Disclaimer: I do not now or before and most likely not in the future, own Final Fantasy, Square Enix or any of the characters.

A/N: There are some very dark themes, implied assault and descriptive gore in this chapter.

VERY IMPORTANT! READ THIS SO THAT YOU KNOW WHAT'S HAPPENING: Just like in the chapter where Reno had flashbacks within a flashback, this one is similar. The regular italics are the POV of two of the guys and the bold italics are the POV of the current guy that that section is about. The other two guys do not see or hear anything in the bold italics. Sorry if it is confusing, but the story needs an element of surprise and fear from the other two guys as they are watching what's happening and I didn't know how to write it any other way. This is not a flashback, this is actually what is happening.

This chapter picks up where we left off with the guys in their shared and combined world within their minds while they are trying to "retrieve" their own memories. (I'm aware that this story is filled with psuedo-science, just go with the flow my reader(s) :)

Reviews, critiques and flames are welcome. I absolutely love all reviews about the story as it gives me motivation, I use good constructive criticism to help my writing improve and I feed the flames to the fires of my imagination.

Thanks to my before posting beta Queen of Jokers and my after posting beta SubZeroChimera!

"Sometimes our light goes out, but is blown again into instant flame by an encounter with another human being." –Albert Schweitzer

Chapter 67

They walked into a room full of shelves. Boxes of different shapes and sizes filled the tall metal shelves. The shelves stretched on as far they could see. They stood in a small open area that would have tables and chairs if they'd been in a library. Cloud walked and looked up and around and asked in wonder, "What is this place?"

Zack stood with his hands on his hips, "I don't know. I guess it is our shared memories, all mixed up."

Sephiroth approached a shelf and pulled a box down and began to look through it, "How are we supposed to do this? This is endless."

"I can help," All three men turned and Cloud stiffened at the sight of Davis walking toward him, "Awww. I thought you'd be happier to see me."

Cloud spit out, "Don't count on it." Davis brushed his hand softly across Cloud's now bare stomach and lecherously stopped right between his belly button and the elastic waistband of his boxers. Looking down, the blond was confused on how, without warning, he was almost naked.

The blond stepped back and Davis snapped his fingers and Cloud couldn't move his feet from that spot. Davis slowly got closer to his face and Cloud stuck his chest out and fortified an expression that would scare most people into surrender. Zack had to hand it to him, Cloud had come a long way by not cowering from Davis. The young man held himself up and seemed determined to stand his ground against what looked, smelled and moved just like the brute that took his innocence. However, Zack still being the protective friend wanted to defend him, "Leave him alone!"

Davis looked at Zack and Sephiroth as they took a step toward him and Cloud, "Don't even think about it." Davis pointed to the ground in front of them and commanded, "Down boys." Both of them dropped to their hands and knees, struggling but were seemingly unable to move, as though they became bonded to the floor.

"You see, I rule here, I can do what I want," Davis walked around to Sephiroth and pulled his head back by a handful of soft silver hair. Bending over, he kissed and licked his now exposed neck up to his ear. The vulnerable object of Davis's gaze shut his eyes and groaned in disgust. Cold, thin, wet lips then brushed his ear and with his words, a few strands of silver hair fluttered with his breath, "And I do mean anything I want."

Zack raised his head, "Damn it, just stop! You got what you want; now just stop this already!"

Turning to look at Zack, he smiled then turned to the blond standing just a couple of feet from him, "Well, I've got Cloud," Davis walked around him as his hand brushed Cloud's skin. Davis grabbed his waist roughly from behind and thrust his hips toward Cloud's back side. Davis evoked a growl from Cloud as he tried to wiggle away from him. He smiled, walked away and blew a kiss at the outraged blond.

"I have you," Davis winked at Zack as he circled around and patted him on his rear end. Looking over at Sephiroth his voice crooned, snake-like within its meanings, "But I don't think that I've really had the pleasure of you yet," Davis bent down and smelled of Sephiroth's hair, down his back and then back to his face. Davis had an evil smile that elicited a shiver from Sephiroth as he wrapped his hand in his long silver hair.

Zack swallowed down the bile that filled his throat, "You're not even the real Davis! You're just Jenova playing your sick little games."

Davis lifted a finger up to his lips, "Shhh," Zack and Cloud's lips stuck together and they were no longer able to speak.

