I recommend Ao3 for this chapter- lots of formatting issues on FFN
X Year X Month X Day
XXXXX's readings are showing unprecedented levels of activity. The last known spike was recorded 7 years ago on XXXXX .
Final readings can be found on page 18, fig. 4a,b, fig 5.
All readings were sent Attn: Professor XXXXX for further review.
X Year X Month X Day
Sample transfer to the jurisdiction of XXXXX approved for further study.
Mako Reactor was approved for use. The team at Nibelheim is on standby for further instructions.
X Year X Month X Day
High monster activity was registered en route to Nibelheim. The initial team lost contact. Requesting additional backup.
XXVI. Undoing Destiny
"Out of my way. I am going to see Jenova."
No no NO.
Vincent, Chaos, and Cloud had prepared for this moment. This fucking, awful moment. They prepared before Cloud even understood what it meant. They scoured the library. They gutted the manor. They did as much as possible, short of letting Shinra descend on Nibelheim.
They did everything except blow the reactor.
Cloud wondered if he would look back on that moment when they hid behind a cliff, watching the security as the moment the world unraveled. They didn't have the firepower then, and Vincent and Chaos were at odds. In the end, the reactor stood.
Would he lay awake at night thinking about that moment they failed? Will he be on Sephiroth's trail again? Why was Sephiroth acting like this?
He shouldn't. He had been calm.
Was their fate truly balanced on such a sharp edge? Please, Sephiroth…
Cloud felt something red and hot bloom in his chest. I warned you. I warned you he would fall. And now Nibelheim will burn.
No, it won't. He won't!
Cloud growled, "I won't let you!" He swung again, sidestepping Sephiroth's parry and kicking himself off a pod, flipping mid-air to land behind Sephiroth. The other man barely brought his sword up to block, eyes wide.
Where the two swords met, sparks flew.
Staring at Sephiroth over their crossed blades, Cloud could make out the minute changes in his expression. Eyes narrowed in displeasure. Jaw clenched. Brows furrowed. Green eyes reflected the ghostly blue glow of the leaking mako pods around them.
"I'll stop you," Sephiroth said, "I won't let you get to her." He shoved Cloud away harshly. They broke apart only briefly as Cloud charged again. Blade met blade in a flurry of strikes. They locked swords again, but Sephiroth had the upper hand this time. With a heave, he pushed. The force of the shove almost threw Cloud clear across the room. At the last minute, Cloud flipped to land on a pod.
"This isn't you-" Cloud shouted but was cut off midsentence as Sephiroth unleashed a pillar of ice at him. He cast slower than Genesis, and Cloud easily dodged it, letting ice encase the pod where he stood. His feet didn't land for long before he jumped again. Masamune shredded the second pod.
Cloud was already casting. Invoking the spell took no time, and again, the strength of the wind nearly threw Cloud off his feet. It blew past Sephiroth and left a trail of ruin before dissipating against the thick steel wall backed against Mount Nibel's unyielding rock. Sephiroth wasted no time retaliating, forcing Cloud on the defensive before he could regain his footing.
He knew he was tiring. Masamune had longer reach at close quarters, and Sephiroth had height and strength to his advantage. Cloud could cast faster at range, but after the last attempt, Cloud felt no confidence in his control.
Desperation began to set in. Cloud's vision grew hazy as his breathing quickened. His heart was pounding in his ear.
It shouldn't happen like this. It can't.
His arms burned, but he raised his sword again. Channeling as little as possible, he unleashed a wave of wind blades at Sephiroth. Sephiroth leaped away from the first wave and dispelled the second with Masamune. Around them, more pods were sliced to ribbons while the door Sephiroth guarded, forgotten in their fight, endured deep gashes.
What happened to the Sephiroth that kept me company in Wutai? Who sat by my bedside? Where are you?
"Hojo was wr-"
Whatever Cloud said incited Sephiroth. His mouth pulled back into a snarl, and his eyes darkened. He lept toward Cloud instead, his feet barely touching the tops of the damaged pods. His approach was punctuated by the deep thuds of his boots against hollow metal.
Cloud faced down a volcano before. He was still more frightened by the whirlwind of dark leather, steel, and flaming green eyes bearing down upon him. Cloud danced out of the way of a wide slash as another pod splintered. They were running out of places Cloud could land.
