Chapter 22. August εуλ0007-October 5, εуλ0007
Was this the end?
Across the continents, all the way to Banora, the place it had all began. Now – Lazard, breathing his last as an Angeal clone. Genesis whispering of a dream that became real in the end.
But as for Zack's dream…
He looked at Cloud, Genesis's words echoing. The gift of the goddess, the source of life to bring immortality, destruction and salvation all in one. LOVELESS. But Zack needed no poetry to tell him what gave life meaning. Cloud might not be the savior of the world, but his innocent hopes and dreams were the gift Zack himself wanted to give to the future. What DESERVED to become real.
For that dream… he'd keep on searching.
The creature Lazard had pointed out, curled off to the side. Could it really be that same being from the church, the strange thing bearing the resemblance of Angeal's face? Protecting Cloud just as it had Aerith – like having his mentor there all over again, there by his side. It showed the marks of the fight, crumpled and damaged, and this time, Zack didn't think this time it would be getting up again. Was its work here then done? He sent a silent thanks, for taking care of those he loved. The two left who had the truest meaning to him, Cloud and Aerith.
If IT was HERE, then who watched over HER?
He approached, hand reaching out, but his fingers stopped short of grazing luminescent wings – as before his eyes, it split apart into twinkling stars, green, turquoise, blinking out on the wind before him.
As the lights faded away, Zack noticed something left behind. An envelope? A scent suddenly taking him back to the blush of new love. Tearing it open, eagerness beating out the desire to keep the precious packaging intact, his eyes raced over her delicate scrawl, and horror hit him as her words really sunk in.
"Four fucking YEARS?" he screamed to the sky. Those bastards… they'd really kept him and Cloud that long?!
Calm broke fully, as anger and hate he didn't know he had inside seethed and roiled up to the surface. Stealing four years of his life… Four years that could have been Aerith's happiness, instead leaving her with a long string of unanswered letters. Four years of Cloud missing his chance to finish growing up.
He squared his shoulders as he glanced over to Cloud, carefully folding the letter and placing it in his pocket, against that battered piece of paper bearing her single wish.
I'd like to spend more time with you.
He could still make it happen.
Aerith, wait for me…
One way or another, he would.
He hoisted himself on the bike, starting the motor, preparing to drive away. Cloud at his side, unresponsive as ever, but there was always hope… He wouldn't give up hope.
"Don't you give up either, buddy," he said to the man at his side, determined. "You're going to make it yet."
Cissnei waited by the helicopter, blades whipping the winds, rustling Tseng's loosened hair. He paid it no mind, already thinking, thinking to the next step, and the next.
Zack and Cloud were drawing ever closer to Midgar, and the Turks weren't the only ones receiving intelligence. In his fervor, Zack was beginning to get carless, leaving a trail wide enough for anyone to follow.
Including Heidegger.
The army had the advantage of numbers. They'd been hunting for a long time, and the President was getting impatient. This time, they weren't fucking around. Sending all they could, all for just the one SOLDIER.
Even so, Zack alone would stand a chance. He wasn't First Class for nothing. But Tseng knew he wouldn't abandon Cloud, no matter what, and he worried that would be Zack's doom. Not that he had any desire to see Cloud returned to Hojo's clutches, the boy the least deserving of what he'd been thrust into.
The timer that'd always been ticking in the back of his head was about to ring - and he wasn't ready. Not that he could have been. But now, it was a neck-to-neck race, Turk smarts against army hordes. Tseng had no real master plan, winging it by negatives, trying to prevent things from happening, only reacting as circumstances demanded. Instead of trying to make something happen his way. Frustrating. Demoralizing.
But impossible odds were hardly a reason to give up.
They'd crossed into the Midgar wasteland, but Cissnei reported the signal had stopped. Were they on foot now? At least they'd be harder to find out there, with dust clouds and rock spires to conceal them. If only it was feasible for them to stay hiding out there, mobility on their side to avoid Shinra – but the land out there was dead and unforgiving. No food, no water. They'd be flushed out towards Midgar soon enough.
I have to get to Zack first, thought Tseng. My gift to her. All I can do now. He'd figure out the rest later - if there was any way to get Aerith away for good. All he'd wanted for her, all these years. Freedom.
"Cissnei," he cautioned. "I want them alive." The hidden box of letters, waiting for delivery he'd waited this long so far, he'd keep them as long as was needed until they could be delivered safely to the right person.
