A/N: Yes, I'm going to build some mythology in this chapter. While there are hints of things from Norse mythology (which FFVII is laden with, anyway), most of what I've developed for this is my own creation.
Cloud's Awakening
Cloud woke feeling sick in the way he had while recovering from Mako poisoning, like dizziness, confusion, upset stomach, and general tiredness. Some of the confusion probably came from his mind comparing notes (or something) as he realized he had two very different memories of some events. The sun shone warmly on him, however, and his body didn't seem to hurt...but he was also currently hearing soft murmurs from the Lifestream, letting him know he was near a Mako Spring. He had never gotten that sort of reaction from the actual Mount Nibel Mako Spring near the Reactor in the mountains because it was too far away from Nibelheim. If his doubled memories were right, though, the new spring was much closer to town...
Opening his eyes, he sat up slowly, waiting to see if his stomach was going to rebel against the movement. It didn't, so he looked around slowly—at the room, as much outside the window as he could see, at himself. It didn't take long for him to realize he was in Nibelheim as Minerva had said, in the patient room in the doctor's house, and that he was very young again. How young was the question. The lack of bulk to his muscle implied he was younger than fourteen, when he'd left home, but he wasn't exactly in a position to see his features or how tall he was to even guess the actual age he was now. On top of that were the Materia shards scattered around the room.
At first, when he saw only two red shards, he thought he'd gotten the short end of the stick—until he realized one was Zack and the other was his Master Summon, which allowed him access to the Mastered form of every Summon he'd found. Both of those had landed almost right in his hand on the bed. Others which had appeared close at hand (he actually thought Minerva was trying to keep others from knowing about them) included Ultima, Shield, Full Cure, Contain, Comet, Aerial Attack, Final Attack, Underwater, and Long Range Attack. All of those were extremely rare. Most of the Materia scattered around the bed and on the floor were green Magic Materia, and if he was right, he was counting over forty, even without collecting them to be close at hand.
:Forty-five, actually,: Zack's voice entered his head, making him look down at the red orb leaning against his leg.
:Why do you know the exact number, Zack?: Cloud asked in amusement.
:It's actually Fenrir now—you should probably get used to calling me by my new name. I mean, nothing else is changing, but we were warned not to confuse me as Fenrir with the younger me who is still Zack, right, buddy?: the young man asked, sounding very cheerful and amused. :As for why I know, I can feel every one of them around me, so I could count them while I waited for you to wake up. Feeling all right?:
:Yeah, given what supposedly just happened to me for the first time,: the younger of the two answered. :Do you know my age right now, or the date?:
:No, but I know Jenova's nearby, and so is Chaos. You can verify we're in Nibelheim, right?:
:We are. I know the view out the window, and it's not a view you can see anywhere except here. Chaos and Vincent are probably in Shinra Manor, and Jenova would be up at the Mount Nibel Reactor. We need Vincent and Chaos first, though.:
:And you need a bit more time to recover,: Zack's dry voice replied.
The door suddenly opened and the doctor stopped abruptly in the doorway, staring in shock around the room and at Cloud, reminding the man—boy?—it was somewhere around mid-day. After a moment, the doctor gasped out, "You're awake!"
"Am I...not supposed to be?" Cloud asked quietly in confusion. Wasn't the point supposed to be that he'd wake up?
"You—fell in a new Mako Spring that opened up not too far outside town, and had been in it for quite awhile before we found you. The level of your poisoning was—beyond reasonable—and we had next to no hope you'd wake. But your eyes are—SOLDIER eyes," the doctor answered almost crossly. "You only fell in two days ago, as well. It's not even possible for you to have woken already. Why were you outside town in the first place?"
Remembering how Minerva had told him to answer any questions about his having left town, and the fact that he had a memory to support the answer, Cloud replied, "I left to avoid the bullies who always pick on me. Outside town, the ground shook and cracked, then I fell into...I think it was liquid...but then, my mind's a blank."
