Chapter 10

He sat on the rocky ground, just beyond the final wind barrier, waiting for Cloud. He found he was no longer impatient, now that the puppet had found Aeris. It was the same annoying relief as he had felt upon reaching Holzoff's house, and he ignored it.

See? he asked of Jenova. I was right.

So you were, she agreed. She did make it until they found her--barely.

It is better that way. If death is traumatizing, then near-death should not be far off.

It would be better for us if she were dead, Jenova corrected irritably. Never mind your little game.

He sighed. She is no longer a threat, Mother. You know we are powerful enough to stop Holy, and there is little else she can do.

Little, perhaps, but something nonetheless. If she is willing to refuse her friends' sympathy, then she is willing to keep up her mission to dissuade you from summoning Meteor.

Somehow it does not surprise me that she chose to lie to them, Sephiroth mused. Even now, she tries to convince herself that I am someone else. I doubt she will manage to keep that up for much longer.

Jenova waited impatiently.

Her words will not sway me, Mother, he assured her. She lies to herself, so what is there to stop her from lying to me as well?

His mother chose not to comment. Instead she asked, Do you think she will interfere with your plans?

Sephiroth shook his head. If anything, she will facilitate them. The puppet has always been torn between her and Tifa; Aeris is in no condition to offer support, and if he is unable to focus all his attention on Tifa... Her words will be rendered quite ineffectual.

And if the Cetra does try to aid him?

She won't. Her own lie has provided me with the perfect blackmail.

I suppose now you intend to run her down.

Sephiroth smiled. The puppet will not survive what I have planned for him. He'll leave them devastated and leaderless. If Aeris is fragile now, she won't hold together amidst their despair and the realization she can do nothing for it. Too bad I will not be able to watch.

Jenova was silent for a moment, and he knew that she was less than amused. The Cetra girl is no less dangerous than she was before. If she is still standing when next you see her, I suggest you kill her.

Mother, you worry far too much.


They reached the first of the whirling barriers of Lifestream, and Cloud decided they should rest and wait for the others to catch up. They had found Aeris, after all, so they didn't have quite so much to worry about. It sounded selfish; the Planet's life was at stake, but now that Aeris was back with them, catching up to Sephiroth didn't seem so urgent.

Although, he couldn't quite say he was relieved to have her back. She was alive, yes, and she wasn't an emotional wreck, no. But something about the way she was acting made him uncomfortable. She was just so much more distant than he was used to. Disconnected.

Maybe he was just tired, and imagining it. Maybe she was just tired, and couldn't summon the conviction that normally went into her words. Probably they were all just tired.

So Cloud called the group to a halt just outside the wind wall, and he promptly sat down on the ground. The others all collapsed on whatever bit of rock they deemed least uncomfortable, Aeris seating herself the farthest down the path, a little distance away from the others.

"We'll wait for the others here," Cloud said.

It earned him an exclamation of relief from Yuffie, and everyone but Aeris readied themselves to get some rest. Cloud watched her with a frown until she glanced in his direction. He gave a start, but it was too late to look away and pretend he hadn't been staring.

Her expression softened, just a little. "Something on your mind, Cloud?"

He broke her gaze, looking anywhere but at that shadow of her usual smile. "I don't really want to bug you," he said. "If it's too soon to ask."

"It's not," she assured him with that ghost of a smile. "You're full of questions, go ahead and ask them."

Cloud ran a hand through his hair, wondering where to start. The others watched him, apparently no more sure of how to approach it than he was. This whole thing was making him realize that Aeris was stronger than he'd imagined, but still, none of it could be easy for her to talk about.

At last he decided on the question they'd all been asking from the beginning. "Why did Sephiroth take you?"

She hesitated. "He... was angry with me for calling Holy, so he decided to punish me. And... killing me wouldn't have been enough, for him."

"He wanted it to be worse than dying?" Tifa asked faintly, uneasy as they all were with the implication.

"It wasn't," Aeris said quickly. "I was always on the edge of freezing to death or starving or... And he isn't exactly the best of company either."

"You're making light," Tifa stated with a frown. "He must've done something worse than that."

The Cetra shook her head, glancing off. "No. It wasn't about that. He... likes his mind games, I guess. I'd rather not say more."

Though Cloud knew something about head games, he wasn't convinced. She was holding something back, but he couldn't press her. Partly, he admitted, because he didn't want to think about it himself. "All right," he said. "Can I ask you something else?"

