Chapter Text
No one was entirely sure what was going on in the Northern Crater, only that nothing good ever happened in that gods forsaken place. It had been almost a year since the Remnants and Geostigma were taken care of, and things had been, astonishingly, calm since. Perhaps they were just due for another crisis. That’s what Cloud’s exasperation told him anyway as he hiked his way down the caldera.
Ever since he landed on the Northern Continent, it had just been one big blizzard. If he were slightly less enhanced, he would have frozen to death long ago. As it was, he was stuck running in place with every pause just to keep his body temperature up. It worked, but it was tiring. The tents he had brought did nothing to keep him warm, and the winds and snow demolished any fire he managed to get lit. It was lucky he needed very little sleep, or this adventure would have been impossible. It was hard enough finding the scant few caves he did that allowed him to get some rest—he didn’t like to think about what would have happened if he had needed to rest in the open.
Navigation was next to impossible. Reeve had given him equipment, but with the temperatures as low as they were, they had long since stopped working. It was good that Cloud was good in the wilderness and could get by with nothing more than a traditional compass and a map that had been blessedly laminated to protect it from the snow. His sense of direction had always been good, thanks to his mother forcing him into the wilds around Nibelheim at a young age, and it had only gotten better in the mad chase around the world.
It took an absurdly long time, but he succeeded in getting to the bottom of the Northern Crater. The only problem was the building sense of foreboding as he climbed down. Something was going to happen. Something was going to meet him there, and he wasn’t sure he wanted to know what. He checked the materia in his bracer over and over and over again as he hiked, and only kept his hand off First Tsurugi’s hilt by sheer force of will.
Something was building at the back of his mind, a strange pressure. It made him think of Jenova at first, but that couldn’t be it. Firstly, because they had finally gotten rid of the last scraps of her in the fight against Kadaj. Secondly, because it didn’t feel quite the same, and he as intimately familiar with that particular pressure on his mind at this point. It had always been a buzzing pall, a heavy, dark weight that suffocated slowly and filled one with a strange, desperate yearning. This wasn’t quite the same. It was heavy, yes, but like a weighted blanket, not like graveyard dirt. There was a longing, but it was peaceful, pleasant, like an imminent homecoming, not like a man in a desert looking for water. That it was so different comforted, but it also set Cloud on edge. Jenova, at least, he knew. That was a devil he was familiar with, knew how to fight. Whatever this strangeness was, it was new to Cloud. Yet somehow, it felt old, and strangely familiar.
What was the most bizarre of all, was that when Cloud arrived at the bottom of the Crater, there was absolutely nothing there.
He looked around, poking his head everywhere it would fit, in cracks and crevices and behind boulders. He could see the cracks in the ice where the WEAPONs had been so many years ago. He could see the webbing of roots high overhead where Sephiroth’s mako crystal had been supported. He was in the right place, he was absolutely sure of it, but he pulled out the map to look anyway. As he stared down at it, he was certain he was in the right place. He just didn’t understand what was happening.
Reeve had been receiving bizarre readings from the Crater, and naturally everyone was concerned. That place reeked of Sephiroth, and no one had pleasant memories of it. They all hoped that perhaps the Lifestream had overtaken it and made it a holy place, but it seemed like too much to ask for. Given that it was the dead of winter on the Northern Continent, there was no one they could really send other than Cloud, except maybe Vincent, but the man was always terribly hard to get a hold of, and this really couldn’t wait. Cloud had set out within a week of the strange readings turning up because of the sheer amount of anxiety they brought with them.
Cloud still didn’t know what was causing the readings, now that he was standing here. He knew that something was here by the ear popping pressure in the air, but for the life of him, he couldn’t find what it was. He was ready to give up when the pressure began to build, and build, and build.
Champion.
Cloud opened his eyes to realize he was in a very familiar position, on his knees with his head in his hands. It made his stomach sink and twist, knowing the last cause that had forced him here. But the pressure of Jenova and Sephiroth had always left him gasping as if he was drowning when he came to, his head pounding with an impossible pain lancing through it, every muscle in his body taut and trembling. But now, he was on his knees because his legs had simply given out. He felt boneless, weak, in a way he hadn’t since his last dip in the Lifestream. His head was in his hands because it was spinning—gods, he was so dizzy. His eyes almost seemed to cross with it. The position was familiar, but everything about it felt different, right down to the voice in his head. This voice was sweet and welcome and familiar right down to his bones.
