Start Date: March 27, 2023
Windwillow
The bold portions are flashbacks, both scenes and dialogue.
Final Fantasy VII
Hojo is dead, Shinra defunct, and the barrier Sephiroth set up around his lair in the Northern Crater destroyed. Every piece of the puzzle seems to have been fitted together perfectly. However, the picture created might well crumble if the individual pieces choose not to unite into a single image. Seven days and eight men and women remain, so before the final hour strikes, those eight people have to decide on their own: they're all the fate of the Planet, but are their fates for the Planet?
Chapter Fifty: To Each Their Own Fate
Scene One
With Scarlet and Heidegger's skulls cracked open and Hojo having been impaled on Vincent's mutated arm, the leadership of Shinra Inc. had been all but obliterated. Rufus was assumed dead, Midgar in chaos, and the damage caused by the Sister Ray firing had already led to widespread power outages across the whole of the city. Dismantling the Mako Cannon would take considerable resources on top of that, so effectively, not only was Shinra in ruins, but so was Midgar. Reeve remained in the chaos of Midgar to organize the situation, but Cait Sith also remained active aboard the Highwind as the crew assembled in the conference room for their final briefing.
Atop his moogle, Cait Sith sat with his arms crossed and his head down. It was both a start and an ending, the start of a new era and the ending of Shinra's tyranny. "Three-fourths of Shinra's leadership is dead, Palmer is M.I.A., and Hojo's got a hole in his chest. That leaves me..." Reeve said through Cait Sith. Even if he was the only executive left, he wondered if he had any right to bring the company to an end. Shouldn't the people hate him as well? "As soon as everything settles down, I have plans to dissolve Shinra, and end its madness for good."
"All that's well and good - and good riddance," Vincent sighed, "but we still have Sephiroth breathing down our necks and Meteor is still falling. Even with those scumbags dead, if Meteor strikes, it doesn't matter if we stop Shinra or not."
"We've got to hurry! And hurry fast!" insisted Barret. "There isn't any time to waste!"
"On the contrary, there are seven days before impact... So we still have some time," said Vincent plainly. He leaned back in his chair and hung his head over the back, sighed, and pulled himself back up with a grunt. "But we all still have unfinished business," he said, much to his friends' confusion. Barret had Marlene, Cid had Shera, and he had his own debt to pay to Lucrecia before he decided whether to take the leap or not. "Fighting for the Planet is good in theory, but none of us have to fight Sephiroth."
"The hell you sayin'?!" Yuffie exclaimed. She bashed her hands on the table and hoisted herself to her feet. Trembling, Yuffie angrily laid her hands on the table and leered at Vincent. What was he talking about?! Sephiroth was Key Item Number One for everyone, wasn't he? "We got a job to do, and we gotta do it!" she hissed. Upon seeing Cloud's apprehension, Yuffie grit her teeth and stuck out her tongue at him. "Do you have something to say or are you just blowing smoke up our asses?!" snapped Yuffie.
Cloud, who had remained silent, sighed, laced his fingers together, and leaned forward, albeit reluctantly. What came next was all the way into the territory of the unknown... But each of them would have to traverse their own wastelands to reach the end of their paths. "The fate of the Planet is the fate of us all... but not all of our fates belong to the Planet. Do you remember when Vincent said that?" he asked. As Yuffie's eye twitched, Cloud sighed and leaned back in his seat. It wouldn't be right for them to all rush off to their deaths without a good reason to fight, and his reasons didn't necessarily intersect with theirs.
Cait Sith hopped onto the table and plopped to his seat, a sigh escaping his mechanical lips. He supposed that everyone but Yuffie had deduced what he was about to say, but he had to say it anyway. "Fighting for an ideal is one thing," Reeve said as he poured himself a drink. As he took a chug back in Midgar, he slammed his cup down hard enough to crack it open. "Finding a personal reason to fight matters more. If none of us give a hundred and twenty percent, we're bound to fail," he said resolutely.
"Y-Y-You... you son of a..." stammered Yuffie furiously.
They had a job to do, and that was it, right? Still, did she really want to plunge head long into Sephiroth's unholy lair? She'd wet herself when she'd fought the Behemoth; battling the source of evil itself would likely ruin her bloomers for good. The question seemed to resonate: Did she really want to do this? And if she did do it, why? Sephiroth had never hurt her or her father, the only other person on the Planet she would conceivably fight for. All her hatred and anger was second hand. The idea was clear: why fight a possibly unwinnable battle against someone who'd never wronged you?
"Cid... Red XIII... Barret... and all of you... We have seven days to think, so I'd like you to go home to your families and think about this very carefully. It's your decision whether we fight Sephiroth or not. There isn't a half way forward," said Cloud. It would be far too selfish to assume that the others would fight what might end up being an unwinnable battle. They would have to make that choice themselves, and, with the people they cared about the most.
After a period of hesitation, Cid snapped his lighter open and lit his cigarette. He took in a deep, deep puff, then extinguished his cigarette in his ashtray. "What happens if no one comes?" wondered Cid. "We all got our own lives, and it's our choice whether we fight or we spend our last hours with the people we care about. Some of us might hunker down with our families and wait for the end, together. What then?" he asked coldly.
