So much for a quiet night, the innkeeper thought as he surveyed the guest list. Five travelers had checked in at the last minute. The innkeeper didn’t know how they planned to get any sleep, being that daylight was just a few hours away, but it didn’t really matter, since he got their money either way.
The last of the party entered the inn. He was a tall, blonde haired man in a blue armor getup. Figuring this had to be the guy, the innkeeper relayed his message.
“Mr. Cloud?”
“Yes.”
“Good. The others are all upstairs.”
The blonde nodded and went to join them. Funny, the innkeeper thought, that this large of a group had entered town so soon after all that calamity in Midgar…but he wasn’t about to rat them out. If these people really were the ones who’d killed President Shinra and wounded his son, it was probably better to stay on their good side.
“About time, fool!” Barret greeted the swordsman with a little grin, “Couldn’t stand carrying that huge sword on yer’ back no more, huh? Funny how it never gave you scoliosis.”
“Whoa, Cloud…you gave up the Buster Sword?” Tifa was a little surprised. She couldn’t remember him using any other weapon.
“Time to move on to greener pastures,” he replied with a grin, drawing his new weapon.
“It’s so…” Aeris found herself without a proper word. “…Skinny.”
“Don’t like it?” Cloud asked, feigning hurt feelings.
“It’s cause it’s black, ain’t it?” Barret said with a shake of his head. “Don’t hate.” That was good for a laugh, but they all knew they were just beating around the bush. In truth, though everyone wanted to know about Cloud and Sephiroth, a part of them would rather not find out, because then it became their responsibility, too, and Sephiroth was not an easy thing to be responsible for.
However, understanding of their current situation sank in. Shortly, Sephiroth could be across the ocean, and in even less time Shinra MPs would be scouring Kalm Town for any sign of the terrorists. All of them needed some sleep—though Barret looked as energetic as usual—and to fit that in, Cloud had to get going. Cloud realized this, too, and cleared his throat, signaling that he was ready.
“We’re listening,” Barret spoke for the others, “So what’s up with you and the psycho SOLDIER?”
“He wasn’t psycho when I knew him.” Cloud took a deep breath. He’d went over what he was about to say many times, and he hoped it would explain a lot of their questions. Because, quite frankly, Cloud didn’t know much himself. All he could do was tell this story. “We served together in the SOLDIER Corps during the war with Wutai. We became friends.”
“You call that a friend?” Tifa asked skeptically.
A shrug. “He was older than me, and hardly ever talked about himself. We were war buddies. Then, the war ended. When I was younger, I dreamt of becoming a hero like Sephiroth…something most boys do. With no more war, I was running out of opportunities to do that. Yeah, yeah, I know, young and starry eyed. Anyway, I signed up for as many SOLDIER missions as I could, since I didn’t want to get rusty. I was on several of these missions with Sephiroth, and on one of those trips, everything went straight to hell.” He paused, staring at the ceiling. “That was five years ago. I was sixteen.”
More often than not, the past is something people would rather not revisit. Whether it be because of some foolish choice one had made that they’d rather forget or a painful event that is best left buried, there was usually some reason to leave it all buried. Cloud had lots of reasons, and throughout his story his tone of voice explained why he’d never told anyone this story before. He told it well, though, and once he got into it, he was really reliving the past. No longer was he in some country inn, but he was now in an army van headed for his next mission. He and his companions sat fairly silently, jostled around by the bumpy ride. One of the two guards with them—not quite SOLDIER members yet—had let the hum of the engine put him to sleep. It was night, and they should reach their destination by morning.
The four men were cramped in the back of the large vehicle, sitting on boxes or the dirty floor. They’d examined their weapons and Materia several times, and all the men tended to get lost in their thoughts right before a mission, so conversation was minimal.
Cloud, however, had never been one to sit still very long. Clad in the same blue SOLDIER armor, though in somewhat better shape, he looked very much like he did in his older form, and he had that large sword with him, too. More than once he’d gotten up from the box he sat uncomfortably on, paced around, and sat back down. It had to be a little annoying, he knew, but he was too excited to sit still. He was still in that “eternally energetic” phase of his youth, and nothing excited him more than a SOLDIER mission. He hadn’t been briefed well about this one, but he never usually was. He generally trusted whoever was in charge to know what they were doing. Were he a little older, he might have been placed in charge of some missions himself. He was first class, after all.
He got up again, stretched, and walked over to where one of the blue clad guards sat quietly. Shinra’s typical uniform for these men was just that…a simple blue uniform and a large cap. They looked very much like policemen, but without a badge. They had the guns, though, big nasty S-91 machine pistols, which were far ahead of the standard issue S-G1s given to the Midgar MPs. This guard looked up tiredly, acknowledging his youngish superior, who smiled and tried again to make conversation.
“Get motion sickness often?”
He must have looked sick, the guard thought. He certainly didn’t feel sick. He had no reason for butterflies in his stomach, either. All of the hard work would be handled by the two SOLDIERs they had with them. “Nah,” he replied, “Don’t worry, I’ll be fine.”
“Okay…” said Cloud, thinking that if the guy was sick, he’d better leave him alone. He started pacing over to the other guard, to see if he was still sleeping. He didn’t have anything in particular to say, of course, but he had to do something.
“Hey.” The older voice stopped him, and he turned to face its owner. He was sitting with a bored expression on another box, but when he stood up, he was a little over six feet tall. He, too, was young, but still older than Cloud, perhaps in his early twenties. His eyes glowed Mako green, and his handsome face could turn ice cold in an instant, but now it was passive as the rest of him. Rather than the typical SOLDIER armor, he wore a big black cloak—somewhat like a trench coat—over glistening, tight fitting leather pants of the same color, as well as black boots and black gloves. His armored vest broke into a spider web pattern in his chest area, leading to two large, white, globe epaulets, and his gleaming silver hair fell down to his waist. Until now, he’d been staring at his weapon, the Masamune long sword, which lay close to him. It was a weapon that struck those who looked at it with awe, even its long time master. The sword was a samurai’s weapon, only so long that many a samurai would find it cumbersome. This man had experienced similar difficulties at first, but soon became very skilled with his weapon of choice.
“Settle down,” General Sephiroth said to his blonde underling.
“They gave me some new Materia,” Cloud explained, moving even faster, “I can’t wait to use it!”
“Just like a kid…” Sephiroth said quietly, with a faint roll of his eyes. This served its purpose, and Cloud calmed down very quickly. He took a seat after a few seconds of silence, and then looked to his superior officer.
“So what’s this mission about?”
“You mean you don’t know?” the black caped man asked curiously. It was custom for Shinra to not inform the MPs accompanying them about the mission at hand, but a SOLDIER was usually informed well beforehand.
“Nope,” he replied, “I signed up for the mission recently. I don’t think they had time to send me any details.”
More likely they just didn’t care, Sephiroth thought knowingly. Cloud was a good fighter, but he had yet to understand the mindset of his “noble” employers. In a sense, he was young and foolish. “You’ve been signing up for quite a lot of missions,” he observed. As a leading general, he had access to most of the SOLDIERs’ files.
“Yeah,” he replied with a shrug. “After the war, SOLDIER’s value declined drastically. This sorta put a damper on my hopes of becoming a distinguished officer.” Like you, he didn’t have to say. “So, I’ve signed up for as many missions as I can. Don’t wanna get rusty,” he said with a grin.
“Mm…” the general mumbled.
“So…what is this mission about?”
Sephiroth sat straighter in his seat. He wasn’t terribly annoyed about dictating Shin-Ra’s orders, since he had nothing better to do anyway. “Our mission is to investigate a malfunctioning Mako Reactor.”
“That’s all?” Cloud broke in.
