Wedge's grunts echo off the damp walls as he heaves Cloud's wheelchair up the final incline of a steep, spiraled ramp.
Apparently Fuhito spends his mornings training with his troops in a garden on top of the bluff that the base is carved into. To get there, they had to go deep into the corridors of the upper south side of the base. At the end of the ramp, he sees sunlight and an old, uneven set of stone stairs.
"Gotta hoof it from here," Wedge pants, drying his sweaty hands on the back of his shorts. He pulls Cloud's arm over his shoulder to help him walk, and Cloud is just glad they made it this far before hostile architecture forced him uncomfortably close to a guy he barely knows.
At the top of the stairs, he can see for miles and miles. Ocean, island, and thick, wispy fog. Scrubby, knobbed trees and steep cliffs carved out by snaking, shallow rivers. On the horizon, already far in the distance, the barge. The same beating sunlight that drew Zack's appreciation on the boat makes Cloud wince and squint.
In the more immediate area, the scenery is less picturesque. Some thirty or forty fellows are gathered in small groups, running slow, controlled katas among a scattering of solemn granite graves.
Their uniforms are slim fitting and navy blue, with smart little black berets and crimson visors. Cloud has seen them around the base, but never thought to ask.
Unlike the rowdy SOLDIERs in the dorm, none of them seem the least bit interested in his arrival. They move strong and silently from one pose to the next, legs twisting and arms extending in slow punches, punctuated by loud, unison battle cries. Their focus and dedication is intimidating.
A wide, shallow basin of sand sits in the center of the garden. Smooth and sloping rake lines bring order to the surface, except where they have been broken by the regular pits of Fuhito's footsteps.
The Commander sits cross legged in the center, his eyes shut serenely while his hands pour and sift the sand. Wedge seems to tense at the sight of him.
"Wedge," Fuhito murmurs without opening his eyes. "How unusual for you to intrude on our practice."
"Uh, well, you see—"
"I put him up to it," Cloud says.
"In defiance of your companion's express wishes, if I'm not mistaken," Fuhito hums, opening up his fist and letting the last of the sand whisper between his fingers.
The fighters in blue move to a new pose, letting out a gruff, collective shout.
"He doesn't know what he wants," Cloud mutters, his frustration coming through. "But I do. I practiced what you taught me and I'm ready to learn more."
"Is that so?"
The commander rolls a grain of sand between his thumb and forefinger, appraising Cloud with an assessing gaze. The fighters shout and perform a series of high kicks. After an interminable moment, Fuhito's lip twitches and he flicks the grain back into the basin.
"Very well," he says, clapping the dust from his hands and sitting up on his knees. "Set him here, Wedge. I'll send an aide to fetch you when we're finished."
"Sir!" Wedge snaps to a salute, a little too stiff to be natural, not at all the way he saluted Elfe in the dorms the other morning. He hesitates to lay Cloud straight into the sand, but Cloud doesn't see any other way and so he nods and urges him to do it.
The hefty young man all-but runs back to the stairs and an unassuming smile slants Fuhito's mouth.
"Poor man, you put him in quite the predicament. And yourself, for that matter."
Cloud gives him a dubious look. "What do you mean?"
"In order to advise you on your best chance of recovery, I will need to take you to my laboratory. I gather from some things Mr. Fair said that this would be uncomfortable for you."
Cloud's heart skips at the mention of medical instruments and tests. Fuhito is right, he isn't comfortable with that.
"Why would you need to do that?" he asks, unable to keep the tremor from his voice.
The Commander tips his head apologetically, indicating the fellows in the garden.
"The men and women you see around you are an elite force of fighters that we call the Ravens. They draw their power from materia embedded into their flesh, a technology Hojo pioneered as a precursor to the SOLDIER program.
Elfe was among his first victims, and from studying her biology I was able to reverse engineer the technique. Using this procedure on willing volunteers, we have built a force strong enough to go toe-to-toe with Shinra's SOLDIERs."
Sitting back on his heels, Fuhito draws a circle with his finger and stabs a deep fissure into the middle.