Tifa shook her head, laced her fingers, and leaned forward with a sigh. "Cloud and I have to fight," she said flatly. She and Cloud had gone through the same nightmare for half a decade, and even if there wasn't any hope, they couldn't leave Sephiroth alive to ruin any more lives. Even if they sacrificed their lives, and even if it came to nothing, there wasn't a choice left; they would fight because it was all their lives would ever be worth. "And if we have to, we'll fight alone," sighed Tifa.
"One week. That's all I can ask of you. I want you to examine your lives and decide if you want to fight or not..." Cloud murmured. "If all of you want to wait for the end with the people you care about - Marlene, Bugenhagen, all of them - I won't hold it against you. So, please... Live your lives the way you want to. But Tifa and I will fight, that isn't going to change. The people we care for might mean more to us than risking our lives, perhaps for nothing..." he sighed. He laced his fingers together and bowed his head to each of his friends, in turn. "You live your lives. And that's what it comes down to," said Cloud plainly.
The crew's response was utter silence. Not a word spoken, not a breath taken. All of them did bow their heads, before silently shuffling away from the conference table. The only one who remained behind other than Tifa and Cloud was Yuffie, who had bowed her head and continued to shake. Slowly, however, she rose from her seat and wordlessly left the room. Cloud and Tifa exchanged a silent stare, nodded, and embraced each other tightly.
This was their fight. Was it their friends' as well?
Barret Wallace
"Daddy! You came back!" cheered Marlene as she hopped from the dinner table and ran to embrace her father. He returned the gesture, as strong as he could muster before hurting his daughter, and brought her to sit on his shoulder, the place where she was happiest. "I've been waiting for you for a long time!" she tittered. She'd stayed with Elmyra for weeks now, but she'd always prayed to be back in Barret's grasp.
While Barret and Marlene embraced each other, Elmyra lifted herself from her chair, approached, and folded her arms. "You know what? I feel like scolding you for being a bad father," she snapped. Before Barret could respond, Elmyra softened her stance and smiled. "But in the end, it's your decision. She's your daughter, you have your own life..." Elmyra said calmly. Barret was visibly shaken, and his eye began to twitch. "We've got our own lives here in Kalm, and you're more than welcome to join us. Spending time with your daughter? It's about damn time you did."
"Daddy! Daddy! Can you hold me while I go to sleep?" Marlene wondered. Slowly, reluctantly, Barret lowered her to the ground and solemnly nodded his head. "Yay! I get to lay with Daddy again!" she cheered. For Barret, seeing her youthful exuberance lifted his spirits, if only slightly, and if only for a few moments. She was what mattered. Whatever else happened with Sephiroth, she was his one and only priority.
The house Reeve had prepared for the pair was fully decked out with a kitchen, bathroom, and guest rooms. He could use one of them to sleep in, but it was more likely that he'd remain in Marlene's bed, with her. Marlene hadn't asked to be read a story, and it only took a few minutes before she fell asleep. Barret, however, couldn't sleep. As he stared at the ceiling of Marlene's room, all he could think of were the memories he'd made in the last several weeks. It had been a long and exhausting journey. Was this the time to call it quits?
Four years ago, Corel got destroyed. Three years ago, Sakaki gave me my right arm back. But all I had in me was hate. That's why I didn't get a real hand... I gave myself a weapon to get revenge on Shinra. Thinking back... when I remember what Sakaki said...
"Kill, kill, kill. All violence does is breed more of the same. But if you won't take my advice... Will this satisfy you? Fine. When you want to really satisfy yourself, come back and I'll make you a real hand."
After remembering Sakaki's words, against all his expectations, Barret drifted off to sleep. For a few minutes his mind relaxed, shaking off all the pain and violence he'd gone through during the war with Shinra. Then he remembered the bombing of the reactor, and Jessie's words while they were killing the Shinra soldiers and slowly returned to consciousness. Back then he hadn't paid close enough attention, but in hindsight the words echoed loud and strong in his memories.
"You didn't have to kill them! We aren't supposed to be killers!"
Yeah, but they had it coming. Everything I did was for the Planet. I didn't listen. All I did was keep killing. But... I did it for you guys...
"Biggs... Wedge... Jessie... You don't know what they said during the attack! Wedge barely got to speak to us before he died! Biggs stayed behind so he could die beside us! And Jessie nearly ripped her heart in half because of what we did!"
I did it for Marlene...
"We killed a hundred and twenty three people! We did! I did! Don't you realize what it feels like to lose someone because of someone else's hate?! It's what Shinra did to us! Our actions, for whatever reason, caused the deaths of innocent people as well as people we cared about!"
Biggs... Wedge... Jessie... I did it for you.
"Stop! Stop! If we kill them, they win!"
I just brushed it off 'cause I didn't realize it. We killed over a hundred people... and they died crying 'cause of me. What the hell is wrong with me?! God...
Barret unintentionally brushed his head, and he could still feel the imprint of Tifa's fingers from when she'd nearly cracked his skull open. His hand drifted from his aching head to his Gun-arm, the symbol of his hate, and his fingers scratched against the hard steel shell. Looking down at Marlene, the one person he had left to protect, and the treasure Dyne had left him, his eyes slowly closed. Trembling, a single tear dripped from his eye. He slowly and carefully removed his arm from under Marlene and lifted it to his face, wiped away the tear, and his eyes slowly opened.
I murdered a hundred and twenty three people. That ain't ever gonna go away. But... if I protect just one person... I...