“Aeris?”
Champion. Long have you fought. Your peace is hard won, but it is drawing to a close.
He didn’t like the sound of that.
Images flashed behind his eyes. Fire. Black lancing through the Lifestream. Crumbling buildings. Dead bodies in heaping piles. Children screaming. Monsters rampant in the streets in a way they hadn’t been since Shinra ran the world.
The Son of the Calamity. He will not disappear into the Lifestream. His will is too strong. He craves you and will find a way to reach you. You keep him here, and it cannot continue.
Sephiroth flashed behind his eyelids next. The manic look in his eyes. The wicked smile on his lips. The cold contortion of his face. His smirk. His sneer. His wild laugh. The world-bending pride on his face that demanded everything around him kneel.
“What do you want from me? Who are you?”
The answer came in flashes. The Lifestream. Green, rolling fields. High mountains. Vast oceans. Flowers.
Gaia.
You cannot stay, but there is nowhere for you to go. As long as you are here, he will be too. This cannot stand. He will return, again and again. Do you have the will to fight him for eternity?
“I do. I’ll do whatever has to be done.”
It wrung his heart. It destroyed him in measures to fight Sephiroth, it always had. This great man, brought so low, turned into something that he surely would have loathed if he only had the sense to see what he had become. But there was nothing to be done. He would fight Sephiroth as long as he had to, no matter the cost to himself. He would give up every scrap of humanity he had left if that was what he took. He had destroyed all of the Planet’s WEAPONs, but he would become the next one for her, if that’s what needed to be. He left Gaia defenseless, and he would step up to fill the gap he had left. No matter what it took from him to do so.
Your resolve rivals his. You, too, do not know how to return to the Lifestream. You’ve had your chance, so many times, to become one with the Planet, every time you’ve fallen in. But your will, too, does not know how to bend. Sooner or later, you will die as he has, from causes natural or unnatural. Your wills will be brought together in the Lifestream, where they will clash, because you do not know how to do anything else, and he will bring the fight to you. I cannot sustain such a battle in my core.
Cloud didn’t understand. Did the Planet want him to lay down arms? He thought he was doing the right thing, vowing to stand in Sephiroth’s way until the world fell apart around them. But he apparently forgot to consider just what it meant for the world to fall apart around them.
No. You cannot concede. He will destroy whatever you leave unguarded until there is nothing left. But you cannot continue to fight him. The body toll will be too high. The casualties will be immense. His return is on the horizon. Even now, he gathers his will. He will return to this place. You have destroyed Jenova’s body, but he contains enough of her that it will not matter.
“I don’t understand. What do you want from me, then?”
You cannot continue to fight him, but you cannot afford not to. You are the glue that binds him here, the rope he follows to return. The planet will know peace only if you are not here. It is the only way to dissolve his will.
“So… you want to kill me?”
Cloud felt panic build in his chest, but it was quickly followed by a sense of peace. He didn’t want to die. He was still responsible for a great many things. But that responsibility weighed on him like iron chains. He was starting to drag his way out of depression, was starting to find his footing in the world, but there were still a great many days he asked himself what he was still here for, now that the battles had been won. He didn’t want to go, now that he was finding his way. But if Gaia asked it of him, he would do it. He had decided long ago that he would lay down everything for the Planet and those that called it home. He could be okay with this. He regretted that his friends would mourn him, but better that than an eternal battle with Sephiroth that would bring the world to ash. No, he could do this. He would do this. For the Planet. Besides, it might be nice to lay down arms, at long last.
No.
No?
If you are dead, you will return to the Lifestream. Your will would clash with his there. It would bring the end much quicker. No, there will only be peace if you are not here.
Not here… as in not on the Planet? Cloud felt lost. Maybe they could rebuild the rocket? He got the feeling that Cid would kill him for trying to be the first person to permanently leave the Planet, though.
“How do I leave?”
Are you willing to continue the fight? Will you pick your sword back up? Will you lay it all on the line to save the world, one more time?
“You know that I will. Anything, Gaia. Anything for the Planet.”
Even if it is not your own?
Cloud opened his mouth to answer, but apparently the question was rhetorical. The world around him faded as he swooned, collapsing onto his side in the snow. He had a brief moment to wonder what Gaia meant before it all faded to nothing.