I'm on a fucking roll. I WILL finish this damn thing.

Disclaimer: All recognizable characters and settings are the property of Square Enix. No profit is sought by the writing of this fanfiction, and no copyright infringement is intended.

Warnings: Unbeta'd. Violence. Crazy angst. Lots of violence. Before Crisis spoilers.

Part 15. Counter crescendo crunch

The sky was starting to turn that shade of faded half-light that meant the sun was nudging at the horizon. There weren't that many people out. Weird, that, given the piles of twisted robot scraps piled on the streets still, and how much noise they must have made first by destroying the damn things and second by collecting the pieces left over. Junon was more or less a military town by then, though, so maybe they were used to it.

Cloud stood, unmoving and feeling weirdly naked, wishing that the entrance to the Junon base wasn't just a set of bare grey steps. A couple more civilians passed by, giving him curious looks when they caught sight of him hovering aimlessly by the doors to the base.

He dropped his eyes.

He could vaguely remember a time when he didn't instinctively hide the way his eyes glowed. He'd probably have grinned back at them like a fool. He wasn't sure when it had all changed, actually.

Maybe it had been when Angeal had used him.

He forced his hands to unclench.

He smelled like he'd been deep fried, and there was so much dirt ground into his skin that it was starting to feel like an exoskeleton. He'd fallen while he'd been sliding down the cliff after Hollander. It hadn't been far from the bottom, but he'd slipped and landed hard enough that he'd thought he'd cracked his ass before rolling down the last ten feet in a cloud of dust, rock chips, and unintelligible curses. He'd lain at the bottom, half-buried in rubble, for a few minutes. He'd been waiting until the spinning, flashing lights dissipated before crawling to his feet.

At least Hollander hadn't been hard to find.

Cloud's eyes felt like there was grit lining the inside of his lids, gouging sandpaper lines down his eyeballs. He felt heavy. Then again, it'd been like that for a long time now.

Hollander hadn't looked very good. He hadn't tried to move the man after he'd called for a lift. There hadn't been a lot of blood on the outside, really, but it had been the longest twenty minutes—years—of Cloud's life, sitting there on his useless hands while he watched the bruise blacken half of the scientist's head.

Now, shifting awkwardly as he waited outside the base after they'd kicked him out of the medical centre, Cloud scowled down at the grime on his boots.

It wasn't like he'd really cared about Hollander. He hadn't even met the man until the shit had already hit the fan, and by that point, he'd had other things on his mind. It was the way Tseng hadn't particularly cared if the man came back alive or not, only that he came back. That was pretty much the only reason Cloud wanted the scientist to live, if only as a nice little fuck-you to the assholes in the Turks.

He scuffed a heel at the concrete underfoot.

"Nice shiner, Soldier boy."

Cloud grunted, a hand coming up automatically to his face. The tight skin felt hot, and he winced at the stab of pain. The grimace he made pulled at the bruise and made it hurt, too, so he ended up pressing his palm into the side of his cheek. It felt relatively cool against the tissue.

Then, there were thin fingers prodding at the bruise, and he hissed as he flinched backward.

Cissnei only made an impatient noise, reaching up to grab his chin. Then, she clicked her tongue and dropped her hands.

"You're going to be swollen for a while."

"Yeah, thanks," Cloud muttered.

"Well," she said, smiling like they weren't surrounded by the remnants of mass destruction, "the good news is that Hollander's alive. The bad news is that Professor Hojo doesn't think he's going to wake up again. Too much damage to some part of his brain or something."

Cloud didn't know what to say to that.

The Turk wasn't looking at him anymore, anyway. Cloud followed her gaze.

A couple of MPs were manhandling the remains of one of the big spinner bots onto the back of a truck. One of them seemed to be having issues with his gloves slipping on the metal shell, and the other was watching impatiently.

Judging by the distant look on Cissnei's face, she wasn't really watching them, either.

"I wonder what Hollander's objective was," she said absently.

"My children!" The ragged cry echoed in Cloud's head and he had to fight the way his breath tried to catch. He settled for another grunt.

She turned to him, nothing but open curiosity in her eyes. "He didn't say anything to you?"

Like Cloud was falling for that one. She was a Turk. He shrugged. "No, nothing."

And shit. Something unidentifiable crossed her face, just for a moment, and Cloud knew that she was aware of his lie.

He hadn't meant to lie for Hollander. It wouldn't do him much good, anyway. But the fact that it had been for Angeal and Genesis, and after everything he'd found out about what happened to the two Firsts, he'd...

They were Soldiers. They were Soldier. They'd wanted it to be over.

Soldier wasn't about ShinRa. Not anymore. Not after Modeoheim, after Wutai, after every fucking thing they'd taken from him.

And Cissnei was still eyeing him.

Eventually, she smiled, but this one was just a sharp cut across her face. "Paranoid, aren't you? What happened to you, Strife? You used to be so cute." There was a hint of warning in her eyes, but it didn't look like she was going to press the issue. It wasn't as if they didn't already know.

They were Turks.

"Why don't you ask Kunsel?" Cloud spat, suddenly sullen.

"Who?"

"Soldier Second? Super helpful? Turk dog?" He really shouldn't be saying this. He really shouldn't—

"What?"

Cloud let the confusion contort his face. "What do you mean, what?"

"Why would we involve a Soldier in Turk operations?" It was the way she said it, absently, like she wasn't really paying attention, that made Cloud stop cold. "We're a bit busy, anyway."

A hot, smothering feeling was rising in his chest.

She was still talking. Something about her partner.

Right, Tseng had said her partner was away, hadn't he?

"That eco-terrorist group?" Cloud said, trying to keep up. Well, Robertsson was involved in that bit of Turk business now.

The look she gave him was completely non-committal. Fucking Turk.

"She left her kid sister behind, though." Cissnei smiled again, and Cloud had to blink, his mind ripped away from Kunsel and the knowledge that he hadn't— He was such a piece of shit.