"Go ahead."

"Why did you run off by yourself in the first place? You almost got yourself killed."

She didn't answer immediately, but frowned as if this was even more unpleasant a question to consider than the last. "I thought I'd be safer if I was farther from you, Cloud."

He opened his mouth to protest even before he could really understand what she meant, but she went on before he could get any words out.

"Sephiroth calls you 'the puppet.' You're your own person, but at the same time, he has power over you. He used it at the Temple, and again at the City. I didn't want you stopping me from completing my mission. But..." At last she looked back at him, an apology in her eyes. "You were stronger than I thought. He couldn't make you kill me."

She said it so easily, and without any malice, but he felt sick at hearing those words. He had almost killed her, back in the City, and he didn't feel any stronger for having stopped himself at the last moment.

Tifa seemed to notice the effect Aeris's words had had on him, and she spoke up again. "Did Sephiroth say anything... about why he can do that to Cloud?"

Aeris hesitated. "Nothing that I could understand."

"What did he say?"

"I don't know enough," she insisted. "If I can't say for sure, it'll do more harm than good."

"Why do you get to decide?" Tifa asked, her voice falling quiet though she sounded hurt. "Isn't it something that affects all of us?"

"I'm sorry."

They all avoided each other's gazes in the short silence that followed, frustrated with the distance between them and uncomfortable with pressing Aeris even as much as they had.

Yuffie's voice cut into the quiet, for once a welcome interruption. "We're just saying, we really wish you wouldn't keep so much secret from us, Aeris. We're all friends here, you can trust us, right?"

"I do trust you," Aeris answered, still not looking at any of them. "But everything has its limit."

Cloud wasn't sure what she meant by that, but he was sure it meant they wouldn't get more out of her. He sighed, running a hand through his hair. "You'll tell us when you do know, right?"

"I will."

"Then, that'll have to be good enough," he decided. "Now let's all get some rest while we can."


The others caught up while they still slept, creating just enough of a ruckus to wake Tifa. She could understand their excitement; this was the first they'd learned that Aeris was all right. Still, she met their arrival with a certain amount of bleariness, and despite the urgency of their mission, woke Cloud with some reluctance.

"We've got a big fight coming up," he said to her. "You ready for it?"

Tifa gave a decisive nod. Inwardly, she wondered if they really would fight Sephiroth. Cloud had said that a few times before, sure that this time, this time they'd take him out. She knew they had to, for the sake of the Planet and for their own personal vendettas, but however supportive she tried to be, she was beginning to doubt they'd ever be able to. They hadn't once had the opportunity to fight him.

Soon they all stood ready to go. Cloud made his way to the front of the group, nodding to each of them as he passed, his gaze lingering just a moment longer on Aeris before moving on. Tifa followed him, and they stopped at the wind wall.

"Doesn't look like it'll be easy to get through," Cloud observed with a frown.

"Shoulda thought o' that earlier," Barret commented.

The blond shot him a look.

Aeris stepped forward to join them. "The gusts die down every once and a while," she said. "We should be able to make it through then."

"Can't you ask the Planet to let us through?" Tifa wondered, craning her neck to try to make out how high the wall stretched. "This is from the Lifestream, isn't it?"

She shook her head. "I shouldn't ask too many favors of the Planet."

Cloud opened his mouth, maybe to ask what favors she'd been asking lately, or maybe to ask her to make just one more request. Whatever it was, he seemed to decide against it and said instead, "Then we'll wait."

It took only a matter of minutes for the winds to slow, and they hurried through. Tifa shivered, not from the cold, but from the rushing in her ears that sounded more like voices than just wind. She couldn't help feeling they'd ventured into a place no humans were meant to enter.

They continued along the narrowing rocky path, mindful of the growing chasm on either side. Before long they were walking single file. They passed through two more wind walls, each, at its fastest, more ferocious than the last. Beyond the last wall, though, things seemed to calm. The green of the Lifestream diffused into a pale light, and even the bitter cold eased, leaving them in a still, cool air which gave Tifa a sense of foreboding.

They all tensed at the sight of a handful of black-garbed figures, but none of them were Sephiroth himself, only the few clones that had made it this far and still struggled onwards. As they watched, one lost his footing and fell without a cry. Tifa winced, and looked away. It was a sad fate for these people, if you could even call them that anymore.

