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Tifa used to, in the pauses between battles, entertain idle fantasies of a life after Shinra and Sephiroth were defeated. She’d dream of rebuilding Seventh Heaven, living in a flat above the bar with Cloud, and an orphan kid they adopted, and a dog, and maybe Marlene when Barrett was busy. He’d feel safe enough to hang the Buster Sword up on the wall and she’d teach him how to sleep in, and sometimes she’d find him nestled in the blankets beside her and sometimes he’d be up early anyway, making breakfast in the kitchen with creamy yellow cupboards like scrambled eggs. He’d burn the bacon but that would be okay because then the kids would be awake and they would all make breakfast together, and their adopted kid would sneak bits of bacon to the dog, and she’d lean against a fridge covered in drawings with Cloud warm by her side. She’d cook a big dinner every month and drag Reeve away from his work and Cid away from his latest airship, and even Vincent would drop by for the family gathering, and they’d eat in a place that smelled like whiskey and woodsmoke and home.

She found a place in Edge that she could refurbish how she liked, clearing out the trinkets of the previous owners and painting over the scuffs and ash on the walls. Reeve helped her set up supply deals for food and drink and she put flowers from Aerith’s church in vases on the tables. Cloud moved in with her and Marlene spent most the year there too with frequent visits from Barrett. They didn’t get a dog but they took Denzel in when they found him scavenging for food in the bins out back, and started donating to the orphanages springing up across the fledgling city. Cloud put the Buster Sword somewhere in the Wastes as a monument to Zack.

It had been so much easier to ignore his oddities when they were on the road. The way he sat and stared sometimes, humming loudly with his hands over his ears. The way he worked on military time even when she tried to teach him to relax. The way he moved sometimes, and it was just Wrong.

He built a new sword even more deadly than the Buster Sword. First Tsurugi. And he rarely went anywhere without it. His delivery business that kept him away from home for days at a time on that monstrous bike of his, repurposed from a Midgar scrap heap. Denzek practically worshipped him and started getting into fights at school, and even when he was around she got the feeling his thoughts were somewhere else. His gaze was blank, mostly, only focusing on what he needed to, rarely softening in affection like she’d dreamed they would when they turned on her.

The night terrors drove him to a separate room, even as she insisted she didn’t mind being woken in the middle of the night by his silent thrashing - that she wanted to help him. That she loved him and she wanted him to stay because sometimes when she closed her eyes she saw him with green slit-pupiled eyes and was scared that he might become that person - that puppet - again if he left her sight. She never used that word around him though, no one did. She’d seen him in the kitchen at four am, drawing numbers on his wrist with a blank expression, far too many times. She’d seen the ink spiral down the drain and stain the sink when he came to and realised what he’d done, what he’d sworn never to become again.

Then there was the Geostigma, and he was dying and he didn’t tell her. Tifa screamed at him that day she pulled his sleeve away and saw the dark bruises. Adults weren’t supposed to get the stigma, but as he so often reminded her with those tiny actions, he wasn’t fully human anymore.

It scared her that he looked so alive when he fought Sephiroth, that his usually dead stare was filled with life, that a smile tugged at his lips as he blurred through the air and bled down Masamune. She stood back then, because she didn’t want to look any closer.

Things started to get better, but they never reached the peaceful contentment of her dreams, and maybe that was to be expected but sometimes she remembered what Sephiroth had said in the temple of the ancients and wondered if it was true.

No matter how many times he fought her and defeated her, Mother always loved him and called to the part of him that screamed when he defied reunion, preventing himself from becoming whole. Until she was gone and she’d left like she’d promised she never would, and he was alone, all alone, and the Planet screamed at him. He missed Mother’s music and he wanted his friends to tell him what to say because he never got the answers right in Hojo’s tests. He missed Mother so much and he never felt more complete than when he was in her mental embrace and Sephiroth knew it, he knew that he wanted the screaming of the dead to stop. Sometimes in the night he’d feel a warm body curl around him and take away his thoughts and bring the music back because this was reunion, this was what he’d been made for, and he wanted it so bad but he didn’t want his friends to be afraid and leave him all alone, alone again, but he would never be alone if he had Mother. His friends said they loved him but Mother said she loved him too and they said she was lying so who was telling the truth, really? But Mother was gone, it was just Sephiroth left and he fought him again and again, and he killed him again and again, and his friends never wanted him to come back but he craved him so much, so badly, that when he came back it was like everything was so much clearer and then he had to make the world blurry again because his friends loved him, didn’t they? and he loved them, didn’t he? or was he incapable of emotion like Sephiroth had said so long ago and he could only love his Mother and the reunion that he’d been made for – that Hojo had made him for, that the world had almost burned for. Then his friends started dying: Barret, Tifa, Cid, Yuffie, Reeve. Then Nanaki, then Vincent, and then Sephiroth stopped coming back and he was so, so alone, and there was no music and even the Planet’s screams were fading. So he fell into strangers’ beds for the warmth that he’d found in the middle of the night above Tifa's bar in Edge, but he never found it because it was never reunion. He was always broken so he went to the Northern Crater where the drying Lifestream eddied, and he fell asleep for a long, long, long time because he couldn’t die. He’d tried but he was the Planet’s weapon now when he’d only wanted Mother and he missed Aerith and Zack and he wanted to see Sephiroth again but the music had stopped.

----- CHAPTER BREAK -----

Act I - Edge

Part I - Home
Cloud Strife, infantryman, Ex-SOLDIER, eco-terrorist, and Saviour of the Planet, was good at pretending that he was okay. He wasn’t, not in the slightest, and he hated himself for it, but if he hurt Tifa more than he already had he’d… he wouldn’t die, or leave, because that would hurt her even more. Positive thoughts, Cloud, she always said when he fell into a spiral. He’d do better.
‘Cloud! You’re home!’

He dismounted Fenrir and faked a smile when Denzel came barrelling out of the bar and wrapped his arms around Cloud’s legs, unknowing of the fresh break in his right knee, a parting gift from the wyvern he’d run into outside Kalm. ‘Hey, kid,’ he said, gritting his teeth as pain sparked up and down his leg, easing Denzel off as subtly as he could. ‘You’ve gotten taller.’

‘I can almost reach the top shelf of the fridge now!’

‘Cool. Where are Tifa and Marlene?’ He followed Denzel back inside the bar, forcing himself not to limp or wince when his weight made the pieces of his knee cap grate together. Seventh Heaven was as refreshingly the same as always, the only differences from his last visit being the swapped out flower vases on the tables. Cloud took off his shoes at the door but didn’t take First Tsurugi from its harness, taking comfort in its familiar heft even as the added weight made his knee scream. He took a seat as soon as he could, tucking the injured leg safely under the counter as Tifa and Marlene emerged from the apartment upstairs. The former’s face bloomed with a fond smile and he couldn’t help but smile back, a small hidden thing but a smile nonetheless, basking in the freely offered warmth. She took his hand as Marlene begged to be picked up and settled for hugging his waist instead.

He tried not to shudder when Tifa kissed him, a soft joining of lips that sent a trickle of revulsion down his spine. Just another thing wrong with him. ‘Are you hurt?’ she asked gently when they parted, eyeing the way his injured leg dangled loosely.

‘Just a scratch,’ he lied, not wanting to worry her. ‘It’ll heal quickly.’ At least it would when he got his hands on a Cure3 and a chance to properly set the bone. If that wasn’t soon, he might have to rebreak it as the mako fused the wrong parts together. ‘How have things been around here?’

‘Same old, same old,’ she replied, heading behind the bar to mix up a drink. ‘You want one?’

‘Give me something hard.’

Her lips quirked in amusement. ‘Coming right up.’

Denzel hopped onto the stool next to him, eyes shining. ‘How many monsters did you kill this time?’

‘More than I’d like. All the mako around Midgar is drawing them in.’

‘Will they come here?’

‘No. Too many people, the noise scares them off.’

‘How long are you going to stay this time? Can you teach me how to fight after school tomorrow?’

Tifa slid a shot glass down the bar and he caught it easily, cupping the cool glass and downing it in one go, mellow amber liquid sliding down his throat. It wouldn’t do anything to numb the pain, but the glass gave him something to hold, something to tie him to the bar and to the boy chattering away beside him. ‘What does Tifa say?’

She hummed, pouring herself a drink and making a cup of juice for Marlene, who was busy rearranging the flowers in the vases. ‘I don’t see why not. But only use the practice swords, okay?’

‘Yes!’ Denzel cheered.

Cloud smirked and stood, trying not to lean on the counter. ‘I’m going to clean up. We can talk more about your fighting lessons over dinner.’

Cloud toughed it out up the stairs and into his room before removing First Tsurugi and allowing himself to sink heavily onto the bed, gasping in pain. He rolled the cuff of his trousers up past his knee, wincing as it jostled the bones. The skin was red and purple and angry even as the mako in his blood worked on the repairs. The pieces of bone had been pushed even further out of alignment by walking and driving Fenrir. He bit down on his left wrist, took one of First Tsurugi’s smallest blades, and cut through the flesh above the break, digging the fingers of his right hand inside to grab the misplaced shards and pull them back into place before casting the strongest Cure3s he could in rapid succession. A bone in his wrist cracked and he healed that too, but left the deep indentations of teeth marks to the mako.

There was a knock on the door. ‘One minute,’ he said loudly, pulling the trouser leg back down over his aching and blood-crusted but no longer broken knee and hiding his wrist, the blade, and the Cure materia behind his back.

‘Tifa wants to know if you want stew or steak for dinner,’ Marlene yelled through the keyhole.

‘I don’t mind,’ he called back, and waited until her footsteps disappeared down the stairs before gathering whatever items had been covered in blood and stuffing them under the bed to be cleaned later, when Tifa was asleep. His mana was low but the mako had acted quickly and the marks on his wrist were almost gone, so it was safe to wipe off the blade, reattach it to his sword, and head to the kitchen. Tifa kissed him again when he went to help her serve the plates, just a brief thing, on the cheek, but it made his skin crawl. He pretended it didn’t bother him, because it shouldn’t. People in relationships kissed all the time, it was normal, he was the strange one.

He listened to Denzel and Marlene ramble between bites of the wolf stew that slowly cooled in their bowls. The taste and scent was reminiscent of what he could remember of Nibelheim and his ma.

This is home. This is right,

he told himself when his attention strayed to the window, its panes clouded with raindrops as a storm passed overhead, the street just blurry black rectangles and blinking lights.

You’re happy. You missed them. You want this.

The kitchen was too warm, too loud, too bright. He longed for the chilly solitude of the road and for the heft of First Tsurugi on his back.

‘Cloud? Are you feeling alright?’ Tifa asked, leaning forward with concern written all over her beautiful face.

‘I’m fine,’ he said on reflex. ‘Just lost in thought.’ He poked at his stew, appetite disappearing, if it was even there to begin with. He forced it down anyway. Fuel was fuel.

After dinner, he let the kids hug him and Tifa kiss him goodnight, before cleaning up his room and lying down, staring at the ceiling with one hand behind his head and the other curled around the hilt of his sword, rain pattering on the roof and pale blue moonlight filtering through the window. He rolled onto his side, waiting.

The first time it had happened, he’d thought it had been Tifa. He’d let her crawl onto the bed behind him, wrap her arms around his waist, tangle their legs. He’d been half-asleep, too tired to notice that the body was masculine, to remember that she always wanted to be the little spoon when she coaxed him into bed with her. He fell asleep quickly, and it was only when he woke up at sunrise as usual that he realised the hair twined through his fingers was silver.

He’d remained still, feigning unconsciousness until Sephiroth left, seeming to vanish into thin air the moment he was through the door. Then he’d started to panic, thinking

what the fuck

over and over,

what the fuck why didn’t he kill me? That was the best sleep I’ve had in years.

Something stirred in the back of his mind – not Jenova, not Sephiroth, but something of that nature.

Reunion,

Puppet Cloud whispered.

He wants it too.

Cloud banished the thought and spent the next night in Tifa’s room, feeling guilty because she was so happy that he was willing to give sharing a room a try again, but it was really because he was afraid. It was horrible, because she wasn’t

him

, and he took Fenrir and left Edge the next day.

Cloud didn’t tell anyone. What would he say?

‘You know the guy who killed Aerith and tried to destroy the world, who nearly killed us all before we defeated him? Yeah, he’s sort of teleporting into my room at night and cuddling me. No, I’m not doing anything about it. Some Reunion shit, I might be opening myself up to being a puppet again, no big deal. And while I’m at it, I may as well tell Tifa that I don’t love her romantically and I want to throw up every time she kisses me.’

He realised he was scratching at his wrist and forced his hands to lie still. He was glad to be home.

He was.

(He

had

to be.)

----- CHAPTER BREAK -----

Act I - Edge

Part II - Family

Cloud Strife, infantryman, Ex-SOLDIER, eco-terrorist, and Saviour of the Planet, was chewing on an apple in the early morning light, seated in the kitchen because his bed still smelled like Sephiroth and it was far too calming for his liking. The rain had stopped, and the only noises from outside were the quiet rumble of early commuters on the roads and the chirps of the harmless rat-like monsters that rooted through the trash. In his other hand was one of the knives from the knife block near the stove, twirling in his fingers deftly, blade glinting like a winking eye. In an hour or so, Tifa would get up to set up shop, and then the kids would wake up for school. He liked to savour the quiet and the isolation for as long as he could.

Of course, sometimes his time to himself was interrupted. As if summoned by the thought of her name, Tifa hopped lightly down the stairs. When she saw him, her face flickered through a myriad of emotions: joy, surprise, disappointment, resignation. Shock. She hurried towards him and pulled the apple from his hand before he could take another bite.

‘This apple is rotten,’ she scolded. He furrowed his brow and noticed for the first time that the fruit was indeed sunken and brown, that his tongue was heavy with the disgusting taste of decay.