There was a weird edge to the Turk's smile that he'd never seen before. It wasn't like he knew Cissnei that well, anyway, but from what little he'd seen, she was as bad as Tseng. Whereas Tseng did a great impression of some kind of wax effigy, Cissnei hid everything under calm, friendly control. She must have been damn tired, Cloud realized, finally noticing the whiteness around her eyes and mouth. He wasn't the only one who'd been haring off after things intent on burning Junon down to sea level the whole night.

Cissnei gave him a look again, and Cloud became aware that she'd said something.

"Huh?" he said, eloquently.

The Turk laughed briefly.

Cloud felt his face flush.

"Elena," she said, shrugging like she didn't care that Cloud had been zoning out, but there it was again. That faint crust on her voice. "I said her name's Elena. My partner's little sister."

"Oh."

"Little brat, really." That smile again. "She wants to join the Department—"

"Turks?" Okay, that came out a bit incredulous.

Cissnei ignored him, "But we're always having to drag her ass out of whatever hot water that she's landed herself in for the day." She didn't really seem to be talking to him anymore. She was still watching the MPs puttering around the scrap metal piles on the street, and her voice was low with some kind of quiet vehemence that had Cloud staring. He wasn't even sure she realized what she was saying, or if it was just the exhaustion that coloured her tone. "And it wouldn't be so bad if it weren't for the way she tries so hard. It's painful to watch."

Ah, Cloud realized. He recognized this.

It really sucked, being left behind.

"It's not her fault, you know," Cloud interrupted.

Cissnei stopped. Her eyes narrowed. "What?"

"That your partner left."

The impassive look on her face didn't shift. Cloud felt his mouth go dry.

Fuck. Fuck him and his foot in his mouth and inability to stop sticking his nose into shit like this and just fuck.

Her expression stayed wooden, and Cloud tried not to swallow visibly. As the silence dragged on, the nagging compulsion to fill it started digging into his head like a toothache. "She probably wanted to be sure that Elena would be okay."

You fucking little shit, Strife, what the fuck do you think you're doing.

Too late now. "She wanted you to take care of her sister, right?" Cloud tried for a reassuring smile as he groped for the words that would say what he meant, even as in his head, the furious voice kept throwing imprecations. "I mean, I guess. She trusted you—"

"You should smile more, Soldier boy," Cissnei said, whip-sharp and acerbic.

Cloud froze.

"It might help you hide how angry you are all the time," Cissnei said derisively, and she walked away.

Cloud didn't see Cissnei after that, not until he was sent back to Midgar. Even then, it had been in passing, while Tseng handed him his shipping orders.

"What about the President?" he'd asked.

Cissnei had just looked on with polite disinterest as Tseng nodded at him. "The executives are on their way back, as well. Good job on covering security."

Cloud hadn't been able to tell at all if there'd been a note of sarcasm in that.

The trip had been a dull one, but at least mercifully fast as the chopper cut over the mountains. Cloud had stared at the haze of smog in the distance, over his city, and wondered if he'd actually really noticed it before. That, and the way the land was turning into desert all around the valley.

He'd tried not to think about the way his eyes had skittered away from that black cliff overhanging the road back home.

When they'd landed, he'd been told to stand by, and that they were processing the data he'd retrieved in that Wutai base in the desert, and then he'd been left alone on the heli-pad, and...

Nothing.

Two days had passed.

He'd spent most of them in the Soldier gym, doing mindless reps on one of the machines or other until he'd caught the Second waiting next in line trying to be surreptitious as he gave Cloud an evil eye.

So he'd gone and taken a couple of short missions killing little mako-saturated balls of crazy. They'd made shrill squeaks when he spitted them that made him feel just a little bit uncomfortable. Then, he'd hung around the Soldier lounge trying really hard not to brood or get dramatic—'cause apparently he was angry all the time—and generally made a nuisance of himself until he'd gotten the summons to the General's office.

Theoretically, he'd known that Sephiroth had an office. All the officers got one, even if it was just a cubby somewhere on the administrative floors. Hell, he had an office. He'd just been determined never to be in it, because no matter how aimlessly he wandered ShinRa, he couldn't think of anything worse than sitting alone in an empty room staring at a window that wouldn't open.

So, trying not to feel like a truant kid called to the principal's, he trudged into the fancy glass elevators that went up the highest into the building, and swiped his ID badge at the sensor.

Sephiroth's office was pretty damn big, he discovered. Not as big as Lazard's was, but then again, Lazard spent all his time in there. There was just a desk, a couple of chairs pushed against the wall, and a tall stand against the back wall. Sephiroth's ridiculously long sword was currently occupying it.

The General himself was folded behind a couple of neat piles of paper, scowling down at whatever he was reading. He barely looked up when Cloud wandered in with a cursory knock.

There'd been a guard outside the door, making his rounds slowly through the floor, but the guy had only stopped in his tracks and stood stiffly to attention while Cloud passed. Being, technically, the Soldier department's second in command had its perks, he supposed.

He peered out the long window set into one of the walls. The way it was placed, the only way someone could get a view of Sephiroth inside was aerially. Outside, though, he could see past the edge of the plate. He prodded at the blinds, but couldn't figure out where the control mechanism was. For all he knew, Sephiroth had a remote stashed somewhere.

There wasn't any sound except for the hum of the air conditioner and the scritch of Sephiroth's pen behind him.

Cloud grabbed one of the chairs from the wall and dropped it in front of the desk. He sat, leaning an elbow on the edge of the dark wood.

"One moment," Sephiroth said distractedly, and Cloud shrugged.

He peered at the sheet on top of one of the piles, having had plenty of experience trying to read papers upside down on Lazard's desk while Angeal—

Stop it.

He shook his head, reached out, and snagged the form.

It was some random complaint about paper towels clogging the urinals in the Soldier gym.

