Chapter Text
Cloud sighed to himself, looking up from his newspaper. He’s sat at his table (a crate), in the tiny ramshackle home he’d commandeered for the past few weeks. Fairly isolated and well-hidden between Sectors Six and Seven. Close enough to all of the conveniences to be, well, convenient while being far enough out of the way that having to deal with people was rare unless they’re looking for trouble.
In the past three weeks and four days he’s been back in Midgar, trouble hadn’t found him… though if a certain cellular pull is anything to go by, Cloud’s luck might have been about to run out.
It would appear the person on the other half of that invisible rope was being drawn towards Cloud, also. So, figuring this meeting was inevitable, the blond sat on his kitchen chair (also a crate) and flicked idly through a paper as the distance between them both decreased. Indicated only through a tingle in the back of his mind, subtle, uninterpretable if not for past experiences.
After all, it’d been quite some time since they’ve met as nemeses.
Eventually, footsteps could be heard outside. Boots stepping up and over the piles of sheet metal which Cloud’s thrown-together hut sat upon.
The footfalls stopped. They turned and walked several paces away. They stopped again and moved a different direction.
Cloud rolled his eyes and continued to skim the requests for mercenary work on the back page of his paper.
Finally, as the footsteps did yet another lap of the area, Cloud rose from his seat. Sword habitually strapped to his back, though it wasn’t clear what this confrontation would bring, he swung open the front door. The sheet metal toppled and clattered back onto the pile with its brothers, as it hadn’t even really been a proper door.
“Fine, I concede. You found me.” Cloud announced, emerging from his scrap metal cave. He held up a hand to shield his eyes from the sun, setting through Midgar’s smoggy haze. “Gods, you’re…” He trailed off. ‘You’re exactly how I remember’, was what he was going for? Cloud wasn’t sure what he expected, for the man before him had always held an enigmatic grace, which gave the illusion of agelessness.
…Unlike Cloud himself, who people still somehow mistook for a child occasionally. Despite being thirty-something.
Staring up at him from several decks of metal lower, were a familiar set of cold-blooded eyes, somewhat bewildered by Cloud’s entrance. Hair immaculate as usual, and wearing an amusingly homely sweater, stood Sephiroth. Posture tense, exuding elegance despite his blatant confusion. He was clearly unaware the thing he’d looking for had been a dishevelled blond hiding in a fairly well camouflaged garbage den.
Their silence continued until Sephiroth looked uncomfortable. Hands fidgeted at his sides, looking for something to say. He swallowed and replaced his uncertain expression with something more determined. “Are you the one who’s been… calling me?” The hesitation in his voice was hidden well, though Cloud had enough experience with the man to see through the cover.
In that moment, the Mercenary debated playing dumb, toying with his adversary for the amusement of it. That wouldn’t do him any favours though, and Cloud supposed he better make a good impression… if that hadn’t been ruined already by his apparent game of hide and seek.
“Uhh, yeah. I suppose you could say that.” Cloud took a step forward, keeping his movements as relaxed as possible. For a moment, he waited for Sephiroth to reply, but realised he was expected to elaborate. “Have you felt it before? The pull?”
“No, nothing of such note.” Sephiroth’s eyes never left Cloud’s. His expression even and intense.
Interesting, not that he hadn’t expected this though. “I assume you felt drawn here about three weeks ago, right? That’s how long I’ve been here.”
The taller man nodded, looking equally perturbed and relieved that the odd feeling drawing him here had been shared. “You’re not one of my Soldiers?”
Cloud shook his head, “No, but I am enhanced. You know what Hojo’s like.” He offered casually.
Sephiroth considered this for a moment before simply nodding in agreement, because of course he could relate to that. Now the ice was being broken, it appeared his confidence was rising back from beneath the cracks. “Who are you then?”
Ah, that question. Cloud considered for a moment, gazing out to the plates above them, his eyes skimming the sharp grey edges framing the city. “That’s, well… It’s a difficult one. You want some coffee?” Warm drinks always made strange days easier to process, or at least that was what he’d learned over the years from Tifa. Today was forecast to become one of the strangest he’d had in a while.
