32. Holy

Nanaki bounded across the empty square. Cosmo Canyon looked the same as ever; the same quietness, the same peace. The few people who passed them looked perfectly at peace, too. Cloud wondered if they knew that the outside world was coming to pieces. The air was thick with unperturbed calm. He thought maybe not.

When he mentioned this to Bugenhagen, though, he only got a laugh.

"They know. How could they not? We see the Meteor even from here, in the deepest mountains."

"But they're so, I dunno, calm." Barret murmured. He squirmed in his seat like the calmness was giving him unpleasant pokes.

"What else should we be?" Bugenhagen asked. Barret shrugged. "There is no use worrying. Sometimes there is nothing you can do."

"I remember that one," Nanaki said suddenly. "Not Doing is as difficult as Doing."

"What?" Yuffie frowned. Cloud interrupted her argument before it began.

"Is that what you're going to tell us, too? That there's nothing we can do?"

Cid's face got violent. He looked suspiciously at Bugenhagen, who was laughing again. His ancient, strong voice and laughter hadn't changed. "You've changed," he told Cloud. Cloud only shrugged. He suspected that the old man knew anyway.

"So? Did we come all the way here for nothing?" Cid prompted. Bugenhagen shook his head slowly.

"Nothing is for nothing. If you came here, then you must have had reason."

"We thought maybe you could… help with your magic." Tifa said cautiously.

"My magic?" Bugenhagen looked surprised. Cloud couldn't help but feel something die in his chest, where a small hope used to be. He'd thought he was done hoping.

"Because the humans did it their way. It didn't work." Nanaki said. He sounded a little impatient.

"Or you made it not work." Bugenhagen said calmly.

"Are you sayin' that we shouldn't of… that what we did was wrong?" Barret interjected, looking angry. Bugenhagen didn't answer this way or that. He picked up the cup of tea in front of him, still warm and smelling distantly sweet. Cloud looked at the cup in his hand but his had already lost all the warmth. Cosmo Canyon wasn't as cold as Nibelheim, but still frost crowded in the corners of windows and the fireplace blew white steams across them.

"But can you help us?" His voice sounded wrong. Bugenhagen looked at him like he was grieving someone's death.

"You're lost, son." Bugenhagen said, simply. Cloud couldn't argue. "I can see… but it's all inside you."

Cloud tried to speak, then tried again. "What? What's inside me?"

Bugenhagen didn't answer that question. He didn't speak for a long time, until even Vincent was raising his eyebrows. Barret looked about to explode, and Cid was staring murder at the irregular rhythm of the fire. When he finally spoke again, it was with an authority that they couldn't refuse, but what he said was nothing special. Cloud could have told himself the same. "When you're lost, look inside yourself."

Cloud bit back a sigh, just as Cid exploded in a series of colorful curses. Bugenhagen patiently listened to Cid ramble on about lost time and the end of the world, stroking his white beard like there was nothing else he'd rather do. When Cid was out of curses and fume, Bugenhagen sent them away to meditate.

"Come back in a few days," he said cheerfully. Vincent was staring at the old man dubiously. Nanaki opened his mouth to protest, but Bugenhagen silenced him with a wave of his hand.

"Take them to Pola, Nanaki, she'll give them work to do. Sometimes the truth is only reached by going sideways."

Cloud wanted to argue, too. He wanted to talk about death and destruction and the debris of the Meteor raining on their heads and blood that was going to splatter everywhere. About madness, in Sephiroth's eyes, and desperation. Lost memories and hopelessness. Stolen thoughts –

But Bugenhagen seemed to know everything. He looked at Cloud like he knew, and all the words melted inside his mouth like the strawberry-flavored sweets he used to like as a child. He thought about refusing and going on the road again, but there was nowhere he could go. Nowhere he could lead them to. So he nodded and followed Nanaki, who was looking confused. After a short hesitation and an exchange of looks, the others followed him too.

- L.

The woman called Pola, as it turned out, was an outsider too. She'd been meditating in Cosmo Canyon for three years now. She smiled when she saw them, a big smile, and dropped the pot she had been holding. Cloud was suddenly reminded of his mother. She seemed genuinely pleased to have guests, and Barret couldn't understand it.

"Haven't you heard, the world's comin' to an end?"

"Oh, the Meteor, I heard." She said, picking up the broken pieces of the crockery on the floor. Cloud bent over to help her. A sharp edge of a piece cut his finger, and a tiny bead of blood clung to the end like a ripe fruit (a dumb apple). "Be careful, dear," Pola said. Cloud didn't answer. If his mother had lived, she might have been around the same age as this woman. Though she would never come here to meditate – she had believed in God that he could not see.