"Upon examining your body the other night, I felt a similar mass inside of you."
"Seriously?" Cloud touches his hand to his chest before he realizes what he's doing. Pressing hard, he feels nothing but flesh and bone and the wrinkled fabric of his cotton shirt.
"I intended to tell you after our meditation, but Mr. Fair whisked you away before I could." Fuhito lifts his shoulders in a small, subtle shrug.
"So I'm… like them?" Cloud stammers.
"Not exactly, and therein lies the quandary. The process of making someone a Raven requires no mako infusions, of which you say you had many. For that reason, mind-body disunity is unheard of in a Raven. Furthermore, you have the eyes of a SOLDIER, meaning you were also injected with some manner of enhanced DNA."
A troubled look pinches Fuhito's features and he erases his sand drawing with a brush of his palm, returning to his previous mantra of lifting and sifting.
"Why one man would be made to endure both procedures is a mystery. They produce largely the same result, and with similar drawbacks to the subject's life span and health. Hojo regards Ravens as inferior. To my knowledge, he abandoned that area of study over 20 years ago."
"But he did it to me." Cloud narrows his eyes thoughtfully, his gaze flicking between the few scant clouds within his range of vision.
The early days in the lab were a blur of drugs and pain. He remembers his chest aching on every breath and plastic tubes tying him to IV bags and blood transfusions. He remembers Dr. Bennet's crisp, uncaring demeanor when she made notes about his condition.
And Zack, of course. He vividly remembers Zack's bruised and bloodied figure laying unmoving in the next bed over; the fear and isolation he felt when that anonymous person suddenly disappeared.
His injury had been a stab wound, the place where Sephiroth ran him through. His memory is clear on that, but then again—can he really trust it? Can he actually picture it in his mind, from his own thoughts and his own memories, or is it just something Zack told him?
Pain pricks behind his eyes and he lets the thought slip, lets the heat of the sand seep a little further into his muscles and breathes.
"More to the point," Fuhito says, either ignoring Cloud's extended silence or unbothered by it. "If you are to regain mastery over your body and mind, we will first need to identify that materia and what it is designed to do. Until we know that, I cannot teach you to harness its power."
"And that's what you need the machines for," Cloud surmises. "To identify it."
"Precisely," Fuhito nods.
Cloud grits his teeth, the usual, tired emotions making a resurgence in his heart. It always comes back to Hojo one way or another, to his unhinged quest to rebirth Sephiroth. Just once, he wishes he could face the future without having to stare directly into the dark void of his past.
Swallowing down fear and involuntary, nauseating tremors, he meets Fuhito's waiting look with a bravado he doesn't really feel.
"Then what are we waiting for? Let's get to it."
Fuhito's lab is not what Cloud expects.
For one, it's in his private quarters, which are themselves a long and narrow suite of rooms cordoned off from the third floor of the administrative wing.
For two, it's decorated more like a nature retreat than a place of scientific study. Intricately patterned tapestries cover the metal walls of a sitting room with a large loom and a study full of books and hand-made furniture, both of which Fuhito pushes him past without comment or ceremony.
Unlike the rest of the base, Fuhito's apartment appears to be lit by some sort of enduring magic. Sconces in various colors of blue, orange, purple, and yellow dot the walls of each room and bathe the contents in soft, welcoming light.
He slows to a stop when they arrive at the third room, which is the same size as the SOLDIER's dorm but twice as cluttered. Grand mechanisms stand along the walls, all cogs and gears and jagged, glowing crystals. Star charts and planetary models fill up what little space is left, alongside a tall apothecary cabinet whose shelves have been warped by the weight of countless tomes.
A large worktop has been improvised out of a stack of concrete bricks and an old, wooden door with the hinges still hanging onto one side.
Dozens of jars and vials sit on top of it, holding ingredients ranging from the mundane to the macabre, and underneath Cloud spots a crate of materia just like the ones in Gloria's warehouse.
And, finally—although it's actually what Cloud's trauma wired brain notices first—there is the exam table. Padded, elevated, undeniably person-shaped.
Despite it being tucked away underneath a larger and more impressive instrument, his eyes lock onto it immediately and refuse to leave.