Nanaki, a.k.a. Red XIII
By this time, Cosmo Canyon had all but become a ghost town. Its citizens, its researchers, one by one they'd given up hope and drifted away from the settlement, so when Red XIII appeared and was greeted by only Hoshi, it had been a hard truth. Being told by Hoshi that Bugenhagen was bedridden was even worse, and he immediately ascended the stairs to Bugenhagen's observatory. When he found him, Bugenhagen was groaning and had a fever, and sweat dripped from his every pore. He didn't have much longer.
"Grandpa! Can I do anything to help?" Red XIII asked timidly. He knew the answer was no, but there wasn't any way he couldn't ask the question. The mere sight of his grandfather in this condition was enough to chill him to the bone.
After clearing his throat, Bugenhagen brushed the sweat from his brow. "You were right, Nanaki... traveling to the City of the Ancients was more than these old bones could bear... But it's more despair than old age..." Bugenhagen said flatly. "Being devoid of hope has pushed me into the jaws of death, and perhaps I find it welcoming..." He paused for a moment, remembering his drink with Tifa, and a fragile smile crossed his face.
Even without hope... I've kept all the promises I'd set to give myself. I can go out knowing that I made a difference in her life.
"There is still hope, Grandpa! Me and my friends will prove it!" insisted Red XIII. He grit his teeth and bared his fangs as his emotions began to overwhelm him, however. There was hope. Right? "The Planet will survive!" he said firmly.
"My view is unchanged: the world will die, and I've accepted that..." sighed Bugenhagen. As Red XIII's breath quickened, Bugenhagen lifted himself to his seat and looked carefully at his grandson. "Even if Sephiroth is stopped, the Planet has been mortally drained. It will soon die with or without Meteor coming down. But I can die accepting my own sins, so long as my grandson still breathes..." he said haggardly.
"The Planet will live, Grandpa!" Red XIII insisted again. As things progressed it became more and more difficult to believe his own words, but what else could he do? "My friends and I will surely-"
"Shame on you, Nanaki, for believing empty words over facts," Bugenhagen scolded, to Red XIII's shock. "Don't believe what others tell you without deciding it for yourself first. I want you to think carefully about whether the Planet should... or can... be protected. If you stay, I want you to organize my funeral..." Bugenhagen paused, hacking up a smidge of blood into his hand, and fell to his back coughing.
This was nearly too much to bear. Watching his grandfather not only die but die hopeless, the pain on Red XIII's face had begun to warp his snout. "You can live for me, Grandpa!" choked Red XIII. As the tears began to accelerate, he'd begun to grind his teeth hard enough for them to hurt. Surely that would give him a reason to live.
Bugenhagen shook his head. "Your worth to me is meaningless to your own self worth..." he said flatly. "Through all the pain and hatred you've felt, towards your father - towards Shinra - the doubts in your mind... Decide for yourself who you're fighting for. Yourself... your friends... or something even deeper. Don't live your life for me. Live it for what you treasure most. That something..." Bugenhagen sighed haggardly, "whatever it is... Never forget who and what you are, Nanaki. Even if I have no hope... You are the one who will decide what is important. Hope, or do not hope... Live your life, Nanaki. I love you."
His heartbeat quickening and his breath wavering, Bugenhagen slowly reached out to Red XIII and laid a hand on his head, stroked it, then laid it over his chest. Deep breaths became shallow ones, coughs became gasps, and finally, the life drained from his body with a grimace on his face. As the pain continued to grow, Red XIII slowly stepped away from his grandfather's body and curled his tail around his paws. His salty tears fell just as when he'd met his fallen father, and just the same as then he reared back and howled with all the sorrow and energy he had left in him.
Becoming a warrior... my heritage... to make my father proud... I can see now, Grandpa... I have my answer: all the will in my body aches to prove you wrong. Whether I become a warrior or not, your memories will never die. The world you loved so much will go on. I won't just fight to make you or father proud any longer. I will live the life you gave me, and I will never waver. One day... I wish to see the world covered in fields of flowers, from one land to the next. Even Midgar. I want my children to grow up in a world flushed with life... No matter how long it takes... I will provide for them, when they come of age. You loved the Planet. I'll make sure that everyone can love it just as much as you did... Because I love it too.
Yuffie Kisaragi
Wutai remained more or less the same even after Meteor was called. Its people tended their fields and weaved baskets for their families, cooked food for their young, and cherished the life they had with everything they could muster. They'd done this even in the aftermath of the war, when despair seemed prudent. The spirit of Wutai had never faltered. Although her faith had waned, Yuffie sought desperately to grasp on to hope. There had to be hope... right?
"You've been neglecting your studies, girl... Your opening game is terrible..." sighed Godo. He and his daughter sat in a chamber inside the Wutai pagoda, a Go board set up between the both of them. He took a stone and snapped it onto the board with a flourish. They'd played the game often when Yuffie was growing up, though he never gave her much credit in terms of strategy. "A ninja's mind ought to be sharp as their sword," he said resolutely. Too resolutely for Yuffie.
Staring down at the board and the unenviable position she'd been put in, Yuffie's scowl deepened. As hard as she'd thought, she'd never been able to win a game against her father. "Oh, stuff it. I've been busy fighting, you old wind bag!" she snapped as she picked up a stone. She stared at the board and carefully laid down her move. "You keep holed up in here all boarded up with your books and yak and yak at me... At least I'm doing something," Yuffie growled.