"Surely there's some reason you woke up so soon?" the doctor asked darkly. "And where did all these Materia come from?" He moved to pick one up, only for it to repel itself from his hand—and bounce right into Cloud's lap.
After a shocked silence at the Materia's behavior, Cloud looked back up at the doctor as he wondered what the Hellfire he was supposed to say. It was Zack who said, :Tell him you hear the 'Voice of the Lady' and she prodded you awake because she didn't want you to sleep anymore.:
Since he had nothing better to reply with, Cloud told the doctor, "There's—a voice in my head, I think it's the Voice of the Lady. It, she, kept—poking and prodding at me until I woke up because she didn't want me to sleep any longer."
"And the Materia?" the man asked suspiciously.
Cloud pointed at the one which had jumped into his lap and said, "I'm not sure how they got here, but it obviously wasn't that long ago, and they really like me, right? You couldn't really touch it, so I guess the Voice made them for me."
:Good call on that one, buddy,: Zack grinned into his mind.
"They like you?" the man gaped for a moment, then scowled. "Why in the world would any 'Voice' be willing to go to such lengths for a bastard child who isn't even a town native?"
The words made Cloud angry and Zack apprehensive, but the man—boy—retorted, "Maybe the Voice decided she liked me because I'm not a backwater asshole who treats kids like dirt because of something that isn't their fault and they have no control over!"
"Yay!" a new voice suddenly cheered from outside, only for a girl about age eleven to run into the room and jump on the bed to throw her arms around his neck. "You finally woke up, and you told the doctor off really well! He wasn't going to even take care of you, and your Mom had to give up almost all her money and goods so you'd be able to get care, and winter's just starting...!" The dark haired girl then burst into tears on his shoulder as he sat there and stared.
"Tifa?" he asked in confusion. She nodded into his shoulder, but didn't stop crying, so he slowly worked through what the doctor had apparently done to him and his mother at the start of winter. "Oh, Shiva, I may as well not have even been found—at least she'd be able to survive the winter that way..." His gaze went to the doctor as he asked coldly, "Exactly what kind of 'doctor' are you? You're sure not a doctor because you care about the well-being of others after stripping us of the goods we needed to survive the winter with no time to gather more money or goods before it starts. And I'm not stupid—it doesn't cost that much to take care of a patient, and even in Midgar, I'd only have needed a thousand gil for a hospital stay because of Mako poisoning!"
"What do you know, you bloody little bastard?" the doctor snarled.
:Cloud—Summon me as Fenrir!: Zack said into his mind before he could reply to the doctor.
"Fenrir!" Cloud suddenly yelled, tapping into the energy of the Materia shard against his leg. A moment later, the orb shone and Zack, in his form as a large, black wolf appeared at the foot of the bed, standing on all fours and gazing at the doctor almost at his eye height.
"This needs to stop," Zack-as-Fenrir said to the man in a very soft voice, causing it to reverberate through the house. Three others arrived at the door to the room shortly after—the Mayor (Tifa's father), Cloud's mother (Rayne (1) Strife), and the innkeeper's wife, who carried a food pail with her. Zack was speaking again even before they reached the door. "You have dishonored your traditions and lost sight of your path and purpose. This child has been put in your path to remind you of it, and to date, you have failed dismally. As such, the Lady of the Mountain has taken him under her care directly. What you have not had for so long has now become part of your lives once again—this boy, who is a Nibel pup like all your others—is now also the Child of the Mountains. If you do not learn to treat him with respect, the Massacre of the Wolves will become much more than an old legend to frighten children. Am I clear?"
Everyone in the room blanched except for Rayne, Cloud, and Tifa, though all three of them stared in shock at Fenrir. Zack's Mako-blue eyes—which he still had as Fenrir—pierced the doctor's with a deep intensity.
It was the Mayor who answered, scowling as he asked, "How in the world is the bastard son of a woman who came to Nibelheim only twelve years ago a Nibel pup or the Child of the Mountains? Neither of them has a place here, and they never have!"