Another slash. Another pod split. Cloud leaped, but his stomach rose to his throat when his foot slipped. Steel flashed before his eyes, but instead of the sensation of his chest being run through, he only felt a sharp sting as his sword was knocked out of his hands. It clanged loudly as it bounced out of sight between the rows of capsules.
Cloud, meanwhile, landed on his back painfully on the catwalk below. His teeth clattered in his head, and his ribs lurched. Sitting back up, he clenched his jaw at the lighting shooting up his side. One hand splayed out, supporting him as he tried to stand, slipping into the spilled capsule liquid. The other stretched toward his side.
With a dull thud, Sephiroth landed on the catwalk. He looked down at the length of the Masamune. When he took a step toward Cloud, Cloud shakily lifted his arm. In his hand, his gun aimed in Sephiroth's direction.
"She's not your mother," Cloud said as he pushed himself backward, putting more distance between them.
"She's not yours either," Sephiroth retorted. He took another step. Then he paused under the beam of an overhead light. The shadow it cast covered Cloud as Sephiroth loomed over him.
"Sephiroth, don't do this," Cloud pleaded again.
When their eyes met over the sight of his gun, he expected to see hot anger. But instead, Sephiroth looked pale, almost haunted. Under the light, Cloud saw his rapid breaths and how his shoulders shook. Sephiroth was always larger than life. He moved with a poise like some large cat. Now, he was lightly swaying. His skin looked clammy. The whites of his eyes were red and bloodshot against glowing green.
Moving slowly, Cloud picked himself up. The gun still cocked, but Cloud wasn't deluding himself. Even at such close distances, a bullet was unlikely to connect before Masamune would. Cloud didn't even know if he could pull the trigger.
Sephiroth watched as Cloud stood, the only movement being the Masamune, slowly following Cloud's pained ascent. His knees wobbled like a newly hatched chick. His gun was still pointed forward. Sephiroth kept watching. His brows were furrowed, and his mouth downturned, but he made no move to attack while he had the upper hand.
Cloud spoke. He wasn't even sure what he was saying. To his own ears, it sounded like a rambling mess. "Please. You are the hero of the Wutai War. You saved countless lives. Don't listen to Hojo. To her. Jenova. You are better than this."
"What…" Sephiroth's voice came out like a croak.
"You can fight it. Whatever she's telling you."
Cloud didn't think it would work, and yet it did. Masamune was no longer raised as Sephiroth listened. Cloud didn't know what to do, but he had to keep talking. Words just came out.
He had so much time to get to know Sephiroth. The true Sephiroth. The one who…
"Who was the one to sit with me for lunch? Who corrected my sword stance? Came to our rescue in Wutai, even when ordered not to? Please, Sephiroth." Sephiroth took another step forward. The Masamune was held loosely in his hand. Cloud knew it was no less deadly.
"You… are the hero who ended the Wutai War," Sephiroth corrected, but he was stumbling over his words, "The one who saved countless lives. I…stole it from you. I don't... I don't understand."
Then, to Cloud's amazement, the man let go of his famed sword and didn't flinch as the weapon tumbled to the ground with a metallic clang.
Sephiroth stepped over the Masamune and crossed the catwalk toward Cloud, unarmed and dazed. Cloud tightened his grip on his gun, but the man barely gazed at it, his eyes fixed on Cloud's face. A gloved hand reached out.
Please don't let this be one of Jenova's tricks.
But Cloud didn't feel the pull on his mind. It was nothing like those endless nightmares of losing control, of being a puppet on a string.
Cloud slowly lowered his hand, and when Sephiroth stepped closer, Cloud took a final leap of faith.
The gun dropped past the catwalk to the ground, where it bounced against the concrete. Sephiroth didn't startle, and his outreached hand landed gently on Cloud's cheek. It was shaking.
"Cloud?"
"I found all the valves!" Zack crowed as he bounded back. Several required Zack to find his way deeper into the reactor. Every corner was filled with low-grade monsters gorging on leaking mako. What a creepy place.
Zack raced back toward the creepiest chamber of them all. After seeing the look on Sephiroth's face, something told him he shouldn't leave the man alone for too long. Who knows what he found? While he was completing his mission, he could hear sounds of banging echo across the reactor. Was Sephiroth fighting a behemoth up there?
Zack skidded to a stop when he entered the antechamber again. "Whoa, Seph- Cloud? What happened here?"
It was the most bizarre scene Zack stumbled on.
Splashes of dark monster blood smeared the glass and white chrome. Wires sparked where they were severed. The previously pristine door (Jenova. What a trip. Where had he heard that before?) bore deep gouges. Half of the room was gone like a tornado had blown through.
