –"

Cloud looked around, fervent; a glimpse of a black cloak – his silver hair – but there were so many people.

But Sephiroth was here, somewhere. They were so close. Cloud felt his heartbeats again, only it wasn't like the last time; heavy, echoing, lethal.

Cloud and Aerith wandered through the endless strings of people, eyes so strained that they had started to hurt. Cloud barely noticed the sign on the gate as they walked into yet another colorful game-zone, in search of Sephiroth. Wonder Square. It didn't really matter what it was called, though; he was getting more and more anxious, imagining Sephiroth slipping away, between his fingers again. A blink, then he was gone; like the last time. He couldn't let that happen.

The color theme of this square was deep blue, rolling waves of indigo and azure like the sea, or night. As soon as they entered, though, a squeaky voice called from behind them.

"Hey, you! What're you lookin' so down for?"

Cloud really wanted to ignore this and move on, but the voice was insistent. Now other people were turning their way too, wondering what the commotion was. So Cloud and Aerith finally had to turn around and face –

It wasn't a weird man in a patched-up clown suit, but it was – in fact, not a man at all. Cloud stared at a blinking cat-shaped toy for a while, wondering what he could say.

"A talking cat," Aerith said from beside him.

"A talking toy cat," Cloud amended. The cat wheeled around, bouncing up and down. It was sitting on a large, robotic moogle that even blinked mechanically from time to time. Cloud first thought it – he – was like Red XIII, but soon realized that it wasn't. It was a machine, not a living species of talking animals.

"How 'bout it?" The cat said, when Cloud didn't say anything for a while. "Want me to read your fortune? A bright future! A happy future!"

"Fortune? No –"

"Oh, yeah!" The cat cut him off. "I'm a fortune telling machine! The name's Cait Sith." The cat bounced excitedly; it was making Cloud dizzy, just listening to it talk, and it reminded him of Yuffie a little too.

"You can only read the future?" Aerith said. Cloud didn't know why she was humoring Cait Sith, but Aerith threw him a look that said something (girls with their looks, seriously, did they expect him to understand everything?); so Cloud watched, silent and impatient.

Cait Sith laughed. "You kidding? I can find missing things, missing people, anything!"

"Okay, then – tell us where a man named Sephiroth is."

"Sephiroth?" Cait Sith did a funny twirl mid-air. "Okay, here goes!"

Cloud didn't really believe that the talking cat-machine had real fortune telling powers, but he still felt a tiniest flutter of anxiety as Cait Sith bounced about, muttering something under his breath.

A tiny square piece of paper was printed out from the white moogle's mouth. Cloud tore it off.

"Ordinary luck. Give into the good will of others, and something big will happen after summer… wait, what's this?"

The tiniest flutter died, miserably, in his chest. Cait Sith snatched away the paper from Cloud's hands, surprisingly fast.

"Sorry, wrong paper! Let me try again – and – here!"

Another paper. Cloud glared at the toy cat but read the paper; Cait Sith would just chase him around until he read it, anyway.

"Be careful of forgetfulness. Lucky color: blue."

The strangest thing. Here was a fleeting image of a smile; it was blue, light blue and cerulean and aquamarine all mixed into one indescribable shade of blue. Eyes? The color of the sky?

But it passed to quickly to hold down into a memory. Almost like it never happened at all, like a blink of an eye you didn't remember.

" – Forget it," Cloud turned away, feeling slightly dizzy. But Cait Sith shrieked behind him, "Wait, wait, wait! Give me another chance! The last chance!"

Cloud forced himself to look back. There was already another paper rolling out. He sighed, as he snatched it up. "Last time."

Then he read,

What you pursue will be yours. But you will lose something dear.

Cloud looked up, suddenly feeling something heavy in his chest. The first thing he saw were Aerith's eyes. She was smiling, a little puzzled, a little worried. He had to control his expression – but what was this, this premonition?
"What, what is it?" Cait Sith asked. Cloud gave the paper to him, absently. It was stupid; of course he would lose something dear. He'd prepared for it. Anyone could say it, just some generic line that could be interpreted however you liked.

"Hmm," Cait Sith said. "This is the first time I ever got something like this."

"It doesn't mean anything," Cloud shrugged. Tried to sound nonchalant. He didn't meet Aerith's eyes.

"Well, then, shall we?" Cait Sith said, his tone returning to chirpy. Cloud blinked; all thoughts of the ominous fortune temporarily left his brain.

"Shall we what? What are you talking about?"

"As a fortune teller, I can't help but think about what this means," Cait Sith explained, like he was explaining something very rudimental to a child. "If I don't see where it leads, I won't be able to sleep at nights."