Cold sweat beads his brow and a phantom pain blooms across his belly. His vision flashes green and he can't tell if it's mako or an electric bat, whipping and whistling through the air, snapping cruel jolts of pain into Zack's body while Cloud could do nothing but watch and cry.
Groaning and spasming, he hugs himself around his aching stomach and manages to tear his gaze away only for it to land a stack of handwritten notes, the kind nobody uses anymore, the kind that take hours to painstakingly scratch, one arduous, scraping stroke at a time.
The scent of old parchment dissolves his grip on reality completely and he reaches out with his mind, searching and calling for a partner who isn't there. He can't sense or feel him, no matter how hard he yells or tangles his fingers up in the bond. Zack, Zack, where did he go, what did Hojo do to him, how is he supposed to live without him? His body shakes and shivers in the metal chair.
Gravity bends and sways, throwing his head forward and making it lul around as the chair rolls quickly through one door and then another. Hands push him upright and gently tap his face. Too small, too smooth, not Zack. He jerks, yelling and kicking, only stopping when his foot connects with a solid mass of person and Fuhito stumbles away gasping.
Cloud stares at him, dizzy from the comedown, his skin wet and crawling from disgust and cold sweat. The other man takes a moment to find his feet, his left hand massaging his gut where Cloud kicked him and the other pushing his displaced glasses back into place.
"Sorry—" Cloud says, mortified. There's no way Fuhito will help him now. Zack's going to come back and he'll have to own up to lying and for what? For nothing. Nothing.
"N-not to worry," Fuhito says, coming to lean on a nearby counter and checking himself over quickly. "Occupational hazard, I'm afraid. Not entirely unexpected. Though you do have quite a leg on you. I didn't account for that."
Looking around, he sees that Fuhito has taken him back to the sitting room. Although he didn't notice the first time, it seems to house a small kitchenette with a wood stove and a brass sink in addition to the sofa and chairs. The tap squeaks and squelches when Fuhito turns it.
"Perhaps some tea," he says with laborious lightness. "That always calms my nerves."
Without need for an answer, Fuhito busies himself filling a kettle and stoking the stove into a cracking fire.
Cloud watches, fascinated by the process, although he's seen Zack do it in the woods a hundred times. Zack didn't have exotic tea leaves from a fine porcelain jar, though. He didn't have a silver kettle with tiny constellations etched along the side either.
"Master Bugenhagen used to make this for us whenever we fought as children," Fuhito says, pouring the steaming draught into two cups with care. "A 'remedy for discord' he called it."
Setting his own on a small, water-ringed coffee table, he sits on the couch next to Cloud's wheelchair and makes sure that the mug is stable in his palm before sitting back and retrieving his own. Heat seeps into Cloud's hands and steam tickles his face.
The tea is a deep burgundy color that he's never seen before, the scent rich and earthy. It is undeniably comforting, although he doesn't attempt to drink it.
Fuhito relaxes into the couch and sips his tea gingerly.
"When the war broke out and we all convinced ourselves that it was our duty to fight for Wutai on behalf of the Planet, we all took a pouch with us. A memory of home." Fuhito huffs and a corresponding puff of steam rises up. "Fat lot of good it did us, swimming in blood and mud in a trench."
Cloud stares into his own cup, into the reflection of a face that's so pale and gaunt that he barely recognises himself in it. He blinks, and swears he sees long, silver locks instead of blond. He looks away, landing on Fuhito's loom, where a half-finished tapestry of the solar system hangs.
"You fought in the war?"
"I wouldn't say I fought," Fuhito hedges, crossing one leg over the other and rolling his foot in small, contemplative circles. "In Cosmo Canyon, when an acolyte comes of age and passes their trials, they take an oath dedicating their life to the service of the Planet. As a spirit healer, I felt my duty was to treat the wounded and the dying."
Hovering the cup near his lip, Fuhito trails off, only drinking after a long moment.
"I don't think humans can truly grasp just how savage we are as a species, not until they've felt a hundred souls with full lives ahead of them slip through their fingers and rejoin the Lifestream."