In the middle of the carnage, Sephiroth was hugging Cloud to himself amidst broken pods and severed monster carcasses. The man shook as he buried his face in Cloud's shoulder. Cloud wasn't much better. His glasses were in his hands, and he rubbed his reddened eyes on the back of his hand. Masamune lay forgotten on the ground.
Zack suddenly remembered a piece of advice Kunsel gave him. Something about eating dog food, which Zack didn't understand at all. Something about third wheels? Suddenly, it all came together. Zack began to back out of the chamber slowly.
"Uh, you two need some time alone?"
Cloud looked at Zack at the same time Sephiroth's head snapped up.
"I think we're okay," Cloud answered. He turned to Sephiroth, still in his arms. "Right?"
Sephiroth hesitated before nodding. Cloud looked at the tattered room around them and sighed. He looked up the stairs consideringly, then said, "Not here."
"Yeah," Zack concurred, peering at Sephiroth again and then looking away. Seeing his friend (superior officer) be so discomposed was even more unsettling than his entire time in the reactor. "I passed an office earlier. Let's hope it isn't monster-infested."
"Shinra leaves us no downtime," Essai complained as he took down another monster.
Sebastian, exasperated, replied, "If you still have the energy to run your mouth, do something about the capparwires!"
Multiple monster sightings had occurred near Kalm. Even the Chocobo Ranch had been calling in regarding missing birds. After several public security squads had returned severely injured, Shinra sent a team of Soldiers instead. It was Chocobo Bill who pointed them this way, towards the forest and right into a capparwire nest.
Lucky them.
After Hollander's body was found, Junon's atmosphere was tense. Hollander was well-known to many Soldiers. When Sebastian called it in, it stirred up a flurry of speculation. Then, the science department swooped in. It was deemed a suicide, and the whole thing was swept under the proverbial rug.
Since then, the top brass (it was still strange to get the orders from the Office of Public Security instead of from Lazard) had been sending their team on various missions, clearing out monster nests that were too much for troopers to handle, and Sebastian was too busy to think about the science department anymore.
There had been surges of monster activity. Back from the war, it gave plenty of seasoned squads something to do. At present, the team has done short work on the capparwires, but something told Sebastian that it couldn't have been a big enough threat even for a decently trained trooper squad. Essai thought so, too (he had a good head on his shoulders when he wasn't busy being a total fool).
"Capparwires don't usually nest this far out," Essai said. He nudged one monster over with the toe of his boot.
"None of the monsters come this close to the road," another Soldier said gruffly.
As they walked further in, Sebastian saw tracks in the dirt.
"Monster tracks," he said, recalling his impromptu tracking class in Wutai, "Wolves. A lot of them."
Essai shook his head. "No way chocobos would be running from wolves. I've seen the adults peck one to death. Even a chick can outrun them."
As he said so, the leaves rustled. The Soldiers pivoted to point their weapons at a group of Mu running past. The herd ignored the squad and bound down onto a cleared trail. The Soldiers followed.
Something spooked the chocobos and the wolves. And now the Mus were running above ground instead of burrowing down.
Sebastian looked around, and suddenly, cold sweat broke out over his brow. "Hey 'Sai. I think it's bigger than a wolf." Essai turned around to look at what he was seeing. They had been walking down a cleared path. On closer inspection, they hadn't been walking on a trail. They had been walking on the tracks of a monster. One large enough to clear the forest and leave a tunnel of crushed shrubbery and fallen logs.
Midgardsormr, Sebastian realized. One so big, it made a road in the forest and preyed on the apex predators around Kalm, throwing the entire equilibrium off kilter.
What is it doing out of the marsh?
Although the Nibel Reactor was now fully automated, the old control room was still accessible down the hall from mako storage. Here, the sharp sense of mako was more diffuse, filtered out by an older ventilation system designed to keep operators safe from leaks. An entire wall was lined with analog dials. They were still in working condition and showed normal pressure and temperature readings. Though the room had fallen to disuse, there were clear signs the maintenance crew had repurposed it as a rest area.
Cloud searched around and returned with a still-sealed canister of coffee for the coffeemaker. More to comfort himself than out of any real need for coffee, Cloud busied himself pouring water from his canteen into the appliance. His hand shook as he worked. Behind him, Sephiroth's gaze on Cloud felt like a spot of heat at Cloud's back. The other man's eyes barely left him.
