Tifa stared out the great glass windshield of the Highwind as the ship sped through the mostly clear skies; the large windshield made up part of the hull of the airship, providing an incredible range of observation. Far below, the ocean waves shimmered like scales on the side of a giant fish. It was breathtaking, and Tifa felt as if she was watching her life from afar.

In just a couple of weeks, she had gone from the life of a young girl living the basic and perpetually hopeless life of a civilian in one of the few towns left on the Planet to soaring over the sea like a bird on her way to the last great metropolis. The mere thought chilled her to the bone and left her with shivers of excitement and fear. She walked away from the windshield, passing the pilot who stood at the wheel.

The Highwind had a slightly foreboding interior in Tifa's opinion. Metal pipes and electrical wires stretched and wound around each other above her head as she walked through the doors that led to the giant steel cargo bay. Stairs hugged the wall and led to a balcony with several living quarter doors. As she entered the room she had been designated with, she stopped. She had been left to share a room and bunk bed with Cloud's medic who had finally told Tifa her name: Kathleen. Said medic was absent now.

She's probably checking on Cloud right now, Tifa thought and left the room.

She walked down the long balcony to the last door. Just before she entered, Kathleen opened the steel door and brushed past her with a small clipboard in hand.

"How was he?" asked Tifa.

Kathleen flipped a page on the clipboard. "Fine for now. There hasn't been a change," she murmured absent mindedly before walking away. As the other woman walked down the hall, Tifa slipped into Cloud and Zack's room. Zack was sitting and staring out the small porthole at the end of the narrow room, watching the clouds rushing past. Cloud lay on the bottom bunk. Zack gave her a single wave as he noticed her. A rustle of movement underneath the bunk and a red nose peering out revealed Nanaki. Tifa sat on the edge of Cloud's bunk. After a minute of silence, Zack finally spoke.

"It's such a strange feeling isn't it?"

"Hmm?" Tifa hummed questioningly.

"We're thousands of feet in the air. How many people back home can say they've seen an airship, much less traveled in one?"

"No one, probably."

"Yet here we are…" Zack gave a sigh.

"It is an odd experience to have in this day and age," rumbled Nanaki as he crawled out from under the bunk. He stretched and gave a large, sharp toothed yawn. They lapsed into silence for another minute or so. Tifa studied Cloud in the lull of conversation. His bangs were hanging in his face, fluttering with each breath. She carefully brushed them aside and stood up.

"I'm going to go get some food from the galley. Want me to bring you back something?"

"Sure," said Zack.

"Nanaki?"

"Meat if there is any, thank you."

Tifa left the room and headed for the galley. As she passed by one of the other rooms, voices drifting through the door caught her attention. It sounded like Daniels and Kathleen. Tifa crept to the door and curiously placed her ear to it.

"… really may work," said Daniels.

"But people with this capability are practically unheard of outside of Midgar or history books. Daniels, if we take him back for those reasons, it's a complete waste of skill and a chance to better understand their abilities." Kathleen's voice was urgent.

"We do our job. That's that."

"But—"

"Enough. You said the mako concentration was near fatal. Can we keep him going to Midgar?"

"I think so."

"Make it happen. And make sure Hollander doesn't find out. We have another half day to go." Footsteps plodded toward the door, and Tifa scrambled away and hurried off at a fast walk. By the time the door opened, she was already halfway down the stairs leading to the galley.

Had she heard correctly? Daniels had certainly made it sound as if Cloud's chances of survival were lower than she had thought. Dread curled in her guts as she walked. She tried to shake it off. Cloud was strong, he could keep going until their arrival in Midgar a few hours later. Even though she tried to comfort herself, it did nothing to hold back her worry.

When she finally returned to the room with some bread for her and Zack and an odd jerky for Nanaki to snack on, she tossed a quarter loaf to Zack and settled down on the edge of Cloud's bunk once again, munching on the bread as she looked out the porthole like Zack had earlier. Nanaki silently padded over and delicately took the jerky from her hands with his fangs. He lay down and worried the tough jerky as the humans ate the bread. Zack stopped chewing.

"Tifa?"

Tifa stopped chewing as well. "Yes?"

Zack frowned. "I don't trust them."

Nanaki's ears perked and Tifa blinked. "Who? ShinRa?"

