fic: eir's tomorrow (ff7) - ch.8

[jukeboxhound_backup]

Slightly revised version.  Short explanation here.

Eir's Tomorrow
Chapter 8

Author: jukeboxhound 
Co-conspirator/beta: artimusdin 

FF7 || R || Sephiroth/Cloud || chapter: 11,700 words
The Planet isn't willing to let death take away its greatest weapon. If Cloud can't save the past, then he'll be damned to watch history repeat itself.

8.

When Cloud woke up, he was on the floor of the barracks tangled in his blanket and the limbs of several other cadets, panting as though he'd come out of a battle. Hanging over the room was the kind of ringing silence that follows loud noise. One of his hands stung as though he'd slapped the palm down on a hard surface.

"Shit, you're stronger than you look," muttered one of his squadmates, breaking the odd spell. Cloud felt a flush of humiliation start on his neck and spread up to his face as three boys released his arms and legs. Elena leaned over from his bunk.

"Told you," she said to them cheekily.

"…What happened?"

"Another night-terror. Not as bad as the first one, mind, but damn, Cloud."

His flush, if possible, deepened. He managed to get to his feet, despite the one kid (Smith? Small?) who, despite his brawny bulk, appeared too scared to let go of Cloud's left leg. "Sorry. Um. Thanks, but why...?"

"Why didn't we call the doctors this time?" someone asked.

"Well, yeah." Doctor Libra wasn't standing over him with a frown under his tired eyes.

The eight other cadets shifted uncomfortably. Elena, the only girl, watched them for a moment before sighing loudly. "Because you did what we've all wanted to do but were too afraid to."

"…Which was?"

"Man, you totally gave Tokka a heart attack," one of the cadets burst out with no small amount of glee.

"That asshole!"

"Fucker deserved it."

"Too bad you got in trouble for telling the truth, though."

Taking pity from Cloud's nonplussed expression, Elena chimed in with, "The guys realized that you're not always an antisocial ass, so if you're already going for check-ups twice a month and the higher-ups haven't kicked you out yet, well, they can be cool too."

A few of the guys were glaring at her for opening her mouth. She ignored them easily.

"I…thank you," he finally managed through the blush he knew was raging on his face. Okay, the nightmares were really kind of hard to miss, but did Elena tell everyone about his required health exams?

"Why do you have such bad nightmares, anyway?" asked the one boy, Small, who physically was anything but. When Cloud glanced at Elena, she pointedly leaned back on his bunk and said nothing, letting him talk his way out of this one on his own.

"I don't know," he said.

"Then why does it sound like you're getting your ass kicked seven ways to hell?" another pointed out doggedly.

"You're such a nosy bitch, Lee."

"Fuck you too, asshole!"

"Fuck your mom!"

"Fuck your face!"

"Man, you're such a fag."

Cloud rolled his eyes at this stunning display of maturity as he got to his feet, absently checking to make sure his boxers hadn't fallen off in the ruckus. When he happened to catch Elena looking him up and down and he raised a brow, she flushed, but instead of looking away she mouthed, I can still look, can't I?

He just shook his head.

"All right, kiddies, shut the fuck up before you keep us all awake until reveille," one of the older cadets grumbled, "you can all circle-jerk later. Strife, try to keep the screaming to a dull roar when we have early-morning Tokka torture."

It sounded enough like something Cid would say that Cloud smirked and said, "Next time I've got nightmares I'll make sure to crawl into bed with you."

There was scattered laughter and some more ribbing as everyone made their way back to bed. Someone commented about needing to report to maintenance, the lights had been flickering oddly. Elena didn't try to worm her way under the blankets with Cloud, but as she went back to her own bunk she wolf-whistled quietly. He snorted.

It wasn't until the room was once more filled with quiet snores and slow breathing that Cloud was able to let out a long breath. He stared at the darkness behind his eyelids and wondered what the hell that dream had been about. He'd thought it was a mangled flashback, some lingering trauma, but then Sephiroth had appeared, as well the man he recognized from promotional posters as General Rhapsodos. Official ShinRa policy claimed that Genesis and his men were on a prolonged mission in Wutai to suppress the remaining insurgency groups, but Elena whispered that, according to underground rumor, he'd actually defected, and that Angeal had gone to join him.

And now Cloud was due to go look for them both in a week's time. With Zack.

With Zack.

Don't chicken out, he told himself sternly, absently resting a hand over his sternum where the Masamune scar had once been. Lying on his back, he closed his eyes and took several long, slow breaths. In the darkness behind his eyelids he could trace the flickering contours of the pyres rising from the Midgar plains, the warped and mutated Plague-animated corpses, and the small smile on Genesis' face as his fingers crushed Cloud's heart.

His thoughts wandered to his mum's stories. Is this how those men felt when challenged by the gods to something impossible?

The gods were bloody lazy, he mentally snorted, if they had mortals running around doing their errands all the time.

That's right, Planet, I'm looking at you.

He could swear he felt a grumpy rumbling in return.

…

Elena was confused.

It wasn't an emotion she was used to. Anger, sure, and bubbly cheerfulness, and maybe sometimes she could admit to being embarrassed when her mouth opened without thinking. But if she was ever confused or, gods forbid, insecure, then it was just her teenage hormones talking. It wasn't like she was jealous of her smart, successful Turk of an older sister, and she most certainly did not resent the fact that their father had obviously favored said older sister.