"Don't bother, Barret. She's probably gonna say there ain't nothing she can do about it." Cid said, not even trying to hide the sarcasm. The woman only smiled and offered him a cup of tea from a second pot on the stove. That appeased Cid a little bit.

"You may be bitter now, but you'll be surprised at how much you can learn from meditation. All in a few days, you'll see."

"How does that work?" Yuffie asked. She feigned condescension but Cloud got the feeling that she believed it. Or wanted to believe it, at least. Pola smiled as if she knew.

"Different for every person."

"What do we have to do, then?" Cloud said before Barret or Cid could say anything else.

"Well, for you, my dear. Let me see. How about gardening?"

"How about what?"

"Gardening." Pola smiled innocently. "Haven't you tried? It brings such a joy to the heart. So peaceful."

"You expect us to just… do chores?" Cid said incredulously. Pola said something in reply, in her annoyingly unmovable calm, but Cloud wasn't listening anymore.

Gardening – it was so ridiculous. The end of the world, Meteor burning the air and tearing the fabrics as they breathed, and he was supposed to dig some dirt and… and he didn't really know what exactly people did when they gardened. But it was ridiculous, and, "I wonder what Aerith would say if…"

Cloud couldn't finish that sentence because the sudden silence was too loud. It drowned out his thoughts. Everybody was looking at him, frozen, and that was slightly ridiculous too. Like he was some ancient piece of toy, a fragile thing that would break with a breeze.

"Gardening. That sounds fun." Tifa said, breaking the silence. Pola was looking a little confused. Tifa turned to her with a smile that looked forced. "Count me in, too."

The rest went smoothly. Pola assigned each of them with a simple task, gave them a few days to just relax. Barret and Cid looked suspicious but they didn't argue anymore.

- L.

"I don't know why no one talks about Aerith," Cloud said. Tifa looked up from where she sat, plucking the weed from the soft soil. It was early afternoon but the sun wasn't hot. The sky hid it well behind gray air that smelled pregnant with rain. They had been working for hours now. The task was a simple labor of the hand, leaving his mind free to wander. He supposed it was a kind of meditation, though he couldn't really see the benefit.

"It's because… I don't know." Tifa avoided, turning her head back down. Her fingers moved swiftly between the greens. Cloud watched her absently for a while, mind not really on anything.

"It's because of me, isn't it?" Cloud said. The air was getting heavier. He couldn't help but remember a garden different from this, a long time ago. A garden full of yellow flowers.

"Why would it be because of you?" Tifa didn't meet his eyes. She pretended to be busy, smoothing out the dead weed in the basket as if for a funeral. Cloud plucked out another one.

"I don't know." It came out angrier than he'd expected. There was a short silence. He could almost feel the air vibrating, like it was a living creature.

"Did you love her?" Tifa asked, in a quiet voice. Cloud found he didn't really have an answer. Or, he did have one, but that was when he knew. He was thinking about her long, braided hair that came loose and danced in the water. And then suddenly,

"I know," he realized. "I know she said… How could I have missed it?" He got up quickly and knocked the basket of weed aside. Tifa followed him up, confused.

"What? What are you talking about?"

"She said she was the only one who could defeat Sephiroth." Cloud explained in a huff of breath. He was already walking fast to Bugenhagen's hut. "No, she didn't say that, she said she was the only one who could stop Sephiroth's Meteor."

"What? When did she say that? What did she mean?" Tifa quickened her pace to catch up with him. Yuffie, who'd been working on the plow some distance away, saw them and jogged to catch up.

"In my… when I was, I mean, right before we went to the City of Ancients to look for her."

"Oh, and you remember this now?" Yuffie said, rolling her eyes.

"None of us thought of it. But it's strange," Tifa frowned. "Why did she go to that forest alone? What was she doing… We never got to know."

"I'd say we were preoccupied." Yuffie said. "What with… you know."

"Yeah. But I should have realized." Cloud muttered. He remembered (he didn't want to remember) the dream, because it was the last conversation they had – and he was afraid. Of wearing it thin, like a candy that's been sucked dry, a memory too vivid that it loses everything else but the image. Every time his mind wandered to it, it seemed, the feeling faded a little more. At first it burnt like fire in his gut, her green eyes and the green forest disappearing into the white light – so painful, it hurt so much, but he bore it because he had to. It hurt a little less every day, though, and maybe it meant he was healing but he didn't welcome the change. He didn't want to be healed. He was afraid of what came next.