Zack's gaze moved to the man as he answered, still in that very soft, reverberating voice, "I shall remind you of your legends. You revere the the Lady of the Mountains. Even in your legends, she resided here long before you did. She gave you permission to stay here on certain terms. One of those terms was to welcome those looking for sanctuary and a new life here, regardless of their walk of life, their familial state, their income, where they originated from. That is all spoken in your legends. You are all interlopers on her land, requested by her to rescue others from worse fates. By treating the mother and son as you have, you have betrayed that basic creed and term she gave you in exchange for the right to remain here.
"Now, what you have also done is forgotten the most intrinsic beliefs she taught you to uphold in your legends. The Lady of the Mountains has no male partner and never has, yet she is mother to the wolves, the dragons, the trees, the deep crags, the rivers. She is an unwed woman who has borne many children. In your legends, is it not true that all mothers, with or without a husband or a partner, are to be treated with deep respect for the very act of bringing life into the world?" The question caused a long pause from the others in the room, followed by sudden recognition and apprehension.
"Also in your legends, it speaks of the children born in these mountains. A man and woman and their existing children could arrive from abroad and were to be taken and cared for as refugees. However, should those parents give birth to another child while here, what was, and has always been, that child's status in the Lady's eyes? Was it not that the child became, by the act of being born here, a Nibel pup, fully and entirely one of her children? This boy was born here. He is, by her definition, a Nibel pup—and she loathes the abuse of her children, her pups.
"Furthermore, is it not true you become a hypocrite by treating an unwed human woman with disrespect while simultaneously honoring the Lady for the same thing? You have lost your way. It must change. With the Child now here amongst you, either it will change and the village will return to its true path, or she shall turn away from you to follow his path into the world," Zack told them, and his reverberating voice made the Mayor and doctor flinch at the words. With a final nod at Cloud, the black Fenrir faded and returned to the Materia shard while the others tried to regain their bearings.
:Zack, what in Hellfire was that?: Cloud asked his friend-made-Summon in his mind, feeling very confused by the one eighty the bubbly man's personality had done.
:Oh, sorry, did I freak you out? That was all rehearsed by me and Minerva, actually. It took me a long time to get it right without giving away anything. Your legends are really elaborate, you know that?: Zack asked cheerfully.
:Well, you played into it very well—even more because a black Fenrir is also a vengeful one in our legends,: Cloud informed him, seeing the humor in it once he knew what the man had been doing. Amused agreement came back from his friend.
After a long silence, Rayne turned to look at the doctor hopefully, and the man released a sudden sigh. "I guess I can't really argue with that..." he said mournfully. "I'll return your things to you and replace what I already used within the week, Mrs. Strife. And—sorry—about the poor treatment. If that really was—the Wolf King, the whole village heard that speech, so...I'll be surprised if you don't start getting a lot of apologies."
"I never cared about that. This was the one place where Cloud's father never found me, and that was good enough. I always wondered why—did he lose interest in trying to kill us both, did something distract him? Now I know it's because the Lady of the Mountains was keeping us hidden here, so they couldn't have found us, even if they walked right into us on the street," Rayne explained, and several pairs of eyes widened.
"What do you mean, dear?" the aged innkeeper's wife asked worriedly. "Why would your son's father have been trying to kill you? Most men would be pleased to have a child on the way."
"Not him. Cloud—became a complication to the life he was living. I wasn't going to just let him kill my child, so I ran," Rayne explained. "Since I was only five months along when I got here...Well, I wasn't aware until now that Cloud was actually taken as one of hers by being born here, regardless of his blood."
"Who is my father that I would be 'a complication to him'?" Cloud asked warily. "And I'll—probably find a way to kill him if you say it's Don Corneo."
"Who?" the doctor asked as Rayne whipped around to stare at her son in shock.
"He's not your father," she told the boy definitively. "But how do you know that name when you've never been to Midgar or ever read anything about it besides the articles about General Sephiroth and SOLDIER?"