Cloud had never seen Sephiroth like this. Spooked. Uncertain. It made the hair on the back of his neck stand on end. It felt wrong. Everything felt wrong.
It felt like the world had tilted a few degrees to the side, and suddenly, Cloud's feet were sliding.
"Let's start from the beginning. What is the beginning anyway?" Zack finally asked. Cloud laughed humorlessly.
What is the beginning anyway?
Cloud thought of the ouroboros symbol that stood over the old Nibelheim cemetery, a relic of when the area worshipped Odin as a god.
He returned to the Firsts with two mugs and handed one to Sephiroth, who took the mug more out of reflex. Cloud offered the second to Zack, who shook his head. He shrugged and took a sip from it (sludge, but not as bad as ration pack sludge), then took a deep breath.
"The beginning starts at the end, I guess," Cloud said, "Here in Nibelheim." At Cloud's words, Sephiroth jerked in his seat and grabbed Cloud's hand tightly. The leather felt warm against his skin, and his own gloves were discarded on the table by the coffee pot with his trooper helmet.
"Did Jenova…" Sephiroth mumbled.
"What?" Zack rubbed his head, looking bewildered. "Jenova?" Cloud looked at Sephiroth to see if the other man would keep speaking, but he did not. Whatever thoughts warred within him, Sephiroth wasn't ready yet. Cloud took a deep breath.
Thoughts swirled in his mind. Conflicting memories, emotions. He didn't understand. He didn't understand. A puzzle, half complete, spread itself out before him. He had been working on it since childhood, but the more pieces he placed, the less it made sense.
But there was one action he could take. Speak his truth.
"There's a legend in Nibelheim that when you die, your spirit wanders Mount Nibel until Hel's servants collect you for judgment. When I was seven, a monster attack took my mother. I wandered the mountain looking for her spirit until I tumbled into a mako pool. But that wasn't the end of it." Cloud ignored two pairs of mako-bright eyes on him to take another deep breath. He closed his eyes as the dim images came back to him.
"After I fell, people thought Hel took me too. A hunter found me at the foot of the mountain. I was hypothermic. Bad case of mako poisoning on top. Like, bad. I was in a coma. When I woke up again, a year already passed. They had to sell the house to pay for my medical bills. The visions started after that."
"What did you see?" Sephiroth asked. His voice was choked as though he was scared of the answer. It felt strange to think that. Cloud thought of a man splashed with red and lit by embers.
"Fire," he said, "It was all jumbled at first, but always the fire. A hero fell to madness, and a town incinerated to ash." The hand in his began to shake. Cloud laid his other hand on top.
The puzzle before him had been stuck in an incomplete state for so long. He put together some of it from memories of the picture on the box, but the remaining pieces didn't fit. In some areas, there were too few. In other places, he had too many. It was as though someone mixed in another puzzle when he wasn't looking.
"I thought I had gone crazy. Mako poisoning had lingering effects. But I had to find out more. I needed confirmation. So I snuck into Shinra Manor. If I could find the library there, I'd know, right? That's how I met Vincent, breaking out. He looked exactly as he did from my visions, and he knew the same things I did. Then I knew I wasn't crazy, or at least I'm not the only one."
"Vincent, huh? Is he still here?" Zack asked. Cloud looked up at Zack, then at Sephiroth.
"He taught me to fend for myself, and once I was strong enough, he left. Do you…know him?"
The puzzle started to fall apart. Instead, he turned what he had another way and began to consider it closely.
"No," Sephiroth shook his head. "Should I?" Cloud hummed thoughtfully and continued his story.
"After.. what I saw, I decided to do things differently. And the more I did, the more different the world felt," he looked at Zack and smiled, "When Wutai happened, I was certain the future changed. Then, I overdrew." Cloud's smile turned sad.
"You saw more stuff, didn't you," Zack asked, "You were getting confused all the time. We thought it was trauma, but you were getting confused about your memories." Cloud nodded.
"I…the first few weeks, I couldn't figure out where I was. The memories were so real. It was as if I would be at camp in Wutai one moment and Edge the next."
"Edge?"
Cloud dreaded this part.
"After Wutai, it felt like my body was stretched to fit two people. One was some messed up kid from Nibelheim. The other was a man still struggling to understand who he was."
The story of Cloud Strife came tumbling out: the failure, the killer, the lab experiment, the merc, the accidental leader of Avalanche, and the mentally messed-up amnesiac.