Cloud let out a yell and started forward, snapping her attention back to the path ahead. Sephiroth had appeared out of nowhere and cut down the last surviving clones with the Masamune. He didn't even acknowledge Cloud until he'd shoved the last black form off into the abyss beside the path. He turned then, arching an eyebrow in apparent amusement, and his gaze seemed to stop Cloud a few paces ahead of the rest of the group. Tifa tried to will herself to join him, but her legs wouldn't move.

Sephiroth's attention slid past Cloud, past her, and on to Aeris.

"We won't let you go any farther!" Cloud shouted to him, drawing his sword. He seemed confident enough, Tifa thought, feeling some of her doubts leave her at his voice. She managed a few steps forward before Sephiroth returned his focus to Cloud.

"Do you really think you can change anything?" he asked.

"If we kill you, it's over. Meteor won't come."

"So she hasn't told you that either," Sephiroth remarked, glancing again at Aeris. Then he turned away from them. "Take this, Cloud. You will need it."

And suddenly he was gone. The large orb of the Black Materia lay nestled in a hollow of the path where he'd been standing, catching the green light from the Lifestream and turning it to red.

When Tifa looked to Cloud to gauge his reaction, she realized he didn't even seem to have noticed. Instead he stood looking about him in confusion, as though someone had called his name and he was trying to catch sight of them.

"Cloud?" Tifa said uncertainly.

"...the Jenova Reunion, huh?" he muttered, so quietly he probably hadn't expected her to hear, but in this unnatural calm, every sound carried. He looked back at her, and his eyes seemed distant somehow. "This is where it's happening..." Noticing her confusion, he shook his head dismissively and even smiled slightly, the expression decidedly out-of-place. "Never mind that. Sephiroth must be just ahead."

Tifa kept her eyes on him, carefully studying his face. "What are we going to do with the Black Materia?" she asked.

Cloud looked over at it, seeming to notice it for the first time. Immediately he strode for it, but Aeris let out a sharp gasp, and he paused, stooped over with his fingers inches from touching it.

"Don't touch it," the Cetra said urgently before he could voice his confusion. "Don't... Not you, Cloud. Let someone else, if we have to. Gods, why did he even leave it here...?"

The blond straightened and returned to the group. "I'm not sure what's going on," he said, "but maybe we should leave some people behind with the Black Materia. If we don't want Sephiroth to have it, we can't take it with us."

"Right," Tifa agreed, pushing her worries aside now that his confidence was returning.

"So who stays behind?" Cait Sith wondered, probably well aware he'd be among them.

"I'm going for sure," Tifa said immediately.

"Me, too," Aeris said more softly.

"Are you sure?" Cloud asked her.

She nodded.

To everyone's surprise, Vincent stepped forward. "I will accompany you."

"All right," Cloud said. "The rest of you, stay here and make sure Sephiroth doesn't get the Black Materia." He knelt down briefly. "Nanaki, I'm counting on you."

The feline nodded, drawing himself up. "We will not let him take it, I assure you."

Cloud straightened and, joining the smaller party, started forward along the path. Ahead, it widened and rose to a crest, but before they could see beyond it, everything around them vanished into a flood of white. Tifa stumbled to a stop, looking around frantically, but could see neither the path nor her companions.

"What's going on?" she asked aloud, hoping she'd still hear them nearby.

"I don't know," Cloud answered from a little ways in front of her. "Sephiroth must be trying to trick us."

She took a few cautious steps forward until she could feel the back of his shirt, and waited there, listening tensely. If Sephiroth meant to attack them blinded, she'd have to rely on sound, and touch. But aside from faint breathing and scuffling as they all moved a little closer together, she heard nothing.

Then, in a flash, an all-too-familiar sight replaced the white. Nibelheim spread out before them, the gate just ahead. Tifa drew back from Cloud before her hand could fist in his shirt.

"A very detailed illusion," Vincent murmured, looking around them. Tifa often forgot he had painful memories of his own from this place. Of the four of them, only Aeris had no real ties to Nibelheim.

"What... is he showing us this for?" Tifa wondered, almost wishing for the blinding white back.

Cloud turned back to her with a shrug, though she could see a tenseness still in his shoulders. "Who knows? Let's just keep going. It might be an illusion, but maybe we can still get somewhere."