"I want you to tell me why you stole my two materia," snapped Godo. Yuffie scowled and tightened her fist, but her father was unaffected and continued the game. It was a question both of them knew the answer to. When she'd kneed him in the gut he already knew, because he felt the same shame she did. "Aero and Aqua are the national treasures of our country. You disappoint me, girl..." he sighed.
While Yuffie wanted to reach out and strangle her father, her eyes turned to the game board and she merely stewed rather than act out. The situation on the board wasn't great, but they hadn't even exited the opening stage. Rather than respond to her father, she angrily snatched up a stone and slapped it onto the board. There was still a whole game left for her to catch up, just like she had done fighting through one continent to the next. There was always time to fight, always time to change.
Hmph. Like you got the right to yell at me. I've gone all over the world actually doing something while you've been holed up in here. I've always fought for myself and myself alone. No one's ever changed that.
"Didn't I just tie you to a tree?!" Cloud snapped, prepared to counter Yuffie's next attack. Just as he tucked, rolled, and snatched up his sword, however, his eyes lifted to see his attacker bowing politely to him. It was far from anything he was expecting. "Wait..." he stammered, unsure of what to do. He slid to a stop with his blade in his hands, still prepared to strike, but the girl proved to be no threat. What was she up to this time? "What..."
It was a prime opportunity that she refused to miss. As Yuffie stared at the ground, her eye twitched slightly, irritated that she was about to prostrate herself to someone she'd never met, but there wasn't another choice. "You're fighting Shinra, right?" Yuffie asked, to which Cloud nodded. "And that means you're gonna find lots of treasure along the way... Like materia, right?!" she tittered. Even if it was humiliating, she had to stomach the situation, so she snapped her head up and gave the biggest fake smile she could make. "So! I'm gonna come with you guys!" she chirped.
Okay, so maybe I changed a bit. Just 'cause I was desperate. That didn't mean jack.
"Maybe I just wanted to. I've been fighting for myself, idiot," Yuffie snarled. She laid another stone on the board. The more she said it, the closer she came to believing it herself. She knew she wasn't alone, but who gave a damn? None of this was any of his business.
After pausing for a few moments, Godo played another move. "No, you stole those materia to prove yourself to me," he snapped. Trying to get through to this thick headed dunce was a next to impossible task, but one he intended to fulfill. He owed it to more than one person to prove to Yuffie that she had the chance to make herself someone to be proud of, and not least of all he owed it to her. "Because you thought surrendering my sword was humiliating, that you were ashamed of me."
It was true. When Wutai surrendered and Godo gave up his pride, Yuffie had been so ashamed to call herself his daughter. Seeing her father surrender everything he believed in had shown that he wasn't worth caring about, so she had to step up and make everything right. Otherwise, the Kisaragi clan would just become laughingstocks, puppets of Shinra. She fought for...
Hmph. I sure as hell ain't fighting for this old bag of bones. Maybe... Naw. I got my own life to live.
"You sold me out to Cloud back then!" Yuffie growled as she forcefully snapped a stone on the board. She turned her eyes, fiery and determined, to her father, expecting to find an equal amount of anger in his. To her shock, however, his face remained blank and her own went ashen gray. Why wasn't he angry? Why didn't he curse her out? Everything made no sense, even less than she thought it would.
"I did. And I did so because you disappointed me," said Godo flatly as he played another move. When Yuffie angrily responded, he gently laid a stone on the Go board. "That disappointment was why you stormed off like a little brat in the first place. Somehow, however, that disappointment ceased to be the reason you lashed out. You found something else to fight for. Someone," he said smilingly.
Yuffie immediately jolted, stopped in place, and twitched her eye before quietly continuing the game. The times she'd spent with her father as a child, while her mother was still alive, those were the times she cherished more than anything. There was no one else but them, no brothers or sisters, just memories of them. When her mother died, so did half of herself. Seeing her father in pain had been excruciating... And seeing them being tortured was somehow even worse.
"What the hell do you mean, you've never heard of Cloud or Tifa?! They lived here, you jackasses!" Yuffie snarled, her hands on her hips. Everyone she'd talked to denied it, denied that her friends had ever lived there. The more the bastards denied it, the hotter she became. Every lie, every falsehood, was a slap in the face for the people she'd come to fight with, the people she'd begun to regard as family. "Tell the truth! Those two are crying their eyes out and you keep lying?! Oh, hell no!" she screeched, digging her fingers into her palm hard enough to make them bleed. This was too much, it was too wrong. And she intended to make them pay for it.
The bastards were lying. They knew perfectly well who you guys were, and they lied. They didn't have to watch your faces drop. They didn't have to see you act so tortured. They didn't have to give a damn, and they didn't. After everything Shinra put you through, that? Oh, hell no.
"No, you aren't done yet, Yuffie..." Tifa said darkly, much to the ninja's consternation. As her anger began to build, Yuffie was slowly taken aback as Tifa's face distinctly lacked menace or malice. As Tifa's eyes stared back at her, Yuffie quickly realized that she wasn't in danger. "We might still need you down below. So, please?" she asked quietly.
You weren't just sad, you were scared.
With a satisfied grin, Cloud and Tifa took their materia and returned them to where they belonged, and as they turned to leave, Yuffie grabbed onto Tifa's wrist and stopped her from moving. "Hey!" Yuffie chirped cheerfully, her grip tightening. "I'm going with you, right?"
