The Conscience of the King Chapter Twenty: Little Earthquakes "And I hate watching us wither Black-winged roses that safely changed their color I can't reach you Give me life Give me pain Give me myself again..." -- Tori Amos "We should split up," Vincent rumbled, looking up the steps to the entrance to the temple. "Two parties, to cover the most amount of ground possible." "Bad idea," Tifa said, shortly. Her nerves were on edge. "Shinra's been here already, maybe for hours. We've got to get through it as quickly as possible, and if we split up, we'll only waste time trying to find each other once one group manages to find the way through. We're all together in this." Beside her, Aerith took another step forward, and then fell to her knees, pressing her hands flat on the dirt pathway leading up to the ziggurat. "Yes," she said, and her voice was distant and dreamy. "Yes, this is it." They exchanged glances, and then looked back at her. Cloud rested a hand on Aerith's shoulder. "What?" he asked. Her eyes were unfocused, and she was smiling, like she was listening to a radio frequency that none of the rest of them could hear. "It's here. The knowledge -- the knowledge of the Ancients, it's here. I can hear it. I can /feel/ it. It could -- you could. You could go back home to the Planet, but you're not, are you? For us? Is that it?" "Aerith?" Cloud asked, a little more sharply. "Who are you talking to?" She rose to her feet with a quick bouncing motion, and twirled around in a sharp short circle. A quick burst of laughter escaped her lips. "Yes, yes! That's it, isn't it? You understand. Do we understand? Do /I/ understand? Am I right? I can /hear/ you --" She ran up three or four steps, then turned around again to gesture impatiently to the rest of the group. "Come on, come on! It's waiting for us, we have to hurry!" Another uneasy glance, but Cid finally shrugged. "Your call, kid," he said, and dropped his cigarette on the ground, grinding it out with the toe of his boot. At the top of the steps, they found their first surprise; a black-clad man, cowl across his face, slumped outside the door. Dead, Tifa thought, looking at him, but when Aerith knelt next to him and pushed aside the cowl of the robe, he stirred. "Ashes, ashes," the man muttered, and Aerith frowned. "Are you all right?" she asked, pressing a tiny and delicate hand against his cheek. "What's wrong? You're not hurt. Are you all right?" "Reunion," the man said, as clearly as a bell. "The Black Materia will all fall down." Tifa knelt down on the man's other side. "He's got a tattoo," she said, picking up the man's right hand. "Like the others. Number nine." "Come on," Cloud said, and strode through the doors. The temple was deserted, but lying next to the altar was the Keystone that they'd held possession of for so short a time. "The Keystone," Aerith said, and then pressed the heel of one of her hands sharply against her eye, rubbing roughly. "Yes. That's -- oh, /Holy/, it's so loud -- Put it on the altar. There." Cloud reached for it, fitting it into the space on the altar. There was a click, and a door that they had not noticed up until that point opened. "Yes," Aerith said, and strode for it while the others were still trying to take in what had happened. "What are you waiting for? Come on." Tifa found herself walking next to Vincent, and shot a glance over to him every few minutes. He seemed disquieted, like something about the whole situation was making him wary. ~Well, why should he be any different than the rest of us?~ she thought, and took in a deep breath, letting it out to try to calm herself. "Hurry," Aerith said, from ahead of them in the corridor, and turned around again to urge them forward. "Hurry. There's so much here -- so many words, so many voices -- They need for us to hurry." She pressed her fingertips against the walls, tipping her head backwards just a little. Her lips parted. "Hold on. We're coming. I promise, we're coming. I can't understand you -- you're talking too loudly. Please, I can't -- I can't understand you." "Aerith?" Barret asked, and put one of his hands around her wrist, as though trying to anchor her from flying away. She bit her lip and looked up at him. "It's okay. I'll be fine. It's -- It's trying to tell me something. And I can't understand it. But we have to hurry." -- * -- "/Damn/ it," Reeve said, and pulled his headset off at the screech of feedback. They'd lost signal, down in the temple, with the weight of tons of rock between Cait Sith's transmitters and the nearest pickup, and it meant that whatever was going on was something that he couldn't see. Not as though anything that was going on was something he could do anything about. The Turks were already out there, out of commission and running blind as well. Reno had phoned in a few minutes before Avalanche had touched down on the shore, saying that Rude was back but Tseng and Elena weren't, and Reeve had ordered him to stay out of sight and wait for further instructions. ~I should call Rufus,~ he thought, out of habit more than anything else. ~Let him know what's going on.~ He didn't know where Rufus was, or what he was doing, though, and it seemed safer to let it wait until he had news. Just a few minutes, then. He closed his eyes (for just a few minutes, he told himself) and pressed his hands against them. He was dirty and gritty and didn't know how long it had been since his last shower; maybe a few days. Maybe more than that. Was it Thursday or Friday? Thursday, it had to be; if it was Friday, there would have been a board meeting to drag him away from his desk. Unless they'd had the meeting and no one had thought to call him away for it. It took him a long minute to realize that the radio on his desk was calling his name. "--eeve? Reeve? Dammit, Reeve, if you're there, fucking answer the fucking radio, Reeve, don't make me call someone else --" "I'm here," he said, his heart in his throat. It was Reno. "Sorry. Must have dozed off there for a minute. I'm here. What is it?" Even through the static, Reno's voice was grim. "Elena got back out a few minutes ago. She says