Cloud couldn't figure out why the hell someone would decide to send this shit to Sephiroth of all people, and then he realized that with Lazard... gone, all of his paperwork must have been funnelled to the man.

Well.

Sephiroth had an immaculately organized wire basket thing full of pens and stuff sitting at the edge of his desk. After a moment's inspection, Cloud selected a fat, black permanent marker.

He'd just finished adding a couple of curly pubes to the terrible picture of a dick he'd drawn over the complaint when Sephiroth noticed what he was doing.

"What the fuck, Strife."

Cloud couldn't help it. He sniggered.

Sephiroth gave him an aggravated look as he snatched the sheet from him.

"Sorry," Cloud said, fighting the grin trying to take over his face. It still wasn't as funny as the first time he'd heard Sephiroth actually swear.

Sephiroth didn't look like he believed him for a minute.

"Any word on the eco-terrorist front?" Cloud changed the subject. He hadn't heard from Robertsson for a week now. Then again, the Second wasn't exactly fond of keeping him updated or any of that "touchy-feely shit."

A thin frown crossed Sephiroth's face. "No. There has been considerable activity in General Affairs for a few days, but they have yet to release any information."

And the Turks thought he was paranoid.

Cloud pushed aside the uncomfortable feeling in his gut at the thought that they did kind of have a point.

"What is all this?" He gestured at the piles of papers, instead.

Sephiroth didn't say anything for a moment, sitting up straight to look at Cloud. The cat-slits of his pupils seemed to flutter, and Cloud realized that the General was more agitated than he let on. The man's eyes closed. Some of the long, silver hair slipped from the ear he'd tucked it behind, floating up a bit when he exhaled. "Most of them are Hollander's records," he said, finally.

A chill gripped the back of Cloud's neck.

"On his work," the General continued. "I... had thought that Project G referred to Genesis, but I was mistaken."

"What?" Cloud said faintly.

"Project G was the codename for Gillian Hewley."

"Angeal's mother?"

"She was the experimental subject. She was the one who had been enhanced."

Cloud thought about the small woman with Angeal's eyes. There hadn't been any glow, there. Her hand, that time she had touched his, had felt soft and papery, thin in that way that came with age he'd always associated with people who were much older than she had been.

"She passed the modifications to Angeal when he was born," Sephiroth said.

Cloud was light headed. Like he hadn't been breathing or something. "Genesis?"

"He had been a secondary subject. He received Gillian's cells shortly after birth. But it was Angeal who had been the main product of Hollander's experimentation."

Cloud couldn't move. His eyes had dropped, when he couldn't look at Sephiroth anymore, and they'd focused on the grip the General had on his pen. The skin over his knuckles was white. Cloud thought he could hear the faint grind of plastic warping under pressure. "Angeal," he said, softly.

"No doubt he had discovered this for himself, before he lured you to Modeoheim."

Cloud's head snapped up. He glared, trying to focus on anything besides the roaring in his ears.

"You know exactly why he drew you to Modeoheim, Cloud," Sephiroth said quietly.

The Buster sword felt like it was pressing him to the ground, like the spot under his chair had decided to become magnetized and was trying to draw him down and crush him against the bedrock. Cloud shifted his weight.

Fuck. He'd told himself that he wasn't going to get dramatic. He'd been doing pretty well, he thought. Pretending.

Damn Angeal for always insisting that it wasn't heavy.

He hadn't... He hadn't exactly decided that he was going to carry it. He didn't know why he was carrying it. It'd just... Angeal had put it into his hands. And Sephiroth had left it in his hands.

Angeal had never used it. Not until the end. It had just been something that was always there. He wasn't really sure that Angeal even wanted him to use it. Or maybe he'd wanted it to be put into a case somewhere. It felt too big for him sometimes. Too heavy. Like he was some kid play acting in his mother's clothes and the shoes just didn't fit on his feet. Cloud knew, too. There were people who expected shit from him, and he was trying, really. He was trying to be everything they needed, after all the people who could do this were gone, but he just knew he was faking it, and faking it hard, and it wasn't going to work. He'd fuck it all up.

He didn't want to see their faces. When they realized that he was faking.

"Cloud," Sephiroth said.

He looked up when the man didn't continue.

Sephiroth was staring into empty space. "When... Angeal died. And Genesis," he said presently. And stopped again.

Cloud got it, though. "They smiled," he said to the blank wood of the desk. "They were smiling." His voice creaked.

Sephiroth nodded. A muscle jumped in his cheek. He still didn't look at Cloud, though. He didn't ask the next question, the one that always went something like "Are you alright?" Because then Cloud would have to lie, and he'd have to ask it back, in return, of Sephiroth.

So he didn't ask. And Cloud didn't lie.

"What about this gift of the goddess thing Genesis was always talking about?" he said instead, so he wouldn't have to think about how it wasn't fair, that Angeal could manipulate him like that and not be around to have to deal with it.

There was a rustle. Sephiroth was looking down at the sheets again. He wasn't reading, though. Cloud could tell. His eyes weren't moving at all. "I doubt Genesis knew for certain, himself. But I'm starting to believe that he meant you."

"Huh?"

"Or rather, what you represent."

"I represent something?"

"Soldier," Sephiroth said.

Cloud met the acid mako eyes.

"Honour," the General continued. "Perhaps even hope." The words were matter-of-fact, but the bitterness couldn't wash out of the short almost-laugh that followed. "I suppose, given the physical and mental deterioration those two were suffering, hearing someone insist that they weren't monsters helped. Especially if that person was able to end it for them."

Cloud felt his face crease. "But—"

"You'd have to ask them for specifics," Sephiroth said, something harsh in his tone.

Cloud subsided.

Sephiroth was quiet. He wasn't looking at Cloud, or anything, really, but he seemed to have something on his mind.

He waited.