Fuel is fuel,

he thought but didn’t say, grimacing apologetically and taking the apple back to throw it in the bin. ‘You’re not in the wild anymore, Cloud,’ she said gently. ‘You can eat stuff you enjoy, not just the stuff you find.’

‘Sorry,’ he muttered.

‘Why don’t we make some bacon and eggs?’ she suggested. ‘A nice breakfast might lift your spirits, and the kids will love it.’ She was already headed to the fridge, swinging the door open and grabbing a carton of eggs and some bacon rashers wrapped in grease paper.

‘Sure.’ Cloud stood up and put the knife he was spinning back into the knife block, fetching a pan from the egg-yellow cupboard. He was a passable cook; he’d been in the military where it was frying them up or eating the rations raw, after all. He was at least capable of not letting them burn, which was important nowadays when the smell of smoke had a fifty-fifty chance of triggering a flashback.

‘I’ve been thinking about getting a dog,’ Tifa said out of the blue, shimmying the eggs around in the pan. ‘Denzel and Marlene would love to have a pet, and it could eat the leftovers. I actually read something about how dogs can help you deal with trauma, too.’

Cloud hunched his shoulders defensively. ‘I guess. Denzel still gets panic attacks when both of us are away from home at the same time.’

He knew that Denzel wasn’t who she’d been talking about, but she didn’t bring it up further. ‘I was going to check out the shelter while you were helping Denzel with his fighting lesson.’

‘Sounds good.’ He could tell that she wanted more input, but he couldn’t think of anything else to say. They finished with breakfast just as Denzel and Marlene came into the kitchen, woken by the smell of food.

‘Bacon and eggs! Awesome!’ the kids cheered. Denzel sat down at the table and accepted his plate eagerly, but Marlene paused to hug Cloud and Tifa good morning. Her nose wrinkled when she reached him.

‘You smell weird,’ she complained. Cloud swore internally.

‘I didn’t shower yet,’ he said lightly, gently pushing her off. ‘Go eat. You guys can have mine, I’m going to wash up.’

‘Cloud,’ Tifa frowned.

He ignored her, heading to the bathroom. He pulled the collar of his sleep shirt to his nose and inhaled lightly, wincing as he recognised the scent of leather and mako, and told himself that he needed to kill Sephiroth again and get it over with. Tonight. He’d do it tonight.

But Reunion–

Puppet Cloud pleaded.

No,

he hissed mentally.

You’re not me. He doesn’t get to control me anymore. I’ll kill him as many times as it takes to keep them safe.

Jenova’s siren song echoed through the back of his head, delicate strains of the most beautiful music that had ever been heard by the human ear, quiet and distorted for now but amplified by Reunion. He both wanted to hear it and never wanted to hear it again, that soundtrack to the times he’d never been more helpless. Hojo. Aerith. The Northern Crater.

Tifa knocked on the door as he was pulling off his shirt. ‘Cloud, come eat with us. The shower can wait,’ she called through the door. He couldn’t risk her recognising the scent, and he didn’t want to anyway.

‘I’ll grab something before I walk the kids to school,’ he replied, chucking his clothes into the wash.

‘Please? For me?’

‘Sorry. Another time.’

He finished up, got dressed and made it back into the kitchen just as they had dried the last plate. He grabbed another apple, fresh this time, from the bowl on the counter and pulled on his shoes as Marlene and Denzel bustled around the apartment, shouting for their bags. They chorused his name like Junon seagulls, saying their goodbyes to Tifa and pulling him out the door with an amount of energy only seen in kids less than ten years old.

‘You promise you’ll teach me how to use a sword after school?’

‘Me too! Me too!’

‘No, Marlene, you’re too little!’

‘Hey, I can fire a gun and you can’t!’

‘Only ‘cause Barret’s your dad!’

‘Calm down, kids,’ Cloud interjected. ‘Marlene, I’ll teach you how to fight with a sword when you’re as old as Denzel is now. Denzel, don’t brag.’

‘I’m gonna be as good as you! I can beat Sephiroth if he comes back, so he can’t hurt you or Tifa anymore!’

‘Thanks, kid, but he’s not coming back.’

‘Are you sure about that, Cloud?’

Cloud flinched. His eyes darted towards an alley, meeting a glimmer of acidic green, and it took every ounce of control he had not to grab the hilt of First Tsurugi. It was just a burst mako pipe, a relic of Midgar.

‘Cloud?’ Marlene said, concerned. He realised he’d stopped walking and started moving again, shaking his head as if to clear it.

‘I’m fine. Let’s go.’

He spent the rest of the walk on high alert, twitching with the need to grab his sword. For the next six hours, he kept himself busy with delivering packages around the city, catching up on the backlog of local deliveries that had stacked while he was away. When the kids got home, he’d just finished up the last, and almost completely forgotten about it. (That was a lie.)

He let Denzel run ahead to the square of cement at the end of the alley beside Seventh Heaven, the space cleared out of bins and benches to become a makeshift dojo where Tifa practised if she had the time and Cloud taught Denzel how to not stab himself in the foot. Sometimes he even ran through some kata here when he woke up earlier than usual. There was a pair of wooden practice swords hidden in the corrugated iron shed in the corner, behind Tifa’s punching bag and spare leather gloves, the door chained up tightly. Denzel unlocked the door and grabbed the training swords with eager hands, almost vibrating with excitement.

‘Do you remember what we worked on last time?’ Cloud asked, taking one sword. It was little more than a couple sticks glued together, weighted with iron at the hilt and the tip of the false blade, and felt light as a feather in his hand compared to First Tsurugi, which was leaning against the wall near the shed.

‘Yup!’ the boy grinned, taking a deep breath to calm himself and running through a few of the forms. Fuck, he reminded him so much of Zack.

‘Good. Then today–’

Cloud didn’t get to finish, his words interrupted by a spike of pain in his head, burning and searing. He clutched his head, gritting his teeth, gathering his defences to throw the unwelcome presence out of his mind, except it wasn’t the acidic taint of Jenova he was used to.

Get the fuck out of my head, Sephiroth–

First I’m everyone’s mother, and now I’m Sephiroth? I must be going grey early.

Cloud sighed in relief as the pain disappeared, replaced by the soothing scent of lilies.

Aerith. What was that for?

I’m sorry.

She fretted.

It’s hard for me to talk to you when you’re so far away from the church. But this is important.

I can go to the church now,

he said, making an aborted movement towards First Tsurugi, interrupted by Denzel grabbing his wrist.

‘Cloud! Cloud, are you okay?’

‘...yeah,’ he said after a second. ‘It’s Aerith. I need to go to the church so she can talk to me easier.’

‘Are you sure?’

That it’s her?

Even the kids were careful not to bring up anything remotely related to Sephiroth’s influence over his mind.

‘I’m sure. Sorry, but the lesson will have to wait. Tell Tifa I’ll be back as soon as I can.’ He grabbed his sword, chucking the wooden one into the shed again, and walked out of the alley quickly.

Aerith, wait a sec while I get to the church. You can explain it to me there.

Alright, but hurry.

‘Cloud?’ Tifa called from the porch, leaning over the railing, red eyes wide. She looked like she’d just been heading out, maybe to the dog shelter she’d mentioned that morning.

‘Aerith,’ he shouted back, mounting Fenrir and revving the engine. ‘I’ll call you when I know what’s going on.’

‘Are you sure–’

‘It’s her!’

‘Well, come back quickly!’

‘I will.’

He sped into the streets, weaving through the few vehicles that still roamed the roads, their mako engines either repurposed or replaced to run on diesel that choked in thick black clouds from the exhaust pipe. Fenrir itself ran on a blend of diesel and mako, the latter offered to him from the dwindling reserves held by the WRO, a favour from Reeve. Jaywalkers screeched at him as he swerved around them, his mako-enhanced senses making it easy for him to brush by without risk of harm, but they didn’t know that and what they thought were near-misses were enough to make fear spike up in their scents. He knew the streets of Edge like the back of his hand: familiar, but not memorised by any account.

Part of him was glad at the excuse to be away from his ‘family’, just for a little while.

(That was a lie.)

(It had to be.)

(

It wasn’t.

)

----- CHAPTER BREAK -----

Arc I - Edge

Part II - Friends
Cloud Strife, infantryman, Ex-SOLDIER, eco-terrorist, and Saviour of the Planet, parked Fenrir outside the church in what used to be the Sector Five slums but was now a pile of rubble under a half-collapsed metal sky, rats with far too many teeth hissing and skittering deeper into the trash. As he approached, the fugue of lilies in his head grew stronger, and he could even detect the whispers of the Lifestream below the voice that was all Aerith. Her spirit was kneeling by the pond of her Great Gospel, threading fingers through the yellow lilies ringing the holy water. She looked up as he entered, form wavering and translucent, but her smile was as bright as ever. ‘Cloud, thank goodness.’
‘What’s wrong?’ He asked, leaning against a rotted pew.

‘I have a warning from Gaia,’ Aerith said, putting her hands in her lap and looking at them. ‘It’s about the future, but… I can’t say much.’

‘What can I do?’

‘Always the capable SOLDIER,’ she teased, then sobered. ‘Sometime in the future, something really bad is going to happen. Another Calamity will descend from the skies, and you will be more alone than you have ever been before. But until then, no matter what happens, you can’t lose hope. Okay? Gaia asked me to tell you to never give up, even though you’ll really want to, at least until the second Calamity is dealt with.’

‘What do you mean, another Calamity? When is this happening?’ Cloud asked, a flicker of apprehension making a home in his chest.

Aerith’s spirit flickered. ‘Just remember, Cloud, don’t give up. Don’t lose hope. And keep your friends close.’

‘Aerith? Aerith! What do you mean?’ He said, panic rising, but she was already gone. The lilies swayed gently, giving no hint that she’d ever been there in the first place.

He fumbled for his PHS, selecting Tifa’s contact. She picked up immediately, and he explained quickly. ‘A Calamity’s coming, another one, like Jenova. I don’t know when.’

‘Okay, we can handle this. We killed a creature like Jenova before, we can do it again. What else did she say?’

‘She told me to never give up, even though I’ll really want to.’

‘We’re fine, then. Because you’d never give up when there’s a world to save.’ He could almost hear Tifa’s reassuring smile. ‘No matter what happens, we’ll face it together.’

‘Together. Right. We should tell the others.’

‘I’ll call everyone over to dinner tonight. An emergency meeting. It’ll be good to get the gang back together, anyway.’

‘Yeah. Okay, I’m on my way back now.’ Cloud hung up and slipped his PHS back into his pocket, breathing in the familiar scent of lilies, and swore. Anxiety still jumped inside his chest. He clamped a lid over his feelings and shoved them down, reassuming his normal stoic mask. Tifa was right. Whatever happened, they would face it together, as a team, as Avalanche – and he wouldn’t give up, not when so many people were depending on them. He kicked a couple of the mako-mutated rats away from his bike and started heading back to Seventh Heaven. They’d fought Jenova and killed her. They could beat whatever was following her too. It would even be easier, because he wouldn’t share its cells and it wouldn’t be able to control him.

The kids intercepted him when he got back. ‘What did the flower girl say?’ Denzel asked, Marlene close behind.

‘Nothing you need to worry about.’

‘Can the lesson start again now?’

‘Not now, we’re going to have an Avalanche meeting.’

‘Can we stay?’

‘No.’

Tifa waved when they entered, standing by the bar with her PHS held to her ear. ‘Thanks, Barret. Hey Cloud, could you call Yuffie and Vincent?’

‘Sure. Denzel, Marlene, go do your homework.’

‘I already did my homework,’ the boy grumbled, but headed to the apartment anyway. Marlene started pestering him to hang out with her, and their rapidfire conversation disappeared up the stairs. The adults finished calling their friends and finalising the plans. Luckily, everyone was available and would be able to make it to the meeting on short-notice, especially when they heard one of Aerith’s warnings was involved.

It would take a while for them all to get there, though, so while Tifa busied herself with dinner – shooing him out of the kitchen when he tried to help – Cloud headed to his room. Nanaki and Vincent had senses of smell even better than his own, and he didn’t doubt that they’d be able to pick up on the faint, lingering scent of leather and mako. Not needing the questions and the trouble of making up an explanation, Cloud collected everything that so much as hinted of Sephiroth and chucked it in the wash. If Tifa asked, he’d just claim that they’d grown musty in his long absence. A weak excuse, but she wouldn’t peer closer. She never did.

With any luck, I’ll kill him tonight, anyway, and they’ll think this was the first time he showed up.

Somewhere in the back of his mind, Puppet Cloud was whining in protest, and he shut him up hastily.

As the sun sank closer to the horizon, the sky turning a brilliant mix of violet and gold, his friends showed up one by one. Reeve, dark circles under his eyes from working so hard at the WRO, but still possessing that spark of Cait Sith’s cheer; Barret, soot-streaked from Corel but eager to see his daughter again; Cid, smelling of cigar smoke and gasoline, but with enough humour to bring up the mood a whole notch by himself. Vincent, silent as always, but with a warmth about him that spoke of his fondness of the group; Yuffie, the empress of Wutai but still a teenager at heart; Nanaki, dignified and wise, fur still carrying the smoke of the Cosmo Candle.

Mothe– Jenova was getting louder in his head, trying to take his attention away from the people that weren’t her, and he hummed to drown her out as he helped set the table. It was good to see them again. Everyone was so busy trying to repair the damage Shinra had done to both the Planet and the world, there was little time to catch up. It was a shame that this was only happening because of another disaster.

‘That’s a cool song, Cloud,’ Yuffie commented as she passed.

He nodded in acknowledgement on reflex, but cursed internally. The humming meant to drown out the singing and become the song itself. He was too on edge, all of his secrets bubbling too close to the surface. He took a breath and slammed down his mental walls, focusing on the here and now.