that Tseng's still in there, and he's about to get the Materia. You got any better guesses on what we're supposed to do with it once we've got it?" "Wait," Reeve said. "Tseng's in there? Alone?" There were noises, as though of a shuffle, and Elena's voice came bright and clear over the handset. "He ordered me back upstairs. Told me to radio back to Midgar and say what was going on. He said that he'd be right behind me, but that was a good fifteen minutes ago, and I haven't heard anything from him since --" "Dammit," Reeve said. "Did -- Has anyone seen Sephiroth?" He wondered if he was imagining the thin taut nerves in Elena's voice. "Hide nor hair, sir, it's quiet as hell down there. /Creepy/ as hell, too, I kept expecting the walls to start talking or something. Is Rufus around? Tseng was pretty clear that I should report to him." "I don't know. I haven't seen Rufus in --" /a few days/, his brain supplied for him, and he frowned. "A while. I'll see if anyone knows where he is. Get the Black Materia the minute Tseng gets out of there and get the hell out of there as fast as you can." "Fuck," came Reno's voice, "you don't have to fucking tell /me/ twice. This place is giving me the evil eye. We should be out of here as soon as --" The sound cut off, and Reeve reached forward for the radio, but the lights were still green and clear. "Reno?" he asked. "Reno, you're breaking up, come in." "Hold on --" Reno's voice was sharp and choked, like he could only spare a fraction of a second's attention for the headset. "Something's happening --" Reeve cursed the lack of video, cursed the lack of eyes and ears, wished he could be there. "Reno?" he tried again. "Reno, report! Dammit, I'm blind out here, tell me what the hell is going on!" A long silence, and then Reno came back. "Sweet suffering gods," he said, barely above a whisper. "Check your video, Reeve." Reeve frowned, and then looked back at the video monitor. The static was slowly revolving, as though the connection on the other end had come back and it was uploading all of the video it had recorded while it was out of range. "What --" "You've got signal again." Reno's voice was flat. "Because the temple isn't there anymore." -- * -- The room was heavy with blood, like three-day-old death. Tifa bit back a cry as Aerith rushed across the room to kneel at Tseng's side. Her dress dipped in the puddle of blood that surrounded him, and she let out a soft cry, already reaching for the Cure materia she held. Her hands glowed with a soft green, and she touched Tseng's forehead gently. "No," Tseng whispered. His lips were spotted with pink froth. "Too far -- save your strength." His eyes weren't focusing. "You need to -- it's not the Promised Land that Sephiroth is searching for --" Aerith choked on a sob. Tifa wanted nothing more than to join her, but she knew those signs. Not enough time, never enough /time/ -- She stepped forward. "Sephiroth," she said. "Tell us. Quickly. Where did he go?" "He never -- left." Tifa tried hard not to look at Tseng's hands, wrapped around his stomach, and what oozed out from between them. "Find him -- stop him. You can't let him. The runes -- the drawings. Meteor. He can't --" "We need to get the Black Materia," Tifa said. Time to mourn later, time to /think/ later. "Is it here?" "Table. Puzzle -- it's the temple." Tseng's breathing was shallow. She barely knew how he was holding on. "You, go. I'll solve it. Can hang on -- was waiting for you --" Tifa's blood was rushing in her ears, white-hot noise of adrenalin pulsing. It took her a long minute to realize that it wasn't just her. Cloud, standing beside her, lifted a hand to his forehead, as though to block out noise, and she turned around and there he was again. Sephiroth. "So cold," he whispered, slick hot heavy croon that slid in under Tifa's heartbeat in syncopation. He was looking directly at Cloud. "So cold ... I am always by your side. Come. Come to me." Cloud's fists tensed. "What are you doing?" he hissed. "What are you /saying/?" Sephiroth took a step forward, and his outline skipped, like a bad film that was disjointed and out of sync with the voice track. "You know," he said. "This place. This time. You know." "No." Cloud's voice slashed between them. Tifa could barely breathe. No one else moved; no one else dared. Sephiroth strode across the room (frame by frame, static clicking around his outline, creeping across the room like an inexorable march towards something that was ready to strike) and waved a careless hand at the murals on the wall. "I am becoming one with the Planet," he said. Casual; conversational. "Mother. I am coming. I am coming to you." Aerith rose from her kneeling position and turned to face Sephiroth. "How do you intend to become one with the Planet?" she asked. Tifa wasn't sure how she did it, how she kept her voice so even. "What are you going to do?" Sephiroth barely spared a glance back towards her. "When the Planet is injured," he said, in the manner that a professor might use towards a particularly slow student, "it gathers spirit energy to heal the wound. The amount of energy depends on the size of the wound. What if there were an injury that threatened the very life of the planet? Can you imagine how much energy there would be?" "You're mad," Aerith whispered. Tifa could see it in her eyes, the slow dawning of realization. She knew what Sephiroth had in mind, Tifa could tell, but Tifa didn't have the faintest idea what they could be talking about. "Absolutely mad." Sephiroth simply smiled. "At the center of that injury ... will be me. By merging with the energy of the Planet, I will become a new life form. A new existence. I will cease to exist as I am now, only to be reborn as a god. Ruling over every soul. Waiting for Mother." The room was hot, or maybe it was cold, and Sephiroth's outline was pulsing like a supernova, and Tifa couldn't have moved if she wanted to. "An injury powerful enough to hurt the Planet," Aerith said, slowly. "To ... destroy the planet." "Yes," Sephiroth said. "The ultimate destructive magic. Meteor." He swiveled his head, slowly, to cast hot