When Sephiroth spoke next, it was to the wall again, his voice slow and low. "Knowing what I do about Angeal and Genesis now, I cannot dismiss the possibility that a similar degradation will occur in me. It has always been an open secret that I am a product of the Science department."

Cloud bit his lip. He'd heard those stories, too. At first, when he'd just gotten to ShinRa. Then when he'd met Angeal, they'd stopped. Like people had slapped their mouths shut when they saw the First. And Cloud was realizing that he'd really had his head up his ass if he hadn't noticed the sharp edges to Angeal back then.

"I have no memories prior to that laboratory."

"You think your mom was part of an experiment, too?" Cloud said, shuffling in place.

"I... cannot say. I do not know if the experiments that produced me are similar to those Angeal underwent. Hojo was in charge of my development, not Hollander." He paused, looking as if he'd tasted something unpleasant. "Hojo tells me that my enhancements are due to my mother's legacy."

"What does that even mean?" Cloud frowned.

"Jenova," Sephiroth said.

The name sent a weird shiver down Cloud's spine.

Jenova.

The scratching in the back of his mind intensified, like something was trying to get out.

Jenova.

"She was a Cetra, a descendent of the race that we currently call Ancients."

Cloud screwed his face up. There was an echo in his head. Like he'd heard this all before. Like he'd known.

Wrong.

He's wrong.

Shut the fuck up, he thought viciously at the voice. They'd had an agreement. The ghostly bastard would pipe down, and he wouldn't take a dive off the ShinRa building and leave them both without a body to occupy.

Wrong, the voice hissed spitefully, fading into nothing.

"Cetra?"

"The Cetra were supposedly able to communicate with the Lifestream, the source of mako. They were closer to the planet than humans of today."

"Oh." Cloud gnawed on the inside of his cheek. That did explain a lot of things. Why Sephiroth was so... Sephiroth, for one. None of the other Firsts had been anything like him. "What happened to her?"

"I don't know. Suffice to say that she is no longer present." Sephiroth looked down at his hands. His skin was painfully white under the fluorescent lighting, especially where it was usually covered by his gloves. "Cloud, I am telling you this because I cannot discount the possibility that my circumstances are similar to those of Genesis and Angeal. They were my," here he paused, frowning as he thought, "my brothers, and the strongest people I know." He blinked. "Knew," he corrected. "And in the end, they turned to you for aid. Should such mental deterioration appear in me..."

Sephiroth didn't finish.

Cloud didn't need him to finish. He knew exactly where this was going, exactly what Sephiroth was going to ask him to do, and—

... Again, came the disjointed whisper in his head.

Never again.

He could feel his hands shaking. They'd been shaking for a while, since Sephiroth started talking like every word was a splinter being wrenched out, and—

He flipped out.

"No!" he shouted. Sephiroth's eyes snapped to him. "No, you do not get to say shit like that! I'm not some—some kind of personal clean-up crew here to mop up the messes you leave behind. All of you! What is this, the world according to you?" Sephiroth looked like he was going to say something, but Cloud raised his chin and kept going. "We're Soldier, right? Soldier. You get my back, and I've got yours!"

Stunned silence.

"Always," Cloud muttered, resentfully.

His stomach was twisting itself into knots. He wasn't really sure how much of it was the lingering rage—it was dying fast—and how much of it was frozen terror. He'd, fuck, he'd yelled in Sephiroth's face.

His face burned hot as he stared down at his knees.

Sephiroth wouldn't gut him. Probably.

But he'd just about alienated every single person who'd still talk to him, and this was his boss, and...

He wasn't taking back any of it.

The silence stretched for centuries.

Then, quietly, "Noted."

Cloud flinched. Then, his brain caught up to his ears, and his forehead creased. "What?"

"I accept these terms."

He lifted his head to see Sephiroth watching him, paperwork forgotten under his hands.

"Oh," Cloud said eventually, mouth curving. "Okay."

There was that familiar, quick tip of the head, and Sephiroth turned back to his work. "I called you here because I have a task for you, actually."

"Oh? Oh. Yeah, sure, what is it?"

"It'll take a bit longer."

Cloud scowled at the top of the other First's head, feeling the frayed edges of his nerves start to settle. "You're not ready yet? I could have come by later, you know." Yeah. He could do this.

Now that he knew he wasn't the only one faking it.

"And you have something else you need to do?"

Cloud didn't say anything for a moment. "Touché."

There was a smug hum.

The General's office was warm. The lights buzzed overhead, a barely audible drone over the louder purr of the ventilation. Outside the one window, Cloud thought he could see a faint shaft of sunlight piercing through the cloud cover. It looked like it was painted onto smoke. Paper crackled softly beside him.

Cloud found his eyelids drooping.

He jumped, suddenly, at the sound of something snapping shut. He wasn't sure how much time had passed.

"I'd like you to take this to the Information Technology department."

It was a thick manila envelope. Cloud looked at the stiff paper, and then at Sephiroth. And then back at the paper. "What am I, your errand boy?"

"It's in relation to the information you retrieved from the Junon attack," Sephiroth said seriously. "I hesitate to leave the data in anyone else's hands."

Cloud blinked.

The General seemed to decide that he might as well continue working as his subordinate thought about that statement, because he bent down over his papers again. Cloud watched him flip a page.

"You could probably get an administrative aide, you know. There are plenty of people who'd jump at the chance."

"A lot of sensitive information ends up here," Sephiroth said. "I can't simply hire a secretary." He paused, eyeing Cloud. "The President has been looking into filling Lazard's position, though. It wouldn't be a director, not now that Soldier has passed into Heidegger's hands, but as an administrative head."

Cloud didn't bother hiding the face he made at the mention of Heidegger.

"You have the experience necessary to decide what is in the best interests of Soldier," Sephiroth continued calmly, seemingly ignoring the way Cloud was starting to stare at him. "The rest is simply common sense. I don't see why I shouldn't recommend you for the job."