ShinRa provided a free education to its military recruits, and with her sister's occupation and her father being an instructor in the ShinRa Military Academy, it was somewhat of a given that Elena would transfer in from a regular high school. After all, she figured, if she was going to be a Turk, then she could never start training for it too early.

But then she met Cloud, and suddenly things she'd taken for granted were being cast in a whole new light.

He was relatively cute, in a kind of serious, country boy way. Of course, there were more attractive guys in the ranks, and even more serious and smarter ones, so if she were just looking for a puzzle there were other candidates to choose from. But there was something there behind those glowing eyes and fucked-up hair that made her want to take him apart and figure out how his head worked.

And yeah, it was kind of nice to know that chivalry wasn't entirely dead when he helped her out with those pushy asshole guys and didn't ask for anything in return. Way to be a teen romance flick, even if there hadn't actually been any romance.

When he woke up screaming the following night, she'd nearly panicked, and ever since, when he got especially quiet, she'd wondered, What the hell goes on in your head?

She wasn't sure what to think of the story he told the doctor about having fallen in mako. It explained the glow in his eyes – hell, it probably explained a lot about him in general, though she didn't understand enough about mako to know how – but either way, Elena didn't think Cloud was telling the whole story. She'd wanted to throttle the doctor when he hadn't pressed harder for more information.

She also wasn't sure when it was that she realized that she was, uh, a little attracted to him, but hey, here in the ShinRa grunt machine she could've done a lot worse. At least Cloud treated her as an equal, hardly seemed to even notice she was female, and never told her to shut up even when she'd been going on for a while. Those trousers and button-down shirt she'd convinced him to wear that one time had been the icing on a rather tasty-looking cake, so could she be blamed for the whole alcohol thing, really?

And it wasn't like she regretted it. After all, even with both of them totally fucked up, she could tell that Cloud was no blushing virgin and had definitely known what he was doing, particularly compared to other teenage guys. But she wasn't sure if that made it better or worse. Was she just another notch on his belt? Why did she even care about all this?

And so, hurt and bewildered and angry because of it, Elena did some tactful maneuvering. It wasn't avoidance. Really. Anyone who thought she was 'avoiding' him could go fuck himself.

Then Cloud went and yelled back at their asshole sergeant and tried to sneak out later and, and…

Cloud wasn't who she thought he was.

The thought was – well, she didn't know what to think about that. That the short, thin boy who looked younger than his alleged sixteen years of age was actually infiltrating ShinRa's ranks. Sure, he wasn't the type to go out of his way to make friends, and she couldn't remember him studying more than a chapter or so in a textbook despite doing so well in all their academic classes, and maybe he did spend a lot of time in the gym running through endless exercises and kata, but Elena had just told herself that he was a driven person. Not so surprising, given he was a country boy in the big city; he'd get eaten alive otherwise.

But he wasn't who she thought he was.

And that hurt.

When he had another night of screaming, Elena thought her heart was going to explode out of her chest. At first she tried to wake him, but as she leaned in close his open hand caught her across the face in a slap that had all the force of a sucker-punch. Reeling, stunned, Elena staggered back from his bunk with her own hand held over her cheek, and watched as three of their squadmates managed to wrestle him to the ground while the overhead lights flickered erratically. He woke up panting, face pale and sweaty and eyes slightly wild, and Elena had slipped onto his bunk before anyone could see the bruise no doubt forming on her face. She made certain to keep that cheek casually facing away from him. She kept up the lightheartedness until everything calmed again and most of the others had fallen back to sleep before slipping away to the bathroom.

(No one, not even Elena, had noticed that the lights stilled after the commotion died down.)

In the harsh light over the sinks, the bruise looked horrid. It was already shadowed and by morning it would be purple, she was sure – he really was stronger than he looked.

Just better all around, she thought morosely, bracing her hands on the sink and leaning forward to stare at her reflection. After all, he's going on a mission in a week with Zack Fair and a fucking Turk.

And where was little Elena? In a bathroom by herself in the middle of the night, gingerly putting a paper towel soaked with cold water against the aching bruise on her face. Not in the gym, striving to increase her strength or stamina. Not dazzling the instructors with her quiet, reasonable answers in class. Not preparing for a high-profile mission. Not breaking through security to dig up dirt on the world's most dangerous and powerful corporation.

("I'm gonna be a Turk," she declared fiercely, "a better one than my sister.")

"When did I forget that this wasn't just another fucking high school?" she muttered at her reflection. When had she forgotten her ambition?

When you thought putting on a uniform would be enough and you went right back to being a little girl, part of her replied snidely. At the rate she was going, she was just going to get funneled into the main army and be missed by the Turks entirely, and she wouldn't be able to blame someone else this time. She needed to follow Cloud's example and stop dicking around like a stupid kid.

But how do I get noticed?

The bruise on her cheek was aching something fierce, making smiling and talking rather painful. She poked at it cautiously and immediately winced. She was crumpling another paper towel and wetting it when a sudden thought slowed her angry, jerky movements.

Get noticed by acting like a Turk.

Her first task? Finding out who Cloud really was, and what he was doing there, and what she could do to make herself invaluable.

…

The week passed in a whirlwind, leaving Cloud standing in front of Commander Gysahl's office wondering where all the time had gone. Shaking his head, he knocked and entered.

Gysahl himself was, as usual, sitting behind the large desk. A tall, thin blond man that Cloud didn't recognize straightened from where he'd been leaning a hip against the furniture and held out a gloved hand.