“No,” Sephiroth continued with a hint of annoyance Cloud didn’t catch. “The reactor seems to be producing monsters, presumably by intoxicating the local wildlife with Mako energy.” Such Mako spills could be very devastating on an environment, creating not only unhealthy conditions for humans, but mutating wildlife for years to come. In one such instance, the monsters had completely destroyed the reactor and the city around it. To Sephiroth’s knowledge, though, Cloud didn’t know this, and he didn’t really need to.
“I see,” the younger man acknowledged with a nod. “So our mission is to kill all the monsters?”
“That, and explore the reactor to find out what’s causing the whole mess.”
“Okay…so, where exactly are we going?”
“A place called Nibelheim.”
Cloud looked briefly surprised. “Nibelheim?”
Sephiroth nodded. “You know the place?”
“It’s where I came from!”
“Ah, hometown…” the general smiled slightly. “I’ll understand if you want to visit your family and friends for a bit.”
“Thanks…so the reactor must be in Mount Nibel?”
“Yes, the only nearby reactor is in Mount Nibel, which has dangerous enough wildlife as it is. Can you imagine mutated forms?” Cloud certainly did, which would give him all the more reason to fight his hardest.
Rather suddenly, the truck came to a screeching halt. Cloud and the MPs each gave startled cries and lurched forward in their seats, barely avoiding being sprawled out on the floor. One MP did fall, however, when the truck shuddered violently as the result of some impact. Sephiroth bolted for the front seat, speaking to the driver. The gate on the back of the truck was opened. They were leaving.
“What’s up?” Cloud asked when Sephiroth returned.
“That would be our monster,” the general replied, snatching up the Masamune.
Mount Nibel was infested with lots of strange, deadly creatures, and high in the summit area you could even find dragons. Dragons were rarely seen anywhere in the world, except in very dangerous and inaccessible places, so they drew some tourists to Nibelheim to watch them…from afar. In his youth, Cloud, too, had seen one of these green beasts, but never this close. The simple fact that the dragon had left Mount Nibel and attacked the road to Nibelheim was enough for Cloud to realize that something was very wrong in his hometown.
The Nibel dragon was a giant lizard creature, equipped with very resistant scales and very damaging claws and teeth. The wingspan was impressive, too. Many dragons had some form of innate element, but the Nibel dragon rarely exhibited one. All in all, it was one of the weakest members of a very strong species.
Cloud tensed his muscles, swinging the Buster Sword at imaginary targets to warm himself up, never taking his eyes off the monster that was surveying its dinner carefully. The MPs and the driver had taken the truck away from the scene, but not so far as that they could no longer see Cloud and Sephiroth. The general himself was standing near Cloud, summing up the enemy. He motioned with his hand and Cloud followed him as they slowly and carefully approached the dragon. Cloud understood. They had to get within striking distance. The dragon watched carefully, letting out a roar to try and intimidate its new playmates. It succeeded in making Cloud flinch, but Sephiroth’s face was set like stone. Hoisting the Masamune up into an attack position, he gave a quick nod.
Cloud raced at the dragon, crashing his weapon into the giant enemy’s leg. With a roar of defiance, the dragon swatted Cloud aside like a bug, and began emitting some blue, gaseous material from its mouth. A breath attack! So, the Nibel dragon was finally showing some elemental ability.
Cloud was down immediately, the attack having completely expended his energy. Why was it so strong? Was this the effect of Mako intoxication? He slipped reluctantly into a state of semi-unconsciousness. He could still hear, however, a sharp metallic clang and a shriek of pain from the dragon as Sephiroth’s sword bit into its chest, slicing through the scales like a knife through butter. Leaping away from the wounded creature, Sephiroth focused his energies on Cloud, muttering something quietly to himself. A curtain of green energy surrounded his figure, and a slight wind blew around him, tossing his cape and hair around behind him. A second later, the spell “Life2” erupted around Cloud as a warm glow of holy energies, completely restoring his vitality. A spell of that caliber normally left the caster drained, but Sephiroth simply shook off the effects and concentrated on the dragon. Cloud got to his feet, slightly embarrassed, but ready to fight again. As it turned out, he wouldn’t have to.
Gaseous energy exploded from the dragon’s maw once more, this time aimed at Sephiroth. The swordsman simply stood there, letting his powerful bangle neutralize the effects entirely. Before the dragon could comprehend that its attack had been inefficient, Sephiroth was at its throat. There was a sickening thunk as many muscles and tissues were sliced through, and the dragon’s neck was detached from the rest of its body, which flailed around like a fish out of water before finally becoming still.
Sephiroth kept his sword ready, looking around frantically. “You!” he said to Cloud, “Do you see any more?”
“No,” the subordinate reported after scanning the skies.
His general processed the information, evaluating the short battle in his head before finally lowering his bloodstained weapon. “Good. Let’s go.” He motioned to the truck. “They’re probably getting nervous by now.”
“Yo, wait.”
Cloud halted in mid sentence. “Yeah, Barret?”
“You’re tellin’ me that Sephiroth handled that big old dragon…just like that?”
“Sephiroth’s strength is amazing,” Cloud explained, “He’s far stronger in real life than any story you may hear or may have heard about him.”
“And he’s our enemy, now…” Red mused quietly. “Carry on, Cloud.”
“Right. I was happy to be home, ‘cause I hadn’t seen everyone in a while…”
Nibelheim, like Kalm Town, was small, but very quaint. It was a circle of whitish buildings consisting of an inn and a few houses, and in the center was a well used as a watering hole by the town. In the back of town, there was a giant, decrepit mansion and beyond that a trail leading off to Mount Nibel.
SOLDIER entered the circle near the inn and surveyed the town. It was morning now, and sunlight lit up the town. Cloud was briefly paralyzed by memories of days spent here as a child, taking everything in time and time again. Sephiroth, on the other hand, merely surveyed the area once carefully, and then glanced around, bored, finding the town a little too rural for his liking. The two MPs stood quietly behind them, watching for any threats like the one that had assaulted them on the road.
“So…” Sephiroth said to break the silence. He turned to Cloud, who was finally snapping out of his thoughts. “How does it feel?”
“Eh?”
“Well…this is your hometown, right? How does it feel to be back home?”
“It feels…” Cloud found it hard to explain. “Well, it’s a lot of memories at once…you know? I can’t really describe it…you know what it is, though, right?”
“No…” he responded, voice still in somewhat of a monotone. “I wouldn’t know, because I don’t really have a hometown.”
“No home?” Cloud frowned. “What about your mother? Father? Where did they come from?”
Sephiroth suddenly looked very awkward. “My mother is Jenova. My father is…” He stopped, shaking his head forcefully. “What does it matter?”
Cloud let the subject drop without so much as a nod. The change in his commander’s demeanor was somehow chilling. Sephiroth regained his composure, looking towards the inn.
“Come on. We’ve got work to do.” He turned to the MPs. “We only need one lookout, so you two can alternate shifts.” One of them took the cue right away, following Sephiroth and Cloud.
The team proceeded to the inn, but Sephiroth turned to face them before he entered. “There still are some minor things to work out before we begin. I can take care of it. We’ll leave tomorrow morning, bright and early. You can do whatever you care to until tonight, but I recommend you get to bed early tonight. You’ll need the rest.” The MP saluted and went off to have a closer look at the buildings. “Oh, yes…” Sephiroth turned to Cloud. “You’re free to visit your family and friends.”
“Hold up!” Barret interrupted again, “Just hold the phone, here!”
“What?” asked an annoyed Cloud.
“What is it now, Barret?” Tifa asked in equal annoyance.
“Sephiroth said his mom’s name was Jenova, didn’t he?”
“Yeah…” Cloud nodded reluctantly, knowing what was to follow.
“Jenova!” Barret whistled. “That’s the name of that damn headless spook in the Shinra Building!”