Cloud knew his mouth was open. "What? You can't be serious. I'd probably okay something like kittens in the gym or something accidentally."

"Yes," Sephiroth said. "You would."

Cloud started to protest again, but then he finally noticed the way Sephiroth was watching him. "Oh, ha ha," he said flatly, hopping to his feet. "You know, your jokes would be funnier if they weren't constantly at my expense."

"Seems good to me."

"Yeah, well, I think you need a hobby."

Sephiroth actually smiled at that. It was crooked and more patronizing than not, but Cloud couldn't help grinning in response.

"Fine, I'll take your stuff down to the techs for you," Cloud said, holding out a hand for the folder.

The thick paper spine pressed into his palm. "Make yourself useful and tell the custodial staff to put up a sign about paper towels in the facilities or something," Sephiroth said, holding onto the files for a second longer.

"Sir, yes, sir." Cloud groused. "Anything else, sir, while I'm at it? Can I spit into some coffee for you?"

"Just keep the information safe, Soldier."

"Yessir."

Cloud was almost out the door when Sephiroth raised his voice. "Thank you, Cloud."

That...

He paused, looking back. Then he shrugged. "What are friends for, yeah?"

Sephiroth smiled again.

He'd pulled a mission hunting down a Midgar Zolom.

According to the intel, it was a big one, faster and more aggressive than the others haunting the swamp in front of the Mithral caves. It had already taken a couple of miners by surprise—and they'd spent their entire lives learning to avoid the giant snakes—taking the leg off of one of the men. The other one had disappeared under the murky waters.

He'd gotten a small clump of Seconds and Thirds, a mission packet on his PHS, and a pat on the back before getting pointed out the gates.

As he stood there in the open desert, Midgar's bulk looming behind him, he glanced at his men. One of the Thirds shuffled his feet minutely. There was only one Second, actually, now that he really looked. The man stood with the rest of the Soldiers, facing him. He was maybe a hair taller than Cloud, his purples moulded to his body like an old, familiar friend.

The Second's face was covered by his helmet, but Cloud would recognize him anywhere.

"Kunsel?"

Kunsel's mouth seemed to work a bit, and then he nodded. "Sir."

Odin's balls.

He hadn't pushed the men very hard. The Zoloms were fast in the water, but on land they moved about as well as arthritic seals, so it wasn't going anywhere. The mines had been shut down, too, until they could deal with the monster. They reached the swamp just before nightfall.

The water was an opaque brown, some kind of film on it gleaming an iridescent green in the dying light of the sun. Cloud was suddenly glad that he'd forced the men to stop at the Chocobo ranch to fill up on water and supplies. He had a feeling that he'd have to get his stomach pumped if he tried to drink this water, Soldier or not.

They stood at the edge uneasily.

It was one thing to face a thirty-foot serpent hissing and lunging at them. At least then he had something to hit. It was another thing entirely when the surface of the swamp was mirror flat and empty, and they had no idea where the damn thing was going to spring out.

"So," one of the Thirds said hesitantly. "Now what? We stomp around until it comes out?"

"You know they come up under you, right?" another one murmured.

Cloud turned around to look at them. They snapped to attention, each one of them watching him like he had the answers written in neon across his forehead.

And Kunsel, fucking Kunsel, stepped forward toward the swamp.

"I'll bait it out, sir."

There was a bark of a laugh, loud over the flat water. It had come from him, Cloud realized. "Yeah, no," he said, glaring at the shell of the Second's helmet. "You lot stay here. I'll go in."

He saw Kunsel hesitate.

"I'm more likely to be able to react fast enough when it goes in for the kill," Cloud reminded.

Kunsel paused again. Then, he said, "If I were to cast a directed Quake, I think I could dislodge it from the water and get it onto land, where it'd be more vulnerable to attacks.

Cloud thought about this. "That's a good idea, actually. Okay."

He'd missed this.

Kunsel was one of the most intelligent people he knew. He'd had a few missions with the man before, and there'd been too many instances in which he'd had to rely on Kunsel to bail him out when he'd gotten in over his head. When Kunsel said something, he'd learned long ago to just listen.

He glanced at the man's bracer. "What else do you have?"

"Hmm? Cura, Shell, a Thunder."

Cloud eyed the water all around them. The grass was squeaking under their boots, damp from the swamp seeping up to the ground. "Maybe not the thunder." He took a slow step into the tepid water. Nothing jumped out at him.

He let out the breath he hadn't realized he'd been holding and glanced back at the shore. "Ready?"

Kunsel stood right at the edge. He nodded tightly.

Cloud waded in.

The water dragged at his boots, making each step excruciatingly slow. Lethargic, fat ripples spread out from around his legs, rolling across the black surface. He felt like he was disturbing some placid underworld. It couldn't be that far from the truth. A lot of people had died in this swamp over the years.

He trudged on, trying very hard not to turn around and see how far he'd gone.

"Come on, you motherfucker," he muttered, kicking at the silt around his ankles. "Where are you?"

He flinched, whipping around to his left. He'd saw something move, he thought. There was nothing but the waves he'd left in his wake. Squinting around, Cloud scanned the quiet swamp. The waves were interfering with each other, peaks and troughs coming together in ways that amplified some of them and cancelled others out entirely. It made it hard to tell if he'd caused all of them.

There were a lot of waves. Just little ripples by the time they'd spread out far enough from him. Cloud peered into the twilight. He hadn't gone over there, had he?

So where had those bumps in the surface come from?

Cloud's breath caught in his throat.

Shit.

The ripples were rising, coming together to form a frothing V-shape that was charging straight at him.

Shit shit shit!

Cloud threw himself to the side, stumbling as the water yanked at his feet. He tipped over, some of the fetid water splashing up into his face as he windmilled his arms in an attempt to keep his balance. The droplets smelled foul.