"Hello, Private Strife. My name is Director Lazard. Sephiroth was going to see you and Zack off, but I'm afraid that something urgent came up and so you'll have to make do with me."

"Um, thank you, sir," Cloud managed as the surreal feeling of the morning only worsened. He shook the man's hand, silently impressed by the strength of the grip.

"No need to worry, Strife, everything's fine," Lazard smiled. "I know Commander Gysahl has explained to you how unusual it is for a trooper to accompany a SOLDIER on this kind of mission, and I merely wanted to meet the young man that has all the instructors in an uproar."

"I promise, sir, none of it's true."

Lazard laughed aloud. It was a pleasant sound, low and relaxed and a little tired as though they were old friends sharing a joke after a long day at work. "Oh good, I was worried there for a bit that ShinRa was going to meet its end in you!"

A muscle in Cloud's back twitched.

"I need to be going, but Strife, it was lovely to meet you," said the director. "Commander Gysahl will brief you on everything you need to know. And don't worry, Zack will take care of you, he's as good a man as he is a SOLDIER."

I know. "Thank you, sir."

Lazard left with a small smile and slight bow, and Cloud spent the next half hour listening closely as Gysahl gave details to the general outline he had given the boy a few days before. It appeared that this was essentially a recon mission to find clues on Genesis' whereabouts and activities rather than a direct confrontation of any kind. The reason for the relative secrecy was mostly due to the missing general's high profile and notoriety. By the time Gysahl dismissed him to get suited up, visit the armory, and go to the transport, Cloud was experiencing a strange mix of anticipation and anxiety.

Anticipation, because gods damn it this was his first mission of any kind in over fourteen years, and he'd sorely missed the constant movement and battle.

Anxiety, because both Zack and Tseng were going to be with him.

As he sat in the helicopter waiting for Zack and Tseng, he played with his helmet. The urge to put it on was disturbingly strong, to hide, to go away, to say screw this and let the Planet deal with it. Except he knew firsthand that the Planet's way of dealing with threats was to obliterate everything, and if he was really planning to run then he might as well just kill himself now.

There you go again, Strife, being all melodramatic. If you're not careful you'll make Vincent jealous.

"I hear you're going out with Zack and Tseng," the pilot yelled from the cockpit over the loud whirling of the copter's blades. He was grinning under his goggles, and when Cloud nodded he continued, "Don't worry, kid! Zack won't let Tseng leave you behind!"

"I don't know, sir, Tseng is a Turk!" he called back loudly. The man chuckled.

"This your first mission? It is? Bah, you'll do great, kid, just remember to keep your head down, your eyes open, and your weapon at hand. Everyone starts at the bottom, remember!"

"Yes, sir!"

The pilot was about to reply when they both noticed a SOLDIER and a Turk heading towards them. The sight of Zack with the distinctive outline of a sword over his shoulder made Cloud's heart start pounding.

("Everything will be okay, kid. Just stick with me. Everything will be all right."

Cloud couldn't respond, so he stared up at the narrow hilt protruding over Zack's stooped shoulders and wrapped the words around his broken mind.)

"I will be piloting," Tseng called out in greeting. The pilot shrugged and gave Cloud a conspiratorial wink before jumping out of the copter, handing over the cockpit without argument. Tseng gave Cloud a brief, disinterested once-over before taking the controls.

Zack, on the other hand, waved to the departing pilot before leaping easily into the copter and turning to the trooper. "So, who's the lucky guy they stuck us with – hey, I know you!"

"…You do?"

"Yeah, you were the cadet that was screaming his head off – "

Zack was cut off by the lurching of the aircraft and, having been standing, was sent face-first against the metal wall with a yelp.

"Tseng, you asshole, you did that on purpose!"

Cloud blinked slowly.

This is going to be…different.

Fortunately for Zack's dignity Tseng didn't attempt anything while flying thousands of feet above the ground, and so the SOLDIER took the chance to ramble at the top of his voice. Cloud listened with a small half-smile at topics that ranged from the weird jungle monster called a Touch-Me to just how awesome Angeal was at practically every time of day; he wasn't smiling because he was actually interested in these things, but because Zack was so animated as he spoke, using both hands and sometimes entire limbs to illustrate a point. The SOLDIER was more ebullient than Cloud remembered, almost childlike, but he reasoned that the discrepancy was simply the fault of his own admittedly spotty memory.

The moment they touched down in Banora Zack was leaping out the helicopter and practically kissing the earth.

"Oh thank gods, I think Tseng has it out for me!" he bemoaned to the world at large. His voice was slightly raspy from having talked non-stop.

"If I did, you wouldn't have enough time to complain about it," the Turk replied dryly. Cloud had to hide a smile when Zack blanched and took the chance to look around.

It was the kind of landscape that could only be described as 'pastoral'. Rolling green fields under a blue sky were broken up by the occasional small farmhouse or orchard, and the warm air was touched with a pleasantly cool breeze and the smells of hay and ripening fruit. Apples, if Cloud guessed correctly, with a hint of peaches or apricots.

"So this is Angeal's home, huh?" Zack observed, turning in a circle to get the full effect. "This explains the paisley apron in his kitchen."

Cloud grinned.

Tseng was already walking up a path shaded by the curved trunks of white trees that reminded the trooper uncomfortably of the forest near the Forgotten Capital. But in the clear sunlight they simply shone a brilliant marble-white, lacking the surreal glow that turned the Forest of the Ancients into an eternal twilight, and he was able to relax again.

