Chapter 23
Talking to others in the canyon confirmed it: a man fitting Zack's description had passed through Cosmo Canyon only the day before. He'd spoken to several of the elders, and though he hadn't told anyone where he was going, the gatekeeper had seen him headed east as he left.
It worried Tifa, though she couldn't put her finger on why. Maybe it was the questions he'd been asking. Maybe it was learning that he was lucid enough to be on his own, but he hadn't gone back for Cloud. Or were his memories still hazy, too? What was he after?
"What's east of here?" Aeris wondered once they had gathered everyone back at the pub. They were all up now, though Jessie hid a yawn behind her hand.
"Mostly forest, some villages I think," Tifa said. "Nothing big that I know about."
"Gongaga," Cloud said suddenly.
"What?"
"Zack's hometown, Gongaga. We- were both from villages nobody's heard of. I'm pretty sure it was around here somewhere."
"So he's headed home?" said Aeris.
"Then what was he asking about all that other stuff for?" Yuffie wondered.
"Perhaps it's only a detour," Nanaki suggested. "It must have been some time since he was last able to visit, and Gongaga isn't far from here."
"So then, are we gonna go after 'im?" Barret asked.
"We are, right?" said Aeris.
Everyone was looking to Tifa for a decision, and she nodded. There was no question. "But I don't think all of us need to go just to check out a lead," she said. "We only just got here, there's still a lot we could learn. And... it's as good a home base as we're likely to have, while we figure out our next move."
"So who's going?" asked Jessie.
"I am," Aeris said immediately. "I'm going for sure."
"Me, too," said Cloud. "I know what you're going to say, Tifa, but they said familiar faces help, right? And, um... I can drive us."
"You know how to drive?" Tifa wondered.
He nodded. "They taught us, in the army."
Tifa hesitated, but he'd been all right so far, and maybe, if they found Zack, it would be good for him, too. "All right," she decided. "The three of us knew him, so we'll go together."
"I wanna come, too," said Yuffie. "I'm gonna be bored out of my mind if I have to hang around this place. Plus I figure you need somebody who can be objective about the whole thing."
She really must have disliked the canyon if she was opting for a drive instead, but Tifa didn't have any reason to tell her no. "All right. Sure."
"Rest of us'll hang out here, see what we can learn from the elders," said Barret.
"That Temple of the Ancients Zack was asking about..." Jessie said thoughtfully. "You really don't know anything about it, Aeris?"
"No," said Aeris, her brow furrowing. "I've never heard of it."
"The whole thing bothers me," said Tifa, "but I guess we can ask him what that's about when we find him."
Aeris looked at her and nodded. "Yeah."
They got directions from the innkeeper, who marked the village for them on their map, and packed up some of their gear. If Zack was on foot, there was a chance they'd catch up to him before ever reaching Gongaga, but if they met him at the village, then Tifa wasn't sure what to expect from it. For all she knew, it was a Shinra town; certainly growing up there hadn't deterred Zack from joining their ranks.
And what to expect from Zack? She wondered if Yuffie had noted it, too, how Aeris and Cloud were too caught up in the hope of finding him to reflect on how strange it was. How had even known about the Temple of the Ancients to ask about it in the first place?
But maybe Tifa had her own reason for dwelling on what might in the end have a perfectly reasonable explanation. Something petty, especially beside what Aeris was feeling.
There she was, eager for a reunion with someone she'd cared about in the past, someone she had suspected was dead. It was perfectly understandable, a feeling she had every right to. Everything she'd ever said indicated that her romantic feelings for Zack were in the past, so there was no reason for Tifa to be bothered by that eagerness. No reason at all.
Tifa climbed up into the truck after Aeris and sat down opposite her. She called to Cloud that they were ready to go, and he turned the key in the ignition.
"You okay, Tifa?" Aeris asked.
"Yeah. I guess I'm just not sure how to deal with Zack if we find him. What would I say to him? I'm not the person I was back then. Maybe he isn't either."
"Five years is a long time," Aeris agreed. "I'm not sure what'll come out either. But we can always start with 'hello,' I think."
Tifa smiled wryly. "Sure. 'Hello. Funny meeting like this, right? You probably thought I was dead, too.'"