Aeris and Red bristled. Since both had been former inmates in the Science Department, the name “Jenova” was not especially comforting. Especially for Red. However, neither of them understood exactly what it was, nor had seen it in person. They were hoping Cloud would shed some light on it. Actually, Cloud, Tifa, and Barret had encountered Jenova while infiltrating the Shinra Building, which prompted Barret’s remarks. The appearance of Jenova was hard to put into words, so nobody bothered.
“The tank carrying Jenova was gone when we were fleeing the headquarters,” Tifa pointed out. “Could that be why Sephiroth came that night?”
“That, or the Shinra moved it when we were imprisoned,” Red mused. “Whatever brought Sephiroth, I’m in its debt.”
“I think,” Aeris broke in, “We should hear a little more now. Maybe some of our questions will be answered.
Cloud waited for general approval, sorely hoping Barret would keep his mouth shut for a while.
His own mother was out at the minute, so Cloud didn’t bother going to his house. After he’d checked in with the other villagers, he’d decided that Tifa was noticeably missing from the faces he’d seen. So, his destination became her house.
No one appeared home, though the door was open, just like it always had been. Cloud called out a hello, but got no response. Guess I’ll leave, he thought, but he didn’t. Somewhat to his embarrassment, he explored the home of his old friend, finding that not much had changed. He heard a noise from upstairs and headed upwards, thinking maybe someone would be waiting. Instead, it was just a mouse that was now scurrying into its hole. Cloud took a quick peek in Tifa’s room as long as he was there, and immediately a flood of memories assaulted him. So many moments of his youth had been spent here, or at least, most of the ones that stood out in his mind, some good, some bad. Tifa’s piano was still in tact, and he dug an old tune out of his memory and tapped the keys. The song brought a calming feeling.
After the short visit to the surprisingly empty house, Cloud left and took one last look around. There just wasn’t enough to do in Nibelheim to occupy a whole day without heading either to the mansion or the mountains, both of which were fairly dangerous endeavors, though they hadn’t realized that as children. That left only the inn, where Sephiroth was taking care of the business he’d mentioned earlier, unless he wanted to talk to the lookout MP, but his shift would be over soon enough.
As soon as he entered the inn, however, he noticed a very interesting figure speaking to the innkeeper. He was tall, and very well built, dressed in somewhat of a ninja getup, complete with a blood red cape.
“Hey, son,” the man said as soon as Cloud entered, “Feeling strong?”
Strong? I’m a SOLDIER, for crying out loud, he never got a chance to say. The man leapt through the air, aiming a kick at Cloud’s throat but freezing it just before impact. The young man froze, unable to react much. Then, the man started laughing.
“Caught you off guard, there!” He slapped Cloud on the back. “The name’s Zangan.”
“That’s…nice,” Cloud found his voice. “I’m Cloud…what the hell are you supposed to be?”
“Glad you asked,” Zangan replied, still upbeat, “I’m a traveling martial arts teacher. I find promising pupils and teach them what they need to know to survive in this world. What with all the monsters running around nowadays, you need both a good weapon and a good set of skills at your disposal.” He took a look at Cloud’s easily seen sword. “I take it you have both, eh?”
“I guess…”
“I’ve got a student here named Tifa. She’s still young, but she’s a very promising fighter, and…”
“Tifa?” Cloud asked immediately. Tifa learning martial arts? He hoped she hadn’t hurt herself.
“Yes, Miss Tifa Lockheart. Do you know her?”
“Actually, yes, but I can’t seem to find her in the town.”
“Feh,” Zangan dismissed it with a wave of his hand, “She’s always running around here somewhere. Stick around a little longer, and she’ll come.”
“Right…” Conversation ran dry, and Cloud excused himself. He went upstairs to find a large, comfy room with a great view of the Nibel range behind the town. There were enough beds, and the off-duty MP was staring at them longingly.
The room’s awesome view was provided by a large window near the stairs. Here stood Sephiroth, staring quietly, as though mesmerized.
“What are you looking at?” Cloud interrupted his thoughts.
“The scenery,” the general replied in his regular, quiet tone, “This place feels somehow…familiar.”
“Familiar?” Cloud frowned, but didn’t pursue it. His commander turned from the window and exhaled a long breath.
“You’d do yourself a favor by going to sleep early. We’re going to have a very early start tomorrow, you know.”
“Yeah…is your business taken care of?”
He nodded. “I hired a guide to the reactor. I heard she’s young; I hope we can rely on her.”
Cloud just shrugged and went to the cabinet where he’d stashed his rations. After a quick dinner, he took Sephiroth’s advice and went to sleep.
The general hadn’t lied. The next morning they were up by four, and surprisingly, so was most of the town. Everyone wanted to see the SOLDIER team head off to battle. Cloud left the hotel and walked down to the courtyard outside the mansion, where Sephiroth and the two MPs were waiting. With them were a variety of people, including a young enthusiast who hoped to get a picture of Sephiroth, several curious citizens, and one man who was currently engaged in conversation with the said general. He looked very familiar…
“Now, listen to me Sephiroth…” he was saying, firmly but somewhat humbly, “If anything happens out there…”
“It’s quite all right,” the black caped man reassured him, “We’ll protect her.”
“Yeah…I’m sure it’ll be fine.” He backed off a bit. “Tifa’s been doing this stuff ever since she was a kid.”
“Tifa?” Cloud said quietly, looking behind him. Indeed, his childhood friend was running up towards them dressed in her outdoor attire: short jeans, sloppy shirt, and a large, straw hat resembling one a cowboy might own.
“I’m ready!” she called out, and then stopped, seeing Cloud. “Cloud! I didn’t know you’d be here!”
“I couldn’t find you yesterday,” he explained, “But…what is all this?”
“I’m the guide!”
“What?!”
“What are you worried about?” she asked with a proud grin, “I’m the best guide in town!”
“Ahem.” Apparently, Sephiroth had finished his conversation with Tifa’s father and was now anxious to get a move on.
“Be careful, Tifa…” her father said as he passed by.
“What are you worried about?” she asked again, “I’ve got two men from SOLDIER with me!”
“That’s what I’m afraid of…” he said as he walked back to his home, casting a weary glance at Cloud.
“You can talk on the way,” Sephiroth allowed, “But let’s at least get started for the reactor. I assume,” he motioned to the path, “We just follow that for a while?”
“Yes,” Tifa replied with a nod, “I’ll let you know where to go next. I don’t really know the exact location of the reactor, but…”
“I do,” Sephiroth assured her, “I just need someone to point out the safest way through.”
“Excuse me!” the young photographer stopped them before they could head out, “Mr. Sephiroth, sir! I was wondering if I could get a picture of you!”
“We really don’t…” he started to reply, looking rather disinterested, but Tifa cut him off.
“Aw, come on! What can one picture hurt?”
The two SOLDIERs shared a quick glance, agreeing that it was easier to just do it than to argue.
“Great!” the photographer bubbled as he set up his camera. Sephiroth stood with a tolerant smile and thought uninvited, Cloud stood to his left, flashing a cocky grin, and Tifa to his left, with a wide grin. The camera flashed once and the photographer thanked all three of them, disappearing down the road back to the town shortly after.
“The cold air of the Nibel Range…” Cloud said in a faraway voice, “I remembered it well.” By this point, he had everyone’s full attention. “A Mako Reactor was built in Mount Nibel, the tallest mountain in the range, because of the high concentration of Mako energy detected beneath it. When I was a kid, the local wildlife was hostile, but hardly as hostile as it was that day. The animals were mutated and deformed, possessing powers that they shouldn’t have had. The Mako had contaminated them as sure as it had contaminated everything else in that range, but what could you do about it? All we could do was keep going.”
The path was badly cut, and the scenery carried an evil aura. The mountain was a concrete color mixed with gray and purple, and most of it consisted of jagged, spiky rock formations that reached out towards the sky or travelers like the claws of some giant, stone hawk.