"Are you out of your damn mind? Get lost!" shouted Cloud, taking Yuffie's hand and removing it from Tifa's arm. "You just betrayed us! Give me one good reason why I shouldn't just kick you in the butt and leave! Right now!" he growled, angrily putting a hand on his hip.
"Y-You... I... Um... You're right, I don't have a good reason!" moaned Yuffie, much to Cloud's surprise. "But I want to change things for real, now!" she said with a polite bow. "If I can save Wutai by taking down Sephiroth and Shinra, I want in!" she insisted. Surprisingly, she seemed sincere.
I meant it. Y'know what? I meant it.
As she reclined back into the water, Tifa looked at things with a more acute eye. "Back in Nibelheim, I was... I was really scared, you know?" she murmured. "Everyone said that I never existed... When no one even admitted my father lived there, well... I guess it really shook me..."
"Have you come to your decision, then?" Godo asked quietly as he laid the final stone on the board. As he stared down at the stone-laden board, however, his eyes widened and his pulse quickened. The more he looked, the less it seemed possible: Yuffie had won. He counted the points over and over, but somehow, she'd won by just a couple of points. A middle game upset, plus a genius endgame, triumphed over his own experience and expectations.
"You know what? You're right, and I hate it," Yuffie snapped. She leaned back and stretched her neck, flexed her fingers, and adjusted her bandana. It was clear all along, but she'd refused to admit it to herself. "I was fighting 'cause I wanted you to notice me!" she growled, tears forming in her eyes as she laid her hand over her face. Now it was clear: the reason she fought wasn't for herself anymore. "Turns out it didn't mean jack. The whole time you cared about me... but I kept shoving you back, and... now that I've met them... Y'know, I just... I-I just..." she stammered, the words barely registering in her mind. She had changed.
"Do you still seek my approval?" wondered Godo. He received no response, so he softly reached over the board and brushed away Yuffie's tears. When he continued to receive the silent treatment, he rose from his knees, walked across the floor, and embraced his daughter tight. "Because you've always had it..." he murmured. As the dam began to crack and finally burst, Yuffie broke out crying and fell into Godo's arms, the same way she had as a child.
Bastards. I'm supposed to be the greatest ninja in the world. I wasn't supposed to wind up in the middle of this garbage. I was supposed to be a shadow of death, a solitary blade of sheer... Oh, screw it. I ain't letting them make you cry one more damned time. Not if I can do anything about it. If Sephiroth wants to screw with you, I'm going to screw with him.
Cid Highwind
With Shinra Twenty-Six gone, Rocket Town had begun to empty of its citizens. The Inn shut down, the gift shop went defunct, and as more and more people left there remained only a single active household in the entire town. She dutifully cleaned and maintained the home, changed the sheets, and always kept a kettle of tea ready. So, when he finally threw the door open, it had jolted her awake.
"O-Oh! You're back, Captain!" tittered Shera as she frantically dashed around the kitchen, preparing tea. "I'm so sorry... I let this batch go cold!" she moaned. "Just wait for a moment, and I'll-" To Shera's amazement, Cid silently plopped down in his seat without saying anything. When he remained seated and silent, she hesitantly put down her tea kettle and shuffled to sit beside him. It was unprecedented for him to be quiet. He'd always been brash and foul.
Sixteen years had been a lifetime's worth of pain. After everything he'd put her through, which he now knew was for no good reason, it had been sixteen years wasted. Back onboard Shinra Twenty-Six, he couldn't find the right words, and he still hadn't quite figured out what to say. The sixteen years they could have spent together was gone, and all along he'd known, but kept denying it. She always had.
"C-Captain..." Shera stammered, unsure of what to say. She'd never seen Cid like this, without a cigarette, without a foul word spewing from his mouth. Even if it was strange, it wasn't something she didn't welcome. With the words hard to find, Shera quietly began to open her mouth to apologize again. "I'm sorry, I-"
"I was wrong. The whole damn time," Cid interrupted brashly. As Shera stared at him in dumb shock, Cid bowed his head but remained otherwise silent. The words just wouldn't come; they were too difficult to say.
"Have... have you forgiven me?" Shera asked softly. When she received no response, she hesitantly stretched out her hand towards Cid. To her shock and horror, he grabbed it and held it tight, tighter than he ever had. Shera stared in mute silence as time ticked by, with no words said. She'd fought with her own guilt and regret for sixteen long years. The idea that he might finally forgive her? It was more than she could have ever prayed for.
"Can you forgive me?" Cid rasped. Shera quietly nodded, but as she moved to take back her hand Cid flipped it palm up and grasped it with both hands. His grip was tight, but oddly soft. Tears slowly began to drip from her eyes, but Cid quietly bowed his head. "I got a favor..." he said calmly. "Can I... Y'know..." He paused, then raised his head with a fragile smile on his face. "Can you wait for a while before I finish yapping? 'Cause there's a lot for me to say..." he croaked.
You were right. What is there to say? Why am I still talking? All this time you... y'know... God, I'm an idiot. All this time I've been yelling at you... but the whole time, I knew that I wanted to be the only one who was giving you grief. Now that there's someone else breathing down our necks, ready to make you cry again... It makes me really frickin' pissed. When I come back, I promise I'll yell at you a lot more.
