A/N: This storyline takes place after Final Fantasy XIII: Episode i and before Final Fantasy XIII-2. Contains spoilers for those who have not played the Final Fantasy XIII game. This universe is the same as the game's universe, but the story is completely fan fictional, regardless of how closely related to the games. I do not own Final Fantasy VII or Final Fantasy XIII or Final Fantasy XIII-2. All rights go to Square Enix and its rightful owners.

Rebirth

…Lightning has a dark sea spread out before her. She possibly sees monsters in the distance, but no plants or other signs of life. She finds herself in a world of darkness and silence without any sound or color. Lightning feels as though months and years are passing in an instant. Despite the fact her five senses are probably failing her, she continues to walk onward, as if she still has to look for something important.

Lightning asks, "Where am I trying to go?" but does not get an answer, as her voice disappears into the darkness.

She decides to move forward and to find the answer herself. This void she is in is giving a very disturbing vibe. The darkness is shrouding her like a blanket, no visual of anything or any sign of anything even to be recognized. Lightning feels very bleak in the head. Her mind is stinging continuously, for the darkness is spreading onto her as well. Her legs feels pulled on and heavy. Lightning grunts as she tries to keep lifting her legs to the forward direction. The stinging in her head increases severely…

"Agh!" Lightning puts her sore hand on her temple, "What is this place?"

The darkness is taking her willpower away and returns it with painful sensations. It was like a virus, plaguing her mind, body, and soul. Every sense of pain is multiplied tenfold every few seconds. Her body was bonded by shadows and her control became chaotic. Lightning couldn't take it anymore… She starts violent swinging her clenched fists aimlessly into the darkness, hoping to release the pain out of her aching body.

It was no use.

The dark was just an object of nothingness.

Lightning feels all of her strength being wasted away as the dark keeps on draining her. Her legs gave in and her knees fell on the ground of darkness.

"Damn…" Lightning whispers, "I can't…"

The thoughts of her previous memories are collaborating within her upset mind.

Her mission to save her beloved sister, Serah, ended up becoming an adventure. She met new comrades along the way; Sazh, Hope, Vanille, and Fang. This journey also had her go through a sense of realization of herself. She developed and became more of an adult. Despite the fact that she became an L'Cie, her passion of justice being done to protect Cocoon was still strong, strong enough to change her Focus.

Defeating the Fal'Cie, Barthandelus, marked the end of the journey. Her Focus was completed, and before becoming a crystal, she noticed that Fang and Vanille stayed back to become Ragnarok. After awakening from her crystal stasis, she found herself on Gran Pulse and looking at the crystallized Cocoon. Fang and Vanille completed their Focus after 500 years. They were the ones who saved the world, or rather gave a new one. Pulse is now a home for all citizens of Cocoon.

No more hatred exists between the two worlds. Lightning never felt so endearing. Her life felt much more broad and full of possibilities, rather than constant, like her time as a sergeant. Her change in character now allows her to accept the fact that Snow is marrying Serah, and she has no regrets.

"Serah…"

The memories stopped and Lightning feels the darkness on her again. It was still eating her away, but Lightning wasn't able to give up. She brings all of her strength once again, grabs her Blaze Saber and stands up quickly, overcoming the heaviness of the darkness.

"Enough!" Lightning screams as she slashes the emptiness downward.

…

…

…

Lightning was breathing quite fast, but she notices the darkness was no longing pulling her down, as a matter of fact, Lightning feels normal again.

However, it wasn't until a white ghostly figure appears before her. It looks like a human. The shape of it was nothing but like a vague sketch. No face, hair or legs, just a humanoid bottle of white. Its' position is the same as Lightning now. She sees a similar Blaze Saber shape object in its hands and, even though it has no eyes, it was staring directly at her.

Lightning has a moment of thought that she was looking at a mirror.

The ghostly human figure then glides away from her direction.

Lightning sheathes her sword and immediately follows it. Her legs were no longer in pain, so her speed was just as fast as it was back in the real world. This ghost was quite speedy. Lightning has a difficult time catching up to it. However, since she is in a void of darkness, not seeing the ghost is quite unlikely. The ghost is constantly moving on a straight path, and Lightning has no clue to where it's going.

Then a huge eye appears above the two. Lightning looks up while still running.

The eye took a form a fully developed L'Cie mark. Along with the silver-edged arrow spikes, the red was blazing and it brought Lightning into deep fear. The eye was just staring downward, nothing harmful was being done.

Lightning thinks that the reason this darkness is present, was because of that mysterious L'Cie mark in the air of dark, since the mark was a symbol of darkness itself.

As for the ghost, it was still gliding towards nowhere. Lightning grew impatient of its intentions.

But then, a small ball of light can be seen far away in front of the ghost.

Lightning looks at the light, and sees it shining brightly.

"What could it be?" Lighting thinks to herself.

The ghost then glides faster than before. Lightning quickens her pace and ran towards the ball of light. As she got closer, the ball remained the same size, still maintaining its' brightness. The ghost stopped, and so does Lightning, who tries to catch her breath.

Lightning stares at the ball, and wonders what it could mean. She looks at the ghost, who is just hovering at its' position. To her surprise, the ghost then minimizes itself into a mist of white and then vacuumed by the ball. The ghost was from the ball of light.

Then in the middle of the ball…was a white L'Cie mark.

Lightning stares at the ball again.

First, an oversized black L'Cie mark and now a little white L'Cie mark?

What does it all mean?

Lightning now decides to touch the light. She hangs her right hand over it…and hesitates for a moment.