Sephiroth sighed as he beheld the thin bridge that linked one side of the mountain to the other. Beneath them was a large, deep chasm that seemed to beckon to them. He could already picture the bridge snapping, sending all five of them plummeting down there…actually, he decided, the fall probably wasn’t a fatal one. It was a much shorter distance now that he really looked at it, but still…couldn’t these peasants have spent a little more time on the bridge?
He crossed first, feeling the rickety old wood squeak and shudder with each step. This was something you read about in books, the general thought angrily, not actually went through. The others were on the bridge before he got off, and it squeaked even louder. Then of course, it snapped.
One MP was caught totally off guard and flew away from the collapsing bridge. Everyone else grabbed hold of something, and followed the bridge as it swerved into the side of the chasm. The jolt knocked all of them off their lifeline and they took the plunge.
“Sephiroth!” Tifa called out urgently, “Sephiroth!”
“What…?” the party leader responded in a daze, in the process of getting over the fact that he was still alive, “What now?”
“I think…” she glanced back and forth, looking over Cloud, Sephiroth, and an MP to make sure of herself, “I think we’re missing a man.”
The general sighed audibly, wincing from his bruises, and thought a while. “It may sound cold…but we don’t have the time to look for him.” He looked around, taking in their reactions.
“We don’t really have a choice here. I’m sorry.”
“Okay…” Cloud answered, looking doubtful, but his commander didn’t seem to be in a very good mood, so he didn’t press the issue.
They had landed in a part of the mountain linked to several caves. Sephiroth got his bearings back and looked to where he knew the reactor would be, and then picked the path nearest that direction, hoping it would take him where he wanted to go.
Immediately upon entering the cave, they all stopped in shock. It was full of twisted rocks and stony sculptures carved by the effects of centuries. Stalactites reached down from the ceiling, clawing at their heads and the stalagmites on the ground made the path more of a maze.
“A lot of the caves are this way,” Tifa spoke up in an eager tone, “This cave is probably linked to a hundred other smaller ones, and those to other larger ones. It’s like a big web.”
“I see…” Cloud breathed, looking over the scenery. He’d never been inside one of Nibel’s many caves, but the experience was certainly rewarding. The MP seemed every bit as interested, and even Sephiroth looked a little impressed.
Beyond the natural sounds of water trickling from some hidden stream, or the strong winds from outside, there came a soft ticking sound. Tifa recognized it instantly, but the others, who had not been around Nibel for as long as she had, didn’t attribute it to anything.
“Guys…?” She pointed towards the sound of the ticking, and all heads turned. Sure enough, there came four large, green katydid creatures, each one sporting deadly mandibles. They and others like them were always on the prowl throughout the mountain, scavenging through the bodies of the fallen. The largest one detected the presence of intruders and emitted a loud, raspy hissing sound. The other three immediately turned and looked in the direction of the humans, who had been selected as today’s dinner.
Cloud’s hand flew to his sword, but he stopped himself when he heard Sephiroth sigh, as though the man were dealing with smaller insects of the sort he could just crush under his heel. He moved ahead of the group and, lowering his head, fitted his fist in his palm and moved his lips in some silent chant. Green energies flared up around him, stopping the insects in their tracks. Shortly after, the room grew very cold. The air around the insects began to swirl and turn a deep shade of blue. They skittered about, confused, but all movement was stopped by a sudden and devastating onrush of icy energies that condensed around them, rooting them to the ground, and above them formed an immense icicle. The said icicle slammed down on the insects and shattered, creating a small explosion of blue light and a brief gale that sent chills through the fighters and fluttered Sephiroth’s hair and cloak behind him. Ice3, the final spell obtained from the Ice Materia, which Sephiroth had Mastered along with all his other Materia, had done its job. What was left of the insects was now encased in thick ice and scattered about the area where they had entered.
“Wow!” Tifa gushed, “That was incredible!”
“Hmph…” Sephiroth grunted in disinterest. “Anyone can do it. All you need is the Materia and some dedication.”
“I’m gonna do it!” Tifa insisted, “I’m gonna get a bunch of Materia and learn how to use their strongest spells. Nothing will so much as touch this town after someone learns how to use Materia.”
“You do that…” Sephiroth replied curtly and started forward.
“Why hasn’t anyone else bothered to work with Materia around here?” Cloud asked curiously as he started after his leader, hoping Tifa had not detected Sephiroth’s irritation, “We have a Materia shop in town.”
Tifa shrugged and followed, the MP bringing up the rear. “I don’t know myself. I think the old farts are afraid to mess with magic. In their age, they prefer to just sit back and let Shinra industrialize everything.” She frowned. “No offence, but until today, Shinra hasn’t done much at all for us except build a nearby reactor that malfunctions regularly and now threatens our lives.”
He nodded. “I understand…SOLDIER can’t be everywhere at once, but when we’re not here we’re someplace else. A day off is a rare treat.”
Tifa was about to reply when a great heat replaced the chill Ice3 had left in the cavern. They quickened their pace and found Sephiroth, who was in the process of slaying a greater army of the insects. There had to be about twelve of them, and from the looks of things, Sephiroth had surprised them. The general was concentrating on the fireball growing in the center of the cave. It expanded rapidly, a swirling mass of flaming energies, until finally flares erupted around it and the ball exploded into a wall of fire. The inferno swept through the corridor, incinerating the creatures, but the magic had no effect on the SOLDIER party, which was well out of range.
“Fire3,” Cloud explained to the awestruck Tifa.
“I believe they’re all dispatched,” Sephiroth declared after a brief scan. He waved to a light in the far right of the cave. “Let’s go.”
They pressed on and entered a little alcove. They all stopped as soon as they entered, letting out breaths of awe. The place had a crystalline look to it, and indeed there were crystals in various areas. At the center of the niche, however, was the most impressive feature. It looked somewhat like a small volcano that had halted an eruption right in the middle of the process, and the “lava” had crystallized into whatever shape it had been in when the process was cut short. In this case, the lava was greenish crystals, and all around the structure there was a green glow.
“Oh, wow!” Tifa breathed, getting closer to it.
“Hmf,” Sephiroth uttered with a raised eyebrow, “Well what do you know…a Mako fountain.”
“Is that what it is?” Tifa asked as all four of them congregated around it.
“Indeed,” the general nodded, “Mako fountains are formed by Mako energy that is bursting from the earth while not being drawn out by a reactor. It’s a marvel of nature.”
“What are those crystals?” Cloud had to ask, though he was fairly sure he already knew. The crystals were giving off an aura that both men recognized immediately, but Tifa had never experienced such power, so she simply looked up curiously.
“Come now, Cloud,” Sephiroth chided, “Surely you haven’t forgotten already.”
“N…no,” he shook his head, responding quickly, “It’s Materia, isn’t it?”
“Hm, good.”
“But…” he continued, “Why is it by the Mako fountain?”
“You made First Class and you don’t even know that?” Sephiroth laughed softly, then smiled a little to soften the blow. “Materia is formed when Mako energy condenses. Mako reactors around the world mass produce Materia of various elements by condensing the Mako they suck from the earth and eventually crystallizing it into usable stones. The element of the stone, like fire or ice, is determined by the environment the Mako is being drained from.”
“And,” Cloud continued for him, recalling lessons learned while in training, “As the Mako energy gradually grows less condensed, more of the energy is freed from inside the stone, allowing for more powerful magic!”
Sephiroth started laughing. Cloud stared in some confusion. To his knowledge, everything he’d said was correct, so what was so funny? Tifa didn’t get it, either, and it showed in her puzzled expression.
“Oh, no,” Sephiroth raised his hand and got a hold of himself, “You didn’t say anything wrong, Cloud. It’s an inside joke…the term ‘magic’.”
“What about it?” asked a considerably less nervous Cloud.
“Ah…someone once told me never to use such an unscientific term like ‘magic’. I still remember how angry he was.”
“Who was it?” Tifa asked, as though she might know him.