eyes over the murals on the wall. "It waits for me. It waits for us all. She waits for us all." "No," Cloud said again. It was hot and angry, and it seemed to give Tifa a little space more to breathe, like a discordant note interjected in the symphony of Sephiroth's voice. He took a step forward, fighting the spell of paralysis that lingered over them all. "No." "Yes," Sephiroth said, and smiled again. "Wait. She will call you home." He was gone, just like that, and Tifa felt her knees sag. Aerith whipped around, her braid nearly slapping her in the face, only to see Cloud stumble and reach out his hand to support himself against the wall. "Cloud?" she asked sharply. There was a second where it all could have been normal, and then Cloud started laughing, deep and rolling liquid noise coming from somewhere within his throat. "The Black Materia," he said, between breaths. "Meteor --" "Cloud," Aerith repeated, and grabbed at his wrists with hands that were still slick with Tseng's blood. "/Cloud./" "Yes. Cloud." Cloud shook his head again, sharply, like a dog trying to shake off water. Tifa bit her lip. The look on his face brought back memories of a late night in Midgar, of rain falling off the side of Cloud's face and a disjointed disassembled heap of clothing that wore the face of someone she used to know. "Cloud. I'm --" He stopped, reached out a hand as though to touch Aerith's face, and then let it fall again. "Cloud. Yes. I -- I remember -- I --" The slap cracked across Cloud's face and rebounded through the room like a gunshot. Aerith looked down at her own hand as though she couldn't believe she'd actually done it, but shook her head quickly, dismissing it. "Cloud, get a hold of yourself," she said, sharply. "Come on. We need you." "Yes," Cloud said, and shook himself again. Aerith's handprint stood out against his cheek in stark relief. "What's wrong?" Aerith cast a look over her shoulder at Tifa, as though asking what she should do next. Tifa could feel her eyes, wide and uncertain, looking back with no answers. Aerith bit her lip. "Sephiroth got away," she ventured, slowly. "It's all right. I know what he was trying to say." Cloud's face was taut, but seemed perfectly normal. "He's going to summon Meteor. It's --" "Old magic." Aerith finished his sentence. "He's going to use the Black Materia to summon Meteor and destroy the Planet, like he thinks that being at the center of it will free up the Lifestream and let him control it --" "Come on," Tifa said, finding her voice again. "We have to get it before he does. The temple -- Tseng said --" "Was waiting for you to -- 'member me," Tseng whispered. "Not much time. Get out. Hurry." Another long minute, like everyone had forgotten how to move, and then Cid nodded. "Come on," he said, and strode for the door. "We'll be waiting outside. Move your asses, all of you." Tifa was the last one out the door. She spared a glance back over her shoulder, to see Tseng pulling himself up the leg of the table that held the small model of the temple. He seemed to sense her eyes, and looked up. "Leaving it for -- you," he managed. "Don't fuck it up." Tears stung at the corners of her eyes, but she blinked them away. She couldn't run if she couldn't see where she was going. "\I will speak your name with honor,\" she said, quietly, and then turned without waiting for a response. -- * -- They stood at the mouth of the crater that was once the Temple of the Ancients and stared down into it. "There," Cloud said. "The Black Materia." He squinted again, and then started climbing down the side of the walls of the crater, hand over hand. Tifa spared a glance for Aerith. She had her head tilted sideways, and her eyes were a little unfocused, as though the destruction of the Temple had broken something soft and small inside of her. "Go ahead," Tifa said. "You go. I'll wait here with the others." "Yes," Aerith said. Her voice was as unfocused as her eyes were, and she scrambled to follow Cloud. Tifa wondered if she knew how much trust it took to let Aerith go, let Aerith go after Cloud, and stay standing up at the top of the crevasse. Beside her, Cait Sith clicked once, then let out a slow rumbling hum. Tifa looked down at the robot. "And why didn't /you/ have something to say about all of this?" she asked, sharply. "I run cobwebs and manufacture scars," the soft plush body said, and then clicked again. "Ramuh. What the hell --" "Got it," came the call from beneath. Tifa strode over to the edge and saw Cloud, on an outcropping maybe twenty feet beneath the surface. He pulled himself to the surface, and then slid a hand inside his armored overcoat, coming out a second later with a small glittering black materia orb. Aerith pulled herself up, a bare moment later. "As long as we have this, Sephiroth won't be able to use Meteor." Tifa frowned. It looked precisely like any other materia orb she'd ever seen, except for its color, dark and opalescent, as though something slept within its depths. She squinted and imagined that she could see lights flickering deep within. "Can you -- can we use it?" "Nope," Aerith panted, brushing dirt from her already-bloodstained dress with hands scraped raw from pulling herself over rock. "Nobody can use it right now. It takes great spiritual energy to be able to activate it." "But Sephiroth can?" Nanaki had been mostly content to remain silent, but now he frowned -- or as close to a frown as Tifa had ever seen him manage. "Somehow?" Aerith shook her head again. "One person's power alone won't do it. You'd have to go somewhere where there was a lot of spiritual energy -- like --" She frowned and bit her lip. "Like?" Nanaki tipped his head. "Cosmo Canyon?" "No. Not quite. It's close, but it wouldn't be enough. He'd have to go to the Promised Land." Aerith frowned again. "The Promised Land?" Cloud looked down at the orb in his hand. Tifa furrowed her brows; there was something in his voice that she didn't like, something like there had been down in the Temple. She stepped forward and held out a hand, meaning to ask Cloud to climb up and hand over the materia -- safer for all