"Here we go…" Lightning mumbles and takes in a quick breath

Lightning's palm hits the ball and the ball explodes with brilliant light. Lightning covers her eyes and the dark void was disappearing. The explosion of light created winds that were pushing and pulling her.

Lightning feels herself being sucked in, like into a vortex. The light and darkness were being mixed and creates a whirlpool of the two.

Lightning was standing in the middle of the hole.

The brilliant light grew brighter and brighter, until Lightning can't even see.

Lightning then feels herself falling…

…falling down into the hole of light and darkness…

…

…

…

…

Lightning then feels herself landing on a hard ground. She slowly opens her eyes and her skin on her face was being brushed by something familiar. It was soothing and soft, and it was something Lightning had seen before.

It was grass…

The grass of Gran Pulse…

Lightning immediately stands up and studies her surroundings. She is no longer in the void of darkness or light. She's in a field of green and the sky was blue. The aroma was relaxing and the colors are beautiful.

"What…" Lightning rubs her eyes and looks again

She turns around and sees herself at the same spot she was, when she awoke from her crystal stasis. She looks up and sees the crystallized Cocoon…it is still in the same position. Lightning is back on Gran Pulse.

"I'm back here…" Lightning says to herself

Suddenly, a glint of light was noticed at the corner of her eye. She sets her sight to the left to spot what it was. She sees the glint in the far distance. Lightning squint her eyes to focus her eyesight.

In the distance, Lightning sees a bluish figure. It is clear and it reflected the sunlight.

It has a form of a human…

Lightning walks towards the figure to make out what it is.

As she got closer, the sunlight made the figure have a three-dimensional edges and the shape was more visible. And the matter is has, looks like crystal…

Crystal…

"Crystal…?" Lightning's eyes widens

She hurries to the figure and stops right in front of it.

It was a humanoid crystal.

A human in a crystal form.

Lightning slowly circles around the crystal. It was clear blue and shiny. It's figure was the same as the ghost from before. The top of the head showed spikes and the face was visible, although covered by crystal.

Standing at the frontal position of the crystallized person, Lightning sees that a right hand was covering the right eye of the face.

Lightning stood there and tries to understand what's going on. After being in a ocean of darkness, after exploding a ball of light, after coming back on Gran Pulse, she is now here with a person in crystal stasis.

"Was I somehow brought here by that light and darkness…?"

Lightning reaches out her hand and puts it on the crystallized person's chest.

She looks at the left open eye of the face and remarks sadness in it.

Abruptly, a loud crack is heard, Lightning gasps and snatches back her hand. The cracks are seen forming throughout the body of the crystal. Lightning steps back and watches what is happening. The cracks emitted light from the inside-out and sounds of high-pitches are resulting. The cracks reached the head and the cracks stopped instantly….

Lightning quietly keeps her gaze on the crystal…

Within a flash, the crystal shatters. Glows of light are illuminating and blinding.

Lightning shields her eyes again, like the time with the ball of light.

The light dims and streams of darkness can be seen. Lightning looks side to side and the streams of darkness are moving towards the source of light.

The light stops shining and thus, revealed a human.

Lightning drops her hand and sees a man…

The man stands up and the streams of darkness are ending while being absorbed into his right covered eye. His back was facing Lightning and his face cannot be seen.

The man drops his right hand off of his face.

Lightning cautiously steps towards to the man, with her right hand readied over the handle of her weapon.

The man shifts half of himself and his head to her…

Lightning stops and she can only see a portion of his entire face

This man has a white face and golden blonde hair of spikes.

His clothes…are just like hers, but with noticeable differences.

He wears a uniform of the Guardian Corps; a sleeveless dark black overcoat, only halfway zipped up, and no turtle-neck shirt inside. Most of his chest is very visible and it is firmly built; his triceps look concentrated; and his biceps look like the size of a small baby's head. Black metallic pauldrons can be seen on both shoulders with red stripes, symbolizing his rank as a possible General.

Similar to Lightning's, he is wearing a short black cape, with red underneath, attached to the under-left side of the left pauldron and connected to other side of the left pauldron, thus can be concealing his entire left arm, but for now it can be seen. On both wrists are black wrists guards with glowing red stripes also and his black gloves have four yellow diamond-like bumps on each glove. Black pants, knee-high black metal guards, and black leather boots with multiple straps are also seen on him.

Much more surprisingly to Lightning, the blonde man has a brown cage-like case attached to the back of his waist. It is holding weapons, which had Lightning becoming more alert and wary. There were only two weapons; weapons that have the same appearance like Lightning's gun blade, but black and silver-edged. However, they are in their gun modes, so whether or not that they can be become swords, they are still dangerous.

What was really disturbing was his left eye. It was bright sky blue and his gaze is making Lightning uncomfortable. The most ominous part about the blue eye was that it still had that look of sadness.

The man then speaks, after noticing Lightning's presence.

"So, you're the one who protected Cocoon?" the man inquires with a deep voice.

Lightning's eyes widens at this question.

The man glances at the crystallized Cocoon and smiles.

"Finally…she's free" the man sounds relieved

The man turns his attention back to Lightning.

"You don't have the L'Cie mark anymore, right?" he questions

Lightning is shocked to hear this. How does this man know that she was once a L'Cie?

"Thank you for saving them…" he said as he turns towards the gigantic crystal stem.

"W-…Who…are you?" Lightning asks

The man then turns his entire body and face at Lightning. Lightning suddenly feels the same darkness from before, puncturing and weakening her. She looks at his right eye and sees something very morbid.

The man's right eye is devilishly red…

"My name is Cloud…" he answered with a gentle voice that contained a demonic tone, "Nice to meet you."

A/N: Please review and tell what you think about Cloud's introduction.