CHAPTER V
FALL FROM GRACE
I used to believe that I was omnipotent.
Yeah, me, Cloud Strife omnipotent. I don't know exactly how that came to be, but I'm guessing it began shortly after Zack died. I blamed his death entirely on myself. I don't know why, but I did. In a way people can't help but feel that maybe there was something more they could've done, that perhaps they hadn't yet exhausted all the possibilities and if another attempt had been made it would've made a huge difference between life and death. The problem was that in some cases they just didn't make the effort.
I hated Shin Ra. I hated them so much that I would vent my frustrations in the only manner I knew how. Violence became a way of life for me. I killed for anything. For money, for food, for a place to sleep. But most importantly I'd try and pick a fight with any Shin Ra officer I'd be lucky enough to come by and imagine they had the same face as those bloody guards did that rainy night Zack died.
But it became too easy. Soon I forgot what I was fighting for. I forgot about Zack. I forgot about Shin Ra. All I knew was that I was the best. I became a cocky arrogant kid whom thought the world bowed itself at his feet. Now that I look back on everything, I sometimes begin to laugh at the irony.
I began to hate myself.
"Stop this!" Aeris pleaded, fearfully covering Cloud's body with her own. She had one arm wrapped protectively around his side, curling her fingers around the coarse material of his uniform as if for dear life. All the while Sephiroth watched on, his mouth twitching into an evil grin as he swung the masamune back and forth in a graceful arc extending just above the ground.
Her eyes followed the swords every move, the glint of metal that edged closer and closer towards them until it almost just grazed the hem of her dress. But then it stopped, dangling perilously in mid air as Sephiroth began laughing maniacally with delight; his silver hair dancing around him on a sudden breeze that created an almost halo-like effect.
Aeris backed closer against the marble wall keeping herself positioned between the weakened Cloud and the two utter strangers that stood before her. The expression on her face wild with alarm, she desperately scanned the area for any sign of help, of hope, anything that might indicate the planet would came to her aid as it had so many times before. She squeezed her eyes shut and tried to listen closely, listen for those voices, her mother's voice, the cetra's voice… anything that would signify the slightest bit of faith as the situation continued to weigh heavily upon her shoulders with dreaded consequence. Then all at once, as nothing but silence filled her ears, she knew they were going to die.
"Don't do this Sephiroth."
Her voice was soft. Not pleading anymore but soft, like the tone a mother would take with an angry child. But Sephiroth was no child. He eyed her with cold remorse a last word escaped her lips.
"Please."
His laughter stopped. Shaking his head, he took another step forward. For a moment, Aeris thought she caught a glimpse of sadness in his eyes; something which ignited a spark within this sadistic man; something which was ready to tear away the mask. But then it was gone, replaced instantly with fixed resolve as he shifted his hold on the masumane, gripped it with his other hand and then slowly raised it above his head.
But then I met Avalanche. Along with them I met a woman called Aeris Gainsborough who for some odd reason reminded me more of Zack than anyone I had ever met. Whether it was because they were involved in the past of not, I don't know. But what I did know was that she was special. Special in a way that she was different from the rest, that everything she did was always for the good of the planet.
For the good of something other than herself.
I saw her die the first time. I had her, and Zack, my best friend, literally die in my arms. I watched helplessly just like that useless bystander, the person who would stand there and do nothing but observe the death of his two friends even though a part of him cried out to help them. Then I swore to myself.
It would never happen again.
Just as Sephiroth brought down the sword Aeris felt her body being propelled towards the stone banister and her head came into contact with the hard marble floor. There was an ominous clang of metal against the ground followed by a terrible scream. She dared to look up. The shock on Clouds face was unmistakable. It was like some gruesome cross between horror and disbelief. The buster sword now hung loosely by his side.
On the floor sat Cloud, gasping for air while his hands groped at the blade of the sword embedded in his stomach, not caring as it's sharp edges cut into his skin. Rivulets of blood stream down his palms, staining his purple shirt with a dark crimson red. Aeris, unable to move or cry could only stare at him her body rendered in a temporary paralytic state. Somehow amidst his pain he managed a weak but definite smile.