When they first entered Fuhito's dwelling, he sensed a frigid, stagnant pall hanging over the place. He hadn't known what to make of it, but alongside the man's small, disenchanted frown, the pieces start to come together.
Emboldened by the revelation, Cloud musters up the courage to ask the question that's been burning in the back of his mind all week.
"Is that why you tried to fire the Sister Ray at Midgar? Because you wanted to make them pay?"
Fuhito freezes with the rim of his cup just grazing his lip.
"That was… a very dark time," he says, lowering the mug slowly, slowly back to his lap. "I don't know who told you about that, but I won't deny it. I have since made amends for the damage I caused with that decision."
Fuhito's steady breaths fill the space, gathering the strands of his thoughts and preparing to weave a tapestry of regrets.
"When the ceasefire came, we were burning with rage. Wutai had been winning, you see, but the bodies kept piling up, and the government lost its fervor.
Despite the outrage of the Wutaian people—the people who had given friends, lovers, and children to the cause—the government signed their country away, and with it, the last nation strong enough to stop the spread of mako energy.
Elfe, Shears, and I resolved to carry on the fight, but we were not the same idealistic children we had been before the war.
Shears had designed many weapons for Wutai, and seen their destructive power echoed in the bodies of the soldiers that his weapons killed. He insisted that our movement be nonviolent. We would win this fight only by changing hearts and minds, and inspiring the people to forsake mako on their own."
"Doesn't sound like the Elfe I met," Cloud says.
"Indeed." Fuhito traces the rim of his mug before tipping it back and drinking it to the last. "I am partially to blame. After years of tirelessly organizing and educating the public, we found that we had not accomplished any meaningful change.
I became frustrated and disillusioned. I pushed for more aggressive tactics until it drove Shears away, and then, in Junon, when I saw an opportunity to finally make a difference, to hit Shinra in a way that would actually hurt… I made a rash decision, and it cost me dearly."
"She was upset?"
"She nearly split AVALANCHE in two. The only reason she didn't is because the new Wutai government had taken over, and they approved of my actions. They agreed to help me fund a new era of Shinra resistance, and Elfe could not continue her fight without money."
"She doesn't seem like the type to forgive and forget," Cloud says. Fuhito nods, conceding the point.
"She knows she's running out of time," he says with a note of restrained sadness, an unshed tear for the woman he used to consider a sister. Cloud feels his regret like the fire in the stove, burning hot and yet contained.
"The materia in her hand is that of a powerful, apocalyptic weapon. Zirconaide. It has been slowly killing her since it was implanted. She has already far outlived the doctor's predictions. If she wishes to save the Planet, then she is swiftly running out of time."
Cloud recalls the Commander's staunch and driven aura on the barge that morning and sighs. Zack's plans are even more doomed than he thought.
"So that's why—" he starts, catching himself.
"Yes, that's why she's suddenly decided to prance off to Midgar with our entire armory in tow," Fuhito says dryly, taking Cloud's cold tea from his hand and placing both mugs in the sink.
His face must show his surprise, because Fuhito lets out a knowing chuckle.
"Subtly is not one of her virtues. If she found out that I approved she would change her plan just to spite me, so I chose to play the fool.."
"And you're okay with it? The killing," Cloud asks.
Fuhito straightens his tunic and glasses in that way that he does when he's trying to separate his logic from his emotions. Turning on the water, he carefully rinses both mugs.
"I don't think any reasonable person is 'okay' with consigning masses of people to death," he says evenly. "But it is also true that souls are the lifeblood of the Planet. If the Lifestream has been depleted, then there is only one way to replenish it. Many, many souls will have to return to the Lifestream in order for our planet to heal."
A heavy feeling solidifies in Cloud's gut at the notion. It's grim, but it makes a chilling kind of sense.
Everywhere Shinra builds a reactor, a wasteland appears. And here in Wutai, where no reactor has ever operated, the forest outside the base is verdant and alive.
Fellows at the Elegy often speak about the 'cries of the Planet.' He has wondered, privately, if that might be the same screaming SOLDIERs claim to hear when they dream.
