TTC: Chapter Eight
Time Travel. Cloud goes back in time to change things for the better. He'll have help, but will it be enough? Will be slash later on. There will be other slash and het pairings that will be noted as they come up.
Rating: FR13
Disclaimer: I dont' own FFVII.
A/N: Now, I know some of you were disappointed in my lack of 'spontaneous buttsecks' between 'two male leads who are obviously not homosexuals', and for that I apologize. Personally, I can't write naughty scenes to save the lives of my children,
If you don't get the references above, that's because Time to Change just got its first flame. Laugh as much as I did, please. For some strange reason, I don't think this reviewer bothered to read even the first chapter they reviewed. This does bring up a point I was intending to address, however. This fic, while it will have pairings and relationships, they will not be the focal point. This fic is exploring the changing relationship between Cloud and Sephiroth, from enemy to friend to maybe something more and where Cloud has knowledge of a possible future but Sephiroth doesn't. That's why those two are the main characters chosen in the drop down. Not because they are definitely the pairing du jour. I am still considering the ramifications of S/C vs other pairings for both. So yeah. Sorry about the lengthy author's note. I try to keep them as minimal as possible.
Also, Toki Mirage pointed out some nasty backtracking I did in the early chapters, so I'll be going through and correcting those. I don't believe you get notification if I merely replace chapters, but sorry if you do! Thanks, Toki!
“I did my best, it wasn't much
I couldn't feel, so I tried to touch
I've told the truth, I didn't come to fool you
And even though it all went wrong
I'll stand before the Lord of Song
With nothing on my tongue but Hallelujah”
~Leonard Cohen “Hallelujah”
Time to Change
Chapter Eight: Truth and Consequences
Yuffie was talking to Angeal when Cloud and Sephiroth reentered the bridge. As the two drifted closer, they could make out more of what was being said.
“How come you never use your sword? I noticed when you were sparring with Genesis and working with Cloud that you also had a broadsword that you used instead. But you have that massive piece of metal on your back all the time. Why?” Yuffie asked.
“This sword represents my family's honor,” Angeal replied. Cloud was very interested in this origin story as he had used that same sword once upon a future himself. “To use it would bring about wear, tear and rust. That would tarnish it and be a real waste.”
Yuffie blinked at the answer. It made no sense to her. “If you don't ever use it, then how do you know it will stand up to the pressure when you finally need it?”
The metaphorical side implicit in the question was not lost on Angeal. He was sure his honor would stand up to anything, though. But perhaps, like a muscle, it would get stronger with use? It was something to think on, whatever the case.
Sephiroth turned to his redhead friend and softly asked if he wished to talk about whatever was bothering him. Cloud tuned out Yuffie and Angeal to find out the answer to his earlier concerns. What was hindering Genesis' natural flamboyancy so much that he was forced to put forth a mockery? The redhead shook his head to Sephiroth's query, but blue eyes locked on blue eyes and Cloud knew his melancholy had something to do with them. Something he learned or saw or heard or found during his visit was the root of the problem. So with a look to his silver haired friend, Cloud led Genesis off to a corner where they could talk quietly. The enhanced hearing of the others was a problem, but they were far enough away that they would have to actually focus to hear what was being said. Hopefully, normal decency would prevent that. Cloud didn't forget, though, that Sephiroth was brought up in a lab, so things like that that would normally be learned from both parents and practical application were absent. He nudged Genesis just a bit farther and dropped his voice as low as he could.
“What is it?” he asked, his usual bluntness possibly working in his favor.
Genesis made a decision to speak, but he would withhold the part about Sephiroth and Vincent. He was sure that if Tseng returned favorable results, Cloud would be the first to be informed. Maybe the blond could prevail on the dark man to speak to Sephiroth, then. “I overheard some disturbing things the other day. Vincent and Tseng were speaking, and they spoke almost as if Angeal and I were already sick, and Angeal was already dead. I am unaware of any sickness, and this thing, this... degradation they spoke of, I've never heard of it. Nor have I ever heard of this geostigma. But both were talked of as if they had passed, and a cure was even spoken of. I want to know what's going on. It's like a puzzle, but one piece is just out of reach and I need that piece to see the whole picture.”