Cissnei nodded, boarding, and the chopper whirred away. As Tseng returned to the building entrance, Kunsel melted into the shdows of the interior.
Slipping into a secured corner, he pulled out his phone. No response from Zack, just the faint light of hope that his messages were getting through.
He tapped out the information, looking furtively out the window to the staging area beyond. Battalions forming up, loading, all to take care of – they called it a SOLDIER legend. Something that might need all that manpower for. Something that had been evading the army's grasp, and this time they meant business.
Kunsel thought he knew who that legend might be.
Months since he'd first heard of the escape from Nibelheim – the last place Zack had been seen alive. Had he really managed to avoid Shinra this long? If anyone could do it, it would be Zack Fair. But before that so long, four years – most of the lower ranks no longer knew who he was, a name that in their eyes belonged to a generation past.
Zack, what the hell did you do to deserve this? he typed.
Could Shinra have somehow hidden Zack all that time? What had they DONE to him meanwhile? Kunsel had been nearly a decade with Shinra – ancient, in SOLDIER terms – and nothing surprised him about the company anymore.
I don't care if you've made an enemy of Shinra, I'll always be waiting for you to come back.
Finally, he'd been rewarded with some direct information. Aerith, he thought, waiting all this time. He hoped she was alright.
Please come back alive, buddy. Promise me.
SEND.
After miles on the road, naturally it was in the Midgar Wastelands that the bike gave up the ghost. The way he'd been pushing that thing hard the last couple months, Zack had known it was imminent, but the timing couldn't be worse. Miles from any sign of life, a snapped chain with no hope of repair, and all they could do was wait.
Hours under the blazing sun, before a beat-up old truck pulled up to offer them a lift; Zack had already been planning to start walking at night, but it would take a week or so to cover the miles on foot at their pace. He was grateful for anything that would get him even an inch closer to his destination.
"It's not catching," he told the driver, by way of excusing Cloud. "But it needs materia to cure, and that's why we were rushing to Midgar so fast."
The driver nodded indifferently, motioning, and Zack hefted Cloud into the bed of the truck, following behind and landing with a thump. He put the vehicle in gear, and they were ambling the bumpy ride to their final destination.
Zack leaned back, the sun soaking his face. Cloud, as always, unresponsive. It was so frustrating. All these months of dragging him along, hoping every day that this might be the day he'd show signs of life and turn to him with his small, jovial grin, but… there was no change. Maybe Aerith could help. Wouldn't all that Ancient stuff she was supposed to be have some way to fix Cloud? He'd been putting up a brave front, if only for himself, but dejected, he realized Aerith was truly his last hope.
In order to cope, he did what he had been doing this whole time. He talked. Never sure what Cloud could hear. Optimistically he described what they'd do once they got to Midgar. Could they stay at Aerith's house? Elmyra had liked him enough once upon a time, but… damn. Four years. Four goddess-damned shivafucking years. Aerith's mom might not be quite so inclined towards him after four years of leaving her daughter without any word – even if it wasn't any fault of his own.
What did the Turks tell Aerith? DID they tell her anything? He'd be content even if they made up something, anything that would give her some comfort. Shit, they could have said he'd run off with another woman, let her hate him and move on! – he'd have to clear things up, but better than NOTHING, leaving her hanging, he unable to bear the thought of her hurt.
Maybe the church. Yeah, that might work. He'd always headed there instinctively after trouble for the feeling of comfort it gave him – most of that was Aerith, but there was something about the place itself. Maybe the flowers themselves could do something for Cloud. She'd always said they had some strange power.
It was worth a shot.
"Don't worry, buddy, I won't leave you behind," he promised the air around Cloud. "We're friends, right?" Beyond friends, even. No words to describe what the two of them had been through, a bond past time and circumstance, not romance but no less meaningful for it, like all the greatest bonds of life.
Friends forever. Life and beyond.
The BANG that he heard wasn't just the truck's axle against the road this time, and a flash of a second later, he heard the distinctive whir of a Shinra copter. Shit. They've found us. Without thinking, he grabbed Cloud and shouted at the driver to stop; the driver yanked up the emergency brake, screeching the truck to a halt, and Zack was off and running to the shelter of the rocks.