"Hey." He rasped, still trying to free the blade from his body. He coughed a bit, spewing out droplets of blood as Sephiroth stepped away from the fallen man.
"This can't be happening." Cloud thought his head spinning wildly as an exact mirror image of himself lay crumpled on the floor, eyes half closed as he teetered on the edge separating life and death. "This can't be happening." He repeated, wanting so much to believe that it was an illusion that appeared before him and not the real physical self of a man who was about to die. Slowly he looked up at his master whose face was twisted in a merciless sneer, head thrown back in laughter.
"No." He whispered, tightening his grip on the buster sword. "No."
Then all at once, he cracked.
The link was broken.
"What the hell have you done?" He screamed suddenly, lunging forward in a blinding motion so fast that it caught the villain completely off guard. The sword neatly sliced through his side, leaving a long red gash where the black material had once been as Sephiroth doubled over in evident pain. Snarling, he knocked the sword out of Cloud's hands and flung him aside.
"Fool." He hissed, yanking the masumane from the unmoving body as he prepared to make a swift retreat.
But as he did Cloud found the strength to speak one last time. "I'll find you Sephiroth. Wherever you go I'll find you. I'll kill you." The voice was low and dangerous; his mako blue eyes glowing in hot anger as he wiped away a trickle of blood from the corner of his mouth. Sephiroth paid him no heed. With one agile leap he bounded across the stony pillars, shoving past a bewildered Tifa and disappearing into the shadows. Then with sudden finality the man with the black cape was gone.
Not one to be deterred, Cloud rose up with a grunt, his eyes wild with anger. His gaze flickered back to the dying body behind him and the anger intensified more so to alarming levels. Glancing back at Sephiroths path of retreat, he started forward, picking up speed as he went until he had just about reached Tifa and Cid.
"Cloud?" She whispered tentatively, laying a hand on his shoulder. He shrugged it off. "Cloud, listen to me." She pleaded, looking at Cid for support. "We have to-" But before she could say another word, he ran off despite her pleas, towards the back entrance and Tifa, helpless, could only run after him with Cid following close behind.
Aeris, finally able to move scampered over to Cloud as she brought up a trembling hand to cover his wound. She could feel the warm blood pulsate beneath her hand, but refused to acknowledge it. His skin had gone a deathly pale, gray almost as she watched his courageous attempt to cling onto any last strand of life that bordered the boundary between what remained of the material world and the life stream that lay beyond. She watched his struggled efforts wishing, knowing that in another time another place that would've been her. That it should've been her lying there, dying, dead for all she cared. But it wasn't. And in this one selfless act, this man willingly sacrificed his life so that she may live to see the future. The revelation proved to be more than she could bear. Unable to hold back the sobs, she leaned over and gently kissed him on the cheek. In a voice so soft it was barely audible, she whispered. "Goodbye Cloud." Then she stood up and ran away from the altar, her footsteps the only sound which echoed against the sacred glass walls.
Eventually, men will fall. They will fall to a power far greater than theirs.
I knew that someday I too would fall. I dare not say the word die; it sounds far too final. But then again, I never imagined that to embrace death would be so frightening. Not like this. Then why did I do it? Because it wasn't yet her time to fall. It never was. The blade was always meant for me.
I don't regret it. I never will. The moment I thrust myself beneath his sword I fulfilled my own destiny. For once Cloud Strife did something that actually made his life a part of a greater cause than himself.
His breathing slowed. His eyes closed. Then time seemed to stop.
Tifa didn't know when she had finally realized that Cloud was dead. Perhaps it was when for no reason at all she started screaming so hysterically that it took the strength of both Barret and Vincent just to restrain her from jumping off the twenty foot ledge. But her cries would not cease. They continued even when her eyes started brimming with tears and her body entirely shaken by the turn of events collapsed. She refused to look down at the altar, even if it meant never having a last look at Cloud's face before he was gone and buried. She knew that the moment she did she might as well have been dead herself. Finally, the shock subsided, and she could do nothing but stare blankly at the wall.