“Hojo of Shinra’s science department,” Sephiroth replied anyway, catching himself before he started snickering.
“Oh,” Cloud nodded with a little smile. He’d never actually met Hojo, but from what he’d heard of the man, the mental image Cloud had of him leaping around and shouting in fury about something as trivial as an unscientific term was not only completely plausible, but also a bit amusing.
“He’s as unimaginative and dull a scientist as has ever existed,” Sephiroth said, calmly now,
“And an unworthy heir of a great predecessor.”
Though he wasn’t sure, Cloud imagined Sephiroth was speaking of Professor Gast, the leader of the science department before Hojo.
Sephiroth got back to business, staring at the closest exit. “The reactor shouldn’t be too far ahead. Now let’s just hope I haven’t led us to a dead end.”
The rest of the hike to the reactor was uneventful. Sephiroth had chosen his path well. The reactor itself was smaller than any in Midgar, one of the smallest Shinra had produced in fact, but there had been little room to work with in the unfriendly mountainous region. The reactor had been pumping Mako from Mount Nibel for years, but a while ago it suffered the first in a chain of malfunctions. Most were minor, and merely reduced or halted the flow of Mako for a few days until Shinra showed up to fix it. Others, like this one, were more serious, and resulted in severe contamination of the environment of its creatures.
The structure was about as tall as the mansion back in Nibelheim, though hardly as wide. It was a thick, metallic cylinder with many tubes and pumps on its outer shell. A small, raised staircase led up to a solid steel wall serving as a door.
Sephiroth turned and addressed their guide. “Thank you for your help thus far. I’m sorry, but I’ll have to request that you wait outside.”
“What?” Tifa asked in some surprise, “Why?”
“Tifa…” Cloud started, giving his superior an apologetic look.
“I’m sorry,” the general stated again, “Please understand. This place holds many of Shinra’s best-kept industrial secrets. Only Shinra employees are allowed inside.” He motioned to the MP, drawing him over to Tifa’s side. “Take care of the lady.” He and Cloud turned and started towards the door, the latter throwing a reassuring smile behind him.
“Hmph,” Tifa grunted, placing her hands on her hips and turning to the MP. “Better take reeeeally good care of me, then.”
Sephiroth retrieved a keycard from his cloak and inserted it into a slot to the right of the steel door. The barrier opened with a whoosh, allowing the SOLDIERs to enter. Sephiroth didn’t waste any time, and started down the catwalk. Cloud followed, slower, and took in the surroundings. The reactor wasn’t very cozy. Gears and air pumps churned and whooshed all around them, and various bits of machinery lined the walls. Cloud followed his leader to a ladder attached to pipes. He climbed down and stood upon the catwalk the ladder led to. Below him now was nothing but a deep plummet into the bright green light that lurked so far beneath them. That light was the Mako energy being processed by the reactor, and a fall into it would certainly be fatal.
This catwalk led to an arc-shaped doorway. From within, a strange glow oozed out and onto the brick pathway leading in. Giant masses of machinery lay on either side of the door, startling Cloud with sudden churning as he passed through.
Cloud had never been this far into any reactor before, but he’d of course dreamt up a mental image of what the central chamber, where all the machines were programmed, should look like. He had imagined sensitive, expensive electronics and powerful computers lining the walls. What he saw now, however, was not only nothing like he imagined, but nothing at all what a normal central chamber should look like, according to the many books he’d read while in training. The room was one big staircase. Each “stair” took up the width of the room. The centers of each tier were vacant, so as to provide a staircase to another solid steel door, but on either side there were three large, red, egg-shaped capsules which were all hooked up to a series of tubes and valves. Above the obviously locked door were six letters painted onto the wall, and they made Cloud leap back with a jolt. “J-E-N-O-V-A”.
Sephiroth, though, didn’t seem to notice his mother’s name etched clearly on the wall, though he scanned the room for interesting details like he always did. Perhaps he knew something Cloud didn’t? There had to be some logical explanation, so Cloud didn’t say anything of it to his commander. The said commander wasted no time in striding up to one of the capsules and examining it. Cloud briefly wondered what had attracted Sephiroth to that particular capsule, but the question answered itself as Cloud began to detect a low hiss coming from one of the tubes attached to the capsule.
“Here,” Sephiroth said simply, tinkering with the tubes a bit. The hissing stopped. “This is our problem. One of these tubes had broken off.” When he saw Cloud’s blank expression, he continued. “The electricity flowing through these reactors forms somewhat of a circulatory system, just like in your body. Say you get a nasty cut on your arm. Eventually, you’ll bleed to death. Such is the case here. It might not have seemed like a big problem from the weak sound, but that tube was completely detached. Because of that, electricity wasn’t getting to other parts of the reactor, more specifically the ones that control the spread of the Mako, which is probably why the animals have been getting contaminated.”
“So, what’s to stop it from coming undone again?”
Sephiroth frowned. “That’s not our problem. I’ll inform the technology branch with my final report. They’ll be responsible for sending someone over to investigate.” He started to turn, but something held him back. The general took hold of parts of the capsule near the round observation window and hoisted himself up. It was strange for Cloud to see his superior needing to increase his height to see something, since he was a fairly tall man, but before he could smirk the mood suddenly turned cold without even a word being spoken.
“Sephiroth?” Cloud asked the question warily, though, aside from his suddenly stiff composure, his commander hadn’t presented any reason for worrying. Cloud could just sense that something was wrong, though.
“Now I see, Hojo…” Sephiroth breathed, finally, as though lost deep within himself. Cloud stepped back, staring warily at his leader. “But even this will not put you on the same level as Professor Gast.”
“Gast?” Cloud frowned. “Sephiroth, what’s wrong?”
“Hm…” He drifted back to reality and dropped down from the capsule. Immediately, Cloud could detect something different in his commander’s eyes. He looked like he’d seen a ghost…and was angrier about it than he was scared. “Look,” he motioned to the capsule,
“Look inside.”
Cloud blinked a few times, staring in confusion. Sephiroth jerked his hand towards the big red egg once more and Cloud warily obeyed. He found the same grips Sephiroth had used and pulled himself up. He glanced down again, hoping for some clue as to what he was about to see, but Sephiroth’s stone face told him nothing. He took a deep breath and looked into the capsule.
There are things that send the greatest of men into a maelstrom of fear, revilement, and general confusion, and this was one of them. Inside the capsule was a monster. It looked vaguely humanoid, but in structure only. Its skin was hardly skin, rather it was a white layer of twisted muscles, dyed various colors in different places. Its head curved outward from its body, a bulging mass of muscles, two pitch-black eyeballs, and an eternally opened mouth bearing little canine fangs.
Cloud leapt back in shock, flying clear away from the capsule and landing on his behind at Sephiroth’s feet. The SOLDIER champion looked at him expectantly, as though Cloud were supposed to understand what he had just seen.
“What is it…?” Cloud asked, admitting he had no clue.
“A monster,” Sephiroth said simply, “But not just any monster.” He turned and observed all the capsules, eyes distant and voice level. His demeanor sent chills down Cloud’s spine. “These creatures were mutated by Mako into what they are now. God knows how, but it happened.” He waved his arms over the whole room. “This place is a factory for creating monsters out of humans.”
“Humans?!” Cloud gasped, scrambling to his feet, “How can they be humans? They’d never survive! These are monsters!”
“Yes,” the silver-haired legend nodded, “And it is Hojo of Shinra who produces these monsters.”
“Huh?” Cloud managed to squeak, lost in a sea of confusion. “Why would he do that?”
Before Sephiroth could answer, a loud hissing sound sprang up above them. Their heads snapped towards the source of the sound and they both stepped back instinctively. One of the capsules was opening.
It must have been a premature opening, for the “hatched” monster simply fell to the ground helplessly. It flailed its weak, disgusting limbs around, as though writhing in pain, and finally just emitted a weak little cry of despair and died.