The memories, the pain. It spilled out of him like acid, burning as it forced its way up his throat. Zack watched his face slack with astonishment. Cloud slowly told the tale of a man who didn't know who he was, took on a friend's identity, watched a dear friend die, killed a god, and finally stopped the planet from its slide into death.
It sounded fantastical. Yet, instead of protesting, Sephiroth sank further into himself as Cloud spoke.
"Meteor…I summoned…" Sephiroth said. His voice was almost a whisper. There was an ache in his chest to see Sephiroth brought low. Yet, seeing sanity still reflected was a balm for the sting. Cloud squeezed back on the hand in his, trying to anchor himself and Sephiroth.
"We…stopped it. It cost us friends, Midgar. But Holy prevailed. The lifestream prevailed. And the world lived. After that, we slowly eased off mako. Rebuilt. The former residents created a new city from Midgar's carcass. That was Edge."
Geostigma. Phantom pain shot up Cloud's arm at the thought, startling him and, in turn, Sephiroth. Cloud spoke the remnants of Sephiroth's will, Jenova's will, in human form, and the last Ancient's final blessing.
"And that was one end, I supposed. The remnants disappeared, and with them, the last traces of Jenova."
Silence followed Cloud's rushed story. Cloud could feel the tension between his shoulders. He faced a man whose identity he took and another who he killed thrice. He waited for a reaction. A rejection.
Zack rubbed his chin and asked a question instead.
"So….you saw the future? Our future?" The hand in Cloud's clamped down tightly, almost painfully. Cloud silently contemplated.
There was a puzzle, and there was a box. When Cloud picked up the box and looked at its cover, it wasn't the image he thought it would be. It was similar, but not the same. He thought someone mixed the puzzles up.
His mind raced until he finally found the words.
"For so long, I was certain," he said haltingly. "But now, I…I don't know." He looked down at a hunched figure, hand still tightly clasped in his, and rubbed a thumb against Sephiroth's knuckle. The other man loosened his grip but didn't extract his hands. "Sephiroth?"
Sephiroth looked away and stared sightlessly into the room. Zack and Cloud exchanged glances, but neither spoke as they waited for him.
"When I failed to stop Jenova," Sephiroth said, "the world ended." Cloud released a soft gasp as the pieces began to snap into place faster and faster. "I watched Jenova succeed in killing this planet. I failed to stop it. I thought I'd died too, tormented by the knowledge of my failure." Sephiroth looked up to watch Cloud again.
The puzzle pieces fell.
Snap. Snap snap.
"Then I came back."
Cloud was frozen, his mouth open, but he couldn't make a sound. He began to suspect, but Sephiroth's confession still felt like a punch in the gut. Confusion set in.
The visions hadn't been perfectly accurate, sure. But what about Chaos-?
Zack tugged on his hair in frustration.
"Okay, back up. Came back? What do you mean come back?" he asked, waving his hands.
"I didn't realize at first," Sephiroth continued, "I thought it was another illusion. Another one of Jenova's lies." Sephiroth stared at Cloud. "Did you hear her here? Have you ever heard her?"
Cloud looked at Sephiroth, his mind swirling.
"Me?"
It wasn't that he was piecing together a messed-up puzzle. He had all the pieces. He had the wrong box. Cloud wasn't sure what to do with the new image coming together before him.
Veld woke from uneasy sleep to see his rescuer watching over him, a silent, crimson shadow.
After taking out the guards ("Deepground Soldiers," Veld learned), the man (Veld still refused to call him Vincent; it was too unbelievable. Veld must be hallucinating after sleep deprivation set in) guided them to an access shaft that descended further into Shinra's underbelly.
He certainly moved like a Turk—better even. With another person watching Veld's blind spots and in the confusion from the alarms, they snuck effortlessly past a floor labeled B18 with a keycard the other man snatched off one of the squad leads.
It was then that, to Veld's chagrin, he could finally admit that he was the one slowing them down. As they reached deeper, the other man noticed it first. Instead of proceeding further, Veld found himself in an employee lounge, commanded to "sleep" by a painfully familiar voice.
Veld protested. Sharing a space with an unknown man with unknown intentions. How could he be defenseless? The man didn't yield. He closed his eyes—for show. When he opened them again, it was hours later. He felt rested, and his unexpected companion still looked like his long-lost partner.
When the cloaked man saw Veld was awake, he straightened from where he leaned against the steel wall.