"Tifa," Barret tried, laying a hand on her shoulder. She shrugged it off.
"Go away Barret." She mumbled. "Just go away."
The massive man looked dejectedly at the ground but didn't raise any protest as he quietly made his way to his corner of the ledge. The others could only endure the silence in sorrow, few weeping for their lost friend as others expressed the loss in their own way. Cait Sith slowly, with much deliberation fished a green four leaf clover out of his pocket and held it up to eye level. He stared at it angrily for a while, then walked over to the tip of the ledge. He hesitated for a moment, but then viciously tossed it into the aqua blue waters below. For the first time in his life, the robotic cat named Cait Sith wished he could cry.
Aeris kept on running. Faster and faster, till her legs were almost ready to buckle beneath her weight. Up the shimmering blue crystalline staircase, higher and higher when finally she saw a glimmer of light from above. With sudden resolve, she stopped short of reaching her destination and looked down into the inky blackness below. A smile highlighted her features. Lifting her arms up, she closed her eyes. Then she jumped, plunging into the encasing darkness, into the abyss when suddenly something jerked her back to reality.
"Don't." She struggled against his grip, against the strong claws that firmly grasped her shoulders with increasing intensity. But they remained suspended in the empty void, both unsure as to how to respond to this sudden uncomfortable predicament. In an instant she knew who he was. Vincent and Aeris had never been very close. They spoke on occasion, but even then it was only over matters concerning the rest of the team, never dealing with personal issues of any kind. She stopped trying to unhinge his strong grasp and just simply let her body relax. Although she tried not to let it show, on the inside she was a mix of raw emotions.
"Please let me go."
Vincent; Chaos looked down at her fury no longer apparent in his demonic red eyes. Instead they enshrined a deep sadness, one which would not fade for a long time to come. When he didn't answer, she took the liberty of looking up at him her face questioning.
"Why won't you let me go?" She demanded.
Chaos beast shifted his gaze upwards, not daring to meet her stare. When he finally answered, his voice sounded surprisingly human.
"Why did you jump?"
"I didn't jump." She said lamely. "I fell. Besides, it isn't polite to answer questions with questions."
Chaos beast shook his head.
"I don't understand."
Her eyes flashed with indignation.
"You don't understand?" She yelled losing all self-control. "What the hell kind of person are you Vincent? Cloud's dead ok? He's dead!" The tears started flowing freely once again. "And he's never coming back."
She tried to lash out at him but to no avail. He simply avoided her every punch and kick with ease, waiting till the right moment to say what he had to say. He chose his words carefully; not wanting to upset her any further and give her that final incentive to go off the edge.
"That's not what I don't understand." He replied gently letting the poor girl cry it out. "What I don't understand is why you would want to make his sacrifice entirely in vain. Cloud did it so you could live. Would you do him any good, any honor by taking your own life right now?"
She didn't stop crying, but she seemed to have given up her struggle. Convinced that she was, for the while, sedated he flew up towards the staircase and just her down just outside the exit to the shell house. Then his body shuddered and went through the painful metamorphosis of transforming back into his human self.
As he was doing so, Aeris held herself with a strange calm, nothing like the frantic woman she was only moments ago. She looked deep in contemplation as Vincent took to notice, finally free of his beast-like form. He sighed and decided that she would be best left alone. But just as he began to descend down the staircase Aeris, much to his surprise called out "You're not the Vincent from my time are you?"
He shook his head. She deserved to know the truth. She nodded her head once then took another step towards the exit. "I see." After a moments pause she blurted out "Would you be willing to come with me? As much as I hate to admit, I can't succeed on this mission all by myself."
He stared at her. "You're kidding."
"No I'm not. For once more than ever I'm sure. Cloud told me that in the end, it wasn't Holy that saved the planet." Her voice softened. "It was the lifestream. I want revenge on Sephiroth. For everything he's done and everything he's going to do."
"This isn't like you Aeris." He answered firmly. "You're not thinking straight."