"Yes." Zack looked down at his partially eaten bread. "I've been thinking. This situation just doesn't add up."

"How so?"

"ShinRa is taking Cloud to Midgar to heal him because of their mistake with a reactor. But, they did nothing to repair their reactor mistake in Gongaga."

"You heard Cid, right Zack?" Tifa asked softly. "He said they left Gongaga because they believed it was due to the villagers the explosion happened."

Zack shook his head. "That's not what I mean. They leave an entire village destroyed after their reactor explosion without a second thought. Yet, when one insignificant kid from a distant village is hurt, they jump all over the situation even though people in Nibelheim have been died from mako in the past after surviving for a few hours. But, Tifa," his eyes stared into her own, "Cloud isn't dead, and one of their scientists was there to see him survive."

Tifa eyed him warily. "So, what are you getting at?"

Zack fiddled with the bread in his hand. "We all know that when everything was going to ruin, ShinRa did nothing to help the villages which handled their reactors. They only sent in troops to control them from rioting. Remember how they say the first wave of soldiers was enhanced?" Tifa gave a slight nod. "Well, they say it was because of research by ShinRa's scientist."

"It was research on enhancements given to humans from the Planet's lifeblood," growled Nanaki. "Mako enhancement. Grandpa told me the enhancement was through injections and showers. It was a deadly project." He let out a low rumble deep in his chest. "None of the soldiers who managed to withstand the enhancements lived long afterwards. They were sent to the front lines before they faded."

Realization dawned on Tifa. "So what you think is going on is that they want to do research on Cloud because he survived the mako."

Zack nodded. "Yeah."

Tifa leaned against one of the bunk supports for a minute, processing what she'd heard from her companions and thinking back to what she heard through the door earlier. Zack had a very good point considering what she overheard from Daniels and Kathleen. She glanced at Zack.

"Zack?"

"What?"

"You're a lot smarter than you look."

The three of them spent the remaining hours till their arrival in Midgar lying about in the cabin with Cloud or going on deck to talk with Cid and crew of the ship. Tifa kept a wary eye on Daniels when he briefly came up to speak with Cid. He didn't appear to suspect her at all. Her relief at not being caught surprised her with its strength. Zack showed no interest in the man, and neither did Nanaki. For Zack, the lack of interest seemed forced. Whenever they lazed about in the room, Kathleen would continually come in and check Cloud's condition at the start of every hour. She appeared apprehensive, but Tifa felt she was the only one who noticed. After all, she had eavesdropped on Kathleen's conversation with Daniels, so only she would be looking for the signs.

The sky was beginning to turn orange with streaks of red clouds through the bunk porthole when Cid called via an intercom over the doorway.

"Midgar's on the horizon. You kids come and see!"

All three perked up. Tifa jumped up from Cloud's bedside, careful not jostle him, and hurried out with Zack and, surprisingly, Nanaki rushing right behind her. Reaching the deck in under a minute, the three stood panting next to Cid. The rough pilot turned to them without taking his hands off the wheel, his cigarette clenched between his teeth in a large grin. "Behold the wasteland of Midgar," he laughed eerily. Tifa, Zack, and Nanaki approached the giant windshield and stared out onto the horizon.

The Highwind was currently flying over the finale mile of a large bay as it flew east. Cid had been accurate when he called the area around Midgar a wasteland. The landscape was made up of a gray crust that was slowly gaining a slight rose tint by the setting sun's light. Small canyons winded through piles of lifeless boulders. There were no plants; there wasn't even a dead dried up tree anywhere to dot the gray expanse. Centered in the vacuum of life loomed the last great city on the planet. A massive plate of metal and housing supported over clusters of buildings hidden in deep shadow. Massive reactors balancing on the edge of the plate sectioned off different portions of the city. A thick tower rose out of the top of the plate, towering for hundreds of feet over the other buildings. ShinRa Tower. Smog choked the metropolis, leaving a brown haze that marred the horizon.

Zack frowned at the view. "The pictures they showed us in school were definitely played around with. Midgar never looked this rough in any of them."