Reeve Tuesti
Midgar was in chaos, and power was in short supply. Even so, at least they had the TV blaring about Loveless and all the latest news about the world. If Shinra had really collapsed, what then? They depended on them for everything. The power came and went, so there wasn't much to do other than read old magazines or books they'd reread a dozen times. When he came back, it was the kind of shock every parent dreams of. Mrs. Tuesti was startled, but her immediate response was to run towards her son and embrace him tightly. He hadn't been home in months. She'd begun to think that his job was taking too much of a toll on him. "Come in, dear!" Reeve's mother insisted as she took a cup of coffee and slid it towards her son. He quietly sat down, took the coffee, and took a small sip.
Across the table, Mr. Tuesti shuffled away the newspaper he was holding and reached out to his son. "I hear you're in charge of Shinra now, my boy!" he chortled. Reeve took his hand and shook it, but said nothing. This wasn't the time, and it wasn't anything to be proud of. How many lives had he ruined? "You know, I-"
"None of that matters," Reeve said flatly, to the shock of his parents. It was unusual for him to be so cold. He took a deep swig of his coffee and set it down on the table, bowing his head in the process. "My whole life I tried to live the way you told me to: to be true to myself..." he murmured. His mother had taught him that when he just just a child. The whole damned time he hadn't been true to himself, and it had caused nothing but pain for him and for the rest of the world.
"And have you done it, son?" asked Mrs. Tuesti.
Mr. Tuesti could see the pain in his son's eyes. It was the kind of hurt that he hadn't seen since Reeve was a child, and it was honestly frightening to see him so shaken up. He hesitantly set his hands over his son's. "Can you forgive us, if we didn't raise you right?" he murmured. When he said that Reeve's eye twitched. It was never their fault, none of it. "If we-"
"There are some people I want to... no, need to talk about," Reeve abruptly interrupted. After a brief moment of thought, he took his father's hand and embraced it with his own tightly. "They made me realize... how much you mean to me..." he choked, a tear forming in his eyes. He'd spent decades running away from the people who meant the most to him, and it stopped here and it stopped now. He shut his eyes tight, almost pained to speak, but slowly opened them and cracked a fragile smile. As Reeve stared back at the two people most important to him, the two he'd taken for granted, his resolve tightened. "There was a young flower girl, someone who showed me what was really important... and then the others, they were all just as precious to me..."
You guys gave me something to believe in again. Watching you two suffer was just too much for me to bear. I owe it to a lot of people to change, but... Cloud... Tifa... I promise that I won't let you die, alone or otherwise.
Vincent Valentine
As was to be expected, the cavern hadn't changed. It was still illuminated by shimmering, white crystals, with a lone occupant deep inside her own chamber. Vincent quietly walked towards Lucrecia, hesitantly pressing his boots down for every agonizing step. Once he'd come within arm's reach of her, he stopped and slowly knelt down in front of Lucrecia, and bowed his head.
"What's wrong?"
Vincent remained silent. The fact that he'd lied to her pained him greatly. She had the right to know that her son still lived, and she also had the right to know what kind of man he'd grown up to be. As he remained stationary, Vincent's head remained bowed. Even if it had to be done, it was so hard.
"What's wrong?"
Lifting up a hand to silence her, Vincent raised his head and narrowed his eyes at Lucrecia. "I lied," he said flatly. "Sephiroth is alive..." Receiving no response, Vincent retracted his arm. "And, I killed Hojo," said Vincent, a bit more forcefully. He didn't know if telling Lucrecia that the fiend who'd ruined both their lives was dead would make her feel any better. Even he wasn't sure how he felt; he hadn't found any sort of resolution when he'd slaughtered that bastard.
"..."
"I met him at Jenova's crash site," said Vincent. His head remained bowed, as he was unwilling to look Lucrecia in the eye. Sephiroth wasn't just evil, he was evil incarnate. The amount of pain he'd caused was far too much to justify any more, even as her own flesh and blood. "The man I saw was never human. You never had the chance to make him human. And now he's threatening to destroy the entire world. He must be stopped. There is no in between."
"Can he be saved?"
He thought back to the crater, when Sephiroth had warped Cloud's heart and ripped it to shreds. Back then, he still had doubts, but as he watched Sephiroth torture his friends, he'd realized something, and when he did, his fingers had begun to inch towards his sidearm. Back then, it had been evident. "No," Vincent stated unequivocally. He paused briefly, considering his words carefully before continuing. "He's been a lost cause from the start. And... I've finally come to terms with what happened between the two of us. But now, I have to end this madness..."
"So, you'll kill Sephiroth?"
Vincent remained silent for a moment, then ambled to his feet and turned to leave. As he did, Vincent quietly grit his teeth. It was hard, but he knew it wasn't his fight. However much he wanted to gut the man for what he was and what he'd done, his own feelings didn't matter at all. "I don't have the right..." said Vincent coldly as he stepped towards the exit and began to leave the chamber. "But I know two people who have to decide that for themselves. Whatever sins he's committed, whatever sins I've committed, his fate isn't in my hands. I doubt I'll pull the trigger, so..." He paused, and turned back to Lucrecia. As Vincent gathered himself, he managed a fragile smile. "You won't have to hate me."
You two... You gave me a chance to bury my demons. I never thought I'd atone for the sins I'd committed, but being with you made me realize that I already had. It's time for me to help bury your demon, now.