"Look, whether you choose to come with me or not, it's your choice. I'm only asking for your help. You have no obligation to accompany me."
Vincent quickly muddled through his options. He could either go and inform the team of Aeris' sudden decision to go fight Sephiroth alone and risk getting herself killed, with the possibility that she might not even be there when he got back, or he could do what he could to protect her… like Cloud would've done. Frozen with indecision, she took his silence as a refusal and advanced into the shell house.
"Aeris."
He fell into step with her. "Let's go."
"What do you mean they just left?!"
"Exactly what the word means you jackass! Took off, moseyed on, whatever you want to call it, they just bloody left!"
Yuffie cringed and tried to close off her ears to the ongoing argument between the former Avalanche leader and irritable old pilot. After the other group had disappeared, Red XIII came to realize that their stoic friend was missing and went to investigate. He returned a bewildered look adorning his face as he relayed the disturbing news to the rest of the team. They'd been too stunned following Cloud's death that they had completely overlooked the disappearance of both Aeris and Vincent nearly an hour ago. Now Yuffie found herself understandably worried.
Here they were, faced with the death of a dear friend whose body they had left on the altar, still hiding from the Avalanche in this present time and with the knowledge that two of their members had just decided to take off. At this rate Yuffie figured things couldn't possibly get any worst.
"So what do we do now?" Cid asked wearily, tired of all the yelling and screaming as he raked through his dusty blonde hair with one free hand. Yuffie noticed the lines of worry creased across his forehead, more prominent than ever before. Even Barret began to resemble an old man, his back hunched over with such a defeated posture that if she hadn't known better, she would've guessed they had already lost the battle.
"Only what we can do." Red quipped in, the only one who seemed to have had maintained a level head as the others had slowly allowed their frazzled nerves to overtake any sense of reason and order.
"Go after them and somehow stall the other group so that we can reach Vincent and Aeris before they do. They took off right after the other team left." Red narrowed his eyes. "And we were fools not to follow Cloud, but that couldn't be helped. We were only just able to determine that Aeris and Vincent have been long gone since the other groups departure. We shouldn't have spent precious time afterwards looking for them." He sighed. "Anyway, It's only logical to think that Aeris would know the entire story by now, so having her and Vincent run into the other Avalanche could result most drastically. They don't need to know anything else, and with Cloud's death it's more than enough to rouse some suspicion. We can also infer that, most likely, Aeris and Vincent have also gone after Sephiroth complicating things even more."
All of them nodded in agreement, knowing that like many times before, Red was probably correct.
But to their surprise Tifa suddenly rose from her position then turned to look at him.
"Always the sensible one aren't you Red?" She snapped, concentrating on his face with a furious glare. "Always seeing everything in black and white. Well then I've got news for you; this isn't exactly the perfect picture world you're so used to Red. Do you realize what this means?"
She spoke through clenched teeth, and she spoke with outright anger. "It's inevitable! Cloud is going to die. He may be alive in this time, but sooner or later he's going to die. And it's all because that bitch decided to go off praying for Holy when she clearly knew that that useless piece of materia would do nothing to help in aiding the planet. In fact, it had such an adverse effect I'm beginning to wonder whether her intentions were as good and true as she had us believe."
Several of them started at the accusation, but Tifa refused to stop.
"I hope you don't expect me to continue on this insane mission because honestly, I don't have any heart left. So if any of you have even the slightest bit of decency you'll allow me to walk away and never come back."
With that she turned and strode purposely out of the shell house.
Silence reigned.
"Damn." Cid cursed, lighting a cigarette.
Tifa exited the house. Looking around her, she caught sight of the pathway leading out of the City of the Ancients, and with no hesitation took the fork in the road.
Suddenly she whipped around and paused. She seemed to be listening intently to her surroundings, as though expecting to find something there. At last convinced that her mind must've been playing tricks on her, she continued down the stony gravel road, completely unaware of the pair of eyes watching her from the shadows.
"Bloody hell, I can't believe she did that!"