"I wonder how much of a shock he'll get out of us knowing each other."
"There's probably a lot we could shock him with. I mean, he doesn't even know you're an Ancient, does he?"
Aeris shook her head. "No, I never told him. And he doesn't know I have a girlfriend, or that I've joined an anti-Shinra group... And even I didn't know I was the daughter of the scientist responsible for Sephiroth!"
"How are you... coping with that?" Tifa wondered. "You said you got some answers, right?"
"Yeah. I think... I've decided to forgive him. People tell me he wanted to do something good. And like a lot of people who want to change the world... I think he sacrificed some of his morals in the process. The outcome was just so much worse than anyone could've imagined."
Tifa wondered if she had considered AVALANCHE in that sentiment. They'd sacrificed some of their morals, hadn't they? They were willing to take lives... How did a willingness to experiment on a child compare? He hadn't intended for anyone to get hurt. Tifa couldn't say the same.
"Well..." she said, "he did help to bring something good into the world. Didn't he?"
Aeris smiled at her. "You know, I'll take it. But what are you and your extremely biased opinion doing all the way over there anyway?"
Tifa shook her head, not sure she wanted to or even could explain herself, and moved over to sit beside Aeris. "Better?"
"Much," Aeris said, bumping shoulders with her. "And you know, Yuffie can't see us back here, so we can be as gross as we want."
Tifa laughed softly. "There's still the rear-view mirror," she said, nodding to Cloud in the driver's seat.
"You think he'd mind...?"
"I'm not sure. But, I don't want to make him uncomfortable."
"Well, all right," Aeris sighed, leaning her head against Tifa's shoulder. "This is still nice."
"Mm."
Tifa shouldn't have needed the reassurance... but it was nice to have it anyway.
As they continued east, the landscape grew lush. Vines cascaded down the canyon walls, and trees crowded the heights above. Forest surrounded them as they at last left the canyon. The shade and the scent of it calmed her.
They'd learned so much in the past few days and yet, Tifa still wasn't sure what picture it made when it came together. When Sephiroth had burned Nibelheim to the ground, had it been out of rage, or part of a bigger plan? Did he hope that Aeris could lead him to the Promised Land, or was it something else he sought? If he was an enemy of the Planet, if he wanted to harm it, he need only learn from the Shinra.
Maybe Zack would know. He'd been closer to Sephiroth than any of them, in the days before the disaster. Maybe that was how he knew what he did.
After driving through the morning, the forest thinned and then cleared, and the truck slowed. Through the rear window, Tifa could see Cloud staring at something ahead of them, and when the truck came to a stop, she stood to look over the cab.
It wasn't hard to pick out what had caught his attention. A shadow loomed in the distance, twisted metal shapes centered in a stretch of lifeless, blackened earth... The ruins of a reactor.
Here, too?
There was a village, or at least, a collection of round huts. Some of them showed damage from the explosion that had taken the reactor, and Tifa wondered if the place had been bigger, once. Maybe when Zack had lived here.
Tifa helped Aeris down from the truck, and they joined Cloud and Yuffie.
"Zack's gonna have one of those stories, too, isn't he?" Yuffie remarked, eyes still on the reactor.
"Let's see if anyone's seen him," Aeris suggested, and they started into the village. They didn't get far, though, before she gasped and pointed. "Look!"
From behind one of the far huts, a figure came into view. Tall, with spiky black hair. He didn't appear to have noticed them yet.
Cloud ran towards him, Aeris close behind. Tifa exchanged glances with Yuffie, and they followed.
"Zack?" Aeris called out as they neared him. They all came to a stop a few paces away.
It was him, now that Tifa could see his face. Older, of course, than she remembered it, his hair a little longer, but those were the same features, the same scar on his cheek. He stared at them with the same Mako eyes that she remembered.
"Aeris?" he said. "Cloud! And... Tifa, too." He shook his head in disbelief. "You guys know each other? What are you all doing here?"
Cloud stood staring back mutely. Aeris had tears in her eyes.
"Looking for you, dummy!" she exclaimed. "We heard you'd come this way, and-- Well, look at you. You're... alive."
"...and you're okay," Cloud added.
Zack scratched his head sheepishly. "Sorry to worry you."
