Chapter 17
From the start, their journey into Nibelheim was nowhere near as easy as the passage through the mountains north of Junon. It wasn't a journey people typically made, so there was no road, although at least there was a trail. Still, Aeris found it taxing even before they made it into the Nibel mountain range.
She thought she would need Tifa to tell her when they passed out of Corel, but the difference was stark. The peaks of Nibel were jagged and strange, looking more like horns growing up out of the earth than like stone. They camped for the night in the dip between the two ranges, and the black shapes silhouetted against the night sky made her uneasy.
Was it always like this? Aeris asked of the Planet, and for an instant it was as though she remembered it: veins of vibrant color winding through those strange peaks, forests of pines growing up from rich soil. She'd never had so clear an answer before--or never heard it.
Planet, what do you need from me? How can I help?
A wail rose up from the undercurrent of its pain.
I know you're hurting. I want to help. We're trying to help.
Anxiety. A reluctance, maybe.
What's in the north?
No answer.
Mom? she tried instead. Her mother had been quiet since Kalm, but that wasn't unusual. Aeris wasn't sure how clearly she experienced the passage of time anymore.
Aeris, came the response, like someone coming into focus after waking.
Mom, I need to ask you something, Aeris said. She hated to be so direct, sometimes, but she never knew how long her mother's voice would remain clear. You must know about it, I think you tried to tell me before. There's something important in the north, isn't there?
Many things in the north. Ifalna said it with a great sadness, but also with an intense longing, not unlike the way Tifa spoke of Nibelheim. The site of the Planet's deepest wound. The once great capital of our people. The home you never knew...
Which one is calling me?
The Planet is frightened. It has awakened. You are the last one of us left, there is a power that only you can use, but only with the strength of your ancestors.
In the city of our people... Aeris concluded. She touched the materia in her hair. Her mother had told her a long time ago that it could summon a great power, but she'd never known how.
Yes, Ifalna confirmed. But it isn't needed, yet. Maybe it won't be.
The thing that's awakened... Do you mean Sephiroth?
Sephiroth is a part of it.
She had to press while her mother was still lucid. What can you tell me about him?
About the man? Very little. But I met him a few times.
You did?
He was just a boy. The Professor had him in that lab, too.
Aeris's breath stilled in her chest. Haven't you always wanted to do that? The way he'd looked at her, inviting her into the act, to share in it vicariously. It wasn't something he'd done just to shut Hojo up or to inspire horror in her, it was a desire they'd shared. A past they had in common.
I pitied him, Ifalna went on. I knew no good could come of him.
How could you know? Aeris asked. That had been her childhood, too, so what was the difference?
Because of what they did to him. Your father told me.
My father? Aeris straightened, straining to hear the slightest nuance. Her mother hardly ever spoke of him.
He was a good man, said Ifalna, sadly. That longing again. But he made a mistake.
Aeris wanted to ask what he'd been like, but she knew from experience that that would only send her mother retreating into her memories, sharing none of them with her. What mistake? she asked instead.
It happened at Nibelheim. He didn't know then, it wasn't one of us. Those words again. Not one of us. It pained him. He wished he could atone. Maybe you could do this for him.
Mom... You've never even told me his name.
Gast, said Ifalna, and her voice was beginning to fade away. His name was Gast...
Aeris closed her eyes. A name, at last, at least. And maybe in Nibelheim, she would find some answers of her own.
"Are you all right, Aeris?"
It was Tifa. Aeris looked up at her, and realized only then that there were tears in her eyes. She wiped her face dry. "I'm okay," she said.
Tifa sat down next to her. Aeris couldn't see her face clearly, backlit by the campfire as she was. "That's not usually what tears mean," she said.
"Oh... I was just talking to Mom. I guess she was a little sad, and it rubbed off on me."
"Anything you want to talk about?"
Aeris shook her head. "I think, not yet. She gave me some things to think about, though."
Tifa nodded, letting it lie.
"How are you doing?" Aeris asked her.
"Hard to say," Tifa admitted. She lifted her head, looking up at the sky and the dark shapes against it. "Everyone was afraid of these mountains when I was a child. Even the adults avoided them."
"So you took it for a challenge?"
Tifa was quiet for a moment. "Back then, I used to believe, it was where the souls of the dead went. When my mom died, that was the first time I went into these mountains. I thought I could find her here."
Aeris didn't know quite what to say. Here she'd sat, talking to her own dead mother, only moments ago. "You weren't wrong, exactly," she ventured. "Her spirit returned to the Planet, but sometimes they try to linger on, near the people they loved."