Cloud told Bugenhagen what he'd realized. Bugenhagen said there was only one thing they could do now. Cloud didn't want to go where the memory was so, vivid, but he found himself nodding numbly. He wished everyone would stop looking at him – even though nobody was.

- L.

Bugenhagen recognized the place. He let out an awed gasp, but Tifa wasn't looking at him. She was looking at Cloud, who was looking at Bugenhagen. She wished he had answered that question.

"Do you know it?" Cloud asked. He sounded a little impatient, but only a little. Most people wouldn't notice.

"It's in the Ancient prophecies. I recognize it from the picture… The White Altar."

"The White Altar," Nanaki repeated, his voice hushed. The place was silent. Even when Aerith fell in her own pool of blood, it had been silent. Sephiroth's blade hardly made a sound as it pierced her, and they had all been too stunned to shout. Cloud had lunged forward with a haunted look on his face and Tifa was ashamed to admit that she was looking at Cloud, even then, even as Aerith died. But his voice had been swallowed by the silent white trees surrounding the altar. It was eerie, and a shudder went through her spines. Yuffie seemed to be sharing the sentiment. She eyed the still waters and the stiller trees suspiciously.

"What's the prophecy about?" Cid asked the practical question. Bugenhagen shook himself out of his reverie.

"I should have known… it's about the big Crisis."

"Crisis?" Barret frowned.

"Yes. I suppose, the End of the World."

"And it didn't occur to you that…"

Cloud cut Cid's sarcasm short. "It doesn't matter. What did the prophecy say, Bugenhagen?"

"Not much. It said, when Crisis comes, seek Holy." Bugenhagen's voice was also hushed, but not because of the oppressing silence. It was reverence. Tifa thought it hardly fit the situation. She had expected something else. Something more, that might actually save the world.

"That ain't no help." Barret complained. "So we're just supposed to, what, pray?"

"What does that mean, exactly?" Vincent asked. "Holy… does it mean something?"

"I don't know. Not that I…" Bugenhagen was interrupted by Cloud. He had a strange expression, not exactly disappointment. More like a truth discovered too late, like a dinner that turns out to be the last.

"I know what it is." Cloud said. Bugenhagen whipped his head around in surprise.

"You do? What is it?"

"It's a… Materia, a white one." Cloud seemed to labor to speak those words. Yuffie's eyes twinkled at the mention of Materia. Cid looked excited. Tifa supposed that a Materia was corporeal enough, better than a prayer. Except,

"But Shinra had Materias, too. A lot of them. Huge Materia." She said carefully. Cid's face dropped as he realized that he had in fact blown up a Huge Materia not too long ago.

"This one must be different." There was conviction in Cloud's voice. "Aerith said… she said the Materia would glow green when a prayer reached it."

"Aerith told you that?" Cloud didn't seem to hear the clipped foreignness of her voice. All the better for that.

"Yeah. She used to have this White Materia. Carried it around all the time, inside her jacket pocket. The first time we met, she said it was entirely useless."

"Her jacket pocket? But that means…" Yuffie whipped her head around to stare at the still water of the lake, looking horrified. It was a strange lake, like everything else around here. It glowed faintly white as if ground diamonds were glitters on the surface. The water reached to the waist when Cloud stood in it, but at the same time it was deep enough to sink a dead girl's body endlessly. Stray leaves and branches floated on the surface like normal water, but it also pulled Aerith deep into itself, where it bred darkness and buoyancy didn't exist. Tifa wondered if someone would have to go underwater to retrieve the Materia.

"I can't swim," Yuffie declared, and looked at Cloud expectantly. Cloud was eyeing the water dubiously like it was a living organism. Maybe it was. Tifa opened her mouth to save him, but Vincent was faster.

"There's no need to go into the lake." He held up a small object between his fingers. "Found this by the foot of the altar."

"It must have dropped when she fell." Cloud said, taking the Materia in his hands. It was the size of a normal Materia, like a child's fist. Its color, though – Tifa had seen a fair share of green Materia, but this one was glowing with the color. The glow didn't seem to come from anyplace within, either. Its source was somewhere else, something deeper, woven into the air around them.

"It's already green." Bugenhagen said. "The Prayer… must have reached it."

"What Prayer?" Barret asked. And Tifa realized, suddenly, at the same time that Cloud did.

"She was praying. Before she died." Cloud said, looking lost and angry at the same time. "She must have been praying for this."

"And only Ancients could seek Holy." Tifa said softly. "That must be why she told Cloud that only she could stop Sephiroth."

"She gave her life to…" Cloud didn't finish his sentence. Yuffie looked uneasily at the water again.