"Where have you been?" Aeris demanded. "I... I mean I know, about everything with Hojo, but... Weren't you with Cloud?"
"Yeah... Things are a little foggy for me there. But, once my head started to clear, I heard about Sephiroth being back and I had to look into some things."
So it was like with Cloud. Zack must have come to somewhere without knowing how he'd gotten there, or how they'd been separated. And then, he'd heard about Sephiroth. Anyone who'd been at Nibelheim would have felt an urgency about that.
"And that's why you went to Cosmo Canyon?" Tifa asked him.
Zack nodded. "I heard up in North Corel that Sephiroth's been looking for some place called the Temple of the Ancients. I'm not sure what's so important about it, but I figure we can't let him get there first. That's why I've been trying to find out where it is. You guys don't know anything about it, do you?"
Cloud took a step back. "Don't- don't tell him anything," he said.
"What?" said Tifa, looking at him.
He shook his head, his brow furrowed. "Something's not right."
"Aeris?"
"I..." Aeris faltered. "It's been so long, I'm not sure..."
"Isn't it a little fishy how he just assumed we'd know about Sephiroth, too?" asked Yuffie.
Now that she mentioned it... he'd barely questioned anything about the situation. Maybe he could put together that they'd followed him here from Cosmo Canyon, but he hadn't asked what they themselves had been doing there. He wasn't surprised that Tifa had survived, or that Cloud had recovered. He hadn't expressed any relief or joy at seeing them. He hadn't asked who Yuffie was.
"I mean," said Zack, "if anyone would know about Sephiroth, it's the people who were there at Nibelheim, right?"
Aeris shook her head. "No... They're right. Something's wrong. I would've thought you'd be happier to see us... Especially Cloud. He wasn't well the last time you saw him."
"I am glad to see you, I'm just kind of thrown."
"You're not Zack," Cloud stated. "Zack... wouldn't have left me behind."
Zack looked at him, and then he began to chuckle, and it wasn't the way Tifa remembered him laughing. "Well, it was worth a try," he said.
And like blinking, it was no longer Zack who stood there, but--
"Sephiroth...!" Tifa exclaimed.
Cloud staggered backwards as though struck, doubling over and clutching his head with both hands. Yuffie backed away, too. Tifa held her ground, and so did Aeris, though her hands trembled around her staff.
"I suppose it was a little too hard to believe," said Sephiroth, his eyes on Aeris. "After all, why would Zack work against me? He's as much my friend as he was yours. How did Cloud put it? We're his type."
Aeris shook her head slowly. "How did you..."
"It doesn't matter," he said. "What does matter is the Temple of the Ancients. Have you heard of it?"
Aeris didn't respond. Tifa watched him silently, alert for his slightest movement. Her heart was pounding, but she focused on her breathing, steadying herself. This time, she thought, there would be a confrontation. He hadn't come here only to taunt them.
"The Cetra are an inferior race in many respects," Sephiroth went on, idly tracing an arc across the ground with the Masamune, "but I must commend you on your tenacity. Travelling the Lifestream, I've learned nearly everything your people once knew. But even after two thousand years, the guardians of the Temple haven't returned to the Planet, and so they've kept from me the knowledge of its location. But, you're going to tell me."
"I don't know where it is," said Aeris.
"Ah, but the Planet does. And I think it would rather share that with you than allow the last of its chosen people to perish."
Tifa stepped in front of Aeris, catching her eye just briefly. When she held out her hand, Aeris passed her her staff without question.
"I won't let you touch her," Tifa said.
Sephiroth smiled, an acceptance of her challenge.
As the Masamune swung towards them, Tifa swung the staff, catching the edge of the blade and deflecting it down. Then she rushed forward, swinging the other end for his head.
Sephiroth caught it with his right hand. He met her gaze and smiled, and for an instant, she was back in the Nibelheim reactor, moments before he cut her down. He shoved her backwards and raised his sword.
Only this time she wasn't alone. Fire erupted around him, blinding him if nothing else, and Yuffie shouted, hurling her shuriken. The arc of the Masamune travelled up to deflect it, leaving Tifa an opening. She closed the distance, slamming the staff full force into his chest.
On a normal person, it would have broken ribs. Sephiroth took a step back.