No one spoke. Cloud stared in horror, but Sephiroth remained emotionless. Finally, Cloud got a hold of the queasy feeling in his gut and turned to face his leader.
“Why…? Why would Shinra want to make monsters?”
“To produce the ultimate-“ Sephiroth’s voice broke off abruptly, and finally the mask cracked. His eyes no longer seemed distant, but they were still unsettling. In place of the previous disinterest, the same confusion and shock Cloud felt had invaded the general’s eyes. His breathing became almost labored, and he finally seemed to acknowledge his mother’s name written above the door.
“Sephiroth…?”
“To produce the ultimate warriors…” he finished. Cloud raised an eyebrow; in all his life, he’d never known it possible for the great General Sephiroth to speak in such a weak voice.
The current ultimate warrior looked up at the dead form on the upper tiers and made a facial expression Cloud could only describe as a snarl.
“Normal members of SOLDIER,” he nodded at Cloud, “are showered with a little bit of Mako to make them more powerful.” He waved toward the dead monster. “These creatures, on the other hand, are pure Mako…”
“Wait,” Cloud stopped him, “You said ‘normal’ members. Are you different?”
“I…” Sephiroth’s voice died again, and he whipped out the Masamune, jammed it into the ground and leaned on it for support. Cloud stepped away from both the capsules and his leader, not knowing exactly what was happening but knowing that they would both be better off leaving the reactor as soon as possible.
“Sephiroth, our work is done here. Shouldn’t we…”
He stopped and flung himself back as Sephiroth, with a sudden cry, launched himself through the air, bringing the Masamune down heavily on the shell of the capsule they had looked into earlier. The two bodies of steel clashed together in a loud metallic clang and a shower of sparks, but neither yielded to the other.
“Sephiroth?!” Cloud asked, louder and with more incomprehension than ever in his life. He heard the word “No…” leave the general’s lips in a faint whisper, and he now leaned into the capsule itself. “Sephiroth?”
“Was I…” he asked, more to himself or to whatever demons lurked in the room than to Cloud, “Was I created this way, too…?”
“Wha…” Cloud knew deep down that something like this was going to happen, but in the confusion of the recent moments had failed to put two and two together fast enough. “What are you talking about?”
Sephiroth’s head snapped towards Cloud, his eyes blazing now with something that bordered desperation and a bit of anger, and those two never went well together. “You saw it!” he snapped in a voice as harsh as the winter winds, and it died down considerably before his next sentence. “They were all…human…”
“Sephiroth?” Cloud’s voice piped up again, helplessly, “Hey…just leave it, all right? You’re…probably just making a big deal out of nothing, you know?”
“Ever since I was small,” Sephiroth persisted, “I felt like I was different, somehow…not like the rest of the people I knew. But not like…this.”
Cloud stood back even further, inching his way outside of the haunting room. His superior slowly composed himself, staring at his sword for a good minute before casting one last glance about the room, lingering on the “J-E-N-O-V-A” sign, and turned to follow his underling.
“’Am I…human?’ I didn’t understand what Sephrioth was saying at that time. I was more surprised at the fact that Shinra was producing monsters.”
Each member of AVALANCHE stared quietly, each with their own mental picture of what Cloud had just described, and each one of them understanding the problem that Cloud, in his confusion that day, failed to understand.
“We returned to Nibelheim. Since we weren’t needed in Midgar for a few days, Sephiroth had us get comfortable for some reason, and we started seeing less and less of him. Finally, one day, we couldn’t find him at all.”
Cloud ran towards the abandoned Shinra Mansion, named so because years ago, people from Shinra used to live there. It now sat on the outskirts of town, a decrepit mass of disrepair. It was a place he hadn’t personally been inside of in all his life, and for the reason that everyone, even today, believed it to be severely haunted. It was, of course, the only place they had yet to look.
Of course, spirits didn’t exactly daunt SOLDIERs, since the undead could actually be handled rather easily. In fact, any of the villagers could probably, if they’d had a Materia or two, prowl around the mansion and be just fine, provided that the rumors were true. Cloud decided, after standing in the doorway for all of about two seconds, that there wasn’t much evidence to suggest that they were true.
The interior of the mansion was an even bigger mess than the outside. Everything was made of wood; the floor, the stairs, the walls, even the ceiling, though the wood was all top quality. Nevertheless, even this top quality wood had taken on a murky coloring that, combined with the fact that the massive windows above the balcony were so dirty that they barely allowed any sunlight in, made the mansion a very dark place. The main room featured a spiral staircase up to the said balcony, which branched off in two directions, both leading mostly to bedrooms and bathrooms. The ground floor, too, had doors to rooms on the right and left sides of the room, and though Cloud had no real desire to go looking, he imagined that they, too, were bedrooms.
Detecting no sight of Sephiroth on the ground level, Cloud started up the staircase, which creaked in protest as he ascended them as though they were ready to give way at any second. Once on the balcony, Cloud headed right and found himself at another fork. One way led to bedrooms, he realized as he took a look, and the other-
“Nice to see you made it.”
Cloud recovered quickly from the momentary shock and smiled weakly at the blue MP. “I didn’t see you come in.”
“I’ve been in here for a while,” the trooper said with a shrug, and motioned around the room.
“See anything suspicious?” The said room was a small chamber that looked more for lounging than anything else. Where a bookshelf might have been, there was a section of the wall that was notably composed of stone rather than wood, and looked as though a part of it was uneven with the rest.
“Secret passage?”
The MP nodded. “There’s a library down there, according to the locals. The light is on, too.” He tilted his head. “I’ll stand here, sir. Frankly, Sephiroth isn’t my problem, and besides, he gives me the creeps.”
“I see…” Cloud said numbly, staring at the passage. For some inexplicable reason, there was a foreboding about it. He walked closer and placed his hand on the protruding stone, pushing in. It gave way easily, revealing an eerie cylindrical room leading deep down below the mansion via a rotting old spiral staircase. Cloud cautiously began his descent, noticing the immediate draft and sudden dampness in the air as he got closer and closer to the bottom.
It was like a castle dungeon. Dark, damp, and even lighted by wall-mounted candles, the lengthy corridor was like stepping into a horror novel. Cloud took a deep breath and started down the passage, heading straight for the heavy oak doors that must have lead to the library. He tried his best to ignore all the drips, creaks, and moans that emanated from beyond the thick brick walls, but as he got closer to the library, he couldn’t help but jump back when he heard a noise to his right.
The noise sounded like a moan of great regret, or some other uncomfortable emotion. It came from beyond another oak door that led to someplace Cloud definitely didn’t want to go, wherever it was. The sound stuck in Cloud’s mind, and as the SOLDIER peeled himself off the wall and started again for the library, he knew very well that he’d have a hard time forgetting that sound.
The library was a large room with several sections. The place Cloud entered into was oval shaped and in addition to walls of books, there were sealed capsules and something that looked like an operating table, next to vials full of a curiously green liquid. It looked like the home of some mad scientist. From here there was a long, book-lined hallway leading to another oval with even more books and a massive cherry desk. After Cloud finished taking in the scenery, he noticed also that many of the books lay strewn in piles around the room. And moving through the piles of said books was Sephiroth.
He looked very depressed, very hollow, as though he had just been the victim of some great tragedy, or something very emotionally damaging had caught up with him. In his hands he held an open book that looked like a diary of some sort. He read as though in a daze, pacing back and forth, mumbling some of the words out loud while having no idea Cloud was in the room with him.