"So she might have been with me?"
"Maybe."
"I wonder about the souls of Nibelheim. Where they've gone by now."
"Probably... they're with the Planet."
"That doesn't sound so bad," Tifa said. "It doesn't sound lonely."
"No," Aeris agreed. "I don't think it's lonely."
Tifa leaned back on her hands, her gaze lifting higher. "The stars are still beautiful here."
"That's something I don't think you could ever lose."
"I guess not. These stars have always been here. It's me who went away somewhere I couldn't see them..."
"Hmm. But maybe they'll see the stars again in Midgar one day," Aeris said.
She'd meant it to be a hopeful thing, but Tifa took a practical turn with it. "How do you fix a place like Midgar, I wonder?" she said. "The slums are unliveable without power, so... It's a problem that's going to take more than a handful of people to solve, isn't it?"
Aeris could see what she meant. To shut down the reactors of Midgar, you would first have to evacuate the slums--or, an even bigger undertaking, dismantle the plate. She could see why Tifa had trouble imagining a future beyond all that work. AVALANCHE only had the resources to make small, strategic strikes against the Shinra. Who would be able to organize something like that?
"Well, don't forget," she said. "AVALANCHE has allies now."
Tifa glanced behind her to where the others still sat around the campfire. "Yuffie and Nanaki?" she wondered skeptically.
"I'm thinking more about where they come from," Aeris said. "I don't know what kind of standing they have in their homelands, but Wutai and Cosmo Canyon would make strong allies, wouldn't they?"
Tifa considered it. "Maybe," she said. "Wutai's not the power it used to be, but if we could destabilize the Shinra enough... maybe they'd be willing to take up the fight again."
"I should hope so. Yuffie can't be the only one who feels the way she does."
"I don't know about Cosmo Canyon, though. Aren't they pacifists?"
"I don't know," Aeris admitted. "It's not a place I know much about... but that doesn't mean they couldn't help in other ways, right? Especially if they aren't under Shinra's influence."
Tifa looked up and Aeris gave a start as Yuffie abruptly plopped down on the ground beside them.
"So what're you guys talking about?" she asked. "Jessie said she's going to sleep, and you two are always going off talking by yourselves. I want in."
Aeris shared an amused look with Tifa. They'd said it at least a few times in front of her, but Yuffie still hadn't seemed to grasp the notion that they were dating.
"We were just talking about you, actually," Aeris said.
"What, me?"
"And Wutai," Tifa clarified. "We were wondering if there might be anyone else there who'd be willing to join forces."
"I wouldn't count on it," said Yuffie. "Lord Godo and the other old coots are a buncha cowards."
"What about your parents...?" Aeris ventured.
Yuffie snorted. "Trust me, there's no way my dad's gettin' involved with any o' this." She hesitated, and then went on, "If I went back with some materia, though, there's people that might start takin' me seriously."
"Is that what that's about?" Aeris said. She thought it was a little simplistic, but Yuffie was, after all, still a child.
"It's powerful, isn't it? And the Shinra have loads of it somehow."
"That's because they manufacture it," said Tifa. "Naturally occurring materia is rare, but the Shinra make it by condensing the Mako in their reactors."
"Is that how they do it?" said Aeris. "I never knew that."
"I learned that from Sephiroth, actually. I guess he must know all sorts of company secrets."
"So you used to know him or something?" Yuffie asked at last.
"Only for a few days," Tifa said tersely. "Before he burned Nibelheim to the ground."
Yuffie nodded. "He did a number on Wutai, too, so I kinda know how you feel."
Aeris smiled softly. Yuffie wasn't the best at empathy, but she did try, didn't she?"
"Thanks, Yuffie," said Tifa. "Anyway, we should probably follow Jessie's lead and turn in. It's going to get tough from here on out."
They spent the night in the shadow of the mountains, and in the morning, they began their journey up into them.
Without Tifa to lead the way, they would have quickly gotten lost. The path was unclear, and in places required them to make almost vertical climbs. Tifa, Nanaki, and Yuffie scaled the rock almost effortlessly, it seemed to Aeris. At least Barret and Jessie clambered up with as little grace as she did, but it soon became apparent that they had more stamina. The group took more frequent rests, but even so, she always felt like she was out of breath.
To make matters worse, the place was infested with monsters. Aeris finally put her staff to some use fending off strange birds and oversized bugs, but even the lightweight mythril began to feel heavy as they pressed on.
By the sunset hours, they were still deep in the midst of the mountains. They stretched out like a maze to the horizon, and Aeris couldn't have traced the path they'd come had her life depended on it.