"Weird trees," Zack commented, pausing to peer closely at the hard pale bark.

"White Banora," Tseng called back over his shoulder. "You probably know them as dumbapples."

"Seriously? Man, awesome! Wait, Genesis is from Banora too? Since when?"

"Genesis and Angeal are childhood friends."

"Hey, Angeal never told me that. How do you know? Do you have some kind of Turk mind-reading thing going on? I bet you do. You assholes always seem to know the things no one wants anyone else to know about."

It wasn't until now, being in the man's company again and hearing him tease, that Cloud realized just how sorely he really had missed Zack. Unfortunately he didn't have much time to bask in the other's company; Tseng was forced to leap back a few steps as several monsters dropped down from the trees and brandished their weapons.

"Oh hey, company! Dibs!"

And Zack slaughtered the monsters without Tseng or Cloud having to lift a finger. He posed and flashed them a heroic grin.

…No, not monsters, Cloud was realizing as he crouched over the bodies. Humans, or at least humanoid, dressed in strange red armor and wielding sickles. No one tried to stop him as he pulled the helmet from one of them, though Zack said incredulously, "Hey now, Cloud, what're you doing?"

Fully human face, as well, and damn him if it didn't look exactly like Genesis Rhapsodos. There was something…wrong with the body that he couldn't quite put his finger on, but it reminded him vaguely of the mental buzzing he'd gotten whenever he was around a Sephiroth clone. He couldn't hear the cacophony of ragemadnessvengeance that had always been Jenova's trademark, but the sensation was making his skin crawl and his body tense for battle all the same.

"A Genesis copy!"

Tseng looked at Zack sharply. "Where did you hear that?"

"Sephiroth," came the absent reply as he knelt down beside the other body and took off its helmet. It also mirrored Genesis. "How…?"

"Some technology was stolen from ShinRa," said the Turk, a little reluctantly.

"You mean ShinRa can clone people?" When Tseng just arched a brow, Zack threw his hands in the air with, "Ugh, that is so creepy!"

Among other things, Cloud mused darkly, but he didn't say anything. Instead he stood and removed his rifle from his shoulder, grasping it in a ready position. (Oh, what he would give to have Tsurugi or even Ultima back in his hands, particularly with the way he could feel his pupils contracting into pinpricks, and without the pollution of Midgar, the Planet's presence was looming like a shadow behind his shoulder.) "Ready?"

He got a strange look from Zack, but then the SOLDIER cried, "Yeah, yeah, ready. Let's go!"

Several clones later and a huge robotic spider thing that made Zack conclude ShinRa personnel were utterly blind if someone had stolen it without being caught, he and Cloud were walking into Banora village. Tseng remained behind to examine the odd grave beside the fair-sized manor, which Zack thought was even creepier and seriously, maybe one had to have a certain creepiness factor to make it into the Turks. Tseng had his unblinking Stare o' Doom, and Rude was a walking statue, and even Reno – who played a mean game of poker, it should be said, and once brought Zack back an awesome titty-mag from some random place – gave off the creepy-vibes that made other sleazy characters give him a wide berth below the Plate.

Then again, Cissnei wasn't so bad, although it was hard to believe someone who still giggled behind her hand was, technically, an assassin. And she seemed to agree far too easily with Angeal on certain things.

"'Puppy', my ass," he grumbled under his breath.

"Did you say something, Zack?"

Shaking himself back to the present, he said, "So, is it weird to be away from the whole city thing and plopped down in the country?"

The trooper gave him a small smile. "No. Banora isn't that different from where I'm from, only there're more fields and much, much less snow."

"A country boy, eh? Where from?"

"Nibelheim. It's on the west continent. What about you?"

"Gongaga…hey, don't you snicker like that, or if you're not careful a Touch-Me will somehow, mysteriously crawl into your tent at night!"

"More action than you might otherwise get, with so few people around," Cloud replied, his tone serious but his eyes a bright, teasing blue, and Zack couldn't help but laugh.

"You know what they say about villages in the middle of nowhere – "

"There's a reactor in it!" they said simultaneously, and Zack knew he was grinning rather goofily as he slung an arm around Cloud's shoulders and turned to look back up the path they'd taken. "Yo, Tseng, you better be careful or us country boys are gonna take over your stinky city!"

There was no reply, but neither had expected one. Feeling like he'd just won major points in making Cloud a little less stoic than Sephiroth, he kept his arm on the boy's shoulders as he sauntered into the town. Upon approaching the first house, however, Cloud frowned and pulled away to inspect something green and glowing.

"What'd you find, kiddo?"

"A mako spring." The frown was now pulling pale eyebrows into what looked like a well-practiced expression of worry.

"Eh?" Zack left off peering nosily through the darkened windows to look over towards Cloud. "Is that what a mako spring is? How'd you know?"

"We discussed it in our materia class," came the easy reply. "But springs usually only happen where there's essentially zero human interference. For one to come up in the middle of a village means that either some really powerful magic was used, or…"

"Or what?" Zack prompted him as the trooper trailed off. After a moment of quiet, Cloud blinked and shook his head.

"I don't know, just…it'd have to be something pretty drastic, right?"

Honestly, Zack had no idea. He was more the action type of guy rather than the bookworm kind, so as long as he knew that mako made him awesome in battle, he didn't need to know the particulars. But he certainly wasn't stupid or unobservant, and what Cloud said made sense.