‘So,’ Barret said as they sat down to eat, the kids having taken their dinner upstairs so the adults could talk freely. ‘What’s the problem?’

‘I talked to Aerith today,’ Cloud replied without preamble. ‘She said that a second Calamity is on its way here, though she didn’t say when it would arrive.’

‘Tell me you’re joking,’ Cid frowned, ‘another one of those alien motherfuckers? I thought Sephiroth was gone for good this time.’

He’s not. He’s alive. He’ll be upstairs in my room at some point tonight.

‘He doesn’t have anything to do with this. He’s dead.’

‘Well, that’s something we’ve got going for us.’

‘So, what do we do?’ Yuffie asked.

‘We’re not sure,’ Tifa said. ‘The only hint Aerith gave us is that Cloud can’t give up.’

‘If we do not know when the second Calamity is arriving, we should start the preparations now,’ Nanaki said gravely. ‘Have weapons prepared in the case that it is well after our lifetimes.’

‘Indeed,’ nodded Vincent.

‘I can pull some strings in the WRO,’ Reeve offered.

The team planned well into the night. Cloud’s SOLDIER mentality meant he could have stayed up longer, but only Vincent might have matched him. They split the spare rooms and the sofa, but they insisted on letting Cloud have his own space. He didn’t argue, for once. That was probably why they felt the need to check on him a few hours after they all went to bed.

But a few hours was more than enough time for Cloud’s guest to arrive.

----- CHAPTER BREAK -----

Act I - Edge

Part IV - Guests

Cloud Strife, infantryman, Ex-SOLDIER, eco-terrorist, and Saviour of the Planet, had planned on staying awake until Sephiroth appeared so he could finally kill him. Except he fell unconscious the moment he lay down, as quick and deep as if he’d been victim to a Sleepel, if status materia worked on him anymore with the ribbon around his arm. Only his subconscious realised when Sephiroth slid into the gap between him and the wall, the both of them facing the door, and Puppet Cloud purred. Cloud was only aware of a weight being taken off his shoulders in his sleep.

**

Tifa woke up with a feeling of unease that she couldn’t explain, which was only heightened when she felt Vincent’s hand covering her mouth, the other warning her not to make a sound. When she calmed, he woke Yuffie as well, who was sharing her bed for the night. ‘Nanaki is waking the others,’ he whispered. ‘There is something strange in the air.’

‘Where’s Cloud?’ If Vincent and Nanaki could sense something, Cloud certainly could.

‘He’s part of the problem. Come with me, but be quiet.’

The trio met with the rest of Avalanche in the hallway outside Cloud’s room. Nanaki’s fur bristled, and now even Tifa with her purely human senses could detect that something was off. The scent of mako was heavy in the air, heavier than the light fog that usually followed the blond swordsman. ‘What’s going on?’ she asked in a hushed voice, looking towards Barret who was slowly edging towards the door. There was fear trickling down her spine. Something was wrong. Something was wrong. Something was

very, very wrong.

Barret wrapped his fingers around the door handle and pushed down, letting the slab of wood swing silently open, offering a clear view into the dark room beyond.

She almost didn’t expect to see anything. The only light source was the skylight in the corridor, filtering the pale blue rays of the moon, and it didn’t extend past the doorframe of Cloud’s room. And yet. His window was open, the curtains drawn back, offering a view of the street and the star-sparse sky. Dust motes floated gently in the single ray of moonlight piercing the shadows. And yet. She’d forgotten how brightly mako eyes could shine.

Cloud lay on his side facing the door, the thin blanket draped lightly over his shoulders, one hand curled on the pillow. His face was slack and relaxed in sleep, devoid of the weariness that plagued him in waking. His eyes were closed – the glow came from the man behind him, chin tucked on top of blond spikes, an arm curved possessively over his waist. Sephiroth’s eyes, acidic and verdant and virile, shone like green coins. The corner of his pale lips ticked upward in a smirk and he tightened his grip on Cloud, holding him closer.

‘What the fuck,’ Barret almost yelled, but caught himself at the last second, the words escaping him as a strangled gasp instead. The vicious albeit hushed exclamation made Cloud’s eyelids twitch, sliding open halfway, shadowing sapphire irises overtaken by luminescent green.

‘I thought I smelled something strange,’ Nanaki hissed, coiling, ready to spring.

‘Let Cloud go,’ Tifa growled, stepping forward into the doorway, automatically falling into a fighting position. ‘Let him go right now!’

Cloud stirred, looking a little more awake, brows furrowed in confusion. His eyes were still green. ‘...Tifa?’

‘Go back to sleep, Cloud,’ Sephiroth almost purred, burying his face in Cloud’s hair.

‘Get your filthy hands off him!’ Tifa shouted, only stopped from racing forward by Barret’s vice-like grip on her arm. She tried and failed to wrench out of his grasp, teeth gritted. ‘Cloud, wake up!’

‘He needs to rest,’ Sephiroth snapped. ‘I will speak with you outside. Let him sleep.’

Tifa watched, nearly vibrating with anger, as the silver-haired man reluctantly released Cloud and left the small bed, looking strangely small without the white pauldrons on his shoulders. She clenched her fists, nails digging into her palms deep enough to break the skin, as the blond made a sleepy sound and reached out, catching Sephiroth’s hand.

‘Seph…’ He mumbled. Fuck, she hated seeing him like this. Like a puppet, eyes glazed over, clinging to his manipulator. His

master.

She stumbled back as Sephiroth gently removed Cloud’s hand and walked to the door, a chilly aura surrounding him, pushing the members of Avalanche back as he exited Cloud’s room and the door swung shut behind him of his own accord. He was outnumbered, surrounded on all sides, but they didn’t dare attack him. Tifa tried to position herself so that she blocked the way to Denzel’s and Marlene’s rooms.

‘What the fuck did you do to him?’ she demanded, forcing herself to look straight into those haunting, burning eyes.

‘Without Reunion, without

me,

he cannot hope to survive. He is just one part of a much larger whole.’

‘Answer the fucking question.’

‘I gave him what he needed.’
‘Bullshit. You just want to control him. He’s not your puppet!’ Tifa opened her mouth to scream at him, but was distracted by the quiet patter of feet behind her. She refused to take her eyes off her enemy, but she had a sinking feeling that she knew who it was. It was only confirmed but the tiny voice that rang out through the still air a second later.
‘Sephiroth!’ Denzel cried, and she could picture his brown eyes narrowing in fury.

‘Denzel, stay back,’ she ordered. ‘Go to Marlene and lock the door. We’ll handle this.’

‘Hello, little brat,’ Sephiroth smiled slowly, looking past Tifa to focus on her son. ‘I remember you. Kadaj was impressed by your spirit.’

Denzel’s flinch was so violent that she heard it, heard his feet skidding on the floor as he took a step back. Any reminder of the Remnants and the Geostigma were liable to make him freeze up like a deer in headlights. She moved to block Sephiroth’s gaze. She caught Vincent’s eye and he glanced towards Cloud’s door. They had to wake him up. He was the only one among them who stood a chance against Sephiroth.

‘Cloud doesn’t belong to you, and he’ll prove it,’ Tifa swore. ‘He belongs with us. With

me.’

‘Wrong,’ Sephiroth crooned, though his eyes glinted dangerously, ‘he’s

mine.’

‘You’re a sick bastard,’ Tifa said and locked eyes with Vincent again, trying to communicate her plan with just her desperate stare, and to her relief he nodded slightly.

‘I have done nothing that he has not wanted. Unlike yourself.’

‘What’s that supposed to mean?’

‘Have you ever asked him what he wanted?’

Vincent flipped his gun in his hand, providing a mere split second of warning, and fired a silver round into Sephiroth’s shoulder – or would have, if he hadn’t dodged with superhuman speed, allowing the bullet to slam harmlessly into the wall. Tifa took advantage of the distraction to run into Cloud’s room, the door swinging wildly in her hands. ‘Cloud! Cloud, wake up, please, wake up right now!’ She shouted, grabbing his shoulders and shaking. His eyes flew open, flashing between green and blue, and she barely managed to dodge the swing of First Tsurugi, having underestimated the speed with which he would grab his weapon. ‘Cloud, it’s me, Tifa!’

His eyes cleared, though he was still wound up so tightly he was shaking. In better circumstances, she would have insisted on helping relax the tension from his shoulders. Now, she could only jump out of the way as he registered the sounds of fighting in the hallway and dashed towards it. Steel screeched against steel, Masamune halted in its downward arc towards the Avalanche team’s necks. Everyone paused, frozen in fighting stances. Neither Sephiroth nor Cloud made a move to press the advantage.

Cloud exhaled slowly, stepped back, and lowered First Tsurugi. His eyes were narrowed, the mako still fighting to overtake the blue Tifa loved so much. ‘Leave.’

She expected Sephiroth to smirk. Instead he looked resigned, and even a little sad. The expression seemed out of place on a face so accustomed to smugness and fury. ‘As you wish, Cloud,’ he purred, voice wrapping around the blond’s name like a caress, making a sense of protectiveness (possessiveness?) flare up in Tifa’s heart. With those words, the air seemed to shift; one minute he was there in all his black and silver glory, and the next he was gone, the only trace of his presence the single black feather drifting slowly to the floor. The Wrongness shivered down her spine.

Barret took a shaky breath. ‘What the

fuck

is going on, Cloud?’

----- CHAPTER BREAK -----

Act I - Edge
Part V - Conflict

Cloud Strife, infantryman, Ex-SOLDIER, eco-terrorist, and Saviour of the Planet, did not know what to say. How much could he tell them? How much could he omit? What were the limits of what they’d be willing to believe?

I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I never meant to let it go this far. What did he tell you? What do you want me to say?

He hated being lost for words. It brought back memories that were best kept hidden, visions of bookshelves and thick glass and cold metal tables, greasy sneers of

Failed, Incompetent, Useless.

It woke the itch to have something marking his bare wrist, be it ink or blood or both.

Barret and Yuffie had gone to settle the kids, to tell them that it was alright, Sephiroth had shown up but Cloud had sent him away, as always. That Sephiroth’s claim of

mine

in relation to Cloud was a horrible, false thing that shouldn’t bother them. The rest of Avalanche sat in the kitchen around the dining table or leaning against the counters, everyone focused solely on the blond swordsman who

had

to have the answers, who was struggling to mask an oncoming panic attack and come up with satisfying answers at the same time.

‘I… don’t remember anything from before Tifa woke me up,’ he lied. ‘What… what happened?’

‘Vincent and I noticed something strange in the air,’ Nanaki said with a twitch of his ear. ‘We woke the others and came to check on you, for your room was where the feeling was coming from.’

Cid chewed on the end of his unlit cigarette, his lighter confiscated by Tifa who didn’t want the kids breathing in second-hand smoke. ‘Sephiroth was draped all over you like some sort of fucking cat. Wanted us to shut up and let you sleep. Your eyes were that fucking creepy green.’

‘He said he’d talk to us in the hallway. He didn’t want to wake you,’ Yuffie said, walking into the kitchen with Barret behind her, scrunching her nose in distaste. ‘Spouted some stuff about Reunion and how you were his.’

Cloud had heard all this even while half-asleep and drunk on Reunion. He just needed to be able to reference stuff they didn’t know he’d heard. ‘Oh. Sounds like him.’

‘Denzel woke up, but he wasn’t hurt. Vincent distracted him so Tifa could come and wake you up,’ Reeve finished.

‘... I’m sorry. You guys could have been hurt all because I was too weak to fight.’

‘Don’t think that. It’s not your fault you’ve got that weird thing with the Jenova cells.’

‘So,’ Barret cut in, ‘what I’m hearing is, Sephiroth is creepily invested in your sleep schedule and is using that Reunion bullshit to excuse it.’

‘...yeah.’

‘Has this… has this happened before, Cloud?’ Tifa asked gently.

Did he lie? Did he tell them the truth? He’d lie. ‘No. I don’t think so, anyway.’

‘Why didn’t you kill him?’

Ah, there it was, the million Gil question.

Because I didn’t want to.

‘Because I didn’t want to get the kids caught in the fighting. Now we know he’s back, though, we won’t be caught unawares next time.’

Tifa walked over to give him a hug, and he took comfort in the familiar whiskey and lavender scent of her hair, at least until she pressed a kiss to his lips. Her nose wrinkled and she laughed. ‘Ugh, you reek of mako.’

‘We should all get some rest,’ Cloud said, gently pushing her away.

‘Yeah, night guys,’ Yuffie was eager to nod along, covering a yawn.

Unwilling to try and sleep in a room that smelled like mako and leather, he waited until the rest of the team had gone to bed, and then took a seat out on the porch. The front of Seventh Heaven was adorned with small verdant plants trailing leaves over the railing and a black chalkboard that would be marked with the day’s specials come morning. The street was empty, lined with small shops and boarded up homes, a few signboards shining neon against dark window panes. The air was crisp and laced with smog. He rested his elbows on the railing, seated on a stool overlooking the street, and traced his ungloved fingertips over his wrist, feeling the empty space where he’d once wished numbers to be.

He felt the air shift, space rearranging itself around an alien power. Of all the times to be unarmed, it had to be now. He cursed internally, picturing First Tsurugi leaning against the kitchen counter just upstairs. ‘Sephiroth.’

‘Cloud.’

‘What do you want?’

‘For you to stop denying Reunion. Denying

me.’

‘You’re coming off as a possessive ex. It’s creepy.’

‘My apologies.’

‘Don’t pretend you mean it. Why won’t you leave me alone?’

‘You know why.’

‘I don’t care if you try to destroy the world. That’s normal, for you, and I’ll kill you as many times as it takes to keep the people I care about safe. But intrude on my home one more time and I’ll kick your ass so hard even Jenova won’t be able to put you back together.’