Cloud blinked, then blinked again, until Zack prompted, :Tell them about Leviathan's Blessing. Everyone else is using it, and it basically means you've been claimed by—not one, but two deities known to be protective of 'their children'.:
"Um...There's this thing I found out about...or will find out about...I'm not sure how the phrasing would work...Anyway, it's a—very real thing Wutains believe in called Leviathan's Blessing," Cloud began.
"You have Leviathan's Blessing too?" Rayne gaped, eyes wide. "What is the world coming to for one child to have both?"
"Hold on—what's Leviathan's Blessing exactly?" the Mayor asked with a puzzled frown.
With a deep sigh, the blond woman who was Cloud's mother explained, "I don't know all the details, but in short, it means the person has seen their life before it happens."
"It's like a prophetic dream, you mean?" the Mayor asked in confusion and disgust.
"No," Rayne answered, shaking her head. "He—lived through that time, with all the feelings, memories...to him, it may as well have literally happened, and he was effectively 'sent back in time' because something needed to be changed and he would be able to do it with the knowledge his 'future self' had."
"There were four others, too. I need to find them. And why I have all these 'Blessings' so suddenly—it's because what I saw was literally the end of the world," Cloud put in calmly, making the others stare at him. "I watched—Nibelheim burn, its people slaughtered. There were two survivors other than some of the kids who left for Midgar in the years before it happened, but the 'two survivors' I mean were in Nibelheim when it happened—I was one of them. And then, I watched the world breaking apart, and the other four with me and I were the only ones in the only place with enough shielding to withstand enough of the devastation for us to be able to be sent back. That's what I have to try to fix. Except, it didn't have just one cause."
"Hey, is that also why you know about that Don guy?" Tifa asked suddenly, reminding the others of the girl's presence.
"Yeah, but Mom never told me who my father was before she died, so..." Cloud answered, looking up at his mother. "And I still want to know who he is."
"I haven't told so you won't be tempted to present yourself to him and end up dead," Rayne scowled.
"If you'd told the 'me' who didn't have Leviathan's Blessing, you'd probably be right," the boy agreed. "But I'm not him anymore. I won't do something that stupid because I know it won't help my situation."
After a long silence, the woman sighed and said, "When you're back at home, I'll tell you about him. I just truly hope you are mature enough to realize the danger you'll be in if you try to go to him..."
"But the others—" Cloud began.
His mother cut him off dryly, "You may have recovered much faster from extreme Mako poisoning than a person normally would have, but you aren't 'recovered' yet, and you can't go anywhere without me for another two years. It's just coming up on winter—we even got our first snow last night—so you won't be going anywhere until spring regardless. And Cloud, if those other four also got the Blessing—if they're adults, won't they come looking for you?"
The boy looked at her for a very long time, wanting to protest, but Zack added into his head, :She's right. I already told you part of it—that you aren't recovered yet. And don't tell them about Vincent until you've regained enough of your strength to go get him. Remember, you'll have to face that monster—what was it? Lost Number? Anyway, you'll have to face it to get the key to the room Vincent's in, right?:
Finally, Cloud sighed and relented, "Okay. I'll rest. I just—really feel like I should be doing something after seeing what would happen to the future..."
A silence followed, then Rayne said, "But Cloud, you're only twelve as of a month ago. What do you think you can actually do right at this moment?"
The boy's eyes widened in surprise as he realized he—and all the others—had been sent back in time fourteen years. Weiss had looked about his age, so was probably also about twelve, but where did that leave the others? Were they already in their various positions? Well, he knew where Vincent would be, but Tseng and Genesis...He really didn't know them well, did he? How old had the Wutain been when he'd joined the Turks? What about Genesis joining SOLDIER? He didn't think either of them had been all that old when they joined—Tseng was really only about five, maybe six, years older than him, and Genesis was probably only a few years older than that...
But none of that really helped him. At all.
The revelation that he was only twelve told him one thing, though. Minerva had said she had returned them to their previous bodies, and one of the things he would now never have was the Jenova cells. In other words, he was in his weak child's body, before he'd built his strength while tracking Sephiroth and challenging Shinra to destroy the Mako Reactors. That would happen nine years in the future, when he was twenty-one, so this time around, he'd have to build himself differently. Besides that—maybe it would be good for him to do things differently this time, because he'd really only gained the skills of a SOLDIER through extreme Mako poisoning and getting his own memories crossed with Zack's after the four years of experiments Hojo had put them through. Who would he have been if he'd been more than an arrogant kid, been more aware of his actual skills?