"Yeah," he agreed, some of his good humor slipping away as he scanned the tiny village with slightly narrowed eyes. The sudden retort of a ShinRa rifle had him whirling around, sword raised and ready for some smiting, but he had to bring himself up so short that he nearly fell over. Cloud was standing calmly over the corpse of a canine monster that had tried to sneak up on what is thought was the weaker of the two humans. A Blood Taste, he identified automatically.

"Shit, Cloud, you all right?"

"Yeah, I'm fine." Keeping his hand on the trigger of the rifle, Cloud smiled at him. "Did Tseng tell you which house Angeal used to live in?"

"Uh, no. No, he didn't."

"Do you want to start at opposite ends of the village and meet in the middle, then? The faster we secure the area, the faster we can move on."

Zack wanted to protest, wanted to say You're just a trooper and there're monsters everywhere, you should stick with me – but Cloud had just killed one and really, the monsters they'd seen so far didn't seem that dangerous. And damn it, he wanted to find Angeal.

"Yeah, okay, that sounds good. Just – just be careful, okay? If you get ambushed by something you don't think you can handle, don't hesitate to scream for me."

Cloud just gave him another one of those small smiles and moved away to the first house on the right. Zack shook his head and started with the houses on the left.

As luck would have it, Zack was the one to find the first sign of human inhabitants. It was an older woman seated at the kitchen table, face roughened with the stress of a hardworking life and dressed in a patched but clean white peasant's smock. Given how worn she appeared to be, he couldn't tell how old she actually was.

"May I help you?" she asked kindly, making Zack feel like a bit of an ass for just walking into her home without knocking. It wasn't like he expected to actually find anyone!

"Er, sorry, ma'am, but are you Angeal's mom? I'm Zack, and I'm kinda looking for him…"

Her face crinkled into a smile. He wondered why he seemed to be getting so many smiles today. "Are you Zack the puppy?"

"What?" he yelped, and she laughed behind a callused hand.

"My son told me about you in his letters. Just like a puppy, he said, so much enthusiasm and no attention span whatsoever."

"Oi!"

He was aware of Cloud silently slipping into the room and standing beside the door, no doubt alerted by Zack's indignant outburst, but the trooper didn't interfere.

Angeal's mother glanced over Zack's shoulder briefly. "You aren't friends of Genesis, are you?"

"No ma'am, not at all. I'm just here to find out what happened to Angeal and if he's all right, I promise."

"Has something happened to him, then?"

The note of resigned sorrow in her voice was like a string, tugging Zack forward a step before he could stop himself. "I don't know. I hope not, but…"

"A month or two ago, Genesis came back with some soldiers under his command," she said abruptly, looking down at the table where her hands were folded together. "He started killing the other villagers. I believe he only spared me because I'm the mother of his best friend. He used to be such a good boy…"

Mrs Hewley's words left a bitter taste in Zack's mouth. The thought of a man returning to the village of his birth and slaughtering the people sickened him. It was nothing that someone with any honor – hell, someone with humanity –would do. Zack had never known him that well, but if this was what the SOLDIER general was capable of, how could he have been Angeal's closest friend?

"What about Angeal?"

"He came back for a while," she said after a long pause, "and he left his sword here. That sword…I had it made for him when he became a SOLDIER. It was meant to defend our family's honor."

He drags it around with him into battle without ever even using it…and he leaves it behind now?

Shit.

"I'll find Angeal," he said with sudden fervor. "In the meantime it'd probably be best if you went into hiding."

"Genesis won't kill me." Mrs Hewley's voice was quiet and firm; Zack wondered if it'd be rude to ask why she seemed so sure of that when Genesis had apparently been able to kill all the other villagers. But then he felt Cloud's hand squeeze his shoulder as the trooper went to Mrs Hewley's side and got down on one knee.

"I've never met Angeal, but Zack told me that he's an honorable warrior. Is that true?"

"Yes," she murmured.

"Then Angeal still has a chance to come back. Genesis is probably using their old friendship to manipulate and use him. But if that sword means what you say it does, then on some level he already understands the hypocrisy of his actions." For a moment Cloud's words seemed to freeze, but the moment passed and he tossed a wryly amused look to Zack. "He just needs the puppy to beat some sense into his thick skull."

Zack contemplated the appeal of sitting on Cloud and knuckling that chocobo head until the blond begged for mercy.

Turning back, Cloud continued seriously, "But if Genesis thinks Angeal betrayed him, then he'll probably go to whatever means necessary to get revenge. Including killing you."

Mrs Hewley didn't reply.

"If you come back with us, Midgar can protect you." Zack blinked and wondered why Cloud didn't say 'ShinRa'. "Otherwise you'll just become a liability to your son."

"Hey now, Cloud, wait a minute, that's not fair – " Zack started, but Mrs Hewley interrupted him.

"My son is a general. I know too much about ShinRa. Sooner or later I'll die, be it by Genesis' hand or by the Turks. At least I'm one of the few people who ever cared about Genesis for himself."

Zack couldn't see Cloud's expression, so he could only guess what it looked like from the flat tone of his voice. "I understand."

Outside the cottage, Zack stopped with his head bowed under the weight of the sunlight. Cloud paused a few paces behind him, almost tangibly tense, as though expecting the SOLDIER to turn on him with his blade. The thought made him snort with tarnished laughter.

"…Zack?"

I wonder how this kid would get along with the old Angeal. But I think he's sincere. He doesn't seem like the kind of guy to be a snitch to the Turks or Genesis or someone.