involved if he wasn't the one to hold it, she thought -- but was distracted by Cloud speaking again. "He shouldn't be able to find the Promised Land." Aerith sat down on the ground. "He's different. He's not an Ancient. He thinks that he is, but he's not -- not really. It's like --" "He shouldn't be able to find the Promised Land," Cloud repeated. It was back in his voice again, broken and echoing. "Oh, but I have." The heat-shimmer over the edge of the canyon shifted, and it was Sephiroth's form. Wraith-like, ghost-like, thin and transparent. If this kept up, Tifa thought, even as her knees locked again, at least it wouldn't be quite as terrifying anymore. "I am far superior to the Ancients," Sephiroth continued. "I have traveled the Lifestream and gained the knowledge of the Ancients. I have gained the knowledge of those who came after the Ancients. And soon, I will stretch out my hand, and create the future." Aerith was close enough to touch him, Tifa thought, close enough to touch Cloud -- if she only reached -- But she seeemed to be suffering from the same paralysis that they all were, like even talking through the haze of it took a feat of will. "I won't let you do it," she whispered. "The future isn't only yours." "I wonder," Sephiroth said. "The future belongs to those of us who will make it." He tipped his head, still in faint outline, and held out a hand to Cloud. "Cloud. Wake up." ~No,~ thought Tifa, and somewhere deep in the back of her brain, she was throwing herself against the numbness like a butterfly would beat its wings against a cage. Trying to speak, trying to move, trying to break through whatever it was that held them all there sparse and motionless. Cloud lifted a hand to his forehead again, his face screwed up like he was in pain. "Shut up," Cloud whispered, and Tifa's heart broke at the sound of it, small and little. "Shut up --" "Cloud," Sephiroth said again, and took a step forward. "Cloud. Shed the confines of your false self. Wake up." "N-n-no," Cloud stammered. "No -- the noise, it -- it hurts --" The warm taste of blood flooded Tifa's mouth, and she realized that she'd bitten through her lip. In a perfect world, that shock of pain would have been enough to let her break through, let her lunge over the edge of the abyss, lunge for Cloud, knock him down, knock him away -- But it wasn't. She watched, a prisoner behind her own eyes, as Cloud took one step forward, then another. Slowly, like he was moving through molasses, he lifted his hand, and tipped the orb into Sephiroth's waiting hand. "Yes," Sephiroth said, and then laughed. It felt for half a second like the sound was tangible, skittering over Tifa's skin. Like spiders, or mud, or something foul and fetid and dank. "Well done. I will see you there. I will wait for you. Mother will wait for us all." The spell broke, and Tifa tipped over, hit the ground with palms and knees before she could even register that she was moving. Dimly, she was aware that she was not the only one; Aerith fell too, and Vincent, and Barrett. Cloud slumped to his knees like a puppet who'd had its strings cut. When she picked her head up again, Sephiroth was nowhere to be seen. Nor was the Black Materia. "Cloud," Aerith said, and lunged over to his side. Her hands were shaking as she reached for his shoulders. "Cloud, are you all right? Cloud? Are you -- are you in there?" Cloud's fingers clenched in his hair, against his temples. "I -- I gave the Black Materia to Sephiroth," he said. Slowly, like he was confirming what had happened, not like he was trying to understand. "I didn't -- I don't know why I --" "/Cloud/," Aerith repeated, sharply. For a minute, Tifa thought that she might strike him again, but all she did was rest her hands on his shoulders like she was resisting the urge to shake him, or pull him close. "Cloud, it's all right, it wasn't you, be strong, it wasn't your fault --" "No," Cloud rasped. "I did -- you could have stopped me! Why didn't you stop me!" He lifted his hands and shoved Aerith backwards, roughly. One of his hands rose to close around her throat, and she squeaked, a sound barely audible, and lifted both of her hands to close around his wrist. Tifa thought that she could see Aerith's muscles straining, and she stood frozen in shock for a moment before leaping for the edge of the pit, this time from nothing more than simple disbelief. "You could have /stopped/ me --" "Enough!" It took a second for Tifa to realize that the voice was that of Cait Sith, amplified by electronics. A soft dusting of pebbles skittered down the side of the canyon, loosened by the noise. "We don't have time for this!" Cloud stopped, frozen in place. Aerith managed to pry his hand loose, and Cloud seemed to barely notice. "Everything. White. I can't -- I don't know what I'm doing. I can't remember --" He pushed himself to his feet, and then paused, fumbling for a grip on the edge of the rock-face with one gloved hand. "I can't remember when -- How long? All of it? It's all a lie." He swayed once, in place. "All of it's a lie." Tifa could see it before it happened, but she couldn't get there in time to catch Cloud before he went down. -- * -- ~Sweet suffering clusterfuck,~ Reeve thought. His toes were numb, and he wasn't sure whether or not he was breathing, even a few hours later. He had to be breathing. If he wasn't breathing, he'd be dead. ~Dead like Tseng is dead.~ It echoed around his mind like a weight, like something that was so big and heavy that there was no way he could possibly avoid or outrun it. He'd watched the video. Even if the Temple hadn't collapsed -- ~and that's all it was, a collapse, there's no such thing as magic that big or that strong, it's just not possible~ -- there would have been no way for Tseng to make his way out of it, not with how badly he'd been injured. Cait Sith's robotic cameras weren't that good, but the recorded video had left no doubt as to the severity of his injuries. ~Rufus. I have to tell Rufus.