Tossing Aeris back her staff, Tifa rammed Sephiroth with her shoulder and grabbed the hilt of the Masamune, trying to wrench it from his grasp. His grip held fast, but she could feel the tension in his arm. His strength might be superhuman, but she was making him use it. He couldn't hurt her friends with this sword, as long as she held onto it.
But he still had his magic. He lifted his right hand, and Tifa braced herself, knowing there was no dodging it even if she let go. There was a flash of light, but no pain-- Sephiroth stumbled back, and the Masamune slipped ever so slightly in his grasp.
His own spell had reflected back on him. Aeris? Tifa risked a glance back. She stood deep in concentration, channeling magic not through the materia in her staff but directly from the Planet, as she'd done on Mt. Nibel, as she must have done moments earlier while Tifa had her staff.
Yuffie's shuriken flashed again, catching Sephiroth's forearm as he lifted it to protect his head, but it left no wound. Not even torn cloth. There was a faint smell, one Tifa couldn't pinpoint in the moment.
Sephiroth wasn't smiling as he grabbed a fistful of her hair. His intention was obvious, and Tifa acted faster, crashing her skull into his head. Better than the alternative, but the impact made her lose her grip on the Masamune and stumble back a few steps.
Sephiroth swung the blade out as though flexing a muscle, and then it swung back again. Tifa was still inside his effective reach. She could avoid it.
But then, someone pushed her.
"Cloud!?" Yuffie shrieked, and Aeris screamed.
Tifa felt the Masamune slice into her side. She staggered, and fell. Her hands pressed against the wound, but blood dribbled up warm between her fingers.
Cloud stood a pace away from her, staring in horror. He backed away slowly, tripped over a stone, and sat hard on the ground.
"Tifa!" Aeris cried. She sprang forward, but the Masamune came down between them. Aeris raised her staff, but Sephiroth disarmed her in a flash and brought his blade to her throat. He forced her several steps farther from Tifa.
"Now," he said, "perhaps you'll reconsider. She'll be dead soon if no one tends to that wound. Speak to the Planet, tell me what I want to know, and I'll give you that chance."
"Don't," said Tifa. "He'll just kill you."
Tears welled in Aeris's eyes. "But, I..."
Yuffie was inching slowly towards Tifa, but Sephiroth noticed and swept the Masamune in an arc, forcing her to leap back to avoid it.
Aeris swallowed. Her hands clenched at her sides and she turned to Sephiroth. "No," she said slowly, "you won't kill me. Will you? After all... you won't know if what I tell you is the truth until you go there yourself."
"You think I won't know if you're lying?" Sephiroth wondered, sweeping his blade back towards her.
"I think... you can't afford to risk it. I'm all you've got. And maybe I'm a better liar than you think I am."
"Aeris, you can't..." Tifa said hoarsely.
"Just tell him!" cried Yuffie. "We'll stop him there, but just- just tell him!"
Aeris looked to Yuffie and nodded. She closed her eyes, and Tifa could see her trying to force her body to relax as she reached out to the Planet.
Maybe it wouldn't answer, Tifa thought, but the possibility brought terror rather than hope. If Aeris couldn't tell Sephiroth what he wanted to know, what if he killed her anyway in anger? Tifa put a hand to the ground, shifting her body and pulling herself a few inches closer to Aeris. Her head throbbed, her vision going black at the edges.
"I know where it is," said Aeris. "The Temple... It's almost due east of here, on an island at the tip of the eastern continent. You'll find it hidden deep in the forests."
"There," said Sephiroth. "That wasn't so hard."
"Now let me heal her," Aeris pressed.
The Masamune lingered near her throat, and for a second Tifa couldn't breathe.
A bolt of energy flashed from out of sight and struck the blade, knocking it away. A man ran into the fray, grabbing Aeris by the arm and hauling her back to put himself between her and Sephiroth, weapon drawn.
Blue suit. Red hair. Tifa recognized him... The Turk who'd blown the pillar. Reno.
"What--?" Aeris exclaimed.
"Back off," Reno said to Sephiroth. Tifa couldn't be sure if he was shaking or if it was just her vision going. "You two had a deal, right? She gave you what you wanted."
