Chapter Text
The place where he stood ought not to exist. He had gone underground, yet here he seemed to be standing in a mystical void. He emerged from a small building, which surprised him as he had entered the building by going down a set of stairs, and found himself on an elevated platform over a small body of water, which seemed to emit a purple glow that bathed the strange location, and as he looked around he noticed that the water seemed to be sitting in some sort of strange bowl floating in this mystical void. A light coming from above drew his eyes to a small round platform a few metres across the water from him, and he saw, kneeling in the centre of the platform, the person he came to look for: Aerith.
All thoughts of the peculiar location were gone in an instant, as he made leftwards to go down a set of stairs that led to another platform that circled around the side of the strange floating bowl. As he came down and stood on the lower platform he now found himself looking up at her, not even minding his own step, he stopped just in time to notice that, to get to the altar where Aerith was praying, he had to jump across some poles sticking out of the water, each one getting higher, akin to something you would find on a playground. He jumped up the five poles carefully, and found himself standing before a set of stairs, with Aerith praying at the top.
She seemed not to have noticed his presence, although he had made a fair amount of noise jumping across the stepping stones. He felt a massive foreboding as he came to the top of the steps and approached her, and once he reached the top he found that he had no clue what to do or say. She was still oblivious as he stood over her. She looked so peaceful like that, and Cloud gazed, mesmerized at her face. His trance was broken be the shouting of Tifa and Cid, his friends, who had not come up to the altar with him, but remained on the lower platform behind him. At their shouts he realized that he was holding his great buster sword above his head, and was about to swing down to make a killing blow. He felt a pit in his stomach as he filled with shame at his weakness. He had allowed the perverse influence Sephiroth had over his mind to once again endanger his friends, the people he cared about. He had already been influenced to attack Aerith in the past, and he realized now, as he lowered the massive sword, that he ought not to have come here, that his mere presence was a danger to her.
The shouting of his friends seemed to have alerted Aerith to his presence has well, as she opened her eyes, and smiled as she saw him. They looked each other in the eyes for a moment, but then Cloud saw a shadow cast down on her, and he looked up just in time to witness the silver haired man of his nightmares plummet down onto Aerith, driving his massive katana into her back and all the way through, pushing it out of her stomach. Sephiroth looked him in the eyes as he stood frozen. He had done nothing, not a single thing, even as his friend fell limp. He was a failure, He was weak. He was helpless, as he knelt down to catch her in his arms, and looked at her face knowing there was nothing he could do.
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Cloud jolted awake, the image of Aerith’s lifeless body and Sephiroth’s cruel gaze stuck in the forefront of his mind. He lay in a cold sweat in a bed, and as he lay there his breath and mind slowed simultaneously, and he remembered where he was. He was not in that bizarre underground altar constructed by the ancient race; he was in his room, at the Smash Manor. It was a rather luxurious room, about the size of the living room in his childhood home, and included an ensuite and a computer for him to use to keep up to date with occurrences in the Manor, and communicate with other residents of the manor, and, for a fee, his friends back home. He had always found visualizing the environment he was in helped him when he had nightmares such as the one he just had.
He didn’t know how long he spent lying in his bed, staring at the ceiling, which was a simple white paint job. He tried to push back feelings of guilt over Aerith’s death. There was nothing he could have done right? Wrong, at least that is how he felt. No matter how his friends told it to him, he is convinced that there was some way he could have stopped Sephiroth at that moment, to have pushed Aerith out of the way and jumped in front of the blade himself perhaps. And even if there was nothing he could have done at that moment, that didn’t mean it still wasn’t his fault. There had been at least a week before he had found Aerith at the forgotten city during which Sephiroth could have attacked her, but he chose to wait for the moment he showed up. Back then, Sephiroth had endeavoured to cause him pain, to tear down his confidence and happiness, and it had worked. He had been in quite a bad mental state before, and although years have passed since he killed Sephiroth, several thoughts about that time lingered in his mind still, the majority of them what-ifs about his own various failures during that period, Aerith’s death included.
He shook these thoughts out of his head and rolled of bed, glancing at the alarm clock on his dressing table: 4:22 AM. No use going back to sleep now. He got up, and put on his typical SOLDIER gear: black cargo pants tucked into brown army boots, wool turtleneck top with no sleeves tucked into the large belt of his pants. He wore suspenders, with the point on his back where the three straps come together being a very powerful magnet, which is how he is able to carry his sword on his back seemingly by magic. His left suspender has some extra padding on the shoulder for him to hook his metal pauldron to. The pauldron was fairly standard as pauldrons go, being a dulled silver colour. The main distinctive feature on the pauldron is the three bolts sticking out in a roughly triangular pattern. He grabbed his gigantic buster sword, a great blade that weighed 120 pounds and is a testament to his amazing strength. The sword formerly belonged to another one of Clouds dead friends, Zack Fair, and he also felt guilty about his death, although not as strong as his feelings about Aerith. Fully armoured and equipped, Cloud left his room at 4:35 AM.