Nanaki lashed his tail, the flaming tip narrowly missing a crew member who hopped away from the beast. "This land… The Planet…" His amber eye flashed at the bleak ground far below. "I have never heard of the land being sucked this dry of the Planet's lifeblood. It is hard to comprehend the sheer scale of energy Midgar is leeching off of the land."

Just as Nanaki finished his sentence, one of the reactors let out a blast of green energy from its open top. The mako energy rapidly flowed out of the reactor into pipes that glowed with its green light and snaked through the sector like green blood vessels. Within a couple of seconds, the mako light had spread through the whole area and faded.

"Well, it's obvious where it's going," said Zack.

"Such a high consumption of energy will not end well for the Planet or the people here," whispered Nanaki, voice low enough to only be caught by the two young humans who stood next to him. A commotion at the entrance to the deck caught their attention as well as Cid's.

"You kids go ahead and start gettin' yer things ready," he barked. "We're fixin' to land."

Within the next half hour, everyone had gathered their equipment and personal belongings. The Highwind circled over Midgar, locating a landing pad. Once the giant airship had been safely waved in and docked, the rear loading door lowered to the ground and the ShinRa medics, the teens, and Nanaki made their way down the ramp to a new, less bulky ambulance and a large van. The uniformed drivers of the two vehicles stared at Nanaki as the others loaded their things into the van and Cloud was placed in the ambulance, pointing and muttering to each other until the red beast had let out a low growl and prowled around the ambulance and out of their sight.

Tifa prepared to hop into the ambulance, but was stopped by the van driver. "Sorry, but you and your friends are required to ride with me," said the man before he roughly tugged her arm and began to pull her to the van.

Tifa glared at the driver and tried to yank her arm away. The driver merely huffed and tightened his grip. Just as Tifa was about to put up a fight, they reached the van and another man stepped out of the front passenger seat. His immaculate suit and slicked black hair immediately put Tifa on edge. His skin was too pale in her opinion.

"It's best if you don't struggle, Tifa Lockhart." His voice was low and smooth.

Her name caught her attention. "How do you know my name?" she asked. When he did not answer, she pressed harder. "Who are you?"

The man signaled the driver who then proceeded to push Tifa towards the open sliding door. She crawled in with another vicious look at the driver – who did not even bat an eye – and sat in one of the seats. She was surprised to see Zack was already seated in the seat next to her, but judging by his disgruntled expression, he had had the same treatment.

The suited man had reseated himself in the front. "The animal," he reminded the driver before he got in to start the van. The driver disappeared and a minute later the back of the van opened and in hopped Nanaki, carefully maneuvering around the gear to sit himself in the space between Zack and Tifa's seats. His broad red shoulder brushed against Tifa, and she felt a small bit of comfort at having him and Zack next to her. This suited man made her very uneasy.

Once all the doors were closed, the driver hopped in and the van and ambulance pulled of the tarmac and left the landing pad. Large, ornate houses loomed over the street as the vehicles sped through the city. The road was mostly abandoned; the large vehicles drew the attention of the pedestrians walking on the sidewalk.

The suited man finally turned around in his seat. "I am Tseng, leader of ShinRa's Turk task force. From here on out, you two are under my watch. You will not be allowed anywhere outside the hospital without me or one my men present. Do not bring too much attention on yourselves." Tseng turned back towards the front of the car. Tifa shared a nervous look with Zack over Nanaki's shoulder. Neither of them had heard of the Turks. Judging by the demeanor of the man before them, they were not the type of people to meddle with.

Within fifteen minutes, the ambulance and van had reached ShinRa's hospital. Much to Tifa's surprise, it was merged with the foot of the ShinRa Tower, along with a cluster of other smaller buildings. The hospital was built unlike anything the two Nibelheim teens had seen. The steel structure was made of walls of clear glass that glinted in the hazy light. It seemed cold and detached to Tifa. The vehicles were unloaded, and Zack, Tifa, and Nanaki were walked to the rooms they would stay in. Tifa looked back in time to see Cloud being wheeled through the doors of the hospital. When he was wheeled around a corner and out of sight, she followed after the others.

The flood of memories had faded away long ago, just like the darkness before the green pain. Only now, the black had instead become the white. How long he had been floating in this white void, Cloud didn't know. When the memories had ceased, he had panicked. Who was he? What time was he in? What was going to happen? It had taken a very long time, but he had patched together enough of a persona from the many different memories to have a workable identity. But, how on earth could it be right?