Davis stood straight and then lifted his leg up and straddled Sephiroth's back as if the once proud General was now a beast of burden. Davis still had a hand full of hair as his weight on his back caused Sephiroth to groan. He pointed at Zack, "You can be my smoldering puppy," Davis shifted his eyes to Cloud, "You can be the visceral lamb," He leaned down to Sephiroth's ear, "And you can be my lustful pony." He laughed and as his weight began to make Sephiroth's arms start to shake, Davis added, "Let's make this more interesting. See, I haven't had all three of you together at the same time, so let's have some fun!"

It struck Zack that they were in the same formation now that they were in when they conspired to kill Davis back in the labs. They were close enough that they could have reached out to touch the others' hands, but being stuck in place made it just that much worse.

Zack looked at Cloud standing there, in nothing but plaid boxers, the blond struggled trying to free his feet from the invisible force holding them in place. Cloud glanced over at him and Zack could see the scared boy that he first saw wake up in the labs. Cloud's breathing became rapid and the horror of what was going to happen crept up into his eyes.

Looking at Sephiroth, he had fear in his face and his mouth was slightly open, his breaths quickened as he became reduced to raw humiliation. Zack struggled against the invisible bindings that kept them from moving. Zack cringed that they were all together to watch each other go through Jenova's games and it made Zack even angrier.

Closing his eyes, Sephiroth inhaled and his voice cracked, "What do you plan to do?" He lowered his head when Davis pet him like an animal. Sephiroth looked up at his friends across from him and Zack could see a terrified misery swim up into his frightened eyes and they almost enveloped the very fabric of this imaginary world.

Davis got off of his back, let go of his hair and walked around to his face and knelt down, "We are just going to have some fun, that's all." He paused and then added, "Well let me change that, I am going to have some fun." Davis winked at the former General and then within a blink, he turned into Master, the man who tortured him while in captivity. With a clap of his hands, Master smiled as Sephiroth was degraded when he was abruptly deprived of his clothing…

On the bed, Zack began to groan and twitch. Sephiroth started rapidly breathing and didn't stop until he inhaled violently, then his scream exploded causing everyone in the room to jump and cover their ears. Cloud had soft tears fall as he squeezed his eyes shut tighter. After what felt like an eternity of Sephiroth's bone chilling screams, they became intermittent screams of pain. His voice became rough and cracked, tears dropped down and the knuckles on his hands were white as his fists constricted. Small droplets of crimson seeped from around his fingers as his nails dug into his palms. Struggling groans of pain replaced any remaining screams as he sobbed frantically through it. A scream would erupt periodically and it took a while before he seemed to calm.

Tifa wiped the sweat and tears from Sephiroth's face and neck with a cool wet cloth. Sephiroth's body relaxed but his slow soft sobs continued. Just as she was standing up to walk into the bathroom to wet the cloth again, Cloud's screaming started. Cloud seemed to repeat what Sephiroth had just done. The terrifying screams, the sobs of torment and cries of pain all ran together as Cloud's hands gripped and pulled on the blanket underneath him, tearing it in handfuls of fabric.

She glanced at Zack and he turned his head to one side and he cried quietly. Sephiroth laid still, his eyes closed tightly and his chest heaved with deep sobs. Much later, Cloud calmed and then Zack started. Tifa yelled at Harding, "Talk to me Jacob! What is going on?!"

"Tifa, I said it before, I don't know!"

All three of their broken, bloody and defiled bodies lay still, breathing with the sobs that accompanied their shivers of pain. They all looked at each other, but none of them had the strength or will to speak.

Sephiroth lay there looking at his friends across from him, his eyelids weak from exhaustion. Laying on his side, with every breath he took, his back agonized at the smallest movement. The skin on Sephiroth's entire back was flayed off all the way from the back of his neck down to his waist. He had also been mercilessly beaten and viciously torn into by Master.

Blood trickled from his mouth, nose, his back and a heavier amount of blood accumulated around his legs and feet as he was hemorrhaging from the brutal violation. Zack and Cloud locked eyes with Sephiroth as he took in an agonizing breath. Then he let out his last breath with a tiny tremor and his eyes dulled to a lifeless shell as his friends watched his life end…

Sephiroth's naked muscle tissue on his back was painfully kissed by the light wind that the person brought toward him as they approached. A soft hand brushed his face and then he was looking at the most beautiful face he'd ever seen. He struggled for breath and whispered, "Annabelle?"

Her rapturous smile infected him, "Yes, it's me Seph." Tears fell from her eyes and she stroked his face again, "I have your son if you want to see him." She took his hand, moving his arm caused his body agonizing agitation and he cried out in pain. She then gently pulled her hand through his bloodied hair, "He looks like you," She smiled, "You do want to see him don't you?"