"You sure you know where you're going?" Yuffie asked.
"I'm sure," said Tifa. "It's not so much farther now. We'll reach Nibelheim tomorrow."
"I'm holding you to that," said Jessie. "I'm wiped."
"Yeah," Aeris agreed, and she looked at Tifa hopefully. "Any chance you could carry me the rest of the way?"
"Hey, I'm tired, too," said Tifa. "We'll get some rest tonight, and tomorrow should be easier."
They found a cave to shelter in for the night, and Tifa and Nanaki checked it out first to make sure nothing was living in it. Once they'd determined it was safe, the rest followed, and as tired as she was, Aeris couldn't help staring a little. The light of Nanaki's tail caught bright streaks of color in the cave walls. There was still some life in here, she thought, even if everything on the surface had withered away.
She thought she heard an affirming whisper from the Planet: Yes, there was still life. It still had life.
In the morning, Aeris's arms were so sore that she almost wasn't sure she could lift them. She managed to push herself up.
"Ahh... I really am going to get buff," she said, and Tifa smiled at her. It was good she could smile, even with what lay ahead.
Tifa didn't rush them, and by the time they got moving, the sun had already risen above the eastern peaks behind them. The cave had been chilly, and Aeris was glad to have its light on her back.
And maybe the path was more level today, a little easier of a hike. They didn't run into nearly so many monsters, and Aeris thought that was lucky, too. It was still morning when Tifa informed them that they were drawing close to the reactor. The path here was narrow as it hugged the side of the mountain, but clear and relatively gentle.
"Get down!" Jessie shouted, and Aeris ducked without knowing what for.
A stream of fire struck the stone above their heads and traced a short line along the mountain. Aeris followed its path backwards, and watched as a green dragon flew past them.
Oh, she thought. That was where all the other monsters had gone.
"Shit," said Tifa. "I was afraid this might happen."
Everyone seemed to be all right, but in the distance, the dragon was banking on its wings, turning around to make another pass.
"We can't fight this thing here, Teef," said Barret.
"I know," she said. "Everyone keep moving! The reactor's close!"
They took off running, or as close to running as their worn out muscles could get them. They were still out in the open when the dragon moved back into range.
Planet, protect us, Aeris thought, and she focused inward. The Planet was right here, it was listening, all she asked was a moment's protection.
They all dropped to the ground as the dragon opened its mouth, but this time it anticipated their movement, and the fire came straight for them anyway.
Only to dissipate harmlessly before it reached them.
"It worked," Aeris breathed.
The dragon alighted on one of the rocky spires over the path ahead of them and roared in fury.
"Well, great," said Yuffie as they picked themselves back up. "Now what?"
"Gonna have to chase it off, I guess," said Barret. He readied his gun arm as Jessie unslung the rifle from her back. With a long-suffering sigh, Yuffie pulled out her weapon, too.
Why was Fire the only offensive materia she had? Aeris wondered, biting her lip.
Jessie took the first shot, but she missed, hitting the spire instead as the dragon adjusted its footing. Barret began firing shortly after, and the dragon roared again as some of the bullets found their mark. It launched itself from the spire and swooped towards them.
Yuffie hurled her weapon at it, and the blades tore a gash in one of the dragon's wings. It cried out and veered to the side, away from them.
But not before its tail lashed out and swept Yuffie off the ledge.
Aeris's heart plummeted into her stomach as she heard Yuffie shriek, because she knew her legs were moving too slowly.
Nanaki sprang to the edge and clamped his teeth around Yuffie's gauntleted wrist before it vanished from sight. His paws slid as he took on her weight, but he braced himself and held on.
"Ow! Fuck!" Yuffie cried out.
Tifa was there in a second, what would have been a second too late. "Yuffie, give me your other hand, I'll pull you up!"
Yuffie swung her arm up and Tifa hauled her back up over the edge. Nanaki released her and stepped back, looking away.
"Sorry," he said, and there was blood on his fangs.
"B-beats goin' splat," Yuffie managed.
Aeris reached for her, but the dragon was coming around for another pass.
"I'm sorry, we don't have time," Tifa said. She lifted Yuffie into her arms and ran on up the path. Aeris snatched up Yuffie's weapon from where it had landed and ran after her, the others joining.
Ahead she could see a dark cave opening: safety from the dragon, but what else might find them inside? No time to investigate. The group barrelled on through the entrance and scattered to either side as a plume of flames burst through after them.