There was silence.

‘Without Reunion, you will die, Cloud. And I won’t allow that to happen.’

‘Just fuck off already.’

Cloud flinched when Sephiroth came up behind him and touched his hand, folding something soft into his palm. He could tell just from its soothing chill that it carried J-cells. ‘Mother misses you,’ Sephiroth whispered into his ear, and vanished.

Cloud opened his fist to reveal a black feather. Somehow he knew that it was the one Sephiroth had left on the floor in the hallway earlier. He wanted to crush it and throw it out onto the street. He slipped it inside his pocket instead.

‘What do I do, Aerith?’ He asked the empty street. ‘He killed you. He killed my mother. He killed so many people. Why does he care about

me?

Fuck.’

He didn’t fall asleep, just sat on the porch until the sun broke the horizon. The team left one by one, and only when they were all gone did he tell Tifa that he was leaving too.

‘You said you’d be able to stay at least a few weeks,’ she protested. ‘It’s barely been three days.’

‘I’d rather fight him out in the wilds where there isn’t a risk of collateral damage,’ Cloud said. ‘I’ll come back when I’ve killed him again.’

When I can stomach being around you and the kids again.

In any case, he was long overdue for a visit to the Western Continent.

‘... be safe, Cloud. Please. For me.’

For her. Everything I do is for her. Enduring her kisses, staying in her home, teaching her children. If I hurt her, after everything that’s happened to us, I’ll never be able to forgive myself. I’ll be better.

‘You too, Tifa.’

‘I love you.’

‘...you too.’

He mounted Fenrir. Maybe he’d visit Rocket Town and help with the defences against Aerith’s distant threat. And this time,

this time,

he’d kill Sephiroth on sight.

He revved the engine and escaped from Edge. Or, he tried to.

Fenrir rumbled to a pause by the outskirts of Edge, the engine choking out a belt of black steam, as a massive shadow flashed across the sky. People around him were gasping and looking up curiously, pointing towards the shape that circled above, until their excited chatter was drowned out by a monstrous roar.

Cloud almost groaned, standing and unslinging First Tsurugi from his back, but had no idea how he was supposed to reach the behemoth cutting through the clouds. He winced as a jet of flame spurted from the creature’s mouth, curling into nothing over its angled wings. Dragons were hardly ever seen outside of Mount Nibel or the Northern Crater, more suited to the cold rocky mountains than the open expanses of the Eastern Continent. Another bellow rent the air before the dragon completed its last circle and dove, more flame spilling from its silhouette, and Cloud’s enhanced vision could almost note the colour of its beady eyes as fire embraced the towers around him.

He ran to the nearest building, running up its side in the gravity-defying manner only a SOLDIER could achieve, and leapt into the air, close enough to the dragon’s whipping tail that First Tsurugi’s blade could catch the flesh and stay hooked there, allowing him to climb onto the monster’s tail and up to its back. The dragon’s shoulders twitched in annoyance at the small pest on its back, and it rolled, shaking roughly, in order to dislodge him. Cloud separated his blades and sunk the smallest one between two plate-sized scales to keep his grip.

Before the dragon could cover more of the city in fire, he took advantage of its next dive to leap to its head and bury the core blade in its skull, forcing it through flesh and bone and channelling a spark of Bolt into the metal for good measure. A strong Aero beneath flagging wings was enough to direct the dragon’s descent, so it plummeted into the wastes outside Edge, its tail whistling between the streets and knocking chunks of cement to the ground on the way out.

Cloud retrieved his blades from various parts of the monster’s corpse and gave the sword a shake, viscous green blood slipping to the ground. ‘What were you doing here, so far from home?’ he asked the blank eyes, not wanting nor expecting an answer. He looked towards the city, where flames licked at the tops of the buildings, already being combated by firefighters and the occasional citizen who had a Water materia and knew how to use it. Well, whatever. It was here now and it was dead now, so he could get back to Fenrir and the open road.

Except. Cloud actually did groan this time, looking over his beloved vehicle. Part of the dragon’s dying throes had collapsed the house beside which his bike had been parked, causing brick and tile to spill over its glossy black exoskeleton. It was made of far hardier stuff than what was usually seen on the roads, but the ribbon of black smoke spilling from one of its pipes meant something had gone wrong. He pulled the bike free and set it upright. In addition to whatever was wrong with the engine, there was a long white scratch through the finish. He was stuck in Edge until he could get this fixed.

Cloud walked his bike back to Seventh Heaven, trying not to flush with shame when he slipped into the shed he’d repurposed into a garage and Tifa caught him while she was taking out some trash. She visibly struggled to not appear too happy that he was back and wouldn’t be able to leave until Fenrir was fixed. He couldn’t blame her, he knew that she missed him when he was gone.

‘Cloud, I thought you were leaving!’ Denzel exclaimed when he came inside to clean First Tsurugi properly and call someone for the parts to fix Fenrir.

‘Ran into a dragon on the way out and my bike got messed up,’ he explained.

‘I’m glad you're back,’ the kid said, shuffling his feet. ‘I… I saw Sephiroth last night. He was really scary. I was worried about you.’

‘...you don’t need to worry about me. He shows up again, I’ll kill him as many times as it takes.’

‘Cloud, you love Tifa, right?’

Cloud was thrown off guard. ‘What?’

Denzel looked at his shoes, then stared him straight in the eye. ‘You love Tifa, don’t you?’

‘I – yeah, of course I do.’

‘Good. Because she loves you a lot. And if you actually belonged to Sephiroth like he said, she would be really sad.’

‘I don’t belong to anyone, kid. Sephiroth’s just… he’s just a bad guy.’

‘I know. I’m happy you love Tifa.’

‘...yeah. Look, I need to go get the parts for Fenrir. Where’s Marlene?’

‘In her room with her dolls. She’s sad Barret couldn’t stay longer.’

‘Go play with her, keep her company. I’ll see you all in a bit.’

Cloud tried to smile as Denzel gave him a hug and ran upstairs.

----- CHAPTER BREAK -----

Act I — EdgePart VI — Resolve
Cloud Strife, infantryman, Ex-SOLDIER, eco-terrorist, and Saviour of the Planet, was washing his wrist clean in the lukewarm water from the kitchen faucet. He hadn’t been able to sleep a wink the previous night and his eyes ached. He’d fallen into a half-conscious state, and when he’d regained his senses, his skin was so covered in inky numbers that he couldn’t even see its original fair hue. Now, though, the evidence was faint enough it wouldn’t be noticed right away, which was all he could ask for, really.

‘You really should take better care of yourself,’ Tifa remarked. At least, it looked like Tifa. He regarded it with suspicion. He hadn’t had a hallucination in a while, but after what was going on in his life recently, he wouldn’t be surprised. He narrowed his eyes and reached out. Generally, the best way to tell if it was real or not was through touch. It was, of course, easier to check when they took on the forms of his friends. He was usually too afraid of the Hojo apparition to think of checking its corporeality. He was going on a tangent – Cloud patted maybe-Tifa’s shoulder.

‘Cloud, are you alright?’

Real.

‘Yeah. Yeah, I’m fine, sorry.’ He made to take his hand back, but Tifa grabbed it and squeezed it lightly.

‘I wanted to talk,’ she said, ‘about what happened the other night. Just us.’

‘Tifa–’

‘I know,’ she said, releasing his hand and wrapping her arms around herself nervously. ‘I just wanted to talk about – some of the things Sephiroth said, they got me thinking.’

Mother misses you.

‘He’s a liar,’ Cloud said immediately, ‘you can’t trust him. You know that.’

‘Of course I do,’ Tifa frowned. ‘But this is important. Cloud… he said he never did anything you didn’t want. That was a lie, obviously, you would never let him –

hold

you like he did. But he said – he

implied

– that I’ve done things you didn’t want. You would – you would tell me if you didn’t want something. Wouldn’t you?’

‘Y-yeah. Of course I would.’

Well… I wouldn’t

say

it. I’d just avoid it like I always have.

Tifa sighed in relief. ‘Yeah. I know. I just… I’d hate to be the person controlling you like he did.’

He smiled stiffly. ‘You’re fine.’

Cloud excused himself and went up to his room.

‘Hello, Cloud,’ Sephiroth greeted.

‘Holy fuck!’ he shouted in surprise, nearly jumping a foot in the air, instincts already having him drop into a fighting stance.

‘Cloud, are you alright?’ Tifa called through the walls.

‘Shit, uh, yeah, fine,’ he called back, not once looking away from his enemy. ‘Just dropped something.’ He lowered his voice, this time addressing only Sephiroth. ‘I told you not to come back here.’

‘You didn’t sleep. I could feel it. It was vastly irritating.’

‘Yeah, well, it’s not your problem.’ Cloud grabbed the hilt of First Tsurugi. ‘I’m not fighting you here. Either come with me to the Wastes or get the hell out.’

‘And why should I do that? I don’t have any stake in this city. I could burn it to the ground if I wanted to.’

‘Well – fuck you. You want to die or what?’

Sephiroth hummed. ‘I am actually rather attached to having a corporeal form, so I’m afraid I have to decline.’

‘Then stay away from me.’

‘I would if I could,’ Sephiroth muttered, and vanished before Cloud could analyse that statement. A black pinion sat on the floorboards, and he stuffed it in his pocket beside the other.

Fucking weird Reunion shit.

The closeness of the feathers was bothering him so he stuck them in the top drawer of the nightstand instead. Tifa never looked through his stuff, so it should be fine, but he’d find another place for them soon anyway.

He took the kids to school again and went into the garage to repair Fenrir. It was mostly crush damage on the flank, the dents deep enough to affect the engine, and he’d taken the damaged sections off to replace whatever couldn’t be salvaged. He let himself zone out as he worked, though paying little to no conscious attention to the delicate task was not typically recommended. His hands knew what to do – at least until he realised he’d missed a part that would take at least a week to arrive in Edge, and he accidentally broke the tool in his grasp.

Oh, well. Cloud sighed and put his head in his hands. He needed a nap. He’d been intentionally keeping himself awake for hours and if he put it off any longer it wouldn’t be a simple, easily replaceable tool that broke.

He went upstairs, nodding to Tifa as he passed, and entered his room. He stood in the middle of the space, staring defiantly at nothing in particular. ‘Now I’m going to take a nap,’ he declared to empty air, ‘and you are going to stay outside.

Outside.

Then, when I wake up, you’re going to meet me in the Wastes so I can kill you again and my team can focus on the

actual

problem. Capiche?’ He felt slightly stupid, but didn’t relent. ‘Whatever thing with Reunion is going on, it ends. Now. Enjoy your last few hours of life because if you crawl out of the Lifestream after this I’m going to actually grind you into meat paste.’ Jenova’s singing muted suddenly in the back of his mind. He took that as agreement, even though he hadn’t really been addressing her, and flopped into bed, unconscious before he hit the pillow.

When he woke up shortly before he’d need to pick the kids up from school and found himself completely alone, with his skin itching unpleasantly for Reunion like usual and not still calm from Sephiroth’s presence, he counted it as a win, took the kids home, and because Fenrir was out of commission, he made use of his SOLDIER speed for once to make it to the Wastes. Cloud paused by the cliffs where the Buster Sword stood, its sturdy blade rusted and weathered, the monument of a hero’s grave. He wrapped his hand around the hilt, the grip smooth and familiar, and felt comforted. A small flower was growing at the sword’s base, petals partially unfurled, long stamens curled like butterfly antennae. Perhaps his two closest friends, side by side, like they always should have been.

‘Feeling sentimental?’ Sephiroth commented.

Cloud glared at him.

‘I remember Zack,’ the silver-haired man said thoughtfully. ‘He was the protegee of my friend. He was always surprisingly kind.’

‘We both know how this is going to go,’ Cloud said, unsheathing First Tsurugi and readying it. ‘Any chance you’ll just let me stab you and get it over with?’

Masamune shimmered into existence. ‘Your confidence amuses me.’

‘I’m

so

glad,’ Cloud rolled his eyes, and dashed forward, steel screeching to a halt against steel. They went through the motions, the steps of this dance coming to them as easily as breathing. Under the adrenaline and the fear that always picked up his pulse when he caught sight of Sephiroth’s imposing figure, the rhythm was almost relaxing. Navigating domestic life, delivering packages and having a family, it all fell away. This was what he’d been made for, in those labs under Shinra Manor, the only thing he knew with any certainty how to do right. When the dust cleared, there was blood running red down his front and a blade lodged firmly in Sephiroth’s chest, his corpse already beginning to dissolve in shimmering green tendrils of light. Watching the Lifestream claim his nemesis, Cloud almost felt regretful.

Mother misses you.

The sky was calm and cloudless. Somewhere out there was the alien Aerith had warned them off, the second Calamity.

‘Another Calamity will descend from the skies, and you will be more alone than you have ever been before,’

she’d said. The rest of Avalanche didn’t know this part.

‘Keep your friends close.’

He was going to lose them. Some way or another, Cloud knew he was going to face this thing alone.

----- CHAPTER BREAK -----

Act I - Edge

Part VII - Time

Cloud Strife, infantryman, Ex-SOLDIER, eco-terrorist, and Saviour of the Planet, surely confused his friends by how often he insisted they meet up. He didn’t tell them it was because he was scared of the day they wouldn’t have a chance to, just called them strategy meetings and the like, albeit strategy meetings that were surprisingly relaxed and didn’t consist of much actual strategising. Because as he watched the rocket the

Holy

be assembled on the landing struts that had once borne the weight of the

Shinra No.26,

the last processed mako on the planet fizzing through the wires of a bomb powerful enough to blast a meteor or a Meteor into a hundred pieces, the years were crawling on.