"Then why isn't it working?" Barret said impatiently. He glanced at the sky like he expected the Meteor to dissolve away at any second. Tifa looked at Cloud; he looked at Bugenhagen.

"Something must be interfering with its power." Bugenhagen said, carefully.

"Must be Sephiroth." Cloud's shoulders drooped a little. "Even when Aerith was still praying… I felt her power collide with Sephiroth's. It must be holding the Holy back."

"Well, then. That only means one thing." Yuffie said. She looked relieved to finally get the answer, even if it was the one they hadn't wanted.

"What?" Barret looked confused. Tifa wanted to laugh, despite herself.

"What do you mean, what? You're so thick sometimes, Barret, I wonder if you can even bleed." Yuffie rolled her eyes.

"Hey, I –"

"We have to get Sephiroth." Cloud explained. He seemed a little stunned, as if he realized that he'd had the answer all along.

"There was really only one thing to do, I guess." Tifa said. They had all set out to chase down Sephiroth – had they really expected it could end without murder?

"Yeah." Cloud muttered. He looked deep in thought, distracted. "Aerith… gave her life to help us. We should finish what she's started – whatever it takes."

Everyone nodded and grunted their agreement. Tifa nodded too, but noticed something a little odd about the order of Cloud's words. After a while she realized what it was.

Killing Sephiroth wasn't, at least for Cloud, to save the world. It was for Aerith and her sacrifice and her green eyes. Tifa realized all this with a feeling all too familiar to her now, and also knew that she had the answer to her question. She'd known it all along.

- L.

"The transfer is complete." Heidegger slammed the phone down, said triumphantly. Rufus closed his eyes like his voice was hurting his skull. Reeve sympathized with him.

"Good. Reeve, you're in charge." Rufus rubbed his temple with two of his fingers. Reeve startled, looked at the President. There were only a few people in the gray meeting room at the top floor of the Shinra Headquarters. The sky outside the full window was drooping with heavy clouds. The wrong flick of a bird's wings would start the rain, he thought.

"What, me? Sir?"

"You're the head of the Urban Development Department. That means you're in charge of Midgar and whatever happens inside, correct?"

"But Scarlet…"

"But I'm the head of Weapons Development! The Great Cannon of Junon, sir, should be in my charge!" Scarlet interrupted, sitting up a little from her sofa seat by the window. Rufus didn't look back. He frowned like his headache was getting worse.

"Scarlet, tell me who's the President?"

"Sorry, sir." Scarlet deflated, although still with a sour expression. Reno looked at her with a smirk he didn't even try to hide.

"No need. Just a reminder. And how are the shells coming along?" Rufus opened his eyes and looked at Scarlet. Reeve saw that they were bloodshot from days gone without sleep. He pitied the young President. At times he even understood why his own mother fussed over the tiniest crumple in his suit, the thinnest new line on his forehead when she saw him. It had been a long time since he went home, come to think of it.

"Splendid. We thought we could enhance the shells with additional Mako. But," Scarlet looked a little anxiously at the giant doom hanging in the sky outside. "We still need a little time."

"Don't worry. I don't think the Meteor will fall so…"

"The Meteor ain't the problem." Reno interrupted Rufus. He was leaning against the glass wall, looking outside, and he glanced back at Rufus now. "Weapon is coming." Reno's finger left a warm mark on the window. Reeve noticed that rain had finally begun to fall.

"Don't worry, sir!" Heidegger said confidently. "There are SOLDIERs in Midgar. They'll take care of it."

Rufus didn't look so sure.

"Do we have any airships left?"

"None that can come in time." Scarlet said. She was beginning to look worried, too.

"How long do you need, Scarlet?"

"At least ten, nine hours."

"Well, then." Rufus straightened up in his chair. The cushion squeaked as air slipped out. "We'll have to hope that the SOLDIERS really can take care of it. Mr. Tuesti," Reeve looked up at his name. "Can I leave you in charge of Midgar and the Cannon?"

"Yes, sir."

Reeve wasn't sure what the President was asking, or if he was asking for anything in the first place. He wondered if Rufus knew – he'd been careful, but no one knew how much Rufus was hiding behind the detached mask he always wore.

Reeve excused himself and hurried to his office. It was seven floors down, and at the furthest corner that no one came to look. Reeve preferred it that way. He made sure the door was locked, and scuttled to the cupboard. It was passcode-locked. He didn't turn on the lights. The lock beeped open. Inside was a machine that looked more like a compilation of someone's year-worth junk. He pressed a few buttons. Lights here and there came to life.

"We have a problem," he said to the small microphone. He listened. "Yes, but it concerns you, too. Come to Midgar as quick as you can."