Cloud sighed and his head drooped momentarily. Then he seemed to come to some form of conclusion as his head came up and he looked over to Cid. Just a quirk of the eyebrow had the man using the intercom to reach Vincent's room. While the pilot was doing that, Cloud turned back to Genesis.
“I think I may be able to answer that, but it's not entirely my story to tell. You will have to be patient a bit longer.”
Genesis nodded and moved over to join Angeal and Sephiroth, sending Yuffie off by telling her Cloud wanted her. He knew she was somehow involved in everything, after all.
Cloud looked at Vincent, Cid and Yuffie and heaved another sigh. This wasn't going to go over well with at least one of their party.
“I think we need to tell them everything,” he began only to immediately be cut off.
“Shit, Kid! What the fuck for?” Cid blustered, drawing the direct attention of all three Firsts. Cloud rolled his eyes.
“Because Genesis heard Vincent and Tseng talking the other day? Because it's about time we did anyway? Because I was always going to eventually? Because Genesis is totally out of sorts and he needs to get straightened out before he gets back to Wutai and I refuse to tell him anything without telling Sephiroth either at the same time or first? Take your pick.”
“Cloud. Do you know what you're doing? What you could cause?” Vincent asked, already knowing that their blond leader was going to do it anyway, and that he did know the risks.
“Of course. I was there, after all. Yuffie?” Cloud turned to the uncharacteristically silent girl.
“I think you're right,” she said slowly; thoughtfully. “They have a right to know, after all.”
With a final, decisive nod, Cloud walked back over to the three SOLDIERs, his friends trailing behind him like always. The blond leaned against the hull of the airship, his arms crossed defensively over his chest, blue gaze locked on green.
“There are some things that you need to know. First, Sephiroth, know that I was always going to tell you. I had just hoped to do it privately. And have more time. But time has run out, so here we are.”
Sephiroth narrowed his eyes slightly at his young friend. Obviously the boy was nervous. He didn't normally fidget like he was, after all.
“What is it, Cloud?”
“Okay. First off, we're not crazy. We're gonna sound crazy, but we're not. After we're done, you can call Tseng and ask him, if you like. He's not here, and we haven't had a chance to fill him in on what we're about to tell you without your knowledge, so...” A deep breath, eyes closed on the exhale. His eyes came open again, still locked with Sephiroth's. “The thing that's been bothering Genesis is that he overheard some stuff. Our Turk and our ex-Turk were talking while we were all out the day after you got to Nibelheim. Genesis left during the training, if you recall, and when he came back he was... different. Well, he heard Tseng telling Vincent that both he and Angeal will, at a future date, suffer from what is known as degradation. All three of you were included in experiments from before your birth. Genesis and Angeal are almost brothers. Tseng told us something about Gillian's cells being used in both of their conceptions and during their gestation. I'm not sure who Gillian is-”
“My mother,” Angeal said quietly, voice slightly strained. Yuffie moved up beside him and rested a hand on his shoulder while Vincent watched Genesis for any negative reaction.
“Thank you. So they both carry the genes of Angeal's mother. They also carry Jenova cells.” Here, Cloud watched Sephiroth very carefully. The man was still; too still. Like he was having trouble processing. “Do you need a moment to wrap your head around that?” Cloud asked softly. The silver general nodded once and began to pace. When he finally settled again, it was once more across from Cloud, and another nod prompted the boy to speak again.
“Hojo injected Lucrecia with live Jenova cells, while Hollander gave Genesis and Angeal dormant or dead cells. Not entirely sure which. That one difference will be the difference between life, death, and sanity. Genesis', Angeal's and yours, respectively. In them, the Jenova cells didn't assimilate. They were rejected. In you, they assimilated all too well. They eventually overtake all of your natural cells to turn you into a puppet for an insane alien. There is a cure, but we're not sure how long it will take to get it. We will start on that right away. Would have done so five years ago if I had known anything about you two.” The last was directed at the two Commanders.
“How do you know all this, Cloud?” Genesis asked. He had an idea, but it was too farfetched and crazy to be true. Right?