Cloud Strife and Tifa Lockhart
The two of them had no one else. Their home town, their families and friends, everything had been eradicated five years earlier by the monster they were now preparing to face. Odds were that, alone, they'd be walking into a death trap, but involving the others against their will would only make them as selfish as Sephiroth was cruel. With the Highwind moored on a cliff just outside of Midgar, Cloud and Tifa had built a small fire with which to weather the night. While Cloud tended to the fire, Tifa silently stared out into the empty red sky, searching for an answer to a question she didn't even know she'd ask. Her head bowed, she plopped down on the ground and sighed. The heat of the fire wasn't enough to keep the burning flames in their hearts going, and without the people they'd fought with for ages their light dimmed. Fighting Sephiroth without them wasn't only daunting, it was terrifying, terrifying that they'd be alone again, with no one else to lean on. The strain was nearly too much.
"Looks like the two of us are alone... again..." Tifa mused. As she turned to Cloud, who continued to feed the fire, Tifa watched to try and find some shred of despair in his eyes, but found nothing of the sort, and it etched a smile across her face. If he hadn't given up hope, why should she?
"We have each other," said Cloud plainly.
Cloud's words swelled Tifa's heart with joy, but the underlying fact remained: the two of them against Sephiroth and however many unholy freaks he'd gathered to guard himself was... next to suicidal. All the devotion, dedication, and prayers in the world couldn't help them in Sephiroth's inner sanctum. She was well aware that they'd be marching off to their own painful, agonizing deaths. There was no chance.
Tifa took in a deep breath and stretched her legs, her entire body forming a see-saw shape as she bent it long and far, trying to drag some hope from her aching muscles. They did have each other. Again her thoughts turned to Aerith and the competition they'd waged for Cloud's heart, the love that had been cut short by the edge of Sephiroth's blade. Back in Mideel, she'd wondered again if she loved him. Somehow, however, staring into his catatonic eyes the feeling vanished - lover or not, he was all she had left. Even with the others, he was the closest thing she had left to family.
"I wonder if anyone'll come back..." Tifa muttered idly, curling her entire body into a ball to keep warm. "They've got their own families... and it wouldn't be right to try and pry them from them just 'cause we want backup. This isn't their fight. But..." she sighed, unfurling to lay flat on her back. She was hoping, and hoping was all that she could do at this point. "You know what? I think they'll come back," said Tifa resolutely.
He felt the same way, both about his friends and about Tifa. His feelings for Aerith had never had the opportunity to develop; all that he could do was close her clouded eyes, when the time came to say goodbye. She loved him. Did he love her? And what about Tifa? What did she mean to him? In the chaos and anarchy at the crater, more than anyone else he'd wanted to apologize to Tifa. Did that mean something? With a sigh, Cloud groaned and laid flat on his back, directly across from Tifa.
"The fate of the Planet is everyone's fate... but not everyone's fate is the Planet. But even if we have to fight alone, I don't intend to lose..." he said firmly. Even in his heated thoughts, he couldn't help but stare at his blade, which he'd embedded deep into the ground. It had been his partner for ages, even if it wasn't his.
Can I really do it all? Protect Tifa and kill Sephiroth? Looking back, I really shouldn't have even had a shot.
"The sword... his sword... How did you get it?" asked Tifa softly. When she saw the obvious discomfort in Cloud's eyes, she quickly began to backpedal. The pain in them was evident, and stoking it only gave her pain as well. "You don't need to tell me... but I was really curious..." she stammered.
The more Cloud stared at the Buster Sword, the harder the memories were to manage. Finally, after taking in a deep breath, Cloud rose to his seat and narrowed his eyes. Telling the story wouldn't be pleasant, but... "Zack and I escaped from Hojo's lab in Nibelheim... and we traveled all over the world," Cloud sighed. Even if they had, he'd barely been conscious for nine-tenths of it. Zack had done all the traveling, carrying his catatonic body on his back. "I was barely conscious, but he always protected me. He'd always rub me on the head and laugh, but... by the time we finally reached Midgar, he..."
"He never made it, did he?" Tifa asked flatly. Tears began to form in her eyes as she remembered Zack's involvement in Nibelheim. He'd fought to save her and her home from Sephiroth, but in the end he hadn't been able to defeat Sephiroth. Even so, the happy-go-lucky girl wearing a cowboy hat still had fond memories of a black-haired man with a ridiculously oversized sword.
Cloud reluctantly nodded and dropped to his back again, after one final look at his sword. "When he died, he told me that I was his living legacy... and that I had to survive for the both of us," Cloud said quietly. Shutting his eyes tight, he turned his memories back to the aftermath of Zack's final stand, the blood that covered his eyes like tears, and then back to the present. "That sword represents three promises... A promise to Zack, that I'd be his living legacy. A promise to take care of Aerith, because he never got to come back to her. And the third promise is the one I made seven years ago: that I would always protect you," he said firmly. That was the most important promise. "The reason I keep fighting is so that I can keep those promises."
After a hesitant pause, Tifa turned her head towards Cloud. "We'd been alone for so long, I thought we'd never get back together..." she murmured, closing her eyes tight. "When I found you in Sector Seven, I didn't know what to think. But as time passed... and you tried to act like him... It was even more painful when I watched you collapse back then..." Reluctantly, Tifa sighed and turned her head away. "Memories aren't made by one person... They're meant to be shared," she said flatly, to Cloud's amazement. She turned to him with a warm smile, and giggled a bit. The whole business was so silly and embarrassing that it almost hurt. "Because we knew the truth, we saw through Sephiroth's garbage. Together."
What am I supposed to say to him? I almost lost him twice. Now that I know he kept his promise, it's a bit easier, but... I can't just let it go...