"Are you really…?"
"I think you know already, Verdot." Veld closed his eyes at the name. It was a name he buried, never to be uttered again. Not even Martha knew it. Only -
"Vincent Valentine, you fucking asshole." His fist never landed, but it was a half-hearted swing. He sighed but didn't try again. Vincent was always faster than him. Now, the gap between them was even wider. Veld could tell any hit he landed would have been because the other man (his old partner) allowed it. Instead, he asked, "Where have you been? You look like a bat flew outta hell."
He had so many questions. Where did Vincent go? What happened to him? Vincent hadn't aged a day. He moved like something fluid.
"Something to that effect," Vincent said. Veld groaned. "You look better." His mouth was hidden behind his red cowl (and what is with that get up anyway), but Veld could hear the warmth in Vincent's voice. Veld let him change the topic with only a frown his way, but not before another dig.
"You look like you haven't aged a day since you were, what, twenty-five?"
"Hmm, and you look like an old man." Veld's back cracked as he stretched out. His bones creaked. He was almost sixty—the oldest Turk. Veld held the dubious honor, but that was a consequence of watching his generation and younger generations die in the line of duty.
He outlived them. And his own daugh-
Veld beat back the thought. "How did you even find this place?" Veld asked instead. Vincent shifted, his cloak flowing like something thicker than water.
"You're losing your edge if you can't spot a tail." Veld shook his head. It's not that I lost mine; it's more like you gained one.
"Fine. Keep your secrets. I'll be looking to find out everything after we get out of here," Veld grumbled.
Instead of answering, Vincent headed out of the lounge. Veld straightened his jacket while Vincent peeked out into the hallway. He followed Vincent's fluttering cloak back out.
"It's too quiet," Vincent remarked. Veld grunted.
"You would think they would be turning this place upside down after our last run-in."
"They wouldn't if they have bigger problems to worry about than a senile geezer wandering in from the street."
"...Hey."
It all sounded fantastical to Zack. Memories of the future. A summon that could destroy the world.
Meanwhile, the two men before him hadn't let go of each other's hand since they sat down. Cloud absently ran a thumb across Sephiroth's knuckles again, seemingly uncaring of the other man's brutal grip. It was as if they were conversing via their clasped hands alone.
Kunsel taught him about the concept of a third wheel before Zack came on this mission. When he first brought it up, Zack laughed. "But isn't a tricycle more stable than a bicycle?" Kunsel just looked at Zack like he was thick. And yeah. Okay.
Zack learned from experience. He was learning a lot now about third wheeling. Granted, he didn't think Kunsel was talking about the supposed end of worlds when he gave Zack that talk.
"Me?"
Sephiroth nodded at Cloud's incredulous response. Cloud visibly struggled to stay calm as he asked the following question.
"Nibelheim happened very differently for you, didn't it?"
Sephiroth sucked in a breath of air.
"I- yes…"
"It wasn't you who burned down the town. Killed the townspeople." Cloud seemed to be choosing his words bluntly with purpose. Sephiroth shuddered as he sat up straighter. His tone was affronted.
"I would never. I tried to stop you after Jenova-" Cloud opened his mouth, but Zack jumped in. Both Cloud and Sephiroth were visibly agitated, and if they started fighting again, the control room wouldn't take it. If they started hugging again, Zack wouldn't take it. Either way, Zack was, as crazy as it sounded, the objective person there.
Gods, he wished Angeal had come instead.
"Okay, okay," he said, crossing his arms in an "x." "My head hurts. Explain from the beginning, uh end, like Cloud did."
Cloud extracted one hand from Sephiroth's now lax grip to rest it on his shoulder. Zack realized that the formerly unflappable general was shaking. It was an unbelievable sight, and one of Zack's hands reached to settle on Sephiroth's other shoulder. He could feel the pauldron under his palm shift as Sephiroth took another deep breath.
"I lived one lifetime long enough to watch the world end with a whimper," Sephiroth said, "The planet's last days were a bleak and desolate existence. I wondered what I could have done differently as we guarded the last bastions against an encroaching blight."
Zack's mouth was suddenly dry, and he wished he had taken up Cloud's offer of a coffee as he suppressed his urge to curse.
Cloud only grimaced, his gaze focused on Sephiroth.
"Jenova succeeded?" Sephiroth shook his head.
"I don't know. The planet was dying. Everyone was dying. Is that victory, or did everyone lose?"