“There is a possible future in which you die. Well, in which Angeal dies, Genesis is cured but I have no idea what happened to him, and Sephiroth... Well. You don't really want to know how bad it could get, do you?”
A softly spoken “I do,” answered that.
“You...” Cloud finally dropped the older man's gaze, his head bowing down and his voice quiet with regret. “You tried to destroy the world. Jenova burrowed into your mind and set about trying to kill everyone on the planet. It's not something I want to see again,” he finished, voice so soft they had to strain to hear him.
“What do you mean, again?”
“The four of us, and Tseng, are from that future. Jenova, through you, polluted the lifestream enough that the Cetra and Gaia herself had to use what remained of their power to send our consciousnesses back to our past bodies to try and change things.”
“Is that why you became my friend?” Sephiroth asked, his voice cold. He had apparently jumped to the worst possible conclusion first.
“No. That's why I had planned on killing you,” Cloud said bluntly. Green eyes widened slightly at the casual remark. “And then I met you and I found I couldn't. You hadn't done any of those things yet, and I just couldn't. You were lonely and alone and turning cold and too much like me for my liking, but you were also innocent. And nice. And I wanted so badly to give you just a small bit of happiness that I didn't think past that moment. Then I found out that I liked the person I was coming to know. You weren't at all what I knew of you from Before. Granted, I didn't know you well, then, but I knew enough to know that the coldness I saw developing in you in Nibelheim turned into a wall of ice so thick nothing could get through. I knew you more after you succumbed to Jenova's tactics, and thus still didn't know you at all. But you, now, are a person I've been proud to call friend for five years, even when some were against it.” He glared at Vincent a moment, who lifted an eyebrow in return.
“I did not want you getting hurt should you have to kill him again,” was his explanation.
“Again?!??” Genesis asked.
“Oh yeah. It would be his, what? Third? Fourth time?” Yuffie added.
Cloud closed his eyes for a moment, breathing deeply to calm his nerves. “Yes. I got lucky the first time and killed you after you tried to kill me. It was nothing more than willpower, I think, that managed it. Then I had to kill you again, in different forms, as Jenova ran around with your body. Then, about a year before I met you in this timeline, I had to kill you once more. I don't ever want to do it again.”
“How? How were you able to take down Sephiroth?” Angeal asked, joining the conversation at last.
“Hojo. After the first time, I was badly wounded. Sephiroth had impaled me on Masamune, and I was unenhanced. Hojo got hold of me and another person, a SOLDIER that was on that mission with us. I was a Trooper then. That SOLDIER had first tried to stop Sephiroth, and got badly wounded for it as well. Hojo took us to his labs under the Mansion in Nibelheim and kept us as experiments for the next fours years or so. That other SOLDIER, he made it through them pretty well. A lot more jaded and angry, but he broke us out one day. I was suffering from Mako poisoning, though. He dragged me all the way to the cliffs above Midgar, where ShinRa caught up with us. He stashed me behind some rocks and faced them. They killed him. Troopers, SOLDIERs and Turks. They took him out because he got away from Hojo,” Cloud spat the name like a curse. “They left me to die, because the poisoning was so bad. But I had already started to get better, and before that SOLDIER died, he gave me his sword and called me his Living Legacy.”
Cloud was lost in his memories, his and Zack's. Even his friends from the old timeline were learning new things about the blond. “My memories got messed up with his somehow, probably the Mako combined with the experiments. He told me a lot of things during our four years in captivity; about his life and his hopes and dreams. I took on his personality when I finally came to, and didn't even remember him for nearly a year after that.” He shook his head and refocused on Sephiroth. “Hojo has ruined more lives than you can imagine. Vincent was in the basement of the Mansion. Hojo had him locked away. That's what I had gone there for in the first place. I didn't know you'd be there, but I'm not sorry that you were. You're my friend.”
The SOLDIERs didn't know what to think, and moved away to gain the time needed. Sephiroth's thoughts, surprisingly, weren't on Jenova or Hojo at all. Well, indirectly, perhaps. He was thinking about how he'd like to kill the man for what he did to Cloud. And how it seemed that, distantly at least, he was somewhat related to Genesis and Angeal.