“Here…” he said at one point, “A creature called Jenova was found in the geologic stratum…” He resumed pacing, slower, and his trance seemed to deepen. Throughout it all, Cloud stood silently, staring in confusion, but not daring to break his commander’s concentration. “Again…” he mumbled, “Jenova confirmed to be an Ancient. Received permission to begin the Jenova Project.” At this point, Sephiroth stopped pacing and lowered the book. He turned to the hallway leading to the room with the desk, pacing a few steps forward, looking up at the ceiling, as if it held the answers he searched. “Jenova is my mother’s name…the Jenova Project…is it just a coincidence…?” He lowered his head, staring at the floor now, and his arms hung limply at his sides. The diary tumbled out of his grip and landed on the floor, but Sephiroth did not move to pick it up. He did, however, seem to snap out of his daze, clenching his fists and breathing loudly. “Why?!” he suddenly thundered at no one in particular, “Dammit, Gast! Why didn’t you tell me…?” His voice died down, sounding more like a confused child. It was something Cloud had never expected from his idol. “Why did you die…?”
Both SOLDIERs stood in silence for some time. The elder did not move for some time, until finally the younger worked up enough courage to move towards his superior.
“Let me be alone.” Sephiroth said in an even tone before Cloud could get a word in. The latter stepped back, wanting to do something more, but decided that nothing he could say or do would help the situation. He turned and walked slowly out of the library, retracing his steps back to the Shinra Mansion.
“Sephiroth didn’t come out of the library…he continued to read like a man possessed. Day after day passed, and not once did the light in the library go out. Then, one day…”
Cloud woke up on one of the beds in the Shinra Mansion’s west wing, having not wanted to leave the building when his commander was in a questionable state of mind. He stood and stretched, already noticing something strange in the air. Usually, the other soldier was patrolling the halls out of boredom by now, floorboards creaking noisily in his wake. Today, however, there was no sound, and while there were a billion explanations, Cloud still figured something was up.
He went straight towards the trick door where the MP had been waiting for him the other day. The blue uniformed man was standing there, looking nervous.
“Sephiroth seems different,” he said instantly to Cloud when he saw him.
Cloud was caught off guard, but he just nodded and opened the door leading down to the
basement.
The light in the library was still on, but there was absolutely no noise. The last time, he’d heard drips of water plopping on the ground from the damp ceiling, but even they seemed to have stopped. He entered the library and saw no sign of Sephiroth, though the piles of books were still lying around.
“Hahaha…”
Cloud stopped cold. Something like that was the absolute last thing he wanted to hear. He started down the hallway of books towards the lighted room with a desk. Sephiroth was seated behind it, skimming over something or other. Cloud dared to hope that the laugh he’d just heard might have been dry humor over something he’d just read.
“Who’s there?” Sephiroth asked the second he detected another presence. Before Cloud could answer, he glanced up. “Hmph…traitor.”
“Traitor…?” Cloud’s face scrunched up in confusion.
“You ignorant traitor…” Sephiroth sighed, getting to his feet, “I’ll tell you.” He walked over to the bookshelves behind him, folding his hands behind his back as though debating where to start. “This planet originally belonged to the Cetra. Cetra was an itinerant race, moving from location to location, only staying as long as necessary. At the end of their harsh, long journey, they would find the Promised Land, the land of supreme happiness.” He paused, dropping his voice and adding a harsh sting to it. “But, those who disliked the journey came around. They built permanent settlements, and opted to live an easier life. Those are your ancestors.” He turned to look Cloud in the eye. “Long ago, disaster struck the Planet. Your ancestors survived because they hid. This planet was saved by sacrificing the Cetra, those chosen by the Planet.”
“But…” Cloud interrupted, “How does that have anything to do with you?”
Sephiroth smiled without humor. “Several years ago, the remains of an Ancient named Jenova were discovered in a geologic stratum of 3000 years. Professor Gast, a genius scientist, oversaw this archaeological find. He obtained funding to begin a project intended to produce people with the powers of the Ancients.” He looked skyward. “I am the one that was produced.”
“Pr…produced?”
“Yes.” Sephiroth started moving down the hallway, headed back towards the exit. “Gast died before his time. His inferior apprentice, Hojo, took over Shinra’s Science Department, and butchered the Jenova Project.”
Cloud chased after his commander, not liking where the conversation was headed. “Sephiroth, don’t do anything drastic…”
“Out of my way!” he boomed in a voice Cloud had never heard before. “I’m going to visit my mother.”
Cloud didn’t know what to make of the situation. Dangerous, maybe, but immediately threatening he didn’t know. He still needed to tell someone, though, and keep a close eye on his commander. He walked out of the library, keeping a safe distance between himself and his commander, who was already up the stairs anyway. When he did get to the top, the first sign that something was horribly wrong became apparent: the MP was gone.
The SOLDIER stood in shock for a few moments before seriously regretting putting any distance between himself and Sephiroth. Then, the first screams filled his ears, muffled ones, probably from outside in the village.
The village! Cloud tore down the stairs and out of the decrepit mansion, reeling as though
struck when he absorbed the scenario.
Nibelheim was on fire.
Here he lost control, running deep into the flames, finding his way to the center of the town. Every building was burning furiously, and even worse, dead bodies were visible lying sprawled out on the road. His eyes fell on the blue MP, who lay near Tifa’s house with a fairly impressive sword wound.
“Hey, hey!” Cloud shouted over the roar of the flames, “What happened here?!”
“Sephiroth…” the soldier managed, knowing that took care of the explanations.
Cloud stood back, caught in a daze. Why had he dared put distance between himself and
someone who obviously wasn’t stable? He might have been able to stop this!
One of the bodies was moving. Cloud spun sharply to make sure the heat wasn’t getting to him. Yes, something was moving, and the reason was simply that the person was still alive and healthy. Given the circumstances, he was probably the most useful person in Nibelheim.
“Hey!” Zangan called when he spotted Cloud looking at him, “You’re still sane, right?!”
Cloud managed a nod.
“Then help me out!” The martial artist leapt over to nurse another man, the man who’d wanted so badly to take a picture of Sephiroth earlier that week.
Cloud probably wanted to, but at the moment it was just too much. His hometown, and everyone in it, was vanishing before his very eyes, and all because of the man he’d revered for years and eventually called a friend. It was the ultimate betrayal.
“Terrible…” Cloud finally breathed out, looking around the burning town, “Sephiroth…this is too terrible…”
Before he could focus his anger on something, he heard the sickening sound of a weapon biting into human flesh. He whirled and beheld Sephiroth, raising his sword to kill a second man, all near the path leading back up to the Shinra Mansion. The blade fell even as Cloud was running towards the scene, and the body flew back and landed at the young SOLDIER’s feet. Cloud stopped, appalled at the sight, and stared back in disbelief at the silver haired monster with a bloodstained sword.
Sephiroth raised his head, actually giving Cloud a slight smile before turning slowly and disappearing into the fire, heading towards Mount Nibel where his mother awaited him.
Cloud charged towards the reactor, sword still in hand after fighting his way up the mountain. He’d never once lost sight of Sephiroth until now, and it unnerved him that the general had reached the reactor first. Heaven knew what that man might do now.
As soon as he entered the reactor, he knew something was wrong. When he looked around, he found he was right; Tifa was there, huddled over a fallen figure, her body wracked with
sobs.
Cloud raced down the ladder and onto the catwalk, running towards the door to the Jenova chamber where Tifa was. He stopped a few feet away, hearing her mutter several incoherent words. He then realized that she was huddled over her own father, who was dead from a sword wound. As if to mock them, the sword that had done it, Masamune, lay a few feet from Tifa’s side.
“Sephiroth…” Tifa sputtered, staring almost through her father’s corpse, not even acknowledging that Cloud was there, “Sephiroth did this to you…didn’t he…?!” She almost fell over, barely in control of herself, crying like a baby. Cloud had absolutely no idea how to react. Tifa had lost her mother when she was very young. Without her father, and Nibelhiem in flames….well, what was she supposed to do now?