Denzel was eighteen now and taller than him, proficient with the simple longsword he slung on his back, clearing out the rats from the scrap piles for Gil after his shift at the pharmacy. Marlene was thirteen and still worked behind the bar at Seventh Heaven, paying as much care and attention to the flowers as ever, a small black cat perched on her shoulder. Tifa was twenty nine and Cloud himself twenty eight. Fights with Sephiroth were a nuisance because at some point Cloud found himself waking up in his enemy’s arms again. At least he did a much better job of keeping it a secret this time.

The older members of Avalanche, Barret and Cid and Reeve, were beginning to grey. Yuffie was a woman now, a fully fledged empress of Wutai, who ruled with kindness and wisdom but was still partial to a shiny orb of materia. The Buster Sword was a slab of rust with a veritable bush of flowers twined round its blade, and Cloud restored it as best he could and set it in Aerith’s church.

Just a little more time. Please. I’m not ready to lose them.

‘Cloud, what are these?’ In Tifa’s hand were the feathers that Sephiroth had left him, a small pile of ebony fluff that itched at his cells. He stepped forward quickly and snatched them back, cradling them protectively. They hummed into his palms, which were, for once, bare of gloves.

‘They’re mine,’ Puppet Cloud replied immediately, and Cloud let him, not having anything else to say. He forced himself to relax, to stop curling his hands around the pinions as if to guard them from Tifa’s stare, and regained control. ‘Why were you going through my things?’

‘I’ve seen those feathers before,’ she said, voice stretched thin like a rope over a knife. ‘On Sephiroth’s wings. He’s… he’s visiting you again, isn’t he.’

Cloud stayed silent.

‘Cloud, please, talk to me. Let me help you. I

love

you.’ She reached out, fingers halting inches away from the feathers in his clutches, desperately searching his eyes for something that she didn’t find. Her face fell. ‘You… you feel the same, right?’

‘Tifa, of course I–’

‘Don’t lie to me,’ she snapped. ‘Don’t spare my feelings, don’t– Cloud, all I ever wanted was for you to be happy, after everything you went through. If you’ve been lying this whole time – I’ll be mad, yeah, but – think of yourself for once, okay? Do you love me like I love you?’

What’s the right answer? What’s the right thing to say? What can I say that’ll make her happy? Puppets don’t get to have feelings. They live to serve. I’m not a puppet.

‘No,’ he mumbled. ‘I love you, but not like that.’

Tifa bit her lip. ‘I knew it. I fucking knew it. Why’d you have to fucking lie to me?’

‘I just wanted you to be happy. You helped me so many times, I just wanted to repay the favour.’

‘I– Cloud, you realise how this makes me feel? I feel fucking disgusting. All those times I kissed you, when we– you never wanted it, not really. Fuck.’

‘Tifa–’

‘It was never me you loved,’ she said, ‘it wasn’t even Aerith. What Sephiroth said in the Temple of the Ancients, that you can’t feel love, that you can’t feel pain– it’s true, isn’t it? You smile when you fight him, I’ve seen it, you receive wounds that would put anyone else, even a SOLDIER, down for weeks, and you get back up and keep fighting. If you love anyone or anything, it’s

him.’

‘I would

never–

Tifa, don’t say that, I’m not a fucking

puppet

like he said–’

‘Get out.’

‘What?’

‘Get out of my house. Please. I need to – I need to think.’

Cloud dithered, wanting to reach out but unwilling to release the feathers in his hands,

I should have lied. I've hurt her. Why did I say that? Why?

‘Get out!’ she shouted. He hung his head and hurried out. He ran into the alley and leaned against the wall, burying his face in his hands and the feathers they held. Years. Years and years and years of lying, and now it had hurt her more than any rejection would have when this all began. Cloud left Edge and didn’t see Tifa for a long time. He didn’t see any of the others, either, too racked with guilt and pain to hold a straight face in front of them. He didn’t even let Sephiroth stick around.

It's all your fault. This is all your fault.

Eventually, he realised that while time was moving normally for everyone else, for him it stood still. He wasn’t ageing. When he went to the Forgotten City and asked for an answer, the Planet’s voice rumbled through him and jarred loose something in his soul.

As my Gold Weapon, you will live as long as you are needed,

she whispered.

‘What does that mean? What about the others?’ This time, she stayed silent. Cloud visited his friends again. They scolded him for being gone for so long. There were wrinkles around their eyes and grey specks in their hair. Only Vincent and Nanaki remained blessedly unchanged. No-one commented on the fact that he still looked twenty one, but they all noticed, he was sure of it. He was both grateful and infuriated by the lack of questions, of anger. He made amends with Tifa and promised never to lie to her again. The words tasted sour in his mouth but he was determined to make them true.

Cloud became in charge of the

Holy

project without anyone really saying so. They just assumed he would be the one to teach the newest engineers about the rocket and its purpose, and he did it. He went to Marlene’s wedding and joined Cid in poking fun at how Barret couldn’t stop blubbering, his baby girl all grown up. Yuffie didn’t marry, despite her advisors’ protests, adopting an heir to the throne of Wutai instead. Avalanche grew larger, incorporating family and friends, until it wasn’t the remains of a rebel group anymore. It was a family. And families are like hospitals, people always coming in but always leaving as well. He attended every single funeral. Even as he distanced himself from the people themselves, it became tradition for the families of Edge to set aside a place at funerals for him, despite not knowing exactly who he was or why he was there. Cloud found himself becoming something of a local legend, at least until the metaphorical hospital grew too large and he couldn’t keep track of who was coming in and out anymore.

Every argument, every conversation, every laugh, they were decades – centuries – ago. Literally. Vincent and Nanaki kept him company for a while, but they weren’t immortal, not like he was. Merely long-lived. Even a body possessed by Chaos will deteriorate eventually.

Cloud had a front-row seat to the world evolving, to civilisation growing, and to the Planet fading. The mako in his veins tugged downwards to where the Lifestream flowed, miles below the Planet’s crust. It was draining, slowly but surely, consumed by the abundance of new life and how much longer those lives lasted compared to what they had once done. Sephiroth stopped resurrecting himself, eventually, the Lifestream and Jenova too weak to sustain it, and Cloud didn’t have a single constant to keep himself anchored in the river of time.

The

Holy

project almost became a legend, a religion. A select group of people and their descendants devoted themselves to the scanning of the stars, ready to carry out the rocket’s purpose. Cloud didn’t need to bother with them anymore. It was more of a disappointment than a relief.

He attempted suicide. He failed.

Not just yet, Gold Weapon. You are soon to be needed.

He wanted to talk to Aerith. She’d faded aeons ago. At some point, the Planet must have taken pity on him, drifting from town to city and stranger to stranger.

Come to the Northern Continent, Gold Weapon, and I will let you sleep.

So he went. He took Fenrir, painstakingly maintained over centuries; First Tsurugi, no rust tinting its blade. He shook an Ice materia to get the stagnant mana flowing, tucked himself inside a cave atop Gaea Cliff, and sealed it closed with an Ice3. The orb fell, lifeless, and melted away.

There was a hot spring deep inside the cave, and the Planet willed for the earth to part so a vein of Lifestream could thread upwards. He stepped into the bath of mako, clenching his fists as memories, old but no less vibrant, followed the familiar painful sensation. He felt the water-turned-mako begin to solidify around him where he stood.

Gold Weapon. My Champion. I encase you in crystal like I did for one you once knew. Sleep, for you will wake when you are needed, and not a moment sooner. I am sorry you suffered for so long.

Cloud closed his eyes.

----- CHAPTER BREAK -----

Act II - Neo-Gaia

Part I - Recovery

Blake Denver was an archeologist, the top of his field on the Eastern Continent, famous for conducting surveys in locations that most others would turn away from. He’d been the one to discover the Inverted Temple south-west of Condor; his was the name behind the Diamond Giant in the great lake near the Junon Citadel; he’d been first on the scene when builders had uncovered the labs buried beneath Nibel. His shelf was adorned with so many certificates and trophies that it creaked under the weight. So it was no surprise that he jumped at the chance to take part in the first expedition to the Northern Continent in a thousand years.

‘Darling, I know this is exciting, but–’

‘Exciting?’ Blake exclaimed, pausing in stuffing clothes into a suitcase to stare at his wife with shock. ‘A thousand years ago, a blizzard of unprecedented size and strength swamped the Continent, burying the Icicle Resort and rendering passage to the cliffs and the Northern Crater impossible. But now, the winds are finally abating, giving us a chance to go inside! This isn’t exciting, this is a once in a lifetime opportunity!’

‘You’ll miss Mildred’s birthday,’ his wife frowned, ‘again.’

‘With the relics up there, I’ll get enough Gil to buy her a thousand birthday presents,’ he dismissed. ‘I can’t turn this down, Ellen, I can’t.’

‘Blake, she needs her father. She’s turning seven and she barely even knows what you look like.’

Blake sighed, but continued packing. ‘I’m sorry, Ellen, I really am, but I need this. I’ll take her to the park before I leave, I promise.’

He listened to his wife leave, feeling a pang of guilt and regret, but shed it to focus on his phone, which had just started ringing. The Caller ID identified his boss, a Mx Aida Shire. ‘Denver, change of plans,’ they snapped immediately upon his picking up. ‘We’ve received reports that the wind barrier’s lapse is going to last shorter than expected. Your plane has been rescheduled to noon. Today.’

‘Can’t it wait one day?’ he pleaded, ‘I was going to spend some time with my daughter.’

‘If you’re not ready, we can call someone else–’

‘No, no it’s fine. I’ll be there.’

‘Good.’

Blake finished packing and turned around to see Ellen in the doorway. She raised an eyebrow, and walked off before he could give an excuse. As he walked out to the car, head hung, he caught a glimpse of Mildred in her room playing with her dolls. A happy little porcelain family, except there was only one parent. Shame curled inside his gut, but he couldn’t give this up. He’d make it up to them when he got back.

The Northern Continent was cold and barren. For the last millennium, all that could be seen of it was the massive swirling cloud of ice and snow that surrounded it, a tempest keeping everything out and trapping everything in. The inhabitants of the Icicle Resort had perished quickly in the subzero temperatures, and the place had become a ghost town, loomed over by the cliffs and the shadow of the Northern Crater.

Wrapped up in thick furs and thermal gear, Blake followed the rest of the team of the small plane, onto the icebreaker anchored outside of the storm’s radius. The ship’s captain gave them little time to find their sea legs before they ploughed through sheets of ice towards the shore, the temperature dropping steadily, aiming for the break in the cyclone where the winds parted and created an arch of blissfully still air. The unique weather pattern was their only chance at exploring the Northern Continent, and it was to last for one week – meaning that if they overstayed their welcome, they’d be trapped for who knew how long. It had been supposed to last for three, and the expedition scheduled to start two days later than it had, but Blake was used to time not being his friend.

The snow crunched under his boots when he dismounted the ramp to shore. Blake struggled with his goggles, thick mittens restricting his finger movement, feeling the wind bite at his nose. Despite it all, he couldn’t help but grin. The thrill of the expedition was coursing through him: new discoveries, ancient relics, scientific trophies worth thousands of Gil! Ellen would come around once he bought her that fancy ring she’d been eyeing, for sure, and he’d be able to buy Muriel enough dolls to last her a lifetime.

While a small team stopped at the Icicle Resort for their excavations, the majority pressed north towards the cliffs and the Crater, Blake among them, of course. It took a gruelling three days to reach the top of the highest cliff, with a stopover in a long-forgotten cabin where an ancient map was preserved above a fireplace filled with dust and ash instead of wood. Relying on a photo of the map, Blake halted the expedition team once they’d climbed to the top of Gaea Cliff. ‘There should be a cave nearby that we can shelter in for a while,’ he shouted over the whistling wind, and they spread out, bound at the waists with rope that had saved them from many a fall.

One of the excavators was the first to spot the cave and he tugged on the ropes connecting him to his fellows, drawing everyone nearer. The cave mouth was sealed with a thick sheet of shining blue ice, but the pickaxes and blow torches made quick work of cutting a hole in it for them to enter through, shivering with relief as they stepped out of the wind. The interior of the cave was cold, but not as much as the frigid air of the outside, and they shuffled deeper within.

Blake, at the head of the party, noticed a dull green luminescence coming from around the bend in the tunnel. ‘Turn off your lamps,’ he ordered quickly, and in the darkness the glow was much more obvious. The very air seemed to thrum with a pulse of

something,

matching the ebbs and shimmers of the green light. He walked forward slowly and carefully, keeping his feet close to the ground so he didn’t trip into a pothole, and rounded the corner.

A blast of warm air and humidity hit him and he gasped in shock as the heat assaulted his clammy, frosted skin. The archeologist stepped forward instinctively, seeking the source of the warmth that he’d been so deprived of for the last three days, and his eyes jumped around the cave with a precise ease honed by years of practice. Stalagmites and stalactites glittered with minerals, ringing shell-like pools of steaming water, white plumes of gas bubbling like ocean foam. The water was tinged a deep green like seawater, crystallised around the edges into vibrant emerald spikes. Blake waved his hand in front of his face, clearing the white haze, and stepped forward to the edge of the hot spring.

‘Oh my god,’ someone gasped behind him. If his brain had been working, he would have echoed the sentiment. In the centre of the largest pool, a massive green crystal

grew

from the water, a rocky chrysalis encasing a

human

like he was sort of caterpillar, waiting to unfurl his wings. The man was fair-skinned and lithe, dressed all in black, the clothes a style from a thousand years past. His hair was pale blond and spiked up like the feathers of a chocobo, and he was curled around a massive slab of steel with a leather-wrapped hilt. That thing was a

sword?

That guy looked like he could barely lift a stick.

The crystal itself was nothing to sniff at, either. It exploded from the hot spring in a plume of jagged diamonds, flaring outward like a freeze-frame of breaking glass. It was a deep, verdant green, semi-transparent with ropes of lime curling up from its base, surrounded by smaller crystals that glittered like needles.