And the two Commanders were worried for their friend and for themselves. Could Cloud find the cure needed before it was too late? When did it become too late? How did they know if they were being affected? One thing was for certain, though. They wouldn't be going to Hollander or Hojo for help.
Sephiroth didn't know what to think. He paced and prowled the whole of the ship, pondering on what he just learned. He had been angry when he found out that Cloud had known all of this, but the little blond was so certain, so emphatic in his assertions that Sephiroth was his friend and none of this has any bearing on that that he was confused. So he decided to take that advice given at the beginning and call Tseng.
“Tseng.”
“It's Sephiroth. Are you alone?”
“Yes.”
“Good. Cloud suggested I call you right before he told me a tale of a future that could be where he killed me and I'm loosely related to Genesis and Angeal and Hojo experimented on him. What do you know?”
“I see. And you want me to confirm the truth of it?”
“Yes.”
“It's true. He had to kill you many times, often while fighting my Turks as well. Ask him about the time he had to wear a dress.” You could almost hear the smirk.
“Very well. Thank you, Tseng. I will call when we have reached our base.”
“Good.”
Well. He would definitely have to get to the bottom of the dress wearing, but at a later date, perhaps. Right now, he needed to absorb the information he learned and figure out where he stood now.
Cloud was staring out the window when everyone was finally ready to leave the ship. Yuffie had asked him not to accompany her and Vincent back to the capital. His eyes would worry any Wutaian, and if she was with him, they might shoot first, ask questions after his death was confirmed. He understood. Hated it, but understood. And he couldn't go with the SOLDIERs to their camp, even if Sephiroth started talking to him again. He wasn't sure how the older man felt about all this, since this was the first he'd seen of him since the general departed the bridge. So he was just going to stay on the ship with Cid until the pilot had to leave, then make a camp until Vincent returned. Genesis was having none of that, though. The cynical part of Cloud's mind said that Genesis only wanted him close since he knew how to possibly get the cure for him. The other part said Genesis liked him, and that was that. Either way, he got drug along with the SOLDIERs anyway, and Vincent was told he could find the base and retrieve him when he was done with his escort duty. Sephiroth still hadn't even looked at him by the time they left the ship. And all Cloud felt was despair.
Word Count: 2838
6 July 2012
Rating: FR13
Disclaimer: I dont' own FFVII.
A/N: Now, I know some of you were disappointed in my lack of 'spontaneous buttsecks' between 'two male leads who are obviously not homosexuals', and for that I apologize. Personally, I can't write naughty scenes to save the lives of my children,
If you don't get the references above, that's because Time to Change just got its first flame. Laugh as much as I did, please. For some strange reason, I don't think this reviewer bothered to read even the first chapter they reviewed. This does bring up a point I was intending to address, however. This fic, while it will have pairings and relationships, they will not be the focal point. This fic is exploring the changing relationship between Cloud and Sephiroth, from enemy to friend to maybe something more and where Cloud has knowledge of a possible future but Sephiroth doesn't. That's why those two are the main characters chosen in the drop down. Not because they are definitely the pairing du jour. I am still considering the ramifications of S/C vs other pairings for both. So yeah. Sorry about the lengthy author's note. I try to keep them as minimal as possible.
Also, Toki Mirage pointed out some nasty backtracking I did in the early chapters, so I'll be going through and correcting those. I don't believe you get notification if I merely replace chapters, but sorry if you do! Thanks, Toki!
“I did my best, it wasn't much
I couldn't feel, so I tried to touch
I've told the truth, I didn't come to fool you
And even though it all went wrong
I'll stand before the Lord of Song
With nothing on my tongue but Hallelujah”
~Leonard Cohen “Hallelujah”
Time to Change
Chapter Eight: Truth and Consequences
Yuffie was talking to Angeal when Cloud and Sephiroth reentered the bridge. As the two drifted closer, they could make out more of what was being said.
“How come you never use your sword? I noticed when you were sparring with Genesis and working with Cloud that you also had a broadsword that you used instead. But you have that massive piece of metal on your back all the time. Why?” Yuffie asked.
“This sword represents my family's honor,” Angeal replied. Cloud was very interested in this origin story as he had used that same sword once upon a future himself. “To use it would bring about wear, tear and rust. That would tarnish it and be a real waste.”