"Sorry, kiddo, just thinking," he said with a grin over his shoulder. Cloud just nodded silently. Immediately the SOLDIER felt like a bit of a bully when he noticed the younger boy's unease, but the ringing of his PHS interrupted the moment.

"Zack Fair, extraordinaire."

"I've found what looks to be the base for the Genesis copies," Tseng's voice crackled at him. "I want you and Strife to meet me at the manor."

"Aye-aye, cap'n, over and out." He snapped the PHS shut and gave Cloud what he hoped was a friendly, reassuring grin that didn't betray any of his own insecurities. "Tseng thinks he found the HQ for Genesis' creepy buddies and wants us to rendezvous. I don't think there's anything else we can do here."

Cloud nodded again, and the two crossed back through the village towards the small white manor at the crest of the hill. Zack easily dispatched several red-draped clones, aided by Cloud's rifle, but along the way he couldn't help worrying over Angeal and the Buster sword and Mrs Hewley. The distraction that Tseng provided was almost welcome, despite the Turks' creepiness.

"The grave belonged to Genesis' parents. He seems to have killed them."

…Maybe 'fucked up' was a better description of the Turk.

"What? How could he do that? Why?" Zack yelled in horror. Tseng didn't even seem to blink.

"It appears that they were no longer useful to him."

Cloud's leather glove audibly creaked as his hand tightened around his rifle.

"Did you find Angeal?" Tseng asked dispassionately.

"No, but hey, just give me a bit more time! Angeal ain't stupid, you know, just let me talk to him and he'll come around. He wouldn't abandon anyone he cares about."

Tseng was giving him a careful, weighing look that made Zack feel like he was being put through one of Hojo's x-ray machine things. "What?"

"I can see why Sephiroth chose to send you on this mission," the Turk said quietly.

"Me?"

"The three generals are also close friends. I imagine he didn't want to face the possibility of having to kill them in battle."

(Cloud made a soft noise that could have been anything from a sigh to a quiet sneeze. He went ignored.)

"Whoa, hey, no killing's gonna be happening here!" The thought that ShinRa would even consider executing one or two of its best SOLDIERs was just…it wasn't possible. Okay, maybe Genesis hadn't gone MIA so much as he had a mental breakdown and taken a squadron with him for the ride, but it wasn't like he'd declared war on ShinRa or anything. And Angeal – the guy wasn't like that. Betrayal wouldn't be able to break his adamantine wall of honor with all the Summons and Mastered materia on the whole damn Planet.

If he'd left behind his beloved sword, it was for a damn good reason.

Fortunately Tseng didn't seem willing to argue the matter, and led the two along a dirt path that wound towards a second, smaller valley in the hills a little ways from Banora village. Crouched in the dip of the valley like an ugly, rust-colored spider was what looked like an abandoned warehouse complex.

"What a dump," Zack muttered, hunkered down between Tseng and Cloud on a rise overlooking the area.

"This place was once a research outpost. It was abandoned when the Science Department moved the employees here to another facility."

"Which is how Genesis finds the resources to produce his clones," Cloud said, so quietly that the wind nearly stole his words away.

"Indeed." Tseng canted an inscrutable glance over Zack's back to the trooper. "I trust you understand that if it hadn't been for Sephiroth's express orders, you wouldn't be present on such a potentially sensitive mission."

That made Zack blink in surprise, but Cloud didn't even twitch or look away from the complex below them. "Of course, sir."

Wait, what? What else is going on that no one's telling me about?

Infiltrating the main warehouse was ridiculously easy. Zack and Cloud covered Tseng while the Turk slipped past several clones and a few monsters, presumably to whatever information center was in the heart of the building. Zack didn't hesitate to take out his confusion and frustration on the enemies, and was pleasantly surprised to find that, while not actually necessary, Cloud was able to fight alongside him as though they'd been fighting together for years. It brought back a portion of his usual good cheer, along with the bittersweet nostalgia of how he and Angeal had been so seamless.

"I don't remember ShinRa teaching the cadets how to use blades," he commented after the last enemy had fallen to the swing of a sickle Cloud stole from one of the bodies.

"It doesn't, but my mum insisted. She said it was a family tradition."

"And here I thought stringing popcorn on thread for the holidays was more typical," Zack laughed, and got yet another little smile. Man, he was on a roll today.

They caught up to Tseng in an old study, where he was leaning over a desk and no doubt hacking into an unsuspecting computer. After the easy thrill of fighting clones, the sudden stillness was rather anticlimactic.

"Anything interesting?"

Tseng didn't reply, so Zack rolled his eyes and meandered towards the bookshelves with a disinterested eye. He was startled when Cloud, wearing an oddly intense expression, suddenly said, "I'm going to go back and make sure we weren't followed by any clones."

"Wait, Cloud, is that really a good idea – ?"

But the boy was already slipping out of the doorway they had just entered, back to the main warehouse of the complex. Huffing to himself, Zack let him go, figuring that they had just secured the area and so it wasn't likely that Cloud would get ambushed.

"He's not used to working in a unit," Tseng observed casually, still scrolling through whatever it was he'd pulled up on the computer screen.

"Hey, he's got time to learn," Zack protested. He was already wandering away from Tseng and into the next room, hoping to find something interesting. Maybe Genesis' childhood journal. Dear Diary, Someone made fun of my totally girly hair, so I kicked his ass and slaughtered his family…

"'Infinite in mystery is the gift of the goddess,'" a voice interrupted, making Zack whirl around with a hand on his weapon's hilt, "'we seek it thus, and take to the sky; ripples form on the water's surface; the wandering soul knows no rest.' You're quite the noisy one, Zack the puppy."