Now, he had the chance to find that out, didn't he?
Suddenly, he realized something odd and looked up at Tifa to ask, "Tifa, hadn't you been—avoiding me, and everyone—ever since your mother died? I mean, didn't you just—withdraw from everyone because you didn't want to be close to them anymore? So...why are you here, why are you so worried about me now?"
The eleven-year-old's deep brown eyes widened in surprise before she looked away sadly and said, "I was avoiding everyone because I thought it wouldn't hurt as much if they died if I wasn't so close to them. Then...when you almost died, I realized feelings weren't that easy to shut off, so...I guess..." She paused and looked up at him again as she said, "I realized it was better to spend the time I had with everyone I still care about. The thing I regretted most about losing Mom was that I'd never spent that much time with her, and now, I can never get that time back. I already lost enough time with my friends and my Dad, so...can we be friends again, spend time together like we used to, Cloud? I missed that, with you, with everyone...I'm tired of being lonely."
...Well, that was a big change from the first time through. Zack sent him an amused feeling, and Cloud mentally scowled at his friend-made-Summon.
But even then, knowing how they'd been living together and taking care of Marlene and Denzel in the future, he wasn't so sure of her reasons right now. So, he said quietly to her, "Tifa, I'm happy you want to be friends with people again, but I know you only ever invited me to join you because you pitied me. Right now, are we really friends? Were we ever really friends? Or was I really just a charity case for you? I need to know how you really feel about that, because otherwise...won't it just hurt us both more to keep pretending?"
Tifa's eyes widened as her jaw fell open, but she just sat there quietly for over a minute while the adults stared at him in shock. His answer hadn't been a child's answer, but it was no less valid, and even the Mayor was interested to know the answer his daughter would give. Rayne also felt better about telling her son about his father if that was his new level of maturity—and it was just more proof he also had Leviathan's Blessing. It made her curious about how far into the future he'd lived, and what he'd experienced in that time—he'd only told them two things without giving them the circumstances behind them, so they could have been very profound situations. That was besides whatever else he'd been through.
Suddenly, Tifa closed her mouth and her eyes became determined. "When I first started inviting you to play with us, you're right—it was mostly out of pity. I was a stupid girl with a too-big heart, and didn't realize I was hurting you when I did that—I really thought I was helping. But because I did that, I started to get to know you, and honestly Cloud, you treated me more like a human—like a real person—than anyone else in the village ever did. I started to like spending time with you because you'd be honest and open, you'd say whatever, not just what you thought I wanted to hear. Sometimes, that made me mad, but most of the time, I felt a lot better to be treated normal. And I got to know you. Right now, because I realize I had been doing the wrong thing all along after losing my mother, I want to really be your friend. Please?"
The words were heart-felt like the future Tifa's speech about letting his family in, letting them help him, had been, so he released a small sigh and asked, "You do realize I'll leave soon, right? To fix things? If the others show up in the middle of December, I'll go with them, or maybe if they come in spring. Will you be able to deal with that if we only just start a real friendship right now?"
She crossed her arms as she said, "So write me letters, or better yet, take me with you. But I'll be really, really mad if you don't at least write to me! And I'll write back to every single one. You'll come back when everything's safe again." Her absolute certainty was so much like how she'd been as a much younger child that he had to give a small laugh, even as she just kept staring at him expectantly.
"...Okay." She grinned and hugged him again, and Cloud returned it, thinking that this time, things just might go better in ways besides just their attempt to save the world so they'd have a future.
Notes:
(1) Rayne is the default name I had chosen for her long before data was put out somewhere saying her name was supposed to be Claudia. Her name was never stated back in the first version of the FFVII main game, and my head-canon in that regard isn't going to change anytime soon.