He wandered the halls of the Smash manor. The place was incredibly grand and ornate, resembling a royal palace more than a mansion. It was easy to get lost in the halls, as the mansion housed 77 fighters. The high vaulted ceilings were built to be able to accommodate the larger fighters, as ‘people’ such as Bowser and Ridley stood incredibly tall, and the manor had to be built large to accommodate, with their rooms having much larger doors than everyone else’s in order to fit their imposing statures. Although all of the residents were men and women of action, the majority of them were not early risers, and the mansion was unusually quiet. This was the last thing on Clouds mind though, as he wandered the halls aimlessly, still unable to get the thought of Aerith’s death out of his mind. It had been a couple of years now since it had occurred, and flashbacks such as the one he just had were much less common now than they were in the immediate aftermath of his battle with Sephiroth.
In contrast to the vividness of his memory of Aerith’s death and the events leading up to it, in his mind the events between then and his final battle with Sephiroth were all a blur in his head. He knew that he had had something of a mental breakdown after first confronting Sephiroth in the Northern Crater, and from there everything that occurred after that was a mess in his mind. He knew that the main reason was his mental state at the time, but he also attributed it to the fact that during that period, he saw and experienced things that he had thought impossible before they happened, and the scale at which absurd and bizarre things happened to him and his team was constantly rising. Of course, the second reason was more of an excuse, as his friends all recalled each event more or less perfectly, even the much older Vincent, who was in his fifties. Clouds aimless wandering eventually took him to the front doors of the manor. Pushing open the massive door, he felt the cold air bite his bare arms the second he walked outside. He went further, walking down the steps, sparing no glances for the massive building that he had just exited. There is a small town that had been built around the manor with the intent of providing general goods and services to the many residents, and as the number of fighters increased over the years, so did the size of the town. was a light on the horizon, as the sun was just staring to peek over, and that, combined with the streetlights, provided enough light for Cloud to find his way, not that he really knew where he was going. The streets were deserted, owing to the early hour at which Cloud had risen. He saw a few lights turning on here and there, and of course the neon sign loudly declaring the presence of a 24/7 bar. He walked past it, knowing that it would do him no good.
He eventually found himself stepping inside of the fitness centre. During the days, this place was filled to the brim with a variety of characters working out, training for their next fight. It was usually a sight to behold, such a variety of people, from the oddly proportioned Mario brothers to Sonic, the blue hedgehog who was faster than anything he had ever seen, but still insisted on using and breaking several treadmills every day. Right now, there was only one other person in the gym, running on a brand new treadmill: Solid Snake. Snake is an elite soldier, a mercenary, who carried out several high pressure stealth operations in some of the worst conditions possible, and survived everything that had been thrown at him. When Cloud had first arrived here, Snake was not present, although he heard a lot about him, with Snake apparently having made quite the name for himself, for better or for worse. During Clouds second year competing in these events, Snake made a triumphant return, placing in the top 4 in the massive, 70 man tourney. Snake and Cloud had hit it off over the time that they spent together, and Cloud was glad to consider Snake to be, if not a friend, someone he could trust.
Of course, Snake noticed the moment Cloud had entered the room. If Cloud were to take a guess, he would assume Snake had heard him before he even entered the building. Alerted to his presence, Snake powered off the treadmill and stepped down, turning to face him while wiping his brow. He was not wearing his usual grey bandana, and his brown hair fell down to his forehead, just above the eyebrows. At the back it was longer, styled into a mullet, a very unkempt one at that. As he was exercising, Snake was wearing only a grey t-shirt and black shorts. His fitness clothes fit tight onto his body, and were accompanied by black sneakers and ankle socks.
His apparel revealed his well toned arms and legs, and the shirt made it easy to tell that he was well built all around. Snake was leaner than many other fighters, being a specialist in stealth. Snake’s fighting style revolves around sneaking around, fighting a one man guerrilla war against any number of foes, so it served him well to be fit, but not too bulky. The remotely detonated bombs he placed around the arenas during his fights had become infamous among the fighters.
As the two men approached each other from across the room, Snake called out “You’re up early.”