‘Do we get him out of there? Or something? Is he alive?’ someone asked.

Someone else rummaged for a chisel and tapped it against the crystal. The chisel’s blade chipped while the smooth green gem remained flawless. ‘It doesn’t look like it’s connected to the rock underneath. That is, I think it’s freestanding. If we were careful enough, we could get this back to the University. It looks like something they’d be interested in – they like all this mystery science-y stuff, right?’

The University? Neo-Gaia’s greatest research institution? They’d pay millions for a find like this. Blake clapped his hands together once to gain everyone’s attention. ‘Alright, folks. We’ll have to scrap the rest of the expedition if we want to get this out of here safely and on time, and we don’t know when the wind will die down again. It could be months, it could be decades.’

‘Why can’t some of us take it and the rest of us continue on?’

‘Have you looked at this thing?’ Was the reply from someone else in the group. ‘We’ll need every hand we can get and then some to get it down the cliff in one piece.’

‘We’ll take a vote,’ Blake said. ‘All in favour of cancelling the mission for the crystal, raise your hand.’

The result was near-unanimous. He knew what they were all thinking:

We can’t let this find go to waste.

That and,

we’re going to get so much Gil for this!

It sucked to miss out on the Northern Crater, but this really was an incredible discovery that the University would value greatly. Blake directed the team as they trussed up the crystal chrysalis and hauled it out of the hot spring (thank god it was actually freestanding like they’d thought) onto the sled they’d brought with them, the supplies it had borne being distributed among their backpacks. The crystal was, in all, the size of a large human male, in order to accommodate the unconscious blond swordsman inside, and they had to spend an hour in front of the ice sealing the front of the cave to cut a hole that was big enough for the crystal to fit through.

‘You’ll see, Ellen,’ Blake muttered to himself. ‘This was worth it.’

----- CHAPTER BREAK -----

Act II - Neo-Gaia

Part II - Revival

It was cold. Cold and

quiet.

Mother?

He was surrounded by glass. He couldn’t move, couldn’t breathe, couldn’t open his eyes. Where the glass touched his skin, hard and unflinching, it stung like mako.

Mother? Mother, where are you, Sephiroth, Aerith, Tifa, please. Zack? Zack, are you there?

He looked around frantically in the black behind his eyelids. He couldn’t hear anything. Jenova’s hum had gone silent. He couldn’t even detect the beating of his own heart.

Am I dead?

No, there it was, matching the Lifestream’s pulse beat for beat. He focused on the sound, clinging to the meagre tether, but the back of his mind felt empty, an orchestra pit devoid of players, a void.

My Gold Weapon, open your eyes.

I can’t. I can’t move. I’m trapped.

Then break free. Wake up. I need you.

He couldn’t. He was in the mako tank, surrounded by green acid, floating like a marionette with cut strings. He was in a basement lined with mouldering bookshelves and steel tables. He was under a knife. He was holding the knife. It hurt.

My poor Gold Weapon. My child. I will help you.

The glass warmed around him and began to melt. The fizzing, burning mako ate into his hair and skin. The air outside the glass was icy cold and artificial. Somewhere close by, alarms were blaring and people were shouting. He heard them as if they were underwater. His blood started to move faster, his body waking up and restarting long-disabled processes, and when his nose was exposed he inhaled for the first time in a millennium and gathered his strength.

Cloud opened his eyes.

Lab,

he thought, taking in the sterilised white and hospital blue, the scientific instruments and sample dishes, the people watching him like overgrown clipboard-wielding vultures. He broke out of the melting crystal of Lifestream, droplets of mako splattering the room, First Tsurugi slipping easily into his hand as he found his feet. He half-expected to fall, weak from centuries of atrophy, but he felt only slightly weaker than normal. He glanced around quickly, searching for a window, for a door, for a way out.

An exit, an escape, right in front of him as he struggled on the table, safety so close and yet forever out of reach, Hojo’s cruel smirk– words carved into glass with a fingernail– wE hAVE to gET oUt Of HErE–

The scientists were shouting. Pleas? Threats? He couldn’t tell. His language had been warped over the centuries into something alien and unfamiliar and he couldn’t speak if he wanted to, his throat dry and sore from disuse, mako trickling down his body and burning like acid. Cloud couldn’t see a way out. Sirens were blaring. There was fire, fire everywhere– no, there wasn’t any fire. His breathing was quick and shallow and he wrested control over it, willing the adrenaline to simmer down. He scanned the room and saw a panel of glass and a stark white hallway and ran for it, legs wobbling like a baby chocobo’s as the bystanders hurried out of his way, staring wide-eyed. The alarms were ten times louder in the corridor, bouncing off the tiles, and he wanted to cover his ears but was loath to let go of First Tsurugi. For as long as he could remember, his skin had itched, cells calling north. Now, they were still. He didn’t want to think about what that meant. He didn’t want to realise that he was all alone. He had to run, he had to get out, he had to – he had to –

Cloud’s eyes rolled back and he fell to the ground.
 
It was still cold, but now there was noise: rhythmic beeping, quick but hushed conversation, the drip of an IV. There was sensation: unfamiliar textures covering his skin, cuffs around his wrists, tubing under his nose and in his arm. He flexed his hands as subtly as he could, gauging the strength of the cuffs.

Don’t let them know you’re awake.

The restraints bound his wrists to the bed frame. Leather. One of Hojo’s assistants was going to become specimen food – only a combination of steel and heavy drugs could withstand the strength of someone with enhancements, let alone someone with enhancements as strong as his. Leather was an amateur’s mistake. He tested its give and it wasn’t even tied properly, wasn’t pulled taut until hairline fractures splintered across his wrist bones. Yes, someone was definitely going to pay for this later.

Cloud had seen enough assistants make mistakes to memorise Hojo’s process. When they were caught, and they were always caught, they were trussed up naked on the steel kitchen counters, pumped full of whatever new serum the department was cooking up, and released live to one of the bigger monsters: a behemoth, maybe, or hybrid specimens like H0509 or H0510. Hojo liked to call it ‘enrichment’ for them. Sometimes the big ones were full, though, so the poor scientist got minced and fed in a slurry to something smaller, be it a monster or Cloud himself. Trouble was, all the food looked the same, so he could never tell what was human and what wasn’t. And eventually, he’d lost the ability to care.

He shook himself out of the memory and braced himself for the fight.

Leather stood up well enough to most forms of assault, but against pure, raw, strength, it didn’t stand a chance. It ripped apart like it was made of paper and an alarm went off just as he’d expected, but he paid it no heed and focused on ridding himself of the medical equipment that hooked up to the wall behind him. The room was so brightly, starkly white that it hurt his eyes. That was also something he’d anticipated. The lab was sterile, freakishly clean, made of gunmetal grey and digital charts and the brilliant lamps hung over the operating tables that illuminated every glistening inch of his insides. The doors, however, thin panes of sliding glass set in the wall, were new. Breakable glass was a security hazard. He wondered what had prompted Hojo to allow those to be installed.

No matter. He left the bed, the needle that had been in his arm now clutched tightly in his hand, a rudimentary weapon, and looked around. The lab was empty, for now; not just of people, though he could see several out in the hallway through those stupid glass doors, but of the general scientific paraphernalia he’d come to expect – mako tanks, trays of surgical instruments, specimen cages, and Zack.

Zack.

Where was Zack?

Zack’s not here. He’s dead, remember? You escaped together. You travelled. You killed Sephiroth once and for all, and now you miss him, terribly. You should have embraced Reunion while you still could. Cloud. Wake up, Cloud. Zack’s dead. Tifa’s dead. Everyone is dead and you are alone. Hojo is dead. Look around. You’re not in his labs. Where are you?

The floor was ice-cold. He knew this because he’d fallen onto it, cheek pressed against the smooth tile. He wasn’t in the lab, because if he had been, his weakness would have earned him another five hours on the operating table. He’d already have been strapped down, torso peeled open and pinned out of the way as knives and white-gloved fingers rooted around, poking and prodding.

Hello? Hellooo?

Aerith?

Gold Weapon. The time is at hand. You must rise.

Gaia?

There was one voice, one song, that Cloud longed to hear. He reached with his mind, searching, and found nothing.

Gaia, tell me what’s happening. Tell me what you need me for.

The time is at hand.

I can’t help if you don’t tell me what I need to do.

The time is at hand. Rise.

Stop it!

I will show you. I will show you everything. But first, you must find the path. I’m waiting for you. I’m waiting for you, my Gold Weapon. The time is at hand. You must rise.

Cloud opened his eyes.

----- CHAPTER BREAK -----

Act II - Neo-GaiaPart III - Waking
Hestia Daniels was just an intern, really; certainly not qualified enough to be first on the scene when John Doe – or Blond Doe if you asked her coworkers – awoke. She’d been sweeping up plastic detritus from the floor where Chester had broken a whole tray of needles, her supervisors talking in the hallway where they thought she couldn’t hear them through glass sliding doors, and dreaming of going home when his heart rate picked up by a fraction of a second. Her hands loosened on the broom handle and she leant it against the counter. If she’d been listening to music, out in the hallway, or even just thinking too loudly she would have missed the slight change in tempo entirely and been wholly unprepared for what happened next.

The monitor screamed over the papery tear of leather being ripped apart by brute force and she would have shrieked if all the air hadn’t suddenly left her lungs. The man was ripping tubes and needles from his flesh with abandon, and while the doctor inside of her cringed and begged for them to remain, it gave Hestia enough of a window to fall to her knees and tuck herself under the closest bench, drawing her limbs in tight and watching his reflection in the glass doors. A hand pressed to her mouth, she swallowed her cries and prayed for her superiors to hurry up and save her. She could see them out in the hallway, staring at the man wide-eyed, unmoving.

Hestia watched in the mirroring glass as the man looked around the lab, his gaze skipping over her hiding place, and confusion and fear dawned on his face in place of the determination that had been there before. His eyes were a startling blue laced with acidic green, pupils small from the bright lights but slitted at the tips like a cat’s, surrounded by creases that suggested he rarely smiled. The IV needle was in his hand, clutched in his fist facing outward like some people held their car keys in disreputable neighbourhoods or at night, and she didn’t doubt that he wouldn’t hesitate to kill anyone who looked like a threat.

His lips parted, moving around the shape of a single word, when his face contorted in pain and he collapsed, prompting Hestia to squeak and hope that he was distracted enough not to hear her. He crumpled like a marionette with its strings cut, hands moving to his head without releasing the needle, and it scratched along the side of his temple. There wasn’t even time for blood to well in the thin white line before the cut closed up, skin sewing itself together faster than should have been possible even with the assistance of a potion or elixir.

‘Aerith?’ he whispered, voice tight, strangled. ‘Gaia? Mother? Mother, where are you, I can’t…’

The man suddenly went completely limp, the lines in his forehead smoothing out as all the tension vanished from his body. Hestia winced; a high-pitched ringing tone sounded just in the corner of the furthest reaches of her hearing, like the whine of a mosquito when you were trying to go to sleep, going on and on until it was all you could hear even after the sound had stopped. She shrank back further under the bench, and out in the hallway, her superiors had finally deemed it safe enough to cautiously open the glass doors and creep inside. An exchange of air occurred between the cool, sterilised lab and the slightly warmer, muggier atmosphere of the hallway, bringing with it the scents of old carpet and ethanol.

‘Hestia,’ one of them whispered, ‘come here.’

She began to crawl out from her hiding place, her wary gaze glued to the blond on the floor that was so hard and cold under her hands and knees, when a sudden movement made her freeze. A pair of aquamarine eyes had snapped open, immediately fixing on the slight shuffle of friction between her skin and the tiles.

All of his earlier desperation had disappeared, reassuring her enough to risk taking a shaky breath. His brows furrowed intently, and he braced his hands on the floor, pushing himself upright in one fluid movement she would have missed if she’d blinked. Only at the end did he falter, reaching out to steady himself on the hospital bed. The IV needle lay abandoned by his feet.

‘Where–’ he broke into a cough. There was a definite rasp as vocal chords were pushed out of disuse. His throat bobbed as he swallowed, twice, and repeated quietly, ‘Where am I?’

‘You speak Gaian?’ her superior asked.

He shook his head angrily and asked again, ‘Where am I?’

‘Neo-Gaia,’ Hestia answered quickly, before replacing her hand over her mouth in shock at her impulsiveness. She quailed under the older scientists’ harsh looks, but then the man’s eyes caught her, holding steady and demanding that she not look anywhere else. She took a breath. ‘You’re in Neo-Gaia in the University, its greatest research institution.’

‘Who are you?’ the same scientist pressed.

He glanced around uneasily, before sighing and cautiously sinking back onto the bed, holding his head in his hands and taking a few deep breaths. The man looked up and ignored the other two in the room, his stare locking directly onto Hestia’s. ‘My name is Cloud,’ he said. ‘Cloud Strife.’

‘It’s–’ she wanted to look to her superiors for permission, but something in the back of her mind warned her against breaking eye contact. Something in her subconscious was screaming

predator.

‘It’s nice to meet you, Mr Strife. I’m – I’m Hestia Daniels.’

Then, he smiled, a small thing that vanished quickly, as though it wasn’t used to being in such an unfamiliar place. ‘Likewise.’

‘Would you, uh, like a drink?’

His expression hardened. ‘Some water wouldn’t go amiss, but what I really want is information. I’m sure the University and I can come to a deal.’

‘Of course,’ Hestia’s superior cut in smoothly. ‘Hestia, fetch our… guest some water, and some food. Mr Strife, I’m Jessica Browne and this is my colleague, Genta Dowling; we are the heads of this project. We’d be more than happy to introduce you to the University head and negotiate terms, as soon as you would like.’