"How?" The question was like a whisper. Zack didn't say anything. There was an invisible thread in the air that neither he nor Cloud wanted to break. As if, if it snapped, Sephiroth would clam up again. The way that frustrated Angeal and Genesis endlessly.
"Meteor. We- Shinra did everything to stop it. Bomb the crater. K-kill the summoner. None of it worked. Its summoner was dead, but the meteor kept coming."
"Aeri-"
"Tried. Shinra pulled her from her home in a last-ditch effort. The impact killed her," Sephiroth said grimly. The knowledge twisted something in Zack's chest. Cloud sighed.
"But that didn't end the world," he said knowingly. Sephiroth gazed into the dark liquid in his cup.
"No. We did," he said, "When killing the summoner and burning Jenova's corpse did nothing, Shinra launched a rocket packed with enough materia and mako to destroy Midgar ten times over. Meteor broke apart. The Ancient's sacrifice saved Midgar from the largest fragment, if saved was the right word. The wounded world didn't heal."
Sephiroth stopped speaking. His gaze was far away now. Whatever happened after had been too painful to discuss.
Cloud and Zack traded a glance. Cloud's face was full of dread.
"It was me, wasn't it?" Cloud asked. Zack's head snapped to stare at Cloud incredulously when he heard. Sephiroth shook his head vehemently. Cloud laughed dryly, "No. Not me. I mean. The Cloud you used to know."
Sephiroth sagged into his chair.
"Cloud was a promising Soldier, quickly climbing the ranks. He registered some of the best results during evaluations, second only to…me. His file made it to the president's desk, and Rufus personally inducted him into Soldier."
Cloud looked pained when Sephiroth mentioned Soldier. After the tale Cloud told, Zack understood. But pain turned to confusion.
"Rufus?" Cloud asked. Sephiroth nodded, and Cloud grimaced but didn't say anything else. Sephiroth continued his side of the story.
"Genesis also took an interest. Cloud became a part of us. Our circle. When the Wutai War escalated, he deployed alongside Genesis. Then things began to fall apart."
"Because Genesis was degrading," Cloud surmised. Sephiroth nodded.
"When the others aren't using the VR room, we like to go and have…fun. Genesis was injured during one such session. Neither Angeal nor I knew he wasn't healing when he deployed. Then, he disappeared with half of Soldier. With Cloud. Or so we thought."
"So you…thought?" Zack asked.
"They found Cloud weeks later, after the desertion. Wandering the forest by himself in a daze. He couldn't remember why he was even in Wutai." Zack flashed back to the look on Sephiroth's face when they discovered Cloud missing from camp. The desperation with which he searched. What did he see in that moment?
"Wandering the forest..." Cloud repeated. The sentence felt strange in Zack's ear. Cloud repeated it like he was trying to remember where he'd heard that before. Zack thought again of Cloud's disappearance.
Sephiroth licked his lips, then took a gulp of coffee before speaking again. " We …didn't question it much. I was happy just to find him after Genesis…and Angeal."
Zack thought again of Wutai. What would have happened to Genesis if he hadn't gotten the transfusion? If Sephiroth hadn't been there, Cloud's disappearance… They had been lucky.
"Jensen…"
Sephiroth nodded as he picked up where Zack was going. "We didn't realize until later that Avalanche took him. They did something to him, I don't know what. Still don't. For a while, things were okay. Cloud integrated back in. Genesis and Angeal were still missing. But peace returned."
"Until Nibelheim," Cloud said.
"Until Nibelheim," Sephiroth nodded. "A year after the war. It was supposed to be a simple mission. But as we got closer to the town, Cloud became more distant."
"That's why you were against me coming into the reactor." Sephiroth nodded slowly.
"I thought I died, but then I woke up in the middle of Wutai, only a few years into the war. I thought it was a dream at first. Then an opportunity to fix things."
"Oh," Zack said, "I heard you raised the Soldier age limits right before I joined. I had to delay enrollment by a few months." He had been seriously annoyed. He had been preparing for so long, only to discover Shinra's enrollment policy had suddenly changed.
Sephiroth let out a choked laugh. "When Cloud appeared as a lab tech, I thought I succeeded. I prevented you from Soldier and being in Wutai. In Nibelheim."
Cloud shook his head ruefully, "And I did everything I could to interfere." Zack watched as Sephiroth's lips finally cracked a smile.
"I thought I was failing. Nothing I did had any of the intended impact."
Cloud laughed and leaned into Sephiroth, "What a pair we were."