Sephiroth couldn't hold his tears. He coughed and blood released from his lungs and a fresh streak of blood flowed from the corner of his mouth and covered the side of his face. He grabbed at his chest and thought that this was the most painful thing yet, "Yes... Yes, I-I wan... want to s-see my... son." Forgetting his physical pain, he then reached for her hand and put the back of her hand softly to his cheek and moved it slowly to his blood stained lips.

She blinked her eyes slowly and softly asked, "Do you still want to be with me?"

Without hesitation, his worn out voice grated on his raw throat, "Yes, I want... to be w-with you for... forever my l... love."

Sephiroth stopped breathing and disappeared in a wave of green life stream ribbons. Zack and Cloud looked at each other. So that their screams could be heard at full volume, their lips were no longer being held closed by the invisible influence. However, Cloud couldn't muster the will to speak. Zack whispered, "Cloud," As he tried focused on his face, desperately trying not to see what Cloud looked like now.

The blond was incised from the bottom of his neck down to his groin and laid open - he'd been dissected by Hojo, just like a frog in science class. The taste of his blood in his mouth had soured. The sight of various organs from his lower abdomen, next to him had made him shudder with revulsion. To see his heart beat and his lungs pulse with his breaths as they lay on the cold floor, was awfully vile. His breathing slowed to a dangerous level as his blood pooled around him.

Unable to move from being pinned to the floor with large railroad spikes, he'd turned into the lab specimen that Hojo wanted all along. He turned his head painfully slow to see the ceiling. Light slowly crept away. Darker and darker, until he couldn't see anything anymore. With his last breath; he was able to say one word on his bloodied lips, "Ti…fa…" His breathing ceased and the end of his exhale coincided with one last tear drop from his bloodshot eyes…

Cloud lay on his back with his head turned; he could see Zack looking back at him until it started getting dark in the room. Maybe it wasn't the room that got darker, maybe it was him.

'I'm dying.' He thought that it was odd that he was so calm about his last moments.

"Cloud?" Tifa knelt at his side. She ran her hand through his blood matted hair, "It's time to wake up." Cloud's eyes opened slowly and he gazed into her eyes. He took a ragged breath and a weak scream of pain escaped from him, "Shhh, its okay. I'm here now."

A rasp of a word rattled out as blood surged out of his mouth with another breath. Furrowing his eyebrows in confusion, he asked, "H-how?"

She continued to stroke his hair with a subtle smile, "Love silly." Tifa gently pulled his chin toward her, "You do still want me, don't you?"

With great effort he pulled in another breath and hoarsely said, "I always… w-wanted to b-be with... you."

Tifa softly said with a larger smile, "Always and forever?"

Cloud's eyes watered and closed, "Always and... f-forever…"

They all watched the others' punishments and tortures and they could do nothing. Zack lay there and had watched Cloud be cut into and taken apart bit by bit by Hojo. Then to die painfully in front of him, his last word, with his last breath was the name of the woman he'd always loved. Then he just vanished as the life stream took him into its embrace.

Having to watch the onslaught of violence that Sephiroth went through and then to bleed to death in front of him and then he too had faded out of sight. Of all the horrible things that was done to all three of them, Zack felt that was the worst for him, losing his friends while he couldn't help them.

From his place on his stomach, he cried at the loss of his friends, the torture they'd endured and then they just disappeared. They left him alone in this drab, daily hell again. Zack's cheek slid on the concrete floor, his blood caused a slippery surface for him to move his head very slightly.

Charles had taken his time with him and then took the welding torch to Zack's body. The pain from that was minimal anymore because most of his skin was burned away. What did hurt though were the several knives that stuck out from his back that were carefully placed. He supposed that knives in his back were a way for him to painfully relive his indiscretions. Charles ended it with severing his hands and feet. Now he lay in the room full of their joint memories and the pools of blood left by his friends, and so he waited for his death.

He heard footsteps coming from behind him. He wanted to turn his head, but he just couldn't. Then a soft familiar voice made her presence known, "Zack, I'm so sorry," She went around to his face. She laid down on the ground and looked into his eyes. Her eyes seemed empty but she still was as beautiful as she was the day he first met her, "I still love you, you know that right?"

Zack took a hard breath, "Yes," He closed his eyes and his tears fell across his nose and small splashes created a tiny, salty puddle within the blood.

"Zack," Oh how he missed the way she said his name. She caressed his tear soaked face. Her soft voice that had haunted him for years resonated in his ears, "Look at me, I need to see your eyes."