The others nodded, but Sephiroth suddenly appeared by the gate, startling even Vincent. He was looking at someone apparently behind them, and Tifa blinked. As he turned around and said, "Let's go," she realized she had seen this before--it was simply the same scene that had occurred five years earlier, when Sephiroth had arrived in Nibelheim.

Then...

The three men who followed Sephiroth into the village were those from her memory, not Cloud's. That young SOLDIER with unruly black hair, accompanied by a pair of troopers. Anxiety settled into her heart to stay.

Aeris's gaze was fixed on the black-haired SOLDIER, as though she had just found proof of something she desperately did not want to believe. "Zack..." she whispered.

Tifa glanced quickly at Cloud, praying he hadn't heard, but his eyes were already on Aeris.

"Zack?" he asked slowly. "Wasn't that... the name of that couple's son, back in Gongaga? The guy you..."

"My first boyfriend," Aeris finished quietly.

There was an edge in Cloud's voice as he went on. "If you know him, then tell me: why is he in this illusion and not me?"

She shook her head. "I don't know. I wasn't there."

"But you can guess, can't you?"

"He was in SOLDIER, like you," she said. "And I told you, it was about five years ago I stopped hearing from him. Beyond that..."

Cloud let her alone with that and looked towards the black-haired SOLDIER, whose image had frozen just before the gate. "Zack, huh? Never knew him."

Aeris said nothing, and Tifa bit her lip.

The world around them vanished for an instant, replaced just as suddenly by the sight of Nibelheim in flames. They stood near the town well, already starting to collapse on itself as the fire consumed it whole. Tifa could feel the heat surrounding her just the same as the day it had really happened. Beads of sweat formed on her skin, and she clenched her teeth to keep her mouth from twisting into any other expression.

Aeris and Vincent stood taking it all in with a quiet awe, not having seen the real thing. Cloud had much the same reaction as Tifa; she could see him tense up for an instant, and then force himself not to react. It was so real, the only thing she could do was keep telling herself it was just an illusion, and try to distance herself from it. It seemed the same for Cloud, and she wanted that to be some sort of proof that he really had been there.

Finally Cloud turned to look back at the Shinra mansion. "I'll bet Sephiroth's going to have that Zack guy come out of the mansion instead of me," he said. In his story, this was where he should have burst onto the scene, after all.

"Cloud..." Tifa began.

He watched as the black-haired Zack came out of the mansion, and Zangan shouted to him. Their voices, at least, sounded muffled, distant.

"What is it, Teef?"

"Don't watch. Please."

"Why? It's not like this is what really happened." He hesitated, his confidence failing a little as he studied her face. "Right, Tifa? I was the one who came to Nibelheim five years ago. Not Zack."

"I know, but what if...?" She trailed off, and looked down at her feet. How could she possibly tell him? What was she supposed to say? No, Cloud, you never came. I waited, but you never came. What would happen if she told him that his story, his whole reason for this journey, couldn't possibly be true? And even then, she didn't know if she'd be right.

"Perhaps you should tell him now, Tifa."

Panic shot through her, and she whirled around to find Sephiroth not far from them, leaning against the well even as the flames licked the wood and danced around him.

"Then again, it's probably too late."

"Too late for what?" Cloud demanded.

"Why don't you ask her?" Sephiroth suggested coolly.

He turned to Tifa. "What's he talking about?"

"Please," she repeated, her voice soft and uncertain at first, but rising as she went on. "Don't ask me now. I don't understand anything. I just know... Don't listen to him. No matter what he says... don't believe it."

"Why are you so worried, if it's all just lies?"

This time she could only shake her head, and she could feel Cloud's eyes on her. She could imagine the confusion and anxiety on his face, and she couldn't bring herself to look up at that.

"I suppose that's the best you can do," Sephiroth said lightly. "Too weak to speak the truth, and too frightened to face it in the first place. Shall I tell him instead?"

"Don't, Sephiroth," Aeris broke in, her voice quiet, but with an edge to it. "Don't you dare twist the truth so he'll believe what you want."

He straightened, striding towards her, and Tifa froze in fear. Cloud reached for his sword. But Sephiroth simply stopped a foot before the Cetra, looking down at her scornfully. "Or what, Aeris? What could you possibly do to me?"

She lifted a hand to touch a rip in his sleeve, near his wrist. "I cut you, in more ways than one I'm sure. I'm not weak."

"Shall I tell them how I hurt you?"

She paled at the question, dropping her hand.