Over the rise, he could see them. Shinra troops coming. They'd been blocked from his view by a hill before; but now they were coming. Just like Kunsel's email had said, waves upon waves, as far as the eye could see. Nowhere to turn around, nowhere to go, out in this exposed space.
This is it, Zack thought, grim. No more running. I'm done.
Frantically, he looked around, seeking a sheltered space to hide his vulnerable companion. Spotting a likely site, he propped Cloud up gently. His face was so pale… Zack reached out to ruffle his hair affectionately.
Wait here, buddy. It's not over yet. I'll protect you.
Hand reaching for the hilt of the Buster Sword, Zack, with a heavy heart, made his best choice.
Walking away, he didn't see as Cloud broke through the fog, reaching out his hand…
The broken cliff behind him, sun warming his back.
If he fell off the edge, what would he fall into? Death or a dream? Either way was an ending, but not one he would choose.
He surveyed the troops before him – more than he could ever hope to fight. And even if he did – there would be more right behind them. Shinra's resources were infinite.
He'd survived against the odds long enough. Zack knew he would not be walking off the hill this day. Too late to be the hero he thought he'd wanted to be; time to be called accountable for sins committed in Shinra's name.
But Cloud would survive. Cloud's freedom he fought for. A man untainted, the one death of Sephiroth on his head, the one that deserved to die.
The price of freedom sure was steep.
Standing alone against impossible odds, finally it all made sense. He didn't need to be a hero; it had never truly been what he wanted. All he could do was save a friend, do what he knew to be right, protect someone who could not protect themselves. In that moment, for perhaps the first time, he actually FELT like a hero – no fame or glory, just a sensation of pride and honor that had escaped him for so long.
With hundreds of guns training their sights on him, it was with unexpected serenity that he raised the Buster Sword to his forehead as Angeal had done so many times, a charm to center himself and remember who he was. If nothing else, he would always hold on to that. Silently, he made peace with his destiny.
In the end, at the bottom of a well of turbulent emotion, he found it was enough.
With a shout, he charged.
Men fell all around him as Zack fought in battle-madness, nothing the injured crawling away, glad it wouldn't be sheer mass murder on this soil. But far too many lay still and unmoving, paining Zack, knowing he did what he did only because they would kill him first. Cuts opened on his body, faster than mako could regenerate his skin, liquid warmth telling him that some now dripped blood, and still Zack fought on. Only trying to survive as long as he could, every minute he remained standing being another minute he bought for Cloud, another slender chance Cloud would miss Shinra's notice.
Precious memories charged tension, his spirit driving him. Bullets flying, he dodged and guarded with super human speed and skill, he a weapon of Shinra now turned against them; but even so, his mako strength started to fade. Cuts became gashes, sweat dripped in his eyes, as hours drew on, but time was frozen for him. Distant in his body, he was barely aware he was falling, brought down to his knees as lungs strained, breaths full of effort in a body struggling to live.
It was almost an embarrassment when there last troopers approached in the downing sun, near-contemptuous as they pumped lead into his body. He pitched backwards against the dirt, grip not loosening on his sword, but no longer any strength to wield it. Vision went black, but still he felt the bullets pierce, cartridges emptied into the single spark of his strength to ensure he would never get up again. Unable to get yap as pain rushed into hole after hole, and he could only lie there thinking this isn't it, not yet, not yet…
Images. Voices. Familiar and comforting, somehow speaking safety into his mind. Vague sensations of his body operating its most basic functions, living on.
Breathing.
Motion, jerky, staggered. Slower, faster. All the same, forward, and his mind immanent, just along for the ride. Memories were nothing, just out of reach – his own or someone else's, lost in the swirl that drowned out sensibility. Divisions of self vague and ghostly, whispered phantoms of ancient ego. Voices everywhere, seeking a passage. But only one cracked through.
We're friends, right?
The voice was moving away, and he couldn't let it go. Pulled, forward, reaching but finding only air. Safety was gone.
Terror filled him.
Wheels within, groaning to life, filling gaps in his vision. Rocks. Desert. Where was this? He heard fighting, all around, and he felt fear. He hadn't felt fear since…
…he killed Sephiroth…
That's right. He had killed Sephiroth.
He. Cloud.
Cloud Strife.
The one thing he knew for sure.
He was Cloud Strife…
Voices as if through water, good riddance. Not even bothering to finish the job, knowing he would be gone soon enough.
Zack knew they were right.