The dragon landed outside with a heavy thump, but the cave entrance was too narrow for it to fit through. A few more blasts of fire came through the cave before the dragon roared once more and took off. The force of its wing beats created a wind even inside the cave.
Silence fell, and Barret cautiously poked his head out of the entrance. "Looks like it's gone," he said.
"Thank the gods," Aeris said, and she rushed over to Yuffie, but Jessie had reached her first, ready with her Restore materia in hand. Yuffie winced as Jessie took her hand, but then her expression eased.
"Thanks, Jessie," Yuffie said. She flexed her wrist, glanced uncertainly at Nanaki, and gave him a nod. "You, too, Red."
He didn't protest her calling him by the old nickname. Instead he returned the nod. "Of course."
Now that they had a moment to breathe, Aeris looked around. The cave might be free of monsters, but it was hardly empty. A Mako glow illuminated it from beneath, and huge pipes sprouted from the walls, some disappearing into the Mako pit, others burrowing into the ground. A series of ladders and rusting platforms connected the level where they stood with cave exits higher up.
"Guess you weren't kiddin' about the reactor bein' close," Barret observed.
Tifa nodded. "Let's take a minute," she suggested.
They all found themselves someplace to rest, keeping a wary distance from the cave entrance. Aeris dropped down beside Nanaki, who still seemed uncomfortable. Not for the first time, she wondered how old he was. He was so reserved most of the time, but he had a sincerity that made him seem young sometimes.
"You saved her life, you know," she said. "There's no reason to be ashamed."
"I know," he said. "But I did bite her."
"That bothers you?"
"I am not a beast, but that is how people see me, isn't it? I can never really be one of you that way."
Aeris nodded thoughtfully. "Do you think it would be better if we stopped pretending you're something you aren't?" she asked. "You know, whenever we go places... I thought it would be easier for you, but maybe we just let people be shocked, if they're going to be shocked."
Nanaki tossed his mane. "Might that not make it difficult to get anything done? If you are constantly explaining that I do, in fact, speak."
"Hmm... Maybe we could get some pamphlets printed," Aeris suggested.
He snorted, and she smiled.
"Anyway, it's up to you. If you want to be yourself, then I don't mind explaining it to everyone we come across. That's just how it'll be."
"I'll consider it," Nanaki decided.
The rusty scaffolding groaned as Tifa led them up it to the nearer of the two cave exits, but it held. They stepped back out into daylight, and the reactor loomed directly ahead of them.
Aeris had only seen Midgar's reactors at a distance, from outside of their compounds. She had never been this close to one, much less inside of one. As they approached, she felt a weight pressing on her chest, and from the Planet, she sensed only anguish.
The reactor had Tifa's full attention, and it was Jessie who quietly asked, "You okay?"
"The Planet's in a lot of pain," Aeris explained, and Jessie nodded in understanding.
Tifa stopped briefly at the steps leading up to the reactor, and then she pressed on. They followed.
There weren't any personnel, Aeris realized. With a remote location like this, maybe Shinra felt it was unnecessary. Not many people were likely to brave the mountains and the monsters to break into this facility. But it made it even eerier somehow. Amidst the clanking of turning gears and the hiss of steam, Aeris kept thinking she heard something else, like they weren't really alone here.
"This really is an old reactor," Jessie remarked as they climbed down from the entrance to a catwalk suspended over a pit of Mako. "The No. 1 reactor wasn't exactly new, and it still hardly looked anything like this."
"Guess they came up with some improvements," Barret said wryly.
The Mako stench filled Aeris's nostrils, stronger than she'd ever smelled it before, and it made her stomach turn. It churned in the pit far below them. The Planet's lifeblood, sucked up through the skin of the earth, a constant, untended wound. Aeris swallowed and forced herself across the catwalk.
But Tifa had come to a stop on the other side, several paces back from the door into the next room. Her eyes were on the floor, and her fingers clenched.
"Tifa?" Aeris said, coming up beside her.
Tifa breathed slowly in and out several times before she responded. "This is where my father died," she said.
However hard this was for Aeris, it brought Tifa back to one of the worst days of her life. Aeris touched her shoulder. "We're all here with you."
Tifa nodded, and she pushed herself forward into the next room.
Aeris felt something stick in her throat at the sight of it. Pipes crowded the room, all snaking up, up into the chamber beyond, a door at the top of the stairs marked with a name: Jenova.
"I really don't like this place," said Yuffie, voicing what they all had to be feeling.
Some of the smaller tubes wound their way down into a series of pods that filled the room. They each had a small window on the front, but even standing on tip-toe, Aeris couldn't reach to see inside. Barret came up beside her, looking in without difficulty.