Cid glared at him. "Shut y'er yap." He hollered, dropping the cigarette to the ground and extinguishing the flame. "Tifa did what she thought was best. She'll come back to us in her own time."
"In the meanwhile what are we going to do?" Cait Sith asked, voicing the unspoken question. The other group is already about an hour ahead of us. I mean, this is US we're talking about. Knowing Cloud they're not going to be stopping for rest anytime soon."
"We go after them." Red stated, although a bit shaken up by Tifa's sudden departure. "There's really no other option. Unless we reach Vincent and Aeris before we do-"
"We've been through this before Red." Yuffie put in, clearly annoyed at the way the conversation was going. Despite her wounds she still managed to keep up a strong front, if not for herself then the sake of everyone else.
"At this rate, we're never going to catch up to them. So I say we start moving or risk falling a days behind everyone else. Catch my drift?"
There were a few sighs, but no complaints. "Lets go." Red said grimly, leading the way out of the house. One by one they followed until all that remained was Cait Sith and Yuffie who still hadn't moved out of their present positions.
"Come on," Caith Sith tried, bouncing up and down on his moogle enthusiastically. "Aren't you the least bit excited at the prospect of saving the planet all over again."
Yuffie rolled her eyes, but didn't comment. Cait Sith slowed down his bouncing and uncomfortably shifted his gaze. "It's never going to be the same, is it."
For some odd reason, the window seemed to beckon to her. She hobbled over to it and looked out at the familiar terrain. "No it's not."
"Yuffie, the team's waiting."
She bowed her head low. "Give me a minute."
Respecting her wishes, the big fat moogle was gone and she was left alone.
A week had past since they began the journey to the Icicle Lodge. The harsh climate and cold weather conditions hadn't improved any since the last time, and if he had known any better, it had only gotten worse. Fortunately most of the monsters adapted to this snowy region had decided to stay in, only wandering out when they were absolutely famished and therefore, they rarely encountered anything that wasn't human.
Most of the trip was also spent arguing, mainly over in which direction they were going or whether they were heading the right way. No one really had a clear picture of the path they had taken before, so at times they found themselves completely lost while at others they cheered after coming upon a familiar landmark in hopes that they would reach their destination before sunset.
Lack of good weapons and materia had also rendered them considerably weak, which was seen as a major set back in Red's eyes. According to what had happened in the past, they had a good chance of running into the Turks. At their present state he doubted they could win a full-out battle which would further inhibit their ability to overtake the present time Avalanche and prevent imminent disaster. Right now, though, he was more worried about the rest of his teammates than anything else.
Yuffie had been unusually quiet during the entire time, not exactly bringing out the best of her obnoxious personality whilst everyone else seemed to be trying to put Cloud's death behind them and concentrate on the task at hand. But he could still smell their fear. Fear of being the next to die, fear of whether without Cloud they would have the strength to make it through to the very end. He wanted to push aside their doubts and in one endearing monologue make everything seem alright, but he knew he couldn't. Their confidence had been shattered, and he began to wonder whether anything would be able to put the pieces back together again.
Finally an end seemed in sight as they rounded the bend and the twinkling lights of the Icicle lodge came into view. It was nearing midnight and the team, far too tired to simply yell for joy picked up the pace as the vibrant little village began to dim the lights in preparation for the night.
But before they could advance any further, a voice called out to them.
"So we meet again."
Red instinctively froze on the spot. Turning around and much to his horror, his worst fears were confirmed.
Standing not more than five feet away was Elena. Her blond hair was swept meticulously to one side of her head and hazel brown eyes were narrowed in concentration. She wore a polished blue suit and was flanked on both sides by guards armed with rifles as she daringly stepped forward closing the distance between them.
"You killed Tseng." Her face lighted up with a smile.
"And now it's my turn to kill you."
The future Cloud has been killed. The past Cloud has run off, and all the past members have followed him. Aeris and the future Vincent have set out after Sephiroth on their own. The future Tifa has left the group. The rest of the future team in now in Icicle Inn confronting Elena. Hopefully, this will clear up any confusion.