‘Now’s good, and just water’s fine, thanks.’ Strife stood, staring them all down with determination. ‘Let’s mosey.’

----- CHAPTER BREAK -----

Act II - Neo-Gaia

Part IV - Still-Life

‘Let’s start at the beginning,’ the man said, adjusting his glasses and spinning the pen between his fingers before tucking it behind his ear and pulling up a new file on his computer, a thin rectangle with a semi-transparent display that Cloud had never seen the like of before. The security pass clipped to his coat, spelling his name out in thin blocky letters, was far too easy to snatch and run with. With how much he fidgeted with his glasses or the unobtrusive wedding ring on his left hand, he resembled a deer, easily startled and too flighty for an occupation like his. If he’d been around back in Cloud’s time, under Hojo, he would have quickly become fodder for whatever specimen he was tasked with monitoring. Though things seemed to be different now.

The scientist, introduced as ‘just Chester, please, Dr Anton is my mother’, messed with the brightness settings on his device one last time before setting it on the table between them and positioning his hands above the keys. Cloud watched him with detachment, preoccupied by the scratchy texture of the unpleasantly yellow couch the office provided for him, and teased a stray thread from its seam. He zoned out for most of the interview-interrogation, answering succinctly, wary of how much information about Shinra and the Planet he wanted to give out. The last thing he needed was a re-enactment of that whole mess.

‘Where are you from?’ Nibelheim.

Fire and burning and pain and ma–

‘Sorry, can you point that out on a map?’ Sure. It was there, where a mountainside city sprawled now.

‘What was the governmental situation like?’ Shinra ruled everything.

Mako, weapons, transport, monopoly.

‘What was there before your time?’ The Ancients.

A forgotten city made of something like bones and crystal.

‘What can you tell us about the crystal?’ Protection. Patience.

Immortal, ageless, as friend after friend was lowered into the ground. As Gaia told him to wait, to endure. Grief that ripped him apart.

‘Is there anyone else from your time who might have gone through the same?’ One might have, but he didn’t.

And the puppet hiding in the back of his mind howled in mourning. His skin was silent and still with nothing to reunite with.

His fingers twitched in memory of holding ebon feathers. Even they had faded away with time.

‘What can you tell us about your time?’ Very much. Very little.

Have they ever heard of a bar named Seventh Heaven? Is there even the smallest piece of his oldest friend left?

‘Mr Strife? Mr Strife! Are you alright?’

I’m fine.

WHY ME, GAIA?

‘Okay, we can end it there for today. Thank you, Mr Strife.’ Sure. When do I get

my

answers?

‘This tablet’s files should be enough to fill you in on what you’ve missed.’
 
The scientists of what they’d named the Strife Study had looked at him strangely when he requested his sword. Didn’t he want something more modern? They asked. They showed him pictures and specs of a dozen different weapons, from laser rifles to proton guns to gamma emitters, and he’d turned them all down. First Tsurugi was his baby, modelled on the sword of a hero, its place in his heart above even his bike, Fenrir. It had six component blades that he could dual-wield with ease. It had killed Sephiroth time after time. Their weapons had nothing on something that he’d made himself from the harvested carcasses of felled Weapons, an alloy of Weapon skeletons and steel stronger than anything Shinra could have cooked up in their factories.

Cloud sat on the bench outside the fence surrounding the training grounds, perched atop the University’s neighbour, the Academy. Rows of shooters knelt on the concrete, chosen weapons in hand, practising their aim on the round red targets on the opposite side of the field that shifted between moving and staying still. This age’s warfare was all long-distance, and even fighter drones were preferred over using human troops. Shinra had used guns, yes, but SOLDIERs had always worked with swords, the only weapon that could keep up with their enhanced speed and strength and that didn’t run out of ammo. Cloud could aim, but trying to fight with only a pistol was an easy way to get a bullet in the back from jumping ahead too soon.

Smoothing a cloth over First Tsurugi, cleaning away the last of the crystallised mako from its surface, he watched the shooters train. It brought back memories of his own infantry days that he did his best to shove away, not wanting to be distracted by the darker recollections that would inevitably follow. Whenever a stray bolt missed the targets, which was distressingly often – Vincent would have rolled in his grave if he hadn’t rotted to dust centuries ago – the burning light just sizzled into nothing against the fence, absorbed by whatever metal made up the fine-meshed wire. Only one of them seemed to be having any kind of success, bolts making dents in the targets almost every time, and only missing by small margins when they didn’t.

‘What do you want?’ Cloud shook out of his thoughts to realise that he was being glared at by the sharp-shooter. They holstered their rifle and gave the supervisor a sloppy salute before stalking off the field to stare him down.

‘Well?’ They asked.

‘Sorry. Lost in thought,’ he muttered, glancing downward.

‘Jealous, are you? Of course you are, with an antique like that instead of a laser rifle like mine. I’m Derrick, top of the seventh brigade of the Academy. That’s a University pass, are they doing some study on us now? Well–’

Cloud blinked slowly. ‘No.’

‘No what?’

‘No, I’m not jealous.’ He stood up, slinging First Tsurugi onto his back with an ease that made the cadet’s eyes widen. ‘And I’m not here for the University. I thought I’d check out the available training grounds, but it seems that they’re not designed for my kind of fighting.’

‘Sorry to break it to you, buddy, but your “kind of fighting” is really outdated. Just because you lift that thing doesn’t mean you have a chance against any idiot with a bolt gun. I bet it's hollow or made out of cardboard or something anyway, there’s no way a twig like you would even be able to lift an atom cannon.’

This kid’s a jerk,

Cloud thought, narrowing his eyes. Any slight to First Tsurugi was a slight against him. ‘If all you’re going to do is insult me, you can go back to your training. I’m not in the mood,’ he warned.

Derrick leant his rifle against his shoulder, all swagger and confidence. ‘Come on, tough guy. Let’s spar, see if your sword’s as good as you seem to think it is.’

Cloud snorted, rolling his eyes. ‘I don’t fight kids,’ he said. There was far too high of a chance that he’d killed the arrogant kid by accident, and then where would he be? It had been too long since he’d last fought, and he was itching to let loose, but doing so around this time’s weak troopers would result in at least a maiming. Unfortunately, his words only seemed to incense the youth.

‘Sir!’ He yelled, turning and saluting his supervisor. ‘Requesting to spar with this guy!’

Cloud watched them glance over and quickly appraise his gear and the sword on his back. ‘Granted! Clear out field 2!’ They commanded.

Cloud sighed. He could still back out, but he really was itching for a fight. Just a quick spar, to stretch his muscles. He could hold back enough not to hurt the kid. ‘Fine. Let’s get this over with.’

A crowd of eager onlookers amassed around the fenced-off training ground where Derrick and Cloud stood at opposite ends, the former grinning and sure of his quick victory. ‘Come on, I’ll show you what a real soldier can do!’ The kid yelled, cocking his rifle and firing a bolt recklessly into the air. Cloud drew First Tsurugi, gave his opponent a once-over, and flipped the mechanism to split it into six; the smallest blade was more than enough for this fight, perhaps even too much. It was the blade he slew those small grass monsters with when he needed to blow off steam without too much collateral damage. It could stand up against a mouthy shooter and a half-empty gun. He leaned the rest of First Tsurugi against the fence; the wire sagged a little under its weight.

‘Too weak to use the whole thing?’ Derrick jeered.

Cloud didn’t grace him with a reply, doing a few experimental swings to get his arms used to the weight of a sword again, and settling into his ready position. ‘Whenever you’re ready,’ he said calmly.

‘Let’s go!’ The cadet cried. He brought the sights to his eyes and fired off a few quick bolts before sprinting forward, free hand reaching for the pistol at his side.

Pistols are unreliable outside of close range, and he knows that. He’s trying to distract me with the rifle bolts so I can’t react to him getting closer.

A decent strategy, but against someone with more mako in their veins than a SOLDIER, foolhardy. All he was doing was getting in range of his sword. Cloud deflected the first bolt with his sword and neatly stepped out of the way of the rest. He leapt forward to meet Derrick and severed the barrel of the pistol with a flick of his wrist, then turned a quick circle to snatch the laser rifle out of his grasp. Not risking getting his sharp blade anywhere near a vital point, he lightly grabbed the cadet around the neck and hoisted him into the air, squeezing as gently as he could until he wheezed for mercy.

‘You done?’ Cloud asked gruffly, setting him down and retrieving First Tsurugi without looking back.

‘How’d you do that?’ Derrick demanded. ‘You have to teach me!’

‘It’s not the kind of thing you can learn.’

‘Bullshit!’

‘Deal with it.’

‘Hey! Don’t walk away from me!’

Cloud rolled his eyes and snapped his sword back together. The crowd parted for him, talking at him eagerly, but he ignored them all. His PHS – he’d been provided with a modern one by the University, which they’d all called a ‘phone’, but it was obviously a PHS – rang in his pocket and he picked it up without bothering to check the Caller ID. Only the University had his number.

‘What is it?’ he asked by way of greeting.

‘The Northern Continent storm has opened up again. It’s an incredible opportunity – do you want to join the expedition? We could use your expertise.’

‘The Northern Continent?’

‘Yeah. Where we found you, remember? We’re hoping to make it to the Crater this time.’

Cloud thought of the snow and the deep, dark plunge into the earth.

‘May as well. When do we leave?’

----- CHAPTER BREAK -----

Act II - Neo-Gaia

Part V - Return

Cloud stepped onto the deck of the icebreaker and shivered. Snow lined the railing and caught in the propellers at the back of the shop, sending broken vibrations through the sheets of metal and twisted pipes. The mako in his blood fought valiantly against the subzero temperatures, but while it took the need for heavy thermal gear away he still ached to get below deck. The crew scurried around preparing to breach the thick fields of ice and the barely below fatal wind speeds of the storm as the small plane that had carried the team there took off, not lingering a moment longer than necessary. He couldn’t blame them. Above them, through the snow-thick storm, the Northern Continent’s mountains loomed taller than the Nibel range ever had. Directly in line with their course was the gap in the storm, an area of visibly calmer air where snowflakes hung suspended and still. It was the only path through, and estimates put it at being open for another two weeks; enough time to finish the expedition that had been interrupted by the discovery of him and his crystal.

Just being within sight of Gaea Cliff was enough to bring the memories of his other journeys here to the front of his mind. Back then, there hadn’t been a storm or fields of ice surrounding the continent, or temperatures low enough to freeze your breath in your lungs, and they’d been able to reach it with the aid of the Highwind. He remembered clinging to that rope ladder above the Crater, buffeted by the wind, a dark gaping maw opened below him. He remembered feeling his cells jump and strain towards the presence in the centre of the Planet, how much effort it had taken to resist that siren’s song and hide his struggling from the others, what it had felt like to lie there and talk with Tifa the night before the descent.

‘Are you ready?’

‘I am. Because I’m with you. Cloud, if I never get another chance to say this… I love you.’

‘Tifa…’

She sat up, leaning back on her elbows to meet his eyes. She reached over and took his hand, squeezing gently. ‘It’s okay. You don’t have to say it back, yet. But I wanted you to know. What Sephiroth said about you being a puppet… it’s not true. You’re you. You’re Cloud Strife. My best friend, and holder of my heart.’

He didn’t know how to say no. That he was sorry. He was afraid to lose her. So he didn’t. He squeezed her hand back and made the first mistake. ‘I know, Tifa. I love you too.’

Her eyes lit up and she moved closer, as if she couldn’t believe her ears. ‘Really? Oh, Cloud!’ she exclaimed proudly. Her hands framed his face and she surged forward, devouring his mouth with her own.

Cloud made a surprised sound and moved to grab at her wrists, paralysed by the sensation of wetness and warmth, but most of all by the revulsion shuddering through him. Oh fuck. He wasn’t attracted to her like that. She couldn’t know. Ever. So he did his best to kiss her back and enjoy it.

He headed belowdecks to wait out the storm.

‘Alright team, let’s go!’ The head of the expedition shouted: a woman named Fiona, identified by the red patch on the front of her thermal gear. He shook himself out of the memories and took up position at the back of the pack, stepping from the swaying deck of the icebreaker onto firm, solid land crunchy with snow that glittered in the dawn light. They huddled together, navigating hidden ridges and paths that seemed frozen in time, that were so familiar he could walk them backwards with his eyes closed, that were so similar to his time that he could taste the hard dried rations they’d subsided on for the whole of that miserable trek up to the Crater. The wind whistled between rocky peaks; boots crushed and cracked the snow; in the distance, monsters screamed and raged; and yet it was silent. His mind was awfully, painfully, empty.

Cloud winced and clutched at his head, the whine of Jenova’s song growing louder.

‘Hey, what’s wrong?’ Barret asked, glancing over at him. ‘We've got a way to go, pick up the pace.’

‘Is it Sephiroth?’ Tifa said gently, touching his shoulder.

‘No,’ he muttered, and started moving again. ‘I’m fine.’

‘Do you need a minute?’

‘It’s nothing, Tifa.’

He kept walking, the buster sword held tightly in hand, blood from the last monster frozen on the blade. Cait Sith was cradled in its moogle’s arms with a Fire materia in its paws to keep warm, its robotic innards at risk in the subzero temperatures. Snow crusted Nanaki’s fur and was tinted red by his paws, the fire lion too proud to accept protective wrappings, at least until they reached the cliffs. Vincent, his enhancements shielding him from the cold much like Cloud’s did, had allowed a frozen Yuffie to borrow his cloak. Cid chewed on a cigarette, the wind having blown out all his attempts at lighting it.

Meteor hung in a blood-red sky, a swollen ball of fire and rock, its arrival brought about by his own weakness. They were going to fix this.

You’re not my Mother,

Cloud hissed mentally at Jenova, and shut her out as forcefully as he could.