The coffee was more of the slum replica kind, unlike the real thing he was used to. It didn’t quite have its usual kick, but Sephiroth was quite alright with that. He sat a few feet away from the blond with the mako coloured and strangely old eyes. Perched on one of metal plates at the foot of the unusual man’s home, Sephiroth eyed the details of the scrapyard below. So far, they had been uninterrupted. It didn’t appear this corner of the slums was well travelled.
A half-built motorbike and various tools sat to his left while a crude electrical system wormed its way between the two of them. The man before him carried a complicated boardsword, sporting a design Sephiroth hadn’t before seen. A few monster hides were hung out to dry in the fleeting window in which the scrap hill was blessed with real sunlight. Otherwise, it was well camouflaged, hidden neatly among the grey scrapheap.
“So, you’re a time traveling Mercenary from a future where the Planet has been left partly uninhabitable, and you’ve been sent back by the Lifestream to prevent that from happening once more?” Sephiroth summarised slowly, trying to place the man’s complicated explanation in order.
The blond shrugged before downing the remainder of his cup. “Give or take a few bits, but yeah, that’s the idea.” He was tense, the drinks an informal mask to feign comfort. A hospitality which the man before him seldom preformed, perhaps? Sephiroth suspected there was something deeper to the way his fingers twitched in anticipation.
“And how am I supposed to believe any of that, Mr Strife?” Sephiroth beset the other with a critical glance.
For weeks now, he’d felt this presence, a call which tugged at his very being. At times it became so insistent that it overtook his concentration. Finally finding an opportunity, he’d made arrangements for a meeting, which he had conveniently forgotten to inform the other attendant of. Under Shinra’s watchful gaze, he’d slipped from under their thumb and quietly made his way down to the Seven slums, following the oddly elastic pull.
“Cloud is fine… I know everyone in Soldier is freaking out right now, because of what happened to Angeal and Genesis. That the mako treatments have been messing some people up for years, it’s just been kept out of the press until now. Its worse now people think they’re gonna start degrading too. The science department is probably kidnapping half the slum population, figuring out a fix and Heidegger’s probably gonna blame it all on Wutai or something.” Cloud said, a slight laziness in his voice.
Sephiroth glanced at the pile of newspapers flung into one of the nearby trash piles, all of varying ages. “That’s not much in the way of proof, you could have got that from the news.” He accused, though couldn’t deny he felt perturbed; that was indeed what was happening behind closed doors. He wasn’t even sure that the press had been told of the actual fate of his Firsts, as Cloud apparently knew.
“Oh, I only look at the pictures.” He said just as casually, also shooting a glance to the pile of discarded pages. “Want something more convincing?” Cloud tapped a finger on his styrofoam cup in thought. “Zack’s favourite movie is… oh damn, what’s it called? The badly animated one where that dog fights all the monsters. He tells everyone about it.”
That piques the General’s interest. “You know Zack?” Really, that shouldn’t surprise him, everyone knew Zack.
The blond made a face. Subtle, and Sephiroth wasn’t sure how to interpret it. “I do. He doesn’t know me, though. That’s something for the first run. Make sure we don’t repeat that.” He muttered, almost like Sephiroth wasn’t supposed to hear his words.
There dragged a pause in which the cryptic words aren’t elaborated on. Sephiroth didn’t ask and eventually Cloud continued. “Some more stuff? There’s never any toilet paper on floor twelve of the Shinra building. Shinra will break the peace treaty with Wutai pretty soon, killing thousands just to build on their land. And you were told you Mom died.”
The last one caught him off guard enough that Sephiroth felt a prickle at the back of his neck. “You know different?”
“Well yeah, she’s not dead for starters.” Cloud said simply. He lifted his cup once again but lowered it in disappointment, upon remembering it was empty. “Ever heard of a Dr Crescent? Well, she’s your Mom.”