His mind, hazily traveling back, memories of a shortened life flickering to comfort him in last moments. Last thoughts of Angeal. Cloud.
Aerith. Always.
And distant still, beyond the blackness, the Lifestream ready to welcome him in.
The rain began falling, clearing the blood from his face.
Muscles unused for so long, burned and cried, but an unfamiliar strength propelled him forward. Parched dirt now slushy mud.
Zack heard Cloud crawling through the mud, breathing hard, but after all this time- he was trying, he was trying.
Cloud moved towards the feeling of safety. One word. Zack. He heard his own voice speaking it, cracking into richness, the single word soft, nearly loving.
Cloud's face came into Zack's view, battered and frightened, but ALIVE – and somehow, that made it all worth it.
He wished he could breathe Cloud's name back, but every word counted. "Embrace your dreams," he half-whispered.
Cloud recalled Zack, in the full bloom of his strength, relaying the same words to a crowd of troops; now with last breaths, squeezing out to words for Cloud alone. "For the both of us…"
"Both… of us?" Cloud repeated.
Zack pulled Cloud's head to his chest, thunking his face in the blood seeping from his wounds. "You're gonna… live. The proof that I existed. You'll… be… my… living legacy."
Cloud echoed his words as if to stamp them in his own mind, scared to lose them as he watched Zack struggle.
Zack turned his head painfully right, where the rain had washed off the Busted Sword he still held. It's clean, he thought hysterically. The sword had been his dreams – dreams of his own with no more chances to come true. Time to pass the torch, drawing the line from Angeal to Cloud.
Aerith, in his mind. I'll be here. Except that HE wouldn't, though he'd gotten so close…Cloud, you'll live on. Don't be a hero. Be a man. A lover and a father, all the things lost to me now.
When you meet Aerith… I'm counting on you.
Zack lifted the sword partway, grunting with the effort. Cloud grasped the hilt, pulling it away in confusion and wonder.
Zack closed his eyes.
Cloud screamed then, a cry of courage and fear, shouted into the valley and to Midgar beyond. He waited until the resonance faded as the rain was doing as well. "Thank you," he whispered. "I won't forget... Good night… Zack…" the last word careful, as if he was trying it on for size.
From the beyond, with regret, Zack watched the innocence he'd wanted so badly to save, draining from Cloud's face… forever.
Soul breaking from body, he asked the Lifestream itself…
It never came back.
No sign of it since it had taken her envelope and flew away. She could only hope her letter had reached its destination. Had that been the creature's final act?
It gave the church a loneliness she hadn't felt there before, even the comfort of the flowers no longer enough. Together they mourned Zack's absence. Yet even now, final letter or not, something in her wouldn't let go.
She felt speckles on her back, and turning towards the ceiling, she saw. The sun's rays from above splintered into rainbows, by rain trickling in through the cracks.
She and the flowers reached for it as one… and she knew the Planet wanted to tell her something. It was reclaiming one of its own. But she didn't want to hear.
She wished so dearly she could pretend longer… just a little bit longer…
The rain sputtered out, the sun broke the sky. Spongy mud, sloppy puddles dried up into cracked, parched earth once again.
Shinra's forces long departed.
A lone figure, beneath their notice, struggling under the weight of a giant sword, Zack's consciousness channeling through the weapon to watch Cloud's progress. Unable to guide.
Hunger. Thirst. Distant needs, distant memories, a river of voices, chattering over the water, saying forward, always forward.
He could barely remember himself.
Cloud Strife. His name.
Cloud Strife had killed Sephiroth.
Sephiroth was a SOLDIER.
Gaps of memory desperate to be filled, even as those souls who wanted to fill it frightened him. Thoughts and feelings not his own, stretching back to eternity.
Disjointed pieces coming together, stories of heroes. What it meant to be a SOLDIER Concepts overlaid, structure laying over his soul, focused and fragmented by turns.
What would a SOLDIER do?
SOLDIER. He was SOLDIER.
A single word tifa, a name made up of dreamstuff. Promises he had made.
Promises and mako where what he was made of.
Every day he could lift his sword a little further; unable to see the way his expression hardened in tandem. The sword was a presence all its own, the only companion he needed.
Night fell. He slept and then up again, his body every day a little further from his weakened state… how? Where had he been? Finally able to lift and swing the sword. Where had he gotten the sword?
Given to him. When he became SOLDIER.