"It's empty," he said.
"Are they all empty?" Jessie wondered.
Barret glanced at her. "Gimme a minute an' I'll check."
As he made his way down the rows, Aeris returned to Tifa. "How are you doing?" she asked.
Tifa shook her head. "It's strange. I know I've been here, but I barely remember this room. I know Sephiroth was... there." She gestured to the door at the top of the stairs. "He had his back turned. I thought I could do it."
Aeris could picture it in her mind: Tifa, full of grief and rage at the death of her father, running up those stairs to attack Sephiroth, Shinra's great general, with his own sword...
"I'm just glad you survived," Aeris said.
"All empty," Barret announced from the top of the room. "Some kinda lock on this door, though."
Jessie climbed the stairs to join him and bent to inspect the keypad. "I think I can get it open," she said. "Like I said, this place is not top of the line."
Tifa didn't move to join her, so Aeris stayed with her at the bottom of the steps. She kept looking around at different parts of the room, like she was trying to fit her hazy memories into the reality of it.
"Zack was here," she said abruptly. "I remember we spoke. I told him... I hated him."
Aeris looked at her. If Zack had come here, then had he come to face down Sephiroth, like Tifa had? Was she standing now in the place where Zack had died?
Or, had he been the one to take Tifa to safety? Aeris wasn't sure she'd known him well enough to say which choice he might have made. To save one person, knowing that he could, or to try to save many more, by killing Sephiroth...
"I'm sure he knew you didn't mean it," was what she said. "You were injured, right?"
Tifa nodded. "I just wish I'd... said something nicer, if it was the last time."
"Got it!" Jessie exclaimed, and the door marked Jenova slid open with a hiss. The chamber beyond was dark, and Nanaki bounded up the stairs to provide some light. Tifa followed more slowly, Aeris and Yuffie with her.
The chamber was just large enough for all of them to stand comfortably inside. A single massive tube snaked upwards and into a dim glass tank. Nanaki padded closer, revealing broken wires and snapped tubes hanging from the ceiling. The tank was empty.
"Nothin' here either," Barret observed.
"I think that makes sense," Jessie said slowly. "My theory is, originally, there was only one Jenova specimen. Five years ago, it was kept here, and more recently, it was at the Shinra building. Sephiroth came for it both times, but for whatever reason, the first time, he failed."
"But what's he want with it?" Barret asked.
"There was some kind of experiment going on here," said Aeris. "Right? When Jenova was here, I'm sure there was something in those pods, too. Sephiroth must have seen that, the first time he came here, and..."
"And what?" said Tifa. "He was high up in the company, right under Heidegger. He must have already known about the kinds of experiments Shinra was doing, or at least suspected. I don't see how it could've been that big a shock to him."
Aeris looked up at the empty glass chamber. "Maybe it's because it was Jenova, that it affected him."
"What do you mean?"
"My mother told me... that she met Sephiroth, when he was still a child. He was being kept in the lab, just like we were. She said they did something to him. She said it happened at Nibelheim."
Tifa frowned. "So you think, he was part of these experiments himself."
Aeris nodded.
"It would explain a lot," Jessie said.
"But then he still woulda known already, wouldn't he?" Barret asked.
"I wonder," said Aeris. "I don't know how old he was when he made it out of that lab, or what they might have told him. There's a procedure that people in SOLDIER go through--maybe Professor Hojo told him he'd been through an early trial, and he never knew any different until he came here, and saw this experiment."
"But the question remains," said Nanaki, "just what is Jenova?"
"That, I don't know," said Aeris, "but maybe there are some records at Nibelheim."
Tifa nodded, but she made no move to leave. Instead she looked to Jessie. "What would it take," she asked, "to shut this place down?"
Jessie scratched her head. "Sorry, Tifa, but we don't have anything with that much power right now, and I don't know enough about this tech to operate it."
"We can come back, though," said Barret. "Blow this whole place to kingdom come."
"Yeah," said Tifa. "When we get the chance, I think we should."
They filed out of the chamber, and Aeris lingered for a moment just outside of it. No one was asking the other question, probably because they had no answer to that either, of what had stopped Sephiroth here five years ago. Had it been Zack? Had he given his life to wound Sephiroth so badly that it had taken him five years to resume whatever he'd begun in Nibelheim?
To be honest, she'd rather have the mystery, if it meant Zack had survived.
Aeris hurried after the others. Either way, the reactor wasn't any place she wanted to stay.