Yuffie blinked at the answer. It made no sense to her. “If you don't ever use it, then how do you know it will stand up to the pressure when you finally need it?”
The metaphorical side implicit in the question was not lost on Angeal. He was sure his honor would stand up to anything, though. But perhaps, like a muscle, it would get stronger with use? It was something to think on, whatever the case.
Sephiroth turned to his redhead friend and softly asked if he wished to talk about whatever was bothering him. Cloud tuned out Yuffie and Angeal to find out the answer to his earlier concerns. What was hindering Genesis' natural flamboyancy so much that he was forced to put forth a mockery? The redhead shook his head to Sephiroth's query, but blue eyes locked on blue eyes and Cloud knew his melancholy had something to do with them. Something he learned or saw or heard or found during his visit was the root of the problem. So with a look to his silver haired friend, Cloud led Genesis off to a corner where they could talk quietly. The enhanced hearing of the others was a problem, but they were far enough away that they would have to actually focus to hear what was being said. Hopefully, normal decency would prevent that. Cloud didn't forget, though, that Sephiroth was brought up in a lab, so things like that that would normally be learned from both parents and practical application were absent. He nudged Genesis just a bit farther and dropped his voice as low as he could.
“What is it?” he asked, his usual bluntness possibly working in his favor.
Genesis made a decision to speak, but he would withhold the part about Sephiroth and Vincent. He was sure that if Tseng returned favorable results, Cloud would be the first to be informed. Maybe the blond could prevail on the dark man to speak to Sephiroth, then. “I overheard some disturbing things the other day. Vincent and Tseng were speaking, and they spoke almost as if Angeal and I were already sick, and Angeal was already dead. I am unaware of any sickness, and this thing, this... degradation they spoke of, I've never heard of it. Nor have I ever heard of this geostigma. But both were talked of as if they had passed, and a cure was even spoken of. I want to know what's going on. It's like a puzzle, but one piece is just out of reach and I need that piece to see the whole picture.”
Cloud sighed and his head drooped momentarily. Then he seemed to come to some form of conclusion as his head came up and he looked over to Cid. Just a quirk of the eyebrow had the man using the intercom to reach Vincent's room. While the pilot was doing that, Cloud turned back to Genesis.
“I think I may be able to answer that, but it's not entirely my story to tell. You will have to be patient a bit longer.”
Genesis nodded and moved over to join Angeal and Sephiroth, sending Yuffie off by telling her Cloud wanted her. He knew she was somehow involved in everything, after all.
Cloud looked at Vincent, Cid and Yuffie and heaved another sigh. This wasn't going to go over well with at least one of their party.
“I think we need to tell them everything,” he began only to immediately be cut off.
“Shit, Kid! What the fuck for?” Cid blustered, drawing the direct attention of all three Firsts. Cloud rolled his eyes.
“Because Genesis heard Vincent and Tseng talking the other day? Because it's about time we did anyway? Because I was always going to eventually? Because Genesis is totally out of sorts and he needs to get straightened out before he gets back to Wutai and I refuse to tell him anything without telling Sephiroth either at the same time or first? Take your pick.”
“Cloud. Do you know what you're doing? What you could cause?” Vincent asked, already knowing that their blond leader was going to do it anyway, and that he did know the risks.
“Of course. I was there, after all. Yuffie?” Cloud turned to the uncharacteristically silent girl.
“I think you're right,” she said slowly; thoughtfully. “They have a right to know, after all.”
With a final, decisive nod, Cloud walked back over to the three SOLDIERs, his friends trailing behind him like always. The blond leaned against the hull of the airship, his arms crossed defensively over his chest, blue gaze locked on green.
“There are some things that you need to know. First, Sephiroth, know that I was always going to tell you. I had just hoped to do it privately. And have more time. But time has run out, so here we are.”
Sephiroth narrowed his eyes slightly at his young friend. Obviously the boy was nervous. He didn't normally fidget like he was, after all.
“What is it, Cloud?”