‘Monsters!’ Someone yelled in warning. A giant bird-like creature crested the next hill, wings beating powerfully as it shrieked a challenge. Cloud sighed, pulling First Tsurugi from his back. Around him, the expedition team was scattering like seeds to the wind, leaving him plenty of space to jump up and swing, cleaving its neck apart. Blood, thick and reddish-black, spurted from the gash and splattered the snow, and pin feathers stuck in the mess on his blade, tawny-coloured and striped with blue and black. He bent his knees to absorb the impact as he landed, the monster’s corpse collapsing a second later, and flicked his sword to get the looser filth off.

Cloud glanced around at the cowering scientists and excavators. ‘That thing’s scream will have attracted a lot of attention,’ he said gruffly. ‘Let’s mosey.’

He assumed his place around the back, ignoring the dirty looks from the hired guards who hadn’t had a chance to take down the bird and find some glory, and they resumed the boring uphill slog. As expected, they were besieged by a few more fiends, but they were easily taken care of and thanks to his vague familiarity with the area it was barely afternoon when they hiked their way up the Gaea Cliff and stood on the lip of the Crater. The Lifestream was closer to the surface here than it was anywhere else on the Planet in this time and the scent of it was heavy and thick after so much time without it thrumming beneath his feet. Cloud noticed a few of the scientists and excavators sitting down dizzily, and wished he had a Wind materia to cast an Aero and thin the air long enough for them to adjust. If they didn’t pull themselves together, they were easy prey for the small fiends prowling the Crater’s perimeter, watching them warily.

Cloud stood on the edge of the sharp slope, dirt shifting under his weight, and thought of his bike Fenrir, abandoned somewhere in these snowy wastes, rusting as it should have done millenia ago. Of Holy, pulsing and pushing weak eddies of Lifestream around the Planet. Somewhere within that tide, everyone was… faded. Dead in all the ways that mattered.

‘Alright team!’ Fiona, the expedition leader, announced, clapping her hands. ‘We’ve made it! Let’s set up our tents and prepare to abseil down first thing tomorrow morning!’

‘Hey, Strife! Stop brooding and come help!’ Someone else yelled as they all took to their tasks.

He made an absent gesture towards the voice,

just a minute,

and continued to look down into the Crater. Tomorrow, they would enter it, and he would see the site of his last stand for a second time.

There was no point in dwelling on sentiment. Cloud began to turn to head back to the group, when something tugged at his mind, something he hadn’t felt for millenia.

………cl…ou…d?.........

----- CHAPTER BREAK -----

Act II - Neo-GaiaPart VI - MemoriamHe jumped.His mind was a litany of not alone, not alone, not alone anymore. Something inside him was screaming, with fear or ecstasy, he didn’t know. Not alone, not alone, not alone. Maybe it was fear, as he plummeted down, driven entirely by impulse and the J-cells lying dormant in his flesh. His shoulders itched like a memory of phantom wings. But no. He wasn’t going to fly. What he sought lay deep, deep below.Somewhere behind him: words like stop. No. Wait. Words from people that didn’t want him to run. What? They care. They’re worried. So were they and they took him away from me. Left me alone, alone, alone.I’m waiting, Cloud.Cloud forced himself to wait, to catch his breath, after his legs crumpled under him as he hit the ground at a force that would have killed anyone else and sent splinters of blood and bone across the dirt. It took everything he had to let his legs heal, to not crawl along like a shambling figure in black robes, groans and pleas spilling from their lips. He was stronger than this.Don’t let me hurt you, Cloud. (don’t want to… lose…y…)Shut up, he hissed, and looked up at the circle of sky that was the mouth of the crater he’d just – stupidly – jumped down. He could see the pinpricks that were the expedition team poking their heads over the edge. He wanted to yell up to them, but doubted the sound would carry that far. He knew from experience that the climb back to the surface was long and arduous, even more so without equipment or memory of the twisting tunnels. Cloud sighed, looking at the slope leading impossibly further down. Mako crystals glittered, embedded like gemstones in the rocks, and he crushed one in his glove, vapour rising into the air and making his head spin. Only one way to go now.It reminded him far too much of the Temple of the Ancients, or maybe even the Cavern of the Gi; heavy, suffocating stone all around them, the gasoline scent of mako encompassing them, the critter of monsters in the dark. He walked at the front, Tifa by his side, holding his hand. At some point, he shook her off to avoid breaking her fingers in his vice-like grip, devoting all of his focus to the next sword swing, the next step, silencing the next verse of Jenova’s song. He grabbed the hilt of the Buster Sword so tightly it creaked. Nanaki padded along softly behind them, and he could hear Barret and Cid grumbling at the very back of the pack, taking up the rear. Three gunshots, and one of the skittering monsters was silent.Lifestream puddled on the path, leaking upwards, a bright saturated green that splashed under his boots and released hissing, whispering steam. Rock and dirt turned into ancient bones, skeletons of huge monsters, Weapons, even, long trapped underground – they used them as staircases, ivory and cartilage rattling under their feet.In the back of his mind, ever-present, was a loud, agonised, triumphant scream.He walked.Where a path had once been, a lake of Lifestream was now, endless, wide and deep. The Lifestream supposed to be distributed all over the Planet was here, filling the well, protecting Holy. Sephiroth was down there. He could feel it – he was down there, encased and shielded and preserved in the Planet’s heart.He removed one glove and dipped his fingertips into the Lifestream. It burned, stung his skin red, and the fumes made him lightheaded.‘Oh, Cloud! You’re here!’‘Aerith? Is that you?’‘That’s right. I’m here. It’s so good to see you, Cloud.’‘You were gone, you– you were gone, it was like you’d died again.’‘I know, Cloud, and I am so, so sorry. But if Gaia hadn’t kept me asleep, I wouldn’t be here to talk to you now. To tell you what must be done.’‘Tell me. Tell me everything. Why am I here – why can’t I join you?’‘The Second Calamity is close, Cloud, and only you and Sephiroth working together can stop it. When Jenova was consumed by the Lifestream, I hid him inside Holy, to keep him safe. He’s alive, and you can reach him. Together, you can save the Planet, and then you can finally – finally – you can finally come home.’Aerith smiled, sadly.‘But you have to swim.’‘Through the Lifestream? Last time I fell in, if it hadn’t been for Tifa, I never would have gotten out!’‘We’re here for you, Cloud,’ she said. ‘All of us, for now. But the hardest part, you’ll have to do on your own. The Second Calamity – that’s up to you.’He leaned forward, ignoring the pain and his brain’s screams of LAB FIRE HOJO BURNING ZACK WE HAVE TO GET OUT OF HERE, immersing his entire ungloved hand in the water. ‘I’m scared,’ he confessed, vulnerable as he could only be with her.‘A memory with each of us. We’ll guide you through. But you might not be the same on the other side.’ Aerith’s gaze softened impossibly further. ‘It’s your choice. You can face the Second Calamity alone. You don’t have to do this.’‘Yes, I do,’ Cloud sighed, ‘I need him.’Aerith cradled his face and kissed his brow. Then she fell backwards into the mako, dispersing into light.He fell after her. ‘Yoo-hoo,’ Yuffie called, waving a hand in front of his face.‘Yuffie?’ he said, coughing, blinking dust out of his eyes.‘Are you still mad at me about the whole materia thing?’ she asked, averting her gaze. He noticed her toying with her gauntlet, running her fingers over the glowing orbs embedded in it. ‘I really won’t do it again.’‘I – no, of course I’m not. Well, a little,’ he said, ‘but you had your reasons and you gave it all back.’‘Killing Sephiroth is more important, I know,’ she grumped, and surprised him by patting him on the shoulder – not as rough as Barret but stronger than would be expected from her scrawny frame. ‘Anyway, thanks for standing up for me, with my dad and all. But don’t think I’m not expecting a hefty cut of the materia when this is over!’He smiled. ‘Of course. Hey, Yuffie… you’re a good kid.’‘I’m not a kid!’ she protested, and ran off ahead to join the rest of the party.‘Good luck, Cloud!’ ‘Cloud.’‘Yeah?’They were at camp on the slopes of Mount Nibel, the crisp scent of snow a familiar presence, perhaps one of the few clear memories he had from his childhood. Nibel wolves howled, but the laughter from the campfire drowned them out. Cloud and Vincent were keeping watch, their enhancements allowing them to resist the cold this far from the fire, with Tifa’s shift slated next.‘In the mansion… you seemed very familiar with it,’ Vincent said quietly, watching light play off the gold of his claws.Something sharp spiked through his head, a familiar mental pain that ripped his mind apart until he reached some sort of clarity. ‘The layout of the lab was probably similar to the ones in Shinra tower,’ he shrugged, rubbing a whetstone down the Buster sword’s blade.‘Hmm.’‘What?’‘If you ever… remember, I am perhaps more equipped to understand than most, if you wish to talk.’Cloud didn’t know why he’d need to, but he appreciated the offer. ‘Thanks, I guess.’When he slept that night, he saw green water and violet eyes.‘Hm. Do well.’ Cid chewed on the end of his cigarette, unlit inside the cockpit of the Highwind. Cloud glanced at him sidelong, feeling the airship’s engines vibrate through the metal under his feet. The chocobos were stored in the stables, Yuffie was dry-retching on the catwalk, and the others were talking quietly near the opposite window, but the older blond seemed unusually pensive.The Huge Materia was theirs, but the rocket was a cloud of debris around Meteor. Maybe that was it.‘Whatcha fucking staring for? Just come out and say your shit and move the fuck on.’‘You alright?’ Cloud asked, embarrassment prickling the back of his neck. He was shit at this, this emotional talk, but Tifa liked it when he tried.Cid laughed. ‘Alright? I’m fantastic! I went to space!’‘Yeah, but the rocket…’‘I’ll build another one,’ he promised, ‘bigger and better and not half-rusted. Get Shera to check out the oxygen tanks. We kill Sephiroth, save the Planet, and I can finally start getting stuff done again.’‘Really?’‘Don’t believe me? Just wait, I’ll take all of y’all up to the moon one day, we’ll see who’s laughing then!’‘Go get him, kid!’ ‘This cold is making my mechanisms freeze!’ Cait Sith complained, wrapping his red cape around himself as his crown tipped on his head. Cloud rolled his eyes and removed the fire materia he was trying to level up from his bracer, dropping it into the cat’s paws.‘No safeties against temperature? You’re slacking.’‘Not me! I’m a cat! It’s not my fault I don’t fit in human clothing.’ Cait held the fire materia close, capturing all the emanating warmth and sighing. ‘Why couldn’t Sephiroth have holed up in Costa del Sol?’‘In all that leather? No way,’ Yuffie shouted from the back of the pack.Cloud tried to stifle the laughter bubbling in his throat. ‘Come on, we’ve got a long way to go.’Even after Cait Sith stopped complaining, Cloud didn’t ask for the materia back.‘We’ve got your back, laddie!’ Cloud had nightmares a lot. The others were polite enough not to mention it, and he didn’t bring it up. He wasn’t sure how he’d explain it, the haze of bulletsneedlesgreenvioletsilverblackrobes that ran through his mind, so he just took the night watch and skipped nights until he was exhausted enough not to dream.‘You should rest,’ Red XIII told him, padding up to where he stood sentry.‘I’m a SOLDIER. I can go a while without sleep – you guys need it more than me.’‘It’s been three days.’‘I’m fine.’Red XIII sighed, and then, to Cloud’s surprise, jumped on him. He was shocked enough that he went down easily, catching himself on his elbows as the fire-lion extended his weight over the blond’s stomach.‘I’ll keep watch. You rest.’He wanted to argue, but his friend was warm and sleep was already tugging at his eyelids.‘You can do it, Cloud.’ Cloud had only known Marlene for a few days, but with how much Barret talked about her, it felt like he’d known her since she was an infant.‘She’ll be top of her class when she goes to school,’ the gunner had boasted once, ‘smart cookie she is. Any other four year olds you know can successfully run a bar?’But now, after Corel, Barret was uncharacteristically silent. His sunglasses were firmly on his face, and his fingers were still red where he’d clutched at his dying friend. He must be hurting, Cloud thought, hurting like a piece of his soul had been ripped out.Not that he would know, of course. He’d never had a best friend to lose. But somehow, where the others were trying to cheer Barret up, Cloud held his tongue and sat beside him on the clifftop. No words were exchanged, but when they left, he got a pat on the back and he knew he’d done something right.‘Don’t let us down, SOLDIER boy!’ Aerith smiled at him. He frowned back. In the Sector 5 slums, kids were crowding around and reaching out eagerly for the flowers in the basket in his hands. Yellow ones, purple ones, orange – none that he could name, but their vibrancy stood out in the dreariness of the street. Kids got one free, she’d told him, but any more than that, or if it was an adult, they had to pay: one gil per flower.Cloud thought about the yellow bloom in the vase on a Seventh Heaven table, and the way Tifa had said it brightened up the place. He’d brought nothing but trouble to her… maybe he should get her some more, as an apology. She’d probably see it as a romantic gesture, though, and he was too messed up for that right now.Maybe ever.‘Stop thinking gloomy thoughts!’ Aerith chided, poking his cheek. He scowled deeper.‘I’m not.’‘The way you’re crushing that flower begs to differ.’‘Oh, sorry.’ he released the crumpled stem guiltily, and awkwardly offered it to her. ‘Can you fix it?’‘I’m not a flower witch, Cloud,’ she said, but the green glow from her hands that mimicked no materia he’d ever seen soon set the bloom to rights. She tucked it behind his ear before he could protest.‘I trust you, Cloud.’ Edge.Tifa was dying.He sat at her bedside. ‘I’m sorry.’She smiled at him. ‘Don’t be.’‘I forgive you, Cloud,’ Tifa said, and he felt the echoes of her hands on his face. ‘Be happy.’ He emerged into the open air.He was here.