He thought his heart had frozen.

Genesis was pacing like a lazy tiger at the far end of the room, giving Zack the characteristic smirk that claimed he was laughing at the rest of the petty little world. The enormous window behind him cast stark lines over his features, and the large black wing added a certain level of what-the-fuck as well.

"Genesis," Zack breathed in shock. He was barely aware of Tseng entering the room behind him.

"It would appear that anyone sent to investigate has been killed," he said calmly, and was Zack the only one here that was at least mildly startled? "Oddly enough, in the same manner as your parents."

"Really now? You may want to check the veracity of your information."

"Stop fucking around, Genesis!" Zack finally snapped, stepping forward in anger and disgust and whole lot of other emotions he couldn't focus on. "What kind of man are you, to go around killing his own family?"

The dark smile faded into a twisted, furious expression. "What would either of you know, you blind, barking lapdogs!"

Zack wasn't prepared for the Fira that roared towards him; he managed to throw himself to the side, feeling heat scorch the shirt of his uniform and blister the skin, but Tseng didn't possess the same mako-enhanced reflexes and took the brunt of the attack. His body was lifted off the floor and thrown against the wall, and he ended up in an unconscious heap on the floor.

Shit, Zack's mind was screaming as he scrambled to draw his sword, as the air crackled across his senses with magic, he's not pulling his punches and oh gods he's a fucking First for a reason—

But then he wasn't holding his sword anymore. It took a moment for him to register that, no, he hadn't dropped it, Angeal had taken it and was standing in front of him defensively, facing Genesis.

…I think my brain broke.

"My old friend," Genesis murmured, and right then Zack would have given up being a SOLDIER if he could've just seen Angeal's face. "I see that your heart – "

Whatever he was going to say about the other's heart, however, no one would ever know, because Cloud was suddenly standing at his shoulder and pressing a curved blade against his throat. Zack recognized it as the same weapon the Genesis clones used.

…Okay, no, now it's broke.

Genesis was forced to tilt his head back slightly, but even so, there was a thin line of red just below his jaw line that declared the trooper really wasn't joking around. "Another ShinRa lapdog, or simply a little boy with a deathwish?" he purred darkly.

"What are you planning to do after you find Jenova?"

Cloud's tone was as sharp as breaking ice. Finding some semblance of balance, Zack managed to straighten up and put a hand on Angeal's shoulder.

"Angeal?"

The man twitched and lowered his – or rather, Zack's – sword. "You shouldn't have come here, Zack," he said softly.

"Angeal, I don't understand…"

The harsh clang of steel against steel immediately drew their attention back across the room as Genesis tried to take Cloud by surprise with his sword. But the boy ducked it, deflecting it with a second sickle in his other hand and turning rapidly to bring the first back up to Genesis' throat.

"The littlest puppy's got a bit of a bite," Genesis hissed.

"What are you planning to do after you find Jenova?" Cloud repeated.

"Wings of light and dark spread afar; she guides us to bliss, her gift everlasting.'"

After a long moment, the boy said quietly, "No matter what you've been told, she won't stop you from deteriorating. Whatever the doctors have done to you, it can't be reversed."

Zack's breath was taken away by the undiluted hatred and despair that turned Genesis' handsome face into a mask, the fury that made his wing stretch out into a tense arch like a threatened bird.

"Then I will take the rest of the world down with me."

Eyes narrowing, Cloud deflected a second blow from the blood-red blade and grabbed the front of the SOLDIER's shirt, pulling him close to whisper something in his ear. Whatever it was he whispered not even Zack, with his mako, could hear, but it was enough to make Genesis' eyes widen almost comically.

"And you," Cloud snapped, releasing Genesis, "I spent almost the entire flight here listening to Zack go on about how honorable and great a warrior you are." He pointed at Angeal with a stolen blade. "Instead all I find is a man who's abandoned any common sense he might have once had."

Angeal stiffened, and Zack couldn't stop himself from leaping to his defense. "Whoa, whoa, Cloud, hold on a second! You can't go judging him like that – "

The boy wasn't impressed. He turned away from Genesis and tossed the weapons aside, looking tired and irritated and not like a cadet at all. "No, Zack, I can, because whether anyone likes it or not Angeal and Genesis are going to drag the rest of the world into their affairs. And that can't be allowed to happen."

There was something in his voice that sent a chill down Zack's spine.

"Angeal, you're an idiot, and you're betraying Zack and Sephiroth and Genesis. Jenova's not a miracle cure, and all this stupidity is going to destroy everything on the Planet."

"What else is an angel good for? A monster?" Angeal murmured. Cloud's expression tightened.

"Angels can hurt just as much as humans can," he spat. "You want revenge? Take ShinRa apart. Kill Hojo. Destroy the reactors. But you're no more a monster than Zack or Sephiroth, and if you think either of them are anything less than human then you should just go ahead and kill yourself now, save the rest of us the trouble."

Cloud moved past a gaping Zack and silent Angeal to Tseng's side, carefully lifting up the unconscious man and bracing him over a shoulder in a fireman's carry. He slowly left the room without another word.

There was a very long silence.

"Your new friend is… far more than he seems," Angeal said quietly.