“Okay. First off, we're not crazy. We're gonna sound crazy, but we're not. After we're done, you can call Tseng and ask him, if you like. He's not here, and we haven't had a chance to fill him in on what we're about to tell you without your knowledge, so...” A deep breath, eyes closed on the exhale. His eyes came open again, still locked with Sephiroth's. “The thing that's been bothering Genesis is that he overheard some stuff. Our Turk and our ex-Turk were talking while we were all out the day after you got to Nibelheim. Genesis left during the training, if you recall, and when he came back he was... different. Well, he heard Tseng telling Vincent that both he and Angeal will, at a future date, suffer from what is known as degradation. All three of you were included in experiments from before your birth. Genesis and Angeal are almost brothers. Tseng told us something about Gillian's cells being used in both of their conceptions and during their gestation. I'm not sure who Gillian is-”
“My mother,” Angeal said quietly, voice slightly strained. Yuffie moved up beside him and rested a hand on his shoulder while Vincent watched Genesis for any negative reaction.
“Thank you. So they both carry the genes of Angeal's mother. They also carry Jenova cells.” Here, Cloud watched Sephiroth very carefully. The man was still; too still. Like he was having trouble processing. “Do you need a moment to wrap your head around that?” Cloud asked softly. The silver general nodded once and began to pace. When he finally settled again, it was once more across from Cloud, and another nod prompted the boy to speak again.
“Hojo injected Lucrecia with live Jenova cells, while Hollander gave Genesis and Angeal dormant or dead cells. Not entirely sure which. That one difference will be the difference between life, death, and sanity. Genesis', Angeal's and yours, respectively. In them, the Jenova cells didn't assimilate. They were rejected. In you, they assimilated all too well. They eventually overtake all of your natural cells to turn you into a puppet for an insane alien. There is a cure, but we're not sure how long it will take to get it. We will start on that right away. Would have done so five years ago if I had known anything about you two.” The last was directed at the two Commanders.
“How do you know all this, Cloud?” Genesis asked. He had an idea, but it was too farfetched and crazy to be true. Right?
“There is a possible future in which you die. Well, in which Angeal dies, Genesis is cured but I have no idea what happened to him, and Sephiroth... Well. You don't really want to know how bad it could get, do you?”
A softly spoken “I do,” answered that.
“You...” Cloud finally dropped the older man's gaze, his head bowing down and his voice quiet with regret. “You tried to destroy the world. Jenova burrowed into your mind and set about trying to kill everyone on the planet. It's not something I want to see again,” he finished, voice so soft they had to strain to hear him.
“What do you mean, again?”
“The four of us, and Tseng, are from that future. Jenova, through you, polluted the lifestream enough that the Cetra and Gaia herself had to use what remained of their power to send our consciousnesses back to our past bodies to try and change things.”
“Is that why you became my friend?” Sephiroth asked, his voice cold. He had apparently jumped to the worst possible conclusion first.
“No. That's why I had planned on killing you,” Cloud said bluntly. Green eyes widened slightly at the casual remark. “And then I met you and I found I couldn't. You hadn't done any of those things yet, and I just couldn't. You were lonely and alone and turning cold and too much like me for my liking, but you were also innocent. And nice. And I wanted so badly to give you just a small bit of happiness that I didn't think past that moment. Then I found out that I liked the person I was coming to know. You weren't at all what I knew of you from Before. Granted, I didn't know you well, then, but I knew enough to know that the coldness I saw developing in you in Nibelheim turned into a wall of ice so thick nothing could get through. I knew you more after you succumbed to Jenova's tactics, and thus still didn't know you at all. But you, now, are a person I've been proud to call friend for five years, even when some were against it.” He glared at Vincent a moment, who lifted an eyebrow in return.
“I did not want you getting hurt should you have to kill him again,” was his explanation.
“Again?!??” Genesis asked.
“Oh yeah. It would be his, what? Third? Fourth time?” Yuffie added.
Cloud closed his eyes for a moment, breathing deeply to calm his nerves. “Yes. I got lucky the first time and killed you after you tried to kill me. It was nothing more than willpower, I think, that managed it. Then I had to kill you again, in different forms, as Jenova ran around with your body. Then, about a year before I met you in this timeline, I had to kill you once more. I don't ever want to do it again.”