“Sephiroth…” she continued, though her voice was somehow stronger…and even a little distant. “Sephiroth…SOLDIER…Shinra…Mako Reactors…EVERYTHING!” She stood bolt upright, whisking the Masamune up from the floor and hoisting the heavy weapon into a fighting position. “I hate them all!” Before Cloud could stop her, she was running into the next room, the room with the red glow and tanks full of Shinra’s monsters. The biggest monster was at the top of the staircase, actually talking to the closed door leading to the guts of the Jenova Project.
“Mother,” Sephiroth said, as though trying to convince someone of something, “Please, open up. It’s just me…I’ve finally come to see you.”
Cloud heard that much as he entered the room, and again he wondered how someone as stable as Sephiroth could go this batty in just a few days. His thoughts focused then on Tifa, who was running up the staircase towards Sephiroth, weapon in hand.
“Why did you do that to Papa and the others?!” she was yelling as she ran towards him, “What did we do to you?!” She brought the Masamune down as Sephiroth was turning around to address her, and the black caped man struck like a cobra, grabbing the hilt of the weapon and, with his almost inhuman strength, forced it back up away from him and wrenched it out of Tifa’s hands, pushing her backward. Immediately after, he raised Masamune and, as soon as she’d regained her balance, slashed it down across Tifa’s torso.
Cloud was suddenly even more paralyzed than he’d been as he watched this happen. Tifa arced backward through the air, finally landing on the staircase, but she continued to roll down it, until Cloud finally got a hold of himself and stopped her. The door behind Sephiroth suddenly whooshed open, and the general went through it, leaving them alone.
The cut wasn’t that bad, Cloud had to admit, but it was still pretty nasty. It was a good thing Sephiroth had pushed her back away from him before slashing, or else he’d have cut her in half. Her eyes were kind of distant, though she finally seemed to realize that he was there. Saying nothing, he picked her up and took her over to a wall, laying her against it, out of the way. It was about all he could do for now.
“You promised…” she suddenly sputtered, “you promised…that you’d come…when I was in trouble…”
The words reverberated in his head. Years ago, when he’d left Nibelheim to become a SOLDIER, Tifa had made him promise to come and rescue her whenever she got into a bind. It had just seemed like a game then, but now…
Now, he had to do something about the bastard responsible for all of this, the monster he’d called a friend only a few days ago. Cloud looked one last time at Tifa and made a break for the door Sephiroth had entered. It hadn’t closed yet, and it didn’t close even as he ran though it.
If the last room had been freaky, this one was unbelievable. It was a big, metal room full of giant tubes and computers. At the heart of the room was a large circle where the tubes all branched from, and beyond this circle was the assortment of wires and machinery that led up to a giant preservation tank marked “J-E-N-O-V-A”. The tank was encased in a large metal structure of a silver angel. Standing in the circle now, at the head of the machinery, was Sephiroth, arms raised as though addressing a crowd.
“I’m here now, mother,” he was saying, “I’ve come to help you…let’s take this planet back, the two of us. I’ve thought of a great idea; let’s go to the Promised Land. The land where the Ancients will find supreme happiness…that has to be where we go.”
“You’re CRAZY!” Cloud shouted finally, running up behind his commander, sword ready, “Sephiroth, what are you thinking?!”
The general lowered his arms slowly, and his shoulders began twitching in laughter. “They’ve come too, mother…the scum of this Planet. They haven’t learned yet…” He stopped ranting and turned to face Cloud. “With her superior knowledge, power, and magic, mother was destined to be the leader of this Planet…” He turned again to the metal angel that covered his “mother”, moving across the machinery towards it as he continued to talk. “But they…those worthless creatures…they’re trying to take this Planet away from mother.” He reached the angel, reaching up to it, at first almost lovingly. “But don’t worry,” he said as he took hold of it, “Because I’m here now…everything will be as it should be.” With that, he wrenched the angel violently from side to side. Showers of sparks erupted from the machinery around it as Sephiroth tore the metal shroud off the tank and cast it aside. It hit the ground with a noisy clang, and Sephiroth was now staring at what Cloud thought was a pretty gruesome sight.
Inside the tank was Jenova, the life form from thousands of years ago. More than half of its body had been modified by science. Tubes extended from various points of its ancient body, which was now just a humanoid mass of blue muscle full of orbs and dials. On its head was a helmet of sorts, like a virtual reality device, with hundreds of wires leading to various plugs. As he beheld the monster, Cloud couldn’t figure out what it could possibly be used for, but that was the least of his worries. Right now, the young man’s anger was focused on the other monster in this scene.
“What about MY sadness?!” he exploded, Buster Sword trembling in hand with the rest of him as he glared up at Sephiroth, “What about my family, my friends…my hometown! It’s the same as your sadness!”
“Ha ha ha…” Sephiroth laughed softly as he turned to face the wild eyed SOLDIER, Masamune still in hand, and continued as though trying to understand a foolish statement, “My sadness…? What have I to feel sad about? I have been chosen to be the leader of this Planet! I’ll take it back from your kind, who have spoiled it for generations!”
“Sephiroth…” Cloud shook his head, having failed in diplomacy, “No…no way are you the Sephiroth I used to know!”
The general raised his long sword, coiled like a viper ready to strike at any minute. The blonde held his large sword out in front of him, ready to block any attack made by his superior. There was a wall of hesitation between them, and no one made a move until finally, after endless seconds, that wall came tumbling down…
“…And that’s the end of my story.”
Dumb silence.
“Wha…what?” Barret asked with a frown, “You mean, that’s it?”
“You can’t be done,” Aeris insisted, “What happened with Sephiroth?”
“I don’t remember,” Cloud said simply, “I really don’t. I know it’s crazy…I challenged Sephiroth, and lived.”
“Do you think you beat him, but were too messed up to remember?” Tifa offered.
Cloud shook his head and replied honestly, “In terms of skill, I couldn’t have killed him.” At the continued stares of disbelief, he went on. “Hey, guys, I got a lot of questions to answer, too. Why didn’t I die? What happened to Sephiroth after that?”
“Official news reports state that Sephiroth is dead,” Red XIII finally spoke up.
“Shinra, Inc. prints that paper,” Tifa reminded him, “So you can’t rely on that.”
“Man, don’t none of this make any sense!” Barret fumed, shaking his head violently as though trying to clear away mental cobwebs, “I’m going, going, gone! And y’all best come with me!” He shuffled over to the staircase, turning back to the group’s leader. “Yo, Cloud, you wanna get a move on? Shinra will be looking here pretty soon, and we don’t wanna get caught so soon, do we?”
“Yeah,” he agreed with a nod, “Let’s move out towards Junon.”
Barret descended the stairs in his loud way, and Aeris followed him down, stopping also to look at Cloud.
“I don’t really know what to say…” said what Shinra believed to be the last living Ancient, “Sephiroth, Jenova…the Ancients and myself…”
“Don’t say anything,” he said back to her, “You don’t have anything to do with him.”
Though it looked like she had trouble believing that, she nodded anyway and went downstairs. Tifa and Cloud walked down together.
“Cloud…” she said quietly as they went, “How bad was I…when Sephiroth cut me, I mean?”
“You…you were pretty bad,” he replied, for some reason in a less than sincere manner, “I thought you were a goner. I was really sad,” he added. She murmured a reply and they were gone, too.
Finally, Red XIII decided to stop lounging near the fireplace. He stretched gloriously and carried his bestial form towards the staircase. “What a fascinating story…” he muttered to no one in particular. The fiery animal had a lot of thoughts going through his mind, and they disturbed him somewhat. Something about Cloud’s story had seemed…what was the right word? Fabricated? No…but there was definitely something Cloud was keeping from the rest of the team…maybe from himself, too, Red realized.
But, it wasn’t really appropriate for him to judge other people like that, and especially not someone like Cloud, who had played an instrumental role in saving him from the Shinra. Still…he’d keep a close eye on the group’s leader for a while. Just in case.