"Do you even sleep?" Aerith asked, amused laughter in her voice.

"Not the point. So, anyway, that's why I'm gonna go with you!"

"No," Cloud said and turned around. He walked fast, Aerith following close behind. Not that it did anything; Cait Sith was just as fast on his flying moogle, and very loud.

"Hey! I'm comin' with you no matter what you say –!"

And he really did; they couldn't shake him off. He was there whenever Cloud looked back, with his moogle and his squeaky voice. Nothing, nothing they did could throw it off. Cloud realized that nothing will, short of crushing it – and he didn't want to do that. So, after an hour, he finally gave up.

"It's cute, isn't it?" Aerith laughed, glancing back at Cait Sith.

"I'm glad you're enjoying this, at least," Cloud muttered.

He was already starting to forget about that piece of paper. It probably meant nothing – just his frayed senses overreacting. Cloud was weary of the possibility that it had been a ruse by Cait Sith, so he could follow them, but for what reason? Anyway, he had other things to worry about.

Cloud did his cursory glance at the gate. Battle Square. It was one of the last ones, and he walked in with Aerith, Cait Sith tagging along a few steps back. He had a rush of nausea as the smell hit him first. Didn't register right away, though; what he saw first was blue. The familiar helmet of a Shinra infantryman.

He almost started turning back, but something was off; too quiet; there was no music in this zone. No one at the front hall, but one Shinra soldier sitting slumped on a chair.

"What is Shinra doing here?" Aerith whispered, but in the sudden silence it rang too clearly.

And then Cloud realized what the smell was, seeing the blood pooled around the soldier's legs. The color theme of this zone was red. Crimson red that burned the eyes. The blood of the soldier was only a shade darker, hardly noticeable.

"He's dead," Cloud said.

"What?"

"He's –"

A waft of wind, where it shouldn't be; and Cloud smelled this also, this coarse thing that curled and nestled in his nose and brain. He was running up the stairs in a second, pushing doors open. He barely heard Aerith and Cait Sith following him. The door to the main hall was open. Cloud stopped dead in front of so many – dead.

He couldn't even count them all. Shinra soldiers, employees of the Gold Saucer. The room was eerily quiet; had taken death, to silence the amusement park. It was heavy and metallic from all the blood. And Cloud just stared at them all.

He heard Aerith gasp, when she finally arrived. "Did… did Sephiroth do this?" She asked, voice hushed.

Cloud forced himself to look closer; his breaths were coming quickly. He never really liked red; red dried out blue like fire evaporating water.

"No – it's not him," he said, taking a deep breath (smell of blood –), wondering if he should be relieved that it wasn't Sephiroth, at least. "They've all been shot. Sephiroth doesn't use guns."

Just then, there was a moan; so small that Cloud thought he had imagined it at first. Cloud hurried over to the sound. One of the Gold Saucer worker was still alive, but he knew that she didn't have a chance anymore. She was clutching at the hole in her chest, gulping out blood. She saw Cloud kneel in front of her and her eyes went round, desperate, hopeful, desolate. Cloud thought he might burst, but he held her gaze.

"Who did this to you?"

"A…" The woman swallowed, coughed, bled. "A man… with a gun… on his arm…"

"On his arm?" Cloud heard Aerith ask, voice fearful. But no way; there was no way that…

"For… For his arm. A gun for his…" Her eyes started drifting. Cloud thought of Jessie, because she had the same eyes. It was happening all over again; but he didn't look away.

"Hold it right there!" A sudden voice boomed. Cloud shot up his head, only to find several security guards pointing their guns at them.

There were too many; a dead-end. Cloud got up quickly, hands in the air. "It wasn't us, we found –"

"Shut up!" One of the guards yelled, his voice frantic; afraid. Cloud realized what they must look like now, among so many corpses, drenched in blood.

"Oh, no, it's gonna get ugly…" Cait Sith squeaked. He tried to flee, then, bouncing on his moogle. One of the guards reacted impulsively, swinging the butt of his gun straight for Cait Sith. Cloud could see that he was going to break him, the toy-machine, and before he knew it he was running towards them, grabbing and pulling the cat out of the way. The gun came down on Cloud instead. A blow to the head; he wasn't going to die – SOLDIERS were more resilient than that – but still he cursed himself as he felt himself falling unconscious, fast. Risking his life for a fraud of a fortune telling machine. A toy cat. It was probably a very stupid thing to do.

Except, he couldn't have borne it if Cait Sith had been crushed in front of him. That was sort of like a death, wasn't it? Even if he was a machine. And Cloud had had enough of death for a while, now. He was just tired.

That was his last thought.