“I guess I got up early” Cloud responded, clearing his throat as he spoke
Snake furrowed his eyebrows, and responded “Oh yeah, I guess you’re here to get in an early morning workout before all the freaks show up and destroy the equipment.”
There was a large dose of sarcasm in Snake’s tone, and Cloud realized that he had no exercise equipment, as he had not really planned on coming here. The end result was that he had come sauntering into the gym with nothing but a giant sword, and was glad only one person was there to see it.
“C’mon kid, I know your routine. Up at six, breakfast, and then you come in here, train all day, eat dinner, then maybe talk to people if you’re in a good mood. Classic Army routine.”
Cloud averted Snake’s gaze for a moment, looking down, then back towards him. He had figured that Snake was the kind of person to keep tabs on everybody’s movements in this place. He had made himself a few enemies among the large roster of fighters, and knowing all of their movements like clockwork would help him to know where to be and where not to be at all times, but he was still taken aback that Snake knew his exact day to day routine.
Struggling to find a rebuttal to Snake’s observations, Cloud stated simply “you’re up early too.”, and at the look Snake gave him, he immediately wished he had said anything else.
Seeking to put Cloud at ease, Snake chuckled, and responded “I always get up this early. Just like you, I’m military, and I have a lot of enemies back home. It pays not to oversleep, but that’s not really important”
Cloud averted Snake’s gave again. The reason he gave made sense, but he would have preferred that he did not dismiss the subject, as he really didn’t feel like discussing what was on his mind.
Gazing curiously at Cloud, Snake continued “Is there anything bothering you, kid?”
Still looking at the ground, Cloud winced internally. The one question he did not want Snake, or anyone for that matter, to have asked. After a few moments of silence, Cloud looked up, although still not meeting Snake’s gaze, and responded “No, Nothing.”
Snake grunted in response, and after a few more moments of silence, Snake turned around to return to his workout. As Cloud turned to head outside, but then turned back to Snake and called “Wait.”
Snake turned back to Cloud, and he walked closer and said “Actually, yea, something is bothering me.”
Nodding, Snake motioned for Cloud to take a seat on some of the nearby workout equipment. As they sat, Snake asked “What is it?” as he grabbed a cigarette from his bag and began to light it.
Cloud glanced around the room at the various “No smoking” signs placed near the machines Snake frequently used, and then responded “It’s something that happened, a few years ago now. A friend of mine died.”
“Killed?” Snake asked, with the look on Clouds face answering the question.
Cloud struggled to find the words to articulate his thoughts, but eventually came out with “I feel like… like she died because of me. Like she died because I was there, that he was waiting for me to show up to do it.”
“He?” Snake interrupted
“Sephiroth. He killed her, and I was there, but I did nothing. I just stood there, while she was dying. I can remember her face still, so happy, and she was glad to see me, but she shouldn’t have been, because-“
“Stop!” Snake interrupted once more, snapping Cloud out of his story. Cloud was surprised by Snake’s interruption, and looked at him with confusion. He had not cried, or gotten overly emotional, but Snake could tell that he was about to, and wanted to redirect the conversation into a more calm discussion. “Tell me what happened. Exactly the way it went.” He finished.
So Cloud told him what happened. How he chased Aerith halfway across the world, and found her praying in the ruins of an ancient civilization. As he approached her, Sephiroth came from above and stabbed her in the back, killing her. Sephiroth then goaded him, and unleashed a monster on Cloud and his friends, which they defeated. Snake interrupted only a few times, asking for clarification here and there.
Snake pondered how to respond to Cloud’s story for a whole minute, before saying “Listen, I think you’re definitely being hard on yourself, too hard, and you can’t help but blame yourself, for what, being there? Would you rather have not chased her? You were ambushed, both of you had your guards down, and your enemy took advantage. You have to stop beating yourself up, and move on.”
Just as Snake finished, the two heard the chime of the clock tower bells signalling that it was now seven o’clock. Aside from a few late sleepers, the majority of the fighters would be getting up about now, and some would be heading straight for the gym to get in some training before breakfast.
“That’s enough of that for now. You feel any better?” Snake asked after the bells stopped chiming. Cloud did not respond, and Snake then said “Come on, I’ll get changed, then we can eat something, I’m pretty sure our teams are heading straight for breakfast this morning.”
Snake went into the changing rooms, and emerged five minutes later wearing a black trench coat over grey slacks and a dark blue polo shirt with the top button open. He wore black military style boots, and walked with his hands in his pockets, where Cloud knew he was carrying a USP 9mm with a suppressor attached. They walked out of the gym, side by side, and wordlessly traveled to the cafeteria.