“How? How were you able to take down Sephiroth?” Angeal asked, joining the conversation at last.
“Hojo. After the first time, I was badly wounded. Sephiroth had impaled me on Masamune, and I was unenhanced. Hojo got hold of me and another person, a SOLDIER that was on that mission with us. I was a Trooper then. That SOLDIER had first tried to stop Sephiroth, and got badly wounded for it as well. Hojo took us to his labs under the Mansion in Nibelheim and kept us as experiments for the next fours years or so. That other SOLDIER, he made it through them pretty well. A lot more jaded and angry, but he broke us out one day. I was suffering from Mako poisoning, though. He dragged me all the way to the cliffs above Midgar, where ShinRa caught up with us. He stashed me behind some rocks and faced them. They killed him. Troopers, SOLDIERs and Turks. They took him out because he got away from Hojo,” Cloud spat the name like a curse. “They left me to die, because the poisoning was so bad. But I had already started to get better, and before that SOLDIER died, he gave me his sword and called me his Living Legacy.”
Cloud was lost in his memories, his and Zack's. Even his friends from the old timeline were learning new things about the blond. “My memories got messed up with his somehow, probably the Mako combined with the experiments. He told me a lot of things during our four years in captivity; about his life and his hopes and dreams. I took on his personality when I finally came to, and didn't even remember him for nearly a year after that.” He shook his head and refocused on Sephiroth. “Hojo has ruined more lives than you can imagine. Vincent was in the basement of the Mansion. Hojo had him locked away. That's what I had gone there for in the first place. I didn't know you'd be there, but I'm not sorry that you were. You're my friend.”
The SOLDIERs didn't know what to think, and moved away to gain the time needed. Sephiroth's thoughts, surprisingly, weren't on Jenova or Hojo at all. Well, indirectly, perhaps. He was thinking about how he'd like to kill the man for what he did to Cloud. And how it seemed that, distantly at least, he was somewhat related to Genesis and Angeal.
And the two Commanders were worried for their friend and for themselves. Could Cloud find the cure needed before it was too late? When did it become too late? How did they know if they were being affected? One thing was for certain, though. They wouldn't be going to Hollander or Hojo for help.
Sephiroth didn't know what to think. He paced and prowled the whole of the ship, pondering on what he just learned. He had been angry when he found out that Cloud had known all of this, but the little blond was so certain, so emphatic in his assertions that Sephiroth was his friend and none of this has any bearing on that that he was confused. So he decided to take that advice given at the beginning and call Tseng.
“Tseng.”
“It's Sephiroth. Are you alone?”
“Yes.”
“Good. Cloud suggested I call you right before he told me a tale of a future that could be where he killed me and I'm loosely related to Genesis and Angeal and Hojo experimented on him. What do you know?”
“I see. And you want me to confirm the truth of it?”
“Yes.”
“It's true. He had to kill you many times, often while fighting my Turks as well. Ask him about the time he had to wear a dress.” You could almost hear the smirk.
“Very well. Thank you, Tseng. I will call when we have reached our base.”
“Good.”
Well. He would definitely have to get to the bottom of the dress wearing, but at a later date, perhaps. Right now, he needed to absorb the information he learned and figure out where he stood now.
Cloud was staring out the window when everyone was finally ready to leave the ship. Yuffie had asked him not to accompany her and Vincent back to the capital. His eyes would worry any Wutaian, and if she was with him, they might shoot first, ask questions after his death was confirmed. He understood. Hated it, but understood. And he couldn't go with the SOLDIERs to their camp, even if Sephiroth started talking to him again. He wasn't sure how the older man felt about all this, since this was the first he'd seen of him since the general departed the bridge. So he was just going to stay on the ship with Cid until the pilot had to leave, then make a camp until Vincent returned. Genesis was having none of that, though. The cynical part of Cloud's mind said that Genesis only wanted him close since he knew how to possibly get the cure for him. The other part said Genesis liked him, and that was that. Either way, he got drug along with the SOLDIERs anyway, and Vincent was told he could find the base and retrieve him when he was done with his escort duty. Sephiroth still hadn't even looked at him by the time they left the ship. And all Cloud felt was despair.
Word Count: 2838
6 July 2012