He frowned, trying to open his eyes more than just a crack. He never could fully open them; he was only ever able to open them enough to see the white expanse before his lids sank shut again. He was certain his name was Cloud. His name was etched into the core of his being; there was no way he wasn't Cloud. But, what of his life before the white? Every time he strained to remember, a harsh spike of pain flashed through his forehead and he caught a faint flicker of red eyes and green liquid before his mind became as blank as before.

Who was he?

"Who am I?" he asked the white void.

"One who will begin a change…"

Cloud's eyes flew fully open for the first time in a long time. Who had said that? His body refused to move as his eyes flitted back and forth, looking for the source of the voice.

"Who said that?" he called out. "What change?"

"Change which will either bring a halt to the world's end or quicken it," said the voice.

Cloud was bewildered. "World's end? What?" Suddenly, he dropped down deeper into the white void, a wind tearing at his hair and clothes. He burst from a column of clouds, falling like a stone towards a wide expanse of water below. Cloud crossed his arms in front of his face as he braced for the impact that would certainly kill him. It never came. Slowly he brought his arms down to see he was hovering just over the water's surface. Not a single wave stirred on the deep water that reflected the sky and clouds above like a mirror. The blue underneath went down forever. As Cloud studied the water, he felt himself being lowered down towards it. His feet struck the water, not sinking under the surface but causing twin ripples to spread out away from him.

Another spike of pain lanced through his head. Silver and green flashed in his mind's eye, and Cloud felt a dread that wasn't his own. Various points of pain erupted on his body and he had a brief impression of what felt like his blood and strength being drawn out of him before all the sensations evaporated.

"Stop the descendants of the Calamity," the voice whispered in his ear. "Do that, and the tides will turn."

"I don't understand what you mean," whispered Cloud.

"You have felt my pain. Now go…" The voice was beginning to fade.

"But—"

"Go…"

And Cloud was enveloped in black. His body was an unresponsive mass again and he knew his eyes were shut once again. As he floated in another black void, he found his thoughts drifting back to dark red eyes and glossy brown hair. Tifa. He could remember her clearly. While all other memories were abstract things in his head which left him scrambling for his identity, she seemed to cut through the fog and refuse to be left to fade in his mind. Her clarity was his source of comfort.

While his mind wandered, he felt a warm hand cover his own briefly before disappearing. A sharp pinch in his arm made him flinch. What was going on?

A tingling sensation traveled through his body, irritating all the way to his eyes. As he tried to ignore the discomfort, he heard a soft, melodic voice from afar.

"Wake up, Cloud…"

Cloud let out a longing sigh.

Tifa…

Tifa sat in a chair next to Cloud's hospital bed. Since their arrival, his medications had been changed to more potent ones and he had responded well to them, or so Hollander said. Tifa frowned. Hollander had always been in the background in some way or another on their journey to Midgar, yet once they had reached ShinRa's medical facilities, she had been seeing less of him. Zack had noticed too and kept an eye on it. He had told her his suspicions when Hollander began to appear less and the Turks appeared more.

"I think there's someone telling the Turks to keep him away," Zack had said. "Tseng said they work for ShinRa, but did he ever clarify if they worked for the company or the family?"

"No he didn't," Tifa had replied.

"Exactly. I'm thinking someone in the company is up to this. Maybe another scientist. They're glory hogs," Zack had pointed out.

Tifa didn't know what to think. She wasn't worried about ShinRa scientist politics. She only wanted to see Cloud recover.

The door squeaked open and a different scientist with greasy black hair pulled back in a ponytail walked in. Tifa stiffened. As Hollander was disappearing, this new scientist had been slowly taking over. While Tseng had made her uneasy, this man did not sit well with Tifa on a completely different level. There was something fundamentally unwholesome about him. He was a small man whose hunched posture left him shorter than Tifa. His sallow, thin face was always pulled into a frown. This scientist had ordered extra injections for Cloud which would make him shake through his coma and occasionally groan, so she knew they hurt. Tifa hated the man for it. She looked at the tag on his white lab coat.

Dr. Hojo.