Sephiroth grinned and turned his back on her, fixing his gaze on Cloud. "I doubt that she will tell you either."

"Leave Aeris out of this," Cloud growled, "and get to the point. What the hell are you trying to say by showing me all this?"

"You haven't figured it out yet?"

"All right, so you say I wasn't in Nibelheim. So what? It's not true."

"Isn't it? Why do you think Tifa is so frightened? Why do you think the Cetra actually tried to shield you from my words?"

He shook his head. "Aeris knows you. And Tifa..."

She winced as he trailed off and took a few steps closer to him. "Come on, Cloud. You... You know you were here, right?"

Cloud nodded firmly, meeting Sephiroth's gaze. "Right. I came to Nibelheim five years ago. We went to the reactor on Mt. Nibel, and saw what they were doing there. And then, then you snapped and burned my hometown to the ground. I know all that. I remember it. How can you say I wasn't there and expect me to believe it?"

"You weren't there," Sephiroth stated. "And the reason has very much to do with why you've been so useful to me. You even tried to kill Aeris for me."

"Useful to you?"

"Stop it, Sephiroth, please..." Aeris whispered.

"Cloud Strife... Hm. Perhaps there was a Cloud Strife once, but certainly you are not the same man. Actually, I am not certain you should even be called a man. You are nothing but a crude experiment, an incomplete and vastly inferior clone of myself, created by Hojo some months after the Nibelheim incident. Hojo deemed you a failure, but you've proven far more worthy than the other clones."

"Clone?" Cloud exclaimed. "That's bullshit!"

"Then why is it I can control you? Just like a puppet."

Cloud was shaking his head. "But I remember things--growing up in Nibelheim, knowing Tifa, going off to Midgar to join SOLDIER..."

"There was never a Cloud Strife in SOLDIER. No doubt you took your 'memories' from Tifa. Perhaps she knew a boy named Cloud once; the Jenova cells in you allowed you to take that persona. The power of Jenova is that of deception."

"Cloud, don't listen," Tifa pleaded, taking his arm to pull his attention away from Sephiroth. "It's not true. You are Cloud. How could you be someone... something... else? You're human. You're Cloud."

He looked at her uncertainly. "Am I your Cloud, though? Am I really the Cloud you remember?"

"Yes," she answered, the word leaping out of her not from any conviction but just because she wanted it to be true. She went on, gripped with a terrible anxiety. "Yes, you're my Cloud, the Cloud I knew in Nibelheim. You can't be someone else, even if... Even if..."

"My memories are all wrong?"

She fell silent.

He shook his head and gave her a reassuring smile that didn't reach his eyes. "Don't worry, Teef. I know... I know a lot of what I remember is screwed up, and there are some gaps... But that doesn't mean I'm a Sephiroth clone or something. Ha! How could I possibly be a clone of him? This is all an illusion that Sephiroth's making up. He just wants to confuse me."

"Cloud..."

"The illusion is in your mind," Sephiroth stated coolly. "This"--he gestured around them--"is the truth."

"It can't be," Cloud insisted. "I remember being here. I remember the heat of the flames, and I remember going to the reactor to stop you. Just because I have gaps in my memory doesn't mean what I do remember isn't true."

"Tell me, 'Cloud'--how many of your so-called memories have nothing whatsoever to do with Tifa? Can you recall anything before you met her? Can you remember anything from when you left Nibelheim to join SOLDIER, and when you returned?"

Cloud opened his mouth to speak, but no words seemed to come to him, and an expression of frustration and disbelief came to his face.

Tifa bit her lip. Did he really not remember anything? Was he what Sephiroth said? Was he really... not her Cloud?

More importantly, did it matter if he was the real Cloud or not?

"Cloud," she said, trying to get his attention again. "Cloud, what does it matter?" He looked back at her, dazed, as she continued. "I don't know what's true, but... Even if Sephiroth were right, it wouldn't change anything. You're still Cloud. I still... I still care about you. And we still have to go on, don't we?"

He nodded slowly. "Yeah... I guess we do."

"We came here for a purpose, didn't we?"

"We did." He turned to look back at Sephiroth, and she followed his gaze only to find that he had disappeared. They looked around; he was gone.

Cloud broke away from her, startling her, and she did her best to pull herself together. She glanced at the others. Aeris looked drained, and Vincent... It was hard to tell with him. Vincent looked about the same as he always did.