He opened them slowly and she brushed a scorched black spike of hair from his forehead, "I choose you, I have always wanted you."

Zack blinked slowly and he thought of something and how odd it seemed. He didn't know exactly what it was, but the situation felt different somehow. Different in the fact that he had never died, or seen Aerith in any of the games that Jenova played, and then there was the statement that Davis had said about them not being there 'all together like this before'.

This was the time that Jenova had talked about, it was the time. He didn't know how he knew for sure, but he just did and he had to try to do something. She had already taken his friends; he couldn't let her take him too. His friends were gone. Maybe he could put a stop to this. He was going to try something and hoped that it would work. This was his mind and body, he wanted it back, so he took a chance, "I don't want you anymore."

Aerith flinched, "What?"

Zack raised one eyebrow and in a stronger voice he said, "What part did you not hear?"

The flower girl sat up and watched as Zack raised his head off the floor. With a loud gasp, her hand went to her mouth. He pulled the bloody stump of what had been his right arm up and pushed himself up to his elbows. With a great deal of effort, he got to a sitting position.

Sitting on his naked and burned rear end sent a blinding shot of pain up into his gut and lower back. An agonized scream filled his lungs and poured out in a loud gust of air. Several deep breaths and with sheer concentration he got control of himself. He said to himself quietly, "Let's see if this works." He squeezed his eyes shut and concentrated on getting his hands and feet back as a test of his will. Opening his eyes, Aerith stood there, quietly, stunned.

Her eyes burned with a fury of green emeralds, "You can't do that!" Her body and face warped and distorted until she looked nothing like Aerith. She began to change into the look that Jenova usually showed herself. Silver hair swept around her shoulder, an ignition of savagery danced into her eyes.

Zack cried out in pain as his hands and feet seemed to grow back on the end of his limbs. He laboriously got to his feet as he left burnt chunks of flesh that fell from his body with a gruesome sounding splat on the floor. The pain he felt was excruciating, but in some way, somehow, he was able to take it now, "Really? Well it looks like I am doing it, bitch!" Zack looked around and the tall shelves and a few boxes fell to the floor and the ceiling began to crack. The clinking sound behind him caused him to glance back and the knives fell from his back to the floor in a broken rhythm.

The shelves began to melt to the floor, taking boxes and files with them. Zack looked at Jenova and she also seemed to melt into the floor. He took a deep breath and hissed at the pain he was still in. It was fascinating to watch as his skin began to turn back to a more normal color. Before long, he stood in the middle of an orchard in his home town of Gongaga. His skin was back to normal and he held his arms out and let the bright sun bathe him in soft warmth. Closing his eyes, he breathed in the fresh air painlessly.

"You can't do this Zack! You have already accepted me!" The voice from all around him sounded angry.

With a smile, he yelled out, "Oh, yeah? Well, this is me signing the divorce papers!"

A/N 2: Thanks to everyone who reads, favorites, subscribes and/or reviews, I appreciate your time and I dedicate all of this to you. To quote another author, "Getting reviews makes me feel all warm and squishy."

Please send me your reviews if you want. It is really easy. Just click your arrow in the little box, write what you thought or felt about the chapter and then click right down there, just below the box. A little lower… a little to the right… yeah, right there! Click it! *grinning*

Guest review with my response in bold:

"In Canon Zack was far too Strong willed for Jonava to handle despitr being experimente on for 4 years . Just pointing that out."

Yes, anyone who's played the games is aware that JENOVA was not able to "take Zack over" in canon. Seeing as this story is a canon divergent story, it stands to reason that I would take some liberties with some of the characterizations and story plots. In the story description/intro, I have on there "AU" which means alternate universe, which is a different reality from the game with the same characters and/or some of the same circumstances. That in essence is what fanfiction is, story and character deviations.

Now to comment on your concern pointed out: In the previous chapter, Zack states that he was able to fight her off, but was getting weaker and weaker because of the memories and emotions he kept getting from the other two. That was the reason he was "split." Part of him was the "outside" Zack and the stronger part of him was "inside" fighting Jenova, keeping her from taking over - just as Zack explained in chapter 66. It is reminiscent to Cloud's semi-comatose state, and Sephiroth's coma/deathlike state. It is all a level of conscience that they all experience in different ways. Cloud wasn't able to communicate, but he could walk and express himself in physical ways, Seph just looked like he was dead, and Zack is able to communicate and everything, but still partially trapped in "dream land/Jenova jail."