~ The thought caught in his head, and he pushed his chair back from the desk. For a minute, he wondered if his legs would even support him. "I have to tell Rufus," he tried, out loud, and was startled at how calm and even his voice came out. The light spilled out from underneath Rufus's office door, and Reeve didn't even bother knocking. Rufus looked up when he entered, pale glow of monitor screen across his face, his expression calm and neutral. Reeve wondered if it was written on his face, wondered how it could possibly not be. Wondered if he'd finally learned, after years and years of trying, how to keep himself from showing everything that crossed his mind, or if Rufus had just stopped looking. "Reeve," Rufus said. Just his name, nothing more. "I just got word," Reeve said. How did you start a conversation like this? How could you be the bearer of such news and not fall apart with it, fall apart from the weight of what you held? "I saw it. Rufus. Tseng is -- Tseng's dead, Rufus." That should have stopped time, should have given the universe a moment to adjust to the new facts. There should have been tears, and somewhere a child screaming, and the sky should have lit up with rain and lightning to mourn the loss. Rufus didn't blink, not for a long moment. It was like he was frozen in place, waiting, poised on the edge. Reeve wondered for a minute what Rufus would do, whether he would cry or scream, whether he would put his fist through the computer monitor, whether he would break in any one of a thousand different possible ways. He wondered if he could hold Rufus back, if he should call for one of the guards. He was not expecting what actually happened. "I see," Rufus said, and blinked, long and slow, before flicking his eyes back to the computer screen. "Thank you for telling me." "Thank you for -- What the /fuck/, Rufus?" Reeve's fist clenched, slowly, and for half a minute, he fantasized about putting that fist into Rufus's perfect patrician nose. Odd, that Rufus was the one with the temper, and yet Reeve was the one who wanted to tear and rend. "Did you hear me? Tseng. Is. Dead. /Tseng/. Your /friend/. Your brother. Your father in all but name. He's /dead/. He's not coming /back/. Sephiroth killed him." "Yes," Rufus said, and his voice was distracted. "Yes, you said." "Sweet fucking /Ramuh/, Rufus, are you /listening/ to me?" Rufus pushed himself away from the desk with a sharp motion and stood. The chair rocked backwards and then stilled. "Yes, Reeve, I'm listening to you. You came here to tell me that Tseng was dead. Another casualty of the thing that /shouldn't fucking exist/. This company is dropping like flies and there is this /thing/ out there that wants us to fall and I don't know what's happening, all I know is that the people who are closest to me are going down one by one and you come in here to tell me that Tseng is dead and you expect me to -- to what? To stop? To scream? To put my fist through the window or throw myself off the top of the building? That isn't going to solve anything. That isn't going to get anything done, it isn't going to figure out anything, it isn't going to /stop/ anything. What am I supposed to do? Break down? /I can't/." The words slashed between them. "Because whatever the fuck this is, I /will not let it win/." "I expect you to care," Reeve said. His lips felt like they weren't his own. "Not just stand there and think about what this means for your precious plan." "I don't have a plan, Reeve." And Rufus suddenly looked tired, so tired, like he was about to collapse, and Reeve had to fight back the sympathy for him, even now, even here. "I don't know what I'm doing any more than anyone else does." "You sure fucking don't." Reeve bit the words off, as neatly and precisely as he could, and whirled on his heel to go. -- * -- "I should have --" Elena hiccuped. "I shouldn't have left him. I shouldn't have left him there." It was Rude who spoke. "You couldn't know," he said, and handed her another tissue before reaching for his glass of whiskey, knocking back the double shot before pouring himself another. "You did what he told you." "It was my fault," she insisted. "If I hadn't -- If I hadn't left him, if I hadn't taken his gun --" "You don't know that." Reno stirred from his heap on the couch. "You can't -- 'Lena, you can't play could-have should-have. It'll kill you. You just have to -- keep going --" His voice broke, and Reeve wondered if he might cry, but he just blinked, his eyes surprisingly bright. "To Tseng," Reno said, holding up his glass. "A damn fine motherfucker." "To Tseng," came the ragged chorus, and the click of glasses was loud in the lounge's low light. Reno tossed back his own shot and slammed the glass down on the table. "And to taking care of the motherfucker who got him," he said, low and vicious, and Reeve was startled to find himself drinking. -- * -- "Tifa," Aerith said softly, into the grey light of the Gongagan dawn, and Tifa turned her head. "I need you to do something for me." Tifa felt bruised, like she had been punched in the stomach, like she'd never be able to sleep again. Cloud was still unconscious in the house behind them. She wondered if he'd ever wake up again; wondered if she should pray for him to wake or for him to sleep forever. "Yes," was all she said. One of the women in Gongaga's ruins had found a spare dress for Aerith to wear to replace her bloodstained rags, and she was in it now, grey and shapeless and too large for her. She picked her way across the still-present rubble of the village and sat down on the rock next to Tifa. "I have to go do something. Will you take care of Cloud while I'm gone?" There was something behind Aerith's eyes, something set and resolute and full of purpose. Tifa wondered what it was. "Where are you going?" she asked. Had it only been a few short months ago that Aerith had been the shy and retiring one? Looking at her now, Tifa would have thought that this was how she always had been, strong and tall and ready to take on whatever burden that the world handed her. "North, I think," she said, and her eyes unfocused, that strange expression that meant that she was listening again to something that Tifa couldn't hear. "The Temple was talking to me. I told