They weren't nearly as bad, though, as the stink of rot coming from the truck-sized maw that had yawned open where he'd been standing a moment ago. Breathy hissing filled the air, making his ears ring.

"Kunsel!" he shouted. "Kunsel!"

The roar he'd thought was coming from the snake's mouth started echoing in the mud under his feet, and he staggered. He hadn't thought about this part, he realized. An icy feeling slunk into this gut. He'd be caught in the spell, too. He wasn't sure how he'd keep his balance, not with the thick water pulling at his legs.

The ground bucked under him again, once, and then one more time, viciously, and he found himself lifted up into the air, thrown by the force of earthquake.

Grass came at him, spreading fast, and Cloud barely had the presence of mind to tuck and roll.

He landed hard, tumbling to a stop as damp grass squelched under his arms.

"You alright?"

Kunsel was crouched over him, breathing hard.

Swallowing his heart back down again, Cloud nodded, accepting the hand up. Clammy sweat caked itself to his skin, wherever mud wasn't prickling as it dried in the air.

The Zolom was out of the water, too. Its monstrous coils twisted and glistened as it thrashed. It was too heavy to support its own weight out of the water. A couple of the Thirds were trying to find a good angle to sink their blades into the thing's head, but it kept moving. Its tree-trunk of a tail scythed around, sending Soldiers scattering to duck. Another was on support, it seemed. The stocky man was alternating between the green glitter of Cure and the crackle of covering fire. The snake reared up just a bit, fangs gaping wide.

Cloud charged forward, his hand bringing the Buster around desperately.

The force of the lunge had Cloud sliding backward on the wet grass. There was a slick grinding sound as the monster's open mouth strained against the flat of his blade. Fangs thicker than his legs flexed in the air, venom beading slowly from their tips.

Cloud turned his head.

The man the snake had been trying to bite stood stiffly behind him, mouth open and moving soundlessly.

"Move, Soldier!" Cloud bellowed.

This seemed to snap the Third out of it, and the guy darted out of the way as Cloud heaved the snake up off of his sword.

"Now what?" he directed this at Kunsel.

The Second shrugged lopsidedly, pulling his broadsword into a two-handed grip.

"Sounds good to me!" Cloud shouted, darting in under the snake's head for a heavy slash. The Buster scored a weeping gash into the monster's hide. The snake jerked under the blow. Translucent scales shattered and sprayed along the sword's trajectory, and it made a keening sound as it writhed.

It recovered enough to snap at him, and Cloud whirled out of the way. He hacked at whatever part of the massive body he could reach. Soon, the grass underfoot was stained a muddy red. The snake was looking a bit ragged, but it hadn't slowed down at all.

Cloud leaped over a swipe of its tail, stabbing forward with his blade as it passed. The sword bit down into the snake's body, and it let out another shriek. He landed with both feet on the slick scales, planted his boots against the sheath of pure muscle, and yanked himself and his sword backward. The Buster came free with the sound of air ripping.

Enraged, the snake let out a roar that filled Cloud's nose with the smell of decaying fish, and it began to rear up into the sky. It was rocking from side to side as it rose, shuffling its massive vertebrae into place.

Cloud stared up at the black eyes. Vaguely, he thought that this must be what it felt like to be a sad little rodent looking up into the hypnotic eyes of a predator. One of the ones whose only role in life was to end as a brief scream.

"Shell," he croaked.

"What?"

"Shell, Kunsel!"

The Second peered down at his bracer, looking puzzled.

Cloud spun around and started running for the man. "Shell, shell, shell!" he chanted.

Behind him, he could hear the thin whistling, the intake of breath into enormous lungs. If he looked, he knew, he'd see the pinprick of red inside the thing's throat, growing, catching fire.

He slammed his hand onto Kunsel's bracer, activating the materia under his palm. The magical barrier sprang to life, visible only in the warping of light, a heat-haze of fuzz. And the heat-pressure of the Zolom's attack steamrolled over them, trying to flatten them to the ground as the air crisped all around them and the sound dropped through several registers of eardrum-shattering noise to turn to a ringing vibration that they could feel more than hear.

Cloud stood, half-hunched, a shoulder facing the Zolom as he poured magic into the spell.

The snake's attack was shaving away layers off the spell just as fast as he was adding them on, and he was straining because it was hard enough making the damn thing sufficiently strong to take the brunt of the fire, but it had to be big enough, too, to cover the Thirds hunched in the grass behind them. And fuck, he didn't think he could keep it up, not with the way the shell was cracking and chipping under the sheer volume of snake breath, and the spell was snapping away, biting tendrils twanging like elastics at the edges of his control—

Kunsel's free hand clamped down around his wrist, fresh energy flowing through him into the materia.

Then the pressure was gone, the shell shattered once it didn't have to repel the fire magic anymore, and Cloud was teetering, almost drunk with the lack of oxygen getting to his brain because his nostrils felt like they'd been singed and the air was still boiling him alive.

A guttural sound forcing its way out of his throat, Cloud raised the Buster sword in his hand. Orange light flickered in his peripheral vision, washed out because of the red tinge soaking through the heated air, but it was there, licking along his blade as he leaped straight up towards the Zolom. He brought the Buster around in a two-handed cleave as gravity snagged hold of him and gave a merciless tug.

Cloud landed, his knees locking up on him as his legs shook.

He didn't try to move for a little while.

A smudge of dark armour came up behind him, and Kunsel was standing at his shoulder, ogling the enormous snake. It was almost neat, the way the two halves had sheared apart from each other straight down the centre of the thing's body. They tipped over towards each side, drooping down onto the ground. A muddy mess was starting to slide from the snake's exposed intestinal tract, though. It must have been eating the gunk coating the bottom of that swamp or something.

"Holy shit," Kunsel said quietly.

Panting, Cloud agreed.

He didn't even try the trek back to Midgar.