To Zack's relief and mortification, Sephiroth wrapped his arms around Cloud. The smile was then hidden behind Cloud's golden spikes.
Zack cleared his throat.
"So if you've seen it, we can just…avoid it, right? All of it? We can get rid of Jenova or whatever else and go home."
He thought of Genesis, Angeal, and… Aerith. No one disappeared, no one deserted. They found a cure. They were going to be fine…right?
It should unnerve him to fight back to back with a dead man walking (again), but after fighting back-to-back with Vincent for years, Veld settled into steady teamwork almost instantly.
Veld slammed bodily into one Soldier with a grunt while behind him, shots ran out. Bullet casings hit the floor, but Veld didn't have time to check on Vincent before a new wave of guards appeared.
Veld shook his arms in front of him, baring scared forearms. His hands tightened into two fists.
"I'll hold them off. Look for an entry," Veld barked. But unlike his Turk subordinates, Vincent didn't budge from where he stood, the sights of his three-barreled pistol trained on the incoming Soldiers.
"And leave my old partner behind?" he asked rhetorically. Three shots rang out in quick succession, followed by three dead bodies. Veld whistled appreciatively.
"Well, you weren't hiding somewhere collecting dust the last few decades." More Soldiers appeared. Veld dashed into the fray. His fist glowed as he channeled energy into his gloves. His knuckles met armor with a thud, and Veld could feel muscle spasm beneath his fist.
"Not just collecting dust," Vincent confirmed softly as more shots rang out.
Now, Veld was curious. But it wasn't the time (it never is, is it?)
"This way," Veld said tersely over the sound of Vincent returning fire. The bullets must have struck true as things quieted again. Vincent didn't miss.
Good to have you back, partner.
They raced down the stairwell and hallway to yet another set of elevators. The terminal next to it flashed red. Restricted access. Veld turned to Vincent.
"I don't suppose you have another keycard tucked away in that cloak of yours?" Vincent responded by lifting one side of his tattered cloak melodramatically, displaying the red expanse and the black body suit he wore underneath. His face was impassive.
Oh, you little shit. Veld sighed.
"Guess my expectations of you were too high," he tapped half-heartily on the keys. This place had more security than the seventieth floor of Shinra Tower. Just what was hidden down here?
"Access denied. Access denied."
Cloud set his empty mug on the control room table.
"I think it's clear what we need to do," he said, his mouth set as he pulled his gloves back on. "Jenova is here. It's time we put an end to this."
Sephiroth stood as well, and Zack followed. Both Soldiers had an equally determined look on their faces. Cloud led the way back in silence. Their combat boots rang against metal grating as the dull humming of automated machines extracting the planet's lifeblood whirred on.
This is where it began and where it will end, Cloud thought as he steeled himself.
In the antechamber, a room resembling a grotesque temple to Jenova, Sephiroth's and Cloud's swords still lay where they fell. Cloud picked up both and held Masamune to Sephiroth. The man's hand brushed against Cloud's own, then wrapped around the hilt of his sword.
They turned and strode up the steps as one, and Jenova's plaque above them got closer and closer.
Thud. Thud. Thud thud. Thud thud.
Cloud's heartbeats in his ear felt like they would drown out his footsteps.
The door at the top of the stairs was already damaged from their earlier fight. Sephiroth raised his sword and unceremoniously slashed it open.
They step through the gateway. Greeting them was the familiar sight of a metal sculpture.
An angel.
Hojo perverted her imagery. The very pipes coming out of her were filled with spent mako, dark and swirling. Her face was serene, and yet the tubes were ominous and tortured.
Behind her, the capsule pulsed with mako. With another slash of Sephiroth's sword, the statue listed and fell into the mako storage below with a soft, greasy splash. The capsule beyond it was pristine. Yet, the chamber that once held the corpse of an ancient calamity was empty.
A/N
I was super nervous about this chapter. It was also the first chapter I planned out when I first started on this crazy journey. I wanted to write something that would be interesting to read the first time and keep being interesting even when you know what is going to happen. I hope you like it, and tell me how I did!
Regarding Sephiroth, the first hints are from Chapter 1, with another big hint in Chapter 24 and other clues throughout the story. Kudos to BonnieJ and Angie2022 for guessing that multiple people with knowledge were present and for guessing that Seph might be one of them.
I appreciate everyone taking the time to read this, leave kudos, and comment! I love reading the speculations and reactions. Thank you!