"Not quite the calming conversation I intended, but you seem better now." Fuhito says quietly, resting one hand on the back of Cloud's chair. "Shall we try again?"
It's no hardship for Cloud to set aside these morbid thoughts. After the past couple of weeks, he's amassing a handsome pile of them in the deep, dark recesses of his mind.
"Yeah, I think I'm ready now," he says.
Cloud watches Fuhito adjust a many-legged mechanism that's mounted into the ceiling above him with barely-concealed trepidation. The exam table is cold and smooth underneath him.
If he were Zack, he'd be babbling endlessly to distract himself, but he isn't Zack and so he just lays there with his muscles tightening themselves into knots, stewing silently. Fuhito hums an absent tune while he works.
"This is an energy spectrometer," the Commander says as he adjusts the spindly metal legs of the device to hover over various parts of Cloud's body, each one holding a series of crystals on a rotating gyro. "It was originally designed to analyze the structure of unprocessed materia, the sort you find growing around mako springs and such."
Cloud hasn't heard half of those words before, and he doesn't know what they mean. He nods.
"And it's going to tell you what Hojo stuck in me?"
"Hopefully," Fuhito nods. Cloud shoots him a warning look. Fuhito shakes his head dismissively. "It measures energy by comparing it to the available samples. If what you have does not match any samples, then the results will be inconclusive."
"And how will we know if that happens?"
"I suspect it will be obvious. The spectrometer will glow whichever color it finds a match for. And whatever color it glows, that will be the type of materia that you are carrying."
Anxiety makes his heart skip and skitter, and he focuses on the nexus between his stomach and his chest. Energy wells up in his core, stabilizing him.
"Yes, good. Keep doing that," Fuhito says absently. "Our results will be less accurate if your energy is too turbulent."
Searching for calm, he seeks out the invisible tether connecting him to Zack. The cord feels healthy and strong between his fingers, even though it's dormant and stretched thin by their separation. He draws strength from it, reminding himself why he's here.
Zack has been busting his ass every single second since they left the lab. He's taken every responsibility onto his shoulders, quite literally in Cloud's case. He deserves to rest. He deserves a partner who can carry his own weight and maybe even take on some of Zack's when he's tumbling. He deserves a Cloud who is present and in control of himself, not some half-crazed vegetable.
For that, Cloud could endure any number of tests. He could go into the Void and fight the whole world if that's what it took. He wants to be a soulmate that Zack can rely on, always.
A loud, mechanical rattling starts up as Fuhito vigorously turns a crank on the wall. The arms of the spectrometer start clicking and spinning. A rainbow of lights blink on and burn his eyes. He grits his teeth to keep from flinching.
Fuhito starts messing with the arms. Picking them up and repositioning them, changing out the stones, humming and muttering. He takes notes on a small pad and Cloud starts to see green sparks again.
One of the arms brushes his stomach and his muscles clench, his legs twitching as if they want to curl up, but gravity wins. They fall limply back to the table and Cloud's hands curl into fists.
"Ah," Fuhito gasps, whispering almost reverently. "There you are."
A lens aligns precisely over the scar on Cloud's chest where the pulsing energy concentrates, drawn to the spot just below the surface where he's apparently been carrying an unwanted stowaway.
The light energy from the spinning crystals concentrates on the lens. They come together, mixing and blending to show the color of whatever orb is buried inside him.
Would it be yellow like a speed spell? Green like healing? What would the color even mean for him, would he be able to call upon it from within his body like Zack used to call upon the materia in his sword?
Cloud watches the lens, lightheaded with fear and anticipation. Whatever it is, he'll make the most of it. He'll use every bit of power he can muster to get his life and his independence back. He swears to any spirit or god that might be out there that he won't take this gift for granted. He'll use it to serve the Planet, like Fuhito said.
Cast by the light of the crystals, a dark, scribbled shadow looms on the ceiling. A crow caws sharply, suddenly, unheard by the Commander. A single black feather falls ominously from the ceiling.
The arms, crystals, and lights abruptly stop.
The lens of the spectrometer turns black.