There'd been some burns, even with the big shell, and Cloud was wincing sympathetically as he poured cold canteen water over the red blisters. The Third had his arm out and steady under the flow, but his teeth were grinding audibly. The swamp water would probably make shit worse before it got better, so he'd gotten one of the other guys to put together some water-soaked pads to strap to the burns.

"How's it feel?" he asked the Third. It was the bulky spell-caster.

"Could be worse, sir," came the wry response.

Cloud snickered.

Curative magic was useless against burns. It just healed the tissue damage so that the heat baked into the skin could burn it all over again. First, they had to bring the temperature down.

The night was sticky with moisture that licked up body heat so that the passing breeze could siphon it out of their bodies. Cloud could still see the way heads were lolling back, though. Exhaustion was taking its toll on the Soldiers.

So he'd called for a makeshift camp, and he'd gotten them unpacked and wrapped up in heavy blankets before letting them doze off, leaning against each other. After the war, it was hard to say what felt safer, a Soldier's own bed, or the solidity of a comrade's back against his own. Even this close to civilization—if the Chocobo ranch could be called that—there were still wild animals prowling the dark, though, so Cloud had grabbed his own blanket roll, found a good-sized rock, and hunkered down onto it for the night.

The moon was a thin sliver that did little more than give the mist depth, but Cloud didn't need that much external light to see, anyway.

He heard the footsteps come up behind him. Kunsel wasn't trying to be silent.

They stopped just behind him, but Cloud didn't turn around. He stared out into the darkness.

The Second cleared his throat softly, and it sounded almost as awkward as Cloud felt. Chewing on the inside of his lip, Cloud shut his eyes and waited.

"Sir, I, uh, apologize."

Cloud's eyes slammed open again.

"Given the circumstances, I realize I stepped out of my bounds when I realized that you'd met Angeal that time. I thought, well, not really sure what I thought, but—"

Cloud twisted around, blanket falling in a heap. "What the fuck are you apologizing for?" He rubbed a palm roughly over a temple. "I'm the one that flew off the handle, and I thought," Cloud stopped. "Ugh, a lot of stupid shit, really." He'd unconsciously parroted the Second, he realized.

Kunsel's mouth was still open.

"I'm an idiot, Kunsel."

Silence.

"And if you call me 'sir' one more time, I'm going to flush your entire stash of booze down the toilet."

Another moment of nothing. And then Kunsel's mouth twitched. "That the best you could come up with?"

"Give me time," Cloud threatened. "I can get inventive."

But he was grinning.

He should have forced the march back to Midgar.

He should have left them. He'd been plenty capable of getting back to Midgar quickly by himself. He could move faster than them. And it wasn't as if Kunsel wouldn't have been able to protect them.

He should have gone.

Maybe if he'd gotten back the night before, he wouldn't have walked into the noise and chaos, and Reno had his arm in a fucking splint. Reno was the slipperiest piece of shit he'd ever met, and he had his arm in a splint.

And maybe if he'd gotten back the night before, Tseng wouldn't have come up to him, something that looked suspiciously like sympathy in his dark eyes, and told him that he was sorry.

That Robertsson was dead.

Maybe it wouldn't have made a difference, anyway, if he'd gotten back the night before. Maybe he'd have heard of the miniature war on the Northern continent—Icicle fucking Inn or something—and gone off on some harebrained rush, and he'd get there, and Robertsson would still be dead.

They tried to explain. Something about some kind of birds—

No, Ravens.

He could hear the capital on the name.

Ravens. Like that made it so much better that Robertsson had gone to help the Turks, acting like he was offended that Cloud had asked him to be careful, and he was dead.

They had had someone. The terrorists. Someone like Hollander, who'd been able to take Soldiers and turn them into Ravens. Rip out their minds and wills and rename them after some fucking stupid birds, and Robertsson had gone in because he was—fucking hypocrite—too much of a hero, apparently, and he was dead.

The Turks were still saying something to him. There were steady hands on his arms, sure and professional. Almost like the blood and the scabs on the knuckles resting against his skin weren't there, and Cloud was fucking done listening.

He'd heard of the term "seeing red." He'd thought it was idiotic, way too innocuous a term to encompass the surge of everything inside of him.

He didn't see anything red. It didn't happen.

It was with startling clarity that he decided that he was going to kill them all.

One terrorist base started looking like every other terrorist base after a while. They all seemed to have something against light, for one. It was alright. Very little could slow him down these days.

The dark halls were silent behind Cloud. Nothing moved.

Well, nothing could move.

There was a scrape on the inside of his wrist. It itched, the way it was throbbing. Someone had tried to disarm him by kicking his wrist. The heavy soles on the boots had taken off a layer of skin, but Cloud didn't let go of his sword that easily. He'd turned into the blow, let the momentum carry him around, and brought the Buster down. He'd felt something thick and disgusting and obscenely good at the brief surprise in the man's eyes.

Cloud brought his wrist up to his mouth, and he stopped.

He dropped his hand again.

There was a lot more than his blood on his skin.

He glanced down at the red film over the Buster sword. Angeal had never let it get that dirty.

His eyes drifting shut, he brought the flat of the weapon up to his forehead, the way that he'd seen Angeal do sometimes. Like he was praying to the blade or something.

Nothing happened. No voices, no epiphany. Just the slow slide of congealing blood.

Cloud dropped his hands again, hunching over. His stomach lurched, and he gagged, but nothing came out.

The hilt of the Buster was sticky.

All he could smell was blood.

It was good that it hadn't been his rage that had carried him out of Midgar and far to the north. Rage wouldn't have lasted long enough.

Rage would probably have gotten him killed, too, especially after...

The Turks hadn't told him that everyone who'd followed Robertsson to Icicle hadn't been accounted for. He'd found two Thirds in the terrorist base.