Sephiroth had never heard of such a person, though he hadn’t exactly been privy to any of the research papers regarding himself and other scientists hadn’t been forthcoming either. Hojo had made it perfectly clear early in his life that questions about most things was disallowed.
“You are incorrect. My mother is Je-.”
“Not Jenova.” Cloud interrupted. “Don’t suppose you know a whole lot about yourself, do you? Hojo’s your Dad, too. That probably won’t be down on any records.”
Blinking in surprise, Cloud was shot an incredulous look. “What?”
“Officially yeah. Me and Cid always thought it might be Vincent though. I think you look more like Vincent, than Hojo.” He mused, picking at the edges of his cup.
Sephiroth’s head was beginning to ache. He noted that at least that strange magnetism he shared with the man had eased off from its nagging. Somehow ostensible more content at their present distance. Though thankful for that fact, it did little to quiet the feeling that he might be somehow tied to a crazy person… or have something seriously wrong with him.
Despite looking not too much older than himself, Strife held the appearance of someone who’d seen enough for at least a lifetime. It reminded him of old military personnel he’d been forced to interact with at awful company parties. Eyeing the man’s half tied boots, badly patched up pants and well used blade, Sephiroth might have expected a rant about the ‘old ways’ and ‘the hard days before mako’. Assuming the addition of artificial physical improvements were an adequate trade-off for the health conditions starting to manifest in half of his personnel; which was, in some cases, halving the lifespan of Soldiers who would otherwise be having much longer careers. An issue Shinra were trying very hard to sweep under the rug, as of recent.
Strife did seem to know more than the average person was supposed to, but then, even Sephiroth could tell he wasn’t ‘average’ in anything other than maybe height. He wanted to ask more, but pushed the questions back down. Surely this man had lost his mind in the labs and wasn’t an important enough specimen for Hojo’s people to come collect.
“Are you sure you aren’t from Soldier?” Sephiroth scrutinised.
“No. Yeah, well sort of. I was infantry, but that didn’t last too long. I’m not going near that shit again.” The coffee cup was slowly having pieces of foam shredded from its side.
Sephiroth didn’t think the man needed to ‘go near it again’, he somehow looked more well-built than a lot of his Soldiers. He wondered how well the man fought. He certainly carried his sword like it was an extension of his own body and by the number of monster bits scattered around, they were little challenge to slay.
A chill swept through the trash valley. The sun had moved past its window and left the metal hills a dusty grey, while the distant sound of city noise hummed down from the plate above. An older man in a thick coat walked a dog below them, further down along the pathway, neither group paid any mind to the other. He’d spent as much time here as he could allow and Sephiroth rose from their shared perch.
“You know the way back from here?” Cloud asked, understanding their meeting was at a close.
“I’ll be fine. Thank you for the drink.” Sephiroth said, taking a few light-footed steps down the artificial embankment. “I will consider what you have told me.”
Cloud stood also, stretching his back. “Good. You know where to find me if you want to know more,- and I’ve got more to tell.”
Sephiroth turned back with a frown, “Final question,- this connection. Why me and you?” He had many many more questions but this one was most pressing. Along with ‘are you actually a madman?’ Though the Soldier would decide that for himself.
Strife gave a shrug, a humoured smile quirking his lips. “Ain’t that the question. We both share some of the same cellular composition. Don’t worry about it, just another thing to blame Hojo for. I’ll tell you more about it next time.”
It was a good enough explanation and with that, the two exchanged a nod went their separate ways.
Throwing himself back onto his chair (crate), Cloud let out a tired breath, an imitation of what might have been a laugh, were he not so bewildered. He’d just had coffee and a civilised chat with Sephiroth. What the hell was going on? Cloud could only imagine the hysterical laughter of the friends he’d left behind in the Lifestream if they could have witnessed that one.
He’d expected the man to inquire a lot more. Hopefully Cloud hadn’t come across too deranged. He wasn’t too sure Sephiroth would bid him a second visit, but who knew? The guy had believed himself a God and his Mom to be an alien; surely some simple time travel could win him over.