What hidden, hoarded longings there are in all of us.
—John Steinbeck
Dissolution
Part 1: "Retrograde"
"A vegetable?" Yuffie thought. "He's a goddamn vegetable?"
Fate, she surmised, had one sick sense of humour.
They'd finally reached the northern crater after braving the cold wastes that lay beyond the Forgotten Capital. Having scaled the treacherous mountain, they found themselves situated deep within the abyss of the crater itself, a gaping sore on the planet's surface, the locus point and epicentre of the original Meteor's impact. Sephiroth, predictably enough, made his appearance, cutting down the last of the mystery men in black cloaks with psychotic glee before trapping Cloud and Tifa in an illusory world designed to twist their minds and turn them against each other.
Cloud's mental state, already on the verge of breaking point, began to unravel completely until, stripped of his identity, he was reduced to begging Hojo to be branded with a number, to be given a purpose. Yuffie, much like the others, had been horrified to see him debase himself in such a manner, only to be rejected, cast out, and finally lost.
And now this...
After regrouping and hijacking Shinra's most prized airship, the Highwind, they had searched high and low until they located him again in the backwater town of Mideel. Relief washed over them as they realized that it was indeed their lost leader. But their elation was short-lived as they discovered that he was confined to a wheelchair, trapped in a comatose state, completely oblivious to the rest of the world. It was all playing out like some tasteless joke, Yuffie thought. "Hey, good news. We found your husband. Bad news? So far, we've only located his head."
"It's not brain death, exactly," the doctor explained. "More like an... absence."
The elderly physician shook his head as he scrutinized Cloud's charts and x-ray photos for the hundredth time. He slowly removed his glasses, his brow creased with worry and frustration at this medical anomaly. "It's the damnedest thing..." he muttered. "We've seen cases of Mako poisoning before, severe ones at that. But nothing quite like this. It's like he's simply not there."
"So, what are you saying?" Tifa asked. "That he's... gone?"
"It's impossible to say," the doctor replied. "We've never dealt with a patient like this before. I'm afraid that only time will tell."
Barret dug some gil out of his pocket. "This enough to cover his stay?"
"Yes," the doctor said. "Thank you. We'll do what we can for him."
"Well... what the hell do we do now?" Cid asked, turning to the others as the doctor left the room, leaving them all by themselves.
"Don't know," Barret said. "But Shinra's up to something, and whatever it is, they've got enough of a head start. On top of that, we've got Weapons tearing up the place. And who knows what that lanky creep Sephiroth is up to?"
The big man curled his hand into a fist, trembling with barely contained rage. "I swear, when I get my hands on him, I'm gonna cave his face in for what he did to Aerith..."
He calmed down again, seeing the morose look on Tifa's face as she regarded her childhood friend, his body now little more than an empty shell. "...and Cloud, too," he added.
"Hell yeah," Yuffie said, striking a fist against her palm. "Gonna shove my shuriken so far up his ass, he'll be spittin' his guts out."
"If you're aiming to put him out of his misery, count me in," Vincent said. The others were a little surprised by his sudden declaration. The mysterious gunman rarely spoke up, and until now he had seemed strangely reluctant to take Sephiroth on, for some reason. He noted their uncertainty and continued. "There was a time when I thought he might still be worth saving. But some people are simply beyond redemption. In any case, I have a score to settle with him, so I'll follow your lead."
"All right," Barret said. "The point is, we can't let'em win. Shinra, Sephiroth, Jenova... We've gotta find some way to stop'em."
"Sounds like we'd better get a move on," Cid replied, picking up his lance.
"I'm sorry, but... I'm staying," Tifa said, without taking her eyes off Cloud. "I can't abandon him like this."
The rest of the group halted for a moment, concerned by her hesitation.
"Hey, you gotta do what you gotta do," Yuffie encouraged her, breaking the awkward silence. "You have to be true to yourself, y'know?"
"You stick by him, then," Nanaki said. "We've got this."
"Leave it to us," Yuffie added, giving her a thumbs-up.
Tifa gave them a semblance of a smile in return, one that quickly died away again as she turned her attention back to Cloud.