Shaken, Zack turned his stare from the empty doorway to his mentor, silently begging to understand what had just happened to his world in the last ten minutes. Angeal's face softened. "Nothing worth having in life is easy, Zack."

There was a sudden flurry of movement and the odd sensation of something sliding through space; when Zack looked, Genesis had disappeared, leaving a single dark feather on the floor where he'd stood.

When he looked back, Angeal was also gone.

For the first time in years, Zack had to fight not to cry.

…

Elfreda Strife was standing in the middle of the village and staring up at the water-tower when she felt a soft touch against her arm. She turned to find a pretty young woman in a dark suit looking at her worriedly.

"Are you okay, ma'am?" the stranger asked. She had wavy auburn hair and warm, golden-brown eyes that Elfreda immediately thought were lovely. Well, she always had thought an older woman would be good for her boy…

"Oh yes, dear, I'm quite all right." Elfreda patted the other woman's hand. "May I help you? ShinRa rarely sends anyone out here anymore, I'd been half-convinced they'd forgotten about this little hole-in-the-mountains. I can't imagine they would've been able to tell you how to get around properly without losing bits of yourself to frostbite."

The stranger from ShinRa (they were the only ones who wore such smart suits in this region) smiled. "I haven't even introduced myself, how do you know I'm not here on vacation?"

"Only fools would vacation here, and I can tell you're not a fool, sweetheart."

She laughed. "My name is Cissnei. I was sent by ShinRa to check up on things, make sure everything was running smoothly."

"That's very kind of you." Giving the water-tower one last glance, Elfreda picked up her shopping basket and walked on to the baker's. "Call me Elfreda. Have you eaten at all today? Hel's bells, my dear, you're a tiny thing!"

This amused Cissnei, who was no less petite than Elfreda herself and hardly more a decade younger. "Yes, I ate before coming up here."

"At the base of the range? Why, that's at least a three-hour drive on winding roads! Here, you come with me and I'll make sure this elevation doesn't go to your head and make you lose your appetite."

Basket over one arm and Cissnei on the other, Elfreda guided her to the baker's home. Though the baker was rather frosty, Elfreda didn't notice, happy as she was chattering away. Cissnei frowned at the baker's rudeness, but didn't say anything.

"Have you noticed anything odd happening around here?" Cissnei asked, adding, "If I have an idea of what to look for, it would make things a lot easier."

"Odd?"

"ShinRa sent me because it's been getting reports of unusual monster activity and unexplained phenomena."

The woman frowned slightly, looking thoughtful as she looked over the tiny town and broke a loaf of freshly baked bread in half. She passed some to Cissnei. "Well, I don't recall hearing anything about monsters. But there's Brunhild, she's speaking with Anneliene. She's our healer – Brunhild, that is, Anneliene wouldn't know plantain from poison ivy if it jumped up and bit her on the nose. Not that that would stop her tongue from wagging, Hel forgive my words…"

Cissnei had to bite her tongue to keep from laughing as she was led to the other women and introduced. Brunhild was a tall, willowy woman with eyes as sharp as any Turk's, while Anneliene was smaller, prettier, and young enough to turn even a happily married man's head.

"I haven't seen an increase in wounds received from monsters, at any rate," Brunhild was telling Cissnei as Anneliene contented herself with smiling contemptuously at Elfreda, "nor anything outside the usual bites and burns. Why Bombs bother to live in such a snowy region I'll never understand."

"Has there been any trouble with the reactor?"

"No that I've heard, but then, you'd be better off talking with Mayor Lockhart about that."

"What about the mansion?" Anneliene commented, with a bit too much slyness for Cissnei to be fooled. She got the feeling that in such a small community, some of the younger villagers made drama and gossip their business if only to break up the monotony.

"The mansion?"

Shooting a quelling look to the younger woman, Brunhild said, "The ShinRa mansion was burned down a little under a year ago, and no one's been able to figure out why. Most people blame it on monsters finally just getting a bit too rowdy in there, but Lockhart's convinced it was vandalism."

Elfreda was shaking her head. "That's silly. No one in this village would burn it down unless they had a reason."

"Oh?" Cissnei prompted.

"Of course. Throwing stones at some of the younger children is one thing, but burning down the mansion? It's too big a responsibility for anyone here. Too scared to cross such a big line."

"Your family would know all about crossing lines," Anneliene sneered.

Elfreda just stared back at her serenely. "That's because the lines you people draw are stupid."

Anneliene was opening her mouth to deliver some cutting insult when Brunhild shoved a small glass bottle at her. "Here, it's eyebright extract. Mix four drops in a small glass of water and dab it on your sister's eyes three times a day. The infection should be gone within a week."

Affronted but unwilling to stand up to two older women of her village, the girl left with a flounce of her skirt. Brunhild and Cissnei watched her leave.

"Such a handful, that one," Brunhild commented sourly. "I don't envy her mother having to chase her away from all the young men."

"How else is a girl supposed to find what she wants?" Elfreda asked in complete seriousness.

The healer's lips thinned with disapproval, but her attitude was still considerably softer with her than it had been with Anneliene. "You know that the rest of us think differently than you do, Elfreda."

"Perhaps, but a girl can only be ashamed if she lets herself. How unfair it is that men are allowed to find what they want before marriage and women can only hope for the best!"

Cissnei was starting to think that being sent out to this tiny village in the middle of nowhere, regardless of her mission, was going to be rather interesting.

chapter 7 || main post || chapter 9