Cloud, there are some things that only a Cetra can do. Like me." She tipped her head again, and then came back into focus, with a little smile on her face. If Tifa didn't know better, she would call it peace. "It's only a matter of time before Sephiroth calls Meteor. I need to get there first. It won't be long." "Aerith," Tifa said, and then stopped, because she didn't know what might follow it. Aerith turned that smile on Tifa, bright and sunny like a shaft of light peeking through the gaps of the plate. "You can trust me," she said. "I know, you've carried it for a long time. All of it, all of them. Even me, for a little while, back at the beginning, when I needed you to. You're so strong, Tifa, I know you can do it. It won't be long now. We're almost there." Tifa couldn't hold back the shiver. It felt like there was something /else/ there with Aerith, something standing behind her and holding up her shoulders, something whispering to her and lending her strength. It wasn't the off-kilter disease of whatever Cloud carried with him; it was pure and good and honest and right, and for a brief second she wished that she could feel it too. "Aerith," she said again, and pressed her lips together. Aerith nodded. "I know you know. Girl talk, isn't that what we used to call it? But I've got to grow up sometime. It's not all that bad. You showed me, sometimes there are more important things to worry about." She pressed her tiny hand against Tifa's cheek, and then brushed her lips over Tifa's forehead. The skin burned. "I'll be waiting for you. Don't take too long." "Aerith," Tifa said, third time uncertain, and then the words spilled forth. "Be careful." Aerith had already turned away, but threw a glance back over her shoulder at that. Her smile was still warm and light. "I will," she promised, and was gone. -- * -- North, Aerith had said, and north they went, once Cloud had stirred from his coma. Tifa thought that there should have been more concern about that, should have been something they could do or something they could say or /something/, but there was so much that they were not saying that to say it would have collapsed the house of cards at a time that they desperately could not have afforded it. "Shinra will be looking for us," Vincent said, pale ghost-shadow at her elbow, as they walked. "Tseng's death will not hold them for long." "I /know/," Tifa said. It was sharper than it should have been. She stopped for a second and Vincent stopped with her, waiting patiently as she closed her eyes and breathed deeply. "Vincent, I'm sorry, I shouldn't --" "You are under a great deal of stress," he said, with the faintest of smiles. It wasn't an excuse, just an acceptance of her apology. "We should move as quickly as we humanly can. Travel by night, perhaps, so as to avoid detection." She wondered when she had become the leader of this group, but as soon as she thought it, she remembered Aerith's words, and realized that she always had been. Cloud, walking along in a haze of his own thoughts, certainly was in no position to take the job. "Yes," she said, rubbing at her eyes. "We can't afford to be caught. Not now, not right at all of this." Vincent nodded. "We'll walk through the night, then, and sleep in the morning." "Vincent." She caught at his sleeve, the material slipping through her fingers. He pulled back, ever so slightly, and she remembered that he didn't like to be touched. "Tseng. He knew -- he knew that he could die at any point, didn't he? You all did." His face tightened, and she knew that the topic of his previous life was off-limites, but she had to know. "Yes," he said, after a minute. "We all do. All of us should. There's nothing certain in this life, Tifa, except that it will someday end. I'll go watch Cloud for you." She nodded, and put one foot in front of the other, and tried not to think about why they needed someone to watch Cloud at all times. North, and north they went, hour after hour, day after day. They were exhausted when they finally got there, chilled through to the bone and barely even able to meet each other's eyes. On the third night, Cloud looked up from his sleeping roll, across the cold camp with no campfire, and sought out Tifa's eyes. "It's all right," he said, quietly. He was subdued, as though he was trying to convince himself as well as convince her. "I'm me. I'm all right. I'm going to beat this, Tifa. Whatever it is." On the sixth day, they passed through the Sleeping Forest, and barely had enough energy to collapse in the beds waiting for them in the ancient city before they fell into a deep and dreamless sleep for what felt like forever. Tifa came awake with a sudden jerk, her mouth dry and tasting like something had crawled into it to die. The room was somehow free of dust, like whomever had abandoned the city had left one last blessing upon it, that it would never age and grow old the way that the rest of the world would. The air was still and heavy, and she knew that whatever had woken her, it wasn't something that she would recognize if she saw it or heard it again. "You feel it too, don't you." came the voice from the bed beside her, and she turned her head to see Cloud, already dressed, sitting there and pulling on his gloves. "Come on. We don't have a whole lot of time left." "Feel what?" Tifa asked. She sat up and dragged a hand over her face, feeling like her head was wrapped in cotton-wool. Cloud smiled, the faintest tinge of it just hovering around the edges of his lips. "Come on. Aerith is here. And so's Sephiroth. We have to go." "Fucking wait a fucking minute," came the rusty voice from the bed on the other side of Cloud, and Cid sat up, running a hand through his hair and reaching for a cigarette with the same motion. "You're telling me that Sephiroth's here? And Aerith? And we're just fucking sitting up here?" "You woke up too." Cloud seemed pleased by that, Tifa thought, the childish delight of someone who was glad that he wouldn't have to be alone. "Come on, I'll wait. Not too long, though. Hurry. We have to be there." Tifa looked at Cid, and Cid looked back at her. For a