"He must've gone on ahead," Cloud decided. "He's waiting for us."

"Cloud," Aeris said suddenly, "maybe you shouldn't go on."

"What? Why not?"

She faltered, looking down at her hands. "I... I don't know. Just, maybe you shouldn't."

"I'm going," he stated. "I've got a score to settle."

They turned to go on, but everything again vanished in white, and the next minute they found themselves suddenly at the base of the crater. The rock walls surrounding them were completely encased in condensed Mako, natural and abundant, and standing amidst them were Rufus Shinra, Scarlet, and Professor Hojo.

"Hey!" Scarlet yelped, just as startled as Tifa. "Where did you guys come from?"

"Don't know," Cloud answered in a murmur. He stood a little away from the group, his back to them and his head down. "You should leave."

"What?"

"You'll die if you stay."

"What is he talking about?" Rufus demanded.

"Cloud?" Tifa asked uncertainly.

He didn't respond. The Shinra began talking amongst themselves, but Cloud was silent and Tifa paid them no attention.

"Cloud!" she called.

Still he didn't answer. Only Aeris even seemed to notice her, and the Cetra looked resigned, as if she'd decided there was nothing more she could do. She cast Tifa a tired, sympathetic look, but said nothing. Vincent seemed confused, and maybe even a little worried.

Suddenly Yuffie came running up, breathless. "Hey, Cloud!" She stumbled, nearly tripping as she came to a stop, and looked around in confusion at the others gathered there. Then she shook her head. "Tifa said you needed my help."

What? I didn't--

Cloud raised his head and nodded. "That's right. You brought the Black Materia?"

"Um... yeah." The ninja hesitated, glancing at Aeris and Vincent as if for confirmation. Like the others, she seemed oblivious to Tifa's presence. "Shouldn't I give it to someone else, or...?"

He shook his head. "No. I'll take it from here."

"Cloud! Stop it! Yuffie, don't give it to him!"

But no one heard her. Aeris offered up no protest, though her face fell as the Black Materia passed into Cloud's hands.

"Thanks"--Cloud hesitated as though struggling to remember her name--"Yuffie."

"Cloud! Please, listen to me!"

At last he turned to look at her, and the look in his eyes stunned her into silence. "I'm sorry, Tifa. I'm not... I can't..." He sighed. "I'm really sorry. Everyone... I'm sorry."

And suddenly he had gone, flown--carried?--up to a tangle of branches overhead.

"What was that all about?" Rufus asked.

"I believe he was one of the Sephiroth clones I created after the Nibelheim incident," Hojo replied. "I made them to test a theory I had..."

The scientist rambled on, and Tifa tuned him out. Everyone seemed frozen but the Shinra, who were oddly unconcerned with what had just happened. Tifa craned her neck to find Cloud in the branches up above them. She could hardly see him through the tangle, but she screamed his name and begged him to stop until her voice was hoarse. He didn't so much as flinch.

Finally, she saw him stand.

"Oh no," Aeris breathed suddenly, though by her face she had known what was going to happen. At first Tifa couldn't manage to put together what exactly that was.

The ground began to quake, crystal slivers of materia breaking loose from the walls and shattering on the rock at their feet. As the shaking grew more pronounced, several of those branches overhead snapped, and something shifted. Tifa caught sight of Sephiroth in the Mako above, and suddenly she understood.

Cloud had given him back the Black Materia.

"Sir, we have to go, now!" Scarlet exclaimed.

Rufus nodded, and even he seemed to be losing some of his cool. "Right. We must evacuate immediately." He turned to Vincent and the others, with a glance aside at Tifa as though just noticing her. "You all will accompany me, of course. I've some things I'd like to ask you."

Not waiting for an answer, he started back down the path at a hurried walk, Scarlet and Hojo following.

"Tifa, come on!" Yuffie shouted.

"But... Cloud's still--!"

"There's nothing we can do for him," Aeris said with a shake of her head. "Let's just concentrate on making it out."

"By going with Shinra?"

The Cetra's voice took on a sense of urgency. "We don't have a choice right now. Cloud was right; if we stay, we die."

Torn, Tifa could only stand there shaking her head in disbelief. Was Cloud going to die here? She couldn't bear to imagine it. She threw her head back again, staring up at him still there above them. "Cloud!"

But still he didn't answer, and someone had grabbed her arms and was dragging her away.


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