Sephiroth tilted his head in appraisal. "Very well," he said. He nodded to Aeris. "I'll see you again, at the Temple."
And then he was gone, but he hadn't left them alone. Tifa couldn't lift her head high enough to take it all in, but she saw the thick tentacles coiled across the ground, and there was that familiar scent. She knew this monster.
"Oh, fuck me!" Reno exclaimed.
Aeris pushed past him and dropped to Tifa's side, heedless of the new enemy. "Hang on, Tifa," she said.
She felt the warmth of healing wash over her wound, slowly closing it back up. Her head began to clear, and she became aware of Reno and Yuffie flanking them, fighting to hold Jenova at bay.
"Hurry it up, Aeris," Reno barked. "We gotta move."
Tifa struggled to push herself up even before Aeris had finished. "We can't just leave," she said. "The villagers..."
"Screw the villagers!" said Reno. "I'm not--"
"I'm staying," Aeris interrupted sharply. "If you're here to help, then help. The three of us can take it."
"I don't know, Aeris," said Yuffie, stumbling back a few steps as she blocked an attack with her shuriken. "There were more of us last time..."
Tifa wanted to say she'd fight with them, but Aeris had to help her to her feet, and she wasn't sure she could stay there on her own. How could she fight when she couldn't even stand? With Aeris supporting her, they moved away from the fight as quickly as Tifa could manage, and Aeris eased her down onto the ground.
She spotted Cloud not far away, sitting with his head in his hands. Right now, they were equally useless, she thought grimly.
"I'll be back," Aeris promised.
"Be careful," Tifa said, catching her hand for a moment. "They're right, we... You run if you have to."
It was hard, watching the battle unfold, unable to do anything. She kept trying to think of small ways she could help, her body tensed for action. Her fists clenched and unclenched, but the stickiness of her fingers reminded her that her hands were covered in her own blood. She would only get in the way.
Tifa hated to feel any gratitude for Reno, but he was a capable fighter, alert and quick on his feet. He protected Aeris in her stead, warning her of attacks, and pulling her out of the way when she was too slow. She didn't understand his motives, but at least for now, he was helping.
Yuffie fought hard, too. Whether it was determination or desperation, she threw herself more into this fight than Tifa had seen before. Her shuriken flashed again and again, slicing through tentacles, and she used what must have been the last of her incendiaries to buy her companions time.
And Aeris. Aeris with her slender frame and her clumsily-wielded staff. Her magic protected them against Jenova's, and brought powerful flames against it, and ultimately it was that magic that reduced this incarnation, too, to a scorching heap of flesh.
Tifa managed to struggle to her feet and made her way back over to them. When Aeris spotted her, she hurried over to support her, stumbling a little over her own feet.
"You all right?" Tifa asked her, trying to look her over for injuries.
Aeris nodded. "I think so."
"Yuffie?"
"I think I'm gonna hurl," Yuffie said, and she turned her back on Jenova, but otherwise she seemed to be moving all right.
Reno prodded the corpse with his nightstick. "Man, this is not how I wanted to spend my lunch hour."
Tifa regarded him warily. "What are you doing here? Why help us?"
He turned towards her, distrust in his own bearing. "Don't get the wrong idea," he said. "Tseng would murder me if I let anything happen to Aeris. That's all."
"Have you been following us?" Aeris asked.
He shrugged. "The boss's plan for tracking Sephiroth didn't pan out. We figured you guys might help us pick up his trail again. Looks like we were right on the money."
"Um," said Yuffie. "Who is this guy anyway?"
"Reno, of the Turks," he answered.
"What!? We just got help from a Turk?"
"Hey, I'm not thrilled about it either," Reno said, shaking his head. "Tifa gave me a pretty rough time last time we met."
"You deserved it," Tifa stated coldly.
"So, now what?" said Aeris uncertainly. "We just go our separate ways...?"
"Works for me," said Reno. "It'd be pretty pathetic, if we tried to fight each other now."
Tifa's jaw clenched. He was right. They might outnumber him, but they were all so exhausted that she couldn't be sure they could overpower him. "All right," she said. "Fine. But don't expect me to forget Sector 7 just because you helped out a little."