He approached Cloud's bed and looked down at the clipboard in his hand and flipped through it, ignoring Tifa. One of the scientist's assistants walked in. "I think it's time we added that final… injection," Dr. Hojo wheedled in a nasally voice.

"Yes sir," answered the assistant before backing out of the room. Dr. Hojo walked out into the hallway and shut the door. Tifa scooted the chair closer to Cloud and took his cool hand in hers.

"They're bringing more injections," she whispered to him. She and Zack had fallen into the habit of talking to Cloud since their arrival at the hospital. While he never responded, she took some comfort in speaking to him. She rubbed her thumb over his knuckles. He had rough hands. "I hope these won't hurt like the other ones did. Stay strong for me, okay?"

Silence.

As Tifa set down his hand and leaned back in the chair, Zack entered. "Hey," he greeted her before sitting in another chair opposite Tifa's. "What's up now?" he asked when he saw her troubled expression.

"They're adding another injection."

"What?" he cried angrily. Cloud's painful injections had angered him too. "Can those idiots just stop sticking needles in him?" He ran a hand through his hair, sighing in exasperation.

"You said yourself they're probably going to experiment on him," Tifa quietly reminded him. "Why wouldn't they start now?"

"You're right," said Zack. He looked stricken. "But they might not be, the injections may be helping even though they're painful." He put his head in his hands. "It's the only thing keeping me from stopping these so called doctors. But I don't know. I just don't know at all."

The two looked up when Dr. Hojo's assistant reappeared with another person pushing a cart behind him. The other person went and began to prep Cloud's arm while the assistant prepared a syringe filled with an odd liquid. It was thin and clear, but had a purple tint to it. The two teens watched in apprehension as the needle disappeared into Cloud's arm.

The liquid was injected and the assistants left. Zack and Tifa watched Cloud closely, looking for any sign of discomfort. There wasn't anything right now. After about fifteen minutes, however, Cloud's eyes began to water strongly, and the skin around them turned a faint irritated red. Zack looked on in alarm for about a minute. Finally, he jumped into action.

"I'm going to go get help," he said as he rushed from the room. Tifa looked down at Cloud. She had never seen this reaction before, and it terrified her. She leaned over him again.

"Cloud, you need to shake this off," she said, her tight throat strangling her words. "This isn't good, Cloud. You need to wake up. Wake up, Cloud." She knew he wouldn't answer, but it still hurt when he didn't respond. She sighed. As she was leaning away she heard a faint whisper of air escape Cloud's lips.

"Teeefff…"

Her eyes widened in shock and she grabbed his hand. "What was that Cloud? Say it again for me?"

His eyelids fluttered slightly, and Tifa felt a bolt of excitement rush through her. "That's it, Cloud!" she cried happily. She grabbed his other hand. "Come on, wake up!"

She stared into his face as his eyes slowly opened. She bit back a gasp.

Glowing green irises stared out at her from watering eyes. The pupils shifted shape before Tifa's eyes, switching back and forth from a normal dot to a catlike slit. Cloud's face was emotionless as his vibrant eyes studied her intensely. The intense gaze, the gaze of a stranger, aroused a feeling of fear in Tifa's gut. What was this?

Cloud carefully pulled himself up as he slowly became more aware. Tifa was too stunned to help him. As he shifted into a more comfortable position, he flashed a feral grin at her, a grin that did not match at all with his too pale skin and the tear tracks down his cheeks.

"Miss me?"

A/N: Here I was saying I'd update sooner, and the gap between this chapter is even bigger than the one between the last two chapters. I apologize again. School is about to get out for spring break, so hopefully I'll have more writing time then. Between an insane homework load and a death in the family, I just haven't had any inspiration or time to write. But I'm pulling through, and writing this helped. Thank you to all of you who still follow this even though I have the most ridiculous update schedules.

In this chapter, as I'm sure you know, there's lots of important details being brought to light. I tried to add some more material to this so it wouldn't feel filler-ish and drag out the boring. I added some meat, just for you guys. :) Zack may seem quite a bit smarter now than he was portrayed in the game, but hey, a smart guy is attractive and more appealing to me.

Review Responses:

JukedSolid: Your review really made my day. Thank you!

Irish-Brigid: Well, I sure let you down on the update time. :( But hopefully this chapter answered some of those questions you had!