Essai he'd met in Wutai, on a mission mapping out a swathe of foreign terrain that had ended up turning into a tap dance over a mine field. They'd almost passed the last stretch when there'd been a tiny, tiny click under Cloud's boot, and he'd frozen as cold sweats dampened his purples. He'd picked the Third up—it was fucking lucky that the guy hadn't been much bigger than Cloud himself—and he'd hurled the man bodily into the trees before launching himself after. His flat trajectory had only been helped by the furious explosion at his back, and he'd lodged himself into some branches that refused to give eventually, his entire uniform smoking and the tree shedding all of its stinging nuts into his hair and down his vest. They'd laughed themselves hoarse at the stupidity.

Sebastian had been on the second Wutai mission, when they'd infiltrated the base searching for the PoWs. Cloud hadn't gotten to talk to the man that much, but he'd been competent and composed when he hadn't been driving the entire squad insane with his whistling.

He'd broken them out. He was going to leave them somewhere safe while he levelled the entire base.

He wasn't sure what had made him turn around when they'd rushed him. The Buster sword had already been in his hand. Maybe it was the stilted way they'd spoken, if they'd spoken at all. Maybe it was because he'd done this before, and Geoffreys had knifed him in the back.

They didn't hear anything he said.

They were Ravens, he'd realized, too late.

They'd been Soldiers, before. People who had counted on him to get them out with their skin in one piece. People who had watched his back.

And he'd screamed himself raw, and they didn't hear a single word. Not until it was too late, and Cloud was on the ground, snow grinding into freezing mats under his knees and under the palms of his hands. It had been white, still, for a moment, until their blood had soaked through their clothes and painted it red.

The ground was frozen underneath the snow, and it had taken a long time to bury them. In the end, Cloud hadn't been able to manage more than a shallow grave. He'd found big rocks, though, the ones that ancient glaciers carried along and abandoned like marbles in the gutter. They'd been able to cover the churned earth.

Cloud had taken their swords. Soldier broadswords, standard issue. He'd had a few just like them. He'd raised them in his hands, stabbing downward into the permafrost with every bit of enhanced strength he'd acquired. They stood straight up. They didn't even budge against Cloud's yank. Essai on the left. Sebastian on the right.

Then he'd stood, taken a shuddering breath as ice scraped at the insides of his windpipe, and turned towards the terrorist base.

There were Turks waiting with a black helicopter when he came out of the hideout. Tseng, Reno, and the bald guy. Rude. Of course. They'd followed. They'd probably left the second he'd taken off, the panicked voice of the ensign who'd passed on the message trailing after him.

"Strife," Tseng said. He stopped.

There was blood on his face, Cloud remembered. It was dry now, flaking like an old scab, but it had been hot at first.

"Yeah," Cloud said dully.

"Are you okay?"

Even Reno wasn't saying anything. That was a surprise. Then again, Reno's face was still white and strained, and his other hand was cradling his immobilized arm. Must have been a bad break, Cloud thought absently. Too tricky to set in the field.

"I got one of them while he was sitting on the can," Cloud said, voice flat.

There was a pause.

"We would have needed survivors to extract information." There was a gentle note of reproach in Rude's voice.

Cloud laughed. The sound was harsh. "I'm pretty sure they would have preferred to be dead instead."

Tseng's eyes hadn't moved. "Strife, you should go back to Midgar."

"Don't worry. There were barely any people in there," Cloud said. "They must have already been evacuating. I'm sure you'll find your survivors somewhere."

Cloud was in Sephiroth's office again.

He wasn't sitting this time, though. Sephiroth hadn't offered.

He stood to perfect attention, arms straight as planks at his sides, and he stared over the General's shoulder.

"Cloud," Sephiroth was saying. "Are you listening?"

"Yessir."

ShinRa was incensed at him. That much was pretty obvious.

"I understand your loss—"

Acid leapt into his gullet at that, and his eyes snapped to Sephiroth's. But he swallowed. And swallowed again. Because yes, Sephiroth did understand. He couldn't forget that. No matter how much he wanted fist his hands into that black leather and shriek.

"But you need to be careful," the General continued, as if he hadn't noticed the way mako had surged to Cloud's eyes. "You ignored an order, left on your own, and wiped out a terrorist faction with what could be called ruthless efficiency. That's not the type of reputation the company enjoys explaining to the public."

Cloud bit back the snort at that, but it was so, so hard.

He knew exactly the difference was. The Wutai had been demons. Heartless killers. Avalanche had sympathizers, if not supporters. Avalanche was made up of people who loved the Planet. Avalanche was, no matter how distantly, the people. Avalanche was the underdog. ShinRa the aggressor.

"The news agencies are calling it an accident, but it's hard to hide that many bodies. You're dangerously close to a court martial, Strife."

"So what are you going to do with me?"

Sephiroth leaned back, the creases around his eyes becoming more pronounced as he exhaled. A gloved hand came up to rub at the bridge of his nose.

Cloud could not bring himself to care.

"We'll remove you from the public eye for a little while."

Cloud didn't respond.

"You are liked amongst the troops. It shouldn't take more than a few weeks for this to blow over."

"Give me a distance mission, then."

There was a moment of hesitation. Then, Sephiroth said, "Cloud, Soldier Second Class Robertsson's funeral is this morning." Something Cloud couldn't really decipher was in the General's tone.

He kept his gaze above Sephiroth's shoulder. "Give me a mission," he repeated.

He got a long stare.

For a moment, Cloud thought Sephiroth was going to refuse, and that he was going to have to do something that would seriously piss off a lot of people, even if he didn't know what it would be yet.

"Very well. You recall the data stick you retrieved from the Gold Saucer area? We have been analyzing it."

Cloud nodded.

"There have been reports of a large pocket of resistance in South Wutai. We've been fairly close to catching up to them several times, but someone has been feeding them information."

Cloud's eyes narrowed. "A spy?"

"We have decoded the messages on the data stick, and we may have found a meeting point."

TBC