"Feeling's mutual," he said, and swinging his nightstick up to rest on his shoulder, he turned to go.
"But Reno," Aeris began, and he paused to glance over his shoulder. "Thanks."
He didn't reply, and soon disappeared down the road.
"We're not staying here either, right?" said Yuffie. "I mean, it wasn't really Zack, so..."
Tifa frowned. There hadn't been any time to think about it, but what exactly had happened there? Sephiroth had some kind of illusion magic, to let him look like Zack? Sound like Zack?
She exchanged glances with Aeris.
"And now Sephiroth knows about the Temple," Tifa said.
Aeris shook her head. "He knows where it is, but he won't be able to get inside without the key."
"Are we sure he doesn't already have it?" Yuffie asked, and it was a fair point. They didn't know.
"We need to get back and tell the others," Tifa decided, and she looked back at Cloud, still sitting in the same spot.
"I don't think he's driving us," Yuffie observed skeptically. "Wouldn't trust 'im to anyway."
"I don't think that was his fault," said Aeris.
"Whether he means to crash and kill us all or not, it doesn't exactly change how dead we'd be."
Aeris didn't argue with that, and Tifa couldn't think of any counterpoint either.
"I'm... going to go talk to him," she said. "Could you two check in with the villagers? Tell them they need to burn the body. Destroy it as completely as they can."
Aeris nodded, and handed Tifa her staff to lean on. Tifa limped her way over to Cloud and crouched down carefully in front of him. He didn't seem aware of her, and she wondered if he'd retreated back into the state she'd found him in.
"Cloud...?"
But he flinched at the sound of her voice and coiled his body tighter, burying his head in his arms.
"Cloud, I'm all right. Everything's all right now."
"It's not," he mumbled. "I..."
Tifa reached out to touch his arm, but she saw the blood on her hand, and she hesitated. "I know you didn't mean to," she said instead. "Sephiroth... did something to you, right?"
"He was in my head, and then..." He lifted his head to look at her. "What did I do, Tifa? I..."
"I'm all right," she repeated.
Cloud's eyes fell to the blood caking her shirt. He shook his head slowly. "But... now he knows where to find the Temple... It's my fault."
"No. You were the one who told us not to trust him, when he was pretending to be Zack. You knew something was wrong. If you hadn't been here... we might've told him, and never known we'd given the information to Sephiroth."
Cloud didn't say anything.
"We have to get going," Tifa went on. "We have to tell the others."
He shook his head. "I don't think I should go with you. I'm... I might hurt you again."
"It'll be all right. Now that you know... You can fight it. And we'll all be here to help you."
Cloud didn't move. He sat staring at nothing, his brow furrowed.
"If you stay here, what are you going to do?"
"I..." He took a breath. "I'll go with you, back to Cosmo Canyon. But only because I don't know if I can hold it together on my own. Once I'm there... I don't know, maybe they can lock me up somewhere."
Tifa bit her lip. "Cloud..."
"I don't wanna hurt anyone," he insisted. "It's my choice, right?"
She didn't know how to talk him out of it, right then, but she'd have time, as long as he came with them, so she nodded. She held out a hand, but Cloud was the one who helped her back to her feet. As soon as she'd found her balance, he let go and backed away from her, averting even his gaze.
"Are we ready to go?" Aeris asked, approaching with Yuffie.
Tifa nodded. "I think so."
"Who's driving though?" Yuffie asked, eyeing Cloud suspiciously. "I'm not getting in the truck if it's him."
Aeris looked at Tifa, and then shrugged. "I guess it's up to you and me, Yuffie. It's not like there was any traffic on the way here, so... we just have to stay on the road and not hit any trees."
"Wonderful," said Yuffie.
They returned to the truck, and Yuffie at least allowed Cloud to turn it around for them. After that, he insisted on sitting in the back, apart from them. Aeris took the keys from him and climbed into the driver's seat with Yuffie beside her, and Tifa to direct them. It was a fairly straight road. They'd make it back somehow or other.
That was the easy part.
Tifa leaned her head back against the seat as they got moving. Aeris hadn't said what the Temple of the Ancients was, and Tifa didn't ask. She didn't want to know, not yet. She couldn't do anything about it now, so maybe it was better to leave that terrible revelation for later.