"Hey... Cloud? What all do you remember when we were in the Lifestream together?" asked Tifa.
No matter how much he thought, it didn't come down to memory. He didn't remember anything about his time in the Lifestream, not his writhing astral body nor the memories that Tifa relived. The only thing that he remembered was the most important thing. "I just remember waking up with your hand in mine..." Cloud muttered. When he first opened his eyes and saw her smiling back at him, it had been like a dream. "And that's all that it took to satisfy me."
Hearing that from Cloud went a long way towards healing. But inside her mind, through the accelerating torrent of memories and torment, it would take more than that to satisfy her. Watching the events unfold the way they really did had started the process, but it hadn't resolved it yet. "Wanna know what I saw? I saw the truth... your truth," Tifa said softly, almost too soft for Cloud to hear. "At first I thought you hadn't kept your promise, but then I watched you keep it, and... Finally knowing that you were there, to protect me... That... that was enough for me..." she murmured, finally coming to find her own peace. "I watched you... and... you kept your promise to me. But there's still one more promise for you to keep," said Tifa quietly, almost too soft for Cloud to hear. Still, he did.
There really wasn't much thinking to do to deduce what Tifa was saying. Cloud closed his eyes tight and remembered the dream he'd had where he'd promised to protect Aerith, then he flashed back to her final moments, when everything had crumbled. Because he didn't keep that promise, he had to make one more: to make things right. Fighting to protect his friends and the promises he'd kept was all well and good, but he thought back to his earlier words: "The fate of the Planet is everyone's fate, but not everyone's fate is the Planet." Those words resonated in his ears with tones that he never thought he'd hear.
"Why am I doing this? What am I protecting? That keeps coming every time I start thinking about Aerith..." Cloud murmured. Tifa paused, unwilling to commit any emotions, so Cloud folded his arms behind him as a pillow and shut his eyes. It had been a long, agonizing journey. He'd seen death and inflicted death, shed his own blood and shed the blood of others. Everything came down to those final few moments, when he couldn't protect her, but there was another reason, one that he was barely able to admit to himself. "Am I fighting for the Planet? Aerith? Or..." He hesitated and slightly opened his eyes, unsettled at what he was about to say. This might be the last time he'd be able to say it. "Am I fighting to protect the person who means the most to me?" he whispered.
She felt the same way. Whether she did feel that way or not, losing Cloud for a second time had almost broken her. Slowly, as her emotions fizzled like the embers of their fire, Tifa silently laid her head on Cloud's chest and held him tight. He returned the gesture, gently closed his eyes, and they drifted off to sleep, together.
Whether I love you or not... it doesn't mean anything. You and I are... we're...
Author's Notes
Like I said earlier, most of this is my own personal BS as opposed to anything canon. But I've said it before: I want to give each character their own time to shine. I did it with AVALANCHE and the Turks, and I'm hoping I did it for the party as well. We're at the finish line, only one chapter left, and next chapter Bahamut will appear and my BS in Chapter 39 will come to an end. Well... a new kind of BS is the way I actually handle Bahamut. It took me a couple tries to decide how to make it unfold, actually...
I'm aiming to go out big with around nine bosses. A lot of them are Mid-Bosses - normal enemies I'm using to pair the team up - with the end result being three stages of Sephiroth. Each of the bosses except for Ultimate WEAPON are in unique teams, changing each time. Let's get this done, folks. I wanna go all-out to end this sucker. I hope I do the battles and scenes justice. And Jenova gets a special ass-kicking, courtesy of a certain party member. I've shown the move before, but I want to ramp it up to the max. Hopefully, she'll make him proud.
In response to a guest review asking about Dirge of Cerberus, I've never played the game properly so I'd probably mangle it... so a novelization of that is less likely. And I've never seen Advent Children for the most part, but if I look through the summaries, put together my own material, etc. I guess both are vaguely possible. Same with Crisis Core, I'd have to include my own special BS, but this one I've actually played. Considering how much BS I've come up with for the game I've actually played... This is not going to happen right away, I want to make that clear. I intend to novelize another couple of games before I even consider any of these.
It's not on my immediate docket, but I guess if it's overwhelmingly requested I'd have to fudge my way through. I've already BS'd my entire way through this fic, so I guess it's possible... Please let me do a couple more novelizations before I try and do that, though. FFV and FFIX are going to be up next in the future.
The real reason I included that final scene is because it was canon. As much BS as I've thrown at you I want to adhere to canon as much as possible. Even Sakaki, who made Barret's Gun-arm, references a character from a side story of the franchise. Far as canon goes that also rules out two characters for the next chapter... Much as I'd like to have Vincent and Yuffie fight with the others against Sephiroth, it isn't canon so my hands are pretty much tied. Hopefully the little plot segments I provided you with will at least partially satisfy you unless/until I do something new.
That being said, I've been tinkering with another FFVII work that I've tentatively titled: "Final Fantasy VII, Another Calamity: The Andromeda War." It'll be all my BS, but beyond that I want to focus on my other works before I flesh that out. It'll involve a number of summons wreaking havoc, but that's all I'll say about it for now other than the name... Andromeda is a constellation known as "The Chained Woman," so... a woman that comes from the stars. Take from that what you want, I just hope I can pull it off the way I'm envisioning it. Beyond that it's all in the early planning stages, so don't expect it immediately as I want to do things right.