As he strengthened, skill came back as well, he remembering his training as SOLDIER.
Another pull, cold, separate. Itching its slow tug. Come to me. Yes, closer still. Ever stronger the closer he got to the city proper, eyes drawn to the tower crowning its surface.
Soon, we will meet again.
The rain pelted down as she stepped out of the train, and she shivered, but not from cold. Rain was warm in Midgar, tinged from the flow of Mako in the air, caught by the drops and trickled down through channels in the plate above. It was a rare consideration on the part of Shinra, the rain providing some illusion of normalcy in a city that didn't see the sky – one could almost say the inconvenience made things seem more normal.
It was nerves that rose the goosebumps on her arms. They were getting closer every day with their plans, and Tifa had fear to crush as well as doubts that were starting to creep in, the closer the chosen date came near.
Don't let those doubts eat you up. You know what you're doing, and why. It has to be done…
Tifa only wished she could find another way.
It had been her turn to meet the contact up on the Plate. No one ever WANTED to go – but fair was fair. They were all in this thing together – though she wondered if she might be in it deeper than most, if anyone outside ever got an inkling of what was in her basement. She'd be the first one thrown in the cells deep in the Shinra building, never to be heard from again – or wait, hadn't someone said they weren't deep down, but high up? She hoped she never got the chance to find out.
She was sure she wasn't the only one of Barret's group who let out a sigh of relief stepping off the train after going up to the Plate. It didn't mean complete safety – they were all too far in for that hope – but she was out of the security system, and that much closer to home. Or what she had of one.
She'd made herself a life here, and it was a life she wanted to keep. Five years, it had been, the anniversary just passed. Nibelheim a distant, hurtful memory, one she tried to keep at bay by working himself into anger when she wanted to give into sadness. All her ties there gone, not the least of it a promise under a starry sky, a luxurious nostalgia that now seemed only – well, silly.
Trudging through the rain, she didn't bother with a hopeless fight against wetness, letting the drops fall over her, most traveling down the long strands of her hair. Five years now, and still she hadn't cut it, without having any real idea why.
In the dimmer-than-normal light, other shapes meandered into the distance, to the nooks and crannies of Sector 7. Not knowing if they were neighbors, Tifa ignored them as much as they ignored her. It was safer that way.
Coming up to the streetlamp, she saw a light-brown-haired man, in clothes that appeared to be military, passed out under the lamppost. Ugh. Some trooper – probably drunk. Not in my bar – I would have cut him off waaayyy before this. At least he wasn't conscious enough to make the sort of comments troops often did when she passed. Ignorant grunts. Think they're hot shit being part of Shinra. Well, they'll learn their lesson soon enough…
She passed within a few yards of the unconscious man, but something tugged at her. The way he was crumpled… maybe he wasn't so okay…
Her conscience wouldn't let her leave him be. She inched carefully towards him, realizing as she drew close that his hair wasn't brown at all, but blonde – it was a trick of the light and rain that darkened his rain-soaked head and clothes. She knelt down.
"Hey, you okay?" she asked. No response. Hesitantly, she grabbed his hand, and tugged. All that happened was his head lolled slightly over to the side.
"Come on, buddy, I want to get home." But I can't just walk away without making sure this guy is okay… She noticed a SOLDIER emblem on his buckle. Those guys are supposed to be pretty much invincible. So what's going on here? She grabbed him by the shoulders, pulling him to a slightly upright position. She straddled his legs awkwardly, hoping this jerk wouldn't get the wrong idea if he woke up about now.
She lifted his chin, and was to say something, when slowly he opened his eyes. Tifa gasped.
The blazing blue was the brightest light around, but it only served to highlight that much more, that these were eyes she could never forget.
After all this time…
Could it really be…
CLOUD…
Author's Note: Seems like an appropriate place to get this out of the way. I tried, I really tried, not to play Remake before finishing this story. Kept it in the packaging and everything. I gave in to temptation. Actually, this story was supposed to be posted before Remake was even RELEASED, but that didn't happen either.
I am pleased to report that Remake pretty much only ENHANCED the headcanons/storyline here, rather than contradicting them. Whew! So I'm using Remake details for flavoring, as it were. However, if Remake details would require substantially rewriting a scene (such as, AvALANCHE, or where Tifa lives), I'm sticking with what I originally had written.
Rest assured, NONE OF THE MAIN PLOTLINES WILL BE CHANGED.