minute, she thought that she should wake the others, bring everyone with them -- but between her and Cid, they should be able to handle whatever was going on. It wasn't as though all of them together could defeat Sephiroth, if that was what was going to happen, anyway. Better to leave some of them sleeping, so that if things went poorly, there would be someone to carry the news back to somewhere that could -- She fetched up short against finishing that sentence. There wasn't anyone they could tell. They were it, a ragged band of nobodies who had found themselves in the middle of something far larger than they'd ever dreamed of. She bit her lip, and reached for her shoes. It was just past dawn, and the air was crisp and cold. Her breath feathered out in front of her, just barely visible, and she ran her hands up and down her arms to keep herself warm. They'd have to get warmer gear, sometime soon, she thought, and then realized that she was assuming that there would be a sometime soon. The city was as deserted as it had been the night before, not even a bird calling out over the abandoned buildings, and she held back a shiver that wasn't due entirely to the cold. Cloud seemed to know precisely where he was going. He led them to one of the buildings, larger than the others, and then down a staircase. It was an underground cavern of some sort, and the sound of water rushing filled the room and echoed along as though it was urging them to continue. It was warm underground, and Tifa thought that if she dipped her fingers into the river, it would be blood-temperature, heart-temperature. Like the way Tseng's blood had been warm when she'd reached for him, she thought, and then felt her thoughts trip softly away. Still in shock, she supposed, even after so many days. Sometimes she thought that she'd never be out of shock ever again in her life. "Quiet down here," Cid finally said, his voice gruff. He plucked the cigarette out from behind his ear and put it between his lips, but didn't move to light it, like he recognized the sacred space and didn't want to profane it. Cloud barely turned his head. "Yeah," he said. "Not far now." Tifa wondered what he was hearing that she couldn't, what he was following that she couldn't see. "I think -- Yes." He led them down the stairs and around the curve, and the cavern opened up before them and there she was. The water pooled around five or six outcroppings of rock, and in the center of the lake there was a broad low flat spot, with steps leading up to it like an altar. Aerith was kneeling there, still in the dress she had been wearing when Tifa had last seen her. She had undone her braid, and her hair was spilling loose around her shoulders. Tifa thought, looking at her, that she had never seen a human being look so quietly transcendent, so at peace with herself and her world. Her face was tipped downwards, and she was holding something between her clasped hands. Her eyes were closed, and she was smiling. "Aerith?" Cloud's voice was uncertain, next to Tifa, and he took a step forward, his legs coiling and then releasing to send him leaping across to the first of the rocks that stood between the path and Aerith's altar. She didn't look up. Tifa moved as though to follow, and at her elbow, Cid did the same, but Cloud turned around and motioned them to stay. He lept from the first rock to the second, and Aerith didn't seem to even realize he was there. Tifa felt like she was standing behind her own body, watching the scene unfold. She saw Cloud pause, just before he made the last jump, and shake his head in a way that was becoming so distressingly familiar. ~No,~ she thought, and this time she wasn't paralyzed the way she had been before; she took another step forward, and then Cid's hand was warm on her arm. "Wait," he said, watching. "Wait a minute." Cloud shook his head again, reaching one hand to press at his temple, and then before Tifa could react, drew his sword. Her heart caught in her throat. "/Cloud/!" she shouted, and Cid's fingers tightened. She wondered what Cid saw, that he was so sure that this wouldn't be a terrible, awful repeat of what had happened a week ago. Aerith didn't move. Tifa wondered whether or not she was even aware of their presence, or whether she had retreated inside her own mind, concentrating on something that Tifa could not even see. Cloud's sword lifted, then wavered. "/Cloud/," she repeated, her voice echoing across the water, and Cloud shook his head and let his sword drop. "No," he said, one firm syllable, and let his sword fall. ~Yes,~ Tifa thought, ~yes, Cloud, whatever it is, fight it, whatever it is, be strong.~ Across the water, Aerith's eyes opened. She shifted slightly, just a redistribution of weight, as though she was done with whatever had brought her here to this strange and sunless sea and was ready to stand and follow them back up the stairs and out into the world, and that was when time stopped. He fell from the sky, swift and deadly. The sword, that sword that Tifa knew so well, struck Aerith directly through the heart, sliding through cloth and skin and bone as though they provided no obstacle to its path. Aerith drew back quickly, her lips rounding in an O of shock, but there was nothing on her face other than that peace. The world stood still for a minute, and then Aerith slid forward off of the sword, limp and lifeless, not even bleeding from the wound. Her hand fell open, and the tiny white orb she had been holding bounced once, then twice, then fell into the water. Its crystalline tink was the only sound to be heard. Cloud caught the body as it fell, cradling her in his arms. Sephiroth had landed in a crouch, and he straightened slowly, his chest shaking with laughter. "Aerith," Cloud said, the sound of it carrying across the water to where Tifa stood frozen, and then repeated it, louder. "Aerith. No, this can't be happening, /Aerith/ --" "She is becoming one with the Planet," Sephiroth said, through his laughter. "I've given her a great gift. Her life will flow into the Planet, and through the Planet, to me, and all will become a part of the new world I will create. All there is left is to go north, to the snow plains, and wait for all the dreamers to wake and the seas to run green and blue with the power --" ~Shut up,~ Tifa thought, not caring about whether or not Sephiroth was giving away part of his grand master plan and telling them where to go next, and she was startled to realize that Cloud had echoed it. "Shut up," he repeated, laying Aerith gently down on the ground and standing, his hands clenched into fists. "You and your stupid fucking plan don't mean a thing. You /killed/ her. She's /dead/." Sephiroth frowned. "Are you trying to tell me that you have feelings for her? That you have /feelings/?" Cloud looked as though he was fighting the urge to reach for Sephrioth, to bend and take his sword in hand and rend, cleave, /hurt/ Sephiroth. "Are you trying to tell me that I shouldn't?" he demanded, raw and red and angry. "Who do you think I /am/?" "Why, a puppet, of course," Sephiroth said. His voice was plain and conversational, as though they were sitting in a drawing-room having tea. "Stop acting as though you were sad, or angry. You don't have to pretend anymore. Not much longer, at least. You'll be back with Mother soon enough." He raised his arms to the ceiling, to the sky, and threw back his head and laughed again. "Mother!" he called. "Mother, I'm waiting for you!" Something seemed to slither in the shadows behind him. Cloud whirled around, his hand reaching for his sword, forgetting that he'd cast it aside. Sephiroth laughed again, and then his body seemed to ripple, like a stone had been dropped in the middle of a pond. Tifa blinked, and when her eyes opened again, Sephiroth had lept into the air and just kept going, rising as though gravity meant nothing to him at all. Cloud whipped his head to the side, looking for whatever it was that had moved, but whatever it was, it was gone; as gone as Sephiroth was. As gone as Aerith was. "Tifa," Cloud said. Tight and controlled, but there was pain there, and sorrow. "Come help me." It took a second before Tifa could process the words, before they could seep through the numb haze of her mind that only kept getting number with each progressive shock, and then she shook herself and lept across the rocks, Cid right behind her. "Damn," Cid said. His voice was thick, and Tifa turned her head, unsurprised to find that his eyes were glistening with tears. "Damn, girl --" "She came here to do something," Cloud said. He knelt by Aerith's side and slid his arms behind her back, under her knees. "She came here to do something, to help us." "Let's hope she succeeded," Tifa said quietly, and brushed a lock of loose hair out of Aerith's face. She remembered the conversation in Gongaga, the way Aerith's hand had felt against her own face. Gently, she closed Aerith's eyes for her. She wondered if the body was as light as it seemed, as light as it should be with the weight of such a beautiful spirit having departed. Cloud stood for a moment with Aerith in his arms, looking down at her as though he were trying to memorize her face, to convince himself that it was real. Tifa was just about to say something when he stirred and took a few steps, wading into the water at the edge of the altar. One step, then another, each one more firm and steady than the last, and Tifa thought that he didn't even notice the presence of the water as he waded in up to his waist. "Sleep well," he finally said, bare breath, and let his arms open. The water came to carry her home. -- * -- Rufus came awake in the middle of the night, alone in the bed, tangled in the covers, with a shouted name on his lips. He was shivering uncontrollably, despite the perfect climate-control of the room, and Midgar watched him unblinkingly as he pressed the palm of his hand to his chest, breathing as deeply as he could. Tseng. /Tseng/. He didn't cry. He couldn't. Everything was unravelling before his eyes, and he couldn't get a grasp on any of the ends, and no time, there was no /time/, no time to stop and mourn and pick up all of the pieces, no time to look around him and see what there was to be salvaged and what he would have to watch being broken before his eyes. He wrapped his arms around his knees, holding onto himself as tightly as he could, and rocked back and forth to a rhythm that only he could hear. Later, later, he would deal with it later, when this was all over he would fall into a thousand pieces like a glass sculpture shoved off the table with a single hard force, striking the ground and leaving behind nothing but dust and glistening fragments. Later, he promised himself, later, when it was all over. Later. He couldn't cry. It was too deep, too raw inside him, the thought that Tseng would never again poke his head into Rufus's office, never again sit across a counter with that dark and secret smile, never look back at him with lips curving and eyes glistening and say something dry and witty and perfectly-timed. Never press a hand against Rufus's shoulderblades, warm and steady and solid. Never bribe his way past Beatrice with a smile and a casual compliment, never stand at Rufus's elbow with that calm and deadly grace. /"You're gonna set this world on fire, kid,"/ the voice said in his mind, treacherous ghost of memory of a teenager who was all elbows and knees and sandy hair and the older man who always seemed like he knew all the secrets in the world, /"and by Leviathan I'm going to be there with you to watch it burn,"/ and oh, he couldn't cry, but oh, by everything there was to hold holy, he wanted to. Friend. Brother. Lover, once, long ago. Pillar of solid reassurance. /"I've got your back,"/ the one time they'd ever talked about it, the one time they'd ever spelled it out between them, that mostly-unspoken arrangement that had been Rufus's salvation more times than he could remember. For a moment, he couldn't remember a time before Tseng had come into his life, and then he did, and it rose in his throat, because he remembered what it had been like. /Tseng/. He stared into the nothingness of the room, his face dry, and wished that he could have said goodbye.